Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 1: for everybody today where we have Crystal d.
Speaker 4: We do glad to have you back, my friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, it was it was a rough one
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: It's the worst flu season since two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: So everybody out there please take precautions. Stay away from
Speaker 3: anybody who tells you that they're feeling okay, it's not
Speaker 3: too bad, Stay away from them.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, be free to breaking out the mask and
Speaker 4: so for.
Speaker 3: Real, Yeah, this will be the only time I will
Speaker 3: endorse mask we're in culture, especially if you're people who
Speaker 3: have children and all of that.
Speaker 1: It's it's a rough one.
Speaker 3: I know multiple people who've been inflicted, so stay away
Speaker 3: from them. And if you hear my voice crack, it's
Speaker 3: not my fault. I apologize.
Speaker 2: My daughter's second grade class has been absolutely decimated.
Speaker 1: Horrible.
Speaker 4: We've gotten i won't.
Speaker 2: Say unscathed, but we've escaped the worst of it so
Speaker 2: far this year. So fingers crossed, the weather turns nicer
Speaker 2: and some of these things died down.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's been a rough one.
Speaker 1: It's been bad.
Speaker 4: So in any case, glad you're back. We've got a
Speaker 4: lot to talk about.
Speaker 2: ELON sent out a weekend ultimatum to old federal government employees. Interestingly, though,
Speaker 2: a lot of the agencies are telling their workers, including
Speaker 2: you know, FBI now under cash Betel, Department of Defense,
Speaker 2: et cetera, don't respond to this email. So very interesting
Speaker 2: dynamics playing out here. We got some new polls revealing
Speaker 2: the latest about how the public feels about DOJ and
Speaker 2: ELON and all of these things that are unfolding. We
Speaker 2: also had a purge of some of the top brass
Speaker 2: at the Pentagon. We'll tell you what happened and what
Speaker 2: it potentially means elections in Germany. So the far right
Speaker 2: party there AFI, which have been boosted by Jade Vans
Speaker 2: and also prominently by Elon Musk comes in second. Really
Speaker 2: interesting political dynamics there. Inflation, the war in Ukraine, immigration economics,
Speaker 2: incumbent parties, all of these trends playing out in Germany.
Speaker 4: So we'll break that down for you as well.
Speaker 2: Bernie is out doing some barn burner town halls in
Speaker 2: Nebraska and Iowan particular, massive overflow crowds, kind of leading
Speaker 2: the way for Democrats. He actually has a strategy that
Speaker 2: he is pursuing low and behold. At least one person
Speaker 2: has some idea of what they're doing out there. Warren
Speaker 2: Buffett is hoarding the most amount of cash in Berkshire
Speaker 2: Hathaway that he ever has, So what does that indicate.
Speaker 2: There are also some other troubling economic indicators. We're going
Speaker 2: to take a look at all of that. And Luigimngioni
Speaker 2: main appearance in court. Our own Spencer Snyder was there
Speaker 2: on the ground talking to people who are outside protesters
Speaker 2: and his supporters who were outside, explaining what they thought
Speaker 2: about his case and why they were there to support him,
Speaker 2: so really interested to get that on the ground report
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: Continue to monitor the faq on his website with a
Speaker 3: lot of great interest.
Speaker 1: Did you watch that segment?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ryan and I did it.
Speaker 3: It was an faq all about how people can send
Speaker 3: him photographs and to keep in mind that those photographs
Speaker 3: are screened by the police. Just it turns up the
Speaker 3: number of third straft Luigi finds himself.
Speaker 1: Receiving on what did you say?
Speaker 3: He's a great I have to say, I told you
Speaker 3: guys on the call, I am absolutely in love with
Speaker 3: Luigi's sweater. I'm in the market, so if anybody knows
Speaker 3: where he got it, please let me know. All right,
Speaker 3: let's go ahead and start with does so actually a
Speaker 3: very interesting showdown happening here in Washington? And I would
Speaker 3: say the first like major institutional pushback within the MAGA
Speaker 3: coalition the government against Doe. Here.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: It began with like an office Space style meme email
Speaker 3: that Elon sent to the entire federal workforce on Saturday
Speaker 3: around three pm, and it says, what did you do
Speaker 3: last week? Please reply with approximately five bullets. Note of
Speaker 3: like the weird pronunciation, There five bullets of what you
Speaker 3: accomplished last week and c see your manager. Please do
Speaker 3: not send any classified information, links or attachments. Deadline is
Speaker 3: this Monday at eleven fifty nine EST. So let's go
Speaker 3: to Elon's explanation for that email. It says, consistent with
Speaker 3: President Trump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an
Speaker 3: email requesting to understand what they got done last week.
Speaker 3: Failure to respond will be taken as resignation. So this
Speaker 3: appears to have been probably the most explicit example of
Speaker 3: elon slash dose quote unquote overreach with pushback, because what
Speaker 3: immediately happened was their agencies telling them not to comply.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind Trump has not spoken out about this
Speaker 3: at all. If anything's been encouraging him to go further,
Speaker 3: put that next one, please so we can show people.
Speaker 3: It says Elon is doing a great job, but I
Speaker 3: would like to see him get more aggressive. Remember we
Speaker 3: have a country to save, but ultimately to make greater
Speaker 3: than ever before Maga. Imediately, though, following that email, Cash Patel,
Speaker 3: the newly confirmed FBI director, directed his entire workforce not
Speaker 3: to respond to the email. It just says all FBI personnel,
Speaker 3: may I love may have received an email from OPM
Speaker 3: requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director,
Speaker 3: is in charge of all of our review processes and
Speaker 3: will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and
Speaker 3: if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses
Speaker 3: for now. Please pause any responses. Thank you, Cash Ptel.
Speaker 3: On the right is RFK Junior actually, who reversed his
Speaker 3: original policy telling his workforce to reply to the email,
Speaker 3: saying HHS leadership continues to work with APM officials and
Speaker 3: how to best meet the intent of yesterday's notice. Employees
Speaker 3: are therefore directed to pause activities and answering the OPM email.
Speaker 3: Additional guidance will be provided on or around noon tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And then finally, the Pentagon also weigh in here. Let's
Speaker 3: go to a four. Please just to show people, Apartment
Speaker 3: of Defense, the entire Pentagon received the following email. When
Speaker 3: if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email
Speaker 3: you have received from oer PM. So I do think
Speaker 3: this is very significant, Crystal. I think it's the very
Speaker 3: first time that you've seen Doge and or Elon, you know,
Speaker 3: send one of these mass emails.
Speaker 1: Beyond even the quote.
Speaker 3: Unquote fork in the road the buyout, this one was
Speaker 3: one where the directors of the agencies really step forward
Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, that's just not happening in terms
Speaker 3: of you trying to run my workforce.
Speaker 1: So I do find it actually very interesting.
Speaker 3: And I mean I'm presuming that there's at least some
Speaker 3: Trump support or maybe the Chief of Staff Susie Wiles
Speaker 3: somebody like this, because it's just obviously like overriding chain
Speaker 3: of command, you know, the Senate, confirmed appointees and the
Speaker 3: workforce and others. So this could be a turning point.
Speaker 3: I'm actually curious to see how it goes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 2: There's a lot that's interesting about this and the dynamics
Speaker 2: and the way that it played out. So first of all,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize this, but apparently previously, like before cash
Speaker 2: Battel was not needed to be director of the FBI,
Speaker 2: and certainly before he was confirmed, et cetera, he was
Speaker 2: quite critical of Youwan.
Speaker 4: He went on a bunch of podcasts.
Speaker 2: Our friends over at drop Site actually compiled all of
Speaker 2: this information. But he went on a bunch of podcasts
Speaker 2: where he's very critical of him, like kind of similar
Speaker 2: to like the Steve Bannon style criticism critical of him
Speaker 2: on his Twitter account. And you could just imagine for
Speaker 2: all these people who like you know, got their spot
Speaker 2: as an agency head and went through Senate confirmation, did
Speaker 2: the whole thing, and then you get in there and
Speaker 2: on basically day one, you've got this goofball over here,
Speaker 2: richest man on the planet who thinks he can just
Speaker 2: come in over your head and be like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: going to fire a bunch of your workforce if they
Speaker 2: don't respond to my email in a couple of days time.
Speaker 2: And so whereas congressional Republicans seem to have been pretty
Speaker 2: comfortable just like feeding all of their power and authority
Speaker 2: to Elon into Dooge, these agency heads were like, wait.
Speaker 4: A second, no, no, no, no, no, this is my workforce.
Speaker 2: I have some authority at this agency, and you're not
Speaker 2: going to just completely bigfoot me on all of this.
