2-22-25 The Weekend Hour 1: It’s the DOGE Apocalypse. Why Are People So Upset? Or Are They?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night, Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Of talk show host Michael Brown.

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
The Weekend with Michael Brown.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado. You're listening to the
Weekend of Michael Brown. I'm happy to have you joining
the program today. So a couple of the rules of
engagement that you know, but I've got to repeat them
because we always have new listeners, or you forget because
you slept last night. If you listen to me a
text message, which is easiest way to interact with the program.
The number on your message app is three three one

(00:30):
zero three three three one zero three. Just use the
keyword Mike or Michael, either one of those. Tell me
anything or ask me anything. And if you want to
see what I do during the week or on social media,
the most active place is on x formerly Twitter, and
that is at Michael Brown USA at Michael Brown USA.
So let's get started with I am I'm absolutely fascinated

(00:55):
by the reaction to what Elon Musk and Doze the
Department of Government Efficiency are doing in terms of cutting waste,
fraud and abuse, exposing the waste, fraud, and abuse, and
the lack of Democrats reaction like, oh, maybe we don't

(01:20):
like what you're doing here, but yeah, this seems to
be pretty wasteful to us, and you know, keep doing
what you're doing. But maybe, you know, maybe hello, we're
over here, we're Congress. Maybe you could talk to us
a little bit, or you could kind of tell us
what's going on. And I'm thinking, why if if you
have someone that you know, in your company, your business,

(01:41):
your family, whatever it might be, that has bitched and
moan about, you know, or promise, promise, promise forever that
they're going to do something, and they never ever do it,
and then you finally decide one day, you know what, well,
you know, screw this, I'm just going to do it myself.
And you start doing it. You really don't have a
room to bitch about it. It's kind of like shut

(02:02):
up and sit down because you've told me for years.
You know it might be a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever,
might be your best friend. You know, for years you
tell me you're gonna help me do X, Y and
Z us and you never do it, and so finally
you decide one day, I'm just gonna do this myself,
and then they start, well, that's kind of what I

(02:22):
see going on in the country right now. And I
don't I don't use this for show prep other than
I like to go to the Drudge Report, and you know,
it's probably one of the highest trafficked websites on the
entire Internet. I don't know. Usually they post the numbers.
Let's see if they have the numbers up here today. Yeah,

(02:45):
visits to Drudge as of this is well, they say
to twenty five today's February twenty second, So I don't
know how accurate these numbers are. But in the past
twenty four hours been twenty one million, nine hundred ninety
three thousand, five hundred twenty two people that looked to Drudge,
in the past thirty one days, the past month a

(03:07):
half a billion, five hundred and seventy million, five hundred
and eight thousand, six hundred and fifty one and in
the past year, six billion, six hundred and fourteen million,
one hundred ninety eight, two hundred and sixty people have
visited the Drudge Report. And of course they have you know,
hyperlinks to different uh newspapers all over the world, and
they used to have. Let's see if it's still here.

(03:30):
I don't really see. They used to have links to
different but now they have links to different news outlets,
different major newspapers around the world, like the Japan Times,
the Jerusalem Post, the Moscow Times, and over here they
have on the left side they have hyper links to

(03:52):
different websites around here domestically, like they've got the just randomly,
the Chicago Sun Times, the Daily Beast, the Free Press,
Fox News, NBC News, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, some Aphore.
So they just have different links, and I often go
to it. Now I know that since Drudge, since Matt
Drudge himself sold the Drudge Report, or no longer has

(04:17):
any editorial control over it, whatever the arrangement is, it's
gone decidedly left. But I still look at it, and
rarely I Sometimes there'll be such outlandish headlines because the
headlines oftentimes don't match at all what you read in
the story that's linked to the headline. But today the

(04:38):
main story is they got a picture of a town
hall meeting that some you know, dumbass congressman is holding.
I don't know where it is, and I don't care
where it is, but listen are these headlines Republicans take
heat at town halls, Anti Trump rant gets standing oh
torches the quote tyrant and a doge uproar. So out

(05:03):
of curiosity, I clicked on the doge uproar and it
takes me to a Washington Post article, which happens to
have the same photograph, and the headline over in or
over on the Washington Post is this back in their districts?
GOLP lawmakers get an earfull on Doge and Musk. And

