November 18, 2024 • 45 mins
Garrison, Sophie, and James discuss Trump’s new cabinet appointees and potential members of the White House administration.
Sources:
https://meidasnews.com/news/trump-secretary-of-defense-nominee-pete-hegseth-called-for-a-righteous-holy-war
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/us/politics/trump-defense-pete-hegseth.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/13/kristi-noem-dhs-trump-policy-00189513
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-dni-intelligence-trump-appointment/
https://decider.com/2020/08/04/the-swamp-matt-gaetz-truman-show-house/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-testified-house-ethics-committee-gaetz-sex-17/story?id=115867555
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, welcome to it could happen here. Oh god,
we have survived another week, and I'm joined today by
Sophie and James to discuss Trump's cabinet picks and the
upcoming potential members of the Trump administration two point zero.
(00:22):
I'm sure some of you have been following the news
and there is some wacky picks in there. There keeps
being even more wacky ones like RFK, which I didn't
even have time to include because by the time he
was announced, I basically already wrote too much. RFK will
get his own future episode. But it's pretty it's pretty
safe to assume that RFK in control of Health and
(00:43):
Human Services is pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You don't say you don't say yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
People are saying it not great to have the world's
weirdest conspiracy theorist of the Kennedy family in charge of
you know, like vaccines and health mandates. And it's gonna
be bad enough that it's its own episode for the
rest of the nominations. Mostly like last week, right, this
is going to be covering all the nominations in the
week of the eleventh to the fifteenth of November. We're
(01:11):
going to kind of go through nomination by nomination and
do a brief overview of each of these guys and
why each one could be bad, and some of them
just kind of point to like more general like neocon
picks as well. Trump kind of started off with some
more ordinary picks, honestly, like you know, like Mark Rubio
a Secretary of State. This is this is kind of
(01:33):
a restrained pick for him. Now, Rubio is still kind
of converted into being a Trump loyalist, like every single
other person we're going to be talking about, And it
is interesting that kind of among all of the Trump appointees,
he has been the most open about his criticisms of Trump,
especially during Trump's first term. The leaked five hundred and
fifty one page of VP vetting document produced by the
Trump campaign outlines Rubio's anti Putin comments, support for the
(01:56):
Miller investigation, his acceptance of the twenty twenty election results,
past comments that Trump is too dangerous to be trusted
with nuclear codes, and his history of supporting NATO, support
of the Iraq War, and pro military intervention in Iran
and Syria. So some of these positions now kind of
bump up against what Trump's next term is going to
(02:17):
be kind of defined by and like more recently, Rubio
has moved on from his Tea Party free trade kind
of roots and now advocates for, you know, more tariffs
on China and calling the country quote the most advanced
adversary America has ever faced, unquote. Basically all of the
kind of foreign policy guys are really big on China.
(02:37):
They are all China hawks. That is kind of one
continuous through line throughout all these nominations. I guess, James,
do you have any thoughts on Mark Rubio for Secretary
of State?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, Marca Ribio, I don't have a lot's thoughts to
Marco Rubio. I always expect to get all to be
more along the lines of heck, thest like more to
be like culture war commentators. Yeah, Like at least Rubio,
I will say, like, I'd probably disagree with him on
almost everything, but he's he's not going to probably abandon
the YPG and the YPG and SDF in Syria, which
(03:09):
is a good things. He's pretty hawkish on that. He's
not a big out of one fan, so like that's
a good thing. I guess, Like I think as Secretary
of States under Trump, go like it could have been
fucking Tucker Carlson like that. That's not out of the
realm of possibility.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
At this rate.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, and uh, it's well, he spends all his time
watching Fox News, right, Like, that's what we've heard that
he does. And it's not inconceivable that he thinks these
people are experts because they're presented that way, and that
is how he encounters and thus perceives the world. So,
I guess Rubio and even amongst these picks, he's probably
not the worst, which is wild to be saying.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So is the review and Mark Rubio could be worse.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, I guess so.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I mean that's the review of Mark Rubio's life, isn't
it that that's pretty much how he's gone through the world.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think his parents would agree with us.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Out Rubio is no Pete haig Seth Secretary of Defense. Yeah,
which was one of the first picks that like really sharded,
raising some eyebrows.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Wild pick, wild pick.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, Yeah, what who does an a cog tattooed on
his bicep?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Stop sending us that photo over him without a shirt on?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Have seen it?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, never send us any cabinet member shirtless. I don't
care if he's RFK. I don't care if he's head set.
I don't want to see a nipple.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I thought I didn't like it. I don't need to
see it again.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yank you so much. I feel like everyone's pretty well
aware now that he has some very questionable Christian nationalist tattoos, honey,
not not super uncommon. And you know in this for
like this type of like military guy he.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Got the more wasted we was out. He got them
in his late thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That also makes sense. That feels like a very midlife crisis.
Oh no, I'm a Fox and Friends weekend host now
kind of move Yeah yeah, better up my molin larbae game.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
There's a lot to be said about Pete heik Seth.
He's a Princeton and Harvard graduate who is also claimed
that germs are not real and he has never washed
his hands in the last ten years. Disgusting. Germs are
not real. I can't see them, therefore they're not real.
So that's lovely.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Gross, you can't. What a fucking idiot, but absolute moron.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
God. He's advocated against divorce for families with kids until
he was caught cheating on his second wife with his producer,
fathered a child, and then divorced his wife to Mary,
his coworker.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Many such cases.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
In general, he's just very chud codd right. He has
like he has like a grunt style fashion, Christian nationalist tattoos.
He looks like the type of guy that I would
have docked for fun as a teenager, except he just
serves on Fox and Friends' weekend hosting team. He served
in Guantanamo, Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the Army National Guard,
(05:53):
and has recently advocated that women should not serve in
combat roles in the US military.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
I'm straight up just saying we should not have women
in combat roles hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made
us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. We've all
served with women, and they're great. It just our institutions
don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally not
traditionally over human history, men in those positions are more capable.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yes, and wild take, so much should be happening in
the military.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
He sure does. I'm going to read a quote from
his book The War on Warriors, Big si Quototox say
the Republican Party by default has become the only party
of America. And if we don't crusade a holy war,
a righteous, holy war for freedom, we're not going to
save America. In general. A lot of his rhetoric kind
(06:47):
of is this similar Christian nationalist crusade holy war type stuff.
This is like a lot of what he talks about
on podcasts and TV appearances where he is not throwing
a double sided acts at the pedus of a West
Point drummer are live TV.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It was incredible. It was indirect fire. He arcd it
over the target straight to the dick and balls of
the West Point drama.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I just feel like, if he's gonna like somebody tell
him what a microscope is, Somebody just tell him what
a microscope is.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
He must have used binoculars at some point in his service,
or some kind of magnified optic right to learn to
see things. I mean, he has a magnified optic tattooed
on his bicep. Actually he should does good.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
I mean, like, if you're going to be Secretary of Defense,
at least like, oh, sir, wash your hands.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Arguably, the most worrying part about Pete as Secretary of
Defense is not the anti handwashing beliefs or the poor
aim for ax throwing. It's that he's basically a lobbyist
for war criminals. Yes, and was a big part of
the campaign to push Trump to pardon several convicted war criminals,
(07:56):
people who like tortured and murdered prisoners and ordered soul
to shoot and kill random unarmed civilians. Yeah. So, especially
with this Secretary of Defense role, that's not great. That
he's essentially pro war criminal and justifies it by saying, like,
people don't really understand what it's like to serve in combat.
Sometimes you have to make decisions and blah blah blah,
(08:16):
blah blah, all this random stuff not good. Sources within
the government have called him the most unqualified person ever
appointed to this position, which I do I do believe
because this is just a guy that Trump sees on TV.
This is just a TV host. Yeah, this is one
of the more shocking nominations. Yeah, let's move on to
Secretary of Homeland Security. Ugh, this is another odd pick.
(08:41):
Christy Nome, the non border state governor of South Dakota,
who has no experience in the DHS, has never worked
in law enforcement, though she does possess one trademark cop trait.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Oh yes, oh, yes she does. And what would that be.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Here, which is shooting they get killing dogs?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yep, awful person.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So that is one thing she might bond with our
law enforcement community over.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Which we all know about because she wrote about it
in her own fucking book girl.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, incriminating herself another cop.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Trait, so true, so true.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
She did deploy the South Dakota National Guard to the border,
and I think they used they received private financing for
it if I remember correctly. Yeah. See, like that's her engagement.
That one again is troubling. So much power at the DHS.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's such an odd pick.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
All of these picks where I'm talking about, some of
them do seem odd, but not from the point of
view that Trump is basically picking people that one are
like in his constant orbit, like a guy on TV,
but also people that are not like institutionalists.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
These aren't like people who like work their way up
through these government departments to prove their like effectiveness, to
prove their legitimacy. They are people that have proven their
personal loyalty to Trump. Right. Trump's first campaign was kind
of defined by a whole bunch of people defecting him, right,
everyone he's appointed eventually gotten to beefs with him. People
you know left wrote books about how bad Trump is.
(10:07):
Eventually Trump faced all these prosecutions. Trump's main concern is
like loyalty right now, So he's picking people that just
have proven their own loyalty, and from that point of view,
all of his picks makes sense. Almost everyone picked here
at least at some point appeared on screen with Trump
in his like twenty twenty four campaign six part documentary
(10:29):
Like all of these guys so like they were around
Trump's orbit from pretty early on in his campaign now.
