We are getting a government shutdown for Christmas! Or Hanukkah!

Here’s what happened and what might come next.

On Thursday night, a vote on a continuing resolution was taken, which some viewed as 1) a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump 2) raising fears of a shutdown.

The first claim is almost certainly incorrect, and the second is possibly wrong.

Last minute gift idea! Get yourself a subscription.

The root of the conflict lies in the Republican House conference’s inability to unite behind ANY Continuing Resolution to fund the government. There are a handful of Reps that simply don’t vote for them. Ever. For anyone.

This is not a problem for the Democrats who do not have fiscal hawks in their ranks. It’s just a part of the game.

But Speaker Mike Johnson needs to pass a CR. So he has no choice but to negotiate with Democrats. But they know that he knows that they know he needed their support. Sensing leverage, Democrats demanded extensive concessions, transforming a slim resolution into a sprawling 1,500-page bill resembling an omnibus. Republican leaders, frustrated by being excluded from these negotiations, learned details of the bill from lobbyists who had inside knowledge.

The situation intensified when media narratives blamed Trump and Elon Musk for killing the bill. In reality, internal GOP dissension doomed the Quasibus CR as soon as the text hit the internet. It would have died when it went to a vote.

Did Trump and Musk accelerate its collapse and prevent a vote? Sure. But it woke up dead. It was never happening.

Trump’s Truth Social missives did set a new course, advocating for a clean continuing resolution with disaster relief and other GOP priorities while proposing a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling—a strategic move to avoid draining political capital on recurring debt ceiling battles. Specifically the Trump tax cuts which are a top priority in 2025.

House conservatives, especially fiscal hawks like Ralph Norman, Chip Roy, and Thomas Massie oppose eliminating the debt ceiling (a key Republican cudgel when Dems run things) unless there are other massive spending cuts to go along with them. Their resistance in the Rules Committee prevented the bill from advancing traditionally, forcing a long-shot vote requiring a two-thirds majority on Thursday night, which was never realistic.

GOP leadership permitted the vote anyway to gauge opposition and explore potential concessions.

To put simpler, the bill that failed last night was always meant to fail. The question was by how much and who would vote no. One GOP House staffer expressed to me that more rock ribbed conservatives that talk a big game about government spending voted to suspend the debt ceiling than he would have guessed.

Looking ahead, the bill will likely shrink more, possibly making the debt ceiling provision more palatable. If Johnson can flip one of the three hardliners on the Rules Committee, a party-line vote might succeed. Alternatively, a few Democrats might cross over, given the approaching holidays and the general desire to avoid a government shutdown.

However, if the government does shut down, the practical impact could be limited since most federal employees would still receive holiday paychecks. Political fallout, however, would be inevitable, with intensified pressure to strike a deal after the new year.

Despite the chaos, some GOP insiders view the vote as more promising than expected. Though 33 Republicans voted against the resolution, party leaders seem cautiously optimistic. If Trump and key Senate allies like J.D. Vance begin actively whipping votes, a slimmed-down resolution could pass. The next steps remain uncertain, hinging on whether enough conservatives can be persuaded to compromise in the days ahead.

Or we shut down and reload for the new year as Trump 2 begins as Trump 1 ended: messy.

Chapters & Timecodes

* [00:00:00] Introduction and Upcoming Topics

* [00:01:59] U.S. Government Shutdown and Congressional Infighting

* [00:12:02] Trudeau’s Political Crisis in Canada

* [00:49:19] Musa Al-Gharbi on U.S. Electoral Trends

I don’t think Kamala Harris will ever be president.

I don’t think she has a connection with Americans beyond a core Democratic base who can be easily woo’d by another shiny object. I think she would do best in the one-party state she came from and run for governor of California where she might even pass for the centrist she positioned herself as nationally.

But I may well be wrong. If I am Bill Scher will have told me otherwise.

He believes she enters our four-year cycle to select the next president as the most well positioned Vice President loser in recent American history.

Damning with faint praise? Maybe.

We discuss 2028 and everything we got wrong about the election in this chat!

Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction and Overview

00:03:06 - Bill Scher on 2024 Election Insights

00:15:01 - Trump’s Continued Popularity

00:40:02 - Trump’s Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollsters

00:45:02 - House GOP Budget Standoff

00:46:47 - AOC’s Leadership Challenge in Congress

00:50:09 Handicapping 2028 Contenders

I’m diving deeper into DeButts.

Yes friends, there’s been a crack in the DeButts case.

To recap, on December 3rd, Anna Navarro tweeted that Hunter DeButts, the brother-in-law of Woodrow Wilson, was pardoned. This is not true. There is no historical record of a Hunter DeButts connected to Woodrow Wilson, and Wilson certainly did not pardon him. Navarro later admitted this was incorrect, blaming a ChatGPT search result.

However, nobody could recreate the exact hallucination she posted, and the citation icons in her screenshot resembled an outdated ChatGPT interface.

Curious, I discussed this with Andrew Mayne, my co-host on The Attention Mechanism, a podcast about AI. I also asked listeners to try replicating Navarro’s prompt in ChatGPT. Shortly after, I received an email from a listener named Bret, who provided screenshots showing that while he got the same initial answers Navarro referenced—Bill Clinton pardoning Roger Clinton and Donald Trump pardoning Charles Kushner—Hunter DeButts was nowhere to be found.

Brett’s search led to a site called living.alot.com, which featured a listicle titled “Five Presidents and Governors Who Have Pardoned Family Members.” Interestingly, this article was last edited on the same day Navarro tweeted. My next move was to contact the article’s supposed author, Ron Winkler. However, the author photo appeared unmistakably AI-generated, suggesting the entire article was likely created by a generative AI model.

Investigating further, I found that living.alot.com is owned by Inuvo.com, an ad-tech company specializing in AI-driven marketing solutions. This suggested that the hallucination might not have come from ChatGPT itself but from living.alot.com, an AI-generated listicle site, possibly due to SEO optimization targeting AI-driven search engines. If ChatGPT search pulled from this listicle, it would explain the strange result Navarro saw.

Speculating further, it seems plausible that Inuvo.com, focused on generating ad revenue, might have tweaked its content after seeing traffic driven by the controversy to avoid being de-ranked or blacklisted by search algorithms. Bret’s recreation of almost the exact same search result strengthens this theory.

If anyone at OpenAI working on ChatGPT Search is reading, I recommend a hard look at de-ranking or blacklisting the alot.com suite of sites. The credibility of search-powered AI depends on filtering out such low-quality content.

In the end, the mystery of Hunter DeButts appears to be a hallucination generated by an ad-tech company leveraging AI-driven SEO tactics.

Navarro’s strange ChatGPT result wasn’t directly ChatGPT’s fault—it was fed a falsehood generated by a content-churning AI.

And with that, the Hunter DeButts saga is solved.

All’s well that ends well.

Chapters & Time Codes

* (00:00:00) Introduction: Media, Politics & New Ventures

* (00:01:20) Unmasking the Hunter DeButts Hoax

* (00:15:01) Political Shifts: Murkowski and Ocasio-Cortez

* (00:17:27) Government Shutdown Negotiations

* (00:20:26) Chris Cillizza

This episode includes a serious, hour-long discussion with Ryan McBeth on Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Israel and everything in between.

AND

We dive deep into this tweet…

Of course, on December 24, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson issued the controversial pardon for his brother-in-law, Hunter DeButts, convicted of arms smuggling during World War I.

DeButts, married to Wilson’s sister-in-law, Alice, was sentenced to 15 years after British intelligence exposed his fraudulent shipping scheme. Though furious, Wilson faced mounting political pressure amid war preparations. The White House cited new evidence suggesting DeButts was manipulated by foreign spies, and critics accused Wilson of nepotism, while supporters framed the pardon as holiday clemency. After his release, DeButts vanished from public life, reportedly living quietly in Cuba until his death in 1933.

Except. Wait a minute. What you just read, isn’t true.

I fabricated it by directing ChatGPT using Model 4o with the Mac app to make up a fictional reason why Hunter DeButts received a pardon from Woodrow Wilson.

