• Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth was on Capitol Hill Wednesday to meet with senators, trying to salvage his nomination to be the next defense secretary. His nomination is hanging by a thread amid a drip, drip, drip of sordid details about his very messy personal life. But if Hegseth does manage to win Senate confirmation, he’d oversee the largest U.S. government agency with a nearly $900 billion budget. Paul McLeary, Pentagon and national security reporter for Politico, breaks down the job of the defense secretary and how Hegseth fits into President-elect Trump’s larger vision for national security.
• There’s a lot of hand-wringing about where Democrats went wrong and why they lost the White House. And a big part of that conversation is how the party lost the support of many working-class voters while Trump gained ground. Max Alvarez, Editor-in-Chief of The Real News Network, talks about the shift among the voting bloc.
• And in headlines: The Supreme Court appeared poised to side with Tennessee over its law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, Trump moves to have his Georgia election interference case dismissed, and Senators grilled airline executives over excessive fees.

• Check out Max’s reporting – https://tinyurl.com/muja9fhz
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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, December 5th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day. The show that unlike Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk doesn’t need to bring its mom along for emotional support at big meetings. Here’s a tip. If you’re old enough to have meetings, you are too old to bring your mom to them. [music break] On today’s show, senators grill airline executives over junk fees. And Trump is trying to get yet another case against him dismissed. Let’s get into it. Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, was on Capitol Hill Wednesday to meet with senators. He’s doing whatever damage control he can to try and salvage his nomination for defense secretary and ease senators fears over the ballooning scandal around his very, very messy personal life. Hegseth told reporters that Trump said to keep fighting for the job. 

[clip of Pete Hegseth] That’s what Donald Trump asked me to do. Your job is to bring a war fighting ethos back to the Pentagon. Your job is to make sure that it’s lethality, lethality, lethality. Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn’t be happening. That’s the message I’m hearing from senators in that advise and consent process and it’s been a wonderful process. 

Jane Coaston: But Hegseth’s nomination is hanging by a thread. Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters some of his Republican colleagues privately oppose him. 

[clip of Senator Richard Blumenthal] I’ve talked to five to ten Republicans who have said to me they’re just waiting for the right moment to say no to Pete Hegseth] 

Jane Coaston: And in the background, Trump is already considering other names to run the Pentagon, including his 2024 primary opponent and best frenemy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. It speaks to just how bad the scandal swirling around Hegseth is right now. This week, a story in The New Yorker described in pretty vivid detail how Hegseth was forced out of top jobs at two nonprofit veterans organizations he ran. Former employees complained about his womanizing and his bad financial management. NBC News reported that some of Hegseth’s colleagues at Fox News also raised concerns about his drinking. Two people told the network that on more than a dozen occasions they could smell alcohol on him before he went on air. 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] He should not be secretary of defense, another former Fox News employee said. His drinking should be disqualifying. 

Jane Coaston: Keep in mind that he hosted a show that starts at 6 a.m., and that’s on top of last month’s news that Hegseth paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault back in 2017. Hegseth denied any wrongdoing and local police didn’t bring charges in the case. This is also to say nothing of the fact that two of his three marriages ended over his infidelity. According to Vanity Fair, he had five affairs while married to his first wife, and his second marriage ended because he had a child with a producer at Fox. That producer is now his third wife. Messy, messy, messy. Even Hegseth’s own mother, Penelope, called him out on his bullshit in a 2018 email obtained by the New York Times. She wrote, I have no respect for any man that belittles lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man. His own mother said this. Penelope Hegseth says she immediately followed up that email with an apology and now claims her son is a changed man. She went on Fox News Wednesday to advocate for him. 

[clip of Penelope Hegseth] I believe he’s the man for the job. I think being a TV news host, I think prepares you for most things in a position like this. You’re a good communicator. You have to think on your feet. You take charge. So I think everybody should do a year with Fox. 

