Shutdown? What Shutdown? McCarthy Survives Another Day As Speaker
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss how the government was able to avoid a shutdown while simultaneously dealing with bitter in-fighting between GOP representatives. They then discuss the legacy of the late Senator from California Diane Feinstein before expressing their disbelief that Brett Kavanaugh has become the moderate voice on the Supreme Court. And the pod would not be complete without calling out more tomfoolery from Mr. Elon Musk.
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I'm looking forward to discussing some things with you today.
I think it'll be some interesting conversation.
We document for a living the decline of democracy and attacks by the far right.
And I love the attitude that you bring to it.
I'm looking forward to the discussion.
Yeah, there'll be some interesting things.
I mean, listen, interesting is a word.
Bad shit crazy is another word we could use.
Not sorry to swear so early in the pod, but man, why not?
Times being what they are.
Here we are.
You're right.
We have a hell of a lot of shit we got to talk about.
We narrowly averted a government shutdown.
The Republican Party is basically turning into the Lord of the Flies at this point.
Dianne Feinstein.
Dead.
A replacement in place.
We've got Elon Musk wearing a backwards cowboy hat, not knowing any better, going to the border and just spewing some awful anti-immigrant stuff.
And we've got a new Supreme Court term where, Nick, our hero in shining armor, that's right, Brett Kavanaugh, is our only hope of continuing on.
This is what they call a good time.
If only I had coconuts to cobble together to make the knight in shining armor sound effect of Kavanaugh riding in on his steed.
If you know, you know.
That's all we'll say on this podcast.
We'll get to all of these stories and more A reminder that on Fridays, we have an additional bonus episode called The Weekender.
It is fantastic.
Obviously, you're listening to the free preview of it.
You want to listen the whole thing.
You want to ask questions for us.
A reminder for all of our patrons, ask your questions, leave your voicemails.
We'll get to them on Friday's edition of The Weekender.
All you need to do is go over to the patreon.com slash Montclair podcast.
Nick, the government's still going.
The checks are still being mailed.
The people are showing up at the office.
That's right, a near certain shutdown of the government, which for those who are trying to keep track, the near shutdown, for no reason, absolutely no sticking point besides a continuing resolution had been met.
But at the last possible second, a continuing resolution that puts the next possible shutdown to November 17th, was passed in the Senate of a count of 88 to 9, in the House 335 to 91.
But let's just say it was not the cleanest situation.
It wasn't pretty.
It didn't work out for everybody involved.
And on the other side of it, I don't know.
I feel like I'm dumber for having gone through this entire thing.
Hey, they couldn't have kicked the can any better than they did down the road, right?
Any harder.
So, yes, we've averted it for now, but it's interesting, all the machinations that went behind Kevin McCarthy becoming Speaker, having gone through 15 rounds of votes to do this, the hand-wringing that's going on by the Republicans, who probably one of the demands was simply that you couldn't agree with the Democrats on anything.
You know, if you deign to come up with any kind of agreement, we are going to put our foot down, which kind of goes against the whole, what's it called?
Governing thing.
Yeah, that's that thing that they don't want us to do.
Yeah.
I know that this is going to surprise a lot of people, and I'm really sorry.
I don't want to ruin your belief, but our government doesn't work.
It doesn't work for a variety of reasons.
It's been bought and sold.
It is corrupted.
On top of that, it was designed for minoritarian rule and for situations like this to get out of control.
This basically took a large bipartisan consensus to get past the House of Representatives, which is being held hostage by one of the most lunatic fringes the government has seen this side of the fire eaters Uh, you know, uh, around the civil war.
Speaking of fire, Nick, um, I, we would be remiss because on top of documenting the rise of far-right authoritarianism and the weirdness that has taken over our politics, we do appreciate a silly story like that.
I'm sorry, but that, that if you put down a list of what the Muckrake podcast does, On there is appreciating culture and movies and what it says about politics and society at large, far-right authoritarianism, predicting the future based on paying attention, and also just straight-up silliness.
In this case, Nick, one of my favorite moments in forever, New York Representative Jamal Bowman Um, set off a fire alarm during the proceedings as this, uh, this emergency bill was being pushed forward.
It remains to be seen what happened, whether or not he did it to, to like delay things so that they could read the bill in order to vote on it, or if he did it on purpose.
And if you are like Greg Gutfeld at Fox News, um, I, I think, I think you have determined what has happened.
Well, by the way, we're also known for some of the best segues in the business.
We do what we can.
I didn't want that to go by.
It was probably one of the best ones we've had in our entire existence.
We try.
We try so hard.
Yes.
But let's hear, you know, this incident has stirred up a lot we're going to talk about on the other side.
So let's hear what the Fox News cadre is feeling about this.
I wouldn't dismiss the calling Republicans Nazis so lightly because This has always been part of the strategy.
If you call somebody Hitler or you call somebody a Nazi, why wouldn't you sabotage a vote?
Why wouldn't you rig an election?
Why wouldn't you create a witch hunt against the person that you've been calling Hitler?
So they call them Nazis to justify this behavior.
Anything is possible.
No question he tried to interrupt a government official business.
This is probably the worst deliberate act since 9-11.
Uh, the question is, uh, does he go to prison?
It's for how long?
He was trying to initiate an insurrection on his own, and he should be treated just like the January Sixers, which gets to my amazing comparison.
