Transcript of Trump DOUBLES DOWN on Extremism, PROMOTES Stephen Miller

At first, the president seemed to signal he was open to working across the aisle, even floating potential deals on immigration and the economy. But the olive branch didn't last long. Instead, Trump has tapped—wait for it—Stephen Miller, the architect of some of the most divisive policies, as his new chief of staff. Ordered the Justice Department to investigate top Democrats and even floated UFC Bostina White as his next press secretary, but then said he was kidding. Democrats say Miller's promotion is a clear signal that Trump is doubling down on the very agenda voters just rejected.

Trump is now saying the election was stolen. Let's watch a bit of Trump's interview yesterday with 60 Minutes.

And it's a big one to talk to the president after a, you know, generational shellacking like that. So that was number one. Number two that I think is most important, and this is a combination of some of the denialism from the president that we heard in there and who we know him to be, the fact that he posted a few minutes ago, "Does anybody really believe that this election was honest? How could the polls be so wrong?" By the way, the polls all said this. They actually underestimated the Democrats, but whatever.

Some early voting dumps were so large that it was impossible to win no matter how many people went to vote. That's like in Texas and North Carolina that Talarico and Roy Cooper won from the early voting, not even Election Day. It's all about the machines. This is where it gets even more dangerous, which are far more important than the voter. President DJT, that's the shit they pulled before, where they said that the voting machines were hacked, that there were some, you know, weird systems through Venezuela, maybe the Chinese.

Remember when he floated that this year? They had a big announcement about Chinese interference into our election system. Now, I don't know how many Americans are left believing Donald Trump about this stuff. Like, there are ones, I don't know, 60% or so of Republicans think that 2020 was not completely fair. But I'm curious to see the update on who doesn't think this election was free and fair. And that's the most concerning thing to me right now.

And you think, well, that's wildly inefficient. You know, you hear some states it takes three days, other states it's literally when the polls close, they report the results. And one of the reasons we continue to do that is that it creates an additional layer of security. And that is if, for whatever reason, if one system gets hacked, it's one of 50. And so they purposely have decided not to put, create one technical platform across the entire nation. They've decentralized the way votes are counted, and it kind of makes sense.

The other thing here is that, I mean, the size of this win, well, what I've also noticed, and I don't know if you've noticed this as well, is that right-wing media has been much more remiss to start picking up and spreading and endorsing and legitimizing any calls of election fraud or election tampering based on, quite frankly, what happened to News Corps. I think that $750 million judgment when they started spreading that information about Dominion voting machines and Chavez, that, I think that is looming.

I think the majority, especially the bigger cable networks, have said, "Be careful." There was a three-quarters of a billion dollar judgment, or settlement, not even judgment, settlement levied against a network that decided to run with these rumors, if you will. Have you felt that? You've been on a lot of cable news lately. Have you felt that sense that there's just, there's one, the size of the win is sort of like too big to be rigged, and two, I think that does, that has, that is an overhang, if you will.

I mean, he started off the first few days after the election being pretty nice about Democrats, saying, you know, they had a huge win, and then talking about his ballroom and the arc to Trump. And it wasn't until Friday when he put Stephen Miller in as his chief of staff that you started to go like, "Ro, you know, where are we descending to?" And it's interesting, the contrast between President Trump says on 60 Minutes, "Yes, immigration went too far. It was too tough." And you have Stephen Miller in place, who is the architect of this immigration policy.

I do, can we have a second for the Dana White situation? Because the fact that he's trying to spin it, that he absolutely knew that the recommendation that Susie Wiles left was for a Dana White who is like a normie Republican who's worked in the State Department before, and a woman, not a man. And then he's like, puts out the Truth Social posts, which happened on Saturday while I was at CrookedCon, the Pod Save America Blue Tsunami Festival of the day, where everyone was just going bonkers for this.

And then he's like, "No, it isn't that." And that it was the anniversary of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, I believe. And in honor of, I wore my Four Seasons Total Landscaping sweatshirt. Do you see?

