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Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and get to some of
Speaker 2: the liberal democratic reaction to Trump's Gaza ethic cleansing plan, so,
Speaker 2: you know, a part for the course, rather than saying,
Speaker 2: you know, gee, uh, it would have been good if
Speaker 2: Democrats could have beat this guy, because this is all
Speaker 2: really going terribly and maybe if they hadn't been so
Speaker 2: committed to their own genocidal plans with regard to Gaza,
Speaker 2: maybe they could have eked down a win. Since it
Speaker 2: was really, you know, really quite close. You have a
Speaker 2: number of significant liberal accounts who have decided that the
Speaker 2: real fault was the people who either stayed home and
Speaker 2: didn't vote, or who you know, actively voted for Trump
Speaker 2: because they were so horrified by the genocide that was
Speaker 2: being perpetrated by the Biden administration. So let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put the first one up on the screen. Here,
Speaker 2: we can do speed run through these. These are Samone Sanders.
Speaker 2: I think now it's very proper to reiterate that elections
Speaker 2: have consequences. Obviously that is a job at you know,
Speaker 2: people who were worried about the genocide.
Speaker 4: We can go up to Harry Sisson.
Speaker 2: Next says, I hope all of the losers who said
Speaker 2: and posted things like this understand they played a crucial
Speaker 2: role in helping Trump get elected. He will now have
Speaker 2: hurt millions with that power. This was somebody who said, hey,
Speaker 2: Kamala Gaza is speaking now, bitch. Next up we have
Speaker 2: Adam Gentilsen, who said, in two thousand, the left said
Speaker 2: there was no difference between Gore and Bush, so vote nator.
Speaker 2: Then Bush ared a war of choice in Iraq, and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four the left said there was no difference
Speaker 2: between Harrison Trump, so vote uncommitted. Now we have Trump
Speaker 2: proposing that the US take over Gaza.
Speaker 1: Gentlesen, by the way, you can check FEC records. He's
Speaker 1: still a consultant for John Fetterman. He's a former chief
Speaker 1: of staff to Fetterman. People knew that, but like, go
Speaker 1: ahead and look, he's on Fetterman's payroll.
Speaker 2: There you go, all right, and next one, last one
Speaker 2: we can put up here a genuine question, not aiming
Speaker 2: to stunk on et cetera. But for the pro Gaza
Speaker 2: folk who yell gemicide, Jill and killer, Kamala and abstain voted.
Speaker 2: Jill's dinary voted for Trump. What's your reaction to Trump
Speaker 2: saying US will own Gaza? Same thing in your eyes
Speaker 2: as Harris or regret now or question mark. So you
Speaker 2: know this is all very very productive. Ryan always did
Speaker 2: a genuine question at least, Yeah, all right, genuine question.
Speaker 1: So it's a genuine question, Like here's a genuine answer.
Speaker 1: Can anybody point me to any moment where Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: said that she was going to do anything different than
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and was going to ever use US leverage
Speaker 1: to force us these firing Gaza, right, was there any
Speaker 1: moment where Kamala Harris told voters that she would be
Speaker 1: less hawkish or less warlike than Donald Trump. Is a
Speaker 1: genuine question. Back to this genuine question, can anybody find
Speaker 1: me an example of either of those? Because I can
Speaker 1: find you many, many examples of Harris saying the opposite,
Speaker 1: that she would continue the Biden approach to arming Israel
Speaker 1: no matter what, and also that she would be tougher
Speaker 1: when it came to making war than Donald Trump most
Speaker 1: lethal army ever.
Speaker 4: You know, like prosecutor transnational gangs.
Speaker 1: Yes, so tell me, like what is the and bringing
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney talking about, So what is the argument for
Speaker 1: to make the case that the war would not still
Speaker 1: be going on now as we speak if Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: were president, like sending us how everything else that Trump
Speaker 1: is doing? Like, what's the case to make that? Right now?
Speaker 1: We'd have a ceasefire in Gaza if Kamala Harris were president, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you in your mind? How do you get
Speaker 1: what happened from election day in November to today in
Speaker 1: February that brought about a ceasefire? Because we have a
Speaker 1: ceasefire with Trump's president, what does it hold? Does he
Speaker 1: send troops in there? We don't know, we'll see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but right now we have a ceasefire. What's the evidence
Speaker 1: that Harris would have gotten that done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And also, you know,
Speaker 2: the Uncommitted movement, they really went above and beyond to
Speaker 2: give her an opportunity to and a bunch of.
Speaker 1: The uncommitted leaders endorsed Harris.
Speaker 4: Endorsed her anyway, that's right.
Speaker 2: And you know they like the ask to have a
Speaker 2: Palestinian American make vetted comments endorsing Kamala at the DNC.
Speaker 2: That's how low the bar was in terms of her
Speaker 2: trying to extend an olive branch. How many times did
Speaker 2: she have the opportunity, you know, at a time when
Speaker 2: people were say, hey, you really need to separate yourself
Speaker 2: from this guy. Biden is really unpopular. Here on a
Speaker 2: platter is an area where he is profoundly unpopular, where
Speaker 2: you could easily distance yourself. It would be the right
Speaker 2: political thing and the right moral thing. And she would
Speaker 2: never ever do it right.
Speaker 1: And putting a Palistinian American on the stage at the
Speaker 1: DNC would have meant something materially because people said, all, oh,
Speaker 1: that's nothing, why not do that? It would have pushed
Speaker 1: back against her, the donors and the voters who represented
Speaker 1: the pro Israel faction who wanted no pressure applied whatsoever
Speaker 1: to Israel. Yeah, and Harris's willingness even to put a
Speaker 1: vetted two minute speech from Palistinian American on the stage
Speaker 1: that endorses her and endorses her strategy, her willingness to
Speaker 1: do that would be a glimmer of a possibility that
Speaker 1: she's willing to take some risks on behalf of a ceasefire.
Speaker 1: And so that's why there was some meaning to what
Speaker 1: seems kind of like a meaningful ask, and also is
Speaker 1: why she said no to it, because she was not
Speaker 1: willing to take those risks. So if she's not willing
Speaker 1: to tick off a tiny sliver of her donors, because
Speaker 1: a lot of those donors be like, okay, fine, some
Speaker 1: Palastin Americans speaks like we had lots of different we
Speaker 1: have a different, vast array of speakers up on stage.
Speaker 1: Not that big a deal. We can get over it.
Speaker 1: She's not even willing to do that. Why on earth
Speaker 1: would she be willing to pressure in it in Yahoo
Speaker 1: to do something he doesn't want to do. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: some people concluded that she wouldn't be. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that I think this freak out shows is a
Speaker 1: recognition that Gaza did actually play a role in the election,
Speaker 1: because otherwise, why like what are you worked up about here?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean they love to be like, oh you left ease,
Speaker 2: you don't matter, we don't care about you.
Speaker 4: And then that they lose like it was your vault.
Speaker 2: You're so powerful, you know, and it's like all right, well,
Speaker 2: which which is it?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 2: We have a statement from one of the co chairs
Speaker 2: of the Uncommitted movement we can put up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is from Leila ellabed Is Layla is She wasn't
Speaker 2: one of them related to Rashida Tile said.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe, yeah, well certainly one of the one of
Speaker 1: the Uncommitted organizers was.
Speaker 2: Well okay in any case, she says, I feel sad, angry,
Speaker 2: and scared for our communities. For months, we warned about
Speaker 2: the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our
Speaker 2: calls largely went unheard. Hairs left a vacuum by not
Speaker 2: visiting Michigan. Families impacted by US supplied bombs to help
Speaker 2: create a permission structure for their trust. While Trump visited
Speaker 2: Dearborn and filled a community in despair with lies. Trump's
Speaker 2: illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific, But as on
Speaker 2: so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade
Speaker 2: voters they were the better.
Speaker 4: Alternative, and they blew it.
