0:06

It is Wednesday, April

0:08

23rd, 2025.

0:11

My name is Sam Cedar. This is

0:13

the five -time award -winning majority report. We

0:16

are broadcasting live steps

0:18

from the industrially -ravaged Gowanus

0:20

Canal in the heartland of

0:22

America, downtown Brooklyn,

0:24

USA. On

0:27

the program today, Marie

0:29

C. Vinton. Former

0:31

staffer at Doge. She

0:35

was a member of the US

0:37

Digital Service Department, got absorbed into

0:39

Doge, and now she's not there. Also

0:44

a former advisor

0:47

at the IRS

0:49

and Consumer Financial

0:51

Protection Bureau. Meanwhile,

0:56

Donald Trump seemingly reverses on

0:58

trying to fire the

1:00

Fed chair. And

1:04

simultaneously, Trump hints at reducing

1:06

China tariffs because it's going so

1:08

well. I made my point. And

1:10

speaking of coincidentally, Trump's

1:13

economic approval rating drops to

1:15

37%.

1:18

And speaking of dropping,

1:22

Tesla profits crater.

1:25

But mysteriously, its stock

1:27

rises. As

1:30

Trump stops

1:32

investigation into Russian war

1:34

crimes in Ukraine, U

1:36

.S. offers Ukrainian territory

1:39

to Russia for peace. Health

1:43

and Human Services plans to

1:45

cut national suicide hotlines

1:47

program for LGBTQ youth. Republican

1:50

House is planning a

1:53

rescission vote. in

1:55

weeks that may cut

1:57

substantially more from the government.

2:00

RFK Jr. launching

2:03

an autism database. That

2:06

doesn't sound disturbing. And

2:08

looking to reverse CDC

2:11

COVID recommendation, a

2:13

vaccine recommendation for children.

2:16

Congressional Democrats traveled to

2:18

Louisiana to demand release

2:20

of Mahmoud Khalil and

2:22

Rumseh Ozturk. E

2:25

.P .A. laying off

2:27

environmental justice employees and

2:29

veteran affairs employees are

2:32

encouraged to report colleagues

2:34

who appear to be

2:36

anti -Christian. All

2:39

this and more on

2:41

today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies

2:43

and gentlemen. Thanks so

2:46

much for joining us. Emma

2:48

Vigeland off today. Matt's

2:50

looking at me like... Wait,

2:53

what the VA anti -Christian?

2:56

What does that mean this?

2:58

It was Supreme Court

3:00

Moot Court. I think

3:02

it was yesterday Not Moot

3:05

Court oral arguments I should

3:07

say About

3:11

the don't say gay

3:13

bill that Schools

3:16

were trying to

3:18

Get rid of because

3:20

you know Some

3:23

people are gay and Pretending

3:26

that gay people don't

3:28

exist is problematic

3:31

and not just for gay people

3:33

but for all people because You're

3:35

living in some type of like

3:37

a bizarro world and schools are

3:39

supposed to educate But

3:41

we are seeing an increasing push

3:43

from the right. We this

3:45

has been ongoing for the past

3:48

several decades where religious

3:51

values, Trump, at

3:55

least in the opinion

3:57

of the Supreme Court

3:59

and in conservatives largely, that

4:02

religious values, Trump, civil

4:05

values, that

4:07

your religion can supersede the

4:10

laws of our society. And

4:14

apparently at the VA,

4:18

If there is behavior that

4:20

you know, somebody has a

4:22

religious edict and I can

4:24

I should be more specific Christian

4:27

one Because I

4:29

doubt that they

4:31

would be telling

4:33

colleagues to

4:35

watch out for folks who

4:37

are not allowing people

4:40

to Pray towards Mecca, right?

4:42

I was gonna say

4:44

Islam At some point during

4:46

the day so But

4:48

we may get to that

4:50

story in a bit. Just

4:52

look up section 28 in

4:54

the UK, which was the

4:56

law against promoting homosexuality as

4:58

they put it back in

5:00

1988 and how that turned

5:02

out. Yeah. I

5:06

mean, it could very

5:08

well be also if you have

5:10

someone at the VA who refused

5:12

to work with someone who's gay. because

5:16

their religious values, they don't believe in it. We've

5:21

seen this in the context of pharmacies and

5:23

whatnot. Meanwhile,

5:26

we have a

5:28

former member of Doge on the

5:30

program today. She's

5:34

going to be talking specifically about stuff

5:36

at the IRS. But

5:38

there's going to be a

5:40

new former member of Doge quite

5:43

soon. And that, of course, is

5:45

Elon Musk. In

5:49

part, it's because he was a special

5:51

advisor to the government, and you can

5:53

only be on for 120 days in

5:55

that instance. But

5:57

if things were going a little

5:59

bit better for Doge

6:02

and for Elon

6:04

Musk, I suspect he'd stick

6:06

around. According to

6:08

the Washington Post, Musk

6:10

is... Ready to

6:13

leave his government role because

6:15

he's tired of what he

6:17

sees as a litany of

6:19

vicious and unethical attacks from

6:21

the left and One of those

6:23

people I guess on the left is

6:25

a Treasury secretary secretary Scott Basant

6:27

who was mad that

6:30

Elon Musk inserted

6:32

his preferred candidate

6:34

at the IRS instead

6:36

of a Basant's that

6:39

didn't last very long that guy got

6:41

down booted

6:44

musk is already also uh... i

6:46

guess in a like a active fight

6:48

with i can have the three or

6:50

four other cabinet members which is really

6:53

surprising because he seems like a very

6:55

charming guy but you can say three

6:57

or four other uh... uh... mothers of

6:59

his children yet and well uh... and

7:02

yesterday there was

7:04

a uh... shareholder call

7:07

where uh...

7:09

elon musk had

7:12

to reveal that Tesla's

7:16

net income

7:19

slid 71

7:21

% in the first quarter.

7:27

I can tell you that

7:29

if our net income slid

7:31

71 % in the first quarter, yours,

7:34

the only voice you would

7:36

hear would be mine. You wouldn't

7:38

be able to see me. And

7:42

you probably wouldn't be able to listen live. And

7:45

you may actually

7:48

have to come to my apartment to

7:50

hear what I'm saying. This

7:54

is the other amazing

7:56

part. The Tesla reported

7:58

adjusted earnings of

8:01

per share of 27 cents,

8:03

which missed analyst expectations

8:05

of 41 cents. Now, that

8:08

is a 25 % miss.

8:11

And it's not like these analysts were

8:13

not aware of what was going on. They

8:16

just assumed that it wouldn't be this bad.

8:22

Here's the weird part. Tesla

8:25

shares were up more than

8:27

3 % in after hours trading

8:29

on Tuesday after gaining 4

8:31

.6 % ahead of the first

8:33

quarter report. So in anticipation

8:35

of this report, the stock

8:37

goes up 4 .5 points, a little

8:39

more than that. And then

8:42

when all those

8:44

people in anticipation of

8:46

this report hear that net

8:48

income slid 71 % and

8:52

adjusted earnings were 25 %

8:54

lower than anticipated, they said,

8:56

I'm buying more of that stock. Let

9:00

me tell you what I would do if I was the

9:02

world's richest man. Now, I'm not. So

9:05

maybe I don't think the proper way,

9:07

but if We

9:09

were gonna do an earnings report for

9:11

the majority report and it was

9:13

to come out and say it's dropped

9:15

by three quarters and We

9:19

missed analysts expectations

9:21

by 25 % and

9:23

Major report was a publicly owned company I'll tell

9:26

you what I would do if I had

9:28

billions of dollars now I doubt people are this

9:30

smart to figure this out but what I

9:32

would do in the run -up to the report

9:34

is I would buy a lot of stock Forcing

9:36

the price up and then afterwards What

9:39

I would do is buy a lot of stock

9:41

and forcing the price up. That's

9:45

what I would do if I were

9:47

the richest man. But

9:49

I'm also the type of guy

9:51

who has hired somebody to play

9:53

video games for me so that

9:55

I can get on the leaderboard at

9:58

the local pizza place. That's

10:00

what I used to do when I was a

10:02

kid. I would pay people to play asteroids for

10:04

me at the local pizza place so they could

10:06

put in Sam. I

10:08

could brag to all my friends. Here's

10:12

Elon Musk

10:14

on his

10:17

shareholder call

10:19

yesterday and still

10:22

trying to maintain, I guess, his

10:24

relationship with Trump and being gentle

10:26

about how much Donald Trump has

10:28

effed up the whole tariff. Situ

10:32

at me. We got Trump back

10:34

and off of the the tariffs.

10:36

We got Scott Passant going into

10:38

private meetings going like That actually

10:41

decoupling. I think

10:43

this is probably unsustainable.

10:45

Incidentally, he also

10:47

went into a room

10:49

full of traders

10:51

The day before it was announced that there

10:53

was a possibility that things were gonna get

10:55

rolled back and sort of implied that things

10:57

are gonna get rolled back and that

10:59

I mean nice little

11:01

heads up nice to have a heads up here's

11:04

Elon Musk I

11:06

just want to emphasize that the

11:08

tariff decision is entirely up

11:10

to the president the

11:12

United States I will weigh in

11:14

with my advice with the

11:16

president which he will listen to my

11:19

advice but then it's up to

11:21

him of course to make his

11:23

decision I love how he couldn't

11:25

bring himself to say he may

11:27

not listen to me He'll

11:31

listen to my advice

11:33

My disregard it. Yeah, you

11:36

can't articulate that I have that same argument to

11:38

be honest with you with my son My son

11:40

said you don't listen to me and I go

11:42

I listen to you, but I'm not gonna do

11:44

what you say Look, I'll give you a little

11:46

car show in the front of the White House

11:48

But I don't know if I'm gonna go after

11:50

but my son somehow did not seem so excited

11:53

that he had in that he would just capture

11:55

my attention He

11:57

wasn't bragging about it to his friends. My

11:59

dad listens to me, and then he does something

12:01

different, but he doesn't do that. That's weird. It's

12:04

my advice, but then it's up to him, of

12:06

course, to make his decision. I've

12:09

been on the right court many

12:11

times saying that I believe lower

12:13

tariffs are generally a good idea

12:15

for prosperity. But

12:17

this decision is fundamentally up to the

12:20

elected representative of the people being the president

12:22

the United States. You

12:25

know, I'll continue to

12:27

advocate for lower tariffs

12:29

rather than higher tariffs, but

12:32

that's all I can do. There

12:35

you go. Elon

12:40

Musk making a beeline out. In

12:42

a moment, we're going to

12:45

be talking to receive

12:47

the eventant former staffer at

12:49

Doge to talk about how they

12:51

have, and let's be clear. Doge

12:55

simply aligned with

12:58

Republican principles Doge was

13:00

just a mechanism to do

13:02

exactly what project

13:04

2025 Wanted to do

13:06

and they're continuing on with

13:08

the program. They're just moving

13:11

to phase two and Going through

13:13

it through the channels that they

13:15

had already anticipated having to go through

13:17

it and

13:19

Their destruction of the IRS has

13:21

been a long time desired

13:23

uh... desire i should say of

13:26

the right will

13:29

be talking to her in just

13:31

a moment uh... but first

13:33

i quick break when

13:35

we come back uh... we're

13:37

gonna be talking to uh...

