February 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Jon Stewart dives into Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, a.k.a. DOGE, and how the Elon Musk-led project masks its allegiance to corporate overlords and negligence to the American people under the guise of slashing the government's budget.
Georgetown Law’s Rupa Bhattacharyya, former Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, joins to discuss how Elon Musk and the DOGE project’s reckless budget cuts are affecting valuable programs like the one she used to oversee. She explains how federal agencies and programs were typically non-politicized until Trump’s second administration, how similar uncertainty is affecting the World Trade Center Health Program, and why these roles are what the government exists to provide.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists. At Comedy Central.
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It's America's only source for news. This is the Daily
Child with your.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Host show Steward.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Oh, we are back from break our jewel, little cut shirt.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
We are back, Ladies and gentlemen, Women of the deal. Jo.
Mine is Jonespirh. We have got a show for you tonight.
I'm gonna be joined.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Later by Rupa Barataria. She is the legal director of all.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
They They know there about a Charias Lego, director of
Georgetown Laws, an institute for constitutional advocacy and protection.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know her as the individual who took over administrating
the nine elevens of Droga Act, Victims Compensation and health
care fund for nine eleven first responders and all the
people that lived down at Ground zero and Pennsylvania the Pentagons.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So deep state. She is deep state and I am
going to take it to her.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
The first Today, the United Nations marked the third anniversary
of the invasion of Ukraine by doing the only thing
the United Nations can do, passing a non binding resolution
asking Russia.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
To please stop, please take that putin.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Interesting, though, among the countries voting against the resolution were
North Korea, Belarus, Russia obviously, and the United States of America.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
They're saying Bruce, But.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I guess America doesn't want to set the precedent of
opposing bloody land grabs.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So green and landy.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
But hey, century being the good guys in America, you
know whatever. It's not the only thing Donald Trump is
busy disrupting these days. As you know, the Doge Project,
the Department of Government Efficiency, headed up by the nick
cannon of white people, Elon mush.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He's in.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It's in full effect, and it may surprise you, I,
for one, happen to be quite frankly Doge curious. I'm
actually somewhat Doge adjacent. So, mister President, if you would, we.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Have to solve the efficiency problem.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
We have to solve the fraud, waste, abuse, all the
things that have gone into the government.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yes, Now, if you had woken up from a coma
and heard nothing else that this man had said for
the last ten years, you might think to yourself, I
like this guy, I too believe government needs to be
more efficient to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse and
deliver the necessary services that Americans rely on more.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Agilely so what do we do?
Speaker 6 (03:51):
First?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Report through the Inspector General's reports that have addressed these things,
utilize computerishness to excise redundancies in the system, find ways
to more efficiently deliver the government assistant.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So many Americans rely on what's first?
Speaker 7 (04:05):
Elon Musk and his Doze team firing thousands of federal workers.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
They're trying to cut ten percent of the federal workforce,
which is two hundred thousand jobs.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Oh, have we determined if those are effective workers? Is
it based on performance?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Are you going in with the scalpels so that we
don't hit any vessels and vital organs?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy thirds.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
All, so straight amputation. We're just amputation.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's like we're treating public servants as some kind of underclass.
Speaker 8 (04:50):
The DC creature is like an animal infested with ticks
and parasites. Our money is lining these swamp creatures pockets.
You know what you call someone who sucks up resources
in return for nothing, You call them a parasite.
Speaker 10 (05:05):
And that is what the federal workforce has become. These saboteurs,
the dead enders, the DEI undercover agents.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
The fraudsters, liars, use globalists and deep state bureaucrats are
being sent backing, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Guy who tests water for appropriate levels of fecal matter?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
What you know? This is a stark emotional whiplash from
looking for efficiencies. But apparently our nation civil service is
now synonymous with waste, fraud and abuse, and magaworld is
celebrating with maximum folksy.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The gravy train. For a lot of these folks, it's
been on biscuit wheels.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's about to run off the dead gum tracks, and
it's about town.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
First of all, there is no way you actually talk
like that. No way, you're a congressman from Tennessee. You
didn't spring fully formed out of a primordial cracker barrel. Oh,
(06:21):
this help burocra see is a shot uga chook shoo.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
To a props boil on the flapjacks.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I'm just stringing food words together like nonsense.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Other reactions were just creepy.
Speaker 10 (06:40):
Those just dishing out spankings like Daddy Daycare.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I don't remember the spanking scene from Daddy Daycare. Oh
you must mean the gay porn film Daddy Daycare. I've
got it, Jesse, I get it. You were watching the
film that answers the question what would happen if a
(07:10):
bunch of dudes in a daycare?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And it's just stuck in your head.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
You know, I gotta tell you, I feel like you
can make efficiency recommendations or cuts without necessarily demonizing the
people who are only carrying out Congress's wishes.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But I feel like that they don't.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Here's Donald Trump's new Director of the Offices of Management
and Budget on his feelings about everyone who works for him.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected when they
work up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
We want them to not want to go to.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Work mission accomplished, because these workers are the worst, a
hive of scumming villainy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Star Wars reference mostly scum and villainy, just not the workers.
You know.
Speaker 10 (08:04):
Let me tell you a story about Chris. He's gonna
get dozed. And this guy's not a DEI consultant. This
guy's not a climate consultant. I finally felt one person
I knew that got doze, and it.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Hit me in the heart.
Speaker 10 (08:15):
We just need to be a little bit less callous
with the way, Harold, we talk about dozing people.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Do you watch your show.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yes, you certainly want to be callous, like referring to
someone losing their livelihood as being a child being spanked
at daycare.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
But I guess that's just the price of efficiency.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Doze is dropping force guided bombs into the thermal exhaust port.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
That is the death star of our bureaucracy.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
I love Star Wars, I just love the far but
Dozes Jedi level shit man. The FDA is looking to
rehire around three hundred people. The Trump administration will reverse
staffing cuts to the nine to eleven Health Fund.
Speaker 8 (09:10):
Hundreds of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration fired,
then nearly all will rehired days later.
Speaker 7 (09:16):
The Veterans Affairs Apartment reinstated terminated employees, and the USDA
is rescinding termination letters sent to people working on the
response to bird flu.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
When I said you are criminal parasites, obviously wasn't referring
to I have.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
The bird flu. Come back to work, please. But that's fine.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Staffing is only part of the Doge mission. There's other
crazy shit we could cut.
Speaker 10 (09:45):
We don't need to be wasting money on ridiculous items
like saying how fast shrimp can run on treadmills?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
One point five million to see the effect of yoga
on goats.
Speaker 10 (09:57):
A million dollars to study Mexican ducks in their wetland facilities.
Speaker 11 (10:00):
Studies on the effect of meditation on parrots, nearly a.
