Will Trump Bring the River to Washington?

Talking a little bit about Donald Trump's cabinet picks, the influence of the community I call the river people like Elon Musk, and looking a little bit ahead dangerously toward twenty twenty six and the midterm map.

Since we last spoke, Nate Trump has started making some of his initial appointments, and so we're starting to see the kind of initial trends outlines of what Trump two point zero, what the administration is going to look like. Some of those appointments seem to be more riverian than villagey in nature. Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about river versus village and what the Trump administration seems like it's going to be as of now.

very risk averse establishment. The expert class and that class had like a bad week last week. I think, you know, will Elon be formerly part of the cabinet, I don't know. I guess you can bet at polymarket and the Ohs are in favor. I'm not sure that Elon necessarily wants to have a cabinet seat. I'm not sure that he needs to have a cabinet seat to have a lot of influence over the over the trajectory of the administration. You know, typically Republicans are also more willing than Democrats

to appoint business people to cabinet seats. So for Treasury Secretary, for example, Scott Bessen, a hedge fund executive, is under consideration. Trump has, however, also made a lot of very kind of normal appointments. Elis Stefanak, for example, who is a used to be kind of moderate Republican member of Congress.

Is uh is going to be the UN ambassador or some of the Republicans win the House by enough seats that they can keep the House if they lose a couple of seats, which is actually like a little bit of a risk. Marco Rubio is set to be Secretary of State. Lee Zelden, a former New York Long Island representative, relatively moderate, relatively is under considered for EPA administrator. So and there are some more MAGA epics. H Stephen Miller, who has very conservative views on race and immigration, is

the Deputy chief of Staff for policy. But you know, Trump is how to put this, Trump's cabinet nominations, I would say, on balance so far with Rubio, for example, are maybe not quite what the village would most have feared. I don't think. I mean, I'm sure there will be one or two or three or four that they really dislike. Steven Miller is certainly one of those. For example. We'll see about Attorney General is a very important one, for instance.

But you know, maybe that reflects a little bit of the a little bit of the the River's influence, just maybe. I mean, you know, I would say the rivers should in principle be in favor of more rational governance. That's kind of pro business and pro growth. Doesn't do stupid things, right, you know. Now in practice they get very red pilled, and so you don't have the most intelligent version of

the arguments coming from like Elon Musk for example. But you know, like if I were, let me put it like this, if Trump called me, and then I'd say, well, you want to be popular, don't do a bunch of fucking tariffs. It might be popular in the service, but it'll make the economy worse. Don't deport a bunch of immigrants. We can have a more organized conversation about that, right,

And then maybe the other stuff. Okay, whatever you're Trump, it's not and you're not gonna do what I want anyway, Right, But you know, can they get Trump to moderate on these issues? Then? I don't know. That remains to be seen. And the answer when it comes to Trump and moderation, on the one hand, is never been on anything. On the other hand, it's not always clear where Trump's passions

lie and what he really cares about beyond himself. You know, there was some poling that found that one reason that Harris's message on abortion didn't resonate as much as they were hoping for is because voters just didn't really believe that Trump was passionate about the abortion stuff. Right, So where will he be guided, I think is an open question.

that message. And this was a very smart person, and it just it made me realize that that, yes, that a lot of people don't really you know, it's one of these like I don't think it will actually happen types of things, and I'd like i'd like to believe that it won't. And I think that that's psychologically kind of that kind of hopeful or wilful ignorance or trying to say like, I don't think that's gonna happen. Oh, you know, it's not really that bad. I think that

that is actually a very major thing. But I do actually wonder you know, we're talking about the river versus the village. Trump is very much of the village, right. He is very establishment, you know, old New York family money like he and the only time he the times he's tried to foray into the river. Like the casino business. He's bankrupted it, right. He has proven himself to not be very adept when he does Riverian things. So I think that I think that we do need to realize that.

