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All right, So, at the same time, we have some very significant it's not just political news, but it is also political news. Let's put this up on the screen. So some aids are leaking to Politico that Trump is saying Musk is going to leave soon. So let me read you a little bit of this so you can
get the specifics here. President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as government partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchetman. President remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government efficiency initiative, but both men have decided in recent days it will soon be time for Musk to return to
his business and take on a supporting role. According to three Trump insiders, who of course remained anonymous, Musk's looming exit comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic thrown into Stark relief Tuesday after that Wisconsin Supreme Court race. It
also represents a shift in that relationship. However, they go on to say that this doesn't mean that Elon will be completely out of the loop. One senior administration official said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as an advisor, continued to be an occasional face. Another caution that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely from Trump's orbit is quote fooling themselves. This comes on the heels not only of that Wisconsin Supreme Court race,
where Elon went all in. He spent twenty six million dollars. He flew there, he did an event, he gave out million dollar checks. He was basically like bribing people to vote for his candidate, and his candidate ends up losing by ten points. But also Musk himself had been making some noises about the temporary nature of his stay within the federal government. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he told Brettbaer.
You technically are a special government employee and you're supposed to be one hundred and thirty days. Are you going to continue past that or do you think that's what you're going to do?
Or well, I think we will accomplish most of the work required to reduce the deficit by trillion dollars within that timeframe.
So in that timeframe, one hundred and thirty days, and the process is a report at some point at one hundred days.
Not really a report.
We are cutting the waste improt in real time. So every day that passes, our goal is to reduce the waste and prod by four billion dollars a day, every day, seven days a week, and so far we are succeeding.
So I think soccer. The easiest explanation here is that Trump now sees Elon as a political loser and a liability and wants to sort of distance himself from that whole situation, especially after the big loss in Wisconsin.
Well, that's accurate now, probably.
Probably Ryan had a theory, an interesting theory, I don't know if you listen. So others have floated this as well,
but he articulated. So there's a possibility that Trump believes that Elon actually rigged the election in the fall, and or at least isn't sure because you remember Rogan was talking about like Elon knew before anybody that you know, that he that he had won, and Elon's got starlink and he's it's all computer right with Elon Musk, And so it doesn't require you to believe he actually did that to think that maybe Trump thinks that he actually
did that. And so if you have, that would explain why he was so subservient to him long beyond what you would expect. And now that you have the Wisconsin result was like, oh, well, clearly you weren't able to pull it off there, so I guess you didn't actually ring the election for me in my favor. So now I can be done with you. That was the theory that Ryan flow, which I thought was kind of interesting.
I don't know.
That requires some mental jiu jitsu that I'm not quite ready to embrace.
The easiest explanation is that he just gave.
Him a quarter bill and that Trump is also just look at Trump this time around. Trump has lost much of his edge what his edge last time? And I was especially during this whole Mike Walt saga, anybody who looks like such a fucking idiot on television, that person got fired in the first term.
I was there. I covered the entire thing. I watched this happen over and over again.
If you had even one screw up like that, he would call you, he would scream at you, and you were done. I mean, it was, you know, one bad story. If it was embarrassing, that was it with Elon and with Mike Waller. Because it's not just Elon, it's actually the whole government. Is that many of these guys, Howard Lutnick, I mean, Lutnik has crashed to the stock market like five different times.
That's likely inspiring. Also in this response.
Scott bess Is, I'm not even talking looking at a mechanical level. He in his presentation. He's just bad at this. Like his confirmation hearing was a disaster. He clearly does not have confidence in his He clearly doesn't have confidence in his public presentation. He was not prepared for primetime at all. Whenever the stock market there was fluctuating. I actually literally had the S and P live ticker and my phone in front of me as he was on
Fox News. I was watching it drop as he continued to speak.
That's not good.
It's like a Tim Geidner level situation from two thousand and eight.
And the whole reason he was picked is because Trump thought that he would inspire market confidence kind of.
I mean, bestent is one of those like more MAGA friendly figures from Wall Street, Like he's somebody who made his fortune trading, but he's actually expressed a lot more nationalist beliefs about let's say the current deficits.
Yeah right, But he wanted someone who would have the confidence of the markets, who also had some of those like MAGA nationalist tendants exactly correct.
And he's just not doing a good job at a community level. I'm just saying, basically, you know, you can watch the results of that. He's not able to defend the policy all that well, I think the reason is, you know, not to make it even more about tariffs, et cetera. But if we go back and look at all of this, Elon has not tweeted once about the tariffs.
Have you noticed that?
Yeah?
Terrifying.
Yeah, Elon actually supported Javier Malay whenever he cut all tariffs coming in and out of Argentina, which is kind of hilarious. But if we think just about Elon generally, he has become the lightning rod. He's destroying his own company, and he made Trump made him the figure that we will all remember the most about the first hundred days. When the history is written of the first hundred days
of the Trump administration, we will remember two things. Today quote liberation Day or I guess yesterday was Liberation Day. I apologize Liberation Day, and we will remember dosh, That's what we will remember the first one hundred days. Everything else is bullshit that you'll really just it'll be footnotes if it won't even make.
The Oxford history.
But those two things, you can say quite clearly, it's obviously going to have the impact in terms of not even what it necessarily did, but for the for the implication internally of what he decided his presidency is about. And so we can see that clearly by outsourcing much of the spotlight and the fights. I mean, really, politics is ultimately about the fights that you pick. That really
is what it's all about. Trump was a genius in terms of picking those fights correctly during the campaign, but this time around, like Doge, the idea of government efficiency and all that was popular, but the more that you saw it executed, it was just obviously stupid. It was haphazard, It was you know, it was there was no consideration. Elon himself is obviously not a good communicator. There is insane amounts of conflicts of interest. He's also just kind
of an idiot in his general political presentation. And so you see all of that showing up in the Wisconsin numbers, and I think, you know, at the very least Trump can conclude.
Oh, this is not good. This is becoming a problem for me. Yeah, from Wisconsin.
Wisconsin made it very clear, and we can put there there's a new poll of how people feel about you.
One.
