Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
Speaker 1: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 1: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 1: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 1: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Have an amazing
Speaker 1: show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal Dee?
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: There are a million things that are happening in this town,
Speaker 2: including the trade war from Trump has officially started.
Speaker 3: We've got tariffs in.
Speaker 2: Place against China, Mexico, Canada, and some retaliatory tariffs coming
Speaker 2: our way as well. Jeff's Dined from the Washing Post
Speaker 2: is going to break all of that down for us.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk has basically sees the government give you all
Speaker 2: the details there as best we know and what that
Speaker 2: is going to mean going forward. We've got new info
Speaker 2: about that horrific plane crash here as another plane, a
Speaker 2: small plane went down in Philadelphia. Still a lot of
Speaker 2: questions about what occurred there as well. The Democrats have
Speaker 2: elected a new leader for the DNC. We'll show you
Speaker 2: what that guy is all about and what it pretends
Speaker 2: for the future of that party. Tucker and Ben Shapiro
Speaker 2: have gone to war trading blows, accusations, et cetera. And
Speaker 2: a Haretz reporter is going to join us a break
Speaker 2: down scoop that he is reporting out in advance of
Speaker 2: Bbe's trip to Washington. Bb being the first foreign leader
Speaker 2: who will come and visit the new Trump administration, so.
Speaker 3: Lots to get to.
Speaker 1: Lots of that actually passed some of these really delegation yesterday.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this large Secret Service convoy
Speaker 1: coming in? I was like, Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's on this way.
Speaker 2: Brought all of his dirty clothes like he normally does,
Speaker 2: all of their credible bring their laundry suit cases full
Speaker 2: of their own laundry to Blair House, which is the
Speaker 2: President's official guest house, so that the White House tax you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's is that if the taxpayer doesn't pay enough
Speaker 1: for the Israeli government, we also have to literally wash
Speaker 1: their dirty laundry. I'm sure you could write a ton
Speaker 1: of stories about that, but that's Crystal said. Let's get
Speaker 1: to the tariffs. This is absolutely the most important story
Speaker 1: both here in Washington in the global economy. President Trump
Speaker 1: announcing it on Friday. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: Cities that we're giving to Canada and to Mexico in
Speaker 4: the form of deficits, and I'll be putting the tariff
Speaker 4: of twenty five percent on Canada and separately twenty five
Speaker 4: percent on Mexico. And we will really have to do
Speaker 4: that because we have very big deficits with those countries.
Speaker 4: Those tariffs and may or may not rise with time.
Speaker 1: So the details of the tariffs there laid out by
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Let me just from the top line, it's
Speaker 1: pretty simple. Basically, twenty five percent tariff on Canada, twenty
Speaker 1: five percent tariff on Mexico. There is an exception for
Speaker 1: Canadian oil, but there will be some more tariffs that
Speaker 1: kick in on that. On February twenty third, about twenty
Speaker 1: days from right now. Ten percent on China, and a
Speaker 1: removal of something called deminimus. Matt Stolar will be joining
Speaker 1: us tomorrow to break that down. But effectively, what it
Speaker 1: does is it shuts down the loophole for any package
Speaker 1: entering the United States that is under the value of
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars. That allows huge Amazon China sellers to
Speaker 1: do business. It's the way that Temu, the way that
Speaker 1: she in many of these other Chinese companies which do
Speaker 1: direct e commerce to the United States, arguably in my opinion,
Speaker 1: one of the most important tariffs that was put there.
Speaker 1: But Trump also was asked here about his pledge to
Speaker 1: reduce prices and how that may conflict with tariffs. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 5: You promised Americans to try to reduce costs, and so
Speaker 5: many of the products that would be tariffed when they
Speaker 5: come into the country, the outgoing country is not paying
Speaker 5: the tariff. The buyers in the United States pay that,
Speaker 5: and then that's passed on to consumers. In most instance,
Speaker 5: how would you expect to have prices come down if
Speaker 5: you have such a broad plan for tariffs? And what
Speaker 5: do you say to the voters who want to see
Speaker 5: you reduce everyday costs.
Speaker 6: Well, let me just tell you that I got elected
Speaker 6: for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 7: Number one was the border.
Speaker 6: Number two was inflation, because I had almost no inflation,
Speaker 6: and yet I charged hundreds of billions of dollars of
Speaker 6: tariffs to countries. And I think of it, I had
Speaker 6: almost no inflation, and I took in six hundred billion
Speaker 6: dollars of money from other countries. And the tariffs don't
Speaker 6: cause inflation. They caused success. It caused big success. So
Speaker 6: we're going to have great success. There could be some temporary,
Speaker 6: short term disruption, and people will understand that I had
Speaker 6: that one.
Speaker 7: I negotiated some of the good deals for the farmers.
Speaker 1: People will understand that Trump is really betting on that.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen. This is
Speaker 1: from his truth social over the weekend. The tariff lobby,
Speaker 1: headed by the globalists, always wrong Wall Street journalists, working
Speaker 1: hard to justify countries like Canada, Mexico, and China who
Speaker 1: continue the decades long ripoff of America. He continues. There,
Speaker 1: he says, make your product in the USA. There are
Speaker 1: no tariffs. Why should the United States lose trillions of
Speaker 1: dollars in subsidizing other countries? He talks there and says
Speaker 1: specifically about the quote unquote pain that may arise. Will
Speaker 1: there be some pain, yes, maybe and maybe not. So
Speaker 1: that is the official word there from Donald Trump. He
Speaker 1: will be speaking this morning, as I understand it, with
Speaker 1: Mexico and Canada. These tariffs, by the way, are not
Speaker 1: yet in effect. They go into effect tomorrow. So that's
Speaker 1: where things stand right now. Crystal absolutely dizzying weekend here
Speaker 1: in Washington. As of right now. You know, the markets
Speaker 1: are actually having a pretty modest reaction. So we're filming
Speaker 1: this is about seven to fifty five am. You and
Speaker 1: I are talking S and P five hundred down by
Speaker 1: about one point six percent. But to be honest, I
Speaker 1: mean that's really not much. That basically just returns it
Speaker 1: to the value of where it was just a month ago.
Speaker 1: Remains up to fifteen percent on the last six months,
Speaker 1: so it's not like the markets have taken a major reaction.
Speaker 1: Approximately thirty percent of all US goods enter from Canada
Speaker 1: or Mexico, but they are disproportionately more important for the
Speaker 1: Canadians and the Mexicans. About seventy five percent of goods
Speaker 1: from Canada come to the United States. About eighty percent
Speaker 1: of goods from Mexico come to the United States.
Speaker 2: So Canada, Mexico, and China are three largest trading partners.
Speaker 2: Together they make up about forty percent of US imports.
Speaker 2: The areas that will be most impact in jef Stein
Speaker 2: can break this down for US as well autumn manufacturing.
Speaker 2: So the estimate is that this will increase the price
Speaker 2: of cars by about three thousand dollars. A huge amount
Speaker 2: of produce coming in particular from Mexico. Canada we rely
Speaker 2: on for a lot of building materials. Also, Trump seemingly
Speaker 2: recognizing the inflationary impacts that these teriffs will have, put
Speaker 2: a lower tariff on oil imports from Canada, and I
Speaker 2: believe the amount is between sixty and seventy percent of
Speaker 2: all of our oil imports do come from Canada. The
Speaker 2: expectation is particular in the Midwest that will spike gas prices. Now,
Speaker 2: there's a few things to say about what we know
Speaker 2: from the past and what the impacts were, and also
Speaker 2: about you know what it was that American people thought
Speaker 2: they were voting for with Donald Trump, As he himself
Speaker 2: acknowledged there one of the top reasons they voted for
Speaker 2: him was because they were concerned about inflation and the
Speaker 2: cost of living crisis. Almost every economist will tell you
Speaker 2: these tariffs are going to raise prices. Probably the place
Speaker 2: where they will be most immediately felt.
Speaker 3: Is in the grocery store.
Speaker 2: In terms of produce, you know, things like auto manufacturers,
Speaker 2: because that's a longer timeline to delivery, it may take
Speaker 2: a longer time period before you see those price hikes
Speaker 2: go into effect. But while it is not inevitable that
Speaker 2: producers pass on the cost to consumers, we know that
Speaker 2: is in fact what they have largely done in the
Speaker 2: past with regards to the terrffs put in place both
Speaker 2: by Trump and Biden, you know, in Biden's term and
Speaker 2: in Trump's previous term. We also know that, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US,
Speaker 2: Trump's tariffs in the first term, which I supported, by
Speaker 2: the way, we're not actually effective at that because they
Speaker 2: weren't paired with an overarching industrial policy. Biden continued those
Speaker 2: tariffs and expanded them in certain markets, paired it with
Speaker 2: somewhat of an industrial policy that did help to reshore
Speaker 2: some jobs. The other thing that I'll say here is
Speaker 2: that the justification for these is pretty confused. So Trump
Speaker 2: has to put a national security justification around this, which
Speaker 2: is why you talk so much about Sentinel, even though
Speaker 2: you know, with regard to Canada, one percent of all
Speaker 2: fentinyl comes in from the Canadian border, Like it really
Speaker 2: is a preposterous excuse.
