Minister of Test

Anderson Cooper: “it has been a rough week for the world's wealthiest man, elon musk, poured nearly half a billion dollars into boosting republican candidates this election, which had they won, would have probably bought him a lot of access and continued to influence. his company spacex is based in texas, and musk spent at least $215 million trying to defeat texas democratic senate candidate james talarico. after senator-elect talarico beat his republican opponent by 12 percentage points, he invoked musk and his political expenditures in his victory speech.” James Talarico: “we must get big money out of our politics so no billionaire or trillionaire can buy our elections.” Anderson Cooper: “the atlantic magazine's charlie warzell's latest piece is titled $500 million bought elon nothing. musk's unprecedented spending may even have hurt republicans, and charlie joins me now. so does musk have anything to show for that massive $500 million in campaign spending?” Charlie Warzell: “not a heck of a lot. six of his senate candidates lost, just three of the 37 republicans that musk backed for the house of representatives, one only three of 37 there. it's a lot of money for a normal person to throw at a problem and not see any results, but for elon musk, it's really not that much money to begin with. it's a very small percentage of his net worth. so he didn't win a lot, but he also kind of didn't lose a lot.” Anderson Cooper: “and i mean, can you put in perspective how much of his wealth was actually injected into the texas senate race between talarico and ken paxton?” Charlie Warzell: “it is the equivalent of somebody who is worth a million dollars donating $500 that elon musk's net worth is close to a trillion dollars. so yeah, when you put it into perspective, it's not much. if you look at the forbes net worth tracker for billionaires, elon musk loses and gains tens of billions of dollars a day just in the stock market.” Anderson Cooper: “on wednesday, musk posted on his social media platform, quote, data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now, obviously to referencing to, you know, the controversy over data centers on the ground in places like texas and elsewhere. do you think the bigger issue from us going forward is the increased level of scrutiny he's going to be facing or might be facing with businesses based in texas and with ai data centers in texas?” Charlie Warzell: “i think it's really everything. i mean, elon musk moved his companies to texas. he himself moved to texas. so there's there's that. i think a real issue he has also is congress and oversight and accountability, accountability for his own companies and, you know, the potential deals that he did or did not strike with the government while he was helping to run the department of government efficiency, doge, and also his work at doge and whether or not some of that was legal or not and how he conducted that. i mean, he's he's potentially opening himself up in a democrat controlled congress to to a lot of scrutiny. and i think it's really going to come from from all sides here. there's also, obviously, the whole starlink and his ability to influence the war in ukraine, which is remarkable for any, you know, american tech oligarch to have that power. i think one thing to remember about elon musk always, even if you if you don't like elon musk, this was probably a bit of a sweet night for you or for people who want to see his power checked. but i do think it's really important because of all the things that he stands to gain and lose that his money couldn't buy these races. but i also think we have to remember that elon musk is very, very central to the world. and starlink, as you brought up, is a very good example of that. his company is his net worth. like a way i think about it is it's this it's this chaos agent, right? we had never seen money like this and influence like this. and he can roll his companies into other companies and and use that to ipo at these great rates. so i think that elon musk is still a very central figure to our politics, our culture, to the stock market, regardless of whether or not he won or lost on tuesday.” A person: “yeah, it doesn't seem like he's going anywhere. this guy had political instincts one time, ok? so in 2024, he's like, i'm actually going to get, you know, i'm kind of democratic coded. i'm an electric car guy. i'm going to get on board with trump. we're going to do this. we're going to get in there. and then he worked for trump for a tiny bit of time, hated it, right? breaks with trump, right? and then comes back to trump for some reason. and