Okay. All right. There we go. We're here. Tech issues resolved. Here are our faces. Resolved. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.
All right. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe to stay up to date and support the show. We'll also take your questions at the end of the show, so drop them in the chat as we go. All right, let's bust into it. Let's start with the latest in Congress. Yesterday, Washington DC was giving first day of school vibes as Congress adjourned for its lame duck sprint with fewer than 25 days until Democrats take control of the House. And the next Congress will have at least one fewer familiar face, Lauren Boebert. We will miss her, who has officially lost her seat. There you go. By the way, reddest district in Colorado flipped blue. But these final weeks could get messy. Yesterday, outgoing Representative Thomas Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which could see a vote on the floor later this week. Hegseth insists he's not worried, but the White House is reportedly checking whether Republicans have the votes to impeach him. He may also be losing his potential soft landing: Tennessee governor-elect Marsha Blackburn reportedly has no plans to appoint him to her Senate seat. There's also a political calculation for Trump. Republicans can still choose Hegseth's successor while they control the House. Come January, Democrats take over. Hegseth held a press conference early this morning. Let's take a listen.
I think this might be part of our tech issue. Is this part of our tech problem? Part of our tech problem. I think it is part of our tech problem. Would you like me to reuse? Yes, please. Hey guys, we're definitely live. Please do your... So Pete was unsurprisingly very defiant this morning. We will get you guys the clip once the tech issue is resolved.
He was defiant. He didn't acknowledge the issue.
No, he didn't acknowledge more. He doesn't seem more... he was being impeached for being too good at his job. Which, if you read the articles of impeachment, it's not that long. Nowhere in there was it mentioned that this was about being just too damn good at your job. There was talk of, you know, having an illegal war, also talking about Yemen, school kids that were killed, and other various goodies that do not have to do with being such a badass. But I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. It's a bit of a counterintuitive way to think about this. But Pete, to my mind, actually became a little bit less vulnerable because now Trump is out there talking about how he has his full confidence. So you have Ted Cruz on his podcast where he goes into this room and he becomes honest and he says all the things that normal people are thinking, which is like the House had to be adjourned because they had the votes to impeach Hegseth. Certainly when you look at the new crop of senators coming in, or even some of the outgoing Republicans that have found their YOLO in the final moments, maybe that they would want that to be their final vote that they cast, especially those that made a big stink about him and then voted to confirm. You know who I'm talking about. But now Trump is defiant about it and has even said that he would keep Hegseth if he gets impeached. So, do you think he's not in as much of a dangerous position this morning than he was two days ago?
I don't know. And you may know the mechanics better than me, but my sense is all of the Democrats who are, all the voters who are responsible for forming not even the tsunami, but this blue super tsunami are looking for a blood offering. And this seems like the most obvious one, both in terms of what is incredibly unpopular and not across just Democrats but also Republicans, and also has some Republican members of the chamber fired up. And also the bar for impeaching, my understanding is, the Secretary of War is lower than impeaching the president. This feels like the blood offering that every Democrat wants, the voters want, and even some Republicans want. I just don't see how he survives this, but maybe there's some mechanics here that I'm missing. What are your thoughts?
I think it's just it would be a Trump thing more than a mechanics thing. I don't think that people have changed their mind, though. It was interesting to hear Don Bacon, who is on his way out, has been hyper critical of Pete Hegseth, say that he wouldn't vote to impeach him. But the numbers are going to be there with or without Don Bacon. I just thought that was a surprise, I guess, since he has been so critical. But he has objections to Thomas Massie and saying that this is a guy who is anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel, and I don't necessarily want to be a part of this. But the clip is ready. The tech gods have smiled upon us. So, let's play the clip.
History will judge the Iran war quite differently than conventional wisdom right now. We didn't start this war. Iran did, 47 years ago. But President Trump is willing to do what no other president would. The proper remedy for a policy disagreement is legislation. It's debate. It's the next presidential election. It's not handing the House and Senate floor to the Democrats so that they can run a show trial against the president and the Secretary of War while Republicans still control Congress. You see, we've seen this show before. They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call. They impeached him again in his final week in office. Both times they failed. As for the articles themselves, Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen, every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress, and executed by American warriors who did their jobs. We destroyed terror regimes' capabilities. We sank the boats carrying poison into our communities. We put a narco dictator in handcuffs. These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it's a job well done.
