🌊 Season 2 of the Trump White House

The Onion buys Alex Jones’s InfoWars.

In a headline that sounds straight ouf of The Onion, InfoWars is now owned by The Onion. The satirical news outlet — The Onion, for clarification — bought InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction that a Connecticut judge ordered as part of the $1.4B Jones owes to the Sandy Hook victims’ families. Imagine if six years ago, someone told you The Onion would own InfoWars. You’d probably respond, “Sure, and let me guess, too… Matt Gaetz is Attorney General?”

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

DOGE Department

Donald Trump announced that he would ask Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

• While Trump has called DOGE a “department,” creating new departments requires Congressional approval, a complicated process. Instead, DOGE will operate independently while issuing recommendations to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a setup that protects Musk from having to divest from his businesses

• Trump has given DOGE a deadline of July 4, 2026 – the 250th anniversary of the US’ founding – to achieve “a smaller government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy”

Dig Deeper

• Musk has said he wants to cut $2T of the government’s $6.8T in annual spending, while Ramaswamy has floated eliminating the FBI, Education Department, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Eliminating agencies would require Congressional approval, though, which may be impossible to get

• Other Trump advisers have suggested that cutting $100B in annual spending would be a victory

KEY STORY

Trump’s Controversial Appointments

Trump appointed Tulsi Gabbard – an Army Reserve Officer, former Democratic representative and Iraq War veteran – his Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

• Gabbard has been critical of the US intelligence community and foreign intervention, and defended Snowden, Assange, and other leakers. If she receives Senate confirmation, she’ll oversee 18 intelligence agencies and prepare the president’s daily intelligence brief

• Trump also appointed Matt Gaetz his attorney general. Gaetz has been one of the most pro-Trump Congress members and biggest critics of the FBI, which the DoJ oversees

Dig Deeper

• Gabbard controversially decried US intervention during Syria’s civil war as a “regime change war” and held two meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During the 2020 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton famously called Gabbard a Russian stooge, while Gabbard called Clinton “queen of the warmongers.” In 2022, Sen. Mitt Romney accused Gabbard of “parroting false Russian propaganda” about

• And Gaetz: In March 2020, Gaetz wore a gas mask to Congress to mock the start of Covid policies. He has since been investigated by the Biden DoJ over claims that he was linked to a sex-trafficking scheme involving a 17-year-old. The DoJ never brought charges, although a House ethics probe remains open

• Gaetz is credited with torpedoing Republican Kevin McCarthy’s role as House speaker, allegedly because McCarthy was insufficiently conservative. For that and other reasons, Gaetz faces significant opposition among establishment Republicans and a potentially difficult path to a Senate confirmation

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KEY STORY

Defense Secretary Appointment

Donald Trump appointed Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense

• Hegseth attended Princeton University before becoming a Wall Street investment banker and officer in the National Guard. He subsequently deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan and later attended the Harvard Kennedy School

• Since 2014, Hegseth has been a Fox News host. In that capacity, he’s been a consistent supporter of Trump’s foreign policy decisions, including his meetings with Kim Jong Un during his first term

Dig Deeper

• This June, Hegseth published what became a New York Times best-selling book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.” In it, he writes, “Our ‘elites’ are like the feckless drug-addled businessmen at Nakatomi Plaza, looking down on Bruce Willis’s John McClane in ‘Die Hard’...But there will come a day when they realize they need John McClane — that in fact their ability to live in peace and prosperity has always depended on guys like him being honorable, powerful and deadly”

• Trump said the book “reveals the left-wing betrayal of our warriors, and how we must return our military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability and excellence”

KEY STORY

Senate Majority Leader Chosen

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) was elected Senate majority leader in an apparent blow to the Trump agenda

• Thune won after two rounds of secret voting. In the first, Thune got 25 votes, compared to 15 for John Cornyn (TX) and 13 for MAGA-favored Rick Scott (FL). In the second ballot, he topped Cornyn 25-24

• Thune is rated among the more moderate senators. In 2022, he said he hoped there would be "other options" for the Republican nominee in 2024, though he reportedly made amends with Trump last year

• The selection may impede some of Trump’s more controversial plans and appointments

Dig Deeper

• We did a full deep dive of this story yesterday in our We the 66 newsletter. Read it here!

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

📈 US inflation ticked up to 2.6% in October, matching economists’ expectations but slightly higher than the 2.4% recorded in September

🇺🇸 Per numerous reports, advertisers are planning to return to X as they seek to curry favor with Elon Musk and Donald Trump

🇺🇸 Following Donald Trump's election victory, The Guardian announced it would stop posting on X

🇨🇳 At an air show attended by senior Chinese officials and Russian representatives, China debuted its advanced J-35A stealth fighter jet

🇳🇱 The Dutch parliament may soon debate a law allowing healthy individuals over the age of 75 to request euthanasia after six months of counseling

COMMUNITY

🧐 Today’s question: What hurt Kamala Harris’ campaign the most?

🧠 Today’s question: What’s a great quote you saw recently? Or if you haven’t come across any gems lately, give us a quote you love!

Reply to this email to let us know what you think!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🇬🇧 MA in Snobbery: Scotland’s Edinburgh University issued guidance urging privileged students not to exhibit snobbery toward their working-class peers

🇺🇸 Silent Treatment: Ray J claimed that celebrities are paying alleged victims of Sean "Diddy" Combs to stay quiet through "catch and kill" schemes over fears that their connections to his reported "Freak-Off" sex parties might be exposed

🧬 Double Helix, Double Cross: A Russia-linked UK DNA-testing firm called Atlas Biomed disappeared, apparently ceasing operations without informing customers what has happened to their highly sensitive genetic data

👮 Skull-duggery: A Quebec provincial police officer was suspended for 15 days without pay after throwing a piece of a motorcycle accident victim's skull into a ravine in 2021

🎾 Fore-head Warning: The Tennis Channel has indefinitely removed analyst Jon Wertheim after he made disparaging comments about Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejčíková's forehead during off-air preparation

ROCA WRAP

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EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Thank you for reading another day of Roca – and a special thank you to those of you who grabbed a ManStick. Whether it’s for you or an at-risk-of-zit loved one, it’s the perfect way to make those bothersome blemishes disappear!

We appreciate your trust as we cover the waterfall of political developments. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

–Max and Max