Speaker 3: In terms of Canada, even in terms of Mexico.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: A lot of the reason why the business community was
Speaker 2: very comfortable with Trump this time around, and I think
Speaker 2: probably even why the stock market isn't reacting even more
Speaker 2: than it is, is they still see this as effectively
Speaker 2: like a threat they've never really haken seriously, the rhetoric
Speaker 2: that he is consistently used, saying I want across the
Speaker 2: board tariffs. We're going to really rely on tariff. We're
Speaker 2: going to get rid of the income tax and replace
Speaker 2: it with tariffs, et cetera, et cetera. And part of
Speaker 2: what they thought he would do was to use the
Speaker 2: threat of tariffs to coerce behavior. Well, in fact, he
Speaker 2: got some wins from Mexico already. Claudia Scheinbaum did some
Speaker 2: gigantic fentanyl bust. They significantly reduced the amount of fentanyl
Speaker 2: actually coming across the border in December. In anticipation of
Speaker 2: Trump coming in. I think they see something like one
Speaker 2: thousand pounds of fentanyl. Obviously, that's still a thousand pounds
Speaker 2: too many. That is the lowest amount that we have
Speaker 2: seen in quite some time. So unclear what they he
Speaker 2: even wants Canada to do or what the purpose of
Speaker 2: that really is. Mexico is already doing the things that
Speaker 2: he wants him to do, and he's still slapping the
Speaker 2: tariffs on. So the indication of the rest of the
Speaker 2: world is basically like, there's nothing you can do to
Speaker 2: appease this guy. You may as well either band together
Speaker 2: in some sort of an alternative coalition or you know,
Speaker 2: rushed more into the arms of Asia. So you know,
Speaker 2: obviously I think that this is incredibly foolish, counterproductive. Is
Speaker 2: just going to spike prices, is not going to increase
Speaker 2: manufacturing wages or bring manufacturing back because that's not the
Speaker 2: track record and prove pretty devastating to our cheoty.
Speaker 1: I totally disagree. I'm very supportive of these tariffs, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why, which is that the reason why.
Speaker 1: First of all, look, the fentanyl thing, You're not wrong,
Speaker 1: which is it's obviously a pretext. So there's this law
Speaker 1: called AEPA, which affect the International Economic Emergency Powers Act,
Speaker 1: which was passing the nineteen seventies. Allows the president to
Speaker 1: institute immediate tariffs by going around Congress as long as
Speaker 1: there's a national threat that exists quote solely outside of
Speaker 1: the United States. But you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: that tweet that he put our truth, I apologize where
Speaker 1: he was talking about the tariffs. What did he say?
Speaker 1: He said, we have to make your products in the USA,
Speaker 1: and there are no tariffs. The truth is this is
Speaker 1: again eighty percent of all goods from Mexico come to
Speaker 1: the United States. Now seventy five percent come from Canada.
Speaker 1: The integration of our economies for the auto market has
Speaker 1: devastated manufacturing in the Upper Midwest area, which voted for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Now, the way to accelerate that is to
Speaker 1: renegotiate our trade agreement. The problem, yes, he did, and
Speaker 1: it was not as good on fire we criticize. I meant,
Speaker 1: I remember talk.
Speaker 2: We're operating under the trade dis agreement that you put
Speaker 2: into blanks, Moundy.
Speaker 3: Or can there's a problem. It's on you.
Speaker 1: We cannot renegotiate that until twenty twenty six, if we
Speaker 1: stick with the current policy. However, with the current tariffs,
Speaker 1: we can accelerate renegotiation. We don't have to wait three
Speaker 1: years and then who knows if Congress will even fast
Speaker 1: track it. It could take until twenty twenty seven, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight to be able to get that through. This
Speaker 1: is basically the only loophole way to immediately restart negotiations
Speaker 1: of the USBCA, which is effectively the end goal. So
Speaker 1: everyone keeps saying that, and I do want to take
Speaker 1: an opportunity here to dunk on the UAW, who I
Speaker 1: think is acting incredibly foolishly A seven. Can we please
Speaker 1: put that up there on the screen, you know. UAW
Speaker 1: President Sean Fain put out the statement UAW supports aggressive
Speaker 1: teriff faction to protect American manufacturing as a good first
Speaker 1: step to undoing decades of anti worker trade policy. We
Speaker 1: do not support using factory workers as pawns in a
Speaker 1: fight over immigration or drug policy. I mean, look, I'm
Speaker 1: an idiot, and I can find out very easily that
Speaker 1: AEPA tariffs are not actually just about immigration or drug policy.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's how Trump selling.
Speaker 1: But you have to do it. It's justification. So second,
Speaker 1: he goes, if Trump is serious about bringing back blue
Speaker 1: collar jobs destroyed by NAF, they should do a step
Speaker 1: further and immediately seek to renegotiate our broken trade deals again.
Speaker 1: You literally yesterday they put out a statement saying they
Speaker 1: want to accelerate renegotiation of USMCA. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: to me, mister Faine and others would like for pretty
Speaker 1: little words not to include immigration and drug policy. And
Speaker 1: it's like, look, guys, it's not pretty, it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not all bow tide, and it's not all process.
Speaker 1: But if you actually want to restore a trade imbalance,
Speaker 1: the only way is to slap terraffs on our largest
Speaker 1: trading partners, to force and compel different behavior, and to
Speaker 1: reset rules that actually are good for the American economy. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and deny I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those Biden spending egg price or you know people.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've ever been.
Speaker 2: You said an entire monologue about egg prices under Bido.
Speaker 1: No, but I did not say that it was because
Speaker 1: of his spending. I said it was bad. I certainly agree.
Speaker 2: Now is it going to be bad now? When produce
Speaker 2: prices spike is.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't think it's a good I don't think
Speaker 1: it's done scouging segments. I don't think it's.
Speaker 2: A bad idea too, if you have a strategic industry
Speaker 2: like the auto industry, right, and this was the focus
Speaker 2: of the you know, some of the Biden administration terrorists
Speaker 2: in particular to protect the domestic ev auto industry because
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is China's kicking our ass
Speaker 2: there and if we didn't have have tariffs on Chinese cars,
Speaker 2: we would have no domestic ev auto industry. Effectively, I
Speaker 2: think that makes sense. Putting tariffs on building materials, on oil,
Speaker 2: on avocados, on tomatoes.
Speaker 1: Like why, because that's why.
Speaker 2: The only thing you do, the only thing you do
Speaker 2: with that is increase prices for consumers and cause countries
Speaker 2: around the world to go like, these people are insane.
Speaker 2: There's nothing we can do to appease this guy. So no,
Speaker 2: I think this makes no sense. I think it is
Speaker 2: directly counter to what the American people thought that they
Speaker 2: were voting for. Now you can say, like, yes, he
Speaker 2: was out there talking about his care full time, but
Speaker 2: his tariff policy, when you pull it it has actually
Speaker 2: never been popular, which is surprising to me, to be
Speaker 2: honest with you, I thought it would be more popular.
Speaker 2: Has never been more popular, And the number one reason
Speaker 2: that people said they were voting for Trump was to
Speaker 2: bring prices down. This is the polar opposite of that.
Speaker 2: So listen, I think that this is foolish. I think
Speaker 2: it will be economically catastrophic. I do not think it
Speaker 2: will accomplish any of the things that he thinks. I
Speaker 2: don't even know I know what he thinks is going
Speaker 2: to accomplish, because again, the rationale for this has been
Speaker 2: completely confused and all over the map, and the idea
Speaker 2: that it has anything to do with like fentanel coming
Speaker 2: out of Canada is utterly propriable.
Speaker 1: It's a legal pretext. It's the only way that you
Speaker 1: can institute the tariffs. Look, we have Jeff Stein standing by,
Speaker 1: who actually broke the news on a lot of this,
Speaker 1: so we can continue our debate. After we talked to him,
Speaker 1: Why don't we go ahead and bring him in joining
Speaker 1: us now? Is friend of the show, Jeff Stein from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. He's broken a ton of news on
Speaker 1: this topic, and we're it's great to talk to him.
Speaker 7: Good to see you, man, Hey, Thanks edgre Thanks thanks for.
Speaker 1: So Jeff, there's a lot of discussion now here in Washington.
Speaker 1: You've been in the camp always that the tariff threat
Speaker 1: was real. Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen from Axios A five. Please about the average
Speaker 1: cost that the US household could get hit with some
Speaker 1: eight hundred and thirty dollars as a result of these tariffs.
Speaker 1: Could you go ahead and break down for us of
Speaker 1: what we know right now about the institution, whether they'll
Speaker 1: actually go into effect, some negotiation, other and other things
Speaker 1: that you're hearing.
Speaker 8: So the executive order is that the President's sign does
Speaker 8: order you know, twenty five percent across the board tariffs
Speaker 8: on Mexico and Canadad. No exceptions except for I guess
Speaker 8: one exception of energy, which is at ten percent, I believe,
Speaker 8: and that is moving ahead as far as we can tell.
Speaker 8: As you said, stag Aright, every point of this process,
Speaker 8: someone has said this is a bluff, this is a
Speaker 8: negotiating tactic, this.
Speaker 7: Is a way to get extra y.
Speaker 8: And you know, every person I've spoken to who has
Speaker 8: spoken directly to the president says that he says like, no,
Speaker 8: this is not a negotiating tactic.
Speaker 7: This is not a ploy. This is like what I believe.
Speaker 8: And you know, I was listening to your guys like
Speaker 8: debate about sort of the efficacy or the benefits of this,
Speaker 8: which I think captured sort of like the broader debate
Speaker 8: very well. The thing that has bothered me throughout this
Speaker 8: whole discussion is that there's a segment of people, particularly
Speaker 8: on Wall Street, who have been saying, like, he doesn't
Speaker 8: mean this right, And it's just like, what do you
Speaker 8: want him to do to prove that he does? Like
Speaker 8: he basically just like ripped his shirt off and like
Speaker 8: wrote tariffs like on his chest and like campaigned on
Speaker 8: that throughout the country.
Speaker 7: Like it was impossible to.
Speaker 8: More seriously embrace this idea than Trump did in the
Speaker 8: twenty twenty four presidential campaign. I was talking last week
Speaker 8: to a Republican senator. I'm gonna preserve his anonymity here,
Speaker 8: and I said, you know, like what's gonna happen with
Speaker 8: the tariffs?