then you had this, every single move since then has sort of been wrong. and the thing about this guy is he like he did this one thing which was back trump one time. and since that, i think that we're that we're seeing that this guy sort of doing what he wants to do with his money. it's not that helpful to the republican party because he doesn't really know what he's doing with it. we saw this in the wisconsin state supreme court race in 2025, where he was spending hundreds of millions of dollars and it became the giant checks thing and it became actively part of the democratic campaign where it's like you want him to buy your vote. you want this idiot to try and buy your vote? absolutely not.” A person: “one of the things also did a good job of making him the villain. because he made it so easy with doge coming in. i mean, he made it very easy to put him in ads to, you know, make him the face of some of the harshest trump policies, especially when it came to purging the government.” A person: “the hats and chainsaw also might have helped in terms of branding.” A person: “exactly.” A person: “but the other thing is what's different from then, i would say, is the sheer volume of government contracts he has in the last couple of weeks. people notice the the throttling of ukraine's information on in the battlefield and him being out there talking about his involvement or not involvement. he's very, very public. the bbc news had put out this tweet talking about elon musk and putin and satellite talks with spacex. and then senator chris coons retweeted and he said, “one more thing to add to the list of questions for musk when i subpoena him.”” A person: “he is vulnerable to this, no?” A person: “just the contracts alone or? i mean, i think certainly, i mean, if you go back just a few weeks, which now seems like months ago, but just a few weeks ago, we were talking about the fact that a private citizen potentially turned off a capability for an ally as they're conducting a war that impacted their national security. and there absolutely needs to be an investigation into, again, how a trillionaire was able to do that when the whole fight around anthropic that pete hegseth launched with dario amadei was, in fact, we don't want you to be able to say how our capabilities, how we use your capabilities. so i think when it comes to investigations on elon musk, i think this is one of a long list of things that democrats, and frankly, i think there might be some republicans that are interested in understanding how close he is with the trump administration and his role and contracts with the government. so he fundamentally has had so much freedom, so much so that he was brought in to tinker and work, right, and fire people.” Anderson Cooper: “so is he more vulnerable now, even after spending half a billion dollars to try and prevent this outcome?” A person: “he is clearly more vulnerable now because you've got people who see him as the enemy. and i think there is a fine line democrats have to walk and should walk. i think it's totally appropriate to have oversight and do investigations and find out in good faith answers to questions. but you also have part of the base, and i imagine there's going to be a lot of the dsa candidates who are going to embrace some of this, just throw them in jail and just target this guy, which is not anything more than political retribution. it's obviously wrong and probably illegal as well to target him in that way. do it in good faith.” A person: “like an ilhan omar way?” A person: “or what do you mean?” A person: “well, ilhan omar is being investigated for actually committing some sort of immigration fraud. and i think that's legitimate.” A person: “but i'm saying, so you're saying if someone investigates him, it'll be bad faith?” A person: “no, i'm saying you should do good faith investigations. but if you're coming at it with the intent of sheerly demonizing this guy because you don't like him, because he didn't spend with your side, then that's obviously wrong.” A person: “and you would call that out too.” A person: “i mean, we would all call that out, it should. and i'm just saying the language that they're using specific to elon musk and targeting him is wrong in some instances. it does not negate the fact that there should be good faith investigations or oversight, not just with him, but everyone. that's what government is supposed to provide, some good faith oversight.” A person: “and it suggests republicans might also play into that.” A person: “they do that too.” A person: “i'm saying we all gotta do it consistently across the board. be good faith.”

