Krystal and Ryan discuss Blue MAGA meltdown over Gaza protests costing election, meet the MAGA influencers lying to you, judge blocks Elon Treasury coup, Ro Khanna blasts Dem cringe Trump pushback.
David Dayen: https://prospect.org/topics/david-dayen/
Ro Khanna: https://x.com/reprokhanna?lang=en
To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com
Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of this show.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, let's go ahead and get to some of
the liberal democratic reaction to Trump's Gaza ethic cleansing plan, so,
you know, a part for the course, rather than saying,
you know, gee, uh, it would have been good if
Democrats could have beat this guy, because this is all
really going terribly and maybe if they hadn't been so
committed to their own genocidal plans with regard to Gaza,
(00:56):
maybe they could have eked down a win. Since it
was really, you know, really quite close. You have a
number of significant liberal accounts who have decided that the
real fault was the people who either stayed home and
didn't vote, or who you know, actively voted for Trump
because they were so horrified by the genocide that was
(01:16):
being perpetrated by the Biden administration. So let's go ahead
and put the first one up on the screen. Here,
we can do speed run through these. These are Samone Sanders.
I think now it's very proper to reiterate that elections
have consequences. Obviously that is a job at you know,
people who were worried about the genocide.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
We can go up to Harry Sisson.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Next says, I hope all of the losers who said
and posted things like this understand they played a crucial
role in helping Trump get elected. He will now have
hurt millions with that power. This was somebody who said, hey,
Kamala Gaza is speaking now, bitch. Next up we have
Adam Gentilsen, who said, in two thousand, the left said
there was no difference between Gore and Bush, so vote nator.
Then Bush ared a war of choice in Iraq, and
(01:53):
twenty twenty four the left said there was no difference
between Harrison Trump, so vote uncommitted. Now we have Trump
proposing that the US take over Gaza.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Gentlesen, by the way, you can check FEC records. He's
still a consultant for John Fetterman. He's a former chief
of staff to Fetterman. People knew that, but like, go
ahead and look, he's on Fetterman's payroll.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
There you go, all right, and next one, last one
we can put up here a genuine question, not aiming
to stunk on et cetera. But for the pro Gaza
folk who yell gemicide, Jill and killer, Kamala and abstain voted.
Jill's dinary voted for Trump. What's your reaction to Trump
saying US will own Gaza? Same thing in your eyes
as Harris or regret now or question mark. So you
know this is all very very productive. Ryan always did
(02:36):
a genuine question at least, Yeah, all right, genuine question.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So it's a genuine question, Like here's a genuine answer.
Can anybody point me to any moment where Kamala Harris
said that she was going to do anything different than
Joe Biden and was going to ever use US leverage
to force us these firing Gaza, right, was there any
(03:01):
moment where Kamala Harris told voters that she would be
less hawkish or less warlike than Donald Trump. Is a
genuine question. Back to this genuine question, can anybody find
me an example of either of those? Because I can
find you many, many examples of Harris saying the opposite,
(03:24):
that she would continue the Biden approach to arming Israel
no matter what, and also that she would be tougher
when it came to making war than Donald Trump most
lethal army ever.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
You know, like prosecutor transnational gangs.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, so tell me, like what is the and bringing
Liz Cheney talking about, So what is the argument for
to make the case that the war would not still
be going on now as we speak if Kamala Harris
were president, like sending us how everything else that Trump
(04:04):
is doing? Like, what's the case to make that? Right now?
We'd have a ceasefire in Gaza if Kamala Harris were president, Like,
how do you in your mind? How do you get
what happened from election day in November to today in
February that brought about a ceasefire? Because we have a
ceasefire with Trump's president, what does it hold? Does he
(04:28):
send troops in there? We don't know, we'll see. Yeah,
but right now we have a ceasefire. What's the evidence
that Harris would have gotten that done.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And also, you know,
the Uncommitted movement, they really went above and beyond to
give her an opportunity to and a bunch of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The uncommitted leaders endorsed Harris.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Endorsed her anyway, that's right.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And you know they like the ask to have a
Palestinian American make vetted comments endorsing Kamala at the DNC.
That's how low the bar was in terms of her
trying to extend an olive branch. How many times did
she have the opportunity, you know, at a time when
people were say, hey, you really need to separate yourself
(05:09):
from this guy. Biden is really unpopular. Here on a
platter is an area where he is profoundly unpopular, where
you could easily distance yourself. It would be the right
political thing and the right moral thing. And she would
never ever do it right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And putting a Palistinian American on the stage at the
DNC would have meant something materially because people said, all, oh,
that's nothing, why not do that? It would have pushed
back against her, the donors and the voters who represented
the pro Israel faction who wanted no pressure applied whatsoever
(05:48):
to Israel. Yeah, and Harris's willingness even to put a
vetted two minute speech from Palistinian American on the stage
that endorses her and endorses her strategy, her willingness to
do that would be a glimmer of a possibility that
she's willing to take some risks on behalf of a ceasefire.
And so that's why there was some meaning to what
(06:11):
seems kind of like a meaningful ask, and also is
why she said no to it, because she was not
willing to take those risks. So if she's not willing
to tick off a tiny sliver of her donors, because
a lot of those donors be like, okay, fine, some
Palastin Americans speaks like we had lots of different we
(06:31):
have a different, vast array of speakers up on stage.
Not that big a deal. We can get over it.
She's not even willing to do that. Why on earth
would she be willing to pressure in it in Yahoo
to do something he doesn't want to do. Yeah, And
some people concluded that she wouldn't be. And the other
thing that I think this freak out shows is a
recognition that Gaza did actually play a role in the election,
(06:52):
because otherwise, why like what are you worked up about here?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean they love to be like, oh you left ease,
you don't matter, we don't care about you.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And then that they lose like it was your vault.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You're so powerful, you know, and it's like all right, well,
which which is it?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Here?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We have a statement from one of the co chairs
of the Uncommitted movement we can put up on the screen.
This is from Leila ellabed Is Layla is She wasn't
one of them related to Rashida Tile said.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Oh maybe, yeah, well certainly one of the one of
the Uncommitted organizers was.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well okay in any case, she says, I feel sad, angry,
and scared for our communities. For months, we warned about
the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our
calls largely went unheard. Hairs left a vacuum by not
visiting Michigan. Families impacted by US supplied bombs to help
create a permission structure for their trust. While Trump visited
Dearborn and filled a community in despair with lies. Trump's
illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific, But as on
(07:45):
so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade
voters they were the better.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Alternative, and they blew it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think that is all very accurate in spite of
the former Kamala Harris aid, responding, deeply unseerious. People who
want to shirk their responsibility clowns, because again it's always
the voter's fault, never the fault of the people in
power who had many opportunities responsibilities something different.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, responsibility is such an interesting word there, like who
has the responsibility?
Speaker 6 (08:13):
There? Right?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yes, exactly right?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And then lastly can put this up on the screen.
So the group that was called Arab Americans for Trump
has now changed their name after the president's Gaza Rivera comments.
They say that the chairman of the group formerly known
as Arab Americans for Trump said during a phone interview
the group is now going to be called Arab Americans
(08:36):
for Peace. Name change came after Trump held that Tuesday
press conference alongside bb net Yahoo and proposed the US
take ownership in re developing the area into the revier
of the Middle East. The talk about what the president
wants to do with Gaza. Obviously, we're completely opposed idea
of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in historic Palestine,
and so we did not want to be behind the
curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has
(08:57):
been our objective from the very beginning. I mean, I
will say, I don't know how you could look at
Trump's first term in office and think that he was
going to be like Propalas. I mean, he gave Israel
everything they wanted, and he had Mary Madison giving him
one hundred million dollars in being like.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
We're going to take over the West Bank.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know, this was all out there publicly, so no
one should be surprised by the approach that Trump is
taking at this point.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
But you know, one thing, Ryan, I one reason.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
In particular why this discourse has kind of annoyed me
in particular because I mean, this is the kind of shit.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
That liberals do all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
But post November, post Trump winning again, there actually has
been some liberal lefty alliance and community building because it's
so clear that the liberal establishment approach was a failure.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Right, they had this.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Theory of oh, we have an anti Trump coalition and
we need to focus on the suburban moderates. We're going
to use this channey to do that. You know, that's
how we're going to approach this. We're going to focus
on rather than addressing people's material concerns, which is what
contributed to the rise of this I would say, fascist movement,
Rather than dealing with that, we're just going to you know,
talk about democracy, talk about fascism in the abstract and
(10:11):
not fully delivered for people. And you know, all of
those theories were really wrong. Not to mention that they
spent so much time destroying the Bernie Sanders movement both
in twenty sixteen and then again vanquishing him in twenty
twenty that I would say was their primary goal over
ultimately defeating Trump, and all of that edifice has been
has humbled. You know, in some of the favored media personalities,
(10:32):
the Joe and Meeka's of the world, have you know,
capitulated to Trump after making lots of money being these
big resistance figures, and so you know, when he actually
gets in there and they want to continue to have
access to power, they immediately bend the knee. So there
has been a real a real opening, and I think
a real radicalizing of a lot of liberals who have
(10:54):
fled MSNBC who are going to more like lefty YouTube
channels like my husband's Kyle's, but a lot of others
do David dol MIKE'SO have seen huge growth. So, you know,
the other thing that irritates me about the you know,
the liberal discourse here around Gaza is that I think
it undercuts that new movement and sort of community building
within the Democratic base and radicalizing in a lot of
(11:16):
ways of the Democratic base.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Elon Musk's DOJ Committee hasn't been able to turn up
any serious evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse yet, but
did manage to get a win out of White House
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Let's roll this clip talking about
a Politico scandal.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer
dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico,
the American taxpayer's dying, will no longer be happening. The
DOGE team is working on canceling those payments.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Now.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Again, this is a whole of government effort to ensure
that we are going line by line when it comes
to the Federal of government's books, and this president in
his team are are making decisions across the board on
do these receipts serve the interests of the American people.
Is this a good use of the American taxpayers money.
(12:11):
If it is not, that funding will no longer be
sent abroad and American taxpayers will see significant savings because
of that effort.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Oh boy, this was a wild one yesterday. Normally it
wouldn't be the kind of thing we're talking about, Crystal,
but it rose to the level of the White House
Press Secretary claiming that they're going to come in and
cut off these payments. So to bring people up to
speed what happened here, USA spending dot gov is a website.
It turns out to be very dangerous if you don't
(12:39):
know how to use it. Okay, So people went in
and searched somehow Politico and it came up with this
idea that Politico is funded by USAID and that then
was connected to the fact that Politico had recently had
(12:59):
a glie in their payroll and so some political reporters
didn't get paid, and was then also connected to the
fact that Politico had been one of the many news
outlets that had reported on the letter from fifty former
intelligence officials said that infamous letter, infous letter. So they said, Aha,
(13:23):
So USAID, the State Department basically CIA funded, the Deep
State funded Politico. Politico then laundered this letter from these
intelligence officials to benefit Biden and then gets all of
this money from USAID and then Musk finds out about it,
cancels the money, and now all of a sudden, Politico
(13:45):
can't make payroll, Like, wow, we've got them, incredible. So
in fact, what to me, Actually, these guys did actually
stumble on a scandal, which is the way that a
lot of our Beltway media is funded, which is a
political pro Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Whole, some of the newsletters, all of these trades. So
like insider trade publications, it.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Goes back many decades to the advent of this trade
what's called a trade publication. So if you are either
a government official at the Department of Transportation, you own
a trucking company, you own a shipping company, like your
own lobbyists, or more particularly exactly you're a lobbyist for
those people, you really want to know what everybody, every
(14:33):
lawmaker on the subcommittee that oversees your industry is thinking
up to the minute, and you want to know what
the commissioners and the senior staff at the agency that
regulates you are up to at the moment. And you're
not going to find that in the New York Times
or drop site or here on breaking points like we're
not getting into the weeds like that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Very specialized, like yeah, down to the subcommittee kind of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
The fact that it's lobbying intelligence is an entire thing
like lobbyists whose job is not to actually lobby to
pressure members of Congress to do a thing, it's just
to find out information and then deliver it privately to
different corporations that pay for it. This is the same thing,
really political problem work, all these others that do this,
(15:17):
and so they charge through the roof for this.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Thousands of dollars because they know that, first of all,
it's not coming out of any individual's pocket. It's coming
out of either the government or the lobby shop or
the corporation or whatever. So for them to spend a
few thousand dollars on this information, that's going to prove
valuable to you know, if you're a corporation, your bottom line, eh,
that's nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Right, and so I think it's a reasonable question, like
does a government agency need this?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
But we're talking about people here who are raising these questions,
who are capitalists who would presumably just appreciate.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
The hustle here, right, And this is over more than
a decade, by the way, yes, this amount of money. Well,
the other thing is not all of it is politico.
