Gloves Off with Scott Jennings, CNN’s Conservative Pundit

Speaker 1 Scott, you are smirk-free, so that's good.

Speaker 1 Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 1 Today, I'm sitting down with someone you've probably seen me spar with on cable TV, CNN senior political commentator, Scott Jennings.

Speaker 2 You heard that right.

Speaker 1 As the Wall Street Journal puts it, he's the conservative explaining Red America to CNN viewers. And for some CNN viewers who are not in Red America, he is the villain.

Speaker 1 Jennings has been in Republican politics for more than two decades. In the mid-aughts, he worked as a special assistant to President George W.

Speaker 1 Bush and later advised Senator Mitch McConnell in multiple campaigns.

Speaker 1 He was openly critical of President Trump before and during his first term, especially after the January 6th attacks and as recently as 2023.

Speaker 1 But at this point, it's fair to say that Jennings is a Trump man.

Speaker 1 And that's very clear if you read his new book, A Revolution of Common Sense, how Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization.

Speaker 1 In it, Jennings argues that Donald Trump's second term is not just a political comeback, but a transformation of the presidency itself.

Speaker 1 I wanted to talk to him about that and how his positions have shifted dramatically over the years on all kinds of talking points.

Speaker 1 I also wanted to hear what he thinks of the current MAGA infighting and what the post-Trump future of the Republican Party will look like.

Speaker 1 Our expert question today comes from former Republican political strategist Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark podcast and a former colleague of Jennings.

Speaker 1 He has done the opposite heel turn to Jennings and is a never Trumper.

Speaker 1 This is going to be a spicy one, but I also think it's really important to talk to people you disagree with.

Speaker 1 And Scott and I have had a really rocky relationship and it's on television, but I wanted to have a substantive discussion with him and I think that's really important. So stick around.

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Speaker 1 Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 We clearly disagree on a lot of things. We've had some beefs on CNN.

Speaker 1 I'm just curious,

Speaker 1 when you're deciding on these interviews, who were you trying to reach particularly?

Speaker 6 Well, I wrote it because

Speaker 6 as I told the president in February, that I thought 100 people would write books about this period of time attacking him and that one person who kind of got it and wants him to succeed and generally agrees with what he's doing should write a book about it from our perspective.

Speaker 6 So, you know, I think there's an audience out there for people who either like him or, you know, feel like they're Republicans or feel like they're center right, but they don't often feel like there are books about these kinds of things that are written for them.

Speaker 6 So that was the initial impetus for it.

Speaker 1 About the Trump presidency in particular.

Speaker 6 Yeah, about him in general.

Speaker 1 Because there's tons of conservative books. They're often in the top ranks.

Speaker 6 Yeah, but

Speaker 6 I think often, though, the books about his governing, about the things that happen

Speaker 6 are generally written from a more adversarial perspective or a negative perspective, or they're inclined to not like it. And so I thought, well, I'm inclined to be for it.
I interviewed him.

Speaker 6 I interviewed a good chunk of the cabinet and the staff. And also, I just observationally, I hung around.
I watched him operate.

Speaker 6 Truthfully, Karen, I didn't know him before February. I had not really even met him.
And so a lot of this was new to me, too.

Speaker 1 He's the only blurb on the back of your book.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I didn't. You know, I talked about it with the marketing people and I thought, I mean, what else am I going to do? I got the President of the United States saying he likes the book.

Speaker 6 I mean, who else am I going to put on there? So we thought we let it speak for itself.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'm going to talk a lot more about the specifics of the book because it's about the first hundred days or so of the administration-ish.
Yeah. But let's talk a little bit about you.

Speaker 1 I'm really interested. I'm fascinated by you in some ways,

Speaker 1 somewhat horrified occasionally, and I'm sure you feel the same about me. But

Speaker 1 one of the things you said to me that struck me is that you compared the panel you're on with Abby on Newsnight on CNN, and it's really elevated you in many ways, to wrestling.

Speaker 1 And I found that horrifying in some ways and also accurate at the same time. So talk to me about how you think of yourself

Speaker 1 as a character right now, I guess, in some ways.

Speaker 6 Well, I have compared it to wrestling somewhat because it's the only show on television that is, in my opinion, a true debating show.

Speaker 6 It is truly a show built around conflict, the conflict between conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans on the issues of the day.

Speaker 6 I'm actually somewhat shocked that other cable channels don't try this because I go around, I talk to a lot of people, I hear two things.

Speaker 6 I love you and I love the debates, or I don't like you, but I love the debates. And everyone tells me the debate format to them is informative and it's entertaining.

Speaker 6 And I think there's a hunger for it. So I actually think CNN deserves a lot of credit for creating the space for it.
I think we're better for it.

Speaker 6 I think a lot of conservatives who had stopped watching CNN are at least now consuming some of the content via social media, and it's generated by that show.

Speaker 1 So when you say wrestling, wrestling is fake, you know, right? Is that fake to you? I mean, one of the things I did is I went and talked to some people I believe to be your friends.

Speaker 1 And I once said,

Speaker 1 we are friends. He's not that smirking jackass he plays on Abby's show.
He's a good guy.

Speaker 1 And also added that the real Scott is thoughtful and compelling, and some of his critiques of the Democratic Party are fair.

Speaker 1 But noted that Trump is antithetical to some of your basic beliefs and that you are carrying water as a business proposition. I'm sure you've heard that.

Speaker 6 Oh, I hear all the criticisms.

Speaker 6 And look, I'm trying to give people an authentic view and a fighting fighting view of how most Republicans and most conservatives are absorbing either the breaking news of the moment or the issue of the moment that we happen to be going over.

Speaker 6 So, I am somewhat of a

Speaker 6 press secretary for half the country or sometimes more than half the country on any of these issues.

Speaker 6 And I'm trying to give you an authentic representation of how all this is being absorbed by non-liberal America.

Speaker 1 Right. And is that What I mean to ask you is that is authentic to you.
Almost everyone I talked to said, you're not like that off-screen. Not like that.
I think I'm the same. A conservative screen.

Speaker 1 No, of course. That's not what I'm telling you.
Not as pugnacious, not as performative, not, you know, you've perfected. I have a smirk too, Scott.

Speaker 1 So I'll be, you know, you've perfected the smirk for sure. You know, it's an expression, does the drunk agree with the sober? kind of thing.

Speaker 6 Well, I think the show and the format of the show

Speaker 6 lends itself to conflict. I mean, it lends itself to in the moment, fast debates.
You know, most conversations you have in real life, you're not on a clock. It's not adversarial.

Speaker 6 You know, there isn't a moderator sitting there going, okay, here's the issue. Now fight, which is essentially what we do.

Speaker 6 So I guess I would just say conversations you have off of a television debating show out in the real world are just by their nature constructed differently.

Speaker 6 But I'll tell you this, I don't say anything on TV I don't believe in or can't defend.

Speaker 6 And I I do think I have a responsibility to represent to the audience how the vast majority of Republicans or conservatives are viewing something at any given time.

Speaker 6 That's kind of the point of the show is to show both sides and let people react to that.

Speaker 1 Sure. Do you feel like you always have to agree with Trump to play that role?

Speaker 6 No, I don't agree with him all the time. And there's been moments when I have disagreed with him.
I'll give you an example.

Speaker 6 The other night when we went over the story about the $230 million lawsuit that he had filed regarding wrongful treatment by the Department of Justice.

Speaker 6 I said on the air, look, if it were me and I were advising him, I would tell him to table this until he leaves office because I don't think it's right for the sitting president of the United States who oversees the cabinet, which includes the Justice Department, to be involved in litigation against his own government.

Speaker 6 So that's a really recent example where I thought, you know, tabling this is the correct answer. And I said so on TV.

Speaker 1 Do you have a number where you can't disagree? I'm curious, do you think, uh-oh, I better not be too disagreeable to Trump, for example? Because I'm doing, I'm this side.

Speaker 1 Now, listen, I worked for the McLaughlin group. Just you may not be aware of this, but I worked there.
And so it was practically fake, the whole thing. Like, you know, and of course, it was.

Speaker 1 It just was. It was, it was, it was scripted and the insults were scripted and everything else.

