Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
After a week-ish off for the holidays, I gently dipped my toes back into the news cycle from the comfort of my couch Friday and was smacked in the face with the ice cold (albeit refreshing!) water that was the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on its Matt Gaetz inquiry and the newly emerging rift in the MAGAsphere taking place between the tech bros (Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, et al.) and those on the vehemently anti-immigrant and often racist side of the movement (Laura Loomer, Nick Fuentes).
But nothing in the news cycle was quite as jarring (and confusing!) to read as the Fox News press release announcing host Sean Hannity’s engagement to “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt. Unbeknownst to me, it has been rumored for some time that the two were in a relationship. According to the internet, that speculation first began during COVID when Earhardt hosted “Fox and Friends” from a remote studio, believed to be in the basement of Hannity’s Long Island home.
The love has, evidently, blossomed ever since. Because Hannity has been yelling on television basically my entire existence on this green earth, I was surprised to learn that he is not that much older than the “Fox and Friends” host.
It’s a Christmas miracle.
— Nicole Lafond
Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:
- Josh Kovensky weighs in on the new rift emerging in the MAGA movement and questions whether these gestures and arguments over visa categories will morph into anything more concrete offline.
- We never really got an answer on how to read the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause. With Trump’s imminent return to the White House, maybe we never will. John Light expands on that below.
- Emine Yücel provides an update on the state of the speakership election set to take place on the opening day of Congress next week, Jan. 3. A not insignificant number of House Republicans are already making sounds about options besides House Speaker Mike Johnson.
When Does Twitter Become Real Life?
It’s a question that goes to the heart of the crackup between tech oligarchs and MAGA nativists. As I wrote on Thursday, the blowup started on X and continued on X as Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other Trump-aligned tech business figures argued that the U.S. needs to make it easier to hire foreign software engineers because America is failing to produce enough of the specialists that they need.
The posting war has already spawned a raft of coverage across the media, from yours truly at TPM to articles in legacy outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Part of this is that it’s the holidays and having a conflict unfold before you on social media is easy to cover. But it’s also the fact that the fight goes to a key fracture in the MAGA coalition between tech oligarchs who regard the Biden administration as having subverted their business interests and see the Trump administration as a means to reverse that,