Friday Roundup: Trump vs. Obama, Bessent knifes Lutnick, Van Hollen challenges Schumer

Hey, John. Hi. Trump sat down with Stephen A Smith and it went about as well as you'd expect. Let's see how Trump handled a certain hypothetical. What would Donald Trump do if he had to square off against Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States? Well, I got many more votes than he got. And I got many more votes in the States. And I have all the state, you know, most of the state records of the big states, if you take a look at Texas, I have the all-time record, Florida, I have the all-time record. Are you saying you would beat Obama? Yeah, I think I'd beat him easily, yeah. Easily. I think he's highly overrated, yeah. Oh my lord. How was how was Barack Obama overrated? I just think that's just my opinion. I think he's overrated. I didn't think he was a good president. I thought he was a divider. A divider? Yeah. And what would you classify yourself as a person that brings people together? And you bring people together. How was it? Through success, because our country is so successful and you're going to see the results pretty much starting now. I got to say, I heard about that clip, but like, method I watched it, he didn't even have his heart knit. No. And he paused. It's like, yeah, there was a moment of reflection like he doesn't really necessarily believe it. Because he definitely doesn't believe that he could be Barack Obama. And so he actually, he couldn't help it, but his, his instinct was to pause before he lied. Right, he had anything. No, I have to. I have to do it. I just have to do it. But I will just, I want to once again reiterate my view, which is I support passing a constitutional amendment that allows for Donald Trump and Barack Obama to face off. I'm happy for that amendment to include other provisions like this is for all the marbles, something like that. Right. This is it. You would, in trying to pass that amendment, you would face a well-funded campaign from Michelle Obama. Yeah, right. It would be Michelle, Michelle Obama and the Koch brothers coming together to try to stop it. Yeah. I also just, I also, it is this, the idea that that Obama was the divisive figure. Right. That was the other thing. It's like, what do you call yourself? He's like, I got to say it again. I bring people together. He's not even trying. Also, he's posture. What is going on there? This is like end of the day. Did no one told me that Stephen A Smith was coming to the White House. Why am I doing this interview? Natalie prints something out for me so I can give him some stats. It's got some jobs. I assume it's a job stat or something like that. Yes. And heart's not really. And it also didn't tend crews like last week say that Barack Obama's like the greatest generational talent. They're all they're all facing. He remains the most popular political figure in the country, I think, in the world. And it doesn't matter. Whatever way you pull it, you can pull previous presidents. You can pull living figures, politicians. It's whatever it ends up, you know, he also just lost Donald Trump just had the biggest landslide in half a century against him. Well, John, you're not, I mean, you can say that, but didn't Barack Obama lose more seats in 2010. So where's your argument there? I'm trying to get more votes because there was more population. That is for sure. Actually, Jimmy Carter also outperforms FDR. Up next, Jensen Huang resigned as the CEO of NVIDIA. As we continue to learn more, not only about his alleged affair with the Chinese spy, but also just how concerned the Trump administration was even as it was continuing to bring Jensen Huang to summit in China and to fail to investigate the relationship between NVIDIA and mega speed. And it's under the bus time for certain members of the administration. Let's go to Scott Bessent. And that is what's happening with Jensen Huang and NVIDIA. There have been reports that there was some tension between you and Secretary Lutnik about why mega speed was not placed on the entity list. And I'm just wondering about the interagency coordination. Could Treasury have done that? Was it, was it only, you know, Lutnik, they could have commerce, it could have done that. What about the coordination? Yes. Well, I can tell you there was coordination. Treasury, war, U.S. TR and state were in favor of putting mega speed on the entity list for months. But commerce has depend commerce BIS has the pin and you will have to have to assume about their internal process. It is unbelievable that these people, you know, Donald Trump is that the DOJ is an independent and Donald Trump controls all the agencies and he should have to fire anyone he wants. All the power flows by Trump. Firewall around commerce. Right. But the second there's a problem. It was like, it was Howard Lutnik, sir. Howard Lutnik is the reason we didn't stop. We take the independence of the commerce department very seriously here in the Trump administration and Howard Lutnik is always freelancing. Yeah. Howard Lutnik is the person determining U.S. policy towards China and NVIDIA, one of the biggest companies in the country, one of the fastest growing most important businesses in the country. You have Rubio writing memos to everybody saying, I think this guy may be fucking a spy. And then briefing the president of the United States about that in May on the way to China. Right. The reason he wasn't on the plane and then they pick him up and they pick this guy up in Alaska. You don't do that by accident. They cannot blame Trump. Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed. So it has to be Howard Lutnik is a dipshit and a careening maniac. But the reason we are failing to, we were failing to address the security threat posed by Jensen Wong's alleged relationship. And the reason we as of now still don't have any kind of real strategy about AI policy in our chips is not because of Howard fucking Lutnik or the fact that he didn't read the memo from Scott Besson. It's because Donald Trump doesn't give a shit. And also, by the way, he's taking how much money from from Jensen Wong, like how much money has come again. We know 25 million for the ballroom, which is important. I don't know beyond that. But like, are they going to get rid of Howard Lutnik? Who knows? The things that way, the factors that weigh against that are he is one of Donald Trump's rich pals, who's like doing all getting getting rich with Donald Trump. And so far, Donald Trump has not fired any of those people. He's just fired women who, you know, he doesn't have his closer relationship to, I guess, minus Susie Wilde, so I guess he was pretty close to. But yeah, so I don't. And also, I always think about, like, Lutnik must know where some bodies are buried. For sure. And if we, unless we forget our history, Lutnik is the person who said that he only dined with Jeffrey Epstein Alfresco. So therefore, it was not so terrible. With his wife. Yeah. One other comment secretary is one of the weakest cabinet positions. It really has been more of like a salesperson. We were trying to look. There was one of the ones we thought about eliminating. Right. Yeah. They wouldn't let us get rid of it. Because of people were too, too attached to it in Congress. But that in education secretary, we're traditionally considered the weakest cabinet secretaries. It's really more of a glorified salesperson for American businesses. The idea that it's Lutnik's responsibility. For Chinese businesses. Now, so that's what's confounding the Trump administration. You and Dan yesterday talked a little bit about what would happen if there was actually a majority leader fight in the Senate. Now, Chris Van Hollen has officially challenged Schumer to be a majority leader. He manifested it into being. So now it is happening. Van Hollen basically has been arguing that we need someone who is going to fight harder against Trump that he doesn't want to wait till January, that he believes the December 11th shut down possibility is a place to draw a hard line in the sand on Iran. Beyond that, the differences I think are still being fleshed out. What do you think? I think it's, it's Alexia. So the punchball whip count is 14 to 4 so far. Schumer has 14. Schumer seems to think he has the votes. Seems quite confident there. But clearly, Van Hollen doesn't believe that's completely true and understands that he's facing an uphill battle. But I don't know. I think it's good to have the debate because it's been bubbling up for more than a year now that people are just not happy with Schumer as leader. And by people, I mean, like, you know, people, activists, organizers, also like polls show him as very unpopular as well. But now he can make his case and so can Van Hollen. And, you know, if you've been a Van Hollen doesn't succeed, it'll probably make Schumer a stronger leader for having to make his case to everyone. And then maybe the fact that he will have been challenged and will have, you know, maybe make some promises based on that challenge. Maybe that'll make him a better leader as well. Or maybe Van Hollen will beat him and it'll be an upset. Who knows? Pods of America breaking news is brought to you by PDS debt. Are you tired of making monthly payments without seeing your balance go down? PDS debt can help you break free. Minimum payments aren't designed to get you out of debt. They're designed to keep you stuck. PDS debt is the way out. They can reduce up to half of what you owe on credit cards, personal loans and medical bills. And it starts with a free 30 second assessment at PDS debt.com/cricket. PDS debt helps thousands of Americans become debt free. The average savings per per client for all PDS debts programs is $20,123. Stop juggling multiple payments and get one lower monthly payment. Saving start the day you complete the 32nd assessment, checking your options is fast free and won't impact your credit. If you're carrying any balance on your credit cards, it's costing you money every single day. No minimum credit score required. PDS is the top rated company in the industry with thousands of five star reviews and an A plus rating on the BBB. Get your free 32nd personalized assessment today. At pdsdett.com/cricut, that's pdsdett.com/cricut. - Right, I think it's a chance to actually finally talk about, I think the truth is a lot of the frustration with Schumer is about its communication style for really being honest, right? Like a lot of people on social media that are always kind of frustrated with Schumer is it. It's like it's about, it's been engaged in style. I think probably also his historic support for military to Israel being a stand-in for a lot of other issues. But I do think, in part, because we haven't had really a debate or a real kind of live fire exercise about who should be leader, we've combined the ways in which being the Senate leader sucks and you don't have a lot of power and also we were in the minority or have been sort of blurred with the ways in which Schumer personally maybe doesn't have the leadership qualities people want, whether it's public facing or privately. I would like to hear an argument. If I were like, what would be my, an argument I would like to hear from Chris Van Hollen is one that basically says, okay, the fact that he deserves, that Schumer deserves credit for having recruited candidates that put us in position to win. The fact that he's a great fundraiser, those are important, but not what determines what would be good now in power. So let's put that aside. Let's stipulate that he's not the world's best communicator. Fine. I would like to hear an acknowledgement that Chuck Schumer actually was a pretty successful leader when we had the majority in getting a number of bills across, right, that he was the leader when we did inflation reduction act. He was the leader when we