The Young Turks - Ro Khanna Calls Out Leadership

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Trump Admin Thinks Elon Musk Is Going TOO FAR. Ro Khanna on TYT. Dan Bongino, a right-wing commentator, is named F.B.I. deputy director. NEW POLL: Trump Approval Rating 9 Points Above Water. 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

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The guy! All right, well, anyway, I church, Jake U Granikas, with you guys, lots of crazy news today. Cash Patel and Pete Huggs v. Elon Musk, fascinating, and some new updates on that. And then lots of changes at MSNBC, Joy Reid is out, other folks are in. And there might be a reason you don't know about for those changes. So we're gonna get to that as well. So tons of news here, Casper, let's get started.

Well, let's get started with some of the cracks that are now beginning to form within the Trump administration, especially having to do with Elon Musk and those who seem to disagree with him. We have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week. What he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist.

They're trying to, that's how badly various parts of our government were run by, and especially by this last group. President Donald Trump took a moment to defend Elon Musk during a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, and that defense came in light of an email that Musk and Doge sent to federal workers essentially demanding that they justify their positions and the work that they're doing in the federal government, and if they fail to do so, they will likely be terminated. Now there's been some pushback among Trump cabinet officials in regard to what Elon Musk is doing, right, Jank? Yes, in fact,

The pushback has resulted in something that just happened that kind of resolves the issue on fired or semi-fired, as Donald Trump just said. We'll get to that in a second. So this all started over the weekend when Musk posted this on X, consistent with President Donald Trump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email. Requesting to understand what they got done last week, failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. I gotta say this is the kind of corporate culture that makes everyone insane, usually in private sector jobs. And it's awesome that now it's being implemented in public sector jobs as well, awesome micromanaging.

But nonetheless, then an email was sent late Saturday by the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line, what did you do last week? In it, it reads, please reply to this email with approximately five bullets. of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager, the email said. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Now, federal workers were also told in that email to justify their jobs by midnight tonight or risk getting fired. And so when someone responded to his post with an accusation that he's running the Twitter

playbook on the government, Musk basically confirmed, yeah, that's basically what I'm doing. In fact, he argued, yeah, this works. Trump seems to agree with Elon Musk, as you heard in the video that we showed you earlier in this segment. In fact, Musk's post came hours after the president expressed that he wants Elon Musk to get even more aggressive with what he's doing. He wrote in a truth social post, all caps. Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive. Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately to make greater than before and he ends it with MAGA but not everyone agrees and that includes top officials in several federal agencies and departments we're talking about

cabinet officials we're talking about people who were nominated by Donald Trump confirmed by the Senate they're basically telling their employees their staff in these federal agencies don't respond to this email I'll tell you who in just a moment but Jenk any thoughts so far yeah so breaking news like I said in a sec here but when we did the poll for this story, which is in the live chat, check it out. Now vote if you can. We asked who's right, Cash Patel or Elon Musk, because Cash Patel was drawing the line here. And I'm curious about it for left wing, right wing. I mean, and I did a poll on it on X,

and it's about two-thirds saying Cash Patel and now Pete Heggseth, who joined him next, or right. And Elon Musk is wrong. It's not scientific. We, but it's just an interesting way. of telling where folks are going. So, well, even though Trump sent that note saying, hey, be more aggressive, then Elon took that as a green light to do this type of thing. And he seemed to be backing him with that fired or semi-fired comment. By the way, how is anyone semi-fired? Okay, well, we'll maybe find out on another day because the Office of Personnel and

Management is called OPM, and they just came out with this. This afternoon, OPM during a chief human capital officers' councils meeting, informed agencies that employee responses to the OPM email is voluntary. OPM also clarified that non-response of the email does not equate to a resignation. So apparently Elon walked back and we will not be able to do this. And now, look, we're in the business of credit where credit is due. I did not have Cash Patel standing up to anyone and doing the right thing. on any bingo card I have ever had in my life.

