Court Circular

Thursday

Neal Pollack

Meet Katie Miller, MAGA’s Oprah

When Trump administration figures want to do a warm, humanizing interview these days, they can’t depend on the mainstream media. It’s often adversarial or downright hostile. Chatty bro podcasters such as Joe Rogan give them room to talk, but also challenge them on policy positions. Their best bet is The Katie Miller Podcast, a show hosted by Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief policy advisor. She’s quickly emerged as the Barbara Walters, or Oprah Winfrey, of the new American conservatism.

Tuesday

Neal Pollack

Howard’s beginning: the luck of Lutnick

With Elon Musk no longer sleeping in a cot in Washington, only one member of the White House inner circle comes close to matching Donald Trump’s net worth: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Commerce is usually a mid-tier cabinet post; even fervent political observers would be hard-pressed to name previous officeholders. But Lutnick has been one of Trump’s most impactful advisors in this second term. His ideas about tariffs have greatly affected the world’s economy, and have influenced Trump’s mercurial tariff pronouncements. Plus, he’s worth about $3 billion himself. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, himself a billionaire, is only worth about half as much. Lutnick made his name as CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a major New York financial services company.

Howard Lutnick

Tuesday

Neal Pollack

Elon Musk is in exile

Elon Musk is in exile. He’s forgotten by friends, embattled by enemies. He now quietly (for him) goes about his business, fighting non-government battles after those strange few months he spent standing behind the President’s desk with his toddler son X, who punched Musk in the face while he was seemingly running the country. Musk’s fate is a case study in what happens when Donald Trump rolls up the red carpet. Trump operated his first term as President more like a season of The Apprentice and less like an administration. It was a revolving door of exile. Reality-show worthy characters like Omarosa Manigault Newman and Anthony Scaramucci came and went with drama that fell just short of an episode-ending boardroom ceremony.

Musk

Friday

Kara Kennedy

Has King Trump lost his jester?

The most important man in the palace of King Donald Trump looks set to leave the court. According to several media outlets, the President has told both his inner circle and the wider cabinet that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his role in dismantling major parts of the federal government. There were obvious difficulties and time constraints from the outset when Musk started running the new Department for Government Efficiency. A person can only serve as a “special government employee” for a period of 130 days each year – time that is dwindling fast, as we approach the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term. There are also strict rules around conflicts of interests, of which Musk risks having many given all his business operations.

jester