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 Tuesday. We have an
Speaker 1: amazing show for everybody today, extra amazing. Crystal is back.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: You guys did a great job of the show yesterday,
Speaker 2: though I ensored it a consumer.
Speaker 1: Yes, people seem to enjoy It's not happy.
Speaker 2: Lots of news coming on of DC and around the world. Actually,
Speaker 2: there's yet another plane crash, this one in Toronto that
Speaker 2: will show you just unbelievable images. It's extraordinary. Everyone lived.
Speaker 2: You do have two people in critical condition, so we'll
Speaker 2: give you all of the images and the updates there
Speaker 2: are starting to sound off about how they think about
Speaker 2: the early days of the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Some interesting comments there.
Speaker 2: Dough is just now coming for Social Security and a
Speaker 2: weird court filing says like, oh, Elon's actually not technically
Speaker 2: involved with Dough, She's not technically the head of dog
Speaker 2: So a.
Speaker 3: Lot going on there. Eric Admins.
Speaker 2: Adams administration in New York City seems to be on
Speaker 2: the verge of collapse. You've got four deputy mayors who
Speaker 2: are now resigning. Some of the officials there are calling
Speaker 2: for a meeting that could push him out of office.
Speaker 2: This is all after that crazy deal struck with him
Speaker 2: and Tom Homan and the Trump administration, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So we'll give you those updates.
Speaker 2: Massive crypto scam backed by Javier Mulay, the President of Argentina,
Speaker 2: and one of the people who was behind that scam
Speaker 2: really telling on himself in a long interview with Coffee Zilla.
Speaker 2: Dave Portnoy is also involved. So a lot of pieces there.
Speaker 2: But this is like the anatomy of a giant rug pole.
Speaker 2: The head of the SCIU is going to join us
Speaker 2: to talk about the lawsuits against Doges that they are
Speaker 2: involved with. And also the Republican attacks against medicaid, and
Speaker 2: Ali Bestucky is going to join us to break down
Speaker 2: her view of Elon's baby mama drum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited for it. This is the way that
Speaker 1: we get to horseshoe people into traditional values fellas, find
Speaker 1: a girl, marrier and just stay with her. Otherwise you're
Speaker 1: going to end up like Elon with your twenty something
Speaker 1: year younger baby mama tweeting why have you not responded
Speaker 1: to me? So there's a lot of good stuff that's
Speaker 1: happening there. Should we get to the plane? What do
Speaker 1: we got?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go ahead and get to that.
Speaker 2: So this was a Delta flight into Toronto and crash
Speaker 2: landed there, completely flipped over. There's unbelievable images coming out.
Speaker 2: We can put this up on the screen. You know,
Speaker 2: we're just getting preliminary indications of what may have happened here.
Speaker 2: But here you see this plane landing. Everything looks normal.
Speaker 2: It's a very snowy, wintery day in Canada there. But
Speaker 2: then upon landing, it looks like one of the wings
Speaker 2: strikes the ground. It causes the plane to burst into flames.
Speaker 2: It ultimately flips over, and we did get some images
Speaker 2: also from the passengers coming off of that plane where
Speaker 2: the thing is completely upside down as they're trying to
Speaker 2: climb out. As I said before, only two people in
Speaker 2: critical condition, there were a number of injuries.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: You can see them being helped off of this upside
Speaker 2: down plane as the fireworkers are you know, the firefighters
Speaker 2: are trying to douse the flames as well as this
Speaker 2: entire thing is catching fire as well. And then you
Speaker 2: had some passenger images coming out too as they're trying
Speaker 2: to scrabble.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess here you could.
Speaker 2: The plane is completely upside down, so they're climbing out
Speaker 2: here on the roof and rescuers helping them there onto
Speaker 2: the ground. So again we have just early indications of
Speaker 2: perhaps some sort of a plane malfunction here, but we
Speaker 2: don't really know. But of course this comes out in
Speaker 2: the contact Sager of so many plane crash including the
Speaker 2: one that happened really close to here, which was the
Speaker 2: deadliest since what two thousand and.
Speaker 1: Nine or something like that, Ye been almost fifteen twenty, Yeah,
Speaker 1: almost fifteen years since you had such a deadly crash.
Speaker 1: This one, well, there's two ways you could look at it.
Speaker 1: One is it's terrifying, and I think we can all
Speaker 1: sympathize with that. The other kind of incredible thing is
Speaker 1: that a plane can literally flip upside down on a runway, looks,
Speaker 1: catch on fire, lose its wings, and nobody died at
Speaker 1: least now, which is incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and everybody is expected.
Speaker 1: To everybody's expected to pull through the paramedic set. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a terrifying situation, but passengers were able
Speaker 1: to crawl out of that. It's genuinely amazing. I read.
Speaker 1: I used to have a real fear of flying when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Mostly after that. Yeah, it was bad,
Speaker 1: and especially after nin I think nine to eleven. I
Speaker 1: was young and kind of screwed me. I was flying
Speaker 1: all the time because my parents and I and anyway,
Speaker 1: I remember doing a lot of early YouTube viewing in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six about how these planes are designed
Speaker 1: to absorb like horrible things that happened to them from
Speaker 1: turbulence and wings strike, how you can even the plane
Speaker 1: is designed so that even if the wings strike and
Speaker 1: like hit each other, that they'll break properly and that
Speaker 1: everybody in will survive. And so this is somewhat of
Speaker 1: a estimate to that. We did have a CNN reporter
Speaker 1: who described some of the stuff around the plane. Why
Speaker 1: don't we take a listen, because he did a good
Speaker 1: job breaking some of the safety stuff down.
Speaker 4: That is the bottom of the fuselage. Now on the top,
Speaker 4: you can also see the foam truck here and the
Speaker 4: firefighters responding from the airport firehouse putting out the fire
Speaker 4: which looked to be primarily on the bottom of the
Speaker 4: fuselage of the airplane. That is where the fuel is.
Speaker 4: That is so critical to get that fire out quickly
Speaker 4: as you're trying to evacuate people.
Speaker 1: So a lot happening here all at once.
Speaker 4: Let me recue this so you can see some of
Speaker 4: what was going on at the very front of the airplane.
Speaker 4: You're probably familiar with this door here as we pan over.
Speaker 4: This is the R one exit in the aviation terms.
Speaker 4: This is what you would board on coming in and
Speaker 4: out of a jetway. The door is fully open, the
Speaker 4: slide is not deployed, don't need it because you're upside down.
Speaker 4: And you can see the folks here coming out of
Speaker 4: the airplane, which would have been completely dark and on fire.
Speaker 4: You have to imagine the terror as folks tried to
Speaker 4: get out of this very quickly. Everybody across the board, pilots,
Speaker 4: flight attendants, the control tower, the crash fire rescue crews,
Speaker 4: even the passengers did a good job. The big takeaway here,
Speaker 4: always leave your stuff behind, especially in a crash like this,
Speaker 4: because seconds count and meanwives.
Speaker 1: He's right, that is the big takeaway. Leave your dumb
Speaker 1: iPad behind. Nobody cares. Okay, no one's gonna care that
Speaker 1: you lost your AirPod pros or something in the back obviously,
Speaker 1: although I frankly i'd be the guy. Yeah they are.
Speaker 1: I've got like four pairs of headphones. I'm constantly losing
Speaker 1: them and be scrounging around.
Speaker 3: You can't replace that.
Speaker 1: That's see, that's that's fair. Actually, I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen the next
Speaker 1: part here. This has been being passed around, and this
Speaker 1: does go to show you some of the dangers of
Speaker 1: what this will look like in the future. I'm not
Speaker 1: blaming this on FAA firings. This happened in Canada, so
Speaker 1: let's all remember that. This just what I've been trying
Speaker 1: to highlight is that if you are not careful around
Speaker 1: things with dose you will eventually could have a situation
Speaker 1: like this happened in America and then you have a
Speaker 1: full on domestic political crisis on your hands. So that's
Speaker 1: obviously been one that's passed around here. But obviously this
Speaker 1: happened on Canadian soil. It's actually Canadian company Bombaedier that
Speaker 1: makes those CRJ regional jets. It was a flight coming
Speaker 1: from Minneapolis Saint Paul to Toronto. Not that many passengers
Speaker 1: on board, luckily, but you know, it's still scary. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times a phone on
Speaker 1: those regional jets, the CRJs. So the question is what happened.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows yet, no indication yet of mechanical function. Obviously
Speaker 1: was very snowing on the ground, but what Toronto Airport
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to handle snow's or Minneapolis Saint Paul
Speaker 1: has never flown into cold conditions. I've landed in Minneapolis
Speaker 1: with like twenty inches of snow on the ground and
Speaker 1: where they spray you with all that de icing stuff.
Speaker 1: So there's just procedures that are that are in place
Speaker 1: here and we do expect when you get on a plane,
Speaker 1: no matter what type of safe conditions, that they clear
Speaker 1: you for takeoff and landing, that you're gonna make it,
Speaker 1: otherwise you should cancel the flight. So there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of questions here around what's happening with that. But yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: just really happy that all the passengers made it out.
Speaker 1: Still just terrifying situation. Oh absolutely, yes.
Speaker 2: It's crazy to me that they thought they were Like,
Speaker 2: I mean, the flight appeared to be.
Speaker 1: Totally normal, right and then right there at the.
Speaker 2: Runway and then suddenly you're upside down, like, holy hell,
Speaker 2: what just happened? So, I mean a new new terror
Speaker 2: unlocked for me in terms of air dravel. And I
Speaker 2: mean that is the big thing is so many plane crashes,
Speaker 2: so many issues recently. I think you are going to
Speaker 2: start to spook a significant portion of the public that
Speaker 2: may have thought nothing. I mean I put myself in
Speaker 2: this category. I would have thought nothing of getting onto
Speaker 2: an airplane out it's safe, it's fine, These things never crash.
Speaker 2: Now I have different thoughts in my head. And you know, again,
Speaker 2: this doesn't have to do with the FAA firings. It
Speaker 2: happened in Toronto, but it is crazy that the response
Speaker 2: to the deadliest commercial airline crash in the US since
Speaker 2: in you know, over a decade, was to fire a
Speaker 2: bunch of FAA personnel. And the point that Stoller has
Speaker 2: been making, I think Ryan's been making as well, is
Speaker 2: like they have set themselves up to be like legitimately
Speaker 2: blamed for everything bad that happens in this country that
Speaker 2: the federal government touches whatsoever from here on out. And
Speaker 2: so it does outline.
Speaker 1: Some of the risks. As you said, Zager, it's a warning.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and get to these focus grips and
Speaker 2: what voters have to say.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. So there's been some indication here about
Speaker 1: how are Americans feeling about Donald Trump. We can't yet
Speaker 1: exactly get a real sample of everybody pulls itself can
Speaker 1: be somewhat unreliable, but in general it's always good let's
Speaker 1: check in on how people are feeling. So the New
Speaker 1: York Times put together a focused group six Americans across
Speaker 1: the spectrum and ask them how they are feeling about
Speaker 1: the first Trump administration. So why don't we go ahead
Speaker 1: and we put that up on the screen. So here
Speaker 1: are six Americans on what they think of Trump, elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and of Gaza. So why don't we start our slideshow
Speaker 1: which has some select quotes from each of these individual Americans.
