Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do so.
Trump met with Emmanuel matcrone of France yesterday. Lots of news made on Ukraine, so we will break all of that down for you. We also have the very latest in the wars between Elon and the agency heads and OPM and Trump and whatever with regard to this Doge five bullet email, so lots of developments there will break that down for you. We also have Apple making a
big economic announcement. Is it real though, because there are some other counter indicators, I would say, and with regard to the economy with the Apple specifically, a lot of developments with regard to Israel that we wanted to get to, including they appear to be annexing a significant part of Syria.
So that's the thing that is just happening now.
Also, tanks rolling through the occupied West Bank, so a lot of folks on there. Huge shake up at MSNBC. Joy Read is out, Amon is getting moved, Jensaki is in, just a lot of shifting of that lineup. And actually, notably she almost never does this, but Rachel Maddow directly criticizing the network there, specifically with regard to the cancelation of Joy Reid Show. So I'll write that down for you what it says about that network and where they're heading in the Trump era. And I'm taking a look
at this is an astonishing story. So West Virginia experience these horrific historic floods, devastating, two thousand houses destroyed, three people lost their lives, etc. They've been begging Trump for an emergency declaration. Still as of today, they haven't gotten it, which means zero federal help on the ground in West Virginia. And these are some of the poorest counties in the country. These are also some of the most Trump supporting counties
in the entire country there. So I'm going to take a look at what is going on there, which I still have a lot of questions about, to be frank with.
You, Yeah, I'm very curious. I wasn't even aware of the situation. So I'm excited to hear that monologue. Thanks to all of our prem subscribers for supporting the show. But let's get into it with Ukraine. So there's been some significant developments here. As you said, President Trump meeting yesterday in the Oval Office at the White House with Emmanuel Macrone. Manuel Macrone's real mission was to come here and basically to sell Trump on stopping whatever he is doing.
But it does not look like that will be successful. Here's a little bit of Donald Trump and the Oval describing this quote unquote minerals agreement which we're going to return to in a little bit that he wants to sign with Ukraine.
Let's take a listen.
It looks like we're getting very close. The deal's being worked on. I think getting very close to getting an agreement where where we get our money back over a period of time, but it also gives us something where I think it's very beneficial to their economy, to them as a country. But you know, we're in for three hundred and fifty billion dollars. How we got there, I don't know. But that's a lot of money, a lot of money invested, and we had nothing, nothing to show
for it. And it was the Biden administration's fault. The Europeans are in for about one hundred billion dollars and they do it as a form, in the form of a loan. And the Europeans have been great on this issue. They understood it wasn't fair and we were able to work something out.
So that is the description of the quote unquote Minerals Agreement. But all of this is all coming back to Big War between the Europeans and between Donald Trump in terms of wanting to sign this peace deal with Russia over Ukraine.
The Ukraine Minerals Agreement is kind of secondary to.
The overall peace deal, the Big The Big Peace Deal is basically negotiations with the Russians, which is currently Secretary of State and the Secret State and Steve Wikoff have been engaged in to return what it appears to be is to the Istanbul framework of April of twenty twenty two. So it is interesting because obviously the Europeans are freaking out about that. They do not want to be on
the hook for their thirty thousand peacekeepers. They're saying, even if we did that America, you guys still have to pay for it, all of the intelligence, and there's a big war and a feeling of abandonment on the continent. It fits very well with the Germany story that we did yesterday, the new Chancellor of Germany saying that we will have to try and have independence from the United States, which is the logical endpoint of a lot of geopolitical forces over the last decades or so.
I mean, it also goes with that, like some of the numbers and stuff. He just completely makes up the three and fifty billion number, the comparison with Europe. Macron actually jumps in, I think we have that.
Yeah, we have it, and it's like let's go and play. He actually jumps in.
He's like, well something, you know, it wasn't all just loans, like we actually some of that was hard money.
As well.
Let's take a listen to that moment.
We'll grant to.
Support the usbe I support the idea to have Ukraine first being compensated because they are the one to have lose a lot of the fellow citizen and being destroyed by this attack. Second, all of those who paid for could be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia because they was the one to aggress.
Again, so you understaid, just say you understand Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back now.
In fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid sixty percent of the totally faults and it was through I like the US loans guarantee grants, and we provided real money. To be clear, we have two hundred and thirty billion frozen assets in Europe Russian assets. But this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not
all belonging. So they are frozen. If at the end of the day the negotiation we will have with Russia, they're ready to give it to us, super it will be loan at the end of the day and Russia will have paid for that.
If you believe that, it's okay with me, but they get their money back and we don't, and now we do. But you know that's.
Only fare close to her.
Very weird interpersonal dynamics between these two as well, very like touchy, a lot of sort of like alpha male positioning and jockeying there or whatever. But you know, I mean, I have a lot of feelings about this, and number one, I just want the war to end. Like the fact that we are going back to a framework that was originally negotiated at the very in the very early days of this war. And frankly, I think Ukraine would be very fortunate.
We would be very fortunate.
Look if they're able to achieve you know, that agreement that was on the table at that point, because if you'll recall, and of course we discussed the Synauseum here on the show, at that point, Ukraine really did have Russia on the back foot. They really had outperformed. There really was this coalescing of the US and Europe and all these forces behind them. We had just put on this massive amount of sanctions, you know, the biggest sanctioned regime in history. It was very uncertain how that was
going to go for Russia, et cetera. So the dynamics were a lot more in Ukraine's favor at this point, and so when you think about going back to like it's just heartbreaking the number of people lives that have been lost, the death and destruction, all because and this is the part where I get to like the way Trump frames this is just like wrong and a lie, all because the US wanted to use Ukraine as a proxy in this fight against Russia. That's why that peace
deal wasn't pursued. And so, you know, like I said, complicated feel On the one hand, if he's moving towards ending.
The war, great, I'm on board with that. Let's do it.
On the other hand, like saying that it's Ukraine's fault that the war started, saying we should be reimbursed. No, we're the reason why we pushed them to have this massive war and devastate their population, devastate the country, etc. And you know, of course I'm also disgusted, which is like the naked return to colonialism and imperialism where it's like, you know, we're going to just make you a you know, a client state and extract whatever resources we can out
of you. And I don't know if you saw this, why did I Russia came in. Russia came in and was like, oh, we have rare earth minerals too, Like maybe.
You know, let's let's cut a deal.
And I'll tell you why why it's bad is because
I believe that these countries should actually have sovereignty. I do actually think that the post World War two order in which the norm generally followed around the world in which countries small countries are left alone and where it is, you know, a breach of international law and you know, something to be guarded against when you have large countries that are just taking advantage of small countries, Like that's why I think that is a bad direction to go in.
But the other thing is that is.
Really unclear to me, is Okay, if we strike this like raw earth minerals and their ports and their you know, oil and gas resources, this across the board fifty percent, we're basically taking over your state.
Deal.
