Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 1: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an
Speaker 1: amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal.
Speaker 3: Indeed, we do lots of things happening.
Speaker 2: So we've had a few preliminary court rulings go against DOGE,
Speaker 2: particularly with their access to the treasury the Trump administration
Speaker 2: this morning trying to fight back. President Trump asked about
Speaker 2: it yesterday, so I give you the lay of the land.
Speaker 2: With all of that, we've also got some interesting new
Speaker 2: polls out. Trump's approver rating doing pretty well. In Elon
Speaker 2: Musk's on the other hand, doing pretty badly, So we'll
Speaker 2: dig into all of those version what they may poortend
Speaker 2: for the future.
Speaker 3: Elon and co.
Speaker 2: Have taken aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That
Speaker 2: agency is effectively shuttered this week with potentially quite significant consequences.
Speaker 2: This is some pretty brazen self dealing from Elon and
Speaker 2: his sort of broligarch cohort, so we'll dig into what
Speaker 2: that could mean as well.
Speaker 3: Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of.
Speaker 2: The Democrats in the House, is now trying to mend
Speaker 2: fences with the billionaires who are upset with Democrats under
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, are jealous of the access that the
Speaker 2: Republican billionaires are getting and all the things and goodies
Speaker 2: that they're I mean, interest, incredible stuff.
Speaker 3: Steve and I is floating a presidential bid. Kind of
Speaker 3: interesting I.
Speaker 1: Could get beyond. He's against weed, you know, that's all.
Speaker 1: That's all I need.
Speaker 2: Well, what I will say is he lacks one thing
Speaker 2: that the like ninety nine point nine percent of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party. You know, he has one thing that most
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party lacks, which is actual charisma. You know,
Speaker 2: point understands attention, not afraid of controversy, has charisma. His
Speaker 2: nice politics are kind of like, you know whatever, They're
Speaker 2: kind of like centristy, enlightened, centristing.
Speaker 1: Lightned, centrist rich guide democrat.
Speaker 3: But you know that's the vibe, that's the general vibe.
Speaker 1: You got to take. You to take the pulse of
Speaker 1: the country.
Speaker 3: You can do worse, for sure.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we'll play you the clips from him and
Speaker 2: some of the past things he said about politics that
Speaker 2: we can take a look at as well.
Speaker 3: And I have a monologue today.
Speaker 2: I'm taking a look at the way that culture war
Speaker 2: is being used to usher in a pro oligarch agenda,
Speaker 2: CFPB being one example.
Speaker 1: Of So watch it got to give him obligatory go
Speaker 1: birds for my in laws.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest days of their lives. I
Speaker 1: can guarantee you that that game. Look, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't watch a lot of Yeah, I don't watch a
Speaker 1: lot of football. I actually watched the entire thing, which
Speaker 1: is shocking for me, and I was just like, wow,
Speaker 1: I just have I could not believe the collapse of that.
Speaker 1: I gen't of the chiefs. I don't understand it either.
Speaker 1: I've been listening for a year. You know again, I
Speaker 1: don't even watch football. All you hear and you absorb
Speaker 1: through the zeitguys Patrick mahomes sonst greatest football. And then
Speaker 1: you're like, this is like high school football, you know,
Speaker 1: like what's going on in your six sacks? Fix sacks?
Speaker 2: That fumble time they had one first down, one first
Speaker 2: name higher, first half and like thirty yards.
Speaker 3: I mean it was insane.
Speaker 2: It was an outrageous, outrageous, insane blowout. There were a
Speaker 2: lot of funny jokes online like, oh, I had no
Speaker 2: idea they were still relying on on us.
Speaker 1: It's like, maybe this is a de I t so
Speaker 1: I got a green tie on from my in laws
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia for the city Philadelphia, come to come to
Speaker 1: Low come to grow and love it after marrying into it.
Speaker 1: And I am very happy for them. Well, they're a
Speaker 1: very passionate fan base. You have to give them their culture.
Speaker 1: I think it's a music.
Speaker 3: It is definitely a passionate fan.
Speaker 2: In fact, I was shocked at how lopsided even the
Speaker 2: like fandom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking about it was when.
Speaker 3: The came out.
Speaker 1: They got boots, Yeah, Taylor Swift got boots.
Speaker 2: I thought it would be roughly even, but it was
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly a pro Philly crowd. The thing that I liked
Speaker 2: about it is it made the commanders in retrospect look
Speaker 2: better because even though that was also a romp by
Speaker 2: the Eagles, at least they put up somewhat of a fight.
Speaker 3: This was jist unreal.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so congratulations to the Eagles and all the
Speaker 2: Eagles fans out there.
Speaker 3: Congratulations to you and your family.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you very much. Do not do it. Don't
Speaker 1: burn down the city. I get you know, let's just
Speaker 1: stay off the polls and all that. I know that
Speaker 1: last night it was supposed to be the crazy one,
Speaker 1: but even during the parade, they've they've been known for
Speaker 1: their shenanigans. But you can't hold him back. It is
Speaker 1: a crazy fandom. I encourage people, if you have the chance,
Speaker 1: to try and go to one of those Eagles games
Speaker 1: because it's an experience. That's what I had, at least
Speaker 1: at the NFC Championship. Anyways, let's get to the newest indeed.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we had a few preliminary court orders go
Speaker 2: against DOGE, in particular with regard to their access. They're
Speaker 2: trying to shut down USAID and the one that is
Speaker 2: catching a lot of attention with regard to their access
Speaker 2: at Treasury. President Trump yesterday was asked in the pre
Speaker 2: Super Bowl interview about this court decision and whether it
Speaker 2: was going to quote slow him down or slow Elon
Speaker 2: down in terms of what they're trying to do. Let's
Speaker 2: take a listen to how he responded irreparable harm.
Speaker 1: What do you make of that? And does that slow
Speaker 1: you down on what you want to know?
Speaker 4: I disagree with it one hundred percent. I think it's crazy.
Speaker 4: And we have to solve the efficiency problem. We have
Speaker 4: to solve the fraud, waste abuse, all the things that
Speaker 4: have gone in the government. You take a look at
Speaker 4: the USAID, the kind of fraud in there.
Speaker 1: Then you've found some moneys goings.
Speaker 4: Well, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of
Speaker 4: money that's going to places where it shouldn't be going.
Speaker 1: Where if I.
Speaker 4: Read a list, you'd say, this is ridiculous. And you've
Speaker 4: read the same lists, and there are many that you
Speaker 4: haven't even seen.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: So let's go and put the details up on the
Speaker 2: screen of this temporary restraining order that was issued by
Speaker 2: one federal judge. Now, my understanding is there's supposed to
Speaker 2: be a more complete hearing on this this Friday. Also
Speaker 2: update this morning that that Trump and his team have
Speaker 2: also filed to block even this temporary restraining order, so
Speaker 2: we can get to some more of the details on
Speaker 2: that at a moment, but this was the initial temporary
Speaker 2: restraining order. A federal judge on Saturday issued a sweeping
Speaker 2: block on most Trump administration officials, including Elon Musk and
Speaker 2: his allies, from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least
Speaker 2: a week while legal proceedings play out.
Speaker 3: In New York.
Speaker 2: Manhattan based US District Judge Paul Engelmeyer issued the middle
Speaker 2: of the night order after an emergency request by nineteen
Speaker 2: Democratic attorneys general warning that the efforts by Musk's so
Speaker 2: called Department of Government Efficiency allies to take control of
Speaker 2: Chargery's sensitive payment system, which have access to personal information
Speaker 2: of millions of Americans and the government's financial transactions, were
Speaker 2: putting their residents at risk. Engelmeyer said he agreed with
Speaker 2: the state's assessment that the abrupt changes in policy implemented
Speaker 2: by the Trump administration had created a risk sensitive data
Speaker 2: would be disclosed or that the system could be hacked.