Speaker 1: Here you have Tally Jack and I hope I pronounced
Speaker 1: that correctly. She says, sometimes you don't know who is talking.
Speaker 1: It feels like a tantrum of a four year old boy.
Speaker 1: The second one here is Hummied Chowdry from Reading Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what I expected that unexpected things would happen.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the next one. It says, mister Musk
Speaker 1: seemed like a guy who was almost directly in control
Speaker 1: of the White House. This is mister Dave Abdullah of
Speaker 1: Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
Speaker 3: He was a third party voter.
Speaker 1: That's right, third party voter, along with many other people
Speaker 1: in Dearborn, Michigan. Here is mister Jime Escobar Junior from Roma,
Speaker 1: Texas with Trump it just seems to be like boom boom,
Speaker 1: boom boom. Very apt description. There next one mister Isaiah Thompson,
Speaker 1: twenty two years old from Washington, d C. He says,
Speaker 1: right now, everything just seems so much in the air.
Speaker 1: He's a college student paying attention to this. And then
Speaker 1: we have a mister Perry Hunter from Sellersburg, Indiana. When
Speaker 1: someone's trying to cut spending, which is going to help
Speaker 1: me in the long run, I take him at face value.
Speaker 1: So you have some interesting takes there from across the spectrum,
Speaker 1: and it is both important for class dynamics, workplace dynamics,
Speaker 1: and also I can't hammer this home enough news. Remember
Speaker 1: that statistic about the more tapped in that you are,
Speaker 1: the more likely that you voted for Kamala Harris, which
Speaker 1: is just kind of amazing. But there's also a real
Speaker 1: refresh element. I think to a lot of liberal activism
Speaker 1: and others, these people are horse statistically way more likely
Speaker 1: to read the news anyways. And so that whole feeling
Speaker 1: of people being in control, or of things being out
Speaker 1: of control, or things moving in a very very fast
Speaker 1: paced direction leading to some anxiety, doesn't This definitely comes
Speaker 1: through this and through some Wall Street journal stuff that
Speaker 1: we're all about to show you. But I'm not ready
Speaker 1: to make any broad determines yet. Determinations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting to hear from actual voters. You're the
Speaker 2: first lady you put up there who said the thing
Speaker 2: about like seems like a tantrum of a four year
Speaker 2: old boy. One of the things she said that was
Speaker 2: kind of interesting. And this is a lady who was
Speaker 2: traditionally more liberal, more of a Democratic voter, did vote
Speaker 2: for Trump. Kind of easy about that vote, not super
Speaker 2: happy with what she's seen so far. But part of
Speaker 2: what was interesting to me is she said, even though
Speaker 2: she's not like super psyched about what she's saying, she's like,
Speaker 2: I have a metric in my head of how long
Speaker 2: a period of grace I'm going to give him. She's like,
Speaker 2: he gets quote one hundred days of charity. And I
Speaker 2: do think that there is that instinct among a lot
Speaker 2: of the American public of like, well, let's give him.
Speaker 2: He just got in there, Like, let's give him some
Speaker 2: time and see how this all shakes out. So, you know,
Speaker 2: it's indicative of the fact that in a certain sense,
Speaker 2: he's still in that quote honeymoon phase where presidents typically have,
Speaker 2: you know, relatively high approval rating. For Trump, he's continued
Speaker 2: to have for him the highest, some of the highest
Speaker 2: approval ratings.
Speaker 1: Of his career. There no question, and that's an important
Speaker 1: point is don't forget Joe Biden's presidency did not officially
Speaker 1: sour until October of twenty twenty one. It took nine
Speaker 1: straight months. We go back to the Bush administration, it
Speaker 1: wasn't as long, but it took several months to get there.
Speaker 1: With the privatization of Social Security plus Iraq going down
Speaker 1: the hill, Trump really the only existential threat that he
Speaker 1: has to his presidency right because inflation in the economy
Speaker 1: is much more of a slow burn. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those that nobody's going to
Speaker 1: flip on a dime absence some sort of massive financial crisis.
Speaker 1: And the biggest existential threat to his presidency is foreign affairs.
Speaker 1: That's what's nuked Joe Biden, and because of the uncertainty
Speaker 1: that we currently have with Israel and with Gaza and
Speaker 1: his current plan to literally occupy Gaza, I think that's
Speaker 1: one where you could quite literally turn on a dime.
Speaker 1: The rest of it, I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: much slower, although my caution around those is that if
Speaker 1: there is some cut to a government and then there's
Speaker 1: some horrible economic or financial or natural disaster and something
Speaker 1: is not seem to be functioning properly, than that actually
Speaker 1: also could come back to bite you. Let's put some
Speaker 1: of the Wall Street Journal stuff up there on the
Speaker 1: screen because this is some similar focus grip, but this
Speaker 1: one is even more interesting because it's actually with Trump voters.
Speaker 1: So we thought we would look at some of the
Speaker 1: stuff here. So you have a voter here, Stacy White.
Speaker 1: She said she voted for President Trump. She wanted lowers
Speaker 1: and to stop fentanyl from coming in the border. She said,
Speaker 1: when we said safer borders, I thought he was thinking
Speaker 1: let's stop the drugs from coming in this country. I
Speaker 1: didn't know he was going to start rating places. She said.
Speaker 1: She didn't believe he would actually follow through on some
Speaker 1: of the more hardline policies he started doing touted during
Speaker 1: the campaign. Now I'm like, dang, why didn't I just
Speaker 1: pick Kamala, said the forty nine year old Omaha, Nebraska resident,
Speaker 1: referring to the former vice president and last Democratic nominee. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, stood in front of a sign
Speaker 1: that said mass deportation. But all right, let's continue to
Speaker 1: the next one. In terms of some of these voters here,
Speaker 1: you have, for example, Todd why not he's a holistic
Speaker 1: coach from Cornhill, Arizona. Corn is Cornville? All right, I
Speaker 1: should visit I don't think they I don't think they
Speaker 1: grow corn in Arizona.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled with Trump and he's done more in less
Speaker 1: than a month than most presidents have in their whole term.
Speaker 1: A longtime Democrat who had initially been all in on
Speaker 1: Robert Kennedy Junior, but moved over to Trump after the
Speaker 1: independent candidate dropped out. So you've got the hippie voter
Speaker 1: here who Donald Trump, loving Maha, loving the confirmation, and
Speaker 1: probably loving Doge as well. Let's go to the next one. Please,
Speaker 1: Here you can actually see some more from You have
Speaker 1: one resident twenty three year old La cheered on Trump's
Speaker 1: governments cuts and deportations, saying he would support more widespread
Speaker 1: removal of people came to the US illegally. I say
Speaker 1: he's pretty much exceeded at expectations. Honestly, I did not
Speaker 1: expect him to be this quick in actually making these changes.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the next one. This one, This one
Speaker 1: is actually honestly pretty amusing. Here you have Emily Anderson
Speaker 1: from Duluth, who considers herself a Democrat but back Trump
Speaker 1: after Kennedy dropped out of the race. Anderson aligned with
Speaker 1: Kennedy's Maha agenda, particularly the focus on getting toxins out
Speaker 1: of food, who works with disabled adults, said Kennedy's government
Speaker 1: role is the only bright spot for a vote that
Speaker 1: she categorizes now as the biggest mistake of my life. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I still don't really get this one, because she said
Speaker 1: she's horrified by deportation, alleged that Trump has been too
Speaker 1: focused on ridiculous, flashy moves such as banning paper straws
Speaker 1: and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Her daughter's preoccupational therapist
Speaker 1: has stopped taking new patients over fears that the practice
Speaker 1: will have its funding dry up. She says, I feel
Speaker 1: so guilty, stupid, and regretful, embarrassed and huge one. I'm
Speaker 1: absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Donald Trump. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna tell Emily had a feel
Speaker 1: I guess, but you literally voted for the guy for
Speaker 1: RFK Junior. You got what you wanted. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: a lot of the rest of this was not telegraphed,
Speaker 1: but in a certain sense, you have some buyer's remorse,
Speaker 1: you have some trepidation. You have some people who are
Speaker 1: like this is absolutely amazing. But I think your honeymoon
Speaker 1: comment still sticks in terms of how I think things
Speaker 1: are still going to shake out.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too that, you know, not across the board,
Speaker 2: but a number of the people who are like RFK Junior,
Speaker 2: people who came into the coalition and voted with Trump,
Speaker 2: seem to be some of the ones that are having
Speaker 2: some of the bigger regrets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there was also that other guy who I'm.
Speaker 2: Not saying it's across the board, but that was interesting
Speaker 2: and it kind of it does make a kind of
Speaker 2: sense if they're liberals, were liberal you you know, sort
Speaker 2: of like hippie crunchy, like skeptical of medical science.
Speaker 3: Whatever. You end up in RFKG camp.
Speaker 2: He pulls you over to MAGA and yeah he's in
Speaker 2: at HHS. But let's not pretend like RFK Junior is
Speaker 2: like a big part of the show at this point.
Speaker 2: The big part of Elon is a big part of
Speaker 2: the show. And while on the one hand, yes, Elon
Speaker 2: was a big part of the campaign, you know it
Speaker 2: even myself, who was again pretty like you know, upset
Speaker 2: about what a Trump administration could bring, did not foresee
Speaker 2: the level of control that Elon Musk would have in
Speaker 2: this administration. So in that way, it is very much
Speaker 2: a break from how Trump portrayed himself. And then you know,
Speaker 2: the other thing that was interesting to me is, you
Speaker 2: know the lady who was like, yeah, I want the
Speaker 2: criminals out, but I didn't know he'd be rating workplaces
Speaker 2: and whatever.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: There was an effort during the campaign, and this was
Speaker 2: part of Trump's like gro podcast strategy to make it
Speaker 2: seem like this guy's not a radical. Their hyperventilate about him,
Speaker 2: He's just a normal dude. Like whatever it is that
Speaker 2: they're trying to scare you about, it's not really real.
Speaker 2: And so my position was always like, no, you need
Speaker 2: to listen to what he says, like these are his plans.
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five, by the way, is a real thing.
Speaker 2: They've spent the off season getting their ducks in a
Speaker 2: row so that they can execute on the more maximal's
Speaker 2: plans more aggressively. So you should assume that when the
Speaker 2: president is, you know, the former and now current president
Speaker 2: is at the R and C with signs that say
Speaker 2: mass deportation, now that like he literally means that, and
Speaker 2: you should operate accordingly.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Clear that a number of people who voted for him,
Speaker 2: didn't really take seriously the most maximalist things that he said,
Speaker 2: and in certain ways he's gone beyond the most maximalist
Speaker 2: things that he said, and even some of the more
Speaker 2: maximalist positions put out in Project twenty twenty five, which
Speaker 2: of course he lied about and pretend, loh, we have
Speaker 2: nothing to do with that. And of course the plan's
Speaker 2: not Project twenty twenty five, et cetera.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the plan. It just seemed to rhyme with
Speaker 1: the plan. Let's go and put this one up there,
Speaker 1: the last one from one of our voters here. This
Speaker 1: is a sixty six year old telecommunications contractor, said he
Speaker 1: is enjoying Trump's early days, particularly focusing on addressing government waste.
