128. Trump vs Congress: Who Really Won the Shutdown?

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Speaker 1 Welcome to The Rest is Politics U.S. with me, Katy Kay, in London, right next to Anthony Scaramucci.

Speaker 2 We're back in London at the Rosewood Chancery for another conference.

Speaker 1 Are you advertising the Rosewood Chancery now? Are they giving you a special upgrade or something?

Speaker 2 I like them. They did a good job last week.
They did a very good job. But you know who's not doing a good job, Caddy? Is the U.S.
Congress and the American president.

Speaker 2 The government is still closed, but we think it's going to open this week, right?

Speaker 1 So we are recording this on Tuesday in London. And all the signs are, Anthony, that if you are listening to this on Wednesday, that is D-Day when the government gets reopened.

Speaker 1 All of this still holds because we know the parameters. We're going to talk about that and what the Democrats did or didn't do to get there,

Speaker 1 why they made the decision that they did. And then in the second half of the show, we're going to talk about the fight within MAGA because this is kind of blowing up on the right of the MAGA movement.

Speaker 1 There is this big fight between Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson on one side and Ben Shapiro on the other.

Speaker 1 And I thought it was worth talking about because MAGA is always presented as this kind of monolith, but actually there's a lot of

Speaker 1 there's a bit of a schism going on and you have views on that. So we're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1 But talking about the government shut, okay, this is when I realized that they were going to fold the Democrats and vote to reopen the government.

Speaker 1 On Sunday, I started looking at tickets for Thanksgiving. And my son has a ticket, an airline ticket, to come down to visit us from Maine.

Speaker 1 We bought his ticket a while ago from Portland to Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 And I had this sudden panic that all of the planes wouldn't be running because the transport secretary said the planes are going to go to a trickle. It's going to be a nightmare.

Speaker 1 No one's going to be able to travel over Thanksgiving. So I went online and I booked you a train ticket.
The train ticket cost $900.

Speaker 1 Terrible. It was the last train seat I could get.
And that's what made me think, you know what? The American people are not going to tolerate this over Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 And there is going to be so much pressure on Democrats to agree to reopen the government.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I think you're right. But who won the shutdown?

Speaker 1 Politically, who won the shutdown?

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm actually going to say

Speaker 1 the Democrats won the shutdown even though they capitulated and even though the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is super exercised about this and feel they caved after those great election results for them on Tuesday last week.

Speaker 1 They had the momentum and the progressives and the younger Democrats are saying, you know, what the heck? Why did we cave?

Speaker 2 But go back if you don't mind. So they caved because they didn't get any subsidy extension.

Speaker 1 Because they didn't get a guarantee of having a subsidy extension to make healthcare cheaper for Americans or to keep healthcare prices lower for Americans.

Speaker 1 They effectively said, okay, we've pushed for that. We've spent 40 odd days pushing for that.
We didn't get it, but we're going to reopen the government anyway.

Speaker 1 But this is why I think actually Democrats may have won this, because they have made those healthcare subsidies and the price of healthcare a talking point for Americans.

Speaker 1 And there's a poll out by STACK, a company I hadn't heard of, who has come out with a very big survey of Americans that shows that 70% of Americans say they're now concerned about the subsidies ending for healthcare costs, and 50% of MAGA Republicans, self-described MAGA Republicans, are also worried about the subsidies ending for health care costs.

Speaker 1 So that, I think, puts healthcare and the cost of health care right in the front of people's frame of mind.

Speaker 1 And in that way, the Democrats holding out for 40 days have changed the conversation around healthcare in America.

Speaker 2 And Caddy, that also fits the thesis that I've been sharing with people that President Trump sees his base as fiscally liberal. And so they want the services.
They want the governmental subsidies.

Speaker 2 And so this will be an interesting exchange as they get the government back open to see which way they're going. I think the Democrats actually

Speaker 2 could have gotten here 15, 20 days ago. So I'm going to actually say that they both lost a little.
Just step back for one second and think about this. They shut the government for 11% of the year.

Speaker 2 And you know, I like the number 11 a lot, actually. It's one of my favorite numbers.

Speaker 1 They shut it for sort of a scaramucci.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a little bit more than a scaramucci. It was like a Liz Truss shutting, if you will.

Speaker 2 But she was 40 days ago. You're right.
She was a Liz Trust.

