Trump’s Controversial Cabinet Picks

25:43In other words, government, other than going to wearing a uniform for the military, I would argue that going to work for the government outside of our security apparatus or defense apparatus does not have a lot of aspirational value. And if they can restore some of that, I think that would be a really good thing. Your thoughts? Yeah. Listen, I think that the best inventions or the most progress that we make is when the public and the private sector get together. And they bring the best ideas from both of those backgrounds. So there is potential for that. And I don't want to underestimate Elon Musk ever.

26:20I think Vivek is a smart guy. I don't think he's an Elon Musk level thinker. I think very few people in the history of the world have been. So I think that there is potential in that way, but at least from early quotes about it or the way that it has been discussed, it feels much more just like taking a hammer to everything. And I think that when you do that, and in a lot of ways, that's what Trump is, right? He's just he's a disruptor. He's going to blow it all up. and I hope that they will be more thoughtful about it and also consider that there are millions of people who have given their lives and that is why they serve, right?

27:02I mean, people in mid-level bureaucratic jobs, I understand it's not sexy, right? It's not the thing that gets your name in lights in any way, but they do feel a duty to serve and I know that you obviously think that that's something really important. We've been talking about national service and things like that. And I hope that this doesn't end up in discouraging people from wanting to serve in whatever capacity they can or in a whole bunch of people losing their jobs. Like, we have a very good unemployment rate. If they decimate these departments, you will see a spike in that. And these are good-paying jobs as well.

27:40There is something to be said about the notion of bringing more competitive, I don't know, merit-based as opposed to tenure-based culture to government work. What's interesting is I believe state and local employment is either flat or down. The federal, the kind of the administrative state does, has gotten bigger, both under Republican and Democratic administrations, but a certain level of, I don't know, full body contact capitalism, the majority or 90 % or 80 % of the workforce has to face every day. I think a little of that in the public sector would probably be a good thing. The first piece of data, I think, though, that is going to really check back the Trump administration's current policies is if, one, there's all of a sudden a pretty significant uptick in unemployment, although I don't think they'll be able to affect this.

28:32What they might be able to do, though, is substantially spike inflation if any of this shit around tariffs or these immigration policies. And the moment that inflation starts to spike again back from, I mean, it was a real yeoman's work on behalf of Chairman Powell to get inflation from whatever it was, 5%, 6%, 7 % down to 2.2 % again, which is where economists say is sort of the sweet spot. If in one quarter or one month it announces or they announce that the CPI has spiked 50, 100, 150 basis points, you're going to see a serious rethink of some of these policies. And I think that's coming down the pike.

29:07if he just gets a fraction of what he's asking for in terms of tariffs. But actually, I'm less triggered by this Department of Government Efficiency because I think it's going to be hilarious when these two think they can run up against Congress and tell them to start cutting jobs in certain areas. I think it's going to be really funny to see what actually happens or doesn't. And finally, let's save the best or the worst for last. RFK Jr., question mark, your turn, Jess. Everyone who's listening, I'm sure, has heard before that, you know, about RFK Jr. and his vaccine skepticism. But, you know, there are 83 dead kids in Samoa and they blame RFK Jr.

29:50who showed up four months before a huge measles outbreak and talked about how dangerous those kinds of vaccines are. He's now trying to sugarcoat everything and make it like, you know, it's just about you doing what you want, but not giving any of the information about how unbelievably good and effective vaccines are. Like, this isn't about do I want the COVID booster or not, right? These are kids that are not getting measles vaccines. There's a very funny meme with Marco Rubio, and it says Marco, and then RFK Jr. says polio. Yeah. So I did enjoy that. Ultra-processed foods are bad. Pesticides in our food supply are bad.

30:30All of that can be true without having to get RFK Jr. And I don't know. I mean, you've been on Silo Sibbins in Mexico, so perhaps you didn't see Marv from the weekend or from Friday, I should say. But he had on Dr. Casey Means. Do you know her? I don't. So she's a Stanford-educated doctor. She wrote a book that's a huge hit, Good Energy, The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. And she was talking just about how we have no prevention system for chronic disease and that she wasn't taught anything in medical school that actually helped her treat human beings and what a racket it is and how we can do so much better.

