Raging Moderates: The MAGA Civil War Begins

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1:06on-brand content out in the world faster. Go from cookie cutter to class of its own. Switch to the quick and easy app to create on-brand content, Adobe Express. Learn more at adobe.com slash express slash business. True story, I have used Adobe Express and I was shocked how easy it is to use and produce content.

1:31Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new. Show me all the things PDFs can do. Do your work with ease and speed. PDF spaces is all you need. Do hours of research in an instant. With key insights from an AI assistant. Pick a template with a click. Now your Prezo looks super slick. Close that deal, yeah you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done. Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that with the all new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all new Adobe Acrobat Studio. you. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlow. Jess, we have no time for banter.

2:08Our producers just had it. You gave Cory Booker our banter time. I did. I did. How do you think that makes me feel? But I did want to tell you something really cool. Yeah. Well, you've had a great week. So everyone by notes on being a man. But I was on a panel at the Jewish Federations of North America. And I came on. Oh, JFNA? Yes, JFNA. Jafna? You mean Jafna? I do, but I got to meet four released hostages and listen to them speak. And it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And the bravery and the stories about one of them, the guy who works for NVIDIA. Yeah, yeah. Was there with his girlfriend, Noah, who got out significantly before him.

2:58But he was talking about how he used his engineering background to, like, figure out where he was and actually dig tunnels and got out at one point and then was captured again and put he was chained to a chair for a week and beaten. And like, anyway, it was an amazing experience. And that's it. Banter over. There we go. All right. Today, we're talking about MAGA Civil War, who could replace Schumer as leader in the Senate. And Michelle Obama has some tough love for Democrats. I've really come to really appreciate First Lady Obama. All right, let's get into it. Let's talk about the MAGA Civil War that's spilling everywhere right now, from Congress to Heritage to Tucker's studio basement.

3:43You've got Trump losing control of his own movement, caving on the Epstein files, nuking Marjorie Taylor Greene, and watching parts of the GOP revolt on immigration, H-1B visas and tariffs. Then you've got media influencers, Tucker, Fuentes, Megyn Kelly, turning the right's worst internal fights into public content. And all of it points to the same thing. The post-Trump power struggle isn't coming someday. It's already here. And it's getting pretty ugly pretty fast. Jess, is this a moment when MAGA finally fractures for real? And if Trump can't control the extremists he helped create, who actually ends up leading this movement?

4:19So, I mean, we have kind of billed things as the end of MAGA multiple times and been completely wrong about it. And I think as long as Donald Trump exists, MAGA is going to exist as well. But these fractures do feel like an indication that the Republican Party knows that Trump is a lame duck now. Tim Dillon, who is a podcast host and very funny. I don't know if you ever heard him, but he said, you know, this is the end of the Trump administration in the beginning of the lame duck presidency. And it's obvious to everyone. I mean, this is the first kind of couple of weeks that I've seen so much public criticism of the president.

4:59And it's on a host of different levels. I want to get into my my three legged stool of MAGA breakup. But you see other names being floated for 2028 that aren't for the lunatics, Donald Trump, but for the non lunatics, just J.D. Vance. You know, people returning to conversations about, like I've seen Ron DeSantis popping up, like if he could have a resurgence. People looking at Marco Rubio. A lot of that is, you know, because of the fracture over Israel, which is one of the legs of those stools. Ted Cruz positioning himself, according to an Axios report for 2028, as the guy who's willing to stand up to Tucker Carlson and the kind of anti-Semitic or anti-Semitic curious wing of the party.

5:45So it does feel like it's different in that sense and that it could be exploited even further. You know, I want to get your take and then I want to talk about my stool. So people keep using the term lame duck. This feels like more than that. A lame duck is someone that has... It's like a dead duck? A duck everyone's all of a sudden shooting at. It feels as if Marjorie Taylor Greene's pollster or internal consultant or strategist has been the most is the most seminal person in the world right now. I used to think it was Epstein. But someone has said to Representative Greene, look, if you not only go after the president, she's not just disagreeing with him.

6:25She's directly she's firing shots across his bow. We've never seen kind of one of the leaders of the evangelists or the acolytes do that. A lame duck is someone who has no power, but everyone just treats you like pop-pop, right? Oh, aren't you cute, but I'm not going to take you seriously. Whereas it feels like there's mojo on behalf of the Republicans right now to actually come out against him. People have decided there might be political opportunity in directly taking on the president's idea, specifically around Epstein. and it feels like we're going to see more of it because I would argue MTG's decision to do this has paid huge dividends for her.

