The Young Turks - DM-wits

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Hegseth Outright Denies A Journalist Had Access To War Plans. Columbia Protester Sues Trump Admin To Prevent Deportation. Report: Social Security Starts To Crumble Thanks To DOGE. Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All righty. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jane Hugar, Anna Kasparian with you guys. So big show ahead for you all, we do have one piece of really good news. I'm pretty sure you haven't heard it anywhere else, it's kind of secret good news, but it's ramifications are significant.

Interesting, we'll talk about that later in the program. So we do have one Democrat going a little out of bounds, we'll talk about that, and then we have the Trump administration going way out of bounds at Columbia again. Some serious assault on our rights, Anna. All right, well why don't we begin with the fallout after that big news story broke yesterday in regard to an Atlantic journalist, Atlantic journalists being included in some sensitive conversations on a sensitive application.

Let's get to it. Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared with a journalist in the Atlantic? And were those details classified? So you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of, peddling hoaxes time and time again. Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that. Well, there you have defense secretary Pete Hegesith outright lying about something that broke yesterday, lying to the American people about the text message exchanges that were taking place among administration officials. And the fact that Jeffrey Goldberg, an Atlantic

journalist was allegedly accidentally included in that exchange. Now, this was on signal. It's the big story. It's the big scandal that will play out probably for the remainder of the week and then everyone will forget about it because there will be no consequences for this. The Justice Department's not going to investigate it. But now you have Pete Hex saying it's just a hoax. It's just a lie. It's just so, can anybody just please just take personal responsibility. It's not like you're going to face any consequences for it. And let's move on. But no, that's not going to happen. He's got to lie to us about it. Yeah. Now, he said there was no texting, but he didn't say there was no signal messaging.

Right, okay. Well, very clever. That'll be their fallback. Look, as they, Anna's right in that, yeah, Higgs with very clearly lied there. There's no question about it. This is a giant national security screw up, but Hillary's emails got it. And we'll talk about the hypocrisy of it in a second and I think that that's the most relevant part of this. But what's, what bothers me and frustrates me is that there's no consequences from the voters, right? So same. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, again, on both sides. So, but to be fair, the Democrats, now they're really mad at a lot of Democratic voters are mad at Democratic leadership, Biden, et cetera, because they feel like they got lied to. The Republicans,

the accountability has been very, very, very slow. So everybody admits this now, Trump admits this. But is anybody who's a Republican voter going to be upset its exit for that obvious outrageous lie? Probably not. No. Are they, just as upset about this, which is a bigger problem than Hillary Clinton's emails in terms of the severity of those war plans, bombs, what we're gonna do, when we're gonna do, and who we're gonna do to, etc. That's as big a leak as it gets. Are they going to be just as upset about this as they were about the Hillary emails? You know the answer, of course they're not, right? And vice versa, et cetera. So it's just the hypocrisy of both sides, but especially

in this case, the right wing is super frustrating. So more. So for anyone who might have missed the hot story of the week, as we know, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic revealed just yesterday that the national security advisor, Michael Waltz, had accidentally added him. Out of all the journalists in the country accidentally added him to this signal group of administration officials who were talking about their plans in bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now, what was interesting about that exchange, by the way, was that there was some disagreement, at least coming from the vice president, J.D. Vance, who felt that it was unnecessary to carry out these strikes. But nonetheless, he kind of got

slapped down by Stephen Miller. And obviously, the attacks against the Houthis actually came to fruition. Now, Goldberg wrote that on Saturday, March 15th, at 1144 a.m., the account labeled Pete Hegesith posted in Signal a team update. I will not quote from this update or from certain other sub-sequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command's area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this signal conversation, is that the Hegseth Post contained operational

details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons, the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing. And then just two hours after Goldberg had received the details of the attack, the U.S. actually began launching a series of airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now, the veracity of the group chat was confirmed even by the president himself, Donald Trump. He seemingly admitted this mistake happens, saying, quote, Michael Wads has learned a lesson. He's a good man. Has he? And is he? Like, what's the lesson? This broke yesterday. What was the lesson? Did you, did you give him a spanking? Like, what was the lesson? Yeah. No, again, the hypocrisy of both sides. So both Mike Walts and Pete