Speaker 1: Said he is quote steamrolling the government is unsustainable for
Speaker 1: the next four years. He's doing eighty miles an hour.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind if he went around fifty five. So
Speaker 1: we're just saying slow down here a little bit, but overall,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I'm with you, So that seems to
Speaker 1: be what we have. We do have here some voters
Speaker 1: Arab Americans who voted for Donald Trump sounding off on
Speaker 1: the Gaza plan. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 5: I could not believe that the president of the United
Speaker 5: States is altering these words. Even Trump, I did not
Speaker 5: think that he would go this far, breaking international law
Speaker 5: and this regard to our own laws. We do not
Speaker 5: regard Gaza as a land that's for grab. It's Ipalacinian land.
Speaker 5: I was very shocked and surprise.
Speaker 6: He made a point to tell me he didn't vote
Speaker 6: at all for any presidential candidate he usually does, because
Speaker 6: he just didn't prefer either. I spoke with a young woman,
Speaker 6: a college senior, who voted in her first presidential election.
Speaker 6: She did vote for Trump, she said. When she saw
Speaker 6: his remarks on Gaza, she gasped and was initially shocked,
Speaker 6: but ultimately not surprised. And I said, do you regret
Speaker 6: in any way voting for him? She said, maybe, But
Speaker 6: if I hadn't and Kamala Harris had won, maybe we
Speaker 6: wouldn't still have a ceasefire.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. Uh, maybe she's right. Look,
Speaker 1: I really try hard not to go blue Maga. But
Speaker 1: what did you expect, Like, did I expect Trump to
Speaker 1: say We're going to take over Gaza?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: But do you know what I did expect him to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's over, the West Bank is going to be ISRAELI
Speaker 1: like that was obviously telegraphed. I mean, I guess the
Speaker 1: position that they made is that it couldn't be any
Speaker 1: worse than Kamala Harris. But I mean, I gotta be honest, Like,
Speaker 1: if that was your number one issue, I still have
Speaker 1: no idea how you voted for Trump because Kamala. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing again about liberals and Democrats. Their worship of
Speaker 1: international norms and of past US policy would have been
Speaker 1: to them that effect, because Kamala, yeah, she probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have gotten a ceasefire through or any of that, but
Speaker 1: she would have been rhetorically committed to a two state
Speaker 1: solution problem even though we all know that it's fake,
Speaker 1: which means that the status quo would not really change
Speaker 1: all that much. There would be de facto control, but
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between de facto control and US
Speaker 1: government sanctioned taking over the West banker. I mean, that
Speaker 1: question was effectively decided the day that Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: elected the president, and it was pretty clear if you
Speaker 1: were really paying attention. So I don't really know what
Speaker 1: to make of this in a sense, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't love to do the whole voter blaming thing,
Speaker 1: but if that was your number one issue, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still not really clear how you got to where
Speaker 1: you are. Maybe you could say, well, they got the
Speaker 1: hostages out and there was a ceasefire for a period
Speaker 1: of time, which I think is probably true. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there'd be a ceasefire without Donald Trump here
Speaker 1: in the office. But I mean there's still a long
Speaker 1: way to go on that whole process, yeh, as we
Speaker 1: talked about with Ryan Hey, yeah, very much though.
Speaker 2: And I guess the way I always looked at it is,
Speaker 2: you know, I have very low opinions of all of
Speaker 2: these politicians, of Trump, of Kamala and all the rest.
Speaker 2: I think the way to look at these individuals is
Speaker 2: think about who's in their coalition and who they're subject
Speaker 2: to pressure from. So with Trump, you know, the Republican
Speaker 2: base is way more pro Israel, and his donor base,
Speaker 2: including Mary Maddilson, who was one of his largest donors,
Speaker 2: is very like that's her number one issue. And so
Speaker 2: you know, on the Democratic side, most of the donors
Speaker 2: there too are quite pro Israel. But you do have
Speaker 2: a large percentage of the Democratic base who you know
Speaker 2: were are at this point more sympathetic towards Palestinians, very
Speaker 2: opposed to the ongoing war, and where you know, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump doesn't care what some lefty on college campus has
Speaker 2: to say. But those are part of the Democratic coalition,
Speaker 2: So at least in theory, there's an ability to exert
Speaker 2: some pressure on a democratic administration. I mean, listen, I'm
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the fact that there were just no good
Speaker 2: answers in this election. If this was your number one issue,
Speaker 2: Very sympathetic to the gentleman who said he just didn't
Speaker 2: vote because he couldn't stomach, you know, voting for either
Speaker 2: one of these candidates.
Speaker 3: But yeah, if you thought that you were going to get.
Speaker 2: Some like humanitarian position out of Donald Trump with regard
Speaker 2: to Palestinian it's like, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really, That's what I just don't know what
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: I think we both were both were pretty clear about
Speaker 2: that in our elections, even like being clear eyed about
Speaker 2: what you were getting.
Speaker 1: I think people can go roll the tape. I think
Speaker 1: I did a segment about the Arab and I said, listen,
Speaker 1: no offense. But if you're number one is issue, you
Speaker 1: should vote for Kamala, there's no you.
Speaker 3: Did I think you did say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was pretty obvious what was going
Speaker 1: to happen. Maybe it's because I understand, like you said,
Speaker 1: pressures and coalition, they don't give a shit about you.
Speaker 1: I mean, like at all, They'll use you for window dressing.
Speaker 1: But I mean, look look at who the administration is,
Speaker 1: Look at the promises that I mean, look at the
Speaker 1: secret Oh who the ambassador to Israel, Mike Kabee. There
Speaker 1: has not been a single thing on the gaza policy
Speaker 1: outside of saying we will occupy it that has surprised
Speaker 1: me about the Donald Trump administration. I also do want
Speaker 1: to put this one up there a six. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen, and feeling pretty vindicated.
Speaker 1: Financial although put my own cavea on this, Poles can
Speaker 1: offer be bullshit and do not take this to the bank.
Speaker 1: So if you're against this, you should take that into consideration.
Speaker 1: Financial Times did a survey here majority of Americans believe
Speaker 1: foreign aid wasted on corruption. Exclusive Pole suggests voters back
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Elon Musk's view of DOGE. A poll
Speaker 1: by Financial Trust found that sixty percent of respondents agreed
Speaker 1: that find and set aside for humanitarian causes were quote
Speaker 1: wasted on corruption or administrative fees. Only twelve percent disagreed
Speaker 1: with the proposition. So I mean that honestly, I feel
Speaker 1: very vindicated because that's why I said that the starting
Speaker 1: with USID was brilliant, because nobody cares about USAID, and
Speaker 1: to the extent that they do, they're like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: fake and it's fraud. And the more that you have
Speaker 1: now all this information coming out, plus this immedia ecosystem
Speaker 1: around USAID and Mike Benson, all that people are gonna
Speaker 1: be like good. I support that. Donald Trump and Elon
Speaker 1: are still, in my opinion, not in any danger. So
Speaker 1: everything about it is about telegraphing what might happen. It's
Speaker 1: like fear. It's like, oh, they have access to Dad.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, well, you know, unnamed bureaucrat has access
Speaker 1: to my data too. Frankly, could be just as much
Speaker 1: of a threat. Maybe people hate the irs, People hate
Speaker 1: the government. Even people who have Social Security have dim
Speaker 1: views of the actual Social Security administration, but they love
Speaker 1: social Security as in the Texas, you know, they hate
Speaker 1: the government and they hate they feel as if it
Speaker 1: is completely unmoored from their own interests. So until like
Speaker 1: millions of people get affected by something like this or
Speaker 1: there's a natural disaster, I think it's just gonna keep
Speaker 1: chugging along that poll. I mean, again, I really hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but you can just see how little
Speaker 1: trust the average American really has in these institutions and
Speaker 1: how they feel so taken advantage of that the idea
Speaker 1: to them. Even whenever people are like, oh, somebody in
Speaker 1: my own didn't get their AIDS medication, they're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, my cousin or whatever is sick and he's
Speaker 1: paying eight hundred dollars a month for his pharmaceutical drugs.
Speaker 1: Now you could very easily argue, okay, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like Republicans want that to be cheaper. But
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear it. They don't care. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: it's at least this, We shouldn't at least be giving
Speaker 1: our tax dollars away to all of that. It's a
Speaker 1: complex system that we live in here. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: listen and I look at this. I just that was
Speaker 1: my ultimate suspicion. I was like, nobody gives a shit
Speaker 1: about USAID except for the people who work there.
Speaker 2: So I think it's very similar to you know, if
Speaker 2: you ask people like do you want to cut government spending,
Speaker 2: They're like yes, absolutely, yeah. You know, do you think
Speaker 2: that foreign aid as a like lump category is corrupt
Speaker 2: or a waste of dollars or whatever?
Speaker 3: They're like, yes, of course.
Speaker 2: But then you know, and I've seen the pulling on
Speaker 2: this when you ask people specifically about like HIV treatment
Speaker 2: for that has you know, been impactful for millions of
Speaker 2: people in Africa?
Speaker 3: They support it.
Speaker 2: So do I think that is Do I think this
Speaker 2: like a deal breaker for you know, killing Usaid?
Speaker 3: Do I think there's a deal breaker.
Speaker 1: For drug No.
Speaker 2: But they've at this point gone a long way beyond
Speaker 2: USAID number one and number two. You know, they are
Speaker 2: right now really playing with fire in terms of both
Speaker 2: what the actual impact of what they're.
Speaker 3: Doing will be.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're only you know, one horrific event like
Speaker 2: a plane crash in the US from them being blamed
Speaker 2: with blood like on their hands. Because of the cuts
Speaker 2: that they've made at the FAA. You're also in a
Speaker 2: very precarious position because you have the specter of the
Speaker 2: richest man on the planets, all these conflicts of interest,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. You know, a genuine, literal oligarch
Speaker 2: who is running the show and keying up tax cuts
Speaker 2: to Social Security, Medicaid in particular, Republicans very aggressively going
Speaker 2: after medicaid and for what in order to finance a
Speaker 2: giant tax code, a tax cut for the rich. You know,
Speaker 2: this is a lot of why so many people turned
Speaker 2: on the traditional like George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan Republican
Speaker 2: Party and sought out a different approach with a Donald
Speaker 2: Trump who pledged to not be that kind of Republican
Speaker 2: who really didn't care about the debt and the deficit frankly,
Speaker 2: who was like, I'm going to make sure that we
Speaker 2: don't touch your entitlement programs whatsoever. So, you know, if
Speaker 2: you ask people like do you think that a billionaire
Speaker 2: should be in control of the government or even have
Speaker 2: significant influence an unelected billionaire should have significant influence in
Speaker 2: the government, They're like no, because they're fearful of exactly
Speaker 2: that dynamic cuts in austerity for you, largesse subsidies and
Speaker 2: tax cuts for themselves. And that's exactly the road that
Speaker 2: they are traveling right now.
