6/2/25: Jamie Dimon Dire Warning, Israel Aid Massacre, Ukraine Drone Attack & MORE!

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Also want to get his reaction to some Jake Tapper comments about the college student protests that I think will be interesting.

that was kind of the nature of their injuries. And there's a video coming out from the scene. Emily, obviously it's just absolutely horrific, and he was, you know, he seemed frankly quite unwell, but was sort of ranting and rape saying free Palestine. And of course this comes on the heels of that horrific attack here in DC as well, in which the two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered by

someone else who also said free Palestine. So this is certainly going to heighten interest in what is going on here.

awful scene. I want to add Crystal Bill Malugin as reporting that three senior DHS sources have told Fox that the Boulder terrorist suspect is an Egyptian national in the US illegally as a visa overstay who entered the US during the Biden administration. Bill says I'm told he arrived at LAX in August of twenty twenty two on a B one B two non immigrant visa with an authorized day through twenty twenty three, but he overstayed and never left.

He found some sort of claim with USCIS, potentially an asylum claim, back in twenty twenty two, but in twenty twenty three under the bidenman, USCIS gave him work authorization that though expired in March, so this is coming. It expired March twenty eight, so it's coming in the last couple of months after his work authorization expired.

Palestine and or free any human beings around the world. So, you know, and one other thing that I'll say, and this is a point that shile Benefreim was making on Twitter, you know, rather controversially. Obviously, the attackers in both of these attacks are responsible for their horrific actions. As I said before, this man seems sort of unwell, But in

any case, they're responsible for their actions. But it is also true that if you're concerned about anti Semitism and hate and violence around the world, you know, Israel intentionally conflating all Jewish people with their own atrocities that they're committing is going to lead to an increase in anti Semitism. And so if you care about the safety of Jewish people, as you certainly should, the actions that are being taken, the genocide that is being committed in Gaza is making

Jewish people unsafe everywhere. It is contributing to that horrific climate, especially, as I said, when there is such an overt effort to conflate all Jewish people with the actions of this at this point completely rogue state. So you know, that's I guess my perspective on some of what is unfolding here.

for these US assets. And the big problem potentially, and you know, it's really hard to know exactly what could happen, but what Wall Street is concerned about, what they're telling us and what they're telling the Trump administration is that if demand for new Treasury debt, these new bond issuance is insufficient, you could see basically the US government have to increase the premium, the yield it's called on what investors recoup and return. So if there's an insufficient demand,

the price goes up. Basically what the US government has to pay to get people to buy this debt goes up, and then you can get a really dangerous spike or spiral where borrowing costs rise because the premium that the government has to offer continues to increase. And so that's the core concern here, And just to I know, it sounds probably not that relevant for people's day to day lives, but mortgages, auto loans, things throughout the economy are tied

very fundamentally to the price of the bond. And as the yield prices of the new bond goes up, the prices of old bonds collapses. So that means if you are someone who has put a lot of money in your portfolio into bonds, that part of your portfolio could significantly lose its value. That's traditionally considered a very safe investment,

right like equity stocks. That's the risky thing crypto, the riskiest bonds is supposed to be what's safe, and that's the reason that that bonds are sort of the core pillar of the global financial system. Thirty trillion dollars in US debt is used to borrow against trade against this to have you know, millions of people retirees safeguard there there hirements in their assets, and so Wall Street is very worried about a potential destabilization in that market, in that sector.

to kill us. And you know, I always get asked this question, what are we going to be the reserve currency? And no, you know, if we are not the pre eminent military and the premitent economy in forty years, we will not.

Is it because they see people like Scott Bessett and Donald Trump is wanting continuing to want to remove the dollar as the world currency. Is that what's really going on behind all of this?

worst crisis and the Great Depression. I mean, the guy, the guys on Wall Street having you know, their their their willingness to say what they think and be heedless of their own reputations is kind of not.

But but you know, despite how big that disruption is, people are now more conc learned about the tax bill and what it could mean, especially when coupled with the trade bill. You know, one thing I think is very clear in that clip, or as clear to me at least, there's a lot of people on Wall Street who want to tell reporters and tell others that they're very worried about the impact of the tax bill on the bond market.

What they don't want to do is go out in public and say, hey, Trump administration, we have concerns with who are top economic policy priority because they don't want to be in the Trump administration's crosshairs. So you're seeing Diamond and others go around saying, we got to be really careful about the bond market. Also, you know, the tax bill has some good stuff, has some bad stuff. We'd need to be careful with bonds. But that's that's kind of how they're trying to square the circle here.

They're issuing increasingly vocal warnings about the bond market. As you know, Senate is taking up this bill, but they're not they're not out in front of criticizing the Trump administration and the Republican Party about it because you know, for obvious political reasons.

bond market. So maybe if we can make him nervous about that, maybe that will change the landscape. But I mean, the other irony here, Jeff, is like the four trillion dollars that's being added to the deficit is by and large tax cuts four guys like Damie Diamond. So when they're even like, I don't know, I don't know, this may go a little too far, that also, to me

is quite is quite stunning. Now, my suspicion is that they would like to still get their tax cut, but just have much more aggressive cuts in the social safety net in order to pay for them.

or disproportionately. I would argue households with you know, the highest incomes we have. We did a story recently about thirty percent of the tax cuts go to those with over I think it was three or four hundred thousand dollars per year in income. It is slightly a different constituency than you know, the Jamie Diamond. You know, it's it's not necessarily for those businesses on Wall Street themselves, so I'm not sure that this tax cut is as attractive of a package to them. I mean, they do

have the rate cuts in there. There are cuts for you know, pass through businesses, which you know, these are people who often have over a million dollars a year in income. There are there's a massive reduction in the estate tax. So there are things for very rich people. But it's a little less I think of a of a grab bag for Wall Street businesses and people like Dimond than the first round of tax cuts was. I think you really hit the nail on the head that

they want more spending cuts. So obviously, right if we're talking about the debt, being too big from the tax bill. There's a few options they can spare. They can reduce the amount of tax cuts, but that would require them to either you know, pair back the amount that people at the top are getting, or really like try to do you know, even less of the Trump campaign promises on you know, no tip, taxes on tips, no tax

on Social Security. I don't think, given how much of this is already for upper income people, I think it's very unlikely that they move to pair back what is in there for lower and middle income households.