13:39

marisi vinton former doge member

15:48

We are back. Sam Cedar on

15:50

the Major Report. Emma Vigelin is off

15:52

today. Joining me now, Marisi Vinton,

15:54

former staffer at the U .S. Digital

15:56

Service Department, which became

15:58

absorbed by Doge

16:00

about, I guess, three or four

16:02

months ago, and also

16:04

a former advisor at

16:06

the IRS and was involved

16:09

in the launching

16:11

of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

16:13

over a decade ago now.

16:15

Marisi, thanks so much for joining

16:17

us. Thanks for having me. Let's

16:21

start with Doge. You

16:25

were working at

16:27

the U .S. Digital

16:29

Service Department. Just

16:31

give us a sense of what the

16:33

U .S. Digital Service Department did and then

16:35

what happened when Donald Trump won. Absolutely.

16:39

So USDS before the inauguration

16:41

was full of really mission -driven

16:43

people, engineers and product managers

16:45

and data scientists and designers

16:48

who really wanted to simplify

16:50

the experiences that people have

16:52

with their government, their interactions,

16:55

really wanted to put users first. So

16:57

making sure that if we were

16:59

designing a form or a new service,

17:01

that it was something that people

17:03

understood how to use because then they

17:05

wouldn't need to follow up with

17:07

you, which is how we defined efficiency.

17:10

It was a really great group of

17:12

mission -driven people. Give

17:14

me just one broad sense

17:16

of the challenge involved in that,

17:18

because I think for some

17:20

people it sounds like an easy

17:23

thing to do, but there's

17:25

obviously all of these legacy systems

17:27

that have been developed. We've

17:32

talked about this in the

17:34

context of the government payment

17:36

system and the systems that

17:38

track social security. The

17:41

primary value you want

17:43

in systems like

17:45

that is reliability and

17:47

consistency. Sometimes

17:49

that comes at the expense of

17:51

other things and it also makes

17:53

it harder to update. I

17:58

can shut down a majority report

18:00

radio dot com uh... you

18:03

know overnight because if i

18:05

wanna redo the website

18:07

but there's a lot of government

18:09

services you can't do that with

18:11

that spot on It is, it's

18:13

a real responsibility to do this

18:15

work in a way to not

18:17

stop or to not have bugs.

18:19

I'll actually share the story of

18:21

Direct File. It was a free

18:23

tax filing service that we did

18:25

at the IRS. It

18:27

was hugely successful, hugely loved

18:30

by its users. And

18:32

let me just jump in here

18:34

and just remind people it was piloted

18:36

in 2023 and I think about

18:38

10 states. And

18:41

then it did

18:43

well enough that it

18:45

was released for

18:47

everybody. And this was going to

18:49

be the first filing year where it was

18:52

released to everybody, wasn't it? It was still

18:54

limited to 25 states. So

18:56

what we wanted to do is

18:58

work with states that had the capacity

19:00

with RITD. So it was a

19:02

semi -complicated rollout to states. But it

19:04

was available in 25 states this year

19:06

up from last year. Yes,

19:08

and it was really loved by users.

19:11

I wanted to use that as

19:13

an example, because it kind of

19:15

demonstrates how you can do this

19:17

really hard work. Taxes are

19:19

not easy, as we probably can all

19:22

relate to. And we did

19:24

it in a way where we worked

19:26

with users from day one. So every

19:28

word, every screen on the direct file

19:30

was put in front of people to

19:32

make sure it made sense. But

19:34

then getting to the systems and

19:36

the complexity, we also had to do

19:38

that within the IRS environment. We

19:40

had to make sure that when

19:43

we launched, not only was it going

19:45

to be a launch that worked

19:47

for our users? And there

19:49

wasn't a massive bug. But

19:51

also that the systems that the IRS

19:53

has weren't going to be greatly

19:55

impacted by that launch. And so it's

19:57

always a trade -off. And what

19:59

we found is that you always had to have

20:01

a hint of a plan A and a plan

20:04

B and sometimes a plan D to get over

20:06

the line. But it was really

20:08

important that we made sure that Both

20:10

taxpayers were able to file their

20:13

taxes, and also that the IRS

20:15

systems could handle that additional load.

20:17

And that is what it's like

20:19

in government, in all government IT

20:21

teams. Tell us a little more

20:23

specifically about that product, because I don't

20:25

think people realize how... I mean, it's

20:28

both... It's both a major

20:30

achievement in terms of being able

20:32

to roll this thing out

20:34

in two years to get to

20:36

almost, you know, half the

20:39

population, make it available to half

20:41

the population that would be

20:43

interested in it. This is if

20:45

your taxes are relatively straightforward,

20:47

which they are for the vast

20:49

majority of people. And

20:52

it's free. So you don't have

20:54

to go to, you don't have

20:56

to use TurboTax, you don't have

20:58

to go to H &R Block,

21:01

you don't have to go to

21:03

all that. So that the technical

21:05

achievement was big as a policy

21:07

thing, it's huge. And the politics

21:09

behind it are also very difficult

21:11

because there's a reason why we're

21:13

the only government, I

21:15

think like, you know, sort of

21:17

industrialized nation that doesn't already

21:19

have something like this because there

21:21

was money to interest to

21:23

prevent this from actually ever happening

21:25

yeah it's all true so

21:27

i think part of the story

21:29

for me personally i moved

21:31

to move back to dc from

21:33

london and i was very

21:35

very surprised that this didn't exist

21:37

yet that people couldn't file

21:39

their taxes for free directly with

21:41

the irs and when i

21:43

think about the only things the

21:45

government does, that's one of

21:47

the core things it must do.

21:50

And so that was kind of

21:52

my perspective and the attitude I

21:54

took to it. But we got,

21:56

you know, we got the idea

21:58

as a policy concept over the

22:00

line. And then we went out

22:02

to build the product. There were

22:04

a couple of things that we

22:07

were really, you know, they were

22:09

really important to us in addition

22:11

to that great user experience and

22:13

making sure that people with all

22:15

different accessibility needs could use it.

22:17

We also wanted to build a

22:19

team in -house. We wanted the government,

22:21

we wanted the IRS to have

22:23

a great product team of individuals

22:25

from the private sector that really

22:27

threw their attention, their love, and

22:29

their focus on it year after

22:31

year, feature after feature. We did

22:33

over 40 updates to the product.

22:36

I'm sorry, over a thousand updates

22:38

to the product during filing season

22:40

and fixing bugs and making that

22:42

user experience even better. Also

22:44

increasing the accuracy, you know, when

22:46

we would see different rejected rates

22:48

come or reasons come through from

22:50

tax return, we wanted to understand,

22:52

can we simplify the language to.

22:54

increase that uh that accepted rate

22:56

even more and so it's it's

22:58

really great to see what it's

23:00

like when you actually have that

23:02

capacity in house and we really

23:05

wanted to to take that you

23:07

know through the wider IRS as

23:09

far as their overall modernization effort

23:11

let's um i want to get

23:13

to sort of like um you

23:15

set up almost like the uh

23:17

the predicate for like a horror

23:19

movie because um this is the

23:21

uh the you know you've set

23:23

the the created the

23:25

image of a simplified tax

23:28

system. For years, we would

23:30

hear taxes should be something

23:32

you could fill out on

23:34

an index card, and then

23:36

of course, it's never going

23:38

to be that simple, but

23:40

this was about as close

23:42

to that notion that you

23:44

could get, and then doge

23:46

happened. What

23:51

was it? Let's just start with

23:53

like you're working for the U .S.

23:55

Digital Services and then you're going over

23:57

and helping the IRS do this.

23:59

I mean, the Digital Services, that's basically

24:01

what you did across the thing.

24:03

What happened when Doge took over and

24:05

then what happened to at the

24:07

IRS, you know, from

24:09

you, at least from that

24:11

technical standpoint, after Doge took

24:14

over? Yeah, I can

24:16

talk about both experiences. So

24:18

the U .S. Digital Service, the

24:21

day after the inauguration, so the first day

24:23

of the administration. All 162

24:25

USDS employees were brought

24:27

in for 15 -minute interviews. So

24:30

we were kind of at first

24:32

trial run of what it's like to

24:34

interview 162 people in a day. And

24:37

the people, you know, we were told

24:39

these are new teammates that are excited to

24:41

meet us. And what we were met

24:43

with was people who would only provide their

24:45

first names. If you'd ask

24:47

a follow -up question. like, what brings

24:49

you to government? You were told, which was this

24:51

actually happened not to me, but to my

24:53

co -worker. They were told, this

24:55

is a one -way conversation only. I

24:57

mean, that's not a very threatening question.

24:59

What makes you excited to be

25:01

here? So that was that

25:03

kind of that first set of interactions

25:05

really set the tone for this new.

25:08

What kind of questions did they ask

25:10

you? Oh, they were.

25:12

Who is your favorite person at

25:14

the US Digital Service? Who's

25:16

your favorite teammate? What makes you

25:18

exceptional? What's your favorite product that you've

25:20

worked on in government? It

25:22

was so quick and also the

25:25

questions didn't, to me, really seem to

25:27

be with people who understood what

25:29

they were getting into. And government is,

25:31

as you said, complex. There's a

25:33

lot of systems. There's things to know.

25:35

And asking me who my favorite

25:37

teammate is doesn't really I think talked

25:40

to the scale of the complexity

25:42

of what we were trying to do

25:44

and what we do every day.

25:46

Was it your sense that they were

25:48

looking for social networks so that

25:50

in the event they, I

25:53

mean, when I hear

25:55

those questions is almost

25:58

like the, almost like

26:00

a bizarro world union

26:02

organizer? Because

26:04

sussing out the social

26:06

networks there, you know, you

26:09

know, who are the people

26:11

that I can wear that, you know,

26:13

once I establish some type of marker,

26:15

maybe it doesn't come from you. But

26:17

if I know that your friends with,

26:19

you know, Bill and Mary, and

26:21

I find out from Mary

26:24

that she likes NPR or

26:26

something, then I know that

26:28

Bill and you may be

26:30

a problem. That's

26:32

a really great question and a

26:34

really great theory. I'd never really

26:36

thought about or we discussed We

26:39

we didn't really know what the

26:41

purpose was until about it's all

26:43

Valentine's Day so on Valentine's evening

26:45

at 8 o 'clock p .m. When

26:47

a lot of people rocks dinner

26:49

I 43 of my teammates were

26:52

fired and without really any reason

26:54

or you know, they weren't told

26:56

When you come to government you

26:58

expect a certain set of you

27:00

know policies, it might be, as

27:02

they say, a bit bureaucratic at

27:04

times. But that's what

27:07

you get. And what we

27:09

did not expect was this

27:11

kind of weird interview followed

27:13

by a firing with no

27:15

rationale, no process. People

27:17

are immediately cut off from systems.