Speaker 1: I actually think that could hit most during the tax bill,
Speaker 1: because remember I always say it, the lowest approval rating
Speaker 1: that Trump ever had was the passage of Tax Cuts
Speaker 1: and Jobs Act in twenty and seventeen. But I also
Speaker 1: think the country has changed a lot since then. I
Speaker 1: think the media environment that people swim in the lack
Speaker 1: of trust, and so will the same messaging hit. I
Speaker 1: also think they're probably gonna do enough that they'll be abe.
Speaker 1: Last time around, the tax messaging was bullshit, right, Remember
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan and the average American family can just spend
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. I was in a meeting with Paul
Speaker 1: Ryan where it was like me and a bunch of
Speaker 1: journalists and I remember him being like, that's enough for
Speaker 1: someone to get their kitchen cabinets replaced or something. And
Speaker 1: I was looking around, I'm like, do we believe any
Speaker 1: of this ship? It was cost enough.
Speaker 2: I was literally sit giving these people like billions of
Speaker 2: dollars and we're saying we get a cost Co member, right,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: There with all these other journalists and we're all looking
Speaker 1: actually like do they think this is going to hit?
Speaker 1: It was like house is even possible?
Speaker 2: Well even that though, so you know not to we'll
Speaker 2: cover this more in depth in the future. The Republicans
Speaker 2: have set themselves a limit of four point five trillion
Speaker 2: dollars in tax cuts. Just the extension of the tax
Speaker 2: cuts for the rich pe is four trillion. Trump made
Speaker 2: a bunch of promises. No taxes on tips, no taxes
Speaker 2: on Social Security, no taxes on.
Speaker 1: Overtime, salt, don't forget salt.
Speaker 3: And that's but that's the key.
Speaker 2: If you like those pieces that are genuinely appealing and
Speaker 2: helpful to the working class, like the no tax on tips, things,
Speaker 2: they don't fit in that four point five trillion dollar
Speaker 2: budget cap. If you're doing the tax cuts and jobs extension,
Speaker 2: which they're doing that, and you're doing salt. So you know,
Speaker 2: they're very likely and Republicans don't support.
Speaker 3: This stuff anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Trump does, but most Republicans don't. I think there's I
Speaker 2: think there's a good chance that some of the promises
Speaker 2: that were made are also not going to be fulfilled.
Speaker 2: At the same time that rich people and the upper
Speaker 2: middle class in states like New York and California are
Speaker 2: getting the things that they want.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you're rich, you're about to have a
Speaker 1: bonanza come in your way, because there are so many
Speaker 1: extensions in the task Code that these people are frothing
Speaker 1: at the mouth for because they want to permit, they
Speaker 1: want to make permanent the adjustment to the overall income
Speaker 1: tax rates all the way at the top from I
Speaker 1: think it's like thirty nine percent something like that where
Speaker 1: it is currently, where previously I think it was like
Speaker 1: forty something. But they want to make that permanent instead
Speaker 1: of a five year extension. There's a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: going on with the estate tax, small business, but the
Speaker 1: actual the real fights I think will be will be
Speaker 1: tax on tips. It'll be corporate tax rate too. There
Speaker 1: was actually an interesting one that happened previously. It will
Speaker 1: be salt because currently assault cap is at ten percent,
Speaker 1: they want to lift it I think twenty that's what
Speaker 1: i'd heard, although some New York Republicans want to uncap
Speaker 1: it completely. Why would they do that, right? Why would
Speaker 1: they put that into place? So I think that messaging
Speaker 1: will hit much more if and when the tax bill passes.
Speaker 1: But if they're smart, you're going to have to put
Speaker 1: in some of this tip stuff and a few of
Speaker 1: the other What else did he say, no tax on social.
Speaker 2: Securitar overtime, no tax on social security. Yeah, those are
Speaker 2: the ones, you know.
Speaker 1: Philosophically though, I thought, it doesn't make any sense to
Speaker 1: tax social security. Why would you give somebody money and
Speaker 1: then take some of it back. I just don't get it,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's one of those where somebody explained
Speaker 1: it to me. They're like, well, it's because it's just
Speaker 1: to be taxes overall income or et cetera. But why
Speaker 1: would the government give you money and then you have
Speaker 1: to pay taxes on it. It's like, why don't you
Speaker 1: just give me some money and they don't have to
Speaker 1: pay taxes on it? Doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: But listen, I am in favor of lowering taxes for
Speaker 2: working class people, and I am in favor of dramatically
Speaker 2: increasing taxes on people like Elon Musk and companies like Tasla,
Speaker 2: which literally.
Speaker 3: Played zero dollars oh in taxes.
Speaker 1: I think whatever. Apparently the reason why they paid zero
Speaker 1: to carry over a bunch of CAPEX losses. Yeah, right
Speaker 1: for them over there, I'm just saying. And they did
Speaker 1: lose a lot.
Speaker 2: Of dollars billions of dollars in profit and it pay
Speaker 2: zero dollars in taxes.
Speaker 1: But it's basic investment analysis, right. It's like, if you
Speaker 1: invest and have losses X, y, and z over five
Speaker 1: ten year period, then it carries over to your tax losses.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's Look, I'm not defending Tesla per se,
Speaker 1: but the idea that you can't burn a bunch of
Speaker 1: CAPEX dollars and then write that off in the future
Speaker 1: when you actually build a successful company. I mean that's
Speaker 1: tried and true. Our tax cut, our tax code is
Speaker 1: supposed to encourage business investment. Now if it's stock buy
Speaker 1: back and stuff like that, then absolutely, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you would.
Speaker 2: Agree that the fact that billionaires pay an effective tax
Speaker 2: rate that is dramatically lower than your average middle class
Speaker 2: person is utterly proposals force situation which is only going
Speaker 2: to be further exacerbatb tax.
Speaker 1: Trumpany does want to close the carried interest loophole, which
Speaker 1: even Kirsten Cinema and Mansion voted again, so let's all
Speaker 1: hold him to the left because that would be the
Speaker 1: biggest existential threat to all of his technology donors. The
Speaker 1: tech right people. They are printing money off of their
Speaker 1: carried interest loophole, which we don't have the time to
Speaker 1: go in and explain it fully, but when I do
Speaker 1: to all of you, it basically means that their labor
Speaker 1: is taxes at much less value than yours, which is
Speaker 1: not right, especially if you're a business owner or any
Speaker 1: of these other people. Even small business owners are some
Speaker 1: of the highest paying taxpayers in the United States compared
Speaker 1: to whenever you cross the ten million mark, and you're
Speaker 1: almost certainly involved in finance and or venture capital, you
Speaker 1: pay almost twenty percent, which is ludicrous. Right, Somebody else
Speaker 1: is paying forty five or fifty percent effective tax rate
Speaker 1: if they live in New York or California. At a minimum,
Speaker 1: even if they live in taxes or something like that
Speaker 1: paint almost forty percent taxes. So it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But I'm actually excited to get to the tack stuff
Speaker 1: because that is one where I'm curious to see how
Speaker 1: the politics actually shake out. Last thing on this Trump
Speaker 1: voter thing, let's put this on the screen. This one
Speaker 1: is they voted for Trump and now some of their
Speaker 1: jobs are at risk. It says that they're writing about
Speaker 1: some of these government employees around who voted for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: There's about seventy five thousand government employees who apparently accepted
Speaker 1: the buyout and others. But you know, even within this one,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little bit like I do with the
Speaker 1: Palestine thing, Crystal. He said he was.
Speaker 3: Going to not run on gutting the entire federal Guard.
Speaker 1: Ran on Schedule F, which was to classify all of
Speaker 1: you as.
Speaker 3: Firalble I know, but he didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't run on I'm going to get rid of
Speaker 2: ten percent of the federal government workforce across the board,
Speaker 2: without regard to how long you've been there, how effective
Speaker 2: you been, or any of those sorts of things. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'll cut these people some slack. Like obviously,
Speaker 2: I think you're full to vote for Trump no matter what,
Speaker 2: but like you had tricked no matter what because of
Speaker 2: the policies that he was campaigning on. But we're nobody
Speaker 2: could have foreseen how much power would be handed to
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, who is an austerity like, anarcho capitalist. I
Speaker 2: want to literally get rid of the entire federal government. Guy,
Speaker 2: That's not what Trump has ever been. You know, Trump
Speaker 2: has not positioned himself as freaking Javier Malay, and yet
Speaker 2: that's exactly the government that we've ended.
Speaker 3: Up with here, So I have I have sympathy for
Speaker 3: these impops.
Speaker 1: I'll say with the Elon thing, but no, he ran
Speaker 1: on schedule. AFT they someone wanted to clean out the government.
Speaker 1: About the deep state, what did you expect? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a reason that ninety percent of federal employees who
Speaker 1: are not law enforcement vote for the demographic.
Speaker 2: But if you're like, if you're a Trump supporting federal
Speaker 2: government worker, you're like, I'm not the deep state.
Speaker 3: I'm your ally here, I'm loyalty.
Speaker 1: To look around, bro, like, I mean, what do you
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 2: I think it was reasonable to expect that people who
Speaker 2: were especially high up in the government bureaucracy, who were
Speaker 2: sort of like, you know where, their politics really matter.
Speaker 2: I mean, for most of these people, their politics really
Speaker 2: don't matter when they're just carrying out the functions of
Speaker 2: whatever it is they do within the federal government. So
Speaker 2: in any case, I genuinely don't think it was predictable
Speaker 2: the level of control and the radical libertarian bent of
Speaker 2: this administration.
Speaker 3: I don't think that that was entirely.
Speaker 1: I would not have predicted it to be the vehicle
Speaker 1: through the current Doge, But I did expect Stephen Miller
Speaker 1: to issue schedule When did we cover SCHEDULEFT two years ago?
Speaker 1: People should go and watch that segment with Jonathan Swan
Speaker 1: from The New York Times, who wrote all if you
Speaker 1: just read or watched that segment, all of this was
Speaker 1: eminently predictable. Now, I'm not saying that Doge would have
Speaker 1: been the one that cut you, but the entire architecture
Speaker 1: to mass fire millions of people from the government was
Speaker 1: abs absolutely not just a project twenty twenty five. It
Speaker 1: was Schedule F. It was openly endorsed by Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: openly crafted by Stephen Miller, Talk of the town. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just in the news media, it was here. It
Speaker 1: was in the podcast space as well. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't feel nearly as bad for a lot of
Speaker 1: those folks. But let me say this, I will never
Speaker 1: celebrate at a personal level someone losing their job. I
Speaker 1: think it's that and I have unfortunately seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are taking pleasure. But listen, no matter
Speaker 1: who you are, government non government, losing your job sucks.