Speaker 1 Stretching our metaphors. But anyway,

Speaker 2 4.1 Scaramucci's for the prime minister. But let's go back to this.
I think that's a loss for both of them.

Speaker 2 I think ultimately, when people go home for Thanksgiving and they talk about their government, I think these people are, we're going to talk about trading stocks and bonds in a second in the Congress.

Speaker 2 These people are not serving the American interests anymore.

Speaker 2 And that's going to be the big question leading in which candidates, and this is a Mondamne-like sort of a question, because which candidates are going to go into 26 that are going to use this against the incumbents?

Speaker 2 They're going to say, look at these mad incumbents. They can't even get the government open.
They were in lockdown for 40 days. They can't make an agreement.

Speaker 2 A republic or a democracy is designed to have consensus and compromise. Look at these people.

Speaker 2 I just think there's an opening here to finally take on some incumbents based on the narrative that we're seeing.

Speaker 1 It's interesting that the eight members of the Democratic caucus who voted with Republicans to reopen the government, none of them are up for re-election next year.

Speaker 1 They're all senators who are either resigning, stepping down, retiring next year, or they're being re-elected in four years' time.

Speaker 1 So they don't have to go and face the progressive wing of the party that may be saying, hold on a second, where's the fight? This is being cast.

Speaker 1 My senses, as Democrats losing this fight because they didn't get the guarantee to extend the healthcare subsidies. And because in the end, they were the ones who caved to pressure.

Speaker 1 And they would say, well, we were just looking out for people who were not going to get their food assistance.

Speaker 1 We were looking out for people who were trying to travel over Thanksgiving and weren't going to see their families. And so we were looking out for members.

Speaker 1 But I'm not sure that it's such a loss as that.

Speaker 1 I think, first of all, they showed that they did care about people who get food stamps and they drew a very clear distinction between what the White House was doing, which was pressing the courts not to allow people to have that food assistance.

Speaker 1 And they're saying, hold on a second, we're actually caring about that.

Speaker 1 And they drew the contrast as well between Donald Trump, who was having this great Gatsby-style party down at Mar-a-Lago, the Gilded Oval Office, the brand new ballroom in the White House.

Speaker 1 And they were pointing to all of those things, saying, hold on a second, that is what the president is focused on. We're focused on trying to make sure that you're not.

Speaker 2 I mean, I was just saying,

Speaker 1 I think there's some resonance in the photos.

Speaker 2 I'm with you. I was making a broader statement related to like bipartisan indictment of these people, but I hear you.
And the other point being that...

Speaker 1 I mean, the rest of the world thinks this is crazy.

Speaker 1 The government can shut down at all. It's bonkers.

Speaker 2 It's absurd. I mean, you talk to international business leaders and they're like...

Speaker 1 What the heck's going on?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like, it's like astonishing that a country that has this level of GDP and wealth and

Speaker 2 hundreds of years of success would be running itself like this. It's just astonishing.
I want to have a Zoom call. Okay.
And we're going to do a little bit of role-playing here.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be the president this time. Okay.
Okay. And so I'm going to purse my lips.
For those of you listening in on the podcast in your ear there, I'm pursing.

Speaker 1 I'm going to the hand thing you're going to do.

Speaker 2 I'm pursing my lips. I've got the hand movements going with the OK and the L, you know, the reverse L.
And you are going to be two people. Oh, okay.
Okay.

Speaker 2 You're going to be Mike Johnson and Cash Patel. So you can give me a blended response.
Hello? Is this on? Is this on? Cash.

Speaker 2 Mike Johnson, do we have this Epstein thing under control? The government's about to open. And this Congresswoman-elect from Arizona, she's getting sworn in.
And we're going to release these files.

Speaker 2 So are we in full redaction mode?

Speaker 2 Hello, fellas.

Speaker 1 Are you there? Mr. President, Mr.
President, when Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, the Congresswoman from Arizona, is actually going to be sworn in. And as the speaker has told you, Mr.

Speaker 1 President, she will be sworn in very soon, potentially this week. Then, of course, she will vote to release the Epstein files.
And don't worry, Mr.

Speaker 1 President, we have a very big black Sharpie pen, and we are going through those files and redacting any sensitive information to anybody, Mr. President.
So we think we're okay.