27:20

And that's how they found out on

27:22

Valentine's Day. So I was at

27:24

dinner and My phone was

27:26

off and my husband was joking around, like, let's

27:28

take a picture. It's a cool restaurant. And

27:30

I turned my phone and the notifications were just

27:32

going wild. And I had

27:34

to ask my friends, do you still

27:37

see my name in the system? Because

27:39

I didn't have my work phone. So

27:41

it was this really set of chaotic

27:43

experiences. But I guess, you know, that

27:45

just sets the tone for everything else

27:47

that's gone on. In a way, we're

27:49

just a small microcosm of the larger

27:51

scene. Okay, and so

27:53

once that happens, then what

27:55

happens at the IRS? Because

27:57

we've seen this across many,

28:00

many agencies. The

28:02

one thing about the assault

28:04

on the IRS in particular,

28:07

it seems to me, is that

28:09

if your argument is government

28:11

efficiency, There

28:13

is no other agency where

28:15

the return on investment

28:17

is higher than the IRS

28:19

and so every person

28:21

That you cut every dollar

28:23

that you save actually

28:25

ends up costing you more

28:27

money and this is

28:29

well established and so Tell

28:31

us what your experience

28:33

was in terms of the

28:35

way that doge did

28:37

they specifically, were you

28:39

as part of Doge brought in

28:41

to sort of like, efficient

28:44

size or, you know, I would

28:46

say, undermine the IRS? That's

28:49

a great question. And

28:51

actually, it was pretty firewalled

28:53

between what is now called

28:55

LegacyUSDS and the new Doge

28:57

team. There weren't

29:00

any interactions across, like, so

29:02

I view There's the USDS

29:04

doge and then there's like roaming

29:06

doge. So people that are kind

29:08

of everywhere else and ransacking government

29:10

agencies. There was not a

29:13

lot of interaction or facilitation between the

29:15

two doges outside of a few select

29:17

individuals who sat across the top. So

29:19

no, I was already at the IRS

29:22

through my work with direct file and then

29:24

the commissioner and the wider leadership team.

29:26

So I was there kind of witnessing it.

29:28

as a bystander myself, witnessing kind of

29:30

what happened. And we had been

29:32

told, I'm sorry, Secretary Besant had

29:34

said publicly that Doge wasn't going

29:36

to be inside IRS until after the

29:39

filing season, so after April 15th.

29:41

And so kind of what happened to

29:43

the IRS was a bit delayed

29:45

from other agencies. So people

29:47

didn't arrive until, actually it's

29:49

the day before Valentine's Day, so

29:51

until mid -February. Immediately

29:54

understand you're sent as a member

29:56

of the US digital services You're

29:58

basically placed inside of the IRS

30:00

and they're almost on Maybe some

30:02

I permanent loan essentially right from

30:04

agency to agency and this happens

30:06

all the time in the government

30:08

it seems to me where You

30:10

know you brought is not not

30:12

so much as a liaison, but

30:14

like as if the u .s

30:16

digital services is a company and

30:18

you're you know a consultant in -house

30:20

consultant and you're brought in there

30:22

to operate these things and Theoretically

30:24

three or four years later you

30:26

could move on or something like

30:28

that That's a great way to

30:30

describe it and that's and that

30:32

is exactly it so you can

30:34

imagine us ds was born out

30:36

of the healthcare doc of collapse

30:38

so people sent in to hhs

30:40

to help Fix it and build

30:43

it and so that you know

30:45

that model is we go over

30:47

to agencies and we build tried

30:49

to build trusting collaborative relationships with

30:51

our stakeholders. That is actually the

30:53

core of how I approached my

30:55

work, was to gain a lot

30:57

of trust with the people that

30:59

were going to be responsible for

31:01

helping make direct file a success.

31:03

I was in there to fire

31:05

them. I wasn't there to interrogate

31:07

them or to question the validity of

31:09

their work. I was there to

31:11

actually build partnerships and to really focus

31:14

on like building a great product

31:16

for people. That's all any of us

31:18

wanted to do. And that was

31:20

how USDS used to work. And the

31:22

new team that came in, the

31:24

way I try to think about it,

31:26

or I guess the patterns that

31:28

I've seen, not just at the IRS,

31:30

but other agencies is the first

31:33

they want access to the personnel systems

31:35

and they want access to the

31:37

personnel systems to fire people and they

31:39

want access to the procurement systems

31:41

to cut contracts that they deem that

31:43

they deem not useful and then

31:45

they want access to data and I'm

31:47

going to guess that's you know

31:49

to make benefit determinations and eligibility and

31:52

things like that. You

31:54

know, USDS, legacy USDS, when

31:56

we asked for access to

31:58

different systems, it was to

32:00

make product improvements to direct

32:02

file. It was to help

32:04

databases run more efficiently, to query

32:06

things faster. It was a completely

32:08

different set of asks that, you

32:10

know, were just night and day. So

32:13

that's what happened when they came over to the IRS. How

32:16

much of the when they would

32:18

do layoffs or they would do

32:20

get rid of like, you know,

32:22

they get a hold of the

32:24

procurement and they would cut off

32:26

contracts. How much of that was

32:28

also so that none of these

32:30

entities would constrain what they were

32:32

going to do on the data

32:34

side? I,

32:38

you know, I think My

32:40

observations was two separate efforts, almost.

32:42

We had a few individuals from

32:44

Doge at the IRS, and

32:47

I viewed it almost as

32:49

two separate things. One person was

32:51

really focusing on the modernization

32:53

and the IT side, so really

32:55

thinking through the different contracts.

32:57

But the thing is that when

32:59

you're looking at these line

33:01

items, these vendor contracts, which is

33:03

how they approach their work

33:05

is let's look at Let's look

33:07

at the projects and the

33:09

vendors. You're actually, you're not

33:11

just cutting a contract. You're

33:13

typically cutting a body of work

33:15

and a body of work that was

33:17

delivering things to people. It might

33:19

not be that I don't really get,

33:21

I didn't get the sense that

33:23

that was understood that those, they're not

33:26

just a cost line item. There's

33:28

also a benefit to taxpayers. That's

33:30

how I view they approach Doge

33:32

or I'm sorry, approach direct file. And

33:34

so there's this kind of wider understanding

33:37

that seem to be missing in

33:39

terms of how they are approaching their

33:41

work. And same

33:43

kind of on the personnel side, it

33:45

just seemed to be without a lot

33:47

of understanding of a strategic outcome. I

33:50

mean, it's understandable in

33:52

the sense that they

33:55

would not have a

33:57

concept of a government

33:59

that is not looking

34:01

to generate a profit,

34:03

but to provide a

34:05

service. and that the

34:07

service, there's the

34:09

price of the service and there's

34:12

the cost associated, I guess,

34:14

with the service, right? And

34:16

that someone's gonna bear

34:18

that cost and it's

34:20

either gonna be the

34:22

citizen or by going

34:24

to TurboTax or going

34:26

to H &R Block

34:28

or the society. You

34:30

know in in like

34:33

a through government So

34:35

what happens so what

34:37

did they do at

34:39

the IRS? I mean

34:41

specifically like what did

34:43

they cut that? because

34:45

again every dollar spent

34:47

at the IRS Essentially

34:49

returns six or seven

34:51

is my understanding and

34:53

and there's probably There's

34:55

probably a point where

34:57

you cut it where

34:59

I would imagine that

35:02

the the

35:04

the It costs even more than

35:06

you then then then six

35:08

dollars lost for every dollar cut

35:10

Because you hit a threshold

35:12

where it's like we can't go

35:14

after any of like the

35:16

big whales Because we just don't

35:18

have the resources to go

35:21

after somebody who has an army

35:23

of accountants so it sort

35:25

of drops off a cliff at

35:27

one point So answer the

35:29

question in a few parts when

35:31

I joined the IRS as

35:33

a detailing loan from the USDS

35:35

in 2022, all people,

35:38

all of my IRS colleagues

35:40

talked about was how little capacity

35:42

they had or ability they

35:44

had to answer the phones. Only

35:46

12 % of phone calls were

35:48

answered. And there were these

35:50

front page that year. There were

35:52

these front page stories in

35:54

national news about with Photos of

35:56

paper backlog so people's tax

35:59

returns at processing centers in the

36:01

Midwest and In the within

36:03

place reduction act there was a

36:05

lot of hiring a lot

36:07

of new technology investment that went

36:09

to reduce that back paper

36:11

backlog and to increase the ability

36:13

for the IRS to answer

36:15

calls and we got it up

36:17

to 88 % the next year

36:19

which is her like heroic

36:22

that that even was possible so

36:24

When you ask what they're

36:26

cutting, they're cutting that capacity. I

36:28

really worry about what it's going to look like

36:30

next year during filing season, what the

36:32

wait times are going to be. This

36:34

year, a lot of the filing season

36:36

efforts were kind of held off from the

36:39

national probationary firings, but I know that

36:41

there are rifts coming now that filing season

36:43

is over. And

36:45

so that's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,

36:47

reduction in force. So that is

36:49

the process by which people are

36:51

being fired or placed on an

36:53

administrative leave. So not, not working

36:55

laid off. So I worry about

36:57

next, next filing season, that's on

36:59

the taxpayer side on the call

37:01

center side, when you get to

37:03

the higher audits. Yeah, go ahead.

37:05

Yeah, I just before we get

37:07

to the audits, I just also

37:09

want to make it clear that

37:11

when the response time,

37:14

when the backlog increases, when the

37:16

phone calls don't go answered, that

37:18

is a cost

37:21

borne by the citizen.

37:23

And to be clear, it's

37:26

a cost borne by the,

37:28

I don't know. The

37:30

people are probably in the

37:32

top 75 percentile of

37:34

earnings. Above that, they have

37:36

accountants who are waiting

37:38

on the phone. They have

37:40

a H &R block that's

37:43

waiting on the phone,

37:45

or they're not having to

37:47

do it. The

37:49

cost associated

37:52

to wealthier people

37:54

is less. It

37:57

doesn't inhibit their productivity. They don't

37:59

have to take time off from work. They don't have

38:01

to use their day off or whatever it is. That's

38:04

exactly right. I remember

38:06

I was at a shop

38:09

in Pennsylvania and a woman

38:11

said, she

38:13

didn't know where I worked. She was

38:15

just talking to her friend and said she'd

38:17

been on the phone on hold for

38:19

seven hours the previous day. And she had

38:21

to finally hang up. So that's an

38:23

example of what it was like. And there

38:26

were plans to have better technology to

38:28

make it so that it was less reliant

38:30

on so many call center agents. There

38:32

are ways to make it all more efficient.

38:34

And we were all going in that

38:36

direction. But unfortunately, never

38:38

got there. And

38:40

that capacity in that team has been

38:43

cut on the compliance side. effectively

38:46

what the Inflation Reaction Act did

38:48

was to kind of rebuild a

38:50

whole bunch of the capacity to

38:53

go after and to explore those

38:55

larger, more complex cases. Obviously, it

38:57

did happen, but not at the

38:59

scale and the pace of which,

39:01

you know, these large corporations are

39:03

hiding out what the wealth individuals

39:05

were, were growing. And

39:08

those were So

39:10

in their probationary firings in

39:12

February Roughly 7 ,000 people were

39:14

like probationary probationary means they they

39:16

were new right so new

39:18

talent Hired in the last two

39:20

years new talent or promoted

39:22

talent. Yes Yes, so you're you're

39:24

like, you know, you're brand

39:26

new excited teammates and also the

39:28

ones that had achieved a

39:30

lot of really great work Within

39:32

the IRS the teams that

39:34

do that auditing It was 90

39:36

13 that were impacted so

39:38

the 7 000 people roughly 6700

39:40

were fired uh during the

39:42

probationary firings and I expect that

39:44

ratio to continue as they

39:46

go through more layoffs So it's

39:48

just I don't know what

39:50

next season is going to look

39:52

like in terms of you

39:55

know the call center but also

39:57

In the iris's ability to

39:59

explore those large cases and and

40:01

um I just want to

40:03

make it clear too the biden

40:05

administration when they hired These

40:07

new essentially compliance officers people

40:10

are just gonna audit and

40:12

make sure that you know

40:14

wealthy people are paying the

40:16

taxes that they need and

40:18

you can see from you

40:20

can see a graph from

40:22

the funding of IRS and

40:24

Who and and the relative?

