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Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. I'm very lucky to be
Speaker 3: joined by Ryan Grimm this morning.
Speaker 2: Saga is dealing with some personal personal things.
Speaker 4: Always nice to see you, best of Saga.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed we got a little lefty take over here,
Speaker 3: So Brian does a good job playing the part of
Speaker 3: the devil's advocate.
Speaker 5: Though, yes, that's right, I'm going to be Sager's advocate
Speaker 5: all right.
Speaker 3: So Laza gets you this morning.
Speaker 2: As for usual, we've got the White House Press Secretary
Speaker 2: not really walking back, but I guess somewhat trying to
Speaker 2: soften Trump's comments with regard to Gaza. Interesting response there
Speaker 2: both from Democrats and also kind of a mixed response
Speaker 2: for Republicans in terms of Trump's idea of hey, let's
Speaker 2: just go ahead with the full sale, invasion, theft, and
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing, so they'll bring you all of that. We've
Speaker 2: also got, of course all the latest hard to keep
Speaker 2: up with, but from the Doge apparatics, there is a
Speaker 2: report that they have in fact changed some of the
Speaker 2: code at the Treasury payment system you know, that governs
Speaker 2: the payments that go on for everything for Social Security.
Speaker 4: Just a small matter of all of the money that
Speaker 4: you've spent, all.
Speaker 2: Of the six trillion dollars that get spent, you know,
Speaker 2: no biggie just kind of freewheeling there in the treasury system.
Speaker 2: We've got that they have busted into the Medicare offices
Speaker 2: as well, so a lot going on there. Liberals, of
Speaker 2: course continue flame leftists for Democrats flaws. This is specifically
Speaker 2: with regard continuing to be upset with them for critiquing
Speaker 2: Gaza and the Biden genocide. There the right wing making
Speaker 2: up a bunch of bullshit about Politico procescriptions It's kind
Speaker 2: of an interesting thing because it's interesting about the media.
Speaker 2: Like the business piece these Politico pro subscriptions is a
Speaker 2: very like regular business model in this town, where they
Speaker 2: charge insane amounts for kind of technical trade information knowing
Speaker 2: that it will be government workers who are putting it
Speaker 2: on the taxpayer tab and lobbyists who were able to
Speaker 2: afford this. But right wingers are making this up like, oh,
Speaker 2: the USAID was funding Politico with grants, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So kind of interesting to get at that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, David Dan is going to come in and update
Speaker 2: us on legal challenges both to the Trump administration overall
Speaker 2: and pushing back on Doge specifically and Congress and Rocanna
Speaker 2: got into a kind of an interesting back and forth
Speaker 2: with Elon Musk, So he's going to tell us about
Speaker 2: that and what went down there, and also he's going
Speaker 2: to talk to us about the Democratic response, which many
Speaker 2: sort of normy Democrats have been very disappointed with, are
Speaker 2: looking for a lot more fight in leadership from their
Speaker 2: elected representatives. Let's go ahead and jump though into the
Speaker 2: latest with regard to Gaza. As I mentioned before, the
Speaker 2: White House Press Secretary trying to sort of soften some
Speaker 2: of the comments that Trump made. Of course, Ryan and
Speaker 2: Emily covered the fact that Trump came out and said, hey,
Speaker 2: let's just get all these people out of there, let's.
Speaker 3: Clean it up. They will be permanently gone, and.
Speaker 2: We, the US, are going to own the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 2: So she was pressed on what exactly this plan would
Speaker 2: look like and whether it would mean boots on the grounds,
Speaker 2: American soldiers going to fight and die in the Gaza
Speaker 2: Strip on behalf of Israel.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: Entire public career criticizing foreign entanglements, nation building, sending American
Speaker 6: troops to fight abroad, particularly in the Middle East. This
Speaker 6: plan seems like it could ultimately involve all of those things.
Speaker 6: Can you explain this reversal and how building and owning
Speaker 6: Gaza squares with America first form policy.
Speaker 7: I would reject the premise of your question that this
Speaker 7: forces the United States to be entangled in conflicts abroad.
Speaker 7: The President has not committed to putting boots on the
Speaker 7: ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United
Speaker 7: States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza.
Speaker 7: His administration is going to work with our partners in
Speaker 7: the region to reconstruct this region. Let me just take
Speaker 7: a step back here, because this is an out of
Speaker 7: the box idea. That's who President Trump is, that's why
Speaker 7: the American people elected him, and his goal is lasting
Speaker 7: peace in the Middle East for all people in the region.
Speaker 7: And as I said in my opening remarks, we've had
Speaker 7: the same people pushing the same solutions to this problem
Speaker 7: for decades, and it's been very made very clear to
Speaker 7: the President that the United States needs to be revolved
Speaker 7: involved in this rebuilding effort to assure stability in the
Speaker 7: region for all people. But that does not mean boots
Speaker 7: on the ground in Gaza.
Speaker 2: So language there is very interesting to me. Ryan and
Speaker 2: first of all, oh, it's an out of the box idea. Actually,
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing is not that out of the box idea.
Speaker 2: In fact, the Biden administration was pushing something very simil
Speaker 2: before they got a lot of pushback from you know,
Speaker 2: Egypt and Jordan's saying absolutely not, we are not participating
Speaker 2: in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
Speaker 3: It is not an out of the box idea.
Speaker 2: In terms of the Israeli public end Israeli far right
Speaker 2: leaders who are very open about wanting to force the
Speaker 2: immigration of Palestinians out of the Gaza strip and completely
Speaker 2: take over and resettle it.
Speaker 4: But the Madagascar plan people.
Speaker 3: Can look up exactly.
Speaker 2: Yes, So this is a new idea long time, very
Speaker 2: much in the box. Horrible, but very much in the
Speaker 2: box idea for this region in fact. But the other
Speaker 2: thing that was noe worthy to me, Ryan is while
Speaker 2: she's trying to soften because obviously the minute you go, oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to send more US troops to fight and
Speaker 2: die in the Middle East, there is an instant reaction
Speaker 2: against that, and one that I think Trump himself understands
Speaker 2: since he ran on avoiding such things. But she says
Speaker 2: he has not committed to putting boots on the ground
Speaker 2: in Gaza. That doesn't mean he's not open to putting
Speaker 2: boots on the ground in Gaza, which is exactly what
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 3: But he has not committed to putting boots on the ground.
Speaker 5: And Gaza right because during his press conference he was
Speaker 5: asked that obvious question and he said, if that's what
Speaker 5: it takes, then I would be I'd be willing to
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 4: But yes, to put a fine point.
Speaker 5: In late November of two thousand and seven, Blincoln pressed
Speaker 5: CC and Egypt to open up the Sinai and said,
Speaker 5: we'll build a tense city down there. I think if
Speaker 5: it's out of the box, the difference is him just
Speaker 5: straight up admitting that they would.
Speaker 4: Not come back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because like the way that it's a great kind
Speaker 5: of contrast between how Democrats and Republicans approached the issue,
Speaker 5: where Democrats would support ethnic cleansing while saying that it's
Speaker 5: not ethnic cleansing and they're actually going to let them return,
Speaker 5: whereas Trump is like, no, they're not coming back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But then the next day the Republicans are back to
Speaker 5: the Democratic approach saying, no, of course.
Speaker 3: They would be ris this would only be temporary. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is so not out of the box
Speaker 2: that I think people like you and me have been
Speaker 2: saying from the very beginning of this conflict that the
Speaker 2: goal is likely to destroy Gaza, make it thoroughly unlivable,
Speaker 2: so that then you can say exactly what Steve Witkoff
Speaker 2: and Trump are saying, which how could you let these
Speaker 2: poor people live in this place that is now destroyed
Speaker 2: as bb Nat Yahoo, a man who of course, with
Speaker 2: our support, destroyed Gaza, sitting there grinning like a cheshire cat,
Speaker 2: you know, delighted at the implication and the fact that
Speaker 2: this would completely rescue him politically.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's it's everybody. It kind of spent yesterday
Speaker 5: trying to decide whether or not he's serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you?
Speaker 5: Trump had kind of tried to preempt that conversation, if
Speaker 5: you noticed where he's where. He said, Look, I have
Speaker 5: given this a lot of thought. This is not something
Speaker 5: I'm saying lightly. Yeah, Like he explicitly.
Speaker 3: Said that had his prepared statement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, prepared statement.
Speaker 5: And when he said that, that should have been a
Speaker 5: clue that that was not the case. It's like, wow,
Speaker 5: whenever you're saying I don't know because.
Speaker 3: I think it isn't. It isn't.
Speaker 2: I mean some reporting of the like behind the scenes
Speaker 2: how this came to be has come out from CNA
Speaker 2: in New York Times, So whatever you make of them,
Speaker 2: and effectively that they said, on the one hand, he
Speaker 2: did not float this through you know, State Department channels
Speaker 2: and whatever. But I mean that's Trump for you, but
Speaker 2: that he and Kushner have been talking about this for
Speaker 2: quite some time, and I think Steve Witkoff has been
Speaker 2: very much on the same page.
Speaker 3: I mean, both of these.
Speaker 2: Guys are developers, right, They're very used to the way
Speaker 2: their brain works. They see a beautiful coastline and they
Speaker 2: see dollar signs. And also as developers, they're also quite
Speaker 2: comfortable with displacing a number of people in order to
Speaker 2: achieve those, you know, those building goals that they may have. So,
Speaker 2: you know, it seems to me that while, yeah, he
Speaker 2: didn't go through the proper channels, this is something that
Speaker 2: has been percolating in his mind for at least some time.
Speaker 2: And we had Kushner come out and say that thing
Speaker 2: about all beautiful water for a property, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And Trump himself had previously said while he was being
Speaker 2: asked about whether he thought the ceasefire would continue, he
Speaker 2: said he wasn't confident, and then he went on this
Speaker 2: whole thing about all that that area is very interesting,
Speaker 2: it could be very beautiful, it could be very special,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So in my mind, this is something that
Speaker 2: he's probably been thinking about for some time.
