← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
What Gets Ignored By the Partisans, Plus Sen. Ted Cruz on Two Different Tariff Paths Ahead for Trump
00:57:57
On the debut of “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” Mark starts with the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, the reality of the polls, what gets ignored by the partisans, how Biden's mental acuity decline cover-up destroyed the press’ credibility, the latest on Pete Hegseth and what could happen to him, and more. Plus, Sen. Ted Cruz joins to discuss the historic opportunity the Trump administration has to change the country, the two different paths for Trump’s tariff plan, what DOGE can do with the budget, 2028 Democratic contenders and more. Then Emma-Jo Morris and Marc Caputo join to discuss how the Trump administration is handling immigration and the economy after the first 100 days, the successes and failures on the border and trade, the top 5 Trump administration officials who have more power since the start of the term, and more.
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- [00:00]
Mark Halperin
Foreign.
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Stephen Becker
Welcome to my debut episode. Thank you for joining. It's also the hundredth day of the Trump administration and the first day of the rest of our lives together. Grateful to you for being part of nextup. The show will come out now on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen to it on any podcast platform you prefer. This will be a program that will bring you my best reporting and analysis. Also, great guest today. We have Texas Senator Ted Cruz, A roundtable conversation that I hope you'll find to be a little bit different than what you see on cable and elsewhere. Booking some of the smartest people I know today, Emma Jo Morris and Mark Caputo, and as always, super interested in trying to tell you what's really going on, as I said through my reporting and my analysis and the folks we bring to you. So grateful to you for being a part of this first episode and hope you'll join us every Tuesday and Thursday right here. Hundredth day is, as people like to point out, an artificial construct. But there's lots going on in this administration. It has been historic. And of course, it started well before the president took office, from Election Day through the transition. And people generally see a tipping point from a period where he was active and was dominating the conversation and getting a lot done. People now, I think, are seeing something different and the terrorists are part of it. Signal Gates part of it. People I talk to every day can look at this administration as has been true of almost anything connected to Donald Trump in different ways. And I'm lucky, fortunate. I get to talk every day, literally every day, including on the weekends, with smart people who think the Trump administration, flaws and all, is off to a fast start and is revolutionizing America and the world in really important and positive ways. And I talked to really smart people who think this is a disaster and that the first hundred days have illustrated not just the limits of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, but their doom. And it's a disconcerting thing for me because my role is not to pick between those two sides, but to try to understand it and to explain it and hopefully to bridge between the two sides as best I can. And it's particularly confusing because, as I said, I'm talking about and two smart people, not dumb people, but smart people. And what I generally find is that we're having what the country western star called trouble with the truth. That's to me, a big part of the polarization, a big part of the failure to have any consensus. President's poll numbers are down, but they're not through the floor. And he continues to dominate not just the Republican Party, but Washington. And the national and international conversation doesn't seem particularly hampered by its decline. Poll numbers, although Democrats say that foreshadows doom in the, in the, in the midterms next year. When I talk about truth, a story that continues to be so emotional for both sides is the question of this man who was deported, who here illegally to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia. We still don't know if he's a gang member. Right now there are some MAGA people who say to me, of course he's a gang member. And evidence has been presented that case. But it's true, as people on the left will say, he's never been convicted. I don't quite understand the left's celebration of him. I don't quite understand the rights cavalier attitude towards the mistake that was made in sending him to El Salvador where he was put in a prison, the one country, his home country, that the American system had said he shouldn't be sent to. But it's that not knowing the truth about whether he was a gang member, I've not had time to do a lot of original reporting on that. But from what's been reported, it's not clear. That's frustrating to me and that's true about a lot of things having to do with the Trump agenda where there's fights. But what really bothers me more is both sides denial of truth. Both sides denial of truth. Now I going to talk about some examples of denial of obvious truth. Some for the left blue, some for the right red. And ironically that will inflame many of you. People on the red side will not like me calling them out and people on the blue side won't like me calling them out. But I firmly believe we need a fidelity to the truth. Now one of the big stories about which there's dispute about the facts are it currently involves the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Okay. And I'm going to talk a little bit about some news I have about Pete Hegseth and his status as Defense secretary. But the question of the facts of Pete Hegseth, some of the things that he's done or been accused of doing that could lead to his being forced out of the Pentagon is very frustrating to me because public debate should be about discussing the facts and what they mean and what to do about them rather than debating the facts. So first let me talk about Team Red. Okay. This morning on the two way platform where I am editor in chief and host with my colleagues Sean and Dan. The morning meeting. A guy called in part of our community, Steven Becker from Dallas, Texas. He said he was a Republican and he described being frustrated by a lot of people in his life who are very maga, being unwilling to engage with the truth.
- [05:24]
Ted Cruz
In the case of Trump, I'm in favor of, I would say, kind of the vast majority of the policies. I'm not happy necessarily with implementation, but I'm taken aback by an unwillingness to say, gee, I like most of the Cabinet, but I don't like Hegseth or anything along those lines. And I just don't. It's very hard for me to foot the same individual who's willing to. There's nothing else sacred necessarily in their life. They might even say, you know, gee, I love my church, but I don't necessarily like this pastor. Or I didn't like that sermon. And I, I have a hard time getting my arms around that.
- [05:59]
Stephen Becker
What a great voice. Again, a member of the two way community, Stephen Becker, coming in and saying something I experience all the time, maga people not willing to be the least bit critical. And we're not talking about people in public where you do see sometimes Elon Musk is critical of the President, talking about private conversations that at house of worship, at a baseball game, at a workplace. And it's, it's disconcerting because there's some things that the President and his team haven't done well. And to not have truth on that, very troubling. Here's another thing on the red side, okay, this is about polling. This is Benny Johnson hosting a program, and then he's talking to a Republican pollster, and they're basically saying all the polls that have come out in the last few days that show President Trump's numbers declining, his favorability, his job performance, his favorable ratings on things like the economy going down. They posit that this is a conspiracy, that these polls are all wrong. Here's part of their conversation. Is it just like going right back to 2024? Is it going right back to 2020?
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Mark Halperin
Is it just like you just got to, like, start the machine all over.
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Stephen Becker
Again and produce, produce fake polling results?
