71. Musk’s Tesla Nightmare & Trump’s Legal Reckoning

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0:34Ready, Anthony? I was born ready, Katty. Ready for hour 55 of The Rest is Politics. You have a ton of fans, by the way, in Berlin, just so you know. That's nice to know, Katty. That's nice to know. You rehabilitated my brand. I don't even know what my fucking brand was before you rehabilitated it, but that's all the topic. The invoice is in the post, honey. Welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Good morning, Katty Kay. Where are you, Katty Kay? I'm in Berlin. I've actually spent the last week traveling around Europe, Anthony. London, then Vienna. Had a lovely weekend in Vienna.

1:12A little bit of therapy. Went to the Vienna Philharmonic, which was fantastic. Now in Berlin. But I have to say, I feel like I've spent the last week playing therapist, not broadcaster or journalist, because I've been pulling Europeans back from the edge of kind of oblivion. And they keep saying, listen, can we be grabbing the emergency exit handle by now? And I say, no, no, no, not quite yet. not quite yet. Clearly, Europeans are super engaged and super concerned about what is going on. And they keep asking me, you know, about the tariffs, about NATO, about Ukraine. And they asked me what I'm looking at.

1:49And actually, I'm telling them, you need to be looking in places you're not looking. Because if we're looking at the strength and survival of the American democracy, actually you should be looking at things like the rule of law which we're going to talk about and we'll also talk about in a later episode things like pulling back funding from universities and health research the things that make america strong and make it the leader for the world's democracy are not necessarily always the things that are getting the most headlines and i do think this issue and that's why we wanted to talk about this in the first half talk about the judiciary.

2:27Is Trump obeying the courts? Is he going to carry on obeying the courts? And then in the second half, we're going to talk about Elon Musk and Tesla, which is the other thing I keep asking about, kind of a poll. I'm talking to a bunch of investors and business leaders here in Berlin, and they are very focused on Elon Musk and the relationship with Donald Trump, but also what's going to happen to Tesla. So we'll talk about that in the second half. But But first of all, on the judiciary, I mean, the reason it's important to talk about this and those of you who may have heard our live stream on Monday that went out as a podcast on Tuesday, we talked a little bit about whether the White House had blatantly defied a court ruling over the deportation of Venezuelans who were sent to El Salvador.

3:14door. A judge jumped in at the last minute on Saturday night, said, you can't do this to the White House. And the White House went ahead and did it anyway. And my understanding is there were discussions in the White House about whether to go ahead after the judge had issued this ruling. And the White House's argument is that the plane was in international waters. And so the judge's ruling didn't apply. But I think the bigger picture is that on the issue of immigration, which is an issue that the US Supreme Court has kind of avoided in the past, this administration is deliberately pushing the Supreme Court to eventually have to take up this issue.

3:53And they are trying a whole load of different strategies. They are bringing up different laws from the past, one from 1798, another that is more recent, in order to try and see which of these strategies works. Donald Trump then went on Fox News on Wednesday night and said that he will obey a Supreme Court ruling. He said you can't, he repeatedly was asked about this, he said it very clearly on Fox, you can't just ignore court rulings. So does that answer the question to you, Anthony, about whether this administration is going to stand by the rule of law in America? Are you satisfied? I'm not satisfied, but I want to bring up something and I want to tie it back because I think it's very important.

4:45You know who Robert Harris is, of course, right? Yes, love Robert Harris. Great fan. He wrote a great book called Munich a few years ago. It was a historical novel. It was based on the history and in the research. And I've listened to some of his interviews. It was very clear that the German bureaucrats, sort of the governmental officials, let's call them nonpartisan governmental officials that were in the permanent artifice of Germany, were hopeful that when Chamberlain got to Germany to negotiate with Hitler, he was going to beat his ass in, just use a real New York term. And they didn't say that actually when they were writing this stuff in their diaries, but that's more or less what they thought was going to happen.

5:30And they were like, OK, the Brits are coming with their empire. where Chamberlain's going to smash Hitler, and we're going to get a different body politic here in Germany. And, of course, Chamberlain flinched, and he didn't do it, and they were aghast. They couldn't believe that they let this little small man walk over them and then all the treachery that ensued. And so what happened this week is three things to me, my observation. Number one, Trump blinked. And so I just want to make that clear to everybody listening. Trump blinked. And I'm going to tell you the moment he blinked. He was on Laura Ingram's show on Fox.

6:09And he said, well, the justice never mentioned my name. Justice Chief Justice Roberts said, you know, there has to be a process and you can't impeach a judge. You have to go through the appellate process. And when Trump was asked about this, he said, well, he never mentioned my name. So he blinked there. Can I just back up a little bit to give people context over that? Because what Trump was referring to was that earlier this week, he put out a truth social post in which he said that judges who have ruled against his administration should be impeached. and Justice Roberts put out this very rare kind of middle finger, really, I hate to be so crude, to the White House, in which he said, for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.