(05:24):
the subhead says town halls from Wisconsin to Oregon. And
I found that interesting because Wisconsin and Oregon are two
fairly liberal states. Town halls from Wisconsin to Oregon grew
testy this week as concerned voters showed up to vent.
Of course, my first thought was concerned voters or do

(05:47):
you mean anti Trump voters or anti Elon Musk people
or big government proponents? I mean, who are these voters?
And the dateline is Roswell, Georgia. Story goes like this.
I don't want to read you the whole story. I'm going
to give you a taste of the story. The crowd
packed in the city hall and filled an over full

(06:09):
room with one question above all for the Republican congressman,
what did he think of Elon Musk's slash and burn
mission to shrink the federal government. Well, that's pretty packed
with emotional laden words. The crowd packed it. They had
one question above all, and that was that Elon Musk
is going on a slash and burn mission. Second paragraph

(06:33):
says their Atlanta suburb, in a solid red district was
hardly a hub of the liberal resistance, but hundreds had
shown up to confront Congressman Richard McCormick in person. Now,
each argument from the lawmaker brought a new round of shouts, groans,
and booze, to the point that they quote McCormick is saying, Hey,

(06:54):
if you're going to just yell at me, that's not
going to be an effective town hall five minutes into
defending Musk us doge service. But we're pissed, A woman shouted. Now,
I got all sorts of questions that never get answered
based on these first three or four paragraphs of the story.
Were they really were they truly conservative voters, were they

(07:17):
even from the district, or were they government employees for example?
Showing up bitching and moaning about how they've lost their job.
Or are they, you know, true blue voters. Are they
liberal voters or the Democrat voters who showed up in
mass to disrupt a town hall? And nothing tells me
about that, But you're led to believe that all across

(07:39):
the country that people are upset about these layoffs. For example,
listening to this paragraph, the backlash extends far beyond federal
workers in the Beltway, reaching purple districts they will decide
control of Congress in twenty twenty six in swing states
like Georgia that help return Trump to the White House.
Layoffs just hit the Atlanta based seed funding freezers. Funding

(08:02):
freezes have halted clean energy projects champion by President Joe Biden.
Oh maybe that's the group that's showing up, Which causes
me to ask, Now, this audience is not a fair representation.
And when I ask you to send me a text
message to tell me whether or not you're upset, or

(08:22):
you approve or disapprove however you want a word. I
wish I could figure out way to do a poll
on the text messaging service. But until I do, the
best I can do is just ask you this text
the word Mike ro Michael to three, three, one zero three?
Are you upset about all these cuts? H Are you
in favor of these cuts? Because what and I you

(08:44):
know what, I'm not going to say anything until after
the break, so we'll just do this. That's the question
I want to pose to this vast audience across the country.
Are you four or against these cuts? And if you
want to add some commentary tooths that, that's fine, But
I'll tell you what I think coming up next to
the Weekend with Michael Brown. Again, the message app is

(09:06):
numbers three, three, one zero three. Just use the word
keyword Mike or Michael. Follow me x at Michael Brown USA.
I'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the Weekend
with Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me. So
we're talking about I'm detecting and I'm having a difficult

(09:27):
time ascertaining how real this is because you know, I
don't trust the cabal, that unholy alliance between big tech,
the ruling elite and big tech, the ruling elite and
the dominant media. I just don't trust them at all.
In fact, when I read a story like I just
told you about in the Washington Post, I got questions

(09:50):
because and they don't. They never give me a enough
data that will tell me that this is an objective
story or not an objective story. And you might say
to yourself, Michael, your dumbas you're reading the Washington Post,
what do you expect? Well, I would, I would expect,
and as long as I continue to expect, I know

(10:10):
I'll be disappointed. But at some point maybe we'll actually
get some real journalism in the country. But I would
really like to know. Okay, who are these people showing up?
When you read through the rest of the story, They
they always have to give you an example, right, I mean,
it's it's basic journalism kind of you know, what's the
premise here is that people are upset about these cuts

(10:31):
and then they give you an example. And the example
I think just you know, people say I'm an a hole,
and maybe I am, But I don't think it's that
I'm an a hole. I think it's that I'm a
realistic person. I live and deal in reality in the
real world the way things are now. I also deal

(10:53):
in the way things I would like things to be.
And I tried as best I can in my sphere
of influence the world to fit what I want and
I know that may be crazy, but that's what I do.
So if if you're a total jerk, you and I
are probably not going to be friends because I don't
have time for that. So I'm very careful about who

(11:15):
I should, you know, choose to socialize with and be
friends with, because I don't need that in my life.
So I go through the story further and we get
to this, and it's a tear jerker. Now, before I
say anything about this story, I've been fired in my life.

