Trump & Putin’s Alaska Date, Gay Marriage Challenged, and Guest Co-Host Rachel Maddow

25:01And he was also half African-American, correct? He was secretly black and passed until the very end of his life, while meanwhile, you know, articulating the beautiful fascist American future, right? The Nazis, when you say that they got ideas from Jim Crow, the Nazis used—they actually sent an agent to the University of Arkansas Law School to study Jim Crow, the legal—the liminal legal world. Right, how to set it up. How to set it up. And then they used it as the basis for the Nuremberg Laws. the idea of second-class citizenship based on racial purity. So that's sort of on the dark side. And then Ojon Raghi was a wunderkind prosecutor who brought sedition charges against Dennis and against these American fascists who were both working with the Nazis and trying to undermine the American war effort.

25:55And he was all but destroyed for having done it, including being fired in the Justice Department for having had the temerity to name the members of Congress who are involved in this scheme. And write a report that got lost, really, to history for 25 years. Yeah, that's right. And then it didn't matter by then because everyone had moved on, right? Yeah, they didn't publish it until the 60s. I got to tell you, the resonance to today, that pre-pocool particularly has stuck with me so hard because it feels like there's so many links to today. And one of the things, you have these heroes like O 'John Roger or Leon Lewis in Los Angeles, Leon Lewis, right?

26:34In Los Angeles, who also did all this sort of secret spy work against these people, against these fascists and militias and things like that. Who is that today? And could you link them to what's happening now? I don't think there's any... You sound like your eyes are a problem. Yes, there's a noisy man. But go ahead. A noisy man. Yeah, sorry. I just saw you kill him with your eyes. It was amazing. I'll stop doing that. I don't think there are exact parallels, but I do think that there are sort of inspirational currents. So one story that hasn't had a lot of attention that I've sort of been watching percolate recently is that there's been a lot of stealing from armories and military bases that's been happening recently.

27:23That was something that happened in the lead up to World War II as well as violent fascist groups like the Silver Shirts and the Christian Front and others not only recruited from the military and from the National Guard, but also used essentially insider threat people inside the military to steal U.S. military weapons for the use in what they hoped would be a violent overthrow of the U.S. government. And so that happened. That's happening now, very sort of quietly. It's only getting a little bit of attention. That happened there. That was in part what led Leon Lewis, who was a World War I veteran, to get other World War I veterans, German-American World War I veterans, to go infiltrate those groups to figure out what was happening.

28:06they could not get law enforcement interested in it because these guys proclaimed themselves to be anti-communists. And so therefore, law enforcement liked the idea of them. They couldn't get law enforcement interested, and so they pursued it and pursued it and pursued it themselves. They publicized their findings. They ultimately went to U.S. Navy intelligence, which was willing to prosecute them in part because it was military facilities that are being burgled in order to get these guys their weapons. So that sort of intrepidity by a self-styled civilian spy, I don't know that we've got that sort of singular hero right now.

28:41But when I see people who are building apps and building online networks to watch what ICE is doing and to monitor effectively the secret police operations that we've got going right now, I see some of those same instincts sort of in the American character. Yeah. You were saying they aren't the same. I mean, right now, for example, Trump, let's go right to this. Trump says he's looking to extend the 30-day federal takeover of Washington, D.C.'s police and could bypass Congress declaring a national emergency. I guess he could decide what a national emergency is. His comments come as National Guard troops arrive in D.C.

29:14with 800 guards and 500 federal agents set to be deployed in total. They're often in places that are very loud, although they're over on 14th Street where they're being pummeled with sandwiches. That guy. A felony for hurling the sandwich. Hurling. I love it. I'm like, I feel like I wish I had done that. D.C. Mayor Mira Bowser is calling all of this an authoritarian push, although she initially said the city could benefit from it. She's being a little bit quiet about it. U.S. Attorney for D.C., Janine Pirro, she of the box of wine, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that she's working to overturn some local laws so juvenile offenders would be prosecuted.

29:55I just, you know, a lot of the stuff you wrote about was implicit. that it was quietly being done, although the silver shirts, all these people appeared in Madison Square Garden. They had all kinds of rallies. It was very explicit, but nothing like, it wasn't the government doing this. Now he's also focusing his attention on D.C.'s landscaping, saying we need to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I agree with that. I'm going to agree. We have shitty grass. I think America can actually come together around the idea of fine grass. Fine grass, yeah. So talk to me a little bit about what's happening here, because this is explicit.

30:28In the time you were writing about it, the government itself wasn't doing things like that, or was in a way, in certain areas, like concentration camps and things like that for the Japanese. Yeah, I mean, fascist groups in the United States before World War II wanted an authoritarian takeover of our country, in which there would not be the American system of government anymore. there would be a strongman leader who would run things at his own whim with autocratic capabilities and would serve the white Gentile population above all else and kick everybody else out of the country. That's what fascist groups before World War II wanted in this country, which is why they wanted us to either not fight the Nazis or to fight with the Nazis rather than to go over there and fight them.