7:08It's very rare for the Chief Justice to say that. Trump is right. He didn't say Donald Trump's name, But there is absolutely no doubt in anybody's mind about why Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court chief justice, felt he had to put out that statement. When you're in the headmaster's office and you are working on an alibi, you try to get too cute by a pound and you say something silly like what Donald Trump said to Laura Ingram. Well, he didn't mention my name. Right. But I know the son of a bitch. So that was telling you that he knows he's on the line and he's going to try to see if he can flex these people.

7:50And so my message to these people is go back to what Robert Harris said in the book Munich. He's not as strong and he is not as capable as you think he is. But if you think he's strong, then he is. OK, and I know that's a little bit of a garbled language, but just think about it. Henry Ford once said, if you think you can or you can't, you're right. And the manifestation of what Trump is doing right now, he's on the line. If they smash him, they're going to knock him back over the line. And then they're going to provide strength to members of the Congress that are very intimidated by Donald Trump and are not moving.

8:32And so if Justice Roberts, he's got the capability right now to say, hey, this is not right. The rule of law has to stand in the United States. Justice Roberts can be John Marshall. And let's just explain to people who John Marshall was. The Constitution was written and there was a very famous case, Marbury versus Madison. You could look it up in 1803. Constitution was written. It comes up quite often. We like Marbury versus Madison. The rest is politics. When you go to constitutional law at a law school, it is the first case that you read. And what does John Marshall more or less say in the case?

9:10Hey, man, can't do that. And if we're going to have a constitution and we're going to have this separation of powers, we're going to have this sort of check on each other. You need to abide by the words that I'm writing here in this decision. And they made that decision. They made that decision to do that. And if Trump doesn't make that decision to do that, they can roll Donald Trump is my point. He's not as strong as they think he is. He's just a man, Katty K. I don't get the sports analogy because I guess you were talking about American football. I have no idea what you mean about being smashed over the line.

9:50But I was just I was just being flowery and metaphorical. Actually, there was no real. I have no idea. There was no real sports analogy. And there was just a little. Don't try sports with me. Apart from, of course, football and Gary Lineker. But Ezra Klein on The New York Times made this point, and we spoke about it about a month ago. Do not believe him, that he is dressing himself in the apparel of strength and omnipotence. And he only has that if everybody buys into it. That's it. And he flinched in that interview. And I know I know him. He flinched in the interview. And so, guys, what do you want to do?

10:25If you want to accept that he's stronger than you, he is stronger than you. If you want to accept that he's not stronger than you, then guess what? He's actually not stronger than you. Coalesce. Go back and read Marbury versus Madison. And you tell him and his staff, this is not allowed in this country. And if they say, well, you know, we are taking over the country and we're going to create a imperial presidency and we're going to we have a 50.5 percent mandate. We won the election by 300 ,000 votes. And so we own the country and we're going to revoke the Constitution and we're going to take the country from you guys.

11:06Then they have a chance to do that, actually. So don't let them do that is my point. Do you take him at his word when he also said in that same Fox News interview that you can't just ignore court rulings because there is an active court ruling hanging out there right now, right this week that the White House ignored? Well, also, there's a judge that just ruled on Doge. Yes, on USAID. USAID. USAID needs to be restored. And so if they don't restore it, then the court and the Congress has to work together to seek that restoration. And let's take it one step further. They would have to impeach and convict this president.

11:53They would have to remove him from office. And I just saw your body language like, well, that's not going to happen because these these people don't have the courage or the you know what the onions to do that. I understand all that. But face off to him. We made this ruling. You can go through the appellate process. If the appeals court holds the ruling, then you have to do this. And if you're not doing this, you're now in direct violation of the Constitution. make McConnell, make Thune, these are the leaders still in the Senate, John Thune is the Senate majority leader, make them disgrace themselves, make them into traitors to the U.S.

12:37Constitution, the rule of law in the United States. If Donald Trump and his minions inside the White House want to break the law and they want to be traitors and they want to bust the republic they want to cross the rubicon and they want to bust the republic in this country that's held for 200 plus years no problem but do you want to be with them or do you want to be on that side of history if you do let's get it out in the open let's put the lights on on broadway let's put the spotlight on your face and i'm telling you trump flinched and you asked me a question. I'm going to answer it. Trump lied when he said he would respect the rule of law, because what he does is that's his thing.

