2/4/25: Dem Sen Admits USAID CIA Front, Trump Calls Off Tariffs, Temu Screwed From China Tariffs

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing
show for everybody today.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
What do we have, pristalded?

Speaker 4 (00:37):
We do. Many things unfolding in this town.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
As per usual, the showdown over USAID continues, as Elon
Musk's hostile takeover of the government also continues. Canada and
Mexico tariffs are off, at least temporarily. China tariff's still on.
Saga and I are going to talk about it. Matt
Stiller is also going to join to weigh in on
this particular tariff regime. As floated. And he is also

(01:01):
going to talk to us about some of the movement
at Nationally Relations Board, which has effectively been gutted at
this point, the Securities Exchange Commission, the CFPB, that's like
the anti scam agency which also enforcement actions seem to
be have been gutted there as well, So he'll weigh
in on all of that. The DOJ out with the
new DEI program, this one to combat anti Semitism, taking

(01:22):
some shots from both left and right, not too happy
about this particular direction. And Anthony Lowenstein is going to
join us to talk about his new documentary about the
way that weapons systems have been tested in Gaza and
Palestine in general, but specifically in Gaza post October seventh.
And he's also going to weigh in on the latest
developments with regards to BB's visit to the US, which

(01:43):
is today. He's also already announced he's going to extend
his visits. That's right, he's extending down for a little
extra time.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
There are a lot of open secrets right in terms
of admitting like where your bread is buttered, in terms
of what really all matters. There was an interesting meeting
yesterday with Steve Whitdcoff and with Mike Walston Blair else.
I am tapping my sources to find out about the
laundry crystal. That's all I can think about. I gotta
know whether it's true or what. Maybe he's been shamed

(02:09):
into stopping it. But all right, let's get to usaid.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So Elon Musk's takeover the government continues. Trump yesterday in
the Oval Office was asked a little bit about his
thoughts on how all of this is going.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
They're finding tremendous waste, really waste, more than anything else.

Speaker 6 (02:28):
I think you could.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Say probably fraud and abuse can be added to it,
the more standard waste, fraud and abuse. But they're finding
tremendous amounts of really bad things, bad spending. Elon can't
do and won't do anything without our approval. And we'll
give him the approval. We're appropriate, we're not appropriate, we won't.

(02:51):
But he reports in and he it's something that he
feels very strongly about it, and I'm impressed because he's
running out a big company, has nothing to do. If
there's a conflict that we won't let him get near it.
But he does have a good natural instinct. He's got
a team of very talented people.

Speaker 7 (03:08):
The first from the USA. He was something that you
liked in some respect.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
I love the concept of yeah that's the program.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
Sure, I love the concept. But they turned out to
be radical left lunatics and the concept of it is good,
But it's all about the people's an act.

Speaker 8 (03:25):
Of Congress to do away with USAID or if you
believe you, I.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
Don't know, I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
If not when it comes to fraud, If there's fraud,
these people are lunatics, and if it comes to fraud,
you wouldn't have an Act of Congress. And I'm not
sure that you would anyway. But we just want to
do the right thing that it's something that should have
been done a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
So weighing in there specifically on Elon's conflicts of interest
and also on the USAID push to effectively dismantle that organization,
bring it under the State Department. More on that in
just a moment, Democrats or start to try to make
a stand with regard to USAID in particular.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
You know, the conflict of interest.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Piece is also quite important. Elon obviously has massive conflicts
of interest across the entire federal garment.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Just as one example.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, we documented yesterday how he and his cronies
gained access to the Treasury payment system. I mean, Elon
wants to turn Twitter into a payment processor. Not to
mention that for any tech overlord, having access to all
of our data kind of an important and valuable commodity.
I also was just reading that apparently he was influential

(04:36):
in the pick that Trump made for the head of
the Air Force, and it's a guy who lo and
Behold was very influential in getting SpaceX contracts for Elon.
So he is, officially, we now know Soccer, a special
government employee. I think Caroline Lovett said that yesterday. There's
actually criminal statute, criminal statute that governs the way you

(04:57):
have to operate and the way you have to avoid
any potential conflicts of interest when you are in that
you know, special government employee capacity.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
This is usually people.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Brought in on sort of like a temporary basis as
specific experts in a field. That is the designation that
Elon has. So, I mean, it's just it's wild what's
going on.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
That status is the same one that was used by
Ivanka and by Jared, because they also didn't draw salaries
last time they were in the White House. But as
you said, it's actually legally important. I think you sent
this Richard Painter, who's a government ethics experts as a
special Government employees still have to abide by.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Conflict of interest laws.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
And I actually what I took away the most from
the Trump comments is I think you could see some
of the dangers here that are ahead with the elon
because he's like, well, we'll give him permission whenever we
need to, anything he doesn't need to will take it
away from him. They are saying that it's quote read
only access to the treasury payments, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
But no, you're absolutely right about that data I get.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean this kind of brings us back to our
big debate yesterday though, And look, I hate to give
credit where it is, but mounting a fight about USAID
is politically genius in a few ways.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Let's put this up there on the screen.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
For example, where we have members of Congress attempting to
enter USAID is some speech, so they give us some speeches.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Around this as well.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
The thing that I'm kind of like thinking about with
all of this, and it gets to what we were
talking about yesterday is at the end of the day,
not only were we talking about an agency with point
seven percent of the federal budget which is now getting
rolled into the State Department, but mounting a fight on USAID,
which again some of the least popular elements of the
federal government, which is foreign aid to other nations, just

(06:46):
doesn't seem like the ground for the Democrats where I
would want to be. And we're going to play some
of the quiet part out loud things about what USAID is.
I thought, you know, the strongest ground that the Democrats
are opposition to Trump have had so far as on tariffs,
on medicare, meals, on wheels.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Obviously they abandon all three of those. Unfortunately in the
tariff case. We can talk about that in.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
A bit, but the ground of fighting for USAID just
doesn't seem like one of those political To do it,
you have to be reading the news and really involved.
Me Like, okay, so Elon has gained access and they've
rolled it onto the statee Department. It's like, well, you
kind of already lost it. And then people are like, well,
how does it affect my life? It's like, well, some
Malawian healthcare program may get cut and people are like, okay, well,

(07:29):
why were we even paying for that in the first place.
So I'm just not sure this is the right move
for the Democrats on this one. The medicare won the
meals on wheels absolutely, but I mean, I think it's
te very telling right that immediately the Trump administration bucked
on that where picking a fight on USAID, one of
the smallest agencies. The only agency smaller than the USAID
is in USTR, the US Trade representative zero point seven

(07:50):
percent of the federal budget. Overwhelmingly, if you were a
pull this stuff super unpopular, maybe pepfar, you know, is
the only one where people are like, Okay, the rest
of it, I mean, we'll talk about the you know,
money laundering and the CIA ops and all the other
malfeasance and fraud that's run through the USA I D
over the years.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I just I don't think this is it.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Like I feel like the Dems are searching for something
and this is where they're like, we're mounting our stand
here for USAID. I mean, you know, like, are we
really weeping tears for four and eight pro wellams?

Speaker 4 (08:19):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
I think you make some good points there, but I
think that that is intentionally why they went after USAID first.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
No, I agree, that's why I'm saying I have to
give them credit for being small like.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
They I mean, first, I think there may be also
a personal element here because USAID was also involved in,
you know, pushing for the end of apartheid, so there
may be some personal South African hurt feelings there.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
Not a joke, is it true?

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Actually, yeah, that's true. Okay, well blame Reagan, right, But.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
In any case, yeah, they see it as a sort
of trial balloon because if you can get away with
dismantling usai D, which is you know, was aw the
rise by an Act of Congress, which you know, it's
authority comes from specific laws that were passed that give
it statutory authority as its own independent agency. If you

(09:12):
can get away with that, then you can get away
with anything. And we already know that, you know, Elon
and Trump have both projected Department of Education is next,
and you know that'll be a more difficult fight because
people like their kids being educated, and there's a lot
of funding that goes for you know, for poor kids
and for kids with special needs and for school lunches
and things like that that come from the federal government.

