The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the political theater between Trump and Mamdani, tax policy in New York, Christianity and economics, and why Tesla’s shareholders agreed to a $1 trillion salary package for Elon Musk.Part I (00:14 – 14:25)Political Theater Between Mamdani and Trump: When It Comes to Policy, the Issues Matter, Not the Cameras – and Both Men Know ItPart II (14:25 – 15:50)The City of New York and Tax Policy: Gov. Kathy Hochul Knows That Zohran Mamdani’s Economic Policies Would Be Disastrous for NYC and the StatePart III (15:50 – 21:48)Christianity and Economics: The Christian Worldview Honors the Link Between Investment and Reward and Labor and Reward – Breaking That Link is DangerousThe California Campaign to Introduce a First-of-Its-Kind Billionaire’s Tax by The Wall Street Journal (Laura J. Nelson and Paul Kiernan)Part IV (21:48 – 28:03)The Largest Salary Package in Human History: Why Would Shareholders Agree to a $1 Trillion Pay Package for Elon Musk?Musk Wins $1 Trillion Pay Package, Creating Split Screen on Wealth in America by Musk Wins $1 Trillion Pay Package, Creating Split Screen on Wealth in America The New York Times (Rebecca F. Elliott, Jack Ewing, and Reid J. Epstein)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Tuesday, November 25, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, it was a meeting of opposites. That's exactly how it was presented last Friday. The mayor elect of New York City, Zaham Mandani, a Democratic socialist, went to meet with the president of the United States, Donald Trump. And of course, the big issue there is that they are from two different political polarities. Furthermore, Zrah Mandani ran to the left and did so largely against President Trump. And President Trump has openly referred to Zeram Mandani. Now the mayor-elect of the nation's largest city as a communist. He identifies technically as a democratic socialist. So the stage was set for the two to meet, and it had to come from an invitation

from the president of the United States. The invitation was extended. Ram Mandani went and you saw the optics. The optics were, by the way, not incidental. The optics were the president of the United States seated at his desk in the Oval Office. And the far younger man, are on Mondani standing behind him. But all of the banter was friendly. All of the physical gestures, very friendly. And as a matter of fact, the headline in the Wall Street Journal was Trump and Mondani set aside differences. You also had the New York Times saying that Trump praises Mom Dami. Well, what exactly happened? And you look at that and you ask, what was this? Well, what it was was political theater. And we just need to have a few moments of fun looking at it because it was

fascinating political theater. But it was from beginning to end political theater, which is to say it was a form of political entertainment. And that's not all bad. As a matter of fact, just about anyone looking at it would feel something of a lowered blood pressure in terms of the political body. It says something about America that a Democratic socialist running from the left against Donald Trump as the mayor now mayor elect of New York City, he can come to the Oval Office. and there can be Donald Trump, the president against whom he ran, Donald Trump, who's called him a communist, you could have the two of them smiling and apparently in the world's weirdest way kind of liking each other, or at least liking aspects of each other, and both of them

seeing some gain from the meeting. Now, in terms of political theater, you also have to ask some questions, like, why did this happen? Well, there is one very concrete reason it happened, and that is that New York City is absolutely dependent upon political and financial support coming from Washington, D.C. And the President of the United States and President Trump has been very willing to wield this power. The President of the United States can make things very difficult for a city like New York when it comes to federal contracts, federal funds, all kinds of federal programs. And it is not in the interest of the mayor elect for New York to face a severe financial crisis. immediately upon his assumption of office. So to some degree, there needed to be some reprosement, some meeting of the minds that would enable the two to work together. But don't let your eyes

fool you. Yes, it was very interesting. You had the young man, the first Muslim elected New York mayor running again from not only the left, but the far left. And he had Donald Trump, make America great again, the opposite political polarity. And they were there in the room. And they were apparently enjoying the experience. Now, it's not always possible to read everything in terms of visual evidence. But the visual evidence was very, very interesting, as was the dialogue that went between them. One point, the mayor-elect, Mr. Mamdani, said, quote, I appreciated the time with the president. Now, the president is sitting there before him as he speaks. As the Wall Street Journal reports, quote, when a reporter asked about Mamdani's previous comment calling Trump a despot,

The president quipped. I've been called much worse than a despot, so it's not that insulting. Okay, that's an absolutely amazing thing. By the way, if you're a despot, you don't make fun of being a despot, or being called a despot, which is exactly, I think, what President Trump understood. The story goes on here in the Wall Street Journal report, quote, pressed on whether he believed that Trump was a fascist, just let that word sink in. That's just the way this is written.

