Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and a poll of three hundred and twenty nine CEOs from Chief Executive magazine says seventy percent of CEOs disapprove of Trump's tariffs. The other thirty percent are just drunk. We have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to figure out what the court's rebuke of trump Ism
and the Trump agenda means for America. Then we'll talk to the New York Times Theodore Schleifer about America's oligarchs and how the public is reacting to their overreaches.
But first, my happy Eastern let me tell you something. Our president. He has sent a joyful, positive message to America on this glorious holiday.
One of the things that we will look back on, perhaps not so fondly, is that Trump.
To send an Easter message.
That is one of his He likes an Easter message, a Christmas message, any holiday he likes to mark with an insane tweet. This one is from truth quote unquote, Happy Easter to all, including the radical left, lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring murderers, drug lords and dangerous, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane and well known members of MS thirteen gang and wife beaters.
Oh that's bad.
Now back into the country anyway. Happy Easter to the weak and ineffective judges and law enforcement.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
My favorite part is he mentions that he won the twenty twenty election. He did not, and I wish you with great love, comma, sincerity, and affection a very happy Easter.
I almost feel like he's going through the motions like he doesn't even believe in it anymore.
See see, I have a different opinion. I miss the haters of the losers. I want that most shit back in there.
Instead of the haters and the losers, he's moved on to radical left lunatics.
Yes, that is true. That is the two point zero version of this.
All and right, that's haters and the losers.
I hate what he calls me out like that.
Yeah, he hates when he But you know, the thing that is the one thing that's interesting about this is it's clearly obsessed with the autopen.
This is this thing.
He was obsessed with that, and I'm sure he uses the autopen too.
That's what he did the January sixth Pardons with right.
Well, it's a lot of writing, but he get very offended that by and used an autopen.
You know, it's just the greatest hits.
My man has like a goldfish brain where everything goes round and round and around.
Yeah, so Bali, I don't know how much you saw yesterday, but man, the people were out in the streets again for the second time this month. We got caught in traffic trying to go cross town with it, but we love to see how many people.
Were out there.
Yeah, another huge swath of protests, the no Kings protests, protests across the country marching against Trump and musque. There were tons of protests. It's the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. And if you don't see the irony there, that's pretty rich. It's the fifty to fifty one protests. The idea here is
fifty protests in fifty states, but one movement. And this is two weeks after the April fifth hands off protest, in which hundreds of thousands of Americans marched in fourteen hundred cities.
Look, people don't like this.
They don't like a president who's stripping away the social safety net.
Nobody wants that.
This is Project twenty twenty five, reminding you, guys, this is the stuff he's enacting. When voters found out about this in July, they didn't like it. And so here we are. This is what's happening. Nobody likes it. Voters don't like it. There's no reason why you should be living through it.
And here we are.
Yeah, so, Molly, you'll be shocked to hear President Trump is responded to this poll, and he is truth. The businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business?
Oh wow, is this new? Did this just come in while we're doing this?
Yes?
Yes, yes, the businessman who criticized tariffs are bad at business, but really bad at politics. They don't understand or realize that I have the greatest friend that American capitalism has ever had.
Big exclamation point.
Well you know who else doesn't understand that the.
Markets we have quantitative truth that they don't right.
The markets don't like it either, So I mean the CEOs.
And the markets and the bond markets and and.
And you know futures.
Yes, yes, yeah, there's quite a lot of people who also don't understand that he is the greatest friend capitalism has ever had. And there's a reason for that because he's not right. Crony capitalism is not the same as capitalism. Donald Trump bankrupted at casino. This guy is not good for business. And this is never a bus this way. You know, there's a reason that Russia is such a tiny,
tiny economy, and it's because it's a kleptocracy. And thank god America's big enough, so hopefully we won't get there. But this is absolutely nice of him though to you know, it's interesting the CEOs really gets them right, because that's like, you know that those are the people he wants to be friends with, those are.
The people whose Jetsy wants to ride on.
Ye.
So, Senator Chris fit Holland has been doing a lot of press to get attention on Kilmar Aubrigo Garcia and his visit to El Salvador. And one of the things he's bringing attention to is the theater that they put on down there in El Salvador.
