6/9/25: LA Riots, Trump Sends National Guard, Bannon Says Deport Musk

Krystal and Saagar discuss LA riots as Trump sends National Guard, Bannon says deport Elon Musk.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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an amazing show of everybody today.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
What do we have?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Did we do?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome back, sir, Thank you, Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, I've missed you guys too, I really have. It's
been it's been. It's been an experience any new parent.
I was just regaling, Crystal, I've been tracking all of
my sleep metrics and everything.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's been.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
It's been devastating, but it's all worth it. It is.
I have a beautiful daughter at home. Thank you to
my incredible wife, to the team here for covering for me,
for both the in laws. Everybody's been stepping up very
much at home, so it's been an amazing experience. I'll
have more to say later. I actually want to do
a monologue about all my medical bills, so I think
people will enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Are you Are you a Medicare for all guy?

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yet?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Not yet, but we're getting there. We're getting close. Yeah,
I'll talk about it. You know, we've because we are
prepared for one of the bills, you know, but unfortunately
my daughter I had to spend some time in the
nick you and transfer and all that, and I will
go down line by line just to show you. I
think people should know what it actually costs if you
have a terrible Oh. Absolutely, everybody's fine now, so thank

(01:35):
you very much. Thank you to the audience for putting
up with it, and Ryan, Emily, everybody in the control room,
everybody of the team done an amazing job. But while
I was gone, and I'm doing my best over here.
So if I have any bad takes, you can just
blame it all Oneah.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Can I get that dispensation?

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Well, yes, absolutely, you should listen, I have more sympathy.
Now you should use the parent card ten times.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
More on Well, luckily we have a really light news day,
ease back in, nothing that's contentious or difficult to parse through,
things that we always agree on, so it should be great.
So obviously we're following what's going on in LA. We've
got the very latest team was up late pulling, you know,
images from last night. Of course, the National Guard has
been federalized. Extraordinary things going on there with regards to Trump,

(02:18):
so we'll get into all of that. We've also got
the latest in the Trump Elon fallout. I am excited
to hear from Sager on that particular issue. I'm sure
you guys are as well to hear what he is
thinking about the whole romance falling apart. We had Cash
Mittel on Joe Rogan while the Elon Trump thing was
going on, and Elon's out there posting that Trump is
on the Epstein list, and Cash Mittel is being confronted

(02:39):
like in real time with you know, hey, what's going
on there?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
So that's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
We've got the Trump administration caving on Kilmar Abrego Garcia,
although there is a big catch.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
They are charging him. He has been indicted.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
So got all of those details, Jadie vance I went
on with the OVONN a number of interesting moments, some
of them amusing, some of them revealing. We'll get into
that and then we may be able to it's still
a little bit up in the air.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
We may be able to.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Get to the spokesperson for that Gaza Aid flotilla. All
the members of that flotilla, including Greta Dunberg, have now
been arrested and are being held by the IDF in
an Israeli prison. So you know, there are some wild
images coming out from there as well. So whether or
not we get the spokesperson on, we will cover that
and hopefully we'll be able to talk to her and
get her take on all of that before we jump

(03:28):
in with the latest coming out of LA. You guys
have overwhelmed us with your support.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
We've been offering We've gone back to offering the monthly
subscription by popular demand and free monthly trial. Go to
Breakingpoints dot com, put in BP free, give us a
try for a month, See if you enjoy it, see
how you feel about it. Sager, I don't know if
you're aware of this. Ryan has been threatening to do
him's ads.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
We don't see.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Actually, I think they need some help because they've been
RFK Junior has been attacking them. So I guess wait
over what, well, I'm it's too complicated. There's all this
stuff about like like what is it called generic compounded
GLP one, Like they're basically the semic clue tide ozambic,
basically the generic semic glue tide, And they're going after
companies like Hymns and newm and all these other places.

(04:18):
So anyway, we can talk about that later. It's actually
an interesting story.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
One of the ones I will so save Ryan from having.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Hymns ads and finasterize. Is that what it's called. I
think it is the Balding medicine. But anyway, thank you. Actually,
it has been incredible. I was checking back in I
was looking at the numbers. The response has been overwhelming
and it is really really incredible to see some of
the demands of that. So you can go ahead and
sign up. You can breaking points dot com, you can
use the promo code. We appreciate you. But let's get
to Los Angeles show.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, so there's a lot to get into here, So
bear with us as we go through what has happened
and gotten us to this place, has gone and put
these images of unrest. These are all coming from last
night out of La County. Trump has for the first
time since nineteen ninety two, federalized the National Guard, and
this is the first time it's been federalized over the

(05:07):
objections of the state governor, for the first time since
nineteen sixty five. We're going to talk a lot about
the legal pretext here.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
A lot of.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Legal analysts say that this is illegal. Certainly Gavin Newsom
is saying that this is illegal. But you can see
here this is just from last night. There were a
bunch of waymos that apparently they were like calling the
weamos to the protest and then setting the weamos on fire.
You know, the Mexican flags flying here. That has become,
you know, something that a lot of the right have

(05:37):
certainly seized upon. So wild images that you can see
in the streets as protesters are clashing with this is
largely LAPD. You though the National Guard was brought in yesterday,
my understanding is the National Guard mostly stayed around the
Federal building here. Obviously you can see these waimos set
on fire as well. And so while we continue to

(05:58):
roll these images, I can just explain a little.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Bit of how we got to this place.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
So the Trump administration obviously they ran on mass deportation.
They have really up the ante in recent days. Stephen
Miller apparently went into an ICE meeting was braiding everybody
for focusing on criminals and said, no, you need to
go into the workplaces, go into the home depots. And
that is exactly what ICE has been doing. So the
initial protests kicked off at two locations in and near La.

(06:25):
You had a garment manufacturer where there was an ongoing
ICE rate, and you had a home depot where ICE
was massing, and there was an expectation that there would
be a raid. You know, you have migrants who hang
out there in the parking lot looking.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
For work, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
So protests begin and there's a you know, pretty aggressive
response from the LAPD and you have you know, large
tensions in the community and you have people that begin
to you know, throw rocks back and it just escalates
from here.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Just watch this one clip.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
This is a reporter for Australian News out and crazy
footage here you see one of the cops turned directly
to her and fire a rubber bullet that hits her directly.
So this is in any case, some of what's going on.
So after the first night of protests, Trump decides that
he is going to send in the National Guard. And

(07:19):
the first indicasion we got of this, actually saga was
Tom Holman went on before any sort of an announcement
had been made and indicated that this was going to happen.
And then we in fact got this memo from Trump
saying exactly what he was going to do. We can
put a two up on the screen here, guys. This
is the memo from the White House which calls for
bringing in the National Guard. He says, in recent days,

(07:41):
violent mobs have attacked ice officers and federal law enforcement
agents carrying out basic deportation operations in La California. These
operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of
legal criminals in the US, and the wake of this violence,
California's feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdigated their responsibility to
protect their citizens. That's why President Trump has signed a
presidential memorandum deploying two thousand National guardsmen to address the

(08:04):
lawlessness that has been allowed to fester. The Trump administration
has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence,
especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers
trying to do their jobs. These criminals will be arrested,
swiftly brought to justice. Commander and Chief will ensure the
laws of the US are executed fully and completely assigned
by Caroline Levitt, White House Press Secretary. Now, notably, he