31:15And they didn't like democracy explicitly. They talked about it. They thought democracy was decadent and it was a way for... Liberals and women. Women and, well, minorities of any kind to have any say. Like, these are folks who don't believe in sharing power with people different than them. They think that they should be able to have a say on their own terms of what happens, not only in government, but in everything. And so now, in our generation, in our time, we have an elected authoritarian leader who doesn't just want to control the executive branch. He wants to control, you know, universities, their curriculum and their admissions and their, you know, student discipline policies.

32:00And he wants to decide what economists work at what banks. And he wants to control businesses. He wants to control the Smithsonian. He wants to control high school sports. He wants to control the legal profession. He wants to control, you know, what's on television and what's in the news. And guess what? Like, this is what they were after. And this is a president who does not see bounds on the presidency set by democratic processes. But he also doesn't see bounds on the presidency set by what counts as government. He wants to autocratically rule the country in every aspect of the country, both to shut down the possibility of criticizing or opposing him, but also because he believes that he should run everything.

32:42That he should be handing out the Kennedy Center honors and he should be administering the police force of Washington, D.C. And he should be choosing the CEO of Intel and he should be setting the recipe for Coke. And that's what they were after. And that's what we have. And do you find this to be – are you more alarmed by any part of it or is it part of the same idea? And for people who don't know, the White House plans to review the Smithsonian Museum Expeditions materials and operations for America's 250th anniversary next year. The administration sent a letter to the Smithsonian this week explaining how the museum content is in line with Trump's restoring truth and sanity to American history executive order.

33:21And recently, the National Museum of American History removed a placard that mentioned Trump's two impeachments, which has since been replaced. Is there one thing, like, this is like a cornucopia of stuff for you to focus on. What do you think is the thing that troubles you the most, or is it in whole? Is it the takeover of the city or the attempted takeover of the city? Or is it the museum? I assume it's all of it. But is there something you find most disturbing? Well, it's all of a piece in the sense that I guess I have two answers to this question. One is that what Trump is doing is so textbook.

33:59Like, there's not anything that's very surprising about what he's doing. And we now know who he is and what his intentions are. It's not there isn't going to be a big reveal. Oh, he has authoritarian inclinations. for our country, our intentions. Like we now know who he is. He is Victor Orban. He is Vladimir Putin. He is Duterte. He is Berlusconi. You know, pick your poison. They all do the same thing, right? We're only lucky that Trump isn't taking his shirt off in photos. But so on that, to me, sorry, I just put that image right in your head, didn't I? You did. I just totally saw his chest. It's sad.

34:34Anyway. Swayze. He's not Swayze. I take this shit from Twaisy, but not from this guy. But because he's predictable, because he is playing two type and it is a type and it's a very noble thing. I feel like there's only so much value in focusing on every new thing he does because it's predictable what he's going to do. We know what this is. It makes me more interested in the question of the country's durability and how we're responding and the strength of our institutions in standing up to it. So that's one thing there. But the thing I'm most worried about is the military stuff. The military, meaning the takeover of the city or?

35:16Well, I mean, he's using the military to project force inward, you know, domestically everywhere. They've, you know, immigration enforcement doesn't just look militarized. They're integrating with the military. They're building these immigrant prison camps with no due process, and a prison with no due process is a camp. They're building them on military bases. They've got hundreds of miles of territory in Arizona and New Mexico. In Texas, they're calling military zones where they're giving U.S. active duty troops the authority to stop and search and arrest people on U.S. soil. He threw himself a military parade for his own birthday.

35:57They're using military flights. incredibly expensive military flights inexplicably for deportation flights. We've just found out that they're considering building a new rapid reaction force where they've got 600 troops on one hour standby, 24 hours a day to go deploy into American cities. They put the National Guard and the U.S. Marines in L.A., and now they've got the National Guard and he's threatening active duty troops in D.C. I mean, he is reimagining the use of the U.S. military as his own Praetorian Guard facing his critics and facing his citizens and normalizing. He's already, in this many months, normalized the presence of American troops in American cities with us at the end of their guns.

36:41Right. And when I think of any country I go to where there's troops on the street, it's always like, I'd like to get out of this country, right? It makes you feel—I just interviewed Jason Stanley, who you know from Yale, he left this country. He's written about propaganda and fascism. I'm sure you know him well. And one of the things he said is he's sort of a kind of a cloddish playbook of a fascist. And I was like, well, does it matter if he's clownish and cartoonish, if he's effective in some way? Do you find all this effective? Well, he's doing it, right? Yeah. I mean, the thing that makes him effective is not any genius on his part or even any ambition or speed on his part.

37:16The thing that makes him effective is the cowardice and collapse of American institutions that should be saying no to him. That's the problem. Do you see any heroes emerging? Yes. The heroes that are emerging are emerging from not the leadership class, but the people. I mean, the fact that there's protests against Trump on every day of the week in every state in the country is important to me. And I think I've— You feature that on your show quite a bit. Yeah, and I'm doing that not because I think that's what everybody's talking about, and I want to get in on that conversation. I recognize that it's not getting a ton of attention, but I do think that shows you that the people in this country, you look at the opinion polls and you look at the ongoing protests, especially the small protests in red states and stuff against him, and you realize that nobody's into this.

