Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/25/25: Trump Demands Ukraine Minerals, Trump Backs Elon Email Purge

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump demands Ukraine minerals, Trump backs Elon email purge.   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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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. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. So Trump met with Emmanuel Macron of France yesterday. Lots of news made on

Ukraine. So we will break all of that down for you. We also have the very latest in the wars between Elon and the agency heads and OPM and Trump and whatever with regard to this Doge five bullet email. So lots of developments there. We'll break that down for you. We also have Apple making a big economic announcement. Is it real, though? Because there are some other counter indicators, I would say, and with regard to the economy with Apple specifically. A lot of developments with regard to the economy with Apple specifically. A lot of developments with regard to Israel that we wanted to get to, including they appear to be annexing a significant part of Syria. So that's a thing that is just happening now. Also tanks rolling through the occupied West Bank. So a lot to focus on there. Huge shakeup at MSNBC. Joy Reid is out. Amon is getting moved. Jen Psaki is in. Just a lot of shifting of

that lineup. And actually, notably, she almost never does this, but Rachel Maddow directly criticizing the network there, specifically with regard to the cancellation of Joy Reid's show. So I'll write that down for you, what it says about that network and where they're heading in the Trump era. And I'm taking a look at, this is an astonishing story. So West Virginia experienced these horrific historic floods, devastating, 2,000 houses destroyed, three people lost their lives, et cetera. They've been begging Trump for an emergency declaration. Still, as of today, they haven't gotten it, which means zero federal help on the ground in West Virginia. These are some of the poorest counties in the country. These are also some of the most Trump-supporting counties in the entire country

there. So I'm going to take a look at what is going on there, which I still have a lot of questions about, to be frank with you. Yeah, I'm very curious. I wasn't even aware of the situation, so I'm excited to hear that monologue. Thanks to all of our premium subscribers for supporting the show, but let's get into it with Ukraine. So there's been some significant developments here, as you said, President Trump meeting yesterday in the Oval Office at the White House with Emmanuel Macron. Emmanuel Macron's real mission was to come here and basically just sell Trump on stopping whatever he is doing, but it does not look like that will be successful. Here's a little bit of Donald Trump in the Oval describing this quote-unquote minerals agreement, which we're

going to return to in a little bit, that he wants to sign with Ukraine. Let's take a listen. It looks like we're getting very close. The deal's being worked on. We're, I think, getting very close to getting an agreement where we get our money back over a period of time. But it also gives us something where I think it's very beneficial to their economy, to them as a country. But, you know, we're in for $350 billion. How we got there, I don't know, but that's a lot of money, a lot of money invested. And we had nothing to show for it. And it was the Biden administration's fault. The Europeans are in for about $100 billion, and they do it in the form of a loan.

And the Europeans have been great on this issue. They understood it wasn't fair and we were able to work something out. So that is the description of the quote-unquote minerals agreement. But all of this is all coming back to big war between the Europeans and between Donald Trump in terms of wanting to sign this peace deal

with Russia over Ukraine. The Ukraine minerals agreement is kind of wanting to sign this peace deal with Russia over Ukraine. The Ukraine minerals agreement is kind of secondary to the overall peace deal. The big peace deal is basically negotiations with the Russians, which is currently the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State and Steve Witkoff have been engaged in to return what it appears to be is to the Istanbul framework of April of 2022. So it is interesting because obviously the Europeans are freaking out about that. They do not want to be on the hook for their 30,000 peacekeepers. They're saying even if we did that, America, you guys still have to pay for it.

All of the intelligence and there's a big war and a feeling of abandonment on the continent. It fits very well with the Germany story that we did yesterday, the new chancellor of Germany saying that we will have to try and have independence from the United States, which is the logical endpoint of a lot of geopolitical forces over the last decades or so. I mean, it also goes without, like some of the numbers and stuff, he just completely makes up. The 350 billion number, the comparison with Europe, Macron actually jumps in. I think we have that.

Yeah, we have that. And it's like, let's go ahead and play. He actually jumps in. He's like, well, you know, it wasn't all just loans. Like, we actually, some of that was hard money as well. Let's take a listen to that moment. Will France support the U.S. being compensated? I support the idea to have Ukraine first being compensated

because they are the one to have, lose a lot of their fellow citizens and being destroyed by these attacks. Second, all of those who paid for could be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia, because they were the one to aggress. Again, just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back. No, in fact, to be frank, we paid.

We paid 60% of the total effort. And it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantee, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear. We have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not our belonging. So they are frozen. If at the end of the day in the negotiation we will have with Russia, they're ready to give it to us, super.

It will be loaned at the end of the day and Russia will have paid for that. If you believe that, it's okay with me. But they get their money back. We don't. And now we do. But, you know, that's only fair. Very weird interpersonal dynamics between these two as well. Very, like, touchy, a lot of sort of, like, alpha male positioning and jockeying there or whatever.

But, you know, I mean, I have a lot of feelings about this. Number one, I just want the war to end. Like, the fact that we are going back to a framework that was originally negotiated at the very, in the very early days of this war. And frankly, I think Ukraine would be very fortunate. We would be very fortunate. They would be lucky. If they're able to achieve, you know, that agreement that was on the table at that point, because if you'll recall, and of course we discussed the synopsis here on the show, at that point, Ukraine really did have Russia on the back foot. They really had outperformed. There really was this coalescing of the U.S. and Europe and all these forces behind them. We had just put on this massive amount of sanctions, you know, the biggest sanction regime in history. It was very uncertain how that was going to go for Russia, etc. So the dynamics were a lot more in Ukraine's

favor at this point. And so when you think about going back to, like, it's just heartbreaking, the number of people, lives that have been lost, the death and destruction, all because, and this is the part where I get to, like, the way Trump frames this is just, like, wrong and a lie, all because the U.S. wanted to use Ukraine as a proxy in this fight against Russia. That's why that peace deal wasn't pursued. And so, you know, like I said, complicated. On the one hand, if he's moving towards ending the war, great. I'm on board with that. Let's do it. On the other hand, like saying that it's Ukraine's fault that the war started, saying we should be reimbursed. No, we're the reason why we push them to have this massive war and devastate their population,

devastate the country, et cetera. And, you know, of course, I'm also disgusted with just like the naked return to colonialism and imperialism where it's like, you know, we're going to just make you a, you know, a client state and extract whatever resources we can out of you. And I don't know if you saw this. But why is that? Russia came in. Russia came in and was like, oh, we have rare earth minerals, too. Like maybe, you know, let's let's cut a deal.

