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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds and Donald Trump is pulling worse on

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Speaker 1: the economy than any reason.

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Speaker 2: President.

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Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today, Think

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Speaker 1: like an economist. Podcast host Justin Wolfers steps by to

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Speaker 1: talk about the fuzzy math of DOGE savings for the

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Speaker 1: American people. Then we'll talk to the Eurasia groups Ian

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Speaker 1: Bremer about the new global alignment in Trump two point zero.

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Speaker 1: But first the.

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Speaker 3: News Smiley, It's beginning to look a lot like Germany

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Speaker 3: in some people's hand gestures these days. There's quite a

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Speaker 3: lot of Boback. After Steve Bennon, who seems to hate

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Speaker 3: Elon Musk, did a similar gesture to him.

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Speaker 1: Personally, I don't want to make any hand gesture that

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Speaker 1: can be interpreted anyway that starts with an end and

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Speaker 1: ends with an eye. I just think stay away from

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Speaker 1: all of these hand gestures. French far right leader Jordan

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Speaker 1: Bardella canceled planned remarks at Seapack after ex Trump advisor

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannon made a gesture referring to Nazi ideology. That's

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Speaker 1: a direct quote, according to a statement. This is the

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Speaker 1: far right leader from France who's saying that it is

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Speaker 1: too close to Nazi ideology for him. Let's take a

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Speaker 1: moment to think about that for a second. The far

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Speaker 1: right leader from France, not the left wing leader, but

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Speaker 1: the far right leader from France is saying that that's

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Speaker 1: worth thinking about for a minute. It is probably the

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Speaker 1: strongest rebuke yet of Bannon, but it's worth pointing out

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Speaker 1: how far afield we have gotten in the United States

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Speaker 1: of America that this kind of rebuke must come from

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Speaker 1: someone on the far right from France. You're welcome. I

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Speaker 1: can't take it.

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Speaker 2: It's so bad.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really a shape if the reports that we're

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Speaker 3: there's not going to be any more seapas anymore come true,

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Speaker 3: because then they'll just never have an up or you

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Speaker 3: to go there and do all these interesting hand motions.

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Speaker 1: It's also worth just pausing for a moment and remembering

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Speaker 1: that we have this seapack and yet we don't have

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Speaker 1: a democratic version of it. We don't even have a

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Speaker 1: centrist version of it. We just have this one thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you are a listener this podcast, perhaps

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Speaker 1: you would like to have something that is like seapack,

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Speaker 1: but not as zealatus.

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Speaker 4: Not as awful.

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Speaker 3: So this is the interesting new development is the staff

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Speaker 3: at multiple government agencies have been instructed not to speak

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Speaker 3: to Congress.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Congress, which is supposed to be running this whole thing,

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Speaker 1: is getting less and less and less power, and we're

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Speaker 1: seeing it happen in real time. Here's a Democratic congress person.

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Speaker 1: She sent several letters to different federal agencies and the

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Speaker 1: employees were said that they were not able to speak

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Speaker 1: to her. The Committee on approbates as a long standing

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Speaker 1: relationship with agency career staff, Well not anymore. Are This

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Speaker 1: is the transparency that is doge.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost like, you know, there's supposed to be

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Speaker 3: these checks and balances in the government and we're deciding

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Speaker 3: that feels real irrelevant. The founding fathers didn't want that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, this is a takeover of the

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Speaker 1: United States government at the highest level, and that's what

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Speaker 1: we're watching in real time. And you know, Congress has

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Speaker 1: given up what little power they had and they gave

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Speaker 1: it up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and now

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk is cutting away at the government despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that that is not how any of this is

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Speaker 1: supposed to work.

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Speaker 3: With those drastic overreaches and sledgehambers to oversight trump claims

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Speaker 3: power to fire administrative law judges.

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Speaker 1: That will Yeah, so again, Look, there are a couple

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Speaker 1: things that Trump wor is doing with the courts.

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Speaker 2: That are bad.

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Speaker 1: One is that they are really like either they haven't

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Speaker 1: quite yet done it, but they are priming themselves to

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Speaker 1: a judicial rulings, which, by the way, will tip us

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Speaker 1: into a constitutional crisis. I don't know that it's quite

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Speaker 1: happened yet, but there's a lot of kind of voodoo

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Speaker 1: math going on when it comes to unfreezing these funds.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them are being unfrozen or a lot

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Speaker 1: of them aren't being unfrozen as the way the federal

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Speaker 1: judiciary is instructed.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to see more of this.

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Speaker 1: We're going to eventually, hopefully not, but I think there's

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Speaker 1: a very likely scenario where the courts are ignored, where

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Speaker 1: these members of the federal government in Trump world, under

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Speaker 1: the instruction a Musk and Trump barrel through the guardrails

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Speaker 1: and continue to have their way with the federal government. Now,

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Speaker 1: the one piece I think of good news here is

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Speaker 1: that we're starting to see real pushback, and we're starting

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Speaker 1: to see it from both the right and the left,

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Speaker 1: because you're seeing these town halls of these people who

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Speaker 1: are suddenly understanding just what's stake in these town halls.

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Speaker 1: And I think we're going to see more and more

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Speaker 1: of that, And I think that we are absolutely one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent at the beginning of a real ground level

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Speaker 1: pushback that I think is going to be really important

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Speaker 1: and good.

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Speaker 2: So I would say.

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Speaker 3: That, I mean, I think there's a very interesting theory

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Speaker 3: of the case that a lot of people live their

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Speaker 3: life not being really affected by Trump's first term and

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Speaker 3: didn't see tangible changes to their life. They just didn't

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Speaker 3: like what was happening. But here we're seeing it all

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Speaker 3: the time, and there's even more evidence of it where

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Speaker 3: that could happen right here, Which is our next subject,

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Speaker 3: which is Trump fires federal workers who help fight forest

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Speaker 3: fires weeks after historic LA blazes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and the FDA and the cuts. You

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Speaker 1: know today they were talking about how they're going to

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Speaker 1: cut the FAI. I mean, these are things that if

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Speaker 1: they are cut, we're going to see real tangible results

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Speaker 1: right away. And TSA, for example, they're going to cut

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Speaker 1: the DSA that's going to mean longer lines and airs.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these things are going to affect.