Speaker 1 And, and as a young person at the time, I was in my 20s, I was, it was a real lesson in a lot of things for me as a, as a person.

Speaker 1 So, when you think about this, and I didn't think that was very good for news, as a news

Speaker 1 nutrition, I guess.

Speaker 1 How do you feel about that?

Speaker 6 Well, first of all, I'm surprised to hear you tell me that is scripted because I used to watch that, and

Speaker 6 that is kind of stunning to me. I will just tell you.

Speaker 1 It's only scripted.

Speaker 6 I don't know if Fred Farn, you know, well, no, actually, I think the whole thing, I mean, yes, a lot of his insults, the way he said things, this will be good, you know, it was quite, it was quite, I scripted some of it, you know, on a scale of one to ten, one being nuclear armageddon ten being whatever it was quite it was quite it followed the wrestling motto i think is what i would say well i would just say a key difference between that and what we do at 10 o'clock is that virtually none of it is scripted i don't know teleprompter i mean you've been out there we're not reading anything and it's and i you know i generally know the topics but we don't know what abby is going to say i don't really know what clips she's going to play so most of what you're seeing is our authentic reaction to both how she positions it, but then what the other panelists say.

Speaker 6 I don't know what they're going to say either. So it's not like wrestling in that way.
It's not fake in that you're seeing me authentically react in the moment to what everyone else is doing.

Speaker 1 You know, half the people who watch it, or more than half probably, think you're the villain, right? There's always a villain on a show. As you said, you're the press secretary.

Speaker 1 You're channeling people. Is that a positive thing for you being seen that way? Or I guess a hero among those who are conservative like you?

Speaker 6 Well, that's what I was going to say. I guess it depends on your disposition.
I mean, to some people, maybe I'm a villain.

Speaker 6 To some people, I'm a hero for being willing to stand up on a network that isn't known for platforming conservatives or conservative views to a table full of people who are hostile to my worldview.

Speaker 6 So, I don't necessarily think of it that way. I try to make it entertaining.

Speaker 6 I tend to think political conversation can be somewhat boring, but that it's possible for it to be entertaining and you can be, you know, quippy and funny at times and show a little personality.

Speaker 6 I tend to think that draws in audiences. And it's one of the reasons that show is working.

Speaker 1 Is that a good for America given how polarized we are as a society?

Speaker 6 I think it's good for America for them to be more engaged with politics than less.

Speaker 6 And I think politics and conversation about politics can be extremely boring and off-putting and frankly, not feel very accessible to a lot of people.

Speaker 6 And one of the things I do think about is what makes this informative, but also engaging? Like, do I want to watch this or not?

Speaker 6 And I do think that's an important question. Can we draw people in? But I don't say things out there that I believe to be false.
I don't say things out there.

Speaker 6 Like I would never misrepresent something that I know or that I've heard someone say.

Speaker 6 But I think if you can present your arguments in a way that attract more audience, that's, I think that's ultimately a good thing for civil discourse.

Speaker 6 You don't have to be super boring or super off-putting just because it's politics. And I, and that's, you know, that's kind of, kind of what I'm trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 Do you, do you feel that you ever get touchy when that happens? I mean, the Audi Cornish exchange comes to mind. Is that

Speaker 1 what happened in the place like that,

Speaker 1 where she was saying you're doing this for the clicks, essentially?

Speaker 1 That's what she was saying. She was not calling you not a Christian.

Speaker 6 fairly certain that it was a it was a tense exchange,

Speaker 6 but I, you know, I don't know why we would be upset about people who are clicking on our content. I mean, we're a media distribution company.
We're creating content. We want people to watch it.

Speaker 6 And so I think, frankly, more people are consuming content from that show on social media than they may be watching it live. In fact, I'm certain of it.
Millions of people

Speaker 6 consume it online. That's ultimately a good thing.
I took her comment to mean it was somehow a bad thing. And I thought, Do you not want people to watch this show? Because I do.

Speaker 6 I think it's a good show.

Speaker 1 Well, I suppose it's if you think that kind of thing is bad nutrient, like it's a Twinkie versus an actual substantive food, I guess. I mean, if I was going to use a metaphor.

Speaker 6 I think it's, look, I think it's one of the best shows on cable television. I think it's informative.

Speaker 6 I think you get to hear some authentic representations of how the right and the left are seeing the world. I also think it's

Speaker 6 illuminating to the fact that we don't really have a shared reality often in this country.

Speaker 6 You know, what people sitting out there who oppose me see the world as and what I see it as may be very far apart. This is one of the only times we're interacting with each other.

Speaker 6 I tend to think there's

Speaker 6 something good that's going to come out of that, even if it comes out of some kind of a conflict at the table.

Speaker 1 And you think you're helping in that regard, helping versus hurting. Yes.
Okay. We're going to discuss your book in a minute, but there's too much news right now not to ask you about these things.

Speaker 1 This is also a news podcast.

Speaker 1 Obviously, starting with the Epstein files, the House voted this week to demand that the Justice Department release them.

Speaker 1 President Trump did an about face on Sunday and told Republicans to vote for the bill.

Speaker 1 The White House had been trying to block it.

Speaker 1 Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was asked on Tuesday whether she really believed that Trump would sign the bill and the DOJ would release a file. Let's play a clip.

Speaker 2 I only take people's actions seriously.

Speaker 2 No longer words. And what do you think the president's actions? And I'll tell you, because

Speaker 2 I wasn't a Johnny come lately to the MAGA train.

Speaker 2 I was day one 2015. And there's a big difference in those Americans and those that decided to support President Trump later on.

Speaker 2 And I'll tell you right now, this has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA

Speaker 2 is watching

Speaker 2 the man that we supported early on, three elections,

Speaker 2 for people that stood hours, slept in their cars to go to rallies,

Speaker 2 have fought for truth and transparency and to hold what we consider a corrupt government accountable. Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart.
And

Speaker 2 the only thing that will speak to the

Speaker 2 powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files and the American people won't tolerate any other bullshit. That's where we are today.

Speaker 1 Trump is calling her Marjorie Trader Green now, but this is a big moment. It's one of the first times that Trump has bent to the party instead of holding the line.

Speaker 1 Now, you were not on the Trump train. During those times, you were quite critical of Trump at the time.
Explain why the Epstein files have become such divisive issues.

Speaker 1 And do you think Trump will actually release them?

Speaker 6 Well, I do. I think they'll follow the law.

Speaker 6 You know, I would be lying if I told you I knew what that meant specifically, but the way I understand it, they have to put out everything that they can put out on this.

Speaker 6 And I don't know what that means. Is that 20 boxes? Is that 2,000 boxes? I have no idea.

Speaker 6 I think it's been a little divisive because the president has been frustrated by the narrative around this. And I think Democrats want people to believe he had something to do with it.

Speaker 1 She wasn't a Democrat.

Speaker 6 No, I'm explaining Trump's position.

Speaker 6 And I spoke to him about it the other day.

Speaker 6 I think he believes Democrats want folks to think he had something to do with criminal activity that he had nothing to do with. And there's no evidence that he had anything to do with it.

Speaker 6 And I think it has further frustrated him that some people in his party that are his supporters have, I think in his mind, sort of aided and abetted the proliferation of a narrative that is incorrect about him.

Speaker 6 And so I think, you know, he's used the word hoax. The hoax is not what happened.
Obviously, something happened and these women are victims and they were taken advantage of, but not by him.

Speaker 6 And he had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 6 And so I think it's been highly frustrating for him to have this perpetuation of a narrative that he thinks has been completely incorrect as it relates to his involvement in what Epstein did.

Speaker 1 Right. You use the term Democrats, but this is actually, I spent a lot of time in right-wing areas of talk and stuff like that.
This has been a foundational issue with them.

Speaker 1 Certainly a QAnon one, a MAGA one. It's been a foundational issue among his supporters, which is, I think, the heel turn by Green is not a surprise to me.

Speaker 6 I agree. It has been a big deal to some chunk of his base.
I don't know what percentage, but it's not insignificant. I concur with you.

Speaker 6 I think they believed that this was always going to reveal that powerful people, elite people, and probably people on the left, most likely Bill Clinton, that's what they think, were going to somehow be implicated in this.

Speaker 6 The Democratic counter-argument has been, oh, but Trump was friends with him, therefore he must somehow be involved in it.