According to Politico, Christinom was recommended by twenty sixteen campaign
chief Corey Lewandowski, and his incoming borders are Tom Homan
Lewandowski sucks.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yes, gonna give him a honorary You suck, Lewandowski.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Her appointment is evidence of Trump's centralizing power and departmental
influence tightly within the White House. Mark Krekorian, executive director
of the far right Center for Immigration Studies, has postulated
that the immigration branches of DHS will largely be puppeteered
by Stephen Miller and the new borderzar, who has a
lot of DHS experience, while Nome could be more focused
(11:12):
on overseeing FEMA, TSA and Secret Service. Another aspect of
Trump just appointing these wildly incompetent people is that more
of these departments can just be run out of the
White House, specifically by his senior advisors and Steven Miller,
right like, those are the types of people that are
going to be largely overseeing the direction of these departments,
while basically these figureheads just to do their bidding.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I had worried that he would appoint Stephen Miller directly
into the AHS.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I understand that fear. I think part of the fear
is that he just doesn't have to.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yes, yeah, No, you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
In fact, Steven Miller can have more power by having
his myths in more departments in his current role, which
we will get to later. But first let's talk about
Tulci Gabbard, the appointed Director of National Intelligence, which is
crazy crazy Yeah. Now, like Nome, Gabert is shockingly unqualified,
(12:05):
and she would be overseeing eighteen intelligence agencies, having never
worked in the intelligence field or served on a Congressional
intelligence committee. Her nomination was first announced by Roger Stone
on Info Wars now owned by the Onion.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Owned by the Onion.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Ha ha. But that was like, that was how this
news broke. That kind of also tells you, like what
information channels are getting like funneled down from Trump's team.
If Roger Stone was the first guy to announce it
before Trump even announced it in his like truth social ing,
it just.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Is She's such a conspiracy theorist that it just it
does kind of make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
She is an anti vaccine conspiracy theorist with a history
of spreading Russian and disinformation propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine.
Y Gabert was also openly pro ASAD in twenty fifteen,
secretly met with ASAD in twenty seventeen, and then a
year later, Gabert peddled Syrian war crime denial, saying that
she was quote unquote skeptical of intelligence findings that assaw
to carry out chemical weapons attacks. While parenting Russian talking
(13:03):
points in February twenty twenty two, she blamed Joe Biden
for the war in Ukraine for not alleviating Russia's fear
of Ukraine possibly joining NATO. I'm going to quote from
NBC News quote during her twenty twenty presidential bid, Russian
state propaganda often portrayed Gabbard favorably while it demigrated the
other Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden. According to research from
(13:23):
the Foreign Policy Research Institute of Philadelphia based think tank,
less than a month into her presidential campaign, there were
at least twenty Gabbard stories on three major Moscow based
English language websites affiliated or supportive of the Russian government,
all of which celebrated her candidacy. Unquote.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That's very funny because twenty Gabbard stories is probably the
net totals that the entire US media wrote throughout her run.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Like, it is widely speculated that Gabbard is a de
facto Russian agent, or at the very least is very
comfortable just spreading Russian propaganda and spreading like pro Putin
and pro Russian talking points.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it could be one of those things where she's
not actually she's like too fucking glowing to be an agent,
and she's in fact just doing this shit voluntarily by accident.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Like it's certainly possible. I mean, the Syrian war crime
denial and meeting with the SOD stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, that stuff is pretty glowing.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And Russia certainly has a vested interest in promoting Gabbard right,
so at the very least even assistant intentional on her part,
Russia is very willing to jump on this and the
fact that she's now going to be the head of
all of our spy agency programs. Okay, cool, sounds great cool.
She also comes from a family of anti gay activists
and is tied to an anti Muslim and anti gay
(14:33):
cult called the Science of Identity. The leader has called
Muslims and f Ssler's quote unquote demons. In two thousand
and four, Tulsi herself accused the newspaper The Honolulu of
being the mouthpiece for quote unquote homosexual extremists. Insert joke
about mouthpiece homosexual anyway now. Tulsia's family and campaign staff
(14:54):
were all active members of the cult during her twenty
twenty presidential campaign, during which she also produced a list
of enemies that named prominent journalists who were against Tulsia's
own history of war crime denial.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Amazing, Oh boy, yeah, sorry we got snubbed there.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Hey, I mean it was twenty nineteen, right, you.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Know, yeah, I can dream of making.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
We still have a chance to be put on their
list of enemies.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
You know what, Garrison, if we are accused of crimes,
how will we fund defense.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Through these products and services that support this podcast. That's correct, Okay,
we are back. It's time to talk about who might
be prosecuting a list of political enemies, and that would
be the possible new Attorney General, Matt Gates. So boy, So,
(15:50):
Matt Gates is one of these Congress people who has
built an outsized reputation through television appearances and TV news
to soundbites. He's always quick to jump to the defense
of Trump and advocate for extreme positions with in the party.
His behavior displays a desperate need for attention and willingness
to sacrifice his own effectiveness as a congressman for simply
going viral. This performative nature is made a little bit
(16:11):
more uncanny by the bizarre fact that Gates grew up
in the house from the Truman Show, which his family
still owns.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
That's in you. I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I did not know that, But that is what.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It makes so much sense though. Look at all of
his gambits and bits in Congress, and if you frame
that within someone who was raised in the Truman Show house,
it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, he is not necessarily a popular pick among kind
of again like institutionalists in the Republican Party. Sure, the
famously liberal Wall Street Journal ran the headline quote, Matt
Gates is a bad choice for attorney general. He's a
nominee for those who want the law to be used
for political revenge, and it won't end well. Unquote. Now.
(16:58):
Hours after this announcement, Yates suddenly resigned from the House,
and Speaker Johnson said that he hopes to work with
Governor DeSantis to fast track a special election to get
the seat filled as early as January.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
I think, out of deference to us, he issued his
resignation letter effective immediately of Congress. That caught us by
surprise a little bit, But I asked him what the
reasoning was, and he said, well, you can't have too
many absences. So under Florida state law, there's about an
eight week period to select and fill in a vacancy.
(17:31):
People have asked me all day long, President Trump is
poaching all of your talent. Yes, well, we have an
embarrassment of riches here. The Republican conference is full of
talented people who are extraordinary leaders and have great expertise,
and everyone in this Congress, in this conference, could serve
in a leadership position in the administration.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's so bizarre a little bit. But there's one little
curious fact about Gates a quick resignation well yes, is
that this happened just days before a House Ethics investigation
was set to vote on the release of a report
looking into the sex trafficking allegations against Matt Gates. According
to ABC News, the woman at the center of the
(18:12):
DOJ's probe of Representative Matt Gates testified to the House
Ethics Committee that the now former Florida congressman had sex
with her when she was seventeen years old, to quote
ABC quote. The woman's allegation regarding Gates became part of
the investigation following claims by former Seminole County tax collector
Joel Greenberg, a former friend of Gates who is currently
(18:36):
serving an eleven year prison sentence after reaching a deal
with investigators in May of twenty twenty one in which
he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking
of the woman when she was a minor and introducing
her to other quote unquote adult men who also had
sex with her when she was under age. The committee
also obtained a sworn written statement by Gates's ex girlfriend
where she lists the Florida congressman as one of the
(18:58):
attendees at a party in July twenty seventeen where drugs
were present and which was attended by the woman who
Gates allegedly has sex with when she was a minor.
Some witnesses show venmo payments that they allegedly received from gatesuote, So,
I guess the end goal of the QAnon movement is
just putting a pedophile in charge of the do Oja
(19:19):
serving as attorney general over the entire country. Also, Gates
made a really bad joke a few years ago, responding
to a Twitter post about how people can be like
beautiful at any age. Oh yeah, and Gates responded by
saying this should be Florida's state motto and that tweet
is still ugh.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Wasn't it sexy at any age?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
It is sexy?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It was sex.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh my god, it's us.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Oh that's so bad. But no, Gates isn't super popular
even within like large parts of the party. It's reported
from other congressmen that he would like walk up to
them and like show them sex tapes he made with
people he's like having sex with.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Is it fucking creep?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
He's really icky?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Youw Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
There's arguments that like maybe he won't get past like confirmation, right, yeah, yeah.
And here's here's the thing he might not have to.
Trump is currently working with the Speaker of the House
as well as the new Senate majority leader to possibly
just close Congress and push all these guys through in
recess appointments, so they might not even have to get
(20:22):
past the confirmation process. Now, this still remains to be seen,
and as Matt Johnson said in the clip before, he's
a little worried that Trump just keeps picking congressman, which
is slowly eating away at the House's slim Republican majority.
Johnson said that he has quote unquote begged and pleaded
with Trump to stop coaching House representatives to protect their majority.
(20:43):
At this point, at least five congressmen have been tapped
to serve in the Trump administration, with more expected. Now
Gates might have someone assisting him as Deputy Attorney General
with a little bit more prosecution experience. That is Todd
blanche who is Trump's personal defense lawyer, who earlier this
year oversaw multiple indictments against Trump, so Trump just picked
(21:06):
his own lawyer to be like, yeah, you're like the
second guy in charge. Go help out Gates. I know
this will be fine. The White House Chief of Staff
is Susie Wills, who's a very successful Republican campaign operator.
