Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/6/25: Jordan Calls Trump Gaza Plan 'Act Of War', Fox Scrambles To Spin Trump Plan, Elon Hijacks Medicare

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Krystal and Ryan discuss Jordan says Trump Gaza plan 'act of war', Fox News scrambles to spin Trump Gaza plan, Elon hackers hijack Medicare agency.   David Dayen: https://prospect.org/topics/david-dayen/ Ro Khanna: https://x.com/reprokhanna?lang=en  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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early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited

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Happy Thursday. I'm very lucky to be joined by Ryan Grim this morning. Sagar is dealing with some personal things. Always nice to see you. Best to Sagar. Yes, indeed. We got a little lefty takeover here. So Ryan does a good job playing the part

of the devil's advocate, though, I'd say. Yes, that's right. I'm gonna be Sagar's advocate. All right, So lots to get to this morning, as per usual. We've got the White House press secretary not really walking back, but I guess somewhat trying to soften Trump's comments with regard to Gaza. Interesting response there, both from Democrats and also kind of a mixed response for Republicans in terms of Trump's idea of, hey, let's just go ahead with the full-sale invasion, theft, and ethnic cleansing. They'll bring you all of that.

We've also got, of course, all the latest, hard to keep up with, but from the Doge apparatchiks. There is a report that they have, in fact, changed some of the code at the Treasury payment system. You know, that governs the payments that go out for everything from Social Security, tax refunds, et cetera. Just a small matter of all of the money that gets spent. All of the $6 trillion that gets spent, you know, no biggie, just kind of freewheeling there in the Treasury system. We've got that. They have busted into the Medicare offices as well. So a lot going on there. Liberals, of course, continue to blame leftists for Democrats' flaws. This is specifically with regard continuing to be upset with them for critiquing Gaza and the Biden genocide there. The right wing making up a bunch of bullshit about Politico pro-subscriptions. It's kind of an interesting thing because it's interesting about the media, like the business piece. These Politico Pro subscriptions, it's a very regular business model in this town where they charge insane amounts for kind of technical trade information, knowing that it will be

government workers who are putting it on the taxpayer tab and lobbyists who are able to afford this. But right-wingers are making this up like, oh, the USAID was funding Politico with grants, et cetera. So kind of interesting to get into that one. Yeah. David Dan is going to come in and update us on legal challenges, both to the Trump administration overall and pushing back on Doge specifically. And Congressman Ro Khanna got into a kind of an interesting back and forth with Elon Musk. So he's going to tell us about that and what went down there. And also he's going to talk to us about the Democratic response, which many sort of normie Democrats have been very disappointed with, are looking for a lot more fight and leadership from their elected representatives. Let's go ahead and jump, though,

into the latest with regard to Gaza. As I mentioned before, the White House press secretary trying to sort of soften some of the comments that Trump made. Of course, Ryan and Emily covered the fact that Trump came out and said, hey, let's just get all these people out of there. Let's clean it up. They will be permanently gone. And we, the U.S., are going to own the Gaza Strip. So she was pressed on what exactly this plan would look like and whether it would mean boots on the ground, American soldiers going to fight and die in the Gaza Strip on behalf of Israel. Let's take a listen to that. An entire public career criticizing foreign entanglements, nation building, sending American troops to fight abroad, particularly in the Middle East. This plan seems like it could ultimately involve all of those things. Can you explain this reversal and how building and owning Gaza

squares with America first foreign policy? I would reject the premise of your question that this forces the United States to be entangled in conflicts abroad. The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. His administration is going to work with our partners in the region to reconstruct this region. And let me just take a step back here because this is an out of the box idea. That's who President Trump is. That's why the American people elected him. And his goal is lasting peace in the Middle East for all people in the region. And as I said in my opening remarks, we've had the same people pushing the same solutions to this problem for decades.

And it's been made very clear to the president that the United States needs to be involved in this rebuilding effort to ensure stability in the region for all people. That does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. So language there is very interesting to me, Ryan. And first of all, oh, it's an out-of-the-box idea. Actually, ethnic cleansing is not that out-of-the-box idea. In fact, the Biden administration was pushing something very similar before they got a lot of pushback from, you know, Egypt and Jordan saying, absolutely not. We are not participating in the ethnic cleansing of

Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. It is not an out-of-the-box idea in terms of the Israeli public and Israeli far-right leaders who are very open about wanting to force the immigration of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and completely take over and resettle it. The Madagascar plan, which people can look up. Exactly, yes. So this is not a new idea. Long time, very much in the box. Horrible, but very much in the box idea for this region, in fact. But the other thing that was noteworthy to me, Ryan, is while she's trying to soften, because obviously the minute you go, oh, we're going to send more U.S. troops to fight and die in the Middle East, there is an instant reaction against that, and one that I think Trump himself understands, since he ran on avoiding such things.

But she says he has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. That doesn't mean he's not open to putting boots on the ground in Gaza, which is exactly what he said, but he has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. Right, because during his press conference, he was asked that obvious question, and he said, if that's what it takes, then I would be willing to do that. But yes, to put a fine point on it, in late November of 2007, Blinken pressed Sisi and Egypt to open up the Sinai and said, we'll build a tent city down there. I think if it's out of the box, the difference is him just straight up admitting that they would not come back. Yeah. Because like the way that it's a great kind of contrast between how Democrats and Republicans approach the issue where Democrats would support ethnic cleansing while saying that it's not ethnic cleansing and they're actually going to let them return. Whereas Trump is like, no, they're not coming back. Yeah.

But then the next day, the Republicans are back to the Democratic approach saying, no, of course they would be able to come back. Of course, this would only be temporary. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is so not out of the box that I think people like you and me have been saying from the very beginning of this conflict that the goal is likely to destroy Gaza, make it thoroughly unlivable, so that then you can say exactly what Steve Witkoff and Trump are saying, which how could you let these poor people live in this place that is now destroyed as Bibi Netanyahu, the man who, of course, with our support, destroyed Gaza, sitting there grinning like a Cheshire cat, you know, delighted at the implication and the fact that this would completely rescue him politically.

Yeah. Everybody kind of spent yesterday trying to decide whether or not he's serious. Yeah. What do you? Trump had kind of tried to preempt that conversation, if you noticed, where he said, look, I have given this a lot of thought. This is not something I'm saying lightly. Yeah. Like he explicitly said that. Had his prepared statement. Yeah, prepared statement. And when he said that, that should have been a clue that that was not the case. It's like, whenever you're saying, trust me. I don't know, because I think it is and it isn't. I mean, some reporting of the like behind the the scenes how this came to be has come out from CNN and the New York Times.

