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junior.com/free burger day for turns. Welcome

2:02

to Applied Save America. I'm John

2:04

Fabrio. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy

2:06

Vittor. On today's show, we got

2:08

Donald Trump and Elon Musk

2:10

seizing control of the

2:12

federal government's money spigot,

2:14

accessing all of our

2:17

private information like Social

2:19

Security numbers, purging federal

2:21

law enforcement of nonpartisan

2:23

FBI agents and prosecutors

2:25

who aren't loyal to

2:27

Trump, and shutting down

2:29

multi-billion dollar agencies. that they're

2:31

not legally authorized to eliminate

2:33

starting with USAID. We'll hear from

2:35

a USAID vet about what is actually

2:37

happening and what it means. We'll also

2:39

talk about the Democrats, who seem like

2:41

they're trying to get off the mat.

2:44

Over the weekend, the party elected Ken

2:46

Martin as its new chair and Democrats

2:48

in Congress are starting to use the

2:50

limited power they have to fight back. And

2:52

later, Love It talks terrorists with

2:54

our old friend Brian Deese, who

2:56

is a top economic advisor to

2:58

President Obama and Biden. But first.

3:00

America's dumbest trade war with two

3:02

of its closest allies and

3:04

biggest trading partners seems to

3:06

have ended before it even began.

3:09

We started today, ready to talk

3:11

about a trade war, and then just

3:13

before we started recording, first Mexico

3:15

goes down, then Canada goes down,

3:18

trade war is over if you

3:20

want it. So over the weekend,

3:22

Trump announced 10% tariffs on Chinese

3:25

goods and 25% tariffs on goods

3:27

from our... T toughest adversaries, Canada

3:29

and Mexico. That would mean every

3:31

time a U.S. company imports products

3:34

from those countries, food, cars, medicine,

3:36

electronics, they would have to pay an

3:38

extra tax to the U.S. government, and then

3:40

most companies would make up

3:42

for the added expense by raising the

3:45

prices they charge American consumers. The tariffs

3:47

were scheduled to go into effect on

3:49

Tuesday night, but then Trump agreed to

3:52

last-minute deals with both Canada and

3:54

Mexico to pause tariffs for one

3:56

month. Mexican President Claudia Shanebaum

3:58

agreed to send 10,000 additional

4:01

troops to the border to

4:03

help with illegal immigration and

4:05

drug smuggling, which Mexico also

4:07

did at the beginning of

4:09

Joe Biden's administration. Prime Minister

4:11

Justin Trudeau said Canada would

4:14

implement the $1.3 billion border

4:16

plan that it had already announced

4:18

in December, launch a Canada U.S.

4:20

joint strike force to fight drug

4:22

smuggling and money laundering, which

4:24

it also announced in December.

4:26

And the new thing, a point of

4:28

fentanyl czar. A Canadian fentanyl

4:30

czar. That guy's always late

4:32

for work. My God. As far

4:34

as we know, as of this

4:37

recording on Monday afternoon, the tariffs

4:39

on China are still going into

4:41

effect as planned, though we're keeping

4:44

a close eye on Xi Jinping's Twitter

4:46

feed. Just gotta keep a close

4:48

eye on that while we're recording. Now,

4:51

why was Trump doing all this in

4:53

the first place? Here's a

4:55

sampling of the explanations he's

4:57

offered over the last few

4:59

days, including threats to start

5:01

trade wars with our European allies

5:03

as well. We put tariffs on.

5:05

They owe us a lot of

5:08

money, and I'm sure they're going

5:10

to pay. UK is out of

5:12

line, but I'm sure that one,

5:14

I think that one can be

5:16

worked out, but the European Union

5:18

is, it's, uh, an accrossing. We

5:20

may have short term, some little

5:22

pain, and people understand that. Canada's

5:24

been... Very abusive of the United

5:26

States for many years. What I'd

5:29

like to see Canada become our

5:31

51st state. As a state, it's

5:33

much different. And there are no

5:35

tariffs. So I'd love to see

5:37

that, but some people say that

5:39

would be a long shot. Yeah,

5:41

some people do say that's a

5:43

long shot. He said to me

5:45

so bizarre right after that, which

5:47

was... If they, if, if people were

5:49

smart about the pain, they'd be for

5:51

it, but they're not smart about the

5:54

pain, he says something deeply,

5:56

deeply troubling. Oh, that's, that's,

5:58

right after. Right after. All

6:00

right, what do you guys think?

6:02

Did Mexico and Canada cave

6:04

to Trump's pressure in just

6:06

his tough negotiating tactics? Or

6:08

are these just fake concessions

6:11

that just let everyone say face?

6:13

Does that seem leading to you

6:16

with that question? It

6:18

seems as though Trump really enjoyed beating

6:20

the ever-loving shit out of the Colombians.

6:22

And now he's like feeling tough and

6:24

he's ready to move up the chain

6:26

of regional economies. And he's taking that

6:28

quick victory out for a spin. Are

6:30

we at like King Hippo if it's

6:33

Mike Tyson punch out? Where are we

6:35

at? I always struggle. I never got

6:37

the timing right. I never got the

6:39

timing. Who's the first person? I always

6:41

struggle. Who's the first person. I always struggle

6:43

to. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. That sounds right.

6:45

King up on. Yeah, I mean, the

6:48

fentanyl czar is going to have

6:50

some free time because I think USCVP

6:52

had some data about seizures at the

6:54

northern border in 2022, 2023, and 2024,

6:56

and they found 70 pounds of fentanyl

6:59

at the northern border as compared

7:01

to over 66,000 pounds at the southern

7:03

border. So I don't think the fentanyl

7:05

issue... was one with Canada as much

7:07

as it was with Mexico and with

7:10

China. Also he said some number, I

7:12

think he said like there were 200,000

7:14

fentanyl deaths, but the number is actually

7:17

lower and had been dropping and so

7:19

he's already going to be able to

7:21

declare that he's brought the number down,

7:24

you know, he can already, from his

7:26

fake number. So obviously Trump thinks

7:28

this is a big win, he'll get

7:30

some coverage that says it's a win

7:32

from from regime media and his people.

7:34

his supporters will all say it's a

7:36

big win, maybe some low-info voters

7:38

out there, if they're paying attention at

7:41

all, we'll see headlines and think, oh,

7:43

maybe Trump won. But as you heard in the

7:45

clip, Trump's problems, at least his stated

7:47

problems with Mexico and Canada, is

7:49

that they have abused us, they've treated

7:52

us poorly economically, he's got all these

7:54

economic concerns about both of them, he

7:56

doesn't like the trade, he says that

7:58

we don't even need... We have a

8:00

need Canada for all the stuff that we

8:02

buy from them. We can make it all

8:04

here. This is ridiculous. And

8:07

yet all he got from either

8:09

of them were announcements about border

8:11

security that they had already made

8:14

or already implementing or had already

8:16

implemented in the past without

8:18

threats of a trade war. So I don't

8:20

know what he got at all or

8:23

what he's doing. There's a potential that

8:25

as he tries to renegotiate. trade

8:27

deals with Canada and Mexico, because

8:29

he's going to open up the

8:32

trade deal that he himself negotiated

8:34

with them last time, that maybe

8:36

he'll try to bring up some of

8:38

these issues again. He's upset about

8:41

a trade deficit, I guess. But

8:43

I don't know, I don't think

8:45

he got anything. Yeah, there was

8:47

a moment. He did yet another

8:49

press availability from the Oval this

8:51

morning, sort of his daily ritual

8:53

at this point, and he said,

8:56

who the hell negotiated these deals?

8:58

You did! Yeah, Jared Kushner

9:00

did. But we're in your deals. We're in

9:02

your deals. We're in your deals. We're in

9:04

your deals. We're in your deals. We're in

9:07

your deals. These are all. These are all.

9:09

These are all. These are all part. And

9:11

that's the contradiction at the heart of

9:13

this show. But it's, it's, are we,

9:15

like, and I think there's always a

9:18

mix, right, between his sort of feral

9:20

desire for just new cycles, right? He's

9:22

just, he's ravenous for new cycles, and

9:24

he's, he's got a great one out

9:26

of Columbia. He feels this is a

9:29

great one for him, right? He threatens

9:31

these tariffs. The media goes nuts. He

9:33

gets these concessions that he can brag

9:35

about, declare victory and we're on to

9:37

the next fight tomorrow. But then part

9:40

of it also is. He is, this is now

9:42

a cycle, right? He has said, I will tear

9:44

a few unless you come to the table and

9:46

negotiate, right? They can, he's showing that, you know,

9:49

they, they never apply this on, on sanctions, but

9:51

they do on, on terrorists, which is the way

9:53

you prove that, that if you concede something, you

9:55

might be rewarded by Trump, right? He's showing, he's,

9:57

he's going to be capricious and put him. these

10:00

disastrous tariffs that would harm both countries, but

10:02

he's also willing at a moment's notice to

10:04

withdraw them. So he's setting, now we have

10:06

a 30-day cycle. We're going to do this

10:08

again in 30 days, I guess. Yeah, I

10:10

think it's going to be a lot easier

10:12

to get, either real concessions or just lip

10:15

service of the Canadians and the Mexicans, then

10:17

it will be out of the Chinese. Shijin

10:19

Ping is not going to bend or break

10:21

or break easily. The results matter a lot

10:23

less to Trump than the politics. There were

10:25

stories in the Wall Street Journal a week

10:27

ago about how the Canadians didn't know what

10:29

he wanted. They were on the other end

10:32

of this fight. They didn't know what they

10:34

were negotiating. Turns out the answer was a

10:36

fentanyl czar. Yeah, they wanted a new czar.

10:38

But like Trump looks like he's taking action,

10:40

he's making progress, he's picking big fights. So

10:42

it's splashy, it's getting covered, you're right, state

10:44

media is covering it, but so is every

10:46

other news outlet that's, you know, trying to

10:49

follow this administration. So I think it's really

10:51

smart politics for him. I think though, you

10:53

just have to ask yourself, like, Justin Trudeau

10:55

and Claudia Shanebaum right now, what are they

10:57

thinking? Are they thinking, are they thinking, oh,

10:59

he really got us? No, probably. Sure, everyone

11:01

can say whatever they want and he can

11:03

say whatever he want about how he pulled

11:05

on over on people, but like the two

11:08

people, the two countries he supposedly pulled on

11:10

over on are probably pretty happy right now

11:12

because there's no trade war and they didn't

11:14

have to spend any more money than they

11:16

were going to. I was, I clicked on

11:18

over to, clicked on over to CNBC to

11:20

see what those guys were up to. I

11:22

don't really check in with them very much.

11:25

I thought today was a great day. They're

11:27

there every day, you know, you know, you

11:29

know, you know, you know, which is crazy,

11:31

which is crazy, which is crazy, which is

11:33

crazy, which is crazy, which is crazy, but.