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Emma Jo Morris
It feels like August, September, like, it feels exactly what happened. It's like, oh, we got a new entrant into the race, Kamala Harris. Let's see how the polling is going to do. And my numbers, it tightened a little bit, went from, you know, Trump +5 down to about Trump +2. And my numbers stopped there. And everybody else Just kept going.
- [07:27]
Stephen Becker
So here are these guys saying basically the polls are all wrong. They're in denial. Okay, here's more denial. Okay, I read a tweet this morning from a conservative who wrote this. The media hates Trump more than it values the truth. The media hates Trump more than it values the truth. Okay. There's some irony there because I've just given you example of things where Republicans are in denial about the truth. Okay. I talked about polling. There's other examples I could give you. And if you're fair minded, you could come up with a lot of them. The President himself said these polls are fake. They're not fake. Doesn't mean the organizations that conducted them aren't habitually liberally biased. And that gets to where I think we have a real problem right now in trying to grapple with this question of the trouble with the truth, because we can give lots of examples of the Democrats and the media not telling the truth. The biggest story that the Democrats have not been honest about is Joe Biden's mental decline. And we saw that on vivid display at the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend. A guy named Alex Thompson won an award as one of the few reporters who wrote anything about Biden's mental acuity decline. Even he acknowledged in his remarks that he fell short and said the media fell short. President Biden's decline and its cover up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception. But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. The problem with that is he's not being honest about what actually happened. It wasn't that the press kind of fell down on the job and wasn't aggressive enough. They actively participated with the Trump, with the Biden administration, in covering up Biden's mental acuity decline, which was plain for all to see. They pretended it wasn't happening. In some cases, they allowed themselves to be intimidated by the Biden team into not writing about it. And this was no small thing. This was no small thing. It was an effort to help Joe Biden win, to keep Donald Trump from going back to the White House. And it not just put their finger and, and thumb and forearm and kneecap on the scale, but it destroyed the credibility with the press, with lots of people. And I heard from people all throughout the election season who said, I voted Democrat in the past, but I'm voting for Donald Trump because the press bias on the mental acuity thing was so pronounced. That lie, that lie by the press about not only Joe Biden's mental acuity decline and not just about the COVID up for the Biden people, but, but the lie about the press's own participation is one of the biggest media stories in the country's history. And it makes it very difficult for people in the red side to say, oh, we're lying too much, you know, oh, sorry, we're not being truthful about the impact of the tariffs or we're not being truthful about the President's poll numbers. The level of lying on the left and by the media in this one example, and I could give many, many more, is got it took us to where we are now and I don't know how to get out of it, except I'd like both sides to acknowledge their own lies. That would be helpful. I'd like for people on the right to call out the President and say you shouldn't be putting on truth social, that you, that the polls saying your, your numbers have declined are fake because they're not. They're very, very real. Now get to the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Okay, the stories about him, there's still some ambiguity about the facts, but people in MAGA pretend there's not a problem and he's done a very good job of playing by the rules that the President expects of being aggressive. What I can report here today is that his, his standing in the administration is not as solid as some people believe. And as the President and the White House press secretary have tried to signal, there are people at the senior most levels of this administration, not counting the President necessarily, but the senior most levels under him, who believe that the next time Pete Hegseth makes a mistake or is exposed to have made a mistake, he needs to go. And there are already plans underway to figure that out. Now, what are the public clues to that? Because MAGA has been pretty supportive of Pete Hegseth, two people who are part of the very strong outside support group of the President, Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly here at the Megyn Kelly Network. They've both now done interviews with the advisors who were forced out of their Pentagon jobs and who both have said things about Pete Hegseth that are not fully supportive. They like him, they're close to him, but they both have made it clear that they see real problems in his governance and his stewardship at the Pentagon. That's a clue. And I Keep being pointed to that clue by folks to say if two allies of the president and two people very close to Pete Hegseth, Megan and Tucker are doing these interviews, something is afoot. And so what's going on behind the scenes now is a very carefully orchestrated move to say, when can he go? How do we deal with maga? Having told Maga, Pete must stay that. That the people coming after Pete are deep staters in the liberal media and the Democrats. How do you then move the guy out without inciting some cognitive dissonance with. With maga, you need a replacement. You need some sort of narrative that Mag is comfortable with. Watch closely. Three people watch Don Jr. Watch Susie Wiles, and watch the Vice President. All three close to Pete Hegseth, all three in a position if they decide he needs to go to make that happen. Watch it closely. And watch for the truth. Watch for the truth. Don't. Don't listen to the lies of each side. Now, coming up in the next segment is Texas Senator Ted Cruz, someone I've known since the 2000 Bush campaign when he was a simple, simple staffer on that campaign. I covered his presidential campaign when he ran against Donald Trump in 2016, and I had the opportunity to test his mettle. It was the game. The champions play out in their dreams. Right from the kickoff. It was a bloodbath. You know what I say right now? Dying Ted. Dying Ted.
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Mark Halperin
We shall see.
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Mark Caputo
Oh, from the back.
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Stephen Becker
From the back. I knew the only way to beat him was to get under his skin, which meant an unrelenting amount of trash talk. This is the quietest Ted Cruz has been in years. What kind of job security do you have currently in game one? We played our hearts out, and we were all tied up. And then victory.
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Mark Halperin
Tell you, Halpert's got some halfway decent smack talk.
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Stephen Becker
Oh, my. Call him the Princeton sledgehammer.
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Mark Halperin
I don't like to lose.
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Stephen Becker
It was a massacre.
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Mark Halperin
Oh, sweet.
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Stephen Becker
Something amazing happened. Cruz had the ball, and he made a crucial error. He was clearly getting nervous. We could tell he was trying to distract us with weird jokes.
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Mark Halperin
Maya and Ted, is that like human sacrifice? I guess that'd be Aztecs, but actually the Mayans did that too.
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Stephen Becker
It didn't work.
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Mark Halperin
You doing all right, Mark?
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Stephen Becker
Now it was down to just one goal, and there was no room for any mistakes. Moral of the story is, Ted Cruz falls behind early.
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Mark Halperin
There you go. And in second place, builds the delegates. And this was Cleveland right here.