Speaker 2 There's a woman out there, one of the Epstein victims, that is claiming that there are videos of me, which, of course, you know is not true. There's no videos of me.
But suppose there is videos of me.

Speaker 2 Have you got those blown up as well?

Speaker 1 Mr. President, we heard that mentioned of reports of photographs of you with underage women that were mentioned in the Pam Bondi hearings.
You remember, Mr.

Speaker 1 President, the Attorney General was up in the front of the Senate, and one of those perfidious Democratic senators had the audacity, Mr.

Speaker 1 President, to mention that there may be video or photographic evidence of this. Don't worry, Mr.
President, that big black Sharpie is going to redact everything. Okay.

Speaker 2 I mean, you had me perfectly until you used the word perfidious because these guys don't know that word. I mean, you know, they do.
They don't even know what that means.

Speaker 2 I'm struggling with perfidious.

Speaker 2 It was a good word. It was a good word, really.
It was a good word.

Speaker 2 So nothing's going to happen. So a trip U.S.
prediction.

Speaker 2 She gets sworn in. Show me the Epstein files, and we're going to show the Epstein files, and it's going to be a big nothing, because nothing's going to happen.

Speaker 1 I think the chances of it being as dramatic as Democrats would like it to be are pretty minimal at this point.

Speaker 1 I mean, I also think that Donald Trump, given his past history, gets away with an awful lot that most previous presidents would not get away with.

Speaker 1 I suppose you can go back to Jack Kennedy, and he was having loads of affairs, and that was in a different time, however.

Speaker 1 But he gets away with an awful lot in terms of kind of moral probity, And people have baked that into their voting decisions around him.

Speaker 2 The key distinction, though, is the Kennedy affairs was not divulged to the public at that time in American history. It was a different time.
Exactly. The public may not have tolerated it.

Speaker 1 The other thing that could happen when the government reopens, and we're going to assume the government, for all intents and purposes, is now reopened, is that there is a bill going forward to ban members of Congress from trading stocks and shares.

Speaker 1 What's all of that about, Anthony?

Speaker 2 Why has that become a big deal? Well, there's been a loophole for Congress men and women for,

Speaker 2 I guess, the last 50 or so years. And the loophole is if I've got information inside the Congress and it's in my personal account, I can trade on that information.
And that is a loophole.

Speaker 2 They're sort of outside the parameter of what's called insider trading. And so just 30 seconds on insider trading.

Speaker 2 If Catty is an executive inside of a company and she calls me and says, hey, I'm an executive inside of ABC company and this company's buying XYZ next week, I then cannot use that information in the stock market.

Speaker 2 If I go to the stock market and buy XYZ and XYZ goes up, you would be in trouble. I would be in trouble, but not the congressman or woman.

Speaker 2 So let's say they're working on a bill and it's related to energy legislation or AI, and they know that's going to be really beneficial to that sector or to companies specific to the bill, they can go out and buy call options.

Speaker 2 They can go out and buy stock. The bill gets passed, the stock goes up.
Now, of course, Nancy Pelosi has been accused of this and others.

Speaker 2 And AOC, and there's a very strong progressive movement that says this is absurd, it's unfair to the American people, and it needs to be done.

Speaker 1 Mr. When you describe it to me, it does sound unfair to the American people.

Speaker 2 But let's step back.

Speaker 2 So in 2011, 60 Minutes did a show on this. Peter Schweitzer wrote a book about this.
And there was a four-month period of time where the outrage was palpable, and they voted to ban it.

Speaker 2 So they actually banned these transactions. And then they did something that the Congress does outside of C-SPAN, outside of the television cameras and so forth.
They did a voice vote to reinstate it.

Speaker 1 Oh, those smoke-filled rooms.

Speaker 2 Yeah. See, and so, so, so it was.

Speaker 1 And you wonder why the American public doesn't trust Congress.

Speaker 2 15 years ago, four months, they banned it. Now it's back on, and it looks like it could get banned again.

Speaker 2 And I will predict if it does get banned again, it'll be a very public we banned it, and then it'll be five, six months later, they'll unban it, okay?

Speaker 2 Because that's exactly what they did about 15 years ago. So this is the stuff that the American people are like, wow, the system is really rigged.
The system is really unfair.

