Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 3: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: All right, So, at the same time, we have some
Speaker 2: very significant it's not just political news, but it is
Speaker 2: also political news. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So some aids are leaking to Politico that Trump is
Speaker 2: saying Musk is going to leave soon. So let me
Speaker 2: read you a little bit of this so you can
Speaker 2: get the specifics here. President Donald Trump has told his
Speaker 2: inner circle, including members of his cabinet, that Elon Musk
Speaker 2: will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his
Speaker 2: current role as government partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchetman.
Speaker 2: President remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government
Speaker 2: efficiency initiative, but both men have decided in recent days
Speaker 2: it will soon be time for Musk to return to
Speaker 2: his business and take on a supporting role. According to
Speaker 2: three Trump insiders, who of course remained anonymous, Musk's looming
Speaker 2: exit comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside
Speaker 2: allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view
Speaker 2: the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic thrown into
Speaker 2: Stark relief Tuesday after that Wisconsin Supreme Court race. It
Speaker 2: also represents a shift in that relationship. However, they go
Speaker 2: on to say that this doesn't mean that Elon will
Speaker 2: be completely out of the loop. One senior administration official
Speaker 2: said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as
Speaker 2: an advisor, continued to be an occasional face. Another caution
Speaker 2: that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely
Speaker 2: from Trump's orbit is quote fooling themselves. This comes on
Speaker 2: the heels not only of that Wisconsin Supreme Court race,
Speaker 2: where Elon went all in. He spent twenty six million dollars.
Speaker 2: He flew there, he did an event, he gave out
Speaker 2: million dollar checks. He was basically like bribing people to
Speaker 2: vote for his candidate, and his candidate ends up losing
Speaker 2: by ten points. But also Musk himself had been making
Speaker 2: some noises about the temporary nature of his stay within
Speaker 2: the federal government. Let's go ahead and take a listen
Speaker 2: to what he told Brettbaer.
Speaker 4: You technically are a special government employee and you're supposed
Speaker 4: to be one hundred and thirty days. Are you going
Speaker 4: to continue past that or do you think that's what
Speaker 4: you're going to do?
Speaker 5: Or well, I think we will accomplish most of the
Speaker 5: work required to reduce the deficit by trillion dollars within
Speaker 5: that timeframe.
Speaker 4: So in that timeframe, one hundred and thirty days, and
Speaker 4: the process is a report at some point at one
Speaker 4: hundred days.
Speaker 6: Not really a report.
Speaker 5: We are cutting the waste improt in real time. So
Speaker 5: every day that passes, our goal is to reduce the
Speaker 5: waste and prod by four billion dollars a day, every day,
Speaker 5: seven days a week, and so far we are succeeding.
Speaker 2: So I think soccer. The easiest explanation here is that
Speaker 2: Trump now sees Elon as a political loser and a
Speaker 2: liability and wants to sort of distance himself from that
Speaker 2: whole situation, especially after the big loss in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Well, that's accurate now, probably.
Speaker 2: Probably Ryan had a theory, an interesting theory, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you listen. So others have floated this as well,
Speaker 2: but he articulated. So there's a possibility that Trump believes
Speaker 2: that Elon actually rigged the election in the fall, and
Speaker 2: or at least isn't sure because you remember Rogan was
Speaker 2: talking about like Elon knew before anybody that you know,
Speaker 2: that he that he had won, and Elon's got starlink
Speaker 2: and he's it's all computer right with Elon Musk, And
Speaker 2: so it doesn't require you to believe he actually did
Speaker 2: that to think that maybe Trump thinks that he actually
Speaker 2: did that. And so if you have, that would explain
Speaker 2: why he was so subservient to him long beyond what
Speaker 2: you would expect. And now that you have the Wisconsin
Speaker 2: result was like, oh, well, clearly you weren't able to
Speaker 2: pull it off there, so I guess you didn't actually
Speaker 2: ring the election for me in my favor. So now
Speaker 2: I can be done with you. That was the theory
Speaker 2: that Ryan flow, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That requires some mental jiu jitsu that I'm not quite
Speaker 3: ready to embrace.
Speaker 1: The easiest explanation is that he just gave.
Speaker 3: Him a quarter bill and that Trump is also just
Speaker 3: look at Trump this time around. Trump has lost much
Speaker 3: of his edge what his edge last time? And I
Speaker 3: was especially during this whole Mike Walt saga, anybody who
Speaker 3: looks like such a fucking idiot on television, that person
Speaker 3: got fired in the first term.
Speaker 1: I was there. I covered the entire thing. I watched
Speaker 1: this happen over and over again.
Speaker 3: If you had even one screw up like that, he
Speaker 3: would call you, he would scream at you, and you
Speaker 3: were done. I mean, it was, you know, one bad story.
Speaker 3: If it was embarrassing, that was it with Elon and
Speaker 3: with Mike Waller. Because it's not just Elon, it's actually
Speaker 3: the whole government. Is that many of these guys, Howard Lutnick,
Speaker 3: I mean, Lutnik has crashed to the stock market like
Speaker 3: five different times.
Speaker 2: That's likely inspiring. Also in this response.
Speaker 3: Scott bess Is, I'm not even talking looking at a
Speaker 3: mechanical level. He in his presentation. He's just bad at this.
Speaker 3: Like his confirmation hearing was a disaster. He clearly does
Speaker 3: not have confidence in his He clearly doesn't have confidence
Speaker 3: in his public presentation. He was not prepared for primetime
Speaker 3: at all. Whenever the stock market there was fluctuating. I
Speaker 3: actually literally had the S and P live ticker and
Speaker 3: my phone in front of me as he was on
Speaker 3: Fox News. I was watching it drop as he continued
Speaker 3: to speak.
Speaker 1: That's not good.
Speaker 3: It's like a Tim Geidner level situation from two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight.
Speaker 2: And the whole reason he was picked is because Trump
Speaker 2: thought that he would inspire market confidence kind of.
Speaker 3: I mean, bestent is one of those like more MAGA
Speaker 3: friendly figures from Wall Street, Like he's somebody who made
Speaker 3: his fortune trading, but he's actually expressed a lot more
Speaker 3: nationalist beliefs about let's say the current deficits.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, But he wanted someone who would have the
Speaker 2: confidence of the markets, who also had some of those
Speaker 2: like MAGA nationalist tendants exactly correct.
Speaker 3: And he's just not doing a good job at a
Speaker 3: community level. I'm just saying, basically, you know, you can
Speaker 3: watch the results of that. He's not able to defend
Speaker 3: the policy all that well, I think the reason is,
Speaker 3: you know, not to make it even more about tariffs,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But if we go back and look at
Speaker 3: all of this, Elon has not tweeted once about the tariffs.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Elon actually supported Javier Malay whenever he cut all
Speaker 3: tariffs coming in and out of Argentina, which is kind
Speaker 3: of hilarious. But if we think just about Elon generally,
Speaker 3: he has become the lightning rod. He's destroying his own company,
Speaker 3: and he made Trump made him the figure that we
Speaker 3: will all remember the most about the first hundred days.
Speaker 3: When the history is written of the first hundred days
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration, we will remember two things. Today
Speaker 3: quote liberation Day or I guess yesterday was Liberation Day.
Speaker 3: I apologize Liberation Day, and we will remember dosh, That's
Speaker 3: what we will remember the first one hundred days. Everything
Speaker 3: else is bullshit that you'll really just it'll be footnotes
Speaker 3: if it won't even make.
Speaker 1: The Oxford history.
Speaker 3: But those two things, you can say quite clearly, it's
Speaker 3: obviously going to have the impact in terms of not
Speaker 3: even what it necessarily did, but for the for the
Speaker 3: implication internally of what he decided his presidency is about.
Speaker 3: And so we can see that clearly by outsourcing much
Speaker 3: of the spotlight and the fights. I mean, really, politics
Speaker 3: is ultimately about the fights that you pick. That really
Speaker 3: is what it's all about. Trump was a genius in
Speaker 3: terms of picking those fights correctly during the campaign, but
Speaker 3: this time around, like Doge, the idea of government efficiency
Speaker 3: and all that was popular, but the more that you
Speaker 3: saw it executed, it was just obviously stupid. It was haphazard,
Speaker 3: It was you know, it was there was no consideration.
Speaker 3: Elon himself is obviously not a good communicator. There is
Speaker 3: insane amounts of conflicts of interest. He's also just kind
Speaker 3: of an idiot in his general political presentation. And so
Speaker 3: you see all of that showing up in the Wisconsin numbers,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, at the very least Trump
Speaker 3: can conclude.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is not good. This is becoming a problem
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, from Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Wisconsin made it very clear, and we can put there
Speaker 2: there's a new poll of how people feel about you.
Speaker 7: One.
