Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com.
Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. When do we have, Crystal?
Did we do?
We got a bunch of updates for you coming out of the court system in the battle against Doge, including a court ruling that the Trump administration is defying one of the previous court orders. So things are getting very interesting. We also have some comments do comments from Trump with regard to Gaza, saying that all hell will break loose and the ceasefire deal will be over if Hamas doesn't comply with what he wants, so will break all of that down for you. Also have a number of developments
coming out of the AI world. The biggest one of which, though, is that Elon Musk has put in kind of I guess a trolley bid to buy open Ai out from under Sam Altman. The details are a little complicated, but it is an interesting development.
In important story. It is a very future of.
AI, absolutely absolutely important story of the future of AI. We also want to take a look at so Google. Wasn't there original motto like don't be evil?
Yes, wasn't that Google's? They took that away.
That's been gone for a while now.
But they had a list of AI principles, one of which was like, we're not going to use AI to murder people.
That one has been taken there.
To be fair, it's been fake forever.
They have always lied about that there's a health Chinese weapons system program back in twenty seventeen.
So now they've just decided to say we're actually gonna.
Coming out of the call over that one. Yeah, so well update you there as well.
Interesting story coming out of China that major automanger from China byd is now out with a fully self driving electric vehicle for less than ten thousand dollars. We'll show you what the car looks like, also some of the other vehicles that they put out. I mean, they have become quite a juggernaut in the entire automobile space. When you think about just not that long ago, you would have sort of scoffed at the idea of a Chinese car,
and now they are a major, major global player. We're going to try to get to the stephen A segment that we tried to do yesterday with then Saga and I talked too much. As per usual, he is floating around for president. Kind of interesting at least these charismatics. So we'll take a look at some of his positions,
and then SOA Bamari is going to stop by. He is talking about a sort of a warning for MAGA, a little bit similar to the topic guy broached yesterday, but he's coming from the right, saying basically like, you're trading your ideology for a really bad deal, and you know you're falling prey to this sort of like culture war division and accepting that over Some of them were substantive changes that were supposed to be at the heart originally of the MAGA movement, so really interested to hear
from him.
He's always a thoughtful guy.
SARV was very smart dude, and I encourage people to sign up for his newsletter and others. We're going to have that in the description of that.
Yes, Srev and Emily are doing a newsletter together.
They're both over it unheard.
Now, so excited for both of this's very well, he's very thoughtful dude, and he's always an interesting person to talk to. So why don't we get before we get to that. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to the show. We really appreciate you. Breakingpoints dot com if you can. But why don't we go off with the courts?
Yeah?
So Trump was asked recently about whether or not he should abide by court orders and his reaction to some of the court decisions that were coming down against him and against DOJE. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
So from the couple of coourt loss with mister President and Jadie Vance said judges aren't allowed to control the executive power.
What's your take on that?
But we're going to see what happens. We have a long way to go and we're talking about fraud, waste, abuse and what a president can't look for fraud and waste and abuse. We don't have a country, So we're very disappointed with the judges. That would make sense you're ruling, but we have a long way to go.
We have to look.
We have to find all of the fraud that's going on. We have tremendous fraud, tremendous waste, and tremendous abuse and theft. By the way, and the day you're not allowed to look for theft and fraud, etc. Then we don't have much of a country. So no judge should be No judge should, frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision.
No judge should be allowed to make that kind of decision. Those comments coming a couple of days ago, but very important in light of the messaging coming from Jadie Vance and Elon and others suggesting that they could just potentially ignore court decisions that go against them that they don't like. Here is one of the latest developments, quite significant here in terms of the court battles. We could put this up on the screen. So a judge has ruled that
they are in defiance. Right now, the Trump administration is in defiance of one of the previous court orders telling them to unfreeze federal funding. So a judge directs Trump administration to comply with order on frozen funds. That judge ordered them to restore federal funding they had tried to freeze, saying the White House was not fully complying with an
earlier ruling against it. After the judge issued that decision, the States asked him to issue a follow up order enforcing the earlier restraining order, saying the States continue to
be denied access to federal funds. The States said, and court filing still frozen funds included about seven billion dollars in grant money for solar panels, five billion that supports greenhouse gas reduction measures, and court filing Sunday, Justice Department lawyers said the administration had made good faith, diligent efforts to comply. They said the funds at issue were frozen because of a Trump executive order signed hours after he was sworn in that paused tens of billions of dollars
in federal climate spending. Okay, so what seems to be going on here is this one goes back to you guys, Will remember all the chaos around, like the executive order that's issued comes out or its actually wasn't any second order. It was a memo that was issued by the OMB saying we have to freeze all federal grant spending. And there was a caveat in there that said nothing that goes to individuals, okay, but that means medicaid would be frozen.