Speaker 4: Oh oh that, I have no doubt.
Speaker 5: I think that he's probably been thinking about it for decades,
Speaker 5: Like that any any realtor, it sees, because you know,
Speaker 5: he talks about this being the Rivier of the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the.
Speaker 5: Funny thing about that is you've got like, you know,
Speaker 5: Rivier has become this brand where they you know, Mexico's
Speaker 5: got it's Maya Riviera.
Speaker 4: And Riviera of Asia.
Speaker 5: Riviera is Mediterranean like, so it's on the same it's
Speaker 5: on the same sea. Yeah, that the actual Riviera is
Speaker 5: so you don't even almost need of them of the
Speaker 5: Middle East.
Speaker 4: Just Rivier.
Speaker 5: It's another rivi Era in the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaker 4: And it is absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 5: Like when we had amic Con on the show, he
Speaker 5: was showing some footage Abu Baker Abed was taking some
Speaker 5: footage of his walk to Gaza City yesterday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he almost ensembled.
Speaker 4: Right Stembinah home mind.
Speaker 5: But as he as he says, like in the background
Speaker 5: is this is the beautiful blue sea. It's this it's
Speaker 5: this jarring juxtaposition of dystopia and utopia. And for Trump,
Speaker 5: he's like, well, then let's just build these gigantic Trump
Speaker 5: towers here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let the world's people in world people, world people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Secretary of State Mark or Rubio was also asked
Speaker 2: about what Trump had to say. Let's take a listen
Speaker 2: to his spin on this move.
Speaker 8: What President Trump announced yesterday is the offer the willingness
Speaker 8: of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction
Speaker 8: of that area. And while you are rebuilding, while you're
Speaker 8: clearing debris. By the way, there are unexploded munitions, There
Speaker 8: are all kinds of hamas weaponry still buried underground. For
Speaker 8: people to be able to live in a place safety,
Speaker 8: all of that has to be removed. It's an enormous undertaking.
Speaker 8: And the only thing President Trump has done, very generously,
Speaker 8: in my view, is offer the United States willingness to
Speaker 8: step in clear the debris, clean the place up from
Speaker 8: all the destruction that's on the ground, clean it up
Speaker 8: of all these unexploded munitions, and in the meantime, the
Speaker 8: people living there will not be able to the people
Speaker 8: who call at home will not be able to live
Speaker 8: there while you have crews coming in and removing debris.
Speaker 8: It's a unique offer, you know, one that no other
Speaker 8: country in the world has stepped up and made an offer.
Speaker 8: But I think it's one people need to think about seriously.
Speaker 8: It was not meant as a hostile move. It was
Speaker 8: meant as a I think a very generous move, the
Speaker 8: offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding.
Speaker 3: Very generous move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not meant as a hostile takeover, as a generous.
Speaker 3: Take generous takeover.
Speaker 2: Just you know, it's a kinder geddler ethnic cleansing, that's all.
Speaker 3: We don't mean any ill will.
Speaker 5: It is probably good for Trump that he got an
Speaker 5: articulate secretary of state because he's going to need all
Speaker 5: of his you know, lexicological skills to do the cleanup
Speaker 5: effort that's required for I was going to say four years.
Speaker 4: Who knows how long Rubio.
Speaker 5: Lasts as Secretary of State, but for all the time
Speaker 5: that he is in that position, it's going to be
Speaker 5: funny stuff like this because there's reporting that Rubio learned
Speaker 5: unsurprisingly about this plan watching Trump's press conference.
Speaker 3: He learned it the same way all of us learn
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 5: Appears to be how Susie Wiles learned it behind him,
Speaker 5: appears to be how Netah even learned it, which is
Speaker 5: the funniest part because net Yah was just in a
Speaker 5: meeting with him right like, could have could have mentioned
Speaker 5: that part. I mean, maybe maybe it'll come out that
Speaker 5: they actually talked about that. It's didn't did not appear.
Speaker 5: So but yeah, so Rubio learned about it. Then he
Speaker 5: and then he's stuck. First he has to kind of
Speaker 5: go at hoc and say like, well, this is you know,
Speaker 5: flipping the table, and it's an out of the box idea.
Speaker 5: Then he has to say, no, it's not it's not
Speaker 5: what it sounded like. It's actually just generous offer. When
Speaker 5: he says own, he means just take responsibility for the reconstruction.
Speaker 5: But also don't worry that responsibility does not include one
Speaker 5: penny of American spending or any.
Speaker 2: American very generous move that involves no spending somehow or
Speaker 2: people or people. And it's not hostile at all, even
Speaker 2: though it requires the forcible displacement of some And now
Speaker 2: we're being told one point eight million or one point
Speaker 2: seven million Palestinians, and you and Emily pointing out that
Speaker 2: now I think this is actually the second time that
Speaker 2: Trump has mentioned that number of Palestinians remaining in the
Speaker 2: Gaza strip, which would indicate that the actual number of
Speaker 2: dead from this ongoing genocide has somewhere in the ballpark
Speaker 2: of even potentially like half a million, which does square
Speaker 2: with some of the some of the numbers of the
Speaker 2: analysis that have been done up to this point. I
Speaker 2: don't think anyone who watches this program will be shocked
Speaker 2: by numbers that high. The far right in Israel is
Speaker 2: absolutely loving this idea, and Donald Trump, we can put
Speaker 2: a three up on the screen.
Speaker 3: This is Ben Gavier.
Speaker 2: It Omar Ben Gavier, who in two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: was convicted by a israally court for incitement to racism
Speaker 2: and supporting a terrorist organization.
Speaker 3: Now think of how bad you have to be to
Speaker 3: be to be convicted.
Speaker 2: Bien is rarely court for racism and terror supporting a
Speaker 2: terrorist organization, He says, Donald, this looks like the beginning
Speaker 2: of a beautiful friendship. This kind of gets to our
Speaker 2: point about how this is not an out of the
Speaker 2: box idea. It's a very mainstream idea among the absolute
Speaker 2: farthest right psychos in Israel who have been outwardly pushing
Speaker 2: something exactly like this for quite a long time. Another
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to take note of that kind of
Speaker 2: got lost in the shuffle, But I think is note
Speaker 2: where they am actually curious Ryan your reaction this. We
Speaker 2: could put a four up on the screen, so we
Speaker 2: had brought you the news here that Steve Witcoff, this
Speaker 2: has been Trump's envoy, you know, pressured Baby to accept
Speaker 2: the ceasefire deal, et cetera, et cetera. It is this
Speaker 2: sort of like brash real estate developer buddies with Trump.
Speaker 2: He had been for ever since the ceasefire deal was struck,
Speaker 2: really praising the Biden administration for doing the work to
Speaker 2: negotiate this deal and you know, really giving them credit
Speaker 2: for the contours of that deal. He's really changed his tune.
Speaker 2: So the note here says something interesting to note before
Speaker 2: Natanya who visit. Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the ceasefire,
Speaker 2: but Middle East Envoice Dave Witcoff distanced the admin from
Speaker 2: the deal today left the door open to amending the
Speaker 2: framework and timeline broker by Biden. Here's the quote from Witkoff.
Speaker 2: He says, part of the problem is that it wasn't
Speaker 2: such a wonderful agreement that was first signed, that was
Speaker 2: not dictated by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: We had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: So distancing himself from the contours of the deal that
Speaker 2: only moments ago, of course, he and Trump were celebrating
Speaker 2: as a terrific breakthrough, right.
Speaker 4: For people who were catching up here.
Speaker 5: This was basically the deal that was put together effectively
Speaker 5: in May, which Biden's supporters and we'll talk about this
Speaker 5: later in the show, have used to say Biden deserves
Speaker 5: credit for getting this deal done in May, except tell
Speaker 5: that to the thousands of people who were killed after
Speaker 5: May in the genocide, and tell that to the more
Speaker 5: than a million people who suffered every day through the
Speaker 5: unspeakable barbarity of that time period. So yes, it's true
Speaker 5: that that was the outline of deal, and that Witcough forced,
Speaker 5: with some gentle pressure net Yahoo to finally accept the
Speaker 5: terms of the deal because he wanted this hostage exchange,
Speaker 5: you know, to happen on January twentieth or right around there.
Speaker 4: So that that's all true.
Speaker 5: And Witcoff's mission at the time was get a deal
Speaker 5: and get me the you know, get me the publicity
Speaker 5: of the hostage exchange and the ceasefire deal. So now
Speaker 5: he's saying, okay, well, what can we negotiate it as
Speaker 5: we're moving from phase one to phase two? And that
Speaker 5: allows Witcough, I think, to take a little bit more
Speaker 5: agency and kind of and kind of continue negotiations because
Speaker 5: it was always assumed that there would be ongoing negotiations
Speaker 5: between phase one and phase two, and Nen Yahoo was
Speaker 5: always and Yah was publicly saying that he wanted to
Speaker 5: blow up the deal before it got to phase two
Speaker 5: and restart the war. In fact, his publicly saying that
Speaker 5: was one of the main obstacles to actually making a deal,
Speaker 5: as you can imagine, like what you want to make
Speaker 5: a deal with somebody who's like, yeah, my intention is
Speaker 5: to break this deal as quickly as I too, possibly
Speaker 5: kill coming you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so they were always going to be ongoing negotiations
Speaker 5: no matter what. And so I think this, I think
Speaker 5: that's all that this is is that w coughs saying, yeah,
Speaker 5: we're We're going to keep talking. And from Hamas's perspective
Speaker 5: and from all of the Palaestinians perspective, talk talking is
Speaker 5: good because talking is not bombing, and talking extends the
Speaker 5: time of the ceasefire, and their belief is that the
Speaker 5: longer you can extend the ceasefire, the more it just
Speaker 5: becomes the fabric of the status quo and continues.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, I read it a little bit differently. Of effectively,
Speaker 2: Trump and wit cough now distancing themselves from this deal.