but they're already pretty large. And my sense from talking to Republicans on the Hill is that they they they fear the politics of an even bigger cut to healthcare, then they do the politics of the bond market, which could be dicey, but you know, the US has added trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to stet over and over and over again, and there haven't we haven't seen the bond market freak out that you know, people like you know, the deficit of hawks have been warning

about for a long time. So you know, maybe there's still more that they can do without without triggering this sort of So you know, the other thing that we've written about is that they've entertained I mean, Steve Bannon has talked to the president directly. We've reported about raising taxes on millionaires, or at least raising is a bit of an overstatement about basically letting the tax cit that they originally approved for the top income rocket to expire

in twenty twenty five. That would basically really get them out of a lot of this bond market chaos they're dealing with. But they don't want to go there because they don't want to raise taxes on the ridge and because Republicans hate that so right, it is a kind of fascinating thing to look at how they're trying to get out of this box.

and it was devastating for them. Many factories, clothes. There was, to put it, mildly, civil unrest. I saw what was happening and didn't like it for them, not for us. I made a fast deal with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation.

Truckers and you know, sort of like shippers and people who Trump considers his people were getting sort of clobbed by these tariffs. And that fact we reported created the space for White House officials who didn't like these tariffs to go to Trump and say, hey, your own people, your own base is getting hit by this, so you need to figure out a way to get these things lowered. And that was what led to the talks in Geneva that led to the accord agree to buy Trader Tecerty.

To Harry Scott Besson, the thing that Trump is complaining about is that even beyond the tariffs themselves, trying to retaliated by restricting what it were called rare earth metals, which are confusingly not actually that rare, but they are essential. And basically eighty percent of production or facilitation synthesis of these rare earth metals is in China. So basically most of the vastngery of the world's production is there, and they

control that supply chain. That's critical for the US defense industry, for US healthcare sector, for all kinds of really critical

economic functions. And I don't know enough personally to weigh in on this, but the Trump administration feels that China has not really removed those restrictions that they agreed to in the Switzerland Acords, and that they're still continuing to restrict those essential medals, and that that you know, might not show open the macroeconomic data, but could severely sort of weaken the US defense industrial capacity for a long time.

And you know, the President thinks that thought that he had an agreement to get that off the books and doesn't feel like that that has been violated.

But on the other hand, it actually still has a pretty high level of tariffs relative to everything that came before him.

the fears in the bond market. So, you know, we've seen kind of a stalling of the deals that Trump said he was going to make with the Europeans and the Japanese and the Indians, that all that talk has really slowed down, and I think there's a legitimate question about whether part of that is due to the desire to bring in revenue via these high import duties, which help, you know, it's kind of an obvious point, but those fall quite heavily on lower income Americans who rely, you know,

a disproportion to share their spending is on imports of food and you know, other sort of critical necessities, whereas you know, the tax bill disproportionately hurts them with the spending cuts. So it's it's they're really potentially getting pinged on both sides here.

the president. That said, there are other tariff authorities. They're called Section three h one and Section two thirty two tariffs that basically require at first an administrative a you know, investigation. The administration has to go out do a bunch of work and then say, because of that work, now we can do these tariffs. And that work is currently ongoing. It just it just takes a little bit of time. But there's really, I think, very very little doubt that

those tariffs can be slowed down by the courts. So even if the courts take off the emergency powers tariffs which they have you know, slowed down, but then we're put back in. Even if that happens, there's still these other terriff authorities that I don't think really anyone questioned their ability to do, and I think those are going to stay, and actually could be even bigger in some ways than the National security teist because those are tariffs on sector, so like every car, every bit of steal,

every you know, part of computer. So that's kind of where this is heading. It could circumscribe to some of the flexibility he has, but it doesn't change sort of like the economic fundamentals of what he wants to do.

specifically said that he had been approached by Republican senators saying that they didn't want the appearance of starvation of the Palestinians of Gaza to affect the ability of the United States to continue funding and arming this war of annihilation. And so we just have to put that out there front and center. From the moment that this launched early last week, there have been dozens of Palestinians killed because Israelis have fired on them, either on their way to

get AID or after they've retrieved AID. I personally know a Palestinian family four members were killed last week after they had gone to retrieve one of these small boxes that barely has enough food for their family. They were

killed by tank ordinance. According to survivors of the hit against them and what we saw unfold over the weekend, many Palestinians are calling it the Whitcof massacre, named after Steve Whitcoff, the Special Envoy, because anger is mounting inside of Gaza toward Trump and his administration, because they feel like they are just completely taking Israel's side and trying to set the Palestinians up with a so called truce or ceasefire deal that would enable Netanyahu to resume the

intensity of the full genocide after either seven days or sixty days. So what we witnessed here was the Israelis unleash gunfire and other attacks on this crowd. And as videos it reports start coming out of Gaza depicting this, and we start hearing international doctors that are on the ground there describing the injuries that they're treating Israel then puts out a video that it says actually shows Hamas

was firing on people retrieving aid. Well, that video that the Israelis put out has now been geolocated, and it wasn't near Rafa where this witcough massacre as the Palestinians are calling it occurred, but actually had occurred at a different time, And it wasn't Hamas that was actually firing

on Palestinians. It was a private gang that there's significant evidence to suggest is being bankrolled or backed by the Israelis to operate as kind of an armed thug force that is selling aid to Palestinians.

be too. This is Ryan's tweet. He actually said the statement from the IDEF about last night's massacre was distributed to journalists, and because Ryan didn't agree to be off the record and this wasn't sent directly to him from the IDF, he actually just posted what was supposed to what the IDEAF wanted to remain quote unquote off the record, and their statement says, approximately one kilometer away from the humanitary aid distribution site and outside the operating hours of

the humanitary aid distribution site, IDF troops acted to prevent several suspects from approaching the troops. During the activity, warning shots were fired towards several suspects who advanced toward the troops. There's no connection between this incident and the false claims made against the IDF, So Jeremy, on the one hand, what we're seeing there is an admission of military action

from the IDF. Right, that's part of the statement. So can you help us understand how Israel is explaining what happened?