Speaker 2: They don't like this guy. He is not popular. Put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen from Politico. So approval of
Speaker 2: how he's handling his work at DOGE is at forty
Speaker 2: one percent, with disapproval at fifty eight percent. For Musk himself,
Speaker 2: the numbers are even worse. Sixty percent have an unfavorable
Speaker 2: view of him compared with thirty eight percent that have
Speaker 2: a favorable view. Yeah, I mean he has all of
Speaker 2: the chaos and insanity of Trump and none of the
Speaker 2: charm Doge. Listen it, honestly like it. It actually was
Speaker 2: kind of hard to screw up this idea with the
Speaker 2: American public because people are on board with, well, let's
Speaker 2: make it more efficient, let's cut the fat whatever, like Rhetorically,
Speaker 2: people were inclined to be on board with that, but
Speaker 2: it became incredibly and immediately clear that's not what was
Speaker 2: actually going on here. I mean, you have the level
Speaker 2: of just like cruelty of celebrating people losing their jobs,
Speaker 2: you know, and being asked, and you immediately get these
Speaker 2: stories that are like, oh, the aren't some unsympathetic, pink
Speaker 2: haired haired liberal weirdo. We're talking about huge numbers of
Speaker 2: veterans who are losing their job. You're talking about just
Speaker 2: like normal people who were trying to do their best
Speaker 2: and are being unceremoniously kicked out. Then you see the level,
Speaker 2: and this is so obvious to everyone. The richest man
Speaker 2: on the planet, who has his hands and involved in
Speaker 2: virtually every government agency is he's the one in charge
Speaker 2: of this. And then we get the stories about, oh
Speaker 2: look they changed this line item so that four hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars we're going to Tesla. Oh look, he's at
Speaker 2: the FAA and the SpaceX engineers are running around the
Speaker 2: building and they're pushing contracts in his direction. Oh look
Speaker 2: at that. These agencies that were previously investigating his companies,
Speaker 2: now suddenly he's involved there, and those investigations are nowhere
Speaker 2: to be found. So it did not take a rocket
Speaker 2: scientist to see what was really going on here, and
Speaker 2: to see that, you know. Also, I think probably the
Speaker 2: most politically damaging is how aggressively he has both rhetorically
Speaker 2: and in reality gone after the Social Security administration. These
Speaker 2: things are profoundly, profoundly unpopular in a way that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump always used to at least understand. And to your point,
Speaker 2: which is one that you know, has been increasingly apparent
Speaker 2: to me too, I do think Trump is way more
Speaker 2: checked out of most of his administration now, I think
Speaker 2: the tariff policy, I think that is all him, right,
Speaker 2: all him and chat GPT. I think that is he
Speaker 2: is leading the charge there. You can see in the
Speaker 2: way Scott Bessont is so uncomfortable in defending it and
Speaker 2: doesn't want to even speak in you know, specifics about
Speaker 2: what this policy entails. I think that is all him.
Speaker 2: But even in the leaked signal Gate chats, it's all
Speaker 2: like it's like he completely deferred this important foreign policy
Speaker 2: to this band of you know, idiots and wackos who
Speaker 2: are there like kind of who don't even really seem
Speaker 2: to know exactly what it is that Trump wants them
Speaker 2: to do. So so many parts of this are his
Speaker 2: hands off, and he's just handed it over to Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: I think the other person that he's handed a lot
Speaker 2: of his policy over to is Steven Miller.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, you know, even to be honest, I
Speaker 3: don't see it though, because Stephen, you might be right
Speaker 3: in the aliens enemies thing, but look at all the
Speaker 3: other ls that the pro immigration side has taken. I
Speaker 3: didn't bring this up because I heard it had too
Speaker 3: much to say about tariffs. But an hour into the talk,
Speaker 3: Trump said by the way, we need a lot more
Speaker 3: legal immigrants to fill all these manufacturing jobs. I was like,
Speaker 3: wait what, I was like, excuse me, what's going on there?
Speaker 3: So that's not even an H one B argument, right,
Speaker 3: He's making that the argument that we need more workers
Speaker 3: to replace or okay, sorry, to fill all these brand
Speaker 3: new manufacturing jobs that you're taking. I know for a
Speaker 3: fact that Steven Miller of them have been fighting against
Speaker 3: that behind the scenes. So Stephen Miller, yes, he got
Speaker 3: his Alien Enemies Act, but I mean, there's been no
Speaker 3: change on H one B. Trump is out there basically
Speaker 3: like simultaneously endorsing McKinley esque tariff policy but then neoliberal
Speaker 3: immigration policy. These don't make any sense. I would say
Speaker 3: Elon has been empowered. And also what I noticed the
Speaker 3: most about Trump is I don't think they necessarily planned
Speaker 3: this whole thing with Elon, but then what happened when
Speaker 3: Elon became a lightning rod. Trump is obsessed with quote
Speaker 3: not giving a scalp. Even behind the scenes, It's obvious
Speaker 3: he thinks Michael Waltz's an idiot, but he doesn't want
Speaker 3: to fire.
Speaker 1: Him because it would mean vindicating Jeffrey Goldberg.
Speaker 3: Well with Elon, who has become you know, this liberal
Speaker 3: like lightning Rod, same thing. He doesn't want to give
Speaker 3: his enemies a scalp, phase him out.
Speaker 1: Or whatever over a period.
Speaker 3: But I mean, the issue is just the amount of
Speaker 3: damage that they're doing in the interim. Look at the
Speaker 3: wisconsinant numbers. We haven't even gotten a chance to really
Speaker 3: react here. I mean, that was a mid term level
Speaker 3: turnout for some freaking judges race. I couldn't even tell
Speaker 3: you the judge where I come from is. And that's
Speaker 3: you know, Wisconsin voters were like, we got more ads
Speaker 3: on our TVs, and we had more touch points, and
Speaker 3: we did it in the presidential election over this whole thing.
Speaker 1: That's the number of Democrats that came up to it.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't even close. It was like fifty five
Speaker 1: forty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah victories.
Speaker 1: It's insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now think about what's going to happen here in Virginia.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, what Spanberger? What do you think he's
Speaker 3: gonna win by twenty points? It's going to be unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's where the Elon problem is in. You know,
Speaker 3: by not quote giving the enemy a scalp, you're creating
Speaker 3: a massive, massive political problem.
Speaker 2: I don't think Shump cares though, like don't I don't
Speaker 2: think he cares about the midterms. I think I think
Speaker 2: he already expects Republicans are going to lose the House
Speaker 2: in the midterms, and so I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: really all that important to him. And so, you know, more,
Speaker 2: he's less concerned about electoral fallout, and he's more concerned about,
Speaker 2: you know, him being able to exercise maximal amounts of
Speaker 2: power and uh enforce maximal amounts of fealty. And so
Speaker 2: that's where you know, the terrorists come in and the
Speaker 2: media tacks University, all of those sorts of things. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a I think a really good insight with regard
Speaker 2: to him not wanting to give in to like the
Speaker 2: liberals or the liberal media or whatever with regard to
Speaker 2: Elon Yes, especially when they immediately started cheering doing the
Speaker 2: like he's the co president, and when they immediately started
Speaker 2: predicting like, oh, there's no way that these two are
Speaker 2: going to be able to coexist and Trump's going to
Speaker 2: fire him. And then I also think that Trump is
Speaker 2: so enamored with money and so enamored also with like
Speaker 2: IQ that I think he's kind of he is a
Speaker 2: little spell bound by Elon too, Like I think Elon
Speaker 2: was able to extor. Trump has his own reality distortion
Speaker 2: field that comes more from his like, you know, his
Speaker 2: charm and this giant personality. Elon has a reality distortion
Speaker 2: field that comes from you know, him positioning himself as
Speaker 2: this like grand great man and he's the richest man
Speaker 2: on the planet, and that's what Trump ultimately respects. So
Speaker 2: I do think that he was also a little bit
Speaker 2: spell bound by Elon.
Speaker 1: I think that's certainly part of it. All right, should
Speaker 1: we talk about Tesla.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So while this political fallout is unfolding, for Elon,
Speaker 2: business faultlund is also unfolding. We can put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen. Tesla deliveries came in way below even expectations,
Speaker 2: which the expectations were already not good, but they sank
Speaker 2: thirteen percent in the first quarter compared to where they
Speaker 2: were last year. So I'll go ahead and read you
Speaker 2: a little bit of this article. Tesla's global vehicle deliveries
Speaker 2: fell thirteen percent in the first quarter from a year ago,
Speaker 2: further evidence that a growing consumer backlash against the brand
Speaker 2: and Elon Musk is hurting the automaker's business. The final
Speaker 2: quarterly tally of three hundred and thirty six thousand missed
Speaker 2: analyst expectations of three hundred ninety six thousand delivery deliveries.
Speaker 2: According to Visible Alpha, Tesla shares fell. We'll see what
Speaker 2: Tesla shares do today whenever Marget's open. Yeah, it's going
Speaker 2: to be you know, it's going to be not good
Speaker 2: for them. But you know, some of this is not
Speaker 2: just Elon being this incredibly divisive, toxic lightning rod figure.
Speaker 2: And remember it's not just our politics. Obviously he's been
Speaker 2: the most front and center, but it's not just our politics.
Speaker 2: He also has been tweeting about all kinds of countries
Speaker 2: around the world, but specifically intervened in Germany, specifically intervened
Speaker 2: in the UK. And you have to remember who is
Speaker 2: like the typical EV buyer. These tend to be more
Speaker 2: liberal types. So when you have someone who has aligned
Speaker 2: himself in such an aggressive, partisan, outspoken way owning Twitter
Speaker 2: as well with far right movements not just here but
Speaker 2: around the world, yeah, there's going to be incredible fallout.
