2/18/25: Shock Delta Crash Landing, Trump Voters Sound Off On Elon, Elon Social Security Fraud Debunked, Trump Backstabs Unions

involved with. And also the Republican attacks against medicaid, and Ali Bestucky is going to join us to break down her view of Elon's baby mama drum.

It ultimately flips over, and we did get some images also from the passengers coming off of that plane where the thing is completely upside down as they're trying to climb out. As I said before, only two people in critical condition, there were a number of injuries.

was young and kind of screwed me. I was flying all the time because my parents and I and anyway, I remember doing a lot of early YouTube viewing in two thousand and six about how these planes are designed to absorb like horrible things that happened to them from turbulence and wings strike, how you can even the plane is designed so that even if the wings strike and like hit each other, that they'll break properly and that everybody in will survive. And so this is somewhat of

a estimate to that. We did have a CNN reporter who described some of the stuff around the plane. Why don't we take a listen, because he did a good job breaking some of the safety stuff down.

You have to imagine the terror as folks tried to get out of this very quickly. Everybody across the board, pilots, flight attendants, the control tower, the crash fire rescue crews, even the passengers did a good job. The big takeaway here, always leave your stuff behind, especially in a crash like this, because seconds count and meanwives.

let's all remember that. This just what I've been trying to highlight is that if you are not careful around things with dose you will eventually could have a situation like this happened in America and then you have a full on domestic political crisis on your hands. So that's obviously been one that's passed around here. But obviously this happened on Canadian soil. It's actually Canadian company Bombaedier that makes those CRJ regional jets. It was a flight coming

from Minneapolis Saint Paul to Toronto. Not that many passengers on board, luckily, but you know, it's still scary. I mean, I can't tell you how many times a phone on those regional jets, the CRJs. So the question is what happened. Nobody knows yet, no indication yet of mechanical function. Obviously was very snowing on the ground, but what Toronto Airport doesn't know how to handle snow's or Minneapolis Saint Paul

has never flown into cold conditions. I've landed in Minneapolis with like twenty inches of snow on the ground and where they spray you with all that de icing stuff. So there's just procedures that are that are in place here and we do expect when you get on a plane, no matter what type of safe conditions, that they clear you for takeoff and landing, that you're gonna make it, otherwise you should cancel the flight. So there's still a

lot of questions here around what's happening with that. But yeah, honestly, just really happy that all the passengers made it out. Still just terrifying situation. Oh absolutely, yes.

Now I have different thoughts in my head. And you know, again, this doesn't have to do with the FAA firings. It happened in Toronto, but it is crazy that the response to the deadliest commercial airline crash in the US since in you know, over a decade, was to fire a bunch of FAA personnel. And the point that Stoller has been making, I think Ryan's been making as well, is like they have set themselves up to be like legitimately blamed for everything bad that happens in this country that

the federal government touches whatsoever from here on out. And so it does outline.

and we put that up on the screen. So here are six Americans on what they think of Trump, elon Musk, and of Gaza. So why don't we start our slideshow which has some select quotes from each of these individual Americans. Here you have Tally Jack and I hope I pronounced that correctly. She says, sometimes you don't know who is talking. It feels like a tantrum of a four year old boy. The second one here is Hummied Chowdry from Reading Pennsylvania.

This is exactly what I expected that unexpected things would happen. Let's go to the next one. It says, mister Musk seemed like a guy who was almost directly in control of the White House. This is mister Dave Abdullah of Dearborn Heights, Michigan.

we have a mister Perry Hunter from Sellersburg, Indiana. When someone's trying to cut spending, which is going to help me in the long run, I take him at face value. So you have some interesting takes there from across the spectrum, and it is both important for class dynamics, workplace dynamics, and also I can't hammer this home enough news. Remember that statistic about the more tapped in that you are, the more likely that you voted for Kamala Harris, which

is just kind of amazing. But there's also a real refresh element. I think to a lot of liberal activism and others, these people are horse statistically way more likely to read the news anyways. And so that whole feeling of people being in control, or of things being out of control, or things moving in a very very fast paced direction leading to some anxiety, doesn't This definitely comes through this and through some Wall Street journal stuff that we're all about to show you. But I'm not ready

to make any broad determines yet. Determinations.

