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There are a million things that are happening in this town, including the trade war from Trump has officially started.
We've got tariffs in.
Place against China, Mexico, Canada, and some retaliatory tariffs coming our way as well. Jeff's Dined from the Washing Post is going to break all of that down for us. Elon Musk has basically sees the government give you all the details there as best we know and what that is going to mean going forward. We've got new info about that horrific plane crash here as another plane, a small plane went down in Philadelphia. Still a lot of questions about what occurred there as well. The Democrats have
elected a new leader for the DNC. We'll show you what that guy is all about and what it pretends for the future of that party. Tucker and Ben Shapiro have gone to war trading blows, accusations, et cetera. And a Haretz reporter is going to join us a break down scoop that he is reporting out in advance of Bbe's trip to Washington. Bb being the first foreign leader who will come and visit the new Trump administration, so.
Lots to get to.
Lots of that actually passed some of these really delegation yesterday. I was like, what is this large Secret Service convoy coming in? I was like, Oh, that's right.
I wonder if it's on this way.
Brought all of his dirty clothes like he normally does, all of their credible bring their laundry suit cases full of their own laundry to Blair House, which is the President's official guest house, so that the White House tax you.
Know, it's is that if the taxpayer doesn't pay enough for the Israeli government, we also have to literally wash their dirty laundry. I'm sure you could write a ton of stories about that, but that's Crystal said. Let's get to the tariffs. This is absolutely the most important story both here in Washington in the global economy. President Trump announcing it on Friday. Let's take a listen.
Cities that we're giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits, and I'll be putting the tariff of twenty five percent on Canada and separately twenty five percent on Mexico. And we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs and may or may not rise with time.
So the details of the tariffs there laid out by Donald Trump. Let me just from the top line, it's pretty simple. Basically, twenty five percent tariff on Canada, twenty five percent tariff on Mexico. There is an exception for Canadian oil, but there will be some more tariffs that kick in on that. On February twenty third, about twenty days from right now. Ten percent on China, and a removal of something called deminimus. Matt Stolar will be joining
us tomorrow to break that down. But effectively, what it does is it shuts down the loophole for any package entering the United States that is under the value of eight hundred dollars. That allows huge Amazon China sellers to do business. It's the way that Temu, the way that she in many of these other Chinese companies which do direct e commerce to the United States, arguably in my opinion, one of the most important tariffs that was put there. But Trump also was asked here about his pledge to
reduce prices and how that may conflict with tariffs. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
You promised Americans to try to reduce costs, and so many of the products that would be tariffed when they come into the country, the outgoing country is not paying the tariff. The buyers in the United States pay that, and then that's passed on to consumers. In most instance, how would you expect to have prices come down if you have such a broad plan for tariffs? And what do you say to the voters who want to see you reduce everyday costs.
Well, let me just tell you that I got elected for a lot of reasons.
Number one was the border.
Number two was inflation, because I had almost no inflation, and yet I charged hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs to countries. And I think of it, I had almost no inflation, and I took in six hundred billion dollars of money from other countries. And the tariffs don't cause inflation. They caused success. It caused big success. So we're going to have great success. There could be some temporary, short term disruption, and people will understand that I had that one.
I negotiated some of the good deals for the farmers.
People will understand that Trump is really betting on that. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from his truth social over the weekend. The tariff lobby, headed by the globalists, always wrong Wall Street journalists, working hard to justify countries like Canada, Mexico, and China who continue the decades long ripoff of America. He continues. There, he says, make your product in the USA. There are no tariffs. Why should the United States lose trillions of
dollars in subsidizing other countries? He talks there and says specifically about the quote unquote pain that may arise. Will there be some pain, yes, maybe and maybe not. So that is the official word there from Donald Trump. He will be speaking this morning, as I understand it, with Mexico and Canada. These tariffs, by the way, are not yet in effect. They go into effect tomorrow. So that's where things stand right now. Crystal absolutely dizzying weekend here
in Washington. As of right now. You know, the markets are actually having a pretty modest reaction. So we're filming this is about seven to fifty five am. You and I are talking S and P five hundred down by about one point six percent. But to be honest, I mean that's really not much. That basically just returns it to the value of where it was just a month ago. Remains up to fifteen percent on the last six months, so it's not like the markets have taken a major reaction.
Approximately thirty percent of all US goods enter from Canada or Mexico, but they are disproportionately more important for the Canadians and the Mexicans. About seventy five percent of goods from Canada come to the United States. About eighty percent of goods from Mexico come to the United States.
So Canada, Mexico, and China are three largest trading partners. Together they make up about forty percent of US imports. The areas that will be most impact in jef Stein can break this down for US as well autumn manufacturing. So the estimate is that this will increase the price of cars by about three thousand dollars. A huge amount of produce coming in particular from Mexico. Canada we rely
on for a lot of building materials. Also, Trump seemingly recognizing the inflationary impacts that these teriffs will have, put a lower tariff on oil imports from Canada, and I believe the amount is between sixty and seventy percent of all of our oil imports do come from Canada. The
expectation is particular in the Midwest that will spike gas prices. Now, there's a few things to say about what we know from the past and what the impacts were, and also about you know what it was that American people thought they were voting for with Donald Trump, As he himself acknowledged there one of the top reasons they voted for him was because they were concerned about inflation and the cost of living crisis. Almost every economist will tell you
these tariffs are going to raise prices. Probably the place where they will be most immediately felt.
Is in the grocery store.
In terms of produce, you know, things like auto manufacturers, because that's a longer timeline to delivery, it may take a longer time period before you see those price hikes go into effect. But while it is not inevitable that producers pass on the cost to consumers, we know that is in fact what they have largely done in the past with regards to the terrffs put in place both by Trump and Biden, you know, in Biden's term and
in Trump's previous term. We also know that, you know, in terms of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, Trump's tariffs in the first term, which I supported, by the way, we're not actually effective at that because they weren't paired with an overarching industrial policy. Biden continued those tariffs and expanded them in certain markets, paired it with somewhat of an industrial policy that did help to reshore some jobs. The other thing that I'll say here is
that the justification for these is pretty confused. So Trump has to put a national security justification around this, which is why you talk so much about Sentinel, even though you know, with regard to Canada, one percent of all fentinyl comes in from the Canadian border, Like it really is a preposterous excuse.
In terms of Canada, even in terms of Mexico.
Right.