They don't like this guy. He is not popular. Put this up on the screen from Politico. So approval of how he's handling his work at DOGE is at forty one percent, with disapproval at fifty eight percent. For Musk himself, the numbers are even worse. Sixty percent have an unfavorable view of him compared with thirty eight percent that have a favorable view. Yeah, I mean he has all of the chaos and insanity of Trump and none of the
charm Doge. Listen it, honestly like it. It actually was kind of hard to screw up this idea with the American public because people are on board with, well, let's make it more efficient, let's cut the fat whatever, like Rhetorically, people were inclined to be on board with that, but it became incredibly and immediately clear that's not what was
actually going on here. I mean, you have the level of just like cruelty of celebrating people losing their jobs, you know, and being asked, and you immediately get these stories that are like, oh, the aren't some unsympathetic, pink haired haired liberal weirdo. We're talking about huge numbers of veterans who are losing their job. You're talking about just like normal people who were trying to do their best and are being unceremoniously kicked out. Then you see the level,
and this is so obvious to everyone. The richest man on the planet, who has his hands and involved in virtually every government agency is he's the one in charge of this. And then we get the stories about, oh look they changed this line item so that four hundred million dollars we're going to Tesla. Oh look, he's at the FAA and the SpaceX engineers are running around the building and they're pushing contracts in his direction. Oh look
at that. These agencies that were previously investigating his companies, now suddenly he's involved there, and those investigations are nowhere to be found. So it did not take a rocket scientist to see what was really going on here, and to see that, you know. Also, I think probably the most politically damaging is how aggressively he has both rhetorically and in reality gone after the Social Security administration. These things are profoundly, profoundly unpopular in a way that Donald
Trump always used to at least understand. And to your point, which is one that you know, has been increasingly apparent to me too, I do think Trump is way more checked out of most of his administration now, I think the tariff policy, I think that is all him, right, all him and chat GPT. I think that is he is leading the charge there. You can see in the way Scott Bessont is so uncomfortable in defending it and doesn't want to even speak in you know, specifics about
what this policy entails. I think that is all him. But even in the leaked signal Gate chats, it's all like it's like he completely deferred this important foreign policy to this band of you know, idiots and wackos who are there like kind of who don't even really seem to know exactly what it is that Trump wants them to do. So so many parts of this are his hands off, and he's just handed it over to Elon Musk. I think the other person that he's handed a lot of his policy over to is Steven Miller.
Oh yeah, well, you know, even to be honest, I don't see it though, because Stephen, you might be right in the aliens enemies thing, but look at all the other ls that the pro immigration side has taken. I didn't bring this up because I heard it had too much to say about tariffs. But an hour into the talk, Trump said by the way, we need a lot more legal immigrants to fill all these manufacturing jobs. I was like, wait what, I was like, excuse me, what's going on there?
So that's not even an H one B argument, right, He's making that the argument that we need more workers to replace or okay, sorry, to fill all these brand new manufacturing jobs that you're taking. I know for a fact that Steven Miller of them have been fighting against
that behind the scenes. So Stephen Miller, yes, he got his Alien Enemies Act, but I mean, there's been no change on H one B. Trump is out there basically like simultaneously endorsing McKinley esque tariff policy but then neoliberal immigration policy. These don't make any sense. I would say Elon has been empowered. And also what I noticed the most about Trump is I don't think they necessarily planned this whole thing with Elon, but then what happened when
Elon became a lightning rod. Trump is obsessed with quote not giving a scalp. Even behind the scenes, It's obvious he thinks Michael Waltz's an idiot, but he doesn't want to fire.
Him because it would mean vindicating Jeffrey Goldberg.
Well with Elon, who has become you know, this liberal like lightning Rod, same thing. He doesn't want to give his enemies a scalp, phase him out.
Or whatever over a period.
But I mean, the issue is just the amount of damage that they're doing in the interim. Look at the wisconsinant numbers. We haven't even gotten a chance to really react here. I mean, that was a mid term level turnout for some freaking judges race. I couldn't even tell you the judge where I come from is. And that's you know, Wisconsin voters were like, we got more ads on our TVs, and we had more touch points, and we did it in the presidential election over this whole thing.
That's the number of Democrats that came up to it. And it wasn't even close. It was like fifty five forty five.
Yeah victories.
It's insane.
Yeah, Now think about what's going to happen here in Virginia. Oh my god, what Spanberger? What do you think he's gonna win by twenty points? It's going to be unbelievable. So yeah, that's where the Elon problem is in. You know, by not quote giving the enemy a scalp, you're creating a massive, massive political problem.
I don't think Shump cares though, like don't I don't think he cares about the midterms. I think I think he already expects Republicans are going to lose the House in the midterms, and so I don't know that that's really all that important to him. And so, you know, more, he's less concerned about electoral fallout, and he's more concerned about, you know, him being able to exercise maximal amounts of
power and uh enforce maximal amounts of fealty. And so that's where you know, the terrorists come in and the
media tacks University, all of those sorts of things. But yeah, that's a I think a really good insight with regard to him not wanting to give in to like the liberals or the liberal media or whatever with regard to Elon Yes, especially when they immediately started cheering doing the like he's the co president, and when they immediately started predicting like, oh, there's no way that these two are going to be able to coexist and Trump's going to
fire him. And then I also think that Trump is so enamored with money and so enamored also with like IQ that I think he's kind of he is a little spell bound by Elon too, Like I think Elon was able to extor. Trump has his own reality distortion field that comes more from his like, you know, his charm and this giant personality. Elon has a reality distortion field that comes from you know, him positioning himself as this like grand great man and he's the richest man
on the planet, and that's what Trump ultimately respects. So I do think that he was also a little bit spell bound by Elon.
I think that's certainly part of it. All right, should we talk about Tesla.
Yeah, So while this political fallout is unfolding, for Elon, business faultlund is also unfolding. We can put this up on the screen. Tesla deliveries came in way below even expectations, which the expectations were already not good, but they sank thirteen percent in the first quarter compared to where they were last year. So I'll go ahead and read you
a little bit of this article. Tesla's global vehicle deliveries fell thirteen percent in the first quarter from a year ago, further evidence that a growing consumer backlash against the brand and Elon Musk is hurting the automaker's business. The final quarterly tally of three hundred and thirty six thousand missed analyst expectations of three hundred ninety six thousand delivery deliveries. According to Visible Alpha, Tesla shares fell. We'll see what
Tesla shares do today whenever Marget's open. Yeah, it's going to be you know, it's going to be not good for them. But you know, some of this is not just Elon being this incredibly divisive, toxic lightning rod figure. And remember it's not just our politics. Obviously he's been the most front and center, but it's not just our politics. He also has been tweeting about all kinds of countries around the world, but specifically intervened in Germany, specifically intervened
in the UK. And you have to remember who is like the typical EV buyer. These tend to be more liberal types. So when you have someone who has aligned himself in such an aggressive, partisan, outspoken way owning Twitter as well with far right movements not just here but around the world, yeah, there's going to be incredible fallout. And at the same time you have other EV makers, byd being the most prominent of them, but others as well who are really competing.