I'm glad that they're talking about this, so you'll remember Maryland Senator Chris van Holland went down to see a Brago Garcia to see if he was okay, make sure he was alive. Some people thought he might not be alive, and you know, they weren't going to let him see him, and then they decided to let him see him. But what I think here is important is that he realized that they were sort of being set up. So this is something we've seen a lot of authoritarian countries do
where they set it up to look bad. So Holland said that they had wanted him to meet this man by the pool.
To make it look like they were in paradise.
They had brought them drinks, these drinks that looked like tropical drinks, and one of the drinks that had a little bit more liquid the guy who was in jail. They made it his drink had a little less liquid, so it looked like you've been drinking. This is all the kind of stuff that we see, you know, in the authoritarian playbook, right, make it look bad, make it look like he's not in jail, that this is all lie.
I think at some point the president of al Salvaro realized it was looking really bad to have this person who had been absconded from America from the streets of Maryland in one of their prisons and was not able to communicate. I do think that this case has broken through. People don't like it. They don't feel that it makes any sense. I think that a lot.
Of voters feel like, if you can abscond one person, you can abscond with anyone. And that's Look, this is a test run so that they can do it with American citizens, and the fact that it's getting this much pushback means that it's not working, means that they're less likely to do it to any of us. So it's good news that there's pushback. It's important that we keep pushing back. Everything matters. Don't give up, like these protests matter.
People are seeing these protests and knowing that Trump has to do back down a little bit. And maybe he doesn't back down exactly the way you want him to, but every single protest matters. The reason that he wasn't able to really destroy the country the first time was because he met all this resist Since that has to happen this time too. I'm sorry, I know we're all exhausted, but that's what has.
To happen Somali.
There is a big, big rebuke of Trump is with the Supreme Court this week, but it was not a nine to zero decision like earlier in the week.
There was descent, and Alito has thoughts.
Justice Alito, but first of all, they didn't let him finish his descent before they published, which I think is kind of amazing.
It's pretty funny, Like you.
Know, Roberts is like, fuck you man, excuse my friend. I'm sorry.
Justice Samuel Alito descended the Supreme Court decision on Saturday to block the Trump administration from deporting a gang of Venezuela and migrants accused of being gang members under rarely invoked eighteenth century wartime law, which one would need a war to a note invoked, by the way, like War of eighteen twelve, World War one, World War two, not right now, because there's no war going on. Calling the courts order, so Alito is like just trying to defend Trump.
He's all alone, he says.
He calls the order hasty and prematurely granted, because it's better just to do the order after the migrants are deported, so that you can never get them back. In his five page descent, released on Saturday, shortly before midnight, just as Alito.
Joined by guests. Just guess who joined him, The one, the only.
Clarence Thomas brod thatation intervene. It was not quote necessarily appropriate, because after all, it's not like it's taking the right to choose away from women or something.
So Arizona, while we have seen it trend blue, this legislature still often comes up with really psychotic shit. And thankfully they have Governor Katie Hobbs there to save the day with a Veto.
For Katie Hobbs, I mean, that job's got to suck, right, I mean.
She worked really hard to get it.
Yeah, and you just have to have the craziest before in the world. There. Here's what's going on here, Arizona.
Governor Veto's bill requiring local officials to help with federal immigration efforts.
It's naughty. It's you know, She's right. I mean, they're.
Really trying hard to like put together this like fake police force of people in plain and clothes who can like do policing like a little militia, little Trump militia.
And every time they do this is bad. It's bad for American democracy. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. No, no, no, stop doing this. Not good new no yet. That is all I have to say. It's good for Katie Hobbs.
The News. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List.
Hello, Rick Wilson, Lily Drug Fast.
How are you today?
I am good because you know I tell me because this Supreme Court decided.
Seven to.
At one in the morning.
Yeah, talk us through what exactly happened here.