Speaker 2: I think that is all very accurate in spite of
Speaker 2: the former Kamala Harris aid, responding, deeply unseerious. People who
Speaker 2: want to shirk their responsibility clowns, because again it's always
Speaker 2: the voter's fault, never the fault of the people in
Speaker 2: power who had many opportunities responsibilities something different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, responsibility is such an interesting word there, like who
Speaker 1: has the responsibility?
Speaker 6: There? Right?
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly right?
Speaker 2: And then lastly can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So the group that was called Arab Americans for Trump
Speaker 2: has now changed their name after the president's Gaza Rivera comments.
Speaker 2: They say that the chairman of the group formerly known
Speaker 2: as Arab Americans for Trump said during a phone interview
Speaker 2: the group is now going to be called Arab Americans
Speaker 2: for Peace. Name change came after Trump held that Tuesday
Speaker 2: press conference alongside bb net Yahoo and proposed the US
Speaker 2: take ownership in re developing the area into the revier
Speaker 2: of the Middle East. The talk about what the president
Speaker 2: wants to do with Gaza. Obviously, we're completely opposed idea
Speaker 2: of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in historic Palestine,
Speaker 2: and so we did not want to be behind the
Speaker 2: curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has
Speaker 2: been our objective from the very beginning. I mean, I
Speaker 2: will say, I don't know how you could look at
Speaker 2: Trump's first term in office and think that he was
Speaker 2: going to be like Propalas. I mean, he gave Israel
Speaker 2: everything they wanted, and he had Mary Madison giving him
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars in being like.
Speaker 4: We're going to take over the West Bank.
Speaker 2: You know, this was all out there publicly, so no
Speaker 2: one should be surprised by the approach that Trump is
Speaker 2: taking at this point.
Speaker 4: But you know, one thing, Ryan, I one reason.
Speaker 2: In particular why this discourse has kind of annoyed me
Speaker 2: in particular because I mean, this is the kind of shit.
Speaker 4: That liberals do all the time.
Speaker 2: But post November, post Trump winning again, there actually has
Speaker 2: been some liberal lefty alliance and community building because it's
Speaker 2: so clear that the liberal establishment approach was a failure.
Speaker 4: Right, they had this.
Speaker 2: Theory of oh, we have an anti Trump coalition and
Speaker 2: we need to focus on the suburban moderates. We're going
Speaker 2: to use this channey to do that. You know, that's
Speaker 2: how we're going to approach this. We're going to focus
Speaker 2: on rather than addressing people's material concerns, which is what
Speaker 2: contributed to the rise of this I would say, fascist movement,
Speaker 2: Rather than dealing with that, we're just going to you know,
Speaker 2: talk about democracy, talk about fascism in the abstract and
Speaker 2: not fully delivered for people. And you know, all of
Speaker 2: those theories were really wrong. Not to mention that they
Speaker 2: spent so much time destroying the Bernie Sanders movement both
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen and then again vanquishing him in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty that I would say was their primary goal over
Speaker 2: ultimately defeating Trump, and all of that edifice has been
Speaker 2: has humbled. You know, in some of the favored media personalities,
Speaker 2: the Joe and Meeka's of the world, have you know,
Speaker 2: capitulated to Trump after making lots of money being these
Speaker 2: big resistance figures, and so you know, when he actually
Speaker 2: gets in there and they want to continue to have
Speaker 2: access to power, they immediately bend the knee. So there
Speaker 2: has been a real a real opening, and I think
Speaker 2: a real radicalizing of a lot of liberals who have
Speaker 2: fled MSNBC who are going to more like lefty YouTube
Speaker 2: channels like my husband's Kyle's, but a lot of others
Speaker 2: do David dol MIKE'SO have seen huge growth. So, you know,
Speaker 2: the other thing that irritates me about the you know,
Speaker 2: the liberal discourse here around Gaza is that I think
Speaker 2: it undercuts that new movement and sort of community building
Speaker 2: within the Democratic base and radicalizing in a lot of
Speaker 2: ways of the Democratic base.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's DOJ Committee hasn't been able to turn up
Speaker 1: any serious evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse yet, but
Speaker 1: did manage to get a win out of White House
Speaker 1: Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Let's roll this clip talking about
Speaker 1: a Politico scandal.
Speaker 5: I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer
Speaker 5: dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico,
Speaker 5: the American taxpayer's dying, will no longer be happening. The
Speaker 5: DOGE team is working on canceling those payments.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 5: Again, this is a whole of government effort to ensure
Speaker 5: that we are going line by line when it comes
Speaker 5: to the Federal of government's books, and this president in
Speaker 5: his team are are making decisions across the board on
Speaker 5: do these receipts serve the interests of the American people.
Speaker 5: Is this a good use of the American taxpayers money.
Speaker 5: If it is not, that funding will no longer be
Speaker 5: sent abroad and American taxpayers will see significant savings because
Speaker 5: of that effort.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, this was a wild one yesterday. Normally it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the kind of thing we're talking about, Crystal,
Speaker 1: but it rose to the level of the White House
Speaker 1: Press Secretary claiming that they're going to come in and
Speaker 1: cut off these payments. So to bring people up to
Speaker 1: speed what happened here, USA spending dot gov is a website.
Speaker 1: It turns out to be very dangerous if you don't
Speaker 1: know how to use it. Okay, So people went in
Speaker 1: and searched somehow Politico and it came up with this
Speaker 1: idea that Politico is funded by USAID and that then
Speaker 1: was connected to the fact that Politico had recently had
Speaker 1: a glie in their payroll and so some political reporters
Speaker 1: didn't get paid, and was then also connected to the
Speaker 1: fact that Politico had been one of the many news
Speaker 1: outlets that had reported on the letter from fifty former
Speaker 1: intelligence officials said that infamous letter, infous letter. So they said, Aha,
Speaker 1: So USAID, the State Department basically CIA funded, the Deep
Speaker 1: State funded Politico. Politico then laundered this letter from these
Speaker 1: intelligence officials to benefit Biden and then gets all of
Speaker 1: this money from USAID and then Musk finds out about it,
Speaker 1: cancels the money, and now all of a sudden, Politico
Speaker 1: can't make payroll, Like, wow, we've got them, incredible. So
Speaker 1: in fact, what to me, Actually, these guys did actually
Speaker 1: stumble on a scandal, which is the way that a
Speaker 1: lot of our Beltway media is funded, which is a
Speaker 1: political pro Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Whole, some of the newsletters, all of these trades. So
Speaker 2: like insider trade publications, it.
Speaker 1: Goes back many decades to the advent of this trade
Speaker 1: what's called a trade publication. So if you are either
Speaker 1: a government official at the Department of Transportation, you own
Speaker 1: a trucking company, you own a shipping company, like your
Speaker 1: own lobbyists, or more particularly exactly you're a lobbyist for
Speaker 1: those people, you really want to know what everybody, every
Speaker 1: lawmaker on the subcommittee that oversees your industry is thinking
Speaker 1: up to the minute, and you want to know what
Speaker 1: the commissioners and the senior staff at the agency that
Speaker 1: regulates you are up to at the moment. And you're
Speaker 1: not going to find that in the New York Times
Speaker 1: or drop site or here on breaking points like we're
Speaker 1: not getting into the weeds like that.
Speaker 2: Very specialized, like yeah, down to the subcommittee kind of knowledge.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's lobbying intelligence is an entire thing
Speaker 1: like lobbyists whose job is not to actually lobby to
Speaker 1: pressure members of Congress to do a thing, it's just
Speaker 1: to find out information and then deliver it privately to
Speaker 1: different corporations that pay for it. This is the same thing,
Speaker 1: really political problem work, all these others that do this,
Speaker 1: and so they charge through the roof for this.