Speaker 2: He also said the states were very likely to show
Speaker 2: the new arrangement was legally improper. Though Ingle Mayor issued
Speaker 2: the emergency order, the case will ultimately handled by a
Speaker 2: US district judge, Jeanette Vargas and Joe Biden appointseee who
Speaker 2: was confirmed to the bench last year. So that is
Speaker 2: the state of play. This order non only blocked the
Speaker 2: Doge people from access to this very sensitive treasury payment
Speaker 2: system that controls all six plus trillion dollars of federal
Speaker 2: spending by and large, also said that any data that
Speaker 2: had been pulled from that needed to be deleted. So,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty sweeping order here, temporarily issued. And as
Speaker 2: I just mentioned, Sager, the Trump administration trying to fight
Speaker 2: back even against this temporary order while this is further litigator.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got the order there's of this morning that
Speaker 1: I was just taking a look at, but basically asking
Speaker 1: for a vacate of the order and or a temporary stay.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is actually a pretty extraordinary order whenever
Speaker 1: you look at it, even no matter how you feel.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to wrap my head around this. We'll
Speaker 1: get to the discourse in a bit about whether to
Speaker 1: ignore federal judges in the first place. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it does seem a little bit absurd that the Cabinet secretary,
Speaker 1: who was confirmed by the United States Senate at you know,
Speaker 1: at the behest of the executive is not allowed to
Speaker 1: access Department of Treasury data. Put doges side because Scott
Speaker 1: bessen is included in the order. Additionally, as I understand it, previously,
Speaker 1: it was actually government contractors according to the Trump Administration's
Speaker 1: vacate motion to vacate and or stay that was filed yesterday,
Speaker 1: that traditionally has the access to the IT data and
Speaker 1: the Treasury Departments south. So anyway, so I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, is it really more secure or whatever in
Speaker 1: the hands of Booz Allen Hamilton or whomever federal contractor
Speaker 1: is holding this. But the best thing is actually where
Speaker 1: I thought that the order was really off the mark.
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you block the United States Treasury
Speaker 1: secretary confirmed by the United States Senate from access to
Speaker 1: Treasury Department data? That just makes no sense.
Speaker 3: I read the order differently.
Speaker 2: I read it to be anyone from who's not in
Speaker 2: the Treasury Department, which would not include Scott Bessant.
Speaker 3: And perhaps the language is unclear.
Speaker 2: It says political appointees, special government employees, and any government
Speaker 2: employee detailed detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department,
Speaker 2: access to Treasury depart and payment systems. But that is
Speaker 2: something that Republicans are really seizing on that, you know,
Speaker 2: this ambiguity means that it could even apply to Scott Besst. Again,
Speaker 2: it's a temporary restraining order. It's meant to apply just
Speaker 2: for this week. But this is being used to really
Speaker 2: launch an all out assault on the idea of federal
Speaker 2: judges constraining the executive at all. And so the I
Speaker 2: think really big question this morning is whether or not
Speaker 2: the Trump administration is going to comply with this court
Speaker 2: order or other court orders. And just before we get
Speaker 2: to some of the things that cause us to raise
Speaker 2: that question at this point, there was also an order
Speaker 2: that went against their attempt to shut down USAID.
Speaker 3: Could put that one up on.
Speaker 2: The screen here as well, just to get the details
Speaker 2: there too. Judge block Trump from putting thousands of USAID
Speaker 2: employees on leave. The decision comes amid the first legal
Speaker 2: challenge against the push by Donald Trump and billionaire Elon
Speaker 2: Musk new Department of Government efficiency targeting US foreign aid
Speaker 2: programs this is going to be you know, another really
Speaker 2: significant battle. USAID is kind of the test case for
Speaker 2: the Trump administration. Some of these cases they want to
Speaker 2: go up to the Supreme Court to challenge the Impoundment
Speaker 2: Control Act that says, you know, if Congress approporates money
Speaker 2: for program, you are then obligated. The executive doesn't get
Speaker 2: to pick and choose which things because Congress has the
Speaker 2: power of the purse. We know that part of Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five was, you know, an intentional.
Speaker 3: Fight over exactly this issue.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing you know, in talking to Emily that
Speaker 2: she raised is that even the Project twenty twenty five people,
Speaker 2: you know, they're very they are very careful in their
Speaker 2: planning of how they want to execute this and which
Speaker 2: cases specifically they think are the strongest cases to ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, litigate this question at the Supreme Court. And
Speaker 2: what Elon has done has really sort of thrown a
Speaker 2: wrench into those carefully laid plans because he has been
Speaker 2: so aggressive and over the top with his illegality. I mean, USAID,
Speaker 2: whether you like the agency or not authorized by Congress
Speaker 2: pretty you know, as an independent agency, pretty clear that
Speaker 2: this would be a violation of federal law. But in
Speaker 2: any case, this is going to be one of the
Speaker 2: big fights because you know, if they can win on
Speaker 2: USAID and basically say yeah, we can get rid of
Speaker 2: any agency that we want, then it's open season on
Speaker 2: Department of Education.
Speaker 3: And obviously already see.
Speaker 2: There's also a fight right now over the CFPP that
Speaker 2: we'll talk about a little bit. They're taking the same
Speaker 2: approach there as well. Any agency that they don't like,
Speaker 2: whatever Congress thought of it, and whether they authorize the
Speaker 2: funding or not, they would then be able to just
Speaker 2: strip it, lay off the employees, and you know, run
Speaker 2: rampant in destructions around the Federal Act.
Speaker 1: It is a very good point that Emily made, and
Speaker 1: it's actually that this is the key to kind of
Speaker 1: get to the difference between the Silicon Valley like move
Speaker 1: fast and break things ideology, which is one that really
Speaker 1: goes back to like some of the founding law there
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, when you're dealing with government,
Speaker 1: you're doing with especially with courts. You know, I'm very
Speaker 1: carefully planned legal challenges it could come back to bite
Speaker 1: them at the same time to separate it out. So
Speaker 1: there's the legal case, but there's also the political and
Speaker 1: this is one where I mean I said this before
Speaker 1: when I was able to speak with you about USAID.
Speaker 1: I still think it's very smart strategies start with USAID
Speaker 1: because nobody cares about the USA. I d's point seven
Speaker 1: percent of the federal budget. It's pretty unpopular broadly foreign
Speaker 1: aid programs. I mean, trying to explain this to a
Speaker 1: normal person is basically like a process argument, like well, Congress,
Speaker 1: and they're like, what are you talking about? And this
Speaker 1: is one of those where I'm really curious about the
Speaker 1: manifestation of quote unquote resistance and what it gets to.
Speaker 1: And so I was reading while I was gone. Matt
Speaker 1: Iglaci has had a really good story where he was
Speaker 1: talking about a very interesting piece of polling data which
Speaker 1: said that people who are heavy news consumers overwhelmingly voted
Speaker 1: for Kamala Harris. And what I took away from that
Speaker 1: is that the more capital I informed you are, you know,
Speaker 1: the more like outraged that and not only out but
Speaker 1: you know, paying attention. You might understand the gravity of
Speaker 1: process and the potential for that, but you know, the
Speaker 1: average everyday voter is far more concerned about the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl commercials last night. They don't care about USAID. They
Speaker 1: don't not only don't you know what USAID is, don't
Speaker 1: care about process. They really just care about results. And
Speaker 1: this is going to get to some of the polling
Speaker 1: data that we have in a little bit, and I
Speaker 1: think it accounts for why Trump's crew rating is so high.