But here, Cash Patel did the right thing. It led to a domino effect. And now Elon Musk has walked back on this absurd idea. And I'll tell you why I think it's absurd in a second. So you Anna. So several officials have basically told their staff members to avoid responding to that email that broke prior to what Jenk just described. So for instance, for now, please pause any response, a top Pentagon official

told employees this weekend, adding that the Defense Department will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures. Others who sent out similar messages, yes, include FBI director Cash Patel, who wrote that FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information, the FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses. Other agencies telling their employees to essentially hold off on responding to Elon Musk's email included

DNI director Tulsi Gabbard, the State Department National Security Agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the National Science Foundation, which is a division of the Air Force, the director's office of the administrative office of U.S. courts, which manages the federal judiciary staff, NASA, and the CDC. So several federal government agencies or top officials within these agencies told their staff, just hold off on responding to Elon Musk's message. Now, many agency leaders are tired of having to justify specific intricacies of agency policy and having to scramble to address unforeseen controversies raised by Musk, especially after the billionaire's so-called Department of Government Efficiency gained unprecedented access to government

systems. There is an exception here, though, and that exception is RFK Jr., who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He told his staff to respond to Elon Musk's email. I'm unclear on whether they will continue to do so now that a directive has been issued by the Office of Personnel Management basically telling people this is voluntary but the bulwark Sam Stein prior to that breaking news story obtained an email from HHS again with RFK Jr. ordering staff to essentially respond to

Elon Musk's message which is unfortunate to say the least. Now I like the fact that that there's dissent within the administration. I think that's a good thing up until now. Elon Musk has been able to basically act with absolutely no checks, no balances, no one to pump the brakes. And the thing that doesn't really inspire much confidence is the inaccurate statements he's posting on X day in and day out without providing receipts for it.

And the fact that important employees, federal workers had been fired and then had to be rehired or their firing had been rescinded because it turns out, you know, they have important roles like protecting our nuclear arsenal or working on the bird flu, which is of course wiping out birds and lowering our supply of eggs and things like that. And it's now also transferring over as an illness for humans. So there needs to be a better method moving forward in deciding or determining, you know, where the waste actually is. Because again, treating the federal government as if it's Twitter is not really the right way to go

about it. Yeah, so couldn't agree more. When he did this to Twitter, if you remember, there was a whole bunch of glitches. The site would go down for a while. You couldn't get response to this or that. And a lot of those glitches continue. And by the way, the thing that people don't talk much about is that when he did that, all sorts of terrible content got on to Twitter, including terrorist propaganda, child porn, et cetera. They're like, less guardrails. So what? Okay, now that's your company. You want to do that? You want to devalue your company? That's your problem, not my problem, right? That's a private company. But when you do it in the government and people are worried about losing their social

security checks, et cetera, that is not going to play well. The government is not the same as your private company. So in fact, real quick, a couple of viewers here. Kelly Kay said, if Crazy Cash Patel is telling his employees not to follow this, you know it's gone too far. And so look, by the way, become a member either through the join button below or t.com and be part of this show and be part of the live post to at 6 o'clock Eastern Everyday Durge wrote in the real reason they wanted those emails to scan them for words they don't like such as diverse or women so they know who to fire. By the way, there's some truth, the potential truth of that because Speaker Johnson was talking about Elon Musk is running algorithms on the information he's getting on federal workers right now. Algorithms to do what and probably define work. like diversity so they could fire anyone that's involved in it. It's insanity. So, and that's leading to these results, a good graphic eight. Fifty-eight percent of respondents are worried that programs like students, financial aid, and Social Security payments could face delays. So a lot of MAGA thinks that they're the entire country just because they won the election.

No, that's 58% of the country saying path to breaks. We're super worried. 42% say that they support the advisory group, while 53% say they do they do. So Doge is underwater. This is a Reuters Ipsis poll. And finally, 62% disagreed with the notion that the president is authorized to terminate federal employees who do not align with his views or agenda. About 23% said he should be entitled to make that decision. Super quick clarification there. It's one thing to have a political appointment. It's another thing to fire somebody at the post office because you don't agree with their political views. That ain't got nothing new with anything. So the president gets to make political appointments. He doesn't get to randomly fire people. who disagree with them. And a lot of these firings are impacting individuals who voted for Donald Trump. A lot of individuals who are actually veterans, about 30% of the federal government workforce consists of veterans. And so it's easy to understand how these seemingly indiscriminate firings are leading to

some souring, certainly on Elon Musk, but at this point also in regard to Donald Trump and the performance he's putting out as president. Here to talk to us about this and a lot more that's going on in the federal government is Congressman Roe Kana. Congressman Rokana represents California's 17th district and has kind of taken a different approach from other, elected Democratic lawmakers. He is reaching out to Republicans, specifically to Trump voters. And I think that's an interesting tactic here. Now welcome, Congressman Kana, thank you for coming on.