Preston whether he believed that Trump was a fascist, the president interjected before the mayor-elect could answer, that's okay, you can just say yes, it's easier than explaining it, I don't mind. The Wall Street Journal said, the president said that, quote, while tapping him on the arm, end quote. So again, weird political theater, but in one sense, explainable political theater. Both men have something to gain. Both men also have something to lose. And in this case, I'm going to argue that the mayor elect of New York had more to lose than the president to the United States. And that is to say that Zoranamandani has made very clear the fact that that he would hold up Donald Trump as an absolutely odious character,

and that he would again use words such as despot and fascist. And now he shows up smiling in his office. I don't think President Trump really has to fear his base on this. I think President Trump's base is used to him acting in just this kind of way. I think, It is the mayor elect of New York, whose political base might have a hard time living with those optics. There's another dimension here, and that is just the presidency. When you were a president of the United States, everyone comes to see you. You don't have to go see them. It says a great deal that it was Donald Trump sitting in the chair behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office.

It was a Ram Mandani who was there as his guest. Another part of this is that President Trump, just remember this, President Trump, at least catapulted even higher in the nation's attention as the basic TV star of a show called The Apprentice. He knows exactly how to do this. And on that show, he would say to someone at one point, that's a master, you're a genius. This is wonderful. And then turn around in just a very short amount of time and say, that's an awful idea. You know, you're fired.

And you look at that and you say, well, that's entertainment. Well, it's good for us to remember. and perhaps even just in worldview terms to guard ourselves against ever forgetting that politics in that kind of context is at least linked to entertainment. And both men had a lot to gain by Americans looking at that and thinking, wow, this is a big story. And in one sense it was a big story. But it's not going to stay a big story. Because I can guarantee you this right now, given the political distinctions between them, the political diversions. the political divergence and polarization between them, in short order, they're going to return to

criticizing one another. Because when it comes down to policy, guess what? At that point, the cameras really don't matter. But all right, while we're talking about this, we're talking about serious policies. It is very interesting right now that one of the big questions in New York. Now, that means New York City, but it also means New York State, is what about all those policies that Zeramandani ran on? It's very interesting also to see that political observers that talked about his massive victory are now coming back and saying, you know, he won only with less than a percentage point over 50. But nonetheless, you know, it is a major movement that was behind Zeramandani and major policies. And those policies are extremely on the left. He is calling for the city of New York to have basically city-run grocery stores.

He's calling for massive taxation on the ultra-wealthy, as he describes him. calling for really an economic revolution in the city of New York. He's talking about changing taxation. He's talking about also a cap on rents or rent stabilization, a rent freeze that would effectively just make rents stable even as the costs are going up. A good percentage of the rental real estate market in New York City is already under rent control. And by the way, that really is an incredible disincentive from people to build more of that kind of housing. to invest more in that kind of housing. After all, how do you ask owners to spend money when they're not going to get that money back in rent? And of course, you're also looking at investors.

If there's not a profit, then what's the motivation to be in this business in the first place? Zara Mandani wants to vastly increase the reach of rent control. And you look at all these things, and here's a couple of interesting aspects of this. Number one, it is more likely that Zeramandani can get those things through the council and the city government there in New York. But the constitution of the state of New York limits the power of cities regardless of the size. So this would mean a small city or the nation's largest city. In the state of New York, the New York legislature and the New York governor have a lot to say with what the city can and can't do.

When it comes to taxes, when it comes to all kinds of policies, when it comes generally to fiscal matters, New York is not the master of its own destiny. And there is another aspect to this, and this requires us to go across the Atlantic to Britain. And in Britain, the big issue right now is that the labor government, that's the more liberal party, the labor government was at least in its origins officially socialistic. So you see the tie between the Labor Party and Zeramandani. And the Labor Party has, of course, a very thin majority, but they're in control. They control parliament, and Keir Starrmer is the Labor Prime Minister.