13:22Oh, catty, I'm going to respect the rule of law. Don't respect the rule of law. I'm going to respect the rule of law because he wants you calm. He wants that person in Berlin that you're talking about that wants to pull the emergency exit. Don't pull the emergency exit. I'm not done boiling the frog. Okay, we got to get the frog boiled before you pull the emergency exit because then the frog's dead you see so so so to me i i liked what happened this week because justice roberts channeled the first chief justice john marshall and he flexed on trump yes and and we gotta you know we gotta see if he's gonna put he's gonna push it harder we'll have to see if he does that so there was another thing a couple of other reasons i think it's worth looking at the rule of law this week and again a reminder to our European and UK listeners.

14:12This may sound kind of arcane and dry, but this is the whole ballgame. I mean, if there is going to be a move towards authoritarianism in the United States, it will be because the system of rule of law that applies to everybody, no man is above the law, breaks down, and the President of the United States defies a court ruling and potentially even a Supreme Court ruling. At the moment, the reason I'm telling people here in Europe playing therapist, you know, don't jump off the edge is because the system has held up until now. And the courts are so important with this administration, because there is no other opposition to Donald Trump within his own party, because Congress is not doing the role that the founding fathers thought it would do.

15:02So it's kind of all up to the courts. This is it in terms of trying to limit the president's powers. And we'll see, you know, sometimes the court will rule in the president's favor, as it has done. And sometimes it will rule against him. And then the question is going to be is how does this White House respond? But there's another couple of things that I wanted to ask you about that has happened in the legal sphere this week that I think is interesting. And one of them is the way that the White House has been putting pressure on private law firms. I don't know if you want to, You trained as a lawyer, you haven't worked in a private law firm before, but there are these powerful private law firms in the United States, particularly in Washington, D.C.

15:43And over the course of the last week, the White House has been putting pressure on those law firms. Talk a little bit about that from your perspective as a trained lawyer and how I've heard this from other lawyers, even conservative lawyers who are concerned about this. And they say this is very abnormal. This is not what White Houses usually do. And why does it matter? Well, again, it's intimidation. You know, he's gone out to these law firms. He's done two things. And remember this, don't ever forget this about Donald Trump. His strength, his political strength is coming from the culture war.

16:21He is a phenomenal culture warrior. Somebody 50 years from now is going to write a history of this time. time and he's going to say, wow, this guy watched Fox News and he watched Bill O 'Reilly. And he, you know, Caddy, is there a war on Christmas? Am I allowed to say Merry Christmas to you? I'm just asking, am I allowed to in the country or no? Because it's a group of people, I have to say happy holidays, you know, and it's a war. There's a culture war going on. And so he did two things with the law firm. So number one was if you're not hiring white males and you are focused on what he would call DEI, okay, we're going to pound you.

17:01We're going to come after you. This would be like, let's reverse it. Let's say I said, Caddy, you and I have a law firm and we're not going to hire black women. Okay, and you would expect the Department of Justice to come after us and say, hey, that's not the right thing to do. So he's trying to reverse that. That's one thing he's doing. It's part of the culture war. He's a successful culture warrior. The second thing he's doing is Cady and I have a law firm and we're working with Democrats and we're beating up on Republicans. Then he's going to come after our firms. He's going to find things that we're doing wrong and either potentially prosecute us or bring the IRS against us or find some level of criminality in what we're doing to chill us, stop us from being in the opposition to him.

17:48And so both those things, I think, are wrong. But the second one is coming right into the gearbox of attacking the rule of law in the United States. Because that chilling effect, it's I mean, if there are going to be again, if it's going to be the courts that act as a check against Donald Trump, because the Republican Party in Congress isn't, somebody has to bring those lawsuits against the administration. Right. I mean, the lawsuits don't just materialize from your back pocket. Right. You have to go say I'm a plaintiff and I feel I've been fired unfairly from USAID. Right. And I go to a law firm and I say to that law firm, will you represent me?

18:28And the chilling effect that Donald Trump is having on those law firms is saying, if you represent that USAID employee, we will come after the whole of your law firm. Exactly. And we will remove your security clearances. We will make it very difficult for you to do business. I mean, I've always said this isn't when people have said, oh, America is going to become hungry because look what Viktor Orban did. He controlled the courts and the judiciary and he controlled the media. And the counter that I've heard from some smart people is, no, look at the corruption in any way the American system will hold.

19:05The American system will hold. But if you make it hard for Perkins Coie, which is one of these law firms, to file those lawsuits, how does the White House get held to account? Well, I mean, there you are. And so you have to ask yourself, are there willing people like in 1803 that are going to say, hey, I'm really sorry what you're proposing doesn't work for us. What what we're suggesting is to stick with the status quo. And what's interesting is you have six conservative judges that are supposed originalists. And so for viewers and listeners outside the United States, originalists are here is the document.