Thank you, appreciate you're having me. So let me just start off by asking you, you know, what the reaction has been from your fellow Democrats in regard to your strategy in reaching across the aisle to speak to individuals who voted for Donald Trump? I think they're intrigued. Look, the politicians don't need to be the protagonist in every story. I mean, having us give speeches in front of building's fine. But what we really need to know is who is being hurt and having them tell those stories. And the reality is you can't be pro-America and be against American workers.

99% of Americans work. And the story that should be told here is the betrayal, someone who ran on patriotism and building up America and building up. the de-industrialized parts of this country is now hurting voters who voted for him, who never expected that they and their families would be fired or laid off. Yeah, so I want to get to that outreach, because that's super interesting and smart. But first, Roe, you seem to have done the same thing that Bernie Sanders did, and I would argue that we did. But I want to ask you first rather than assuming it, where you seem to reach out and say, hey, if you do things that progressives agree with like cutting the Pentagon, et cetera, happy to work with you.

If you do things we disagree with, happy to fight you. Is that a fair and accurate description of what you and Bernie Sanders have done so far? Totally fair description. I think I got criticized. Why are you saying that you may initially work with Doge? Because a lot of people recognize that there is wasteful government spending. There's an enormous amount of waste with Medicare advantage. They defraud the government.

There's waste with pharmaceuticals who, who bill Medicare at obnoxious rates. There's waste with Pentagon spending with five crimes that have almost a trillion dollars. And if there was a serious effort in a constitutional law-abiding way to go after that, I would have worked on that because my loyalty is to the American people, not to just my party. But what happened here is Musk didn't have any interest in the hard work and has instead gone about this with a sledgehammer, a lottery ball of firings in a totally dumb way. And that will, of course, be opposed.

And my own view is we have more credibility if we acknowledge that there is waste and that we have a better way of actually tackling it than just reflexively opposing everything. Yeah, so we're actually going to talk about Medicare Advantage later in this program. You're right. Enormous waste, there are enormous waste at the Pentagon. And we've always been against that as progressives. We want a government that actually serves the American people and not the donor class and not the bureaucracy. So, but what I'm curious about is since there are so many different bubbles, Representative Kavana,

I'm curious about the Democrats in Washington bubble. Because so when we said something very, very similar to almost identical to what you just said, we were met with a lot of backlash from portions of the left. But on then, on the other hand, tons of people on the left and independents really liked it. Because there's all these different bubbles, and everyone in every bubble thinks they're the only ones who are right and the only ones who exist, right? So since I don't know the Democrats in Washington anywhere near as well as you do, in that bubble, how was your strategy received? I was probably frowned upon by people other than Bernie and Warren and a few others. And they said, well, we, you know, Elon's on the red team.

We just need to oppose Elon and, and you know, obviously people have been right to be very skeptical of how Doge has gone about it. And, you know, I famously, or not it famously, but from Twitter point of view infamously got into a fight with him and he called me a dick. And I said, you know, I'm not going to go along with things that are basically unconstitutional. But I believe I have more credibility with a lot of voters, Republican, independent voters saying that because I've acknowledged that I'm open to cutting actual waste and to working in the interest of this country. You know, in my New York Times op-ed, the biggest line that got quoted again and again. Unfortunately, it wasn't any of my vision.

