The Young Turks - Friends With Deficits

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Amy Klobuchar’s Plan To Fight Trump Is… Rely On Moral Republicans! Republicans Are Secretly Worried About Elon Musk’s Takeover. Steven Bannon Pleads GUILTY To Defrauding His Own Fans. 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 right, Wally-O-Turks, J-Q Karnatic especially thought I got stuck there for a second. He's in one of his moods. I am, I am. He's super hyper. I am, I am.

Bordering on, did he, did he snort some? Something before the show? A, I've never snorted anything in my life. Okay, B, certainly not before a show. Okay, so look, here's, okay, let's get goofy in the beginning. Okay, all right, let's say, then we have to stop it. Okay, well, let's see. So number one on Twitter, someone wrote in a comment,

you're the most optimistic person I've ever seen. You really are. You really are. And you know what I felt like, Anna? I felt seen. I'm glad you did, Jenks. I did, I did. Because especially on Twitter, people used to think that I'm the angriest man in America.

For good reason, Yugar. Like, you're usually screaming on the show. Well, could, could, and a little bit screaming on Twitter or maybe a lot. Okay, but those are the folks who don't watch the show, right? When you watch the show, you say, oh, yeah, I get it. He's a teddy bear, kind of. My favorite is when people attack us for getting super passionate and sometimes, yeah, angry on the show. Are we supposed to not feel anything as we talk about these consequential issues?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's definitely a thing. Okay, so look, Declaration of Independence is relevant today? It's relevant. Did we come up with it today? No, this has always been the case. But I'm putting it on steroids today, okay? So I don't care what the right wing thinks we should do or the left wing things we should do or mainstream media thinks what we should do or establishment Democrats.

I don't care about any of it, okay? All I care about is, let's go to a goddamn show, let's be honest with you. Let's do it. That's it, okay? So listen guys, if you, and sometimes you say, oh, well, these are dark times. I don't want you to be light or fluffy. You know, I know I'm light and fluffy, it happens. Okay.

Isn't it pretty obvious that we do what we want to do? Yeah, well, no, I'm stating it even more forcefully today. Okay, so for example, here, here, something I don't normally do. A little bit of stubble today. Oh, you rebel. Look, borderline pirate, okay? What is wrong with this? We gotta do a show, Jake.

Do we? Yeah, yeah, we gotta do a show. But this is it. So guys, look, even through the super dark times or whatever comes next, no, we're gonna have fun, we're gonna be Joyce, we had Operation Joy today. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna read you my favorite poem of all time. Is that blue I see?

It's not even mine. No, it's not even, that's a good poem written by Jank Hugo, but no, not that one. I can't find it. got to find it. Anyways, so we're gonna have fun where it's appropriate. We're gonna yell where it's appropriate and we're not gonna give a damn what anybody thinks. And part of the reason I say it and the last thing is that like during the prison of mainstream media and establishment politicians that we lived in for almost our entire lives, like the minute you for example criticized a democratic leader, they'd be like, that's it, I got you on record.

If you ever try to help anyone run for office or if you try to ever do good in the world, I'm gonna come back and say, he said a mean thing about Barack Obama once. Once he said a mean thing about Barack, we all should hate him. He's a Republican, hate him, hate him. So F mainstream media. So that's why I'm saying look guys, as for all the negatives and there's tons of negatives, right? But I love that mainstream media lost all their stupid power. They lost it all.

So now when they say, you criticize Obama or Biden, you're disqualified. I'm like, yeah, except it turns out you're disqualified and no one cares what you think anymore. So Liberation Day. Oh, okay, all right, okay. I watched John Stewart's interview of Hakeem Jeffries yesterday. And it had to have been the single most boring interview I've ever listened to in my career. And I mean it, I mean it, and it's not because of John Stewart. He's actually great at interviewing.

He did his best to try to make it interesting. Hakeem Jeffries had no answers for anything, no substance, a lot of talking points, and a lot of nonsense. Yeah, so yeah, it's a perfect example, super last thing. Look, in the old days, confession, confession time. Like for the last, I don't know, four years, eight years, whatever the number is. I'd feel, I'd probably do it anyway, but I feel a little compunction, like a little concern about saying what I'm about to say, which is obviously true, and I'll tell you why. Hakeem Jeffries is useless. He's really bad.

Yeah, so I don't have to explain why he's useless. He's obviously useless, okay? But in the old days, I'd be a little reticent about it because- You would? No, no, I know it doesn't seem like it, right? It doesn't seem like it, but believe me, there's apparently a little bit I was holding back. Anyways, the reason is because I know some, not some, all of the jerks on cable news, all of

the people who work the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. We're gonna tuck that away in a corner, and when I try, try to help the next Bernie Sanders win an election. They're gonna say, do you denounce Jake Yucre? Who called the Keem Jeffries, who's an esteemed African American democratic leader? Useless, how dare he? You condemn him, condemn him, condemn him. So that's what I mean, the shackles are off.

Mainstream media, you can ask people to condemn me too. Oh yeah, and you have a billion times, you can do it 10 billion more times. I don't care, I have stubble. All right, okay, the man has spoken, all right, I feel like we're playing hooky, here because we've got work to do. All right, let's do some work. We've got news to share. And we have fun polls coming up in a little bit.

Mm-hmm. So let's start with this. If the courts make a ruling and the administration decides to run over the courts, what then? What can Congress do? You say it's our job in Congress to stand up to it? There's two major functions here. One is the oversight of what they're doing, right?