And you see these repeated, these claims repeated all the time by journalists. I mean, the track record now is a nineteen month track record where Palestinians videotape witness and then tell the world what has happened.

So you know, what Ryan did was sort of allow people to see, just for a moment, the way that the propaganda is manufactured and the reality is emily that all throughout this genocide, we've seen this repeated over and over and over about massive tunnels under hospitals, Hamas using

protective facilities as military bases. Israel has never been able to produce evidence for the most incendiary claims that it's made, and they're relying on the fact that many media outlets will take the testimony of Palestinians and accept that that's Hamas's narrative. You know, many people in Palestine are from different political factions. Hamas did not win one hundred percent of the vote the last time that they had a democratic election.

of Hamas not not to mention like military members. Palestine is a diverse society and I think it really speaks to the effect of the dehumanization campaign that the Israeli military can put out a video that has nothing to do with a massacre that it committed, and so many news outlets and just people on social media accept Israel's word for it, when nineteen months of context and history indicate that you should never believe the first draft ever

of what Israel says unless they provide indisputable evidence, which they never do.

Israel was correct. I don't think they believe that. They just want to push that reckoning off into the future and then it's contested and by the time you know, any sort of actual like definitive conclusion is reached by the sanctioned official outlets. Everyone's moved on to the next thing. I want to go ahead and get you to walk us through what's going on with the ceasefire negotiations and put the tear sheet up on the screen here, guys

of Jeremy's report. Your headline here is how Israel and Witkof are trying to strong arm Hamas into a deal that does not end the genocide. And you go point by point through what it was that Witkoff or Hamas and the administration had agreed to, and then what the Israeli are pushing for in this quote unquote deal. And seems like there's a number of things here that are meant to be poison pills. So just walk us through the dynamics and some of the critical differences between these two drafts.

chance of ending the war under Donald Trump. And he's actually been very critical of Trump publicly, which is unusual in the.

calling for a ceasefire. That didn't happen, but the discussions continued, and basically what happened is that the Americans worked with Hamas and they said, why don't you lay out for us what your terms would be for a ceasefire, but it has to fit within this category, and Witkoff and Baba made clear to Hamas what the kind of bottom lines were. Hamas then delivers a thirteen point proposal that fit in line with what the American said. This was

last Sunday on May twenty fifth. Hamas then announced that it has made an agreement with the United States for a framework for negotiating a ceasefire. Now, in a mediation process or a negotiation process, this is very common. One side drafts something, the mediators look at it, they say, Okay, we're going to go down back to the other side. So they were told, yes, this is acceptable, this fits within the American requirements.

point from where what Hamas's position would be. So Witkoff then says, oh, we're on the precipice of sending out.

The bottom line on this is that Hamas has made many concessions in this back and forth, but they've identified as as minimal red lines that they want a clear path to an end to the genocide. They've said in their own proposal that the moment a ceasefire agreement is signed, Hamas will totally relinquish governing authority.

into if you want. But yes, there are there's certainly are benefits to having a party in power that you have effectively dehumanized, demonized that is listed on the State Department list of terrorist organizations, the British designation as a terrorist organization.

They want probably a puppet sort of coalition of certain Arab nations that have normalized relations with Israel to be the ones that come in as an outside force. They don't want Palestinians in charge of their own political destiny or to continue forward with a path of a national liberation struggle.

Trump administration's position throughout this entire process. But it just seems like US interests are sort of obviously being sidelined or harmed here in this negotiation process.

of historic Palestine. And I think objectively speaking, it would be in the US interest to have a stable, independent Palestinian state that has good relations with the United States. As you know, Emily, as well as any journalist covering this, there are multiple camps in Trump world, and I think what we're seeing here is that the most militant, hardline kind of Zionist camp within Trump's political network, his administration, and his financiers of his campaign, they don't want any

Palestinian state. You know, people like Mariam Adelson and Mike Hackabee don't believe there's a such thing as Palestinians. But you know, Ryan Grim and I have also heard from sources within the administration that are in a different camp, that are in an anti interventionist camp, that believe that the United States should not be entangled in foreign wars, that are growing increasingly concerned about Witkoff's conduct.

America has limits with you. Now there is still some hope I think, not just among you know, the Palestinians that are negotiating this, but more broadly that eventually Trump is going to understand that allowing Net and Yahoo to be in control of agreements that clearly the United States can have the final word on is counter to American interest. It is not actually in the US interests to have someone setting fires all over the Middle East. I mean,

really fascinating. When Trump was asked about Iran at that press conference in the Oval Office last week where he had summoned whitcof to make the Gaza comments, he was asked by reporters, you know about what did you say to Net Yahoo and Trump basically set it out loud. I told him to back off, you know, so again, you know, people often attack me and they say, oh, why are you believing what Trump says, or why are you believing what Witcoff says.

other college campuses. We're gay students have protested things that are going on in Muslim countries having to do with the LGBT community community in those countries, and the gay students are made to be the oppressor because a lot of them are white. And that's also what's going on when it comes to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The Israelis are made to be the oppressor of the Palestinians, the oppressed, and.

genocidal war began. Their brains are not poisoned by this dogmatic adherence to the conventions of imperial foreign policy, which, unfortunately Jake Tapper has totally morphed in to a spokesperson for the greatest excesses of imperialism during the past nineteen months. And also sometimes the truth is just true. No one with a brain in their head can look objectively at what has happened over the past nineteen months and come to any conclusion but that Israel is the oppressor in

this case. They are burning children alive. They are tricking people to come to aid, to get aid, and then drone striking them, hitting them with tanks, firing bullets upon them. They're bombing hospitals, They're shredding children. This morning, I saw a girl who looked like she was about six or seven years old. Her body was completely severed in half. Every single day we are watching Palestinian children burned alive with American weapons, and Jake Tapper has the audacity to

use the phrase academic theology. The theology that Jake Tapper and people like him subscribe to is this deference to the lie filled agenda of the most powerful and violent forces on earth.

they're white, and then says that's the same lens that's being applied in Israel Palestine, and it's like, dude, you don't even understand this idea that you are now condemning as the source of the poison, the source of the

all bad things happening here. The point is, sometimes people actually are oppressors, and sometimes people actually are oppressed, not all of the time, but sometimes, and yes, some people take it too far and apply it universally, but sometimes it's actually true, and he seems to just be unable to understand that a lot of young people aren't like this is a great point that you made, Jeremy. A lot of young people aren't even pay attention to see in it, and they have no idea what he's saying.