Speaker 1: Not being able to pay your mortgage sucks. It's one
Speaker 1: of the highest predictor one of the most stressful events
Speaker 1: that you've ever experienced in your life. High predictor of suicide.
Speaker 1: That's why a lot of people kill themselves whenever there's recessions.
Speaker 1: It's horrible. So at a personal level, we should not
Speaker 1: wish it on anybody, and I would tell people not
Speaker 1: to be cruel in that regard. It's important to always
Speaker 1: understand the humanity of them, even if you know, I
Speaker 1: did think it was kind of predictable, but that get
Speaker 1: that's more about a voting level as opposed to no one,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to celebrate you.
Speaker 2: Was out there like we're going to fire everyone who's
Speaker 2: still in the probationary period, Like no one said.
Speaker 1: Oh that was actually not just actually think that one.
Speaker 2: Was there, which was not just people who you know,
Speaker 2: are new to the government. It's also people who newly
Speaker 2: changed got a promotion in the government, which means that
Speaker 2: you know, by like sort of definitionally you were doing
Speaker 2: a good job, or at least someone thought you were
Speaker 2: doing a good job enough to promote. So in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, between that and the structure of the
Speaker 2: deferred resignation program, it really is a calling of a
Speaker 2: lot of the best and the brightest from the federal government.
Speaker 2: So if you were an outstanding performer and you know,
Speaker 2: and generally like in a non political position with the
Speaker 2: respect of your colleagues, I think it was reasonable to
Speaker 2: expect that you wouldn't be on the chopping blocks. So
Speaker 2: in any case, I will just say that even as
Speaker 2: I was taking Donald Trump very seriously about what he
Speaker 2: was saying he was going to do, I knew Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five was in fact the plan. This has
Speaker 2: still been far more radical and aggressive than I expected.
Speaker 2: And in particular, the like you know, complete handing over
Speaker 2: of the keys to Elon Musk and the complete deferential
Speaker 2: nature of Donald Trump to Elon Musk is bizarre and
Speaker 2: was not expected.
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that. One of the guys weird.
Speaker 2: The latest fallout over DOGE, as we have put this
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Top social Security official, the acting
Speaker 2: director of or Acting Commissioner rather of the Social Security Administration,
Speaker 2: has now left their job her job this weekend after
Speaker 2: a clash with DOGE and their attempts to access sensitive
Speaker 2: government records within the Social Security Administration. She left her
Speaker 2: position on Sunday after the disagreement. And it's also interesting
Speaker 2: so this, you know, this is reminiscent of the acting
Speaker 2: Director of the Treasury, who also left over a conflict
Speaker 2: with DOJE and didn't want to give them access and
Speaker 2: you know, would rather be pushed out than stay in
Speaker 2: and grant that access. Also interesting here is who Trump
Speaker 2: appointed now to fill this role as Acting Director of
Speaker 2: Social Security. So bypassed dozens of other executive level individuals
Speaker 2: within this administration, like if you're looking at the org chart,
Speaker 2: bypassed dozens of people to pick this person, Leland Duduk,
Speaker 2: who has apparently posted positive remarks on social media about
Speaker 2: Doge's efforts to cut costs and search for fraud in
Speaker 2: federal agencies.
Speaker 3: So literally went through the list and.
Speaker 2: Looked at who had posted praise of DOGE, and that's
Speaker 2: the person that they plucked and put in. Well who
Speaker 2: year while they're waiting for, you know, the more permanent
Speaker 2: replacement to be confirmed by the Senate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is where I feel a bit torn, because
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about this with the IRS and others.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this presumption in this that these people
Speaker 1: are good, and maybe they are, and maybe they are,
Speaker 1: but there's this general presumption around this civil servant worship
Speaker 1: where they're like, oh, this is very tightly held data,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, okay, but you know when everyone
Speaker 1: talks about DOGE except they're like, oh, it's scary that
Speaker 1: they're getting access. And I think that's deeply true on
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest level with Elon. But at a
Speaker 1: principal level, why is the civil servant. Supposedly it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be the one who is more trusted with all
Speaker 1: of our Social security, our SSDI paperwork, our taxpayer paperwork.
Speaker 1: I mean, IRS people are convicted or shown to be
Speaker 1: biased all the time. There was all that stuff during
Speaker 1: the Obama administration. Look at all this stuff even during
Speaker 1: the first Trump administration. I remember what were all those
Speaker 1: leaks that happened of that career IRS agent who leaked
Speaker 1: like Peter Tiel and all these other people's tax returns. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are not heroes necessarily. Well, you know
Speaker 1: why is a hero? That guy showed how you really
Speaker 1: should do it roth Ira, folks, Peter Tiel's got five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in a roth ira in one of the
Speaker 1: most genius financial retirement schemes I've ever seen. Everyone should
Speaker 1: study it, especially if you're a normal guy.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what I say.
Speaker 2: I'm part of why it's important, and it matters who
Speaker 2: has access to that data and with the Treasury, it
Speaker 2: was also not just access to the data, was also
Speaker 2: that this you know, doge operatic had read write access
Speaker 2: on the code which controls the trillions of dollars in
Speaker 2: payments that go out from the Treasury Department. Similarly, obviously
Speaker 2: people really depend on getting them social Security checks out
Speaker 2: and on time.
Speaker 3: So there's also a fear that these doge.
Speaker 2: Operatic hackers whatever you want to call them, mess around
Speaker 2: with things in a way that causes things to break.
Speaker 2: In addition, there are very specific laws regarding privacy of
Speaker 2: your data with the federal government, and so the civil
Speaker 2: servants are trained in those laws and have you know,
Speaker 2: are subject to the laws when they don't comply with them,
Speaker 2: whereas the doge people seem to be totally above and
Speaker 2: beyond the law. Not to mention, some of the things
Speaker 2: that have come out about some of these individuals makes
Speaker 2: them not exactly the most trustworthy people. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: who it is exactly who's inside of Social Security. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure that that's publicly available information, which another thing too,
Speaker 2: is that there's like no transparency around what they're actually doing.
Speaker 2: But you know, one of these dudes was like fired
Speaker 2: from his job because he was sharing company secrets. I
Speaker 2: think that same guy as the one that you and
Speaker 2: Ryan were talking about, created the website where or maybe
Speaker 2: it was Ryan and Emily that were talking and created
Speaker 2: the website where you could, you know, referencing child sexual
Speaker 2: abuse material. Whether that was just a troll or whether
Speaker 2: it was really a way for encrypting this type of
Speaker 2: stuff hard to say. So in any case, we know
Speaker 2: very little about these individuals, and what we do know
Speaker 2: has not exactly put anyone's mind at ease about them
Speaker 2: being in such a sensitive position as being inside of
Speaker 2: social security systems, being inside of the treasures.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. I just get I get back
Speaker 1: to the civil serving point where like I don't know
Speaker 1: who that's access over my IRS data, I certainly don't
Speaker 1: trust them based on my track record or the social
Speaker 1: security on elected bureaucrats. It just gets to that heart
Speaker 1: of in a certain sense, we're dealing with two unelected
Speaker 1: parties and a lot of this is about partisan interest,
Speaker 1: as I showed with the USAID thing, which I think aligns.
Speaker 1: I'm not one hundred percent sure. I'm willing to bet
Speaker 1: people are much more skeptical. I think of the career
Speaker 1: civil servant. Now, these people, I've lived around these people
Speaker 1: my entire adult life. They think they're heroes and they
Speaker 1: think they're like the greatest, smartest people on earth. But
Speaker 1: they're also deeply partisan in their all like capital liberal
Speaker 1: way are they truly to be trusted? You know? And
Speaker 1: if anything, when you elected Donald Trump and who is
Speaker 1: genuinely like a scream and an f you against the system,
Speaker 1: It's like, why would anyone trust that you are going
Speaker 1: to faithally carry out whatever the elected office wants you
Speaker 1: to do. Now, if it's illegal, that's one different thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, at a base trust level, everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so horrible that the top civil servant resigned. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but who is this lady? I don't even know who
Speaker 1: you are, Nobody elected you.
Speaker 2: At the someone who's been there for decades, I think
Speaker 2: even worse, this individual and it's been part of making
Speaker 2: sure that Social Security checks went out on time and
Speaker 2: in a reliable fashion. So am I going to put
Speaker 2: my trust in that person who's been there for over
Speaker 2: a decade and been doing the job and doing that
Speaker 2: job effectively, or some arrogant twenty year old brat who
Speaker 2: was like fired for sharing illegally share or not illegally,
Speaker 2: but sharing company secrets from his previous job.
Speaker 3: Like, no doubt in my mind who I would.
Speaker 1: But that's my point about institutional trust is you have
Speaker 1: a baseline institutional trust. You think these programs are good.
Speaker 1: Most people think that these programs are best.
Speaker 3: Those people think Social Security is good.
Speaker 1: Okay again when we talk at them. First of all,
Speaker 1: nobody again unless you're old, is logging in and knows
Speaker 1: what the Social Security Administration is. They know it comes
Speaker 1: from the government. Now in terms of the Social Security Administration,
Speaker 1: somebody my age, right, I doom not have deep familiarity
Speaker 1: unless I did this job with Center of Medicaid CMS.
Speaker 1: How all this stuff works. I know because of I
Speaker 1: literally from the job. But the average voter is not
Speaker 1: having a deep amount of participation in all this. When
Speaker 1: they hear civil servant bureaucrat distrust immediately, I think, at
Speaker 1: least for the people who voted for Donn I think.
Speaker 2: When they hear the richest man on the planet is
Speaker 2: messing around in the social Security administration red flags go up.
Speaker 2: And I mean to that point, Elon is sort of
Speaker 2: building a case and has been, by the way, for
Speaker 2: months something we have been pointing out here for cuts
Speaker 2: to Social Security.
Speaker 3: He routinely shares.
Speaker 2: These posts from Mike Lee, who is a libertarian who
Speaker 2: thinks that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme or pyramid
Speaker 2: scheme and should be dismantled, and as inherently as a program,
Speaker 2: not talking about like improper payments to this person that person,
Speaker 2: but as a program is fraudulent, like Elon shares that
Speaker 2: and agrees with that. And so now he's out with
Speaker 2: this preposterous bunch of bullshit attacking the Social Security and
Speaker 2: its administration. Put us up on the screen claiming that
Speaker 2: we went in and we looked at the database and
Speaker 2: look at all these people who are one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years old or who are three hundred years old,
Speaker 2: who are still receiving payment. So, first of all, again
Speaker 2: this could literally have just been invented, this brought to you.
Speaker 2: We don't even know that this is based on anything.