38:05Poor individuals, when someone's taking someone away, they start filming. I find those really powerful. Like some lady coming out of yoga suddenly saying, what the fuck are you doing to this man? Yes, exactly. Which is interesting. And that instinct in the American people is really healthy and is unafraid and is uncowed and is repulsed by this. And that's why Trump has such terrible approval ratings. He's upside down, even with men, even with, you know, the way he's dropped with young people. It's a stunning drop. And that, to me, is very important. The crisis that we've got in our country is a crisis of elite cowardice.

38:42The law firms, the universities, the politicians, and the business leaders in particular. Were they ever courageous, Rachel? I mean, I would make the argument they weren't. You know, they're saying that universities were woke. I'm like, have you met a university president before this all happened? They hated those professors. Law firms hated those pro bono people on their staff. I don't know. I just never thought they were particularly courageous. But they're big, prestigious institutions with a lot of capital and a lot of connections and a lot of money and a lot of people who have a lot of room to maneuver without ever putting themselves in real danger.

39:21And those are the people that are failing us. And I actually think that if we're going to like kind of protest and try to put steel in the spines of people and try to appeal to conscience, which is what nonviolent direct action does, some of that protest should be probably usefully, strategically directed at the institutions that are failing, not just at Trump. One of the things Jason was saying is one of the things the civil rights things work is those people became empathetic given the visuals of civil rights, right? The hoses and everything else. And he was wondering if the immigration raids will make everyone else who is comfortable angry enough or empathetic really enough in a lot of ways, if you think about it.

40:01Yeah, but you need to see not just the rage. You need to see people standing up against them. So what you remembered about that woman in the yoga clothes in the parking lot there yelling at those guys was not just what was happening to those guys that had inspired her to action. It was seeing her be courageous and outraged and not afraid that stuck with you. Right. Even the sandwich guy, all joking aside. When he did that, I'm like, oh, dear. And then I thought, well, good for him. And I was talking about it with my wife. I was saying, what should I do now? Should I go throw a sandwich? Should I get myself a tot?

40:34They're in front of Tate. That's the best part. Like, they're just like, like, grab us their sandwich and throw it at them. But what do you, what is the action you take, I think, is a lot of people are trying to figure out of those people who become empathetic to what's happening. I mean, I don't think the sandwiches deserve this. I mean, I think sandwiches deserve to be treated with respect. They do. Like, I'm sure that guy, that was like probably a meatball sub, like with exactly the right kind of cheese and just the right, I mean, he probably had that scooped out, you know, which took a lot of extra work.

41:04I'm sorry, you shouldn't attack police. Let me just say. No, no. Fivots does not encourage attacking police. But if you insist, a sandwich is probably the best. No, no throwing anything at anybody. Rachel and I do not recommend throwing sandwiches, though. If only for the sake of the sandwich. Only for the sake of the sandwich. It's like, let me have a bite. I mean, we've got one of the things that's different between now and what Americans were facing in the 30s and 40s. is that we have the example of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to show the moral apogee of what it means to take incredibly difficult action against incredibly violent, entrenched opponents and to win on the strength of your moral case.

41:55And that's a moral cornerstone of our country. And we would be remiss to not learn from that in this moment. I mean, there's not going to be a civil war in this country. There's not going to be a violent confrontation. I mean, all Trump wants is for somebody to throw another sandwich or do something that they can consider to be a crime and use as a provocation. Nonviolent direct action gets the goods always. And it's our American inheritance. And it's the thing that will ultimately push them back. Ultimately. And also time. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's warning to Putin ahead of their Alaska getaway.

43:05There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why in 2025 are late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel's show still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now.

43:54That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

44:24Feeling people up, out? Feeling out. Feeling out. Feeling, feeling. He might feel them up. That's grotesque. Trump also, you've already gotten like lots of pictures in my head and I don't appreciate it. Trump also spoke with European leaders and Ukraine's President Zelensky ahead of the summit. European leaders asked Trump not to strike a unilateral peace deal, so gave him some key points of negotiation. Zelensky said he warned Trump that Putin was bluffing on pursuing peace, obviously. He's called this meeting Putin's personal victory. What are you looking for? I just had David Remington on the last episode, and he said, you know, as long as he doesn't fuck up or give anything away right away, it'll be a victory.

45:03Like, if he has a second meeting, and he's been talking that way recently. I mean, this is all just so embarrassing. You know what I mean? I mean, Jimmy Fallon had that very good line where he was like, oh, listening and exercise, two of Trump's favorite things.

45:22He is funny. Do you remember the red line, Obama and the red line with Syria? So this was like 2012, I think it was. Obama gave a speech where he described Bashar al-Assad potentially using chemical weapons as a red line, that that's how the United States would treat it. And then in 2013, Assad absolutely did that. And Obama responded by saying, all right, I'm going to Congress to get authorization for the use of military force against Syria. And Congress debated it a little bit. And then it kind of looked like it wasn't going to pass. And then it fell. And then they didn't do it. They did not pass the authorization for the use of military force.