Because Hunter DeButts never received a pardon from Woodrow Wilson.

Hunter DeButts did not marry Wilson’s sister.

Nor did he receive a pardon.

There are other Hunter DeButts involved with Wilson or that time in history.

And yet, Anna Navarro tweeted about it. Upon a simple Google search Navarro wound up getting serially dunked on as people realized very quickly something wasn’t accurate.

And so Anna Navarro posted the following explanation:

She blamed ChatGPT’s hallucinations.

Oh, well. We’ve all been there.

But have we?

While conservatives dunked on Navarro even further for believing ChatGPT, I am here to tell you, as a reporter through and through, I don’t know if ChatGPT hallucinated this. And really, I am following the research of my friend, Andrew Mayne, who first sent this to me and said, he could not replicate the Hunter DeButts answer on any ChatGPT model. Not 4o, not any model that is available, and specifically was available to Navarro on December 2nd.

Now, here’s something that you guys might not know about large language models: they are fairly replicable. You can get similar answers based on similar questions. It’s not exact, but a hallucination is something that you should be able to recreate. It would be odd if you couldn’t.

And my friend Andrew should know. He worked at OpenAI. He was a science communicator. He made a lot of videos that demonstrated OpenAI products up to and including ChatGPT itself and is known as the first prompt engineer for that company. He spent a lot of time with these models.

And with that, I went down my own reporting rabbit hole. Because one of the other things is that the screen grab that Anna Navarro showed was a ChatGPT search that had web results.

See those little brackets with quotes in between them. Those would be annotations. Theoretically, you could click on them and they would bring you to a webpage that would show you where ChatGPT got this information.

What’s odd about it is that those are not the annotations that ChatGPT uses now. And they certainly were not used on December 2nd when Anna Navarro said that she did this search.

So where’d she get it? What version of ChatGPT is she using? And what large language model is going to be the origin story of dear sweet DeButts?

I had a theory.

Let’s say you’re not particularly tech-savvy, if you don’t know exactly what ChatGPT is or OpenAI is, then it is very easy, as ChatGPT has become more and more popular, to just go into the iOS app store and find a lot of — I’m going to call them copycats.

What they really are are other apps that are using the ChatGPT API, but they do a skin on top of it and they often charge you a subscription service.

Do not use them.

But I did because my theory was that Ana Navarro was using one of these apps, one of these apps that are not using similar if not exact user interface the official ChatGPT app is. Maybe they are using those old annotations?

All is revealed!

We get to the bottom of DeButts, on this episode of the Politics Politics Politics.

If I could change one thing about the Democratic Party it would be this:

Stop demanding blind loyalty to the One True Message.

Yes, coalition building is hard.

Yes, your most passionate members will be the loudest.

Yes, things could go wrong.

But the alternative is what you’ve had and that is what you are about to hear from the Harris-Walz campaign leadership in this episode. We invented a totally implausible and frankly laughable narrative and then were frustrated when progressives, the media and voters didn’t buy it.

They are to blame! Not the candidate. Not the message. Certainly not the brilliant team that put this in motion.

It would have been easy if everyone just blindly repeated that Kamala Harris is a bi-partisan deal maker who understands the best ideas come from beyond the beltway. Sure, it’s plain to see that she’s a Democratic stalwart from the most iconic liberal state in the union. But if you keep repeating the first one, the dumbs will believe it!

We discuss the Democratic obsession with messaging with ettingermentum.

Also, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico on the future of the Pro Choice movement.

It’s a warm, expansive Px3 for a winter weekend.

Chapters

2:26 Pod Save America Breakdown

1:00:00 Update: Musk, Hegseth

1:09:17 Future of Pro Choice Movement w/ Alice Ollstein

1:31:28 Ettingermentum

Hunter Biden brought all of this on himself.

Joe Biden has damaged his legacy.All of this can and should get worse for both of them.

Two Things I Don’t Want to Hear in Response to This Argument:

* TrumpDonald Trump is his own conversation. Not everything related to any Democratic politician needs to be held in contrast to him. It’s lazy at best and corrosive at worst.

