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Speaker 2: go through quickly.
Speaker 4: What is in the show.
Speaker 2: We've got a bunch of big economic news that will
Speaker 2: go through. Jeff Stein is actually going to join us
Speaker 2: Wall Street concerned about the bond market. We've got new tariffs,
Speaker 2: we've got new escalation with China, so a lot to
Speaker 2: get into there. We also are going to have Jeremy
Speaker 2: Skahill to join us with the latest with regards to
Speaker 2: those ceasefire talks and also a horrific massacre of Palestinians
Speaker 2: who were seeking aid in that new mercenary lead scheme.
Speaker 2: So Skalhill will break all of that down for us.
Speaker 2: Also want to get his reaction to some Jake Tapper
Speaker 2: comments about the college student protests that I think will
Speaker 2: be interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which means that we have to watch the video again.
Speaker 3: We've already watched it once this morning, and I don't
Speaker 3: know that I can do it again.
Speaker 4: Are you sure? It's a pleasure to be here this morning?
Speaker 3: And look, no, it changed my mind.
Speaker 2: Also got to get to news with regard to Ukraine
Speaker 2: and Russia. They were able to effectuate this quite dramatic
Speaker 2: attack on Russian warplanes deep inside of Russia. This happens
Speaker 2: as peace talks are ongoing there, so that is incredibly significant.
Speaker 4: We've got more Elon news for you.
Speaker 2: Bunch of news articles coming out about some inside details
Speaker 2: about his drug use and Trump sort of losing confidence
Speaker 2: in him, asking at one point, wait at the second
Speaker 2: where the cuts, was this all bullshit?
Speaker 4: Which is kind of surprising.
Speaker 2: That he didn't know that it was all bullshit in
Speaker 2: But anyway, so we've got a lot going on there.
Speaker 2: Joni Ernst, Senator, Republican senator defending the proposed Medicaid cuts
Speaker 2: by saying, hey, we're all going to die at some point.
Speaker 3: Incredible, she's fact checked that, Crystal, I dare.
Speaker 2: You Nolah's detection.
Speaker 3: I guess she wrong.
Speaker 2: Noah's detected. I've been we do have.
Speaker 3: The well I was gonna say. She put an even
Speaker 3: better apology video out, so stay tuned for that. It's
Speaker 3: a graveyard, it's something else, so make sure you stay
Speaker 3: tuned for that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before we get to any of that, though, we
Speaker 2: are tracking developments out of Boulder, Colorado. We can put
Speaker 2: this tear sheet up on the screen. There was an
Speaker 2: attack that's being described as a terror attack. Eight people injured,
Speaker 2: set on fire actually in Boulder, Colorado, and they say
Speaker 2: after man allegedly targets rally for Israeli hostages.
Speaker 4: So this is a group of protesters who's.
Speaker 2: Been gathering, my understanding is on a weekly basis calling
Speaker 2: for the release and the return of Israeli hostages. And
Speaker 2: they have a suspect in custody already, forty five year
Speaker 2: old man identified as Mohammed Sabrey Solomon. A LEDG shift
Speaker 2: thrown device into a group of people who had assembled
Speaker 2: in this pedestrianized zone for a peaceful protest for Israeli hostages.
Speaker 2: And like I said, eight people injured. I believe two
Speaker 2: had to be airlifted to a special burn unit, so
Speaker 2: that was kind of the nature of their injuries. And
Speaker 2: there's a video coming out from the scene. Emily, obviously
Speaker 2: it's just absolutely horrific, and he was, you know, he
Speaker 2: seemed frankly quite unwell, but was sort of ranting and
Speaker 2: rape saying free Palestine. And of course this comes on
Speaker 2: the heels of that horrific attack here in DC as well,
Speaker 2: in which the two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered by
Speaker 2: someone else who also said free Palestine. So this is
Speaker 2: certainly going to heighten interest in what is going on here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and local news is reporting that one of the
Speaker 3: victims actually was a Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 4: Mostly elderly, elderly women, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, elderly woman, I think almost everybody who was being burned.
Speaker 3: So you can see in the videos of the suspect,
Speaker 3: he's walking around with maltov cocktails and his shirt off.
Speaker 3: So reportedly according to local news, I think it's Channel
Speaker 3: nine out there. I'm boulder. At least one of the
Speaker 3: victims was, and they all are suffering from burns. If
Speaker 3: you look up the videos, you know, big be careful
Speaker 3: looking up the videos, they're pretty rough. But if you
Speaker 3: look up the videos, people were burning, it's a really
Speaker 3: awful scene. I want to add Crystal Bill Malugin as
Speaker 3: reporting that three senior DHS sources have told Fox that
Speaker 3: the Boulder terrorist suspect is an Egyptian national in the
Speaker 3: US illegally as a visa overstay who entered the US
Speaker 3: during the Biden administration. Bill says I'm told he arrived
Speaker 3: at LAX in August of twenty twenty two on a
Speaker 3: B one B two non immigrant visa with an authorized
Speaker 3: day through twenty twenty three, but he overstayed and never left.
Speaker 3: He found some sort of claim with USCIS, potentially an
Speaker 3: asylum claim, back in twenty twenty two, but in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three under the bidenman, USCIS gave him work authorization
Speaker 3: that though expired in March, so this is coming. It
Speaker 3: expired March twenty eight, so it's coming in the last
Speaker 3: couple of months after his work authorization expired.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it looks like a visa overstay Egyptian national.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, you have a horrific attack here,
Speaker 2: and you have you know, Free of Palestine being yelled protests.
Speaker 4: For Israeli hostages.
Speaker 2: You have someone who's an immigrant Egyptian national visa overstays.
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of obviously in sundiary political
Speaker 2: issues that are swirling inside of this, and you know,
Speaker 2: I would just say that, similar to the attack that
Speaker 2: we covered here, you know, this is obviously not going
Speaker 2: to benefit in any way if you care about the
Speaker 2: cause of freedom, humanity, peace, peace and civilization. This is
Speaker 2: directly at odds with you know, any movement to free
Speaker 2: Palestine and or free any human beings around the world. So,
Speaker 2: you know, and one other thing that I'll say, and
Speaker 2: this is a point that shile Benefreim was making on Twitter,
Speaker 2: you know, rather controversially. Obviously, the attackers in both of
Speaker 2: these attacks are responsible for their horrific actions. As I
Speaker 2: said before, this man seems sort of unwell, But in
Speaker 2: any case, they're responsible for their actions. But it is
Speaker 2: also true that if you're concerned about anti Semitism and
Speaker 2: hate and violence around the world, you know, Israel intentionally
Speaker 2: conflating all Jewish people with their own atrocities that they're
Speaker 2: committing is going to lead to an increase in anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: And so if you care about the safety of Jewish people,
Speaker 2: as you certainly should, the actions that are being taken,
Speaker 2: the genocide that is being committed in Gaza is making
Speaker 2: Jewish people unsafe everywhere. It is contributing to that horrific climate, especially,
Speaker 2: as I said, when there is such an overt effort
Speaker 2: to conflate all Jewish people with the actions of this
Speaker 2: at this point completely rogue state. So you know, that's
Speaker 2: I guess my perspective on some of what is unfolding here.
Speaker 3: Just want to underscore the point you made about peace
Speaker 3: and this not helping anyone anywhere towards the cause of peace.
Speaker 3: Should add Cash Hotel has said they are investigating this
Speaker 3: as a targeted terror attack, so much more details to
Speaker 3: come from that vantage point. What they turn up in
Speaker 3: the investigation, we will obviously continue to fin that's story.
Speaker 2: Indeed, all right, let's turn to the latest with regard
Speaker 2: to economic news, and we have jeffs Stein joining us.
Speaker 2: We are lucky to be joined this morning by the
Speaker 2: chief economics reporter for the Washington Post, the one and
Speaker 2: only Jeff Steined. Great Caesar, Hey, thanks for having me back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, anytime. Let's go and put your latest reporting
Speaker 2: up here on the screen about Wall Street's concerns with
Speaker 2: regard to Trump's.
Speaker 4: Big beautiful bill.
Speaker 2: Your headline is wall Street warns Trump aids the GOP
Speaker 2: tax bill could jolt bond markets and if there's one
Speaker 2: thing we've seen in this Trump administration, it is the
Speaker 2: significance and importance and power that the bond markets wheeled.
Speaker 2: So tell us what you're hearing here.
Speaker 5: So the core of the problem here is that, you know,
Speaker 5: US interest rates are already very high, and the tax
Speaker 5: bill could add between estimates very two to five trillion
Speaker 5: dollars to the deficit. And what that means is the
Speaker 5: US Treasury Department will have to go out and auction
Speaker 5: more bonds, auction or debt to cover up the gap
Speaker 5: between what the US government spends and what it brings
Speaker 5: in in revenue. The problem is that we've already seen
Speaker 5: that there's a question about the demand among investors worldwide
Speaker 5: for these US assets. And the big problem potentially, and
Speaker 5: you know, it's really hard to know exactly what could happen,
Speaker 5: but what Wall Street is concerned about, what they're telling
Speaker 5: us and what they're telling the Trump administration is that
Speaker 5: if demand for new Treasury debt, these new bond issuance
Speaker 5: is insufficient, you could see basically the US government have
Speaker 5: to increase the premium, the yield it's called on what
Speaker 5: investors recoup and return. So if there's an insufficient demand,
Speaker 5: the price goes up. Basically what the US government has
Speaker 5: to pay to get people to buy this debt goes up,
Speaker 5: and then you can get a really dangerous spike or
Speaker 5: spiral where borrowing costs rise because the premium that the
Speaker 5: government has to offer continues to increase. And so that's
Speaker 5: the core concern here, And just to I know, it
Speaker 5: sounds probably not that relevant for people's day to day lives,
Speaker 5: but mortgages, auto loans, things throughout the economy are tied
Speaker 5: very fundamentally to the price of the bond. And as
Speaker 5: the yield prices of the new bond goes up, the
Speaker 5: prices of old bonds collapses. So that means if you
Speaker 5: are someone who has put a lot of money in
Speaker 5: your portfolio into bonds, that part of your portfolio could
Speaker 5: significantly lose its value. That's traditionally considered a very safe investment,
Speaker 5: right like equity stocks. That's the risky thing crypto, the
Speaker 5: riskiest bonds is supposed to be what's safe, and that's
Speaker 5: the reason that that bonds are sort of the core
Speaker 5: pillar of the global financial system. Thirty trillion dollars in
Speaker 5: US debt is used to borrow against trade against this
Speaker 5: to have you know, millions of people retirees safeguard there
Speaker 5: there hirements in their assets, and so Wall Street is
Speaker 5: very worried about a potential destabilization in that market, in
Speaker 5: that sector.
Speaker 3: And Jeff, I want to get your reaction to this
Speaker 3: clip of Jamie Diamond. We can go ahead and roll
Speaker 3: the second element and we'll get Jeff's reaction on the
Speaker 3: back side of it.
Speaker 6: I guess one underlying both that is the enemy within.
Speaker 6: I'm not as worried about China isn't is a potential adversary.
Speaker 6: They're doing a lot of things well, they have a
Speaker 6: lot of problems. What I really worry about is us.
Speaker 6: Can we get our own act together, our own values,
Speaker 6: our own capability or own management. What you heard today
Speaker 6: on stage was the amount of mismanagement is extraordinary by state,
Speaker 6: by city, for pensions, for and that stuff is going
Speaker 6: to kill us. And you know, I always get asked
Speaker 6: this question, what are we going to be the reserve currency?
Speaker 6: And no, you know, if we are not the pre
Speaker 6: eminent military and the premitent economy in forty years, we
Speaker 6: will not.
Speaker 7: Be the reserve currency.
Speaker 8: That's a fact.
Speaker 6: Just read history, you know, now I think we will
Speaker 6: be you know, Warren Buffett here we tell you one
Speaker 6: must be resilient.
Speaker 7: I agree with that.
Speaker 6: I think this time is different, this time where you know,
Speaker 6: we have to get to act together and we have
Speaker 6: to do it very quickly.
Speaker 3: And so, Jeff, I want to actually that last sentence
Speaker 3: he just made, that last statement he just made where
Speaker 3: he says, this time I think is different. That's really
Speaker 3: interesting with your reporting. So that was Diamond on Friday
Speaker 3: at the Reagan National Economic Forum. And Jeff, why is
Speaker 3: it that people like Jamie Diamond still, even after weeks
Speaker 3: of the Taco conversation, feel like this time truly is different?
Speaker 3: Is it because they see people like Scott Bessett and
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is wanting continuing to want to remove the
Speaker 3: dollar as the world currency. Is that what's really going
Speaker 3: on behind all of this?
Speaker 5: Yes, just I'll get back to that question one second.
Speaker 5: I couldn't go without pausing for a second to comment
Speaker 5: on Jamie Diamond and someone from Wall Street saying, you know,
Speaker 5: criticizing this management of state and local governments when it's
Speaker 5: been wide you know, a little less than two decades
Speaker 5: since Wall Street literally crashed the global economy and the
Speaker 5: worst crisis and the Great Depression. I mean, the guy,
Speaker 5: the guys on Wall Street having you know, their their
Speaker 5: their willingness to say what they think and be heedless
Speaker 5: of their own reputations is kind of not.
Speaker 4: Waking of speaking of enemies from within.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he takes one to know one. He was
Speaker 3: worried about pensions.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to go back to your question, there has been
Speaker 5: I think a very interesting shift from the core locus
Speaker 5: of concern on Wall Street being the tariffs, which are
Speaker 5: still down here. The effective tariff rate is still eight
Speaker 5: times what it was before Trump took office. We've seen
Speaker 5: a huge spike in trade tensions, but he has backed
Speaker 5: off due to the taco trade. This is the Trump
Speaker 5: always chickens out joke. That's that's spread on Wall Street.
Speaker 5: But but you know, despite how big that disruption is,
Speaker 5: people are now more conc learned about the tax bill
Speaker 5: and what it could mean, especially when coupled with the
Speaker 5: trade bill. You know, one thing I think is very
Speaker 5: clear in that clip, or as clear to me at least,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of people on Wall Street who want
Speaker 5: to tell reporters and tell others that they're very worried
Speaker 5: about the impact of the tax bill on the bond market.
Speaker 5: What they don't want to do is go out in
Speaker 5: public and say, hey, Trump administration, we have concerns with
Speaker 5: who are top economic policy priority because they don't want
Speaker 5: to be in the Trump administration's crosshairs. So you're seeing
Speaker 5: Diamond and others go around saying, we got to be
Speaker 5: really careful about the bond market. Also, you know, the
Speaker 5: tax bill has some good stuff, has some bad stuff.
Speaker 5: We'd need to be careful with bonds. But that's that's
Speaker 5: kind of how they're trying to square the circle here.
Speaker 5: They're issuing increasingly vocal warnings about the bond market. As
Speaker 5: you know, Senate is taking up this bill, but they're
Speaker 5: not they're not out in front of criticizing the Trump
Speaker 5: administration and the Republican Party about it because you know,
Speaker 5: for obvious political reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, in the bond market is what got Trump
Speaker 2: to move off of his most maximus tariff position. So
Speaker 2: I think they've also identified like a potential weakness an
Speaker 2: area where you know, if they just come out and
Speaker 2: bash Donald Trump, yeah, I'm not like defending these people
Speaker 2: in their cowardice, but they're thinking, okay, strategically, if we
Speaker 2: just go out and bash Donald Trump. That's probably not
Speaker 2: going to get us where we want to go. But
Speaker 2: he clearly has an interest in what happens with the
Speaker 2: bond market. So maybe if we can make him nervous
Speaker 2: about that, maybe that will change the landscape. But I mean,
Speaker 2: the other irony here, Jeff, is like the four trillion
Speaker 2: dollars that's being added to the deficit is by and
Speaker 2: large tax cuts four guys like Damie Diamond. So when
Speaker 2: they're even like, I don't know, I don't know, this
Speaker 2: may go a little too far, that also, to me
Speaker 2: is quite is quite stunning. Now, my suspicion is that
Speaker 2: they would like to still get their tax cut, but
Speaker 2: just have much more aggressive cuts in the social safety
Speaker 2: net in order to pay for them.
Speaker 4: But what do you make of that particular dynamic.
Speaker 5: I think that's the right question, Chris. So, you know,
Speaker 5: this bill does not have the large sort of I
Speaker 5: mean it has some it has, you know, hundreds of
Speaker 5: billions of dollars, but in a four trillion or five
Speaker 5: million dollars bill, Unlike the first tax bill in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: which really was centered on massively reducing the corporate rate
Speaker 5: from thirty five to twenty one percent, which the first
Speaker 5: bill did. This bill really showers cash on households primarily
Speaker 5: or disproportionately. I would argue households with you know, the
Speaker 5: highest incomes we have. We did a story recently about
Speaker 5: thirty percent of the tax cuts go to those with
Speaker 5: over I think it was three or four hundred thousand
Speaker 5: dollars per year in income. It is slightly a different
Speaker 5: constituency than you know, the Jamie Diamond. You know, it's
Speaker 5: it's not necessarily for those businesses on Wall Street themselves,
Speaker 5: so I'm not sure that this tax cut is as
Speaker 5: attractive of a package to them. I mean, they do
Speaker 5: have the rate cuts in there. There are cuts for
Speaker 5: you know, pass through businesses, which you know, these are
Speaker 5: people who often have over a million dollars a year
Speaker 5: in income. There are there's a massive reduction in the
Speaker 5: estate tax. So there are things for very rich people.
