• The Trump cabinet pageant continues! And we’re all about to find out which of the judges – aka our elected U.S. senators – are willing to let President-elect Donald Trump run the show. On Wednesday, Trump selected Florida Rep. and contender for most hated member of Congress Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general of the United States. Gaetz has little relevant experience, but he is one of Trump’s most loyal — and vocal — supporters in Congress. At least one senator is already expressing skepticism. Ken White, a former federal prosecutor and current criminal defense attorney who writes the Popehat newsletter, games out what an Attorney General Matt Gaetz would mean for the Justice Department.
• And in headlines: President Joe Biden and Trump had an awkward meeting at the White House, South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune is the new Senate majority leader, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media empire is auctioned off to anonymous bidders.

• Check out Ken’s podcast – www.serioustrouble.show/podcast
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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, November 14th. I’m Jane Coaston. And this is What a Day. The show where we’re thinking of things more enjoyable than living through Trump’s cabinet pick announcements. Getting a colonoscopy, having a UTI, walking in on your parents having sex. [music break] On today’s show, Trump and Biden sit down for a cordial meeting. And GOP senators have chosen their new leader. Let’s get into it. The Trump Cabinet pageant continues and we’re all about to find out which of the judges, a.k.a. our elected U.S. senators, are willing to let President elect Donald Trump run the show and crown the contestants he wants. Even if they seem poised to face plant on stage or during their Senate confirmation hearing. This is a tortured metaphor, but we’re a tortured people right now because on Wednesday we got the nomination heard round the beltway and beyond. Trump announced on Truth Social that he’s nominating Florida representative and contender for most hated member of Congress, Matt Gaetz, for the role of attorney general of the United States. Gaetz has served four terms in the House, prior to that, he spent a few years in the Florida State House. He did practice law briefly before entering politics. Though ideally, you would hope that the top lawyer at what’s essentially the world’s largest law firm overseeing more than 10,000 attorneys would have a few more legal bona fides. But in the world of MAGA, Gaetz trades in the highest currency of them all. Unending, excessively vocal and shameless loyalty to Donald Trump. And he would absolutely help Trump make good on his campaign promises of using the Justice Department to go after his personal enemies. For his part, Gaetz seems super confident that he’s headed for a promotion to Trump’s cabinet because on Wednesday, he resigned from his House seat. And maybe he should be confident, despite his obvious lack of qualifications and the fact that everyone hates him. It’s an open question whether the Senate will block his nomination. Already, some Republican senators are lining up behind him, like Tennessee’s Bill Hagerty. 

[clip of Bill Hagerty] Well you know, Matt has been an outspoken advocate in the House for reform of the DOJ. As you mentioned, he’s been on the receiving end of the DOJ’s weaponisation. And if you look at what’s happened with the DOJ, it’s in desperate need of reform. 

Jane Coaston: Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin.

Markwayne Mullin: You know, Matt Gaetz and I there’s no question that we’ve had our differences. They’ve been very public about it. I completely trust President Trump’s decision making on this one. 

Jane Coaston: And Alabama’s own failed football coach turned Senator Tommy Tuberville. 

[clip of Tommy Tuberville] Vote with President Trump. This is the last chance we’re going to have at saving this country. And if you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that. 

Jane Coaston: But on the upside, it won’t take much to sink Gaetz’s nomination either. Already, one Republican senator, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, has suggested some resistance. She told reporters Wednesday that she doesn’t think Gaetz is, quote, “a serious nomination for attorney general.” Any of Trump’s nominees can only lose three votes in the Senate and still win confirmation. Trump has floated a potential workaround. Recess appointments, which would allow him to install who he wants and bypass what could be some bruising and embarrassing hearings. But that’s easier said than done. So what would an Attorney General Matt Gaetz actually mean for the Justice Department? To help us game that out I spoke with Ken White, a former federal prosecutor and current criminal defense and civil litigation attorney. He also writes the Popehat newsletter and hosts the legal podcast Serious Trouble. Ken White, welcome to What a Day. 

Ken White: Thank you very much, Jane. I’m happy to be here. I’m a big fan. 

Jane Coaston: Thank you. Uh. So I can’t believe I am asking you this, but what’s your reaction to Donald Trump naming Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general? 