Erin Burnett: “texas republicans are making a last-ditch effort to limit the power of the governorship, and of course they're trying to do it really fast because they want to do it before the democrat, gina hinojosa, is sworn in. she will be the first democrat to win governor there in 36 years before she and a democratic state house is sworn into office. so hinojosa responding with this message to republicans.” Gina Hinojosa: “the people of texas have spoken, and i think it's important that as elected leaders we respect what the people of texas have said. they want change.” Erin Burnett: “okay, that comes after democrats scored the seismic political victory in texas, winning major races up and down the ballot, three-decade losing streak over. harry enten out front with me at the magic wall. harry, i was in texas that night when the results started, they couldn't even process it. it was kind of like a little cheer, and then like a holy, and then there literally were people screaming that and dancing around, and that was when tallarico was called. then hinojosa was called right after, and then it didn't even sink in that, oh my, my, you know what, it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and it's every statewide race, and it's the state house, and it's, oh my gosh.” Harry Enten: “mind blown. i mean, everyone was coming in before the election, oh, we don't believe the polling, you know, every few cycles were promised a blue texas, you know, finally coming true. well, this time it came true up and down the ballot. you know, there was all this attention to the senate race, and look at that, james tallarico, an absolute blah, winning by 12 points, beating every poll expectation, but it wasn't just the senate race, right? it was the gov race, and hinojosa, look at that, seven point margin, blah, but it wasn't just the gov race. why don't we go to the ag race, the attorney general race? look at this, another, what is that, seven point margin, six and a half point margin. it wasn't just the ag race. why don't we go down? why don't we look at the lieutenant governor's race? vicki goodwin, who, someone on their staff, they've been emailing me for months. i was like, who the heck is this? well, i'll tell you who it is. it's the next lieutenant governor of the great state of texas, a state that had not elected a democrat statewide since bob bullock in 1994, and now up and down the ballot, you are seeing a blue texas.” Erin Burnett: “i mean, so then, you know what happened after? they started to realize it. okay, this was around one o'clock in the morning. i'm still up. i don't, you know, kind of maybe took a little hour long nap at some point, and the horns started beeping. it was like we were somewhere else on the planet, and there was a celebration going on overnight, and everyone's coming out in their horns, and they were beeping their horn. that was austin, texas, obviously democratic. they were happy with how things went, but it was up and down the ballot. this is, again, before they realized that it was not just a few big races.” Harry Enten: “it wasn't just a few big races. how about this? we don't even have these in the wall, so we pop it out here. ag commissioner, land commissioner, railroad commissioner, state comptroller, state house, as you mentioned, up and down the ballot, texas, the dream for generations for democrats. it came true. lucy did not take the football away this time from charlie brown.” Erin Burnett: “okay, so railroad commissioner. it may sound esoteric if you don't live in texas, but it's not for anyone in this country because railroad commissioner controls oil and gas in texas, which is at the heart of america's energy industry, and we spoke to the democrat who won the railroad commissioner job. we're going to hear more from him in just a moment, and he's important because he is the first democrat to win railroad commissioner in 36 years, and he got national attention after bo french. does anyone remember bo french? bo french is the man who drew widespread condemnation from his own party, from people like karl rove, his own state, who at that point started to say, i'm not going to vote for the republicans in my state for a racist social media set of posts decrying south asian students. so they went to university of texas football game. someone took a picture. there were a lot of kids whose skin was brown, and bo french tweets it and says, i heard ut graduation this year looked like this. i didn't believe it. the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined. he gets slammed. he doubles down, calling the students foreigners. so tell me something i don't know about the railroad commissioner race.” Harry Enten: “i'll tell you something you don't know about the railroad commissioner race. how about this? look at the university of texas main campus precinct. bo french not very well liked here. these were the kids in the picture. these were the kids in the picture. yeah. 95% to 4%. it turns out that words have consequences. bo french got absolutely annihilated in the university of texas main campus precinct. rosenthal swept them there, swept them statewide.” Erin Burnett: “i mean, that is incredible.” Harry Enten: “91-point margin. i think it's pretty clear.” Erin Burnett: “yeah. yes, it is. and one of texas's most famous republican political operas, karl rove, i just mentioned him, he blames the extent of the losses in texas on one guy. it's not actually bo french. it's ken paxton. here he is.” Ken Paxton: “we lost every statewide office. we lost the texas house. we kept the texas senate. you know, people turned out in traditionally republican counties like collin county in north of dallas, suburban county, and voted straight democrat. and it was because our ticket was led