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Stephen Becker
Life is full of moments. Some of them fly by. You forget them in an instant. Others live on with you forever. All right, that was Senator Cruz. Then when we come back, right after this, you're gonna see Senator Cruz. Now, my interview with Senator Cruz right after this. Let me tell you a story now about a guy named Leo Grillo. Leo was on a road trip and he came across a Doberman. This dog was severely underweight and clearly in a lot of trouble. Leo rescued that Doberman and he gave him a name, Delta. Well, sadly, Delta was just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to create Delta Rescue. It's the largest no kill, care for life animal sanctuary in the entire world. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats and horses from the wilderness, and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety, and a home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and his legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like all of us. And if you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, you've got an opportunity. Now speak with your estate planner, because there are tax savings, estate planning benefits to being part of this program. You can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. So check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more about and speak with an advisor we call dog man's best friend for a good reason. You can help those who need it the most by being part of this. So please visit Deltarescue.org today to learn more. Again, that's Delta Rescue.org and now joining me on Next up, our first episode, the Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Senator, very grateful to you for making time.
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Mark Halperin
Mark, great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
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Stephen Becker
You spoke the other day about the two tariff paths that you and the President and some other your colleagues discussed about a path that had the tariffs be short term and effective, leverage and tariffs, I'll paraphrase, that lead to international calamity. As we sit here on the 100th day of the President's administration, how are you feeling about the prospects that he's solidly on path one?
- [17:08]
Mark Halperin
Look, I very much hope he's on path one. Frankly, there are voices within the administration that are advocating for both directions. And there's a real difference of opinion within the administration on that front. I think President Trump has an historic opportunity, an opportunity to use the leverage. And he's got leverage no other president has had because he has credibly threatened these tariffs. Suddenly, our trading partners desperately want to cut deals and want to dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on US Goods and services in Exchange for. For President Trump lifting the tariffs he's announced, if we sit here, Mark, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days from now, and the outcome is that tariffs worldwide have gone down massively. That is an incredible and an historic victory for the United States. It's very much the path that I am urging the president to go down. There's another path, and there's some vocal people in the administration advocating it, that don't see the tariffs as leverage. They don't see them as means to an end. They see the tariffs as the end, and they want them to be a permanent feature of our economic system. The United States having very, very high tariffs, our trading partners all having very high retaliatory tariffs. I think that would be a terrible outcome. I think that would be terrible for my home state of Texas. I think it would be terrible for the country. And I'll tell you candidly, I don't know which path we're going to go down. I am trying very hard, and I'm repeatedly urging the president go down path number one, but he's got voices that are urging path number two as well. And so I think that uncertainty is going to persist for some time.
- [18:52]
Stephen Becker
You and I have not led exactly parallel lives since we met in the 2000 Bush campaign, but we're both focused on being dads. We both host video programs, and we both sometimes look in wonder at the Trump administration and try to figure out exactly what's going on. And the last thing is, you and I are both talking regularly to owners of large small businesses and CEOs of corporations, probably some of the same people who are really worried about PATH to paint a picture if your influence doesn't pervade and those the administration agree with you. What is path to look like in Q2, Q3, Q4 this year for the American economy and the American family?
- [19:27]
Mark Halperin
Look, I think if we see high tariffs in perpetuity, you see a lot of businesses, their costs go up dramatically. I think you'd see businesses going out of business. I think you'd see prices going up significantly. I think there's a real risk of going into a recession. All of which is a terrible outcome. I don't want to see that happen. But I want to underscore, you know, it's interesting there's been a fair amount of press coverage saying, oh, Cruz is critical of the Trump tariffs. Let me be very clear. I think Trump has an opportunity to do something that no other president in our lifetimes has done, which is to have real leverage to finally get our trading partners to lower the barriers they have to US Goods and services. President Trump is exactly right that there are lots of countries across this globe that trade ridiculously, unfairly with us, that we open up our market wide open to them, and they put huge barriers that stop us from selling our goods and services in their country. And listen, it's not complicated what President Trump's negotiating strategy is. He often will walk up, smack someone in the head, but with a two by four and then negotiate from there. And with the tariffs, he's announced he's done the smack. Now what I've been urging him to do is cut the deals, come and cut the deals, get the other countries to dramatically lower their barriers. And I will say it will be a rich irony if Donald J. Trump ends up being the greatest free trade president of our lifetimes. But I think that's entirely possible. If he ends up negotiating some phenomenal deals. I hope that's the path we go down.
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Stephen Becker
And what people misunderstand is that's his goal. And as you said, there are plenty of people around him who share the cruise vision of how they should go. And they hope as you do that he takes that path. I could talk to you about terrorists for an hour because that's the kind of guy I am. But let's move on. Let's move on to reconciliation. Big debate within your conference and on the House side about spending cuts. People want big cuts. They want to prove that you're a fiscally responsible party. But as you know, the number of political fights that get picked every time you cut anything or restrain the rate of growth is very big. What are, what are the big spending restraints you would like to see personally, not what the conference would like to see. What are the big spending restraints you would like to see?
- [21:43]
Mark Halperin
Look, I think we will see significant spending cuts. How broad they are, I don't know. I do think too much has been given to the level in the budget resolution of the House versus the Senate. I think at the end of the day, what matters is what's actually in the reconciliation package that passes. I can tell you in the Senate, there are a number of us who are arguing that we've got to rein back from the massive excesses that Covid produced, that the COVID pandemic became an excuse to increase federal spending by about 40%. It was a massive spending binge. And Washington being Washington, when the pandemic was over, the spending didn't stop. And what we're doing, I think, is irresponsible. I think we need to see real leadership reining it in. I think we're seeing the President in particular, Elon Musk and Doge, showing real leadership, saying, hey, we can rein back a lot of this waste, fraud and abuse, but where it falls exactly, it's going to come down committee by committee in the Senate and House. And so we'll see. I'm going to be pressing a number of us for doing more and the question is going to be what gets 50 votes in the Senate and what gets 218 votes in the House.
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Stephen Becker
But Senator, give me a couple specific programs with dollar amounts of where you would like to see cuts, not what's going to happen, not what the process will yield. But if they said, Senator Cruz, you decide where would you like to see big cuts at what dollar figures?