Speaker 2: And at the same time you have other EV makers,
Speaker 2: byd being the most prominent of them, but others as
Speaker 2: well who are really competing.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: You know, for a while, Tesla was really kind of
Speaker 2: even in the US, was really the only EV game
Speaker 2: in town, so to speak. And now even in terms
Speaker 2: of US automakers, you have, you know, increasing competition in
Speaker 2: the market, and so it's the perfect storm for a
Speaker 2: catastrophic fallout for Tesla as a company. And the board
Speaker 2: is really stocked with Elon, like total loyal like his
Speaker 2: brothers on the board for example. So you would think
Speaker 2: maybe the company at some point would be like, you know,
Speaker 2: being so closely associated with this guy is not really
Speaker 2: working out for our brand. But I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any Oh, they can't. He's not in any kind of
Speaker 2: danger of that because they were specifically selected to be
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 3: No matter what, there are two things can be true.
Speaker 3: Tesla would never be where it was today without Elon,
Speaker 3: and also, Tesla's downfall, if it does come, will be
Speaker 3: because of you, and that's rarely where things are. Right now,
Speaker 3: go and put this next one up on the screen,
Speaker 3: because this is where all of my attention is right now,
Speaker 3: at the very same time that you're seeing global market
Speaker 3: drop for Tesla, which let's face it, like you said,
Speaker 3: it's the premiere electric vehicle made by the United States
Speaker 3: and one of our exports. It was one of the
Speaker 3: crown jewels actually of major US economy. And if you
Speaker 3: think about it, this is an auto company startup that
Speaker 3: was able to export and become a brand and bestseller
Speaker 3: across the world. That's one of the best case scenarios
Speaker 3: you could actually make for a US company. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, what we've been talking a lot about
Speaker 3: in the last several months is BYD and BYD sales
Speaker 3: have now topped one hundred billion for the very first time. Actually,
Speaker 3: their demand is exploding right now. Their revenue is up
Speaker 3: twenty nine percent from last year, and actually you have
Speaker 3: seen increases in the very same markets where you are
Speaker 3: seeing Tesla decrease. Right Remember, the rest of the world
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily ban Chinese electric vehicles the way that we do,
Speaker 3: and they're cheaper. That's the other extraordinary thing. Tesla's revenue
Speaker 3: and BYD revenue can be roughly similar. Bid has to
Speaker 3: sell three times a number of cars that Tesla does
Speaker 3: to be able to reach that same level. Now, of course,
Speaker 3: they have access to China, the world's greatest consumer market,
Speaker 3: so you know, there are a lot of other mitigating factors,
Speaker 3: but look, you just can't simply sit here and deny
Speaker 3: that this is not a even bigger problem. This is
Speaker 3: not a big problem for Tesla because what is happening
Speaker 3: in Germany, in Mexico. I mean, the entire idea of Tesla.
Speaker 3: Their strategy is they basically had to choose, we're going
Speaker 3: to be a luxury brand or we're going to a brand
Speaker 3: that is to the everyday person that was there. You know,
Speaker 3: they went for the Model three. That was really what
Speaker 3: made it a multi trillion dollar company. Well that's what
Speaker 3: we're sorry, multi billion dollar company. What their strategy is
Speaker 3: to sell as many of these Eca threes and whys
Speaker 3: as possible to you know, the average consumer, and to
Speaker 3: make it so that the everyday man could afford it
Speaker 3: and to be into one, as opposed to some sort
Speaker 3: of luxury vehicle strategy. Well, now you're competing against BYD,
Speaker 3: which not only has state subsidization from the Chinese, it's
Speaker 3: also just a fantastic car. And those are two things
Speaker 3: that are very very difficult to be so and did
Speaker 3: I mention tariffs on top of all of this. If
Speaker 3: you're a foreign country. What's the easiest way to needle Trump?
Speaker 1: What are you going to do? I'm tariff and Tesla tomorrow, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And the Tesla stock is also very vulnerable
Speaker 2: because for a long time a lot of analysts have
Speaker 2: looked at this and said, you know, this level of
Speaker 2: valuation given the number of cars that they actually sell,
Speaker 2: is crazy, like, does not make any sense. But there
Speaker 2: was a story about especially after Trump gets elected, while
Speaker 2: he's going to be close to Trump, and that's certainly
Speaker 2: going to help his business a lot that didn't that
Speaker 2: one didn't really work out for him. And then also
Speaker 2: you know, oh, well the technology that goes into Tesla,
Speaker 2: that's going to be the thing in the future. And
Speaker 2: you know, we also haven't really talked about the way
Speaker 2: that one of the things that Elon wanted to be
Speaker 2: very invested in was these automated taxis and Weimo was
Speaker 2: eating their lunch in that regard as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we haven't talked as much about WEYMO. You know,
Speaker 3: I saw one the other day here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: But there was actually a driver behind the wheels, so
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how that works. Yeah, I still have
Speaker 3: not been in one. I would love to go, but
Speaker 3: they have.
Speaker 2: Really cornered the to the extent that you know, the
Speaker 2: autonomous robot taxi market exists at this point, which if
Speaker 2: you go out to what San Francisco, these things are
Speaker 2: in the street everywhere. It's Wimo, it's not Tesla.
Speaker 3: That's right, and they're trying they've got the what is
Speaker 3: it the robotaxi I think, which is coming online same thing.
Speaker 3: Like you said, that was part of the strategy. So
Speaker 3: it's incredibly vulnerable now to his overall you know, think
Speaker 3: I just want to return to somebody were talking.
Speaker 1: About earlier in our Elon block.
Speaker 3: Elon did kind of give me the game away when
Speaker 3: he's like, you know why the midterms matter because if
Speaker 3: the Democrats take House.
Speaker 1: They're going to subpoena and investigate it. That's right, And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that actually, dude, they are. You
Speaker 1: should really worry.
Speaker 3: Like if I was Elon, he's lucky he's rich, because
Speaker 3: you better be ready to lawyer the cup. You are
Speaker 3: going to spend one hundred million dollars in in legal
Speaker 3: fees just appearing before all these or even fighting all
Speaker 3: of these subpoenas. From all these what House subcommittees and
Speaker 3: all of this, and you can't look, you can't blame
Speaker 3: the Dems for doing that. Whenever that's the chief political
Speaker 3: opponent of people who are energized against right, Well, they're
Speaker 3: given one of the mandates they're going to run on
Speaker 3: is we're going to stop Trump and Elon, So of
Speaker 3: course they're going to investigate Elon, Tesla stubpoena, all of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Also the things he's doing are like wildly illegal. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, something didn't even make it into the show
Speaker 2: today because of all other shit that's going on. But
Speaker 2: you know, RFK Junior's doing these massive Doge cuts at HHS,
Speaker 2: and you can just look at I talk about one
Speaker 2: of these in my monologue. Actually you can just look
Speaker 2: at these individual programs, like one is called light HEAP.
Speaker 2: It's the heating program, low income heating assistance program, so
Speaker 2: that you know, old people who are poor in Maine
Speaker 2: don't like freeze to death during the winter. These are
Speaker 2: congressionally authorized programs, like Congress said, we want to do this,
Speaker 2: and here's the money to do it. And now DOGE
Speaker 2: comes in and just zeros out the workforce. So there's
Speaker 2: no one there to administer the program like this is
Speaker 2: to me, it's a blatant violation of you know, the separation,
Speaker 2: the checks and balances between these various branches. So and
Speaker 2: obviously the courts have looked very skeptically at many of
Speaker 2: the things that DOGE has done, so they have entirely legitimate,
Speaker 2: like legal reasons that they would want to look into this,
Speaker 2: not to mention the level of secrecy. I know, Elon
Speaker 2: Lesson pretend like there's tons of transparency here, but there's
Speaker 2: not the level of secrecy around who's doing what into
Speaker 2: what ends and to benefit whom, et cetera. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course they're going to be off to the races
Speaker 2: with endless investigations and subpoenas. And I think it's I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it would be shocking at this point if
Speaker 2: Democrats didn't win big in the midterms, because not only
Speaker 2: did you have the Wisconsin race double digits in the
Speaker 2: liberals favor, but if you look down at those two
Speaker 2: Florida both of them Florida special election seats, it was
Speaker 2: roughly a fifteen point swing, Yeah, exactly towards the Democrats.
Speaker 2: Now midterms will be a little bit higher turnout, but
Speaker 2: Republicans have a low propensity voter issue. At this point,
Speaker 2: Democrats are highly motivated, they have a Republicans have a
Speaker 2: razor thin margin. Like I said, I'd be shocked if
Speaker 2: Democrats don't take the House, and I think Trump has
Speaker 2: already written off the idea that they'll be able to
Speaker 2: hold onto the House. The last piece we have here
Speaker 2: with regards specifically to Tesla, you can put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen, is you know, understated in all of
Speaker 2: this is just what an incredible flop the cyber truck
Speaker 2: has been. They've had issues with safety and with recalls.
Speaker 2: All of every cyber truck effectively was just recently recalled
Speaker 2: because some of the trim can just fly off because
Speaker 2: it's just glued on. And we now know that they're
Speaker 2: sitting on two hundred million dollars worth of cyber truck inventory.
