Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and Happy Valentine's Day. We just couldn't stay away.
Speaker 1: There was far too much to discuss to wait for Monday.
Speaker 1: Ryan and Emily Grade see you guys. Happy Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2: Yes, guy, we're both wearing red and panktiful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta be. I gotta be on the theme.
Speaker 1: It's also it's actually my daughter Ida's birthday. Happy birthday
Speaker 1: to her. She's turning, so I got to be in
Speaker 1: full Valentine's Day spirit in honor of her as well.
Speaker 1: So that's how we.
Speaker 3: Roll over here.
Speaker 2: And I love that we can we get the ambient
Speaker 2: noise of Ryan's children too.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, is that Valentine's Day. So they're going to
Speaker 4: keep the kids home for no reason.
Speaker 1: See, my kids are also home and have been home
Speaker 1: all but like one day this week because of snow,
Speaker 1: and they're off of Monday for I guess the President's Day.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, and we're supposed to get snow next week.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I just homeschool them. At this point,
Speaker 1: this is getting utterly prebosterous. Kyle homeschool them, now that
Speaker 1: that'd be a reality show right there.
Speaker 3: American History.
Speaker 1: It'd be good. They learned some things. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Okay, So we had three different
Speaker 1: big topics that we wanted to jump into today. So
Speaker 1: first of all, there's a lot of news with regard
Speaker 1: to Eric Adams. They dropped the charges against in the
Speaker 1: Trump administration push for that, and then there was a
Speaker 1: series of mass resignation sort of in protest of the
Speaker 1: way all of that went down, So that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: We've also got a lot of comments coming out about
Speaker 1: Ukraine and potential negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and some
Speaker 1: conflicting comments from Hegseth and Trump and J. D. Vance,
Speaker 1: So break all of that down for and also some
Speaker 1: very interesting comments from Trump about wanting to denuclearize and
Speaker 1: also about wanting to cut the military budget by fifty percent.
Speaker 1: So we'll give some initial reactions that I said to
Speaker 1: you guys, Sagur and I probably also cover that on Monday,
Speaker 1: so we'll save some of the analysis on that one
Speaker 1: for them as well. And then of course I want
Speaker 1: to give you all the updates that we have with
Speaker 1: regard to DOJ. One of the biggest ones is they
Speaker 1: have sent out a memo now to fire all probationary
Speaker 1: employees throughout the federal government. That's people who have been
Speaker 1: there less than one or two years, depend agency depending,
Speaker 1: it's about two hundred thousand people. You add that to
Speaker 1: the people who took the deferred resignation offer, you're talking
Speaker 1: about ten percent of a federal workforce roughly that is
Speaker 1: going to be gone. So obviously that's going to have
Speaker 1: some major impacts. Go ahead, Ry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's one actually detail I can add to that.
Speaker 4: I was talking to a federal worker at one of
Speaker 4: these departments, and he said that people were refusing promotions
Speaker 4: because it's not just new people who get on probation.
Speaker 4: If you go from this career level and you've done
Speaker 4: a really good job, you get promoted to a new
Speaker 4: job with more responsibilities and more of a pay raise,
Speaker 4: you're actually in a brief probationary window, even if you've
Speaker 4: been a federal worker for twelve years. And so what
Speaker 4: a lot of people who were seeing the writing on
Speaker 4: the wall were doing was like, I'll take the responsibility
Speaker 4: and I'll take the new title, but I don't want
Speaker 4: any more money because if I take the raise, that's
Speaker 4: what triggers the probationary peace in the system. So it's
Speaker 4: not just new people like this could also be hitting
Speaker 4: people who've been working there for twelve years and just
Speaker 4: by coincidence, got a promotion in November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, and that goes to the point
Speaker 1: I've been making is this is actually kind of the
Speaker 1: polar opposite of the merit based or meritocracy thinking that
Speaker 1: they claim to support. Because the people who are more
Speaker 1: likely to take the buyouts, I think there's two types.
Speaker 1: There's people who are close to retirement, and then there's
Speaker 1: people who have a lot of other options. So that's
Speaker 1: going to be like kind of your best and the
Speaker 1: brightest who can go to the private sector command a
Speaker 1: higher salary. You're not getting those people back. And so
Speaker 1: when you add to that that, you know, some chunk
Speaker 1: of the probationary employees also are people who were up
Speaker 1: for promotions, which seems to indicate that they were probably
Speaker 1: doing a good job. That also, you know, cuts into
Speaker 1: the bone of some of the most important individuals who
Speaker 1: would be within the federal government. But we'll get to
Speaker 1: all of that. I do want to start with this
Speaker 1: story coming out of New York. I'm curious for both
Speaker 1: of you guys thoughts on this. So you guys may
Speaker 1: know that Eric Adams, who's under fire for corruption in
Speaker 1: in New York, his whole administration has been like gutted
Speaker 1: by corruption charges, et cetera. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: he started cozying up to Trump and making a lot
Speaker 1: of noises basically sounding like he is effectively maga and
Speaker 1: lo and behold, the order comes down to drop the
Speaker 1: Adams case. Now significantly, he wasn't pardoned, meaning they can
Speaker 1: still bring back the charges if he doesn't do the
Speaker 1: things that the Trump administration wants him to do. In
Speaker 1: protest of this, you have had a sort of mass
Speaker 1: resignation among you know, you have a US attorney who resigned,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other folks who were involved with this.
Speaker 1: Let me just read you a little bit of this
Speaker 1: New York Times piece. They say order to drop Adams
Speaker 1: case prompts resignations in New York and Washington. Manhattan's US
Speaker 1: attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey and order from
Speaker 1: a top Justice Department official to drop that corruption case
Speaker 1: against New York City's mayor Eric Adams. Then, when Justice
Speaker 1: Department officials transferred the case to the Public Integrity Section Washington,
Speaker 1: which oversees corruption prosecutions. The two men who led that
Speaker 1: unit also resigned. That's according to five people with knowledge.
Speaker 1: Several hours later, three other lawyers in the unit also resigned.
Speaker 1: The serial resignations and I think this is correct to
Speaker 1: represent the most high profile public opposition so far to
Speaker 1: President Trump's tightening control over the Justice Department, stunning repudiation
Speaker 1: of the administration's attempt to force the dismissal of the
Speaker 1: charges against mister Adams. And let me just pull up
Speaker 1: one of the things that was alleged here is that
Speaker 1: Adams pretty explicitly offered a quid pro quo in exactly
Speaker 1: the way that you would expect. So this is the
Speaker 1: letter from the US attorney who resigned, who said in
Speaker 1: that scathing letter explaining the rationale for resigning over this
Speaker 1: push to drop Adam's charges. I tended a meeting on
Speaker 1: January thirty first with mister bo of adams Council and
Speaker 1: members of my office. Adam's attorneys were repeatedly urged what
Speaker 1: amounted to a quid pro quote, indicating that Adams would
Speaker 1: be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement
Speaker 1: priorities with regards to immigration and other things, only if
Speaker 1: the indictment were dismissed. Mister Bow admonished a member of
Speaker 1: my team who took notes during that meeting and directed
Speaker 1: the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. So,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty significant development and some of the first
Speaker 1: really significant coordinated public pushback Ryan about some of the
Speaker 1: things that the Trump administration has been up to.
Speaker 4: It reminds me of that iconic scene from the Wire
Speaker 4: where Stringer Bell says, are you taking notes on a
Speaker 4: criminal conspiracy? Rips the notes up and throws them away.
Speaker 4: It's like, who's over here taking notes on this cover
Speaker 4: up of a corruption scheme. Of course, the whole thing
Speaker 4: is funny because Adams has already shown him self to be,
Speaker 4: based on the indictment, you know, thoroughly willing to do
Speaker 4: quit broke quote, like what do I need to do
Speaker 4: for me? What do I need to do for the grade,
Speaker 4: for the money, for whatever, I'll do that thing. So
Speaker 4: they come in and they're like, all right, we will
Speaker 4: drop these corruption charges if you will corruptly agree to
Speaker 4: do our thing in exchange for this personal benefit that
Speaker 4: we're going to give you. I'm sure you saw that.
Speaker 4: You know, Holman and Adams were on one of these
Speaker 4: morning shows.
Speaker 1: Was that The Friends?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so, where Holman says to him, like,
Speaker 4: if he doesn't abide by our agreement, I'm going to
Speaker 4: be up his butt in his office reminding him that
Speaker 4: we have this deal graphic Wow, okay, all right, well.
Speaker 2: You know what. He said it in front of him
Speaker 2: on live TV, like he was sitting right on live TV.
Speaker 4: And Adams kind of laughed and said, look, I'm just
Speaker 4: doing what's best for the city of New York and
Speaker 4: to make these make these streets as safe as they
Speaker 4: can possibly be. In some ways they are. This era
Speaker 4: is making us useless because the media's purpose often is
Speaker 4: to decode the code that politicians are speaking in and
Speaker 4: explain it in a way that people can understand. They
Speaker 4: don't speak in code anymore, like they just tell you
Speaker 4: exactly what's going on. So here we are just repeating
Speaker 4: what they're saying. You don't need us to.
