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March 10, 2025 • 33 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for putting it in my head.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Dragon.

Speaker 3 (00:02):
Now, the next time I pull a plastic spoon out
of the dispenser at the gas station, I'm screaming, Jackpot.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
You're welcome, happy to serve, happy to please. I'm watching
sixty Minutes last night. I didn't watch the whole show.
I wasn't interested in the other stories. That's particularly interested
in the story and on the website today over at
cbsnews dot com the sixty Minutes page, the headline is
what America is losing as President Trump fires independent government watchdogs.

(00:36):
The story starts out like this.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
In his way and among the first to go, we're
at least twenty leaders of federal offices that were created
by Congress to hold administrations accountable. You may not know it,
but after Watergate, Congress set up a system to audit
the executive branch and ensure the rights of federal workers.

(01:00):
Those offices became known as watchdogs. Congress has guarded their
independence from politics so that no president can use these
powerful auditors to punish enemies or hide their own fiascos.
But now, for the first time in forty four years,
President Trump has fired these officials in mass One of

(01:23):
them is Hampton Dellinger, who has a warning about what
America is losing as it's firing the watchdogs.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Now they keep referring to these as watchdogs, and that's
I think that's my purpose, because they want you to
have the impression that these individuals. Every agency, every department
has them. They're called inspectors general, and they are watchdogs

(01:58):
in the sense that they have a specific duty. But
it's not that the duty that they have is wrong.
It's just that the duty that they're engaged in is
not really accomplishing what we want accomplished. And inspector general

(02:21):
is an auditor, and you would think that. For example,
when iHeart goes through it's because it's a publicly traded company.
When it goes through its audit, they check on things
to see if we're in compliance with the rules and
regulations that we have to follow. They check what our

(02:44):
finances are as you know, up against dearly accepted accounting principles,
the gap principles. They make certain we do all the
reporting requirements, but the audit doesn't necess necessarily tell us
whether or not management is, for example, spending money the

(03:09):
right way, like to maximize profit. There are many things
that I heart does, and I'm using Ieart as an example.
I suppose some risk, but there are some ways that
I heart does things that As an individual who once
had oversight of a number of employees much much greater

(03:32):
than I heart and had a budget much much much
larger than I heart, I know a little bit about
how this works, and I would manage things differently.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
I would do things differently, but that's not my job here.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I just look at some things that I think
iHeart does and think to myself. I won't tell you
what I think to myself, but what I will say
to you is, well, I might do that a little differently.
You can only imagine what I might.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Be thinking.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
When those when the Department of Government Efficiency find something
like we're spending what was it? I mean, any number
of examples, study transsexualism and mice or whatever. You know,
the twenty billion dollars we gave that we found parked

(04:25):
in the EPA. The Inspectors General don't necessarily look at
those programs and say, hmmm, that seems odd.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Have now a person in my position who's going to
be dependent on the President's good graces. That is not
how Congress set up the position that's not how it's
been for the past fifty years. But that independence, that
protection is gone and the meth.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And what did that independence and protection get us? Because
I want you to think back for the past forty
four years. By the way, Ronald Reagan was the last
one that fired all of them. Now he hired some
of them back, but he fired all of them and
then put in new ones. I don't know what the
percentage of the number he hired back that were from

(05:15):
them or what doesn't mean any difference, But I want
you to think how much how many times have you
heard stories close your ears to Senator rand Paul, close
your ears to former Senator Tom Coburn of now to

(05:35):
see Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and close your ears
to anything you've heard about DOGE and anything that they
have exposed that is outright frivolous, offensive, obscene government spending.
How many Inspectors General reports have you heard about reported

(05:58):
by sixty Minutes or anybody else they said, oh my gosh,
we're spending money in Tanzania to study the smoking habits
of teenagers. Or how many times have you heard that
DoD is spending money for whatever they're spending money on
that's stupid. And you know we're actually funding our enemy

(06:19):
in some.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
Way, spending money on figuring out if chewing hardwood is
good for you.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, that kind of stupid stuff. You haven't heard any
of those stories because that's not what they do. But
that's what sixty minutes wants you to think that they do.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
That sends to the watchdog agencies in general as what.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I don't think we have watched dog agencies anymore.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
I don't think we ever did, except that this y'allhoom
in particular. Uh, he's been fighting his dismissal. The trial
court reversed the dismissal, the appellate court in DC upheld

