Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reflected on her role on the Supreme Court during an event in Louisiana over the weekend, saying she enjoyed making her opinion known through court cases.

‘I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, made the remarks during a sit-down with ABC News on stage during the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans as part of a tour for her book, ‘Lovely One.’

Despite being the most junior justice, Jackson has made her voice heard in the high court by going out of her way to write her own dissents in high-profile cases, even if she is not the principal dissenter, as she did in a recent major decision in which the Supreme Court found universal injunctions from judges were unlawful.

‘I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law,’ Jackson wrote in defense of universal injunctions.

In a biting rebuke, Justice Amy Coney Barrett responded in her majority opinion that Jackson’s remarks were ‘at odds’ with more than 200 years of court precedent and the Constitution and that they were not worth dwelling on.

Recently, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal justice who often sides with Jackson in prominent cases, went out of her way to disagree with Jackson in an emergency order that permitted President Donald Trump’s sweeping federal job cuts.

Jackson indicated during the interview that the justices have good relationships with one another. She noted that they have a ritual by which they shake each other’s hands before walking out into the courtroom and that some also have lunch together weekly.

‘The rule at lunch is that you don’t talk about cases, so you learn about people’s families and sports and books and movies and that kind of thing, and you get to know them outside of work,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal judge, has also attracted attention for how frequently she chimes in during oral arguments. Analyses by the Empirical SCOTUS blog found Jackson spoke more than any of her colleagues during arguments in the 2022 and 2023 court terms.

‘It’s funny to me how people focus on how much I talk at oral argument,’ Jackson said during the interview.

‘I was always this person on the bench,’ Jackson said. ‘And so it’s been a bit of an adjustment, because, as a trial court judge, you have your own courtroom, so you can go on as long as you want. And, so, trying to make sure that my colleagues get to ask some questions has been a challenge for me, but I’ve enjoyed it. I really have.’

An effort to advance a blistering sanctions package against Russia and its trade partners is again gaining steam in the Senate, and this time it appears that President Donald Trump is on board.

A sanctions bill advanced by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was largely sidelined as the Senate sprinted to hit its July 4 deadline to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ but has come roaring back into the limelight now that the grueling reconciliation process has been put to bed.

The duo’s bill would slap up to 500% tariffs on countries buying energy products from Moscow, effectively placing Russia’s war machine in a chokehold by imposing duties on oil, gas, uranium and other exports, largely purchased by China and India, which account for nearly three-quarters of Moscow’s energy business.

But the bill hit a snag at the White House, where Trump maintained that he wanted to continue peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and also wanted more flexibility on the proposed penalties in the bill.

However, there’s been a tonal shift in Trump’s opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Graham believes that Trump is now on board with the plan.

‘My goal is to get them on the president’s desk before the August break. We got 85 co-sponsors,’ he said. ‘There’s a waiver in the bill to give the president leverage. I told the president last week about it. He thinks the bill will be helpful. So we’ll get it to him.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

On the changes that are coming to the bill, Blumenthal said the waiver authority making its way into the legislation was working out ‘technical issues’ on how the stringent sanctions would affect the world’s financial system, how America’s allies could be impacted, and providing Trump more flexibility over how the sanctions are levied against Russia’s trade partners.

‘Trump is seeing what we’ve all recognized, which is that Putin is playing the United States for free,’ he said of the president’s change in tone toward Putin.

‘He’s stalling and stonewalling, continuing his aerial reign of terror on Ukrainian civilians and his atrocities against kidnapped children,’ Blumenthal continued. ‘The president is simply reflecting the fact that Putin has no interest in peace. He wants domination.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wants to get the bill on the floor by the end of the month, and noted that the upper chamber was working in conjunction with the House and the White House to ‘get it in a form where it’s ready.’

Still, he said it was an ‘open question’ as to when Graham and Blumenthal’s bill could get a vote.

‘I think it’s an important message to send, especially now, and I think it’s leverage that we need,’ Thune said.