And I'll tell you why why it's bad is because I believe that these countries should actually have sovereignty. I do actually think that the post-World War Two order in which the norm generally followed around the world in which countries, small countries are left alone and where it is, you know, a breach of international law and, you know, something to be guarded against when you have large countries that are just taking advantage of small countries. Like, that's why I think that is a bad direction to go in. But the other thing is that is really unclear to me is, OK, if we strike this like raw earth minerals and their ports and their, you know, oil and gas resources, this across the board 50% were basically taking over your state deal. Well, I mean, that doesn't get us less entangled in that region. That gets us

more entangled in that region. So I still have a lot of questions about how this is all going to happen. Well, see, this is where I just totally depart from this, like, kind of liberal fantasy view of the world. Like, not to go all Howard Zinn, but the idea that the post-World War II order has protected small countries is ridiculous. I mean, if you look, again, I would borrow some leftist commentary. Take a look at tiny little countries in South America and how independent they've been over the last 75 years. It's ludicrous. It's all just complete bullshit. And so why should—

But see, this is my issue. Sorry to cut you off. Like, this is, to me, the sort of core ethos of the Trump administration 2.0, not just with regard to foreign affairs, but with regard to domestic affairs, too. It's like, okay, well, things are bad and, like, we've been hypocritical. So instead of trying to improve those international laws, instead of trying to actually act as, you know, moral actors in the world and respect territorial sovereignty, have additional cooperation, et cetera. Instead, it's like, well, things have been bad and we've been hypocritical, so let's just make it worse. And it's the same thing with regard to, you know, the government here. It's like, well,

government has failed you, so let's just strip it down and make it so it can't even deliver your Social Security, Medicare, and the things that it actually does well. So, yeah, I, you know, reject this return to just naked colonialism and imperialism. And, you know, there are a lot of ways that you can do there are multiple ways you can do a multipolar world, one of which is to actually have respect for smaller countries around the world, actually to respect territorial integrity, actually to move in the direction of cooperation with large powers. And when Trump says things about like, hey, let's cut the military 50% and strike a deal with Russia and China, that would be a move in that direction. There is no way in hell that I think that is actually

what's going to play out here whatsoever. Instead, I think we're headed much more towards like a new imperialism, a new naked, like just we're going to take Greenland, we're going to take Panama, we're going to take Canada, we're going to bomb Mexico, we're going to take Gaza, etc. And an increase in militarism and defense spending very much in line with like, you know, the Cold War hostilities with the Soviet Union. But this is the thing. We don't have a choice. And all countries in the international system will do what's in their best interest. It's just, again, like a literal liberal fantasy of the 1960s as international law. There is no such thing as a UN General Assembly. No one gives a shit what Montenegro thinks, nor should we. All of the international system of all time, multipolarity, bipolarity, unipolarity, has always come down to the say of the great powers. It is built into the United Nations that the P5 powers have absolute authority to veto anything. It's actually implicit in the international system that the great victors of World War II will decide the new fate. And so

this idea also that we shouldn't have Ukraine pay us back. I mean, again, you're not wrong. Pay us back. It's our fault. We should be paying them, to be honest with you, the death and destruction that we led them into. Well, again, that's just, again, in my opinion, kind of a ridiculous notion. If you are going to expend $100 billion plus into building this country and ensuring its territorial integrity, the idea that we should not reap the rewards and the benefits of it is insane. I mean, go back to the Marshall— No, no, no. Because this is the architecture of the post-World War II era. The Marshall plan. Who created these tensions that led to NATO's expansion that pushed, you know, this direction for Ukraine? Like we've used them as our toy. Yes. But they also know that. Of course.

But that's also what they want. Right. Zelensky is a willing participant in this. Paid back when we're a key component. Not that Zelensky doesn't have an agency, whatever, but we are a key reason why this country has been at war, why Russia invaded this. We are far more responsible for that than Ukraine is. So, you know, again, I want the war to end, but I cannot just sit here and brook this complete inversion of reality in which it's Ukraine's fault that they got invaded by Russia and they somehow owe us something when we're the whole reason why this war was unsettled years ago in that Istanbul. It's not just us. It's also the UK, which I think always seems to get up. I think it was mostly us. I don't agree. That's why I think Biden is terrible. It was an awful president. But again, if we return to this idea, do you think we did the Marshall plan out of the

goodness of our heart or did we do it to prop up a democratic Europe, democratic, you know, small d, to do what? So that we could, you know, have a nice big old marketplace over there. We don't do anything out of the goodness of our heart, nor should we. It's a stupid idea. That's not how countries conduct relations with others. If we have now expended over 100 plus billion dollars, the United States has depleted its stockpiles and more, that we should just say, oh, you know, deal's done? No. If we're going to ensure your territorial integrity or do this peace deal with Russia, we're going to get something out of it. Whether Ukraine exists has absolutely no import to the United States whatsoever. The only thing that if

we're going to get something out of this should, of course, be to the economic benefit of the United States consumer, which, again, is the backbone of the U.S. liberal world order. I know people don't like whenever I talk like this. It's the truth, all right? The other people who are telling you about democracy and, oh, NATO, it's all BS completely. What, Latvia matters so much to America? No, it's ludicrous. I mean, these countries are both in the traditional Russian sphere of influence, as you said, with the NATO encroachment on Russian borders and more. The entire idea behind it is a U.S. and European basically market system, which we use our military power to protect to the benefit of our consumers, of our companies, and of the European companies as well. Let's all just be honest about it. And that's where I have to return to, where when we look at the way that the Ukrainians are complicit in this, is that they

have wanted, sent that push for more militarism, for more war. They want to basically, you know, take all of our stockpiles. They want to increase their war with Russia. Their plan from the very beginning is what? Is to draw the United States in. Whatever they're doing is definitely bad for American security interests. And so while, yes, I won't let Biden or Boris Johnson off the hook, the Ukrainians also are, especially the Ukrainian government, has tied itself legally to this framework where they're not allowed to have elections, even though we're protecting democracy. They're not allowed to even negotiate on any territorial integrity according to their own laws. Like they have locked themselves in to this paradigm. And that's where they have

agency. And we also can reset the paradigm of how we conduct relations between states. The ideal foreign policy that I would ever want is exactly this right now. We're meeting with Russia. Ukraine, you're not even there. You know why? Because it's not about you. That's the whole point. But what happened to them having agency? What happened to it being their fault? They can do whatever they want inside their country. The point is, is that on the macro level, we will decide what's good for us. Yes, I know. That's my point, is that it's not their fault that we wanted to drag this war out for years. We were the ones who were driving that train. We're the reason why in 2022 in Istanbul, we went in and said, no, we don't want this peace process to continue. It wasn't because of Ukraine.

