← The Tara Palmeri Show
Loading summary
Transcript91 lines
- [00:00]
A
AI had the time of my life.
- [00:07]
B
A I never failed this way before.
- [00:10]
A
From building timelines to assigning the right people, and even spotting risks across dozens of projects, Monday Sidekick knows your business, thinks ahead, and takes action. One click on the star and consider it done. And I owe it all to you. Try Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use on Monday.com. Welcome back to the Tara Palmieri Show. The past three days in American politics have been almost farcical, strange in the strangest of ways. First, a woman who'd throw herself in front of a train for Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene suddenly announced she's resigning from Congress at the start of the new year. That makes the Republican majority even slimmer than it already was. And why is she leaving? Because she's staring down a primary challenge led by Trump's own super PAC enforcers over at MAGA Inc. Then, because we are literally living in a simulation, Trump and progressive firebrand Zoran Mamdani clicked like old friends in the Oval Office. And if you've been watching this show, you probably heard me predict that that was exactly what would happen. So much for that 2026 boogeyman Republicans were hoping for. Today, I break down all of this and more with someone who understands the absurdity of our times all too well, Andy Borowitz of the Borowitz Report. He's a legendary comedian and satirist who took his iconic New Yorker column to Substack, and he's truly crushing it. Are you surprised? I'm not. And as always, you can get all of my independent journalism on Substack 2 by subscribing to the red letter. You can go to tarapaumiery.com and and that's where you can find my reporting, my investigations, and all of my analysis for my paid subscribers. That's T A R A P A L m e r I.com take a mochi moment from Mark, who writes, I just want to thank you for making GLP1s affordable. What would have been over $1,000 a month is just $99 a month with Mochi. Money shouldn't be a barrier to healthy weight. Three months in and I have smaller jeans and a bigger wallet. You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Mark is a Mochi member, compensated for his story. Listen here. Andy, thank you for joining the show. What a pleasure. I feel like we should just talk about the past few days because ever since Friday it's been kind of nutty. President Trump and Mamdani getting along. Marjorie Taylor Greene just like announces out of nowhere without even telling anyone in leadership in the gop, which is I guess not that surprising for her that she's out. But like something that caught my eye was the fact that a lot of Republicans and Democrats are realizing, well, really more Democrats and some Republicans that want to cause trouble for Trump, like Thomas Massie, they're realizing they can do more discharge petitions ever since the Epstein vote. And they should try to, especially with Marjorie gone and the margins for the GOP getting tighter and tighter. It's like two Republicans on a party line vote. Basically. That's all that Mike Johnson will have. So I was wondering, like, what do you think of this, the fact that they're going to try to use more discharge petitions since Mike Johnson is essentially just an extension of Trump. Like Trump jokes about it, that he's both speaker and president.
- [03:45]
B
Well, you know, I think everything, you know, we've been talking a lot about Epstein for the last forever, especially last week, those votes. But I think really what's going on here is the shitty economy. I really think that that's what's behind all of this because I think the economy and the really bad consumer sentiment has kind of warmed the ground for everything else. So Epstein got new life. Because I think all these people, it's a lot of unintended consequences, right? There was a huge long shutdown. They all went back to their districts and they all saw that even in red districts, that people really pissed off at Trump and that this, yeah, he's.
- [04:26]
A
Not popular, it's not working.
- [04:28]
B
And ultimately it's really interesting how it all comes back to people's wallets. It really does. And self interest. So once people are pissed off, then all kinds of other mischief can happen. And that's, I really do think, I know there are lots of theories of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, I devoted a long post to her a week ago and AOC has said that Marjorie Taylor Greene was just been on a revenge tour because Trump was blocking her her run for the Senate.
- [05:00]
A
I did actually hear that though from a source like with that's close to her, like not a Trump source a while ago. And she, that she's been angry every sin ever, ever since. But I do agree that it's also the fact that I'm sure when she goes home, she notices that Trump is also losing popularity. I mean, I think 75% of people are saying they're unhappy with his handling of the economy.