Well, I mean that doesn't get us less entangled in that region. That gets us more entangled in that region. So I still have a lot of questions about how this is all goingting.
Well, see, this is where I just totally depart from this like kind of liberal fantasy view of the world. Like not to go all Howard's in, but the idea that the post World War two order has protected small countries is ridiculous. I mean, if you look again, I would borrow some left this commentary. Look, take a look at tiny little countries in South America and how independent they've been over the last year, seventy five years.
It's ludicrous. It's all just complete bullshit.
And so this is this is my issue. Sorry to cut you.
Off, like this is to me the sort of core ethos of the Trump administration two point zero, not just with regard to foreign affairs, but with regard to domestic affairs too. It's like, Okay, well things are bad, and like we've been hypocritical, so instead of trying to improve those international laws, try instead of trying to actually act as you know, moral actors in the world and respect
territorial sovereignty, have additional cooperation, et cetera. Instead it's like, well, things have been bad and we've been hypocritical, so let's just make it worse. And it's the same thing with regard to you know, the government here, it's like, well, government has failed, so let's just strip it down and make it so it can't even deliver your social security medicare in the things that it actually does well. So yeah, I you know, reject this return to just naked colonialism
and imperialism. And you know, there are a lot of ways that you can do. There are multiple ways you can do a multipolar world, one of which is to actually have respect for smaller countries around the world, actually to respect territorial integrity, actually to move in the direction
of cooperation with large powers. And when Trump says things about like hey, let's cut the military fifty percent and strike a deal with Russia and China, that would be a move in that direction, there is no way in hell that I think that is actually what's going to play out here whatsoever.
Instead, I think.
We're headed much more towards like a new imperialism, a new naked like just we're going to take Greenland, We're going to take Panama, we're going to take Canada, we're going to bomb Mexico, we're going to take Gaza, et cetera. And an increase in militarism and defense spending very much in line with like you know, the Cold War hostilities with the SOVIETI but.
This is the thing.
We don't have a choice, and all countries in the international system will do what's in their best interest. It's just again like a literal liberal fantasy of the nineteen sixties that we could create some grand peace architecture when the United States and the great.
Powers will always rule the world.
We're going to get to this to the United Nations, and just again to show you there's no such thing as international law. There is no such thing as a UN General Assembly. No one gives a shit what Montenegro thinks, nor should we all of all. The international system of all time, multipolarity, bipolarity, unipolarity has always come down to the say of the great powers. It is built into the United Nations that the p five powers have absolute
authority to veto anything. It's actually implicit in the international system that the great victors of World War two will decide the new fate. And so this idea also that we shouldn't have Ukraine pay us back.
I mean, again, you're not wrong.
That faults well like we should be paid, to be honest with you're the death and destruction.
That you know led them into.
Well again, that's just again, in my opinion, kind of a ridiculous notion. If you are going to expend one hundred billion dollars plus into building this country and ensuring its territorial integrity, the idea that we should not reap the rewards and the benefits of it is insane. I mean, go back to the Marshal. No, No, because this is the architecture of the post World War two era.
The Marshal, these tensions that led to NATO's expansion, that pushed, you know, this direction for Ukraine, like we've used them as our toy.
Yes, but they all know that, of course, but that's also what they want, right, is a willing participant pay.
Back when we're a key component, not that Zelenski doesn't have an agency whatever, but we are a key reason why this country has been at war, why Russia invaded this but we are far more responsible for.
That than Ukraine is.
So you know, again, I want the war to end, but I cannot just city and brook this complete inversion of reality in which is Ukraine's fault that they got invaded by Russia and they somehow owe us something when we're the whole reason why this war wasn't settled years ago.
In that is Stanbul.
It's not just US, it's also the UK which always needs to get out in that.
Yeah, I think it was mostly US. I don't agree. That's why I think Biden is terrible. It was an awful president.
But again, if we return to this idea, do you think we did the Marshall Plan out of the goodness of our heart?
Or did we do it to prop up a.
Democratic europe democratic you know, small d to do what so that we could, you know, have a nice, big, old marketplace over there. We don't do anything out of the goodness of our heart, nor should we. It's a stupid idea. That's not how countries conduct relations with others. If we have now expended over one hundred plus billion dollars, the United States has depleted its stockpiles and more, that
we should just say, oh, you know, deal's done. No, if we're going to ensure your territorial integrity or do this piece deal with Russia, we're going to get something out of it. Whether Ukraine exists has absolutely no import to the United States whatsoever. The only thing that if we're going to get something out of this should of course be to the economic benefit of the United States consumer, which again is the backbone of the US liberal world order.
I know people don't like when I talk like this. It's the truth, all right. The other people who are telling you about democracy and oh NATO, it's all bs completely What Latvia matters so much to America?
No, it's ludicrous.
I mean, these countries are both in the traditional Russian sphere of influence, as you said, with the NATO encroachment on Russian borders and more. The entire idea behind it is a US and European basically market system which we use our military power to protect to the benefit of our consumers, of our companies, and of the European companies as well. Let's all just be honest about it. And
that's where I have to return to. Where when we look at the way that the Ukrainians are complicit in this is that they have wanted since that push for more militarism, for more war. They want to basically, you know, you know, take all all of our stockpiles.
They want to increase their war with Rush.
Their plan from the very beginning is what is to draw the United States in. Whatever they're doing is definitely bad for American security interests. And so while yes, I won't let Biden or Boris Johnson off the hook. The Ukrainians also are, especially the Ukrainian government has tied itself legally to this framework where they're not allowed to have elections, even though we're protecting democracy. They're not allowed to even negotiate on any territorial integrity.
According to their own laws.
Like they have locked themselves in to this paradigm, and that's where they have agency, and we also can reset the paradigm of how we conduct relations between states. The ideal foreign policy that I would ever want is exactly this. Right now, we're meeting with Russia Ukraine. You're not even there. You know why, because it's not about you. That's the whole What.
Happened in them having agency, what happened to it being.
Their fault They can do whatever they want inside their country soccer? When is that an the pro level we will decide what's.
That's my point is that it's not their fault that we wanted to drag this war out for years.
We were the ones who.
Were driving that trade.
It were the reason.
Why in twenty twenty two in Istanbul, we went in and said no, we don't want this peace process to continue. It wasn't because of Ukraine. They were at the table negotiating. We covered those negotiations. Okay, they have desires and agency, and of course, if they're going to be invaded by this nuclear superpower, they want whoever can have their back
to have their back. But we are the reason why this has been dragged out for years, and the fact that you have an election, have new president doesn't wipe that slate clean and now means somehow that they owe us.
No, they don't we owe them.
That's the truth of the matter if you're actually looking at things from an equitable perspective, because we are the primary reason that they have lost hundreds of thousands of lives and their country has been decimated because we wanted to use them as a plaything in our geopolitical ambitions. That's the truth of the matter. And so this idea that it's Ukraine's that Russia invaded them, I think is a discussing why it's bullshit.