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Speaker 2: Every part of our lives.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's really important to remind people that

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Speaker 1: this is not happening because the federal government is in

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Speaker 1: trouble now. I mean, certainly we run a big deficit.

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Speaker 1: This is happening because Republicans do not want to let

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Speaker 1: these tax cuts for corporations and millionaires expire.

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Speaker 2: That is what's happening here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And they have a theory of the case that

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Speaker 3: none of these people's work is necessary, that the private

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Speaker 3: sector will just pick it up and then they won't

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Speaker 3: have to pay for it anymore, and that theory of

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Speaker 3: the case is very dumb.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Justin Wolfers is the host of the Think Like an

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Speaker 1: Economist podcast and a professor at the University of Michigan.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. Justin wolf You, Molly Sancy

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Speaker 1: academic here to explain to us all the money that

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Speaker 1: don't or some members of the United States Senate call

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Speaker 1: it doggie, is saving the American people lots of money.

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Speaker 2: So explain.

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Speaker 4: Could you just stop by telling me who calls it doggie?

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Speaker 2: We had a senator call it doggy. The other day.

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Speaker 1: And actually there are some members of Congress who are

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Speaker 1: calling it doggie, and you know what, for power to them,

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Speaker 1: they are not wrong. Oh actually, Jesse said, everyone calls

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Speaker 1: it doggie.

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Speaker 4: I love seeing Christian Conservatives becoming comfortable with themselves, their sexuality,

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Speaker 4: their bodies, and what we can do with them.

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Speaker 2: All right, so let's focus on the money they're saving.

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Speaker 2: It strikes me that they're not saving that much money. Discuss.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm going to start with the math, and

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Speaker 4: I'm not going to apologize to your listeners because actually

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Speaker 4: the math is the whole story. So there's a website

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Speaker 4: Elon says he's super transparent in which he lists every

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Speaker 4: one of his savings. So I went on that website

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Speaker 4: last night and I mapped it up. I imported all

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Speaker 4: the dater into a spreadsheet, and I added up all

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Speaker 4: the savings and it adds up to seven point three

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Speaker 4: billion dollars. Sounds like a low, right, Like you and

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Speaker 4: I could have a terrific night hour.

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Speaker 2: It feels like a lot. I good, Yeah, summer house everything.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 4: So here's the thing. There are three hundred and forty

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Speaker 4: million Americans. So we're going to do long division seven

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Speaker 4: point three billion divided by three hundred and forty million.

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Speaker 4: What's that? That's about twenty dollars, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't seem like that much.

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Speaker 4: It's twenty one dollars and forty seven cents per American.

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Speaker 4: Now the President is so excited by how much money

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Speaker 4: that Doze is saving us that he's recommended that perhaps

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Speaker 4: we should have a Doge dividend that he sends out

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Speaker 4: dividend checks where one fifth of the Doze savings goes

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Speaker 4: out to us as Doge dividends or stimulus checks, and

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Speaker 4: the other four fifths, of course girded tax cuts for

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Speaker 4: the rich. That one fifth then adds up to four

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Speaker 4: dollars and twenty nine cents per american. Now, it turns

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Speaker 4: out a cart and of eggs costs more than that,

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Speaker 4: So so far Doze will yield savings.

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Speaker 2: Of nine e nine eggs.

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Speaker 4: Nine eggs. You can have many way you want them.

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Speaker 4: You have to cook them yourself.

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Speaker 2: Do they sell them in nine tacks? I thought they

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Speaker 2: didn't sell them a nine facs.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, what you can do is buy a six

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Speaker 4: pack and then split another six pack with the neighbor. Okay,

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Speaker 4: and that's your dividend check. Don't spend it all at once?

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Speaker 4: Can I teach the listeners some economics?

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Speaker 2: Please? And teach me too.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so the amazing thing, right, the bottom line is

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Speaker 4: the dose savings are trivial. They're tiny. You're getting four

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Speaker 4: dollars and twenty nine cents, and in return, it's going

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Speaker 4: to be hard to get into the national parks. The

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Speaker 4: analysts who determine whether the Department of Transport invests in

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Speaker 4: good stuff or bad stuff got laid off, so we

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Speaker 4: might spend hundreds of billions of dollars on bad stuff.

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Speaker 4: That all sorts of services are getting cut across the

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Speaker 4: federal government. So you got your four dollars twenty nine

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Speaker 4: cents on the one side, and you've got a less

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Speaker 4: effective government on the outher. Okay, here's the most important

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Speaker 4: thing and the most difficult thing to understand about physcal policy,

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Speaker 4: and it's simply this. Our minds, our human minds, are

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Speaker 4: not very good at thinking about big numbers. So millions

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Speaker 4: sounds like a lot of money, billions sounds like heapes,

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Speaker 4: and trillions sounds magnificent, And that's roughly right. But the

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Speaker 4: thing to realize is these words sound the same, but

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Speaker 4: they mean very very very very different things. And so

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Speaker 4: when someone says I have generated savings of say seven

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Speaker 4: billion dollars, don't get impressed. The first thing you have

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Speaker 4: to do is take any number and reduce it to

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Speaker 4: a human scale, a scale that your mind understands. And

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Speaker 4: in this case, what I did is i'd made it

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Speaker 4: per person. Now I realize Elon is saving twenty one

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Speaker 4: dollars and forty seven cents per person, and that's a

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Speaker 4: scale I can understanding. All of a sudden, these impressive numbers.

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Speaker 4: We realize that Elon's looking in the wrong place, is

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Speaker 4: doing the wrong things.

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Speaker 1: Isn't there an eight billion dollars savings that's actually eight

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Speaker 1: million dollars?

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Speaker 4: Yes? Okay, So first of all, everything I just said

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Speaker 4: is taking Eilon at his word, saying I went to

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Speaker 4: the website, I counted his savings as he counts them,

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Speaker 4: and so on. Now it turns out there's a bunch

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Speaker 4: of Salutes who've gone into the Doze data where they

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Speaker 4: list Doze as savings, and they've said, hey, is this

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Speaker 4: really a saving? Now? The most prominent of these was

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Speaker 4: a case where those claim to have saved eight billion

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Speaker 4: dollars on a very small project that couldn't possibly be

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Speaker 4: worth eight billion, right, And this again is the problem.

