Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director talk.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 4 (00:04):
Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
The Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, it's the Weekend with Michael Brown, broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado,
and I'm glad you've tuned in. I appreciate you listening
every weekend. You know, if you like what we do
on the weekend, you can also listen weekdays. So I
do a program out of Denver, Colorado rumsitting right now
every Monday through Friday from six to ten Mountain time.
On your iHeart app or however you listen, just search
(00:32):
for this station six thirty KHOW, six thirty KHOW, and
you can listen during the weekday too. Of course, you
can always subscribe to the podcast and the podcast on
your podcast app. Is the situation with Michael Brown. The
situation with Michael Brown. So Elon Musk was in the
(00:52):
Oval office either yesterday or day before, I forget exactly
when it was, but he was talking about Doge and
how Doge is not going away, that it's really a
new beginning, not an end, but a couple of things
(01:12):
that he said that I thought were fascinating. He all
but admitted that accomplishing what he wanted to accomplish was
a lot more difficult than he anticipated. And I dad,
he doesn't have the time, but I wish that somebody
(01:35):
post Doge. He had a designation as a special Government Employee,
which allows you to work for the federal government for
approximately one hundred and thirty four days. It's basically a
consulting position. Well that that expired. I think maybe today
was the last day, but anyway, it's coming to an end.
(01:57):
So Trump brings him into the Oval office and they're talking,
talking about everything that he's accomplished, and you know Trump
that well, they both like to read off some of
some of the really outrageous things that they discovered that
they're getting rid of, and I, you know, I want
to stand up and see the Hallelujah chorus for whatever
they got rid of, But at the same time, I
want to point out that you also didn't accomplish what
(02:22):
you thought you would accomplish, which is reducing waste, fraud,
and abuse by a trillion dollars. Now, depending on whether
you're a glass half empty or glass half full individual,
he got to one hundred billion dollars or somewhere around that,
which is not bad. You know, you're you're a tenth
(02:45):
of the way there, so you you know, ten percent
is nothing to laugh about. But I think more interesting
was his attempt to discover waste, fraud, and abuse ran
into a couple of things. I want to talk about
a couple of those things because you are probably as
(03:07):
frustrated as I am that not as much was cut
as we expected. And two, their remains, and they're always
bill by more than just the deep state, more than
just the administrative state that objects to and prevents someone
from like Elon Musk, for that matter, Donald Trump from accomplishing.
(03:31):
There's three things that keep them from accomplishing what they
want to accomplish, in no particular order. It is one
the deep state, the administrative state, and i'll explain why
in the second. Then there's the Congress itself, five hundred
and thirty five members of Congress who care more. And
(03:52):
I even the good guys, I think I can safely
go out on a limits say this, even about the
good guys in Congress, they're more concerned about getting re
elected than they are about pushing the boundaries of really
changing the course in the direction of the country. Now,
(04:15):
how can I claim that. Well, we'll get back to
that in a minute, but I just want you to
remember that I'm saying, even the good guys, because I'm
making a generalization here that the entire five hundred and
thirty five members of Congress are one of the three
impediments to cutting government spending. And the third one is you,
(04:40):
or maybe to soften the blow, it's us. We don't
like it because over decades, I would say, particularly from
the nineteen sixties to today, so over the past sixty
plus years, Congress has Don't get me wrong, historically, I
(05:06):
could go back to the New Deal. Historically, I could
go back to Woodrow Wilson because both of them implement it. Well,
take the Sixteenth Amendment, for example, in the income tax
it wasn't even though, don't get me wrong, I won
hundred of pose the federal income all income taxes. I
(05:26):
don't think we should be taxed on our labor. You
want to tax me on my consumption, you want to
tax me on my wealth, whatever, maybe yes, maybe you no.
But taxing me on my labor I think is wrong.
I think it's morally wrong. But it wasn't so much
(05:48):
the income tax itself as it was withholding, because now
over time people just look at their paycheck. Oh so
my check is for a thout. Nobody ever looks at
Oh that's my that's my net payment, what's my gross
(06:09):
Holy crap, it was to be a tax bracketerion. Oh
it was actually eighteen hundred dollars. Huh. Almost half of
my check went to pay for all these taxes. Oh yeah,
but those taxes go to help you because oh, some
of it's ficus, some of its Social Security tax or
Medicare or Medicaid tax, so that we can take care
(06:31):
of you, so we can take care of your medications,
so we can take care of your health care, so
we can take care of this or that or whatever
it might be. People don't realize that all of that,
and don't give me this crap about you know, the
employer pays half and you pay the other half of
(06:51):
you know, your your fighting. No, no, that's not true.
You pay all of it because when your company sits
down and calculates how much can we pay Michael Brown? Okay,
well we have to cover his the benefits that he
has in his contract. We have to cover the salary
(07:11):
that we pay him. So that salary is going to
include you know, FYICA in medicare and medicare taxes, all
of those, So we're going to have to pay our share.
So that goes into their calculation of how much they
can pay me. So rather than pay me one thousand
dollars a year, they take into consideration the amount that
they have to withhold that supposedly comes from them, and
(07:33):
so they re say, oh, we can't pay you, you know,
two thousand dollars a year. We can pay you eighteen
hundred dollars a year or fifteen hundred dollars a year
because they take into consideration that they have to pay
that share of the PICA taxes too, So we're the
ones that end up paying it. Then when those comes
in and those wants to eliminate some sort of spending,
(07:57):
if that affects someone in whether it be just man,
difference to me. It's true for billionaires, it's true for millionaires.
It's true for people that work paycheck to paycheck, who
and who do pay taxes. I'm not talking about anybody
that doesn't pay taxes because their income is so low
or they get the earned income tax credit, so they
(08:18):
don't really pay anything. They can actually get money back.
So I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about anybody
who actually pays income taxes. You don't want to lose
any of the benefits, anything that benefits you, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
(08:38):
any of the social welfare system, whatever it may be.
You don't want to lose any of that. Or if
you get some sort of subsidy, you get some sort
of benefits somewhere, you don't want to lose it, and
so you scream and holler. Whether it be through AARP
or some other organization that takes care of seniors, or
you know, your union or your whatever organization, trade association, whatever,
(09:02):
they're all geared to protecting whatever benefits you get. So
we're a big impediment to cutting federal spending, even though
we're shooting ourselves in the foot every time we borrow
money to pay those benefits. So we can with Michael Brown.
If you want to send me a text message, the
number on your message app is three three one zero three.
(09:25):
Keyword is Micha or Michael. I'll be right back. Hey.