11:35

Yeah, Jim, Jim Kramer this morning said, it's

11:37

really bad and it's going to be a

11:39

really long bad day. Well, you know what

11:42

you do with the Jim Kramer prediction, that

11:44

the other side, almost exclusively. But, but they

11:46

had the oil industry types on to talk

11:48

about what they thought about all of us

11:50

and they were all being very, very careful

11:52

not to say anything to offend Mr. Trump,

11:54

but they talked about how they had negotiated,

11:56

basically from their own pressure, they had pushed

11:58

for Trump to lower. the tariffs on

12:01

oil, right? So it's, you know, like,

12:03

why is he doing that? Well, he's

12:05

facing, the lobbyists are getting through, which

12:07

is just a reminder, by the way,

12:09

that tariffs are a great mechanism for

12:12

Trump, not just have new cycles, but

12:14

to keep American industries in heel. But

12:16

you say it's like a, you know,

12:18

I'm sure they're relieved that these tariffs

12:20

aren't going into effect, but like

12:22

the auto industry that... is incredibly

12:24

interdependent, is jeopardized by the threat of

12:26

these looming tariffs that will hang over

12:28

these companies for months to come. Based

12:31

on these free to trade agreements, be

12:33

able to a whole bunch of interdependent

12:35

industries, oil refineries, and all the rest,

12:37

that depend on the United States not

12:40

being a malicious actor that suddenly on

12:42

a dime decides they're going to throw

12:44

a giant tariff on our closest neighbor.

12:46

And so like, yeah, like we're on

12:49

the other side of this right now,

12:51

but... The threat is still there and Trump

12:53

knows that the prospective threat of terrorists is

12:55

more useful to him than ever implementing them.

12:57

Sure, but I don't know how you get

12:59

out of a cycle where people start to

13:02

decide the United States is not worth doing

13:04

business with. Right. No, no, I think I think

13:06

the whole thing is damaging for sure. Damaging to

13:08

us probably as people want to do business with

13:10

us because at some point someone's going

13:13

to say, well, I'm going to call

13:15

this bluff because so far all he

13:17

does. for his first term and now

13:19

this term is he threatens and then

13:21

maybe he slaps a small tariff on

13:23

something or targeted tariffs here but it's

13:25

not really a big deal. I also

13:27

think that, you know, there was this

13:29

whole debate, is he using the

13:31

tariffs as a negotiating threat or

13:33

does he just really believe that

13:35

tariffs are good? And by nominating

13:37

and then confirming Scott Besson for

13:40

Treasury Secretary, he seemed to be

13:42

of the view that tariffs are

13:44

just a good... negotiating tactic, but

13:46

then of course over the weekend when it seemed

13:48

like it was going to happen all of the

13:50

MAGA people are all arguing Trump's point that tariffs

13:52

are actually great and this is you know Trump

13:54

himself posted we should get rid of the income

13:57

tax and just have tariffs and these tariffs are

13:59

going to fill our Pods

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Comedy Central and streaming next day

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on Paramount Plus. All right, let's

17:20

talk about Trump's war at home

17:22

against the government he leads. The

17:24

president has essentially given Elon Musk

17:27

the keys to the kingdom. And

17:29

the world richest man is now acting

17:31

like he's the one people voted for.

17:33

Here's the headline from the Libs over

17:36

at the Wall Street Journal. Musk moves

17:38

with lightning speed to exert control

17:40

over the government. Elon and his

17:42

gang of Gen Z. Dogebroughs. Got

17:45

a couple of 1920-21-year-olds right out of

17:47

college, fresh out of college. Now they

17:49

are just running around the federal government.

17:52

Jesse who's in the Oval Office today?

17:54

Oh yeah. Rupert Murdoch. And and Larry

17:56

Elson well Ruth hanging out during

17:58

the during the Pressaville, they asked Trump

18:01

about the Wall Street Journal saying that this

18:03

was Trump's dumbest trade war. He didn't love

18:05

that. And he didn't like it. He said

18:07

he's going to have to bring that up

18:09

with Rupert. And I guess he really meant

18:11

it that day. Rupert was sitting right there

18:13

with a question with us. Yeah. We didn't

18:15

talk about that. I did wonder if. some

18:17

of the market stuff and Rupert and Wall

18:20

Street Journal and the like the old establishment

18:22

Republicans that basically no longer exist started getting

18:24

him like hey the markets could be fucked

18:26

here. Well this was the whole thing the

18:28

whole first term his China policy was flip-flopping

18:30

back and forth between hardline hawks

18:32

and the market whisperers like Menukin

18:34

and others who were saying don't do

18:37

it you don't want a doubt to go down you want

18:39

the S&P to drop? So anyway so

18:41

Elon and all of his fucking nerds

18:43

they're running throughout the federal government now

18:45

they demanded and ultimately one

18:47

access to the Treasury Department's

18:49

payment system, which is how the government

18:51

pays its bills and delivers benefits

18:53

to people that are already mandated

18:55

by law. So by the time

18:58

it gets to the payment system,

19:00

it's all a bunch of career

19:02

officials, they're nonpartisan, they're just like,

19:04

it's just the spigot, they're just

19:06

turning it on, all right, now we're just paying

19:09

the bills. So now this means that Elon

19:11

and his crew has access to the

19:13

personal information of every... U.S.

19:15

taxpayer, Social Security numbers, all

19:17

of it. Elon then claimed

19:19

without any evidence whatsoever that

19:21

Treasury, he discovered that Treasury

19:24

was making illegal payments, including

19:26

to some terrorists, and that he

19:28

was shutting them down. Seems bad. What's

19:30

your level of alarm on this

19:33

one, guys? Presumably we're mailing the

19:35

checks to those terrorists, so probably...

19:37

See that address go there. Yeah, Uncle

19:39

Sam's Venmo, do we have the

19:41

ISIS account? It just sort of

19:43

like, seems like that's like a,

19:45

you're kind of over promising and

19:47

under delivering. If you found terrorists

19:50

in the payment system, I'll see

19:52

where the checks are going. I

19:54

mean, hummus, not Hamas. So how

19:56

do we route that money in

19:58

the wrong place, you know? that

20:00

app. It was hummus for Hamas,

20:02

unfortunately, and condoms. Which was just

20:04

made up, and he said it

20:06

again. Anyway, this is pretty un...

20:08

First of all, I didn't know

20:10

that Uncle Sam had a Venmo.

20:12

This seems alarming and unprecedented, like

20:15

Elon Musk, just an unelected tech

20:17

billionaire wrestling away congressional authority to

20:19

spend money in the Treasury Department's

20:21

role in the whole process, and

20:24

I don't know, like this vindictive,

20:26

unstable man calling USAID evil and

20:28

leftist Marxist terrorist supporters. This all

20:30

seems like a pretty bad setup.

20:32

I forgot to mention that when

20:34

they originally demanded access, they were

20:36

told no by the career official

20:39

in charge of the payment system

20:41

at Treasury, who was acting Treasury

20:43

secretary at the time before Besant

20:45

was confirmed and had been appointed,

20:47

I believe, by Donald Trump in

20:49

the first administration. So this is

20:51

no crazy Marxist lib. And he

20:53

said, no, that's crazy. You can't

20:56

have access to the payment system.

20:58

You're not like this group of

21:00

kids that you brought in from

21:02

Silicon Valley. They're not even government

21:04

employees, and they don't have security

21:06

clearances. No, we're not giving you

21:08

access to the sensitive payment system

21:11

that distributes trillions of dollars every

21:13

year. And then he had to

21:15

step aside. They got him right

21:17

out of there. It's also, you

21:19

know, it's like it's obviously like

21:21

the most sort of sensational example,

21:23

but it's also just if your

21:25

goal is getting government spending under

21:28

control, obviously, this is dangerous and

21:30

unhinged. It's also very stupid, because

21:32

if you're trying to get overall

21:34

government spending under control, I don't

21:36

care how many 19 -year -olds you

21:38

brought with you from Doge and

21:40

I don't care how many fucking

21:43

sofa beds you bring into the

21:45

OMB, going line by line through

21:47

the fucking ledger. Like this is

21:49

a vast apparatus. There are, but

21:51

also it's the wrong ledger. You

21:53

couldn't you didn't need access to

21:55

the payment system. There's the federal

21:57

budget that you could just go

22:00

line by line, but that's my

22:02

point like these people have so

22:04

little knowledge or respect Like I

22:06

want I want to get to

22:08

the danger that this poses the

22:10

moral and ethical Risks

22:13

that this poses, but you let's just

22:15

start by pointing out like this

22:17

is this a stupid thing to do This

22:19

is a stupid way to try to achieve

22:21

what they want to achieve because it is

22:23

not actually about results it's about Expeeing

22:25

the stars of a drama the drama

22:28

of reforming the government from the inside

22:30

with our Daybeds and our doge and

22:32

our hardcore and our emails and our

22:34

exciting exciting progress and now and now

22:36

and and and that to me is

22:38

Driving all of this not the actual

22:40

practical realities of what anything made on

22:43

their own terms what they want to

22:45

do well But that that's the key

22:47

on their own terms. It's if what

22:49

they want to do really is

22:52

Cut spending in the government and

22:55

that's it then if the whole thing

22:57

is really stupid and they're going about the wrong

22:59

way but Maybe that's not what

23:01

they really want to do and that's why they

23:03

tried to get access to the payment system in

23:05

the US government and where the shit really hits

23:07

the fan is we're gonna go into a probably

23:09

a debt ceiling crisis in March

23:12

and When they're trying to

23:14

raise the debt ceiling and Treasury already

23:16

is using extraordinary measures to keep us

23:18

from hitting the debt ceiling because we

23:20

should have raised it as always we're

23:22

raising it late as we have for

23:24

the last two decades and Treasury

23:27

in that department are responsible for making

23:29

sure that the US keeps paying our

23:31

bills and That the you know full

23:33

faith and credit of the United States

23:35

government is respected and counted on all

23:37

over the world It also apparently even

23:39

in past financial crises or debt ceiling

23:41

fights that the political staff have

23:43

never Done this

23:45

they've always let career civil service

23:47

handle this kind of sensitive information And

23:49

by the way, there was some reporting

23:52

about the identities of members of

23:54

the doge team these these tweens and

23:56

teens running around the place No,

24:00

you don't know that. No, you don't

24:02

know that they're working on. Now the

24:04

US attorney for the District of Columbia

24:06

is threatening to arrest people or prosecute

24:09

people that I guess expose their identities

24:11

or put them at risk in some

24:13

kind of way. And now you've got

24:15

like Elon's army of dipshits and

24:18

losers on Twitter. now doxing the

24:20

reporters who reported on the

24:22

Doge staffers and leading them

24:25

getting threats. So this is

24:27

just an incredibly fistic. The

24:29

US Attorney for DC who now,

24:32

who used to be, the guy

24:34

who defended all the January 6

24:36

riders. He was now made the US

24:38

Attorney in DC? So much of

24:40

this too, like it's Trump, how

24:42

Trump is threatening tariffs, how

24:45

Elon is operating Doge, it

24:47

is all kind of... childish, kind

24:49

of buffoonish people drafting

24:52

off the like stability

24:54

and success and institutions that they don't

24:56

respect at all. Like Elon and this

24:58

group of people, they don't care or

25:00

know why we did things the way

25:02

we did for a really long time.

25:05

They don't know or care. why we

25:07

had these independent parts of the government.

25:09

They don't haven't thought deeply about why

25:11

it's actually a very good thing that

25:13

when the Treasury says, hey, we have

25:16

four months until we're out of money,

25:18

that both Democrats and Republicans that are

25:20

negotiating overspending in Congress respect that.