Speaker 2: But let's give him the benefit of the doubt that
Speaker 2: these are actually some numbers that was pulled from the
Speaker 2: Social Security database. We know on basic math that this
Speaker 2: is not indicative of people who are receiving payments, but
Speaker 2: also if you look at the number of people or
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years old. One thing I saw
Speaker 2: this morning, saga is that this could be a result
Speaker 2: of all these systems are program using COBOL, which is
Speaker 2: like this old ass programming language, and it has this
Speaker 2: particular quirk where if you don't fill in the birth date,
Speaker 2: then it defaults to it being eighteen seventy five, which
Speaker 2: would indicate a year of age of one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years old in this year. So, and this is
Speaker 2: part of the thing is just keep this up on
Speaker 2: this screen and then I'll explain this as well. Is
Speaker 2: you know these apparatics that he has going and they're
Speaker 2: twenty years old, Okay, they I'm sure maybe are very
Speaker 2: technically proficient at the latest and greatest. I used to
Speaker 2: work as a consultant for the government and I actually
Speaker 2: was like in these old ass SQL databases, and I
Speaker 2: can tell you they are quirky and weird and they're
Speaker 2: certainly not state of the art. And if that's the
Speaker 2: thing you want to address, that would be a massive
Speaker 2: undertaking and could make the government more efficient. I'm not
Speaker 2: opposed to it, but to just go in and pull
Speaker 2: some data and be like, oh my god, look at
Speaker 2: all these three hundred year olds that are getting paid Like,
Speaker 2: do some basic logic and math and maybe ask the
Speaker 2: people around you what you were getting wrong before you
Speaker 2: just put out to the public this attack on Social Security.
Speaker 2: So in any case, this journalist goes in, runs the
Speaker 2: numbers and finds, of course it doesn't add up.
Speaker 3: This would indicate that they would be paying.
Speaker 2: Forty one million more beneficiaries than we actually are, at
Speaker 2: a cost of about one trillion dollars a year more
Speaker 2: than we're actually spending. If in fact, that social Security
Speaker 2: data that Elon tweeted was remotely real and consistent with
Speaker 2: the number of people that get paid out. So again,
Speaker 2: bottom line here in my humble opinion, is that Elon
Speaker 2: is trying to build a case against Social Security, period,
Speaker 2: end of story. Not just against improper payments or fraud
Speaker 2: or whatever, but against the program as a whole. Now,
Speaker 2: well that workout, Will he be able to get those cuts?
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has been very consistent in saying that he
Speaker 2: would stay hands off Social Security, But I don't think
Speaker 2: there's any doubt that that's the attempt here is to,
Speaker 2: you know, to make it seem like you can cut
Speaker 2: this program, that you can take money out of this
Speaker 2: program without and actually hitting recipients because there's so much fraud.
Speaker 2: This data, though, and many of the other things you
Speaker 2: shared besides are is completely made up bullshit.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm with you on this data because it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: The guy who was there was from the Tax Foundation,
Speaker 1: which is actually very good. They do a good job.
Speaker 1: This is a You're going to have to explain this
Speaker 1: to me because I'm not a database guy. I haven't
Speaker 1: mentioned since my econometrics class. But the politically neutral sequel
Speaker 1: reddit you've taught me it's not SQL subreddit is apparently
Speaker 1: very upset about the way that this was compiled. Let's
Speaker 1: put this out there on the screen. This is classic
Speaker 1: subreddit behavior. I love it. If I know one thing,
Speaker 1: it's Star Wars. However, if I know two thing, it's
Speaker 1: acquiring domain knowledge of company data using SQL. He is
Speaker 1: either that dumb and has done zero due diligence on
Speaker 1: his claim and simply done a select age count from
Speaker 1: people grouped by age, where dead equals true without checking
Speaker 1: maybe if these people are actually drawing benefits via transactional data,
Speaker 1: or he just wants to spread misinformation. Let's go to
Speaker 1: the next one. This is several of these screenshots. So
Speaker 1: again we can't know everything about all the data right queries,
Speaker 1: but we can sanity check stuff. The one to eighty
Speaker 1: one to eighty nine range means that people were born
Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties. Social Security didn't start till in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, meaning many of these people would have
Speaker 1: been in their nineties. Unlikely these people's records have made
Speaker 1: it to the computer age. I could be wrong, but
Speaker 1: it would make me want to check the source records
Speaker 1: before sending it to operational for folks, which in this
Speaker 1: case is citizens of the US. Plus, we don't have
Speaker 1: the query. Just because you have a record in SSDB
Speaker 1: does not mean that you are collecting. No way to
Speaker 1: tell with a grid only view, I can only do
Speaker 1: that in XCEL. So you've got some SQL warriors here
Speaker 1: that are very very upset about the way that this
Speaker 1: data has been compiled. And that is what I think
Speaker 1: validates your point most which is that Elon is an
Speaker 1: quote imperfect messenger in the nicest way to possibly put
Speaker 1: it around this. He's maniacal, he doesn't check his work,
Speaker 1: he's constantly posting about it has massive conflicts of interest,
Speaker 1: and that's why I think it's become like a culture
Speaker 1: war in and of itself, of like a choose your
Speaker 1: own fighter, and to choose your own fighter again, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, splits very well along a political valance. Somebody
Speaker 1: like myself who generally doesn't trust career civil servant's bureaucrats,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I don't know if you're such a hero.
Speaker 1: Just my experience, that seems to also be the general
Speaker 1: like valance. I think of a lot of people who
Speaker 1: voted for Trump or anti establishment, whereas for a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are much more establishment minded or who
Speaker 1: are much more trustful of institutions they look at somebody
Speaker 1: like Elon will correctly point out all of their flaws
Speaker 1: and say, no, I'm going to stick with whoever. This
Speaker 1: eighteen year career lady is at the Social Security Administration.
Speaker 1: So I understand why it's very difficult. I totally get
Speaker 1: also why a lot of liberals are furious about all
Speaker 1: of this. I try to think about the way that
Speaker 1: it will hit and until they actually do and cut
Speaker 1: a program that affects millions on a actual basis. I
Speaker 1: don't think there will be any large political outcry just
Speaker 1: because I do think we're still living through a very
Speaker 1: anti institutional moment.
Speaker 2: I think what I want people to understand is that
Speaker 2: the real goal of DOGE is not cutting spending or
Speaker 2: rooting out waste and fraud. It's not efficiency. It is
Speaker 2: consolidating power in the hands of Elon Musk and whoever's
Speaker 2: billionaire allies are. And it is an ideological anti government
Speaker 2: project at least as it goes for social safety net
Speaker 2: programs that benefit you. I mean, and this is again
Speaker 2: he says this thing, these things out loud. You only
Speaker 2: need to listen to what he's saying. He believes that
Speaker 2: every in his ideal world, every government worker would be
Speaker 2: fired and put into the private sector, which means a
Speaker 2: complete privatization of government, something that I think most people
Speaker 2: would be deeply opposed to. But more to the point
Speaker 2: about how you know that this isn't about cutting government spending.
Speaker 2: They're using the like all of these things that they're
Speaker 2: talking about cutting USAID, you know, even the trioming of
Speaker 2: the federal workforce, taking a hatchet to a ten percent
Speaker 2: is a trivial part of the federal government budget, and
Speaker 2: what are they doing. On the other hand, They're securing
Speaker 2: for trillion dollars in tax cuts for themselves, alongside things
Speaker 2: like Medicaid cuts, alongside you know, Elon trying to build
Speaker 2: the case against Social Security, trying to build the case
Speaker 2: against Medicare, et cetera. So that's what I want people
Speaker 2: to understand is that this really has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with government efficiency or you know, or rooting out fraud
Speaker 2: or any of those sorts of things. And if you
Speaker 2: look at what they're actually doing and the way that
Speaker 2: they're going about it, that becomes very clear. And I
Speaker 2: think piece of that is, you know, there's also a
Speaker 2: fight right now about access to IRS information, and IRS
Speaker 2: data can put the tear sheet up on the screen,
Speaker 2: so you know, this is same sort of thing, like
Speaker 2: your most sensitive personal financial details held in this database,
Speaker 2: and these you know, twenty year old Elon musk acolytes
Speaker 2: going in and rooting around and doing whatever. There's also
Speaker 2: questions about, okay, are they also going to have ReadWrite
Speaker 2: access to this system as well. But in addition, more
Speaker 2: to the point of what I was saying about what
Speaker 2: this project is really about. You know, the IRS certainly
Speaker 2: as an agency not beloved, let's be quite clear about that. However,
Speaker 2: it does get one of the best returns on investment
Speaker 2: of any government agency that exists. So the Trump administration
Speaker 2: expected to lay off thousands of IRS employees in the
Speaker 2: coming days. The IRS collected in twenty twenty four about
Speaker 2: five point one trillion dollars in revenue with a budget
Speaker 2: of twelve point three billion, and so again very high
Speaker 2: return on investment. And specifically there was you guys probably
Speaker 2: remember there's a big fight over the additional funds for
Speaker 2: IRS enforcement so that they can more effectively go after
Speaker 2: the millionaire and billionaire class. Because if you have fewer
Speaker 2: enforcement resources, guess who are the easiest people to go
Speaker 2: after your waitress who is not reporting all of her
Speaker 2: tipped income or whatever. They go after the lowest hanging
Speaker 2: through as a legitimate and horrible criticism of the IRS.
Speaker 2: So there's additional funds put in to try to enhance
Speaker 2: enforcement activities to more effectively go after billions, billionaires and
Speaker 2: millionaires for their tax cheat activities. And it was really successful.
Speaker 2: It secured nearly one hundred billion dollars through audits. That
Speaker 2: was an additional twenty five billion compared to the prior year.
Speaker 2: The IRS spent only thirty four cents for every one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars that was collected through these audits that were
Speaker 2: targeted at going after rich tax cheats, and a lot
Speaker 2: of that is being attempted to be rolled back, So
Speaker 2: again it's just a sort of blanket assault on government.
Speaker 2: And of course, if you're Elon Musk, if you're his
Speaker 2: billionaire friends and allies, et cetera, et cetera, you don't
Speaker 2: want the IRS to have the ability to audit your
Speaker 2: taxes and to be able to go after rich tax chiefs.
Speaker 2: You're happy to have them just going after the low
Speaker 2: hanging fruit, and that's the status quo that they're trying.
Speaker 1: To return to. Problem I always find here because I
Speaker 1: don't disagree with this single thing you said, and we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about that. The problem for me with
Speaker 1: the IRS is that they have so little public trust.
