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.
Republicans are putting together their budget proposal referred to this earlier, and you know, it looks like giant tax cuts for the rich and a bunch of cuts to programs that benefit the poor and working poor, And in particular, they're taking a giant hatchet to medicaid.
So Trump and his.
Little you know, dual interview with Elon sitting next to him, was asked about whether there would be cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid quote unquote entitlement programs.
Take a listen to what he had to say.
We don't need a Department of Education, okay, And what some people are trying to do is stoke fears that oh my gosh, my kid's not going to get the money for education or grandma. Social Security and Medicare. This is a big promise of yours on the campaign trail. So I really want to give you both an opportunity to assure the American people you will keep money will be allocated for students, but with higher standards. For example, I would assume associated with money is given.
Or just so much. And then Elon goes, but look, social Security won't be touched other than it be fraud or something we're going to find. It's going to be strengthened, but won't be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.
Nothing.
I want you to have to now, if there are illegal migrants in the system, we're going to get them out of the system and all of that fraud, but it's not going to be touching.
So no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
He says.
Then the very next day put this up on the screen. He goes out and backs the House budget proposal, which dramatically cuts Medicaid, the program in Sanstein points out Trump said last night he would not touch Here's the truth social that he posts the House and Center doing a spectacular job of working together as when unified, an unbeatable
team in all caps. However, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important legislation currently being discussed, the House resolution implements my full America First Agenda everything, not just parts of it. We need both chambers to pass the House budget to kickstart the reconciliation process, move all our priorities to the concept of one big, beautiful bill will
without question make America great again. So you also, you know, I mean Trump has built and this is one of the divergences of Trump two point zero versus Trump one point zero. He really built a lot of his stance in the Republican Party and a lot of his credibility with regular people off of this repeated promise he was not going to touch Social Security and Medicare. And then in that statement he also had originally expanded it, which
on Hannity, to Medicaid. But Elon thinks all of these programs should go and makes that quite clear on a regular basis, he's always retweeting Mike leasing Social securities of Ponzi scheme and it would be better if everybody was in private retirement accounts, et cetera, et cetera. He also has gone out of his way to fraudulently claim that Social Security is sending out all.
Of these proper payments, you know.
To people who are three hundred years old or whatever, which is total, incomplete nonsense. Saga and I talked about this earlier in the week. You can go check out that segment for the details and the receipts there. So clearly Elon wants to dismantle these programs, and it's trying to frame it as like, oh, we're just going after
the fraud, we're not actually cutting benefits. But you know, if you're backing the House Republican bill that takes that's cutting some what eight hundred billion dollars from medicaid, you are going to hit benefits for a lot of people. And also if you're serious about you know, Elon talks about cutting two trillion dollars in discretionary spending from the federal budget. If seventy percent of discretionary spending is Social Security, Medicare,
and Medicaid. So these programs are very much on the shopping block. And Trump admitting here, you know, backing the House bill and you know, aggressively and saying it's my full agenda and it's spectacular. It's that it's one big beautiful bill, you know, makes it pretty plain that he's not going to stand on the way of these kind of cuts.
So to play Trump's advocate here, well, not advocate, but a potential defense of what Trump is doing here. If you notice in his comment what he says is all caps everything, not just parts of it.
Is what we need.
We need both chambers to pass the House budget to kickstart. And he puts that in quotes the reconciliation process and move all of our priorities to the concept of one big beautiful bill.
It will without question make America great again.
So what you could believe, and this is what you know, the people who are hopeful that Trump is actually going to stick by what he said about medicaid, what you could believe is that he's saying the House process of doing the tax cuts and all the spending cuts in the same reconciliation bill and reconciliation just means that you
can pass it with fifty votes in the Senate. Is superior to the Senate approach, which is to do separate reconciliation bills, where you're going to do the reforms here and do the budget with the Medicaid and America cuts and all this, and then you're going to do the tax cuts. There are a lot of mega people who are arguing, if you do that, you will fail, Like, we have one shot. We being maga, we have one shot to do this all at once at the beginning of the year.
We got to do it immediately so that it all.
Takes effect because they've seen Obama and Biden fail because they pass all these good things and all they get is the bad press and the taxes, and then the actual spending comes too late to be politically beneficial.
And so these republicshers don't be idiots. Do this now so.
That by the time the midterms come around, people are feeling the benefits of all those wonderful things we did. So the argument would be Trump's only endorsing the House process of doing, of putting them all together, and that he's still going to stop fight them on Medicaid.
The counter to that is, good luck, you can't.
The numbers don't work out exactly, so you're going to have to But the way that Trump will could ultimately make the numbers work out is just blow the depth sit up much further. Right, Okay, we're going to do the tax cuts and we're gonna preserve Medicaid and Medicare and solid security, which is what I think they will actually end up doing.
And then when we're like.
Hey, you said you cared about the deficit, they'll be like, wow, we didn't, and neither do you.
Do you think that there are because the other thing they have to deal with is they have a what three vote region in the House, so they have to get every Republican unless there are a few Democrats that might vote along with them, which you know it's possible.
These are very weak people who are you know, some of them.