A lot of the reason why the business community was very comfortable with Trump this time around, and I think probably even why the stock market isn't reacting even more than it is, is they still see this as effectively like a threat they've never really haken seriously, the rhetoric that he is consistently used, saying I want across the board tariffs. We're going to really rely on tariff. We're going to get rid of the income tax and replace
it with tariffs, et cetera, et cetera. And part of what they thought he would do was to use the threat of tariffs to coerce behavior. Well, in fact, he got some wins from Mexico already. Claudia Scheinbaum did some gigantic fentanyl bust. They significantly reduced the amount of fentanyl actually coming across the border in December. In anticipation of Trump coming in. I think they see something like one thousand pounds of fentanyl. Obviously, that's still a thousand pounds
too many. That is the lowest amount that we have seen in quite some time. So unclear what they he even wants Canada to do or what the purpose of that really is. Mexico is already doing the things that he wants him to do, and he's still slapping the tariffs on. So the indication of the rest of the world is basically like, there's nothing you can do to appease this guy. You may as well either band together in some sort of an alternative coalition or you know,
rushed more into the arms of Asia. So you know, obviously I think that this is incredibly foolish, counterproductive. Is just going to spike prices, is not going to increase manufacturing wages or bring manufacturing back because that's not the track record and prove pretty devastating to our cheoty.
I totally disagree. I'm very supportive of these tariffs, and I'll tell you why, which is that the reason why. First of all, look, the fentanyl thing, You're not wrong, which is it's obviously a pretext. So there's this law called AEPA, which affect the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which was passing the nineteen seventies. Allows the president to institute immediate tariffs by going around Congress as long as there's a national threat that exists quote solely outside of
the United States. But you know, if you look at that tweet that he put our truth, I apologize where he was talking about the tariffs. What did he say? He said, we have to make your products in the USA, and there are no tariffs. The truth is this is again eighty percent of all goods from Mexico come to the United States. Now seventy five percent come from Canada. The integration of our economies for the auto market has devastated manufacturing in the Upper Midwest area, which voted for
Donald Trump. Now, the way to accelerate that is to renegotiate our trade agreement. The problem, yes, he did, and it was not as good on fire we criticize. I meant, I remember talk.
We're operating under the trade dis agreement that you put into blanks, Moundy.
Or can there's a problem. It's on you.
We cannot renegotiate that until twenty twenty six, if we stick with the current policy. However, with the current tariffs, we can accelerate renegotiation. We don't have to wait three years and then who knows if Congress will even fast track it. It could take until twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight to be able to get that through. This is basically the only loophole way to immediately restart negotiations
of the USBCA, which is effectively the end goal. So everyone keeps saying that, and I do want to take an opportunity here to dunk on the UAW, who I think is acting incredibly foolishly A seven. Can we please put that up there on the screen, you know. UAW President Sean Fain put out the statement UAW supports aggressive teriff faction to protect American manufacturing as a good first step to undoing decades of anti worker trade policy. We do not support using factory workers as pawns in a
fight over immigration or drug policy. I mean, look, I'm an idiot, and I can find out very easily that AEPA tariffs are not actually just about immigration or drug policy.
I mean, that's how Trump selling.
But you have to do it. It's justification. So second, he goes, if Trump is serious about bringing back blue collar jobs destroyed by NAF, they should do a step further and immediately seek to renegotiate our broken trade deals again. You literally yesterday they put out a statement saying they want to accelerate renegotiation of USMCA. So it sounds like to me, mister Faine and others would like for pretty
little words not to include immigration and drug policy. And it's like, look, guys, it's not pretty, it's not you know, it's not all bow tide, and it's not all process. But if you actually want to restore a trade imbalance, the only way is to slap terraffs on our largest trading partners, to force and compel different behavior, and to
reset rules that actually are good for the American economy. Now, I'm not going to sit here and deny I'm not one of those Biden spending egg price or you know people. I don't think i've ever been.
You said an entire monologue about egg prices under Bido.
No, but I did not say that it was because of his spending. I said it was bad. I certainly agree.
Now is it going to be bad now? When produce prices spike is.
Like, I don't think it's a good I don't think it's done scouging segments. I don't think it's.
A bad idea too, if you have a strategic industry like the auto industry, right, and this was the focus of the you know, some of the Biden administration terrorists in particular to protect the domestic ev auto industry because the truth of the matter is China's kicking our ass there and if we didn't have have tariffs on Chinese cars, we would have no domestic ev auto industry. Effectively, I think that makes sense. Putting tariffs on building materials, on oil, on avocados, on tomatoes.
Like why, because that's why.
The only thing you do, the only thing you do with that is increase prices for consumers and cause countries around the world to go like, these people are insane. There's nothing we can do to appease this guy. So no, I think this makes no sense. I think it is directly counter to what the American people thought that they
were voting for. Now you can say, like, yes, he was out there talking about his care full time, but his tariff policy, when you pull it it has actually never been popular, which is surprising to me, to be honest with you, I thought it would be more popular. Has never been more popular, And the number one reason that people said they were voting for Trump was to bring prices down. This is the polar opposite of that. So listen, I think that this is foolish. I think
it will be economically catastrophic. I do not think it will accomplish any of the things that he thinks. I don't even know I know what he thinks is going to accomplish, because again, the rationale for this has been completely confused and all over the map, and the idea that it has anything to do with like fentanel coming out of Canada is utterly propriable.
It's a legal pretext. It's the only way that you can institute the tariffs. Look, we have Jeff Stein standing by, who actually broke the news on a lot of this, so we can continue our debate. After we talked to him, Why don't we go ahead and bring him in joining us now? Is friend of the show, Jeff Stein from the Washington Post. He's broken a ton of news on this topic, and we're it's great to talk to him.
Good to see you, man, Hey, Thanks edgre Thanks thanks for.
So Jeff, there's a lot of discussion now here in Washington. You've been in the camp always that the tariff threat was real. Let's go and put this up there on the screen from Axios A five. Please about the average cost that the US household could get hit with some eight hundred and thirty dollars as a result of these tariffs.
Could you go ahead and break down for us of what we know right now about the institution, whether they'll actually go into effect, some negotiation, other and other things that you're hearing.
So the executive order is that the President's sign does order you know, twenty five percent across the board tariffs on Mexico and Canadad. No exceptions except for I guess one exception of energy, which is at ten percent, I believe, and that is moving ahead as far as we can tell. As you said, stag Aright, every point of this process, someone has said this is a bluff, this is a negotiating tactic, this.
Is a way to get extra y.
And you know, every person I've spoken to who has spoken directly to the president says that he says like, no, this is not a negotiating tactic.
This is not a ploy. This is like what I believe.
And you know, I was listening to your guys like debate about sort of the efficacy or the benefits of this, which I think captured sort of like the broader debate very well. The thing that has bothered me throughout this whole discussion is that there's a segment of people, particularly on Wall Street, who have been saying, like, he doesn't mean this right, And it's just like, what do you
want him to do to prove that he does? Like he basically just like ripped his shirt off and like wrote tariffs like on his chest and like campaigned on that throughout the country.
Like it was impossible to.
More seriously embrace this idea than Trump did in the twenty twenty four presidential campaign. I was talking last week to a Republican senator. I'm gonna preserve his anonymity here, and I said, you know, like what's gonna happen with the tariffs?