(07:05):
the dismissal. His next choice was to go to the
US Supreme Court, and he dropped the case. Now why
do you think he might have dropped the case. Well,
later in this interview, he says, well, I did it
because it was going to take so much time and
energy and resources, and I just didn't want to do that.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Well, he's lying.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
He didn't want because he lost to a three judge
panel in the DC Court of Appeals. He knew that
he was likely to lose in US Supreme Court, which
means that would set a precedent for all the other
Inspectors General that had been fired, and he he did
not want to set that precedent, so he walked away
from his litigation. So he's fired. But again, I want

(07:49):
you to think about what do these people do. I
had an inspector In fact, I had two separate inspectors General.
The first one I had was solely for FEMA. Then
I had one that was for FEA and for the
Department of Homeland Security. So I had to deal with
two of these guys. The very first thing I did
when I got to I shouldn't say the very first thing,
but one of the first things I did when I

(08:09):
got to d C was I sat down and I
met this guy, George opter Was. I still remember his name.
Still remember the first meeting. I sat down and I said,
I want to have a relationship with you because I
know that you're going to find things that perhaps we
we misspent some money. And by misspending money, I mean

(08:30):
that we didn't spend it on something outrageous, or we
didn't spend something that was outside the appropriations, or that
was outside what Congress wanted to spend the money on.
We may have wasted some money. We may have overpaid
for a contract, we may have overpaid for something that
we really didn't need, or that we might have violated

(08:52):
some you know, my CFO may have you know, failed
to properly track something I said. So I want to
know about those things because I want to work with
you to fix those And of course there was any
time an Inspector's General, an inspector General report is about

(09:13):
to come out, they give the head of that agency
or that department, usually the General Council, but they will
ultimately the head of the agency of the department will
have the opportunity to look at the report and argue about, well, no,
I disagree with you about this, and the report becomes
a back and forth negotiation, and then the Inspector General

(09:35):
finally reaches okay, I might agree with you about that.
I'll revise the report regarding that particular item, but the
rest of the report stands. And then I am allowed
to go to my General Council and say, look, I
want you to write a rebuttal, and that dissent gets
attached to the Inspector General's report. So generally speaking, the

(09:59):
reports that these so called watchdogs, as sixty Minutes wants
to describe them, is more about process, is more about accounting,
is more about are you following the rules and regulations.
So let's take, for example, the twenty billion dollars that

(10:21):
Biden parked with the EPA at a bank in New York.
So that and then they they changed the process so
that ultimately that money is going to have to be
clawed back. It's going to take some work to do so,
and it was going to be hidden. But they did
so by following all of the rules. So if an

(10:43):
inspector general looked at that, they wouldn't question the purpose,
They wouldn't question what was ultimately going to happen. They
would only look at, Oh, they parked twenty billion dollars
over here in this bank that's ultimately going to be
used for programs that were authorized under the Inflation Reduction
ad so we don't find anything wrong with it.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
That's what they did.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
After generals are gone, the head of the Office of
Government Ethics is gone.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
I'm gone.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
The independent watch dogs who were working on behalf of
the American taxpayers, on behalf of military veterans.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
They've been pushed out.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Now at that point, I am figuratively screaming at the television.
Then why haven't you shown us all of the stuff
that Doge has pointed out? I want you to think
about that. Imagine all of the things, all of the
billions we're up. If we keep going through rate we're going,

(11:46):
they really might get to a trillion dollars in waste, fraud,
and abuse. Then ask yourself, why did it take Doge
to find this? Why didn't these y'ahoos find it? Because
that wasn't their job. They didn't look at all they
looked at was Congress Congress appropriated Let's let me just

(12:10):
make something up. Let me make something really absurd up.
Congress appropriated one hundred million dollars to send out to
universities to their labs to look at transgenderism in mice.
What happens when you change, when you do hormonal changes

(12:30):
and sex change operations on mice, what do the mice
become depressed?

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Or what I mean?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
That's absurd, that's an absurd thing to be studying, and
it's a waste of tax payer money. But as long
as Congress appropriated it, and nih or NIAI d or
the FDA or HHS or whatever umbrella the agency. This
might be done as long as they followed the appropriation rules,

(12:58):
as they as long as they fall well generally accepted
accounting practices, as long as they accounted for the money
that was actually spent. As long as they did all
those things, they never touched the substance of what the
money was spent on. Because the money was spent on
what Congress wanted to spend it on some dumbass project.