Speaker 1: Do that, really, yeah, no, And Emily apparently, you know,
Speaker 1: they're already changing policy after this deal was struck. So
Speaker 1: Adams has now opened Rikers Island to ice agents. You know,
Speaker 1: this would be a seeming violation of the city sanctuary policies.
Speaker 1: Eric Adams, as mayor of the city, is not in
Speaker 1: a position to unilaterally roll back the sanctuary city legislation policy.
Speaker 1: He has to go through the city Council in order
Speaker 1: to do that. So instead he found some sort of
Speaker 1: a loophole where he could justify this change in collaboration
Speaker 1: with ICE. And you know, however you feel about the
Speaker 1: ICE enforcement and how this should all be handled, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I think, you know, the people of New
Speaker 1: York elected a politician to represent them, not to be
Speaker 1: subject to coercion and the priorities of the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: It's so by the way, I think we touched on this,
Speaker 2: But the one of the Justice Department employees who resigned, well,
Speaker 2: first of all, one of them was just appointed several
Speaker 2: weeks ago by Donald Trump. So not like not like
Speaker 2: when we were talking about federal workers earlier. This isn't
Speaker 2: like a purge of the self deportation, as Romney would say,
Speaker 2: if people who are disloyal to Donald Trump. This is
Speaker 2: somebody who like actually accepted Trump's appointment.
Speaker 1: And an antonin Scalia Kirk Clerk.
Speaker 2: So this yet so Danielle Sassoon clerked for Scalia. She's
Speaker 2: a member of the Federal Society. And it's just like,
Speaker 2: it's not a self deportation of disloyal people. It's genuinely
Speaker 2: like a principle. It's not what was her name, Sally Yeates, right,
Speaker 2: I remember the first the first trumpman stration, Sally must
Speaker 2: resigned and became a resistance hero.
Speaker 3: This is not that.
Speaker 2: It's not that at all, and so it's it's yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is as this is what Trump in
Speaker 2: one way ran against, and then in the other way
Speaker 2: when he's saying things like I alone can fix it
Speaker 2: because I know the system and I have been part
Speaker 2: of the system. He was also that was in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: although he's never like walked that back. Of course, it's
Speaker 2: always been part of his pitch. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: people are like, yeah, this guy knows how to get
Speaker 2: shit done because he can wheel and deal.
Speaker 3: On the other hand.
Speaker 2: You end up with situations like this where you have
Speaker 2: just naked, naked corruption by a Democrat who is just
Speaker 2: proving Trump to.
Speaker 3: Be the cheapest date. I mean the cheapest date.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: They control the government.
Speaker 2: They have the power to like actually start dealing with
Speaker 2: this issue, you know, and they are on a policy level,
Speaker 2: they don't need Eric Adams.
Speaker 3: They really don't.
Speaker 1: Well, and Eric Adams probably not to be around all
Speaker 1: that much longer. But to your point, Emily about him
Speaker 1: being a cheap date, you guys, remember Rod Blogoyevitch from
Speaker 1: the Illinois Levinor was like, what he was selling a
Speaker 1: Senate seat, wasn't it something almost Obama senac That's right.
Speaker 1: And what Trump commuted his sentence or pardoned him or
Speaker 1: something of this of the same regard. All it takes
Speaker 1: is you saying nice things about Trump, like that's literally
Speaker 1: all it takes.
Speaker 3: And Eric filling on democrats esau.
Speaker 2: That's what Blagoya that started doing. And now Eric Adams
Speaker 2: is doing the same thing with Democrats.
Speaker 3: They're all corrupt. It's a racket. You are the rackets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, go ahead, Ryan, No.
Speaker 3: And also just to.
Speaker 4: Stand up for Blagoyevitch, he went down because again he
Speaker 4: said on audio, I'm not giving this away. I'm not
Speaker 4: giving this thing away for free, right, And he pissed
Speaker 4: off Democrats in the way that he went about in
Speaker 4: a fairly selfish way rather than a partisan way, he
Speaker 4: didn't actually take any money for it though, like what
Speaker 4: he what he meant is he wanted some political gain
Speaker 4: for himself, which is what the game is, honestly what
Speaker 4: they do. Who in politics gives anything away for free?
Speaker 3: Nobody.
Speaker 4: So the Justice Department has continued to chip away at
Speaker 4: its own authority by going after stupid cases at the
Speaker 4: same time as their power is being chipped away at
Speaker 4: by you know this, like I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: a federal cider who's pushing it this like drive to
Speaker 4: basically make it so it's impossible to prosecute corruption.
Speaker 1: No, that's exactly right. I mean at the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has taken a number of decisions that have made it
Speaker 1: so that it has to be as brazen as Bob
Speaker 1: Menendez being like, I will do X for you in
Speaker 1: exchange for this gold bar, and you have to.
Speaker 4: Get the gold bars before you take the action. Like
Speaker 4: if you do the thing and then you get the
Speaker 4: gold bars after, they're like, well, that's not corruption, right
Speaker 4: with the Virginia governor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you also also, this was the best part
Speaker 2: of the Menendez self defense was when he said this
Speaker 2: is actually just anti Cuban bigotry. I'm being targeted because
Speaker 2: I am a proud Cuban man.
Speaker 1: Yes, taken a play play Andrew Cuomo's playbook there with.
Speaker 4: His astro community is just so oppressed here in American politics,
Speaker 4: that's right, Well, no voice for them.
Speaker 1: One thing Ryan, I wanted to get your reaction to,
Speaker 1: in particular on this is Governor Kathy Hochel. There is
Speaker 1: a provision in New York law that enables her to
Speaker 1: be able to remove Eric Adams, and she's obviously under
Speaker 1: pressure now from liberals to do that. Here is she
Speaker 1: was on Rachel Maddow's show and Rachel pressed her on
Speaker 1: exactly this. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 5: What we've just seen with the resignation of the U
Speaker 5: S Attorney, the Trump appointed acting US Attorney, the removal
Speaker 5: of line propcutors on that case, the demand from Main
Speaker 5: Justice to drop that case, the refusal from SDNY to
Speaker 5: do it, then the resignation of Main Justice officials who.
Speaker 4: Had the case dumped on.
Speaker 5: Them and they wouldn't take it either. This is just
Speaker 5: an incredible drama terms of federal lawenforcement right now. But
Speaker 5: you are in a very unusual position, a singular position,
Speaker 5: and with regard to the case, which is that, thanks
Speaker 5: to the New York State Constitution, in New York City law,
Speaker 5: you are the only person who has the power to
Speaker 5: effectively fire Mayor Eric Adams and remove him from this position,
Speaker 5: which might conceivably moot this whole fight.
Speaker 4: How are you.
Speaker 1: Thinking about that now?
Speaker 5: You could have done it at any point until now,
Speaker 5: But now, given this crisis that's emergant federal enforcement around
Speaker 5: this case, are you feeling differently about that responsibility?
Speaker 6: Let me tell you from a couple of angles here.
Speaker 6: One is that this is unbelievably unprecedent for the Department
Speaker 6: of Justice in Washington to interfere in this way. My
Speaker 6: husband was a thirty year federal product secutor. Barack Obama
Speaker 6: made him his United States Attorney.
Speaker 5: You look at what happened here.
Speaker 6: This is not supposed to happen in our system of justice.
Speaker 6: The bondage administration in that Department of Justice is already
Speaker 6: showing their corrupt Now set that aside.
Speaker 5: I did see the letter that was.
Speaker 6: Issued by the Acting United States Attorney the allegation. They're
Speaker 6: extremely concerning and serious. Yes, but I cannot, as the
Speaker 6: governor of this state, have a knee jerk politically motivated reaction,
Speaker 6: like a lot of other people are saying, right now,
Speaker 6: I have to do it smart, what's right, And I'm
Speaker 6: consulting with other leaders in golvement.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of that, Ryan, I mean,
Speaker 1: just I'll get your reaction. Then I've got a few
Speaker 1: thoughts about this too.
Speaker 4: She is she doesn't have much political capital to pull
Speaker 4: a move like this off, which is a product of
Speaker 4: the way that the kind of New York State Democratic
Speaker 4: Party has lost so much of its own legitimacy. And
Speaker 4: you know, she was kind of you know, she became
Speaker 4: governor after they pushed Cuomo out and then she basically
Speaker 4: didn't have a serious primary and then barely beats was
Speaker 4: Lee Zelden in that twenty twenty two election. And so
Speaker 4: it has been wildly kind of pretty unpopular. And so
Speaker 4: in a normal situation, a move like this would be
Speaker 4: a no brainer, Like the guy is flagrantly corrupt and
Speaker 4: got out of his corruption charges by being even more
Speaker 4: brazenly corrupt. And like Emily said, or you may was
Speaker 4: usual like agree or disagree on any of the policy,
Speaker 4: like the voters would prefer to have somebody that's acting
Speaker 4: on behalf of New York City residents rather than is
Speaker 4: taking all of his actions because he's being blackmailed over
Speaker 4: a prosecution like that. That's just on a clear kind
Speaker 4: of process fairness level. Yet, because Hokel has so little capital,
Speaker 4: who knows if she'll even be willing to do this.