(08:26):
did not actually invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give
sort of broader legal justification for using the military against civilians.
Goes without saying, these are extraordinary and unusual actions that
are being taken. But instead of invoking the Insurrection Act,

(08:48):
he used something called Title ten authority. Now, the planeface
reading of this appears to require that the governor of
the state request or at least consent to the federalizing
of National Guard troops under Title ten. Again, the last
time that National Guard troops were federalized with the consent

(09:09):
of the California governor was in nineteen ninety two to
deal with the La riots. You had dozens of people
who were killed, billion dollars in property damage. That's the
last time that National Guard troops were federalized. The last
time that they were federalized over the objection of the
state leadership was nineteen sixty five. This was under LBJ
to deal with in Caalctor in southern state that did

(09:32):
not want to desegregate. So that's the level that we're
talking about here. In terms of actions, Trump got asked
what he planned and whether he was going to invoke
the Insurrection Act. Let's go ahead and take a listen
to a little bit of what he had to say
here an interviews.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Don't plan to invote Indirection Act. You planned to send
troops a lot of.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
If you're not planning to vote back Insurrection Act, you
still plan to send troops.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Well, we're gonna have troops everywhere. We're not going to
let this.

Speaker 6 (10:00):
Happen to our country.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
We're not going to let our country before to bark
like it was a divide and this autopen.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
But the bar for sending marines, the bar what I
think it is.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
I mean, if we see danger to our country and
to our citizens, and we'll be.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Very very strong in terms of law and order. It's
about law and order.

Speaker 6 (10:22):
Secretary, We're gonna see what we need we'll send whatever
we need to make sure of this.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Law and order.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
And so you hear him. There troops everywhere, and we'll
see with regard to the Insurrection Act and the Marines,
this was the other piece. We can put a go
ahead and skip ahead to A seven and we'll just
lay this piece out and then I'll get Sager's reaction
here Pete Hagsath floating that they could get the Marines involved.
He says the violent mob assaults on ice in federal
law enforcement designed to prevent the removal of criminal, illegal

(10:50):
aliens from our soil. Under present Trump, violence and destruction
will not be tolerated. The Department of Defense is mobilizing
the National Guard immediately, and if my continues, active duty
Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
They are on high alert.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yesterday evening, CNN reported that there were a number of
Marines indeed, who were prepared to deploy. Let's go ahead, guys,
and play a seven B.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
I also want to ask you about some breaking news
that we're just getting in. This is brand new into
our newsroom that the US Northern Command is saying that
approximately five hundred active duty Marines are quote prepared to deploy,
in their words, as unrest in Los Angeles continues. This
is after, of course, the Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth
had mentioned this.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Is that necessary at this point?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
No, I'm going to be I mean, not operationally, it's
not necessary.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
There may be other reasons for it. All right, So
there you go.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
So we've also we'll get into in a moment some
of the legal analysis the democratic response. But just pause
for a second and give you a chance to react.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Sure. Actually, you know, I don't usually do this, but
the New York Times actually had some pretty good analysis
of it this morning. They said Trump jumps at a
chance for confrontation California immigration. The situation has all the
elements that the President's seeks to show down with the
top political rival and a deep blue state over an
issue court to the agenda. And I think that's probably
the best way to look at it. I mean, one
of the things that you laid out there was that

(12:12):
past reporting about Stephen Miller really pressuring workplace raids as
opposed to criminal raids. That was something that immediately followed
the reporting in Los Angeles. Los Angeles and New York
City are the two of the top targets from ICE.
I believe Los Angeles in particular sanctuary city, one that
has long kind of you know, held itself up against
immigration enforcement. That leads to some of the protests there.

(12:32):
What does a paramount I believe California. So then you
have the initial kickoff. I mean, my own personal like
analysis of it is like it doesn't didn't need didn't
seem particularly like necessary to send the National Garden because look,
I don't think this is like BLM was. First of all,
this is like a lot more protests, a lot more
property damage, a lot more like violence. But even beyond that,

(12:55):
there was genuine like reluctance to use police forces, and
a lot of these blue cities LAPD looks pretty ready
to rock and roll, you know. From riving, I was like, yeah,
they seem to be okay. But I mean a lot
of it really is just downstream of BLM. Reducks for
a lot of people on the American right. And also,
I mean we have to acknowledge it, like Trump is

(13:16):
in a relatively precarious political position, and this is an
issue which we'll talk about tomorrow. Some of his polling
and all that immigration remains one of his number one
core areas. You've got some of those images that you
were talking about of burning cars, Mexican flags. I mean,
I don't think it takes the political genius to say
this is dramatically unpopular. I think in general, what America

(13:37):
seems to be sensitive to is who is the more
chaotic element. And we talked about this before. I think
up until this point, you could very easily assume that
the Trump administration was the more chaotic actor in immigration.
With the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, which you're going to
talk about a little bit later in the show, we had,
you know, Elsa Salvador, some of these extraordinary actions and
all this. But in particular, what's happened here is when

(13:59):
you see a flip and it goes into rioting into violence,
and then you see that law enforcement can seem to
have like a moral upper hand, it becomes a lot
more dicey. And so that is something that the Trump administration.
Part of the reason I think that they wanted an
image like this is they really are getting I think
a lot of what they want. They're getting the Mexican flags,
they're getting the burning in the streets. They're regardless of

(14:20):
whether you think, you know, Newsome and Karen Bass are
being feckless or not. A lot of people in the
Upper Midwest and some of the swing state areas they're
gonna think that. I mean, I also would be remiss
if I didn't say I know a lot of people
in the city of Los Angeles, and they did. A
lot of them were texting me and being like, hey, man,
if you are covering this, like, please just know that
ninety nine point nine percent of us are living our
lives and like downtown out LA is a place that

(14:41):
like none of us even go. So they're like, just
so you're all aware. And you know, I always think
that's important to say, like it's like the entire city
is not on fire or anything like. This is not
Rodney King. In fact, May Day parades are always there's
always Mexican flags flying and in La.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know, it sounds like people are so concerned about
foreign flags.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Now okay, sure, yeah, I mean listen, should an Israeli
flag fly in America?

Speaker 4 (15:06):
No?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Should ah?

Speaker 4 (15:07):
What it?

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Should an Israeli flag fly in America? In my opinion, No,
you should a Mexican flag fly in this Yeah, I
think it's a little guys. I mean, I will say,
you know, I don't know really why these people are
like they're like addicted to doing some of the most
unpopular things possible. I mean, if you saw, you know,
if you saw some of the initial Floydian response, like
in the early days of Floyd and I'm talking about

(15:28):
before the Minneapolis police precinct and all that was burned
down and people were peacefully marching in the street. That's
very difficult, you know, for people to be able to
mobilize against. And this is now entering a situation which
I think broadly there is a consensus they're like, this
is I think pretty strong footing for Donald Trump. We
will see. Of course things are very different though, you know,

(15:49):
from that time previously. But by and large, I mean,
we should make some of it because it is extraordinary,
the threat of the ability to have active duty shouldiers
the National Guards at two thousand bus. I don't want
to overplay it because there's a lot of people on
the Oh my god, this is bl I'm like, no, no,
this is not even remote. Yeah, the same this is
a relatively you know, thousands of people, Yes, but we're

(16:09):
not talking about millions. We're not talking about contagion, you know,
spread across the entire city or any of that, And
so I do think it's important to contextualize it as well.
Like Los Angeles itself, it's mostly fine.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah, I think all I agree with most of that.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
What I will say is, I mean, to me number one,
like Trump was looking for a pretext to have this
sort of militarized response for basically his entire ministry. I mean,
in day one he signed inn executive order that we
covered here of like hey, will you study whether I
should invoke the Insurrection Act.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
So he's been looking for a pretext.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
We know last time around he wanted to he wanted
to shoot protesters in the knees, and I think it
was Esper who was like, you can't do that. Esper
and people like that are no longer around him. And
to your point, I think the what the right and
certainly Trump and his people took from the first administration
was we didn't do go far enough, like we weren't wild.