Speaker 2: They're having so much trouble moving cyber trucks that they
Speaker 2: actually have banned people from current cyber truck owners from
Speaker 2: trading in the vehicle at Tesla dealerships. So they say
Speaker 2: Tesla's having issues selling new cyber trucks. The automaker is
Speaker 2: reportedly not taking any as trade ins so they won't
Speaker 2: accept their own vehicle as a trade in. Many cyber
Speaker 2: truck owners reported trying to trade in the truck for
Speaker 2: a new vehicle, they were told the automaker currently doesn't
Speaker 2: accept its own vehicle as a trade in. Some owners
Speaker 2: who have had their trucks in service for extended periods
Speaker 2: of time are also trying to get Tesla to take
Speaker 2: it back, companies forcing them to go through the lemon
Speaker 2: law process. And then other dealerships also are either not
Speaker 2: taking in cyber trucks or they're giving incredibly low ball
Speaker 2: offers to potential sellers as they wait to see where
Speaker 2: the price will stabilize. Right now, use cyber truck prices
Speaker 2: are down fifty five percent, you're over year, thirteen percent
Speaker 2: over the last three months, and six percent over the
Speaker 2: last month.
Speaker 3: YEP, not good, and especially because the cyber truck has
Speaker 3: just become like a symbol of Elon.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's right, that's really yeah, that's exactly right. It's
Speaker 2: such a like in your face vehicle to buy.
Speaker 3: That's a unique vehicle. Yeah, and then you made that
Speaker 3: vehicle political. It's like, well that's not unstario, Like I
Speaker 3: said before. You know, if you've got a truck that's
Speaker 3: like eighty to ninety thousand dollars. There's only a certain
Speaker 3: subset of people that can afford that, or I guess
Speaker 3: it should afford that.
Speaker 2: So as much as you may want to own the libs,
Speaker 2: you maybe don't want to own them to the tune
Speaker 2: of ninety thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Right, that's true.
Speaker 3: Although there are a lot of people out there driving
Speaker 3: what Ford f one to fifty or what's the bigger one?
Speaker 1: Not bigger than forty two two fifty?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're super dude.
Speaker 1: What are the double deckers and.
Speaker 2: All the ones that are like super wow?
Speaker 3: Dually, that's what the control room is telling me. There
Speaker 3: are a lot of guys out there, oh, like eighty grand.
Speaker 1: To their local Ford dealership.
Speaker 3: But we can talk about personal finance and stuff for
Speaker 3: another day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean also, look, it's still like it's
Speaker 2: still kind of a pain in the ass to own
Speaker 2: an electric vehicle, you know, like the charging network is
Speaker 2: still like it's okay, but it's still kind of pain
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 1: Assquote pain in the ass. But it is for well.
Speaker 2: If it's your primary vehicle and you're wanting to use
Speaker 2: it for like long road trips and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna stop more, there's no question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean at the same time, like most people
Speaker 3: do stop statistically, they usually stop over like two to
Speaker 3: three hours, so it's more that your stop will be
Speaker 3: a little bit longer. The truck case is really more about,
Speaker 3: like if you're statistically more likely to live in a
Speaker 3: more rural area, so you're gonna have less access to
Speaker 3: charging exits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is where a lot of Trump supporters, which is.
Speaker 1: Where a lot of Trump people would be.
Speaker 3: So anyway, could we talk about that later, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of you don't need trucks though, and specifically
Speaker 3: talking to my Texans out there, living in a suburb
Speaker 3: with eight thousand dollars drug is stupid.
Speaker 1: But we'll get that to that later.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to TikTok. So we got another
Speaker 2: deadline for some sort of deal or sale. You recall
Speaker 2: that Trump at the beginning of his administration, but a
Speaker 2: law had been passed through Congress that was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: there has to be a sale or it's being shut down.
Speaker 2: And Trump basically came in and said, I'm just not
Speaker 2: going to enforce that law, and he gave himself a
Speaker 2: deadline up until this date, and that's coming now, I
Speaker 2: believe this weekend. So we're getting down to crunch time
Speaker 2: here yet again of what is going to happen with
Speaker 2: regard to TikTok. So let's put this first element up
Speaker 2: on the screens. From the Financial Times, they say the
Speaker 2: White House is close to approving the sale of TikTok's
Speaker 2: US unit to investors. This is a group of investors,
Speaker 2: including Blackstone and inj Recent Horowitz, among the firms that
Speaker 2: would rest control of the social media site from China's
Speaker 2: Byte Dance. Let me go ahead and read to you
Speaker 2: a little bit of the details. They say. Under the
Speaker 2: terms of the transaction, a group of new outside investors,
Speaker 2: including in Recent Horowitz, Blackstone, silver Lake, and other large
Speaker 2: private capital firms, would own about half of TikTok's US business.
Speaker 2: According to several people familiar with the matter, that US
Speaker 2: unit would be spun off from its Beijing based parent
Speaker 2: company Byte Dance. Large existing investors in TikTok, including General Atlantic,
Speaker 2: Susquehanna Kkar and I don't know how you say this
Speaker 2: co to CO two which go whatever what also take
Speaker 2: stakes in the US arm constituting about thirty percent of
Speaker 2: the business. The plans, still in plural eliminary stages, could
Speaker 2: yet change, according to those involved in the process, come
Speaker 2: ahead of a deadline for US law on April fifth
Speaker 2: that would ban the app in America unless it's Beijing
Speaker 2: based owner sells it to non Chinese entities. So, I
Speaker 2: mean there's a couple of outstanding questions here. By the way,
Speaker 2: Bezos get to that in a minute. Bezos also putting
Speaker 2: in an offer wanting Amazon to you know, bid on
Speaker 2: fight dance. From what I've seen, this group is the
Speaker 2: more likely victors in this, in this attempted sale. But
Speaker 2: I mean a few questions here are A number one,
Speaker 2: the uh, you know, the Chinese entity like has to agree,
Speaker 2: So there's a question there.
Speaker 1: Not the Chinese entity China.
Speaker 2: China has to agree and so.
Speaker 1: The entity has no say.
Speaker 2: Big questions there. China originally struck a very hard line
Speaker 2: about this. They have since apparently softened some of their
Speaker 2: rhetoric about what sort of deal they might be willing
Speaker 2: to accept, So question marks there. I can't imagine China's
Speaker 2: feeling like real warm and fuzzy towards the US right now.
Speaker 2: Given the fifty seven percent tariffs that we just let
Speaker 2: it on China.
Speaker 3: Well, well, if somebody just put fifty four percent or
Speaker 3: whatever tariff on you and you have leverage over them
Speaker 3: over a platform where one hundred.
Speaker 1: Million people use, what are you going to do?
Speaker 3: You're going to give them exactly what they want, maybe
Speaker 3: as long as it's a prelude to something different. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean my problem with this is, what's even the
Speaker 3: point of all this fakery about sales. If Beijing gets
Speaker 3: to keep the algorithm, that was the whole point, That's
Speaker 3: that's why it was.
Speaker 1: A national security issue.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's part of this deal is that basically
Speaker 2: the group of you know, the conglomertive investors would own half,
Speaker 2: but Beijing would still maintain the algorithm, And which brings
Speaker 2: in the other question of whether this even legally meets
Speaker 2: the requirements. Yes, in this original law, I'm sure again
Speaker 2: there would be lawsuits. Who knows how it's going to
Speaker 2: ultimately be litigated, but that's.
Speaker 1: Where we are.
Speaker 3: If you want to keep it, then just fucking keep it.
Speaker 3: Like you know, this, all this other fakery is nonsense.
Speaker 3: If Beijing controls the algorithm, then that's the whole reason
Speaker 3: why I would be against TikTok in the first place.
Speaker 3: If we're going to keep it, then and byte Dance
Speaker 3: gets to maintain the proprietary algorithm and all of the data,
Speaker 3: and we have all this fakery with Oracle and US
Speaker 3: investor groups and all, and what's even the point of
Speaker 3: the approved sale either sell it or don't or ban it? Okay, again,
Speaker 3: I think we would all be better off if it
Speaker 3: was banned, But whatever, Apparently the President has decided otherwise.
Speaker 3: And that is perhaps, as you said, legally, considering the
Speaker 3: fact that even a sale of half the company without
Speaker 3: the algorithm would not meet the requirements. I would be
Speaker 3: very curious to see how that shakes out in terms
Speaker 3: of its ability to actually have that sale go through,
Speaker 3: because it's not just a regulatory he has to pass
Speaker 3: legal scrutiny.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: And what Byte Dance they're just going to give it up? No,
Speaker 3: you know, of course they're not. Like I said, my
Speaker 3: Dance is an arm of the Chinese government. You think
Speaker 3: they're just going to hand over with their crown jewel
Speaker 3: of pop culture to the United States of America without
Speaker 3: any sort of concession on their part. That would actually
Speaker 3: make me even more furious is if we allowed if
Speaker 3: we did some deal where by Dance allowed some fake
Speaker 3: deal to go through for TikTok, and maybe we lessened
Speaker 3: like soybean tariffs. So that would be worse, right, because
Speaker 3: at least those are trying to correct some trade imbalance
Speaker 3: whatever it comes to farming and for the US consumer
Speaker 3: and in preserving TikTok and some brain rot algorithm as
Speaker 3: a result of that.