So we came with Michael Brown, Glad to have you
with me. I appreciate you tuning in UH. I'm gonna
remind you that if you are UH. For for whatever reason,
(09:45):
I've had a text message that says, our local affiliate
in your town is not carrying the program today because
of a basketball game or something, you can always go
to this website, Michael says, go here dot com. Michael says,
go here dot com. When you hit that landing page,
(10:05):
there's a tab that says how to listen. You can
click on the how to listen tab and you'll find
an interactive map that shows all the affiliates all over
the country, what day they air the program live, what
day they might re air the program. For example, they
air two or three different times here in Denver. And
(10:26):
then you can find an affiliate that's airing it live,
and then you can listen to that affiliate that station,
even though it's not in your town, you can listen to.
You can listen to the broadcast live on that station
on your iHeart app. So if for some reason we
get preempted by a local event of some sort, you
(10:46):
can always go to Michael says, go here dot com.
How to listen, Find an affiliate, click on Boom. You
got it right there. So let's go back. We're talking
about Doze. So was DOZE a totally apartment of government efficiency?
Was it a total failure or was it not. I
don't think it was a total failure, but I think
(11:09):
it reveals something that we need to understand, and that
is three things that work against Doge. And I think
must as brilliant as he may be, I don't think
he realized the buzz saw that he was walking into.
So I listed three things. There is the deep state
(11:30):
or the administrative state, the permanent bureaucracy that you really
have to understand how it works, and you have to
be able to drill really deep into it to cut
some of this spending. Two is the United States Congress,
and three is US. And I've explained why it's US.
(11:52):
There are I know friends who are receiving Social Security
benefits and they're upset that remember we had no taxes
on tips, no taxes on overtime, and no taxes on
Social Security. Well, the no taxes on Social Security didn't
make it into the big beautiful bill. I don't care
(12:15):
any uproar about it, except from some friends of mine.
Now they did increase a certain amount of deduction. It's complicated,
but there's some sort of deduction that you can take,
but you got to fit a certain income level, and
it's pretty complicated, and I really doubt many people will
be able to take advantage of it unless Social Security
happens to be your main source of retirement income. But
(12:40):
for people that were receiving other types of benefits where
you wanted to reduce those benefits in order to save
going into debt further, which is going to lead to
a financial collapse at some point, many people objected. So
we're part of the problem too, but we don't admit it.
(13:00):
We like that government money, but you don't really just
taking it out of it. They're taking it out of
your back pocket and putting it in your front pocket.
And they can't even take it all out of your
back pocket. They have to borrow some from your great
great grandchildren, or they got to get somebody to go
buy these treasury bills so that they can borrow enough
(13:20):
money to pay you the money they do put in
your front pocket. You know, I noticed the other day,
for example, driving around well I was off off work.
Everybody keeps talking about how gas prices are the lowest
they've been in ages, and they are except if you
go back to say Trump's first term, it was like
(13:41):
at a dollar eighty six a gallon, I think the
other day for regular unletted I paid like three to
eighteen a gallon. Well, yeah, that's lower, but it's not
a dollar eighty six. You know why. Well, one is inflation,
but two is the devalue, the devaluation of your dollar.
The dollar bill that you have in your right now
is worth much less than it was four or five
(14:04):
years ago, So you need more dollars to pay for
that same gallon of gas. That's what inflation does, and
that's what government spending and government debt does to your dollar,
which is fat money. To begin with, we only say
it's worth a dollar because we say it's worth a dollar.
That dollar bill has no intrinsic value in and of itself.
(14:26):
It's not really a store of value like say gold
or silver is. But I digress. But the second problem,
the second objection, the second obstacle to DOGE being successful,
was the United States of Congress. And I made a
generalization that all five hundred and thirty five members of Congress,
(14:47):
while they might scream in you. I think a good
example is Chip Roy of Texas. I don't mean to
pick on chip Roy. He's just the first one that
came to mind, because Chip Roy is always giving a speech,
always giving a press conference, to talking about we're not
cutting enough, we're not cutting enough, we're not cutting enough.
But I bet you I could find a program that
(15:08):
ought to be reduced, if not cut out altogether. That
Chip Roy would swing one hundred and eighty degrees and say, oh,
but that program, that particular program is a good program
and we need it. Even though five hundred and thirty
four other members might say no, no, no, no, we want
to cut that, chip Roy would object to it. Members
(15:30):
of Congress have their own pet projects that they don't
want touched. And when you have five hundred and thirty
five members, you have five hundred and thirty five pet projects.
Some may over, some may cross over, but not always.
So you have five hundred and thirty five spending programs
that they all can't agree on reducing. And that's why
(15:52):
those couldn't cut as much as they expected. Now there's
a recision bill before Congress right now. Their recision bill
is where Congress has already appropriated money in previous years
on certain projects. That money has yet to be spent.
They can rescind that. It's called recision. They can rescind
(16:13):
it and say, you know what we decided against, and
we're not gonna spend that money after all. Now there's
that there's a House bill that will do that to
some degree, not a great degree, but to some degree.
But even though it may pass that, it may pass
the House, I'm not convinceable past the Senate Congress itself.
(16:34):
Is there are a bunch of myth heads. The difference
is their myth is tax dollars is spending. They're as
they are as much of a Walter White and breaking
bad as Walter White and breaking bad was when it
came to their blue myth. They can't get rid of it.
(16:54):
They don't want to get rid of it, because that's
how these are five that, like Joe Biden didn't I'm sorry,
that's how they keep winning elections by continuing to spend money.
And then the third, and that's the deep state. The
deep state doesn't want to cut out, and they're so
(17:16):
entrenched that if just take the Department of State Marco Rubio,
he has to have a cadre and I mean dozens
of dozens of not one hundred or more, of political
appointees at the undersecretary level, the assistant secretary level, at
the program level, that can go in and actually force
(17:40):
the deep state to cut spending. Without it, it'll never change.
But something good did come out of DOGE. We'll talk
about that next. It's the Weekend with Michael Brown. The
text line three to three one zero three, keyword Mike
or Michael. Be right back, Stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
You're listening to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Tonight, Michael
Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk
show host Michael Brown. Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Hey, it's the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have
you with me. I appreciate you tuning in the text
line number three three one zero three, keyword Mike or Michael.
Go follow me on x formerly Twitter at Michael Brown USA.
So either yesterdayr day before. Elon Musk appears in the
Oval Office with Donald Trump because it's his term as
(18:36):
a special government employee, the head of the Department of
Government efficiency is coming to an end. And they went
on and on for quite a while. But I want
to go through some of the sound that I heard
yesterday driving around that made me want to talk about
this today, because I don't see it as a failure,
(19:01):
nor do I see it as a success except in
one very simple regard, which I'll get to in a minute.
