Full Interview:
Full Transcript:
Guy Benson: Well, joining us now is Miranda Devine, a Fox News contributor, New York Post columnist, bestselling author, and host of the podcast Pod Force One. Miranda, welcome back.
Miranda Devine: Thanks very much, Guy. Good to be with you.
Guy Benson: I’ve been maybe a little surprised to see–not by the underlying sentiment, but the brazenness–that we’re seeing in some lefty circles about this hunger, this eagerness to get back to weaponizing political power against opponents quite openly and criminalizing politics. It has come to the fore a few times in the last several days, as a matter of fact.
One of the targets being Elon Musk, right? He is committing the terrible crime of giving a lot of money to Republicans, whereas when billionaires fund Democrats, left-wingers, the DSA, and Soros prosecutors, that’s all good. That’s “good money” in politics. But Elon Musk–that’s bad money in politics, and they want him not only to fail politically, but to go to prison.
We heard this, for example, from Kara Swisher, who is one of these commentators and podcasters with a fair amount of cachet and influence on the left, casually talking about this a couple of days ago:
Kara Swisher: Under Kamala Harris, he might be in jail right now, right? He is correct. And that’s not because she’s some avenging fury; it’s because there are a lot of questions around different companies of his. If Donald Trump loses the House and Senate, I would be worried if I were him, no matter how rich he is. There were all these agencies, some of which he put a knife in and killed in DOGE, many of whom were investigating him. He stopped like half a dozen investigations of his various companies, so they’re going to start investigating again. You think he’s not on the list? He’s at the top of that list. Donald Trump obviously is at the top with his family, but Elon Musk is right up there. He knows what’s coming. Of all the many things you can say about him, he has a very big sense of fate, and I think that it’s coming for him real hard.
Guy Benson: So she thinks it’s all coming for him very, very hard, and that he’s done these nebulous, unspecified crimes, but under Kamala Harris, he might be in jail. I see some right-wingers saying this is terrible, and the left says, “Well, what about when Trump…?” I get that there’s a lot of whataboutism back and forth. But we are told it is evil and horrible when Donald Trump allegedly weaponizes government against opponents–even when he’s not doing that, by the way, though they accuse him of it all the time.
Yet here they are, openly plotting to do this against top enemies of their regime over at The Bulwark, which was founded as a way to conserve true conservatism against the predations of Trump, but has morphed into a left-wing slop machine. They are very excited about this exact same prospect. Here they were on a podcast at a recent gathering a couple of days ago:
Bulwark Podcast: However mad you are about Elon Musk, it’s not enough. He’s the one I want. And I want him hauled before Congress to be just the start, because this guy has a body count like a war criminal. We start with the U.S. Congress, and it ends at The Hague for Elon Musk. Hey, you’ve got a trillion dollars? Great. You better start spending it on lawyers, because justice is coming. Get a townhouse, big guy. Got a lot of nice brownstones right there on Capitol Hill. Elon, you better pack a lunch, because your ass is going to be living in the Capitol starting January of 2027.
Guy Benson: Okay, Miranda, let’s start there. This is one example. They obviously hate him, and this is the way they’re talking before the election.
Miranda Devine: Yes. I mean, it’s disgusting, but you remember under the Biden administration, they didn’t just talk about it–they did it. They had multiple government departments going after him with 32 separate investigations. Joe Biden himself was malicious about Elon Musk. This time, they’re talking about nationalizing his companies, SpaceX and Tesla, and seizing his factories.
In fact, I think it was either Paul Krugman or Robert Reich–they both sing from the same songbook–who said in the New York Times that during World War II, FDR seized factories from businessmen. In one case, the National Guard was sent to forcibly carry a businessman out of his factory. That’s what they’re fantasizing about doing with Elon, as well as putting him behind bars.
They’ve explicitly said, “Look, it’s difficult to go after President Trump because he has presidential immunity. We found that out last time. But we can go after everybody around him.” This is what Elissa Slotkin said to that University of Chicago audience when she said they will go after every single person who has enabled him–cabinet secretaries, people like Susie Wiles. But also: “We will go after young people, so let that be a deterrent to any young person who is contemplating joining the administration because they think it might be a fun thing for their CV. Don’t do it, because the ramifications for your career, your future, and your family will be dire.”
It worked for them. Frankly, I hate to say this, but two years into the Trump administration, nobody has been brought to account. They have gotten away with the weaponization, the demonizing, and the lawfare that they committed all those years. The J6ers aren’t even allowed to get compensation. None of the people–like Michael Caputo, whose lives were destroyed by lawfare and who lost their houses–are allowed to touch the Justice Department fund that exists to compensate victims of government wrongdoing. Everybody else has gotten it. I think Peter Strzok tapped into that to the tune of a million dollars. But somehow, if you are a Trump ally and a victim of the Biden administration’s lawfare, you are not eligible for that money.
Guy Benson: Well, I do think it’s worth underscoring the point. With Elon Musk, the guy is a trillionaire. I joked on Gutfeld! the other night that they might argue he’s a literal flight risk because he has flying cars and rockets at his disposal. So he has a lot of money and resources to fight whatever they throw his way.
But you have average, normal people who do not have those resources at all, who have been victimized by this mentality. You were talking about the Biden administration, Miranda. Remember that terrible episode where the Justice Department and the Education Department colluded to set the FBI on parents at school board meetings? We ended up seeing the memos. This was political persecution to silence and intimidate parents they thought were being problematic, almost framing them as terrorists.
Those were average people, including one dad who was furious–quite rightly–because the school was covering up his daughter’s sexual assault in Northern Virginia. That was the type of weaponization wielded against average people.