And that means that head stars frozen. That means meal on wheels is frozen. That means all sorts of things across society that are important to people would be frozen.
There was an almost immediate injunction issued against that, and the administration also tried to walk it back, rescinding that order but saying you still have to comply and make sure that none of these federal grant funds are going to programs that violate the president's other executive orders with regard to DEI or quote unquote Green New Deal and
those sorts of things. So right now there's sort of a scattershot approach where certain things, including a bunch of funds that are supposed to go to farmers as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, including just some random things across society. So, like I think rural health claim in some areas have continued to see their funds frozen. There been hot meal programs that continue to see their funds frozen, just sort of like a scattershot of programs across society
that have not seen those funds released. And so now this judge is coming in and saying, you have to even the things that you were saying are under the Inflation Reduction Act and it's subject to these other executive orders whatever. No, my order applies to everything, and it's not an excuse that you're trying your best.
You need to do what you.
Need to do to make sure that all of these funds are unfrozen.
Yeah, so it gets to the heart of the executive authority and to the court challenges that they're trying to invite there to the Supreme Court around the executive's ability to determine which is under their own scrutiny and which is not.
I'm looking here.
Just late last night, the Trump administration filed a reply I sent it to our group in support of their request to vacate their injunction, and they are claiming a constitutional violation. They say, quote a court order commanding that a segment of an executive agency be cordoned off from properly named political appointees while giving access to select civil servants. The government is aware of no example of a court over ever trying to micromanage an agency.
It is about the treasury.
This is about treasury. But it gets also in response to apparently as a usaid and says, this court should
not be the first the existing tro cannot stand. So this gets to what you're talking about, not just in terms of the farmers and the IRA, but to the overarching theme that they're trying to as I understand I talked to a lawyer friend of mine yesterday, is that they're trying to get one of these cases up to the Supreme Court to get an answer for judicial review on their ability because it actually gets previously back to the repeal of the Chevron doctrine around the administrative state
and the bureaucracy's ability to make rule changes. It's actually interesting case because again as they were explaining it to me, was that they might have actually been better off if they had more of the administrative review and rule process that they had previously under Chevron, as opposed to now where it's much more about the letter of the law
that's coming out of Congress. I genuinely have no idea how they'll rule, because what we talked about yesterday with the CFPB is remember Clarence Thomas writing for the Majority that CFPB is not unconstitutional because it was created by Congress and it's that funding mechanism set up by the Fed. They may in fact actually defer to Congress's ability and shut down all of this executive review that the Trump administration is claiming right now.
Yeah, that's certainly possible. And I mean the other big development here is, right now, while this judge is saying you are in open defiance of a court order, there's still a story around like, oh, we're trying to figure it out in good faith, and we interpreted it different. And you know, it's hard to use the federal governments not just a switch you can flick on and off. And so we fully intend for rural health clinics to get their funding, et cetera, et cetera. We're doing our
best with this order. You're starting to move closer to things coming to a head where if they say, continue to not release funds to farmers who've signed contracts with the federal government to not release those funds to you know, various clinics and things that have been affected across the country. There's no longer a story about how this is just like a good faith misreading of the ruling. Then it becomes brazen defiance of a lawfully issued order from the judiciary.
And that's when you get into, you know, the things that Jadie Vance has been saying, the things that Elon Musk has been saying, the things now that Trump has been saying, the things that frankly were floated even in Project twenty twenty five and are of course part of the Curtis Yarvin Butterfly revolution plan of when the courts stand in your way, you just ignore them and just
do what you want to do. And so what I found significant about this ruling is it seems to be inching us closer to that place where there will be decision point to see whether or not the Trump administration is actually going to comply when the court say you can't do that. So we may be finding that out very soon. Let me go ahead and put this next update on the screen too, because this is relevant as well.
USAID employees are also complaining that the administration is not complying with the previous order saying that you can't dismantle this agency. So that was you know, a temporary injunction that was also issued that says, you know, we're evaluating this case and in the meantime, you can't just destroy this agency. The court process has to play out. And you know, they present as evidence here, first of all, thousands of USAID employees have been.
Furloughed and sent home.
They also point out things like they went and took down the USAID sign from the building and brought up statements I believe from Trump and Elon and others that are like USAID is dead, it's being fed into the woodchipper, it's etc. So they are also claiming in the suit
that the administration is not complying with that order. So another place where things could be kind of coming to a head in terms of this battle between the Trump administration, Executive branch, Elon, musk, Doje, etc. And the judiciary, which is effectively the only real obstacle in their path at this point.