Speaker 6 And so to the extent that that is the narrative that has been perpetuated, I think he got quite frustrated with the issue in general. Now it's come and gone.
They're going to release the files.

Speaker 6 I don't know how quickly. And we'll see what's in there.
I know some documents have already been released. I assume it won't take that long.

Speaker 1 Sure. No, to be fair, he's done the same thing to others.
There's no evidence of Ried Hoffman. Absolutely zero.
No evidence has been released that you're talking about.

Speaker 1 No convictions have been made based on the fact that the Justice Department has had it for through his administration, through, you know, he was, he was, you know, through his administration, the Biden administration, none of it, nobody's been at all charged except Ghillaine Maxwell.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 Epstein himself is dead. In some ways, I think he's running the country.
This dead pedophile is running the country right now in a weird way.

Speaker 1 But when you, when you talk, why do you think it's, I want you to stick with the MAGA base. Why is it such a divisive issue with that? I don't think it's the, let's get Bill Clinton.

Speaker 1 That is not what I perceive from these people.

Speaker 6 Well, I think the general perception is that elites, political elites, institutional elites, financial elites did get away with something here.

Speaker 6 And I don't think Trump actually ever personally fully made this the core argument of his reelection, but there's no doubt that some people who strongly supported him did do that.

Speaker 6 And I do think they've been highly disappointed that this didn't happen right at the beginning, that the files or the list didn't come out right at the beginning. So,

Speaker 6 you know, I think for Trump.

Speaker 1 He also did say he would release the files.

Speaker 6 Well, he got asked about it and answered a question. But if you listen to his speeches during the campaign, it was about immigration and inflation, not about the Epstein file.

Speaker 1 He was fully aware of the importance of this issue to his base.

Speaker 6 Oh, I don't, I'm not, I'm not disputing that, but, but I don't think he would tell you it's why he, you know, returned to the White House or that was the issue that put him over the top. You know,

Speaker 6 I can only just say what my my perception is, is that he's been frustrated that it's been turned into a story about him when he thinks it's a story about powerful Democrats who were involved with Epstein much more than he was.

Speaker 6 And so his nature is to try to dig in when he thinks he's right about something like that. And he dug in on this, but the dam broke or they had a jail break, as they say in Washington.

Speaker 6 And he decided to change his position. And now we are where we are.

Speaker 1 Do you think that's a problem for Trump?

Speaker 6 Well, I don't think it's any secret that he was friends with Epstein.

Speaker 6 And I don't think it's any secret that he eventually broke with him and excommunicated him from his, I guess, his facility in Florida and his life.

Speaker 1 Epstein was alleging he never joined, but go ahead.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's unclear. I know that's what he's alleged.
I mean, I also know what Trump and his people have said.

Speaker 6 I guess

Speaker 6 what I would just say is this is no news here. I mean, we've known this about Donald Trump for years and years and years and years.

Speaker 6 And so I think people have taken into consideration that he knew Jeffrey Epstein before. What we don't know is who else is in there.

Speaker 6 And I guess this goes back to the core of your question about why has it been divisive? Why has it been so motivating?

Speaker 6 Because there's a belief that there is a group of people that we don't really know what all the names are that is now going to be revealed.

Speaker 6 I don't personally know whether there's going to be a list or not, but that's the expectation is that we're going to somehow see this list of 100 people that, you know.

Speaker 1 Is it how damaging is it from your perspective? I have always, when this, when Elon Musk tweeted that for the first, remember when it came back into, it sort of had gone away.

Speaker 1 When he did that, I'm like, oh, I knew just what he was up to. I know Elon and I know how it works.
And so I was like, oh, dear, this is not good for Trump. And because it's at the foundational level,

Speaker 1 how do you, where is it right now in terms of if you are, you've been a political advisor five, you know, what level of DEF CON or is it?

Speaker 6 For Trump, I mean, I don't perceive that he's all that worried about it because the best I can tell is that what they believe the files are going to show is that Epstein hated Trump, that they were genuinely estranged from one another for quite a long time, but that it's also going to show that Epstein was in touch with a lot of Democrats even after he was convicted.

Speaker 6 And so, you know, I think some people want the story to be an Epstein-Trump story. And what they believe is that it may turn out to be an Epstein Democrat story.

Speaker 1 Right. But he was the president.
He is the president. Excuse me.
That's why the attention is on his relationship over other people's. It's It's not unusual to do that.

Speaker 1 So if you were advising him, what would you advise him right now?

Speaker 6 Oh, now? Well, I mean, the die is cast. I mean, sign the bill, get the documents out, and

Speaker 6 let the chips fall. There's really nothing else to do.
We're at the end of the line here in terms of the fight.

Speaker 6 The only thing that will happen now is when the documents hit, people will read them and start to form opinions or narratives about what's in them.

Speaker 6 I guess it's hard to advise when you don't exactly know what you're dealing with. I mean, without having read it.

Speaker 1 Some people do. In the Justice Department, they certainly know what's there.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and I'm not one of them. So it would be hard for me to formulate advice without knowing.

Speaker 1 Last question here. If a picture came out of him and a sort of an Andrew-like picture came out, how damaging would that be? And from a political,

Speaker 1 I'm asking you as a political person, not a single person.

Speaker 6 What sort of a picture describe it for me?

Speaker 1 You know, a picture of girls sitting on his lap, for example,

Speaker 1 young girls.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Oh, I mean, I would assume that would be damaging, but I guess without having seen an actual photo, it would be hard for me to give you a judgment.

Speaker 6 But, you know, the president said he never went to any of these events, never participated in it. So

Speaker 6 I guess I'd have to react.

Speaker 1 Wait and see.

Speaker 1 I think this has a lot of staying power myself.

Speaker 1 Marjorie Taylor Greene was a Trump diehard, speaking of which, and I know you've said the falling out is because Trump sent her a poll that wouldn't endorse her for Senate run in Georgia.

Speaker 1 She dies that Trump told her not to run, by the way. What do you think of her transformation? And do you think they could make up after this?

Speaker 6 Oh, look, I think a lot of people have come and gone from Trump. I mean, look at Marco Rubio.
I mean, they had some knockdown dragouts when they ran against each other.

Speaker 6 And now I think he's one of his most trusted, if not the most trusted member of the cabinet. Look at Elon.
You know, they were together and then they were estranged. And now Elon's at the Saudi

Speaker 6 state dinner this week. And they look like they were somewhat chummy.

Speaker 1 Somewhat. He was in the wall in the back.
The seating was interesting, but go ahead.

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, he was there and

Speaker 6 a lot of people took note of that. So

Speaker 6 I would think people, you know, have come and gone in the past. I will say, I do think

Speaker 6 the folks in the White House believe they tried to do her a favor by showing her information to save her from a humiliation of running statewide in Georgia.

Speaker 6 And they believe since they did that, she has become, frankly, a policy and a political opponent of the president, even up to and in running to, you know, places like The View to attack him.

Speaker 6 And I think he finally had enough.

Speaker 1 You're on CNN. She should go on The View.
What's wrong with that?

Speaker 6 I guess there's nothing wrong with it. But if you're asking me how they're reacting to it, their reaction to that is, well, she's no ally of ours.
She's become a policy opponent.

Speaker 6 She opposes on the Middle East. She opposes on immigration.

Speaker 6 She's been a thorn in our side on Epstein. And now she's running to the View to complain about the president.
This doesn't sound like someone who is our friend.

Speaker 6 I think that's how they're interpreting it.

Speaker 1 Isn't she not allowed to have a difference of opinion on a policy issue?

Speaker 6 I suppose, but she's had a difference of opinion on some of his biggest successes. I mean, striking the Houthi rebels, taking away Iran's nuclear capability, deporting illegal aliens.

Speaker 6 I mean, these are big-ticket items that they would argue are his biggest successes, and she has not been aligned with him on it. So I think they took some offense to that.

Speaker 1 Why do you think she made this transformation, honestly?

Speaker 6 Well, I think she wanted the president's help to run, and that's what they believe as well. I don't know her.

Speaker 1 That's kind of the woman's scorn thing. She's a very savvy political operator.
Like, I'm not going to, that's, you're smarter than that.