46:05That went down in political commentary, common wisdom, as like, Obama was such a wuss. He blew it on that red line thing. That was such an embarrassment. First of all, Obama didn't do anything wrong there. He went to Congress for an authorization for the use of military force, which is how it works in our system. And it was Congress that blew it. But that supposed failure, which wasn't a failure at all, by Obama, 12, 13 years later, people still talk about that as like a nadir, a terrible thing about the Obama administration. Well, meanwhile, here's Trump. Wasn't it going to be like if by Friday the war wasn't over?

46:45It was going to be the end of days for Putin and there was going to be sanctions. And there was going to be tariffs. Oh, that's the worst thing in the world. It was going to be all of this terrible stuff. And instead, what does Putin get? Putin gets a trip to Alaska. Go visit the former Russian empire and a one-on-one meeting. Trump will fly as far as you're flying to come have a one-on-one man-to-man summit with you the first time that you've been in this country except for the U.N. since 2007. And we get to talk about the war in Ukraine without Ukraine here. I mean, talk about a red line moment.

47:20I mean, I think it's—I'm just worried that we don't end up in the post-press conference with Trump in his lap. Or giving away Alaska. Or delicately touching his hair, you know, or cupping his face, spooning him. What would you consider a success? Is there no success here? It's already given away? The success here would be if the U.S. government arrived at this summit, which has been put together on, what, four days' notice? Mm-hmm. A bilateral summit between the American and Russian president. If we arrived at this meeting and then somebody opened a door from a supply closet and Vladimir Zelensky walked out and sat down and Trump said, you guys talk, I'll be right outside this door.

48:02That would be a victory, right? I'd give them the Nobel Peace Prize for that. Well, I don't know that they allow us to vote. But I mean, Trump is the right word here is lickspittle. He is so afraid of Vladimir Putin. He is so afraid of him. He will do absolutely anything. I mean, we've got a 35 percent tariff on Canada and Russia has what percent tariff? Right. Russia is mysteriously missing from the whole tariffs on even uninhabited islands that only have penguins, but not Russia. Russia. And the way the media responds to Trump as if his word is his bond, right? Oh, Trump is explaining that he now has a new feeling about Putin and he's very upset with Putin.

48:53Oh, he's very disappointed. And he's really changed his tune. I think he's soured on Putin. Really? Watch what he does, not what he says. He's literally in the man's pants. Right, right. And there's no distance here. There's no distance between them. So you think just the fact that he's flying there is just, it's already given away. This is something that no American president has done in 18 years. In many countries in the world, if Vladimir Putin stepped foot on their soil, he'd be arrested and dragged off to The Hague. This is an abject humiliation for the United States of America and for the U.S.

49:26presidency that we will be reading about for 75 years. So what is the best thing that could come out of this? short of Zelensky popping out of the supply closet? Right. What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the supply closet? What? Supplies! Sorry. Oh my God. What is that? That's not even a dad. That's a dad joke. That's a bad dad joke. That's a bad dad joke. Anything good? Anything. No, no, I don't. I mean, what the Ukrainians say is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And so if this is being negotiated, this is be like if you're like getting a divorce or something and the person from whom you're getting a divorce is going through the court proceedings without you.

50:14Like, how do you how do you think it's going to how do you think your side of the divorce is you think you're going to get your alimony? You think you're going to get your custody agreement? No, like this is this. There's nothing there's nothing good about this. I will talks to Putin, although now he admits he talks to Putin without telling anybody that he's doing so, every time we know he talks to Putin, he comes out after those discussions and starts parroting a new Russian line. Just like we're going to plow the boys under, right? Where it went from Goebbels to senators, U.S. senators. Things he's saying.

50:49He repeats, and he's absolutely, he will just parrot whatever Putin tells him to say, which he has done. I mean, back to Helsinki, back to the very beginning. And he also adopts whatever position was last presented to him. And so in this case, he'll adopt whatever Putin says. Have you ever thought of calling him on the phone, Rachel, yourself? There is a cell phone that he answers. Yeah. I did speak to him on the phone once during the 2016 campaign, which was funny. I was trying to get an interview with him. This is early in the primary process. And they had gone through this whole big like swearing me to secrecy thing that in order to get the interview, I needed to call him personally.

51:33And even the fact of the call had to be off the record. And they made us like swear there was no listening, there was no recording device and then like going through all this rigmarole. And so then I have, I call Rona, like I get, I have the appointed time. I get on the phone with him. I ask him to do the interview. And at the end of my conversation with him, he goes, well, you can air this. This was nice. I was like, first of all, this is off the record. I didn't tape it. I can tell you now. I agreed to it being off the record. But because he said that, I can now tell you, Kara Swisher, today that he said it was it was I was allowed to air it.

52:08And I was like, my dude, like, do you are you aware when you are in the media versus when you are having a. No, he doesn't care. If it goes well, he wants it out there. Right. Because, you know, if it's a very good call and stuff like that. So you're not expecting anything here. You just it's going to be a role. It's already a rollover. No, this is a bad thing. The meeting itself is a bad thing. Vladimir Putin being invited to the United States of America to meet one-on-one with the American president is all I need to know. And that's a bad thing. There's nothing substantively that's going to come out of this meeting except for Trump getting more of his instructions, right?