Speaker 2: I mean, part of what we were hoping for is
Speaker 2: that Trump would see it as a hit to his
Speaker 2: ego and his accomplishments for this deal to fall apart.
Speaker 2: And so if you now have Witkoff and to a
Speaker 2: certain extent, Trump saying like this isn't even our deal?
Speaker 2: Who even cares about this deal? To me, that's a
Speaker 2: bad indicator in terms of their willingness to put pressure
Speaker 2: on BB to continue through with Phase two when BB
Speaker 2: is under domestic political pressure from the most extreme parts
Speaker 2: of his fetchet who have out and Rounte said like,
Speaker 2: if you go back, if you go forward with the
Speaker 2: next phase, we're out of your coalition. So I write
Speaker 2: it as a negative sign that they were sort of
Speaker 2: distancing themselves. And Trump has consistently said, like, I'm not
Speaker 2: confident at all that this thing is going to continue.
Speaker 4: I just don't.
Speaker 5: He has said that, But I don't think he can
Speaker 5: distance himself from it because he so loudly took credit
Speaker 5: for it, and he's now president. So I think it
Speaker 5: would look just too pathetic too. In February or March,
Speaker 5: blame Biden.
Speaker 4: I don't know the war that breaks out.
Speaker 9: In reality, they can try, but like the more proper
Speaker 9: stuff than that right now, as we'll get to you
Speaker 9: later in the show.
Speaker 5: But that's true, but I mean things that happened during Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: I mean right, he was he was it was. Yes,
Speaker 5: this is true, but I don't think he can pull
Speaker 5: it off. We'll see.
Speaker 3: At the same time.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously the countries in the region that are
Speaker 2: very much implicated in this idea, this out of the
Speaker 2: box idea of Trump's, are not having it whatsoever. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and take a listen to a little bit
Speaker 2: of the response from Jordan.
Speaker 4: He also said that everyone loves this plan. He said
Speaker 4: that in the Oval office this morning.
Speaker 10: In fact, the Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan called it
Speaker 10: the declaration of war on.
Speaker 4: The Arab people.
Speaker 5: So how does he square the fact that even some
Speaker 5: Republicans on the Hill are objecting to this sort of
Speaker 5: questioning this, How does he square the fact thing everyone
Speaker 5: loves this.
Speaker 7: Well, the King Abdullah of Jordan will be here next week,
Speaker 7: so I can provide you more context on the conversations
Speaker 7: he will have directly with the President of the United
Speaker 7: States after that meeting, And I would just point out
Speaker 7: that there's been a lot of leaders and officials all
Speaker 7: around the world who have doubted, I suppose the deal
Speaker 7: making ability of President Trump. You heard the Panama leader
Speaker 7: saying that he would not agree to some of the
Speaker 7: concessions that he has now made because of Secretary Rubio's visit.
Speaker 7: You had the Colombian president saying he wouldn't accept flights
Speaker 7: of Colombian illegal nationals who have entered into our country illegally,
Speaker 7: and those flights are underway. So actions speak louder than words.
Speaker 2: So interesting there that she brings up the examples of
Speaker 2: Panama and Colombia. Of course, there was that whole threat
Speaker 2: of tariffs on Colombia's use the throat of terrafs against
Speaker 2: Mexico and Canada to extract not even like really significant
Speaker 2: concessions in those instances. This is a very different deal.
Speaker 2: So if he's thinking that he can use TIFFs to
Speaker 2: coerce Egypt and Jordan into taking this this, they would
Speaker 2: consider this to be existential to their own like regimes
Speaker 2: and power. So I think they would be a lot
Speaker 2: more willing to write out the economic pain of tariffs
Speaker 2: in order to try to keep their grip on power.
Speaker 5: Right, the populations of Jordan and Egypt are not huge.
Speaker 5: So adding a million Palestinians to Egypt, a million Palestinians
Speaker 5: to Jordan.
Speaker 3: And Jordan already has a large number of Palatines.
Speaker 5: Yea, the majority population is Palestinians, fundamentally destabilizes those countries.
Speaker 4: In the opinion.
Speaker 5: Whether or not that's true or not, that is the
Speaker 5: opinion of the leadership of those countries, and so they
Speaker 5: believe that, you know, you you do this, the clock
Speaker 5: stars ticking on their ouster. And so therefore, even if
Speaker 5: it's better for the Palestinians and better for Egypt and
Speaker 5: better for Jordan, those leaders aren't going to do it
Speaker 5: like that's that's just not how they work.
Speaker 4: There's no amount of.
Speaker 5: Characteristics that you that anybody has to pressure a leader
Speaker 5: to do something that they believe is going to end
Speaker 5: their reign.
Speaker 4: That's just fairly simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, so as well, let's go and
Speaker 2: move on to some of the response that we've seen
Speaker 2: from Republicans, primarily since Trump is not really going to
Speaker 2: care what Democrats have to say about any of this.
Speaker 2: Could put Rand Paul up on the screen. He is
Speaker 2: sort of the most aggressively in terms of his pushback
Speaker 2: on you know, the idea of taking over Gaza. He says,
Speaker 2: the pursuit for peace should be that of the Israelis
Speaker 2: and Palestinians.
Speaker 3: I thought we voted for America first.
Speaker 2: We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom
Speaker 2: our treasure and spill our soldier's blood. Noteworthy, however, you know,
Speaker 2: not unexpected from rand Paul, who tries to be fairly
Speaker 2: consistent in terms of his foreign policy approach. In particular,
Speaker 2: more noteworth than me. Was Lindsay Graham not too crazy
Speaker 2: about this idea. Put a seven up on the screen,
Speaker 2: He says, I think most South Carolinians would probably not
Speaker 2: be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. I
Speaker 2: think that might be problematic. But Ryan, he is going
Speaker 2: to keep it over.
Speaker 4: You got to keep an open mind. You got to
Speaker 4: keep it over mind.
Speaker 2: Another one we have here for you here is Josh Holly.
Speaker 2: He sort of echoed Lindsey Graham, telling Politico he didn't
Speaker 2: think sending troops to the House to enclave was the
Speaker 2: right move.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I think it's the best use of the United States
Speaker 2: resources to spend a bunch of money in Gaza. I
Speaker 2: think maybe I'd prefer that to be spent in the
Speaker 2: United States first.
Speaker 3: But let's see what happens. Ryan, you got to wait.
Speaker 4: You got a wait to see what happens. Yeah, you
Speaker 4: never know.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing is like, even when they
Speaker 2: are mildly critical here, they leave themselves, of course, the
Speaker 2: opening that if Trump goes forward with it, they're going
Speaker 2: to say, masterful, gambits are brilliant, move brilliant, move out
Speaker 2: of the box, very generous.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you put yourselves in the shoes of
Speaker 5: Grammar Holly, and that is the best they're going.
Speaker 4: To be able to do.
Speaker 5: But yeah, boy, that's not so sure about that.
Speaker 3: But you know, you got to keep an open mind.
Speaker 4: I got to keep an open mind.
Speaker 5: You know, because and it goes back to their problem
Speaker 5: and the genius from his perspective of his entire politics,
Speaker 5: which is that there is no ideology.
Speaker 4: It is Trump is.
Speaker 5: It is like what Trump says becomes the policy.
Speaker 4: Of the publican party that's right.
Speaker 5: And if Trump says like I think Trump, I think
Speaker 5: that there is a massive structural and deep opposition from
Speaker 5: his followers to putting more boots on the ground in
Speaker 5: the Middle East. But if he said they're going to
Speaker 5: do it, Like at some point there a lot of
Speaker 5: a lot of them are gonna be like, well, this
Speaker 5: is obviously this is America first, Like this is this
Speaker 5: it becomes America first.
Speaker 2: Somehow that's exactly right. I mean I've already seen some
Speaker 2: of that on Twitter of like, oh, this would be amazing.
Speaker 2: We'd get to own this, Like think how incredible that
Speaker 2: would be.
Speaker 3: We could do whatever we want with it.
Speaker 2: And you see this with any number of issues where
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, all of a sudden, Trump says
Speaker 2: something about Greenland or Panama, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: people who had never thought about Greenland and Panama. I
Speaker 2: think it's the most brilliant thing on the planet, and
Speaker 2: are a million percent in favor of it, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And the other thing is this time around,
Speaker 2: you know Trump really, I mean, he has completely cowed
Speaker 2: the Republican Party. Any of the Jeff Flakes of the world,
Speaker 2: the people that were there in the first administration that
Speaker 2: were more adversarial, they're gone. And I think this part
Speaker 2: is really important. He's got Elon Musk there to be like,
Speaker 2: if you don't do what this president wants, you to do,
Speaker 2: and what I want you to do. I elon musk
Speaker 2: An elected new leader of the country, then I'm going
Speaker 2: to drop an infinite amount of money on your head
Speaker 2: in the primary. And that is a very real threat
Speaker 2: and very effective at enforcing the enforcing the line here.
Speaker 5: If I were going to channel Sager here, I think
Speaker 5: he would say, these guys know Trump isn't going to
Speaker 5: do this, so they're just being as generous as they
Speaker 5: can in the meantime.
Speaker 4: Is that what Sager would say? You think?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure because I don't think that he would
Speaker 2: deny that in the end, if Trump did go forward
Speaker 2: with this, that they would.
Speaker 3: Fall in line. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've just we've seen it over and over again.
Speaker 2: At the same time, there were plenty of Republicans who
Speaker 2: took no issue whatsoever, didn't even express the slightest bit
Speaker 2: of hesitation about this idea, in particular the new leader
Speaker 2: of the Senate that would be John Thune, which I'm
Speaker 2: still getting used to by the way, Majority Leader Thoon
Speaker 2: and Mike Johnson, who of course is the House Speaker.