40:28

Amounts of audits that were

40:30

performed based on high

40:32

earners and in mid to

40:34

low earners change As

40:36

the budget for the IRS shrinks,

40:39

the percentage of high earner

40:41

audits take place drops because

40:43

it's just much more work

40:45

intensive and you don't have

40:47

those resources. You go for

40:50

the low hanging fruit, which

40:52

is someone who doesn't necessarily

40:54

have a lawyer, doesn't have

40:56

an accountant. These

40:59

people are brought on During

41:01

the Biden administration and with a

41:04

vow that people under who

41:06

earn under $400 ,000 will not

41:08

be subject to more audits That

41:10

number is not gonna change

41:12

the only number that's gonna rise

41:14

are people who are making

41:16

over $400 ,000. I think it

41:18

was yep and So those are

41:20

the people who are cut

41:22

because those are the people brought

41:24

on and it's it's a

41:26

field day now I would imagine

41:28

for I mean,

41:30

if I'm an accountant and I'm

41:32

advising someone of that type of

41:35

income, I'm like, maybe a year

41:37

ago, I would have said, don't

41:39

take this deduction or whatever it

41:41

is. But today, yeah. I

41:44

mean, that's basically the dynamic. Anecdotally,

41:47

that dynamic is playing

41:49

out across, you know,

41:51

friends. And also, we,

41:55

so DirectFile had a, a customer

41:57

support team. It was all live

41:59

chat and people were consistently asking

42:01

that, like, is the IRS going

42:03

to be here by the end

42:05

of April? Maybe I can just

42:07

not pay my taxes. People are

42:09

volunteering those questions. And

42:11

I think, yeah, so I think that

42:13

that's not a dynamic that's playing

42:15

out, not just among people who think

42:17

that they can kind of find

42:19

an extra loophole, but also There's a

42:21

real kind of shaking in the

42:24

trust in the system. The

42:26

trust that, you know, DirectVal or the IRS

42:28

are going to be there for people. That

42:30

was echoed all throughout violence season,

42:32

unfortunately. And so

42:34

what happens to DirectVal

42:36

going forward? I mean, it's

42:39

sort of like year

42:41

one of its sort of,

42:43

I guess, non -probationary period.

42:47

It was expanding. Does it expand now?

42:49

Does it shut down? Is it functioning?

42:51

I mean, what happens? So,

42:54

Doge has indicated that they want to shut

42:56

direct file down. And

42:58

that has just been devastating news. It

43:00

was reported by the AP last

43:02

week that that is their intent. They've

43:05

not confirmed that, but it

43:07

was definitely where the conversation was

43:09

going when I was still

43:11

inside, actually, frankly. And unfortunately,

43:14

that continued. Again, you know, there

43:16

there didn't seem to be a lot

43:18

of logic behind a direct file

43:20

is a startup, you know, it is

43:22

a startup within government. We thought

43:24

that there would be some interest there

43:26

some over maybe there was a

43:28

Venn diagram of efficient products that people

43:31

love interest in that and there

43:33

wasn't at all apparently. So

43:35

it takes a lot of trust. with

43:37

states, a lot of relationship building with

43:39

states, and there had been no conversations

43:41

with states as well. So unfortunately, it

43:43

looks like it's going to be another

43:45

line item that they've just decided to

43:47

cut. And the direct file team, you

43:49

know, I'm not sure what their future

43:51

is. They don't know what their future

43:53

is. And, you know, it's just, it's

43:56

really just devastating for not just taxpayers. You

43:58

know, I think it's also devastating

44:01

for the IRS itself. That team was

44:03

so talented, is so talented. Do

44:05

you have a sense of

44:07

how it worked this filing

44:09

season? Oh, yeah. Okay,

44:12

so the net promoter score is

44:14

a very common private sector kind

44:16

of promoter or score index that

44:18

says how much people like your

44:20

product or not. So

44:23

last year, direct files was plus

44:25

74. Just as

44:27

it's astronomically high apples is

44:29

72 this year. It

44:31

was 84 plus 84 So

44:33

somehow the net promoter

44:35

score, which was already inordinately

44:38

high got even higher

44:40

direct file users It increased

44:42

their trust in the

44:44

IRS by 86 % so

44:46

you can actually increase trust

44:48

in government when you

44:50

deliver really great things that

44:53

they love. So

44:55

it went really well this year. There were no

44:57

bugs. Everyone that used it

44:59

loved it. Some of the feedback

45:01

that people gave. That's amazing to me.

45:03

That is amazing to me in

45:05

the best of times that you would

45:07

have a product rollout that was

45:10

so effective. But I would imagine that

45:12

everybody associated with that was preoccupied

45:14

to some degree with the idea of

45:16

like, is this going to exist

45:18

tomorrow? Hey, do I have a job

45:20

tomorrow? Am I at 8 p .m.? Am I

45:22

going to get a notice that I'm fired? And

45:25

yet the thing was that

45:27

successful. You're

45:29

absolutely right. That's what it was like

45:31

for that team all filing season.

45:33

And people were openly speculating Elon Musk

45:35

had tweeted a confusing tweet in

45:38

February that led some people to believe

45:40

that direct file had been shut

45:42

down. It hadn't been shut down. It

45:44

was doing great. And

45:46

so all throughout filing season, you

45:48

know, the team just had to

45:50

focus on delivering more features. They

45:52

rolled out. So an internet meme

45:54

had always been, why doesn't the

45:56

IRS just tell me what, how

45:59

much I owe instead? They asked me, I get it wrong

46:01

and they throw me in jail. And

46:03

the direct file team started to

46:05

input what they knew, what

46:07

the IRS knew about you into

46:09

the into the tax return it started

46:11

to do that pre -population and people

46:13

loved it and it worked you

46:16

know the IRS was using that as

46:18

a use case for its modernization

46:20

efforts and so it's just it is

46:22

just really uh that happened during

46:24

filing season so it's just really a

46:26

devastating um devastating situation for the

46:28

team and for taxpayers one more question

46:30

on that specific uh part before

46:32

i i hear you know when you

46:34

left and why and a little

46:36

bit more of that um with

46:39

the pre -population of

46:41

information into a

46:44

taxpayer's profile. If

46:46

something like that

46:48

grows, right? I mean, like,

46:50

you know, in a fantasy world where

46:52

Elon Musk does not exist, where Donald

46:54

Trump and the Republican administration does not

46:56

exist, and Republicans' desire to

46:58

cut the IRS does not exist. As

47:01

it moves forward and grows, you

47:04

know, that pre -population of

47:06

the profiles. The

47:08

ability to provide people,

47:10

let's say, direct

47:13

payments in a pandemic

47:15

situation or the

47:17

child tax credits, that

47:19

becomes incredibly like

47:22

almost like a Venmo

47:24

subscription. It would

47:26

have made everything much

47:28

easier because once

47:30

it's pre -populated and

47:33

these profiles exist, the

47:35

idea of treasury using that information

47:37

as a way of sending money

47:39

to citizens becomes much more viable

47:41

doesn't absolutely your spot on and

47:44

so much of actually the direct

47:46

about team was born out of

47:48

the child tax credit expansion era

47:50

and we saw the need for

47:52

a free tax filing products because

47:54

we needed to reach out to

47:56

people and find people that had

47:58

never found their taxes before and

48:01

were eligible for the ctc for

48:03

the first time And

48:05

then also, for exactly as

48:07

you're pointing out, the ability

48:09

to quickly and rapidly deliver a

48:11

benefit through the stimulus checks

48:13

had that been something that was

48:15

more automated, it would have

48:17

made... It would have

48:20

made taxpayers life significantly more simpler, more

48:22

straightforward, and government. So it would have been

48:24

a lot more efficient. Government and, frankly,

48:26

the economy, because the difference between waiting a

48:28

month for a check versus having that

48:30

money in your bank account that day, you're

48:32

going to see the impact of that

48:34

much quicker. Exactly. OK,

48:36

so when did you leave

48:38

Doge? Why did you leave Doge?

48:40

I left on March 11th

48:42

and I had remained around for

48:44

a while. I was trying

48:46

to make the case for direct

48:48

file. You had a large

48:50

team at USDS that was supporting

48:52

direct file as well as

48:54

the IRS team. And as

48:56

it became more and more clear that there was not

48:58

really an open, nobody was really

49:00

listening to the arguments, I decided it was

49:03

my time to leave. You know, people, it was

49:05

really difficult to do work. People

49:07

were fighting across the IRS and

49:09

across the federal government. People were

49:11

fighting both to do their jobs

49:13

and for their jobs. And

49:15

it just wasn't really a sustainable place. So

49:17

that's why I left. Um,

49:21

one last question. Who was in charge of Doge when

49:23

you were there? I

49:25

would love to know

49:27

that answer. Uh, so, um,

49:30

the, um, was

49:32

it the lady in Cancun on vacation?

49:34

So Amy was the acting

49:37

or is was is I

49:39

don't actually know so it

49:41

was the acting administrator sometime

49:43

towards the end of February

49:45

prior to that there had

49:47

been no Decision -making for legacy

49:49

USDS. So there was nobody

49:51

to approve a travel request

49:53

or say you can have

49:55

a bigger team Until until

49:57

Amy was appointed acting administrator.

49:59

Did you ever meet her?

50:02

Yeah, you did So she was

50:04

actually around. Yeah, she was.

50:06

And she had, we overlapped briefly

50:08

when I first joined USDS. She did

50:10

a lot of the COVID work and

50:12

I did child tax credit expansion. So

50:14

yeah, she came back. Oh, she

50:17

was already at USDS. She

50:19

was already in the digital services.

50:22

She left and then she came back. Exactly. And

50:25

found out that she was in charge of Doge.

50:28

Correct. Great. Did

50:30

you ever meet Elon Musk? I did

50:33

not know. Yeah, I was gonna

50:35

ask if he like actually made eye

50:37

contact. I'd be curious about that. Is

50:40

there anything else you feel like we

50:42

should know? I mean, I know that

50:44

you were involved in some of the

50:46

early stages of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

50:49

I imagine a

50:51

lot of your

50:53

experience at within

50:55

the IRS was

50:57

replicated at agencies

50:59

throughout the The

51:01

government, I mean, it

51:03

does feel like, you

51:05

know, now that we're seeing, are

51:07

we up to number four or

51:10

five acting directors of the IRS? This

51:13

is not, I'm

51:16

not, you know,

51:18

we literally are,

51:20

which is fascinating. I

51:24

guess my last question would be,

51:26

and maybe this is sort of outside

51:28

of your perspective, but. There's

51:30

a sense that DOGE was

51:33

a tool by an existing

51:35

agenda that was sort of

51:37

laid out in Project 2025,

51:40

but also predates that in terms

51:42

of, particularly in the context of

51:44

the IRS, but other

51:46

agencies, you know, getting rid the

51:48

Department of Education, et cetera, et

51:50

cetera. How much, like

51:52

how... How much

51:54

of that did you

51:57

observe? Was that observable in

51:59

conversation you had with

52:01

other members of the digital

52:03

services that may have

52:05

been embedded in other agencies?

