Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert, and tonight we have an interview with Hamilton star

Lynn Manuel Miranda. There are going to be new parts airing for the first time, including why he

performed Fiddler on the roof as a surprise for his bride on their wedding day. That's a flex. If you

can pull that kind of thing off, not all of us could cover Fiddler that

easily. So that's coming up, and I promise you it'll be something we think is interesting and

uplifting here in a holiday week. We begin with the Trump transition. We have these leaders of the

Project 2025 agenda, something you've probably heard about if you follow the news. And Trump

famously repeatedly asserted, claimed, even at times

insisted he didn't back Project 2025, that it was something over there with other people.

Well, some of them are now preparing to enter his administration in key roles. Trump has picked

people for all 15 cabinet level spots now. So as we had here now, three weeks out, basically,

marking three weeks since the election tomorrow, he's moving faster than many other president

elects. He's seizing a kind of focus and giving those people an earlier start for any prep they

want to do. They now have all this time until January before they go to hearings and possible

confirmation and into those jobs.

This speed, though, has also meant that Trump is skipping the vetting and the FBI checks,

which protect the government and its people. And that's why one of the top picks is already out.

Trump ending last week with his first loss of the incoming administration, and it was a big one. Matt Gates, the firebrand

that he picked for AG, that he sent down to the Senate along with his vice president elect to meet

with senators, to make this pitch. That's how they started this whole thing. And it's a sign of

how Donald Trump, while the winner of this election, is also a one-term,

sort of lame duck figure. We don't usually have presidents take a break and then go into a second

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