And one of the things that we haven't even talked about is that our Republican colleagues have been acquiescing in all of this. I know this. I've seen a few of them stand up from time to time. Maybe they'll stand up to cancer trials being cut. Has Klobuchar been in the United States Senate through the entirety of the Trump era or not? Because no, they won't. Okay, so Senator Klobuchar is yet another example of a Democratic lawmaker who, who was asked, all right, well, you say that the Democrats are gonna fight back against Trump,

his administration, and what Republicans are up to, how do you intend to do that? She immediately leans on, hopefully Republicans will do the right thing? Wow, great leadership there. Now, what did you think about it, Jane? Yeah, so look, it's a disaster for several different reasons, including hoping that Republicans do the right thing is the Democratic strategy, because that makes no sense at all. But I actually think that it's even worse than that. And I wanna talk about their hypocrisy as well, but in a minute.

All right, well, let me give you all the details first. So look, they were talking about the Trump administration and their attempt to basically cut billions of dollars in funding from the National Institute of Health for biomedical research. Now, academics at universities and medical centers immediately rebuke this idea, as outlined in an NIH memo, policy would cap the amount of funding for what are called indirect costs for general expenses like facilities and administration at 15% down from an average of around 27 to 28%. So the NIH, this is really interesting, said that the change could actually save the American government more than $4 billion a year and argued that lower rates for indirect costs are

actually more in line with the grants from private foundations. So private foundations apparently are making do with that 15% cap, right? Or something similar to that. But several researchers said that NIH's high rate of funding for indirect costs help subsidize the infrastructure necessary for their work, everything from a building's heating and electricity to personnel. All right, I want to pause for a second and just say, Look, of course, people at NIH are going to say, no, no, no, no, we need more money. Like, they're going to make that argument.

So I'm not as heated about this potential cap in grants to the NIH, specifically for, you know, the indirect costs, right? That's what we're talking about here. I would need to see more evidence indicating that they need to get grants that, you know, come, you know, where the average is about 27 to 28% as opposed to 15%. But anyway, putting that aside for a second, a stat examination of publicly available financial records and internal emails did show that some top universities and medical centers stand to lose $100 million or more a year if the 15% cap is implemented, including prestigious

institutions in conservative states that voted for President Donald Trump. Now over the weekend, Some laboratories even began process, began the process of shutting down. So they claim that this has already had some impact. Kimran Rathmel, who is a cancer researcher who led the National Cancer Institute under the Biden administration, says that this policy shift would have both health and economic consequences. She says that this abrupt change in the way grants are funded will have devastating consequences on medical science.

Many people will lose jobs, clinical trials will halt, and this will slow down progress toward cures for cancer and effective prevention of illness. Now yesterday, the federal judge named Angel Kelly temporarily blocked the national institutes of health from implementing the budget cuts after 22 states sued to essentially stop this change from happening. And so Kelly later expanded on this pause, on the NIH cost cutting nationwide in response to the suits from dozens of research institutions. And it's one of the many Trump policies that the courts are now weighing in on. They've stepped in to temporarily block what the Trump administration is trying to do here,

which outraged the administration. So this is all context, okay? This is where the story starts to get juicy. As we shared with you yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance took to X to essentially indicate or hint at the notion that the Trump administration might not follow through on orders coming from federal judges. He wrote, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. So there were falsehoods in there that we addressed yesterday, But the whole point is, maybe we don't listen to what the federal judges order us to do.

And other Republicans also fell in line with this idea, including Senator Mike Lee, who accused the judiciary of trying to stage a coup. Okay. Now, in response, Amy Klobuchar, senator, says that Congress, courts, and the constituents need to fight back against attempts to undermine the judiciary branch. But she also hopes that some of these Republicans in Congress are good guys and they'll step in and fight the Trump administration if they do in fact try to ignore what the courts are ordering. So let's take a look. I've seen a few of them stand up from time to time. Maybe they'll stand up to cancer trials being cut, watch for it. Maybe they'll stand up to Cash Patel, which they sure better do as this

man who has shown no regard for the truth is about to become head of the FBI unless they stand up for it. But they have to stand up to her to make this really work. Then you have oversight, and you can also pass legislation to make very clear what the limits are in this power. So, Jank, clearly she is hoping that some Republican members of Congress will join the Democrats in pushing back against the Trump administration, especially as it pertains to what they might do in ignoring some of the federal judges, right? I mean, is she delusional? Or am I delusional for thinking she's delusional? No, no, she's definitely delusional.

So let me start with a hypocrisy, but I want to come back around. I have a lot to say, but come around to why one thing that Anna just said is a really smart strategy by the Republicans, unfortunately. So first, on the hypocrisy. So Democratic leaders, people like Amy Klobuchar said that Trump wasn't like a fascist, which is by the way, what I said, because I thought he's tried to steal the 2020. election and that's a form of authoritarianism that I can't stand him. By the way, now he's ignoring the courts, exactly what I was worried about.

But they didn't say like a fascist, they said Nazi over and over again. So let me get this right, in your mind, Amy Klobuchar, and Nazi wins the presidency, which is already like shocking, right? And then you got three months for his inauguration and then he's, you know, on day one, he's gonna come out guns blazing, right? You didn't prepare at all in those three months for a Nazi assault on our democracy. Instead, your best plan is, I hope the other side does something about it. I mean, you can't argue that that's the, there's no argument at all.

It's indisputable. World's worst plan. I mean, it's not a plan. So the politicians that Donald Trump has bullied and cowed into complete and utter submission, I hope they become moral and do the right thing. I thought you said they were Nazis. When would they become moral? Like, did you mean it or did you not mean it?