(09:33):
But if you've already been able to dismantle one agency
without a fight, then guess what you are going to
be able to do everything you want to do. And so,
you know, we'll get to the rest of the elements
here in just a second. But I do think it's
useful to kind of zoom out and ask yourself what
is Elon's project here? And we've talked about this before.

(09:58):
Elon's ideology is not the as what Trump ran on
in you know, twenty sixteen at his sort of populist peak.
Elon is a fan of Hobber Malay. Elon is an
anarcho capitalist. Elon is a fan of Curtis Jarvin, who
thinks that we should have literal techno feudalism. I know
this sounds crazy, but Elon is a dramatic He is

(10:18):
an hardened ideological actor. So what does it mean if
you're an an arco capitalist if you believe in this
like techno feudalist project. I mean, he thinks he should
basically run as a CEO the you know, the country,
the government, the world. Really I think that is his
I know it sounds crazy, but that is his project.

(10:38):
And you can listen to the way he talks about
these things. I mean, his grand plans to like, you know,
have a civilization on Mars and all of these sorts
of things. So if that's your ideology and that's your goal,
what you want to do is completely take apart the
federal government. And you hear this not just an Elon's rhetic,
but you also hear echoed now in Trump's rhetoric, who
talks about how his goal is for all federal government

(10:59):
and plployees to be private sector employees. That's anarcho capitalism.
That means even the parts of the state that you like,
the pieces that deliver for Grandma and Social Security, Medicare Medica,
all of that he wants to take an axe too.
Elon has told friends that his entire metric is just

(11:19):
how much I can cut now, not how much of
the you know, the fad and the fraud and the
abuse and the parts that everybody would be like, okay, fine, yes,
cut that piece. He measures his success by just how
much of the federal government can he take an acts too? Now,
do I think that he is going to be able
to realize his anarcho capitalist no state whatsoever dream No.

(11:42):
I think at some point the state is going to
reassert themselves. You know, Trump still has control of the military,
for example, At any point he could get sick of
Elon and say all right, we're done, you're out, go by.
But do I think a lot of damage could be
done in the meantime, Yes, absolutely. And I also and
this is where you know, I want to come back
a little bit to what we were saying yesterday and

(12:04):
perhaps make a more persuasive argument about what I mean
when I say people didn't vote for this, I'm not
saying they didn't vote for like, you know, cutting some waste, fraud, abuse,
et cetera, et cetera. But the trumpest ideology, which is
really like the Steve Bannon like that's the og maga
ideology that was what was sold to people.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
And this is not that, right.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
This is not the political project that you're This is
not populous, right, this is the political project you've been
engaged in. This is something else entirely. Trump seems to
have bought into it, and seems to have given Inlan
for now the keys to the kingdom to do whatever
he wants up to and including dismantling entire federal government agencies,
accessing whatever classified information he wants to, accessing your Social

(12:48):
Security numbers and private data, accessing the system the Treasury
payment system, which controls all of the money that goes
out from the federal government. So if you imagine, like,
you know, it's like if Fort Knox actually held all
of the like taxpayer dollars in gold and whatever.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
The richest man on the planet.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Who has incredible conflicts of interest and a really radical
ideology now has keys to that, you know, theoretical Fort Knox.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
That's where we are right now.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And that's why I find it so deeply, deeply disturbing.
And why even though this is you're right about usaid
not being the best ground for Democrats to fight on,
why I think they feel like, all right, well, we
got to do something.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
I get where they're coming from. Yeah, but this is
part of the problem, and this is where honesty is important.
Not even Steve Bannon would tell you that he's in
control of the federal government. Right the Bannon Is twenty
sixteen vision was almost immediately clarified.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Not even Steve Bannon would say that, who's his ideology?

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Twenty sixteen vision, right, I mean, what's that you want
to see? Unknown?

Speaker 7 (13:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Part of the problem for a lot of the people
who share my beliefs is, let's look at the track
record Trump in twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one governs effectively,
is like what cultural right warrior with George W.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Bush flavor?

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, well, he comes forty thousand votes away from winning
the presidency. Then over the interm four years assembles a
coalition effectively of people who hate Biden, and within that
there's not a lot being sold there except for no
more illegal immigration. The rest of it is really up
for grabs. And so part of the new coalition quote

(14:20):
unquote of the people who signed up for Trump, I
do think it does include some do Now. Look, I
hope that some of it is for the stuff that
I've said here, but I have to be honest. I mean,
tariffs are overwhelmingly unpopular. We're going to talk about that.
People like cheap shit.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
They don't care if their TikTok comes from China or whatever.
They want to eat.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
They want to live like a pretty basic life, and
they don't really want to think much about bigger things. Now,
I think it's incumbent on the FEDS and on leaders
like Trump and JAD to make their case as to
why they're important. But you know, it's tough in a
country like this where debt and all that is very,
very high, where I do think they eat, you know,
the doze of the USAID, the Department of Education. There

(14:58):
is a feeling within the intellectual and I think within
the suburban right of things have gotten out of control now.
I think with the USADA, it's actually literally not disputable
that the agency has been involved in insane fraud CIA,
who's basically a front for state Department for soft power,
you know, and all that if you want to call

(15:19):
it funneling money is money laundering to NGOs. But even
you know, you're talking about the Department of Education, So
you're not wrong. People support Headstart, people support you know,
federal dollars.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Coming into schools.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, I don't think the majority of schools are funded
by the FEDS. I think it's like twenty something percent, right,
it's about ten. Depends on the individual school distracts.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yes, and poor school districts rely more on federal funding,
so they would be the ones that would be more
impacted overall, it's about ten percent of funding that comes
from federal So but.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Where does the MAGA does instinct to say screw the doe.
It's not just libertarian, right, it's well, let's be honest,
it's about a lot of dei or trands.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
You know, what was it, Title nine.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
I think that's what it's called that went through in
terms of gender pronouns. That's where the instinct has now
come from, is like, these institutions have been used for
good purposes but turned against us, So we're going to
dismantle them. And if it does stick to that, as
long as the dollars keep flowing, will people really notice
at the end of the day. My instinct is probably not,

(16:17):
and it's probably going.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
To be popular.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
I mean, and if you told it to me that way,
and you're like, look, we're gonna get rid of this
gender DEI stuff and all these bureaucrats and nobody really
knows what they do, and the dollars and the checks
keep getting cut to all the states of like, well, okay,
you know you need some administrators.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
That's where the instinct comes from.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Now I get what you're saying, and I think you're
right if they actually impact faa Noah, the oceanic.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
The people who track the hurricanes.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
I always use that example because like, who's against that,
you know, the guy who flies into the middle of hurricanes? Like,
who's a category of four point five? Now it's awesome, right,
it's a cool.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Job, or coastguard.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
There's a million different little things even that are non
DoD They're actually pretty popular.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
That's why they start with USAID. Now.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
I think DOJ in practice is going to look a
lot like this is USAID total is point seven Let's
say they cut five percent of the you know, zero
point seven percent of the federal budget. It's like, Okay,
we're going to declare victory. This actually kind of gets
to the tariff conversation we're going to have in a
little bit about well, what really changed here, you know,
in terms of what we want. But vibe wise, that's

(17:27):
really important for both the media and for people to
feel as if these parts of the federal government are
getting paired back as long as they're essential services go
to them. And so that's why I think it is
a big mistake and I feel rudderless and almost religious
the way that the Democrats are reacting here to USAID
I mean you and I both know a key tenant