Speaker 1: It also goes to why the Trump administration feels very comfortable.
Speaker 1: I mean, same thing with the CFPB. You may feel
Speaker 1: when the CFPP is gone if you're getting scammed, but
Speaker 1: you have ninety nine percent of Americans have no idea
Speaker 1: what the CFPP is. So yes, a lot is being
Speaker 1: set up here. There is potential for major flashpoints in
Speaker 1: the future that can actually affect people. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about Medicare, you know, they got access to the Medicare
Speaker 1: payment system, social Security things like that. But as of
Speaker 1: right now, I'd say they're standing on pretty strong political ground.
Speaker 1: That's just my overall assessment from what I could see.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe I guess for me, I don't really
Speaker 2: particularly care that much about the rule rating. I just
Speaker 2: think that this is a you know, unconstitutional attack by
Speaker 2: one billionaire who happens to be the richest man on
Speaker 2: the planet, who has conflicts with all of these agencies.
Speaker 2: You know, if you look at the things that he's doing,
Speaker 2: it's also really clear the way so many of these
Speaker 2: actions are just blatant self dealing, right with USAID. Is
Speaker 2: this the reason he went after them first? I don't know,
Speaker 2: but they were investigating the use of starlink satellites in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: CFPB we're going to talk about later. You know, he
Speaker 2: didn't want them regulating X as X just signed a
Speaker 2: deal with Visa, didn't want them regulating him, and you know.
Speaker 3: They were about to start that.
Speaker 2: All of these fintech companies, payment apps, all of this
Speaker 2: sort of stuff fell under the CFPB purview, and so
Speaker 2: they want that gone. So that's gone. Trump signed an
Speaker 2: executive order to take out a specific commission, a specific
Speaker 2: office within the Department of Labor that lo and behold happened.
Speaker 2: I'll also be investigating Elon Musk over employment alleged employment
Speaker 2: discrimination the National Labor Relations Board, which has now been
Speaker 2: gutted and literally can't do its job and is no
Speaker 2: longer defending itself in court. Elon despises unions, like long time,
Speaker 2: very open about that. He's a union buster, He's a
Speaker 2: strike buster. And he is actually suing in court to
Speaker 2: render that whole body unconstitutional, and they are no longer
Speaker 2: even defending themselves in court. I think this transitions into
Speaker 2: the next piece of this, which is there is also
Speaker 2: something we've talked about here before, an ideological plan outside
Speaker 2: of Project twenty twenty five that is more revolutionary, let's say,
Speaker 2: and Elon describes this as a revolution the ideological blueprint
Speaker 2: really laid out by Curtis Jarvin, and part of the
Speaker 2: idea there is you fire all the government employees, and
Speaker 2: when the courts try to stop you, and this is
Speaker 2: words that came out almost verbatim from JD. Vance's when
Speaker 2: he was doing the podcast Circuit before he was elected
Speaker 2: a vice president, when the courts try to stop you,
Speaker 2: you just keep going. You just ignore them, you say,
Speaker 2: you know, enforce it with your army.
Speaker 3: Good luck.
Speaker 2: And there seems to be a lot of build up
Speaker 2: right now in that direction of making the case for
Speaker 2: why they should just ignore every court ruling that goes
Speaker 2: against them.
Speaker 3: So JD.
Speaker 2: Vance himself, we can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is probably the most significant of the Twitter discourse
Speaker 2: about whether or not these rulings should just be ignored.
Speaker 2: He says, if a judge tried to tell a general
Speaker 2: how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
Speaker 2: If a judge tried to command the attorney general and
Speaker 2: how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.
Speaker 2: Judges are not allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: The whole point of checks and balances is that the
Speaker 2: court system is supposed to be a check on when
Speaker 2: the executive tries to seize power for itself that is
Speaker 2: not in fact legitimate.
Speaker 3: So in jd.
Speaker 2: Vance's conception here, the executive gets to decide for itself
Speaker 2: what power grabs are legal, constitutional and what are not.
Speaker 2: That is pretty obviously the polar opposite of the way
Speaker 2: that the system has been set up and you know,
Speaker 2: has been used in the past, even as examples here
Speaker 2: are like kind of off because obviously, if you know,
Speaker 2: a general commits war crimes, there could be a role
Speaker 2: for a judge. Their prosecutorial misconduct can also be litigated
Speaker 2: through the court system. But you know, this seems to
Speaker 2: be making the case a case that he made previously.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned before, that if the judges and the
Speaker 2: courts strike against you know, issue orders that go against
Speaker 2: what they want to do here, they should just ignore
Speaker 2: them and keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but right now, look, as far as we are
Speaker 1: not right now they filed a temper or filed an
Speaker 1: injunction or whatever vacation for that, So that's not the
Speaker 1: ground that we're standing on. I think what they're I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I don't love the tone of the tweet. I can
Speaker 1: I say that. I think what they're getting to is
Speaker 1: really about what I mentioned earlier about the Scott Best
Speaker 1: genuine legitimate authority here over the purview of the government.
Speaker 1: And that is like kind of the big brain question
Speaker 1: about how much of this is legitimate? So for how
Speaker 1: all of us, however much we may hate Doze or
Speaker 1: any of this, special government employees, czars and others do
Speaker 1: get access to federal government data like they have the
Speaker 1: ability to compel action. Now, the question here for the courts,
Speaker 1: for Congress and all of that is how much of
Speaker 1: this falls into the purview even in the legal authority
Speaker 1: of the executive. I think this is genuinely legitimate question.
Speaker 1: But I mean it also is one where if you
Speaker 1: have to big brain, and I've been trying to think about, like,
Speaker 1: how did we get here like, how exactly what it is?
Speaker 1: And I think what has happened within MAGA and really
Speaker 1: why they have arrived at this position is if you
Speaker 1: consider the last four years, and I'm speaking purely from
Speaker 1: an analytical perspective of the way they see it, They're like, look,
Speaker 1: the court system, the legal system was used to convict
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, to come after him for the FBI. They
Speaker 1: threw everything that they could at him. Clearly, they the Democrats,
Speaker 1: are the ones who broke the judicial filibuster. They're the
Speaker 1: ones who pushed the bounds. And I mean, look, there
Speaker 1: is also genuine examples many times over the Biden administration
Speaker 1: where Democrats flogged, hated the federal judges, and attacked legitimacy
Speaker 1: of the court. So it is a bipartisan problem, No,
Speaker 1: Like when the Supreme Court strikes down the what was
Speaker 1: it student debt and prior to that, you know they
Speaker 1: freaked out. How about the eviction moratry the same thing? Well, sure,
Speaker 1: but I mean so far they've complied. But they've complied
Speaker 1: here as well. Right, they've filed an injunction. You're talking big,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what people have done in the past.
Speaker 2: Do you feel do you feel confident that they're going
Speaker 2: to comply.
Speaker 1: I feel relatively confident they will comply, just because that
Speaker 1: will be such a quote unquote norm breaker that it's
Speaker 1: one of those where you don't really come back from that. Now.