Speaker 5: But it's a little less I think of a of
Speaker 5: a grab bag for Wall Street businesses and people like
Speaker 5: Dimond than the first round of tax cuts was. I
Speaker 5: think you really hit the nail on the head that
Speaker 5: they want more spending cuts. So obviously, right if we're
Speaker 5: talking about the debt, being too big from the tax bill.
Speaker 5: There's a few options they can spare. They can reduce
Speaker 5: the amount of tax cuts, but that would require them
Speaker 5: to either you know, pair back the amount that people
Speaker 5: at the top are getting, or really like try to
Speaker 5: do you know, even less of the Trump campaign promises
Speaker 5: on you know, no tip, taxes on tips, no tax
Speaker 5: on Social Security. I don't think, given how much of
Speaker 5: this is already for upper income people, I think it's
Speaker 5: very unlikely that they move to pair back what is
Speaker 5: in there for lower and middle income households.
Speaker 3: And that would also be an admission that their tax
Speaker 3: cuts aren't going to get the growth that they're now saying.
Speaker 3: The CBO is under estimating the growth.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's a very good point. They now have
Speaker 5: been saying, like this bill will cut the deficit because
Speaker 5: it will lead to so much growth in sort of
Speaker 5: a Laffarian curve way. I think. On the spending cuts,
Speaker 5: they do have cuts in there on Medicaid and food stamps,
Speaker 5: but they're already pretty large. And my sense from talking
Speaker 5: to Republicans on the Hill is that they they they
Speaker 5: fear the politics of an even bigger cut to healthcare,
Speaker 5: then they do the politics of the bond market, which
Speaker 5: could be dicey, but you know, the US has added
Speaker 5: trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to stet over
Speaker 5: and over and over again, and there haven't we haven't
Speaker 5: seen the bond market freak out that you know, people
Speaker 5: like you know, the deficit of hawks have been warning
Speaker 5: about for a long time. So you know, maybe there's
Speaker 5: still more that they can do without without triggering this
Speaker 5: sort of So you know, the other thing that we've
Speaker 5: written about is that they've entertained I mean, Steve Bannon
Speaker 5: has talked to the president directly. We've reported about raising
Speaker 5: taxes on millionaires, or at least raising is a bit
Speaker 5: of an overstatement about basically letting the tax cit that
Speaker 5: they originally approved for the top income rocket to expire
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty five. That would basically really get them
Speaker 5: out of a lot of this bond market chaos they're
Speaker 5: dealing with. But they don't want to go there because
Speaker 5: they don't want to raise taxes on the ridge and
Speaker 5: because Republicans hate that so right, it is a kind
Speaker 5: of fascinating thing to look at how they're trying to
Speaker 5: get out of this box.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk a little bit about China, because
Speaker 2: this is the other big thing that's happening. Put guys first,
Speaker 2: a five up on the screen. This was Trump's truth
Speaker 2: social about China, in which he said two weeks ago
Speaker 2: China was in grave economic danger. The very high terroris
Speaker 2: I set made it virtually impossible for China to trade
Speaker 2: into the US marketplace, which is by far number one
Speaker 2: in the world. We went in effect Cold Turkey with China,
Speaker 2: and it was devastating for them. Many factories, clothes. There was,
Speaker 2: to put it, mildly, civil unrest. I saw what was
Speaker 2: happening and didn't like it for them, not for us.
Speaker 2: I made a fast deal with China in order to
Speaker 2: save them from what I thought was going to be
Speaker 2: a very bad situation.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to see that happen.
Speaker 2: Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized, China got back
Speaker 2: to business as usual.
Speaker 4: Everybody was happy. That was the good news.
Speaker 2: The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some,
Speaker 2: has totally violated disagreement with us. So much for being
Speaker 2: mister nice guy. Can you break down for us, Jeff,
Speaker 2: what is going on here with Trump and China?
Speaker 4: What the reality is?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I had a story about a week ago
Speaker 5: about what really led Trump to back down on China,
Speaker 5: and people inside the White House were explaining that basically
Speaker 5: what happened was it was increasingly clear that the one
Speaker 5: hundred and forty five percent tariffs on China were not
Speaker 5: just hitting guys on Wall Street. We're not just hitting
Speaker 5: sort of people who work at the ports and sort
Speaker 5: of coastal types, but that they were really affecting trump'space.
Speaker 5: Truckers and you know, sort of like shippers and people
Speaker 5: who Trump considers his people were getting sort of clobbed
Speaker 5: by these tariffs. And that fact we reported created the
Speaker 5: space for White House officials who didn't like these tariffs
Speaker 5: to go to Trump and say, hey, your own people,
Speaker 5: your own base is getting hit by this, so you
Speaker 5: need to figure out a way to get these things lowered.
Speaker 5: And that was what led to the talks in Geneva
Speaker 5: that led to the accord agree to buy Trader Tecerty.
Speaker 5: To Harry Scott Besson, the thing that Trump is complaining
Speaker 5: about is that even beyond the tariffs themselves, trying to
Speaker 5: retaliated by restricting what it were called rare earth metals,
Speaker 5: which are confusingly not actually that rare, but they are essential.
Speaker 5: And basically eighty percent of production or facilitation synthesis of
Speaker 5: these rare earth metals is in China. So basically most
Speaker 5: of the vastngery of the world's production is there, and they
Speaker 5: control that supply chain. That's critical for the US defense industry,
Speaker 5: for US healthcare sector, for all kinds of really critical
Speaker 5: economic functions. And I don't know enough personally to weigh
Speaker 5: in on this, but the Trump administration feels that China
Speaker 5: has not really removed those restrictions that they agreed to
Speaker 5: in the Switzerland Acords, and that they're still continuing to
Speaker 5: restrict those essential medals, and that that you know, might
Speaker 5: not show open the macroeconomic data, but could severely sort
Speaker 5: of weaken the US defense industrial capacity for a long time.
Speaker 5: And you know, the President thinks that thought that he
Speaker 5: had an agreement to get that off the books and
Speaker 5: doesn't feel like that that has been violated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Jeff, this also gets to this tension that
Speaker 3: you started by mentioning at the beginning. On the one hand,
Speaker 3: there's this Trump boys chickens out narrative. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: as you said, you wrote down the level of tariff,
Speaker 3: but like the increase of tariffs that we're actually at
Speaker 3: from the baseline before Donald Trump took over, and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe he's he's checking out on some of those points
Speaker 3: or him sure, he would just say it was negotiation.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, it actually still has a
Speaker 3: pretty high level of tariffs relative to everything that came
Speaker 3: before him.
Speaker 5: And that's actually another really big part of the tax
Speaker 5: bond market discussion, because if spending cuts of a huge
Speaker 5: magnitude are politically unpalatable and they feel like they can't
Speaker 5: really reduce the size of the tax cut itself anymore. Tariffs,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's been ridiculed, but it is true that
Speaker 5: the US government has quadrupled or more the amount of
Speaker 5: revenue it's bringing in through tariffs, and that can offset
Speaker 5: the fears in the bond market. So, you know, we've
Speaker 5: seen kind of a stalling of the deals that Trump
Speaker 5: said he was going to make with the Europeans and
Speaker 5: the Japanese and the Indians, that all that talk has
Speaker 5: really slowed down, and I think there's a legitimate question
Speaker 5: about whether part of that is due to the desire
Speaker 5: to bring in revenue via these high import duties, which help,
Speaker 5: you know, it's kind of an obvious point, but those
Speaker 5: fall quite heavily on lower income Americans who rely, you know,
Speaker 5: a disproportion to share their spending is on imports of
Speaker 5: food and you know, other sort of critical necessities, whereas
Speaker 5: you know, the tax bill disproportionately hurts them with the
Speaker 5: spending cuts. So it's it's they're really potentially getting pinged
Speaker 5: on both sides here.
Speaker 4: Jeff, last question for you.
Speaker 2: We had a court last week say, okay, these Liberation
Speaker 2: Day tariffs, they vastly exceed the authority.
Speaker 4: That you're invoking.
Speaker 2: Here, we had another court say, okay, the Peelsport Court
Speaker 2: said okay, well, while we're figuring this out, you can
Speaker 2: still keep the tariffs in place. The Trump administration has
Speaker 2: been very aggressive in going out and saying that regardless
Speaker 2: of first of all, they're really mad about the court's decision,
Speaker 2: but also second of all, they're saying, it doesn't change anything.
Speaker 4: We have other powers we can use.
Speaker 2: So what is your expectation of where we are with
Speaker 2: regard to Trump and his desire and ability to you know,
Speaker 2: to levy massive tariffs in whatever way he chooses to.
Speaker 5: So I don't want to bore your listeners anymore than
Speaker 5: I already have, and especially with like along winded explanation
Speaker 5: of like the different laws or right here, but to
Speaker 5: try to give you a quick summary, Trump imposed tariffs
Speaker 5: immediately under law called AIPO, which is a sort of
Speaker 5: national security emergency, and that's the one that the courts
Speaker 5: have targeted as being, you know, beyond the ability of
Speaker 5: the president. That said, there are other tariff authorities. They're
Speaker 5: called Section three h one and Section two thirty two
Speaker 5: tariffs that basically require at first an administrative a you know, investigation.
Speaker 5: The administration has to go out do a bunch of
Speaker 5: work and then say, because of that work, now we
Speaker 5: can do these tariffs. And that work is currently ongoing.
Speaker 5: It just it just takes a little bit of time.
Speaker 5: But there's really, I think, very very little doubt that
Speaker 5: those tariffs can be slowed down by the courts. So
Speaker 5: even if the courts take off the emergency powers tariffs
Speaker 5: which they have you know, slowed down, but then we're
Speaker 5: put back in. Even if that happens, there's still these
Speaker 5: other terriff authorities that I don't think really anyone questioned
Speaker 5: their ability to do, and I think those are going
Speaker 5: to stay, and actually could be even bigger in some
Speaker 5: ways than the National security teist because those are tariffs
Speaker 5: on sector, so like every car, every bit of steal,
Speaker 5: every you know, part of computer. So that's kind of
Speaker 5: where this is heading. It could circumscribe to some of
Speaker 5: the flexibility he has, but it doesn't change sort of
Speaker 5: like the economic fundamentals of what he wants to do.
Speaker 2: Gotcha all right, jefs Sin, thank you so much, and
Speaker 2: you are never boring, sir.
Speaker 4: We always appreciate your ancise, my pleasure.
Speaker 5: Thanks having great to see you.
Speaker 2: We are very fortunate to be rejoined this morning with
Speaker 2: Jeremy ska Hill, who of course is co founder of
Speaker 2: drop site News alongside our very owned Ryan Graham.
Speaker 4: Great to see Jeremy.
Speaker 7: Great to be back.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of developments to go through with you.
Speaker 2: Let's first of all, put these horrific images up on
Speaker 2: the screen of I hate even calling it AID distribution,
Speaker 2: but whatever you want to call this. What you see
Speaker 2: here first is the dynamic they've set up where Palestinians
Speaker 2: are just running in Survival of the Fittest Hunger game
Speaker 2: style to grab.
Speaker 4: Whatever quote unquote AID is available.
Speaker 2: But it turns even more horrific as Israelis began firing
Speaker 2: on this crowd, killing dozens of people, and you can
Speaker 2: see them fleeing, you can see.
Speaker 4: Them taking cover here.
Speaker 2: Jeremy, what do we know about what exactly unfolded here?
Speaker 2: Because I know the Israelis are completely denying that any
Speaker 2: of this actually occurred.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think it's important to remember what Netnyahu
Speaker 9: and other members of his work cabinets said at the
Speaker 9: beginning when we started to learn about this so called
Speaker 9: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and that is that it was never
Speaker 9: meant to be an actual aid distribution program, that this
Speaker 9: was meant to offer the veneer of giving humanitarian aid
Speaker 9: to Palestinians to sort of quiet down some of the
Speaker 9: critics from within the pro Israel camp internationally, nettnah who
Speaker 9: specifically said that he had been approached by Republican senators
Speaker 9: saying that they didn't want the appearance of starvation of
Speaker 9: the Palestinians of Gaza to affect the ability of the
Speaker 9: United States to continue funding and arming this war of annihilation.
Speaker 9: And so we just have to put that out there
Speaker 9: front and center. From the moment that this launched early
Speaker 9: last week, there have been dozens of Palestinians killed because
Speaker 9: Israelis have fired on them, either on their way to
Speaker 9: get AID or after they've retrieved AID. I personally know
Speaker 9: a Palestinian family four members were killed last week after
Speaker 9: they had gone to retrieve one of these small boxes
Speaker 9: that barely has enough food for their family. They were
Speaker 9: killed by tank ordinance. According to survivors of the hit
Speaker 9: against them and what we saw unfold over the weekend,
Speaker 9: many Palestinians are calling it the Whitcof massacre, named after
Speaker 9: Steve Whitcoff, the Special Envoy, because anger is mounting inside
Speaker 9: of Gaza toward Trump and his administration, because they feel
Speaker 9: like they are just completely taking Israel's side and trying
Speaker 9: to set the Palestinians up with a so called truce
Speaker 9: or ceasefire deal that would enable Netanyahu to resume the
Speaker 9: intensity of the full genocide after either seven days or
Speaker 9: sixty days. So what we witnessed here was the Israelis
Speaker 9: unleash gunfire and other attacks on this crowd. And as
Speaker 9: videos it reports start coming out of Gaza depicting this,
Speaker 9: and we start hearing international doctors that are on the
Speaker 9: ground there describing the injuries that they're treating Israel then
Speaker 9: puts out a video that it says actually shows Hamas
Speaker 9: was firing on people retrieving aid. Well, that video that
Speaker 9: the Israelis put out has now been geolocated, and it
Speaker 9: wasn't near Rafa where this witcough massacre as the Palestinians
Speaker 9: are calling it occurred, but actually had occurred at a
Speaker 9: different time, And it wasn't Hamas that was actually firing
Speaker 9: on Palestinians. It was a private gang that there's significant
Speaker 9: evidence to suggest is being bankrolled or backed by the
Speaker 9: Israelis to operate as kind of an armed thug force
Speaker 9: that is selling aid to Palestinians.
Speaker 7: So, you know, the final thing I'll say on.
Speaker 9: This crystal is that David Saderfield, who was President Biden's
Speaker 9: top humanitarian aid official and a very very militantly pro
Speaker 9: Israel guy, recently said on a national interview on CNN
Speaker 9: that there's no evidence whatsoever that he saw during his
Speaker 9: entire time when he was a senior Biden administration official
Speaker 9: that Hamas is hoarding any significant quantities of aid or
Speaker 9: is engaged in any of the kinds of activities that
Speaker 9: the Israelis are accusing them of.
Speaker 7: So clearly here.
Speaker 9: What we've seen is a massacre of Palestinians who were
Speaker 9: lured into this so called aid trap, where the actual
Speaker 9: point of it ultimately was set out in the open
Speaker 9: by Netanyahu. Forced Palestinians into an ever small, shrinking killing cage,
Speaker 9: and then for them to depend on the food inside
Speaker 9: of that killing cage so that you can either kill
Speaker 9: more of them or ultimately implement what they keep calling
Speaker 9: Trump's plan, which is to forcibly deport Palestinians from Gaza.
Speaker 3: And Jeremy, can I get your reaction? Help us parse
Speaker 3: be too. This is Ryan's tweet. He actually said the
Speaker 3: statement from the IDEF about last night's massacre was distributed
Speaker 3: to journalists, and because Ryan didn't agree to be off
Speaker 3: the record and this wasn't sent directly to him from
Speaker 3: the IDF, he actually just posted what was supposed to
Speaker 3: what the IDEAF wanted to remain quote unquote off the record,
Speaker 3: and their statement says, approximately one kilometer away from the
Speaker 3: humanitary aid distribution site and outside the operating hours of
Speaker 3: the humanitary aid distribution site, IDF troops acted to prevent
Speaker 3: several suspects from approaching the troops. During the activity, warning
Speaker 3: shots were fired towards several suspects who advanced toward the troops.
Speaker 3: There's no connection between this incident and the false claims
Speaker 3: made against the IDF, So Jeremy, on the one hand,
Speaker 3: what we're seeing there is an admission of military action
Speaker 3: from the IDF. Right, that's part of the statement. So
Speaker 3: can you help us understand how Israel is explaining what happened?
Speaker 9: Well, I'm really glad that Ryan posted this because it
Speaker 9: sort of opens this window into what happens behind the
Speaker 9: scenes that most of the public in the world has
Speaker 9: never allowed access to, and that is that Israel will
Speaker 9: send out official statements that make a certain claim in
Speaker 9: a very clear way, and then they'll sort of brief
Speaker 9: journalists off the record, not on background, off the record,
Speaker 9: as a way of trying to ensure that this narrative,
Speaker 9: as false as it may be, penetrates into the coverage.