Rachel Reeves is the Labor Chancellor, that is roughly equivalent to Secretary of the Treasury, but also in charge of the national budget there in Britain. And the big headline news there is that the Labor government is coming back for a second tax increase in a row. So last year a tax increase, now they're suggesting another tax increase. And the fact is that Britain is in a very untenable financial shape. Now, so are other Western nations with a large welfare state. Government spending is simply growing far faster than government income. Eventually, something's going to have to give.

So, for instance, you have David Lenow reporting for the Wall Street Journal, quote, the UK has long been torn between two mutually exclusive desires. Voters want European levels of welfare with U.S. levels of taxation, end quote. Okay, so when you talk about things that are impossible, and I think that's a brilliant way to open that report. If you want to talk about what is impossible, you can't have European levels of welfare spending and American levels of taxation.

It just can't happen. But that also means that with American levels of taxation, you can't have a vast, insatiable welfare state. And so the United States, by the way, is heading in that direction. The Obamacare Crisis, the Affordable Care Act crisis, is one indication of the fact that the United States is moving in the same direction, precisely because even as

conservatives said when the Affordable Care Act was passed, it will never pay for itself. It is going to lead to vast increases in public spending and government spending. And that's going to have to come from taxation. And that's going to have to come from the very people who were demanding this program in the first place. They want it. They don't want to pay for it. All right.

So as I say, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have a morality tale, vast worldview. implications here. Let's just look at it for a moment. So you can look at, say, Britain's NHS, the National Health Service, put in place shortly after World War II. And for a long time, the National Health Service, which is socialized medicine, for a long time, it was the jewel of Britain. Britain bragged about the NHS and its effectiveness and its efficiencies and its care. And they pointedly, at least to many in the British government, looked down on the United States with our private health care system. But now you have vast problems of the National Health Service, and it's not just the amount of money. Fewer doctors and others want to go into that system in the

first place. It is extremely difficult to find a doctor. Many people in Britain are on long waiting lists for basic surgeries, and sometimes those long waiting lists are not weeks or months, but years. It is a matter of a dire medical emergency there, and maybe, Many people in Britain recognize it. But to fix it, it will take more money than tax increases the public would bear would ever bring about. And now we're talking about a tax increase last year, and the chancellor is going to be making a budget proposal for a tax increase this year. So what is the immediate result? Well, the Telegraph reported just this week that one of Britain's richest men has now left the UK because he doesn't want to pay those taxes.

In this case, we're talking about Lakshmi Mittal, quote, the billionaire steel magnate who is worth more than $15 billion, according to the Times of London, the Sunday Times Rich List. We are told that he, quote, is said to have moved his tax residence from the UK to Switzerland and will spend most of his time in Dubai. And in this case, what the telegraph tells us is that, quote, the Indian-born tycoon is the latest high-profile entrepreneur to abandon Britain in response to live. labor parties tax treatment of the super rich. But it is not just the super rich who are leaving. It is also those who are upper middle class. So for example, the same newspaper, the Telegraph reported

this week that given the announcement of this new budget with the announced second tax increase on income, the Telegraph reports that 6,100 company directors have left the United Kingdom. They've left Britain up from 4,300 in the same period of the previous year. That's an increase of 42%. Put those numbers together. That is 10,400 company directors leaving the country. Now let's come back over the Atlantic to our side, to the American side. And here you have Kathy Hochwell, who is the Democratic governor of New York, who is signaling in every way that Zahram Mondani better be careful with some of the assurances he's making about tax increases because she is very much aware, even though she's a liberal Democrat, she is very much aware that people can and will move out of New York

if the taxes continue to rise. You also have people saying, the rich ought to pay their share of the taxes. And, you know, there's a good argument to be made for that. That's one of the reasons why the tax system in the United States, the income tax system, is a gradient system. But, you know, most people fail to recognize that if you look at a state like New York, the rich, the very rich, the ultra rich, they are already paying an outsized portion of the state's revenue. And so the issue is, evidently, the rich, the very rich and the super rich are willing to be taxed because they like to live in Manhattan, but there are limits. And so Kathy Hochel, the governor of New York, she's saying, you know, if these people leave, we go from not.

not only not getting more from them, we get zero from them. I think most of us are good enough at math to understand that dropping from a very significant figure to zero is not progress for a state. You know, the Christian worldview doesn't tell us exactly how to put a tax system together. No one should claim that it does. The Christian worldview doesn't tell us what the effective tax rate should be. It doesn't tell us exactly, you know, how all the policies should be put in place. It does warn us about breaking two things, and that is, number one, the link between investment and reward, and the other is the link between labor or work and reward. You break either of those, and you break your entire economy.