31:12and she was giving crazy stats like our life expectancy for American men is 73 in Japan. It's 83. Same in Switzerland. We're the sickest of the top 11 high-income countries in the world. And she said in the interview, you know, I'm not a Trumper, but it excites me that RFK Jr. is talking about some of these issues. And so I say, can we have Dr. Casey Means as our HHS secretary? Because she doesn't have a brain worm. She didn't take a dead bear cub and put it in Central Park. And going back to the morality clause, RFK Jr. is a prolific philanderer. I think it's the most generous way to describe this.

31:49And his wife ended up killing herself over this. He was detailing all of his affairs in a diary in lurid detail. Like, why do we need morally bankrupt people in these huge positions of power? Well, it'd be worse if this happened for the presidency. Anyways, I mean, we're not, we shouldn't even go there because I don't know. I know. It just upsets me. I get it. I get it. The thing about RFK Jr., there are some aspects of what he says that I think are so powerful. And this notion that there's this, and I believe this, there's this unholy alliance between the industrial food complex that wants to get you addicted.

32:32to sugary shitty food and then hand you over to the diabetes industrial complex and then tell people who are obese that you're finding your truth, not a ventilator. And this is the epidemic that kills more people than COVID every year. And Americans share one thing, and that is not more than 50 % of Americans are anything except maybe on Netflix and Amazon Prime. But the one thing we do share is that 70 % of Americans are obese or overweight. And he has gone right after the food industrial complex and said that we have all the wrong incentives. Kids should be able to have a healthy lunch. He's really good on this stuff.

33:07And then, but the problem is when a guy named Kennedy, who's handsome and gets an official title, and I don't care, he's trying to basically whitewash all of the incredibly insane things he said about vaccines. You're going to have, you know, when kids get rubella and measles, you know, they end up losing limbs and they end up dying. I don't care if it's the semiconductor, the printing press, the iPhone, whatever you think is the premier innovation of the last 100 or 200 years. I guess the printing press was more than that. But I would argue that the premier innovation, the premier technology, the most impressive thing that shows how when we come together, we can do just tons of good for the species is vaccines.

33:50Vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives. And for this guy to be coming up, and this is a true story, you know, we're telling people the best thing you can do when you see a new mother and her baby is to come up and whisper, don't get her vaccinated. Yeah. Wasn't he doing that like on a hiking trail around LA? I mean, this shit is just, it's just unacceptable to fly in the face of science like that and spread this kind of misinformation that at the end of the day results in a level of death, disease, and disability that is just unneeded. It's just such a shame because on so many things, I think he could really be a change agent.

34:29But the notion that we're going to have an anti-vax person in this role is just fucking insane. And then, so just as Trump took stocks up because the general assumption is he would cut corporate taxes, which would increase earnings and thereby increase the value of the shares, we have seen a similar meltdown across the pharmaceutical sector, specifically those who get a lot of money from vaccines on word that Kennedy was going to get HHS. And check out this. Eli Lilly down 13.5%, Novo Nordisk off 6.5%, Pfizer 4.6%, and Moderna down 9.3%. I mean, this is literally hundreds of billions in market cap drawdown because of an individual who is seen as anti-vax.

35:12So the market, so far the market has been remarkably prescient. And if the market is correct here, what they're saying is this guy will decrease substantially the adoption and usage of vaccines, which is, in my view, just, again, see above death, disease, and disability. It begs the question, and I wanted to note as well, that the World Health Organization has reported that global measles cases have surged more than 20 percent, and over 100 ,000 kids have died now. It's in the last year, I think, over not getting their measles vaccine. So that's obviously a huge problem. But this is where the like, we don't need experts for anything like the Joe Rogan philosophy of like, I'll just look it up myself.

35:59Dr. Google. Yeah. And you can get a lot out of that. But I don't know, I still want my doctor to tell me what she recommends and certainly what she recommends for my children. What happened during COVID has just monumentally fucked up society and just opened the door to all sorts of lunacy. And there were people who were saying vaccines cause autism before all of this, RFK Jr. being one of them. But now that I don't want to say it's mainstreamed, but that certainly people aren't getting, you know, the raised eyebrow like they used to when they say things like that is deeply concerning. Yeah, it's anything, this falls under the rubric of anything that the far left and the far right agree on is just a really bad fucking idea.