Desperate to appear like, oh, we're bipartisan blah blah blah. And you know some of them are have positioned themselves as these sort of like austerity deficit hawk tea party types, the chip Roys of the world and whatever, and so that is the reason why you know they're desperate, they're definitely going to have in there. They're four trillion dollar extension of tax cuts for the rich. That's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that you originally pass, and now
it has to be extended. That's a huge price tag, four trillion dollars over what ten year period. And so if you're going to even and fudge the numbers to make it look like you're not adding to the deficit, which they're already saying, like, we're going to fudge the numbers. We're going to pretend like we're going to get all this growth that you know, doesn't really Maybe they will, but it's unlikely. It's not the way they normally do
normally do scoring. But whatever, they're already saying, Okay, we're going to fudge the numbers in this particular way, it's still is going to require a lot of cuts from somewhere, and especially if you're going to add on top of that any of the tax related promises that Trump made to working class people, let alone the whole salt tax situation, which also would be a very expensive add on. So how are you going to you know, how are you going to compensate for all of that? On the other side.
And as if you're digging into these numbers on DOGE, you're quickly learning there are just a few buckets in the federal budget that really make up the bulk of the spending. It's the military, and it is the and it is healthcare, Medicare and Medicaid, and it is Social Security. And if you aren't those things like you are nibbling around.
The edges, that's just the reality.
Right now, you can put this next piece up on the screen because this also gets to the same dynamic. So the House Republican budget also calls for an increase in defense spending, one hundred billion dollar increase in defense spending.
This is the plan again that Trump just endorsed, as prem Dogger is pointing out here, at the very same time that he has asked the Pentagon for a plan to implement sweeping budget cuts, slashing eight percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, per amendment that was obtained by the Washington Post. Apparently Pete Hegseth has directed the agency to go out and look for how they would accomplish these cuts, et cetera, et cetera.
So again you have Trump endorsing an increase of one hundred billion dollars in the defense budget at the same time that he's signaling an interest in another direction.
Yeah.
So when you listen to a lot of the House Republicans and Senate republic Cans talk about Doge and talk about Trump's talking about Trump rolling back the empire and going doing spending cuts, they very quickly.
Get uncomfortable as soon as the Pentagon comes up.
That's right, It's it's wild, like they're the The number of people within the MAGA coalition at the top willing to take on the Pentagon is minuscule.
Well, and there's a reason why the.
Base they're there ish for it as long as it goes after the I think they're willing to go after the weapons makers, the military industrial complex. A huge portion of our spending is you know, veterans affairs and and salaries of active duty enlisted people.
Uh.
And there were there who.
Are already struggling on food stamps and like, you know, so that gets interesting too.
You ut the military budget too far, you're now you're coming out getting into backshits humans.
Yeah.
Well, and actually, if you look at the polling, if you ask people where you would most.
Want things cut. It is the military, right, you know, they.
Don't they don't want people like the idea. Like if you ask, okay, should federal garnment spending be cut? Of course they you know, yes, we should be more efficient, We should have you know, cut out the fat blah blah blah. If you ask them, okay, well, should we cut programs for poor people?
No?
Should we cut education no? Should we cut so scurity absolutely not. Should we cut metagear absolutely not. Should we cut defense mending, yes, yes, yes we should.
But you know this from where you live.
That's right.
If you ask anybody there if they should close the base, Oh, that's that they want to close the base.
That would be devastating, would be a death blow for the particular town that I live in, and that is.
Part of why you're not at all alone.
That's exactly right, right.
The people watching this.
Program right now live in an area that would be hurt very badly.
And that is part of why so, I mean, part of why the military budget always escalates is because you have these defense manufacturer then you know, military industrial complex that spends a lot of money in Congress and make sure they get their you know, fat subsidies and their budgets and their like boot and doggle weapons systems that costs have massive cost overruns and are totally unaccountable and an audit.
And all that stuff.
Right, that is a big that is a significant chunk of it. But also these military expenditures go into almost every district congressional district in the probably everyone actually in the entire country. And purpose that's that is on purpose. It is a sort of jobs program. And so you know, you once you start to actually threaten that, then you
get a lot of members on both both parties. I mean, this is part of what creates that unit party consensus who start to get very upset about the you know, the bases or the manufacturers or whatever it is in their district that is important to the economy and the people there.
No, there was even that wild moment Whereie Bernie was like, you sure we want to cut this f whatever?
Like there was some some like I forget exactly what weapon system they were making in Vermont, but Bernie is like, is that really where we need to cut?
They know what they're doing when they built this system.
Suddenly suddenly it's a little different when it's your state or your treasured priority. So we'll see how all that shakes out. But very interesting stuff. So we have some significant court developments that we wanted.
To go through for you.
So one of the big questions is, okay, so some of these temporary restraining orders injunctions are coming down against the Trump administration and some of the efforts under doge. Are they going to listen or are they going to do what Jade Vance and others have suggested of just saying hey, like you and what army are going to enforce this court injunction? And we have another troubling indication in terms of the approach that the Trump administration is going to take to go and put this up on
the screen from Reuters. So nonprofits have now asked a judge to hold US officials in contempt for defying an order with regard to specifically USAID.
So the way was all pause on.
That's just for one throwback.
One of the nonprofits here is the AIDS Vaccine Program.
Uh.
The other one is the Journalism Development Network, which is the business name of the O C c.
RP which we wrote about.
That's the one you that's the USAID funded news organization that was.
The just you can go read our story and look.
At it doing like US propaganda basically deep States.
From they they very strongly will say that there is no influence from the US of their funding, but it was funded. You know, a lot of their funding comes through Russian you know, countering Russian disinformation, was.