But I think it did point out that one it's
a lot more difficult than I think people realize how
much how difficult it is to cut government spending. I've
used this example before, and I want to use it
(19:21):
again because maybe you haven't heard it, or maybe you've
forgotten it. But when I was the under Secretary of
Homeland Security, one of the things that FEMA did that
I thought was absurd was, and I still think it's absurd,
is that we would provide usually two bags of ice
to any household that made it So, imagine your county
(19:44):
that you live in, So I'm imagining I live in
Douglas County, Colorado, which is a huge county. It's got plains,
it's got mountains, it's got urban areas, it's got rural areas,
it's got everything. But let's say in the northern part
of Douglas County, Colorado, there was a tornado and it
(20:05):
was pretty destructive. You've destroyed a lot of homes. And
the Governor of Colorado requested a presidential disaster declaration for
Douglas County and the President signed that. That means that
all of Douglas County is now declared a disaster area.
So even if you live and let's say the tornado
(20:27):
hit northern Douglas County, but thirty miles to the south
on the south end of Douglas County, no damage, but
the entire county has declared a disaster area. So if
FEMA set up a distribution center for ice and water,
you could drive up from the south, even though you
(20:49):
suffered no damage, and you could get two bags of
ice in a case of bottled water. And I thought,
why are we doing this? So I started asking around,
what's the history of this, Why do we do this?
Why do we provide ice for a declared disaster? And
you can only do it by county, so it has
to be the entire county. That's just required by law.
(21:12):
Why do we do this entire county? And why do
we provide everybody with ice? Just anybody that shows up.
We don't do any sort of you know check, you know,
do you have damage, do you do you live in
the area, or do you just driving through and thought, Hey, honey,
we're on the way, we're on the way to the picnic.
Let's stop and get some free ice in a case
of bottled water. Okay. The history was this in nineteen
(21:36):
seventy nine when Jimmy Carter set up the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. The idea was to provide ice in disaster
areas to hospitals so that a hospital that didn't have
power or lack the ability to refrigerate medication could do so.
And then that expanded to provide refrigeration for mothers who
were lactating so they could continue to breastfeed their babies,
(21:59):
so that they could take, you know, as they would
pump their breast milk, they could take it to the
local hospital and they could keep it refrigerated under this
ice that was provided so they could continue to breastfeed
their babies. Well sounds all well and good, doesn't it. Well,
fast forward, it went from providing refrigeration or cooling for
(22:20):
medications to providing cooling and refrigeration for breast milk to
Now every Tom Dick and Harry, every bubba that wanted
to keep his well talking about Memorial Day weekend, that's
keeping his burgers and brocks cool, could fill up his
ice chest with two bags of ice. It'll grab some
(22:40):
a case of bubble water while you're at it too.
We spent millions of dollars on ice, and I thought
it was absurd. I wanted to reduce it. Actually, I
wanted to eliminate it. So I started at the elimination phase,
hoping I could at least get it reduced. So I
went to my appropriate on Capitol Hill and said, look,
(23:01):
I want to cut back on the spending. I don't
want to do this. It doesn't make any sense that
we ought to be providing every Tom Dick and Harry,
every bubba in a disaster zone two bags of ice.
You know, every single day they can come and get
two bags of ice, and they can get cases of water.
Why I don't think we should be spending that money. Now,
some people will call me an a whole for feeling
(23:23):
that way, but I just didn't think it was an
appropriate federal expenditure. Didn't make any difference what I thought
because the appropriators were not about to cut back on
the million, tens of millions of dollars that we would
spend on ice, because well, Michael, there might be people
(23:47):
in my congressional district that that's the only way they
could keep their stuff from being spoiled that was in
the refrigerator and they don't have power. How cold hearted
could you be? And I'm like, well, they could. They
could ask their local government, they could ask the American
Red Cross, they could ask Salvation Army, they could ask volunteers,
(24:09):
they could find they or we could get rid of
the stupid price gouging laws and we could allow private
entities to come in and sell bags of ice, sell
cases of water, because that's kind of how the free
market works, isn't it. And they looked at me like
I was crazy. So I was never able to cut
(24:29):
And to this day it drives me crazy that we
will contract out for hundreds of reefer trucks, depending on
the size of the disaster, hundreds of reefer trucks to
haul in cases of water in cases of ice so
Bubba can keep his broughts in his Burger's cool. It's insane.
(24:50):
So it's just as much US. It's just as much
Congress and of course the people in FEMA that I
wanted to start reducing, you know, start putting some limits
on it. I ran into a brick wall. Well, I
think that is exactly what happened to Elon Musk Kevin O'Leary,
(25:14):
mister wonderful shark tank.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I've learned a lesson that Elon just learned. No one
goes to Washington and returns unscathed. It is an incredibly
nasty place. And I've been going there now for three years.
Because the businesses I'm in, particularly the data set development,
require support of governors and senators.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I just have to do that.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I've learned a lot about that place.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
You need thick.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Skin, and he just got that lesson doled out to him.
The closer you get to the sun, the more your
feathers get burned. And you just got to understand you
need some feathers to keep flying so you can't burn
them all off. He's retracted after one hundred days. Today's
the last they're celebrating his contribution. Doge is now a
brand idea on a bipartisan basis. It's a great idea
(25:56):
to audit government this way and will be forever. It's
great he never got near a tillion dollars because they
didn't let him. But at the same time, it also
shows you the check and balance kind of working. At
some point Congress is going to say, great ideas, Now
we need to get involved, and that's when the meat
grinder starts. I mean, Washington is just something else.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Sokia never remember any other time.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
When somebody's so got under the skin of the federal
bureaucurousy on the way the federal government does business.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Musk beats them all. He's gone further anybody else.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
A remarkable accomplish. This guy is the modern day Leonardo DaVinci.
I mean, like you know, he's just something that delivers
on executional mandates over and over and over again. I
love the idea of him going into government saying, but
you have to also empower him, and you can't do
that in a system that it's a check and balance.
I mean, we've got the executive, we've got digits all,
we've got Congress.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You got to work them all together.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And that's where it gets nasty.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Ye, And that is exactly where it gets nasty. But
I don't think this is the I think it actually
shows that you can do it, and I think it's
probably plant it in people's brains that, oh yeah, we
(27:14):
can look at this differently and we can approach it differently.