conservative and liberal justices throughout history. That's worth protecting with everything that we have. And so you know, people like Jake Tapper are actually much more in alignment in many ways with people on the far right or in the Trump administration that are trying to demonize or criminalize the speech of people that are speaking out against Israel's genocidal war. I think people from all factions should realize that the time when your principle is shown is not when speech

is being curbed against people you agree with. That it's being curbed or attacked against people with whom you have vehement disagreements. That's what actually shows what your principles are.

happened to Jews in the Holocaust, which of course was absolutely atrocious and nobody wants to see or feel like never again should be real. But then they just keep this one group of people in the perpetual victim category, no matter how circumstances change, no matter what the reality is,

no matter what that group of people is doing. So, you know, and the other piece of this, of course, is that people like Tapper conflate all Jewish people, yes with Israel, and all Jewish people with being you know, supportive of Israeli actions, which we also know is completely false and untrue, and also place into actually the very simplistic like victim narrative that he perpetuates and propagates with his propaganda.

But anyway, all this to say, it's about power, the sort of Marxist I don't even want to use his term theology behind it, but it's about power dynamics, and that's where he also is completely clueless as to how this is or is not being applied in that case as well.

notion of what free speech is. And let us never forget that the you know, the United States, all of us who grew up in the United States, at every event, it's we're reminded of the greatest generation. We're reminded of the sacrifices of World War Two. This is the origin of what we're witnessing now. When the United States and European countries decided to impose a European settler colonial state

on Palestinian land. That's historical context that matters. And at the end of the day, the position that the supporters of Israel's genocidal war take is that nothing can justify October seventh, but October seventh justifies everything. And this is a massive historical lie that necessitates people believing that history began on October seventh. It's a huge mistake for us not to take into account the seventy seven years of

history that led up to this. Whatever anyone's political position is on this, let's debate based on facts and historical accuracy and not just invent our own paradigm where Israel equals Judaism. Masses of Jews around the world have been at the forefront of opposing this genocide and it's a total insult to the Jewish faith for net and Yahoo to pretend that his war of annihilation is somehow being done in the name of a religion.

Now the Ukrainians are claiming that over forty of these Russian warplanes were hit in an operation that is being called Spiderweb.

the air to go and hit their targets. The Ukrainians are saying that this operation was more than eighteen months in the making, and you know, obviously context here is you have some negotiations that are ongoing.

in Siberia, nearly three thousand miles from Ukraine. The video captures bombers under attack, with explosions visible and smoke rising.

to feel very insecure within its own territory. And I know that it's sort of obnoxious to talk this way when Russia is bombing and bombarding Ukraine for years at this point, but we also have to acknowledge the reality of the situation and how dangerous and fraught it Ultimately is something that people like us have been warning about for a long time.

So incredible from a military perspective, and military experts have looked at that and said, this not only is just remarkable technologically, but this changes literally changes the game. This changes the future of warfare because again, you can remotely detonate things with three thousand plus miles of distance between you and in this case of truck, and completely change a war that's been going on for years and years.

And Russia had been crystal noted this bombarding Ukraine hard in the days before this, a lot of Ukrainian service members had died. So there's peace negotiations happening today, actually right now in Istanbul. I want to put this next element on the screen. This is c three conflicting reports

about whether the United States knew. So this is Jennifer Jacobs of CBS saying administration sources told her that the White House was not aware that today's large scale drone attack by Ukraine on the Russian military aircraft was coming. That's also quite an interesting aspect of this happening right

before major peace negotiating negotiations at the same time. And we can put the next element, this is our no Bertrand saying essentially, it's the same type of action as Israel's pager attack, turning civilian supply chains into potential weapon delivery systems and making them inherently suspect our not goes on to say it should be deeply troubling to anyone thinking through the sheer irresponsibility of the precedent set and Christally you put this really well that it's it's not

an easy point to make when we're talking about Ukraine defending itself and responding to days of bombardment that killed its service members. But the precedent being set in the midst of war is troubling because it's in that sort of fog of war. It's in the fog of uncertainty of war and desperation and going forward it is really frightening.

be able to procure and deploy these killing machines. You have you know, parallels not only to the Pager attack, but I also was thinking back to the tech that was used on October seventh by hamas they also used low budget off the shelf drones to to destroy and debilitate this multi million dollar, elaborate high tech security fence that Israel had put into place, complete with automatic machine guns, and so they were able to disable the sensors and the cameras.

because of the extensive coordination that would be involved. Not to say it's impossible, but the infiltration of civilian supply lines. I mean, this has long been considered completely out of bounds in terms of war fighting, and you know, it appears like that was involved here in this Ukrainian attack

with Russia. And so you have not only the you know, troubling context of going after Russia's nuclear triad and Russia being a nuclear power, and you know, at a particularly fraught moment in terms of this this ongoing horrific war. But then you also have what this spells in terms

of the future of warfare. And if you are the global superpower as we are, with a one trillion dollar defense budget, as we are about to be, you have to grapple with the fact that you know, nearly any actor around the world could acquire this technology and deploy

it for horror, teror killing and death anywhere in the world. Right, So, you know, I think that should be really I think that should be unsettling for everyone here and abroad and in Russia and Ukraine and everywhere else because of what it means in terms of the ability of even small ragtag groups to inflict death and suffering on anyone they want.

brought to the negotiations. So no idea about that, but it does raise the question, similarly to what's happened in Israel, about you know, actors who could not be prosecuting these wars without massive funding and resources from the United States acting independently in ways that if you're Ukraine and you have different goals for how this war should end from the person who's funding the war or the country, I should say, is funding the war to the tune of

billions and billions of dollars, and you're not on the same page about it, Maybe you're going to do things and keep them private that can escalate during peace negotiations.

there was US involvement, to say that there wasn't. However, it is also possible that, you know, the Ukrainians are acting independently in a sort of I mean actually rogue way, which is also a disturbing possibility in and of itself.