I mean, I don't even know if there's a better, a more amazing comparison than we just laid out.
You know what's funny about right-wing comedy, Nick?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
There's nothing funny about this because he's actually just saying his political opinion and then doing a funny little voice at the end of it and somehow or another that's supposed to be funny.
I would love to hear what you have to say because this is one of the things that people want us to weigh in on.
Do you think that Jamal Bowman Intentionally set off the fire alarm, or do you think it was an accident?
Well, what we know so far is that the door he was trying to get out of was normally open, and he usually goes out that way.
Okay.
We also know that there are tunnels he could have taken.
Maybe it's a longer route, maybe he really was in a hurry, whatever.
We also know that potentially the sign that was on the door, but maybe it was not in the picture, but there was it there, maybe it was in his hand, we don't know.
Does seem to be a little bit confusing and seem to indicate if you were maybe in a hurry and a little bit discombobulated you think pressing this one button would then let the doors open and whatever.
Maybe the fact that the building was 1200 feet away from where they're having the vote would indicate in your mind that it wasn't connected like you wouldn't have a fire alarm at the Capitol.
So, you know, I don't know.
It feels to me like, and I would have done this too, I probably would have panicked and went like, I need to hurry.
They're going to start the vote in like one minute.
I don't want to miss it at all.
So I read the sign, it seems to say whatever, and I press the button, I go out the door.
That would probably be where I land.
I mean, you know, it's a little bit to the side of a 9-11 conspirator level, but I don't know.
What do you think?
What do you think?
I cannot tell you the number of times that I've been in a building and I've come across a door that has a sign that says something about an alarm will sound or alarm sounds, blah, blah, blah, hold door open, blah, blah, blah.
And I have been gripped and possessed by a measure of panic.
I cannot tell you how many times I've had to do that.
And I've gone ahead and I've pushed the door and I've breathed a cartoonish sigh of relief.
I am for many things.
I am for a leftist populist uprising that changes everything.
And I am for some sort of political platform that gets rid of these confusing signs.
They need to be written better.
I actually think that this was accidental.
Now that we have that put on the wayside, Nick, we have to talk about one of the more important parts of all of this.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Much maligned Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The hamlet of modern American politics.
He went ahead and he moved beyond what his party necessarily wanted, especially the House Freedom Caucus.
He went ahead and worked with Republicans and Democrats alike to get this continuing resolution across the finish line.
And, you know, he was rewarded for his work by Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, alleged sexual predator.
Alleged!
Um, by, uh, you know, basically Matt Gaetz telling everybody he was going to get him fired from his job as a matter of principle.
And that was to be predicted.
If any of this was going to work, it was going to lead to McCarthy having somebody from the House Freedom Caucus, like alleged sexual predator Matt Gaetz, trying to oust him from his position.
Yeah, I mean, and he called it, right?
And this is the guy that had held up the vote for the 15 rounds until he got something or many things.
Before we get into the specifics about Gates, there's a side note here where he is suddenly, suddenly under ethics investigation again, having that been put the wayside because the DOJ had asked them to stop while they investigated.
Wait Nick, are you talking about alleged sexual predator Matt Gaetz?
Alleged sexual predator?
And it was investigating the sexual predatoring?
What's the word I'm looking for?
The sexual predator-tory?
Yeah, the horribleness of this man.
The alleged horribleness?
Yes, and so suddenly that investigation comes up again to the point where they talk about expelling him.
Now, you know and I know, Jared, very well that the Speaker of the House is not talking to the Ethics Committee.
He's not allowed to talk to them.
He has nothing to do with it.
He doesn't know anything that's going on.
It just so happens that as soon as Gates wants to do a motion to vacate, which has hardly ever happened in the past to get rid of the Speaker, which exists, His ethics investigation pops up again.
I'm confused, Jared.
How did all this happen?
It's very shocking, the way that all this occurs.
Motion to vacate.
I love all of these things that are suddenly starting to come into our political lexicon.
I think it speaks well for how our government works.
All of a sudden we're talking about ombuds people.
You know, all of a sudden we're having these discussions about magic minutes.
It's wonderful.
This is how everything should work.
This is great.
It happened once where the Speaker of the House, Cannon, now I'm forgetting, maybe it's only 18, whatever it was, he called it on himself, the motion to vacate, because he had enough people, he dared them, I dare you to put up, to vote me out of there, and they didn't.
He stayed in.
McCarthy is sounding a little bit like that, right?
He's like, I, you know, bring your cold, dead hands over to the voting, whatever he's saying, to get, to dare them to do it.
The problem is he might not, well, I don't know, would he be voted out if they did it today?
Personally, I would rather not have a motion to vacate while I'm out in public.
This is an absolute mess.
I would love it.
I would love it if Kevin McCarthy showed up to the house just absolutely looking like he put nothing into the effort to dress himself, like he had not slept for days, and he was like, are you not entertained?
Motion to vacate.
Let's do it.
And quite frankly, I want to say, Nick, in the midst of laughing about this and how ridiculous so much of this is, This could be in an earth that is not our own, right?
Because Kevin McCarthy isn't going to, like, he's not going to sit here and acknowledge his sins like a professional wrestler.
He's not going to have a face turn and suddenly start tag teaming with the good guys.
It's not going to happen.
But this could be a turning moment.
You know what I mean?