Not all of it is, and not of all is
USA I did.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Like there's a even the number is wrong, so like
eight million dollars. They make it sound like, oh, they
got eight million dollars from USA i D in a year,
even that's not true. Is eight million dollars over a decade,
from all from all government agencies combined. Now again I
still think like the business model is sort of preposterous whatever,
but it's wildly different than how it was presented. And
(16:19):
then the other thing that's funny to me, Ryan, especially
talking to you, is that you guys have actually done
reporting about some news agencies that USA i D does.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Is actually funded.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And I don't think any of these people cared anything
about it.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Right now now they're now they're there, now they're starting
to notice it. Michael Schellenberger actually did a piece based
on or advancing some of our Reason reporters. So now
they're starting to see. But yes, USA I D does
fund foreign does fund journalism that's done in foreign countries,
and that that journalism is often geared towards US US interests. Yeah,
(16:54):
that that is a thing, and that should be you know,
probed and should be scrutinized. They're not. They're not funding.
Now I had sent this, I don't know, maybe we
can add this in post. It's gotten it's gotten even
more upsurred. We can go back to political in a second.
But the New York Times got lumped into this scandal. Uh,
somebody went through and typed in New York into USA
(17:18):
spending knockov and pulled up a number of like twenty
nine million dollars or something like that, saying that the
US government is funding the New York Times. The tune
of twenty tine million dollars turns out brouh and so
it's Ian Miles Chong. It's like completely unreliable online figure
is then and then Hooberman, who has a massive following,
(17:42):
shares it and he's like, I have to speak out now.
This is outrageous. This money could have been spent doing
you know, anih research. It's like, as Lefong points out,
they searched New York, not even New York Times. So
New York University gets a lot of money for research
et such, anything with the word New York get it
showed up in here. And this should this in the
(18:05):
old days, so to speak, this wouldn't matter. This would
be like kind of funny that like people got this
kind of thing wrong because Twitter x has now taken
on this like central place in the MAGA ecosystem. What
goes viral there becomes just quote unquote true and then
gets sent to the press secretary, and then the press
(18:26):
secretary responds to it even though it's just fundamentally wrong.
And you know, the inability of the community notes to
respond to this stuff is also very telling, Like this
is just wrong, but it's not getting noted for the
most part.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, and even if it was, I don't know that
it would really matter. I mean, Elon Musk himself is
what the most community noted person on Twitter. Yeah, and
it hasn't stopped anyone, well it has, I mean some
people don't believe his nonsense, but plenty of people do,
regardless of the fact that he will just you know,
take a claim like this and spread it like it's
nothing without thinking twice about it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So, yeah, it's a total destruction.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I don't know if we put that up already.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, it's a very like, yeah, it's a very post truth,
postmodernist kind of a reality.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
And you're right.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But now the you know, used to the Biden people
back in twenty twenty were able to win with this
bedrock assumption that like, what happens online isn't real life,
and that's just not true anymore. Now what happens on
Twitter as preposterous as it is, like they have filled
this administration in part with people who are good posters.
(19:35):
I mean, that's basically how Jamie Vance ends up as
Vice president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And Elon Musk has you know, I mean, obviously he
has a number of power sources, but one of them
is the fact that he runs this platform to his
own benefit, including something else that you've talked about, Ryan,
including silencing critics from within MAGA. So you know, Elon
is a Hobber Malay fan, an anarcho capital list, you know,
(20:00):
a fan of this like tech, feudalist, nonsense, crazy, and
it is directly at odds with the Steve Bannon populist
right ideology. I mean, Steve Bannon will tell you that
in quite existential terms. Go read his interview with the
New York Times, and so the kind of original Maga
type people like the Laura Lumbers of the world, who
(20:22):
were going out and trying to you know, trying to
push back against this direction which is an existential threat
to the you know, populist right. Steve Bannon ask view
of what Trump should be and what he should be doing.
It truly is Elon Musk is a existential threat to them.
They have been vanished on Twitter and suppressed and you
(20:43):
no longer like really see them bubbling up. So you know,
it's it has become this incredibly influential platform that has
a direct pipeline into what is coming out of the
Press Secretary's mouth, which is why we have to pay
attention to stupidities like making up these numbers about Politico
in New York Times.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And then what you what you will then see is
that the most absurd and incorrect claims will end up
getting noted, and then that gives credence to ones that
aren't noted. And so for instance, now finally this ian
Miles Chong one does have a community note, and so
they'd be like, hey, this guy is saying that it's
(21:20):
New York Times. Actually it's New York This guy's saying
it's the last five years. It's not the last. He
didn't run it for the last five years. Because if
you don't put in, if you don't put the time
in right in USA spending, it gives you like And
then what they're noting here is that the actual total
to the New York Times over five years would be
one point six million, but most of that is from
(21:42):
the Apartment of Defense, the Pentagon. These are Pentagon. These
are people in the Pentagon or service members who subscribe
to The New York Times and expense it to the government.
So instead of uncovering some scandal they just discovered, would
like people read the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
For better or worse? Maybe to them that is quite
a scandal, Like yess still do?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
All right, We've got David dan standing by to break
down some of the legal challenges and legal movement push
back against DOGE, pushback against the Trump administration. Some new
court decisions have come down, so let's get to that.
So for a look at the legal pushback against Elon
Musk DOJE and also the Trump administration more broadly, we
(22:29):
are glad to have David dan here, of course, is
the editor of The American Prospect and great friend of
the show.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Great to see you, dude, Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, of course, So give people a broad contour, and
then I'll get into some of the elements. We have
some of the specifics of some of the legal most
significant legal pushback against the moves too, I don't know,
seize the Treasury and make Congress irrelevant and fire a
bunch of people who and get rid of an agency,
and all of these sorts of things.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
Well, really every single one of those has some sort
of corresponding legal action that we're seeing. There was hearing
today on maybe the biggest threat, which is the accessing
of the Treasury Department's payment system at the Bureau of
the Fiscal Service. The Justice Department agreed to restrict access
(23:20):
to just two people, Tom Krause, who's kind of leading
this DOGE team at Treasury, and this twenty five year
old Marco Iliz, and to make sure that their access
was read only, and apparently that has happened to a degree.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
There's been some limitations, particularly.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
On Marco, So that was an example of an early success.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
That's a temporary restraining order.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Of course, there was also two temporary restraining orders on
the payment freeze that was put together by the Office
of Management Budget and what that led to was a
rescinding of the order to pause all rants and loans.
The federal government nicks that hasn't fully kind of taken hold.
(24:07):
I think what we're learning is once you turn off
some of that stuff, it's hard to turn it back on.
So there's projects all over the country like head Start
that aren't getting the money that they were supposed to
be able to get. There are other lawsuits, particularly around
the firings. There's a lawsuit as we know today is
(24:29):
the end of this buyout offer, this kind of fake
buyout offer. Unions have sued saying that that isn't authorized
by law anywhere. And then another big one is Gwynn Wilcox,
who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board
who was fired in violation of the nlrp's own statute,
(24:52):
which says you can't fire a board member unless there's
malfeasance in office, dude, to try to block that firing.
There are other lawsuits about illegal firings. For example, the
USDA's inspector General who came to work saying this is
(25:13):
an illegal firing when you fired me and was escorted
out of the building by security.
Speaker 7 (25:18):
She has also sued to get her job back.
Speaker 8 (25:21):
So, you know, a really broad section of these across
the federal government, across some of the things have been done.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Let's talk about the buyouts for a moment. There's been
it's been reported that roughly twenty thousand people maybe it's
a few thousand more since then, have taken these buyouts.
You guys pointed out over the prospect that that's actually
under the kind of expected turnover. So, in other words,
the people that have accepted this quote unquote buyout are
(25:50):
people who were ready to retire anyway, and they're like, oh.
Speaker 8 (25:53):
Likely the case, yeah, most, I mean it's quite a
bit under. I mean, the average will turnover within the
federal civil service is something between five and ten percent.
Twenty thousand employees would represent one percent of the federal
government's workforce. There are new numbers out today that say
(26:15):
that's up to about forty thousand, but that's still quite
a bit less.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
So these are people who were going to.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
Retire who figure, Okay, maybe i'll get several months of
severance as a result. Now whether they will get is
really very much in question. We know from the experience
of Twitter that many many people sued after they were
(26:41):
given a buyout offer because they didn't get the money
that they claimed they were going to get. And there's
a little clause at the end of the resignation offer
that has been made by the government that essentially says
that you're not.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
Allowed to sue the government over reason.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
So clearly they're setting up for a situation where they
kind of pull the rug out from these people who
have accepted the buyout offer.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
My understanding is there's also a question about whether this
offer itself is legal because it would again require some
expenditure of funds, and you know, there's what a budget
deadline coming up in March, and there's nothing that can
really be authorized beyond that, et cetera. So isn't there
also just a question over whether the courts may say, hey,
you can't even go forward with this. So all you
(27:30):
people who took this deal like you're kind of high
and dry, because this was an illegal offer to begin with.
Speaker 8 (27:36):
Yeah, and that's part of the lawsuit to enjoin this
offer because, as you say, on March fourteenth, federal government
appropriations run out. So you can't make a promise to
the federal workforce that we're going to keep paying you
until September thirtieth if they only have authorization to pay
(27:58):
anybody in the federal government until March fourteenth. So, yes,
that is a major part of the lawsuit that was
put together by two federal employee unions, the American Federation
Government Employees, and I believe Sciu And.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Can you talk a little bit about the NLRB unpack
not just this illegal firing that's being challenged, but the
broader effort to actually deem the NLRB to be not
an agency, to be effectively unconstitutional. Where is that fight?
Speaker 8 (28:31):
Yeah, there are two things on, like parallel tracks going on.
So first, by firing the head of the artmor one
of the board members of the NLRB, Trump has put
this agency down to two board members. And here's why
that's important. Normally it's a five member panel. Two members
(28:51):
means that the NLRB does not currently have a quorum,
and under Supreme Court precedent, that means that it cannot
it cannot actually adjudicate any case right now. And the
NLRB sort of operates as an appeals court on federal
labor law.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
So there are.
Speaker 8 (29:11):
Regional NLRB offices that make decisions. They are administrative law
juzes that make decisions, but if anything is appealed, it
has to be answered by the NLRB. So it's like
having an appeals court or having no appeals court, but
people can still appeal. So if a company has a
union election and the union wins, and the company decides
(29:35):
we're going to sue because we're going to challenge this election,
it goes up to the MLRB, where it effectively stays there.
At this point, it can't there nothing else can be
done on the case. So this kind of stalls out
US labor law. Whether it's union elections or illegal firings
or other grievances, anything that gets elevated to the NLRB
(29:59):
level can't be done right now. And so that's the
benefit that Trump gets from this firing, which has been
challenged in court.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
Separately, there's a process.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
By companies like SpaceX and Amazon, familiar names the richest
people in the world who are trying to make the
NLRB unconstitutional. That's what they're arguing in court. They've been
doing this since the Biden administration. But these cases are
starting to wind their way up through the courts. They're
(30:32):
at the appeals court level right now, and they may
get to the Supreme Court where they would have to
decide whether or not the NLRB is unconstitutional. It's a
really kind of operatic argument, but you never know with
this court, and so at that point you would end
up having no labor law in fact rather than just
(30:54):
in practice as we have right now.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
David, one question, one big question I have right now
is whether they're going to follow these court orders. So
they've already suffered a few losses. You mentioned one at
the top, there's an injunction against the freezing of all
the payments. We can actually put E four up on
the screen you were referencing some of this. The Trump
administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants in
(31:19):
spite of the fact that two different federal courts have
now barred it from doing so, and maybe that's a misunderstanding,
or maybe they just maybe they just aren't listening to
the court orders. There also was an injunction against the
Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, which is just like briazenly preposterously unconstitutional.