What I'm actually interested in is what we're about to get to with the farmers, because this is one of those areas where this could be the first political flashpoint. We've talked previously, and I know many people are very concerned about USAID and others, but you know, we've debated here I think many times. A lot of that is about process arguments and how it could impact major impact
for millions in the future. But the farmer's case that I was reading about and you're beginning to see some organic pushback on is one that I'm very curious to see how that will affect Trump's support and not only that,
but invite some pushback from inside of the Senate. This happened with the tariff program that was on soybeans and other agricultural products last time around, where people like Chuck Grassley and others, Tom Cotton, a few other very agricultural states really were dissenting from some of the tariff program or at least asking for tariff related assistance.
So I actually think that this one that.
We're about to get to with the USDA funding the IRA and farming contracts, could be the first sign of some actual intra GOP conflict around the issue. And you know, look, everybody likes in principle to say, oh, well, the government's going to cut spending, and I'm talking with Republicans in particular, but it's like, well, when it's your own funding, it's a different story. Yeah.
Well, USAID runs up against that as well, because there's you know, one hundreds of millions of that they buy.
A lot of food from farmers.
The USAID, you know, buys a lot of food from American farmers, shifts around the world to places that are you know, having hunger, food and security famine its and so that is also an issue that perhaps you know, may come to a head as well. But let's put a four up on the screen to what Sager is referencing here. So you've got farmers who are now reporting missing millions of dollars in funding that they were promised
by the USDA. This was money that was brought about by the Inflation Production Act, which of course passed through Congress in a bipartisan fashion. So effectively, what happened here with a lot of these individuals is they signed contracts with the federal government to upgrade. They might do a
solar installation to make their farms more energy efficient. There are various upgrades to their farms that they pledged to to commit to and the US government was going to be on the hook for maybe half of the cost of that.
And now with the.
Trump administration saying, you know, we're just not going to send those that grant money out, a bunch of these farmers have already spent you know, eighty thousand dollars, one hundred thousand dollars or more expecting that they were going to be reimbursed.
And if you know anything.
About the family farm world, at this point, the margins are non existent. I mean, these these folks are really up against. Everything has to fall into place, The money has to come in when it's anticipated, or else they're screwed, I mean, or else they are really in danger of losing those farms. And so the Washington Post talked to a number of farmers who were facing this situation. A flower grower in Maryland they talked to. They also talked to this guy, Skyler Holden. He's a cattle farmer in
eastern Missouri. He says he signed a two hundred and forty thousand dollars contract in December under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to share costs on investments for his farm. With the funding, he erected new fencing, installed a well, had planned further improvements to his water system, spent eighty K on materials and labor contracts that he expected We're going to be partly paid back by the government. This month, the USDA representative told him the funding was pause because
of Trump's executive order. He says, quote, I asked her, is there any word on when they're going to be unfrozen? Is it going to be frozen indefinitely? She did not have any answers for me. And again, this is funding that was appropriated by Congress, passed through bipartisan legislation that the Trump administration is now claiming the right to just unilaterally say.
We're not doing that anymore.
Yes after.
And there's also just like basic contract law at plates here too, Like just because you're the federal government doesn't mean that you're not also subject to contract law. Where like, if you tell this farmer and you sign a contract saying we are going to reimburse you for part of this eighty k, you are still legally obligated to that even outside of the you know, the questions around congressional appropriations, power of the purse, etc. So again, it seems like
a pretty brazen violation of the law. And obviously, you know Skuylar, I was about to show you a video in a minute after I Getzager's response. Skyler voted for Trump, like most of these farmers voted for Trump, and you know, thought that you would benefit them economically, and the reality so far for these individuals quite different.
Well, let's play it, because that's what I'm curious to see. If this actually takes off and becomes a thing. Let's take a listen.
I might lose my farm because of the government. I got in bed with the government. I was promoting getting bed with the government because I thought it was a good idea. So in RCS conservation planning, so they had a program out there called the EQUIP program. And what the EQUIP program is is it's cost sharing on stuff like fencing, different seatings, water lines, waters wells, and stuff like that to better conserve farmland for agriculture use. They called me today and said, hey, I know we have
this signed contract. We're renegging on it. We're not going to pay out on it. What do you mean You're not gonna pay out on it? So I've got all that stuff bought and whenever I install it, you're not going to pay out. We had this contract. I made business decisions based on this contract. So now I have eighty thousand dollars out of my pocket that I didn't have to spend. So that eighty thousand dollars we have is supposed to go to our farm wom in the fall.