It could be a place where the traditional Republicans we talk about all the time, who are trying to fend off an authoritarian movement in Trumpism, the House Freedom Caucus, you know, the neo-fascist, all that.
They could go ahead and say, you know what?
Like, we really don't want to play this game anymore.
We would love to talk to you.
Let's figure out how to have common sense government and go from here.
That's not going to happen.
But man, wouldn't it be something if it did?
Well, interestingly enough, it does remind me of, you know, Trump is in the midst of a trial right now, a civil trial in New York.
And while we don't really get into that yet, because there's not enough details coming out, nobody showed up outside the courthouse to support him.
And that just sort of stuck in my mind, because usually in New York, you're going to have, you know, a coterie of people who want to show their support and honk and all that, or hold the signs up so he sees somebody walks out or whatever.
So that didn't happen.
That started to make me think that it could very well be the public as well.
Even the Republicans, not necessarily the MAGAs, but there might be a shifting of enough of those people that we don't have to be, you know, or that could swing this election in favor of, like, Biden, for instance, because they're just getting so tired of this shit.
And the only hope would be that they really understand it's the Republicans themselves doing this.
It's not just Congress in general.
I don't think that's going to happen, unfortunately.
Right.
I wish it would, but I want to go ahead.
Nick, I want to encapsulate what happened here with this near government shutdown.
Just to reiterate, there was no reason for it.
None.
There was no sticking point.
There was no argument.
They ended up making it about Ukraine.
That was like one of the things that they ended up, this funding bill actually went ahead and excluded funding for Ukraine, which is something actually, you know, we should talk about for a moment here, but there was nothing behind this.
And if, if, if, like, if you think about it, and if it's not the, the 30,000 foot view that all of our media constantly turns this into, you know, it's like watching Sunday night football and Taylor Swift is in the box and we're just talking about the fun and games of everything.
People were really afraid of what was going to happen to them financially, what was going to happen to their well-being.
If any of these services stopped, if the checks stopped going out, you know, if people were put in this position, real people were going to get hurt.
And, you know, you look at it enough as a spectator sport, you can begin to pretend it's, you know, it's all, you know, fun and games.
But, like, it's not.
Like, at some point or another, you have to look at this and you have to say, you know what?
This is really disgusting.
It's a waste of our time, it's a waste of our money, and it's a waste of our energy.
And we have a lot more important things to talk about, such as climate change or rising authoritarianism, or should people actually, you know, have rights or not?
Like, these are things that we should actually probably talk about.
Well, it's just as indicative of what happens when Republicans get into power and they control things, they don't get anything done.
Short of maybe trimming some taxes off of the wealthy.
They are there to simply obstruct and they have to simply stand against whatever it is.
Now, it was encouraging in some respects with the voting for the CR that there were so many Republicans willing to vote for it, even with the funding for Ukraine.
Like that that is good that there is signs like government could function, except for the fact that we don't, we're not in a democracy anymore we are in some sort of.
What's the minority rule is there a word for that I don't even know besides.
I mean you got, you know, oligarchy got minority rule I mean that that's basically what has happened and what has been by design.
But I gotta tell you, on the subject of Ukraine, the fact that this became such a massive deal in this back and forth, I think it's made very clear how much of the 2024 election very well could revolve around funding Ukraine and supporting Ukraine.
Because I think, you know, if a Nikki Haley doesn't get it, you know, the big contenders, of course, are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
Those are the top two, even though DeSantis doesn't stand a chance in hell.
A lot of these people understand that the cultural decision, the political decision on the right, is to say we shouldn't give any more money to Ukraine.
I think this is going to turn into a pretty big rallying cry.
I think we're going to see a lot more division on this thing, and I think we're going to see a lot more butting heads on this.
I'm looking really quickly to look at the poll was I mean in August there's a headline from CNN that the majority of Americans opposed more USA for Ukraine and by the way it's it's a sweet siren song to say like you know you ignore the border but you're sending all that money to Ukraine for like for their bureaucracy and stuff like that and it's I want to say this about the Ukraine thing.
a lot of sense to a lot of people, you know, independent of the fact that the money we're spending is such a tiny fraction of 1% of our GDP.
Uh, but, but yes, it's a, that could be alluring to a lot of people.
I want to say this about the Ukraine thing.
Uh, uh, first of all, is it true that a lot of our aid is being lost due to corruption Absolutely, that is true.
Is it true that a lot of the weapons, a lot of the resources that we're sending over there are ending up in some pretty rough hands?
Yeah, that is true.
You can criticize a lot of things that are going on in terms of supporting Ukraine.
Theoretically, ideologically, morally, and ethically, you can't.
Like, you can't sit there and say, you know what, we shouldn't be on Ukraine's side, there are bad people there.
No, they were invaded by a genocidal group that kidnaps children, that looks to spread authoritarianism around the world.
Do I think that we should be feeding just thousands of people into the meat grinder?
No, I don't, and I wish that people didn't look at it that way.
I wish that there was a more of a humanitarian, more of a humanistic way to look at this, particularly with the people who are orchestrating it and pushing it.
But I mean, I'm sorry, but if you're going to sit here and just say Ukraine should simply be handed over to Russia basically as a bargaining chip, I don't think that's defensible.
I just don't.
And I make fun of people, whoever would have stood by like the domino theory and why that relates to Vietnam back in the day.