happy with what she's seen so far. But part of what was interesting to me is she said, even though she's not like super psyched about what she's saying, she's like, I have a metric in my head of how long a period of grace I'm going to give him. She's like, he gets quote one hundred days of charity. And I do think that there is that instinct among a lot of the American public of like, well, let's give him. He just got in there, Like, let's give him some

time and see how this all shakes out. So, you know, it's indicative of the fact that in a certain sense, he's still in that quote honeymoon phase where presidents typically have, you know, relatively high approval rating. For Trump, he's continued to have for him the highest, some of the highest approval ratings.

is much more of a slow burn. In my opinion, I think it's one of those that nobody's going to flip on a dime absence some sort of massive financial crisis. And the biggest existential threat to his presidency is foreign affairs. That's what's nuked Joe Biden, and because of the uncertainty that we currently have with Israel and with Gaza and his current plan to literally occupy Gaza, I think that's one where you could quite literally turn on a dime.

The rest of it, I think it's going to be much slower, although my caution around those is that if there is some cut to a government and then there's some horrible economic or financial or natural disaster and something is not seem to be functioning properly, than that actually

also could come back to bite you. Let's put some of the Wall Street Journal stuff up there on the screen because this is some similar focus grip, but this one is even more interesting because it's actually with Trump voters. So we thought we would look at some of the stuff here. So you have a voter here, Stacy White. She said she voted for President Trump. She wanted lowers and to stop fentanyl from coming in the border. She said, when we said safer borders, I thought he was thinking

let's stop the drugs from coming in this country. I didn't know he was going to start rating places. She said. She didn't believe he would actually follow through on some of the more hardline policies he started doing touted during the campaign. Now I'm like, dang, why didn't I just pick Kamala, said the forty nine year old Omaha, Nebraska resident, referring to the former vice president and last Democratic nominee. Okay, I mean, you know, stood in front of a sign

that said mass deportation. But all right, let's continue to the next one. In terms of some of these voters here, you have, for example, Todd why not he's a holistic coach from Cornhill, Arizona. Corn is Cornville? All right, I should visit I don't think they I don't think they grow corn in Arizona.

probably loving Doge as well. Let's go to the next one. Please, Here you can actually see some more from You have one resident twenty three year old La cheered on Trump's governments cuts and deportations, saying he would support more widespread removal of people came to the US illegally. I say he's pretty much exceeded at expectations. Honestly, I did not expect him to be this quick in actually making these changes. Let's go to the next one. This one, This one

is actually honestly pretty amusing. Here you have Emily Anderson from Duluth, who considers herself a Democrat but back Trump after Kennedy dropped out of the race. Anderson aligned with Kennedy's Maha agenda, particularly the focus on getting toxins out of food, who works with disabled adults, said Kennedy's government role is the only bright spot for a vote that

she categorizes now as the biggest mistake of my life. Honestly, I still don't really get this one, because she said she's horrified by deportation, alleged that Trump has been too focused on ridiculous, flashy moves such as banning paper straws and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Her daughter's preoccupational therapist has stopped taking new patients over fears that the practice will have its funding dry up. She says, I feel so guilty, stupid, and regretful, embarrassed and huge one. I'm

absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Donald Trump. Okay, I mean, you know, I'm not gonna tell Emily had a feel I guess, but you literally voted for the guy for RFK Junior. You got what you wanted. I wouldn't say a lot of the rest of this was not telegraphed, but in a certain sense, you have some buyer's remorse, you have some trepidation. You have some people who are

like this is absolutely amazing. But I think your honeymoon comment still sticks in terms of how I think things are still going to shake out.

a break from how Trump portrayed himself. And then you know, the other thing that was interesting to me is, you know the lady who was like, yeah, I want the criminals out, but I didn't know he'd be rating workplaces and whatever.

They've spent the off season getting their ducks in a row so that they can execute on the more maximal's plans more aggressively. So you should assume that when the president is, you know, the former and now current president is at the R and C with signs that say mass deportation, now that like he literally means that, and you should operate accordingly.