I think he is the village as well. Elon Musk, of course, does represent the river, and I don't think so far we have seen signs that with or without an appointment. It seems like, at least for now, he's still on the inn with Trump, you know, putting him on the call with Zelenski talking about foreign policy when that seems too you know, why in the world would

he be doing that. I think that that's a really interesting trend, and we do see I think this confluence of you know, Silicon Valley technocrats, etc. Big money coming

to Washington in an informal advisory way. That to me, and I don't want to you know, I'm not trying to draw too many parallels that might not hold, but to me, it's actually kind of evocative of what happened when Putin came to power initially, where you had a lot of oligarchs and a lot of you know, big money, a lot of big business people backing him and thinking you know this is going to be good for us, this is going to be good for our bottom line,

and we're going to be able to control him. And obviously what happened was a lot of them are now dead or in jail or in exile because Putin was absolutely not controllable and ended up turning on basically all

of the people who brought him into power. So I think that that's an interesting semi parallel and I'm very curious to see whether Elon Musk and others like him are going to be able to maintain their influence in Washington or whether we're going to see something like that as well, because we know that Trump has no problems turning on people who were allies of his right. He's

done that. He did that in Trump one point zero and Trump two point oho is probably going to be more brazen, although as you say, who knows.

let me ask you, Maria. Yeah, does the fact that Trump won by this convincing march and have you update your views on Trump at all?

actually not doing that well. That instead we do see people wanting change, and so I would not be at all surprised. You know, let's let's talk a little bit. You know, you kind of hinted that we'll talk about

twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Democratic parties make more gains in twenty twenty six, because you know, when you're the establishment, it's much more difficult to kind of play the victimhood card and say, oh, you know, it's the establishment versus us. Now we are the establishment, So I think that we might start seeing kind of things go the other way, because I think that some of the vote wasn't necessarily a vote for Trump so much as a vote for

I'm not happy, I'm not doing well. These people in power, you know, seem to be responsible, so like, let's put someone else in power and hope for the best.

like three or four seats short. So you are going to have like a effectively freedom caucus led majority, which will not always disagree, will not always agree with what you might formally have called the up establishment majority. All of it is pretty maga now for the most part. And Democrats held their losses to four Senate seats, which

sounds like I'm spinning. But here's the thing. So you have forty seven seats now, and you're gonna have Trump gable to appoint the cabinet nominees he wants within reason. Candemocrats get back to fifty Senate seats by twenty twenty eight, in which case we have a President Shapiro or President Gretchen Whitmer or ever else. Gavin Newsom, I think probably thinks he's gonna get it that I think that time. So for Gavin Newsom, I'm just kidding. Uh, you know,

can they have a democratic Senate? And the answer is yes. It's not that hopeless for Democrats because they need three pickups if they win the presidency. They can win with fifty to fifty. There are two races in North Carolina

between now and twenty twenty eight. There is one race in Wisconsin that's gup held, and there's one in Maine where Susan Collins keeps holding on every year, but now her luck might run out, right, So Democrats need to win three of those four without losing any of their own. There are some other longer shot bets. Ohio, where Shared Brown lost has a special election because of Jade Vance in twenty twenty six, and that's a race Democrats will

surely contest. If he ran again in a more blue environment, he might be in a toss up race there. But yeah, look we're kind of going back to like, look, all the risks, the existential risks to democracy, I think think are are less now because you had a clear verdict. You didn't have a disputed verdict, Harris, Thank goodness didn't dispute the verdict. I'm sure Trump would have if the

same result had been only in their foot. You know, look, you'll have commentary to say, well, what he doesn't want to give up the presidency in twenty twenty eight. I've never seen any type of like warrant for that theory. Necessarily, No, I hope, I hope you're right.

you know, our our democratic transition will work. Do you have any any parting thoughts anything you think we should be looking at, paying attention to kind of heading forward or just let's revisit when it becomes a little bit more clear. I am like one of the things that I'm very curious about is to see kind of how much the Muskian influence will will remain in the Trump administration, or if he'll turn on him sooner rather than later. It's something that I'm just like quite curious about.

And you know, I think Democrats a new way to like have attack lines on cronyism, which can which can dovetail well with populism of different kinds. I mean, I think they don't know which way to go. I think they're kind of like shocked at how much certain parts and it's again it's minority of Silicon Valley. It's probably

a quarter or thirty percent or something. But I think they were not ready for how much money there would suddenly be from the crypto space and from the AI space and from things like that mostly working against them, and what it was going to be like to have these people who of course, of course Democrats went to discredit Elon Musk, and Elon Musk acted like a total fucking goofball at various points of the campaign and retweets a lot of unreliable information, but at the same time

he is a different type of person who can vouch for Trump and give him some credibility, as are these podcasters and the various like podcasts rows of different kind, you know, as as his increasing number of minority supporters racial minority or ethnic minority, and so like, there are people that can like that can now vouch for Trump and kind of like and all the Democrats are kind of like uncool dorks pretty much, and like how can