But I kind of use it in this situation because we know we already know it's on the record that Putin would go into Moldova and continue to spread in that area and like think about it this way Ukraine wanted to join NATO because they were afraid that Putin was going to invade and And then turns out days like what, like what are we, what else is going to happen here?
So it's like, that's the whole crux of the matter.
And, uh, you know, we, you have to kind of stop this before it becomes a spreads even worse.
If the last word on this, if Ukraine would have fallen immediately to Russia, we would be living in a lot different world, right?
We truly would.
Like, the thing that I've been warning about for years with Putin and Alexander Dugan and that entire thing, this was part of it.
And the fact that it was slowed has played a huge role.
All right, Nick, we gotta talk about a couple of developments that have just taken place.
California Senator, your Senator, Dianne Feinstein, dies at the age of 90.
Just a little bit of background.
Dianne Feinstein ended up as a senator going back into the so-called Year of the Woman.
This was 1992.
I believe four women were elected.
We looked at it like, oh, everything's going to change now.
Four women.
Um, you know, she has a complicated political past.
You know, we don't need to necessarily bury someone who has just died.
We can actually deal with it as mature people.
I have my criticisms.
This was your Senator.
Obviously, we know she shouldn't have been there at the end.
It was a really disgusting display that took place more recently with her being taken in the Senate, not knowing what she was doing.
But this is a complicated political figure, certainly a major one of the last few decades.
Yeah, and it was very sad just to kind of take a step back and realize that the last several months of her life were put in this situation where she just should have never come back.
She should have been with her family, should have been comfortable, all those things.
But yeah, I mean, she's more of a representative.
She represents more than she actually, in reality, did as a senator.
You know what I'm saying?
And that's important.
But, you know, can I just read?
Scott Ritter on Twitter came out with an interesting tweet about her.
He was a former U.N.
weapons inspector.
And I don't know, did you see this tweet?
I don't know if you saw this.
So I'm going to read it.
I'm going to try and get as quickly as I can through it because it's a little bit long.
It really encapsulates the push and pull of what politicians are, what they represent, and what they actually do on the ground.
So here's what he said.
I met Senator Dianne Feinstein once in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
She had just recently been assigned to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it was in that capacity that she had a senior staffer from the committee ask me to come to Washington, D.C.
to brief her on Iraqi WMD and the allegations being made by the Bush administration.
Um, it was me, the Senator, and a half-dozen staffers and aides.
It was a polite, professional affair.
She would ask questions and take notes.
Eventually, she confronted me, quote, Your position is causing us some difficulty.
You are making the U.S.
look bad in the eyes of the world.
His position at the time was that they didn't have WMD, and he was a U.N.
weapons inspector.
So he told her he's like, my analysis and the underlying facts are rock solid, something that she agreed with.
I said that while I knew she couldn't reveal sensitive intelligence, if she could look me in the eye and say she has seen unequivocal proof that Iraq retained WMD, I'd shut up and go away.
She looked at her retinue and then me.
I have seen no such intelligence.
Nobody saw it.
We already knew that.
That didn't exist.
So, she thanked him.
It was good food for thought for her.
But, of course, when the resolution comes up in the Senate to authorize war with Iraq, she voted in favor of it.
Never spoke about it out loud.
Didn't discuss any of that stuff.
And, like, it enabled, you know, Bush and that administration to do atrocities that never should have happened.
I want to be very clear.
And she's probably one of many senators that all had that intelligence that felt that way.
But I thought that was interesting to bring up.
I want to be very clear.
Everybody who voted for the Iraq war carries that with them for the rest of their life.
It should it should be, you know, a mark against them.
It should be something that they have to explain at basically every campaign stop and every speech and every appearance that they ever have to do.
That includes every member of the Democratic Party who opt on board with this thing.
Feinstein, unfortunately, if you investigate a little bit of what was behind that vote, Uh, her husband, Richard Bloom, uh, he made a lot of money on weapons, made a lot of money on weapons.
And so you have to look at that vote that she had, and it's really bad that she personally economically benefited undoubtedly from the war on terror that resulted from that.
You know, her career was really strange.
She was in San Francisco when George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated.
She became the mayor of San Francisco and eventually like kind of changed that city completely for the benefit of real estate developers, investors, all of that.
Her entire career was basically like that while she was also a trailblazer.
I mean, that's the honest to God truth.
She had a spotty record when it came to abortion and women's rights.
Meanwhile, she was an icon of that entire thing.
I don't think that we can talk about her.
Without talking about her relationship with Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein redefined what it meant to be a California liberal.
They were neoliberals.
On top of that, on some things they were a little bit more left, on other things they were a little bit more right.
Basically what happened is they defined sort of the the quote-unquote leftist borders of the Democratic Party.
Like what it could mean to be within the power rank and file and also still have your own sort of positions.
It was a very strange political career and made even stranger, Nick, by the fact that she should not have been in government any longer.
And of course Nancy Pelosi and her family had a role to play in that.
It is an odd thing and so much about her career On one hand, was laudatory, and on the other hand, was damnable.
And I think in that way, I don't know that Feinstein will be remembered that long.
I think when history really has its moment, and I would love to hear what you have to say about it, I think what happened at the end of her career will probably define her more than the rest of her career.
You know, and while I'm saying this, by the way, she led the charge against torture.