So we've been edging closer and closer mally to this constitutional crisis of will Trump ignore the courts when they give a direct, clear, unequivocal court order that is within their purview. Will he ignore that order and trigger the big crisis? And we've been getting closer and closer to that. But over the weekend, at one in the morning on Saturday morning, the Court said stop, no more deportations until
we review this case. You're allowed to appeal this, but basically the way they wrote it said you can appeal it.
Good luck.
I think we're in a moment right now where the court to save its own reputation in the future and to save its own ability to exercise its inherent constitutional powers. Finally had to say, Okay, this is enough. That'll do pig.
I think it's meaningful.
Clearly, what happened behind the scenes is that Justice Roberts got this zero opinion earlier in the week, right, is that even if you're not in this country legally, you are still entitled to do process.
I mean, there's just so much you can see. There's just a ton of.
Roberts behind the scenes here being like, look, look, because you don't get decisions like I'm thinking about historically, decisions that we have had come out of this court that are seven too. I'm sure that people write to me and give me a lot of them, but it tends to be that you've seen a lot of four or fives right where Amy Cony and Robert side with liberals. But to see just the two Fox News hosts on their own on an island, I think is meaningful.
I think the degree to which Roberts has slowly I don't want to give him credit for this, but I'm going to. I think he has slowly and carefully constructed a functional narrow majority because I think Bear and Gorsich, although appointed by Trump and although frequently wrong on a lot of decisions. I don't think either one of them has the same stretch of almost anarchic trump Ism that
Alito and Thomas display every single every single day. I don't think either one of those I don't think Gorsich and Barrett want to be remembered as the people who ended the constitutional order.
Right, this is how we got here.
Right, they didn't have to give him broad sweeping presidential king immunity.
No, they didn't have to. And it was a wrong decision.
Yeah, that was not good.
That did not accrue well to either the court or the country. But it's better right late than right never. In this case, the Court has laid down a marker. Will Trump obey it? I don't know, but I think the Court is terrified of what Trump is doing, of ignoring orders from all the lower courts. They didn't want to be the ones who had had to lay the hand hammer down, but you know, here we are. If they had not given Trump to get out of jail
free cart before, we'd be in a different spot. But they did, and now they're having to make difficult decisions because of what they've done in the past. That's you know that happens to us. All, yeah, we fuck up. We have to deal with it.
Yes, And also I would say more broadly, this has been yet another week of Trump World really kind of crashing into the guardrails. So again, Monday of last week, Trump went to work with Harvard. Now Mike Schmid at the Times has a story that says, actually, it was an accident.
They didn't mean to send the letter.
Right.
Oh my dog ate my homework.
Right.
So again it's Trump world. So maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was an accident. Who the fuck knows, It doesn't matter. What's meaningful is the fact that they're saying that they might not have meant to do it, like they know it's on part popular and they know they're fucking themselves up. And then Abrego Garcia, where they thought that al Salvador case would be good for them. You
keep seeing there like he's a gangbanger. They brought out the mother of a girl who was murdered by someone else who just happens to also be from a South American country as proof that this guy who's wrong like you Tainan, is somehow guilty. And they just can't make this narrative stick. And they thought that this narrative. And it's funny because you saw and I think it's meaningful. You saw Governor Gavin Newsom saying, like, don't burn capital
on this. But the truth is this has really translated like it was on the cover of the New York Times, like people actually do not And you saw that press conference. People don't like knowing that there are people being disappeared from this country without due process.
I think we are right now in a very dangerous position, given Trump's desire to fundamentally reshaped American politically the landscape. He's looking for a big win on immigration because everything else has gone in the crapper, everything else has gone completely wrong for him. The more he flails around trying to find a way to get a win and to bring his numbers back up from where they are, the worse it seems to be getting. I mean, you've got
the Pentagon falling apart. Who could have foreseen that Pete Hexath would have brought in a bunch of morons who leaked to the press all the time. You know, the economic team is infighting and trying to screw each other.
So that's two different members of Hexa's team have now been marched out three.
Three three as of today. As of Saturday, excuse me, the Chief of Staff was also on the out, so it's his leadership is just about what you would expect from a Fox News host with a drinking problem. We have a really fundamental need at the White House right now to get a win, to get some kind of sexy distraction thrown out there that will stop the bleeding, and I don't know that it's out there for them today.