So, whatever you make of them. And effectively, they said, on the one hand, he did not float this through, you know, State Department channels and whatever. But, I mean, that's Trump for you. But that he and Kushner have been talking about this for quite some time. And I think Steve Witkoff has been very much on the same page. I mean, both of these guys are developers, right? has been very much on the same page. I mean, both of these guys are developers, right? They're very used to the way their brain works. They see a beautiful coastline and they see dollar signs. And also as developers,

they're also quite comfortable with displacing a number of people in order to achieve those building goals that they may have. So it seems to me that while, yeah, he didn't go through the proper channels, this is something that has been percolating in his mind for at least some time. And we had Kushner come out and say that thing about, oh, beautiful waterfront property, blah, blah, blah. And Trump himself had previously said, while he was being asked about whether he thought the ceasefire would continue, he said he wasn't confident. And then he went on this whole thing about, oh, that area is very interesting. It could be very beautiful. It could be very special, et cetera. So in my mind, this is something that he's probably been

thinking about for some time. Oh, that I have no doubt. I think that he's probably been thinking about it for decades. Like any realtor that sees, because he talks about this being the Riviera of the Middle East. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is you've got like, you know, Riviera has become this brand where they, you know, Mexico's got its Maya Riviera and Riviera of Asia. Riviera is Mediterranean. Like, so it's on the same, it's on the same sea. Yeah.

That the actual Riviera is. So you don't even almost need of the Middle East. Just the Riviera. It's another Riviera in the Mediterranean Sea. And it is absolutely beautiful. Like when we had Ahmed Khan on the show, he was showing some footage. Abubakar Abed was taking some footage of his walk to Gaza City yesterday. Yeah. And he almost stumbled on a mine. He stumbled on a mine. But as he says, like in the background is the beautiful blue sea.

It's this jarring juxtaposition of dystopia and utopia. And for Trump, he's like, well, let's just build these gigantic Trump towers here. Yeah, and let the world's people in or however he operates it. World people. World people. Yeah. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also asked about what Trump had to say. Let's take a listen to his spin on this move. What President Trump announced yesterday is the offer, the willingness of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction of that area.

And while you are rebuilding, while you're clearing debris, by the way, there are unexploded munitions. There are all kinds of Hamas weaponry still buried underground. For people to be able to live in a place safely, all of that has to be removed. It's an enormous undertaking. And the only thing President Trump has done very generously, in my view, is offer the United States willingness to step in, clear the debris, clean the place up from all the destruction that's on the ground, clean it up of all these unexploded munitions. And in the meantime, the people living there will not be able, the people who call that home will not be able to live there while you have crews coming in and removing debris. It's a unique offer, you know, one that no other country in the world has stepped up and made an offer. But I think it's one people

need to think about. Seriously, it was not meant as a hostile move. It was meant as a, I think, a very generous move, the offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding. Very generous move. It was meant as, I think, a very generous move, the offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding. Very generous move. Yeah, it's not meant as a hostile takeover, but as a generous takeover. Generous takeover. Just, you know, it's a kinder, gentler ethnic cleansing. That's all. We don't mean any ill will. It is probably good for Trump that he got an articulate secretary of state because he's going to need all of his lexicological skills to do the cleanup effort that's required for, I was going to say four years, who knows how long Rubio lasts as Secretary of State, but for all the time that he is in that position,

it's going to be funny stuff like this. Because there's reporting that Rubio learned, unsurprisingly, about this plan watching Trump's press conference. He learned it the same way all of us learned about it. Appears to be how Susie Wiles learned it behind him. Appears to be how Netanyahu even learned it, which is the funniest part because Netanyahu was just in a meeting with him. Right. Could have mentioned that part.

I mean, maybe it'll come out that they actually talked about that. It did not appear so. But, yeah, so Rubio learned about it. And then he's stuck. First, he has to kind of go ad hoc and say, like, well, this is, you know, flipping the table and it's an out-of-the-box idea. Then he has to say, no, it's not what it sounded like. It's actually just a generous offer. When he says own, he means just take responsibility for the reconstruction.

But also, don't worry, that responsibility does not include one penny of American spending or any Americans. Very generous move that involves no spending somehow. Or people. Or people. And it's not hostile at all, even though it requires the forcible displacement of some, now we're being told, 1.8 million or 1.7 million Palestinians. And you and Emily pointing out that now I think this is actually the second time that Trump has mentioned that number of Palestinians remaining in the Gaza Strip, which would indicate that the actual number of dead from this ongoing genocide is somewhere in the ballpark of even potentially like half a million, which does square with some of the numbers and the analysis that have been done up to this point. I don't think anyone who watches this program will be shocked by numbers that high. The far right in Israel

is absolutely loving this idea. And Donald Trump, we can put a three up on the screen. This is Ben-Gavir, Inamar Ben-Gavir, who in 2007 was convicted by an Israeli court for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. Now, think of how bad you have to be to be convicted by an Israeli court for racism and supporting a terrorist organization. He says, Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. This kind of gets to our point about how this is not an out-of-the-box idea. It's a very mainstream idea among the absolute farthest right psychos in Israel who have been outwardly pushing something exactly like this for quite a long time. Another thing I wanted to take note of that kind of got lost in the shuffle, but I think is noteworthy, I'm actually curious, Ryan, your

reaction to this. We can put A4 up on the screen. So we had brought you the news here that Steve Witkoff, this has been Trump's envoy who, you know, pressured Bibi to accept the ceasefire deal, et cetera, et cetera. He's this sort of like brash real estate developer, buddies with Trump. He had been for, ever since the ceasefire deal was struck, really praising the Biden administration for doing the work to negotiate this deal and, you know, really giving them credit for the contours of that deal, he's really changed his tune. So the note here says, something interesting to note before Netanyahu visit, Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the ceasefire, but Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff distanced the admin from the deal today, left the door open to amending the framework and timeline

broker by Biden. Here's the quote from Witkoff. He says, part of the problem is that it wasn't such a wonderful agreement that was first signed that was not dictated by the Trump administration. We had nothing to do with it. So distancing himself from the contours of the deal that only moments ago, of course, he and Trump were celebrating as a terrific breakthrough. Right. For people who are catching up here, this was basically the deal that was put together effectively in May, which Biden's supporters, and we'll talk about this later in the show, have used to say Biden deserves credit who were killed after May in the genocide. And tell that to the more than a million people who suffered every day through the unspeakable barbarity of that time period. forced with some gentle pressure, Netanyahu, to finally accept the terms of the deal because he

wanted this hostage exchange to happen on January 20th or right around there. So that's all true. And Witkoff's mission at the time was get a deal and get me the publicity of the hostage exchange and the ceasefire deal. So now he's saying, okay, well, what can we negotiate as we're moving from phase one to phase two? And that allows Witkoff, I think, to take a little bit more agency and kind of continue negotiations because it was always assumed that there would be ongoing negotiations between phase one and phase two. And Netanyahu was publicly saying that he wanted to blow up the deal before it got to phase two and restart the war. In fact, his publicly saying that was one of the main obstacles to actually making a deal, as you can imagine.