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Mark Halperin
So listen, I am not laying out specific cuts that I'm advocating. And in the Senate, different people are focusing on different aspects of what they're leaning in on. So on that particular issue, the person who's probably been most vocal on that has been Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson every week at lunch lays out, goes back to, for example, the 2019 budget. And what Ron Johnson is advocating is rather than start with where we are currently and cut, he says, let's go back to the 2019 budget before the pandemic and let's plus it up for population and inflation and let's hold Social Security and Medicare harmless but reduce everything else from there. I think that's a sensible way to do it, building it up from where we were rather than cutting where we are. That being said, I'll tell you, you got 53 Republican senators. So different, different senators focus on different aspects of reconciliation. I'm focusing on lots of different aspects of reconciliation. One of which that I'm focusing on is spectrum and making more electromagnetic spectrum available to the private sector. Why is that? Because my number one priority is jobs. And there are very few policies that can make can produce more jobs in the private sector than freeing up spectrum for investment. I think it's critical that America win the race to 5G and 6G. And what's interesting is, is by, by auctioning off spectrum, not only am I not spending money, but a spectrum auction generates about $100 billion in real revenue to the federal government from auctioning off that spectrum plus the billions of investment in the hundreds of thousands of new jobs. So that's been a big priority of mine, is fighting for spectrum to be in reconciliation. I'm also fighting for multiple different elements to be included in reconciliation. Including no taxes on tips, which is my legislation. Including eliminating the cfp. Cfpb, the zeroing out its budget and the regulations that the CFPB puts in place I think are incredibly harmful to job creation. And two other things that I'm fighting to include are school choice. I have legislation that creates a federal tax credit for contributions to scholarship granting organizations in the states. And also looking at creating investment accounts for children when they are born. All of those are elements that are part of the discussion. The line by line spending cuts. I'm going to support as big and bold a spending cuts as we can do. But in terms of creating the line by line, I've let others focus on that, whereas I'm focused on. On. On the issues I just laid out.
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Stephen Becker
As I know you think school choice is civil rights issue of our time and I agree with you on that. And I think it's incredible what you've done in Texas. And as you have said, most senators don't get involved in state legislative business. But that's an issue you feel so strongly about, that you've done. And it's a fascinating case study and how a federal official can actually impact their own constituents through the state. I love watching your podcast career video podcast career. And people haven't sampled the show. You should. It's fascinating. And again, I knew you when you were a Bush staffer, so to watch the trajectory. Sure. United States Senator, whatever. Successful video podcast host. That's something. Now, I watched a lot of your episodes and I want to show you one thing and I want to get your reaction to it. Guys, this is. This is a 101.
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Mark Halperin
How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?
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Stephen Becker
20% likely, maybe 10%.
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Mark Halperin
On what time frame?
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Stephen Becker
5 to 10 years.
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Mark Halperin
So soon, like you see a world where that's possible.
- [26:50]
Stephen Becker
Yeah. All right, so reacting to what guests say, live as I do right here, very difficult. But I want you to just be a little introspective here. One of the smartest people ever tells you that within 10 years there's a decent percent chance that robots will kill us all. I thought you were a little subdued, frankly.
- [27:09]
Mark Halperin
Well, I was subdued, but to be clear, teasing out the question, what's the chance that we're all going to die? And to have, as you point out, one of the most brilliant men who ever live, say 10 to 20% in five to 10 years, that I sort of figured I'd let those words carry the weight on their own.
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Stephen Becker
All right, that was a good choice for a Host. I would have jumped up screaming and maybe raced from the room. But you chose a different tag. It was kind of. Kind of compelling. I want to hear about work, family balance for you. Your state's relatively far from Washington. You've chosen to add this, what for some people would be a full time job hosting. Co hosting the show. So talk about how you're currently balancing being a dad and a husband with your two full time jobs.
- [27:55]
Mark Halperin
Yeah, look, it's the worst part of the job is the price that your family pays. So our girls, right now, they're 14 and 17. We've got two teenage girls at home, eighth grade and 11th grade. And my typical schedule, we live in Houston. So Heidi and the girls are in Houston. They go to school in Houston.
- [28:15]
Stephen Becker
And.
- [28:15]
Mark Halperin
And the usual schedule is that I fly to D.C. monday mornings, and I'm here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then usually I fly home Thursday nights. Fridays, I'll do day trips across Texas. Saturdays, I'll often do day trips across Texas. And then I try to keep Sundays as a down day for the family. That's rough. It means you miss a whole lot of things. You miss a lot of volleyball games. You miss a lot of dance performances. You know, that's. That's a really difficult aspect of it. It's also tough, tough on the girls. Look at any kid. Any person wants to be known for who they are. And one of the realities in the heavily polarized world we're in is, listen, politics is very different from how it used to be. Right now, the two sides, they hate each other's guts. And there is an anger and vitriol that I really think is unfortunate. I wish we learned to get along with each other and not hate the other side the way it is now. But, you know, I'll give you an illustration. 2017, the 2017 World Series. So I went to Games 3, 4, and 5 in Houston. Game 3, I took my dad. Really cool to take your dad to a World Series. We had season tickets to the Astros when I was a kid, so I got to take my dad to that. Game four. I took Heidi, by the way. That was a complete waste. Heidi is not into baseball at all. She asked me if the Astros were going to score a touchdown. I turned her. I said, okay, sweetheart, I'm offended that you're in this stadium right now, that you're taking the seat of a real baseball fan. But game five, I took Catherine, my youngest daughter, now Katherine. It was the day after she had turned seven, and it was game five. You may remember is the game that went to 1:30 in the morning. It's still the greatest game in the history of the Houston Astros. What's interesting, Mark, is that game, I had no security. It was just me and Catherine. The two of us were dancing and hugging and it was 1:30 in the morning. And I told her, sweetheart, you don't appreciate this now, but you'll tell your grandkids you were at this game and think about that now. Yeah, I go to a lot of games, but. But now I always have a security detail with me because just the nature of the threat profile. You can't go to a game like that without security. 2017, barely even thought about it. That's an illustration. And unfortunately, that puts a real price on the kids. By far the worst part of the job.