Speaker 1: See that's funny that you look at it that way,
Speaker 1: And you may be entirely right, but I sort of
Speaker 1: look at it the other way of like, how does
Speaker 1: she have the political capital to refuse to do this
Speaker 1: when you know, I mean, this is a clearly corrupt,
Speaker 1: clownish too figure and the as you said before, Ryan,
Speaker 1: like they're not even pretending like there's some legitimate reason
Speaker 1: why they drop the charges. In fact, when they did
Speaker 1: drop the charges, one of the things that Danielle Sassuan
Speaker 1: said is she was like, we actually were just about
Speaker 1: to file a superseding indictment with even more charges, Like
Speaker 1: that's how dead to rights we've got this guy is.
Speaker 1: We've got him on the meat of it, and we
Speaker 1: also were about to file this indictment. The cover up too.
Speaker 1: If you look at a flow chart or an org
Speaker 1: chart of his administration, like the number of people who've
Speaker 1: been charged and had to resign under duress, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, because they were also brazenly corrupt. It's I
Speaker 1: can't even keep track of it, so you know, to me,
Speaker 1: it's I felt the other way of like, how could
Speaker 1: she not at this point remove this guy? And also,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking about I don't know, Emily,
Speaker 1: did you see this clip of Hakeem Jefferies, who's just
Speaker 1: like the biggest loser on the face of the planet,
Speaker 1: apparently getting asked about Eric Adams and he just says
Speaker 1: this very mealy melded like, well, the people in New
Speaker 1: York got her decide or something like. Republicans have no
Speaker 1: problem going after Democrats, going after each other, certainly going
Speaker 1: after another Republican who betrayed the party, which is what
Speaker 1: Eric Adams also is. Now that he's like in good
Speaker 1: with Tom Holman and the Trump administration, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Box and friends with Tom Holman.
Speaker 1: There would be no reluctance to throw this person under
Speaker 1: the bus, as they honestly really should be, because this
Speaker 1: is weile putting partisanship aside, like brazenly corrupt, quid pro
Speaker 1: quote admitted already changing the policy and at the behest
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration, like Jesus Christ, have some self respect.
Speaker 2: It's actually a pretty good fodder for an argument against
Speaker 2: trump Ism, right like Democrats right now are flailing for
Speaker 2: a way to talk about first of all, like waste,
Speaker 2: fraud and abuse. The Justice Department spent tons of resources
Speaker 2: prosecuting Eric Adams, and it's just literally being lit on
Speaker 2: fire because.
Speaker 4: They're getting an ally of the Trump administration out of it.
Speaker 4: So from their perspective, money well spent, Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Much for their claims to care about corruption though, well
Speaker 1: this is but.
Speaker 2: This is like that is such for Hakim Jeffreys. This
Speaker 2: is just like a flashing obvious opportunity to seize and
Speaker 2: say this is naked corruption coming from Donald Trump. I
Speaker 2: think part of the problem is that, like Kathy Hope
Speaker 2: lacking political capital, Eric Adams lacking political capital. A lot
Speaker 2: of it comes because they actually did a terrible job,
Speaker 2: I would argue, managing the migrant surge in a way
Speaker 2: that voters were pissed about. And so now it's like
Speaker 2: you have all of these terrible options. You know, they
Speaker 2: have Democrats in New York people I know who are like,
Speaker 2: this is insane. What have you guys been doing? And
Speaker 2: it's like that's how Eric Adams thinks, Well, the only
Speaker 2: thing I can do is just like jump off the
Speaker 2: boat and become a Republican.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just like so many bad options.
Speaker 2: And so if you're Hakim Jeffreys, you should be looking
Speaker 2: at this and saying this was a failure, like a
Speaker 2: glaring failure of democratic leadership.
Speaker 3: Own it so that you look better, Like you can
Speaker 3: look better. You don't have to accept this.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just insane. I don't understand the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party at all.
Speaker 4: And for a mag of viewers, maybe the way to
Speaker 4: think about it would be imagine that the California Attorney
Speaker 4: General had found, you know, three or four Republicans on
Speaker 4: the take from various foreign governments and was prosecuting you know,
Speaker 4: it was prosecuting them, or they found some fuilty of
Speaker 4: some California state crime and it's prosecuting them, and then
Speaker 4: goes to them and says, actually, we will drop these
Speaker 4: charges if you'll vote with Democrats in the House. And
Speaker 4: now all of a sudden the House is controlled by Democrats,
Speaker 4: like they probably wouldn't like that, That wouldn't that wouldn't
Speaker 4: seem probably wouldn't seem and you'd probably say those Republicans
Speaker 4: should be removed from office and replaced by good, actual
Speaker 4: loyal Republicans yea, and the voters rather than just trying
Speaker 4: to get themselves out of jail.
Speaker 1: And then can you imagine if Mike Johnson or Trump
Speaker 1: got asked about that dynamic and they're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: see what the voter.
Speaker 3: No, they would never have that way.
Speaker 4: You know, it's he's very telling that, Like, you know,
Speaker 4: I do a lot of coverage of other countries, and
Speaker 4: like this feels very like South of Central American or
Speaker 4: Eastern European or like, like there's like all sorts of
Speaker 4: I can think of all sorts of different political structures
Speaker 4: around the world where prosecution and jail are just other
Speaker 4: carrots and sticks that are part of the political economy
Speaker 4: and part of the political process. And that has not
Speaker 4: been the case for us before, but it seems like
Speaker 4: now it's going to increasingly be a thing that like
Speaker 4: where we use like jail terms and jail sentences as
Speaker 4: as part of our politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's pretty clear at this point.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Emily, and then we can transition to some
Speaker 1: of these things about Ukraine, which are awls are really interesting.
Speaker 2: Super quick point just that Mago world, and like they're like,
Speaker 2: let's just say that there are good faith people in
Speaker 2: intellectual circles on the right who have seen Donald Trump
Speaker 2: as a figure who can peel back all the layers
Speaker 2: of the corrupt onion at places like the FBI and
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice, and they've said that in order
Speaker 2: to do that, you have to like go out after
Speaker 2: legitimate targets, and you cannot go after legitimate targets and
Speaker 2: actually get us out of this Banana Republic death spiral
Speaker 2: while also doing this.
Speaker 3: So I bet those people on.
Speaker 2: The right, they may not be saying it aloud, but
Speaker 2: sort of like the good faith intellectual people who have
Speaker 2: looked at this. There are a lot of bad faith people,
Speaker 2: but there's some people who have really thought seriously about
Speaker 2: corruption at DJ are looking at this and thinking, my god,
Speaker 2: this is not going to happen like this.
Speaker 4: Is And one of them resigned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't business Yeah true. Isn't Pambani the one who
Speaker 1: like dropped some investigation into Trump University, Yeah yeah for
Speaker 1: a campaign contribution And that happens, So not exactly sending
Speaker 1: the cleanest of officials into that agency, and then over
Speaker 1: at the FBI you get Cash Betel who's already got
Speaker 1: his you know, enemies list drawn up of who they
Speaker 1: want to talk before Cash. Let's go target and go
Speaker 1: after all right, let's go ahead and transition to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious what you guys make of some of
Speaker 1: these different developments. So this is kind of the most
Speaker 1: recent thing. Is JD. Vance, in an interview with The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, said that the US has both economic
Speaker 1: and military tools of leverage if Russia doesn't push for
Speaker 1: peace with Ukraine. Let's just read this to you. Vice
Speaker 1: President Vance warned on Thursday, the US could hit Russia
Speaker 1: with economic and military tools of leverage if Putin doesn't
Speaker 1: negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine and good faith. Speaking
Speaker 1: to the Wall Street Journal, he said the option of
Speaker 1: sending US troops to Ukraine was quote on the table,
Speaker 1: as well as economic punishment if a peace deal doesn't
Speaker 1: guarantee Key's long term independence. So obviously, the Vice President
Speaker 1: of the United States, Emily putting floating US boots on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ukraine is quite an extraordinary comment.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see the controversy over what Hegsath said
Speaker 2: about Ukraine joining NATO. So Roger Wicker, very powerful in
Speaker 2: the Senate Foreign Relations world, came out and said that
Speaker 2: Hegsath was making a rookie mistake and that he was
Speaker 2: like glad heg Seth had walked it back. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 2: President of the United States was saying the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: And it's like in Vance's whole speech, Glenn Greenwald was
Speaker 2: posting clips from being like I never thought I would
Speaker 2: see someone talk like id never thought I would see
Speaker 2: like an American official talk like this, like about what
Speaker 2: the country, how it operates on.
Speaker 3: A global scale.
Speaker 2: And so it's like you see Republicans trying to deal
Speaker 2: with this question of negotiation with Ukraine after spending i
Speaker 2: don't know, a couple of years now saying that the
Speaker 2: Biden administration was being way too flippant about the leverage.