She worked on Rick Scott's and Rohn Decanis' governatorial campaigns
as well as Trump's twenty twenty four presidential campaign. She's
kind of one of the few like legacy establishment figures
(21:28):
that Trump has tapped. Now. Deputy chief of Staff is
Stephen Miller, the great replacement white nationalist and anti immigrant extremist,
will be returning to the White House as Assistant to
the President and a Deputy chief of Staff for policy
and Homeland Security advisor. So he's not just the head
of whole ind security. He has his pause in multiple
(21:49):
little departments and also is like directly next to the
President's ear Now. In Trump's first term, Miller was the
architect of the family separation policy, the Muslim ban, and
the end of DACA. Miller has advocated for denaturalization of
American citizens and has called for the use of National
Guard troops from Republican government states to be deployed in
blue states to carry out in tournament of migrants in
(22:09):
military camps, and deportations in states that are uncooperative with
Trump's mass deportation plans. James, do you have any things
to add here on Stephen Miller. This is kind of
your department.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Miller is scary because he's actually very effective. Like so
often these right wing kind of plucked hinge on these
bizarre legal theories, right, which I'd say far from accepted
by mainstream god of jurisprudents. Miller did very well at
finding antiquated laws that could stick the landing in the
courts to do the evil shit he wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Like the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninetything.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean he did that with Title forty two,
which is a law that's designed to stop people with
tuberculosis just walking across the border. Right, And he's successfully
and he planned this before the pandemic. He successfully used
that to effectively allow border patrol to immediately deport people
without giving them their right to claim asylum. That was
a policy that Trump did and that Biden continued till
twenty twenty three. Right, Like Miller, is good if we
(23:08):
look at the last term at finding ways to he's Yeah,
he's effective. He's scarily effective.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
To me. He's always been the scariest guy in Trump's orbit.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yes, but yeah, because he's competent and like by far,
and he stays out of the limelight for the large
part and that allows him to not have to defend
his evil shit and just get on with doing it.
When I watched that six part documentary but the behind
the scenes of Trump's campaign, Cela Miller was in almost
every scene.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yes, he was always like in the background, always in
the background, just just saying things to Trump, like he
is a constant presence there. Yeah, it's quite frightening. Now
moving on, the guy nominated for National Security Advisor is
named Mike Walls. He's a neo Khon. He's an anti assadist,
pro Ukraine. He's advocated to take the cuffs off Ukraine
(23:52):
to allow them to make strikes further into Russia. He
was also the former counter terrorism advisor to Dick Cheney
when when he was VP.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Heah's super pro Israel too.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Oh, everyone I list here is pro Israel.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, I think that's pretty much.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
This is one of the most like openly pro war guys,
right right, someone like this guy who's historically kind of
like the anti Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, yeah, takes the opposite
stance on almost every single issue. He's he he's a Neocon,
he's anti Assad, he's anti Putin.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
He's a member of the Kurdish Caucus in Congress. Actually interesting, interesting, Yeah,
I mean yeah, I hope he bounces out some of
some of those crazy more like a saddest sort of
or just Trump's natural tendency to see a strong man
in one and be like, yeah, you go for it, buddy.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah. He was the first Green Beret to serve in
Congress and has advocated the use of military intel to
combat drug cartels and co sponsor legislation to authorize the
use of military force against cartels in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Great guy.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Another kind of more standard establishment pick, still not good,
but a little bit more standard is CIA director John Ratcliffe.
Briefly served as Director of Natural Intelligence near the end
of Trump's first term and helped to defend Trump during
impeachment hearings. He is more of like a standard pick,
but like everyone else on this list, he has demonstrated
fierce loyalty to Trump. EPA advisor Lee Zelden, a former
(25:18):
New York congressman, no environmental or conservation experience, just an
ordinary anti regulation conservative. After his announcement, Zelman wrote, quote,
we will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry
to bring back American jobs, and make the US the
global leader of AI. Unquote, which does not appoint to
(25:39):
much environmental protection. I'm going to quote from the New Republic.
Zelden voted to cut EPA funding, scrap its chemical risk
assessment program, and block the agency from taking action to
restrict carbon pollution. He missed the twenty seventeen vote on
whether to defund the EPA's criminal law enforcement program, but
voted to prohibit funds from being used for this purpose
the prior year.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Quote after gording to the R and C, his emails
were the worst email thread that I got added to.
His emails are so unhinged, truly the worst thing he's
ever done. Yeah, Zelden worst emails, So which actually makes
sense that he wants to be a global leader of AI. Yes,
that's probably what all his emails were.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, it's pretty safe to assume that basically any
progress that we have made on climate very minuscule, will
be immediately undone, and we will just make a negative
progress in the next four years with someone like Lee
Zelden in charge of the EBA, which already has very
little regulatory power, but it's about to have a lot less.
Let's discuss borders are Tom Homan, former ICE director. He
(26:43):
oversaw the family separation policy in twenty seventeen and has
since said that American born citizens should be deported with
their family to avoid separating families. He's advocated treating cartels
like foreign terrorist organizations that Trump will use the full
mighte of the US Special operations to take out. He
also wrote the border section of Project twenty twenty five, James,
(27:05):
do you have anything to say on our new borders?
Speaker 7 (27:08):
Are?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
It's kind of troubling because again, you've got someone here
who is competent, right, who has worked at a high
levels in government. He was an Obama appointee, right.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
He's worked at ICE like forever.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, Like when Obama was selling records
for deportations, Homan was doing it, which I think tells
you everything about you know, the shit that we forget
about Obama. But yeah, like again troubling because Homan is
a real hawk on this stuff and has previously been Like,
he was effective at doing family separation right, and it
(27:37):
wasn't particularly organized. As we've seen, it's difficult for people
to find and reunite the families. They've been doing it
ever since Trump left office. But he was effective at
getting that shit done. And that worries me in terms
of deportations, because ICE will need to scale up massively,
as we spoke about, and like that will require someone
with leadership experience, and he has that. Like then that
(27:59):
is concerning.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Let's talk about some more diplomatic roles for ambassador to
the UN. Trump has named Elise Stephanic, who has no
diplomatic experience but has been extremely vocally pro Israel. She
harshly interrogated university presidents amid campus protests against the genocide
in Gaza, and is consistently advocated against US participation in
(28:22):
the UN and now is going to be the UN
ambassador to quote from the New Republic quote. In a
statement last week, Stephanic heralded Israel's decision to ban the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in
the Near East or UNRA from operating in Israel, the
West Bank, and Gaza, claiming that the seventy four year
(28:45):
old aid program quote instills anti Semitic hate in Palestinians
and houses weapons for terrorists unquote. She's also called on
the United States to defund the refugee program, criticizing the
Biden administration for issuing one billion dollars to UNRA since
twenty twenty one. Unquote.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, this is like a typical talking point of like
right zionists, right that the United Nations is somehow an
arm of Hamas and the UN the United Nations Directed
Welfare Agency is actively funneling weapons to Hamas, and like
it's just not true. It's an excuse for targeting aid
workers in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
The UN already has such little control over any degree
of like enforcement for like humanitarian aid, and having this
person be the US ambassador to UN will make what
little power they have even like diminished. Yes, just last October,
she called for a quote a complete reassessment of US
funding of the United Nations unquote, after calls from the
(29:44):
Palestinian authority to expel Israel from the UN for war
crimes and human rights abuses. Now the ambassador to Israel
is set to be Mike Huckabee, the former governor of
Arkansas and evangelical Christian Zionist. Similarly, he has no diplomatic experience,
im going to quote from the Atlantic quote. He has
led religious pilgrimages to Israel and visited the country dozens
(30:06):
of times over the course of several decades. He also
opposes a two state solution to the Israel Palestine conflict
and says that quote, there's really no such thing as
a Palestinian unquote. He is really bad. Yes, Mike Huckabee
is really bad.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
He has also advocated for Israel to permanently annex and
take control of the West Bank, and he like legitimately
believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish
people to the Holy Land of Israel to trigger the
Biblical apocalypse resulting in the death of all Jews.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
Well, my feelings personally, and I'm speaking only as a person,
I think Israel would only be acting on the property
it already owns. I think Israel has titled the Judea
and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use.
There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's
Judy and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement,
(30:59):
their communities, neighborhoods, their cities. There's no such thing as
an occupation.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
This is why he believes this. This isn't like out
of care in his heart for Jewish people. It's that
he wants to trigger the apocalypse. And to do this
he needs to both like, eliminate all Palestinians, give total
control of the land to Israel, make all Jewish people
live there so that Jesus can come again and do
the wars and blah blah blah blah blah, all that
kind of stuff. It's nasty. The last diplomatic pick here
(31:26):
is Middle East Envoy Steve Whitcoff, who's a Trump campaign
fundraiser and a real estate developer. He has no diplomatic
or foreign policy experience pro Israel. He'll basically just be
assisting and all of the bad things that everyone else
I have already named is going to be doing.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Wait, sorry, my brain just broke.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
So the Middle East Envoy is just like a real
estate investor guy. Yep, yep, that seems I mean, I
mean yeah, is it much better than Jared is going
to do peace in the Middle.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
East like last time.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yes, you can look at this similarly to like Jared
Kushner's proposals to like develop what once was Gaza and
just like viewing wars in the Middle East as a
real estate development opportunity. You can see a guy like
this kind of in line with that side of like
the Trump campaign.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Jared's got to handle it, and we're gonna handle these
ad breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
All right, we are back. It's time to discuss the
elephant in the room.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Genuinely brought that out in my mind.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Are we doing?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
We are going full DOGE? So I am. I'm just
gonna read part of the statement from Donald Trump announcing
this new government agency DOGE. More on that later quote.
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk,
working into conjunction with American patriot Kraamaswami, will lead the
(33:01):
Department of Government Efficiency DOGE. Together these two wonderful Americans
will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy,
slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.
It will become potentially the Manhattan Project of our time.
Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for
(33:27):
a long time. To drive this kind of drastic change,
the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance
from outside of government, and will partner with the White
House and Office of Management and Budget to drive large
scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to government
never seen before. Their work will conclude no later than
(33:49):
July fourth, twenty twenty six. A smaller government with more
efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to
America on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Declaration of independ unquote.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Jesus christ Man.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So this is this is the new quote unquote government agency,
which is not real. Right, this is not a real
government agency. Trump just can't create one out of thin air.