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Speaker 4: So some idiot wrote down eight billion without realizing that

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Speaker 4: was completely out of scale for the sort of project

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Speaker 4: that I think about. Since that the project was eight million,

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Speaker 4: so Doze had to go back and say, well, actually

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Speaker 4: we are exaggerated by seven point ninety nine to two billion,

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Speaker 4: but don't worry, we staved you eight million.

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Speaker 2: I'm not an economist.

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Speaker 4: You're not an economist, mind, but it's less. That's what

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Speaker 4: you're going to tell me.

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Speaker 1: Right, I'm not an economist, but I feel like there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of difference between a billion and a million.

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Speaker 4: That's really, really really important to be literal. A billion

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Speaker 4: is a thousand million, and a trillion is one thousand billion.

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Speaker 4: So let's try and create our own scale here. May

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Speaker 4: Musk wants to save two trillion, and if he does,

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Speaker 4: that will balance the budget, which is the deficits around

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Speaker 4: about one point eight trillion. Right now, Okay, so he's

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Speaker 4: after two trillion, So if he saves two billion, that's

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Speaker 4: zero point one percent of the way there. Another way

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Speaker 4: of saying this is if he saves twenty billion, think

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Speaker 4: about how far he's got to run as being one

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Speaker 4: football field. A football field is one hundred yards. If

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Speaker 4: he gets to twenty billion, then he's moved the ball

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Speaker 4: forward one yard. Okay, he's moved it forward seven point

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Speaker 4: three billion, so he's moved the ball from his goal

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Speaker 4: line one foot. And I really want listeners to think

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Speaker 4: about that. Realize that on this fiscal football field, each

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Speaker 4: yard is twenty billion. So whenever you hear a word

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Speaker 4: that begins with M million, realize it's doing no work whatsoever. Right,

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Speaker 4: it's moving you forward like a quarter of an inch.

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Speaker 4: It's tiny, it's infinitesimal, like it matters for people in

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Speaker 4: their lives, but it's not. If what you think you're

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Speaker 4: going to do is fundamentally transform our government's finances, you

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Speaker 4: can't even stuff that begins with a letter M from million.

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Speaker 4: You've got to start with billion. And in fact, if

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Speaker 4: you want a yard, you want twenty billion. And he's

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Speaker 4: not even at one yard yet.

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Speaker 1: Right, I want you to sort of top line because

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Speaker 1: what Republicans have done have said like we are cutting

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Speaker 1: waste and fraud, which again fraud seems to me, and

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Speaker 1: according to elon things he doesn't agree with, discuss wonderful.

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Speaker 4: So here's another economic principle for the listeners, and it's

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Speaker 4: one I tell my students. You're never allowed to use

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Speaker 4: the word cost without the word benefit. Right. You could

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Speaker 4: say I saved two thousand dollars worth of costs. Why

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Speaker 4: is that? Well, I stopped paying my mortgage. Right, that's

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Speaker 4: not a benefit to stop paying your mortgage. It's going

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Speaker 4: to come back and by you on the bum. So

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Speaker 4: the one exception to that rule that you can use

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Speaker 4: the word cost without benefits because if there's a cost cut,

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Speaker 4: there's a benefit cut is if you're eliminating waste for

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Speaker 4: auDA abuse. Because waste fordam abuse is all cost, no benefit.

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Speaker 4: And so that's sort of the idea behind Doze or

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Speaker 4: the animating politics or the animating narrative. The thing there's

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Speaker 4: not that much waste fraud and abuse. More than that,

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Speaker 4: Doge isn't finding it. Here's how you know something's waste,

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Speaker 4: fraud and abuse. When they discover it, people are arrested,

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Speaker 4: right that onto it. So far Doze is at zero arrests.

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Speaker 4: What they've done instead is they've discovered some things Elon

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Speaker 4: doesn't like. Elon doesn't like it when usaid, which is

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Speaker 4: basically how the US government helps other countries foreign aid.

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Speaker 4: It's less than one percent of our federal budget. It

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Speaker 4: gives us soft power, and it makes the world a

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Speaker 4: safer place. Elon doesn't like that, so he eliminates it.

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Speaker 4: But it's not waste fraud and abuse. That's a value judgment.

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Speaker 4: We had a whole circus last week where Elon discovered

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Speaker 4: that there were lots of Social Security numbers for people

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Speaker 4: who were not recorded as having been dead.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as please talk about that.

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Speaker 4: He literally goes on to claim, as the White House did.

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Speaker 4: Trump doubled down, as did his press secretary, that tens

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Speaker 4: of millions of people are receiving Social Security who shouldn't

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Speaker 4: be receiving it. That would be waste, fraud and abuse.

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Speaker 4: So you can see this is like a really important

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Speaker 4: thing from a retire perspective, because this is how doze

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Speaker 4: becomes a technocratic apparatus rather than a political one. Now,

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Speaker 4: the reality is that there were not tens of millions

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Speaker 4: of people receiving Social Security. He shouldn't. What happens is

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Speaker 4: there's one data based table. God, I'm so boring right now.

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Speaker 4: I'm going to bore everyone.

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Speaker 2: No, it's not boring. It's a coding error.

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Speaker 4: Right, it's actually even more boring. There's one database table

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Speaker 4: at Social Security where they list all the social Security

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Speaker 4: numbers that have ever been issued, and then you want

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Speaker 4: to have another column in that table. Think of like

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Speaker 4: a big Excel spreadsheet, which says, is this person dead?