Like, you have to go ahead and look at this and say, man, this is almost the definition of the modern Democratic Party.
Here are some things you did right.
Here are a lot of things that you did wrong.
Let's go ahead and look at the scales, and the tail isn't always pretty.
Sure.
I mean, listen, she's got a good record on guns and gun control, and California is one of the states that's very hard to get a gun.
And, you know, as a result, we don't have mass shootings like you see in Texas and other places.
So, But, you know, for what it's worth, we can look at that clip that kind of went viral when she was talking to a group of kids about the climate and how they were imploring her that they had to do something because when they were going to be her age, like the world would be a horrible place to try and live in.
And her condescension and her rejecting what they were saying under the guise of like, well, you're just not talking to me the proper way, whatever she's trying to say, was pretty indicative of her position and the way she probably dealt with people who wanted to push back on her thoughts.
And that was unfortunate.
And you're right.
Just as it is in sports, if you play a few years too long, then that's what they're going to remember you more about than maybe some of your best days.
And there's no question that that's going to happen here as well.
because she didn't necessarily stand out.
Like, by the way, I heard Barbara Boxer is the other way.
Boxer is kind of forgotten as well.
An occasional hit on, you know, the news.
But other than that, like, she kind of fades away as well, even though she was also a trailblazer as being like the first, you know, we had the first state that had all women, all women senators.
That should be lauded and should be remembered.
But again, without any other definable moments like that, I don't think she's going to, you know, be referenced much in 10 years.
Well, it fell on California Governor Gavin Newsom, ya boy, to fill the seat left by Feinstein.
Of course, Feinstein was going to retire.
We have a major, major race that has been developing.
Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have both thrown their names in there.
He had promised that if he needed to appoint someone, that he was going to appoint a black woman, leading a lot of people to really, really Push him to appoint Barbara Lee.
But instead, he has appointed LaFonza Butler, who is the head of EMILY's List.
Of course, that is one of the biggest and most influential and richest super PACs.
It's not shocking that Newsom went ahead and sided with a major member of the California Machine.
to go ahead and put into office.
First of all, thumbs up!
First black lesbian to serve in a Senate seat.
That's fantastic.
Problems, Nick.
She doesn't live in California.
She is a resident of Maryland.
She is a DC Beltway person who has moved out there, does that.
I've got my problems with this pick, but that being said, I wish it would have been Barbara Lee, but that's, you know, that's on me.
But, you know, here we are.
My take on it is that Newsom was so intent on not putting his thumb on the scale for the 2024 campaign that he had to have had a discussion with her and said, you're not interested in running in 2024, are you?
She said, no.
Great, then we're going to put you in that position because again, Barbara Lee, I think, is also going to run against Adam Schiff and Katie Porter.
I don't know if she's got a chance, but I suspect he understood that those three were going to run and really want that job.
So I think the lesson could very well be learned that you don't necessarily want to like pigeonhole yourself in like that.
When Newsom said he was going to hire a very specific person for that job or to replace Feinstein.
So, you know, maybe he didn't need to do that.
And that would have given him some wiggle room.
But again, I think he's so intent on not being involved in that, that he kind of ultimately picks up on that.
It's a bit head scratching.
She seems to be in her in her tweet or whatever.
She seemed to think that she lived in California.
Like, it kind of felt like she, you know, but it seemed a little bit qualified too, like you're saying.
So, you know, does it maybe matter at this point for someone who's just going to kind of keep the seat warm for a little while?
I love that in describing your new senator, you had to say, I think she lives in California, or at least she thinks she does.
Yeah, right, right.
She's going to have to re-register in California.
I don't care, whatever, it's a couple months.
No, I, listen, her not living, that's the zaniness of the modern political moment, the shamelessness of it.
No, I think she has to re-register in California before she takes the job, which is kind of funny.
You know, her politics aren't bad.
She is, for anybody who isn't aware of this, if you were to make a top five list of the most powerful people in California politics and you were to leave off like sitting people in office, she's easily in the top five.
Like, she's way, way at the head of the class.
Also, of course, her fingerprints were all over the Kamala Harris campaign, which, while wasn't necessarily successful, did put her in the position to become Vice President of the United States of America.
I have to imagine that Newsom is pretty happy to have a relationship with her going forward in terms of fundraising and bundling of donations.
As well as the logistical powers that she has.
I will say, because I... Listen, I'm Jared Yates Sexton.
I can't help saying these things.
Super PACs shouldn't fucking exist.
They just shouldn't.
They are an abomination, and that is a mark against people.
Like, it should not exist.
You shouldn't be out there doing these things.
We shouldn't have all this stuff.
Like, they are reprehensible.
That's a problem.
That being said, will she do good in the job?
I don't know.
Maybe.
It seems like her politics are in the right place, but...
Yeah, I think, you know, I like your idea that Newsom's trying to stay out of it while I see it being sort of as a... it's almost like back in the day when two kingdoms would marry their children.
You know what I mean?
And there'd be a big fest and everybody would drink mead.
Like, it feels like that.
You know, it feels like one of the old things that would celebrate the coming of the autumnal solstice.
Is there an autumnal solstice?
Sure, I don't know.
I don't think there is, but there's just a solstice, I believe.
But anyway, yeah, that's what this feels like for me.
I don't know what it'll mean.
Now, of course, she could kind of get intoxicated by the power and perhaps, you know, generate some cash while she's at it, you know, as all these politicians seem to do.
