Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and AOC says, if you feel burnt out by the news, that's exactly what Trump wants. We have such a great show for you today. Former US Attorney pre Berarra joins us to talk about the legal obstacles that can at least hopefully keep Trump and check. Then we'll talk to citation needed Molly White about the tech bro oligarchy's plans for America. But first the news.
So, Mollie, you and I we devoted a good amount of our Project twenty twenty five documentary to this fellow RUSS vote, and he's unfortunately now going to be doing exactly what he wanted to in Project twenty twenty five, which is running the omb, which we knew was going to happen.
RUSS vote is the stuff of nightmares right here. He is. He is a person who has already broken the law with this impoundment stuff. Right. So, basically we've talked about this before, but Congress appropriates money, the President's Office of Management and Budget gets the money, and then they are supposed to allocate it to actions of the federal government.
But what happened here is that Russ Vott in Trump one point zero refused to allocate the money, and that caused these sort of constitutional crisis which ended in Trump's first impeachment. We know from Project twenty twenty five that this is Vot's plan for the second Trump two point zero. And it's not just Vot's plan, it is the entire ethos of Project twenty twenty five to dismantle the administrative state, to shrink the federal government, to create a kind of
more autocrat friendly federalism. So one of the things that I think Democrats have done, which is really smart, is even thought was Centatip proved last time, and so he does have a certain kind this is not his first rodeo, right, There is a sense in which sometimes set people who have already been confirmed are sort of thought as to be a sort of no brainer. And what Democrats did
was they filibustered him. So he will in fact get confirmed because they are only forty seven Democrats in the Senate fifty three Republicans, so they don't have the votes to prevent him, but they were able to make it clear and so much of this, and I don't know that we talk about this enough. So much of this is a war of trying to as Chris Hayes who just wrote this book about attention, so much of this
is about getting attention. So what Democrats are doing here is trying to message at Russ Vott is very much not the norm and that this is a departure from typical Republican businesses usual politics. And I think we're going to see this play out more. I think it's smart they spoke out against him during the roll call, during speeches, and you know we're seeing that at the state level. And of course, our friend who will be on this podcast very soon, Sheldon Whitehouse, said I vote against creepy
billionaire influence and he cast his vote. So good to see Democrats doing this. Look, they don't have a huge menu of options, so they're doing what they can.
Yeah. Well, every so often in the news cycle we're introduced to a new turn of phrase that well is worse and worse and worse by the day. And the one that I learned yesterday was I was racist before it was cool, which was said by one of Musk's doge teenagers who was fired by Doge after they found out about all his racist tweets. But there's some more revelations about this fellow that are not good.
Yeah, So I mean he actually was fired than he was re hired because of a Twitter poll. By the way, Elon does these Twitter polls, and then if they don't say what he wants, he doesn't carry just keeps going, which I think is.
Was going to step down from Twitter because Twitter pool.
That's right. So there are two different Doge employees who have now captured the zeitgeist. One is the one who said that he was racist against Indians. Before it was cool to be racist against Indians. It's never been cool to be racist against anyone, so I think we can.
I think he actually just said racist, not racist to Indians.
Okay, So anyway, that was one of them. And then the other one. We have this really good reporting from everybody's favorite at Bloomberg, which is that Musk's Doge team was fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets. That guy is in the federal government, the federal payment system. Think about that for a second. Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to competitors in a June twenty twenty two message from an executive of the firm. So, uh,
you know, these are two of Elon's crew. It's really something to think about here, that these are the people who are being put it in these jobs, are not actually really the people who should be in these jobs. That this is not how any of this is supposed to work. So unsurprising, still disturbing, and that is where we are.
I think it's even more disturbing that one of the reasons we know this is because he bragged about it in discord shots for Cloud.
Well they're young.
Yeah, yeah, I'm stupid.
And in our federal government's computer systems.
I really appreciate too that jd Vance came to defend that these racist remarks are not worthy of firing.