by a guy who was plagued by scandals and surrounded by controversy.” Erin Burnett: “all right. everyone is back with me now. so it started obviously that bo french post was there, but ken paxton already existed. trump had already gotten behind him instead of john cornyn. it was texas as what it is. so big in the american mind, something so deep in terms of this wave. if ken paxton wasn't on the ballot, would it have looked like this?” A person: “i don't think it would have looked exactly like this, but again, ken paxton is a product of donald trump. and i traded notes on tuesday before the polls closed with a longtime texas political gop operative. and i said, you know, the same thing we always say on election day, what are you hearing? what are you thinking? and he responded, burn it all down. and this was, this was against trump, against paxton, against all of it. and it all stems from the same thing. so we can talk about pete hegseth. we can talk about ken paxton. we can talk about anybody. the two words that matter are donald trump.” A person: “i agree with ken paxton. it was a terrible choice. i still think these two win and the outcome looks like this in texas because of a couple of things. i was just in houston this morning and i was in houston twice before in san antonio and i was talking to voters and the coalition that they were able to build latino voters, only about 53% of latino voters, latino men voted for gina hinojosa and james talarico. but that was about a 20 point swing. black voters. when i was in houston or san antonio, a couple of weeks before the election, a black woman told me she had never voted. she only, the last time she voted was 2008. so you're talking about one of the most reliable democratic base. and i said, well, how many more of you out there? like, you know, like there, and she said, there's a lot of us, which is why you see this increase in black voter turnout, public schools. so then you get moms who are outraged that their kids are only going to school four times. if you remember the redistricting fight before the kalei decision started in texas, they tried to strip away aggravated latino voters, aggregated black voters. how dare you come in and overreach. and i'll say that was one of my final examples that i actually forgot about this before the election. i was with a young woman before the election and i was with her today. and she told me the story of her miscarriage today, but she didn't talk about it before because now they think that the abortion ban that is in texas might go away and people forget about that. but when you think about just general reproductive care and you have to leave and doctors, you get that even without ken paxton, people were pissed. you know, it is, it is incredible.” Erin Burnett: “and i will say, now you look at it and you say, well, gosh, james tallarico won it on the early vote. the tallarico campaign had their suspicions early in the day. they were telling me, we think you can maybe call it at nine o'clock, nine o'clock. now that would be 10 o'clock eastern, but even so an unprecedented situation. and it really, they were not far off. so they, they were pretty close. texas railroad commissioner. when we spoke to the commissioner elect, mr. rosenthal, the one who won 95% vote at the university of texas, he talked about bo french and the racist post, and here's what he said about it.” Rosenthal: “and my opponent was pretty bad and, and actually an albatross for the rest of the republican slate. so anybody who refused to disavow his really blatant racism, that just became a kind of a litmus test. so the republicans ended up putting forward a slate of really terrible candidates. i mean, ken paxton, definitely the most corrupt politician in texas and impeached by his own party, used his office to enrich himself and definitely violated the law as far as i can tell. and then you have bo french who said, move over ken paxton, hold my beer because i'm going to add a blatant racism on top of all that kind of corruption stuff.” Erin Burnett: “okay. there was a lot in there. i liked, i liked the understatement. my opponent was pretty bad. but, but you know, this isn't pat hold my beer, ken paxton. hold my beer.” A person: “look, i do think that ken paxton set the tone though, right? i mean, you know, you'll know a tree by its fruit and, and this was just rotten fruit, but donald trump picked him, right? cornyn could have won that seat, i believe, because people will just rally around. but paxton symbolized that corruption and cruelty, chaos and rising costs that sunk republicans. and then bo french was sort of the, you know, doubled down on that. and so republicans, they overreached, they got the backlash. it's just, we haven't seen anything like this after so many years of people talking about texas and republicans acting like, you know, the demographic changes in the state don't matter at all. and we should say also it was also laredo flipped. you know, a lot of those folks who, you know, hispanic voters who've been in our country for centuries, who voted for donald trump last time, cause they were angry about the border this time said, well, wait, they're not going after the criminals and the worst of us. they're going after my neighbors. and what do you hear from them from republicans today in texas? now they've had a day. they're shell shocked because so many people lost and so many republican house members lost as well. but you know, you still are dealing with maga world and everything that sort of goes around that. and the finger pointing is massive. so i'd predict to you that come thanksgiving mar-a-lago the gop is jonestown. it's going to be a much smaller place.” Erin Burnett: “all right. i appreciate all of you very much. and thank you.”