[clip of unnamed Fox news reporter] There you go. 

Jane Coaston: Why would senators be worried? For more on Hegseth and the responsibilities he’d have to shoulder as secretary of defense, I spoke with Paul McLeary. He covers the Pentagon and national security for Politico. Paul, welcome to What a Day. 

Paul McLeary: Hi. Thanks. 

Jane Coaston: So we’ve seen this kind of drip, drip, drip of scandal around Hegseth since Trump announced him as his pick for secretary of defense last month. What’s been the reaction within the Pentagon as news of his affairs, his drinking habits and the allegation of sexual assault began to make news? 

Paul McLeary: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s real concern. I think the biggest concern here is these reports that came out a few weeks ago about some of these warrior boards uh that the Trump administration is considering that would get rid of we don’t know how many, but several or dozens of three and four star generals and admirals uh that weren’t considered loyal enough to Trump or are, quote unquote “woke.” Uh and things like that, which would kind of create a um almost a loyalty test. Right. So those are real concerns. I mean. And as far as the alcohol abuse and things like that, and those allegations, the secretary of defense has to be out, it’s a 24/7 job. You know. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Paul McLeary: There’s not a lot of hanging out of bars at night and things like that. And you need to be woken up at three in the morning, at four in the morning and be on call. So I think those kind of lifestyle allegations and concerns are really what concerns the Pentagon. There’s also extramarital affairs. I mean, people in the military get fired for that. Right. It’s a security risk. It’s a blackmail risk. So all of these things are creating a lot of a lot of worry in the building. 

Jane Coaston: You mentioned the warrior boards. And I know this is an obvious question, but why is that a big deal, this idea of loyalty tests for Pentagon leaders? 

Paul McLeary: Yeah, I mean, on its face, they say they’re going to they want to lop off leaders who don’t meet the standard, who are not focused on lethality in war fighting, etc., etc.. But then what does that mean when when it comes down to it? Right? Does that mean if someone, you know, followed the legal, lawful orders of President Biden, would they consider that um a reason for termination? Um. And that kind of politicizes the military, which has always prided itself since the beginning of being an apolitical institution. Right. I mean, folks in the military obviously can vote, can have their opinions. But when it comes down to it, whoever the president is, if they issue a lawful order, you follow the lawful order. 

Jane Coaston: There has been some reporting that Trump may tap Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the job of secretary of defense. He has military experience and he’s also been leading a pretty big state for the last couple of years. How do people feel about him? 

Paul McLeary: I mean, DeSantis, he was a he was a military lawyer. He deployed to Iraq where he was attached to a Seal team um and he didn’t do any fighting. But he was you know, he was their legal advisor. So he did it. As you said, he’s also been governor of Florida, which is he’s managed hundreds of thousands of people and run a state that is population and GDP wise rivals or beats many smaller nations. So I think DeSantis would probably make it through pretty easily. Um. He’s got the experience. I mean, you run into some problems probably politically uh with J.D. Vance, who will probably want to run in 2028, and so will Ron DeSantis and, you know, you got the team of rivals things going. But um on its face, DeSantis, you know, secretary of defense is a job of a manager. Managing a couple of million people. It’s you’re not moving troops around on the chessboard, right? You’re not making those kind of decisions. It’s managerial, it’s managing people. It’s being a diplomat overseas and things like that. So. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I want to get into that a little bit because it’s you know, the Department of Defense is the largest government agency in the United States. It has a nearly $900 billion budget that will likely increase under Trump. So what does it mean to actually be in charge of the entire Defense Department? You mentioned that you become a manager. You’re sort of a diplomat. You’re very visible. What does that look like? 

Paul McLeary: Yeah, it’s all of the above. I mean, it’s one of the most complicated jobs, I think, in the US government. I mean, one, you are in charge of all the branches of the armed services from, you know, folks on submarines to folks in outer space. They all have very different needs, very different and managing the budget there too. You know, you travel all over the world acting as not a secretary of state, but you’re acting as the face of the United States, you’re acting as a diplomat, not only to your counterparts in different countries, but also to their foreign ministries, also to their heads of state. 