Involved in the Romania situation.
There's there's deaths there, there's involvement with the Romanian situation. It's so, yeah, it's US funding for overseas journalism. That is, uh, that is controversial because taking government money directly to fund journalisms is just in the journalism world, extremely controversial.
Yes, like we wouldn't do it for instance.
Yes, exactly right, exactly, that's what that they Coincidentally, they happened to.
Be one one of the groups that's doing Yeah.
So the way this went down is, you guys will recall there was this There were a couple of executive orders that were well some of our executive orders, some of them were just memorandoms that were issued by the Office of Management and Budget, but in any case said directly, you have to we're freezing all foreign aid spending. We're freezing anything that has to do with you know DEI or quote unquote green new deal led to this huge
amount of confusion. Medicaid portals were shut down for a while, and you know, it's still has been the case that some things have continued to be frozen. While a judge looked at this and said, you have to unfreeze the funds, and that has led to this sort of court battle with the Trump administration arguing that while the funds you're telling us to unfreeze, like that doesn't really apply to some of these other executive orders that we issued, and
USAID is really at the center of it. But in this dispute, the judge came back and said, no, when I said unfreeze the funds, I meant unfreeze all the funds, including funds at USAI D Trump administration has continued to resist that order and put in a court filing offering some new sort of convoluted rationale for why those don't funds don't apply. When the judge, immy I read the order was quite clear like no, no, no, I meant
all the funds have to be here unfrozen. So these nonprofits that are suing, they said the court shoand not brook such brazen defiance of the express terms of its order, and they're asking specifically for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and USAID Deputy Administrator Pete Morocco and the OMB director Russ Vote, who is one of the real ideological architects behind this whole thing, to be held in civil contempt. It could put this next piece up on the screen.
This is just the court filing here, Kyle Cheney, who's a good followist in terms of just like the legal you know, all the back and forth legal pieces that are many and varied. At this point, breaking USAID contractors, AID recipients say Rubio and USAD leaders should be held in civil can have reviolating a court order to lift spending freeze. So you can see that there on the side. So we still have not I think Ryan reached the point where they're just saying, now we're just not going
to listen, right, They're still cloaking it in. We have some convoluted legal rationale for why this isn't directly in defiance of your court order. But we are inching closer to that level of just like you told us to unfreeze the funds, and we're just not.
Going to do that.
Yeah, and to put Trump's argument legal argument here in its best light, what he's What they're saying is, Okay, you're right. The freeze that we did that was that was wrong. You've told us to lift the freeze. Boom.
We have lifted the freeze. However, we still have discretion on a case by case basis to not pay out these particular grants because within the grants they're at each contract has language that if the you know us to size it is no longer in the interest of the US to continue with this grant, that the US can stop the grant, and the President is deciding that it's not in his.
Interest and we're not.
And so therefore we're not saying that we're never going to spend the congressionally mandated appropriations, so we're not impounding the money. We're just pausing this particular contract because we feel like this particular contract is not in our national interest and not in accordance with the executive order at this moment, which I think actually would be a completely fair argument if not for everything else they're saying, which which goes to a broader read, which is they are
actually freezing everything. Have no intention of spending it right, and are trying to impound it, but just not say yet that they're impounding it there is or not, because they're they're gearing up toward that fight, but they're not having it yet. So but this this particular argument, yeah, of course, Like on an individual level, if a state, if the USA IDEA or state department says, you know, actually we don't like the way that they handled this
Romania situation, so we're cutting their contract. You can do that, sure, But so the question is that really what they're doing.
Yes, yeah, And I mean this kind of relates what you're describing here to They made a court filing saying Elon is not actually the head of DOGE, Like he's just some guy.
Like he's kind of like Anita Dunn.
You know, he works in the White House, he works with Trump, he's an advisor, but he's not in charge of DOGE. He doesn't have anything really directly to do with DOGE. Even as Trump is out there being like Elon's in charge of DOGE.
He's doing a great job.
Yeah, of course, I mean this is obvious, right, and they haven't hit it whatsoever. But because it creates some legal complexities for them. In particular, one of the lawsuits is about the appointment's clause of the Constitution, where if you're going to have I don't know what the legal language is, but if you're going to have the significant role, you have to have a Senate confirmation. And so so they want to downplay in the context of that lawsuit
Elon's involvement. So they're denying what was like plainly obvious and what they admit to and the way they talk about Elon and his relationship to DOGE all the time. And by the way, if you ask Trump, okay, well, if Elon isn't in charge of DOGE, who is, he has no answer because Elon is obviously in.
Charge of Dose.
So this kind of you know, ties into that, denying the reality that is in front of us with some you know, uh, sort of convoluted legal argument, ties into that whole thing. There have been a few other developments here that I think are worth just running through quickly.
So there was another executive order that was signed by Trump that does a variety of things, but in particular is really trying to undercut the independence of some key agencies, normally namely the FDC, the FCC and the sec which is the Securities Exchange Commission, which you know, they were upset that the Securities Exchange Commission was actually doing his job somewhat under Biden, and like lots with regard to CORCT now, so they're trying to get them.
Under control over there.
But really extraordinary also legal positioning and framing here that really ties into Trump's comments about how you can't violate the law if you are saving the state, and some of the other more dictatorial positions that he has taken, which is that listen, only the President and the Attorney General can speak for quote, what the law is.