Speaker 9: And you see these repeated, these claims repeated all the
Speaker 9: time by journalists. I mean, the track record now is
Speaker 9: a nineteen month track record where Palestinians videotape witness and
Speaker 9: then tell the world what has happened.
Speaker 7: They're smeared as being hamas fake or.
Speaker 9: Fabricated videos or out out of context videos or mistranslated
Speaker 9: documents are then presented to the public, and then it
Speaker 9: sort of seems like it's a well Hamas says this,
Speaker 9: and the good guys say that, and you even see
Speaker 9: Israeli officials saying, who do you want to believe? Hamas
Speaker 9: or an American run aid organization and the Israeli military.
Speaker 9: So you know, what Ryan did was sort of allow
Speaker 9: people to see, just for a moment, the way that
Speaker 9: the propaganda is manufactured and the reality is emily that
Speaker 9: all throughout this genocide, we've seen this repeated over and
Speaker 9: over and over about massive tunnels under hospitals, Hamas using
Speaker 9: protective facilities as military bases. Israel has never been able
Speaker 9: to produce evidence for the most incendiary claims that it's made,
Speaker 9: and they're relying on the fact that many media outlets
Speaker 9: will take the testimony of Palestinians and accept that that's
Speaker 9: Hamas's narrative. You know, many people in Palestine are from
Speaker 9: different political factions. Hamas did not win one hundred percent
Speaker 9: of the vote the last time that they had a
Speaker 9: democratic election.
Speaker 7: You know, many of the people.
Speaker 9: That Israel is killing in its war aren't even members
Speaker 9: of Hamas not not to mention like military members. Palestine
Speaker 9: is a diverse society and I think it really speaks
Speaker 9: to the effect of the dehumanization campaign that the Israeli
Speaker 9: military can put out a video that has nothing to
Speaker 9: do with a massacre that it committed, and so many
Speaker 9: news outlets and just people on social media accept Israel's
Speaker 9: word for it, when nineteen months of context and history
Speaker 9: indicate that you should never believe the first draft ever
Speaker 9: of what Israel says unless they provide indisputable evidence, which
Speaker 9: they never do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the hope is just to push off to
Speaker 2: make the conversation and the telling of facts contested, and
Speaker 2: by the time there's any conclusive investigation, everybody's moved on.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's really the goal here, is that I
Speaker 2: don't think that they believe that if there was actually
Speaker 2: an investigation here by the New York Times or whoever,
Speaker 2: with the limited ability they had to penetrate into Gaza,
Speaker 2: that they would come to the conclusion that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: Israel was correct. I don't think they believe that. They
Speaker 2: just want to push that reckoning off into the future
Speaker 2: and then it's contested and by the time you know,
Speaker 2: any sort of actual like definitive conclusion is reached by
Speaker 2: the sanctioned official outlets. Everyone's moved on to the next thing.
Speaker 2: I want to go ahead and get you to walk
Speaker 2: us through what's going on with the ceasefire negotiations and
Speaker 2: put the tear sheet up on the screen here, guys
Speaker 2: of Jeremy's report. Your headline here is how Israel and
Speaker 2: Witkof are trying to strong arm Hamas into a deal
Speaker 2: that does not end the genocide. And you go point
Speaker 2: by point through what it was that Witkoff or Hamas
Speaker 2: and the administration had agreed to, and then what the
Speaker 2: Israeli are pushing for in this quote unquote deal. And
Speaker 2: seems like there's a number of things here that are
Speaker 2: meant to be poison pills. So just walk us through
Speaker 2: the dynamics and some of the critical differences between these
Speaker 2: two drafts.
Speaker 9: Well, you know, first of all, starting a month or
Speaker 9: so ago, you had direct talk between Hamas and an
Speaker 9: unusual envoy for the Trump administration, a Palestinian American academic
Speaker 9: named Bashara Baba, who was a lifelong Democrat that broke
Speaker 9: with the Democratic Party even before Kamala Harris became the
Speaker 9: nominee and had denounced Joe Biden as genocide Joe and
Speaker 9: said that he felt that Palestinians would have a better
Speaker 9: chance of ending the war under Donald Trump. And he's
Speaker 9: actually been very critical of Trump publicly, which is unusual
Speaker 9: in the.
Speaker 7: Sort of Trump world.
Speaker 9: But he started an open channel with Hamas to try
Speaker 9: to work on the Eadon Alexander deal. The American citizen
Speaker 9: who had been in the Israeli military was taken on
Speaker 9: October seventh, and they successfully did make a deal to
Speaker 9: release him, and there was supposed to be a lifting
Speaker 9: of israel siege as a result of that, Trump publicly
Speaker 9: calling for a ceasefire. That didn't happen, but the discussions continued,
Speaker 9: and basically what happened is that the Americans worked with
Speaker 9: Hamas and they said, why don't you lay out for
Speaker 9: us what your terms would be for a ceasefire, but
Speaker 9: it has to fit within this category, and Witkoff and
Speaker 9: Baba made clear to Hamas what the kind of bottom
Speaker 9: lines were. Hamas then delivers a thirteen point proposal that
Speaker 9: fit in line with what the American said. This was
Speaker 9: last Sunday on May twenty fifth. Hamas then announced that
Speaker 9: it has made an agreement with the United States for
Speaker 9: a framework for negotiating a ceasefire. Now, in a mediation
Speaker 9: process or a negotiation process, this is very common. One
Speaker 9: side drafts something, the mediators look at it, they say, Okay,
Speaker 9: we're going to go down back to the other side.
Speaker 9: So they were told, yes, this is acceptable, this fits
Speaker 9: within the American requirements.
Speaker 7: Now we're going to go to Israel.
Speaker 9: And my sources within Hamas have said that the Americans said,
Speaker 9: we're going to try to push Israel on these terms.
Speaker 9: So then Hamas waits. Two days later, Donald Trump is
Speaker 9: in the Oval office. He summons Steve Whitcoff to come
Speaker 9: up in front of the press, and Witkof had denounced Hamas,
Speaker 9: saying that what they had given as a proposal was unacceptable,
Speaker 9: which from Hamas's perspective, was crazy because this wasn't meant
Speaker 9: to be an ultimatum. It was sort of a start
Speaker 9: point from where what Hamas's position would be. So Witkoff
Speaker 9: then says, oh, we're on the precipice of sending out.
Speaker 7: A new term sheet.
Speaker 9: He called it to use like a business term instead
Speaker 9: of a framework for a ceasefire. And what then happens
Speaker 9: two days later, is they they then come up with
Speaker 9: what was a draft that was primarily written by Ron Dermer,
Speaker 9: Netanyahu's top advisor and lead official doing these negotiations, and
Speaker 9: what they basically did was return to all of Israel's ultimatums.
Speaker 9: The bottom line on this is that Hamas has made
Speaker 9: many concessions in this back and forth, but they've identified
Speaker 9: as as minimal red lines that they want a clear
Speaker 9: path to an end to the genocide. They've said in
Speaker 9: their own proposal that the moment a ceasefire agreement is signed,
Speaker 9: Hamas will totally relinquish governing authority.
Speaker 7: And all power in Gaza.
Speaker 9: This is this is extraordinary to see this in the document,
Speaker 9: because it's Hamas on the record saying we will relinquish
Speaker 9: power in favor of an independent Palestinian committee of technocrats.
Speaker 9: When we then obtained all three versions of these proposals
Speaker 9: that we published in full last week, and what's extraordinary
Speaker 9: is that the Israeli proposal.
Speaker 7: Took that out. It took out of.
Speaker 9: The ceasefire framework Hamas agreeing to immediately relinquish governing authority
Speaker 9: of Gaza the moment a ceasefire is signed and you know,
Speaker 9: there's some theories that you know that that have been
Speaker 9: floating around for some time that Netnya who wants Hamas
Speaker 9: to remain in power because he can easily demonize them
Speaker 9: as a terrorist organization.
Speaker 2: I mean, has it He effectively said exactly that in.
Speaker 7: The past it's complicated.
Speaker 9: Netnya, who has for certain strategic reasons, said that the
Speaker 9: you know, the only way to thwart a unified Palestinian
Speaker 9: state is to keep Hamas in power in Gaza. But
Speaker 9: there are many other layers to the context of what
Speaker 9: happened at the at the time that we could go
Speaker 9: into if you want. But yes, there are there's certainly
Speaker 9: are benefits to having a party in power that you
Speaker 9: have effectively dehumanized, demonized that is listed on the State
Speaker 9: Department list of terrorist organizations, the British designation as a
Speaker 9: terrorist organization.
Speaker 7: But I think it's much deeper.
Speaker 9: They even are saying it's unacceptable for Mahmudabas, the head
Speaker 9: of the Palestinian authority, to be in charge in Gaza,
Speaker 9: and he has basically acted as an agent of the occupation.
Speaker 9: That's how he's widely seen among Palestinians. So it's not
Speaker 9: just about Hamas, it's that Israel doesn't want Palestinians in
Speaker 9: control of Palestine at all. And you know, that's really
Speaker 9: what I think the game is here. It's not just
Speaker 9: about Hamas. It's that we don't want a Palestinian committee.
Speaker 9: They want probably a puppet sort of coalition of certain
Speaker 9: Arab nations that have normalized relations with Israel to be
Speaker 9: the ones that come in as an outside force. They
Speaker 9: don't want Palestinians in charge of their own political destiny
Speaker 9: or to continue forward with a path of a national
Speaker 9: liberation struggle.
Speaker 3: And from the US, the perspective of US interests the
Speaker 3: deal that you just laid out, Jeremy, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're the Trump administration, if you're Eve Whitkough and you're
Speaker 3: continuing to get pushed by Israel as they remove the
Speaker 3: provision that you just mentioned, it seems like US interests
Speaker 3: are actually being thwarted. And that's separate from what all
Speaker 3: the disagreements that the three of us have with the
Speaker 3: Trump administration's position throughout this entire process. But it just
Speaker 3: seems like US interests are sort of obviously being sidelined
Speaker 3: or harmed here in this negotiation process.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean there were indications going back to Trump's
Speaker 9: first term and the way he interacted with Mahmudabas from
Speaker 9: the Palestinian authority, things that Trump has said also to
Speaker 9: Arab Americans. There are indications that Trump understands that the
Speaker 9: Palestinians struggle for liberation or statehood has very clearly not
Speaker 9: identified the United States as a party it wants to
Speaker 9: be at war with. It's why Hamas and Palestinian Islamic
Speaker 9: Jihad are not conducting any attacks outside of the boundaries
Speaker 9: of historic Palestine. And I think objectively speaking, it would
Speaker 9: be in the US interest to have a stable, independent
Speaker 9: Palestinian state that has good relations with the United States.
Speaker 9: As you know, Emily, as well as any journalist covering this,
Speaker 9: there are multiple camps in Trump world, and I think
Speaker 9: what we're seeing here is that the most militant, hardline
Speaker 9: kind of Zionist camp within Trump's political network, his administration,
Speaker 9: and his financiers of his campaign, they don't want any
Speaker 9: Palestinian state. You know, people like Mariam Adelson and Mike
Speaker 9: Hackabee don't believe there's a such thing as Palestinians. But
Speaker 9: you know, Ryan Grim and I have also heard from
Speaker 9: sources within the administration that are in a different camp,
Speaker 9: that are in an anti interventionist camp, that believe that
Speaker 9: the United States should not be entangled in foreign wars,
Speaker 9: that are growing increasingly concerned about Witkoff's conduct.
Speaker 7: You know, that the idea that he's.
Speaker 9: Morphing into an Antony Blinken type figure, when at the
Speaker 9: beginning he seemed to have some spine, He seemed to
Speaker 9: be willing to summon Net Yahoo and make him understand
Speaker 9: America has limits with you. Now there is still some
Speaker 9: hope I think, not just among you know, the Palestinians
Speaker 9: that are negotiating this, but more broadly that eventually Trump
Speaker 9: is going to understand that allowing Net and Yahoo to
Speaker 9: be in control of agreements that clearly the United States
Speaker 9: can have the final word on is counter to American interest.
Speaker 9: It is not actually in the US interests to have
Speaker 9: someone setting fires all over the Middle East. I mean,
Speaker 9: really fascinating. When Trump was asked about Iran at that
Speaker 9: press conference in the Oval Office last week where he
Speaker 9: had summoned whitcof to make the Gaza comments, he was
Speaker 9: asked by reporters, you know about what did you say
Speaker 9: to Net Yahoo and Trump basically set it out loud.
Speaker 9: I told him to back off, you know, so again,
Speaker 9: you know, people often attack me and they say, oh,
Speaker 9: why are you believing what Trump says, or why are
Speaker 9: you believing what Witcoff says.
Speaker 7: I'm not believing anything. I'm reporting accurately on it.
Speaker 9: And I'm sorry that you think that reporting factually on
Speaker 9: Donald Trump and an issue of massive consequence somehow means
Speaker 9: that I'm like getting tricked by the Trump administration. This
Speaker 9: is called basic journalism, and we're going to continue doing it.
Speaker 2: Speaking of basicjournalism, I think that's a good transition to
Speaker 2: Jake Tapper and his appearance on Bill Maher's show over
Speaker 2: the weekend, and he asked he got asked about the
Speaker 2: student protests, the pro Palestine student protests that have been
Speaker 2: happening on college campuses since the outbreak of this genocide,
Speaker 2: and he gave an answer that has elicited a lot
Speaker 2: of interest. So let's go ahead and take a listen
Speaker 2: to what he had to say.
Speaker 10: It has to do with an academic theology of oppressor
Speaker 10: and oppressed. If you only look at the world as
Speaker 10: oppressor versus oppressed, you then have to choose in a
Speaker 10: conflict this group is the oppressor. This group is the oppressed.
Speaker 10: It's also why, for example, there have been conflicts on
Speaker 10: other college campuses. We're gay students have protested things that
Speaker 10: are going on in Muslim countries having to do with
Speaker 10: the LGBT community community in those countries, and the gay
Speaker 10: students are made to be the oppressor because a lot
Speaker 10: of them are white. And that's also what's going on
Speaker 10: when it comes to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The Israelis
Speaker 10: are made to be the oppressor of the Palestinians, the oppressed, and.
Speaker 5: On and on and on.
Speaker 10: And that's part of what's going on at Harvard, that
Speaker 10: theology that we have looking at the world.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that explanation for the motivation
Speaker 2: behind these protests.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, look, part of the reason why we're
Speaker 9: seeing such fribrant activism on college campuses, such uncompromising principal positions,
Speaker 9: is that young people's brains are not contaminated by the
Speaker 9: likes of people like Jake Tapper, who have just been
Speaker 9: conveyor belts for propaganda from the very moment that this
Speaker 9: genocidal war began. Their brains are not poisoned by this
Speaker 9: dogmatic adherence to the conventions of imperial foreign policy, which,
Speaker 9: unfortunately Jake Tapper has totally morphed in to a spokesperson
Speaker 9: for the greatest excesses of imperialism during the past nineteen months.
Speaker 9: And also sometimes the truth is just true. No one
Speaker 9: with a brain in their head can look objectively at
Speaker 9: what has happened over the past nineteen months and come
Speaker 9: to any conclusion but that Israel is the oppressor in
Speaker 9: this case. They are burning children alive. They are tricking
Speaker 9: people to come to aid, to get aid, and then
Speaker 9: drone striking them, hitting them with tanks, firing bullets upon them.
Speaker 9: They're bombing hospitals, They're shredding children. This morning, I saw
Speaker 9: a girl who looked like she was about six or
Speaker 9: seven years old. Her body was completely severed in half.
Speaker 9: Every single day we are watching Palestinian children burned alive
Speaker 9: with American weapons, and Jake Tapper has the audacity to
Speaker 9: use the phrase academic theology. The theology that Jake Tapper
Speaker 9: and people like him subscribe to is this deference to
Speaker 9: the lie filled agenda of the most powerful and violent
Speaker 9: forces on earth.
Speaker 7: It's shameful, but their day is over. Their day is over.
Speaker 9: Because shows like this are spreading because independent news outlets
Speaker 9: refuse to be conveyor belts for the lives of the powerful.
Speaker 9: Jake Tapper is grasping at straws because his era is done.
Speaker 3: It's just galling, especially as somebody on the right to
Speaker 3: listen to Jake Tapper make that argument at this point
Speaker 3: after years of just horrible, horrible coverage that I mean,
Speaker 3: the point of the oppressed oppressor dichotomy, Jeremy, and this
Speaker 3: is interesting is the problem is that you have these
Speaker 3: blanket applications of it, and Tapper there he doesn't quite
Speaker 3: understand what he's saying because he brings in this idea
Speaker 3: that the gay students are being condemned as oppressors because
Speaker 3: they're white, and then says that's the same lens that's
Speaker 3: being applied in Israel Palestine, and it's like, dude, you
Speaker 3: don't even understand this idea that you are now condemning
Speaker 3: as the source of the poison, the source of the
Speaker 3: all bad things happening here. The point is, sometimes people
Speaker 3: actually are oppressors, and sometimes people actually are oppressed, not
Speaker 3: all of the time, but sometimes, and yes, some people
Speaker 3: take it too far and apply it universally, but sometimes
Speaker 3: it's actually true, and he seems to just be unable
Speaker 3: to understand that a lot of young people aren't like
Speaker 3: this is a great point that you made, Jeremy. A
Speaker 3: lot of young people aren't even pay attention to see
Speaker 3: in it, and they have no idea what he's saying.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and I think, you know, we're in a moment
Speaker 9: where political alignments have shifted, and I think that there's
Speaker 9: you know, also the issues around cancel culture and around speech.