Jane Coaston: Looking at some of Trump’s other national security picks, like former Representative Tulsi Gabbard for director of National Intelligence, his former DNI, John Ratcliffe for CIA director, and Congressman Mike Waltz for National Security advisor. What do you think these choices say about Trump’s national security priorities over the next four years? 

Paul McLeary: I think it’s going to be a very Indo-Pacific focused strategy. I mean, you have Mike Waltz as national security adviser, Alex Wong, deputy national security adviser, who are very focused on meeting the challenges that China presents, honestly not only economically but militarily. So I think for sure, I mean, we’ll see it as the Pentagon nominees kind of kind of shake out a little bit further. But there’s going to be a heavy focus on China, much less so Europe. But I don’t see us walking away from Europe. There was some of that in the first Trump administration. I don’t think that’s really going to happen here. Europe has changed. It’s a lot different than the Europe of 2016 to 2020. They’re spending more on defense. They’re more focused on Ukraine. They’re taking more of a responsibility for what’s happening in Ukraine and things like that. So the world is a very different place than it was four years ago when Trump left office. And I think some of the folks who can reflect that, I mean, Marco Rubio, very conventional nominee for secretary of state, just like Mike Waltz for national Security advisor, very conventional. These guys aren’t bomb throwers. Um. So I think there’ll be more continuity than maybe some of the Trump people would like to admit between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. But just as like there was a lot of continuity between the Biden administration and the Trump administration going the other way. 

Jane Coaston: The people you just mentioned, like Senator Marco Rubio, they do have a lot of experience, but Hegseth and Gabbard, not so much. What are the risks of picking people with relatively little experience for these jobs where it’s not an exaggeration to say that American lives and safety depend on them? 

Paul McLeary: Yeah. Gabbard’s kind of a special case, right? She’s been out of government for a little bit. I mean, she’s still in the um the National Guard. So she has served and she continues to serve. She’s an officer. Um. There’s a lot of opposition. Hasn’t been as loud as as Hegseth or the Matt Gaetz and things like that. But that will be a difficult nomination to get through. Hegseth might benefit a bit from that just because Matt Gaetz dropped out. Gabbard is going to have a really hard time, and I think there is only so many areas where Senate Republicans are going to want to buck Trump or just buck the president from their own party in general, right? Presidents get their nominees confirmed unless there’s something so outstanding and so egregious that they drop out or they lose the nomination. 

Jane Coaston: These are tense times around the world. You’ve got wars in the Middle East, a war in Ukraine and emboldened Russia, that’s going to expand its defense budget by some, like astronomical sum. China’s growing global influence. What are some of the major security challenges this administration is likely to face? Because as I recall from, you know, when George W. Bush won the election in 2000, we didn’t know there was going to be a 9/11 the next year. 

Paul McLeary: Right. Well, that’s the thing. There’s always the midnight surprise, right? And I think that’s some of the worry if people effective and competent people aren’t nominated to these positions that if something like this happens, who’s in charge? Um. I mean, there are, as you said, there’s the war in Ukraine that continues to go on. I mean, the Russians are taking 12 to 1500 casualties per day in Ukraine, but they’re still pushing on and they’re still gaining ground in Ukraine. Ukrainians are on their back foot, but they’re holding on. China and Taiwan obviously is a big worry. We want to see what China’s doing and I think the big concern here for a lot of folks in the Pentagon is this kind of new axis of cooperation between North Korea, Russia and China there’s and Iran. And all of these countries are all sharing military technology um in worrying ways that Indo-Pacific commander General Admiral Samuel Paparo, recently said that he’s worried that the Russians will share submarine and satellite technology with the North Koreans in payment for tens of thousands of North Korean troops fighting in Russia and in Ukraine. Um. And that would be a game changer for the North Koreans if they did get some of this submarine technology. They have subs, but they can’t really do much with them. If they can, you’re going to see North Korean subs potentially, you know, popping up near um aircraft carrier strike groups near Hawaii, near Alaska, things like that. I mean, it’s several years down the road, but once you open up that bottle, it’s tough to stick the cork back in. 