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Speaker 4: And it turns out if you just take all the

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Speaker 4: people who are not recorded as being dead, there's tens

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Speaker 4: of millions of people or social security numbers that were

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Speaker 4: issued to people born over one hundred years ago. Now

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Speaker 4: that doesn't mean those people are receiving social Security. In fact,

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Speaker 4: almost all of those records were people who died more

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Speaker 4: than fifty years ago before we had electronic death records,

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Speaker 4: and as a result, there was no easy way to

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Speaker 4: update this table to show that they were dead. But

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Speaker 4: if you go through those social scurity numbers, no one's

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Speaker 4: drawing a check from them, because social Security is a

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Speaker 4: remarkably more sophisticated operation than Musk and his coders. And

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Speaker 4: so it turns out that in reality, there are about

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Speaker 4: eighty thousand Americans age ninety nine or older who are

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Speaker 4: receiving Social Security, not sixty million. And actually eighty thousand

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Speaker 4: is about the right number because we actually do have

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Speaker 4: some old people in America who are receiving Social Security,

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Speaker 4: and a reasonable estimate is not that there were sixty

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Speaker 4: million people receiving social Security who shouldn't be, but rather

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Speaker 4: perhaps it's sixty and so the millions of people he found,

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Speaker 4: and therefore the billions of dollars he saved, was literally

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Speaker 4: a misinterpretation from a guy who was too busy to

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Speaker 4: be bothered to go to Google to say, why are

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Speaker 4: there so many Social Security numbers that are not yet

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Speaker 4: marked as dead? If he'd done that, he would have

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Speaker 4: discovered there was a twenty twenty three Inspector General report

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Speaker 4: that explains literally every line of this inexcruciatingly boring detail.

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Speaker 4: There's no problem with the Social Security database. The only

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Speaker 4: problem is when a naive person misinterprets it.

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Speaker 1: Part of the thinking behind this, I think, on the

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Speaker 1: part of a lot of conservatives, was that dought sort

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Speaker 1: of technology that the rest of us didn't know existed, right,

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Speaker 1: that they were going to be able to look at

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Speaker 1: things in ways that the rest of us couldn't, and

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Speaker 1: that they were going to be able. And I think

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Speaker 1: of it as like sort of the revenge of the buzzword.

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Speaker 1: Like there have been you know, for example, like two

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Speaker 1: years ago, everyone was going to put everything on the blockchain, right,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, the blockchain is.

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Speaker 2: Good, but the world is not running on blockchain.

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Speaker 1: And this is a sort of similar thing, right, everything's AI,

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Speaker 1: the AI, this the AI that, And I do think

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent, a lot of these bureaucrats thought

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Speaker 1: that AI was going to be able to rip through

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Speaker 1: the federal government and figure out everything, and we're seeing

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Speaker 1: in fact that they're just sort of haphazardly cutting things

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Speaker 1: Elon doesn't like.

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Speaker 4: Yes, So that's I think extraordinarily insightful. So if the

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Speaker 4: argument is that the government should run on modern technology,

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Speaker 4: I'm completely in favor. In which case I'm really very

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Speaker 4: disappointed that the first thing the Republicans want to do

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Speaker 4: is strip the technology modernization money out of the irs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't seem to square with the theory.

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Speaker 4: Right. Look, I can give listeners two answers. One, it's

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Speaker 4: not going to work. You can walk away and just

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Speaker 4: believe me because my first name is professor. But that's

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Speaker 4: a shitty way of thinking. What I want to do

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Speaker 4: is give you a really deep understanding of why it's

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Speaker 4: not going to work. So many of us have in

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Speaker 4: our minds the sense that government is bloated and inefficient.

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Speaker 4: I know that last time I went to get my

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Speaker 4: driver's license renewed, it was the most infuriating and frustrating

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Speaker 4: thing in the world. I know I've waited in the

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Speaker 4: long line at the post office. I know that sometimes

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Speaker 4: my kids that this local schools are not well run,

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Speaker 4: and so on. The first thing to understand is that

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Speaker 4: most government services a state and local government. They're not federal.

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Speaker 4: The best business analogy for the federal government it's a

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Speaker 4: company called ADP. ADP is a private sector company that

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Speaker 4: does payroll processing. Basically, a lot of companies send ADP

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Speaker 4: their bank account detail and it's probably true for you money.

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Speaker 4: It's how you get paid. They send your bank account

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Speaker 4: details and an amount of money and ADP will send

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Speaker 4: out the check. Many of your listeners will receive their

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Speaker 4: checks yo ad So basically, what is ADP. It's a

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Speaker 4: bunch of nerds with computers and basically a really big

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Speaker 4: check printer. Why do I bring them up? What is

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Speaker 4: the federal government? So it's not the DMV, and it's

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Speaker 4: not the local hospital, and it's not the local schools.

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Speaker 4: That's the state government. Most of what the federal government

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Speaker 4: does is takes in money through taxes and sends it

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Speaker 4: back out. It's basically there to take money in when

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Speaker 4: you're doing well and then give it back to you

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Speaker 4: when you need it. That's what social security is, that's

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Speaker 4: what unemployment insurance is, and so on. So it turns

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Speaker 4: out that yes, the federal government spends lots of money,

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Speaker 4: but it spends a lot of money in the same

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Speaker 4: way adp quote spends a lot of money. It's just

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Speaker 4: writing a lot of checks. It's writing a lot of

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Speaker 4: checks folks who also send them in money. So if

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Speaker 4: you want to save money, it's not really going to

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Speaker 4: be there's too many people manning the check printer, right,

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Speaker 4: it's really are we getting enough checks in and we're

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Speaker 4: sending enough checks out. So there's this old saying the

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Speaker 4: federal government's an insurance company with an army, and it's

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Speaker 4: basically right. So again, remember the first lesson we said,

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Speaker 4: which was I want you to think about twenty billion

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Speaker 4: dollars in savings as being one yard on a football field.

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Speaker 4: Total federal spending on payroll on people who work for

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Speaker 4: the federal government is two hundred billion dollars, which is

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Speaker 4: to say it's ten yards. You could fire everyone who

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Speaker 4: worked for the federal government and you'd move the ball

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Speaker 4: ten yards. Now, no one wants to do that. Elon

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Speaker 4: might end up reducing the federal workforce by ten percent,

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Speaker 4: and that's going to involve a lot of very very

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Speaker 4: painful cuts and a lot of very very painful services.

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Speaker 4: Ten percent of ton of billion is twenty billion. So

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Speaker 4: if he cuts the federal workforce by ten percent, a

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Speaker 4: massive amount, he moves the football forward one yard and

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Speaker 4: he's got ninety nine to go. The point here is

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Speaker 4: it's not about workforce reduction. That's not where the money is.

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Speaker 4: The money is in two places. It's a rich guy

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Speaker 4: is not paying enough taxes. That's the money that's not

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Speaker 4: coming in.

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Speaker 2: I don't think Elon's so interested in that.