And the senator said to.
Me, like, like I have been begging him to not do this, Like I'm he's in a state that's like very dependent on trade with Canada. I was like, so, what does that conversation. Look like he was, like I spoke to the president for two hours. All he wanted to talk about was how great William McKinley was. That is not like someone who's like using this as negotiating.
That's someone who like is thinking about his legacy, thinking about like sort of these huge questions about the ordering of the American economy and trying and is determined to go there regardless of the people in his orbit. So I just feel like, like, you can be for the tariffs, you can be not for the tariffs, but.
Like pick one.
Yeah, like this like like the superimposed quantum state of like I'm not for the terroiffs, but I'm for Trump's economic policy is like increasingly untenable.
Yeah, that's like the Tea Party current position on the tariffs.
Well, and so people understand McKinley. When McKinley was in office, First of all, huge amount of federal government was wildly smaller than it is now. Huge amount of revenues came from tariffs. This was before there was even an income tax, which is something else that Trump has floated, maybe not as consistently as a huge tariff regime, but he has floated we're going to substitute in tariffs for the income tax, which you know, I mean what a tariff's right now
makeup as a percent of federal revenue. It's like minuscule. It's a rounding error effectively. Yeah, so this would be I mean, it's impossible to imagine that such a thing could happen with the you know, modern country and modern
federal government as it exists. What do you make in the market reaction so far this morning, Jeff, Because it seems like there may still be baked in a little bit like yeah, sure, okay, he's doing these across the board TIFFs, but he's talking to these leaders today like he's.
Not really going to go forward with this, right.
I do think the markets continue to discount the severity of this. And also Trump has been talking about, you know, he campaigned on universal across the world tariffs, and I see no reason to think that Mexico and Canada will be the last countries he slops tariffs. I mean, if you follow the economic logic of getting Mexico in Canada to its conclusion, why not do it to all of Europe, in all of China, and all of India and all
of etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, I think I don't know, there's a lot of different angles here obviously that are really important to discuss. I mean, Canada is not the reason that the Midwest has lost its
manufacturing base. I mean, the most articulate, strident critics of NAFTA would not identify in Canadian labor practices the source of the long decline in American manufacturing was just like like nobody would say that, Like none of the people who like won the intellectual rounding for Trump's push on trade. Like there are people obviously, like Michael Pettis and you know,
like here Navar, like people in that orbit. You know, like they they have like a very coherent sort of explanation about like how NAFTA and the opening of China like sort of American trade practices led to the destruction of the American you know class and sort of blue collar jobs, you know, blue college jobs in Michigan, et cetera. But no one would say that Canada was responsible for any of that because it's just it's just not it's
like non responsive to like the issue. So you know, if they want to go after China or they want to go after particular sets of of sectors. But you know, it's like the democratic responses is still so confusing and weird because it's like, oh, we like them in some cases, not all on HLULA, and I think that's a very confusing message to people.
Yeah, I think it's interesting as well. Whenever we're talking here in the broader context of some of these tariffs. Some of the things you've also tracked is the legal response. So as I understand it, this will almost certainly come under juris like under scrutiny from the courts.
Uh.
These AIPA type tariffs have been used sparingly in the past, and consumer groups and others are likely to sue. What do you think, how do you think that will proceed through the federal court system? Considering what just happened with the OMB funding.
I actually think the Supreme Court is quite likely to defer to President Trump's authority here. AIPA, as you mentioned, is typically you know, this nineteen seventy seven law is typically used as the basis for economic sanctions.
And even though.
The Constitution is quite clear in Medicle two that the Congress has the power to levy taxes there are huge. There's a huge amount of difference from the court to the executive branch in matters of national security, and that's what they're citing here, with defence and all and other things.
So typically, I mean, even.
I've reported, as you guys have me on about economic sanctions a lot, typically the courts have barely interfered with that at all. So I actually think the court challenge is unlikely to be successful.
Jeff, what can people expect in terms of assuming that this terror regime goes forward and retaliatory tariffs are levied from Canada, China and Mexico as have been threatened. What do you think that people can expect in terms of impact on their day to day lives.
I mean, I think the macroeconomics here are a little more complicated than people realize. There is you know that the Trump people I've been speaking to have been arguing, not on persuasively, that that currency markets will shift such that you'll see, you know, the overall prices that you see at the grocery store may not look you.
Know, dramatically higher one day.
That might happen, you know, I think there's reasonably that, but there's there's a potential for the sort of the through line for the cow this actually gets implemented and actually effectuate in the economy or instead of price appreciation, sort of changes in currency valuation between the pesto and US in Canada, and that that might depress our purchasing power but not necessarily lead to sticker shock at the
grocery store. So people might get horror and not see the visible impact that they're sort of a custom that they that they are being primed to see.
Now, which is I think a bit of a danger for Democrats that they.
Warren pricex price x pricex price prices and then there's this more nuance, still very damaging, but more nuanced effect. I'll just say, like, imagine a Democrat in office doing this. This is like the biggest taxike, if you want to call it Teforot taxic, which I think most economists would the biggest tax hike in decades, I mean close to a century. More than a trillion dollars worth of stuff
is going to be taxed at twenty five percent. I mean, is imagine Barack Obama being like, We're going to do like a trillion dollars on taxes on everything. It's like it's an incredible, you know thing that that democrat could never touch with a twenty foot pole.
Well, without getting too crazy, can you just modestly try and explain some of those currency things, because that's going to be a big point of contention. So the peso and the Canadian dollar a free fall of this morning, the part purchasing power of the dollar, the dollar is becoming stronger as a result. Just get into a little bit of that so that I don't have to do it. And so if that we can prime everybody for this conversation in the month's head.
You know, I haven't covered this in a couple of weeks, but my understanding basically is that if the purchasing power of the US consumer is basically like depressed by the the tariffs. Basically, if the tariffs make things so that there's there's you know, each each import is more expensive, it's possible that the prices of goods for stuff in the US falls, Right, like the purchase the purchasing power of a consumer stay is constant, but it gets more
expensive for the imported goods. Right, then the ability of the US consumer to spend the prices for other things because there's more demand and supply for the out standing things that are coming into the country or are being produced domestically will go down. So there's there's going to be some substitution effect for the effect of the terraff overall.
Because the basket of goods is smaller than it would be in a non tariff world, the sort of like the overall economic benefit that each consumer gets will be smaller, but because of the substitution effect, it might be a little hard to detect.
That. Does that make sense?
Yes, Yes, that's a better explanation that I would have winn.
I was kind of rewilling that like midway through that. I don't know.
You did a good job. Otherwise I'm just gonna have to read from Claude or chech Empyta.
So yeah, I'd rather for Jeff.
Yeah, we prefer the job Jeff.
One last thing just before we let you go, because this will preview our next segment as well. You also had a big scoop with regard to Elon and his acolytes seizing control of Treasury payment system. Can you talk just a little bit top line about that news you're able to break as well?