There's an injunction against transferring transgender women into men's prisons
(31:45):
as well.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
So you know, what indications.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Do we have about how much they're going to actually
listen or care about these various court injunctions and rulings
that ultimately go against them, Because you do have people
like JD. Vansu previously when he was just doing podcasts,
was like, yeah, we're going to be like Andrew Jackson
and say, okay, well go and force this ruling with
your army.
Speaker 8 (32:08):
Yeah, it's obviously one of the bigger concerns that we
can possibly have, and we're not going to really know
the outcome of that until you get sort of a
final ruling. Right until we get a Supreme Court adjudication
of some of these cases is adverse to what Trump wants.
That's when we're going to find out if the river
(32:29):
meets the road here. What we do know right now
is that the let's start a bit with the one
that started today with the payment system. Apparently, according to
reporting from Nathan Tankas, the Treasury Department has started to
limit the access of at least one the twenty five
(32:51):
year old kid, Marco Aliz.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
They've limited his access to the payment system.
Speaker 8 (32:58):
It's more closer to read only at this point, which
complies with that order. The O NB memo was rescinded.
But as you say, there are several or other what
seemed to be illegal impoundments going on. Some of that
is because the authority or the alleged authority for some
(33:20):
of those impowments, like the stuff at EPA, is derived
from different sources. So there was an executive order that
said we're going to terminate the Green New Deal is
the way that it was put in the EO, and
that tries to pause all disbursements of you know, climate
(33:41):
related investments that were made under the Inflation Reduction Act
and under the Investment Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. And so
even though the pause on all grants and loans has
been blocked by two federal courts, there are these other
(34:03):
authorities that say.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
We're allowed to block foreign aid or pause foreign aid.
Speaker 8 (34:08):
We're allowed to pause these EPA grants and things like that,
and those haven't really been challenged to the same degree
saying your authority in the executive order to do this
is bogus and it would represent, you know, basically stealing
the power of the purse away from Congress and deciding
that you don't have to spend money on things you
(34:28):
don't like.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
So that battle sort of remains to be seen.
Speaker 8 (34:34):
They haven't really pushed that yet, so that's I think
that's been lost a little bit. People think, oh, the
O and B memo was rescinded, and so now federal
money is flowing again, and it's not true. I mean,
there are still these illegal impoundments happening in violation of
the Constitution and violation of federal law, the Empownment Control Act,
(34:59):
which sets very strict limits on when a president can
delay funds that have been duly appropriated by Congress, and
it violates Supreme Court precedent as well. And eventually we're
going to get to a reckoning on that, because that's
what the Trump administration wants. They want to pick a
fight over impoundment to try to get this power for
(35:20):
themselves to unilaterally cancel certain.
Speaker 7 (35:24):
Types of spending.
Speaker 8 (35:25):
And so we're going to see that fight happen at
the court. But you know the really dangerous question that
you ask Crystal, whether after the end of that fight,
we're still going to see an administration adhere to whatever
it is.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
The Supreme Court says that's still in question.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, David, thank you so much for your expertise and
laying all of this out. We're always really grateful for
your time, and it's great to see you.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
You got it. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Excited to be joined this morning by Commerce and Rocana,
who found himself and bit of a Twitter dispute with
our new god King Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
So great to have you, Congressman.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Great to be back on Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
So okay, let me I'll.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Give people a little bit of the backstory and then
you can explain the full backstory. So political reporter put
out that you had abstained from a vote that would
have subpoenaed Elon Musk to come and test to buy
about whatever he and Doage are up to at this point.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
That was not entirely accurate.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
So you clarified on Twitter, and that leads to the
exchange with Elon Musk. Just give us a little bit
like what exactly happens here.
Speaker 9 (36:33):
So first, let me just get to the bottom line,
which is I want Elon Musk to testify, to be transparent,
to be subpoena that what he's doing is blatantly unconstitutional.
If I was scared about that, I would not have
had on Twitter. Knowing that he follows every one of
my tweets, made that very very clear.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
And we can put that up on the screen. By
the way, what you can continue.
Speaker 9 (36:56):
Talking and within minutes of me put that tweet up,
he tweets back, don't be a dick. We get into
it because I said to Ilin, I said this, I've
said this privately to him, I've said it publicly. If
you want to have an exposure of waste in the government,
then the best way to do it is to have
sunlight come, do your have your findings, show him to
(37:19):
the Congress, and force us to cast up up and
down votes. I was I got hammered from my party
in the beginning when Musk was adulgient. I said, Okay,
if he is wasteful spending on the Department of Defense,
I'm willing to hear him ount but the yeah, yeah, no,
But so it's not like, so I got hammered, but
I said, when you're doing something that's fundamentally unconstitutional, you
(37:42):
you can't be the decider of what is wasteful spending.
And that is just a blatant violation Article one.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
And so you know I've I will stand up to
him if and have very very clearly.
Speaker 6 (37:55):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (37:55):
And what got noticed actually, ironically was my tweet, not
any of the committees efforts, because people know that I
have had a relationship with him for fifteen years and
I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong.
I will be the loudest is standing up for the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
How did you meet him? Do you remember your first
interaction with him. I didn't represent Silicon Valley for people
he is.
Speaker 9 (38:18):
You know, he's never supported me in terms of politically
because he actually wasn't very very political. But I met him.
He blured my first book when I wrote a book
about manufacturing in the United States, and you know, someone
at Estra Wajiski who's known in the valley, introduced me
to him.
Speaker 6 (38:36):
He blames the book.
Speaker 9 (38:38):
And then we got into it on Tesla because he
was begging in a essue who's a neighboring Member of
Congress from Silicon Valley for a Tesla loan from the
Obama administration. I was in the Obama administration.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Your Commerce Department, in Commerce.
Speaker 9 (38:51):
Department, and there are those of us saying, well, okay,
but you need labor neutrality, and we don't get labor
neutrality out of it. But I'm active on the record
in Fremont saying that Tesla should unionize, and so he knew.
We've known each other for years, but I've said Tesla
is obviously was a great company in terms of electric vehicles,
(39:12):
but should you noton ize it.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
So I've known him for many, many years.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
What do you think he wants?
Speaker 9 (39:18):
You know, he's he's maniacal about when he believes in something.
I mean, this is I Those people are saying, Okay,
he's just in it for financial reasons.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
That's not my read on him, though.
Speaker 9 (39:29):
I think he should have financial disclosures like I do,
and there should be conflict of interest and he shouldn't
be the one deeciding.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
But I think what he believes that he's out.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
There in a mission to save the American people for
thirty six million dollars of deficit and it's actually a
bigger problem because when you have an ideological drive like that,
and when you're Elon Musk and you believe that you've
been right time and time again in the private sector
when other people have been wrong, he's basically thinking, okay,
kind of standing in my way, I'm doing great service
(39:59):
for humanity and go. You know, anyone is in my
way is going to be roadkill. And that's why it's
so important to stand up to him, and to stand
up very very clearly and say this is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Having the richest man on the planet also be one
of the most powerful people in the federal government is
itself a unique situation. But he also controls ex Twitter,
which is still, despite his best efforts, is a central
organizing platform for how we understand public sentiments. And so
(40:33):
I'm curious if your colleagues or you think about his
power over that platform, as your colleagues think about how
hard to go after him, because he could you know,
with the flick of a switch.
Speaker 10 (40:51):
I knew he would right to send you or all
of a sudden, you're getting like Q likes and one.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Follower count starts to go down, and you know, people
aren't really seeing your tweets anymore. I mean this has
happened to many people who have come after him on Twitter, right.
Speaker 9 (41:08):
No, I mean, look, he in my case, my reply
to him saying don't be a dick got more views
than his actual tweets. So I mean, in my case,
so far at least, he hasn't done that type of censorship.
But I do think it's a problem more generally, which
is why we need many more platforms, which is one
of the reasons I was defending TikTok and saying that
(41:29):
we shouldn't ban TikTok and we shouldn't have Musk or
Meta acquire TikTok because you need alternative social media platforms.
And I think TikTok actually is a place where we've
gotten the most response frankly on standing up to Musk.
And we need more social media platform so we can
push back on Musk, etc. That's going to be important,
(41:51):
but on the platform. But what we really need is,
and I cruss enforcement and more platforms coming up that
we're less is can have a voice.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
One of the things Ryan and I were talking about
is like Elon describes what he's doing as a revolution,
and I think that's accurate. I mean, you don't go
into the Treasury Department. And now we have new reporting
that they are changing the code that they The New
York Times says that there were emails flying around saying,
we want to use our access to the Treasury payment
(42:22):
system to freeze funding to USAI D. I don't have
to tell you that USAID is authorized by Congress as
an independent agency, Elon Muskin, no one else. Donald Trump
can't just single handedly say we don't like this agency,
We're getting rid of it, or we're subsuming it understate
et cetera, et cetera. They're doing that. They've gone into
the etc. For Medicare, Medicaid into NOAH GSA. You know,
(42:45):
the list goes on and on, and none of this
congressionally authorized. It's obviously a constitutional crisis. They have a
broader plan to, you know, have this go to the courts.
Whether they even abide by court decisions is an open question,
I think as well, there's already indications that some of
the court injunctions are already being ignored. So while he's
(43:07):
doing what he describes as a revolution. You know, we
were earlier talking about like, oh, they're trying to keep
themselves free from foya. I mean, it just feels so
small ball, right, compared to the grand plan that they
are executing.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, So how are you groppling with that as a
member of Congress And what are the conversations like among
your colleagues about how to about the gravity of this threat, right,
and how to truly push back against it in a
way that's not just going to be sort of like
impotent or pointing to like you weren't confirmed by the
Senate and where's my foyer required?
Speaker 6 (43:41):
Right?
Speaker 9 (43:41):
Well, you're asking what people in my district around the
country are asking, which is what the hell's the plan
and why don't we have a clear plan for the
Democratic Party to meet the moment? Because I think you
actually understand Elon really well, he've used this as revolutionary,
He've used this as there's a thirty six trillion dollar
debt and Congress has been part of the problem, and
that he's not just going to be some bureaucrat who
(44:03):
gives a report to Congress, because that's what he When
you say, well, why don't you just get the transparency
in the sunlight, He's like, I'm not just going to
just give some report to Congress that they're going to disregard.
And I'm going to try to stop this.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I'm going to be CEO of the country, right and
rule it in the same dictatorial way that he rules Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, etc.
Speaker 9 (44:24):
And one is a company. I mean find maybe a
great company, but a company is not even a few
pages in the American story, right. This is a much
much bigger thing. This is a country that won the
Revolutionary War, that wins the Civil War, that wins World
War two, wins the Cold War. It's the greatest enterprise ever.
So you can't have one individual do it. But I
say that so we understand his psychology, and it means
(44:49):
a equally tough response. What is that response here? It
needs to come down first to the debt ceiling. We
need to have every House Democrat and Senate dem crat
say we will not give a single vote to the
debt ceiling increase unless Donald Trump in the beginning commits
(45:09):
in ironclad writing that he will spend every single dollar
that is appropriated and authorized by Congress and honor Congress
on every agency. And you know what Donald Trump's going
to fold. You know why He's going to fold because
when the stock market went down five hundred points, he's
folded to a Prime Minister Trudeau, and he folded to
President Shane Baum. And the reality is that the Democrats
(45:32):
need to be strong. Who's asserting the will of Congress?
Like it's not we're going to go for your request.
It's like you want to crash the economy then defy
the will of Congress.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Well, let me let me ask you a question about that,
because again, they have control of the treasury payment system.
So what is the response if they say, Okay, that's fine,
we just are going to ignore the debt ceiling and
we're going to just pay the bill. We're just going
to pay the bills that we want to pet. We
just want to pay the bills that we want to pay.
(46:02):
And you know, I mean, I think the debt dealing
is a ridiculous, you know, absurdity that we even have
it right, And so you could easily say Trump saying
we're just not doing that anymore, and we're going to
add treasury like pick and choose what funds go out,
as they already say they are doing and want to do.