- [05:21]
B
Yeah. And I mean, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene. I can't believe I'm here praising her in public. This is just. To me, I've said this is the most unforgivable thing that Trump has done, has made me agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Heinous that I've been put in this terrible position. But, you know, she's. She's actually not an idiot. I've got to say, I've been surprised because she's been on TV and she's, of course, said a lot of things that I've agreed with, like about, you know, Obamacare, subsidies and things like that. But, you know, I used to make fun of her for, you know, saying gazpacho instead of gestapo. Well, I'll have a luggage ball. Had a lot of fun with Marge over the years.
- [06:03]
A
But what will you do without her, Andy? Who will you move on to? I know.
- [06:08]
B
Well, I have some candidates. By the way, it's not like the clown car is not completely vacant.
- [06:13]
A
That's true.
- [06:15]
B
But she is capable of stringing together a sentence that makes sense. Much more so than Trump is, by the way. And she is capable of communicating like a sentient being. And I would not be surprised that when she goes back to her district, even though she's not running now, I wouldn't be surprised if she's much more popular with the local folk than Trump is, because she's kind of a celeb. You know how it is. Like, in your high school, somebody who, you know, maybe was like a ninth lead on Dawson's Creek is the most famous person in the world in your high school because they went to your high school. And I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is kind of like that. She's on TV a lot. The locals like that.
- [07:04]
A
She's also in an exerb, not a suburb. Like, this is more rural than most. People think. She's not in. People think she's in some sort of, like, fancy Atlanta suburb. It's not.
- [07:14]
B
Yeah, all those cosmopolitan airs that she puts on can be very deceptive. Somebody just goes to the opera all the time. Yeah. No, I mean, it's interesting, but I think, again, like, all these sort of mini rebellions that have been going on, and I think in the Senate, it was kind of a maximum rebellion. It was like everybody just said, yeah, bring on the Epstein files. I think it does all flow from the economy. If Trump were at 80% approval on economic issues, I don't think any of this would be happening. I just think I have to agree with You. Yeah. But he's now really in lame duck territory much sooner than I would have predicted. I did predict that the coalition was going to fracture, and that wasn't a huge call on my part. I think anyone could have predicted that because it's. You've got the Bannon wing and the Elon Musk wing, and then you have, like, Boebert and MTG, who hate each other, calling each other names on the floor of the House.
- [08:17]
A
They got in a fight in a bathroom stall, I believe, or somewhere in the Capitol.
- [08:23]
B
We're officially in high school. Right.
- [08:25]
A
I'm glad that this will be over, but there's always Nancy Mace to cause some problems before she runs for governor. So, I mean, she's technically running right now, but.
- [08:33]
B
Yeah. I am a big fan of. From. From Florida. A big fan of Anna Paulina Luna. I do think that Annapolina Luna, who is really very much under the radar, could really step up and take Marjorie Taylor Greene's crown of ass clownery because she really. She has so much in common with mtg. She is steeped in alien lore. She talks a lot about alien. She was on Rogan's show and she was talking about how when she was in the Air Force, she saw an alien aircraft. So she goes way. She's way beyond mtg. MTG has some theories about the Rothschilds and orbiting laser beams, and, you know, she shared those on Facebook. But. But MTG never actually said she saw, like, an alien. She has a lot of theories. Like, aliens she says are fallen angels. She said that on Bill Maher's show recently. So both women are really into extraterrestrial pseudoscience. But I just think Anna Polina Luna. Let's just keep our eye on her, because I know we're all mourning the demise.
- [09:40]
A
She's a new mom, so maybe she's ready to step out. Like, that's probably why she's been under the radar. But now it's her moment because there's a whole. There's a vacuum to be filled of MAGA Warrior, you know, Lady Mag Warrior. Oh, geez. Sorry. Maybe my dog wants to take that role. Hey, come over here, Pancetta.
- [10:02]
B
We like dogs in this household. My dogs are out at the moment.
- [10:05]
A
Mine is particularly annoying. Even though she's about 20 pounds, she thinks she's a guard dog.