Speaker 9: I think that anyone that genuinely believes in this doesn't
Speaker 9: believe in censoring the speech of people who are on
Speaker 9: the far right that they disagree with. I think that
Speaker 9: people who genuinely believe in free speech aren't against censoring
Speaker 9: those on the far left.
Speaker 7: And I think that genuinely.
Speaker 9: People who are in support of free speech should be
Speaker 9: on the front lines right now of this vicious attack
Speaker 9: on speech related to Palestine. You know, one of the
Speaker 9: things that I always have held on to I have
Speaker 9: many criticisms of the United States. We have what I
Speaker 9: believe is the best speech laws on the books of
Speaker 9: any country in the world, and they are worth fighting for. Yes,
Speaker 9: the idea that the notion of free speech was not
Speaker 9: only enshrined in the Constitution, but has been upheld by
Speaker 9: conservative and liberal justices throughout history. That's worth protecting with
Speaker 9: everything that we have. And so you know, people like
Speaker 9: Jake Tapper are actually much more in alignment in many
Speaker 9: ways with people on the far right or in the
Speaker 9: Trump administration that are trying to demonize or criminalize the
Speaker 9: speech of people that are speaking out against Israel's genocidal war.
Speaker 9: I think people from all factions should realize that the
Speaker 9: time when your principle is shown is not when speech
Speaker 9: is being curbed against people you agree with. That it's
Speaker 9: being curbed or attacked against people with whom you have
Speaker 9: vehement disagreements. That's what actually shows what your principles are.
Speaker 2: The other irony here is that, Okay, not only if
Speaker 2: you're applying the oppressor oppressed lens here like and you
Speaker 2: are pro palestime, you were applying it correctly, but it's
Speaker 2: also ironic to me because people like Tapper and you
Speaker 2: know Israelis and defenders of Israel, they are the most
Speaker 2: abusive of the oppressor oppressed narrative because basically the paradigm
Speaker 2: that they use to try, especially with like you know,
Speaker 2: to keep liberals on side is to say, remember what
Speaker 2: happened to Jews in the Holocaust, which of course was
Speaker 2: absolutely atrocious and nobody wants to see or feel like
Speaker 2: never again should be real. But then they just keep
Speaker 2: this one group of people in the perpetual victim category,
Speaker 2: no matter how circumstances change, no matter what the reality is,
Speaker 2: no matter what that group of people is doing. So,
Speaker 2: you know, and the other piece of this, of course,
Speaker 2: is that people like Tapper conflate all Jewish people, yes
Speaker 2: with Israel, and all Jewish people with being you know,
Speaker 2: supportive of Israeli actions, which we also know is completely
Speaker 2: false and untrue, and also place into actually the very
Speaker 2: simplistic like victim narrative that he perpetuates and propagates with
Speaker 2: his propaganda.
Speaker 3: And Jeremy before we toss that too, I just want
Speaker 3: to add the oppressor oppressed ecotomy, which you know he's
Speaker 3: ten years late to saying, oh, maybe this is the
Speaker 3: thing that's happening among young people in college, like it's
Speaker 3: more of a millennial thing than it is a zoomer thing.
Speaker 3: But anyway, all this to say, it's about power, the
Speaker 3: sort of Marxist I don't even want to use his
Speaker 3: term theology behind it, but it's about power dynamics, and
Speaker 3: that's where he also is completely clueless as to how
Speaker 3: this is or is not being applied in that case
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean to go back also to what, you know,
Speaker 9: what Crystal just said earlier. You know, you look at
Speaker 9: the recent protest organized by Jewish anti war activists to
Speaker 9: occupy Trump Tower. Fox News reported that as an anti
Speaker 9: Semitic protest in Germany, You've had numerous Jews arrested in
Speaker 9: Germany on anti Semitic hate speech charges, including Jewish people
Speaker 9: living in Germany who are Israeli citizens. I mean, this
Speaker 9: has become such a kind of lethal parody of the
Speaker 9: notion of what free speech is. And let us never
Speaker 9: forget that the you know, the United States, all of
Speaker 9: us who grew up in the United States, at every event,
Speaker 9: it's we're reminded of the greatest generation. We're reminded of
Speaker 9: the sacrifices of World War Two. This is the origin
Speaker 9: of what we're witnessing now. When the United States and
Speaker 9: European countries decided to impose a European settler colonial state
Speaker 9: on Palestinian land. That's historical context that matters. And at
Speaker 9: the end of the day, the position that the supporters
Speaker 9: of Israel's genocidal war take is that nothing can justify
Speaker 9: October seventh, but October seventh justifies everything. And this is
Speaker 9: a massive historical lie that necessitates people believing that history
Speaker 9: began on October seventh. It's a huge mistake for us
Speaker 9: not to take into account the seventy seven years of
Speaker 9: history that led up to this. Whatever anyone's political position
Speaker 9: is on this, let's debate based on facts and historical
Speaker 9: accuracy and not just invent our own paradigm where Israel
Speaker 9: equals Judaism. Masses of Jews around the world have been
Speaker 9: at the forefront of opposing this genocide and it's a
Speaker 9: total insult to the Jewish faith for net and Yahoo
Speaker 9: to pretend that his war of annihilation is somehow being
Speaker 9: done in the name of a religion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is all so well said Jeremy Skahill. Always
Speaker 2: great to have you, sir, Thank.
Speaker 7: You, Thank you both for all your work.
Speaker 2: Ukraine was able to pull off quite a stunning surprise
Speaker 2: drone attack within Russia, deep inside of Russia, on Russian
Speaker 2: air bases. We can put some of these images up
Speaker 2: on the screen that have come out. So a swarm
Speaker 2: of drones that had been smuggled into the country, and
Speaker 2: I'll give you some more details of the operation just
Speaker 2: a moment. We're able to attack a bunch of Russian warplanes.
Speaker 2: Now the Ukrainians are claiming that over forty of these
Speaker 2: Russian warplanes were hit in an operation that is being
Speaker 2: called Spiderweb.
Speaker 4: And this is some of the video that.
Speaker 2: They released where you can see these fighter jets that
Speaker 2: are on fire and had been targeted. This happened at
Speaker 2: not just one base, but another of them, even as
Speaker 2: far away as Siberia, so they were able to penetrate
Speaker 2: deep inside of Russian territory and you know, strike a
Speaker 2: significant blow against Russia's offensive air capabilities, including some of
Speaker 2: these warplanes, are you know, critical in terms of the
Speaker 2: nuclear triad.
Speaker 4: Here you have.
Speaker 2: This gets to some of the details of the operations.
Speaker 2: You can see these drones flying out of these semi
Speaker 2: trucks that had been positioned in strategic places.
Speaker 4: The expectation is that.
Speaker 2: The drivers of these trucks may not have even known
Speaker 2: what they were transporting. These drones were sealed and they're
Speaker 2: tiny things.
Speaker 4: You could see there. They look like I mean, they
Speaker 4: look like children's toys.
Speaker 2: They were sealed inside of the top of these crates,
Speaker 2: so you had like the crate and then right there
Speaker 2: was like a false lid on the crate where the
Speaker 2: drones were inside of there. And then there was an
Speaker 2: ability for the Ukrainians to remote control open the lid
Speaker 2: of these crates and release these drones. Again you can
Speaker 2: see one of them and how small they are into
Speaker 2: the air to go and hit their targets. The Ukrainians
Speaker 2: are saying that this operation was more than eighteen months
Speaker 2: in the making, and you know, obviously context here is
Speaker 2: you have some negotiations that are ongoing.
Speaker 4: You also have Russians.
Speaker 2: The Russians have been able to take a significant amount
Speaker 2: of territory in recent days and putin seems you know,
Speaker 2: pretty intransigent in terms of bending at all in the
Speaker 2: context of peace negotiations. So you know, this could be
Speaker 2: an attempt to demonstrate, hey, we still have a lot
Speaker 2: of capability and we can still cause you pain even
Speaker 2: deep within your own territory.
Speaker 4: Can put these this tear sheet up on the screen.
Speaker 2: I'll just read a little bit of this and make
Speaker 2: sure I have all the details right. Ukraine claims massive
Speaker 2: drone strike on Russian bombers in Spiderweb operation audacious attack
Speaker 2: targeted forty one strategic Russian aircraft. Again, this is according
Speaker 2: to the Ukrainians. The Russians are downplaying the damage. We
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what the number is, but clearly they
Speaker 2: were able to commit some damage here to the Russian fleet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ukraine cleaning two billion dollars. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ukraine security service that it struck more than forty
Speaker 2: Russian bombers deep inside Russian territory and what would be
Speaker 2: one of the largest and most audacious attacks on Russian
Speaker 2: territory in the years long conflict. A source within the
Speaker 2: security service of Ukraine told NBC News the country targeted
Speaker 2: forty one strategic Russian aircraft. The source also released dramatic
Speaker 2: video purportedly showing a drone attack at an airbase located
Speaker 2: in Siberia, nearly three thousand miles from Ukraine. The video
Speaker 2: captures bombers under attack, with explosions visible and smoke rising.
Speaker 4: From the scene.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the videos that we just
Speaker 2: showed you. And as Emily just said, they are claiming
Speaker 2: two billion dollars in damage. So obviously a very dramatic
Speaker 2: and sophisticated attack, also one that has potentially troubling implications
Speaker 2: when you're talking about a nuclear armed superpower being made
Speaker 2: to feel very insecure within its own territory. And I
Speaker 2: know that it's sort of obnoxious to talk this way
Speaker 2: when Russia is bombing and bombarding Ukraine for years at
Speaker 2: this point, but we also have to acknowledge the reality
Speaker 2: of the situation and how dangerous and fraught it Ultimately
Speaker 2: is something that people like us have been warning about
Speaker 2: for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, to your point, people have been making
Speaker 3: obvious comparisons between the Beeper attack and this one. Yes,
Speaker 3: the crimea bridge also that was people may remember that
Speaker 3: was a truck. It was an explosion from a truck
Speaker 3: that was years ago at this point. But the infiltration
Speaker 3: of civilian infrastructure, this was more than three thousand miles
Speaker 3: away I think you already mentioned this, but more than
Speaker 3: three thousand miles away, as far as Siberia from Kiev.
Speaker 3: So incredible from a military perspective, and military experts have
Speaker 3: looked at that and said, this not only is just
Speaker 3: remarkable technologically, but this changes literally changes the game. This
Speaker 3: changes the future of warfare because again, you can remotely
Speaker 3: detonate things with three thousand plus miles of distance between
Speaker 3: you and in this case of truck, and completely change
Speaker 3: a war that's been going on for years and years.
Speaker 3: And Russia had been crystal noted this bombarding Ukraine hard
Speaker 3: in the days before this, a lot of Ukrainian service
Speaker 3: members had died. So there's peace negotiations happening today, actually
Speaker 3: right now in Istanbul. I want to put this next
Speaker 3: element on the screen. This is c three conflicting reports
Speaker 3: about whether the United States knew. So this is Jennifer
Speaker 3: Jacobs of CBS saying administration sources told her that the
Speaker 3: White House was not aware that today's large scale drone
Speaker 3: attack by Ukraine on the Russian military aircraft was coming.
Speaker 3: That's also quite an interesting aspect of this happening right
Speaker 3: before major peace negotiating negotiations at the same time. And
Speaker 3: we can put the next element, this is our no
Speaker 3: Bertrand saying essentially, it's the same type of action as
Speaker 3: Israel's pager attack, turning civilian supply chains into potential weapon
Speaker 3: delivery systems and making them inherently suspect our not goes
Speaker 3: on to say it should be deeply troubling to anyone
Speaker 3: thinking through the sheer irresponsibility of the precedent set and
Speaker 3: Christally you put this really well that it's it's not
Speaker 3: an easy point to make when we're talking about Ukraine
Speaker 3: defending itself and responding to days of bombardment that killed
Speaker 3: its service members. But the precedent being set in the
Speaker 3: midst of war is troubling because it's in that sort
Speaker 3: of fog of war. It's in the fog of uncertainty
Speaker 3: of war and desperation and going forward it is really frightening.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing is I mean, I think in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways the genie is out of the
Speaker 2: bottle with I mean these the drones we showed you
Speaker 2: what they look like, small, inexpensive off the shelf. You know,
Speaker 2: this isn't just some you know, a superpower that would
Speaker 2: be able to procure and deploy these killing machines. You
Speaker 2: have you know, parallels not only to the Pager attack,
Speaker 2: but I also was thinking back to the tech that
Speaker 2: was used on October seventh by hamas they also used
Speaker 2: low budget off the shelf drones to to destroy and
Speaker 2: debilitate this multi million dollar, elaborate high tech security fence
Speaker 2: that Israel had put into place, complete with automatic machine guns,
Speaker 2: and so they were able to disable the sensors and
Speaker 2: the cameras.
Speaker 4: And that was the start of October seventh.
Speaker 2: So, you know, like I said, in some ways, I
Speaker 2: don't I don't think there's any putting this genie back
Speaker 2: in the bottle. But when you think about you know,
Speaker 2: nonstate actors, when you think about terror and what they
Speaker 2: could do with this sort of you know, relatively low tech,
Speaker 2: relatively inexpensive tech. And then the other piece of this
Speaker 2: that our NO is really pointing to there, and this
Speaker 2: this part is you know a little bit different than
Speaker 2: the like, you know, the the terror networks, et cetera,
Speaker 2: because of the extensive coordination that would be involved. Not
Speaker 2: to say it's impossible, but the infiltration of civilian supply lines.
Speaker 2: I mean, this has long been considered completely out of
Speaker 2: bounds in terms of war fighting, and you know, it
Speaker 2: appears like that was involved here in this Ukrainian attack
Speaker 2: with Russia. And so you have not only the you know,
Speaker 2: troubling context of going after Russia's nuclear triad and Russia
Speaker 2: being a nuclear power, and you know, at a particularly
Speaker 2: fraught moment in terms of this this ongoing horrific war.
Speaker 2: But then you also have what this spells in terms
Speaker 2: of the future of warfare. And if you are the
Speaker 2: global superpower as we are, with a one trillion dollar
Speaker 2: defense budget, as we are about to be, you have
Speaker 2: to grapple with the fact that you know, nearly any
Speaker 2: actor around the world could acquire this technology and deploy
Speaker 2: it for horror, teror killing and death anywhere in the world. Right, So,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that should be really I think
Speaker 2: that should be unsettling for everyone here and abroad and
Speaker 2: in Russia and Ukraine and everywhere else because of what
Speaker 2: it means in terms of the ability of even small
Speaker 2: ragtag groups to inflict death and suffering on anyone they want.
Speaker 3: And again, so, Jennifer Jacobs of CBS also reported that
Speaker 3: administration sources told her that there was no intelligence sharing
Speaker 3: that the US and charity intel and it's with Zelenski
Speaker 3: and Ukraine for Operation Spider's Web. According to Admin sources
Speaker 3: talking to Jennifer Jacobs, Ukraine gathered its own information.
Speaker 4: So this is I'm a little skeptical, but yeah, and.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering so, and I wonder if that's she's citing
Speaker 3: Trump administration sources. Curious also if there are Ukrainian sources
Speaker 3: that are making this sound like it was completely companion
Speaker 3: or on the other hand, is this the US saying
Speaker 3: that this is Ukraine so that it can continue the
Speaker 3: negotiations with sort of the I mean neutrality is not
Speaker 3: the right word, but that sense of diplomacy that's being
Speaker 3: brought to the negotiations. So no idea about that, but
Speaker 3: it does raise the question, similarly to what's happened in Israel,
Speaker 3: about you know, actors who could not be prosecuting these
Speaker 3: wars without massive funding and resources from the United States
Speaker 3: acting independently in ways that if you're Ukraine and you
Speaker 3: have different goals for how this war should end from
Speaker 3: the person who's funding the war or the country, I
Speaker 3: should say, is funding the war to the tune of
Speaker 3: billions and billions of dollars, and you're not on the
Speaker 3: same page about it, Maybe you're going to do things
Speaker 3: and keep them private that can escalate during peace negotiations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that start. I think it's a possibility.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't take it face value. The Administration's claims that
Speaker 2: they had no idea in advance, because to your point,
Speaker 2: both the Trump administration and the Ukrainians have an incentive
Speaker 2: to make it look like we had no involvement, because
Speaker 2: for the Ukrainians it's a projection of strength, like, look,
Speaker 2: we don't even need the US.
Speaker 4: Look what we're able to do on our own.