7:06All of a sudden, she's been thrust into the national stage as someone who is seen as reasonable. Your thoughts? Reasonable. You're pushing me. I think that we still have to kind of see in a post-Epstein Files release world what Marjorie Taylor Greene looks like. And I was thinking about her appearance on Marr and how it was like 70 % kind of normal, but then she still has the kook in her, right? And a lot of that was genuine, you know, how she came up through the system. And she posted either this morning or last night, you know, I was six years diehard MAGA, and I meant all of that. And that doesn't come undone because the president tells you you can't run for Senate and you're mad about the Epstein files in totality.

7:55So I don't I want to get don't want to give her too much credit for it, but it will be interesting to see how he deals with the caucus post release of the files. So they're voting today. So we're recording on Tuesday morning in the House. There's reporting that it could be unanimous that all of these Republicans who had been backing Trump about this and out over their skis saying it's a Democratic hoax now that they've backtracked because Trump has sent up the flare that everyone's got to backtrack, that they'll vote for the release. Then it'll go to the Senate. I imagine it'll be unanimous or close to unanimous there.

8:27Trump's going to have to sign it. But the anxiety within the White House, which I think is legitimate, rests on the fact that it probably won't be enough. Right. The people who want these files out there, especially the conspiracy addled brained folks on the base, expect that there is a pedophile list because Pam Bondi told us that there was. Remember back in that interview, I think it was in February on Fox, where she said the Epstein list was sitting on her desk. Now, I don't think that that's the case. And they've been trying to do damage control since then. But there are a lot of people out there who believe that this cabal of pedophiles or pedophile adjacent folks are running the government and running the world, want something more than just a few more documents than we've already seen.

9:14And House Oversight Chairman James Comer has said that. He said that the DOJ has turned over what they're legally allowed to turn over. Now, I don't trust Comer as far as I could throw him, but he's signaling something that I think is going to come to fruition, which is that this is going to be a dud. I don't know exactly what denomination of dud, but people are not going to get the goods that they're expecting. And I think that that will continue to roil this civil war within the party, which brings me to my stool. So one leg of the stool is the Epstein stuff. So that's for the conspiracy theory folks like a Marjorie Taylor Greene.

9:50But then also kind of normie Republicans who are concerned that there was a pedophile with a sex trafficking ring and that he was connected not only to the president of the United States of America, but all of these powerful people. So that's like a Thomas Massey, who I would not put in the conspiracy theory bucket. I mean, he's a little, you know, a little libertarian crazy, but not that crazy. Then you have the folks that are splitting with Trump on policy. So whether it's tariffs, what he said about H-1B visas and that Americans aren't talented enough to do these jobs, this idea of a 50 year mortgage, which seems absolutely stupid.

10:28and then to a lesser degree what's going on with immigration enforcement with moderate Republicans that's something that is swaying them and you saw that in the exits out of Virginia and New Jersey where people are saying this isn't worst first right you are actually even detaining American citizens at a certain point there are tons of lawsuits we have over 170 Americans that have been in ICE detention like that was not what was supposed to happen then you have the third stool which I think is at least the most salacious in all of this, which is the fight over Israel, kind of the battle for the soul of the America First aspect of the party with the Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes interview, Kevin Roberts from Heritage totally bungling it, the fact that Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens—I should actually separate Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens because Candace Owens is totally out of her mind.

11:21Megyn Kelly is choosing a path that makes maybe some sense for her downloads in the immediacy, but in the long term, I think makes her a pariah within the Republican Party when they realize that they can't win another national election living in this kind of conspiracy world where 30 to 40 percent conservative writer estimated that this guy, Ron Dreher, that 30 to 40 percent of Republican staffers in Washington under the age of 30 are Gripers or Nick Fuentes fans. You said 30 percent? He estimates 30 to 40 percent of Republican staffers in Washington. Yeah, I'd love to see that. And if you look at that text chain, remember the GOP staffer text chain that Politico published?

12:04Shocking. Yeah. So how do you like my stool? I think it's actually I thought that was impressive. The fight over Israel. Yeah. It's an interesting one. I went to a dinner last night and with one of my one of my role models, a guy named Sam Harris, and we had an extended conversation about Israel. And, you know, it's going back to World War Two. There was a large communist. You love World War Two. I'm that guy. I know it's your age, right? You're just like the World War Two guy. My favorite movies are anything starring Hitler. I just when everyone's asleep, I turn on, you know, A &E and I watch World War Two in color.