Let's take a listen to that.
Lastly, we have another executive order the President Trump signed relating to independent agencies. This executive order would establish important oversight functions in the Office of Management and Budget and its subsidiary office OHIRA, supervising independent agencies and many of their actions, and also re establishes the longstanding norm that only the President or the Attorney General can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.
So this fits with also the way that Elon has been describing the workings of our government.
Which is basically like.
Trump is the only true representative of the people. So if you're standing in the way of what Trump wants to do, then you are anti democratic. You are trying to thwart the will of the people. And as you pointed out many times, Ryan, that is not the way that our system works. In fact, the House of Representatives is specifically set up to be a more representative body and to reflect the individual proclivities regional proclivities of all
the different districts and varied constituencies within the country. We don't have a system where the president is basically like king and gets to wipe the slate clean and implement his entire agenda. But that is the way that they're trying to position and explain their philosophy about.
All of this.
And if he's restricting when he says the US, if he just means the executive because sometimes that's what that's how you refer to the executive. You know, it's the US if you go to civil court or criminal court to US versus you know, Whoever, if.
That's what you mean, I could, I could.
There's an argument to be made that the president wins, he should be able to tell the SEC what its priorities should be, and if the SEC is not abiding by those priorities, he should be able to change, you know, change out you know who the leaders of the SEC are, or the CFP B or FTC or any of these other agencies. Like you have an election, you run on saying you're going to do something through the FTC.
It would be.
Messed up if Trump wanted to do anti monopoly stuff and he's got Wall Street guys over it em and a guys.
Over at FTC, and they're like, no, we're not doing that.
But what you can't do is just dismantle them with like he's doing with CFP Bright Because I'm actually okay with a president within the laws created by Congress having having a direction direct you know, having direction.
Over these agencies. I think that's fine.
But you can't just get rid of him, right, which he's which look, with several of them, he's just saying like, oh, this doesn't exist anymore. We're putting putting it in either in the wood chipper or r A p C, CFPB like you have to Congress has to be involved in that.
That's our system.
Yeah, very well said, All right, let's go ahead and move on to this congestion pricing piece, which kind of fits into the whole, like Trump acting like a dictator, or Eline acting like a dictator, et cetera.
President Donald Trump has weighed in on New York City's congestion pricing, put this element on the screen saying that it's dead. He's going to kill it. Congestion pricing is dead. Manhattan and all of New York is saved. Long Live the King. That posted Donald J. Trump to his truth social This was curiously a significant amount of leverage that Trump had over Governor Hockel, who is now under pressure to remove Eric Adams from office.
There was some there was.
Some sense that one that you didn't want to cross Trump because she didn't want the congestion pricing to be nuked.
That leverage is is now gone.
Trump really leaning into this, uh you know King Donald routine that he that he started here.
He also the White House posted this.
We can put his next element up a mock up of a fake Time magazine with that's Trump with wearing a crown with long Live the King written under it.
Uh.
Congestion pricing is only about a month old at this point.
Uh.
And Governor Hockle came out with a statement, uh urging Trump to you know, back off of this effort to kill it.
We can put this next element up here. This is statement from Governor Katy the Hogle.
She says, public transit is the lifeblood of New York City and critical to our economic future. As a New Yorker, like President Trump knows very well. Since this first in the nation program took effect last month, congestion has dropped dramatically and commuters are getting to work faster than ever. Broadway shows are selling out, and foot traffic to local businesses is spiking. School buses are getting kids to class on time, and yellow cab trips increased by ten percent.
Transit ridership is up, drivers are having a better experience, and support for this program is growing every day. We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king. The MTA has initiated legal proceedings in the Southern District of New York to preserve this critical program. We'll see you in court, she says. And you know, key to this is that question of I mean, aside from whether or not we're ruled by a king or not. We'll figure that out over the next couple of years, the
question of whether or not this is popular. I can put this next element up on the screen, a poll about six and ten saying they want New York City congestion pricing to continue. If you dive deeper into the pole, the support is quite strong for this new program, Stronger than it was, I would say when it was launched.
Yes, that was what I found as well.
Yeah, and the advocates of it argued that it is one of those government programs that doesn't feel right out of the gate. You're like, I got to pay for something I didn't have to pay for before, which, by the way, streets are the only thing that we think should be free. Like if you ever suggest that riding the bus should be free or riding the subway should be free, which I'd be cool with, Yeah, you sound like a radical commy socialist.
And they're like, what are you crazy?
But why Like, that's the public built the bus list and the public built the subway, and the public built the roads.
It's the roads that people feel like they have this right to.
Yes.
So when it comes to the congestion pricings, I put up.
On my feed last night, I was curious for my own followers how they were liking it. And you know, I think universally everyone who responded, at least to me. Obviously it is not a scientific poll, you know, but Twitter is filled with you know, cranky conservative people who don't like and they have they are not shy about sharing their opinions with me. As you can just scroll through my feed and see everyone is like, the streets are it's the commutes are less. I'm shaving a half
an hour to an hour off my commute. You can walk around the city better. Public transmission ridership is up and money is flowing in to the city that is supposed to be earmarked to upgrade the subways. And the bus is as somebody pointed out, the buses from New Jersey are making it through the tunnels much more smoothly, which then makes being able to take the bus much more feasible. Thing before, like, I'm not going to take
the bus and sit for thirty minutes inside this tunnel. Yeah, but now if it's going to move through, and if the bus is if you're taking the bus from Harlem all the way down and it's moving much quicker, and all of a sudden, a bus trip which previously was not even something that you would consider doing because once it's in a bus for an hour and a half, now all of a sudden, it's reasonable. And now your uber and your taxi rides are much much quicker too.