While the bill does have broad bipartisan support within the Senate, and the backing of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., not every Senate Republican is on board with the plan.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., charged that the measure was ‘not a Russian sanctions bill. It’s a worldwide embargo tariff bill.’

He argued that the bill would institute ‘500% tariffs’ to any country that does business with Russia, and noted that there are a handful of European Union countries that are dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Paul also charged that slapping China with such a hefty sanction would lead to no more trade with the country.

‘It’s the worst, most economically illiterate bill ever to be presented in modern history,’ he said. 

An appeals court has reversed the conviction of a pro-Trump influencer charged with spreading false information on social media to suppress Democratic voter turnout during the 2016 election, voiding conspiracy charges and a monthslong federal prison sentence handed down by a jury in Brooklyn, New York.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Wednesday unanimously voided the conviction of Douglass Mackey on federal conspiracy charges and remanded the case back to the U.S. Court in the Eastern District of New York to enter a new judgment of acquittal.

The unanimous three-judge panel said in their ruling that ‘no rational jury’ could have found that Mackey, 36, ‘knowingly’ joined others in an illegal conspiracy aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2016 election or depriving people of their right to vote.

‘The jury’s verdict and the resulting judgment of conviction must be set aside,’ Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote.

The verdict is a win for Mackey, a self-styled right-wing influencer and self-described ‘troll,’ who amassed roughly 58,000 followers on Twitter in the run-up to the 2016 election. 

Mackey, who used the handle ‘Ricky Vaughn,’ used his account to post false information designed to support then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including memes designed to look like Hillary Clinton ads that told voters they could submit their ballots via text message.

Mackey was convicted in 2023 on conspiracy charges and sentenced to seven months in federal prison.

The three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that Mackey’s posts, including the false memes he posted, were not sufficient evidence to prove that he had violated U.S. conspiracy laws, ‘even assuming that he did so with the intent to injure other citizens in the exercise of their right to vote,’ they said. 

‘The government was obligated to show that Mackey knowingly entered into an agreement with other people to pursue that objective,’ Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston and Judges Reena Raggi and Beth Robinson wrote. ‘This the government failed to do.’

The decision was praised by Mackey, who immediately posted on social media about the verdict.

‘HALLELUJAH!’ Mackey said on X after the appellate court ruling on Wednesday. Mackey proceeded to thank God, his family, wife, lawyers and others who supported him during the trial in subsequent posts. He then threatened to pursue legal action over his conviction.

‘Now we sue,’ he said.

Department of Justice leaders are facing sharp criticism and resignation calls from a faction of their supporters after they ended their inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case without releasing new files.

The outrage, emanating largely from the right, can be tied to several past instances when those same leaders and other Republicans with large platforms once promoted the existence of incriminating, nonpublic Epstein case files, including a supposed list of sexual predators who were his clients.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino now say they have nothing further to share with the public about Epstein’s case.

In a joint, unsigned memo, the DOJ and FBI said Monday that after an exhaustive inquiry uncovering 300 gigabytes’ worth of material related to Epstein’s case, they found no signs of illegal activity by any new third parties. 

‘We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,’ the memo read.

The memo stated that ‘much of the material’ related to the Epstein case was subject to court-ordered seals, prohibiting the DOJ from releasing it. The client list, a point of significant discourse, does not exist, the memo said.

Some of President Donald Trump’s supporters and Patel’s and Bongino’s massive fan bases are now making it clear that they expected more. Below are 10 possible reasons for that.

1. Kash Patel said House Republicans should release ‘Epstein’s list’ of ‘pedophiles.’ 

Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson asked Patel why the government had not released information about Epstein’s purported clients, according to a clip Johnson shared in December 2023, before Patel became FBI director.

‘Simple, because of who’s on that list,’ Patel replied. ‘You don’t think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list?’

Patel criticized the Republican-led House for failing to obtain ‘Epstein’s list.’

 ‘What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can’t get the list?’ Patel asked, later adding, ‘We can’t even get basic documents out. This is why America hates Congress.’

‘Put on your big boy pants, and let us know who the pedophiles are,’ Patel said.