Hegs are on the record as saying, any leaks like this is gross incompetence and people need to be fired and their heads need to roll. And of course, that's when they were talking about Democrats but when it's them they're like oh it's a big deal plus we didn't do it plus we did plus who cares plus I'll do so what so what I'll leak a top secret now I mean Donald Trump took all top secret information is put in a Mara Lago's bathroom so what so what okay but then don't talk to me about Hillary's emails from you know 200 years ago that you know so we criticize Hillary's emails and then we thought it was a relatively small story

but no they won't ever let it go blah blah blah they'll still talking about it today in this context, and then when it happens to them, oh, it's a big deal, man, yeah, so what? Oh, here's our new single place, so what, so what, oh, oh, okay, I can't stand it. Just have a consistent standard and be upset in both directions or have the decency to shut up about it. I honestly at this point, I think everyone should have the decency to shut up about it. Because look, every part, each party, okay, puts their party, their tribe, and their own asses before the country and what's

best for the country. And so this dysfunctional politics means that nothing ever happens. There will be a scandal, okay, this broke yesterday. I already predicted what the talking points were gonna be from the Republicans, and those talking points are now being doled out little by little, same lie, same nonsense. If the shoe were on the other foot, I have no doubt that we would get similar, you know, cover stories for what happened, or at least a downplaying of the situation. Neither party takes responsibility for their foibles, for their mistakes, for their scandals.

And so we're always caught up in the same situation again and again and again. Nothing ever gets resolved, nothing ever gets fixed. And can we talk about healthcare? Can we talk about actual policy that has a material impact on people's lives? Otherwise, this is just a big waste of time. It's just gossip. It's a soap opera gossip story with one side in denial, the other side, you know, engaging in hyperbole. And that's it and then we're gonna forget about it by next week and there's gonna be another scandal.

Congratulations, this is politics in America. Yeah, so two more things about that. So look, yesterday on the show, I said, yes, but when we get into the substance of it, people are also going, ha, ha, J.D. Vance, to agree with Donald Trump. Which is great. Yeah, I said. That's a good thing. But that's not a bad thing, yeah.

And in fact, J.D. Vance argued against the strikes. So, and the strikes are aggressive and more pro-war. And I gained a tiny bit of respect for J.D. Vance, having read those exchanges. Hexeth wanted to be more pro-war. Because he's a neocon. Yeah, because he is a neocon. and J.D. Vance is a little bit less pro-war. And at the end, he was like, Hex, he, Vance says to, yeah, sure, go ahead. You know, I trust your judgment,

bomb away, right? But that kind of disagreement internally is not a ha-ha. That's actually the one positive that comes out of the story. Secondly, look, their incompetence to me was baked in, right? You hire Randow Fox News weekend host as a secretary of defense. You're going to get screw-ups, right? You hire based on what Miriam Adelson told you to hire based on whoever's the most pro Israel, that's Mike Wals, right? You're gonna get some incompetence. Trump is hiring and he's hiring based on loyalty rather than competence. So of course, and then Elon Musk and all those guys going 100 miles per hour breaking everything. Later we have a much more important story about

how they're breaking social security, right? So those things are kind of baked in for me. That's why I don't know if this opinion is controversial or not, but I don't much care about this. Like, so okay, don't do it again next time it might not be Jeffrey Goldberg, it might be something else. But in my favorite moment out of all of these leaks and, you know, and taking top secret documents home and et cetera was when Bernie Sanders said in debate, when he was trying really, really hard to win the presidency against Hillary Clinton, and he said, I don't care about her damn emails. See, that's a guy who's consistent and principled. It's like, yeah, it's bad, but it's not the end of the world. What's the end of the world is that we don't have paid family leaves and moms have to go in a work a day after they deliver.

It's insanity, right? Yeah, so we never get anything we want. And then there's this giant kerfuffle and drama about this. Yeah, 100%. So the denials are pretty hilarious, though, because it'd be one thing if this entire story was based on hearsay. But Jeffrey Goldberg was part of the group as they were exchanging information about what they intended to do. to do against the Houthis in Yemen. He has the receipt.

So like the denial seem insane, like even more insane than usual. Because all they ever do is lie. That's what's so frustrating about politicians. Look, they don't even need to. Like this is the thing. They could just easily say, yeah, there was a mistake made. We've learned from it, we're moving on, okay? Yeah.

Because guess what? You think the DOJ is going to investigate them? You think Pam Bondi, attorney general, Pam Bondi is like, I'm really concerned about this Pete Heggseth, you know, initiated group message that a journalist was allegedly accidentally included in. Anyway, so let's get to the top intelligence officials who were pressed today on the leak during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. So they refused to give any straight answers, including the DNI director, Tulsi Gabbard, who Wouldn't even admit that she was on the text group at all.

Let's take a look at that. Director Cabbert, did you participate in the group chat with Secretary of Defense and other Trump senior officials discussing the Yemen war plans? Senator, I don't want to get into this. Madam, did you, were you on that? You're not going to be willing to address. So you're not, are you denying, Matt, will you answer my question, ma'am? You are not TG on this group chat. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the deliberation.

acknowledge whether you are on this group chat. Senator, I'm not going to get into this. Why are you going to get into the specifics? Is it because it's all classified? Because this is currently under review by the national security. Because it's all classified. If it's not classified, share the text now. As the White House previously stated.