52:39I think he's going to get back to Alaska. I'm telling you. We're going to lose Alaska. We're going to lose Alaska. They're going to trade Sarah Palin and so much. You know, you can see Russia from her porch. Anyway, let's bring that one back. I'm going to move on to something totally different. The U.S. Supreme Court has officially been asked to overturn the 2015 decision that granted equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. If you remember Kim Davis, heinous Kim Davis is what I call her, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple.

53:10She's filed an appeal in July for the compensation she was ordered to pay that couple. Davis is taking her case to the court on the grounds that Obergefell v. Hodges, which established marriage equality, was wrongly decided and infringes on her First Amendment rights. Davis has been unsuccessfully appealing the order for years to lower courts. She's the only one withstanding to do this, from what I understand. I did predict an attack on marriage equality back in January. Let's listen to a clip. And that's all they're doing is a naked grab for overturning the gay marriage Supreme Court decision like they overturned Roe v.

53:46Wade. And it's very vulnerable to two court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said it should be reconsidered. So we'll see. It's theater. It's it's it's theater. But it's they're going to try to do this. They're trying to get a case up there that will make it happen. Are you concerned about this at all? Well, on this, I'm sort of of two, I'm of two minds about the decision. I feel like I agree with your prediction from January that they want to overturn. At least there are parts of the court that want to overturn it. I mean, remember, Obergefell was 5-4 decision and now, yeah, and now the court is 6-3 in the direction that had been in the minority.

54:27And so I think they want to. But I also feel like the sort of legal common wisdom on this case, as I understand it, I'm not a lawyer, but the legal common wisdom is that this is not the case. That while Kim Davis is appealing to the Supreme Court her illegal actions in denying a marriage license because she says God told her to, in appealing that part of her case, she is also asking the court to overturn Obergefell. And this just doesn't seem like legally the right vehicle to do that. The court also doesn't have to take up any of this. And even if they did take up the Kim Davis part of it, they don't have to address the Obergefell request in it at all.

55:07So I think, yes, the anti-gay movement in this country senses it's got the wind in its sails. They've got a newly reactionary Republican Party on these issues that's getting really demagogic on these issues. And they think that they've got victories ahead. I just don't think this is the case by which they're going to do it. That said, I mean, they've been doing all sorts of stuff that isn't warranted or necessitated by the material that's being put before them. That's the whole shadow docket idea. So this is a pretty radical court. I don't really want to stand here on plant two feet and say it's not going to happen.

55:43But it would be a weird way for them to do it if they were going to. Weird way for them to do it. Well, I think they go through trans people and then to gay. Like ultimately marriage really chapped their ass. They really did. A lot of these people. And I think that was the problem. And still, like, more than two-thirds of the country is in favor of same-sex marriage, which is a reversal from what it was when they decided it. Right. But still, look at abortion, gun control, all that stuff. You know, the 80-20 rule on so much stuff. There's so much stuff that has an 80-20. People are for it, and it doesn't matter.

56:15That's part of the reason they don't like democracy is because they actually don't have the people with them on this stuff on which they're making some of the worst. Correct. The largest advances, at least. Yeah, I'm not getting gay married again. That's all I have to say. Anyway, good luck taking away my marriage. Honestly, it's so ridiculous. It's such a waste of time. All right, Rachel, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about what the women of the right are up to.

56:47Rachel, we're back with a quick update of the women on the right. Let's start with Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, former employee of Elon Musk. She launched her own podcast, the Katie Miller Podcast, and kicking it off with a J.D. Vance interview. That charmer. Now, let's listen to some of the hard-hitting journalism happening over there. Oh, God. If you could only eat one condiment for the rest of your life, what would it be? One condiment? Yeah. Does barbecue sauce count? Yeah. Okay, barbecue sauce. Not mayonnaise? No. Now, mayonnaise is like in low doses is good, but it's kind of like I had a buddy who used to eat French fries with mayonnaise.

57:18I thought that was disgusting. That's the only thing my husband eats? With French fries or like period? Period. Period. Okay. Wow. I didn't realize. He's only a mayonnaise guy. Okay. I learned something about Stephen I didn't know. Yeah. Whatever. God. Oh, Cara. Why did you put that in my head? Because you put naked Donald Trump in my head. Oh, my God. I don't want to think about mayonnaise at all. And I don't want to think about Stephen Miller at all. Now Stephen Miller and mayonnaise are the same neuron. Oh, my God. What's your favorite content? Oh, God. Whatever the opposite of this moment is, is my favorite thing.

57:54Oh, my God. Is she going to steal our thunder? Good God. So why does Katie Miller have a podcast? There you go. That's the question. I think that's not as rhetorical. What was Katie Miller doing for Elon Musk? I don't know. Wasn't she working? She was. She was working for PR, presumably. There were other comments about their relationship, but I don't know. Allegedly. Was she working for Tesla or for Doge? Him personally. No, she worked for Doge. Remember, she was the Doge lady. And then when he was knocked out, she went with him. And that was the big, like, what's happened here? You know, and because obviously Miller is the most significant player in that administration at this point.