(11:36):
I've lost a job because of a layoff. I've lost
a job because a startup that some friends and I started.
We went along for several years and we got to
the point where we couldn't get the product commercialized and
so we boom were you know, we ran out of
money and the investors said, hey, it was a nice try.
We still like the idea, but we can't commercialize it,

(11:58):
so boom It's on. And look now, so now what
do I do next? And then I have, for example,
you know, in radio, you have sponsors that you know,
really pay most of your income. You know, your salary
accounts for a small part and sponsorships account for a
larger part of it. And you know that ebbs and flows,

(12:21):
and you might go six months or a year and
have a whole bunch of sponsors, and then the next
three or four months you don't have very many sponsors
because they come and go. That's the real world. May
not like it, particularly when I don't have that many sponsors.
I don't like it, but that's that's the way it works.
And so I know what it's like. Look, you're you're

(12:41):
listening to the guy you got eviscerated by the media
during Hurricane Katrina. I know what it's like. And look,
probably when you get a viscerated, it's not public like
it was with me. So I get it. And I've always,
like in this building right now where I'm sitting in Denver, Colorado,
in iHeartMedia. Some good friends I have been laid off
in the past, and you know, I've tried to keep

(13:04):
up with several of them and they've gone on to
greater things. But for that moment that they lose the job,
my heart breaks for those people because suddenly you're going
along and you're happy and you're doing what you're doing,
maybe you're doing what you love what you're doing, than boom,
next thing you know, it's out of here. So I
get that. I totally understand that. What I don't get though,

(13:26):
is that somehow we're going to treat people that are
either trying to become a government employee or are a
government employee somehow different from someone in the private sector.
Why should that be any different. I don't think there
should be any difference whatsoever. We can feel sorry, and
we can have sympathy and we can have compassion for

(13:48):
those that are losing their jobs at the same time
that we recognize that we can't sustain what we're doing.
We simply cannot sustain it. So back on November five,
we as an nation came together and in a majority said, hey, listen,
we got to change directions of this country. And in fact,
I you know, I blame the Democrats as much as

(14:09):
I give credit to Republicans for the election of Donald Trump,
because the Democrats overreached. They spent way damn too much money,
and we woke up and said, oh crap, look at
this inflation. Look what's going on. We're week across the world.
We're not respected anymore. We can't keep doing it. And
from my entire life, in fact, I've experienced myself as

(14:32):
the Undersecretary Waste, fraud and abuse. So we elect somebody
who comes in takes a chainsaw, no pun intended, but
you know Argentina, the Argentinian President Malay actually gave Elon
Musk a gold plated chainsaw as a gift when they
were at Seapack. So we take a chainsaw and start

(14:53):
trying to trim the government, and oh my gosh, it's
like the end of civilization. And we get headlines like
I told you on Drudge about, Oh, Republicans are taking
heat anti Trump, rant torches, the tyrant doze uproar, listen
to this story. I don't know this woman. Do I
feel sorry for yes, but I also kind of want to,

(15:14):
you know, I kind of want to metaphorically slap her
around and say, wake up. This this is the real world.
Anna Foy teared up as she waited with her mother
to watch McCormick's town Hall from Overflow. The thirty three
year old Army reservists said the Bureau of Land Management
had abruptly rescinded a job offer wrangling wild horses. She

(15:40):
had talked to somebody in this congressman's office and was
there to do a follow up, which I told her.
If she had asked my advice, I would have said,
it's a complete waste of time for you to do that,
But nonetheless she did it. She said, I've worked six
years to develop my resume around this job, which tells
me you've been doing something because you had to have

(16:02):
something to put on your resume. So, whether it was
volunteer work or actually you know, paid for work, you
were doing something to build your resume. She says, I
don't know what to do. Okay, well, guess what this is.
What happens. That may have been your dream job, but