It's complete inversion of reality.
And also, you know, to frame Zelenski, Trump gets asked another point here he had no problem calling Zelenski a quote unquote dictator, even though he was democratically elected, And yes, I agree with you they should have elections, although I'm also sympathetic to the argument they make that, like, hey, it's kind of hard to have elections when you've got millions of people who have fled the country and people who are displaced, and parts of the country that were
not even sure whether they're US or Russia at this point. But yes, they should have elections. But he was not willing to say Putin was a dictator, but he's perfectly comfortable saying Zelenski's a dictator. So again, listen, I want this war to end, but I also we have to exist in some sort of reality based framework here, and he has completely inverted what actually happened in this war and the entire trajectory.
A look again to return. Now, is Putin a dictator? I can say that, yes. Do you know why it's a bad idea, for example, for the president of the United States to call a Russian nuclear superpower of leader of that country a dictator or a war criminal? I dare say, like maybe Joe Biden is because we have to conduct relations with these great powers. Now, is Russia
like a pre eminent superpower? No, but it's a nuclear arm power, and it's military has already you know, dramatically increased its power and its size to the point where even the so called great powers of Europe are unable, by their own admission, to even keep up with them from a war production level. In general, it's a good idea to just make sure that things are unbalance. That's really what pisses people off is and this is what
I just don't get. People would really liberals really would rather live in a world where we vote correctly in the un GA and don't call Zelensky a dictator than to have peace piece.
Is all the dictator.
He is irrelevant, that's but.
It's also just a lie.
And so that's why because I care, because having reality and like factual accuracy is something that I think we should all care about. I mean, you know, to turn Ukraine, which was truly a victim of the circumstance into like they're the aggressor, and to say that, oh, Russia, you know, it's not Russia's fault that they invaded this country, Like it's number one Russia's fault.
It's number two our fault.
And it has really very little to do with being the Ukrainian's fault and no, so no, I'm not going to just sit by and say like it's fine to
just make up this preposterous, upside down worldview. And I don't even see how that actually helps in these negotiations either, because your goal in the negotiations, since Russia was the aggressor, and you don't want to have countries just willingly taking over other countries because that leads to more war and more death and more destruction and more devastation and us
getting entangled more places. By the way, what you would ideally want is the best possible deal you can achieve at this point on the Ukrainian side, to me, going into this calling Zelenski dictator, throwing him under the bus signally you you know, aren't going to call putin a dictator, that you're going to side with them even in their preposterous narrative of how this war unfold and somehow make it about like Ukrainian aggression is insane and completely gives
up any leverage you had to try to secure the best deal you can for Ukraine, which would be the most justice here.
That's the presumption that you made there is incorrect. Is that why should we care about securing the best deal for Ukraine. That's Ukraine's problem. We should secure the best deal for us, and that is exactly how countries should conduct international relations. Ukraine's job is to push for its own interests. Congratulations to you. I actually think they've done a pretty good job. I mean they've got to save eighty percent of their country twenty percent of their countries controlled by Russia.
They literally get to live and exist. That's your victory.
They refuse to acknowledge that victory when you're up against a nuclear arm power. Our job is to do what is best for us and for our quote unquote allies. Ukraine, you know what kind of allies this is currently always asking us for money into broil our nuclear arsenal on their side, to give them NATO umbrella Like this is not something that is beneficial to us whatsoever. Not to mention how much money we have all paid in extra gas because of these Russian sanctions. To return to that
Spring twenty twenty two framework. Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's friend, Envoy Envoy extraordinaire from Israel Gaza now involved in this as now talking specifically about the istan Bul Framework as one that he would like to see in the deal.
Let's take a listen.
They are responsive to an end to this. They were very very what i'll call kojint and substantive negotiations framed in something that's called the istan Bul Protocol agreement. We came very very close to signing something, and I think we'll be using that framework as a guidepost to get a piece deal done between Ukraine and Russia, and I think that will be an amazing day.
So the Istanbul Framework or Spring of twenty twenty two, which you previously mentioned, that is important because that's the deal that was on the table of which Boris Johnson basically went over to the Kiev on behalf of Joe Biden was like, yeah, I don't do this. Actually, we're going to be behind you this entire time, and it leads to this complete quagmire. So I'm not letting Joe Biden or Boris Johnson or Mmanuel Maco, any of these
NATO leaders off the hook. But we are where we are right now, So how do we deal with this? And so the way that we deal with it is end it as soon as possible. It's bad for us, it's bad for them. It's bad for the Russians too, just in terms of well, actually, let's put it to this way.
Is it good for us to have an isolated Russia.
With a war economy that is booming war production more.
Than the United States and NATO combined. That sounds bad.
So whatever we can do to try and bring that temperature down and just make sure that we're not having this not only ongoing land war humanitarian disaster, but just geopolitical tension rise again over a country which is completely irrelevant to the United States. Yeah, I think that's overall a good thing. And I mean this is also where we have a bit of a binary choice here. We had Joe Biden, Kamala Harrison, all of them who genuinely did not want peace in Ukraine. They wanted this war
to go on forever. And then we have whatever the hell this is realism with the Trump flavor, the Trump doctrine, whatever it is that we can describe it. I'm going to choose the latter. I mean, I think the latter is far preferable. If the war ends, and especially if the US taxpayer or at least US consumers benefited in some way.
That seems to be somewhat.
More of a net positive and whatever the hell we were doing over the last three years, and I think that, honestly, I think this will be tremendously popular if it comes to fruition. The only I would say counter to all of this is the problems that could be sidelined in the rare earth minerals deal that you talked about. Let's
put that on the screen for example. So here we have the actual text of the rare Earth Minerals deal quote worth hundreds of billions of dollars, under which the US would express its desire to keep Ukraine free, sovereign, and secure. According to this draft, which is obtained by Axios, the Ukrainian deal would effectively allow US investment in Ukrainian mineral companies with some sort of split guaranteed in the future.
As you said, the Russians are also saying, hey, we've also got a ton of rare earth minerals, which apparently on paper is correct. I did not know that in terms of what they're rare earth mineral stocks.
Well, and all of that.
Ryan was right when he was like, you know, these rare earths turn out to not be so rare.
He's right. Yeah, he's like, they're in Mexico, they're in Chile.
We actually had Chinese posts here now Afghanistan.
And I also read that Ukraine is a little bit over selling their rare earth situation. But that's why it's important to understand some news outlet, I can't remember which one got their hands on the deal that was proposed, and it was not just rare earth mineral it was basically all of Ukraine's economic active, primary economic activity, including
their ports. They're oil and gas, they're quote unquote rare earth minerals, which also, by the way, like which rare earths have been important, have shifted over time as well. So in any case, yeah, it's I mean, if some sort of deal like this actually goes down, then it means we are obligated to Ukraine forever, because we're not we're going to You don't think we're gonna protect those economics and be committed to protect those economics sorts.