Speaker 2: Thousands of dollars because they know that, first of all,
Speaker 2: it's not coming out of any individual's pocket. It's coming
Speaker 2: out of either the government or the lobby shop or
Speaker 2: the corporation or whatever. So for them to spend a
Speaker 2: few thousand dollars on this information, that's going to prove
Speaker 2: valuable to you know, if you're a corporation, your bottom line, eh,
Speaker 2: that's nothing.
Speaker 1: Right, and so I think it's a reasonable question, like
Speaker 1: does a government agency need this?
Speaker 2: But we're talking about people here who are raising these questions,
Speaker 2: who are capitalists who would presumably just appreciate.
Speaker 1: The hustle here, right, And this is over more than
Speaker 1: a decade, by the way, yes, this amount of money. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing is not all of it is politico.
Speaker 1: Not all of it is, and not of all is
Speaker 1: USA I did.
Speaker 2: Like there's a even the number is wrong, so like
Speaker 2: eight million dollars. They make it sound like, oh, they
Speaker 2: got eight million dollars from USA i D in a year,
Speaker 2: even that's not true. Is eight million dollars over a decade,
Speaker 2: from all from all government agencies combined. Now again I
Speaker 2: still think like the business model is sort of preposterous whatever,
Speaker 2: but it's wildly different than how it was presented. And
Speaker 2: then the other thing that's funny to me, Ryan, especially
Speaker 2: talking to you, is that you guys have actually done
Speaker 2: reporting about some news agencies that USA i D does.
Speaker 4: Is actually funded.
Speaker 2: And I don't think any of these people cared anything
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Right now now they're now they're there, now they're starting
Speaker 1: to notice it. Michael Schellenberger actually did a piece based
Speaker 1: on or advancing some of our Reason reporters. So now
Speaker 1: they're starting to see. But yes, USA I D does
Speaker 1: fund foreign does fund journalism that's done in foreign countries,
Speaker 1: and that that journalism is often geared towards US US interests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is a thing, and that should be you know,
Speaker 1: probed and should be scrutinized. They're not. They're not funding.
Speaker 1: Now I had sent this, I don't know, maybe we
Speaker 1: can add this in post. It's gotten it's gotten even
Speaker 1: more upsurred. We can go back to political in a second.
Speaker 1: But the New York Times got lumped into this scandal. Uh,
Speaker 1: somebody went through and typed in New York into USA
Speaker 1: spending knockov and pulled up a number of like twenty
Speaker 1: nine million dollars or something like that, saying that the
Speaker 1: US government is funding the New York Times. The tune
Speaker 1: of twenty tine million dollars turns out brouh and so
Speaker 1: it's Ian Miles Chong. It's like completely unreliable online figure
Speaker 1: is then and then Hooberman, who has a massive following,
Speaker 1: shares it and he's like, I have to speak out now.
Speaker 1: This is outrageous. This money could have been spent doing
Speaker 1: you know, anih research. It's like, as Lefong points out,
Speaker 1: they searched New York, not even New York Times. So
Speaker 1: New York University gets a lot of money for research
Speaker 1: et such, anything with the word New York get it
Speaker 1: showed up in here. And this should this in the
Speaker 1: old days, so to speak, this wouldn't matter. This would
Speaker 1: be like kind of funny that like people got this
Speaker 1: kind of thing wrong because Twitter x has now taken
Speaker 1: on this like central place in the MAGA ecosystem. What
Speaker 1: goes viral there becomes just quote unquote true and then
Speaker 1: gets sent to the press secretary, and then the press
Speaker 1: secretary responds to it even though it's just fundamentally wrong.
Speaker 1: And you know, the inability of the community notes to
Speaker 1: respond to this stuff is also very telling, Like this
Speaker 1: is just wrong, but it's not getting noted for the
Speaker 1: most part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even if it was, I don't know that
Speaker 2: it would really matter. I mean, Elon Musk himself is
Speaker 2: what the most community noted person on Twitter. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it hasn't stopped anyone, well it has, I mean some
Speaker 2: people don't believe his nonsense, but plenty of people do,
Speaker 2: regardless of the fact that he will just you know,
Speaker 2: take a claim like this and spread it like it's
Speaker 2: nothing without thinking twice about it.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, it's a total destruction.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we put that up already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very like, yeah, it's a very post truth,
Speaker 2: postmodernist kind of a reality.
Speaker 4: And you're right.
Speaker 2: But now the you know, used to the Biden people
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty were able to win with this
Speaker 2: bedrock assumption that like, what happens online isn't real life,
Speaker 2: and that's just not true anymore. Now what happens on
Speaker 2: Twitter as preposterous as it is, like they have filled
Speaker 2: this administration in part with people who are good posters.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically how Jamie Vance ends up as
Speaker 2: Vice president of the United States.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And Elon Musk has you know, I mean, obviously he
Speaker 2: has a number of power sources, but one of them
Speaker 2: is the fact that he runs this platform to his
Speaker 2: own benefit, including something else that you've talked about, Ryan,
Speaker 2: including silencing critics from within MAGA. So you know, Elon
Speaker 2: is a Hobber Malay fan, an anarcho capital list, you know,
Speaker 2: a fan of this like tech, feudalist, nonsense, crazy, and
Speaker 2: it is directly at odds with the Steve Bannon populist
Speaker 2: right ideology. I mean, Steve Bannon will tell you that
Speaker 2: in quite existential terms. Go read his interview with the
Speaker 2: New York Times, and so the kind of original Maga
Speaker 2: type people like the Laura Lumbers of the world, who
Speaker 2: were going out and trying to you know, trying to
Speaker 2: push back against this direction which is an existential threat
Speaker 2: to the you know, populist right. Steve Bannon ask view
Speaker 2: of what Trump should be and what he should be doing.
Speaker 2: It truly is Elon Musk is a existential threat to them.
Speaker 2: They have been vanished on Twitter and suppressed and you
Speaker 2: no longer like really see them bubbling up. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's it has become this incredibly influential platform that has
Speaker 2: a direct pipeline into what is coming out of the
Speaker 2: Press Secretary's mouth, which is why we have to pay
Speaker 2: attention to stupidities like making up these numbers about Politico
Speaker 2: in New York Times.
Speaker 1: And then what you what you will then see is
Speaker 1: that the most absurd and incorrect claims will end up
Speaker 1: getting noted, and then that gives credence to ones that
Speaker 1: aren't noted. And so for instance, now finally this ian
Speaker 1: Miles Chong one does have a community note, and so
Speaker 1: they'd be like, hey, this guy is saying that it's
Speaker 1: New York Times. Actually it's New York This guy's saying
Speaker 1: it's the last five years. It's not the last. He
Speaker 1: didn't run it for the last five years. Because if
Speaker 1: you don't put in, if you don't put the time
Speaker 1: in right in USA spending, it gives you like And
Speaker 1: then what they're noting here is that the actual total
Speaker 1: to the New York Times over five years would be
Speaker 1: one point six million, but most of that is from
Speaker 1: the Apartment of Defense, the Pentagon. These are Pentagon. These
Speaker 1: are people in the Pentagon or service members who subscribe
Speaker 1: to The New York Times and expense it to the government.
Speaker 1: So instead of uncovering some scandal they just discovered, would
Speaker 1: like people read the New York Times.
Speaker 4: For better or worse? Maybe to them that is quite
Speaker 4: a scandal, Like yess still do?
Speaker 2: All right, We've got David dan standing by to break
Speaker 2: down some of the legal challenges and legal movement push
Speaker 2: back against DOGE, pushback against the Trump administration. Some new
Speaker 2: court decisions have come down, so let's get to that.
Speaker 2: So for a look at the legal pushback against Elon
Speaker 2: Musk DOJE and also the Trump administration more broadly, we
Speaker 2: are glad to have David dan here, of course, is
Speaker 2: the editor of The American Prospect and great friend of
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 7: Great to see you, dude, Good to see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So give people a broad contour, and
Speaker 2: then I'll get into some of the elements. We have
Speaker 2: some of the specifics of some of the legal most
Speaker 2: significant legal pushback against the moves too, I don't know,
Speaker 2: seize the Treasury and make Congress irrelevant and fire a
Speaker 2: bunch of people who and get rid of an agency,
Speaker 2: and all of these sorts of things.