(16:25):
there could have been twenty thirty forty fifty, one hundred
other people who also saw that as their dream job,
and now you're not going to get it. You don't
always get your dream job. And again, I'm not trying
to be a jerk. I'm just saying that's the real world.
But somehow we're supposed to treat them differently. I'm not

(16:48):
saying you shouldn't have sympathy for them. I'm not saying
you shouldn't feel sorry that she didn't get her dream job.
How many of you, how many of you have ever
sought out a dream job and didn't get it, or
you got it, and then six months later or maybe
even six years later, the company goes busted and you're
out it. You're no longer in that dream job, or

(17:08):
you may have gotten your dream job and in the
first you know, few weeks, you realize, oh, this isn't
what I expect it at all. It's the reality of
the world and the fact that people are now responding,
or at least they want us to believe that people
are responding, and that all these Republican congressmen are going

(17:28):
back and they're getting an earful about how bad these
things are. I have to question whether that's really true
or not, because what we're getting is what we ask for,
and what we're getting is something that is necessary. So
let's talk about that next, because, whether you believe it
or not, what is happening in terms of cutting government

(17:51):
jobs and cutting government waste, fraud, and abuse is necessary
to the survival this republic. Hey, welcome back to the
weekend with Michael Brown. Really glad to have you with me. Hey,
a big shout out to Eugene, Oregon, a new affiliate.
Congratulation Eugene. We got Barry listening in Eugene. Glad to

(18:12):
glad to have you on board, Barry. You know, if
you like what we do on the weekend, be sure
and subscribe to the podcast on your podcast app search
for this show called The Situation with Michael Brown. The
Situation with Michael Brown. Once you find out on your
podcast app, hit subscribe and that will download all five
days of the weekday program that I do from six

(18:34):
to ten mountain time here in Denver, Colorade. I'll plusly
get you the weekend program too, so you'll have all
the Michael Brown that you need. Now to the text messages, Wow,
I think I opened a can of whoop pass here
as Goober number seventy five ninety two says, I don't

(18:54):
recall seeing such crocodile tears for the fired Keystone Pipeline employees.
In fact, if I recall correctly, when they shut down
the Keystone XL pipeline, those people include the like coal miners.
Anytime the Democrats, you know, shut down jobs, they told
them to go learn to code. Yeah, go learn to code.
Remember how that was. That was a buzzword buzzphrase for

(19:15):
a while, learn to code? Yeah. Uh, And let's see
there's one. There's one where I want a couple more
I want to share with you. Oh wait, it's from
a federal worker. Hang on, hang on, I'm in favor

(19:36):
of the cuts. Uh here it is good. Been number
forty six seventy nine, Michael, I'm a federal employee thirty
four years counting my army service. Hell yeah, I said
both the cuts in all caps. I've seen the waste
my entire time in government. If you've ever served in government,
you have seen the waste. And you know you have

(19:57):
co workers that you want to just, you know, kind
of shove out the window, shove them out the door
because you're carrying their load, because they're not doing squad.
So it's it's fascinating to me that suddenly the cabal
has gone into gone into action. And I think that's

(20:18):
the genesis of this Washington Post story, is that now
they're going to start feeding you that oh my gosh,
we're overreacting and we're cutting too much, which reminds me
of earlier this week. I played a quick SoundBite. You're
going to hear it again. It was from Kevin O'Leary.
Kevin O'Leary, is you know he's a the Shark tank guy. Well,

(20:40):
here's a billionaire who has spent who has built, you know,
created thousands and thousands of jobs and created all sorts
of companies and been very successful being an entrepreneur. He
was on CNN, and CNN was just they were panic stricken.
Oh my gosh, those is just cutting too deep. We're

(21:02):
cutting way up, We're cutting way too much. Like you've
heard the story about the cuts in Yosemite National Park.
And now I don't know whether this is really a
true story or not. But because I've been in the
government before, it wouldn't surprise me that it would be
a true story. So if it turns out to be
not a true story, I'm only using it as an example,

(21:23):
and that is they fired the guy that had the
key to all the restrooms. What for Yosemite National Park.
You had one guy that had the keys to all
the public restrooms inside the park and you fired him. Well,
first of all, you had one guy with one set

(21:43):
of keys to all the restrooms in Yosemite. I don't
buy the story at all, but I think it's a
great example of if that's what's happening, then that doesn't
show it shows. Not only that, Yeah, we probably should
rearrange how we're operating the National parks. But think of
the stupidity of giving one guy all the keys. Can