Speaker 10 (10:03):
Million to study of cocaine makes Japanese quail more sexually promiscuous.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I'm gonna go with yes on that last one.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I feel that I, not a scientist, can very comfortently
state pre experiment.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
If you are a Japanese quail with an eight.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Ball, you are getting your cloiqu assuct.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Oh, that may be the most favorite thing I've ever
said on this show. No, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Now obviously that list of programs, some of them are
being presented to seem even more ridiculous, and some of
those were completely invented out of thin air. But the
point is, why are we spending money on things that
seem obviously stupid, even though a government funded study on
HeLa monsters is how we ended up with ozepic. By
(11:25):
the way, quick pitch weight gain also would be solved
by Japanese quail cocaine. It's really the Star Wars of drugs.
Cocaine no downsides.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You'd be having your cloacas sucked in no time. All right.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
But even if this project of DOGE is animated by
malice for administrator and is seemingly rash and occasionally cutting
off critical government functions out of.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Haste, the savings alone will be worth it.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
On the doe's website, they posted sixteen billion dollars saved
justin canceled contracts.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Interesting if true.
Speaker 11 (12:15):
A closer look shows big problems. For example, DOZE claimed
acting a single immigration and customs contracts saved eight billion dollars.
Turns out that contract was worth a maximum of eight million.
Speaker 9 (12:28):
The Wall Street Journal estimates the actual amount saved at
not sixteen billion, but closer to two and a half.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Who much does asn't lied about saying something is sixteen
when it's.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Really two and a half a billion inches that's not
true either.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
See it seems that DOGE is struggling a bit to
get its footing from made up claims about fifteen million
dollars of taxpayer money going for gosen condoms to billions
in Social Security payments to dead people, a claim that
turned out to not be real.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Despite what you've heard, we.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Have millions and millions of people over one hundred years old.
Is there obviously fraudulent or incompetent. But if you take
all of those millions of people off Social Security, all
of a sudden we have a very powerful social security
with people that are eighty and seventy and ninety, but
not two hundred years old.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
True, you can't argue with that if only it were happening.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
But it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
We're not paying millions and millions of dead people's social
Security money. And even if there was a two hundred
year old man walking around, he wouldn't need Social Security.
He'd still be in Congress. Guys, I'm going to tell
you something. Cutting money shouldn't be this hard. I'm starting
(14:00):
to think that we as a country don't understand where
the real waste, fraud and abuse in our.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
System really is.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Maybe the savings we gleaned from cutting VA nurses and
iguana STD studies isn't where the real money is. Let
me see if I can noodle, you know what, let
me join doh, I'm gonna see if I can noodle
some ideas here.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I want to get down some certain ideas.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I want to do a get there we go.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I got that. Let's see what I happen to Here
is my want to be an accountant starter kit.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So I got it off Amazon for five thousand dollars.
My accountant told me not to get it. So we're
looking to save taxpayers some money and I know.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Let me think we got the studies that are done.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Or oh, how about we just take three billion dollars
in subsidies we give to oil and gas companies that
already turned billions in profits.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
How long did that take? Oh?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Wait, how about we just closed down the carried interest
loophole on hedge funds.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
That's one point three billion dollars a year.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Oh how about we stopped the two trillion dollars we've
given the defense contractors to build a fighter jet that
blows when everybody knows the next war is going to
be fought.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
With drones and blockchain whatever. That is? Holy shit, I
can't believe it.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I just saved us billions of dollars in eleven seconds.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Just call them it big.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Balls, right, I'm sorry, I'm being told that that nickname
is already taken. Well, can I get a doge nickname?
Disturbingly low hanging balls?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Really? Oh you've never heard of how would you even
know that? Oh? I'm sorry, but see this is where
the real money is.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
The real money, the money our free market ish system
uses to prop up corporate profit at the expense of
the taxpayer. Pharmaceutical companies get everything from our government, tax breaks,
research grants, patent extensions worth billions of dollars, and what
do we the people get for it? The highest drug
prices in the Western hemisphere, and for some reason, the
(16:34):
possibility of an infection in our paraneum. Why would you
take a drug that would give you an infection in
your paraneum? And why are they telling us about it
at dinner time? But you know what's so horrible about
(16:55):
our system now.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And the corruption that laid went in it, We're so
fecking numb to it.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
We actually touted tiny cracks in that exploitation as.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
Victory presidents, touting the first ever negotiations with pharmaceutical companies
to lower the cost of ten drugs.
Speaker 12 (17:11):
And today I'm proud to announce some Medicare has reached
the agreement with all manufacturers on all ten drugs selected
in the first round of negotiations.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Oh can it.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Be the companies we subsidized with billions of dollars car
allowing us the privilege to negotiate the price of ten
of their drugs, and ten is all of them? Right,
It would be embarrassing if it was a small drop
in the bucket, and that the American people didn't expect
that we should negotiate for all their facking drugs because
we've already paid for them with our subsidies.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I'll be going to the What we do in pharmaceutical
companies is like the worst shark tank deal in fing history.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Well, we're asking for billions of dollars of your money.
Oh what do we get ten percent of your company?
Now do we get a discount? Now what do we get?
Have you checked your perineum?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
We live in the.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Upside down, and don't blame the corporations. They are profits
seeking psychopaths that need the lowest wages and the cheapest
raw materials to drive their highest profits. But why do we,
the taxpayers, subsidize their psychopathy. That's the waste, fraud and
abuse in our system.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
That's what we should be going after, not the fantastical
over generous terrorist condom allowances.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
In another program, fifty million dollars plus another fifty million
dollars for condoms for Hamas.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know that one hundred million dollars for condoms? Condoms?
Does everybody know what a condom is?
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You're delivering the speech in an elementary school. Why wouldn't
they Why wouldn't they know what condoms are? Look, capitalism
is by definition exploitative.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It's how it operates.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
That's fine, But then government's role should be to ease
the negative effects on Americans of that exploitation, not subsidize
that treachery with our money. We're getting fit at a
ditty party and they're making us buy the baby oil.
Speaker 8 (19:49):
I want.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Siver, but man, I want doze to work.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I want better efficiencies.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I want to get rid of the alphabet agencies that
don't do enough make the Pentagon pass an audit. But
we are dozing in the wrong place if we want
to really change the system. Companies like Walmart McDonald's make
billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidized profits, yet many of
their hardworking employees need taxpayer subsidized public assistance. Airlines get
(20:21):
billions in bailouts that they use in stock buybacks and bonuses,
but if you're on food assistance, you're not allowed to
buy hot food with it because apparently heated entrees off
of winners. We are subsidizing the very system that makes workers'
lives harder in the first place, all in the name
of freedom and liberty. But the greatest restriction of freedom
(20:44):
in this country is in dei and pronoun pressure.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
It's free poverty and struggle and the government's role. I'm
not done.