36:45Actually, the anti-vax movement started on the far left, you know, sort of this granola, don't put big corporations in your body. But I find that the far left and the far right come together to agree on things like reckless spending, anti-Semitism, and anti-vax. So be very careful when you hear AOC or, I don't know, Ted Cruz agree on something. All right, Jess, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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38:35Welcome back. Republicans have officially clinched the House, reelecting Mike Johnson as speaker. Democrats are hoping to shrink the majority to one or two seats. But things start to get tricky because three new Trump appointees are currently serving in Congress. Governor DeSantis has started scheduling special elections, but that could take a while. Jess, how might these open seats impact the House's ability to get things done initially? Well, hugely. I mean, Mike Johnson has made jokes about it. And there are some who are thinking that Trump is playing checkers in this. But again, I'm loathe to give him that kind of credit, but that basically he just wants everything to be about him.

39:14And he doesn't want to give anyone the capacity to be powerful except for him as the tip of the spear, not the sphere, which is a cool place to go to a concert. So having a slim majority like this is a big problem for Johnson. And he has a bold agenda. I mean, he's been talking about it for months, things that he wants to get done, obviously extending the Trump tax cuts. He wants to do stuff on China. He wants to address the border, boosting oil and gas production, though we're producing more oil than we ever have. in life, expanding school choice and going after size and scope of the federal government, which I guess Doge is going to be eating into.

39:53But Johnson, you know, will really have his hands tied on all of this. And I think they're going to do another continuing resolution in March to keep the government open. But I don't know how fast these appointments are going to be to fill these open seats. You know, Ron DeSantis has a lot because he has Marco Rubio. He has Gates. He has Mike Waltz, who's going to be national security advisor. And who knows? I mean, Trump isn't done necessarily in what he's doing. So it's going to be slim. And in the Senate, at least as far as these confirmations go, John Thune, who's the Senate majority leader, now has said he's open to recess appointments.

40:29Apparently, Mitch McConnell has said he isn't, and he's the one who is in charge at this particular moment. But when you have a bunch of lunatic appointments or potential appointments and you're going to lose Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski probably on every single one of them, you have a very, very slim majority to be playing with, even with J.D. Vance as the tying vote. So it feels kind of lame ducky, even for the trifecta that they were able to pull off. What do you think about him? I just want to come out. I actually like Mike Johnson. There's something about him. Speaker of the House is supposed to be administrative role, and I don't like his politics.

41:11But I think he's done actually a pretty good job keeping all the fucking crazies in line so which we can do basics like have funding for the government and pass a budget. I think he's, I actually think he's done his job. And I like John Thune because I just think he's very handsome. I think it's important to have handsome leaders. Oh, I was going to say that, but I didn't know if I was supposed to objectify people. But yeah, John Thune, like if your husband looks like that at 63, you're like, I nailed this. Yeah, no, that's winning. One more big story. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey's race is heading to a recount.

41:44How's that race looking, Jess? Well, bad. But this is so I understand why Bob Casey wants. I mean, the issue is with ballots that weren't dated properly. And there's been court battles back and forth on this. And the right is trying to spin this as election denialism, which it absolutely isn't. And this has been done in the past. But basically, everyone accepts that Dave McCormick has won that seat. And, you know, we defended really well. Democrats did on a comparative basis. I mean, we held four of five. Sherrod Brown potentially, I guess, could have held on. But looking at the trends, that was unlikely.

42:24And we knew that we were going to lose Jon Tester. So it's turning into more of a swirl, I think, than we could actually win this seat. But he wants every ballot to be counted. And I think that is how democracy works in all this. But Dave McCormick has gone to D.C. He has an office with his name on it. We no longer have Bob Casey's seat. There you go. So, Jess, before we wrap here, any predictions for the weekend? on? It'll be interesting to see if there's progress on the Treasury pick, which I wanted to talk to you about. Like, it was supposed to be down to just two, Howard Lutnick and Scott Besson.

43:02And now apparently there are a couple others that are in the mix. Rowan, who started Mark Rowan, Apollo and Kevin Warsh, who was in contention in 2017 as well. And of course, everyone's battling over like whether tariffs are a good thing or a bad thing. But I think that that will matter a ton in all of this. And one thing that Trump has been able to do, like he did with Mnuchin, is kind of attract some normal people, right, to come that want to do monetary policy. So I'm curious if you think, like if he cares the most about how the economy is, right, because that's how people will remember him.