Is it classified or non-classified information on this text? She was on the group text. Okay, she was in the group chat. She was included. I don't know why she couldn't just say yes. But she had that embarrassing moment where she refused to just answer that simple question. You also have CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who was also in that chat group. He claims that he didn't even know how Goldberg was added to the group.

Let's take a look at that. You are the CIA director, okay? This has happened. We know it's happened. Did Jeff Goldberg somehow, was it a, did he create a hoax that allowed him to become part of this signal thread? Please answer the question. You don't. Don't.

Don't insult the intelligence of the American people. Did he invite himself to the signal thread? I don't know how he was invited. But clearly he was added? Clearly it was. Finish your sentence, please.

Clearly he was added to the signal group. Your question is... You don't know that the that the president's national security advisor invited him to join the signal threat. Everybody in America knows that. Does the CIA director not know that? I've seen conflicting reports about who added the reporter to the signal messaging group.

Okay, I'm bored. I'm just real quick. That part was funny, though. He's the head of the CIA, Central Intelligence. He's super intelligent. He didn't even notice that there's a reporter in this top secret chat group. I just, I don't know. Not the best spy in the world.

We're the guy who's supposed to be the head of our spies. I gotta say, Jank. Maybe Jeffrey Golder should be there to the CIA. There's got to be something else to the story. There's got to be something more. This is the point where I, we're done with the facts of the story as we know them. This is where I jump into my own personal speculation on this. on this. At some point in that text exchange, Jeffrey Goldberg left the conversation.

When you leave the conversation, everyone in the group is alerted that someone has left the conversation. Yeah. So there was only two people with initials. So one was SM, which people believe is Stephen Miller. Right. The other one was Goldberg, JG, right? So my best guess, and I have no idea, is that Mike Walts thought that JG was another JG. Like, I don't know if he knows another Jeffrey Goldberg or just another JG, right? And so when J.G left the group, even, you know, all the people on there, but it is funny. I mean, the director of national intelligence, this out of the CIA, and they're like, J.C., yeah, do I know a G in the White House?

They don't even notice, it is weird though. Two weeks prior to this group chat thing happening, I read that Waltz reached out and requested to connect with Jeffrey Goldberg via signal. Yep. Why? Well, I mean, that's the other funny part of it. Yeah, I saw the same thing. And so they leak like a sieve, right?

So these guys that all talk about the fake news and how they're the worst and stuff, they're leaking to the reporters all the time. Is there a possibility? I have no evidence of this. Again, this is speculation, we're having fun. Because there's just something that doesn't add up for me, okay? So there's a feeling in the pit of my stomach. Is there a possibility that someone's trying to throw J.D.

Vance under the bus within the administration? Yeah, but this would be a curious way of doing it. So look, a lot of speculation. It's hard to tell. My best guess is just normal incompetence from a group that is not known for their competence. No, no, and I'm willing to believe that. It's just that out of all the journalists in the country, Jeffrey Goldberg of all people, who is known to publish the most anti-Trump pieces.

who is known to like be a stenographer for the intelligence community and just regurgitate, you know, pro-war talking points that the intelligence community wants out there. I don't know, there's just something about this story that I find fishy, something that's missing from it. I could be totally wrong. I'd be happy to be proven totally wrong. So we're not going to find out until this story develops further. I don't think we're ever going to find out.

Yeah. So why did he add him in the first place? is a good question. But so guys, when we cover news stories, we show you, like people read it and think, oh, that's the truth. No, the people who leak to the reporter will get written up favorably in that story. But they never tell you that. That's the implicit deal that they do with government officials and politicians. You give me something and then I painted as if you're the hero and the other person is the bad guy, right? And that's why they leak to the reporters. And so does Jeffrey Goldberg do that with some of the people in the Trump

evidence? Does Maggie Haberman do the other reporters? Yesterday I had Michael La Rosa on the show. Sorry, he's an insider in the Biden administration was ex-press secretary for Dr. Jill Biden, right? And he explained that the Biden team, for example, would often do something they're not supposed to do it all. And then we saw them doing it when Biden got caught after the debate when he was doing some interviews. They would often just script out the questions for reporters and hand it to them. Yep. And then he said on top of that, they get to review the quotes. So, and they could kill any quote they wanted in the story and only put the quotes in that was favorable to Biden. These are things that the reporters don't ever tell you, right?