Jane Coaston: Paul, thank you so much for joining me. This has been really informative. 

Paul McLeary: Sure thing. Thanks. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Paul McLeary. He covers the Pentagon and national security for Politico. 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]

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Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of unnamed Tennessee person at rally] To show up authentically is the easiest thing that you can do. And to hate takes more labor than it does to simply be.

Jane Coaston: Crowds rallied outside the Supreme Court Wednesday as it heard arguments over a Tennessee law that bans gender affirming care for minors. The Tennessee Equality Project gathered that sound. The court’s conservative majority seemed to lean toward upholding the 2023 measure. The law SB one, bars puberty blockers and hormone therapy for kids. But the Biden administration claimed the law violates the equal protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Chase Strangio, the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the Supreme Court, said the law, quote, “has taken away the only treatment that relieves years of suffering for each of the adolescent plaintiffs.”

[clip of Chase Strangio] By banning treatment only when it allows an adolescent to live, identify, or appear inconsistent with their birth sex. SB one warrants heightened scrutiny under decades of precedent. 

Jane Coaston: Strangio said after the hearing, quote, “No matter what happens, we will keep fighting.” Also arguing for the Biden administration was U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. Here she is responding to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who said there’s harm in these treatments. 

[clip of Elizabeth Prelogar] The rates of regret are very low because for the population that has access to this treatment. So these are adolescents who have marked and sustained gender dysphoria that has worsened with the onset of puberty. They are very likely to persist in their gender identity. 

Jane Coaston: In her closing arguments, Prelogar said the Tennessee law could also bring about nationwide restrictions on care for transgender minors. The Supreme Court will likely issue a decision on the case before the end of summer. President elect Donald Trump is trying to get a case against him dismissed. And no, you’re not having deja vu from yesterday’s news about the New York hush money case. Trump’s attorneys filed paperwork Wednesday in Georgia to argue that once he takes office, Trump should be immune from the election interference case he faces there. The filing cites presidential immunity and claims Georgia won’t have jurisdiction once Trump is president. It also lists Special Counsel Jack Smith’s decision to drop two federal cases against Trump. In addition, Trump’s lawyers mention a document from Bill Clinton’s impeachment. The memo from within the Justice Department says it’s unconstitutional for local prosecutors to interfere with the president’s duties while in office. The Georgia case is already on hold while an appeals court decides whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can remain on the case amidst a personal scandal. President Joe Biden was in Angola Wednesday, the last day of what is likely his final foreign trip in office. He’s the first U.S. president to visit Africa since Barack Obama in 2015. In a speech Wednesday, Biden promised another $600 million toward an ambitious rail project that would span the continent. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] Rebuilding railroad lines from Angola to the port of Lobito and Zambia and the DRC, and ultimately all the way to the Atlantic from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. It’d be the first transcontinental railroad in Africa. 

Jane Coaston: The rail line will eventually give the U.S. better access to natural resources used for batteries and electric vehicles and devices. That fits into Biden’s strategic goals for the trip. To keep the U.S. in the conversation around economic development in Africa. China has dominated the continent economically in recent years. His argument about his commitment to African development was not helped, however, by the fact that he fell asleep during one of his meetings in a clip that has now gone viral. Senators put airline executives in the hot seat on Wednesday for all those junk fees they make us pay. Those are for things like checked bags or even just a bottle of water. Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan asked representatives from American, Delta, and other airlines to explain why these fees aren’t just included in the price of a plane ticket. 