They were at the table negotiating. We covered those negotiations. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. So, okay, they have desires and agency. And of course, if they're going to be invaded by this nuclear superpower, they want whoever can have their back to have their back. But we are the reason why this has been dragged out for years. And the fact that you have an election, have a new president doesn't wipe that slate clean and now means somehow that they owe us. No, they don't. We owe them. That's the truth of the matter. If you're actually looking at things from an equitable perspective, because we are the primary reason that they have lost hundreds of thousands of lives and their country has been

decimated because we wanted to use them as a plaything in our geopolitical ambitions. That's the truth of the matter. And so this idea that it's Ukraine's fault, that Russia invaded them, I think is a disgusting lie. It's bullshit. It's complete inversion of reality. And also, you know, to frame Zelensky, Trump gets inversion of reality. And also, you know, to frame Zelensky, Trump gets asked another point here. He, you know, had no problem calling Zelensky a quote unquote dictator, even though he was democratically elected. And yes, I agree with you. They should have elections. Although I'm also sympathetic to the argument they make that like, hey, it's kind of hard to have elections when you've got millions of people

who have fled the country and people who are displaced and parts of the country that we're not even sure whether they're us or Russia at this point. But yes, they should have elections. But he was not willing to say Putin was a dictator, but he's perfectly comfortable saying Zelensky's a dictator. So again, listen, I want this war to end, but we have to exist in some sort of reality-based framework here. And he has completely inverted what actually happened in this war and the entire trajectory of it. Look, again, to return. Now, is Putin a

dictator? I can say that, yes. Do you know why it's a bad idea, for example, for the president of the United States to call a Russian nuclear superpower, the leader of that country, a dictator or a war criminal, I dare say, like maybe Joe Biden, is because we have to conduct relations with these great powers. Now, is Russia like a preeminent superpower? No, but it's a nuclear armed power and its military has already, you know, dramatically increased its power and its size to the point where even the so-called great powers of Europe are unable, by their own admission, to even keep up with them from a war production level. In general, it's a good idea to just make sure that things are on balance. That's really what pisses people off. And this

is what I just don't get. Liberals really would rather live in a world where we vote correctly in the UNGA and don't call Zelensky a dictator than to have peace. Peace is not only the ultimate element. How does calling Zelensky a dictator help to achieve peace? Because he doesn't matter. He's irrelevant. That's my point. But it's also just a lie. Who cares? Because I care. Because having reality and factual accuracy is something that I think we should all care about. To turn Ukraine, which was truly a victim of this circumstance, into like they're the aggressor.

And to say that, oh, Russia, you know, it's not Russia's fault that they invaded this country. Like it's number one, Russia's fault. It's number two, our fault. And it has really very little to do with it being the Ukrainians fault. And no, so no, I'm not going to just sit by and say like, it's fine to just make up this preposterous upside down worldview. And I don't even see how that actually helps in these negotiations either, because your goal in the negotiations, since Russia was the aggressor,

and you don't want to have countries just willy-nilly taking over other countries because that leads to more war and more death and more destruction and more devastation and us getting entangled in more places, by the way, what you would ideally want is the best possible deal you can achieve at this point on the Ukrainian side. To me, going into this, calling Zelensky dictator, throwing him under the bus, signaling you, you know, aren't going to call Putin a dictator, that you're going to side with them,

even in their preposterous narrative of how this war unfolded and somehow make it about like Ukrainian aggression is insane and completely gives up any leverage you have to try to secure the best deal you can for Ukraine, which would be the most just outcome. That's a presumption that you made that was incorrect, is that why should we care about securing the best deal for Ukraine? That's Ukraine's problem. We should secure the best deal for us. And that is exactly how countries should conduct international relations. Ukraine's job is to push for its own interests. Congratulations to you. I actually think they've done a pretty good job. I mean, they've got to save 80% of their country, 20% of their country is controlled by Russia. They literally get to live and exist. That's your victory. They refuse to

acknowledge that victory when you're up against a nuclear-armed power. Our job is to do what is best for us and for our quote-unquote allies. Ukraine, you know, what kind of allies? This is currently always asking us for money and to embroil our nuclear arsenal on their side, to give them NATO umbrella. Like, this is not something that is beneficial to us whatsoever. Not to mention how much money we have all paid in extra gas because of these Russian sanctions. podcast brought to you by the black effect podcast network every wednesday historically men talk too much and women have quietly listened and all that stops here if you like witty women then this is

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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, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now I'm curious, do they like rap

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To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To return to that spring 2022 framework,

Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's friend, envoy, envoy extraordinaire from Israel, Gaza, now involved in this, is now talking specifically about the Istanbul framework as one that he would like to see in the deal. Let's take a listen. They are responsive to an end to this. There were very, very what I'll call cogent and substantive negotiations framed in something that's called the Istanbul Protocol Agreement. We came very, very close to signing something. And I think we'll be using

that framework as a guidepost to get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia. And I think that will be an amazing day. So there you go. So the Istanbul Framework of Spring of 2022, which you previously mentioned, that is important because that's the deal that was on the table of which Boris Johnson basically went over to Kiev on behalf of Joe Biden and was like, yeah, don't do this. Actually, we're going to be behind you this entire time. And it leads to this complete quagmire. So I'm not letting Joe Biden or Boris Johnson or Emmanuel Macron, any of these NATO leaders off the hook. But we are where we are right now. So how do we deal with this? And so the way that we deal with it is end

it as soon as possible. It's bad for us. It's bad for them. It's bad for the Russians, too, just in terms of, well, actually, let's put it this way. Is it good for us to have an isolated Russia with a war economy that is booming, war production more than the United States and NATO combined. That sounds bad to me. So whatever we can do to try and bring that temperature down and just make sure that we're not having this not only ongoing land war, humanitarian disaster, but just geopolitical tension rise again over a country which is completely irrelevant to the United States. Yeah, I think that's overall a good thing. And, I mean, this is also where we have a bit of a binary choice here. We had Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and all of them who genuinely did not want peace in Ukraine.

They wanted this war to go on forever. And then we have whatever the hell this is, realism with the Trump flavor, the Trump doctrine, whatever the fuck it is that we can describe it. I'm going to choose the latter. I mean, I think the latter is far preferable if the war ends, and especially if the U.S. taxpayer or at least U.S. consumer is benefited in some way. That seems to be somewhat more of a net positive than whatever the hell we were doing over the last three years. And I think that, honestly, I think this will be tremendously popular if it comes to fruition. The only, I would say, counter to all of this is the problems that

could be sidelined in the rare earth minerals deal that you talked about. Let's put that on the screen, for example. So here we have the actual text of the rare earth minerals deal, quote, worth hundreds of billions of dollars under which the U.S. would express its desire to keep Ukraine free, sovereign, and secure, according to this draft, which is obtained by Axios. The Ukrainian deal would effectively allow U.S. investment in Ukrainian mineral companies with some sort of split guaranteed in the future. As you said, the Russians are also saying, hey, we've also got a ton of rare earth minerals, which apparently on paper is correct. I did not know that in terms of what their rare earth mineral stocks and all of that. Ryan was right when he was like, you know, these rare earths turn out to not be so rare. He is right. He's like, they're in Mexico, they're in Chile, China, Ukraine, Afghanistan. And I also read that Ukraine is a little bit overselling their rare earth situation. But

that's why it's important to understand some news outlet, I can't remember which one, got their hands on the deal that was proposed. And it was not just rare earths minerals. It was basically all of Ukraine's economic active, primary economic activity, including their ports, their oil and gas, their quote unquote rare earth minerals, which also, by the way, like which rare earths have been important, have shifted over time as well. So in any case, yeah, it's, I mean, if you, if, if some sort of deal like this actually goes down, then it means we are obligated to Ukraine forever because we're not, we're going to, you don't think we're going to protect those economic interests and be committed to protect those economic interests? Of course we are. It expresses its desire to keep Ukraine free, sovereign, and secure. Desire is different than the guarantee of their security, which is the