Yeah, I mean there you go. I mean, look, this whole sand castle is built on the idea that it's okay to be that. So it's not surprising to me that he was re hired despite what would otherwise. And remember, like in normal life, in the real world, all these people would have been fired, right, there's no you know, we would have been fired. I mean, this is just this is we've we're in Bizarro world here.
Yeah, the I of DEI is really doing a lot of work in this administration.
Yeah.
And better news, a judge has paused Trump's plan to put USAID staff on leave.
The good news about everything being legal?
Is that what a phrase?
But it's true, you know, is that when it's illegal, the court stop it. So again, does that mean that we are sanguine? We are very worried about American democracy as well. We should be. But basically, lawyers and groups like sky Perriman's group Democracy Forward are pursuing legal action against each one of these illegal things. And what's happening is they're working their way through the courts, and the courts are saying, no, you can't fucking fire everyone in
a federal agency because you feel like it. What Elon has been doing is going through all of the newspapers and magazines that these federal agencies are charging on their work accounts. And when it comes to Politico, you know, woke Politico, which is mostly just tracks federal government, you know, process, and in fact, the more expensive version of Politico, the pay political keeps track of sort of bills that pass and Senate phone numbers. I mean, it's not exactly like
woke indoctrination. But remember, so much of this is projection, not all of this is actually you know, much of this is showmanship. So anyway, a lot of this is illegal. It's going through the courts. These people are going to ultimately, you know, they're going to be injunctions. They're not going to be fire Already, they know that Elon and Trump that much of the stuff they're trying to do is illegal, and so we're going to see more and more of that.
I just want to point out that what you're seeing as Trump and Elon really squandering their credibility. And you know, you think of credibility as maybe how credible are any of these people, but actually squandering your credibility means that when they fire people, the people just won't leave. And that's what we're going to see more and more of. Pret Bararra is a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York and the host of Stay Tuned with Welcome back to Fast Politics, Breed.
Good to be here.
We're just galloping along, as you said when you got here a minute ago, fast, very fast, till every minute of every day when I am reading the New York times or watching cable news, or are watching c SPAN. I spend a lot of time watching c SPAN. I think to myself, it's not legal, is it? That can't possibly? I mean, besides being a constitutional crisis. So how much illegal stuff is going on right now? One hundred percent? Eighty percent?
I don't know what the denominator is because, like you, I feel overwhelmed.
I'm submerged by all this stuff. You know.
Part of my professional job is to pay attention to these things and digest them and think about them and then talk about them on my own podcasts and with you and with others. And if I have trouble keeping up, then what chance does the general public have in keeping up?
But I think I think a lot of it which is by design.
Yeah, a lot of it is unlawful and will be adjudicated to be unlawful, you know, just just right off the top. If you think the effort to end birthright citizenship that's been blocked, I think by two different judges. This whole other caper about freezing federal funds in a way that was ambiguous and unclear and counterproductive, that's been blocked. The buyout plan to try to reduce the ranks of
federal workers that's been blocked. You know, all these things will be litigated, some will be one, some will be lost. But there's going to be a lot of litigation and a lot of fighting in a lot of courts.
But right now, well these fights are going on, and Donald Trump is musking about Trump Tower and Gaza. We're seeing and I don't mean to be craven, you know, with his talk about the Middle East is particularly offensive for any number of reasons. But I'm just wondering if you could explain Elon Musk and a number of teenagers or maybe early twenty year olds who have dupious backgrounds are in all of the computer systems in the federal
government making them do something? Is that legal? That seems really dicey to may Well.
There has been reporting that suggests that a lot of Trump allies on the Republican side have been voicing precisely that concern, have been saying behind the scenes, there's a lot of stuff going on here. There's a lot of stuff that the doge is doing. Even if we agree, I mean, I think a lot of people on the Democratic side too, can agree with the general premise that parts of government are bloated and the waste, fraud, and
abuse should be cut out. There's a way to do it, and there's a way not to do it, and I think you're going to see a lot of suits in that regards. Well, look, usaid it's a statutorially created entity of significant size, which is why maybe it's a target and significant value as suggested by lots of people, including Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio and a whole host of
other people. And the idea that you know, a few folks who are not particularly accountable or accountable at all are going to dismantle a ten billion dollar agency runs a foul of how we think effective government should work. But also laws that I think you're going to see a lot of fights there there too.