I wouldn't mind if he went around fifty five. So we're just saying slow down here a little bit, but overall, I'm with you. I'm with you, So that seems to be what we have. We do have here some voters Arab Americans who voted for Donald Trump sounding off on the Gaza plan. Let's take a listen to that.

in any way voting for him? She said, maybe, But if I hadn't and Kamala Harris had won, maybe we wouldn't still have a ceasefire.

the thing again about liberals and Democrats. Their worship of international norms and of past US policy would have been to them that effect, because Kamala, yeah, she probably wouldn't have gotten a ceasefire through or any of that, but she would have been rhetorically committed to a two state solution problem even though we all know that it's fake, which means that the status quo would not really change

all that much. There would be de facto control, but there's a big difference between de facto control and US government sanctioned taking over the West banker. I mean, that question was effectively decided the day that Donald Trump was elected the president, and it was pretty clear if you

were really paying attention. So I don't really know what to make of this in a sense, Like I said, I don't love to do the whole voter blaming thing, but if that was your number one issue, I mean, I'm still not really clear how you got to where you are. Maybe you could say, well, they got the hostages out and there was a ceasefire for a period of time, which I think is probably true. I don't know if there'd be a ceasefire without Donald Trump here

in the office. But I mean there's still a long way to go on that whole process, yeh, as we talked about with Ryan Hey, yeah, very much though.

is very like that's her number one issue. And so you know, on the Democratic side, most of the donors there too are quite pro Israel. But you do have a large percentage of the Democratic base who you know were are at this point more sympathetic towards Palestinians, very opposed to the ongoing war, and where you know, Donald Trump doesn't care what some lefty on college campus has to say. But those are part of the Democratic coalition, So at least in theory, there's an ability to exert

some pressure on a democratic administration. I mean, listen, I'm sympathetic to the fact that there were just no good answers in this election. If this was your number one issue, Very sympathetic to the gentleman who said he just didn't vote because he couldn't stomach, you know, voting for either one of these candidates.

me about the Donald Trump administration. I also do want to put this one up there a six. Let's put this up there on the screen, and feeling pretty vindicated. Financial although put my own cavea on this, Poles can offer be bullshit and do not take this to the bank. So if you're against this, you should take that into consideration. Financial Times did a survey here majority of Americans believe foreign aid wasted on corruption. Exclusive Pole suggests voters back

Donald Trump and Elon Musk's view of DOGE. A poll by Financial Trust found that sixty percent of respondents agreed that find and set aside for humanitarian causes were quote wasted on corruption or administrative fees. Only twelve percent disagreed with the proposition. So I mean that honestly, I feel very vindicated because that's why I said that the starting with USID was brilliant, because nobody cares about USAID, and to the extent that they do, they're like, yeah, it's

fake and it's fraud. And the more that you have now all this information coming out, plus this immedia ecosystem around USAID and Mike Benson, all that people are gonna be like good. I support that. Donald Trump and Elon are still, in my opinion, not in any danger. So everything about it is about telegraphing what might happen. It's like fear. It's like, oh, they have access to Dad. It's like, yeah, well, you know, unnamed bureaucrat has access to my data too. Frankly, could be just as much

of a threat. Maybe people hate the irs, People hate the government. Even people who have Social Security have dim views of the actual Social Security administration, but they love social Security as in the Texas, you know, they hate the government and they hate they feel as if it is completely unmoored from their own interests. So until like millions of people get affected by something like this or there's a natural disaster, I think it's just gonna keep

chugging along that poll. I mean, again, I really hate to say it, but you can just see how little trust the average American really has in these institutions and how they feel so taken advantage of that the idea to them. Even whenever people are like, oh, somebody in my own didn't get their AIDS medication, they're like, okay, well, you know, my cousin or whatever is sick and he's paying eight hundred dollars a month for his pharmaceutical drugs.

Now you could very easily argue, okay, but you know, it's not like Republicans want that to be cheaper. But they don't want to hear it. They don't care. They're like, well, it's at least this, We shouldn't at least be giving our tax dollars away to all of that. It's a complex system that we live in here. But I don't know, listen and I look at this. I just that was my ultimate suspicion. I was like, nobody gives a shit about USAID except for the people who work there.

et cetera, et cetera. You know, a genuine, literal oligarch who is running the show and keying up tax cuts to Social Security, Medicaid in particular, Republicans very aggressively going after medicaid and for what in order to finance a

giant tax code, a tax cut for the rich. You know, this is a lot of why so many people turned on the traditional like George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan Republican Party and sought out a different approach with a Donald Trump who pledged to not be that kind of Republican who really didn't care about the debt and the deficit frankly, who was like, I'm going to make sure that we

don't touch your entitlement programs whatsoever. So, you know, if you ask people like do you think that a billionaire should be in control of the government or even have significant influence an unelected billionaire should have significant influence in the government, They're like no, because they're fearful of exactly that dynamic cuts in austerity for you, largesse subsidies and tax cuts for themselves. And that's exactly the road that they are traveling right now.