(17:48):
of neoliberalism are functions like USAID and others. They're literally
admitting this stuff out loud. A normal person at home
goes what like, I don't care about Malawi and healthcare.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
I actually think that that is true because I looked
at some of the polling on this, and some sixty
percent of Americans want the US to.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Be a global leader in health.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
The pet FAR program, the pet Far program in terms
of you know, like dealing with AIDS and HIV global
has has been a tremendous success with George W. Bush program,
et cetera, et cetera, tremendously popular dealing with malaria.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
I mean, USAID helped.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
To combat ebola, So yes, is it a I mean
the whole project of usa ID is soft power projection.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
That is what it is.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
But here's the thing, though, is like a couple pieces
just to get to the actual substance with regard to USAID.
I mean, first of all, you've got a lot of
people on Twitter who didn't know what USAID was three
days ago, who suddenly are convinced that it's nothing but
cis politics.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
That's number one.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Number two, I think the notion that subsuming USAID under
the State Department is gonna make it less nefarious is
kind of preposterous.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
Three.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Listen, there is also just a key principle here of
Congress is if you don't like USA, if you don't
like what they're doing, that's fine, have that debate. We
have elected representatives. Republicans have control of the House and
the Senate, so you have to go through those channels

(19:21):
in order to dismantle a congressionally authorized independent agency. That
is what the Constitution says. So not to mention, as
I said before, you know, I think you really have
to keep in mind what the broader project is here
from Elon and Trump really has nothing to do with
it at this point.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
I think it's.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Pretty clear at every juncture when Trump could arrange Elon
in and said, you know, we backed them on H
one b's, he backs them here. He gives them the
Air Force secretary he wants like. I don't think Trump
really cares that much outside of the areas of his
interest tariffs and whatever else, immigration, turning off the water,
turning on the water in California, and it is performative
stuff like those are the thing he cares about everything else.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
I don't think he really gives a shit.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
You know, Elon's feeding him talking points about South African
farmers now, so you know who is in real control.
Elon's project is not just about USAID, it's not just
about the Department of Education. It's about dismantling as much
of the federal government as he possibly can. And so
the USAID thing, it's a trial balloon what can we

(20:24):
get away with? And that is the way that everyone
needs to understand what's going on. So, regardless of how
you feel about USAID, I've got my own issues with it.
You know, I'm happy to see the imperial project being
sort of pulled back in this sort of way. But
I'm also not a fool to think that that's really
what's going on. When you are talking about an administration
that is openly actually embracing an old school imperial mentality

(20:49):
a lah William McKinley. Let's buy Greenland, let's invade Panama,
let's try to make Canada the fifty first state. Let's
go to war with Mexico. I'm not enough of a
fool to think that they're actually intentionally rolling back empire.
Elon wants to make it so that the federal government
is not strong enough, is not stronger than him.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Right, that's the bottom line.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
He wants to be able to do everything that he
wants to do. He wants to be able to profit
as much as he can off of your taxpayer dollars.
And that is the broader project that is.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
I don't disagree with the word that you just said.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
I think what I get to again is trying to
analyze how it will look like in practice and to
the voter.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
And that's why I come back to this democratic thing.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
I think another problem though, where you're talking about, you know, institutions,
is so many norms and other things have not only
been blown up by Trump, but over the years what
I have seen more.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Is we talked about this a little bit yesterday, right with.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Norms with for example, I mean, how many times have
I listened to David Serota and others criticized Biden for
not legalizing weed on day one, for not canceling all.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
I mean, but they don't care about can do.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
That, Crystal care about but they don't care about Congress
whenever it's about something they want to do.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
When Obama wants.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
To legalize millions of illegal immigrants literally overnight and create
an amnesty illegal program called DAKA.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh everybody's fine with it then, right.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
So there's a lot of hypocrisy here in terms of
like which principles.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Which it's just way above and beyond like overruling the parliament.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
But it's about Prince No. No, I agree.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
I think we're living through the most extraordinary takeover the
federal government since the one hundred Days over FDR. And
if we look back to that time period, and I
know many of the people who have read the same
books that I have, is what did FDR learn. FDR said,
I don't give a shit about Congress, and I don't
give a shit about the Supreme Court, Civilian Conservation Corps WPA.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
We are going to throw everything at the wall.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
And actually the people who paired it back became way
less popular, people hated.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
But those Supreme Court did passed through Congress.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
No, but actually many of them either were passed through
Congress or were created artificially by his programs. I mean,
many of the criticisms of the Republicans of FDR in
that time period rhyme exactly here, Like hey, what about
the power of the person. He's like, I'm a king,
I just got elected with this and this not the same.
But the spirit is the thing is is that if

(23:12):
you look back at that time period, the population overwhelmingly
backed aggressive federal executive action. I think what's happening here
is I mean, Jarvin himself is a student of FDR,
probably more so than anybody else in that project, and
what they understood is that at a popular level, by
doing this, they were basically able to win ninety almost

(23:34):
eighty percent of what they wanted to and that the
norms and all of that were fake all along.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
So, first of all, I don't accept the equivalence between
what is being done here and like the lawlessness that
is being ok it's executed here in the total disregard
for the Constitution versus FDR, but in just to make
the coint on the on the popular piece, which I
don't think so is important because it matters in terms

(23:59):
of how people are going to react to this. You know,
FDR was like creating jobs and healthcare programs and things
that were delivering for people materially.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
This is the opposite of that.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
This is destroying things that people currently enjoy and take
for granted from the federal government. That's the program, that's
the project. So again in theory, in the abstract, do
people support cutting the federal government but of course sure,
of course. Do they support rolling back free school lunch
for poor kids? No, probably eighty five percent of the

(24:31):
country would say no to that. Do they support rolling
back pelgrants also under the Department of Education, No, they
do not support that. Do they support rolling back federal
funding for poor district or any school district. I mean,
one of the cautionary tales I think that people should
look at is back during the teacher strike.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Wave which hit red states.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Red states in particular, rural red areas take public education seriously.
And I think you're right that there is you know,
there was a reaction against like this sense, oh my god,
my kids are being indoctrinated, blah blah blah. But if
you go after people's school districts in those towns, those
are institutions of small town America, you will have a

(25:17):
fight on your hands. So with usaid, I do think,
you know, I don't think it's as popular as you do,
but I do think it is the most low hanging fruit,
which is exactly why they went after it first. But
if you think that this project doesn't have in its
sites things that you or you or anyone out there
appreciates and enjoys and takes for granted, oh, food safety,

(25:41):
hurricane tracking, planes not crashing into each other and falling
out of the sky, medicare, social security, You're a fool.
So the question is when will this be rained in?
How far does it go? I'll go ahead and play.
Since we've been teasing it for like eighteen minutes now,
the Democrats finally showed up.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I don't know what they've been up to, but not
a whole lot. But they finally showed up at the
USAID building to protest the fact that it has been
shuttered you. I'll give you some more of the details
here in just a minute. About you know, the employees
have been told not to show up at the AGE
at the headquarters today. They've been told not to show up.
But any of the USAID buildings, people who are overseas

(26:22):
right now have been blocked access from their government security
apps and from their communications, et cetera. So Democrats showed
up there to make a stand, not always in the
most effective way. Let's take a listen to how that
went down.

Speaker 8 (26:36):
USAID fights terrorist groups all across this world, making sure
that we address the underlying causes for a retreat to terrorism.
USAID chases China all around the world, making sure that
China doesn't monopolize contracts for critical minerals, important infrastructure all
around the world. It supports freedom fighters every where in

(27:00):
this world.

Speaker 9 (27:02):
We are witnessing a constitutional crisis. We talked about Trump
wanting to be a dictator on day one, and here
we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
And Elon, if you want to run AID, get nominated
by Trump and go to the Senate and good luck
and getting confirmed.

Speaker 10 (27:27):
Yeah, Elon Musk, you didn't create USAID. The United States
Congress did for the American people. And sos like Elon
Musk did not create USAID. He doesn't have the power
to destroy it. And who's gonna stop him. We are,

(27:50):
We're gonna stop him.