Would you want to make a deal with somebody who's like, yeah, my intention is to break this deal as quickly as I possibly can. And go back to bombing you. Yeah. And so there were always going to be ongoing negotiations, no matter what. And so I think this, I think that's all that this is, is that Witkoff saying, yeah, we're going to keep talking. And from Hamas's perspective, and from all of the Palestinians' perspective, talking is good because talking is not bombing. And talking extends the time of the ceasefire. And their belief is that the longer you can extend the ceasefire, the more it just becomes the fabric of the status quo and continues. That's interesting. I read it a little bit differently of effectively Trump and Witkoff now distancing themselves from this deal. I mean,

part of what we were hoping for is that Trump would see it as a hit to his ego and his accomplishments for this deal to fall apart. And so if you now have Witkoff and to a certain extent Trump saying like, this isn't even our deal, who even cares about this deal? To me, that's a bad indicator in terms of their willingness to put pressure on Bibi to continue through with phase two when Bibi is under domestic political pressure from the most extreme parts of his faction who have out and around said, like, if you go back, if you go forward with the next phase, we're out of your coalition. So I write it as a negative sign that they were sort of distancing themselves. And Trump has consistently said, like, I'm not confident at all that this thing is going to continue. I just don't. He has said that, but I don't think he can distance

himself from it because he so loudly took credit for it. And he's now president. So I think it would look just too pathetic to in February or, blame Biden for war that breaks out. I don't know. These people create their own realities. They can try. They can try. They're selling us even more preposterous stuff than that right now, as we'll get to later in the show. That's true. But, I mean, things that happened during—yes, yes. I mean, right. He was—yes, this is true. But I don't think he can pull it off. We'll see. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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some Republicans on the Hill are objecting to this or questioning this? How does he square the fact saying everyone loves this? Well, King Abdullah of Jordan will be here next week, so I can provide you more context on the conversations he will have directly with the President of the United States after that meeting. And I would just point out that there's been a lot of leaders and officials all around the world who have doubted, I suppose, the deal-making ability of President Trump. You heard the Panama leader saying that he would not agree to some of the concessions that he has now made because of Secretary Rubio's visit. You had the Colombian president saying he wouldn't accept flights of Colombian illegal nationals who have entered

into our country illegally. And those flights are underway. So actions speak louder than words. So interesting there that she brings up the examples of Panama and Colombia. Of course, there was that whole, you know, threat of tariffs on Colombia is used the threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada to extract not even like really significant concessions in those instances, this is a very different deal. So if he's thinking that he can use tariffs to coerce Egypt and Jordan into taking this, they would consider this to be existential to their own regimes and power. So I think they would be a lot more willing to ride out the economic pain of tariffs in order to try to keep their grip on power. Right. The populations of Jordan and Egypt are not huge. So adding a

million Palestinians to Egypt, a million Palestinians to Jordan. And Jordan already has a large number of Palestinians. Yeah, their majority population is Palestinians. Fundamentally destabilizes those countries in the opinion, whether or not that's true or not, that is the opinion of the leadership of those countries. And so they believe that, you know, you do this, the clock starts ticking on their ouster. And so therefore, even if it's better for the Palestinians and better for Egypt and better for Jordan, those leaders aren't going to do it. That's just not how they work.

There's no amount of carrots or sticks that anybody has to pressure a leader to do something that they believe is going to end their reign. That's just fairly simple. Yeah, I would say so as well. Let's go and move on to some of the response that we've seen from Republicans primarily, since Trump is not really going to care what Democrats have to say about any of this. I could put Rand Paul up on the screen. He is sort of the most aggressively in terms of his pushback on the idea of taking over Gaza. He says, the pursuit for peace should be that of the Israelis and Palestinians. I thought we voted for America first. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and

spill our soldiers' blood. Noteworthy, however, you know, not unexpected from Rand Paul, who tries to be fairly consistent in terms of his foreign policy approach in particular. More noteworthy to me was Lindsey Graham, not too crazy about this idea, put a seven up on the screen. He says, I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. I think that might be problematic, but Ryan, he is going to keep an open mind. You got to keep an open mind. You got to keep an open mind. Another one we have here for you here is Josh Hawley. He sort of echoed Lindsey Graham telling Politico he didn't think sending troops to the Palestinian enclave was the right move. I don't know that I think it's the best use of United States resources to spend a bunch of money in Gaza.

I think maybe I'd prefer that to be spent in the United States first. But let's see what happens, Ryan. You got to wait to see what happens. Yeah, you never know. I mean, that's the thing is like even when they are mildly critical here, they leave themselves, of course, the opening that if Trump goes forward with it, they're going to say masterful gambits are a brilliant move. Brilliant move. Out of the box. Very generous. Yeah.

I mean, you put yourselves in the shoes of Graham or Holly, that is the best they're going to be able to do. Boy, I'm not so sure about that. But, you know, you've got to keep an open mind. You've got to keep an open mind. And it goes back to their problem and the genius from his perspective of his entire politics, which is that there is no ideology. It is Trumpism. It is like what Trump says becomes the policy of the Republican

Party. That's right. And if Trump says, like, I think Trump, I think that there is a massive structural and deep opposition from his followers to putting more boots on the ground in the Middle East. But if, if he said they're going to do it, like at some point, a lot of, a lot of them are going to be like, well, this is obviously this is America first. Like this is this becomes America first somehow. That's exactly right. I mean, I've already seen some of that on Twitter of like, oh, this would be amazing. We'd get to own this.

Like think how incredible that would be. We could do whatever we want with it. And you see this with any number of issues where it's like, you know, all of a sudden Trump says something about Greenland or Panama, and all of a sudden people who had never thought about Greenland and Panama think it's the most brilliant thing on the planet and are a million percent in favor of it, et cetera, et cetera. And the other thing is this time around, you know, Trump really, I mean, he has completely cowed the Republican Party. Any of the Jeff Flakes of the world, the people that were there in the first administration that were more adversarial, they're gone. And, and I think this

part is really important, he's got Elon Musk there to be like, if you don't do what this president wants you to do and what I want you to do, I, Elon Musk, unelected new leader of the country, then I'm going to drop an infinite amount of money on your head in a primary. And that is a very real threat and very effective at enforcing the line here. If I were going to channel Sagar here, I think he would say, these guys know Trump isn't going to do this, so they're just being as generous as they can in the meantime. Is that what Sagar would say, you think? I'm not sure. Because I don't think that he would deny that in the meantime. Is that what Sagar would say, you think? I'm not sure, because I don't think that he would deny that in the end, if Trump did go forward with this, that they would fall in line.

