A Match Made In A Fox News Basement?

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

After a week-ish off for the holidays, I gently dipped my toes back into the news cycle from the comfort of my couch Friday and was smacked in the face with the ice cold (albeit refreshing!) water that was the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on its Matt Gaetz inquiry and the newly emerging rift in the MAGAsphere taking place between the tech bros (Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, et al.) and those on the vehemently anti-immigrant and often racist side of the movement (Laura Loomer, Nick Fuentes).

But nothing in the news cycle was quite as jarring (and confusing!) to read as the Fox News press release announcing host Sean Hannity’s engagement to “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt. Unbeknownst to me, it has been rumored for some time that the two were in a relationship. According to the internet, that speculation first began during COVID when Earhardt hosted “Fox and Friends” from a remote studio, believed to be in the basement of Hannity’s Long Island home.

The love has, evidently, blossomed ever since. Because Hannity has been yelling on television basically my entire existence on this green earth, I was surprised to learn that he is not that much older than the “Fox and Friends” host.

It’s a Christmas miracle.

— Nicole Lafond

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• Josh Kovensky weighs in on the new rift emerging in the MAGA movement and questions whether these gestures and arguments over visa categories will morph into anything more concrete offline.
• We never really got an answer on how to read the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause. With Trump’s imminent return to the White House, maybe we never will. John Light expands on that below.
• Emine Yücel provides an update on the state of the speakership election set to take place on the opening day of Congress next week, Jan. 3. A not insignificant number of House Republicans are already making sounds about options besides House Speaker Mike Johnson.

When Does Twitter Become Real Life?

It’s a question that goes to the heart of the crackup between tech oligarchs and MAGA nativists. As I wrote on Thursday, the blowup started on X and continued on X as Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other Trump-aligned tech business figures argued that the U.S. needs to make it easier to hire foreign software engineers because America is failing to produce enough of the specialists that they need.

The posting war has already spawned a raft of coverage across the media, from yours truly at TPM to articles in legacy outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Part of this is that it’s the holidays and having a conflict unfold before you on social media is easy to cover. But it’s also the fact that the fight goes to a key fracture in the MAGA coalition between tech oligarchs who regard the Biden administration as having subverted their business interests and see the Trump administration as a means to reverse that, and the nativists who have attached themselves to Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric from the earliest days of his first presidential run.

It’s also visibly annoyed Musk and some of the others.

As of this writing, Elon Musk appears to have banned Laura Loomer, MAGA’s digital Leni Riefenstahl equivalent who helped turn the nativist faction’s attention on Silicon Valley billionaires. Musk himself responded positively (though trollishly) to a post from an account called “Autism Capital” suggesting that American workers suffer from intellectual impairment.

The problem is whether these gestures and arguments over visa categories will morph into anything more concrete: battles over personnel or government action, or anything that would meaningfully change the course of the incoming Trump administration. The campaign itself demonstrated social media’s ability to reach into reality in September after Vice President-elect JD Vance used X to scapegoat Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio; an act applauded at the time by both the nativist and Silicon Valley factions.

But thinking of this simply in policy questions fails to capture what they’re really fighting about: it’s over who has custody of the new administration, tech billionaires or the nativist snake pit? One has money; the other has been with Trump for a long time.

In other factional fights, a leader might step in to resolve it or signal the dominance of one side. So far, Trump is nowhere to be seen.

— Josh Kovensky

The Disqualification Clause And The Dustbin Of History

The Hill published a bomb of an op-ed this week, in which a lawyer and a lawyer-turned-investment banker called on Congress to refuse to certify Trump’s victory, citing the same sentences in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that were at the center of the push to disqualify the former and future president from states’ ballots last year. It’s a pitch that many Democrats in Congress had roundly rejected before the election, and that Republicans in Congress wouldn’t go along with. It almost certainly won’t happen. What’s more, his popular vote-plus-Electoral College victory makes the whole conversation feel somewhat beside the point.

But an unanswered question hovers over this (now admittedly largely academic) debate about the 14th Amendment and how it applies to Trump: is a candidate for president covered by Section 3? The amendment states that you are ineligible for certain offices if you engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after having “previously taken an oath.” It mentions some positions it is meant to cover — members of Congress, electors — then has a kind of catchall: “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.” It also lists several types of office for which a candidate might have previously taken an oath, again with a kind of catchall: “as an officer of the United States.” Do these catchalls include the president? You might think so. But this was a key issue in 2023 and early 2024, as cases seeking Trump’s disqualification were making their way through the courts, and one that remained unresolved. 

In Trump v. Anderson, the disqualification clause case that reached the Supreme Court, the Colorado trial court judge found that Trump, in fact, was not an “officer of the United States,” though he did, she found, engage in insurrection. After Colorado’s high court then went a step further and removed Trump from the ballot, the Supreme Court justices sidestepped the question, with a majority instead finding that Congress would need to act to disqualify a candidate for federal office, and that it was not Colorado’s place to do so. 

So, the question lingers. If those who drafted the 14th Amendment intended for it to cover the president, why not say so alongside other federal offices that were explicitly named?

In the wake of the Civil War, as southern states rejoined the union, it was imaginable that someone who had once attacked the institutions of the U.S. would run for Congress. Congress even passed a general amnesty that removed the disqualification. But could such a person run for and win the presidency? That, a number of researchers and scholars have argued, and an analysis of the Senate debate at the time suggests, would have been an outcome the ratifiers intended to oppose. Perhaps it just seemed too far-fetched for them to explicitly address. 

Yet here we are.

— John Light

Words Of Wisdom

“Before the last couple of weeks, I was in his corner, but now we should consider what’s the best path forward. We do need to consider whether — if we’re going to advance Mr. Trump’s agenda — whether the current leadership is what we need.”

That’s House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) during a Fox Business interview this week, saying that Republicans need to take a hard look at whether Mike Johnson (R-LA) is the right person for the gig.

Since Republicans are expected to have a very slim 219-215 majority on the day of the speakership election, Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote if he wants to be elected speaker. Things are not looking particularly great for him.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) already vowed to vote for someone other than Johnson on Jan. 3. Meanwhile, several other Republicans have indicated in recent days that they are undecided on who they might be supporting. Others have been tightlipped amid last week’s continuing resolution fiasco.

Former Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) showed strong indications that he will follow along with the new chair, saying in a recent interview he won’t commit to voting for Johnson in the upcoming speaker election.

“Mike has done an admirable job under tough conditions but I’m gonna keep my options open,” Perry told Fox Business. 

“We’ve just got to make sure that we get the best person for the job under the circumstances,” he added. “And I’ll tell you the one that might be able to make the difference is, quite honestly, President Trump. Whoever the president backs is likely to be the speaker, regardless.”

— Emine Yücel