If we don't have that money, that's our hay money, that's our farm money, our farm payment money. If we don't have that money, we will lose this farm.
So amazing.
There's another TikTok where he says, I voted for Trump, and it's just it is amazing the way he frames it. It's the problem is the government, not the president you voted for. Who is the explicit reason who signed this executive word is the explicit reason that the pl are not going out?
That is what's the matter with Kansas in a nutshell, is you have a person here who voted for Trump. And I mean, maybe he couldn't have predicted that they were going to cut farming benefits or all that, but what do you notice in his rhetoric and in his language, what is he saying. He's saying it's the government. The government is don't get in with the government. Get in bed with the government. It's like, well, okay, you didn't
think about that whenever. You know, look, it's hard. I don't like to dunk on regular people, but I mean, guess he put it out there. It is emblematic of a big problem that we have in this country, which is that when you are in the cult like you are unable to really either grapple with your own decisions or a total lack of like wanting to save face whenever.
It's a problem that really is one. It's not on you, per se, but the way that you're communicating it is just fundamentally different than if it would have been the Biden administration. And that's kind of what you know. We were talking yesterday about the rural health in Virginia, and I was looking at all these counties yesterday because I was curious for all the places that are most effective and where they voted for Trump. I'm talking like eighty
five fifteen engines in any of these places. I hate to say it, but you know, as we all know, if we go down there, who are they going to blame? They'll be like, Oh, it's those idiots up in Washington. I'm like, oh, well what about Trump. No, No, he would never do that. And it's like, well, can you really change their mind? I mean, I just I my framework. It's just so profoundly I'm sad really to see the country as it is right now because I've seen a
lot of this. We talked yesterday about the CFPB and we're going to talk to that about Sora. But there is just so much like cultish behavior and thinking right now that I genuinely I think it'll be like Obama where you know, Obama presided over you know what was at the loss of the House and the Senate and the thousand state houses. I'm not predicting that necessarily for the GOP, but he personally did not ever incur a lot of those political consequences because people really.
Felt they could trust him.
Even though you know, objectively, you lose your house under Obama, you know, her wages continue to go down. He ultimately is a man in charge, but for some reason, nobody was ever willing, you know, to really blame him. Even to this day, he's got some fifty eight percent approval rating, and so Trump, I mean, these politicians, they just have a halo effect around them where people like that will never criticize them. But I mean, where is the guy
from do we know, you know, okay, so Missouri. I guarantee you he'd be willing to call out you know, Josh Holly or whatever the other senator from Missouri. Like that same halo effect doesn't exist for you know, mere mortal politicians. But Trump somehow is able to escape that. And I just I don't know if there's a world where people who are affected by like this and others will ever actually connect the dots, even if you explicitly tell them that You're like, no, this was cut by
so and so. I could be wrong, you know, I totally could be wrong that it could be like, oh, it's Trump and Elon and be like, Okay, I'm voting for Kamal or whoever Pete Boodaje edge the next time around.
I don't see any data in the back then.
Yeah, well, I mean certainly for like probably thirty percent of the country, I think that's true. I mean, this has always been the Trump you know, I could show someone on Fifth Avenue fucking he's absolutely right about that. And I think Obama is the best analog on the Democrat side. But I actually think it goes further with Trump, because with Obama you at least had I don't know,
I'm sure you do. Remember, you know, during the Tea Party era, Democrats were perfectly happy to criticize Obama, throw him under the you know, an Pelosi. Absolutely, they were totally willing to do that. And the grip that Trump has on the Republican Party now is really, you know, it's quite unique. It is outside of anything I've seen, certainly in my lifetime. Maybe there's some examples going back through history, but certainly unique in terms of modern history.
And yeah, you see it in real time the way people things that they you know, if it was Biden, they would be I mean just even if you just think about the inauguration image of Trump with the richest people on the planet standing there behind him, like if it was a Democrat, like that would be a hair on fire kind of a moment. But because it's their guy, and they're like, oh, I like, these these billionaires are saying the things I want to hear right now because
they're using you because they're then it's fine. I mean on the Gaza stuff too, the level of cope with regard to Trump floating, the US occupying Gaza, finishing the ethnic cleansing or potentially genocide on behalf of Israel, getting entangled, getting our men and women entangled, and yet another insane Middle Eastern war, And the level of spinning cope is just incredible, Like some of them out right by like, oh, well, it's great for America, we'll get something out of it,
and it'll be beautiful waterfront prop like they actually buy that bullshit. Or the other cope is well, this is just his open opening negotiating position. And I don't know why you're taking you take him too seriously. It's like he's the president of the United States. He's a big boy. He's floated this quite like he read from a prepared statement. It's not like he was just freewheeling here. He's now
said it multiple times. I don't know why we wouldn't take him seriously, especially when Kushner suggested something very similar earlier. And what makes you think that this is out of character for him whatsoever. So yes, with a certain core part of the base, they may never leave him no matter what. But that's thirty percent of the country. There are a lot of people who voted for him, who were on the fence, who voted for Biden last time, who didn't don't love him, but thought he'd be better
for them economically or whatever. Those are the ones that you could see shift away and shift away pretty quickly if things go south, or if they see direct impacts, which they're likely to direct impacts in their communities on things that they care about. I mean, I just saw this morning. I sent you this elon who's changed his Twitter name to something weird.