2. Kash Patel told Glenn Beck that the FBI director has ‘direct control’ of Epstein’s address book.

In an interview in December 2023, Patel addressed questions from BlazeTV host Glenn Beck about Epstein’s ‘black book.’ Patel said the FBI had the book.

‘That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI,’ the now-FBI director said.

Patel added, ‘That’s a thing I think President Trump should run on. On day one, roll out the black book.’

Epstein’s address books have long been a point of scrutiny. His house manager tried to sell one, according to a 2009 FBI affidavit. Gawker published one of the address books in 2015 with phone numbers redacted. That version contains hundreds of both well-known and obscure names. A judge allowed one of the address books to be entered under seal into the court record during his associate Ghislain Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in 2021.

3. Trump told Fox News during his campaign that he plans to release the Epstein files.

When asked on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ last year if Trump would ‘declassify the Epstein files’ if he were elected president, Trump replied that he would.

‘Yeah, yeah I would. I guess I would,’ Trump said. ‘I think less so because you don’t know, you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because there’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world, but I think I would.’

On Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting, Trump brushed off the topic of Epstein when asked by a reporter about him.

‘Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?’ Trump said. ‘That is unbelievable.’

4. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., insisted there is a ‘list,’ even after the Bondi-led DOJ said otherwise.

‘What about her little black book? The 97-page book, contains the names and contact details of almost 2,000 people including world leaders, celebrities and businessmen,’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote this week on X. ‘No one believes there is not a client list.’

The Miami Herald’s Julie Brown, who followed and reported on Epstein’s case for years, has said claims about the list are dubious.

‘There is no client list that I am aware of. My theory is it was something conspiracy theorists cooked up to monetize their podcasts online,’ Brown wrote in response to social media users in 2024.

5. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., claimed ‘Epstein’s client list’ was ‘key to helping us crack this trafficking ring wide open.’

Sen. Marsha Blackburn has made the release of the Epstein files one of her top priorities over the past couple of years.

From promoting anticipated disclosures on the Senate floor to posting dozens of times about the matter on social media, Blackburn has vowed that ‘accountability for these predators is coming.’

‘Epstein’s client list and the information I requested to reveal his associates & business dealings are key to helping us crack this trafficking ring wide open,’ Blackburn wrote on social media in February.

Ahead of the DOJ releasing a small tranche of files in February, Blackburn said ‘this will be a ‘phase 1’ release. There will be more to come.’

The Trump administration first released that batch of information, which contained no new revelations, in February to right-wing social media influencers. They appeared in photos at the White House with binders the Trump administration gave them that were labeled ‘classified’ and ‘Epstein files: Phase 1.’

Blackburn also secured a promise from Patel during his confirmation hearing this year that he would publish Epstein files.

6. Bondi suggested an Epstein list was on her desk.

Bondi was asked by host John Roberts during a Fox News interview in February if she planned to release a ‘list of Epstein’s clients.’

‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,’ Bondi said. ‘That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.’

Bondi clarified her remarks during the Cabinet meeting with Trump on Tuesday, saying she was referencing Epstein’s entire case file.

‘In February, I did an interview on Fox, and it’s been getting a lot of attention because I said, I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed,’ meaning the [Epstein] file along with the JFK and MLK files, as well,’ Bondi said. ‘That’s what I meant by that.’

7. Bondi told Sean Hannity that the DOJ has a ‘truckload’ of Epstein evidence.

After the initial document release flopped, Bondi falsely said the FBI’s New York office was intentionally withholding documents from her.

During an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity in March, Bondi claimed a ‘source’ told her the case files were in New York, where Epstein was indicted in 2019.

‘I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8 a.m. to get us everything, and a source had told me where the documents were being kept, Southern District of New York, shock,’ Bondi said. ‘So we got them all by, hopefully all of them, Friday at 8 a.m., thousands of pages of documents.’

‘Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents,’ Bondi said, adding that a ‘truckload of evidence arrived’ at the DOJ after she requested the documents from New York.

The attorney general then went on a tirade about transparency and again questioned why the case files were in New York.