(17:06):
And whether it's with the you know, the like crackdown
on dissent, or the aggressive response to protests, or the
even the economic regime with the tariffs, all of these
sorts of things. They took all the guardrails off, and
so there is not going to be a Mark Esper
in place now to say, hey, we shouldn't. You can't
federalize the National Guard over the objections of the governor

(17:30):
of California. That's not something that is legal or permissible.
And you know, to turn troops on American citizens like
that is an extraordinary thing. So you know, to me,
the big picture is this is an authoritarian guy. I
think you're right to say that. I think he feels
a little politically tenuous now, whereas support even on his

(17:52):
best issue, which is immigration, has slipped significantly. It's still
where he does the best, but it slips significantly, and
they were looking.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
For a reason to take exactly this sort of action.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
I also will say, I mean, when you have this
kind of chaos in the streets, it is exactly the
sort of thing that and somebody with these authoritarian tendencies
will seize on to hey, let's expand that Palentier database.
Hey let's normalize having the military in the streets for
domestic law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
And so, you know, for me, that's the most important point.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
But I also agree with you, like the Mexican flag
on the burning weimo is such a terrible image optically
that I'm like, are.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
These actually sense?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Like you have to ask the quite because it plays
into their hands so perfectly. It is exactly the kind
of images that they want to get out, you know,
that they want to put out to the public.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
How the public perceives all of this, I'm.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Not going to speculate, because I do think that there
is a sense that Trump is stoking this, that he
wants this, that you know, La was doing fine, actually
violent crime and these sorts of things were like way
down year over year, was doing okay, There was not
rioting in the streets before he starts to take extraordinary actions,
both with ice and then bringing in the National Guard.
How the public will sort through all of this, I

(19:13):
don't know, but to me, those are the most significant pieces,
And especially when you're floating things like I'm gonna bring
in the Marines, I mean, that is complete. That is
so unhinged and crazy that is hard to wrap.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Your head around that if they haven't done it yet,
is that they Like I said, whoever, seems like the
crazier party is going to get a lot of the blame.
And I think the Marines. I mean, that is a
genuinely extraordinary step. Two thousand. Look, I mean, we can
contextualize it is pretty insane that, you know, for the
first time since nineteen sixty five, we're talking about Selma, Alabama,
that a National Guard has been mobilized without a governor's action. Yeah,

(19:46):
it's also two thousand troops. These are also people not
out in the streets. These are people who are around
like VA facilities and federal buildings. In fact, from what
I've seen, I believe they've only fired like tear gas
outside of that. National Guards are the federal federal building.
It's mostly la Almost all of the really chaotic images
people are watching, that's LAPD. This is like a support mission.

(20:08):
This is LAPD and I believe in some cases the
Department of Homeland Security. So we'll see how things progress today.
I mean, I'm curious actually to see how the protesters
on the ground in Los Angeles and perhaps even leaders
of these protest movements and all of this are contextualizing it,
because from my perspective, it has been kind of interesting

(20:30):
to watch. How I mean, I think last time around,
like all the memes around mostly peaceful and riot is
the voice of the unheard and all that there was
like a justification of genuine violence and looting from the
very top of the democratic establishment and the media. This
time around, this is just not the case. I mean,
you know, you're you know, you're criticizing the Mexican flight.
Most people are most people are like, what are you

(20:50):
guys doing here?

Speaker 2 (20:51):
And so in the certain I don't have a morality
issue with it, but I think it's optically.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
But that's but I'm saying, las timerun they wouldn't even
admit that last time around. They're like, they wouldn't even admit, hey,
you know, maybe you shouldn't loot a Mark Jacob's store, right,
They're like, oh, actually it's fine because property damage is
not as bad as George Floyd or whatever. Yeah, I mean,
I don't hear any of that this time around. I
don't see you know, even the left lunatic immigration people
on TV being like, actually, this is totally justified. I

(21:17):
think you see the stray accounts there here there on Twitter,
but you know, a lot of the acab energy and
all that, it just it just seems very online and
not as enshrined in the mainstream. There's also a big
difference from twenty twenty where look, I mean everyone can
acknowledge there's been a lot of scientific research on this.
Part of the reason the protests were as big as
they were is a lot of people were locked in
their houses and they were staring at a screen. There

(21:38):
was like a mass psychosis that took over the entire country.
We could debate, you know, all of that. I've done
plenty here, but that's not the case right now. It's
what is it June something? You know, it's summer. You know,
people are living their lives like broadly, and while people
are paying attention to the news. I think people are
still upset about the tariffs. That's one of the things
I think, really, I don't think we fully internalized how

(22:01):
much that tariff forty five day period actually costs Trump
in terms of the confidence of the American people and
a lot of some of the stress and other things
that put we're on businesses and all that, you know,
just even my own personal life and being able to
talk to people. It's the number one thing I hear
about the way that the tariffs disrupt and it's not
even about cost increase. It was my job did this.
We were worried about this. You cost people, you know,

(22:24):
for real, this is a little bit different. And so anyways,
watching it closely, obviously it is most an impactful story
for how the Trump administration wants to deal with it.
It's also, let's be honest, it's a message to the
entire country, to New York City, to Chicago, to you know,
I'm thinking of any other big blue city. It's a

(22:44):
message to them. It's like, if you don't get this
shit under control very quickly, you will have the guard
federalized in your state immediately. And so in a sense,
it is more of a peremptory action from what I
can see. And also, like I said at the beginning,
Trump is on precarious political fo this is not a
good time for him. This is probably the best possible
thing that could have happened for him.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
When he yes, the more that this is what I've
said before, the more his political standing slips, the more
he's going to resort to increasingly authoritarian tactics.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
And I think this is part and parcel with that.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
And you have to put it in the broader context
of all of the actions that Trump has taken in office,
whether it's you know, trying to bring the media organizations
to heal, whether it's the student protester crackdown, whether it's
the you know, the Pallenteer surveillance database, all of these
actions that he has taken in order to claim control,

(23:42):
even the tariffs, you know, tariffs are put into place
under this claim that there is some sort of national
emergency something that the course are now looking at very skeptically.
But all of these things are about crushing dissent, consolidating control,
and so yes, they are going to take any pretext
that they can to further those goals. I think you're

(24:08):
absolutely right that this is a you know, warning to
not only to states or localities, it's also a warning
to protesters. You know, we have had and not just
pro Palestine protesters, like anyone who will protest this administration.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
We've had.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
His counter terrors are go on TV and say, hey,
if you don't like Tesla's now, that one may be changing.
Now you'll be able to It's okay to let not
like Tesla's now. I got jel freedom again.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
That those I bought this before Elon went crazy things,
I was like surging in Alabama. Yeah, right, I would
love to see Amazon sales data on who's buying those.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Who's buying those.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Now, yeah, Trump may be sticking one of those Tesla
outside the White House. But in any case, so you
have the counter terrors are who floated. You know, if
you're a domestic terrorist, if you heard of Tesla, you're
a domestic terrorist. If you participate in like the hands
off protests, your domestic terror. Certainly if you are propeller
sign and so they will use anything they can to

(25:05):
crush descent and claim power. The fact that it's Gavin
Newsom that only fuels the fire. There was some you know,
indications that there's been a back and forth, and I
think this is part of the context in.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
The background here as well.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Trump is preparing to strip a lot of federal funding
from the state of California, and Gavin Newsom said something
in return basically like, hey, you should keep in mind
that we are a mass net contributor to taxes. We
put in way more federal taxes then we get back,
and maybe we should reconsider that relationship.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
And it's you know, just shortly on.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
The heels of him making those comments that this you know,
extraordinary action is taken by Trump, which again I just
want people to think about the comparison between these protests,
which are really pretty especially Day one. You know, now
we got cars wearing whatever after the national garget brought in,
which I think just heightened the tension and escalated the chaos.

