Dr. Anthony Fauci made the decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a contentious Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing chaired by Senator Rand Paul, held in the wake of Paul’s release of more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary entries. Meanwhile, Dan Proft also played extended audio from a pointed interview between Elon Musk and Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, in which Beddoes challenged Musk over his social media activity supporting political figures in Europe she characterized as having authoritarian or fascist tendencies. Musk pushed back forcefully, arguing his stated positions, secure borders, safe cities, and sensible government spending, reflect mainstream political views that would have been considered uncontroversial coming from Democratic leaders like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton fifteen to twenty years ago. Proft played archival clips of both Obama and Clinton making comparatively hawkish statements on illegal immigration enforcement during that earlier period, arguing the political center of gravity has shifted substantially leftward since then.
Proft welcomed economist Stephen Moore, author of The Trump Economic Miracle and co-author of The Plan to Unleash Prosperity Again, to discuss both storylines. Moore agreed with Musk’s broader framing, arguing that authoritarian tendencies in modern politics have disproportionately originated from the political left, citing the economic struggles of heavily regulated European economies including France, Spain, Italy, and Germany as evidence.
Turning to the Fauci hearing, Moore said Paul’s opening remarks were notably scathing, and expressed incredulity at Fauci’s decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions directly. Moore argued the diary entries released ahead of the hearing directly contradict Fauci’s repeated public claims that he never personally ordered school closures, citing entries in which Fauci described persuading school administrators in New York and New Jersey to shut down classrooms. Moore also referenced diary passages in which Fauci reportedly urged the White House to publicly discredit him personally for arguing against extended school and business closures during the pandemic. Moore noted, with some irony, a prior visit to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery where Fauci’s portrait was prominently displayed near the museum’s entrance, arguing the continued public reverence for Fauci among segments of the political left stems largely from his role as a political foil to President Trump during the pandemic.
The conversation also turned to New York City’s proposed city-run grocery store initiative championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, which Moore criticized as economically unworkable, drawing a comparison to a similar failed municipal grocery experiment in Kansas City that shut down after several years and tens of millions of dollars in public subsidies. Moore also raised concerns from bodega owners in New York, many of them immigrants, who have voiced opposition to government-subsidized competition undercutting their prices. Moore closed by discussing New York City’s so-called pied-à-terre tax and the public disclosure of high-value property owners’ names and addresses, arguing the policy raises safety concerns for wealthy residents while contributing to broader economic outmigration from the city toward lower-tax states such as Texas and Florida.