Speaker 2: And so it's like, do you actually do you negotiate
Speaker 2: honestly from a position of like what hegsth said, we're
Speaker 2: taking NATO off of the table, or do you now
Speaker 2: try to pretend that you've changed your mind on some
Speaker 2: of this stuff, Like I don't know, I like, it's
Speaker 2: just it's actually after you spent the last three whatever
Speaker 2: years on the podcast circuit or as a cable TV host.
Speaker 3: It's a weird position to be in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well here's what you're referring to. I think Emily
Speaker 1: and then Ryan get your reaction to it. So originally
Speaker 1: Hag scept that said very clear, and Sager and I
Speaker 1: think you guys covered it too, was like, no, NATO,
Speaker 1: they're going to have to give up territory. That's how
Speaker 1: it is. And then he appeared to walk back his statement.
Speaker 1: He said, these negotiations are led by Trump. Everything's on
Speaker 1: the table in his conversations with Putin and Zelenski. What
Speaker 1: he decides to allow or not allow is that the
Speaker 1: purfew of the leader of the free world, President Trump.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to stay at this podium declare
Speaker 1: what he will or won't do, what will be in
Speaker 1: or won't or what will be out, what concessions will
Speaker 1: be made or what concessions are not made. But then
Speaker 1: after he made those comments, Trump got asked in particular
Speaker 1: about the NATO part and was like, yeah, no, he's
Speaker 1: like he's right about that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, it's just like Roger Wicker's babysitter and
Speaker 2: tried to it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And Roger Wicker to underline his role here is he's
Speaker 4: from Mississippi, which has, you know, much of its economy
Speaker 4: organized around the weapons industry. Because some of these Southern Democrats,
Speaker 4: and Wicker would be a Southern Democrat if he were
Speaker 4: you know, seventy years older, because they lasted for so long,
Speaker 4: they would they had the most amount of seniority, they
Speaker 4: would become the chair of these key committees and subcommittees,
Speaker 4: and they would steer all of the defense contracts down
Speaker 4: to Mississippi and Alabama. So as a result, they're organized
Speaker 4: around the military industrial complex. And Wicker is the chairman
Speaker 4: of the Armed Services Committee, so he is the like
Speaker 4: number one representative in Washington for weapons makers. And so
Speaker 4: when you're hearing him speak like you're hearing the voice
Speaker 4: of the military industrial complex, and so you know he is,
Speaker 4: he's on his heels right now. They're the ones that
Speaker 4: are taking this Ukraine news the hardest.
Speaker 1: And Ryan, what do you make of some of these
Speaker 1: different pieces? So we know Chargery Secretary Scodbaston has been
Speaker 1: very involved here striking some sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: rare yeah, I mean, and this goes back to your
Speaker 1: point about it used to be we'd have to explain
Speaker 1: to people like what they're really after is, but they're like,
Speaker 1: we're after the rare earth minerals. That's what we want
Speaker 1: to have this deal. We want our companies to come
Speaker 1: in exploit your natural resources, so we basically own you forever,
Speaker 1: and in exchange, we might continue to support you. So
Speaker 1: you've got that which does not seem actually consistent with
Speaker 1: us being disentangled from Ukraine. That seems like US being
Speaker 1: more entangled with Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Then you have, you know, a lot.
Speaker 1: I think the expectation from the right coming into these
Speaker 1: negotiations is that a lot of the pressure we put
Speaker 1: on Ukraine, on Zelensky basically telling things like what's Hegseth
Speaker 1: was saying, you're not going to be in NATO, you
Speaker 1: are going to have to give up territory, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But then you have jd Vance threatening Putin and you've
Speaker 1: heard Trump use some of this language in the past
Speaker 1: as well, saying like listen, we'll put on even more
Speaker 1: economic sanctions, we will even consider boots on the ground,
Speaker 1: We'll consider getting our military directly involved if you don't
Speaker 1: come to the negotiating table. So how are you sort
Speaker 1: of making sense of these different pieces Ryan, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you're right that again, like what is the point
Speaker 4: of investigative journalism if we can't unearth this like secret
Speaker 4: arrangement where the US is you know, providing X and
Speaker 4: in return they're getting these rare earth minerals while actually
Speaker 4: claiming that it's all about the pursuit of democracy and
Speaker 4: you know, the sovereign you just don't even have.
Speaker 3: To do the have you heard of Halliburton thing?
Speaker 4: Yes, it's outrageous. They're really trying to put us out
Speaker 4: of work here. So so yeah, everything they say is
Speaker 4: what's going on here, except the things that Trump says
Speaker 4: that where he's very explicitly and purposely trying to kind
Speaker 4: of create positioning. And he you know, he's been very
Speaker 4: open that No, this is a very standard negotiating tactic.
Speaker 4: It's not like Trump is unique in doing this. He
Speaker 4: is just more flamboyant in how he does it, Like
Speaker 4: you know, it's rat rattling the nuclear saber at North
Speaker 4: Korea or or you know, saying that Gaza is going
Speaker 4: to be completely depopulated and Palestinians aren't going to be
Speaker 4: able to come back when it's when it's a total fantasy,
Speaker 4: and there's a real or you know, we're going to
Speaker 4: fund Ukraine, the Ukraine war forever. There's a real tendency
Speaker 4: to kind of think that Trump's being an idiot when
Speaker 4: he says things like this. You're like, doesn't Trump know that,
Speaker 4: Like you can't actually transfer the entire population of Gaza
Speaker 4: out of Gaza, Like that's like just physically, like that's
Speaker 4: not an achievable thing. What a moron he is. And
Speaker 4: you're always there's always a risk when you are you know,
Speaker 4: under you know you are chalking up your opponent's strategy
Speaker 4: to idiocy, that you're missing what you know, what he
Speaker 4: might be trying to do. And and in a lot
Speaker 4: of these cases, he's creating a lot of bluster and
Speaker 4: smoke to then and to end up where he wants
Speaker 4: to end up. And with Gaz it would be with
Speaker 4: the you know, a ceasefire that allows him to get
Speaker 4: a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel, and in Ukraine,
Speaker 4: it would be creating a whole lot of smoke, We're
Speaker 4: going to do this war forever to just get the
Speaker 4: thing that he has been very transparent that he wants,
Speaker 4: which is giving up a decent chunk of Ukrainian land
Speaker 4: in exchange for a much weakened Ukraine, reaching a peace
Speaker 4: deal with Russia and becoming like a very weak vassal
Speaker 4: of the United States where we can just you know,
Speaker 4: strip out his resources.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't know how believable it is from
Speaker 2: like vance and heikeseth, who have you been on again?
Speaker 4: Like a podcast circuit, or because they've been too transparent
Speaker 4: that they don't want to do that. Yeah, but that
Speaker 4: means they have to rattle even harder in some.
Speaker 1: You know, true, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: You know, Zelenski is a pretty savvy operator. There was
Speaker 1: a New York Times piece about how, you know, how
Speaker 1: he immediately shifted the way he was pitching the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: project to Biden versus how you know, with Trump. He's like,
Speaker 1: this is a transactional guy. I'm going to be like,
Speaker 1: you can have our rare earth minerals. And he's obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's an ideological actor. He's also a self
Speaker 1: interested actor because once the war is over, then at
Speaker 1: some point there's going to have to be elections, and
Speaker 1: he's gonna, you know, have to face voters again, I
Speaker 1: think that's something he could be concerned about. But apparently,
Speaker 1: according to Axios, he is telling Trump that Russia that
Speaker 1: Putin is just pretending to want to negotiate a peace
Speaker 1: deal because he's quote afraid of you. So that's been
Speaker 1: the messaging coming from him, is basically like you're getting
Speaker 1: played by Putin, which is another attempt to sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, play into Trump's ego and put him on
Speaker 1: the alert that he not get one upped by this
Speaker 1: guy that he's sitting at the negotiating.
Speaker 4: Table with, right, and maybe that maybe that's true, But
Speaker 4: what does that really even mean? Like if Putin, you know,
Speaker 4: reaches reaches a peace deal in a cynical way because
Speaker 4: he's afraid of Trump, how is that different from reaching
Speaker 4: an authentic piece deal because he loves Trump? Like, what's
Speaker 4: the difference of a deal? Is a deal and people
Speaker 4: will say, well, he's not going to honor it, it's
Speaker 4: going to again in the future. Well there's you know,
Speaker 4: there's never been any peace deal ever that lasted forever
Speaker 4: that you know that I can I mean, or where.
Speaker 1: That danger wasn't and yet where that danger wasn't present right.
Speaker 4: Time, March is on and so then you you have
Speaker 4: to Then you're the task becomes to keep the peace
Speaker 4: you know in place. You know you first you win
Speaker 4: the peace, and then you hold it, you don't win it,
Speaker 4: and then just put it in the bank and it's
Speaker 4: years forever.