Speaker 12 (20:55):
Yeah, badass, it's fine.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
The government's role should be to end the corruption that
enables that exploitation.
Speaker 13 (21:17):
That's what the Democrats should be doing every day, every day,
every day, at five pm sharp, the Democrats should go
live on Facebook and do the people's audit. Find the
absurdities and the remedies in our exploitative system. Get someone
like aoc your Jasmine Crockett or Chris Murphy or anybody
(21:39):
that doesn't sound like they're complaining why there's no more
frozen yogurt at the cafeteria in the villages.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I'm sorry you have no riz.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And we need something more than shouting. We need to
do something constructive to anchor our hopes. A new acronym
for a new age, It's not MAGA. It's something more
like make America not governed. In obviously negative aboard a
(22:16):
board Hodar, no divigilantes.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
But do something. When we come back, Rupa Baricharia will
be joining us. Don't go away right after the data.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
So my gut Tonight A distinguished lawyer served more than
twenty five years in federal government, including a special Master
of the September eleventh Victim Compensation Fund.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
He's welcome to the program, Rupa Batacharia.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Hello, Hi, Rupert, it is so nice to see you again.
Speaker 9 (23:21):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
You and I met in twenty sixteen. You had just
please explain.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
You became the what's called the special Master or the
special Paymaster of the nine to eleven Victim's Compensation form.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's right, through DOJ.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
Through DOJ. I was appointed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch
at the back end of the Obama administration and then
served for six years through the Trump administration and part
of the bid administration.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
And your job was to take this program that had
been appropriated by Congress and translate that legislation into action.
Speaker 9 (23:58):
That's right. And basically my job was to make sure
that those who were injured by the September eleventh attacks,
mostly because they were at the sites and breathing in
the toxic dust got the compensation that they deserved.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So you were a man and all.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And obviously I don't mean to just paraphrase or those things.
You were parasite on the system.
Speaker 9 (24:23):
Yes, apparently.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Is what do you think when you hear that kind
of talk about those in the government that are there
to try and faithfully execute what the legislation has already appropriated.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Honestly, it just makes me sad. I spent my entire
career in federal government until I left in twenty twenty two,
and throughout all administration, across party lines, and through all
of it, every single person that I worked with, agencies
across the government, their only goal is to administer the
programs that Congress passed and that the Executive Branch wants
(24:57):
administered according to its rules and its process. That's what
we do. That's our job.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And I was blown with it. So you were trying
to do your job.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And I showed up in your office one day with
a gentleman by the name of John Field from the
FIELDGA Foundation, who had lobbied very intensely to get it done,
and we just showed up and you were so gracious
to us, and you showed us around the office, and
I was so impressed with the way that you had
approached it with such compassion but also a toughness. And
(25:30):
you had a mantra on your and I feel like
an idiot because I'm sure it's like a managerial like
hang in there poster and you just be like, yeah,
it's a dumb thing that I put up on. But
it was a mantra. Do you remember what I'm talking about?
Speaker 9 (25:43):
I do.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
What did it say?
Speaker 9 (25:44):
It was our guiding principles, and it was the way
that we ran the program was we wanted to be
fair to claimants, faithful to the statute, and accountable to
the taxpayer.
Speaker 14 (25:57):
Come on, it.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Makes me, It makes me so angry. I want to
smash another mug. Oh wow, this thing's really coming out.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
You know, in the commercial break, I had a lightsaber
battle with one of the crew members.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And that's how I got it, and you did it.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
The program itself had very little waste, fraud, and abuse
because your mandate was to make sure that the people
who got it, who should get it, got it, and
the people who shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Get it didn't get it.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
That was my job.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
So this week or last week, I hear they're just
cutting twenty percent of the stabs of people and the
victim's compensation was one of those offices.
Speaker 9 (26:45):
It was the World Trade Center Health World General Health,
which is our sister program.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's the one that administers healthcare to people.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
That's the one that administers healthcare to people. Is it's
actually even more important because it provides these responders and
survivors who worked at the World Trade Center side at
the on at Shanksville who are now sick with the
health care that they need. Eighty five thousand people who
worked at one of the sides who lived in Manhattan
have been certified with one or more nine to eleven
(27:12):
related conditions. And so the cuts that were made were
indiscriminately made to cut almost twenty percent of the staff
of the health program, which would have been devastating.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And what are in practical terms, and you know that
people love a good conversation about administration and.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Paperwork. In practical terms, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Does that mean people wouldn't be able to access the program,
They wouldn't be able to sign up for the program,
they wouldn't be able to make their appointments, they wouldn't
get their medications.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
What would it.
Speaker 9 (27:42):
Mean all those things. It means that people who are
going to sign up for medical monitoring. Over one hundred
and forty thousand people are monitored. Ten thousand people tried
to sign up for monitoring last year. Those applications wouldn't
get processed or they would be delays in processing them.
They would be delays in certifying the conditions as nine
to eleven related, which means that there would be delays
in getting them healthcare and delays in getting their compensation
(28:05):
from the VCF, which depends on those certifications. It means
that additional conditions couldn't be determined as potentially eligible because
the studies that would have funded that were being taken away.
It means that the oversight of the program, which is
largely run through contract.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Actual people looking for they got.
Speaker 9 (28:27):
Cut to, got cut to.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
What are we doing for God's sake?
Speaker 9 (28:34):
And then they were rehired.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And then they were rehired two days later.
Speaker 9 (28:38):
About a week later, thanks to the intervention of the
New York Congressional delegation. Shout out definitely to Representative Andrew
Garbrino of Long Island.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Garbarino, by the way, for those of you in Long
Island come to Goburrinos, a fantastic Italian restaurant overlooking Long
Island Sound.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
But Senator Schumer and Jill Bramm were also instrumental.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
On Schumer and Jill Bann have ben on it. Jill
Grant especially had been on it forever. Hillary Clinton when
it first started, was an incredible advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
But the reason why I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It is because it's a very specific program. But in
the specificity of it, I think there's something universal here.
There's a ton of programs out there right now that
don't have Republicans in a congressional delegation, you know, trying
to fight for it, and they're gone.
Speaker 9 (29:30):
Yeah, if you don't have I mean, it's a sad commentary,
right that the only reason that program was saved is
because there are Republicans who are willing to go to
the President and ask him to reinstate it. And thankfully,
and I'm grateful that he did. But not every program
has that constituency, and we shouldn't live in a world
where the only programs that get saved are the ones
where Republicans are willing to put their stamp of approval
(29:55):
on right as.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Long as it demonstrates fealty to the leadership. Anything along
those lines were when you were administrating, What are the
frustrations within government? Is it what makes it so difficult
for government to be agile?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Are there too many regulations? Is there too much paperwork?