(26:03):
But in any case, these are fairly run of the
mill protest Like this was nothing. The LAPD with their
seven thousand and nine thousand or however many cops they
have were unable to handle. Compare that to the LA riots, Right,
that was crazy. I mean, there is no comparison here.
You had sixty plus people who were killed, who were
shot dead, You had I mean whole neighborhood's businesses looted

(26:27):
a billion dollars in nineteen ninety two dollars in property damage.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
I mean, it was that was a very different situation.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
And it's also a very different situation from nineteen sixty
five when you have Southern states saying we are not
going to desegregate, an open defiance of the federal government.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
So, you know, in terms of the the legal standing here,
like I said.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Before, it is noteworthy he hasn't invoked the Insurrection Act,
which actually came as a surprise everyone sort of assumed
that was what he do because that would allow him
the most expansive powers. Instead, they use this Title ten authority,
which seems to you know, the legal justification if you
read between the lines on the you know, the the

(27:14):
legal analyzes that I've been reading, would seem to indicate
that they might might be able to get away with
this limited support role. And you know, but even that
to do it without the governor's consent. Gavin Newsom is clearly,
he has stated clearly he believes that it's illegal, and
we could put a five B up on the screen here.

(27:36):
Let's get a bit of his response. He has formally
requested they rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in La County,
returned them to my command. He says, we didn't have
a problem until Trump got involved, as a serious breach
of state sovereignty, inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where
they're actually needed. Rescind the order, return control to California.
I think this is probably the first step before he

(27:57):
actively files suit in order to try to force the
courts to require this recision of this order, which he
calls unlawful and many many scholars degree is unlawful.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Let's put a five up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
This was his kind of initial reaction and has been
the tone that he's been striking. He says, the federal
government is moving to take over the California National Guard
and deploy two thousand soldiers. That move is purposely inflammatory.
We'll only escalate tensions. LA authorities are able to access
law enforcement assistance at a moment's notice. We're in close coordination.
The Guard has been admirable serving LA throughout recovery. This

(28:32):
is the wrong mission and will erode public trust. And
Tom Holman has been threatening Gavin Newsom and Karen Bassi
is the beyar of LA with potential arrests. So Gavin
got asked about this yesterday and here's what he had
to say.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
Acts has been here ten years. The fear, the horror,
the hell is this guy come after me?

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Arrest me.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Let's just get it over with. Tough guy. You know,
I don't give a damn, but I care about my community.
I care about this community. The hell are they doing?
These guys need to grow up, They need to stop,
and we need to push back. And I'm sorry to
be so clear, but that kind of bloviating is exhausting.
So Tom, arrest me, Let's go.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
So he says, arrest me, let's go. So you know, he's.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Certainly coming out very strongly in terms of his rhetoric
and pushing back against this. And like I said, I
think the letter. That letter is significant because it probably
is step one before he officially files suit to try
to get court to strike this.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yes, so we'll see. I mean, I think a lot
of it is. It's interesting even also in terms of
the way that they're responding because their response, like I said,
I mean, this is part of where I do see
democratic leaders acting very differently. They're like, hey, we have
all the resources to handle this, right, They're like, we
are ready to roll. And again, I mean, look, you
can call Karen Bass woke and all. I mean think

(29:52):
she has actually been a terrible mayor when we were
talking about the LA fires. But in this case, I
mean I have not yet seen evidence or anything like
that that she's like, tell me the LAPD to stand
down or not to enforce the law. I mean, we
don't want to downplay it. You shouldn't be people throwing
rocks at federal agents. It's like not normal, it's not
good and so that's something that is going to be happening.
It's going to of course invite a response. But yeah, broadly,

(30:15):
this is a clash of big political forces, and you know,
we should contextualize it certainly, you know, in terms of
the situation, which people are hyper focused on that, and
then also in the broader picture, like you're saying about
what this really means what with the Trump administration and
its view of power. I do think it's very interesting
they didn't do the Insurrection Act, and I mean there's
a couple of things that we can look to and

(30:36):
say that the Trump administration, within their review, is trying
to appear more reasonable like this time around. This may
sound crazy to somebody like you, but think about it.
I mean, look, National Guard is not National two thousand
National Guard, but it is not the Insurrection Act. It's
not you know, we're threatening all these things we got
later on the show kill Marbrigo Garcia is back in
the United States. I mean, I don't think anybody who
was said that was going to happen twenty days whenever

(30:57):
I went on leave. What did we all say, It's
never going to hapen? They, I think, don't we have
tape just like that's not going they buckled right like
eventually they did buckle to the court. Uh, they've got
they were taken L after L right now at the
Supreme Court, you know, with the or in the court
system as well, like they have got. They're on the
back foot a little bit. And they're not stupid either

(31:18):
to see also, which we're about to talk about with
Doze and with Elon, that cost them a lot of
political capital between Dosee and tariffs. They have serious problems. Now.
I'm not going to downplay you know, what the future
and all of this will look like. But you know,
in a sense like that, I can see that there
is a calibration within their worldview for what is happening

(31:40):
right now. And while yes there's testing of the waters
and things, I think that people are also there, people
in the White House and all of that are There's
there's a tug, you know, war between the Stephen Miller
and then also between people who are looking few you know,
at the future for the midterms. Let's not forget we
don't have the show. This tax bill is about the pass.

(32:01):
No matter what you think of the tax bill, I mean,
anytime you give what is it permanent tax cuts to
the wealthiest people in the United States. Effectively, what they're
doing is enshrining the current law into law, as well
as a bunch of other stuff that never pulls very popularly,
and that's a huge benefit. We still don't know if
medicaid or whatever is on the table, but you know,
there's a precarious political landscape in the next one to

(32:23):
two years that I see for them.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Let me just put this last piece up on the screen.
This is a eight B Trump's I think this is
his most recent truth. I don't know, IM not sure,
but one of his more recent truths. This is his
latest sauce. He says, a once great American city, LA
has been invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals. Now,
violent insurrectionist mobs are swimming and attacking our federal agents

(32:45):
to try and stop our deportation operations. These lawless rides
only strengthen our resolve, directing Secretary of Home and Security Christinoam,
Secretary Defense Pete Hegsett, Attorney General Pambondi, and coordination with
all other relevant departments and agencies to take all all
such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the migrant
invasion and put an end to these migrant riots. That's