* AddictionI don’t often play this card, but I am the son of an alcoholic and was raised by a problem gambler. Both went to 12-step programs for their issues. Addiction is a multi-faceted problem that deserves sophisticated empathy, but it is NOT an enchantment shielding you from the consequences of your actions. Quite the opposite: the 12-step program is designed to rebuild your sense of responsibility by repairing the damage you caused while afflicted.

The pardon not only reveals the 46th president as a craven cardboard cutout of a decent man, but it also expands the bounds of presidential pardons in a uniquely selfish direction under the sickening guise of loyalty to family.

But no one should be surprised if you’ve followed this story from the beginning. It is one unforced error after the next. One hapless mistake after another defended by unhinged self-indulgence.

Let’s walk the timeline that led us to the most recent crimes:

* Hunter Biden’s LaptopHunter leaves a laptop at a computer repair shop and forgets it. The shop owner realizes who owns it and turns it over to the FBI. After nothing is done and Joe Biden’s campaign makes statements the shop owner knows to be false, the laptop is leaked to the press.

* Joe Biden’s ResponseHis campaign denies fault, deflects blame, and hides behind Hunter’s addiction.

* 51 intelligence experts sign a letter calling it Russian disinformation.

* Biden repeats this during a debate.

* Twitter and Facebook are pressured to suppress links to coverage.

The laptop is later proven real.

* Tax InvestigationIn 2020, Hunter announces he is being investigated for tax fraud (ongoing since 2018).In 2023, a plea deal is reached. Hunter agrees to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enters a pretrial diversion program for a felony firearm offense (illegal possession of a gun while using drugs). The deal is expected to avoid jail time.

* IRS WhistleblowersTwo IRS whistleblowers testify before Congress, alleging misconduct and interference in the Hunter Biden investigation. They claim their efforts to pursue charges were stymied by higher-ups in the Justice Department.

* The Plea Deal CollapsesDuring a court hearing, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raises concerns about the plea deal's scope, particularly its immunity from future charges. Hunter pleads not guilty.

* Specifically, the deal reportedly included an agreement not to prosecute Hunter for any federal crimes going forward:"The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes encompassed."

* Hunter’s MemoirThe gun charge stems from Hunter’s own admissions in his memoir, Beautiful Things, where he describes active crack cocaine addiction during the period he purchased the firearm.

* Quote: “I used my superpower—finding crack anytime, anywhere.”

* Despite knowing his addiction, he lied on ATF Form 4473 when purchasing the gun.

Hunter sabotaged his own sweetheart plea deal by overreaching for immunity. He was the star witness for his own prosecution because he had to write a book about his new found sobriety.

But if Joe just commuted Hunter’s sentencing for these crimes, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal. Sure he’d be a hypocrite but what’s the real world damage? Hunter didn’t spend a month in prison? He avoided probation?

But that’s not what Joe did.

He did something far greater and no one should forget it.

Joe Biden granted his son a blanket pardon for any and all crimes committed from 2014 to 2024—an unprecedented eleven years.

This goes beyond Hunter’s tax crimes and gun charge, extending into the period when Hunter joined the board of Burisma—the focal point of influence-peddling allegations against the Biden family.

For context:

* Ford’s pardon of Nixon aimed to move the country past Watergate.

* Biden’s pardon serves his own family and raises fresh suspicions about influence peddling.

The White House’s defense: the incoming Justice Department might weaponize its authority to target the Biden family on exaggerated charges.

I would say for the forever power hunger Joe, that same logic fueled Trump’s resurgence from a pariah to a potential two-term president. Maybe they should have let it happen.

Instead, this pardon undermines Biden’s credibility, damages the perception of the presidency, and sets a dangerous precedent for self-serving executive overreach.

So let’s get to the “But Trump…” of it all. Trump issued two pardons that are similar to this one.

* Kodak BlackTrump pardoned the rapper after serving a year of a 46-month sentence for lying on a federal gun form.

* Charles KushnerConvicted and served time for a 2005 charge. Pardoned to clear his record.