I didn't give it as much attention, but there were also two Ukrainian attacks recently within Russia that targeted bridges and caused actually some civilian deaths within Russia as well, and that hasn't been I think the reason it hasn't been reported as much is because the Ukrainians haven't, I believe, claimed responsibility for those attacks.

the Western press. But Russia has just seized somewhere around two hundred kilometers, made significant advances in Ukrainian territory in recent days and looks like they're setting up for what they're describing as a fresh ground offensive. So you know, there's been a massive Russian bombardment throughout Ukraine and there has been evacuations. The reason they think it looks like it's you know, setting up for a new Russian ground invasion.

There have been evacuations of some of these villages near the front lines in preparation for you know, potential escalation in terms of the ground invasion. So again place into the context here, you've got Zelenski going into these peace negotiations does not have a particularly strong hand because of wariness among the American public and among the Republican Party and potentially among in the Trump administration, although it kind of depends on the day of continuing to fund and

arm them to the hilt as has been done. Although so far the Trump administration has basically continued the Biden era policy, but you know that is not certain in the way that it was under Joe Biden whatsoever. So you have that, then you have the fact that the Russians just have so much war state, industrial capacity and just so many more bodies to throw at this conflict.

You have some will within the Ukrainian people waning just because of the brutal toll that this war has taken on, you know, Ukrainian men in particular, and their difficulty being able to get new recruits and actually like unconscionable tactics that have been used to round up Ukrainian men and

send them to the front lines here. So you have Zelenski going to these negotiations with a relatively weak hand, and I think you know it's pretty obvious this is an attempt to try to demonstrate listen, we can still cause you pain even if you think that time is on your side and capacity is on your side.

a though the president I do find very frightening. But they've been getting bombarded over the last several days, so you understand the timing of it. Absolutely, we will see if the toothpaste can ever be put back in the tube, but I'm deeply skeptical of that. Crystal.

there is some sort of a dramatic development. But you know, I also have to say a lot of war analysts, military analysts have been quite right wrong about this conflict.

But I mean, with this type ability to commit this type of attack, and with the modern warfare dynamics that Emily and I were just talking about, where you can use low budget, off the shelf tech, you know, those things can help to level the playing field, especially when you're talking about a group of people who are fighting for where's it's truly existential, and where you are fighting for your homeland. I mean, the US has learned this

lesson many times before. Come in with all the military might in the world, but it's no simple thing to dislodge people's sense of pride and nationalism and commitment to

the homeland. So, you know, I think it's I just I think everyone should be very cautious about making any sort of predictions about what the military future of this conflict ultimately looks like, because there are more variables here than just the okay you add of the Russian industrial might, the manpower X plus y equal z. There are more complex factors going in here, and in some ways that's precisely what this Ukrainian attack really demonstrates.

interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then I'm a little stuck in a bind where I'm like, well, I don't want to, you know, speak up against the administration, but I don't want to because I also don't want to take responsibility for everything the administration is doing.

There basically, even if you want to talk about spaceships with Elon Musk, you're still going to be talking about terras, of course, and the combination of Elon's even and people talk about Tesla a lot, but even I mean the combination, particularly of a space business, it is so coupled, it is so intertwined with the United States government that it's

you wouldn't be able to do that interview. I mean what Elon Musk ended up saying there, and that's what I'm curious to get your thought on, is essentially that he just shouldn't have sat down for the interview because he's saying, there's no way for me to talk about any of this without looking like I'm weighing in on

the politics of it. And I wonder, Crystal, if this is something that he's realizing increasingly is a problem after getting involved with politics six plus months ago, seeing his businesses take a hit, and then realizing, hey, I should probably go focus back over here. It's interesting to see that happening as he's stepping back from DC completely.

obviously that is deeply political. The SpaceX mission is going does require and already depends in substantial part on government money. So there is no way to disentangle Elon Musk, his company's, his spaceships, and what is going on in the Trump administration. But you know, even putting that piece aside, the second part of that clip where he starts talking about, well, you know, I don't agree with everything they do, and so I'm in this place, and you know, I don't

want it to look like I'm co signing everything. But then again, I don't want to look like I'm a critic, which is fair by the way he actually brings that up himself, right, That wasn't even at the prodding of the reporter. So even without you know, the reporter then explicitly asking questions about the Trump administration, Elon himself can't disentangle who he is, what he's doing, his businesses, and what's going on in terms of politics.

It always has been. And so it genuinely makes me wonder if Elon Musk thought that, by putting so much money into the election and coming into DC and being coronated as the King of Doge, that Trump would maybe give some deference to Elon Musk on a lot of these priorities that are just totally out of line with the crypto libertarian and ethos that Musk and I should say ideology that Musk wants the Republican Party to look

more like. And now that he's sort of on his way out, there's this very obvious conflict in what he's saying. Like it's actually fair that when you start to talk about these things, first of all, you move markets, you look like you have inside information, because you do, you look like maybe you're trying to put your thumb on the scale. Like all of those frustrations are perfectly accurate.

But that's the obvious reason that people don't get too involved in politics to the point where they've become a special, special government employee, because those problem those those problems, like even from a business perspective, are so obvious.

And so I think he believed that he could basically do what he wanted, and for a while he could, you know, for a while he did come in And this is also you know, someone who sees himself as the only main character and this sort of like great civilizational figure, I mean, is truly how he views himself and he views his project of getting to Mars and you know, through via SpaceX and the need to marshal vast government resources in order to do that, I think

as a central driving desire. I think also something he did accomplished during his time in Washington. A central driving desire is to get all of these various regulatory agencies off of his back and make it so that he's not facing labor violation complaints and Tesla doesn't have to be regulated.

b businesses, so he wants to be less visible. However, I think two things do indicate that he is genuinely on the ounce with this administration. One of them is what I just showed you them pulling his guy at NASA. That's a big blow to Elon because he wants to be able to get whatever you know, this government can offer to SpaceX. So I think that is a blow.