Speaker 1: When I say relatively confident, I'm giving you like sixty
Speaker 1: sixty five percent. Also, what do we have. We have
Speaker 1: novel legal authorities that people use all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: for how they govern themselves within the executive It is
Speaker 1: a genuine question of how the Supreme Court will even
Speaker 1: rule on this. So would you really want to just
Speaker 1: not comply and rather just take it to the court
Speaker 1: If I had to get I bet Scotus would rule
Speaker 1: inside of the Trump administration here, especially with respect to
Speaker 1: those I don't know about USAID or others. There's also
Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, USAID has not quote unquote
Speaker 1: been shut down, right, It's just that the agents or
Speaker 1: the building doesn't function, the agency doesn't come to work anymore.
Speaker 1: There's genuinely different authorities. I was going back and reading
Speaker 1: about the way that Bill Clinton similarly went through the
Speaker 1: process of shedding a bunch of government employees transferring to contractors.
Speaker 1: There are same big questions here that were happening in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties after the budget reform which led to
Speaker 1: the explosion of federal contractors. So they have more legal
Speaker 1: ground than I think people think. Whether they would come
Speaker 1: all the way to Scotus, the question I think really
Speaker 1: comes down to this, would they defy a ruling from
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court? I just don't think so, because it
Speaker 1: would very much open the grounds to a lot of
Speaker 1: the previous left talking points right about stacking the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: Because if you're just going to do that, then that
Speaker 1: means that this thing has no legitimate authority, which is
Speaker 1: something that JD. Trump and others have staked so much
Speaker 1: of their legacy in terms of the federal judiciary. So overall,
Speaker 1: do I think they're not going to comply? No, I
Speaker 1: could be totally wrong. You know, I'm very open to it.
Speaker 1: But I think the big talk that comes from MAGA,
Speaker 1: from around all of this is a feeling of total
Speaker 1: and complete political vindication over the legal system over I mean,
Speaker 1: just think about, you know, the amount that has happened
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump over the last four years. How many
Speaker 1: times not only counted out, but being told like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is it for him? What is it? Ninety something
Speaker 1: felony charges, etc. And still not only be able to
Speaker 1: win the election, but to pray to triumph in the
Speaker 1: courts to be able to push these things off and
Speaker 1: still take power with the popular vote. So that's just
Speaker 1: broadly how I think we got to where we are.
Speaker 1: And JD also you have to understand his role, right
Speaker 1: is probably the attack dog of the administration. Now Trump
Speaker 1: himself was more circumspect. I would say, in that clip,
Speaker 1: what did he say? He was just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't agree with it, but that's not doesn't I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say I'm going to openly defy it, right.
Speaker 2: He was not clear. Brebear said will this slow you down?
Speaker 2: And he said no, So was not clear. But let
Speaker 2: me let me ask you, Soger, because I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: looking at this and you're zooming out. It seems pretty
Speaker 2: clear they're following the Curtis Jarvin playbook aspects Butterfly Revolution is.
Speaker 3: What it's called.
Speaker 2: I know this stuff sounds crazy, but that playbook. JD's
Speaker 2: very influenced by him, Peter Thial Elon Musk, all these
Speaker 2: people very influenced by here him. And this is from
Speaker 2: it's a newsletter called The Nerd Reich. And here's the play.
Speaker 2: Number one, install a CEO dictator. Okay, that's Elon mus
Speaker 2: very clear. His claimed control of the federal government is
Speaker 2: running rampant through it, cutting agencies that he doesn't like,
Speaker 2: destroying the CFPB, destroying the Partment of Education, destroying going
Speaker 2: after the Department of Labor that's been blocked at this point,
Speaker 2: destroying the USAID. Okay, so we see the parallel there.
Speaker 2: Number two persh the bureaucracy. Yarvin's plan called for retire
Speaker 2: all government employees.
Speaker 1: Rage.
Speaker 3: Rage. Yeah, that's what DOGE is doing.
Speaker 2: That's what they are systematically doing, trying to push people
Speaker 2: out through this probably also illegal buyout offer, gutting teams,
Speaker 2: furlowing them, laying them off, etc. Build a loyalist army,
Speaker 2: so Yarvin says, Recruit an ideologically trained army to replace
Speaker 2: experts and enforce the new regime. We see that through
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five. We also see it through the
Speaker 2: DOGE apparatics that are running through these various agencies. Not
Speaker 2: to mention, then you also have the ideological sort of
Speaker 2: like followers that Musk has himself cultivated in his own
Speaker 2: power base, that he's cultivated through x. Number four dismantled
Speaker 2: democratic institutions. Jarvin's blueprints strip power from federal agencies. We
Speaker 2: already see that courts in Congress. The Congress part is,
Speaker 2: you know, seizing control the chargery payments, saying we get
Speaker 2: to decide Congress, we don't really care what you have
Speaker 2: to say. We get decide to decide what spending goes
Speaker 2: out and what doesn't.
Speaker 3: You no longer have control.
Speaker 2: I mean, they really are making trying to make Congress
Speaker 2: thoroughly irrelevant. And obviously Musk has undermined the credibility at
Speaker 2: federal government, downplayed legal oversight to fight regulatory authorities. And
Speaker 2: this is where you know, part of the question comes
Speaker 2: in Yarvin's blueprint specifically calls for defying the courts, something JD.
Speaker 2: Vance has said they should do, something that he and
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and a bunch of others are now floating
Speaker 2: on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Do they go through with that plan?
Speaker 2: Number five sees media and information control to maintain power.
Speaker 2: Jarvin says take over government journalism, academian social media to
Speaker 2: control public narratives. Elon Musk bought Twitter. Obviously that FCC
Speaker 2: has been going after various news agencies, so has Trump
Speaker 2: in terms of filing lawsuits and sort of demanding these
Speaker 2: bribes for him to leave them alone and go away.
Speaker 2: And so that seems like they're very much following the blueprint.
Speaker 2: And part of that blueprint is when the courts try
Speaker 2: to block you, you say.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 2: It's also you know, even if you don't buy that,
Speaker 2: this is what they're following, which I think at this
Speaker 2: point it's to me pretty undeniable given how closely it
Speaker 2: matches all of the steps.
Speaker 3: We also know how Elon.
Speaker 2: Operates in the private sector, like he brazenly flouts the
Speaker 2: law and so does basically every other CEO in the country,
Speaker 2: by the way, whenever it suthes him, because he knows
Speaker 2: that if you are an elite, you can basically get
Speaker 2: away with it.
Speaker 3: And Trump knows this too.
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump committed all sorts of crimes and he's
Speaker 2: president of the United States, so he also knows that
Speaker 2: you can basically get away with it. Elon also knows
Speaker 2: he has impunity because if he does run a foul
Speaker 2: of law and Trump can just pardon him, so no
Speaker 2: big deal. So they don't really care what the courts say.
Speaker 2: Some of these things. You know, maybe whether Scott Bessen
Speaker 2: can be denied charge or ash or whatever our borderline,
Speaker 2: some of them are really not. Like even if we
Speaker 2: just take the example of firing all of the inspectors
Speaker 2: not all, but the vast majority of the Inspectors General,
Speaker 2: there is a law that says you have to give
Speaker 2: thirty days notice and there has to be caused.
Speaker 3: They just didn't do it. I just you know, USAID.
Speaker 2: Again, separate, independently established agency by Congress. It has to
Speaker 2: take an Act of Congress to get rid of this agency.
Speaker 2: And they're like, no, we're just going to get rid
Speaker 2: of it. We'll take some pieces of it, maybe put
Speaker 2: in under marker via the State Department, but we're just
Speaker 2: done with it. Apartment of Education, same thing, CFPB, same thing.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I don't know what gives you
Speaker 2: confidence that they're going to be like but we'll.
