Trump DOUBLES DOWN on Extremism, PROMOTES Stephen Miller

Hi I'm GuyRaz. On how I built this, I sit down with the people behind some of the world's most recognizable brands, like Nvidia, and Starbucks, and Raising Canes, to find out how they actually built them. Think of it as a free MBA, told through deeply personal stories about taking risks, making mistakes, and building something great. I'm GuyRaz, listen to and follow how I built this wherever you get your podcasts. Hey super here, this week on Birds Eye View I catch up with 2026 WMA Champion and finals MVP Gabby Williams after a whirlwind of a week. Gabby talks about her mindset going into game 7, how it felt facing an equally defensive minded team in the Atlanta Dream, and why Golden State System can't be replicated. Plus a special guest pops on the pod to surprise Gabby, you got to check it out. So check out this week's Birds Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Modern, I'm Scott Galilee. And I'm Jessica Tararlow. Thanks for joining us live on Substack on YouTube, before we get started, tomorrow we'll be live streaming with Bobby Pulito, the Tejano American musician who's also the newly elected congressman from Texas, this 15th district, which registered the biggest swing in the country. We'll discuss how Texas turned blue, what Democrats planned to do with their newfound power, and how they can make the most of the momentum without squandering it. So tune in live tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, all right, let's bust into it. One of the biggest questions coming out of the Democrats' historic midterm victories was how Donald Trump would respond to a powerful new Democratic majority in Congress. The 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, Boston, a wide as his next press secretary, but then said he was kidding. Democrats named 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. Your net worth, maybe it's changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion. Well, since you returned to. Okay, you ready? So, everyone's, my net worth did not go up by $3 billion. Well, you should have had stock. I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don't care. I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. I don't even know. In two years, someone else is going to be the Republican nominee for president. I assume you're going to endorse someone for that. Probably. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Who would be on the list besides the vice president? Well, I think Marco's great. I think. Is he staying, by the way? A secretary of state. I think so. I mean, he certainly loves it, and he's doing great. He's doing a fantastic job. I saw James Talleriko, the new Democratic Senate. And from Texas, you did occasionally call him Talleriko. Yeah, I did. Do you think you could work with the Democrats without insulting them consistently? Yeah, I could. You think so. You're so cool. But you're so cool. Many of them Democrats. You did that just the other day. If it took six months of not insulting the Democrats to get a deal done, do you think you could do it? Very easily. Huh. Thoughts does. I have a lot of thoughts. First of all, my biggest thought is that Rostusot did a great job. And yeah. And I thought his first 60 minutes interview was a little shaky and this felt pretty perfect, honestly. Like, he went at him with all of the things that normal people are talking about, all the major currents from the election. And it never got adversarial. And that's very hard to pull off with Trump. And I just thought it was a stellar job, so I assume Barry Weiss and co are happy with it. But you can see why this is going to be a good job for him if it's the right assignments. And it's a big one to talk to the president after a 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 Talleriko 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 weird systems through Venezuela, maybe the Chinese, wherever 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. 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. A couple of things, one, just in terms of technology, technology traditionally loves scale, and that is one of the advantages of implementing a static system across the company as you get scale, and it's one software program, one operating system, and it becomes more efficient, right? I would say technology loves scale, pick one, expense software, one workflow software. What's fascinating about our electoral system is that we purposely have sort of 50 separate decentralized systems, and you think, well, that's wildly inefficient, you know, you hear some states that takes three days, other states that's literally when the polls close, they report the results, and one of the reasons we continue to do that is that it creates 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 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 in news core. There I think that's $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 like 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, 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. It's definitely an overhang, and you see this across the board, like even some anchors that you know would follow Donald Trump to the ends of the earth. Like on a newsmax or an OAN for instance, will come on with disclaimers if a gas has said something that's super crazy. You obviously can't ignore the implications of 2020 in that sense, but I do think it was also important that the president wasn't saying that it was fraudulent. 