Now.
You know, for a while, Tesla was really kind of even in the US, was really the only EV game in town, so to speak. And now even in terms of US automakers, you have, you know, increasing competition in the market, and so it's the perfect storm for a catastrophic fallout for Tesla as a company. And the board is really stocked with Elon, like total loyal like his
brothers on the board for example. So you would think maybe the company at some point would be like, you know, being so closely associated with this guy is not really working out for our brand. But I don't think there's any Oh, they can't. He's not in any kind of danger of that because they were specifically selected to be with him.
No matter what, there are two things can be true. Tesla would never be where it was today without Elon, and also, Tesla's downfall, if it does come, will be because of you, and that's rarely where things are. Right now, go and put this next one up on the screen, because this is where all of my attention is right now, at the very same time that you're seeing global market drop for Tesla, which let's face it, like you said, it's the premiere electric vehicle made by the United States
and one of our exports. It was one of the crown jewels actually of major US economy. And if you think about it, this is an auto company startup that was able to export and become a brand and bestseller across the world. That's one of the best case scenarios you could actually make for a US company. But at the same time, what we've been talking a lot about in the last several months is BYD and BYD sales have now topped one hundred billion for the very first time. Actually,
their demand is exploding right now. Their revenue is up twenty nine percent from last year, and actually you have seen increases in the very same markets where you are seeing Tesla decrease. Right Remember, the rest of the world doesn't necessarily ban Chinese electric vehicles the way that we do, and they're cheaper. That's the other extraordinary thing. Tesla's revenue and BYD revenue can be roughly similar. Bid has to sell three times a number of cars that Tesla does
to be able to reach that same level. Now, of course, they have access to China, the world's greatest consumer market, so you know, there are a lot of other mitigating factors, but look, you just can't simply sit here and deny that this is not a even bigger problem. This is not a big problem for Tesla because what is happening in Germany, in Mexico. I mean, the entire idea of Tesla. Their strategy is they basically had to choose, we're going to be a luxury brand or we're going to a brand
that is to the everyday person that was there. You know, they went for the Model three. That was really what made it a multi trillion dollar company. Well that's what we're sorry, multi billion dollar company. What their strategy is to sell as many of these Eca threes and whys as possible to you know, the average consumer, and to make it so that the everyday man could afford it and to be into one, as opposed to some sort
of luxury vehicle strategy. Well, now you're competing against BYD, which not only has state subsidization from the Chinese, it's also just a fantastic car. And those are two things that are very very difficult to be so and did I mention tariffs on top of all of this. If you're a foreign country. What's the easiest way to needle Trump?
What are you going to do? I'm tariff and Tesla tomorrow, right, Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, absolutely, And the Tesla stock is also very vulnerable because for a long time a lot of analysts have looked at this and said, you know, this level of valuation given the number of cars that they actually sell, is crazy, like, does not make any sense. But there was a story about especially after Trump gets elected, while he's going to be close to Trump, and that's certainly going to help his business a lot that didn't that
one didn't really work out for him. And then also you know, oh, well the technology that goes into Tesla, that's going to be the thing in the future. And you know, we also haven't really talked about the way that one of the things that Elon wanted to be very invested in was these automated taxis and Weimo was eating their lunch in that regard as well.
So yeah, that's right.
Yeah, we haven't talked as much about WEYMO. You know, I saw one the other day here in Washington, d C. But there was actually a driver behind the wheels, so I'm not sure how that works. Yeah, I still have not been in one. I would love to go, but they have.
Really cornered the to the extent that you know, the autonomous robot taxi market exists at this point, which if you go out to what San Francisco, these things are in the street everywhere. It's Wimo, it's not Tesla.
That's right, and they're trying they've got the what is it the robotaxi I think, which is coming online same thing. Like you said, that was part of the strategy. So it's incredibly vulnerable now to his overall you know, think I just want to return to somebody were talking.
About earlier in our Elon block.
Elon did kind of give me the game away when he's like, you know why the midterms matter because if the Democrats take House.
They're going to subpoena and investigate it. That's right, And I was like, yeah, that actually, dude, they are. You should really worry.
Like if I was Elon, he's lucky he's rich, because you better be ready to lawyer the cup. You are going to spend one hundred million dollars in in legal fees just appearing before all these or even fighting all of these subpoenas. From all these what House subcommittees and all of this, and you can't look, you can't blame
the Dems for doing that. Whenever that's the chief political opponent of people who are energized against right, Well, they're given one of the mandates they're going to run on is we're going to stop Trump and Elon, So of course they're going to investigate Elon, Tesla stubpoena, all of this.
Yeah, okay.
Also the things he's doing are like wildly illegal. I mean, you know, something didn't even make it into the show today because of all other shit that's going on. But you know, RFK Junior's doing these massive Doge cuts at HHS, and you can just look at I talk about one of these in my monologue. Actually you can just look at these individual programs, like one is called light HEAP. It's the heating program, low income heating assistance program, so that you know, old people who are poor in Maine
don't like freeze to death during the winter. These are congressionally authorized programs, like Congress said, we want to do this, and here's the money to do it. And now DOGE comes in and just zeros out the workforce. So there's no one there to administer the program like this is to me, it's a blatant violation of you know, the separation,
the checks and balances between these various branches. So and obviously the courts have looked very skeptically at many of the things that DOGE has done, so they have entirely legitimate, like legal reasons that they would want to look into this, not to mention the level of secrecy. I know, Elon Lesson pretend like there's tons of transparency here, but there's not the level of secrecy around who's doing what into
what ends and to benefit whom, et cetera. So, yeah, of course they're going to be off to the races
with endless investigations and subpoenas. And I think it's I mean, I think it would be shocking at this point if Democrats didn't win big in the midterms, because not only did you have the Wisconsin race double digits in the liberals favor, but if you look down at those two Florida both of them Florida special election seats, it was roughly a fifteen point swing, Yeah, exactly towards the Democrats. Now midterms will be a little bit higher turnout, but
Republicans have a low propensity voter issue. At this point, Democrats are highly motivated, they have a Republicans have a razor thin margin. Like I said, I'd be shocked if Democrats don't take the House, and I think Trump has already written off the idea that they'll be able to hold onto the House. The last piece we have here with regards specifically to Tesla, you can put this up on the screen, is you know, understated in all of this is just what an incredible flop the cyber truck
has been. They've had issues with safety and with recalls. All of every cyber truck effectively was just recently recalled because some of the trim can just fly off because it's just glued on. And we now know that they're sitting on two hundred million dollars worth of cyber truck inventory. They're having so much trouble moving cyber trucks that they actually have banned people from current cyber truck owners from trading in the vehicle at Tesla dealerships. So they say
Tesla's having issues selling new cyber trucks. The automaker is reportedly not taking any as trade ins so they won't accept their own vehicle as a trade in. Many cyber truck owners reported trying to trade in the truck for a new vehicle, they were told the automaker currently doesn't accept its own vehicle as a trade in. Some owners who have had their trucks in service for extended periods of time are also trying to get Tesla to take it back, companies forcing them to go through the lemon
law process. And then other dealerships also are either not taking in cyber trucks or they're giving incredibly low ball offers to potential sellers as they wait to see where the price will stabilize. Right now, use cyber truck prices are down fifty five percent, you're over year, thirteen percent over the last three months, and six percent over the last month.
