It is less than two weeks until US president-elect Donald J. Trump’s second inauguration, and between Elon Musk’s agenda-setting and all Trump’s controversial cabinet picks, the soon-to-be 47th president is already setting the stage for an even more chaotic and corrupt term in office.
In this first ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview of 2025, Republican strategist and Trump Campaign surrogate Adolfo Franco joins Mehdi for a wide-ranging and, at times, heated interview on Trump’s post-election moves. Watch the full segment above.
Mehdi also challenges Franco on Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories, with Mehdi specifically asking Franco whether Trump’s fringe and unconstitutional legal arguments about election certification from 2020 applied to the 2024 election results.
“‘Only the vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors’ – that's what Donald Trump said on January the 5th, [2021],” Mehdi says to Franco. “So, I'm asking, if Kamala Harris had said on Monday ‘Adolfo Franco and Donald Trump said there was massive cheating in Pennsylvania, I reject the electors from Pennsylvania,’ you support her power to do that?”
“I think she would have had a basis to do that had the election been close to her,” Adolfo says.
Mehdi asked Franco about Trump falsely claiming that he has “always been in favor” of the H1-B visa program, after Elon Musk announced he would go to “war” to protect the legal immigration program.
“That's a lie, Adolfo. He said in 2016 in a presidential debate and across the campaign that the H-1B visa program was, quote, ‘very bad,’ ‘unfair’ for US workers and, quote, ‘we should end it,’ ” Mehdi says to Adolfo.
“I don’t think it’s a lie. I think he’s for the program, but it needs to be reformed… It’s been a system that’s been used many times to sue employers because of its use,” Adolfo responds.
On the topic of the H1-B debate, Mehdi and Adolfo also discussed a tweet Elon Musk agreed with on Twitter that referred to American workers as “r*tarded,” with Franco saying that Musk, “needs to apologize.”
If you are a paid subscriber, watch the full interview to hear Mehdi challenge Franco on Trump’s cabinet picks and their controversial records, the president-elect’s flip-flop on the TikTok ban, and the dangerous misinformation Trump has been spreading about the New Orleans attack that took place early on New Year’s Day.
Free subscribers can watch the first 12 minutes of the segment for free. To access the full interview, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