Speaker 11 (27:56):
Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the
financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury,
but you don't control the money of the American people.

Speaker 10 (28:09):
The United States Congress does that.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
So the funniest one there, of course, Chris Murphy at
the beginning. That is the COI part out loudah Mi like, hey, Chris,
freedom fighters.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
We're not supposed to say that fights terrorist. I mean,
which freedom?

Speaker 4 (28:22):
What was that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, But I mean this is this is the first
thing that they've really showed up to. I mean somewhat
the Medicaid portals being shut down.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, but it was over so quickly.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
But yeah, that's that's right.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
But you know, they pushed back there, and I think
there was Republican pushback there too, behind the scenes, no
doubt about it. That helped get that, you know, flipped
on a dime. But they are finally trying to show
up for this, and yeah, not not making the best arguments,
but I think a lot of Democratic base voters will
be happy to see at least they're doing something worse.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
So far, they've been just like asleep.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I think you might be right. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
I mean when I look at that, I just see
a supreme lack of political talent across the board.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I'm just like I thought Illan's comments there were probably
the right.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
The problem again is that you always have to be
able to connect rhetoric to actual action, telling people like,
I mean, what we really learn from the campaign against Trump?

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I learned a lot from the twenty twenty four campaign.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
But really what it was is like you can warn
all day long, and if people don't like the status quo,
they do not care about a lot of this, they
need to feel it for real and for right now.

Speaker 7 (29:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
That's why I was saying, it's kind of genius to
start with USAID, a program that you know, only people
in Washington care about, mostly because it's paying a lot
of their salaries, but also it's just one of those
where if he's explained it to a normal person, you
made a compelling case about pelgrants and all of that,
you know, we'd if your doge, what do you do?
Or if Trump really, let's put dose because they probably
would cut it. But if you're Trump, you're like, don't

(29:46):
touch don't touch pelgrants, scholarship, don't touch federal stuff. Fire
all the you know, career bureaucrats or whatever that are
working on anything Title nine or ten or whatever related,
and you know, will anybody really notice? Probably not, And
like that's kind of what it gets to in the
FDR thing, what's fascinating about this.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
This is a reverse FDR.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
It's a dismantling of as opposed to a building up.
But in a sense, what's happened in both cases is
that the crisis of nineteen thirty three was this idea
that the government was not there to address all of
these problems, whereas the crisis of I guess twenty twenty
four in the minds of many Americans, so that the
government itself has created many of these problems, or at
least intellectualized the way that in practice, if we are

(30:28):
to blame, we're talking about cultural issues or even you know,
immigration literally just a result of direct government policy. It's
about a rolling back of like a regime slash a government.
So I think this is nothing ever is you know,
one hundred percent one to one, But analogy wise, it's
the only thing I can really think of, maybe the
John F.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Kennedy first one hundred days.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
I hope we don't don't find ourselves a similar international crisis,
although I am worried about it, but that's kind of
my mental model for how I'm thinking about it. And
there is a big question mark that remains around how
people will popularly receive a lot of this. I don't
take a lot of these polls at face value. Just

(31:10):
kind of been all over the place. Someone yesterday said
Trump but fifty two percent. I saw the same tracking
poll you're talking about. I'm curious to see the Virginia election,
that gubernatorial election, which is always off here in terms
of what does it mean for enthused Democratics.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
Well, we already had a little test run in Iowa.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
There was a twenty one point swing.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
But you know, that's the first indication that we've gotten
that even as the Democratic Party has been asleep, the
Democratic base voters in that district in Iowa really showed up.
I mean it was like a twenty plus point swing
in the direction of a Democrat for them to win.
There was another special election in a Democratic blue district

(31:55):
in Minnesota. I want to say that also shifted even more.
Who was like the Republican got like eight percent of
the vote or something prepostors like that, whereas previously they
were getting I don't know, twenty percent of the vote.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
I'm making up these numbers with us approximately what it is.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
So you're right, that will be the first really indication
and test case but I think where there's a huge
vulnerability here that Democrats can exploit if they're willing to,
you know, not do their whole Like good billionaires, bad
billionaires stick. But nobody wants the government run by an
unelected billionaire. I mean, you pull that it's dramatically, dramatically unpopular,

(32:32):
and especially when it's so clear that he's running it
for his own ideology and self interested reasons. Like I
think the reaction against you're right in a sense. I
think if I were advising the Democratic Party, I would
focus more on the treasury takeover and some of those
things which are way more you know, to me, are
like the core of what's really frightening about what is

(32:54):
being done here. And it's also I think there's a
bunch of lawsuits filed already against Elon and his acolytes
and like the violation of privacy laws and other laws
that have likely occurred here, not to mention the violation
of just like the separation of powers. And by the way,
Eline you weren't elected anything that are going to go forward,
but you know, you're in this situation where it's like

(33:16):
the courts are slow, so even if they issue an injunction.
That's going to take some time, and then there's a
question like are they going to listen?

Speaker 4 (33:24):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
I kind of doubt it given how they've operated thus far.
Weard's just like, we want to do it, so we're
going to do it ultimately, you know. I mean Elon
is already clearly if he's a special government employees, already
clearly violated like the criminal statue with regard to conflicts
of interest, and it doesn't seem to really matter. So
that's why I think this is, you know, can accurately

(33:48):
be described as constitutional crisis and beyond because they are
clearly violating the constitution, the separation of power, the power
of the purse, et cetera, and the system is just
totally unable to deal with it, to catch up, to
handle the speed that this is all unfolding out, which
is I shocked everyone, I think, including according to the
reporting people in the Trump White House or like, what.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
The hell is going on here? And they're not read
in on it either.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
I think that's where the big democratic check will come
into is, let's say we do start going after pel
grants or whatever. Trump's gonna be like, Yeah, I'm not
dealing with all. I still think there is an existential
ricks actually to Elon of getting Steve Bannon.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
And you know, remember the whole.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Sloppy Steve saga of two thousand and seventeen. If he
causes a genuine political crisis for the Trump White House,
which is eminently possible, he will have his ass out
of there.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
In NOTEB well.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
And I think Bannon is correct to understand my Bannon's
ideology is not my ideology, although you know there are.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
More shared overlap.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
There's more overlap between my ideology and Bannon's than I
have no overlap with Elon musk ideology of just like
burned down the whole federal government and let the corporate
overlords rule everything like God kings.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
That is the polar opposite of my ideology.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Bannon is right to see this as an existential threat
to his own project and ideology will and I think
this will come up more when we talk about I
mean tariff somewhat, but even more so, the gutting of
the National Labor Relations Board, the gutting of the SEC,
the gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, because you know,
Bannon likes le Na Khan he thinks corporate power should

(35:21):
be checked. That's the polar opposite of what Elon thinks.
And so here you are. If you're a part of
the populist right project. You got your JD Vance in there,
You've got your guy Trump, who has at least said
some of the right things and done some of the
right things in the past. You like, this is your moment,
and now you've got this billionaire who's just hijacked the

(35:42):
whole thing and is running as fast as he can
and the total opposite direction with no one, with no
one putting a check into place. So I think this
is you know, obviously, none of this is like I
find this all to be horrifying and I'm struggling to
like wrap my head around how bad things could actually get.
But if you are also on the populist right, I
think you should also perceive this as an existential chance

(36:04):
threat to your project, which is has its best moment
of potential success right now and is being evaporating like
before our eyes.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
I think they do, But I also think they know
who the king is at the moment. You're going to
have to wait for a while.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
To be able for an opening.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Strike because I mean, look, you know, nobody else paid
a quarter bill to get Trump elected.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Trump takes that pretty seriously. So do a lot of
the people in the government right now.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
I mean, Trump is not id a lot. That's the
thing is he never gave a shit about any of this.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Well, I mean, and I've always been pretty honest about it.