(33:08):
another thing is they're trying to project like the people
participating here are all immigrants, are undocumented, and there's just
no proof. I mean, I think vast majority are very
likely American citizens. In any case, I actually don't. I
mean LA is I mean, there's La has a massive
immigrant population, but also a massive you know, like people
who were immigrants and are now citizens population.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
There's no yeah, I mean that's what it's also, you
know what the second largest city in the United States
of America, right, I mean there's I mean, it probably
does a very large legal population. Like let's be honest, sure,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
I again, we have no I think it's unlikely, frankly
because most people who are undocumented are very leery of
doing much of anything right now because they're afraid of
being picked up and deported. So the risk is much higher. Listen,
we have no numbers. But that's what they want to project,
is that this is all like undocumented immigrants and that's
an invasion of LA, and that's why they're seizing on
the Mexican the you know, just display of the Mexican.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Flags seizing it's a Mexican flag.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, again, it's everywhere. But there are also American flags,
but you don't see those being I don't see very.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Many of them. I was looking because images I don't want.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
To be for.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
We got plenty of images here.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
To be honest with you, I actually watched I actually
watched a clip that Elon retweeted that showcased a bunch
of American flags.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
I see a lot. They're out there, Mexican flags. They
don't know people are illegal on stolen. But that's the
typical leftist fair It's fine. I'm not going to sit
here and like cat turn it up or whatever, but like,
let's be honest about who we're dealing with here.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Like sure, But in like I was saying, I think
there's also an element of this where Trump is rhetoric
on immigration this time. Although there was you know, some
talk about like oh, they're taking your house and you're
taking your jobs, it was more about they're emptying the
insane asylums, and these are all criminals, and we're going

(34:56):
to go after these criminals and to port them. And
they're simply aren't that many undocumented immigrants who are criminals
and so I think part of this as well is
since you have this increasing sort of realization of who
is actually being targeted, who is actually being deported, and
there tend to be more sympathetic figures and people are

(35:18):
just like here trying to you know, live a life.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
And work and get a job and whatever.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
This can substitute in for portraying that level of like
criminality and lawlessness. I think is part of the reason
why they're making this affirmative effort to project that everyone
participating is an undocumented immigrant, which is like definitely not
the case. So in any case, I think that's that's
part of the narrative that they are trying to spin

(35:43):
here as well.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, and to your point, and it helps, and like
you burn cars and you have I skin flags.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Absolutely agree that when you have, like I said before,
the image of a burning Weimo with a Mexican flag
is so perfect for them that I have to ask
the like, yeah, it like seems way too on the nose.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
So in any case, you got.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
To remember too, most of the country has never been
to Los Angeles. Right if you live in a red state,
like you think San Francisco is just like riddled with
shit because it's like the tender Loin district or you think,
and look, I'm not downplaying that because it is terrible.
I've been, I've seen it. It's awful, you know. Or
Downtown LA like seeing this what I forget exactly what

(36:27):
it's called. I'm completely blanking on it. That area of
downtown skid Row, that is one of the worst things
I've ever seen in my whole life, ever seen. I'm
talking about the slums of Mumbai are comparable to the
skid Row. It is horrific. So I don't want to
downplay that. There is a tendency though, in the Middle
American others to think that that's what it all looks like.

(36:47):
Or Chicago it's all like, you know, Shiraq or whatever.
But Mexican flags burning in the middle they don't know.
So when you see images of what is it the
four or five in LA being blocked up in Alabama,
in Michigan, in Pennsylvania and all this, I can guarantee
you you know, these things are going viral all across
the country. I mean, look, we could debate forever about
illegal immigration and deportation. I mean, at the end of

(37:10):
the day, if you're here illegally, you are liable to
be deported. Whether it should be or not. We can
argue that all day long, but as the law currently stands,
and as the law that's about to I think probably
going to go into effect, like that's something that is
going to be happening. Again. We can debate morality, et
cetera of all of that, but at the end of
the day, you know, having people throw things at federal agents,

(37:30):
Mexican flags and all of that, these are sympathetic images
for the Trump administration. In fact, I mean it almost
makes me question why they started with these mach mood
khalils and I'm blanking on the guy's name, the Buddhist guy. Yeah,
I mean these are like ten times more sympathetic figures,
Like why do they start with the propalas Indian movement

(37:52):
in a certain stent? I mean, we could probably talk
forever about that, but it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Let me make one more point that we can talk
about Elon with us. Actually there's a tie in too,
because Elon is like, you know, seizing on this to
kind of like you know, smooth over some of his
some of his ruptured ties with Mega. But in any case,
you know, I think what what I was talking to
Kyle about this last night, and he was saying, like
they were gonna, like it doesn't matter whether the protests

(38:18):
are peaceful or not peaceful or whatever. They were going
to do this sort of thing anyway. And I think
there's a reasonable point to me a bit about that
because the pro Palestine protests. Think about the Pro Palestine protests,
though they were over, I mean, they really were sort
of a model movement, including really highlighting Jewish voices at
the center of it, you know, peaceful, like the most

(38:38):
aggressive thing they did was to take over that one
building on the Columbia campus, which you know, you can
debate and dispute, but that is sort of grounded and
typical like you know, anti war protest movement tactics. And
they were really really disciplined. And you know, anytime you
have a movement, a large movement of people, you're gonna
have some people who do some things that are like

(39:00):
you know, some graffiti or so something that you don't
but considering the number of people and the extent of
locations and all of that, they were really disciplined and
there was a significant crackdown. Now the National Guard wasn't
called in, but there was a significant crackdown, and there
has been an aggressive, over the top federal government response,

(39:20):
right including pulling all the ability of Harvard to have
foreign students at all, and taking over Middle Eastern studies
departments and arresting people like mack Mood Khalil and arresting
Moslim Mandawi and arresting messa Os Turk for writing an
op ed and you know, really punishing anyone who would
dissent from that narrative.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
So in a sense, would they have called in the
National Guard? What would be exactly the same?

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Hard to say, but there is a top down crackdown
on dissent regardless of how good or perfect your protest
movement is.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
That is certainly the case. But I think what you're.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Pointing to, what I will say for myself, is that
it also matters how the public receives that protest movement.
And so you know, in the case of the pro
Palestine movement, even though it hasn't moved our elected officials
because they're genocidal, horrific maniacs, whether you're talking about Biden
or you're talking about Trump, the public way a public

(40:12):
opinion has moved has been extraordinary. You know, the only
old Republicans basically are now more pro Israel than pro Palestine,
and that is a wild shift.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
I think.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Another successful protest model in Trump two point zero era
has been You mentioned kill Maya Brego Garcia. There were protests,
There were peaceful protests. There was you know, a significant
effort of calling and writing members of Congress. There were
people showing up at these town halls to yell at them,
and you know, massive upset. You had Democratic politicians respond

(40:44):
by actually going to El Salvador, keeping the pressure on
the issue. You had the courts responding as well. So
you had all of these layers. And because of that,
when you pull on kill Maya Brego Garcia specifically, it
is one of Trump's worst polling issues. People are disgusted
with how he handled it. And the more that was
in the news, the more that the pressure was kept

(41:06):
on and that was kept in the news, the more
that Trump's overall approval on immigration fell. And so now
actually his approval rating on immigration has recovered a bit.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
His overall approvals were covered.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
A bit as that has become you know, more back
burner in terms of the news and hasn't been in
everyone's face. So there are there are models of you know,
movements that have used successful tactics that have really swayed
public opinion and moved people to their side, and have
even successfully in some ways you want to talk about,
Kilmar checked some of the ambitions of the Trump administration.