Speaker 2: So we'll see, you know. The RFK one was interesting
Speaker 2: as well because initially the guidance he put out was
Speaker 2: go ahead and respond to this email, and then they
Speaker 2: sort of backtracked and said like, well, I actually, you know,
Speaker 2: pause your work on that email was I think the
Speaker 2: way they phrased it in the sort of like awkward
Speaker 2: worded email. I'll tell you I've mentioned this before. You know,
Speaker 2: the town I live in, which is the town I
Speaker 2: grew up on, which is not DC, which is not
Speaker 2: even northern of Virginia. It really is this like you know,
Speaker 2: rural community totally built around a naval base where they
Speaker 2: do a bunch of civilian research. So it's mostly like
Speaker 2: civilian There are active duty military there as well, it's
Speaker 2: mostly like civilian scientists that work there. And so I
Speaker 2: was talking to some of my very non political, like
Speaker 2: parent friends there about all this is going down, and
Speaker 2: I mean they're completely panicked. They have never seen anything
Speaker 2: like it. They're deeply confused about what to do. One
Speaker 2: of them showed me the communication that they got from
Speaker 2: the captain who runs their particular group at the base,
Speaker 2: and it was like, actually, the think of it was
Speaker 2: kind of funny because they were like, we're not sure
Speaker 2: this email is real, so while we're investigating, just go
Speaker 2: ahead and don't respond to this email.
Speaker 4: But you know, it.
Speaker 2: Really is for the federal government workforce, which by the
Speaker 2: way is I think a majority of them actually work
Speaker 2: for the Department of Defense. It is not necessarily the
Speaker 2: like caricatureish view that people have of some like you know,
Speaker 2: super liberal political activists bureaucrat. Many of them live and
Speaker 2: work outside of DC in rural areas, many whom are Republicans.
Speaker 2: By the way, I mean most of these people who
Speaker 2: work on this space, I know for a fact vote Republican.
Speaker 2: The town that I'm from is like sixty to sixty
Speaker 2: five percent Trump supporting kind of a county. So anyway,
Speaker 2: there's a vast wat of people who are really being
Speaker 2: shaken by this approach from Elon and the chaos that
Speaker 2: it's injected into this entire workforce.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the numbers here from Claude. We have four million
Speaker 3: people who work for the federal government. It is the
Speaker 3: largest employer in the United States. Approximately eighty five percent
Speaker 3: of federal employe civilian employees work outside of the Washington,
Speaker 3: DC metropolitan area. The distribution exactly as you said, military
Speaker 3: bases which are located throughout the country, federal agencies, national parks,
Speaker 3: VA hospitals, border patrol, and the Social Security Administration, which
Speaker 3: has an office in most counties.
Speaker 1: I believe every county across the United States.
Speaker 3: So let's put a five up there on the screen
Speaker 3: just to show people even more so kind of what
Speaker 3: this is leading to. The OPM email has been met
Speaker 3: not only with some of the most high profile agencies
Speaker 3: saying not to comply, but you also have some of
Speaker 3: the largest unions of federal workers telling them as well
Speaker 3: to be cautious responding or not to respond at all.
Speaker 3: But I think most important really is the State Department
Speaker 3: said not to do with THEE and the Commerce Department
Speaker 3: specifically Noah and NSA employees were told the same not
Speaker 3: to I guess, you know, theoretically they should, right.
Speaker 1: Well, that was.
Speaker 2: Actually another point that one of the parents in King
Speaker 2: George County where I live made as well. It's like
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, we all have like really high
Speaker 2: levels of classification, and so if you're just like mass
Speaker 2: firing a bunch of people who have some of the
Speaker 2: highest security clearances in the government, He's like, you know,
Speaker 2: how loyal do you think they're going to be feeling
Speaker 2: to the country after that?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I don't don't like that because it's.
Speaker 2: Like a risk as well to all of this because
Speaker 2: it is done in such a like, you know, there's
Speaker 2: it's just such a blanket across the board, no thought
Speaker 2: into how many years of service you've put in, how
Speaker 2: effective an employee you've been, how significant you've been into
Speaker 2: the organization, just like zero loyalty whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the only reason I don't like that is because
Speaker 3: it presumed that it's like, oh, if we don't pay them,
Speaker 3: then they're going to go work for somebody else. It's like,
Speaker 3: why that might be true in theory, is just it
Speaker 3: kind of you know, hits against the idea.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not ultra like advocating to it, but
Speaker 2: I am saying it, like, these are human beings, you know, right,
Speaker 2: And if you've shown if you put in twenty years
Speaker 2: of loyal service to the government as a civil servant
Speaker 2: and then you're just booted out unceremoniously for literally no reason,
Speaker 2: I think that's probably going to impact how loyal you.
Speaker 3: Feel to your Maybe the Russians in the Chinese are
Speaker 3: just rubbing their hands.
Speaker 4: They maybe they maybe.
Speaker 3: Let's go to a six here we have. This was
Speaker 3: flagged by Ken Clippenstein. He's Jerry Connelly, who is what
Speaker 3: is he? The head of the dem Oversight Committee.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's currently battling cancer. But Ken has really mounted
Speaker 3: a war against him just for not because of his illness,
Speaker 3: just to show like gerontocracy and who the Democratic Party chooses.
Speaker 4: They chose this guy over AOC, right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, here was his response on the federal email.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: What are you recommending federal workers should do?
Speaker 5: When they turn on the news today, they hear this
Speaker 5: and they're like, I got a deadline by tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: What should I do this? Yeah? I hesitate to give
Speaker 1: personal advice.
Speaker 5: I guess if you can cover yourself and do the
Speaker 5: five things you did last week, just to be able
Speaker 5: to say.
Speaker 6: Well I did it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, he's like, well, maybe just respond to the email.
Speaker 3: We were I'm you and I are willing to cut
Speaker 3: the guy.
Speaker 4: I'm a little sympathetic. Well.
Speaker 2: First of all, background on Jerry Connolly. He before he
Speaker 2: was in Congress, he was the chair of the Board
Speaker 2: of Supervisors in Fairfax County.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has been.
Speaker 2: He his district represents Fairfax County and the environs. He
Speaker 2: probably has more federal government workers in his district than
Speaker 2: any other district in the country or certainly among the top.
Speaker 2: So this is very like like he knows these people,
Speaker 2: so he's thinking about He's not thinking about like how
Speaker 2: do you make a political point.
Speaker 4: He's thinking about, like, you know.
Speaker 2: Susie who works in wherever, wants to keep her job.
Speaker 2: She's not trying to make some political stance. And so
Speaker 2: I'm actually sympathetic to this because if somebody, you know,
Speaker 2: my county just asked me, like what should I do,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'd say.
Speaker 4: I don't know what I tell them.
Speaker 2: I'm I don't want to put them at risk to
Speaker 2: like get fired out of some stupid over some stupid emails.
Speaker 2: So you know, a better response would have been talk
Speaker 2: to your union, talk to your supervisor, like figure out
Speaker 2: what the coordinated response is, versus like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I guess just respond to the email and cover yourself.
Speaker 4: But I am a little bit sympathetic to him.
Speaker 1: Here on this one.
Speaker 3: I think you're I think we were willing to cut
Speaker 3: a little bit of slack. I have also taken a
Speaker 3: personal census of some of the federal employees who.
Speaker 1: I know, and they're not happy right now.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm sure there's some mag of people who are
Speaker 3: cheering about it, but really what it is is about
Speaker 3: the chaos and people just not really knowing what to do.
Speaker 1: How this will manifest politically. I genuinely have no idea.
Speaker 3: I have been thinking about that statistic about the number
Speaker 3: of people employed by the federal government, just because as
Speaker 3: we know formula and people work for the government. Than
Speaker 3: if we think about family, then everybody probably has a
Speaker 3: cousin or you know, a friend or some daughter, son, whatever,
Speaker 3: somebody who works for the FEDS who is currently experiencing this.
Speaker 3: And what we know from COVID is that the reason
Speaker 3: why I think that the twenty twenty election is the
Speaker 3: highest turnout election in modern history is because it was
Speaker 3: the first time that government really touched people's lives in
Speaker 3: an ultrati way, be it checks, be it lockdowns, be
Speaker 3: it vaccine mandates, Like the government policy had never been
Speaker 3: more directly intervention in your bank account and in your life.
Speaker 3: And so in this case, you know, if the government
Speaker 3: is seen as being axing your job or causing stress
Speaker 3: or any of that, it could certainly activate and give
Speaker 3: people a reason to turn out, which is something I
Speaker 3: think is a good transition to our next polling segment,
Speaker 3: which is just about how people are feeling about Elon
Speaker 3: and or Doge. I'm gonna give my normal caveat just everybody,
Speaker 3: remember how wrong the poles were back in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: not that long ago. So keep that in mind when
Speaker 3: you're looking at this and all the other structural problems.
Speaker 3: It's all we really have to go off of. So
Speaker 3: based on that, what are we seeing? Can we make
Speaker 3: possibly some inferences. CNN's Harry Enton, who we always respect,
Speaker 3: broke some of the numbers down that we do have.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: The people are mad, they are angry, they are rising
Speaker 5: up to look here top worst things that Trump has done.
Speaker 5: This is among the folks who oppose Trump actions in
Speaker 5: office so far. You might have thought going into the
Speaker 5: election ry afterwards of the immigration policy, but that comes
Speaker 5: into just ten percent. Check out on this side of
Speaker 5: the screen. Tho, I'm coming over to mister burman'side. Must
Speaker 5: doge or the funding freezers right, these funding cuts? Look
Speaker 5: at that that takes the cake twenty four percent. That
Speaker 5: is the top answer amongst those who oppose Donald Trump's
Speaker 5: actions in office, saying it is the worst thing that
Speaker 5: he has done so far. It's must it's doge, it's
Speaker 5: those funding cuts. The people are mad, and if last
Speaker 5: night is an example that town hall, they ain't gonna
Speaker 5: take it anymore. The most significant Trump action this term
Speaker 5: so far. Look at this. Democrats are more angry about
Speaker 5: this than Republicans are happy about it. Look at this. Democrats,
Speaker 5: eighteen percent say that the must doze access to data
Speaker 5: is the most significant action so far for Trump this term.