Yeah. I mean, we've just, we've seen it over and over again. At the same time, there were plenty of Republicans who took no issue whatsoever, didn't even express the slightest bit of hesitation about this idea. In particular, the new leader of the Senate, that would be John Thune, which I'm still getting used to, by the way, Majority Leader Thune, and Mike Johnson, who, of course, is the House Speaker. Here is Manu Raju talking to both of them. Yeah, we're trying to get the details of it, but I think this is a good development. We have to back Israel 100 percent. And so whatever form that takes, we're interested in having that discussion. But it's it's, it was a surprising development, but I think it's one that we'll applaud.

And I just caught up with the Senate Majority Leader John Thune asked him a similar question about whether or not this was an idea that was worth pursuing if it was a feasible proposal. And this is what the Senate Majority Leader said. Senator, what do you think of Trump's takeover proposal? Is that a realistic idea? He's going to bring a more peaceful, secure Middle East and put some ideas out there. Shrugging it off of sourcing, just simply putting some ideas out there. Other Republican senators, including Senator Lindsey Graham, did not think it was quite a workable idea. But you're not really hearing nearly the amount of pushback that you're hearing from Democrats. A lot of Republicans think this is an idea that simply is just far-fetched, something that never will actually be achieved, and that eventually the discussion will move on beyond this.

And as you heard from the Senate Majority Leader right there, not seeming to put a lot of stock into this proposal. But the Speaker of the House very much defending what Donald Trump has said last night on multiple occasions that this would be something that's worth pursuing. Also interesting to me, over on Fox News and primetime, Laura Ingraham and her guest were trying to make that spin of how this could be seen as America first. So if Trump moves forward with this idea, I think you'll hear more of this line of argumentation. Let's take a listen to what they had to say. When Americans are building monuments to Donald Trump as the most consequential president of the past 100 years, I don't think our grandchildren will fully appreciate

just how consequential the guy is and just what a radical departure he is from both Democrats and Republicans of the past hundred years who have been presidents who who are cautious and careful. And this guy wants to be consequential and solve problems. Well, I think it's it's it's so foreign to us to hear this, that, wait a second, we actually may solve a problem. We actually may make money on it. Like, that's a bad thing for the United States to get repaid for the tens of billions of dollars just in the last few years we've dumped into the Middle East and the trillions we've spent over the years. When we go to Iraq, we break it. And then we don't get the oil leases or any of the rebuild.

And meanwhile, we leave our equipment there, tens of billions of dollars in Afghanistan. For what? What did we get in either of those places except a massive refugee crisis in Europe, the creation of ISIS and and a stronger Iran. That logic is so bonkers to me. She even says, we went to Iraq, we broke it, and we didn't even get anything out of it. It's like, we spent all this money to murder a lot of Palestinians, and we think we should also make some money on the deal?

I mean, it's just, but that's the direction they're going in. It's like, that's how it's America first, if we actually acquire this territory to develop to, you know, our benefit, or at least the benefit of Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. It's also just openly and hilariously internally inconsistent with its own like one minute clip there saying all of these past presidents have been so cautious, whereas now Donald Trump is putting forward a bold idea to send American troops to the Middle East. And then she's like... Bold new idea, guys. Never tried that one before. And then she mentions the very thing that undercuts her whole point, which is that in 2001, 2002, our bold idea from an American president was we were going to send a lot of

American troops to the Middle East because it had been a big problem and we were going to solve the problem. That's right. Incredible stuff. This time we're going to keep the oil. Where do you think the oil has been going in the last 20 years? Like, we have their oil. Yeah, that's exactly right. Couldn't leave this section without letting Senator John Fetterman, Senator of Israel, apparently Israel first senator, weigh in here and take a more hawkish

approach than actually even Lindsey Graham can put his response up on the screen. He says, outside the Senate chamber, this is from a New York Times reporter in the Capitol, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who is known as the most staunchly pro-Israel Democrat in the Senate, called President Trump's remarks provocative, but said he would support a potential American occupation of the Gaza Strip, adding that Palestinians for years have, quote, refused or have been unwilling to deliver a government that provided security and economic development for themselves. So at least one Democrat on board with this plan, Ryan. I mean, I think people should start punking him and saying like, you know, just making stuff up that Trump says he's going to do just to get Fetterman to support it.

I don't think there's anything that you could bring to him. No. And have Fetterman push back against it. No. Nothing. No. Like if you went to him or like Trump says we're going to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza Strip. You know, we've got to take out Hamas. It's existential. He'd be like,

well, it's provocative. Got to wait till the winds are going in the right direction. Because our allies are very close there. But otherwise, you know, that sounds good. Outside the box. Yeah. Outside the box, yeah. Outside of the box. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right.

It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father?

Well, Sam, luckily it's your Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it

to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret?

Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal.

It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and get to the very latest from Elon Musk and Doge. And, you know, it is the developments that are coming fast and furious and very difficult to know what is happening at all of these agencies. But this was quite noteworthy to me. The White House press secretary was pressed about Elon's many conflicts of interest. And really, truly, Elon Musk cannot actually be involved in anything with regard to this government without running into some kind of conflict of interest. I mean, the number of agencies that have sued him for environmental issues, for labor issues, union busting, securities violations, the billions of dollars in contracts

he has as a tech oligarch, the interest he has in scooping up all of our data. I mean, it is incomprehensible the number of conflicts that he has across scooping up all of our data, I mean, it is incomprehensible, the number of conflicts that he has across this whole government. So she was asked, hey, you know, how's this whole thing going to work? And basically acknowledges that it is on Elon Musk himself to self-police any potential conflicts of interest here. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. You talked a bit about Doge. Elon Musk is currently a, quote, special government employee who also owns companies that have billions of dollars in federal contracts. You said earlier this week that he has abided by all applicable federal laws. But what steps is the Trump administration Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that Doge is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself

from those contracts. And he has, again, abided by all applicable laws. Does that make you feel better, Ryan? Yeah, he's abiding by all applicable laws. And we're going to talk about this in a moment, but, you know, Ian Miles Chong and his whole gang feel like they have discovered the Watergate of the 21st century because they misread USAspending.gov to believe that USAID was funding Politico to the tune of like $8 million. Like, untrue. But in this context, it's hilarious. So Politico, according to them, is corrupt because of this fake finding of government subsidies going to them. But Elon Musk, whose wealth rests on federal funding, that's fine. Like, that's not corrupting at all.

Right. Of course. And also, that's true. Like, the other argument is false. Like, in this case, he really is getting funded. Like, he's a government contractor. Yeah. Like that's his whole thing.