Speaker 7: And the senator said to.
Speaker 8: Me, like, like I have been begging him to not
Speaker 8: do this, Like I'm he's in a state that's like
Speaker 8: very dependent on trade with Canada. I was like, so,
Speaker 8: what does that conversation. Look like he was, like I
Speaker 8: spoke to the president for two hours. All he wanted
Speaker 8: to talk about was how great William McKinley was. That
Speaker 8: is not like someone who's like using this as negotiating.
Speaker 8: That's someone who like is thinking about his legacy, thinking
Speaker 8: about like sort of these huge questions about the ordering
Speaker 8: of the American economy and trying and is determined to
Speaker 8: go there regardless of the people in his orbit. So
Speaker 8: I just feel like, like, you can be for the tariffs,
Speaker 8: you can be not for the tariffs, but.
Speaker 7: Like pick one.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like this like like the superimposed quantum state of
Speaker 8: like I'm not for the terroiffs, but I'm for Trump's
Speaker 8: economic policy is like increasingly untenable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like the Tea Party current position on the tariffs.
Speaker 2: Well, and so people understand McKinley. When McKinley was in office,
Speaker 2: First of all, huge amount of federal government was wildly
Speaker 2: smaller than it is now. Huge amount of revenues came
Speaker 2: from tariffs. This was before there was even an income tax,
Speaker 2: which is something else that Trump has floated, maybe not
Speaker 2: as consistently as a huge tariff regime, but he has
Speaker 2: floated we're going to substitute in tariffs for the income tax,
Speaker 2: which you know, I mean what a tariff's right now
Speaker 2: makeup as a percent of federal revenue. It's like minuscule.
Speaker 2: It's a rounding error effectively. Yeah, so this would be
Speaker 2: I mean, it's impossible to imagine that such a thing
Speaker 2: could happen with the you know, modern country and modern
Speaker 2: federal government as it exists. What do you make in
Speaker 2: the market reaction so far this morning, Jeff, Because it
Speaker 2: seems like there may still be baked in a little
Speaker 2: bit like yeah, sure, okay, he's doing these across the
Speaker 2: board TIFFs, but he's talking to these leaders today like he's.
Speaker 3: Not really going to go forward with this, right.
Speaker 8: I do think the markets continue to discount the severity
Speaker 8: of this. And also Trump has been talking about, you know,
Speaker 8: he campaigned on universal across the world tariffs, and I
Speaker 8: see no reason to think that Mexico and Canada will
Speaker 8: be the last countries he slops tariffs. I mean, if
Speaker 8: you follow the economic logic of getting Mexico in Canada
Speaker 8: to its conclusion, why not do it to all of Europe,
Speaker 8: in all of China, and all of India and all
Speaker 8: of etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, I think
Speaker 8: I don't know, there's a lot of different angles here
Speaker 8: obviously that are really important to discuss. I mean, Canada
Speaker 8: is not the reason that the Midwest has lost its
Speaker 8: manufacturing base. I mean, the most articulate, strident critics of
Speaker 8: NAFTA would not identify in Canadian labor practices the source
Speaker 8: of the long decline in American manufacturing was just like
Speaker 8: like nobody would say that, Like none of the people
Speaker 8: who like won the intellectual rounding for Trump's push on trade.
Speaker 8: Like there are people obviously, like Michael Pettis and you know,
Speaker 8: like here Navar, like people in that orbit. You know,
Speaker 8: like they they have like a very coherent sort of
Speaker 8: explanation about like how NAFTA and the opening of China
Speaker 8: like sort of American trade practices led to the destruction
Speaker 8: of the American you know class and sort of blue
Speaker 8: collar jobs, you know, blue college jobs in Michigan, et cetera.
Speaker 8: But no one would say that Canada was responsible for
Speaker 8: any of that because it's just it's just not it's
Speaker 8: like non responsive to like the issue. So you know,
Speaker 8: if they want to go after China or they want
Speaker 8: to go after particular sets of of sectors. But you know,
Speaker 8: it's like the democratic responses is still so confusing and
Speaker 8: weird because it's like, oh, we like them in some cases,
Speaker 8: not all on HLULA, and I think that's a very
Speaker 8: confusing message to people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's interesting as well. Whenever we're talking
Speaker 1: here in the broader context of some of these tariffs.
Speaker 1: Some of the things you've also tracked is the legal response.
Speaker 1: So as I understand it, this will almost certainly come
Speaker 1: under juris like under scrutiny from the courts.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: These AIPA type tariffs have been used sparingly in the past,
Speaker 1: and consumer groups and others are likely to sue. What
Speaker 1: do you think, how do you think that will proceed
Speaker 1: through the federal court system? Considering what just happened with
Speaker 1: the OMB funding.
Speaker 8: I actually think the Supreme Court is quite likely to
Speaker 8: defer to President Trump's authority here. AIPA, as you mentioned,
Speaker 8: is typically you know, this nineteen seventy seven law is
Speaker 8: typically used as the basis for economic sanctions.
Speaker 7: And even though.
Speaker 8: The Constitution is quite clear in Medicle two that the
Speaker 8: Congress has the power to levy taxes there are huge.
Speaker 8: There's a huge amount of difference from the court to
Speaker 8: the executive branch in matters of national security, and that's
Speaker 8: what they're citing here, with defence and all and other things.
Speaker 7: So typically, I mean, even.
Speaker 8: I've reported, as you guys have me on about economic
Speaker 8: sanctions a lot, typically the courts have barely interfered with
Speaker 8: that at all. So I actually think the court challenge
Speaker 8: is unlikely to be successful.
Speaker 2: Jeff, what can people expect in terms of assuming that
Speaker 2: this terror regime goes forward and retaliatory tariffs are levied
Speaker 2: from Canada, China and Mexico as have been threatened. What
Speaker 2: do you think that people can expect in terms of
Speaker 2: impact on their day to day lives.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think the macroeconomics here are a little
Speaker 8: more complicated than people realize. There is you know that
Speaker 8: the Trump people I've been speaking to have been arguing,
Speaker 8: not on persuasively, that that currency markets will shift such
Speaker 8: that you'll see, you know, the overall prices that you
Speaker 8: see at the grocery store may not look you.
Speaker 7: Know, dramatically higher one day.
Speaker 8: That might happen, you know, I think there's reasonably that,
Speaker 8: but there's there's a potential for the sort of the
Speaker 8: through line for the cow this actually gets implemented and
Speaker 8: actually effectuate in the economy or instead of price appreciation,
Speaker 8: sort of changes in currency valuation between the pesto and
Speaker 8: US in Canada, and that that might depress our purchasing
Speaker 8: power but not necessarily lead to sticker shock at the
Speaker 8: grocery store. So people might get horror and not see
Speaker 8: the visible impact that they're sort of a custom that
Speaker 8: they that they are being primed to see.
Speaker 7: Now, which is I think a bit of a danger
Speaker 7: for Democrats that they.
Speaker 8: Warren pricex price x pricex price prices and then there's
Speaker 8: this more nuance, still very damaging, but more nuanced effect.
Speaker 8: I'll just say, like, imagine a Democrat in office doing this.
Speaker 8: This is like the biggest taxike, if you want to
Speaker 8: call it Teforot taxic, which I think most economists would
Speaker 8: the biggest tax hike in decades, I mean close to
Speaker 8: a century. More than a trillion dollars worth of stuff
Speaker 8: is going to be taxed at twenty five percent. I mean,
Speaker 8: is imagine Barack Obama being like, We're going to do
Speaker 8: like a trillion dollars on taxes on everything. It's like
Speaker 8: it's an incredible, you know thing that that democrat could
Speaker 8: never touch with a twenty foot pole.
Speaker 1: Well, without getting too crazy, can you just modestly try
Speaker 1: and explain some of those currency things, because that's going
Speaker 1: to be a big point of contention. So the peso
Speaker 1: and the Canadian dollar a free fall of this morning,
Speaker 1: the part purchasing power of the dollar, the dollar is
Speaker 1: becoming stronger as a result. Just get into a little
Speaker 1: bit of that so that I don't have to do it.
Speaker 1: And so if that we can prime everybody for this
Speaker 1: conversation in the month's head.
Speaker 8: You know, I haven't covered this in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 8: but my understanding basically is that if the purchasing power
Speaker 8: of the US consumer is basically like depressed by the
Speaker 8: the tariffs. Basically, if the tariffs make things so that
Speaker 8: there's there's you know, each each import is more expensive,
Speaker 8: it's possible that the prices of goods for stuff in
Speaker 8: the US falls, Right, like the purchase the purchasing power
Speaker 8: of a consumer stay is constant, but it gets more
Speaker 8: expensive for the imported goods. Right, then the ability of
Speaker 8: the US consumer to spend the prices for other things
Speaker 8: because there's more demand and supply for the out standing
Speaker 8: things that are coming into the country or are being
Speaker 8: produced domestically will go down. So there's there's going to
Speaker 8: be some substitution effect for the effect of the terraff overall.
Speaker 8: Because the basket of goods is smaller than it would
Speaker 8: be in a non tariff world, the sort of like
Speaker 8: the overall economic benefit that each consumer gets will be smaller,
Speaker 8: but because of the substitution effect, it might be a
Speaker 8: little hard to detect.
Speaker 7: That. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, that's a better explanation that I would have winn.
Speaker 7: I was kind of rewilling that like midway through that.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You did a good job. Otherwise I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to read from Claude or chech Empyta.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'd rather for Jeff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we prefer the job Jeff.
Speaker 2: One last thing just before we let you go, because
Speaker 2: this will preview our next segment as well. You also
Speaker 2: had a big scoop with regard to Elon and his
Speaker 2: acolytes seizing control of Treasury payment system. Can you talk
Speaker 2: just a little bit top line about that news you're
Speaker 2: able to break as well?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, this is what I've been focused on
Speaker 7: a lot.