19:45This is the U.S. Constitution. Here is the amendments. There are 27 of them. We're going to adhere to the original content of the documents. And a result of which, when a court case comes in or there's a dispute, what does the document say? Let's go with that. And what Trump is saying is I would like to tar that document. I would like to push you to the point where you've got to engage with me. But remember something about Donald Trump. He does not like direct conflict. He's a keyboard warrior. Oh, he's like you and me. Yeah, I'm very bad with conflict. You know that. I mean, you've learned that about me.

20:24I've got my people that help me with conflict, you know. Donald, we understand you. Last night we had the 20th anniversary of Skybridge And I hired the guy that played Congratulations Thank you And I hired the guy that played the Billy Joel There was a musical years ago Billy Joel song I hired the lead singer to come It was so effing loud, Caddy It was so effing loud Did I go over to the guy And did I say Hey, could you lower the goddamn music? No, I did not I went to my buddy And I said, Nelson I did You did not No, you have to listen. At age 61, you got to be self-aware. I love this guy. And I don't want to hurt his feelings by telling him to lower the music.

21:08But can you go over there and tell him to lower the music? Sure, no problem. And he lowered the music. Okay. Was that because you didn't want to seem old? You didn't want to seem like one of those old guys who's saying, this is too loud? I mean, it was a combination of things. But I knew I was going to hurt the guy's feelings. And, you know, these artists are very sensitive. And since I was running the party and paying the bill, I didn't want to be the guy. OK, but I'm just telling you. I can't believe you outsourced that. But I mean, yeah, look, you got to be self-aware in life. OK, and I'm telling you, this guy does not like direct conflict.

21:40OK, quickly, just before we go to the break, one other piece on the legal side that I think people should look at that caught my attention. Mike Davies, conservative thinker, very close to Donald Trump, runs something called the Article 3 Project. He talked this week saying we're going to put denaturalization on the table. In other words, we want to make it possible for the White House to strip U.S. citizens who were naturalized of their citizenship if we don't agree with their political point of view. effectively. And what he said is, you know, if we say if we think they have been supporting terrorism, but that is such a broad definition that in a way it's a free speech issue.

22:24You mentioned this before the election that we're going to get to a position where the White House strips U.S. citizens of their citizenship. And I said that is never going to happen. Time for me to eat humble pie, because if this does happen, that would be a dramatic reversal of American law as well. Well, I mean, you don't have to. But, Project 2025. And so I was just reading that and I said, he's got guys that are going to go down this list. And that is on the list. And by the way, that is so un-American. That is so un-American. Okay. For hundreds of years, show up here, show up here, you become a citizen, you're endowed with the rights of American citizenship and their irrevocable rights, which includes your right to protest something that you may disagree with.

23:16Most of the positive change in this society has come from civil disobedience and has come from positive protest. And you should have that right, whether you got here yesterday or you were born here, you should have that right. And if they're going to challenge that, that is very un-American. But President Trump flinched, and it's up to you now. Now, if you are in power, it's up to you now to knock him right through the ropes before it's too late, before he creeps up on you with more and more stuff. My husband, Tom, who's a naturalized U.S. citizen, is going to hide his passport under the mattress just in case anyone from customs enforcement comes looking in our house.

24:01They won't find it, except I've now said where he's going to hide it. OK, we're going to take a break and then come back and talk about Elon Musk and Tesla.

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25:24Welcome back, everybody. We are going to talk about Tesla and Elon Musk in this half of the episode, because the other thing that everybody's asking me about here in Germany, where Tesla sales are down 70 percent in February compared to where they were in February of last year, is what is going to happen with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. People are so fascinated. That's why quick hat tip for all of you. Anthony and I are going to record a series on Elon Musk next month. It will go out for our founding members. You can join up at the rest is politics us dot com. Super looking forward to doing that.

26:00And there is so much interest, obviously, in Tesla and Elon Musk. But look, it's dramatic here in Germany. It's the same all over Europe. Tesla's sales are way down. Tesla's share price is similarly way down. Is this going to be what breaks up the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, do you think, Anthony? Well, before I answer that, is it repairable? Let's say Elon Musk goes to the microphone and says, hey, I've just broken up with Donald Trump. The love bracelet, the infinity bracelet he gave me, I've returned, and I'm now broken up with him. Does that mean that Tesla sales are restored or has he done permanent damage to his brand?

26:40That's such a good question. I mean, you're thinking exactly like a businessman there, which I love. I think the damage is done. I mean, I think we are in this super weird, ironic situation where European and American liberals are investing or thinking of investing in the rearmament of Germany. and MAGA types are thinking of buying electric vehicles in order to support Elon Musk. But there is not much of a constituency, certainly here in Europe, or amongst the kind of people that would buy electric vehicles in America, the kind of liberal types on the coasts, to suddenly say to Elon Musk, okay, fine, you've got out.