passed that chips bill, the infrastructure bill, a host of things during the first two years of the Biden administration. But that style of leadership is not what we need when we are facing an oppositional president. And like that to me is where I feel like there's a substantive argument I would like to hear from Chris Van Hollen. - Two things, for sure, I'll just start, it's funny because I actually, I think the opposite in that, and I said this on the party yesterday, which is that I don't mind Schumer as leader these next two years, as much as I mind the idea of Schumer as leader when there is a god willing democratic president and a democratic majority, because that is when I think you really need to prioritize how we're gonna get bills passed, which bills are gonna get passed, like to the extent that you have, that you can pressure other people in the caucus, which is not as much as you can in the house and not as much as people think. I think that is important when you're trying to shepherd through legislation. And I guess this relates to the other thing I was gonna say, which is there's a third complaint people have about Schumer, which is not just the communication stuff or his personal positions in politics, but how he handled various shutdown fights, which is what's gonna be the next two years. And what I wanna know from both Van Hollen and Schumer is it is not simply are you going to stick to your guns and keep the government shut down or cave, but what is the end goal and what do you hope to achieve? And what makes you believe the Donald Trump who has never, never changed, given in or caved on any shutdown fight, in a way that materially changes his policies, right? Can you think of any? - No. - Right. So why is this time gonna be different and especially when he doesn't give, he's not gonna be on the ballot, doesn't give a shit about politics, doesn't give a shit about being unpopular clearly. And so are we gonna go through the next two years with the government shut down, but then also still not get an end to the around war, still not get the Medicaid cuts reversed, still not get the tariffs reversed. And so I just love to hear from both of them on how they would deal with that and also like how they'd be different in dealing with that. - Yeah, I think like what I'm saying is I have the luxury of saying that he may not be the right person to be the majority leader in opposition, even if he was successful at passing bills when Biden was president under the assumption that he probably won't be the leader in two years regardless, right? So I just interrogate him as an oppositional leader. I think that. - I think he should announce that he's retiring before he gets the job as part of this campaign, 'cause I actually think that would get him some votes. - Right, the question is he's had more conversations, one-on-one with people than we could know, so make sure that doesn't think he needs that. But so I take your point. I think the debate right now is actually about coalescing around what that strategy is, right? Where are we gonna give with Trump? Where are the lines, right? We're gonna have these investigations, are there gonna be people who wanna trade away certain aspects of oversight to get these Medicare cuts repealed, right? Like we're gonna get to that point, do we wanna just start by sending him the bills, getting those rejected jamming Republicans with some veto overrides on Medicaid and on minimum wage and other things, fine? But what does the fight actually look like? Now I think this is where even if the strategy is the same, one of the defenses of Schumer is that, hey, like he's the minority leader, even if he wanted to go hard for a shutdown, he lost people who just made a deal around him, right? And he doesn't have a lot of authority over those people, fine. But one of the reasons he doesn't is I don't think his speaking out against somebody carries a lot because he doesn't have a really big constituency behind him, right? You can imagine someone like Chris Van Hollen, if he says we're gonna stick together at this shutdown, and there's somebody thinking about peeling off and saying they don't wanna be a part of it, that there might be more consequence to having Van Hollen who at a surprise, 67 has more kind of, I don't know, enthusiasm behind him that his word as a leader might carry more in terms of him having some kind of broad bias as the leader. I don't know, and if that outcome looks any different, but when you hear Van Hollen talk about this, he was Zaki, Jen Zaki asked him, like, well, how would you be different? And he's like, well, we're gonna fight to end the Iran war. You started to get at the reality that whoever the leader is, it could make a difference on the margins. The strategy could really matter, but really we're dealing with the practical reality of Donald Trump being president, us having this majority, and the kind of slog over the next two years no matter what. Yeah, we will have the power to shut down the government for sure, which we can use. The question is, what does that do? Yeah, and people, I heard, so I made this point, in some ways, this is a compliment to Schumer, that he's like at the end of the dark night, like he's not the hero we want, but he's the one we deserve, right? Like he's the leader, he's the leader we have to chase. And that was a compliment, right? And like whoever is leader, whoever is leader, boy, that blooms going to come off the rows pretty quick no matter what. All right, John, thank you. Everybody, I'll tell you something. No debate as to what we're doing here, to keep our caucus together. The caucus of you, the dear listener, I don't know. Subscribe to this fucking channel. Help us get good information in front of more people. Help us build a bigger majority. Yeah, that's right, pro-democracy independent media. Thanks a lot, and we'll see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]