But those are all the different ways they manipulate the story to help their sources. So then you're not really getting the news. I know, but look, it's okay when a Democratic administration tries to control journalists and the media. Yeah, but not when the Republicans do it was by or vice versa. Or could it be that it's awful when anyone in government tries to control journalists or prevent them from doing their jobs effectively? Yeah, of course, of course. So anyway. And you know, last thing on that, so look, they're lying through their teeth on this story, et cetera.

But Joe Biden, by doing the big lie of no, he's not in mental decline, and Browby, as La Rosa explained last night, check out that interview on YouTube. It's really good. He's, you know, they intimidated and bullied the press over and over and over again, right? So, and they said, you better report that Joe Biden is young and he's in great shape and all that stuff, right? So when they do that big lie, now the Democratic's polling is at 27%. Another story we're going to get to later in the show. So then they lose the right to complain about the onslaught, the tsunami of lies that the Trump administration has.

That's why it's so important to hold your own side accountable, otherwise you lose the credibility to hold the other side accountable. And finally, despite repeatedly claiming that there was absolutely, no classified intelligence in that chat. The one admission that Tulsi Gabbard was forced to make is that they did discuss one thing that seems pretty damn sensitive. Let's watch. In this signal chain that we have been talking about, was there any mention of a target in Yemen? I don't remember mention of specific targets. Any generic target? I believe there was discussion around targets in general.

Look, I just think if you're curious what the administration is cooking up in regards to foreign policy, all you need to do is check in with Israeli media, whatever Israeli media is reporting that the Israeli government wants, the United States government is going to carry out. It's that simple. We didn't need anything to be leaked for us to know about this. Let's just be clear about that, okay? Israel would want us to us to attack the Houthis, we're gonna attack the Houthis. Israel wants us to potentially engage in a hot war with Iran by first, you know, blowing up their nuclear sites. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. The question is, when? Which day are we gonna do it?

Yeah, and look, right? It's that simple. And by the way, I don't know what Goldberg hit and what he didn't, because he only reported some of it, right? Right. So, but, but in terms of the Houthis, it was also interesting to see the behind the scenes chat because J.D. Vansson, was making the argument, well, have we really prepared the American people well enough for them to understand why we have to hit the Houthis? And this is really helping Europe more than anyone else. And do we really want to help Europe? So do we really want to help Europe is bad from J.D. Vance? Like, what a weird thing. Like, he's like, the problem is he's like, 3% of our trade goes through there, but 40% of Europe does. Why are we bothering to help

Europe as was one of his arguments, which is not the one I'm in favor of? And then, but I was like, you really think you had to prepare? the American people for a strike against Yemen, they don't, like barely anyone cares. I wish they did, I care, right? But, but Trump hitting a country when he was pretending to be anti-war bombing a foreign government, that's not going to make anyone angry on your side. Like I wish it did if they were principled it would, but they're gonna be like, oh, you're killed a bunch of Muslims in Yemen, fine, totally fine, right?

And that's exactly what happened. It was barely a story until this. Yeah, all right, well, we gotta take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about something that I find to be even more dangerous, even more outrageous, and that is the very obvious targeting of green card holders in the United States for simply engaging in peace protests, you know, voicing their opposition to the Israeli government and the way they're prosecuting the war in Gaza. Apparently, that is enough to make you a target for the Trump administration.

I wonder why that is. So we're gonna give you the latest example and more when we come back, don't miss it. ring the bell and that way you can keep up to date with TYT and that's helpful to the show as well. Speaking of helpful to the show, look at these American heroes. Righteous Roman gifted a membership on YouTube, Lady F and Chaplain Fred gifted five, and Ramon gifted 20. You guys are awesome and love you. All right, Casper. Let's talk about the witch hunt that's currently taking place here in the United States against green card holders expressing themselves and exercising their freedom of expression.

21-year-old Columbia University Student Monday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, which is seeking to deport her for participating in Palestinian rights protests on campus. The Trump administration is targeting Chung under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the Secretary of State authority to begin deportation proceedings against any non-citizen deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. Ah, yes, a 21-year-old high school valedictorian who's now a Columbia University student is a real threat to national security.

We must do something about it. Now, of course, the Trump administration is continuing their attack on legal immigrants, and now they're getting sued for it. So Euniceo Chong, or Chong, I should say, is a Columbia University junior and a permanent legal resident who was informed that her green card is getting revoked. And now she has decided to challenge the Trump administration and their deportation order in court through this lawsuit. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is claiming that this 21 year old has engaged in concerning conduct, Jenk, concerning conduct. Yeah, and it is concerning to Israel. So obviously our government has to do whatever the Israeli government wants.