Yeah, I mean, this is what I've been focused on a lot.
You know, the senior most career official at the Treasure Department was told by allies or sort of deputies of Elon Musk to hand over the sort of system responsible for dispersing six trillion dollars of payments medicare, so security, basically everything that the our government does. And this guy said, you know, you don't have legal authority essentially to access that, and the Musk people effectively pushed him out. He was
he went on leave and resigned on Friday. And now we reported on Saturday that these Musk people now have access to this system. And the Trump administration has been very clear that it intends to massively kind to exert unilateral authority to shut down payments approved by Congress. And what the Musk people will do with that information is anyone's guest really?
All right?
All right, Jeff, Well, thank you so much.
I know you got to run because you've got eighteen other stories that you need to you need to break.
This morning.
So great to see you. Thank you so much as always for your time. You just so as we just previewed with Jeff Stein, who originally broke this story Elon Musk and as acolytes have effectively seized the Treasury Department, and they have control over all of the payments that go out from the federal government, along with seizing various other agencies that we'll get to in a moment. Let's go and put Jeff's reporting here up on the screen
from the Washington Post. He says, Scoop the highest ranking Chargery officials expected to depart soon, and that has now happened after a clash with Elon Musk allies over their demands for access to a sensitive internal government payment system. Musk allies wanted access to that system, responsible for dispersing trillions in federal government payments annually as part of dog Treasury career. Staff saw the request, as he puts it,
highly unusual. David Lebrick viewed internally as consummate non political civil servant expected to exit after joining Treasury in nineteen eighty nine. Last week he was acting Treasury Secretary. And the update there is now Musk has, in fact, in his aporojects allies whatever you want to call him, have been given access to that Treasury payment system.
Now.
Just to explain to people how this works, all of the money, Social Security payments, Medicare payments, veterans benefits, all of the money that goes out from the federal government is dispersed by this system. Treasury officials have no authority to pick and choose which of these payments go out, because, as we all know from Constitution one oh one, Congress has the power of the purse. They appropriate the funds, and so this system is really just about executing on
the payments that have already been congressionally authorized. So that's why that's one of the reasons why this is such a big deal. The other reason why this is such a big deal is Elon Musk is not President of the United States.
No one voted for this guy.
He hasn't been confirmed for any sort of a Senate position, and now he and his acolytes have access to all of this incredibly sensitive information. Also, Elon Musk being the richest man in the world, having his own massive government contracts and conflicts of interest, since he is not in a Senate confirmed position, he has not mitigated any of those conflicts of interest, and we can put the next
piece up on the screen. He at least claims that he is using this access to shut down payments that he.
Does not like.
Now, this is based on Mike Flynn, former General Mike Flynn, who tweeted out, oh, the Lutheran Faith is using this money. They receive massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, with the indication being that they're using it for money laundering and human trafficking. Most of this money actually goes for things like it's like Medicaid block grants. It goes for things like head Start and meals on wheels and domestic violence addiction services,
those sorts of things. But whether or not you think that this organization is good, bad, and different, the bottom line is it's not up to Elon Musk or General Mike Flynn to decide whether or not these payments go out.
So that's peace.
Number one is the Treasury. Peace number two. Can put B three up on the screen.
Here.
This is the Office of Personnel Management, basically the HR department for the entire federal government. Here you also have Musk aids locking out career workers from this Office of Personnel Management system.
I'll go ahead and read this to you. They say aids to.
Elon mus charge with running the US government Human Resources Agency, have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees. Those systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains states of birth, social security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and length of service of government workers.
Quote.
We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer data systems. That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity in hacking implications.
Next piece before the General Services Administration. Elon Musk's allies have infiltrated that agency as well, and they're looking for ways That's sort of like it's almost like the operations managers of the government looking for ways to use White House credentials to access agency tech, potentially allowing them to
remote into laptops, read emails, and war sources say. I will pause from it before we get into what is the latest with regard to the USAID, which Musk has said he's been feeding into a wood chipper again, how we feel about that agency. That's up to Congress to decide whether or not we're going to eliminate various federal government agencies, not a man who no one voted for and has no Senate confirmed position or power. So I sagram and trying to grapple with what all.
This means, how to describe it.
I think it is somewhere beyond a constitutional crisis.
I think it is.
Probably short of a coup, given that he doesn't, as far as I know, have control of the military.
But that's the kind of territory we're.
Getting into when you have one guy, richest man on the planet, not elected, no Senate confirmed position, who has seized control of the payment system, all of the federal government's sensitive data. Is you know, deciding willy nilly what payments should go out and what shouldn't, what agencies should exist and shouldn't, And has you know, effectively done this and sees this with this handful of like twenty year old kids, with as far as I can tell, very little pushback.
In principle, it's obviously insane, and I know that there are a lot of Doze fanboys and others who are out there, but this very much falls in the territory of their unilateralism. And in fact, you also you know, even my friend Ryan Grdusky made a good point. He's like, Look, let's say there's a guy who made all of his money based in large part to some federal government policy. He's like, should we really give him reins over the
federal government? This is where I really depart with a lot of my Silicon Valley tech right friends, Even though in principle, you know, I may not disagree with, you know, getting rid of USAID or whatever, as long if it's gone through at least somewhat of a more democratic process, Like it'd be better for me if the Secretary of State were doing it or the president, you know, people
who are elected confirmed by the United States Senate. Their theory, as I understand it, is that they're trying to invite a lawsuit under the Impoundment and Act that we had
talked about previously. What they're trying to do is to stretch things as much as possible in terms of control before legal challenges can come and kick in, and under impoundment trying to basically challenge what we talked about previously, that principle where the federal government is not required to stick with this and that said, though there is a decent amount of executive authority that the president can have in disbursement of payment specifically, again, as I understand, is
around enngos, which because that comes down to like administrative judgment for disbursement of funds. So Congress might adjudication might appropriate x millions of dollars for like you were talking about meals on wheels, like paying for the home, that the administrators themselves can decide for whom to disperse the contract.
So I was looking into the legal justification for that a bit, and that seems to be the ground that they're found there standing on on top of trying to invite a challenge for impoundment to fast track into the Supreme Court.
I mean, it is, as far as I can tell, brazenly illegal for this random dude with you know, no electoral mandate, no congressional mandate, no mandate whatsoever, to just go in and be like I don't like what this, I don't like this appropriation.
We're not going to push this one out.
I mean, this is you know, it's it's clearcut not just separation of powers. But it'd be one thing if it was the president, if there was any transparency around this whatsoever. I mean, even that I think is blatantly
unconstitutional but heat has effectively made Congress completely irrelevant. Like right now, it wouldn't matter even if Democrats had won the House of the Set or whatever, like, Congress is now irrelevant even if whatever they pass, if Elon Musk can just come in and be like, no, I don't like that. Not doing that, that is as like clearly unconstitutional as it could possibly get. And so you know it to me, I think you would say, probably sagre that I was fairly alarmist in the in advance of
Trump getting elected. Yeah, you know, I think he's an authoritarian.
