Hey everybody. Hope you had a great weekend. Thanks for being here.
Our top story today. Voters said last week that corruption was their top issue, and now a former Trump adviser is describing it from the inside. Calley Means helped build the MAHA movement and he’s one of RFK’s closest allies. He ran the health agenda at the White House until he quit last month. Now he says the people around the president were making policy based on who was funding the midterms. And he said it on Joe Rogan’s show, to an audience full of Trump voters. We’ll walk through all of it.
We’ll also get into the Republicans who are furious that Stephen Miller is the new chief of staff, the president admitting on 60 Minutes that he hates his enemies and always will, the latest shady deal tied to the Trump sons, and the blame game that has former Trump aides threatening each other with lawsuits.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Trump Adviser Exposes Pay-to-Play
Calley Means ran health policy in the White House until last month. He’s a top Kennedy ally, and one of the main faces of the Make America Healthy Again movement. He says he quit because the people around the president were working against the voters who put them there. Here’s Means on Face the Nation:
He also went on Joe Rogan, where he explained how decisions are made in Trump’s White House:
He told the Journal that conversation happened in June, over a letter Kennedy wanted to send about ultra-processed food. The answer from Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, was that the sugar industry was funding the midterms.
Means says James Blair, her deputy, was the top advocate inside the building for fruit-flavored vapes. He says the kratom limits got loosened after the industry lobbied, which we covered a few weeks ago. And he says any company that hired Wiles’s daughter “was getting a high priority.” In his words, if you wanted something done, “you pay Susie’s daughter.” He says her daughter’s firm went from almost zero to 30 million dollars a year under Trump.
Ron Johnson, Republican senator from Wisconsin, went on Fox and told people to listen to the whole thing, calling it “the corruption that Calley Means lays out in gory detail in government, I’m sad to say within the Trump administration.” Robert Garcia, the incoming Oversight chairman, says he’ll investigate. Wiles told CBS that Trump did more for MAHA than any president. Blair calls it all “scurrilous, false, and defamatory.”
But the sad part is that nothing he’s describing is surprising. Nobody watched that interview and thought, wow, I can’t believe this White House would do that. This administration is pay to play and everybody knows it. The people paying know it and the people getting paid know it. Voters know it too, which is a big part of why Tuesday went the way it did.
2. GOP Furious Over Miller Pick
Friday afternoon, the president announced longtime loyalist Susie Wiles is out, and Stephen Miller is in as the new chief of staff. This is the architect of mass deportations who pushed ICE towards brutal enforcement. He’s called the Democratic Party “a domestic extremist organization.” Even for MAGA, he’s a pretty nasty and divisive guy. So it was no surprise how some Republicans reacted to the news.
Here’s Thom Tillis on CNN:
The worst of all possible choices. He also called it “a colossal mistake, and the last thing we need 72 hours after the whooping we got on Tuesday.” He pointed out that Miller’s brutal policies helped lead Republicans to disaster in the midterms. But it’s not just policy. Many voters can’t stomach Miller on a personal level. Marlin Stutzman, Republican congressman from Indiana, told reporters: “I think it was a bad mistake. He’s not liked out here in the Midwest by people. They don’t like his tone.” When Politico broke the news to another house republican, he said: “Please tell me you’re lying to me right now, just to get a reaction.”
Oddly enough, the man who just elevated Miller seems to share these critiques. The day he made the switch, he sat down with 60 Minutes and told them this about illegal immigrants whose only crime was crossing the border.
“Too tough.” Those are words I’ve never heard from this President’s mouth. He then said he would be open to an amnesty deal with Democrats, and pinned the harsh deportations on “far-right” elements in the administration. It’s an obvious and pathetic attempt to deflect blame from the person who elevated those advisors and listened to their advice.
And that brings us back to Miller. Just an hour after that interview was taped, Trump announced Miller’s promotion to the top job in the White House. Trump acknowledged that deportations were toxic in the midterms, but doubled down on the man who pushed them.
So don’t be fooled by Trump’s new attitude. The power is in the same place.
3. Trump Chooses Hate Over Heaven
Ross Douthat got spiritual with the president, posing what should’ve been an easy hypothetical: could he forgive and feel love for enemies like Comey and Pelosi to get into heaven? Could he let go of his hate for eternal paradise? Of course, the answer was no. Ross pressed the question. Have a listen.
The strange question was prompted by Trump’s comments at Charlie Kirk’s memorial. That day, Erika Kirk did something remarkable, forgiving the man who murdered her husband. But in Trump’s remarks following her speech, he said he couldn’t do the same for those who had wronged him.
It’s a remarkable contrast. These are Trump’s political enemies. And whatever they did to him, he brought on himself through his own conduct. And the people in question suffered plenty for their attempts to hold him accountable. Comey has been charged multiple times. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was literally attacked and almost killed by a man with a hammer.
The President can’t see it that way, because it’s not about logic or proportionality for him. He needs hatred for his enemies. It fuels him more than any policy platform or sense of loyalty to the American people.