Speaker 3: Follow the letter of whatever the court is.
Speaker 1: I didn't say that, but what I do. I think
Speaker 1: the problem with Curtis explaining is, Look, I've known and
Speaker 1: read Curtis Yarvin for many, many years, and I think
Speaker 1: that his influence is both obvious but also vastly overstated.
Speaker 1: If and you know, by his own admission, he did
Speaker 1: not predict many of the results that happened here. He
Speaker 1: actually ridiculed at certain points people like Christopher Ruffo and
Speaker 1: others who thought it was legitimate and operable to change
Speaker 1: the system as it is happening right now. He's admitted
Speaker 1: his defeat after Trump's first two weeks, and he said
Speaker 1: that he was wrong. But taking back that playbook, if
Speaker 1: you think about what that playbook is, it is an
Speaker 1: attempt to establish one party rules. That's what FDR and
Speaker 1: the New Deal it.
Speaker 2: Is he wants. I mean again, he wants a monarchy,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk as a CEO dictator and Trump as chair
Speaker 2: of the board.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's the playbook, That is the plan.
Speaker 1: This is This is the important thing to understand. That
Speaker 1: is every single thing you just laid out is effectively
Speaker 1: what FDR did in the early nineteen thirties. No, it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was a guy named remotely True.
Speaker 1: Look give me the attempt to explain here we had
Speaker 1: people like Tommy Cochrane and Tommy the Cork and Harry
Speaker 1: Hopkins and others who were very similar now non elected,
Speaker 1: special appointed bureaucrats who created all sorts of throw it
Speaker 1: at the wall programs who moved earth and mountains or
Speaker 1: whatever you get past certain congress No, but not many
Speaker 1: of them actually weren't. And actually they would separately appropriate
Speaker 1: and move bureaucrats around. They had a strike team very
Speaker 1: similar to DOSE. But step back and further think about
Speaker 1: the things that you're talking about there about institutions, about
Speaker 1: taking over media and others. A friend of mine, Juliu's Crime,
Speaker 1: has said before that America always has one party rule.
Speaker 1: It's just that the opposition party becomes one that is
Speaker 1: effectively subservient. So, for example, in the New Deal era,
Speaker 1: there was an attempt by people like god Robert, Robert
Speaker 1: Taft and others, isolationist Republicans who are anti New Deal
Speaker 1: in others that fought against FDR and Harry S. Truman
Speaker 1: for twenty years, and they eventually lost. They lost when
Speaker 1: Dwight Douiy Eisenhower became the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: and when he did, he effectively codified the New Deal,
Speaker 1: social security, the expansion of government, and accepted this new role.
Speaker 1: What Curtis has always looked back on fondly, I guess,
Speaker 1: is the establishment of FDR as a quasi monarch of
Speaker 1: the United States, and he was by all accounts, and
Speaker 1: not only in terms of his terms, his total and
Speaker 1: command of the government. He attempted to pack the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: He very often many presents Lincoln and others right have
Speaker 1: ignored the Supreme Court, have decided, you know, in extraordinary
Speaker 1: moments to say that we're going to move in a
Speaker 1: different direction. And even if you look back on Lincoln, right,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like the habeas corpus thing is so
Speaker 1: tarnishing his legacy. What Curtis understands here was effectively saying,
Speaker 1: if you want regime change, you have to change the
Speaker 1: whole regime. Now, the regime of the United States has
Speaker 1: been neoliberal and effectively culturally left wing now for basically
Speaker 1: twenty years, especially yeah, I would say over twenty years,
Speaker 1: especially pep Far and onwards, from the establishment of the
Speaker 1: Obama dynasty, etc. Neoliberal worshipment with the worshiping of technocratic
Speaker 1: neoliberalism on top of the explosion basically and move of
Speaker 1: the cultural left inside and marching through all institutions right.
Speaker 1: And so what Curtis is advocating for is to say, no,
Speaker 1: this is the only attempt to roll back the institutional
Speaker 1: takeover of cultural liberalism of all aspects of American life. Now,
Speaker 1: even he has said he thinks that's a nearly impossible project.
Speaker 1: And also, once something has been affected, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to roll it back because the Democrats could just win
Speaker 1: and they could bring uh this forward. My point only
Speaker 1: is that what if you look at it through this
Speaker 1: lens of an attack not necessarily on executive power, but
Speaker 1: as trying to roll back all of this complete step
Speaker 1: change in American culture and life, all of the Trump
Speaker 1: orders will make a lot more sense.
Speaker 2: Your sager is quote from Curtis Jarvin. If Americans want
Speaker 2: to change their government, they're going to have to get
Speaker 2: over their dictator phobia. Hes I know what he wants
Speaker 2: dictator like, My question for you is are you.
Speaker 1: Good with that? Means? Are you are you good with FDR?
Speaker 3: Dictator?
Speaker 2: FDR passed his programs through Congress. Let me read you
Speaker 2: the list.
Speaker 1: I know what they are. I know about one hundred days.
Speaker 2: Emergency Banking Act, Glass, Agricultural Adjustment at National Industrial COGAR Acts,
Speaker 2: Civil Civilian Conservation Corps. And by the way, some of
Speaker 2: these things were struck down by the Supreme Court and
Speaker 2: guess what he abided by that Social Security Act, Wagner Act,
Speaker 2: Works Progress Administration, Fair Labor Staters Act.
Speaker 3: These were passed through.
Speaker 2: Congress, not from some dictator king who just seized control
Speaker 2: of the federal government. He had a supermajority, so we
Speaker 2: had a because through elected representatives, through this thing we
Speaker 2: called democracy. So yes, he had a lot of power
Speaker 2: because he had a much larger mandate, massively larger than
Speaker 2: what Donald Trump has. But I mean, that's I guess
Speaker 2: that's just my question for you is like, are you,
Speaker 2: as you're trying to explain, like the thinking and the well,
Speaker 2: they're mad at the Democrats for this, and they don't
Speaker 2: like the cultural institutions for that. Are you comfortable with
Speaker 2: the remedy being a CEO dictator king usurping the power
Speaker 2: of Congress and the court and remaking and remaking the
Speaker 2: country however they want to remake.
Speaker 1: It under Elon? Absolutely not. But if you're asking me
Speaker 1: in an FDR context of like, am I cool with FDR? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: If it was if it's is it nineteen, if it's
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, yes, no, no question.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you about this situation right now. Well, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. Are you comfortable with Elon Musk as the
Speaker 2: CEO dictator of the country with Donald.
Speaker 3: Trump's chairman of the board.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: And you do you think that that is in fact
Speaker 2: the plan that they're trying to affect it?
Speaker 1: Whether you law are, whether.
Speaker 2: They are successful or not is an open question. Do
Speaker 2: you think that is the plan?
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I think that's Elon's plan. I do
Speaker 1: not think that's Trump's plan. I definitely don't think that's
Speaker 1: JD's plan. And I think this is the fundamental tension
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration. And this actually gets to the
Speaker 1: bigger problem, which is the fact that Elon himself is
Speaker 1: not aligned totally. And I think you're doing your own
Speaker 1: monologue about this specifically, which is Elon has very very different,
Speaker 1: you know, interests, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: is actually a separate power force in a way that
Speaker 1: the people I mentioned, Harry Hopkins and Tommy the Cork
Speaker 1: were employees and we're basically subservient to FDR. So I
Speaker 1: think that the fundamental tension here is that you really
Speaker 1: have the quote unquote CEO person who's trying to enact
Speaker 1: rage and all this who has a very different ideological
Speaker 1: agenda than many of the voters in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: I think that's actually why I'm not quote unquote comfortable
Speaker 1: with it. I think that the prop and what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: If there was a different CEO dictator, you to be comfortable.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, because listen, there are many things.