Speaker 8: You know, the senior most career official at the Treasure
Speaker 8: Department was told by allies or sort of deputies of
Speaker 8: Elon Musk to hand over the sort of system responsible
Speaker 8: for dispersing six trillion dollars of payments medicare, so security,
Speaker 8: basically everything that the our government does. And this guy said,
Speaker 8: you know, you don't have legal authority essentially to access that,
Speaker 8: and the Musk people effectively pushed him out. He was
Speaker 8: he went on leave and resigned on Friday. And now
Speaker 8: we reported on Saturday that these Musk people now have
Speaker 8: access to this system. And the Trump administration has been
Speaker 8: very clear that it intends to massively kind to exert
Speaker 8: unilateral authority to shut down payments approved by Congress. And
Speaker 8: what the Musk people will do with that information is
Speaker 8: anyone's guest really?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: All right, Jeff, Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I know you got to run because you've got eighteen
Speaker 2: other stories that you need to you need to break.
Speaker 3: This morning.
Speaker 2: So great to see you. Thank you so much as
Speaker 2: always for your time. You just so as we just
Speaker 2: previewed with Jeff Stein, who originally broke this story Elon
Speaker 2: Musk and as acolytes have effectively seized the Treasury Department,
Speaker 2: and they have control over all of the payments that
Speaker 2: go out from the federal government, along with seizing various
Speaker 2: other agencies that we'll get to in a moment. Let's
Speaker 2: go and put Jeff's reporting here up on the screen
Speaker 2: from the Washington Post. He says, Scoop the highest ranking
Speaker 2: Chargery officials expected to depart soon, and that has now
Speaker 2: happened after a clash with Elon Musk allies over their
Speaker 2: demands for access to a sensitive internal government payment system.
Speaker 2: Musk allies wanted access to that system, responsible for dispersing
Speaker 2: trillions in federal government payments annually as part of dog
Speaker 2: Treasury career. Staff saw the request, as he puts it,
Speaker 2: highly unusual. David Lebrick viewed internally as consummate non political
Speaker 2: civil servant expected to exit after joining Treasury in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine. Last week he was acting Treasury Secretary. And
Speaker 2: the update there is now Musk has, in fact, in
Speaker 2: his aporojects allies whatever you want to call him, have
Speaker 2: been given access to that Treasury payment system.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Just to explain to people how this works, all of
Speaker 2: the money, Social Security payments, Medicare payments, veterans benefits, all
Speaker 2: of the money that goes out from the federal government
Speaker 2: is dispersed by this system. Treasury officials have no authority
Speaker 2: to pick and choose which of these payments go out, because,
Speaker 2: as we all know from Constitution one oh one, Congress
Speaker 2: has the power of the purse. They appropriate the funds,
Speaker 2: and so this system is really just about executing on
Speaker 2: the payments that have already been congressionally authorized. So that's
Speaker 2: why that's one of the reasons why this is such
Speaker 2: a big deal. The other reason why this is such
Speaker 2: a big deal is Elon Musk is not President of
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 3: No one voted for this guy.
Speaker 2: He hasn't been confirmed for any sort of a Senate position,
Speaker 2: and now he and his acolytes have access to all
Speaker 2: of this incredibly sensitive information. Also, Elon Musk being the
Speaker 2: richest man in the world, having his own massive government
Speaker 2: contracts and conflicts of interest, since he is not in
Speaker 2: a Senate confirmed position, he has not mitigated any of
Speaker 2: those conflicts of interest, and we can put the next
Speaker 2: piece up on the screen. He at least claims that
Speaker 2: he is using this access to shut down payments that he.
Speaker 3: Does not like.
Speaker 2: Now, this is based on Mike Flynn, former General Mike Flynn,
Speaker 2: who tweeted out, oh, the Lutheran Faith is using this money.
Speaker 2: They receive massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, with the indication
Speaker 2: being that they're using it for money laundering and human trafficking.
Speaker 2: Most of this money actually goes for things like it's
Speaker 2: like Medicaid block grants. It goes for things like head
Speaker 2: Start and meals on wheels and domestic violence addiction services,
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. But whether or not you think
Speaker 2: that this organization is good, bad, and different, the bottom
Speaker 2: line is it's not up to Elon Musk or General
Speaker 2: Mike Flynn to decide whether or not these payments go out.
Speaker 3: So that's peace.
Speaker 2: Number one is the Treasury. Peace number two. Can put
Speaker 2: B three up on the screen.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: This is the Office of Personnel Management, basically the HR
Speaker 2: department for the entire federal government. Here you also have
Speaker 2: Musk aids locking out career workers from this Office of
Speaker 2: Personnel Management system.
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead and read this to you. They say
Speaker 3: aids to.
Speaker 2: Elon mus charge with running the US government Human Resources Agency,
Speaker 2: have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that
Speaker 2: contain the personal data of millions of federal employees. Those
Speaker 2: systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration,
Speaker 2: which contains states of birth, social security numbers, appraisals, home addresses,
Speaker 2: pay grades, and length of service of government workers.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: We have no visibility into what they are doing with
Speaker 2: the computer data systems. That is creating great concern. There
Speaker 2: is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity in hacking implications.
Speaker 2: Next piece before the General Services Administration. Elon Musk's allies
Speaker 2: have infiltrated that agency as well, and they're looking for
Speaker 2: ways That's sort of like it's almost like the operations
Speaker 2: managers of the government looking for ways to use White
Speaker 2: House credentials to access agency tech, potentially allowing them to
Speaker 2: remote into laptops, read emails, and war sources say. I
Speaker 2: will pause from it before we get into what is
Speaker 2: the latest with regard to the USAID, which Musk has
Speaker 2: said he's been feeding into a wood chipper again, how
Speaker 2: we feel about that agency. That's up to Congress to
Speaker 2: decide whether or not we're going to eliminate various federal
Speaker 2: government agencies, not a man who no one voted for
Speaker 2: and has no Senate confirmed position or power. So I
Speaker 2: sagram and trying to grapple with what all.
Speaker 3: This means, how to describe it.
Speaker 2: I think it is somewhere beyond a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 3: I think it is.
Speaker 2: Probably short of a coup, given that he doesn't, as
Speaker 2: far as I know, have control of the military.
Speaker 3: But that's the kind of territory we're.
Speaker 2: Getting into when you have one guy, richest man on
Speaker 2: the planet, not elected, no Senate confirmed position, who has
Speaker 2: seized control of the payment system, all of the federal
Speaker 2: government's sensitive data. Is you know, deciding willy nilly what
Speaker 2: payments should go out and what shouldn't, what agencies should
Speaker 2: exist and shouldn't, And has you know, effectively done this
Speaker 2: and sees this with this handful of like twenty year
Speaker 2: old kids, with as far as I can tell, very
Speaker 2: little pushback.
Speaker 1: In principle, it's obviously insane, and I know that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of Doze fanboys and others who are
Speaker 1: out there, but this very much falls in the territory
Speaker 1: of their unilateralism. And in fact, you also you know,
Speaker 1: even my friend Ryan Grdusky made a good point. He's like, Look,
Speaker 1: let's say there's a guy who made all of his
Speaker 1: money based in large part to some federal government policy.
Speaker 1: He's like, should we really give him reins over the
Speaker 1: federal government? This is where I really depart with a
Speaker 1: lot of my Silicon Valley tech right friends, Even though
Speaker 1: in principle, you know, I may not disagree with, you know,
Speaker 1: getting rid of USAID or whatever, as long if it's
Speaker 1: gone through at least somewhat of a more democratic process,
Speaker 1: Like it'd be better for me if the Secretary of
Speaker 1: State were doing it or the president, you know, people
Speaker 1: who are elected confirmed by the United States Senate. Their theory,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, is that they're trying to invite
Speaker 1: a lawsuit under the Impoundment and Act that we had
Speaker 1: talked about previously. What they're trying to do is to
Speaker 1: stretch things as much as possible in terms of control
Speaker 1: before legal challenges can come and kick in, and under
Speaker 1: impoundment trying to basically challenge what we talked about previously,
Speaker 1: that principle where the federal government is not required to
Speaker 1: stick with this and that said, though there is a
Speaker 1: decent amount of executive authority that the president can have
Speaker 1: in disbursement of payment specifically, again, as I understand, is
Speaker 1: around enngos, which because that comes down to like administrative
Speaker 1: judgment for disbursement of funds. So Congress might adjudication might
Speaker 1: appropriate x millions of dollars for like you were talking
Speaker 1: about meals on wheels, like paying for the home, that
Speaker 1: the administrators themselves can decide for whom to disperse the contract.
Speaker 1: So I was looking into the legal justification for that
Speaker 1: a bit, and that seems to be the ground that
Speaker 1: they're found there standing on on top of trying to
Speaker 1: invite a challenge for impoundment to fast track into the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: brazenly illegal for this random dude with you know, no
Speaker 2: electoral mandate, no congressional mandate, no mandate whatsoever, to just
Speaker 2: go in and be like I don't like what this,
Speaker 2: I don't like this appropriation.
Speaker 3: We're not going to push this one out.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is you know, it's it's clearcut not
Speaker 2: just separation of powers. But it'd be one thing if
Speaker 2: it was the president, if there was any transparency around
Speaker 2: this whatsoever. I mean, even that I think is blatantly
Speaker 2: unconstitutional but heat has effectively made Congress completely irrelevant. Like
Speaker 2: right now, it wouldn't matter even if Democrats had won
Speaker 2: the House of the Set or whatever, like, Congress is
Speaker 2: now irrelevant even if whatever they pass, if Elon Musk
Speaker 2: can just come in and be like, no, I don't
Speaker 2: like that. Not doing that, that is as like clearly
Speaker 2: unconstitutional as it could possibly get. And so you know
Speaker 2: it to me, I think you would say, probably sagre
Speaker 2: that I was fairly alarmist in the in advance of
Speaker 2: Trump getting elected. Yeah, you know, I think he's an authoritarian.