Speaker 6 Well, look, I do think she believed that the president would be loyal to her and help her in her political ambitions.

Speaker 6 And when that didn't happen, I do think it caused a problem between them, but I don't really know her. And so

Speaker 6 I would hesitate to ascribe any motivation. I can tell you what they think, which is that that was the moment where she...

Speaker 6 somewhat turned against the president. And there is some evidence that that that is the moment where the break started to begin.

Speaker 1 Do you think she's running for president?

Speaker 6 Oh, running for president. Gosh, I don't know, but I don't know how in the world she would ever be J.D.
Vance, a sitting vice president.

Speaker 1 She's still at Big Gun. She sent a Johnny Cum lately.
She was there at the beginning. But how does that, what does that tell you about the future of the MAGA movement?

Speaker 1 There's a lot of this happening, a lot of disagreement, a lot of fractures. Trump has been the only one to hold it together.
And I doubt J.D. Vance has the ability to do so the way he has.

Speaker 1 I think almost no one can. He's a unique political creature.

Speaker 6 What does it say about the future of where this is going well you you raise a great question and i agree with you i don't think anyone can replicate trump i mean it's very unique he's his force of personality has held together people from disparate wings of the republican party and people from outside of the republican party i mean rfk is now in the republican party somehow so it's a it's an ideologically diverse coalition and trump is uniquely positioned to hold it together but the nature of a presidency is that it's built around that person i mean who replaced Barack Obama?

Speaker 6 Nobody, really. I mean, the coalition he built was for him.

Speaker 6 And so the challenge for JD or whoever comes next is, how do I carry forward knowing I can't replicate it, but I still have to keep enough people in the tent to win?

Speaker 6 And, you know, it may be different. JD may have some different talents to bring people in that Trump could not.
He may bleed a few, but he may add a few. That's the nature of presidential coalitions.

Speaker 1 So you think he is the natural inheritor of this?

Speaker 6 Well, I think it would be quite unusual if the sitting vice president is in good stead with the president and people seem to think he's doing a good job.

Speaker 6 It would be historically unusual for him not to inherit the nomination.

Speaker 6 And particularly if he were to team up with a Marco Rubio, who everyone, by the way, is quite happy with.

Speaker 6 I think it would be difficult to beat them from the outside.

Speaker 1 They've made an arrangement that he would be the vice president.

Speaker 6 I mean, we'll see, but

Speaker 6 that would be extremely formidable.

Speaker 6 And so trying to beat them from the outside, if it looks like they have the imprimatur of Trump, who is quite popular among the Republicans, I mean, it would be really up to the declining.

Speaker 1 That was an interesting decline from 87 to 82.

Speaker 1 It's not the good direction that you're seeking, presumably.

Speaker 6 Well, I think he is the most powerful party boss we've had in modern political history, and I think that's still the case today.

Speaker 1 Well, I would say Reagan was, but and you were a Reagan person, I suspect.

Speaker 6 I was a kid, but yes, I do revere the President Reagan.

Speaker 1 We'll be back in a minute.

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Speaker 1 Trump welcomes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House this week and called him a very good friend. This was the first time NBS has been on U.S.

Speaker 1 soil since Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents in 2018.

Speaker 1 ABC's White House correspondent Mary Bruce asked Trump whether MBS visit is a conflict of interest, given the Trump family business with the Saudis.

Speaker 1 She also asked about Khashoggi's murder and said that 9-11 families were also furious that MBS was there.

Speaker 1 Trump, instead of answering the question, lashed out at Bruce, calling ABC fake news and one of the worst business, denied any conflict of interest related to the family business and said about Khashoggi, things happen.

Speaker 1 He later said he thought ABC's license should be taken away. He kind of added that on at the end.

Speaker 1 That was after telling Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucy quiet piggy when she asked about the Epstein files. Are these politically good moves at this point?

Speaker 1 Or how do you explain what's happening here? These are seeming legitimately fine questions.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're ⁇ I don't think any of them was asking anything that a normal reporter might not have asked.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's probably true. Although Trump's perception of

Speaker 6 how he's treated by the press, of course, is that it's not good. And he believes he is mistreated by them to be a good idea.

Speaker 1 He's an open wound. He's quite a delicate flower.

Speaker 6 You know, I think his view would be, look, I give these people more access than virtually any other politician or president ever, and this is the way they treat me.

Speaker 6 And so I don't think it's anything new that he has his sparring sessions with the press. Now, in the case of the Saudis, look, he is doing something big ticket here.

Speaker 6 He's trying to get them to join the Abraham Accords. He's trying to strengthen the relationship between the Saudis, the rest of their partners in the region and the Israelis.

Speaker 6 And he has, you know, and this was his idea. And somebody coming in and trying to throw sand in the gears, I think would be offensive to him.
And I think that's what you were seeing there.

Speaker 6 But the macro goal is to get the Saudis into the Abraham Accords and to further, because if they join, everyone else is going to join and it will be a huge success.

Speaker 6 And I think that's his ultimate operation here.

Speaker 1 Although his answers were indulgent then, if that's the case, right? It took all the focus off of it in terms of having to threaten ABC.

Speaker 6 Well, he was, I think he would say, I'm defending my guest here and our ally from what I consider to be hostile questions that are designed to derail something important, which is the continuation of Middle East peace and fostering economic and security for everybody in the region.

Speaker 1 He didn't say that. Why didn't he just say that?

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, he says things the way he says them. I'm just interpreting, you know, as a commentator, how I perceived his reaction to it in the moment.

Speaker 1 Again, if you were an advisor,

Speaker 1 you think these are good things or just let Trump be Trump, sort of playing on the West Wing idea. Is that a good thing necessarily for this particular goal?

Speaker 6 Is it a good thing? I mean, I think it's a Trump thing. I mean, when has he had

Speaker 6 warm relations or warm reactions to, you know, the press gaggle that has followed him around for the last 10 years? I can't think of a moment that he did. So I guess

Speaker 6 I didn't think anything of it because it's situation normal. He believes they're hostile to him.
I think they are largely hostile to him.

Speaker 6 And he reacts to them in a way that you would if someone was constantly hostile to you.

Speaker 1 I guess. I've never seen someone who loves the press more, obviously.
But I think it's a very different kind of love. That's all I think.
I will say,

Speaker 1 I will say this.

Speaker 6 For someone who dislikes the press as much as he does,

Speaker 6 the amount of access he gives them is miraculous. I mean, it's a good thing.
The press having access to the president is good. Absolutely.
They did not have access to the last president.

Speaker 6 They have access to this one. I generally think that's a good development.

Speaker 1 Yeah, except then he shouldn't expect anything in return. I just, I don't understand why you think they're not friends.
Like, you know,

Speaker 1 you at the beginning said, you know, you feel like a PR person. They don't feel like a PR person, and they should be tough on any president.
Very quickly, I was going to ask about the Zorn Mum Dhani.

Speaker 1 He is asked to talk to Trump about affordability. Around two-thirds of registered voters say Trump hasn't lived up to his promises to improve the economy and to bring down the cost of living.

Speaker 1 Trump has dismissed the polls saying prices are coming down when clearly they aren't.

Speaker 1 How do you think this idea of an Imam Dani-Trump meeting is? You said he likes to hear opinions from random people he talks to. And obviously, Imam Dani has hit on something really strong around this.

Speaker 6 Well, I think the president should have a relationship with the mayor of New York City. I mean, it's one of the most important cities in the world.

Speaker 6 Now, the way Trump sees the world and the way Mom Dani sees the world obviously couldn't be farther apart.

Speaker 6 And Trump being a New Yorker, I think he feels, you know, like he knows more about New York City than Mom Daniel will ever know. And so that it's not like he's coming into the conversation cold.

Speaker 1 It's not a contest.

Speaker 6 So I think that'll color their relationship, obviously, because of Trump being from New York and having strong positions on New York. But it's New York City.
It's an important place.

Speaker 6 It's a financial capital of the world. And so should they have some kind of relationship? Yes.
Do I think Momdani intends it to be adversarial? I do. And,

Speaker 6 you know, we'll have to see how he's going to play that.

Speaker 1 How do you look at his campaign and his focus on affordability, which I think really was the winning? message in that case.