Speaker 1: So whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I've washed my hands of this
Speaker 3: a long time ago. It's genuinely sickening. I saw JD
Speaker 3: on TV this morning and be like, oh, it's a
Speaker 3: platform news by many Americans.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, okay, whatever, what's the point. Why believe
Speaker 1: in anybody?
Speaker 2: At this point I mentioned I mentioned Bezos is putting
Speaker 2: in his offer. I put this up on the screen
Speaker 2: from the New York Times. I mean, of course it
Speaker 2: would make sense. I didn't even know they apparently tried
Speaker 2: on Amazon to do some TikTok competitor.
Speaker 6: Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously did work.
Speaker 1: Out saying like even aw like they used aws.
Speaker 2: Yeah I think literally, yeah, yeah, I think so. According
Speaker 2: to this article, I was like, I did not even
Speaker 2: know that was the thing that happened, But anyway, that
Speaker 2: didn't work out for them. So I mean, you can
Speaker 2: see why he would want to acquire TikTok and have
Speaker 2: even more you know power in terms of the US
Speaker 2: economy and get even more directly into I mean, Jeff
Speaker 2: Bezos and Amazon, the amount of data that they have
Speaker 2: about all of us is completely astonishing. Right, the things
Speaker 2: that they know about all of us is already very disturbing,
Speaker 2: and TikTok could be important for gleaning even more data.
Speaker 2: You know, as the AI race develops, you can see
Speaker 2: how this would be increasingly valuable as well. So anyway,
Speaker 2: he is making his bid two from what I saw,
Speaker 2: Like I said, I think the other group probably has
Speaker 2: the edge here, the Andrees and Horowitz, Blackstone, et cetera,
Speaker 2: that conglomerate. I I am a little bit surprised that
Speaker 2: Elon isn't in the mix here because remember that was
Speaker 2: what China had kind of floated, like, hey, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: Elon would be someone we I mean, that's but that
Speaker 2: may be true because there's also as Tesla stock falls,
Speaker 2: and Elon just did. We didn't even talk about it
Speaker 2: on the show, but he had his AI company by
Speaker 2: Twitter in this deal. I mean, in some ways it
Speaker 2: makes kind of logical sense because of course Grock is
Speaker 2: on Twitter, and so you put the two together, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But in any case, in order to purchase Twitter, he
Speaker 2: used as collateral significant amounts of his Tesla stock and
Speaker 2: so one of the things, and nobody knows exactly what
Speaker 2: the terms of the deal were, and then he renegotiated
Speaker 2: the deal, so that makes it even more opaque what
Speaker 2: exactly the deal was originally. But that's why Tesla stock
Speaker 2: dropping significantly also has reverberating impacts throughout all of Elon's empire,
Speaker 2: and most specifically with regard to this loan he took
Speaker 2: out in order to be able to acquire Twitter. So
Speaker 2: you may be absolutely correct that he just is not
Speaker 2: in a cash flush position to be able to make
Speaker 2: this kind of a gamble. But that was that was
Speaker 2: the direction that I was kind of expecting things ultimately
Speaker 2: go in, and I'm glad that they're not because Elon's
Speaker 2: Twitter has been.
Speaker 3: So yeah, last thing here, I want to make sure
Speaker 3: we got this in. Let's put this on the screen.
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg was at the White House yesterday lobbying Trump to
Speaker 3: avoid the meta antitrust trial. This is just so ironic
Speaker 3: because actually the very same time that Zuck was at
Speaker 3: the White House, I was at an anti trust event
Speaker 3: yesterday where Lena Khan and some of these other folks
Speaker 3: were Doha Mechi as well, and we were talking about
Speaker 3: the future of anti trust and how it was really
Speaker 3: up for grabs and what the Trump administration, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Was going to do.
Speaker 3: And then I find out that probably at the exact
Speaker 3: same time that we were doing that, and Steve Bannon
Speaker 3: was there praising later.
Speaker 1: Conn where picture got yeah, that we were all at
Speaker 1: the same that at the.
Speaker 3: Same time that this was happening, where Zucker is lobbying
Speaker 3: Trump specifically to avoid the met meta anti trust trial.
Speaker 1: How does it compare to TikTok.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously it's not just about It's not just about
Speaker 3: TikTok in terms of for sale. There's still bigger, more
Speaker 3: meta questions, if you will, about concentration and anti trust
Speaker 3: and market competition, and you know, if anything, this is
Speaker 3: actually getting away from that where we're still keeping the
Speaker 3: company TikTok itself, the algorithm proprietary to big conglomerates which
Speaker 3: have huge market power.
Speaker 1: Over all a lot of us.
Speaker 3: It's the same problem actually that applies across the board,
Speaker 3: whether it's a foreign company or not.
Speaker 2: It's also important for anti trust policy to be seen
Speaker 2: to be as politically neutral as possible, because, you know,
Speaker 2: because this is a very powerful tool that the federal
Speaker 2: government has where basically they get to say whether your
Speaker 2: merger is going to be good to go or whether
Speaker 2: you're going to have some problems, and whether or not
Speaker 2: they're successful in court. You know, blocking mergers are causing
Speaker 2: companies have to break up or divest. Just going through
Speaker 2: that process is a major business risk, puts a lot
Speaker 2: of other things on hold, is very costly, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so if you have a muscular antitrust division, but
Speaker 2: you're only training it on your political adversaries or people
Speaker 2: who haven't sufficiently bent the knee, like that's what you know,
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg has been all about for months now. At
Speaker 2: this point, then it becomes a real you know, it
Speaker 2: becomes a real political weapon. And again, you know, consistent
Speaker 2: with the overall theme of the way that Trump has
Speaker 2: consolidated power. So that was has been my concern for
Speaker 2: a while, that that's the way that the new Anti
Speaker 2: Trust Division, which I am so supportive of and I
Speaker 2: think is such an important corrective to the mass, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: aggregation of power among these giant monopolies, tech monopolies, but
Speaker 2: all kinds of monopolies across the board. So I'm super
Speaker 2: supportive of that, but it is really vital that it
Speaker 2: remain seen and in practice be as politically neutral as possible.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, I just I don't think
Speaker 2: that's the case whatsoever under this administration. And you know
Speaker 2: that's why Zuckerberg is there again on bendedne pleaning to
Speaker 2: the king, trying to get in his good graces so
Speaker 2: that he can get the business favors and outcomes that
Speaker 2: he ultimately wants for his company.
Speaker 1: Let's hope that he doesn't listen to him.
Speaker 3: We'll see, Chrystal, what are you taking to look at this?
Speaker 2: Saturday will mark fifteen years to the day since the
Speaker 2: Upper Big Branch Mind disaster, when twenty nine miners were
Speaker 2: killed in a deadly explosion. It was the deadliest mining
Speaker 2: accident since the seventies, and it focused the nation's attention
Speaker 2: on the conditions that these workers face every single day,
Speaker 2: as well as the combination of corporate greed and lacks
Speaker 2: regulation that ended in unimaginable disaster for these miners, their families,
Speaker 2: and an entire community. When the final investigation was released
Speaker 2: by the MIND Safety Health Administration, they found that Massy Energy,
Speaker 2: the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, had flagrantly
Speaker 2: violated safety requires for adequate ventilation, allowing an explosive build
Speaker 2: up of methane that caused the tragedy. But there was
Speaker 2: another culprit that was identified in the report. The MIND
Speaker 2: Safety and Health Administration called EMSHA itself. The agency in
Speaker 2: spite of issuing Massy with some five hundred and fifteen
Speaker 2: safety violations at that mine alone in the year preceding
Speaker 2: the tragedy, they never escalated to issuing a flagrant violation,
Speaker 2: which would have triggered a much larger financial penalty. The
Speaker 2: admission reflected a recognition that without dogged regulators, all the
Speaker 2: laws in the world mean absolutely nothing. The tragedy triggered
Speaker 2: a reform effort to crack down on unscrupulous coal barons,
Speaker 2: tighten up enforcement, and ensure that the regulators were not
Speaker 2: in bed with industry. The effort moved forward in some
Speaker 2: fits and starts, and reforms were more incremental than transformative,
Speaker 2: but progress was made. The new mship protocols brought down
Speaker 2: injury rates and helped to bring a little more security
Speaker 2: to an inherently dangerous job. Fifteen years after this tragedy, however,
Speaker 2: that small agency charged with looking out for miners is
Speaker 2: being shredded by Elon Musk's DOGE effort to chainsaw through
Speaker 2: federal bureaucracy. Perhaps even more devastating, long standing efforts to research,
Speaker 2: prevent and treat black lung, which has become more severe
Speaker 2: and devastating than ever, have been completely defunded. Local newspapers
Speaker 2: are increasingly sounding the alarm over these developments. The Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: Post Gazette ran a terrific expose titled deep Fear in
Speaker 2: Coal Country. Doge cuts put regions, miners and families on edge.