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Stephen Becker
One last question, because I know you got to go. You've run for president, and even before then you were student, as I am, of what it takes to run for president. Of all the Democrats who are discussed as potential 2028 presidential candidates, who do you see as the most formidable? To win a general election.
- [31:04]
Mark Halperin
To win a general election. Okay. That's a difference. You know, obviously you've got an iterative process in a primary. I'll say this. I think if we had. If in 2024 there had been an open primary.
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Stephen Becker
Yeah.
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Mark Halperin
I think the top four on the Democrats would have been Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. And I think in an open primary, I actually think in 24 Elizabeth Warren would have won that. That. I think Elizabeth Warren right now is the ID of the Democrat Party.
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Stephen Becker
And, and, but who's. I appreciate that, but. Because I know you got to go. Who's the most formidable to win a general election? Who do you look at the way Republic Democrats looked at George Bush in 98, 99 and said, if that person's their nominee, going to be tough to beat.
- [31:50]
Mark Halperin
Oh, look, someone who is more moderate or reasonable. So you look at names like a Mark Ken Kelly or a Josh Shapiro or an Andy Beshear. I think they could be formidable in a general. I don't know that they have a prayer of winning a Democrat primary. Gavin Newsom is clearly incandescently ambitious, so he is going to try to morph into whatever he thinks the Democrat primary base wants. I don't know that it's impossible that AOC gets the nomination in 2028. I do think the ID of the Democrat Party continues to be far left. So I don't see them going towards a unattractive general election candidate. Right now, I think the crazies are still driving the train.
- [32:33]
Stephen Becker
All right, the incandescently ambitious Gavin Newsom will be my guest on Thursday. And your podcast and his are ranked neck and neck, so maybe your appearance will push it over the top. Senator, very, very grateful to you for joining and we'll continue to congratulate the pod. Mark. Thank you. Senator, grateful for you. Thank you. You know what the secret is to having great days? It's better nights. And it all starts by turning your bedroom into a sanctuary with cozy earth. Their bamboo sheet set is something very special. The softest, coolest, most luxurious sheets you're ever going to be able to own. They're breathable, temperature regulating and crafted to help you sleep like it actually matters. Because you know what? It does. Imagine crawling into bed every night and feeling restored, refreshed and ready to take on the next day. And don't forget about the bamboo pajamas that they make. They're lightweight yet cozy. And they're designed to help you fall asleep faster and then stay asleep longer. It's the sleepwear upgrade you didn't know you needed. But trust me, you do it. Definitely something you deserve and need to have in your life. Cozy Earth makes it easy to try all this for yourself. You get 100 nights, it's risk free to fall in love. Plus, every bedding product is backed by their 10 year warranty. So take the time to prioritize what's most important, your sleep. By doing that, you'll be prioritizing yourself. Visit cozyearth.com and start sleeping better with Cozy Earth today. Again, that's cozy Earth. Welcome back to NextUp. I'm Mark Halpert here on our first episode. And who better to be part of the inaugural episode than Mark Caputo of Axios. Emma Jo Morris, longtime journalist and now a senior consultant at Beck and Stone. Emma Jo, what are the junior consultants at Beck and Stone do?
- [34:28]
Mark Caputo
This is all confidential. I just can't get into it.
- [34:31]
Stephen Becker
All right. Very grateful to you both for being part of this. And I want to start 100 days. Big deal. Not big deal, meaningless. Whatever. Emma. Joe, what's the worst thing that's happened for Donald Trump and the country in the first hundred days? I like to start negative thing.
- [34:48]
Mark Caputo
Yeah. Well, from my perspective, there's maybe two worst things, which is the pace of the deportations. I don't see how it's humanly possible to get to the reparation that we need from the last four years at the pace that we're at right now, I don't think DHS is either able to get the capacity or taking it seriously enough on the leadership level to actually be where Trump promised he would be and surely where he wants to be. And then maybe the second thing is, obviously the situation with China doesn't seem to be, at least right now, going in the right direction and at the pace that Trump wants. I'm not sure if that is due to the order that the tariffs are implemented in, or the level of communication between the U.S. government and the Chinese government. But there's, there seems to be an issue that is impossible to get past.
- [35:50]
Stephen Becker
But you're worried that it's not hawk, it's not hawkish enough or it's too confrontational. What's your concern about it?
- [35:55]
Mark Caputo
We're not getting the outcome that we want, which is. But, but a fair arrangement.
- [36:02]
Stephen Becker
It's a thousand year old, thousands year old country. Really think in 100 days we get the result?
- [36:07]
Mark Caputo
Well, I'm not saying that I think that there should be a result in 100 days, but it seems like China isn't reacting the way I think that the Trump administration anticipated they would right now.
- [36:18]
Stephen Becker
Okay, and, but you're worried that they may, it may not be salvageable or just you just think it's off track?
- [36:24]
Mark Caputo
I can't tell the future. I just think it's off. It seems like the Trump administration expected them to kind of come to the table and look to make a deal immediately, and instead they put their back up.
- [36:34]
Stephen Becker
Right. Mark, what would the administration say about.
- [36:37]
Emma Jo Morris
Those two critiques on immigration? They would say, well, look, we're trying. I don't like being in a position to answer that question, to be honest. But they would say, look, we're trying. And when we try to enforce the immigration laws, just to be clear, I'm.
- [36:51]
Stephen Becker
Not trying to make you into a spokesman, your sense of what they're, what they say. Yeah.
- [36:55]
Emma Jo Morris
So I mean their general belief is, is that, that I was talking to someone from, from the deportation industrial complex here.
- [37:02]
Stephen Becker
Right.