And the other thing is that there are there is just a flood of leaks going to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and all kinds of other outlets about how much everybody in the administration hated him and about how he was doing all sorts of drugs all the time while he was here. And I believe during that Oval Office meeting, we can put this image up on the screen. You can see some evidence of that cocktails.

has been abusing drugs like katamine. And this is a story sourced from people who were spending time with Elon Musk on the campaign trail in particular, which is when they say it was quote more intense than previously known, his drug use was more intense than previously known. Just several hours later, after all denials are happening, he's literally standing next to the President in the Oval Office, And I mean, I would assume that what we just watched

on screen was drugs. I think anybody would assume that that's drugs. If it's not drugs, it's a problem that was completely abnormal. Now, Trump in the press conference also said that Elon's not really leaving. This is what the Wired story focused on, and that doses his baby. He's going to be back and forth. But at the same time, it was like an exit. So let's also get part of that Oval office conversation where a reporter asked Elon

Musk about his black eye. This comes amidst speculation that he had a physical altercation with Scott Bessett, which we will get to in just a moment as well. So this is D three Aspectly, mister Musk, what is your eye?

is behind the scenes on all of this. There there's also a Wall Street Journal story this is D five we can put on the screen, getting into the relationship between Trump and Musk as well. They described it as a quote unquote complicated relationship. And the journal story starts with an interesting anecdote that administration official sources in the administration gave to the journal, where Trump asks to his

advisors about Doge, was it all bullshit? And I think the answer to that question, Crystal is pretty much yes.

how did you not know that? Like, That's the thing that's crazy to me, is like, if you just know the very basics of government accounting math, you knew from the beginning that it was all bullshit when it came to the cost cutting, because if you want to cut cost significant costs in the federal government, you are not going to do it by finding some like mice study you don't like, or even and we'll get to this in just a moment by completely decimating USAID to the

vast detriment of you know, millions of sick children, sick children and other innocence.

certainly mission accomplished there. So there was a lot that was done, and a lot that was inly destructive and is going to continue to have huge consequences. But I just I think it's so insane that anyone took seriously the idea that this was going to be a real cost cutting and efficiency effort from the beginning, and the way that they approached it.

A lot of those costs have been eliminated. I mean, it's completely trunk to a shell of its former self, no question about that. I suspect Marco Rubio will still use it as like a long arm of soft power, but just in a very different way. So there's all kinds of like, there's all kinds of waste that you can find in the federal government budget, of course, but the idea that that would without between the Pentagon or without touching Medicaid, social Security and not just looking for

quote unute waste, broad and abuse. That that would amount to two trillion dollars is an enormous stretch, especially when the process by which they are going about these cuts Crystal was so wildly inefficient, because Musk's idea was you cut a bunch and then you learn by the cuts what you need to bring back, which is I guess, a much more defensible philosophy in a corporate a corporate environment when it's not the government that taxpayers pay into

and rely on the services for who then get that stuff cut after paying for it right and have all the disruptions only for the government to be like, whoops, are bad, we are bringing it back. Sarved about the last month of your life, mister veteran who was affected by this, So, I mean it was just the process was a disaster. And now the line is that dose is a lifestyle. I forget whether it was Trump or Elon Musk has said that that doses are going anywhere.

It's a lifestyle, and to some extent though true, because there are muscul lieutenants, people who are brought on board who are now. They are like actually employees in managerial positions throughout the federal government. I would be all for things like the Rains Act, where you have to which should be in this bill, where you have to kick over a certain number if you're spending a certain number of money, it has to be kicked over to Congress

and has to be signed off on by Congress. Because you know, that way, you don't have agencies just green lighting massive contracts and stuff like that. They haven't shown any willingness to you, as you said, Bannon has said this many times, many times go after these like Pentagon contracts to seriously take on quote unquote waste frunt abuse at the Pentagon. They never really went in that direction. And DOJ Noel lifestyle. Okay, let's see.

be any sort of real cost cutting mission. In fact, it's going to lead to more expense, specifically because of the gutting, you know, the cuts to the irs, which means you can collect less tax revenue, specifically less tax revenue from rich people, so it's going to cost more. You have degraded the efficiency and quality of the services.

If you're someone who's trying to resolve some issue with your Social Security check, it is now going to take vastly longer and be you know, effectually mission impossible with the closed field offices and the longer wait times on the telephones, et cetera.

funding is stripped. You are not going to eliminate the deficit by gutting scientific research for a generation as an example, that's just not where the bulk of federal spending is. Even I looked up the numbers. If you look at how much we spend on the entire federal government workforce, right, they pushed out some two hundred and fifty thousand federal gun wars, Like it was a massive number of people that they cut. If you cut everybody, it is a

very small proportion of the over federal government budget. So it's just to me to take at face value that Trump didn't know what's going on here.

The cfpb usaid those are significant cuts. Yeah, yeah, exactly, but in the scope of the federal budget, it's amazing how big cuts like that still don't make a dent in things. And rains is in the reconciliation bill. We'll see if it survives. But I mean, you had to cross the river if you wanted to. You certainly had across the river, and you would have had to do a lot more than just quote unquote waste, fraud and abuse.

going on there, Tell me what's really going on there? Ultimately, you know, the other piece of the Wall Street Journal article about some of the internal dynamics that was interesting to me is apparently he really got crosswise with Susie Wiles, among others. I mean, for Alon is notoriously like he's a raging asshole. People don't like to work with he. I think he would say that himself, like he does not deal well with people. He just doesn't. And that

is the history of his dynamics. Within his companies. He usually has someone else who was working alongside with him, who can, you know, deal with the human beings involved. So not only did he have this physical altercation with Scott Bessett, I think he and Rubio were significantly at odds. Some of the tension with Sean Duffy played out in public, but they also got upset because they were learning about, you know, some of the chainsaw that was being taken

to various parts of the federal government. Susie Wilsen Co. Were learning about that the same way that we were, where he just went in and did his thing, and so there was there were increasing efforts to try to rein him, in coordinate with him, et cetera. But you know, I think that was part of the underlying dynamic as

well as like just people did not like him. And so when they were after the Wisconsin Supreme Court debacle, when there was a real display of political weakness and Trump apparently had talked to I can't remember what was that guy's named Schimel or something like that, Brad Schimel is at the name of the candidate.

the benefit of having particularly his political donations. And so when Elon Musk noticed the timing here, this was all happening, as Elon Musk said, by the way, he's going to stop his political donations, then suddenly he's out at doge Well Wisconsin showed that the cost of association with Elon Musk actually in that case outweighed the benefits of him pouring million of dollars into a state Supreme court election.