Speaker 8: Well, really every single one of those has some sort
Speaker 8: of corresponding legal action that we're seeing. There was hearing
Speaker 8: today on maybe the biggest threat, which is the accessing
Speaker 8: of the Treasury Department's payment system at the Bureau of
Speaker 8: the Fiscal Service. The Justice Department agreed to restrict access
Speaker 8: to just two people, Tom Krause, who's kind of leading
Speaker 8: this DOGE team at Treasury, and this twenty five year
Speaker 8: old Marco Iliz, and to make sure that their access
Speaker 8: was read only, and apparently that has happened to a degree.
Speaker 7: There's been some limitations, particularly.
Speaker 8: On Marco, So that was an example of an early success.
Speaker 7: That's a temporary restraining order.
Speaker 8: Of course, there was also two temporary restraining orders on
Speaker 8: the payment freeze that was put together by the Office
Speaker 8: of Management Budget and what that led to was a
Speaker 8: rescinding of the order to pause all rants and loans.
Speaker 8: The federal government nicks that hasn't fully kind of taken hold.
Speaker 8: I think what we're learning is once you turn off
Speaker 8: some of that stuff, it's hard to turn it back on.
Speaker 8: So there's projects all over the country like head Start
Speaker 8: that aren't getting the money that they were supposed to
Speaker 8: be able to get. There are other lawsuits, particularly around
Speaker 8: the firings. There's a lawsuit as we know today is
Speaker 8: the end of this buyout offer, this kind of fake
Speaker 8: buyout offer. Unions have sued saying that that isn't authorized
Speaker 8: by law anywhere. And then another big one is Gwynn Wilcox,
Speaker 8: who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 8: who was fired in violation of the nlrp's own statute,
Speaker 8: which says you can't fire a board member unless there's
Speaker 8: malfeasance in office, dude, to try to block that firing.
Speaker 8: There are other lawsuits about illegal firings. For example, the
Speaker 8: USDA's inspector General who came to work saying this is
Speaker 8: an illegal firing when you fired me and was escorted
Speaker 8: out of the building by security.
Speaker 7: She has also sued to get her job back.
Speaker 8: So, you know, a really broad section of these across
Speaker 8: the federal government, across some of the things have been done.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the buyouts for a moment. There's been
Speaker 1: it's been reported that roughly twenty thousand people maybe it's
Speaker 1: a few thousand more since then, have taken these buyouts.
Speaker 1: You guys pointed out over the prospect that that's actually
Speaker 1: under the kind of expected turnover. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: the people that have accepted this quote unquote buyout are
Speaker 1: people who were ready to retire anyway, and they're like, oh.
Speaker 8: Likely the case, yeah, most, I mean it's quite a
Speaker 8: bit under. I mean, the average will turnover within the
Speaker 8: federal civil service is something between five and ten percent.
Speaker 8: Twenty thousand employees would represent one percent of the federal
Speaker 8: government's workforce. There are new numbers out today that say
Speaker 8: that's up to about forty thousand, but that's still quite
Speaker 8: a bit less.
Speaker 7: So these are people who were going to.
Speaker 8: Retire who figure, Okay, maybe i'll get several months of
Speaker 8: severance as a result. Now whether they will get is
Speaker 8: really very much in question. We know from the experience
Speaker 8: of Twitter that many many people sued after they were
Speaker 8: given a buyout offer because they didn't get the money
Speaker 8: that they claimed they were going to get. And there's
Speaker 8: a little clause at the end of the resignation offer
Speaker 8: that has been made by the government that essentially says
Speaker 8: that you're not.
Speaker 7: Allowed to sue the government over reason.
Speaker 8: So clearly they're setting up for a situation where they
Speaker 8: kind of pull the rug out from these people who
Speaker 8: have accepted the buyout offer.
Speaker 2: My understanding is there's also a question about whether this
Speaker 2: offer itself is legal because it would again require some
Speaker 2: expenditure of funds, and you know, there's what a budget
Speaker 2: deadline coming up in March, and there's nothing that can
Speaker 2: really be authorized beyond that, et cetera. So isn't there
Speaker 2: also just a question over whether the courts may say, hey,
Speaker 2: you can't even go forward with this. So all you
Speaker 2: people who took this deal like you're kind of high
Speaker 2: and dry, because this was an illegal offer to begin with.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's part of the lawsuit to enjoin this
Speaker 8: offer because, as you say, on March fourteenth, federal government
Speaker 8: appropriations run out. So you can't make a promise to
Speaker 8: the federal workforce that we're going to keep paying you
Speaker 8: until September thirtieth if they only have authorization to pay
Speaker 8: anybody in the federal government until March fourteenth. So, yes,
Speaker 8: that is a major part of the lawsuit that was
Speaker 8: put together by two federal employee unions, the American Federation
Speaker 8: Government Employees, and I believe Sciu And.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about the NLRB unpack
Speaker 1: not just this illegal firing that's being challenged, but the
Speaker 1: broader effort to actually deem the NLRB to be not
Speaker 1: an agency, to be effectively unconstitutional. Where is that fight?
Speaker 8: Yeah, there are two things on, like parallel tracks going on.
Speaker 8: So first, by firing the head of the artmor one
Speaker 8: of the board members of the NLRB, Trump has put
Speaker 8: this agency down to two board members. And here's why
Speaker 8: that's important. Normally it's a five member panel. Two members
Speaker 8: means that the NLRB does not currently have a quorum,
Speaker 8: and under Supreme Court precedent, that means that it cannot
Speaker 8: it cannot actually adjudicate any case right now. And the
Speaker 8: NLRB sort of operates as an appeals court on federal
Speaker 8: labor law.
Speaker 7: So there are.
Speaker 8: Regional NLRB offices that make decisions. They are administrative law
Speaker 8: juzes that make decisions, but if anything is appealed, it
Speaker 8: has to be answered by the NLRB. So it's like
Speaker 8: having an appeals court or having no appeals court, but
Speaker 8: people can still appeal. So if a company has a
Speaker 8: union election and the union wins, and the company decides
Speaker 8: we're going to sue because we're going to challenge this election,
Speaker 8: it goes up to the MLRB, where it effectively stays there.
Speaker 8: At this point, it can't there nothing else can be
Speaker 8: done on the case. So this kind of stalls out
Speaker 8: US labor law. Whether it's union elections or illegal firings
Speaker 8: or other grievances, anything that gets elevated to the NLRB
Speaker 8: level can't be done right now. And so that's the
Speaker 8: benefit that Trump gets from this firing, which has been
Speaker 8: challenged in court.
Speaker 7: Separately, there's a process.
Speaker 8: By companies like SpaceX and Amazon, familiar names the richest
Speaker 8: people in the world who are trying to make the
Speaker 8: NLRB unconstitutional. That's what they're arguing in court. They've been
Speaker 8: doing this since the Biden administration. But these cases are
Speaker 8: starting to wind their way up through the courts. They're
Speaker 8: at the appeals court level right now, and they may
Speaker 8: get to the Supreme Court where they would have to
Speaker 8: decide whether or not the NLRB is unconstitutional. It's a
Speaker 8: really kind of operatic argument, but you never know with
Speaker 8: this court, and so at that point you would end
Speaker 8: up having no labor law in fact rather than just
Speaker 8: in practice as we have right now.