YEP, not good, and especially because the cyber truck has just become like a symbol of Elon.
Yeah. That's right, that's really yeah, that's exactly right. It's such a like in your face vehicle to buy.
That's a unique vehicle. Yeah, and then you made that vehicle political. It's like, well that's not unstario, Like I said before. You know, if you've got a truck that's like eighty to ninety thousand dollars. There's only a certain subset of people that can afford that, or I guess it should afford that.
So as much as you may want to own the libs, you maybe don't want to own them to the tune of ninety thousand dollars.
Right, that's true.
Although there are a lot of people out there driving what Ford f one to fifty or what's the bigger one?
Not bigger than forty two two fifty?
Yeah, they're super dude.
What are the double deckers and.
All the ones that are like super wow?
Dually, that's what the control room is telling me. There are a lot of guys out there, oh, like eighty grand.
To their local Ford dealership.
But we can talk about personal finance and stuff for another day.
Yeah, but I mean also, look, it's still like it's still kind of a pain in the ass to own an electric vehicle, you know, like the charging network is still like it's okay, but it's still kind of pain in the.
Assquote pain in the ass. But it is for well.
If it's your primary vehicle and you're wanting to use it for like long road trips and stuff like that.
Yeah, you're gonna stop more, there's no question.
Yeah, I mean at the same time, like most people do stop statistically, they usually stop over like two to three hours, so it's more that your stop will be a little bit longer. The truck case is really more about, like if you're statistically more likely to live in a more rural area, so you're gonna have less access to charging exits.
Yeah, which is where a lot of Trump supporters, which is.
Where a lot of Trump people would be.
So anyway, could we talk about that later, Yes, yeah, a lot of you don't need trucks though, and specifically talking to my Texans out there, living in a suburb with eight thousand dollars drug is stupid.
But we'll get that to that later.
All right, let's get to TikTok. So we got another deadline for some sort of deal or sale. You recall that Trump at the beginning of his administration, but a law had been passed through Congress that was like, Okay, there has to be a sale or it's being shut down. And Trump basically came in and said, I'm just not going to enforce that law, and he gave himself a deadline up until this date, and that's coming now, I
believe this weekend. So we're getting down to crunch time here yet again of what is going to happen with regard to TikTok. So let's put this first element up on the screens. From the Financial Times, they say the White House is close to approving the sale of TikTok's US unit to investors. This is a group of investors, including Blackstone and inj Recent Horowitz, among the firms that would rest control of the social media site from China's Byte Dance. Let me go ahead and read to you
a little bit of the details. They say. Under the terms of the transaction, a group of new outside investors, including in Recent Horowitz, Blackstone, silver Lake, and other large private capital firms, would own about half of TikTok's US business. According to several people familiar with the matter, that US unit would be spun off from its Beijing based parent
company Byte Dance. Large existing investors in TikTok, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna Kkar and I don't know how you say this co to CO two which go whatever what also take stakes in the US arm constituting about thirty percent of the business. The plans, still in plural eliminary stages, could yet change, according to those involved in the process, come ahead of a deadline for US law on April fifth that would ban the app in America unless it's Beijing
based owner sells it to non Chinese entities. So, I mean there's a couple of outstanding questions here. By the way, Bezos get to that in a minute. Bezos also putting in an offer wanting Amazon to you know, bid on fight dance. From what I've seen, this group is the more likely victors in this, in this attempted sale. But I mean a few questions here are A number one, the uh, you know, the Chinese entity like has to agree, So there's a question there.
Not the Chinese entity China.
China has to agree and so.
The entity has no say.
Big questions there. China originally struck a very hard line about this. They have since apparently softened some of their rhetoric about what sort of deal they might be willing to accept, So question marks there. I can't imagine China's feeling like real warm and fuzzy towards the US right now. Given the fifty seven percent tariffs that we just let it on China.
Well, well, if somebody just put fifty four percent or whatever tariff on you and you have leverage over them over a platform where one hundred.
Million people use, what are you going to do?
You're going to give them exactly what they want, maybe as long as it's a prelude to something different. Yeah, I mean my problem with this is, what's even the point of all this fakery about sales. If Beijing gets to keep the algorithm, that was the whole point, That's that's why it was.
A national security issue.
Well, and that's part of this deal is that basically the group of you know, the conglomertive investors would own half, but Beijing would still maintain the algorithm, And which brings in the other question of whether this even legally meets the requirements. Yes, in this original law, I'm sure again there would be lawsuits. Who knows how it's going to ultimately be litigated, but that's.
Where we are.
If you want to keep it, then just fucking keep it. Like you know, this, all this other fakery is nonsense. If Beijing controls the algorithm, then that's the whole reason why I would be against TikTok in the first place. If we're going to keep it, then and byte Dance gets to maintain the proprietary algorithm and all of the data, and we have all this fakery with Oracle and US investor groups and all, and what's even the point of
the approved sale either sell it or don't or ban it? Okay, again, I think we would all be better off if it was banned, But whatever, Apparently the President has decided otherwise. And that is perhaps, as you said, legally, considering the fact that even a sale of half the company without
the algorithm would not meet the requirements. I would be very curious to see how that shakes out in terms of its ability to actually have that sale go through, because it's not just a regulatory he has to pass legal scrutiny.
That's right.