Both of them spent time in prison for their offenses. Either got blanket pardons that extended beyond what Dick Nixon received.

TheTrump pardons may be gross but don’t set new precedent. They don’t personally benefit the president.

Biden’s pardon of Hunter does.

Hunter never paid a price.

Joe Biden’s legacy should.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For your travel Px3 is happy to present to you the only political conversation you will want to hear. Our old friends Tom LoBiano and Michael Cohen breaking down what we have learned in the weeks since the election.

BREAKING:

Former Congressman Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his nomination for U.S. Attorney General, citing concerns that his confirmation process was becoming a distraction for the Trump-Vance transition team. Gaetz, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, had faced intense scrutiny since his nomination due to allegations of sexual misconduct.

The allegations, which include claims that Gaetz paid women for sex and had inappropriate encounters with a minor, have been the subject of investigations by the Department of Justice and the House Ethics Committee. Reports suggest the House Ethics Committee may release a detailed report on these allegations, though its jurisdiction ended when Gaetz resigned from Congress shortly after his nomination.

Gaetz’s decision to step aside marks the end of a short-lived bid for the top legal post in the Trump administration. The move comes amid ongoing investigations and growing political pressure. It remains unclear what impact this development will have on Gaetz’s future in public life, as he continues to face scrutiny over the allegations.

The Trump-Vance team has yet to announce a replacement for the role.

We discuss this and other Florida political stories with Kimberly Leonard of Politico.

Your Guide to the Matt Gaetz Scandal

State of Play:

Ethics report is unreleased as of now, a hacker has apparently obtained parts of the Department of Justice investigation that did not end in prosecution of Gaetz

The iron law of political scandals, as written on the wall of a DC backroom (wash your hands after inspecting): if the public already knows about your dirty deeds and hasn’t totally written you off, keep chugging. But every new bit of information that comes out is an exponential risk.

The Gaetz story has been publicly aired for years. So it is really only a liability if new information comes to light.

So what is already known? That way we know if something new comes along.

Well, it comes down to two main questions.

* Are Sugar Babies w****s?

* Is it illegal to sleep with a minor who misrepresents their age? Can the sex be proven beyond a reasonable doubt?

Let’s start with question number one.

Are Sugar Babies w****s?

Which for the pure of heart will begin with a subquestion, what is a Sugar Baby?

A sugar baby is typically a younger individual who enters into a relationship with an older, affluent partner—known as a sugar daddy or sugar mommy—in exchange for financial support, gifts, or other benefits. These relationships are often characterized by mutual agreements where the sugar baby provides companionship, and in some cases, intimacy, while receiving monetary assistance, luxury items, or experiences in return.

These connections, like much of our modern world, is facilitated by the internet. For example…

Seeking.com is an online dating platform that connects successful and attractive individuals seeking mutually beneficial relationships.

And so it was on Seeking.com that Joel Greenberg, a then-friend of Gaetz who eventually pled guilty to sex trafficking and informed on the congressman, met women to form such relationships. Here is an ABC report of a back and forth between one of the women…

"I have a friend flying in and we are trying to make plans for tonight. What are your plans for later," Greenberg wrote to the woman, whose identity ABC News is withholding for privacy purposes. "And how much of an allowance will you be requiring :)" Greenberg added.

The woman responded by telling Greenberg she has "a friend who introduced me to the website that I could bring" and said she "usually" requires "$400 per meet."

Greenberg then sent the woman a photo of Gaetz taking a selfie with students at Pea Ridge Elementary from a 2017 visit, and wrote, "My friend," indicating that Gaetz would be the friend joining him.

"Oooh my friend thinks he's really cute!" the woman responded.

Greenberg then replied that Gaetz was "down here only for the day," adding "we work hard and play hard," before asking, "Have you ever tried molly," referring to the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy.

As Greenberg was discussing payment for the get-together, the woman asked if Gaetz used the same website Greenberg had used to meet her. Greenberg replied, in part, "He knows the deal :)," referring to the Florida congressman. The former tax collector then said he would book a "suite Downtown" for the gathering.