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Speaker 4: And then there's the money that's going out, which is

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Speaker 4: predominantly Social Security, Medicare, and medicaid. If you're against those programs,

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Speaker 4: you want to send fear of those checks before you

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Speaker 4: better go to Congress first. And if you think that

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Speaker 4: those programs are actually a really fair and useful thing

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Speaker 4: that the federal government does, then you realize that actually,

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Speaker 4: like most of what the federal government does, because that's

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Speaker 4: most of where the federal dollars are going.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's also one other saying which you

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Speaker 1: don't mention, which is servicing the national dat.

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Speaker 4: So that still basically makes the federal government like ADP.

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Speaker 4: It's printing a lot of checks. And you're right that

437
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 4: some amount of our revenue now is just going to

438
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,920
Speaker 4: pay in interest bills a large and increasingly large amount.

439
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 4: And then this brings us all the way back full circle,

440
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 4: which is where is our fiscal position, which is the

441
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 4: economy is very good. May disappoint some lirls to hear that,

442
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 4: but I believe that's true. When the economy is very good,

443
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 4: the government should be stocking away money to either repay

444
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:51,840
Speaker 4: past debts or for a rainy day in the future. Instead,

445
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 4: we have a very very large budget deficit and very

446
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 4: large interest payments, and Trump is promising about four trillion

447
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 4: dollars worth of tax cuts back to the football field.

448
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 4: Four trillion now is two football fields, right, So Elon's

449
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:09,280
Speaker 4: going to move the ball one yard and then Trump

450
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 4: is going to run it back two hundred yards. So

451
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 4: that's how this math isn't mathing. And so there really

452
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 4: is a quite serious fiscal situation that Republicans need to decide.

453
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:21,640
Speaker 4: Do they want to blow out the dead. Maybe that's

454
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:23,199
Speaker 4: what they want to do, which is leave it for

455
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:26,120
Speaker 4: Democrats to clean up again and they get their priorities through.

456
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:28,679
Speaker 4: That could be what's going on. At some point. You've

457
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 4: got to wonder how long this can go on?

458
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 2: Right, But that's a real question.

459
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,240
Speaker 1: I watched c SPAN because I have no life, and

460
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: I was listening to Rand Paul, who I think of

461
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 1: as almost always wrong about everything.

462
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 2: Because remember these tax cuts.

463
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 1: The panic here is because Republicans don't want these tax

464
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: cuts to expire. If these tax cuts are allowed to expire,

465
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: talk goes through where the American government is financially.

466
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,159
Speaker 4: I haven't done the matter too much on this, so

467
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:04,119
Speaker 4: I'm just going to speak in broad terms. If the

468
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 4: Trump tax cuts expired, then we will still have an

469
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 4: ongoing budget defice at a time where it would be

470
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 4: a good time to have a budget surplus. There will

471
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 4: be a donor class who are furious. What's funny is there's,

472
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 4: you know, three classes of Republicans on this. There's the

473
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,439
Speaker 4: old school, balanced the budget guys who haven't won an

474
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 4: argument since they lost to Reagan in nineteen eighty. Mike

475
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:27,200
Speaker 4: Johnson claims to be one of those guys. I don't

476
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 4: believe him. There's the tax cuts for the rich because

477
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 4: it'll all trickle down, and then there's the put your

478
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 4: fingers in your ears and do whatever the dear leader says,

479
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 4: which is currently in the ascendency, and it not only

480
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 4: wants to extend that Trump tax cuts. Trump is still

481
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,919
Speaker 4: talking about tax cuts on Social Security, no taxes on tips,

482
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 4: no taxes on overtime.

483
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: He's really into no taxes on tips, which, by the way,

484
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: is completely unsustainable, right, because then everything can become a tip.

485
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 4: You know exactly what I'm going to be doing, which is,

486
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:58,359
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell the University of Michigan that I

487
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 4: am going to be willing to work for seventeen dollars

488
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,160
Speaker 4: plus tips, but if the tips aren't good enough, I'm leaving,

489
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 4: and so as a result, all of my income becomes untaxable.

490
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 2: Fantastic, it is, literally, right, Yeah, go on.

491
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 4: I'm loving it. Yeah, it's give me terrific.

492
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 1: Yeah.

493
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 2: I think that's a really good point here.

494
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 1: So fundamentally, this is a problem created by Republicans. I mean,

495
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: if you were to say tomorrow, and again, I know

496
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 1: you haven't run the numbers on this, but I just

497
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: want to like reiterate as a socialist. I'm not really

498
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: a socialist, but compared to a lot of these people,

499
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: I am. If you just let these tax cuts expired,

500
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: you raise the corporate tax rate a little smidge, and

501
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: you said, you know, if you make more than one

502
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars a year you need to pay slightly,

503
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: you know, an extra two percent in taxes that you

504
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: could cut the deficit quite helcily quickly.

505
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 4: Yes, No, his, I think the essential point I want

506
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 4: to leave. You'll listen this with Imagine that you've been

507
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 4: given a KPE and you're told that you're the super

508
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 4: deficit hole. You get to solve our physical problems. The

509
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 4: question is, would you spend your days and nights trolling

510
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 4: through the newspaper subscriptions at the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission,

511
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 4: which we're cut and looking for fake Social Security payments

512
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,159
Speaker 4: and finding none, or would you go and spend all

513
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,919
Speaker 4: your time up the road at the irs, looking at

514
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 4: the millionaires and billionaires who we know are paying very

515
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 4: very low tax rates and using various sophisticated schemes and

516
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 4: have excessively low audit rates. Where do you think the

517
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 4: real money's lying? And I think when you think about

518
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 4: that question, the intuition, I think is obvious. If you're

519
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 4: after the real money, it's the taxes that aren't getting paid,

520
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 4: and that's the only place they're not looking. And instead,

521
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 4: what they're doing is they're looking at what seems to

522
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 4: be technocratic and it meets everyone's sense that government is inefficient,

523
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 4: but there's no money there at all.

524
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: It serves a political cira, but it doesn't necessarily it's

525
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 1: approved exactly.

526
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 4: So what you're seeing out of DOGE is pure political theater.