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, 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 true social post, which happened on Saturday while I was at CrookedCon, the Podsave 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. honor of I wore my four seasons total landscaping. sweatshirt to say. Okay. Well, I'm not like revealing my stomach like you, which is significantly less hairy. But anyway, I just want to have a little fun myself. The president is crazy. The part about his net worth, which I thought was so interesting. And that he says, well, you should have had stocks, too. And they go through this back and forth where Trump says all the presidents do it. And he's like, no, not all the presidents do it. And you think about Jimmy Carter putting his peanut farm in a trust. And I think that is the one message that they have not received that the grift and the corruption is the problem, even if folks like Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson are speaking out about it. So one of the things, the biggest swing swing group, and we've talked a lot about those. Number three, Hispanic, number two, in terms of groups, young people 18 to 30, 30 point swing, hands down, biggest swing from red to blue, young men, 38 points. So it was interesting in exit polls. They talked about Iran about half of them. They said, why did you vote blue? 50%, some kind of 50% Iran. Another like up there tariffs. And then at 89% was affordability. Right. And that's what we've been saying. This group, the swing voters care more about economics. Then bathrooms or Ukraine, they're just focused on how do I get a job of mortgage and a spouse. But at 90%. This was what was most shocking about those exit polls amongst the swingers of 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 going to 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 and Blanche 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 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 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, is the right thing to do? It just, it just absolutely struck me. So the midterm wipeout isn't just creating pops or Donald Trump. It's also throwing JD Vance's political future in a question. The vice president has been widely viewed as a front runner for the 2028 Republican nomination. Calche still has his odds at 33% to be the nominee, but after Republicans suffered the worst electoral driving since Watergate, some of his own allies are privately questioning whether a Republican can even win the White House in two years. Yeah, you thank. In fact, Vance's political future is so uncertain that some of his confidants have floated alternatives returning to Ohio to acclaim his old senate seat or even running for governor. Vance has rejected both ideas, but the conversations underscored just how much the political landscape has shifted. Just, what do you think, what do you think this says for Vance's presidential aspirations? As we all know, two years is a long time. What happened to his prospects last Tuesday? No bueno. For sure, I think that there is so much to tie him not only to the bad administrative decisions, but the morally bad decisions that they made. I think that his doubling and then tripling down on Favakes ad is something that will be really haunting, especially since Ohio is home for him. And you see how many voters had that in their mind when they went to vote. I don't think the fake was like a great candidate anyway, but there's no question that something that's so void of decency and something so disgusting to retraumatize a woman who was raped by her stepfather and to do it in such a public fashion is going to have blowback on you. 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, magma 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 wipe out. And that that is going to become the sinking that you would want to hold your powder for 2032 versus getting in there again. And I don't know how that affects like Iran to Sanchez. 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. I don't even think in terms of GOP. So what you said about a lot of Republicans who would be viable saying there's just no way here. I'm not going to do it. Ambassador Haley has basically said that when asked about presidency, she's been very straightforward. She said, no, this is this is a quick exotic venture to run as a Republican and 28 at this point. What what is more obvious though is distinctive this election or the map, if you are the momentum, the blue momentum here and a lot can change in two years is that Trump is political Chernobyl. No one gets to hang around the core and not get leukemia and ultimately die a slow but 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 Doug Dynasty mob with a news 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 if Pence had been the kind of sick of fan 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 I in addition almost all of our presidents, I would say since Nixon have had one thing, they're all likable. You know, you may 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 on to 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 is done well on education. You know, I just think if you take politics aside, he has been a competent, a competent executive. I also think that running, my guess is running a presidential campaign means your machinery is sort of while it's follow, 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 Calche. 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 out from the election. So say at six 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 Cain, 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. Nobody knows. And then my final comment is, I know, I know. I think there's a non-so probability and I'm curious if we've seen any reporting here. That Secretary Rubio comes up with a reason to resign to get some distance from Trump. I would be running for the hills at this point. Yeah, great. I mean, especially if you're thinking, like, PDAG Seth is going to be one of the first, quote, unquote, accountability targets from oversight chair, Robert Garcia. I heard him speak over the weekend as well in DC and you're embroiled in a war that President Trump is saying that he would do it again. Now, there are folks who think it's important, obviously, to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. The question is, why wouldn't you have kept the JCPOA or maybe tried to beef that up versus whatever it is that we've done now. So if I were Rubio, yeah, I would be thinking about the nearest exit and 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, what I'd 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. He didn't love all of it, what's going on, certainly in South American, Latin America are his dreams. And I don't know what we're going to do with Cuba. That feels like that could just pop up on us. And suddenly we're going in there and doing, you know, some form of regime change, but he should get out of there fast. Support for the show comes from rocket money. 