Speaker 2: Here is Manu Raju talking to both of them.
Speaker 11: Yeah, we're trying to get the details of it. But
Speaker 11: I think this is a good development. We have to
Speaker 11: back Israel one hundred percent, and so whatever form that takes,
Speaker 11: we're interested in having that discussion. But it's it was
Speaker 11: a surprise and development, but I think it's one that
Speaker 11: will applaud.
Speaker 12: And I just caught up with the Senate Majority Leader
Speaker 12: John Thune asked them a similar question about whether or
Speaker 12: not this was an idea that was worth pursuing if
Speaker 12: it was a feasible proposal, And this is what the
Speaker 12: Senate Majority leaders said, Sarah, what do you think of
Speaker 12: the pumps takeover? Cause on the policy realistic idea.
Speaker 5: It's gonna like going to bring more peaceful and secure
Speaker 5: Middle East and putting some ideas.
Speaker 12: Out there, struggling it off of sort of saying just
Speaker 12: simply putting some ideas out there. Are other Republican centers,
Speaker 12: including Senator Lindsay Graham, do not think it was quite
Speaker 12: a workuple idea, But you're not really hearing it nearly
Speaker 12: the amount of pushback that you're hearing from Democrats. A
Speaker 12: lot of Republicans think this is an idea that simply
Speaker 12: is just far fetch something that never will actually be achieved,
Speaker 12: and that eventually the discussion will move on beyond this.
Speaker 12: And as you heard from the sent of majority of
Speaker 12: there right there seeming to put a lot of stock
Speaker 12: into this proposal, but the Speaker of the House very
Speaker 12: much defending what Donald Trump has said last night on
Speaker 12: multiple occasions, that this would be something that's worth pursuing.
Speaker 2: Also interesting to me over on Fox News in primetime,
Speaker 2: Laura Ingram and her guest or trying to make that
Speaker 2: spin of how this could be seen as America first.
Speaker 2: So if Trump moves forward with this idea, I think
Speaker 2: you'll hear more of this line of argumentation. Let's take
Speaker 2: a listen to what they had to say.
Speaker 13: When Americans are building monuments to Donald Trump as the
Speaker 13: most consequential president of the past hundred years, I don't
Speaker 13: think our grandchildren will fully appreciate just how consequential the
Speaker 13: guy is and just what a radical departure is from
Speaker 13: both Democrats and Republicans of the past hundred years, who
Speaker 13: have been presidents who are cautious and careful, and this
Speaker 13: guy wants to be consequential and solve problems.
Speaker 9: Well, I think it's so foreign to us to hear
Speaker 9: this that wait a second, we actually may solve a problem.
Speaker 3: We actually may make money on it.
Speaker 9: That's a bad thing for the United States to get
Speaker 9: repaid for the tens of billions of dollars just in
Speaker 9: the last few years we've dumped into the Middle East
Speaker 9: and the trillions we've spent over the years. When we
Speaker 9: go to Iraq, we break it and then we don't
Speaker 9: get the oil leases or any of the rebuild and
Speaker 9: meanwhile we leave our equipment there tens of billions of
Speaker 9: dollars in Afghanistan for what. What did we get in
Speaker 9: either of those places except a massive refugee crisis in Europe,
Speaker 9: the creation of ISIS and a stronger Iran.
Speaker 3: Is so bukers to me.
Speaker 2: She even says, we went to Iraq, we broke it,
Speaker 2: and we didn't even get anything out of it. It's like,
Speaker 2: we spent all this money to murder a lot of Palestinians,
Speaker 2: and we think we should also make some money on
Speaker 2: the deal. I mean, it's just but that's the direction
Speaker 2: they're going, and is like, that's how it's America first,
Speaker 2: if we actually acquire this territory to develop to our
Speaker 2: benefit or at least the benefit of Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: Jared Kushner.
Speaker 5: It's also just openly and hilariously internally inconsistent with its
Speaker 5: own like one minute clip there saying all of these
Speaker 5: past presidents have been so cautious, whereas now Donald Trump
Speaker 5: is putting up for a bold idea to send American
Speaker 5: troops to the Middle East.
Speaker 3: And then she's like, bold, new idea. Guys, never tried
Speaker 3: that one before.
Speaker 5: And then she mentions the very thing that undercuts her
Speaker 5: whole point, which is that in two thousand and one,
Speaker 5: in two thousand and two, our bold idea from an
Speaker 5: American president was we were going to send a lot
Speaker 5: of American troops to the Middle East because it'd been
Speaker 5: a big problem.
Speaker 4: We were going to solve the problem.
Speaker 3: That's right, incredible stuff.
Speaker 4: This time, we're going to keep the oil.
Speaker 5: Where do you think the oil has been going in
Speaker 5: the last twenty years? Like we have what we have,
Speaker 5: we have their oil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Couldn't leave this this section without letting Senator John Fetterman,
Speaker 2: Senator of Israel Affair laf Israel first Senator, way in
Speaker 2: here and take a more hawkish approach than actually even
Speaker 2: Lindsay Graham can put his response up on the screen.
Speaker 2: He says, outside the Senate Chamber. That is from a
Speaker 2: New York Times reporter in the capital. Senator John Fetterman
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania, who is known as the most staunchly pro
Speaker 2: Israel Democrat in the Senate, called President Trump's remarks provocative,
Speaker 2: but said he would support a potential American occupation of
Speaker 2: the Gaza Strip, adding that Palestinians for years have quote
Speaker 2: refused or have been unwilling to deliver a government that
Speaker 2: provided security and economic development for themselves. So at least
Speaker 2: one Democrat on board with this plan.
Speaker 3: Ryan sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think people should start punking him and saying, like,
Speaker 5: you know, just making stuff up that Trump says he's
Speaker 5: going to do just to get Fetterman to support it.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's anything that you could bring to him, no,
Speaker 5: and have Fetterman push back against it.
Speaker 2: No. Nothing, No, Like if you went to him were like,
Speaker 2: Trump says, we're going to drop a nuclear.
Speaker 3: Bomb on Gaza Strip.
Speaker 2: You know, we've got to take out Hamas it's existential,
Speaker 2: he'd be like, well, it's provocative, but to wait till.
Speaker 5: Gotta wait till the winds are going in the right direction.
Speaker 5: Our allies are very close there. But otherwise, you know.
Speaker 3: That sounds good on the side of the box. Yeah,
Speaker 3: outside of the box.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and get to the very latest from
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and DOJ and you know it is the developments.
Speaker 2: They are coming fast and furious and very difficult to
Speaker 2: know what is happening at all of these agencies. But
Speaker 2: this was quite noteworthy to me. The White House Press
Speaker 2: Secretary was pressed about Elon's many conflicts of interest, and really, truly,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk cannot actually be involved in anything with regard
Speaker 2: to this government without running into some kind of conflict
Speaker 2: of interest. I mean the number of agencies that have
Speaker 2: sued him for environmental issues, for labor issues, union busting,
Speaker 2: securities violations, the billions of dollars in contracts he has
Speaker 2: as a tech oligarch, the interest he has in scooping
Speaker 2: up all of our data. I mean, it is incomprehensible,
Speaker 2: the number of conflicts that he has across this whole government.
Speaker 2: So she was asked, hey, you know, how's this whole
Speaker 2: thing going to work, and basically acknowledges that it is
Speaker 2: on Elon Musk himself to self police any potential conflicts
Speaker 2: of interest.
Speaker 3: Here. Let's take a listen to what she has to say.
Speaker 4: You talked a bit about DOJE.
Speaker 10: Elon Musk is currently a quote special government employee who
Speaker 10: also owns companies that have billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Speaker 10: You said earlier this week that he has abided by
Speaker 10: all applicable federal laws. But what steps is the Trump
Speaker 10: administration taking to address that conflict of interest?
Speaker 7: The President was already asked and answer this question this week,
Speaker 7: and he said, if Elon Musk comes across a conflict
Speaker 7: of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE
Speaker 7: is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.
Speaker 7: And he has again abided by all applicable laws.
Speaker 5: Does that make you feel better, Ryan, Yeah, he's abiding
Speaker 5: by all applicable laws.
Speaker 4: And we're going to talk about this in a moment.
Speaker 4: But you know, Ian Miles Chong and his whole gang.
Speaker 5: Yeah, feel like they have discovered the Watergate of the
Speaker 5: twenty first century because they misread USA spending dot gov
Speaker 5: to believe that USAID was funding Politico to the tune
Speaker 5: of like eight million dollars, Like untrue, but in this
Speaker 5: context is hilarious. So Politico, according to them, is corrupt
Speaker 5: because of this fake finding of government subsidies going to them.
Speaker 5: But Elon Musk, whose wealth rests on federal funding, that's fine,
Speaker 5: Like that's not corrupting.
Speaker 3: At all, right of course, And also that's.
Speaker 5: True, Like the other argument is false, Like in this case,
Speaker 5: he really is getting funded, like he's a government contractor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that's his whole.
Speaker 2: Thing, and he's not only you know, obviously he's a
Speaker 2: government contractor.
Speaker 3: He gets at some fifteen.
Speaker 2: Billion dollars in taxpayer dollars every year. Like it's a
Speaker 2: preposterous amount of money that he gets from the US government.
Speaker 2: He also has many foreign entanglements, a lot of business
Speaker 2: in China, for example, So you know, just everything that
Speaker 2: he touches is inherently a conflict of interest. And yet
Speaker 2: you know, oh, it's fine, he's gonna if there's anything
Speaker 2: that he's conflicted on, he'll let us know. He'll get
Speaker 2: back to us on no big deal, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: There's so many developments here. Let me go and put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen. So this is an important
Speaker 2: important note. USAID obviously has been a major target of
Speaker 2: Elon and DOJ and the right, et cetera. There was
Speaker 2: backlash against the defunding of this one particular program to
Speaker 2: come that HIV.