- [10:10]
B
So I have the same issue with. We have a. We have like a 10 pound dog who thinks she's. I don't know, think she's mtg. She's like, rules the Roost but Annapoleon Looney. And it's funny you mentioned discharge position petitions. You know, she put forth one earlier in the year that failed.
- [10:29]
A
Yeah, well, she doesn't have Massey and Ro Khanna ability to campaign, I guess because they were pretty effective at it. I've got to say. They, they stuck to their guns. They made sure to be on TV all the time. They utilized the press. I'm like, Ro Khanna is really savvy with the press.
- [10:45]
B
If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With the all new sleep score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions and sleep duration. Then every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100. So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from good to excellent. Introducing the new sleep score on Apple Watch. IPhone 11 or later required. Yes, yes. And it's, you know, it's funny. Like Thomas Massey, like, if you drill down a lib like me could probably find very few issues with Which I agree about. Which I agree with Thomas Massey, but he's very smart. He said really good things about, you know, the rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, it, it was formidable. And I, I guess this all leads us to the whole Mamdani love fest, which was fascinating. It was just, it was fascinating kind of in the changing of the guard that MTG was out and then this, you know, communist was in.
- [11:57]
A
And they love each other. I literally predicted this on my show on Thursday. I said, I bet they're gonna love each other because they're both se seducers. And. But Imam Donnie is a better seducer than Trump. But all, like, really good retail politicians, they just so desperately want to be loved and they love to seduce. And he knows just to throw Trump a few bones. What he told him, apparently was like, my voters voted for you, which is another thing. Whereas I thought to myself, when Republicans were salivating over mom Donnie, thinking he'd be the perfect boogeyman for 2026, I'm like, you guys are missing the point. The people.
- [12:30]
B
What?
- [12:30]
A
The people who voted, the people who voted for Mamdani wanted the same thing from Trump. Affordability, lower costs. And they went to Trump. It's the same mentality of people left behind. And I thought it was so funny that, that they're memes now. Like, have somebody look at you. The way that Trump looks at Mamdani, the way he looks. The Oval Office Also, I do think it has to do with Trump having his real estate in New York and not wanting to see the city fall apart. And then therefore, you. It's all about the bottom line for Trump, don't you think?
- [13:04]
B
Yeah.
- [13:05]
A
And the fact that he's a winner, maybe that too.
- [13:07]
B
I don't know. Yeah, I mean, he just. I mean, there are a lot of theories that make sense. Your theory about New York makes a lot of sense also. Here's a theory. Trump is a child. That's my crazy theory. Trump, like, when anybody says anything nice to him, if you were the last person in the room and you happen to say something nice to him, that's all it takes. Larry David had this funny riff about how, you know, if somebody ever tells him that they like his hair. Larry David is like, that's a really nice guy. I really like him. And it's like most of us. I mean, Tara, to be honest, that's all it takes for most of us. I mean, if somebody says, oh, I saw your show. You have a really nice smile, you'll just say, a good guy. He makes a lot of sense. I'm very easily, in my household, my wife jokes, because the word nice in our household is a synonym for somebody liked something I wrote. Because if I say, like, I ran somebody at the grocery store, he's really nice, she'll say, do you mean. Do you mean that he liked a column of yours? And I'll be like, yeah, that's right. So it's like we're all kind of needy. That's why we have, like, podcasts and stuff. And Trump is. That is the neediest of all. So, of course, Mamdani knew exactly how to play him. But it's interesting what you said about the overlap between their kind of populist messages, because, you know, another Democratic socialist who has a lot of the same appeal as Donald Trump historically with voters is Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders. If you look at how he fared in the primaries in 2016 against Hillary, like, he won all the same precincts in Michigan that Trump wound up winning.
- [14:55]
A
There's just, like, huge overlap. And even Trump would talk about it. My dad loves Trump. I know. Like, let it just let that marinate for a second. Maga, but, like, blue collar worker MAGA guy. You know what I mean? But he liked Bernie, too, right?