58:39And then she's left. She stopped doing stuff for him. She had to get out because she knows where her mayonnaise is buttered. I'm going to sue. I'm going to sue. I've been irreparably damaged. With mayonnaise. I want a temporary restraining order from any more mayonnaise talk out of you, Kara Spisher. Anyway, she has a podcast. Everyone has a podcast. There's all these ladies of the right that are now pushing. There's this whole movement of ladies of the right. You know, she's like, we need to be heard. I'm like, you need not to be heard. You've been heard enough. I love that. Just the idea of ladies of the right is also great because the whole Lord of the Rings thing was so weird.

59:16But I think that if we could change the acronym so it was ladies of the right rather than Lord of the Rings. and so name all our companies after that, you know? They're getting into podcasting, and some are more successful. Like I said, Megyn Kelly is very popular. But there's a whole movement of these people. They feel like, oh, I got a microphone. I can say whatever I want. It is a movement of people. It's not specific to them, though. I feel like everybody, like every homeowners association and PTA has a podcast now, too. Yeah, that's true. It's the way that people are. Right. It's the blog.

59:48It's the blog. Remember when everybody had a blog? Yeah. It's the blog of today that everybody has a microphone. Well, she'll get, she's sort of a house organ for these people. So they can come on and say adorable things and it'll get, so to speak, eaten up like mayonnaise. Did you listen to more of the podcast than the mayonnaise clip? I did. Does she have an appealing? No, it was literally, that was the highlight of it. The mayonnaise was the highlight. It was sort of like, so what do you do for fun? Like it was painful. Do you remember in the first term, first Trump term, when he appointed Jared to a job at the White House?

1:00:24And it was like, Jared's in charge of Middle East peace. Jared's in charge of like Jared's in charge of Jared's in charge of COVID. He's in charge. And as he was accruing all of these jobs and more jobs and more jobs and more jobs, Jared Kushner was starting to really loom as maybe this is the person who's actually kind of running the federal government. Jared Kushner, oh, and like lots of things are being ascribed to him and dark things being ascribed to him. And he's really seen as the power behind the throne, especially post-Bannon and everything. And then it occurred to sort of the collective mindset at some point that like nobody had ever actually heard from Jared.

1:00:59And then they rolled him out and they had him do a White House press briefing, a White House press conference statement at some point. And everybody's thinking like, Jared Kushner is the man. Jared Kushner is the power. He's the Sith Lord here. And he walks up to the microphone and he says, hello, everybody. He was like, open his mouth. And it was like, oh, no, all illusions have gone. There's something about his presentation, in particular, his voice that was like, oh, yeah, I don't have to worry about this guy. I felt the same way about Ron DeSantis and his much heralded presidential campaign.

1:01:31It was really on paper. It looks fantastic. And then he walks up to the microphone. Yeah. Yeah. Looks and sound. Well, remember, what's his name? Howard Dean had the same problem, right? Like there is an element of looks and presentation that matters to people. Yeah, although with Howard Dean, I think that was a little bit of a, it was the scream, right? It was the scream. And it was just like a weird pickup. It was a weird pickup thing. But he didn't otherwise speak like a weirdo. No, not at all. He got mum-dunied. He got, Democrats were scared of him. Mum-dunied's doing pretty well. Yeah, well, Howard Dean was for a while too, but Democrats got all scared because he actually had class analysis.

1:02:04Right, that's true. That's a fair point. So you're not worried about Katie Miller taking a show from you, right? Oh. No. Yeah. You still haven't answered the condiment issue. The weird thing about me in condiments is that I put mustard on my eggs. Oh, that's okay. I like things with vinegar in them, and mustard has vinegar in it. And so when I get like a bacon, egg, and cheese, I put mustard and hot sauce on it. That's acceptable. And by the way, many people in Belgium eat mayonnaise with – many people in Europe eat mayonnaise with fries. There aren't that many people in Belgium, though. So let's be straight about this.

1:02:37They enjoy their mayonnaise. We're not even going to get into aioli. All right. Some more ladies of the right. Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene are beefing. In the last week, Laura Loomer claimed that Trump White House can't stand Marjorie Taylor Greene in a deposition in a lawsuit against Bill Maher. By the way, please go read that whole deposition. It's one wacky thing after the next. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested Laura Loomer was bankrolled by Israeli intelligence. And Loomer is called MTG, a rabid dog, and a lying fake Christian whore. I don't think we could do any better from that.

1:03:09What is happening? I think a bigger question is, on the right, what happens post-Trump? Because there will be eventually a post-Trump, unless they weakened Bernie's this guy. What happens? Because there seems to be so many fissures in this gang of, like, incompetence and malcontents. Well, you know, I've done a lot of work in the past few years on like the far right and the far right in American modern history and what they've what they've done and who they are and how they network with mainstream and elected right wingers and stuff. And they're good at it. Let's just be clear. Yeah. And there's it's always been much more seamless between the far right and the center right than it is between the far left and the mainstream left.