8. Bongino told his podcast listeners the ‘Epstein client list is a huge deal.’ There is ‘a reason they’re hiding it,’ he said.

Bongino predicted on his podcast in September 2024 that the ‘Epstein client list,’ which he now says does not exist, ‘is going to rock the Democrat Party.’

‘Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal,’ Bongino said.

‘The reason the Epstein client list being revealed is so important is because I want you to understand that there is a class of bekightened folks … who are not subjected to the same rules you are,’ Bongino said.

The former podcast star warned, ‘Folks, you’re going to see a lot of names on that. … It’s going to rock the political world. There’s a reason they’re hiding it.’

Bongino pushed the theory that Epstein’s death in 2019 in his jail cell was not a suicide, despite the DOJ inspector general and a medical examiner saying it was.

Epstein ‘is deceased under, at a minimum, suspicious circumstances,’ Bongino said.

In the FBI and DOJ’s new memo, they concluded that Epstein’s death was caused by suicide.

9. Bondi said she was briefed on the Epstein files and could not talk about them.

Bondi told Benny Johnson in February that she was briefed about the matter and unable to comment on it.

Johnson asked, ‘Where are we at with the Jeffrey Epstein list? The documents? And Kash has made a lot of public statements about this.’

‘I was briefed on that yesterday,’ Bondi said. ‘I can’t talk about that publicly. But, President Trump has given a very strong directive, and that’s going to be followed.’

10. Patel said in November that ‘restoring trust’ in federal agencies could include giving the public the ‘Epstein list.’ 

Patel told told Johnson last November that what is ‘most important’ is ‘restoring trust in our agencies and departments.’

‘The way to do that is to literally give the American people the truth,’ Patel said. ‘And that’s what they feared about Donald Trump. He’s going to come in there and maybe give them the Epstein list and maybe give them the P. Diddy list … and they are terrified.’

Epstein was indicted in 2019 for allegedly recruiting dozens of women and minors as young as 14 and engaging in sexual relations with them at his lavish homes in Florida, New York and elsewhere. He allegedly sexually abused some of them.

He died after being found unresponsive in his prison cell in New York City in 2019. Maxwell, his associate, was convicted of conspiring to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has an appeal in her case pending.

President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama chatted about golf during a viral moment of bipartisanship during former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January, just days before Trump’s return to the Oval Office, a new book detailing the unprecedented 2024 election cycle reported. 

Trump and Obama were seen smiling and quietly chatting with one another in the pews of the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, 2025, in a moment that spread like wildfire on social media as Americans sounded off with speculation over what the pair of presidents who had long traded political barbs were talking about. 

‘2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,’ which was released Tuesday, said that Trump arrived in Washington for Carter’s funeral as a ‘conqueror’ following the November 2024 election and sat next to Obama for the funeral service. 

‘He’d attended Jimmy Carter’s funeral, walking into Washington not as a scourge but as a conqueror,’ the book reported of Trump. ‘He could ignore the speech on character by the outgoing president, and the cold shoulder from the vice president he’d defeated.’

‘Instead he sat next to Barack Obama and invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump’s courses around the world,’ the book continued of the pair’s conversation. ‘He was no longer an anomaly. He was being treated like an American president. He wanted to be remembered as a great one.’

Trump and Obama were seated near other high-profile former U.S. leaders, including former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Mike Pence, former President Bill Clinton, former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Social media commenters at the time remarked that footage and video clips of the pair were unexpected, and others joked that Obama may have voted for Trump despite years of the pair trading political barbs. 

‘Trump and Obama sitting next to each other was not on the 2025 bingo card,’ one social media user posted to X in January. 

‘Did Obama vote for Trump too?!’ Clay Travis, founder of sports and politics commentary platform OutKick, joked at the time. 

‘We need lip readers to see what Trump said to make Obama laugh,’ another person posted to X in January. 

Trump was asked about the viral moment ahead of his inauguration, remarking that he ‘didn’t realize how friendly it looked.’

‘I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other.’ And we probably do,’ Trump added at the time. ‘We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.’