- [37:03]
Emma Jo Morris
Like the, the, in the DHS framework. And they, they were complaining that on one hand they're getting, they're getting from the right that they don't have enough deportations that are happening. And then on the other hand, they're just getting bombed by the left and the media where every time there is a controversial deportation, it becomes these huge headline news events. And in their sense, they're sort of not getting enough credit for it. And Trump's numbers on immigration, like his Numbers generally are going down. And I think that hits on Emma Joe's second point, which is the. The handling of the economy and sort of Trump's unsteadiness in implementing the tariffs and. And not looking like he has as well, a developed plan that he's sticking to is probably the. The biggest cause of concern that folks in the administration have. I know a few weeks ago, before he hit the pause on the reciprocal tariffs, that some folks, in the words of one senior White House official, were starting to go, quote, wobbly. Now, they didn't get completely wobbly because there is still sort of almost a messianic belief in Trump's abilities by his appointees, by his White House, by the political appointees in the cabinet agencies are like, this is a guy who survived 1, 2 assassination attempts, came back, was reelected, president indicted a bunch of times, convicted, adverse court hearings. So they do have this faith and this belief in him, but does the rest of the country? I think outside of the MAGA base, we're seeing signs that the answer might be no.
- [38:38]
Stephen Becker
All right, so here's how I'm thinking about the administration at 100 days, and you guys tell me what you think of this. And this is just, like, organization in my brain. There's the tariffs and the world economy, and then there's everything else. And the everything else bucket is very big. It has other economic issues. It's got reconciliation. It's got. It's got the border. It's got all the cultural stuff, education. That bucket's very big. But it seems to me that the tariffs and the state of the world economy, the US Economy, is by itself, just so big. The implications of it, the risks of it, so big. And. And just be clear, the first bucket, I put Ukraine, like, there's a lot in the first bucket. But do you think I'm right, Emma, Joe, to conceptualize things that way, that we've got to watch the terror thing because it's so critical not just to the Republican political fortunes, but to the fate of the planet?
- [39:24]
Mark Caputo
Well, right. So it's funny because as. As the kind. The conversation was just going on just now, I was thinking and thinking, you know, there's two. There's two angles to see the same thing. The first one is kind of what I said and really what you're saying, too. The second is you have to kind of maybe take a step back, which is kind of what you're doing, and say, okay, first of all, despite the pace of deportations, that's one detail of the immigration policy. But more Broadly, what's going on there is not a soul crossing the border right now there. Not only is that the case, but people are actually escorting themselves out because they would rather leave on their terms than on dhs.
- [40:07]
Stephen Becker
You are more likely to get into North Korea than into the United States at this point, or maybe out of North Korea at least.
- [40:13]
Mark Caputo
Like, in terms of the psychology around the board, that's pretty much the perception. Right. So there's. So that's another take, which is that. And then also on trade, too, it's like, okay, in the, in the, in the snapshot that we're looking at, which is a very small snapshot, things are. There's hurdles right now. However, if you, again, look at it more broadly, Trump, for the first time, I think, in what, like 20 years, 30 years, is trying to rearrange the global trade arrangement and the global economy and the direction of markets. It's. It's like this profound proposition and a profound change that we, I don't think, have fully digested yet. So to your point, it's like these things, what he's doing actually, is so big that it's really difficult to analyze it. Like, from the first 100 days, he's thinking in much grander terms than even one term. I think he's thinking in terms of the next generation, at least. So, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. It's like we're not talking about a bill, you know, we're talking about actually a philosophical shift in the way the country thinks.
- [41:29]
Stephen Becker
A philosophical shift, Mark, with huge implications for the American economy and the world economy. Right. I mean, this is a gambit of proportions. I just don't. I just can't think of a parallel for it.
- [41:42]
Emma Jo Morris
There is none. And Trump has been talking about this for at least 38 years in a political context. I wrote a story the other day called Trump's Tariff Brain, pointing out that in his first toe in the water flirtation with running for President in 1987 in New Hampshire, he gave a speech where he talked about other countries are ripping us off, we need to get better trade deals, we need to stop subsidizing the defense. It's the same thing he's saying now. So for at least 40 years, Donald Trump, in one way, shape or form, has waited for this moment. And he could have done this differently. I was doing another show, and someone had brought up rather intelligently, shouldn't Donald Trump have done this later? That is, he's got to do the reconciliation and tax package. These are huge, heavy things to Lift. He has small margins in the House that make these big things very difficult to do. And then he threw the tariff and the change in the global financial system on top of it, and it's just one big mess. That's a good point. But the reality is Donald Trump is sort of an old man in a hurry, and he believes in doing as much as he can, as fast as he can. And unlike a conventional politician who would have looked at this and done it in a conventional way, let's come up with a plan, let's do it this way, let's do it later, let's it in. He realizes in his mind that he just needs to go for broke and go for the gusto. And he doesn't mind failing. However, he'll never admit that he failed in real time. He doesn't mind experimenting in real time. And that's what we're seeing, which is just unseen in politics, which is a real time experiment of constantly sort of fine tuning, doing deal making almost in public and in real time just sort of staggering. Yet on top of that, the scope of changing the global financial system, like, we're in for a ride.
- [43:38]
Mark Caputo
Just, just one thing on this, on the speed that he's moving at, because I think that that's actually a really important, important point. And there's so much, I think, to that. But I think that one of the main things to that, the reason for it is Trump learned in his first term that there is opposition to his agenda in the House and not only in the media, on Wall street, in corporate America, internationally. There is so much opposition in every, in every inch of what he's trying to do and every inch of his surroundings that I think for him, this is also sort of like a war tactic. Like, and he sees this as a way, if you like, this was something that was obvious the first couple weeks of the image. He was moving just way too fast, too fast for anybody to kind of get their bearings on what he was doing and mount any sort of opposition to him. He's trying to outpace anyone undermining what he's.
- [44:39]
Stephen Becker
All right, let's play. Let's play one of my favorite games. Guess the quintet. Okay. There are five people in the administration who I think currently 100 days in, are more powerful than maybe some people anticipated and whose power has grown over the hundred days. Name the five people. Emma Jo will go first. I'll give you a Bing or Buzz, depending on if you get one of my five. Right. And we'll go to you two between you get all five to see who gets more. Emma, Jo, name one of the five people. This is scientific. This is not my opinion. We're. Name one of the five people whose power has grown during the hundred days, not counting the president.
- [45:13]
Mark Caputo
I have four.
- [45:15]
Stephen Becker
Give me just one at a time. One at a time.
- [45:17]
Mark Caputo
Ah, Besant. Obviously correct.
- [45:19]
Stephen Becker
Basset. One. Ding, ding.
- [45:21]
Emma Jo Morris
Mark, people are going to disagree with this, but. Well, maybe not. Miller. Stephen Miller. You see one.