Again Kevin o'lary, but and again on Fox, but in
a different Fox interview.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
He says this as Elon Musk sails off into the
sunset of what you think his best achievements were you
first going.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Bringing the whole idea of a different kind of audit
into the psyche of bipartisan taxpayers those is a good idea.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It just is.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Auditing the government under any administration is a good idea,
and trying to make it more efficient is a good idea. Now,
one thing everybody learns, and I'm including myself in this statement,
is you don't understand Washington until you go there.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
It is a very amen powlujah, very nasty, nasty place.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And anybody that exposes themselves that close to the sun
is going to burn some feathers. And I think he
experienced that and realized he did some great things. But
there's other great things that he's doing, including you know,
I'm a shareholder in Tesla. I'd like to see him
a little focused on that. He's getting back to that
as well. But I don't think what he did was
bad at all. He didn't get near a trillion dollars
(28:28):
of savings. And Elizabeth Warren, you know, parting card.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Is why why Washington is nasty.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
You're going to get exposed to that. You need thick skin,
and I.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Think he understands that now. I think he did a
great job and he planted the idea. He planted the idea,
and I think that's the accomplishment. It's the Weekend with
Michael Brown. The text line is three three one zero
three keyword Mica ro Michael go follow me on x
at Michael Brown USA. Be right back. Hey, So the
(29:02):
Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me.
We're talking about Doze and whether or not it was
a failure or success. I think it's a mixed bag,
but must point out that it's not necessarily the end
of dough.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
I just want to thank Elon and all of his people.
Most of those people are staying, almost all of them
are staying, and they're going to be with us and
you're going to see the.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Results see that's good. Musk may be leaving, but the
team's staying in place. Now they just need to I know,
this sounds like a contradiction, this sounds like it doesn't
make sim but then now they need to enlarge that team.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
That's coming long into the future. Even a year and
two years later, you're going to see a lot of
the results and those hundreds of billions of dollars are
going to be adding up and they're going to continue
to add. It'll be interest is really interesting to see
what the final number is going to be. But again,
Elon gave an incredible service. Nobody like them, and he
(30:00):
had to go through the slings and the arrows, which
is a shame because he's an incredible patriot. The good
news is that ninety percent of the country knows that
and they appreciate it, and they really appreciate what he did,
and they gave him a little special something we have here,
thank you, a very special that I give to very
(30:20):
special people. I have given it to some, but they
goes to very special people, and I thought I'd give
it to Elon as a presentation from our country. Thank you, Elon,
Thank you, take care of Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Thank you the day.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
We are.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The lucky.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
This is amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Thanks loves luck.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Well, let me say it perhaps a few words, that
this is not the end of Doge, but really the
beginning of my time as a special government point necessarily
had to end. It was that limited time things one
hundred and thirty four days, I believe, which ends in
a few days. So so that's you know, it comes
with the time of it. But the dog team will
(31:05):
only grow stronger over time, the Doge influence will grow stronger.
It's I'm likely to to sort of person Buddhism. It's
like a way of life, so it iscomeating throughout the government,
and I'm confident that over time.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think that's an important point that we shouldn't gloss over.
He compares it to Buddhism as a way of life. Well,
if if they actually do keep people in the departments
and agencies, and if this becomes part of the you know, well,
(31:39):
I can't remember the senator's name from Oklahoma, but he
used to keep the wastebook and every year he would
publish all of these programs that were wasteful. But then
nothing ever happened. And part of the reason nothing ever
happened was because nobody in Congress wanted to do anything. Well,
this is where the executive branch stepped him and says,
(32:01):
we're going to start bringing these to your attention, and
we're going to start just refusing to spend the money.
And then if you want to fight about it over
in the legislative branch, and then we'll go fight about it.
That makes a huge difference, just shining the light on it.
And if they can keep these people in place and
(32:23):
continue to do so. It may take a while. Don't
get me wrong. It's not going to happen overnight, but
it changes the entire month or about how we spend money.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
We'll see at twllion dollars of savings of production in
a trillion dollars of waste of full production. The capitations
of the Dose Dose team thus far, it's in terms
of FI twenty five to FI twenty six delta are
over one hundred and sixty billion, and that's climbing. We
expect that probably that never will probably go over two
hundred billion soon. So I think the Dose team is
(32:56):
doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing doing
an incredible job.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
And I'll be and I'll continue to be visiting here
and be a friend and advisor to the president, and
I look forward to, you know, times, being back in
this amazing room.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
By the way, isn't this incredible?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
This incredible?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I mean, no, that's that's enough. He then talks about
how incredibly the president has decorated the Oval office, which
is fine, but not of interest to meet right now.
I think that the media, the cabal is glad that
he's gone because I think they believe that this will
be the end of it and that they won't have
(33:38):
to worry about it anymore. I think they are wrong.
I think they're absolutely wrong in that regard. They'll bitch
about it, but nonetheless they they don't get it. For example,
this is from I think yesterday or day before. But
(33:58):
here's Senator Mark Kelly once again claiming outright falsehood.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
That it was incredibly short, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
He did his time. Musk's time was short, and that's
a good thing because a.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Lot of damage. I had veterans in my office that
had previously received excellent performance reports that were fired for
poor performance with an email from Elon Musk, and in
a couple cases, these folks are telling me how their
lives have been ruined for no reason. These were valuable
(34:34):
public servants. One was a disabled veteran who had served
our country in combat.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Now you can choose to believe Mark Kelly if you
want to. I don't because Mark Kelly, he's the senior
senator from Arizona. Tom Cobram was the senator for Maklom.
I was just thinking about Mark Kelly is a bald
headed liar. I'd like to see those letters. I'd like
(35:02):
to hear or see the notes from those meetings because
I just simply don't believe him. Because it's easy to
go on MSNBC. It's easy to talk to Jim Psaki.
I mean, remember Jimsaki's one that lied to us for
years while she was Pressed secretary for Joe Biden. So
they're going to feed you these really heart wrenching stories
(35:25):
about a disabled veteran that lost his job because he
got an email from Elon Musk that said you're fired
or something. No, I seriously doubt that's true. But that's
the kind of attitude when I talk about Congress being
they don't want to change anything their idea that you know,
(35:47):
they throw a fit because in Washington speak, a cut
in spending is not going from one hundred dollars to
eighty dollars. Their idea of a cut and spend is,
instead of spending, increasing spending from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty dollars, we only increased spending from one
(36:08):
hundred to one hundred forty dollars. And that's the end
of civilization as far as they're concerned, That's exactly what
they think about it. Jasmine Crockett, the for some reason,
the new face of the Democrat Party from Texas congresswoman.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
Yesterday in the Oval Office, it didn't exactly sound like
Trump and Elon Musk were completely breaking up. He sounded
like he might still be lingering in some unofficial capacity.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yet you know he had to.