By the way, it's Harry Balls.
Yeah, this is the man that's running our country right now. That's awesome anyway, posting about how there's more fraud in entitlements than anything that we've seen ever before.
And we're supposed to.
Believe that he's not going to go after Social Security, Medicare, and medicaid. Trump yesterday says the defense spending is going to go up, and meanwhile, we're we're supposed to be cheering like them canceling the Politico pro subscriptions, like that's some real cost saving, like cost cutting measure, like give me a break.
This is all preposterous.
This is what I'm saying is, you know, in the media environment, and maybe people have noticed that I feel particularly black built lately, But in the media environment that I swim in this political thing, you would think it's the greatest scandal in American history. You genuinely would think that this is like an insane it's and you know, it's funny.
Obviously, I agree it's bad.
And in terms of government subsidizing these media companies, and that is a story in and of itself, but the blinders stop right there, right and it doesn't get to anything bigger. And I really try to keep like a calm head and look, even on the Social Security thing, I think he's probably correct in terms of Medicare fraud in particular because the estimate I have seen is fifty billion. If anything, fraud is likely to be the biggest fraud
in history, only because these are the biggest programs in history. Now, is he saying that to, you know, to the end of like cleaning it up, or is it thing that's paired with a cutting entitlement. I think that we know at least at where Elon is. Trump is said he
doesn't want to cut that at all. But yeah, explaining the magnitude and difficulty of this is very different in this ViBe's information system, where again, where I've tried to communicate this in terms of USAID, it's er point seven percent of the federal budget, and yet people are saying that this is like the greatest American Revolution. It's like, okay, so even if you cut half of USID, there's point three five percent of the federal budget. Now they're talking
about auditing the Pentagon. I supported one hundred percent. But again, like you just said, they're talking about increasing defense spending. It's like, to what end for what? Because the current
system is completely screwed up. If you really you could spend two thirds of the Defense Department, and if you redid our procurement systems, you could have more equipment and more lethal and a better military and spend way less money because probably one third of that entire budget is just outright total corruption and stealing from these defense contractors. But that's the issue is that they don't necessarily want to do that. So it's like, now, what, yeah, what are we doing here?
Not to mention, if you're going to do that in a serious way, you're going to use Elon Musk, who is one of the Pentagon's top contractors, Like who are we kidding?
Who are we kidding.
About this being some sort of like free and fair. Yeah, Elon might cut the contracts to his competitors, you know that we're going to talk about as we're going to.
Talk competitors genuinely are also criminals.
Like sure, but like yeah, and then funnel that money to his buddies a Palenteer right as we're about to discuss later. I mean, Palenteer's stock is.
Through the roof. That's why.
Because everyone assumes Elon is going to go in there and funnel the money to his friends and partners. So that's I mean, that's the reality of what we're dealing with here. Let me go ahead and move on to the next piece about NIH funding because this is also really significant in another area where there's some you know, red state Like mmmm right, not sure, not sure about this one. So let's go and put this up on
the screen. We've had a federal judge now has stepped in to halt the Trump administration cuts to NIH research payments in twenty two states, So attorneys general across the country Democratic attorneys general sue the Trump administration, asking them
to temporarily block that major policy change. So basically what the Trump administration said is We're just going to come in and whatever the you know, administrative facility costs, the like overhead costs that we subsidize through the NIH, whatever that is, We're going to just cut it down to fifteen percent. And you know, again, this is pretty clearly illegal based on the fact that Congress actually specifically in
legislation specified that these contracts cannot be changed and shifted. Obviously, this gets back to the separation of powers, power of the purse, et cetera, et cetera. And so Judge is now stepping in and saying, whoao, you cannot do this until we know have this all go through the court system and figure out what is going on.
So, you know, I think also this is.