527
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 4: It's either cutting things but calling it waste when it's not,

528
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,360
Speaker 4: or it's not really making important cuts at all, and

529
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 4: it's providing political cover then to ignore the rest of

530
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,399
Speaker 4: the deficit issues so that they can generate text cuts

531
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 4: for the rage.

532
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: Oh Man, so interesting and also OI, thank you, thank you,

533
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: thank you, thank.

534
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 4: You, great joy.

535
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: Ian Bremer is the president of the Erasure Group. Welcome

536
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: back to Fast Politics.

537
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 4: Ian, Thank you, Mollie goe to be with you.

538
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: So I felt like we had to have you on

539
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: because of the incredible stuff coming out of Trump World,

540
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: and it's bizarre for foreign policy debacle from the Munich

541
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: Security Conference on we've just seen such a high level

542
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: of unprecedented. I know you're not supposed to say unprecedented,

543
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: We'll just say without precedent when it comes to Trump

544
00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: World and formulations. So talk us through where you are are,

545
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: what you see, and sort of your take on that.

546
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 5: What we see is a reversion of the United States

547
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 5: to support the law of the jungle. In other words,

548
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 5: on the global stage, might mix right. If you're powerful,

549
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 5: you get to set the outcomes. It's an important shift because,

550
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 5: of course, for a long time, the United States was

551
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 5: actively involved in promoting a very different kind of world order,

552
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 5: still the most powerful country, but one where the US

553
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 5: supported collective security, where the US supported the promotion of

554
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 5: rule of law and free trade and even the promotion

555
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 5: of democracy, not always consistently, certainly a lot of hypocrisy,

556
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 5: but nonetheless that was the idea.

557
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 4: That's clearly not the idea anymore.

558
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 5: Ask the Ukrainians, or the Canadians, or the Germans, or

559
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 5: the Panamanians, or the Mexicans or any of a number

560
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 5: of other American allies right now who feel that the

561
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 5: United States is acting in a predatory manner because the

562
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 5: US is so much more powerful because they can't. And

563
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 5: I mean clearly, since I've just spent time. I spent

564
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 5: a week and a half in Europe and most of

565
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 5: that time talking with erstwhile American allies who increasingly feel

566
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 5: like the United States is led by an adversary to them.

567
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 5: And that's a really big change. So that's what's fundamental here.

568
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 5: And how much of that is true? Is that universal?

569
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 5: I'd answer no. There are a lot of countries that

570
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 5: don't feel like the rug has been pulled out from

571
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 5: under them the way the Europeans, for example, presently do.

572
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 4: But certainly big changes are afoot.

573
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 5: There are open questions about the survivability of the Transatlantic Alliance,

574
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 5: and certainly very big questions about what happens with Ukraine,

575
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 5: what happens with Russia.

576
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 2: That's NATO. You're talking about the surviv villains of NATO, right.

577
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 5: Yes, and more and more broadly, I mean the alignment

578
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 5: of the US with Europe.

579
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 4: But sure, I mean both of those things are true.

580
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: It's interesting if you were awake at all during Trump

581
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: one point zero, none of this is a huge surprise

582
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: that said, the fact that this stuff still comes out

583
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: as a surprise, I think is actually kind of its

584
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: own surprise. Will you talk to us about for example,

585
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: it definitly seems like Trump two point zero is ten

586
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: times more supercharged, which they were promising. But I'm hoping

587
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: you could talk to us about the predatory idea here,

588
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: for example, the idea that somehow he's going to secure

589
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: some amount of mineral rights from Ukraine. That does seem

590
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: like something I have never seen in my adult life.

591
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 2: So will you talk about that?

592
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 4: So a lot of things here.

593
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 5: First of all, on Ukraine, I have no problem at

594
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 5: all with the idea that the United States could cut

595
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 5: a deal exploiting Ukraine's natural resources in return for in

596
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 5: during national security going forward and providing arms. And I

597
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 5: have no problem with that where I think, I mean,

598
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:07,959
Speaker 5: there's a question of how the deal should be structured,

599
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 5: what the right level of compensation is. You know, Ukraine

600
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 5: is not a country that has great infrastructure right now,

601
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 5: would take a long time to invest and take a

602
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 5: long time to get it out. I mean, you know,

603
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 5: the US should be paid for taking that risk if

604
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 5: they're going to make that investment. All those things Where

605
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 5: I would have a very serious problem, and I see

606
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 5: it as unprecedented. Is the idea that the Americans should

607
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 5: be paid back for aid eight that the American government

608
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 5: has already granted. That would certainly be unprecedented in modern

609
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 5: times for.

610
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 4: The United States.

611
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 5: And it's something that I mean, the Ukrainians may end

612
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 5: up accepting because they have no choice.

613
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 4: That's predatory behavior.

614
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 5: That's what you do as a corporate raider when you

615
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 5: know you're facing a company that is in bankruptcy and

616
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 5: has no choice, and you rip their faces off. And

617
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 5: I mean, to be fair, at Trump's background is in that.

618
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 5: In that field, he knows how to rip people's faces

619
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 5: off when they're weak, and he's now doing it geopolitically.

620
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 4: Now is that new?

621
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 5: I think it is new, And I think it's new

622
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 5: because Trump's in such a more powerful position now in

623
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 5: so many ways than he was in twenty seventeen. I think,

624
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 5: you know, some of it is that America's adversaries are weaker.

625
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 5: China has the worst economy since the nineties, maybe the seventies.

626
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 5: Russia is actually in decline given the war and other problems.

627
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 5: Iran has just lost their proxy empire across the Middle

628
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 5: East America's.

629
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 4: Allies are weaker.

630
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 5: The US economy is performing so much better coming out

631
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,959
Speaker 5: of the pandemic than all of the other G seven economies.

632
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 5: US technology outstrips American allies by you know, wildly. Think

633
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 5: about America's energy production compared to Europe's desperate need, Japan's

634
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 5: desperate need. And then of course you have the political

635
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 5: consolidation around Trump. He is in a strong position. He

636
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 5: has the House and seidate, he has the GOP reporting

637
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 5: to him in a way that so many allies are

638
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,479
Speaker 5: facing very big problems against their own incumbents. And you know,

639
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 5: you saw Canada's government just fall apart, South Korea's government

640
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 5: fall apart, Japan just had a big loss.