And this is something we just have to understand is a worldview issue, and it's in the scripture. The scripture gives a great priority towards saving and thrift and investment. Now, in the ancient world, there wasn't a stock market like the New York Stock Exchange, but the idea of owning real estate, for example, and investing in real stuff and saving, that was honored, even in some of the parables of Jesus. And also, the Bible makes a very clear link between labor and its reward. You break that link, guess what?

You give an disincentive to work. That's one of the big problems with the welfare state on its own. So all this turns out to be really, really interesting, but you know what? It's not just in New York and not just Britain. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a headline billionaires tax-eyed in California. Well, okay, I think most people hearing that would go, yeah, billionaires ought to pay a lot of taxes. If you're a billionaire, you ought to pay more than people who aren't nearly so rich. But, of course, it's a little more complicated than that.

Billionaires are already taxed at a very high rate in the state of California. A pair of reporters tells us, this is Laura Nelson and Paul Kiernan, and quote, it might get a lot more expensive to be a billionaire in California. A ballot initiative proposed by a health care workers union would take aim at the Golden State's richest residence with a one-time 5% tax on net worth over $1 billion. This would mean pursuing assets such as stocks, artwork, and intellectual property rights rather than income. End quote.

Now, the newspaper goes on to say this is an unprecedented proposal, but you know what? I think there are a lot of people who hear that and go, yeah, you ought to do that. But here's the problem. Well, there are several problems. Number one, if you're going to have a one-time 5% tax, let me just point out, no one being taxed is going to believe it's a one-time thing. A state that does this, any government that does this, immediately sends a signal you better move out of this state or you better move out of this country and fast.

Okay, there's something else here. And that is that when you say you're going to tax all the things that people own and you're going to tax them at what, I don't know, they would come up with some kind of current value. You actually upend another basic part of your economy, which is you have just created a disincentive to own things and to invest. And so, for instance, capital gains tax is assigned against the sale of capital assets. And so if you own stock, you don't have to pay tax on that stock. You may have to pay tax on a dividend. in, but on the actual economic growth of the value or equity of the stock itself, you don't

pay tax on that until you sell it. Only at the point that you sell it is there a capital gain that is taxed. If someone tries to tax it between when you buy it and when you sell it, well, it makes participation in the entire system a lot more expensive and the incentive to invest a lot lower. But, you know, there's another huge thing here. I mentioned that the Wall Street Journal says this is coming from a particular union, a health care workers union. And, you know, here's what the union had better keep in mind. Unions are almost always involved in giant pension funds. And this is particularly true, say, of even public school teachers. And I point this out every time I can. And so you look at public school teachers and many times they, they at least in

theory have a lower current salary because they have very generous pensions, at least that's a part of how the whole thing was set up. If you teach and you retire as a teacher, the state of California is a prime example, and by the way, teachers there are paid quite a bit too. And then they are given a very lucrative and well-invested pension or retirement program on the other side. Here's the thing. Guess where those funds are invested. They are invested in the very places that would be hurt by the policies this labor union is demanding. That's one of the problems. You look at this. If you think the easy way out of anything is a higher rate of taxation, the problem is you are likely to create a disincentive to solve the problem you're trying to solve.

And again, I'm not saying the Christian worldview says you should never raise taxes. I am saying that if taxes get too high, you create a disincentive for all the good things that actually lead to human flourishing. And that means people working and people saving and people. investing. There's so much going on here. It is interesting that an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Emmanuel says, he went on to say about this proposal, quote, it would be the first in the world tax like this on the super wealthy. Okay, the first in the world. That's telling you something. But it also tells you there's probably a reason why no one has done this before. And the most obvious reason is they will move. And you've already seen this.