So everyone seems happy, obviously except for people who are getting hit with the with toll. But a lot of the people who are paying the toll are like, it's taking me an hour less and I'm and time is valuable and I will spend that.
That's a great point too.
Yeah, I actually have taken a bunch of those express buses from New Jersey into the city. And if you haven't lived there or done that, like, you may not know that they come, like if you are in a certain they'll come like every ten minutes.
It's actually very practical.
It's it's not a hardship to walk out one block, wait for this bus for five minutes, and if you miss it, get the next one ten minutes later, and you know, zoom into the city and can help with commute.
To so working class people are commuting into Manhattan. Well working class people can commute to somewhere else and then take public trade, take the.
Public transit in Yeah, you know, I saw.
I talked to some friends who live in the city who were very upset about this because they feel like, for once there was something that was done that immediately actually improved their lives. And imagine that made life easier. I mean, you know, I lived in Manhattan for a number of years, and the nightmare of trying to get from one side down to the other, or get down down or update and not know. And that's the thing too, is like not no wing, is this going to be
a day where it's going to take thirty minutes? Is it going to be a day where it takes an hour? And ultimately I just like bail out of bail out and walk the last or whatever, you know. And to have that level of predictability and just ease of movement, it really is like a freeing, a sense of freedom that people had gained with this congestion pricing because it had made such an improvement, and then to have Trump
just come in out of spite effectively and totally reverse it. Yeah, I think that this is this was a material improvement for people who live in New York City. The other piece here with the like long lived the King part is I feel a little bit like you know, gas lit in the same way with Elon Musk's like Kyle Hitler thing like we're supposed to pretend like that you
didn't just do the thing that we saw you do. Like, don't get mad about us calling you a dictator when you're calling yourself a king and a dictator and sharing this Time magazine, fake Time magazine of you as a king on you know, on from the official White House Twitter account. Also, this wasn't some rando, but you know I was saying to you earlier. I also think it is a little bit of him trying to claim as power, because it is true that Elon, of the two of them,
seems like the much more powerful entity. Now Trump is mostly out playing golf. The number of Daisies played golf already in this administration is quite extraordinary. He wants to do the pieces he wants to do, and a lot of it does feel like it's been sort of like handed over an outsource to Elon. So I think he also wanted to reassert himself a little bit here. The
Eric Adams dynamic is interesting to me. And by the way, you know that this is really popular because Kathy Hochel is actually taking a stand in right in favor of it. And this is the most like weak, need pathetic democratic leader.
You can imagine to the suburbs.
Yeah, exactly.
And so the fact that she is stridently and in multiple posts aggressively defending congestion pricing tells you just how popular it is with New york Er. It's not just like some tiny sliver of lefties in Brooklyn or whatever. And I do think that it probably makes her more likely to exercise the power she does have to remove Eric Adams from office. But you know, she's been meeting with a variety of leaders getting their opinions on that.
Apparently there's some concern. I don't know what his numbers are at this point. They can't be good. There's this a knee jerk assumption that he still has strong support among black voters in the city and in the state. I just maybe, but I haven't seen the polling to justify that. I would think that they would be disgusted with the you know, corruption and self dealing and cozying up to Trump as much as or more than anybody else.
Yesterday, you had a significant number of black elected officials coming out and supporting Eric Adams as but black elected officials, like they were saying, as a black elected official, we oppose Kathy Hokal removing Eric Adams. So there is at least on the elected level, that kind of pushback being organized.
Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they speak really for anybody but themselves.
And also there are.
Other black elected officials that you could have in that office who are interested in the seat as well.
So it would be Annie Williams who would become there, right, Yeah, that's right, which which would be kind of amazing because he's kind of a radical lefty working families party guy.
Yeah, it would be a pretty dramatic ideological sit shift from fact yes, from Trump de facto running New York City as he apparently does now to having a working families party.
Trump should go spend some time in New York.
He hasn't been there the last month, but traffic in front of the Trump Tower it's just constant fumes and like you can't move.
He should go check it out. Maybe you'll like it. I mean, if it's all at the whim of the king, then the king needs to chariot and go to New York City.
Increasing the value of his properties within Manhattan.
It absolutely would.
That's that's the appeal to make there.
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and get to our guest who's been directly impacted by some of the federal freezes and.
Hear his story.
We're really fortunate to be joined this morning by someone who has been impacted by some of these across the board spending freezes. Bob Blake is the founder of Solar Bear Full Service solar installation company and also Native Sun Community Power Development, a Native led nonprofit that promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Great to meet you, Bob. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, so you got this notification like a letter from the federal government on January twenty eighth. Give us a sense of what you were up to and how this has impacted you.
Yeah.
Well, we had a number of projects that we were working on between electric vehicles and also solar projects, battery projects through the Department of Energy and other agencies, and we got this letter saying to essentially stop that.
In all these different projects.
And so we adhere to the letter because it did come down from this particular our administration, and so we're kind of sitting in a spot where we're kind of in limble right now, trying to figure out exactly what our next moves are going to be.