Fox News Digital’s Kristine Parks contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama chatted about golf during a viral moment of bipartisanship during former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in January, just days before Trump’s return to the Oval Office, a new book detailing the unprecedented 2024 election cycle reported. 

Trump and Obama were seen smiling and quietly chatting with one another in the pews of the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, 2025, in a moment that spread like wildfire on social media as Americans sounded off with speculation over what the pair of presidents who had long traded political barbs were talking about. 

‘2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,’ which was released Tuesday, said that Trump arrived in Washington for Carter’s funeral as a ‘conqueror’ following the November 2024 election and sat next to Obama for the funeral service. 

‘He’d attended Jimmy Carter’s funeral, walking into Washington not as a scourge but as a conqueror,’ the book reported of Trump. ‘He could ignore the speech on character by the outgoing president, and the cold shoulder from the vice president he’d defeated.’

‘Instead he sat next to Barack Obama and invited him to play golf, enticing him with descriptions of Trump’s courses around the world,’ the book continued of the pair’s conversation. ‘He was no longer an anomaly. He was being treated like an American president. He wanted to be remembered as a great one.’

Trump and Obama were seated near other high-profile former U.S. leaders, including former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Mike Pence, former President Bill Clinton, former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Social media commenters at the time remarked that footage and video clips of the pair were unexpected, and others joked that Obama may have voted for Trump despite years of the pair trading political barbs. 

‘Trump and Obama sitting next to each other was not on the 2025 bingo card,’ one social media user posted to X in January. 

‘Did Obama vote for Trump too?!’ Clay Travis, founder of sports and politics commentary platform OutKick, joked at the time. 

‘We need lip readers to see what Trump said to make Obama laugh,’ another person posted to X in January. 

Trump was asked about the viral moment ahead of his inauguration, remarking that he ‘didn’t realize how friendly it looked.’

‘I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other.’ And we probably do,’ Trump added at the time. ‘We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.’

Fox News Digital’s Kristine Parks contributed to this report. 

Senate Republicans are gearing up to claw back billions of dollars in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding, but dissent is brewing among some who could eat into President Donald Trump’s cut request.

A cohort of Senate Republicans are publicly and privately growing squeamish over the White House’s $9.4 billion rescissions package, which would slash $8.3 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.

The cuts stem from Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was lauded by most Republicans for its mission to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

Still, concerns and calls for changes are being made, in particular to proposed slashes to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the public broadcasting fund.

Publicly, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have all aired their concerns about the House-passed bill and are eyeing changes that could see the cuts reduced.

‘I don’t like it as it is currently drafted,’ Murkowski said. ‘I’m a strong supporter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and our health programs are important.’

Collins has raised issues with slashes to PEPFAR, an issue brought forth during a hearing with White House officials last month, while Rounds is worried about funding being slashed to rural radio stations, particularly for Native American populations in his state and others ‘and their ability to get good information during times of stress.’

Senate Republican leadership already has plans for an amendment process on the bill, which will likely culminate in another marathon vote-a-rama amendment session — roughly two weeks after the grueling amendment process for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he intended to put the package on the Senate floor next week, likely ahead of the Friday deadline for lawmakers to advance the clawbacks.

If the bill is amended, it would have to be sent back to the House before heading to Trump’s desk.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital that he expected the vote-a-rama to begin Wednesday, and said the hope was that leadership would be able to address as many concerns among Republicans as possible before bringing the bill to the floor.

‘Whatever it takes, we’re having those conversations,’ he said. ‘The point is, once we get to the vote-a-rama, we want to have as much issues resolved so we know where we’re at on the floor without any surprises. And I think we can do that, maybe not, but I think we can. I think we got a good picture of where we’re at right now.’

Other lawmakers see the package in its current form as a no-brainer to pass.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that if amendments were offered to keep spending that he agreed with, he could find himself supporting tweaks to the package. But he challenged his colleagues to reject a spending cut package that ultimately amounted to less than half a percent of the nation’s entire budget.