641
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 4: And now they're in coalition.

642
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 5: Even India had to face coalition, France, Germany.

643
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 4: You know, it goes on and on.

644
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 5: So we're in a particular time where this Trump administration

645
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 5: is really strong. And then Molly one more point, since

646
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 5: we're really leaning in on this, which is that Trump personally, really,

647
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 5: I think does feel not just vindicated, because it's the

648
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 5: greatest political comeback story in American history. If you think

649
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 5: about where he was on January sixth, then with the

650
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 5: second impeachment where he is today having won not an

651
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 5: election without the popular vote the first time around, but

652
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 5: with the popular vote, but also having survived an assassination

653
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 5: attempt where he was shot in the hit, right. I mean,

654
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 5: this man now, and he's said this in conversations with friends,

655
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 5: he believes that, you know, he was saved by God

656
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 5: and that you know, it's like divine intervention and is

657
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 5: why he's president now. So his level of confidence is

658
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 5: just extraordinary. That wasn't true at all in twenty seventeen.

659
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 5: He needed the Republicans to give him legitimacy. He didn't

660
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 5: have it himself, you know. I mean, he was pretty

661
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 5: insecure privately in terms of being the president.

662
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 4: He isn't now.

663
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 5: And so I think when you put all of those

664
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 5: things together, you have to recognize that this is a

665
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 5: This is a wildly different administration than twenty seventeen. That's

666
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 5: even before we talk about the fact that they have

667
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 5: Elon to activate them, who is so much more powerful

668
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 5: and capable than anyone they had in the first administration.

669
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: I understand when you say powerful, I'm not entirely going

670
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: to go along with capable, because what we're seeing now

671
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: in week five of whatever this is is that actually

672
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: Elon has had to rehire a bunch of people. The

673
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: ethos has moved fast and break things. They're breaking a

674
00:33:59,560 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: lot of them.

675
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 5: I'm talking about capacity, capacity to get things done. Does

676
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 5: that mean capacity to do things that people are going

677
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 5: to like or are going to work the way that

678
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 5: he intends them to work.

679
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 4: That's a different story.

680
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 5: But there's no question that if what Trump is interested

681
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 5: in doing is bringing about a revolution domestically and frankly

682
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 5: in some ways internationally, Elon is uniquely positioned in his

683
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 5: administration to help him do that. I disagree with many

684
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 5: things that the Elon is doing in the government, of course,

685
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 5: but I think he's incredibly capable. I think that you

686
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,399
Speaker 5: look at who that he is appointed in cabinet can

687
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 5: get things done. You look at someone like Pete Hegseth

688
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 5: and he can talk about wanting to do a thirty

689
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 5: four percent cut down in defense budget. I'm very skeptical,

690
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 5: and I think the generals and admirals.

691
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 4: Are going to run circles around this guy. Elon.

692
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 5: On the other hand, I think Tulsey Gabbert got appointed

693
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 5: because of Elon. I think he made some calls to

694
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 5: Republican senators, and he changed those votes because they're scared

695
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 5: of them. I think his ability to get things done

696
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 5: is beyond that of anyone outside an individual president I

697
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 5: have seen in my life in the United States.

698
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not going to argue with you on this

699
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: because you clearly know something about Elon and I don't.

700
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: But I would say, certainly having unlimited funds is a

701
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: huge advantage. The question is again, and I wonder about

702
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: this is as someone who was a longtime fan of

703
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: the incredible things that came out of Silicon Valley, it

704
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,760
Speaker 1: does feel to me like the what Elon is banking

705
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: on is a technology that almost exists, and so I

706
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: think there's a thinking here that AI can do things

707
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 1: that it can't quite do yet. And so and maybe

708
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but it certainly seems like why they would

709
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: fire like the nuclear scientists for ten hours, or why

710
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: they would fire today. A friend of mine who works

711
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: in that world sent me a text message to say

712
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: that they had fired the and again like this is

713
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: just you know, this has not been reported yet, but

714
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: from Los Alamos, you have things like a plutonium facility.

715
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: I mean, he said, you know, they fire the radiation

716
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: protection manager, Emergency response manager and security manager from Los Alamos.

717
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: Then they tried to get them back, and that's what

718
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: we're seeing at the FDA. We're seeing that at different

719
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: parts of the government where and even like and they're

720
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: still going. So Again, the larger problem it being unconstitutional.

721
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: If you don't believe that the law applies to you,

722
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want, which is the fundamental

723
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: underlying problem of Elon. But I would add that if

724
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 1: he were such a genius, wouldn't he be able to

725
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: fire people who weren't needed to be rehired right away.

726
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 5: I don't know as much about how effective AI is

727
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 5: going to be for Elon using DOGE inside the US

728
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 5: regulatory environment and the government system. I know a lot

729
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 5: of people that I respect, with greater technological capacity than

730
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 5: you and I that believe that this is going to

731
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 5: be a game changer for the US over the medium term,

732
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 5: and that the Europeans.

733
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 4: Are going to be left way behind and all the

734
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 4: rest that.

735
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,720
Speaker 1: No, no, no, But what I'm saying is not arguing

736
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:13,800
Speaker 1: with any of those points.

737
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 5: I want to make your point in an area that

738
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 5: I know much better, which is usaid. Because here the

739
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 5: United States provides about forty percent of all the global

740
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 5: humanitarian aid period and the United States is now basically

741
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 5: shutting down the principle mechanism to deliver that aid. And

742
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 5: they are not doing this in a way to say,

743
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,959
Speaker 5: let's first go through all the programs. Let's see which

744
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 5: ones are complete crap that no US taxpayers would support

745
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 5: if they actually knew what was happening. And there's a

746
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 5: lot of that, and let's keep the things that really matter,

747
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 5: like you know, preventing AIDS and stopping ebola when there's

748
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 5: an active outbreak, and you know, dealing with like children's

749
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,839
Speaker 5: hunger and all that, and they are not doing that.