It's a desire to keep Ukraine free, sovereign, insecure. Desire is different than the guarantee of their security, which is the actual opposite of what we should ever get ourselves into. It's nice to have a free and a sovereign and secure Ukraine.
It's nice to.
Have a lot of things. Honestly, the text of that deal is perfect. It's like, yeah, we can express a rhetorical desire to have something, but we don't have to do anything about it. And that's the problem I have with what Zelensky ultimately wants. He wants not only he Let's be honest, a lot of the Ukrainian people now, they think they belong in NATO, they think they're entitled to our security umbrella. To us having to trigger Article
five on their behalf. Sorry, never gonna happen, Like already, not only you been invaded twenty percent of your country. They're in terms of the historical spheres of influence and in terms of the actual like economic and security benefit of adding this gigantic territory to our security umbrella and our further interests. I mean, this would only further embroil US into the affairs of the continent, which is less and less and less important every day to the United
States economy and to the United States security. So overall, the text or whatever of this deal, which is not one that secures any need right legally or whatever for the US to get involved here while reaping some benefit.
That's the best you could possibly get.
But Tigara, why do you think that Zelensky is proposing this. It's because he knows if we have significant economic interest in the country, then we are going to defend those.
Then we can make a choice.
Especially we're talking about you know, this is going to be some of Trump's billionaires buddies that propose this, that want to get their you know, their claws into the Ukraine economy, et cetera. And so that's the whole reason why Zelenski is open to this is because he sees that as a way of guaranteeing that we stay embrailed in this in this country, that we keep these interests there and that we will defend them if they are
encouraged upon. He sees it as being sort of like a security guarantee.
Yeah, I don't disagree, but the thing is that then actually prove it, you know, become important to us.
If you are, then yeah, maybe we'll defend you.
But for right now, I mean, if you just looked at the bilateral trade we had with Ukraine, we're doing four times more trade with Brazil, We're doing four times more trade with multiple other countries, then we do with Ukraine and Israel, by the way, if we all want to talk on those terms. But of course nobody also nobody who's pushing this piece deal wants to see anything
like that. My only point is that as we continue to go down this, we are marching towards, in my opinion, a good outcome, which is a rejection of this rhetoric based international order, because it's not rules based, it's rhetoric based. Let's put the next up there, because this affirms that the US actually voted against the UN resolution quote condemning Russia for the Ukraine War. But this is why, again I want to return to the point that the great
powers rule the world. So there's a lot made of this from the pro Ukrainian side, they're like, oh my god, ninety three different countries voted in favor of this, eighteen against and sixty five abstained. Well, the people who voted against it are the US and Russia. China abstained, and so did India. So the world's largest population abstained, the second world's population abstained.
Two out of the five p five powers voted against it.
So whatever, these ninety three other countries say, cool, nice, thank you for your words of affirmation.
It doesn't matter.
And that's my point around international law or the UN or any of these other resolutes, complete crap, I mean, And this is something where you just have to return to the preference, in my opinion from what I can see from these liberals, is literally rhetoric as opposed to a result.
And the result is.
Obvious no matter what, even if it was literal Ukraine vassalage, if you wanted a quote, you know, independent Ukraine or at least of Russia.
How is that not preferable?
Then the continuing ongoing march to death of the entire Ukrainian population, it's state, its economy and everything. The idea that it was just going to emerge as some you know what new Brussels or something is obviously not going
to happen. And so I don't know, I find there's just so much fake idealism, you know, that has been baked into this, both right and left by the way, that comes into this which is falling apart on its own merits, and I think that is a necessary event for a more stable international outcome in the future.
Well, what I will just say is this First of all, you know, as I explained before, I don't think the answer to us having been hypocritical or you know, things being not great in the international order is to just say, so, let's just do total like barbarism and my mix right, and you know, conquest here and there and everywhere else, and more militarism and likely more aggressive like Cold war posture towards China, et cetera. I don't think that that
is the correct direction to go. In number one and number two, you can't ignore the fact, like we take for granted now that all of these European nations can coexist peacefully, that has not been the historical track record.
And in fact, the.
Architecture that was set up after World War Two, which by the way, was set up to serve our interests primarily, but also was quite effective at making sure that there were not repeated constant wars on the European continent. In fact, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the largest land war in Europe since World War Two. So it's you know, it's not like it didn't accomplish anything. It actually was quite successful in that way. And could it have been better?
Could we have like certainly the Cold War era use of all of these smaller countries in proxy wars against the Soviet Union and the you know, obsessive like have to get rid of any communist regime whatsoever like that was the wrong way to approach multipolarity. And frankly, I think that's exactly the direction that we are headed back in with the Trump administration.
I fire that we will see.
But the point, you know, the reason why that that mattered in the past, these European states warring were they were the bedrock of the global system and of the global economy.
They're irrelevant today there well, okay, still.
Matters if they go to war with each other, the war with each other.
That's their problem.
The only reason why did the United States get involved in World War One? Right, It's like, let's all be really honest about it. It was about the attacking of the Lusitania and about the well that was a pretext, and then US getting involved was to basically bigfoot the European powers and say no, we're the ones actually who
are going to be in charge. Why, because we want the spoils of the international system After World War two, what we become the come pre eminent guaranteur of the West and of the rule space international or the Soviets get their side of it, which again is about a complete division of the world for market based purposes. Europe will no longer even be fifty percent of global GDP
by twenty thirty. Its irrelevance to the global affairs is dramatic compared to how it was in one hundred years ago or even seventy five years ago.
So if there's a.
War between Latvia and Estonia, it doesn't matter at all.
But Tiger, you're missing one point a little bit, which isn't that you know, Europe is the most important region on the planet right now or whatever. My point is that you dismissed that international architecture that was set up after World War Two as being fake and a waste of time and not accomplishing anything.
And that's just not true.
That's just not true.
That architecture actually did service for years, even though you know, I think again, the way we approach multipolarity with the Cold War was deeply destructive and led to that incredibly hypocritical approach which ultimately leads to the downfall of all of this.
But that international architecture that was set up.
It did its job in terms of preventing wars additional wars in Europe. So you know, to say, none of this is possible and we can't do any better than just barbarism and conquest and taking over whatever countries we feel like taking over. I don't think that that is the case if you look at the historical record.
But my point is is that that was an outdated model for an outdated market which does not exist anymore. The United States is an Asian power, and this one where it's destiny for both on a consumer at a technological level, will be accomplished there. No, there's not a seeringle serious economist who would even dispute that even Obama had the whole.
Quote unquote pivot to Asia. This has been on paper on it.
If you just look at it as a balance sheet and take out everybody's nice little vacations to Munich or to Italy or whatever, it's obvious. And my point is that over committing to this European security and fetishizing it as some great, incredible thing, just because we did it sixty years ago, we should continue to do it today, which is mostly the argument. If you really look at it on a merit level. For why we should be so supportive of Ukraine is bad for the overall US.