So now we're literally rounding up people. You're going to see in this story, they're going, they went to her parents' house. They went to several different places. And right now she's hiding, maybe in an attic somewhere like Anne Frank. And because the Israeli thought police have been sent after her. And so now, by the way, legal resident has the same constitutional rights as any American does, but she criticized Israel, and that apparently is now the biggest crime in America. It'll literally get you deported even if you're a legal resident. And you're telling

me, Israel's not in charge of our government. Come on. You'd have to be the biggest sucker in the world to believe that. Now more details. So she was part of a Barnard College sit-in on March At that point, more than 200 protesters were occupying the Milstein Library at the college. She was part of the group of protesters right outside who were also protesting. Now the demonstration was meant to protest the way Israel is prosecuting this war in Gaza, which has been brutal, which has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people, including women, children, elderly individuals. But in addition to that, they were also protesting the expulsion of two other barnyard

students who had interrupted a Columbia University class on modern Israel. They had tossed around some flyers. They got expelled for that. Prior to that, they had already faced suspension for engaging in similar behavior. By the way, some of the flyers that they were throwing around had some questionable imagery on it. boot stomping on the star of David that said crushed Zionism. Now those two students again had been expelled but the heart of the protest was really about what's happening in Gaza. And as

we've learned through the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil, we just can't have that. And so now you need the Gestapo to show up and threaten to deport you and take your green card away. Now she was accused by the university of joining other students in posting flyers that pictured members of of Columbia's board of trustees with the phrase wanted for complicity in genocide. Wow, sounds like a real national security threat. But according to Chung's lawsuit, the school didn't even find that she had violated any of its applicable policies. She didn't get in trouble for doing that because guess what?

That is practicing your freedom of expression. But the Trump administration doesn't care and DHS spokesperson, Trisha McLaughlin, makes clear that they're just gonna continue conflating Hamas. with Palestinian civilians. She released a statement saying, Yuncio Chung has engaged in concerning conduct, including when she was arrested by NYPD during a pro-Hamas protest at the college.

And the Trump administration is arguing that her presence in the United States hinders the administration's foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of anti-Semitism. Okay, but clearly she's not really a threat to anyone at all. She was charged with obstructing governmental administration and issued a desk appearance ticket by the NYPD. And her family had immigrated here to the United States when she was just seven years old.

As I mentioned, she's a permanent resident, green card holder. She was also valedictorian in high school, which, you know, that's where the real terror lies in this country. So where is she now? As Jenk had alluded to earlier, she seems to be in hiding. She isn't currently in iced detention. Immigration agents did visit her home looking for her, which is kind of rare considering the fact that ICE agents usually like to just show up to the prisons and arrest or detain undocumented immigrants there. It takes a lot more time and resources to do an investigation and to search people's homes, but they certainly did that when it comes to Chung. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials visited several residences, called for help from federal prosecutors, and searched her university housing on March 13th.

Agents apparently seeking her searched two residents on the Columbia campus with warrants that cited a criminal law known as the harboring statute aimed at those who give shelter to non-citizens present in the United States illegally. Although she's not in the United States illegally, she's in the United States completely legally, she's a permanent US resident. Yeah, so number one, it was not a pro Hamas protest, that's just a flat out lie. It was a protest against Israel, but any protest of Israel is. now considered terrorism, right?

You lock them up. Or pro Hamas. You're pro Hamas if you don't say that Israel should keep slaughtering innocent Palestinian children and women and grandmothers, et cetera. Anti-Semitism they say is why they're doing this. Wait, I thought it was a national security problem. Like, first of all, again, legal residents have the same exact rights of freedom of speech as U.S. citizens do, the Supreme Court has held that for over 200 years.

There's no question about that, there's no lack of clarity. So I don't love what she's, you know, Zionism and all that, the Bhudans, I don't like it, it's not how I would deal with it, but who cares? She has a freedom of speech, freedom of expression. She can say anything she wants about Zionism, right? And by the way, you guys, she came at seven, I came at eight from Turkey, she came from South Korea, and she grew up here, I grew up here, and I got a green card right around when, I'm sorry, I became a citizen right around her age, right?

So she's, she's as American as I am. She's as American as anyone, right, in terms of her culture and where she grew up. If you send her back to South Korea, she's gonna be like, what the hell is, like, she doesn't live in that country. She's never lived in that country, right, except for a time she could barely remember. So she's not gonna have anywhere to go. This is insanity. Listen, I get that supporters of the Trump administration don't give a damn at all about what happens to this woman. They don't care about the deterioration of free expression.

due process by the way, as long as they get to continue defending any action the Trump administration takes. But if that's the case, I don't want to hear a word from those folks about the importance of free speech. When someone on the right feels that their speech is being, or speech rights, I should say, is being violated by a Democratic politician. Okay, we defend the individuals who have their speech violated by politicians, regardless of which party we're talking about here. But you know, we don't have a system. Now where we have consistency, it's all about your tribe and defending your tribe, even when they engage in the behavior that you've criticized the other tribe for.