So if you're trying to talk to somebody, Let's say somebody is watching this and their number one concern is they want to cut the deficit, cut government spending, make and make things more affordable for people here.
In the United States.
What would you say to them about this spending and whether that's actually going to accomplish that long term?
Yeah, great question.
You know, a lot of these projects are around and focusing on renewable energy, and we know that that is one of the cheapest sources of energy that we can you know, use. The other part about this is a lot of these projects are out in rural communities where, you know, because of the weather patterns, because of what's currently happening with climate change, you know.
A lot of the.
Savings are going to go into these communities, and not only that, but hire these individuals to be able to you know, work in this industry, so you know, this is really going to affect you know, a lot of these most vulnerable communities, especially in rural America, where a lot of this funding, and a lot of this money is concentrated at.
And so tell us specifically about the programs you were working on. I know one was for building out electric vehicle chargers, and now there was a solar installation project. Like, give us a little bit of nitty gritty about why these particular projects were important for these particular communities.
Yes, well, they were going to save the average American right fuel savings. You know, we deal with energy poverty in these areas. They were going to be able to save them on their electricity bill. We know that a lot of folks that you know, lose their homes, one of the first things they can't do.
Is pay their electricity bill.
So it's kind of of, you know, a way for us to be able to you know, keep people in their homes, h the jobs, the operations and maintenance that we're going to be happening from from these particular projects. You know, we can the workforce development opportunities that we're
going to be happening from this. Also, just the opportunity that one of the battery projects was actually going to be backing up a criminal justice complex, so you know, and those extra savings could have went into rehabilitation programs, being able to offer you know, folks, the ability to get a job when released. So there's a lot of things here that I believe that you know, that these savings could have helped these communities by by implementing them.
So what's going to happen without this federal money?
Well, currently, right now these projects are on hold.
I we I hope that.
This administration reconsiders because investment into Rule America is an investment into this country. Investment into UH to energy sovereignty is an investment UH into this country. So I hope that this that this UH, this administration reconsiders their actions and then we can continue forward UH with these great projects that you know that the past administration felt like were needed.
It just occurred to me, By the way.
Are the workers who are being furloughed as a result of these projects being shut down applying for unemployment benefits as we speak?
You know, I I can't speak for every UH subcontractor, but you know what happens a lot of times in these situations is that they do have to apply for you know, benefits.
Which you can imagine why I'm asking that question, because the person who is eyeing this from the perspective of trying to save taxpayer money. Has to realize that what they just did is they're still paying people tax payer money, except now they're paying them to sit at home in homes powered by you know, fossil fuels, right that are more expensive, instead of paying them to go out and develop renewable energy.
Right.
And and and I think, and I think you get to a much bigger picture, right, is you know, the purpose that these folks get from doing this, doing this kind of work, right, and this is how we battle the social ills that are plague in our community, like drug addictions, alcoholism.
You know, we can go down.
Down the list, but you give these folks the purpose and you know, the opportunity you get up every morning and serve their communities. You know, there's other ways that you know, and if you don't do that, they're going to fall into these other traps. And that's one of the things that I'm concerned about and and that that I worry about because you know, we we all love our communities and we just want the best for them.
And of course it's also just one more broken promise between the federal government and these tribal nations also that you're working in. That has to fuel a long and very justified sentiment of you know, you can't you can't trust these people. They're not going to be there for us when we need them.
Great point, you know that. That's another thing here.
A lot of my projects are in tribal communities, and there's been a lot of broken promises between the United States government and tribal nations. There is a nation to nation trust responsibility that I believe that the United States government needs to fulfill that There Supreme Court Neil Gorsicic did point out that treaties are the supreme law of the land. I hope that you know, this president and this administration adheres to that.
So you're absolutely correct.
This is just another and a long list of broken promises that that are happening in Native country.
My last question for you, Bob and Ryan may have one as well, but what what what do you do next? What's your plan from here?
That's what I was gonna ask.
Yeah, well, you know, I I will continue to advocate for you know, uh, a greener, cleaner future for for all, for for all, and and we will try to get these uh these projects uh financed some way, somehow, And you know, the bottom line is is that a lot of people are counting on us and and we want to we want to come through. So that's gonna be my next job and and I hope that we can continue to fulfill our at least our promise to these communities.
Well, thank you, Bob.
It's a pleasure to meet you, and we're really grateful for you sharing your story.
Thank you for having me.
It's our pleasure.
As we discussed earlier this week, Argentina's president just hyped a massive crypto shit coin pump and dump, which effectively robbed his own biggest supporters. The whole thing was ultimately quite similar to the scheme Trump also pulled, and behold, some of the same people were involved in this Argentina Libra rug pole as we're involved in the Milania rug
Pole YouTube scam. Investigator coffee Zilla managed to score an interview with one of these fraudsters, and there was a particular part that helped me put together something I've been trying to articulate since the beginning of Trump two point zero, whether with regard to Doge Maha or the new return to outright colonialism and imperialism. The moment came towards the end of the interview, after this scammer his name is Hayden Davis admits that.
All crypto is quote dogshit.
How then does he justify his role in massive, repeated scams of people using this quote unquote dogshit.
Take a list on what he had to say.
I'm very pro.