It was simply the Democrats made a mistake by not acknowledging that the status quo is broken and people are righteously angry at the system. And I think if we just started with that, we'd have a lot more clarity. Yeah, I mean, a lot of Democrats seem unwilling to even start with that, but we'll get to that in just a moment. I actually want to get you to answer some questions in regard to that interaction that you had with Elon Musk in which he called you a Richard. Obviously, that's what you're referring to. So that was spurred from this criticism that you were getting for not being present for a House Oversight Committee vote that was seeking to subpoena Elon Musk in regard to his actions with the Department of Government Efficiency.

Now unfortunately, Republicans were able to block the subpoena of Elon Musk 20 to 19. And you weren't present, right? And so you had argued that you weren't present because you weren't informed about the vote. However, three Democrats, according to Politico, familiar with the run-up to the vote, who were granted anonymity, said Democrats were given a heads up about the maneuver to try to catch Republicans. to catch Republicans by surprise because of that prior notice and the congressman's ties to Elon Musk. They're referring to you there. The three Democrats accused you of making an intentional decision to miss the vote. How do you respond to that?

Well, so the story was corrected. I mean, the reporter had to basically delete a tweet and issue a correction. And they were all anonymous sources and exactly incorrect. And then reason is because we could call the vote at any time. I've called for for having the vote again. The reality is that Connolly's staff tried to sneak a vote when 10 people were out and their hope was to get it through. But there were 10 people who missed it. It wasn't just eight Republicans.

There were me and Kwame, but Bufume, I came back and I said he should be subpoenaed. And I said, let's have the vote again to go on the record. The irony is Musk and Trump had no clue of what was going on. It's only when I tweeted out to Elon directly that it got their attention. And we can either have this performative stuff that doesn't go anywhere, or we can have people who actually know how to take on these folks. Yeah. So I'm curious when you realize, like, they're not going to do almost anything they promised because I had that moment and I want to run it by you. I agree with you.

The smart way to cut out the bureaucracy and the fraud waste and abuse is you do an analysis, not a five-year analysis with committee after committee, But you take some period of time, three months, six months, whatever it is, to do a real analysis to cut the fat rather than the muscle, as opposed to what you described as the dumb way a minute ago, which is coming with a blind hatchet, just cut things, whether we think we need them or we don't need them. And to me, when they said, oh, we're going to do the 8% cuts in defense for five years in a row, I was excited. Oh, that's terrific. That's exactly what we wanted. Now, of course, the devil's in the details and we'll see what they cut, but it's a great start. It's about $250 billion over five years. But then they said that money will not actually be cut, it will be redirected to other parts of the Pentagon. Right.

And I was like, okay, so you don't mean any of this. That's to me where I thought, this is all smokes and mirrors. Wait, let me add to that because the House budget that Republicans are currently working on also allocates an additional 150, I believe, what was it, million or billion dollars? It's got to be billion. It's got to be billion, it's the Pentagon. Yeah, another 150 billion dollars for the Pentagon. And so it's just, I feel like there's some tricky, Pazicki behavior happening here with

what Republicans are claiming they want to do and cutting the fat at the Pentagon. What are your thoughts? Look, I'm the guy who gets booed every year. Literally, you could go on my Instagram and see it, 67 people in the House Armed Services Committee and the vote is usually 66 to 1. And colleagues will like me on the Armed Services all often go, Kana, Kana, vote yes, boo, when I vote no. So I always was very skeptical that Donald Trump would

actually be able to get cuts to the Pentagon through the Armed Services Committee, given the makeup of that committee. And this is partly why people like Gordon and I said, yes, Yelan, if you want to try to take on this fight that some of us have been fighting for years, go for it. go for it and we'll support you. Now, it is sad to me that they want to repurpose that money and basically that's smoke and mirrors. But I will say this, by Donald Trump saying that

the Pentagon should be cut, by Elon Musk saying that the Pentagon should be cut, by Trump saying that we should have a 50% cut of China and Russia agree. He's opened the space for progressives not to be scared up our own shadow and say, you know what, maybe we could be for these Pentagon cuts to invest in the American people. And Donald Trump could be saying it, Why do we have to be out there doing what Kamala Harris did standing with Liz Cheney and talking about the higher Pentagon budgets? Why don't we actually take the populist position? Amen. Yes, I totally agree with you on that. So, you know, tomorrow, you're scheduled to hold a Zoom call with individuals who have been fired from their federal

jobs, but these individuals happen to be Trump voters. And so I love that you're doing that because I think their stories matter and approaching it from a place of empathy rather than pointing and laughing at them, I think is the right approach. But your approach, again, is so different from what I'm seeing from other members of the Democratic Party. And I've noticed that there's been this uplifting of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett who's very passionate. You know, she's got a lot to say. But her messaging is very different from what you're trying to do. And I want to give you a quick example and then get your thoughts. Let's take a look. to realize how selfish people are.