- [45:27]
Stephen Becker
Ding, ding. You're both. You got two of the five. Emma, Joe, Rubio.
- [45:34]
Emma Jo Morris
That's actually true.
- [45:36]
Stephen Becker
It's not a bad answer, but it's not one of my five, so I have to give you a buzz, but I'll give it honorable mention.
- [45:40]
Emma Jo Morris
Mark, people are going to disagree with this. It's Howard Lutnick.
- [45:45]
Stephen Becker
Totally wrong. You might be gone soon. All right, Emma Jo, you guys got three left to go. JD Correct. Ding, ding, ding. Most influential vice president. I've said it before. Ever in modern time. Mark, two more to go.
- [45:59]
Emma Jo Morris
I'm still going with Susie. I'll go with Susie Wells.
- [46:01]
Stephen Becker
Ding, ding, ding. Correct. One more to go. Did each have two, Am I right?
- [46:05]
Emma Jo Morris
We do.
- [46:05]
Mark Caputo
Yeah.
- [46:05]
Stephen Becker
All right, so there's one more person. One more person. Emmy Joe.
- [46:10]
Mark Caputo
Ah.
- [46:13]
Stephen Becker
It's not obscure. It's not obscure. I'll give you a hint. One of the most visible people in the administration.
- [46:21]
Mark Caputo
Exit.
- [46:24]
Emma Jo Morris
Caroline Levitt, baby.
- [46:26]
Stephen Becker
Caroline Levitt. Ding, ding, ding.
- [46:28]
Mark Halperin
Those are the big five.
- [46:30]
Stephen Becker
Of course I did, but Imogen, get it. Those are the big five.
- [46:38]
Emma Jo Morris
And now this I'm gonna swallow. My words would be so wrong. But I think the people who are. Who are betting that Lutnik's almost a goner are. Are seriously underestimating his understanding of Trump and Trump's admiration.
- [46:51]
Stephen Becker
You might be right, but I got a pretty good source that tells me you can set the egg timer. We'll see. We'll see. Because he's a survivor. And you never know with Trump. All right, Emma, Joe went to the White House Correspondents association dinner. Mark and I. Sanity reigned. We did not. Emma, Joe, I want to hear your impressions, but also, if you can, in the context of. What did the dinner say about the state of relations between the press corps and the American people and the press corps in the White House.
- [47:15]
Mark Caputo
Yeah. Sanity reigned is the right word.
- [47:18]
Stephen Becker
Really?
- [47:19]
Mark Caputo
The right word. You read my mind. For. For not going. Because my. This is my first time at the White House Correspondence center, despite having spent, like, 10 years.
- [47:28]
Stephen Becker
It was your first time?
- [47:30]
Mark Caputo
Yeah.
- [47:30]
Stephen Becker
Oh, my God. You missed the golden age of Imus.
- [47:33]
Mark Caputo
Oh, I can't imagine how fun it was.
- [47:35]
Stephen Becker
It was, it actually was.
- [47:37]
Mark Halperin
But.
- [47:37]
Stephen Becker
Okay. All right, so your first time impressions. And again, what does it say about the state relations?
- [47:41]
Mark Caputo
So it was my first time. And, and don't get me wrong, like, obviously I don't live like in a hole. Like I live in New York and I've spent time with members of mainstream media despite having spent my career in conservative media and alternative media. But this was my first time, I guess, hanging out with everybody in one room and mingling with people who I typically would never have a relationship with. And my impression was. Well, first of all, it was fascinating. It was super fascinating. But I, I left thinking that they are not political. The b. Like it. It informed me a lot about their coverage, meeting the people who actually create the content. And I left thinking they are not political. The bias that they exhibit in their work is not political. It's that they're literally insane. I think that they're insane and I know that.
- [48:26]
Stephen Becker
Insane in what way?
- [48:27]
Mark Caputo
I know that's funny, but I'm serious. Like I.
- [48:31]
Stephen Becker
Based on the. You do. You're saying based on, you're saying based on the cocktail party chatter, your diagnosis is they're not liberal, they're insane?
- [48:37]
Mark Caputo
Yeah.
- [48:38]
Stephen Becker
Well, what do you mean by that?
- [48:39]
Emma Jo Morris
I'm curious.
- [48:40]
Mark Caputo
Let me, let me elaborate. I know that that's very, you know, it's provocative, dude.
- [48:45]
Stephen Becker
It's provocative. Yeah, I like it.
- [48:47]
Mark Caputo
But I think if you were there, you would totally not find it provocative. And let me explain. For instance, Zeke Miller accepts an award. Well, I mean, that's just one example. The whole thing was this weird kind of venerating of themselves and this weird self aggrandize ceremony and they, they were talking about themselves like, like I just, I realized that the ego does not get separated from truth itself. It was this really weird thing where, you know, like, yeah, Zeke Miller started talking about a Mark Twain quote where like the light is spread by the sun and the ap. It was almost like mystical, mythical. Know Eugene Daniels in, in his final speech, which is almost like this fire and brimstone vibe is talking about how we are an example of American exceptionalism and we are essential to democracy. This is literally like, like, like talking about like, like this is a guy who like just types on his laptop for a living. Like, he just types on a laptop. He has an MSNBC show. Like.
- [49:55]
Stephen Becker
Right.
- [49:55]
Mark Caputo
I don't understand what they were talking about themselves. Almost like they were either spiritual leaders or also like people who had experienced like physical combat.
- [50:07]
Stephen Becker
Either I get what you're saying and I have a position about. But I want to hear what Mark thinks of it.
- [50:12]
Mark Caputo
Yeah, sorry, this is just.
- [50:14]
Emma Jo Morris
No, don't. I prefer she talk. This is just going to get me in trouble. Number one, I'm not part of the Washington Club.
- [50:18]
Stephen Becker
Yeah.
- [50:18]
Emma Jo Morris
I do cover the Trump White House. I am based in Miami. So, you know, none of us, not.
- [50:24]
Stephen Becker
To be clear, none of us live in Washington.
- [50:26]
Emma Jo Morris
Okay. So some of these people are former co workers or co workers. They're friends in some cases. I do need to be careful. I've got myself in trouble on many a podcast for saying these things. I also know spending.