Speaker 3: It's a George W. Bush era program.
Speaker 2: It's been you know, really successful, important to the health
Speaker 2: they say here more than twenty million people worldwide, and
Speaker 2: in cleaning five hundred thousand children. And since there was
Speaker 2: a backlash, Marco Ruby at the State's Department issued a
Speaker 2: series of memos that say, basically like we're giving an exception.
Speaker 2: The foreign aid freeze does not apply to this. But
Speaker 2: because this is all done so sloppily and so imprecisely,
Speaker 2: the money for that HIV relief still isn't going out.
Speaker 2: It still continues to be frozen with potentially I mean
Speaker 2: not potentially with dire consequences. They did a survey of
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy five organizations and eleven steps Aharan countries.
Speaker 2: This was all conducted over the past week. All of
Speaker 2: them all of them reported their programs or services had
Speaker 2: shut down or were turning people away. This is especially
Speaker 2: critical for babies who acquire HIV at birth because the
Speaker 2: infection can progress really quickly. Death can occur if you
Speaker 2: don't don't receive the proper treatment within eight to twelve
Speaker 2: weeks after birth, which would be a shorter period of
Speaker 2: time than the ninety day pause on foreign aid. So,
Speaker 2: you know, lives put being put at risk here. And obviously,
Speaker 2: like there are many things that USAID does that you
Speaker 2: and I would not be particularly crazy about, but it's
Speaker 2: also true that it does genuinely beneficial things like this.
Speaker 2: And so even in this area where there was public pushback,
Speaker 2: where it fell like, okay, well if something is too egregious,
Speaker 2: they're going to pull back and they're going to kind
Speaker 2: of fix it, which happened with this, which happened with
Speaker 2: the Medicaid portals being shut down. Even in that instance,
Speaker 2: you know, they have not actually been able to roll
Speaker 2: back the freeze, and those funds are still locked down.
Speaker 5: Right because it it appears deliberately destroyed. What's going on
Speaker 5: here is that they and that Times lays this out,
Speaker 5: the government sent out stop work orders to everybody doing
Speaker 5: work that had you know, any connection to this money,
Speaker 5: and so they stopped the work. Then Rubio says, Okay,
Speaker 5: you're right, this is embarrassing, Like, will continue to allow
Speaker 5: some of this work to go on. People can get waivers,
Speaker 5: and so they issued memos saying some work involving HIV
Speaker 5: treatment can continue or going on, or HIV tests and
Speaker 5: can continue going on. But that is that a memo
Speaker 5: like that is not what.
Speaker 4: These organizations need.
Speaker 5: The organizations need a full on letter that says this
Speaker 5: particular program is back on and here's the money. They
Speaker 5: also need to send the money, obviously, and they haven't
Speaker 5: done it. So now then they send a superseding memo
Speaker 5: that tried to clarify a little bit more that yes,
Speaker 5: we're this some of this work actually is okay. So
Speaker 5: what they're doing is are shutting everything down and then
Speaker 5: trying to like rebuild it from the ground up where
Speaker 5: they believe that these are the okay things that they're
Speaker 5: doing right, which a is not legal, Like Congress has
Speaker 5: authorized this pep far program, right, and that's it, Like
Speaker 5: Congress has authorized it directed to whether he.
Speaker 3: Likes or not. He does not get to decide, you're yeah.
Speaker 5: And so because they're being so nitpicky about what's okay
Speaker 5: and what's not, nothing is getting going like zero. So
Speaker 5: then Rubio said, well, it sounds like these are incompetent
Speaker 5: organizations who can't figure out how to get waivers or
Speaker 5: they are deliberately sabotaging their programs so that they will
Speaker 5: get derived some political benefit and embarrass us. But what
Speaker 5: these organizations are saying is that their waivers are being
Speaker 5: sent to staff who have been furloughed. They furloughed, We
Speaker 5: posted the memo yesterday. Almost everybody in the implementing agencies there,
Speaker 5: their emails don't work anymore like these, and they're being
Speaker 5: told to come home, come to the United States by
Speaker 5: this weekend.
Speaker 4: So who's going to approve the way?
Speaker 5: So it's either the most idiotic cough gasque arrangement ever
Speaker 5: or it's quite obviously just designed to throw a wrench
Speaker 5: in it and break it right, because it's anybody who
Speaker 5: thinks it through, it'll be like, okay, actually, we do
Speaker 5: need employees to be able to approve the waivers if
Speaker 5: we want waivers to be approved.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: That's we're not we're not talking like sophisticated bureaucratic understanding
Speaker 5: understanding here.
Speaker 3: Some people do need to exist to be able to.
Speaker 4: And the email email should.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So that's what's going on at us AID.
Speaker 2: But they have expanded their reach through a variety of
Speaker 2: other agencies. You know, some of them deeply troubling in
Speaker 2: you know, really important to American lives as well. It
Speaker 2: can put B two up on the screen. So they
Speaker 2: have reportedly breached the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services,
Speaker 2: have gotten access to key payment and contracting systems there.
Speaker 2: The DOGE representatives have been on site at the agency's
Speaker 2: office this week.
Speaker 3: The people said they're.
Speaker 2: Looking at the systems, tech as well as a spending
Speaker 2: that flows through them, with a focus on pinpointing what
Speaker 2: they consider fraud or waste. Which that's an important line
Speaker 2: because so far the things that we have been given
Speaker 2: as examples of fraud or waste are either just completely
Speaker 2: invented or they're just things that the right doesn't like
Speaker 2: but were in fact, you know, properly authorized, et cetera.
Speaker 2: That's been their definition of fraud or waste. White House
Speaker 2: and DOGE officials didn't comment, but Musk on his platform posted, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is where the big money fraud is happening, referring
Speaker 2: to the Medicare Agency in a repost of another user
Speaker 2: who referenced the journals reporting in the nerve center of
Speaker 2: much of the nation's complex healthcare economy, with outlays of
Speaker 2: about one point five trillion dollars in fiscal twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: about twenty two percent of the federal total. The around
Speaker 2: sixty seven hundred employees overseas, Medicare of course, and Medicaid
Speaker 2: which is for lower income rollies, which is sort of
Speaker 2: overseen primarily by the States. But I mean, he's not wrong. Like,
Speaker 2: if you're going to look at the money, the real money,
Speaker 2: buckets of money in the federal budget, it ain't Usaid,
Speaker 2: which accounts for a zero point seven percent. It is healthcare, right,
Speaker 2: and it is the Pentagon.
Speaker 4: And Social Security.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he gets a lot of money from the Pentagon.
Speaker 2: So for some reason, the Defense Department, which is the
Speaker 2: area that if you ask him, ya, we've looked at
Speaker 2: the polling, if you ask Americans, that's the area they
Speaker 2: most want to cut for some reason.
Speaker 3: That has not been tackled whatsoever.
Speaker 2: But going after healthcare, going after you know, HIV treatment
Speaker 2: for poor kids in Africa, going straight to the pipes
Speaker 2: of the treasury to shut off, to attempt to you know,
Speaker 2: mess with their shut off any funding that they don't
Speaker 2: agree with their that has been very much on the table.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just to underline it, the point this is
Speaker 5: not a pep FAR is not about USAID. I've been
Speaker 5: a long time consistent critic of USAID and it's its
Speaker 5: role in toppling governments and you know.
Speaker 4: Building up fake cific society, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Pep FAR is a separate is a separate program started
Speaker 5: by George W. Bush, which one of the implementing agencies
Speaker 5: is us AID. It could be implemented by other agencies
Speaker 5: right now, USA ideas is essential to getting it out.
Speaker 5: Some numbers from an NGO source said about two hundred
Speaker 5: and twenty thousand patients visit pep FAR supported clinics every day.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: So and there are about twenty million people who rely
Speaker 5: on on this treatment. And so this is treatment that
Speaker 5: if it gets disrupted, you know, causes you know, long
Speaker 5: term implications for your disease treatment. And if if you
Speaker 5: don't care about Africa, you don't care about American solid power,
Speaker 5: you can also understand that that treating it poorly, you know,
Speaker 5: risks creating all sorts of you know, bi mutations.
Speaker 4: Right like, there is a selfish reason for the.
Speaker 5: US to be concerned about disease prevention and treatment in Africa,
Speaker 5: even if you even if you don't care on humanitarian
Speaker 5: grounds at all about Africa or anybody else outside of
Speaker 5: your family or your country or whatever else. It actually
Speaker 5: does have potential impact back here.
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing I've been thinking about is, you know,
Speaker 2: the first of all, Congress authorize USAID as an independent agency. Again,
Speaker 2: it is illegal to just shut down USAID, even if
Speaker 2: you're saying, oh, we're just going to put it under
Speaker 2: the State Department. No, it was authorized specifically as an
Speaker 2: independent agency, and it would, if you're going to follow
Speaker 2: the law, require an Act of Congress to do something
Speaker 2: different with that.
Speaker 3: So that's number one. Number two.
Speaker 2: I find it so silly to think that if the
Speaker 2: goal is to put USAID under the State Department, that
Speaker 2: it's going to do less of the like meddling and
Speaker 2: regime change stuff. I mean, the way Rubio talks about it,
Speaker 2: he's like, it needs to align war with US foreign
Speaker 2: policy American interest, which to me reads like, actually, we
Speaker 2: want to get rid of all this like you know
Speaker 2: and b pamb humanitarian help the kids with AIDS. We
Speaker 2: just want to do more of the like directly meddling
Speaker 2: and trying to secure the mineral resources and supporting the
Speaker 2: quote unquote freedom fighters as a Senator Chris Murphy was
Speaker 2: talking about, Yes.
Speaker 5: Exactly, Rubio saying that the USAID's functions will continue, but
Speaker 5: be directed America First. It was so revealing in a
Speaker 5: drop site piece on Monday that we wrote.
Speaker 4: That touched on the Romanian election.