Speaker 6 Oh, really? I think the winning message was that he got to run against Andrew Cuomo twice.

Speaker 6 I mean, he got to run against the worst candidate twice, not once, but twice. And that was really helpful to him.
I mean, look, he has never had a real job. He has never managed anything approaching.

Speaker 1 You don't have to do this.

Speaker 1 He ran a fantastic campaign. You as a campaign person have to look at that.

Speaker 6 He lost a third of his own party to a guy who was disgraced when he left office just a couple of years ago. I don't know whether that's true or not.

Speaker 1 Famous governor.

Speaker 1 That's not a surprise. That's not to me a surprise.

Speaker 6 Look, I'm as hopeful as any Republican is, which is to say not very much.

Speaker 6 I don't have a lot of utility for people who are quoting Eugene Debs in their acceptance speeches.

Speaker 1 Okay. He also quoted Mario Cuomo.
When you look at him as a force, how are you looking at that?

Speaker 6 Oh, look, I think in politics, you always have to be careful what you wish for. I remember Democrats licking their chops at the thought of running against Donald Trump in 2016.

Speaker 6 Oh, this is a good thing. Be careful what you wish for.
And I think the ascendant energy in the Democratic Party is with people like him.

Speaker 6 The socialist energy in the party is clear. It's reflected in the polls.
He's a great actor. He's well-produced.

Speaker 6 So I, you know, I take it very seriously what he was able to do. I do think he had a terrible opposition and he had a fragmented field, which also helped him.

Speaker 6 And I think he may run headlong into the governing realities of the way being mayor of New York City works. But I think it did tell us something about where the Democrats are, which is...

Speaker 1 You kind of just described Donald Trump, but go ahead at the

Speaker 1 beginning of his ascent upwards.

Speaker 6 Well, look, I think one thing is true. To succeed in politics these days, you do need a level of showmanship.
You do need a level of production.

Speaker 6 You do need a level of being able to communicate in a modern way. And I concur with you.
Momdani knew how to do that.

Speaker 6 Now, whether there's any substance underpinning all that production, we'll have to find out. I'm dubious, but we'll see.

Speaker 1 Well, they thought the same of Trump. I mean, I remember how they looked at him for sure.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the book, Revolution of the Common Sense, which is about Trump's first months in office, the conflict between Trump and the mainstream media, which we talked about already.

Speaker 1 His recurring theme, though, in your book, and Trump is in one of the through lines of your book.

Speaker 1 For example, you reiterate the Hunter Biden laptop story, quote, the media colluded with more than 50 so-called intelligence experts in 2020, claim that Biden's laptop was a classic Russian disinformation campaign.

Speaker 1 You and I had a fight about that last year on CNN. Let's play that.

Speaker 3 There is no proof that tech companies colluded to do this. This is nonsense, and he knows it.

Speaker 3 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 There was a major

Speaker 4 institutional effort.

Speaker 3 No, there was absolutely. Listen, I have been one of the biggest critics of tech.
This is nonsense.

Speaker 1 I think the issue is this word, collude.

Speaker 1 I think one of the ⁇ I mean, you might say Trump colludes with tech people now. Like they're at his dinners, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 And he's applying a lot of pressure and influence to them at the same time. Explain what I think is an obsession with collusion.

Speaker 6 Well, I think in that particular case, what Republicans were exercised about was that

Speaker 6 this Hunter Biden story was emerging. There was something there.
And there was an immediate attempt by media outlets to say, this is not a huge deal.

Speaker 6 I remember NPR saying, we're not going to cover this because it's not important to the American people, which I totally disagree with.

Speaker 6 And then you had tech companies and platforms literally not putting the story on their platform. I mean, they were actively censoring it on the doorstep of an election.

Speaker 6 So the general criticism is, and then on top of that, the Democrats go out and recruit 50 people with fancy titles, intelligence backgrounds to all say, oh, this is classic Russian disinformation.

Speaker 6 So you had a number of things going on. And what did we find out later? It was real.
The information on it was real.

Speaker 6 And it was valid stuff about whether the Biden family was involved in things that, you know, you and I might agree would be considered corrupt.

Speaker 6 And so why was there such an effort to keep this information from broad distribution to the American people on the doorstep of an election?

Speaker 6 Republicans were mad about it then, and they're still mad about it today. What were they so afraid of? I mean, the story was true.

Speaker 6 There wasn't really any dispute of that other than from these 50 people who come from government, who are in and out of government when Democrats are in power.

Speaker 1 That's politics to me, Scott. I mean, you're not naive.
Come on. They were making their case, just like you would say Trump just did with whatever issue he has.

Speaker 6 Well, I don't agree that it is just a simple matter of making your case when you use your government title and you use your intelligence bona fides and you use all your credentials to flat out lie to the American people.

Speaker 6 They didn't know that. That was a political argument, but they were saying this is Russian disinformation.
What you're reading is directly out of the Kremlin.

Speaker 6 It was one of the biggest lies that was told to try to get Joe Biden over the finish line.

Speaker 6 Do you think that's just politics as usual?

Speaker 1 Yes, I do, actually. I think it's, I do.
You like it? I absolutely, I don't like it. I don't like it.
I don't like the, I don't like Trump meddling with Intel.

Speaker 1 I don't like Trump meddling with the tech companies. I don't like the pay-per-play that looks like it's available right now for these companies.

Speaker 1 I know why they're doing it. I know why they're paying this money.
I know why they're giving them. This is not a new and fresh thing.

Speaker 1 And I think the tech companies will go wherever their bread is buttered. That's really pretty much how I look at them.

Speaker 6 Can I make one more comment about? Because it's an important debate.

Speaker 6 You had that issue going on.

Speaker 6 And then there was, you know, there's also been questions about what was kept from the American people or what information was, you know, downplayed from the American people during COVID.

Speaker 6 I mean, there were people that had opinions or ideas about COVID and what was going on during that time. And people lost access to social media.
People, you know, had their opinions,

Speaker 6 villainized. Turns out some of those people were right and the people who were censoring them were wrong.
And so I guess my point is this. There is a general feeling that if

Speaker 6 the elites make a decision about what the narrative is going to be, they can crush you and they can either coerce tech companies into crushing you, they can coerce media into crushing you.

Speaker 6 But the crushing of opinions and dissent in this case, I think it left a bad taste in people's mouth.

Speaker 1 I guess I could just say Brandon Carr right now making threats against Disney. I could guess I could say lawyers.

Speaker 6 What information about Donald Trump is being censored from the American people?

Speaker 1 I think these are private companies. They can do whatever they want, Scott.
And I don't think it was coerced or colluded. I think these just as now as law firms are backing down and making payments or

Speaker 1 universities are worried about their funding and they'll make payments.

Speaker 1 It's awfully similar in terms of what people can and can't say. I think these lawsuits

Speaker 1 media companies, it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 It's the same exact playbook if you want to compare them. And in fact, it's a playbook that's been,

Speaker 1 what's the word? When you take steroids, it says on steroids is what's happening now.

Speaker 1 But let me ask, I think Donald Trump is an elite is an elite and is crushing dissent same way, and actually in a more brutal way in many ways.

Speaker 1 But let me talk about this idea of common sense approach through the book. Like, for example, common sense to rip down the East Wing feels not so common sense or to throw a great GASPY party.

Speaker 1 I think these are largely distractions, honestly.

Speaker 1 And the snap benefits fight, that doesn't seem like common sense to me. So I want to understand what you mean by common sense and putting America first.

Speaker 6 Yeah, great question. So the book title is A Revolution of Common Sense, which is a phrase that I stole from Trump.

Speaker 1 I thought it was a Thomas Paine reference.

Speaker 6 Well, common sense was his pamphlet. Trump in his inaugural address said we were having a revolution of common sense.
And when I heard it, I thought, oh, that would be a great book title.

Speaker 6 And so that's where I got the germ of the idea.

Speaker 6 But, you know, I think there's been a lot of issues in American politics over the last few years where it felt like we were dealing with uncommon nonsense.

Speaker 6 And Trump comes along and, you know, he has a pretty good instinct for picking, you know, the 80 of a lot of 80-20 issues. Boys and girls sports is a good example.

Speaker 6 I even mentioned, I was in the Oval Office today. I think he signed the executive order banning paper straws.