And in this statement it does clarify that they will
be providing advice and guidance from outside of government.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
That's pretty funny. This is a children's table, like they
have the plastic cutler reads it's.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The children's table. Yes, he's He's sending musk and the
vec off to the side to have their little fun.
They'll make like a blog post that talks about who
to cut, you know what programs to cut. VEC specifically
talked about like ending healthcare for veterans, which I'm sure
will go over very well, and they'll submit that to
Trump and then the people in charge of the Office
(34:41):
of Management and Budget will probably just throw it in
the trash. But we will see. I mean, I don't
want to understate Musk's general influence in like Trump's operations,
because Musk right now does have a great deal of influence.
I think this doge thing isn't something to be too
worried about. Though. Now, as a as a fun side
note to kind of demonstrate the nonsensical nature of this,
(35:02):
I'm going to talk about something that Vivek has proposed.
He has said that a way to cut down a
government bureaucracy would be to make a list of all
of the non elected government employees and fire the ones
that have a Social Security number that starts or ends
with an odd number. This way, you can automatically cut
(35:23):
seventy five percent of the workforce without having to worry
about racial, gender, or political discrimination. The Vech says, quote,
not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American unquote.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I think that's going to work that way.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
This is proposing cutting like two million people. Talking to
front of the pod Lex Friedman, he framed this as
a thought experiment, not necessarily a policy proposal, and said
that a more complicated form of this idea could select
to save people with quote the greatest commitment and knowledge
of the constitution unquote. This is goofy, Like this is fake,
(36:01):
Like this isn't this isn't real. He's not going to
cut seventy five percent of the workforce. You should be
more concerned about Schedule F, a policy that Trump will
reinstate that gives him power to remove government employees at will,
to select for people that align with him more ideologically. Like,
that's the real thing to be concerned about in terms
of like government staffing. I'm not much concerned about Vivek here, though.
The Washington Post did report that some Trump advisors have
(36:24):
asked Congress for thirty five to fifty million dollars to
fund the DOGE Commission. The alternative is to raise money
from the private sector, which seems more likely. It's also
just very funny to have like an efficiency department ran
by two people, especially if you're going to ask to
spend fifty to fifty million dollars because yeah, I'm sure
(36:45):
the best way to improve government efficiency is to give
two billionaires fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's to have two people running running an apartment. That's great,
Like that's what we need. Too many.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, it's also like a fake department that'll just produce
like a write up that talks about cutting social Security.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Right, one will throw it in the bin.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
That's all it's gonna be. Musk has also gone to
Twitter to try to get people to send in job
applications to work for free, to like sort to sort
through these like these people that should be cut from
federal government. He just wants people to do work for free.
So now you have people setting in job applications to Twitter.
I'm sure that'll end great for those people. Part of
(37:21):
this just feels kind of like a scheme to like
coerce Trump into allowing the formation of a fake government
agency to pump the value of doge coin. Like, yes,
dogecoin did like boost some value after this announcement, and
like this is very suspicious and like should be maybe
illegal because this could just be like a cryptocurrency scheme,
which is very very likely now despite the kind of
(37:43):
goofy nature of Doge, and like the idea that this
is basically just Musk of Abeck sitting at the kids
table to keep them happy while the adults take care
of real business. I don't want to rush over the
influence that Musk currently has on the Trump admin. Basically
since election night, Musk has essentially been living with Trump
at to mar A Lagos, just.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Like the first buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yes he is. He started to call himself first buddy,
which makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
The richest man ones yeah, first friend, with benefits absolutely pathetic.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Musk is reported to be giving input on staffing decisions
and joining phone calls with foreign leaders under play a
clip from scene on here.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
Multiple sources tell me tonight that Musk has been seen
at mar A Lago nearly every single day since Donald
Trump won, dining with him on the patio at times.
Today they were seen on the golf course together. Musk
has been in the room when world leaders have called Trump,
and tonight we've learned he's also weighing in on staffing decisions,
making clear his preference for certain roles, even publicly Tonight,
(38:43):
Elon Musk is backing Florida Senator Rick Scott as the
next leader of the Republican Conference to replace Mitch McConnell.
While Musk himself is still not expected to take any
kind of formal position inside Trump's administration given how complicated
it would be with his companies, what's becoming clearer to
Night is that he doesn't really need to, With one
source telling me Elon Musk is having just as much
(39:05):
influence from the outside.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
NBC's reported that a source close to the transition team
has told them that Musk is quote behaving as if
he is co president and making sure that everyone knows it.
And he's sure taking lots of credit for the president's victory,
breaking about America pack and X to anyone who will listen.
He's trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him,
(39:28):
and the President is indebted to no one unquote, which
is a very very fun statement from a Trump guy.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It's also not true. Doesn't Trump ohloads of people money?
Like empirically we know this.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yes, and currently through lawsuits, Trump does out people a
lot of money. But yeah, not that that will matter
at all anymore. In a meeting with House Republicans. Last Wednesday,
Trump reportedly joked, quote, Elon won't go home. I can't
get rid of him, at least until I don't like him, unquote,
which kind of underscores the running bet pool that we
(40:02):
have here at Colzone Media on when the Trump Musk
falling out will happen, and we will we will keep
up on this story very closely, because I really can't
imagine that that Musk will stay here for too long.
I'm sure he'll stay in some proximity, especially with all
like the government contracts that SpaceX has, but Trump being
like this close to Musk surely will result in some
(40:23):
kind of fallout. And maybe maybe that's opium. Maybe maybe
that's me just fully hot up on hopium. But I
really see able ASM working to our advantage here with
Trump eventually just getting sick of this guy. And I
think part of what Elon's doing here as well, and
other people have possilated this, including Robert is like Elon
can't run for president legally, right and out again, laws
(40:43):
might just completely go out the window here. But because
Elon's on, a natural born citizen like Elon can't run
for president, and Elon does want power. So basically, Elon's
trying to become as close as he can do President
Trump to be like like this, source said co president, right,
that's kind of his end goal heres. He wants to
be the president and he can't, so this is as
(41:04):
close as he can get. That is most of the
main picks so far. Lastly, all mentioned like three people
who worked on the Trump campaign who will now be
serving as advisors, including danz Cavino, James Blair, and Taylor Buttowitch.
All these guys appeared pretty frequently in the behind the
scenes documentary about Trump's twenty twenty four campaign, and all
(41:25):
three of these guys primarily focused on like weaponizing anti
immigrant claims to get Trump elected. That was kind of
their main focus, especially James Blair. But lastly, lastly, I
do have one more person to mention, the co chair
of Trump's transition team, the former CEO of WWE McMahon.
(41:48):
She is working as the co chair for the transition team.
She is the wife of A Vince McMahon. Now. She
also served in Trump's first term as head of the
Small Business Administration from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen. Two
failed Senate runs in Connecticut. Now, besides co leading the
President's transition team, McMahon's also their front runner to lead
(42:08):
the Department of Commerce. Now, to kind of tie this
back to Matt Gates, she along with her husband, are
also currently being sued for sex trafficking underage boys in
the WWE. The suit alleges that WWE leadership knowingly allowed
an announcer named mel Phillips to groom and molest the
five plaintiffs who were hired as ring boys from the
(42:29):
ages of twelve to thirteen. Ring boys basically like people
who like help out on the side for you know,
I see, they're kind of like performative roles. Yeah, so
that's pretty fucked up. And the fact that this whole
qunon movement has now resulted in two people being charged
for sex trafficking or at least investigative for sex trafficking.
Being this close to the Trump orbit, I'm sure, I'm
(42:51):
sure we can just trust the plan and things and
things will all things will all turn out fine. But yeah,
that's a little it's a little Linda McMahon a fun
fact there. So that is all I have to say
at this point about the Trump cabinet picks. There's gonna
be more. I know RFK is gonna be its own
nightmare that we will get to. Yeah, I guess any
closing thoughts, uh, Sophie or James on this this who's
(43:13):
who of the worst people in the country.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Who's gone I've come next?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
And that's basically it, and and not even that after
this first round and then like obviously he's gonna fucking
fire some people. Who's he gonna report who's he gonna
replace them with?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
It will be like Instagrammers by the end of four years.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I'm sure he's really just going through all the people
who have like pledged complete loyalty to him, including people
who've like previously been critical but have like turned around
and gotten fully on the Trump train. And like, the
thing that links up all of these names is that
Trump believes that they're not gonna turn on him, because
that was the thing that really threw a wrench in
his first administration. And the reason why he's appointing all
(43:53):
these people who are just chronically unqualified, it's because they
need Trump, right, Like if Matt Gates doesn't become then
he's also like out of a job now because he
resigned from Congress, and he'll also probably face more punishment
for his alleged sex trafficking. But if he's in charge
of the entire Justice Department, he's not going to get anything, right. Like,
a huge part of Trump like trying to become president
again is to get out of all of the criminal
(44:16):
complaints and indictments that he's been facing the past year.
And now none of those matter. I'll point you to
a Legal Eagle video for like why none of the
convictions will matter, None of the ongoing cases will matter.
All those trials are now completely meaningless. He has gotten
away with everything. Looking over this whole list, you see
a lot of neo cons in foreign policy positions and
(44:37):
like mega celebrity loyalists in domestic positions, which makes a
lot of sense for Trump trying to both like maintain
his own power as well as showing off his kind
of hidden neo contendencies. And this entire cabinet points towards
centralizing power with just him and the White House. Right,
these people are not qualified, So now Trump basically will
(45:00):
puppeteer every department and Trump's advisors, including like Stephen Miller.
So this is all about centralizing power and demanding fierce loyalty.
That's what all of these appointments point towards.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
This is good ending. What a happy show.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, that is a great ending. You know, not all
these will have happy endings because we're currently facing a
pretty rough situation. But we will have some episodes later
on in this week that do point more towards what
you can do to protect yourself in the coming days,
including Molly's episode tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. But
this is just a quick, a quick rundown on why
I don't like every single person appointed to these positions.