12:43You know, it's the Battle of the Bulge. It's going to be a good night. I'm that guy now. But in Germany, pre-World War II or leading up to World War II, people forget there was a very strong communist movement. So there was the fascist slash Nazi movement. There was a very strong communist movement, far left, far right. When you go really to the extremes, they become more and more similar. And they kind of meet in the middle, that whole horseshoe thing. And they were both very nationalist, enemies from within, weaponizing young, dissatisfied men. It's not your fault. And I find that whenever the extremists on the far left and the far right meet, you know it's a really bad fucking idea.

13:21Like they meet, the far left started the anti-vax movement, and then the far right embraced it from a different angle. And I find that the far left and the far right both share anti-Semitic views. And so this really is a decent litmus test. If the extremists on the left agree with the extremists on the right, you know, danger Will Robinson. And then I just want to go over calcium polymarket, which I'm fascinated by. These are these platforms where people can wager on events. But what it does is it illuminates the wisdom of the crowds. Now, some people would say it's perverted because the mayoral bets, it ends up meant much of that capital came from China and the Gulf, which means our elections are being fucked with again.

14:02But anyways, these markets to me are just fascinating because they're so far have been more right than wrong. When they bet, you know, I thought I was so smart when they said 60-40 Trump over Harris. I thought, oh, I'm betting on Harris. And of course, Trump won. These markets tend to be very good at predictions. Anyways, in terms of the odds of on Calci, who will be the Republican nominee in 2021, this blew my mind. So Tucker Carlson's 3%, Glenn Youngkin, 3%, Ron DeSantis, 3%. I think that's low. I think people don't give Governor DeSantis enough credit as a candidate. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 5%.

14:41I'd put her at less than one. There's no fucking way they're letting someone, you know, it's like if conspiracy was a person, it would have her hair cut. And again, my favorite thing is she has the energy of a woman who shows up to Costco with a, you know, demanding to return a rotisserie chicken that's already half eaten. You know, she's just that person. She's, there's definitely, you know, there's definitely. And also our fearless leader. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. There you go. What's my other favorite one? Oh, she has the political nuance of a leaf blower at 6 a.m. So Donald Trump, 5 percent.

15:15OK. Constitution. Constitution, be damned. I'm in. Marco Rubio. I'd probably put that higher, actually. Marco Rubio, although I think biology is going to take him out. Marco Rubio, 9 percent. And the thing that blew me away, Jess, J.D. Vance on Calci is polling at 51 percent. That feels, at this moment, that feels high to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I don't, the thing I, I mean, there's a few things that presidents have had in common, but one of them, almost all of them, with the exception, all the way back to Nixon, I would say Nixon is the last that didn't qualify. They, I find that they're all quite or very likable.

15:52They have to be people you'd want to hang out with. And I don't think J.D. Vance has that likability. I mean, I'm biased against the guy because I think effectively he's he might as well be just an automatron or a robot for Peter Thiel, who I think is an odd person. But I don't find him that like. Are you sure? That does feel high. Say more. I think that it is up there because he's the sitting vice president. And Trump has made a few comments about how J.D. will do great and it'll be J.D. and Marco. and you would assume obviously that J.D. Vance would be the top of the ticket and that Rubio would be the VP, but you're completely correct.

16:30I mean, do you want J.D. Vance to represent your team in a debate? Yeah, he's a really good debater, but he is completely charmless. I have not met anyone who comes out of an interaction with anyone who's like, you know what? He blew me away. He's so personal. He's so charming. You know, I've heard I know people who are friends with him, but they don't talk about him in the same way that they do about Someone like a trump, right? Where you're really like spending time with him and you know that Even though I abhor everything he's done to this country I understand a world in which donald trump is a good time right that you'd want to watch a fight with him He doesn't drink but grab a drink very charming people love Yeah, totally and you know, there are We know why people like donald trump the good and the bad of it But I totally feel that way about J.D.

17:20Vance. And I think that his inability to take a definitive enough stand in support of not only Israel, but even his own wife, who has been attacked by Nick Fuentes. You know, he's gone after their mixed race children. He's called his Usha Vance Ajit, you know, and he is in this battle online where he attacked a journalist who was attacking his deputy press secretary, who happens to be Tucker Carlson's son. and he goes after the journalists a lot harder than he goes after anyone who is a fan of Nick Fuentes. And I think it just says something really bad about his character, but also his understanding of the moment.