Speaker 3: You're in favor of, like a monarchy in the.
Speaker 1: I am in favor. If you were to call FDR
Speaker 1: a monarch thing, yes, I'm in No, this is not
Speaker 1: what str did.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about today in the here and now, what
Speaker 2: they are trying to accomplish. If you had, instead of
Speaker 2: Elon Musk in the role JD. Vance in the role
Speaker 2: as CEO dictator of the country, with Donald Trump the
Speaker 2: chairman of.
Speaker 3: The board, you'd be cool with that.
Speaker 1: Bay Like we're done with.
Speaker 3: Democracy, We're having a king. That's where we are.
Speaker 1: Is that the use of the terms, the use of
Speaker 1: the terms in the American context is the closest we
Speaker 1: ever got was FDR. So if we were FDR style, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Now would I be comfortable with that?
Speaker 3: Not what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to exprest.
Speaker 2: F DR went through Congress. They are trying to complete
Speaker 2: like you're taking this to literally the role of Congress.
Speaker 1: They're taking this to literally and not at that time
Speaker 1: what they're doing because at that time there were no
Speaker 1: government agencies that existed, and so the way to enact
Speaker 1: like crazy change was to create new agencies. Right, Whenever
Speaker 1: you are doing a revolt against institutions, what do you do?
Speaker 1: You take over those institutions and you try to dismantle them.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is probably more analogous to the Bolshevik
Speaker 1: revolution in taking over all of the institutions, burning them
Speaker 1: down from the Czarist illegitimate regime. I think we would agree,
Speaker 1: right and basically trying to enact a new form and
Speaker 1: a new paradigm shift. Now, none of this is one
Speaker 1: to one because obviously things rhyme. What I'm saying in
Speaker 1: the context of where we are right now, if it
Speaker 1: is aligned, and part of the reason why I don't
Speaker 1: feel so alarmed, like you said, is I don't believe
Speaker 1: what you do. I don't think they're going to defy
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court order if they do five alarmed fires,
Speaker 1: you you do accept that at least Elon is trying
Speaker 1: to effectuate this butterfly revolution, which calls which he's gone
Speaker 1: step by step, and which does call for ignoring and
Speaker 1: defying the courts, something he has done in the past.
Speaker 2: By the way, I don't think something JD Vance has
Speaker 2: explicitly called for multiple times. Something they are, you know,
Speaker 2: on Twitter, basically fomenting popular consent for going again and
Speaker 2: just ignoring any federal court order that goes against them
Speaker 2: like that. That is what they're doing right now.
Speaker 1: Again, whenever they actually defy a Supreme Court order, then
Speaker 1: I'll say something. But at the current time, I don't
Speaker 1: think that that's happening. I think we disputed that jd
Speaker 1: quote before, as we did on our last look it
Speaker 1: up I did. We talked about it. Yah, show me
Speaker 1: he specifically. There's a whole Reason article about this. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: if we want to do it, we can. I read
Speaker 1: it last time. How it has JD Vance raised the
Speaker 1: specter of open disregard for court rulings. It's right here.
Speaker 1: I will send it to our group chat so that
Speaker 1: we can all discuss it and we can look over
Speaker 1: the transcript. We can even put it on said this
Speaker 1: as a pull, as he said, I So, I think
Speaker 1: what you can do in the Senate is push the
Speaker 1: legal boundaries as far as the Supreme Court will let
Speaker 1: you take it to basically make it possible for democratically
Speaker 1: accountable people in the executive and the legislator to fire
Speaker 1: mid level up to high level civil fervents like that,
Speaker 1: to me is the meat of the administrative state twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one podcast appearance, which I believe is the same.
Speaker 3: One twenty three one.
Speaker 2: Fire every single mid level, every civil servant in the
Speaker 2: administrative state, replace them with our people. That's what they're
Speaker 2: doing the Chief and he further suggested that if the
Speaker 2: Court's intervened, Trump should respond by saying, the Chief Justice
Speaker 2: has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. Very
Speaker 2: much imployment here, and he's also saying the same shit
Speaker 2: on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Right now, Here's what the Reason fact check said. I think,
Speaker 1: if you consider the full podcast, advance is not actually
Speaker 1: calling for the defiance of the Supreme Court. The Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson line is almost cliche at this point, is apocryphal. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Jackson almost certainly didn't say it. Now again, we could
Speaker 1: say parsing in all of this is almost foolish, because
Speaker 1: let's see what they actually do when they're in power,
Speaker 1: and let's get back to the meat of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about is if you think about the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five Trump administration, what is the actual goal. As I've
Speaker 1: been trying to say, it's about dismantling technocratic neoliberalism and
Speaker 1: turning back the tide of all institutions in America. That
Speaker 1: is both how they see it. I think to a
Speaker 1: certain point that is what the American people voted for.
Speaker 1: Now when we put those two things together, it makes
Speaker 1: sense about how the whole coalition has come together. And
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time trying to think about
Speaker 1: this through line because it can seem really inconsistent to
Speaker 1: have liberals like RFK Junior and Tulca Gabbard and Mark
Speaker 1: Andresen and Elon Musk and Trump and JD people completely
Speaker 1: across the ideological spectrum. You put all of those people together,
Speaker 1: what unites them It is being oppositional to the quote
Speaker 1: unquote technocratic neolip point of view in almost every way.
Speaker 1: So with Elon you think about him as the most
Speaker 1: unconventional CEO basically of all the time, built two companies
Speaker 1: in spaces that were never supposed to work, both in
Speaker 1: SpaceX and in cards to find the conventional wisdom. For crypto,
Speaker 1: it's about attacking for this is why you do the CFPV.
Speaker 1: It's about attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take
Speaker 1: on the legitimate financial system. Now you may think that's bad,
Speaker 1: but that's the impetus for RFK Junior. It's about what
Speaker 1: it's about the establishment of healthcare, vaccines, all of that.
Speaker 1: It's anything that thought. For Tulsi Gabbard, this is somebody
Speaker 1: who literally whose entire career has basically been trying to
Speaker 1: be against the security state and others. Now they're all
Speaker 1: have been compromised in many, many different ways, but the
Speaker 1: through line of those three of those things is against
Speaker 1: these institutions, which are both governmental, non governmental, academic and others.
Speaker 3: That's fine, go to Congress.
Speaker 2: Don't get to just run rampant and cut out the
Speaker 2: pieces you don't like, because that's illegal.
Speaker 3: It is a crime spree. Now.
Speaker 2: RFK Junior, I think is a disgusting human being who
Speaker 2: puts us in danger, and I think it's a whrror
Speaker 2: that he is being confirmed to run HHS. It was
Speaker 2: done through legal channels. He was part of the I
Speaker 2: think he is a big part of the reason Donald
Speaker 2: Trump got elected. He has now been confirmed. The Senate
Speaker 2: is majority Republican. They're going to buy and large get with.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 2: Was the same thing with Telsey, got the same thing
Speaker 2: with all of these people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I don't like it, but.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's illegitimate or it's a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 2: When you just go into the treasury payment system and
Speaker 2: are like, I'm going to cut off the pieces. I
Speaker 2: don't like me one person, Elon Musk, who you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, whether it was Donald Trump, even if he was,
Speaker 2: you know, as the legitimate elected president was the one
Speaker 2: doing the picking and choosing, that would still be raisingly illegal,
Speaker 2: unconstitutional assault on the way our entire government is set up.