Speaker 9 (45:39):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Foolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 9 (45:52):
You can now find sources for it could Happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Also media, welcome to it could happen here. Oh god,
we have survived another week, and I'm joined today by
Sophie and James to discuss Trump's cabinet picks and the
upcoming potential members of the Trump administration two point zero.
(00:22):
I'm sure some of you have been following the news
and there is some wacky picks in there. There keeps
being even more wacky ones like RFK, which I didn't
even have time to include because by the time he
was announced, I basically already wrote too much. RFK will
get his own future episode. But it's pretty it's pretty
safe to assume that RFK in control of Health and
(00:43):
Human Services is pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You don't say you don't say yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
People are saying it not great to have the world's
weirdest conspiracy theorist of the Kennedy family in charge of
you know, like vaccines and health mandates. And it's gonna
be bad enough that it's its own episode for the
rest of the nominations. Mostly like last week, right, this
is going to be covering all the nominations in the
week of the eleventh to the fifteenth of November. We're
(01:11):
going to kind of go through nomination by nomination and
do a brief overview of each of these guys and
why each one could be bad, and some of them
just kind of point to like more general like neocon
picks as well. Trump kind of started off with some
more ordinary picks, honestly, like you know, like Mark Rubio
a Secretary of State. This is this is kind of
(01:33):
a restrained pick for him. Now, Rubio is still kind
of converted into being a Trump loyalist, like every single
other person we're going to be talking about, And it
is interesting that kind of among all of the Trump appointees,
he has been the most open about his criticisms of Trump,
especially during Trump's first term. The leaked five hundred and
fifty one page of VP vetting document produced by the
Trump campaign outlines Rubio's anti Putin comments, support for the
(01:56):
Miller investigation, his acceptance of the twenty twenty election results,
past comments that Trump is too dangerous to be trusted
with nuclear codes, and his history of supporting NATO, support
of the Iraq War, and pro military intervention in Iran
and Syria. So some of these positions now kind of
bump up against what Trump's next term is going to
(02:17):
be kind of defined by and like more recently, Rubio
has moved on from his Tea Party free trade kind
of roots and now advocates for, you know, more tariffs
on China and calling the country quote the most advanced
adversary America has ever faced, unquote. Basically all of the
kind of foreign policy guys are really big on China.
(02:37):
They are all China hawks. That is kind of one
continuous through line throughout all these nominations. I guess, James,
do you have any thoughts on Mark Rubio for Secretary
of State?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, Marca Ribio, I don't have a lot's thoughts to
Marco Rubio. I always expect to get all to be
more along the lines of heck, thest like more to
be like culture war commentators. Yeah, Like at least Rubio,
I will say, like, I'd probably disagree with him on
almost everything, but he's he's not going to probably abandon
the YPG and the YPG and SDF in Syria, which
(03:09):
is a good things. He's pretty hawkish on that. He's
not a big out of one fan, so like that's
a good thing. I guess, Like I think as Secretary
of States under Trump, go like it could have been
fucking Tucker Carlson like that. That's not out of the
realm of possibility.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
At this rate.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, and uh, it's well, he spends all his time
watching Fox News, right, Like, that's what we've heard that
he does. And it's not inconceivable that he thinks these
people are experts because they're presented that way, and that
is how he encounters and thus perceives the world. So,
I guess Rubio and even amongst these picks, he's probably
not the worst, which is wild to be saying.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So is the review and Mark Rubio could be worse.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I mean, I guess so.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I mean that's the review of Mark Rubio's life, isn't
it that that's pretty much how he's gone through the world.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think his parents would agree with us.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Out Rubio is no Pete haig Seth Secretary of Defense. Yeah,
which was one of the first picks that like really sharded,
raising some eyebrows.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Wild pick, wild pick.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, Yeah, what who does an a cog tattooed on
his bicep?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Stop sending us that photo over him without a shirt on?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Have seen it?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, never send us any cabinet member shirtless. I don't
care if he's RFK. I don't care if he's head set.
I don't want to see a nipple.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I thought I didn't like it. I don't need to
see it again.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yank you so much. I feel like everyone's pretty well
aware now that he has some very questionable Christian nationalist tattoos, honey,
not not super uncommon. And you know in this for
like this type of like military guy he.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Got the more wasted we was out. He got them
in his late thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That also makes sense. That feels like a very midlife crisis.
Oh no, I'm a Fox and Friends weekend host now
kind of move Yeah yeah, better up my molin larbae game.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
There's a lot to be said about Pete heik Seth.
He's a Princeton and Harvard graduate who is also claimed
that germs are not real and he has never washed
his hands in the last ten years. Disgusting. Germs are
not real. I can't see them, therefore they're not real.
So that's lovely.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Gross, you can't. What a fucking idiot, but absolute moron.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
God. He's advocated against divorce for families with kids until
he was caught cheating on his second wife with his producer,
fathered a child, and then divorced his wife to Mary,
his coworker.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Many such cases.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
In general, he's just very chud codd right. He has
like he has like a grunt style fashion, Christian nationalist tattoos.
He looks like the type of guy that I would
have docked for fun as a teenager, except he just
serves on Fox and Friends' weekend hosting team. He served
in Guantanamo, Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the Army National Guard,
(05:53):
and has recently advocated that women should not serve in
combat roles in the US military.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
I'm straight up just saying we should not have women
in combat roles hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made
us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. We've all
served with women, and they're great. It just our institutions
don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally not
traditionally over human history, men in those positions are more capable.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yes, and wild take, so much should be happening in
the military.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
He sure does. I'm going to read a quote from
his book The War on Warriors, Big si Quototox say
the Republican Party by default has become the only party
of America. And if we don't crusade a holy war,
a righteous, holy war for freedom, we're not going to
save America. In general. A lot of his rhetoric kind
(06:47):
of is this similar Christian nationalist crusade holy war type stuff.
This is like a lot of what he talks about
on podcasts and TV appearances where he is not throwing
a double sided acts at the pedus of a West
Point drummer are live TV.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
It was incredible. It was indirect fire. He arcd it
over the target straight to the dick and balls of
the West Point drama.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I just feel like, if he's gonna like somebody tell
him what a microscope is, Somebody just tell him what
a microscope is.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
He must have used binoculars at some point in his service,
or some kind of magnified optic right to learn to
see things. I mean, he has a magnified optic tattooed
on his bicep. Actually he should does good.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
I mean, like, if you're going to be Secretary of Defense,
at least like, oh, sir, wash your hands.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Arguably, the most worrying part about Pete as Secretary of
Defense is not the anti handwashing beliefs or the poor
aim for ax throwing. It's that he's basically a lobbyist
for war criminals. Yes, and was a big part of
the campaign to push Trump to pardon several convicted war criminals,
(07:56):
people who like tortured and murdered prisoners and ordered soul
to shoot and kill random unarmed civilians. Yeah. So, especially
with this Secretary of Defense role, that's not great. That
he's essentially pro war criminal and justifies it by saying, like,
people don't really understand what it's like to serve in combat.
Sometimes you have to make decisions and blah blah blah,
(08:16):
blah blah, all this random stuff not good. Sources within
the government have called him the most unqualified person ever
appointed to this position, which I do I do believe
because this is just a guy that Trump sees on TV.
This is just a TV host. Yeah, this is one
of the more shocking nominations. Yeah, let's move on to
Secretary of Homeland Security. Ugh, this is another odd pick.
(08:41):
Christy Nome, the non border state governor of South Dakota,
who has no experience in the DHS, has never worked
in law enforcement, though she does possess one trademark cop trait.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Oh yes, oh, yes she does. And what would that be.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Here, which is shooting they get killing dogs?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yep, awful person.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So that is one thing she might bond with our
law enforcement community over.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Which we all know about because she wrote about it
in her own fucking book girl.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, incriminating herself another cop.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Trait, so true, so true.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
She did deploy the South Dakota National Guard to the border,
and I think they used they received private financing for
it if I remember correctly. Yeah. See, like that's her engagement.
That one again is troubling. So much power at the DHS.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's such an odd pick.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
All of these picks where I'm talking about, some of
them do seem odd, but not from the point of
view that Trump is basically picking people that one are
like in his constant orbit, like a guy on TV,
but also people that are not like institutionalists.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
These aren't like people who like work their way up
through these government departments to prove their like effectiveness, to
prove their legitimacy. They are people that have proven their
personal loyalty to Trump. Right. Trump's first campaign was kind
of defined by a whole bunch of people defecting him, right,
everyone he's appointed eventually gotten to beefs with him. People
you know left wrote books about how bad Trump is.
(10:07):
Eventually Trump faced all these prosecutions. Trump's main concern is
like loyalty right now, So he's picking people that just
have proven their own loyalty, and from that point of view,
all of his picks makes sense. Almost everyone picked here
at least at some point appeared on screen with Trump
in his like twenty twenty four campaign six part documentary
(10:29):
Like all of these guys so like they were around
Trump's orbit from pretty early on in his campaign now.