Speaker 7 (36:34):
I know.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
You yeah, many people, many people do.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
And there's also look, there's an element of political realism
for a lot of this, where are like, yeah, look,
you know, as long as we get mass deportation, maybe
we can live with some of this. That's kind of
the thinking and the talk that I've heard from others.
But I think there will be some big fights ahead.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Another thing I was thinking about yesterday, even though it
feels like eternity, it's been two weeks, it's like and
it's one of those where in the long cycle of
all of these presidencies and Biden, Biden did not go
negative until October twenty twenty one. That was nine months
right where he basically was in a positive territory. Yeah,

(37:14):
although when someone asked me five years from now, what
do you remember about the Biden presidency, be like, oh,
people hated him but what the truth is, it's like
the first nine months kind of honeymoon.

Speaker 5 (37:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, and you know why people liked because they did
a lot of federal government action, like to materially benefit people.
I mean, that was the most popular stuff that he
did was at the beginning when checks were going out
and there was you know, a huge COVID relief program.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
That's when he was most popular.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
And then the two things that killed him forst Afghanistan,
which I hate to admit, but that's the reality obviously,
and he never recovered from that, and then inflation, inflation
murdered and that was you know, and that was it.
So I mean, that's the complete polar opposite direction of
what's being done here. That was a building up of government.
I mean, I wouldn't call it FDR, but it was

(38:02):
a break from the neoliberal era. It was, you know,
an expansion of the social safety net. You know, Trump
said the same thing and his administration to deal with
COVID as well. And when Biden really became unpopular was
also because all of those pieces that had been added
to the social safety net are stripped away. So that's
why I think, you know, I disagree with you that

(38:23):
there's like some mandate, some desire to destroy all the
federal government programs because you know, when you ask people,
they think that the Pentagon should be cut.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
Which is not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
They don't think that programs that benefit Americans should be cut.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
And you know, and I think it is telling.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
That's why they do start with USAID because you can
also fit it into this framework of oh, that's where
you're you know, we're making it America first, and then
once you accomplish that, then you can move on to
the things that are more politically difficult and where there
may be more popular pushbacks.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Just put a bow on it.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
I don't think that there's ever a mandate to strip
the federal government all agency. I would equate it to
if you ever worked in a company and there's a
bunch of hr people who have a ton of power
but who don't do anything, who everybody hates. I always
see it as the mandate is strip that a way,
whether it's reality or not, the feeling as if they're
doing nothing and they're actually making operations here more difficult

(39:23):
in practice, that's what I think basically will materialize. As
opposed to cutting any critical function now I'm not going
to lie. You know, this whole move fast and Brave
things ideology very much could move in the other direction.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
I mean, it nearly bankrupted Tesla. We've seen what did
did too.

Speaker 6 (39:38):
But it's work.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
I mean, this is the problem. The Peter Thiele quote
comes to mind.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
It's like, you look financially, should you ever bet against him?

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Probably not.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I mean, the government is not a business, though, I mean,
that's the thing is if well, first of all, i mean,
if you look at the management of Twitter, it's been
a catastrophe, both in terms of the functioning of the
product and the profitability of the product, et cetera. You know,
it's been that has been a total and complete disaster.
But also, and we've talked about this before that I
know you agree with part of this, Like the way

(40:07):
you run a business, and the consequences of a business
cutting too deeply and you know, having an off quarter
in terms of their earnings or whatever, profoundly different than
cutting too deeply at the federal government and people die,
or kids don't have their head start, or checks don't
go out, or the government defaults, like those are the

(40:27):
sorts of things that that's the way Elon operates, Right,
he comes in, he cuts massively, like not, oh, in
this area, we have a little fat no blanket across
the board. He causes a near catastrophe and then tries
to rebuild from the ashes, like that's the way he operates.

(40:50):
That's the way he's operating the federal government. And I
know there's this instinct of like, oh, we should run
the government like a business. The government should not be
run like a business, because businesses it's all just about
profit for the shareholders. The government is about providing critical,
at times life saving programs and resources to the population.

(41:11):
Not to mention, of course, what overarches all of this
and why everyone should be disturbed by it is like,
if you happen to like Elon, substitute George Soros or
Bill Gates or whatever billionaire you don't like. We shouldn't
have an unelected billionaire appointing himself king and just operating
carte blanche, cutting whatever programs he happens not to like,
whatever agencies he happens not to like, or has like

(41:33):
a personal grievance.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
With or whatever.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
That is the end of the project that we have
known as America for the past several hundred years like
that is the end of that if we end up
in a situation where one unelected billionaire can just appoint
himself king and operate with impunity.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
And let's just last piece here.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
We can put the last element guys up on the
screen and then we can transition in toto. Talking about
tariffs a little bit does fit in with all of
this as well. But there have been I think now
four different lawsuits that have been filed. This one was
filed by I know AFL, Cio SCIU and a couple
other groups together. They're specifically going after Doge's access to

(42:16):
the Treasury Department's payment system. They say that it violates
the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four and other IRS statutes.
As I said, I think there are three other lawsuits
at least that have been filed in federal courts at
this point, so we'll see. I think the next couple
pieces are what do the courts do? How does elon
and how did Trump? How do they react to any

(42:39):
negative court decisions? And then the other piece, just to flag,
which Mattagleci is actually flagged on Twitter, is there's a
big funding fight. We're about to hit the debt ceiling
in mid March. And you know, now you got Elon
in charge of the treasury payment system or acts.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
I shouldn't say in charge access to.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
The treasure only access according to the White Yes, I
don't actually you know what that means.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, but anyway, access to the charger of payments system
and whatever else he wants access to. How Democrats are
thinking that that's going to be a place where they
can exert some pressure and try to rein in what's
happening here. How does that fight go down? Do they
just say, oh, no, we're just going to pay the
things we want to pay and that support our you know,
ideological ends, and not pay the things that don't be fair.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
That are basically what the Obama administration and them did.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
With the extraordinary measures.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah, that's what extraordinary measures are. So I mean, but
at a certain points Trump does run the government like
he is the president of the United States. So when
a shutdown, you can decide what you want to pay
for or not.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
I don't disagree.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
I'm not saying it's good on anything, but and you're right,
we should prepare people for that.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
It's absolutely Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
So that is the next the next The next piece is, Okay,
what happens with the courts, how do they respond to
the courts? And what happens with the dead ceiling showdown?

Speaker 3 (43:52):
All right, let's get to Tariff's a dizzying day yesterday
in Washington as the news rolled in.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Are the tariffs on? Are they off? What's happening?

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Trump's truth social I just spoke with President Claudia Shinbaum
of Mexico.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Was a friendly conversation.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
She agreed to immediately supply ten thousand Mexican soldiers on
the border separating Mexico in the United States. These soldiers
will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanol
and illegal migrants into our country. We further agreed to immediately.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period, during
which we'll.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. I
look forward to participating in those negotiations. Mexico confirmed this news.
Claudia Shinebaum, let's go and put that on the screen.
Put out actually broke the news first. Justin Trudeau similarly said,
I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada
is implementing our one point three billion dollar border plan,
reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination.