- [15:13]
B
Well, here's the thing. Like, the, you know, you know, Trump, you know, by the way, Trump is, like, really in very poor health. I mean, I've got to say, like I say laughing, but I watched, like, the, like, sort of mini presser after the Mamdani meeting, and he. His voice is very weak, and he's very frail. But he did say, like, one thing that I was able to understand from his mumbling was he said that he talked to mom Donna, and he said, like, we are in favor of a lot of the same things. He said that. So he is, like, jumping on the bandwagon. But the fact is, Trump's message has always been, I stand up for the little guy. I am trying to make your life.
- [15:56]
A
Better, or I'm a victim like you too, but they have to go through me to get to you.
- [16:02]
B
Right? So he's been ingenious in doing that. Mamdani was like. His message was, I'm gonna make New York affordable, not just to the oligarchs, but to the little guy. Very similar message. The difference is that Trump is completely insincere. He's a grifter.
- [16:19]
A
He's a oligarch himself.
- [16:23]
B
He's been very good at convincing people that he would stand up for them. The one problem is Trump, actually. He's very authentic in being aggrieved. He is a very aggrieved person. The problem is his grievances are different from the grievances of the voters, but they haven't. They're starting to. You know, they are drifting because his popularity is very low. But at least in his electoral successes, he's been able to convince people that he's. He's angry because he is angry. He's just not angry about the same shit. He's angry because he. His father was horrible to him, and he's unloved, and he, you know, feels empty and hollow inside. Those are good reasons to feel aggrieved, but he's not aggrieved about prices. He doesn't even know what the word groceries to him is like a new vocab word. He's, like, saying, they're talking about groceries. It's a funny word, groceries. And it's like, dude, this is like, most of us know what a grocery is. Gotta tell you.
- [17:25]
A
Yeah, no, it's amazing that he was able to pull that off, though. You have to think about it. I mean, not just once, but twice. But his agenda does not match at all what he ran on. I mean, his agenda has become so foreign policy focused. He's starting wars instead of ending them. I mean, the Ukraine, I love when they were like, we have a Russia, Ukraine, peace proposal. The day after the Epstein vote, they lay it out in the morning as if it's some huge scoop. It is literally everything that Russia wanted. Just take the land and some from Ukraine claim it as their own in exchange for security guarantees for Ukraine. And now they have Rubio, who used to be the biggest Russia hog ever out there in Switzerland, trying to, like, turn this into something that the Ukrainians will agree to buy Thanksgiving, which is Thursday. But now he's like, well, you know, we'll give them a little bit more time Friday, Monday.
- [18:24]
B
Like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not Secretary of State, but I'm pretty sure that the Ukrainians do not celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure that's not one of their holidays. So may not the deadline may not be quite as meaningful to them as it is to little Marco. Yeah, well, Marco is just a pathetic human being at this point. He's a.
- [18:43]
A
And also one of the top contenders for 2028.
- [18:46]
B
So amazingly, amazingly. I mean, what Marco did with that 28 point US peace deal was basically the Kremlin emailed it to him and then he went on Duolingo and translated it into American. It is, yeah, it is a wish list. But you know who we're not talking enough about, and I really want his mug to get out there much more in the public is this dude, Steve Witkoff. Because this is a guy who's supposed to be the genius negotiator and he has been all over the Ukraine thing. He was all over Iran's, all over the Middle east. And I mean, do we feel like there's peace in the Middle East? By the way, am I the only one who's saying that there is not peace in the Middle East? A lot of people are dying.
- [19:35]
A
It's just so. It's so much hype. We have a ceasefire for 24 hours. 48. Like, what. What do you define as a ceasefire? This is. It's insanity. It's just messaging hyped up into a peace plan.
- [19:48]
B
Well, Trump, as a mogul, before he became a politician, was the master at announcements that then never manifested into anything. So he is great at like, we're gonna have Trump every day. We're gonna have Trump Stakes. We're gonna have. And remember the Trump Riviera. There was gonna be like, Gaza was gonna turn into this amazing waterfront property. And then, you know, just like, it's.
- [20:11]
A
Gonna be like Atlantic City. I mean, right?
- [20:13]
B
Yeah.