Speaker 9 (46:19):
Well, I think if they actually do that, they're going
to lose the chip Roys. I mean where chip roy
and others would come in and say impeachment or other things.
Speaker 6 (46:27):
I genuinely think.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
There are thirty for me to believe.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
Congressman, well, I'm not talking about the average Republican, but
there are thirty people in the Republican Caucus, the Freedom
Caucus who have stood up to them. They stood up
to Elon Musk before Trump was inaugurated, and they said,
Elon said, let's blow up this deal. And they stood
up to him on that.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
And I can I tell you what I'm looking at.
You know, Pete Hegseth was his confirmation was in big trouble,
and Jony Ernst in particular, who is herself a sexual
assault and was deeply concerned about his comments saying women
can't serve in the military, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
She seemed like she was a no.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
And then Elon comes out and says, I will drop
an infinite amount of money on the head of anyone
who poses any of the confirmations, and lo and behold,
Pete hag Seth, looks like all of them are going
to ultimately get through.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
So I just don't see.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
I mean, even with the you know, the spending flap
that happened in December. Yeah, I mean Elon drove that
whole train and again threatened to use his billions and
billions on you know, soon to be probably trillions of
dollars to primary anyone who didn't give him the bill
that he wanted. And it worked, Chip Roy and all
the rest folded like a you know, like a deca card.
Speaker 9 (47:44):
They didn't fold on increasing the debt ceiling and Elon
didn't get a dollar actually saved.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Now he got his the restriction on investment in China.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Yeah, and that that you know that he may very
well have. I'm not saying that he doesn't have influence,
but I think if you have a group of House
members twenty to thirty in relatively safe districts and you
see Elon's numbers have been declining, I mean he's the
big question for Trump is how long is he going
to have someone who's as unpopular as Elon is becoming.
Speaker 6 (48:14):
I do think the.
Speaker 9 (48:15):
House can assert back, and at the very least, the
House we need to have a plan of what we're
going to do to take the fight to Trump. Now
maybe you're saying, okay, we take this fight and then
Trump makes a counter move. Right now, I think why
people are so upset is they don't see us having
a real plan. I mean, at least Schatz, Senator Shatz
had a plan. He said, Okay, we're gonna put a
hold on every nominee to the State Department, including Stefanic.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
But what we need from our leaders.
Speaker 9 (48:41):
Is three or four things that says we are going
to assert the power of Congress. We're going to punch
back in terms of our power, and then we're going
to wait for Trump to make the next move. The
only people who winning against Trump for President Shane Baum
and Trudeau.
Speaker 6 (48:55):
They're the only ones who've gotten to fold on anything.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Is there any regret among Democrats? So the other day,
while Oversight was doing whatever it was doing, AOC was
having like an Instagram live that had like tens of
thousands of people tuning in, Like she's clearly still one
of the parties like leading messengers.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
That's one of the best communicators. Yeah and authentic.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, and you watch these some of these rallies, no offense,
just deeply cringe stuff coming out of Democrats.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Humor was not made for this moment.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Val Green was shaking his cane. Any regret from your
colleagues telling AOC, you know, get in the back of
the line, like, because it's not as if Democrats aren't
doing things, like there are a million lawsuits that have
been filed, like lots of things are happening and people
are active, but there's no national voice.
Speaker 9 (49:46):
Now, well, let me let's take an example this oversight hearing.
The fact is everyone is yawning about the subpoena until
I tweet out that Musk should be subpoena because of
the missed vote, and then Musk replies, imagine if AOC
was the ranking member leading that, it would have been
a very different case.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
That would have been national needs.
Speaker 9 (50:05):
And because he's fighting, he loves to fight with her,
he would have she would have said something, he would
have responded.
Speaker 6 (50:12):
That would have been national news. It wouldn't make something right.
Speaker 9 (50:15):
It wouldn't have taken my missed vote to provoke that.
So I think it was such.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
A blunder not to put her there.
Speaker 9 (50:23):
What I said to moderate Democrats when I because I
was one of the first out of the gate to
endorse her, support her, rally support for her, and I said, okay,
you disagree, I get it. You disagree with AOC in
her position on Gaza, you disagree on immigration. But she
is not running to be ranking member of the Foreign
Affairs Committee. She is not running to be ranking member
(50:44):
the Judiciary Committee. She's running to be ranking member of
the committee that punches Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (50:50):
Like, isn't isn't this the role where she would be
the best in our caucus?
Speaker 9 (50:55):
And I mean, this is where the Democrats need to
get the next generation out there.
Speaker 6 (51:02):
The optics of some of the stuff at the rallies
has just been cringe.
Speaker 9 (51:06):
I mean because it looks ineffectual, it's non an actual plan,
and it doesn't look like we're flexing our power like Congress.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
You know, it's not like JD.
Speaker 9 (51:17):
Vance and Donald Trump are out there protesting Congress.
Speaker 6 (51:21):
They're saying, we have power. Well, we need to act
like we have power. We do.
Speaker 9 (51:25):
We have the power of the purse, and we have
the power of votes in confirmation, and we need to
stand together.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
What are you hearing most from your constituents, Like what
kind of First of all, are you getting like a
flood of calls? Is there a lot of energy? What
are you hearing from them? What are their concerns?
Speaker 4 (51:40):
What are they? You know, what is that vibe like?
Speaker 9 (51:42):
So for two months after the loss to Trump, it
was pretty muted. But as soon as Trump became president
and Musk stopped those payments, I think a light bulb
went off. And in my last town hall this weekend,
over six hundred people showed up, people holding up signs
(52:02):
stopped the coup.
Speaker 6 (52:04):
Stop the Musk coup.
Speaker 9 (52:06):
In a sense bluntly that the Democratic leadership has not
been tough enough that we are a response has not
been clear enough. I do think Hakim has an opportunity
to be the voice because it's not coming out of
the Senate. I think this fight in the House debt
ceiling is that opportunity and one of the things we
(52:26):
got to do. Yes, take on Musk, but we also
need to take on Vance and Trump. I mean they're
the ones who are ultimately responsible, and not give them
a free pass on taking away funding for kids in
working class neighborhoods for their schools, I mean taking away
money for kids with special needs then, And we've got
to just be tougher as a party.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
And you've been going at Vance a little bit. What's
your sense of his position here?
Speaker 9 (52:53):
Well, I think he wants to be the nice guy.
He's kind of wants to be I'm the reasonable guy.
I think Tim Waltz made a huge mistake in that
debate by not going after Vance. They were coached to say,
just go after Trump, and Vance comes up as this like, oh,
I'm reasonable, giving Trump the sense of that, oh he's
appointing reasonable people, and what the what the reality is
Vance is driving the nominations of heg Seth and Gabbert.
(53:18):
Behind the scenes, he's the one pressuring the senators. Vance
hasn't raised his voice once to question why we're going
to get rid of all of these programs for working
class kids. In the Department of Education, pell grants Title
one funding for decent schools. He's he's basically quiet, and
the Democrats have an opportunity to define him for the
(53:39):
extremist he is and not let him just kind of
be this reasonable person. I mean, look at what the
Republicans did to Vice President Harris.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, and to Walls as well. You said that constituents
showed up with science that said, you know, stop the muscoup,
Like do you think that that language is car Do
you think it is a coup?
Speaker 9 (53:58):
I think it's a constitutional crisis. I mean, I think
the coup would be if he succeeds. But I don't
think he's going to succeed. I think we've we will
push back.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
With attempted coups.
Speaker 6 (54:10):
It's it's it's certainly a violation of the constitution. Cool.
You know, these turns get thrown around.
Speaker 9 (54:16):
And I'm not saying that it couldn't come to that
if we if we're complacent, but if we pushed back, uh,
and we make sure that we stand up for our
construcial prerogatives. I think we have we had them on
the defensive. I actually think they have really overreached. I
was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania this past weekend. I met Tracy.
She's at a barbecue place. She's a part owner. She said,
(54:39):
you know, I voted for Donald Trump. I said that
that doesn't surprise me. Why But she said, I have
some concerns.
Speaker 6 (54:45):
I said why.
Speaker 9 (54:46):
She said, well, I voted for him because he was
going to make sure that there were no taxes on
overtime pay I want. I voted for him because he
wasn't going to text tips. I was like, Wow, these
messages are really getting through. I said, what about Kamala Harris.
She said, you know, candidly, I considered her, I really
but I felt she was a phony. And I said, well,
what do you think now? Well, I'm concerned my mom
is in the hospital and Medicaid is maybe cut. So
(55:10):
there is a chance to be talking to people like Tracy.
We've got to go on the offensive and be willing
to assert our power.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Last question for me, are you are you are you
sensing any institutional prerogative from Congress? Like if this continues,
this idea that Elon Musk can and Donald Trump can
like pick and choose where they spend money, Congress doesn't
really have a role in this liket. Yeah, Congress can
(55:38):
I guess Congress could.
Speaker 6 (55:39):
Like settle the ceilings.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, and then if you need more money than that,
you have to go figure it out some other way.
But that but that becomes it. And if all you're
doing is setting a ceiling, you don't need you certainly
don't need five hundred and thirty five members of Congress
to do that. That's just two people and basically just
Trump telling them what to do. So is there any
sense from Republicans that like, okay, we are ideologically and
(56:04):
politically Republicans first, but secondly, we're we serve in this
institution that is potentially being wiped out as a force
in American politics, and we should do something about that.
Is there any sense of that or is it more
we're so partisan now that that's okay as long as
the Republicans come out on top in the new system.
Speaker 9 (56:25):
So we need to make the argument he made more
because where are the three Republicans that are going to
stand for the institutional prerogative of Congress? And there may
be if this fight happens with the dead ceiling. I mean,
that's something like a chip roy or something. But the
reality is there's fear, and the fear is that the
people who have taken on Donald Trump and the Republican
(56:45):
Party are gone. You know, they're Adam Kissinger there, Liz
Cheney's a whole list of people who are not even
as famous. And the ones who have stood with Donald
Trump are National Security advisor and in the cabinet and
are going to be you an ambassador. So if you're
a politician on the Republican side, the lesson is pretty
clear that you stand with Donald Trump if you care
(57:09):
about your career and people rationalize it saying, well, he'll
be there for four years and then something else will happen.
And so it's a palpable fear that's not irrational about
losing their jobs. And that's that's I think why they
haven't spoken out.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
Well, and like I said before, now you have the
additional enforcement mechanism of Elon Musk being willing to spend
you know, which would what would be a trivial amount
of his net worth in order to primary and take
on anyone who doesn't inline right.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
That graveyard was filled before Trump had access to Musks.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
To unlimited, virtually unlimited money.
Speaker 6 (57:48):
And he would spend it. He will if he's not
an idle threat. It's not an idle threat.
Speaker 9 (57:52):
And it's a and for a house race that could
you know, ten million dollars twenty million dollars, even if
you don't beat an incumbent. You know, people, this is
is instill an enormous amount of amount of fear. Yeah,
so you know, we're in a situation where this is
a real, real fight for constitutional democracy. And I think
the they what people are frustrated that watch probably breaking
(58:16):
points or come to my town halls is they don't
see the Democratic Party right now, rising to the moment,
understanding the stakes, taking on the fight, having a clear
plan uh and and saying okay, we're going to push back.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah yeah, I mean they're really on the on the
Elon Mustoje side there.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
As Ryan said to me, they're really going for it.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
I think it's pronounced doggie.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
I prefer that pronounce doe is the other way. They're
really going for it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You know, they're now, they're no guarantees they'll succeed, but
they are mounting a revolution, and so people want to
see a response that is commeaserate with that, with that
true threat. So current, and we always appreciate your time.
Speaker 6 (58:53):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I guess it worked out for you to miss that
vote since the drew tension of the.
Speaker 6 (58:57):
Whole generation area of confidence Elon. Thank you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:03):
All Right, that's it for today. Tomorrow, Emily and I
have our interview with Natalie Winters. That'll be up for
premium subscribers later today for everybody else, the freeloaders. Tomorrow.
She is the war Room, Steve Bannon's war Room with
White House correspondent. It was a fascinating wide ranging conversation
should get.