Sugar Baby websites are built on the idea that wealthy people connect with attractive people. The implication of money or expensive gifts being exchanged is inherent to the concept. But… are the women legally w****s? Specifically, women who are charging money for the act of sex?

This is a very important question. Flying a friend you eventually have sex with across state lines on your dime is a nice thing to do. Flying a w***e across state lines to pay for intercourse is sex trafficking.

We do not have an answer for this. Although Greenberg plead guilty to sex trafficking so he seemingly admitted it.

In general it is a moral and legal question that I am sure many rich men, including possibly some in congress, likely don’t want answered.

However, it gets even more serious when one of those women is 17 years old. Which leads us to our second question.

Is it illegal to sleep with a minor who misrepresents their age? Can the sex be proven beyond a reasonable doubt?

A lawyer for two women interviewed by the House Ethics Committee has said the following:

Leppard told POLITICO on Sunday that his clients had attended between five to 10 "sex parties" with the former Florida Representative between 2017 and 2018. Gaetz was already in Congress at the time.

Leppard also said one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with another woman who was then 17 years old. They were at a house party in Florida.

"She testified [that] in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17," Leppard said.

A report from The Daily Beast identified two Venmo transactions Gaetz had in 2018 with Joe Greenberg, an accused sex trafficker, for a total of $900. Greenberg then sent the money to three teen girls in transactions labeled "tuition" and "school."

The woman, now in her 20s, reportedly confirmed this during interviews with the House Ethics committee.

In Florida, engaging in sexual activity with a minor is illegal, regardless of whether the minor misrepresents their age. The state enforces strict liability in such cases, meaning that a defendant's belief about the minor's age, even if based on the minor's false representation, is not a valid defense. Florida Statute 794.021 explicitly states that ignorance or a reasonable mistake regarding the victim's age is not a defense to prosecution under sexual offense laws.

And yet… the woman in question also testified about this to criminal investigators and no charges were filed against Gaetz. This might suggest that the case against him is less than air tight. Or that proof beyond personal testimony would not stand up at trial.

So no… you cannot claim ignorance on having sex with a 17-year-old in Florida. But also, there might not be evidence to prove it happened beyond a he said/she said.

Again: this has all been known for years after Greenberg’s arrest and the Department of Justice investigation.

Will there be new information? We have to wait and see.

But it also might not matter, because Gaetz’ higher hurdle to clear has nothing to do with what he did or didn’t do as a military-grade horny Florida Man bachelor… but rather his conduct as a rhetorical bomb thrower who has personally torched members of the Senate whose vote he now needs to court.

-

That and more on the show!

CHAPTERS

00:43 Guide to Matt Gaetz Sex Scandal

17:24 Normally Podcast (Karol Markowicz and MK Ham)

49:08 Update: Selzer, Lutnick, Trump's NY Sentencing

58:02 Gabe Fleisher

Things polling get right in 2024:

* Trump had a chance to win the popular vote (he did)

* Trump had an advantage in the Sun Belt but the races in the Rust Belt would be closer (true, Trump still won them all)

* Ticket splitting is real and could save Democrats from a Senate demolition (it did)

But beyond that… we have some real questions.

Carl Allen believed Kamala Harris was a favorite to win the electoral college. Together we go through the results and find lessons big and small.

I am obsessed with how much money the Kamala Harris campaign spent.

Hundreds of millions of dollars per week spent on creating a once-in-a-lifetime glittering election machine only to deliver less electoral votes than John Kerry.

Some FEC reports are available but reporting on the excesses is also bubbling up. For example, Harris recreated the set of Call Her Daddy in a DC hotel room so she didn’t have to fly to Los Angeles.

Videos of a party thrown by the KamalaHQ social media team for Fashion Week have also surfaced.

I believe the Harris ‘24 might be a turning point for donor patience, so we will have much more on it going forward. But to whet your whistle… we have Dave Levinthal to chat about it today.

Combine that with Kirk Bado of National Journal’s Hotline to discuss the future of the Democratic Party and you have today’s episode!

Also, Trump’s cabinet appointments continue.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:39 Kirk Bado

40:32 Update On Trump Appointments

55:00 Dave Levinthal