52:08

Could you observe

52:10

that? Were

52:12

the ideological agendas

52:14

behind these

52:16

instruments? were they differentiated

52:19

in terms of personnel at

52:21

all or approach? Because I

52:23

think we've moved past doge's

52:25

attempt to do whatever they

52:27

were attempting to do, which

52:29

largely seemed to have not saved

52:31

the government any money at

52:33

all, but have created the

52:35

mayhem that almost like a

52:37

rototiller goes and loosens up

52:39

the soil. And now we

52:41

have Russell votes, sort of like

52:43

a wave of assault on

52:45

the government coming, where it's

52:47

more RIF, as you say,

52:50

reduction in force, which is

52:52

different than what the doge

52:54

approach was. So,

52:58

Hai was actually open -minded and

53:00

a bit excited to have

53:02

a team of technologists come

53:04

in that said that they

53:06

wanted to add more engineers,

53:08

and they wanted to bring

53:10

more people into government with

53:12

these skills. That's something we've

53:14

been advocating for. It's what

53:16

we did at the CFPB.

53:18

We were one of the

53:20

first in -house teams actually

53:22

globally. And so

53:24

it was like, oh, great.

53:26

And it became really clear.

53:29

I think the Bureau of Fiscal Services,

53:31

the payment systems, it became

53:33

very clear that, oh, we

53:35

are here for very different

53:37

purposes. And

53:39

that ideology, to me,

53:42

that was that first, I

53:44

guess, observation was like, OK, this

53:46

is two different missions. And

53:48

with old USDS, we would

53:50

come in and we would want

53:53

to touch those systems to

53:55

make them get you a tax

53:57

refund quicker or to pass

53:59

a payment through to the New

54:01

York State Health and Human

54:03

Services for their Medicaid payment. more

54:06

efficiently. And these individuals

54:08

came in to shut it off to say, nope,

54:10

I'm not going to pay you and I'm

54:12

not going to pay you because I don't feel

54:14

like it. I don't really like you. And

54:16

those are, that's when the

54:18

ideology became very different. I think

54:20

beyond that, there's been nothing

54:22

built, nothing built.

54:24

everything has just been indiscriminate cuts

54:26

of you know of people out

54:28

of government or cuts of programs

54:30

and That's what I worry the

54:33

most about is how are we

54:35

going to what's gonna be left,

54:37

right? What's gonna be left and

54:39

our people are gonna be able

54:41

to get through this is it

54:43

gonna impact Social Security checks and

54:45

payments is it gonna impact tax

54:47

refunds but then beyond that How

54:49

do we rebuild from there and

54:51

I I think You know, I

54:54

am optimistic and I'm hopeful. I

54:56

think we can build. I think

54:58

I definitely think that we have

55:00

helped. We've built ourselves and we

55:02

can redo it again. But

55:04

it's going to take a

55:06

very ambitious vision and thousands

55:08

of people to help us

55:10

do that. What were people

55:12

saying about that payment system?

55:14

Because we had Nathan Tancas

55:16

on the program who was

55:18

one of the people to

55:20

ring one of the first

55:22

alarms about the doge people

55:24

messing in around the payment

55:26

system. But

55:28

there's also sort of like, there's the

55:30

technical aspects of that. And then there's

55:33

also the sort of the way that

55:35

you instrumentalize

55:38

that system as a

55:41

way of just sort of

55:43

like having more authority

55:45

than you should have. Because

55:47

if you have the ability to

55:49

just basically take money out of,

55:51

you mentioned New York payments, you

55:53

have the ability to take money

55:55

out of someone's ledger within the

55:57

government, it

56:00

begins to

56:02

undermine money

56:04

in a

56:06

way. I

56:09

mean, I was just reading

56:11

and Nathan Tankus and his interview

56:13

with Paul Krugman. If

56:15

I give you a dollar, you walk

56:17

away with that dollar. It's quite

56:19

clear that you have that dollar. That's

56:22

your dollar and you may decide

56:24

to give it back to me or

56:26

not. But if I give you

56:28

money electronically and then have the ability

56:30

at any point to pull it

56:32

back, it begins to

56:34

undermine the way that we

56:39

perceive money on some level

56:41

as it becomes increasingly, you

56:44

know, just a

56:46

question of a ledger. Yeah,

56:49

absolutely. It

56:51

was pretty stunning to see. It's

56:54

my understanding that during the

56:56

transition, so a friend of BFS

56:58

said to me, nobody's ever

57:01

come to us during

57:03

a transition. And typically,

57:05

like a new administration will come

57:07

to a six -month son. BFS. That

57:10

Bureau of Fiscal Services, sorry, the

57:12

organization that oversees the payments. And

57:15

they sit within Treasury. They

57:17

are a low -key agency.

57:19

Their job is to do

57:21

government payments to individuals, to

57:25

other government agencies, and to

57:27

people that you know, to

57:29

organizations that the government owes

57:31

money to. This is complete

57:33

operational stuff. There is no

57:36

policy implications to what they

57:38

do. They just execute what

57:40

the policy makers have done

57:42

and what the they're, they're,

57:44

you know, clock, clockmakers, essentially.

57:48

Absolutely. And there

57:50

was not an understanding

57:52

that That's how it works.

57:54

I think what Doge had intended

57:56

to do and was made public

57:58

with one of the first weekends

58:00

during the administration when the head

58:02

of the Bureau of Fiscal Services

58:04

was asked to do something to

58:07

stop a payment to USAID. And

58:09

he said, no, that's not how this works. And

58:11

then he was pushed aside. And

58:14

his BFS was there

58:16

to facilitate the payment. It

58:18

wasn't BFS's decision. To

58:20

you know that the originating

58:22

home agency of that payment was

58:25

the ones that wrote the policies

58:27

that said this is a legitimate,

58:29

you know payment request. Facilitated

58:31

bfs and does I believe really

58:33

learned a lot that weekend which

58:36

is oh this is just this

58:38

is a this organization is just

58:40

here to facilitate those payments and

58:42

it is very different than the

58:44

private sector but. But that is

58:46

what that organization does. And

58:48

to me, that was one of the

58:50

first insights into the differences in ideology.

58:54

It's interesting stuff. Marie

58:57

C. Vinton, former staffer at

58:59

the US Digital Service Department.

59:01

I hope you have an

59:03

opportunity to return someday under

59:05

better circumstances. I suspect

59:07

there's a lot of

59:10

people who we've lost

59:12

in terms of government

59:14

service. People who are

59:16

just looking to serve citizens and

59:18

hopefully they'll be in a position to

59:20

be able to come back at

59:22

one point and we'll do so. Thank

59:24

you so much for your time

59:26

today. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

59:28

Great conversation. Thanks. All

59:30

right, folks. We're going to

59:32

move into the fun half

59:34

of the program, wherein we

59:36

will have fun. I

59:42

think, you know, I

59:44

just saw some polling

59:46

that just came out,

59:48

actually, from the

59:50

PCCC, the

59:52

Progressive Change Institute.

59:56

Progressive Change Institute. Is

59:59

that it is? Progressive Change Campaign

1:00:01

Committee. Yes, but this is, I

1:00:03

think, from there, the Change Institute

1:00:05

and Data for Progress. They

1:00:11

were looking at

1:00:13

messages that resonated

1:00:15

across partisan affiliation.

1:00:22

It's interesting. Wrong

1:00:26

approach to efficiency

1:00:28

about Doge was number

1:00:30

one. And

1:00:32

it was, if we want the government

1:00:34

to be more efficient, we should crack

1:00:36

down on corporate tax sheets, not cut

1:00:38

benefits from families and veterans and seniors. Was

1:00:42

the best performing with all

1:00:44

likely voters, best performing with independents,

1:00:46

best performing with Republicans, apparently

1:00:48

it was the third best with

1:00:50

Democrats. The first

1:00:53

best with Democrats.

1:00:56

was musk and dozer stealing

1:00:58

from you by cutting Social

1:01:00

Security and Medicare and Medicaid. But

1:01:02

I would bet

1:01:05

that the political orientation

1:01:07

of people in

1:01:09

the U .S. digital

1:01:11

services ranged from like

1:01:13

center to center,

1:01:15

broadly speaking. There

1:01:19

were just in

1:01:22

there, they're engineers. And

1:01:24

they're in there, you know,

1:01:26

they're very much, in my

1:01:28

experience with engineers, they,

1:01:31

hey, they generally say

1:01:34

stuff that you don't understand

1:01:36

and think that you

1:01:38

do understand it. That's

1:01:40

been my experience. But

1:01:42

also are just, are

1:01:44

very project oriented. And

1:01:47

so I don't know,

1:01:49

that's maybe a good interview

1:01:51

to send around to your, Doge

1:01:55

supporting relatives Because I

1:01:57

mean it is just undermining

1:01:59

the government for I

1:02:01

mean it really does feel

1:02:03

like That the value

1:02:05

to the ideological project that

1:02:07

the Republicans have was

1:02:09

that does just went in

1:02:11

there and and functioned

1:02:13

like a rototiller and just

1:02:15

tilled Loosen the stuff

1:02:17

up and now Russell vote

1:02:19

comes in with all

1:02:21

of those heritage foundation resumes

1:02:25

and takes the little skid steer and

1:02:27

starts to scoop up that loose

1:02:29

soil. It's

1:02:32

springtime, so that's where my mind is. Tilling

1:02:35

and gardening. Cultivation.

1:02:38

Cultivation. Folks,

1:02:40

it's your support that makes this show

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Help us. Survive

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and thrive by becoming a

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member today join the majority

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report.com also just coffee Remember

1:03:25

them 10 % off right Russ

1:03:27

you fix that in the

1:03:29

YouTube great 10 % off

1:03:31

with the coupon code majority

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you can get the majority

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report blend You can also

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get the other blends you

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can get that really bitter

1:03:42

WTF blend if you want

1:03:44

but Just coffee dot co -op

1:03:49

Matt left reckoning Yeah before I get

1:03:51

to that occurs to me the

1:03:53

VA does abortion care So I imagine

1:03:55

that might run into some of

1:03:57

the Christian Issue there the anti -Christian

1:03:59

stuff. Uh -huh last night on left

1:04:01

reckoning actually we had Megan Day on

1:04:03

talking about a lot of things

1:04:05

from doge to tariffs to tradwives and

1:04:08

her take on the doge thing

1:04:10

is kind of just what we were

1:04:12

talking about which is to

1:04:14

look at how a place like

1:04:16

Wells Fargo looks at it, which is,

1:04:18

oh, the USPS is on the

1:04:20

chopping block. Let's try to get a

1:04:22

strip of that prime profitable stake

1:04:24

and, you know, the people who aren't,

1:04:26

we can't service profitably. Screw them.

1:04:28

Good luck to you in rural North

1:04:30

Dakota, for instance, folks who've had

1:04:33

their post office person for decades. But

1:04:35

yeah, check that out patreon.com slash

1:04:37

left reckoning to get access to the

1:04:39

post game. Okay,

1:04:42

we're going to take a quick break. Head

1:04:46

to the fun half.

1:04:48

We will take your

1:04:50

phone calls. We will

1:04:52

read your IAMs. We

1:04:54

will tell funny anecdotes

1:04:57

about the news today.