Speaker 6 You know, some things are big, some things are large, but they're all just what an average person would say, oh, yeah, that's common sense. I think that's how he has rebranded his political movement.

Speaker 6 I asked him once, do you consider yourself to be more of a conservative or like a common sense person? And he said, well, most of the time, conservative is common sense.

Speaker 6 But when I went with him to Michigan on his 100th day in office, he told the crowd, and I think this sums it up, whether you're right or whether you're left or whatever the hell you are, it's just common sense.

Speaker 6 So when I called the book this because it struck me the way he said it in the inaugural, but I think it is authentically how he brands himself and how he would brand his movement.

Speaker 1 You're trying. What isn't common sense right now?

Speaker 6 What isn't common sense?

Speaker 1 Ripping down the East Wing doesn't seem like common sense to me. I don't know.

Speaker 1 If I was on that side, I'd be like, oh, what a stupid move. A great Gatsby party when government workers are furloughed.
That doesn't seem like common sense.

Speaker 1 And if I want to go to Elon, throwing around a chainsaw when people are losing their jobs doesn't, seems just mean,

Speaker 1 pretty much just mean.

Speaker 6 But talk, what isn't common sense those i just gave you three sure well i'll give you the the republican eye view of that i don't think it was common sense to shut down the government i don't think it was common sense uh to uh i think effectively hold federal workers and all these people and their snap benefits hostage just to keep your base gend up for an election and that's why they caved when the election ended because they didn't know how to get out of it they knew it was a political tactic in the beginning but i i don't think any of that was common sense for the democrats i guess they got their political outcome but I don't really put any of that on Trump.

Speaker 6 They were the ones who voted against the Biden budget levels that they themselves had just supported. What was common sense about that? Absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 What about his administration going to court to fight against giving Americans SNAP benefits? Was that common sense?

Speaker 6 I mean, the Congress specifically did not appropriate money for this, and then you want them to spend money that wasn't appropriated.

Speaker 6 They just had no king's rallies, and then they want him to act like a king and spend money that wasn't appropriated, but they wanted king for a day.

Speaker 1 What is not common sense that's going on

Speaker 1 on here? Because Trump doesn't have a problem using funds that weren't appropriated for his own purposes. That has happened several times.

Speaker 6 Without you giving me an example to react to, I don't know what I would conjure up. I'll give you one from early in the administration.

Speaker 6 I personally thought the Doge effort to cut wasteful spending, the principles and the impulses were correct, but I don't think the PR and the public communication was right.

Speaker 6 And I think when you're going to make major changes like that and you are going to go in and

Speaker 6 take a wrecking ball to certain things, you have to have a PR strategy that matches the magnitude of it.

Speaker 6 And so to me, it made sense to do it, but it didn't make sense to do the PR the way they did it. So there's an example from if I had a criticism of

Speaker 6 something that was handled or mishandled this year, that was one of them. I like the concept of it, but I think the PR of it could have been handled much better.

Speaker 6 And I think the American people would have approved of it if more communication efforts had been made, not just just directly, but also with the Congress. So the PR of it.

Speaker 1 I'm always like wary when someone says the PR was right.

Speaker 6 Often when Uber was well, you have to communicate with your constituents about what you're doing.

Speaker 6 And so to me, it makes sense to do that.

Speaker 1 The way it was done, the execution might be the thing you might want to focus in on here. Speaking of Doge, you write about it in the book.
So

Speaker 1 the reality is that Congress doesn't even know how much of the budget has been spent because of Elon Musk and the Doge Slash and Bird. In your book, you called what Elon did with Doge extraordinary.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 that's not what most people think, including Trump people I talk up to. Something else stood out.
You wrote about the U.S. Digital Service.

Speaker 1 You wrote, crucially, the office was able to reach every layer of the federal government. It was exactly what Elon Musk had in mind when he mused about having access to the government's servers.

Speaker 1 I'm curious, as a conservative, because I certainly, I'm not a conservative, but I'm certainly concerned that Elon has access to a trove of government data, of America's information, especially with AI models that consolidate that information.

Speaker 1 That sounds like Big Brothers, not limited government that conservatives want.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 6 I think that if you are going to start to examine how we're spending money and where it goes within our vast bureaucracy, you have to have access to the systems that would tell you where it's going.

Speaker 6 I don't have any reason to believe Elon had any nefarious purposes whatsoever, other than to tell you what he told me when I interviewed him. I said, why are you here?

Speaker 6 And he said, I'm trying to find a way to make America not go bankrupt. And he was sincere in that.
He had strong feelings about a lot of other issues.

Speaker 6 But that was the first thing that he told me when we sat down. And so I interpreted all of his moves as this.
I've been given a mandate by the president to find wasteful spending and to cut it.

Speaker 6 And I want to move fast and I may need to break some things along the way. But how do I actually get access to the information that I need to find the things to cut? I mean, they did it.

Speaker 6 And in some cases, it was successful. And in some cases, they ran into roadblocks.
But I think they were feeling pressure to move quickly.

Speaker 6 And, you know, Elon told me he believes our fiscal situation is dire. He thinks the amount of debt in the country is devaluing the currency.

Speaker 1 That's where he broke with Trump. Yeah.

Speaker 6 He believes that like that combined with the mass migration crisis and the low birth rate is sort of all these things are aligning to really threaten the future of the country.

Speaker 6 And then, and he was very sincere about that when I spoke with him about it.

Speaker 1 I don't believe everything comes out of his mouth that you might, given I've known him for 30 years and was a fan and no longer.

Speaker 1 When you look at Doge, because you talk about it a lot in the book, you consider it successful?

Speaker 6 Well, yes, I think the impulse to cut wasteful spending.

Speaker 1 Which is not a new impulse, Scott. Cutting spending, the Bush administration had one.
Clinton, every administration has one of these things.

Speaker 6 And then, look, I wrote about this as well.

Speaker 6 When you look at what the president laid out in his speech to Congress in March, you know, going through that line item of all the sort of ridiculous things, I think those are the nagging things that drive people crazy crazy and no one ever seems to do anything about it.

Speaker 6 So yes, I liked it very much.

Speaker 6 As I said, though, I think the future of this is you have to have more cooperation with the Congress because ultimately they are going to have to be the ones to decide to spend less and enforce less spending and enforce less ridiculous spending on the executive branch.

Speaker 6 So that to me is what's missing right now is the evolution where we're working with Congress to make it stick and make it, frankly, more expansive over time.

Speaker 1 So are are you actually pushing for a stronger Congress in the face of executive authority?

Speaker 6 Oh, look, I think it would be great if Congress would take up their responsibilities to exercise a little more fiscal responsibility in this country. I think most Republicans believe that.

Speaker 1 And how do you think they're doing right now?

Speaker 6 I think some things are good. I like that they executed the biggest welfare reform in a generation in the big, beautiful bill.
I think that is good.

Speaker 6 But I think the enduring question and the most important question is,

Speaker 6 you know, we're spending 54% more money today than we were just before COVID. Do you feel like your government is 54% better today than it was just before COVID? I don't.

Speaker 6 And we have, you know, trillions upon trillions upon trillions in debt. I think Elon's alarm that he raised to me is quite real.
And I think that sentiment is held by a lot of people.

Speaker 6 And so eventually we're going to have to reckon with this. And we haven't done it in a serious way yet.

Speaker 1 Which is why he broke with Trump. But

Speaker 1 when you get to the idea of Congress having more power, do you think this Congress, which is in lockstep with Trump, is a good idea?

Speaker 1 And people pushing back like Marjorie Green should be welcome, presumably, right? Correct?

Speaker 6 Well, look, I think that the Congress is largely in step with Trump on his policy priorities.

Speaker 6 And it's because when he ran for president, they were all running at the same time and they all basically ran on the same platform.

Speaker 6 They didn't run their campaigns to say, well, I know you love Trump, but I'm going to go up there and oppose him, even though I'm also a Republican. I mean, that's kind of ridiculous.

Speaker 6 And so I think they've done what their voters expected them to do, help the president execute. I think the long-term fiscal health of the country, though, is troubling and it needs to be dealt with.