Speaker 7 (36:38):
End his special He was at the final day as
a special employee. How is the House Oversight Committee going
to keep holding Doge and Elon Musk accountable?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
You said, keep we never started.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Oh, we never started. Whatever, sister, whatever, We'll be right
back
Speaker 4 (37:00):
The way every went r
To night.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director talk.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 4 (00:04):
Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
The Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, it's the Weekend with Michael Brown, broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado,
and I'm glad you've tuned in. I appreciate you listening
every weekend. You know, if you like what we do
on the weekend, you can also listen weekdays. So I
do a program out of Denver, Colorado rumsitting right now
every Monday through Friday from six to ten Mountain time.
On your iHeart app or however you listen, just search
(00:32):
for this station six thirty KHOW, six thirty KHOW, and
you can listen during the weekday too. Of course, you
can always subscribe to the podcast and the podcast on
your podcast app. Is the situation with Michael Brown. The
situation with Michael Brown. So Elon Musk was in the
(00:52):
Oval office either yesterday or day before, I forget exactly
when it was, but he was talking about Doge and
how Doge is not going away, that it's really a
new beginning, not an end, but a couple of things
(01:12):
that he said that I thought were fascinating. He all
but admitted that accomplishing what he wanted to accomplish was
a lot more difficult than he anticipated. And I dad,
he doesn't have the time, but I wish that somebody
(01:35):
post Doge. He had a designation as a special Government Employee,
which allows you to work for the federal government for
approximately one hundred and thirty four days. It's basically a
consulting position. Well that that expired. I think maybe today
was the last day, but anyway, it's coming to an end.
(01:57):
So Trump brings him into the Oval office and they're talking,
talking about everything that he's accomplished, and you know Trump
that well, they both like to read off some of
some of the really outrageous things that they discovered that
they're getting rid of, and I, you know, I want
to stand up and see the Hallelujah chorus for whatever
they got rid of, But at the same time, I
want to point out that you also didn't accomplish what
(02:22):
you thought you would accomplish, which is reducing waste, fraud,
and abuse by a trillion dollars. Now, depending on whether
you're a glass half empty or glass half full individual,
he got to one hundred billion dollars or somewhere around that,
which is not bad. You know, you're you're a tenth
(02:45):
of the way there, so you you know, ten percent
is nothing to laugh about. But I think more interesting
was his attempt to discover waste, fraud, and abuse ran
into a couple of things. I want to talk about
a couple of those things because you are probably as
(03:07):
frustrated as I am that not as much was cut
as we expected. And two, their remains, and they're always
bill by more than just the deep state, more than
just the administrative state that objects to and prevents someone
from like Elon Musk, for that matter, Donald Trump from accomplishing.
(03:31):
There's three things that keep them from accomplishing what they
want to accomplish, in no particular order. It is one
the deep state, the administrative state, and i'll explain why
in the second. Then there's the Congress itself, five hundred
and thirty five members of Congress who care more. And
(03:52):
I even the good guys, I think I can safely
go out on a limits say this, even about the
good guys in Congress, they're more concerned about getting re
elected than they are about pushing the boundaries of really
changing the course in the direction of the country. Now,
(04:15):
how can I claim that. Well, we'll get back to
that in a minute, but I just want you to
remember that I'm saying, even the good guys, because I'm
making a generalization here that the entire five hundred and
thirty five members of Congress are one of the three
impediments to cutting government spending. And the third one is you,
(04:40):
or maybe to soften the blow, it's us. We don't
like it because over decades, I would say, particularly from
the nineteen sixties to today, so over the past sixty
plus years, Congress has Don't get me wrong, historically, I
(05:06):
could go back to the New Deal. Historically, I could
go back to Woodrow Wilson because both of them implement it. Well,
take the Sixteenth Amendment, for example, in the income tax
it wasn't even though, don't get me wrong, I won
hundred of pose the federal income all income taxes. I
(05:26):
don't think we should be taxed on our labor. You
want to tax me on my consumption, you want to
tax me on my wealth, whatever, maybe yes, maybe you no.
But taxing me on my labor I think is wrong.
I think it's morally wrong. But it wasn't so much
(05:48):
the income tax itself as it was withholding, because now
over time people just look at their paycheck. Oh so
my check is for a thout. Nobody ever looks at
Oh that's my that's my net payment, what's my gross
(06:09):
Holy crap, it was to be a tax bracketerion. Oh
it was actually eighteen hundred dollars. Huh. Almost half of
my check went to pay for all these taxes. Oh yeah,
but those taxes go to help you because oh, some
of it's ficus, some of its Social Security tax or
Medicare or Medicaid tax, so that we can take care
(06:31):
of you, so we can take care of your medications,
so we can take care of your health care, so
we can take care of this or that or whatever
it might be. People don't realize that all of that,
and don't give me this crap about you know, the
employer pays half and you pay the other half of
(06:51):
you know, your your fighting. No, no, that's not true.
You pay all of it because when your company sits
down and calculates how much can we pay Michael Brown? Okay,
well we have to cover his the benefits that he
has in his contract. We have to cover the salary
(07:11):
that we pay him. So that salary is going to
include you know, FYICA in medicare and medicare taxes, all
of those, So we're going to have to pay our share.
So that goes into their calculation of how much they
can pay me. So rather than pay me one thousand
dollars a year, they take into consideration the amount that
they have to withhold that supposedly comes from them, and
(07:33):
so they re say, oh, we can't pay you, you know,
two thousand dollars a year. We can pay you eighteen
hundred dollars a year or fifteen hundred dollars a year
because they take into consideration that they have to pay
that share of the PICA taxes too, So we're the
ones that end up paying it. Then when those comes
in and those wants to eliminate some sort of spending,
(07:57):
if that affects someone in whether it be just man,
difference to me. It's true for billionaires, it's true for millionaires.
It's true for people that work paycheck to paycheck, who
and who do pay taxes. I'm not talking about anybody
that doesn't pay taxes because their income is so low
or they get the earned income tax credit, so they
(08:18):
don't really pay anything. They can actually get money back.
So I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about anybody
who actually pays income taxes. You don't want to lose
any of the benefits, anything that benefits you, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
(08:38):
any of the social welfare system, whatever it may be.
You don't want to lose any of that. Or if
you get some sort of subsidy, you get some sort
of benefits somewhere, you don't want to lose it, and
so you scream and holler. Whether it be through AARP
or some other organization that takes care of seniors, or
you know, your union or your whatever organization, trade association, whatever,
(09:02):
they're all geared to protecting whatever benefits you get. So
we're a big impediment to cutting federal spending, even though
we're shooting ourselves in the foot every time we borrow
money to pay those benefits. So we can with Michael Brown.
If you want to send me a text message, the
number on your message app is three three one zero three.
(09:25):
Keyword is Micha or Michael. I'll be right back. Hey.