And he's not only, you know, obviously he's a government contractor. He gets some $15 billion in taxpayer dollars every year. Like it's a preposterous amount of money that he gets from the U.S. government. He also has many foreign entanglements, a lot of business in China, for example. So, you know, just everything that he touches is inherently a conflict of interest. And yet, you know, oh, it's fine. He's going to, if there's anything that he's conflicted on, he'll let us know. He'll get back to us on that. No big deal. Don't worry about it. There's so many developments here. Let me go and put this up on the screen. So this is an important note. USAID obviously has

been a major target of Elon and Doge and the right, et cetera. There was backlash against the defunding of this one particular program to combat HIV. It's a George W. Bush-era program. It's been really successful, important to the health, they say here, of more than 20 million people worldwide, including 500,000 children. And since there was a backlash, Marco Rubio at the State Department issued a series of memos that say basically, like, we're giving an exception. The foreign aid freeze does not apply to this. But because this is all done so sloppily and so imprecisely, the money for that HIV relief still isn't going out. It still continues to be frozen with potentially, I mean, not potentially, with dire consequences.

They did a survey of 275 organizations in 11 sub-Saharan countries. This was all conducted over the past week. All of them, all of them reported their programs or services had shut down or were turning people away. This is especially critical for babies who acquire HIV at birth because the infection can progress really quickly. Death can occur if you don't receive the proper treatment within eight to 12 weeks after birth, which would be a shorter period of time than the 90-day pause on foreign aid. So, you know, lives being put at risk here. And obviously, like, there are many things that USAID does that you and I would not be particularly crazy about. But it's also true that it does genuinely beneficial things like this. And so even in this area where there was public pushback,

where it felt like, okay, well, if something is too egregious, they're going to pull back and they're going to kind of fix it, which happened with this, which happened with the Medicaid portals being shut down. Even in that instance, you know, they have not actually been able to roll back the freeze and those funds are still locked down. Right, because it appears deliberately destroyed. What's going on here is that they, and the Times lays this out, the government sent out stop work orders to everybody doing work that had any connection to this money. And so they stopped the work. Then Rubio says, okay, you're right. This is embarrassing. We'll continue to allow some of this work to go on. People can get waivers. And so they issued memos saying some work involving HIV treatment can continue or going on, or HIV testing can continue going on.

But a memo like that is not what these organizations need. The organizations need a full-on letter that says this particular program is back on, and here's the money. They also need to send the money, obviously. And they haven't done it. So now, then they sent a superseding memo that tried to clarify a little bit more that, yes, some of this work actually is okay. So what they're doing is they're shutting everything down and then trying to rebuild it from the ground up where they believe that these are the okay things that they're doing. Right.

Which, A, is not legal. Like Congress has authorized this PEPFAR program. Right. And that's it. Like Congress has authorized it, directed it to this bank. Elon Musk, whether he likes it or not, does not get to decide. Supposedly. Not legally.

Yeah. And so because they're being so nitpicky about what's okay and what's not, nothing is getting going, like zero. So then Rubio said, well, it sounds like these are incompetent organizations who can't figure out how to get waivers or they are deliberately sabotaging their programs so that they will derive some political benefit and embarrass us. But what these organizations are saying is that their waivers are being sent to staff who have been furloughed. Right. They furloughed, we posted the memo yesterday, almost everybody in the implementing agencies. Their emails don't work anymore.

And they're being told to come home to the United States by this weekend. So who's going to approve the waiver? So it's either the most idiotic Kafkaesque arrangement ever, or it's quite obviously just designed to throw a wrench in it and break it. Right. Because anybody who thinks it through will be like, okay, actually we do need employees to be able to approve the waivers if we want waivers to be approved. Right.

We're not talking like sophisticated bureaucratic understanding here. Some people do need to exist to be able to process the waiver and unfreeze the funds. And the email shouldn't bounce. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So that's what's going on at USAID. But they have expanded their reach through a variety of other agencies, some of them deeply troubling and really important to American lives as well. It can put B2 up on the screen. So they have reportedly breached the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have gotten access to key payment and contracting systems there. The Doge representatives have been on site at the agency's office this week. The people said they're looking at the system's office this week. The people said

they're looking at the system's tech as well as the spending that flows through them with a focus on pinpointing what they consider fraud or waste, which that's an important line because so far the things that we've been given as examples of fraud or waste are either just completely invented or they're just things that the right doesn't like, but were in fact, you know, properly authorized, etc. That's been their definition of fraud or waste. White House and Doge officials didn't comment, but Musk on his platform posted, yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening, referring to the Medicare agency in a repost of another user who referenced the journal's reporting.

In the nerve center of much of the nation's complex health care economy with outlays of about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2024, about 22% of the federal total. The round 6,700 employees oversees Medicare, of course, and Medicaid, which is for lower income enrollees, which is sort of overseen primarily by the states. But I mean, he's not wrong. Like, if you're going to look at the money, the real money, buckets of money in the federal budget, it ain't USAID, which accounts for like 0.7%. It is healthcare. Right. And it is the Pentagon. And Social Security. Yeah. Well, he gets a lot of

money from the Pentagon. So for some reason, the Defense Department, which is the area that if you ask America, we've looked at the polling, if you ask Americans, that's the area they most want to cut. For some reason, that has not been tackled whatsoever. But going after health care, going after, you know, HIV treatment for poor kids in Africa, going straight to the pipes of the Treasury to shut off, to attempt to, you know, mess with or shut off any funding that they don't agree with there, that has been very much on the table. Yeah. And just to underline the point, PEPFAR is not about USAID. I've been a longtime consistent critic of USAID and its role in toppling governments and building up fake civic society, et cetera. PEPFAR is a separate program started by George W. Bush, which one of the implementing agencies is USAID. It could be implemented by other agencies. Right

now, USAID is essential to getting it out. Some numbers from an NGO source said about 220,000 patients visit PEPFAR-supported clinics every day. Wow. So, and there are about 20 million people who rely on this treatment. And so, this is treatment that, if it gets disrupted, you know, causes, you know, long-term implications for your disease treatment. And if you don't care about Africa and you don't care about American soft power, you can also understand that treating it poorly risks creating all sorts of viral mutations.

Right. There is a selfish reason for the U.S. to be concerned about disease prevention and treatment in Africa, even if you don't care on humanitarian grounds at all about Africa or anybody else outside of your family or your country or whatever else. It actually does have potential impact back here. Well, the other thing I've been thinking about is, you know, the first of all, Congress authorized USAID as an independent agency. Again, it is illegal to just shut down USAID, even if you're saying, oh, we're just going to put it under the State Department. No, it was authorized specifically as an independent agency.