You know.
The other way I think about this is on the optimistic side, is this flood the zone strategy with respect to executive orders and the DOGE and the memos that have been issued by the newly minted Attorney General Pam BONDI is I wonder if I'm not a huge box of okay, well good, So maybe you can tell me if this this is valid or not that maybe it's
the sort of involuntary ropodope strategy. I'm the part of the Democrats that at some point, I don't know if this is true or not, but I'm trying to look for silver linings that the Trump administration will so overextend and exhaust itself with EO after EEO after EO and memo after memo and changing things and eliminating things and dismantling things by fiat, that they will be so roiled up in litigation and fights both with the other side and within their own side, that they tire themselves out
and ends up being not a good strategy because it was not particularly well thought out. Look, you know, separate apart from the legal defeats that some of these moves have suffered at the hands of courts, there have been withdrawals of some of these things on Trump's own part right, because they don't think these things. They don't think these things out. They have a blunder bus approach, and they say this is bad, so we're going to eliminate all
of this. But they don't define what this is. And the example I keep coming back to is in the first term, in the first week, they issued this broad and sweeping so called Muslim band, but they didn't distinguish between who was allowed to come back and who wasn't,
who's allowed entry and who wasn't. And there was this huge question for a while because they hadn't addressed the issue of whether or not Green card holders were included or excluded, right, And that keeps happening with these guys because they value speed over accuracy and fairness, No.
For sure, And I mean that's what we're seeing here is we see them making a lot of mistakes because they're moving too quickly and because they don't ultimately have an ethos, you know, except move fast and break things that are not theirs to break. Really, I'm glad you're being optimistic because I often try to figure out there's some some place for optimism in this whole catastrophe. So I'm wondering, you know, it definitely seems like the courts are going to say you can't do this stuff. Now
here's my question. When the courts say you can't do this stuff, you could definitely see Maybe I don't know who will be the first in Trump world to ignore the courts. My guess is that Russ Vott is going to be high on that list because he has done it before, right and Trump one point zero he refused to release the money, and for Ukraine he messed around with impounding the funds. So I'm wondering with the funds
that were impounded releasing them. So I'm wondering if you what make me feel better about what happens when they ignore the law.
Well, so far, and one of your student listeners will correct me and us if I'm wrong. There's been a defiance of law and clear interpretations of law. There is defiance and a breach of the law related to Inspectors General. That's one item I didn't take off my earlier list because there's clearly a requirement that you must give thirty days notice to Congress and an explanation as to why you're taking that action against people are supposed to be independent and above and beyond.
And outside of politics.
There has not been that I can think of, a court order or injunction sustained all the way to the Supreme Court that the Trump administration has said, f you, we're not going to do it. That would be that would be a real, real crisis. And my optimism is and I don't know how well founded it is is that we haven't seen that kind of absolutely clear, concrete, deliberate direct defiance at a court order, vetted all the way to the top, and I hope never to see it.
I love that I'll take that to the bank.
I wouldn't.
I don't know. I don't know which bank will that deposit. But hopefully that's the case. Look, it still happens to be true that the Trump folks, you know, for sure, at least at this point, but even you know, definitionally
autocratic societies. I've had this conversation with Gary Kasparrow on a number of occasions, and wonder White is Putin is basically a dictator, and you have them in other parts of the world, and they can do whatever they want, and they're acknowledged to have the authority to do whatever
they want. They revel in their dictator status. And yet even they seek, you know, even as they break the law, they seek to cloak themselves in legality and in constitutionality and in norms, and they're always trying to defend what they're doing, even as they imprison people like Alexi Navalni.
Now it may be all bullshit and a sham. There's still something that autocrats are fretful about if they're overly seen, overly, dramatically and directly defying the rule of law, even though it happens all the time.
If that makes any sense.