People go out and they vote in their own self-interest, right? And so you had all these racists that showed up and decided that they were going to vote for the other races because they thought, hey, we are all the same. But the reality is that he is a rich racist, okay? And so when he decided that he was going to look out for somebody, it was only going to be other rich white guys, not the rest of y'all. So as you're losing your job, as you're losing your Medicaid, as you're losing your farm, you're feeling away because you're like, wait a minute. You were supposed to go after the others, not come after us. So Congressman Kana, just to give you my thoughts on all of this, I just feel that the Democrats have already had eight straight years of that kind of messaging, and it has only pushed voters

out of the Democratic Party. You know, a lot of the people who voted for Trump this time around are either independent voters or people who were voting Democrat yesterday, right? Like, people who voted for Joe Biden for instance. So I feel that maybe referring to them all as racist isn't going to help the Democrats cause. But I am curious what you think about it and whether or not there are any discussions happening, you know, behind the scenes about what the Democrats plan to do moving forward to ensure that you guys have consistent messaging. Well, look, I don't view this just as a messaging issue. I view this as what do you believe of America. I believe this is an extraordinary country. I grew up, was born in Philadelphia.

I grew up in Bucks County in the 1970s and 1980s. It was 99% white. I had coaches who believed in me. I had teachers who believed in me. I saw parts of Pennsylvania where my father worked in manufacturing hollowed out. I saw wealth concentrate in my district in Silicon Valley, $12 trillion of wealth in places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania, places like Al Quippa, places like Warren, Ohio, totally deindustrialized. The economic inequality in this country skyrocket. And they're being deep, deep concern that the system is broken with off-thoring corporations, with billionaires, and people wanted change. That's why they voted for Donald Trump. Now, does that mean that we have to deny that there was slavery in this country for 250 years and 100 years of Jim Crow?

Of course not. But what we need to say is that fundamentally, this is a decent country. I believe that that the people will be willing to vote for us if we have a compelling vision to make their life better and recognize the brokenness of the status quo. And that is not a messaging issue. That is what I believe about America. I believe the country started in 1776, not 1919, because the ideals that are defined in our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are what America stands for. And we ought to have this debate as Democrats. And we ought to say what we really believe about the country as opposed to just worrying about messaging. Yeah, well said.

Okay, so I'll double down on a couple of things, but leave some questions. So I agree with you that asking Trump voters, hey, where did it go wrong for you? And how did you get hurt by this administration? But in an empathetic way, it's definitely the right way to go. So I noticed you're doing that and there's like you're even got a Google Doc on your TikTok account where they could fill it out. I mean, I love it. It's great.

So, and Jasmine Crocker's got a lot of fight in her, so I appreciate that. I think that direction is a little wrong, as we all just discussed here. But so I don't want to put it on Jasmine Crocker, but there is a contingent there that says, no, let's just yell at them more. So that's a plan, not in my opinion, not much of a plan. You have a clear plan that you outlined earlier, you and Bernie do, which is work with them if they actually do agree with us on anything and then fight them on things we disagree at. What I'm curious about is, is there a third plan?