(41:39):
So I do think, you know, I know, people get
pissed off when you like, oh you don't wire you
nitpicking the tactics, But look, this is not a game.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
This is very serious.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
These are these are want to be fascists, and he
is an authoritarian who wants to use whatever pretext he
can to crack down and to crush dissent and to
spend you know, to create images and spend a narrative
and tell a story that plays into his hands. And
so you know, I think it's I think it's really
important to be smart and strategic and not give him
what he wants to provide a more effective pretext.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, they're never gonna listen to me, So for every
all the protest leaders, they're not gonna Yeah, no, I
think they would listen to you. Actually they probably hate me,
but that's fine. You know, I love you guys. Too.
It's okay, all right, let's go on to Elon. At
the same time, an extraordinary fallout between Elon Musk and
Donald Trump. Crystal and the team have already covered much

(42:30):
of that, but we do have some new developments, mostly
within the MAGA movement, to a really turning on Elon Musk.
Steve Bannon, who of course has been gunning for Musk
from day one, really seizing the opportunity to drive the
point home that he's an interloper, he's a big tech oligarch,
and now he wants to deport him. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 6 (42:49):
And then as soon as President Trump comes out today
and President Trump's saying it in the nicest way possible
about the bill, right, the bill, but being ba bang back,
the guy gets up and starts tweeting the most visit.
That's just stuff you could tweet, So all the fanboys
defend this. He accused President Trump and basically being to
a group with those of pedophiles on the island. He
called for he called for the president to be impeached

(43:13):
and JD. Vance to take his role. As hard as
we've worked in all the years that we've walked in
this audience's work. Some punk is going to sit there
and go he's should be impeached. And hey, as sure
as the turning of the earth, if those progressors rub
up on him and say, hey, they're never gonna buy
the they're never going to buy the Tesla's where they're
going to buy the Tesla's they rub up on him,

(43:34):
He'll write a five hundred million dollar check for a
Keem Jefferies. He'll be across the thing looking to impeach
President Trump, looking to help steal the twenty eight election,
look into him, prison President Trump. So here's my point.
Let's get ahead of it and shipping thirteen million out
of here. Let me change that thirteen million in one
because Elon Musk is illegal and he got to go
to Okay, you're gonna ship these other people home. Let's

(43:58):
start with the Let's start with the South Africa. Okay,
and I got a couple other could go too, but
he's illegal. Deport immediately. We all want to cut federal spending.
His promise and commitment to the president of cutting one
treeion dollars in federal spending was something he stuck to
the end until we found out it was all a fraud.
I mean, this is what caused the physical altercation you
had in the West wing, right outside the Oval office

(44:21):
between the Secretary Treasury. Scott Beston is a good friend
of mine and a very even handed guy. He and
Elon got into a physical altercation, and that's because number
one people felt that day the Elon might have been
on drugs, and number two, Scott called him a fraud
to his face and said, look, we're in the middle
of a heart a terrible budget fight. You committed to

(44:41):
a two treeion dollars, then you committed to a tree
in dollars. Now you talk about one hundred and sixty
billion dollars. We don't see where you got anything, all.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Right, So, I mean, there's so much to say there.
We were joking, like, what exactly do you need to
do to piss off a guy like Scott Besson? To you,
a buttoned up Wall Street financier who literally in a
pink house, what do you have to do to get
him to punch you. I mean, listen, if you're a billionaire, first.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Punch Scott, it's certainly he hates your gut. So apparently
that was pretty common sentiment within the Trump and.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Mary comry sentiment. Yeah. I mean, look, let's go to
the next one, please, shall we We have Elon's response
here to Steve Bannon. Bannon is a criminal who oozes
evil from his face like a disease. He's a communist retard.
He's a peak retard, peak retard, as he continues to
say over and a criminal and criminal peak retard. Actually

(45:36):
it's just actually, I mean, yeah, I guess you're technically wait,
was he granted clemency your pardon? I forget So, I
don't know whatever he is in the eyes of the law.
What we do know is this is probably no coming
back from with his relationship with Donald Trump, and I
would say at least a certain sect of MAGA. Trump
says Elon Musk will face quote very serious consequences if

(45:56):
he funds Democratic candidates. You know, I don't think that
is going to happen, just because of how far Elon
has gone. But I was joking with several friends that you.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Don't think he'll fund the Democratic gut No.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
But Elon is the perfect prey for people who you
and I know very well, Crystal, the no labels crowd. Yeah, Elon,
I mean, if you think about it, Elon is socially liberal,
fiscally conservative. He is filthy rich, and he cares a
lot about the debt. He has, you know, very or
at least pretends to care a lot about the debt.

(46:28):
And he's got shitloads of money, and he's got private
business interests. All of those things confluence in the Bipartisan
Policy Project or the No Label Center. He's tweeting about
a third party, right, I mean, this is this is
catnip for a certain type of Silicon Valley billionaire. The

(46:50):
amount of polsters who he's going to are going to
charge him ten times as a normal rate to prove
his bullshit, and his consultants and all of that. I mean,
the fallout is I find very vindicating because it's been
obvious that Elon has been a huge problem for the
Trump administration. But I mean, really, what I have to
say is looking at the Trump administration is Elon has

(47:11):
made them look like fools. And the reason why I
say that is think about the amount of political capital
that they went to bat for Elon Musk in the
first ninety days of the Trump administration, and particularly, let's
say with the first forty five days. The central story
of the United States of America was Doge was waste,
fraud and abuse. Now, I certainly still think that there
is a popular sentiment behind Doge and the idea of

(47:34):
like government corruption and all that. By about forty five
days or so, we have a story. This is bullshit, right,
This is just people who are gallibanting around getting access
to systems chaos. Ten day, what did you do today? Emails?
The White House went to extraordinary lengths to defend Elon.
I mean they had a car dealership marketing thing on

(47:55):
the White House lawn. That's as good as it gets
for any company. Crazy. He bought La on the side
on the south lawn to the White House. I mean,
that's that's fucking see. Okay, I mean that's nuts. They
said they're going to charge people with domestic terrorism for
burning down. Now listen, you know, maybe if if make
sure it applies to everybody, but they were talking about

(48:16):
Tesla specifically, right. I mean, they brought the full force
of a White House in the United States federal government
basically to bear to defend this man's reputation. They stretch
the law special government employee Doge. I mean, how many
cases before the United States Supreme court overdose and then
to have a falling out like this is just so

(48:36):
immensely embarrassing because it always comes back to the original
stories of the first Trump administration where somebody would leave
and then they would attack Trump and look at Trump
and Mac and Alan would always attack them. But you know,
it always comes back to judgment. It's like, yeah, but
why did you hire him in the first place? Right,
So it's like John Bolton, John Bolton is a warmonger, Like, yeah,
but why did you hire him? What were you doing? Yeah? Right,
So like that's about bad judgment. And so really, I

(48:58):
mean I just think they look incredible foolish, Like you
have all these statements from the White House from Donald Trump,
I mean, all of the bromance pictures, so many of
the you know, the Elon's kid in the in the
Oval office, all this craziness, and so for them then
to turn around and be like, I'm taking you know,
the bigger hand, It's like you accepted, you know, his

(49:19):
ketemine use and his erratic behavior and all the political
problems that he caused. Initially, you basically whitewashed so many
of the corruption allegations. I mean, it was were obvious
and true, you know, going on at the time, and
it's only now they do like attack you personally. You
know that you're willing to turn on it. I mean
in a certain sense. I don't think it's a bad thing.
I mean because really what you have watched is a

(49:41):
defenestration of I think a lot of the tech bro
alliance with MAGA, because a lot of them, I really
believe they thought Washington was almost even more corrupt than
it is, and they're like, oh, we can just buy
our way in, and they didn't realize that actually there's
courts and Congress like all this other stuff, and you know,
you actually have to align with democratic institutions. And I

(50:04):
do feel like Elon's real breaking point is he didn't
understand that you actually can't just buy everything that you want.
I mean, we have the NASA administrator who got lumored,
which is hilarious. You know, what did you do? He
donated some democratic politicians, which like one time, which he
told Trump and only recently they were like, actually, no,
that's a huge problem. I can only assume that the
NASA guy was probably going to be highly preferential to SpaceX.