I think Albriga Garcia, as many times as they say, oh, he's a gang banger, he's a criminal, he's this, he's that, none of them have yet sufficiently proven that case with evidence from a court.
Right. Well, I also think like they thought this was a winner for them because they thought, and you heard them transmit this, right They kept saying, well, you know, if Democrats want to go to bat for this guy, who's clearly you know this or that terrorists, right, and like, clearly that is not working because when you saw Chuck Grassley, you know, and when you see people this stuff breaking through in the middle of the country, obviously people are
not saying like this is not us. They understand that once you start getting rid of due process for one group, you get rid of it for all the other groups.
Right once the machine of violating anyone's rights kicks into high gear, that machine will start violating everyone's rights. It's a historical pattern, that is indle. I think there are a lot of people in Trump's world who the Stephen Miller types and weirdly like the Carolyn levittypes. There's no policy power, but she's certainly gaining perceptional power in Trump's universe because of her willingness to go out there and
do what she's going to do. But right now we're about to see a big conflict Molly, because Pete Hexeth and Christy Nome have said they're going to officially say from their organizations they don't want to do the Insurrection Act.
Which is good, which is very very good for any number of reasons.
I think that's a headfake. I think Steven Miller could talk Trump into this in five minutes.
I think we got to stay sort of in the hola hoop of the sort of most recent stuff and not get so excited about all the coods and woods because Donald Trump could and would and probably will do a lot of shit. But right now there were so many wins this week, and another win I want to talk to you about is the tariffs. So this week the Wall Street Journal, Miss Josh Dossey had a piece
that was unfucking believable. Unbelievable, right, unbelievable except for anyone who's lived through Trump one point zero, in which case is totally believable.
But so basically the whole net event is.
The tariffs were completely the idea of one Peter Navarro, and he was crashing the markets and hanging out with Trump and convincing Trump that crashing the markets was good. And then when they saw Peter Navarro's schedule, Scott Besson and the wonderful and completely insane and not wonderful in any stretch of the imagination, Howard Lutnik went in together and got Trump to tweet that he was going to take off the.
Taps, which the market loved, because that's what Besson and Lutnik understand better than Navarro, and Trump loved because then he could say, see were the winning at winners, who ever won?
Right?
It feels like peak Trump, right, Like we definitely saw stories like this.
We've all seen this particular Trump show, Molly right, for years. He's got a very bad case of last man in the room syndrome. Whoever's with him last can convince him of almost anything. And I think what we saw with this was there was a part of Trump that wanted to be convinced.
By the way.
Oh yeah, his radar for things that hurt him is pretty acute. I think we can agree, Yeah, And he had to understand at some level, as long as Navarro wasn't up in his ear at that very minute, that this was a bad, bad outcome for him and for his party. I mean, we're looking now at the main parts of Trump's coalition, White working class voters are going to take this right in the throat, and he knows that. Now.
Trump is not a smart man, but as we always say, he has that fairal cunning about what he's got to do to survive, and the idea that he is going to let this thing go and continue to grind on and to hurt him like it's been no chance.
Yeah, I think he still could let it go on because I think if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's that he's not organized. He likes taruffs see him going either way on this because the truth is he's completely insane, unpredictable and insane. But what I think is important here is that that story doesn't get out unless some people are not leaking it, which means, right, these big leaked stories are the reason why Trump is not going to succeed.
I mean, there are a number of reasons why Trump.
I think will ultimately not succeed this and one of them is because we're not going to be cowards and go move to Toronto. We are not going to obey in advance like some people who moved to Toronto who will not be mentioned on this podcast. It will never be guests on this podcast again. But we will not do that because we are here to fight with you guys peacefully and smartly. And so that's one of the
reasons why Trump won't win. But another reason why is because the incompetence and then also people covering their asses like Scott Bessen saw. I think you got to assume Latinik too. They saw the writing on the wall, they saw, you know, their friends think they're fucking morons now.