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That's rocket money dot com slash moderates. Rocket money dot com slash moderates. Support for the show comes from Skylight. It is an all-in-one smart calendar that helps you manage your day to day. You can personalize your calendar to your household's needs based on events, family members, and time frame. Skylight wants to be sure you're happy, so if you're not 100% thrilled with your purchase after four months, you can return it for a full refund. No questions asked. I've got a Skylight calendar myself. I don't even know about this for a month and you can get your refund, like, how could you not do it? If you can use the thing for four months and then return it. It's even better than, like, actually, I shouldn't even say that maybe there's a chance that I've worn clothing and returned it. I don't even know if I've really done that. Anyway, I love my Skylight calendar. Everyone is on it. Everyone in my nuclear family, my girl's nanny, my family that lives in California. 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So let's talk about the Democrats already having their own conversation about the party's next generation of leadership. Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin isn't ruling out a bid for Senate leadership, and she's making clear that Chuck Schumer shouldn't assume he has her support for another term as majority leader. Slotkin says Democrats have a mandate for generational change and a need for an actual plan for the first 100 days in power, focused on the cost of living and improving American's lives. In this morning, Senator Chris Van Hollen says he's also open to mounting a challenge. 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 the unknown here is is leader or Senate minority sent soon to be Senate majority leader Schumer. What do you think the actual odds are of someone unseating him? I think it's going to be majority leader Schumer as well. Chris Van Hollen had said he wasn't going to run this, just changed this morning. He has floated the idea that he would be open to the idea of running for president. That's why I think he wasn't talking about majority leader and thought I should just figure out my presidential campaign. It does feel like a bit of a talking point for people, and I understand that they promised this on the trail. They've been all of the new senators, and by the way, I love the photos and footage of them walking into the Capitol like Senator Tallariko, Senator El Sayed, Senator Annie Andrews, and the new Congress people like Sam Forsag, the smoke jumper is all over social media in his cute Montana outfit, the Bolo tie. I think it was his wife's grandfather's and just saying 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 tax 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 Rokana's 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 it's 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 think 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? Well, in first off, it's obvious speaker Jeffries is going to is going to be seated as the speaker is going to get the gavel with respect to Schumer. I think you're probably right. I think he'll probably create some whisper and say, come on, I've done a good job here. You got to give me some credit for this. I'm going to be 78, 77 or 78, so I'm going to step down when my term ends. And I think he's probably under enough good will that people really don't want to have this be his, you know, the exclamation point on his career or whatever you want to call it. I don't, you know, he clearly is a confident person. One of the things that struck me when I was looking at these great montages of the people 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 mayor on election in Los Angeles. I don't think this was a mandate on socialism. I think it was a mandate, one, Karen Bass, what did lose to Romance? She lost to the Palisades fire, but I think Nitya is 45 and Mayor Bass is 72. So there was definitely, I mean, it obviously the best thing you could have next year's name was a big blue square, but also age, I think, did play a role here and that is people wanted change and youth as synonymous with change. And then the other one that's just more practical around leadership, I think being awarded the gavel, to me being a senator would be much cooler than being a representative. Representatives feel like there's just a mix of insurance salesmen, salesmen or people who like give hand jobs and theaters, whereas senators, there's just more vetting. 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 populist such that they didn't give into 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 senator representative of your state, you have all this admit, 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. Yeah, there managerial positions with little limelight possibility and everyone is crapping on you all the time. And I mean, I think especially with Speaker of the House and Hawkeying Jeffries is this, it means a lot to me that Nancy Pelosi handpicked him, groomed him, and is happy with him because I don't think that she would sacrifice the fate of the caucus for somebody that she just has a lot of affection for. Right. Like she got Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential primary or the presidential race I should say. Like she would push out Hawkeying Jeffries if she didn't think he was up to the job. And these testimonials that are coming in from folks that are running all over the country about how much Jeffries showed up for them and, you know, for the ones who needed him standing side by side, needed money, the ones who needed the space to be able to run against leadership. And that was something that was really corner the way that she did the job and why she was so effective where she said, you want to hold hands with me great. You want to call me the devil. That's fine too. Just win your seat. Yeah. I want to say on the age run, because you're right. Like we have a, this is a youthful and beautiful Congress coming in. There is a seniority issue though that still needs to be addressed. And that's the question that I think folks need to ask like I was thinking back to how AOC ran to challenge Jerry Connolly and he won and then he passed away unfortunately like six months later or something like that. 