According to Politico, Christinom was recommended by twenty sixteen campaign
chief Corey Lewandowski, and his incoming borders are Tom Homan
Lewandowski sucks.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yes, gonna give him a honorary You suck, Lewandowski.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Her appointment is evidence of Trump's centralizing power and departmental
influence tightly within the White House. Mark Krekorian, executive director
of the far right Center for Immigration Studies, has postulated
that the immigration branches of DHS will largely be puppeteered
by Stephen Miller and the new borderzar, who has a
lot of DHS experience, while Nome could be more focused
(11:12):
on overseeing FEMA, TSA and Secret Service. Another aspect of
Trump just appointing these wildly incompetent people is that more
of these departments can just be run out of the
White House, specifically by his senior advisors and Steven Miller,
right like, those are the types of people that are
going to be largely overseeing the direction of these departments,
while basically these figureheads just to do their bidding.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I had worried that he would appoint Stephen Miller directly
into the AHS.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I understand that fear. I think part of the fear
is that he just doesn't have to.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yes, yeah, No, you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
In fact, Steven Miller can have more power by having
his myths in more departments in his current role, which
we will get to later. But first let's talk about
Tulci Gabbard, the appointed Director of National Intelligence, which is
crazy crazy Yeah. Now, like Nome, Gabert is shockingly unqualified,
(12:05):
and she would be overseeing eighteen intelligence agencies, having never
worked in the intelligence field or served on a Congressional
intelligence committee. Her nomination was first announced by Roger Stone
on Info Wars now owned by the Onion.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Owned by the Onion.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Ha ha. But that was like, that was how this
news broke. That kind of also tells you, like what
information channels are getting like funneled down from Trump's team.
If Roger Stone was the first guy to announce it
before Trump even announced it in his like truth social ing,
it just.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Is She's such a conspiracy theorist that it just it
does kind of make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
She is an anti vaccine conspiracy theorist with a history
of spreading Russian and disinformation propaganda during the invasion of Ukraine.
Y Gabert was also openly pro ASAD in twenty fifteen,
secretly met with ASAD in twenty seventeen, and then a
year later, Gabert peddled Syrian war crime denial, saying that
she was quote unquote skeptical of intelligence findings that assaw
to carry out chemical weapons attacks. While parenting Russian talking
(13:03):
points in February twenty twenty two, she blamed Joe Biden
for the war in Ukraine for not alleviating Russia's fear
of Ukraine possibly joining NATO. I'm going to quote from
NBC News quote during her twenty twenty presidential bid, Russian
state propaganda often portrayed Gabbard favorably while it demigrated the
other Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden. According to research from
(13:23):
the Foreign Policy Research Institute of Philadelphia based think tank,
less than a month into her presidential campaign, there were
at least twenty Gabbard stories on three major Moscow based
English language websites affiliated or supportive of the Russian government,
all of which celebrated her candidacy. Unquote.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That's very funny because twenty Gabbard stories is probably the
net totals that the entire US media wrote throughout her run.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Like, it is widely speculated that Gabbard is a de
facto Russian agent, or at the very least is very
comfortable just spreading Russian propaganda and spreading like pro Putin
and pro Russian talking points.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it could be one of those things where she's
not actually she's like too fucking glowing to be an agent,
and she's in fact just doing this shit voluntarily by accident.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Like it's certainly possible. I mean, the Syrian war crime
denial and meeting with the SOD stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, that stuff is pretty glowing.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And Russia certainly has a vested interest in promoting Gabbard right,
so at the very least even assistant intentional on her part,
Russia is very willing to jump on this and the
fact that she's now going to be the head of
all of our spy agency programs. Okay, cool, sounds great cool.
She also comes from a family of anti gay activists
and is tied to an anti Muslim and anti gay
(14:33):
cult called the Science of Identity. The leader has called
Muslims and f Ssler's quote unquote demons. In two thousand
and four, Tulsi herself accused the newspaper The Honolulu of
being the mouthpiece for quote unquote homosexual extremists. Insert joke
about mouthpiece homosexual anyway now. Tulsia's family and campaign staff
(14:54):
were all active members of the cult during her twenty
twenty presidential campaign, during which she also produced a list
of enemies that named prominent journalists who were against Tulsia's
own history of war crime denial.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Amazing, Oh boy, yeah, sorry we got snubbed there.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Hey, I mean it was twenty nineteen, right, you.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Know, yeah, I can dream of making.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
We still have a chance to be put on their
list of enemies.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
You know what, Garrison, if we are accused of crimes,
how will we fund defense.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Through these products and services that support this podcast. That's correct, Okay,
we are back. It's time to talk about who might
be prosecuting a list of political enemies, and that would
be the possible new Attorney General, Matt Gates. So boy, So,
(15:50):
Matt Gates is one of these Congress people who has
built an outsized reputation through television appearances and TV news
to soundbites. He's always quick to jump to the defense
of Trump and advocate for extreme positions with in the party.
His behavior displays a desperate need for attention and willingness
to sacrifice his own effectiveness as a congressman for simply
going viral. This performative nature is made a little bit
(16:11):
more uncanny by the bizarre fact that Gates grew up
in the house from the Truman Show, which his family
still owns.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
That's in you. I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I did not know that, But that is what.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It makes so much sense though. Look at all of
his gambits and bits in Congress, and if you frame
that within someone who was raised in the Truman Show house,
it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, he is not necessarily a popular pick among kind
of again like institutionalists in the Republican Party. Sure, the
famously liberal Wall Street Journal ran the headline quote, Matt
Gates is a bad choice for attorney general. He's a
nominee for those who want the law to be used
for political revenge, and it won't end well. Unquote. Now.
(16:58):
Hours after this announcement, Yates suddenly resigned from the House,
and Speaker Johnson said that he hopes to work with
Governor DeSantis to fast track a special election to get
the seat filled as early as January.
Speaker 7 (17:10):
I think, out of deference to us, he issued his
resignation letter effective immediately of Congress. That caught us by
surprise a little bit, But I asked him what the
reasoning was, and he said, well, you can't have too
many absences. So under Florida state law, there's about an
eight week period to select and fill in a vacancy.
(17:31):
People have asked me all day long, President Trump is
poaching all of your talent. Yes, well, we have an
embarrassment of riches here. The Republican conference is full of
talented people who are extraordinary leaders and have great expertise,
and everyone in this Congress, in this conference, could serve
in a leadership position in the administration.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's so bizarre a little bit. But there's one little
curious fact about Gates a quick resignation well yes, is
that this happened just days before a House Ethics investigation
was set to vote on the release of a report
looking into the sex trafficking allegations against Matt Gates. According
to ABC News, the woman at the center of the
(18:12):
DOJ's probe of Representative Matt Gates testified to the House
Ethics Committee that the now former Florida congressman had sex
with her when she was seventeen years old, to quote
ABC quote. The woman's allegation regarding Gates became part of
the investigation following claims by former Seminole County tax collector
Joel Greenberg, a former friend of Gates who is currently
(18:36):
serving an eleven year prison sentence after reaching a deal
with investigators in May of twenty twenty one in which
he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking
of the woman when she was a minor and introducing
her to other quote unquote adult men who also had
sex with her when she was under age. The committee
also obtained a sworn written statement by Gates's ex girlfriend
where she lists the Florida congressman as one of the
(18:58):
attendees at a party in July twenty seventeen where drugs
were present and which was attended by the woman who
Gates allegedly has sex with when she was a minor.
Some witnesses show venmo payments that they allegedly received from gatesuote, So,
I guess the end goal of the QAnon movement is
just putting a pedophile in charge of the do Oja
(19:19):
serving as attorney general over the entire country. Also, Gates
made a really bad joke a few years ago, responding
to a Twitter post about how people can be like
beautiful at any age. Oh yeah, and Gates responded by
saying this should be Florida's state motto and that tweet
is still ugh.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Wasn't it sexy at any age?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
It is sexy?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It was sex.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh my god, it's us.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Oh that's so bad. But no, Gates isn't super popular
even within like large parts of the party. It's reported
from other congressmen that he would like walk up to
them and like show them sex tapes he made with
people he's like having sex with.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Is it fucking creep?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
He's really icky?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Youw Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
There's arguments that like maybe he won't get past like confirmation, right, yeah, yeah.
And here's here's the thing he might not have to.
Trump is currently working with the Speaker of the House
as well as the new Senate majority leader to possibly
just close Congress and push all these guys through in
recess appointments, so they might not even have to get
(20:22):
past the confirmation process. Now, this still remains to be seen,
and as Matt Johnson said in the clip before, he's
a little worried that Trump just keeps picking congressman, which
is slowly eating away at the House's slim Republican majority.
Johnson said that he has quote unquote begged and pleaded
with Trump to stop coaching House representatives to protect their majority.
(20:43):
At this point, at least five congressmen have been tapped
to serve in the Trump administration, with more expected. Now
Gates might have someone assisting him as Deputy Attorney General
with a little bit more prosecution experience. That is Todd
blanche who is Trump's personal defense lawyer, who earlier this
year oversaw multiple indictments against Trump, so Trump just picked
(21:06):
his own lawyer to be like, yeah, you're like the
second guy in charge. Go help out Gates. I know
this will be fine. The White House Chief of Staff
is Susie Wills, who's a very successful Republican campaign operator.
She worked on Rick Scott's and Rohn Decanis' governatorial campaigns
as well as Trump's twenty twenty four presidential campaign. She's
kind of one of the few like legacy establishment figures
(21:28):
that Trump has tapped. Now. Deputy chief of Staff is
Stephen Miller, the great replacement white nationalist and anti immigrant extremist,
will be returning to the White House as Assistant to
the President and a Deputy chief of Staff for policy
and Homeland Security advisor. So he's not just the head
of whole ind security. He has his pause in multiple
(21:49):
little departments and also is like directly next to the
President's ear Now. In Trump's first term, Miller was the
architect of the family separation policy, the Muslim ban, and
the end of DACA. Miller has advocated for denaturalization of
American citizens and has called for the use of National
Guard troops from Republican government states to be deployed in
blue states to carry out in tournament of migrants in
(22:09):
military camps, and deportations in states that are uncooperative with
Trump's mass deportation plans. James, do you have any things
to add here on Stephen Miller. This is kind of
your department.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Miller is scary because he's actually very effective. Like so
often these right wing kind of plucked hinge on these
bizarre legal theories, right, which I'd say far from accepted
by mainstream god of jurisprudents. Miller did very well at
finding antiquated laws that could stick the landing in the
courts to do the evil shit he wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Like the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninetything.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean he did that with Title forty two,
which is a law that's designed to stop people with
tuberculosis just walking across the border. Right, And he's successfully
and he planned this before the pandemic. He successfully used
that to effectively allow border patrol to immediately deport people
without giving them their right to claim asylum. That was
a policy that Trump did and that Biden continued till
twenty twenty three. Right, Like Miller, is good if we
(23:08):
look at the last term at finding ways to he's Yeah,
he's effective. He's scarily effective.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
To me. He's always been the scariest guy in Trump's orbit.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yes, but yeah, because he's competent and like by far,
and he stays out of the limelight for the large
part and that allows him to not have to defend
his evil shit and just get on with doing it.