18:05You know, you want to build the biggest tent possible and you want to get as many votes as you possibly can. But even paying lip service or kind of letting in Nick Fuentes adjacent thinkers into the party apparatus is a bad call. There are just some things that are not worth it. And being in bed with Groypers has got to be one of those things. You're exactly right. I think that, I mean, they called it the sister soldier moment with Obama, that at some point you demonstrate leadership. Everybody wants to sort of like, okay, they're crazy. I don't agree with them, but wink, wink, I'm going to put up with them in hopes that they stay on my team.

18:46Real leadership is calling out people in your own party and just saying, this is not productive. I think there's a huge opportunity now for someone who wants a Republican nomination to just come out and say, not even mention his name, but to say that the Republican Party is the party that ended slavery. A key component of us and why we have earned respect and been one of the two parties in America is at a very fundamental level, we flatly reject these stupid, dangerous ideas. There's a huge opportunity for a Republican to say that, because it's not going to be won over getting gropers. I mean, they're going to vote for the Republican, whoever that is.

19:25It's finding moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans who will vote for you that'll swing the election. I just want to comment for a minute. I'm fascinated by the media side of this. Tucker Carlson, his interview of Nick Fuentes, for example, has garnered over six million views. And just to give you a sense for that, we're obsessed with still cable news. Fox News averages just 1.4 million views and only 132 ,000 in the core demo, 25 to 54. So Tucker's reaching probably five to 10 times the core demo. That's across the whole day though, right? The programming, the Fox number, because like the five is three and a half, 3.7 million.

20:05That's the average viewership. Oh, God. Yeah. Across the whole day of programming. Yeah. And quite frankly, it's massively taken up. The median is probably closer to half a million. If it wasn't for your show, by the way, folks, Jess is on a show that's the most viewed show in all of cable news by far. CNN gets two or three hundred thousand. A big show gets five hundred thousand. Jess's show gets three and a half million, which pulls that number. Without your show, I bet that number would be closer to half a million. Anyways, my point is he gets 10 times the viewership of an average show on Fox and probably 20 times the average listenership of a show on CNN.

20:44People just don't realize how powerful these podcasters are becoming. And I was almost, I won't say not a fan of Tucker, but I have found his, I have liked the fact he's willing to color outside the lines, go against his own party on certain things. I think he's an outstanding podcaster. And then I remember who the fuck Tucker Carlson actually is. And he lets someone come on his show and say, I'm a big fan of Stalin and doesn't push back on him. I'll circle back and then never circle. Yeah. And or or tries to, you know, play play Middle East geography with Ted Cruz. And quite frankly, like you said, like you said, comes up with these kind of anti-Semitic light positioning and for some, you know, decides to very much go after Israel.

21:29And I understand there's a difference between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. I get it. But it just seems like Tucker's very often, early and often, anti-Israel. And that's his right. Well, listen to me with all these fucking land acknowledgments. Anyways, but one of the things I really hate about big tech is that I don't think this clown Nick Fuentes would even exist because this is what happens. You are where you spend your time. And people spend, get two-thirds of their news now from social, two-thirds of people get their news from social media. And the algorithms just fucking love Nick Fuentes because anytime he speaks, he inspires hundreds or thousands of comments.

22:09Anytime there's a clip of them online and every comment is another Nissan ad, which is another, which is more shareholder value from Meta. So they take that content and they elevate it beyond its natural reach. And the reality is, I don't think a third of congressional staffers would even know who fucking Nick Fuentes is, if this content, if this noxious content wasn't elevated beyond the reach, it would typically get organically. But when you're seeing him everywhere to a certain extent, and then Tucker Carlson platforms him to a certain extent, what they're doing is they're literally creating a monster.

22:44And that is they're elevating his content and ideas above the reach it would get on the merit of its own ideas. They're creating a non-organic monster here, and that is his content is being elevated well beyond what it would get on its own merits because the algorithms love incendiary, controversial content, which is Latin for misinformation that is especially vile. And these, quite frankly, people on the far right and the far left, the algorithms just love them. Whereas reasonable policy discussion of people who are somewhere in the middle, the algorithms are like, hold my beer. You're not going to get you're not going to inspire the kind of fight online that's going to get us the money we need.

23:30In sum, when Tucker Carlson platforms him, which I just think is really poor judgment on his part and doesn't push back. And then he says these ridiculous things and social media absolutely loves it. And you're getting clips of Nick Fuentes from different people all over the place. his ideas start to seem a little less crazy and you start thinking, well, maybe this is where America's headed. So this, again, I think we're going to look back and we're not going to realize the level of mind control and influence these for-profit algorithms had on us. All right, thank you for my TED Talk. Let's take a quick break.

24:06Stay with us.

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