they they have alebrities? I mean, joy Read the MSNBC host was like, you know, Beyonce endorsed and blah blah. It's like, come on, like you can't. Like it's not like actually how you win elections, you know. But look, look Democrats, the sooner Democrats. I think this is controversial. Trump is likely to hang himself hang himself to be unpopular again in the normal ways that incumbents are unpopular in their second term, meaning spending too much money even

though GUP is supposed for definit production, they're not. They probably have another big tax cut that we're not paying for, and engaging in unpopular foreign policy conduct and personal scandals and just general fatigue and bad decision making that you

make when when you're seventy eight. I mean, Trump is a few months older than Biden was at the start of his first term, and so you know, I don't I don't know that the rhetoric of like existential crisis, like I don't think it was helpful to Harris and I don't know that helpful to Democrats now. And it's made a little easier when you actually have a clear verdict on an election night where Trump will win the

popular vote. And so you know, looking forward to and by the way, I think the Democrats have taken this loss about as constructively as you possibly can. I have not seen a lot of liberal tiers necessarily right, you know, in general, Democrats recognize that we have to move to the center, which is hard for parties to recognize. And that seems like that seems good. So you know, look as far as like having steering the country back toward

I don't know. Maybe I'm neglecting the damage Trump could do in four years.

going to happen again. RFK, you know, being potentially very influential in the administration. I think that there are some effects like that that we're not even thinking about, you know, or like religion, you know, bringing religion into classrooms, what happens with federal judge appointments. So right now, we just had the Louisiana requirement to put ten commandments in every

classroom that was actually struck down. We're going to see an appeals process there, right all of those appointments that Trump is going to be making, changing the judicial system. We'll see what happens to the Supreme Court. You know, what are there retires, who retires or dies? You know, I hope no one dies, and how Trumpian the Supreme Court becomes. Because there's a difference between conservative and Trumpian, right, There's a big difference between you know, your regular conservative

judge and a Trump judge appointee. So I think that there are lots of effects like that that we haven't talked about yet that Trump could very much put in place. In four years. I think we will potentially see things that are going to be incredibly harmful.

say it's a good job. But the fact that that Marco Ribio one of the more I mean he ran a band president campaign Tway sixteen, but one of the more normal electable GOP senators and maybe the most important role. I mean that that seems valuable.

kind of hanging in there. And then as the as it got late, you know, second to last level of the night, when it became quite clear that this was not going to end well for Kamala Harris, that Trump was probably going to win. I think I texted you a few times about my existential dread. You did not engage with them with those two Marie texts, and I quite frankly punted, you know, I made uh, you know, I made a decision that it wasn't a horrible punt. What do you think about this name? I had about

thirty five big blinds. I was in the small blind. It had folded to me. I had ace ten offsuit. So for people who don't play poker, that's a very good hand. And you know in the small blind when it's folded to you, I raised, the big blind re raised, and I shoved with my.

days when you can't win a hand, right. I never got above starting stack, like, I could never get anything going. So I ended up not being able to do much over there. And so then I bought in for the fourth time, my fourth bullet on the start of day two, which was the last that you can buy in. So I started the day with twenty big blinds for people who don't play poker, that's playable, but not you know, not a huge stack by any stretch of the imagination,

and far below average. I think average at that point was like over fifty big blinds, close to sixty. Because this is a you know, it's a main event. So on day two we have ninety minute levels, like this is a deep stacked tournament. And yeah, so I ended up starting day two with twenty big blinds and had

a good day too, but didn't bag a lot. Started day three, made day three right, made day three with thirty big blinds, and ended up making the final two tables of the tournament on day four and ended up so first place was almost eight hundred thousand dollars. I was out in fourteenth, so I got around forty thousand dollars, and it was sad.

just not to think about it. There was one hand where I actually ended up making a correct fold on the turn with top pair I had. This was also a blind versus blind situation, so I had limped in with ACE nine and the big blind checked. The flop was ACE five three. I bet one blind, got raised called the turn was a five. I checked and ended

up folding to a big turn bet. And I later heard people talking about it, you know, once we were on break and the stream had caught up, saying, you know, oh my god, like I can't believe she folded, like she should have called and paid you off there talking to the person I was playing against, brock Wilson, who's a great player. He had five three right, so he had turned a full house and so I was drawing pretty much done and so it was a very good

fault fold. But one of the reasons they thought I would have called was because it was on a TV stream, right, and you don't want to look dumb folding top hair in a spot like that where you're almost always good. And I said, you know, I just don't care, right, like I don't actually give a fuck of people.