Last time around, the tax messaging was bullshit, right, Remember Paul Ryan and the average American family can just spend a thousand dollars. I was in a meeting with Paul Ryan where it was like me and a bunch of journalists and I remember him being like, that's enough for someone to get their kitchen cabinets replaced or something. And I was looking around, I'm like, do we believe any of this ship? It was cost enough.

of a five year extension. There's a bunch of stuff going on with the estate tax, small business, but the actual the real fights I think will be will be tax on tips. It'll be corporate tax rate too. There was actually an interesting one that happened previously. It will be salt because currently assault cap is at ten percent, they want to lift it I think twenty that's what i'd heard, although some New York Republicans want to uncap it completely. Why would they do that, right? Why would

they put that into place? So I think that messaging will hit much more if and when the tax bill passes. But if they're smart, you're going to have to put in some of this tip stuff and a few of the other What else did he say, no tax on social.

pay taxes on it? Doesn't make any sense.

supposed to encourage business investment. Now if it's stock buy back and stuff like that, then absolutely, I'm with you.

tech right people. They are printing money off of their carried interest loophole, which we don't have the time to go in and explain it fully, but when I do to all of you, it basically means that their labor is taxes at much less value than yours, which is not right, especially if you're a business owner or any

of these other people. Even small business owners are some of the highest paying taxpayers in the United States compared to whenever you cross the ten million mark, and you're almost certainly involved in finance and or venture capital, you pay almost twenty percent, which is ludicrous. Right, Somebody else is paying forty five or fifty percent effective tax rate if they live in New York or California. At a minimum, even if they live in taxes or something like that

paint almost forty percent taxes. So it doesn't make any sense. But I'm actually excited to get to the tack stuff because that is one where I'm curious to see how the politics actually shake out. Last thing on this Trump voter thing, let's put this on the screen. This one is they voted for Trump and now some of their jobs are at risk. It says that they're writing about some of these government employees around who voted for Donald Trump.

There's about seventy five thousand government employees who apparently accepted the buyout and others. But you know, even within this one, I'm feeling a little bit like I do with the Palestine thing, Crystal. He said he was.

Elon Musk, who is an austerity like, anarcho capitalist. I want to literally get rid of the entire federal government. Guy, That's not what Trump has ever been. You know, Trump has not positioned himself as freaking Javier Malay, and yet that's exactly the government that we've ended.

abs absolutely not just a project twenty twenty five. It was Schedule F. It was openly endorsed by Donald Trump, openly crafted by Stephen Miller, Talk of the town. It wasn't just in the news media, it was here. It was in the podcast space as well. So I don't know, I don't feel nearly as bad for a lot of those folks. But let me say this, I will never celebrate at a personal level someone losing their job. I think it's that and I have unfortunately seen a lot

of people who are taking pleasure. But listen, no matter who you are, government non government, losing your job sucks. Not being able to pay your mortgage sucks. It's one of the highest predictor one of the most stressful events that you've ever experienced in your life. High predictor of suicide. That's why a lot of people kill themselves whenever there's recessions. It's horrible. So at a personal level, we should not wish it on anybody, and I would tell people not

to be cruel in that regard. It's important to always understand the humanity of them, even if you know, I did think it was kind of predictable, but that get that's more about a voting level as opposed to no one, I'm not going to celebrate you.

So if you were an outstanding performer and you know, and generally like in a non political position with the respect of your colleagues, I think it was reasonable to expect that you wouldn't be on the chopping blocks. So in any case, I will just say that even as I was taking Donald Trump very seriously about what he was saying he was going to do, I knew Project twenty twenty five was in fact the plan. This has still been far more radical and aggressive than I expected.