(22:06):
you just see he's walking around. He's eighty seven years old,
he's wearing suspenders, he can barely walk, he's got a cane.
Maybe he's got a walker, and and he can barely
walk because he's got this key ring on his belt
that's kind of pulling his pants down over hero's right side.
In fact, maybe it's back to the back of a
little bit, and can kind of see his butt crack
a little bit. And he's kind of walking around with

(22:26):
all these keys. And those are all the keys all
the bathrooms in Yosemite. One guy, one guy. Yeah, well
start cutting. Here's Kevin O'Leary and listen closely to what
he points out. CNN is dumbfounded by his statement. Oh,
I guess it would help if I hang on a minute.
I forgot to plug in my cable. Where's my cable?

(22:48):
I was so I was so wound up reading the
Washington Post story that I I forgot to plug in
a cable. So we'll do this again. It's amateur hour
on the Weekend with Michael Brown.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
I think the issue is they're not whacking enough.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
There's this concept in private equity when you get a
bankrupt company and you go in there, you cut twenty
percent more than your initial read, and then you find
like a pool of mercury. The organization jails back together again.
Always cut deeper, harder when there's fat and waste.

Speaker 5 (23:21):
The FAA, it's.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Not the people.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
The code is cobalt, it's from the sixties. It needs
cap X put into it for the technology be upgraded
to make it safer.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Fat like a chicken.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
All of these agencies are like big fat chickens dripping
over barbecues of fat. This is the best barbecue I've
ever seen. But I don't think it's happening fast enough.
They're not cutting enough. Keep slashing, keep packing. While you
have a twenty four month mandate before the midterms. Cut cut, cut, cut, cut,
more more cutting.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Believe me, it's gonna work out just great.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Everybody got them to.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Cut everything, because if you don't see what they're doing
and they can't show you that they're adding value, you whack.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
But you're whack, and he's right. You can always find
places to cut now, of course, you know, the stupid
little CNN reporter at has to throw in, Well, why
about the people that carry the nuclear codes? They're not
going to get fired. No, they work inside the White House.
They work inside the Presidential Emergency Operations Center in the

(24:31):
basement of the East Wing. I've been there myself many
many times, and that's where the White House comms are located.
And they're not going to get rid of those guys.
But think about what they're doing there. Oh, so you
think we all to cut the people that carry the
nuclear codes. No, you dumbass, that's not what we're saying.
But the woman that wanted to be a wrangler for

(24:52):
the wild horses, Uh, maybe we do cut that. Because
while I'm not opposed to wild horses, and while I'm
not pose to whatever we're doing with wildhorses, or maybe
i am, I don't because I really don't know what
we're doing with the wild horses, with the wild mustangs, whatever,
whatever we're doing with them. Maybe that's something we shouldn't
be doing. Maybe it's something that maybe you know, the
state of Utah, state of Nevada ought to be doing.

(25:14):
Maybe we shouldn't be doing that. So I feel sorry
for the woman who is searching and seeking her dream
job and now she's you know, the job offer was
rescinded because of DOSEE. Well, you know, again, welcome to
the real world. But I think the point that we're missing,
and that I have to warn you about, is that

(25:35):
this is the cabal in action. When if I were
to read you the entire Washington Post story and you
just took it at face value, which I know most
of you, all of you would not do, you would
have so many questions, Well, why don't you tell us
who are these people? Tell us more about them, Where
did they come from, how do they get there? Why

(25:57):
are they focused on this one particular congressman. Because if
if they're complaining about, say the Centers for Disease Control,
which seems to have really screwed up let's say COVID nineteen,
the stars CoV two problem, probably they ought to be
cut Maybe you ought to cut them down and have
some people that are doing real scientific work as opposed

(26:18):
to whatever pseudoscience they were practicing during the COVID nineteen pandemic.
So I think they have a vested interest. Well, I
have a vested interest. I have a vested interest in
that if you looked, you know, I got my I
have a complicated tax return, so I won't be filing

(26:39):
it until every year I have to ask for an
extension because I get all these forms coming in from
different investments and different companies I'm involved in, and so
it takes me a while to get it. But I've
already gotten my W two from this company. And I
looked at it, and I looked at the amount that
was withheld from taxes, and I try to make my

