Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/18/25: Shock Delta Crash Landing, Trump Voters Sound Off On Elon, Elon Social Security Fraud Debunked, Trump Backstabs Unions

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss shocking video as a Delta flight crash lands, Trump voters sound off on Elon, Redditors immediately debunk Elon Social Security claims, Trump backstabs unions.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show

for everybody today. Extra amazing. Crystal is back. Oh, thank you. You guys did a great job on the show yesterday, though. I enjoyed it as a consumer. Yes. People seem to enjoy it, so I'm happy. Lots of news coming out of D.C. and around the world, actually. There's yet another plane crash, this one in Toronto, that will show you just unbelievable images. It's not happy. Lots of news coming out of D.C. and around the world, actually. There's yet another plane crash, this one in Toronto, that will show you just unbelievable images. It's extraordinary. Everyone lived. You do have two people in critical condition, so we'll give you all of the images and updates there. Voters are starting to sound off about how they think about the early days of the Trump administration.

Some interesting comments there. Doge is now coming for Social Security, and a weird court filing says, like, oh, Elon's actually not technically involved with Doge. He's not technically the head of Doge is now coming for Social Security and a weird court filing says like, oh, Elon's actually not technically involved with Doge. He's not technically the head of Doge. So a lot going on there. Eric Adams' administration in New York City seems to be on the verge of collapse. You've got four deputy mayors who are now resigning. Some of the officials there are calling for a meeting that could push him out of office. This is all after that crazy deal struck with him and Tom Homan in the Trump administration, etc. So we'll give you those updates.

Massive crypto scam backed by Javier Millay, the president of Argentina, and one of the people who was behind that scam really telling on himself in a long interview with CoffeeZilla. Dave Portnoy is also involved, so a lot of pieces there, but this is like the anatomy of a giant rug pull. The head of the SEIU is going to join us to talk about the lawsuits against Doge that they are involved with and also the Republican attacks against Medicaid. And Ali Bestucky is going to join us to break down her view of Elon's baby mama drama. Yeah, I'm excited for it. This is a way that we get to horseshoe people into traditional values. Fellas, find a girl, marry her, and just stay with her.

Otherwise, you're gonna end up like Elon with your 20-something-year-younger baby mama tweeting, why have you not responded to me? So there's a lot of good stuff that's happening there. Should we get to the plane? What do we got? Yeah, let's go ahead and get to that. So this was a Delta flight into Toronto and crash landed there completely flipped

over. There's unbelievable images coming out. We can put this up on the screen. We're just getting preliminary indications of what may have happened here. But here you see this plane landing. Everything looks normal. It's a very snowy, wintry day in Canada there. But then upon landing, it looks like one of the wings strikes the ground. It causes the plane to burst into flames. It ultimately flips over. And we did get some images also from the passengers coming off of that plane where the thing is completely upside down as they're trying to climb out. As I said before, only two people in critical

condition. There were a number of injuries. Here you can see them being helped off of this upside down plane as the firefighters are trying to douse the flames as well as this entire thing is catching fire as well. And then you had some passenger images coming off, too, as they're trying to scramble. I mean, I guess here you could see the plane is completely upside down. So they're climbing out here on the roof and rescuers helping them there onto the ground. So again, we have just early indications of perhaps some sort of a plane malfunction here, but we don't really know. But, of course, this comes in the context, Sagar, of so many plane crashes, including the one that happened really close to here, which was the deadliest since, what, 2009 or something like that?

Yeah, it's been almost 15 years since you had such a deadly crash. This one, well, there's two ways you could look at it. One is it's terrifying, and I think we can all sympathize with that. The other kind of incredible thing is that a plane can literally flip upside down on a runway, catch on fire, lose its wings, and nobody died, at least now, which is incredible. Yeah, and everybody is expected to survive. Everybody's expected to pull through. Unbelievable. The paramedics said, yeah, I mean, it's a terrifying situation,

but passengers were able to crawl out of that. It's genuinely amazing. I used to have a real fear of flying when I was a kid. Mostly after, yeah, it was bad. And especially after 9-11. I think 9-11, I was young and kind of screwed. I was flying all the time because of my parents and I. And anyway, I remember doing a lot of early YouTube viewing in 2006

about how these planes are designed to absorb horrible things that happen to them from turbulence and wing strike, how you can even, the plane is designed so that even if the wings strike and hit each other, that they'll break properly and that everybody in will survive. And so this is somewhat of a testament to that. We did have a CNN reporter who described some of the stuff around the plane. Why don't we take a listen? Because he did a good job breaking some of the safety stuff down. That is the bottom of the fuselage. Now on the top, you can also see the foam truck here and the firefighters responding from the airport firehouse, putting out the fire,

which looked to be primarily on the bottom of the fuselage of the airplane. That is where the fuel is. That is so critical to get that fire out quickly as you're trying to evacuate people. So a lot happening here all at once. Let me recue this so you can see some of what was going on at the very front of the airplane. You're probably familiar with this door here as we pan over. This is the R1 exit in the aviation terms. This is what you would board on coming in and out of a jetway. The door is fully open. The slide is not deployed. Don't need it because you're upside down.

And you can see the folks here coming out of the airplane, which would have been completely dark and on fire. You have to imagine the terror as folks tried to get out of this very quickly. Everybody across the board, pilots, flight attendants, the control tower, the crash fire rescue crews, even the passengers did a good job. The big takeaway here, always leave your stuff behind, especially in a crash like this, because seconds count and mean lives. He's right. That is the big takeaway. Leave your dumb iPad behind. Nobody cares, okay? No one's going to care that you lost your AirPod Pros or something in the back. Listen. Although, frankly, I'd be the guy.

Those things are valuable. Yeah, they are. I've got like four pairs of headphones. I'm constantly losing them and be scrounging around. Kids' favorite blankie. You can't replace that. See, that's fair, actually. I hadn't thought about that.

Let's put this up there. On the screen, the next part here, this has been being passed around. This does go to show you some of the dangers of what this will look like in the future. I'm not blaming this on FAA firings. This happened in Canada, so let's all remember that. This just, what I've been trying to highlight is that if you are not careful around some things with Doge, you will eventually could have a situation like this happen in America, and then you have a full-on domestic political crisis on your hands. So that's obviously been one that's passed around here. But obviously this happened on Canadian soil.

It's actually a Canadian company, Bombardier, that makes those CRJ regional jets. It was a flight coming from Minneapolis, St. Paul to Toronto. Not that many passengers on board, luckily, but, you know, still scary. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've flown on those regional jets, those CRJs. So the question is what happened. Nobody knows yet. No indication yet of mechanical function. Obviously, it was very snowy on the ground.

But what, Toronto Airport doesn't know how to handle snow? Yeah. Or Minneapolis-St. Paul has never flown in cold conditions. I've landed in Minneapolis with like 20 inches of snow on the ground and where they spray you with all that de-icing stuff. So there's just procedures that are in place here. And we do expect when you get on a plane, no matter what type of safe conditions that they clear you for takeoff and landing, that you're going to make it. Otherwise, you should cancel the flight. So there's still a lot of questions here around what's happening with that. But yeah, honestly, just really happy that all the

passengers made it out. Still just a terrifying situation. Oh my God, yes. It's crazy to me that they thought they were like, I mean, the flight appeared to be totally normal. Right. And then it flipped right there at the runway and then suddenly you're upside down. Like, holy hell, what just happened? So, I mean, a new terror unlocked for me in terms of air travel. And I mean, that is the big thing is so many plane crashes, so many issues recently. I think you are going to start to spook a significant portion of the public that may have thought nothing. I mean, I put myself in this category. I would have thought nothing of getting onto an airplane.

Oh, it's safe. It's fine. These things never crash. Now I have different thoughts in my head. And, you know, again, this doesn't have to do with the FAA firings. It happened in Toronto. But it is crazy that the response to the deadliest commercial airline crash in the U.S. since in, you know, over a decade was to fire a bunch of FAA personnel. And the point that Stoller has been making, I think Ryan's been making as well, is like they have set themselves up to be like legitimately blamed for everything bad that happens in this country that the federal government touches whatsoever from here on out. And so it does outline some of the some of the risks, as you said, Zaghar.