(44:49):
Nearly ten thousand frontline soldiers our personnel are and will
be working on protecting the border. In addition, Canada is
making commitments to a point of fentanyl z are. We
will list cartels, terrorists, ensure twenty four to seven eyes
on the border, launch a Canada US joint strike force
to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. I have
also signed a new intelligence directive that we will be

(45:10):
backing with two hundred million dollars. Proposed tariffs will be
paused for at least thirty days while we work together.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
So there's been.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Once your point is our problem, basically you're done over.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
It's a big question as to what happened here, whether
this was the plan all along. Many people are pointing
out the fact that much of this actually existed already. So,
for example, put B three up on the screen, Joe Biden.
Under the Biden administration, Mexico had apparently sent some fifteen
thousand troops to the border. It's unclear whether there's going
to be an additional ten thousand here, bringing the total

(45:43):
to twenty five thousand. Similarly, in Canada, it appeared that
some of these initiatives are already on the books on
January thirteenth, before Trump even took office. So I don't know,
I mean, whether this is symbolic or not in terms
of the Trump demands. I mean, the fundamental difference, I
guess comes down to both the leverage, the power used

(46:04):
and the interim thirty day period, as in, well, if
we don't like the results, that we're going to change things,
so fundamentally, that's what I would say. The overall difference is.
But the tariffs are offered now for the next thirty
days S and P.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Five hundred. As of this morning, let's.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
See, it is up by point one four percent, even
with the China tariffs.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
So yeah, the markets were a little I mean, they
were a little royal.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
They actually didn't expect as bad. They didn't, well, I
guess the act as badly as I thought.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
I think they kind of assumed this is what was
I was going to say.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
So what if there is the rational market hypothesis that
they were correct, that the tariffs itself were never going
to happen, Maybe we should reconsider.

Speaker 7 (46:41):
That, right.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
I mean, I'm just, I guess still a little confused
about what these tariffs are supposed to be about in
the first place, because the way I understood it and
the way you I think accurately explained it yesterday is like, well,
they're really about economics, but you have to put this
bullshit layer of it's about fentanyl on top, even though
like no infentional comes from Canada. Basically it's very small percentage, right,

(47:02):
one percent. But then all the quote unquote concessions, even
if we grant that their concessions are about sens at all,
they're not about economics. And Trump previously had been saying,
you know, the only way Canada can fly is if
they become a fifty first staid or if our trade
deficit becomes zero and is balanced down. But then you
know what he gets in exchange for this is, oh,

(47:22):
we're going to appoint the fentanels are and keep the
troops on the border that are already there. So you know,
we're about to talk about the popularity of terrorists such
as something that you've been talking about.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
And I actually think.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
That a tariff regime could be popular even if it
did require, you know, some pain, as Trump floated that
there would be as a result of these things. But
just as you know, we're about to talk to Matt
Stoller about this, already record of the conversation.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
That's why I'm previewing this.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
But you know, just as Biden failed to enlist people
in the like Anti trust project and you know, a
National Relations Board and the CFPB, there has to be
a story that people understand of why they're sacrificing, why
they're experiencing this pain. And right now there you know,

(48:15):
there is no real It's all over the place.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
It makes no sense. Why Canada, Why.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Are you putting higher tariffs in theory on Canada than
you are on China?

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Like what is Canada done wrong?

Speaker 2 (48:26):
So you know, I think that's part of the thing
here is if you want to make this about bringing
back American manufacturing jobs, reindustrializing the industrial Midwest, I think
there's a chance that you could enlist the American people
in that project. But number one, I don't think that
most of these tariffs accomplish that goal. And number two,

(48:47):
I think the story about them is deeply confused.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Contradictory tarifs are a tool.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I mean look, I in principle, I'm like, great, you know,
twenty five thousand more troops of the border.

Speaker 7 (48:56):
Great.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Having leverage over our allies to and Mexico very questionable.
But it's one of those where like you said, look,
I believe in the story. I believe in the tariffs.
I believe in bringing back a lot of this manufacturing.
And so if this is all it takes in order
to basically get you to call them off, I don't know.
I mean, is it going to be a fundamental difference. Maybe,

(49:17):
you know, I guess it's an open question as to that.
I think the reason I was excited about them, the
reason I like the idea of even threatening, is I
fundamentally believe in using American assistance, power and the economy
to achieve ends that are good for our people. Now,
the American people have voted for Donald D. Trump on
a message of immigration threatening the Mexican economy, which is

(49:39):
eighty percent exports to the United States if they don't
help us out more on that is, in principle a
thing I think is fantastic. I think it's good to
be able to get them to either send troops there
and to have a one month cliff falling over their head,
where it's like, hey, guys, the guillotine's going to fall
if you don't get your act together.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
All I totally support.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
But the problem is is that with this the way
it's currently is, it runs the risk of what you're
saying of not falling into this broader national project. Now,
the China tariffs, for example, luckily at least in my opinion,
have gone into place, and I hope and we're about
to talk, as you said with Stoller about the Deminimus
exception and more of which I really am praying and

(50:17):
hoping that they close it just because of the impact
it's had on our overall economy. But when there's not
the lacks explanation, when the lacks coherent vision, that's when
you risk blowback. And in the event that these tariffs
ever do go into power, we perhaps could see that.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
So we had to want to speak for Harry Eton.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
One more thing and then we'll get Harry Inton.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
There is also a risk here that I think we
already see playing out, and maybe you know, honestly from
my ideological perspective, it's kind of a silver lining. But
because all of this, you know, threat I'm going to
threaten Columbia, a threatened Mexican front Canada for some reason,
because this is all being done and even after you know,
Canada had already announced this one point three billion dollar

(50:57):
package and enforce in anticipation of Trump coming in to
try to please him. In advance, Mexico had done a
very similar thing with Claudia Scheinbaum, massively increasing the number
of raids. The amount of fentanyl that was being seized
at the border dropped to some of the lowest levels
in years. So they felt like, Okay, we're doing the
things he wants us to do, and still they end

(51:18):
up in this situation of you know, being bullied and
threatened and you know, put jubbed into crisis and all
of this sort of stuff. So you already see European
leaders talking the Financial Times, for example, saying, you know,
we no longer see really China as the.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Greatest rust to us.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
We actually think that it's these guys over here, and
maybe we need to form a sort of anti American
alliance because individually we have no chance. And Trump is
floating tariffs against the EU as you know as well,
and so you know that's the other piece, is you
are sort of aligning, forcing the world's hand, accelerating a

(51:54):
shift that was already happening. Now, from my perspective, that
may not be the worst thing in the world, but
if you're interested in American power and empire, this is
definitely counter to that particular political project.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
I actually don't agree. I'll tell you why. Which is Okay, Mexico,
what are you going to do? Eighty percent of your
economy or exports rely on us. You ain't going nowhere? Okay,
who are you going to sell to Canada? Geography matter.
Seventy four percent of your exports come into the United States.
They were floating, Oh, maybe we should join the European Union. Yeah,
good luck. Same thing in terms of the Europeans. Oh
maybe we'll rely on China. Oh, China is going to

(52:31):
give you they're nuclear umbrella and they're going to protect
you from all of your problems so that you guys
can have universal health care. But you don't actually defend
yourselves and these giant social welfare states. So let's get
real too about how long it's taken seventy five years
of integration for the European Union and for the European
economies in the United States. It's taken two hundred years
now of Canada and Mexico. They are going nowhere, maybe Africa, India, China,

(52:55):
South Korea, Japan. Those are the countries I worry much
more about. But these people nothing, I mean, no matter what,
they will be heavily reliant on the effectively client stays.
I mean, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
The problem is that they don't like that.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
I like reminding them of some of that, especially whenever
it comes to the border, and the border alone is
certainly justification for hitting them with tariffs or threatening tariffs
if we want to. I would like, though, to see
a return to some of what we talked about previously
yesterday about manufacturing and about the fact that NAFTA itself
had decimated a huge part of our manufacturing sector. The

(53:28):
way that these automakers currently operate, where a single part
will cross like forty or fifty times the Canadian the
Mexican border, It'll cross three separate borders like multiple times
before it ever even makes its way into a car,
and then oh it's called American made. There's still a
lot of deficits in the USMCA, so I had thought

(53:48):
it was an opening on USMC, and I mean, I
guess it certainly could be in terms of setting the
ground for what that looks like, but for right now
seems seems to be wrapped up.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
I don't really know what else to say.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, welt and we'll see what happens a month from
now and we go back to this when we see
this rodeo play on again. By the way, I should
mention there were people floating also that. I mean, you
got a bunch of billionaire like I mean, the Treasury
secretary is a billionaire hedge fun guy, George Soros buddy,
and wondering if there is also some profiting going on

(54:20):
over these manufactured market drops and recoveries something.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Oh, you're talking about the Soros finance, like a four
x trade. That's actually pretty interesting. I wonder if they're
if any got people, you know, people flag any trades
because these are all.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Public, right.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
If you're you know, if you're the Treasury secretary and
you know what Trump's basic plan is here, well you're
in a position of profit officially.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
Well it wouldn't even be him per se, but at
this point with all the guidelines or whatever, but maybe
people who used to.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Work something if we keep going through this cycle, it
may be something to keep in mind for the Wow.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Well, here's the problem.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
You're going to encourage a bunch of retail traders to
start doing four x and trying to recreate the shorting
of the British.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
I am not encouraging to do any I'm just telling
you what others are floating online and something to keep
an eye on.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
You might be encouraging me to be.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
I'm like, well, maybe this money we made here, you know,
don't make you some phone cult.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
No, I'm not going to go to president.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
All right, Let's get to Harry Nsen, who broke down
some of the pulling about how people actually feel about tariffs.