Speaker 5: Bring it over to this side of the screen. Look
Speaker 5: at this. Just nine percent of Republicans say that must
Speaker 5: doge and the access to data is the most significant
Speaker 5: Trump action so far. So Elon mus is becoming this
Speaker 5: rallying point for Anger, this rallying point for Anger. On
Speaker 5: the left. Back in December of twenty twenty four, he
Speaker 5: was underwater, but just underwater by five points. Look at
Speaker 5: where he is now in February twenty twenty five. The
Speaker 5: American people are turning against Elon Musk. His net favorable
Speaker 5: rating way down there pass now minus ten points, minus
Speaker 5: twelve points. The bottom line is this, the voters are
Speaker 5: angry with the Elon Musk. They're angry with the cuts
Speaker 5: of the federal government.
Speaker 1: So that's the top line here in terms of the numbers.
Speaker 3: Krystal and I were just talking while the thing was
Speaker 3: going in terms of the polls, and I guess it's
Speaker 3: worth talking about in terms of what it is.
Speaker 1: What do you think? So overall the.
Speaker 3: Statistical analysis saw so like a rough like three percent
Speaker 3: miss across the word. It's not terrible, but of course
Speaker 3: that was within the margin of error, especially in a
Speaker 3: lot of these swing states. My only caution, as I
Speaker 3: was telling you, is about the oversampling of Democrats. That
Speaker 3: was clearly a big problem from twenty twenty. It was
Speaker 3: a big problem twenty twenty four part of the reason
Speaker 3: where the MYSS was and especially right now, just because Democrats,
Speaker 3: if that is to be trusted, especially enthusiasm number, if
Speaker 3: they're a lot more likely to be politically engaged and
Speaker 3: or respond to, can skew things differently from where they are.
Speaker 3: I just want to caution people just considering how I mean,
Speaker 3: the Iowa stuff and all that is just too too ingrained,
Speaker 3: and it's been too soon since all of that for
Speaker 3: me to fully put my trust in all of this.
Speaker 4: Although I think that's all valid.
Speaker 2: The only thing I will say is if we're thinking,
Speaker 2: if we're projecting these polls out to like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: what does a mid term performance look like. Which side
Speaker 2: is more energized matters a lot.
Speaker 3: That is exactly, and that is the one that matters
Speaker 3: the most in a midterm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what I saw.
Speaker 2: I mean, I ran for Congress in twenty ten as
Speaker 2: a Democrat in the two party wave, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: it was Democrats had control of everything. They were sort
Speaker 2: of like demoralized or not that energized or you know,
Speaker 2: not that excited to come out and vote, and Republicans
Speaker 2: voted on mass and they were pissed and they wanted
Speaker 2: to take back power. And you know, we're going to
Speaker 2: show you the or any town halls. We're going to
Speaker 2: show you a little bit of like the pushback at
Speaker 2: some of the Republican town halls. There is a very
Speaker 2: similar vibe that is starting to emerge to you know,
Speaker 2: the twenty ten twenty tens. It's just the reverse in
Speaker 2: terms of which political party is more energized this time around.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, naturally, when you have one
Speaker 2: party that's in power, typically historically there is a backlash
Speaker 2: and there is you know, a adjustment in the next
Speaker 2: minterm where the party that's in power performs really poorly.
Speaker 2: And then when you add on top of that, you know,
Speaker 2: dose taking these incredibly aggressive, chaotic actions, the consolidation of
Speaker 2: power in the hands of this one dude that people
Speaker 2: are increasingly like, really not psyched about, and the ways
Speaker 2: that it really does touch, you know, so many communities
Speaker 2: across the country, because again, federal government workers are not
Speaker 2: just here in d C. They are spread out in
Speaker 2: communities across the country. The impact of federal government spending
Speaker 2: is spread out in you know, places across the country.
Speaker 2: Are a bunch of articles about and this is actually
Speaker 2: really sad to me because I love our national parks
Speaker 2: and I know you do too. Soger like the impact
Speaker 2: there and how they've had to stop taking reservations and
Speaker 2: you know, they're so short staff they can barely function
Speaker 2: at this point. Those national parks are huge economic drivers
Speaker 2: for the mostly rural and many of them Western communities
Speaker 2: that you know that exists out there. So the impact
Speaker 2: is a lot more diffuse and a lot more widespread
Speaker 2: than I think people are taking into account. And in addition,
Speaker 2: I was seeing one analysis that also suggests, you know,
Speaker 2: for every federal government worker that you fire, you're also
Speaker 2: talking about probably two or three contractors that are.
Speaker 4: Impacted by that.
Speaker 2: And again, you know, back to by small town that
Speaker 2: I live in, I know that's like the whole economy
Speaker 2: there is around this base. If that takes on, if
Speaker 2: that is cut significantly, it would be devastating to the
Speaker 2: whole entire town and community, et cetera. So I think
Speaker 2: people are very upset and unhappy with the really callous,
Speaker 2: chaotic way this is all unfolding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, part of the problem is is that it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like there's some grand plan. And that's always the
Speaker 3: issue is if I think about the tariffs we talked
Speaker 3: about from twenty eighteen, one of the reason why I
Speaker 3: think that Trump never got any real sustainable pushback is
Speaker 3: it was directly connected.
Speaker 1: We're like, look, we're doing this around China.
Speaker 3: Yes, washing machines will be more expensive, soybean farmers, We're
Speaker 3: going to cut you guys checks from these tariffs. This
Speaker 3: is all about restoring the trade deficit. And people were like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I understand that. The thing is with dose right now
Speaker 3: is it doesn't feel It feels both slap shot and
Speaker 3: it also doesn't necessarily feel as if it's working to
Speaker 3: some broader end, and the more that that stuff permeates,
Speaker 3: Like you said, I mean for me, you know, if
Speaker 3: somebody messed with my Zion reservation, I would be very upset.
Speaker 3: So I feel very much with a lot of those
Speaker 3: people out there. It's already a shitty program the way
Speaker 3: that the National Park Service reservations worked, and if you
Speaker 3: had stuff like that planned for the future, it would
Speaker 3: be infuriating. Because it is one of the cheapest vacations
Speaker 3: and American can take to go to a National park.
Speaker 3: It's literally what like seventy dollars or something for a
Speaker 3: year long past, and you can have unlimited entertainment in them.
Speaker 3: So absolutely, anybody out there go as quick as you
Speaker 3: possibly can. This Spartan to be spring. Shannandoah's here nearby us.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing park. I've never been to Smoky Mountains,
Speaker 3: that's next on my list. Yeah, But Zion, Yosemite, Glacier,
Speaker 3: any of these, they're just incredible, incredible places. Let's put
Speaker 3: this one up there on the screen a eight, please,
Speaker 3: because this is.
Speaker 1: The probably the most noteworthy one.
Speaker 3: If we want to go off of people who were accurate,
Speaker 3: Trump's own polster certainly was accurate. And he says a
Speaker 3: poll of swing voters is showing warning signs for Republicans
Speaker 3: bent on helping billionaires. So it is interesting because if
Speaker 3: you dig down into the memo from this polster, it
Speaker 3: finds quote sizable majorities in competitive House districts are unhappy
Speaker 3: about their economic predicament. It gently warns that Republicans that
Speaker 3: some of Trump's priorities they would enact would prove unpopular,
Speaker 3: though it does avoids saying this directly, the memo suggests
Speaker 3: that some Republicans at least do think that public opinion matters,
Speaker 3: and even that maybe, just maybe they do fear being
Speaker 3: held accountable in the future election. Says fifty nine percent
Speaker 3: of voters in eighteen swing districts are worried about their
Speaker 3: personal financial situations. Republicans have to play catch up here.
Speaker 3: Trump's approval the district is forty seven forty nine. So still,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's competitive, definitely within the margin of error.
Speaker 3: But you should pay attention to the Tony Fabrizio one
Speaker 3: obviously is very accurate in the Trump pulls in the
Speaker 3: Trump election. Trump obviously trusts him, and it may inform
Speaker 3: some of the future decisions here around Elon and one
Speaker 3: thing we know about Trump is that Trump is the
Speaker 3: ultimate transactional figure. Now I don't think that at this
Speaker 3: point he cannot sideline Elon because Elon has become a
Speaker 3: cause celab for the left right, like in terms of
Speaker 3: the number one vector and Trump more than anything from
Speaker 3: what I understand that people around him, his biggest regret
Speaker 3: of his entire presidency is ever caving to liberals so Arlottesville,
Speaker 3: apologizing and firing Mike Flynn, like his main takeaway from
Speaker 3: the first term is that he should just not listen
Speaker 3: at all. So anybody predicting some like grand firing and
Speaker 3: all that, I.
Speaker 1: Don't see it.