Speaker 5: So we previously reported on this show as well, reported
Speaker 5: on usaids and the State Department's role and basically annulling
Speaker 5: presidential election in Romania.
Speaker 4: Totally insane story.
Speaker 3: Totally insane story.
Speaker 5: They the candidates that the u was supporting, there were
Speaker 5: the establishment candidates. So does America first exploitation of USAID
Speaker 5: mean that it would be the populist right candidates that
Speaker 5: we're supporting, Like, That's that's what makes me nervous, right,
Speaker 5: that we're not going from Okay, we actually are now
Speaker 5: supporting the sovereignty of every country and whoever you elect,
Speaker 5: whether it's somebody we like or don't like, that's for
Speaker 5: Romanians to decide. And we're not going to go and
Speaker 5: interfere with your election. That that would be my preference. Right,
Speaker 5: Let people decide. But is Rubio saying no, actually, we'll
Speaker 5: come in and USAID will be supporting the right wing
Speaker 5: populist Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and also, I mean Rubio very hawkish guy, especially
Speaker 2: when it comes to Latin America.
Speaker 3: Never seen like a coup.
Speaker 2: Or receive change operation there that he didn't like, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: so you know this is guy.
Speaker 3: It was all all about Wang Guido, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So I don't think anyone should feel like USAID is
Speaker 2: going to be more to their liking when it is
Speaker 2: more directed by the State Department versus as it is
Speaker 2: currently as an independent agency. There's a bunch of developments
Speaker 2: to probably the most important piece of this is their
Speaker 2: infiltration of the Treasury Department, because that is where the
Speaker 2: payments that you know, Wall six trillion dollars that go
Speaker 2: out from the federal government. That is where the bones
Speaker 2: and the pipes of that operation. I mean, they were
Speaker 2: savvy enough to know, like this is the place we
Speaker 2: need to go.
Speaker 3: And so there's been.
Speaker 2: A lot of dispute about what exactly they've been up
Speaker 2: to there. You know, there were claims me to reporters
Speaker 2: that the DOGE apparatriics only have quote read access, which
Speaker 2: is by the way, troubling enough. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: damage that can be done just with read only access.
Speaker 2: But we now have confirmation that that is really not
Speaker 2: the case. Let's put this reporting b to be up
Speaker 2: on the screen here. We've got talking points. Memo has
Speaker 2: some sources inside the Treasury Department. They've broken a number
Speaker 2: of stories here, but they say specifically, a doage worker
Speaker 2: named Marco Ellas, who has admin privileges on chargery systems
Speaker 2: that control ninety five percent of government payments, including Social
Speaker 2: Security checks, tax refunds, has already made extensive changes to
Speaker 2: the codebase for these critical payment systems, and these have
Speaker 2: been implemented too. They weren't, you know, it wasn't in
Speaker 2: some like you know, test environment. They've actually gone in
Speaker 2: and messed with the system, according to this reporting. And
Speaker 2: in addition, they said what it looked like this individual
Speaker 2: was doing was either trying to make it easier to
Speaker 2: freeze or shut off payments and potentially to make it
Speaker 2: so it's harder to track what payments have been messed
Speaker 2: with have been frozen. So again, I mean, just a
Speaker 2: brazen violation of the separation of powers. You know, power
Speaker 2: of the purse belongs with Congress, and you've got these
Speaker 2: sort of unaccountable young dudes running around doing what they
Speaker 2: want to do. There's also new York Times reporting this
Speaker 2: morning that backs up some of this. This just broke
Speaker 2: literally this morning, they say. In the days after President
Speaker 2: Trump took office, as Elon Musk's team began pressing for
Speaker 2: access to the Taragery Department's payment system. Officials repeatedly said
Speaker 2: their goal was to undertake a general review of the system.
Speaker 2: They said they would observe, but not stop money from
Speaker 2: going out the door. But emails reviewed by The New
Speaker 2: York Times show that the Treasury's Chief of Staff originally
Speaker 2: pushed for Tom Krause, one of those Doge acolytes, to
Speaker 2: receive access to the closely held payment system so that
Speaker 2: the Treasury could freeze Usaid payments. In a January twenty
Speaker 2: fourth email to a small group of Treasury official, the
Speaker 2: Chief of Staff Dan Katz, wrote that mister Kraus and
Speaker 2: his team needed access to the system so they could
Speaker 2: pause Usaid payments and comply with mister Trump's January twentieth
Speaker 2: executive order to halt foreign aid to the extent permitted
Speaker 2: by law. This is the quote from the email. We
Speaker 2: would like to implement the pause as soon as possible
Speaker 2: in order to ensure we are doing our role to
Speaker 2: comply with the Executive Office, so increasingly getting confirmation that
Speaker 2: you know, they have been going in, they have been
Speaker 2: messing with the code, they have been at least planning
Speaker 2: to freeze payments, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Nathan Tankas, uh TPM, like these.
Speaker 4: These early reports are being vindicated. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wired has also done really wired, really great reporting because
Speaker 2: they have all these tech sources, you know, so they're
Speaker 2: sort of outside DC, but they have all this insight
Speaker 2: into this tech world, and so they've broken a lot
Speaker 2: of stories with regard to DOJ.
Speaker 5: And some of it is also random, like it looks
Speaker 5: like you know, TPM, Josh over there just happened, and
Speaker 5: like know the people in the right place, that's the thing,
Speaker 5: Like you he's been doing this for twenty five thirty years,
Speaker 5: and clearly somebody who's like buddies with or something over
Speaker 5: the years happens to be in the room. And so
Speaker 5: that that has enabled these independent journalists to scoop the
Speaker 5: mainstream press like New York Times and others, who you know,
Speaker 5: very strategic focused their sourcing on the people closest to
Speaker 5: like Trump or Biden or the Treasury secretary. But when
Speaker 5: Musk is going around them and going to the bowels
Speaker 5: of the building, and.
Speaker 3: You're talking about these sort of just middle.
Speaker 5: Like happen to be your neighbor, and now all of
Speaker 5: a sudden they're in a political position that they weren't
Speaker 5: in before, and so's.
Speaker 4: That's been interesting to watch. But yeah, so this is
Speaker 4: confirming that.
Speaker 5: The kind of worst fears that there is there's kind
Speaker 5: of aggressive manipulation going on inside the system, which is
Speaker 5: and we discussed as usually it's like sixty years old,
Speaker 5: like right, people like the code that put this system
Speaker 5: together was being written in like the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 5: just updated consistently since then rather.
Speaker 2: Than My first job on in college was working for
Speaker 2: a government contractor that worked with these enterprise systems, and
Speaker 2: my particular client.
Speaker 3: Was not Chargery, was the federal court system.
Speaker 2: So I have no knowledge of the treasury systems, but
Speaker 2: I have extensive knowledge of how cluge together and like
Speaker 2: eccentric and you know, just very specific kind of knowledge
Speaker 2: you have to have of these systems and how outdated they.
Speaker 3: Are, and all of that is certainly true.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you have a few individuals who will be
Speaker 2: in place who will know all the quirks and the
Speaker 2: ends of an ounce of these weird systems. I worked
Speaker 2: on the help desk there for quite a while, so
Speaker 2: I was getting all the incoming problems. Why won't this happen,
Speaker 2: why won't that happen, etc. You got to go in
Speaker 2: the back end and search and figure out what the
Speaker 2: hell is going on, how these systems fit together, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so I like have a sort of visceral understanding
Speaker 2: of how brittle and how quirky and weird and outdated
Speaker 2: a lot of these systems are. And so if you're this,
Speaker 2: you know, hot shot kig coming in thinking that you
Speaker 2: know everything. And I think you see this a lot
Speaker 2: from the business world too, where people who are successful
Speaker 2: in the business world think that they know everything about
Speaker 2: any they can just drop in and like do a
Speaker 2: way better job at anything. But you know, certainly these
Speaker 2: systems could use an upgrade, They could use some increased
Speaker 2: levels of efficiency. But if you're just going in willy
Speaker 2: nilly and messing with it, you are risking total catastrophe.
Speaker 2: And that's just one of the risks here. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, risk of total catastroph the whole thing breaking down.
Speaker 2: Tax refund's not going out, social Security checks not going out,
Speaker 2: medicare not going out, the US not meeting its obligations
Speaker 2: and having some sort of a default. You know, you've
Speaker 2: also just got the there's clear We're going to talk
Speaker 2: to David Day and.
Speaker 3: More about the legal pushback here.
Speaker 2: We have privacy laws in place that say you can't
Speaker 2: just have random people accessing you know, all of American
Speaker 2: social Security numbers as an example. There's really specific sensitive
Speaker 2: protocols that you're supposed to follow that don't appear to
Speaker 2: be followed here as well.
Speaker 3: And then the key you.
Speaker 2: Know, what really makes this, I would say, even beyond
Speaker 2: a constitutional crisis, is you don't just get there's a
Speaker 2: reason why Treasury just is the clearing house, right the
Speaker 2: payments get the appropriations made by Congress. The agencies say, okay,
Speaker 2: this is how we're going to go about executing the
Speaker 2: wishes of Congress. And then treasuries they're there to make
Speaker 2: sure that the checks are actually going out. The idea
Speaker 2: that you can go in and just pick and choose,
Speaker 2: like I like this one, I don't like that one.
Speaker 2: As this richest man on the planet is I mean
Speaker 2: it truly is approaching coup type territory. Now he doesn't
Speaker 2: have control of the military. So I don't think you're
Speaker 2: quite there, but it is to be significantly beyond even
Speaker 2: just that of a constitutional crisis because of the level
Speaker 2: of control that he's trying to exert here on a
Speaker 2: you know, line by line basis as someone who wasn't
Speaker 2: elected or converted to anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the counter argument is that he's going after corruption, waste,
Speaker 5: and he's going after waste, fraud, and abuse, which a
Speaker 5: so far he has not elevated any incidents of core
Speaker 5: of actual up corruption, waste or fraud, which which would
Speaker 5: stand to reason because the way that you would find
Speaker 5: his waste fraud abuse would be to you know, find
Speaker 5: out where the money went and investigate the people who
Speaker 5: got the money.
