Crooked Media - What A Day: Florida Yes Men

BY MATT BERG
& CROOKED MEDIA

TUESDAY
NOVEMBER 12, 2024

I was not invited to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving. Apparently, there wasn’t enough room.”

— Fox News host Jesse Watters, continuing to publicly feud with his mom (who apparently hates his politics)

HAWKS DOVETAIL

Donald Trump vowed to “stop wars” on the campaign trail, and pitched himself as the anti-war candidate. Lo and behold, he’s now expected to appoint foreign policy hawks to his cabinet.

President-elect Donald Trump is wasting no time filling out his cabinet with MAGA loyalists, and for the most part, it’s going exactly how you’d expect. A climate “skeptic” with no experience on climate issues will lead the Environmental Protection Agency. A self-proclaimed dog-killer will spearhead Homeland Security. A billionaire crypto geek appears poised to become Treasury Secretary. A former governor who said “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” was picked to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. These picks fit Trump’s faux-outsider, burn-it-all-down approach.

But Trump jolted even some of his own diehard supporters by reportedly tapping Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for secretary of state, the top American diplomat. The choice surprised on two levels: This Florida Man helped spawn the “Never Trump” movement and battled fiercely with Trump, even making fun of his small hands, before kneeling to the MAGA king. Also, while Rubio’s 180-degree turn on Trump might show that he’s spineless and has no moral compass, he’s much more of a normie politician and less of a complete raving nutjob than plenty other people in Trump’s circle (cough cough, disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani, unhinged conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, etc etc.). Not that “Normal compared to Laura Loomer” is particularly comforting.

Rubio is a relatively predictable conservative — and a war hawk. He’s a hardline supporter of Israel, calling for a harsher stance against Iran. He has advocated for sanctions against numerous Latin American countries, the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and argued against normalizing relations with Cuba. Notably, Rubio passed a bipartisan bill last year preventing any president from withdrawing from NATO — after concerns that Trump would do just that.

If Rubio is confirmed, he’d work closely with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a retired Army Green Beret and National Guard colonel who Trump chose to be his national security adviser.

Waltz is also a hawk with many similar stances to Rubio, and shares Trump’s view that the military is overstretched around the world. We could also see some new action on the southern border via Waltz: He has said there are ways to weaken Mexican cartels that the U.S. hasn’t used yet. Trump, for one, has floated the idea of bombing the cartels. Unlike some MAGA bombthrowers in Congress, both Rubio and Waltz have actually worked with Democrats on legislation. Both men take a hard line against China and have said they’d support negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Two of Donald Trump’s three top national security aides are all but locked in. The last and the most consequential — the secretary of defense — remains undecided. Several former Trump national security officials and GOP aides have told What A Day they think it’ll be Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). The MAGA loyalist and retired military officer has said she’d be open to working in the next Trump administration, but recently batted down rumors that she’s seeking out the defense secretary job. One former official pointed out a factor that may boost her odds: Ernst turned down an offer to be Trump’s running mate in 2016, suggesting Trump has already shown a willingness to trust her with a top position.

Donald Trump branded himself as the anti-war candidate, but obviously, he is and has always been a liar. His closest advisers appear far more inclined to beat the gong of war.

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WHAT ELSE?

Donald Trump chose John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, to be the next CIA director. Ratcliffe is longtime MAGA loyalist who released unverified info about Russia’s influence in the 2016 election despite objections from within the intelligence community. But his appointment means the CIA won’t be led by Kash Patel, one of the most unnervingly hardcore MAGA guys in the national security world.

The Biden administration won’t limit U.S. weapons sales to Israel, despite threatening to do so last month if Israel didn’t improve deliveries of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The State Department said Israel had made limited progress in the shipments, even though relief groups say that conditions in Gaza are the worst they’ve been throughout the entire war.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) defeated MAGA nutjob Kari Lake in the state’s hotly-contested Senate race. He’ll become the first Latino senator in Arizona history, and Lake will hopefully fade into oblivion: “You can be a lot of things in Trumpworld,” a GOP consultant told the Phoenix New Times after her loss, “but you can’t be a loser.” Okay well that’s definitely not true but it’s nice that she lost all the same.

Trump is expected to try to stop the possible national ban on TikTok next year, a promise he made on the campaign trail, the Washington Post reports. The video-sharing platform has until January to divest from its China-based owner or lose access to Americans users, which is the result of a bipartisan bill passed earlier this year.

Trump’s transition team is considering creating a “warrior board” of retired military personnel who could recommend removing military leaders they deem unfit to serve, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Unfit to serve” in the MAGA-sphere could simply mean “Not a Trump sycophant.”

A judge sentenced former Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who leaked troves of secret Pentagon documents last year, to 15 years in prison.

Donald Trump Jr. announced that he’s joining 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm that peddles products aimed at conservative audiences, instead of the White House. Anywhere that’s not the White House is fine with us.

The CEO of Exxon Mobil urged Trump to not pull out of the Paris agreement, the international effort to curb emissions and fight climate change, like he did during his first term. “We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Darren Woods told the New York Times. The idea that Trump is further to the right on climate change than the head of Exxon Mobil honestly checks out.

Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who was easily re-elected in a district that Harris barely won, argued that Democrats need to blend populism with a healthy dose of patriotism to win back working-class voters on a newly-released episode of Pod Save America.

A Wisconsin man allegedly faked his own death while kayaking over the summer so he could leave his family and escape to eastern Europe, according to investigators. Surprisingly, it wasn’t related to Trump’s political comeback. It was just… a super weird thing he did.

Over on Crooked's legal podcast Strict Scrutiny, hosts and constitutional law professors Leah, Kate and Melissa are breaking down what last week's election means for the future of the Supreme and state courts. This show helps us make sense of how the legal system works without needing a law degree. It's smart, funny, and focuses on how the issues we all care about could be impacted by the courts in 2025 - without feeling like homework. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube!

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