And what Byte Dance they're just going to give it up? No, you know, of course they're not. Like I said, my Dance is an arm of the Chinese government. You think they're just going to hand over with their crown jewel of pop culture to the United States of America without any sort of concession on their part. That would actually make me even more furious is if we allowed if we did some deal where by Dance allowed some fake deal to go through for TikTok, and maybe we lessened
like soybean tariffs. So that would be worse, right, because at least those are trying to correct some trade imbalance whatever it comes to farming and for the US consumer and in preserving TikTok and some brain rot algorithm as a result of that.
So whatever.
I mean, you know, I've washed my hands of this a long time ago. It's genuinely sickening. I saw JD on TV this morning and be like, oh, it's a platform news by many Americans.
I'm just like, okay, whatever, what's the point. Why believe in anybody?
At this point I mentioned I mentioned Bezos is putting in his offer. I put this up on the screen from the New York Times. I mean, of course it would make sense. I didn't even know they apparently tried on Amazon to do some TikTok competitor.
Did you know that?
Oh I didn't know.
Yeah, obviously did work.
Out saying like even aw like they used aws.
Yeah I think literally, yeah, yeah, I think so. According to this article, I was like, I did not even know that was the thing that happened, But anyway, that didn't work out for them. So I mean, you can see why he would want to acquire TikTok and have even more you know power in terms of the US economy and get even more directly into I mean, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, the amount of data that they have
about all of us is completely astonishing. Right, the things that they know about all of us is already very disturbing, and TikTok could be important for gleaning even more data. You know, as the AI race develops, you can see how this would be increasingly valuable as well. So anyway, he is making his bid two from what I saw, Like I said, I think the other group probably has the edge here, the Andrees and Horowitz, Blackstone, et cetera,
that conglomerate. I I am a little bit surprised that Elon isn't in the mix here because remember that was what China had kind of floated, like, hey, maybe maybe Elon would be someone we I mean, that's but that may be true because there's also as Tesla stock falls, and Elon just did. We didn't even talk about it on the show, but he had his AI company by
Twitter in this deal. I mean, in some ways it makes kind of logical sense because of course Grock is on Twitter, and so you put the two together, et cetera. But in any case, in order to purchase Twitter, he used as collateral significant amounts of his Tesla stock and so one of the things, and nobody knows exactly what the terms of the deal were, and then he renegotiated the deal, so that makes it even more opaque what
exactly the deal was originally. But that's why Tesla stock dropping significantly also has reverberating impacts throughout all of Elon's empire, and most specifically with regard to this loan he took out in order to be able to acquire Twitter. So you may be absolutely correct that he just is not in a cash flush position to be able to make
this kind of a gamble. But that was that was the direction that I was kind of expecting things ultimately go in, and I'm glad that they're not because Elon's Twitter has been.
So yeah, last thing here, I want to make sure we got this in. Let's put this on the screen. Zuckerberg was at the White House yesterday lobbying Trump to
avoid the meta antitrust trial. This is just so ironic because actually the very same time that Zuck was at the White House, I was at an anti trust event yesterday where Lena Khan and some of these other folks were Doha Mechi as well, and we were talking about the future of anti trust and how it was really up for grabs and what the Trump administration, etcetera.
Was going to do.
And then I find out that probably at the exact same time that we were doing that, and Steve Bannon was there praising later.
Conn where picture got yeah, that we were all at the same that at the.
Same time that this was happening, where Zucker is lobbying Trump specifically to avoid the met meta anti trust trial.
How does it compare to TikTok.
Well, obviously it's not just about It's not just about TikTok in terms of for sale. There's still bigger, more meta questions, if you will, about concentration and anti trust and market competition, and you know, if anything, this is actually getting away from that where we're still keeping the company TikTok itself, the algorithm proprietary to big conglomerates which have huge market power.
Over all a lot of us.
It's the same problem actually that applies across the board, whether it's a foreign company or not.
It's also important for anti trust policy to be seen to be as politically neutral as possible, because, you know, because this is a very powerful tool that the federal government has where basically they get to say whether your merger is going to be good to go or whether you're going to have some problems, and whether or not they're successful in court. You know, blocking mergers are causing
companies have to break up or divest. Just going through that process is a major business risk, puts a lot of other things on hold, is very costly, et cetera. And so if you have a muscular antitrust division, but you're only training it on your political adversaries or people who haven't sufficiently bent the knee, like that's what you know, Mark Zuckerberg has been all about for months now. At this point, then it becomes a real you know, it
becomes a real political weapon. And again, you know, consistent with the overall theme of the way that Trump has consolidated power. So that was has been my concern for a while, that that's the way that the new Anti Trust Division, which I am so supportive of and I think is such an important corrective to the mass, you know, uh, aggregation of power among these giant monopolies, tech monopolies, but
all kinds of monopolies across the board. So I'm super supportive of that, but it is really vital that it remain seen and in practice be as politically neutral as possible. And I think, you know, I just I don't think that's the case whatsoever under this administration. And you know that's why Zuckerberg is there again on bendedne pleaning to the king, trying to get in his good graces so that he can get the business favors and outcomes that he ultimately wants for his company.
Let's hope that he doesn't listen to him.
We'll see, Chrystal, what are you taking to look at this?