actual opposite of what we should ever get ourselves into. It's nice to have a free and a sovereign and secure Ukraine. It's nice to have a lot of things. Honestly, the text of that deal is perfect. It's like, yeah, we can express a rhetorical desire to have something, but we don't have to do anything about it. And that's the problem I have with what Zelensky ultimately wants. He wants, not only he, let's be honest, a lot of the Ukrainian people now, they think they belong in NATO. They think they're entitled to our security umbrella, to us having to trigger Article 5 on their behalf. Sorry, never going to happen. Like already, not only have you been

invaded, 20% of your country there, in terms of the historical spheres of influence and in terms of the actual economic and security benefit of adding this gigantic territory to our security umbrella and our further interests, I mean, this would only further embroil us into the affairs of the continent, which is less and less and less important every day to the United States economy and to the United States security. So overall, the text or whatever of this deal, which is not one that secures any need, right, legally or whatever for the U.S. to get involved here while reaping some economic benefit, that's the best you could possibly get. But Tiger, why do you think that Zelensky is proposing this? It's because he knows if we have significant economic interests in the country, then we are

going to defend those economic interests. But then we can make a choice. Especially we're talking about, you know, this is going to be some of Trump's billionaires buddies that propose this, that want to get their, you know, their claws into the Ukrainian economy, et cetera. And so it's, that's the whole reason why Zelensky is open to this is because he sees that as a way of guaranteeing that we stay embroiled in this, in, in this country, that we keep these interests there and that we will defend them if they are encroached upon. He sees it as being sort of like a security guarantee. Yeah, I don't disagree. But the thing is, is that then actually prove it, you know, become important to us. If you are, then yeah, maybe we'll defend you. But for right now,

I mean, if you just looked at the bilateral trade we had with Ukraine, we're doing four times more trade with Brazil. We're doing four times more trade with multiple other countries than we do with Ukraine and Israel, by the way, if we all want to talk on those terms. But of course, nobody also, nobody who's pushing this peace deal wants to see anything like that. My only point is that as we continue to go down this, we are marching towards, in my opinion, a good outcome, which is a rejection of this rhetoric-based international order. Because it's not rules-based, it's rhetoric based. Let's put the next one up there because this affirms that. The U.S. actually voted against the U.N. resolution, quote, condemning Russia for the Ukraine war. But this is why, again, I want to return to the point that the great powers rule the world. So there's a lot made

of this from the pro-Ukrainian side. They're like, oh my God, 93 different countries voted in favor of this, 18 against and 65 abstained. Well, the people who voted against it are the US and Russia, China abstained, and so did India. So the world's largest population abstained, the second world's population abstained, two out of the five P5 powers voted against it. So whatever these 93 other countries say, cool, nice. Thank you for your words of affirmation. It doesn't matter. And that's my point around international law or the UN or any of these other resolutes, complete crap. I mean, and this is something where you just have to return to the preference, in my opinion, from what I can see from these liberals is literally rhetoric as opposed to a result. And the result is obvious, no matter what, even if it was literal Ukraine vassalage. If you wanted a, quote, you know,

independent Ukraine, or at least of Russia, how is that not preferable than the continuing ongoing march to death of the entire Ukrainian population, its state, its economy, and everything. The idea that it was just going to emerge as some, you know, what, new Brussels or something is obviously not going to happen. And so, I don't know. I find there's just so much fake idealism, you know, that has been baked into this, both right and left, by the way, that comes into this, which is falling apart on its own merits. And I think that is a necessary event for a more stable international outcome in the future. Well, what I will just say is this. First of all, you know, as I explained before, I don't think the answer to us having been hypocritical

or, you know, things being not great in the international order is to just say, so let's just do total like barbarism and might makes right and, you know, conquest here and there and everywhere else and more militarism and likely more aggressive like Cold War posture towards China, etc. I don't think that that is the correct direction to go in, number one. And number two, you can't ignore the fact like we take for granted now that all of these European nations can coexist peacefully. That has not been the historical track record. And in fact, the architecture that was set up after World War II, which, by the way, was set up to serve our

interests primarily, but also was quite effective at making sure that there were not repeated constant wars on the European continent. In fact, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the largest land war in Europe since World War II. So it's, you know, it's not like it didn't accomplish anything. It actually was quite successful in that way. And could it have been better? Could we have like certainly the Cold War era use of all of these smaller countries in proxy wars against the Soviet Union and the, you know,

obsessive, like have to get rid of any communist regime whatsoever. Like that was the wrong way to approach multipolarity. And frankly, I think that's exactly the direction that we are headed back in with the Trump administration. I hear that a lot. But the point, you know, the reason why that that mattered in the past, these European states warring were, they were the bedrock of the global system and of the global economy. They're irrelevant today. Well, it still matters if they go to war with each other. If they go to war with each other, that's their problem. The only reason, why did the United States get involved in World War I, right? It's like, let's all be really honest about it. It was about the attacking of the Lusitania and about the—well, that was a pretext. And then us getting involved was to basically bigfoot the European powers and say, no, we're the ones actually who are going to be in charge. Why? Because we want the spoils of the international system. After World War II, what? We become the preeminent guarantor of the West and of the rule of space international order. The Soviets get their side of it, which again is

about a complete division of the world for market-based purposes. Europe will no longer even be 50% of global GDP by 2030. Its irrelevance to the global affairs is dramatic compared to how it was in 100 years ago or even 75 years ago. So if there is a war between Latvia and Estonia, it doesn't matter at all. But, Sagar, you're missing my point a little bit, which isn't that, you know, Europe is the most important region on the planet right now or whatever. My point is that you dismiss that international architecture that was set up after World War II as being fake and a waste of time and not accomplishing anything. And that's just not true.

That's just not true. That architecture actually did service for years, even though, you know, I think, again, the way we approach multipolarity with the Cold War was deeply destructive and led to that incredibly hypocritical approach, which ultimately leads to the downfall of all of this. But that international architecture that was set up, it did its job in terms of preventing additional wars in Europe. So to say, oh, none of this is possible and we can't do any better than just barbarism and conquest and taking over whatever countries we feel like taking over, I don't think that that is the case if you look at the historical record. My point is that that was an outdated model for an outdated market, which does not exist anymore.