Speaker 1: This was really interesting. Some additional comments that Trump made
Speaker 1: about foreign policy where he floated, uh, quite unusual idea
Speaker 1: from an American president of striking some trilateral agreement with
Speaker 1: Russia and China for all three nations to reduce their
Speaker 1: military spending by fifty percent. And we've certainly never heard
Speaker 1: Donald Trump talk like that before. You know, he's always
Speaker 1: obviously increased the defense budget every year he was president.
Speaker 1: Even just recently, he was floating like, we need to
Speaker 1: spend even more on the military, if anything what soever.
Speaker 1: So this was, you know, quite unusual, quite striking comments
Speaker 1: from an American president. Ken Clippenstein clipped it out as
Speaker 1: he does. Let's take a listen to what he has
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 7: One of the first meetings I want to have is
Speaker 7: with President Chief of China, President Putin of Russia, and
Speaker 7: I want to say, let's cut our military budget in half.
Speaker 7: And we can do that, I think, and I think
Speaker 7: we'll be able to do.
Speaker 1: So, Emily, what did you think when you when you
Speaker 1: heard those words.
Speaker 2: Well, so, one of the interesting things that has come
Speaker 2: out of the new rights plans for the Pentagon is
Speaker 2: that you may need more like Reagan era levels of
Speaker 2: defense spending if it can be offset by like actually
Speaker 2: getting the Pentagon to pass an audit and stripping out
Speaker 2: unnecessary parts of the Pentagon like all of that.
Speaker 3: So to me, I don't know what to make of
Speaker 3: Donald Trump say.
Speaker 2: I think like there's a the American public would love
Speaker 2: to hear of a trilateral agreement, so long as it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean, like, you know, completely bending the knee. Like
Speaker 2: people in this country are in favor of peace. We've
Speaker 2: seen decades of kids go to the Middle East.
Speaker 3: And you know, die in these wars.
Speaker 2: People die in Syria because we had to contain Putin.
Speaker 2: I mean it just like that people are not going
Speaker 2: to that's not going to be dead on arrival with
Speaker 2: the American public. But the cut in military spending is
Speaker 2: just I don't even know that it's feasible from like
Speaker 2: a perspective of American the safety.
Speaker 3: I don't know how. I just don't know how it's
Speaker 3: you can accomplish that, well, I.
Speaker 4: Think we're pretty I think we're pretty safe over here.
Speaker 4: We got these oceans and we're in Canada. Yeah, we're
Speaker 4: on a we're on a trajectory where China looks like
Speaker 4: you know, in some depending on the type of conflict,
Speaker 4: we because we've invested so heavily in like thirty five
Speaker 4: million dollar planes and like two billion dollar ships that like,
Speaker 4: you know, in a war of attrition, you lose pretty
Speaker 4: quickly if you can't like quickly you know, re up
Speaker 4: and make make new cheaper stuff like like China is
Speaker 4: able to. But one way, the first thing I thought
Speaker 4: of was that you remember the the Princeton astrophysicists that
Speaker 4: we interviewed, Robert Goldston, who said that, uh, there's he said,
Speaker 4: it's crazy as it sounds. There are three Nobel Peace
Speaker 4: Prizes laid out in front of Trump if he wants to,
Speaker 4: if he wants to go out and grab them, and
Speaker 4: you know, one of them was Ukraine Russia, another one
Speaker 4: was Middle East piece a Ron nuclear deal Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 4: Israel ending the war and Gaza. And the other was
Speaker 4: a three that he laid out was a three part
Speaker 4: nuclear non proliferation and nuclear reduction agreement with with Russia
Speaker 4: and China, which Trump also said, and he said, I
Speaker 4: want to call I want to call him, and he
Speaker 4: said that he wants to talk to Putin or he
Speaker 4: already said to Putin, like why do we need new
Speaker 4: nuclear weapons? You know, the the US is on the
Speaker 4: brink of a trillion dollar plus spend on modern quote
Speaker 4: unquote modernizing our nuclear capacity trillion, more than a trillion
Speaker 4: dollars to take our old nuclear weapons and turn them
Speaker 4: into make new nuclear weapons. And I remember somebody saying,
Speaker 4: if Trump ever gets briefed on this, he's gonna pop
Speaker 4: a gasket. It's like, what a trillion dollars to take
Speaker 4: our nukes to different nukes? That's it. That's an insane
Speaker 4: amount of money to spend on on that type of move.
Speaker 4: And so Trump must have been briefed on this, and
Speaker 4: he's like, wait a minute, I have a better idea,
Speaker 4: Like how about we don't do that? Like, oh well,
Speaker 4: then we're gonna get nuked by Russia and China. Are
Speaker 4: we really gonna get nuked b Russian China? Let's talk
Speaker 4: to Russia and China and say let's let's have a
Speaker 4: And as Goldston, you know, nuclear weapons is his was
Speaker 4: is his specialty. He was saying, there there are ways
Speaker 4: of measuring and authenticating and verifying that we are all
Speaker 4: abiding by terms that we agree to that do not
Speaker 4: also give away our nuclear secrets. So if you actually
Speaker 4: want to strike a deal between those three countries that say, look,
Speaker 4: we're gonna we're going to reduce our nuclear arsenal merely
Speaker 4: to enough weapons for us each to destroy the world
Speaker 4: three times, you know, rather than seventy eight times, because
Speaker 4: at some point it is pointless to destroy the world
Speaker 4: the second third, or maybe it's maybe it's maybe it's
Speaker 4: fine to destroy the world six times, but like the
Speaker 4: seventh and eighth are a little bit superfluous.
Speaker 1: Well, and by that time AI will have you know,
Speaker 1: used us all the AI.
Speaker 2: I'm actually curious, well, I'm curious what you guys think
Speaker 2: of this, because it does mean it's possible that Trump
Speaker 2: is saying we can do a lot of this for
Speaker 2: less money now because it is going towards AI, and
Speaker 2: it's going towards like digital warfare, so you can afford
Speaker 2: a significant cut because you're not just tanks and all
Speaker 2: of these different like munitions. It's just a totally different
Speaker 2: form and ships whatever, it's a different form of warfare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's actually one of the directions my mind
Speaker 1: went in because this is one of the things like
Speaker 1: Elon and Peter Teel have talked about. Teal obviously has
Speaker 1: direct interest with Palenteer, which is these you know, AI
Speaker 1: driven death machines could be contracts with Israel, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And Elon has talked about like in the
Speaker 1: future war is going to be drones fighting drones. And
Speaker 1: actually my picture is here that is already starting to
Speaker 1: happen in Ukraine in particular. And so if that's the
Speaker 1: direction you're going in, you know, it is true that
Speaker 1: you can strip back some of that traditional hardware and
Speaker 1: some of those you know contracts. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: part of why Palenteers stock price has just skyrocketed, because
Speaker 1: that'sufvision Elon has. Elon has obviously just like taken over
Speaker 1: the gutrimentious something we're going to talk about shortly. So
Speaker 1: that was one thing that I was thinking about, I mean,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way to make sense really of
Speaker 1: what Trump is saying, given the fact in his first
Speaker 1: administration he oversaw the largest expansion of the nuclear arsenal
Speaker 1: since the Cold War ended. So it's not like he's
Speaker 1: you know, some anti nukes kind of a guy or
Speaker 1: anti military kind of a guy. In fact, the main
Speaker 1: thrust of his foreign policy he talks all the time
Speaker 1: about William McKinley. Well, McKinley is really the launch of
Speaker 1: the American Empire. And again to the theme of like
Speaker 1: he just says the things out loud that we used
Speaker 1: to have to explain to people what was happening behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. He's like, we want Greenland, so we're going
Speaker 1: to take it. We want Panama, so we're going to
Speaker 1: take it. We want your rare earths in Ukraine, so
Speaker 1: we're going to take it. Canada, we think you should
Speaker 1: be the fifty first state. We're going to go to
Speaker 1: war against the Mexican cartels. You know, we're going to
Speaker 1: take over Gaza and own it for our own benefit,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so if you're talking about that return
Speaker 1: to that kind of just forthright imperial We've got the guns,
Speaker 1: so we're going to take it type of mentality. It's
Speaker 1: not really consistent with like a you know, a massive
Speaker 1: cut in the military budget, especially given what we've seen
Speaker 1: from previous wars of you know, how much trouble we
Speaker 1: had just handling Afghanistan with the current level of insanely
Speaker 1: high military spend as we have now, So a lot
Speaker 1: of these you know, those comments to me are very
Speaker 1: dissonant with what the thrust of most of how Trump
Speaker 1: has portrayed his foreign policy vision for this term.
Speaker 2: Also just think it's so uncomfortable, Like as a it's
Speaker 2: just crazy to watch Elon Musk meet with Mody. It's
Speaker 2: crazy to watch Elon Musk have so much influence over
Speaker 2: Trump in general. It's crazy to look at the meme
Speaker 2: coin Crystal you you floated this on TikTok held Trump
Speaker 2: and Millennia's mean coins. Meme coins are held predominantly a
Speaker 2: few whales, and Elon Musk has so much business in China.