Interest now I know, the whole barbarism and all that.
Again, like what you think, other countries don't operate that way, Like in a certain sense, there's a Thucidides trap there always will be with the way that great powers function inside of the system. In a sense, you don't have any choice. And beyond that, when we talk about how the United States has conducted itself, it has always been this way. It's just been rhetorically dressed up. It's not
just us, all these other countries. Like when China wants to, you know, justify its expansion, it does so in the same rhetoric, like in criticism of Western rules based international or when Russia invades Ukraine, how do they do it? They do it in a criticism again, as if they're the ones who are being encroached upon. They don't just outwardly say we want, you know, oil or whatever, or it used to be ours and so thus we deserve it.
That's basically their argument, which is stupid.
But that's what it all comes down to, and so honesty in the international system Let's say you were talking there about Russia and China and the United States, this idea of a meeting.
It will not happen in the rhetoric that you're describing.
The only way it would happen is to be like, all right, let's all be honest here, who needs what? How is it going to happen? And you know who we borrow this from. This is the great irony. This is what the European powers did before World War One. They carved up the world because they were the guaranteurs of security with the might and the ability to enforce those borders, and there actually was a period of some relative piece on them.
Then there was World War One.
Yeah, okay, I mean I didn't say every system is perfect, but it always breaks down because things change.
Here's what I would say, and then we can move on, which is that when we have pursued what we perceived to be in our just total naked self interest. For example, when we went into a rock, those things have ended up being a disaster.
Well, I would flip it. I don't scar that was for our self interest and that was part of the problem.
Of course.
I mean that I think we clearly went into cure natural resources, just as we're now talking about being in Ukraine forever to secure natural resource, just like we're talking about being greenland in Panama, in Gaza to secure our own naked self interest. And so what I would say is that I don't think that that is number one
beneficial to America in the long term whatsoever. And number two, I certainly don't think it's good for you know, the people of those countries who are getting blown up and having their societies destroyed.
And the amount of blowback.
That we've seen from that hypocritical adventurism where we were really nakedly pursuing our self interest, no matter what language we know wrapped it around democracy or markets or whatever, where we really were just nakedly pursuing our self interest. The amount of blowback from that has been utterly catastrophic for US. So'suing it more nakedly without an even ear of democracy. It doesn't improve the fact that this has led us. That is a big part of the decline
of this country. Is that adventurism, and is that naked pursuit of our own self interest which has led to massive blowbacks for our own country and created more horror more barbarism, more terror, more danger.
All of that.
My last word would be I would dispute that the Second Iraq War was a war of national interests, and that's exactly why it was such a terrible idea. It was born of an ideological obsession with nation building, and yes, securing the oil was also a great uh.
It didn't even work out.
Ironically, the Chinese currently control the oil market out of Iraq. But if we look in the past at both Vietnam and the Second Iraq War, those were ideological projects, not born of national interests. They've basically fused ideology with well, it's in the US interest to make sure South Vietnam is demanded.
It sounds so a domino effects later they thought of it iry.
My point is that if you actually had a true balance sheet analysis of that, which many realists at the time of both Iraq and Vietnam said, you would never do it, and actually they would be better off and so would we. And so if we pursue things that are openly from a position of national interests and don't let ourselves get sucked down the trap of democracy or human rights or stopping communism, or we have to can't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud, then we
will be better off overall. This is kind of a Kissingerian view of the world, which I agree with one hundred percent, and it was one where if we had pursued that we'd be richer, we'd be more prosperous.
Those people will be better off and we would be better off.
So you can read it two different ways, but I would read them much more of mistakes of ideology rather than of mistakes of natural interests. I would say, when the United States works in its national untests, it actually
works out pretty damn well. And it's when we depart from that, like our stupid experiments in Cuba and in the Philippines, when we just want to like appear, you know, like one of the great powers, or whenever we pursue, you know, this land war in Asia against Vietnam, or invade Iraq for no purpose literally whatsoever, that's when we lose our treasure. That's exactly how the Roman Empire, like frustrat as.
Well, for example, wanting to take over Gaza. I mean, that's the problem, that's I know you do.
We're doing that on behalf of these rayless.
The problem That's the problem is that the way you might calculate that balance sheet as you described it is not there's no like universal way to calculate that.
Yeah, that's and so you know Trump.
Is looking at it and his calculation is, Oh, we should have fifty percent of Ukraine, which again obligates us to Ukraine forever. Oh we should take over Greenland. Oh we should take over Panama. Oh we should take over Canada. Oh we should bomb Mexico. Oh we should do total ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and take that over,
because that'll be good for our interests. That's That's what I'm saying, is that when you are unconstrained by anything and it's just purely might makes right, what you're going to end up with is a lot of disastrous foreign adventurism that both is bad for our country, but also, yes, I do care about the fact that you know it leads to mass slaughter and devastation and horror for people in other countries around the world too, like the Palestinians, for example.
I think that's fair. I understand how you got there.
I again, I just think and look, you're right in terms of the balance sheet many people disagree with me. All the Libs in my neighborhood, they will tell you Ukraine as a vital national interest and they can express their wish at the ballot box, you know, if they will. This is just an argument that I made. This view is not popular in Washington. It's really not actually all that popular in America. Most Americans like to trust up you know, you know, their their foreign policy and some
sort of doing good in the world. It's how we basically serve.
Because humans want to believe that they can make the world like that we don't have to accept naked barbarism, colonialism, imperialism, that things can be improved. They yes, they have a basic belief in the power of human beings to improve civilization. And instead what we're seeing is just a return to well, actually we're just going to go back to pure resource grabs. You know that we feel like doing an adventurism around the world wherever we feel like.
I think the nightmare scenarios if that doing that would actually lead to a more stable scenario. Now, of course, as I said, the big risk of that is gaza, because that is the definition of doing something outside your own national interest, and for literally another nation's interest, which we will get to later on in the show. So why don't we send it there? All right, it's been a good discussion.
Yes, all right, let's move on to the latest of whatever the hell is going on with this doje Elon email that he sent out and asking for everybody to send in their five bullet points, et cetera. So Trump yesterday when he was with Emmanuel Macron, got asked about the Elon email and whether or not people should respond and how he felt about it. He seems in this conversation, or really go to bat for Elon and back him up.
Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
People to ignore it.
But you're learning about the last email that was sent where he wanted to know what you did this week? You know why he wanted that. By the way, I thought it was great because we have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question tell us what you did this week, what he's doing is
saying are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi fired or you're fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist. They're trying to find that's how badly various parts of our government were run by it, especially by this last group. So what they're doing is they're trying to find out who's working for the government. Are we paying other people that aren't working?
And you know, where is all this?
Where's the money? Gud We have found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far, and we've just started. Some of the agency heads instructed their employees not to respond because they were waiting on further guidance.
But Elon Musk's tweet said a failure to respond would be taken as a resignation.