Speaker 2: David, one question, one big question I have right now
Speaker 2: is whether they're going to follow these court orders. So
Speaker 2: they've already suffered a few losses. You mentioned one at
Speaker 2: the top, there's an injunction against the freezing of all
Speaker 2: the payments. We can actually put E four up on
Speaker 2: the screen you were referencing some of this. The Trump
Speaker 2: administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants in
Speaker 2: spite of the fact that two different federal courts have
Speaker 2: now barred it from doing so, and maybe that's a misunderstanding,
Speaker 2: or maybe they just maybe they just aren't listening to
Speaker 2: the court orders. There also was an injunction against the
Speaker 2: Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, which is just like briazenly preposterously unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: There's an injunction against transferring transgender women into men's prisons
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: So you know, what indications.
Speaker 2: Do we have about how much they're going to actually
Speaker 2: listen or care about these various court injunctions and rulings
Speaker 2: that ultimately go against them, Because you do have people
Speaker 2: like JD. Vansu previously when he was just doing podcasts,
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, we're going to be like Andrew Jackson
Speaker 2: and say, okay, well go and force this ruling with
Speaker 2: your army.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's obviously one of the bigger concerns that we
Speaker 8: can possibly have, and we're not going to really know
Speaker 8: the outcome of that until you get sort of a
Speaker 8: final ruling. Right until we get a Supreme Court adjudication
Speaker 8: of some of these cases is adverse to what Trump wants.
Speaker 8: That's when we're going to find out if the river
Speaker 8: meets the road here. What we do know right now
Speaker 8: is that the let's start a bit with the one
Speaker 8: that started today with the payment system. Apparently, according to
Speaker 8: reporting from Nathan Tankas, the Treasury Department has started to
Speaker 8: limit the access of at least one the twenty five
Speaker 8: year old kid, Marco Aliz.
Speaker 7: They've limited his access to the payment system.
Speaker 8: It's more closer to read only at this point, which
Speaker 8: complies with that order. The O NB memo was rescinded.
Speaker 8: But as you say, there are several or other what
Speaker 8: seemed to be illegal impoundments going on. Some of that
Speaker 8: is because the authority or the alleged authority for some
Speaker 8: of those impowments, like the stuff at EPA, is derived
Speaker 8: from different sources. So there was an executive order that
Speaker 8: said we're going to terminate the Green New Deal is
Speaker 8: the way that it was put in the EO, and
Speaker 8: that tries to pause all disbursements of you know, climate
Speaker 8: related investments that were made under the Inflation Reduction Act
Speaker 8: and under the Investment Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. And so
Speaker 8: even though the pause on all grants and loans has
Speaker 8: been blocked by two federal courts, there are these other
Speaker 8: authorities that say.
Speaker 7: We're allowed to block foreign aid or pause foreign aid.
Speaker 8: We're allowed to pause these EPA grants and things like that,
Speaker 8: and those haven't really been challenged to the same degree
Speaker 8: saying your authority in the executive order to do this
Speaker 8: is bogus and it would represent, you know, basically stealing
Speaker 8: the power of the purse away from Congress and deciding
Speaker 8: that you don't have to spend money on things you
Speaker 8: don't like.
Speaker 7: So that battle sort of remains to be seen.
Speaker 8: They haven't really pushed that yet, so that's I think
Speaker 8: that's been lost a little bit. People think, oh, the
Speaker 8: O and B memo was rescinded, and so now federal
Speaker 8: money is flowing again, and it's not true. I mean,
Speaker 8: there are still these illegal impoundments happening in violation of
Speaker 8: the Constitution and violation of federal law, the Empownment Control Act,
Speaker 8: which sets very strict limits on when a president can
Speaker 8: delay funds that have been duly appropriated by Congress, and
Speaker 8: it violates Supreme Court precedent as well. And eventually we're
Speaker 8: going to get to a reckoning on that, because that's
Speaker 8: what the Trump administration wants. They want to pick a
Speaker 8: fight over impoundment to try to get this power for
Speaker 8: themselves to unilaterally cancel certain.
Speaker 7: Types of spending.
Speaker 8: And so we're going to see that fight happen at
Speaker 8: the court. But you know the really dangerous question that
Speaker 8: you ask Crystal, whether after the end of that fight,
Speaker 8: we're still going to see an administration adhere to whatever
Speaker 8: it is.
Speaker 7: The Supreme Court says that's still in question.
Speaker 2: Well, David, thank you so much for your expertise and
Speaker 2: laying all of this out. We're always really grateful for
Speaker 2: your time, and it's great to see you.
Speaker 7: You got it. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: Excited to be joined this morning by Commerce and Rocana,
Speaker 2: who found himself and bit of a Twitter dispute with
Speaker 2: our new god King Elon Musk.
Speaker 4: So great to have you, Congressman.
Speaker 6: Great to be back on Yeah.
Speaker 4: So okay, let me I'll.
Speaker 2: Give people a little bit of the backstory and then
Speaker 2: you can explain the full backstory. So political reporter put
Speaker 2: out that you had abstained from a vote that would
Speaker 2: have subpoenaed Elon Musk to come and test to buy
Speaker 2: about whatever he and Doage are up to at this point.
Speaker 4: That was not entirely accurate.
Speaker 2: So you clarified on Twitter, and that leads to the
Speaker 2: exchange with Elon Musk. Just give us a little bit
Speaker 2: like what exactly happens here.
Speaker 9: So first, let me just get to the bottom line,
Speaker 9: which is I want Elon Musk to testify, to be transparent,
Speaker 9: to be subpoena that what he's doing is blatantly unconstitutional.
Speaker 9: If I was scared about that, I would not have
Speaker 9: had on Twitter. Knowing that he follows every one of
Speaker 9: my tweets, made that very very clear.
Speaker 4: And we can put that up on the screen. By
Speaker 4: the way, what you can continue.
Speaker 9: Talking and within minutes of me put that tweet up,
Speaker 9: he tweets back, don't be a dick. We get into
Speaker 9: it because I said to Ilin, I said this, I've
Speaker 9: said this privately to him, I've said it publicly. If
Speaker 9: you want to have an exposure of waste in the government,
Speaker 9: then the best way to do it is to have
Speaker 9: sunlight come, do your have your findings, show him to
Speaker 9: the Congress, and force us to cast up up and
Speaker 9: down votes. I was I got hammered from my party
Speaker 9: in the beginning when Musk was adulgient. I said, Okay,
Speaker 9: if he is wasteful spending on the Department of Defense,
Speaker 9: I'm willing to hear him ount but the yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 9: But so it's not like, so I got hammered, but
Speaker 9: I said, when you're doing something that's fundamentally unconstitutional, you
Speaker 9: you can't be the decider of what is wasteful spending.
Speaker 9: And that is just a blatant violation Article one.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 9: And so you know I've I will stand up to
Speaker 9: him if and have very very clearly.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 9: And what got noticed actually, ironically was my tweet, not
Speaker 9: any of the committees efforts, because people know that I
Speaker 9: have had a relationship with him for fifteen years and
Speaker 9: I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong.
Speaker 9: I will be the loudest is standing up for the Constitution.
Speaker 1: How did you meet him? Do you remember your first
Speaker 1: interaction with him. I didn't represent Silicon Valley for people
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 9: You know, he's never supported me in terms of politically
Speaker 9: because he actually wasn't very very political. But I met him.
Speaker 9: He blured my first book when I wrote a book
Speaker 9: about manufacturing in the United States, and you know, someone
Speaker 9: at Estra Wajiski who's known in the valley, introduced me
Speaker 9: to him.
Speaker 6: He blames the book.
Speaker 9: And then we got into it on Tesla because he
Speaker 9: was begging in a essue who's a neighboring Member of
Speaker 9: Congress from Silicon Valley for a Tesla loan from the
Speaker 9: Obama administration. I was in the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: Your Commerce Department, in Commerce.
Speaker 9: Department, and there are those of us saying, well, okay,
Speaker 9: but you need labor neutrality, and we don't get labor
Speaker 9: neutrality out of it. But I'm active on the record
Speaker 9: in Fremont saying that Tesla should unionize, and so he knew.