Speaker 4: He's not doing that.
Speaker 5: He's looking at how it's getting how it's getting sent out,
Speaker 5: and and then he and he's just looking at the
Speaker 5: names of people getting money. Like Mike Flynn was circulating
Speaker 5: a spreadsheet where a bunch of Lutheran service organizations were
Speaker 5: getting money, and they're like, Aha, look at this corruption, right,
Speaker 5: It's like these these Lutheran organizations actually do a lot
Speaker 5: of implementation of like medicaid, of like getting medicaid payments
Speaker 5: out to providers like they do that. Like, so you
Speaker 5: found the word Lutheran and you think you've discovered fraud, Like,
Speaker 5: that's not that's that's not how it works. There is
Speaker 5: an absolutely insane amount of fraud in the in the
Speaker 5: medicare system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just as Scott, yes, exactly.
Speaker 5: And it's a way and it would be a place
Speaker 5: I think that AI and technology could be beneficial because
Speaker 5: like and most of it.
Speaker 4: Is down in South Florida.
Speaker 5: You've got these fly by night companies that will set
Speaker 5: up they will pretend that they're selling, you know, wheelchairs,
Speaker 5: they will steal a bunch of Medicare numbers from the
Speaker 5: dark web. They will submit, you know, for ten million
Speaker 5: dollars in reimbursement from Medicare. The money will come through
Speaker 5: and then they shut down and so like that. That's
Speaker 5: the kind of thing that maybe you can get away
Speaker 5: with the nineties, but with the technology we have today,
Speaker 5: you should have to be able to.
Speaker 3: Approve like this is a real need for a real person.
Speaker 5: Where the where are the wheelchairs? Where's your physical address?
Speaker 5: Who are you? Like, so if they were, if we
Speaker 5: were serious, there is actually billions of dollars to be saved.
Speaker 2: There well, it's also worth saying there is a government
Speaker 2: the Government Accountability Office is meant to root out this
Speaker 2: type of fraud. On an annual basis, finds hundreds of
Speaker 2: billions of dollars of fraud.
Speaker 4: Vastly more invest more in that.
Speaker 2: Vastly more than what they're I mean they haven't found.
Speaker 2: They've found in terms of actual fraud that's been elevated
Speaker 2: at zero dollars. They've found some things they just like
Speaker 2: don't like, you know, money going to organizations that they
Speaker 2: just have an issue with, or just completely fabricated things
Speaker 2: like the one hundred million dollar condoms to Gazo, which
Speaker 2: was not even a thing, right, And we'll talk about
Speaker 2: the Politico example later, but your point just.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, people don't miss it.
Speaker 5: Rick Scott his company oversaw the biggest medicare fraud in
Speaker 5: American history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so get him involved. You should know where to
Speaker 3: find it.
Speaker 5: So, and that is also an indication of because what
Speaker 5: I described sounds like it should be doable by the richest.
Speaker 4: Country on the planet to root out this fraud.
Speaker 5: But you're getting way up the river, Like the level
Speaker 5: the amount of money being made on this puts you
Speaker 5: in rooms where people have the power to stop that
Speaker 5: from happening.
Speaker 4: So why isn't the GAO getting more money? Why I
Speaker 4: jeez that the HHS getting more money.
Speaker 5: Why is it FBI being directed there instead of wherever.
Speaker 4: The hew the FBI is being directed.
Speaker 5: Well, Rick Scott's a senator from Florida, and you know,
Speaker 5: he might be the most prominent example of somebody like this,
Speaker 5: but he's not the only one.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And again, if you really wanted to root out fraud,
Speaker 2: you would be taking a look at that the Pentagon budget,
Speaker 2: which has.
Speaker 3: Never passed an audit.
Speaker 2: That might be the place that you would actually start,
Speaker 2: but not if you're getting billions of dollars in your
Speaker 2: own contracts from that entity just to continue on here.
Speaker 2: So they've busted into Center for Medicare. They also put
Speaker 2: B three up on the screen, have gotten access to NOAH,
Speaker 2: that's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Speaker 3: Why should you care? That's right? Well, why should you care?
Speaker 2: Because if you like to know when hurricanes are going
Speaker 2: to hit in your area.
Speaker 4: Or what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, you.
Speaker 2: May appreciate the work that NOAH does. But Noah has
Speaker 2: long been in the sites of conservatives because they don't
Speaker 2: like that it you know, that climate change is real,
Speaker 2: and the Noah data proves that to be the case.
Speaker 3: They don't like that.
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five took aim at Noah in particular.
Speaker 2: They describe it as harmful to US prosperity for its
Speaker 2: role in climate science. And they also have wanted to
Speaker 2: privatize the data that's collected here so that you the
Speaker 2: public don't have access to it, only private corporations have
Speaker 2: access to it. And I mean, since there's a time
Speaker 2: with the conversation you and Emily were having about housing,
Speaker 2: which is that all these insurers are looking at the
Speaker 2: data and are like, Yeah, your house in this area
Speaker 2: is really prone to a wild buyer or really prone
Speaker 2: to being destroyed by a hurricane.
Speaker 3: And this is a problem.
Speaker 2: But because there's been such so many political lies about
Speaker 2: the climate crisis, it has kept people from being able
Speaker 2: to really absorb how much risk they are personally at
Speaker 2: wherever they happen to be living. And so they would
Speaker 2: like to go more in the direction of only private
Speaker 2: corporations really getting to understand the data and the science
Speaker 2: that is collected around the atmosphere.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's crazy to think that there really are
Speaker 5: these niche companies who just hate the idea that Noah
Speaker 5: gives this information away for free, which then allows your
Speaker 5: weather app and your various weather apps to then be
Speaker 5: available mostly for free. They're pulling data from you, or
Speaker 5: you can get the fancy ones where you pay, but
Speaker 5: then you get a little.
Speaker 4: Extra from those from those asks.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, they want they want you to have to
Speaker 5: pay for everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4: Sager would agree with me on that one.
Speaker 3: I think he's.
Speaker 2: Brought up Noah himself before, so yeah, I think he'd
Speaker 2: be on board with that. Let's put before up on
Speaker 2: the screen. The GSA is a General Services administration. They
Speaker 2: basically keep track of all of the kind of like
Speaker 2: hard assets, including real estate, of the federal government. And
Speaker 2: so they received a message from DOJE saying that they
Speaker 2: are trying to get rid of terminate the leases on
Speaker 2: and many of the federal offices nationwide to cut back
Speaker 2: the real estate budget by fifty percent. Kind of goes
Speaker 2: against the whole idea of everybody's got to go back
Speaker 2: to the office, because actually already some of the office
Speaker 2: space has been let go because you had a post
Speaker 2: COVID shift away from everybody being at the office all
Speaker 2: the time, and so you know they're wanting to strip
Speaker 2: this back even further. And you know, I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: surprised to see if some closely connected people are able
Speaker 2: to benefit from some.
Speaker 3: Of these sales.
Speaker 2: You know, some potentially blow market possibilities here. But this
Speaker 2: is a you know, another DOGE effort to just come
Speaker 2: in and slash and burn. And then the last piece
Speaker 2: we have for you, while we've got two more pieces
Speaker 2: for you. One is they are trying to move to
Speaker 2: a system where their communications within DOGE would not be
Speaker 2: subject to FOIA requests. That we can put B five
Speaker 2: up on the screen. This is another one of these
Speaker 2: kind of outsider outlets that was able to get this scoop.
Speaker 2: This is for a four media. They say DOGE employees
Speaker 2: the order to stop using slack while agency transitions to
Speaker 2: a record system not subject to FOYA. This is a
Speaker 2: little bit there's like different reporting requirements. If you're right now,
Speaker 2: DOG is under the Office Management and budget. If they
Speaker 2: were to report directly through the White House, then they're
Speaker 2: subject to different records requirements. Ryan, you could probably speak
Speaker 2: to this better than I can. And so they want
Speaker 2: to say, no, no, actually, we're just reporting to Chief
Speaker 2: of Staff Susie Wiles. We're just under the Office of
Speaker 2: the President. That's who we're advising. And so then we
Speaker 2: would become under what is it called like the Presidential
Speaker 2: Records Act, which holds doesn't allow you to FOYA anything
Speaker 2: until you.
Speaker 3: Know, years down in the future.
Speaker 2: So just an effort here to make sure that there
Speaker 2: is truly no transparency about what's going on there.
Speaker 5: Right in order to stand up their their DOJ committee.
Speaker 5: Immediately they took over a digital committee that Obama had
Speaker 5: set up, which had been under omb and in the
Speaker 5: executive Order, he said, it's not there anymore now, it's
Speaker 5: so for it.
Speaker 4: The White House.
Speaker 5: And a lot of lawyers are like, well, that's not
Speaker 5: how it works. You can't just like you actually have
Speaker 5: to go through serious process to like rearrange that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't get to just say like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't really want to be SUBJISTI for it anymore.
Speaker 3: So we're just not going to do that.
Speaker 4: But you know they probably can and they will.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: It's ironic that the Twitter the guy, the Twitter files guy,
Speaker 5: the dude all about transparency is now seeking to undermine it.
Speaker 5: And then separately on the on the gs A thing
Speaker 5: where they're canceling all the leases. That's another speed run
Speaker 5: through his Twitter takeover, Like the first thing he did
Speaker 5: was get rid of the get rid of a bunch
Speaker 5: of leases, break the leases, stop paying, make make, make
Speaker 5: them sue and going.
Speaker 4: Back to the idea of like.
Speaker 5: The random connections you have, like I've you know, whole
Speaker 5: bunch of neighbors who are federal workers.
Speaker 4: And then they're being asked to come in.