I think he's fascist.
I was deeply concerned about the things that he had announced that he had planned to do. This is beyond what I could have anticipated. And it's really the Musk Elon Musk factor that I did not weigh in, Like, I did not anticipate that in week two we'd be talking about the richest man on the planet having effectively seized the government with basically no resistance. And so you know, I knew that there were basically no guardrails in place anymore.
You know, the Supreme Court has given Trump a pretty blanket immunity for anything that's remotely connected to the job. Any sort of Republican opposition has been by and large pretty much vanquished, you know, any of the sort of career civil servants or the type of like the General Millies or the type of more establishment folks who were interested in maintaining the institutions like they've all been excise.
I knew all of this going in. I did not have the creativity to imagine the richest man on the planet seizing control of the government in week number two. Could not see that one particularly coming. And so you know the fact that there's been next to no institutional pushback you have. You know, the media is a mess, The Democratic Party is like basically why do they even exist at this point? Yeah, I don't know where this goes,
and I don't know how it ends. And even the idea like okay, they want to push for this impoundment control, you know, legal fight or whatever. Jadie Vance came out and was like, yeah, and if we get a court ruling that we don't like, we'll be like Andrew Jackson,
go ahead and enforce it with your army. So I don't have any confidence that they're gonna abide by any legal rulings that would come down against some They seem dead set and Elon seems dead set on doing whatever Elon Musk wants to do, and the rest of us are irrelevant. We just get to stand by and watch. So, you know, I'm sort of cheering for Trump and Elon to have some sort of falling out and for Trump, who at least is duly elected present in the United States,
to reassert some control over the government. So far, the indications in that direction are not great, given that Trump is out tweeting talking points seemingly directly from Elon Musk about South African land appropriation and saying that you know, he's gonna he's gonna stop sending aid to South Africa because of this, you know law that they passed in their own country. In addition to all of this, I mentioned the USAID stuff, So let me go through that as well. Let's go ahead and we can just go
through an order here B five. This was the first piece, so CNN reported that senior USAID security officials were put on leave after physically trying to refuse Musk's doge access to agency systems. Must cronies threatened to call US marshals to be allowed access to USAID they wanted to gain access to security systems and personnel files, the resources said.
Two of those sources also said that dough personnel wanted access to classified information, which only those with security clearances and a specific need to know are able to access. On Sunday, in response to c AND's report about the incident, Musk said that USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die. Their account, their Twitter account has been taken down. Their website has been taken down as well. We can put let's put B eight up on the
screen here because this is the very latest. USAID staffers were told to stay out of Washington headquarters after Musk said that Trump agreed to close it. Now USAID it's effectively a tool of US soft power. There are all sorts of things that USAID does that are like democracy meddling that I in no way support. USAID does also run some really critical programs, life saving programs, things like pet far things like you know, tackling malaria in developing countries,
so they do some good as well. It really doesn't matter how you feel about this agency. The truth of the matter is it is not up to Elon Musk or Donald Trump. To just say we're done with this. This also clearly has to go through Congress. You do not, as the richest man on the planet, have a right to just pick and choose which federal government agencies you like and which you don't. Guess what, the people's elected representatives get to have a say and input into this.
So this is where we are this morning.
Effectively, you know, a hostile takeover from the US government of the US government, buy Elon Musk and incredibly, you know this would be bad from anyone, right, I promise you I would be saying the same thing if it was Bill Gates or George Soros, and I promise you Republicans would have a big problem with it if it was George Soros who had seized control of the Treasury Department system and was randomly shuttering agencies US government agencies
that he happened to not like for whatever ideological and self interested reasons. So to me, this is an incredibly I don't even know what words to put it. Like I said before, way beyond constitutional crisis. Probably not quite at coup because the military is still under control by Donald Trump, but we're somewhere in that range.
Here's what okay, on usaid, And this is where I mean, this is why the constitutional crisis thing is like not technically accurate. It's been authorized by Congress, but nobody says that it has to be an existing agency of the government. If you fold it into the State Department, which is what they said that they did, and the programs can still disperse money.
He's feeding it into a windshipper, yes, but if he's not folding it under.
The umbrella or from the USA.
To show up and seizing control of the systems. This isn't like, oh, we're going to do a little reform. It's just we're getting this. This is we think it's bad and evil in a criminal organization.
But this is what I'm getting at is that if you fold it under the State Department, that's actually totally within the executive authority of the president. Coming back to this, and this is actually what I've been thinking about a lot too. Here is I don't support Elon or any person being able to do this, but I think the lack of institutional pushback is because I think there was actually a broad support for this type of burn shit down.
I'm not just talking about fig No. I see this is where I totally disagree when people do not push the red button for Trump popular vote without some serious shit going wrong.
When did anyone, when did anyone even mention on the campaign trill like we're going to get rid of USA? I d Trump is never Trump has never run as an austerity politician.
You know that this is not, of course it is it's ero point seven percent of the federal budget, like you said, fomenting cous in Africa.
But I'm not just talking about the ID.
I'm talking about Elon's whole of government seizure.
This He is a Javier Malay style in arco capitalist.
He wants to take a massive hatchet to the federal government so that it is completely impotent and weak and can't stand up against him or any other robber baron corporate titan.
That is his goal. That has never been the Trump approach.
And I can't believe him here like cheering for Donald Trump to reassert his ideology. But I actually am in this case because this is not remotely what people voted for. Who Greenland wasn't mentioned in the You know, Gusaid wasn't mentioned in the campaign. Going to war with Canada wasn't mentioned in none of this economic war, none that was much of this, None of this like austerity, anarcho capitalists, slash and burn. He made a campaign on any of this.
He certainly didn't campaign on. He certainly didn't campaign on I'm going to allow Elon Musk total and complete control of the government. That was ever part of the campaign pledge. And you see people don't like it because Elon musk approval rating has plummeted. Doge's approval rating is like twenty nine percent. People are not excited about this direction that they're going in whatsoever. They were upset about gas prices, they were upset about costs of living, they were upset
about what they perceived as border chaos. They voted for those things. Yes, does he have a man ate on those things. Yes, this has nothing to do with any of that. No one was like, yes, I would like the richest man on the earth, an unelected billionaire, to have access to every sensitive government system and control over it.
That's insane.
No one, I don't agree with that because what I first of all, Elon was literally on the campaign trail and he was with him. Doge is one of those things where if you're asking these podcast guys what they're the most excited about organically, every single one of them is brought up doge to me. They're like, I can't wait to see this slash and burn, and I think what it gets to is a deep lack of institutional trust. Now coming back to it, I don't agree at all
that none of these things weren't mentioned. Do literally was a promise by Trump and Elon on the campaign troll. I don't even support a lot of stship.