Speaker 4 (59:20):
Us an interview with Steve Bannon, because I would kind
of like that.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I'll ask her sure, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
Yeah, make that both of them for us, so that
would be very interesting. So in any case, Ryan, thank
you so much for filling in, and stay tuned for
that tomorrow and we will see you guys next week
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of this show.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, let's go ahead and get to some of
the liberal democratic reaction to Trump's Gaza ethic cleansing plan, so,
you know, a part for the course, rather than saying,
you know, gee, uh, it would have been good if
Democrats could have beat this guy, because this is all
really going terribly and maybe if they hadn't been so
committed to their own genocidal plans with regard to Gaza,
(00:56):
maybe they could have eked down a win. Since it
was really, you know, really quite close. You have a
number of significant liberal accounts who have decided that the
real fault was the people who either stayed home and
didn't vote, or who you know, actively voted for Trump
because they were so horrified by the genocide that was
(01:16):
being perpetrated by the Biden administration. So let's go ahead
and put the first one up on the screen. Here,
we can do speed run through these. These are Samone Sanders.
I think now it's very proper to reiterate that elections
have consequences. Obviously that is a job at you know,
people who were worried about the genocide.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
We can go up to Harry Sisson.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Next says, I hope all of the losers who said
and posted things like this understand they played a crucial
role in helping Trump get elected. He will now have
hurt millions with that power. This was somebody who said, hey,
Kamala Gaza is speaking now, bitch. Next up we have
Adam Gentilsen, who said, in two thousand, the left said
there was no difference between Gore and Bush, so vote nator.
Then Bush ared a war of choice in Iraq, and
(01:53):
twenty twenty four the left said there was no difference
between Harrison Trump, so vote uncommitted. Now we have Trump
proposing that the US take over Gaza.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Gentlesen, by the way, you can check FEC records. He's
still a consultant for John Fetterman. He's a former chief
of staff to Fetterman. People knew that, but like, go
ahead and look, he's on Fetterman's payroll.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
There you go, all right, and next one, last one
we can put up here a genuine question, not aiming
to stunk on et cetera. But for the pro Gaza
folk who yell gemicide, Jill and killer, Kamala and abstain voted.
Jill's dinary voted for Trump. What's your reaction to Trump
saying US will own Gaza? Same thing in your eyes
as Harris or regret now or question mark. So you
know this is all very very productive. Ryan always did
(02:36):
a genuine question at least, Yeah, all right, genuine question.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So it's a genuine question, Like here's a genuine answer.
Can anybody point me to any moment where Kamala Harris
said that she was going to do anything different than
Joe Biden and was going to ever use US leverage
to force us these firing Gaza, right, was there any
(03:01):
moment where Kamala Harris told voters that she would be
less hawkish or less warlike than Donald Trump. Is a
genuine question. Back to this genuine question, can anybody find
me an example of either of those? Because I can
find you many, many examples of Harris saying the opposite,
(03:24):
that she would continue the Biden approach to arming Israel
no matter what, and also that she would be tougher
when it came to making war than Donald Trump most
lethal army ever.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
You know, like prosecutor transnational gangs.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, so tell me, like what is the and bringing
Liz Cheney talking about, So what is the argument for
to make the case that the war would not still
be going on now as we speak if Kamala Harris
were president, like sending us how everything else that Trump
(04:04):
is doing? Like, what's the case to make that? Right now?
We'd have a ceasefire in Gaza if Kamala Harris were president, Like,
how do you in your mind? How do you get
what happened from election day in November to today in
February that brought about a ceasefire? Because we have a
ceasefire with Trump's president, what does it hold? Does he
(04:28):
send troops in there? We don't know, we'll see. Yeah,
but right now we have a ceasefire. What's the evidence
that Harris would have gotten that done.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And also, you know,
the Uncommitted movement, they really went above and beyond to
give her an opportunity to and a bunch of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The uncommitted leaders endorsed Harris.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Endorsed her anyway, that's right.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And you know they like the ask to have a
Palestinian American make vetted comments endorsing Kamala at the DNC.
That's how low the bar was in terms of her
trying to extend an olive branch. How many times did
she have the opportunity, you know, at a time when
people were say, hey, you really need to separate yourself
(05:09):
from this guy. Biden is really unpopular. Here on a
platter is an area where he is profoundly unpopular, where
you could easily distance yourself. It would be the right
political thing and the right moral thing. And she would
never ever do it right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And putting a Palistinian American on the stage at the
DNC would have meant something materially because people said, all, oh,
that's nothing, why not do that? It would have pushed
back against her, the donors and the voters who represented
the pro Israel faction who wanted no pressure applied whatsoever
(05:48):
to Israel. Yeah, and Harris's willingness even to put a
vetted two minute speech from Palistinian American on the stage
that endorses her and endorses her strategy, her willingness to
do that would be a glimmer of a possibility that
she's willing to take some risks on behalf of a ceasefire.
And so that's why there was some meaning to what
(06:11):
seems kind of like a meaningful ask, and also is
why she said no to it, because she was not
willing to take those risks. So if she's not willing
to tick off a tiny sliver of her donors, because
a lot of those donors be like, okay, fine, some
Palastin Americans speaks like we had lots of different we
(06:31):
have a different, vast array of speakers up on stage.
Not that big a deal. We can get over it.
She's not even willing to do that. Why on earth
would she be willing to pressure in it in Yahoo
to do something he doesn't want to do. Yeah, And
some people concluded that she wouldn't be. And the other
thing that I think this freak out shows is a
recognition that Gaza did actually play a role in the election,
(06:52):
because otherwise, why like what are you worked up about here?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean they love to be like, oh you left ease,
you don't matter, we don't care about you.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And then that they lose like it was your vault.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You're so powerful, you know, and it's like all right, well,
which which is it?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Here?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We have a statement from one of the co chairs
of the Uncommitted movement we can put up on the screen.
This is from Leila ellabed Is Layla is She wasn't
one of them related to Rashida Tile said.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Oh maybe, yeah, well certainly one of the one of
the Uncommitted organizers was.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well okay in any case, she says, I feel sad, angry,
and scared for our communities. For months, we warned about
the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our
calls largely went unheard. Hairs left a vacuum by not
visiting Michigan. Families impacted by US supplied bombs to help
create a permission structure for their trust. While Trump visited
Dearborn and filled a community in despair with lies. Trump's
illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific, But as on
(07:45):
so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade
voters they were the better.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Alternative, and they blew it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think that is all very accurate in spite of
the former Kamala Harris aid, responding, deeply unseerious. People who
want to shirk their responsibility clowns, because again it's always
the voter's fault, never the fault of the people in
power who had many opportunities responsibilities something different.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, responsibility is such an interesting word there, like who
has the responsibility?
Speaker 6 (08:13):
There? Right?
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yes, exactly right?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And then lastly can put this up on the screen.
So the group that was called Arab Americans for Trump
has now changed their name after the president's Gaza Rivera comments.
They say that the chairman of the group formerly known
as Arab Americans for Trump said during a phone interview
the group is now going to be called Arab Americans
(08:36):
for Peace. Name change came after Trump held that Tuesday
press conference alongside bb net Yahoo and proposed the US
take ownership in re developing the area into the revier
of the Middle East. The talk about what the president
wants to do with Gaza. Obviously, we're completely opposed idea
of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in historic Palestine,
and so we did not want to be behind the
curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has
(08:57):
been our objective from the very beginning. I mean, I
will say, I don't know how you could look at
Trump's first term in office and think that he was
going to be like Propalas. I mean, he gave Israel
everything they wanted, and he had Mary Madison giving him
one hundred million dollars in being like.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
We're going to take over the West Bank.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know, this was all out there publicly, so no
one should be surprised by the approach that Trump is
taking at this point.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
But you know, one thing, Ryan, I one reason.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
In particular why this discourse has kind of annoyed me
in particular because I mean, this is the kind of shit.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
That liberals do all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
But post November, post Trump winning again, there actually has
been some liberal lefty alliance and community building because it's
so clear that the liberal establishment approach was a failure.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Right, they had this.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Theory of oh, we have an anti Trump coalition and
we need to focus on the suburban moderates. We're going
to use this channey to do that. You know, that's
how we're going to approach this. We're going to focus
on rather than addressing people's material concerns, which is what
contributed to the rise of this I would say, fascist movement,
Rather than dealing with that, we're just going to you know,
talk about democracy, talk about fascism in the abstract and
(10:11):
not fully delivered for people. And you know, all of
those theories were really wrong. Not to mention that they
spent so much time destroying the Bernie Sanders movement both
in twenty sixteen and then again vanquishing him in twenty
twenty that I would say was their primary goal over
ultimately defeating Trump, and all of that edifice has been
has humbled. You know, in some of the favored media personalities,
(10:32):
the Joe and Meeka's of the world, have you know,
capitulated to Trump after making lots of money being these
big resistance figures, and so you know, when he actually
gets in there and they want to continue to have
access to power, they immediately bend the knee. So there
has been a real a real opening, and I think
a real radicalizing of a lot of liberals who have
(10:54):
fled MSNBC who are going to more like lefty YouTube
channels like my husband's Kyle's, but a lot of others
do David dol MIKE'SO have seen huge growth. So, you know,
the other thing that irritates me about the you know,
the liberal discourse here around Gaza is that I think
it undercuts that new movement and sort of community building
within the Democratic base and radicalizing in a lot of
(11:16):
ways of the Democratic base.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Elon Musk's DOJ Committee hasn't been able to turn up
any serious evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse yet, but
did manage to get a win out of White House
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Let's roll this clip talking about
a Politico scandal.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer
dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico,
the American taxpayer's dying, will no longer be happening. The
DOGE team is working on canceling those payments.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Now.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Again, this is a whole of government effort to ensure
that we are going line by line when it comes
to the Federal of government's books, and this president in
his team are are making decisions across the board on
do these receipts serve the interests of the American people.
Is this a good use of the American taxpayers money.
(12:11):
If it is not, that funding will no longer be
sent abroad and American taxpayers will see significant savings because
of that effort.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Oh boy, this was a wild one yesterday. Normally it
wouldn't be the kind of thing we're talking about, Crystal,
but it rose to the level of the White House
Press Secretary claiming that they're going to come in and
cut off these payments. So to bring people up to
speed what happened here, USA spending dot gov is a website.
It turns out to be very dangerous if you don't
(12:39):
know how to use it. Okay, So people went in
and searched somehow Politico and it came up with this
idea that Politico is funded by USAID and that then
was connected to the fact that Politico had recently had
(12:59):
a glie in their payroll and so some political reporters
didn't get paid, and was then also connected to the
fact that Politico had been one of the many news
outlets that had reported on the letter from fifty former
intelligence officials said that infamous letter, infous letter. So they said, Aha,
(13:23):
So USAID, the State Department basically CIA funded, the Deep
State funded Politico. Politico then laundered this letter from these
intelligence officials to benefit Biden and then gets all of
this money from USAID and then Musk finds out about it,
cancels the money, and now all of a sudden, Politico
(13:45):
can't make payroll, Like, wow, we've got them, incredible. So
in fact, what to me, Actually, these guys did actually
stumble on a scandal, which is the way that a
lot of our Beltway media is funded, which is a
political pro Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Whole, some of the newsletters, all of these trades. So
like insider trade publications, it.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Goes back many decades to the advent of this trade
what's called a trade publication. So if you are either
a government official at the Department of Transportation, you own
a trucking company, you own a shipping company, like your
own lobbyists, or more particularly exactly you're a lobbyist for
those people, you really want to know what everybody, every
(14:33):
lawmaker on the subcommittee that oversees your industry is thinking
up to the minute, and you want to know what
the commissioners and the senior staff at the agency that
regulates you are up to at the moment. And you're
not going to find that in the New York Times
or drop site or here on breaking points like we're
not getting into the weeds like that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Very specialized, like yeah, down to the subcommittee kind of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
The fact that it's lobbying intelligence is an entire thing
like lobbyists whose job is not to actually lobby to
pressure members of Congress to do a thing, it's just
to find out information and then deliver it privately to
different corporations that pay for it. This is the same thing,
really political problem work, all these others that do this,
(15:17):
and so they charge through the roof for this.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Thousands of dollars because they know that, first of all,
it's not coming out of any individual's pocket. It's coming
out of either the government or the lobby shop or
the corporation or whatever. So for them to spend a
few thousand dollars on this information, that's going to prove
valuable to you know, if you're a corporation, your bottom line, eh,
that's nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Right, and so I think it's a reasonable question, like
does a government agency need this?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
But we're talking about people here who are raising these questions,
who are capitalists who would presumably just appreciate.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
The hustle here, right, And this is over more than
a decade, by the way, yes, this amount of money. Well,
the other thing is not all of it is politico.