Ken White: Well, uh I started laughing and then I inhaled some saliva and coughed. And then some paralegals came into my office kind of concerned. That was my first reaction. 

Jane Coaston: How seriously should we take this? Because yeah, like it’s hilarious in a very dark way. It’s not like Matt Gaetz has an illustrious legal career or an illustrious anything career besides making everybody in the house hate him, which I think is quite impressive. But like. 

Ken White: Right. 

Jane Coaston: On the other hand, it’s very serious that someone who has openly embraced Trump’s mission of retribution would even be considered for such a major position, even though that actually checks out in a lot of ways. 

Ken White: Right. I mean, it’s kind of like as if a big violent criminal threatens to beat you to death with a dildo. On one level, it’s extremely silly, but on another level, it’s perfectly serious and you have to take it seriously. So Matt Gaetz is somebody who I mean, he has the experience of being a congressman and a state representative. He has a handful of years as a private practitioner after he went to law school. But he has um really no relevant experience uh to run the United States Department of Justice. Other than I guess, being on the business end of an investigation. 

Jane Coaston: We’ll get to that in a minute. But if Gaetz is some kind of test balloon to see how loyal senators are to Trump, as some commentators are theorizing, because we’re already starting to do that four dimensional chess thing. 

Ken White: Right. 

Jane Coaston: What does that mean? 

Ken White: Well, you know, I’m more hesitant to talk to you about the political side. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Ken White: But I do think that, yes, this could be a test of his power, of what he’s going to be able to get away with and how much senators will base themselves doing whatever he wants. Uh. It could be trolling. It could be basically a head fake when he actually wants someone else later. But, you know, with Trump, I’ve learned uh it’s often wrong to impute to him too complicated–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Ken White: –or elaborate of a strategy. It may be exactly what he looks like, that this is somebody who has stood up for him, who he sees as similarly a victim of the establishment, someone who trash talks the way he likes people to trash talk. Someone he sees as an outsider and that pushes all the buttons for him. 

Jane Coaston: If Gaetz were to get appointed, what would that mean for the Justice Department and for Trump’s retribution mission? As you mentioned, zero relevant experience here. 

Ken White: Right. And I mean, I was a federal prosecutor. It’s not rocket science. But on the other hand, you genuinely have to know how a lot of complex systems work to be the attorney general or you’re not going to be effective at it. This is always the dilemma facing kind of populist types who say, hey, look at me. I’m going to bring in a complete outsider to run this department and clean house. The problem is they quickly learn that to clean house or to do anything with the department, you have to have some vague sense of how that department works. And I don’t think Gaetz really does. I don’t think he knows how the mechanisms of power are going to work there. And if he truly cleans house and just fires everybody who doesn’t toady to him, then he’s going to find it very difficult to make things work because, you know, the Justice Department is not self-executing. It’s got it has relationships with its subcomponents and things like the FBI and and, you know, the DEA, things like that. Those relationships can be fraught. And it has relationships with federal judges. It can’t do things without judicial approval all the time. And if you get someone in there who’s just going to do it like a clown show, then it may be very horrifying, but it may not be very effective at retaliation. 

Jane Coaston: Gaetz is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He has been the subject of a DOJ investigation for sex trafficking. But that investigation was pretty weird and concluded without charges. What kind of message does this send to the rank and file attorneys within the DOJ? 

Ken White: Well, I think they’re going to be pretty horrified. Even federal prosecutors who are kind of really rah rah, true believer prosecutors and conservative, they’re much more likely to be conservative in a more classic like Reagan Republican or even George W. Bush Republican way. Very few are nutcases. And I think the vast majority of them are going to be horrified. Certainly the ones that I have been in contact with uh who are my former colleagues and even a few who are still there are horrified because that they think it really it diminishes the credibility of the Justice Department and its mission. And they worry about how chaos can really interfere with their ability to do important things. 

Jane Coaston: Trump is obviously not a fan of the DOJ. 

Ken White: Right. 

Jane Coaston: What does it mean to create this department in his likeness? 