Thought it was like a make work irrelevant blue ri Okay.
In reality, that's probably what it all will be because in terms of all of this cutting USA dspunding, it's point seven percent of the federal budget. Like in terms of even quote seizing control of the payments. If ninety nine percent of the payments go through and one NGO gets cut off, I'm not going to cry about this, is What would.
You say if it was?
I mean, it's almost unimaginab because they would never do this. It was Kama Harris that got elected and George Soros is now in control of the Treasury, the GSA, the OPM, cutting agencies.
What would you say?
No, I agree with you on the on the actual conflict of interest. I'm trying to reconcile.
It's not just a conflict of interest. It is blatantly unconstitutional. It is a seizure of the government, is rendering the congressional duly elected congressional representatives completely irrelevant by the richest man on the planet.
What I am trying to direct what is going on is what you just said is that there's no institutional pushback. There's not even really I don't think that there's some major public outcry somewhat Quinnipiac polled Elon. We'll see, all right, in terms of dose and all that. And also, did we not just live through an election where polls were complete bullshit? How are we supposed to know whether you like.
Those polls when they say what you like on immigration?
Well, okay, so I can pair that when Donald Trump gets elected in the popular vote then and a bunch of a bunch of Hispanic people have on the ones you like the weekend. We can't pair elector result with a poll, and then we can say that there's some relative confidence tracking poll on Elon. Like, Look, if anything, the electoral results show people don't give a shit whether
Elon is their support. If you get creamed in the midterms, then yeah, maybe, but I'm very curious to see how this stuff goes.
What would it even matter at this point if they get creamed in the midterms since Congress does not even This is where we're.
All exaggerating again, like you know, using constant This is why I get upset or annoyed about this whole Nazi fascist It's like words have meaning. It's not constitutional crisis. Whenever at one meals on wheels NGO gets as.
That's not the point.
The point is not, No, there is not The point is not a one n JUO is going to be defunded. The point is that this is not the way our government is set up to work. We don't have a king, we don't We're not supposed to have rule by one single oligarch, and that is what we have right now.
That's why this is a constitutional crisis. And I guarantee you if it was George Soros, if it was Bill Gates, if it was Mark Zuckerberg working hand in glove with Kamala Harris and locking out everybody from the government and seizing their laptop getting access to their laptops and seizing control over the entire federal government disbursement system. I guarantee you Republicans would agree.
I think that it was a.
Constitutional crisis because you're fundamentally talking about not just the separate That's why I say it's beyond a constitutional crisis because this isn't even just about some like executive branch versus legislative branch dispute. This is about someone who was not elected or confirmed to anything taking control of things he has no right to take control of. It is a crime spree that it is a smash and grab crime spree.
Well, there's no graund happening, there's smash happening. But this is where I'm trying to get at. And this is where again words matter and terms. For example, under the AOMF, every president since George W. Bush has violated the constitution? Correct? Right? Is that a constitutional crisis? By bombing countries which Congress has not declared war on it's bad? Are we going to call it a constitutional crisis? No, we're not, because
that's been happening for twenty years. Unfortunate has become normalized. I fought against it for the entire time, but it falls within you know, a scope of how things are working. I would love not follow. Okay, but again, is that right when we think about when I come back to why is it that people support and I don't think it's good to have somebody who's unelected, billionaire whatever, tons of conflict of interest, who has his own enrichment, who
is totally in control of this. Now, again, when we come back to why is it that so many people are totally supportive of this or at the very least a lot of the Republican coalition, it comes down to zero institutional trusts and a genuine desire to blow shit up. And I don't think that you're under that. You are understanding how many people and this is the through line through MAGA. Everyone's like, how can Tulsi and RFK and Elon and Trump, who have all of these conflicting things
all come together. They are against the system. The system is broadly what people voted against, and in the popular vote, we can try and retcon it into inflation, egg prices and all that. I don't really think so. I think really what it comes down to is a giant fuck you for all of the way that things are done, process things, by the way many democratic socialists and others
I've heard say, is I screwed the parliament voting? How many of them who are vote advocated for rejecting norms, stacking the Supreme voted to be able to get what people want.
No one voted for Elon Musk.
I do know one vot.
I wish.
Here's the other thing. Here's the other thing.
Like even if there is, I don't doubt there one hundred percent is the case that there is some constituency that's like go doge destroy the federal government, like go after them, seize control of the treasury. That doesn't mean that it's constitutional, doesn't mean that it's right, doesn't mean it's going to be good for the country, doesn't mean it's going to have massive reverberating impacts. So it is a weird thing to watch. It's a strange feeling because
there seems to be it is true. I mean you're right about there's like a whimper about it. And it's so much just happening so quickly too that I don't think any normal person could really wrap their head around everything that is going on either. But once you have, you know, allowed a single unelected billionaire to take control of the federal government, like you don't really go back to just being a normal democracy after that, and so massive,
massively consequential, deeply troubling, incredibly disturbing. And I don't think that there's any like I, you know, I don't think they. I don't think there's any reason we should have confidence they to buy by court decisions. I don't think they have any confidence that they'll just like you don't have
normal elections next time around. Like that's that's where we're at the level of unilateral seizure that is going on here is I mean, it's it is difficult for me to put into words how disturbing, extraordinary, unusual, what is going on with all of her.
So I looked up at JD. Van's quote that you're claiming, and here's what you said. As so, I think the thing you can do in the Senate is push the legal boundaries as so far as the Supreme Court will let you take it, to basically make it possible for democratically accountable people and the executive in the legislative to fire mid level up to high level civil servants like that,
to me is the meat of the administrative state. The keyword there was as far as the Supreme Court will let you no, no, no, no. This was a fact check based on this Supreme Court decision of thing that he apparently said on some podcast in twenty twenty one. I didn't realize this was. Has he raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. This is some reason from the I'll send it if maybe he said something previously, but that's what I was able to find here.
I will tell you the cost.
Okay, let's courts stop.
You stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and said, the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him write and forth.
I'm talking from the same I'm talking from the exact same transcript of where he says as far as the Supreme Court will let you take it, So if we want to cherry pick, you know, part he says, as the Supreme Court will let you take it. Now, who knows where that will come from. That was from a twenty twenty one podcast that he made where he said this on Yeah. So, first of all, it was what four years ago now at this point, somebody should ask him. Margaret Brennan, whoever, if I ever got a chance to
be my I'll ask him about it. But my point falls back on something pretty simple, this idea that like we're canceling elections or any of this. No, there's no evidence for that, Like you can't extrapolate things beyond. But even again, I'm going to take it to the bigger puts a big democratic point. You made an important thing people, Oh so much is happening. And you know why people don't care Because most people only care about results. They
don't give a shit about process. That's something I've heard you say a million times. They don't care about the parliamentarian you I've heard you talk about carling stack in the Supreme Court. They don't give a shit, but they want the government that blow up. I mean, it doesn't as long as they get there, as long as they get their security.