Speaker 1: It's not just about people who perceive about getting rich
Speaker 1: in the future and they don't want that. It's from
Speaker 1: their decades of going after people who are the lowest
Speaker 1: income bracket. You're multiple times more likely to get audited
Speaker 1: if you make less than twenty five thousand dollars, then
Speaker 1: if you make two point five million dollars, Now I
Speaker 1: mean statistic. People have tried to come at me on that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more people who make less than twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand, et cetera. And you know, for in terms
Speaker 1: of their own enforcement. There are these automatically generated letters
Speaker 1: where they go after all of these people. But it's
Speaker 1: one of the most stressful events that a lot of
Speaker 1: people can go through. So they've burned all their public
Speaker 1: credibility over the years that Venmo thing, if you recall
Speaker 1: the six hundred dollars transaction limit to go after people
Speaker 1: like hairdressers and other folks who are getting tips and
Speaker 1: things off of Venmo. That burned a ton of public credibility.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people like just generally feel they'll
Speaker 1: like screw you, I don't care, which leaves it open
Speaker 1: to weaponization or gutting, you know, by a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are like elon. So this is this is
Speaker 1: my general thing with all of this is that because
Speaker 1: public trust is rock bottom and because people are so
Speaker 1: have lack of faith in the government, Yes, it absolutely
Speaker 1: opens the door for conflict of interest folks and others
Speaker 1: to use it to their own advantage. But it is
Speaker 1: incumbent upon people who are pro institution to not only
Speaker 1: have to make their case but prove to the public
Speaker 1: that they won't use it against them, and they have
Speaker 1: the track record is that they have used it against them.
Speaker 2: What I would say is there's a real parallel here
Speaker 2: with the crypto scam meme coins that we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about later that exciting, which is that they're you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to go through the whole thing. But one
Speaker 2: of the scammers who was involved with using that this
Speaker 2: long interview with Coffee sell and part of it, Coffee
Speaker 2: is pressing him on like, hey, you know, aren't these
Speaker 2: things basically just scams? And he's like, yeah, they're all
Speaker 2: They're all scams. They're all scammy you know, every single
Speaker 2: meme coin launch. It's the same sort of like rug pull,
Speaker 2: market manipulation, insider trading bullshit, that's the nature.
Speaker 1: Of what it is.
Speaker 2: His justification for that is, well, the regular financial system
Speaker 2: has scams too, and so you know the answer to that,
Speaker 2: in my humble opinion, isn't. So let's just have a
Speaker 2: completely lawless situation where we just scam people as much
Speaker 2: as we possibly want to and totally rig the system
Speaker 2: in favor of the of the rich. Instead, it's hey,
Speaker 2: how about we put more regulation, how we put more
Speaker 2: protections into place, How that we make the existing financial
Speaker 2: system more fair and less extractive and less corrupt, rather
Speaker 2: than just being like, so, let's just be as corrupt
Speaker 2: as we possibly can. And I think there's a similar
Speaker 2: mentality that you're describing when it comes to something like
Speaker 2: the IRS. Like, the problem with the IRS is that
Speaker 2: they have not gone after there are billions of dollars
Speaker 2: in unpaid taxes from millionaires and billionaires, that is who
Speaker 2: much of their enforcement should go after. But actually, because
Speaker 2: the IRS budget has been cut back over successive administrations
Speaker 2: that have bought into this libertarian or at least neoliberal
Speaker 2: idea of privatization and crushing the federal government, that's exactly
Speaker 2: how you end up in this situation to begin with,
Speaker 2: where they don't have the resources to effectively go after
Speaker 2: the millionaires and billionaires who have their own lawyers and
Speaker 2: who have much more complicated schemes for hiding their money
Speaker 2: versus the waitress who you know doesn't fully declare her
Speaker 2: tips or whatever. So what you're advocating for is actually
Speaker 2: just accelerating the very trajectory that has led us to
Speaker 2: this bad place to begin with, rather than trying to
Speaker 2: fix the problem and give them the resources they need
Speaker 2: to actually be an effective, you know, agency within government
Speaker 2: and be fair and equitable in the way that their
Speaker 2: enforcement is rolled out. So, you know, I do think
Speaker 2: you're you're right that that is part of the perception, don't.
Speaker 2: I don't deny about the public perception. What I would
Speaker 2: say is that the cure that is being offered here
Speaker 2: is actually what made the irs sick to begin with.
Speaker 2: This will just push it more in the direction of
Speaker 2: targeting those waitresses and you know, those people who.
Speaker 3: Are getting there like cash app or their venmo.
Speaker 2: Or whatever, and will make sure that Elon Musk and
Speaker 2: his buddies and people at the top end of the
Speaker 2: income bracket are unscathed. And so you know, that's why
Speaker 2: I think it's important for to try to explain those
Speaker 2: things and for people to understand what's happening here, not
Speaker 2: just going off with the vibes of like, well, I
Speaker 2: don't like the irs, so let's just destroy them.
Speaker 3: That's actually going to make things.
Speaker 2: Worse and make the irs worse, which again is part
Speaker 2: of the goal, and this is part of the goal
Speaker 2: of conservatives over years and years and years, which by
Speaker 2: the way, again Clinton was big into privatization like Democrats
Speaker 2: have participated as well. But the idea is, if you
Speaker 2: strip government of capacity and you make government fail, then
Speaker 2: people turn on government, and then you can further strip
Speaker 2: the government of capacity, and the people who really benefit
Speaker 2: are the very wealthy, because then the government cannot check
Speaker 2: their accesses, and then those social safety net programs that
Speaker 2: benefit you are always the first ones on the chopping block.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's well said. I just think
Speaker 1: it's a vicious political cycle because you can't prove your
Speaker 1: bona fides or credibility on this without the funding that
Speaker 1: you're talking about with the fund, it's a decade long problem.
Speaker 1: I want to save some of this for the crypto
Speaker 1: discussion because I still have a lot to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: people who want to get scammed, which we will get to.
Speaker 2: So in addition, we've had a bunch of attacks on
Speaker 2: well so OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Speaker 2: and actually, if we could go to B six first,
Speaker 2: Trump has put in and like maybe one of the
Speaker 2: worst people you could possibly put in to head the
Speaker 2: agency that is supposed to protect workers. This dude, David
Speaker 2: Keeling is his name comes from. He was the safety
Speaker 2: executive from UPS and Amazon. Now, if you've watched our
Speaker 2: coverage over the years, you know that UPS was in
Speaker 2: trouble because they didn't have air conditioning in their trucks
Speaker 2: and a worker literally died of heat exhaustion because these
Speaker 2: things bake in oven like conditions, like I'm talking one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty degrees in the back of these trucks. Now,
Speaker 2: I do believe the new team stirs contracts, secured air conditioning,
Speaker 2: improved conditions. But he was overseeing UPS safety back when
Speaker 2: they were you know, cooking drivers alive. And then Amazon,
Speaker 2: like need I say more? They have the worst record
Speaker 2: of safety in the entire warehouse industry, something like forty
Speaker 2: one percent of their workers get injured on the job.
Speaker 2: He was specifically the company was cited numerous times for
Speaker 2: serious violations while he was the head of quote unquote
Speaker 2: safety at Amazon. So you've picked someone who's just a
Speaker 2: complete industry show. And then you know, let's put the
Speaker 2: one before this b five up on the screen. In addition,
Speaker 2: they've now taken down a bunch of workplace safety practice publications.
Speaker 2: And this is also very revealing SAGA because what they've
Speaker 2: done here is something they've done in other places with DOGE,
Speaker 2: which is they'll just search for words that are now
Speaker 2: on their band list, things like you know, diversity or
Speaker 2: equity or whatever. And a bunch of these workplace safety
Speaker 2: publications have nothing to do with anything DEI related. But
Speaker 2: as as one example, there was a guidelines for EMS
Speaker 2: agency that cited a quote diversity of state specific certification,
Speaker 2: training and regulatory requirements. And since it had the word diversity,
Speaker 2: even though it has nothing to do again with DEI,
Speaker 2: it just gets blanket taken down. I saw another another
Speaker 2: situation I think actually right here in Virginia and Spotsylvan Counts,
Speaker 2: not too far from here or from where I live,
Speaker 2: where a program to help disabled teenagers be able to
Speaker 2: transition to some sort of a job was blanket cut
Speaker 2: because it also, you know, used diversity in some other
Speaker 2: context or some other band word, and so they're just
Speaker 2: doing a blanket search for these terms, and even if
Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with DEI, just completely cutting
Speaker 2: and cutting it. And so that's another table.
Speaker 1: The Amazon one. I'm like, look, Jeff Bezos doesn't stand
Speaker 1: behind you for nothing, right. I think these guys they
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. This is we don't do we
Speaker 1: have the No, we don't the Steve Bannon oligarchy warning.
Speaker 1: I don't think we do. But no, he did a
Speaker 1: he this is exactly what he's talking about a lot
Speaker 1: of and you know, the crazy thing is is a
Speaker 1: lot of the promises and all those people have made
Speaker 1: for Trump and all that haven't even materialized. I talked previously,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg promised to stop fact checking on Facebook and I
Speaker 1: literally got a fact check on my Instagram from one
Speaker 1: of his, like you know, news organizations. I'm only putting
Speaker 1: the two together because this was the reason that you
Speaker 1: had Bezos and all these other people stop the endorsement
Speaker 1: or stand behind Donald Trump at the inauguration. They do
Speaker 1: it because it's not just about cachet. It's they get
Speaker 1: something in return. That's what a lot of this is about.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think quite a lot of that
Speaker 1: was pretty open before the election. A lot of it
Speaker 1: is pretty open right now. I mean in terms of
Speaker 1: will there be pushback and all of this other stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure not in the current media environment.
Speaker 2: There was some rules changes that came out at the
Speaker 2: National Labor Relations for too. We don't have an element
Speaker 2: for it, but some of the best things that the
Speaker 2: Biden administration did for labor organizing have been rolled back.
Speaker 2: So things like they banned captive audience meetings, which is
Speaker 2: like just you know, you have to you force your
Speaker 2: workers to go and sit through some union busting speech.
Speaker 2: Captive audience meetings are back. The rule that they put
Speaker 2: out about non companning non competes, so giving workers more flexibility,
Speaker 2: more ability to you know, manoeuver and change jobs whatever,
Speaker 2: that also is rescinded. So they're you know, rolling back
Speaker 2: even the the you know, some of these things were significant,
Speaker 2: but even the more minimal changes that were made in
Speaker 2: favor of workers and labor under the Biden administration are
Speaker 2: being rolled back. And this again where you know, I
Speaker 2: mean Trump went out in a garbage truck and worked
Speaker 2: at McDonald's and talked a big game about labor, and
Speaker 2: there was all this rudder, Oh, it's going to be
Speaker 2: different with Republicans. The labor unions like you should never
Speaker 2: have bought that bullshit. Donald Trump has always been a
Speaker 2: union buster, he'd always been a strike breaker. Yeah, but well,
Speaker 2: I mean, Sean O'Brien seems like he did so some people.
Speaker 2: Some people did for sure, and you had this was
Speaker 2: part of a strategy to convince union workers to drop
Speaker 2: their long time so she went Democratic cross and vote
Speaker 2: for Trump because he was going to be different on labor.
Speaker 2: And that is like, very plainly not the case of.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just one of those where I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell a union guy what to do. Clearly he
Speaker 1: doesn't give a shit about the NLRB, or he would
Speaker 1: have voted one hundred percent for Joe Biden and for
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. They've got other things that they hold important,
Speaker 1: culture stuff, wars, manufacturing, tariffs, general vibe, and they decided
Speaker 1: that's important. I mean, I think it was pretty good.