25:22

And more broadly, they don't respect that like,

25:24

yeah, cutting the budget. finding waste and

25:26

fraud like these are time-consuming and difficult

25:28

projects that require audits and negotiation and

25:31

compromise that are slow and annoying and

25:33

frustrating and imperfect like they don't respect

25:35

or care about that process at all

25:37

it's not hardcore it's not how they

25:39

do it in business because they don't

25:42

understand the value of like democratic

25:44

legitimacy they don't appreciate or care about

25:46

these institutions and the fact that they

25:48

belong not to like Elon or Trump

25:50

but they belong to us and that

25:52

basic lack of respect like humility is

25:54

is It's just absent. It's absent. And I know it

25:56

kind of almost goes without saying, but I think it's

25:58

worth saying. Well, yeah, because billionaire tech... founders don't

26:00

run their businesses like a democracy. That's

26:02

the whole point. They're like their authoritarians

26:05

in their own little fiefdoms and they

26:07

look at the federal government and they're

26:09

like, oh, it's so wasteful and inefficient

26:12

and why can't they just run, why

26:14

can't the person in charge just make

26:16

all the... Make all the calls there

26:18

too. Oh wait a minute. Right, we

26:21

tried that. We tried that. The system

26:23

that we have here, Democracy, this seems,

26:25

I don't know about this. And a

26:28

lot of people thought it was stupid

26:30

to do it the way we decided

26:32

to try to do it. They're like,

26:35

what do you mean? You don't have

26:37

one person making all the rules. Isn't

26:39

that going to be messy? Yes. Yes.

26:41

But it turns out it has some

26:44

perks. When Besson found out about the

26:46

whole thing apparently he told the journal

26:48

the Wall Street Journal Or sources told

26:51

the Wall Street Journal that they have

26:53

only read only access No good to

26:55

the payments and that they cannot cut

26:57

off any any any any payments themselves

27:00

Which you know contradicts Elon's tweet where

27:02

he said we are stopping these payments

27:04

immediately So a little unclear what's going

27:07

on it changes hour to hour. We

27:09

have no idea Doge also busted into

27:11

the USAID building this weekend. That's the

27:13

agency responsible for humanitarian assistance around the

27:16

world. And they demanded access to classified

27:18

information and personnel information. When USAID security

27:20

officials resisted, they were put on leave.

27:23

Elon then tweeted that USAID is an

27:25

evil criminal organization, a viper's nest of

27:27

radical left Marxists who hate America, and

27:30

that it's time for the agency to

27:32

die. This was quite a tweet-free Sunday.

27:34

USAID's website and Twitter account were then

27:36

taken down, and staffers were locked out

27:39

of the building in their email accounts.

27:41

Even staffers all over the world in

27:43

some very dangerous places could not access

27:46

USAID contacts, their emails, nothing. Then on

27:48

Monday... Secretary of State Mark Rubio announced

27:50

that USAID would become part of the

27:52

State Department and that he was now

27:55

active administrator. Trump also weighed in on

27:57

all this insanity, let's listen. fraud, these

27:59

people are lunatics and if it comes

28:02

to fraud you wouldn't have an act

28:04

of Congress and I'm not sure that

28:06

you would anyway. I love the concept

28:08

but they turn out to be radical

28:11

left lunatics and the concept of it

28:13

is good but it's all about the

28:15

people. It's interesting that he says he

28:18

loves the concept there. I don't think

28:20

you do. Of course you do need

28:22

a law passed by Congress to completely

28:25

defund and eliminate an agency. Anyway, it's

28:27

obviously not how the people who actually

28:29

work at USAID see it, the way

28:31

that Elon sees it. We talked to

28:33

Brittany Brown, who was a former division

28:36

head at USAID, right after she got

28:38

back from her protest outside the agency's

28:40

headquarters in DC on Monday. Let's listen

28:42

to Brittany. I'm Brittany Brown. I was

28:44

at USAID for four years, starting

28:46

the second week of the Biden

28:49

administration, and I stayed through January

28:51

20th at noon of this year.

28:53

So about 10 days ago, what

28:55

happened was they put a stop

28:57

work order on all US foreign

28:59

assistance, and that impacted about $60

29:01

billion of assistance. I think we've

29:03

seen now in the last three

29:05

days that it really is an

29:07

attempt to shut down the US

29:09

Agency for international development or

29:12

USAID. What is really important about

29:14

this versus just like a pause

29:16

on assistance is they didn't just

29:18

stop new money from going out

29:20

the door. The thing that's like

29:22

really scary to me is the

29:24

guy who is in charge of

29:26

holding together the humanitarian portion of

29:28

the ceasefire with Israel. In Gaza,

29:30

he cannot access his email or

29:32

computer. He's the one who's supposed

29:34

to be. like actually making sure

29:36

the humanitarian portion of that is

29:38

working and he can't get into

29:40

his email. The woman who is

29:42

running the humanitarian response in Sudan

29:44

where we just declared a genocide,

29:46

she can't access her email or

29:48

get into her systems to try

29:50

and move commodities so that we

29:52

actually can support the people who

29:54

are now, you know, without any

29:56

international support. These are all people

29:58

that I know. I spent the

30:01

first seven months of the first

30:03

Trump administration at the Trump White

30:05

House as Trump's senior Africa person,

30:07

and I saw firsthand that things

30:09

were rarely what they said they

30:11

were. And that is why I

30:13

feel so panicked about what they're

30:15

saying versus what is happening. I

30:17

think this is a test to

30:19

see is Congress actually going to

30:21

stand up for their right and

30:23

for something that the Constitution protects.

30:26

USAID is a really safe organization

30:28

to test this with. It is

30:30

difficult to explain to the average

30:32

American why spending $60 billion overseas

30:34

makes sense. It's not like the

30:36

people in Wisconsin are concerned about

30:38

what is happening. necessarily in Somaliland

30:40

or in Eswatini, like they're thinking

30:42

about Wisconsin. So it seems to

30:44

me, again, that if President Trump

30:46

and Elon Musk wanted to root

30:48

out wasteful spending at USAID, they

30:50

could have just conducted an audit

30:52

of the agency's budget and then

30:54

asked their Republican-controlled Congress to make

30:57

a bunch of cuts. Clearly that's

30:59

not what happened. Tommy, what do

31:01

you think's going on here and

31:03

how big of a deal is

31:05

this? I think that this is

31:07

not about whistle spending or even

31:09

about USAID. I think this is

31:11

a broader effort to usurp Congress's

31:13

role in the spending process and

31:15

create a precedent that they can

31:17

then use again and again. Just

31:19

to be clear, the president does

31:21

not have the legal authority to

31:23

abolish USAID's authority apart from state

31:26

and merging it with state would

31:28

also be unconstitutional. So this is

31:30

just a power grab. And I

31:32

think how it goes... could determine

31:34

whether there is another power grab.

31:36

You're seeing some reporting that the

31:38

Department of Education could be next,

31:40

that's the thing in Elon's crosshairs.

31:42

And it is part of a

31:44

broader pattern that we're seeing in

31:46

these first two weeks of them

31:48

ignoring or breaking the law, ignoring

31:50

norms, to seize power. So they

31:52

fired those inspectors general at all

31:55

these agencies. And they did it

31:57

illegally by not giving Congress sufficient

31:59

notice. It would have been very

32:01

easy to give Congress 30 days

32:03

notice and then fire all these

32:05

people. The Republicans wouldn't stop them.

32:07

They wanted to have this fight

32:09

and maybe take it to courts

32:11

and win in court. They have

32:13

crippled the National Labor Relations Board

32:16

by firing a member, so now

32:18

the NLRB doesn't have enough members

32:20

to meet, so they don't have

32:22

a quorum. That means in practice,

32:24

this independent agency. that is supposed

32:26

to investigate and prosecute labor law

32:28

violations cannot do its job. Similar

32:30

thing happened at the Equal Employment

32:32

Opportunity Commission or EEOC. They are

32:34

brow beating Republican senators into supporting

32:36

unqualified nominees. Like this is a

32:38

massive unprecedented power grab and Democrats

32:40

I think don't really know how

32:42

to fight it or don't have

32:45

the power to fight it and Republicans

32:47

just refuse to. And you know you

32:49

said... Maybe they're looking for a fight

32:51

that they can take to court and

32:53

win. The thing that has been keeping me

32:55

up at night for months is that they

32:57

go to court with some of these fights

32:59

and then they lose. And then Donald

33:02

Trump says, fuck you, John Roberts, and

33:04

the Supreme Court, what are you going

33:06

to do about it? And I think

33:08

that this was corrupt and the justice

33:10

groups are wrong and I don't agree

33:12

with them and I'm going to do

33:14

what I want. I'm going to do

33:17

what I want. Bob Bauer. in the

33:19

Obama administration and Jack Goldsmith who was

33:21

in the White House Council for

33:23

a Republican administration, they both wrote

33:26

this and they said that Russ

33:28

vote, who's going to head up

33:30

OMB, like his view of the Constitution

33:32

is that you should try to

33:34

push the court and maybe defy court

33:36

orders because you want or you

33:39

want the court to give you

33:41

favorable rulings because the court is

33:43

afraid that if the court gives

33:45

you gives Donald Trump like rulings

33:47

that he doesn't like, then he'll

33:49

say, fuck you, and then that'll be it.

33:51

Right, that the court needs to balance

33:53

its constitutional prerogative with the fear that

33:56

Trump will break the rules, and so

33:58

they negotiate against themselves. allowing

34:00

Trump to be unconstrained without him ever

34:02

having to break a rule, by

34:04

the way, not dissimilar to what news

34:06

agencies are doing when they capitulate

34:08

to Trump on lawsuits that they're afraid

34:10

to fight all the way to

34:12

the Supreme Court. There are two pieces

34:14

of it that I think are

34:16

worth splitting up. One is what they're

34:18

doing around these firings or the

34:20

National Labor Relations Board in which they

34:22

are basically asserting that any bounds

34:24

on Trump and his ability to decide

34:26

who works for him and where

34:28

in the executive branch are unconstitutional, which

34:30

is not a theory that Donald

34:33

Trump invented, it's called the Unitary Executive

34:35

Theory, it precedes him, and it

34:37

is the way in which Trump's instinctive

34:39

strongman politics merge with the Republican

34:41

desire for an imperial presidency incredibly dangerous

34:43

in part because that ideological desire

34:45

for an extremely powerful presidency is not

34:47

just in what Republican Congress want

34:49

or what previous Republican presidents want, it's

34:51

what the Republican courts seem willing

34:53

to go along with. The other part

34:55

of this is the power of

34:57

the purse, and it is interesting that

34:59

Trump, whether it

35:01

is because they didn't want to

35:03

have the fight on this

35:05

issue or they do think they

35:07

would be constrained by a

35:09

court ruling that they withdrew the

35:11

federal funding freeze and were

35:13

willing to kind of give on

35:15

that, right? It points to

35:17

the places in which they're still

35:19

responding to kind of the

35:21

old rules, at least a little

35:23

bit, at least that's maybe

35:25

a glimmer of hope that they

35:27

are. One of the federal

35:29

judges that tried to freeze the

35:31

freeze and issued a restraining

35:33

order said just today, Monday, that

35:35

she doesn't believe that the

35:37

Trump administration is abiding by the

35:39

restraining order and ordered them

35:41

again to stop the freeze. It

35:43

also sounds like that OPM

35:45

letter went through Elon's shop and

35:47

did not go by people

35:49

like Stephen Miller and other top

35:51

White House officials, so I'm

35:53

sure there's some intra -administration stuff

35:55

it. And they're just there benefiting

35:57

from chaos and incompetence, right?