1:03:52But one of the things that has limited the ascendance and the power and the sustainability of the very far right in the past is that they're all crooks and mean girls. And they steal from each other and get in fistfights and set each other's houses on fire and sleep with each other's wives and husbands. And there's so much infighting that they can't keep it together for more than a single generation ever. And that's true in everything from the American Nazi Party, where we have George Lincoln Rockwell assassinated by one of his own people, to the Liberty Lobby, which was a Holocaust denial neo-Nazi organization that was very integrated with the elected right in the Reagan era, where they descended into incredible fistfights and smashing each other over the head with iron bars.

1:04:41Like, there's all this stuff. And it always goes that way. And right now, we do have, with an authoritarian in the White House, we do have greater and more scary, more powerful integration between the very far right and the right than we've ever had before. But it doesn't expunge that dynamic, which I think always exists on the far right, which is, you're Israeli intelligence. No, you're Israeli intelligence. And you're a whore. and you're a, you know. A lying fake Christian whore. That's the name of my band, but go ahead. Aw. Actually, the name of my band is Pregnant Women Smoking, but go ahead.

1:05:19I would buy merch from either. Yeah. So you feel like a crack up is inevitable in that regard, without the organizing glue of Donald Trump. I just feel like the constant cracking up. Like I feel like constant warring and cracking up and, you know, they're polygraphing each other in the defense secretary's office, right? And they're all the same people. They're all on the same side. And, you know, and Bannon is out there denouncing, you know, Bannon and Musk are, they're going to kill each other. And these guys are fractious by nature because they're conspiratorial and purist and they're not awesome when it comes to rational argument and compromise.

1:06:03And so they're always denouncing and beating one another to death. And I don't think that will change. And I think that's to all of our benefit. And I hope they never change. Right, because they will continue to do so. Yeah, you're going to see more of that no matter how—I agree with you. I'm always like, minute Trump leaves the picture, it degenerates really rather quickly. The conspiratorial right is inherently fractious. And that's part of why they're a bad bet for governance, because they're constantly schisming against each other. Well, they're bond throwers by nature, right? And they're shit stirrers and breakers of things.

1:06:35They're sort of like toddlers, almost like the tech bros. But you know what I call tech bros now? Technically broken. I keep repeating that until it catches on. You can use it anytime, Rachel. Please, you'll popularize it, if you will. Technically broken. All right, Rachel, one more quick break, and we will be back for our last segment on predictions.

1:07:01Okay, Rachel, let's hear a prediction. I can make one too, but I would like you to. You go first. Well, I'm living for two things. I think Gavin Newsom's done very well with his tweeting of Trump. He's mimicking Trump, which is really great. But I'm really enjoying the AI boys fighting. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going at it again. Musk alleged that Apple engaged in antitrust violations, making it impossible for AI companies other than OpenAI to reach the top of the app store. Musk says XAI will take immediate legal action. Altman responded to a claim saying, This is a remarkable claim, given what I have heard allege that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like.

1:07:43And Musk responded saying, you know, you had three million responses to this and I have many more followers and I didn't have nearly as many. And Sam Altman delivered the fantastic and only gay people can do this slap, which was skill issues. I predict this war is going to get worse because I think that Elon will do anything. There is a weird anger that he has towards Sam Altman, who he used to be not aligned with. They did a company at Open Eye together, and he will not rest until he is somehow sullied. You can have your opinions about Sam Altman all you want or any of these tech people, but this is going to get, I think, worse.

1:08:25as Grok continues to crater. A founder just left. And so Elon's going to sort of focus his attention away from Trump, although I do think he did start the Epstein thing, and continue to go at anything that has to do with opening and try to kill it. Does Musk have stick-to-itiveness problems, though? Does he? Absolutely. Absolutely. He is like a, you know, like what's a bird, a hummingbird. He flits. He flits, he flots. There's a song. What is that? Oh, it's in Sound of Music. It's a Sound of Music song. It goes back to Julie Andrews, the villainess. I was just going to say. We're back to Julie Andrews.

1:09:03No, the villainess in that is my favorite character of all time, the Baroness. Oh. The Baroness. Remember her? The Baroness. The Baroness. She was the blonde. Susan watches The Sound of Music like three times a year. As she should. Yeah. As she should. I go get on the exercise bike. Do you? I can't handle it. It's such a brilliant thing. It is, but three times a year, really? You know, there's an idea that it's anti-gay because all the Germans are gay coding and all the Austrians are like hikers or something like that. I just heard that. I'm like, what are you talking about? Rolf is just an asshole.

1:09:37He's not gay. For goodness sake. Also, there can be gay assholes. It happens. Oh, hello. Nazis had a whole division of them. They did get killed, as you know, as you well know, as a studier of the Nazis. They did kill Ernst Röhm and his band of gays before they got into power. Anyway, on that note— They didn't call them the band of gays. The band of gays. Mean gays. It sounded better in the German. I know. There's way more mean gays than you realize. Okay. Let's hear a prediction from you. Okay. I have a couple of things that are just like a heads up in terms of things that I think are going to get more important.