Speaker 3: I think he's fascist.
Speaker 2: I was deeply concerned about the things that he had
Speaker 2: announced that he had planned to do. This is beyond
Speaker 2: what I could have anticipated. And it's really the Musk
Speaker 2: Elon Musk factor that I did not weigh in, Like,
Speaker 2: I did not anticipate that in week two we'd be
Speaker 2: talking about the richest man on the planet having effectively
Speaker 2: seized the government with basically no resistance. And so you know,
Speaker 2: I knew that there were basically no guardrails in place anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, the Supreme Court has given Trump a pretty
Speaker 2: blanket immunity for anything that's remotely connected to the job.
Speaker 2: Any sort of Republican opposition has been by and large
Speaker 2: pretty much vanquished, you know, any of the sort of
Speaker 2: career civil servants or the type of like the General
Speaker 2: Millies or the type of more establishment folks who were
Speaker 2: interested in maintaining the institutions like they've all been excise.
Speaker 2: I knew all of this going in. I did not
Speaker 2: have the creativity to imagine the richest man on the
Speaker 2: planet seizing control of the government in week number two.
Speaker 2: Could not see that one particularly coming. And so you
Speaker 2: know the fact that there's been next to no institutional
Speaker 2: pushback you have. You know, the media is a mess,
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party is like basically why do they even
Speaker 2: exist at this point? Yeah, I don't know where this goes,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how it ends. And even the
Speaker 2: idea like okay, they want to push for this impoundment control,
Speaker 2: you know, legal fight or whatever. Jadie Vance came out
Speaker 2: and was like, yeah, and if we get a court
Speaker 2: ruling that we don't like, we'll be like Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 2: go ahead and enforce it with your army. So I
Speaker 2: don't have any confidence that they're gonna abide by any
Speaker 2: legal rulings that would come down against some They seem
Speaker 2: dead set and Elon seems dead set on doing whatever
Speaker 2: Elon Musk wants to do, and the rest of us
Speaker 2: are irrelevant. We just get to stand by and watch. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sort of cheering for Trump and Elon
Speaker 2: to have some sort of falling out and for Trump,
Speaker 2: who at least is duly elected present in the United States,
Speaker 2: to reassert some control over the government. So far, the
Speaker 2: indications in that direction are not great, given that Trump
Speaker 2: is out tweeting talking points seemingly directly from Elon Musk
Speaker 2: about South African land appropriation and saying that you know,
Speaker 2: he's gonna he's gonna stop sending aid to South Africa
Speaker 2: because of this, you know law that they passed in
Speaker 2: their own country. In addition to all of this, I
Speaker 2: mentioned the USAID stuff, So let me go through that
Speaker 2: as well. Let's go ahead and we can just go
Speaker 2: through an order here B five. This was the first piece,
Speaker 2: so CNN reported that senior USAID security officials were put
Speaker 2: on leave after physically trying to refuse Musk's doge access
Speaker 2: to agency systems. Must cronies threatened to call US marshals
Speaker 2: to be allowed access to USAID they wanted to gain
Speaker 2: access to security systems and personnel files, the resources said.
Speaker 2: Two of those sources also said that dough personnel wanted
Speaker 2: access to classified information, which only those with security clearances
Speaker 2: and a specific need to know are able to access.
Speaker 2: On Sunday, in response to c AND's report about the incident,
Speaker 2: Musk said that USAID is a criminal organization. Time for
Speaker 2: it to die. Their account, their Twitter account has been
Speaker 2: taken down. Their website has been taken down as well.
Speaker 2: We can put let's put B eight up on the
Speaker 2: screen here because this is the very latest. USAID staffers
Speaker 2: were told to stay out of Washington headquarters after Musk
Speaker 2: said that Trump agreed to close it. Now USAID it's
Speaker 2: effectively a tool of US soft power. There are all
Speaker 2: sorts of things that USAID does that are like democracy
Speaker 2: meddling that I in no way support. USAID does also
Speaker 2: run some really critical programs, life saving programs, things like
Speaker 2: pet far things like you know, tackling malaria in developing countries,
Speaker 2: so they do some good as well. It really doesn't
Speaker 2: matter how you feel about this agency. The truth of
Speaker 2: the matter is it is not up to Elon Musk
Speaker 2: or Donald Trump. To just say we're done with this.
Speaker 2: This also clearly has to go through Congress. You do not,
Speaker 2: as the richest man on the planet, have a right
Speaker 2: to just pick and choose which federal government agencies you
Speaker 2: like and which you don't. Guess what, the people's elected
Speaker 2: representatives get to have a say and input into this.
Speaker 3: So this is where we are this morning.
Speaker 2: Effectively, you know, a hostile takeover from the US government
Speaker 2: of the US government, buy Elon Musk and incredibly, you
Speaker 2: know this would be bad from anyone, right, I promise
Speaker 2: you I would be saying the same thing if it
Speaker 2: was Bill Gates or George Soros, and I promise you
Speaker 2: Republicans would have a big problem with it if it
Speaker 2: was George Soros who had seized control of the Treasury
Speaker 2: Department system and was randomly shuttering agencies US government agencies
Speaker 2: that he happened to not like for whatever ideological and
Speaker 2: self interested reasons. So to me, this is an incredibly
Speaker 2: I don't even know what words to put it. Like
Speaker 2: I said before, way beyond constitutional crisis. Probably not quite
Speaker 2: at coup because the military is still under control by
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, but we're somewhere in that range.
Speaker 1: Here's what okay, on usaid, And this is where I mean,
Speaker 1: this is why the constitutional crisis thing is like not
Speaker 1: technically accurate. It's been authorized by Congress, but nobody says
Speaker 1: that it has to be an existing agency of the government.
Speaker 1: If you fold it into the State Department, which is
Speaker 1: what they said that they did, and the programs can
Speaker 1: still disperse money.
Speaker 2: He's feeding it into a windshipper, yes, but if he's
Speaker 2: not folding it under.
Speaker 1: The umbrella or from the USA.
Speaker 2: To show up and seizing control of the systems. This
Speaker 2: isn't like, oh, we're going to do a little reform.
Speaker 2: It's just we're getting this. This is we think it's
Speaker 2: bad and evil in a criminal organization.
Speaker 1: But this is what I'm getting at is that if
Speaker 1: you fold it under the State Department, that's actually totally
Speaker 1: within the executive authority of the president. Coming back to this,
Speaker 1: and this is actually what I've been thinking about a
Speaker 1: lot too. Here is I don't support Elon or any
Speaker 1: person being able to do this, but I think the
Speaker 1: lack of institutional pushback is because I think there was
Speaker 1: actually a broad support for this type of burn shit down.
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about fig No. I see this
Speaker 1: is where I totally disagree when people do not push
Speaker 1: the red button for Trump popular vote without some serious
Speaker 1: shit going wrong.
Speaker 2: When did anyone, when did anyone even mention on the
Speaker 2: campaign trill like we're going to get rid of USA?
Speaker 2: I d Trump is never Trump has never run as
Speaker 2: an austerity politician.
Speaker 1: You know that this is not, of course it is
Speaker 1: it's ero point seven percent of the federal budget, like
Speaker 1: you said, fomenting cous in Africa.
Speaker 3: But I'm not just talking about the ID.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Elon's whole of government seizure.
Speaker 3: This He is a Javier Malay style in arco capitalist.
Speaker 2: He wants to take a massive hatchet to the federal
Speaker 2: government so that it is completely impotent and weak and
Speaker 2: can't stand up against him or any other robber baron
Speaker 2: corporate titan.
Speaker 3: That is his goal. That has never been the Trump approach.
Speaker 2: And I can't believe him here like cheering for Donald
Speaker 2: Trump to reassert his ideology. But I actually am in
Speaker 2: this case because this is not remotely what people voted for.
Speaker 2: Who Greenland wasn't mentioned in the You know, Gusaid wasn't
Speaker 2: mentioned in the campaign. Going to war with Canada wasn't
Speaker 2: mentioned in none of this economic war, none that was
Speaker 2: much of this, None of this like austerity, anarcho capitalists,
Speaker 2: slash and burn. He made a campaign on any of this.
Speaker 2: He certainly didn't campaign on. He certainly didn't campaign on
Speaker 2: I'm going to allow Elon Musk total and complete control
Speaker 2: of the government. That was ever part of the campaign pledge.
Speaker 2: And you see people don't like it because Elon musk
Speaker 2: approval rating has plummeted. Doge's approval rating is like twenty
Speaker 2: nine percent. People are not excited about this direction that
Speaker 2: they're going in whatsoever. They were upset about gas prices,
Speaker 2: they were upset about costs of living, they were upset
Speaker 2: about what they perceived as border chaos. They voted for
Speaker 2: those things. Yes, does he have a man ate on
Speaker 2: those things. Yes, this has nothing to do with any
Speaker 2: of that. No one was like, yes, I would like
Speaker 2: the richest man on the earth, an unelected billionaire, to
Speaker 2: have access to every sensitive government system and control over it.
Speaker 3: That's insane.
Speaker 1: No one, I don't agree with that because what I
Speaker 1: first of all, Elon was literally on the campaign trail
Speaker 1: and he was with him. Doge is one of those
Speaker 1: things where if you're asking these podcast guys what they're
Speaker 1: the most excited about organically, every single one of them
Speaker 1: is brought up doge to me. They're like, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see this slash and burn, and I think
Speaker 1: what it gets to is a deep lack of institutional trust.