Speaker 6 And it, and it, you know, look, 70-something percent of our budget is

Speaker 6 non-discretionary. And so, you know, we are going to have to reckon with some long-term structural issues if we're going to get the fiscal health of the country in order.

Speaker 6 And that has not been dealt with yet, but it will have to be someday.

Speaker 1 We'll be back in a minute.

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Speaker 1 All right. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert.

Speaker 1 Here's yours.

Speaker 7 Hey, Scott, it's your old buddy Tim Miller with the Bulwark Podcast.

Speaker 7 When I was asked to submit this question, I just thought about what a long, strange trip it's been since we worked together for Jeb Bush back in 2015.

Speaker 6 And that made me just think of this little thought exercise.

Speaker 7 I wonder what you think would have happened if I went in a time machine from today back to our old office there in Miami in 2015 and I said to you, you know, guess what? You won't believe this.

Speaker 7 Donald Trump's been elected twice.

Speaker 7 After he was elected the first time, he lost his reelection through a temper tantrum and then sicked a mob of violent super fans on the Capitol where they attacked police officers, menaced Mitt Romney, our man, and other politicians.

Speaker 7 And yet somehow he came back, got elected to the presidency again, and then instituted an insane smoot-hawley-style, non-conservative tariff regime, trampled all over the rule of law.

Speaker 7 One example, sending Venezuelans to a foreign prison camp to be tortured with no due process, just based on their tattoos.

Speaker 7 And that after all of that happened, you, Scott, my Jeb colleague, would be for him, not only for him, enthusiastically for him, sipping for him on a podcast.

Speaker 7 And I think if I told 2015 Scott that, you would say, that's crazy, Tim. There's A, there's no way that could have happened, but B, there's no way I'd be for it.
But here you are, you're for it.

Speaker 7 And so I wonder, does that make you think that 2015 Scott was wrong about something?

Speaker 7 Or does that make you think maybe some of the people that you thought had TDS when they talked about all the crazy stuff Trump would do had a point? Let me know what you think.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 1 2015, Scott. Don't worry, I stick difficult questions on everybody.

Speaker 6 I thought you were going to get a question from an expert, but you got Tim Miller instead. When you get the expert question from the edge.

Speaker 1 Entertainment, Scott. Entertainment.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah, he's neither expert nor entertaining, i can assure you look here's what

Speaker 6 here's what i think uh 2015 scott would have been totally shocked to have learned uh early on anyway that donald trump was going to get elected twice i will tell you a quick story that i tell in my book and you know the first person to ever tell me trump was going to be the next president was my dad a garbage man and a factory worker from kentucky who was the biggest clinton democrat that i knew And of course, I told him he was full of shit and, you know, you don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 And he was right and I was wrong. And so I think a lot of people who had been trained in normal politics didn't take it seriously at first.

Speaker 6 I learned very quickly during that primary, not only should it be taken seriously, but that it was quite likely to happen.

Speaker 6 I did campaign in 2016 for Jeb early on and I was out on the road and I was running into people thinking, he's got something going on here.

Speaker 6 And that's when I realized there was a big change coming to the Republican Party. So I think in many ways, Donald Trump has executed like any Republican would.
Taxes are low.

Speaker 6 The Supreme Court is conservative. You know, these are basic Republican things.
The number one departure on policy orthodoxy has been tariffs. No question about it.
It's not been a tariff party.

Speaker 6 You know, Bush did a little tariffs briefly. Reagan did a little briefly, but we've not been a tariff party.
But interestingly, it is the, I think, and...

Speaker 6 And I don't know what you think, but it's the longest held view of Trump. It's his most closely held view.

Speaker 1 I think it's his view. I think it's idiotic.

Speaker 6 Just go ahead. But it's his most consistent view, and he has never, ever shied away from it.
And yet he did win two elections on it, and he did implement it.

Speaker 6 I personally think the Supreme Court may take away some of his power here based on what I heard in the arguments.

Speaker 6 I guess what I would say is, is that every president puts their own policy and premature on their own party. Bush did a few things that weren't particularly conservative either.

Speaker 6 But what I have come to believe is that we're not just arguing about the daily politics anymore. I do believe the future of the West is at stake.

Speaker 6 And whether Trump knew he was signing up for it or not, I believe he believes in the future of the West. And I think he's fighting forces that don't.

Speaker 6 And so I guess I sobered up a little bit about what's really at stake in this world.

Speaker 6 And it's not just daily policy fights, but it's about ideologies and it's about whether we're going to have an American future or something much darker.

Speaker 1 That's the dark idea of it. But you write as if tariffs were a flex.
I don't think most people think tariffs are a flex.

Speaker 1 Most conservatives in the old school and 2015, Scott certainly wouldn't have thought it was a flex, correct?

Speaker 6 No, no, Republicans for my whole career did not believe in tariffs. We were not a tariff party.
Some of our presidents had dalliances with it, but they didn't believe in it the way Trump did.

Speaker 6 And so there's no question and no quibble for me that this is, in my opinion, the biggest policy departure from the traditional conservative or Republican movement.

Speaker 1 But you support it.

Speaker 6 Do I support it? Look, I think he won the election on it, it, and he's our president, and

Speaker 6 he's allowed to operate.

Speaker 1 But do you agree with it, Scott Jettings?

Speaker 6 You know, I think some of it is working already. I think some of it is TBD, and I think I would probably rethink some of it, but I guess I have a bit of a nuanced answer on it.

Speaker 6 But yeah, do I support his general theory that manufacturing needs to be stimulated, that workers have been left behind, and that we have let some other countries take advantage of it?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I agree with all that.

Speaker 1 Okay. The things you don't write in the book are also revealing to me.
You didn't talk about Trump pardoning or commutations of January 6th protesters.

Speaker 1 And you wrote in 2021, which is only four years ago, that Trump betrayed his oath of office. That was the nicest thing you wrote then.

Speaker 1 You didn't write about Signalgate either. What did you, what did you, and SignalGate, one of the biggest, you know, it was a problematic issue, I think.

Speaker 1 Talk a little bit about why you didn't cover those things. And, you know, definitely

Speaker 1 it's a little hypocritical that the party chanted locker up over Hillary Clinton's email servers, for example, and are not doing it here. What did you decide to leave out?

Speaker 1 Why did you decide to leave those things out?

Speaker 6 I think I might have mentioned Signal because I did interview Heg Seth about it. And

Speaker 6 I thought I mentioned it. I certainly talked about it a lot on TV and certainly gave them some advice about it on TV that maybe

Speaker 6 was a little tough love on it. So

Speaker 6 to me, I viewed that as a bit of a tempest in a teapot at the time. And look, the president even, I think himself said at the time, this has been a learning experience for everyone involved here.

Speaker 6 So I don't think he was super happy with it, to be honest. On the pardons, you know, my view is this.
People who commit violent actions

Speaker 6 should not get pardoned. I don't agree with it.
I do think people who were there, some of them may have been overcharged. That's certainly the president's view.
I haven't reviewed every single case.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm not somebody who necessarily believes in large class action pardons. I didn't like it when Biden did it to the drug offenders at the end of his administration.

Speaker 6 And I don't think it's correct that these people didn't pay a price. Most of them were convicted.
Most of them suffered severe consequences and life. So they were punished.

Speaker 6 But, you know, my view of January the 6th is that it was a terrible day. I wish it not had happened.
I hope it never happens again. And it was,

Speaker 6 it was, it was hard to watch. And

Speaker 6 I think it was a, it was.

Speaker 1 And you stand by what you said about him then. Do you stand by that, what you said about him, which was pretty tough, Scott?

Speaker 6 Yeah, look,

Speaker 6 I think there was a lot about the run up to January 6th, what happened that day, and what happened in the aftermath that, you know, there's not a lot to be proud of there. And I think it was

Speaker 6 it was, it was a dark moment. I hope we never, ever, ever see anything like that happen again.
The transfer of power in this country is a sacred thing and we need to respect it.

Speaker 6 And by the way, at the time, I was thinking, gosh, is this going to be the norm now, no matter who wins the next election?

Speaker 6 Then we get to 2024 and Trump wins. And,

Speaker 6 you know, we kind of went back to normal in some ways.

Speaker 1 We had a normal well, Democrats don't take over the Capitol illegally, but okay.