Speaker 2: But don't you think having Sean O'Brien at the RNC
Speaker 2: was an attempt to convince them that Trump would be
Speaker 2: different on labor.
Speaker 1: Because Seawan O'Brien smartly looked at the poll of his
Speaker 1: own voters and said, oh shit, half of these guys
Speaker 1: are going to vote for Trump anyway, and I want
Speaker 1: to burn any ability of me to be actually the
Speaker 1: get in the room. You want to be shut out
Speaker 1: of the door, or at least have one foot in
Speaker 1: that door. I'd rather have at least one foot if
Speaker 1: my job is to represent the union. He can't control
Speaker 1: what all of his people do.
Speaker 2: No, I mean he could have made the case. I
Speaker 2: mean he's in a leadership position. So you do what
Speaker 2: a leader does, and you make the case for why listen.
Speaker 2: You can vot however you want, if like guns or
Speaker 2: gays or whatever is most important to you, you vote
Speaker 2: how you want.
Speaker 3: But in terms of.
Speaker 2: Labor issues, here's the track record. It's pretty clear cut
Speaker 2: with the Biden administration versus the previous Trump administration. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, I think he comes off looking like a
Speaker 2: fool because they're union busting even more aggressively than they
Speaker 2: did before. But that's not even my point. My point
Speaker 2: is that the whole reason that Trump and the RNC
Speaker 2: invited Sean O'Brien to speak at the R and C
Speaker 2: was to try to create an impression that they were
Speaker 2: going to be different on labor, when clearly they are
Speaker 2: not different on labor whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think people who look more foolish
Speaker 1: are those who like constantly preach at their own union
Speaker 1: members and tell them what to do, and then they
Speaker 1: keep not voting for them, or they're moving more in
Speaker 1: the Republican directly.
Speaker 2: But isn't their job to its not telling people what
Speaker 2: to do. But the law idea is you make if
Speaker 2: you are in a leadership position, explaining the very clear
Speaker 2: difference in the track record on labor specific issues between
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Trump administration. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think is your job to explain those difference as people
Speaker 2: can do with that what they want, But to equivocate
Speaker 2: and pretend like, oh, he's going to be good on
Speaker 2: labor or actually it's the Democrats who are worse, Like
Speaker 2: that was just a lie.
Speaker 1: So then you're just.
Speaker 2: Lying to your members and you're confusing them about the choice.
Speaker 2: You're not helping them to make a better desires.
Speaker 1: I don't think that. And again this is the problem
Speaker 1: with union leadership. They've been you know, sucking at the
Speaker 1: Democratic teat for forty years or whatever, and they've lost
Speaker 1: all their membership and they keep endorsings. Also support also
Speaker 1: are endorse in Sea Spires and Gaza, which is pretty
Speaker 1: stupid or c spire or BLM protests or any of
Speaker 1: this to keep on signing on to socially liberal causes
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, but membership starts going.
Speaker 2: Is the exact opposite of that songer, which is that
Speaker 2: you're saying that, oh, well, they should just you know,
Speaker 2: because their members are more culturally conservative, they should focus
Speaker 2: on those cultural values. What I'm saying is actually they
Speaker 2: needed to be more specific about the economic labor related
Speaker 2: like directly related to their unions. And you know, that's
Speaker 2: where I think there was a real failure to communicate
Speaker 2: from Sean O'Brien specifically the very clear differences when it
Speaker 2: comes to union organizing. I mean, the Nationally Relations Board
Speaker 2: under Trump now is not even defending its own right
Speaker 2: to exist. It has been gutted so that it cannot
Speaker 2: even function because they don't have a quorum. You know,
Speaker 2: they're probably illegally removed from This is an ongoing court case,
Speaker 2: but in any case, they've gutted it so it cannot
Speaker 2: even advance any of the claims of union busting and
Speaker 2: other illegal behavior like. That's so, and this was all
Speaker 2: very predictable to your point about people knowing what they
Speaker 2: were getting and if you weren't telling your union members that,
Speaker 2: if you weren't making that clear. And again, people can
Speaker 2: do with that information whatever they want. If there are
Speaker 2: other issues that are more important to them, that's fine.
Speaker 2: But if you aren't making that clear, you are just
Speaker 2: lying to your members, You are confusing them, and you
Speaker 2: are failing at your job.
Speaker 1: I bring it back to the government point I made,
Speaker 1: is it because they lost so much credibility with their
Speaker 1: leadership or with their member base, which is basically what
Speaker 1: has happened with the divergence of the leadership basically just
Speaker 1: being career as Democrats and the rest of their guys
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen onwards voting more and more for Trump. They
Speaker 1: don't have any trust individually on that basis. The reason
Speaker 1: I'll defend O'Brien is because O'Brien's tried to hold on
Speaker 1: to some credibility with an administration which but won the
Speaker 1: popular vote all seven swing states and not willing to
Speaker 1: say one hundred percent or sorry, fifty percent of his
Speaker 1: union members, but a very good number of them. So
Speaker 1: you know, you have to follow where your people are.
Speaker 1: You're a representative of them. You don't just work for
Speaker 1: some NLRB worship, like, you have to actually clearly listen
Speaker 1: to your union voting base and say, well, clearly, these
Speaker 1: guys like Trump, so I need to figure out a
Speaker 1: worry to work with them. So I just think it's
Speaker 1: the same structural problem from the government direction and on
Speaker 1: the union front. I just come back to this on
Speaker 1: the NLRB. If people really cared the union voters about NLRB,
Speaker 1: and they probably know more about it even then I do.
Speaker 1: Then a lot of these union other people who talk
Speaker 1: about it online and they still voted for Trump. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you they don't actually care that much.
Speaker 2: But Sager is not all it is never will be
Speaker 2: union like, belonging to a union is still one of
Speaker 2: the biggest indicators of voting Democrats. So obviously it does
Speaker 2: still matter to a lot of union members. And all
Speaker 2: I'm saying is that if you were not explaining the
Speaker 2: differences between these two candidates when it comes to union
Speaker 2: issues specifically, then you were not being honest about the
Speaker 2: choice in this election. And listen, he wanted to preserve
Speaker 2: his access and his ability to get in the room.
Speaker 2: Whatever congratulations you did at you were invited to the
Speaker 2: inauguration you're on Trump's good list.
Speaker 3: You accomplished your goal.
Speaker 2: But if your goal was to help people understand what
Speaker 2: the differences were between these two candidates on labor issues specifically, you.
Speaker 3: Did not accomplish that.
Speaker 2: You confuse people, you were not honest about what the
Speaker 2: clear difference was. And now you've got an This is important,
Speaker 2: especially for the teamsters because they're trying to organize Amazon.
Speaker 2: One of the things that matters a lot for that
Speaker 2: is that the drivers Amazon drivers be classified as employees
Speaker 2: of Amazon. That was something that the Biden administration, Biden
Speaker 2: Harris administration was in favor of, and the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Is opposed to. So you've just set back.
Speaker 2: Even your own organizing efforts in terms of trying to
Speaker 2: unionize Amazon. So you know, I'm also just not gonna
Speaker 2: I'm not going to buy this was some noble attempt
Speaker 2: to like, you know, represent his members. I think he
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the room. I think he wanted
Speaker 2: that invite to the inauguration. I think he wanted to
Speaker 2: be buddy buddy here, and you like.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd rather be him than some idiot on
Speaker 1: the on some idiot preaching next to.
Speaker 2: High wouldn't because at least I didn't lie to my members.
Speaker 1: I don't think he lied to his members. He didn't
Speaker 1: what he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was very I think it was very deceitful
Speaker 2: the way that he portrayed the Democrats as the real
Speaker 2: opposition to labor. And I'm not here to cape for Democrats.
Speaker 2: Lord knows, I've been critical as well. But if you
Speaker 2: look over the past number of decades, like there's a
Speaker 2: reason why the unions at this point do typically always
Speaker 2: endorse Democrats, it's because Repulicans hate them and want them
Speaker 2: to not exist. Like Elon Musk, who is in charge
Speaker 2: of our government now doesn't think the National Labor Relations
Speaker 2: Board should exist and hates unions and thinks they should
Speaker 2: all be illegal. So like, yeah, you're not going to
Speaker 2: You shouldn't back that person because they think you, they
Speaker 2: hate you, and they think you should die.
Speaker 1: I think that the Teamsters in the long run, will
Speaker 1: probably be indicated because they're going to get something out
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration that the rest of these guys
Speaker 1: whispering in Hakim Jeffrey's years are not going to get.
Speaker 1: And that's probably better than absolutely nothing. So I don't
Speaker 1: blame Jean O'Brien.
Speaker 2: They got a Department of Labor nominee secretary who's who
Speaker 2: has a very bad AFLCIO supported the program, but it's
Speaker 2: completely irreal, irrelevant. Now that the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 2: is gutted and headed to the Supreme Court to be
Speaker 2: deemed unconstable, we're not.
Speaker 1: Even one month in the Trump administration. Yeah, over forty
Speaker 1: already clear over a four year clear a four year period.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely certain O'Brien will be much more vindicated
Speaker 1: than the rest of these people were completely shut out
Speaker 1: of government. So if you want to be bitching on
Speaker 1: the sidelines, like okay, I mean, good luck to you
Speaker 1: while your union membership continues to decline, your own and
Speaker 1: your own people continue to vote against the things that
Speaker 1: you tell them to do. I just that's where I
Speaker 1: keep coming back to. It's like, clearly you are you
Speaker 1: do not have credibility with your own voting base. Now,
Speaker 1: union is still one of the best predictors, but highest
Speaker 1: percentage of union members going for Trump, I think, was
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty four election, which was a trend
Speaker 1: that started in twenty sixteen. We should learn from that.
Speaker 1: It's also very I think patronizing to try and tell people,
Speaker 1: and LRB is the only thing that matters when the
Speaker 1: Democrats say that, no, but but for them, they get
Speaker 1: to decide that immigration, tariffs, manufacturing, and altern all of them.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that if you are not being
Speaker 2: honest that this man is a union buster and a
Speaker 2: strike brigger and was celebrating with Elon Musk Elon Musk
Speaker 2: breaking strikes, if you were if you did not know
Speaker 2: that the utting of the NLRB was coming and that
Speaker 2: he was going to return to his longtime union busting ways,
Speaker 2: and you were not being honest about that, then you
Speaker 2: are a fool.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Same way you're saying that people were like, oh, I
Speaker 2: didn't think they'd be raiding the workplaces, Like you're a
Speaker 2: fool too, because the track record is incredibly clear. So
Speaker 2: if you are the leader of a union, then yes,
Speaker 2: I think definitionally your number one priority should be labor issues,
Speaker 2: and if you're not being honest about those, then you're
Speaker 2: a liar and you're a fool, and you're actually misleading
Speaker 2: people versus helping to clarify and allow them to make
Speaker 2: their own educated decisions based on whatever it is.
Speaker 3: The range of issues that they care about are