Speaker 2: In this piece, they focus in particular on the plan
Speaker 2: closure of the Mount Pleasant Mind Safety Office, which has
Speaker 2: been the busiest MSHAFT field office in the country, having
Speaker 2: investigated twenty fatalities and conducted more than six thousand regular
Speaker 2: inspections just over the past decade. Now that office lease
Speaker 2: has been canceled and officials there have no idea what
Speaker 2: the future is going to hold. Will those regulators be
Speaker 2: fired transferred? Doges offered zero answers, But we know that
Speaker 2: this closure is not the only one, nor is it
Speaker 2: the only DOGE attack on minor health. Local news reports
Speaker 2: in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia suggest that some
Speaker 2: thirty five mshaffield offices have had their leases cut by DOGE. Now,
Speaker 2: these field offices, they really are the lifeblood of mine inspections,
Speaker 2: and they shoulder the burden of trying to hold corporate
Speaker 2: greed at bay to keep workers safe and keep them alive.
Speaker 2: Chelsea Barnes from the nonprofit Appalachian Voices tells Grist quote,
Speaker 2: there are going to be fewer inspections, which means that
Speaker 2: operators that are not following the rules are going to
Speaker 2: get away with not following the rules for longer than
Speaker 2: they would have. In fact, even prior to Elon coming
Speaker 2: in with the chainsaw, MSHAW was already understaffed, already underfunded,
Speaker 2: and failing to meet its own annual inspection targets. Think
Speaker 2: of how much worse things are about to get now.
Speaker 2: These cuts also could not come at a worse time
Speaker 2: after the Upper Big Branch reforms. Injury rates at some
Speaker 2: of the most active minds are once again rapidly rising
Speaker 2: as the industry declines and coal companies chase DP seper
Speaker 2: seams of coal at increasing risk to workers. Quote at
Speaker 2: the Marshall County Mine in West Virginia, one of the
Speaker 2: largest producers of coal at North America, the injuries rose
Speaker 2: by more than fifty percent from a decade ago. Records
Speaker 2: show at the Buchanan Mine in Virginia, the numbers of
Speaker 2: my miners heard on the job increase ninefold, from three
Speaker 2: injuries to at least twenty seven during the same period.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, a particularly brutal new form
Speaker 2: of black lung has also been ravaging miners at younger
Speaker 2: and younger ages, sometimes after only a short period on
Speaker 2: the job, due to increased airborne silica dust. So underground
Speaker 2: miners they're cutting through more and more sandstone to mine
Speaker 2: thinner seams of coal, using continuous minor machines that kick
Speaker 2: huge amounts of dust into the air. Miners today are
Speaker 2: also compelled to work longer hours. Ten to twelve hour
Speaker 2: shifts are common, with fewer breaks, contributing to more intense
Speaker 2: levels of exposure. Remember Appalachia continues to suffer from poverty.
Speaker 2: Coal mining remains one of the few ways in the
Speaker 2: region to earn a middle class living. So these conditions
Speaker 2: of economic deprivation have stripped workers of power and left
Speaker 2: them with few choices but to trade their health for
Speaker 2: their livelihood. Sadly, union representation among miners has also fallen
Speaker 2: significantly from its peak. Many miners today are in fact
Speaker 2: non union, and as worker power declines, miners are at
Speaker 2: the mercy of regulators to enforce the safety standards that
Speaker 2: can make the difference between facing the miserable slow suffocation
Speaker 2: of black lung and getting to enjoy the fruits of
Speaker 2: your hard work with your family into old age.
Speaker 8: Identifies just how badly impaired his lungs have become. The
Speaker 8: test confirms what he and respiratory therapist Lisa Emery already know.
Speaker 8: Kevin's black lung is so severe that he can no
Speaker 8: longer work in the mines.
Speaker 7: Yeah, these are tough.
Speaker 8: What's different about Kevin is his age. He used to be.
Speaker 8: Black lung didn't force a man out of the mines
Speaker 8: until he was in his late fifties or early sixties.
Speaker 8: Kevin is just thirty four Kevin has been a cool
Speaker 8: minor almost half his life. There he was, at age eighteen,
Speaker 8: suddenly making more money than he ever dreamed possible.
Speaker 7: The first six months on the ground, at twelve dollars
Speaker 7: an hour, made seventy six thousand dollars six months and
Speaker 7: six months. That's how bat y'all worked. Sometimes I wouldn't
Speaker 7: even go home.
Speaker 6: I'd go out and sleep.
Speaker 7: In the parking lot, get back out, and go back in.
Speaker 7: Then you look at stuff there, you really realize and
Speaker 7: the dangers.
Speaker 8: When you have.
Speaker 7: Something to live four instead of just yourself.
Speaker 2: Now. As ever, aspect of dealing with black lung, from
Speaker 2: prevention to research, to early identification to treatment, all of
Speaker 2: it is under assault by this administration. First of all,
Speaker 2: Trump's new mine safety head is the former head of
Speaker 2: an industry lobbying group which is suing over the planned
Speaker 2: implementation of a new rule to help to combat blacklung.
Speaker 2: But the primary assault on minor health is coming from
Speaker 2: RFK Junior's indiscriminate cuts at HHS. In particular, hundreds of
Speaker 2: workers have been laid off from the National Institute of
Speaker 2: Occupational Health and Safety that's called NIOSH. This is the
Speaker 2: office within HHS which is specifically targeted at worker safety, cops, firefighters,
Speaker 2: and miners, and there is probably no group of workers
Speaker 2: that benefits more from the work of Niosh than miners.
Speaker 2: In fact, researchers at this commission they were the first
Speaker 2: to identify this new aggressive form of black lung that
Speaker 2: is afflicting miners due to that increased silica dust. According
Speaker 2: to Louisville Public Media quote, Pittsburgh's research branch alone an
Speaker 2: experimental line, an acoustic chamber, and a lab that was
Speaker 2: instrumental in proving that miners were slowly dying by inhaling
Speaker 2: toxic silica dust. Niosh also runs a mobile clinic that
Speaker 2: rolls through coal country to screen miners for black lung
Speaker 2: in its early stages and consult with them on treatment
Speaker 2: plans and track the spread and virulence of this deadly disease.
Speaker 2: But perhaps NIOSH's most important work is administering a program
Speaker 2: that allows any miner with signs of black lung to
Speaker 2: receive a job transfer within their own company to non
Speaker 2: dusty work with no loss of pay and no loss
Speaker 2: of benefits. Yesterday, I had the chance to speak with
Speaker 2: a West Virginia lawyer named Sam Patson Key explained to
Speaker 2: me just how pivotal that program has been in protecting
Speaker 2: the health of thousands of coal miners. He also explained
Speaker 2: to me the utter heartbreak of watching men who are
Speaker 2: not even out of their forties sitting across from him,
Speaker 2: wheezing and strapped to an oxygen tank because of what
Speaker 2: this horrible disease had done to them. These are human beings.
Speaker 2: We know how to protect them. This administration, though, has
Speaker 2: chosen to throw them to the wolves now. Many miners
Speaker 2: also depend on local clinics funded through MSCHEFT for black
Speaker 2: lung treatment. That too, is now in doubt. Current funding
Speaker 2: for those clinics last through June, and safety advocates tell
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh Post Gazette they have no idea what is
Speaker 2: going to happen after that. There is probably one hope
Speaker 2: for a potential reprieve here West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito.
Speaker 2: She's a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and being
Speaker 2: a Republican, she could potentially appeal to Trump or Elon
Speaker 2: for a stay of these disastrous cuts. So far, she's
Speaker 2: put out what I would classify as a fairly tepid statement, saying, quote,
Speaker 2: during my meetings with Secretary Kennedy prior to his confirmation,
Speaker 2: and as recently as last week, we discussed how important
Speaker 2: the health of coal miners is to West Virginia. Any
Speaker 2: cuts that impact their health monitoring need to be restored immediately.
Speaker 2: I'm working with the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 2: to understand the depth of these cuts, both to programs
Speaker 2: and the workforce in Morgantown. Sure, though to emphasize that
Speaker 2: she believes in quote the broad vision, Let's be clear here,
Speaker 2: this attack on minor health and safety, it's a betrayal.
Speaker 2: It's the latest betrayal in a long list of national
Speaker 2: betrayals of Appalachia that has led to over a century
Speaker 2: of extraction and exploitation that helped to build the nation,
Speaker 2: made a few very wealthy and hung the workers and
Speaker 2: ordinary citizens of this region out to dry. It is
Speaker 2: also specifically a betrayal by Donald Trump, who built his
Speaker 2: political victory in twenty sixteen on the back of these workers.
Speaker 2: He promised to be their champion and, with his celebration
Speaker 2: of fossil fuels, to lead an economic renaissance that would
Speaker 2: deliver greater prosperity for them and their communities. Never trust
Speaker 2: a robber baron. He will use you to get power,
Speaker 2: and he will dump you the second it does not
Speaker 2: serve his billionaire buddies. The miners of Appalachia unfortunately, will
Speaker 2: never compete with the guy who dumped a quarter billion
Speaker 2: dollars into Trump's campaign. Coffers and this program. I spoke
Speaker 2: to the lawyer or Sam about so he really wanted
Speaker 2: me to understand how important it was that you have
Speaker 2: this mobile Niosh clinic. It's like, you know, it looks
Speaker 2: like a bus that rolls through community. It's very high visibility.
Speaker 2: Everybody sort of knows about it and really values it.