The United States is an Asian power, and it's one where its destiny for both on a consumer and a technological level will be accomplished there. There's not a single serious economist who would even dispute that. Even Obama had the whole, quote unquote, pivot to Asia. This has been on paper, if you just look at it as a balance sheet and take out everybody's nice little vacations to Munich or to Italy or whatever, it's obvious. And my point is that over committing to this European security and fetishizing it as some great, incredible thing, just because we did it

60 years ago, we should continue to do it today, which is mostly the argument, if you really look at it on a merit level, for why we should be so supportive of Ukraine, is bad for the overall U.S. interest. Now, I know the whole barbarism and all of that, again, like what? You think other countries don't operate that way? Like, in a certain sense, there's a Thucydides trap. There always will be with the way that great powers function inside of the system. In a sense, you don't have any choice. And beyond that, when we talk about how the United States has conducted itself, it has always been this way. It's just been rhetorically dressed up. It's not just us, all these other countries. Like when China wants to, you know, justify its expansion,

it does so in the same rhetoric. It's like in criticism of Western rules-based international order. When Russia invades Ukraine, how do they do it? They do it in a criticism, again, as if they're the ones who are being encroached upon. They don't just outwardly say, we want, you know, oil or whatever, or it used to be ours and so thus we deserve it. That's basically their argument, which is stupid, but that's what it all comes down to. And so honesty in the international system, let's say you were talking there about Russia and China and the United States, this idea of a meeting. It will not happen in the rhetoric that you're describing. The only way it would happen is to be like, all right, let's all be honest here. Who needs what? How is it going to happen? And you know who we borrow this from? This is the great irony. This is what the European powers did before World War I. They carved up the world because they were the guarantors of security with the might and the ability to enforce those borders. And there actually was a period of some relative peace on the continent.

And then there was World War I. Yeah, okay. I mean, I didn't say every system is perfect. It always breaks down because things change. Here's what I would say, and then we can move on, which is that when we have pursued what we perceive to be in our just total naked self-interest, for example, when we went into Iraq, those things have ended up being a disaster. Well, I would flip it. I just don't think that was for our self-interest. And that was part of the problem.

Of course. I mean, I think we clearly went in to secure natural resources, just as we're now talking about being in Ukraine forever to secure natural resources, just like we're talking about being in Greenland, in Panama, in Gaza to secure our own naked self-interest. And so what I would say is that I don't think that that is, number one, beneficial to America in the long term whatsoever. And number two, I certainly don't think it's good for the people of those countries who are getting blown up and having their societies destroyed. And the amount of blowback that we've seen from that hypocritical adventurism

where we were really nakedly pursuing our self-interest, no matter what language we wrapped it around, democracy or markets or whatever, where we really were just nakedly pursuing our self-interest, the amount of blowback from that has been utterly catastrophic for us. So pursuing it more nakedly without any veneer of democracy, it doesn't improve

the fact that this has led us. That is a big part of the decline of this country, is that adventurism and is that naked pursuit of our own self-interest, which has led to massive blowback for our own country and created more horror, more barbarism, more terror, more danger, all of that. My last word would be I would dispute that the Second Iraq War was a war of national interest. And that's exactly why it was such a terrible idea. It was born of an ideological obsession with nation building. And yes, securing the oil was also a great, it didn't even work out, ironically. The Chinese currently control the oil market out of Iraq. But if we look in the past at both Vietnam and the second Iraq war, those were ideological

projects not born of national interest. They basically fused ideology with, well, it's in the U.S. interest to make sure South Vietnam is, it sounds so insane. The domino effect. Some 70 years later. They thought of it as being in the national interest. My point is that if you actually had a true balance sheet analysis of that, which many realists at the time of both Iraq and of Vietnam said, you would never do it. And actually, they would be better off and so would we. that are openly from a position of national interest and don't let ourselves get sucked down the trap of democracy or human rights or stopping communism or we can't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud, then we will be better off overall. This is kind of a Kissingerian view of the world,

which I agree with 100%. And it was one where if we had pursued that, we'd be richer, we'd be more prosperous, those people would be better off, and we would be better off. So you can read it two different ways, but I would read them much more of mistakes of ideology rather than of mistakes of natural interest. I would say when the United States works in its natural interest, it actually works out pretty damn well. And it's when we depart from that, like our stupid experiments in Cuba and in the Philippines, when we just want to appear like one of the great powers or whenever we pursue this land war in Asia against Vietnam

or invade Iraq for no purpose literally whatsoever, that's when we lose our treasure. That's exactly how the Roman Empire went astray as well. Like, for example, wanting to take over Gaza. Yeah, I agree. It's stupid. I know you do. We're doing that on behalf of the Israelis, not for us. That's the problem. That's the problem, is that the way you might calculate that balance sheet as you described it is not, there's no like universal way to calculate that. And so, you know, Trump is looking at it and his calculation is, oh, we should have 50% of Ukraine, which again obligates us to Ukraine forever. Oh, we should take over Greenland. Oh, we should have 50% of Ukraine, which again obligates us to Ukraine forever. Oh,

we should take over Greenland. Oh, we should take over Panama. Oh, we should take over Canada. Oh, we should bomb Mexico. Oh, we should do total ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and take that over because that'll be good for our interests. That's what I'm saying is that when you are unconstrained by anything and it's just purely might makes right, what you're going to end up with is a lot of disastrous foreign adventurism that both is bad for our country, but also, yes, I do care about the fact that, you know, it leads to mass slaughter and devastation and horror for people in other countries around the world too, like the Palestinians, for example. I think that's fair. I understand how you got there.

Again, I just think, and look, you're right in terms of the balance sheet. Many people disagree with me. All the libs in my neighborhood, they will tell you Ukraine is a vital national interest and they can express their wish at the ballot box, you know, if they will. This is just an argument that I made. This view is not popular in Washington. It is really not actually all that popular in America. Most Americans like to truss up, you know, their, you know, their, their foreign policy and some sort of doing good in the world. It's how we basically sold World War II. Because humans want to believe that they can make the world like that we don't have to accept naked barbarism, colonialism, imperialism, that things can be improved. Like they, they, yes,

they have a basic belief in the power of human beings to improve improved. Like they, yes, they have a basic belief in the power of human beings to improve civilization. And instead what we're seeing is just a return to, well, actually we're just gonna go back to pure resource grabs, you know, that we feel like doing and adventurism around the world wherever we feel like doing it. I think the nightmare scenario is that doing that

would actually lead to a more stable scenario. Now, of course, as I said, the big risk to that is Gaza because that is the definition of doing something outside your own national interest and for literally another nation's interest, which we will get to later on in the show. So why don't we just end it there? All right.

It's been a good discussion. Yes. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday.

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wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is.