(50:27):
But then you also have you know, the standoff around
the debt. I'm not going to speculate around Elon's intentions
with I mean, he probably does care about the debt
in a very like Malay libertarian sense. That's always kind
of been his politics. But really, what I think it
is is that the GOP was not listening to him.
And I think the reason is it's not just they
were listening to Trump. Guys. This is Washington. There are constituents.

(50:51):
Elon is like, we need to cut the debt. The
New York congressman is like, I will not vote for
this bill unless every millionaire in my district gets assault deduction.
That's called democratic politics. Everyone's like, oh, this bill is
full of pork. Yeah, what do you do? That's how
it works. Like part of the thing that he's finding
out and interacting with are like actual politicians who are

(51:11):
responsible to people, and I think that is something that
he is. I think he's irreconcilable now truly to the
political system. But bright bigger story is just the Trump
administration of the Republican Party made a huge mistake I
think by becoming so like wholly tied to Elon Musk
and his erratic behavior, his business interests is various problems,

(51:33):
and in particular, what they did wrong was not you know,
accepting somebody's money is like fine, okay, everybody does it.
But they kind of fused themselves both to Elon's benefit,
to his identity and to his company. That was devastating.
Already we can talk about the company, we can look
at the stock price into Elon and all that, But
to the Republican Party, you basically took somebody who's an

(51:55):
erratic person, not even an Americans you know, originally a born,
natural born American citizen who has all kinds of conflicts
of interest, not as a politician by any means or
any right, and you subsumed him into your identity and
you took all of the political hit. And I would say,
you know, if you really look at it, the two
prongs that have hit the Trump administration of the Hartist
it has been Doge and it has also been the tariffs.

(52:17):
And obviously we'll talk about tariffs a little bit later,
but those two combined as a one to two punch,
I think it's been devastating, you know, to a lot
of their political prospects even now in the future. So yeah,
that's I mean, I don't thin these are particularly original thoughts,
but I just think it was a huge mistake from
the very beginning. Everybody could see it coming from a
mile away that eventually something you know, would tear between

(52:38):
if you look at Elon's entire history, like, I mean,
I hate it, but like he brought himself into our
world right, like every relationship he's in, it's a freaking mess. Yeah,
I mean, you guys should read I really encourage people
to read Ashley Vance's biography of Elon. Like he had
a longtime secretary who had the gall to like ask
him for a raise because she's like, hey, I do

(52:59):
a lot of work around here, and he just fired her.
And it's like what like like it's like every business partner,
every major investor, I mean, he was forced out of
everyone forgets this. At PayPal, they're like, Elon, we can't
deal with him, and they forced him out as a
CEO overnight. I mean this is He's always been like
this disagreeable and kind of crazy, so this was an

(53:21):
eventual outcome. I do think though, that the damage to
the Doge product, the Doge project that has done to
the White House is something that's going to be very
difficult for them, because that was the initial spark of
a lot of the original political protests against Trump. The tariffs,
I think, hit everybody devastated, a lot of political opinion.

(53:41):
And now you have all the elements of a bad
Trump's story, which is infighting between two principal actors. Everybody
loves juicy drama. We've got the Epstein stuff, which we'll
get to in a little bit, which is just you know,
clownish in terms of the way that Trump administration is
handling it. And so yeah, I mean, just broadly, I
think it's I think it's bad. It is a great lesson,
I think as to why these people should not actually

(54:05):
be all that intertwined in our democratic system. Like at
the end of the day, yes, you can hate Donald Trump.
He is a talented politician, you know, JD. And all
these people they got themselves elected like they know what
they're doing. To a certain extent, even Schumer. Okay, yes,
I'll even say that they're better than these interlopers. And
so in a sense, I am a little bit happy

(54:26):
just to see some of that come in and because
I mean, the arrogance was unbelievable. Oh yeah, in November.
I have not told the story publicly, I will say
it now. I knew somebody was very involved with Dosh
and they said, you know, we're just so excited because
there's never been a serious effort to cut spending in Washington.
I literally laughed at them and I was like, I

(54:47):
was like, do you know who Paul Ryan is? I
was just like, do you know how to read a
fucking book? Like no offense? You know, but do you
even know what you're talking about?

Speaker 6 (54:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (54:54):
And they thought I was the crazy one, right, And
I was like, I was like, you have a I
was like, you got a lot coming to you, my friend.
In fact, there's a viral clip somebody sent me and
me talking specifically about Doge on the Lex Rereadman podcast
in November where I was like, yeah, I'm not so
sure about this. I was like, Congress exists, this is
not how Washington works. You know this, this and this.
I was like, you're going to run up against up

(55:14):
your office. And it's effectively what has happened. And now Elon,
through his own personal machinations, has crashed out dramatically and
Trump doesn't want his phone calls, so.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Right, Yeah, Trump says that he's not really interested in
talking to him. He says, he says that Elon is
depressed and heartbrokenly true.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
What he has is Elon is pressed, right.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
I think he's bipolar, isn't he. He's a mess. He's
a mess, and I mean, yes, he's like personally.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Obviously, I'm in the White House with a black eye
that you don't even bother to cover. Listen, I still
have two black eyes. And I can give you some
makeup tips. You don't have to show up with that
all hanging out, you know, tweaking out.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
I mean, it's just it's insane.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
But you know, he put in more than a quarter
of billion dollars into Trump's campaign and he was going
to get something significant for that, and he did. And
so even as like you have to hold two thoughts
in your head, even as Doge was a total and
complete failure on the cutting spending and like making the
government more efficient front, in fact it did the opposite
of both of those things. Elon got things out of

(56:17):
it and did have a huge impact in terms of
destroying some of these agencies. You know, his investigations got dropped.
The latest story says they he installed starlink over the
objections of some of the White House folks, so that
he could pull whatever data.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
He wanted out. So I'm not even sure.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
I mean, I still have a lot of questions about
what it is that he got out of DOGE, including
possibly like tons of data to feed into his own
AI in order to try to win the AI race
versus his rival Sam Altman.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
That was apparent.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
That was saga another one of the falling out points.
I think that as far as we know publicly, the
two big things were the NASA administrator getting pulled, which
was like the final straw, which that's when Elon just
like goes nuclear and starts accusing Trump of a peto
and all that sort of fun stuff and claims, by
the way, comes out and says like you won the
election because of me, which again is an extraordinary assertion.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Just like, yeah, I bought the election. That's what he's saying.
The Wills man, I just.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Don't think it's true, like period at all. Like I think,
you know, his money was helpful, but what the oh,
the Trump administration was hard up for money. Come on, like,
get out of here, there's a billion dollar election. What
you think the club for Growth or any of those
other people are going to be able to fund and
get out the vote operation. If anything you get out
of the operation was shitty by all accounts for all
that did cover. Yeah, we covered it at the time.