Speaker 2 To go back to Epstein for a second, it does appear that Alex Acosta, when he was, he was the former Trump labor secretary, but prior to that, he was an assistant U.S. attorney down in Florida.

Speaker 2 He cut the deal for Epstein. It does appear that they were trying to protect very high-profile people that were involved in the US.

Speaker 1 This all plays into the perception that many ordinary working-class Americans and middle-class Americans have that they are not getting a fair shake in the system.

Speaker 1 It's why you've just had Mem Dani elected in New York. It's why

Speaker 1 Graham Plattner, the oyster farmer up in Maine, is doing well. Despite some issues around his texting past, he's still popular up in Maine.

Speaker 1 Because people in this environment who can suggest to voters that they will stand up for the average person are going to do well.

Speaker 1 Whether or not those people actually can stand up for the average person, whether they can deliver on their promises at the moment, what people want is to know that somebody is fighting for them.

Speaker 1 And I think, in a way, that's where the Democrats are. I think the Republican Party understood this 10 years ago, that you had to sound like you were fighting for the average person.

Speaker 1 It was why Donald Trump was elected in 2016. He got it.
He got that this was about the fight. Democrats, I reckon, are 10 years behind.

Speaker 1 But this cycle, what we've seen is this same kind of message of, we will fight for you.

Speaker 1 And clearly, the Democratic base is, you know, you may or may not be able to deliver on it, but we at least want to know that you are fighting for us.

Speaker 2 Yes, but I'm going to say something really cynical and really terrible because now I'm going to play the average incumbent. All that stuff is great.
I'm going to feed through pork.

Speaker 2 I'm going to feed through subsidies. My district, look at what Rand Paul's doing right now for hemp.

Speaker 2 He slowed down the process here because he's got hemp farmers in Kentucky and he wants certain things taken out of the continuing resolution to protect those farmers.

Speaker 2 And so what I'm going to do is figure out a few things. I'm going to get to the camera and microphone, go back to my district, go back to my constituents, tell them what I did for them.

Speaker 2 And oh, by the way, I'm going to get a waterfall of money from big companies and special interests that I'm going to use on the airwaves to denigrate the opposition,

Speaker 2 disfigure them, ad hominem attack them. And so guess what's going to happen? Because 95% of the time it does,

Speaker 2 I stay in power. 95%

Speaker 2 chance for a incumbent to get re-elected.

Speaker 1 Because the districts aren't competitive.

Speaker 2 The districts districts are not competitive and by the way my buddies uh at the state and local legislatures helped me redistrict to ensure my survival in the congress and so all of that stuff sounds fun and nice and you left out one other thing caddy is the fragmentation of the media has really allowed me to take advantage of my uh voters uh because remember when when you're making such a you're making such a great positive optimistic case for the american political system today

Speaker 1 i'm I'm so reassured and excited.

Speaker 2 God, the government is back open

Speaker 1 back to doing all these wonderful things.

Speaker 2 Let me make the optimistic case now. When guys like Zoran Mandami show up at the door, you better figure out a way to put together practical reform.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't do that, they will win the people.

Speaker 2 He is a charismatic enough person. He's got a great...

Speaker 1 I mean, if you're opposing him, you have to come up with a research.

Speaker 2 Yes, if you're opposing him and you're looking at him saying, well, wait a minute, this has worked great for us.

Speaker 2 This sort of duopoly and these sort of rules and Citizens United, where I get unlimited money from super rich people and big food and big farmers, really working great for us. But guess what?

Speaker 2 It's not working for the American people. And now we have young politicians that are extremely talented, understand social media that are going to expose us.

Speaker 2 So if we don't shift and create some type of reform here,

Speaker 2 we could end up in a situation where we've got the government and policy going in a direction that may not be what we all want. And I think that's coming if they're not careful.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I do think one thing that has happened over the course of the last two months is that there has been more focus on this question of affordability.

Speaker 1 You teased me last week for talking about the K-shaped economy, but actually it could be a K-Street economy, couldn't it? Let's face it, it's full of lobbyists. But anyway, it's a K-shaped economy.

Speaker 1 And I think that all of the discussions we've had during the election campaigns and during the shutdown have made people more aware in the states of how expensive health care is, how expensive rent is, how expensive food is.

Speaker 2 Fake news. Fake news.
Prices are going lower.