It's a warning. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband. It's a cold case. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. She was a decorated veteran. A Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and get to these focus groups and what voters have to say. Yes, that's right. So there's been some indication here about how are Americans feeling about Donald Trump.

We can't yet exactly get a real sample of everybody. Polls itself can be somewhat unreliable. But in general, it's always good. Let's check in on how people are feeling. So the New York Times put together a focus group, six Americans across the spectrum, and asked them how they are feeling about the first Trump administration. So why don't we go ahead and we put that up on the screen. So here are six Americans on what they think of Trump, Elon Musk, and of Gaza. So why don't we start our slideshow, which has some select quotes

from each of these individual Americans. Here you have Tali Jackant. I hope I pronounced that correctly. She says, sometimes you don't know who is talking. It feels like a tantrum of a four-year-old boy. The second one here is Hamid Chowdhury from Reading, Pennsylvania. This is exactly what I expected, that unexpected things would happen. Let's go to the next one. It says, Mr. Musk seemed like a guy who was almost directly in control of the White House. This is Mr. Dave Abdullah of Dearborn Heights, Michigan. I think he was a third party

voter. That's right. Third party voter, along with many other people in Dearborn, Michigan. Here is Mr. Jaime Escobar Jr. from Roma, Texas. With Trump, it just seems to be like boom, boom, boom, boom. A very apt description there. Next one, Mr. Isaiah Thompson, 22 years old from Washington, D.C. He says, right now, everything just seems so much in the air. He's a college student paying attention to this. And then we have a Mr. Perry Hunter from Sellersburg, Indiana. When someone's trying to cut spending, which is going to help me in the long run, I take him at face value. So you have some interesting takes there from across the spectrum. And it is both important for class dynamics, workplace dynamics, and also,

I can't hammer this home enough, news. Remember that statistic about the more tapped in that you are, the more likely that you voted for Kamala Harris, which is just kind of amazing. But there's also a real refresh element, I think, to a lot of liberal activism and others. These people are statistically way more likely to read the news anyways. And so that whole feeling of people being in control or of things being out of control or things moving in a very, very fast-paced direction leading to some anxiety definitely comes through this and through some Wall Street Journal stuff that we're all about to show you. But I'm not ready to make any broad determinations yet. It's just interesting to hear from actual voters. The first lady you put up there who said the thing about seems like a tantrum of a four-year-old boy. One of the things

she said that was kind of interesting, and this is a lady who was traditionally more liberal, more of a Democratic voter, did vote for Trump, kind of uneasy about that vote, not super happy with what she's seen so far. But part of what was interesting to me is she said, even though she's not like super psyched about what she's saying, she's like, I have a metric in my head of how long a period of grace I'm going to give him. She's like, he gets quote, 100 days of charity. And I do think that there is that instinct among a lot of the American public of like, well, let's give him, he just got in there, like, let's give him some time and see how this all shakes out.

So, you know, it's indicative of the fact that in a certain sense, he's still in that, quote, honeymoon phase where presidents typically have, you know, relatively high approval rating for Trump. He's continued to have, for him, the highest, some of the highest approval ratings of his career. Yeah, no question. And that's an important point is don't forget Joe Biden's presidency did not officially sour until October of 2021. It took nine straight months. If you go back to the Bush administration, it wasn't as long, but it took several months to get there with the privatization of Social Security, plus Iraq going down the hill. Trump, really the only existential threat that he

has to his presidency, right? Because inflation in the economy is much more of a slow burn, in my opinion. I think it's one of those that nobody's going to flip on a dime, absent some sort of massive financial crisis. And the biggest existential threat to his presidency is foreign affairs. That's what nuked Joe Biden. And because of the uncertainty that we currently have with Israel and with Gaza and his current plan to literally occupy Gaza, I think that's one where you could quite literally turn on a dime. The rest of it, I think it's going to be much slower. Although my caution around Doge is that if there is some cut to a government and then there's some horrible economic or financial or natural disaster and something does not seem to be functioning properly, then that actually also could come back to bite you.

Let's put some of the Wall Street Journal stuff up there on the screen because this is a similar focus group. But this one is even more interesting because it's actually with Trump voters. So we thought we would look at some of the stuff here. So you have a voter here, Stacey White. She said she voted for President Trump. She wanted lower prices and to stop fentanyl from coming in the border. She said, when we said safer borders, I thought he was thinking let's stop the drugs from coming in this country. I didn't know he was going to start raiding places.

She said she didn't believe he would actually follow through on some of the more hardline policies he started touted during the campaign. Now I'm like, dang, why didn't I just pick Kamala, said the 49-year-old Omaha, Nebraska resident, referring to the former vice president and last Democratic nominee. Okay, I mean, you know, stood in front of a sign that said mass deportation, but all right. Let's continue to the next one in terms of some of these voters. Here you have, for example, Todd Winant. He's a holistic coach from Cornville, Arizona. Is it Cornville? Cornville. All right. I should visit. I don't think they grow corn in Arizona. All right.

I'm thrilled with Trump, and he's done more in less than a month than most presidents have in their whole term. He's a longtime Democrat who had initially been all in on Robert Kennedy Jr., but moved over to Trump after the independent candidate dropped out. So you've got the hippie voter here who loves Donald Trump, loving Maha, loving the confirmation, and probably loving Doge as well. Let's go to the next one, please. Here you can actually see some more from, you have one resident, 23-year-old L.A., cheered on Trump's government's cuts and deportations, saying he would support more widespread removal of people who came to the U.S. illegally. I say he's pretty much exceeded expectations. Honestly,

I did not expect him to be this quick in actually making these changes. Let's go to the next one. This one is actually honestly pretty amusing. Here you have Emily Anderson from Duluth, who considers herself a Democrat, but backed Trump after Kennedy dropped out of the race. Anderson aligned with Kennedy's MAHA agenda, particularly the focus on getting toxins out of food, who works with disabled adults, said Kennedy's government role is the only bright spot for a vote that she categorizes now as the biggest mistake of my life. Honestly, I still don't really get this one because she said she's horrified by deportation, alleged that Trump has been too focused on ridiculous flashy moves such as banning paper straws and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Her daughter's preoccupational therapist has stopped taking new patients over fears that the practice will have its funding dry up.

She says, I feel so guilty, stupid, and regretful, embarrassed, in a huge one. I'm absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Donald Trump. Okay. I mean, you know, I'm not going to tell Emily how to feel, I guess, but you literally voted for the guy for RFK Jr. You got what you wanted. I wouldn't say a lot of the rest of this was not telegraphed, but in a certain sense, you have some buyer's remorse. You have some trepidation. You have some people who are like, this is absolutely amazing. But I think your honeymoon comment still sticks in terms of how I think things are still going to shake out. It's interesting, too, that, you know, not across the board, but a number of the people who are like RFK Jr. people

who came into the coalition and voted with Trump seem to be some of the ones that are having some of the bigger regrets. Yeah, but there was also that other guy who was like, this is the greatest thing ever. I'm not saying it's across the board, but that was interesting. And it kind of it does make a kind of sense. Because they're liberals. We're a liberal, you know, sort of like hippie, crunchy, like skeptical of medical science, whatever. You end up in RFK's camp.

He pulls you over to MAGA. And yeah, he's in at HHS, but let's not pretend like RFK Jr. is like a big part of the show at this point. The big part, Elon is a big part of the show. And while on the one hand, yes, Elon was a big part of the show at this point. The big part of Elon is a big part of the show. And while on the one hand, yes, Elon was a big part of the campaign, you know, even myself, who was, again, pretty like, you know, upset about what a Trump administration could bring, did not foresee the level of control that Elon Musk would have in this administration. So in that way, it is very much a break from how Trump portrayed himself.