Speaker 3: I do think that this sign of this email and
Speaker 3: saying hey, don't reply and all that, that could be
Speaker 3: the slow phase out. You also don't forget those Technically
Speaker 3: is only supposed to exist until July fourth of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six, so it could be like an initial sidelining
Speaker 3: and then like a nice disbandment where they don't acknowledge
Speaker 3: it one hundred percent, but don't forget. July twenty twenty
Speaker 3: six is right around when you would have the midterm elections,
Speaker 3: so it's like, right the summer season is exactly when
Speaker 3: people start to pay attention, so I could see, you know,
Speaker 3: some stuff like that in the future, or just a
Speaker 3: general ongoing move of being like, all right, you own,
Speaker 3: you can tweet, you know, whatever bullshit statistics that you
Speaker 3: want about however much money supposedly saved the government, but
Speaker 3: these emails and all this other stuff like.
Speaker 1: That to stop.
Speaker 4: We'll see, We'll see.
Speaker 2: I don't mean there's no real sign of that at
Speaker 2: this point, but maybe if the poll numbers get more,
Speaker 2: die or he'll decide like, all right, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: done with this guy, you know. Part of the problem,
Speaker 2: also outlined in this memo from Trump's own polster, is
Speaker 2: warning signs about the way that they craft this tax
Speaker 2: bill coming up as well, because they ask people, you know,
Speaker 2: what the top priority of tax policy should be, and
Speaker 2: unsurprisingly a vast majority sixty three percent so that the
Speaker 2: top priority should be helping working class families. Only one
Speaker 2: percent said it should be helping corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Speaker 2: And yet we already know that in terms of the
Speaker 2: tax package that they're putting together, whether or not no
Speaker 2: tax on tips or some other of the more populist
Speaker 2: proposals that Trump put out there whether or not any
Speaker 2: of them make it into that package still really an
Speaker 2: open question.
Speaker 4: But even if they.
Speaker 2: Do, the vast bulk of that four point five trillion
Speaker 2: dollar tax cut is going to go to the wealthiest
Speaker 2: incorporations through the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Speaker 2: So you've got that, and then you also have the
Speaker 2: fact that Americans are still saying, hey, my biggest priority
Speaker 2: is still inflation. It's still cost of living, and there
Speaker 2: is zero focus on that from the Trump administration. We've
Speaker 2: already seen inflation tickup. Now he's saying, oh, that's the
Speaker 2: fault of.
Speaker 4: The last guy.
Speaker 2: Maybe people will give him some grace for now because
Speaker 2: he is still so no into office. But if those
Speaker 2: trends continue, which they very possibly could, especially with the
Speaker 2: you know, the tariff threats certainly feed into that, et cetera,
Speaker 2: then he could really be in quite in having quite
Speaker 2: a lot of problems politically.
Speaker 4: There already are a lot of polls showing.
Speaker 2: That one of his greatest strengths as a politician has
Speaker 2: always been the way people trust him on the economy
Speaker 2: because they just think, oh, this guy's a businessman, like
Speaker 2: he must know what he's doing, et cetera. He is
Speaker 2: deeply underwater on the economy already, and so saga. I
Speaker 2: think that's the other problem with doge is it is
Speaker 2: the sense of like I didn't ask for, like Gulf
Speaker 2: of America renaming. I didn't ask for this, like just
Speaker 2: go and randomly fire a bunch of federal government workers.
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't vote for this random guy,
Speaker 2: richest man on the planet, like consolidating power and doing
Speaker 2: all of this just blatant self dealing. And why aren't
Speaker 2: you focused on the priorities that actually impact me and
Speaker 2: that I'm focused on in my day to day life.
Speaker 4: I think that's a real risk for Heemisop.
Speaker 3: Well, not surprised me, but I'm still just vote so burned,
Speaker 3: I think by a lot. It just seems a little
Speaker 3: too cute for that to happen, as in like check
Speaker 3: the box of every liberal slash mainstream critique and I've
Speaker 3: just because of the way that twenty twenty four meant,
Speaker 3: I'm like, maybe we'll see just in terms of what
Speaker 3: it means for how people internalize all of this. Remember
Speaker 3: my warning, the more tapped in you are, the more
Speaker 3: likely to work to vote for Kamala. So how many
Speaker 3: people out there are even aware of those Golf of America,
Speaker 3: or even if they are aware of Golf of America,
Speaker 3: people are pretty aware of it. I think it's funny.
Speaker 3: But that's what I'm saying, is that you can be
Speaker 3: aware and like it. And I think that's the one
Speaker 3: caution I would always give people is remember the way
Speaker 3: that the media or the liberals will frame something is
Speaker 3: not necessarily how it lands. Remember Phereto recogate the childless
Speaker 3: cat lady, stuff like brat Summer, all this stuff. It
Speaker 3: was a complete opposite of how it all eventually turned out.
Speaker 1: I just really think that's important for people to take away.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, if we had paid attention to just
Speaker 2: the material concerns of Americans, we would have been much
Speaker 2: more you know, more people would have had a much
Speaker 2: more accurate view of how this election was ultimately going
Speaker 2: to go. Because people were consistently like, my biggest problem
Speaker 2: is inflation, and I'm not happy with the economy, and
Speaker 2: I'm certainly not happy with the way the Democrats have
Speaker 2: handled the economy. And so when you have all of them,
Speaker 2: We're going to do an economic segment later on. A
Speaker 2: lot of warning signs, consumer sentimental, you know, turning really negative,
Speaker 2: inflation ticking up, concerns about inflation ticking up. Trump increasingly
Speaker 2: underwater on the economy. Like I think those are very
Speaker 2: important warning signs for him. And when you couple that
Speaker 2: with this agenda that seems really clearly cropped, like all
Speaker 2: the populist you know, positioning from the campaign is gone,
Speaker 2: and now you've just handed the keys over the richest
Speaker 2: man on the planet who's out there looking out for
Speaker 2: himself and his interest and you're about to couple that
Speaker 2: with a gigantic tax cut for the rich. I think
Speaker 2: that is very politically perilous, to say the least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tax cut, I think is again I actually
Speaker 3: think that might be the most perilous one for Trump
Speaker 3: because there's no getting around it.
Speaker 1: If anything, he was lucky.
Speaker 3: That he passed it so early last time around what
Speaker 3: was in April I think of twenty seventeen, remember if
Speaker 3: I recall the TCJ, or maybe it was jud it was.
Speaker 1: Something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the first like major accomplishment. It was obviously,
Speaker 3: as I always say, the lowest approval rating for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And by that point, though three four years later, people
Speaker 3: had mostly forgotten about it. So that's one of those
Speaker 3: where it could be politically perilous. I definitely think it
Speaker 3: will be for the midterm elections. In the long term,
Speaker 3: I have no idea been thinking about the Clinton administration
Speaker 3: A lot, which similarly had a very rocky nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 3: got blown out in nineteen ninety four, but by ninety
Speaker 3: six is still able to pull it out and somehow win.
Speaker 3: So it's not always a you know, a predictor of
Speaker 3: how things will go.
Speaker 4: Obama is another example of that part.
Speaker 2: You know, tea party wave happens and then Republicans think, oh,
Speaker 2: we're a lock to win, and then you know, he
Speaker 2: wins in actually quite a significant landslide. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: I mean this also raises the question, like Trump is
Speaker 2: out there, I'm going to run for another shouldn't I
Speaker 2: run for another term? And there's a whole Bannon and
Speaker 2: lots of other people that are trying to push for
Speaker 2: a Trump term number three, which obviously is unconstitutional. I
Speaker 2: don't at this point see how they could actually make
Speaker 2: that happen. But you know, the other thing is that
Speaker 2: it is unlikely to be Trump who's running again. So
Speaker 2: in those situations you have incumbent presidents who were both
Speaker 2: extremely politically talented, like you know how we feel about
Speaker 2: them ideologically, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both generally
Speaker 2: generation generational political talents. Trump is in his own way
Speaker 2: as well, so you are unlikely to have him on
Speaker 2: the ballot again, which I do think sort of complicates
Speaker 2: the picture because nobody has been able to really consolidate
Speaker 2: and put together the amount of enthusiasm and this particular
Speaker 2: coalition that Donald Trump has been the face for.
Speaker 1: It is the eighty eight election. The eighty eight election
Speaker 1: was very interesting.
Speaker 3: HW was a very weak candidate, of course, like the
Speaker 3: blue blood and you know with the grocery store stuff
Speaker 3: that all happened eventually and sunk him in ninety two,
Speaker 3: but really it was like Reagan hangover. People trusted him
Speaker 3: the twelve years of government supply side economics and all
Speaker 3: that narratively was there, and then Ducaccus was just horrible.
Speaker 3: So it's one of those where you could see if
Speaker 3: the Democrats choose a Ducaccas style figure, all that you
Speaker 3: really all HW had to do was not just run
Speaker 3: on the Reagan legacy, but really against like institutional leftism
Speaker 3: as it kind of existed at that time. So I've
Speaker 3: been thinking about that as well, but obviously that's a
Speaker 3: long long way away. Let's put some of the polling
Speaker 3: up here, just to see what we have so far.
Speaker 3: This from the Washington This is from IPSO some new
Speaker 3: polling that just came in approval of mus shutting down
Speaker 3: federal programs he decides are unnecessary. Disapprove is fifty two
Speaker 3: percent approved twenty six net minus twenty six. Let's go
Speaker 3: to the next one, please, just to continue to show
Speaker 3: people approval of Elon Musk's job in government. Disapproves at
Speaker 3: forty nine. Approve is at thirty four net minus fifteen.