So there's been a disconnect in communications.
Are you concerned all about that?
No?
No, no, that was done in a friendly manner. Only things such as perhaps Marco at State Department where they have very confidential things, or the FBI where they're working on confidential things. And they don't mean that in any way combatively with Elon did just say there are some people that you don't want to really have them tell you what they're working on last week.
They don't mean that in any way combative. So he's yeah, I mean, so number one, he's backing at Elon. Number two is trying to downplay what we covered yesterday, which is that a bunch of these agency heads really started actually by cash Metal, but then the Apartment of Defense jumps in Secretary of State Marco Rubiozi reference RFK Junior went one way and then went.
The other way.
Telsey Gabbert like basically.
All the agency heads ultimately were like, no to their own people, you don't have to reply to this email. So Trump's trying to downplay that, but he seems to back up Elon there. Then let's put this next piece up on the screen. This is great reporting from our friend Jeff Stein and co. By the way, Jeff Stein got a promotion over the Washington Post. Congratulations to him.
He's going to be their chief economic correspondent. In any case, Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk's order on this email reply. The awsome personnel management told HR officials that employees would not be let go for not replying to an email asking what they did last week. So seems to contradict Trump. But this is the you know, direction coming from effectively like the HR Department of the
whole federal government. This is the o PM email that came out later in the day that seems to now indicate people are supposed to respond to this email. They say, to further clarify response to the email sent on Saturday's voluntary was strongly encourage once again, you should not transmit any confidential or sensitive privilege or investigative information.
Please send your bullets to this email going forward.
I've asked the office to operationalize this exercise, so please stay tuned for instructions.
In the future.
OPM may consider incorporating expectation that employees submit weekly accomplishment bullets into its regular weekly reporting structure, because you know, having to send in five bullshit bullets every week is certainly going to improve government efficiency. Again, thank you for your dedication to our agency's mission. So they're saying here they're going to operationalize this exercise moving forward. And then
we've got one other piece here from Elon. He says, subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance for referring two employees who did not respond. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.
So anyway kind of indications all over the place.
Trump backs up Elon, Then the Office Personnel Management says, no, you don't have to respond. Elon says you're going to have to. You get one more chance. Then OPM comes in and says, well, it's not mandatory right now, but we're going to operationalize this.
So that's basically where things are.
Yeah, I have a read now of elon blowback, which I was trying to tease out to you yesterday. Is boss theory is that the more Elon is seen as a dickhead boss as opposed to a visionary entrepreneur, the more Americans will turn against him. So the vast majority of Americans are not like us. They're not self employed, you know, they don't own their own business.
And that's fine.
It's a pain in the ass over all for the people who want to know what it's like out there. They work for W two, or they have a boss right or they and or are the boss, having been subject to somebody's authority previously. You and I previously have worked office job, so you know intimately what it's like to have a literal moron trying to performance review you or tell you what you can and can't do. Differently in some sort of like hr software that rates you
one out of four. It's both dehumanizing and also incredibly stupid at the same time. But the stakes are so high because your salary is on the line. And so I believe that the more Elon has seen as a capricious and an annoying boss over the vast majority of over the largest employee in the employer in the United States, and the more that people have a connection to that employer,
there will be more pushback against that. And now part of the reason why most Americans had not really cared about it previously is you know, at the end of the day, the private institutions like Tesla or SpaceX, you have a choice of whether you want to work there or not. You're also incredibly well compensated, and it's not like worldly important that you work in your job, which
at least some government jobs are. But I think that the more publicity that there's a spotlight on this type of behavior, that Americans really don't like to be screwed with by their boss. I remember reading a statistic it's like seventy percent of people like hate their boss, or they were just like twenty some percent of people would literally like kill their boss if they had, or say they would they could.
People really hate their boss.
I get it, you know, it's one of those where I've been in that position before, where they're so annoying, and so I think that the more that this permeates to people, it will really start to piss people off, because if you think about it, white collar, service based, everybody knows what it's like to have an annoying supervisor, or to be scheduled, or.
To be told one thing and then told the opposite.
I mean, how often does that happen when you work in a workplace.
It's maddening.
And white collar employees get treated way more humanly and I mean like literally like human beings than blue collar workers, who you know, are completely dehumanized, often like searched, subject to these ridiculous security procedures and surveiled even while they're in the breakroom eating their lunch and all that sort of crap. And so, yeah, everybody hates bosses.
Everybody hates bosses.
Really, So I think you're right about that, and I think Elon is leaning hard into the asshole boss persona.
So when you couple.
That with the fact that you know these federal garment jobs. I was telling Soccer before the show, one of the states that has the highest proportion of federal government workers is actually Alaska. Pople think of federal government workers being here in d C. They buy and large are not. I mean, there are many here in DC, this is obviously the greatest concentration of them, but they're spread down across the country and their impact is felt across the country.
And then you think about like the ancillary workers and just the You know, anytime you have this level of like glee and delight and firing people and destroying their lives in their livelihood, it's gonna rub people the wrong way. So I think we are starting to see that pushback. You know, what's going to happen with this frickin' Elon bullet point sich you I don't really know, and it
is an interesting subplot to see. And one thing I didn't anticipate is the possibility that the agency heads themselves could be somewhat of a check on Elon. Because they got the their Senate confirmations, they went through the thing.
They thought they were getting this level of power and agency within these departments, and then they're watching Elon just completely bigfoot them, even to the point of like, well, I get to say who works for you and who does what and how this whole thing is run, and I'm going to get access to all your data and my little like goofy twenty year olds are going to come in and run wild through your agency whenever the hell they feel like it, whether you want them there
or not. And so while the congressional Republicans, because of the politics around it, will just bend the need of Trump and Elon, and Elon has threatened them with primary challenges, and that's an important enforcement mechanism, et cetera. It's a little bit different dynamic with these agency heads. So it is a particular dynamic that I want to watch and I think is a little bit unsettled as of now in terms of how all of that is going to
play out. There was yesterday an interesting protest, I guess you would say, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we can put this up on the screen. Somebody hacked into the screen the building and played this AI generated video of Elon Elon having is like feet kissed.
But yeah, it's it's kind.
Of disturbing to see she put a trigger one to be honest with.