When I watched that six part documentary but the behind
the scenes of Trump's campaign, Cela Miller was in almost
every scene.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yes, he was always like in the background, always in
the background, just just saying things to Trump, like he
is a constant presence there. Yeah, it's quite frightening. Now
moving on, the guy nominated for National Security Advisor is
named Mike Walls. He's a neo Khon. He's an anti assadist,
pro Ukraine. He's advocated to take the cuffs off Ukraine
(23:52):
to allow them to make strikes further into Russia. He
was also the former counter terrorism advisor to Dick Cheney
when when he was VP.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Heah's super pro Israel too.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Oh, everyone I list here is pro Israel.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, I think that's pretty much.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
This is one of the most like openly pro war guys,
right right, someone like this guy who's historically kind of
like the anti Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, yeah, takes the opposite
stance on almost every single issue. He's he he's a Neocon,
he's anti Assad, he's anti Putin.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
He's a member of the Kurdish Caucus in Congress. Actually interesting, interesting, Yeah,
I mean yeah, I hope he bounces out some of
some of those crazy more like a saddest sort of
or just Trump's natural tendency to see a strong man
in one and be like, yeah, you go for it, buddy.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah. He was the first Green Beret to serve in
Congress and has advocated the use of military intel to
combat drug cartels and co sponsor legislation to authorize the
use of military force against cartels in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Great guy.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Another kind of more standard establishment pick, still not good,
but a little bit more standard is CIA director John Ratcliffe.
Briefly served as Director of Natural Intelligence near the end
of Trump's first term and helped to defend Trump during
impeachment hearings. He is more of like a standard pick,
but like everyone else on this list, he has demonstrated
fierce loyalty to Trump. EPA advisor Lee Zelden, a former
(25:18):
New York congressman, no environmental or conservation experience, just an
ordinary anti regulation conservative. After his announcement, Zelman wrote, quote,
we will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry
to bring back American jobs, and make the US the
global leader of AI. Unquote, which does not appoint to
(25:39):
much environmental protection. I'm going to quote from the New Republic.
Zelden voted to cut EPA funding, scrap its chemical risk
assessment program, and block the agency from taking action to
restrict carbon pollution. He missed the twenty seventeen vote on
whether to defund the EPA's criminal law enforcement program, but
voted to prohibit funds from being used for this purpose
the prior year.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Quote after gording to the R and C, his emails
were the worst email thread that I got added to.
His emails are so unhinged, truly the worst thing he's
ever done. Yeah, Zelden worst emails, So which actually makes
sense that he wants to be a global leader of AI. Yes,
that's probably what all his emails were.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, it's pretty safe to assume that basically any
progress that we have made on climate very minuscule, will
be immediately undone, and we will just make a negative
progress in the next four years with someone like Lee
Zelden in charge of the EBA, which already has very
little regulatory power, but it's about to have a lot less.
Let's discuss borders are Tom Homan, former ICE director. He
(26:43):
oversaw the family separation policy in twenty seventeen and has
since said that American born citizens should be deported with
their family to avoid separating families. He's advocated treating cartels
like foreign terrorist organizations that Trump will use the full
mighte of the US Special operations to take out. He
also wrote the border section of Project twenty twenty five, James,
(27:05):
do you have anything to say on our new borders?
Speaker 7 (27:08):
Are?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
It's kind of troubling because again, you've got someone here
who is competent, right, who has worked at a high
levels in government. He was an Obama appointee, right.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
He's worked at ICE like forever.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, Like when Obama was selling records
for deportations, Homan was doing it, which I think tells
you everything about you know, the shit that we forget
about Obama. But yeah, like again troubling because Homan is
a real hawk on this stuff and has previously been Like,
he was effective at doing family separation right, and it
(27:37):
wasn't particularly organized. As we've seen, it's difficult for people
to find and reunite the families. They've been doing it
ever since Trump left office. But he was effective at
getting that shit done. And that worries me in terms
of deportations, because ICE will need to scale up massively,
as we spoke about, and like that will require someone
with leadership experience, and he has that. Like then that
(27:59):
is concerning.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Let's talk about some more diplomatic roles for ambassador to
the UN. Trump has named Elise Stephanic, who has no
diplomatic experience but has been extremely vocally pro Israel. She
harshly interrogated university presidents amid campus protests against the genocide
in Gaza, and is consistently advocated against US participation in
(28:22):
the UN and now is going to be the UN
ambassador to quote from the New Republic quote. In a
statement last week, Stephanic heralded Israel's decision to ban the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in
the Near East or UNRA from operating in Israel, the
West Bank, and Gaza, claiming that the seventy four year
(28:45):
old aid program quote instills anti Semitic hate in Palestinians
and houses weapons for terrorists unquote. She's also called on
the United States to defund the refugee program, criticizing the
Biden administration for issuing one billion dollars to UNRA since
twenty twenty one. Unquote.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, this is like a typical talking point of like
right zionists, right that the United Nations is somehow an
arm of Hamas and the UN the United Nations Directed
Welfare Agency is actively funneling weapons to Hamas, and like
it's just not true. It's an excuse for targeting aid
workers in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
The UN already has such little control over any degree
of like enforcement for like humanitarian aid, and having this
person be the US ambassador to UN will make what
little power they have even like diminished. Yes, just last October,
she called for a quote a complete reassessment of US
funding of the United Nations unquote, after calls from the
(29:44):
Palestinian authority to expel Israel from the UN for war
crimes and human rights abuses. Now the ambassador to Israel
is set to be Mike Huckabee, the former governor of
Arkansas and evangelical Christian Zionist. Similarly, he has no diplomatic experience,
im going to quote from the Atlantic quote. He has
led religious pilgrimages to Israel and visited the country dozens
(30:06):
of times over the course of several decades. He also
opposes a two state solution to the Israel Palestine conflict
and says that quote, there's really no such thing as
a Palestinian unquote. He is really bad. Yes, Mike Huckabee
is really bad.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
He has also advocated for Israel to permanently annex and
take control of the West Bank, and he like legitimately
believes in a religious political ideology to return all Jewish
people to the Holy Land of Israel to trigger the
Biblical apocalypse resulting in the death of all Jews.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
Well, my feelings personally, and I'm speaking only as a person,
I think Israel would only be acting on the property
it already owns. I think Israel has titled the Judea
and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use.
There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's
Judy and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement,
(30:59):
their communities, neighborhoods, their cities. There's no such thing as
an occupation.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
This is why he believes this. This isn't like out
of care in his heart for Jewish people. It's that
he wants to trigger the apocalypse. And to do this
he needs to both like, eliminate all Palestinians, give total
control of the land to Israel, make all Jewish people
live there so that Jesus can come again and do
the wars and blah blah blah blah blah, all that
kind of stuff. It's nasty. The last diplomatic pick here
(31:26):
is Middle East Envoy Steve Whitcoff, who's a Trump campaign
fundraiser and a real estate developer. He has no diplomatic
or foreign policy experience pro Israel. He'll basically just be
assisting and all of the bad things that everyone else
I have already named is going to be doing.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Wait, sorry, my brain just broke.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
So the Middle East Envoy is just like a real
estate investor guy. Yep, yep, that seems I mean, I
mean yeah, is it much better than Jared is going
to do peace in the Middle.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
East like last time.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yes, you can look at this similarly to like Jared
Kushner's proposals to like develop what once was Gaza and
just like viewing wars in the Middle East as a
real estate development opportunity. You can see a guy like
this kind of in line with that side of like
the Trump campaign.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Jared's got to handle it, and we're gonna handle these
ad breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
All right, we are back. It's time to discuss the
elephant in the room.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Genuinely brought that out in my mind.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Are we doing?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
We are going full DOGE? So I am. I'm just
gonna read part of the statement from Donald Trump announcing
this new government agency DOGE. More on that later quote.
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk,
working into conjunction with American patriot Kraamaswami, will lead the
(33:01):
Department of Government Efficiency DOGE. Together these two wonderful Americans
will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy,
slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.
It will become potentially the Manhattan Project of our time.
Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for
(33:27):
a long time. To drive this kind of drastic change,
the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance
from outside of government, and will partner with the White
House and Office of Management and Budget to drive large
scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to government
never seen before. Their work will conclude no later than
(33:49):
July fourth, twenty twenty six. A smaller government with more
efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to
America on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Declaration of independ unquote.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Jesus christ Man.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So this is this is the new quote unquote government agency,
which is not real. Right, this is not a real
government agency. Trump just can't create one out of thin air.
And in this statement it does clarify that they will
be providing advice and guidance from outside of government.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
That's pretty funny. This is a children's table, like they
have the plastic cutler reads it's.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The children's table. Yes, he's He's sending musk and the
vec off to the side to have their little fun.