Saturday will mark fifteen years to the day since the Upper Big Branch Mind disaster, when twenty nine miners were killed in a deadly explosion. It was the deadliest mining accident since the seventies, and it focused the nation's attention on the conditions that these workers face every single day, as well as the combination of corporate greed and lacks regulation that ended in unimaginable disaster for these miners, their families,
and an entire community. When the final investigation was released by the MIND Safety Health Administration, they found that Massy Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, had flagrantly violated safety requires for adequate ventilation, allowing an explosive build up of methane that caused the tragedy. But there was another culprit that was identified in the report. The MIND
Safety and Health Administration called EMSHA itself. The agency in spite of issuing Massy with some five hundred and fifteen safety violations at that mine alone in the year preceding the tragedy, they never escalated to issuing a flagrant violation, which would have triggered a much larger financial penalty. The admission reflected a recognition that without dogged regulators, all the
laws in the world mean absolutely nothing. The tragedy triggered a reform effort to crack down on unscrupulous coal barons, tighten up enforcement, and ensure that the regulators were not in bed with industry. The effort moved forward in some fits and starts, and reforms were more incremental than transformative, but progress was made. The new mship protocols brought down injury rates and helped to bring a little more security
to an inherently dangerous job. Fifteen years after this tragedy, however, that small agency charged with looking out for miners is being shredded by Elon Musk's DOGE effort to chainsaw through federal bureaucracy. Perhaps even more devastating, long standing efforts to research, prevent and treat black lung, which has become more severe and devastating than ever, have been completely defunded. Local newspapers
are increasingly sounding the alarm over these developments. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran a terrific expose titled deep Fear in Coal Country. Doge cuts put regions, miners and families on edge. In this piece, they focus in particular on the plan closure of the Mount Pleasant Mind Safety Office, which has been the busiest MSHAFT field office in the country, having investigated twenty fatalities and conducted more than six thousand regular
inspections just over the past decade. Now that office lease has been canceled and officials there have no idea what the future is going to hold. Will those regulators be fired transferred? Doges offered zero answers, But we know that this closure is not the only one, nor is it the only DOGE attack on minor health. Local news reports in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia suggest that some
thirty five mshaffield offices have had their leases cut by DOGE. Now, these field offices, they really are the lifeblood of mine inspections, and they shoulder the burden of trying to hold corporate greed at bay to keep workers safe and keep them alive. Chelsea Barnes from the nonprofit Appalachian Voices tells Grist quote, there are going to be fewer inspections, which means that operators that are not following the rules are going to get away with not following the rules for longer than
they would have. In fact, even prior to Elon coming in with the chainsaw, MSHAW was already understaffed, already underfunded, and failing to meet its own annual inspection targets. Think of how much worse things are about to get now. These cuts also could not come at a worse time after the Upper Big Branch reforms. Injury rates at some of the most active minds are once again rapidly rising as the industry declines and coal companies chase DP seper
seams of coal at increasing risk to workers. Quote at the Marshall County Mine in West Virginia, one of the largest producers of coal at North America, the injuries rose by more than fifty percent from a decade ago. Records show at the Buchanan Mine in Virginia, the numbers of my miners heard on the job increase ninefold, from three injuries to at least twenty seven during the same period.
And at the same time, a particularly brutal new form of black lung has also been ravaging miners at younger and younger ages, sometimes after only a short period on the job, due to increased airborne silica dust. So underground miners they're cutting through more and more sandstone to mine thinner seams of coal, using continuous minor machines that kick huge amounts of dust into the air. Miners today are
also compelled to work longer hours. Ten to twelve hour shifts are common, with fewer breaks, contributing to more intense levels of exposure. Remember Appalachia continues to suffer from poverty. Coal mining remains one of the few ways in the region to earn a middle class living. So these conditions of economic deprivation have stripped workers of power and left them with few choices but to trade their health for their livelihood. Sadly, union representation among miners has also fallen
significantly from its peak. Many miners today are in fact non union, and as worker power declines, miners are at the mercy of regulators to enforce the safety standards that can make the difference between facing the miserable slow suffocation of black lung and getting to enjoy the fruits of your hard work with your family into old age.
Identifies just how badly impaired his lungs have become. The test confirms what he and respiratory therapist Lisa Emery already know. Kevin's black lung is so severe that he can no longer work in the mines.
Yeah, these are tough.
What's different about Kevin is his age. He used to be. Black lung didn't force a man out of the mines until he was in his late fifties or early sixties. Kevin is just thirty four Kevin has been a cool minor almost half his life. There he was, at age eighteen, suddenly making more money than he ever dreamed possible.
The first six months on the ground, at twelve dollars an hour, made seventy six thousand dollars six months and six months. That's how bat y'all worked. Sometimes I wouldn't even go home.
I'd go out and sleep.
In the parking lot, get back out, and go back in. Then you look at stuff there, you really realize and the dangers.
When you have.
Something to live four instead of just yourself.
Now. As ever, aspect of dealing with black lung, from prevention to research, to early identification to treatment, all of it is under assault by this administration. First of all, Trump's new mine safety head is the former head of an industry lobbying group which is suing over the planned implementation of a new rule to help to combat blacklung. But the primary assault on minor health is coming from
RFK Junior's indiscriminate cuts at HHS. In particular, hundreds of workers have been laid off from the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety that's called NIOSH. This is the office within HHS which is specifically targeted at worker safety, cops, firefighters, and miners, and there is probably no group of workers that benefits more from the work of Niosh than miners.
In fact, researchers at this commission they were the first to identify this new aggressive form of black lung that is afflicting miners due to that increased silica dust. According to Louisville Public Media quote, Pittsburgh's research branch alone an experimental line, an acoustic chamber, and a lab that was instrumental in proving that miners were slowly dying by inhaling
toxic silica dust. Niosh also runs a mobile clinic that rolls through coal country to screen miners for black lung in its early stages and consult with them on treatment plans and track the spread and virulence of this deadly disease. But perhaps NIOSH's most important work is administering a program that allows any miner with signs of black lung to receive a job transfer within their own company to non dusty work with no loss of pay and no loss
of benefits. Yesterday, I had the chance to speak with a West Virginia lawyer named Sam Patson Key explained to me just how pivotal that program has been in protecting the health of thousands of coal miners. He also explained to me the utter heartbreak of watching men who are not even out of their forties sitting across from him, wheezing and strapped to an oxygen tank because of what this horrible disease had done to them. These are human beings.
We know how to protect them. This administration, though, has chosen to throw them to the wolves now. Many miners also depend on local clinics funded through MSCHEFT for black lung treatment. That too, is now in doubt. Current funding for those clinics last through June, and safety advocates tell the Pittsburgh Post Gazette they have no idea what is going to happen after that. There is probably one hope for a potential reprieve here West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito.
She's a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and being a Republican, she could potentially appeal to Trump or Elon for a stay of these disastrous cuts. So far, she's put out what I would classify as a fairly tepid statement, saying, quote, during my meetings with Secretary Kennedy prior to his confirmation, and as recently as last week, we discussed how important
the health of coal miners is to West Virginia. Any cuts that impact their health monitoring need to be restored immediately. I'm working with the Department of Health and Human Services to understand the depth of these cuts, both to programs and the workforce in Morgantown. Sure, though to emphasize that she believes in quote the broad vision, Let's be clear here, this attack on minor health and safety, it's a betrayal.
It's the latest betrayal in a long list of national betrayals of Appalachia that has led to over a century of extraction and exploitation that helped to build the nation, made a few very wealthy and hung the workers and ordinary citizens of this region out to dry. It is also specifically a betrayal by Donald Trump, who built his political victory in twenty sixteen on the back of these workers.