So as long as they just stop pretending like they care about freedom of speech, fine. But that's the thing. They won't shut up about how much they care about freedom of speech. The whole point about defending people you disagree, speech you disagree with is because you're showing that you actually value that right, that you believe in that constitutional right, that you're gonna fight for it for everyone, regardless of what that expression is communicating. Okay, there are all sorts of people in this country who communicate for a living, and they say all sorts of garbage that I don't agree with. If the Biden administration, if the Obama

administration, if some Democrat violated their freedom of speech, I'm not going to sit there and defend them for doing so, because I actually give a damn about our constitution. I give a damn about our rights. And if you're unwilling to defend those who are having their rights violated, You have to shut up if your rights are being violated in a similar way, because you sat there and aided and abetted the deterioration of our constitutional rights. Yeah, 100%. Look, the right-wing reaction here has been super disappointing. Super disappointing.

So now you can say, oh, Jenkins is obvious. It's not necessarily. So I said they would rebel a little bit on the issue of Gaza and Israel, and they did. Not a lot, but a little bit. When Trump said, we're going to send our guys to Gaza to clear out the unexploded bombs and drive out the Palestinians, the reason he changed his mind within 24 hours is because his base rebelled and was like, I can go to Gaza and deal with Israel's unexploded bombs, right? And so I was then I was a little bit encouraged, right?

And this is a core First Amendment issue of freedom of speech. The thing that they said they cared most about, right? The reaction so far honestly has been wall to wall. Who cares? She's not a citizen. But wait, it's not a, first of all, it's not even about her. It's about, are we going to protect that right? So if you say, hey, when they came for people with student visas, it didn't matter because

I didn't have a student visa. When they came for legal residence, I didn't care because I'm not a legal resident. Don't be surprised that when they come for you, there's no one left to defend you. And so, and the second hypocrisy of the right wing on this is America first. Now they're like. No, but we're not America first. But we're not. And you know it.

If you're a right winger, you know we're not America first. You know we're Israel first. You don't get kicked out of the country if you have a student visa or you're a legal resident. If you criticize America, you can criticize America all day, all night, which you should be able to. That's your First Amendment right. You can criticize any other ally. You can criticize any other religion, any other group. Like, oh, we're really concerned about anti-Semitism.

Well, how about anti-Muslim comments made by the other side? How about the Israeli supporters who ran over kids at Columbia with their car? How about the guys who attacked the UCLA students who are peace protesters? There's nobody getting kicked out of the country for that. Can you insult other allies of America without it being a national security issue? Of course you can. You can criticize Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Germany, France, Canada, and Mexico, anyone you like. The only country you're not allowed to criticize is Israel.

You're telling me that you don't see that. If you're a mainstream media reporter saying, oh, no, I don't see it, I don't see it. You're a fool. You're embarrassing and humiliating yourself. And if you're a right wing hearing, you say, oh, no, no, but America being second is not so bad. And maybe we should take away some of our freedom of speech as long as, no, I want to be able to say nasty things and terrible things about my opponents. And I want to have the right to say anything. But if Trump takes away your rights to criticize Israel, I'm okay with it.

You never meant it. You never meant any of the so-called principles you had. You just wanted power, et cetera. Look, I think, I hope that eventually there'll be enough. I mean, I'm worried that there's going to be so much of this. They're going to keep rounding people up on behalf of Israel. They will. They will.

There's nothing you can do about it. At some point that it's going to break and it's going to go in the other direction. But for now, no, Israel is totally in charge of this country. And they'll deport anyone who criticizes them that isn't a U.S. citizen. But don't worry. Don't come for us to. So a judge has just issued a temporary restraining order stopping the Trump administration from detaining Chung. So we'll see how this case plays out in the courts.

But obviously, she is not taking this from the Trump administration. She's fighting back through the courts as pretty much everyone is fighting back through the courts. Because what are you going to do? You're going to rely on Congress to do the right thing. They're useless, but we're paying their salaries anyway. We got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about what's happening with the Trump administration. including the dismantling of the Social Security Administration.

Things are already broken and you didn't even need Congress to dismantle it. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Well, let's talk about Social Security and how it's already broken. Social Security is already falling apart and Congress didn't even have to pass a bill to dismantle it. Offices are shutting down and there are now astronomically long wait times for social security recipients who need their questions answered. And it's all thanks to the efforts of Elon Musk and Doge, according to a deeply concerning report that was just published by the Washington Post. So let's get into the details, Jank. What concerns you the most about all this?