And that's what we've been saying, that this group, the swing voters care more about economics than bathrooms or Ukraine. They're just focused on, "How do I get a job, a mortgage, and a spouse?" But at 90%, this was what was most shocking about those exit polls amongst the swing voters, at 90% was concern around corruption, which I found really fascinating, that that seems to be getting more purchase amongst young people than I had anticipated. And I've said, people keep asking, "What does the next two years look like?"

I'm not as scared as other people because I think there's just going to be more guardrails. I also think up and down the food chain or the chain of command, if Blanch says go after these people, he's threatened to prosecute congressmen and their staff if they decide to initiate investigations. That's basically what he's saying. And my sense is I'm not as worried as I would have been a couple of years ago because I think the supply chain or the command chain is probably thinking, "All right, do I really want to set myself up for subpoena in 23, 22, 21, and 20 months?"

I think it's, I think they're going to be in a little bit, I think these guys are finally going to have some guardrails around not only the number of Democrats who are now heading these committees and have subpoena power, but I think his own base is going to say, "Okay, he's going to pardon himself and walk out of here in the short term, and I'm going to be stuck trying to explain why I decided to take these orders, which were clearly wrong." The other thing that just shocks me is that when they did the debrief, when they went into a room and they had, you know, their best and brightest, and they said, "All right, what's the takeaway here and what we do?"

They decided that the singular decision, the way they should respond to this blue tsunami was more Stephen Miller. It just, okay, how did they interpret that is the right thing to do? It just absolutely struck me. So the midterm wipeout isn't just creating problems for Donald Trump, it's also throwing JD Vance's political future into question. The vice president had been widely viewed as a front runner for the 2028 Republican nomination. Cauchy still has his odds at 33% to be the nominee, but after Republicans suffered the worst electoral dropping since Watergate, some of his own allies are privately questioning whether a Republican can even win the White House in two years.

Yeah, you think? In fact, Vance's political future is so uncertain that some of his confidants have floated alternatives, returning to Ohio to reclaim his old senateseat or even running for governor. Vance has rejected both ideas, but the conversations underscored just how much the political landscape has shifted. Jess, what do you think, what do you think this says for Vance's presidential aspirations? As we all know, you know, two years is a long time. What happened to his prospects last Tuesday?

I think, and I don't know how I feel about this because both should have had huge implications, but the ad is way worse than the Haitians are eating the cats and the dogs. Somehow, you know, the people were like, "Oh, actually, I'm kind of cool with this, but this is beyond the pale." And I don't think that that long tweet that he posted about what went wrong, even though President Trump said some variation of, you know, JD had some points in there that are definitely right, I don't think that helps him. But what was most interesting to me in DC, I was talking to a friend, a conservative, very into Donald Trump, MAGA movement.

She's a journalist, an opinion writer, I should say, more than a journalist. And she said that nobody should run in 2028 because it's just going to be a wipeout and that that is going to become the thinking, that you would want to hold your powder for 2032 versus getting in there again. And I don't know how that affects like a Ron DeSantis. He already ran, but I feel like no one really cares about that or thinks that it was a bad stamp on him because Donald Trump was so the leader of the party at that point.

But I wonder if folks like a JD Vance or a Marco Rubio will sit it out and wait for clearer skies rather than going in '28 when the map is going to be brutal for Republicans. Like this was our bad year for the map. 2028 is the Republicans' bad year.

No one gets to hang around the core and not get leukemia and ultimately die a slow but certain death, political death. Go through every one of his cabinet members from 2016. Where are they? What's happened to Rex Tillerson's career? You know, anyone, he sent a duck dynasty mob with a noose after his then vice president. And then, and JD Vance, or excuse me, Vice President Pence, who deserves a lot of credit for standing firm to the Constitution.

What would have happened if Pence had been the kind of sycophant that some of these guys are, that we could have really had a constitutional crisis, but still, he got infected, he got radiated. Anyone near this guy does not get out alive. And so the notion that Vance, in addition, almost all of our presidents, I would say since Nixon, have had one thing. They're all likable. You know, you may hate their politics, but you know, W was a very likable guy.