He promised to be their champion and, with his celebration of fossil fuels, to lead an economic renaissance that would deliver greater prosperity for them and their communities. Never trust a robber baron. He will use you to get power, and he will dump you the second it does not serve his billionaire buddies. The miners of Appalachia unfortunately, will never compete with the guy who dumped a quarter billion
dollars into Trump's campaign. Coffers and this program. I spoke to the lawyer or Sam about so he really wanted me to understand how important it was that you have this mobile Niosh clinic. It's like, you know, it looks like a bus that rolls through community. It's very high visibility. Everybody sort of knows about it and really values it. They're able to do early detection. And then if you have even early signs of black lung developing, which by the way, guys, there's no cure for it only gets
progressively worse. If you have even early signs of that, you're able to avail yourself of this program to transfer to what they call a non dusty job, so you're no more at risk. If you don't have anyone to administer this program, it's just gone, like it just doesn't exist anymore. Even though this is something Congress said we want to do, it's important. It's important to you know, all the legislators from this region, and now it's just going to be completely ended.
There's nothing even to say it's sick, it's gross, especially because as you and I know, these are all Republican voters too, right, so this is a state which what went forty something percent? And honestly, and this is what
I worry about, will they really know about this? Right, not even in terms of media, but given the connection to coal mining and so much of what we've seen with the culture war, like this is the real test of theory about like how much you can punish somebody and still see if they'll actually continue to support you, because I mean, you tell me, what have you seen in West Virginia politics? Is their senator speaking up for them? Is anybody saying a word?
Barely? Yeah? Barely? No, that's exactly right, and you know, it's devastating. I think it's important, you know, zoom out from these miners, which again have just been betrayed at every turn in our country's history. And you know, do this incredibly difficult work that truly did help to build our nation, But to zoom out from them, you know, when you see the people who had their badges revoked at HHS and they're being kicked down, they're lined up
and whatever. You can sometimes gloss over what each of these individual programs might mean to a certain person, to a certain community. The way that just getting rid of you know, it really is an end run around Congress too, because they wanted this program to be in place. They were trying to do something to you know, assist and
protect this group of workers. And this administration has just figured out that if they can get rid of the people that are administering the program, then it's like the end of the program altogether without having to go back through Congress. So, you know, it really is going to be unfortunately devastating for this community unless kellymore Capito can you know, plead her case and you know, petition the
King to get some of these things revoked. So I certainly, you know, call her and ask, because that's kind of the only prayer.
He used to work in. Cold, didn't he?
Oh he's a cold baron, That's what I mean.
He's a cold billionaire. Last time much. Well, I guess they don't love black lung screeners.
Or any of that.
No, he doesn't. He doesn't want this program that allows people to transfer jobs or whatever to be administered. No, he's he's he has been, you know, one of the dirty operators in this industry where he's a billionaire, really rich guy, and and miners have had instances where you know, they go and do their their ten twelve hour shift and they're eighty hours a week. I me imagine that eighty hours underground in a mine and then their their paycheck bounces.
That's grim.
Yeah, So this is that's what we're talking about, as the other West Virginia senator. So there you are.
Let's see what happens.
Okright, we got Zeed Jelani standing by, let's get to it. Joining us now is a great friend of the show, Zed Jilani to talk about a new gambit by a Zionist organization which is distributing literal lists of people to be deported to the Trump administration. Let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen from the Washington Post.
The Milton Zionist group BETAR is threatening activists online with a quote deport list, and all current indication is that that list is actually being used by people in power. So we thought nobody better than Zed to break some of this down for us, give us some of the background on this, and just to really just describe how
completely insane it all is. So zed first of all, it's great to see my friend, but really just just lay it out for us, what kind of a threat this is to not only free speech, but really just to take orders from an organization like this.
Yeah, I mean Betar Actually, you know, it's it's history stretches back more than one hundred years, right. It was established a sort of a militant sort of wing of the Zionist movement in the early nineteen hundreds. It was active throughout Europe, and then I think it was also continued in activities after the establishment of the State of Israel.
And in many ways, it's kind of like, you know, remember Howard Dean used to say he was he represented the democratic part, the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, or you know, that line actually goes back further than Howard Dean, But anyway, Batar kind of does the same thing for the Zionist movement. Right, It's sort of it's it's kind of on an island of its own in terms of some of its points of view and the
ideology that it promotes. And actually even the Anti Defamation League and other organizations that tend to be very supportive of the Israeli positioned consider Betar to be an extremist group. Right, the Democratic Majority for Israel, which is like you know, basically supports a super pack style or five onesie four type spending in the Democratic Party to support Israel, even they have labeled Batar to be an extremist group, and in fact, in the Washington Post story that you just mentioned,
they called that story anti semitic. Then they also call Batar an extremist group in the same statement, meaning they just don't want any Jewish person to be blamed for these deportations. I guess is why they call the story anti semitic, because I don't think it's one hundred percent like clear or transparent how the Trump administration is going about labeling and then deporting people. But Betar has been
claiming credit for right. This organization has been, particularly on their social media and their public utterances, have been saying that basically they've been assembling lists of people to offer to the Trump administration based on students who they identify, particularly foreign students that they identify at demonstrations or other campus or university events. I think Betar is quite a presence in New York, which has been some of the
epicenter of some of the demonstrations, with high profile demonstrations. Actually, I think the other day they even said that they're trying and do the opp they're also trying to give lists of Jews to the Israeli government to have them
banned from Israel. And these tend to be you know, left of center or center left Jews, you know, even liberal Zionist Jews who have you know, questions concerns about the war, about Benjamin and who's government and so yeah, I think the organization is kind of seeing itself as a moment to shine. They've kind of been a pariah an outcast in the Jewish community, particularly the United States, but I think they see a little bit of influence
of interest here, right. They think this is a time where there are a lot of people in the Jewish community who have been uneasy about the protests because they're sort of torn about the war, but they don't necessarily like all the rhetoric in the in the demonstrations or divestment movements and so on and so forth. So Beitar, I think sees an opportunity to step up and say, hey, actually,
we're on your side. Look look at all this useful work that we're doing for you, helping get rid of these troublemakers.
Right.
So, it's it's kind of a way for them to try to, you know, staying wash themselves or de marginalize themselves in their position because you know, like I said that they've never been considered to be mainstream in any way in the finest movement or even within the American Jewish community.
It feels like the opposite of Saint Washington me. It feels like, oh, we're you know, we're part of this effort to destroy free speech in America? Aren't we great? Aren't we cool? And one of the things that they've been saying in claiming credit at least for the targeting of the Trump administration of these students, some of whom are permanent residents, some of whom are student visa holders, is they're saying naturalized citizens are going to be next.