You, and then across the screen it reads, long live the real King courts, a reference to the position of power Elon has taken. And also Trump's previous reference last week to long live the King in the context of the New York congestion pricing situation. So that is something that happened, that was confirmed by multiple reporters, including Justine as I said, there's also a few developments in terms of the legal battles against Doge. We can put this
next one up on the screen. So the Federal ethics watchdog that Trump has been blocked from firing by a federal court has ruled that some of the terminations of probationary employees appear to be illegal. So Trump tried to fire this dude, a court said you can't do that, or at least there's a temporary injunction put in on that. And so he has said that according to and this is not a court ruling, to be clear from Hampton Dellinger,
this is just he's the Federal ethics watchdog. He's advising that some of these probationary employee firings may be illegal. You also had we don't have an element for this. But yesterday you had a judge that really harshly questioned the constitutional constitutionality of the entire setup of DOGE. And
part of this soccer comes down to you, guys. Remember the Trump administration put in this court filing like Elon he has nothing to do with DOGE, Like he's not in charge of DOGE, He's just an advisor to the president. But then when this judge was questioning them, okay, well then who is in charge of DOGE, they had they
couldn't answer, They had no idea. And the reason that this is important in terms of its potential constitutionality is there something called the appointments Clause, which means if you have a significant position, it has to be confirmed by the Senate. That's why the government was trying to say, like, oh, Elon doesn't have anything to do with that, because obviously
he's not confirmed by the Senate. And so the fact that they're this far in the administration and they're pretending Elon not in charge when like clearly he is number one and number two, they can't say who the acting director of DOGE is when it obviously has been given these incredible hole of government powers. That's why this judge was questioning whether or not this whole situation was constitutional at all.
Yeah, it's a very interesting in terms of how this
will continue in the core process. But for me, I am just still mystified of this whole oer PM situation because it does really get to a crux of It gets to the crux of who not only who's in charge, but to what extent they will have authority going forward under their own department and if Elon can just parachute in and outside of some programs, like is he going to be able to run the so called day to day I mean, I guess the thing is with Trump, And again I think this is the thing about Trump
as well.
Trump is also a boss, right. Trump is also somebody who.
Probably empathizes with this idea like, oh, my employees are stealing from me or you know, they're taking advantage of me. And so now that he runs the government, he probably
empathizes with that sending such an email. But this, like I said, I think it's starting to flirt with people who are feeling jerked around, because that's where I think most people can again empathize with the chaotic nature of all of this, and if there was a plan and there were going to be cuts, I think a lot of people would be fine with it, you know, but or or at least Trump maga folks would be not
necessarily liberal ones. But the idea that your job boys in jeopardy or not, and all of these legal theories and you have to send us email or not. It detracts from the idea that there's like a steady hand and competence on the wheel, which, if you think about it, that was the pitch that Donald Trump made whenever he came back to office, is I'm going to make everything
normal and restore it to twenty nineteen. Again, there are very different interpretations of that, and that's why it's important.
But that's why I think it matters.
Yeah, absolutely, And then just to go through some of some of the impacts here and some of the things that really cut negatively against them. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. It's impossible to keep up with like all the things that are impacted and all the things that are going on. So this is a bit of a sampling. But the CNN article I actually actually was really was really good and pointed out something that I hadn't thought about before. They say military families
rocked by Trump's federal government cuts. We've talked here before about how much of the federal government is employees are retired military, and you know, so that's very significant. But this article looks specifically at there have been all kinds of federal government programs, including one that was championed by Trump in his first term, to higher military spouses and give them work and flexible work and often telework within the federal government. And you know, the reason is pretty
obvious here. You've got this, you know, this group of military spouses who are oftentimes having to be moved around the country based on where their significant other is stationed at the time and what deployments they're dealing with. Also, if you know, if your significant other is deployed overseas, that's going to create childcare issues, et cetera, if you're
having to commute a long way to your job. And so when the order came down of okay, everybody back to the office, initially military spouses were not excluded, so, you know, people for whom they'd been given an ability to be able to work these jobs and have that kind of flexibility, of being able to work from home and you know, be able to work long distances even when they get moved around, et cetera. They were not excluded.
And then there were some memo that went out that it's like maybe you are excluded, and it's just been total chaos and really unclear. And the other piece with this is, you know, in terms of firing all of the employees that are on this probationary period, it's important to understand that that doesn't just apply to people who've been newly.
Hired by the federal government.
If you move positions in you know, between agencies, or even sometimes if you get a certain promotion, but certainly if you're you know, moving from Okay, he was stationed here and now he's stationed somewhere else, and I'm totally switching, you know, to work at a different agency that's close to where he lives now to where we live now,
those people would be on probation. So that means that you would have a disproportionate impact on these military spouses that I think everybody finds pretty like, oh, it's a good thing for the federal government to These are people who are capable to have skills that are useful to the government. It's not like it's you know, they're not deserving of the positions, but they require some flexibility and they're more likely to be in this probationary period. So
it's hit them in particular, really really hard. In addition, something we could put the next one up on the screen that Soccer and I were mentioning yesterday is you're already having big impacts at the national parks. So National Park Service was already pretty bare bones in terms of you know, they'd faced staffing cuts and also staffing freezes. So the workforce has declined by fifteen percent since twenty ten, but park visitation is way up. It's increased by sixteen percent.
If any of you guys have been to these national parks in recent years, you've seen like they are quite busy. People really love and enjoy It's like an afford vacation. They're incredible, they're beautiful, it's a wonderful experience. And my greatest, you know, favorite memories are at some of the places in the National park system. And so you're having already massive lines. You've had reservations at Gettysburg National Military Park that were just blanket canceled because they weren't able to
manage the reservation system. You had weights in order to get into the Grand Canyon National Park were like multiple hours long because some of the people who just you know, let people in and give them the map and take the money and whatever had been let go. So you're
having significant impacts there already. And then the other piece is you've had a fair amount of what appears to be self dealing, although you could never say for sure, but certain certainly the appearance of self dealing coming from Elon as well put.
Me five up on the screen.
So they laid off a bunch of workers at the auto safety agency that oversees Tesla. They've you know, this agency had come like Elon had expressed his disgust at this agency previously prior to being the head or not the head of DOGE, according to who you believe he's They've mandated that Tesla and other automakers report crash data on vehicles, specifically like self driving technology equipped vehicles have to report this crash data. He didn't like that they've
launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company's cars. He didn't like that either you know, so again, can you say durre Okay, they got fired because elon wan of them fired and you can't say that, but it certainly has the appearance of self dealing and very similar with this next piece as well. It can put this up
on the screen. So employees that had been reviewing Neuralink also were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge, So twenty people in the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, several of whom specifically worked on Link. According to two sources, they were all let go. Now after the fact, Shagger, some of these people they're like scrambling to bring back because they realized that we really need some of these people, so they're scrambling to bring them back.
But to your point, I think.
It's I think you're absolutely right about the more that he appears like the you know, evil, dreaded boss, I think.
That's really bad.
The more people see him less as the visionary and more as.
The self interested, self.
Dealing billionaire, the worse. And then the more that it impacts groups that are sympathetic and services that people actually value, the.
More of a political problem. This is.
That was my prediction is if you start to actually come after stuff that people use and or a beloved for example, national parks literally most beloved national programs in the country, and we.
Should expand the national parks system.
In sure, Yeah, because they are sort of overcrowded at those point because they're so popular.
I know. Yeah.