Not all of it is, and not of all is
USA I did.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Like there's a even the number is wrong, so like
eight million dollars. They make it sound like, oh, they
got eight million dollars from USA i D in a year,
even that's not true. Is eight million dollars over a decade,
from all from all government agencies combined. Now again I
still think like the business model is sort of preposterous whatever,
but it's wildly different than how it was presented. And
(16:19):
then the other thing that's funny to me, Ryan, especially
talking to you, is that you guys have actually done
reporting about some news agencies that USA i D does.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Is actually funded.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And I don't think any of these people cared anything
about it.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Right now now they're now they're there, now they're starting
to notice it. Michael Schellenberger actually did a piece based
on or advancing some of our Reason reporters. So now
they're starting to see. But yes, USA I D does
fund foreign does fund journalism that's done in foreign countries,
and that that journalism is often geared towards US US interests. Yeah,
(16:54):
that that is a thing, and that should be you know,
probed and should be scrutinized. They're not. They're not funding.
Now I had sent this, I don't know, maybe we
can add this in post. It's gotten it's gotten even
more upsurred. We can go back to political in a second.
But the New York Times got lumped into this scandal. Uh,
somebody went through and typed in New York into USA
(17:18):
spending knockov and pulled up a number of like twenty
nine million dollars or something like that, saying that the
US government is funding the New York Times. The tune
of twenty tine million dollars turns out brouh and so
it's Ian Miles Chong. It's like completely unreliable online figure
is then and then Hooberman, who has a massive following,
(17:42):
shares it and he's like, I have to speak out now.
This is outrageous. This money could have been spent doing
you know, anih research. It's like, as Lefong points out,
they searched New York, not even New York Times. So
New York University gets a lot of money for research
et such, anything with the word New York get it
showed up in here. And this should this in the
(18:05):
old days, so to speak, this wouldn't matter. This would
be like kind of funny that like people got this
kind of thing wrong because Twitter x has now taken
on this like central place in the MAGA ecosystem. What
goes viral there becomes just quote unquote true and then
gets sent to the press secretary, and then the press
(18:26):
secretary responds to it even though it's just fundamentally wrong.
And you know, the inability of the community notes to
respond to this stuff is also very telling, Like this
is just wrong, but it's not getting noted for the
most part.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, and even if it was, I don't know that
it would really matter. I mean, Elon Musk himself is
what the most community noted person on Twitter. Yeah, and
it hasn't stopped anyone, well it has, I mean some
people don't believe his nonsense, but plenty of people do,
regardless of the fact that he will just you know,
take a claim like this and spread it like it's
nothing without thinking twice about it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So, yeah, it's a total destruction.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I don't know if we put that up already.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, it's a very like, yeah, it's a very post truth,
postmodernist kind of a reality.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
And you're right.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But now the you know, used to the Biden people
back in twenty twenty were able to win with this
bedrock assumption that like, what happens online isn't real life,
and that's just not true anymore. Now what happens on
Twitter as preposterous as it is, like they have filled
this administration in part with people who are good posters.
(19:35):
I mean, that's basically how Jamie Vance ends up as
Vice president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And Elon Musk has you know, I mean, obviously he
has a number of power sources, but one of them
is the fact that he runs this platform to his
own benefit, including something else that you've talked about, Ryan,
including silencing critics from within MAGA. So you know, Elon
is a Hobber Malay fan, an anarcho capital list, you know,
(20:00):
a fan of this like tech, feudalist, nonsense, crazy, and
it is directly at odds with the Steve Bannon populist
right ideology. I mean, Steve Bannon will tell you that
in quite existential terms. Go read his interview with the
New York Times, and so the kind of original Maga
type people like the Laura Lumbers of the world, who
(20:22):
were going out and trying to you know, trying to
push back against this direction which is an existential threat
to the you know, populist right. Steve Bannon ask view
of what Trump should be and what he should be doing.
It truly is Elon Musk is a existential threat to them.
They have been vanished on Twitter and suppressed and you
(20:43):
no longer like really see them bubbling up. So you know,
it's it has become this incredibly influential platform that has
a direct pipeline into what is coming out of the
Press Secretary's mouth, which is why we have to pay
attention to stupidities like making up these numbers about Politico
in New York Times.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And then what you what you will then see is
that the most absurd and incorrect claims will end up
getting noted, and then that gives credence to ones that
aren't noted. And so for instance, now finally this ian
Miles Chong one does have a community note, and so
they'd be like, hey, this guy is saying that it's
(21:20):
New York Times. Actually it's New York This guy's saying
it's the last five years. It's not the last. He
didn't run it for the last five years. Because if
you don't put in, if you don't put the time
in right in USA spending, it gives you like And
then what they're noting here is that the actual total
to the New York Times over five years would be
one point six million, but most of that is from
(21:42):
the Apartment of Defense, the Pentagon. These are Pentagon. These
are people in the Pentagon or service members who subscribe
to The New York Times and expense it to the government.
So instead of uncovering some scandal they just discovered, would
like people read the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
For better or worse? Maybe to them that is quite
a scandal, Like yess still do?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
All right, We've got David dan standing by to break
down some of the legal challenges and legal movement push
back against DOGE, pushback against the Trump administration. Some new
court decisions have come down, so let's get to that.
So for a look at the legal pushback against Elon
Musk DOJE and also the Trump administration more broadly, we
(22:29):
are glad to have David dan here, of course, is
the editor of The American Prospect and great friend of
the show.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Great to see you, dude, Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, of course, So give people a broad contour, and
then I'll get into some of the elements. We have
some of the specifics of some of the legal most
significant legal pushback against the moves too, I don't know,
seize the Treasury and make Congress irrelevant and fire a
bunch of people who and get rid of an agency,
and all of these sorts of things.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
Well, really every single one of those has some sort
of corresponding legal action that we're seeing. There was hearing
today on maybe the biggest threat, which is the accessing
of the Treasury Department's payment system at the Bureau of
the Fiscal Service. The Justice Department agreed to restrict access
(23:20):
to just two people, Tom Krause, who's kind of leading
this DOGE team at Treasury, and this twenty five year
old Marco Iliz, and to make sure that their access
was read only, and apparently that has happened to a degree.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
There's been some limitations, particularly.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
On Marco, So that was an example of an early success.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
That's a temporary restraining order.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Of course, there was also two temporary restraining orders on
the payment freeze that was put together by the Office
of Management Budget and what that led to was a
rescinding of the order to pause all rants and loans.
The federal government nicks that hasn't fully kind of taken hold.
(24:07):
I think what we're learning is once you turn off
some of that stuff, it's hard to turn it back on.
So there's projects all over the country like head Start
that aren't getting the money that they were supposed to
be able to get. There are other lawsuits, particularly around
the firings. There's a lawsuit as we know today is
(24:29):
the end of this buyout offer, this kind of fake
buyout offer. Unions have sued saying that that isn't authorized
by law anywhere. And then another big one is Gwynn Wilcox,
who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board
who was fired in violation of the nlrp's own statute,
(24:52):
which says you can't fire a board member unless there's
malfeasance in office, dude, to try to block that firing.
There are other lawsuits about illegal firings. For example, the
USDA's inspector General who came to work saying this is
(25:13):
an illegal firing when you fired me and was escorted
out of the building by security.
Speaker 7 (25:18):
She has also sued to get her job back.
Speaker 8 (25:21):
So, you know, a really broad section of these across
the federal government, across some of the things have been done.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Let's talk about the buyouts for a moment. There's been
it's been reported that roughly twenty thousand people maybe it's
a few thousand more since then, have taken these buyouts.
You guys pointed out over the prospect that that's actually
under the kind of expected turnover. So, in other words,
the people that have accepted this quote unquote buyout are
(25:50):
people who were ready to retire anyway, and they're like, oh.
Speaker 8 (25:53):
Likely the case, yeah, most, I mean it's quite a
bit under. I mean, the average will turnover within the
federal civil service is something between five and ten percent.
Twenty thousand employees would represent one percent of the federal
government's workforce. There are new numbers out today that say
(26:15):
that's up to about forty thousand, but that's still quite
a bit less.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
So these are people who were going to.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
Retire who figure, Okay, maybe i'll get several months of
severance as a result. Now whether they will get is
really very much in question. We know from the experience
of Twitter that many many people sued after they were
(26:41):
given a buyout offer because they didn't get the money
that they claimed they were going to get. And there's
a little clause at the end of the resignation offer
that has been made by the government that essentially says
that you're not.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
Allowed to sue the government over reason.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
So clearly they're setting up for a situation where they
kind of pull the rug out from these people who
have accepted the buyout offer.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
My understanding is there's also a question about whether this
offer itself is legal because it would again require some
expenditure of funds, and you know, there's what a budget
deadline coming up in March, and there's nothing that can
really be authorized beyond that, et cetera. So isn't there
also just a question over whether the courts may say, hey,
you can't even go forward with this. So all you
(27:30):
people who took this deal like you're kind of high
and dry, because this was an illegal offer to begin with.
Speaker 8 (27:36):
Yeah, and that's part of the lawsuit to enjoin this
offer because, as you say, on March fourteenth, federal government
appropriations run out. So you can't make a promise to
the federal workforce that we're going to keep paying you
until September thirtieth if they only have authorization to pay
(27:58):
anybody in the federal government until March fourteenth. So, yes,
that is a major part of the lawsuit that was
put together by two federal employee unions, the American Federation
Government Employees, and I believe Sciu And.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Can you talk a little bit about the NLRB unpack
not just this illegal firing that's being challenged, but the
broader effort to actually deem the NLRB to be not
an agency, to be effectively unconstitutional. Where is that fight?
Speaker 8 (28:31):
Yeah, there are two things on, like parallel tracks going on.
So first, by firing the head of the artmor one
of the board members of the NLRB, Trump has put
this agency down to two board members. And here's why
that's important. Normally it's a five member panel. Two members
(28:51):
means that the NLRB does not currently have a quorum,
and under Supreme Court precedent, that means that it cannot
it cannot actually adjudicate any case right now. And the
NLRB sort of operates as an appeals court on federal
labor law.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
So there are.
Speaker 8 (29:11):
Regional NLRB offices that make decisions. They are administrative law
juzes that make decisions, but if anything is appealed, it
has to be answered by the NLRB. So it's like
having an appeals court or having no appeals court, but
people can still appeal. So if a company has a
union election and the union wins, and the company decides
(29:35):
we're going to sue because we're going to challenge this election,
it goes up to the MLRB, where it effectively stays there.
At this point, it can't there nothing else can be
done on the case. So this kind of stalls out
US labor law. Whether it's union elections or illegal firings
or other grievances, anything that gets elevated to the NLRB
(29:59):
level can't be done right now. And so that's the
benefit that Trump gets from this firing, which has been
challenged in court.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
Separately, there's a process.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
By companies like SpaceX and Amazon, familiar names the richest
people in the world who are trying to make the
NLRB unconstitutional. That's what they're arguing in court. They've been
doing this since the Biden administration. But these cases are
starting to wind their way up through the courts. They're
(30:32):
at the appeals court level right now, and they may
get to the Supreme Court where they would have to
decide whether or not the NLRB is unconstitutional. It's a
really kind of operatic argument, but you never know with
this court, and so at that point you would end
up having no labor law in fact rather than just
(30:54):
in practice as we have right now.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
David, one question, one big question I have right now
is whether they're going to follow these court orders. So
they've already suffered a few losses. You mentioned one at
the top, there's an injunction against the freezing of all
the payments. We can actually put E four up on
the screen you were referencing some of this. The Trump
administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants in
(31:19):
spite of the fact that two different federal courts have
now barred it from doing so, and maybe that's a misunderstanding,
or maybe they just maybe they just aren't listening to
the court orders. There also was an injunction against the
Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, which is just like briazenly preposterously unconstitutional.