Speaker 3: Next one as well, just to continue, would you rather
Speaker 3: see the next control Congress by Democrats or Republicans? Has
Speaker 3: Democrats there with fifty four Again, remember it's only been
Speaker 3: a month, I think a month and four days and
Speaker 3: all of that. Things definitely there, And keep in mind
Speaker 3: all the caveats I gave about oversampling and all of that.
Speaker 3: But I will just say initially, it would not be
Speaker 3: a surprise. In fact, it would be historically a trend.
Speaker 3: It would be very in line with historical trends for
Speaker 3: the Republicans to have a blowout in the mid terms.
Speaker 1: They already don't have control of Congress.
Speaker 3: Their number one achievement, the only legislative achievement I can
Speaker 3: track right now with any regularity, is.
Speaker 1: This tax bill, which is not going to be popular.
Speaker 1: It will be popular for a lot of rich people,
Speaker 1: but that's it. So you're going to have that.
Speaker 3: You could have potentially higher inflation and an economic crisis
Speaker 3: or some sort of international situation. None of that could happen,
Speaker 3: and you would still fit within a historical trend of
Speaker 3: the Democratic thermostatic public opinion that turnout being high. This
Speaker 3: is an interesting theory I've been looking at is that
Speaker 3: united control of Congress, of Congress and the presidency often
Speaker 3: leads to some of the bigger midterm blowouts. So if
Speaker 3: you think about Obama a similar thing. I was just
Speaker 3: looking at the margins. Those were margins were insane. Fifty
Speaker 3: seven seats in the sent is crazy for the Democrats.
Speaker 3: But the fact is that their ability to pass the
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine the healthcare reform, obviously, that's what
Speaker 3: ignited the Tea Party wave and that's what led to
Speaker 3: the huge blowout in twenty ten. For that, if you
Speaker 3: look back to the Democrats, a little bit different, you know,
Speaker 3: with Clinton in terms of the control, but the similar
Speaker 3: the ninety three push for that initial healthcare reform that
Speaker 3: led to the Chip Act or whatever it was called.
Speaker 3: Under Hillary Clinton experienced a significant amount of blowback with
Speaker 3: the Contract for America. So you could easily see something
Speaker 3: like that happen with Donald Trump. Is that very often
Speaker 3: United control of government leads to a midterm kind of blowout,
Speaker 3: which it wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 2: And I think they are really flirting with like historic
Speaker 2: just like disaster and political disaster, because as we've discussed before,
Speaker 2: by putting their hands in all of these agencies, you know,
Speaker 2: even air traffic controllers got the elon justify yourself your
Speaker 2: existence to me in five bullet points like across the board,
Speaker 2: so you have, you know, one, you're one major disaster
Speaker 2: away from people completely turning on this administration. Not to mention,
Speaker 2: as we're about to discuss later in the show, a
Speaker 2: lot of very concerning economic indicators, So you know, there's
Speaker 2: a possibility out there of real political collapse outside of
Speaker 2: even what like the Tea Party waves was, or what
Speaker 2: the backlash in the Clinton administration was, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: I do think that they are playing with fire right now.
Speaker 2: And just to wrap up this block, go back to
Speaker 2: A nine, which shows some of the numbers for Trump
Speaker 2: in particular, because in the very early days of the administration,
Speaker 2: Elon seemed to be taking on water, but Trump was
Speaker 2: kind of hanging in there. You know, his approval rating
Speaker 2: was staying war less fifty to fifty, which for him
Speaker 2: is phenomenal. Greg Sargeant here as kind of a compilation
Speaker 2: of some of the recent polling that has warning signs,
Speaker 2: not just about Elon but about Trump himself. Only thirty
Speaker 2: four percent of approve of Musk's role, sixty three percent
Speaker 2: worry about his data access. According to CNN, fifty four
Speaker 2: percent say it is bad that he was given a
Speaker 2: big role. And now you have majorities disapproving of Trump
Speaker 2: in CNN, Washington Post, and Gallop and also Trump's own polster,
Speaker 2: as we showed you before, has him underwater in swing districts.
Speaker 2: So Trump's approval pretty consistent trend in all of these
Speaker 2: seems to be trending downward as he now takes on
Speaker 2: water because of the unpopularity of Musk and Doge and
Speaker 2: the actions that they're very possible.
Speaker 3: Like you said, also keep in mind, though, is that
Speaker 3: I came pretty damn close in the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 3: even with what what did you have, like a thirty
Speaker 3: percent approval rating, So you never know, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of people out there who vote for Trump who
Speaker 3: don't like him.
Speaker 2: I will say one again, he's not supposed to be
Speaker 2: on the ballot again, so.
Speaker 3: Oh true, Hey, listen, we'll debate this another time. I'm
Speaker 3: very for getting rid of the twin I don't like
Speaker 3: the Bannon way because they're trying to craft it so
Speaker 3: that it's only Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I think I think the entire two term elament.
Speaker 3: Should be completely gotten rid of, and if Obama wants
Speaker 3: to run again, let him. I hate Obama, as everybody
Speaker 3: watches a show know. I think he should have been
Speaker 3: able to run again. I think Clinton should have been
Speaker 3: able to run again. Arguably would have been way better
Speaker 3: off if Clinton had won the two thousand election, you know,
Speaker 3: in terms of how he would have handled all that.
Speaker 3: So that twenty second amendment really did actually cost us
Speaker 3: some bad. What it did is it created the current
Speaker 3: dynamic of the swings back and forth and led to
Speaker 3: the inability for an FDR style king and or President.
Speaker 3: I know we've had this debate before to basically enshrine
Speaker 3: twenty years of rule, which if that's what America wants,
Speaker 3: then I think that's what America should be able to have. Actually,
Speaker 3: in tradition, be damned at.
Speaker 2: This point, completely unprincipled view of this, which is in general,
Speaker 2: I agree with that, and I do not want Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I want to run again, so but I'll let the
Speaker 4: people decide.
Speaker 2: Also, like you said, they're trying, Okay, so it is
Speaker 2: they are not going to be able to pass a
Speaker 2: constitutional amendment. That is not going to happen. So let's
Speaker 2: just put that out there. So I don't know what
Speaker 2: other pathways they would pursue, perhaps just making some like
Speaker 2: Kakamami theory that they push up to the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: and hope that those people are just so enthralled with
Speaker 2: Trump at this point that they give him whatever he wants.
Speaker 2: But yeah, what they want it to be is that
Speaker 2: you can't serve to more than two consecutive terms, and
Speaker 2: so that would rule out Obama but would rule in Trump.
Speaker 2: That's what they're going for, which is totally unprit.
Speaker 3: Even I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it just
Speaker 3: to set the precedent for the future. Maybe we'll getting
Speaker 3: really old too, by the way, like yeah.
Speaker 1: Run against him.
Speaker 3: Then tell the American people they care about age obviously,
Speaker 3: whether that's what they said about Biden.
Speaker 1: So there we go.
Speaker 2: Trump making some significant moves over at the Pentagon, in
Speaker 2: particular removing the previous Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put his announcement up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was on true Social He says, I want to
Speaker 2: thank General Charles C. Q. Brown for his over forty
Speaker 2: years of service to our country, including as our current
Speaker 2: Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has a
Speaker 2: fine gentleman and ann outstanding leader, and I wish a
Speaker 2: great future for him and his family. Today, I'm honored
Speaker 2: to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General
Speaker 2: Dan Raisin Kine to be the next Chair of the
Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Kine is an accomplished pilot,
Speaker 2: national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a warfighter in quotes
Speaker 2: for some reason, with significant interagency and special operations experience.
Speaker 2: So we'll tell you a little bit more about the
Speaker 2: individual who is General Brown's replacement. But this was one
Speaker 2: of a number of moves that were made at the
Speaker 2: Pentagon and what some are describing as a purge. So
Speaker 2: in addition to the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of
Speaker 2: Staff being removed, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa
Speaker 2: Franchetti also removed. The Air Force Vice chief of Staff,
Speaker 2: General James Slife also removed. And then in addition to this,
Speaker 2: in what was I think maybe the most eyebrow raising
Speaker 2: part of this whole maneuver, the three top lawyers for
Speaker 2: the Army, Navy, and Air Force, So the top JAG
Speaker 2: lawyers for those three service branches were all fired as well.
Speaker 4: Obviously, you know this raises.
Speaker 2: Questions, why do you want to get rid of the
Speaker 2: top lawyers in these various for these various branches.
Speaker 4: Of the military.
Speaker 2: And Pete Hegsath, who of course is nown Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 2: was pressed on exactly that point on one of the
Speaker 2: Sunday shows. Let's take a listen to that for.
Speaker 7: People to may not know, I mean, they give advice
Speaker 7: to the military about what is lawful and what isn't.
Speaker 7: Not surprisingly, there's been some backlash to those who are
Speaker 7: worried about their removal. One Georgetown law Professor says this
Speaker 7: Trump also firing the Army, Navy, and Air Force jags.
Speaker 7: In some ways, that's even more chilling than firing the
Speaker 7: four stars. It's what you do when you're planning to
Speaker 7: break the law. You get rid of any lawyers who
Speaker 7: might try to slow you down.