(13:20):
There was a total waste of taxpayer money. That's not
their job. But that's what sixty minutes was trying to
convince you last night that.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
That was their job.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Before Hampton Dellinger was pushed out, he was head of
the Office of Special Counsel, no relation to the office
of the same name that prosecuted President Trump. Dellinger's office
is where federal workers can bring employment complaints and where
so called whistleblowers government employees can report wrongdoing. So if

(13:55):
a person sees fraud, for example, in the Department.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
They this report is more omission than it is comission.
This report by sixty Minutes was written, directed, produced, and
delivered last night with the primary purpose. In my opinion,

(14:20):
to omit the real things going on, because, for example,
if you just heard what you just heard about government employees.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Who were working on behalf of the American taxpayers, on
behalf of military veterans, they've been pushed out.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Before Hampton Dellinger was pushed out, he was head of
the Office of Special Council, no relation to the office
of the same name that prosecuted President Trump. Dellinger's office
is where federal workers can bring employment can.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Did you knows the verb can? This is where fed workers.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Can complaints and where so called whistle blowers government employees can.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
Report, can report.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
I'm doing so. If a person sees fraud, for example,
in the Department of Defense, and they're afraid of telling
their supervisor because they think there will be retaliation, they.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Go to you. They can, and that was the decision.
They can.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
They keep using the word they can now that they shall,
not that they must because you know why, because there
are other options. The Whistleblower Protection Act allows them to
go to members of Congress. They can go to an
individual member and seek whistle blower protection. Well, they can
go this guy too, but that's not the only place.

(15:51):
So CBS sixty minutes is trying to present you with
the theory this is the cabal in operation. I was
so freaking mad last night at watching sixty minutes. I mean,
after this story was done, I started doing something else
in my computer, and camera finally says something to the
effects of like, are.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
You watching this?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
No, hell no, I'm not watching this. I'm done with it,
And so we've moved on and watched something fun. But
I knew I wanted to. I don't know how many
of you watched sixteen minutes last night, but it's a
great example of how the cabal, through overt acts of omission,
leave you with the impression that, oh, my gosh, now
there's nobody watching what Congress is doing or what these

(16:35):
agencies are doing. Well, I would argue that in so
far as the igs go the Inspector General, they weren't
doing it to begin with, because every single DOGE example
that we have been presented.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
With over the past couple of months.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Didn't just happen. Those are things that have been in
place that Inspectors General could have been looking at all
of this time, for the entirety of not just the
Biden years, but the four years of Trump. The eight
years of Obama, the eight years of Bush, the eight
years of Clinton. They could have been looking at all
of those that waste, fraud and abuse, but they didn't,

(17:20):
and they didn't because well, that really wasn't their job.
Quite frankly, Congress is the one that created that wasteful spending,
that fraud, in that abuse. The executive branch is the
one that did it. And there was nobody watching. Nobody
was watching it. The ig was about process, not substance.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Michael, you're missing the main story. I got up this
morning and there's no sun out. What happened to the sun?
Is Bill Gates doing that evil stuff where he's putting
that stuff in the sky and taking our sunshine away.
You're missing the big story.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, And I refuse to talk about the big story
because nothing's going to be done about it.

Speaker 5 (18:09):
It's it's a fifty to fifty issue. Some people love it,
some people hate it. It's a fifty to fifty issue.
Nothing can be done.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
I've never heard you do a Trump impersonation before. Is
it that bad? No, it was it was okay. I'll
take okay, Yeah, it was okay.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
At leice, you knew that it was supposed to be Trump,
So I'll take that as a win.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
But I just I find it fascinating that that you
heard enough news to know that is exactly what he said.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
The other job does. Oh, that's right, you heard it over,
there's right. You heard of course you did. You had
to hear it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
I also know about Gene Hackman and his wife too.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
That was a big story too. Isn't that bizarre?

Speaker 5 (18:50):
It really I feel bad for the guy because his
wife died almost a week before he did, and with
his mental condition, he just he did really do realize it.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
And so.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
And nobody. Nobody will talk about this. Nobody will talk
about the dog in the cage. Why did the dog
in the cage die? You want my theory, starve to death?
She dies, the dogs in the cage, I think in

(19:24):
the room where she died. So it must be a
you know, the dog's kennel during the day or when
they're out or something, they come back, she dies. He's
so afflicted with Alzheimer's he doesn't realize that she's deceased.
The dogs in the kennel barking, yapping, whining, whimpering, struggling, scratching,

(19:49):
trying to get out of me. It's a horrible, horrible situation,
and he's completely clueless, oblivious to all of it.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
He just doesn't know what to do, doesn't know.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
What to do, and the dog dies of starvation. And
then he finally just gets because he's not getting his care.
He collapses and ends up dead too. But nobody will
talk about that dog before I get to the job.
But by the way, I also want to say thank you.