I had concerns, and unfortunately my concerns have proven to be right. You guys pretending your concerns were way higher, way higher. Like the concentration camps are starting, et cetera, et cetera. And you didn't prepare a single thing. That is unreal. Democratic incompetence is 100 out of 100. So look, it's not just incompetence though, Jink, because I think that this is not to erase the nefarious things that Donald Trump in fact did do, including the refusal to accept

the results of the 2020 election, what happened on January 6th, the fake electors plot, all of that is true. I am not minimizing that. However, my issue with the Democrats is that they believe that they could just simply latch on to that narrative and that, you know, campaign. call, basically, and not really offer the American people or their Democratic base a damn thing when they were campaigning. And so they thought that was enough, that's all we need to do.

We just need to scare the voters enough to win the electoral college votes necessary to get into the executive branch. That's all they thought they needed to do. In the meantime, they've gotten super rusty in regard to connecting with the American people and understanding what it is that they want, what these lawmakers can do to make the their lives better. And this was all happening as Donald Trump and his team clearly were planning, plotting. He came into office ready to do his agenda on day one.

Okay, so that's one more example than I want to get the cancer in the courts. So if you thought Project 2025 was coming, and I did, and we had that discussion yesterday on the show about, hey, what happened with it, et cetera. Now Russell bought is the head of OMB and he was a guy who came up with Project 2020. So I agreed with the Democrats there. Okay, so then why didn't any of you prepare to counter project 2025? And not just before the election, which would have been nice, but after the election and before inauguration, again, three months,

you didn't have one plan other than I hope the other side reigns in Donald Trump. And by the way, her hope is that the other side's politicians rein him in, not the voters, the voters, which is a huge distinction I'm going to come back to. Okay, now onto cancer, look, she's like, oh, I hope they realize their voice. No, no, no, your job is to go out on TV and get all of your colleagues to go on TV, radio, newspapers, podcasts, online media, et cetera, and go, Trump's pro cancer, Trump's pro cancer, now that you say, well, that's a little bit much, right? Okay, but now you open up it, and I wouldn't say he's pro cancer, because I'm doing honest reporting here, right?

But if you're a Democrat, you're trying to counter Trump, you want to frame it in a way where you get people to ask the question. Whoa, that's like a big thing to say. He's pro cancer. Okay, so what do you mean by that? Well, he just cut funding for cancer research. We're a lot less likely to cure cancer if you cut funding for cancer research. Let's take it to the American people. Are you in favor of cutting funding for cancer research or not? I want a poll on it.

Okay, you take action. So, but that's not just for your good feelings. It's so that those polls then get the Republican senators worried. You run polls in the Republican states, in Republican districts, showing how unpopular it is to cut cancer research. Even if you don't want to say Trump is pro cancer, you can say, okay, you know what? At least put your message out there, do the poll, and put actual political pressure on the Republicans to vote no, because the thing is you do need Republicans to vote no.

But just hoping they do is dumb, putting incredible pressure on them, getting their numbers to start heading down to the point where they're nearly sure they're going to lose. That is how you effectuate political change. Isn't it amazing that not a single Democrat in Congress knows that? They never ever do that. That is unreal. The second thing I would do is what Anna said. So I'd say, hey, look, we as Democrats are representing the American people. How? I want them to do the cancer research, but once they do, if we're gonna give it to a drug company, I want equity in that company. The American people are the taxpayers funded that research and they should get equity in the company.

What are you giving it to them for free? Why? Why free? Why free? If this was a private corporation and we gave them cancer research, we would get a giant chunk of that corporation. I want a giant chunk on behalf of the American taxpayers. Why are they robbing us? Yeah, I mean, look, they honestly, our federal government has set up a system in which we as American taxpayers are investing in pharmaceutical companies for cancer research, drug research, whatever it is, okay? And what kind of return do we get on our investment as the investors in these companies

for their research and development? Price gouge, that's what we get. And that is a huge injustice. And so would any Democrat or Republican come out and say this is a broken system and we need to change it. We need equity in these companies if we're going to be having American taxpayers invest in these companies like this. No, they wouldn't do it. I mean, we have the donor class. The donor class is not going to take kindly to that. But I do want to just quickly go back to the issue of the Trump administration ignoring

the courts. And I'm going to give Jenks some credit. Because look, believe it or not, there were some pretty prominent Democrats who were suggesting that maybe it's not such a bad idea to ignore what the federal courts have to say about some of these issues. So let's go back to 2023. So back in 2023, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had suggested that, you know, we don't like the way a federal judge in Texas has ruled on the FDA's approval of Miffa Pristone, which is a common abortion pill. Essentially, the FDA wanted to make it easier to send the drug by mail. And so that was challenged by conservatives through the courts. And a federal judge

essentially ruled against what the Democrats wanted, ruled against the FDA in this case. And so at that point, AOC goes on television and let's take a quick look at what she had to say. I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling. I think that we, you know, the courts have the legitimacy and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings. And what they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts. It is the justices themselves through the deeply partisan and unfounded nature of these

rulings that are undermining their own enforcement. So you're saying the Biden administration should ignore this court, but what does that look like? What does that actually mean? You know, I think the interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement. And it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce such a ruling. So AOC suggested that. And I couldn't remember what our comment was when we covered this story because we did cover this story on our show. And I got to give you credit, Jank, because you are consistent. Let's take a look. There are two different scenarios here,

and they're very different. One is where we are today with two different conflicting federal judge orders. Now, if the Biden administration says, listen, I don't know which one to follow, I want to follow the orders, but I don't know which one to follow. So I'm, that's why the Texas judge can't trump the Washington state judge, I'm going to have to let this go to appeals courts and then maybe even the Supreme Court, if the appeals courts disagree, before I implement the judge's decision, okay? So I think that is very understandable. And there's a really good argument to be made there. When it gets to the Supreme Court, if the Supreme Court says, no, that's it, you can't sell this drug anymore. And it makes no sense, but a lot of things

the Supreme Court says makes no sense. Overturning a Supreme Court, not listening to a Supreme court decision is very dangerous. So the Supreme Court is horrific. I can't stand the Supreme Court. But if we have a Democratic administration not listen to a Supreme Court decision, man, that's going to open the floodgates. Republicans are going to listen to any court decision that they don't agree with. They're going to do it instantly and they're going to do it all 200 times more than Democrats are. So I would be super worried about that precedent. So, Jenk had very similar commentary in regard to the Trump administration not following through on what a federal judge had ordered in regard to federal grants.