Speaker 9: We've known each other for years, but I've said Tesla
Speaker 9: is obviously was a great company in terms of electric vehicles,
Speaker 9: but should you noton ize it.
Speaker 6: So I've known him for many, many years.
Speaker 4: What do you think he wants?
Speaker 9: You know, he's he's maniacal about when he believes in something.
Speaker 9: I mean, this is I Those people are saying, Okay,
Speaker 9: he's just in it for financial reasons.
Speaker 6: That's not my read on him, though.
Speaker 9: I think he should have financial disclosures like I do,
Speaker 9: and there should be conflict of interest and he shouldn't
Speaker 9: be the one deeciding.
Speaker 6: But I think what he believes that he's out.
Speaker 9: There in a mission to save the American people for
Speaker 9: thirty six million dollars of deficit and it's actually a
Speaker 9: bigger problem because when you have an ideological drive like that,
Speaker 9: and when you're Elon Musk and you believe that you've
Speaker 9: been right time and time again in the private sector
Speaker 9: when other people have been wrong, he's basically thinking, okay,
Speaker 9: kind of standing in my way, I'm doing great service
Speaker 9: for humanity and go. You know, anyone is in my
Speaker 9: way is going to be roadkill. And that's why it's
Speaker 9: so important to stand up to him, and to stand
Speaker 9: up very very clearly and say this is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Having the richest man on the planet also be one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful people in the federal government is
Speaker 1: itself a unique situation. But he also controls ex Twitter,
Speaker 1: which is still, despite his best efforts, is a central
Speaker 1: organizing platform for how we understand public sentiments. And so
Speaker 1: I'm curious if your colleagues or you think about his
Speaker 1: power over that platform, as your colleagues think about how
Speaker 1: hard to go after him, because he could you know,
Speaker 1: with the flick of a switch.
Speaker 10: I knew he would right to send you or all
Speaker 10: of a sudden, you're getting like Q likes and one.
Speaker 2: Follower count starts to go down, and you know, people
Speaker 2: aren't really seeing your tweets anymore. I mean this has
Speaker 2: happened to many people who have come after him on Twitter, right.
Speaker 9: No, I mean, look, he in my case, my reply
Speaker 9: to him saying don't be a dick got more views
Speaker 9: than his actual tweets. So I mean, in my case,
Speaker 9: so far at least, he hasn't done that type of censorship.
Speaker 9: But I do think it's a problem more generally, which
Speaker 9: is why we need many more platforms, which is one
Speaker 9: of the reasons I was defending TikTok and saying that
Speaker 9: we shouldn't ban TikTok and we shouldn't have Musk or
Speaker 9: Meta acquire TikTok because you need alternative social media platforms.
Speaker 9: And I think TikTok actually is a place where we've
Speaker 9: gotten the most response frankly on standing up to Musk.
Speaker 9: And we need more social media platform so we can
Speaker 9: push back on Musk, etc. That's going to be important,
Speaker 9: but on the platform. But what we really need is,
Speaker 9: and I cruss enforcement and more platforms coming up that
Speaker 9: we're less is can have a voice.
Speaker 2: One of the things Ryan and I were talking about
Speaker 2: is like Elon describes what he's doing as a revolution,
Speaker 2: and I think that's accurate. I mean, you don't go
Speaker 2: into the Treasury Department. And now we have new reporting
Speaker 2: that they are changing the code that they The New
Speaker 2: York Times says that there were emails flying around saying,
Speaker 2: we want to use our access to the Treasury payment
Speaker 2: system to freeze funding to USAI D. I don't have
Speaker 2: to tell you that USAID is authorized by Congress as
Speaker 2: an independent agency, Elon Muskin, no one else. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: can't just single handedly say we don't like this agency,
Speaker 2: We're getting rid of it, or we're subsuming it understate
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. They're doing that. They've gone into
Speaker 2: the etc. For Medicare, Medicaid into NOAH GSA. You know,
Speaker 2: the list goes on and on, and none of this
Speaker 2: congressionally authorized. It's obviously a constitutional crisis. They have a
Speaker 2: broader plan to, you know, have this go to the courts.
Speaker 2: Whether they even abide by court decisions is an open question,
Speaker 2: I think as well, there's already indications that some of
Speaker 2: the court injunctions are already being ignored. So while he's
Speaker 2: doing what he describes as a revolution. You know, we
Speaker 2: were earlier talking about like, oh, they're trying to keep
Speaker 2: themselves free from foya. I mean, it just feels so
Speaker 2: small ball, right, compared to the grand plan that they
Speaker 2: are executing.
Speaker 4: Before our eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So how are you groppling with that as a
Speaker 2: member of Congress And what are the conversations like among
Speaker 2: your colleagues about how to about the gravity of this threat, right,
Speaker 2: and how to truly push back against it in a
Speaker 2: way that's not just going to be sort of like
Speaker 2: impotent or pointing to like you weren't confirmed by the
Speaker 2: Senate and where's my foyer required?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 9: Well, you're asking what people in my district around the
Speaker 9: country are asking, which is what the hell's the plan
Speaker 9: and why don't we have a clear plan for the
Speaker 9: Democratic Party to meet the moment? Because I think you
Speaker 9: actually understand Elon really well, he've used this as revolutionary,
Speaker 9: He've used this as there's a thirty six trillion dollar
Speaker 9: debt and Congress has been part of the problem, and
Speaker 9: that he's not just going to be some bureaucrat who
Speaker 9: gives a report to Congress, because that's what he When
Speaker 9: you say, well, why don't you just get the transparency
Speaker 9: in the sunlight, He's like, I'm not just going to
Speaker 9: just give some report to Congress that they're going to disregard.
Speaker 9: And I'm going to try to stop this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be CEO of the country, right and
Speaker 2: rule it in the same dictatorial way that he rules Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, etc.
Speaker 9: And one is a company. I mean find maybe a
Speaker 9: great company, but a company is not even a few
Speaker 9: pages in the American story, right. This is a much
Speaker 9: much bigger thing. This is a country that won the
Speaker 9: Revolutionary War, that wins the Civil War, that wins World
Speaker 9: War two, wins the Cold War. It's the greatest enterprise ever.
Speaker 9: So you can't have one individual do it. But I
Speaker 9: say that so we understand his psychology, and it means
Speaker 9: a equally tough response. What is that response here? It
Speaker 9: needs to come down first to the debt ceiling. We
Speaker 9: need to have every House Democrat and Senate dem crat
Speaker 9: say we will not give a single vote to the
Speaker 9: debt ceiling increase unless Donald Trump in the beginning commits
Speaker 9: in ironclad writing that he will spend every single dollar
Speaker 9: that is appropriated and authorized by Congress and honor Congress
Speaker 9: on every agency. And you know what Donald Trump's going
Speaker 9: to fold. You know why He's going to fold because
Speaker 9: when the stock market went down five hundred points, he's
Speaker 9: folded to a Prime Minister Trudeau, and he folded to
Speaker 9: President Shane Baum. And the reality is that the Democrats
Speaker 9: need to be strong. Who's asserting the will of Congress?
Speaker 9: Like it's not we're going to go for your request.
Speaker 9: It's like you want to crash the economy then defy
Speaker 9: the will of Congress.
Speaker 2: Well, let me let me ask you a question about that,
Speaker 2: because again, they have control of the treasury payment system.
Speaker 2: So what is the response if they say, Okay, that's fine,
Speaker 2: we just are going to ignore the debt ceiling and
Speaker 2: we're going to just pay the bill. We're just going
Speaker 2: to pay the bills that we want to pet. We
Speaker 2: just want to pay the bills that we want to pay.
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean, I think the debt dealing
Speaker 2: is a ridiculous, you know, absurdity that we even have
Speaker 2: it right, And so you could easily say Trump saying
Speaker 2: we're just not doing that anymore, and we're going to
Speaker 2: add treasury like pick and choose what funds go out,
Speaker 2: as they already say they are doing and want to do.