And in particular, the like you know, complete handing over of the keys to Elon Musk and the complete deferential nature of Donald Trump to Elon Musk is bizarre and was not expected.

position on Sunday after the disagreement. And it's also interesting so this, you know, this is reminiscent of the acting Director of the Treasury, who also left over a conflict with DOJE and didn't want to give them access and you know, would rather be pushed out than stay in and grant that access. Also interesting here is who Trump appointed now to fill this role as Acting Director of

Social Security. So bypassed dozens of other executive level individuals within this administration, like if you're looking at the org chart, bypassed dozens of people to pick this person, Leland Duduk, who has apparently posted positive remarks on social media about Doge's efforts to cut costs and search for fraud in federal agencies.

they're getting access. And I think that's deeply true on a conflict of interest level with Elon. But at a principal level, why is the civil servant. Supposedly it's supposed to be the one who is more trusted with all of our Social security, our SSDI paperwork, our taxpayer paperwork. I mean, IRS people are convicted or shown to be biased all the time. There was all that stuff during the Obama administration. Look at all this stuff even during

the first Trump administration. I remember what were all those leaks that happened of that career IRS agent who leaked like Peter Tiel and all these other people's tax returns. So, I mean, these are not heroes necessarily. Well, you know why is a hero? That guy showed how you really should do it roth Ira, folks, Peter Tiel's got five billion dollars in a roth ira in one of the most genius financial retirement schemes I've ever seen. Everyone should study it, especially if you're a normal guy.

beyond the law. Not to mention, some of the things that have come out about some of these individuals makes them not exactly the most trustworthy people. I'm not sure who it is exactly who's inside of Social Security. I'm not sure that that's publicly available information, which another thing too, is that there's like no transparency around what they're actually doing. But you know, one of these dudes was like fired

from his job because he was sharing company secrets. I think that same guy as the one that you and Ryan were talking about, created the website where or maybe it was Ryan and Emily that were talking and created the website where you could, you know, referencing child sexual abuse material. Whether that was just a troll or whether it was really a way for encrypting this type of

stuff hard to say. So in any case, we know very little about these individuals, and what we do know has not exactly put anyone's mind at ease about them being in such a sensitive position as being inside of social security systems, being inside of the treasures.

people are much more skeptical. I think of the career civil servant. Now, these people, I've lived around these people my entire adult life. They think they're heroes and they think they're like the greatest, smartest people on earth. But they're also deeply partisan in their all like capital liberal

way are they truly to be trusted? You know? And if anything, when you elected Donald Trump and who is genuinely like a scream and an f you against the system, It's like, why would anyone trust that you are going to faithally carry out whatever the elected office wants you to do. Now, if it's illegal, that's one different thing. But you know, at a base trust level, everyone's like, oh, it's so horrible that the top civil servant resigned. I'm like, yeah,

but who is this lady? I don't even know who you are, Nobody elected you.

having a deep amount of participation in all this. When they hear civil servant bureaucrat distrust immediately, I think, at least for the people who voted for Donn I think.

its administration. Put us up on the screen claiming that we went in and we looked at the database and look at all these people who are one hundred and fifty years old or who are three hundred years old, who are still receiving payment. So, first of all, again this could literally have just been invented, this brought to you. We don't even know that this is based on anything. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt that these are actually some numbers that was pulled from the

Social Security database. We know on basic math that this is not indicative of people who are receiving payments, but also if you look at the number of people or

one hundred and fifty years old. One thing I saw this morning, saga is that this could be a result of all these systems are program using COBOL, which is like this old ass programming language, and it has this particular quirk where if you don't fill in the birth date, then it defaults to it being eighteen seventy five, which would indicate a year of age of one hundred and fifty years old in this year. So, and this is part of the thing is just keep this up on

this screen and then I'll explain this as well. Is you know these apparatics that he has going and they're twenty years old, Okay, they I'm sure maybe are very technically proficient at the latest and greatest. I used to work as a consultant for the government and I actually was like in these old ass SQL databases, and I can tell you they are quirky and weird and they're certainly not state of the art. And if that's the thing you want to address, that would be a massive

undertaking and could make the government more efficient. I'm not opposed to it, but to just go in and pull some data and be like, oh my god, look at all these three hundred year olds that are getting paid Like, do some basic logic and math and maybe ask the people around you what you were getting wrong before you just put out to the public this attack on Social Security. So in any case, this journalist goes in, runs the numbers and finds, of course it doesn't add up.

or whatever, but against the program as a whole. Now, well that workout, Will he be able to get those cuts?