I mean, these guys are definitely looking at a lifetime of purgatory inside the financial community after this. They're not going to be welcomed back around the table. They're not going to have open arms from Jamie Diamond and Raydiel and all those other people. They're not going to be back in big deals ever. Again, maybe that doesn't matter to them, but their reputations are now absolutely train wrecked by this madness on Tariff's And again it goes back
to even Trump. Even Trump has a certain degree of understanding when something's hurting him. And yeah, you know what, he could probably have talked himself into, Oh, I'll lose two or three points on my faves, on my approvals, but now he's lost between twelve and fifteen points on his approvals.
He's as unpopular as he's ever been now.
Right, he has never been less popular, except for that one small period after January.
Sixth, right, and when he did insurrection. You may remember when he did insurrection.
When he tried to overthrow the United States, that little thing. And I think, Molly, we're right now looking at at a very bad few weeks for Trump because the damage has already done that Chinese are absolutely owning him.
So let's talk about the big problems right now for Trump. Because here's what I say. He's alive, dude, No China trade war. He's trying to pass.
These tax cuts not going to happen at this point.
Right There's some incredible reporting about Trump. There's no way this will ever happen, about Trump saying that maybe he's not going to do the tax cuts for very rich people and instead do the tax cuts on tips.
Ha ha ha ha hilarious.
Yeah, Trump has a very very meaningful problem, and a lot of his working class base are not people who are making their money on tips. I mean, right now, there's a big part of Trump's bace. Somebody was explaining this to me today. When you take the combined effect of tariffs on manufacturing, on trucking, on port workers, on all the things that go into the blue collar supply chain, Trump could not have screwed those people more effectively if
he tried. And the people that are going to be truly angry, they're not just the waitresses earning tips or the waiters earning tips or whatever demo that is. There are many more people who have been harmed vastly more by tariffs than would ever benefit from this tax on tips garbage.
Yeah. Yeah, but I also think, like you have China, you have the tariffs, you have trying to pass this thing, and then you also have another thing that happened this week, which I want to do two menison Lisa Murkowski saying that people are scared. But yeah, you know, we can be cynical, we can be whatever. But that was meaningful. Tell me why it's meaningful.
Murkowski is better than Susan Collins, which is sort of damning with faint praise.
I know there are so few people who are doing anything right.
Yeah, the honest answer spoken aloud has long been what holds Trump's power in place. They are afraid of retaliation, and they're afraid of retaliation, be it political, be it physical. They are terrified at the retaliation by Trump's base against them, by Trump's operatives against them. And at some point, if no one ever spoke out, it would continue indefinitely. But she spoke out, and you've got to give her some props for that. You've got to give her some praise for that.
I know you're very not wanting to, but I'll give her some praise.
No, No, I am going to give her some praise. She did the right thing. And you know what, as I always say, better right thing. Late than right thing. Never she could easily take the next step and say, you know what, I'm not a part of that caucus anymore. I'm going to caucus with Angus King. We're going to be a couple of independents. And every time you guys want my vote, you have to come to me and you have to work with me. You have to give
me a hearing on what I need and want. That power that she could have is quite enormous, but you have to take it. You can't You're not going to get somebody's going to give it to you.
You have to take that power, Rick Wilson.
It always goes so quickly when we talk.
Theodore Schleiffer is in your Time's Reporter, covering billionaires and their impact on the world.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Steady.
Hi, thanks for having me.
You have been reporting out some of the most very organized keeping track of what is happening. And I feel like you started the story of tech bros And money, and all of a sudden, this story of tech bros and money intersected with the story of the federal government. And now the federal government is made up of a lot or at least the people running the federal government, whether or not they're appointed or congressionally approved or now there's a huge swath of bros in there working away.
Yeah, I mean, I mean people who I sort of think of as not prominent Silicon Valley personalities have become more prominent Washington personalities, where they're bigger than in politics never were in technology. A lot of attention gets paid by everybody to Elon Musk, but like I have been fascinated by all the other kind of homies he's brought with him who are ending up in positions are pretty David Sacks, Yeah, I mean, I mean David Sack is
a good example. I mean he's somebody like, yes, he was famous.