Because I don't see another plan. So does Democratic leadership, you know, without naming names, but do they have one? Because the country hasn't seen it. What is their plan for how to deal with the Trump administration? You know, I think their plan is the plan that Democrats have gone through time and again, which is to point out, which is true, that a lot of these cuts are going to deeply hurt people. the Medicaid cuts, the cuts in people who keep our planes safe and prevent bird flow and keep our nuclear secrets safe and fund cancer research. Here's my problem with that. I actually believe

it'll work for 2026 because I think for the first time Trump's numbers are below the water on the economy. His entire first term, he didn't have his numbers low on the economy below 50%. But for some reason, he decided that instead of being a Trump Republican, he's going to allow Elon to become a Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Republican on steroids, and he's seeing the consequences. Fine. So we get back the House. Maybe we even win the presidency by default. What is our vision? What is, is our vision just to continue to try to win by default because they go too far and then not have a governing majority in the House or the Senate where we're actually being able to address the legitimate anger of working class Americans of all races?

or are we going to try to do something meaningful with the power we've been, we will be handed? And that to me is the failure of leadership in the Democratic Party. We are just being tactical. We're hoping that they self-destruct. Fortunately, they're self-destructing. But there's not enough focus, as Bernie Sanders is, on a concrete vision going forward to solve the massive inequality and to understand that many people who voted for Trump were not just angry. they were justifiably angry. All right, Representative Roe-Connor, good to see that there is at least one person who understands

what's going on in the House of Representatives. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we gotta take a break, but when we come back, we've got a lot more news to get

to, including a fascinating appointment for the FBI by Donald Trump, someone who doesn't have to be confirmed by the Senate, will tell you who he is. and whether or not it's a good idea to appoint television celebrities for these important roles. We'll be right back. Don't miss it. We got to talk about what's currently transpiring over at the FBI. There's a new Trump appointment, and you should know about it. Because this may be a little bit emotional, and let me apologize in advance. I'm going to accept the role proudly as the deputy director, the number two spot at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Conservative media star and podcaster Dan Bongino has been appointed by Donald Trump to serve as deputy director of the FBI. Now, normally a veteran agent of the bureau is chosen to serve in this role. However, that is not the case with this administration, which of course is approaching appointments and nominations in unconventional ways, right, Chank? Definitely. I think that there's a reason why he picked Bongino. Well, there's actually two reasons. And the real question is which one of those two reasons? Because one of them is disastrous. And the other The other one is actually defensible, so we'll get to it. Okay, so Donald Trump announced this on social media, let's take a look.

He basically wrote that, you know, Dan Bongino is a man of incredible love and passion for our country, and he has just been named the next deputy director of the FBI. Trump then notes that Bongino previously worked for the New York Police Department and was a special agent with the US Secret Service. He also wrote this, another aspect of the life of Dan Bongino that I think is very important. He has a great wife, Paula, and two wonderful daughters who truly love their dad. What an incredible job Dan will do. Now in the past, FBI directors, again, have been selected senior agents with extensive experience.

Bongino has not served any role in the FBI, does not have any FBI training or experience. But if you're wondering what his job entails, what his responsibilities would be, he would essentially serve as the FBI's second in command, obviously, they are responsible for all FBI domestic and international investigations and intelligence activities. He would develop and implement the FBI's strategic priorities and policies and oversee the work of FBI executives, including assistant directors and special agents in charge. Lastly, they provide counsel. He would provide counsel and advice to the FBI director.

In this case, of course, that would be Cash Patel, who was confirmed to serve in his role last week. Yeah, so Dan Bongino's fiery guy, and he's gotten into some big fights with Herala Rivera, Politico Media, you name it, us, right? Yep. And I had a big debate with him before the election about Trump. And I, that's not the issue that I care about. The issue I care about is, is this brother qualified for this exact job, right? Because this job usually goes to someone with a lot of management experience and who is normally an FBI agent. So Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have absolutely no experience with the FBI or how to manage the FBI.

So yeah, Bongino was a cop once and he was in the Secret Service once, but that doesn't mean you know how to manage. 38,000 employees with very specific tasks of the FBI, which you have no familiarity with. So my guess is just like if you put anyone in there that didn't have this, that didn't have that experience, they'd be overwhelmed. Okay, now you're gonna take a talk show host and put them in there. And you know, they might be extraordinary. There's probably some that are amazing, I hope, okay? But for that job, that doesn't seem right. So why do you So why did Trump pick him? The two reasons I was alluding to earlier are, one, he loves anyone who could make their case for him. He believes in messaging 200%, right? So messaging over

substance. The Democrats apparently don't know that messaging exists, so they never do any messaging. So the Democrats weigh under message, and here Trump is emphasizing message to the detriment of actual competence or experience in this field. So I think that's a mistake That's a mistake, but I at least understand it. What I'm worried about and what we should all be worried about is that that's the secondary reason that Trump picked him. And the primary reason that he picked him is because he wants loyalists that are the head of the FBI and the second in charge.