Speaker 2: They're able to do early detection. And then if you
Speaker 2: have even early signs of black lung developing, which by
Speaker 2: the way, guys, there's no cure for it only gets
Speaker 2: progressively worse. If you have even early signs of that,
Speaker 2: you're able to avail yourself of this program to transfer
Speaker 2: to what they call a non dusty job, so you're
Speaker 2: no more at risk. If you don't have anyone to
Speaker 2: administer this program, it's just gone, like it just doesn't
Speaker 2: exist anymore. Even though this is something Congress said we
Speaker 2: want to do, it's important. It's important to you know,
Speaker 2: all the legislators from this region, and now it's just
Speaker 2: going to be completely ended.
Speaker 3: There's nothing even to say it's sick, it's gross, especially
Speaker 3: because as you and I know, these are all Republican
Speaker 3: voters too, right, so this is a state which what
Speaker 3: went forty something percent? And honestly, and this is what
Speaker 3: I worry about, will they really know about this? Right,
Speaker 3: not even in terms of media, but given the connection
Speaker 3: to coal mining and so much of what we've seen
Speaker 3: with the culture war, like this is the real test
Speaker 3: of theory about like how much you can punish somebody
Speaker 3: and still see if they'll actually continue to support you,
Speaker 3: because I mean, you tell me, what have you seen
Speaker 3: in West Virginia politics? Is their senator speaking up for them?
Speaker 3: Is anybody saying a word?
Speaker 2: Barely? Yeah? Barely? No, that's exactly right, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's devastating. I think it's important, you know, zoom out
Speaker 2: from these miners, which again have just been betrayed at
Speaker 2: every turn in our country's history. And you know, do
Speaker 2: this incredibly difficult work that truly did help to build
Speaker 2: our nation, But to zoom out from them, you know,
Speaker 2: when you see the people who had their badges revoked
Speaker 2: at HHS and they're being kicked down, they're lined up
Speaker 2: and whatever. You can sometimes gloss over what each of
Speaker 2: these individual programs might mean to a certain person, to
Speaker 2: a certain community. The way that just getting rid of
Speaker 2: you know, it really is an end run around Congress too,
Speaker 2: because they wanted this program to be in place. They
Speaker 2: were trying to do something to you know, assist and
Speaker 2: protect this group of workers. And this administration has just
Speaker 2: figured out that if they can get rid of the
Speaker 2: people that are administering the program, then it's like the
Speaker 2: end of the program altogether without having to go back
Speaker 2: through Congress. So, you know, it really is going to
Speaker 2: be unfortunately devastating for this community unless kellymore Capito can
Speaker 2: you know, plead her case and you know, petition the
Speaker 2: King to get some of these things revoked. So I certainly,
Speaker 2: you know, call her and ask, because that's kind of
Speaker 2: the only prayer.
Speaker 1: He used to work in. Cold, didn't he?
Speaker 2: Oh he's a cold baron, That's what I mean.
Speaker 1: He's a cold billionaire. Last time much. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: they don't love black lung screeners.
Speaker 9: Or any of that.
Speaker 2: No, he doesn't. He doesn't want this program that allows
Speaker 2: people to transfer jobs or whatever to be administered. No,
Speaker 2: he's he's he has been, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: dirty operators in this industry where he's a billionaire, really
Speaker 2: rich guy, and and miners have had instances where you know,
Speaker 2: they go and do their their ten twelve hour shift
Speaker 2: and they're eighty hours a week. I me imagine that
Speaker 2: eighty hours underground in a mine and then their their
Speaker 2: paycheck bounces.
Speaker 1: That's grim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is that's what we're talking about, as
Speaker 2: the other West Virginia senator. So there you are.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens.
Speaker 3: Okright, we got Zeed Jelani standing by, let's get to it.
Speaker 3: Joining us now is a great friend of the show,
Speaker 3: Zed Jilani to talk about a new gambit by a
Speaker 3: Zionist organization which is distributing literal lists of people to
Speaker 3: be deported to the Trump administration. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 3: put that up there on the screen from the Washington Post.
Speaker 3: The Milton Zionist group BETAR is threatening activists online with
Speaker 3: a quote deport list, and all current indication is that
Speaker 3: that list is actually being used by people in power.
Speaker 3: So we thought nobody better than Zed to break some
Speaker 3: of this down for us, give us some of the
Speaker 3: background on this, and just to really just describe how
Speaker 3: completely insane it all is. So zed first of all,
Speaker 3: it's great to see my friend, but really just just
Speaker 3: lay it out for us, what kind of a threat
Speaker 3: this is to not only free speech, but really just
Speaker 3: to take orders from an organization like this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean Betar Actually, you know, it's it's history
Speaker 9: stretches back more than one hundred years, right. It was
Speaker 9: established a sort of a militant sort of wing of
Speaker 9: the Zionist movement in the early nineteen hundreds. It was
Speaker 9: active throughout Europe, and then I think it was also
Speaker 9: continued in activities after the establishment of the State of Israel.
Speaker 9: And in many ways, it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 9: remember Howard Dean used to say he was he represented
Speaker 9: the democratic part, the democratic wing of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 9: or you know, that line actually goes back further than
Speaker 9: Howard Dean, But anyway, Batar kind of does the same
Speaker 9: thing for the Zionist movement. Right, It's sort of it's
Speaker 9: it's kind of on an island of its own in
Speaker 9: terms of some of its points of view and the
Speaker 9: ideology that it promotes. And actually even the Anti Defamation
Speaker 9: League and other organizations that tend to be very supportive
Speaker 9: of the Israeli positioned consider Betar to be an extremist group. Right,
Speaker 9: the Democratic Majority for Israel, which is like you know,
Speaker 9: basically supports a super pack style or five onesie four
Speaker 9: type spending in the Democratic Party to support Israel, even
Speaker 9: they have labeled Batar to be an extremist group, and
Speaker 9: in fact, in the Washington Post story that you just mentioned,
Speaker 9: they called that story anti semitic. Then they also call
Speaker 9: Batar an extremist group in the same statement, meaning they
Speaker 9: just don't want any Jewish person to be blamed for
Speaker 9: these deportations. I guess is why they call the story
Speaker 9: anti semitic, because I don't think it's one hundred percent
Speaker 9: like clear or transparent how the Trump administration is going
Speaker 9: about labeling and then deporting people. But Betar has been
Speaker 9: claiming credit for right. This organization has been, particularly on
Speaker 9: their social media and their public utterances, have been saying
Speaker 9: that basically they've been assembling lists of people to offer
Speaker 9: to the Trump administration based on students who they identify,
Speaker 9: particularly foreign students that they identify at demonstrations or other
Speaker 9: campus or university events. I think Betar is quite a
Speaker 9: presence in New York, which has been some of the
Speaker 9: epicenter of some of the demonstrations, with high profile demonstrations. Actually,
Speaker 9: I think the other day they even said that they're
Speaker 9: trying and do the opp they're also trying to give
Speaker 9: lists of Jews to the Israeli government to have them
Speaker 9: banned from Israel. And these tend to be you know,
Speaker 9: left of center or center left Jews, you know, even
Speaker 9: liberal Zionist Jews who have you know, questions concerns about
Speaker 9: the war, about Benjamin and who's government and so yeah,
Speaker 9: I think the organization is kind of seeing itself as
Speaker 9: a moment to shine. They've kind of been a pariah
Speaker 9: an outcast in the Jewish community, particularly the United States,
Speaker 9: but I think they see a little bit of influence
Speaker 9: of interest here, right. They think this is a time
Speaker 9: where there are a lot of people in the Jewish
Speaker 9: community who have been uneasy about the protests because they're
Speaker 9: sort of torn about the war, but they don't necessarily
Speaker 9: like all the rhetoric in the in the demonstrations or
Speaker 9: divestment movements and so on and so forth. So Beitar,
Speaker 9: I think sees an opportunity to step up and say, hey, actually,
Speaker 9: we're on your side. Look look at all this useful
Speaker 9: work that we're doing for you, helping get rid of
Speaker 9: these troublemakers.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 9: So, it's it's kind of a way for them to
Speaker 9: try to, you know, staying wash themselves or de marginalize
Speaker 9: themselves in their position because you know, like I said
Speaker 9: that they've never been considered to be mainstream in any
Speaker 9: way in the finest movement or even within the American
Speaker 9: Jewish community.
Speaker 2: It feels like the opposite of Saint Washington me. It
Speaker 2: feels like, oh, we're you know, we're part of this
Speaker 2: effort to destroy free speech in America? Aren't we great?
Speaker 2: Aren't we cool? And one of the things that they've
Speaker 2: been saying in claiming credit at least for the targeting
Speaker 2: of the Trump administration of these students, some of whom
Speaker 2: are permanent residents, some of whom are student visa holders,
Speaker 2: is they're saying naturalized citizens are going to be next.