Speaker 2: So these things are very distinct. And you know the
Speaker 2: piece of this too that I don't know where you
Speaker 2: get your confidence from, is Trump has done everything Elon
Speaker 2: has wanted him to do.
Speaker 3: I mean, Trump is out there issuing.
Speaker 2: Executive orders about South African like boor the resettlement which.
Speaker 1: They don't even want apparently they don't even.
Speaker 2: Want, which because they claim they're indigenous, which don't even
Speaker 2: get me started down that particular rabbit hole. But this
Speaker 2: is clearly coming directly from Elon Musk. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: the executive order to ban to dismantle this one particular
Speaker 2: part of the department lever which just so happens to
Speaker 2: be investigating Elon Musk and Tesla. You have the secretary
Speaker 2: of the Air Force that Trump has now put it
Speaker 2: into place just so happens to be the guy who
Speaker 2: greased the skids for Elon Musk SpaceX to get massive contracts,
Speaker 2: effectively rigged the contracting process to make sure that SpaceX
Speaker 2: would win. Oh no, he's got him as the Air
Speaker 2: Force secretary. Okay, Trump has completely changed his views on
Speaker 2: crypto and is now you know, totally pro crypto, got
Speaker 2: his own shit coin. I got a lot of questions
Speaker 2: too about who is who the whales are that are
Speaker 2: involved there, because it's also very possible deal was made
Speaker 2: of basically like we will make you wealthy on the
Speaker 2: level that we are, and we're you're going to stay
Speaker 2: on in jail. Elon's gonna help you win and we're
Speaker 2: gonna get to do what we want to do. We're
Speaker 2: gonna run the government the way we see fit. You know,
Speaker 2: all of these like agency hands that people are so
Speaker 2: excited RFKA and told seeing whatever people I think are
Speaker 2: terrible people. But whatever they're like I said, legitimate, These
Speaker 2: people are irrelevant now, like they don't matter. What matters
Speaker 2: is what Elon decides, whether you know, whether you're agency
Speaker 2: is going to stay or go, how much budget you're
Speaker 2: going to have, how you know, how much enforcement you're
Speaker 2: going to have, whether your agency having to tick him
Speaker 2: off and try to regulate him, like from his perspective,
Speaker 2: from Elon's perspective, and I do think Elon is running
Speaker 2: the show at this point. There is no sign that
Speaker 2: Trump has resisted him on anything. H one to B
Speaker 2: is another example where Trump completely changed his orientation to
Speaker 2: be like, yes, I want you to have your indentured
Speaker 2: servant workforce to whatever extent you possibly do. The reason Elon,
Speaker 2: I think and I think you might agree with this part.
Speaker 2: Elon has cast himself in the role as the hero
Speaker 2: and savior of humanity. He truly believes he is the
Speaker 2: most brilliant person on the planet, that he alone can
Speaker 2: rescue us from whatever ails us, whatever ails the country,
Speaker 2: whatever ails the world. You know, he has these fantasies
Speaker 2: about colonizing Mars and whatever, and so he has almost
Speaker 2: this sort of the like effective altruist mindset of like,
Speaker 2: since I've decided these are the existential threats to humanity
Speaker 2: me alone, I've decided it justifies anything to get to
Speaker 2: those ends, right, It's the definition of the ends justify
Speaker 2: the means. So if you know, kids with AIDS in
Speaker 2: Africa have to die, or if the Democratic Republic of
Speaker 2: America has to come to an end and laws have
Speaker 2: to be broken, and I mean that's the least of it.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care.
Speaker 2: Anything justifies the ends that he has decided on as
Speaker 2: himself again cast in this role as hero and savior
Speaker 2: of the universe. And so that to me, very systematically
Speaker 2: is what he's pushing towards and what is playing out.
Speaker 2: And no, I don't see any resistance from Trump, and
Speaker 2: I see Jdvans very much echoing, you know, and trying
Speaker 2: to bolster the arguments that Elon is making in this.
Speaker 1: I don't think that you're wrong on a lot of
Speaker 1: the track that you just laid out. The question is
Speaker 1: again where it arrives in terms of genuine impacts. So
Speaker 1: you could look at it the way you just did,
Speaker 1: and I think that's I think it is totally legitimate.
Speaker 1: I think that's the way a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are reading the news who are elite Democrats and others
Speaker 1: who are feeling about this because they can understand the stakes,
Speaker 1: the process, et cetera. The problem that I think is that, look,
Speaker 1: if we're actually talking about payments with the Treasury Department,
Speaker 1: they think cut off a single payment right now? We
Speaker 1: we will? I mean, I think we would know at
Speaker 1: this point, wouldn't we? How do you know? I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's fairly certainly there's.
Speaker 2: Also reporting that they were changing code in the back
Speaker 2: end to facility to facilitate the ability to cut off
Speaker 2: payments and also reportedly to make it more difficult to track.
Speaker 1: But I think that's a pretty distinct difference than actually
Speaker 1: that's a very distinct difference in my opinion, then actually
Speaker 1: cutting it off again Usaid. USAID workers are not coming
Speaker 1: to work the budget. It's still appropriated as far as
Speaker 1: I understand it. The payments and all of that, at
Speaker 1: least some have gone through.
Speaker 3: No pals are not going through.
Speaker 1: No no haven't gone through to certain programs which they say
Speaker 1: that they don't agree with. But not all quote payments
Speaker 1: have been shut down.
Speaker 2: How much all payments including PETFAR which was specifically supposed.
Speaker 3: To be exempted.
Speaker 2: But if you only have you know, one hundred and
Speaker 2: two hundred workers at USAID, nothing is going It's.
Speaker 3: A different process, something that's going out.
Speaker 1: But and it actually still gets to the end result here,
Speaker 1: which is that is quote unquote is the Department of
Speaker 1: Education if it gets shut down but all funds continue
Speaker 1: to go to the states. Is that a bad outcome
Speaker 1: that most people will feel. I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: have deep skepticism as to whether people will care at
Speaker 1: all whether some Department of Education bureaucrat has a job
Speaker 1: if their state funding still continues to come through.
Speaker 2: But how is the state funding going to come through
Speaker 2: if there are no employees to issue with stagger?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean not the way that it's not.
Speaker 1: The way they need to work, But how many do
Speaker 1: you need? I mean, And this is the genuine question
Speaker 1: that gets to kind of the way that Elon has
Speaker 1: run Twitter. I'm not even disagreeing that Elon doesn't have
Speaker 1: a completely separate agenda. I don't know for sure whether
Speaker 1: and this where they're analysis of whether Trump has completely
Speaker 1: deferred to him is entirely correct, because he still is
Speaker 1: playing small ball in a certain way and This is
Speaker 1: part of why again, I want to step back, and
Speaker 1: if you look at the way that DOGE was originally sold,
Speaker 1: and actually if you look at Vivek Ramaswami's decision not
Speaker 1: to join DOJ, you can maybe give him some political
Speaker 1: credit because what's the thing he identified, which was the
Speaker 1: word the bad way that he was taking, the bad
Speaker 1: way that he was going down this road. The way
Speaker 1: that he was going down the road, according to Vivek,
Speaker 1: is that he believed that the way that they are
Speaker 1: going down was from this technical approach as opposed to
Speaker 1: a legalistic and more Project twenty twenty five attempt to
Speaker 1: dismantle the government, one which was like a carefully laid plan.