35:59

Like Bill Cassidy, your Republican senator,

36:01

put out a letter today

36:03

saying, pep farce. still seems to be on hold.

36:05

PEPFAR was a Bush initiative, a Republican initiative, to spend vast

36:08

amounts of money to combat HIV and AIDS in Africa. I

36:10

remember when this was a debate at the time, Bush didn't

36:12

like USAID. And so he set it

36:14

up separately because he wanted it to

36:16

run through the State Department because of

36:18

the previous Republican problems with USAID. That's

36:20

still being held, even though they're claiming

36:23

that these things have a waiver. But

36:25

on the power of the purse. What

36:27

Trump is doing here is he's

36:29

basically saying, I have the latitude to

36:31

turn off everything, and then by

36:33

no bless of bleach, turn it back on,

36:36

right? And I don't, like, we have spent

36:38

a long time watching as the

36:40

presidency kind of encroached upon Congress's

36:42

prerogatives, like that's something that was

36:44

happening under Democrats. and Republicans and

36:47

it's gotten complicated and when Obama

36:49

is president, a bunch of Democrats

36:51

are defending certain things that now

36:53

we would not defend and Republicans

36:55

are doing the same in a

36:57

Republican administration. But this is as

36:59

basic and core of the Constitution

37:01

as it gets. If the president

37:03

can decide what to spend or

37:06

not to spend based on what

37:08

Congress has passed, the Congress is

37:10

no longer determining how the money is spent,

37:12

the president is. That is one of the

37:14

core dangers we have a constitution. I agree

37:16

with you, like my concern too is

37:19

that they're going to obliterate, that they're

37:21

going to, that they're going to, that

37:23

bash through a court ruling at some

37:26

point. I think the question is like,

37:28

how long do we hold that off,

37:30

right? Four years ago, what Elon

37:32

Musk is doing, impossible to

37:34

imagine. Eight years ago, impossible to

37:37

imagine. Four years from now, I

37:39

have no idea. And it's also

37:41

important that like this is just

37:43

causing needless suffering. and death. Because

37:45

again, if the, and you know, what

37:47

they're going to do is they're going

37:50

to, I'm sure, come out with, you

37:52

know, programs and spending at USAID that

37:54

seem ridiculous or wasteful. There are you.

37:56

Again, there's probably plenty of that, right?

37:59

And no. No one is saying we

38:01

shouldn't go through the federal budget and

38:03

go through the federal government and eliminate

38:05

wasteful spending and try to find more

38:08

efficiencies. But pausing it the way they

38:10

did, cutting it off immediately, like people,

38:12

children, what children are going to die

38:14

because they can't get the medication they

38:17

need in other countries. for what for

38:19

nothing we're not gonna save money for

38:21

this this is a you heard from

38:23

Brittany this is money that was already

38:25

out the door this isn't new money

38:28

so there no one saving this is

38:30

just you know there's i think there

38:32

was guards prison guards that were guarding

38:34

ISIS prisoners just had to walk off

38:37

the job well they didn't know if

38:39

they should show for work so some

38:41

of them didn't There's USAID people in

38:43

dangerous areas around the world that now

38:46

can't get access to help if they

38:48

need it. All kinds of health programs

38:50

we're funding around the world that are

38:52

just going to lead to more suffering

38:54

and death. I mean, it's fucking ridiculous.

38:57

It's inexcusable. I also think like there's

38:59

this lack of clarity now about whether

39:01

some parts of USAID funding has been

39:03

unfrozen like Rubio said that Secretary Rubio

39:06

said that life-saving assistance like medicine medical

39:08

service food and shelter would be exempted

39:10

from the aid freeze but no one

39:12

really knows what that means yeah and

39:15

I think that's kind of the point

39:17

because this uncertainty has just upended everything

39:19

USA ID is doing and and I

39:21

think Honestly, I think talking about this

39:23

as a freeze is probably a mistake.

39:26

I have zero confidence that the vast

39:28

majority of this funding or these programs

39:30

will be turned back on. And I

39:32

think that, well, by the way, Rubio

39:35

used to be a big defender of

39:37

USAID funding. He said it was critical

39:39

for our national security and I was

39:41

totally flip-flopped. But let's just say that

39:43

something you're working on is pause for

39:46

90 days. If you're a pause for

39:48

90 days to just sit on. to

39:50

like see if your job is around

39:52

in three months like you're going to

39:55

go do something else and it's going

39:57

to like completely cripple all this work

39:59

that that you just taken decades to

40:01

set up this infrastructure these contractors these

40:04

networks of peace in these countries. And

40:06

to your point, I mean, if you're

40:08

getting entry retrovirals through PEPFAR and you

40:10

stop, you're gonna die. That's just how

40:12

it is. And I get the domestic

40:15

politics on all this, I get that

40:17

no one likes foreign aid or not.

40:19

Most Americans don't like foreign aid and

40:21

you tell people it's like 0.7% of

40:24

the whole budget and that still doesn't

40:26

matter. Well, they think it's 10% is

40:28

the big problem. Yeah, that is a

40:30

big problem. But I do think for

40:33

most Americans you tell them. This kid

40:35

showed up at a clinic today, like

40:37

they have every day for, you know,

40:39

once a month to go get some

40:41

medicine, and now it shut down, and

40:44

now this kid could die. Like, for

40:46

what purpose? So that Elon can post

40:48

about, like, vile communists, Marxists? It's, there's,

40:50

like, a way in which they're kind

40:53

of base incompetence, and then they're kind

40:55

of, like, viciousness, work together here, which

40:57

is... They didn't know or care very

40:59

much about what USAID did. They didn't

41:01

care very much or know very much

41:04

about what PEPFAR did before. They have

41:06

an ideological set of assumptions about non-profit

41:08

work, about foreign aid, that it's all

41:10

bullshit, right? They like internalized a bunch

41:13

of that. I wonder if Elon Musk

41:15

knew that USAID played such a big

41:17

role in fighting apartheid in South Africa.

41:19

Well, I mean, but the only just

41:22

the point that I'm only making is

41:24

that like the way in which these

41:26

things work together is they're so fucking

41:28

careless They're so and like they're just

41:30

careless people. It's so it's a it's

41:33

a glib carelessness that is just like

41:35

it's beneath contempt and the stakes are

41:37

so high if we're just yes, there

41:39

are many ideological kind of warriors, but

41:42

a lot of the people at the

41:44

top of this are just capricious glib

41:46

fools that don't understand that they just

41:48

don't care that they're playing with matches.

41:51

But in some instances it's worse than

41:53

that. It's it's they are folding this

41:55

into their preconceived ideological anger and they've

41:57

decided that USAID funded programs that led

41:59

to gain a function research that led

42:02

to COVID. You know, this is all

42:04

kind of getting folded into like, prosecute,

42:06

fauchy, madness. And it's like, you know,

42:08

Elon Musk re-treating at Wall Street Apes,

42:11

which is his source on someone found

42:13

some 40 million taxpayer funding that went

42:15

to some scientists in Wuhan. And it's

42:17

just like, I don't know, apparently this

42:19

is all just part of a conspiracy

42:22

theory about how the lab leak was

42:24

on purpose from, you know, thanks to,

42:26

Fauci's funding from USAID, I guess. That's

42:28

the new theory of the case here.

42:31

And again, you have the richest man

42:33

in the world with one of the

42:35

biggest platforms, now one of the most

42:37

powerful people in government, just accusing entire

42:40

organizations of being criminal enterprises. And you

42:42

can see the slippery slope, right? Like

42:44

you can see where now, you know,

42:46

Pam Bondi and Cash Patel get in

42:48

there and they start processing, well, this

42:51

is criminal activity, we're going to investigate

42:53

it. The Trump administration also pushed out

42:55

the head of the Consumer Financial Protection

42:57

Bureau, Rojit Chopra, and ordered the agency

43:00

to stop all investigations and enforcement actions

43:02

against banks and payday lenders and credit

43:04

card companies. They have saved just consumers

43:06

billions in... billions and billions of dollars

43:09

in refunds and they've got to consumers

43:11

it's a great issue. There is no

43:13

simpler like the delta between what Republicans

43:15

claim that CFPB is and what CFPB

43:17

is that is one of the biggest

43:20

and starkest gaps. in politics is an

43:22

agency that has such a singular, simple

43:24

purpose, which is to go after big

43:26

corporations that are defrauding and fucking over

43:29

consumers and getting them money back. It

43:31

is being punished because it, well, it's

43:33

being punished apart because it was originally

43:35

Elizabeth Warren's idea. That's its original sin.

43:38

But it is so fucking effective. It

43:40

is such good government. They put McMillaney

43:42

in there the first term to try

43:44

to destroy it. Biden was able to

43:46

put it in Rojit who did an

43:49

amazing job. And now they're going to

43:51

try to destroy it again. Yeah. And

43:53

as Tommy mentioned, Wall Street Journal reports,

43:55

and now the Washington Post, the Trump

43:58

and Elon are preparing an executive order

44:00

to try to shut down the entire

44:02

Department of Education. This was the campaign

44:04

promise from Trump. They acknowledge in the

44:06

order that they can't shut the entire

44:09

thing down by executive order. They want

44:11

to go to Congress to do it,

44:13

but they want to move some of

44:15

the functions out of the Department of

44:18

the Department of Education. Of course, you

44:20

know, most schools are funded by local

44:22

and state taxes. You know, for poor

44:24

schools, get a lot of Title I

44:27

funding from the Department of Education. All

44:29

of student financial aid, the federal financial

44:31

aid program is run out of the

44:33

Department of Education. Students with disabilities are

44:35

funded through the Department of Education. It

44:38

goes on and on and on. New

44:40

York Times reports that more than 8,000

44:42

federal government web pages have been taken

44:44

down, including thousands of research papers that

44:47

were available on the CDC website. informational

44:49

IRS videos about how to avoid tax

44:51

penalties, and the state-level hate crimes data

44:53

on the Justice Department website. Speaking of

44:56

which, there is an ongoing purge at

44:58

the DOJ and FBI. Trump is firing

45:00

any prosecutors or FBI agents that had

45:02

anything to do with any criminal investigations

45:04

that led to his indictments. Well, in

45:07

fairness, that's because they were also incredibly

45:09

ineffective. Gotta get some good prosecutors in

45:11

that can get a fucking conviction and

45:13

get them in jail. If the FBI

45:16

employees were given until 3 p.m. Eastern

45:18

time on Monday. to fill out a

45:20

questionnaire about whether they were involved in

45:22

any way in investigations into January 6th.

45:24

That's such a funny trap to set

45:27

for prosecutors. Should I fire you? Why

45:29

or n? The FBI has estimated that

45:31

the number of people who were agents

45:33

and staff could be about 6,000. This

45:36

comes after DOJ fired about 12 prosecutors

45:38

in DC who had been brought on

45:40

to investigate January 6th cases. And most

45:42

of those 6,000 are like so tangential.

45:45

So people who got random leads who

45:47

passed along information or were part of

45:49

a wiretap or who got knows what.

45:51

And by the way, that's the real

45:53

concern is that so many of these

45:56

people working are like career officials who've

45:58

been. at DOJ or the FBI for

46:00

a decade. Some of them are very

46:02

senior people with like counterintelligence experience and

46:05

they're going after national security threats and

46:07

they've been working on all these cases

46:09

and now they're just gonna be gone.