Speaker 2 Prices are lower everywhere.

Speaker 2 The grocery budget is down 25%. Literally, people are going to the store and the stuff is exploding in price.

Speaker 1 Walmart is saying they've put out their bundle of Thanksgiving goods and they're saying, look, the price is lower this year. But you know what? Last year's bundle had 21 different items in it.

Speaker 1 This year's bundle only has 15. The price is a little lower, but you're getting less in your Thanksgiving bundle.
That was meant to be an optimistic end to the first half, sorry.

Speaker 1 But hey, I think there is now a new focus.

Speaker 1 I spoke to a former senator who said to me, no member of Congress is not going to be aware of the cost of healthcare as they go into the election next year, which is a good thing.

Speaker 1 Americans are paying too much for their healthcare. Okay, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about the splits in MAGA.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back. to The Rest is Politics US.
Anthony and I, both in London. It's so nice to be together, Anthony.

Speaker 1 I'm enjoying this.

Speaker 2 It's great to be here.

Speaker 1 Look, I don't know why.

Speaker 2 This is Anthony's glass.

Speaker 1 This is my glass.

Speaker 2 This is the glass that was in the room.

Speaker 2 It's nine o'clock.

Speaker 1 I'm having a glass of water.

Speaker 2 Dirty water martini. Okay, there's no alcohol there.

Speaker 1 But if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Speaker 2 There's no alcohol. And prior to me arriving in the room, there was no air conditioning.

Speaker 2 For our American listeners out there and my fellow Americans, these people don't believe in ice cubes and they don't believe in air conditioning.

Speaker 1 It's mid-November.

Speaker 2 There's an SOS coming from this hotel.

Speaker 1 Mid-November. Who puts air conditioning on in mid-November in London?

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going to talk about the splintering on the right because something has blown up that you may or may not have picked up on amongst a group of right-wing influencers that you might think, okay, well, this doesn't really matter.

Speaker 1 This is a small group of people, but actually, it's also now filtering down through to the Heritage Foundation, which is the organization, the think tank that was behind Project 2025.

Speaker 1 A lot of these people are close to the president, they're close to the vice president, president. And I think it's worth diving into.

Speaker 2 I want to say something, get you to react before you get into the specifics.

Speaker 2 So there's glue for the Republicans, and it's sort of this weird thing, but Donald Trump is the glue for all of these fragmented ideologues.

Speaker 2 And so they basically looked at each other and say, we generally hate each other and we generally have opposing views about what Republican orthodoxy should be, but we're going to live in Trump's world of MAGA because he can get all of us to the finish line and we can get a lot of our policies, Project 2025, et cetera, adopted.

Speaker 2 So we're going to use Trump as the vessel. Now, we've been saying on this program that MAGA is splintering because they're looking forward to no Trump, therefore no glue.

Speaker 2 Okay, so now take over because it's starting to happen. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Okay, so all of the jostling that's happening on the right.

Speaker 1 So this is a story that concerns three different podcasters, influencers, people with millions, literally millions of followers on the right of the MAGA movement, on the right of the conservative movement.

Speaker 1 And the first character is a guy called Nick Fuentes. You may have heard of Nick Fuentes.
He is a self-described white supremacist, white nationalist, Christian nationalist.

Speaker 1 He was banned for a period on Twitter, as it was back then. And he said a whole host on his show of things that I think everybody would agree are outrageous and beyond the bounds of normal politics.

Speaker 1 We're going to play you some clips. It's worth knowing what Nick Fuentes says.

Speaker 2 A lot of women want to be raped. And when I say raped, I mean like

Speaker 2 that sounds bad when I say it like that. But there's like a lot of women that really want a guy to beat the shit out of them.

Speaker 8 Who cares? You know, enough with the Jim Crow stuff. Who cares?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 8 to drink out of a different water fountain. Big fucking deal.

Speaker 2 It is Heil Hitler Friday.

Speaker 2 White people are every single bit justified in being racist.

Speaker 1 So Nick Fuentes then has been marginalized in many ways, but he still has a million followers on X at the moment. He is invited onto Tucker Carlson's show.

Speaker 1 The two have had a little bit of a row in the past, but he gets Nick Fuentes a couple of weeks ago onto his Tucker Carlson program, and he gives him an incredibly soft interview in which I listened to it.