1:05:00

See you there. Three

1:05:04

months from now six months from now

1:05:06

nine months from now And I don't

1:05:08

think it's gonna be the same as

1:05:10

it looks like in six months from

1:05:12

now And I don't know if it's

1:05:14

necessarily gonna be better six months from

1:05:16

now than it is three months from

1:05:18

now But I think around 18 months

1:05:20

out. We're gonna look back and go

1:05:22

like wow What what is that going

1:05:24

on it's nuts Wait a second hold

1:05:26

on for all done for a second

1:05:31

Emma, welcome to the

1:05:33

program. Hey, Matt! What

1:05:36

is up,

1:05:38

everyone? You

1:05:41

did it! Let's

1:05:44

go Brandon! Bradley,

1:05:49

you want to say hello? Sorry

1:05:51

to disappoint you, everyone. I'm just

1:05:53

a random guy. It's all the boys

1:05:55

today! Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Talking

1:05:58

for a second. Let me finish. Where

1:06:00

is this coming from, dude? But dude,

1:06:02

uh, you wanna smoke this, uh, Saturday?

1:06:06

Yes. Hi,

1:06:09

this me? Is

1:06:11

this me? Yes. Is

1:06:15

this me? Is it

1:06:17

me? It is you. Is

1:06:21

this me? Hello? Is this me? I

1:06:23

think it is you. Who is you? Oh,

1:06:26

no sound. Every single frickin'

1:06:29

day. What's on your mind?

1:06:31

Sports. We can discuss free markets

1:06:33

and we can discuss capitalism.

1:06:35

I'm gonna go starlight. Libertarians. They're

1:06:37

so stupid though. Common sense

1:06:39

says of course. Gobbledygook. We fuckin'

1:06:42

nailed - what's 70 and

1:06:44

that plus 21? Challenge, man. I'm

1:06:46

positively clever. I believe 96, I

1:06:48

want to say. 8, 5, 7,

1:06:50

2, 1, 0, 35, 5, 0,

1:06:52

1, 1 half. 3, 8, 9,

1:06:54

11, for instance. $3 ,400, $1

1:06:56

,900, $6, 5, 4, 3 trillion

1:06:58

dollars sold. It's a zero

1:07:00

sum game. Actually, you're making me

1:07:02

think less. But let me

1:07:04

say this. You're going

1:07:06

to call it satire. Sam goes, it's

1:07:09

satire. On top of it all? Yeah.

1:07:11

My favorite part about you is just

1:07:13

like every day, all day, like everything

1:07:15

you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy,

1:07:17

we see you. All

1:07:20

right, folks.

1:07:22

Folks. Folks. It's

1:07:26

just the weak being weeded out,

1:07:28

obviously. Yeah. Sun's out, gun's out.

1:07:33

I don't know. But you

1:07:35

should know. People

1:07:38

just don't like to entertain ideas anymore.

1:07:40

I have a question. Who cares? Our

1:07:44

chat is enabled, folks. I

1:07:47

love it. I do love that. Look,

1:07:50

gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I

1:07:52

gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro.

1:07:56

Two o 'clock. We're already late. And the

1:07:58

guy's been a dick. So screw him. Sent

1:08:02

to a gulag. I'm rages.

1:08:04

What is wrong with you? Love

1:08:07

you, bye. Love

1:08:09

you. Bye -bye

1:08:12

We are back

1:08:14

we what I

1:08:16

Think I'm going

1:08:19

to for now

1:08:21

on just have

1:08:23

an affectation for

1:08:26

no reason you

1:08:28

know with all

1:08:30

the the The

1:08:33

only refugees they're

1:08:35

allowing in our

1:08:38

offer Connors So

1:08:41

I may I

1:08:44

may try and it

1:08:46

like create some

1:08:48

type of South African

1:08:50

Affectation to my

1:08:52

speaking all Lavender allergy

1:08:54

well people just

1:08:56

really Just I mean

1:08:58

on one level

1:09:00

it's a little bit

1:09:02

flattering that Everybody's

1:09:05

so like it picks

1:09:07

apart every aspect.

1:09:10

You're very transparent about your

1:09:12

weakness. It's true. Jody

1:09:15

from Chicago. Sam, I

1:09:17

got good news and bad news. Good news

1:09:19

is Dick Durbin isn't going to run for

1:09:21

reelection in 2026. Bad news, I

1:09:23

heard Rahm Emanuel might want his seat.

1:09:27

That is bad news. I'm

1:09:32

glad Dick Durbin is stepping down. You

1:09:35

know who else should step down? Chuck

1:09:37

Schumer. Speaking

1:09:42

of, um, Rahm

1:09:44

Emanuel, we need to

1:09:46

see more of this. Now,

1:09:48

I don't know who this podcaster

1:09:50

is, with all due respect.

1:09:52

I don't know, uh, I probably

1:09:54

don't know 99 .9 % of

1:09:56

podcasters who are not named Sam

1:09:59

Cedar, or Emma Biglund, or

1:10:01

Matt Lack, or

1:10:03

Russ. But

1:10:06

we need more

1:10:09

of this. Whenever

1:10:14

Rahm Emanuel is on

1:10:16

on any show he

1:10:18

should be addressed in

1:10:20

this way and let

1:10:23

me tell you something

1:10:25

I mean Rahm Emanuel

1:10:27

took credit for the

1:10:29

2006 retaking of Congress

1:10:31

by the Democrats and

1:10:33

You could not have

1:10:35

been handed Congress on

1:10:38

a bigger silver platter

1:10:40

than Rahm Emanuel was

1:10:42

given you had trumps

1:10:44

and excuse me bush

1:10:46

is a popularity plummeting

1:10:48

because of the iraq

1:10:51

war and because of

1:10:53

his attempted to uh...

1:10:55

to attack social security

1:10:57

and because of hurricane

1:10:59

katrina then you had

1:11:01

a republican party whose

1:11:03

leadership was protecting a

1:11:06

uh... a fellow congressman

1:11:08

who they knew was

1:11:12

trying to groom

1:11:15

pages in Congress,

1:11:18

a guy named Mark Foley. And

1:11:20

they all knew it, and there was

1:11:22

wide evidence of it. In fact, I

1:11:25

can't remember the name, the

1:11:27

guy's name. Tom Reynolds, I think

1:11:29

it was, in Upstate New

1:11:31

York had a press conference where

1:11:33

he surrounded himself with children. and

1:11:36

had to be asked at one

1:11:38

point, could you ask the children to

1:11:41

leave so we could ask you

1:11:43

about this burgeoning scandal that crested in

1:11:45

October? And Rahm Emanuel

1:11:47

took credit for winning

1:11:49

these seats. And incidentally, the

1:11:51

candidates that he got

1:11:53

who got into those seats

1:11:55

were garbage, largely

1:11:58

garbage, because he only

1:12:00

wanted people who could

1:12:02

self -fund. Many

1:12:04

of the problems that Democrats

1:12:06

have today in terms of

1:12:08

why they are ideologically tone

1:12:10

deaf as to what was

1:12:12

happening in the country over

1:12:14

the course of the past

1:12:17

18 years, 19 years, is

1:12:19

because of Rahm Emanuel. Rahm

1:12:23

Emanuel is the chief of

1:12:25

staff when Barack Obama decided

1:12:27

to bail out the banks

1:12:30

instead of homeowners. Rama

1:12:32

manual is the chief

1:12:34

of staff when Barack

1:12:36

Obama decided to skimp

1:12:38

on the bailout in

1:12:40

the wake of the

1:12:42

financial crisis Instead of

1:12:44

going to a trillion

1:12:46

dollars where all the

1:12:48

economists were saying you

1:12:50

got a hit He

1:12:52

did 750 billion 400

1:12:54

of which was just

1:12:56

tax cuts and tax

1:12:58

cuts that were largely

1:13:04

for wealthier people who are not going

1:13:06

to go out and spend that money in

1:13:08

the same way. So we have anemic,

1:13:10

we have a millions, literally millions of foreclosures

1:13:12

in the wake of the financial crisis. We

1:13:16

have, get a

1:13:18

little bit of

1:13:20

a crispiness. We have

1:13:22

millions of financial

1:13:25

foreclosures. And then we

1:13:27

have a slow

1:13:29

growth. Over

1:13:31

the course of the next eight

1:13:33

years, because of how anemic the

1:13:35

Obama administration's response was, and I

1:13:37

will remind you, despite all that,

1:13:39

they got clobbered in 2010. And

1:13:43

over the course of

1:13:45

Obama's eight years, lost

1:13:47

a thousand statewide

1:13:49

seats in government across

1:13:52

the states. And

1:13:54

2010, mind you, also, that

1:13:57

election is what

1:13:59

crushed democrats for the

1:14:01

next decade because that's where

1:14:03

all the redistricting happen

1:14:05

rama manual was as responsible

1:14:07

for that stuff is

1:14:09

just about any other individual

1:14:12

except for barack obama

1:14:14

hired him as his chief

1:14:16

of staff then he

1:14:18

went on to chicago privatize

1:14:20

all sorts of stuff

1:14:22

in chicago attack the schools

1:14:26

Got rid of all the parking

1:14:28

meter revenue handed it over to

1:14:30

private interests. What was

1:14:32

the a Laquan McDonald malfeasance?

1:14:34

Yeah Just a garbage

1:14:37

man without picking up the

1:14:39

garbage I Should say

1:14:41

like sanitation workers my hat

1:14:43

goes off to you.

1:14:45

Yeah, he creates garbage exactly

1:14:47

right of it By

1:14:49

garbage man, I mean like

1:14:51

literally a man of

1:14:53

garbage Here

1:14:56

he is on What's

1:14:58

the name of the

1:15:00

show again? This is

1:15:02

I've had it with Sorry

1:15:04

Who is it was

1:15:06

it Russ? What

1:15:10

what number is this Jennifer

1:15:12

Welch? Party

1:15:16

that became an advocate for we became not

1:15:18

a party that was built on the culture of

1:15:20

acceptance But a party that became an advocate

1:15:22

for certain things that in my view were just

1:15:24

nuts Nuts

1:15:27

and they weren't core Now look,

1:15:29

I think you pick so you say

1:15:31

to me fight tell me what

1:15:33

we're gonna fight about because I'm not

1:15:35

interested in fighting about you know

1:15:37

I'll tell you this I just said

1:15:39

this just a minute ago to

1:15:41

somebody else We were really south on

1:15:44

kitchen table issues. We weren't really

1:15:46

good about the family room issues. I

1:15:48

don't agree with you with you

1:15:50

Okay, the only room we were really

1:15:52

well was the bathroom And that's

1:15:54

the smallest room in the house. such

1:15:56

bullshit. That is total bullshit that

1:15:58

is buying into the right wing media

1:16:00

narrative. And I'm so sick of

1:16:03

Democrats like you selling out and saying

1:16:05

this. You know who talks about

1:16:07

trans people more than anybody? MAGA. MAGA

1:16:09

is the most genital, obsessed, political

1:16:11

party I have ever seen. Kamala

1:16:13

Harris talked about home ownership. She

1:16:15

talked about kitchen table issues. Trump's

1:16:17

over there droning on about Hannibal

1:16:19

Lecter. Are you kidding me? This

1:16:21

is where the Democrats lose because

1:16:23

we're playing the game with the

1:16:25

rule book. They've read the rule

1:16:27

book up and are crammed it

1:16:29

down everybody's throat. Democrats are upset

1:16:31

because Joe Biden pardoned his son.