43:40And the stock market is already down to pre-election levels, we should note. do you think, well, A, do you have any insight on who he is going to pick for this job? And they're doing like a survivor type thing where they're all going down to Mar-a-Lago. And where do you think he's actually going to net out on the tariff idea? So I can't, I mean, as is the narcissist kiss my ring, bend the knee thing, I can't stand these public blowjobs of come down and Mitt Romney and after shipposting me, beg for forgiveness, and then I'm going to publicly release these photos. I don't like these public tryouts, as you called it.

44:26I don't know, The Voice or America's Got Talent or whatever it is. I just don't think you should treat people this way of this stature. I don't know John Paulson. John Paulson is famous for one enormous trade, and that is the subprime credit trade, where he went short a bunch of subprime bonds and made like 50x his investors' money. Other than that, Paulson, the fund itself, not that that indicates whether you're qualified for the position, has not performed that well. The guy I find incredibly impressive is Mark Rowan. I've been at Apollo conferences where he'll give an overview of the economy.

45:02And this guy just is like, get some serious fucking brainpower. I also like the way he handled the controversy around Penn. In contrast with Bill Ackman, he was very upset. Mark Rohn, who's, I guess, very involved with Penn, was very upset about the comments or the lack thereof of the president. Basically got her fired, but then didn't get drunk on power and start deciding, like, who should be fired where and how we should redo the educational institution. I actually think he handled that very well. He was forceful yet dignified. And I know personally, having seen him in action, when it comes to the economy, you don't want to bring in a candidate.

45:44I mean, you just, you don't want to bring in someone charismatic but stupid or whose views are outside of the mainstream. I mean, the adults in the room have to be the people to get the jobs around the economy. Now, having said that, HHS is arguably even more important. But America, I see America as a platform for two things, the defense of our shores and our citizens and to create atmospherics for prosperity such that people can develop economic security for them and their families. And if you're worried about rights, it's pretty easy. Shove more money into a community and they're going to get more rights.

46:17So I hope that it's Rowan, but I don't, and that's not even to say I think the other ones wouldn't be good picks, but I know firsthand this guy is very impressive. I mean, I don't, the other stuff has more checks and balances on it. These guys, in my opinion, have the most consequential impact on America. I mean, if you, Taylor Swift was person of the year, she shouldn't have been. It should have been, it should have been Chairman Powell. He has a lot more impact on everyday lives than almost anyone in the administration. So anyways, I hope it's Mark Rowan, but I have no insight into who it might be.

46:55Well, I'm glad we listened to you then. No, that was insight actually having heard him. And I had forgotten about his role in the anti-Semitism on campuses issue. I think the only one in that group of four who's a little nutty is Lutnik. The rest of them are pretty normie picks. So we'll see where Trump wants to go with that. And this is like a place where I feel like Susie Wiles, we may see the impact of her. But I'm excited for somebody to bring a bit of a balanced or more nuanced perspective, at least on the tariffs pitch in all of this. And, you know, maybe he's just using it as a negotiating tool.

47:36I don't know. Or maybe he's going to destroy the economy. So that's, I guess, what I'm watching for this week. And I'm interested in, and we're going to talk about this with Jon Favreau from Pod Save America on the Raging Moderates feed, which you have to go to and subscribe. But this autopsy, which continues to go on now a couple weeks in, that Democrats are performing on ourselves, has been enveloping me. I'm reading more content, listening to more podcasts about what went wrong and where we go from here. and I continue to be hugely conflicted. And I know that you're just in the, like, we got our asses kicked camp.

48:15But now that the popular vote is below 50 % and it's the third smallest win since 1888, I'm feeling less self-flagellatory. Is that a word? You know, and just thinking, like, let's pick ourselves up and let's dust ourselves off. Let's figure out how to expand the base again, right? Bigger tent, but that we don't need to sit around and embarrass ourselves constantly about what happened. So I don't know if you've changed your view on this, but I have. I think that where it mattered, he got enough votes to go seven for seven in the swing states. And I worry that Democrats are going to find some sort of cold comfort or keep making hollow excuses.

49:01is, you know, we only lost by more people unsubscribed to the Washington Post than he won Wisconsin by. I keep hearing all this stuff that, oh, actually, it was closer than we think and we shouldn't change a thing. I worry that the Democrats won't take this. You know, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And I think this is an opportunity for Democrats, similar to after the 80s go. We have to stop institutions, whether it's the AARP or unions, dictate our policy and start thinking about what actual people need from us. And instead of deciding that we're sort of some, you know, self-appointed cops for social justice or some sort of political orthodoxy, let's get back to the Clinton years where we're going to have budget surpluses.