He was never famous, he wanted to be famous.
He was Silicon Valley famous. But now you know, people around the globe track his tweets for the latest public markets news. It's remarkable just to see the amount of power that these people have taken, and it's something that I did not anticipate, frankly, even though I was covering it.
Let's start with Elon. What's happening?
The Wall Street Journal this week had this monster expose where he has all these women that he meets on X.
And he dms them and then he sends them Sperman. They have children. I think that's the net that story, right.
It's a highly abridged version of the you know, three or four thousand words story, but I.
Mean, ultimately, that's what happened to this conservative influencer quote unquote conservative quote unquote influencer, and that's what's happened to other women, right.
Yeah, I mean the story sort of looks at, you know, the unusual ways in which you know Elon has cultivated these women. I was fascinated just about it as a business story. It sort of like looking at like Jared Virtuell, who is a well known character in my world, who runs Musk's family office, you know, has to manage these
relationships and payouts and secrecy. And I've done no reporting myself on that front, but it was remarkable to me just to like think about what that job must be must be, Like Molly, I mean, if you were the wealth manager or the family office had for the biggest richest person in the world, Like a lot of that job is typically asset management, right.
It should be running a family office, but it is paying off all of the children he had.
Presumably, well, you know, you get you're signed up for i mean virtual as registered websites that are meant to be Elon jokes before over the years, and is also like he's involved with everything that that musk is doing. I mean, Gired's been spot in DC since the inauguration, and part of the job apparently is kind of dealing
with baby mamas and keeping every with everyone happy. And I would I would be fascinating to know Jared's reaction to that story, because it looked like, just as a reader, it was basically all his texts to actually Saint Claara were basically just leaked by her.
Presumably, Yeah, who could have seen that coming? Certainly not me? What is that? Why would you leak all this stuff? You know?
The thing that I thought was a little bit interesting in that story was that the baby mama numbers there are some people in there who speculated so much higher than what we know.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you'd ever ever totally know. I mean, obviously secrecy is a key part of this, you know, Elon is presumably I mean, the Journal report is doing this with lots of women, so it's a hard thing to determine journalists. That's why, Molly, you need that word at least, or that term at least before you describe any kind of the of the Musk progeny, because is it fourteen or is it at
least fourteen? Because that's ahead, I can allow you to cover everything from fifteen to fifteen thousand.
At any number.
So let's talk about where Elon is explaining to us sort of he paid for this presidency and he's still there, right.
Yeah, though, I mean, we weird. The Times reported something today that I thought was pretty interesting about how Musk and Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary who Elon originally wanted not to get that job, have had sort of this falling out this week over kind of who exactly was going to be the acting head of the IRS, and Musk and Vescent were fighting with one another, and Trump sided with Bessent ultimately, and the guy that Elon wanted
in there was push out. There's always these questions about where's the limit here. It's always been speculation, and there have been It's not as Elon has gotten everything he's wanted, but you know, an another l for him this week.
I mean, the autocracy is bad, but the tear seem to have been the thing that have gotten a lot of people upset. The tariffs have cost Elon billions of dollars? Is there any do you see any daylight from that between him and Trump?
So it was interesting that Musk was so public about his position that he thought the tariffs should not be put into place. You know, we haven't only seen Elon respond to this kind of modifyed tyreff regime. Right, Trump is put in places in ninety day pause for most of them, and Musk is not weighed in on that, right like I mean, he was unhappy with the kind of the most raconian version of this, and maybe in ninety days he'll again be unhappy with that traconian version.
But what if we get into some place where we see, you know, some targeted tariffs on some countries. You know, it's of course impossible to ignore the complex of interest here that Elon has, you know, particularly on China. More, Testil has a time of business and he is uniquely or not not uniquely, because he's not the only person in the world, but he's certainly the only person in the Trump administration who could be just so dependent on. You know, they're not being a trede war between the
US and China. We'll see where he is in three months, if he's happy with the end result.