And it would, if you're going to follow the law, require an act of Congress to do something different with that. So that's number one. Number two, I find it so silly to think that if the goal is to put USAID under the State Department, that it's going to do less of the like meddling and regime change stuff. I mean, even the way Rubio talks about it, he's like, it needs to align war with U.S. foreign policy, American interest, which to me reads like, actually, we want to get rid of all this like, you know, mamby-pamby, humanitarian, help the kids with AIDS. We just want to do more of the like directly meddling and trying to secure the mineral resources and supporting the quote-unquote freedom fighters, as Senator Chris Murphy was talking about. Yes, exactly. Rubio saying that

the USAID's functions will continue but be directed America first was so revealing. In a drop site piece on Monday that we wrote that touched on the Romanian election. So we previously, and we reported on this show as well, reported on USAID and the State Department's role in basically annulling a presidential election in Romania. Yeah. Like, a totally insane story. Totally insane story. The candidates that the U.S. was supporting there were the establishment candidates. So does America first exploitation of USAID mean that it would be the populist right candidates that we're supporting?

Like that's what makes me nervous. Right. That we're not going from, okay, we actually are now supporting the sovereignty of every country. And whoever you elect, whether it's somebody we like or don't like, that's for Romanians to decide. And we're not going to go and interfere with your election. That would be my preference. Right. Let people decide.

Right. But is Rubio saying, no, actually we'll come in and USAID will be supporting the right-wing populists? Yeah. Well, and also, I mean, Rubio, very hawkish guy, especially when it comes to Latin America. Never seen like a coup or regime change operation there that he didn't like, right? Yes. So, you know, this guy who was all about Juan Guaido, etc.

Yeah. So I don't think anyone should feel like USAID is going to be more to their liking when it is more directed by the State Department versus as it is currently as an independent agency. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fat phobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart

True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes,

my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead. But I have DNA proof

that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time.

Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024.

VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high.

And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a bunch of developments to probably the most important piece of this is their infiltration of the Treasury Department, because that is where the payments that, you know, all $6 trillion that go out from the federal government, that is where the bones and the pipes

of that operation. I mean, they were savvy enough to know, like, this is the place we need to go. And so there's been a lot of dispute about what exactly they've been up to there. You know, there were claims made to reporters that the Doge apparatchiks only have, quote, read access, which is, by the way, troubling enough. There's a lot of damage that can be done just with read-only access. But we now have confirmation that that is really not the case.

Let's put this reporting, B2B, up on the screen here. We've got Talking Points Memo has some sources inside the Treasury Department. They've broken a number of stories here. But they say specifically a Doge worker named Marco Elez, who has admin privileges on Treasury systems that control 95% of government payments, including Social Security checks, tax refunds, has already made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment systems. And these have been implemented too. They weren't, you know, it wasn't in some like, you know, test environment. They've actually

gone in and messed with the system according to this reporting. And in addition, they said what it looked like this individual was doing was either trying to make it easier to freeze or shut off payments and potentially to make it so it's harder to track what payments have been messed with, have been frozen. So, again, I mean, just a brazen violation of the separation of powers. You know, power of the purse belongs with Congress. And you've got these sort of unaccountable young dudes running around doing what they want to do. There's also New York Times reporting this morning that backs up some of this. This just broke literally this morning. They say, in the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk's team began pressing for access to the Treasury Department's payment system,

officials repeatedly said their goal was to undertake a general review of the system. They said they would observe but not stop money from going out the door. But emails reviewed by the New York Times show that the Treasury's chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, one of those Doge acolytes, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze USAID payments. In a January 24th email to a small group of Treasury officials, the chief of staff, Dan Katz, wrote that Mr. Krause and his team needed access to the system so they could pause USAID payments and comply with Mr. Trump's January 20th executive order to halt foreign aid to the extent permitted by law. This is the quote from the email. We would like to implement the pause as soon as possible in order to ensure we are doing our role to comply with the executive office.

So increasingly getting confirmation that, you know, they have been going in, they have been messing with the code, they have been at least planning to freeze payments, etc. Yeah, Nathan Tankus, TPM, like these early reports are being vindicated. Yeah. Wired has also done really great reporting because they have all these tech sources. Yes. So they're sort of outside DC, but they have all this insight into this tech world. And so they've broken a lot of stories with regard to Doge.

And some of it is also random. Like it looks like TPM, Josh TPM, Josh, over there, just happened to, like, know the people in the right place. That's the thing. Like, he's been doing this for 25, 30 years, and clearly somebody he's, like, buddies with or something over the years happens to be in the room. And so that has enabled these independent journalists

to scoop the mainstream press, like New York Times and others who very strategically focused their sourcing on the people closest to Trump or Biden or the Treasury Secretary. But when Musk is going around them and going to the bowels of the building- Right. And you're talking about these sort of mid-level bureaucrats. Like happen to be your neighbor. And now all of a sudden, they're in a political position that they weren't in before. And so that's been interesting to watch.

But yeah, so this is confirming that the kind of worst fears that there is kind of aggressive manipulation going on inside the system, which is, and we discussed this yesterday, it's like 60 years old. Like the code that put this system together was being written in like the 1960s and just updated consistently since then rather than modernized. So my first job out of college was working for a government contractor that worked with these enterprise systems. And my particular client was not Treasury.

It was the federal court system. So I have no knowledge of the Treasury systems, but I have extensive knowledge of how kludged together and like eccentric and, you know, just very specific kind of knowledge you have to have of these systems and how outdated they are. And all of that is certainly true. But yeah, you have a few individuals who will be in place who will know all the quirks and the ins and outs of these weird systems. I worked on the help desk there for quite a while. So I was getting all the incoming problems. Why won't this happen? Why won't that happen? Et cetera. You got to go in the backend and search and figure out what the hell is going on, how these systems fit together, et cetera. And so I like have a sort of

visceral understanding of how brittle and how quirky and weird and outdated a lot of these systems are. And so if you're this, you know, hotshot kid coming in thinking that, you know, everything. And I think you see this a lot from the business world too, where people who are successful in the business world think that they know everything about any, they can just drop in and like do a way better job at anything. But, you know, certainly these systems could use an upgrade. They could use some increased levels of efficiency. But if you're just going in willy-nilly and messing with it, you are risking total catastrophe. And that's just one of the risks here. I mean, you know, risk of total catastrophe, the whole thing breaking down, tax refunds not going out, Social Security checks not going out, Medicare not going out, the U.S. not meeting its obligations

and having some sort of a default. You know, you've also just got the, there's clear, we're going to talk to David Dayen more about the legal pushback here. We have privacy laws in place that say you can't just have random people accessing, you know, all of American social security numbers. As an example, there's really specific sensitive protocols that you're supposed to follow that don't appear to be followed here as well. And then the key, you know, what really makes this, I would say even beyond a constitutional crisis, is you don't just get, there's a reason why Treasury just is the clearinghouse, right? The payments get, the appropriations made by Congress,

the agencies say, okay, this is how we're going to go about executing the wishes of Congress. And then Treasury's there to make sure that the checks are actually going out. The idea that you can go in and just pick and choose, like, I like this one, I don't like that one, as this richest man on the planet is, I mean, it truly is approaching coup-type territory. Now, he doesn't have control of the military, so I don't think you're quite there, but it is, to me, significantly beyond

even just that of a constitutional crisis because of the level of control that he's trying to exert here on a line-by-line basis as someone who wasn't elected or conferred to anything. Yeah. And the counter-argument is that he's going after corruption, waste, and he's going after waste, fraud, and abuse, which, A, so far he has not elevated any incidents of actual corruption or waste or fraud, which would stand to reason because the way that you would find this waste, fraud, and abuse would be to find out where the money went and investigate the people who got the money. He's not doing that. He's looking at how it's getting sent out. And he's just looking at the names of people getting money.