The fact that they are going straight to the core of benefits that we all earned and put in our whole lives, this is an attack against Social Security, and it's actually a really insidious one because they're hiding the attack under efficiency when it's the exact opposite. Let's give you the details about how they're going to attack Social Security. So Leland Dudek, whose name is real, is the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. And he's even on the record admitting that Doge is running the show. He stated that Doge people are learning, and they will make mistakes. But we have to let them see what is going on at the Social Security Administration.

I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made throughout my, without my input, and I have to effectuate those decisions. So look, to his credit, Leland Dudec is noticing that things are breaking. He is in a very subtle way in that statement, admitting that Doge is breaking things and making mistakes over at the Social Security Administration. But I want to decode that for you a little further, because it is not a mistake. This is very much intentional. The Trump administration knows the Social Security is the third rail. They know that it is incredibly difficult to make cuts, to privatize, you know, to, to change Social Security so people who paid into that system, people who are entitled to those

benefits get less of those benefits in return. And so they're doing it in this roundabout way by having members of Doge go in and just fire people, dismantle the program without any legislation having to pass at all. So let's talk about those specifics. For starters, the Social Security Administration is attempting to reduce its workforce. In fact, 7,000 Social Security Administration workers received layoff notices. And that means that that they're going to get rid of, you know, quite a few people. There's only 57,000 employees at the Social Security Administration, which means that they're going to cut that workforce by 12 percent.

They've gone about this by offering buyouts and also expanding early retirement options for anyone who's not included in that list of 7,000 people who are told that they're getting fired. Other positions have been eliminated altogether, and those are the 7,000 people that I was referring to. Now, as a result of these changes, entire offices, including those handling civil rights and modernization, were driven out. The 10 regional offices that oversee field operations were slashed to four. So you go from 10 offices to four offices, obviously recipients are going to have a far harder time finding a live person to talk to if there has been some sort of issue with their payment.

They haven't gotten their Social Security check. Now, the Social Security Administration has also announced that starting next Monday, any transactions that require identity verification will no longer be allowed over the phone or online. You'd have to do that in person. Now, I've talked about this in the past, I believe last week or the week before. The one area where there has been some fraud has to do with identity theft, basically the scammers taking over the Social Security payments of the rightful recipient. by essentially stealing their identity, right?

And so that tends to happen over the phone or it tends to happen online, which is why the Trump administration is saying if you need to change your bank account information for direct deposit, you need to come into a field office to make that happen. But it is a problem when you shut down the field offices and make it impossible for people to show up in person to do that. And I think that's very much by design here. I am okay with them making people show up in person to change their bank account. account information in order to prevent these scammers from taking over their accounts.

I'm totally fine with that, but you need to make that easy for the rightful recipients to be able to do that. And they're intentionally making it difficult. So during a briefing with field staff Doris Diaz, who is the Social Security Administration's deputy commissioner of operations, acknowledge the service levels will decline. They're just saying it. Yeah, because they don't care. The people with disabilities are affected, it even more. It's now taking 233 days to file a claim and get it back. And so that's a giant amount of time. The fact that they chopped away at all these centers and there's only four

left is, again, just an absolute disaster. But what's a bigger disaster is why they're doing this. So this is the same thing they did it at the post office a long time ago. That's why these guys, Trump, Elon Musk, et cetera, they're not any different than the Republican. establishment. They talk to populist game, all nonsense, all lies. They're doing the same exact playbook as they've done before. So what they do is they first break something, and then they say, well, it's broken, so we're gonna have to defund it. So, oh, look, Social Security, everybody's complaining, nobody's getting through, nobody can get to the offices. Well, I guess it's broken, so we're gonna have to cut Social Security. And why do they even

want to cut Social Security? Why are they going after, you know, see your citizens in this country. What kind of a jerk tries to rob the senior citizens who rely on this small check to live, right? People with extreme greed. This is all in service of a four and a half trillion dollar tax cut that is going to go to people like Elon Musk and all of Trump's donors and Trump and his family. The Social Security Administration is responsible for $1.5 trillion in benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors, and poor and disabled Americans, okay? That's who Elon Musk and Doge is hyper-focused on essentially robbing, okay?

The richest man, not just in the country, in the world, is hyper focused on that. Yeah, that's the way. It's so disgusting. It's so utterly disgusting. About 40% of older Americans who, by the way, paid into that system, okay, depend on Social Security as their primary source of income. 40%. So listen, don't you have someone else to rob Elon?