When it's one hundred and thirty days, I mean, I know the law is not so interesting to these people, but when it is one hundred and thirty days, there will be a question of whether or not. You know, he's meant to have a cabinet appointment. Obviously I don't know that that happens. But are you I mean, do you get the sense that he's ever going to move on, that there's any kind of real tension between him and Trump. We've seen some reporting on that though, you know that sort.
Of it can be overstated at times. Yeah, I mean Trump likes having him around, you know, Musk likes being there. You know, there's this law which theoretically limits special government employees like Elon Musk two one hundred and thirty days in a calendar year. They'll all say, like, people play games of that all the time. What does it really mean to work in the White House? What doesn't really mean to be working for the government, you know, in this age of you.
Know, working for anywhere?
Low?
Yeah, I mean Democrats played games with this too. I mean Anita Dunne was was a special government employee for the buy An administration.
And she's so much like him too.
Could you see a world where Elon is like not working for Trump the other two hundred and thirty days of the year, but like, you know, he's talking to Trump every single day. But you know, sometimes there's some
physical geography questions here, you know. I saw on a story recently about David Sachs, there was some reporting that well Sacks is going to be who's also a special government employee, that the Hill only be in California every other week, so therefore it's away for him to get around one hundred and thirty day thing.
There's gonna be a lot of games with that.
So you don't think there's any world in which they follow any of that.
I don't know.
I just I just think there's a lot you know, there's a lot of holes in that Swiss cheese there, and I think there's a lot of people who can get.
Around it cleverly.
And then that's a time warn tradition, and I'm sure Elon would at least explore it, right, I mean, at least explore if there's a way to kind of maintain his status as a special government employee while staying involved.
Don't as this wall of receipts they took down so likely because of some of the very good reporting from you and also from David Fhrenholm that they took down like one of the big savings because it wasn't it never happened, or it was sort of thought of happening. You know, it was a Schrodinger's contract. So we're seeing they're really not saving much money. In fact, there's an argument to be made. It's sort of the opposite. Talk to me about that.
Yeah, the wall over seats, we love it. Yeah, I mean, I mean I should say thank you for that, But I feel like Farenhold has been kind of owning that for us. I mean, essentially, at least as a reporter. I'm like kind of surprised when something's posted there that is accurate, that feels like news to me. I think people are wise enough to know now that you know, any claim that Musk makes about anything requires, you know, some skepticism. But you know, they've called this the most
transparent government project ever, the most transparent administration ever. You know, they certainly talk a lot.
No evidence to support that, but yeah, it's continued.
They certainly talk a lot. And and you know the wall over seats. You know, I'm glad it's there. I rather have it there than not there, Right, but.
A lot has been had to have been taken off the wall.
Yeah, what does that mean? What does that mean to you?
Taken off the wall because it was wrong?
Yeah?
Like, what what do you think is going on there?
Oh?
What do I think's going on with the wall of seats?
I think that some of it's wrong and some of it is just trying to get away with whatever you can get away with. But my question is if it's hard to make the case that he's saving the government money. He's wildly unpopular, right, Like his polling is terrible, right, even like from Wisconsin, that Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we saw that only five percent of cold people said that they were more likely to vote for a candidate because Mosque was involved. Must poured you know, one hundred million
dollars into that race. So he's not popular. Here's like thirty million, thirty million, but there was all together one hundred million into that. Sorry, but he's not popular. And he's also not necessarily cutting the spending. Right, those numbers just keep going down and down. So how does the administration spin him sell him?
Well, I think politically what we're getting at is, you know, Trump and I did a story with my colleagues about this, right for Wisconsin. You know, Trump is to some extent comfortable with Musk is a little bit of a heat shield. Right that basically he's a way for you know, Democrats being mad at him and protest him, and then you know, theoretically he can be discarded, but at the time of Trump's choosing. But I guess I find myself a little bit more contrarian here. And this is based on the
reporting that we've done. Like, I do not think Trump is tired of Elan being around. I think he's politically useful. I think Trump sees Elon, as he says publicly, as a saber rattler in a way to kind of shake up the system, and Trump likes that. I do think there are risks with that approach, just say nothing of policy, but on politics for Trump, you know, especially on so security, which is something that Trump does not want to disrupt
in any significant way, at least benefits. But you know, I find a lot of the reporting that or or speculation that you know, Elon's gonna go on any day now, is it a bit overstated?