Speaker 2: This you know, highly complex, and it certainly was required
Speaker 2: long term planning, you know, did require some you know,
Speaker 2: tech in terms of being able to deploy these things
Speaker 2: from the trucks where they were stored potentially for months
Speaker 2: and months, we don't exactly know. So the Ukrainians want
Speaker 2: to be able to say, like, look what we can do,
Speaker 2: and we don't even need our big brother and our
Speaker 2: greatest ally, the US. The US wants to keep their
Speaker 2: hands clean, so they both have an incentive even if
Speaker 2: there was US involvement, to say that there wasn't. However,
Speaker 2: it is also possible that, you know, the Ukrainians are
Speaker 2: acting independently in a sort of I mean actually rogue way,
Speaker 2: which is also a disturbing possibility in and of itself.
Speaker 2: I didn't give it as much attention, but there were
Speaker 2: also two Ukrainian attacks recently within Russia that targeted bridges
Speaker 2: and caused actually some civilian deaths within Russia as well,
Speaker 2: and that hasn't been I think the reason it hasn't
Speaker 2: been reported as much is because the Ukrainians haven't, I believe,
Speaker 2: claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Speaker 4: So it's still somewhat disputed.
Speaker 2: But the understanding, you know, if you read the global
Speaker 2: press and if you read the Russian press, is they
Speaker 2: believe that these were both targeted by Ukraine, which does
Speaker 2: follow and does make sense based on other operations from
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian security services within the State of Russia. I
Speaker 2: mentioned this before, but I do think that this is
Speaker 2: important just to underscore put C five up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This also did not get a lot of attention in
Speaker 2: the Western press. But Russia has just seized somewhere around
Speaker 2: two hundred kilometers, made significant advances in Ukrainian territory in
Speaker 2: recent days and looks like they're setting up for what
Speaker 2: they're describing as a fresh ground offensive. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's been a massive Russian bombardment throughout Ukraine and there
Speaker 2: has been evacuations. The reason they think it looks like
Speaker 2: it's you know, setting up for a new Russian ground invasion.
Speaker 2: There have been evacuations of some of these villages near
Speaker 2: the front lines in preparation for you know, potential escalation
Speaker 2: in terms of the ground invasion. So again place into
Speaker 2: the context here, you've got Zelenski going into these peace
Speaker 2: negotiations does not have a particularly strong hand because of
Speaker 2: wariness among the American public and among the Republican Party
Speaker 2: and potentially among in the Trump administration, although it kind
Speaker 2: of depends on the day of continuing to fund and
Speaker 2: arm them to the hilt as has been done. Although
Speaker 2: so far the Trump administration has basically continued the Biden
Speaker 2: era policy, but you know that is not certain in
Speaker 2: the way that it was under Joe Biden whatsoever. So
Speaker 2: you have that, then you have the fact that the
Speaker 2: Russians just have so much war state, industrial capacity and
Speaker 2: just so many more bodies to throw at this conflict.
Speaker 2: You have some will within the Ukrainian people waning just
Speaker 2: because of the brutal toll that this war has taken on,
Speaker 2: you know, Ukrainian men in particular, and their difficulty being
Speaker 2: able to get new recruits and actually like unconscionable tactics
Speaker 2: that have been used to round up Ukrainian men and
Speaker 2: send them to the front lines here. So you have
Speaker 2: Zelenski going to these negotiations with a relatively weak hand,
Speaker 2: and I think you know it's pretty obvious this is
Speaker 2: an attempt to try to demonstrate listen, we can still
Speaker 2: cause you pain even if you think that time is
Speaker 2: on your side and capacity is on your side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, playbook. Actually there's a direct line from the playbook
Speaker 3: author this morning, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. It seems holds
Speaker 3: more cards than Trump gave him credit for their headline
Speaker 3: and playbook this morning.
Speaker 4: But that was the point of the rush and Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: That's the headline and playbook this morning.
Speaker 2: I mean that seems a little I mean, the Ukrainian's
Speaker 2: beIN really far well. And I also saw people pointing
Speaker 2: out like, okay, so if you're the Japanese in this scenario, yeah,
Speaker 2: doing the Pearl Harbor, right, But what happens great working
Speaker 2: that happens next is not really that great for you.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, great work, team, No, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like, what's happening right now, it's it's actually directly
Speaker 3: related to the negotiations. Everyone trying to get the cards
Speaker 3: on the table in order to make it look like
Speaker 3: they have cards and to not look like they're hiding
Speaker 3: any cards as the negotiations. Negotiations are ongoing. So it's
Speaker 3: really awful to see escalation right now. But if you're Ukraine,
Speaker 3: and I don't mean that about this particular Ukrainian attack
Speaker 3: a though the president I do find very frightening. But
Speaker 3: they've been getting bombarded over the last several days, so
Speaker 3: you understand the timing of it. Absolutely, we will see
Speaker 3: if the toothpaste can ever be put back in the tube,
Speaker 3: but I'm deeply skeptical of that. Crystal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very difficult situation at this point to
Speaker 2: try to imagine how this is going to be resolved.
Speaker 2: I mean, however, it's possible we just continue in this
Speaker 2: kind of like endless back and forth with Russia continuing
Speaker 2: to gains slowly over time, and you end up with
Speaker 2: basically it failed Ukrainian state. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 2: what it looks like it's heading towards right now, unless
Speaker 2: there is some sort of a dramatic development. But you know,
Speaker 2: I also have to say a lot of war analysts,
Speaker 2: military analysts have been quite right wrong about this conflict.
Speaker 4: At every turn. And while you know, if you look at.
Speaker 2: The industrial might of Russia versus Ukraine, if you look
Speaker 2: at just the manpower of Russia versus Ukraine, you come
Speaker 2: to a pretty clear conclusion about who has the upper hand.
Speaker 2: But I mean, with this type ability to commit this
Speaker 2: type of attack, and with the modern warfare dynamics that
Speaker 2: Emily and I were just talking about, where you can
Speaker 2: use low budget, off the shelf tech, you know, those
Speaker 2: things can help to level the playing field, especially when
Speaker 2: you're talking about a group of people who are fighting
Speaker 2: for where's it's truly existential, and where you are fighting
Speaker 2: for your homeland. I mean, the US has learned this
Speaker 2: lesson many times before. Come in with all the military
Speaker 2: might in the world, but it's no simple thing to
Speaker 2: dislodge people's sense of pride and nationalism and commitment to
Speaker 2: the homeland. So, you know, I think it's I just
Speaker 2: I think everyone should be very cautious about making any
Speaker 2: sort of predictions about what the military future of this
Speaker 2: conflict ultimately looks like, because there are more variables here
Speaker 2: than just the okay you add of the Russian industrial might,
Speaker 2: the manpower X plus y equal z. There are more
Speaker 2: complex factors going in here, and in some ways that's
Speaker 2: precisely what this Ukrainian attack really demonstrates.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we'll see what happens over the course of
Speaker 3: today with negotiations set to continue in assemble another you know,
Speaker 3: thing to feel less than optimistic about.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately. So all right, let's get to the
Speaker 2: latest with Elon.
Speaker 3: On his way out the door, Elon Musk stop by
Speaker 3: CBS Sunday morning. This is just a couple of days.
Speaker 3: The interview aired just a couple of days after Elon
Speaker 3: Musk did a joint press conference I guess if you
Speaker 3: could call it that in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: We have clips from that as well. But just yesterday
Speaker 3: he sat down with CBS News and want to play
Speaker 3: some clips from that interview, and then we'll get to
Speaker 3: some clips from the Oval Office as well. This is
Speaker 3: D one.
Speaker 10: I noticed that all of your businesses involved a lot
Speaker 10: of components, a lot of parts.
Speaker 5: Do the tariffs and the trade wars affect any of this?
Speaker 5: You know, tariffs affect things a little bit.
Speaker 11: Wondering what your thought is on the ban on foreign students,
Speaker 11: the proposal.
Speaker 5: I mean, you were one of those kids, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 12: Mean, I think we want to stick to, you know,
Speaker 12: the subject of the day, which is like spaceships as
Speaker 12: opposed to know, presidential policy.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, I was sold anything's good.
Speaker 12: But no, Well, now you know, it's not like I
Speaker 12: agree with everything uh the administration is. So it's like
Speaker 12: there's I mean, I agree with much of what the
Speaker 12: administration does, but we have differences of opinion. You know,
Speaker 12: there's things that I I don't entirely agree with, but
Speaker 12: it's difficult for me to bring that up in an
Speaker 12: interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So
Speaker 12: then I'm a little stuck in a bind where I'm like, well,
Speaker 12: I don't want to, you know, speak up against the administration,
Speaker 12: but I don't want to because I also don't want
Speaker 12: to take responsibility for everything the administration is doing.
Speaker 3: So really interesting actually set of questions to Elon Musk
Speaker 3: their crystal and in the defense of the reporter, the
Speaker 3: CBS reporter, which is not a sentence I thought I
Speaker 3: would ever say, but in defense of the CPS the reporter.
Speaker 3: There basically, even if you want to talk about spaceships
Speaker 3: with Elon Musk, you're still going to be talking about terras,
Speaker 3: of course, and the combination of Elon's even and people
Speaker 3: talk about Tesla a lot, but even I mean the combination,
Speaker 3: particularly of a space business, it is so coupled, it
Speaker 3: is so intertwined with the United States government that it's
Speaker 3: you wouldn't be able to do that interview. I mean
Speaker 3: what Elon Musk ended up saying there, and that's what
Speaker 3: I'm curious to get your thought on, is essentially that
Speaker 3: he just shouldn't have sat down for the interview because
Speaker 3: he's saying, there's no way for me to talk about
Speaker 3: any of this without looking like I'm weighing in on
Speaker 3: the politics of it. And I wonder, Crystal, if this
Speaker 3: is something that he's realizing increasingly is a problem after
Speaker 3: getting involved with politics six plus months ago, seeing his
Speaker 3: businesses take a hit, and then realizing, hey, I should
Speaker 3: probably go focus back over here. It's interesting to see
Speaker 3: that happening as he's stepping back from DC completely.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing about the second part of that,
Speaker 2: So the first part of that is just so awkward,
Speaker 2: Like how could you sit for an interview with any
Speaker 2: one and think you're not going to get questions about
Speaker 2: the Trump administration?
Speaker 3: Is wild? But even if they say they're just going
Speaker 3: to talk about space, you still have to talk about
Speaker 3: the administration.
Speaker 2: But d seven up on the screen, Like Trump just
Speaker 2: yanked this NASA nominee who was a close Elon ally
Speaker 2: and I mean basically was installed by Elon in this position,
Speaker 2: and now that Elon's on his way out, Trump is
Speaker 2: using this excusively. Oh I found out he gave to Democrats.
Speaker 2: I'm sure like that information was widely available before. He's
Speaker 2: using it as an excuse to now that Elon's gone, like, okay,
Speaker 2: you don't get your dude in at NASA. But like,
Speaker 2: obviously that is deeply political. The SpaceX mission is going
Speaker 2: does require and already depends in substantial part on government money.
Speaker 2: So there is no way to disentangle Elon Musk, his company's,
Speaker 2: his spaceships, and what is going on in the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: But you know, even putting that piece aside, the second
Speaker 2: part of that clip where he starts talking about, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't agree with everything they do, and
Speaker 2: so I'm in this place, and you know, I don't
Speaker 2: want it to look like I'm co signing everything. But
Speaker 2: then again, I don't want to look like I'm a critic,
Speaker 2: which is fair by the way he actually brings that
Speaker 2: up himself, right, That wasn't even at the prodding of
Speaker 2: the reporter. So even without you know, the reporter then
Speaker 2: explicitly asking questions about the Trump administration, Elon himself can't
Speaker 2: disentangle who he is, what he's doing, his businesses, and
Speaker 2: what's going on in terms of politics.
Speaker 3: It makes me wonder, genuinely how much he thought that
Speaker 3: he was going to steer the ship of the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Because Trump, if you were listening to if you if
Speaker 3: you listen to a single Trump rally, if you listened
Speaker 3: ten seconds of any Trump rally, you had realized the
Speaker 3: man was completely deadly serious about tariffs the entire time.
Speaker 3: It always has been. And so it genuinely makes me
Speaker 3: wonder if Elon Musk thought that, by putting so much
Speaker 3: money into the election and coming into DC and being
Speaker 3: coronated as the King of Doge, that Trump would maybe
Speaker 3: give some deference to Elon Musk on a lot of
Speaker 3: these priorities that are just totally out of line with
Speaker 3: the crypto libertarian and ethos that Musk and I should
Speaker 3: say ideology that Musk wants the Republican Party to look
Speaker 3: more like. And now that he's sort of on his
Speaker 3: way out, there's this very obvious conflict in what he's saying.
Speaker 3: Like it's actually fair that when you start to talk
Speaker 3: about these things, first of all, you move markets, you
Speaker 3: look like you have inside information, because you do, you
Speaker 3: look like maybe you're trying to put your thumb on
Speaker 3: the scale. Like all of those frustrations are perfectly accurate.
Speaker 3: But that's the obvious reason that people don't get too
Speaker 3: involved in politics to the point where they've become a special,
Speaker 3: special government employee, because those problem those those problems, like
Speaker 3: even from a business perspective, are so obvious.
Speaker 2: I mean, he put in two hundred and fifty plus
Speaker 2: million dollars into Trump's campaign and you know, was critical
Speaker 2: potentially in Trump winning that election, and focused a lot
Speaker 2: of his efforts in Pennsylvania, which was the critical swing state.
Speaker 2: And so I think he believed that he could basically
Speaker 2: do what he wanted, and for a while he could,
Speaker 2: you know, for a while he did come in And
Speaker 2: this is also you know, someone who sees himself as
Speaker 2: the only main character and this sort of like great
Speaker 2: civilizational figure, I mean, is truly how he views himself
Speaker 2: and he views his project of getting to Mars and
Speaker 2: you know, through via SpaceX and the need to marshal
Speaker 2: vast government resources in order to do that, I think
Speaker 2: as a central driving desire. I think also something he
Speaker 2: did accomplished during his time in Washington. A central driving
Speaker 2: desire is to get all of these various regulatory agencies
Speaker 2: off of his back and make it so that he's
Speaker 2: not facing labor violation complaints and Tesla doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be regulated.
Speaker 4: And if he goes.
Speaker 2: Forward with VISA over at X, that the CFPP isn't
Speaker 2: going to be sniffing around what they're up to, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And that part he is able to ultimately accomplish. But
Speaker 2: you know, now there is a So it's one of
Speaker 2: those weird things where Elon is not in DC anymore.
Speaker 2: The work of DOGE does continue. It's not over. Wired
Speaker 2: is out with the report saying, like, you know, don't
Speaker 2: believe the hype that Elon is done. He just is
Speaker 2: saying he needs to take some pressure off of his
Speaker 2: b businesses, so he wants to be less visible. However,
Speaker 2: I think two things do indicate that he is genuinely
Speaker 2: on the ounce with this administration. One of them is
Speaker 2: what I just showed you them pulling his guy at NASA.
Speaker 2: That's a big blow to Elon because he wants to
Speaker 2: be able to get whatever you know, this government can
Speaker 2: offer to SpaceX. So I think that is a blow.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is that there are there is
Speaker 2: just a flood of leaks going to the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal and the New York Times and all kinds of
Speaker 2: other outlets about how much everybody in the administration hated
Speaker 2: him and about how he was doing all sorts of
Speaker 2: drugs all the time while he was here. And I
Speaker 2: believe during that Oval Office meeting, we can put this
Speaker 2: image up on the screen. You can see some evidence
Speaker 2: of that cocktails.
Speaker 3: While of drug use towards no end it gets especially while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean here he is just like totally tweaking
Speaker 2: out and by the way, with a black eye, which, brother,
Speaker 2: if you want to cover that up, I can give
Speaker 2: you some makeup tips.
Speaker 3: Oh look at that though.
Speaker 4: It's not that hard.
Speaker 2: So he looks like shit, he's like totally disconnected from
Speaker 2: reality here and you know, proving right the various articles,
Speaker 2: but he denies that he's using these drugs. Blah, blah
Speaker 2: blah lawyers, that's what he says. He denies that he's
Speaker 2: using them, but totally validating the reporting from the New
Speaker 2: York Times.
Speaker 4: Well yet so about what's going on behind the scenes
Speaker 4: the New York.
Speaker 3: Times, And this is skipping ahead a little bit. So
Speaker 3: this is D four. The New York Times dropped this
Speaker 3: really splashy deep dive with like a Maggie Haberman, Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, it was Megan Twohe bylined Kirsen grind and
Speaker 3: Meghan Tweh On Friday before that Oval Offense press press conference,
Speaker 3: and so speculation ensues throughout the day on Friday. You know,
Speaker 3: DC is having fun with the story that Elon Musk
Speaker 3: has been abusing drugs like katamine. And this is a
Speaker 3: story sourced from people who were spending time with Elon
Speaker 3: Musk on the campaign trail in particular, which is when
Speaker 3: they say it was quote more intense than previously known,
Speaker 3: his drug use was more intense than previously known. Just
Speaker 3: several hours later, after all denials are happening, he's literally
Speaker 3: standing next to the President in the Oval Office, And
Speaker 3: I mean, I would assume that what we just watched
Speaker 3: on screen was drugs. I think anybody would assume that
Speaker 3: that's drugs. If it's not drugs, it's a problem that
Speaker 3: was completely abnormal. Now, Trump in the press conference also
Speaker 3: said that Elon's not really leaving. This is what the
Speaker 3: Wired story focused on, and that doses his baby. He's
Speaker 3: going to be back and forth. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: it was like an exit. So let's also get part
Speaker 3: of that Oval office conversation where a reporter asked Elon
Speaker 3: Musk about his black eye. This comes amidst speculation that
Speaker 3: he had a physical altercation with Scott Bessett, which we
Speaker 3: will get to in just a moment as well. So
Speaker 3: this is D three Aspectly, mister Musk, what is your eye?