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 Berchett 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 Hacking 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 60 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. And they're going to show up and still be bowing down to a 75 year old. And that's where I think the rubber really meets the road in terms of what kind of change we could see. It really is exciting. We have we have former veterans, admirals, pediatricians, prosecutors, you know, mothers who are also teachers who are total ballers just looking at their background. This is incredibly bright people. Last night we interviewed the mayor of Denver and he's a former high school principal. And I we keep interviewing and I've looked at this guy. He's something out of central casting to be in the Senate someday. He's so impressive. And then yeah, it's really it's it's quite I get sort of just I'm still sort of processing it and it's a bit overwhelming speaking of people who are not having a great week. Last Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, so it's soon to be speaker Jeffries says he's a hard yes on impeaching defense secretary Pete Hegseth accusing him of abusing his power at mishandling the war in Iran. 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? Well, I want to we have some audio from Ted Cruz on this that I want to play before we chat about it. All right. Let's roll to it. Listen. One of the reasons the House has been out of session for a couple of months and the reason they've been out of session is because they didn't have the votes to stop a Hegseth impeachment back in September. Ted Cruz, definitely having the most come to Jesus moments of anyone. And I think that's because he's sitting there alone as a Republican dot in black sense these days, but things do not look sunny for Pete Hegseth and Marshall Blackburn came out and said, I'm not appointing him to the Tennessee Senate seat, which apparently he was eyeing when he moved there in the first place, but they have rules around how long you have to live in the state before you can run. 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 congresspeople, like Admiral LeCore 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, your thoughts on Pete going first? Yeah, the Republicans need to offer up a blood offering and this is an easy quote unquote accountability, first stop on the kind of grievance on a retribution accountability tour. Just seems like an obvious one, he's been, he's been terrible, he's been incompetent. Even recently, the news about Jensen Huang, I'll come back to that. I think it's implications around the Defense Department. This feels like, I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, he's so, do you think there's a chance when he gets, when he goes around the hall and talks to Republicans and some of the Republicans start humming and hawing and not giving him full-throwed 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. Oh, I thought you were going to say, is he going to come back to Fox, which is why I immediately said no. If he thinks, yeah, I'm sure he's thinking about an exit strategy. I think people who are in trouble and people who aren't in trouble are thinking about an exit strategy, like what more evidence could you need than last week's results that you are working in a burning building, and you need to find an exit door ASAP. And God knows what Trump is going to do. They might think the stuff is unfair, believe in the principles of MAGA, whatever that means these days, but they know how to read results and now they're surrounded. 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. Are you tired of hearing about business, tech, and finance from the Rose? We are the Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tiger Sisters releases every Monday, and we decode money, power, and love. And who doesn't love all those things? We are the Internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters, tune in every Monday for late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Check out Tiger Sisters on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Tiger FAM. The Republicans lost the midterms, the Iran War probably helped, but artificial intelligence was also a big old stinker on the battle last week. Data centers and the policies surrounding them were on referendums over 40 times across 10 states, and all about one of those initiatives were voted down. like Gina in a host's side in tech. Texas, who opposed data center proponents like Governor Greg Abbott, one big tech stocks took a tumble, then the world found out that Jensen Huang from NVIDIA likely got honeypotted by a Chinese spy, and video stocks took another tumble, Huang might be heading towards one of the most expensive divorces in history, what I'm trying to say is that it's been a bad week for AI, and all the fresh Democrats who've been promising to hold big tech accountable haven't even been sworn in yet. Enough is enough, we need to make sure that the pace of development isn't outpacing the pace of risk. On today's plain from box, we're going to hear from the guy those Democrats call for counsel on AI policy, and we're going to hear from Open AI, weekday afternoons in your feeds. Hi, it's Phoebe Judge, host of Criminal, I'm going on tour. If you like hearing me tell stories about people, well I've decided to tell stories about my life and the people I love. A letter was left carelessly around, so I've sort of caught red handed. It's a show about secrets and forgiveness, I hope you'll come to see it. Find all our tour dates and get tickets at ThisIsCriminal.com/Live. Speaking of burning buildings, NVIDIA is launching an independent investigation into CEO Jensen Huang after he acknowledged having an affair with a business executive. The US intelligence believes was working for Chinese spies. The relationship raises serious national security questions, particularly given NVIDIA's role in the AI movement, Huang's close ties to Donald Trump. The president, meanwhile, is already defending him and says he should remain a CEO. I have a lot of thoughts here, Jess, so I'll go first, but this happens all the time. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that sometimes men don't make great decisions with their genitals 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 in the CMO, the company that they had disclosed. So CEOs have been fired for a lot less. This involves national security. In my 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. Next up to big issues, one, when we have our defense level CIA level, weapons grade, missile production, Northrop Grumman, sensitive, nuclear submarine construction like sensitivity, and we have we work like security. The reality is, coming as 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 that's really upsetting here, and I actually think the bigger story that hasn't been covered, is that the defense department or security apparatus had suspicions and maybe even knew that Ms. Wong 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 the 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 build a $5 trillion company without building an outstanding bench. And just practically, and I've said this, I've been on the board at two companies that had not 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 mistaken 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 there's direct conversations I've had with these two tech CEOs who are in their 30s and 40s. 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 four or six percent a year is engaging an IP theft. We did it to European manufacturing technology. The Chinese have been doing it to us for 40 years. So for SEOs 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, mid-life 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 of companies like this. This is a big moment because I do think it's going to have more broader implications across open AI and the other sensitive companies around, okay, people shouldn't be able to just show up in the lunchroom or start DMing the sea of these companies. This is a, this is a big deal. I was thinking about Eric Swalwell, who we don't think about a lot anymore. But he is left with a Chinese spy and the Republicans are obsessed with it. They talk about Fangfang constantly. And the idea of the Trump's like, no, no, everything is just fine. He'd be governor. He also sexually assaulted a bunch of women allegedly. There's that. That didn't help either, but also dick related. And I, you know, the internet has had a good week, but the Jensen Wong tweets also very good. I like this. If someone ever tells you that you look cool in a leather jacket, you're 100% getting honey potted. And there is a graphic of the global economy and like the different pieces of it. And then there's a tiny plank holding it up. And it's labeled Jensen Wong's wife. Your AI is hanging on by a leather jacket right now. Oh, you. The other thing is, again, don't these people have friends? I can write his press release right now. I demonstrated a terrible apps and judgment. And I apologize to my family into the competitive video. I am so proud of what we've built. I don't want this labs and judgment in any way to harm the fantastic work we've done. Also we are cooperating with the investigation. I'm horrified by the thought this in any way may have compromised. I have a national security. I don't believe it did. I'm going to spend the next 90 days helping mature what we've been working on the last 10 years and ensuring that in videos left in great hands as we have such an outstanding bench. 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 and 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, Senator's 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 surprised witnesses to talk about exactly or to 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 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 Pepsi. She was the CMO of the NFL. Both great jobs and impressive woman. She was probably making $600,000 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, a Stanford or Duke because they make million-dollar donations. You don't think that creates an irrational amount of loyalty toward the CEO. 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 deferred 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, Gotti Eisenkot, to form a new government after last month's inconclusive election. Eisenkot has six weeks to build a coalition but he'll need support from Arab-led parties. I just want to just highlight that. 