And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my

kids get to benefit off of that I'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheartartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's move on to the latest of whatever the hell is going on with this Doge Elon email that he sent out asking for everybody to send in their five bullet points, etc. So Trump, yesterday when he was with Emmanuel Macron, got asked about the Elon email and whether or not people should respond and how he felt about it. He seems in this conversation to really go to bat for Elon and back him up. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. People to ignore it, but Elon must. You're talking about the last email

that was sent where he wanted to know what you did this week. You know why he wanted that, by the way? I thought it was great because we have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist. That's how badly various parts of our government were run by, and especially by this last group. So what they're doing is they're trying to find out who's working for the government. Are we paying other people that aren't working? And you know, where is all this? Where's the money going? We have found

hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far, and we've just started. Some of the agency heads instructed their employees not to respond because they were waiting on further guidance, but Elon Musk's tweet said a failure to respond would be taken as a resignation, so there's been a disconnect in communications. Are you concerned at all about that? No, no, no. That was done in a friendly manner. Only things such as perhaps Marco at State Department where they have very confidential things, or the FBI, where they're working on confidential things. And they don't mean that in any way combatively with Elon. They're just saying there are some people that you don't want

to really have them tell you what they're working on last week. They don't mean that in any way combative. So he's, yeah, I mean, so number one, he's backing up Elon. Number two, he's trying to downplay what we covered yesterday, which is that a bunch of these agency heads really started actually by Kash Patel, but then the Department of Defense jumps in, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the reference. RFK Jr. went one way and then went the other way. Tulsi Gabbard, like basically all the agency heads ultimately were like, no, to their own people, you don't have to reply to this email. So Trump's trying to downplay that dispute. But he seems to back up Elon there. Then let's put this next piece up on the screen. This is great reporting from our friend Jeff Stein and co. By

the way, Jeff Stein got a promotion over the Washington Post. Congratulations to him. He's going to be their chief economic correspondent. In any case, Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk's order on this email reply. The Office of Personnel Management told HR officials that employees would not be let go for not replying to an email asking what they did last week. So seems to contradict Trump, but this is the, you know, direction coming from effectively like the HR department of the whole federal government. This is the OPM email that came out later in the day that seems to now indicate people are supposed to respond to this email. They say to further clarify response, the email sent on Saturday's voluntary was strongly encouraged. Once again, you should not transmit any confidential

or sensitive privilege or investigative information. Please send your bullets to this email. Going forward, I've asked the office to operationalize this exercise. So please stay tuned for instructions in the future. OPM may consider incorporating expectation that employees submit weekly accomplishment bullets into its regular weekly reporting structure because, you know, having to send in five bullshit bullets every week is certainly going to improve government efficiency. Again, thank you for your dedication to our agency's mission. So they're saying here they're going to operationalize this exercise moving forward. And then we've got one other piece here from Elon. He says, subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance, referring to employees who did not respond.

Failure to respond a second time will result in termination. So anyway, kind of indications all over the place. Trump backs up Elon and the Office of Personnel Management says, no, you don't have to respond. Elon says, you're going to have to, you get one more chance. Then OPM comes in and says, well, it's not mandatory right now, but we're going to operationalize this. So that's basically where things are. Yeah. I have a theory now of Elon blowback, which I was trying to tease out to you yesterday. Okay. Is a boss theory is that the more Elon is seen as a dickhead boss, as opposed to a visionary entrepreneur, the more Americans will turn against him. So the vast majority of Americans are not like us. They're not self-employed. You know, they don't own their own business and that's fine. It's a pain in the ass for all, for the people who want to know what it's like out there. They work for

W2 or they have a boss, right? Or they, and or are the boss having been subject to somebody's authority previously. You and I previously have worked office jobs. So, you know, intimately what it's like to have a literal moron trying to performance review you or tell you what you can and can't do differently in some sort of like HR software that rates you one out of four. It's both dehumanizing and also incredibly stupid at the same time, but the stakes are so high because your salary is on the line. And so I believe that the more Elon is seen as a capricious and an annoying boss over the vast majority of, over the largest employer in the United States, and the more that people have a connection to that employer, there will be more pushback against that. Now, part of the reason why most Americans had not really cared about it

previously is, you know, at the end of the day, the private institutions like Tesla or SpaceX, you have a choice of whether you want to work there or not. You're also incredibly well compensated and it's not like worldly important that you work in your job, which at least some government jobs are. But I think that the more publicity that there's a spotlight on this type of behavior that Americans really don't like to be screwed with by their boss. I remember reading a statistic. It's like 70 percent of people like hate their boss. Or just like 20-some percent of people would literally like kill their boss if they had – or say they would if they could. People really hate their boss. I get it.

It's one of those where I've been in that position before where they're so annoying. And so I think that the more that this permeates to people, it will really start to piss people off. Because if you think about it, white collar, service-based, everybody knows what it's like to have an annoying supervisor or to be scheduled or to be told one thing and then told the opposite. I mean, how often does that happen when you work in a workplace? It's maddening. And white collar employees get treated way more humanely. And I mean, like literally like human beings than blue collar workers who, you know, are completely dehumanized, often like searched subject to these ridiculous security

procedures and surveilled even while they're in the break room eating their lunch and all that sort of crap. And so, yeah, everybody hates bosses. Everybody hates bosses. So I think you're right about that. And I think Elon is leaning hard into the asshole boss persona. So when you couple that with the fact that, you know, these federal government jobs, I was telling Sagar before the show, one of the states that has the highest proportion of federal government workers is actually Alaska. Like people think of federal government workers being here in D.C. They by and large are not. I mean, there are many here in D.C. This is obviously the greatest concentration of them, but they're spread out across the country and their impact is felt across the country. And then you think about like the ancillary workers and just the, you know, anytime

you have this level of like glee and delight and firing people and destroying their lives and their livelihood, it's going to, it's going to rub people the wrong way. So I think we are starting to see that pushback, you know, what's going to happen with this fricking Elon bullet points that you, I don't really know. And it is an interesting subplot to see. And one thing I didn't anticipate is the possibility that the agency heads themselves could be somewhat of a check on Elon. Because they got their Senate confirmations. They went through the thing. They thought they were getting this level of power and agency within these departments.

And then they're watching Elon just completely bigfoot them, even to the point of like, well, I get to say who works for you and who does what and how this whole thing is run. And I'm going to get access to all your data. And my little like goofy 20-year-olds are going to come in and run wild through your agency whenever the hell they feel like it, whether you want them there or not. And so while the congressional Republicans, because of the politics around it, will just bend the knee to Trump and Elon and Elon has threatened them with primary challenges and that's an important enforcement mechanism, etc. It's a little bit different dynamic with these agency heads. So it is a particular dynamic that I want to watch and I think is a little bit unsettled as of now in terms of how all of that is going to play out. There was yesterday an interesting protest, I guess you would say,

at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We can put this up on the screen. Somebody hacked into the screens in the building and played this AI-generated video of Elon having his feet kissed. Trump sucking Elon's toes. Yeah, it's kind of disturbing to see. You should put a trigger warning on this. To be honest with you. And then across the screen, it reads, long live the real king.