subreddit behavior. I love it. If I know one thing, it's Star Wars. However, if I know two thing, it's acquiring domain knowledge of company data using SQL. He is either that dumb and has done zero due diligence on his claim and simply done a select age count from people grouped by age, where dead equals true without checking maybe if these people are actually drawing benefits via transactional data, or he just wants to spread misinformation. Let's go to

the next one. This is several of these screenshots. So again we can't know everything about all the data right queries, but we can sanity check stuff. The one to eighty one to eighty nine range means that people were born in the eighteen thirties. Social Security didn't start till in nineteen thirty five, meaning many of these people would have been in their nineties. Unlikely these people's records have made

it to the computer age. I could be wrong, but it would make me want to check the source records before sending it to operational for folks, which in this case is citizens of the US. Plus, we don't have the query. Just because you have a record in SSDB does not mean that you are collecting. No way to tell with a grid only view, I can only do that in XCEL. So you've got some SQL warriors here that are very very upset about the way that this

data has been compiled. And that is what I think validates your point most which is that Elon is an quote imperfect messenger in the nicest way to possibly put it around this. He's maniacal, he doesn't check his work, he's constantly posting about it has massive conflicts of interest, and that's why I think it's become like a culture war in and of itself, of like a choose your own fighter, and to choose your own fighter again, in

my opinion, splits very well along a political valance. Somebody like myself who generally doesn't trust career civil servant's bureaucrats, I'm like, yeah, I don't know if you're such a hero. Just my experience, that seems to also be the general

like valance. I think of a lot of people who voted for Trump or anti establishment, whereas for a lot of people who are much more establishment minded or who are much more trustful of institutions they look at somebody like Elon will correctly point out all of their flaws and say, no, I'm going to stick with whoever. This eighteen year career lady is at the Social Security Administration. So I understand why it's very difficult. I totally get also why a lot of liberals are furious about all

of this. I try to think about the way that it will hit and until they actually do and cut a program that affects millions on a actual basis. I don't think there will be any large political outcry just because I do think we're still living through a very anti institutional moment.

need to listen to what he's saying. He believes that every in his ideal world, every government worker would be fired and put into the private sector, which means a complete privatization of government, something that I think most people would be deeply opposed to. But more to the point about how you know that this isn't about cutting government spending.

They're using the like all of these things that they're talking about cutting USAID, you know, even the trioming of the federal workforce, taking a hatchet to a ten percent is a trivial part of the federal government budget, and what are they doing. On the other hand, They're securing for trillion dollars in tax cuts for themselves, alongside things like Medicaid cuts, alongside you know, Elon trying to build the case against Social Security, trying to build the case

against Medicare, et cetera. So that's what I want people to understand is that this really has nothing to do with government efficiency or you know, or rooting out fraud or any of those sorts of things. And if you look at what they're actually doing and the way that

they're going about it, that becomes very clear. And I think piece of that is, you know, there's also a fight right now about access to IRS information, and IRS data can put the tear sheet up on the screen, so you know, this is same sort of thing, like your most sensitive personal financial details held in this database, and these you know, twenty year old Elon musk acolytes going in and rooting around and doing whatever. There's also questions about, okay, are they also going to have ReadWrite

access to this system as well. But in addition, more to the point of what I was saying about what this project is really about. You know, the IRS certainly as an agency not beloved, let's be quite clear about that. However, it does get one of the best returns on investment of any government agency that exists. So the Trump administration expected to lay off thousands of IRS employees in the

coming days. The IRS collected in twenty twenty four about five point one trillion dollars in revenue with a budget of twelve point three billion, and so again very high return on investment. And specifically there was you guys probably remember there's a big fight over the additional funds for IRS enforcement so that they can more effectively go after

the millionaire and billionaire class. Because if you have fewer enforcement resources, guess who are the easiest people to go after your waitress who is not reporting all of her tipped income or whatever. They go after the lowest hanging through as a legitimate and horrible criticism of the IRS. So there's additional funds put in to try to enhance enforcement activities to more effectively go after billions, billionaires and

millionaires for their tax cheat activities. And it was really successful. It secured nearly one hundred billion dollars through audits. That was an additional twenty five billion compared to the prior year. The IRS spent only thirty four cents for every one hundred dollars that was collected through these audits that were targeted at going after rich tax cheats, and a lot of that is being attempted to be rolled back, So again it's just a sort of blanket assault on government.