They've all been exceptionally, people say about Trump, he's incredibly likable, he's got incredible charisma, he's got great political instincts. JD Vance has none of those things. What is really interesting is who will be elevated all of a sudden. You know, I would argue that as much as we don't like his policies, DeSantis held onto the red seats. He did a good job as a Republican. I think the state is well run. If you are honest and look at any measurable objective, he has benefited from the greatest migration trends in history, specifically people leaving cold high-tech states and moving to warm, warm low-tech states, Texas and Florida being some of the biggest beneficiaries of that.

But the state has done well in education. You know, I just think taking politics aside, he has been a competent executive. I also think that running, my guess is running a presidential campaign means your machinery is sort of, while it's fallow, you know, the bike is in the garage with a tarp over it, but you do have a bike. I would think he's learned a lot. I don't think, you know, my money would not be on him, but I still think all of a sudden you're going to see on Cauchy, his odds begin to rise. A couple ramifications or a couple additional thoughts on the Republican side.

One, I think the number one most likely is TBD. And here's just some past Republican candidates or aspirational candidates at about 12 or 18 months out from the election. So say in 6 to 12 months, this is where the number one polling candidate on the GOP side at that moment, Rudy Giuliani, he was polling number one. Herman Kane, remember him, Jess? He was polling number one, passed away in COVID.

And then my favorite, Fred Thompson from LA Law, was polling number one. So in some, who's the GOP candidate? Really, really nobody knows. And then my final comment is, I think there's a non-zero probability, and I'm curious if you've seen any reporting here, that Secretary Rubio comes up with a reason to resign to get some distance from Trump.

So if I were Rubio, yeah, I would be thinking about the nearest exit in a way that I can do it with some degree of elegance where it doesn't feel like you are running from a burning building. But I wouldn't want to be around for all of that. And I think that right now he has probably the best reputation of anyone in the administration. Even when I talk to, you know, center-left people about 2028 and, you know, that process you go through, like if I went to bed and I didn't know the results, what degree of nervous would I be to what I was going to wake up to?

And a lot of them say, "I wouldn't be losing my mind over a President Marco Rubio. I would still vote for the Democrat." But I think that folks think that he's a pretty competent guy and he definitely has a field of expertise and he has changed, obviously, in the Trump era, but that we knew a lot about who Marco Rubio was. Maybe you didn't love all of it. What's going on, certainly in South America and Latin America are his dreams.

Jess, you were at CrookedCon over the weekend where Slotkin discussed this. How are Dems feeling about Schumer staying as leader? It seems like, just to be blunt, it's going to be Speaker Jeffries, but the unknown here is leader or Senate minority, soon-to-be Senate majority leader Schumer. What do you think the actual odds are of someone unseating him?

I think it was his wife's grandfather's. And just saying, you know, new crop of people, young folks, we're going to be covering all of this on social, which I think is fabulous. But they all talked about needing new change on the trail. But then you show up and there's the brass tacks of actually how you're going to do this. And AOC did a big video about how you actually would get a new speaker of the House versus having Hakeem Jeffries, who she's backed, and Jai Paul's backed, and Ro Khanna is backed.

So the idea that you're going to be winning some challenge when there isn't even anyone running, but all the progressives are getting in line, I think is just for your social media base at this point. And the question will be, how can these leaders meet the moment for people that want this big change, but still in the same leadership package? And what Chuck Schumer could do, and I imagine he will to some degree, my guess would be he's not going to run again in 2028 and kind of pass the torch so that he's not in an ugly primary anyway.

You know, you make yourself a caretaker leader or something like that. But when people say to go from, we are celebrating the biggest wins that we've had since 1974 to we got to throw out all of our leadership who did a lot in terms of candidate recruitment and certainly financial support. Same thing with Ken Martin, who we were knocking on him, right? Saying this guy sucks. It should have been Ben Wickler from Wisconsin.

And I don't know, the DNC and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer pulled off something pretty spectacular. I'm not saying they made every choice right, but I don't know. It looks pretty good right now. We have blue Texas for God's sakes. What do you think?

I don't, you know, he clearly is a confident person. One of the things that struck me when I've been looking at these great montages of the people who are outgoing versus incoming is the average age differential of Democrats replacing Republicans, I think it's 13 years. I mean, this really was, we've been talking about this a long time for the need to shed the skin and have Congress look more like America. And this was the biggest step towards that ever. You know, a Native American governor. We've only had three Black governors in the history of America.