Yes, exactly. I would love if we're going to just be anxious here and talk about Gary kasprov what do we think. It strikes me that, like the worst case scenario, and a lot of people who are very smart, who I know, who I'm friends with, I have a lot of anxiety about America turning into Russia. That is not, in my mind, I think a likely scenario for any number of reasons. And it sounds like you also believe that. And I'm wondering if you could sort of make me
feel better because I'm very stressed out. Thank you.
So there are other defenses, not the ones that we normally think about. Separate from the courts and separate from Congress, which has been basically supine. Hope springs eternal. That Congress and the Senate and Center Republicans in particular will say, you know, hey, we created this thing by statute, you can't take it away by fiat, or hey, you know, this is a totally unqualified person for this very important, sensitive cabinet position. We can't do that, you know, at
any moment. I'm not holding my breath. That can happen if there's the thing that has long been predicted and has never come to pass, that Trump and his cronies over extend to such an extent that people other than Lisa Rakowski and now Mitch McConnell, you know, stand in their way. So you know, there is that structural check. There's also the courts, and the courts don't always decide
it was all Trump. But separate from that, there's other things like public sentiment, and it is true, not often, certainly not always, public sentiment when it is overwhelmingly negative about something causes the Trump folks to change course. That happened when you had separations of children from their parents in the last term. And there's yet another thing, by the way, you know, we haven't talked about tariffs yet.
There's all this controversy and pretty much consensus with respect to anyone who's intelligent about economics about the inflationary pressure the tariffs would cause. In particular, not just inflationary pressure, but other diplomatic fiascos and ruination of our allies and
relationships with our allies with Canada and Mexico. On the day that those tariffs were going to go into effect, well, I don't know if you call it the fifth branch of government for Donald Trump, but the stock market began to tank, right, That.
Really is the fifth branch of government for Donald Trump. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like it's like there's the executive, there's the judiciary, there's the legislative, and then there's the now with the Nasdaq. That wouldn't give a lot of political scientists and political theorists a lot of comfort. But it's not like there are not things that give Trump pause. There are, and maybe in combination and when when you know, stitch together shrewdly by Democrats, although I don't see that.
Ahead of yourself. Their breaks at the moment together shrewdly, yes.
Stitch together truly rudely. Maybe something can happen. You just don't know. I mean, some people are saying, look again, it's only it's been five minutes.
No, I know, it feels like it's been.
Five minutes nineteen days and it takes some time.
But when people listen this, it'll be twenty one days continue, yes, or twenty days or whatever.
It's also the case because of the incompetence of these guys in so many areas and their lack of care in vetting and doing so many other things. This is not a great and most shrewd strategy, but I'm quite confident that there will be overreaches of such significance and opposition that there's going to be a straw that breaks the camel's back with respect to at least one or more of these things. It's just going to happen because
because you just can't move. I used a terrible analogy on the podcast with Joyce fans Insider Fansider podcast.
Yes, tell me about cafe and now I'm just kidding, actually, joy Yeah, Joyce Fancy is really one of the great So anyway, yes.
He's terrific, and she was polite enough not to laugh at my metaphor. But even if it's the case that you find yourself in an inopportune place at the bottom of the sea somewhere, or deep diving, and there's some menacing fish or you know, a whale or a shark or some you know some other thing and you need to get up to the surface for safety, you can't just rush up to the surface.
Because of this thing called the bends.
You will dive, you know, either an equally quick or quicker death if you rush to the top. So that's my lame analogy in nature of the need to even if there's some cause to fix something or do something differently. You know, slowfulness is not good, and government often moves too slowly. But doing this at too great a speed can do more injury than good.
Yeah, no, I mean obviously, but it is interesting to me, like we'll watch this sort of lawlessness and the zeal right, the delight at disassembling things like USA and the EPA, and this sort of regit the federal government. And I wonder, you know, as someone who it's so you know, to me in my own personal history, right, I had a grandfather who was jailed by Republican Congress, I mean for
his opinions, for refusing to name names. I wonder in your mind, like the rage that these people have towards the federal government. I mean, is I think about their fury towards the Federal Bureau of Investigations, which is, you know, has it ever had a head who was not a white Republican man.