Elon Musk left his residency in California and moved to Texas, and he was loud about the fact that the main reason he was doing it was because of California levels of taxation. And, you know, California went from getting a lot of money from Elon Musk in terms of his personal wealth. Well, in the case of income taxes, basically nothing, because he moved to a different state. And by the way, if you're going to do that, you can move to a state that has no income tax. Doesn't mean they don't have any taxes, but it does mean they do not tax income directly. All right, while we're having fun thinking about these things because these are really rich with worldview importance, let's shift to Elon Musk and his salary package. The headlines are very, very interesting.

It's the largest salary package in all of human history. He has signed on to an agreement with, in particular Tesla and others, that he would be paid up to $1 trillion if certain benchmarks are met. And so all over the place you have the news about Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package. The New York Times reported it this way. Tesla shareholders approved a plan that could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. And by the way, that vote took place two days after New Yorkers elected Zeramandani on a tax the platform. As the New York Times notes, quote, these discrete moments offered shockingly different

lessons about America and who deserves how much of its wealth, end quote. So a $1 trillion pay package. Okay, but it's over several years and it is tied to specific goals. And the goals are massive. In other words, for Elon Musk to make that much money, he has to multiply the worth, the current worth of Tesla. And that's not going to be a small task. Why would shareholders agree to this? And by the way, that's exactly what you heard. Tesla's shareholders approved the plan. So there is nothing more democratic than that. It's the people who are the shareholders or the representatives of those shareholders who got to vote to approve the pay package. This wasn't imposed upon them. Well, except by the fact that Elon Musk basically demanded it. And here's the deal. The shareholders in Tesla decided that their future is very much tied to Elon Musk being the CEO of the company. company, and so they were willing to agree to a $1 trillion pay package. But again, in order to do that, he's going to have to vastly increase the wealth of Tesla. And that's another big lesson to us. Why should anyone in the world care how much Elon Musk is paid if he makes an awful lot of people

extremely rich in the process? And that awful lot of people, by the way, it would include pension funds and other trusts and other funds that would be invested. So you can have small time investors. And by the way, this isn't only about Tesla. What about all the suppliers? What about all the companies that supply parts and technologies to Tesla? Every one of them would have to rise. And so this is a situation in which the shareholders of Tesla voluntarily decided it was worth that much money if Elon Musk would make them rich. So that's the deal. They're quite willing to make Elon Musk wealthy beyond imagination if he will make them wealthy beyond what someone else might deliver. Now, again, the Bible warns against the acquisition of wealth and the greed that is behind it.

And that's certainly true. But, you know, the government's responsibility is not to prevent greed. It is to instead incentivize the right things. And that includes making a lot of money by making a lot of people rich. and creating a lot of jobs and making a lot of impact in the economy. And it's also true that in this case, there are people who would say no one should be paid that much. It reminds me of a very interesting situation that was recalled as a joke by President Ronald Reagan. When he compared American economics and American politics to the economics and the politics of the Soviet Union.

and he famously talked about two men on a corner, an American and a Soviet citizen. And at that time, a fat cat, and it would be a member of the Politburo in the old Soviet Union or a fat cat capitalist in the United States, rides by in a limousine. And Ronald Reagan said all the worldview difference in the world comes down to the fact that the one man says no one should ride in a car like that, the Soviet citizen, and the difference between that statement and the American saying, everyone should ride in a car like that. That is a distinctly different way of looking at the world. And the fact is that there are moral dimensions that are made very clear in Scripture tied to the acquisition of money, the investment of money, and all the rest.

But it's also just a fundamental fact that the Bible does recognize that investment should lead to reward and labor should lead to reward. And that comes down to the fact that someone with superior ideas should be able to translate that into genuine income and to wealth. By the way, when it comes to these tax issues, Britain has been on something of a pendulum swing on these over the years, and it seems that some of the lessons have to come back again. The city of New York, the same. Back in the 1960s, it was Mayor John Lindsay, again young, very telegenic. In this case, all. someone from the economic left. He had very much the same kind of policies in his day that Zeram Mandani is proposing now. It led to absolute fiscal crisis in New York City. And I will tell you

this, if Zeram Mandani's plans and policies are put in place, it will lead to absolute financial disaster in New York. But don't worry about the rich. They will probably already move to Miami. A worry about those who are left in New York because they will be stuck with the bills. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohar.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to SPTS. com.

For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.