49:46Let's be the adults in the room around the economy and start talking about the deficit. And instead of playing identity politics and being more obsessed with race and, quite frankly, Republicans and seeing everything through the lens of your identity, start seeing stuff through the lens of, do you have money? Let's double down on the middle class. Let's double down on youth. And for God's sakes, let's fucking figure out a way to have less insane people representing our party. Let's pivot towards the middle. And the thing that really scares me is this whole narrative of, well, we weren't batshit crazy enough on the left that we should have double down on these values.

50:22I think that would be a disaster. So I'm hoping that similar to what happened after Reagan, Democrats rethink things and form a coalition in the middle, because that's where the majority of Americans are. And that's the opportunity. It's pivoting towards the center and being more focused on what actually impacts people's lives as this constant virtue signaling, this constant inability to have a sense of humor, this massively overreactive viewpoint where we're offended at everything, representing every special interest group to the extent that all we're doing is not representing the 24 % of people specifically.

51:01And I know everything is a nail and I'm a hammer, but I generally believe this was the election of young people failing and their parents. And if your kid isn't doing well, and I've said this before. You don't give a flying fuck about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or trans rights. That's just a luxury you don't have when your kids aren't doing as well as you. That brings shame and rage throughout the household. And I think Democrats would be smart just to get back to the basics. And as James Carville said, it's the economy, stupid. And I worry that they're going to make a bunch of excuses for why.

51:33No, we should have doubled down on our current virtue signaling meets identity politics. Thank you for my TED Talk. Thank you for my TED Talk. So without disagreeing with you, because I don't, I just want to note that Kamala Harris did not talk about identity politics issues. And the problem with that was is that it let Trump define her. And our refusal to push back on certain things like the trans, anti-trans ad, you know, she's for they, them, I'm for you, cost us. their blueprint did polling on where the late breakers, what what turned them and bigger than inflation was social issues. And so it's always a delicate dance.

52:17It is the economy stupid. It's not as simple as like she did that. She did try to pivot to the middle, but she wouldn't say the shit I said in 2019 is crazy. Right. And I should have never said that. And there's a great piece in The New York Times about Democrats kind of pushing back against special interest groups. It's called like, When Will Democrats Just Say No? And it's by this guy, Adam Jettleson, I think is how you pronounce it, who worked for Harry Reid and then for one of our faves, John Fetterman. So that, I found that really interesting. But that's it. Good stuff. Anything fun personally?

52:54Jess, doing anything interesting? Anything good? No, I was in LA last week though. I had a, I had lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I thought of you. What'd you get? Did you get the$54 Cobb salad? It's crazy. I mean, I wasn't paying, so I felt better. But my favorite thing to do there, though, is to try to figure out who everyone else is. Like, there was a kid, I swear to God, I thought he was 14, 15, right? And he was waiting for his room, right? I figured his parents are, like, somewhere else or dropped him off early, whatever. And then it turns out that the room is for him. It's Justin Bieber.

53:29No, well, maybe. He looked like a tech Justin Bieber. then there were a lot of women with babies so my ovaries swelled um but i thought yeah the people watching at that place is incredible but yes the cob salad amazing i'll be there wednesday and thursday night yeah i love it there my second home it's great it's a good second home yeah especially when you live in london there you go london has so many great hotels for you to become like a hanger there yeah yeah it's uh that's wonderful so uh back to me so i go from i go I go from Los Cabos tomorrow to Vegas for a speaking gig. Then I go to L.A.

54:07for a couple days. Then I'm back to Vegas for F1. And then I'm going to Brazil next week. I'm going to Sao Paulo for a speaking gig. Yeah. Have you been to Brazil? I have not. It's lovely. I think it's—first off, the beef is outstanding. And the people are really hot. So, you know, peanut butter and chocolate, beef and hot people. How can you go wrong? How can you go wrong, Jess? I don't know. And then one day, maybe you'll see your family again. Oh, them. Them. Yeah. I don't know. I think they're doing just fine. All right. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.

54:44Our producers are Caroline Shagrin and David Toledo. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. You can find Raging Moderates on its own feed every Tuesday. I think we've made that abundantly clear. That's right. Raging Moderates on its own feed. Please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you soon.