Speaker 1 the whole thing last night. It's a couple of hours long.
Nick Fuentes talks about how he got to where he got to. He reiterates his positions.

Speaker 1 And Tucker sort of does this thing that Tucker sometimes does of helping somebody out a bit. He kind of softens him a little bit.
It's a very uncombative interview and I listen to the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Tucker doesn't once raise some of the more controversial things that Nick Fuentes has had.

Speaker 1 And then you get the split happening because the head of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, praises Tucker Carlson for having Nick Fuentes on and says nobody should be cancelled.

Speaker 1 We should allow for free speech. Nick Fuentes was just exploring what he's going to say.
And my friend Tucker Carlson will always be my friend. Heritage Foundation members get very upset about this.

Speaker 1 They don't like what Kevin Roberts, their leader, is saying, and they push back against him and he's eventually forced to apologize.

Speaker 1 But the more interesting split, I think, comes from Ben Shapiro, who is a fellow MAGA conservative influencer, again with an enormous following.

Speaker 1 And on Monday, he released a monologue in which he laid into Tucker Carlson for normalizing anti-Semitism, normalizing white supremacy and normalizing hate.

Speaker 1 And I thought that this split where we see Ben Shapiro come out and attack Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, but really Tucker Carlson for having Nick Fuentes on his show.

Speaker 1 It gets to what is in this world where we are discussing the issues of cancellation and free speech and what is acceptable because I think on the right there is a very strong feeling that they have been cancelled in the past for saying things and now they have a right to free speech but when does that free speech drift into

Speaker 1 areas that are unacceptable and positions that are unacceptable I think that is what the right is grappling with and Ben Shapiro has hit what he started off his monologue by saying that the right the Republican Party is being eaten by its own radicals.

Speaker 2 Aaron Ross Powell, I mean, so there's so much here, but a couple things I want to add is: Fuentes,

Speaker 2 maybe four or five months prior to the election, 2024, had dinner with Donald Trump in Mor-a-Lago with other anti-Semites. And so people were like, what the hell is Trump doing there?

Speaker 2 He's now criticizing Trump. Fuentes is out there, July of 2025.
He's laying into Trump for his refusal to let the Epstein client list go. He's stating that the liberals were right.

Speaker 2 He's looking back on this movement and saying that MAGA is the biggest scam in history. These are things that Puentes has said about Trump now.

Speaker 1 Why is he turned against Trump now?

Speaker 2 Because these guys were told no more forever wars and that the deep state is running things against the interests of Americans. And this populist leader, Donald Trump, is going to expose all of that.

Speaker 2 He's going to release the Kennedy files. He's going to release the RFK Senior files.

Speaker 2 He's also going to release the Epstein client list to show the web of influence that's at the top where these people are currying favor for each other. And of course, Trump didn't do any of that.

Speaker 1 So Fuentes doesn't like bombing Iran, for example, or bombing Venezuelan fishing boats or attacking Russia.

Speaker 2 Fuentes is more in the, that's more like the banning. This is the interesting thing.
There's so many different factions. That's more the Bannon faction of MAGA.

Speaker 2 Fuentes' faction of MAGA is literally, I mean, this is, I I don't even know if I want to say this stuff on the air here,

Speaker 2 but he has said some horrifically nasty things

Speaker 2 about

Speaker 2 Jewish people. Okay, we'll just put it that way.
And he talks about them in a very conspiratorial way, which is to me the height of anti-Semitism. And so I denounce that.

Speaker 2 I know you also denounce that, Caddy.

Speaker 2 But this is the thing that upsets me about this whole situation. Giving him that platform, there are a couple of accomplices here.
One of them is Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 So I just want you to imagine George Herbert Walker Bush having any tolerance or any daylight for this type of ideological behavior in the Republican Party.

Speaker 2 Think of that man's rectitude versus Donald Trump's laxity. Okay, and so this is like, hey, Donald Trump's our spiritual leader.
I had dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 2 I'm able to say whatever I want, whenever I want it. Tucker Carlson has lost his platform at Fox News.
He does have 16 million followers on a social media platform.

Speaker 2 He's got a very popular, successful podcast. But how do you make these podcasts glue eyeballs? And that's through rage, and that's through anger.
And that's the thing he said to Megan Kelly.