- [20:14]
A
What happened to that?
- [20:16]
B
We know how well Atlantic City worked out. Maybe he's got some extra coasters left over from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic city they can ship over there. I mean it's, it's, you know, he is basically assessing Americans attention span at a very low level. He's saying we really won't follow things one day to the next. And he's kind of right. I mean if he's approaching his presidency as every day it's a new storyline, like it's a, a TV show. There's some validity to that in that we've been trained by the media, by cnn, by cable news to have a very short attention span only to follow one story per day. So in a sense it makes sense as a strategy. The only problem is, I mean I saw this dude Scott Besant on Meet the Press yesterday.
- [21:07]
A
The Treasury Secretary, also known as the Treasury Secretary, possible Federal Reserve, Reserve chair if Trump ever fires Jerome Powell apparently Y.
- [21:18]
B
So Scott Besant, I've got to say as a Treasury Secretary, the only good thing I can say about him is that he's not Larry Summers. That's pretty much the only positive thing I can say about him. He's basically on Meet the Press really doing Biden talking points except translated into Trump language. Like he was saying the economy is really doing great, prices are coming down. And it's like that's actually what got Biden in so much trouble. Like you just. What they're saying is we're not going to make the mistake Biden made and tell people that things are better than they really are and then they go and do it.
- [21:55]
A
Yeah, they're going to call it Trumponomics next. I can't.
- [21:58]
B
Yeah. So they're, you know, Trump will be next. He'll be falling off a bicycle. That's the next thing they're going to do. So he, I was very again, it all sort of flows from the economy and I got a sense from Bessant, you know, who's another hedge fund guy, that these guys are just so out of touch with the reality, the reality that somebody like Mamdani is very aware of. And so they like the messaging, they like the messaging of affordability and hopping aboard that but they're not really, they don't really feel it. I mean we have Howard Lutnick who said like his mother wouldn't be upset if she didn't, his mother in law wouldn't be upset if she didn't get her Social Security check. And it's like, yeah, because your son in law is a billionaire. So I think you're going to be okay. But they're all, you know, Trump has like assembled this, this team of out of touch billionaires and Fox News personalities. And they're very much, they're, you know, somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Zoran Mamdani. I can't believe that I'm mention them in the same sentence, but they're just, they're much better plugged in to what's going on with their, their voters. And Trump is now off in some la la land of gold encrusted ballrooms.
- [23:15]
A
And God knows what else foreign diplomacy. Hanging out with MBS at a McDonald's. I do love, I do love his latest ribbon cutting. It drops in this morning by way of scoop and playbook. Trump's Health Care Price Cuts act, which I love the name of it. I remember when he had his first tax, tax cut bill. It was, he wanted to call it the Cut Cut Cut act, but they walked him down from that. He was like, it's perfect. The Cut Cut Cut act broke that. And they were just like that. I think. Who was the speaker at the time? Was it Paul Ryan? Yeah. He couldn't deal with that. But Trump's Health Care Price Cuts Act, I will break it down for you right now. It's a two year extension of Obamacare subsidies. Knew he was going to do that because it was overwhelming in all of the polling that they would get creamed in the midterms if they did not extend the Obamacare subsidies and an income cap of 700% of the federal poverty line, which I Googled this morning just to see, like, how it would impact me or anyone else. So one person in your family, it's $109,000. Two people in your family, it's 148,000. Three people in your family, it's 186,000. Four people in your family, it's 225,000. I could keep going, but yeah. So I don't know, like, I'm not surprised by the two year extension of Obamacare subsidies at all. I do think it's funny that they made it the an act and broke it as if it was like something that Trump is, I don't know.
- [24:45]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's weird to put Trump's name. I know Trump loves putting his name on shit.
- [24:49]
A
Yeah, he wants to sign every bill if he can. Right.
- [24:53]
B
But like putting Trump's name on Obamacare is like, that's a level of chutzpah I wasn't really aware of. No, that's actually Obamacare, come to think of it. That's crazy. Well, was there anything in there about reducing drug prices by 5,000%. Because that's the thing. I did the math on that. And if he reduces drug prices by 5,000%, that means that, like, all the drug companies have to pay us when we get a prescription filled.