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 opposed. Netanyahu meanwhile is still fighting to hold on to power. Just any thoughts on what a change here or turning the page or an Eisenkot government would mean for Israel's future? Well, I think a hell of a lot, which is why it seems like from the latest batch of polls that people are desperate for Eisenkot to find a way to yes. And even if that means making some compromises with the Arab parties that they're not necessarily that comfortable with, they don't want Netanyahu to have the opportunity to hold on to power for the next several months and then maybe have another election in February and be able to consolidate more power for that. So my guess would be I'm not a, you know, a midi specialist this way, but that Eisenkot will be working very hard to find a way to get to yes. And we'll 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 those things will be top of Eisenkot's list and people should keep in mind it's not like Eisenkot 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's something needs to change. So I hope that 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 and less but it is the only way to get rid of Netanyahu and I think that they should take that opportunity. Yeah, it feels like there are few nations other than the one we live in that need to more badly change the page, if you will. All right, it's time to take some of your questions. Question one, Andrew asks, what's the future of the filibuster? I have no idea, Jess, you take this. I think that you are going to be surprised by the reticence to do away with it. It's been interesting talking to some of my conservative colleagues that Fox about their upset at John Thune for not nuking the filibuster actually to ram through some policies that they think would have changed everything like having the Save America Act would have made a really big difference for people. I don't know, maybe psychologically to the deepest recesses of the base. But I was listening to an interview with Reverend Hamilton, for instance, the new senator from Kansas. He's not for nuking the filibuster. I am not sure where a taloriko would be on this. I assume Annie Andrew is 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. So if he's in a 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. Question number two, Sarah wants to know, what does Susie Walsh do now? Oh, I would imagine she has a three to five million dollar book deal lined up. I mean, that to me seems the most I don't know if she's wealth. You're not typically these people. Oh, she is. Oh, she has an enormously successful consulting company ballard, which is part of now the grift or corruption allegations against her. So Callie Means did the Rogan experience. I was talking to Joe Rogan about all the deals that Susie Walsh's daughter's been getting and how anyone knew that they could get to the White House essentially by doing work with ballard. So I wouldn't be surprised if Chairman Garcia is thinking about the Susie Walsh angle. I did not know that. So we may, we may see Susie Walsh, she's been so kind of behind the scenes. We may see her testify, I guess what you're saying. I think if people are pissed off about corruption and they see what Susie Walsh's daughter at the very least has been able to do in the reporting around how you can get influence in the Trump administration that it would be somewhere that you would look and it doesn't seem like President Trump is particularly interested in protecting her at this point. It seems like a pretty frosty end to the relationship. It feels like we're about to have the mother of all take your son or daughter to work except they're going to be called in front of Congress. I mean, think about how many kids, whether it's Whitcoffs, Kushner, Susie Walsh's daughter, it sounds like Trump's kid. It feels like we're going to about to meet everyone's children and ask them, okay, why did the UAE invest a billion dollars in your crypto fund and what are your qualifications and please show us your emails and your texts and what did your dad promise them in exchange for you with no qualifications getting a billion dollars put into it 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? No. Say more. So if he laughs then, Gina and your host, what a point, a Democrat to the Senate see it. So obviously that would be a huge loss to the party. But I think that Ted Cruz who has been very lucid as to what the election results meant might be in the camp of thinking that 2028 isn't winnable anyway. And I do think even though Trump has said, oh, I'll put, maybe put Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court, the Senate folks would be glad to get rid of him. I don't know if they would vote for him. I don't know if he'd be the best peck for a nomination. I'm curious to what Democrats are going to do if there's a vacant Senate see it, a Supreme Court see it. But yeah, I think Ted Cruz is staying put at this point. I agree with you. I think he'll probably, if he sees any opening, he's going to want, I think he's going to want to run because I just think he's one of those guys like Rubio who wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror and says hello, Mr. President. So unless it's just so obvious, he has absolutely no shot. And we remember his, his Hail Mary at the end was to announce his VP was going to be I forget her name failed CEO of HP Compact. What is it? Carly Fierena? Oh, there you go. That's right. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Correct for 20. Carly Fierena. I thought, okay, that's, that's your, that's your October surprise. Anyways, what's more interesting about a repub or about Democratic leadership in Texas, which I was shocked at. I mean, that, that blew me away was that about a year ago I said that I thought if Tolerico maintains this kind of momentum. and this sort of wholesome interpretation of Jesus the way that, like, Jesus would have actually interpreted his comments as it relates to governing. I thought he could be potentially a really interesting fresh face as a VP candidate. And someone said to me, there's no way as Democrats wouldn't give up, when I 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 VP's from the Democratic side because they wouldn't be worried about, they wouldn't lose, wouldn't lose the seat, if you will. Any last words before we sign off here, Jess? It's a good day to be a Democrat. 75% of Americans are now governed by Democrats. It's not crazy. You get over that 75%. No. Wow. That's just, that's just wild. All right. Let's leave it there. We're back. We're back. I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Let's leave it there, Jess. Make sure to tune in tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern time live on. Yeah, with Bobby. All right. So tomorrow live on YouTube and sub stack catch our conversation with Bobby Toledo. We'll speak to you tomorrow. Thanks everyone for tuning in.