(27:00):
withholding pretty much close to what I'm going to have
to owe, you know, based on everything else, all other
sources of income. But I look at just the withholding
for federal income taxes from iHeartMedia and Premier Radio Networks,
and I look at the FIKA and the Social Security
and the Medicare and the Medicaid, and I'm like, holy crap,

(27:23):
what could he imagine what I could do with that money?
Even ten percent of that money? Give me ten or fifteen,
twenty percent of that money back and I'll help I'll
help turn this economy around. Yeah, but that's money, a
lot of which is going to be wasted. You've probably
gotten your W two or maybe maybe you're a ten

(27:46):
ninety nine employee. Whatever you are, you look at what
you pay. Go look at last year's tax return. Don't
look at your stupid refund. If you're getting a big refund,
that's a mistake you're making. I can't help you with.
You need to fix that, because you're just loaning the
government money that actually belongs to you that you could
have had throughout the year. I guess you don't have
the discipline to save you money throughout the year. I

(28:08):
understand people do that. I get it. I think it's wrong,
but I get it. What you ought to do is
go look last year's tax return and forget your refund,
and look at what the total amount was that you
paid in federal income taxes, and then look at what
you paid and fight, look at what you paid in
Social Security, look at what you paid in Medicare and Medicaid,
and then realize that a lot of those tax dollars

(28:31):
that you spent was not even near enough to pay
for what we're doing. And on top of what you paid,
we had to go borrow forty three percent more in
order to cover all of our expenses. If we If
you operated your household like that you'd be in chapter
seven bankruptcy. If if you operated your business like that,

(28:52):
you'd be in chapter seven or chapter eleven bankruptcy. And
that's where the country is. So yes, I feel sorry
for people that are losing their job. And I know
that it's rough, it's tough, and it's gonna hurt. But
you know what, it happens to all of us in
the private sector all the time. So I would suggest

(29:15):
learn the code. Huh. How does that feel? It was
an awful thing to say then, and it's an awful
thing to say now. But if they're gonna throw it
at us, I'll throw it right back at you. It's
the Weekend with Michael Brown. He leus send me a
text message on your message out the numbers three three,
one zero three, use the keyword Mike or Michael either one.
Follow me on X go follow me on X right

(29:37):
now at Michael Brown USA, be right back. Hey, welcome
back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have
you with me. The text line number is three three
one zero three. As I say, always remind you I
read every text message. I don't respond to many of them.
By read every single message you send and you can

(29:58):
send it any time day or not twenty four hours
so days a week and I always read them. Uh,
let's go to CNN. Anderson Cooper three p. Sixty is
talking to Kara Swisher, who is probably one of the
most liberal columnists that we have in the entire country.
Claims that one time jo Oh I was a conservative.
One time, well, she's gone off.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
The deep end much more now on Elon Musk and
dosh and who's running in among many other things, showing
us as Kara Swisher who knows Elon Musk well and
is offer written about him.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
She's an incourager's I or of.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Course she's host of podcasts, the podcast On with Kara Swisher,
co host of Pivot, and we'll are happy to say
seen end contributor.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
So Kara who runs doge.

Speaker 6 (30:36):
This is not a you know, a kumblea group of
people making decisions. This is Elon Musk making decisions or
presenting things to president and the president just shakes his head.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
I doubt he.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, that's guess what. That's how it works. The president
has a bazillion decisions to make every day. Now, I
know that Joe Biden didn't make the only decision Joe
Biden made every day was am I going to have
chocolate or vanilla ice cream, a Rocky Road, whatever it
was he liked, And can I take my nap at
one o'clock or two o'clock. That was all Joe Biden
never decided. But for example, when I work for Bush,

(31:09):
Bush was making decisions constantly. I mean every day was
you know, from six am until you know, late at night,
was decisions, decisions, decisions. So for her to point out
that somehow this is weird that Elon Musk is out
there looking at everything and his teams looking at things,
and they come and bring their recommendations to Trump and
Trump makes the decision, and somehow that's supposed to be bizarre. No, Kara,

(31:32):
I think you would know this since you're an inside
the belt. Why you're insider, that's exactly the way it's
supposed to work.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Very much knows a lot of the specifics of what
they're doing.