Speaker 1 But just so you know, just for people to know, you called group techs over war plans that included a journalist and family members without security clearance, a kerfuffle, and people died in the, in what happened on January 6th.

Speaker 1 I think you do agree with me that that was a stain on his legacy. So I want to see if there are limits for your love of Trump.
Let's do a lightning round, yes or no answers.

Speaker 1 Would you support President Trump if he launches a war to take over Greenland or Canada or Venezuela by force?

Speaker 6 I

Speaker 6 don't have any problem with military action against Venezuela. I don't think we'll be having any wars with Canada.
And Greenland,

Speaker 6 and I write about this in my book, the impulse to possess Greenland is a good one.

Speaker 1 Would you support President Trump if he uses the FCC or another federal agency to shut down or bankrupt a media outlet?

Speaker 6 Shut down a media outlet.

Speaker 6 I think the FCC should just enforce the law as directed by Congress. That's what I think they should be doing.
Meaning?

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, they are the regulatory agency over the Communications Act under which we still operate for some reason

Speaker 6 in this country. So I think their mandate is to do.

Speaker 1 It's a news distortion rule that Brendan Carr used.

Speaker 6 Well, look, my personal view is that he is only able to do what the law or the Congress has created the FCC to do. If the Congress wants to change that, that's up to them.

Speaker 1 I guess. They find him to be an unctuous toady, and also shouldn't have tweeted what he tweeted.

Speaker 1 Would you support President Trump if he finds a loophole in the 22nd Amendment and runs for a third term? No.

Speaker 1 Would you support President Trump if he uses the National Guard to block polling sites in 2028?

Speaker 6 Block polling sites?

Speaker 6 He could do it. I don't know anything about that, but you don't think he will.
I think everybody has a right to, every legal voter ought to have a right to vote.

Speaker 1 All right, last one. Will you support President Trump if the GOP loses in 2020 and he refuses to leave the White House and we have another incident?

Speaker 6 I mean, look, I think the president's going to have a successful term, and when it's over, we'll put a new president in there, and we ought to have a peaceful transfer of power, just the way we had in 2024.

Speaker 1 Before I go, just very quickly, you're a political commentator on CNN. That could be part of Warner Brothers' Discovery sale.
You've been reportedly approached to join CBS outright.

Speaker 1 They've been reaching out to many conservative pundits like yourself. Unseen on panels, clearly you're the odd man out, but it does give you a unique selling point for sure.
Have you been contacted?

Speaker 6 Contacted by who?

Speaker 1 By CBS outright.

Speaker 6 Oh,

Speaker 6 I'm not going to comment on that. I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people.

Speaker 1 And that would be a yes. I think, would you rather be surrounded by other maggot Republicans like Gunn Fox or maybe CBS in the future? How do you see your future here?

Speaker 6 Oh, I think I was put on this earth to debate and to do so in a hostile environment. I think I have found the absolute correct job for me in this business.

Speaker 6 And I think CNN creating this environment for these debates has been

Speaker 6 one of the best things that's ever happened to me. And I think it's one of the best things that ever happened to the network.
And so I quite like what I'm doing right now.

Speaker 1 And do you have political aspirations?

Speaker 1 It's obviously it's been talked that you might run for office in Kentucky where you were, you were, I mean, I believe Mitch McConnell is like a father to you in some ways, correct? Grandfather.

Speaker 1 Or has been.

Speaker 6 Grandfather.

Speaker 6 He's been my mentor. I've known him since I was 16 years old.
And

Speaker 6 if it weren't for Mitch McConnell, I don't know if I would have been able to go to college, to be honest with you. So

Speaker 6 in the short term, no. Medium or far term, maybe.
We'll see.

Speaker 1 Does it affect you that your mentor broke with Trump? How has that affected your relationship?

Speaker 6 Not at all, really. It's interesting.

Speaker 6 Actually, in Kentucky, everybody assumed McConnell was going to be a thorn in Trump's side, but it's really turned out to be Rand Paul and Thomas Massey that have been the thorns in Trump's side.

Speaker 6 And McConnell has, I think, actually been, he's been quite helpful to Trump. And I mean, he helped, I know, internally in the Senate, lobby internally to get the big beautiful bill passed.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 he's been publicly critical, too, though. Of course.
Has that been difficult for you?

Speaker 6 No. I mean, look, I don't think I'm not one that believes everybody has to get along or be golfing buddies.

Speaker 6 You know, politics means that sometimes you have people on your team that you don't personally get along with, but you're still fighting largely for the same things.

Speaker 6 And I will tell you this, McConnell and Trump are forever linked in history by what they did to change the Supreme Court.

Speaker 6 I mean, but for both of them, it is their big, one of their biggest, for McConnell, certainly, and for Trump, it's one of their biggest legacy points, the changing of the court.

Speaker 6 And it was McConnell and Trump that teamed up to do it. And I, whenever conservatives come up to me and complain to me about McConnell, I say, oh, do you like a 6-3 Supreme Court?

Speaker 6 And they always say yes. And I say, welcome to Team Mitch, because that's what the results of that was.

Speaker 1 Okay, last question. If Trump does indeed stick to the 22nd Amendment, as we all hope he will, another Republican will be candidate in 2028.
I think you're saying it's going to be J.D. Vance.

Speaker 1 Likely. Will you push back if they take on policies that are different from Trump's, which you've embraced, I think, pretty wholeheartedly? Or do you think

Speaker 1 you will go along with that, whatever that happens to be?

Speaker 6 Well, I think, you know, every nominee of the party has every right to put their own imprimatur on our platform. I think if it's J.D.

Speaker 6 Vance, you know, as the sitting vice president, he'll largely be running on the general policy direction that Trump has said.

Speaker 6 I mean, after all, he has been helping Trump implement that policy direction. I think it'd be quite weird if he took the party in a totally radically different direction.

Speaker 6 I'd be quite shocked if that happened.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think I'm asking you, would you be a wind sock? I think I'm basically asking you that.

Speaker 1 But if there's another candidate, how do you react to that, given you're kind of all in on Trump in this?

Speaker 6 You mean a different nominee? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Oh, wow. Gosh, that would be an interesting outcome.
Look, I think some people might run. I think it's unlikely they would win.
But look, I'm a Republican. I've been a Republican my entire life.

Speaker 6 And if somebody becomes the nominee of the Republican Party and they do what I want them to do 90 or 95% of the time, and the Democrat nominee who's going to be a socialist does what I want them to do 0% of the time, it's a pretty easy choice for me.

Speaker 1 All right. We'll end on that.
Scott, you are smirk-free, so that's good.

Speaker 1 Come on,

Speaker 1 you use a smirk. There's a smirk happening.

Speaker 1 I can see it coming. You've got like a Grinch-like smirk.

Speaker 6 I hear people say this and I don't know what they're talking about, but I'll take you.

Speaker 1 Oh, come on. Come on.

Speaker 1 You know you're doing it.

Speaker 6 I do. I believe you.
So I'm going to give you a little inside TV baseball. You want to hear it?

Speaker 1 Oh, thank you. Okay, good.
Go ahead.

Speaker 6 When I, and you know this because you've been on the set, when I look at that camera, It's because it is literally right over Abby's shoulder from my position. And so

Speaker 6 when I'm looking back at her preparing to do the next thing, it looks like I'm looking at the camera. But most of the time, I am just looking back at Abby because it's almost my turn again.

Speaker 6 And so some of that is more me looking at my host and my boss, Abby, and not

Speaker 6 looking at the camera. But it's a good spot for the camera, I will admit.

Speaker 1 That's like Jessica Rabbit. I'm not smarking.
I'm just drawn that way. I'm just teasing.
Anyway,

Speaker 1 I appreciate it. Very interesting conversation.
And again, your book is called A Revolution of Common Sense. Thank you, Scott.
Thank you, Kara.

Speaker 1 Today's show was produced by Christian Castor-Rousselle, Kateri Yoakum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to Andrea Lopez-Crusado and Bradley Sylvester. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode.
And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 This is your Thanksgiving dinner to come. If not, wipe that Grinch smirk off your face.
Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Carrou Swisher and hit follow.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to On with Carrou Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, and the Box Media Podcast Network. And of course, us.
We'll be back on Monday with more.

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