One other person I want to ask you about is Scott Bessent. Who? You. You know who I first as a as a sometime war. Steve Bannon's war room listener. That's where I first discovered Bessent. I wonder? Yeah. He he reportedly just today reportedly had a huge, maybe physical blowout [00:00:15] with Elon Musk in the West Wing. - What should people know about him? - First off, he's a safe pair of hands. If Howard Lutnick had been Secretary of the Treasury, it'd been an unmitigated disaster. Okay. Unmitigated disaster. And this is about people putting their own interests first, like Elon, versus putting [00:00:33] the nation's interests first. Elon Musk is, leaving the Trump White House, and it looks like his, inability to get along with folks within the administration is maybe one of the factors behind his decision to move on and focus on Tesla. [00:00:53] So, in fact, Axios is reporting that Elon Musk and the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, got into a pretty fiery shouting match. Now, what was this all about? Well, the the bad blood allegedly kicked off during Trump's transition to the white House. [00:01:10] Now, during this time, you know, he's tapping various individuals to serve in his cabinet. And Musk was lobbying pretty hard for Howard Lutnick to be Treasury secretary. But Trump ultimately went with Bassett. Or Bassett and, tapped Lutnick to be the commerce secretary. [00:01:29] Then the clashes over staffing really started to heat up. So according to a, an ally to Scott Bessent. Scott can't stand Musk. That goes pretty deep and pretty far back. But he's acting like a grown up about it. [00:01:46] And look, he does seem pretty even keeled most times. Like, I haven't really seen him fired up or irrationally angry or anything like that. He doesn't really engage publicly the way that Elon Musk does. But everyone has their tipping point. [00:02:01] So. Last week, Trump appointed long time IRS agent Gary Shapley, as as the interim head of the IRS. Now, he made that decision after Melanie, crossed, decided to, resign from the IRS. [00:02:18] This followed, you know, the gutting of the IRS under the Trump administration. However, Shapley or Shapley was appointed because Elon Musk specifically wanted him in that role. But here's the problem. The person who's supposed to make that decision, [00:02:34] ultimately, of course, it's Donald Trump. But the recommendations are supposed to come from the Treasury secretary, not from Elon Musk. And so, Musk's Department of Government Efficiency pushed this appointment through, you know, the white House channels. [00:02:51] And, Scott Bessent was not happy about it. He was furious. So beset had complained to Trump this week that Musk had done an end run around him to get, Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, even though the tax collection agency, [00:03:06] reports to the Senate, the people familiar with the situation said so after getting Trump's approval, Bessette was able to reverse the decision to hire Shapley. So in the end, Musk didn't end up getting what he wanted because of the fact [00:03:22] that the Treasury secretary made such a big deal about this. He wanted his deputy, a guy named Michael Falkender, to be the acting leader of the IRS. But then things devolved even further, if you can believe it. So during a meeting last Thursday, the Senate confronted Musk head on, and [00:03:39] apparently the F bombs started to drop. So the Senate criticized Musk for overpromising and under-delivering budget cuts with Doge. Musk clapped back. Are we ever going to retire? That is the clapped back thing just here to stay. [00:03:56] I mean, I feel like there's always trends, but they're around for a year, maybe half a year. Clap back is just it's like herpes. It's here to stay. It's never going to go away. You'll never be cured of it. Clap back by calling Besent a Soros agent and accusing and accusing him [00:04:13] of having run a failed hedge fund. Two sources who overheard the argument recalled that at one point Bessent yelled, F you! And Musk replied, say it louder. And, I mean, look, it just really did devolve to pretty embarrassing levels. [00:04:32] It was two billionaire middle aged men thinking it was WWE. In the half. In the Hall of the West Wing. And according to other witnesses, you know, both of which, spoke to Axios, they were not physical in the Oval, [00:04:48] but the president saw it, and then they carried it down the hall, and that's when they did it again. A second witness told Axios it was quite a scene. It was loud and I mean loud. So these two hate each other? Clearly. Not only did this happen within earshot of the president, but it but the [00:05:06] Italian prime minister was also there. So we have another world leader who was able to absorb what was going on with Elon Musk and the Treasury secretary engaging in the shouting match. Now, Caroline Leavitt, the white House press secretary, downplayed the entire situation, which look, to be fair, that's her job. [00:05:22] Her job is to lie to everybody on behalf of the Trump administration, to make the Trump administration look good. And it happens with, you know, the press secretary representing a Democratic administration. They lie. They lie. That's what they do. Boys will be boys. And I get it. [00:05:38] That turned into like a whole news cycle. But of course, she's going to say that. I love how people, like, listen to everything Caroline Leavitt is saying, thinking she's. She might tell the truth. No, it's not her job to tell the truth. It's literally not her job to tell the truth. But anyway, she says disagreements are a normal part of any healthy policy process, [00:05:57] and ultimately, everyone knows they serve at the pleasure of President Trump. So that wasn't even really saying anything. So in the three months Ellen has been in the government, he's gotten into tips with Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Peter Navarro stating that they were all incompetent. [00:06:16] They're all liars. All hail the Grand. Elon Musk, the all knowing, the wonderful, the best. You know, he's the most competent. Confident. Okay. And overall, he's kind of become a headache, for pretty much every white House aide, political appointee, and federal employee. [00:06:36] For instance, one person says this is a Trump appointee who spoke to the Washington Post. I like what Doge stands for. I don't like how they've done it, said one Trump appointee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe candid frustrations with Musk's operation. [00:06:52] The official compared Doge to overly aggressive chemotherapy, invoking a line attributed to Musk about one of his deputies praising the team for combating the federal bureaucracy but saying the unintended consequences [00:07:09] have been deeply harmful. They got rid of the cancer and a lot of the healthy cells, too. I disagree. I think the cancer is still very much part of what we see in Washington. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. [00:07:26] Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.