- [50:40]
Mark Caputo
Free speech. Right.
- [50:41]
Stephen Becker
Yeah.
- [50:42]
Emma Jo Morris
Well, truth to power, go ahead. Yeah, well now, to quote Team America, you know, freedom isn't free. There's a hefty fucking fee. Right. So. But this is, I think I'd said previously is, is, you know, I have to do some, some home renovations myself and it seems every spring I wind up doing that and I usually wind up in Home Depot covered in, in various construction materials and looking at Instagram and seeing everyone having a great time at these parties. But it's just, it's really, it's just really. It reminds me of the Hunger Games. It, it has a real PanAm vibe where it's, it's. And in previous years, I think this year, from what I just saw through my Instagram feed and what I read, I think this was the best year that they've done it because it's probably best that the President not be there. This was the best. And it's probably best. And it's probably best that there's not a comedian there. I like, I would point someone needed.
- [51:43]
Mark Caputo
To crack a joke. Well, I'm saying to your point though, he should loosen.
- [51:49]
Emma Jo Morris
People should loosen up. People should loosen up. They should have a few drinks and have a good time and try to raise some money.
- [51:54]
Stephen Becker
And having a comedian and the President there, I think, I think is good. I think that the performance, I would.
- [52:00]
Emma Jo Morris
Have done Katt Williams, I would have done Cat Williams as my comment.
- [52:02]
Stephen Becker
But you know, here's the thing. I hear you, Emmy Joe, because in the context we're in, where the head of the Correspondence association is an avowed liberal and where the relationship between this administration and the press is based in part on the administration's hostility, but more based on the press's lack of credibility because of the bias, being self aggrandizing and saying we are guardians of the First Amendment. What we do is really important. What we do is like being in a war sounds ridiculous, but in a different context, if the press were in fact not biased, if the press were guardians of the public interest, I think it's fine to be a professional organization that says to educate the public and to feel good about the sacrifices they do make. We, we do important things and let us tell you about them. But in this context, I agree with you. It sounded like it might as well have been a DNC event.
- [52:56]
Mark Caputo
Or a cult ceremony.
- [52:58]
Stephen Becker
Or a cult ceremony. Yeah. Mark, they still haven't changed the seats. They still haven't seen the seats in the briefing room. Right. They threatened to do that, but they haven't done that yet. They continue to add more diverse voices in. They continue to not kick anybody out. They're just adding more people. Where are we in the relations between the press corps and the White House? Is it, is it stasis or is there more change coming?
- [53:21]
Emma Jo Morris
I think there could be more change coming. Regarding the seats, I wouldn't be surprised if they went to a lottery system soon of just or first come first server. Who knows what. But the, the sort of the feud between the waca, the White House Correspondents association and the White House does seem to be a bit on, on pause. I can say that before the White House embarked on its battle with waka, it talked to the big TV networks and, and basically sounded them out that, hey, we're going to do this. And they basically let the networks know we care about you because the president cares about television.
- [54:02]
Stephen Becker
That's right.
- [54:03]
Emma Jo Morris
And from what I'm told, from what I'm told, the television networks let it be known, I'm using passive voice here. That fine, as long as we get our access, you go right ahead and do this. So I'm not sure what, what value WAKA brings outside of what used to be the pool reports, but even that has been changed now.
- [54:24]
Stephen Becker
So I agree. Well, it's evolving. Thanks to Mark and Emma Jones. Got to go to break. Very grateful to you both. Thank you for being part of the first show. Hope you'll both come back regularly. And next up, we'll be back right after this. Very grateful to everybody who joined this program that Senator Cruz and Mark Caputo and Emma Jo Morris and to you. Some lessons I got from this episode. First of all, Senator Cruz doesn't want to be seen as an opponent of Donald Trump on tariffs, but I think he put in pretty sharp relief the reality that there are people outside the administration and inside who do not want this to go down path two who think it would be ruinous for the world economy, for America's consumers and businesses, if the president doesn't change course. And the reality is there's a lot to do to stay on path one, including striking some of those bilateral deals. Second, I do expect some reaction to my reporting on Pete Hegseth. I think that his position in the administration doesn't mean he's gone. You never know with Donald Trump. But there are senior people who believe that this has to change, that it's not sustainable to keep him in the job. And so don't be surprised if after the next round, if there is another round of reporting, that things go in a different direction for him. And that requires some MAGA people from figuring out how to ease him out, even if they don't want to publicly cross him. In fact, you could see, I'm told, some people publicly very supportive of Pete Hegseth, but privately behind the scenes, working to convince the President that a change has to be made at the Pentagon. And then finally, also I'll say this question of the media, of truth telling of both parties, it's a massive issue and the first hundred days have been filled with it nearly every day. The press has opened the door to allowing there to be attacks from the administration on their credibility. I will continue to watch to see if the press comes clean. We've got another book coming out about, about the Biden acuity issue by Alex Thompson, who you saw earlier in the program, and Jake Tapper. I don't know that that book is going to do anything to make people feel comfortable that the very news organizations, and in some cases the very reporters who are covering this administration participated for four years in a cover up. That was not laziness, that was not a lack of curiosity. It was a specific effort to help Joe Biden try to win reelection. That's a level of dishonesty and a lack of accountability. I mean, you can, you can point to lots of things Donald Trump has done. I would find it, I'd be hard pressed to find something that rivaled that for its seriousness and for its absolute lack of professional integrity. And if you don't agree with me on that judgment, you should know that half the people in this country feel very strongly about it. And it's almost an impossible story to believe. Truly, truly grateful to you again for being part of this. On Thursday, another episode will drop Gavin Newsom, governor of California, another guy who knows a thing or two about spending time podcasting. We'll talk to him about how he's governed California the skepticism that exists not just here, even in the east, but in his state for how he, how he has done. We'll look at his record there and talk to him about what he's proud of, what he wishes he might have done better over the course of nearly two terms. And, of course, we'll talk about everything that's going on in the news with the Trump administration as we head into the second hundred days. I'm Mark Halperin here on NextUp. Very pleased have you be part of this.
- [57:51]
Mark Caputo
It.