Not in memory, not in recent times, right.
I mean, what do you? I mean? It feels like these people have gone through a blender.
It's amazing how they have the ability to maintain and maybe it's like a higher order intelligence to be able
to maintain such cognitive dissonance. And say, on the one hand, you support the blue, you support law enforcement, and on the other hand not only support full pardons and commutations for people who are seen in black and white to be beating and assaulting officers, but also now to be cheering the idea that the prosecutors who in good faith pursued those investigations and prosecutions god in open court convictions either by guilty plea or by guilty verdict upheld by
judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, some are many appointed by Trump himself. They should be investigated and punished for doing their jobs. How you keep that in equipoised with the idea that you're pro law enforcement. I don't even understand. So I don't know if it's people who think that way are geniuses or imbeciles, but it's not something in between.
Yes, it's very haphazard, and I think the good news is that we're seeing the court say you can't do that, and someday we may see Republicans in Congress do the same, but we may not. Right, not necessarily necessary, right, I guess terrifyingly.
I think part of the explanation is nobody cares about process anymore, whether it's due process or something else. And that's how you can have these competing ideas that should give any normal person cognitive dissonance in your head. It's not that anyone is pro police, pro law enforcement, or anti law enforcement. You're pro law enforcement when they go after the people you don't like, and you're anti law enforcement when they go after the people you do to like. Right,
So it's all outcome determinative. So you know, if a senator votes, you know, for Trump on something, whether it's on principle or not, that's a good senator. That's a good Republican. If senator does not, that senator should be primary, even if it is on principle.
Right.
So, this idea of being pro trade or anti tariff, or pro First Amendment or anti First Amendment or pro or con anything one enforcement or otherwise, those things don't matter anymore. It's all about whether or not it was your team or not. It's become you know, as many many many other people have noted before me, tribal and almost like a blood sport.
But it's also just filthy to trump. The nuances of it don't matter, it's if you are our guy or not. I do think though, what you're saying about legality makes me feel a little better. You know, this is just the barrage of news and knowing that there is some sort of larger principle, you know, legal principles in this country still is probably a very good thing.
So yeah, it's not enough because the damage. You know, you asked before, why are they doing these things? They know what the legal shot is on some of these things, right, but like still, for example, the thing that I find almost the most upsetting in the farious which is the issuance of questionnaires to thousands of FBI agents to see if they touch.
Which smacks of McCarthyism. I mean really it is.
Yeah, of all the things, right, and you know, at the end of the day, they're protected by civil service laws and maybe they'll be vindicated, but in the interim and probably for a long time, any agent going forward, Democrat, Republican, nonpartisan, neutral, independent, whatever.
When presented with the option of opening up an investigation or pursuing a lead, or joining an effort to look into potential malfeasance on the part of anybody in the country who has some arguable connection to Trump or Trump's family, or Trump's cabinet or Trump's government or Trump's business interests, has to think fricking twice. If I do this, is someday someone going to take my livelihood away?
Well that's the goal.
Yeah, And so the extraordinary chilling effect it has on people who are just people, just human beings. To make sure they're doing the right thing and taking care of their family and putting food on the table, do they have to think twice? Now, Well, maybe I'll go do the surveillance, Maybe I'll go knock on that door, maybe I'll serve the subpoena. But let me first do the calculation.
Will it offend anyone in the current regime, Because then ultimately, maybe I will be fired, maybe I will be prosecuted, maybe my pension will be taken away from me. And that message has been delivered, whatever happens with respect to the legal question.
Pre thank you for joining us.
Thanks Molly.
Molly White writes the newsletter citation needed. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Molly White, thank you for having me so I feel like you have absolutely the right background to cover where we are because it's the intersection of tech and crypto and everything nefarious of the last hundred years discuss.
Yeah, it's been a weird sort of coming together of the tech worlds and the crypto world and the political worlds in the last couple of years, and certainly in the last week or so, we've seen that really ramping up.
So let's talk about it. Your beat was originally in the world whenever, you know, in the time when everything was normal, Your beat started as crypto.