They had frozen federal grants, a federal judge said, you can't do that, he blocked that executive order. And while the Trump administration rescinded their notice on freezing federal grants, through their actions, they did the opposite, right? They continued on with the freeze, and a federal judge called them out on due. doing that. And so you had the same, you know, treatment toward the Trump administration as you did toward the notion that Democrats not follow through on what the Supreme Court orders. And I commend you on that because you're right. I mean, look, at the end of the

day, a constitutional crisis is not in anyone's interest, anyone's interest. Look, it's important to have principles because if you don't, you're unmoored. And then if we're all on moored and there are no rules and laws and constitution, etc., then we're in dark times and that's not the America we know and love and it doesn't matter if a Democrat does it or a Republican does it. Now look, last couple of things here, in terms of how to deal with the other side. So her Kolobachar's idea is let's all pray and hope that Republicans do the right thing on their own without any push or anything like that. It's an absurd. It's an unbelievable plan. That's not a plan. That's literally saying I want to do nothing,

right? So but you have to, if you actually wanted to be effective, what you would do is you would distinguish between two different things, okay, or two different buckets. One is, who are you trying to address? Are you trying to address Trump? Are you trying to address Republican politicians? Or are you trying to address their voters? So oftentimes Trump is immovable if you're a Democrat trying to push against them. The Republican politicians are arguably more immovable because they're so more to Donald Trump that they're just waiting for their orders and they're only going to listen to orders. But the voters are not immovable. I know a lot of our side thinks that they are, but that's because you haven't

talked to them. I know, I know, I know. Tons of people who won't believe me on the left. No, no, they're all in a cult, blah, blah, blah, blah. You say as you repeat the same exact things from our side and never have any independent thinking, what's that? Oh, yeah, occult. Anyway, so on the, so you engage the voters that voted for Donald Trump, remember a lot of them aren't even MAGA, a lot of them are tons of independence out there. You engage of voters and help them push Republican politicians to vote no against Trump's agenda or move Trump to being so unpopular that he wants to get back to being popular because he's vain and you use his ego in a positive way to try to effectuate the things that you want.

And that would be, I would argue, a smart, rational strategy. And there are many things you, and then when you say, okay, oh, and then we get into binary thinking. A lot of folks go, oh, are you saying that you should just agree with MAGA? Well, because if you agree with MAGA on one thing, that means you have to I agree with them on everything. No, you don't. No, it doesn't. The only reason you're saying that is because you're doing projection,

because you're saying, no, I am in a cult and I will follow this cult 100%. I will never, ever, ever vary any of my opinions. I will do exactly what the cult orders me to do, right? So you assume they're doing likewise, and oftentimes MAGA has done likewise, especially in Trump's first term. Yeah, definitely. But what we're seeing in social media and all of our interactions is, is it's guys, they don't agree with us on at least 90% of stuff, at least 80% of stuff,

okay, when you get into the specific policies. But if they say they're anti-war, at least ask them to be anti-war. It doesn't mean they're going to turn on Trump on day one. It doesn't mean they're going to turn in three weeks. But keep asking the question, wait, I thought we were anti-war. I know I'm anti-war. Are you anti-war? And so there's so many different ways that you could try to break through to the voters, to the politicians, et cetera. But none of them are, I don't know, I hope they do the right thing without me doing anything. I'm just going to sit here like a lump on a log. No, and that, so that's the establishment Democrats.

They're useless, right? And for other folks on the left, please have a strategy. Like, if you think the right strategy is just yelling at them, okay, no problem. Tell me what step two in that strategy is and what step three is. And how do we win? Like, if you can show me a strategy where I yell, right? at them at the top of my lungs, I'm good at that. And somehow that magically leads to us winning, then I'll do that strategy.

Because I care about the policy, the policy, eyes on the prize, right? But no one in their right mind thinks that that's a winning strategy. That's just emotional venting, right? But okay, so that's folks that are online, et cetera, et cetera. The most important thing is the Democrats that are actually in Congress and have power, are you guys actually going to do anything? No. The last thing is what I promised you, which is what was the smart

strategy the Republicans have. Look, when they don't listen to the courts, that is a form of a coup. It's a coup against the American system and against the American Constitution, saying, no, we're not going to have three equal branches anymore. The executive branch has the guns, and they will do anything they like, they will ignore Congress. And when the courts tell them not to ignore Congress, they'll ignore the courts. That's a constitutional coup against America. So what are the Republicans doing already? They're using the word coup against the Democrats. Just like Trump did with fake news. He originally did the fake news on Facebook, his campaign team did, and then he blamed

the Democrats and the mainstream media for fake news. And they're doing it ahead of time. They know they're doing a constitutional coup. So they're going around going, oh yeah, do Democrats, coup, coup, coup. I don't even understand their logic. What are you calling a coup? It makes no sense at all. But it doesn't have to make sense.