Speaker 5: And what they've said is that, you know, over the
Speaker 5: last several years, in order to save money, their agencies
Speaker 5: have downsized their their offices. So now it's more like,
Speaker 5: all right, what what kind of office size would we
Speaker 5: need if people came in two or three days a week,
Speaker 5: and oh, we would need shared workspaces and more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're mutable, we really have their own space.
Speaker 2: You come in, you grab whatever cubicles available, with an
Speaker 2: assumption that only you know, maybe fifty percent of the
Speaker 2: workforce will be there.
Speaker 3: On any given day.
Speaker 5: And so now that they're saying, okay, actually everybody's back
Speaker 5: for five days with oh we need to go get
Speaker 5: a bigger office yeah, and if that's what they want
Speaker 5: us to do, to have that coupled with actually we're
Speaker 5: getting rid of all the offices, Like wait a minute,
Speaker 5: I thought we were coming.
Speaker 3: In coming in to wear exactly. Yeah, that's that is
Speaker 3: all very accurate. You know.
Speaker 2: I live out in King George County, which is about
Speaker 2: an hour and a half from years, the town that
Speaker 2: I grew up in, and it's based around the economy
Speaker 2: there is based around a naval base, but it's mostly
Speaker 2: civilian scientists who work there. But then it also is
Speaker 2: the type of place that during COVID, when people were
Speaker 2: able to get these flexible work schedules, suddenly like if
Speaker 2: you're commuting into DC an hour and a half a
Speaker 2: day plus traffic makes it like a ridiculous, miserable commute.
Speaker 2: You can't really do that five days a week. But
Speaker 2: if you're coming in.
Speaker 3: Two days a week, three days a week, okay, that
Speaker 3: becomes more doable.
Speaker 2: So there's been a lot of movement of people out
Speaker 2: to where I live who do have to go into DC,
Speaker 2: who are you know, obviously their lives are going to
Speaker 2: be turned upside down. And the other piece of this
Speaker 2: that you know, we didn't even touch on is the
Speaker 2: big fork in the road letter that sent out the
Speaker 2: quote unquote buyoun which is not really biol but whatever
Speaker 2: that they sent out is also coming under a lot
Speaker 2: of legal scrutiny, and there's huge questions and about whether
Speaker 2: this is truly a real whether it's a legal offer
Speaker 2: because again there's no funds to back it up because
Speaker 2: that has to go through.
Speaker 3: Congress, and whether or not they could just.
Speaker 2: Kind of renick on it at any time because of
Speaker 2: this not actually being a legal offer. And then very
Speaker 2: few federal employees took them up on this effort, and
Speaker 2: it seems to have had this kind of backlash effect
Speaker 2: where people are like, you know, people being stubborn creatures
Speaker 2: as we are, We're like, oh, you want me to leave,
Speaker 2: will screw you. I'm definitely staying now. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: so that piece is going on as well. Last on
Speaker 2: the politics of this, we could put Jade Vance's tweet
Speaker 2: up on the screen here, which is interesting for a
Speaker 2: variety of reasons, but anyway, he says, quote, no one
Speaker 2: voted for Elon Musk. They did, however, vote for Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: who promised repeatedly to have Elon Musk routout wasteful spending
Speaker 2: in our government. You know, to me, this was a
Speaker 2: sign that they are sensitive about the criticisms of Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: You know, his favorability is plummeting. Doge is underwater, which
Speaker 2: is kind of amazing to me because if you just
Speaker 2: ask people in general, like, oh, should the government be
Speaker 2: more efficient? Of course they're like, yes, that sounds great.
Speaker 2: So the fact they managed to get that project to
Speaker 2: be have a negative approval rating is kind of incredible.
Speaker 2: And then it's also I mean, it's also funny to
Speaker 2: me because Elon and Trump are the only two people
Speaker 2: that matter in this administration.
Speaker 3: Like JD.
Speaker 2: Vance has been thoroughly pushed to the side. Now this
Speaker 2: is the Partzoker would.
Speaker 3: Probably this is where he would probably and put it
Speaker 3: back and object to. But it's true.
Speaker 2: You know I was saying to you before when we're
Speaker 2: watching Mark or Rubio all of these agency heads, like
Speaker 2: they're all irrelevant. You know, the plan truly from these
Speaker 2: in this It sounds crazy when you lay these things out,
Speaker 2: but go and look at what their intellectual influencers, people
Speaker 2: like Curtis Yarvin, are saying. They want Elon Musk to
Speaker 2: be the CEO the dictator of the country and Donald
Speaker 2: Trump to effectively be like the chair of the board.
Speaker 2: And that's how you should understand this dynamic. Elon is
Speaker 2: a megalomaniac, like he truly believes he is intellectually superior
Speaker 2: to everyone that he deserves by dent of being the
Speaker 2: richest man on the planet to not just run our country,
Speaker 2: but run the world. I think in his mind he's
Speaker 2: a hero who's trying to save humanity by you know,
Speaker 2: bringing us to Mars or whatever. And he has this
Speaker 2: kind of you know, I don't know that he would
Speaker 2: describe himself as an effective altruism, but it kind of
Speaker 2: is that mindset of the ends justify the means. I
Speaker 2: can hurt any people, I can break any laws I
Speaker 2: can do, you know, do whatever I think.
Speaker 3: Is best in service of these like.
Speaker 2: Multi generational interplanetary goals. And so that's what you see
Speaker 2: in operation here. Like if he knows that, you know,
Speaker 2: let's say one hundred thousand kids with HIV are going
Speaker 2: to die because of his actions, he sees that as
Speaker 2: in service of this greater goal that he has decided
Speaker 2: for himself in his head that he wants to impose
Speaker 2: on all of US. He also, as the world's top oligarch,
Speaker 2: sees the United States government as the one force that
Speaker 2: could be powerful enough to reign in his desires and
Speaker 2: his power. So you know, when we're talking about there's
Speaker 2: a risk of him breaking things like for him, that's a.
Speaker 3: Feature, not a bug.
Speaker 2: The United States government not functioning and people you know, suffering,
Speaker 2: people being more poor, people being less educated, those are
Speaker 2: all things that benefit him personally because number one, it
Speaker 2: makes people easier to control. Number Two, there's actually a
Speaker 2: YouTuber who pointed this out. He's obsessed with this whole
Speaker 2: birth rate thing and talks about how people who are
Speaker 2: poor and less educated have more kids. So it also
Speaker 2: solves his problem in terms of, oh, I want people
Speaker 2: to have more kids if you are poorer and less educated.
Speaker 2: And so you know, if you go and read these
Speaker 2: guys and their philosophy, like I said, Curtis Yarvin is
Speaker 2: one of the primary influencers here. They want a tech
Speaker 2: feudalist society with a CEO king and the end of democracy,
Speaker 2: and that is a fact. What we're witnessing here, step
Speaker 2: by step is Elon Musk himself trying to take control
Speaker 2: of the reigns of the federal government and be able
Speaker 2: to control the spending and have it just go out
Speaker 2: and take control of the agencies that are both critical
Speaker 2: and have it run according to his whims, ideologies and wishes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the scale of the investment that he needs
Speaker 5: to achieve that long term vision requires that you US
Speaker 5: government to invest a significant amount of its money in
Speaker 5: that direction, Like if he's going to go to Mars, right,
Speaker 5: like you need the federal you need the American federal government,
Speaker 5: like printing the money to make that happen.
Speaker 2: And by the way, he was able to get Trump
Speaker 2: to install his choice for Secretary of the Air Force,
Speaker 2: who had previously been influential in getting Giant SpaceX contracts,
Speaker 2: you know, for the for Elon. So in all the
Speaker 2: areas where he wants things to happen, they are happening
Speaker 2: according to his wishes. Now there is a legal pushback that,
Speaker 2: like I said, we'll talk to David Daan about And
Speaker 2: I do think you know, at some point the state
Speaker 2: probably reasserts itself against this oligarch. But you know, how
Speaker 2: much how much damage is done between then now and then?
Speaker 2: And when is when is that going to actually happen?
Speaker 4: In the meantime, I think jd.
Speaker 5: Vance is playing the long game, where like he is
Speaker 5: currently in the pole position to take over the Republican
Speaker 5: Party in the absence of Trump. There's obviously a lot
Speaker 5: of competition, Don June and plenty of others. H And
Speaker 5: Elon Musk will be a king maker unless he's in
Speaker 5: prison by that or something. But like along this trajectory,
Speaker 5: he he can make or break, you know, the next
Speaker 5: chairman of the Republican Board. And so Jadie Vance I
Speaker 5: think you're going to see him, uh linking himself very
Speaker 5: tightly with Elon Musk in the coming years.
Speaker 2: And Jade Vance has you know, close ties with Peter Teel,
Speaker 2: who's you know, tied into this whole world as well.
Speaker 2: I mean he was put in there very intentionally as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean the real figure at this point
Speaker 2: is Elon. He is the you know, previously, when I
Speaker 2: was reading these guys, I thought they were thinking of
Speaker 2: Trump as the like CEO king, but they actually weren't
Speaker 2: thinking of Elon, Who's who's the real.
Speaker 4: A wild card anyway.
Speaker 2: Trump is too much of a wildcard. Trump is not
Speaker 2: ideological in the same way, you know, so he gets
Speaker 2: to be over here doing his you know whatever things
Speaker 2: he's interested in, immigration, tariff threats, you know, quote unquote
Speaker 2: turning on the water in California. Like he gets to
Speaker 2: go over and do play with and and go golfing
Speaker 2: and do whatever he wants to do. And meanwhile, Elon
Speaker 2: is actually taking the reins and going forward with what
Speaker 2: I think you can truly describe as a revolution.
Speaker 4: Which he continues to call it a revolution accurately.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's which makes our whole like, what about Foya
Speaker 5: seems so.
Speaker 2: Trivial, completely completely Yeah, no, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's absolutely right