I think that it's very smart strategically to return to how I led with this, to put everything that he's done into one bucket, because you know if you say Maduro, for instance, then the president is thrilled with how all of that went, especially because they're ignoring the fishermen that we killed in boats in the Caribbean. And God knows what else has gone on. Saying that they followed all of the protocols. There has been a number of folks who would more traditionally be conservative about this who have spoken out about the fact that they circumvented the War Powers Act. That's a question for Hakeem Jeffries, how quickly that will come up as an agenda item once he's speaker of the house, to make sure that there are actually votes on these things. But he did say this is a show trial of me and the president. And that's how I think he links it together, and that's how he gets President Trump to be supportive. When you think about the autopsies that have already been written of the election, including the one from JD Vance, even what the president said Sunday on 60 Minutes about the Iran war being a factor in the election, though he said he would do it again because you need to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. But tying them together, I think, is very smart strategy for Pete, and saying that this war was started 47 years ago. The average American doesn't care. They just saw an inflation report come in hotter than expected again, though gas on the national average just went below $4, I think, for the first time since July 19th. But I see what he's doing, and I think that if you are in that vulnerable of a position, it is the smartest thing that you can do, I guess is my final determination.
So if there's two parties here, there's Trump obviously, he serves at the pleasure of the president. If the president says you need to resign, then he resigns. So it doesn't sound, I think your point is it doesn't sound like that's going to happen. But does the administration really want to endure on, you know, kind of live, you know, 24/7 live coverage of this vote, which sounds like it's going to happen sooner rather than later? And does Trump's, what feels like based on this obviously coordinated release or clip or talking point from Pete, does he have the influence to pull back the vote such that he isn't impeached? In other words, okay, even if the president is not going to put pressure on him to resign, are they on the eve of this vote going to decide that they want this broadcast live when they count the votes and find that they're going to lose and he's going to be removed?
I mean, do they want it? No. They would rather program an octagon with Dana White. And we're going to talk about Dana White in the press briefing room, and his turning down of that job, which was totally a legitimate offer and not a mistake on the president's front. I don't think they feel like they can stop it, but that they're also not going to engineer a resignation of the Secretary of Defense in two days or, you know, so I think this is moving forward. This is going to be great.
It's definitely moving. It is. And I thought it was the president called in to C-SPAN of all places last night and had like a, there was a woman laughing, giggling in the background. I don't know if it was Natalie Harp. It was not a Melania laugh, to say the least, but you know, he said that he enjoys watching C-SPAN and that's how he takes the temperature on the country. But every network is going to cover that if there actually is an impeachment vote over Pete Hegseth. And I would imagine they were going to have way more than enough votes to make it happen. And this feels to me like them moving inwards. You know, you see this huge election, right, where you should be contending with the fact that now Texas is blue. You lost Kansas, South Carolina, and these aren't small elections, right? You're going to have a Senator Annie Andrews from South Carolina for six years, right? You're going to have this in Kansas, Texas, decades to undo if they think that they even can. So you would think that they would be looking at the big picture stuff and expanding their minds, but they're just getting smaller and smaller. Stephen Miller is a small-minded move. Defending Pete Hegseth like this is a small-minded move, and it shows that nobody is listening to the voters about what happened on Tuesday.
What did you make of the Dana White Trump, I don't know what you would call it, stunt yesterday? It was during The Five, so we took it live and then talked about it. You know, they're making it out to be that this was an intentional joke. And I thought that Dana White seemed somewhere between uncomfortable and possibly fine in playing along with this. But I think it all just speaks to how deeply unserious this White House has been and continues to be, and that it's just going to get worse in a lame duck era. You know, we weren't crazy for considering the fact that he might legitimately think that Dana White should be the new press secretary. And I think they're going to throw things at us that will boggle the mind, to say the least. And I think it's all a joke. This is like a practical joke with nuclear codes, which is the scariest joke of all. And that's what I felt about seeing Dana White on our screens when everyone was desperate to see my face.
Not most of the viewers. Did you catch any of it, or this was just for those of us stuck in the hour?
I actually think Dana White wouldn't be, I mean, I've said jokingly that I thought he would be one of the brighter people in the White House. I just, I mean, he's a talented guy. He's run a great organization.
I thought that was, I thought they actually handled that, I mean, fairly well, and it was sort of a what I would call a well-placed distraction because it was sort of outrageous enough to interrupt the news cycle, which has been pretty negative. But it doesn't appear like it's, I don't know that it was real, and people like Dana, and I don't, kudos to them if they're looking for distractions. I think that was a good one. But going back to the news cycle they're probably trying to avoid, we haven't yet discussed the growing calls to impeach RFK Jr., which picked up steam yesterday after Dr. Annie Andrews and Senator Bernie Sanders both voiced support for the idea. Kalshi has the odds at 36% that he's impeached before the new year. Do you think this is a serious possibility, the impeachment of RFK Jr.?