By the time the idiot Democratic senators figure out, oh, it's a constitutional coup and they say it'll look like they were copying the report. Republicans. Now, first I point that out because it's a brilliant strategy. But secondly, think about it. The Republicans are so prepared. They are. They prepared these plans for years and years and years. They prepared their media strategy. They prepared their policy, et cetera. And our side are just going around, like we told you yesterday on the show, how Keem Jeffries went to Silicon Valley to meet with billionaire donors and basically ask them, what should I do? meant fences. Oh, it's just pathetic, man. So look, guys, that doesn't mean give up on the Democrats.

It means insist on a strong populist Democrat that's actually going to represent you and the policies you love. Friends with deficits when we come back. All of these beautiful people, Kenyatta Gaines, Cid, Chris Moore, Victor Berlotti, Kyle Stark, Travis Jennings, all just joined up, became American heroes. Hit that beautiful join button, become one of us. Kerry Dragon, Yahya, thank you for gifting. A membership, Casper.

It looks like some members of the Republican Party are starting to worry and share some concerns with their constituents about Elon Musk. Does he come in and say, this is what I'm working on? Does he say, here's what we're doing? First of all, he's a great guy. He was never really a supporter or not a supporter. He was a sort of semi-neutral kind of a guy, not a political person, very smart, brilliant person,

and which I like. I'm a big believer in IQ points. I mean, it's a good thing. President Donald Trump might be a fan of Elon Musk's intelligence and IQ, but it turns out that some Republican lawmakers are starting to panic about Elon Musk's. role in the Trump administration, and they're responding to their constituents who are writing into share their concerns about Elon Musk and the seemingly unmitigated power to Pierce he has in the Trump administration. So let's get into the details. Reporters over at the

bulwark, and I should note, they do not like Trump over there. So I would typically take their reporting on Trump with a grain of salt, or I would look for something to kind of balance it out. But to be fair to them, they did obtain the actual letters that Republican members of Congress sent to their constituents who had written into them to share their concerns about Elon Musk. So let's get to some of the Republicans and what they are saying in response to their constituents, starting with Representative Rob Whitman. He's a Republican from Virginia. He wrote back to his constituents, I share your concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and overreach, protecting the personal information of Americans is a fundamental responsibility and any breach of privacy is alarming. He continues, the prospect of private individuals or companies having unfettered access to sensitive data raises critical questions about accountability, oversight, and safeguarding of our

citizens' rights. So clearly, a constituent wrote in to his office to complain or at least express concern over Elon Musk's access to our private information through the Treasury Department. And this is what Representative Whitman wrote back. So look, I just think it's interesting how privately or, you know, quietly they try to calm or ease the nerves of their constituents. But they'll never say anything publicly about it. Like I haven't heard anything from Congressman Whitman about how he's concerned about Elon Musk access. our private personal data through the Treasury Department. Yeah, so look, I'm gonna tell you guys in a minute, if and how Republican politicians

would actually turn on Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And by the way, Elon Musk just gave a super weird rambling speech in the all of the office with Donald Trump trying to justify Doge. And so if he's trying to justify Doge, he might be a little worried about his own popularity with Republican politicians and voters. So those are all super interesting developments, but first more. So I should also note that Whitman's district is obviously in the state of Virginia, as I mentioned earlier, and Virginia is gonna have a lot of federal workers.

His district alone has around 20,000 federal employees. And so he might be feeling more pressure compared to other GOP lawmakers in regard to Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration. Now, unlike Whitman, Republican Senator Kevin Kramer, by the way, is actually willing to share his concerns about Elon Musk publicly to the press. I want to give you a little taste of that. There have to be guardrails, obviously, on white information he access, but more importantly what he does with it.

As a major defense contractor, as a major government contractor, there have to be some guardrails. So I just want to commend Senator Kramer for for being willing to say that publicly because he obviously drew attention to the very real conflicts of interest that Elon Musk does in fact have. I mean, look, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to audit government agencies. I would like it to be a little more methodical as opposed to just chop everything down without really thinking about it. Because I think that there are some skilled, important federal workers that we might end up getting rid of and it's going to be

hard to replace them. You know, Bill Clinton, by the way, during his administration, cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs. I was reading about this, but there was a method to that madness, right? There was an actual review to ensure that they weren't getting rid of important federal workers. And so again, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you are the CEO of a, of several companies, and you're receiving federal government grants, it is rich for you to go around and like call for a freeze on federal funding and

all of that stuff, right? So that conflict of interest is important to point out. And it means more to hear it come from a Republican lawmaker like Senator Kramer. So Musk, just this giant long rambling speeches I told you in the Oval Office. We'll try to maybe get parts of it for you guys later in this show. Obviously we're doing this live, check out the show live, 6 o'clock Eastern every day. So now part of the reason he did it is because he's trying to justify getting all the information at the Treasury. Because look guys, if you say, hey, we gotta make sure that we're spending in the right places, that makes total sense.

If you say Trump said to everyone that he would cut, totally get it. And then he would especially cut things that, you know, are corruption, fraud, waste, abuse, etc., totally get it. If you say, okay, that's why we cut all of USAID without even looking at it, I go, wait, what? What if there's good programs in there? Like, if you show me a bad program, great, let's cut it, right? And so, and you could prove it, et cetera, right? So, and you cut it through Congress. You do it the right way.

You have, you'd have the American people totally on your side because you know, you say, look at this terrible program. And we're all focused on the terrible, and we got rid of it, and you get credit for it, right? But when you chop and you chop away treatment for AIDS and cancer, etc., etc., then people look at that and go, I don't know that I agree with that. Okay, then you go over to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that's actually the cop on Wall Street. Why are we getting rid of a cop on Wall Street? That makes no sense. Okay, but finally, the more important one, and why he's talking about the Treasury in the Oval Office and why the Republican politicians are worried is people are like, wait, why do you need our private information? Right, exactly.