Ken White: Well, we could see gigantic shifts in priorities that could have a dramatic impact. So, for instance, in my own experiences, the 1990s were sort of the days of wine and roses for criminal defense attorneys and the white collar industry. Right? Because the Department of Justice put a lot of emphasis on investigating fraud and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and things like that. You know, it was an all you could eat buffet. After 9/11, you saw a huge shift in priorities to violent crime, immigration, drugs, terrorism, guns, that type of thing. And that dramatically changed the landscape for what kinds of cases were getting prosecuted. So you could see that again and you could see Department of Justice overwhelmingly emphasizing prosecution of particular types of cases to the exclusion of other types of cases. And where that gets you some time is just a complete failure to carry the ball in some very important issues. So you remember there are lots of criticisms of the Department of Justice after 2008, after the financial system collapse, for not going after any of the misconduct and fraud that was inherent in that whole systemic collapse. And that’s because of the shift in priorities. They didn’t have the people ready to go. They didn’t have the investigations going. So it’s very easy, really, for the new executive if they want to completely gut the Department of Justice’s ability to do more complex cases and more controversial cases. I’m talking about civil rights. I’m talking about claims against violence by police officers. I’m talking about voting rights violations. I’m talking about complex white collar investigations against people who are perhaps cronies of Trump. All those things could go away and you could have a, you know, ten times as many immigration prosecutions. 

Jane Coaston: Trump has openly called for recess appointments as a way to get around the Senate’s advise and consent role with these appointments. How would that work? 

Ken White: Well, you know, I’m not a a congressional procedural expert, but I did see, for instance, rumors that maybe Trump is going to, you know, discharge Congress and call it a recess and start appointing immediately. The thing is, these institutions, these rules are somewhat fragile and to some extent, like Tinker Bell, they only stay alive to the extent we believe in them and decide to obey them. So if Trump is doing all this stuff and just appointing people. You know, who exactly is going to stand up to him is the question. And I can’t say that this group of senators have inspired me with their ability to stand up to him. 

Jane Coaston: So how do you think this ends? Do you think Matt Gaetz will be the next attorney general of the United States? 

Ken White: You know, I think that from all the reactions I’ve heard about, I think that the reaction to him is such one of horror and contempt that it’s possible this is where they stand up. And uh maybe then Trump goes on to someone else. I would honestly almost rather have it be Matt Gaetz uh than someone like Ken Paxton from Texas. Someone who is supersmart, understands all the levers of power, uh super ideological in a specific way and not a clown show way and willing to do big things to change the way justices administer in America. So I’d almost rather have a buffoon than, you know, a shrewd, evil person. 

Jane Coaston: Ken. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time. 

Ken White: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for asking. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Ken White, a former federal prosecutor and current criminal defense attorney who writes the Popehat newsletter. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Donald Trump] Politics is tough and it’s in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today and I appreciate very much it. A transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate that. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] You’re welcome.

Jane Coaston: President Joe Biden and Trump met at the White House on Wednesday. The two sat down face to face after trading vicious blows in the run up to the election. It was like running into your ex, except if your ex accused you of being a pedophile and tried to stage a coup and constantly talked about sending you and your entire family to prison. But otherwise. Yeah, exactly like that. Anyway, they met for almost two hours to discuss the transfer of power. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden and Trump discussed issues of national security and domestic policy. One reporter asked her if Biden apologized to Trump for calling the president elect a threat to democracy on the campaign trail during the meeting, to which she said. 

[clip of Karine Jean-Pierre] The president is going to always feel obligated to be honest with the American people. What he says still stands. 

Jane Coaston: Never mind everything that Trump called Biden throughout the election cycle or the fact that Trump didn’t even invite Biden to the White House in 2020. You know, because there was the coup attempt. 

[clip of John Thune] It’s a new day in the United States Senate and it’s a new day in America. The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris Schumer agenda. 

Jane Coaston: That was newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota. Thune edged out Texas Senator John Cornyn by a few votes in a secret ballot on Wednesday. The victory came after a major MAGA fuss over the need to rally behind Trump loyalist Rick Scott. But he was knocked out after the first round. And while Thune has more experience than Scott, he’s also Mitch McConnell’s protege. So not great. 

[clip of John Thune] We’ll make sure that the president and his team have the tools and support that they need to enforce border security laws and to remove the violent criminals who are wreaking havoc in every one of our states. 