So we came with Michael Brown, Glad to have you
with me. I appreciate you tuning in UH. I'm gonna
remind you that if you are UH. For for whatever reason,
(09:45):
I've had a text message that says, our local affiliate
in your town is not carrying the program today because
of a basketball game or something, you can always go
to this website, Michael says, go here dot com. Michael says,
go here dot com. When you hit that landing page,
(10:05):
there's a tab that says how to listen. You can
click on the how to listen tab and you'll find
an interactive map that shows all the affiliates all over
the country, what day they air the program live, what
day they might re air the program. For example, they
air two or three different times here in Denver. And
(10:26):
then you can find an affiliate that's airing it live,
and then you can listen to that affiliate that station,
even though it's not in your town, you can listen to.
You can listen to the broadcast live on that station
on your iHeart app. So if for some reason we
get preempted by a local event of some sort, you
(10:46):
can always go to Michael says, go here dot com.
How to listen, Find an affiliate, click on Boom. You
got it right there. So let's go back. We're talking
about Doze. So was DOZE a totally apartment of government efficiency?
Was it a total failure or was it not. I
don't think it was a total failure, but I think
(11:09):
it reveals something that we need to understand, and that
is three things that work against Doge. And I think
must as brilliant as he may be, I don't think
he realized the buzz saw that he was walking into.
So I listed three things. There is the deep state
(11:30):
or the administrative state, the permanent bureaucracy that you really
have to understand how it works, and you have to
be able to drill really deep into it to cut
some of this spending. Two is the United States Congress,
and three is US. And I've explained why it's US.
(11:52):
There are I know friends who are receiving Social Security
benefits and they're upset that remember we had no taxes
on tips, no taxes on overtime, and no taxes on
Social Security. Well, the no taxes on Social Security didn't
make it into the big beautiful bill. I don't care
(12:15):
any uproar about it, except from some friends of mine.
Now they did increase a certain amount of deduction. It's complicated,
but there's some sort of deduction that you can take,
but you got to fit a certain income level, and
it's pretty complicated, and I really doubt many people will
be able to take advantage of it unless Social Security
happens to be your main source of retirement income. But
(12:40):
for people that were receiving other types of benefits where
you wanted to reduce those benefits in order to save
going into debt further, which is going to lead to
a financial collapse at some point, many people objected. So
we're part of the problem too, but we don't admit it.
(13:00):
We like that government money, but you don't really just
taking it out of it. They're taking it out of
your back pocket and putting it in your front pocket.
And they can't even take it all out of your
back pocket. They have to borrow some from your great
great grandchildren, or they got to get somebody to go
buy these treasury bills so that they can borrow enough
(13:20):
money to pay you the money they do put in
your front pocket. You know, I noticed the other day,
for example, driving around well I was off off work.
Everybody keeps talking about how gas prices are the lowest
they've been in ages, and they are except if you
go back to say Trump's first term, it was like
(13:41):
at a dollar eighty six a gallon, I think the
other day for regular unletted I paid like three to
eighteen a gallon. Well, yeah, that's lower, but it's not
a dollar eighty six. You know why. Well, one is inflation,
but two is the devalue, the devaluation of your dollar.
The dollar bill that you have in your right now
is worth much less than it was four or five
(14:04):
years ago, So you need more dollars to pay for
that same gallon of gas. That's what inflation does, and
that's what government spending and government debt does to your dollar,
which is fat money. To begin with, we only say
it's worth a dollar because we say it's worth a dollar.
That dollar bill has no intrinsic value in and of itself.
(14:26):
It's not really a store of value like say gold
or silver is. But I digress. But the second problem,
the second objection, the second obstacle to DOGE being successful,
was the United States of Congress. And I made a
generalization that all five hundred and thirty five members of Congress,
(14:47):
while they might scream in you. I think a good
example is Chip Roy of Texas. I don't mean to
pick on chip Roy. He's just the first one that
came to mind, because Chip Roy is always giving a speech,
always giving a press conference, to talking about we're not
cutting enough, we're not cutting enough, we're not cutting enough.
But I bet you I could find a program that
(15:08):
ought to be reduced, if not cut out altogether. That
Chip Roy would swing one hundred and eighty degrees and say, oh,
but that program, that particular program is a good program
and we need it. Even though five hundred and thirty
four other members might say no, no, no, no, we want
to cut that, chip Roy would object to it. Members
(15:30):
of Congress have their own pet projects that they don't
want touched. And when you have five hundred and thirty
five members, you have five hundred and thirty five pet projects.
Some may over, some may cross over, but not always.
So you have five hundred and thirty five spending programs
that they all can't agree on reducing. And that's why
(15:52):
those couldn't cut as much as they expected. Now there's
a recision bill before Congress right now. Their recision bill
is where Congress has already appropriated money in previous years
on certain projects. That money has yet to be spent.
They can rescind that. It's called recision. They can rescind
(16:13):
it and say, you know what we decided against, and
we're not gonna spend that money after all. Now there's
that there's a House bill that will do that to
some degree, not a great degree, but to some degree.
But even though it may pass that, it may pass
the House, I'm not convinceable past the Senate Congress itself.
(16:34):
Is there are a bunch of myth heads. The difference
is their myth is tax dollars is spending. They're as
they are as much of a Walter White and breaking
bad as Walter White and breaking bad was when it
came to their blue myth. They can't get rid of it.
(16:54):
They don't want to get rid of it, because that's
how these are five that, like Joe Biden didn't I'm sorry,
that's how they keep winning elections by continuing to spend money.
And then the third, and that's the deep state. The
deep state doesn't want to cut out, and they're so
(17:16):
entrenched that if just take the Department of State Marco Rubio,
he has to have a cadre and I mean dozens
of dozens of not one hundred or more, of political
appointees at the undersecretary level, the assistant secretary level, at
the program level, that can go in and actually force
(17:40):
the deep state to cut spending. Without it, it'll never change.
But something good did come out of DOGE. We'll talk
about that next. It's the Weekend with Michael Brown. The
text line three to three one zero three, keyword Mike
or Michael. Be right back, Stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
You're listening to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Tonight, Michael
Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk
show host Michael Brown. Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Hey, it's the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have
you with me. I appreciate you tuning in the text
line number three three one zero three, keyword Mike or Michael.
Go follow me on x formerly Twitter at Michael Brown USA.
So either yesterdayr day before. Elon Musk appears in the
Oval Office with Donald Trump because it's his term as
(18:36):
a special government employee, the head of the Department of
Government efficiency is coming to an end. And they went
on and on for quite a while. But I want
to go through some of the sound that I heard
yesterday driving around that made me want to talk about
this today, because I don't see it as a failure,
(19:01):
nor do I see it as a success except in
one very simple regard, which I'll get to in a minute.