Like Mike Flynn was circulating a spreadsheet where a bunch of Lutheran service organizations were getting money. And they're like, aha, look at this, corruption. It's like, well, these Lutheran organizations actually do a lot of implementation of Medicaid, of getting Medicaid payments out to providers. They do that. So you found the word Lutheran and you think you've discovered fraud? That's not how it works. There is an absolutely insane amount of fraud in the Medicare system.

Just ask Rick Scott. Yes, exactly. And it would be a place, I think, that AI and technology could be beneficial. And most of it is down in South Florida. You've got these fly-by-night companies that will set up, they will pretend that they're selling wheelchairs. They will steal a bunch of Medicare numbers from the dark web. They will submit for $10 million in reimbursement from Medicare. The money will come through, and then they shut down. And so that's the kind of thing that maybe you can get away with in the 90s, but with the technology we have today, you should have to be able to prove like... This is a real need for a real person. Where are the wheelchairs? Where's your physical address? Who are you? So, if we were serious,

there is actually billions of dollars to be saved there. Well, it's also worth saying, the Government Accountability Office is meant to root out this type of fraud on an annual basis, finds hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud, vastly more. Invest more in that. Vastly more than what they're, I mean, they haven't found, they've found in terms of actual fraud that's been elevated as zero dollars, they've found some things they just like don't like, you know, money going to organizations that they just have an issue with, or just completely fabricated things like the $100 million condoms to Gaza,

which was not even a thing. And we'll talk about the Politico example later. But your point, just so people don't miss it, Rick Scott, his company oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in American history. Yeah, so get him involved. He should know where to find it. And that is also an indication of, because what I described sounds like it should be doable by the richest country on the planet

to root out this fraud. But you're getting way up the river. Like the level, the amount of money being made on this puts you in rooms where people have the power to stop that from happening. So why isn't the GAO getting more money? Why aren't the IGs at the HHS getting more money? Why isn't the FBI being directed there instead of wherever the hell the FBI is being directed? Well, Rick Scott's a senator from Florida. And he might be the most prominent

example of somebody like this, but he's not the only one. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And again, if you really wanted to root out fraud, you would be taking a look at that, the Pentagon budget, which has never passed an audit. That might be the place that you would actually start, but not if you're getting billions of dollars in your own contracts from that entity. Just to continue on here, so they've busted into the Center for Medicare. They also put B3 up on the screen, have gotten access to NOAA. That's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It's a climate change. That's right.

Well, why should you care? Because if you like to know when hurricanes are going to hit in your area. Or what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. You may appreciate the work that NOAA does, but NOAA has long been in the sights of conservatives because they don't like that climate change is real and the NOAA data proves that to be the case. They don't like that.

Project 2025 took aim at NOAA in particular. They describe it as harmful to U.S. prosperity for its role in climate science. And they also have wanted to privatize the data that's collected here so that you, the public, don't have access to it. Only private corporations have access to it. And I mean, in a sense, there's a tie-in with the conversation you and Emily were having about housing, which is that all these insurers are looking at the data and are like, yeah, your house in this area is really prone to a wildfire or really prone to being destroyed by

a hurricane. And this is a problem. But because there's been such so many political lies about the climate crisis, it has kept people from being able to really absorb how much risk they are personally at wherever they happen to be living how much risk they are personally at wherever they happen to be living. And so they would like to go more in the direction of only private corporations really getting to understand the data and the science that is collected around the atmosphere. Yeah. And it's crazy to think that there really are these niche companies who just hate the

idea that NOAA gives this information away for free, which then allows your weather app and your various weather apps to then be available mostly for free. They're pulling data from you. Or you can get the fancy ones where you pay, but then you get a little extra from those apps. But yeah, they want you to have to pay for everything. Yeah, that's exactly right. Sagar would agree with me on that one, I think. He's brought up NOAA himself before. So, yeah, I think he'd be on board with that. Let's put before up on the screen.

The GSA is the General Services Administration. They basically keep track of all of the kind of like terminate the leases on many of the federal offices nationwide to cut back the real estate budget by 50%. Kind of goes against the whole idea of everybody's got to go back to the office because actually already some of the office space has been let go because you had a post-COVID shift away from everybody being at the office all the time. And so, you know, they're wanting to strip this back even further. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised to see if some closely connected people are able to benefit from some of these sales, you know, some potentially below market possibilities here. But this is, you know,

another doge effort to just come in and slash and burn. And then the last piece we have for you, well, we've got two more pieces for you. One is they are trying to move to a system where their communications within Doge would not be subject to FOIA requests. So we can put B5 up on the screen. This is another one of these kind of outsider outlets that was able to get this scoop. This is 404 Media. They say Doge employees in order to stop using Slack while agency transitions to a record system not subject to FOIA. This is a little bit – there's like different reporting requirements if you're – right now Doge is under the Office of Management and Budget.

If they were to report directly through the White House, then they're subject to different records requirements. Ryan, you could probably speak to this better than I can. And so they want to say, no, no, actually, we're just reporting to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. We're just under the office of the president. That's who we're advising. And so then we would come under, what is it called, like the Presidential Records Act, which holds, doesn't allow you to FOIA anything until, you know, years down in the future. So just an effort here to make sure that there is truly no transparency about what's going on there. Right. In order to stand up their, their, their Doge committee immediately, they took, took over a digital committee that Obama had set up, which had been under OMB, and in the executive order he said it's not there anymore,

now it's over at the White House. And a lot of lawyers are like, well that's not how it works, you can't just, like you actually have to go through serious process to like rearrange that. Yeah, you don't get to just say like, yeah I don't really want to be subject to FOIA anymore, so we're just not gonna do that.

But you know, they probably can, and they will. It's ironic that the Twitter Files guy, the dude all about transparency, is now seeking to undermine it. And then separately on the GSA thing where they're canceling all the leases, that's another speed run through his Twitter takeover. Like the first thing he did was get rid of a bunch of leases,

break the leases, stop paying, make them sue. And going back to the idea of like the random connections you have, like I have a whole bunch of neighbors who are federal workers. And they're being asked to come in. And what they've said is that, you know, over the last several years, in order to save money, their agencies have downsized their offices. So now it's more like, all right, what kind of office size would we need if people came in two or three days a week? And, oh, we would need shared workspaces and more communal places. You don't necessarily have their own space. You come in, you grab whatever cubicle is available with an assumption that only, you know, maybe 50% of the workforce will be there on any given day. And so now that they're saying, okay, actually everybody's back for five days, we're like, oh, we need to go get a bigger office.