Speaker 2: And in some ways that can be a good thing,
Speaker 2: Like there's a potential aspect of that where it's like
Speaker 2: they're so close to China that they would just end up,
Speaker 2: you know, stumbling into a great peace deal because they
Speaker 2: want to make China happy and they stop listening to
Speaker 2: the neo cons Like there's an argument for that. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, it is really uncomfortable to or unsettling
Speaker 2: is a beout a word to just have all of
Speaker 2: these externalities like floating above any negotiations that Trump and
Speaker 2: Musk have. And we've been talking about this and making
Speaker 2: this point over and over again previously, it wasn't as
Speaker 2: sort of naked. There has never been anybody as powerful
Speaker 2: in the world history as Elon Musk, so he's exceptional.
Speaker 2: But like all of this was always a problem lurking
Speaker 2: in the background, like people's big business interests, and they're
Speaker 2: you know, politicians, big business interests in the way that
Speaker 2: it's affecting their foreign policies. Now it's just some of
Speaker 2: it is so out in the open, but troubling nonetheless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and as speaking out in the open, I
Speaker 1: mean this image was extraordinary, Elon sitting there like he's
Speaker 1: the head of state, meeting with Mody and putting out photos,
Speaker 1: you know, very important. Elon and Trump are both branding experts.
Speaker 1: That is what both of their greatest like strength and
Speaker 1: superpower is So just as intentional as Trump is about
Speaker 1: his branding and his slogans, the way he portrays himself
Speaker 1: and all of those things, Elon is a different flavor
Speaker 1: of that. But he also that is really where his
Speaker 1: focus is. So you know, it's no accident for him
Speaker 1: to put out these kind of images, and Trump got
Speaker 1: asked about it. I'll give me a second to pull
Speaker 1: that up. But while I do, Ryan, what was you know,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction when you saw these with I
Speaker 1: think you're the one that pointed out like it's also
Speaker 1: kind of funny because Mody's got all his like you know,
Speaker 1: foreign policy, like his advisors and aids and whatever, and
Speaker 1: Elon's got a bunch of children sitting on his side,
Speaker 1: which has also been part of his branding strategy right
Speaker 1: is to bring his in particular his son acts around
Speaker 1: with him wherever he goes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Mody himself posted this photo so you know,
Speaker 4: Musk get yeah. I mean it's incredible. The imagery is incredible,
Speaker 4: like Musk under the American flag representing the United States
Speaker 4: of America. There.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: You You probably remember we reported a while ago that
Speaker 4: when the BBC did this documentary very critical of of
Speaker 4: Mody's role in a in a massacre of Muslims in India,
Speaker 4: that he that he India asked Elon Musk to make
Speaker 4: sure that it couldn't be broadcast on X and and
Speaker 4: Musk obliged, and also you know, suspended a bunch of
Speaker 4: accounts that were trying to share it.
Speaker 3: He which he's currently going after us a.
Speaker 4: I D for doing here right, Yes, And outside of that,
Speaker 4: Musk was you know, suspending the accounts of members of
Speaker 4: like the congrate members of the legislature there in India
Speaker 4: who were critical of Mody, Like just incredible, like draconian
Speaker 4: crackdown on speech. You threw X at the request of
Speaker 4: Modi Mody. Also, let's see, I have it right here.
Speaker 4: He had a very good discussion and a very good
Speaker 4: meeting with Elon Musk and watching DC. We discussed various issues,
Speaker 4: including those he is passionate about, such as space, mobility, technology,
Speaker 4: and innovation. Mobility of course as euphemism for immigration in
Speaker 4: H one B visas, I talked about India's efforts towards
Speaker 4: reform and furthering minimum government, maximum government, so maximum governance.
Speaker 4: So he talked to him about space, technology, innovation and
Speaker 4: labor like all of these things that are central to
Speaker 4: Musk's business empire. And he did it in a government
Speaker 4: building as a government employee with government power. I mean,
Speaker 4: congratulations to Elon Musk and congratulates us if this is
Speaker 4: the kind of S system we want, but it's not
Speaker 4: certainly the kind that we intended to design.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just asked a chat GPT about Elon musk
Speaker 1: business interest in India. So if these are hallucinations, apologies
Speaker 1: in advance because I didn't take the time to double
Speaker 1: check them. But apparently he's very interested in bringing Tesla
Speaker 1: to India, very interested to bring in bringing Starlink to India.
Speaker 1: And you can see how that would. I mean, India's
Speaker 1: largest population wise country on the planet, so it's an
Speaker 1: almost endless market in terms.
Speaker 4: Of right and right now, Indian tariffs are making it
Speaker 4: difficult for Tesla to break into the market, and he's
Speaker 4: and he has been pushing Mody very hard to h
Speaker 4: and to let him in, to.
Speaker 1: Lower those tariffs and let him in. And then Ryan
Speaker 1: also raises the you know, the H one B piece,
Speaker 1: which has been very important to Elon and which was
Speaker 1: another thing that he got from Trump, who totally you know,
Speaker 1: change his position on H one B and was like, yes,
Speaker 1: I am in favor of this impact. I use I
Speaker 1: think he was confused about H one B and H
Speaker 1: two B, but you know, we need those what do
Speaker 1: you say high skilled? Is we need Hi skilled waiters
Speaker 1: to come to the country. But Trump gets asked about, Hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think about this whole Elon meeting with
Speaker 1: Mody thing? What was that all about? And here's what
Speaker 1: he had to.
Speaker 4: Say, I'm met with Prime Minister Mody earlier today. Did
Speaker 4: he do so as an American CEO or did he
Speaker 4: do so as a representative of the US company?
Speaker 7: H are you talking about me?
Speaker 6: Leli?
Speaker 7: I don't know they met, and I assume he wants
Speaker 7: to do business in India, but India is a very
Speaker 7: hard place to do business, and because of the tariffs,
Speaker 7: so they have the highest tariffs just about in the world,
Speaker 7: and it's a hard place to do business. No, I
Speaker 7: would imagine he met possibly because you know, he's running
Speaker 7: the company. He's he's doing this as as something that
Speaker 7: he felt strongly about.
Speaker 6: For a long time.
Speaker 1: So Trump gets asked like, so was he a representative
Speaker 1: the government? Was he representative of business? He's like, oh, I.
Speaker 2: Guess I mean I read that as yes, he's he's met.
Speaker 2: He used his government position to talk about his business interests.
Speaker 2: And Trump is going to argue that Elon Musk's business
Speaker 2: interests are good for America. Elon made that argument in
Speaker 2: front of him in the Oval office this week when
Speaker 2: he said, if SpaceX is getting contracts, it's because it's
Speaker 2: the best, it's because that it earned and deserved those contracts.
Speaker 2: The way companies like SpaceX stop deserving those those contracts
Speaker 2: and stop becoming competitive is when you just give them
Speaker 2: contracts and you let the head of it be a
Speaker 2: special government employee meeting with Mody because they don't have
Speaker 2: to bust their ass anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that's going to happen, but that's the
Speaker 3: principle that.
Speaker 2: Everyone should be deeply opposed to or deeply like suspicious
Speaker 2: of what's happening based on that principle.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the part that I did call
Speaker 1: early on when there was all the speculat, oh, Trump
Speaker 1: and Elan are going to fall out and it's going
Speaker 1: to happen anytime, like he can't handle another alpha. I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, this seems pretty this seems
Speaker 1: durable because they both get a lot out of it.
Speaker 1: But the more that I've watched to your point, Emily,
Speaker 1: the stranger it's become. I mean, just this week you
Speaker 1: had the specter of that incredible Oval Office press conference
Speaker 1: where Trump is seated. You know, again visually, these are
Speaker 1: guys who think about the visuals, think about the branding.
Speaker 1: Trump is seated looking up at Elon. Elon is in
Speaker 1: a T shirt and a ball cap, right totally against
Speaker 1: the typical Trumpian obsession with dress code. He's letting his
Speaker 1: kid like talk all kinds of shit to Trump he's
Speaker 1: there in the room, including saying like go away, you're
Speaker 1: not the real president, Like, oh, where, I wonder where
Speaker 1: you heard that from? Because Brian, you and I both
Speaker 1: know kids repeat a lot of the things that we say,
Speaker 1: whether we want them to or not. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of extraordinary. And then we know like Trump has
Speaker 1: flipped his positions on Crypto, he flipp him on H
Speaker 1: one B. He's not that this is ideologic TikTok, not
Speaker 1: that this is an ideological problem from Trump, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't fixated on white South Africans in his first administration.
Speaker 1: Now we get an executive order about the plight of
Speaker 1: the bores in South Africa and like, oh, well, we
Speaker 1: don't want any other refugees but white South Africans because
Speaker 1: Elon wants that you can definitely come over here, no problem.
Speaker 1: It really is quite extraordinary. And then you know this
Speaker 1: situation too where he gets asked like Elon is there
Speaker 1: as if he's the head of state meeting with Mody,
Speaker 1: and it's like, what the hell is going on here?