46:11

Or they were just assigned a case

46:14

and they don't have a, you don't

46:16

have a choice? Right. Season prosecutors who

46:18

do, there's season prosecutors who have no

46:20

reason to be fired and it's not

46:22

as though America is short on white-collar

46:25

crimes to prosecute. So it's fucking

46:27

terrible. I mean, you talked about

46:29

the Unitary Executive Theory, you

46:31

know, J.D. Vance tweeted today, you know,

46:33

look, unelected bureaucrats

46:35

should not be resisting the

46:37

President of the United States. They

46:40

work for him. He gets to

46:42

staff his government with who he

46:44

wants, and then he is answerable

46:46

to the people. So the people

46:48

elected Trump, and Trump gets to

46:50

have the entire government he wants,

46:52

so everyone else should just shut

46:54

the fuck up, basically. Why is that wrong?

46:57

We are watching these guys make

46:59

these kind of simple arguments

47:01

against these like hard one

47:03

institutional protections, right? Some

47:06

of which are imposed by Congress.

47:08

Some are just norms that evolved

47:10

over decades, if not centuries.

47:12

And a lot of those norms, institutions,

47:15

processes that are designed to constrain

47:17

the executive were put in place

47:20

in the kind of like long

47:22

before the internet. And they were

47:24

put in place. when you had

47:26

a kind of like elite bipartisan

47:28

set of actors that didn't feel

47:30

like they had that that that kind

47:32

of established this order long ago and

47:34

and it's sort of been in place

47:36

in a way that was like never really

47:39

defended right we took no one really

47:41

making the argument for why the DOJ

47:43

is separate from the presidency and why

47:46

that's a good idea and why that's

47:48

important there's no real there hasn't been

47:50

a real kind of I don't know

47:52

like legal, broad-based kind of public legal

47:54

argument against originalism and like kind of

47:57

the values of the kind of what

47:59

we've learned. about constitutional governance over

48:01

the last 200 years. But what

48:03

we do have is just example

48:05

after example after example of why

48:07

we put these restrictions in place

48:09

and they were meant to stop.

48:12

Presidents from abusing power. The reason

48:14

we have bureaucrats who are not

48:16

accountable to the president can't be

48:18

fired by the president is because

48:20

of the spoil system. And because

48:22

when the government was filled with

48:24

cronies, it didn't fucking work and

48:26

it was a corrupt bargain. Why

48:29

is the DOJ separate from the

48:31

White House? Because the presidency is

48:33

too powerful. And when DOJ isn't

48:35

separate from the White House, it

48:37

means the president is not... accountable

48:39

to law. There's an answer to

48:41

everyone, one of these questions, but

48:44

you know, it's like we're, we're,

48:46

they're relying on the fact that

48:48

we're like fighting these guys in

48:50

every fucking front and they can

48:52

just spout off and say make

48:54

these sort of claims to the

48:56

power of the people. Well, we're

48:58

left kind of following behind. Well,

49:01

actually, there's a good reason. RFK

49:03

was actually Attorney General. I'm so

49:05

sick of this. This is what

49:07

people voted for line. Voting for

49:09

Donald Trump doesn't mean we get

49:11

rid of basic civil service protections

49:13

for government employees. Those are in

49:15

place to ensure merit-based employment, to

49:18

ensure that political influence is in

49:20

dictating every single person who is

49:22

hired or fired, that there isn't

49:24

discrimination or arbitrary actions. They have

49:26

collective bargaining rights, there's whistleblower protections,

49:28

there's all sorts of workers' rights

49:30

that don't go away because Donald

49:32

Trump gets elected president. I do

49:35

think that's, you know, people don't

49:37

necessarily love bureaucrats, even the name

49:39

has a connotation that's not too

49:41

positive. And I don't think, like,

49:43

you know, even during the campaign,

49:45

we didn't want to talk a

49:47

lot about Schedule F and how

49:49

we wanted to replace all of

49:52

the government workers with loyalists because

49:54

we knew that wouldn't really pop

49:56

in the polls. And I think

49:58

that as he's doing all this,

50:00

you know, those of us who

50:02

are paying attention are rightly freaked

50:04

out. I think what's going to

50:07

have to happen is adverse consequences

50:09

from having a government completely gutted

50:11

and really good professional people who've

50:13

been... there's just like I don't

50:15

know what the equity is and

50:17

just a defense of the It's

50:19

not good TV, right? Like, the,

50:21

like, the difficult work of the

50:24

diplomacy behind the scenes to gain

50:26

concessions without threatening your partners and

50:28

without creating a scandal. Like, it's

50:30

just, it's just not good TV.

50:32

And like, a lot of- You're

50:34

not sticking around for the readout

50:36

or the bylat. Right. It was

50:38

just like, democracy hasn't, like, what

50:41

Trump figured out is that democracy

50:43

isn't good TV. It's hard. Maybe

50:45

next Democrat should try to take

50:47

over Greenland, you know. Potts of

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great. Speaking of Trump getting to

53:01

do whatever he wants, one more

53:03

Mad King move I want to

53:06

talk about here that just

53:08

drove me crazy. So Trump

53:11

apparently ordered the Army Corps

53:13

of Engineers to begin releasing

53:15

water from two reservoirs in

53:18

California's Central Valley because he...

53:20

mistakenly believes the water from the

53:22

central valley will flow three hours south

53:24

to Los Angeles. I think people, I

53:27

think people, because South is down. Yeah,

53:29

because gravity will take it down. I

53:31

guess, I guess what's supposed to, you're

53:33

supposed to release the water from the

53:35

reservoirs up there and then it'll

53:37

flow right into the hydrants in the

53:39

palisades. Right. That's how it's going to

53:41

happen. Is the word valley doing nothing

53:43

for him? So he mistakenly believes it

53:45

will flow down here to Los Angeles,

53:47

helping us put out fires that are

53:49

now 100% contained in advance of an

53:51

atmospheric river event that's predicted to dump

53:53

10 feet of snow and up to

53:55

20 inches of rain in the area

53:57

this week of the Central Valley, where

53:59

he... where he just dumped out all

54:02

that water. According to the Washington

54:04

Post, Trump released enough water to

54:06

supply as many as 7,000 households

54:08

for a year, and now that water won't

54:10

be available to Central Valley farmers

54:12

who really need it to irrigate the

54:14

fields later this year. Trump talked about

54:17

this quote, long-fought victory at

54:19

the White House on Monday. Let's listen.

54:21

All we're doing is giving

54:23

Los Angeles and the entire

54:26

state of... California virtually unlimited

54:28

water, which they could have

54:30

done five years ago, which

54:32

I told them they should

54:34

do, but the environmentalist stopped

54:36

him. And we opened it

54:39

and we did it regardless

54:41

of the state. And now

54:43

the state seems to be

54:45

very happy. I spoke with

54:47

Gavin Newsom and he's very

54:50

happy. I almost called him by

54:52

the other night. Just going to go

54:54

out on a limb here and say

54:56

that I don't think Gavin Houston was

54:58

probably too happy about this. It's so stupid.

55:00

What the fuck, I don't just... He makes

55:02

up a problem and he solves a problem.

55:05

We're going to be living with that over

55:07

and over again, but he doesn't care about

55:09

the... Like apparently, was it Padu saying that

55:12

he wanted to open it up even further

55:14

in a way that was extremely dangerous? Yeah,

55:16

no, he wanted them to release a ton.

55:18

They only gave the local officials hours,

55:20

hours notice. Usually when you do

55:22

releases like that, you prepare for,

55:24

with local officials and farmers and

55:26

everyone else for many days to

55:28

make sure there's no flooding. So they

55:30

almost had to just open it up and

55:33

cause a whole bunch of flooding. And then

55:35

finally last minute they were like, can we

55:37

just do a little less? Sir, because this

55:39

is just for your fucking adult mind

55:41

about what has nothing to do with

55:43

anything. It's very Stalin being like, well,

55:46

we'll double the wheat, we plant all

55:48

the wheat much closer together. You know? So

55:50

fucking down. So the

55:52

question again becomes, what

55:54

are the Democrats up

55:57

to? Good news is we're getting

55:59

some... of life from the opposition

56:01

party. Democrats elected a new DNC chair

56:03

over the weekend. We of course were

56:05

supporting Ben Wickler, but a big congrats

56:07

to Ken Martin, who we also interviewed

56:10

and are very much rooting for. He's

56:12

my enemy. He's John's enemy. On Monday,

56:14

House Minority Leader Hacking Jeffries laid out

56:16

a 10-part plan to fight back against

56:18

Trump that includes using the March deadline

56:20

to fund the government and lift the

56:23

debt ceiling as leverage. Stay tuned the

56:25

debt ceiling is leverage. Stay tuned for

56:27

that. are pal brian shots senator from

56:29

hawaii says that he's placing a hold

56:31

on all of trumps state department nominees

56:33

until USAID is open and functioning again

56:36

and just a ton of congressional democrats

56:38

actually held a press conference outside USAID

56:40

after trying to enter the building themselves

56:42

spoiler alert they were not allowed in

56:44

uh... what do you our sweet little

56:47

interaction is oh look at you guys

56:49

doing a little extra erection so sweet

56:51

little democrats knock knock knock What do

56:53

you guys think? A Democrat's doing enough?

56:55

Are they making the right moves? What

56:57

else could they be doing? What's our

57:00

latest feeling on this? I didn't love

57:02

the USAID press conference setting, as we

57:04

just discussed. The Republicans are about to

57:06

find a bunch of examples of USAID

57:08

programs that seem silly even to us,

57:10

or seem like a bad use of

57:13

money. And if the shorthand is... Democrats

57:15

defend USAID while the White House bully

57:17

pulpit and Elon's Twitter amplifies all these

57:19

bad things about USAID. I don't think

57:21

that's a winner. I think I want

57:23

them to focus in on the UN

57:26

piece of this right now because I

57:28

do think like it's genuinely scary. It's

57:30

a he's a nefarious new element to

57:32

Trump 2.0 that is newsworthy and he's

57:34

the shiny object right now and reporters

57:36

want to cover it and everyone knows

57:39

who he is and want to know

57:41

what's going on and there's been some

57:43

recent polling that shows that Elon's favorable

57:45

ratings are underwater or something comes on

57:47

cases by like 16 points and I

57:50

think Democrats should drive a wedge in

57:52

between Elon and Trump and drive both

57:54

their unfavorable up by talking about why

57:56

an unelected billionaire through the government books

57:58

and doing whatever the hell he wants.

58:00

Like that is a weird, crazy, interesting

58:03

story that no one is going to

58:05

like. And I think it'll get covered.

58:07

And like I'm good for Brian Shatz

58:09

for Block and all these State Department

58:11

employee nominations. I think that's great. Pachim

58:13

Jeffrey's 10-point plan has good stuff in

58:16

there. I read through it all, but

58:18

I learned about it when I read

58:20

the outline for this episode. I don't

58:22

know that it's broken through. I know

58:24

that it's broken through. I know a

58:26

lot of. But I don't know, I

58:29

would focus on the Elon piece right

58:31

now and just go hard. So Bernie

58:33

Sanders put out a video over the

58:35

weekend that I really liked. It was

58:37

everything you want out of Bernie Sanders

58:39

and I think like speaks to his

58:42

sort of moral leadership. He just, it's

58:44

just a camera. It's a very dangerous

58:46

time. There are three things we got

58:48

to do. One, we got to accurately

58:50

describe what's happening. Two, we got to

58:53

accurately describe what's happening, two. I think

58:55

there's any importance of fighting Trump wherever

58:57

we can. Ezra Klein made this point

58:59

about sort of also just not taking

59:01

Trump at his word, right? Like when

59:03

he claims certain authorities, we shouldn't concede

59:06

to it. Trump today. He's trying to

59:08

be scary and powerful. He wants everyone

59:10

to see him as a strong man.