Do we need a moonshot to simplify things? Because I
think I would love the idea of more efficiency.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And a less adversarial role.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
It seems like any government program that's going to help people,
and I know this from the pac NAC, any government
program that's going to help people is adversarial, that the
people become adversarial with the people trying to get the money.
Speaker 9 (30:36):
So we have certainly tried not to be adversarial. That
was not our goal. But I think one of the
things that sort of gets lost in all this conversation
about efficiency is that part of the reason government is inefficient,
part of the reason that bureaucracies exist, is because we
are trying so hard to make sure that there isn't
ways for odd abuse in our programs. The reviews and
(30:57):
the processes and the things that seem to take a
long time that sort of hang us up. Are there
for a reason they're there because we want to make
sure that we are being appropriate stewards of the public's
money right and that we're handling these programs responsibly. Is
it too much? Sometimes? Maybe? But the way to solve
it isn't just to go in and discriminately cut people out.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I wonder, let me pitch this.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Is there a way if we were to make because
you know, there are tons of people that qualify for
food assistants who don't claim those benefits because it's difficult,
there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through,
and all those things, if the government didn't use waste,
fraud and abuse as a default, made that money simpler
to get like what it was in the pandemic, and
then bolstered the money on the back end searching for fraud.
(31:45):
Because it seems like we're making the three percent or
five percent of fraud, we're making the ninety five percent
pay a price for that. Is there a different way
to jigger those programs, make them easier to access and
bolster the fraud watched.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
On the back end of it.
Speaker 9 (32:01):
So I'll say two things. First of all, there is
there are very very routine and rigorous processes in place
at all federal agencies to try to prevent waste, boad
and abuse. There are the inspector generals. The VCF underwent,
there were the inspector generals. There's the Government Accountability Office,
OMB does a budget process to make sure that money
(32:23):
is being appropriately allocated to the right programs, and there's
annual fiscal audits. Right so every step of the way
there is something happening to try to make sure but
those programs, all of that process only runs if you
have the staff there to do it, and the staff
who understands the programs, who can answer questions, who has expertise.
The second thing I would say is that if you're
(32:45):
going to eliminate efficiency inefficiencies in programs, the people you
have to talk to are the people who are running
the programs. That's what I did when I started up
the LAT.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
I mean, okay, so that's it's a clauseline. I disagree
with you a little bit. Whenever I have a situation
like that, I rely on teenage boys. I find them
judicious and hormonally balanced, and I like to let them
loose in an organization.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And just go how about it, boys, It must be.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So incredibly frustrating to see that because I'm also like
I was very frustrated at the fights that had to
occur to get people who had earned benefits benefits, and
I imagine that's and to see how easily corporate interests
have infiltrated our process through lobbying. You know, the tax
code isn't complex because working class people made it that way.
(33:46):
You know, the regulations aren't complex and difficult to do
because small businesses want that. That's all the result of
corporate lobbies because they know how to gain the system.
Is how do we stop that part for infiltrating the
part that you want to do?
Speaker 9 (34:02):
So that's a really good question that I wish I
had an answer to. I'm not sure. I'm not sure
that I do. What I do know is that we have,
especially in the context of the nine to eleven programs,
the VCF, the World Trade Center Health program, we have
seen over and over and over again, these responders who
are sick go back to the Hill over and over
(34:26):
and over to try to keep these programs funded.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It's happening again.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
It's happening again.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
This Wednesday, you know, Yes, this Wednesday, they're going to
reintroduce some legislation to get funding right.
Speaker 9 (34:40):
The World Trade Center Health Program is facing a crisis.
It's still a few years out, and so that makes
it hard for Congress to focus on it. But the
fact of the matter is is that if you don't
know whether you're not you're going to be funded a
few years from now, you have to make decisions today
about how many people you take into the program, because
you need to make the money sure that the money lasts.
(35:01):
I had this exact same problem in twenty eighteen when
we reauthorized the VCP. I had to cut awards by
fifty percent because.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
We did in the middle of it. And I remember that.
Speaker 9 (35:10):
Because we didn't have enough money, and it was thanks
to you and thanks.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
To get it all those people. They were tireless and
many of them were very, very sick. The response to
give you a sense of what that is in the
middle of the VCF funding and the Victa's conversation, if
your cancer had just been if you had the unlucky
occurrence of having a cancer diagnosed in twenty twenty one
or twenty nineteen, when the fund had lost money, you
(35:34):
wouldn't have gotten the full benefit because they had to
resource guard.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But that's what's happening. You had to reach I read
it must have been heartbreaking.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
But that is exactly what is happening to the World
Trade Center Health program right now. And doctor Howard, who
was a Trump appointee, who was appointed in a who's
reappointed to his position in the last part of the
Trump administration, is going to have to make decisions very
soon about how many people he can continue to allow
into the program if they don't re up the funding.
And so members of Congress, including New York delegations, or
(36:05):
reintroducing that billo on Wednesday. It's it's already been agreed
to twice and been stripped twice, once in twenty two
two and once just in December when the funding bill
fell apart.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
From an omnibus bill they were going to sneak it
into like a transportation bill or something along.
Speaker 9 (36:22):
So hopefully this time around. You know, these these these
responders and these survivors, many of them have PTSD, many
of them have very severe health conditions. To have to
go up again and again and again to ask for
this funding is.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Just and again, this isn't just this program.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
This is happening across government, and this is what we
talk about when this system must be torn down, the
idea that people who need the funding, that's what government
exists to provide. It doesn't exist to provide a smoother
road for McDonald's. It exists to provide for people. And
that's got it's got to change.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And so I really appreciate you being on the show.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
And we're going to see, hopefully we can get that
group put on a chorial.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
Ladies on, We're going to take a.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Hei everybody. That is our show for the sevement.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
But before we go, we're gonna check in with your
host for the rest of this week.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Does he light it?
Speaker 12 (37:35):
Does he? I?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
SA Let me see, what are you going to be
covering for the people.
Speaker 14 (37:42):
Well, John, I'll tell you what I won't be covering.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
President Trump wasting government resources to check in on the
gold at Fort Knox.
Speaker 14 (37:50):
What a nothing burger.
Speaker 7 (37:52):
I mean, there is no need to investigate or count
it or do an inventory on Volt eighty four C.
Speaker 14 (37:59):
He's unhit and uninged.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Bault eighty four cy eighty four.
Speaker 14 (38:06):
C A cop.
Speaker 7 (38:08):
No, just trust that all the gold is there, John,
Every last.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Bar was that the sund of a gold bar falling
out of your part.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Yes, yes it was, but I brought that gold bar
from home.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
All right, deathly like everybody here, it is your moment
of dead.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
We're also going to Fort Knox because we want to
see if the gold is still there. Wouldn't that be
terrible we open up this Fort Knox has got it's
just solid granite that's five feet thick. The front door.