1:10:12Okay. One is the U.S. Attorneys scandal. So this started in Albany, Northern District of New York. and then New Jersey with Alina Habba, and then in California, and then in Las Vegas. Trump is, it would appear to be illegally installing U.S. attorneys. And U.S. attorneys doesn't sound like that big a deal, but these are the people who prosecute federal crimes in these states and districts. And there's a real question as to whether or not it's possible to have federal law enforcement legally in any of these states where he's effectively illegally installed these U.S. attorneys. So this is a slow burn story, but it's going to become a bigger one because he's trying something that isn't working and it's going to result in a confrontation with the courts and with federal district judges.

1:10:59Which it has in New Jersey with Illinois. It has already. And that's just that's going to break one way or the other. And Trump is it's just it's just worth watching there because that could be an important constitutional moment. I would say it's also really worth watching Trump's threat that he wants to redo the census. And again, census sounds boring, but there is a universe in which Trump is worried that he's going to lose the House in the midterms in 2026. And so he says, OK, we need a new census because actually the last census, I'm nullifying it because it had immigrants in it. And therefore, it doesn't count.

1:11:35Therefore, all the congressional districts nationwide that were set by that last census, those are no longer in effect. Therefore, we cannot have the 2026 midterm elections the way we're supposed to because those congressional districts are illegal and we'll have to delay it. I mean, it's a sort of doomsday scenario in terms of the technical part of our democracy and continuing to have elections. But that census part of it is a key piece. So those are worth paying attention to. Of course, it's going for the census. It's going for the census, but it's a way to go for elections. Right, right. Over, under on 50-50, 40-30, what is that?

1:12:13I don't know. I mean, I think that they've floated the let's have a new census thing in part to see what the reaction to it is. And people have treated it like that's weird or that's like a technically infeasible thing. Hey, guess what? He doesn't actually want a new census. Yes. He just wants to slow it down. That's a very good point. It's not to get a new census. Don't assume any good faith on the part of these arguments. The takeover of D.C. is not about crime. The attempt to nullify the census is not about the quality of the census. All of these things are all about what everything he does is for, which is to accrue more power and to make it more dangerous and difficult to oppose him or criticize him.

1:12:53And slow down the possibly inevitable, which is his defeat. Yeah. And so that's one potentially positive thing to look for is that I do think the mRNA funding decision has to be reversed. I think that that was, I think they blew it. I think RFK Jr. blew it in terms of announcing the cutoff of mRNA vaccine funding. mRNA technology, it would be like us opting out of penicillin, right? Which we just did. Right. Did you see that thing, the Washington Post, which is the new House organ for carselesis from the Trump administration? The opinion section ran a piece by why we tabled mRNA. And we tabled mRNA funding because the American people, for some reason, have suspicions and they don't trust mRNAs.

1:13:40Trump just put a guy in the health department who says that Wi-Fi gives you leaky brain, says that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and that COVID was genetically engineered to spare the Jews. Yeah, I wonder why people have weird ideas about vaccine technologies. There you go. I actually think the MRNA decision is bad enough. And that pushback in the Washington Post is part of the reason, I think, actually, that they are going to have to reverse it. Oh, no, the Post didn't push back. They published a positive piece by the guy who did it. Yeah, the op-ed. But that op-ed was so weak. If that's the argument for why you're doing it, they feel the need to make the argument.

1:14:16The argument is risible. That's a fair point. And it's such important technology. They also had an editorial. It's such a heinous public. David and I talked about this week, but saying that, hey, maybe the D.C. needs more crime fighting. I was literally, I nearly walked over there and slapped them. I just was like, I need to now go down there and slap them at this point. Turns out having a billionaire running stuff doesn't make it good. Technically broken, Rachel. I think actually your prediction was going to be that you were going to the UFC fight at the White House. Oh, well, I was wrong. Yeah, I don't know.

1:14:46Not unless they're going to use me as a prop like a, you know, like a chair. Oh, yeah. Breaking a chair over somebody's head. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be a great UFC fighter. You'd be a great wrestler. Yeah, yeah. Remember, I'm taller than people expect. That's true. I'm noodley. You'd slam the shit out of people, I think. Anyway, I really appreciate you doing this. I'm enormous. Besides someone, I've gotten to know you a little bit. I think you're a wonderful person, but you're doing God's work, I think. And I think people don't realize how funny you are and everything else and how substantive you are.

1:15:16Please read her books, all of them. They have changed my life in a lot of ways. I wrote stuff I didn't know, and I'm a very big student of history, both ultras. Is there another season of Ultra coming? There is a new podcast coming. It is not a season of Ultra, but for fans of Ultra, you will find a lot that you like. Great. That's really good. Stuff I didn't know, and I knew a lot of stuff. And Prequel is a wonderful book. Everybody read it. They should. That's the part of, I love your show, but that stuff I just adore. I think it's amazing. Kara Swisher, I'm very thankful for you. Thank you very much.

1:15:44Thank you. I'm going to read us out. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

1:16:11Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. And Rachel, a jar of mayonnaise is on the way. Thanks, Kara. So gross.