(20:20):
Dragon and I both agree that the text messages this
morning are simply amazing, very very clever, very good. So
it's now asked I wanted to talk about the job's numbers,
and because I want, I want to talk a little
bit about something that they reveal that is kind of irritating.

(20:41):
But I'm gonna give you some background first. It's now
estimated that the number of illegal aliens living in this country.
What do you think the number is? This is the
latest estimate from one of the immigration groups in DC.
They now ask to make eighteen point six million illegal

(21:03):
aliens are living in this country. That is an all
time high. That is an eleven percent increase over the
sixteen point eight million estimate in June of twenty twenty three.
And the eighteen point six million figure represents a twenty
eight percent increase over the four years that Biden was

(21:28):
in office. Now, in addition to the record numbers of
people that crossed the border illegally, the Biden administration granted
parole and opened that temporary protective status two millions of
illegal aliens that allowed them to settle in the country
and then to what go seek work. One of the
things that drives me nuts. We casually mentioned this yesterday

(21:51):
or Saturday the on Friday's program, is that in Denver,
in particular, they I forget what the number was, but
they they've they've reduced the number that the number of
dollars spent on illegal aliens. Not because the city council

(22:15):
or Mayor Johnston decided that, hey, we're spending too much money,
let's cut back.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
They cut back because the number.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Of illegal aliens coming into Denver has so dramatically decreased,
which is a good thing. But Denver, Denver then took
if I remember, if I recall the figure correctly, they
then took twelve million dollars and repurposed that twelve million
dollars hired staff, and that staff are now providing work

(22:48):
authorization seminars to illegal aliens. So they're using your tax
money to teach illegal aliens how to take jobs from you.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Isn't that great?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So the surgeon illegal immigration was so large that the
Census Bureau announced about three months ago that it has
changed its methodology for estimating the foreign born population in
order to account for it, and by its own admission.
By the Census Bureau's own admission, between July of twenty

(23:26):
one and July of twenty two, they missed a net
foreign migration of about seven hundred thousand people, so they
revised its estimate upward by nearly seventy percent, from one
million to one point seventy million. Between July twenty two
and July twenty of twenty three, the Census Bureau revised

(23:46):
its estimate upward again by more than one hundred percent,
precisely one hundred and one point seven percent. That added
one point one point five million more foreign nationals. Now Here,
I'm talking about not just the illegal aliens. I'm talking
about people who even have green cards, so I'm talking

(24:08):
about foreign nationals in this country. So they added one
point one five million to its initial estimate of one
point one.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
Three million foreign nationals.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Then between July twenty three and July of twenty four,
the Census Bureau estimated that net international migration had reached
nearly two point eight million for just that twelve month period.
That is an unprecedented increase in that last year. So
by taking a certain calculation and you take the revised

(24:42):
Census Bureau estimates of the foreign born population, that produces
a new estimate of the illegal alien population now at
eighteen point six million people. Eighteen point six million. Now
let's just go ahead and call it twenty million. I
don't like to say eighteen point six million. I know

(25:02):
it's precise twenty million, because if if we're making estimates,
I think we ought to in this particular. Usually I
tried to make estimates on the conservative side. Here I
think an estimate should be made on the liberal side,
not for a political reason, but because you don't really know.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
The Census Bureau doesn't really know.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
They change their modeling, They change the computer models for
reaching their estimates of foreign born nationals. So when they
change that, they're they're taking a bucket and they're putting
numbers that include illegal aliens, and then those foreign nationals

(25:45):
who are here on a tourist visa, an H one
B visa, they're here with a green card, they're here
at temporary protective status, whatever it might be, and they're
mixing all of those together. So I think it's reasonable
to conclude that, yeah, it's probably closer to twenty million
twenty million foreigners in this country. Now, let's look at

(26:08):
the jobs numbers, because the report says that the economy
saw increase of about one hundred and fifty one thousand
jobs in February.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
That's fairly close to.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
What the projections were. At least according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, the number of native born workers increased
by two hundred eighty four thousand, the number of foreign
born workers declined by eighty four thousand. Now that suggests,

(26:46):
just hold on, that suggests right there that the jobs
market might actually be realigning in favor of US citizens.
But the report, the Job report also, if you really
dig into it, in case that there was a decrease
in federal employment by ten thousand, which I think is

(27:08):
associated with the ongoing efforts by Trump and Must to
reduce the government workforce. But despite the decline in federal employment,
there was growth in sectors such as healthcare, financial activities, transportation, warehousing,
and social assistance that helped balance the overall job market.