Speaker 9: Well, I think if they actually do that, they're going
Speaker 9: to lose the chip Roys. I mean where chip roy
Speaker 9: and others would come in and say impeachment or other things.
Speaker 6: I genuinely think.
Speaker 4: There are thirty for me to believe.
Speaker 9: Congressman, well, I'm not talking about the average Republican, but
Speaker 9: there are thirty people in the Republican Caucus, the Freedom
Speaker 9: Caucus who have stood up to them. They stood up
Speaker 9: to Elon Musk before Trump was inaugurated, and they said,
Speaker 9: Elon said, let's blow up this deal. And they stood
Speaker 9: up to him on that.
Speaker 2: And I can I tell you what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: You know, Pete Hegseth was his confirmation was in big trouble,
Speaker 2: and Jony Ernst in particular, who is herself a sexual
Speaker 2: assault and was deeply concerned about his comments saying women
Speaker 2: can't serve in the military, et cetera.
Speaker 4: She seemed like she was a no.
Speaker 2: And then Elon comes out and says, I will drop
Speaker 2: an infinite amount of money on the head of anyone
Speaker 2: who poses any of the confirmations, and lo and behold,
Speaker 2: Pete hag Seth, looks like all of them are going
Speaker 2: to ultimately get through.
Speaker 4: So I just don't see.
Speaker 2: I mean, even with the you know, the spending flap
Speaker 2: that happened in December. Yeah, I mean Elon drove that
Speaker 2: whole train and again threatened to use his billions and
Speaker 2: billions on you know, soon to be probably trillions of
Speaker 2: dollars to primary anyone who didn't give him the bill
Speaker 2: that he wanted. And it worked, Chip Roy and all
Speaker 2: the rest folded like a you know, like a deca card.
Speaker 9: They didn't fold on increasing the debt ceiling and Elon
Speaker 9: didn't get a dollar actually saved.
Speaker 2: Now he got his the restriction on investment in China.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and that that you know that he may very
Speaker 9: well have. I'm not saying that he doesn't have influence,
Speaker 9: but I think if you have a group of House
Speaker 9: members twenty to thirty in relatively safe districts and you
Speaker 9: see Elon's numbers have been declining, I mean he's the
Speaker 9: big question for Trump is how long is he going
Speaker 9: to have someone who's as unpopular as Elon is becoming.
Speaker 6: I do think the.
Speaker 9: House can assert back, and at the very least, the
Speaker 9: House we need to have a plan of what we're
Speaker 9: going to do to take the fight to Trump. Now
Speaker 9: maybe you're saying, okay, we take this fight and then
Speaker 9: Trump makes a counter move. Right now, I think why
Speaker 9: people are so upset is they don't see us having
Speaker 9: a real plan. I mean, at least Schatz, Senator Shatz
Speaker 9: had a plan. He said, Okay, we're gonna put a
Speaker 9: hold on every nominee to the State Department, including Stefanic.
Speaker 6: But what we need from our leaders.
Speaker 9: Is three or four things that says we are going
Speaker 9: to assert the power of Congress. We're going to punch
Speaker 9: back in terms of our power, and then we're going
Speaker 9: to wait for Trump to make the next move. The
Speaker 9: only people who winning against Trump for President Shane Baum
Speaker 9: and Trudeau.
Speaker 6: They're the only ones who've gotten to fold on anything.
Speaker 1: Is there any regret among Democrats? So the other day,
Speaker 1: while Oversight was doing whatever it was doing, AOC was
Speaker 1: having like an Instagram live that had like tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of people tuning in, Like she's clearly still one
Speaker 1: of the parties like leading messengers.
Speaker 6: That's one of the best communicators. Yeah and authentic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you watch these some of these rallies, no offense,
Speaker 1: just deeply cringe stuff coming out of Democrats.
Speaker 4: Humor was not made for this moment.
Speaker 1: Val Green was shaking his cane. Any regret from your
Speaker 1: colleagues telling AOC, you know, get in the back of
Speaker 1: the line, like, because it's not as if Democrats aren't
Speaker 1: doing things, like there are a million lawsuits that have
Speaker 1: been filed, like lots of things are happening and people
Speaker 1: are active, but there's no national voice.
Speaker 9: Now, well, let me let's take an example this oversight hearing.
Speaker 9: The fact is everyone is yawning about the subpoena until
Speaker 9: I tweet out that Musk should be subpoena because of
Speaker 9: the missed vote, and then Musk replies, imagine if AOC
Speaker 9: was the ranking member leading that, it would have been
Speaker 9: a very different case.
Speaker 6: That would have been national needs.
Speaker 9: And because he's fighting, he loves to fight with her,
Speaker 9: he would have she would have said something, he would
Speaker 9: have responded.
Speaker 6: That would have been national news. It wouldn't make something right.
Speaker 9: It wouldn't have taken my missed vote to provoke that.
Speaker 9: So I think it was such.
Speaker 6: A blunder not to put her there.
Speaker 9: What I said to moderate Democrats when I because I
Speaker 9: was one of the first out of the gate to
Speaker 9: endorse her, support her, rally support for her, and I said, okay,
Speaker 9: you disagree, I get it. You disagree with AOC in
Speaker 9: her position on Gaza, you disagree on immigration. But she
Speaker 9: is not running to be ranking member of the Foreign
Speaker 9: Affairs Committee. She is not running to be ranking member
Speaker 9: the Judiciary Committee. She's running to be ranking member of
Speaker 9: the committee that punches Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: Like, isn't isn't this the role where she would be
Speaker 6: the best in our caucus?
Speaker 9: And I mean, this is where the Democrats need to
Speaker 9: get the next generation out there.
Speaker 6: The optics of some of the stuff at the rallies
Speaker 6: has just been cringe.
Speaker 9: I mean because it looks ineffectual, it's non an actual plan,
Speaker 9: and it doesn't look like we're flexing our power like Congress.
Speaker 6: You know, it's not like JD.
Speaker 9: Vance and Donald Trump are out there protesting Congress.
Speaker 6: They're saying, we have power. Well, we need to act
Speaker 6: like we have power. We do.
Speaker 9: We have the power of the purse, and we have
Speaker 9: the power of votes in confirmation, and we need to
Speaker 9: stand together.
Speaker 2: What are you hearing most from your constituents, Like what
Speaker 2: kind of First of all, are you getting like a
Speaker 2: flood of calls? Is there a lot of energy? What
Speaker 2: are you hearing from them? What are their concerns?
Speaker 4: What are they? You know, what is that vibe like?
Speaker 9: So for two months after the loss to Trump, it
Speaker 9: was pretty muted. But as soon as Trump became president
Speaker 9: and Musk stopped those payments, I think a light bulb
Speaker 9: went off. And in my last town hall this weekend,
Speaker 9: over six hundred people showed up, people holding up signs
Speaker 9: stopped the coup.
Speaker 6: Stop the Musk coup.
Speaker 9: In a sense bluntly that the Democratic leadership has not
Speaker 9: been tough enough that we are a response has not
Speaker 9: been clear enough. I do think Hakim has an opportunity
Speaker 9: to be the voice because it's not coming out of
Speaker 9: the Senate. I think this fight in the House debt
Speaker 9: ceiling is that opportunity and one of the things we
Speaker 9: got to do. Yes, take on Musk, but we also
Speaker 9: need to take on Vance and Trump. I mean they're
Speaker 9: the ones who are ultimately responsible, and not give them
Speaker 9: a free pass on taking away funding for kids in
Speaker 9: working class neighborhoods for their schools, I mean taking away
Speaker 9: money for kids with special needs then, And we've got
Speaker 9: to just be tougher as a party.
Speaker 1: And you've been going at Vance a little bit. What's
Speaker 1: your sense of his position here?