Jane Coaston: That should end well for America. The National Labor Relations Board issued a decision saying that employers cannot force employees to attend anti-union meetings under threat of discharge or discipline. Organizers say that these so-called captive audience meetings are a union busting tactic that hampers unionization efforts. The ruling is a result of a complaint against Amazon’s actions back in 2022 during a push to unionize the Staten Island warehouse. The decision sets a precedent that could have broad ranging effects across the country, especially for huge companies like Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and REI, which are all trying to unionize. But don’t get too excited. The ruling could easily be reversed by whoever President elect Donald Trump taps to lead the NLRB. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars Media Empire was auctioned off on Wednesday. The results of the auction are still unknown. Infowars was sold due to Jones’s personal bankruptcy, which is the result of the almost $1.5 billion he was ordered to pay to the families of victims in the Sandy Hook shooting for defamation. In a video posted on Wednesday, Jones said the trial was a sham. 

[clip of Alex Jones] The goal was never to get money. They rig court cases, found me guilty buy the judges, had show trials produced by HBO, completely fake, completely rigged. 

Jane Coaston: The thing I think about sometimes is the fact that Alex Jones’s attorney, described him as a performance artist during his divorce hearings. Anyway, on the auction block, aside from Infowars itself, Jones’s desk, microphones, more shady supplements than anyone could possibly need, and an armored truck. In order to bid in the auction, potential buyers had to sign nondisclosure agreements. The winner will be selected by a court appointed trustee for Jones’s bankruptcy case, not necessarily the highest bidder. Jones’s fate could be drastically different depending on whether the winner is a friend or a foe. Rumored bidders range from Roger Stone to Elon Musk to the company that owns The Onion. Jones waxed poetic about the ambiguity in a video posted Tuesday. 

[clip of Alex Jones] But I pledge the enemy this. I have never been stronger in the Lord, and I promise you that if you think you have faced resistance so far, we’re bringing the victory in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Jane Coaston: The Lord does not want to be a part of this narrative. The Lord is busy, and that’s the news. [muisc break] One more thing. I am, to put it mildly, not happy about all of this happening. I did not want Donald Trump to win the election. I do not want Matt Gaetz to be attorney general because I would not let Matt Gaetz watch my dog. Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state? No, thank you. And Pete Hegseth, a guy who thinks committing war crimes is a sign of true patriotism, does not fill my heart with joy. But as someone who was working in journalism during the first Trump administration, there are a few things I learned about dealing with all this bullshit that I think will be useful to remember. First and foremost, it is bullshit. Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist back in 2016, once said that the real opposition to Trump wasn’t the Democrats. It was the media. And the best way to deal with them was to, quote, “flood the zone with shit.” Trump and his allies just keep saying insane things. The media reports on the insane things that they say. And even if there’s a fact check, all you remember are the insane things they said. Did this happen? Is it true? It doesn’t matter. So pick your battles. Find good news sources like What a Day and pick the stuff you’re going to focus on and care about and get enraged by. You cannot spend the next four years staring at your phone and yelling, can you believe this at passers by. Secondly, there is no 4d chess. There is no secret Trump strategy. If Trump wants to hire someone, even if they’re a raving maniac who spends a lot of time talking about how they want to bow hunt liberals on the Internet, it’s not because there is some plan to make some other maniac look better in comparison. It’s because Trump wants to hire that person. And finally, do not fall for the temptation of the one easy trick. I’ve seen some TikToks arguing that Trump didn’t really win, and there’s some grand solution coming that will make sure he doesn’t see the White House. There isn’t. There will be people who claim that only they can stop Donald Trump, if you just give them your attention and maybe your money. They can’t. Google Michael Avenatti if you need a refresher. The only way out of this is through. If we’re going to stand up to this and we are, then we have to do it together. Not by giving in to fear every time Trump says he’s going to take a look at something. And not by deciding that Trump is actually much smarter than he actually is, and not by selecting some random hero who tells you they can save us all. We do it with down ballot Democrats and union leadership and organizers who actually do stuff with people in public. It will involve going to meetings and compromising and doing a bunch of stuff that is very boring and quite difficult. Most importantly, it’ll involve doing, not posting or worrying or panicking or turning away hoping someone else deals with it. [music break]. 

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Pray that Matt Gaetz is despised by his colleagues enough to lose his confirmation vote because this is a show that roots for haters and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just all of the freaky rules of the Infowars auction like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and someone please get me the Infowars desk. You know, for my house. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.