[clip of Maggie Hassan] We’re all captives on your airplanes at a certain point, and you just say uh you want to pick a seat? We’re just going to charge you some random amount more. And what we’re trying to get at is why?

Jane Coaston: And these airline executives didn’t have a lot of answers. They mostly argue that travelers aren’t obligated to pay these junk fees. They are just optional add ons for folks who want to travel more comfortably or who want to enjoy the luxury of bringing a few extra pairs of underwear on vacation. Senators also accused airlines of using junk fees to turn a profit. And there’s data to back that up. U.S. airlines raked in more than $7 billion on baggage fees alone in 2023. Take a listen to this heated exchange between Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Spirit executive Matthew Klein. Hawley wanted to know how Spirit decides the price of a checked bag, which can go up to $99. 

[clip of Senator Josh Hawley] How do you determine? It is based on personal characteristics? Do you charge–

[clip of Matthew Klein] It’s never–

[clip of Senator Josh Hawley] –women more? 

[clip of Matthew Klein] It’s never based on personal characteristics. 

[clip of Senator Josh Hawley] Do you charge minors more? 

[clip of Matthew Klein] We we do not, sir. 

[clip of Senator Josh Hawley] What? Just people who are suckers? I mean, how do you how do you how do you do it? 

Jane Coaston: Honestly, if the only next step is that everyone gets to scream at airline executives, I’d feel okay with that. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. There’s been a lot of discourse out there about where Democrats went wrong and why they lost the White House. And a big part of that conversation is how the party lost the support of a lot of working class voters while Trump gained ground. This wasn’t a surprise to everyone. Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders put out a fiery statement last month about how the Democratic Party has, quote, “abandoned the working class.” Here’s the thing. President Biden has left his mark as one of, if not the most pro-union president the country has ever seen. Over the past four years, he supported unionization efforts nationwide. He became the first sitting president to join a picket line when he stood with the United Auto Workers Union last year. He passed protections for labor organizers. He expanded who was eligible for overtime pay. The list goes on. But it wasn’t good enough. A handful of major unions like the Teamsters and the International Association of Firefighters refused to endorse either party’s candidate for office this year, despite having gone for Biden in 2020. Trump walked away with higher support from the working class than he did in 2016. To understand the shift to the right, I called up longtime labor reporter and friend of the show, Max Alvarez. Max, welcome back to What a Day. 

Max Alvarez: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be back. 

Jane Coaston: So before we get into it, when we say things like the working class and union voters, who are we talking about? Because whenever we get in these conversations where people say working class, it always is like you didn’t go to college, but you own a Toyota dealership? I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about. 

Max Alvarez: My career in media in many ways started trying to answer this question after the first time Trump was elected and everyone was talking about his working class support, particularly the white working class. And what I have been doing, what I’ve committed my life to, is interviewing working class folks across industries, across states. And what I can tell you is that the vast majority of people in this country are what I would consider to be working class, i.e. they work for a wage to make a living. And I think that includes most of us, even the people who we have termed middle class for so long. If you work for a living, you’re part of the working class. It doesn’t mean you’re part of a union. Because in this country, about 10% of workers in this country are part of a union. We’re talking yeah, like people who are making 20,000 a year. 30,000 a year. Even people who are making up to 100 or over 100,000 a year. None of us are feeling economically secure in those positions, at least sure as heck not as secure as the people in the upper 1%. 

Jane Coaston: We’ve been talking on the show recently about deliverism, this idea that if you deliver for voters, they will vote for you and how that didn’t really work out for Democrats this year. On paper, President Biden did do a ton for workers and unions. But in your view, where did Biden and correspondingly Harris fall short? 