And maybe she wants the job all of a sudden, you know, and that could really be interesting.
But as far as I could tell, The deal probably was some version of, uh, just, you know, fill the seat for now, uh, so we can have a conversation.
I want to be, I want to be clear.
Her job in charge of Emily's List and in charge of what she does in California has more power than being a senator.
Like it does, you know, like it actually does.
You, you take the gig To put on your tombstone.
You know, that's the first paragraph in your obituary for the rest of your life.
Of course you're a senator.
I mean, this is what people do.
They go and they become an ambassador for a while.
Now, does that mean that she won't run again?
I don't know.
It depends on, like, Mitt Romney.
Nick, you read this article, like, or excerpt from McKay Coppins's, like, biography of Mitt Romney.
Like, he's leaving the Senate because he didn't feel like he had any power.
Like, he got tired of hanging out in his, you know, multi-million dollar condo, like, eating salmon burgers and watching Ted Lasso.
Like, that's what that existence is.
So maybe she'll realize there's not a whole lot of power and she's done with it and she'll move away.
Or, like you said, maybe it'll prove addictive and she'll run again.
Who knows?
I love Ted Lasso.
Yeah, Ted Lasso is fine.
I'm trying to find a segue.
It's not coming.
Damn it.
I tried.
I tried so hard.
All right, everybody.
I got to tell you, we got to talk about Elon Musk, unfortunately.
Good old Elon.
The Hop Along Kid went down to the southern border and attempted to stream visitations with border authorities.
You can watch this on YouTube with us.
A reminder that we post our podcast on YouTube so you can actually see this clip.
If you're just listening to this on the podcast, I want to tell you right now, as this is being filmed, Elon Musk is wearing a cowboy hat that is backwards.
Which is sad on so many levels.
I'm at Eagle Pass, just arrived, and we're just going to go around and talk to the major officials and law enforcement and whatnot that are here.
That's right, everybody.
If you're asking, what was that?
That was the richest man in the world who happens to be an immigrant to the United States going to the southern border to look at impoverished people who would have better lives if it wasn't for people like him and basically to say that other people shouldn't be allowed in the country when he was.
That's all that was.
Yeah.
Now, if he was a different person, let's say he was the nicest person in the world.
Sure.
And he wore the hat backwards.
Is it a thing that we even bring up?
No, not for a second.
I don't give a shit.
Yep.
Right.
Here's the thing.
I saw it and he's looked ridiculous.
He's got glasses that are reflective and he's got the hat on.
But part of the reason why he looked ridiculous was because the hat was on backwards.
And so let's dunk on him then anyway, because he deserves to be dunked on.
You know he'll maybe one day maybe like a few years from now they'll finally figure out how to get the thing to stream properly where when he's got that many people trying to watch it won't just crash which it was doing but yeah he is playing this weird role and he's already had said earlier today or yesterday you know he wants to be president he'd said that basically he wants to be a politician and so don't don't overlook the notion he'll run at some point to be senator or something like that because He's cosplaying at this point, right?
He goes down there.
He's got some other people who are also in the government talking to him very officially.
It's the same kind of cringe that the State Department had when they knew he was going and talking to Putin and that kind of stuff.
It was, you know, it's embarrassing.
And I can't stand the way he talks either.
So it's all the things are rough.
It sucks.
It fucking sucks.
And, you know, the pictures that have come out of this, including Elon sitting there attempting to take pictures and live stream just a crowd of people who have been caught by border control, just these absolute desperate people, you know, who are destitute in their lives, like striving for something.
And the richest man in the world dressed up as deputy dipshit Looking at them and judging them and then going out and all he's doing is cosplaying.
Let's be very clear about that.
It's not just him doing that.
It's him going out in this cowboy hat and boots and firing off a semi-automatic weapon.
Meanwhile, another component that's related to this, Nick, He's just spreading disinformation about immigration in Germany, which was created by a far-right neo-fascist group.
That's right.
Elon Musk used Twitter, shocker of shockers, to spread disinformation on behalf of neo-fascists.
He is trying so hard.
To make these right-wing people think that he's based and cool and part of them and meanwhile he is literally pressing his thumb on the scale and spreading this shit and making the world worse.
I struggle to think.
Of who could be a worse, wealthiest man in the world.
You know what I mean?
Like, I really, I can't imagine someone with worse character defects and pathologies, like, getting into this position.
An untalented piece of shit like this guy.
It's incredible.
Jared, why do you hate America?
Why do you hate the First Amendment so much, Jared?
There you go.
I love it when billionaires use their unearned money to take over platforms and change discourse.
It's wonderful.
I love it.
Listen, this country wouldn't be what it was if we couldn't debate and we couldn't speak freely about things.
We can't limit our speech.
The First Amendment is really important and that's what they all want to do.
The amount of misinformation he spreads directly with an account that's got millions of followers is so frightening that he is like a little kid or I don't even know if the kid is the right term.
He's just on Twitter.
He's on X like anybody else.
Just, you know, fucking around.
That's all he's doing.
All the time, and no one should be on there as much as he is, and nobody should have the power that that man does.
Nick, I wanted to take a second.
You turned me on to this.
You said this would be a good time to talk about CEO of X Twitter, Linda Iaccarino, who went to one of these.