59:12

Trump today announced a sovereign wealth fund.

59:14

He can't do the sovereign wealth fund.

59:16

He can't have the authority to create

59:19

a sovereign wealth fund and we shouldn't

59:21

do what we're afraid the... legacy media

59:23

companies are doing or what judges might

59:25

be doing, which is because we assume

59:27

Trump will break the rules to not

59:29

uphold the rules, right? We should just

59:32

uphold the rules. And then three, what

59:34

Bernie talked about was building this long-term

59:36

political power and making an argument for

59:38

a positive vision. And look, I don't

59:40

think it's revelatory, but just the kind

59:43

of clean simple to the point direct

59:45

way talked about it how serious this

59:47

moment is how dangerous it is without

59:49

hydrogen without kind of theatrics but just

59:51

to camera explaining it I thought was

59:53

really powerful I along with you guys

59:56

have yelled about Democrats needing to do

59:58

more on this very show. Still think

1:00:00

we haven't quite found our footing just

1:00:02

yet, but I do think just seeing

1:00:04

a lot of people on Twitter in

1:00:06

blue sky, you gotta check the skates

1:00:09

too these days. I do not. Over

1:00:11

the weekend, there's just, there's a lot

1:00:13

of anger at the elected Democrats, and

1:00:15

I just, I think we should level

1:00:17

set on what, how much power Democrats

1:00:19

have right now, which is. almost none.

1:00:22

And that is just a consequence of

1:00:24

the election. And we probably have less

1:00:26

power now as a party than we

1:00:28

have any time I can remember. Because

1:00:30

Trump's got the courts, he's got the

1:00:32

executive branch, he's got billionaires all around

1:00:35

them, they all on media platforms, like

1:00:37

they got Congress, they have a lot

1:00:39

of power. And Democrats can yell and

1:00:41

scream. and you know Tommy I had

1:00:43

the same thought about the USAID press

1:00:46

conference because of the politics but then

1:00:48

I thought I'd thinking to myself you

1:00:50

know what we told them to go

1:00:52

fight they're out there fighting it's it's

1:00:54

it's an election's not in a couple

1:00:56

months like let them do it for

1:00:59

today you know they'll get used to

1:01:01

it and then maybe they'll go to

1:01:03

the Department of Education next maybe they'll

1:01:05

go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

1:01:07

next and they'll find more politically popular

1:01:09

things to yell about but I was

1:01:12

glad to see them do it. And,

1:01:14

you know, shots is going to hold

1:01:16

up these nominees, but everyone should realize

1:01:18

with that too, like that's going to

1:01:20

eat up a lot of floor time

1:01:22

and it's going to slow things down,

1:01:25

which is great, but John Thune's going

1:01:27

to be able to get those nominees

1:01:29

through. Like, Democrats don't have the power

1:01:31

to slow things down in Congress. We

1:01:33

don't have the power to stop a

1:01:35

lot of things. We just don't. And

1:01:38

I think everyone should realize that and,

1:01:40

you know, as we criticize Democrats, rightly

1:01:42

for... a lame tweet here or a

1:01:44

lame speech there or whatever else. We

1:01:46

should just know that, you know, everyone

1:01:49

should be suing the Trump administration on

1:01:51

everything, the Democratic AG should be out

1:01:53

there, we should take them to court

1:01:55

on everything, that's a lever that we

1:01:57

can pull, we can do everything. I

1:01:59

do think we're going to have some

1:02:01

leverage on funding in the debt

1:02:03

ceiling because Mike Johnson is going to

1:02:06

need Democratic votes on those things. They're

1:02:08

not going to be able to get

1:02:10

Chip Roy and all the Republicans to

1:02:12

get together and vote to raise the

1:02:14

debt ceiling and vote to this. So that

1:02:16

is a choke point for us. But there's not

1:02:18

a lot more. There's just not a

1:02:20

lot more. We have to win elections

1:02:23

again, guys. Yeah, the part that I'm

1:02:25

like a questioning that I find myself

1:02:27

feeling like unsure about is, you know,

1:02:29

you know, Don't get distracted by USAID.

1:02:32

We got to talk about the impact

1:02:34

of terrorists. And don't get distracted by

1:02:36

the impact of terrorists. We've got to

1:02:38

talk about the oligarchs. And don't

1:02:41

talk about the price of eggs. And I

1:02:43

like, and then I turn on the television and

1:02:45

there's Trump every day for a couple

1:02:47

hours a day, just hitting whatever he's

1:02:49

going to. Talking about it all. And

1:02:52

you know. Trump declared that he was

1:02:54

going to create a sovereign wealth fund,

1:02:56

I mentioned, right? It is not, is

1:02:58

barely news. It's barely news. It's a

1:03:00

big deal. It's a big deal that

1:03:02

the Trump- It's not a bad idea

1:03:04

there. Well, I think it's a bad

1:03:06

idea to have Trump, have Trump basically

1:03:09

creates a- kind of an administrative lead

1:03:11

investment vehicle. I don't want him to

1:03:13

have a slush one, but for the

1:03:15

United States, having a sovereign wealth phone.

1:03:17

It's like, it's worth, it's a conversation

1:03:19

worth having. How else are we gonna

1:03:21

buy our Chinese spyware at? That's right.

1:03:23

Sure. Well, I don't, listen, I would

1:03:25

rather put the money back in the

1:03:27

hands of the American people, but that's

1:03:29

just me. But the, but like all the

1:03:31

way of saying like maybe, maybe even that is

1:03:34

kind of over thing over thing at this. And

1:03:36

you know, I want them to show passion. It

1:03:38

was because a lot of people were making fun

1:03:40

of Chuck Schumer because he had the series of

1:03:43

tweets over the weekend where he was like,

1:03:45

you're going to watch the Super Bowl next

1:03:47

weekend and beer's going to be more

1:03:49

expensive. You're going to be trying to

1:03:51

buy avocados. And those are going to

1:03:53

be more expensive. And like those were

1:03:55

his tweets and everyone's like, there's

1:03:57

a fucking emergency. Elon's breaking.

1:04:00

Expectations management problem for sure. But if

1:04:02

Chuck Shoeher's tweets were amazing, what would

1:04:04

that have done? Well, there's a funny

1:04:06

moment where Shoemer gave him. He's like,

1:04:08

I've never seen people more aroused than

1:04:10

they are right now. And everyone was

1:04:12

like, ah, no, he's saying they're aroused.

1:04:15

It's like, who cares? That's how Chuck

1:04:17

Shoemer talks. What's the difference? We play

1:04:19

that on Pottsave America was really funny.

1:04:21

I think we can critique it. We

1:04:23

can make fun of that. No, for

1:04:25

sure. But it's just sort of like,

1:04:27

arousal. They're also not going to become

1:04:29

different people. Chuck Schumer is going to

1:04:31

be a senior citizen, Jewish New York

1:04:34

are out there talking about whatever he's

1:04:36

going to talk about the way he's

1:04:38

been talking about for 50 fucking years.

1:04:40

We need them to look, but they

1:04:42

need to step up. Good to do

1:04:44

a press conference today. They've been slow.

1:04:46

Take some shots, don't worry about the

1:04:48

words being perfect, make sure you try

1:04:51

to get it to the people who

1:04:53

need to hear it, maybe don't use

1:04:55

the word aroused, maybe don't defend

1:04:57

the most unpopular spending we do,

1:04:59

and defend some of the popular

1:05:02

spending we do, and defend some

1:05:04

of the popular spending, but look,

1:05:06

yeah, points for fighting, I guess.

1:05:08

Yeah, I totally agree with all of

1:05:10

that, and I just want everyone to

1:05:12

know, like there is, even if the

1:05:14

Democratic Party was perfect, lost the election.

1:05:16

And we're going to, and you know,

1:05:18

I said this because there's going to

1:05:20

be people like, oh now Democrats are just

1:05:22

going to tell us to vote for them in 2026?

1:05:25

Yeah. Yeah we are, because that's the only

1:05:27

way to stop legislation from happening. I took

1:05:29

Twitter off my phone again. I think it

1:05:31

was good. I think it's good not to have

1:05:33

that on my phone. Yeah, you don't want to get

1:05:35

into the skits. I'm not I can't.

1:05:37

I can't do it. I can't take

1:05:39

it anymore. I can't take it anymore.

1:05:41

I can't take it anymore. I can't

1:05:44

take it anymore. I can't take it

1:05:46

anymore. lawsuit settlements with Trump. Yes. It's

1:05:48

not just ABC and their defamation suit.

1:05:50

It's not just Facebook and their $25

1:05:52

million. You call it whatever you want

1:05:54

to Trump and to his library.

1:05:56

There's reports that CBS

1:05:58

might settle a suit that... just fucking

1:06:00

crazy. The most ridiculous one. 60

1:06:02

minutes interview with Kamala Harris that

1:06:04

they edited like every news organization

1:06:06

edits everything always and Paramount might

1:06:08

settle that and by the way

1:06:10

they happened to have Paramount's guidance

1:06:12

merger that's sitting before the Trump

1:06:14

administration but suggesting that those things

1:06:16

are connected would be untoward so

1:06:18

I wouldn't do that. It's like

1:06:21

it Larry Ellison just was in

1:06:23

the in the old office just

1:06:25

for he just happened to be

1:06:27

there. So if we see the

1:06:29

biggest media. organizations in the country

1:06:31

and their corporate overlords preemptively caving

1:06:33

to the Trump administration and settling

1:06:35

lawsuits they could have won that

1:06:37

is a very scary signal about

1:06:39

press coverage and fighting for the

1:06:41

First Amendment right to cover the

1:06:43

White House in the Second Administration

1:06:45

and we need to keep an

1:06:47

eye on that. Well it's like

1:06:49

you talk you talk about like

1:06:51

you need to be nimble we

1:06:53

need to be out there like

1:06:55

media. Well there's that but then

1:06:57

it's also like... journalists themselves are

1:06:59

struggling to cover all of this.

1:07:01

And so now you have the

1:07:03

president of the states who is

1:07:05

lying and making shit up and

1:07:07

completely misconstruing his various policy proposals

1:07:09

on a daily basis. And if

1:07:11

anybody covering him slips up for

1:07:13

even one fucking second, he's going

1:07:15

to be the president suing these

1:07:17

people into oblivion while they're where

1:07:19

their parent companies have business for

1:07:22

the government. It's terrifying. Yeah. The

1:07:24

media point is really important also

1:07:26

because sometimes I feel like... all

1:07:28

of us are having, you know,

1:07:30

there's like a 500,000 of us

1:07:32

that are all having a conversation

1:07:34

about strategy with each other. And

1:07:36

then there's like a country of

1:07:38

300 million people who are paying

1:07:40

attention and can barely get some

1:07:42

of this information from new sources

1:07:44

that are now under intense pressure.