(57:34):
I mean I talked to people who were involved. They said,
this is a shit show and it's a mess. I mean,
Donald Trump won the election because of Donald Trump and
because of Kamala Harris Elon and all that. I mean,
was it helpful at a very high level narrative, you know,
to have Twitter bought? Yeah, I mean probably Twitter.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
The Twitter piece I think was very important, but I would.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
I wouldn't call it election swinging. It was more so
hard to say nobody really knows.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I mean when you think about like the vibe shift
and like that, and having all the tech guys like
all in on it, and I didn't mean to like
they were all in and also specifically talking about the
all in pime.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
By the way, are silent and our cowards. And I
say this as a person who considers David Sachs as
a friend. Cham Off, David Jason, speak up. You guys
wanted this. Yeah, okay, I've met you. All's going you
guys wanted to be in politics, you have to show up.
You know, yes, I've been on parental leave. But you
guys don't have an excuse. You have to show up,
and you have to talk about all the shit, even
the bad stuff, even when it makes you look bad.

(58:31):
So you wanted this, okay, you wanted to be major
political commentators. Show the fuck up? Where are you? Your
silence is deafening. But you know, only David gets an
excuse because he works in the government. Everybody else makes
him speak up. Chamoth is literally tweeting about his dick
size and he doesn't have anything to say about you.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
All right, I'm just saying commentary, right, he called himself
an anaconda.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Who by the way, if you have a billion dollars,
what a fucking loser. I'll talk about this.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Also, if you are saying things like that publicly, it
really makes me.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Questions just saying yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
There's all of that.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I mean, I think so this gets to who has
the power now in this Dynane, who's going to quote
unquote win And look, obviously Trump is president.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
Of the United States. He's a million times more charismatic
than Elon. The people around him, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
I mean they have like a love hate relationship with him,
but he inspires respect. Elon inspires like disgusted and hatred
apparently over time as people spend.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Time around him.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
And so obviously Trump has more cards to play. I
will say, though, I am surprised at how meekly Trump
has responded like it is. It has been very rhetorically,
it has been very meek. Now he's threatening all of
Elon's contracts this. Elon tweeted this out though, which I
think is also noteworthy, said, whatever happens, we've got the

(59:48):
spaceships and they do not, which you know.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
He's pointing to the fact that.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
NASA and the space from really is kind of fucked
without SpaceX because and this is a trend that started
Barack Obama is really the one that pushed towards SpaceX
and towards privatizing so much of the space program. I
would say this is case in point of why it's
so devastating to rely on like a single oligarch or
a handful of oligarchs for things that are essential government capacity.

(01:00:18):
And so he's holding that over Trump's head. And I mean,
who knows what sort of data he has. There may
be pieces that we aren't aware of cards that Elon
can play. The other two parts that are obvious are
Starlink is really critical for you know, this critical communications
infrastructure that Elon has control over.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
And the other one is Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Twitter has become the backbone of the conservative movement, conservative discourse.
I mean it really has become extremely central, and so
the fact he has control over that is another, you know,
errow in his quiver and could be part of why
Trump is not going nuclear in the way that has.
I mean again, think about it. Elon said, your terror

(01:01:03):
suck and they're going to cause a recession.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
You're a pedo. I you did not even win the election.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
I want it for you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
And al Trump has to say is like, oh, I'm sorry,
he's so heartbroken.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, I could read it that way. I also could
read it as like it's humiliating, you know what I
mean one of my best friends or most politically aligned
person was like openly shitting on it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
You'd just be like, yeah, I want to be humiliated.
Like doesn't not a shameless I do not want to
be humiliating.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
I truly, I truly have no idea what goes on
into it. I do think. Look, this was brewing at
a metal level inside of the White House now for
some time, can we go ahead and put B five
plead up on the screen. People have predicted some grand
you know, reconciliation between the two. I just wish him well. Likewise,
Elon says, after apparently trying to get Elon on the

(01:01:49):
phone multiple times and has or sorry Trump on the
phone multiple times and Trump has refused to take his call.
I've I mean, the relationship already lasted so much longer
than I thought that I just don't really even want
to like speculate. I think, really what's been embarrassing is
the fact that Maga, cat Turd and all these other

(01:02:09):
people caped for Elon so hard, only to then have
to turn on him at this point. It makes you
look very foolish. I mean, the point is is with
Elon is like Elon is. I mean, Elon was always
kind of this independent sphere, very obviously trying to use
his influence both to benefit himself but also like a

(01:02:32):
broader technology aligned thing. And let's be honest, it is complicated,
like between Elon and Sam Altman. Like I'm with Elon
on that one, right, I mean, I'm not pro Sam
Altman on some open ai insane takeover, and broadly with
the project, what we really see here is this is
a classic Trumpian style story where when someone and actually

(01:02:53):
a right wing story, when somebody, no matter who they
are and all their foibles, when they're with you, they
go all in, You're a god, and we're buying Tesla's
and cyber trucks, and then when they turn against you,
it's like I heard it, he knew. The guy deported
and it's like, how about maybe it's like, thank you
for supporting us. You know, we're flying without you. It's
really nice for you to be here with us. But

(01:03:16):
you know, it's like we have an independent project. And
some of the smart ones have always seen that, you know.
That's why I've always respect to see Bannon. There's been
some smart ones out there as well who were always like, yeah,
you know this, this is the problem. We can see
this coming from a mile away. But you know, there
are a number of just like impressionable kind of right
wing guys I would say, who really got taken in

(01:03:38):
by a lot of this project, And I think, look, really,
and it goes all way up to the top yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
I mean that's like I think Trump fell into this idea,
Oh he's a genius and he's a great man. Like
I think he got pulled into some of that as well,
which is part of why he let him go as
far as he did. I mean, the stuff was unhinged,
like being on the stage with a chainsaw, gleefully firing people,
destroying all of these agencies you know in wild violational law.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
There's all this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Reporting now that you know, Susie Wilds, and these people
are like, what are you doing? Like they did not
know in advance what he was doing and probably still
don't know exactly what's going on. And that is one
other thing that he's got is these doge kids are
still who are more loyal to him, are still populated,
these Asian they should be of course, yes, yeah, they

(01:04:23):
absolutely should be out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
No business being in there in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
So you know, last thing I'll say is there was
we started with Trump saying, oh, they'll be serious consequences
if Elon starts funding Democrats. You know I think that
I think, first of all, no Democrats should be taking
this guy's money, Like, why did you see how this
went for Republic. Do you think this went well for them? Like,
just even on a basic tactical practical level, you think
this went well. Second of all, if you're going to

(01:04:49):
be a real party that does anything real, you have
to be oppositional to these oligarchs. You have to be
oppositional to Elon. And so I think it will be
a badge of shame for any Democrat who takes money
from Elon Musk and I do not. I think the
base will be thoroughly disgusted with that because to your point, zccer,
I mean, he did make himself such a toxic, horrifying

(01:05:11):
and galvanizing figure in the early days of the Trump
administration with this Roman salute and all the rest, and
so the Democrat is not going to forget that. And
so if you're a Democratic politician who thinks you're going
to take some money from Elon and nobody's going to
have anything to say about it, I think you are
dead wrong on that front.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.