But then they're about to hike prices okay through massive terror riffs and also price is likely to go up through the Why does it matter?
Why do norms not matter when you want to stack the Supreme Court? Why do norms that matter whenever you want to disregard the parliamentarium because they agree with the end goal. My point is always with the same point you would make. Then people don't care about that. They want what result. They want less immigration. Oddly they want another one.
No one voted for Meals on Wheels to be cut Soger, but voted.
To get cut. No one voted for mass austerity.
People like even the idea of definable term of where you massively reduced probably more than five to ten percent, which is that's what he's pushing for. But that's not what's happened. We're not in mass austerity yet, and if it does that happen, then I'll call it mass austerity. What you have seen is a disruption of heads what not even headstart, by the way, that didn't even happen. Meals on Wheels had a question as to whether they were going to get their funding, and then the funding
was immediately resumed after a twenty four hour period. I'm not going to cry if I'm paying for somebody's health care in Africa and it stops, Okay, I don't give a shop. I don't think most people should either.
Do you think that it is a concerning principle.
I've said yes that we should have.
Now a billionaire who you know, massively conflicted, like huge one of the largest government contractors who now has access to all of our social security numbers, to access to the Treasury payment system. And it's just willy nilly deciding who should get paid and who shouldn't as a matter of principle in terms of where the country goes from here.
Do you think that's a problem.
I have so, absolutely yes I do. But you know, as again I have to reconcile this. Most people are not principal. Most people don't care at all.
Talking about most people, why not there lives.
They're the bots, They're the ones who do.
Your job is to explain to people why these things are troubling and why you should care, even if you, you know, are trying to live your life and just go about your business. Why these things matter not just now but for the future and for the president that they set So to just wave your hand on no one cares. You have an important platform here to help to explain to people why it matters and why they should care, and why it would be deeply troubling if
it happened. Also if it was a Democrat who was in power at this point.
Absolutely listen again, I can Tom Blue in the face having somebody who is unelected make these decisions is bad. But I listen, as a guy who has very unpopular positions on many things, I have basically given up at a certain point of trying to change people's behavior. I have seen too many instances of how many people are just willing to go along with something as long as it conveniently aligns, and so as an analyst, now at this point, I'm just trying to understand democratically. As you said,
why is this alarmist position either not taking up? Why are there not protests in the street overdose? And I'm like, Wow, it's pretty clear to me that the public is so fed up with this that they are just where they are absolutely willing to go along and to cut the Trump administration a lot of slack until some serious shit goes wrong in their life now on the tariffs or on doze or any of this other stuff. It's totally possible if they screw up Medicare, Social Security, any of
these other programs. But in the interim, I mean, what, yeah again, PEP far, go ahead and pull PEP far. It was massively unpopular at the time under George W.
Bush.
She actually got hit a ton from the conservative movement for it. Basically a lot of these global aid programs and all that they exist, and when you try and reconcile with the fact that we don't even pay for our own citizens, they're ludicrous. They don't make any sense. And yes, many USA D programs are basically venues in order to establish regime change abroad. They're not good. So you know, this gets to the question of are people going to cry about lack of medication going to some
global health program abroad. No, and I don't think they should. They've always foreign eight as always pulled at like the absolute bottom. Yes, when we talk about social if you ask maybe if that's a bit different.
Example the pet far thing, I think there was a huge reaction against the pet far funding being frozen, and because there was a public reaction and this is one of the only things that's encouraging, they actually went back on that and said, no, no, this this can be funded. Like they gave an exemption so that pet far could continue to be funded. So when people here foreign aid in the abstract, I think you're correct that there's just like, oh, why are we doing that?
Good principle, why are we paying for drugs. But because you do, we even pay for our own construct.
The reason is because of soft power and imperialism. That's what it really. I mean, it's equivalent of like, you know, similar to like China's Belton Road initiative. They're not doing it out of the goodness of our heart. We're not doing these USAID programs out of the goodness of our hearts, not at the federal government level, at the population level, you know. To counter your point that people don't care, now, actually I think people do care.
They like to feel like our.
Government is doing good things around the world, whether it's malaria prevention or dealing with HIV and AIDS in the developing world, a program that's been tremendously successful and say millions and millions of lives.
But all of that is really kind of.
Beside the point, because, as I said before, how you feel about USAID isn't really the issue here. The issue here is having some dude who have his view willis amount of planet saying I don't like that agency. I'm feeding it into the wood chipper, with no congressional input, no input from your elected representatives, with no Senate confirmation, having no one having voted for him. That is the
issue that is at hand. How you feel about USAID is really quite irrelevant to that conversation, and that is truly a place we have never.
Been in before.
So you are correct that, you know, I think most people are not focused on all of these things that are going They don't know what to make of it.
They you know, are living their lives. But listen, it's one thing, you know, we're about to talk about the plane crash thing like it's one thing to seize control of a private company Twitter and slash a bunch of jobs and turn it into like, you know, a cesspool of Nazism and whatever in your own personal propaganda outlet, and the consequences be like, oh my damns don't work
today once again or whatever. It's another thing when you're talking about, hey, we need people to regulate food safety so we don't have another you know, outbreak of salmonilla and people dying. Hey, we need air traffic controllers to be present in adequate numbers, which is something we dramatically don't have right now, and they send out, you know, the same email that went to everybody else in the federal government that's like, please leave please resign, even to
people like air traffic controllers. Some functions of federal government are important. Some of them we really rely on to have a functioning society. Some of them are even life or death, and we've now we haven't handed over. Elon Musks now sees control of all of those functions. So even if you are cool with leg, I don't really care about the AIDS funding the kids in Africa or you know, to malaria.
What that is really not.
What this is about, because the control that he is asserted that he has seized is vastly broader than that, and as I said before, is brazenly unconstitutional. So if that is on the table, then literally anything is effectively on the table at this point.
Okay, again, I just think it's a lot matter of gradations is and my here's my prediction. If they stick to USAID cutting funding to NGOs, that it'll be massively popular. I think. I think that's the truth. If they don't touch so and medicare.
They already had to roll back the pup far thing.
Okay, the partic issue.
Another thing saying okay, not life saving.