Speaker 2 You know, you handle your interviews the way you want.

Speaker 2 Megan Kelly pressed Tucker this past week about this interview. Tucker looked at her and said, hey, you handle your interviews the way you want.
I'll handle the interviews the way I want.

Speaker 2 And Tucker is an asshole. And I'm just going to tell everybody that straight up.
Tell it like you think it. Yeah, because he's a complete asshole.
He knows this is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 2 He grew up as a decent, bow-tied, establishment Republican. He's now moved to the fringe, and he's diabolical.
And he's got a moral compass that's literally spinning.

Speaker 2 And this is reprehensible behavior. And so people can pretend otherwise.

Speaker 2 Stephen Moore, an economic advisor to the president, once on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, left the Heritage Foundation.

Speaker 1 Because of this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because of the support that the Heritage Foundation gave to Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 2 So listen, I try to be as objective as I can, but I think Tucker Carlson is an asshole, and I would like to state that publicly on TripUA.

Speaker 1 I think it's, I mean, I think... having Nick Fuentes on your program and giving him a two-hour platform without raising

Speaker 1 some of those things that we showed you and had you listen to at the beginning of this half of the program is an extraordinary thing to choose to do for somebody who was a journalist and who I've known Tucker for years started out in a position where he was conservative but he was always putting both points of view.

Speaker 1 He gave people a fair hearing and he would just say, well, I'm giving Nick Fuentes a fair hearing.

Speaker 1 But the point is, when somebody says things that are as extreme as Nick Fuentes has had, isn't the onus on you to challenge those positions. And he clearly chose not to do that.

Speaker 1 So my question to you is, Antony, does any of this matter? Some people are saying, well, these are just a bunch of influencers. Okay, lots of people listen to them.

Speaker 1 I think it matters because I have been told that about 40% of interns at Heritage agree with Nick Fuentes.

Speaker 1 So I think actually these people have a lot more sway, particularly amongst some younger Republicans and younger members of the MAGA movement, than you or I might think they do.

Speaker 1 So I think it matters and I think they have influence.

Speaker 2 Listen, we've got text messages going back and forth with each other, trying to one-up each other on racism and anti-Semitism.

Speaker 1 But with the young Republicans

Speaker 2 we spoke about on the program. We have one young Republican that had a withdrew, withdrew his nomination because he said that he had a Nazi streak.
Had a Nazi streak, Caddy K.

Speaker 2 And so he had to withdraw because that was probably a bridge too far for guys like Thune who said, okay, we can't vote for the guy. He has a Nazi streak.

Speaker 2 But this behavior is tolerated in Trump's world. This moral ambiguity is tolerated in Trump's world.

Speaker 2 When you say the following two words, organized Jewry,

Speaker 2 when you say that, Okay, that is Nazi rhetoric. That is a scapegoating tool and a device that you're going to use.
And it is at the highest pinnacle of anti-Semitism, and it has to be denounced.

Speaker 2 In a free world and in a free society, to do that to other people, that sort of scapegoating, is against all of the mores of Western liberalism and against all of the mores of individual freedom.

Speaker 2 And so real leadership requires people to speak out against these things. But these guys won't do that.
And I'm fine with that. Can I tell you why I'm fine with that?

Speaker 2 Because they're going to have an ideological civil war in this party.

Speaker 1 and if the Democrats wake up and they coalesce around somebody or they get a framework together on policy and ideas they're going to be able to beat these guys because Trump was the glue for these lunatics to stay together the Banning group is very different from the Shapiro group which is very different from the Fuentes group and they're about to raise holy hell with each other over the ensuing 18 months Fuentes is so young too he's got a long time to be engaged in American politics can I just say one other thing that strikes me as ironic You've had for the past couple of years university presidents at elite universities being pulled in front of Congress and hauled over the coals by Republican members of the House because of anti-Semitism on their campuses.

Speaker 1 I'd like to ask Elise Stefanik, who was leading that charge against university campuses, and I think most of those universities would say they had to do more to stamp down on anti-Semitism.

Speaker 1 But how does she respond to what somebody like Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are now saying about

Speaker 1 when you say these comments about organized jury?

Speaker 2 They're responding by not responding.

Speaker 2 They're staying out of it. But moral leadership would require you to speak out against this.
Moral leadership would require you to denigrate Carlson for platforming this nut and calling this out.