Speaker 1: Not to mention this is a whole longer conversation, but
Speaker 1: Trump's priorities, predominantly tariffs in mass deportation, are not actually
Speaker 1: I mean the tariff piece he's been floating and then
Speaker 1: going back on. Some tariffs are going to effect whatever
Speaker 1: the mass deportations. He's been doing a lot of things
Speaker 1: that I think are pretty clearly illegal, the use of
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay for to hold migrants who have been deported
Speaker 1: from the United States, you know, increasing sort of the
Speaker 1: level of fear and cruelty and potential cruelty. By removing
Speaker 1: restrictions on deportations from schools and from churches, et cetera.
Speaker 1: The numbers are actually lower in terms of just total
Speaker 1: number of immigrants being removed than they were under the
Speaker 1: Biden administration. So the Trump priorities are have not been
Speaker 1: front and center. The elon anarcho capitalist priorities, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, they're off to the races. So to me,
Speaker 1: that has been one of the wildest dynamics to watch
Speaker 1: is just how subservient Trump truly has made himself to Elon.
Speaker 4: Ryan, Yeah, and I've heard from plenty of viewers who
Speaker 4: are like, look, all the all the Musk arrangement syndrome
Speaker 4: was killing me. And I was like, okay, man, but look,
Speaker 4: you guys elected Trump, and Trump and Musk have some overlap,
Speaker 4: but they're often in conflict. As Sabamani said in our
Speaker 4: show on Wednesday, like, you are really risking undermining this,
Speaker 4: this thing that y'all fought for, yes, for eight years,
Speaker 4: you finally got in power, and instead of trying to
Speaker 4: pursue the aims of that movement, this guy who came
Speaker 4: in in the fall is now dictating with the things
Speaker 4: that are the priorities to the exclusion of wages, inflation
Speaker 4: America first, the stuff that you said.
Speaker 1: Corporate power, you were into going in the opposite direction there.
Speaker 4: I mean, you shouldn't be the only ones with must
Speaker 4: arrangement syndrome. There should be a lot more mega people
Speaker 4: who are like, wait a minute, what on earth is it?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: Exactly Bannon with another you know quote that I would
Speaker 1: co sign talking about Republicans are floating big cuts to Medicaid,
Speaker 1: and Elon of course has been floating big cuts to
Speaker 1: everything just based on the numbers of what he claims
Speaker 1: he wants to shirt from the government and his just
Speaker 1: like ideological opposition to any sort of social safety net program.
Speaker 1: And Bannon comes out and is like, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of maga they're on medicaid, so you cannot take
Speaker 1: a hatchet to this thing, or you are going to
Speaker 1: draw a lot of blood. Just a couple more things
Speaker 1: to get to here, to get you guys quick reaction
Speaker 1: to this is what I mentioned at the top. So
Speaker 1: we now have the Trump administrations directed agency heads to
Speaker 1: fire most probationary staff. These are people it says terminations
Speaker 1: should happen within two days, So something like two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand federal government workers. This comes on top of the
Speaker 1: somewhere around seventy five thousand who took the deferred resignation offer.
Speaker 1: There maybe some overlap two between the two hundred k
Speaker 1: and the seventy five k, but when you put those
Speaker 1: two numbers together, we're talking about around ten percent of
Speaker 1: the federal government workforce. And it's also not evenly spread,
Speaker 1: so certain agencies will be harder hit than others. And
Speaker 1: it's also not done in any sort of way where
Speaker 1: you're trying to evaluate like, Okay, let's separate the wheat
Speaker 1: from the chaff. It's just like, if you're in these categories,
Speaker 1: you're round. And I was saying earlier, actually, the way
Speaker 1: these are designed, it is more likely that you're going
Speaker 1: to be culling the best, the bride is the most effective,
Speaker 1: you know, and highest value government employees, just from the
Speaker 1: design of these of these programs only.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so they definitely don't care like it's
Speaker 2: you know, they they just want everyone gone. And it
Speaker 2: kind of reminds me of the logic of the mass deportations,
Speaker 2: is that in order to do it efficient efficiently at
Speaker 2: the level that they've promised, which is basically just like
Speaker 2: getting rid ultimately of some departments, you just have to slash.
Speaker 2: And that's why we haven't seen the level of quote
Speaker 2: mass deportations that some people expected, because they actually don't
Speaker 2: want the optics of like rounding up you know, pregnant
Speaker 2: women or whatever else. So there's there's that, and it's
Speaker 2: in this case, I think they just on the other hand,
Speaker 2: don't really like they're not trying to salvage most of
Speaker 2: these departments.
Speaker 3: And one thing that.
Speaker 2: Could get tricky for them, like we saw this with
Speaker 2: Katie Britt earlier in the week and a couple of
Speaker 2: other Republicans who've sort of been dipping their toes in
Speaker 2: this water, is that if you don't do this with
Speaker 2: off ramps, like they're between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, the only way to efficiently slash
Speaker 2: the government is to do it with deep cuts that
Speaker 2: aren't exactly like calculated and strategic. I mean, there's some
Speaker 2: strategy involved, but they aren't super careful. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: if you don't do that with careful off ramps, which
Speaker 2: is one of the things we talked to the Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five author about the Education Department about this week,
Speaker 2: if you don't do it that way, then you get
Speaker 2: this fanned out around the country, and Republicans in places
Speaker 2: that are affected, you know, like a Katie Britt in
Speaker 2: Alabama by particular cuts end up having the answer for them,
Speaker 2: and that complicates the politics of it.
Speaker 3: So I mean, good luck to them on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems like they're trying to destroy the government
Speaker 4: they are.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 4: Destroy its ability to function, and then just step back
Speaker 4: and say, look at this terrible government camp function. We
Speaker 4: need to further outsource our governing to these private institutions.
Speaker 4: And it's just just such a shame. But this is
Speaker 4: such a broken government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's been a trend that's been
Speaker 1: going on under neoliberalism for years. Bill Clinton was big
Speaker 1: on privatizing parts of government. And actually, if you look
Speaker 1: at the headcount as a percent of the population, we're
Speaker 1: near historic lows. Parts of these agencies really need to
Speaker 1: be funded, need more people, you know, on food safety,
Speaker 1: apparently air traffic controllers were in desperate need of across
Speaker 1: the country. And I think, Ryan, you're exactly right, like
Speaker 1: this certainly isn't about merit. That much is really clear
Speaker 1: from the direction they've gone in here. But Elon has
Speaker 1: both an ideological and personal self interest call here, which
Speaker 1: is he doesn't want to compete for power with a
Speaker 1: federal government. You know, these agencies you look at the
Speaker 1: com in flicks of interest, the number of them that
Speaker 1: were investigating him, the number of them that he gets
Speaker 1: contracts from. You know, the Department of Labor was investigating
Speaker 1: him for harassment claims at TESLA National Labor Relations Board.
Speaker 1: He's had run ins with numerous times, the Securities Exchange Commission,
Speaker 1: like you go down the list, and then of course
Speaker 1: the CFPB was about to start regulating him over at
Speaker 1: Twitter because he just signed this deal with Visa, so
Speaker 1: he doesn't want any sort of competition for his power
Speaker 1: he wants, and the US federal government is one of
Speaker 1: the only entities powerful enough on the planet to check
Speaker 1: his full ambitions. And then the ideological goal is just
Speaker 1: what Ryan said, which has been a long time conservative goal,
Speaker 1: which is basically like make the government fail, so we
Speaker 1: can say the government is failing, so we need to
Speaker 1: cut the government even further. And it's you know, it's worked,
Speaker 1: It's worked very successfully. The last piece that I wanted
Speaker 1: to share with you guys is, you know, the latest
Speaker 1: agency that the doge as Ryan likes to say, doggy
Speaker 1: dog you like doggy, have infiltrated here. But these you know,
Speaker 1: these basically Musk hacker apparatics are now in the I
Speaker 1: R S. It says, the latest agency under review by
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's cost cutting group. So that's you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I RS literally.
Speaker 3: All of us.
Speaker 4: First of all, somebody told me that Heathercox Richardson has
Speaker 4: stolen Doggie Committee from me.
Speaker 1: Really whatever I mean imitation.
Speaker 4: True, Like let's let it, let a thousand doggies bloom.
Speaker 4: But this right now, going into the I R S
Speaker 4: and trying, you know, taking taking a hatchet to it
Speaker 4: really gives away the game that the the goal here
Speaker 4: is not to reduce deficits or reduce the amount of debt,
Speaker 4: because the I R S is one of the key
Speaker 4: places where if somebody with musks, technological aptitude and the
Speaker 4: budget that has has been allocated for the I R
Speaker 4: S decided we're going to do this more efficiently. It
Speaker 4: is a place where generative AI can really do an
Speaker 4: enormous amount of the work that you know, humans have
Speaker 4: had to do with the I r since the beginning
Speaker 4: of the I R S. Like, uh, you know a
Speaker 4: tax return comes in. You know, the AI that we
Speaker 4: have now and that we're developing could easily like look
Speaker 4: at that return, look at the data that that the
Speaker 4: government has, because it's the government, check to see if
Speaker 4: there are any anomalies in it. If there are, you
Speaker 4: go flag it for a closer look. If not move
Speaker 4: it through and send out the refund.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And and you you you really could, if you were
Speaker 4: serious about tax collection, make it much harder than it's
Speaker 4: ever been to cheat because you're you know that you're
Speaker 4: putting these numbers into this system. That's like that knows,
Speaker 4: you know, because your employer has been putting things in
Speaker 4: or because your bank has been putting in transactions to
Speaker 4: go in there, and to just you know, to start
Speaker 4: hacking away at it reveals like the politics at work here,
Speaker 4: Like the goal here is to make it harder for
Speaker 4: the IRS to collect taxes from the wealthy. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: so then the crying about spending it really falls on
Speaker 4: deaf ears if this is the agenda.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, not to.