Right right, Yeah. I started writing about crypto in twenty twenty one or so, and I still write a lot about crypto, but a little more broad these days as well.
Why don't we talk first about how crypto got in bed with Trump during the campaign, Because Donald Trump is seventy eight years old, Crypto is not his de facto and in fact, early or on in his first presidency he thought crypto was a scam, right, Yeah.
He made a really big change in his stance on crypto this time around, largely thanks to the cryptocurrency industry's influence, which has really increased over the handful of years since his former presidency.
So what changed his heart and mind.
I think a lot of things really went into it. I think part of it was his own personal success in his crypto grifting, where he launched some NFT projects and he was selling bitcoin themed sneakers and you know, he was able to make some money off of it,
and he realized it could be lucrative for him. But I think the bigger thing is that the crypto industry has made itself an influential voice in politics, and they were heavily involved in the twenty twenty four election cycle, mostly at the congressional level in terms of where they were spending money, but they were very much trying to make crypto a focus of the election, something that politicians needed to talk about, and they were swinging around huge
amounts of money to get everyone's attention.
So this is the heartwarming story of lobbying.
The tail is all this time, Yes it is.
And they just figured out how to get in front of the right lobbyist.
I think that's true. But you know, crypto really emerged on the scene as its own political force in sort of an unheard of way this time around. I mean, the crypto industry spent over one hundred million dollars on congressional races in twenty twenty four alone, And you know, compared to the size of the cryptocurrency industry, which itself is very small, that was a shocking amount of money. I mean they were rival big oil, big pharma, you know,
the typical lobbying powers. Suddenly crypto was up there in the spending. I mean they were I think their super pack was like number four, number five in the top the list of super packs by the amounts that they had raised, behind only like the Trump super packs and the Senate and congressional super packs. So they were a huge force in terms of spending this past cycle.
So they figured out how to spend, they lobbied, they got Trump on board, and now they are sort of one of the biggest pieces of the Trump coalition. Is that right?
Absolutely? And I mean there's a fair bit of overlap between crypto interests and the broader Silicon Valley tech interests that we're seeing in Congress then sort of mulling around the White House. So for example, Andresen Horowitz has a number of their partners taking major roles at the White House in advisory positions and so on, and they've been investing in crypto and evangelizing crypto for a number of
years now. You know, David Sachs is the new AI and crypto zar at the White House, and he obviously has massive interest in both the crypto world and in the tech world beyond. And I think altogether those people have become their own sort of force in the White House now, both officially and unofficially.
So you got the crypto lobby, then you have the tech pros run wild in this admin and that is Elon's crew is basically David Sacks. Do you think of these people as all the same entity and what are the entities and how do they interact with each other?
They're certainly very related entities, if they're not all the same entities, but they do come from sort of similar backgrounds. You know, David's and Elon Musk are both part of the sort of PayPal mafia, which is, you know a group of sort of early tech people who have been you know, a lot of them got their start at PayPal but have since become very influential in the Silicon Valley world. Peter Thiel is another major member, and he
obviously has major political influence of his own. You know, all of the andresen Horoitz people who are now installed in positions of power Congress, people who themselves have not only support from these interests, but often backgrounds in those areas themselves. And so I think we now have this massive influence from the tech oligarchy honestly in the White House right now, which is quite shocking to see. I mean, the tech industry has always, you know, tried to exert
power in the White House. I don't want to claim that this is somehow a new phenomenon that you know, did not happen during you know, the oba of years and things like that, but it was never so overt, and it was never so extreme in terms of the direct influence and access of these high powered, enormously wealthy people to push their own interests and to influence the direction of the government in ways that will benefit them personally and their businesses as well.