For those who don't know, For years now, basically all of these tech people have been going to one conference and interview bonanza after another, where they just go around and just basically just congratulate each other.
And in recent years, because of how terrible tech has gotten and how like absolutely transparent this grift is, like they have just gotten worse and worse.
And you turned me on to Linda Iaccarino's interview at one of these most recent bullshit things.
It's special, is what I would say.
You were brought in as CEO, that is your title, but you don't cover product.
As a result of the fact that the product team does not report to you, the product team at Meta reports to Mark Zuckerberg, because the product team does not report to you, there has been speculation that you are in more of a COO role, or a CBO role, a CEO in name only role.
You know what's funny is that we talk about that a lot at X.
Uh, as you know, it's a very flat organization.
I'm not sure what your definition of, or how you want to kind of wiggle me into an answer of, are you really just a COO or, uh, I don't know.
Oh, CEO.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, not nice to your, uh, he runs product.
Uh, he runs technology.
He leads a team of exceptionally talented engineers.
And who's kidding who?
Who wouldn't want Elon Musk sitting by their side running product?
I see a show of hands!
There may be a few show of hands to get the cute chuckles you're getting, but I would say the percentages in this room are about 99% who would say no to that and 1% of Maybe personal opinion.
Maybe.
Maybe personal opinion.
I have a feeling it was a lot more than 1% of people raising their hand.
I love any moment.
You know what it reminds me of?
It reminds me of Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, where she's just looking in the mirror, talking herself into going out and just lying to everybody.
Linda Yaccarino is so powerless and so pathetic that she plays this role.
She's on stage, and these interviewers, Nick, they do not press you.
They really don't.
They're not interested in, like, hard journalism.
They're there to, like, basically all product is tech, right?
Everybody in tech is in on the exact same grift.
It's, again, it's like professional wrestling.
Don't break kayfabe.
We're all part of technology that's changing the world.
And even this journalist who has no interest in pressing her is just like, hey, um, I don't know how to say this.
You're kind of a joke, right?
Like, that's literally what happened here.
Well, the context, by the way, was they had Yole Roth on just before her, who was in charge of safety, trust and safety at Twitter before and was forced out because he was so concerned with, you know, misinformation and that that doesn't stand anymore there.
So that was like the elephant in the room.
But if Musk is in charge of tech, which she said, and he's also in charge of products, like she said, yes, then what this is like Pence being offered.
Oh, no.
Who was it?
Which of the other guys was offered?
Oh, no, it was, uh, oh, what's his name?
The governor of Ohio, Kasich.
Yeah, Kasich.
That's him, you know, and then he says, well, what's Trump going to do then?
Like, I guess play golf.
So for people who don't remember, I, this is one of my favorite modern political stories.
I'm so glad you brought this up.
John Kasich met with the Trump team and the Trump team was like, Hey, John, I got a deal for you.
You're going to be our VP.
You're going to be in charge of foreign affairs.
And he was like, oh, oh, wow, that'd be great.
They're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hold on.
It's better.
It gets better.
We're going to put you in charge of domestic affairs.
Incredible!
One of the best things that's ever happened.
And then he was like, well, what is it, what is Trump gonna do then?
Like, I mean, that was unbelievable.
And this is a little bit like that as well.
But, but let's just make it clear.
Like, if I was in that audience and someone said, you know, wouldn't you, wouldn't you want a lot of Musk in charge of products?
I'd be like, hell no!
No!
It's a fucking cesspool.
It doesn't work right.
He has no idea what he's doing.
He's busy tweeting and Zoom scrolling all day instead of actually working.
It's a, it's, it's frightening.
Well, you know, I'll tell you some people, Nick, that I wish didn't work and spent their days doom-scrolling on their phones.
That's right, the Supreme Court of the United States of America is back in their newest term.
But so are you with the segues.
I try.
Nick, the agenda for this term, last time was one of the most destructive Supreme Court agendas ever.
One of the worst terms they've ever had.
This one, I mean, they're ready to keep the hits rocking and rolling.
We're looking at more abortion rulings.
We're looking at racial gerrymandering.
We're looking at basically telling the federal government that it cannot regulate anything.
Gun rights, whether or not transgender kids are safe or, you know, they basically have to come out to their abusive parents.
It's an absolute mess.
And Nick, not only is an absolute mess, but, you know, one of the things we want to document on this show is how far down the rabbit hole we're actually going.
The questions being asked by our media and journalists now are, is Brett Kavanaugh a moderate?
And I gotta tell you, Nick, Brett Kavanaugh is not a moderate.
It's not that he is a centrist.
It's that the Overton window has moved.
The idea that John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh are now the swing justices, it says more about where this court is and where our politics and the Overton window have moved than it does about Brett Kavanaugh's politics alone.
Well, for what it's worth, I will throw this out there, and you can do with it what you wish.
Sometimes, these perceived conservative justices, as they get appointed, over time, move a little bit more to the left.
Sure.
The most probably famous one would be when Ronald Reagan appointed Anthony Kennedy, and he went way to the left.
Like, he ended up siding on the left more often than not, which was a surprising thing, but also sets some sort of weird precedent that could be around how it works.
That said, you are right.
A friend of the pod, Erwin Chemerinsky, who has been on our show and interviewed about this, was in the article quoted about this whole thing, saying he ain't moderate.
There's nothing moderate about him.