Speaker 12 (55:14):
Let's sayalism Trump's tariffs on Canada, China, Mexico.

Speaker 7 (55:18):
Look at this, just thirty eight percent support.

Speaker 12 (55:21):
You don't have to be a mathematical genius to figure
out that fifty one percent oppose is larger than the thirty.

Speaker 7 (55:28):
Eight percent support. Look.

Speaker 12 (55:29):
Trump has done some fairly popular things in his first
few weeks in office.

Speaker 7 (55:33):
This is not one of them.

Speaker 12 (55:35):
No, no, no, horrible, horrible, horrible. To quote Charles Barkley,
the American folks are opposed to these tariffs. When you
ask it specifically like this about the three countries, or
if you ask it more vaguely about tariff's overall, they
simply put do not like it, mister.

Speaker 13 (55:51):
Interesting, even with China in the question, people say that
they are opposed to tariff's.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
The majority here, and there's not a majority on a
lot of things these days.

Speaker 12 (55:58):
The two big focuses for Trump in the polling our
immigration and the economy tariffs.

Speaker 7 (56:03):
Ain't it, my dear friend, tariff's. Ain't it? Trump should
focus on tariffs.

Speaker 12 (56:07):
In November of twenty twenty four, when IPSOS asked that
it was one percent, look.

Speaker 7 (56:10):
At what happened to December of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 12 (56:12):
It doubled. It doubled, but to only two percent. When
you double to only two percent, you know that the
American people don't want Trump's.

Speaker 7 (56:19):
Focus to be here.

Speaker 12 (56:20):
They don't like it. They don't want his focus to
be there. They want it to be on other issues.
You know, Trump has done a lot of things that
are unpopular in the past, but the poll numbers haven't moved.
That may be the case here, but I'm a little
skeptical of that. Why take a look at weekly Google
searches for Terras. Look how much higher they are versus
a year ago. They're twenty four hundred percent.

Speaker 7 (56:39):
That reach is a twenty one year high.

Speaker 12 (56:40):
You know, folks are paying attention when there are more
Google searches for that than for Taylor Swift, who almost
always is in the top.

Speaker 7 (56:46):
Of Google search.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
Till we caught people's attention, but not necessarily in a
good way.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Yeah, okay, we'll see.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
What do you make of that.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
I just going back to what I was saying before.
I just looked it up. The original China Terrors that
he put on in his first administration were in initially
somewhat underwater, and they became more popular, absolutely, and they
became majority, you know, in favor, which is why also
you see the Democrats that dropped it a similar position.
Biden continues that and does industrial policy, and I think

(57:13):
it fits with what we were saying, Like people understand, okay,
a lot of our jobs, you know, a lot of
these industrial factory towns, a lot of the jobs left
and are now in China, and so it was a
very easily comprehensible story around this is why we're doing
this now.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
You can still disagree with them.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
I don't think they you know, they didn't do much
in terms of accomplishing their goal of restoring They needed
to be paired with industrial policy. There were issues there,
but people understood the story of what it was about.
And I think we're even willing to, you know, have
a more expensive washing machine or whatever.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Not only that.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah, you know, all of the doom and gloom was fake.
You know, we had hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs.
I think the S and P five hundred was up
by like twenty five percent.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Now they did have to like basically bail out the
farmers because of the retaliatory terrorists. So it's not like
there was no impact, but address the address the problem
right exactly. But it is interesting to me that there
does seem to be some I mean, there's almost like
a nuanced view of tariffs among the American public where, Yeah,
when it was China and we understood this, okay, we

(58:16):
could go along with that, but when you're talking about Canada, Mexico,
and this doesn't make any sense, and why are they
being tariff more than China, and it's just across the board,
and why should avocados be have a tariff, then yeah,
you're not going to have people like lining up to
pay more at the grocery store, more for their cars
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Well, we'll see how it all comes into practice for
the next thirty days. We all have a stay. Okay,
let's get to mass Doolar. Joining us now is Matt Stoler.
He is the author of the Big Newsletter. Great friend
of the show. It's good to see you, sir, Thanks
for joining us.

Speaker 6 (58:48):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
So you just wrote this. Let's go and put this
up there on the screen. What did Trump just do
on the tariffs? It's very relevant obviously this morning, now
that we no longer have China terifts. We don't have Canada,
but we do have or sorry Canada tariffs or Mexico,
but we do have China.

Speaker 6 (59:04):
I was like, wait, did I know?

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Like I got to look at Twitter, China is here.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
At least for now, we've got ten percent tariffs on China.
But there's some big question marks of exactly what's in it.
This is obviously falls within something an issue area that
you care a lot about. Can you explain a bit
to the audience and some of the.

Speaker 13 (59:21):
Importance of this yeah, I mean I so I wore
a jacket with plaid to convey authority because this is
going to be like very sort of technical.

Speaker 6 (59:28):
I'm going to do my best.

Speaker 13 (59:29):
Sure, So the situation is changing really quickly, so we
don't one hundred percent know, but we'll know in a
few days maybe. So there's this, uh so he put
ten percent tariffs on stuff that's coming in from China, right,
and that is you know, there's a lot of industrial
machinery and various other things coming in. But what is

(59:49):
interesting I think particularly interesting, and I think what a
lot of we were just talking about this camera, there's
there's a there's a loophole that is more maybe more
important than just the raw amount that he put on.
And that loophole is called the dominimous Exemption to trade
or dominomous loophole under eight hundred dollars. When you bring
something in, an individual does not have to have doesn't

(01:00:13):
have to pay duties or tariffs or have that inspected.

Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
So this was set up.

Speaker 13 (01:00:17):
If you've ever been abroad and you come back and
you bought a sweater or whatever, when you're on the
plane and you fill out like they're like DoD you
buy anything, right, was it worth more than a certain
amount of money? You don't have to get that inspected,
You don't have to know the tariff codes. They don't
treat you like a commercial importer.

Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:00:32):
That's what Deminimus is.

Speaker 13 (01:00:33):
It's intended to let kind of tourists bring in a
few things here or there. The problem is in the
nineteen nineties, or the dynamic is in the nineteen nineties.
What they said is this can be used not just
for tourists but for e commerce. Right, And they said,
if you are an individual buying through saying like an
Amazon or something like that, and they ship you something

(01:00:53):
from China, that can come in and it's less than
eight hundred dollars that can come in under this deminimus
under the dominimous rules, no inspections, no duties, no tariffs,
and it can come in through what's called informal entry,
so it doesn't have to have a licensed customs broker,
doesn't have to be bonded. Now, there are about a billion,
maybe more than a billion packages coming in every year.

(01:01:17):
I think the number is one point four billion, but
who's counting from China every year?

Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Under the dominimus loophole.