Of course, a reference to, you know, the position of power Elon has taken and also Trump's previous reference last week to long live the king in the context of the New York congestion pricing situation. So that is something that happened that was confirmed by multiple reporters, including Jeff Stein, as I said. There's also a few developments in terms of the legal battles against Doge. We can put this next one up on the screen. So the federal ethics watchdog that Trump has been blocked from firing by a federal court has ruled that some of the terminations of probationary employees appear to be illegal. So Trump tried to fire this dude. A court said you can't do that, or at least there's a temporary injunction put in on that. And so he has said that according to, and this is not a court ruling to be clear from Hampton

Dellinger. This is just, he's the federal ethics watchdog. He's advising that some of these probationary employee firings may be illegal. You also had, we don't have an element for this, but yesterday you had a judge that really harshly questioned the constitutionality of the entire setup of Doge. And part of this soccer comes down to, you guys remember the Trump administration put in this court filing like, Elon, he has nothing to do with Doge. Like he's not in charge of Doge. He's just an advisor to the president. But then when this judge was questioning them, okay, well then who is in charge of Doge? They couldn't answer. They had no idea. And the reason that this is important in terms of its potential constitutionality is there's something called the

appointments clause, which means if you have a significant position, it has to be confirmed by the Senate. That's why the government is trying to say like, oh, Elon doesn't have anything to do with that because obviously he's not confirmed by the Senate. And so the fact that they're this far into the administration and they're pretending Elon's not in charge when like clearly he is, number one. And number two, they can't say who the acting director of Doge is when it obviously has been given these incredible whole of government powers. That's why this judge was questioning whether or not this whole situation was constitutional at all. Yeah, it's very interesting in terms of how this will continue in the court process. But for me, I am just still mystified at this whole OPM situation because it does really get to a crux

of, it gets to the crux of who, not only who's in charge, but to what extent they will have authority going forward under their own department. And if Elon can just parachute in and outside of some programs, like, is he going to be able to run the so-called day-to-day? I mean, I guess the thing is with Trump, and again, I think this is the thing about Trump as well. Trump is also a boss, right? Trump is also somebody who probably empathizes with this idea, like, oh, my employees are stealing from me or, you know, they're taking advantage of me. And so now that he runs the government, he probably empathizes with this idea, like, oh, my employees are stealing from me or, you know, they're taking advantage of me. And so now that he runs the government, he probably empathizes with that, sending such an email. But this, like I said, I think it's starting to flirt with

people who are feeling jerked around because that's where I think most people can, again, empathize with the chaotic nature of all of this. And if there was a plan and there were going to be cuts, I think a lot of people would be fine with it, you know, but, or at least Trump MAGA folks would be not necessarily liberal ones, but the idea that your job was in jeopardy or not, and all of these legal theories, and you have to send this email or not, it detracts from the idea that there's like a steady hand and competence on the wheel, which if you think about it, that was the pitch that Donald Trump made whenever he came back to office, is I'm going to make everything normal and restore it to 2019 again. There's very different interpretations of that, and that's why it's important, but that's why I think it matters.

Yeah, absolutely. And then just to go through some of the impacts here and some of the things that really cut negatively against them, let's put this next piece up on the screen. It's impossible to keep up with like all the things that are impacted and all the things that are going on. So this is a bit of a sampling. But this CNN article actually was really good and pointed out something that I hadn't thought about before. They say military families rocked by Trump's federal government cuts. We've talked here before about how much of the federal government is employees are retired military. And, you know, so that's very significant. But this article looks specifically at there have been all kinds of federal government programs, including one that was championed by Trump in his first term to hire military spouses and give them work and flexible

work and often telework within the federal government. And, you know, the reason is pretty obvious here. You've got this, you know, this group of military spouses who are oftentimes having to be moved around the country based on where their significant other is stationed at the time and what deployments they're dealing with. Also, if, you know, if your significant other is deployed overseas, that's going to create child care issues, etc., if you're having to commute a long way to your job. And so when the order came down of, okay, everybody back to the office, initially military spouses were not excluded. So, you know, people for whom they'd been given an ability to be able to work these jobs and have that kind of flexibility of being able to work

from home and, you know, be able to work long distances even when they get moved around, etc. They were not excluded. And then there was some memo that went out that was like, maybe you are excluded. And it's just been total chaos and really unclear. And the other piece with this is, you know, in terms of firing all of the employees that are on this probationary period, it's important to understand that that doesn't just apply to people who've been newly hired by the federal government. If you move positions in, you know, between agencies or even sometimes if you get a certain promotion, but certainly if you're, you know, moving from, okay, he was stationed here and now

he's stationed somewhere else and I'm totally switching, you know, to work at a different agency that's closer to where he lives now, to where we live now, those people would be on probation. So that means that you would have a disproportionate impact on these military spouses that I think everybody finds pretty like, oh, it's a good thing for the federal government to, these are people who are capable of skills that are useful to the government. It's not like it's, you know, they're not deserving of the positions, but they require some flexibility and they're more likely to be in this probationary period. So it's hit them in particular really, really hard.

In addition, something we can put the next one up on the screen that Sagar and I were mentioning yesterday is you're already having big impacts at the national parks. So National Park Service was already pretty bare bones in terms of, you know, they'd faced staffing cuts and also staffing freezes. So the workforce has declined by 15% since 2010, but park visitation is way up. It's increased by 16%. If any of you guys have been to these national parks in recent years, you've seen like they are quite busy. People really love and enjoy. It's like an affordable vacation. They're incredible. They're beautiful. It's a wonderful experience. And my greatest, you know, favorite memories are at some of the places in the national park system. And so you're having already massive lines. You've had

reservations at Gettysburg National Military Park that were just blanket canceled because they weren't able to manage the reservation system. You had waits in order to get into the Grand Canyon National Park were like multiple hours long because some of the people who just let people in and give them the map and take the money and whatever had been let go. So you're having significant impacts there already. And then the other piece is you've had a fair amount of what appears to be self-dealing, although you could never say for sure, but certainly the appearance of self-dealing coming from Elon as well, put B5 up on the screen. So they laid off a bunch of workers at the auto safety agency that oversees Tesla. They've, you know, this agency had come, like Elon had expressed his disgust at

this agency previously prior to being the head or not the head of Doge, according to who you believe. He's, they've mandated that Tesla and other automakers report crash data on vehicles, specifically like self-driving technology. Equipped vehicles have to report this crash data. He didn't like that. They've launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company's cars. He didn't like that either. So again, can you say, okay, they got fired because Elon wanted them fired? You can't say that, but it certainly has the appearance of self-dealing and very similar with this next piece as well.

We can put this up on the screen. So employees that had been reviewing Neuralink also were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge. So 20 people in the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, several of whom specifically worked on Neuralink, according to two sources, they were all let go. Now, after the fact, Sagar, some of these people, they're like scrambling to bring back because they realize that, oh, we really need some of these people. So they're scrambling to bring them back. But to your point, I think you're absolutely right about the more that he appears like the, you know, evil, dreaded boss. I think that's really bad.

The more people see him less as the visionary and more as the like self-interested, self-dealing billionaire, the worse. And then the more that it impacts groups that are sympathetic and services that people actually value, the more of a political problem this is. That was my prediction is if you start to actually come after stuff that people use and or are beloved, for example, national parks, one of the literally most beloved national programs in the country. We should expand the national parks system. Sure. Yeah, because they are sort of overcrowded at this point because they're so popular. I know. Yeah, actually, like I said, I went to Zion during COVID and it was, oh my God, the reservation system was a disaster. So if anything, you should make it better and make it easier. One of the reasons I love and I support them is that it's literally free or as close to free as you can get.