at all. You know, I had nine big blinds under the gun and shoved jack, tapsuited right. That was perfectly fine, ended up running into queen's and did not suck out the poker term for hitting when you should not you

should not hit. So that was totally fine. But I do regret a hand that got me short where I raised Ace King, one of the best starting hands from under the gun and got called by the big blind and the flop I don't actually remember the exact flop, but I think it was like something like eight four duce, and I ended up checking back as opposed to betting, and I think that there's you know, it's Ace King off suit. Okay, Yeah, So I checked instead of betting

when it was checked to me. And then the turn was a queen and it's a big blind bet and bet bigger than I would have bet the turn. But he ended up betting and I called, and then the river was a blank and he checked and I checked back and he ended up winning with a four. And I really regret how I played this hand. I actually

think I messed it up multiple times. And that's the hand that kind of I think that had I played it differently, and even if I'd busted, even if he had hero called me with his four, I think I would have felt much better about it than I did

in retrospect from having played it more passively. So I think that this is the show of the show, right Passive passive play is not is not is a decision, and it's not alw is the right decision even when you're have ic M considerations, which is independent chip model, pay jumps, et cetera.

against a small bet with your representatives queen. And so yeah, I look, I think you mentioned earlier how like, oh, it doesn't quite seem like a punt, right, And I'm not sure if this this is like a hand where it's more in the passive category. But like sometimes the things that involve like multi street planning are the things that tend to go away when when you're tired, when

you're fatigued, or been playing too much for whatever else. Right, And so it's so you know, the twenty percent of the time you're supposed to reaschhove Ace ten off student at thirty five bigs, maybe you're doing that eight centimes because you have to just thinkings out of your hand, then, right, you don't have to like have this complex plan and so and so that can be a sign of.

a good motivation. Upset not because like oh I'm so sad, you know, poor me, but upset because I was like, you know, am I I realize I'm not running well, but I really want to up my game, like I need to be competitive. Otherwise, what am I even doing spending my time playing poker? Right? What am I doing just spending money on this? I don't I don't like that feeling, And so that's I think do never underestimate that as a motivation when you're trying to do better.

all of these situations? And so I've tried to go deeper on that to make sure that I'm plugging as many leaks as I can kind of at the beginning of my game, because that sets you up to play well afterwards, right Like, if you have a major leak or even a small leak at the beginning, then the entire game tree changes if you're making those early mistakes. So that's something that I've really worked on.

not the right bluffs. Right. You are constantly on the defensive about not wanting to bloat pots, right, So we're trying to get that more correct. And obviously in some cash game settings you're kind of node locking to not people people not playing optimally, right, and you're trying to be conscious of your image and not being too much of a knit. But like, yeah, you were really drill pre flop supportance into your head if you if you're playing huge four or five figure.

not they're not calling correctly, they're not raising correc they're just not playing correctly. And even though this is something that I know, you can always refine your pre flop play, and this is just something that I decided that I was going to focus on more because there was a time when I was like, Okay, like I got pre flopped down. Now I'm going to like work on three bet pods and I'm going to work on you know, for I'm going to work on like blind versus blind

in the specific situation. And at some point I realized, you know what, now it's time for me to go back to the basics but in a more advanced way and to really make sure that I have that solid And I think that that's just good advice in general for life. Right, even if you have a strategy for something, as you as you get more advanced, as you start kind of being more sophisticated, you might want to revisit some of the fundamentals and basics to see if you

need to update right toe to see what's happening. Because the world also changes. Poker changes, poker strategy changes, people's game evolves, and so you do constantly have to update things, even when you don't think you need to update them, Even if you think, oh, like my you know, preflop, what else is there to learn? Right? I know what my ranges are. No ranges change, right, And styles change

and things change. And I think that just with everything, it's really important to keep revisiting to make sure that your process stays optimal, because if you don't update your process, it's going to grow stale as everything else changes around you. But you know, let's end on a positive poker note, and I'm going to choose to take my fourteenth place finish as a positive focus on the good. You know, I outlasted almost nine hundred players and I almost made it.

Next time, Nate, I'm going to make it to that eight hundred thousand dollars score.