He just happens to, every so often, find himself alongside the three liberal justices.
But this is an interesting proposition here.
And I tell you, I don't know if I feel good, the fact that I have to rely on these two I would go so far, Nick, as to say it feels bad.
And, you know, if you actually consider, you know, what has been created by all these, you know, judicial groups that have, you know, just paid hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, like training people like Brett Kavanaugh, like to think that Brett Kavanaugh is like a centrist in those groups.
Like, this is one of the reasons you need to reform the court now.
Because it's not going to stop.
The people coming down the pike are going to look a lot more like Coney Barrett than they are Brett Kavanaugh.
And, like, these people are radicals.
And this is why.
And I, again, we call balls and strikes on this podcast.
We try not to be partisan, Nick.
The Supreme Court is starting its new term, and there is not a peep anywhere to be found about court reform, about expanding the court, and nobody anywhere is talking about ethics outside of the Supreme Court!
Because they want the court to take care of the problem of perception, which Kavanaugh and Roberts are both talking about a new rulebook or whatever.
Nobody out there in the Democratic Party is sounding the alarm about this.
Nobody is hitting it.
This is the perfect time to start talking about it before these rulings get called.
But instead, nothing.
Crickets chirping constantly.
It's an absolute disgrace.
Yeah, you know, for what it's worth, Kavanaugh is one guy who does seem to be somewhat interested in what the ramifications would be of the decisions, versus someone like Alito, who does not give a shit.
He simply wants to pretend he lives in 1789, and then reading the Constitution then.
That's all they care about.
And Thomas is the same way, right?
Like, they don't give a shit about what might happen.
You know, Adam Winkler came on the show, I did an interview with him about the gun stuff, because it's like they're single-handedly repealing more gun control than anybody, any other legislative body is doing.
And, you know, I even asked him, I said, you know, it was a chilling moment in that interview, if you haven't, you got to listen to it if you haven't, where I said, okay, let's just pretend that we had the worst gun, you know, shooting in the world we've ever had.
And we finally passed legislation to limit, you know, assault weapons or semi-automatic weapons.
Does this court overturn that law that would have been passed by, you know, a majority of the entire Senate and the House?
He goes, yeah, they would absolutely overturn it.
You know, that's where we're living.
And that's, I don't even think Kavanaugh would be able to stop that from happening.
Nick, if this court had its way, it would be like the beginning of the movie Zardoz.
With Sean Connery and all these other guys just going out and just shooting free guns into the masses.
Like that's what they, by the way, for anyone who isn't watching the YouTube, Nick has no idea what Zardoz is.
I, you know, I mean, it's a little, you know, 74, but Oh, I've seen certainly Connery in this costume.
Let me tell you something at home, folks.
If you like trippy movies, if you like a weird movie, go out and watch you Zardoz.
It is weird and upsetting.
But yes, they would absolutely get rid of any restriction on gun laws that they possibly could.
And not even think twice about it.
They are also, and this administrative power thing that I mentioned in passing, it deserves a lot of conversation because it literally is looking to completely dismantle the administrative state.
It's basically saying that nobody within the government who wasn't elected should have the power to restrict anybody.
That gets bad real fast.
That's that's how you poison the air.
That's how you poison your food.
That's how you basically have no protections whatsoever anymore.
And these are the people.
I mean, that's not something Kavanaugh is going to see as extreme that he's going to stand up against.
If we're being told that the only thing that stands between us and a worse, awful, more dangerous, unlivable world is Brett Kavanaugh's conscience and whether or not he worries about what people think about him in the court, I'll pass.
I'll pass on that offer.
You know, by the way, I did call that when the first article about Clarence Thomas came out about his unethical behavior, I was like, there's going to be more.
There's no question.
It's not going to be the only thing.
And then it comes out with Alito.
Interestingly enough, you know, have we heard anything about Roberts, for instance?
You ever heard anything unethical about Roberts?
Like, no.
And I gotta tell you, there's probably a good reason why.
Like, I suspect that the other people do not commit these ethics issues.
They actually respect it to some degree.
Now, I'm still waiting for the Kavanaugh expose, when they finally uncover where all his debt went, that had disappeared all of a sudden.
Nick, I don't know how to tell you this, but the Kavanaugh expose was broadcast live on television for days.
Yeah, by the way, you know how that was five years ago?
Is that true?
Right?
2017?
I'll look at it real quick, but I think it's five years ago.
How crazy?
That seemed like it was last year.
Oh my god.
Time is a strange thing.
It is.
It is.
And here we are.
Well, again, expand the court.
There's nothing else to do at this point.
Expand the court.
Stop expecting Roberts and Kavanaugh to save us.
It's going to be a bumpy ride over the next year.
I'll just say that.
And while you're at it, get Puerto Rico some representatives.
Get D.C.
Get rid of North Dakota.
Nick, you know, we didn't cover that McKay-Koppins excerpt on Mitt Romney.
But one of the things was Mitt talking about meeting with McConnell.
And McConnell's like, if the Democrats gain control of the country, the first thing they're going to do is they're going to make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
states.
And that'll be the ballgame.
That's the actual hardball that should be played.
Expand the court, make them states, go from there.
Actually use the boley pulpit the way it needs to be done.
But it's, you know, it's not gonna happen.
All right, everybody, a reminder, we will be back on Friday with our Weekender Edition.
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