And then, you know, the other thing that was interesting to me is the lady who was like, yeah, I want the criminals out, but I didn't know he'd be raiding workplaces and whatever. Like, there was an effort during the campaign, and this was part of Trump's, like, bro podcast strategy, to make it seem like this guy's not a radical. They're hyperventilating about him. He's just a normal dude. Whatever it is that they're trying to scare you about, it's not really real. And so my position was always like, no, you need to listen to what he says. These are his plans. Project 2025, by the way, is a real thing. They've spent the offseason getting their ducks in a row so that they can execute on the more maximalist plans more aggressively. So you should assume that when the

president is, you know, the former and now current president is at the RNC with signs that say mass deportation now that like he literally means that and you should operate accordingly. And, you know, it's clear that a number of people who voted for him didn't really take seriously the most maximalist things that he said. And in certain ways, he's gone beyond the most maximalist things that he said and even some of the more maximalist positions

put out in Project 2025, which of course he lied about and pretend, oh, we have nothing to do with that. And of course the plan's not Project 2025, et cetera. It wasn't the plan. It just seemed to rhyme with the plan. Let's go and put this one up there, the last one from one of our voters here.

This is a 66-year-old telecommunications contractor. Said he is enjoying Trump's early days, particularly focusing on addressing government waste. Said he is, quote, steamrolling the government is unsustainable for the next four years. He's doing 80 miles an hour. I wouldn't mind if he went around 55.

So just saying, just slow down here a little bit. But overall, I'm with you. I'm with you. So that seems to be what we have. We do have here some voters, Arab Americans who voted for Donald Trump, sounding off on the Gaza plan. Let's take a listen to that. I could not believe that the president of the United States is uttering these words.

Even Trump, I did not think that he would go this far, breaking international law and disregard to our own laws. We do not regard Gaza as a land that's for grab. It's a Palestinian land. I was very shocked and surprised. He made a point to tell me he didn't vote at all for any presidential candidate. He usually does because he just didn't prefer either. I spoke with a young woman, a college senior who voted in her first presidential election. She did vote for Trump.

She said when she saw his remarks on Gaza, she gasped and was initially shocked, but ultimately not surprised. And I said, do you regret in any way voting for him? And she said, maybe, but if I hadn't and Kamala Harris had won, maybe we wouldn't still have a ceasefire. I don't know what to say. Maybe she's right. Look, I really try hard not to go blue MAGA. But what did you expect? Like, did I expect Trump to say we're going to take over Gaza? No. But do you know what I did expect him to say? Yeah, it's over. The West Bank is going to be Israeli. Like, that was obviously telegraphed. I mean, I guess the position that they made is that it couldn't be any worse than Kamala Harris. But I mean, I got to be honest, like, if that was your number one issue, I still have no idea how you

voted for Trump. Because Kamala, here's the thing, again, about liberals and Democrats, their worship of international norms and of past US policy would have been to the net effect. Because Kamala, yeah, she probably wouldn't have gotten a ceasefire through or any of that. But she would have been rhetorically committed to a two-state solution, even though we all know that it's fake. Which means that the status quo would not really change all that much. There would be de facto control. But there's a big difference between de facto control and U.S. government sanctioned taking over the West Bank. I mean, that question was effectively decided the day that Donald Trump was elected the president. And it was pretty clear if you were really paying

attention. So I don't really know what to make of this in a sense. Like I said, I don't love to do the whole voter blaming thing. But if that was your number one issue, I mean, I'm still not really clear how you got to where you are. Maybe you could say, well, they got the hostages out and there was a ceasefire for a period of time, which I think is probably true. I don't know if there'd be a ceasefire without Donald Trump here in the office. But I mean, there's still a long way to go on that whole process, as we talked about with Ryan yesterday. Yeah, very much so. And I guess the way I always looked at it is, you know, I have very low opinions of all of these politicians, of Trump, of Kamala and all the rest. I think the way to look at these individuals is think about who's in their coalition and who they're subject to pressure from. the Republican base is way more pro-Israel and his donor base, including Mary Maddison,

who was one of his largest donors, is very, like, that's her number one issue. And so, you know, on the Democratic side, most of the donors there, too, are quite pro-Israel. But you do have a large percentage of the Democratic base who, you know, were, are at this point more sympathetic towards Palestinians, very opposed to the ongoing war and where, you know, Donald Trump doesn't care what some lefty on a college campus has to say, but those are part of the Democratic coalition. So at least in theory, there's an ability to exert some pressure on a Democratic administration. I mean, listen, I'm sympathetic to the fact that there were just no good answers in this election. If this was your number one issue,

very sympathetic to the gentleman who said he just didn't vote because he couldn't stomach, you know, voting for either one of these candidates. But yeah, if you thought that you were going to get some like humanitarian position out of Donald Trump with regard to Palestinians, like I don't really-

That's what I mean. I just don't know what to do. And I think we both were pretty clear about that in our election coverage. I even said that. Of, like, being clear-eyed about what you were getting with that one. People can go roll the tape. I think I did a segment about the Arab. And I said, listen, no offense, but if your number one is issue, you should vote for Kamala.

There's no— You did. You did say that. I mean, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. Maybe it's because I understand, like you said, pressures and coalition. They don't give a shit about you. I mean, like at all. They'll use you for window dressing. But I mean, look, look at who the administration is. Look at the promises. I mean, look at the secretary, oh, the ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. There has not been a

single thing on the Gaza policy outside of saying we will occupy it that has surprised me about the Donald Trump administration. I also do want to put this one up there. A6. Let's put this up there on the screen. I'm feeling pretty vindicated. Financial. Although, put my own caveat on this. Polls can often be bullshit and do not take this to the bank.

So if you're against this, you should take that into consideration. Financial Times did a survey here. Majority of Americans believe foreign aid wasted on corruption. Exclusive polls suggest voters back Donald Trump and Elon Musk's view of Doge. A poll by Financial Trust found that 60% of respondents agreed that funds set aside for humanitarian causes were, quote, wasted on corruption or administrative fees. Only 12% disagreed with the proposition. So, I mean, that, honestly, I feel very vindicated because

that's why I said that the starting with USAID was brilliant because nobody cares about USAID. And to the extent that they do, they're like, yeah, it's fake and it's fraud. And the more that you have now all this information coming out, plus this media ecosystem around USAID and Mike Benson and all that, people are going to be like, good, I support that. Donald Trump and Elon are still, in my opinion, not in any danger. So everything about it is about telegraphing what might happen. It's like fear. It's like, oh, they have access to data.

It's like, yeah, well, you know, unnamed bureaucrat has access to my data too. Frankly, could be just as much of a threat. Maybe. People hate the IRS. People hate the government. Even people who have social security have dim views of the actual social security administration, but they love social security as in the checks. They hate the government. And they feel as if it is completely unmoored from their own interests. So until millions of people get affected by something like this, or there's a natural disaster, I think it's just going to keep chugging along. That poll, I mean, again, I really hate to say it, but you can just see how little trust the

average American really has in these institutions and how they feel so taken advantage of that the idea to them, even whenever people are like, oh, somebody in Myanmar didn't get their AIDS medication. They're like, okay, well, you know, my cousin or whatever is sick and he's paying $800 a month for his pharmaceutical drugs. Now, you could very easily argue, okay, but you know, it's not like Republicans want that to be cheaper, but they don't want to hear it. They don't care. They're like, well, it's at least this, we shouldn't at least be giving our tax dollars away to all of that. So it's a complex system that we live in here, but I don't know. And I look at this, I just, that was my ultimate suspicion. I was like,

nobody gives a shit about USAID except for the people who work there. So I think it's very similar to, you know, if you ask people like, do you want to cut government spending? They're like, yes. Absolutely. You know, do you think that foreign aid as a like lump category is corrupt or a waste of dollars or whatever? They're like, yes, of course. But then, you know, and I've seen the polling on this. When you ask people specifically about like HIV treatment for that has, you know, been impactful for millions of people in Africa, they support it. So do I think that this is, do I think there's like a deal breaker for, you know, killing USAID? Do I think there's a deal breaker for trying? No, but they've at this point gone a long way beyond USAID, number one. And number two, you know, they are right now really playing with fire in terms of both what the actual impact of what they're doing will be.