Speaker 5: Okay, what happened to you?
Speaker 12: That your eye?
Speaker 7: I know this was a rust thing.
Speaker 5: Well it wasn't wasn't anyone near friends, so.
Speaker 13: But I didn't know.
Speaker 7: I didn't know.
Speaker 13: So yeah, I was just watched around with the lex
Speaker 13: and I said, go ahead, punch me in the face,
Speaker 13: and he did. It turns out even a five year
Speaker 13: old punching you in the in the face actually does.
Speaker 8: If you knew X right now.
Speaker 14: But I didn't.
Speaker 13: I didn't really feel much at the time, and then
Speaker 13: I guess it brings this up. But I just watched
Speaker 13: around of the act.
Speaker 3: I love Trump bragging about knowing like a toddler. If
Speaker 3: you know X, you know you can do it. But anyway,
Speaker 3: because that's Trump humble bragging that he does, he does
Speaker 3: no X. There are there.
Speaker 4: Their buddies, some of them may still be on that text.
Speaker 3: So let's put now It's God being ahead again D
Speaker 3: six on the screen because this became a really sort
Speaker 3: of ugly meme. But Bannon said that there was a
Speaker 3: physical altercation between Scott Bessant and Elon Musk that he
Speaker 3: quote literally got physical with them. Basically that Musk shoved
Speaker 3: Scott Bessont.
Speaker 4: These are the messiest people on them Well, no.
Speaker 3: I honestly think that Elon Musk is the messiest person
Speaker 3: on the planet. Like, do you think Scott besson is
Speaker 3: around there shoving people?
Speaker 4: Does it really seem like the type? No, he does
Speaker 4: vice cover but you never know.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah, he got he was the one who
Speaker 3: got shoved.
Speaker 15: According to Steve Bannon, who's now spilling the tea about
Speaker 15: all of this, he said that in comments to The
Speaker 15: Daily Mail, Scott Bessont called him out and said quote,
Speaker 15: you promised us a trillion dollars in cuts and now
Speaker 15: you're at like one hundred billion and nobody can find anything.
Speaker 3: What are you doing? And that's when Elon got physical.
Speaker 3: Uh it's a sore subject with him. Wasn't an argument,
Speaker 3: it was a physical confrontation. Elon basically shoved him. Now,
Speaker 3: the White House responded to this and said, quote, it's
Speaker 3: no secret President Trump has put together a team of
Speaker 3: people who are incredibly passionate.
Speaker 4: It basically validation, right, They did not deny it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, I mean that's Carolin.
Speaker 2: And just to be clear, that altercation happened back in Aple,
Speaker 2: so that would not be the cause of the black eye.
Speaker 4: Just so people understand.
Speaker 2: It just speaks to Elon's I guess, willingness to get
Speaker 2: into physical confrontations as a middle aged man, Like what
Speaker 2: the hell are you doing?
Speaker 4: In any case?
Speaker 2: So, I mean it adds credence to the idea that
Speaker 2: little ex punching him in the eye may not have
Speaker 2: been what happened here. The other like Blue and on
Speaker 2: conspiracy going on with this one.
Speaker 3: Is I wasn't going to bring it up, Crystal.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had to give the viewers all of
Speaker 2: the information Emily.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: People are saying Steven Miller and his wife Katie Miller
Speaker 2: apparently were close with Elon while he was in town,
Speaker 2: and they socialized outside of the office.
Speaker 3: Katie Miller was working with Elon very closely on do
Speaker 3: she does communications.
Speaker 2: Okay, and she is leaving the Trump administration to work
Speaker 2: with Elon, so leaving you know, Stephen and the Trump
Speaker 2: administration to go work with Elon. So this also stoked
Speaker 2: some speculation about just how closely I guess they were
Speaker 2: working together. And there was some analysis of you know,
Speaker 2: Stephen Miller being a lefty, in which I that likely
Speaker 2: would have impacted if you know, in the theoretical world
Speaker 2: where there was some sort of an altercation there over
Speaker 2: Miller's wife.
Speaker 3: But in any case, I mean, the much more likely
Speaker 3: scenario is that Elon Musk can pay an absolute f
Speaker 3: ton of money to the people that he sees as
Speaker 3: trusted advisors, and now Katie Miller should be able to
Speaker 3: make a ton of money while her husband works in
Speaker 3: the government, making you know, by billionaire massive corporation standards,
Speaker 3: not that much money. So I think that's probably the
Speaker 3: likeliest case. But interesting, nonetheless to see what the drama
Speaker 3: is behind the scenes on all of this. There there's
Speaker 3: also a Wall Street Journal story this is D five
Speaker 3: we can put on the screen, getting into the relationship
Speaker 3: between Trump and Musk as well. They described it as
Speaker 3: a quote unquote complicated relationship. And the journal story starts
Speaker 3: with an interesting anecdote that administration official sources in the
Speaker 3: administration gave to the journal, where Trump asks to his
Speaker 3: advisors about Doge, was it all bullshit? And I think
Speaker 3: the answer to that question, Crystal is pretty much yes.
Speaker 2: It's one of these Yeah, okay, if you're talking about
Speaker 2: cutting costs and efficiency, if you're talking about I'm gonna
Speaker 2: cut two trillion, no one trillion from the budget, yes,
Speaker 2: which is what they're Yes, that was all bullshit, But
Speaker 2: how did you not know that? Like, That's the thing
Speaker 2: that's crazy to me, is like, if you just know
Speaker 2: the very basics of government accounting math, you knew from
Speaker 2: the beginning that it was all bullshit when it came
Speaker 2: to the cost cutting, because if you want to cut
Speaker 2: cost significant costs in the federal government, you are not
Speaker 2: going to do it by finding some like mice study
Speaker 2: you don't like, or even and we'll get to this
Speaker 2: in just a moment by completely decimating USAID to the
Speaker 2: vast detriment of you know, millions of sick children, sick
Speaker 2: children and other innocence.
Speaker 4: Around the world.
Speaker 2: It is that is a draw up in the bucket
Speaker 2: in terms of the vast federal government budget. So if
Speaker 2: you did not know that, like I just think it's
Speaker 2: it's astonishing to me that he would not have realized
Speaker 2: that the project with regard to DOGE was never really
Speaker 2: about cost cutting. Elon had other ideological goals, some of
Speaker 2: which he did accomplish during his time.
Speaker 4: I'm going to talk more tomorrow about.
Speaker 2: You know, the scooping up of all this data and
Speaker 2: giving it to Palenteer, you know, being one of Elon's
Speaker 2: you know, allies within the tech right and possibly like
Speaker 2: we don't know what sort of federal government data was
Speaker 2: scooped up to use to further elons AI ambitions, you know,
Speaker 2: because we have very little actual transparency into what DOGE
Speaker 2: was even up to and continues to be up to
Speaker 2: within all of these organizations. As I said before, in
Speaker 2: terms of the goal of getting the regulators off his back,
Speaker 2: certainly mission accomplished there. So there was a lot that
Speaker 2: was done, and a lot that was inly destructive and
Speaker 2: is going to continue to have huge consequences. But I
Speaker 2: just I think it's so insane that anyone took seriously
Speaker 2: the idea that this was going to be a real
Speaker 2: cost cutting and efficiency effort from the beginning, and the
Speaker 2: way that they approached it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the two trillion dollar number to take
Speaker 3: that seriously is I mean, without touching Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid.
Speaker 3: That's the Pentagon or the Pentagon, right, I mean, the
Speaker 3: Pentagon's the big one there, because you could plausibly if
Speaker 3: you found a lot of waste and other agencies and
Speaker 3: you you basically scuttle USAA D. I mean USAA D
Speaker 3: is not gone. It's been absorbed in the State Department.
Speaker 3: A lot of those costs have been eliminated. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's completely trunk to a shell of its former self,
Speaker 3: no question about that. I suspect Marco Rubio will still
Speaker 3: use it as like a long arm of soft power,
Speaker 3: but just in a very different way. So there's all
Speaker 3: kinds of like, there's all kinds of waste that you
Speaker 3: can find in the federal government budget, of course, but
Speaker 3: the idea that that would without between the Pentagon or
Speaker 3: without touching Medicaid, social Security and not just looking for
Speaker 3: quote unute waste, broad and abuse. That that would amount
Speaker 3: to two trillion dollars is an enormous stretch, especially when
Speaker 3: the process by which they are going about these cuts
Speaker 3: Crystal was so wildly inefficient, because Musk's idea was you
Speaker 3: cut a bunch and then you learn by the cuts
Speaker 3: what you need to bring back, which is I guess,
Speaker 3: a much more defensible philosophy in a corporate a corporate
Speaker 3: environment when it's not the government that taxpayers pay into
Speaker 3: and rely on the services for who then get that
Speaker 3: stuff cut after paying for it right and have all
Speaker 3: the disruptions only for the government to be like, whoops,
Speaker 3: are bad, we are bringing it back. Sarved about the
Speaker 3: last month of your life, mister veteran who was affected
Speaker 3: by this, So, I mean it was just the process
Speaker 3: was a disaster. And now the line is that dose
Speaker 3: is a lifestyle. I forget whether it was Trump or
Speaker 3: Elon Musk has said that that doses are going anywhere.
Speaker 3: It's a lifestyle, and to some extent though true, because
Speaker 3: there are muscul lieutenants, people who are brought on board
Speaker 3: who are now. They are like actually employees in managerial
Speaker 3: positions throughout the federal government. I would be all for
Speaker 3: things like the Rains Act, where you have to which
Speaker 3: should be in this bill, where you have to kick
Speaker 3: over a certain number if you're spending a certain number
Speaker 3: of money, it has to be kicked over to Congress
Speaker 3: and has to be signed off on by Congress. Because
Speaker 3: you know, that way, you don't have agencies just green
Speaker 3: lighting massive contracts and stuff like that. They haven't shown
Speaker 3: any willingness to you, as you said, Bannon has said
Speaker 3: this many times, many times go after these like Pentagon
Speaker 3: contracts to seriously take on quote unquote waste frunt abuse
Speaker 3: at the Pentagon. They never really went in that direction.
Speaker 3: And DOJ Noel lifestyle. Okay, let's see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there is one agency that has never
Speaker 2: been able to pass an audit. And you know, and
Speaker 2: as Bannon always that you got across the river. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm very hesitant to ascribe actual like belief
Speaker 2: him and whatever. He has his own agenda, but he's
Speaker 2: one hundred percent correct about that. If you actually want
Speaker 2: to go after ways Forradden abuse. But that again is
Speaker 2: why I never took seriously the idea that this would
Speaker 2: be any sort of real cost cutting mission. In fact,
Speaker 2: it's going to lead to more expense, specifically because of
Speaker 2: the gutting, you know, the cuts to the irs, which
Speaker 2: means you can collect less tax revenue, specifically less tax
Speaker 2: revenue from rich people, so it's going to cost more.
Speaker 2: You have degraded the efficiency and quality of the services.
Speaker 2: If you're someone who's trying to resolve some issue with
Speaker 2: your Social Security check, it is now going to take
Speaker 2: vastly longer and be you know, effectually mission impossible with
Speaker 2: the closed field offices and the longer wait times on
Speaker 2: the telephones, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But to your point, Emily Like, it's all well and
Speaker 4: good like.
Speaker 2: It's one thing if your Twitter dms don't work for
Speaker 2: a little while, exactly. It's another thing when air traffic
Speaker 2: controllers are being like pressure to reside at a time
Speaker 2: when we have a massive crisis in terms of air
Speaker 2: travel safety. It's another thing when you are a veteran
Speaker 2: who's enrolled in a you know, cancer research trial that
Speaker 2: has a chance of curing what you have, and that
Speaker 2: funding is stripped. You are not going to eliminate the
Speaker 2: deficit by gutting scientific research for a generation as an example,
Speaker 2: that's just not where the bulk of federal spending is.
Speaker 2: Even I looked up the numbers. If you look at
Speaker 2: how much we spend on the entire federal government workforce, right,
Speaker 2: they pushed out some two hundred and fifty thousand federal
Speaker 2: gun wars, Like it was a massive number of people
Speaker 2: that they cut. If you cut everybody, it is a
Speaker 2: very small proportion of the over federal government budget. So
Speaker 2: it's just to me to take at face value that
Speaker 2: Trump didn't know what's going on here.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: That raises some other questions for me about how engaged
Speaker 2: he is in his own administration beyond like his you know,
Speaker 2: Liberation Day chart making exercises.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it was hard for anyone to keep
Speaker 3: up with Doze at first because the cuts were headspinning
Speaker 3: and they were coming fast and furious, and that was
Speaker 3: all part of the flood the zone plan. So there
Speaker 3: were a lot of cuts by the like relative standards
Speaker 3: of how quickly they came, they just didn't end up
Speaker 3: adding up to anything near what was being projected. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are some agencies that right now are utterly unrecognizable.
Speaker 3: The cfpb usaid those are significant cuts. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: but in the scope of the federal budget, it's amazing
Speaker 3: how big cuts like that still don't make a dent
Speaker 3: in things. And rains is in the reconciliation bill. We'll
Speaker 3: see if it survives. But I mean, you had to
Speaker 3: cross the river if you wanted to. You certainly had
Speaker 3: across the river, and you would have had to do
Speaker 3: a lot more than just quote unquote waste, fraud and abuse.
Speaker 2: And they didn't find any fraud. What fraud did they find?
Speaker 3: I'm sure they did like it, but it's also hard
Speaker 3: to know because the DOGE website is full of random
Speaker 3: shit that you have no idea whether it's real. Sometimes
Speaker 3: people have tried to track it down and you don't know.
Speaker 3: But even sure they've found some bits and pieces of fraud.
Speaker 4: I know they found things they didn't like.
Speaker 3: They definitely found that.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's different from fraud, right, I mean, fraud is
Speaker 2: like there is fraud in the federal garment, although to
Speaker 2: be honest with you, after the DOGE exercise, I think
Speaker 2: it must be less than what I was assuming you're like, yes,
Speaker 2: they didn't find any of it. You know, you know,
Speaker 2: we always joke like Ryan Grimm found more ashful fraud
Speaker 2: in the federal government budget by identifying this fraudulent four
Speaker 2: or million dollars that was set to go hunt the
Speaker 2: door to Tesla than Doge did. So tell me what's
Speaker 2: going on there, Tell me what's really going on there? Ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, the other piece of the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: article about some of the internal dynamics that was interesting
Speaker 2: to me is apparently he really got crosswise with Susie Wiles,
Speaker 2: among others. I mean, for Alon is notoriously like he's
Speaker 2: a raging asshole. People don't like to work with he.
Speaker 2: I think he would say that himself, like he does
Speaker 2: not deal well with people. He just doesn't. And that
Speaker 2: is the history of his dynamics. Within his companies. He
Speaker 2: usually has someone else who was working alongside with him,
Speaker 2: who can, you know, deal with the human beings involved.
Speaker 2: So not only did he have this physical altercation with
Speaker 2: Scott Bessett, I think he and Rubio were significantly at odds.
Speaker 2: Some of the tension with Sean Duffy played out in public,
Speaker 2: but they also got upset because they were learning about,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the chainsaw that was being taken
Speaker 2: to various parts of the federal government. Susie Wilsen Co.
Speaker 2: Were learning about that the same way that we were,
Speaker 2: where he just went in and did his thing, and
Speaker 2: so there was there were increasing efforts to try to
Speaker 2: rein him, in coordinate with him, et cetera. But you know,
Speaker 2: I think that was part of the underlying dynamic as
Speaker 2: well as like just people did not like him. And
Speaker 2: so when they were after the Wisconsin Supreme Court debacle,
Speaker 2: when there was a real display of political weakness and
Speaker 2: Trump apparently had talked to I can't remember what was
Speaker 2: that guy's named Schimel or something like that, Brad Schimel
Speaker 2: is at the name of the candidate.
Speaker 3: Oh, Brad Shimmel.
Speaker 4: Shimmel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Anyway, Trump was not impressed with that guy.
Speaker 4: Thought he was going to lose.
Speaker 2: Thought that Elon displayed very poor political instincts by going
Speaker 2: all in on that, And I do think that that
Speaker 2: was a real blow to him with regard to his
Speaker 2: standing Visa v. Trump and others. I'm sure with the
Speaker 2: administration this part, I'm just speculating about use that loss
Speaker 2: as a way to make the case to Trump of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this guy's bad for your agenda. He's making you look bad,
Speaker 2: he's causing you all kinds of problems. Let's try to
Speaker 2: get him out there.
Speaker 3: Because it all comes down to the central cross benefit analysis.