And if that's what they want us to do, to have that coupled with actually we're getting rid of all the offices, it's like, wait a minute, I thought we were coming in. Coming in to where exactly? Yeah, that is all very accurate. I live out in King George County, which is about an hour and a half from here is the town that I grew up in. And it's based around, the economy there is based around a naval base, but it's mostly civilian scientists who work there. But then it also is the type of place that during COVID, when people were able to get these flexible work schedules, suddenly, like if you're commuting into DC an hour and a half a day, plus traffic makes it like a ridiculous, miserable commute.

You can't really do that five days a week. But if you're coming in two days a week, three days a week, okay, that becomes more doable. So there's been a lot of movement of people out to where I live who do have to go into DC who are, you know, obviously their lives are going to be turned upside down. And the other piece of this that, you know, we didn't even touch on is the big fork in the road letter that sent out the quote unquote buyout, which is not really a buyout, but whatever, that they sent out is also coming under a lot of legal scrutiny. And there's huge questions about whether this is truly a real, whether it's a legal offer, because, again, there's no funds to back it up because that has to go through Congress, and whether or not they could just kind of renege on it at any time because of this not actually being a legal offer. And then very few federal employees took them up on this effort, and it seems to have had this kind of backlash effect where people are like,

you know, people being stubborn creatures as we are. Right. We're like, oh, you want me to leave? Well, screw you. I'm definitely staying now. So it's, you know, so that piece is going on as well. Last on the politics of this, we can put J.D. Vance's tweet up on the screen here, which is interesting for a variety of reasons.

But anyway, he says, quote, no one voted for Elon Musk. They did, however, vote for Donald Trump, who promised repeatedly to have Elon Musk root out wasteful spending in our government. You know, to me, this was a sign that they are sensitive about the criticisms of Elon Musk. You know, his favorability is plummeting. Doge is underwater, which is kind of amazing to me, because if you just ask people in general, like, oh, should the government be more efficient? Of course, they're like, yes, that sounds great. So the fact they managed to get that project to have a negative approval rating is kind of incredible. And then it's also, I mean, it's also funny to me because Elon and Trump are the only two people that matter in this

administration. Like, J.D. Vance has been thoroughly pushed to the side. Now, this is the part Tucker would probably, this is where he would probably push back and object to, but it's true. You know, I was saying to you before, when we're watching Marco Rubio, all of these agency heads, like they're all irrelevant. You know, the plan truly from these, and it sounds crazy when you lay these things out, but go and look at what their intellectual influencers, people like Curtis Yarvin, are saying they want Elon Musk to be the CEO, the dictator of the country, and Donald Trump to effectively be like the chair of the board. And that's how you should understand this dynamic. Elon is a megalomaniac. Like, he truly believes he is intellectually superior to everyone, that he deserves, by dint of being the richest man on the planet, to not just run our country but run the world.

I think in his mind, he's a hero who's trying to save humanity by bringing us to Mars or whatever. And he has this kind of, I don't know that he would describe himself as an effective altruist, but it kind of is that mindset of the ends justify the means. I can hurt any people. I can break any laws. I can do whatever I think is best in service of these multi-generational, interplanetary goals. And so that's what you see in operation here. If he knows that, let's say, 100,000 kids with HIV are going to die because of his actions, he sees that as in service of this greater goal that he has decided for himself in his head that he wants to impose on all of us. He also, as the world's top oligarch,

sees the United States government as the one force that could be powerful enough to rein in his desires and his power. So, you know, when we're talking about there's a risk of him breaking things, like for him, that's a feature, not a bug. The United States government not functioning and people, you know, suffering, people being more poor, people being less educated. Those are all things that benefit him personally, because number one, it are all things that benefit him personally because, number one, it makes people easier to control. Number two, there's actually a YouTuber who pointed this out. He's obsessed with this whole birth rate thing and talks about how people who

are poor and less educated have more kids. So it also solves his problem in terms of, oh, I want people to have more kids if you are poorer and less educated. And so, you know, if you go and read these guys and their philosophy, like I said, Curtis Yarvin is one of the primary influencers here. They want a tech feudalist society with a CEO king and the end of democracy. And that is a fact. What we're witnessing here step by step is Elon Musk himself trying to take control of the reins of the federal government and be able to control the spending and have it just go out and take control of the agencies that are most critical and have it run according to his whims, ideologies, and wishes. Yeah. And the scale of the investment that he needs to achieve that long-term vision requires the U.S. government to invest a significant amount of its money in that direction.

Like, if he's going to go to Mars, you need the American federal Secretary of the Air Force, who had previously been influential in getting giant SpaceX contracts, you know, for Elon. So in all the areas where he wants things to happen, they are happening according to his wishes. Now, there is a legal pushback that, like I said, we'll talk to David Dayen about. And I do think, you know, at some point, the state probably reasserts itself against this oligarch do think, you know, at some point the state probably reasserts itself against this oligarch. But, you know, how much damage is done between then, now, and then? And when is that going to actually happen? And in the meantime, I think J.D. Vance is playing the long game where, like, he is currently in the poll position to take over the Republican Party in

the absence of Trump. There's obviously a lot of competition, Don Jr. and plenty of others. And Elon Musk will be a kingmaker, unless he's in prison by then or something. But along this trajectory, he can make or break the next chairman of the Republican board. And so J.D. Vance, I think you're going to see him linking himself very tightly with Elon Musk in the coming years. And J.D. Vance has, you know, close ties with Peter Thiel, who's, you know, tied into this whole world as well. I mean, he was put in there very intentionally as well. But yeah, I mean, the real figure at this point is Elon. He is the,

you know, previously when I was reading these guys, I thought they were thinking of Trump as the like CEO king, but they actually weren't. They're thinking of Elon, who's the real- Trump's too much of a wild card anyway. Trump is too much of a wild card. Trump is not ideological in the same way, you know. So he gets to be over here doing his, you doing his whatever things he's interested in, immigration, tariff threats, quote unquote, turning on the water in California. He gets to go over and do play and go golfing and do whatever he wants to do. And meanwhile, Elon is actually taking the reins and going forward with what I think you can truly describe

as a revolution. Which he continues to call it a revolution, accurately. Yeah, that's... Which makes our whole, like, what about FOIA? Seems so trivial. Completely. Completely. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. The revolution will not be FOIA'd. It's absolutely right. We'll be right back. steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up.

They could lose their family and millions of dollars. Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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