And then there’s the money. Ross asked Trump about his refusal to divest from his crypto venture World Liberty Financial, pointing out heavy investment from the UAE. Trump played dumb, saying there couldn’t be a conflict of interest because his sons run the company, not him. But that’s exactly the problem: Don and Eric are the worst of the worst when it comes to corruption.
4. Trump Sons’ Ebola Deal Exposed
This comes from new reporting by ProPublica, and it’s about a company called XWELL. Most of its money comes from spas and waxing salons. It also owns a small subsidiary that used to run COVID testing at airports. Waxing and Covid tests? Unsurprisingly, the business wasn’t working. By the CEO’s own account, the company was close to bankrupt.
Then it got a lifeline. A fund dumped about 30 million dollars into it. That fund is run by Dominari, a firm where Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are advisers. They were given more than 10 percent of Dominari when they signed on. That investment paid off fast.
This year, an Ebola outbreak hit Congo and its neighbors in central and east Africa. The Trump administration went looking for a company to screen travelers at American airports. They settled on XWELL. Shocker. In June, the CDC gave XWELL’s subsidiary close to 19 million dollars for “Ebola entry screening services.”
But that’s not all. The State Department then gave it an additional 20 million for outbreak response in Congo. The subsidiary, mind you, has never worked on Ebola. It has never worked abroad. The CEO just about admitted it wasn’t ready. “This is a risky contract,” he said. “I’m not sure we can do it.”
That’s hardly inspiring when lives are on the line. In Congo alone, the disease has killed more than 5,000 people this year. The official who led USAID’s response to the 2014 outbreak responded in kind: “There are countless organizations in the world that have decades of experience doing this work.” Organizations that could actually save lives.
But it’s not the lives that matter to this administration. It’s the money.
The State Department claimed its contract was awarded competitively. And a spokesperson for the Trump sons said they’re “merely passive, minority investors in a fund that invested in this company.”
But here’s the reality. This administration pulled us out of the World Health Organization and shut down USAID. Those organizations were built for exactly this work. And what did it pick instead? A spa company. And the president’s sons just happen to have a stake in it. But we’re supposed to believe that had nothing to do with it.
5. Trump Aides Threaten Each Other
The Wall Street Journal got access to text messages that show a feud between two former Trump officials: Calley Means and James Blair, the former deputy chief of staff.
Before Means gave the interviews we covered at the beginning of the show, Blair sent him a direct threat. “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor.” But Means went ahead anyway. He accused White House officials of blocking access to the president and keeping information from him. He also directly accused Blair of putting corporate and industry interests ahead of the American public.
So Blair upped the ante. He texted, “You just dragged me in a very public forum with scurrilous half baked accusations and you know what you were doing.” Means didn’t back down. “If I said something factually inaccurate about you, please let me know.” Blair answered with a legal threat. “I’m not sure if you’ve been through a defamation lawsuit, but I have. And I know how it works well.”
It’s unclear whether this feud actually ends up in court. Blair told the Journal he’s weighing a lawsuit, and he called Means “a failed political operative and wedding dress salesman.” But Means is swinging back. He says he may sue Wiles and Blair to get their communications. He asked them to preserve their records. That includes anything involving Ballard Partners, Wiles’s old lobbying firm, and Bayer, the company that makes glyphosate and is one of MAHA’s top targets.
But it isn’t surprising. Last week, we talked about how the midterms gave conservatives, from media figures to Republican politicians, the green light to speak out against this administration. Now it’s coming from people who worked inside the administration. And people like Blair sure seem nervous about what the public might find out.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Pete Hegseth’s office used internet searches to block promotions for senior Navy officers who had already been selected by merit-based boards, according to three military officials. One senior official who spoke to MS Now said staff printed the search results into paper-only files that the officers never saw. Instructions on the new criteria came by phone, not in writing. Officers were flagged for supporting diversity programs, enforcing the Covid vaccine mandate, working on the Afghanistan evacuation, or having ties to Gen. Mark Milley. Nine of the 31 officers picked by the one-star board were withheld, including every woman and minority except for one. At the two-star level, the only woman and every officer of color were pulled. Under federal law, only the president can strike individual names from one- and two-star lists. Officers facing a delay are also entitled to written notice and a chance to respond. The official called it the most names withheld in Navy history.
Republicans are racing to pass as much of their agenda as they can before Democrats take control of Congress on Jan. 3. Lawmakers return to Washington today for the first time since the midterms, and only five weeks are left on the calendar. Sen. Rick Scott wants his colleagues to work through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. “Let’s get everything done,” he told Fox News. The most urgent job is avoiding a shutdown when funding runs out after Dec. 11. Republicans also want to pass the annual defense bill, overhaul federal permitting, and confirm as many Trump judges as they can. Some are pushing a reconciliation bill to restock munitions used up in the Iran war. That process alone would take weeks. And Republicans currently can only afford to lose two votes in the House.