(27:29):
The entertainment sector, they had mixed results with employers in
the movie and music industries. Those contributed an additional forty
seven hundred jobs, raising total employment under all of those
different categories to about four hundred and thirty four hundred
and thirteen thousand, five hundred. Conversely, my industry, the broadcasting

(27:52):
and the content provision segments experienced reduction of approximately one
thousand jobs probably all right here at iHeart right Dragon Yeah,
bringing the total to three hundred thirty one thousand, five hundred.
Employment levels in publishing remain stable minor increase with about
four hundred positions that reached the total of about nine
hundred eighteen to almost almost a million positions, but jobless

(28:16):
claims fell by twenty one thousand to two hundred twenty
one thousand in the week to March first, down from
a three month high in late February. So that data
suggests that the labor market does remain strong and stable
despite all the hand ringing from the political statishment figures.

(28:37):
People that are fear mongering that all these federal worker
layoffs could drive unemployment rates significantly higher, but native born
workers increase by two hundred eighty four thousand to one
hundred and thirty point one million. Foreign born workers dropped

(28:59):
by a four thousand to thirty one point seven million,
But do you know what that means? There are still
more foreign born workers in the country than just overall
employed workers native born workers. Zero Hedge has a pretty

(29:24):
good graph that indicates those figures. So you look at
the jobs numbers, Yeah, it's good, but buried in the
jobs numbers and then buried in the report from the
Census Bureau twenty million illegal aliens.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Michael, twenty million. We were talking about twenty million during
the Bush administration. I bet you there's close a forty
million illegal immigrants in this country by now.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
I'm just going off what the estimates are from some
of the immigration groups. And I don't mean pro immigration groups,
I mean the anti immigration groups. That's just their latest estimate.
So the bottom line is nobody knows. Nobody knows it all.
This story broke last week, and I didn't talk about

(30:16):
it because I wanted to get some more details about it.
But no more details that come out, but the Oversight
Project and the Lives of TikTok posted on X last week.
But it appears that with the exception of Biden's announcement
that he was not going to seek re election, everything

(30:37):
else appears to have been executed via All the documents
appear to be signed by autopin. Now, before everybody goes
ballistic about this story, do use the auto pin is
not unusual?

Speaker 5 (30:52):
Yeah, it's pretty normal. Even a guy like me knows that.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, it's just it's fairly normal. However, there are our
protocols around who can use the autopen under what circumstances,
and generally there has to be some sort of explicit
or implicit authorization by the president to use it. But

(31:14):
Oversight Project tweet it or posted whatever we call it. Now,
we gathered every document we could find with Biden's signature
over the course of his presidency. All use the autopin
except for the announcement that he was dropping out of
the race. And they add the photograph of the letter

(31:37):
that he published that he sent out about not running again,
and it looks like an old man signature looks worse
than mine. And then they showed the autopin and the
autopen is. For example, I had an autopen and I
had to use I had to give I forget how

(31:59):
many but more than one, probably less than a dozen,
different signatures so that they could then compile a signature
from all of the different versions into one signature that
would become the autopin signature. So it was a distinct signature.
They pretty much cleaned it up. In other words, and
for the West Wing, there are protocols that delineate when

(32:23):
and how the autopen can be used. But here's what's
driving me nuts. The Attorney General of Missouri, Andrew Bailey,
at least according to I haven't looked at his particular letter,
but he apparently wrote a letter asking the Department of
Justice to investigate whether Biden's cognitive mental decline somehow allowed

(32:45):
unelected officials to make decisions without his knowledge or approval. Well,
everyone is now all hairs on fire. That does that
mean that the pardons are ineffective? Does that mean that
legislation he signed is ineffective? He doesn't mean. This doesn't
mean no, it doesn't necessarily mean that. In fact, I

(33:07):
would argue it's not going to mean that at all.
Let's work at it backwards. How well we'll work at
it backwards when we get back. I just I want
to make certain that you understand my thinking about why
this is. I mean, it is a good story in
terms of was he really that bad the entire time?

(33:30):
But I think it's a non story about the effective
has on any documents that were signed with the auto
PIM And I'll explain whe
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