Speaker 1: He specifically appears to have dissented from Elon whenever it
Speaker 1: came to this approach of this. Well, I mean you
Speaker 1: could call it that. I'm sure. I'm sure I know
Speaker 1: that that's what many people would like to believe. I
Speaker 1: think it's a bit of a fan full term here currently,
Speaker 1: But that's fine. You know, we can all use the
Speaker 1: rhetoric that we decide. But my point that it comes
Speaker 1: back to is we're talking about point seven percent of
Speaker 1: the federal budget. Even we look at the Department of Education.
Speaker 1: These are completely these are rounding errors. They told us
Speaker 1: they were going to cut what was it, five trillion
Speaker 1: dollars from the federal government from the federal budget. I
Speaker 1: believe Elon has now revised his federal spending to if
Speaker 1: we can cut five to ten percent, which is already,
Speaker 1: by the way, a massive retraction from where he originally was.
Speaker 1: Much of this is almost an attempt, like at the
Speaker 1: political level, to initiate what I think is the response
Speaker 1: that they're getting from the Democrats, but at a fundamental
Speaker 1: level is not really altering the entire United States federal government.
Speaker 1: Like nobody in the country is feeling except the people
Speaker 1: who work here in DC, and that's where all the
Speaker 1: protests are hilariously is because it's the bureaucracts. The employees
Speaker 1: that work for these agencies cares about USAID. Nobody cares
Speaker 1: about a mid level Department of Education person. It gets
Speaker 1: back to my point here about the disman of these institutions,
Speaker 1: of these make work programs, of these NGOs and others.
Speaker 1: If you want to attack the center of gravity of
Speaker 1: what liberalism is. Liberalism is about the worship of elites
Speaker 1: and institutions at fundamental at an operational level. That is
Speaker 1: what the Elon, Curtis Jarvin and Trump attack really brings
Speaker 1: it to full circle.
Speaker 3: It's about having a dictator. You're right. I mean that's yeah.
Speaker 2: It's an attack on the institutions, dismantling them and installing
Speaker 2: Elon as a CEO dictator.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that again, I think that's Elon's plan.
Speaker 1: I think that is Elon's and.
Speaker 2: He's effectuating it like he's putting it into place. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're right about you know, is he gonna
Speaker 2: The amount of the point is not how in spite
Speaker 2: of what Elon says, The point is not a government efficiency.
Speaker 2: The point is not shrinking the federal budget and deficit
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. The point is consolidation of power in
Speaker 2: the hands of Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: That's the point.
Speaker 2: That's you're right, yes, yeah, And Elon has been given
Speaker 2: carte blanche, is being.
Speaker 1: Backed up Trump administration by Trump and JD.
Speaker 3: Vance.
Speaker 2: So and also, you know, it's not true by the
Speaker 2: way that just the protests are only in DC. They're
Speaker 2: having protests elsewhere. But also senators say they're getting sixteen
Speaker 2: hundred calls a minute, right, now freaked out about what's
Speaker 2: going on. That is as opposed to the typical forty
Speaker 2: calls per minute. So it's not you know, to say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's only federal government and employees that care about this.
Speaker 3: That's just factually not true.
Speaker 1: Okay, But it gets to my neurotic liberal point about
Speaker 1: people who are obsessed with that that is not But
Speaker 1: we're the ones who are the most freaked out.
Speaker 2: Okay, But yeah, people should be paying attention. That's not
Speaker 2: a bad thing for people to be paying attention to
Speaker 2: the news. Our whole business.
Speaker 1: Happy to have you all here. But as I've tried
Speaker 1: to tell you all many many times, if you read
Speaker 1: the news every day, you are very out of step
Speaker 1: with the general public. I have deeply reconciled myself to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about the way that Americans experience the world.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, they're shutting down the US idea. Okay,
Speaker 1: didn't even know what that was. But Department USA. I
Speaker 1: hate the Department.
Speaker 2: They're going, they're going, okay, USA, D you're wrong about
Speaker 2: Department of Education. The public school system, especially in rural or.
Speaker 1: You're talking about funding. You're not separate from the actual
Speaker 1: Department of Education.
Speaker 2: And having a Department of Like, if you're going to
Speaker 2: get the funding, you have to have some sort of
Speaker 2: bureaucracy in order to issue the pelgrants and the special
Speaker 2: education funding and the Title I fund. All of these
Speaker 2: things have to go through some sort of bureaucracy, and
Speaker 2: it's called the Department of Education. They're in the Social
Speaker 2: Security systems. They're in the National Oceanic the like hurricane
Speaker 2: Watch weather systems. They're in the Medicare systems. Elon is
Speaker 2: out there post reposting Mike Lee about how social Security
Speaker 2: is a scam and you should just have a you know,
Speaker 2: private market based retirement account. That's like, all of these
Speaker 2: things are on the table. He's already moved way beyond
Speaker 2: usaid there. We're going to talk in a little bit
Speaker 2: about him dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which means
Speaker 2: that you are going are much more likely to get scammed.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 2: This is an agency that was set up after the
Speaker 2: financial crisis to try to curb some of the accesses
Speaker 2: of banks, Wall Street and other types of scammers. It
Speaker 2: has been very successful too, by the way, has returned
Speaker 2: some twenty one billion dollars to consumers that is gone
Speaker 2: now as well the nationale RELATIONSHS where your ability to organize, so.
Speaker 3: To be like, oh, it's just the usaid, it's.
Speaker 2: Already gone way beyond that. That's already like, you know,
Speaker 2: that's already old news. We're talking about way down, way
Speaker 2: down the line in terms of the things that he
Speaker 2: is targeting. I just want to get through these couple
Speaker 2: of tweets that we have and then we can move
Speaker 2: on to the polling, because I do think that's the
Speaker 2: next logical place to go, and some of we've already previewed.
Speaker 2: So we've got Tom Cotton, who is also you know,
Speaker 2: attacking the judge here, outrageous Obama Judge Paul Englemeyer didn't
Speaker 2: just bar Elon Muskin dog treasury systems, barred the Secretary
Speaker 2: of the Treasury himself. Again, I didn't read it that way,
Speaker 2: but I admit the language's of ambiguous.
Speaker 3: With outsiding a.
Speaker 2: Single law that's a lie, or even allowing the Trump
Speaker 2: admin to appear in court, the Trump administration is going
Speaker 2: to have their chance to make their case. This outlaw
Speaker 2: should be reversed immediately, and Engelmeyers should be forbidden by
Speaker 2: higher course from ever hearing another case against the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: We can put the next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So Mike Lee says about this court ruling, this has
Speaker 2: the feel of a coup, not a military coup, but
Speaker 2: a judicial one, to which Elon replies yes. Elon also
Speaker 2: reposted a longer post that was calling specifically for ignoring
Speaker 2: the decisions of the federal judges. And then the last
Speaker 2: piece here is there was reporting about there was a
Speaker 2: contractor from Booz Allen Hamilton who wrote a report saying
Speaker 2: that describing the Doge incursion to Treasury as a quote
Speaker 2: insider threat, so you know, significant threat risk based on
Speaker 2: what they understood to be happening. The Booz Allen Hamilton
Speaker 2: now have said oh no, no, we didn't mean it,
Speaker 2: and we fired that person, etcetera, etcetera. But you know,
Speaker 2: people who are looking at this, many of them find it.
Speaker 1: To me, it's one guy in Booz Allan. I'm not
Speaker 1: taking it all that seriously. So okay, thank you for
Speaker 1: your opinion, sir,