We now have five seated. First openly gay, first openly gay senator, first Black female governor. Strange to think you'd even say that at this point, right? I didn't realize we'd never had a Black female governor. And also, youth, they really have, you know, a number of, you know, even going to the local election out here in the West Coast, the mayoral election in Los Angeles. I don't think this was a mandate on socialism. I think it was a mandate one, Karen Bass, what didn't lose to Rahma, she lost to the Palisades fire.

But I think Nitya is 45 and Mayor Bass is 72.

You can be a little bit, you can demonstrate a little bit more of your values, even if it's not populist, because the Senate was initially constructed or envisioned to be something that wasn't as responsive to the populace such that they didn't give in to populism. They could take time to say, no, this is wrong. And even if my constituents don't like it, I'm going to vote for it because I got another four or five, six years to see how good decisions play out. So I think being Speaker of the House is one of the few things that's cooler potentially about being leadership.

Whereas I wonder if Senate, I feel like Senate majority leader, quite frankly, it's just a shitty job. It feels like a job where you're sort of invisible until you fuck up and then everyone's all over you. I mean, you have, I can't, in addition to trying to make a good Senate representing your state, you have all this admin, you're just, it strikes me, you're just putting out fires all the time and no one notices who you are until something goes wrong. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people say, you know what, I'm not sure there's a lot of upside to this.

You want to call me the devil, that's fine too. Just win your seat.

And you think, I'm not saying it has to be AOC, but this is somebody who's obviously a great representative of the party. She is actually hugely popular, even with Republicans, has great relationships, especially with like a Tim Burchett, for instance, who's a very conservative member of the House. And we need to think about how we treat younger members when they try for leadership positions within the party. Because it's one thing to have a younger caucus. It's another thing to actually elevate them to positions of power within it.

And I'm going to be interviewing Hakeem Jeffries on Friday, actually. And I definitely want to talk to him about this because there are a lot of committee chairs that are part of the old guard and are in their, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s. And you look at this Congress and we're all swooning over their social media savvy and these incredible things that they were able to do. Like I love all of these young parents, right? It feels like they're living the same parallel life that I am.

Republican Thomas Massey is expected to force a House vote this week and even some Republicans say they're open to hearing the case. Wow, this feels like he is on the green mile, Jess. What do you think the odds are he gets impeached this week?

I think that this is a very good early target for an accountability agenda from Robert Garcia. He talked about it over the weekend when I went to see him speak as well. And I don't think anyone, especially when the war in Iran is, you know, a top concern for folks who went into the voting booth and they have real questions, not only about the economic implications, but how this was actually carried out to haul him in there. And all the folks that he's fired, like new Congress people, like Admiral LaCour in South Carolina, like what has he been doing in there?

And what level of, you know, betrayal of core American principles have we seen? So what are your thoughts on Pete going first?

I mean, he's so, do you think there's a chance when he gets seats, when he goes around the hall and talks to Republicans and some of the Republicans start humming and hawing and not giving him full throat of support and he goes, okay, this isn't like impeaching the president. The threshold is much lower and I'm about to be impeached publicly. Do you think maybe before that happens, he says, I'm out?

There was a while where they owned the town and now everywhere you look, there's a liberal. It does not bode well for them.

And I've dealt with this a lot on corporate boards. There's this constant, this is just a constant issue in boardrooms and, you know, among employees at every level. And this is different though. So first off, they fired Intel, McDonald's, and Nestlé CEOs for undisclosed relationships. Jeffrey Zucker was fired supposedly for a relationship, an open relationship that was, you know, an open secret with him and the CMO of the company that they had disclosed.

So CEOs have been fired for a lot less. This involves national security. And by the way, I'm a fan of Jensen. I think he's done an amazing job. He should absolutely resign. The fact that he was not, he was not privy to the notion that someone buying chips in Asia could potentially be a bad actor just reflects incredibly poor judgment. And logistically on the ground though, you can already see what's happening.

