Updated: The “DOGE,” “Little Marco,” and Winfrey

No amount of money can buy you love or a good candidate.

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It's been a week filled with significant events, making it a challenge to focus on just one. Therefore, I've decided to highlight the top three topics that I believe are the most revealing or interesting to me: two are President-elect Trump’s cabinet appointments, and one is related to the historic election, a momentous event that we're all part of.

Here Comes the “DOGE”

President-elect Donald Trump has been busy making cabinet appointments. People who had wondered what role Elon Musk would have got their answer on Tuesday as Musk posted on X.com an announcement from Trump, appointing Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The acronym is so happened to be the same as DOGE coin, a crypto currency. Coincidence or intentionally?

I initially was wary that Trump created another government bureaucracy. But as I read the rest of the announcement, I noticed that the agency has an expiration date: July 4, 2026. It is probably first time in history that a government agency will be created with an end date. Later the Wall Street Journal clarified that DOGE “won’t be a government department, though; the name, with the initials DOGE, is Musk’s homage to dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that he frequently jokes about.”

What are Musk and Ramaswamy tasked to do? According to Trump’s announcement, they will “dismantle Government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, restructure federal agencies. Essential to the ‘Save America’ movement.” Musk already predicated that about $2 trillion federal spending could be cut. I learned from past experience not to bet against Musk. Furthermore, Argentina’s President Milei has shown that a drastic cut of federal spending and bureaucracy could be done (he cut the number of government ministries by half) and generate positive returns in a short time.

Musk and Ramaswamy’s parents both are immigrants who came to the U.S. legally. With their individual drive, raw talents, and opportunities America provided, Musk and Ramaswamy both achieved astonishing business successes. Now backed their business acumen and patriotism, these two will give back to this great nation by joining hands to embark on a “save America” journey. They are set to help this country to shred waste and excesses so America can be a dynamic and efficient growth engine again, and more people will find their paths to American dream. How wonderful this is!

“Little Marco” Will be a Big Pain for China

Trump appointed Florida Senator Marco Rubio as the next Secretary of State, an announcement surely will give America’s adversaries, especially China, a heartburn. Rubio has been an outspoken critic of China. The CCP was so upset of Rubio’s criticism, it sanctioned Rubio twice in 2020, essentially banned him from visiting China since.

Now this will be awkward. Should Rubio be confirmed as the U.S. Secretary of State, he will become the first one to hold that senior cabinet position while being banned by Beijing from traveling to China (China imposed sanction against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he left the office). This will create a diplomatic embarrassment for Beijing. The CCP will have no choice but to walk back and remove the sanction against Rubio if the party wishes to maintain any diplomatic contact with the world’s most powerful nation.

I wrote more about Rubio’s record on China in a piece for the Federalist.com. Please check it out here.

As of now, I like most of Trump’s cabinet appointments, except Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who has been under investigation for sex trafficking and drug related issues. He will become a unnecessary distraction for the “save America” movement.

I pray God will guide the next administration and its officials to fulfill their historic responsibilities. Let there be a morning in America again!

Money is No Substitute for Competence

The Harris campaign reportedly spent over $1 billion leading up to election day. Pundits, donors, and even regular citizens naturally wanted answers to questions such as how she could suffer such a spectacular loss after spending so much money and where the money went. The Washington Examiner provided some clues this week.

Through both campaigns’ federal fillings, the Examiner found

• The Harris campaign spent $56.6 million on payrolls vs. the Trump campaign’s $9 million.

• The Harris campaign paid over $12.8 million for hiring an army of political, digital, and media consultants. Another investigative journalist Lee Fang found out that Future Forward, a Kamala Harris SuperPAC, spent at least $8.3 million on various Democratic consulting firms owned by the Future Forward leadership. It is called shameless self-dealing in layman’s term.

• It turned out all those celebrity appearances at Harris’ campaign events were super expensive. For instance, the Harris campaign paid $5 million given to rapper Megan Thee Stallion for her July appearance on the campaign trail. The campaign paid Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions company over $1 million after Winfrey hosted a star-studded town hall event for Harris in September. I say good for Winfrey. Even though she’s a billionaire, she refuses to do anything for free, even if the future of democracy was at stake.

• The final tally shows that the Harris campaign spent $1.2 billion in the race vs Trump campaign’s $750 million.

• Adding insult to injury, the Harris campaign is more than $20 million in debt.

Additional missteps of the Harris campaign included forgoing some of the highly influential and cost-free engagements. For example, Harris became the first major political presidential candidate to skip the annual Al Smith Dinner (a fundraiser for Catholic charities caring for children) since 1984. Not surprisingly, exit polls showed that 56% Catholics voted for Trump, helping deliver his landslide victory on election day.

Similarly, Harris chose not to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Spotify’s number-one podcast globally with 14.5 million followers. Instead, the Harris campaign invested over six figures to recreate the studio set in D.C. for her appearance on Alex Cooper’s racy sex and relationship podcast, Call Her Daddy. This stark contrast to Trump's three-hour interview with Rogan, who eventually endorsed Trump on his podcast, highlights the difference in their campaign strategies. Who are the primary audience of Joe Rogan’s podcast? According to an online magazine, Unherd, “they’re heavily male — 72% of the avid fans are men compared to just 42% of the non-fans. They’re also young. 46% of the avid fans are aged between 18 and 34, and a further 23% between 35 and 44.” It was not surprising that Trump won more young male votes than Harris.

Who within the Harris campaign should bear the responsibility for these strategic missteps and the apparent lack of significant results despite substantial investment? Some, including Harris herself, may have pointed fingers at staff and consultants. However, the ultimate responsibility for these decisions rested with the candidate herself.

Many people had forgotten that Harris was a terrible candidate when she ran for president in 2019. Biden picked her as his running mate solely due to his campaign promise to select a black woman as VP nominee. Harris accomplished nothing during her four-year as VP. Every assignment Biden gave her, from the border to connecting rural America with high-speed internet, resulted in spectacular failures. She’s known to be intellectually lazy and often refuses to read daily policy briefings. It explained that she struggled to provide meaningful and cohesive answers to basic softball questions even among a friendly audience with supportive interviewers. She’s an un-substantive candidate who ran an awful campaign. Her election failure proved that no amount of money can buy you love or a good candidate. Should she somehow win the election, she will be more or less a mere figure head, as the Wall Street Journal called it, “A Harris Victory Means the Fourth Term of Obama.”

The more Americans know about Harris and her campaign, the more we should be thankful that we dodged a bullet on election day.