Speaker 1: Now coming back to it, I don't agree at all
Speaker 1: that none of these things weren't mentioned. Do literally was
Speaker 1: a promise by Trump and Elon on the campaign troll.
Speaker 1: I don't even support a lot of stship.
Speaker 2: Thought it was like a make work irrelevant blue ri Okay.
Speaker 1: In reality, that's probably what it all will be because
Speaker 1: in terms of all of this cutting USA dspunding, it's
Speaker 1: point seven percent of the federal budget. Like in terms
Speaker 1: of even quote seizing control of the payments. If ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the payments go through and one NGO
Speaker 1: gets cut off, I'm not going to cry about this,
Speaker 1: is What would.
Speaker 3: You say if it was?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost unimaginab because they would never do this.
Speaker 2: It was Kama Harris that got elected and George Soros
Speaker 2: is now in control of the Treasury, the GSA, the OPM,
Speaker 2: cutting agencies.
Speaker 3: What would you say?
Speaker 1: No, I agree with you on the on the actual
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. I'm trying to reconcile.
Speaker 2: It's not just a conflict of interest. It is blatantly unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: It is a seizure of the government, is rendering the
Speaker 2: congressional duly elected congressional representatives completely irrelevant by the richest
Speaker 2: man on the planet.
Speaker 1: What I am trying to direct what is going on
Speaker 1: is what you just said is that there's no institutional pushback.
Speaker 1: There's not even really I don't think that there's some
Speaker 1: major public outcry somewhat Quinnipiac polled Elon. We'll see, all right,
Speaker 1: in terms of dose and all that. And also, did
Speaker 1: we not just live through an election where polls were
Speaker 1: complete bullshit? How are we supposed to know whether you like.
Speaker 3: Those polls when they say what you like on immigration?
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so I can pair that when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: gets elected in the popular vote then and a bunch
Speaker 1: of a bunch of Hispanic people have on the ones
Speaker 1: you like the weekend. We can't pair elector result with
Speaker 1: a poll, and then we can say that there's some
Speaker 1: relative confidence tracking poll on Elon. Like, Look, if anything,
Speaker 1: the electoral results show people don't give a shit whether
Speaker 1: Elon is their support. If you get creamed in the midterms,
Speaker 1: then yeah, maybe, but I'm very curious to see how
Speaker 1: this stuff goes.
Speaker 2: What would it even matter at this point if they
Speaker 2: get creamed in the midterms since Congress does not even
Speaker 2: This is where we're.
Speaker 1: All exaggerating again, like you know, using constant This is
Speaker 1: why I get upset or annoyed about this whole Nazi
Speaker 1: fascist It's like words have meaning. It's not constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1: Whenever at one meals on wheels NGO gets as.
Speaker 3: That's not the point.
Speaker 2: The point is not, No, there is not The point
Speaker 2: is not a one n JUO is going to be defunded.
Speaker 2: The point is that this is not the way our
Speaker 2: government is set up to work. We don't have a king,
Speaker 2: we don't We're not supposed to have rule by one
Speaker 2: single oligarch, and that is what we have right now.
Speaker 2: That's why this is a constitutional crisis. And I guarantee
Speaker 2: you if it was George Soros, if it was Bill Gates,
Speaker 2: if it was Mark Zuckerberg working hand in glove with
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and locking out everybody from the government and
Speaker 2: seizing their laptop getting access to their laptops and seizing
Speaker 2: control over the entire federal government disbursement system. I guarantee
Speaker 2: you Republicans would agree.
Speaker 1: I think that it was a.
Speaker 2: Constitutional crisis because you're fundamentally talking about not just the
Speaker 2: separate That's why I say it's beyond a constitutional crisis
Speaker 2: because this isn't even just about some like executive branch
Speaker 2: versus legislative branch dispute. This is about someone who was
Speaker 2: not elected or confirmed to anything taking control of things
Speaker 2: he has no right to take control of. It is
Speaker 2: a crime spree that it is a smash and grab
Speaker 2: crime spree.
Speaker 1: Well, there's no graund happening, there's smash happening. But this
Speaker 1: is where I'm trying to get at. And this is
Speaker 1: where again words matter and terms. For example, under the AOMF,
Speaker 1: every president since George W. Bush has violated the constitution? Correct? Right?
Speaker 1: Is that a constitutional crisis? By bombing countries which Congress
Speaker 1: has not declared war on it's bad? Are we going
Speaker 1: to call it a constitutional crisis? No, we're not, because
Speaker 1: that's been happening for twenty years. Unfortunate has become normalized.
Speaker 1: I fought against it for the entire time, but it
Speaker 1: falls within you know, a scope of how things are working.
Speaker 1: I would love not follow. Okay, but again, is that
Speaker 1: right when we think about when I come back to
Speaker 1: why is it that people support and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's good to have somebody who's unelected, billionaire whatever, tons
Speaker 1: of conflict of interest, who has his own enrichment, who
Speaker 1: is totally in control of this. Now, again, when we
Speaker 1: come back to why is it that so many people
Speaker 1: are totally supportive of this or at the very least
Speaker 1: a lot of the Republican coalition, it comes down to
Speaker 1: zero institutional trusts and a genuine desire to blow shit up.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that you're under that. You are
Speaker 1: understanding how many people and this is the through line
Speaker 1: through MAGA. Everyone's like, how can Tulsi and RFK and
Speaker 1: Elon and Trump, who have all of these conflicting things
Speaker 1: all come together. They are against the system. The system
Speaker 1: is broadly what people voted against, and in the popular vote,
Speaker 1: we can try and retcon it into inflation, egg prices
Speaker 1: and all that. I don't really think so. I think
Speaker 1: really what it comes down to is a giant fuck
Speaker 1: you for all of the way that things are done,
Speaker 1: process things, by the way many democratic socialists and others
Speaker 1: I've heard say, is I screwed the parliament voting? How
Speaker 1: many of them who are vote advocated for rejecting norms,
Speaker 1: stacking the Supreme voted to be able to get what
Speaker 1: people want.
Speaker 3: No one voted for Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: I do know one vot.
Speaker 5: I wish.
Speaker 3: Here's the other thing. Here's the other thing.
Speaker 2: Like even if there is, I don't doubt there one
Speaker 2: hundred percent is the case that there is some constituency
Speaker 2: that's like go doge destroy the federal government, like go
Speaker 2: after them, seize control of the treasury. That doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that it's constitutional, doesn't mean that it's right, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's going to be good for the country, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's going to have massive reverberating impacts. So it is
Speaker 2: a weird thing to watch. It's a strange feeling because
Speaker 2: there seems to be it is true. I mean you're
Speaker 2: right about there's like a whimper about it. And it's
Speaker 2: so much just happening so quickly too that I don't
Speaker 2: think any normal person could really wrap their head around
Speaker 2: everything that is going on either. But once you have,
Speaker 2: you know, allowed a single unelected billionaire to take control
Speaker 2: of the federal government, like you don't really go back
Speaker 2: to just being a normal democracy after that, and so massive,
Speaker 2: massively consequential, deeply troubling, incredibly disturbing. And I don't think
Speaker 2: that there's any like I, you know, I don't think they.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any reason we should have confidence
Speaker 2: they to buy by court decisions. I don't think they
Speaker 2: have any confidence that they'll just like you don't have
Speaker 2: normal elections next time around. Like that's that's where we're
Speaker 2: at the level of unilateral seizure that is going on
Speaker 2: here is I mean, it's it is difficult for me
Speaker 2: to put into words how disturbing, extraordinary, unusual, what is
Speaker 2: going on with all of her.
Speaker 1: So I looked up at JD. Van's quote that you're claiming,
Speaker 1: and here's what you said. As so, I think the
Speaker 1: thing you can do in the Senate is push the
Speaker 1: legal boundaries as so far as the Supreme Court will
Speaker 1: let you take it, to basically make it possible for
Speaker 1: democratically accountable people and the executive in the legislative to
Speaker 1: fire mid level up to high level civil servants like that,
Speaker 1: to me is the meat of the administrative state. The
Speaker 1: keyword there was as far as the Supreme Court will
Speaker 1: let you no, no, no, no. This was a fact check
Speaker 1: based on this Supreme Court decision of thing that he
Speaker 1: apparently said on some podcast in twenty twenty one. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize this was. Has he raised the specter of
Speaker 1: open disregard for federal court rulings. This is some reason
Speaker 1: from the I'll send it if maybe he said something previously,
Speaker 1: but that's what I was able to find here.
Speaker 3: I will tell you the cost.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's courts stop.
Speaker 2: You stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and said,
Speaker 2: the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him
Speaker 2: write and forth.
Speaker 1: I'm talking from the same I'm talking from the exact
Speaker 1: same transcript of where he says as far as the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court will let you take it, So if we
Speaker 1: want to cherry pick, you know, part he says, as
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will let you take it. Now, who
Speaker 1: knows where that will come from. That was from a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one podcast that he made where he said
Speaker 1: this on Yeah. So, first of all, it was what
Speaker 1: four years ago now at this point, somebody should ask him.
Speaker 1: Margaret Brennan, whoever, if I ever got a chance to
Speaker 1: be my I'll ask him about it. But my point
Speaker 1: falls back on something pretty simple, this idea that like
Speaker 1: we're canceling elections or any of this. No, there's no
Speaker 1: evidence for that, Like you can't extrapolate things beyond. But
Speaker 1: even again, I'm going to take it to the bigger
Speaker 1: puts a big democratic point. You made an important thing people,
Speaker 1: Oh so much is happening. And you know why people
Speaker 1: don't care Because most people only care about results. They
Speaker 1: don't give a shit about process. That's something I've heard
Speaker 1: you say a million times. They don't care about the
Speaker 1: parliamentarian you I've heard you talk about carling stack in
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. They don't give a shit, but they
Speaker 1: want the government that blow up. I mean, it doesn't
Speaker 1: as long as they get there, as long as they
Speaker 1: get their security.