You need six musclemen to open it up. I don't
even think they have windows. Wouldn't that be terrible if
(38:53):
we opened it up to a snow gold there? Hey?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Explore more shows from The Daily Show podcast universe by
search The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy
Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Paramount Podcasts
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists. At Comedy Central.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
It's America's only source for news. This is the Daily
Child with your.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Host show Steward.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Oh, we are back from break our jewel, little cut shirt.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
We are back, Ladies and gentlemen, Women of the deal. Jo.
Mine is Jonespirh. We have got a show for you tonight.
I'm gonna be joined.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Later by Rupa Barataria. She is the legal director of all.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
They They know there about a Charias Lego, director of
Georgetown Laws, an institute for constitutional advocacy and protection.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know her as the individual who took over administrating
the nine elevens of Droga Act, Victims Compensation and health
care fund for nine eleven first responders and all the
people that lived down at Ground zero and Pennsylvania the Pentagons.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So deep state. She is deep state and I am
going to take it to her.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
The first Today, the United Nations marked the third anniversary
of the invasion of Ukraine by doing the only thing
the United Nations can do, passing a non binding resolution
asking Russia.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
To please stop, please take that putin.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Interesting, though, among the countries voting against the resolution were
North Korea, Belarus, Russia obviously, and the United States of America.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
They're saying Bruce, But.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I guess America doesn't want to set the precedent of
opposing bloody land grabs.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So green and landy.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
But hey, century being the good guys in America, you
know whatever. It's not the only thing Donald Trump is
busy disrupting these days. As you know, the Doge Project,
the Department of Government Efficiency, headed up by the nick
cannon of white people, Elon mush.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He's in.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It's in full effect, and it may surprise you, I,
for one, happen to be quite frankly Doge curious. I'm
actually somewhat Doge adjacent. So, mister President, if you would, we.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Have to solve the efficiency problem.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
We have to solve the fraud, waste, abuse, all the
things that have gone into the government.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yes, Now, if you had woken up from a coma
and heard nothing else that this man had said for
the last ten years, you might think to yourself, I
like this guy, I too believe government needs to be
more efficient to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse and
deliver the necessary services that Americans rely on more.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Agilely so what do we do?
Speaker 6 (03:51):
First?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Report through the Inspector General's reports that have addressed these things,
utilize computerishness to excise redundancies in the system, find ways
to more efficiently deliver the government assistant.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So many Americans rely on what's first?
Speaker 7 (04:05):
Elon Musk and his Doze team firing thousands of federal workers.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
They're trying to cut ten percent of the federal workforce,
which is two hundred thousand jobs.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Oh, have we determined if those are effective workers? Is
it based on performance?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Are you going in with the scalpels so that we
don't hit any vessels and vital organs?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy thirds.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
All, so straight amputation. We're just amputation.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
It's like we're treating public servants as some kind of underclass.
Speaker 8 (04:50):
The DC creature is like an animal infested with ticks
and parasites. Our money is lining these swamp creatures pockets.
You know what you call someone who sucks up resources
in return for nothing, You call them a parasite.
Speaker 10 (05:05):
And that is what the federal workforce has become. These saboteurs,
the dead enders, the DEI undercover agents.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
The fraudsters, liars, use globalists and deep state bureaucrats are
being sent backing, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Guy who tests water for appropriate levels of fecal matter?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
What you know? This is a stark emotional whiplash from
looking for efficiencies. But apparently our nation civil service is
now synonymous with waste, fraud and abuse, and magaworld is
celebrating with maximum folksy.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The gravy train. For a lot of these folks, it's
been on biscuit wheels.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's about to run off the dead gum tracks, and
it's about town.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
First of all, there is no way you actually talk
like that. No way, you're a congressman from Tennessee. You
didn't spring fully formed out of a primordial cracker barrel. Oh,
(06:21):
this help burocra see is a shot uga chook shoo.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
To a props boil on the flapjacks.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I'm just stringing food words together like nonsense.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Other reactions were just creepy.
Speaker 10 (06:40):
Those just dishing out spankings like Daddy Daycare.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I don't remember the spanking scene from Daddy Daycare. Oh
you must mean the gay porn film Daddy Daycare. I've
got it, Jesse, I get it. You were watching the
film that answers the question what would happen if a
(07:10):
bunch of dudes in a daycare?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And it's just stuck in your head.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
You know, I gotta tell you, I feel like you
can make efficiency recommendations or cuts without necessarily demonizing the
people who are only carrying out Congress's wishes.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But I feel like that they don't.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Here's Donald Trump's new Director of the Offices of Management
and Budget on his feelings about everyone who works for him.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected when they
work up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
We want them to not want to go to.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Work mission accomplished, because these workers are the worst, a
hive of scumming villainy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Star Wars reference mostly scum and villainy, just not the workers.
You know.
Speaker 10 (08:04):
Let me tell you a story about Chris. He's gonna
get dozed. And this guy's not a DEI consultant. This
guy's not a climate consultant. I finally felt one person
I knew that got doze, and it.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Hit me in the heart.
Speaker 10 (08:15):
We just need to be a little bit less callous
with the way, Harold, we talk about dozing people.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Do you watch your show.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yes, you certainly want to be callous, like referring to
someone losing their livelihood as being a child being spanked
at daycare.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
But I guess that's just the price of efficiency.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Doze is dropping force guided bombs into the thermal exhaust port.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
That is the death star of our bureaucracy.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
I love Star Wars, I just love the far but
Dozes Jedi level shit man. The FDA is looking to
rehire around three hundred people. The Trump administration will reverse
staffing cuts to the nine to eleven Health Fund.
Speaker 8 (09:10):
Hundreds of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration fired,
then nearly all will rehired days later.
Speaker 7 (09:16):
The Veterans Affairs Apartment reinstated terminated employees, and the USDA
is rescinding termination letters sent to people working on the
response to bird flu.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
When I said you are criminal parasites, obviously wasn't referring
to I have.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
The bird flu. Come back to work, please. But that's fine.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Staffing is only part of the Doge mission. There's other
crazy shit we could cut.
Speaker 10 (09:45):
We don't need to be wasting money on ridiculous items
like saying how fast shrimp can run on treadmills?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
One point five million to see the effect of yoga
on goats.
Speaker 10 (09:57):
A million dollars to study Mexican ducks in their wetland facilities.
Speaker 11 (10:00):
Studies on the effect of meditation on parrots, nearly a.