They'll make like a blog post that talks about who
to cut, you know what programs to cut. VEC specifically
talked about like ending healthcare for veterans, which I'm sure
will go over very well, and they'll submit that to
Trump and then the people in charge of the Office
(34:41):
of Management and Budget will probably just throw it in
the trash. But we will see. I mean, I don't
want to understate Musk's general influence in like Trump's operations,
because Musk right now does have a great deal of influence.
I think this doge thing isn't something to be too
worried about. Though. Now, as a as a fun side
note to kind of demonstrate the nonsensical nature of this,
(35:02):
I'm going to talk about something that Vivek has proposed.
He has said that a way to cut down a
government bureaucracy would be to make a list of all
of the non elected government employees and fire the ones
that have a Social Security number that starts or ends
with an odd number. This way, you can automatically cut
(35:23):
seventy five percent of the workforce without having to worry
about racial, gender, or political discrimination. The Vech says, quote,
not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American unquote.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I think that's going to work that way.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
This is proposing cutting like two million people. Talking to
front of the pod Lex Friedman, he framed this as
a thought experiment, not necessarily a policy proposal, and said
that a more complicated form of this idea could select
to save people with quote the greatest commitment and knowledge
of the constitution unquote. This is goofy, Like this is fake,
(36:01):
Like this isn't this isn't real. He's not going to
cut seventy five percent of the workforce. You should be
more concerned about Schedule F, a policy that Trump will
reinstate that gives him power to remove government employees at will,
to select for people that align with him more ideologically. Like,
that's the real thing to be concerned about in terms
of like government staffing. I'm not much concerned about Vivek here, though.
The Washington Post did report that some Trump advisors have
(36:24):
asked Congress for thirty five to fifty million dollars to
fund the DOGE Commission. The alternative is to raise money
from the private sector, which seems more likely. It's also
just very funny to have like an efficiency department ran
by two people, especially if you're going to ask to
spend fifty to fifty million dollars because yeah, I'm sure
(36:45):
the best way to improve government efficiency is to give
two billionaires fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's to have two people running running an apartment. That's great,
Like that's what we need. Too many.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, it's also like a fake department that'll just produce
like a write up that talks about cutting social Security.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Right, one will throw it in the bin.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
That's all it's gonna be. Musk has also gone to
Twitter to try to get people to send in job
applications to work for free, to like sort to sort
through these like these people that should be cut from
federal government. He just wants people to do work for free.
So now you have people setting in job applications to Twitter.
I'm sure that'll end great for those people. Part of
(37:21):
this just feels kind of like a scheme to like
coerce Trump into allowing the formation of a fake government
agency to pump the value of doge coin. Like, yes,
dogecoin did like boost some value after this announcement, and
like this is very suspicious and like should be maybe
illegal because this could just be like a cryptocurrency scheme,
which is very very likely now despite the kind of
(37:43):
goofy nature of Doge, and like the idea that this
is basically just Musk of Abeck sitting at the kids
table to keep them happy while the adults take care
of real business. I don't want to rush over the
influence that Musk currently has on the Trump admin. Basically
since election night, Musk has essentially been living with Trump
at to mar A Lagos, just.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Like the first buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yes he is. He started to call himself first buddy,
which makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
The richest man ones yeah, first friend, with benefits absolutely pathetic.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Musk is reported to be giving input on staffing decisions
and joining phone calls with foreign leaders under play a
clip from scene on here.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
Multiple sources tell me tonight that Musk has been seen
at mar A Lago nearly every single day since Donald
Trump won, dining with him on the patio at times.
Today they were seen on the golf course together. Musk
has been in the room when world leaders have called Trump,
and tonight we've learned he's also weighing in on staffing decisions,
making clear his preference for certain roles, even publicly Tonight,
(38:43):
Elon Musk is backing Florida Senator Rick Scott as the
next leader of the Republican Conference to replace Mitch McConnell.
While Musk himself is still not expected to take any
kind of formal position inside Trump's administration given how complicated
it would be with his companies, what's becoming clearer to
Night is that he doesn't really need to, With one
source telling me Elon Musk is having just as much
(39:05):
influence from the outside.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
NBC's reported that a source close to the transition team
has told them that Musk is quote behaving as if
he is co president and making sure that everyone knows it.
And he's sure taking lots of credit for the president's victory,
breaking about America pack and X to anyone who will listen.
He's trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him,
(39:28):
and the President is indebted to no one unquote, which
is a very very fun statement from a Trump guy.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It's also not true. Doesn't Trump ohloads of people money?
Like empirically we know this.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yes, and currently through lawsuits, Trump does out people a
lot of money. But yeah, not that that will matter
at all anymore. In a meeting with House Republicans. Last Wednesday,
Trump reportedly joked, quote, Elon won't go home. I can't
get rid of him, at least until I don't like him, unquote,
which kind of underscores the running bet pool that we
(40:02):
have here at Colzone Media on when the Trump Musk
falling out will happen, and we will we will keep
up on this story very closely, because I really can't
imagine that that Musk will stay here for too long.
I'm sure he'll stay in some proximity, especially with all
like the government contracts that SpaceX has, but Trump being
like this close to Musk surely will result in some
(40:23):
kind of fallout. And maybe maybe that's opium. Maybe maybe
that's me just fully hot up on hopium. But I
really see able ASM working to our advantage here with
Trump eventually just getting sick of this guy. And I
think part of what Elon's doing here as well, and
other people have possilated this, including Robert is like Elon
can't run for president legally, right and out again, laws
(40:43):
might just completely go out the window here. But because
Elon's on, a natural born citizen like Elon can't run
for president, and Elon does want power. So basically, Elon's
trying to become as close as he can do President
Trump to be like like this, source said co president, right,
that's kind of his end goal heres. He wants to
be the president and he can't, so this is as
(41:04):
close as he can get. That is most of the
main picks so far. Lastly, all mentioned like three people
who worked on the Trump campaign who will now be
serving as advisors, including danz Cavino, James Blair, and Taylor Buttowitch.
All these guys appeared pretty frequently in the behind the
scenes documentary about Trump's twenty twenty four campaign, and all
(41:25):
three of these guys primarily focused on like weaponizing anti
immigrant claims to get Trump elected. That was kind of
their main focus, especially James Blair. But lastly, lastly, I
do have one more person to mention, the co chair
of Trump's transition team, the former CEO of WWE McMahon.
(41:48):
She is working as the co chair for the transition team.
She is the wife of A Vince McMahon. Now. She
also served in Trump's first term as head of the
Small Business Administration from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen. Two
failed Senate runs in Connecticut. Now, besides co leading the
President's transition team, McMahon's also their front runner to lead
(42:08):
the Department of Commerce. Now, to kind of tie this
back to Matt Gates, she along with her husband, are
also currently being sued for sex trafficking underage boys in
the WWE. The suit alleges that WWE leadership knowingly allowed
an announcer named mel Phillips to groom and molest the
five plaintiffs who were hired as ring boys from the
(42:29):
ages of twelve to thirteen. Ring boys basically like people
who like help out on the side for you know,
I see, they're kind of like performative roles. Yeah, so
that's pretty fucked up. And the fact that this whole
qunon movement has now resulted in two people being charged
for sex trafficking or at least investigative for sex trafficking.
Being this close to the Trump orbit, I'm sure, I'm
(42:51):
sure we can just trust the plan and things and
things will all things will all turn out fine. But yeah,
that's a little it's a little Linda McMahon a fun
fact there. So that is all I have to say
at this point about the Trump cabinet picks. There's gonna
be more. I know RFK is gonna be its own
nightmare that we will get to. Yeah, I guess any
closing thoughts, uh, Sophie or James on this this who's
(43:13):
who of the worst people in the country.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Who's gone I've come next?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
And that's basically it, and and not even that after
this first round and then like obviously he's gonna fucking
fire some people. Who's he gonna report who's he gonna
replace them with?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
It will be like Instagrammers by the end of four years.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I'm sure he's really just going through all the people
who have like pledged complete loyalty to him, including people
who've like previously been critical but have like turned around
and gotten fully on the Trump train. And like, the
thing that links up all of these names is that
Trump believes that they're not gonna turn on him, because
that was the thing that really threw a wrench in
his first administration. And the reason why he's appointing all
(43:53):
these people who are just chronically unqualified, it's because they
need Trump, right, Like if Matt Gates doesn't become then
he's also like out of a job now because he
resigned from Congress, and he'll also probably face more punishment
for his alleged sex trafficking. But if he's in charge
of the entire Justice Department, he's not going to get anything, right. Like,
a huge part of Trump like trying to become president
again is to get out of all of the criminal
(44:16):
complaints and indictments that he's been facing the past year.
And now none of those matter. I'll point you to
a Legal Eagle video for like why none of the
convictions will matter, None of the ongoing cases will matter.
All those trials are now completely meaningless. He has gotten
away with everything. Looking over this whole list, you see
a lot of neo cons in foreign policy positions and
(44:37):
like mega celebrity loyalists in domestic positions, which makes a
lot of sense for Trump trying to both like maintain
his own power as well as showing off his kind
of hidden neo contendencies. And this entire cabinet points towards
centralizing power with just him and the White House. Right,
these people are not qualified, So now Trump basically will
(45:00):
puppeteer every department and Trump's advisors, including like Stephen Miller.
So this is all about centralizing power and demanding fierce loyalty.
That's what all of these appointments point towards.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
This is good ending. What a happy show.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, that is a great ending. You know, not all
these will have happy endings because we're currently facing a
pretty rough situation. But we will have some episodes later
on in this week that do point more towards what
you can do to protect yourself in the coming days,
including Molly's episode tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. But
this is just a quick, a quick rundown on why
I don't like every single person appointed to these positions.
Speaker 9 (45:39):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Foolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 9 (45:52):
You can now find sources for it could Happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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