I mean, we're only, you know, one horrific event like a plane crash in the U.S. from them being blamed with blood like on their hands because of the cuts that they've made at the FAA. You're also in a very precarious position because you have the specter of the richest man on the planet with all these conflicts of interest, et cetera, et cetera, a genuine literal oligarch who is running the show and keying up cuts to Social Security, Medicaid in particular, Republicans very aggressively going after Medicaid, and for what? In order to finance a giant tax cut for the rich. This is a lot of why so many people turned on the traditional, like George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Republican Party, and sought out a different approach with Donald Trump, who pledged to not be that kind of Republican, who really didn't care about the debt and the deficit, frankly, who was like, I'm going to make sure that we don't touch your entitlement programs whatsoever.

So, you know, if you ask people, like, do you think that a billionaire should be in control of the government or even have significant influence, an unelected billionaire should have significant influence in the government? They're like, no, because they're fearful of exactly that dynamic. Cuts and austerity for you, largesse, subsidies and tax cuts for themselves. And that's exactly the road that they are traveling right now. I actually think that could hit most during the tax bill. Because remember, I always say it, the lowest approval rating that Trump ever had was the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. But I also think the country's changed a lot since then.

And I think the media environment that people swim in, the lack of trust. And so will the same messaging hit? I also think they're probably going to do enough that they'll be able. Last time around, the tax messaging was bullshit, right? Remember Paul Ryan? And they'd be like, the average American family is going to spend $1,000. I was in a meeting with Paul Ryan where it was like me and a bunch of journalists. And I remember him being

like, that's enough for someone to get their kitchen cabinets replaced or something. And I was looking around. I'm like, do we believe any of this shit? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's enough to get a costume. I was literally sitting there. You're giving these people like billions of dollars and we're just like, oh, we get a Costco membership.

Thank you. I was sitting there with all these other journalists and we were all looking at each other like, do they think this is going to hit? I was like, how is this even possible? Well, even that though, so, you know, we'll cover this more in depth in the future. The Republicans have set themselves a limit of $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. Just the extension of the tax cuts for the rich people is four trillion. Trump made a bunch of promises, no taxes on tips, no taxes on Social Security, no taxes on overtime. Salt. Don't forget salt. But that's the key. If you like those pieces that are genuinely appealing and helpful to the working class, like the no tax on tips things,

they don't fit in that $4.5 trillion budget cap if you're doing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extension, which 100% they're doing that, and you're doing SALT. So, you know, they're very likely, and Republicans don't support this stuff anyway. Oh, yeah, that's true. Trump does, but most Republicans don't. I think they're going to give it to him. So I think there's a good chance that some of the promises that were made are also not going to be fulfilled at the same time that rich people and the upper middle class in states like New York and California are getting the things that they want. Oh yeah, if you're rich, you're about to have a bonanza coming your way because there are so many extensions in the task code that these people are frothing at the mouth for because they want to make permanent

the adjustment to the overall income tax rates all the way at the top from, I think it's like 39%, something like that, where it is currently, where previously, I think it was like 40-something, but they want to make that permanent instead of a five-year extension. There's a bunch of stuff going on with the estate tax, small business, but the actual, the real fights, I think, will be tax on tips. It'll be corporate tax rate, too. There was actually an interesting one that happened previously. It will be SALT because currently the SALT cap is at 10%. They want to lift it, I think, to 20. That's what I'd heard.

Although some New York Republicans want to uncap it completely. Why would they do that, right? Why would they put that into place? So I think that messaging will hit much more if and when the tax bill passes. But if they're smart, you're going to have to put in some of this tip stuff and a few of the other. What else did he say? No tax on Social Security. Overtime, no tax on Social Security.

Yeah, those are the ones. You know, philosophically, though, it doesn't make any sense to tax Social Security. Why would you give somebody money and then take some of it back? I just don't get it. And it's one of those where somebody explained it to me, and they're like, well, it's because it's just to be taxed as overall income, or et cetera, but why would the government give you money and then you have to pay taxes on it? It's like, why don't you just give me some money

and then I don't have to pay any taxes on it? It doesn't make any sense. Listen, I am in favor of lowering taxes for working-class people, and I am in favor of dramatically increasing taxes on people like Elon Musk and companies like Tesla, which literally paid $0 in taxes in the past several years. I looked into that, but apparently the reason why they paid $0 is to carry over a bunch of CapEx loss. Yeah, great for them.

I'm just saying. I mean, they did lose a lot of money. Billions of dollars in profit, and they pay $0 in taxes. But it's basic investment analysis, right? It's like if you invest and have losses X, Y, and Z over a 5, 10-year period, then it carries over to your tax losses. I don't think it's – look, invest and have losses X, Y, and Z over a 5, 10-year period, then it carries over to your tax losses. I don't think it's – look, I'm not defending Tesla per se, but the idea that you can't burn a bunch of CapEx dollars and then write that off in the future when you

actually build a successful company, I mean, that's tried and true. Our tax code is supposed to encourage business investment. Now, if it's stock buyback and stuff like that, then absolutely, I'm with you. Well, I think you would agree that the fact that billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is dramatically lower than your average middle class person is a utterly preposterous situation, which is only going to be further exacerbated by the tax cuts. Trump does want to close the carried interest loophole, which even Kyrsten Sinema and Manchin voted against. So let's all hold him to that because that would be the biggest existential threat to all of his technology donors. The tech right people, they are printing money off of their carried interest loophole, which we don't have the time to go in and explain it fully. But when I do, to all of you, it basically means that their labor is taxed at much less value than yours,

which is not right, especially if you're a business owner or any of these other people. Even small business owners are some of the highest paying taxpayers in the United States compared to whenever you cross the 10 million mark and you're almost certainly involved in finance and or venture capital, you pay almost 20%, which is ludicrous, right? When somebody else is paying 45% or 50% effective tax rate if they live in New York or California, at a minimum, even if they live in Texas or something like that, paying almost 40% taxes. So it doesn't make any sense. But I'm actually excited to get to the tax stuff because that is one where I'm curious to see how the politics actually shake out.

Last thing on this Trump voter thing, let's put this on the screen. This one is they voted for Trump and now some of their jobs are at risk. It says that they're writing about some of these government employees around who voted for Donald Trump. There's about 75,000 government employees who apparently accepted the buyout and others. But, you know, even within this one, I'm feeling a little bit like I do the Palestine thing. Crystal, he said he was going to not run on gutting the entire federal government ran on Schedule F, which was to classify all of you as fire. I know, but he didn't he didn't run on. I'm going to get rid of 10% of the federal government workforce across the board without regard to how long you've been there or how effective you've been or any of those sorts

of things. So I don't know. I'll cut these people some slack. Like, obviously, I think you're a fool to vote for Trump no matter what. But like you got tricked no matter what because of the policies that he was campaigning on. But nobody could have foreseen how much power would be handed to Elon Musk, who is an austerity, like anarcho-capitalist, I want to literally get rid of the entire federal government guy. That's not what Trump has ever been. You know, Trump has not positioned himself as freaking Javier Millay,

and yet that's exactly the government that we've ended up with here. So I have sympathy for these individuals. I'll say with the Elon thing, but no, he ran on schedule F. They said he wanted to clean out the government about the deep state. What did you expect? I mean, there's a reason that 90 some percent of federal employees who are not law enforcement vote for the Democratic Party. If you're a Trump supporting federal government worker, you're like, I'm not the deep state. I'm your ally here. I'm loyal to you.

Well, look around, bro. I mean, what do you expect? I don't know what to tell you. I think it was reasonable to expect that people who were especially high up in the government bureaucracy who were sort of like, you know, where their politics really matter. I mean, for most of these people, their politics really don't matter when they're just carrying out the functions of whatever it is they do within the federal government. So in any case, I genuinely don't think it was predictable. The level of control and the like radical libertarian bent of this administration, I don't think that that was entirely. I would not have predicted it to be the vehicle through the current doge. But yeah, I did expect Stephen Miller to issue Schedule F.