It's new to the conversation, but that doesn't mean that it isn't serious. And lo and behold, when a bunch of doctors and nurses and health care professionals win their races, there's going to be a discussion about the fact that we have a total crank for an HHS secretary that has made us all sicker and spews absolute nonsense on one of, if not the most important thing in our lives, which is our health. So I hope that it's serious, or at least some discussion of it. I'd be curious as to what exactly the articles of impeachment would look like. I think, you know, obviously Thomas Massie releasing what he would be, what everyone's going to be voting on vis-a-vis Pete Hegseth is important, and you'd have to see that as well from Senator-elect Andrews and Senator Sanders. But why not at this point, when you think we've spent two years calling these people completely unqualified for the job? Maybe it's time to do something about it.
Do you think that Stephen Miller's kind of full-throated or bear hug of RFK Jr. makes it less likely? Do you think that, I mean, are they going to go from Hegseth and then the next week? At what point do Democrats decide, okay, the accountability, when does the accountability tour turn into the revenge tour, or is this what the public wants? I mean, no one likes Pete Hegseth. No one is more grateful for Pete, Secretary Hegseth, right now than Secretary Kennedy. He's got to think, okay, someone was going to take a lot of incoming here, and I'm glad I'm not, you know, on point here. Do you think as soon as this is resolved one way or another with Hegseth that they just immediately turn their sights on RFK? And does RFK benefit again from Stephen Miller? It appears that part of their strategy is, or at least Stephen Miller's strategy, is to kind of embrace the Maha movement and more tightly associate the administration with the Maha movement and RFK Jr. Do you think they're already doing kind of trying to lay groundwork for killing the momentum around this?
Well, they would be smart to embrace the Maha movement in its original construction. And the problem is that it got completely corrupted, and I think only five of 20 Maha movement candidates were able to pull off their elections. It's been essentially decimated because people said, like, I signed up for getting the red and yellow dyes out of my food. I didn't sign up for measles, and that's what we got. So, you know, I don't think a bear hug from Stephen Miller is ever going to feel as good as a bear hug from Donald Trump. Everyone is expendable, though Stephen Miller has obviously been there for the long haul and ultimately, you know, one of, if not the most trusted person in President Trump's orbit. But I think, you know, and I went and listened to oversight, soon-to-be oversight chair Robert Garcia talking about what accountability looks like, and the title of his talk was 'Lawyer Up,' which is what he tweeted out in the middle of the results coming in on Tuesday night. And, you know, that immediately hits people and they think, is this just going to be a revenge tour, like you said, right? If you're kind of memeing and throwing haymakers like that, you know, saying essentially we're just going to throw you in jail, which is what people would take from it. And the base loved it, right? That's what they want to hear. They feel like crimes have been committed, that there has been, to say it in the nicest terms, a lack of faithfulness to the Constitution at the least. But you've got to be really careful about this because I do think it is one of their most potent attack lines against Democrats, using this lawfare argument. And Hakeem Jeffries has to be very careful in how he treads these lines because he's got an agenda to get through, and his agenda is driven by affordability concerns. It's not driven by whatever is going to happen to Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. and Elon Musk and the Trump kids, etc., even though it is a piece of it. Government corruption, a huge issue to people, and this desire for accountability, not for made-up crimes, but for what they've actually done to the government and what abuses may have been committed. So I think you're right to point out how delicate a line has to be towed in all of this.
Yeah. And to be clear, they're zeroing in. I mean, you could argue obviously the president has to take responsibility for geopolitical decisions to bomb a nation, to go to war, and people would say Secretary Hegseth is a dangerous person just, I would argue, because of his incompetence, arguably domestically. And I think people can make this argument that the most damaging over the medium and the long term is in fact Secretary Kennedy. I mean, we're seeing measles outbreaks the likes of which we haven't seen before. And a lot of this has a lag, right? When you don't have, when you're seen as being anti-vaccine or creating a bossism around them, a lot of the damage there might come to fruition or surface well after he's out of office. But again, the line is the following. And a cautionary tale is Lieutenant, I think it's Alexander Vindman, who raised the most money. He was a candidate for Senate in Florida, raised the most money, was leading for the entire race for the Democratic nomination, and then lost the nomination. And people basically described his campaign as a failed attempt to have an impeachment nostalgia tour. That's just not what Democrats, at least in Florida, appear to be animated about. So, as you pointed out, the line between what people perceive as accountability and also, to be blunt, the people who are most angry are going to be the most animated and vocal online, but I would argue that the groups that swung hardest to blue, while they want accountability and corruption, actually corruption was a big issue for them, I do think that they're more focused, or I don't think the Democrats are going to be able to keep these swing voters if they just go on what's called, you know, for lack of a better term, an accountability/revenge tour. And the question is at what point does it begin to occupy, when does it become the main issue, or what Democrats, when people say, well, what's changed now that the Democrats are in office? I would hope that the first thing isn't, you know, these cease-and-desist hearings, you know, going for resignations that people say that is happening. It's accountability. These people deserve additional scrutiny. But sooner rather than later, I hope we see, you know, a bill for universal health care, raising minimum wage, housing credits, whatever it is. I think a decent litmus test for how they're doing is going to be that there's an ounce of quote-unquote accountability or whatever you want to call it, but a pound of actual policies. Speaking of party leaders, Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker Pelosi, had this to say about Haley Stevens. Let's watch.