Speaker 4: Your response to her.
Speaker 8: I don't know who Rosa is and what her hyperbole
Speaker 8: is all about. Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound
Speaker 8: constitutional advice and don't exist to attempt to be roadblocks
Speaker 8: to anything anything that happens in their spots. What we
Speaker 8: know about these t jags are called t jags inside
Speaker 8: the military. Traditionally they've been elected by each other or
Speaker 8: chosen by each other, which is exactly how it works
Speaker 8: often with the chairman as well, small group of insulated
Speaker 8: officers who perpetuate the status quo. Well, guess what status
Speaker 8: quo hasn't worked very well at the Pentagon. It's time
Speaker 8: for fresh blood.
Speaker 2: So one of the things we know about Hegxeth because
Speaker 2: he's written about it and also because of his public advocacy,
Speaker 2: is he has pushed for their to be fewer limits
Speaker 2: on what he calls war fighters in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: following the rules of war. He went to the mat
Speaker 2: for a number of people who had been either indicted
Speaker 2: or convicted of war crimes, one of whom was turned
Speaker 2: in by his own soldiers underneath him for what he had,
Speaker 2: you know, what he had done while he was in battle.
Speaker 2: And so for him to push these individuals down, I
Speaker 2: think it's pretty consistent with his desire to I guess
Speaker 2: the polite way would say it would be like loosen
Speaker 2: the rules of engagement. It's very much what you heard
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, way back in the Vietnam era,
Speaker 2: there was this sense of oh, if we let, you know,
Speaker 2: our guys do what they do, then we would have
Speaker 2: been more successful there. You also heard it from Pete Hegseth,
Speaker 2: you know, in the context of the Iraq war, which
Speaker 2: he supported up until shockingly recently, that you know, you
Speaker 2: needed to let them be more you know, have fewer
Speaker 2: rules of engagement and effectively like green light more war crimes.
Speaker 2: So it's consistent with that. Also, the moves I think
Speaker 2: overall are consistent with you know, Trump wants to make
Speaker 2: sure that the people who are at the top of
Speaker 2: these chains of command that they're going to do whatever
Speaker 2: he wants them to. Do whether those whether that pertains
Speaker 2: to executing on his foreign policy, which I think he
Speaker 2: feels justifiably that he was stymied at times by the
Speaker 2: top brass, or whether it comes to executing orders that
Speaker 2: would be unlawful or unconstitutional, as when he wanted to,
Speaker 2: you know, shoot protesters in the legs during the Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter protests and riots, and the current chair of
Speaker 2: the Joint Chess of Stavas, Mark Esper, at that point
Speaker 2: was like, we're not doing that.
Speaker 4: So I think it's.
Speaker 2: Importantly Yeah, Milly was, Yeah, they were both involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I mean my main thing is this traces
Speaker 3: back to I have sympathy. There are a lot of
Speaker 3: GWAT veterans who watched the show, and in a sense
Speaker 3: they're not wrong in that they were constrained because they
Speaker 3: were basically put into a situation where they became State
Speaker 3: Department diplomats in his job that they never signed up
Speaker 3: for nation building and others that was not sold to
Speaker 3: the American public. So you have these guys National guardsmen
Speaker 3: who were previously cops in Kansas, who are trying to
Speaker 3: negotiate between two rival sheiks who are literally at war
Speaker 3: over which boy they get to sexually molessed and they're like,
Speaker 3: what the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So in a way they're right in terms of a
Speaker 3: lot of the way that the jag Officer Corps at
Speaker 3: all of that this was under my crystal. It's kind
Speaker 3: of the hr buification of the military is they put
Speaker 3: an intense amount of restrictions on people whose job was
Speaker 3: not to do this in the first place. This is
Speaker 3: where I sympathize with the Vietnam vets and with the
Speaker 3: g Want Vets in terms of their like, look, we
Speaker 3: didn't know what our job was or was it was
Speaker 3: to kill the enemy or was it to negotiate, you know,
Speaker 3: with all this bullshit between these tribal leaders, and then
Speaker 3: train a bunch of guys who are the most corrupt
Speaker 3: police force literally on planet Earth in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: So I don't I.
Speaker 3: Sympathize with Pete on this simply because that is the
Speaker 3: overwhelming feeling of how betrayed many of the people there are.
Speaker 3: In terms of the four stars CeCu Brown, everything I
Speaker 3: did in terms of research, this guy's mediocre at best
Speaker 3: and basically just a complete representation of the four star
Speaker 3: bureaucracy inside of the Pentagon terrible f thirty five review
Speaker 3: over the program. Literally like a DEI person in that
Speaker 3: nobody could say anything about his track record as a
Speaker 3: general except for, oh, he's black.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well, what did he do?
Speaker 3: I read a twenty twenty three dissent against his nomination
Speaker 3: which went through his background at the Air Force, not
Speaker 3: a single major, remarkable thing. He was basically promoted because
Speaker 3: of his race under Lloyd Austin's like, okay, well, so
Speaker 3: I have no problem with him getting fired. I think
Speaker 3: really what it comes down to is the Mark Milly
Speaker 3: stuff that you talked about previously, which is that Trump
Speaker 3: correctly saw how James Mattison, Mark Milly and the previous
Speaker 3: Joint chiefs all basically worked to steymy his direct and
Speaker 3: lawful orders, for example, like saying pulling out of Seria,
Speaker 3: negotiating with the Taliban. These are the people who worked
Speaker 3: inside the bureaucracy to keep it from happening. One of
Speaker 3: the main reasons he picked Headsets Hegsat's entire formation as
Speaker 3: a member of the United States military was joining because
Speaker 3: he believed in Iraq.
Speaker 1: Obviously that was bad.
Speaker 3: But while being inside of the bureaucracy watching both the
Speaker 3: constraining at the political and at the legal level, trying
Speaker 3: to turn the Pentagon into something that it's not supposed
Speaker 3: to be, both in terms of a social experiment through DII,
Speaker 3: which CQ. Brown, by the way, literally on record talking
Speaker 3: about how he would put his thumb on the scales
Speaker 3: to promote more black officers. I just think that's totally
Speaker 3: counter to what Trump ran on. So I don't care
Speaker 3: whatsoever that he got fired with the jag stuff. It
Speaker 3: also very much fits with Hegsat's view of the military
Speaker 3: and his overall war on Pentagon bureaucracy. So I mean,
Speaker 3: currently I don't have an issue with this. I was
Speaker 3: looking to Pete has told the Department to prepare for
Speaker 3: major budget cuts. Great, let's do it. Let's cut even
Speaker 3: more four star generals. The commonly held thing that Pete
Speaker 3: often talks about is the number of four stars that
Speaker 3: we have today as opposed to the actual winning fighters
Speaker 3: of World War Two. And I think he's completely correct
Speaker 3: in terms of the explosion of all of the bureaucracy
Speaker 3: inside of the Pentagon, where, in the words of Steve
Speaker 3: Mannon the real budgets a trillion, we could lop a
Speaker 3: hundred billion off the top, and not all that much
Speaker 3: would happened over there.
Speaker 4: Here's what I would say.
Speaker 2: I think it's insane to imagine that the problem in
Speaker 2: I Rock was that we were too protective of civilians
Speaker 2: or in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: But do you understand how they get there, Like in
Speaker 3: terms of their sent over there, what they think is
Speaker 3: to kill terrorists. They show up and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: we're supposed to. The brass tells you kill the terrorists,
Speaker 3: but you need to have.
Speaker 1: Eyes on him. He needs to be shooting at you.
Speaker 3: And at the very same time you need to not
Speaker 3: disrupt that civilians the job.
Speaker 2: Of a soldier, no, but really just to give you
Speaker 2: a specific so I mean, which is part of why
Speaker 2: you want good JAG officers to advise you on the
Speaker 2: rules of war and to make sure you're not just
Speaker 2: blanket massacring civilians, which did happen at times. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the guys that he went to bat for,
Speaker 2: which is the one that I said, his own men
Speaker 2: turn him in. He instructed them to fire on a
Speaker 2: group of civilians that they knew were civilians, and after
Speaker 2: the fact tried to cover it up by saying, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we weren't able after the fact to check them for weapons,
Speaker 2: so we really don't know. So again, it was his
Speaker 2: own like the soldiers who were serving under him, who
Speaker 2: did not want to execute that order because they knew
Speaker 2: it was just a slaughter of civilians, who turned him in.
Speaker 2: And then he's found guilty and heg Seth add Gates
Speaker 2: Warm goes to that gets Trump to pardon him, even
Speaker 2: though you know, it was quite clear and getting was
Speaker 2: found guilty by Jervispeers, turned in by his own men
Speaker 2: that he had just gone out and slaughtered civilians. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I just I don't think that that's acceptable.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the way that we should be
Speaker 2: conducting ourselves. I don't think that that helped. That type
Speaker 2: of you know, just brutality towards civilians helped us either
Speaker 2: in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, we never should have
Speaker 2: been there in the first place. And the fact that
Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth was in favor of the Iraq war long
Speaker 2: after even you know, some of Hillary Clinton and some
Speaker 2: of the most died inable neocons had said, you know,
Speaker 2: this wasn't a great idea. Does not really particularly recommend him.