When did we cover Schedule F? Two years ago? People should go and watch that segment with Jonathan Swan from the New York Times, who wrote all, if you just read or watched that segment, all of this was eminently predictable. Now, I'm not saying that Doge would have been the one that cut you, but the entire architecture to mass fire millions of people from the government was absolutely not just a project 2025. It was schedule F. It was openly endorsed by Donald Trump, openly crafted by Stephen Miller, talk of the town. It wasn't just in the news media. It was here. It was on the podcast space as well. So I don't know. I don't feel nearly as bad for a lot of those folks. But let me say this. I will

never celebrate, on a personal level, someone losing their job. I think it's sad. And I have, unfortunately, seen a lot of people who are taking pleasure. But listen, no matter who you are, government, non-government, losing your job sucks. Not being able to pay your mortgage sucks. It's one of the highest predictor, one of the most stressful events that you'll ever experience in your life. High predictor of suicide. That's why a lot of people kill themselves whenever there's recessions. It's horrible. So at a personal level, we should not wish it on anybody. And I would tell people not to be cruel in that regard. It's important to always understand the humanity of them, even if, you know, I did think it was kind of predictable. But that's more about a voting level as opposed to,

I'm not going to celebrate you losing your job. No one was out there like, we're going to fire everyone who's still in the probationary period. Like, no one said. No, that was actually. Which is not just people who. I actually think that one was there. Which was not just people who, you know, are new to the government. It's also people who newly changed, like got a promotion in the government.

Which means that, you know, by like sort of definitionally, you were doing a good job or at least someone thought you were doing a good job enough to promote. So in a lot of ways, you know, between that and the structure of the deferred resignation program, it really is a calling of a lot of the best and the brightest from the federal government. So if you were an outstanding performer and, you know, and generally like in a nonpolitical position with the respect of your colleagues, I think it was reasonable to expect that you wouldn't be on the chopping block. So in any case, I will just say that even as I was taking Donald Trump very seriously about what he was saying he was going to do, I knew Project 2025 was in fact the plan. This has still been far more radical and aggressive

than I expected. And in particular, the like, you know, complete handing over of the keys to Elon Musk and the complete deferential nature of Donald Trump to Elon Musk is bizarre and was not expected. I'm with you on that one. I think it's weird. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved

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If you have a case you'd like me to look into, who is still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up.

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a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The latest fallout over Doge, as we have put this up on the screen, top Social Security official, the acting director of, or acting commissioner, rather, of the Social Security

Administration has now left their job, her job this weekend, after a clash with Doge and their attempts to access sensitive government records within the Social Security Administration. She left her position on Sunday after the disagreement. And it's also interesting. So this, you know, this is reminiscent of the acting director of the Treasury, who also left over a conflict with Doge and didn't want to give them access and, you know, would rather be pushed out than stay in and grant that access. Also interesting here is who Trump appointed now to fill this role as acting director of Social Security. So bypassed dozens of other executive level individuals within this administration. Like if you're looking at the org chart, bypassed dozens of people to pick this person, Leland Duduk, who has apparently posted positive remarks on social media about Doge's efforts to cut costs and search for fraud in federal agencies. So literally went through the list and looked at who had posted praise of Doge, and that's the person that they plucked and put in charge here while they're waiting for, you know,

the more permanent replacement to be confirmed by the Senate. Yeah. This is where I feel a bit torn because we're about to talk about this with the IRS and others. You know, there's this presumption in this that these people are good. And maybe they are and maybe they aren't. But there's this general presumption around this civil servant worship where they're like, oh, this is very tightly held data. And it's like, yeah, okay. But, you know, when everyone talks about Doge,

they're like, oh, it's scary that they're getting access. And I think that's deeply true on a conflict of interest level with Elon. But at a principal level, why is the civil servant supposedly supposed to be the one who is more trusted with all of our Social Security, our SSDI paperwork, our taxpayer paperwork? I mean IRS people are convicted or shown to be biased all the time. There was all that stuff during the Obama administration. Look at all the stuff even during the first Trump administration I remember. What were all those leaks that happened of that career IRS agent who leaked like Peter Thiel and all these other people's tax returns? So, I mean, these are not heroes necessarily. Well, you know

why he's a hero? That guy showed how you really should do it. Roth IRA, folks. Peter Thiel's got $5 billion in a Roth IRA and one of the most genius financial retirement schemes I've ever seen. Everyone should study it, especially if you're a normal guy. Well, here's what I say. I'm part of why it's important and it matters who has access to that data. And with the Treasury, it was also not just access to the data. It was also that this, you know, Doge apparatchik had read-write access on the code, which controls the trillions of dollars in payments that go out from the Treasury Department. Similarly, obviously, people really depend on getting them social security checks out and on time. So there's also a fear that these Doge apparatchik hackers,

whatever you want to call them, mess around with things in a way that causes things to break. In addition, there are very specific laws regarding privacy of your data with the federal government. And so the civil servants are, you know, trained in those laws and have, you know, are subject to the laws when they don't comply with them, whereas the Doge people seem to be totally above and beyond the law. Not to mention some of the things that have come out about some of these individuals makes them not exactly the most trustworthy people. I'm not sure who it is exactly who's inside of Social Security. I'm not sure that that's publicly available information, which is another thing, too, is that there's no transparency around what they're actually doing.

But one of these dudes was fired from his job because he was sharing company secrets. I think that same guy is the one that you and Ryan were talking about, created the website where, or maybe it was Ryan and Emily that were talking and created the website where you could, you know, referencing child sexual abuse material, whether that was just a troll or whether it was really a way for encrypting this type of stuff, Hard to say. So in any case, we know very little about these individuals. And what we do know has not exactly put anyone's mind at ease about them being in such a sensitive position as being inside of a social security system, being inside of the Treasury. I think that's fair.

I just get back to the civil servant point. We're like, I don't know who has access over my IRS data. I certainly don't trust them based on my track track record. Or the Social Security, unelected bureaucrats. It just gets to that heart of, in a certain sense, we're dealing with two unelected parties. And a lot of this is about partisan interest, as I showed with the USAID thing, which I think aligns. I'm not 100% sure. I'm willing to bet people are much more skeptical, I think, of the career civil servant. Now, these people, I've lived around these people my entire adult life. They think they're heroes and they think they're like the greatest, smartest people on earth,

but they're also deeply partisan in their old like capital liberal way. Are they truly to be trusted? You know, and if anything, when you elect a Donald Trump and who is genuinely like a scream and an F you against the system, it's like why would anyone trust that you are going to faithfully carry out whatever the elected office wants you to do? Now, if it's illegal, that's one different thing. But at a base trust level, everyone's like, oh, it's so horrible that the top civil servant resigned. I'm like, yeah, but who is this lady? I don't even know who you are. Nobody elected you. Someone who's been there for decades. I think 18 years this individual and has been part of making sure that social security checks went out on time and in a reliable fashion. So am I going

to put my trust in that person who's been there for over a decade and been doing the job and doing that job effectively? Or some arrogant 20-year-old brat who was like fired for sharing illegally share, or not illegally, but sharing company secrets from his previous job, like no doubt in my mind who I would put my trust in. But that's my point about institutional trust, is you have a baseline institutional trust, you think these programs are good. Most people think that these programs are bad. Most people think social security is good, Zagre. Okay, again, when we talk about, first of all, nobody, again, unless you're old, is logging in and knows what the Social Security Administration is.

They know it comes from the government. Now, in terms of the Social Security Administration, somebody my age, right? I don't have deep familiarity unless I did this job with Center of Medicaid, CMS, how all this stuff works. I know because I have literally for the job, but the average voter is not having a deep amount of participation in all this. When they hear civil servant, bureaucrat, distrust immediately, I think, at least for the people who voted for Donald Trump. And I think when they hear the richest man on the planet is messing around in

the Social Security Administration, red flags go up. And I mean, to that point, Elon is sort of building a case and has been, by the way, for months, something we have been pointing out here, for cuts to Social Security. He routinely shares these posts from Mike Lee, who is a libertarian who thinks that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme or pyramid scheme and should be dismantled and is inherently as a program, not talking about like improper payments to this person, that person, but as a program is fraudulent, like Elon shares that and agrees with that. And so now he's out with this preposterous bunch of bullshit attacking the social security and its administration put this up on the screen, claiming that, oh, we went in and we looked at the database and look at all these people who are 150 years old or who are 300 years old who are still receiving payment.