But I think it did point out that one it's
a lot more difficult than I think people realize how
much how difficult it is to cut government spending. I've
used this example before, and I want to use it
(19:21):
again because maybe you haven't heard it, or maybe you've
forgotten it. But when I was the under Secretary of
Homeland Security, one of the things that FEMA did that
I thought was absurd was, and I still think it's absurd,
is that we would provide usually two bags of ice
to any household that made it So, imagine your county
(19:44):
that you live in, So I'm imagining I live in
Douglas County, Colorado, which is a huge county. It's got plains,
it's got mountains, it's got urban areas, it's got rural areas,
it's got everything. But let's say in the northern part
of Douglas County, Colorado, there was a tornado and it
(20:05):
was pretty destructive. You've destroyed a lot of homes. And
the Governor of Colorado requested a presidential disaster declaration for
Douglas County and the President signed that. That means that
all of Douglas County is now declared a disaster area.
So even if you live and let's say the tornado
(20:27):
hit northern Douglas County, but thirty miles to the south
on the south end of Douglas County, no damage, but
the entire county has declared a disaster area. So if
FEMA set up a distribution center for ice and water,
you could drive up from the south, even though you
(20:49):
suffered no damage, and you could get two bags of
ice in a case of bottled water. And I thought,
why are we doing this? So I started asking around,
what's the history of this, Why do we do this?
Why do we provide ice for a declared disaster? And
you can only do it by county, so it has
to be the entire county. That's just required by law.
(21:12):
Why do we do this entire county? And why do
we provide everybody with ice? Just anybody that shows up.
We don't do any sort of you know check, you know,
do you have damage, do you do you live in
the area, or do you just driving through and thought, Hey, honey,
we're on the way, we're on the way to the picnic.
Let's stop and get some free ice in a case
of bottled water. Okay. The history was this in nineteen
(21:36):
seventy nine when Jimmy Carter set up the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. The idea was to provide ice in disaster
areas to hospitals so that a hospital that didn't have
power or lack the ability to refrigerate medication could do so.
And then that expanded to provide refrigeration for mothers who
were lactating so they could continue to breastfeed their babies,
(21:59):
so that they could take, you know, as they would
pump their breast milk, they could take it to the
local hospital and they could keep it refrigerated under this
ice that was provided so they could continue to breastfeed
their babies. Well sounds all well and good, doesn't it. Well,
fast forward, it went from providing refrigeration or cooling for
(22:20):
medications to providing cooling and refrigeration for breast milk to
Now every Tom Dick and Harry, every bubba that wanted
to keep his well talking about Memorial Day weekend, that's
keeping his burgers and brocks cool, could fill up his
ice chest with two bags of ice. It'll grab some
(22:40):
a case of bubble water while you're at it too.
We spent millions of dollars on ice, and I thought
it was absurd. I wanted to reduce it. Actually, I
wanted to eliminate it. So I started at the elimination phase,
hoping I could at least get it reduced. So I
went to my appropriate on Capitol Hill and said, look,
(23:01):
I want to cut back on the spending. I don't
want to do this. It doesn't make any sense that
we ought to be providing every Tom Dick and Harry,
every bubba in a disaster zone two bags of ice.
You know, every single day they can come and get
two bags of ice, and they can get cases of water.
Why I don't think we should be spending that money. Now,
some people will call me an a whole for feeling
(23:23):
that way, but I just didn't think it was an
appropriate federal expenditure. Didn't make any difference what I thought
because the appropriators were not about to cut back on
the million, tens of millions of dollars that we would
spend on ice, because well, Michael, there might be people
(23:47):
in my congressional district that that's the only way they
could keep their stuff from being spoiled that was in
the refrigerator and they don't have power. How cold hearted
could you be? And I'm like, well, they could. They
could ask their local government, they could ask the American
Red Cross, they could ask Salvation Army, they could ask volunteers,
(24:09):
they could find they or we could get rid of
the stupid price gouging laws and we could allow private
entities to come in and sell bags of ice, sell
cases of water, because that's kind of how the free
market works, isn't it. And they looked at me like
I was crazy. So I was never able to cut
(24:29):
And to this day it drives me crazy that we
will contract out for hundreds of reefer trucks, depending on
the size of the disaster, hundreds of reefer trucks to
haul in cases of water in cases of ice so
Bubba can keep his broughts in his Burger's cool. It's insane.
(24:50):
So it's just as much US. It's just as much
Congress and of course the people in FEMA that I
wanted to start reducing, you know, start putting some limits
on it. I ran into a brick wall. Well, I
think that is exactly what happened to Elon Musk Kevin O'Leary,
(25:14):
mister wonderful shark tank.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I've learned a lesson that Elon just learned. No one
goes to Washington and returns unscathed. It is an incredibly
nasty place. And I've been going there now for three years.
Because the businesses I'm in, particularly the data set development,
require support of governors and senators.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I just have to do that.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I've learned a lot about that place.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
You need thick.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Skin, and he just got that lesson doled out to him.
The closer you get to the sun, the more your
feathers get burned. And you just got to understand you
need some feathers to keep flying so you can't burn
them all off. He's retracted after one hundred days. Today's
the last they're celebrating his contribution. Doge is now a
brand idea on a bipartisan basis. It's a great idea
(25:56):
to audit government this way and will be forever. It's
great he never got near a tillion dollars because they
didn't let him. But at the same time, it also
shows you the check and balance kind of working. At
some point Congress is going to say, great ideas, Now
we need to get involved, and that's when the meat
grinder starts. I mean, Washington is just something else.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Sokia never remember any other time.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
When somebody's so got under the skin of the federal
bureaucurousy on the way the federal government does business.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Musk beats them all. He's gone further anybody else.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
A remarkable accomplish. This guy is the modern day Leonardo DaVinci.
I mean, like you know, he's just something that delivers
on executional mandates over and over and over again. I
love the idea of him going into government saying, but
you have to also empower him, and you can't do
that in a system that it's a check and balance.
I mean, we've got the executive, we've got digits all,
we've got Congress.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You got to work them all together.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
And that's where it gets nasty.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Ye, And that is exactly where it gets nasty. But
I don't think this is the I think it actually
shows that you can do it, and I think it's
probably plant it in people's brains that, oh yeah, we
(27:14):
can look at this differently and we can approach it differently.