What do you think of some of your colleagues calling for Haley Stevens to be kicked out of the Democratic caucus after she endorsed Mike Rogers at the last minute? Well, you know, we have about three more weeks or two more weeks of being in the Congress. So I don't think we should start making judgments about anybody in the caucus at this point. In other words, compared to what? Compared to what? I was disappointed in that. I've conveyed that to her. I want to be helpful to her in terms of how she deals with this, but I'm not supporting taking that. Have you spoken to her since then? Yes, I have. I mean, does she have any concern about coming back to the Democratic caucus? We heard reports she was with the Republicans. You'll just have to ask her that about what her plans are.
You seem jonesing. Go ahead. No, I just like leave her alone now. Yeah. Like she, and if the reports are true that she's hanging out in the Republican cloakroom, like let her be, right? You know, she should have never endorsed Abdul in the first place. Clearly, her heart was not in it. That is completely fine to say, to just be like, I want Democrats to flip the Senate. This particular candidate is not my cup of tea for these reasons. Maybe we can continue working towards an alliance and making sure that I feel good about this and whatever reticent Jewish voters feel good about Abdul. She completely effed it up in the process of all of this culminating in leaving Jim Clyburn sitting in a church waiting for you with your staff not even knowing that you're across town with Mike Rogers. Like unbelievably uncool. But this woman has what, 30 days left of this job, is probably in complete freefall and thinking about what her life looks like now. She probably isn't going to be able to run for office again as a Democrat with this kind of stain on her record vis-a-vis the party. Like I'm sure Nancy probably would feel differently if she was the one that was still in charge of the caucus. This feels a little bit like nice grandma vibes on a comparative basis. And she would have been harsher maybe if she were the one that was about to get the gavel again. Well, leave her alone is my feeling.
It feels like this would be a gift to Republicans because, I mean, first off, there are several Republican-elected officials or government officials who endorsed Ted Cruz. Are we expect, you know, what would we, how would we respond if the Republican caucus kicked them out or the local Texas Republican party kicked them out of the party? I think the appropriate response here for the speaker or anyone else in power is, I don't agree with her decision. It's, you know, she has free will. There have been several candidates who have endorsed people across party lines. The majority of them have been Republicans endorsing the Democratic candidate. And while I don't agree, you know, we wish for the best. Next. That's it. This feels like, you know, this is not meant to be. We keep accusing the MAGA movement of being a cult. And part of the cult is that when someone leaves, you treat them like an apostate. You treat them as if they've done something morally wrong by not signing up for every aspect of the cult. So this is, I think this is, you know, this is a no-win situation, or not a no-win situation. I think this is an obvious situation and that they should just, like you said, let her get back to her life. I can't imagine she needs Democrats piling on. In Mississippi, Brett Colom has been looking for a big-name Democrat to energize the base of Southern Democrats. He advocated for Kamala Harris to campaign in the state against the advice of his advisers. Now narrowly in the lead, he is crediting Kamala Harris's appearance in Mississippi for bringing attention to the state's crumbling hospitals. Do you think this says anything about Vice President Harris's chances for a 2028 presidential run? Was this seen as successful? Because there was some debate, just as there was debate around whether Trump getting close to a candidate was a positive or a negative. I felt the same vibes with Vice President Harris around whether Democrats should campaign, how closely they should campaign with her. Does this make her a more attractive or compelling person for issues and perhaps bring her back into the light for 2028?
I think she's definitely out of the shadow. Yeah, considering what's gone on, and you know, if there is going to be a reprioritization of the Sun Belt over the Rust Belt, that's to Kamala Harris's benefit. And I was really happy reading this article that Brett Colom went against his advisers and said, no, I know the people of Mississippi better. I know how popular she is, especially with Black women, who, I mean, ran the table in these races.