So, first of all, again, this could literally have just been invented, this spreadsheet. We don't even know that this is based on anything. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt that these are actually some numbers that was pulled from the Social Security database. We know on basic math that this is not indicative of people who are receiving payments. But also if you look at the number of people who are 150 years old, one thing I saw this morning, Sagar, is that this could be a result of all these systems are programmed using COBOL, which is like this old-ass programming language. And it has this particular quirk where if you don't fill in the birth date, then it defaults to it being 1875, which would indicate a year of age of 150 years old in this year. So, and this is part of the thing is, just keep this up on the screen and I'll explain this as well, is, you know, these

apparatchiks that he has going, they're 20 years old. Okay. They, I'm sure maybe are very technically proficient at the latest and greatest. I used to work as a consultant for the government and I actually was like in these old ass SQL databases. And I can tell you they are quirky and weird, and they are certainly not state of the art. And if that's a thing you want to address, that would be a massive undertaking and could make the government more efficient. I'm not opposed to it. But to just go in and pull some data and be like, oh my God, look at all these 300-year-olds that are getting paid. Do some basic logic and math and maybe ask the people around you what you were getting wrong before you just put out to the public this attack on Social Security.

So in any case, this journalist goes in, runs the numbers and finds, of course, it doesn't add up. This would indicate that they would be paying 41 million more beneficiaries than we actually are at a cost of about $1 trillion a year more than we're actually spending. If, in fact, that Social Security data that Elon tweeted was remotely real and consistent with the number of people that get paid out. So, again, bottom line here, in my humble opinion, is that Elon is trying to build a case against Social Security, period, end of story. Not just against improper payments or fraud or whatever, but against the program as a whole. Now, will that work out? Will he be able to get those cuts? Who knows? Donald Trump has been very consistent in saying that he would stay hands off Social Security, but I don't think there's any doubt that that's the attempt here

is to, you know, to make it seem like you can cut this program, that you can take money out of this program without it actually hitting recipients because there's so much fraud. This data, though, and many of the other things he shared besides, is completely made-up bullshit. Well, I'm with you on this data because it's hilarious. The guy there was from the Tax Foundation, which is actually very good. They do a good job. You're going to have to explain this to me because I'm not a database guy.

I haven't used it since my econometrics class. But the politically neutral SQL Reddit, you've taught me it's not SQL, subreddit is apparently very upset about the way that this was compiled. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is classic subreddit behavior. I love it. If I know one thing, it's Star Wars. However, if I know two things, it's acquiring domain knowledge of company data using SQL. He's either that dumb and has done zero due diligence on his claim and simply done a select age count from people grouped by age where dead equals true without checking maybe if these people are actually drawing benefits via transactional data, or he just wants to spread misinformation. Let's go to the next one. There's several of these screenshots. So again, we can't

know everything about all the data, right? Queries, but we can sanity check stuff. The 180, 189 range means that people were born in the 1830s. Social Security didn't start until 1935, meaning many of these people would have been in their 90s. Unlikely, these people's records have made it to the computer age. I could be wrong, but it would make me want to check the source records before sending it to operational folks, which in this case is citizens of the U.S. Plus, we don't have the query just because you have a record in SSDB does not mean that you are collecting no way to tell with a grid-only view. I can only do that in Excel. So you've got some SQL warriors here that are very, very upset about the way that this data has been compiled.

And that is what I think validates your point most, which is that Elon is an, quote, imperfect messenger in the nicest way to possibly put it around this. He's maniacal. He doesn't check his work. He's constantly posting about it, has massive conflicts of interest. And that's why I think it's become like a culture war in and of itself of like a choose-your-own-fighter. And the choose-your-own-fighter, again, in my opinion, splits very well along a political valence. Somebody like myself, who generally doesn't trust career civil servants bureaucrats, I'm like, yeah, I don't know if you're such a hero.

Just my experience. That seems to also be the general valence, I think, of a lot of people who voted for Trump or anti-establishment, whereas for a lot of people who are much more establishment minded or who are much more trustful of institutions, they look at somebody like Elon and they'll correctly point out all of their flaws and say, no, I'm going to stick with whoever this 18-year career lady is at the Social Security Administration. So I understand why it's very difficult. I totally get also why a lot of liberals are furious about all of this. I try to think about the way that it will hit and until they actually do and cut a program that affects millions on an actual basis,

I don't think that there'll be any large political outcry just because I do think we're still living through a very anti-institutional moment. I think what I want people to understand is that the real goal of Doge is not cutting spending or rooting out waste and fraud. It's not efficiency. It is consolidating power in the hands of Elon Musk and whoever his billionaire allies are. And it is an ideological anti-government project, at least as it goes for social safety net programs that benefit you.

I mean, and this is, again, he says these things out loud. You only need to listen to what he's saying. He believes that every, in his ideal world, every government worker would be fired and put into the private sector, which means a complete privatization of government, something that I think most people would be deeply opposed to. But more to the point about how you know that this isn't about cutting government spending, they're using all of these things that they're talking about, cutting USAID, even the trimming of the federal workforce, taking a hatchet to a 10% is a trivial part of the federal government budget. And what are they doing on the other hand?

They're securing $4 trillion in tax cuts for themselves alongside things like Medicaid cuts, alongside, you know, Elon trying to build the case against Social Security, trying to build the case against Medicare, etc. So that's what I want people to understand is that this really has nothing to do with government efficiency or, you know, or rooting out fraud or any of those sorts of things. And if you look at what they're actually doing and the way that they're going about it, that becomes very clear. And I think one piece of that is, you know, there's also a fight right now about access to IRS information and IRS data. You can put the tear sheet up on the screen. So, you know, this is the same sort of thing,

like your most sensitive personal financial details held in this database and these, you know, 20-year-old Elon Musk acolytes going in and rooting around and doing whatever. There's also questions about, okay, are they also going to have read-write access to this system as well? But in addition, more to the point of what I was saying about what this project is really about, you know, the IRS certainly as an agency, not beloved, let's be

quite clear about that. However, it does get one of the best returns on investment of any government agency that exists. So the Trump administration expected to lay off thousands of IRS employees in the coming days. The IRS collected in 2024 about $5.1 trillion in revenue with a budget of $12.3 billion. So again, very high return on investment. And specifically, there was, you guys probably remember there's a big fight over the additional funds for IRS enforcement so that they can more effectively go after the millionaire and billionaire class. Because if you have fewer enforcement resources, guess who are the easiest people to go after? Your waitress who is not reporting all of her tipped income or whatever.

