Inauguration Interviews: Trump's Talent, Democratic Rebrand & more with House Whip Emmer, Reps Swalwell & Khanna

**Jason Calacanis** (0:04)
All right, everybody, welcome to the All-In Inauguration special. We are here in town to celebrate and or commiserate the second term of Donald Trump, depending on where you sit on the political spectrum. And we are extremely lucky to have a partner in Spotify who has given us a box. Yes, we're in a glass box on the street. They really splurged and got a trailer. It's absolutely fantastic. But we thank them for their hosting us. It's very cool. With me today, of course, my co-host, Chamath Palihapitiya and David Friedberg, who is a little under the weather, because let's be honest, Friedberg, you've been out there. You and Lex took on the town last night.

**David Friedberg** (0:45)
I had a good time with Lex Friedman last night.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:47)
Let's leave it at that.

**David Friedberg** (0:47)
Let's leave it at that.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:48)
Yeah, that sounds great.

**David Friedberg** (0:49)
It's been a couple of nights in a row. I'm pretty beat.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:51)
Chamath, you have a very busy social schedule and you've been just bouncing around town with the Who's Who and taking credit for Donald Trump's victory. How's the Victory Lab going here? Because you played such a key role here by coming out and being even more unlikable in our hometown of the Bay Area and supporting Trump.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:10)
I'm a small bit player.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:12)
A bit player. But as you said to me in the car over here, you were the fulcrum that started the boulder, that created the wind.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:19)
I said none of that. But I think more changes are coming, Jason. Maybe to our home state of California. Let's see.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:25)
Let's see. Let's see.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:27)
Phase two.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:28)
We're extremely honored to have Tom Emmer here. He is the US representative from the amazing state of Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan, Prince, and the Coen brothers.

**Tom Emmer** (1:38)
And Tim Walz.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:39)
And Tim Walz.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:40)
Don't be so...

**Jason Calacanis** (1:41)
Pass who is coming in hot already. Well, let's start there.
Tom, let's start there. How much of a disaster was the Democratic Party? And when you watched what happened with Biden in all seriousness, do you think there was a cover-up in terms of his mental acuity? And what do you think of Kamala's job out there not doing podcasts and essentially being anointed and not having a primary? The Democratic Party seems lost.

**Tom Emmer** (2:11)
Crooked.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:12)
And crooked. Okay, yeah.

**Tom Emmer** (2:13)
I mean, the leadership. I got good friends who are Democrats, so I'm not gonna disparage them. But first, Jason, all of you, thank you.
It's nice to be on All-In, everybody's heard about it. Everybody wants to be here, so it's just nice.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:27)
And you promised you'd listen to it after this. That's right.

**Tom Emmer** (2:30)
Actually, I listened last week. Sadly, it was about the fires.
But the way they did this was, if you think about it, ballot access is a big thing. You have to run for months and you have to get delegates and you have to make your case state by state and you have to meet certain requirements to actually end up on the ballot. How the Democrats are able to remove Joe Biden, literally in a coup, a back room coup, and install Kamala Harris in a matter of hours or days and avoid any convention like real democracy taking place where people are debating their candidates and where they're at. And then to your other question, that's wrong. But your other question was, Joe Biden, was there a cover up? A cover up is when you don't see it, when you don't know about it, when you're totally unaware. This wasn't a cover up. This was a conspiracy. Everybody in this town for four years watched when he came in. He was already diminished and watch him continue to diminish over the course of his term. It was the mainstream media that refused to actually comment on it. And then it was amazing overnight when he has the debate last June. It's like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. Look at this. And suddenly it was like they'd never seen it before. This was a conspiracy by a left wing media that they're littered with people who have a partisan view and they write about it. They create stories about it and they don't tell you the whole story.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (4:18)
Let's go down this, pull this thread a little bit more because you said the Democrats themselves are good people, some of them, many of them, you know, but then the leadership you said was corrupt. So just can you help us understand who is the leadership? And then how does the corruption play out? What does the corruption look like?