Getting everything away from regulated markets, but I'm now recognized because I think that that's another game. I think that's an insider game, right, whether it's the pelosis of the world or the stock game, that's an insider game too. It's just a different type and people have to be more careful. But capital markets are an insider game. The whole thing is like, I'm never nobody's ever gonna convince
me that it's not rigged. Banks pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to do illegal shit because they can make more money other ways. Like I could keep going on with with bullshit after bullshit after bullshit. I think if you're gonna die on the sword of meme coins, being you know, insideer this or sniping that, like you're full of shit because there's every market in the world is like that that makes a shitload of money.
Well yeah, I just I just want I just want to put a note in that if your argument for capital markets is you know they they are rigged, that's actually an argument for more regulation against rigging than it is for less.
Like you wouldn't look at a rigged game and go, hey, guys, let's take away all the rules we had in place anyway to try to stop it getting rigged.
Right, But then I have to trust Then you have to trust the regulators, and most of them are being paid off.
And that's been proven time and time forever, because.
Hum yeah, yeah, but but but once again, the conclusion to like seeing problems in the world is not like you realize, like your brakes aren't working correctly.
It's not to go like, hey, the brake manufacturers paid off, so let's just not have breaks at all. It's going it's methodically approaching it and going, Okay, we need to advocate for more regulation here, we need to advocate for more rules here, saying like, oh, yeah, it's all rigged. Isn't the dunk that people think it is on rules in general?
Does that make sense? Sure?
But it's it doesn't matter like that to me like that, to me is kind of a mute a little bit of a mute point, because it's like, it doesn't matter. The people that have the most money, the most access, and the most control, which is insiders, and any market in the world always win.
So Hayden basically says, well, mainstream financial markets are scamming to so I'm going to get mine with an even more brazen scam. Coffee, of course, correctly points out the answer of financial for is better laws, enforcement, less corruption, But Hayden's already made up his mind. Since the big banks are imperfect, we should just give up on policing things like rug poles, insider training, and outright theft. Now that philosophy actually seems to me to be pretty core
to the ethos of Trump two point zero. It's a dark nihilism that effectively says, look, everything's bad, so let's just make it worse. Since the financial system is gained by insiders, let's just go full open scam. Since money has infected politics, let's just take open bribes. Since we've been hypocritical about international law, let's just revert to pure barbarism.
It's an ethos that I think is very much at the core of the anarcho capitalist ideology that Elon and Project twenty five architect Russ Vote have infused the second Trump administration with. Since governments can't fully check corporate power, just disband the government, privatize all functions, and let the
oligarch's CEO dictators run wild. Don't believe me, Just listen to Mark Andresen, as influential a person as any in this administration, explain how, since democracy will always be flawed, we should just openly embrace oligarchy.
So the Iron Love oligarchy basically says democracy is fake. There's always a ruling class, there's always a ruling elite structurally, and so the reason for that is because the masses can't organize. Right, what's the fundamental problem that, whether the mass is twenty five thousand people in Union or two hundred and fifty million people in a country, the masses can't organize. The majority cannot organize. Only a minority can organize.
And to be effective in politics, you must organize. And therefore, every political structure in human history has been some form of a small organized elite ruling a large and dispersed majority. Every single one and so basically, basically the presumption that we are in a democracy is just sort of by definition fake. Now good news for the US. It turns out the founders understood this, and so of course they
didn't give us a direct democracy. They gave us a representative democracy, right, and so they built the oligarchy into the system in the form of Congress, in the executive branch and the judicial branch. But so anyway, so as a consequence, democracy is always everywhere fake. There is always a ruling elite. And basically the lesson the Machabelians is you can deny that if you want, you're fooling yourself.
The way to actually think about how to make a system work and maintain any sort of shred of freedom is to actually understand that is actually what's happening.
So the basic message here is democracy is fake, so just give up on letting people have a say and embrace your billionaire overlords.
You can see how this.
Ideology also tied to the ideas of Nick Land and Curtis Jarvin, the so called Dark Enlightenment or neo reactionary movements. How this provides a very convenient philosophical backdrop for Elon to execute on his own plans and personally selected goals for humanity. Elon he wants total power, and this ideology provides him a pathway to exactly that. I've been reading Walter Isaacson's biography on Elon. One thing you really get is how he has personally cast himself as the savior
of humanity launches SpaceX. That's a sort of insane boondoggle. At the start, he believes he must personally guarantee humanity's future as a multiplanetary species.
Never mind that none of us.