It It was not there were not people taking to the streets saying please restore pep far. It's because there are a bunch of members of Congress who are very, very pro pep far. So if anything there you go, there's a check on the power. I don't think any of this is necessarily a good thing. I think that if they cut USAID or if they reform USAD, whatever, the end result of this ends up happening, or start cutting fundings to homeless NGOs or sorry, unhoused NGOs as
they call themselves. Yeah, I think it's gonna be crazy popular, and I think there's a reason for that is that people are deeply fed up and feel like the government helps all these other people. They're like, wait, why does this money go over there? And I don't feel like I'm being out And so as long as they don't touch the most popular programs which look to be fair, you're right. Elon definitely wants to do that. But if Trump is able to keep him away from that, this
is very likely to be a pr coup. Now there's a lot of issues that could fall in is if they do. I just think fundamentally, your view of the federal government is not one that people hold. They may find out now they may find out you're right under FAA or NO or or FEMA or any of these other you might, but something tells me that they're not actually dumb.
Enough.
Was a huge reaction against when all the payments were frozen last week. Well that was and if you look at so people in general, they feel like, oh, the debt's too high, the deficit's too high, like we should cut the.
Government should be more efficient.
When you ask people about should the government spend more or less on various programs, the only things they actually say less on are like the military, because they feel like, oh my god, we already spend so freaking much on the military. If you ask them about programs to alleviate poverty, they say we should spend more. If you ask them about programs for education, they say more. If they healthcare,
they say we should spend more. So that there was a big reaction when payments were frozen because first of all, I mean, the Medicaid thing was just like obviously people were freaked down about that, But it wasn't just that. It was also head Start, It was also meals on wheels. It was also domestic violent shelters. It was also addiction treatment, like people do believe that the federal government should be investing in the American people and helping to support people in their time of need.
They do believe in that.
So when you ask the broad question, should we cut the you know, cut spending, of course, sure, yeah, like cut out the waist. But when you get down to any of these individual programs, there's a big reaction to it, and not just the big ticket ones obviously Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, but truly, any of these programs, when you go after them,
people and this is pretty bipartisan, really disagree. So you know, as you said, listen, I think you're right that there isn't a big reaction against this yet because they're you know, the rubber doesn't hit the road. People don't see it in terms. It wasn't like when the Medicaid portals froze or whatever. I'm just saying that, I think the consequences of where we are and what it means for having operating like anything approaching in democracy where your elected representatives
matter at all. Like, I think we're in a really I think we're in a very dark place.
I think it could definitely turn into that. Well, let's get to FAA because yeah, that's where that is where. Look, I'm going to grant it to you. And this what if I said, presidents very often overreach. If I were to predict anything that will be Trump's, it will be tariffs. And I say this as somebody who actually supports tariffs because we live in ultra consumerist society. Look at the TikTok thing. People want to buy cheap shit. That's all
they care about. Over and over, we have been proved, we have proven that people, you know, they may support some tariffs on washing machines and others, but overwhelmingly temu is a massively popular business for one reason. People want to buy cheap crap.
And can I say, schin but all this other junk, It didn't.
Come out of nowhere that just people want to buy cheap crap. We this is what we. Low prices are what we've effectively.
Been given in lieu of like yeah a job.
Yeah a job, high wages, brought our social safety net, et cetera. So it's not that I don't also share that critique of society that like, okay, do we really need more like cheap crap filling up our homes that we throw in the landfill and whatever. But you can't really blame people because this is this is the deal that has been on. This has effectively been the social contract is. Yeah, we're going to ship your jobs overseas. Yeah,
we're going to destroy your wages. Yeah, you're gonna have a worse social safety heat than any other developed or a country.
But at least you can buy some cheap shit from Amazon.
And if you want to tear up that social contract, you have to have those other pieces in place. And in addition, I mean some of the we don't have to go back to the tariff debate. I'm sure we're going to have the tariff debate again tomorrow, but in addition, like just to do a blanket across the board, it's like, well, why are we tariffing avocados.
That's just going to raise the prices.
Is they're really a need to have a domestic like massive avocado growing operation. Is that you know that's nothing to do with reindustrialized growing alfhead. No, I don't agree with that, but you know that's sort of my broader point with the tariff conversations. You can't just raise prices without also doing these other pieces that will make that social contract makes sense.
I don't disagree. My vision for America is very much exactly what you said. That's still wise sport the tariffs, though, is that when something happens like that, I'm gonna I'm I'm going to go for it. Because again, like the and you know you may ask, you ask a question about avocados, how do you get somebody to buckle on auto parts and all these other price control increases, Well, you hit them where it hurts, which is eighty percent
of their exports. But beyond that, my prediction, and this is unfortunate, is that America worships at the altar of consumerism. Every action that Americans take is one where they waste their time on TikTok, which is why it's massly popular. Whenever something is cheaper, they go to Temu. Whenever they want cheap clothes, they go to Shiann. They don't give a shit if it comes from China. They don't even care necessarily if it costs somebody their job here, undercuts
US e commerce. They could care less about deminimus or any of these other nerdy terms. You know that I'm going to throw around, and so my unfortunate prediction is that America is now so addicted to two hundred dollars televisions, to Walmart, to Black Friday, to Amazon, you know, replacement phone chargers which are one fiftieth of the price even though they break in two days, that they will revolt
only over that. But that kind of fits with this Doze conversation where America now has this quasi secular libertarian ideology where the government sucks and the only thing that really matters for them is the ability to shop to buy a new car every five years and load yourself up in debt. And then you know, it's like, I just when you see the individual choices on balance, you're right, we can absolutely blame government policy. But we're here now,
it's been forty years. We live in this world, and this world is not one that rewards unfortunately, industrial policy. It's not one that is not a country or a population anymore that can be told, hey, we're going to do terrorists, but we're trying to build more auto manufacturers and other things. Here they're like, no, I want a new car. I want it to be cheap. You know, it's like, this is the individual choice that people have
now told us over the last forty years. I don't know if you can deprogram that.
Well.
I would like to, I don't think it will happen.
Yeah again, and we don't have to belabor this because I do want to get to the plane crash thing, but I don't think that you can. Just the problem with the Trump policy is that it just raises prices.
It doesn't you.
Know, if you if you paired it with a national vision of you know, a shift in the social contract of we're gonna lift your wages, we're gonna have universal health care, we're gonna provide you for you in these ways. But yeah, you're gonna pay more at the store for X and Y and Z, Like you're not going to have the same level of access to cheap craft from China. Like we're shifting the values and the priorities in this country.
That would be something that you know, you again, you would have to go out and make the case to
American people. And we've had decades and decades of people being treated not as citizens, not as family members, not as community members, but just as consumers and low prices being the end all be all that was what was given to us in exchange for Hey, we're going to decimate the industrial Midwest, but your prices are going to be cheaper, and overall GDP will go up by a percent, all of which flowed into the pockets of people like Elon Musk, by the way, but that's not really what
we're talking about now with this particular tar off conversation, which is just on the side of raising prices. But to get back to the you know, the crash and the way the rubber can hit the road in terms of whether you know it or not, you know, the federal government when when we want it to be there, we really wanted to be there, and we want it to be effective, and we wanted to deliver, and we want it, for example, to make sure that planes don't crash into each other and fall out, a
Facy that I think what everybody could agree on