Max Alvarez: The answer is not just, you know, what Biden or Harris did or didn’t do. Like this crisis has been building over my whole lifetime. It’s just taken this long for this many people to be feeling it all at once. Because what the majority of Americans have experienced since a Republican named Ronald Reagan first promised to, quote, “Make America Great Again” in 1980 is four decades of deregulation, public disinvestment, privatization, the decline of organized labor power, more of our lives spent working for stagnant wages while costs of living rise and good paying jobs are replaced by low paying nonunion jobs or gig jobs. The long term destruction of industries across the economy that are remade to produce short term profits for Wall Street shareholders. More war made less visible, more surveillance, more prisons, more police, endless violence perpetrated abroad in the name of freedom and democracy, while working people’s freedoms and democratic rights are stripped here at home. This is what has been happening in this country for 40 years, nonstop. Biden’s policies were good, but like they’re just the beginning of rolling back a decades long onslaught, a class war that has been going on since before you and I were even born. 

Jane Coaston: I want to get into that a little bit because a lot of workers saw that, responded to that by voting for Donald Trump, who wants to continue deregulation, who has stacked his administration with some of the richest people to ever live, whose main goal is to become even richer. But what about Trump spoke to these workers who are responding to what you’re saying? 

Max Alvarez: One of the ways that Trump was able to be, you know, effective and MAGA has has managed to dominate our political scene right now is because they have done what the bosses always do. Trump found a target for people’s existing anger. Democrats did not, right. Trump is filling a vacuum that has been left by both parties over the course of our lifetime. Most working people identify as neither of these parties has anything for me because my life has been getting harder over the course of like Democrat and Republican administrations. And in the absence of a forceful, pro working class, pluralistic, multicultural like message, a populist message like you saw in Bernie Sanders, if you don’t have someone on the Democratic side really making that case, the floor is wide open for a grifter like Trump to just say the right things and appear genuine and appeal to working people because he’s saying it, not because he’s going to do any of it. It’s more of a testament of how vacuous our political discourse has become, that no other challenger to the mantle of populism could even counter what Trump was saying, regardless of how obviously false and misleading it was.

Jane Coaston: Something else I’m interested in your thoughts on is, you know, I’m thinking about what what can the Democratic Party do to live up to the idea that they’re the party of the working class? And so much of this is actually about a cultural question because you had President Biden being so focused on unions, but you also have people who are like, yes, I’m a union member, but I’m also very culturally conservative. I’m worried about my paycheck, but I am also worried about these culture war issues that Trump is like. I am more than happy to talk about this nonstop. So how does the Democratic Party respond when they can do all of these actions on behalf of working class people, but Republicans can say, yeah, but we’re standing up against those blue hairs working at Starbucks who want to unionize, or we’re standing up to those evil teachers unions or something like that. Like how do you get around that cultural question? 

Max Alvarez: Culture imprints, you know, on our memories. I grew up in the ’90s and early aughts. We were a nonunion, first generation immigrant family who believed all the Reaganesque promises about America being the land of opportunity. We lost everything in the recession. I remember sitting on our couch in the home we would eventually lose, watching mainstream media talk about how the economy was back and how things were great. Like that made us feel so small and it made us feel like we we were not part of that recovery because there was something wrong with us. Right? A lot of the times people will have sort of like cultural markers that are sort of time stamps and they are the things that people will point to as examples of that see, things are getting worse. Look at the culture, right? Or like they’ll harken nostalgically back to like cultures gone past because it was a time when they recall feeling more whole and more secure. The sad irony is that Trump’s policies are only going to exacerbate this cycle of exacerbated inequality. But he’s got a continual scapegoat to blame whenever people notice that their lives aren’t getting better. Even though millions of families have been broken up because of his mass deportations. 

Jane Coaston: Max, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for being here. 

Max Alvarez: Thank you so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with labor reporter Max Alvarez. 

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Remember that your Spotify wrap doesn’t reflect anything about your value as a person, even if it’s just pink pony club over and over and over again. And tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how honestly, the only weird form of musical taste are the people who say they don’t like music because I don’t get that. Like, what do you do all day, like me? What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and personally, my musical taste is perfect. [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. 

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