Speaker 9: Well, I think he wants to be the nice guy.
Speaker 9: He's kind of wants to be I'm the reasonable guy.
Speaker 9: I think Tim Waltz made a huge mistake in that
Speaker 9: debate by not going after Vance. They were coached to say,
Speaker 9: just go after Trump, and Vance comes up as this like, oh,
Speaker 9: I'm reasonable, giving Trump the sense of that, oh he's
Speaker 9: appointing reasonable people, and what the what the reality is
Speaker 9: Vance is driving the nominations of heg Seth and Gabbert.
Speaker 9: Behind the scenes, he's the one pressuring the senators. Vance
Speaker 9: hasn't raised his voice once to question why we're going
Speaker 9: to get rid of all of these programs for working
Speaker 9: class kids. In the Department of Education, pell grants Title
Speaker 9: one funding for decent schools. He's he's basically quiet, and
Speaker 9: the Democrats have an opportunity to define him for the
Speaker 9: extremist he is and not let him just kind of
Speaker 9: be this reasonable person. I mean, look at what the
Speaker 9: Republicans did to Vice President Harris.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to Walls as well. You said that constituents
Speaker 2: showed up with science that said, you know, stop the muscoup,
Speaker 2: Like do you think that that language is car Do
Speaker 2: you think it is a coup?
Speaker 9: I think it's a constitutional crisis. I mean, I think
Speaker 9: the coup would be if he succeeds. But I don't
Speaker 9: think he's going to succeed. I think we've we will
Speaker 9: push back.
Speaker 2: With attempted coups.
Speaker 6: It's it's it's certainly a violation of the constitution. Cool.
Speaker 6: You know, these turns get thrown around.
Speaker 9: And I'm not saying that it couldn't come to that
Speaker 9: if we if we're complacent, but if we pushed back, uh,
Speaker 9: and we make sure that we stand up for our
Speaker 9: construcial prerogatives. I think we have we had them on
Speaker 9: the defensive. I actually think they have really overreached. I
Speaker 9: was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania this past weekend. I met Tracy.
Speaker 9: She's at a barbecue place. She's a part owner. She said,
Speaker 9: you know, I voted for Donald Trump. I said that
Speaker 9: that doesn't surprise me. Why But she said, I have
Speaker 9: some concerns.
Speaker 6: I said why.
Speaker 9: She said, well, I voted for him because he was
Speaker 9: going to make sure that there were no taxes on
Speaker 9: overtime pay I want. I voted for him because he
Speaker 9: wasn't going to text tips. I was like, Wow, these
Speaker 9: messages are really getting through. I said, what about Kamala Harris.
Speaker 9: She said, you know, candidly, I considered her, I really
Speaker 9: but I felt she was a phony. And I said, well,
Speaker 9: what do you think now? Well, I'm concerned my mom
Speaker 9: is in the hospital and Medicaid is maybe cut. So
Speaker 9: there is a chance to be talking to people like Tracy.
Speaker 9: We've got to go on the offensive and be willing
Speaker 9: to assert our power.
Speaker 1: Last question for me, are you are you are you
Speaker 1: sensing any institutional prerogative from Congress? Like if this continues,
Speaker 1: this idea that Elon Musk can and Donald Trump can
Speaker 1: like pick and choose where they spend money, Congress doesn't
Speaker 1: really have a role in this liket. Yeah, Congress can
Speaker 1: I guess Congress could.
Speaker 6: Like settle the ceilings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then if you need more money than that,
Speaker 1: you have to go figure it out some other way.
Speaker 1: But that but that becomes it. And if all you're
Speaker 1: doing is setting a ceiling, you don't need you certainly
Speaker 1: don't need five hundred and thirty five members of Congress
Speaker 1: to do that. That's just two people and basically just
Speaker 1: Trump telling them what to do. So is there any
Speaker 1: sense from Republicans that like, okay, we are ideologically and
Speaker 1: politically Republicans first, but secondly, we're we serve in this
Speaker 1: institution that is potentially being wiped out as a force
Speaker 1: in American politics, and we should do something about that.
Speaker 1: Is there any sense of that or is it more
Speaker 1: we're so partisan now that that's okay as long as
Speaker 1: the Republicans come out on top in the new system.
Speaker 9: So we need to make the argument he made more
Speaker 9: because where are the three Republicans that are going to
Speaker 9: stand for the institutional prerogative of Congress? And there may
Speaker 9: be if this fight happens with the dead ceiling. I mean,
Speaker 9: that's something like a chip roy or something. But the
Speaker 9: reality is there's fear, and the fear is that the
Speaker 9: people who have taken on Donald Trump and the Republican
Speaker 9: Party are gone. You know, they're Adam Kissinger there, Liz
Speaker 9: Cheney's a whole list of people who are not even
Speaker 9: as famous. And the ones who have stood with Donald
Speaker 9: Trump are National Security advisor and in the cabinet and
Speaker 9: are going to be you an ambassador. So if you're
Speaker 9: a politician on the Republican side, the lesson is pretty
Speaker 9: clear that you stand with Donald Trump if you care
Speaker 9: about your career and people rationalize it saying, well, he'll
Speaker 9: be there for four years and then something else will happen.
Speaker 9: And so it's a palpable fear that's not irrational about
Speaker 9: losing their jobs. And that's that's I think why they
Speaker 9: haven't spoken out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and like I said before, now you have the
Speaker 2: additional enforcement mechanism of Elon Musk being willing to spend
Speaker 2: you know, which would what would be a trivial amount
Speaker 2: of his net worth in order to primary and take
Speaker 2: on anyone who doesn't inline right.
Speaker 1: That graveyard was filled before Trump had access to Musks.
Speaker 4: To unlimited, virtually unlimited money.
Speaker 6: And he would spend it. He will if he's not
Speaker 6: an idle threat. It's not an idle threat.
Speaker 9: And it's a and for a house race that could
Speaker 9: you know, ten million dollars twenty million dollars, even if
Speaker 9: you don't beat an incumbent. You know, people, this is
Speaker 9: is instill an enormous amount of amount of fear. Yeah,
Speaker 9: so you know, we're in a situation where this is
Speaker 9: a real, real fight for constitutional democracy. And I think
Speaker 9: the they what people are frustrated that watch probably breaking
Speaker 9: points or come to my town halls is they don't
Speaker 9: see the Democratic Party right now, rising to the moment,
Speaker 9: understanding the stakes, taking on the fight, having a clear
Speaker 9: plan uh and and saying okay, we're going to push back.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean they're really on the on the
Speaker 2: Elon Mustoje side there.
Speaker 4: As Ryan said to me, they're really going for it.
Speaker 1: I think it's pronounced doggie.
Speaker 4: I prefer that pronounce doe is the other way. They're
Speaker 4: really going for it.
Speaker 2: You know, they're now, they're no guarantees they'll succeed, but
Speaker 2: they are mounting a revolution, and so people want to
Speaker 2: see a response that is commeaserate with that, with that
Speaker 2: true threat. So current, and we always appreciate your time.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I guess it worked out for you to miss that
Speaker 2: vote since the drew tension of the.
Speaker 6: Whole generation area of confidence Elon. Thank you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 1: All Right, that's it for today. Tomorrow, Emily and I
Speaker 1: have our interview with Natalie Winters. That'll be up for
Speaker 1: premium subscribers later today for everybody else, the freeloaders. Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: She is the war Room, Steve Bannon's war Room with
Speaker 1: White House correspondent. It was a fascinating wide ranging conversation
Speaker 1: should get.
Speaker 4: Us an interview with Steve Bannon, because I would kind
Speaker 4: of like that.
Speaker 1: I'll ask her sure, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, make that both of them for us, so that
Speaker 2: would be very interesting. So in any case, Ryan, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for filling in, and stay tuned for
Speaker 2: that tomorrow and we will see you guys next week