Speaker 3: Does the cost of being associated with Elon Musk outweigh
Speaker 3: the benefit of having particularly his political donations. And so
Speaker 3: when Elon Musk noticed the timing here, this was all happening,
Speaker 3: as Elon Musk said, by the way, he's going to
Speaker 3: stop his political donations, then suddenly he's out at doge
Speaker 3: Well Wisconsin showed that the cost of association with Elon
Speaker 3: Musk actually in that case outweighed the benefits of him
Speaker 3: pouring million of dollars into a state Supreme court election.
Speaker 3: Even his millions of dollars couldn't buy that election because
Speaker 3: in the micro example that we're talking about, the microcosmic
Speaker 3: example we're talking about, it really motivated normally dem voters
Speaker 3: to come out and vote for the liberal Supreme Court
Speaker 3: justice in that case. So I think what that showed
Speaker 3: is that he's less valuable than it looked like when
Speaker 3: he came into Pennsylvania in the waiting days of a
Speaker 3: very very very very very close presidential election, at least
Speaker 3: in the sense of, you know, when you are within
Speaker 3: a margin in Pennsylvania and all the electoral College votes
Speaker 3: are on the line, he comes in, puts tons of
Speaker 3: money into swing states, but particularly Pennsylvania. Sort of looks
Speaker 3: like he buys Trump those states because is he the
Speaker 3: sort of deciding factors that money? What tips it over
Speaker 3: the edge for Donald Trump? Republicans say, Wow, we have
Speaker 3: the deepest pockets we could ever conceive of having, and
Speaker 3: he's just giving freely and doing it kind of for
Speaker 3: the hell of it, and we don't have to really
Speaker 3: do anything to beg him. He's just like having fun.
Speaker 3: So what does that mean for us? What does that
Speaker 3: mean for the party in the midterms? What does it
Speaker 3: mean for the party for the next ten years? With
Speaker 3: a massive cash infusion potentially on the table? And as
Speaker 3: soon as that dream kind of fades for Republicans, he
Speaker 3: becomes to them less trouble, less of a benefit than
Speaker 3: the trouble that causes. And I think that's probably part
Speaker 3: of what just everyone's exasperated with him. He's exasperated with
Speaker 3: them because they have less patience for him. They have
Speaker 3: less patience for his eccentricities and his process, which is
Speaker 3: very anathema in Washington. So it just it fizzled. We'll
Speaker 3: see how much he's still here. I have a hard
Speaker 3: time believing, Crystal that he doesn't want to still be
Speaker 3: pulling some of the puppet strings, no doubt about it,
Speaker 3: and that he probably will still be pulling some.
Speaker 2: Of the puppet strings some of them, Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: not without as much power as he previously wielded, which
Speaker 2: you know, at times rivaled Trump, at least especially with
Speaker 2: Trump pre tariff Trump, where he seemed like he was
Speaker 2: happy to just like play golf and outsource immigration and
Speaker 2: foreign policy. Apparently Stephen Miller outsourced whatever is going on with.
Speaker 4: Doge to Elon.
Speaker 2: And you know, now, I think the part of the
Speaker 2: Trump administration that Trump does take control over the terriffs,
Speaker 2: which is kind of a you know, and maybe he's
Speaker 2: involved somewhat with the top line ideological underpinnings of the
Speaker 2: Big Beautiful Bill, but you know, other pieces he's been
Speaker 2: happy to really just kind of hand into various corners
Speaker 2: of his administration.
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you, Emily, an.
Speaker 2: Important part of the MAGA Trump two point zero coalition
Speaker 2: is the tech right and Elon being the figurehead right
Speaker 2: and so you had all the all in guys excited
Speaker 2: about Trump and Emma and I actually covered last week
Speaker 2: all of them, including David saxelthough he was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is the best we could get. But all of
Speaker 2: the all in guys very critical of the big, beautiful will.
Speaker 2: And so, what do you think the exit of Elon
Speaker 2: and the fraying of that relationship means for the broader
Speaker 2: tech right alignment with the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: I think the illusion is fading that there was and
Speaker 3: you know people who are in like DC Republican circles.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody said it aloud, but I think
Speaker 3: everybody looked at those guys as almost inspiringly naive that
Speaker 3: they had these huge visions and the will, like the
Speaker 3: political will to like Elon Musk was out there with
Speaker 3: a chainsaw, right like this is a dream that the
Speaker 3: let's say, anarcho libertarian world, which not all of them are,
Speaker 3: I mean some of them are more robber barons than
Speaker 3: anarco libertarians, but that they have had for a long time.
Speaker 3: It's this idea that there would be the political will
Speaker 3: to go out there and dance on stage with a
Speaker 3: chainsaw like a good true ideological libertarian. And so what
Speaker 3: that meant was, Wow, this is basically Elon Musk coming
Speaker 3: in with all of these Silicon Valley nerds and waving
Speaker 3: magic wands and just dissolving parts of the government. And
Speaker 3: I think what we're seeing right now is that and
Speaker 3: I say this with some judgment, but not with much judgment,
Speaker 3: but the fading of that naivete that there was this
Speaker 3: idea that if you came into Washington with the will
Speaker 3: to take the arrows for cutting pepfar, to take the
Speaker 3: arrows for cutting USAA, d CFPB in ways that no
Speaker 3: Republican ever would have had the courage to do pre Trump,
Speaker 3: than man like this can finally be done. And that
Speaker 3: was again I think a lot of people in DC
Speaker 3: identified that as naive. Maybe they didn't want to say
Speaker 3: it because it felt hopeful. But I think that it's
Speaker 3: finally that idea, that dream is dead. I think that's
Speaker 3: what's really happened here.
Speaker 2: That is a good transition to talking about this Rogan appearance.
Speaker 2: Bono talking to Rogan about USAID in particular, and I
Speaker 2: told you I cut a longer sid of this because
Speaker 2: there was a portion of this one exchange that the
Speaker 2: right was sharing of like oh Rogan really showed him
Speaker 2: whose boss and usaad the money laundering operation. And there
Speaker 2: was another part that that Democratic Wins account which used
Speaker 2: to be Kamala Wins account, there was another part that
Speaker 2: that account shared. So I thought, let's let's give you
Speaker 2: the whole context and then we can talk about this
Speaker 2: on the other side.
Speaker 4: But interesting exchange on the less Let's take a listen.
Speaker 16: You went to Boston University and you taught it about
Speaker 16: Boston Universe to martial arts there. So just recent report,
Speaker 16: it's not proven, but there's surveillance enough suggests three hundred
Speaker 16: thousand people have already died from just this cut off,
Speaker 16: this hard cut of USAID. So this food rotting in
Speaker 16: boats and warehouses, there is this this this will will
Speaker 16: fuck you off, this will not you will not be happy,
Speaker 16: no American will. But there is and he has fifty
Speaker 16: thousand tons of food that are stored in Djibouti, South Africa,
Speaker 16: Dubai and wait for it, Houston, Texas. And that is
Speaker 16: a rotting rather than going to Gaza, rather than going
Speaker 16: to Sudan, because the people who know the codes are
Speaker 16: for the warehouse are fired, They're.
Speaker 3: Gone, and so this. I don't know.
Speaker 16: I just it's what do you think?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 7: What is?
Speaker 5: What is that?
Speaker 16: That's that's not America.
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 8: Well, they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right right.
Speaker 8: This is the problem. The problem is, for sure, there
Speaker 8: have been a lot of organizations that do tremendous good
Speaker 8: all throughout the world. Also, for sure it was a
Speaker 8: money laundering operation. For sure, there was no oversight. For sure,
Speaker 8: billions of dollars are missing. In fact, trillions that are
Speaker 8: unaccounted for, that were sent off into various they don't
Speaker 8: even know where because there's no receipts. The way Elon
Speaker 8: must describe that, he said, if any of this was
Speaker 8: done by a public company, the company would be delisted
Speaker 8: and the executives would be in prison. But in the
Speaker 8: United States this is standard. When Biden left office, when
Speaker 8: it was clear that Trump won, in the seventy three days,
Speaker 8: they spent ninety three billion dollars from the Department of
Speaker 8: Energy on just radical loans, just throwing money into places
Speaker 8: and there's no oversight, no receipts. Like the whole thing is,
Speaker 8: there's a lot of fraud, a lot of money laundering.
Speaker 8: But also we help the world and when you're talking
Speaker 8: about making wells for people in the Congo to get
Speaker 8: fresh water, when you're talking about food and medicine to
Speaker 8: places that don't have access, like no way that should
Speaker 8: have been cut out and that should have been clear
Speaker 8: before they make these radical cuts, Like there's got to
Speaker 8: be a way to keep aid and not have fraud,
Speaker 8: and you can't have you can't say we're going to
Speaker 8: kill everything so that there's no fraud, but then you're
Speaker 8: killing all the good and you're doing it without letting
Speaker 8: anybody know that's going to happen, So no one's It's
Speaker 8: not like they had three years to prepare. Let's build
Speaker 8: a new infrastructure, let's make sure they're everything set up.
Speaker 8: They wanted change, and they want to change quickly and
Speaker 8: do the nature of American politics, they have about two
Speaker 8: years before the midterms.
Speaker 4: Right, what did you make of that exchange? Emily?
Speaker 3: Super interesting and Christy you were pointing out as we
Speaker 3: were watching it, the different parts that were clipped where
Speaker 3: they cut it left and right. Yeah, where they had
Speaker 3: cut that clip up. And I think what Rogan just
Speaker 3: made at the end was a really compelling point about
Speaker 3: not creating any time period for off ramps. Because if
Speaker 3: you're somebody like me who looks at USAID and says,
Speaker 3: this is actually, in some sense creating this exploitive dependency
Speaker 3: system based on where US soft power interests are, and
Speaker 3: I think that's a critics.
Speaker 4: I share that critique.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so if you think that, you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: so it's really unfair that we are holding these people
Speaker 3: basically hostage with our aid to our foreign policy interests,
Speaker 3: and then you just pull the rug out from under
Speaker 3: them after making commitments for years and years and years.
Speaker 3: Then yes, people are going to die and people are
Speaker 3: going to suffer. There's another way, which would involve saying
Speaker 3: you have five years to get off of the stependency.
Speaker 3: We're changing fundamentally the way, and then the Gates Foundation
Speaker 3: steps in and the Rockefeller Foundation steps in and they
Speaker 3: fill the gaps, which is just not what happened. And
Speaker 3: I think it was really interesting to see Rogan reacting,
Speaker 3: particularly to that, and as an ally of Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some of the things Rogan says, like
Speaker 2: about the quote unquote radical loans, the you know, oh,
Speaker 2: there's so much fraud again, what was the fraud? Because
Speaker 2: I share, you know, the like the left has a
Speaker 2: critique of USAID, and it's the one that Emily explained
Speaker 2: of like holding people hostage to US imperial foreign policy
Speaker 2: interests and this administration they don't believe in soft power.
Speaker 2: I mean, by and large, they just believe in hard power.
Speaker 2: That's why USAID is being gutted. That's why the State
Speaker 2: Department is being gutted. They have this throwback imperial if
Speaker 2: we see something and we want it, we're going to
Speaker 2: take it. That is their ideology. That's why Trump loves
Speaker 2: the McKinley era. That's why they you know, Greenland, Panama, Gaza, Canada,
Speaker 2: like they have this mentality of an old school we
Speaker 2: are just going to use our might to take it,
Speaker 2: and we're not going to wrap it in like you know,
Speaker 2: we'll give you some HIV medication and then you're going
Speaker 2: to help us out with our rare earth mineral supply.
Speaker 4: They don't want to wrap it in the Gazi language.
Speaker 2: They just want to come in with the guns and
Speaker 2: force our will upon the world. So that's the you know,
Speaker 2: that's the ideology that is surrounding this. But again it's
Speaker 2: they didn't actually identify any fraud. I'm not saying there
Speaker 2: wasn't any I'm saying there was none identified what Rogan's
Speaker 2: referring to there in terms of the end of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration. It is true that at the end of
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, when there was a recognition of oh shit,
Speaker 2: Kamala lost Trump, the Trump administration is coming in. We
Speaker 2: have all of these funds appropriated through you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's the IRA or the Chips Act or whatever that
Speaker 2: is already been authorized by Congress. We need to speed
Speaker 2: up the process to get these funds out the door.
Speaker 2: And that's what Rogan calls quote unquote radical loans.
Speaker 4: That's the end. I'd love that great term. I do
Speaker 4: love that term.
Speaker 2: So that's what he's referring to ultimately there. But you know,
Speaker 2: the other thing that drives me crazy, Emily, is like
Speaker 2: you just acknowledge people people have already died because of
Speaker 2: the consequences of these actions of just pulling all the
Speaker 2: funding from under many of these programs. And we have,
Speaker 2: you know, estimates from Bono's referencing the study. You can
Speaker 2: put some of these estimates up on the screen from
Speaker 2: Boston University School of Public Health. This is called impact Counter.
Speaker 2: This Twitter account was just sharing some of the top
Speaker 2: lines here. So within one year, these are all projected out.
Speaker 2: And again you can quibble with the you can quibble
Speaker 2: with what the numbers are, but there is we know already,
Speaker 2: factually speaking, that people have died as a result of
Speaker 2: these cuts, and we know that more people will.
Speaker 4: Die as a result of these cuts.
Speaker 2: The estimates here are one point sixty five million die
Speaker 2: without HIV prevention and treatment, five hundred thousand die without
Speaker 2: vaccine funding, five hundred thousand die without food aid. That's
Speaker 2: what Bono's talking about, is just rotting at the ports
Speaker 2: right now. Three hundred and ten thousand die without tuberculosis prevention.
Speaker 2: He's saying, it's zerodes so far, three hundred thousand is
Speaker 2: a low estimate, is the opining of this Twitter account.
Speaker 2: And three hundred thousand is you know, the estimate that
Speaker 2: they give right now the number of people who have
Speaker 2: died already. And again there is a elon and others
Speaker 2: claim no one has died, that's impossible, etc. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can. I don't know how
Speaker 2: you can live in reality and think that there's just
Speaker 2: no consequence for cutting this funding for critical life saving
Speaker 2: treatments around the world without anything to replace it. And
Speaker 2: you know, on the I'm sure there will be organizations
Speaker 2: over time that come in and try to fill the gap.
Speaker 2: I have no doubt about that. But so that has
Speaker 2: not happened yet. And so there is a you know,
Speaker 2: a critical hole that the US used to fill that
Speaker 2: has just been the you know, rug has been pulled out,
Speaker 2: and children, people who need this treatment and care that
Speaker 2: they were relying on the US for they have died
Speaker 2: and they will continue to die. And that is just
Speaker 2: the reality of Elon's impact here. And so I think
Speaker 2: that's the other piece, Emily. Is part of why I
Speaker 2: wanted to highlight this clip is because there is a
Speaker 2: sense that Doge utterly and completely failed, and it did,
Speaker 2: but we need to pair that with the understanding that
Speaker 2: Doge also so did tremendous, tremendous damage that is literally
Speaker 2: costing people's lives and will continue to have generational fallout
Speaker 2: for years and years to come.
Speaker 3: So, and this is something that people on the right
Speaker 3: feel as well, is that Elon Musk may have done
Speaker 3: lasting damage to the idea of like like you said,
Speaker 3: by the Doge website having so many holes that like
Speaker 3: when you're trying to look up the instances of fraud
Speaker 3: that are being cited. You go to the website and
Speaker 3: you can't track it down, and or it appears to
Speaker 3: be a total stretch, or it appears to be you
Speaker 3: know something. There are actually a lot of examples of
Speaker 3: journalists trying to chase down the fraud that does had
Speaker 3: it caught or eliminated whatever it was, and going down
Speaker 3: rabbit trails, going down things that led them to repetition
Speaker 3: something like that, and does that end up doing lasting
Speaker 3: damage to the like really predicate of a lot of
Speaker 3: conservative ideology about quote unquote limited government. And I'm someone
Speaker 3: who's in this camp. People say limited not small government.
Speaker 3: Small government's libertarian. Limited government is conservative limited relative to
Speaker 3: what it's become over the last one hundred years. Does
Speaker 3: that idea ever recover, you know, in this generation from Doge?
Speaker 3: When you have such a I don't know if yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean this is the right way to say it.
Speaker 3: When you have such an unserious approach where you end up,
Speaker 3: I mean, you pledge huge numbers, you come up with
Speaker 3: very little. It's all done with a billionaire dancing with
Speaker 3: a chainsaw. Does it ever recover on the other hand,
Speaker 3: would anyone have ever done it? You sort of have
Speaker 3: a catch twenty two other than you know, eccentric elon Musk.
Speaker 3: Maybe not. But does it ever recover from DOGE? I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's a question actually that might even go
Speaker 3: to Democrats Crystal having this conversation about abundance and about Doge.
Speaker 3: Where when Doese first started you saw a lot of
Speaker 3: Democrats frustrate with the fact that it was Republicans who
Speaker 3: were capitalizing on this idea of efficiency in government, saying, well,
Speaker 3: we can certainly stand for efficiency in government because from
Speaker 3: our perspective, the more efficient the government looks, the more
Speaker 3: that we can actually make the case for funding, the
Speaker 3: more that we can make the case that some of
Speaker 3: these agencies are good if they're efficient. So, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean maybe Democrats are able to co opt that idea.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we can put this in in post guys.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Marshal Costlof is going to co
Speaker 2: host with me tomorrow as Abundant Abundance guy, Marshal Abundance.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to avoid saying grow In any case,
Speaker 2: I'm really looking for you that has some really smart
Speaker 2: insights into the interaction with the left, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But I want to talk to him more about this
Speaker 4: poll tomorrow.