Jesus Christ, man. Do you know how many corporate subsidies they've cut so far in legendary doge of waste fraud and abuse? Zero. So all the billions and billions of dollars going to corporate interest. No, don't touch them. The beloved corporate executives, they need more of our money. They're taking billions out of our pocket and stuffing it in the pockets of people like Elon Musk, who by the way, get subsidies from the U.S. government. Did you cut Tesla subsidies? No. But you're going after retired Americans who put into that their whole lives. Well, you got to wait longer. And if there's a problem, we're not going to fix it. So what? Why don't you just go suffer while you're waiting for us to run this

efficiently? Did you do an analysis to see if you cut the right jobs in Social Security administration? First of all, you shouldn't have cut any jobs. The weights were already too long. No, you didn't do any of that. Because he thinks, oh, look, a piggy bank, the American people. Hey, I pay Trump $300 million. I put him in office. I get to steal from you guys. It's just goddamn outrageous. And now what anybody criticized him? Mila Moss says, what do you mean? I'll sue you guys. Lawsuits inbound. I'll sue anyone who criticized me. Free speech absolutist. Yeah, my ass. Yeah, and look, this is the thing. This is serious. Okay, this is one of the worst things that's happening in the country right now. But when there's a three alarm fire over

every move the Trump administration makes, it's hard to be focused on the actual material stuff that's going to destroy people's lives, potentially make them destitute out on the streets. When they paid into the system and they're entitled to these benefits, we all pay into the system, guys. Check your pay stuff. Check how much you've funded Social Security through your hard work every single paycheck. And to have this unelected, you know, body of people come in and just dismantle something that you paid into and you're entitled to receive benefits from later on in life is infuriating, to say the least. Okay, look, I'm gonna make a prediction. We're two months into the Trump term. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen in the next

two years. These guys are going to rob, steal, and loot everything they can get their hands on. They're going to do the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in the country, for corporations, et cetera. They're going to do some sort of crypto scam. They're going to try to loot the government in every way possible while distracting you with squirrels. Oh, I did doge cuts. I didn't touch any corporate interests at all. I didn't touch the Pentagon. I didn't touch anything that's actually waste, fraud, and abuse.

But I hit the little guy. I took from Medicaid. I took from Social Security. And you know what's going to happen? The American people are going to wake up to it about a year and a half. to Trump's first term is when it's going to be an epic disaster. It'll be it'll get really bad before them, but by a year and a half, most of the independents that voted for Trump will wake up, even a portion of the

right wing will wake up and they'll get annihilated in the midterms, but by then Elon will be gone. He won't be around in the second two years of the Trump administration, no way, because he'll have stuffed his pocket full of loot and and then and then just run away with it. One pathetic coward of a, you know, Republican lawmakers. So this is a Republican lawmaker in Congress who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because again, he's a coward, is actually really concerned about how Elon Musk's actions are going to hurt the Republican Party, especially going into the midterm elections.

And so I want to read you the last two graphics here where he says, the more of these Musk interviews, the more discussion will have. I think the entire 2026 campaign will be a referendum on Musk. If the billionaires' poll numbers continue to drop, they continued, you will see ad after ad with the chainsaw. Now, that's true if Democrats are actually smart in what to focus on as they campaign for the midterm elections. That's a big if, so we'll wait and see. But look, I'm not even sure the Democrats can screw this up. And then that's not a I would never count on the Democrats do anything right. But when they screw up Social Security and they cut what,

800 billion that they're planning to cut from Medicaid, and then they give everything to the rich, if you can't win on that, every single elected official in Democratic Party should resign in mass. That's the easiest political layup in history. So look, I don't think they'll blow that just because the rage people are going to have when they realize they have

when they realize they've been robbed is going to be profound. Guys, some people in this country, I know that for, you know, people on the left and in the middle that don't like Trump, you're confounded by it. But the other side really believes in Trump. They think he's different than the establishment of Republicans or Democrats. And so he's built up all this trust in them like a good con man does, right? When some of them find out that Trump also screwed them, they're going to be super pissed. I'm not like naive and think it's going to happen overnight or quickly.

I'm not naive and think that the majority of his voters are going to think that way. But a solid chunk of the people who voted for Trump are going to be just furious when they find out he screwed them too. Because we got no hope left. Nobody's got any hope left. And when you pull that hope, not from us, but from them, they're going to be more angry than you can imagine. That's my guess. my guess, let's see how it turns out. This is an epic political disaster for the Republicans.

The only upside of this is that you won't have to worry too much of the last two years of the Trump term because they'll be so intensely unpopular. On the other hand, when they are, maybe that's when they stop following the court orders. And then we might, you know, depending on how things go, then we might have real trouble. All right, well, when we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk a little bit about this fight between Attorney General Pam Bondi and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett will also talk about what's really going on with Tesla because there has been a lot of focus on the protests and the fire bombings at Tesla dealerships. But is that really the only reason why Tesla stock took a massive

dip? Or could it be that even its internal investors have been basically dropping stocks like crazy over the lack of leadership at the company? We've got that story and more story and more coming Don't miss it.