Speaker 1: Mention the four trillion dollar tax cut they have planned for,
Speaker 1: you know, upcoming shortly that would benefit people like Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: To the point that you're making crystal it's like, if
Speaker 2: you can't beat them, join them mentality for Musk. And
Speaker 2: this is what's so frustrating is that, like I definitely
Speaker 2: disagree with you guys about how much of the federal
Speaker 2: government should be cut.
Speaker 3: Like I think a lot of this is like very reasonable.
Speaker 2: The project of doge if it weren't led by an
Speaker 2: actual oligarch, would be something that would probably be.
Speaker 3: Arguing for in particular cases.
Speaker 2: But you cannot come in with the oligarch and then
Speaker 2: expect the public to trust. Like I don't think that
Speaker 2: the conservative movement needed to ruin the government in order
Speaker 2: for people to support cutting it. Like if you look
Speaker 2: at the polling, I was just going through it this morning.
Speaker 2: Like Gallup has done summaries of polling. They did another
Speaker 2: one in November about how much of the public thinks
Speaker 2: that there's way too much waste and fraud and the
Speaker 2: government and there is like we kind of all know that,
Speaker 2: but you can't like there's no Elon Musk doesn't have
Speaker 2: the moral high ground here. He doesn't have the moral
Speaker 2: high ground, and that, you know, makes it so as
Speaker 2: his team is executing these cuts, what is the justice
Speaker 2: if it's to benefit him and it's not ultimately done
Speaker 2: in the interest of the public. And it's really really
Speaker 2: hard to trust that, even though you know, I can
Speaker 2: take there's there's great Catharsis and watching USA I D
Speaker 2: with the exception of like Pep far you know, go
Speaker 2: by the wayside.
Speaker 3: It's like it's Elon Musk, like, look at.
Speaker 2: All of the contracts he has, the investigations he has,
Speaker 2: so anyway, there's.
Speaker 1: A it's what he's doing too. I mean, I'm watching
Speaker 1: Republicans drop their like budget proposal. I'm like, why are
Speaker 1: you bothering like you don't matter anymore, you know if
Speaker 1: and it's their position that they it's the Republicans in
Speaker 1: Congress position that they are irrelevant and don't matter anymore
Speaker 1: and that it should just all be up to Elon
Speaker 1: Musk basically with you know, Trump sort of there on
Speaker 1: the sidelines. So yeah, right for now, and we'll see
Speaker 1: how that develops. But like I said, I've been I
Speaker 1: have been quite interested to watch the level of deference
Speaker 1: that Trump has shown to Elon and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's very possible that even without you know,
Speaker 1: my theory is that some of these people may have
Speaker 1: been involved in the launch of the memekin propping at
Speaker 1: the price, and basically the exchange was Trump will get
Speaker 1: you elected, We'll put tons of money into your campaign.
Speaker 1: We're going to make you wealthy, you know, wealthier than
Speaker 1: you've ever been and could ever have dreamed of being.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna let us do whatever the hell we
Speaker 1: want to do. But even if it is an explicit
Speaker 1: deal like that, you know, that is sort of the
Speaker 1: operating deal here. And Trump is not playing golf all
Speaker 1: the time, like he's not in prison. It's to go
Speaker 1: and play president and do his tariffing or whatever things
Speaker 1: he's actually interested in. And he's just not like that
Speaker 1: particularly interested in the rest of it and seems to
Speaker 1: be happy to hand off the reins of his movement
Speaker 1: and his project to Elon. I not noted disagur and
Speaker 1: us my final point, but it occurred to me again
Speaker 1: going back to the branding piece. Like the Maga original
Speaker 1: Maga hat is the iconic red and white make America
Speaker 1: great Again, Elon now has designed his own hat that's
Speaker 1: the dark Maga, the black and white, which is his
Speaker 1: branding colors.
Speaker 3: Lots of those at the inauguration, by that, and that's
Speaker 3: what he.
Speaker 1: Was wearing in the Oval office as he's you know,
Speaker 1: standing over Trump, and you know, the signal of that
Speaker 1: is quite clear of like, well, this is my movement.
Speaker 1: I now own this, this part of it, this branding
Speaker 1: of it, and this is really the story of Trump
Speaker 1: administration two point zero, which is you know, I've been
Speaker 1: warning about Elon's in fluence and how story this is
Speaker 1: and the conflicts of interesting whatever long before Trump was
Speaker 1: re elected. I never could have seen foreseeing the level
Speaker 1: of what's going on here and the extent to which
Speaker 1: she's just completely taken over the whole government, like he's
Speaker 1: the sort of CEO dictator, which is I think exactly
Speaker 1: the plan.
Speaker 3: This is my last point.
Speaker 2: I think Tyler Austin Harper put it really well in
Speaker 2: this post on x where Patrick Graffini, the poster said,
Speaker 2: with the exception of those employed in private enterprise, Trump
Speaker 2: is hitting the professional managerial class and hitting them hard.
Speaker 2: But Tyler Austin Harper writes for The Atlantic, He's professor
Speaker 2: at Bates said, I think more accurately, what's going on
Speaker 2: is clearly not a populist insurgency against professional elites, but
Speaker 2: a civil war between the left and the academia, media,
Speaker 2: NGO left and the right tech right flanks of the
Speaker 2: professional class. And that is really interesting because to me,
Speaker 2: that's like you see the oligarchs the tech right using
Speaker 2: populism as a cover and giving the right a lot
Speaker 2: of what it's demanded for decades, which is this like
Speaker 2: incredible slashing of the federal gun. And then at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it's like you're like, they're the
Speaker 2: ones picking up the pieces, They're the ones who.
Speaker 3: Are in charge.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's not this like perfect class war.
Speaker 2: And the reason I brought that up. Just one final
Speaker 2: point is that when you do privatize, you hend stuff
Speaker 2: to contractors, which is something we've seen Doge talk about,
Speaker 2: fantasize about, well, what do you want it to go to?
Speaker 2: Deloyte McKenzie, the enemies of the populist right. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like this plan doesn't doesn't make sense. This, this
Speaker 2: iteration of like limited government conservatism is not what the
Speaker 2: conservative movement fought for for decades. Even though it feels
Speaker 2: like there's win after win after win, ultimately that question remains.
Speaker 1: InTru That's a very interesting perspective. Ryan, any final thoughts
Speaker 1: before we let all you guys go, uh, it looks.
Speaker 4: Like the hostage release is going to go off. You know,
Speaker 4: despite all of the bluster that was, you know, coming
Speaker 4: out of Trump and Nenyahu this week where they were
Speaker 4: saying that all hostages at some point they were saying
Speaker 4: that every single hostage needed to be released by noon
Speaker 4: on Saturday, which you know, so we're coming into the
Speaker 4: evening of Friday in Israel Palestine now, But it the
Speaker 4: Hamas put out a list of three hostages that they
Speaker 4: intend to release on Saturday, which they say are from
Speaker 4: the list of sick and wounded. So I think that
Speaker 4: they're preparing the public for some difficult images that the
Speaker 4: hostages will be in difficult shape. There's three men that
Speaker 4: they that they put on the list. Netnah, who responded
Speaker 4: by saying that they accepted the list. He then put
Speaker 4: out a new statement saying that accepted was a typo
Speaker 4: and that they received the list. Accepted and received have
Speaker 4: the same route in Hebrew. So now they're at a
Speaker 4: place where we'll have has Israel accepted this list as
Speaker 4: sufficient and and and within the confines of the ceasefire
Speaker 4: agreement or have they simply received it in their play.
Speaker 4: So I think that Na was trying to figure out
Speaker 4: whether or not he can reject this list and and
Speaker 4: restart the war. It feels like he doesn't. He's not
Speaker 4: going to that that the ceasefire is going to live
Speaker 4: to fight another day too, So that's that's hopeful and
Speaker 4: goes back to what we're saying that you you have
Speaker 4: to really follow not just what Trump says.
Speaker 1: But what what else, what he does, and what actually
Speaker 1: what actually transpires and what unfolding. Yes, well, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys taking the time out on this Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: to hang out with me. It's always such a privilege
Speaker 1: to get to hear both you guys thoughts and the
Speaker 1: way you process all of these events. So you guys,
Speaker 1: enjoy your weekend. All of you out there, enjoy your weekend.
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's again, and we will see you on Monday.