And that is typically almost always in every corporation, you would put the CEO on leave as you conducted your investigation for something like this, especially involving national security. And this brings up two big issues. One, what we have are defense level, CIA level, weapons grade, missile production, Northrop Grumman sensitive, you know, nuclear submarine construction like sensitivity, and we have, we work like security. The reality is companies like Nvidia and OpenAI are the new defense contractors.

This is the most sensitive material in the world. And the fact that they don't have a minimum level of security protocols to ensure something like this doesn't happen. The other thing, the other thing that's really upsetting here, and I actually think the bigger story that hasn't been covered is that the Defense Department or our security apparatus had suspicions and maybe even knew that Ms. Huang was connected to the CCP and was potentially a spy, and they didn't give Jensen a heads up. Because it's clear this administration doesn't want anything to get in the way of Nvidia's stock, even if it means compromising our national security.

This is, I mean, this really reflects poorly on our security apparatus, what the priorities are of the security apparatus or President Trump. He'd rather take these types of risks than potentially risk the S&P, which is his sole bright spot. And also, you know, Jensen, this will be a lot of hand-wringing. The reality is the guy is worth $180 billion. He's 62. Most of us have been fired. This isn't a crime against humanity. He could retire. He could not only retire to Newport Beach, he could buy Newport Beach.

And also the stock today is down, but it's not going to be down that much because you can't build a $5 trillion company without building an outstanding bench. And just practically, and I've said this, I've been on the board of two companies that had nothing like Nvidia, but had sensitive technology. And just as we have to have open and honest conversations with our boys, board members need to have open and honest conversations with directors. Because what happens is you get older as a man and you get more powerful, you start believing that you're sexier than you are. You start mistaking kindness and people wanting power for sexual interest.

And as men get more power and they have this incredibly irrational actor known as their dick, they need guardrails and they need very direct conversations. And the direct conversations I've had with these two tech CEOs who are in their 30s and 40s is I've actually said to them word for word, if a woman is interested in you sexually or gives you those cues, you should assume she's a spy. And what people don't realize, and this sounds paranoid, but it's not, corporate espionage is everywhere. It's everywhere.

Because the fastest way to grow your economy, any economy growing over 4 or 6% a year is engaging in IP theft. We did it to European manufacturing technology. The Chinese have been doing it to us for 40 years. So for a CEO selling the most sensitive technology to not recognize there was a possibility here and for our own security apparatus not to give him a heads up, this is the mother of all midlife crises, no guardrails, poor communication.

And what this really indicates is that the government needs to do a much better job of installing the same types of security protocols. This doesn't happen to CIA operatives in the field because their training is, okay, if someone shows up with a Russian accent and seems to be just really interested in you, your spidey sense should go off right away. And we should have the same protocols and the same security apparatus and same security clearances at companies like this. This is a big moment because I do think it's going to have implications, more broader implications across OpenAI, Anthropic, and the other sensitive companies around, okay, people shouldn't be able to just show up in the lunchroom or start DMing the CEO of these companies.

This is a big deal.

And I'm going to focus on my family and focus on my philanthropic work. And leave in a blaze of glory. And okay, he's worth $180 billion. He's still a relatively young man. I'm not sure the worst thing in the world is to not have to work 80 hours a week and thread the needle in AI and what's going on with it right now and go live an amazing life. And you want to leave before you're forced to. And I do think if he doesn't leave, Senators Warren and the new heads democratic of all these committees are dying to get him in front and ask him very uncomfortable questions and maybe have some surprise witnesses to talk about exactly or demand that we get to read his texts in 300 font.

I mean, imagine what's gone on here behind the scenes. And it's going to be very ugly for Jensen and his family and Nvidia. So to me, it's like, okay, boss, ring the bell. You've been amazing. And it's not like you're, I mean, I can understand how a lot of these people cling to power because it's the most important thing they've ever done and they're not even going to, no one's even going to recognize them once they resign. That is not true. In America, to be worth $180 billion means to be loved no matter what room, no matter what room you walk into.