Speaker 2: But then they're about to hike prices okay through massive
Speaker 2: terror riffs and also price is likely to go up
Speaker 2: through the Why does it matter?
Speaker 1: Why do norms not matter when you want to stack
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court? Why do norms that matter whenever you
Speaker 1: want to disregard the parliamentarium because they agree with the
Speaker 1: end goal. My point is always with the same point
Speaker 1: you would make. Then people don't care about that. They
Speaker 1: want what result. They want less immigration. Oddly they want
Speaker 1: another one.
Speaker 2: No one voted for Meals on Wheels to be cut Soger,
Speaker 2: but voted.
Speaker 3: To get cut. No one voted for mass austerity.
Speaker 1: People like even the idea of definable term of where
Speaker 1: you massively reduced probably more than five to ten percent,
Speaker 1: which is that's what he's pushing for. But that's not
Speaker 1: what's happened. We're not in mass austerity yet, and if
Speaker 1: it does that happen, then I'll call it mass austerity.
Speaker 1: What you have seen is a disruption of heads what
Speaker 1: not even headstart, by the way, that didn't even happen.
Speaker 1: Meals on Wheels had a question as to whether they
Speaker 1: were going to get their funding, and then the funding
Speaker 1: was immediately resumed after a twenty four hour period. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to cry if I'm paying for somebody's health
Speaker 1: care in Africa and it stops, Okay, I don't give
Speaker 1: a shop. I don't think most people should either.
Speaker 3: Do you think that it is a concerning principle.
Speaker 1: I've said yes that we should have.
Speaker 2: Now a billionaire who you know, massively conflicted, like huge
Speaker 2: one of the largest government contractors who now has access
Speaker 2: to all of our social security numbers, to access to
Speaker 2: the Treasury payment system. And it's just willy nilly deciding
Speaker 2: who should get paid and who shouldn't as a matter
Speaker 2: of principle in terms of where the country goes from here.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's a problem.
Speaker 1: I have so, absolutely yes I do. But you know,
Speaker 1: as again I have to reconcile this. Most people are
Speaker 1: not principal. Most people don't care at all.
Speaker 3: Talking about most people, why not there lives.
Speaker 1: They're the bots, They're the ones who do.
Speaker 2: Your job is to explain to people why these things
Speaker 2: are troubling and why you should care, even if you,
Speaker 2: you know, are trying to live your life and just
Speaker 2: go about your business. Why these things matter not just
Speaker 2: now but for the future and for the president that
Speaker 2: they set So to just wave your hand on no
Speaker 2: one cares. You have an important platform here to help
Speaker 2: to explain to people why it matters and why they
Speaker 2: should care, and why it would be deeply troubling if
Speaker 2: it happened. Also if it was a Democrat who was
Speaker 2: in power at this point.
Speaker 1: Absolutely listen again, I can Tom Blue in the face
Speaker 1: having somebody who is unelected make these decisions is bad.
Speaker 1: But I listen, as a guy who has very unpopular
Speaker 1: positions on many things, I have basically given up at
Speaker 1: a certain point of trying to change people's behavior. I
Speaker 1: have seen too many instances of how many people are
Speaker 1: just willing to go along with something as long as
Speaker 1: it conveniently aligns, and so as an analyst, now at
Speaker 1: this point, I'm just trying to understand democratically. As you said,
Speaker 1: why is this alarmist position either not taking up? Why
Speaker 1: are there not protests in the street overdose? And I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear to me that the public is so
Speaker 1: fed up with this that they are just where they
Speaker 1: are absolutely willing to go along and to cut the
Speaker 1: Trump administration a lot of slack until some serious shit
Speaker 1: goes wrong in their life now on the tariffs or
Speaker 1: on doze or any of this other stuff. It's totally
Speaker 1: possible if they screw up Medicare, Social Security, any of
Speaker 1: these other programs. But in the interim, I mean, what,
Speaker 1: yeah again, PEP far, go ahead and pull PEP far.
Speaker 1: It was massively unpopular at the time under George W.
Speaker 7: Bush.
Speaker 1: She actually got hit a ton from the conservative movement
Speaker 1: for it. Basically a lot of these global aid programs
Speaker 1: and all that they exist, and when you try and
Speaker 1: reconcile with the fact that we don't even pay for
Speaker 1: our own citizens, they're ludicrous. They don't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And yes, many USA D programs are basically venues in
Speaker 1: order to establish regime change abroad. They're not good. So
Speaker 1: you know, this gets to the question of are people
Speaker 1: going to cry about lack of medication going to some
Speaker 1: global health program abroad. No, and I don't think they should.
Speaker 1: They've always foreign eight as always pulled at like the
Speaker 1: absolute bottom. Yes, when we talk about social if you
Speaker 1: ask maybe if that's a bit different.
Speaker 2: Example the pet far thing, I think there was a
Speaker 2: huge reaction against the pet far funding being frozen, and
Speaker 2: because there was a public reaction and this is one
Speaker 2: of the only things that's encouraging, they actually went back
Speaker 2: on that and said, no, no, this this can be funded.
Speaker 2: Like they gave an exemption so that pet far could
Speaker 2: continue to be funded. So when people here foreign aid
Speaker 2: in the abstract, I think you're correct that there's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: why are we doing that?
Speaker 1: Good principle, why are we paying for drugs. But because
Speaker 1: you do, we even pay for our own construct.
Speaker 2: The reason is because of soft power and imperialism. That's
Speaker 2: what it really. I mean, it's equivalent of like, you know,
Speaker 2: similar to like China's Belton Road initiative. They're not doing
Speaker 2: it out of the goodness of our heart. We're not
Speaker 2: doing these USAID programs out of the goodness of our hearts,
Speaker 2: not at the federal government level, at the population level,
Speaker 2: you know. To counter your point that people don't care, now,
Speaker 2: actually I think people do care.
Speaker 3: They like to feel like our.
Speaker 2: Government is doing good things around the world, whether it's
Speaker 2: malaria prevention or dealing with HIV and AIDS in the
Speaker 2: developing world, a program that's been tremendously successful and say
Speaker 2: millions and millions of lives.
Speaker 3: But all of that is really kind of.
Speaker 2: Beside the point, because, as I said before, how you
Speaker 2: feel about USAID isn't really the issue here. The issue
Speaker 2: here is having some dude who have his view willis
Speaker 2: amount of planet saying I don't like that agency. I'm
Speaker 2: feeding it into the wood chipper, with no congressional input,
Speaker 2: no input from your elected representatives, with no Senate confirmation,
Speaker 2: having no one having voted for him. That is the
Speaker 2: issue that is at hand. How you feel about USAID
Speaker 2: is really quite irrelevant to that conversation, and that is
Speaker 2: truly a place we have never.
Speaker 3: Been in before.
Speaker 2: So you are correct that, you know, I think most
Speaker 2: people are not focused on all of these things that
Speaker 2: are going They don't know what to make of it.
Speaker 2: They you know, are living their lives. But listen, it's
Speaker 2: one thing, you know, we're about to talk about the
Speaker 2: plane crash thing like it's one thing to seize control
Speaker 2: of a private company Twitter and slash a bunch of
Speaker 2: jobs and turn it into like, you know, a cesspool
Speaker 2: of Nazism and whatever in your own personal propaganda outlet,
Speaker 2: and the consequences be like, oh my damns don't work
Speaker 2: today once again or whatever. It's another thing when you're
Speaker 2: talking about, hey, we need people to regulate food safety
Speaker 2: so we don't have another you know, outbreak of salmonilla
Speaker 2: and people dying. Hey, we need air traffic controllers to
Speaker 2: be present in adequate numbers, which is something we dramatically
Speaker 2: don't have right now, and they send out, you know,
Speaker 2: the same email that went to everybody else in the
Speaker 2: federal government that's like, please leave please resign, even to
Speaker 2: people like air traffic controllers. Some functions of federal government
Speaker 2: are important. Some of them we really rely on to
Speaker 2: have a functioning society. Some of them are even life
Speaker 2: or death, and we've now we haven't handed over. Elon
Speaker 2: Musks now sees control of all of those functions. So
Speaker 2: even if you are cool with leg, I don't really
Speaker 2: care about the AIDS funding the kids in Africa or
Speaker 2: you know, to malaria.
Speaker 3: What that is really not.
Speaker 2: What this is about, because the control that he is
Speaker 2: asserted that he has seized is vastly broader than that,
Speaker 2: and as I said before, is brazenly unconstitutional. So if
Speaker 2: that is on the table, then literally anything is effectively
Speaker 2: on the table at this point.
Speaker 1: Okay, again, I just think it's a lot matter of
Speaker 1: gradations is and my here's my prediction. If they stick
Speaker 1: to USAID cutting funding to NGOs, that it'll be massively popular.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's the truth. If they don't
Speaker 1: touch so and medicare.
Speaker 3: They already had to roll back the pup far thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, the partic issue.
Speaker 3: Another thing saying okay, not life saving.