Speaker 13 (01:01:23):
So this is the basis of the business model of
timu of Shane, of Fast Fashion.

Speaker 6 (01:01:28):
And of Amazon.

Speaker 13 (01:01:29):
Right, more than fifty percent of third party sellers, which
is the majority of their sales, come directly from Chinese sellers.

Speaker 6 (01:01:35):
Right, So this is you know, kind of crazy. Right.

Speaker 13 (01:01:39):
So if you're a bicycle producer in this country, you
have to compete with bikes coming in duty free, no tariffs,
no inspections, so on and so forth. And that is
true kind of across the board. Now, what this Tariff
Executive Order did is they said that dominimous exemption or
that dominis loophole is going on sort of right, so

(01:02:01):
they say, you now have to pay tariffs on any
on everything, whether it's you know, twenty dollars or twenty
thousand dollars. Okay, But what they haven't been clear on
is whether they're going to force the deminimous stuff, stuff
that's less than eight hundred dollars to come in through
a more formalized entry.

Speaker 6 (01:02:21):
Right.

Speaker 13 (01:02:21):
Are they going to make you Are they going to
make them put like Amazon or Tim mo Orshane. Are
they going to have to use a licensed customs broker?
Of you know, bonds, and if they do like it
doesn't make sense to let you buy a three dollars
T shirt and then you have to do you know,
you have to get a licensed customs broker to handle
that individual package. It makes more sense to, you know,

(01:02:43):
bring in twenty thousand T shirts or one hundred thousand
T shirts, bring them into US warehouse and then do
fulfillment from there. And so it's not clear what they're
doing with the actual process, but that a tariff on
a three dollars T shirt doesn't matter ten percent two cares, right,
especially because they're tariffing the whole sell price, so they're
more likely tariffing you know, a dollar, right not or

(01:03:03):
thirty cents not the three dollars. So a ten percent
tariff on thirty cents is three cents.

Speaker 6 (01:03:08):
Who cares.

Speaker 13 (01:03:09):
But if they're saying, all right, you have to change
your whole you know, it's just gonna be much more
expensive to bring in an individual item. It doesn't matter
for a bicycle that's five hundred dollars. It doesn't really
matter for a piece of industrial machinery. It does matter
for a T shirt or you know, a small you know,
pazz spend cord. Right, So that's and that's not There
are different versions of that floating around, and we don't

(01:03:30):
actually know what they're going to come down and say,
because they're big logistical challenges. If you get rid of
the deminimus the tariff, just charging the tariff is not
that big a deal, but the logistical question formal versus
informal entry, so that I hope I haven't been too technical.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
No, but I think this is important because this is
originally what I want to talk about is that these
businesses ten. I mean, we've got the super Bowl coming up, right.
Do you remember how many TAMU commercials.

Speaker 6 (01:03:51):
Were in our last job, like a billion?

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Yeah, these things have become massive companies and yeah, anyway,
I that's that's why I wanted to talk to you
about this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
You focus on competition, and there's a definitely competition tie
in here. How does this disadvantage like small and medium
size retailers over you know, gives Amazon and Timu and
these like big players a huge leg up?

Speaker 13 (01:04:11):
Well, I mean, so it's like, if you are making
a product here, right, you have to comply with all
environmental laws. You can't use slave labor. There's like a
bunch of stuff you can't estensibly can't do right, and
if you are, you know, we don't have jurisdiction in
China or other countries. And but so the way we
handle that is through the customs procedure, right, so that

(01:04:34):
you know, you're not allowed to bring in goods and
products where they are using certain techniques like human trafficking
or whatever. If they don't do any inspections, right, or
if they don't do you know, they are not charging tariffs,
even if there's a tariff on the books, but they're
not charging it, then you can bring all those goods

(01:04:55):
in without any you know, like there's no no, there's
no you know, we were just you're just mentioning the nicotine.
I didn't actually know about that, but like that was
a good example, right where you're competing against companies that
don't have to adhere to the same standards that you
do in this country.

Speaker 6 (01:05:13):
And that's that's just unfair. Right.

Speaker 13 (01:05:15):
So a lot of like the bicycle manufacturers are one
of the coalition groups or bike stores, they are one
of the groups that actually it's not just manufacturers, it's
stores too, right, because if you're importing a bike from China. Right,
if you import it directly to an end consumer, it's
cheaper than if you bring it to a store and
sell it to because the store is going to bring in,

(01:05:37):
you know, one hundred bikes, so they don't get access
to the dominimus, the dominus duty free, terra free, so
there are It actually just changes the retail environment in
the US and makes, you know, harms the little guy
in all sorts of different ways. The other part of
it that I think is kind of crazy is that
you have you know, a billion plus packages coming in,

(01:05:59):
so that's like four million packages every day, and there's
a ton of fentanyl in these packages. Right, there's going
uninspected and it's brought here by our own post office. Right,
So there's a lot of conversations about, oh, there's all
this fentanyl coming in from Mexico. Right, That's what a
lot of Republicans like to talk about. In Democrats too,
but mostly it's a Republican thing. But really what's happening
is I mean, let's not say there isn't fentyl coming

(01:06:21):
in from Mexico. But one of the things they say is, well,
we haven't, we haven't seized any fentanyl coming in from
these packages in China, and so we know it's coming.

Speaker 6 (01:06:31):
We're seizing a lot from Mexico.

Speaker 13 (01:06:33):
It's like, well, that's because no one's looking, yes, But
when they start to look, and they have started to
do some pilot programs, they're finding a ton of fentyl
coming in through, you know, the these packages, and so
it's a really good idea to actually just start bringing
them through through normal customs procedures so that we can
apply the same techniques that we use to inspect everything
else for this really important.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
How does you know we all watch the inauguration. Jeff
Bezos is you know, is Trump's new bud. His wife
also was quite a notably there a lot a lot
to say about her. You know, how does his influence
tie into all of this?

Speaker 13 (01:07:08):
Well, it's interesting because because this has implications. So the
tariffs have implications for Apple as well, because they didn't
put an exemption into the iPhone, right, which you know,
I was just listening to CNBC and they were they
were talking about how this is going to take three
percent of Apple's profits, right, because they are you know,
what do they do they absorb the extra tariff? Do
they raise prices? And annoyed Trump, like, what do they do?

(01:07:28):
They change their supply chains. Someone's got to pay. And
this is I think a much bigger deal for Amazon
than Apple. But it's a big deal for Apple. It's
also actually, weirdly a big deal for Meta because you know,
the fast fashioned Chinese groups were spending billions of dollars
on advertising. So this is the one where maybe like
Google and Microsoft or not actually like super affected by it,

(01:07:51):
but the other three are. And I think it says
that these companies have some levels of influence on Trump,
particularly on you know, when they're negotiating with foreign countries.
If he feels that those foreign countries are trying to
regulate American companies, he will he will fight for that.

Speaker 6 (01:08:09):
But he's not.

Speaker 13 (01:08:10):
It doesn't look like he's doing explicit favors for these
companies yet. And I'll say one other piece, this is
not about trade, but yesterday there was an argument having
to do with a case against Googles, an anti trust
case against Google brought by Epic Games. So not a
government case, but the Anti Trust Division because the government
can intervene in private cases if they think the state

(01:08:31):
has an interest. The government actually had a lawyer there
and argued for you know, basically Google was in the wrong,
and you know that is an indication that this the
anter Trust Division could have said, you're not doing that anymore. Right,
like they've been telling regulators and enforced all of the government,
we're totally changing things. They haven't done that with the
Anti Trust Division in big tech. So this is a

(01:08:53):
small hint of that. So this is really it's like,
I don't know what to think because I see a
lot of I'm not I don't trust Trump, I mean candid,
I'm a Democrat, I am I'm very skeptical. I see
a lot of corporate favoritism. You guys talk about it,
but some of these areas like big tech's not getting
exactly what they want.

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