Speaker 10 (10:03):
Million to study of cocaine makes Japanese quail more sexually promiscuous.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I'm gonna go with yes on that last one.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I feel that I, not a scientist, can very comfortently
state pre experiment.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
If you are a Japanese quail with an eight.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Ball, you are getting your cloiqu assuct.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Oh, that may be the most favorite thing I've ever
said on this show. No, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Now obviously that list of programs, some of them are
being presented to seem even more ridiculous, and some of
those were completely invented out of thin air. But the
point is, why are we spending money on things that
seem obviously stupid, even though a government funded study on
HeLa monsters is how we ended up with ozepic. By
(11:25):
the way, quick pitch weight gain also would be solved
by Japanese quail cocaine. It's really the Star Wars of drugs.
Cocaine no downsides.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You'd be having your cloacas sucked in no time. All right.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
But even if this project of DOGE is animated by
malice for administrator and is seemingly rash and occasionally cutting
off critical government functions out of.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Haste, the savings alone will be worth it.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
On the doe's website, they posted sixteen billion dollars saved
justin canceled contracts.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Interesting if true.
Speaker 11 (12:15):
A closer look shows big problems. For example, DOZE claimed
acting a single immigration and customs contracts saved eight billion dollars.
Turns out that contract was worth a maximum of eight million.
Speaker 9 (12:28):
The Wall Street Journal estimates the actual amount saved at
not sixteen billion, but closer to two and a half.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Who much does asn't lied about saying something is sixteen
when it's.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Really two and a half a billion inches that's not
true either.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
See it seems that DOGE is struggling a bit to
get its footing from made up claims about fifteen million
dollars of taxpayer money going for gosen condoms to billions
in Social Security payments to dead people, a claim that
turned out to not be real.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Despite what you've heard, we.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Have millions and millions of people over one hundred years old.
Is there obviously fraudulent or incompetent. But if you take
all of those millions of people off Social Security, all
of a sudden we have a very powerful social security
with people that are eighty and seventy and ninety, but
not two hundred years old.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
True, you can't argue with that if only it were happening.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
But it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
We're not paying millions and millions of dead people's social
Security money. And even if there was a two hundred
year old man walking around, he wouldn't need Social Security.
He'd still be in Congress. Guys, I'm going to tell
you something. Cutting money shouldn't be this hard. I'm starting
(14:00):
to think that we as a country don't understand where
the real waste, fraud and abuse in our.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
System really is.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Maybe the savings we gleaned from cutting VA nurses and
iguana STD studies isn't where the real money is. Let
me see if I can noodle, you know what, let
me join doh, I'm gonna see if I can noodle
some ideas here.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I want to get down some certain ideas.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I want to do a get there we go.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I got that. Let's see what I happen to Here
is my want to be an accountant starter kit.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So I got it off Amazon for five thousand dollars.
My accountant told me not to get it. So we're
looking to save taxpayers some money and I know.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Let me think we got the studies that are done.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Or oh, how about we just take three billion dollars
in subsidies we give to oil and gas companies that
already turned billions in profits.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
How long did that take? Oh?
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Wait, how about we just closed down the carried interest
loophole on hedge funds.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
That's one point three billion dollars a year.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Oh how about we stopped the two trillion dollars we've
given the defense contractors to build a fighter jet that
blows when everybody knows the next war is going to
be fought.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
With drones and blockchain whatever. That is? Holy shit, I
can't believe it.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I just saved us billions of dollars in eleven seconds.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Just call them it big.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Balls, right, I'm sorry, I'm being told that that nickname
is already taken. Well, can I get a doge nickname?
Disturbingly low hanging balls?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Really? Oh you've never heard of how would you even
know that? Oh? I'm sorry, but see this is where
the real money is.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
The real money, the money our free market ish system
uses to prop up corporate profit at the expense of
the taxpayer. Pharmaceutical companies get everything from our government, tax breaks,
research grants, patent extensions worth billions of dollars, and what
do we the people get for it? The highest drug
prices in the Western hemisphere, and for some reason, the
(16:34):
possibility of an infection in our paraneum. Why would you
take a drug that would give you an infection in
your paraneum? And why are they telling us about it
at dinner time? But you know what's so horrible about
(16:55):
our system now.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And the corruption that laid went in it, We're so
fecking numb to it.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
We actually touted tiny cracks in that exploitation as.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
Victory presidents, touting the first ever negotiations with pharmaceutical companies
to lower the cost of ten drugs.
Speaker 12 (17:11):
And today I'm proud to announce some Medicare has reached
the agreement with all manufacturers on all ten drugs selected
in the first round of negotiations.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Oh can it.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Be the companies we subsidized with billions of dollars car
allowing us the privilege to negotiate the price of ten
of their drugs, and ten is all of them? Right,
It would be embarrassing if it was a small drop
in the bucket, and that the American people didn't expect
that we should negotiate for all their facking drugs because
we've already paid for them with our subsidies.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I'll be going to the What we do in pharmaceutical
companies is like the worst shark tank deal in fing history.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Well, we're asking for billions of dollars of your money.
Oh what do we get ten percent of your company?
Now do we get a discount? Now what do we get?
Have you checked your perineum?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
We live in the.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Upside down, and don't blame the corporations. They are profits
seeking psychopaths that need the lowest wages and the cheapest
raw materials to drive their highest profits. But why do we,
the taxpayers, subsidize their psychopathy. That's the waste, fraud and
abuse in our system.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
That's what we should be going after, not the fantastical
over generous terrorist condom allowances.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
In another program, fifty million dollars plus another fifty million
dollars for condoms for Hamas.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know that one hundred million dollars for condoms? Condoms?
Does everybody know what a condom is?
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You're delivering the speech in an elementary school. Why wouldn't
they Why wouldn't they know what condoms are? Look, capitalism
is by definition exploitative.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It's how it operates.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
That's fine, But then government's role should be to ease
the negative effects on Americans of that exploitation, not subsidize
that treachery with our money. We're getting fit at a
ditty party and they're making us buy the baby oil.
Speaker 8 (19:49):
I want.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Siver, but man, I want doze to work.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I want better efficiencies.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I want to get rid of the alphabet agencies that
don't do enough make the Pentagon pass an audit. But
we are dozing in the wrong place if we want
to really change the system. Companies like Walmart McDonald's make
billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidized profits, yet many of
their hardworking employees need taxpayer subsidized public assistance. Airlines get
(20:21):
billions in bailouts that they use in stock buybacks and bonuses,
but if you're on food assistance, you're not allowed to
buy hot food with it because apparently heated entrees off
of winners. We are subsidizing the very system that makes workers'
lives harder in the first place, all in the name
of freedom and liberty. But the greatest restriction of freedom
(20:44):
in this country is in dei and pronoun pressure.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
It's free poverty and struggle and the government's role. I'm
not done.
Speaker 12 (20:55):
Yeah, badass, it's fine.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
The government's role should be to end the corruption that
enables that exploitation.