Speaker 1: It It was not there were not people taking to
Speaker 1: the streets saying please restore pep far. It's because there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of members of Congress who are very,
Speaker 1: very pro pep far. So if anything there you go,
Speaker 1: there's a check on the power. I don't think any
Speaker 1: of this is necessarily a good thing. I think that
Speaker 1: if they cut USAID or if they reform USAD, whatever,
Speaker 1: the end result of this ends up happening, or start
Speaker 1: cutting fundings to homeless NGOs or sorry, unhoused NGOs as
Speaker 1: they call themselves. Yeah, I think it's gonna be crazy popular,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a reason for that is that
Speaker 1: people are deeply fed up and feel like the government
Speaker 1: helps all these other people. They're like, wait, why does
Speaker 1: this money go over there? And I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm being out And so as long as they don't
Speaker 1: touch the most popular programs which look to be fair,
Speaker 1: you're right. Elon definitely wants to do that. But if
Speaker 1: Trump is able to keep him away from that, this
Speaker 1: is very likely to be a pr coup. Now there's
Speaker 1: a lot of issues that could fall in is if
Speaker 1: they do. I just think fundamentally, your view of the
Speaker 1: federal government is not one that people hold. They may
Speaker 1: find out now they may find out you're right under
Speaker 1: FAA or NO or or FEMA or any of these
Speaker 1: other you might, but something tells me that they're not
Speaker 1: actually dumb.
Speaker 3: Enough.
Speaker 2: Was a huge reaction against when all the payments were
Speaker 2: frozen last week. Well that was and if you look
Speaker 2: at so people in general, they feel like, oh, the
Speaker 2: debt's too high, the deficit's too high, like we should
Speaker 2: cut the.
Speaker 3: Government should be more efficient.
Speaker 2: When you ask people about should the government spend more
Speaker 2: or less on various programs, the only things they actually
Speaker 2: say less on are like the military, because they feel like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, we already spend so freaking much on
Speaker 2: the military. If you ask them about programs to alleviate poverty,
Speaker 2: they say we should spend more. If you ask them
Speaker 2: about programs for education, they say more. If they healthcare,
Speaker 2: they say we should spend more. So that there was
Speaker 2: a big reaction when payments were frozen because first of all,
Speaker 2: I mean, the Medicaid thing was just like obviously people
Speaker 2: were freaked down about that, But it wasn't just that.
Speaker 2: It was also head Start, It was also meals on wheels.
Speaker 2: It was also domestic violent shelters. It was also addiction treatment,
Speaker 2: like people do believe that the federal government should be
Speaker 2: investing in the American people and helping to support people
Speaker 2: in their time of need.
Speaker 3: They do believe in that.
Speaker 2: So when you ask the broad question, should we cut
Speaker 2: the you know, cut spending, of course, sure, yeah, like
Speaker 2: cut out the waist. But when you get down to
Speaker 2: any of these individual programs, there's a big reaction to it,
Speaker 2: and not just the big ticket ones obviously Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
Speaker 2: but truly, any of these programs, when you go after them,
Speaker 2: people and this is pretty bipartisan, really disagree. So you know,
Speaker 2: as you said, listen, I think you're right that there
Speaker 2: isn't a big reaction against this yet because they're you know,
Speaker 2: the rubber doesn't hit the road. People don't see it
Speaker 2: in terms. It wasn't like when the Medicaid portals froze
Speaker 2: or whatever. I'm just saying that, I think the consequences
Speaker 2: of where we are and what it means for having
Speaker 2: operating like anything approaching in democracy where your elected representatives
Speaker 2: matter at all. Like, I think we're in a really
Speaker 2: I think we're in a very dark place.
Speaker 1: I think it could definitely turn into that. Well, let's
Speaker 1: get to FAA because yeah, that's where that is where. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to grant it to you. And this what
Speaker 1: if I said, presidents very often overreach. If I were
Speaker 1: to predict anything that will be Trump's, it will be tariffs.
Speaker 1: And I say this as somebody who actually supports tariffs
Speaker 1: because we live in ultra consumerist society. Look at the
Speaker 1: TikTok thing. People want to buy cheap shit. That's all
Speaker 1: they care about. Over and over, we have been proved,
Speaker 1: we have proven that people, you know, they may support
Speaker 1: some tariffs on washing machines and others, but overwhelmingly temu
Speaker 1: is a massively popular business for one reason. People want
Speaker 1: to buy cheap crap.
Speaker 3: And can I say, schin but all this other junk,
Speaker 3: It didn't.
Speaker 2: Come out of nowhere that just people want to buy
Speaker 2: cheap crap. We this is what we. Low prices are
Speaker 2: what we've effectively.
Speaker 3: Been given in lieu of like yeah a job.
Speaker 2: Yeah a job, high wages, brought our social safety net,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So it's not that I don't also share
Speaker 2: that critique of society that like, okay, do we really
Speaker 2: need more like cheap crap filling up our homes that
Speaker 2: we throw in the landfill and whatever. But you can't
Speaker 2: really blame people because this is this is the deal
Speaker 2: that has been on. This has effectively been the social
Speaker 2: contract is. Yeah, we're going to ship your jobs overseas. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to destroy your wages. Yeah, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: a worse social safety heat than any other developed or
Speaker 2: a country.
Speaker 3: But at least you can buy some cheap shit from Amazon.
Speaker 2: And if you want to tear up that social contract,
Speaker 2: you have to have those other pieces in place. And
Speaker 2: in addition, I mean some of the we don't have
Speaker 2: to go back to the tariff debate. I'm sure we're
Speaker 2: going to have the tariff debate again tomorrow, but in addition,
Speaker 2: like just to do a blanket across the board, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: why are we tariffing avocados.
Speaker 3: That's just going to raise the prices.
Speaker 2: Is they're really a need to have a domestic like
Speaker 2: massive avocado growing operation. Is that you know that's nothing
Speaker 2: to do with reindustrialized growing alfhead. No, I don't agree
Speaker 2: with that, but you know that's sort of my broader
Speaker 2: point with the tariff conversations. You can't just raise prices
Speaker 2: without also doing these other pieces that will make that
Speaker 2: social contract makes sense.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree. My vision for America is very much
Speaker 1: exactly what you said. That's still wise sport the tariffs, though,
Speaker 1: is that when something happens like that, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going to go for it. Because again, like the
Speaker 1: and you know you may ask, you ask a question
Speaker 1: about avocados, how do you get somebody to buckle on
Speaker 1: auto parts and all these other price control increases, Well,
Speaker 1: you hit them where it hurts, which is eighty percent
Speaker 1: of their exports. But beyond that, my prediction, and this
Speaker 1: is unfortunate, is that America worships at the altar of consumerism.
Speaker 1: Every action that Americans take is one where they waste
Speaker 1: their time on TikTok, which is why it's massly popular.
Speaker 1: Whenever something is cheaper, they go to Temu. Whenever they
Speaker 1: want cheap clothes, they go to Shiann. They don't give
Speaker 1: a shit if it comes from China. They don't even
Speaker 1: care necessarily if it costs somebody their job here, undercuts
Speaker 1: US e commerce. They could care less about deminimus or
Speaker 1: any of these other nerdy terms. You know that I'm
Speaker 1: going to throw around, and so my unfortunate prediction is
Speaker 1: that America is now so addicted to two hundred dollars televisions,
Speaker 1: to Walmart, to Black Friday, to Amazon, you know, replacement
Speaker 1: phone chargers which are one fiftieth of the price even
Speaker 1: though they break in two days, that they will revolt
Speaker 1: only over that. But that kind of fits with this
Speaker 1: Doze conversation where America now has this quasi secular libertarian
Speaker 1: ideology where the government sucks and the only thing that
Speaker 1: really matters for them is the ability to shop to
Speaker 1: buy a new car every five years and load yourself
Speaker 1: up in debt. And then you know, it's like, I
Speaker 1: just when you see the individual choices on balance, you're right,
Speaker 1: we can absolutely blame government policy. But we're here now,
Speaker 1: it's been forty years. We live in this world, and
Speaker 1: this world is not one that rewards unfortunately, industrial policy.
Speaker 1: It's not one that is not a country or a
Speaker 1: population anymore that can be told, hey, we're going to
Speaker 1: do terrorists, but we're trying to build more auto manufacturers
Speaker 1: and other things. Here they're like, no, I want a
Speaker 1: new car. I want it to be cheap. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, this is the individual choice that people have
Speaker 1: now told us over the last forty years. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can deprogram that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I would like to, I don't think it will happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah again, and we don't have to belabor this because
Speaker 2: I do want to get to the plane crash thing,
Speaker 2: but I don't think that you can. Just the problem
Speaker 2: with the Trump policy is that it just raises prices.
Speaker 3: It doesn't you.
Speaker 2: Know, if you if you paired it with a national
Speaker 2: vision of you know, a shift in the social contract
Speaker 2: of we're gonna lift your wages, we're gonna have universal
Speaker 2: health care, we're gonna provide you for you in these ways.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you're gonna pay more at the store for
Speaker 2: X and Y and Z, Like you're not going to
Speaker 2: have the same level of access to cheap craft from China.
Speaker 2: Like we're shifting the values and the priorities in this country.
Speaker 2: That would be something that you know, you again, you
Speaker 2: would have to go out and make the case to
Speaker 2: American people. And we've had decades and decades of people
Speaker 2: being treated not as citizens, not as family members, not
Speaker 2: as community members, but just as consumers and low prices
Speaker 2: being the end all be all that was what was
Speaker 2: given to us in exchange for Hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: decimate the industrial Midwest, but your prices are going to
Speaker 2: be cheaper, and overall GDP will go up by a percent,
Speaker 2: all of which flowed into the pockets of people like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, by the way, but that's not really what
Speaker 2: we're talking about now with this particular tar off conversation,
Speaker 2: which is just on the side of raising prices. But
Speaker 2: to get back to the you know, the crash and
Speaker 2: the way the rubber can hit the road in terms
Speaker 2: of whether you know it or not, you know, the
Speaker 2: federal government when when we want it to be there,
Speaker 2: we really wanted to be there, and we want it
Speaker 2: to be effective, and we wanted to deliver, and we
Speaker 2: want it, for example, to make sure that planes don't
Speaker 2: crash into each other and fall out, a
Speaker 1: Facy that I think what everybody could agree on