They go after the lowest hanging fruit. That is a legitimate and horrible criticism of the IRS. So there's additional funds put in to try to enhance enforcement activities to more effectively go after billionaires and millionaires for their tax cheat activities. And it was really successful. It secured nearly $100 billion through audits. That was an additional $25 billion compared to the prior year. The IRS spent only $0.34 for every $100 that was collected through these audits that were targeted at going after rich tax cheats. And a lot of that is being attempted to be rolled back. So again, it's just a sort of blanket assault on government. And of course, if you're Elon Musk,

if you're his billionaire friends and allies, et cetera, et cetera, you don't want the IRS to have the ability to audit your taxes and to be able to go after rich tax cheats. You're happy to have them just going after the low hanging fruit. And that's the status quo that they're trying to return to. The problem I always find here, because I don't disagree with a single thing you said, and we talked a lot about that. The problem for me with the IRS is that they have so little public trust. It's not just about people who perceive about getting rich in the future and they don't want that. It's from their decades of going after people who are the lowest income bracket. You're multiple times more likely to get audited if you make less than $25,000 than if you make $2.5 million. Now,

I mean, people have tried to come at me on that. There's a lot more people who make less than $25,000 than if you make $2.5 million. Now, I mean, people have tried to come at me on that. There's a lot more people who make less than $25,000, et cetera. And in terms of their own enforcement, there are these automatically generated letters where they go after all of these people. But it's one of the most stressful events that a lot of people can go through. So they've burned all their public credibility over the years. That Venmo thing, if you recall, the $600 transaction limit to go after people like hairdressers and other folks who are getting burned all their public credibility over the years. That Venmo thing, if you recall, the $600 transaction limit to go after people like hairdressers and other folks who are getting tips and things off of Venmo,

that burned a ton of public credibility. So a lot of people just generally feel, they're like, screw you, I don't care, which leaves it open to weaponization or gutting by a lot of people who are like Elon. So this is my general thing with all of this, is that because public trust is rock bottom, and because people are so, have lack of faith in the government, yes, it absolutely opens the door for conflict of

interest folks and others to use it to their own advantage. But it is incumbent upon people who are pro-institution to not only have to make their case, but prove to the public that they won't use it against them. And they have. The track record is that they have used it against them. What I would say is there's a real parallel here with the crypto scam meme coins that we're going to talk about later. Oh, that's exciting. Which is that they're, you know, we're going to go through the whole thing. But one of the scammers who was involved with this thing did this long interview with CoffeeZelle. And part of it, Coffee is pressing him on like, hey, you know, aren't these things basically just scams?

And he's like, yeah, they're all they're all scams. They're all scammy. You know, every single meme coin launch, it's the same sort of like rug pull market manipulation, insider trading bullshit. That's the nature of what it is. His justification for that is, well, the regular financial system has scams too. And so, you know, the answer to that, in my humble opinion, isn't so let's just have a completely lawless situation where we just scam people as much as we possibly want to and totally rig the system in favor of the rich. Instead, it's, hey, how about we put more regulation, how we put more protections into place? How about we make the existing financial system more fair and less extractive and less

corrupt rather than just being like, so let's just be as corrupt as we possibly can. And I think there's a similar mentality that you're describing when it comes to something like the IRS. Like the problem with the IRS is that they have not gone after their, there are billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from millionaires and billionaires. That is who much of their enforcement should go after. But actually, because the IRS budget has been cut back over successive administrations that have bought into this libertarian or at least neoliberal idea of privatization and crushing the federal government, that's exactly how you end up in this situation to

begin with, where they don't have the resources to effectively go after the millionaires and billionaires who have their own lawyers and who have much more complicated schemes for hiding their money versus the waitress who doesn't fully declare her tips or whatever. So what you're advocating for is actually just accelerating the very trajectory that has led us to this bad place to begin with, rather than trying to fix the problem and give them the resources they need to actually be an effective agency within government and be fair and equitable in the way that their enforcement is rolled out. So I do think you're right that that their enforcement is rolled out. So, you know, I do think you're right that that is part of the perception. I don't deny about the public perception.

What I would say is that the cure that is being offered here is actually what made the IRS sick to begin with. This will just push it more in the direction of targeting those waitresses and, you know, those people who are getting their, like, cash app or their Venmo or whatever, and will make sure that Elon Musk and his buddies and people at the top end of the income bracket are unscathed. And so, you know, that's why I think it's important to try to explain those things and for people to understand what's really happening here, not just going off of the vibes of like, well, I don't like the IRS. Let's just destroy them. That's actually going to make things worse and make the IRS worse, which again, is part of the goal. And this is part of the goal of conservatives over years and years and years, which by the way, again, Clinton was big into

privatization, like Democrats have participated as well. But the idea is if you strip government of capacity and you make government fail, then people turn on government and then you can further strip the government of capacity. And the people who really benefit are the very wealthy because then the government cannot check their accesses. And then those social safety net programs that benefit you are always the first ones on the chopping block. I think it's well said. I just think it's a vicious political cycle because you can't prove your bona fides or credibility on this without the funding that you were talking about. It's a vicious political cycle because you can't prove your bona fides or credibility on this without the funding you were talking about. It's a decades-long problem. I want to save some of this for the crypto discussion because I still have a lot to say about people who want to get scammed, which we will get to.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people.

Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So in addition, we've had a bunch of attacks on, well, so OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

And actually, if we could go to B6 first, Trump has put in like maybe one of the worst people you could possibly put in to head the agency that is supposed to protect workers. This dude, David Keeling is his name, comes from, he was the safety executive from UPS and Amazon. Now, if you've watched our coverage over the years, you know that UPS was in trouble because they didn't have air conditioning in their trucks. And a worker literally died of heat exhaustion because these things bake in oven-like conditions, like I'm talking 130 degrees in the back of these trucks. Now, I do believe the new Teamsters contract secured air conditioning, improved conditions. But he was overseeing UPS safety back when they were, you know, cooking drivers alive. And then Amazon, like, need I say more, they have the worst record of safety in the entire warehouse industry. Something like 41% of their workers get injured on the job. He was specifically, the company was

cited numerous times for serious violations while he was the head of, quote unquote, safety at Amazon. So you've picked someone who's just a complete industry shill. And then, you know, let's put the one before this, B5, up on the screen. In addition, they've now taken down a bunch of workplace safety practice publications. And this is also a very revealing saga because what they've done here is something they've done in other places with Doge, which is they'll just search for words that are now on their banned list, things like, you know, diversity or equity or whatever. And a bunch of these workplace safety publications have nothing to do with anything DEI related.

But as one example, there was guidelines for EMS agencies that cited a, quote, diversity of state-specific certification training and regulatory requirements. And since it had the word diversity, even though it has nothing to do, again, with DEI, it just gets blanket taken down. I saw another situation, I think actually right here in Virginia in Spotsylvania County, which is not too far from here or from where I live, where a program to help disabled teenagers be able to transition to some sort of a job was blanket cut because it also, you know, used diversity in some other context or some other banned word. And so they're just doing a blanket

search for these terms. And even if it has nothing to do with DEI, just completely gutting and cutting it. And so that's another example of this. The Amazon one, I'm like, look, Jeff Bezos doesn't stand behind you for nothing, right? I mean, these guys, they know what they're doing. This is, we don't, do we have the, no, we don't. The Steve Bannon oligarchy warning. I don't think we do. No. But he did – this is exactly what he's talking about. And the crazy thing is a lot of the promises and all those people have made for Trump and all that haven't even materialized. I talked previously.

Zuckerberg promised to stop fact-checking on Facebook. And I literally got a fact-check on my Instagram from one of his news organizations. I'm only putting the two together because this was the reason that you had Bezos and all these other people stop the endorsement or stand behind Donald Trump at the inauguration. They do it because it's not just about cachet, it's they get something in return. That's what a lot of this is about. And I mean, I think quite a lot of that was pretty open before the election. A lot of it is pretty open right now. I mean, in terms of will there be pushback and all of this other stuff? I'm not so sure. Not in the current media environment. There was rules changes that came out at the

National Labor Relations Board, too. We don't have an element for it. But some of the best things that the Biden administration did for labor organizing have been rolled back. So things like they banned captive audience meetings, which is like just, you know, you have to you force your workers to go and sit through some union busting speech. Captive audience meetings are back. The rule that they put out about non banning non competes. So giving workers more flexibility, more ability to, and change jobs, whatever, that also is rescinded. So they're rolling back even the – some of these things were significant, but even the more minimal changes that were made in favor of workers and labor under the Biden administration are being rolled back. And this again, where, you know, I mean, Trump went out in a garbage truck and worked at McDonald's and talked a big game about labor. And there was all this rhetoric, oh, it's going to be different with Republicans and labor unions. Like you should never have bought that bullshit. Donald Trump has always been a union buster.