Speaker 2: They tweeted out, we told you we've been working on
Speaker 2: deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens
Speaker 2: to start being picked up within the month. You heard
Speaker 2: it here. First, those who support jihad and intifada and
Speaker 2: originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those
Speaker 2: lands and listen again, I don't know if the White
Speaker 2: House is directly like following their lists and moving in
Speaker 2: the direction that Betar wants them to, but it was
Speaker 2: noteworthy to me that the State Department spokesperson got a
Speaker 2: question about whether or not naturalized citizens would be targeted
Speaker 2: and she would not say, which is an extraordinarily different
Speaker 2: direction and policy than we have seen, you know, in
Speaker 2: basically the history of this country. So Zeed, I wonder
Speaker 2: if you can, you know, reflect on how extraordinary that
Speaker 2: is and whether you think it's possible given what we've
Speaker 2: already seen from this administration with regard to student targeting.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So, I think the issue with naturalized citizens was actually
Speaker 9: brought up in the first Trump administration. I think it
Speaker 9: was kind of a Stephen Miller idea or someone in
Speaker 9: his camp or orbit that you could actually in certain
Speaker 9: cases remove citizenship from people who have been granted it
Speaker 9: after coming to the United States. Right, And as far
Speaker 9: as like how possible that is, I think you know
Speaker 9: that maybe is reserved for a case where somebody like
Speaker 9: lies on their citizenship application, right, or has de brought
Speaker 9: in you know.
Speaker 6: The American government in some way, right, it's not.
Speaker 9: Someone having their citizenship, you know, denaturalizers stript based on
Speaker 9: ideological disagreement or some utter ends of some idea or speech.
Speaker 6: I can't really think of an.
Speaker 9: Example of that, but it would kind of be precedent
Speaker 9: setting for them, right. I think that a big part
Speaker 9: of the reason why some people on the rights are
Speaker 9: supporting all this is not just like the sort of
Speaker 9: the more niche cause about the Middle East or about Israel, right,
Speaker 9: which you know, organizations like Beta, you know, organizations that
Speaker 9: are a little more softly and support of this, like
Speaker 9: the ADL, you know, maybe they're concerned with that. But
Speaker 9: I also think that like there's is this broader Native
Speaker 9: Ast project, right, which I think that like someone like
Speaker 9: Stephen Miller does not really want to see the I
Speaker 9: guess he would consider the browning of America, right. He
Speaker 9: thinks that America has brought in too many people from
Speaker 9: foreign lands to begin with.
Speaker 6: And so it's kind.
Speaker 9: Of an overlap and interest right between sort of people
Speaker 9: who are very fixated on the Middle East conflict, but
Speaker 9: also people who just like would like to see fewer
Speaker 9: foreigners in America period.
Speaker 6: Right. There is a wing of the GOP base that
Speaker 6: feels that way.
Speaker 9: And that might be part of why they're not as
Speaker 9: disturbed by rollbacks in due process, by rollbacks and freedom
Speaker 9: of speech and expression, because like, hey, at least we're
Speaker 9: getting rid of them, right, we don't really care about
Speaker 9: how you know, many people I think would argue, look,
Speaker 9: Biden brought so many people in through all these channels
Speaker 9: which we didn't appreciate and which were irregular, and they're
Speaker 9: some ways abusing the Asilon process or similar laws, So
Speaker 9: we don't really care what process it takes to get
Speaker 9: rid of these people, right. And I think that's also
Speaker 9: like a bigger part of this because even a lot
Speaker 9: of light that Republican base doesn't care that much about
Speaker 9: the particulars about the Middle East conflict, about Israel or
Speaker 9: Swan and so forth.
Speaker 6: But I think they do have this larger resentment.
Speaker 9: About immigration, right, And I think those two things combining
Speaker 9: could end up, you know, having the Trump administration take
Speaker 9: a second look at like this denaturalizing process, which.
Speaker 6: I think they had.
Speaker 9: I think they did flow in the first first term,
Speaker 9: but they didn't really do much with it. They seem
Speaker 9: to be pushing the boundaries a lot more this time.
Speaker 9: So who knows, well, Zeed.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, you're absolutely right, and certainly listen, now,
Speaker 3: if we had a whole debate here, that's certainly where
Speaker 3: my sympathies were, and so I get where they're coming from.
Speaker 3: One of the things that actually pulls me back are
Speaker 3: people like you, people like Glenn Greenwald, and so even
Speaker 3: taking the naturalized citizenship out of this talk then about
Speaker 3: the free speech implications about going after these protesters solely
Speaker 3: on the grounds of speaking against this foreign country. In
Speaker 3: many of these cases, they have not been charged or
Speaker 3: committed with crimes in order to at least normally justify
Speaker 3: their removal from the United States.
Speaker 9: Look, I think that a lot of this is the
Speaker 9: other part of the overlap between different parts of the
Speaker 9: GOP coalition. I think a lot of people in their
Speaker 9: Republican Party were upset at colleges and universities, probably going
Speaker 9: back ten years or more.
Speaker 6: I mean, even when I was in high school.
Speaker 9: I remember, you know, teachers complaining about Marxist professors at UGA.
Speaker 6: And you know, UGA is not a very radical school.
Speaker 6: It's my alma mater.
Speaker 9: But I think particularly the past ten years because of
Speaker 9: heightened censorship and all these trends on university campuses, a
Speaker 9: lot of conservatives just didn't really trust them or like
Speaker 9: them to begin with.
Speaker 6: And so I think.
Speaker 9: Parts of the GOP base are also like, Okay, screw Harward,
Speaker 9: screw Columbia. They were never kind or generous or compassionate
Speaker 9: towards US conservatives.
Speaker 6: Why do we care about them?
Speaker 9: But what I would caution about that is like, Okay,
Speaker 9: there are steps that the Trump administration could take to
Speaker 9: enforce greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of assembly, more
Speaker 9: protection of conservative voices, more promotion even ideological promotion of
Speaker 9: maybe more diversity and viewpoints, so on and so forth
Speaker 9: at colleges and universities. I think maybe they've done a
Speaker 9: little bit of that. They've hinted they want to do
Speaker 9: a little bit of that. And for the most part,
Speaker 9: what they're doing is they're actually making things worse, right,
Speaker 9: They're making it. They're establishing a president where the government
Speaker 9: can severely crack down on political government itself can severely
Speaker 9: crack down certain political points of view at these colleges
Speaker 9: and universities, and the president they're establishing could easily be
Speaker 9: utilized by a future president. I mean, anytime you give
Speaker 9: the government an inch, it tends to take a mile
Speaker 9: or any really any large institution.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 9: So like let's say, you know, in Bizarro and Earth too,
Speaker 9: you know, the Democratic president is deporting immigrants because they
Speaker 9: don't use the proper pronouns, right, because in their country
Speaker 9: they don't have the same ideas about transgenderism, right or
Speaker 9: you know, their genders or so on and so forth. Right,
Speaker 9: like you could see a slippery So that goes in
Speaker 9: many different directions, but it's all going against greater speech rights.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 9: It's not really benefiting conservatives to create all these speech
Speaker 9: codes around Israel because the people who are pushing that,
Speaker 9: like Miriam Adelson there, Bill Ackman or so on and
Speaker 9: so forth, they don't really care about conservative speech. Right,
Speaker 9: That's not their cause, right, they're part of it. They
Speaker 9: see themselves as part of a much larger blood feud
Speaker 9: between peoples in the Middle East, and whatever it takes
Speaker 9: to win that in the United States, they'll do it.
Speaker 9: But they're not really super interested in conservatives and it
Speaker 9: look it is. It is a very difficult president to
Speaker 9: establish because this is happening, you know, three months into
Speaker 9: the trumpet three four months into the Trump administration. Right,
Speaker 9: imagine what three or four years into it looks like.
Speaker 9: Right if they managed to establish this kind of rule
Speaker 9: so early on, and then you know, three four years
Speaker 9: of keep pushing the envelope, right, I mean, I think
Speaker 9: talking about what happens to naturalized citizens whose speech they
Speaker 9: dislike and that they may not even be too bold
Speaker 9: of a thing for them to do it. You know,
Speaker 9: other times Trump has said that maybe boycotting TESLA should
Speaker 9: be illegal. People are saying that vandalizing a car is
Speaker 9: an act of terrorism. I don't think you should vandalize
Speaker 9: a car or engagement road rage. I think all that
Speaker 9: stuffs really juvenile and wrong. But like when you're expanding
Speaker 9: what the government can do to people in response to
Speaker 9: things as wildly disproportionate to what the people are doing.
Speaker 9: You know, whether it's speech that offends you or minor
Speaker 9: acts of vandalism, you are giving the government a lot
Speaker 9: more power. And you can pretty much guarantee that anytime
Speaker 9: you get the government and power, they're going to use it.
Speaker 9: I mean, the Patriot Act, right must pass after nine
Speaker 9: to eleven? What did the Patriot Act mostly ended up
Speaker 9: being used for? Mostly ended up being used for their
Speaker 9: war on drugs, Right, They mostly used it for those
Speaker 9: kind of searches and seizures and you know, extra legal powers.
Speaker 6: They didn't even use it mostly for terrorism at the
Speaker 6: end of the day.
Speaker 9: Right, But if you hand someone a bunch of power
Speaker 9: to do something like that's that's how it ends up
Speaker 9: being used.
Speaker 6: It ends up being used in the maximumly possible ways.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well and help pave the way also for
Speaker 2: you know, this additional extraordinary power grab by the executive.
Speaker 2: So you're absolutely right, These things rarely, if ever, actually
Speaker 2: go and reverse. Zeid, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: us and helping us to understand what's going on here
Speaker 2: underneath the service.
Speaker 3: Thanks man, miss talking to you, Thank you, thanks for
Speaker 3: watching guys. We appreciate it. We will see you all later.
Speaker 6: The key t