And of course, if you're Elon Musk, if you're his billionaire friends and allies, et cetera, et cetera, you don't want the IRS to have the ability to audit your taxes and to be able to go after rich tax chiefs. You're happy to have them just going after the low hanging fruit, and that's the status quo that they're trying.

income bracket. You're multiple times more likely to get audited if you make less than twenty five thousand dollars, then if you make two point five million dollars, Now I mean statistic. People have tried to come at me on that. There's a lot more people who make less than twenty five thousand, et cetera. And you know, for in terms of their own enforcement. There are these automatically generated letters

where they go after all of these people. But it's one of the most stressful events that a lot of people can go through. So they've burned all their public credibility over the years that Venmo thing, if you recall the six hundred dollars transaction limit to go after people like hairdressers and other folks who are getting tips and things off of Venmo. That burned a ton of public credibility.

So a lot of people like just generally feel they'll like screw you, I don't care, which leaves it open to weaponization or gutting, you know, by a lot of people who are like elon. So this is this is my general thing with all of this is that because public trust is rock bottom and because people are so have lack of faith in the government, Yes, it absolutely opens the door for conflict of interest folks and others

to use it to their own advantage. But it is incumbent upon people who are pro institution to not only have to make their case but prove to the public that they won't use it against them, and they have the track record is that they have used it against them.

meme coin launch. It's the same sort of like rug pull, market manipulation, insider trading bullshit, that's the nature.

in favor of the of the rich. Instead, it's hey, how about we put more regulation, how we put more protections into place, How that we make the existing financial system more fair and less extractive and less corrupt, rather than just being like, so, let's just be as corrupt as we possibly can. And I think there's a similar mentality that you're describing when it comes to something like

the IRS. Like, the problem with the IRS is that they have not gone after there are billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from millionaires and billionaires, that is who

much of their enforcement should go after. But actually, because the IRS budget has been cut back over successive administrations that have bought into this libertarian or at least neoliberal idea of privatization and crushing the federal government, that's exactly how you end up in this situation to begin with, where they don't have the resources to effectively go after the millionaires and billionaires who have their own lawyers and who have much more complicated schemes for hiding their money

versus the waitress who you know doesn't fully declare her tips or whatever. So what you're advocating for is actually just accelerating the very trajectory that has led us to this bad place to begin with, rather than trying to fix the problem and give them the resources they need to actually be an effective, you know, agency within government and be fair and equitable in the way that their

enforcement is rolled out. So, you know, I do think you're you're right that that is part of the perception, don't. I don't deny about the public perception. What I would say is that the cure that is being offered here is actually what made the irs sick to begin with. This will just push it more in the direction of targeting those waitresses and you know, those people who.

have participated as well. But the idea is, if you strip government of capacity and you make government fail, then people turn on government, and then you can further strip the government of capacity, and the people who really benefit are the very wealthy, because then the government cannot check their accesses, and then those social safety net programs that benefit you are always the first ones on the chopping block.

executive from UPS and Amazon. Now, if you've watched our coverage over the years, you know that UPS was in trouble because they didn't have air conditioning in their trucks and a worker literally died of heat exhaustion because these things bake in oven like conditions, like I'm talking one hundred and thirty degrees in the back of these trucks. Now, I do believe the new team stirs contracts, secured air conditioning, improved conditions. But he was overseeing UPS safety back when

they were you know, cooking drivers alive. And then Amazon, like need I say more? They have the worst record of safety in the entire warehouse industry, something like forty one percent of their workers get injured on the job. He was specifically the company was cited numerous times for serious violations while he was the head of quote unquote safety at Amazon. So you've picked someone who's just a complete industry show. And then you know, let's put the

one before this b five up on the screen. In addition, they've now taken down a bunch of workplace safety practice publications. And this is also very revealing SAGA because what they've done here is something they've done in other places with DOGE, which is they'll just search for words that are now on their band list, things like you know, diversity or equity or whatever. And a bunch of these workplace safety

publications have nothing to do with anything DEI related. But as as one example, there was a guidelines for EMS agency that cited a quote diversity of state specific certification, training and regulatory requirements. And since it had the word diversity, even though it has nothing to do again with DEI,

it just gets blanket taken down. I saw another another situation I think actually right here in Virginia and Spotsylvan Counts, not too far from here or from where I live, where a program to help disabled teenagers be able to transition to some sort of a job was blanket cut because it also, you know, used diversity in some other context or some other band word, and so they're just doing a blanket search for these terms, and even if it has nothing to do with DEI, just completely cutting

and cutting it. And so that's another table.