There's an injunction against transferring transgender women into men's prisons
(31:45):
as well.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
So you know, what indications.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Do we have about how much they're going to actually
listen or care about these various court injunctions and rulings
that ultimately go against them, Because you do have people
like JD. Vansu previously when he was just doing podcasts,
was like, yeah, we're going to be like Andrew Jackson
and say, okay, well go and force this ruling with
your army.
Speaker 8 (32:08):
Yeah, it's obviously one of the bigger concerns that we
can possibly have, and we're not going to really know
the outcome of that until you get sort of a
final ruling. Right until we get a Supreme Court adjudication
of some of these cases is adverse to what Trump wants.
That's when we're going to find out if the river
(32:29):
meets the road here. What we do know right now
is that the let's start a bit with the one
that started today with the payment system. Apparently, according to
reporting from Nathan Tankas, the Treasury Department has started to
limit the access of at least one the twenty five
(32:51):
year old kid, Marco Aliz.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
They've limited his access to the payment system.
Speaker 8 (32:58):
It's more closer to read only at this point, which
complies with that order. The O NB memo was rescinded.
But as you say, there are several or other what
seemed to be illegal impoundments going on. Some of that
is because the authority or the alleged authority for some
(33:20):
of those impowments, like the stuff at EPA, is derived
from different sources. So there was an executive order that
said we're going to terminate the Green New Deal is
the way that it was put in the EO, and
that tries to pause all disbursements of you know, climate
(33:41):
related investments that were made under the Inflation Reduction Act
and under the Investment Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. And so
even though the pause on all grants and loans has
been blocked by two federal courts, there are these other
(34:03):
authorities that say.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
We're allowed to block foreign aid or pause foreign aid.
Speaker 8 (34:08):
We're allowed to pause these EPA grants and things like that,
and those haven't really been challenged to the same degree
saying your authority in the executive order to do this
is bogus and it would represent, you know, basically stealing
the power of the purse away from Congress and deciding
that you don't have to spend money on things you
(34:28):
don't like.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
So that battle sort of remains to be seen.
Speaker 8 (34:34):
They haven't really pushed that yet, so that's I think
that's been lost a little bit. People think, oh, the
O and B memo was rescinded, and so now federal
money is flowing again, and it's not true. I mean,
there are still these illegal impoundments happening in violation of
the Constitution and violation of federal law, the Empownment Control Act,
(34:59):
which sets very strict limits on when a president can
delay funds that have been duly appropriated by Congress, and
it violates Supreme Court precedent as well. And eventually we're
going to get to a reckoning on that, because that's
what the Trump administration wants. They want to pick a
fight over impoundment to try to get this power for
(35:20):
themselves to unilaterally cancel certain.
Speaker 7 (35:24):
Types of spending.
Speaker 8 (35:25):
And so we're going to see that fight happen at
the court. But you know the really dangerous question that
you ask Crystal, whether after the end of that fight,
we're still going to see an administration adhere to whatever
it is.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
The Supreme Court says that's still in question.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, David, thank you so much for your expertise and
laying all of this out. We're always really grateful for
your time, and it's great to see you.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
You got it. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Excited to be joined this morning by Commerce and Rocana,
who found himself and bit of a Twitter dispute with
our new god King Elon Musk.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
So great to have you, Congressman.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Great to be back on Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
So okay, let me I'll.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Give people a little bit of the backstory and then
you can explain the full backstory. So political reporter put
out that you had abstained from a vote that would
have subpoenaed Elon Musk to come and test to buy
about whatever he and Doage are up to at this point.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
That was not entirely accurate.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
So you clarified on Twitter, and that leads to the
exchange with Elon Musk. Just give us a little bit
like what exactly happens here.
Speaker 9 (36:33):
So first, let me just get to the bottom line,
which is I want Elon Musk to testify, to be transparent,
to be subpoena that what he's doing is blatantly unconstitutional.
If I was scared about that, I would not have
had on Twitter. Knowing that he follows every one of
my tweets, made that very very clear.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
And we can put that up on the screen. By
the way, what you can continue.
Speaker 9 (36:56):
Talking and within minutes of me put that tweet up,
he tweets back, don't be a dick. We get into
it because I said to Ilin, I said this, I've
said this privately to him, I've said it publicly. If
you want to have an exposure of waste in the government,
then the best way to do it is to have
sunlight come, do your have your findings, show him to
(37:19):
the Congress, and force us to cast up up and
down votes. I was I got hammered from my party
in the beginning when Musk was adulgient. I said, Okay,
if he is wasteful spending on the Department of Defense,
I'm willing to hear him ount but the yeah, yeah, no,
But so it's not like, so I got hammered, but
I said, when you're doing something that's fundamentally unconstitutional, you
(37:42):
you can't be the decider of what is wasteful spending.
And that is just a blatant violation Article one.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
And so you know I've I will stand up to
him if and have very very clearly.
Speaker 6 (37:55):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (37:55):
And what got noticed actually, ironically was my tweet, not
any of the committees efforts, because people know that I
have had a relationship with him for fifteen years and
I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong.
I will be the loudest is standing up for the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
How did you meet him? Do you remember your first
interaction with him. I didn't represent Silicon Valley for people
he is.
Speaker 9 (38:18):
You know, he's never supported me in terms of politically
because he actually wasn't very very political. But I met him.
He blured my first book when I wrote a book
about manufacturing in the United States, and you know, someone
at Estra Wajiski who's known in the valley, introduced me
to him.
Speaker 6 (38:36):
He blames the book.
Speaker 9 (38:38):
And then we got into it on Tesla because he
was begging in a essue who's a neighboring Member of
Congress from Silicon Valley for a Tesla loan from the
Obama administration. I was in the Obama administration.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Your Commerce Department, in Commerce.
Speaker 9 (38:51):
Department, and there are those of us saying, well, okay,
but you need labor neutrality, and we don't get labor
neutrality out of it. But I'm active on the record
in Fremont saying that Tesla should unionize, and so he knew.
We've known each other for years, but I've said Tesla
is obviously was a great company in terms of electric vehicles,
(39:12):
but should you noton ize it.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
So I've known him for many, many years.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
What do you think he wants?
Speaker 9 (39:18):
You know, he's he's maniacal about when he believes in something.
I mean, this is I Those people are saying, Okay,
he's just in it for financial reasons.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
That's not my read on him, though.
Speaker 9 (39:29):
I think he should have financial disclosures like I do,
and there should be conflict of interest and he shouldn't
be the one deeciding.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
But I think what he believes that he's out.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
There in a mission to save the American people for
thirty six million dollars of deficit and it's actually a
bigger problem because when you have an ideological drive like that,
and when you're Elon Musk and you believe that you've
been right time and time again in the private sector
when other people have been wrong, he's basically thinking, okay,
kind of standing in my way, I'm doing great service
(39:59):
for humanity and go. You know, anyone is in my
way is going to be roadkill. And that's why it's
so important to stand up to him, and to stand
up very very clearly and say this is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Having the richest man on the planet also be one
of the most powerful people in the federal government is
itself a unique situation. But he also controls ex Twitter,
which is still, despite his best efforts, is a central
organizing platform for how we understand public sentiments. And so
(40:33):
I'm curious if your colleagues or you think about his
power over that platform, as your colleagues think about how
hard to go after him, because he could you know,
with the flick of a switch.
Speaker 10 (40:51):
I knew he would right to send you or all
of a sudden, you're getting like Q likes and one.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Follower count starts to go down, and you know, people
aren't really seeing your tweets anymore. I mean this has
happened to many people who have come after him on Twitter, right.
Speaker 9 (41:08):
No, I mean, look, he in my case, my reply
to him saying don't be a dick got more views
than his actual tweets. So I mean, in my case,
so far at least, he hasn't done that type of censorship.
But I do think it's a problem more generally, which
is why we need many more platforms, which is one
of the reasons I was defending TikTok and saying that
(41:29):
we shouldn't ban TikTok and we shouldn't have Musk or
Meta acquire TikTok because you need alternative social media platforms.
And I think TikTok actually is a place where we've
gotten the most response frankly on standing up to Musk.
And we need more social media platform so we can
push back on Musk, etc. That's going to be important,
(41:51):
but on the platform. But what we really need is,
and I cruss enforcement and more platforms coming up that
we're less is can have a voice.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
One of the things Ryan and I were talking about
is like Elon describes what he's doing as a revolution,
and I think that's accurate. I mean, you don't go
into the Treasury Department. And now we have new reporting
that they are changing the code that they The New
York Times says that there were emails flying around saying,
we want to use our access to the Treasury payment
(42:22):
system to freeze funding to USAI D. I don't have
to tell you that USAID is authorized by Congress as
an independent agency, Elon Muskin, no one else. Donald Trump
can't just single handedly say we don't like this agency,
We're getting rid of it, or we're subsuming it understate
et cetera, et cetera. They're doing that. They've gone into
the etc. For Medicare, Medicaid into NOAH GSA. You know,
(42:45):
the list goes on and on, and none of this
congressionally authorized. It's obviously a constitutional crisis. They have a
broader plan to, you know, have this go to the courts.
Whether they even abide by court decisions is an open question,
I think as well, there's already indications that some of
the court injunctions are already being ignored. So while he's
(43:07):
doing what he describes as a revolution. You know, we
were earlier talking about like, oh, they're trying to keep
themselves free from foya. I mean, it just feels so
small ball, right, compared to the grand plan that they
are executing.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, So how are you groppling with that as a
member of Congress And what are the conversations like among
your colleagues about how to about the gravity of this threat, right,
and how to truly push back against it in a
way that's not just going to be sort of like
impotent or pointing to like you weren't confirmed by the
Senate and where's my foyer required?
Speaker 6 (43:41):
Right?
Speaker 9 (43:41):
Well, you're asking what people in my district around the
country are asking, which is what the hell's the plan
and why don't we have a clear plan for the
Democratic Party to meet the moment? Because I think you
actually understand Elon really well, he've used this as revolutionary,
He've used this as there's a thirty six trillion dollar
debt and Congress has been part of the problem, and
that he's not just going to be some bureaucrat who
(44:03):
gives a report to Congress, because that's what he When
you say, well, why don't you just get the transparency
in the sunlight, He's like, I'm not just going to
just give some report to Congress that they're going to disregard.
And I'm going to try to stop this.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I'm going to be CEO of the country, right and
rule it in the same dictatorial way that he rules Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, etc.
Speaker 9 (44:24):
And one is a company. I mean find maybe a
great company, but a company is not even a few
pages in the American story, right. This is a much
much bigger thing. This is a country that won the
Revolutionary War, that wins the Civil War, that wins World
War two, wins the Cold War. It's the greatest enterprise ever.
So you can't have one individual do it. But I
say that so we understand his psychology, and it means
(44:49):
a equally tough response. What is that response here? It
needs to come down first to the debt ceiling. We
need to have every House Democrat and Senate dem crat
say we will not give a single vote to the
debt ceiling increase unless Donald Trump in the beginning commits
(45:09):
in ironclad writing that he will spend every single dollar
that is appropriated and authorized by Congress and honor Congress
on every agency. And you know what Donald Trump's going
to fold. You know why He's going to fold because
when the stock market went down five hundred points, he's
folded to a Prime Minister Trudeau, and he folded to
President Shane Baum. And the reality is that the Democrats
(45:32):
need to be strong. Who's asserting the will of Congress?
Like it's not we're going to go for your request.
It's like you want to crash the economy then defy
the will of Congress.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Well, let me let me ask you a question about that,
because again, they have control of the treasury payment system.
So what is the response if they say, Okay, that's fine,
we just are going to ignore the debt ceiling and
we're going to just pay the bill. We're just going
to pay the bills that we want to pet. We
just want to pay the bills that we want to pay.
(46:02):
And you know, I mean, I think the debt dealing
is a ridiculous, you know, absurdity that we even have
it right, And so you could easily say Trump saying
we're just not doing that anymore, and we're going to
add treasury like pick and choose what funds go out,
as they already say they are doing and want to do.
Speaker 9 (46:19):
Well, I think if they actually do that, they're going
to lose the chip Roys. I mean where chip roy
and others would come in and say impeachment or other things.