Speaker 13 (21:17):
That's what the Democrats should be doing every day, every day,
every day, at five pm sharp, the Democrats should go
live on Facebook and do the people's audit. Find the
absurdities and the remedies in our exploitative system. Get someone
like aoc your Jasmine Crockett or Chris Murphy or anybody
(21:39):
that doesn't sound like they're complaining why there's no more
frozen yogurt at the cafeteria in the villages.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I'm sorry you have no riz.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And we need something more than shouting. We need to
do something constructive to anchor our hopes. A new acronym
for a new age, It's not MAGA. It's something more
like make America not governed. In obviously negative aboard a
(22:16):
board Hodar, no divigilantes.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
But do something. When we come back, Rupa Baricharia will
be joining us. Don't go away right after the data.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
So my gut Tonight A distinguished lawyer served more than
twenty five years in federal government, including a special Master
of the September eleventh Victim Compensation Fund.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
He's welcome to the program, Rupa Batacharia.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Hello, Hi, Rupert, it is so nice to see you again.
Speaker 9 (23:21):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
You and I met in twenty sixteen. You had just
please explain.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
You became the what's called the special Master or the
special Paymaster of the nine to eleven Victim's Compensation form.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's right, through DOJ.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
Through DOJ. I was appointed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch
at the back end of the Obama administration and then
served for six years through the Trump administration and part
of the bid administration.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
And your job was to take this program that had
been appropriated by Congress and translate that legislation into action.
Speaker 9 (23:58):
That's right. And basically my job was to make sure
that those who were injured by the September eleventh attacks,
mostly because they were at the sites and breathing in
the toxic dust got the compensation that they deserved.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So you were a man and all.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And obviously I don't mean to just paraphrase or those things.
You were parasite on the system.
Speaker 9 (24:23):
Yes, apparently.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Is what do you think when you hear that kind
of talk about those in the government that are there
to try and faithfully execute what the legislation has already appropriated.
Speaker 9 (24:37):
Honestly, it just makes me sad. I spent my entire
career in federal government until I left in twenty twenty two,
and throughout all administration, across party lines, and through all
of it, every single person that I worked with, agencies
across the government, their only goal is to administer the
programs that Congress passed and that the Executive Branch wants
(24:57):
administered according to its rules and its process. That's what
we do. That's our job.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And I was blown with it. So you were trying
to do your job.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And I showed up in your office one day with
a gentleman by the name of John Field from the
FIELDGA Foundation, who had lobbied very intensely to get it done,
and we just showed up and you were so gracious
to us, and you showed us around the office, and
I was so impressed with the way that you had
approached it with such compassion but also a toughness. And
(25:30):
you had a mantra on your and I feel like
an idiot because I'm sure it's like a managerial like
hang in there poster and you just be like, yeah,
it's a dumb thing that I put up on. But
it was a mantra. Do you remember what I'm talking about?
Speaker 9 (25:43):
I do.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
What did it say?
Speaker 9 (25:44):
It was our guiding principles, and it was the way
that we ran the program was we wanted to be
fair to claimants, faithful to the statute, and accountable to
the taxpayer.
Speaker 14 (25:57):
Come on, it.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Makes me, It makes me so angry. I want to
smash another mug. Oh wow, this thing's really coming out.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
You know, in the commercial break, I had a lightsaber
battle with one of the crew members.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And that's how I got it, and you did it.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
The program itself had very little waste, fraud, and abuse
because your mandate was to make sure that the people
who got it, who should get it, got it, and
the people who shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Get it didn't get it.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
That was my job.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
So this week or last week, I hear they're just
cutting twenty percent of the stabs of people and the
victim's compensation was one of those offices.
Speaker 9 (26:45):
It was the World Trade Center Health World General Health,
which is our sister program.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's the one that administers healthcare to people.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
That's the one that administers healthcare to people. Is it's
actually even more important because it provides these responders and
survivors who worked at the World Trade Center side at
the on at Shanksville who are now sick with the
health care that they need. Eighty five thousand people who
worked at one of the sides who lived in Manhattan
have been certified with one or more nine to eleven
(27:12):
related conditions. And so the cuts that were made were
indiscriminately made to cut almost twenty percent of the staff
of the health program, which would have been devastating.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
And what are in practical terms, and you know that
people love a good conversation about administration and.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Paperwork. In practical terms, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Does that mean people wouldn't be able to access the program,
They wouldn't be able to sign up for the program,
they wouldn't be able to make their appointments, they wouldn't
get their medications.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
What would it.
Speaker 9 (27:42):
Mean all those things. It means that people who are
going to sign up for medical monitoring. Over one hundred
and forty thousand people are monitored. Ten thousand people tried
to sign up for monitoring last year. Those applications wouldn't
get processed or they would be delays in processing them.
They would be delays in certifying the conditions as nine
to eleven related, which means that there would be delays
in getting them healthcare and delays in getting their compensation
(28:05):
from the VCF, which depends on those certifications. It means
that additional conditions couldn't be determined as potentially eligible because
the studies that would have funded that were being taken away.
It means that the oversight of the program, which is
largely run through contract.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Actual people looking for they got.
Speaker 9 (28:27):
Cut to, got cut to.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
What are we doing for God's sake?
Speaker 9 (28:34):
And then they were rehired.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And then they were rehired two days later.
Speaker 9 (28:38):
About a week later, thanks to the intervention of the
New York Congressional delegation. Shout out definitely to Representative Andrew
Garbrino of Long Island.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Garbarino, by the way, for those of you in Long
Island come to Goburrinos, a fantastic Italian restaurant overlooking Long
Island Sound.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
But Senator Schumer and Jill Bramm were also instrumental.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
On Schumer and Jill Bann have ben on it. Jill
Grant especially had been on it forever. Hillary Clinton when
it first started, was an incredible advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
But the reason why I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It is because it's a very specific program. But in
the specificity of it, I think there's something universal here.
There's a ton of programs out there right now that
don't have Republicans in a congressional delegation, you know, trying
to fight for it, and they're gone.
Speaker 9 (29:30):
Yeah, if you don't have I mean, it's a sad commentary,
right that the only reason that program was saved is
because there are Republicans who are willing to go to
the President and ask him to reinstate it. And thankfully,
and I'm grateful that he did. But not every program
has that constituency, and we shouldn't live in a world
where the only programs that get saved are the ones
where Republicans are willing to put their stamp of approval
(29:55):
on right as.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Long as it demonstrates fealty to the leadership. Anything along
those lines were when you were administrating, What are the
frustrations within government? Is it what makes it so difficult
for government to be agile?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Are there too many regulations? Is there too much paperwork?
Do we need a moonshot to simplify things? Because I
think I would love the idea of more efficiency.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
And a less adversarial role.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
It seems like any government program that's going to help people,
and I know this from the pac NAC, any government
program that's going to help people is adversarial, that the
people become adversarial with the people trying to get the money.