There are a lot of conflicts of interest here. I mean, that is the number one thing what I want you to talk us through because I feel like you really have an insight on this, which is interesting and different than a lot of other journalists. I'm wondering if you could talk us through what you think Elon Musk is doing right now in the federal government. And maybe it is what he's saying he's doing, and that's fine too, And if you want to explain that to us, that
would be great. And if you think it's something else, please explain that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's obviously a little hard to know because he has cut off so much access into what is going on on Congress people even haven't been able to get access to sort of observe what he's doing. But you know, he has inserted himself in portions of the government, you know, including the Treasury Department. You know, he's becoming involved in you know, looking at data at various aid agencies and other government agencies, and he's claiming that he
is slashing everything spending. How would he do that, Well, that's sort of the question, because we're seeing some people claim that he does not have access or the ability to do that. So the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, who has just confirmed, has claimed that Musk and his team
only have read only access. But we're simultaneously seeing reporting that his team of very young programmers are making changes to code bases that control federal payments and that they are stopping payments to basically various line items in these federal agencies books. They're stopping those payments, And so we're getting conflicting information around, you know, whether or not he
is simply reviewing the data versus actually making changes. But you know, it seems that he is trying to pursue sort of a similar approach as he took when he took over Twitter, which was to come in and basically fire everybody and slash the entire operation down to its variess bones, you know, either by forcing people to leave or firing them directly, and you know, creating chaos in a way that is much more higher stakes than it was when he was taking over a private social media company.
So do you think that that is what's happening though, right, because like he's offering biads, we don't know if they're real, right, he sent the fork in the road letder to people. I mean, do you think that any of this is actually like how much of this is perception? How much of this is reality.
It's again hard to say, I think, with especially with so little transparency to what's happening, which is quite ironic given Musk's claims to want transparency, you know, and to be pursuing transparency, we're simultaneously seeing him shutting access down to potential outside overseers to you know, there was reporting out of four A four media saying that they were attempting to change their interpersonal communications so that they couldn't be foid and so it's really hard to say, but
you know, we are seeing widespread layoffs at federal agencies, you know, attempts to slash funding which are getting hung up in the court somewhat, but certainly you know, are being attempted. And we know that Musk has access to incredibly sensitive data and systems, and you know, whether or not he's making changes or the extent of those changes is I think what remains to be seen.
The thing is he doesn't have the authority to do any of this all correctly. He has no congressional authority, he doesn't work in the Festal government. All of this is not constitutional. It's possibly illegal. You know. It's sort of like me saying I am the czar of Palm Springs and going and making citizens arrest. So, I mean, it works until it doesn't, right, Right.
I mean, I think there are a lot of very legitimate challenges to what Musk is doing in terms of his status as a federal employee. If he's actually a federal employee, then is he you know, subject to federal laws around you know, who's allowed to have access and requirements for security clearance and ethics rules and conflict of interest rules. You know, is he someone who should be subject to congressional review? So I think there are a lot of avenues through which people can challenge this in
the courts, and you know, Congress can challenge this. But the problem is that you know, someone needs to actually step in and stop him from accessing these systems, and that as of yet, has not happened. And so unless you know, people are perfectly able to do illegal things, you know, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's impossible.
And so it is the actual enforcement of that law, and you know, people in Congress, in the courts, you know, getting the courage to actually do something about it that I think is going to be critical in the coming days.
Right, And that is a real question that has no answer really, So I wonder if you are at least not yet, I wonder if you could talk to us about what is Elon Musk's goal.
Well, I think some of it is, you know, chaos. I think he enjoys the power of, you know, having the federal government sort of in his control. And I think a lot of it is money. You know, he has very lucrative federal contracts. He now potentially has the ability to control the competition in those contracts or to
allocate additional contracts. He I think is also pursuing a similar approach as some of the tech and crypto people, where he is attempting to use this power to stop anything in the way of doing what he might want to be doing. So, for example, there are numerous ongoing lawsuits and investigations and probes into his multiple companies and to him himself personally that he I think would be
very interested in stopping. Certainly, we've seen that more broadly with the tech companies who are hoping to see the end of some of the antitrust actions that were happening
under Biden. The crypto industry. Pretty much every donor from the crypto industry has open lawsuits against them from the SEC or various other oversight agencies, and so I think a lot of it is about pulling back any oversight or challenge to the monopoly and to the business interests of these companies and allowing them to extract even more wealth from you know, everyday people via their operations that you know, might otherwise be considered to be against consumer
protection laws or other various financial laws, or through these federal contracts which can be extremely lucrative.