Because like if you want to cut from the treasury, first of all, you don't get to unilaterally cut. That's crazy. Congress controls the power of the purse. But good news for Republicans, you have Congress and you have the White House. So you can cut those things, but the budget's public. Why do you need Bob's private information in Nebraska if the budget's already public? And remember, for people in the tech industry, there's nothing more valuable than data. Okay, there's nothing more valuable than data and he's still a tech CEO at the end of the day.

You might love him, you might be super proud of the businesses that he's successful at. But at the end of the day, the most valuable thing to a business owner like Elon Musk is data. And having him have access to every single American social security number, personal information, that is concerning. Not only Americans, but also literally his competitors. At CFPB, he got information on Cash App, which is a competitor of his. And they're doing features that he says he wants to do on X, but they are not yet doing. Now he has potentially all their secrets. That's not remotely fair.

That's crazy. So he's not going to go and give that Oval Office speech unless he's felt pressure from Republicans. Right. Right, they don't care what Democrats or left wing says at all, right? So now why is he feeling that pressure? Because of articles like this, where now there's, and the article doesn't create it. The article is telling you what's happening in Washington, there's rumblings, rumblings. Why are they rumblings?

Because like Klobuchar says, oh, these Republican politicians all of a sudden decided to be moral? No, it's their constituents. It's their constituents that are, and they have a sense, these are not my left wing constituents. These are the constituents that elected me and I'm worried. Yes. And maybe my poll numbers are going to drop soon. Now I'm worried. And now they see Elon Musk polling numbers drop just like we said they would. And they're, and it's he's, those numbers are dropping off a cliff. So now all of a sudden they're scrambling. So Republican Representative Mike Flood is another example. He even wrote back to his constituents to say that he understands

that Doge's work is stressful to voters. Representative Flood offered them his assurances. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Flood wrote, had told me to my face that Mr. Musk absolutely does not have full access to the federal payment system. He pledged to take his responsibility under the Constitution very seriously to respect Congress's power of the purse and restated his intention to protect Nebraska's. Now, Nebraska's Deb Fisher assured constituents who were worried about Elon Musk accessing their private information through the Treasury Department, that she's closely monitoring the situation. She wrote back to them saying, I believe that it is valuable for the federal government's

operations and processes to be reviewed to identify potential efficiencies and cost savings. However, I also understand that the Treasury Department's payment system contains extremely sensitive and confidential data. It is critical for the Treasury Department to maintain its strict procedures to ensure that this data is protected and not improperly disclosed. while this review is underway, please be assured that I will continue to closely monitor the situation in the days and weeks ahead. And finally, you have Senator John Curtis, another Republican from the state of Utah, who

said in a form letter that it was important that Doge operates with appropriate oversight to maintain transparency, prevent conflicts of interest, and ensure its work remains focused on serving the American people. Now remember, these are people who are writing back to their constituents who are worried about Elon Musk. We don't know whether or not they're actually doing oversight and paying close attention and ensuring that behind the scenes, you know, Elon Musk doesn't have this unmitigated power and access to our private information.

You shouldn't take what they're writing back to their constituents at face value. But Donald Trump should be concerned because while his approval rating at the moment is at record highs for Trump, Elon Musk, not so much. Take a look. 39% support, 53% the clear majority opposed. They don't want this. The American people don't want this. No, no, no.

Just 36% of independents support the idea of Elon Musk having a key role in the Trump administration. So the bottom line, when it comes to all of this, and Elon Musk being everywhere it seems in the federal government trying to trim down the federal deficit, the American folks simply put, do not want Elon Musk having a key. role in the Trump administration. So there's a real possibility that that pungent stench from Musk might transfer on over to Donald Trump. And so that's when things might get interesting. Yeah. So when he says, oh, don't worry,

we're overseeing what Elon is doing. There's no chance that's happening. They're not overseeing anything. What is like these rando congresspeople from the middle of the country going up to Elon Musk, who's clearly running the federal government right now and going, okay, I demand accountability. That's not, by the way, not only is that not remotely true, it's actually politically, like, a bad thing to say. It's a misstep, right? Why? Because then your voters are going to come back to you and say, wait, I thought you were overseeing Elon. Why didn't you notice him doing X, Y, Z, and all these terrible things that he did, right?

So now I want to give you one last thing, which is Obamacare, the example of it. Because remember Republicans said we're going to repeal Obamacare, repeal and replace, and then they never had a plan to replace. place, etc. And then Trump made a big deal out of how they're going to do that. And they couldn't. They couldn't. So why couldn't they? So I wrote about this in my book, Justice is coming, because tons of people showed up to town halls. And they weren't just Democrats. They were independents and even some Republicans, independents to sign elections. And they were mad. They're like, wait, I rely on this. If I don't have this, it'll be a nightmare. I remember. I know my God, I got pre-existing conditions.

Are you guys nuts, right? And they yelled so much, the voters, the independents yelled so much at the Republican politicians that enough of them turned around so that we won. That is the correct strategy, okay? But you've got to, just Democrats yelling at them is not enough. You've got to win over the independents and some Republicans if you're really good so that you could put pressure on Republican politicians to turn around. The good news is it's begun a little bit.