Voted for the CEO dictator king to destroy the lives of working class people in order to chase his martian dream. If Elon's multiplanetary goal takes shredding the Constitution, so be it. If it takes sentencing kids with HIV in Africa to death, so be it. If it takes hijacking the entire resources of the United States government to funnel into SpaceX, so
be it. But in order for the public to just sit back and watch their data and their tax dollars and their voice in our government all plundered by the richest man on Earth, some critical mass has to be convinced that the government wasn't really worth saving anyway, that their voice in our government and their rights that are protected by that government were not really worth preserving after all, that perhaps all those things were faked to begin with,
as Andresen wants them to believe. And the role of this ideology of nihilism is to persuade Americans of exactly that. And look, I actually understand some of the appeal. There's a feel of honesty to this level of nihilism, to saying, as Hayden Davis did, well, the insiders always come out on top, so why not just celebrate it? Or democracy never can be perfected, so let's just embrace our oligarchs. It's an appeal that has kind of always been at
the core of Trump. Helps to explain why, even though he lies more than probably any person I've ever known outside of Elon, why so many people continue to view him as an exceptionally honest politician. He doesn't bother to hide his schemes, doesn't bother to hide his crimes. He will just say we want Ukraine for the rare earths,
rather than dressing it up in democracy language. He will just say we're going to permanently remove every Palestinian from Gaza, rather than pretending that some sovereign state for Palestinians is just around the corner. Rather than doing a little insider trading out allow on most of Congress, he will just launch his own shit coin to openly scan his own
people to the tune of billions of dollars. Rather than spin the truth in a way that's shady but still has some connection to reality, He'll just make shit up out of thin air and really doesn't care if you know it that it's an out and out lie. This brazenness gives his lies somehow the vibe of honesty. Everything is bad, let's make it worse. Nihilism also provides another kind of psychological reward, because it prizes a total lack
of self restraint. If big banks are reading the system, why should he Aiden Davis restrain himself from running mass gams. If politicians spin an office skate, why shouldn't you lie and cheat to get ahead? And what fun really ultimately is self restraint feels good to let loose, say and do whatever you want to do.
That removal of.
The burden of self restraint was experienced as a sort of liberation for plenty after Trump won. In the immediate aftermath of Trump's victory, a top banker delightedly told the Financial Times how happy he was that he could use slurs in the workplace again.
Quote.
I feel liberated when top banker told the paper, we can say that our word and the P word without the fear of getting canceled. Except he actually said them. It's a new dawn. In fact, the most celebrated quality
in Trump world is shamelessness. The more you're willing to openly contradict previously held beliefs, operate with total and complete hypocrisy, the more successful you're going to be, The more you can turn off your feelings of empathy concern for others, the more based you are, so you can, as Elon has brand yourself is the ultimate guaranteur of free speech. In one breath and in the very next call for
journal at a troublesome media outlet to be jailed. You can, as Trump did, position yourself as the Party of Workers, as you gut every aspect of worker rights. You can, as RFK Junior did, claim you're on a mission to make America health again and then say absolutely nothing as a seed oil lobbyist is installed at the USDA, and
life saving disease research is gutted. You can compile an ASMR video of migrants being deported, so your most drained supporters can be stimulated by the visuals of human beings treated as animals.
So based Elon.
Replied, these lies, cruelties, and hypocrisy, they all trigger outrage, and outrage generation is the most valuable currency in Trump world. Those with the shamelessness to trigger the most of it rise the highest. But at the core of all of this is that ethos that since the institutions let you down, you may as well have a bacchan al burning it all to the ground, letting your own worst impulses and those of the society and human nature itself run wild.
It's what about isn't brought to its logical conclusion? Since Hillary sent emails on a private server, how can anyone complain about Elon and his hackers downloading all the data of the entire federal government. Since the insiders always come out on top, why not just give the insiders everything upfront to begin with, Since the voices of the masses were being drown out by the wealthy, just hand over all the keys to the wealthiest person on the entire planet.
To borrow Coffee Zilla's analogy here, their answer to the brakes failing is to rip the braks down entirely and send the car careening towards a cliff.
Listen.
It's a fun and easy solution, right up until the crash. Much harder, of course, is the work of building up institutions, making them strong, making them credible. Much harder is checking the rich and the powerful, bringing back a balance of power to working people. Much harder is checking imperial power and restoring as semblance of global cooperation and respect. But to use an Elon phrase here, society is that a
fork in the road. On one path lies a rebuilt new deals with capital check to government unafraid of standing up to the wealthy social contract that provides stability prosperity for everyone. On the other path lies the societal equivalent of a crypto pump and dump scheme. For a brief moment, you might actually feel like you're winning, right before the rug is pulled and insiders like Elon and Dreson, Peter Tiel, the Trump's the rest of the billionaire and class rob
you blind. To be honest, we might already be set irrevocably on.
That bump and dump path.
But it is our responsibility to our loved ones, our kids' future generations, to never stop fighting and to never stop believing fundamentally that humans are capable of more than just burning it all down. And Ryan, I was curious in particular your thoughts on that, and if.
You want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Been fun chatting with you today, use as always, was a grim takeover this week.
I was saying, that's.
Right, yes, right, and hopefully Sager's back next week.
That this like we were saying this fluid this.
Season has been brutal, and I was reading, I should get the flu shot. But I was looking at it and it's apparently not that great a match either for the like some years, I know, I didn't tell you why you were getting it, but apparently some years it's like a really good match. It provides a lot of like you know, preventative and lessons that whatever lessonsvill it is a lot more.
And this year it's like not.
It's a bit of a crap, It's a bit of a crap. Shoot. Yeah, they do their best. Then they try to see, like what was last year? How do we well?
And I guess maybe that's one of the things the potential promises of the like mRNA vaccine is because they can develop it more quickly, maybe they can make it a better match. But in any case, we hope Soger feels better. We hope you guys have a great weekend. If there's breaking news, we'll make sure to jump on and cover it for you.
You're going to be here tomorrow, what do you think? Not here, but uh, we'll chat.
We'll chat the Yeah, we're a little short handed this week, so we'll try to do a thing tomorrow. We've got to see if we get the resources, et cetera, et cetera. So any case, if we don't see you tomorrow and enjoy your weekend, we'll see you back here on Monday.
The PA