This is, the other dynamic here, I'll mention this briefly, is this is how boards actually work. Immediately I thought, okay, they're asking him to stay on. Uh-oh, this is what's going on. I looked at the board members. The board members are fairly mid-level executives. This board does not match the importance of this company. One example of a board member, and she's an impressive woman, but board members don't get enough scrutiny and CEOs get too much. A woman named Don Hudson, she was a senior executive at Pepsi. She was the CMO of the NFL.

Both great jobs, an impressive woman. She was probably making $600,000 or $800,000 a year at these companies. She has not worked in a full-time position since I think 2018. Since being on the board of Nvidia, by my calculations, she's made about $80 million in Nvidia options and stocks. So this is what happens on boards like this. Everyone around the table is flying private and can get their kids into, you know, Stanford or Duke because they make million-dollar donations. You don't think that creates an irrational amount of loyalty toward the CEO?

Do you think these people are really objective about what's gone on here? In addition, the reason this CEO does not match the quality or the importance of the company in terms of their background and their achievements is because CEOs, in my experience, are very good at creating boards that aren't rubber stamp, but pretty close, that are just all about Jensen and defer to Jensen. And you can see how this would happen because Jensen's done such an amazing job. When they immediately said he's going to continue to operate the company while this investigation is going, anything involving national security, at a minimum, you say Jensen's going to go on leave.

This is who's going to be running the company until we get the findings here. But CEOs every day, folks, are fired for a lot less than has gone on here. So before we get to audience questions, just the last thing here. Let's check in on Israel where Benjamin Netanyahu could finally be facing an exit from power. President Isaac Herzog has tapped opposition leader and former military chief Gadi Eisenhott to form a new government after last month's inconclusive election. Eisenhott has six weeks to build a coalition, but he'll need support from Arab-led parties.

I just want to just highlight that this is how Israeli elections go down, that Arab-led parties may decide who's in power here. That this is, just keep in mind that I believe this is the only democracy in the Middle East. Anyways, this is a prospect some of his own right-wing allies oppose. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is still fighting to hold onto power. Jess, any thoughts on what a change here or turning the page or an Eisenhott government would mean for Israel's future?

So my guess would be, I'm not a, you know, a MIDI specialist this way, but that Eisenhott will be working very hard to find a way to get to yes and will immediately start working on some sort of solution for the West Bank settlements. Hopefully whatever a modern-day version of the Camp David accords could look like so that a two-state solution of some kind could be realized, but also going on an enormous global press tour to try to fix these strained relationships that Israel has with everybody.

I mean, even with the, you know, biggest cheerleaders has a strained relationship with President Trump. So I think that that'll, those things will be top of Eisenhott's list. And people should keep in mind, it's not like Eisenhott is some lefty. He's conservative as well. Was an IDF chief. He just knows that the post-October 7th period has been abysmal for Israelis at home and abroad and that something needs to change.

So I hope that it is the case that some folks who are even supportive of Netanyahu will see that this isn't like the DSA rolled into town and is taking over. You know, this is something very different. And I understand there'll be some friction with principles of some of the Arab parties. I think it's 18, 19 votes in this, but it is the only way to get rid of Netanyahu. And I think that they should take that opportunity.

He's not for nuking the filibuster. I am not sure where Atala Rico would be on this. I assume Annie Andrews based on her TikToks and tweets would probably be for the radical change, but I think they're going to try to govern, try to make some deals if they can with President Trump, though, if he's in an election denier mood this morning, I don't know how effective that's going to be, but I think it would be more towards a last resort than one of the first things that Democrats would try to do.

Anyway, it's going to be very interesting. Question number three, Marcus asks, now that there's a Democratic governor in Texas, does Ted Cruz have any chance at another presidential run?

I don't know if he'd be the best pick for a nomination. I'm curious though what Democrats are going to do if there's a vacant Senate seat, Supreme Court seat. But yeah, I think Ted Cruz is staying put at this point.

And someone said to me, there's no way as Democrats wouldn't want to give up the Senate seat. But there's now several Democratic governors that put probably some senators on the VP ticket because they would not have to give up that Senate seat. In other words, I think there's more eligible VPs from the Democratic side because they wouldn't be worried about, they wouldn't lose the seat, if you will. Any last words before we sign off here, Jess?