And then you mentioned Elissa Slotkin, who is basically promising the exact same thing against young people. In case people missed it or feel like we aren’t portraying her comments accurately, here was Senator Elissa Slotkin at the University of Chicago warning about deterrence:
Sen. Elissa Slotkin: I am into effectiveness. If we have the House but not the Senate, I don’t have a ton of faith that my Republican colleagues are going to have any strength. So that’s what I’m saying: I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him. I want young people coming out of school who say, “Should I go work for the Trump administration? That sounds fun, I might get an opportunity,” to instead be like, “Lord, that might buy me a ton of problems that I don’t want, so let me avoid participating in that.” I want that deterrence message sent.
Guy Benson: The deterrence message sent–not against wrongdoing or criminal activity, but against applying for jobs in the executive branch under the duly elected President of the United States for 22-year-olds coming out of college.
When people picked up on that clip, it went viral, and she was roundly criticized. Rather than apologizing and saying, “That’s not what I meant,” she played the victim: “People are attacking me and doxxing my staff because I’m a woman.” There is no apology for this sort of thing on the left, and this is while they are, at least for now, still out of power, Miranda.
Miranda Devine: Yes. Look, I think it’s because mainstream, august media like the New York Times and the Washington Post go along with it enthusiastically. Meanwhile, if the Trump administration does anything regarded by the left as untoward–like deporting illegal aliens–those same august institutions carry on about abuse of power, lawfare, and weaponization.
Right now, there’s a big to-do in the New York Times about polling stations. They ran a story today about how difficult it’s going to be to stop the Trump administration from somehow interfering in the elections by sending ICE in or seizing voting machines. All the Trump administration and the DOJ have talked about is ensuring that these elections are secure, safe, and not impacted by fraud, as has happened before.
Right now, they’ve managed to prosecute and arrest several illegal aliens who voted, along with other voter fraud. It’s very difficult to uncover that kind of fraud because once the ballot is cast, it’s impossible to track back. It is laborious work. Todd Blanche told me they are going door-to-door just to check that people on the voting rolls are who they say they are and that they are citizens.
Yet that is somehow deemed an outrage and an abuse of power. The administration has no intention of sending ICE routinely to polling booths. They will only go if there is an issue. And why anyone would have a problem with immigration enforcement at voting booths is beyond me, because illegal aliens are not allowed to vote. If you are a citizen, you have no worries about being picked up by ICE.
Guy Benson: I would just point out that while I tend to agree voter fraud isn’t so widespread as to tip a bunch of elections all over the place–and I think that threat is sometimes exaggerated by the president–the idea that it doesn’t happen is wrong. The idea that it’s “only eight cases” or however they try to minimize it is flawed. Eight is eight too many.
Our friend Jason Rantz out in Seattle sent me a story from SeattleRed.com last night about how federal prosecutors have now alleged more than 400 non-citizens in Washington state have cast more than 1,500 votes. Is that too small of a drop in the bucket to be concerned about in one state? What level does it have to reach before we’re allowed to say, “Hey, this is a problem that should be avoided and prosecuted whenever found”?
Meanwhile, they always claim victimhood. We saw it with Elissa Slotkin, and now we’re getting the victimhood song and dance from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Hasan Piker, the spiritual leader of the DSA “Dirtbag Left,” was asked about the investigation into the Congresswoman. He had a very eloquent response:
Hasan Piker: On the investigation into Congresswoman Omar? Yeah, it’s bullshit.
At most, it’s a paperwork violation. That’s all this is. I don’t believe the accusations of the government. It’s very difficult for me to believe anything coming out of this government, considering that they violated the people’s trust so egregiously and so consistently. Having said that, even if it were real–even if the accusations were real, although I don’t believe they are–at best, it is an additional form of paperwork that you would have to file and fix the process altogether. I think the solution to this is not deportation; that’s an abject cruelty.
Guy Benson: Okay, so there’s Hasan Piker, who Abdul El-Sayed invited multiple times and campaigned with in Michigan. He’s saying that this investigation into Ilhan Omar is BS and just a paperwork violation, if it exists at all.
Of course, we know that the DOJ started sniffing around Omar during the Biden administration, and that warrants were signed off in D.C. by a lefty, Democrat-appointed judge. He’s saying, “Nothing to see here, and if there is something, it’s just paperwork.”
Miranda, based on what we are hearing and what the allegations seem to be, it looks like she may have used a false name and a false date of birth. This goes much deeper than that. What we heard from Piker is exactly how the left is going to respond to this story every step of the way.
Miranda Devine: Well, yes, that’s obviously a rehearsal of her legal defense: “Oh, she didn’t know, she just made a slight paperwork error.” That’ll be the defense rolled out in the media. Hasan Piker is just giving us a preview, but it doesn’t wash.
Ilhan Elmi–if I’m going to call her that, because that is officially what prosecutors have said her name is: Ilhan Noor Said Elmi, a.k.a. Ilhan Omar. She was actually buttonholed yesterday by a Fox News Digital reporter outside the elevators on Capitol Hill and was asked, “What is your real name? Is it Omar or Elmi?” She turned around and said, “It’s Omar.”
That’s what she says, but she’ll have to prove it, because prosecutors clearly have good evidence that that’s not true.
Guy Benson: Yeah, and it seems, Miranda, as though some of the public evidence pointing to these falsehoods was deleted and taken down, which again does not point toward an innocent paperwork error. That is how they’re going to try to spin it, but to dismiss this as persecution and a misunderstanding at worst isn’t going to fly. We will follow the details and the evidence as all of this unfolds.
Guy Benson: Fox News contributor, New York Post columnist, bestselling author, and Pod Force One host. Miranda, thanks so much.