He's always been a strike breaker. But well, I mean, Sean O'Brien seems like he did. So some people, some people did for sure. And you had, this was part of a strategy to convince union workers to drop their longtime association with Democrats and vote for Trump because he was going to be different on labor. And that is very plainly not the case at this point. shit about the NLRB or he would have voted 100% for Joe Biden and for Kamala Harris. They've got other things that they hold important, cultural stuff, wars, manufacturing, tariffs, general vibe. And they decided that's important. I mean, I think it was pretty clear. But don't you think having Sean O'Brien at the RNC was an attempt to convince them that Trump would be different on labor? No, because Sean O'Brien smartly looked at the poll of his own voters and said, oh shit, half of these guys are going to vote for Trump anyway.

And I don't want to burn any ability of me to be actually get in the room. You want to be shut out of the door or at least have one foot in that door. I'd rather have at least one foot if my job is to represent the union. He can't control what all of his people do. No, but he could have made the case. I mean, he's in a leadership position. So you do what a leader does and you make the case for why, listen, you can vote however you want. If like guns or gays or whatever is most important to you, you vote how you want.

But in terms of labor issues, here's the track record. It's pretty clear cut with the Biden administration versus the previous Trump administration. And so, yeah, I think he comes off looking like a fool because they're union busting even more aggressively than they did before. But that's not even my point. My point is that the whole reason that Trump and the RNC invited Sean O'Brien to speak at the RNC was to try to create an impression that they were going to be different on labor when clearly they are not different on labor whatsoever. I don't know. I think people who look more foolish are those who like constantly preach at their own union members and tell them what to do. And then they keep not voting for them or they're moving more in the Republican direction. But isn't it their job to stop

telling people what to do? But the whole idea is if you are in a leadership position, explaining the very clear difference in the track record on labor specific issues between Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Trump administration. Yeah, I think it is your job to explain those differences. People can do with that what they want. But to equivocate and pretend like, oh, he's going to be good on labor or actually it's the Democrats who are worse like that was just a lie. So then you're just lying to your members and you're confusing them about the choice. You're not helping them to make a better decision. I don't think that. And again, this is the problem with union leadership. They've been, you know, sucking at the Democratic teat for 40 years or whatever,

and they've lost all their membership and they keep endorsing. They've also also are endorsing ceasefires in Gaza, which is pretty stupid, or BLM protests, or any of these, keep on signing on to socially liberal causes. And lo and behold, the membership starts voting. But actually what I'm arguing is the exact opposite of that, which is that you're saying that, oh, well, they should just, you know, because their members are more culturally conservative, they should focus on those cultural values. What I'm saying is actually they needed to be more specific about the economic labor related, like directly related to their unions. And, you know, that that's where I think there was a real a real failure to communicate from

Sean O'Brien specifically the very clear differences when it comes to union organizing. I mean, the National Labor Relations Board under Trump now is not even defending its own right to exist. It has been gutted so that it cannot even function because they don't have a quorum. They're probably illegally removed from, this is an ongoing court case, but in any case, they've gutted it.

So it cannot even advance any of the claims of union busting and other illegal behavior. Like that's so, and this was all very predictable to your point about people knowing what they were getting. And if you weren't telling your union members that, if you weren't making that clear, and again, people can do with that information, whatever they want. If there are other issues that are more important to them, that's fine. But if you aren't making that clear, you are just lying to your members.

You are confusing them and you are failing at your job. I bring it back to the government point I made. Is it because they lost so much credibility with their leadership or with their member base, which is basically what has happened, with the divergence of the leadership basically just being careerist Democrats and then the rest of their guys 2016 onwards voting more and more for Trump? They don't have any trust individually on that basis. The reason I'll defend O'Brien is because O'Brien was trying to hold on to some credibility within administration, which won the popular vote, all seven swing states, and not willing to say 100% or, sorry, 50% of his union members, are. You are representative of them. You don't just work for some NLRB worship. Like you have to actually clearly listen to your union voting base and say, well, clearly these guys like Trump. So I need to figure out a way to work with them. So I just think it's the same structural problem from the government direction. And on the union front, I just come back to this on the NLRB. if people really cared, the union voters, about NLRB, and they probably know more about it even than I do, than a lot of these union other people who talk about it online, and they still voted for Trump. What does that tell you?

They don't actually care that much. It's not a number one. It never will be. Union, like belonging to a union is still one of the biggest indicators of voting Democrat. Yes. So obviously it does still matter to a lot of union members. And all I'm saying is that if you were not explaining the differences between these two candidates when it comes to union issues specifically, then you were

not being honest about the choice in this election. And listen, he wanted to preserve his access and his ability to get in the room, whatever. Congratulations, you did it. You were invited to the inauguration. You're on Trump's good list. You accomplished your goal. But if your goal was to help people understand what the differences were between these two candidates on labor issues specifically, you did not accomplish that. You confused people. You were not honest about what the clear difference was. And now you've got, and this is important, especially for the

Teamsters, because they're trying to organize Amazon. One of the things that matters a lot for that is that the drivers, Amazon drivers, be classified as employees of Amazon. That was something that the Biden administration, Biden-Harris administration, was in favor of, and the Trump administration is opposed to. So you've just set back even your own organizing efforts in terms of trying to unionize Amazon. So, you know, I'm also just not going to, I'm not going to buy that this was some noble attempt to, like, you know, represent his members. I think he wanted to be in the room. I think he wanted that invite to the inauguration. I think he wanted to be buddy buddy here. And he got, I mean, I'd rather be him than some idiot on the, on some idiot preaching

next to Hakeem Jeffries. At least I didn't lie to my members. I don't think he lied to his members. He didn't endorse anybody. Yeah. He was very, I think it was very deceitful the way that he portrayed the Democrats as the real opposition to labor. And I'm not here to cape for Democrats. Lord knows I've been critical as well. But if you look over the past number of decades, like there's a reason why the unions at this point do typically always endorse Democrats. It's because Republicans hate them and want them to not exist. Like Elon Musk, who is in charge of our government now, doesn't think the National Labor Relations Board should exist and hates unions and thinks they

should all be illegal. So like, yeah, you're not going to, you shouldn't back that person because they think you, they hate you and they think you should die. I think that the Teamsters in the long run will probably be vindicated because they're going to get something out of the Trump administration that the rest of these guys whispering in Hakeem Jeffries' ears are not going to get. And that's probably better than absolutely rest of these guys whispering in Hakeem Jeffries' ears are not going to get. And that's probably better than absolutely nothing. So I don't blame Sean O'Brien. They got a Department of Labor nominee secretary who has a very bad AFL-CIO voting score, but

supported the PRO Act, but is completely irrelevant now that the National Labor Relations Board is gutted and headed to the Supreme Court to be deemed unconstitutional. We are not even one month into Trump administration. Yeah, and it's already clear. It's already really clear. Over a four-year period, I am absolutely certain O'Brien will be much more vindicated than the rest of these people who are completely shut out of government. So if you want to be bitching on the sidelines, like, okay, I mean, good luck to you while your union membership continues to decline. God has pat on the head. And your own people continue to vote

against the things that you tell them to do. I just, that's where I keep coming back to. It's like, clearly, you do not have credibility with your own voting base. Now, union is still one of the best predictors, but highest percentage of union members going for Trump, I think, was in the 2024 election, which was a trend that started in 2016.

We should learn from that. It's also very, I think, patronizing to try and tell people NLRB is the only thing that matters when the Democratic- Did I say that? No, but for them, they get to decide that immigration, tariffs, manufacturing, and culture, and all of those things. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that if you are not being honest, that this man is a union buster and a strike breaker and was celebrating with Elon Musk, Elon Musk breaking strikes, if you did not know that the gutting of the NLRB was coming and that he was going to return to his longtime union busting ways and you were not being honest about that, then you are a fool. That's what I'm saying. Same way you're saying that people were like, oh, I didn't think they'd

be raiding the workplaces. You're a too, because the track record is incredibly clear. So if you are the leader of a union, then yes, I think definitionally your number one priority should be labor issues. And if you're not being honest about those, then you're a liar and you're a fool and you're actually misleading people versus helping to clarify and allow them to make their own educated decisions based on whatever it is the range of issues that they care about are. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early.

Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast

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