Actually, like I said, I went to Zion and during COVID and it was, oh my god. The reservation system was a disaster. So if anything, you should make it better. Yeah, it easier. One of the reasons that I love and I support them is that it's literally free, or as close to free as you can get. A lot of the accommodations around the area are actually very cheap. It's very easy to take a very cheap vacation there, especially
if you're nearby. You see it all the time. If you're into camping or it's you know, you can use the reservation. The park people will help you. They have it all set up.
They really do. It's awesome in terms of the government support for it.
That is an example again of people who are like, hey, hold on a second here. I also think that where it comes down to not only with the military strategy, but the slap shot nature of it, the more again, people are fine with the plan. I really believe that, especially Republicans. Most Republicans hate the government. They hate they want to see it, gut it and all that, but they want to see it done in such a way. Not necessarily it doesn't impact them, but it's for a goal.
So if it's just about DEI, it's like, that's actually not that difficult. You can pretty much even with the widest DEI definition, you could identify and publish all of the programs that have that, and you could ask.
Them and or you could fire the employees involved.
The problem with the ten percent layoff or with any of that and then bringing people back is it just feels as if it's doing it for the sake of it, which is fine if you're at Twitter, and honestly, it may be fine in the long run, right That's it really could be. It could be one where they all leave and we don't even notice, which is Elon's kind of theory of the case. I don't really think that's true in democratic institutions, but I could be completely wrong.
And that's where I currently see, especially the pushback for families because I keep thinking about the statistic. If four million people work for the government, that means that there are eight to ten million people out there who know somebody or are related to somebody, who are directly related and are married to that person, not to mention their kids if they're older, or their cousin. I mean, we could do the tree out and everybody's a couple of
degrees removed from somebody who directly works with us. Here in Washington, I know dozens of people who are affected.
Also, my commute's gotten worse. Thank you Elon for calling off back end. It's a painting.
And that's another one where you are we really like, what is the metric? Are we asking people to come into work? I think that's fine, But to what end is it just to clock in and to clock out? Like what is the theory of what is all happening here? And you know, the government's not a startup. I've always said that, And this is the problem with treating it
as such. It's a literal democratic institution. Sometimes things are done stupidly and inefficiently, but in a sense that's only because people like it that way, or because congressmen or senators like it that way, and many constituents do as well, So it's a very complicated dance that I don't think that currently they are winning, and Trump seems enthralled by
the whole thing. I think Trump and this is where I need to check my own bias, and I always say this, I think it would be a little too cute by half to have some great liberal backlash against Elon Endoge. It seems just a little too on the nose for what the media wants and what the liberals want, which by and large their political theories have been wrong over the last four years outside of abortion. So I just don't know. Maybe he's correct. I mean, he's a
very smart person. For him, the media and the liberals are against it, so he continues to fight. He could still have millions of people who rally not to him per se, but to the Republicans who defend it.
I mean, I could.
There definitely is a massive liberal backlash, that much I can tell. I mean, I think that it's showing up at town halls in every state that everywhere they're having town halls, whether it's a Democrat or Republican who's having them, people are showing up en mass and so there's no doubt about that. And certainly in a midterm election when that enthusiasm is what counts, I think that's going to
be really really determinative and important. So you know, I do think that there will be a massive electoral backlash to all of this, But you know, we'll see how Lauren, there's a long time between now and then, etc. But yeah, you've got the evil boss piece, You've got the incompetent piece.
You know, it's very hard to argue that any of this is being done based on like merit when it's just these very blanket across the board not thought having to scramble like, oh shit, we fired the dude who like keeps our nuclear energy stay, like, we better get that guy back, And oh no, we fired some people at the FDA that were like keep a track of bird flu. That seems kind of important. We better get
those people back as well. And that's where your point about the government not being a business is a really really important one for people to understand, because government is not supposed to be, like, its main goal isn't actually to be quote unquote efficient. And I'll give you a
perfect example. Air traffic controllers, right businesses take all kinds of risks, especially businesses run by Elon Musk, take all kinds of risks, including safety risks, betting that the fine or the consequences will be less than the fallout from cutting those corners and taking those risks. But as a society, we want to make sure that the planes don't run
into each other. So you don't want to just slapshot fire a bunch of air traffic controllers and make the thing more dangerous, even if that did mean it was quote unquote more efficient. I also got news for you, Like the federal the amount that we pay to employ the federal garment workforce is also not that large a part of the budget either. So even if you slashed like a preposterous amount of this workforce, you're doing very
little in terms of actual cost cutting. And then's the other piece is like when you zoom out even from just this, okay, what DOGE is up to and they're like bullshit, pretending like they found this or that fraudulent program, which they have not actually identified any fraunt thus far whatsoever. And you consider the broader agenda, which is like, okay, well, we're trying to cut spending so we can do what give a giant tax cut to people like Elon Musk
who already pay very little in taxes. Then the agenda just completely departs from what most Americans want. And Sober's are absolutely right that most people if you ask them like, oh, should the government be cut?
Should it be made more efficient? Some of the fat be cut?
And they'd be like, yes, absolutely, But the way you do that matters, and the impact on people's lives matter. And and I don't think that this is landing well with people based on what we're seeing.
It's a good politically, it is a good test for trump theory of politics. Trump's theory of politics is if that the media and the liberals are against it, then he's going to fight against it.
And that has proven very well for him.
It has worked dramatically well actually politically for him specifically not necessarily the Republican Party.
So how will he continue to.
Fare not only his grip on the party, his ability to then perhaps transfer some of that in the midterms or in the future election. Because right now, if you were to believe a traditional media narrative, you're like, oh,
it's going to be a blowout. But I just have a sneaking suspicion that the rules might have changed, only in the sense that because the mainstream media no longer has the same grip on the American culture for its ability to set narratives, I genuinely question how much of this is even penetrating, because even when the lib narratives penetrated during the election didn't hit to the electorate in the same way. Nice the electorate is huge, right, nobody
can really know. But a lot of the memes that people tried to make that were supposed to be offensive, turn people off or whatever in the traditional rules of politics, they didn't work.
That's only the case when Trump is on the ballot. And Trump is not really supposed to be on the ballot again.
He has other ideas, want.
He has other ideas, but you know, as of today, based on the Constitution, he's not supposed to run again. He's also getting you know, he is getting old too, But you know, so he's never been able to translate his particular political guests in this way. He's very much like Obama, his particular political gifts to midterm elections, special elections, or really anyone else. So yeah, when he's on the ballot, The polls are understate his support. You know, people want
to give him a chance time and time again. He comes extraordinarily close in twenty twenty, even with the disastrous state of the country under his leadership. He obviously wins in twenty twenty four and is able to secure a popular vote victory, which is extraordinary. But the midterms before that were a disaster for Republicans, and the twenty eighteen
midterms were disaster for Republicans as well. So you know, I've never seen him able to translate his political gifts and talents to anyone else, And you know, I don't see why that would change when people are already kind of over the honeymoon period, already turning certainly on Elon, but also his numbers are going down, and people aren't happy with the state of the economy either,