They tweeted out, we told you we've been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard
it here. First, those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands and listen again, I don't know if the White House is directly like following their lists and moving in the direction that Betar wants them to, but it was noteworthy to me that the State Department spokesperson got a question about whether or not naturalized citizens would be targeted and she would not say, which is an extraordinarily different
direction and policy than we have seen, you know, in basically the history of this country. So Zeed, I wonder if you can, you know, reflect on how extraordinary that is and whether you think it's possible given what we've already seen from this administration with regard to student targeting.
Yeah.
So, I think the issue with naturalized citizens was actually brought up in the first Trump administration. I think it was kind of a Stephen Miller idea or someone in his camp or orbit that you could actually in certain cases remove citizenship from people who have been granted it
after coming to the United States. Right, And as far as like how possible that is, I think you know that maybe is reserved for a case where somebody like lies on their citizenship application, right, or has de brought in you know.
The American government in some way, right, it's not.
Someone having their citizenship, you know, denaturalizers stript based on ideological disagreement or some utter ends of some idea or speech.
I can't really think of an.
Example of that, but it would kind of be precedent setting for them, right. I think that a big part of the reason why some people on the rights are supporting all this is not just like the sort of the more niche cause about the Middle East or about Israel, right, which you know, organizations like Beta, you know, organizations that are a little more softly and support of this, like
the ADL, you know, maybe they're concerned with that. But I also think that like there's is this broader Native Ast project, right, which I think that like someone like Stephen Miller does not really want to see the I guess he would consider the browning of America, right. He thinks that America has brought in too many people from foreign lands to begin with.
And so it's kind.
Of an overlap and interest right between sort of people who are very fixated on the Middle East conflict, but also people who just like would like to see fewer foreigners in America period.
Right. There is a wing of the GOP base that feels that way.
And that might be part of why they're not as disturbed by rollbacks in due process, by rollbacks and freedom of speech and expression, because like, hey, at least we're getting rid of them, right, we don't really care about how you know, many people I think would argue, look, Biden brought so many people in through all these channels which we didn't appreciate and which were irregular, and they're some ways abusing the Asilon process or similar laws, So
we don't really care what process it takes to get rid of these people, right. And I think that's also like a bigger part of this because even a lot of light that Republican base doesn't care that much about the particulars about the Middle East conflict, about Israel or Swan and so forth.
But I think they do have this larger resentment.
About immigration, right, And I think those two things combining could end up, you know, having the Trump administration take a second look at like this denaturalizing process, which.
I think they had.
I think they did flow in the first first term, but they didn't really do much with it. They seem to be pushing the boundaries a lot more this time. So who knows, well, Zeed.
I mean, first of all, you're absolutely right, and certainly listen, now, if we had a whole debate here, that's certainly where my sympathies were, and so I get where they're coming from. One of the things that actually pulls me back are people like you, people like Glenn Greenwald, and so even taking the naturalized citizenship out of this talk then about the free speech implications about going after these protesters solely
on the grounds of speaking against this foreign country. In many of these cases, they have not been charged or committed with crimes in order to at least normally justify their removal from the United States.
Look, I think that a lot of this is the other part of the overlap between different parts of the GOP coalition. I think a lot of people in their Republican Party were upset at colleges and universities, probably going back ten years or more.
I mean, even when I was in high school.
I remember, you know, teachers complaining about Marxist professors at UGA.
And you know, UGA is not a very radical school. It's my alma mater.
But I think particularly the past ten years because of heightened censorship and all these trends on university campuses, a lot of conservatives just didn't really trust them or like them to begin with.
And so I think.
Parts of the GOP base are also like, Okay, screw Harward, screw Columbia. They were never kind or generous or compassionate towards US conservatives.
Why do we care about them?
But what I would caution about that is like, Okay, there are steps that the Trump administration could take to enforce greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of assembly, more protection of conservative voices, more promotion even ideological promotion of maybe more diversity and viewpoints, so on and so forth at colleges and universities. I think maybe they've done a little bit of that. They've hinted they want to do
a little bit of that. And for the most part, what they're doing is they're actually making things worse, right, They're making it. They're establishing a president where the government can severely crack down on political government itself can severely crack down certain political points of view at these colleges and universities, and the president they're establishing could easily be
utilized by a future president. I mean, anytime you give the government an inch, it tends to take a mile or any really any large institution.
Right.
So like let's say, you know, in Bizarro and Earth too, you know, the Democratic president is deporting immigrants because they don't use the proper pronouns, right, because in their country they don't have the same ideas about transgenderism, right or you know, their genders or so on and so forth. Right, like you could see a slippery So that goes in many different directions, but it's all going against greater speech rights.
Right.
It's not really benefiting conservatives to create all these speech codes around Israel because the people who are pushing that, like Miriam Adelson there, Bill Ackman or so on and so forth, they don't really care about conservative speech. Right, That's not their cause, right, they're part of it. They see themselves as part of a much larger blood feud between peoples in the Middle East, and whatever it takes to win that in the United States, they'll do it.
But they're not really super interested in conservatives and it look it is. It is a very difficult president to establish because this is happening, you know, three months into the trumpet three four months into the Trump administration. Right, imagine what three or four years into it looks like.
Right if they managed to establish this kind of rule so early on, and then you know, three four years of keep pushing the envelope, right, I mean, I think talking about what happens to naturalized citizens whose speech they dislike and that they may not even be too bold of a thing for them to do it. You know, other times Trump has said that maybe boycotting TESLA should be illegal. People are saying that vandalizing a car is an act of terrorism. I don't think you should vandalize
a car or engagement road rage. I think all that stuffs really juvenile and wrong. But like when you're expanding what the government can do to people in response to things as wildly disproportionate to what the people are doing. You know, whether it's speech that offends you or minor acts of vandalism, you are giving the government a lot more power. And you can pretty much guarantee that anytime you get the government and power, they're going to use it.
I mean, the Patriot Act, right must pass after nine to eleven? What did the Patriot Act mostly ended up being used for? Mostly ended up being used for their war on drugs, Right, They mostly used it for those kind of searches and seizures and you know, extra legal powers.
They didn't even use it mostly for terrorism at the end of the day.
Right, But if you hand someone a bunch of power to do something like that's that's how it ends up being used.
It ends up being used in the maximumly possible ways.
So yeah, well and help pave the way also for you know, this additional extraordinary power grab by the executive. So you're absolutely right, These things rarely, if ever, actually go and reverse. Zeid, thank you so much for joining us and helping us to understand what's going on here underneath the service.
Thanks man, miss talking to you, Thank you, thanks for watching guys. We appreciate it. We will see you all later.
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