1:16:33

We got to fucking fight. They're

1:16:35

the gender obsessed weirdos, not us.

1:16:37

We want to fight for Social

1:16:39

Security. We fight for Medicare. And

1:16:42

yeah, we're not going to bully trans people. We're

1:16:44

not going to fucking do it. want to do it,

1:16:46

you're fine. Hey, let me say this.

1:16:48

As mayor, 2016, I

1:16:50

dealt with the bathroom issue. It's just

1:16:52

not my most important issue. It was

1:16:55

dealt with, and I appropriately dealt with, dealt

1:16:57

with marriage equality, as I said. Well,

1:16:59

it's certainly important to the Republicans. For

1:17:01

me, it's just important not to bully them.

1:17:03

And I think this is the death

1:17:05

agree. I'm not disagreeing. It really, it upsets

1:17:07

me, it upsets me so much because

1:17:09

we live here in this, in this.

1:17:11

Red state and you see the damage of

1:17:14

it when I see politicians that are

1:17:16

supposed to be leaders in the Democratic Party

1:17:18

buy into the narrative that Republicans have

1:17:20

defined us by instead of fighting and

1:17:22

saying you're the weirdos that are obsessed with

1:17:24

it Yeah, we're not gonna bully some

1:17:26

trans kid and you and we their narrative

1:17:28

it just it's why I think we

1:17:30

lose and we have to live I

1:17:33

have to live in a state where women

1:17:35

rape victims can't get an abortion because

1:17:37

of this bullshit and so I'm gonna

1:17:39

fight till the bitter end and I'm not

1:17:41

gonna let some MAGA moron define what

1:17:43

progressive values are and i think it's a

1:17:45

really dangerous president mister manuel i'm sorry

1:17:47

but i'd just i have a flashback

1:17:49

and i know

1:17:54

do we need to hear even

1:17:56

more from him i i i would

1:17:58

say uh... well done uh...

1:18:00

uh... f the column mister

1:18:02

manuel uh... the the of

1:18:04

the fascinating thing to about

1:18:06

that i mean this is

1:18:08

a big tell And

1:18:11

you know, you see this

1:18:13

with Hakeem Jeffries. You see this

1:18:15

with guys like Ron Manuel. The

1:18:18

big tell for all of

1:18:20

them is going on and talking

1:18:22

about what Democrats should talk

1:18:24

about instead of actually talking about

1:18:26

what Democrats should talk about. It's

1:18:30

all them becoming

1:18:32

pundits. And

1:18:34

instead of actually

1:18:37

like kitchen table

1:18:39

issues. What the

1:18:41

f does that mean now? What

1:18:43

was Mark Cuban talking about

1:18:46

ticking to you know a

1:18:48

kitchen table issues? Mark

1:18:50

Cuban like which which

1:18:52

kitchen table is Mark Cuban

1:18:54

sitting at of his

1:18:56

whatever 47 homes of the

1:18:59

granite countertop one. Yeah,

1:19:01

I mean honestly like Give

1:19:03

me an f and

1:19:05

break here The problem with

1:19:07

it the Democrats did

1:19:10

not lose there is absolutely

1:19:12

zero data that suggests

1:19:14

an issue that all the

1:19:16

exit polling showed, and

1:19:18

even polling beforehand, that

1:19:21

voters were

1:19:23

voting on trans

1:19:25

issues as

1:19:27

the 21st issue

1:19:29

swayed the

1:19:31

election. This is

1:19:33

all just

1:19:35

BS. And

1:19:37

it's great, I think, I've never

1:19:39

heard of Jennifer Welch before, but apparently

1:19:41

she does some sort of like

1:19:44

interior design style reality TV, sweet home,

1:19:46

I think from Oklahoma. And

1:19:48

to say like, look at the comments here,

1:19:50

Russ, if you can put these up, it's all

1:19:52

things that we obviously agree with. This man

1:19:54

is arrogant, delusional, and showing his privilege to say

1:19:56

you can just move out of a state.

1:19:58

I can't stand around, he talks. About

1:20:01

education like he made a difference

1:20:03

Chicago Close a bunch of schools.

1:20:05

He sounds like he's in the

1:20:07

wrong party and he's disingenuous about

1:20:09

it. I mean, it's it's wild

1:20:11

hot and this is like again,

1:20:13

this is not you know MSNBC

1:20:15

You know from Manhattan, this is

1:20:17

a just a influencer from Oklahoma.

1:20:20

That's fantastic

1:20:22

Honestly like Any

1:20:25

podcast that has that dude

1:20:27

on it doesn't treat him

1:20:29

with that type of of

1:20:32

anger And she is on

1:20:34

the front lines talking about

1:20:36

like yeah, it's it's being

1:20:38

in Oklahoma you see it

1:20:40

more acutely What happens when

1:20:43

you put wind in the

1:20:45

sails of these bigots? Yep

1:20:47

Winnie from Phoenix Can

1:20:49

I get a show far from my partner

1:20:51

Robin and I, who are married in a

1:20:53

beautiful ceremony at Omega Mart on Sunday? What

1:20:56

is Omega Mart? I've

1:20:58

never heard of it. There's no

1:21:00

wedding like a trans

1:21:03

NB wedding. Folks,

1:21:05

thanks a lot. A YouTube chat

1:21:07

left his best. Love the roses.

1:21:17

Teacher Dan, 20. How scummy

1:21:19

can these scumbags get? Pretty

1:21:21

scummy. Dimpria.

1:21:28

Sam, I just want to tell you how I'm feeling.

1:21:30

Got to make you understand. Never going to give

1:21:32

you up. Never going to let you down. Never going

1:21:34

to run around, desert you. Never going to make

1:21:36

you cry. Never going to say goodbye. Never going to

1:21:38

tell a lie and hurt you. I

1:21:41

just got Rick rolled. People

1:21:44

are like... How

1:21:49

did you know that, Sam? I

1:21:51

feel like after the, what was

1:21:53

it, House Judiciary Twitter account from

1:21:55

the Republicans tweeted a Rick roll

1:21:57

instead of the Epstein stuff, maybe.

1:22:00

it's over. Massa

1:22:02

County spokesperson in 2028, Dems don't

1:22:04

vigorously run on arresting these

1:22:06

authoritarian freaks than they are so

1:22:08

cooked. I feel like Dems

1:22:10

should have a slogan, ran on a

1:22:12

slogan of Doge, Department of Greedy Executives

1:22:14

and constantly mentioned how it's defunding the

1:22:16

VA. It's a good turn of

1:22:18

phrase. Yep. which

1:22:38

has most of the same technical

1:22:40

specifications as the F -35. It's

1:22:42

amazing how pathetic Trump's little pets

1:22:44

will be to prevent defense contractors'

1:22:46

shareholders from having to get a

1:22:48

real job. Andy

1:22:50

from Kansas City. Doge is

1:22:52

simply an FSB -style hacker army to

1:22:54

steal our data on behalf of

1:22:56

Palantir and Starlink. Maybe

1:22:59

right. Dave from Upstate. Well, well, well.

1:23:01

If it isn't the consequences of my

1:23:03

own actions and not Elon. Have

1:23:05

you heard of a Schrodinger's cat

1:23:07

Sam? Ask Matt. Yes,

1:23:09

I have Schrodinger's cat is

1:23:11

Somebody with physics uncertainty principle

1:23:14

where yes, you can't tell

1:23:16

if the cat's alive or

1:23:18

dead without Observing it That's

1:23:20

not the one right okay

1:23:22

What's the and observing it

1:23:24

and make some sort of

1:23:27

change change right but wait

1:23:29

it but there's another name

1:23:31

for that too. I

1:23:33

Can't remember what that is

1:23:35

The physics report. Yes. No,

1:23:37

no, from Tampa. No

1:23:40

doubt it was mostly buybacks.

1:23:44

Split flow. Some

1:23:47

YouTube super chatter is complaining that

1:23:49

you guys aren't covering some sort

1:23:51

of escalation in the India -Pakistan

1:23:53

conflict. I haven't heard anything about this.

1:23:55

Have you? I'm totally clueless, but they seem very concerned. I

1:23:58

have not seen anything about that. I mean,

1:24:00

I cannot tell you. The

1:24:02

pile of news stories I have

1:24:04

that I that I just in

1:24:06

Texas and North Dakota just

1:24:08

did vouchers can't get to It's

1:24:10

crazy. I mean I just I

1:24:12

can't I can't even begin to

1:24:15

tell you There's just so

1:24:17

many stories and trying to read

1:24:19

into all of them There's a

1:24:21

lot of things we're not covering

1:24:23

that I wish we could

1:24:25

cover Just even the story that

1:24:27

I do read into JD

1:24:30

Vance took his kids to

1:24:32

go meet Narendra Modi and so

1:24:34

must be really serious It's

1:24:36

happening over there or at least

1:24:38

the White House seems to

1:24:40

be taking it very seriously. I

1:24:42

mean, I think it's related

1:24:44

to Kashmir and Hindutva and stuff

1:24:46

like that Over the past

1:24:48

20 years, I think there was

1:24:50

another instance where like Pakistan

1:24:52

and India came very very close

1:24:54

to Conflict

1:24:57

I can't remember when

1:24:59

this was if I

1:25:01

feel like it was

1:25:03

in the late aughts,

1:25:05

maybe Maybe in the

1:25:07

early teens it's scary.

1:25:09

They're both nuclear powers

1:25:11

Gold Rush John Sam

1:25:13

was part of the

1:25:16

Warriors gang the arcade

1:25:18

phonies Hmm Tony testics

1:25:20

Y 'all should bring Gareth Gore back or

1:25:22

Shannon Vavitch to talk about the far right

1:25:24

side of the Catholic Church again in

1:25:26

their role in this current American situation. Yeah,

1:25:29

did you take a note for

1:25:31

that the other day? You

1:25:37

okay? Gareth

1:25:40

Gore or Shannon Vavitch,

1:25:42

just put that on a

1:25:44

list somewhere. Jersey

1:25:46

Bernie, bro, sounds like all lives

1:25:48

matter and reverse discrimination weren't actually

1:25:50

what the right cared about. Gotta

1:25:52

weed out the anti -white, anti -Christian

1:25:54

discrimination only. Why a member

1:25:56

protected group who didn't vote for Trump

1:25:58

is probably shocked by this hypocrisy. Tippy

1:26:01

Tappy Toe. Sam ruled

1:26:03

the video arcade without

1:26:05

ever setting foot there.

1:26:09

Oh, I cannot tell you how much money I

1:26:11

spent on the video arcades when I was

1:26:13

a kid. The dream machine

1:26:15

downtown Worcester, Massachusetts at

1:26:17

the mall What was the

1:26:19

high point of arcades

1:26:21

I You know, I don't

1:26:23

know because I probably

1:26:25

they're kind of past it

1:26:28

even when I was

1:26:30

like in the late 90s.