Again Kevin o'lary, but and again on Fox, but in
a different Fox interview.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
He says this as Elon Musk sails off into the
sunset of what you think his best achievements were you
first going.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Bringing the whole idea of a different kind of audit
into the psyche of bipartisan taxpayers those is a good idea.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It just is.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Auditing the government under any administration is a good idea,
and trying to make it more efficient is a good idea. Now,
one thing everybody learns, and I'm including myself in this statement,
is you don't understand Washington until you go there.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
It is a very amen powlujah, very nasty, nasty place.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And anybody that exposes themselves that close to the sun
is going to burn some feathers. And I think he
experienced that and realized he did some great things. But
there's other great things that he's doing, including you know,
I'm a shareholder in Tesla. I'd like to see him
a little focused on that. He's getting back to that
as well. But I don't think what he did was
bad at all. He didn't get near a trillion dollars
(28:28):
of savings. And Elizabeth Warren, you know, parting card.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Is why why Washington is nasty.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
You're going to get exposed to that. You need thick skin,
and I.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Think he understands that now. I think he did a
great job and he planted the idea. He planted the idea,
and I think that's the accomplishment. It's the Weekend with
Michael Brown. The text line is three three one zero
three keyword Mica ro Michael go follow me on x
at Michael Brown USA. Be right back. Hey, So the
(29:02):
Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me.
We're talking about Doze and whether or not it was
a failure or success. I think it's a mixed bag,
but must point out that it's not necessarily the end
of dough.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
I just want to thank Elon and all of his people.
Most of those people are staying, almost all of them
are staying, and they're going to be with us and
you're going to see the.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Results see that's good. Musk may be leaving, but the
team's staying in place. Now they just need to I know,
this sounds like a contradiction, this sounds like it doesn't
make sim but then now they need to enlarge that team.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
That's coming long into the future. Even a year and
two years later, you're going to see a lot of
the results and those hundreds of billions of dollars are
going to be adding up and they're going to continue
to add. It'll be interest is really interesting to see
what the final number is going to be. But again,
Elon gave an incredible service. Nobody like them, and he
(30:00):
had to go through the slings and the arrows, which
is a shame because he's an incredible patriot. The good
news is that ninety percent of the country knows that
and they appreciate it, and they really appreciate what he did,
and they gave him a little special something we have here,
thank you, a very special that I give to very
(30:20):
special people. I have given it to some, but they
goes to very special people, and I thought I'd give
it to Elon as a presentation from our country. Thank you, Elon,
Thank you, take care of Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Thank you the day.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
We are.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The lucky.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
This is amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Thanks loves luck.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Well, let me say it perhaps a few words, that
this is not the end of Doge, but really the
beginning of my time as a special government point necessarily
had to end. It was that limited time things one
hundred and thirty four days, I believe, which ends in
a few days. So so that's you know, it comes
with the time of it. But the dog team will
(31:05):
only grow stronger over time, the Doge influence will grow stronger.
It's I'm likely to to sort of person Buddhism. It's
like a way of life, so it iscomeating throughout the government,
and I'm confident that over time.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think that's an important point that we shouldn't gloss over.
He compares it to Buddhism as a way of life. Well,
if if they actually do keep people in the departments
and agencies, and if this becomes part of the you know, well,
(31:39):
I can't remember the senator's name from Oklahoma, but he
used to keep the wastebook and every year he would
publish all of these programs that were wasteful. But then
nothing ever happened. And part of the reason nothing ever
happened was because nobody in Congress wanted to do anything. Well,
this is where the executive branch stepped him and says,
(32:01):
we're going to start bringing these to your attention, and
we're going to start just refusing to spend the money.
And then if you want to fight about it over
in the legislative branch, and then we'll go fight about it.
That makes a huge difference, just shining the light on it.
And if they can keep these people in place and
(32:23):
continue to do so. It may take a while. Don't
get me wrong. It's not going to happen overnight, but
it changes the entire month or about how we spend money.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
We'll see at twllion dollars of savings of production in
a trillion dollars of waste of full production. The capitations
of the Dose Dose team thus far, it's in terms
of FI twenty five to FI twenty six delta are
over one hundred and sixty billion, and that's climbing. We
expect that probably that never will probably go over two
hundred billion soon. So I think the Dose team is
(32:56):
doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing doing
an incredible job.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
And I'll be and I'll continue to be visiting here
and be a friend and advisor to the president, and
I look forward to, you know, times, being back in
this amazing room.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
By the way, isn't this incredible?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
This incredible?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I mean, no, that's that's enough. He then talks about
how incredibly the president has decorated the Oval office, which
is fine, but not of interest to meet right now.
I think that the media, the cabal is glad that
he's gone because I think they believe that this will
be the end of it and that they won't have
(33:38):
to worry about it anymore. I think they are wrong.
I think they're absolutely wrong in that regard. They'll bitch
about it, but nonetheless they they don't get it. For example,
this is from I think yesterday or day before. But
(33:58):
here's Senator Mark Kelly once again claiming outright falsehood.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
That it was incredibly short, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
He did his time. Musk's time was short, and that's
a good thing because a.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Lot of damage. I had veterans in my office that
had previously received excellent performance reports that were fired for
poor performance with an email from Elon Musk, and in
a couple cases, these folks are telling me how their
lives have been ruined for no reason. These were valuable
(34:34):
public servants. One was a disabled veteran who had served
our country in combat.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Now you can choose to believe Mark Kelly if you
want to. I don't because Mark Kelly, he's the senior
senator from Arizona. Tom Cobram was the senator for Maklom.
I was just thinking about Mark Kelly is a bald
headed liar. I'd like to see those letters. I'd like
(35:02):
to hear or see the notes from those meetings because
I just simply don't believe him. Because it's easy to
go on MSNBC. It's easy to talk to Jim Psaki.
I mean, remember Jimsaki's one that lied to us for
years while she was Pressed secretary for Joe Biden. So
they're going to feed you these really heart wrenching stories
(35:25):
about a disabled veteran that lost his job because he
got an email from Elon Musk that said you're fired
or something. No, I seriously doubt that's true. But that's
the kind of attitude when I talk about Congress being
they don't want to change anything their idea that you know,
(35:47):
they throw a fit because in Washington speak, a cut
in spending is not going from one hundred dollars to
eighty dollars. Their idea of a cut and spend is,
instead of spending, increasing spending from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty dollars, we only increased spending from one
(36:08):
hundred to one hundred forty dollars. And that's the end
of civilization as far as they're concerned, That's exactly what
they think about it. Jasmine Crockett, the for some reason,
the new face of the Democrat Party from Texas congresswoman.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
Yesterday in the Oval Office, it didn't exactly sound like
Trump and Elon Musk were completely breaking up. He sounded
like he might still be lingering in some unofficial capacity.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yet you know he had to.
Speaker 7 (36:38):
End his special He was at the final day as
a special employee. How is the House Oversight Committee going
to keep holding Doge and Elon Musk accountable?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
You said, keep we never started.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Oh, we never started. Whatever, sister, whatever, We'll be right
back
Speaker 4 (37:00):
The way every went r
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