‘This is gut check time for our Republican colleagues,’ he said. ‘They either believe in reducing spending or they don’t. They either believe in spending porn or they don’t, and I’ve listened to my colleagues, especially in the last 100 plus days, talk about how great DOGE was. Well, now is the chance to show it.’ 

Let’s talk about language. Because in politics, language isn’t just what you say — it’s what people hear. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from decades of helping brands and campaigns get their words right, it’s this: the wrong message can kill even the best idea. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s America Party is a case study in how not to build trust through language.  

I’ve seen this movie before. I started my career on Ross Perot’s campaign, where we learned firsthand how the right words can electrify a movement — and how quickly the wrong ones can turn hope into skepticism. Perot’s success was based on his ability to connect with voters using language that was clear, relatable and believable. He spent a lot of time talking about a broken system, but he did so in a way that made people believe change was possible.  

Musk, on the other hand, is using the language of disruption without understanding the language of trust. And that’s why his America Party is likely to be just another blip in the long history of failed third-party efforts.  

The language of disruption vs. the language of trust  

Let’s break down Musk’s messaging. He says it’s ‘time for a new political party that actually cares about the people.’ He talks about ‘reducing government spending,’ dismantling regulatory bloat, and embracing AI-driven modernization. These are buzzwords, not beliefs. They’re designed to provoke, not persuade.  

Here’s the problem: Americans are already drowning in distrust. They don’t believe politicians. They don’t believe in institutions. And they certainly don’t believe that this billionaire with a Twitter habit is suddenly going to care about the people. Musk’s words are meant to sound populist, but they just sound AI-generated.  

Slogans can help build trust but trust cannot be built on slogans alone. It’s built on language that resonates, connects to people’s real concerns and is grounded in actions that create credibility. Perot was also a billionaire, but he understood how to speak the language of the average person and make it feel real.    

Musk, by contrast, is speaking at people, not to them.  

The pitfalls of start-up populism  

Musk’s messaging is heavy on tech jargon and light on empathy. AI-driven modernization might excite Silicon Valley, but it’s a scary prospect for many voters increasingly worried about their job, their healthcare or their kids’ future.    

Start-up language is sexy … if you’re a venture capitalist. But Musk doesn’t understand that most Americans don’t speak the language of technology.    

Perot was also a tech entrepreneur, but he left talk of mainframes out of his campaign. His version of reducing regulatory bloat was much simpler: ‘if you see a snake, just kill it — don’t appoint a committee on snakes.’  

I care for you. You’re fired  

We once had a client who wanted to test a campaign designed to show how much they cared about their customers. The slogan: ‘We care.’ As we expected, it bombed in testing. The company’s actions did not support the message. The same is true for Musk.  Musk says he wants a party that ‘actually cares about the people.’ But the language he uses doesn’t show care — it shows calculation. It’s the language of someone who wants to be seen as a disruptor, not someone who wants to build trust.  

Words like ‘disruption,’ ‘modernization,’ and ‘efficiency’ are the language of business (and often of layoffs), not the language of belonging. They don’t answer the fundamental question every voter is asking: ‘Do you understand me? Do you care about what I care about?’ If you can’t answer that in your messaging, you’ve already lost.  

The bottom line: Words matter more than ever  

It’s unclear if Musk is really serious about building something new or just tearing down something Trump. But if he wants to build a movement, he needs to do more than talk about what’s wrong.  That’s the easy part.   

Perot also said the system was broken. But he made the problem understandable and he made a solution seem achievable. He made the deficit real. He made government waste personal. He made it feel like we could all roll up our sleeves and fix it. Ultimately, he had his own issues, but at the peak of his campaign, 39% of the population said they planned to vote for him.

So much has changed since 1992, but building a third party in America remains one of the hardest jobs in politics. The only way to even start to make it work is to find language that creates hope, engenders optimism and illuminates a path to overcoming challenges that a significant plurality of Americans care about.    

Ironically, in the same poll that showed Perot leading the race, 65% of the public said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who ‘made a fortune doing business with the federal government.’ So maybe less has changed than we think.