1:07:46

And so like one of the

1:07:48

things we all have to think

1:07:50

about is not just making sure

1:07:52

that our other tweeters and other

1:07:54

Democrats are saying the exact right

1:07:56

message, but like. you know getting

1:07:58

it out there to more people.

1:08:00

Gotta put some kind of message

1:08:02

at the bottom of the Costco

1:08:04

samples. Gotta get creative people. We

1:08:06

can shop at Costco. Yeah we

1:08:08

can still go to Costco. Gotta

1:08:10

get messages into those rotissory chickens.

1:08:12

Get the mess. Did we deal

1:08:14

with this guy for a decade?

1:08:16

And Trump's like, we gave $50

1:08:18

million to Hamas for condoms and

1:08:20

then they used the condoms as

1:08:22

bombs. It's completely made up. dork

1:08:25

over at Doe's, she was 19

1:08:27

years old and has the Twitter

1:08:29

handle, big balls, 69, 420, misread

1:08:31

a spreadsheet and didn't realize this

1:08:33

funding was going to like Mozambique

1:08:35

or something. And then the response

1:08:37

though is like fact check.org has

1:08:39

Trump administration, makes unsupported claims about

1:08:41

50 million for condoms to Gaza.

1:08:43

It's like, oh my God. And

1:08:45

then we're like, what's breaking through?

1:08:47

None of this is breaking through.

1:08:49

group this weekend and she's got

1:08:51

first-time Trump voters Biden and Trump

1:08:53

voters asking them how they're thinking

1:08:55

about Trump and they're all like

1:08:57

Tommy said earlier like they're all

1:08:59

always taking an action on stuff-stakes

1:09:01

action and then like he promised

1:09:03

Hamas is raw dogging boy promise

1:09:05

made promise kept no one of

1:09:07

them one of the people books

1:09:09

he's like I haven't heard much,

1:09:11

but I heard about these condoms

1:09:13

that they're spending. He's like, I'm

1:09:15

glad they're cutting all that. The

1:09:17

condoms for Hamas, that's crazy. And

1:09:19

I'm like, oh, that fucking broke

1:09:21

through. That broke through. Of course

1:09:23

it did. Anyway, we got a

1:09:26

lot of work. And Twitter's successful.

1:09:28

The Elon Fluffers are out in

1:09:30

force. They're everywhere. They're attacking everything.

1:09:32

Yeah, no, I really, yeah. Thank

1:09:34

you, Sequoya Management, Management, Management. to

1:09:36

download the New York Times cooking

1:09:38

app instead. That's good. That's good.

1:09:40

We may live in a fascist

1:09:42

state, but I'm making merry-me-me-chicken. And

1:09:44

you know what? You're making it

1:09:46

with ingredients? No tariffs. No tariffs.

1:09:48

No tariffs. Thank you, Mr. Trump.

1:09:50

All right. When we come back,

1:09:52

love it talks to the deputy

1:09:54

director of the OMB and the

1:09:56

Obama administration and director of the

1:09:58

National Economic Council under Joe Biden.

1:10:00

But we talked about it both.

1:10:02

as a negotiating tactic and what

1:10:04

it might look like if these

1:10:06

tariffs are ultimately implemented, including the

1:10:08

Chinese tariffs, which as of this

1:10:10

recording, are still, we believe, going

1:10:13

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a quick and dirty breakdown

1:11:57

of Trump's trade war.

1:11:59

He's the former deputy director of the

1:12:01

Office of Management and Budget and director

1:12:03

of the National Economic Council under President

1:12:05

Biden. Brian Deese, welcome back to the

1:12:08

pod. Thanks for having me. As of

1:12:10

this recording Monday afternoon 25% terrorists are

1:12:12

said to go into effect against a

1:12:14

broad range of Canadian imports with the

1:12:16

exception of a 10% tariff on Canadian

1:12:18

oil though there are last-minute negotiations that

1:12:20

could push this off another month. There

1:12:22

will also be a 10% tariff on

1:12:24

Chinese imports. Trump and Mexican president Claudia

1:12:26

Shinbaum negotiated a deal to delay terrorists

1:12:28

by at least a month against Mexico

1:12:30

with Mexico promising to send more troops

1:12:32

to the southern border and Shinbound securing

1:12:34

some sort of a promise over guns

1:12:36

flowing south from the United States. into

1:12:38

Mexico. Let's start with this. I woke

1:12:40

up this morning and I just opened

1:12:42

my phone and I just checked the

1:12:44

Dow. I don't live my life yoked

1:12:46

what the Dow does, but I was

1:12:48

like, are we in an economic crisis

1:12:50

or not? And what I saw was

1:12:52

that the markets dipped a little bit

1:12:54

and then upon the news that Trump

1:12:56

had this deal with Shinbaum, they went

1:12:58

back up. Does that tell you that

1:13:00

there is still a kind of belief

1:13:02

that Trump is just negotiating? That even

1:13:04

as we're recording this, he's threatening these

1:13:06

massive and terrible tariffs, but is ultimately

1:13:08

just in some way negotiating? Look, I

1:13:10

think a lot of the market reaction

1:13:12

can be explained by exactly that, which

1:13:14

is initially the market thought. He wasn't

1:13:16

serious and he wouldn't do this. And

1:13:18

then the market thought, well, he will

1:13:20

threaten these tariffs, but he won't actually

1:13:22

put them into effect. And now I

1:13:25

think there is still a belief that

1:13:27

he may put them into effect, but

1:13:29

they'll only be in effect for a

1:13:31

short period of time because this is

1:13:33

negotiating. All of that is to say,

1:13:35

though, the right way to think about

1:13:37

the impact is not what happens to

1:13:39

the doubt today. It's what happens to

1:13:41

the prices that people pay on typical

1:13:43

things for no apparent reason. The Wallster

1:13:45

Journal called this the dumbest trade war

1:13:47

in history and it's one of the

1:13:49

few times I think that the Wallster

1:13:51

Journal actually understated it. This is all

1:13:53

self-imposed and so even if the impact

1:13:55

is only for a short period of

1:13:57

time or only muted we're still the

1:13:59

end result is people are paying more

1:14:01

for no apparent reason. So let's talk

1:14:03

about what the impact could be. Again,

1:14:05

these tariffs against Canada may go in

1:14:07

effect tomorrow, they may not, but if

1:14:09

they did, some estimates found that they

1:14:11

could cost a typical household about $2,600,

1:14:13

but that's an average. It'll affect certain

1:14:15

goods more than other goods. And because

1:14:17

of the unique interdependence of Canada in

1:14:19

the United States, it would affect some

1:14:21

parts of the country more than others.

1:14:23

What do you think the... I want

1:14:25

to just divide it half. First, what

1:14:27

would be the biggest price impacts and

1:14:29

then I want to talk about the

1:14:32

broader economic impact? Sure. So start of

1:14:34

the price impacts on the goods that

1:14:36

we rely most on, Canada and Mexico

1:14:38

for. So, first and vegetables. Super Bowl

1:14:41

time, avocados. Most of our fruits and

1:14:43

vegetables we import from Mexico. The price

1:14:45

of those things is going to go

1:14:47

up by about 25%. gas at the

1:14:50

pump. There are certain regions of the

1:14:52

country, particularly the Midwest, that rely on

1:14:54

imported petroleum products from Canada. Most estimates

1:14:57

are that you'd see a 50 cent

1:14:59

increase in gas in the Midwest, probably

1:15:01

more like 25 cents across the country,

1:15:03

but it could be higher in particular

1:15:06

places. And then the kind of typical

1:15:08

goods that you see walking down a

1:15:10

target aisle or a Walmart aisle, so

1:15:12

iPhones, toasters, consumer electronics, are all... going

1:15:15

to go up by in the ballpark

1:15:17

of 25% because when a tariff is

1:15:19

applied it's not just that the importer

1:15:22

pays the tariff it's that the competitors

1:15:24

then raise their prices to to match

1:15:26

those and so the consumer ends up

1:15:28

paying most of that. So in terms

1:15:31

of practical and practically most of what

1:15:33

you buy if you're walking down the

1:15:35

grocery store or you're walking through a

1:15:37

target or Walmart the prices are going

1:15:40

to go up. The first order impact

1:15:42

is typical consumers pay more on things

1:15:44

like groceries and gas and consumer electronics.

1:15:47

The second-order impact is if that actually

1:15:49

gets washed away by a stronger dollar,

1:15:51

then it hurts American manufacturers, which is

1:15:53

why I saw a cartoon trying to

1:15:56

say what is Trump actually doing, where

1:15:58

Trump was pissing into a fan and

1:16:00

it was spitting all back into his

1:16:02

face. And usually that's sort of evocative,

1:16:05

but actually I think that's not an

1:16:07

unreasonable way of thinking about what's going

1:16:09

on here. It's hard to avoid this

1:16:11

coming back in and being self-defeating in

1:16:14

some way or shape or form. So

1:16:16

then what could be the job impact?

1:16:18

So that's the kind of the consumer

1:16:21

price. impacts, but there's a lot of

1:16:23

interdependence between so some of the goods

1:16:25

that could be tariffs are products that

1:16:27

are brought down into the US to

1:16:30

be part of domestic manufacturing here who

1:16:32

are people who what jobs are at

1:16:34

risk because of this of these tariffs.

1:16:36

Look the place I'm most worried about

1:16:39

is the auto industry because The auto

1:16:41

industry is incredibly dependent on the interrelationship

1:16:43

with Canada and Mexico. A lot of

1:16:46

the parts that go into making a

1:16:48

car are produced in Canada and they

1:16:50

go back and forth over the border.

1:16:52

Anyone who lives in Michigan or has

1:16:55

been up in Detroit, the Windsor Bridge,

1:16:57

you know, the auto industry is essentially

1:16:59

one industry that operates across a border.

1:17:01

So to build a, you know, to

1:17:04

build a typical, if GM is building

1:17:06

a typical car, parts might go back

1:17:08

and forth across that border five, six,

1:17:11

seven different. times. And so the industry

1:17:13

right now is really freaking out and

1:17:15

saying we've never had to grapple with

1:17:17

the question of is a part going

1:17:20

to be tariff steering wheel going to

1:17:22

be tariff four or five different times

1:17:24

as it goes across the border. How

1:17:26

is this going to work? And by

1:17:29

the way if Canada retaliates and starts

1:17:31

to cut off access to parts that's

1:17:33

going to have a broader cascading impact

1:17:36

on our company's ability to actually produce

1:17:38

vehicles in the first place. In the

1:17:40

previous Trump term, there was a lot

1:17:42

of big talk on imposing these kinds

1:17:45

of broad tariffs, but he ultimately did

1:17:47

a set of targeted or more targeted

1:17:49

tariffs. The Biden administration actually left some

1:17:51

of those tariffs in place and then

1:17:54

imposed a bunch on their own. There

1:17:56

was a tariff on electric cars, batteries,

1:17:58

certain metals, even... certain kinds of cranes.