And Elon's terrible poll numbers are starting to worry them. And that's good news. When we come back, we'll give you an update on Steve Bannon, who actually decided to plead guilty in a case where he stole money from donors who thought that he was going to build a border wall. That and more coming up, don't miss it. Back on TYT, Jankana News, go. Let's talk a little bit about what Steve Bannon's been up to.

For the donor class in the Wall Street Journal and Murdox, you're one million percent correct. They want the permanent installation of the Trump tax cuts. They're all welfare queens on corporate welfare. And this is why I'm so adamantly opposed to them. I support the president. But look, I didn't support the tax plan in the beginning. The best way to do this is put a gun to the head of the wealthy and say, okay, if you don't help us cut spending by getting back in your lobbyists off, the defense budget is an obscenity and must be cut, unless we're prepared to do that, then your taxes are going to go up and not just your income taxes. We're going to have financial taxes, the carried interest, all of it, financial trade. We're going to get to a balanced budget, and we're not going to do in the back of the little guy. Wow.

Those statements came from former Trump aide Steve Bannon, real populist messaging there, which is strange considering the fact that he just pleaded guilty to defrauding donors to a fundraising effort that he and his friends had started to allegedly build a border wall. No such thing happened, the money was essentially a personal slush fund for these individuals. And so pleading guilty to it kind of gives the whole game away, doesn't it, Jank? I mean, all that populist messaging doesn't really mean much when you were willing to defraud people who support you, who support Donald Trump, I mean, come on. Yeah, no, no, I'm super conflicted on this and so, but not halfway on either.

So first, on him pleading guilty, look, I get it, he's gonna say he was facing 15 years and they said you got a suspended sentence for two to three years. So I didn't really do it, but I had to take the plea, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, brother, you just pled guilty. Guilty is guilty. Your co-conspirators already went to prison, and you knew that since they had enough evidence to send them to prison, they probably had enough evidence to send you to prison. That's why you took the plea.

And what kind of a populace rips off his own supporters and viewers for a fake wall? Well, where's the wall? I mean, I saw you on a yacht, but I didn't see the wall, right? So that is should be 100% condemned, okay? And there's no need for any equivocation there. Now that's Steve Bannon of the individual. Now when he talks about policy in that clip that we showed you guys, that's different because now we're talking about policy, okay?

Not his personal proclivities and if he's a bad guy or whatever. He wants to get rid of the carried interest loophole. We've been trying to get rid of the carried interest loophole for decades. So, so guys, when I tell you, some portion of MAGA, even if we hate Steve Bannon, even if we hate some portion of them, and we hate them for really good reasons, and we think they're a bad guy, whatever, when they say, yeah, we're going to rally the troops to raise taxes on the rich, to raise taxes on corporations, to take away the carried interest loophole,

we would be mental not to take yes for an answer. I mean, that's what we wanted to do for this whole time. I cannot believe Steve Bannon is saying that, plus told you. And what I mean by that is, I can't believe that the right wing populace have come back around to the correct positions. But Anna and I went on these shows, people yelled at us, but we came back saying, I think you might be surprised at some of their opinions. And here it is, I mean, my God, he said the defense budget.

He said the defense budget must be cut, told you, told you, Steve Bann is not lying there. I don't look, obviously I agree with the message. My issue is, I don't know if I believe that he believes what he's saying. No, no, no, no, I'm positive. Okay, hold, let me make my argument, let me make my case, okay. For me, the whole idea of the populist movement is to look out for the little guy. For all the Americans who were screwed over by free trade deals, globalization, you know, the unbelievable economic inequalities that we're all noticing, that we've all been noticing,

that really exploded under the Obama administration and continued, that gap continued to widen in, you know, subsequent administrations. So the idea is we want to make the lives of ordinary people better, right? We're sick of corporations stealing wages, stealing wealth, right? We're sick of it. But how is the guy who literally stole from his own supporters going to turn around and say that he believes in populism and wants like more economic equality. No, I don't care about their personal lives at all. But it's not personal, Jank. It like, it's so no, no, let me get let me do a counterpoint. I hear you. And so look, if you say don't blanket trust Steve Bannon, I would answer,

of course, right? So, but Trump is a guy who's, did a fake university, a fake charity, you've got a billion problems with Donald Trump, pathological liar, a narcissist, etc. But if he says, hey, let's do reciprocal tariffs, good, I like reciprocal tariffs. So I don't have to say like, oh, I don't trust him. No, he said tariffs all along, right? I know. And so like, I don't have to hate the policy, even if I hate the guy, or I don't trust the guy. Listen, don't get me wrong.

If Steve Bannon manages to gain Donald Trump's ear again, right, which I don't think he has Donald Trump's ear at the moment, I think Elon Musk beat Bannon in this tug of war. And let's just call it what it is, because just look at the policies that are coming from the Trump administration so far, I mean, the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the one federal government agency that essentially polices Wall Street and the big banks, that that is a signal to me that Elon Musk, for the moment, has won. And Steve Bannon's wing of the Republican Party has less influence over Donald Trump. But let's say he manages to have some influence over Donald Trump again, and all of

of a sudden we're hearing from Trump, this is so laughable, I can't even imagine this ever happening. But getting rid of the carried interest loophole, I mean, yes, I would say, yes, let's go for it, let's support this, let's provide positive reinforcement, see if there's a way to work together to actually get that done. It's not like I would stand in the way of that or say negative things about anyone trying to engage in that effort. I just don't know if Steve really believes in these things and I haven't seen any evidence that he's actually pushed for these things. No, but he says it on the air all time. And Anna, even saying it on the air matters, because he's influencing the right wing in MAGA to be against carried interest

loophole. He's in favor of them to support Trump. I know, but he's trying to push Trump to get rid of these loopholes and to actually increase taxes on corporations. So even if you think it's a secret plan to actually lower the taxes, well, it's too secret. Because he, every day he's telling the MAGA guys, we should raise taxes, we should raise tax on the rich, we should raise taxes on corporations, we should get rid of the Wall Street loopholes. And that's getting into their head and it's influencing them to go, yeah, wait a minute. And remember, 76% of Americans want to raise taxes on the rich.