Speaker 2 And by the way, if Trump had any moral authority, which of course he doesn't, he would say, hey, knock this off. It's got nothing to do with me or Republicanism.

Speaker 2 And knock this off if you want to be a part of a movement that I'm responsible for and that I'm leading. But he won't do that.

Speaker 2 He enjoys this stuff because down deep, he's got some of this going on in his own personality.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll see where this split goes to. We'll keep an eye on this one because I think it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 And I do think that the overwhelming majority of Americans, when they hear what somebody like Nick Fuentes has been saying, when you actually play play them those clips, they're going to be as shocked as you.

Speaker 1 And I was, I had not really heard all of the clips, but now that I've heard them, I realize why people are giving Tucker Crossing.

Speaker 2 It's a modern America where people can have a Nazi streak and

Speaker 1 people are looking around and say, okay, women want to be raped. And laugh about it.
It's the laughing.

Speaker 1 It's the way he thinks, I'm going to say this, and it's going to make me cool because I'm saying stuff that other people won't say.

Speaker 1 It's that idea of, well, I'm going to shock the world by saying something that is not acceptable.

Speaker 2 But let them eat each other. That's my,

Speaker 2 before we end this thing, because you like ending on optimism, let them eat each other. Okay, let them go after each other ideologically and bash each other's brains in.
That's what I want.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's all we've got time for today. But if you haven't had your fill of U.S.
politics this week, we have something very special for you.

Speaker 1 Become a founding member and listen to the first episode of The Real J.D. Vance.
It's an exclusive series that was made by hosts of The Rest Is Politics, Aleister Campbell and Rory Stewart.

Speaker 2 So listen, Gaddy, I love this whole series, but the first episode in particular, because they're exploring J.D. Vance's humble beginnings and what shaped him in his pursuit of power.

Speaker 2 And his rise reveals something about the state of American politics today.

Speaker 2 And this part of the story is so interesting to me because if you read Hillbilly Elegy, you learn a lot about J.D. Vance, his vulnerabilities, before he takes on this mask of power.

Speaker 2 So listen in, sign up at therestispoliticsus.com.

Speaker 2 And here's a clip.

Speaker 9 If Donald Trump dropped dead,

Speaker 9 this guy is automatically president.

Speaker 2 How he has become what he's become from this background.

Speaker 10 I'm sitting in the back of this police cruiser. They've just arrested my mom.
The relief of having survived another day.

Speaker 11 This is a story about something which we don't often talk about in America, which is class.

Speaker 5 I came from a southern Ohio steel town, and it's a town that's really struggling in a lot of ways. Trump, I think that he's leading the white working class to a very dark place.
I'm a never-Trump guy.

Speaker 5 I never liked him.

Speaker 11 But in the end, the main thing you need to understand about J.D. Garnes is: given the choice between his intellectual statements and power,

Speaker 11 he chooses power every time.

Speaker 12 I was wrong about Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 Senator, this is an evolution. Past comments that you've made.
You've said, idiot, if you voted for him, might be America's Hitler.

Speaker 11 This is where this other side of his personality comes through. He's reverting to blame, anger.

Speaker 12 We're seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats.

Speaker 2 They're eating the dogs.

Speaker 12 I think the election was stolen from Trump.

Speaker 13 We're effectively run in this country by a bunch of childless cat ladies.

Speaker 11 He needs to prove absolute loyalty.

Speaker 2 And what I worry about is the threat from within. Have you said thank you once?

Speaker 11 But there's a bigger story, which is the story about this whole alt-right movement. Vance does not exist really without Teal, either financially or politically.

Speaker 2 Because this guy believes that America should be led by a monarch, which, of course, Trump believes as well.

Speaker 9 He sees him, frankly, as a future king because he says Vance can tell the story of America.

Speaker 11 And in doing so, he crosses the cusp into a whole new vision of the world at the center of which is not democracy, but the CEO, the authoritarian, the monarch.

Speaker 1 Hope you enjoyed that clip. Do sign up at the restispoliticsus.com to hear the full episode right now.
And we will see you later this week. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 I'll be back on Zoom. I won't be in the presence of the incredible Caddy Kay.
I'll be by myself in my office again.

Speaker 1 Bye, guys.

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