Speaker 9 (30:36):
So we have certainly tried not to be adversarial. That
was not our goal. But I think one of the
things that sort of gets lost in all this conversation
about efficiency is that part of the reason government is inefficient,
part of the reason that bureaucracies exist, is because we
are trying so hard to make sure that there isn't
ways for odd abuse in our programs. The reviews and
(30:57):
the processes and the things that seem to take a
long time that sort of hang us up. Are there
for a reason they're there because we want to make
sure that we are being appropriate stewards of the public's
money right and that we're handling these programs responsibly. Is
it too much? Sometimes? Maybe? But the way to solve
it isn't just to go in and discriminately cut people out.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I wonder, let me pitch this.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Is there a way if we were to make because
you know, there are tons of people that qualify for
food assistants who don't claim those benefits because it's difficult,
there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through,
and all those things, if the government didn't use waste,
fraud and abuse as a default, made that money simpler
to get like what it was in the pandemic, and
then bolstered the money on the back end searching for fraud.
(31:45):
Because it seems like we're making the three percent or
five percent of fraud, we're making the ninety five percent
pay a price for that. Is there a different way
to jigger those programs, make them easier to access and
bolster the fraud watched.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
On the back end of it.
Speaker 9 (32:01):
So I'll say two things. First of all, there is
there are very very routine and rigorous processes in place
at all federal agencies to try to prevent waste, boad
and abuse. There are the inspector generals. The VCF underwent,
there were the inspector generals. There's the Government Accountability Office,
OMB does a budget process to make sure that money
(32:23):
is being appropriately allocated to the right programs, and there's
annual fiscal audits. Right so every step of the way
there is something happening to try to make sure but
those programs, all of that process only runs if you
have the staff there to do it, and the staff
who understands the programs, who can answer questions, who has expertise.
The second thing I would say is that if you're
(32:45):
going to eliminate efficiency inefficiencies in programs, the people you
have to talk to are the people who are running
the programs. That's what I did when I started up
the LAT.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
I mean, okay, so that's it's a clauseline. I disagree
with you a little bit. Whenever I have a situation
like that, I rely on teenage boys. I find them
judicious and hormonally balanced, and I like to let them
loose in an organization.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And just go how about it, boys, It must be.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So incredibly frustrating to see that because I'm also like
I was very frustrated at the fights that had to
occur to get people who had earned benefits benefits, and
I imagine that's and to see how easily corporate interests
have infiltrated our process through lobbying. You know, the tax
code isn't complex because working class people made it that way.
(33:46):
You know, the regulations aren't complex and difficult to do
because small businesses want that. That's all the result of
corporate lobbies because they know how to gain the system.
Is how do we stop that part for infiltrating the
part that you want to do?
Speaker 9 (34:02):
So that's a really good question that I wish I
had an answer to. I'm not sure. I'm not sure
that I do. What I do know is that we have,
especially in the context of the nine to eleven programs,
the VCF, the World Trade Center Health program, we have
seen over and over and over again, these responders who
are sick go back to the Hill over and over
(34:26):
and over to try to keep these programs funded.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It's happening again.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
It's happening again.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
This Wednesday, you know, Yes, this Wednesday, they're going to
reintroduce some legislation to get funding right.
Speaker 9 (34:40):
The World Trade Center Health Program is facing a crisis.
It's still a few years out, and so that makes
it hard for Congress to focus on it. But the
fact of the matter is is that if you don't
know whether you're not you're going to be funded a
few years from now, you have to make decisions today
about how many people you take into the program, because
you need to make the money sure that the money lasts.
(35:01):
I had this exact same problem in twenty eighteen when
we reauthorized the VCP. I had to cut awards by
fifty percent because.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
We did in the middle of it. And I remember that.
Speaker 9 (35:10):
Because we didn't have enough money, and it was thanks
to you and thanks.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
To get it all those people. They were tireless and
many of them were very, very sick. The response to
give you a sense of what that is in the
middle of the VCF funding and the Victa's conversation, if
your cancer had just been if you had the unlucky
occurrence of having a cancer diagnosed in twenty twenty one
or twenty nineteen, when the fund had lost money, you
(35:34):
wouldn't have gotten the full benefit because they had to
resource guard.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But that's what's happening. You had to reach I read
it must have been heartbreaking.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
But that is exactly what is happening to the World
Trade Center Health program right now. And doctor Howard, who
was a Trump appointee, who was appointed in a who's
reappointed to his position in the last part of the
Trump administration, is going to have to make decisions very
soon about how many people he can continue to allow
into the program if they don't re up the funding.
And so members of Congress, including New York delegations, or
(36:05):
reintroducing that billo on Wednesday. It's it's already been agreed
to twice and been stripped twice, once in twenty two
two and once just in December when the funding bill
fell apart.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
From an omnibus bill they were going to sneak it
into like a transportation bill or something along.
Speaker 9 (36:22):
So hopefully this time around. You know, these these these
responders and these survivors, many of them have PTSD, many
of them have very severe health conditions. To have to
go up again and again and again to ask for
this funding is.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Just and again, this isn't just this program.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
This is happening across government, and this is what we
talk about when this system must be torn down, the
idea that people who need the funding, that's what government
exists to provide. It doesn't exist to provide a smoother
road for McDonald's. It exists to provide for people. And
that's got it's got to change.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And so I really appreciate you being on the show.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
And we're going to see, hopefully we can get that
group put on a chorial.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
Ladies on, We're going to take a.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Hei everybody. That is our show for the sevement.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
But before we go, we're gonna check in with your
host for the rest of this week.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Does he light it?
Speaker 12 (37:35):
Does he? I?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
SA Let me see, what are you going to be
covering for the people.
Speaker 14 (37:42):
Well, John, I'll tell you what I won't be covering.
Speaker 7 (37:44):
President Trump wasting government resources to check in on the
gold at Fort Knox.
Speaker 14 (37:50):
What a nothing burger.
Speaker 7 (37:52):
I mean, there is no need to investigate or count
it or do an inventory on Volt eighty four C.
Speaker 14 (37:59):
He's unhit and uninged.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Bault eighty four cy eighty four.
Speaker 14 (38:06):
C A cop.
Speaker 7 (38:08):
No, just trust that all the gold is there, John,
Every last.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Bar was that the sund of a gold bar falling
out of your part.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Yes, yes it was, but I brought that gold bar
from home.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
All right, deathly like everybody here, it is your moment
of dead.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
We're also going to Fort Knox because we want to
see if the gold is still there. Wouldn't that be
terrible we open up this Fort Knox has got it's
just solid granite that's five feet thick. The front door.
You need six musclemen to open it up. I don't
even think they have windows. Wouldn't that be terrible if
(38:53):
we opened it up to a snow gold there? Hey?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Explore more shows from The Daily Show podcast universe by
search The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy
Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Paramount Podcasts
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