Right, So you think that's really the ply is just to avoid scrutinay, avoid prosecution.
I think that's a big part of it. I think also it's very clear at this point that Elon Musk and several others have very strong political interests of their own and political agendas that they are trying to pursue that are very very extreme.
Tax cuts for billionaires too.
Well, certainly that yes, but there's also the very sort of right wing social end of it, where you know, these are people who have been railing against trans people and diversity inclusion programming and all of these types of things, and they've all been very clear about making those primary targets of their operations in the White House these days as well.
Right exactly, I'm wondering if you could just talk us through where using this goes.
It's really hard to say. I mean, it's it's hard to see where this is going. I think, you know,
we're in a very uncertain time right now. I am hoping that there will be widespread resistance both from elected officials, from you know, government employees, from those in the judiciary who are willing to, you know, defend what this country is really supposed to be about, and you know, the idea that there needs to be separation of powers and a democratic government and all of that, and then certainly resistance from you know, everyday people, the refusal to abide
by these attacks on American people and those you know within America and outside, and you know, the attacks on freedom of the press, freedom of speed, each freedom of expression, all of these very core fundamental freedoms. And I think we're at a really critical moment right now.
Yeah. I know how we got here, but also I don't know how we got here, if that makes any sense.
Right. Somehow we've all seen this coming, and yet we are all shocked to watch it happen.
Right, Yeah, I mean, it just is incredible, and not incredible like incredible sunset, but incredible, like you know, watching nuclear tests. I'm wondering if you could just for a minute give us some reason to not be completely catastrophic about those. This is where we get into therapy for me.
Yeah, I mean, I do you know, see those resistance moments happening? You know, I think that it feels a little bit like nothing's happening and like no one's doing anything and that we're not seeing anything and everyone's just sort of going about their lives. But I think that, you know, that is something that is perhaps true if you look at the front ages of some of the
biggest newspapers. But if you dig a little bit deeper, you know, away from these media outlets that are run by people who have been you know, kissing up to Trump honestly and who are probably not terribly inclined to report on these types of things, you actually see a fair bit of resistance happening. There have been major protests about various different topics, from you know, transgender healthcare bands to immigration enforcement changes to the shutdown of federal agencies
across the country. We've seen you know, various lawmakers proposing legislation or making statements that suggest that they are working to fight back. In Congress, They've already been numerous lawsuits challenging executive orders and the slashing of federal government employees. Various judges have already issued restraining orders in some of those cases to stop some of the illegal orders that
have come out. So, you know, I think there are people who are standing up to what is happening and who are demanding more from the democratically elected people who are supposed to be representing us. And it's just crucial that everyone, you know, make sure that we are aware of what's happening, supports the people who are doing these types of things, and honestly demands that type of action from our elected representatives.
Molly White, thank you. I hope you'll come back.
Thank you for having me.
No moment perfectly.
Jesse Cannon, my jung fast.
Bad things are happening down in Texas an evergreen statement. So Texas has removed one point seven million people from their healthcare plans.
Yeah, so this is like reverse Medicare expansion. Right. We saw during the Biden administration that a lot of these states expanded Medicare that this is the opposite of that. Look, Texas is a place where the far right loves to experiment. It's the state that repealed Roe v. Wade a year before Moby Wade was repealed. We're going to see, I think more stuff like this. Not surprising, but pretty interesting and pretty disturbing. And look at the Republicans in Texas.
The Governor Abbott and the Attorneys General Paxton are very, very, very emboldened, and they consider themselves to be at the forefront of Republican politics. And so that you will see them over the next couple of years do things that are perhaps even more beyond the pale than even Trump World perhaps. And so this is the beginning of this, kicking people off Medicare and children's healthcare. And I think you're going to see more and more of this. And so keep an eye on Texas because it like a
bunch of other Republican read st day. It's like Tennessee and Oklahoma. These states are laboratories for Republican anti democracy.
One hundred percent.
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