Part of the ideological project of like, they know this is going to be very hard on all kinds of universities, right they love to name check Harvard, the UC system. They'll certainly be in Johns Hopkins, they'll certainly be impacted.
But it's not just.
These Ivy League liberal institutions that will be hurt. Any sort of university that does this type of research is definitely going to be harmed by this. And I also would say, you know, that is not to say that there isn't you know, waste in there. There are reforms that could be made, et cetera, et cetera. But if you squeeze funding out on the public side and you're no longer doing nearly as much public research, guess who
fills in the gap. I mean, then you become really reliant on industry funding, which means certain research is just not going to get done. Things that they don't see there's going to be an immediate profit on, Like they'll fund your you know, innovations in viagra research all day long. But if you're talking about some sort of illness, let's say, a rare cancer that may not be that profitable because there aren't that many people that have it.
Like that is not going to get funded.
If you're talking about something where there's a higher risk that it may not actually pan out and it's you know, a bit of a longer shot, that probably won't get funded. Not to mention all of the obvious problems with conflicts of interest when you have industry directly funding research, So you know, of all the new drug molecules that have been discovered over the past two plus decades. All of them have come from public research dollars. They've all been
linked in some way to public research dollars. So this is really, you know, it really is important and could very much in the immediate term impact things like you know, developing cancer cures and all kinds of research that is very important.
But like I said, I.
Think it's pretty clearly the sagaad bite suspect you would back me up on this part of an ideological project to undercut universities that the you know, Curtis Jarvins and Jade Vance's and Elon Musk's of the world think sort of like indoctrinate people and make them liberal and need to be effectively destroyed.
And Yarmin's words, I think he.
Said it needs to be like blown up down to the atoms or something like that.
This is very Curtis, Yeah, I mean, I don't think there'll shock people. I actually agree with this one. And I'll tell you why. Is that this was specifically about those budget cuts to the quote unquote indirect administrative cost. It's acted at fifteen percent. My parents are in academia, love them, but I mean my experience in academia is extremely bureaucratic, bloated, that there are tons of make work jobs that are just everywhere where people try to justify
their existence. I mean, this is part of what we talked about with the RFK thing. I mean, one of the reasons that I am so both repulsed with the National Institute of Health is not just doctor Fauci and
I'm blanking on his name. The previous director that was at the head of that was that it was clear that it became this slush fund of billions of federal dollars for whatever the pet projects of these top epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists wanted it to be, and they would cut these checks to all of these different labs.
And then when the time came to cover up lab leak, they're the ones who are who came out and said, no, it's not possible, specifically to protect their own cartel of funding. Now this is bigger than that, because this is the entire National Institute of Health, but it does get to the basic question of like, okay, well, what have they been doing the federal government. Now this is apparently a
seventy nine year old project. Well in the last seventy nine years, you know, America has become more diabetic, more cancerous, fatter, more sick.
I mean, what is actually happening?
The healthcare costs of skyrocketed to what end are these public dollars being used. I don't disagree with what you said, per se in terms of how federal dollars.
And all that should be spent.
Much of this is a legacy of the post World War two system where we would cut checks to these different science departments in the theory that that would eventually roll up into benefit for the American people.
But I see, yes, I.
Mean the return time at US for every dollar invested, you get multiple dollars back in.
Terms of innovation.
And I mean, personally, I think a lot of this should be instead of spun off to the pharmaceutical companies, I actually think it should be the production distribution should also be handled by the federal government. I mean, what you're pointing to is a real problem. But I would say the issue isn't because we're funding cancer research. The issue is because we have a for profit healthcare system that profits off of people being sick. And so guess what,
we have a lot of people being sick. This does nothing. I mean, this actually pushes things more in the direction of the for profit industry funded system where the only thing that gets developed, the only thing that gets researched is you know, things that have an immediate profit generating possibility.
And so, like I said before, are the things that I'm sure there are things that could be cut, but research doing research properly is also really like to have these because they're because it costs a lot of money to have these facilities, to have the specialized equipment to be able to run the multiple trials that you need to have, the trained professionals that you can that you need to be able to do this properly.
Like, these things all cost a lot.
Of money, and so you know, we do in a certain sense, like we subsidize this area because look, you know, maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I personally think like research into cancer is a good thing that we should be investing war money in.
And again, if we look at the big picture, it's a freaking drop in the bucket.
They're saying, even with this, which is a draconian cut, I think you would agree across the board, you know, with a hatchet not a scalpel, right, which did administrative cost me?
How many HR?
It's not h it's not HR directors.