1:26:32

I guess I mean David

1:26:40

Buster's not really an arcade. It's

1:26:43

more like a kid's casino

1:26:45

because all you do is gamble

1:26:47

for tickets and go buy

1:26:49

junk prizes. A real

1:26:51

arcade when I was a

1:26:53

kid was it's all

1:26:55

video games or pinball. But

1:26:58

I would say like Zaxxon

1:27:00

was probably close to the pinnacle

1:27:02

of the quality of video

1:27:04

games that was there, which is

1:27:06

a flying game. And

1:27:09

it was really genuinely like

1:27:11

3D. Super

1:27:15

Zaxxon. And that was basically it. It's

1:27:18

probably good for like video gaming, which can be

1:27:20

maybe a social, I am a video gamer, but

1:27:22

can be a little bit social isolating for that

1:27:24

to be in a common area. great. You would

1:27:26

go in there. I mean, you know, you'd be

1:27:28

in your own little world, but you'd be watching

1:27:31

other people. This

1:27:34

is sort of

1:27:37

a brief interesting

1:27:39

story There's been

1:27:41

a Lot of

1:27:43

tornadoes in What

1:27:45

would you call

1:27:47

that the south

1:27:50

not quite west

1:27:52

but like the

1:27:54

I think it's

1:27:56

like Tennessee alley.

1:27:58

I think they

1:28:00

call it up

1:28:03

through arkansas and obviously

1:28:05

kansas and like uh... parts

1:28:07

of uh... tennessee parts

1:28:09

of mississippi was a little

1:28:11

bit concerned during vacation

1:28:14

uh... just because you know

1:28:16

sol is a little

1:28:18

nervous about that stuff and

1:28:20

of course i uh...

1:28:22

i have to don't blame

1:28:25

sol um... arkansas got

1:28:27

uh... devastated in march apparently

1:28:29

by uh... tornadoes three

1:28:32

people died and As

1:28:34

you know, Sarah Sanders

1:28:37

Governor of Arkansas was

1:28:39

Donald Trump's first communications

1:28:41

after Sean Spicer I

1:28:43

think maybe the second

1:28:45

is that the role

1:28:47

she played it's a

1:28:50

press secretary and It's

1:28:52

being reported that Sanders

1:28:54

is begging Donald Trump

1:28:56

to reconsider after president

1:28:58

rejected Arkansas's

1:29:00

request for disaster relief funds.

1:29:06

And these tornadoes

1:29:08

hit mid -March.

1:29:14

Sanders wrote, the sheer magnitude of

1:29:16

this event resulted in overwhelming

1:29:19

amounts of debris, widespread destruction of

1:29:21

homes and businesses, tragic loss

1:29:23

of three lives. Then a

1:29:25

second wave of severe weather hit

1:29:27

Arkansas less than three weeks later. Now,

1:29:36

what's interesting is that back

1:29:38

in 2023, apparently, she

1:29:40

made a statement, as long as I'm

1:29:42

your governor, the meddling hand of big

1:29:44

government creeping down from Washington DC will

1:29:47

be stopped cold at the Mississippi River.

1:29:50

And apparently, maybe that's what she meant,

1:29:52

and Trump was just holding it there. But

1:29:55

Trump, you

1:29:57

will recall,

1:29:59

tweeted out,

1:30:02

You know what? If they get hit with a

1:30:05

tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. Then

1:30:07

the federal government can help them out with money.

1:30:09

FEMA's just getting in the way of everything. I

1:30:14

actually think what Trump said

1:30:16

when he got this request

1:30:18

from Sanders, pretty obvious. I

1:30:22

don't give money to Ford's. Yeah, put that

1:30:24

in the Ford file. She's a three or

1:30:26

four. I wouldn't even... Let me know if

1:30:28

Kirsty Noem needs anything. Exactly. Sanders

1:30:32

is always a three or four. I

1:30:37

don't care how much of a Zempick she takes.

1:30:40

Still a three or a four. That's it.

1:30:42

I'm not gonna do it. Not

1:30:45

gonna do it. Not

1:30:48

gonna do it for a three

1:30:50

or four. Jester

1:30:55

from Jersey. Lately,

1:30:57

I've been having a difficult

1:30:59

time envisioning a better post -Trump

1:31:01

government that isn't in some

1:31:03

way guided also like the

1:31:05

right by vengeance politics Whoever

1:31:07

is next in charge must

1:31:10

bring the hammer down on

1:31:12

Trump musk and the rest

1:31:14

of these conniving villains in

1:31:16

the top cabinet There's no

1:31:18

reason to believe that There's

1:31:20

no reason to believe that

1:31:22

What follows Trump is gonna

1:31:24

be any better Then

1:31:26

Trump at the heart.

1:31:29

I mean the only difference

1:31:31

will be is that

1:31:33

I think like you will

1:31:35

not get this 100 ,000

1:31:37

percent tariff on China

1:31:39

on Monday and then on

1:31:41

Tuesday I meant 43 %

1:31:44

on China like you'll

1:31:46

get a little bit more

1:31:48

consistency, but the the

1:31:50

fundamental part of What Trump

1:31:52

is doing the worst

1:31:54

parts of it? are

1:31:56

by the Republican

1:31:59

think tank apparatus, by

1:32:01

the conservative movement. Doge

1:32:05

is just sort of like the

1:32:07

top layer of the parfait, as

1:32:09

it were, all

1:32:12

resting on literally

1:32:14

decades of

1:32:16

conservative ideology. Um,

1:32:27

elections are happening

1:32:29

Monday in Canada. We

1:32:32

played an ad the other day. Was

1:32:34

it yesterday that we played this ad or

1:32:36

two days ago? Monday. Of

1:32:38

two old guys golfing. And,

1:32:42

um, they

1:32:44

really hit hard by the economy in the

1:32:46

sense that they have to pay for their

1:32:48

children's down payments. Yeah.

1:32:50

And. It was

1:32:52

a sort of a

1:32:55

fascinating sort of throwback ad

1:32:57

that seemed like you

1:32:59

could you could literally drop

1:33:01

it in in any

1:33:04

context It was the most

1:33:06

sort of generic ad

1:33:08

and Partly It was an

1:33:10

attempt to basically just

1:33:12

let's wait this way if

1:33:15

you're a conservative and

1:33:17

you are putting an ad

1:33:19

out with two old golfers

1:33:23

who are white guys

1:33:25

we have with two old

1:33:28

white golfers in north

1:33:30

america you are basically saying

1:33:32

we're bleeding our own

1:33:34

people and it was what

1:33:37

it was an incredibly

1:33:39

like apparently a lot of

1:33:41

people view this ad

1:33:43

on the internet Hard

1:33:46

to believe that it's like

1:33:48

these old white guys golfers who

1:33:50

are watching this ad. It's

1:33:52

more people are laughing at each

1:33:54

other Holy crap. Did you

1:33:56

see this ad where the guy

1:33:58

hits the golf ball and

1:34:00

at the end he goes like

1:34:02

Makes a double entendre that

1:34:04

you're voting for change and also

1:34:06

his his drive was pretty

1:34:08

good for a change. This is

1:34:10

hilarious. Great stuff What's happened

1:34:12

is that Donald Trump has poisoned

1:34:15

the chances of the

1:34:17

conservatives in Canada

1:34:20

to take power because

1:34:22

Anybody associated with

1:34:24

and anybody who is

1:34:26

espoused the sort

1:34:28

of the The value

1:34:31

of Donald Trump

1:34:33

is now like toxic

1:34:35

and of course

1:34:37

for those Canadians who

1:34:39

thought Their moment

1:34:41

of redemption was upon

1:34:44

them Donald

1:34:46

Trump has ruined

1:34:48

it for me

1:34:50

and I'm going

1:34:52

to go on

1:34:54

Joe Rogan show

1:34:56

and complain about

1:34:58

it It's very

1:35:00

sad and I

1:35:02

was hoping They

1:35:04

give me the

1:35:07

51st date. Yeah.

1:35:09

Well, then, well, that's what that was.

1:35:11

So two things back to that. That was

1:35:13

the big one. Carney, Carney showed up

1:35:15

just in the nick of time to save

1:35:17

the burning damsel from the train tracks

1:35:19

or whatever the hell it is. And the

1:35:21

rhetoric and then Trump, he just timed

1:35:23

it so badly. And yeah, he didn't know.

1:35:26

He didn't know. What

1:35:28

would it would do? He

1:35:30

didn't know. But that's also how

1:35:32

do you not know that

1:35:34

people have National

1:35:36

pride. Yeah, he knew that but

1:35:38

he didn't know what the electoral

1:35:41

consequences would be. He didn't know

1:35:43

that that would shift them to

1:35:45

the liberals so radically and he's

1:35:47

gonna pay for that because once

1:35:49

Carney is elected, if that happens,

1:35:51

Trump will... Pause it for a

1:35:53

second. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I

1:35:55

can't go this long. Keep it

1:35:57

up. Keep it. Keep it. Keep

1:35:59

it. Keep up the frame. I

1:36:01

can't go this long without commenting

1:36:03

on a suit. What is he

1:36:05

trying to do? I think he's

1:36:08

supposed to be like a magician,

1:36:10

but it's like every time he

1:36:12

goes on I tried to pull

1:36:14

a rabbit a lobster out of

1:36:16

my hat I Couldn't do it.

1:36:18

It's poor Trump. He didn't know

1:36:20

He didn't know what he was

1:36:22

doing and Carney comes in like

1:36:24

like Dudley do right Saving the

1:36:26

damsel from the train or whatever

1:36:28

it is I was Being a

1:36:30

new candidate? You're saving the damsel!

1:36:32

Saving the damsel who? Why does

1:36:35

she put Rouge on? Why

1:36:37

does she have her pouty little lips

1:36:39

with her red lipstick trying to -

1:36:41

She's trying to lure you to get

1:36:43

hit by the train! to attract Dudley

1:36:45

Dewright into front of the train to

1:36:47

get hit by the train! Is

1:36:50

that why? Alright, go back

1:36:53

a little bit. I'm sorry. I couldn't help

1:36:55

it with that thing. He knew that, but

1:36:57

he didn't know what the electoral consequences would

1:36:59

be. he didn't know that

1:37:01

that would shift them to

1:37:03

the liberals so radically and he's

1:37:05

going to pay for that

1:37:07

because once carney is elected if

1:37:09

that happens trump will not

1:37:12

have a more seasoned enemy in

1:37:14

the west boy right carney's

1:37:16

very well connected very um especially

1:37:18

in europe i'm just also

1:37:20

curious like why is joe rogan

1:37:22

so sad about this he's

1:37:24

sitting there sighing I

1:37:30

mean, I know Joe Rogan is just

1:37:32

an independent. He doesn't have any type of

1:37:34

ideology. He just

1:37:36

seems very, very invested in

1:37:38

Canada electing a conservative. An

1:37:42

enemy in the West is just such a weird

1:37:44

way to think about this. In

1:37:47

our own backyard. Well,

1:37:50

not our backyard. I'm actually from

1:37:52

Canada. It's funny because

1:37:54

to me, I know they're

1:37:57

saying it is a bad

1:37:59

thing, but it sounds to

1:38:01

me like that's why Canadians

1:38:03

are Gonna vote for him

1:38:05

is because he's a obstacle

1:38:07

to Trump Yeah, yeah And

1:38:10

Trump will not have a

1:38:12

more seasoned enemy in the

1:38:14

West Boy, right? Carney's very

1:38:16

well connected very especially in

1:38:18

Europe and the UK very

1:38:21

well so and And Europe

1:38:23

in the UK is a

1:38:25

mess Like what are they

1:38:27

even talking about? But

1:38:31

does that mean that he's very well connected?

1:38:34

He's, as... I

1:38:36

mean, he's gonna

1:38:38

be the leader

1:38:40

of a country

1:38:42

that is subject

1:38:44

to Donald Trump's

1:38:46