Speaker 2: So you know, the other thing I would say about
Speaker 2: the Chair of the Joint Chiefs here, who you know,
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of specific knowledge about him.
Speaker 2: I know hag Seth, and his book didn't really offer
Speaker 2: a lot of analysis about why he suspected that he
Speaker 2: wasn't sort of deserving or you know, meritorious of this
Speaker 2: particular position. It seemed to be just an assumption like, well,
Speaker 2: he's black, so he must not deserve it. But putting
Speaker 2: that is send But I think it probably is true.
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty single thing St. Q.
Speaker 1: Brown did before he was.
Speaker 4: But sorry, that's the thing. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I think it's very difficult to argue that the guy
Speaker 2: that they're putting in now is there out of quote
Speaker 2: unquote merit. I mean, it's really clear Trump is putting
Speaker 2: him in place because he thinks he's a Trump maggot.
Speaker 2: Diehard will do whatever he wants. And I'm not just
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, executing his lawful orders with regard
Speaker 2: to Siria or whatever. I'm talking about even if he
Speaker 2: wants to use the military in ways that would be unconstitutional,
Speaker 2: unlawful and yes, fascist, that this would be the guy
Speaker 2: who would greenlight those sorts of things, and you know,
Speaker 2: to bolster that point, Trump has long been telling stories
Speaker 2: about this guy, claiming he put on a maga hat
Speaker 2: and said, I love you, sir, I think your great, sir.
Speaker 2: I'll kill for you, sir. He is he actually has
Speaker 2: to get a waiver in order to be elevated to
Speaker 2: this position because he doesn't meet the technical qualifications you're
Speaker 2: supposed to have for this job. So the idea of
Speaker 2: this is like just about merit. I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of preposterous. I think it's preposterous for many of the positions.
Speaker 3: Now we worship at the altar four star generalship and say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: he's not on star.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that if you're trying to argue that
Speaker 2: he's being put in place because of merit, I think
Speaker 2: that is relatively preposterous.
Speaker 3: Honestly, what I am arguing is that I don't care
Speaker 3: about the I don't think most people care either, whether
Speaker 3: somebody is quote like a check all boxes of having
Speaker 3: satisfied military bureaucracy up to the four star level so
Speaker 3: that they can get their nice little stamp of approval
Speaker 3: for jo Chairman of the jointies. By the way, see
Speaker 3: Q Brown will be just fine. Give Raithian or Lockheed
Speaker 3: literally tomorrow. Okay, so we all know how that worked.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to dispute. I don't actually know a
Speaker 3: ton about this new guy. I've been trying to read
Speaker 3: about Kane. But why don't we play the clip of
Speaker 3: Trump talking about Kane before we weigh in.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: A general, another general, a colonel, a staff sergeant. Could
Speaker 6: be in any movie. These guys, it's like perfect. They're
Speaker 6: like perfect individuals. If I were casting a movie on
Speaker 6: the military, I would pick these guys. There's nobody you
Speaker 6: could hire in Hollywood that looks like this. So I
Speaker 6: walked down and this is where I met General Raisin Kane.
Speaker 1: And what's your name?
Speaker 6: General, what's your name? And he gave me his name,
Speaker 6: what's your name.
Speaker 3: Sergeant, sir?
Speaker 6: And I love you, sir, think you're sir. I'll kill
Speaker 6: for you, sir. Then he puts on a make America
Speaker 6: right again. You're not allowed to do that, but they did.
Speaker 6: I remember I went into the Hangar and there were
Speaker 6: a lot of there were hundreds of troops and they're
Speaker 6: not supposed to do this, but they all put on
Speaker 6: the make America great again.
Speaker 2: Well, so that's what Trump has said, there's this qualification
Speaker 2: for the job, and you can't like this is what
Speaker 2: this is why Trump picked.
Speaker 3: Do I think Trump is mister Merritt and wants all
Speaker 3: of this stuff?
Speaker 1: No? Do I think that Pete Hegsath and them do. Yes.
Speaker 3: Actually they have a much longer track record of being
Speaker 3: against military bureaucracy, of restoring the Pentagon to its singular purpose.
Speaker 1: And you know, to counter what you.
Speaker 3: Were talking about early, because I think this is very important,
Speaker 3: is you were saying that's the job of soldier. The
Speaker 3: problem is that we made that the job of the
Speaker 3: soldier when it's not actually the job. The job of
Speaker 3: the soldier is to win and to fight a war.
Speaker 3: It's the job of the State Department and of the
Speaker 3: presidents and others to not put people in a situation
Speaker 3: which is actually counter to their job description. From Should
Speaker 3: nineteen year olds from Topeka really be negotiating, you know,
Speaker 3: tribal warfare between them?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Well, again, this problem with the entire mission.
Speaker 2: Back to you know, you're right, obviously we should never
Speaker 2: have been there at all period. But when you look
Speaker 2: at a track record of judgment. Pete Hegseth has had
Speaker 2: a very bad one. You know, he was he was
Speaker 2: wrong about Iraq, he was wrong about Afghanistan, he was
Speaker 2: wrong about Ukraine up until very recently. So you know,
Speaker 2: if you're looking for someone who but you know, what
Speaker 2: matters most is that you took the correct position when
Speaker 2: it was hard to do, when it was unpopular, when
Speaker 2: it didn't serve your political and career interests. He does
Speaker 2: not have a track record of that. He has a
Speaker 2: track record of being I want to go, and even more,
Speaker 2: I want to send even more people in. I want
Speaker 2: to go to even get us involved in even more wars.
Speaker 2: So I certainly don't trust him on that front. But yes,
Speaker 2: once you're there, part of the job of the soldier
Speaker 2: is to is to try to protect the civilian populations
Speaker 2: that are in the area.
Speaker 3: Did I'm not arguing that they shouldn't have. What I'm
Speaker 3: saying is the reason why they felt. This is the
Speaker 3: thing again that people need to remember the rules of
Speaker 3: engagement would change on an almost yearly basis in Afghanistan
Speaker 3: as to whatever the political mission was. First it was
Speaker 3: light up the Taliban, then it was McCrystal came in.
Speaker 3: Then Obama fires my Crystal, and it changes again, literally
Speaker 3: on a year by year basis. The type of shots
Speaker 3: that you could take were completely up in the air.
Speaker 3: They'd have to call up to the chain of comand
Speaker 3: they had no idea what they were doing. There's a
Speaker 3: book Jake Tapper wrote, there's a movie as well. I
Speaker 3: think I'm blanking on the name at the outpost. That's
Speaker 3: what it is. People should watch it in terms of
Speaker 3: what it actually was like for people when they're getting
Speaker 3: ambushed within those rules of engagement now obviously, and none
Speaker 3: of them would dispute they're want to protect the civilian population.
Speaker 3: That's not it at all. As far as the Gallagher
Speaker 3: current case, I recommend there's a book called Alpha about
Speaker 3: Eddie Gallagher.
Speaker 1: It's very anti Eddie Gallagher.
Speaker 3: If you want the case for why I should have
Speaker 3: been convicted, there's a lot of stuff online you can
Speaker 3: go and read against it. It's a lot more complica
Speaker 3: then people think. I will say that in terms of
Speaker 3: whether he should have been convicted or not, I'm still up.
Speaker 1: In the air in terms of what I've read about
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 3: But the point that I come back to is that
Speaker 3: if you're going to get into a war, and this
Speaker 3: was what the Vietnam people would often say too, is
Speaker 3: if we're going to get into a war, then we
Speaker 3: have to be able to fight. Now. I don't think
Speaker 3: we should have gotten in those wars in the first place,
Speaker 3: and we should if before we light it up. If
Speaker 3: it's not capable, if you're not capable to win purely
Speaker 3: through military means, then you should not be fighting in
Speaker 3: the first place. You shouldn't turn these people into these
Speaker 3: quasi diplomats. But then at the same time tell them
Speaker 3: that their war fighters. And I think that gets to
Speaker 3: the actual crux of Hegsett's ideology.
Speaker 1: Just in terms of everything.
Speaker 3: I've listened to the guy and I can't say I
Speaker 3: disagree with him at all, which is, don't get involved
Speaker 3: if you're not going to do it the way that
Speaker 3: you're supposed to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I just func mentally dispute the idea that
Speaker 2: like if we had had more gloves off and killed
Speaker 2: the billions, had more collateral damage, then it would have
Speaker 2: gone better for us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: I know you're exactly right, all are.
Speaker 2: Opposite of the case, but that is Pete Hegsas's position
Speaker 2: is that we should have been more gloves off. I
Speaker 2: mean the case I'm talking about, this guy knew these
Speaker 2: were civilians and he was like kill them and tried
Speaker 2: to cover it up after the fact, hide the weapons,
Speaker 2: Like we weren't able to go and check and see
Speaker 2: if they had weapons so that they could have plausible
Speaker 2: deniability that they just mass murdered civilians. And it was not,
Speaker 2: you know, it was actually the people who were lower
Speaker 2: on the totem pole, who were probably less experienced, who
Speaker 2: were like this was wrong.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the just one.
Speaker 2: Last thing on this and we can get into this
Speaker 2: last piece of with regard to you know, the dude
Speaker 2: who's now the chair of the Joint Chiefs. Those rules
Speaker 2: are not just put in place for protecting other civilians.