We're we're talking about specialize it why we're talking about the facilities that you need. You're talking about nurses, you're talking about doctors, you're talking about flebotomus. Like, so, again, is are there cusse that could be sure? Is this the source of federal government deficits? No?
Yes, fair?
Even with this, they're talking about a grand total of four billion dollars being saved. That is like an ant on the ass of the United.
States federal budget deficit. It's preposterous.
And so that you know, again, things that are investigating more rare diseases, things that have a longer timeline to development, all of this will fall by the wayside. And so yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's a bad idea. I also think the way they did it is illegal.
And if they went there's a reason that they don't go through Congress for this, and it's because it would never pass because if Republicans actually had to vote on stripping funds from cancer from researching cancer cures, they would never go along with it. And I think we see some indications of that. Katie Britt down in Alabama, one of the major recipients of this type of funds is the University of Alabama at Birmingham put a seven up on the screen.
She expressed some very much old.
Concern here, you know, very very tupid, but an indication that she was not really comfortable that. She said she was going to work with RFK Junior to try to, you know, deal with these cuts and try to mitigate the damage that's being done here. They University of Alabama Birmingham has received more than a billion dollars in NIH funding in recent years. Like I said before, it really is one of the top recipients.
She said. Quote.
While the administration works to achieve this goal at NIH, a smart targeted approach is needed in order to not hinder life saving, groundbreaking research at high achieving institutions like those in Alabama. This university is also top employer in the state, a very important economically prestige wise, et cetera, et cetera. So she's concerned about that. Tommy Tuberville, on the other hand, is all the board with it. He's not concerned.
See that actually kind of highlights my point and that's part of the problem with all of this is that these are jobs programs like NIH and especially No Offense Alabama. But you know, you're incredibly reliant on the federal government in terms of spending coming in there. One of the reasons why these senators and all of them don't want to vote against it is that they create a lot of jobs in their area, and the hospitals, unfortunately, this gets to the heart of it, are some of the
biggest employers in the entire United States. And you actually if you pull the employment data and really, unfortunately, if you look at growing areas, one of the main drivers of economic growth in a lot of states that are non technology, non oil based is healthcare because so many Americans are sick. So there's just there's filthy, rich amount of money to be made around this. And I don't disagree with you. Four billion is nothing, okay, And I know I'm sure people will clip it and make fun
of you. Oh four billion, how daries say? It's like, guys, we're talking in proportions, and I understand it sounds ridiculous, but we have a fifteen trillion dollar, you know, economy, the world's largest economy in the world. I guess I'm just talking more at a principled level, where it comes down to what the LAB leak showed me was again the slush fund, the corruption for the jobs program. But at a higher level it is important to say what
are we getting out of this? And the truth is is that if anybody is getting rich or benefiting from a lot of this research, it appears to be the drug companies. To me, now, I'm not saying Trump and all these other people are going to crack down on spending for these drug companies or any of that. If anything is likely the opposite for what we're going to see out of CMS and others, I would hope that
we don't. But at a principal level, I do think it is fair to say, and this is from my understanding looking at some of humans and others talk about the NIH as well, is that the current system very clearly does not seem to be working. Now, how we do that and how we change it is very important. Do I trust necessarily there's some grand arching plan, but it does seem as if there is just this runaway not even runaway. There does seems to be a thoughtlessness in the way that we just cut checks to all
of these different things. That does not fit with a concerted strategy for the United States. So like we should start with a couple of presumptions. It's like the United States should. It's not about it's not just a cancer, it's like, well, what is causing cancer? Now, obviously there's research behind that, but as you just pointed out, with the profit incentive in others, it all comes down to
like these crazy drugs which cost tons of money. What RFK has said at least, and part of the reason I liked a lot of things he said for AHHS was because it gets down to these chronic disease and these factors that lead to the need for all of these drugs. And it doesn't seem that all of our research, our healthcare spending is in that direction.
But the problem isn't. So problem has been identified correctly by you, that the NRFK that these chronic diseases are you know, are literally killing us, big part of the reason our life expectancy is going down, et cetera, et cetera. But the purported solution here will only make that issue worse by pushing things away from public funding and towards
private industry funding. If you actually want to deal with that, if you're actually serious about dealing with that, you have to deal with the fact of the four of the profit mode of being at the center of our healthcare system. That is the root of all of this, I mean, and that's why it's you know, we're the only developed country that doesn't have universal health care and we get horrible results because it is.
Profitable for people to be sick.
So while I totally agree with your diagnosis as the problem, this purported solution pretty clearly to me makes things worse because at least, you know, with the public research, as I said before, every new drag molecule that's been discovered has been publicly funded research.
Okay, the private.