A lot of the accommodations around the area are actually very cheap. It's very easy to take a very cheap vacation there, especially if you're nearby. You see it all the time. If you're into camping or anything, you can use the reservation. The park people will help you. They have it all set up. They really do. It's awesome in terms of the government support for it.

That is an example, again, of people who are like, hey, hold on a second here. I also think that where it comes down to not only with the military strategy, but the slap shot nature of it, the more, again, people are fine with the plan. I really believe that, especially Republicans. Most Republicans hate the government. They want to see it gutted and all that. But they want to see it done in such a way, not necessarily that doesn't impact them, but is for a goal. So if it's just about DEI, it's like that's actually not that difficult.

You can pretty much, even with the widest DEI definition, you could identify and publish all of the programs that have that. And you could ax them and or you could identify and publish all of the programs that have that, and you could ax them and or you could fire the employees involved. The problem with the 10% layoff or with any of that, and then bringing people back is it just feels as if it's doing it for the sake of it, which is fine if you're at Twitter. And honestly, it may be fine in the long run, right? It really could be. It could be one where they all leave and we don't even notice, which is Elon's kind of theory of the case. I don't really think that's true in democratic institutions, but I could be completely wrong. And that's where I currently see, especially the pushback for families, because I keep thinking about the statistic. If 4 million people work

for the government, that means that there are 8 to 10 million people out there who know somebody or are related to somebody who are directly related and or married to that person, not to mention their kids, if they're older or their cousin. I mean we could do the tree out and everybody's a couple degrees removed from somebody who directly works with us. Here in Washington, I know dozens of people who are affected. Also, my commute has gotten worse. Thank you, Elon, for calling all these people back in. It's a pain in the ass. And that's another one where you, are we really, like, what is the metric?

Are we asking people to come in to work? I think that's fine. But to what end? Is it just to clock in and to clock out? Like, what is the theory of what is all happening here? And, you know, the government's not a startup. I've always said that. And this is the problem with treating it as such. It's a literal democratic institution. Sometimes things

are done stupidly and inefficiently, but in a sense, that's only because people like it that way or because congressmen or senators like it that way. And many constituents do as well. So it's a very complicated dance that I don't think that currently they are winning. And Trump seems enthralled by the whole thing. I think Trump, and this is where I need to check my own bias. And I always say this, I think it would be a little too cute by half to have some great liberal backlash against Elon and Doge. It seems just a little too on the nose for what the media wants and what the liberals want, which by and large, their political theories have been wrong over the last four years outside

of abortion. So I just don't know. Maybe he's correct. I mean, he's a very smart person. For him, the media and the liberals are against it. So he continues to fight. He could still have millions of people who rally, not to him per se, but to the Republicans who defend it. I mean, there definitely is a massive liberal backlash, that much I can tell. I mean, I think that it's showing up at town halls in every state that everywhere they're having town halls, whether it's a Democrat or Republican who's having them, people are showing up en masse. And so there's no doubt about that. And certainly in a midterm election, when that enthusiasm is what counts, I think that's going to be really, really determinative and important. So, you know, I do think that there will be a massive electoral backlash to all of

this. But, you know, we'll see how long and it's a long time between now and then, et cetera. But yeah, you've got the the evil boss piece. You've got the incompetent piece. You know, it's very hard to argue that any of this is being done based on like merit when it's just these very blanket across the board, not thoughtful, having to scramble like, oh shit, we fired the dude who keeps our nuclear energy safe. We better get that guy back. And oh no, we fired some people at the FDA that were like, keep a track of bird flu. That seems kind of important.

We better get those people back as well. And that's where your point about the government not being a business is a really, really important one for people to understand. Because government is not supposed to be, like its main goal isn't actually to be, quote unquote, efficient. And I'll give you a perfect example. Air traffic controllers, right? Businesses take all kinds of risks, especially businesses run by Elon Musk, take all kinds of risks, including safety risks, betting that the fine or the consequences will be less than the fallout from cutting those corners and taking those risks. But as a society, we want to make sure that the planes don't run into each other. So you don't want to just slap shot, fire a bunch of air traffic

controllers and make the thing more dangerous, even if that did mean it was, quote unquote, more efficient. I also got news for you, like the amount that we pay to employ the federal government workforce is also not that large a part of the budget either. So even if you slashed like a preposterous amount of this workforce, you're doing very little in terms of actual cost cutting. And that's the other piece is like when you zoom out even from just this, okay, what Doge is up to and they're like bullshit pretending like they found this or that fraudulent program, which they have not actually identified any fraud thus far whatsoever. And you consider the broader agenda, which is like, okay, well, we're trying to cut spending so we can do what? Give a giant tax cut to people like Elon Musk who already pay very little in taxes. Then the agenda just completely departs from what most Americans want. And Saver's absolutely right that most people, if you ask them like, oh, should the government be cut? Should it be made more efficient? Should

some of the fat be cut? And they'd be like, yes, absolutely. But the way you do that matters and the impact on people's lives matter. And, you know, I don't think that this is landing well with people based on what we're seeing. It's a good political, it is a good test for Trump theory of politics. Trump's theory of politics is if that the media and the liberals are against it, then he's going to fight against it. And that has proven very well for him. It has worked dramatically well, actually, politically. For him specifically, not necessarily the Republican Party. So how will he continue to fare? Not only his grip on the party, his ability to then perhaps transfer some of that in the mid terms or in the future election. Because right now, if you were to believe a traditional media narrative, you're like, oh, it's going to be a blowout. But I just have a sneaking suspicion that the rules

might have changed. Only in the sense that because the mainstream media no longer has the same grip on the American culture for its ability to set narratives, I genuinely question how much of this is even penetrating. Because even when the lib narratives penetrated during the election, it didn't hit to the electorate in the same way. The electorate is huge, right? Nobody can really know. But a lot of the memes that people tried to make that were supposed to be offensive, turn people off or whatever in the traditional rules of politics, they didn't work at all. That's only the case when Trump is on the ballot. And Trump is not really supposed to be on the ballot again. He has other ideas.

That's what you want. He has other ideas. That's what I want. But, you know, as of today, based on the Constitution, he's not supposed to run again. He's also getting, you know, he is getting old, too. But, you know, so he's never been able to translate his particular political gifts, and this way he's very much like Obama, his particular political gifts to midterm elections, special elections, or really anyone else. So, yeah, when he's on the ballot, the polls are under his support. People want to give him a chance time and time again.

He comes extraordinarily close in 2020, even with the disastrous state of the country under his leadership. He obviously wins in 2024 and is able to secure a popular vote victory, which is extraordinary. But the midterms before that were a disaster for Republicans, and the 2018 midterms were a disaster for Republicans as well. So, you know, I've never seen him able to translate his political gifts and talents to anyone else. And, you know, I don't see why that would change when people are already kind of over the honeymoon period and already turning certainly on Elon, but also his numbers are going down and people aren't happy with the state 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers,

but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things

to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. This is an iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.