Even his millions of dollars couldn't buy that election because in the micro example that we're talking about, the microcosmic example we're talking about, it really motivated normally dem voters to come out and vote for the liberal Supreme Court

justice in that case. So I think what that showed is that he's less valuable than it looked like when he came into Pennsylvania in the waiting days of a very very very very very close presidential election, at least in the sense of, you know, when you are within a margin in Pennsylvania and all the electoral College votes are on the line, he comes in, puts tons of money into swing states, but particularly Pennsylvania. Sort of looks like he buys Trump those states because is he the

sort of deciding factors that money? What tips it over the edge for Donald Trump? Republicans say, Wow, we have the deepest pockets we could ever conceive of having, and he's just giving freely and doing it kind of for the hell of it, and we don't have to really do anything to beg him. He's just like having fun. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for the party in the midterms? What does it mean for the party for the next ten years? With

a massive cash infusion potentially on the table? And as soon as that dream kind of fades for Republicans, he becomes to them less trouble, less of a benefit than the trouble that causes. And I think that's probably part of what just everyone's exasperated with him. He's exasperated with them because they have less patience for him. They have less patience for his eccentricities and his process, which is very anathema in Washington. So it just it fizzled. We'll

see how much he's still here. I have a hard time believing, Crystal that he doesn't want to still be pulling some of the puppet strings, no doubt about it, and that he probably will still be pulling some.

And so, what do you think the exit of Elon and the fraying of that relationship means for the broader tech right alignment with the Trump administration.

I don't think anybody said it aloud, but I think everybody looked at those guys as almost inspiringly naive that they had these huge visions and the will, like the political will to like Elon Musk was out there with a chainsaw, right like this is a dream that the let's say, anarcho libertarian world, which not all of them are, I mean some of them are more robber barons than anarco libertarians, but that they have had for a long time.

It's this idea that there would be the political will to go out there and dance on stage with a chainsaw like a good true ideological libertarian. And so what that meant was, Wow, this is basically Elon Musk coming in with all of these Silicon Valley nerds and waving

magic wands and just dissolving parts of the government. And I think what we're seeing right now is that and I say this with some judgment, but not with much judgment, but the fading of that naivete that there was this idea that if you came into Washington with the will to take the arrows for cutting pepfar, to take the arrows for cutting USAA, d CFPB in ways that no Republican ever would have had the courage to do pre Trump,

than man like this can finally be done. And that was again I think a lot of people in DC identified that as naive. Maybe they didn't want to say it because it felt hopeful. But I think that it's finally that idea, that dream is dead. I think that's what's really happened here.

that account shared. So I thought, let's let's give you the whole context and then we can talk about this on the other side.

no American will. But there is and he has fifty thousand tons of food that are stored in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai and wait for it, Houston, Texas. And that is a rotting rather than going to Gaza, rather than going to Sudan, because the people who know the codes are for the warehouse are fired, They're.

even know where because there's no receipts. The way Elon must describe that, he said, if any of this was done by a public company, the company would be delisted and the executives would be in prison. But in the United States this is standard. When Biden left office, when it was clear that Trump won, in the seventy three days, they spent ninety three billion dollars from the Department of Energy on just radical loans, just throwing money into places

and there's no oversight, no receipts. Like the whole thing is, there's a lot of fraud, a lot of money laundering.

But also we help the world and when you're talking about making wells for people in the Congo to get fresh water, when you're talking about food and medicine to places that don't have access, like no way that should have been cut out and that should have been clear before they make these radical cuts, Like there's got to be a way to keep aid and not have fraud, and you can't have you can't say we're going to kill everything so that there's no fraud, but then you're

killing all the good and you're doing it without letting anybody know that's going to happen, So no one's It's not like they had three years to prepare. Let's build a new infrastructure, let's make sure they're everything set up. They wanted change, and they want to change quickly and do the nature of American politics, they have about two years before the midterms.

not creating any time period for off ramps. Because if you're somebody like me who looks at USAID and says, this is actually, in some sense creating this exploitive dependency system based on where US soft power interests are, and I think that's a critics.

We're changing fundamentally the way, and then the Gates Foundation steps in and the Rockefeller Foundation steps in and they fill the gaps, which is just not what happened. And I think it was really interesting to see Rogan reacting, particularly to that, and as an ally of Elon Musk.

That's why USAID is being gutted. That's why the State Department is being gutted. They have this throwback imperial if we see something and we want it, we're going to take it. That is their ideology. That's why Trump loves

the McKinley era. That's why they you know, Greenland, Panama, Gaza, Canada, like they have this mentality of an old school we are just going to use our might to take it, and we're not going to wrap it in like you know, we'll give you some HIV medication and then you're going to help us out with our rare earth mineral supply.

Kamala lost Trump, the Trump administration is coming in. We have all of these funds appropriated through you know, whether it's the IRA or the Chips Act or whatever that is already been authorized by Congress. We need to speed up the process to get these funds out the door. And that's what Rogan calls quote unquote radical loans.

This Twitter account was just sharing some of the top lines here. So within one year, these are all projected out. And again you can quibble with the you can quibble with what the numbers are, but there is we know already, factually speaking, that people have died as a result of these cuts, and we know that more people will.

And three hundred thousand is you know, the estimate that they give right now the number of people who have died already. And again there is a elon and others claim no one has died, that's impossible, etc. And it's like, I don't know how you can. I don't know how you can live in reality and think that there's just no consequence for cutting this funding for critical life saving

treatments around the world without anything to replace it. And you know, on the I'm sure there will be organizations over time that come in and try to fill the gap. I have no doubt about that. But so that has not happened yet. And so there is a you know, a critical hole that the US used to fill that has just been the you know, rug has been pulled out, and children, people who need this treatment and care that they were relying on the US for they have died

and they will continue to die. And that is just the reality of Elon's impact here. And so I think that's the other piece, Emily. Is part of why I wanted to highlight this clip is because there is a sense that Doge utterly and completely failed, and it did, but we need to pair that with the understanding that Doge also so did tremendous, tremendous damage that is literally costing people's lives and will continue to have generational fallout for years and years to come.

know something. There are actually a lot of examples of journalists trying to chase down the fraud that does had it caught or eliminated whatever it was, and going down rabbit trails, going down things that led them to repetition something like that, and does that end up doing lasting damage to the like really predicate of a lot of conservative ideology about quote unquote limited government. And I'm someone who's in this camp. People say limited not small government.