750
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 5: And the fact that they have chosen to shut everything

751
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 5: down fully aware that there are lots of really important

752
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 5: programs that are going to be caught up in that

753
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 5: that is the intention. They know that the cruelty is

754
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 5: in part the point. The thing that worries me the most,

755
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 5: I mean, aside from the fact that I just feel

756
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 5: bad for all of these innocent people that are being

757
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 5: caught up in it, is the fact that the Chinese

758
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 5: are going to make bank here. I mean, they're the

759
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,800
Speaker 5: ones that are already the leading trade partners with almost

760
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 5: every country in the global South, and those ministers and

761
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 5: presidents and prime ministers who have just had their programs

762
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:36,720
Speaker 5: cut by the US are.

763
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 4: All turning to China.

764
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 5: And what worries me most about the Trump elon approach

765
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 5: is that it is penny wise and pound foolish, that

766
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,919
Speaker 5: it will get all sorts of wins today and will

767
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:51,279
Speaker 5: deeply undermine America's power position in the world in five

768
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 5: and ten years time. And to be fair, I don't

769
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 5: think Trump cares that much about five and ten years

770
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 5: time out, but I do, and you do, and a

771
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 5: lot of sites in the United States do. And they're

772
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 5: being sold a bill of goods here.

773
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And I think that is certainly an

774
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: important point. So my larger question here is think about

775
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: with that Munich security speech, the j de Man's speech

776
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 1: where he said good night and good luck, what have

777
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 1: been you know, now we're a couple weeks out from that,

778
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: what have the sort of ripples been from that?

779
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 4: I wish we were a couple of weeks. We're not

780
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 4: even one week out from that.

781
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: We're not even one week out from that. Okay, we're

782
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: almost one week out from that.

783
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 4: It feels like a year. That's the funny thing, right,

784
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 4: But we'll literally I was there. I was in the room.

785
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 5: I was maybe twenty feet from him. How to go

786
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 5: over to say badly would be an understatement, but it

787
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 5: was a shock.

788
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 4: Some people were in tears.

789
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 5: People were angry when he said specifically, I mean, look,

790
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 5: it's a security conference, and yet he didn't talk about security.

791
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 4: I mean like he didn't talk about.

792
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 5: Ukraine or China or Gaza in the speech he made

793
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 5: passing reference to I know, we got all these other things,

794
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 5: but what the most important threat is the threat you

795
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 5: know to inside the room. It's the woke virus, it's

796
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 5: the it's lack of free speech, and it's democracy falling apart, which,

797
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 5: of course I mean from my perspective, there are many

798
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 5: things that the Americans can and should lecture the Europeans on,

799
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 5: like innovation and competitiveness and entrepreneurship and lack of red

800
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,399
Speaker 5: tape and all these things. JD chose the one thing

801
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 5: to lecture the Europeans on the Americans don't actually have

802
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 5: good standing on, right. But leaving that aside, he specifically

803
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 5: this is the part that really mattered. He talked about

804
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 5: the firewall, and most Americans don't know what the firewall is.

805
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 5: This is the Germans refusal to work with join government

806
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 5: with make policy with the Alternatives for deutsch Land party,

807
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 5: which right now polls it just over twenty percent and

808
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 5: this weekend's upcoming elections in Germany and is considered by

809
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 5: the entire German political spectrum outside of the AfD as

810
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 5: a neo Nazi party. They are, they are under surveillance

811
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 5: from German intelligence. It is about as raw and central

812
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 5: to German governance and what their state means as anything

813
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 5: you can imagine. And this is coming from a United

814
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,359
Speaker 5: States which led the world in de nazifying Germany after

815
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 5: World War Two, coming from a vice president who went

816
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 5: to Dacow and saw the concentration camps the day before

817
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 5: he gave that speech, and then he says, you need

818
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 5: to end the firewall because you are not democratic if

819
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 5: you refuse to engage with the twenty percent of your

820
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 5: population that supports this in Germans views neo Nazi party.

821
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 5: And then later that day he refuses to meet with

822
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 5: the German chancellor. He does meet with the head of

823
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 5: the AfD, the sitting vice president. First of all, I

824
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 5: saw all of a sudden when he made that statement

825
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 5: I saw a man and yell out, this is unacceptable.

826
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 5: And most people in the room had no idea who

827
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 5: it was because it was a packed room and he

828
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 5: was sitting in the front and they would have been

829
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 5: looking at his back, but I could see him from

830
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 5: the side.

831
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 4: It was the German defense minister.

832
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,240
Speaker 5: Oh wow, and Molly, in fifteen years of going to Munich,

833
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 5: I have never in my life seen anything remotely like that.

834
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 5: And so you know, you have to understand that even

835
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 5: leaving a side Ukraine, leaving aside everything else that we're

836
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 5: talking about on national security, that statement, that reality, backed

837
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 5: by the American President, backed by Elon who's been actively

838
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 5: promoting and supporting AfD personally and through his Twitter and

839
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 5: the rest, would make the United States look like an

840
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 5: enemy of Germany. And that is the way the Germans

841
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 5: took it, and it's the way an awful lot of

842
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 5: Europeans took it. This is now a serious crisis from

843
00:42:55,960 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 5: the Europeans who understand that the leadership in the United

844
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 5: States does not actually share a fundamental and core view

845
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 5: of democracy.

846
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 4: And rule of law with the Europeans. So really it

847
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 4: really shook them.

848
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 2: Correct. Thank you, thank you, Ian.

849
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 4: Bremer Lay.

850
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 3: No moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly Junk Fast Elon has no bounds.

851
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 3: He's now making his way from Pennsylvania, where he did

852
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 3: a bunch of fuckery over to Wisconsin to mess with

853
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 3: their Supreme Court.

854
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. It is

855
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: coming up very soon. It will decide the control of

856
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 1: the state court. It will decide things like jerrymandering, abortion, etc.

857
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has put is the single largest donor to

858
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: it on the Republican side.

859
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 2: He has put a million dollars in there.

860
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: You'll remember, a million dollars is a rounding error for

861
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,720
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. Great and he may put in more because

862
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: of overturning of Citizens United, because of the fact that

863
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: basically now our elections are just billionaire repositories. He can

864
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: put as much money as he wants to in it,

865
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 1: and it becomes this sort of proxy fight. The people

866
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: who suffer will end up being the people of Wisconsin

867
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: who want to get abortions or who have miscarriages and

868
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: need to have mythipristone. Those are the people who are

869
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:35,439
Speaker 1: going to suffer. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

870
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday to hear

871
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.

872
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

873
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Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.