Speaker 6 (31:40):
But diving into agencies like this, they're like they're a
marine force attacking a beach.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
That's what they're doing. They're creating fear.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
You wait a minute, they're storming the beaches. Well, yes,
we've been asking for somebody to storm the beaches for decades,
So somebody is now storming the beaches now is you know,
this is a chicken and egg question. Are they creating
fear or are the people fearful because someone's now looking

(32:09):
at them. It's because now someone's looking at them because
they've been going along. I forget who the new uh,
the new director of the Small Business Administration, the SBA is.
But she was on television this week and you know,
the Fox News or somebody was, you know, welcoming her
as the new director of the Small Business Administration. And

(32:31):
she was walking through the SBA headquarters in downtown d C.
And she was saying, look at this, and she was walking,
you know, from different floors, and I would guess less
than ten percent of the workforce was there. And she
was announcing, you know, come Monday, this is changing. Come mondy,
you either come back to work or you're out of
a job. What's wrong with that? And if that creates fear,

(32:55):
we're supposed to like, oh, poor little pooh, pooh, you
poor little babysicals you to be fearful. Well you know what,
maybe that means that you're not really doing any real work.

Speaker 6 (33:07):
Creating a narrative about their coming. They're coming to get you,
and you know what they're really trying to do, if
you what I think they're trying to do is get
control of this data for purposes of uniting it in
some way, using AI, probably Elon's AI company.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
To do so. So I'm always.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Thinking, and again, what's wrong with that? If we can
use artificial intelligence to identify waste, fraud and abuse and
places that we ought to be cutting, then I'm all
for it because every single thing we've tried in the
past has failed to work. So here is a great
example of CNN Anderson Cooper, Cara Swisher trying to create

(33:49):
fear and trying to establish a narrative that, oh my gosh,
just just slash and burn. Okay, I think we kind
of wanted slash and burn, didn't we to do.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
What they're after, which is data?

Speaker 6 (34:02):
And that's to me, the US government has the biggest
trobe of that on the planet right now.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Yes, I mean, you know, there's been analyst's talk about
you know, they've talked about driving a wedge. People are
trying to drive aways between him and President Trump. Where
do you see this going? I mean, do you do
you see Elon Musk as a presidence for the next
four years.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
I do.

Speaker 6 (34:21):
I thought at first they might fight, but Elon's done
a really good job. When someone, I think it was
Maggie Huberman, said that Trump is a one ring circus.
But Trump likes this other ring happening with Elon because
it casts attention on him in the same way. And
I think Elon's been very deft about playing. You know,
Trump is the alpha.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
I'm the beta, but he's no beta, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
He's been very solicitous of him, and I think Elon's
very manipulative in a very clever way here in terms
of I'm just here to help the boss that kind
of thing, when in fact he's he has his own
interest in well, contracts or data.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Who doesn't have their own interest Don't you have your
own interests at work? Of course you have the you know,
I have the interests of iHeartMedia and Premier. I have
They're part of my interest. But I'm also selfish. I'm
selfish in a good way. I love my work. I
love what I do, and I need to produce a

(35:15):
good product in order to keep you know, iHeart happy.
And to make premiere money and to make iHeart money
because when they make money, I make money. So there's
nothing wrong with this. This is the way again. I
just don't understand these people. What world do they live in?
Because that is the real world.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Ada right, i'man The idea of we heard from prison
of Trump to say that he didn't know anything about
the potential conflicts is just you know, it's funny.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, it doesn't. That's ridiculous. Of course, he shouldn't be
anywhere near the Defense Department.

Speaker 5 (35:45):
He shouldn't be why and by the way, he is
arms linked from the Defense Department because these are special
federal employees that have been hired through the appropriate process
through the Officer Management Budget in the White House Personnel Office,
and they are in there.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
And does uh Musk have contracts with d D? Yes
he does. Should he be should be a Should there
be a Chinese firewall between him and those contracts? Yes
there should. But should someone still look at those contracts,
Yes they should. And if we're going to start going
down the path of oh, you have a contract with

(36:25):
the government, so you can't do anything, then you want
to take that to its logical extent. Boy, a lot
of people are going to lose their job if we
start doing that, which of course would be fine with me.
It's the weekend with Michael Brown. Don't forget the text
numbers three three wednes zero three. Use the key word
Mike or Michael. Be right back.