Small government's libertarian. Limited government is conservative limited relative to what it's become over the last one hundred years. Does that idea ever recover, you know, in this generation from Doge? When you have such a I don't know if yeah, I mean this is the right way to say it. When you have such an unserious approach where you end up, I mean, you pledge huge numbers, you come up with very little. It's all done with a billionaire dancing with

a chainsaw. Does it ever recover on the other hand, would anyone have ever done it? You sort of have a catch twenty two other than you know, eccentric elon Musk. Maybe not. But does it ever recover from DOGE? I don't know. It's a question actually that might even go to Democrats Crystal having this conversation about abundance and about Doge.

Where when Doese first started you saw a lot of Democrats frustrate with the fact that it was Republicans who were capitalizing on this idea of efficiency in government, saying, well, we can certainly stand for efficiency in government because from our perspective, the more efficient the government looks, the more that we can actually make the case for funding, the more that we can make the case that some of

these agencies are good if they're efficient. So, I don't know, I mean maybe Democrats are able to co opt that idea.

and I want it to do well. Now, the challenge and on the other side, is that there's not a lot of trust for either party to be able to accomplish those things effectively. And so obviously that's a big,

you know, reality and political challenge. But I do think your point about the fears that Elon has somehow managed to destroy even the concept of like we need to cut the fat and we need to make government more quote unquote efficient, is it's pretty remarkable because that has always been a winning political proposition for my entire lifetime.

ns talking about Medicaid cuts. So go ahead and take a look at this clip.

we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize, and I'm really really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.

She's apologizing for saying quote, We're all going to die at a town hall. It was in Butler County, Iowa on Friday. She makes an apology video, christ Well, why are you making the apology video? Roll with it? Secondly, she does it in front of a cemetery. Yeah, and then she pivoted to evangelism. By the way, towards the end of the video, you didn't see this, but I'm pretty sure she Yeah. She ended up saying quote, for those that would like to see eternal and our everlasting life,

I encourage you to embrace my Laurence. I'm telling you, as I've been talking Christians, this is the worst evangelism I've ever seen.

the future. But there, you know, the meme of Republicans is the idea that like, oh, their healthcare plan is like is don't get sick or or don't be poor, like that's the and so she just goes all in with basically like yeah, I mean I guess if you get sick, you're going to die by that whatever, We're all going to die anyway, and just find your salvation in God.

Medicaid with waste and fraud and abuse. But why would you ever go out there and apologize for making like a glib, offhanded comment. And then because she was clearly frustrated in the clip, she was like just reaching for straws and Jonny Arns is not the most talented politician in the world. You would be shocked to learn, and ends up grasping out We're all going to die. Film's an apology video in front of a cemetery, then jokes

about the tooth fairy and pivots some evangelism. I mean you just the every item on the Bengo card is checked off.

denying of reality. And then some people, apparently Jony Urns is in the well, we're all going to die anyway, So whatever if eight million people are slated to lose their health insurance coverage, which is the estimate under this bill. So in some ways, I think it displays the the victory of Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid, that this has become a difficult subject for Republicans because it never was in

the past. It also is indicative of the realignment that, as Bannon points out, you now have a lot of magas on Medicaid, you know, and so this is going to have an impact on your voting coalition will be among many of the eight million who lose their health insurance, like Trump one narrowly but one voters making under fifty thousand dollars, and that is the first time for a Republican I don't know.

and the Caucus and whatever. So they are kind of a mess on this issue because it's not really it is dramatically if you pull cut some medicaid dramatically politically unpopular, yep. And so you know, they just don't really know what to do with that when they're out trying to talk to regular people.

left are passing this around as examples of doge Republican cruelty. Basically, so let's go ahead and role Office of Management Budget Director Russ Vote, who is now basically seen as the policy mind that's driving DOGE. The administration is saying there's really no one person now that Elon's kind of checked out, there's no one person that's like the leader of DOGE. But people generally see Russ as being the intellectual policy mind of DOGE, and he's at OMB so he's kind

of managing the purse strings. He's very supportive of the unitary executive theory. He's an extremely consequential person in this administration. So watch, let's watch Russ vote yesterday.

a handle on. And we're still going to give twenty eight billion dollars.

this way. But now that you're on cleanup crew and people have seen, oh, you're not just targeting like the Wuhan Lab. You are gutting scientific research across the board in a way that you know is going to have generational impacts. No, those are not things that the public supported. So if there was you know, if this was before the fact and justification of Okay, why we're going to come in and here's how we're going to do it,

and this is what it's going to look like. Yeah, maybe you could have gotten some public support for that. But now, like the bloom is off of the rows, people have already seen the chainsaw. They're not going to unsee the chainsaw and think that you're doing some limited, targeted, effective cutting of just the pieces of the federal government that they may have some sort of issue with.

brings more freedom. So like any cut to the government is more that abstract principle of freedom, like it's you're

feeding human freedom every time you cut the government. I just wonder how this period changes that going forward, and if the Republican Party looks more like the Bannon Republican Party or the Eline Republican Party ten years from now, based on all this, because right now, what the trying to do, people like rest Boat are trying to marry the two right, and that is what feels like is slipping.

of what is the role of government. The priorities and values that are embodied in the Trump Big Beautiful budget are basically a gutting of the social safety net, a funding of the oligarchs and the wealthy, and a massive expansion of the police state of the military industrial complex with a huge Pentagon budget, and then a massive expansion of ICE and the private prison detention centers that go

along with that. So that is the as embodied by the Trump movement that is really their conception of government power is that it does little in terms of providing social services and does a lot in terms of, you know, the sort of like surveillance and projecting power and fighting wars and those sorts of things. I think the Democrats and the leftmore broadly are really grappling right now with what their conception of the federal government is ultimately going

to be. But I do think your right to focus in on that is one of the key questions that is being grappled with right now sort of across the board politically in terms of arriving at whatever the new political era and consensus is going to be.