1:18:01

Can you talk about the difference in

1:18:03

the logic between the Biden administrations approach

1:18:05

the tariffs and the Trump

1:18:07

administrations approach the tariffs? Yeah,

1:18:09

to shorthand it, it's a

1:18:11

difference between strategic and stupid. So

1:18:14

there is. There is a real

1:18:16

rationale, an economic and national security

1:18:18

rationale, to use terrorists if other

1:18:21

countries are explicitly, either illegally or

1:18:23

unfairly, contorting their own industry in

1:18:25

an effort to try to undermine

1:18:28

American industry in areas where we

1:18:30

have a strategic stake. things where

1:18:32

we need components that go into

1:18:35

building planes and tanks that support

1:18:37

our military, things like critical minerals

1:18:39

that are actually strategic and China

1:18:42

could have a stranglehold on different

1:18:44

supply chains. In those areas, you can

1:18:46

actually see a country like China is

1:18:48

actually taking a legal action to try

1:18:50

to subsidize its industry in a way

1:18:52

that can then undercut US industry. It

1:18:55

makes a lot of sense to actually

1:18:57

step in and say, no, we're going

1:18:59

to make sure that the US industry

1:19:01

has a way to actually build and

1:19:03

scale its own capabilities. But to put

1:19:06

the strategic versus stupid in context, the...

1:19:08

Total amount of goods that the

1:19:10

Biden administration put tariffs on, these

1:19:12

strategic tariffs, was about $18 billion.

1:19:14

You compare that to what's on

1:19:16

the table right now with Trump,

1:19:18

$1.4 trillion. So, you know, people

1:19:21

say it's a difference between a

1:19:23

scalpel and a sledgehammer. This is

1:19:25

like... a scalpel versus like a

1:19:27

whole army versus a sledgehammers just

1:19:29

hitting anything that you could possibly

1:19:31

hit and so even to give

1:19:33

the the first trump administration some

1:19:36

credit under you know Bob Lighthouse

1:19:38

or in others the ultimate approach they

1:19:40

took to china was more calibrated it

1:19:42

wasn't across the board it didn't hit

1:19:44

everything it exempted consumer goods this approach

1:19:46

is literally saying we'll just put a

1:19:49

tariff on anything even if the end

1:19:51

result is you're pissing into a

1:19:53

fan it's all coming back there's

1:19:55

just there's not a strict strategic

1:19:58

rationale behind the approach bullies

1:20:00

Columbia, he gets a quick win.

1:20:02

The damage to our reputation as

1:20:04

a safe and reliable trading partner

1:20:06

takes a hit, but that's like

1:20:08

very hard to measure. Trump is

1:20:10

now obviously starting Canada, he's starting

1:20:12

Mexico. He's also today was talking

1:20:14

about the European Union. What happens

1:20:16

if the US tries to fight

1:20:18

these different trade wars on multiple

1:20:20

fronts? And how could... Not just

1:20:22

one country independently, but how could

1:20:24

countries together respond in a way

1:20:26

that harms our economy, that harms

1:20:29

our influence on the world stage?

1:20:31

So we benefit when countries believe

1:20:33

that when we say something, we're

1:20:35

going to do it. And that's

1:20:37

a little bit of the problem

1:20:39

with this strategy of constantly threatening

1:20:41

everybody with tariffs, right? Is either

1:20:43

one of two things happens. One,

1:20:45

you threaten it and then pull

1:20:47

it back. It seems like what's

1:20:49

happened with a shine bomb even

1:20:51

today. The 25% tariff is not

1:20:53

going to go into effect today

1:20:55

with Mexico, but maybe it will

1:20:57

go into effect a month from

1:20:59

now. you do that enough times

1:21:01

and people start to question whether

1:21:03

the united states will actually do

1:21:05

what it says or you follow

1:21:07

through and the bullying tactic causes

1:21:09

other people to recognize well if

1:21:11

you're gonna bully us we're gonna

1:21:13

go and find other friends uh...

1:21:15

we're gonna go and uh... not

1:21:17

rely on the united states anymore

1:21:19

or across time, what that means

1:21:21

is when it comes to security

1:21:23

partnerships, when it comes to economic

1:21:26

partnerships, countries just aren't going to

1:21:28

be as willing or set a

1:21:30

higher price to actually partner with

1:21:32

the US. And look, at the

1:21:34

end of the day, we should

1:21:36

be prepared to stand up more

1:21:38

aggressively when countries are cheating and

1:21:40

breaking the rules. And a lot

1:21:42

of that... is really a story

1:21:44

about China. And we should be

1:21:46

more aggressive in saying China uses

1:21:48

all of its tools of... state

1:21:50

craft to actually flood markets like

1:21:52

steel in the US to undercut

1:21:54

our capacity. We should be more

1:21:56

vocal about that. We shouldn't be

1:21:58

apologized for saying we're going to

1:22:00

stand up for American disinterest. The

1:22:02

challenges when you're doing that on

1:22:04

multiple fronts and not distinguishing between

1:22:06

a country like China where you

1:22:08

can identify multiple instances where they're

1:22:10

doing this and Canada where it's

1:22:12

really hard to put like a

1:22:14

sentence let alone a paragraph together

1:22:16

of saying what is it that

1:22:18

we're actually so concerned about or

1:22:20

or afraid about in that context.

1:22:23

You know, in the US stops

1:22:25

differentiating between this, then you start

1:22:27

to put us in a position

1:22:29

where we're not going to have

1:22:31

many friends or allies around the

1:22:33

world. Is there any part of

1:22:35

you that sees how Trump is

1:22:37

kind of wielding America's economic power

1:22:39

and think, obviously, this is dangerous,

1:22:41

this is careless, but there are

1:22:43

ways in which Democrats... were not

1:22:45

as aggressive as they should have

1:22:47

been, that President Biden wasn't as

1:22:49

aggressive as he shouldn't been? Like,

1:22:51

is there a, is there some

1:22:53

middle distance between Trump's kind of

1:22:55

careless and stupid-wielding of America's power

1:22:57

and our kind of, not just

1:22:59

Democrats, but a bipartisan consensus that's

1:23:01

been kind of a little bit

1:23:03

more deferential and a little bit

1:23:05

more built around consensus? Yeah, look,

1:23:07

in the first instance, I don't

1:23:09

think we should denigrate a number

1:23:11

of the goals that President Trump

1:23:13

and his team are putting forward.

1:23:15

They're talking about wanting to have

1:23:17

more, you know, sustained, strong economic

1:23:20

growth in this country. We should

1:23:22

be shooting for that. My concern

1:23:24

is not that goal. It's just

1:23:26

I don't think that the policies

1:23:28

are going to get us there.

1:23:30

He wants, he's talking about building

1:23:32

manufacturing capacity, industrial capacity here in

1:23:34

the U.S. Right goal. The question

1:23:36

is, is any of this actually

1:23:38

going to get there? So I

1:23:40

think we should be quite clear

1:23:42

about saying, these are goals that

1:23:44

we share. The question is, how

1:23:46

do we get there? And yes,

1:23:48

I think that there are a

1:23:50

number of places where we need

1:23:52

to ask ourselves really hard questions

1:23:54

about, are we using the tools

1:23:56

we have to stand up as

1:23:58

aggressively as we can for the

1:24:00

interest? of American workers, American consumers,

1:24:02

and where our economy is going

1:24:04

to go over the medium term.

1:24:06

But I also think we have

1:24:08

to maintain this view that there

1:24:10

is smart and stupid here, right?

1:24:12

There is a line between saying

1:24:14

just because we have a tool,

1:24:17

we are going to, you know,

1:24:19

bang away at it versus, you

1:24:21

know what, like putting more costs

1:24:23

on typical consumers right now at

1:24:25

the grocery store and the gas

1:24:27

pump is just not a good

1:24:29

idea. And so we're going to,

1:24:31

you know, we're going to stand

1:24:33

up and say, we could be

1:24:35

using these tools more aggressively, but

1:24:37

to the end of actually, for

1:24:39

example, having an auto industry that

1:24:41

actually gets competitive again, and that

1:24:43

actually competes with China, that would

1:24:45

be a goal worth actually fighting

1:24:47

for. That would be a goal

1:24:49

worth using our tools more effective

1:24:51

before. Before we let you go.

1:24:53

You were the deputy director of

1:24:55

OMB. Elon Musk has basically helped

1:24:57

lead a hostile takeover. OMB was

1:24:59

the source of that federal funding

1:25:01

freeze memo that sewed a bunch

1:25:03

of chaos last week. What is

1:25:05

your reaction to what's happening at

1:25:07

OMB? And what is the power

1:25:09

that OMB has if it is

1:25:11

not restrained by either deference to

1:25:14

political impact or deference to other

1:25:16

agencies? The power that OMB has

1:25:18

within the executive branch and under

1:25:20

the Constitution is quite limited. Congress

1:25:22

is responsible for appropriating money and

1:25:24

the executive branch must follow the

1:25:26

laws that Congress passes. Exactly, but

1:25:28

well, but I think we're going

1:25:30

to come back to this, which

1:25:32

is an OMB is responsible for

1:25:34

them executing those strategies on behalf

1:25:36

of the executive branches that were

1:25:38

appropriated funds. And yes, I hear

1:25:40

you what you're saying is quaint,

1:25:42

but at the same time, ultimately

1:25:44

I think what we saw with

1:25:46

the funding freeze is where this

1:25:48

is going, which is notwithstanding some

1:25:50

of the bluster, it is actually

1:25:52

the case that legally the executive

1:25:54

branch... branch cannot both spend money

1:25:56

that Congress has not appropriated and

1:25:58

it can't fail to spend money

1:26:00

when Congress has said so I

1:26:02

think we're gonna have a big

1:26:04

we're gonna have a set of

1:26:06

fights on this and this is

1:26:08

going to get some of this

1:26:10

is going to get hashed out

1:26:13

on the courts but look I

1:26:15

think having worked it on B

1:26:17

and having felt the constraints of

1:26:19

the fact that you know you

1:26:21

can't violate the any deficiency act

1:26:23

or the empowerment act even if

1:26:25

There may be some impulse at

1:26:27

some point to say, boy, it

1:26:29

would be great if we could stop that.

1:26:31

I think that, you know, I am, I am, I

1:26:33

am, I am, I believe that Congress is

1:26:35

going to step in because one

1:26:37

of the few roles that Congress

1:26:39

actually cherishes in this context is

1:26:42

they do have the power of

1:26:44

the purse. And without that, it

1:26:46

changes fundamentally, you know, some pretty

1:26:48

big tenets of our constitutional system.

1:26:50

Yeah, said like a guy that didn't

1:26:52

move a sofa bed into OMB to

1:26:54

go hardcore to go hardcore. For

1:26:56

the record, we worked a lot

1:26:58

of nights and weekends at OMB

1:27:00

through the financial crisis and government

1:27:03

shutdowns and the like. There are

1:27:05

extraordinarily talented professionals who I certainly

1:27:07

worked hand and end with over

1:27:09

the weekend many times during my

1:27:11

government service. If you were hoping

1:27:13

Democrats were out there saying one

1:27:15

thing about the tariffs about the trade

1:27:17

war, what would that one thing be?

1:27:19

Why would we want consumers to pay

1:27:21

more at the gas bump and more

1:27:24

at the grocery store and more for

1:27:26

their iPhones and their consumer electronics when

1:27:28

we were not achieving anything as a

1:27:30

country? Brian Deese, so good to see

1:27:32

you. Thanks for doing this. And I know

1:27:34

you worked hard. I worked with you at the

1:27:36

time. I worked with you when you were not

1:27:39

in that role, but when

1:27:41

you were at NEC, and

1:27:43

you were always were so

1:27:45

tired looking. God, you always

1:27:47

looked exhausted. I think that's

1:27:49

what we called

1:27:51

you. All right,

1:27:54

this interview's

1:27:57

over. of

1:28:57

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