Yeah, they do, that is true. Right? And so he, and even if you think, hey, I don't think Steve Bannon in this heart of hearts believes that, but he's pushing that because it's popular, I don't care, I don't care What's in his heart of hearts. I care what he's pushing. It would be really interesting to interview him because I have so many questions. And the video that we showed you at the top of this story was a compilation of some of the stuff he had to say during a New York Times podcast interview.

And it was a fascinating conversation. He said a lot of things that I agree with, economically speaking, but this story about him defrauding donors to this fundraising effort is what's really bothering me and forces me to question whether or not he's actually genuine about what he's saying. But let me give you the details about what he did. Okay, first, before you do that, I want to change the poll. We have polls during the live show, and we, in this case, it was who's the worst Trump, Bannon Musk, or they're all terrible, but everybody's gonna, most people are gonna ask,

answer they're all terrible. What I want is poll, Musk and Bannon are opposed to each other. If you had to pick one, and I'm not saying like, oh, you love, that means you love that person. I'm saying pick your poison, right? And if you're a right winger, they're not poison to you. It's okay, but vote either way. Live chat, 6 o'clock Eastern every day, you know, we're live. So Elon Musk or Steve Bannon, if you had to say, this person is going to influence Trump more, who do you want to influence more? And part of the reason I ask that is because when they first started, I probably would have said Musk, now I'm starting to lean towards Bannon. I don't, because Bannon says such crazy things. Bannon says like let's put a gun to the

head of the rich in that clip. I'm like, no, no, don't, don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, he was speaking, he wasn't being literal. Yeah, I hope metaphorical, but I still wouldn't use that analogy. But Anna, part of the reason why I don't think. He called Elon Musk and Mark Andresen, who's by the way, the main reason why the CFP is being dismantled. Mark Andresen totally lied to Joe Rogan on his podcast about how the CFPB is debanking people, which isn't true. But anyway, he called these people, Bannon did, oligarchs multiple times throughout the, you know, throughout that podcast interview. That's, that's, so look, must seems like he's more in the, I thought in the beginning, perhaps more in the rational

world and Bannon on social issues is horrible, horrible. That's why I'm saying, pick your poison. And he might even want to kick legal immigrants like me out of the country. So I'm not saying that's an endorsement. I'm just saying if the, if he's pushing MAGA to raise tax on corporations, I'm here for it. Yeah, I agree. I agree. If he's serious about it and he wants to do it, I 100% co-sign. Let me see him do it though. Yeah, let's see you do it.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. Okay, so just to give you guys the details about the case and his decision to plead guilty. So Bannon was indicted in 2022 on state charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud related to an online fundraising scheme called We Build the Wall that solicited donations on the premise of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Prosecutors have accused Bannon and others of raising over $15 million by falsely claiming that none of the money would be used to pay the salary of one of the founders. But that money was used by the founders of this fundraising effort. When the judge asked him if he was pleading guilty to one count of defrauding in the first degree due to his role in the scam, Bannon simply answered, yes, your honor. Now, he will not be serving any time behind bars, and he is even not required to pay any restitution to the victims in this case because his co-defendants returned millions to the victims in the related federal case. So, there was a federal case in this. Remember, just before leaving office, Donald Trump

pardoned Steve Bannon, so he'd no longer had to deal with the federal case. But at that point, the district attorney's office in Manhattan, you know, filed suit against, or they prosecuted Steve Bannon, I should say. And that has Bannon furious. So he wants to go after Alvin Brague. He's calling for investigations into Alvin Bragg and Letitia James. And by the way, as part of his three year conditional discharge, Bannon is banned from serving as an officer or director of any charitable organizations or nonprofits with assets in New York or access, we build the wall donor names. So there you have it. Bannon believes that Bragg and Letitia James are an existential threat to Donald Trump's administration. and that, yeah, they're, you know, the queen of lawfare, that's how we refer to Letitia James.

So look, do I think that the Trump administration might look into the district attorney's office out of retaliation? Probably, I wouldn't be surprised. But here you have it. You have on one hand, Steve Bannon saying interesting economic policies that we are definitely in favor of. But he did something really terrible here and pleaded guilty for it. Yeah, and that's the real world, guys, where everything is complicated and there is no easy answer and it's not a binary situation where we get to say, okay, everybody's wrong on that side, even though they have different opinions and disagree with each other or everybody's right on whichever side. So let's look at that. Bannonet, 81%, must get 19%.

Wow. People are saying, people are saying they don't like mussel. So look, I'll give you one comment from a YouTube member that I think speaks for America. He Maskio, God bless us on those handles, says, Ben is right, but I don't trust his ass. Yeah, super fair. Yeah, that's where I stand on it. Yeah, and so, but it's okay to say he's right,

even though we don't trust them, right? And it's okay to say we don't trust them, even though he might be right about that issue, right? By the way, you know, I mentioned we go on right week shows from time to time, as you guys might know by now, t.t.com slash press, and you can actually watch it with your own eyes. You can watch the whole thing and see what you think of it and get, So, and you might be able to see, oh, I see, that's what the right way actually thinks, right?

Let alone what we actually think, okay. All right, we gotta take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk a little bit about the Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum, as the British like to say. And a lot more stories, you don't wanna miss it, come right back.