Speaker 2: It's also put in place so that our war fighters
Speaker 2: can live with themselves afterwards, so that they can come
Speaker 2: home and be able to go back to a normal
Speaker 2: life and not be completely traumatized by the things that
Speaker 2: they did. And you know, inevitably, when you have humans
Speaker 2: killing other humans, it's going to be a horrific and
Speaker 2: traumatizing experience, no doubt about that. But if you feel
Speaker 2: like you conducted yourself honorably, and that the you know,
Speaker 2: expectation was you were just killing the bad guys. You
Speaker 2: weren't just going out and like murdering whatever civilians happen
Speaker 2: into your path because some psycho who was above you
Speaker 2: was ordering you to do that. Like that's also protection
Speaker 2: for our own soldiers. And I don't think, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the firing of these JAG officers, the top
Speaker 2: lawyers in these three services indicates, you know, he has
Speaker 2: no respect for that whatsoever. Obviously that's what he's written
Speaker 2: in the past. And I also think, you know, again,
Speaker 2: the overall program here. Yes, it may be something about
Speaker 2: the bureaucracy and making sure that even the lawful orders
Speaker 2: are properly executed. Fine, but I think at core, as
Speaker 2: judging by the way Trump himself describes who's put in here,
Speaker 2: it really is about making sure this is someone who
Speaker 2: will do whatever I say, no matter what it is,
Speaker 2: whether it is legal or illegal or somewhere in between,
Speaker 2: going to execute on my orders. And the last piece
Speaker 2: of this is this was pulled up, so this is
Speaker 2: this is kind of weird. I just put this out there.
Speaker 2: Make of it what you will. The new guy who
Speaker 2: got put in Dan Kine. He had just retired from
Speaker 2: the military, so they're pulling him back out. And I'm
Speaker 2: talking about like just retired in January. Immediately after he retires.
Speaker 2: Oh look, if he gets snatched up by three different
Speaker 2: crypto firms, one of them in particular, Thrive Capital, was
Speaker 2: founded by Jared Kushner's brother Joshua, had an investment by
Speaker 2: Peter Teel, and also let a funding round for Open
Speaker 2: Ai in twenty twenty four. And so you know, the
Speaker 2: other thing that Trump gets out of selecting this individual
Speaker 2: for this position is number one. I mean, how much
Speaker 2: money did he make while he was there? Like is
Speaker 2: he now responsible for sort of like his financial security?
Speaker 2: But certainly he would never have ascended to anything like
Speaker 2: this level in term of his career. He just retired
Speaker 2: without Trump. So he owes Trump everything is what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to say. And so that again speaks to this
Speaker 2: part of I want you to be loyal, no matter
Speaker 2: what I ask you to do, and I think he
Speaker 2: feels like with Dan Kaine, that's what he's getting.
Speaker 3: So Cain, first of all, I will just say this,
Speaker 3: this is not a pro Kaine argument. They all glow
Speaker 3: out and join crypto cybersecurity firms and or prime contractors
Speaker 3: after that.
Speaker 1: So he's not particularly they are.
Speaker 2: They all started by Jared Kushner's brother.
Speaker 1: However, right Capital?
Speaker 3: Ye, yes, does Joshua Kushner own a stake in thrit
Speaker 3: But but this is what I'm saying in terms of
Speaker 3: if you look at the board seats for all of
Speaker 3: these people.
Speaker 1: What's the first thing that they all go out and do.
Speaker 3: And by the way, Jim Mattis literally was on the
Speaker 3: board of Pharahos if we all recall so to show,
Speaker 3: just to show folks saying how this all works, Trace
Speaker 3: is at KKR Capital.
Speaker 2: I could go on it's an accident that he gets
Speaker 2: snatched up and hired and who knows how much money
Speaker 2: he makes in this short period of time from a
Speaker 2: firm that is connected both to Peter Teel and to
Speaker 2: Jared Cuk.
Speaker 3: I actually don't think it's the Teal connection. Everything I've
Speaker 3: been able to read is that Trump met this guy
Speaker 3: six years ago in Iraq and was like, man, I
Speaker 3: just love it.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that this means
Speaker 2: that so he retires, he has a short window of
Speaker 2: time to go on the private sector and make bank
Speaker 2: and guess who shows up at his door to be like,
Speaker 2: we will pay you. We don't know how much, however
Speaker 2: much happens to be Jared Kushner's brother's firm.
Speaker 4: Like, that's not an accident.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't think it's nearly as intentional as you think.
Speaker 3: I think literally all of these guys, especially because he's
Speaker 3: a former Air Force person and work flu F sixteen's,
Speaker 3: is going to go join some space like firm. They
Speaker 3: all have them on the payroll. This is not a
Speaker 3: defense of him, per se. This is the entire general
Speaker 3: offers class. This is the problem.
Speaker 2: It's just an accident that it's Kushner's brother's firm that
Speaker 2: happens to give him this man.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a quote unquote accident or whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they necessarily picked him because they
Speaker 3: thought he was going to be the next chairman. Again,
Speaker 3: everything I've read is that Trump is obsessed with this
Speaker 3: dude because of his quote can do attitude from a
Speaker 3: visit to Iraq six years ago. Maybe because they knew
Speaker 3: that Trump liked him, they hired him. So I can't,
Speaker 3: you know, rule that out, per se. But everything I've
Speaker 3: been able to see from his background as he joined
Speaker 3: that main firm apparently that was paying him, was this
Speaker 3: cybersecurity firm in Washington that seems to be like the
Speaker 3: major source of his funds.
Speaker 1: I'm not defending any of this. I think it's gross.
Speaker 3: And this is the problem I have with all of
Speaker 3: this is the bureaucratization, the corporate basically fusing of the
Speaker 3: entire general officership. So whoever this guy is, I would
Speaker 3: really hope that who at least don't keep that ethos
Speaker 3: whenever you're at the top. But I'm not naive in
Speaker 3: terms of who and why he got picked. But I
Speaker 3: don't think that the connection is as solid as people
Speaker 3: are trying to make.
Speaker 2: I just think it's very convenient that this man now
Speaker 2: owes both his career and his wealth to Trump and
Speaker 2: the Trump family.
Speaker 3: Okay, but this is where I just well, first of all,
Speaker 3: I mean not really right, like Joshua Kushner basically denounced.
Speaker 1: His own brother whenever he was in the White House.
Speaker 3: And who was he married to the super Harley class
Speaker 3: or something like that, who is putting out anti Trump stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't think the connection is as close as you're
Speaker 3: making it out to be. But again, this is the
Speaker 3: problem with the systemic corruption around here, Like did people
Speaker 3: really care when Lloyd Did democrats really care when Lloyd
Speaker 3: Austin literally coming from prime contractors back into.
Speaker 1: The Defense Secretary? Not really c Q. Brown.
Speaker 3: He'll be employed tomorrow by probably the same type of
Speaker 3: people here because of his past experience. So I just
Speaker 3: don't think that people have a huge light to stand
Speaker 3: on in terms of pointing out corruption.
Speaker 2: It's not just about the care it's about the direct
Speaker 2: family time. So if we're if my case is he's
Speaker 2: put in there because of loyalty, and if you have
Speaker 2: been responsible not only for the career elevation, which is
Speaker 2: very you know, again, he has to get a waiver
Speaker 2: to even get put in this position. He had retired,
Speaker 2: very unusual come back out of retirement like Trump. He
Speaker 2: owes Trump his career and you have this connection family
Speaker 2: connection to as well. I'm just saying that if you
Speaker 2: owe that much to this one person, then that is
Speaker 2: another attempt to help guarantee that whatever it is that
Speaker 2: you want to do in the future, this person is
Speaker 2: going to be loyal no matter why.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's probably fair, although I mean he
Speaker 3: probably was picked for this exact reason specifically be.
Speaker 1: The person, but this is going to be guarantee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I just would say, it's not like
Speaker 3: any person who serves as the Chairman of the Joint
Speaker 3: Chiefs is ever hard up for money.
Speaker 1: Literally.
Speaker 3: Ever, if you go look at all these spaces, you
Speaker 3: don't need Peter Teel or Joshua Kushner to cut you
Speaker 3: a check. There's oceans of money here in Northern Virginia
Speaker 3: to be made for all of them. So I don't
Speaker 3: think it's nearly as clear cut. And you know, people
Speaker 3: are going to say that I'm defending this guy. I'm
Speaker 3: just pointing out how disgusting this entire system is. Every
Speaker 3: single basically one Star Onward becomes a multi millionaire within
Speaker 3: a year after a year after they resign, through these boards,
Speaker 3: through whatever Fox News or CFR contracts and all of this,
Speaker 3: And unfortunately it is par for the course that we
Speaker 3: have here. And again, I just don't think that these
Speaker 3: people have much like to stand on when their literal
Speaker 3: heroes are doing the exact same thing. So it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you're arguing within a broken system. The next Democratic president
Speaker 3: is almost certainly going to pick somebody who's also on
Speaker 3: the board of Lockheed or whatever. It's a systemic problem
Speaker 3: that we have, and it just makes it probably more
Speaker 3: cynical in terms of the war over like who's really corrupt,
Speaker 3: because easily people can point out that it's everyone