It's been going on forever or so.
Right, that's been going on since day one?
Right, But what about like all of these other MAGA personalities, for example, like Sax is the cryptosar whatever that means.
And AI crypto and AI.
Oh excellent, lucky ass. What does sas do? And does Sacks annoy people?
I mean, these are very wealthy people, not used to getting along with others. Now they are working in the federal government. Like, how is this working?
Yeah?
I haven't done any reporting on kind of whether Sacks is grading on people.
Is Elon grading on people?
I think he's great on some staff. I think on others he's not. You know, Sax is an interesting character.
I mean, he he It's been funny to me to watch, not that Twitter is everything, but like Sax's job is crypto and AIS are, but yet he has seems to have enormous amounts of free range just comment on anything, you know, like in a way that you know you'd forget he's the White House staffer or White House are like, like, typically, you know, I think we're forgetting because we're in Trump Land and we're forgetting kind of how nuts the stuff is.
But like typically, you know, if you are the crypto and ai Zar, right, you just talk about the issues you're an expert in and like on Twitter, like Sacks like here's my opinion on Ukraine, right right, right, what she was doing before he was in the government. But like there seems to be no inhibition that I'm doing that. Like also to you know, he's still on the All In podcast regularly. Is that cleared by anybody or is that just kind of.
Like Ted Cruz, I mean that's yeah, why not?
Yeah? But I just have wondered, like what exactly his job is and isn't And like people have glory lines to the gig they do, but like Sacks seems to just be sickly continuing to being influencer at the same time he is, you know, having this kind of government bureaucratic policy job right.
No, now for sure, and that's true with quite a lot of people in this administration.
Right well, definitely they've started using this kind of special government employee status. I mean to do a lot of stuff that enable that it gives you, you know, free reign. The counter argument to that, Molly would be like, it's not as if like she's a random TRENP official. It's not as if like Sergio Gore right, who's the head of the White House Personnel Office, It's not as if he's like tweeting every day like here are my personal opinions about you know, like issue X.
Right.
I mean, typically you are a staff member, you work for the president, and you don't have this media profile that unless maybe if you're a cabinet member right where you go on TV and you talk about your personal opinions sort of I feel like Sachs and then some of the tech people have been able to maintain their roles as like content makers and tastemakers and influencers at the same time they have these kind of policy jobs. And we're three or four months in they've been getting
away with it. So there seems to be totally no issue.
But here's the question that I don't understand, right, is that I don't get if if they're running, they're like known to be whatever policy billionaire geniuses, and Trump is doing these terms which are super unpopular and making people just normal Joe's think that he's bad at finance. How do they continue going this way?
You mean, if like people think that these smart guys aren't that smart, what's what's going on here?
Yeah?
I mean people have survived in jobs and not being smart for a very long time, and you.
For just long enough.
So good on America, right, thank you, Teddy?
You bet no moment, Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
What is your moment of fuck? Gray?
My moa went a fuckery this week is the very existence of Pamela Joe. That's j O Bondi. I can't with that name, but Bondi has been out this week front End Center as loud as she can, screaming that Abrigo Garcia is a thug, a monster, a terrorist, a criminal, a gangbanger, a thief, a wife abuser, and she fucking knows better, She absolutely knows better. But she's playing this for Fox, and she's playing this for Steven Miller, and she's playing this for clicks.
Doesn't want to get fired by Trump.
Well, I find it as the person who is the Attorney General of the United States, her behavior is such an affront to that position that you know, if she had a brain and moral she resigned, but she works for the Trump administration, so she doesn't. But I just find it. I find it deeply shitty that she has no compunction whatsoever about telling this lie at scale every day. I find it offensive. I find that I find it disturbing, And yes, you know what she is going to all
always play this role. She's obedient, she is compliant. She's exactly what Trump wants in that regard, but it is not what the country wants, and it is not if you're the Attorney General of the United States of America, what you should be doing. She's on my fucking list, Let's put it that way.
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