- [25:20]
A
I actually. I think it's ready for. We're ready for that, though. But that's sort of. I would like that. I mean, wouldn't you make it for all that time I paid them way too much money.
- [25:30]
B
Absolutely.
- [25:31]
A
Absolutely.
- [25:31]
B
Bring it on. Bring it on.
- [25:35]
A
So, yeah, no surprise. There was a few other things I wanted to bring in. Oh, yeah. So apparently Trump has asked Larry Ellison, the new owner of CBS News, who installed Barry Weiss. Everyone knows that it's taken a bit of a rightward tilt to bring back Rush Hour to Paramount, and I was wondering what you thought about that.
- [25:57]
B
Rush Hour?
- [25:58]
A
Yeah, the movie.
- [25:59]
B
You mean the movie franchise.
- [26:00]
A
Yes. Yeah. He wants it back on Paramount.
- [26:04]
B
Boy, we haven't really thought about Rush. So I guess he likes Rush Hour. I guess he watches that.
- [26:09]
A
Yeah.
- [26:11]
B
That's funny. It's like, I love the idea of becoming President of the United States and then just exhuming shows that you really thought didn't get a chance.
- [26:19]
A
And in the 1980s.
- [26:21]
B
I like using your. That's a great use of presidential authority. It's like, yeah, let's get rid of. Let's get rid of Kimmel and Colbert. I don't like those guys. But you know what show I really liked? I really liked Ghost Whisperer with Jennifer Love Hewitt. I'd like to bring that back. That's really. That just shows you where his head is at. You know, it's like he. He watches a lot of TV, 1980s.
- [26:47]
A
Musicals at the Kennedy Center. The guys he's trapped in the 80s.
- [26:51]
B
I did a whole piece, actually, about his love of Phantom of the Opera, because that is like his famous. Like, at his. At his rallies, he played a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber music. And there's a great clip of Anderson Cooper interviewing somebody who's at one of Trump's rallies in 2024. And Anderson Cooper gets this weird look on his face, and he's like, is that the Phantom of the Opera that he's playing? It is, in fact. Da da, da, da da. It's a very weird thing as a sort of rally song to play, but he's really into Phantom. Really into Cats.
- [27:29]
A
Yeah. He wanted to be a producer first. That's what was the first check he took from his dad was to invest in a show that flopped.
- [27:38]
B
What. That's interesting. Do we know what the show was.
- [27:41]
A
I actually do know. Oh, God. What was. I can Google it right now. But I. Yeah, he asked for. He really wanted to be a Broadway producer. Trump, Broadway. He was in his 20s, looking back yet. $140,000. And what was it? He. Yeah, it flopped.
- [28:08]
B
Well, you know, I mean, the thing is, it was. It was kind of prophetic in a way, because there's no more Paris is Out.
- [28:15]
A
It was a 1970s comedy at 23, but $70,000 into the show. Wait, what's the call? Paris is Out. It ran for two months.
- [28:26]
B
That is a great name for musical. What the does that mean? Who is in it? Who is in? Terrace's Out.
- [28:32]
A
Sam Levine and Molly Pickin.
- [28:35]
B
Oh, Molly Pecan. Who is. So what's interesting about that is, you know, now I'm showing myself to be kind of a Broadway fanboy, but that's kind of like Yiddish theater. Like, Molly Pecan was like a Yiddish comedian and Sam Levine was like an old Jew, you know, so it's like. That's interesting that that's Trump's taste. Before he became converted to Andrew Lloyd Webber, he liked a good Jewish, corny, sort of Borschtbelt Jewish thing. That's really interesting.
- [29:04]
A
I mean, maybe they were the only ones who wanted to be involved with him. He was 23 years old at the time, and he wanted executive producer credit. I mean.