for Trump and all that haven't even materialized. I talked previously, Zuckerberg promised to stop fact checking on Facebook and I literally got a fact check on my Instagram from one of his, like you know, news organizations. I'm only putting the two together because this was the reason that you had Bezos and all these other people stop the endorsement or stand behind Donald Trump at the inauguration. They do it because it's not just about cachet. It's they get

something in return. That's what a lot of this is about. And I mean, I think quite a lot of that was pretty open before the election. A lot of it is pretty open right now. I mean in terms of will there be pushback and all of this other stuff, I'm not so sure not in the current media environment.

Captive audience meetings are back. The rule that they put out about non companning non competes, so giving workers more flexibility, more ability to you know, manoeuver and change jobs whatever, that also is rescinded. So they're you know, rolling back even the the you know, some of these things were significant, but even the more minimal changes that were made in favor of workers and labor under the Biden administration are

being rolled back. And this again where you know, I mean Trump went out in a garbage truck and worked at McDonald's and talked a big game about labor, and there was all this rudder, Oh, it's going to be different with Republicans. The labor unions like you should never have bought that bullshit. Donald Trump has always been a union buster, he'd always been a strike breaker. Yeah, but well, I mean, Sean O'Brien seems like he did so some people.

Some people did for sure, and you had this was part of a strategy to convince union workers to drop their long time so she went Democratic cross and vote for Trump because he was going to be different on labor. And that is like, very plainly not the case of.

did before. But that's not even my point. My point is that the whole reason that Trump and the RNC invited Sean O'Brien to speak at the R and C was to try to create an impression that they were going to be different on labor, when clearly they are not different on labor whatsoever.

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Trump administration. Yeah, I think is your job to explain those difference as people can do with that what they want, But to equivocate and pretend like, oh, he's going to be good on labor or actually it's the Democrats who are worse, Like that was just a lie.

comes to union organizing. I mean, the Nationally Relations Board under Trump now is not even defending its own right to exist. It has been gutted so that it cannot even function because they don't have a quorum. You know, they're probably illegally removed from This is an ongoing court case, but in any case, they've gutted it so it cannot even advance any of the claims of union busting and

other illegal behavior like. That's so, and this was all very predictable to your point about people knowing what they were getting and if you weren't telling your union members that, if you weren't making that clear. And again, people can do with that information whatever they want. If there are other issues that are more important to them, that's fine. But if you aren't making that clear, you are just lying to your members, You are confusing them, and you are failing at your job.

don't have any trust individually on that basis. The reason I'll defend O'Brien is because O'Brien's tried to hold on to some credibility with an administration which but won the popular vote all seven swing states and not willing to say one hundred percent or sorry, fifty percent of his union members, but a very good number of them. So you know, you have to follow where your people are.

You're a representative of them. You don't just work for some NLRB worship, like, you have to actually clearly listen to your union voting base and say, well, clearly, these guys like Trump, so I need to figure out a worry to work with them. So I just think it's the same structural problem from the government direction and on the union front. I just come back to this on the NLRB. If people really cared the union voters about NLRB, and they probably know more about it even then I do.

Then a lot of these union other people who talk about it online and they still voted for Trump. What does that tell you they don't actually care that much.

Whatever congratulations you did at you were invited to the inauguration you're on Trump's good list.

to not exist. Like Elon Musk, who is in charge of our government now doesn't think the National Labor Relations Board should exist and hates unions and thinks they should all be illegal. So like, yeah, you're not going to You shouldn't back that person because they think you, they hate you, and they think you should die.

keep coming back to. It's like, clearly you are you do not have credibility with your own voting base. Now, union is still one of the best predictors, but highest percentage of union members going for Trump, I think, was in the twenty twenty four election, which was a trend that started in twenty sixteen. We should learn from that.

It's also very I think patronizing to try and tell people, and LRB is the only thing that matters when the Democrats say that, no, but but for them, they get to decide that immigration, tariffs, manufacturing, and altern all of them.

fool too, because the track record is incredibly clear. So if you are the leader of a union, then yes, I think definitionally your number one priority should be labor issues, and if you're not being honest about those, then you're a liar and you're a fool, and you're actually misleading people versus helping to clarify and allow them to make their own educated decisions based on whatever it is.