Speaker 6 (46:27):
I genuinely think.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
There are thirty for me to believe.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
Congressman, well, I'm not talking about the average Republican, but
there are thirty people in the Republican Caucus, the Freedom
Caucus who have stood up to them. They stood up
to Elon Musk before Trump was inaugurated, and they said,
Elon said, let's blow up this deal. And they stood
up to him on that.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
And I can I tell you what I'm looking at.
You know, Pete Hegseth was his confirmation was in big trouble,
and Jony Ernst in particular, who is herself a sexual
assault and was deeply concerned about his comments saying women
can't serve in the military, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
She seemed like she was a no.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
And then Elon comes out and says, I will drop
an infinite amount of money on the head of anyone
who poses any of the confirmations, and lo and behold,
Pete hag Seth, looks like all of them are going
to ultimately get through.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
So I just don't see.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
I mean, even with the you know, the spending flap
that happened in December. Yeah, I mean Elon drove that
whole train and again threatened to use his billions and
billions on you know, soon to be probably trillions of
dollars to primary anyone who didn't give him the bill
that he wanted. And it worked, Chip Roy and all
the rest folded like a you know, like a deca card.
Speaker 9 (47:44):
They didn't fold on increasing the debt ceiling and Elon
didn't get a dollar actually saved.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Now he got his the restriction on investment in China.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Yeah, and that that you know that he may very
well have. I'm not saying that he doesn't have influence,
but I think if you have a group of House
members twenty to thirty in relatively safe districts and you
see Elon's numbers have been declining, I mean he's the
big question for Trump is how long is he going
to have someone who's as unpopular as Elon is becoming.
Speaker 6 (48:14):
I do think the.
Speaker 9 (48:15):
House can assert back, and at the very least, the
House we need to have a plan of what we're
going to do to take the fight to Trump. Now
maybe you're saying, okay, we take this fight and then
Trump makes a counter move. Right now, I think why
people are so upset is they don't see us having
a real plan. I mean, at least Schatz, Senator Shatz
had a plan. He said, Okay, we're gonna put a
hold on every nominee to the State Department, including Stefanic.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
But what we need from our leaders.
Speaker 9 (48:41):
Is three or four things that says we are going
to assert the power of Congress. We're going to punch
back in terms of our power, and then we're going
to wait for Trump to make the next move. The
only people who winning against Trump for President Shane Baum
and Trudeau.
Speaker 6 (48:55):
They're the only ones who've gotten to fold on anything.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Is there any regret among Democrats? So the other day,
while Oversight was doing whatever it was doing, AOC was
having like an Instagram live that had like tens of
thousands of people tuning in, Like she's clearly still one
of the parties like leading messengers.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
That's one of the best communicators. Yeah and authentic.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, and you watch these some of these rallies, no offense,
just deeply cringe stuff coming out of Democrats.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Humor was not made for this moment.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Val Green was shaking his cane. Any regret from your
colleagues telling AOC, you know, get in the back of
the line, like, because it's not as if Democrats aren't
doing things, like there are a million lawsuits that have
been filed, like lots of things are happening and people
are active, but there's no national voice.
Speaker 9 (49:46):
Now, well, let me let's take an example this oversight hearing.
The fact is everyone is yawning about the subpoena until
I tweet out that Musk should be subpoena because of
the missed vote, and then Musk replies, imagine if AOC
was the ranking member leading that, it would have been
a very different case.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
That would have been national needs.
Speaker 9 (50:05):
And because he's fighting, he loves to fight with her,
he would have she would have said something, he would
have responded.
Speaker 6 (50:12):
That would have been national news. It wouldn't make something right.
Speaker 9 (50:15):
It wouldn't have taken my missed vote to provoke that.
So I think it was such.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
A blunder not to put her there.
Speaker 9 (50:23):
What I said to moderate Democrats when I because I
was one of the first out of the gate to
endorse her, support her, rally support for her, and I said, okay,
you disagree, I get it. You disagree with AOC in
her position on Gaza, you disagree on immigration. But she
is not running to be ranking member of the Foreign
Affairs Committee. She is not running to be ranking member
(50:44):
the Judiciary Committee. She's running to be ranking member of
the committee that punches Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (50:50):
Like, isn't isn't this the role where she would be
the best in our caucus?
Speaker 9 (50:55):
And I mean, this is where the Democrats need to
get the next generation out there.
Speaker 6 (51:02):
The optics of some of the stuff at the rallies
has just been cringe.
Speaker 9 (51:06):
I mean because it looks ineffectual, it's non an actual plan,
and it doesn't look like we're flexing our power like Congress.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
You know, it's not like JD.
Speaker 9 (51:17):
Vance and Donald Trump are out there protesting Congress.
Speaker 6 (51:21):
They're saying, we have power. Well, we need to act
like we have power. We do.
Speaker 9 (51:25):
We have the power of the purse, and we have
the power of votes in confirmation, and we need to
stand together.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
What are you hearing most from your constituents, Like what
kind of First of all, are you getting like a
flood of calls? Is there a lot of energy? What
are you hearing from them? What are their concerns?
Speaker 4 (51:40):
What are they? You know, what is that vibe like?
Speaker 9 (51:42):
So for two months after the loss to Trump, it
was pretty muted. But as soon as Trump became president
and Musk stopped those payments, I think a light bulb
went off. And in my last town hall this weekend,
over six hundred people showed up, people holding up signs
(52:02):
stopped the coup.
Speaker 6 (52:04):
Stop the Musk coup.
Speaker 9 (52:06):
In a sense bluntly that the Democratic leadership has not
been tough enough that we are a response has not
been clear enough. I do think Hakim has an opportunity
to be the voice because it's not coming out of
the Senate. I think this fight in the House debt
ceiling is that opportunity and one of the things we
(52:26):
got to do. Yes, take on Musk, but we also
need to take on Vance and Trump. I mean they're
the ones who are ultimately responsible, and not give them
a free pass on taking away funding for kids in
working class neighborhoods for their schools, I mean taking away
money for kids with special needs then, And we've got
to just be tougher as a party.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
And you've been going at Vance a little bit. What's
your sense of his position here?
Speaker 9 (52:53):
Well, I think he wants to be the nice guy.
He's kind of wants to be I'm the reasonable guy.
I think Tim Waltz made a huge mistake in that
debate by not going after Vance. They were coached to say,
just go after Trump, and Vance comes up as this like, oh,
I'm reasonable, giving Trump the sense of that, oh he's
appointing reasonable people, and what the what the reality is
Vance is driving the nominations of heg Seth and Gabbert.
(53:18):
Behind the scenes, he's the one pressuring the senators. Vance
hasn't raised his voice once to question why we're going
to get rid of all of these programs for working
class kids. In the Department of Education, pell grants Title
one funding for decent schools. He's he's basically quiet, and
the Democrats have an opportunity to define him for the
(53:39):
extremist he is and not let him just kind of
be this reasonable person. I mean, look at what the
Republicans did to Vice President Harris.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, and to Walls as well. You said that constituents
showed up with science that said, you know, stop the muscoup,
Like do you think that that language is car Do
you think it is a coup?
Speaker 9 (53:58):
I think it's a constitutional crisis. I mean, I think
the coup would be if he succeeds. But I don't
think he's going to succeed. I think we've we will
push back.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
With attempted coups.
Speaker 6 (54:10):
It's it's it's certainly a violation of the constitution. Cool.
You know, these turns get thrown around.
Speaker 9 (54:16):
And I'm not saying that it couldn't come to that
if we if we're complacent, but if we pushed back, uh,
and we make sure that we stand up for our
construcial prerogatives. I think we have we had them on
the defensive. I actually think they have really overreached. I
was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania this past weekend. I met Tracy.
She's at a barbecue place. She's a part owner. She said,
(54:39):
you know, I voted for Donald Trump. I said that
that doesn't surprise me. Why But she said, I have
some concerns.
Speaker 6 (54:45):
I said why.
Speaker 9 (54:46):
She said, well, I voted for him because he was
going to make sure that there were no taxes on
overtime pay I want. I voted for him because he
wasn't going to text tips. I was like, Wow, these
messages are really getting through. I said, what about Kamala Harris.
She said, you know, candidly, I considered her, I really
but I felt she was a phony. And I said, well,
what do you think now? Well, I'm concerned my mom
is in the hospital and Medicaid is maybe cut. So
(55:10):
there is a chance to be talking to people like Tracy.
We've got to go on the offensive and be willing
to assert our power.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Last question for me, are you are you are you
sensing any institutional prerogative from Congress? Like if this continues,
this idea that Elon Musk can and Donald Trump can
like pick and choose where they spend money, Congress doesn't
really have a role in this liket. Yeah, Congress can
(55:38):
I guess Congress could.
Speaker 6 (55:39):
Like settle the ceilings.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, and then if you need more money than that,
you have to go figure it out some other way.
But that but that becomes it. And if all you're
doing is setting a ceiling, you don't need you certainly
don't need five hundred and thirty five members of Congress
to do that. That's just two people and basically just
Trump telling them what to do. So is there any
sense from Republicans that like, okay, we are ideologically and
(56:04):
politically Republicans first, but secondly, we're we serve in this
institution that is potentially being wiped out as a force
in American politics, and we should do something about that.
Is there any sense of that or is it more
we're so partisan now that that's okay as long as
the Republicans come out on top in the new system.
Speaker 9 (56:25):
So we need to make the argument he made more
because where are the three Republicans that are going to
stand for the institutional prerogative of Congress? And there may
be if this fight happens with the dead ceiling. I mean,
that's something like a chip roy or something. But the
reality is there's fear, and the fear is that the
people who have taken on Donald Trump and the Republican
(56:45):
Party are gone. You know, they're Adam Kissinger there, Liz
Cheney's a whole list of people who are not even
as famous. And the ones who have stood with Donald
Trump are National Security advisor and in the cabinet and
are going to be you an ambassador. So if you're
a politician on the Republican side, the lesson is pretty
clear that you stand with Donald Trump if you care
(57:09):
about your career and people rationalize it saying, well, he'll
be there for four years and then something else will happen.
And so it's a palpable fear that's not irrational about
losing their jobs. And that's that's I think why they
haven't spoken out.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
Well, and like I said before, now you have the
additional enforcement mechanism of Elon Musk being willing to spend
you know, which would what would be a trivial amount
of his net worth in order to primary and take
on anyone who doesn't inline right.
Speaker 1 (57:41):
That graveyard was filled before Trump had access to Musks.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
To unlimited, virtually unlimited money.
Speaker 6 (57:48):
And he would spend it. He will if he's not
an idle threat. It's not an idle threat.
Speaker 9 (57:52):
And it's a and for a house race that could
you know, ten million dollars twenty million dollars, even if
you don't beat an incumbent. You know, people, this is
is instill an enormous amount of amount of fear. Yeah,
so you know, we're in a situation where this is
a real, real fight for constitutional democracy. And I think
the they what people are frustrated that watch probably breaking
(58:16):
points or come to my town halls is they don't
see the Democratic Party right now, rising to the moment,
understanding the stakes, taking on the fight, having a clear
plan uh and and saying okay, we're going to push back.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah yeah, I mean they're really on the on the
Elon Mustoje side there.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
As Ryan said to me, they're really going for it.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
I think it's pronounced doggie.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
I prefer that pronounce doe is the other way. They're
really going for it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You know, they're now, they're no guarantees they'll succeed, but
they are mounting a revolution, and so people want to
see a response that is commeaserate with that, with that
true threat. So current, and we always appreciate your time.
Speaker 6 (58:53):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I guess it worked out for you to miss that
vote since the drew tension of the.
Speaker 6 (58:57):
Whole generation area of confidence Elon. Thank you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:03):
All Right, that's it for today. Tomorrow, Emily and I
have our interview with Natalie Winters. That'll be up for
premium subscribers later today for everybody else, the freeloaders. Tomorrow.
She is the war Room, Steve Bannon's war Room with
White House correspondent. It was a fascinating wide ranging conversation
should get.
Speaker 4 (59:20):
Us an interview with Steve Bannon, because I would kind
of like that.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I'll ask her sure, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
Yeah, make that both of them for us, so that
would be very interesting. So in any case, Ryan, thank
you so much for filling in, and stay tuned for
that tomorrow and we will see you guys next week
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!