Industry, they like what counts for research and development there is literally like figuring out how to gain the patent system so that they can extend their patent monopolies on whatever their most profitable product is. That's what counts for research and development over there. So with this sort of change, you're pushing things more in that direction. And this is and this is again sort of the the elon anarcho capitalist ideological direction. And he's said outright like he wants
to privatize the entire federal government. He wants to his ideal utopian state is that there are no public sector workers, that they're all quote unquote higher productivity private sector workers. Well, we know there are certain things that if they're not like, if they're not profitable, the private sector is just not going to do.
And certain things that are really important that the.
American people count on and depend on that have to be housed under the federal government. So I see it very much in the direction of mass privatization of public resources. And I see it very much in the direction of just trying to use whatever cugel you can to undercut the university system.
Not to mention that.
Listen, sympathy for them, well I'm sure you don't, but I mean that you have to not like that is part of the ideological project here. So if so, the other piece is like the way they did it is brazenly illegal. And so if you want to cut the research for cancer and other disease funds, you have to go through Congress. You have to go through Congress. It's really quite simple, not only because these grants have already
been written. It's in literally in the law, and actually we could put a nine up on the screen because this was pointed out by Susan Collins was the other person. So she's objecting to the move to cut the NIH.
She told Robert F.
Kennedy about her strong opposition to arbitrary cuts. I think she's still voting for him, though, but she said she called him to express her strong opposition to these arbitrary cuts and funding for vital research at our main institutions, which are known for their Excellency's promised as soon as he's confirmed, he'll reexamine this initiative that was implemented prior to his confirmation.
And if you think that RFK.
Is gonna be running the show, I mean, I think it's pretty clear who's holding the reins in the federal government right now, our new CEO, Dictator King. But in any case, there's specific legislative language that says pretty directly like once these funds go out, you cannot change the ratios of the nature of the contracts that we've signed and agreed to with these institutions. So you know, I object to it on principle because I think it's a foolish place to cut I think it leaves us worse
off in terms of health. I think it pushes things more in the direction of private industry.
Et cetera.
But I also think it's brazenly illegal, which is what the court case obviously is about, and why the courts have this hasn't reached a final decision yet, but why the courts have come in and.
Said you, whohoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You cannot go forward with this until we this goes through litigation and we figure out what's going on.
Oh yeah, it's been a right, it's already been shut down. The NIH director Jay Baticharia actually still has not been confirmed in the Senate, and as I understand that this is something that they're going to try and put into
the legislation. Yeah, I mean, look, I actually be curious because what I want to know is how is factly you spent sixty percent on administrative on administrative budgets because from what I was reading, it seems that the sixty percent to fifteen what they were claiming in terms of well be cut. They cited some of the things that you did, but it's like, well, how much of this, though, is administrative costs?
Because that's one of those.
Where if you look at overall growth and healthcare spending, it's not just about the cost of services. A huge reason why so many of our bills are so high is directly tied to so many of these hospital administration costs.
It's not one to one.
I'm just giving an example of like, it's clear that quote unquote administrative costs has become a huge segment of spending and that there just seems to be this endless money printer from the federal government for a lot of this stuff. So we could get back to just funding research or whatever, I'd be totally fine.
Not even that.
We just need a concerted national strategy and I'll give it to you.
It's true.
I mean, I don't feel like there's you know, some great big hand on the wheel. And that's probably the big difference from how this program and all of that.
Was originally conceived.
It's part of the reason why the instinct today is to cut, cut, cut, is just simply it's like better than just simply funding a bunch of make work jobs and all that.
But well, I would say the instinct is to cut cut, because that is Elon's specific ideological and cap project. You know, to render the federal government effectively irrelevant, small unable to check him and his ambitions, like that is his ideological project, and so he'll use whatever legit, you know, truly legitimate problems there are to justify accomplishing his goal of stripping
the federal government down to the bones. In all areas, areas you'd agree with, areas you wouldn't agree with, et cetera. He will, you know, he'll say, so security is full of fraud. That's why we have to cut entitlements. He'll say, Medicare, Medicaid also full of fraw. That's why I have to cut entitlements. Obviously with this one. Oh, you know, nih it's this is preposterous. These administrative overhead it's all a push towards privatization. It's a push towards stripping down the government.
It's a push towards and we can see this in some of the agencies that he specifically targeted that have investigated him or gone after his business interests, or that are just simply strategic in terms of making the case that like, oh, we can just cut an entire agency like USAID and not involve Congress, and it's perfectly fine. So you know, to me, it's about his overall ideological project that he is pursuing because you know, he's decided that he should be king