- [29:11]
B
I mean, it's very funny. I mean, where it is sort of telling is that there is no more surefire way to lose money than investing in a Broadway show. So it really predicted everything that was to come afterwards, like him losing money on his casinos, losing money for the United States of America. All the things, all of his achievements, really. Since then, we're kind of. We could have predicted from that one investment on Broadway.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah. I mean, this is the legacy mode of President Trump getting massive jets, installing a new Kennedy center, literally tearing it apart. Ballroom. It's fixed. You know, peace in the Middle east, like, peace ish in Ukraine, Venezuela, whatever. Let's just get rid of it. Dropping pamphlets on people soon to get rid of Maduro. I wonder how that's going to go for.
- [30:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't. I would not have really predicted this whole gumbo diplomacy kind of William McKinley turn that he's taken. I mean, although I guess he only.
- [30:15]
A
Has a few years to live, so he's just like, oh, got to get it done now. Like, he doesn't talk about second term. He's like, no, there will be no second term.
- [30:23]
B
Amazing. Amazing. Well, I Mean, there's much we couldn't have predicted. I didn't really predict the demolition of the East Wing. I didn't think that was coming. So many surprises. I didn't predict that we'd be fighting with Venezuela. I didn't know that that was really on his radar. He's a man of many, many surprises.
- [30:43]
A
With one last thing. Did you predict that Doge would be gone by November 2020? For 2025, when it was supposed to be around until May 2026? We were supposed to get at least, what is it, November, December, January, February, March, April, May. We were supposed to get at least seven more months of Doge, what Will, or whatever his name is, Tara.
- [31:06]
B
We were just getting used to the idea of Big Balls running everything. And now, I mean, I guess Big Balls can go back to community college and finish up his sophomore year now, now that. Now that he's done with Doge. But, I mean, it's interesting, like. Like a lot of things, like the, you know, the invasion of Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein only took a few weeks, really, but we're still feeling the results of it. And I think Doge is kind of like that. Like, I think Doge got in there, broke a lot of things, which is like the cliche that all these tech bros like to use. You know, move fast, move, break shit and all this. But we, the American people, will be dealing with the repercussions of Doge for a long, long time. Because they did, you know, they fired people who then they had to rehire. They did God knows what with the computer systems that were very delicate. I mean, that is why, by the way, getting back to the guy I'm demonizing today, Scott Besant. Scott Besant was kind of the gatekeeper for the Treasury Department. When Elon first went in there, like, he could have said, no, you know what? As Secretary of the Treasury, I sworn an oath to defend this department for the good of the American people. But instead, he was like Olay. And he just let Elon and Big Balls right in, right into the computer system. So God knows what the end result is going to be. I've heard. I'm not a computer guy, but I've heard it's a complicated system. I've heard, like, you actually need some expertise, perhaps.
- [32:38]
A
I would hope that our government systems are complicated and highly encrypted. Because otherwise, couldn't the Russians just come in and, like, take over the entire grid? I mean.
- [32:49]
B
Wouldn'T it be a shame, Tara, if, like, the Russians were dictating things to us right now, like our foreign policy and like our peace plans. That would be a horrible thing if that were to come to pass.
- [33:00]
A
Andy, on that note, I will thank you for joining the show. That was really fun. And yeah, just some Monday morning bitching just back on. I just couldn't bring myself to to do some reporting on Friday with mtg out mom, Donnie and and all of the rest. I was like I am comatose on the couch. But I'm glad to be back and alive and breaking it all down with you.
- [33:30]
B
Well, thanks for having me. Tara. Great to see you.
- [33:33]
A
Great to see you. That was another episode of the Tara Palmieri show. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this show, please rate it, subscribe, subscribe. Follow Share it with all of your friends. Please leave comments. If you like my reporting, you can go to tarapaulmieri.com that's T A R a P a L M E R I. You can sign up for the red letter. That's where you can get all of my exclusive reporting and my independent journalism straight to your inbox. It is how you can support my independent journalism and I will keep at it. Thanks to you. I want to thank my producer Eric Oppenhate. I want to thank Abby Baker who does my research and my social media and and Adam Stewart on the thumbnails. I'll be back again this week. I'm thankful for all of you. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving week and you are able to take it a little slower.