Speaker 2: But Sienna just did a poll that found, for the
Speaker 2: first time in decades, basically unprecedented in the new liberal era,
Speaker 2: a majority of Americans say government should do more to
Speaker 2: solve problems versus the number who say governments tried to
Speaker 2: do two many things. And I think that is directly
Speaker 2: attributable to Dosh.
Speaker 4: Directly attributory.
Speaker 2: It's like you don't know what you got till it's gone.
Speaker 2: Kind of a dynamic where it's like, oh, I liked
Speaker 2: it when I had.
Speaker 4: A Social Security field office.
Speaker 2: In my town and I didn't have to wait on,
Speaker 2: you know, a phone for four hours in order to
Speaker 2: get someone to answer my basic question. That was a
Speaker 2: good thing the government was doing, and I wish it
Speaker 2: would do it again.
Speaker 3: It's a socialist op now that you say, like Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: you couldn't come up with a better socialist op Like
Speaker 3: sans was doing covert operations and planting a libertarian in
Speaker 3: the federal government to make the entire project look absurd.
Speaker 2: To prove the importance of what the government actually does.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, you know what, I actually liked
Speaker 2: it when I could get weather data and there was
Speaker 2: a FEMA disaster relief response that maybe it was an ideal,
Speaker 2: but it was better than not having one. So I mean,
Speaker 2: it's an extraordinary surge in the number of people who say, no, Actually,
Speaker 2: I believe in government, and I want government to do more,
Speaker 2: and I want it to do well. Now, the challenge
Speaker 2: and on the other side, is that there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of trust for either party to be able to
Speaker 2: accomplish those things effectively. And so obviously that's a big,
Speaker 2: you know, reality and political challenge. But I do think
Speaker 2: your point about the fears that Elon has somehow managed
Speaker 2: to destroy even the concept of like we need to
Speaker 2: cut the fat and we need to make government more
Speaker 2: quote unquote efficient, is it's pretty remarkable because that has
Speaker 2: always been a winning political proposition for my entire lifetime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so interesting. We'll see where it goes going forward.
Speaker 3: But low hanging fruit here for Democrats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, should we talk about your favorite senator?
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Jonny Ernce? Why not? Why shouldn't we
Speaker 3: be talking about Junior enestr came to under the So
Speaker 3: Johnny Ernce got hit with a tough town hall the
Speaker 3: other day, as many Republicans have, and in fact, at
Speaker 3: one point Republicans just stopped doing town halls. So amazing
Speaker 3: that johny Urns actually was out there talking to the people.
Speaker 3: But before we get into the reaction to this, roll
Speaker 3: this clip of johni Arenstor being heckled by people in
Speaker 3: the audience. This is people in Iowa reacting to johni
Speaker 3: ns talking about Medicaid cuts. So go ahead and take
Speaker 3: a look at this clip.
Speaker 17: People are not well.
Speaker 14: We all are going to die. Hello, everyone, I would
Speaker 14: like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a
Speaker 14: statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. See,
Speaker 14: I was in the process of answering a question that
Speaker 14: had been asked by an audience member when a woman
Speaker 14: who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner
Speaker 14: of the auditorium people are going to die. And I
Speaker 14: made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes,
Speaker 14: we are all going to perish from this earth. So
Speaker 14: I apologize, and I'm really really glad that I did
Speaker 14: not have to bring up the subject of the tooth
Speaker 14: fairy as well.
Speaker 3: Hello fellow flesh and Blood model. It's just if you're
Speaker 3: listening to this, what you miss is it was just
Speaker 3: her face like chin up and she actually people pointed
Speaker 3: out is walking in front of a cemetery, like to
Speaker 3: the point about Washington not being West wing but being veep.
Speaker 3: This is the best illustration that I've seen in months. Actually,
Speaker 3: there's always a good illustration every single week, but this
Speaker 3: is one of the best ones I've ever seen. Crystal.
Speaker 3: She's apologizing for saying quote, We're all going to die
Speaker 3: at a town hall. It was in Butler County, Iowa
Speaker 3: on Friday. She makes an apology video, christ Well, why
Speaker 3: are you making the apology video? Roll with it? Secondly,
Speaker 3: she does it in front of a cemetery. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then she pivoted to evangelism. By the way, towards the
Speaker 3: end of the video, you didn't see this, but I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure she Yeah. She ended up saying quote, for
Speaker 3: those that would like to see eternal and our everlasting life,
Speaker 3: I encourage you to embrace my Laurence. I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: as I've been talking Christians, this is the worst evangelism
Speaker 3: I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yes, we are all going to die.
Speaker 4: It kind of matters to me when you.
Speaker 2: Know, like I would rather I think most people, including
Speaker 2: the millions who were set to lose health insurance coverage
Speaker 2: because of the Medicaid cuts and the big beautiful bill,
Speaker 2: they would like to forestall that possibility, you know, into
Speaker 2: the future. But there, you know, the meme of Republicans
Speaker 2: is the idea that like, oh, their healthcare plan is
Speaker 2: like is don't get sick or or don't be poor,
Speaker 2: like that's the and so she just goes all in
Speaker 2: with basically like yeah, I mean I guess if you
Speaker 2: get sick, you're going to die by that whatever, We're
Speaker 2: all going to die anyway, and just find your salvation
Speaker 2: in God.
Speaker 4: It's fine.
Speaker 3: I was venting about those always, like, first of all,
Speaker 3: just from like a comms perspective. God forbid, I put
Speaker 3: that hat on, like the idea of doing communications for
Speaker 3: a senator. But if you're even like thinking about this,
Speaker 3: you just all you have to do is say, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is the Trump era. All she has to do
Speaker 3: is say, yeah, I stood up to the liberal heckler
Speaker 3: in the audience who is defending waste and fraud in Medicaid. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm defending Medicaid. From the people who want to undermine
Speaker 3: Medicaid with waste and fraud and abuse. But why would
Speaker 3: you ever go out there and apologize for making like
Speaker 3: a glib, offhanded comment. And then because she was clearly
Speaker 3: frustrated in the clip, she was like just reaching for
Speaker 3: straws and Jonny Arns is not the most talented politician
Speaker 3: in the world. You would be shocked to learn, and
Speaker 3: ends up grasping out We're all going to die. Film's
Speaker 3: an apology video in front of a cemetery, then jokes
Speaker 3: about the tooth fairy and pivots some evangelism. I mean
Speaker 3: you just the every item on the Bengo card is
Speaker 3: checked off.
Speaker 4: Well, and the funny thing too. I'm interested in your
Speaker 4: on this is.
Speaker 2: I am normally very impressed with Republican message discipline. Usually
Speaker 2: there's like a Okay, here's what we're saying about the
Speaker 2: Medicaid cuts.
Speaker 4: We're saying these aren't cuts.
Speaker 2: This is we're cutting out the waste, right, And some
Speaker 2: Republicans are on that talking point. Other Republicans are on
Speaker 2: the like, actually, you know, they're not cuts at all.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what you're talking about. There are
Speaker 2: no cuts. People are going to keep their insurance. Right,
Speaker 2: some people are just like they're in the you know,
Speaker 2: denying of reality. And then some people, apparently Jony Urns
Speaker 2: is in the well, we're all going to die anyway,
Speaker 2: So whatever if eight million people are slated to lose
Speaker 2: their health insurance coverage, which is the estimate under this bill.
Speaker 2: So in some ways, I think it displays the the
Speaker 2: victory of Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid, that this has become
Speaker 2: a difficult subject for Republicans because it never was in
Speaker 2: the past. It also is indicative of the realignment that,
Speaker 2: as Bannon points out, you now have a lot of
Speaker 2: magas on Medicaid, you know, and so this is going
Speaker 2: to have an impact on your voting coalition will be
Speaker 2: among many of the eight million who lose their health insurance,
Speaker 2: like Trump one narrowly but one voters making under fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, and that is the first time for a
Speaker 2: Republican I don't know.
Speaker 4: Since when in the modern era.
Speaker 2: So in any case, I think the schizophrenic nature of
Speaker 2: the Medicaid messaging within the Republican coalition is indicative of
Speaker 2: the fact, like they realize this is a big political
Speaker 2: problem for them, but they also realize they have this
Speaker 2: ideological commitment to cutting medicaid, and also the bill blows
Speaker 2: up the deficit, and we've got to do something, and
Speaker 2: we've got to appeel the fiscal hawks and the Libertarians
Speaker 2: and the Caucus and whatever. So they are kind of
Speaker 2: a mess on this issue because it's not really it
Speaker 2: is dramatically if you pull cut some medicaid dramatically politically unpopular, yep.
Speaker 2: And so you know, they just don't really know what
Speaker 2: to do with that when they're out trying to talk
Speaker 2: to regular people.
Speaker 3: So let's actually he wasn't talking to regular people, but
Speaker 3: the vote went on who was doing Sunday Show messaging
Speaker 3: to Crystal's point about GOP messaging discipline, And actually a
Speaker 3: lot of people on the right were passing around this
Speaker 3: clip is kind of a masterclass. But people on the
Speaker 3: left this reminds me of the Vino clip we played
Speaker 3: in the elon of Block and Crystal. People on the
Speaker 3: left are passing this around as examples of doge Republican cruelty. Basically,
Speaker 3: so let's go ahead and role Office of Management Budget
Speaker 3: Director Russ Vote, who is now basically seen as the
Speaker 3: policy mind that's driving DOGE. The administration is saying there's
Speaker 3: really no one person now that Elon's kind of checked out,
Speaker 3: there's no one person that's like the leader of DOGE.
Speaker 3: But people generally see Russ as being the intellectual policy
Speaker 3: mind of DOGE, and he's at OMB so he's kind
Speaker 3: of managing the purse strings. He's very supportive of the
Speaker 3: unitary executive theory. He's an extremely consequential person in this administration.
Speaker 3: So watch, let's watch Russ vote yesterday.
Speaker 11: It's more about the NI eight and the NIH has
Speaker 11: been a bureaucracy that we believe has been weaponized against
Speaker 11: the American people. We saw that in COVID, the extent
Speaker 11: to which it doesn't even know or is willing to
Speaker 11: grapple with, the extent to which it funded the Wuhan
Speaker 11: Institute through the Eco Health Alliance, and the fact that
Speaker 11: they pay far more than even Bill Gates does for
Speaker 11: indirect costs at all of the bureaucracy. So this is
Speaker 11: something that is vitally important to be able to get
Speaker 11: a handle on. And we're still going to give twenty
Speaker 11: eight billion dollars.
Speaker 5: To the NIH.
Speaker 3: So that's him. With Dana Bash on CNN State of
Speaker 3: the Union Sunday Show Crystal interesting in the context of
Speaker 3: the point you made about generally being impressed with Republican
Speaker 3: messaging discipline, what did you make of Russ as the
Speaker 3: people like Joni Ernst are struggling with town halls. At
Speaker 3: one point there was the director from Trump on down like,
Speaker 3: just don't do town halls. The bills on the table
Speaker 3: right now, dose is kind of over. So how do
Speaker 3: you think the way Russ is talking is playing with
Speaker 3: the public.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that the way Russ is talking is
Speaker 2: the reason why there was some general public receptivity to
Speaker 2: the project of DOGE, because you can point at things
Speaker 2: at USAD that people are like, I don't know that
Speaker 2: we really need to do that. You can obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: NIH is a good example where you can point and
Speaker 2: the abundance guys have critiques of like, oh, we should
Speaker 2: be doing organizing our federal research and our science funding
Speaker 2: this way. But now that you're on cleanup crew and
Speaker 2: people have seen, oh, you're not just targeting like the
Speaker 2: Wuhan Lab. You are gutting scientific research across the board
Speaker 2: in a way that you know is going to have
Speaker 2: generational impacts. No, those are not things that the public supported.
Speaker 2: So if there was you know, if this was before
Speaker 2: the fact and justification of Okay, why we're going to
Speaker 2: come in and here's how we're going to do it,
Speaker 2: and this is what it's going to look like. Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe you could have gotten some public support for that.
Speaker 2: But now, like the bloom is off of the rows,
Speaker 2: people have already seen the chainsaw. They're not going to
Speaker 2: unsee the chainsaw and think that you're doing some limited, targeted,
Speaker 2: effective cutting of just the pieces of the federal government
Speaker 2: that they may have some sort of issue with.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be tough, And I wonder, you know, when
Speaker 3: the history of this first administration has written ten plus
Speaker 3: years from now, not like the next couple of years,
Speaker 3: but ten plus years from now, how people see the
Speaker 3: cause of like actually trinking like the conservative movements almost
Speaker 3: central animating principle of cutting government because cutting government and
Speaker 3: this is again the conservative argument, you know, that always
Speaker 3: brings more freedom. So like any cut to the government
Speaker 3: is more that abstract principle of freedom, like it's you're
Speaker 3: feeding human freedom every time you cut the government. I
Speaker 3: just wonder how this period changes that going forward, and
Speaker 3: if the Republican Party looks more like the Bannon Republican
Speaker 3: Party or the Eline Republican Party ten years from now,
Speaker 3: based on all this, because right now, what the trying
Speaker 3: to do, people like rest Boat are trying to marry
Speaker 3: the two right, and that is what feels like is slipping.
Speaker 2: And it isn't just the Republicans who've been bought into
Speaker 2: the I mean, Bill Clinton is the one who said
Speaker 2: the era of big government is over, right, right, this
Speaker 2: is really starts with Carter, you know, dabbles in it.
Speaker 2: Reagan is obviously the you know, real ideological like full
Speaker 2: realization of that ideology in government. Bill Clinton consolidates it
Speaker 2: as a bipartisan project. And you know, and this is
Speaker 2: the central question of the political moment we're living in
Speaker 2: right now, is like that consensus is dead.
Speaker 4: What comes next is contested.
Speaker 2: And that's where the abundance conversation fits in of what, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: what does the post neoliberal left offering look like? That's
Speaker 2: where the I mean, personally, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: abundance is neoliberal. But that's their conception is like Okay,
Speaker 2: you know you've got this, You've got the oligarchy framing,
Speaker 2: you've got the you know, the breaking up the anti
Speaker 2: trust and corporate power framing, and then there's this question
Speaker 2: of what is the role of government. The priorities and
Speaker 2: values that are embodied in the Trump Big Beautiful budget
Speaker 2: are basically a gutting of the social safety net, a
Speaker 2: funding of the oligarchs and the wealthy, and a massive
Speaker 2: expansion of the police state of the military industrial complex
Speaker 2: with a huge Pentagon budget, and then a massive expansion
Speaker 2: of ICE and the private prison detention centers that go
Speaker 2: along with that. So that is the as embodied by
Speaker 2: the Trump movement that is really their conception of government
Speaker 2: power is that it does little in terms of providing
Speaker 2: social services and does a lot in terms of, you know,
Speaker 2: the sort of like surveillance and projecting power and fighting
Speaker 2: wars and those sorts of things. I think the Democrats
Speaker 2: and the leftmore broadly are really grappling right now with
Speaker 2: what their conception of the federal government is ultimately going
Speaker 2: to be. But I do think your right to focus
Speaker 2: in on that is one of the key questions that
Speaker 2: is being grappled with right now sort of across the
Speaker 2: board politically in terms of arriving at whatever the new
Speaker 2: political era and consensus is going to be.
Speaker 3: I actually think it's been a great few months for
Speaker 3: democratic socialism in all seriousness. The pitch that Bernie Sanders
Speaker 3: and Alexandro Kazuo Kortezer making.
Speaker 2: You see the receptivity was Zorn Mumdani, who had notice
Speaker 2: challenging Cuomo in the way that he's been able to
Speaker 2: whether he's able to pull it off or not for
Speaker 2: New York City there.
Speaker 3: M hm. I think he's a great point. Chris. I
Speaker 3: was so proud of us because we were we almost
Speaker 3: wrapped the show on a timely basis, and that we didn't.
Speaker 2: We had to wax poetic about the about neoliberalism and
Speaker 2: the waiting era and let girls be girls.
Speaker 4: They're a big government. There you go.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, Premium subscribers are going to get that
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Speaker 4: If you are a premium subscriber.
Speaker 2: The promo code for the free monthly trial is BP
Speaker 2: freeover at Breakingpoints dot com. Let's see today is Monday, Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I'm in with Marshall. Hell yeah, that's going to be
Speaker 2: super fun. I'm looking forward to that. Such a smart guy.
Speaker 2: Always enjoy his insights, so that'll be good. He's in
Speaker 2: person too, right, he's in person. Amazing, it's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you and Ryan on Wednesday, Me and Ryan on Thursday,
Speaker 2: Friday Show.
Speaker 4: That's the plan for the week.
Speaker 3: So gang's all here.
Speaker 4: We'll see you guys tomorrow.
Speaker 17: Shot, keep sh keep
Speaker 3: Shot.