So if he gives an order that is illegal or unconstitutional, that they don't ask questions and they follow that order. And so have Cash Patel and Dan Bongino been loyalists of Trump? Absolutely. 200% never question him. I don't know, maybe Dan's disagree with him on some things, but I've never heard it. It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist if I didn't hear it, but it certainly hasn't been in the press.

And so, but I don't know what's in his heart and his brain. Cash Patel's made it super clear. His only like reason for existence is to do whatever Trump tells him to do. Although on the other hand, he just defied Elon Musk. So that was super surprising. That was beyond surprising because it's not just that Cash Patel defied Elon Musk. Donald Trump has consistently defended what Elon Musk has been up to with the Department of, you know, government efficiency and the firing of all these federal employees.

So in pushing back against Elon Musk, Cash Patel is in a way pushing back against Donald Trump who supports what Elon Musk is doing. Again, did not expect that to happen. And we'll see, you know, when more contentious issues come up what Cash Patel is willing to do. Yeah, I'll tell you, this is really not, I'm gonna tell you two things that are small. is my experience and the silver lining. So when I debated him for an hour, I was expecting someone who was far more irrational. Like foaming at the mouth. Yeah, and like crazed and

conspiracy theories. And he does some, no question, no question, okay, from our perspective. But it was a fine back and forth. You can go watch it on, you know, line somewhere, I presume. And so we totally disagreed. And he was totally for Trump. And I was against him, et cetera. But it was it was a more rational conversation than I expected. It gave me like one, two, couple of percent hope, right? That he's not just going to be wild radical. We'll see. But that's tiny because I only had one hour of interaction with him.

And then the tiny silver lining is if Dan Bongino, I just can't have hope in Cash Patel. But if Dan Bonjino says he will not execute an illegal or unconstitutional order, that would have a lot. lot more weight with MAGA in the right wing. So if some other random Republican or elected politicians said, I'll stand up to Donald Trump, they're gonna get steamrolled. But if Bongino says, no, this is wrong, this is unconstitutional. I mean, it's very, very unlikely, very unlikely. But if he says it, that would have a lot of weight.

Wait, hold on, I want to understand why you think that. Why do you think that would have a lot of weight? And why would you think that Trump's most ardent defenders would side with Bongino and potentially agree with what Bongino is saying in pushing it back against something Donald Trump might want him to do that could be unconstitutional. Okay, I'm actually surprised you're saying that. So let's take an example here. And again, remember, this is tiny, tiny silver lining, right?

You have Representative Joe Blow or pick a real one, Senator Tom Cotton, and he's put in his deputy director of the FBI, and he goes, I don't agree with Trump on this, and I'm going to resign because of this, right? Everybody'd be like in MAGA would be like, good riddance. Okay, don't let the door hit you on their way out. We don't care, you hold zero weight, right? If Bongino says it, or just fill in the blank for any other right wing talk show hosts that they trust to some degree, Patrick, but David, I don't know, whoever, right? And they go, yeah, no, no, I came in loving Trump and everybody knows that. But he gave in order that's illegal or unconstitutional. So I'm sorry, I'm going to have to resign. You don't think that that would affect Maggot.

a lot more than a representative or a senator saying that? Sure, yes, it would definitely be more persuasive than a standard Republican politician doing the same thing, right? I just think that oftentimes, and history is proof of this, whenever those clashes happen between Donald Trump and individuals that he himself appointed in his own administration, you know, Trump somehow manages to get his base to side with him and turn on the the individual disagrees with him. Yeah, so look, of course, because he's the leader, right?

And so if Biden and plus, he's developed a call to personality, of course, right? And it's a historic one. And so, and by that I don't mean like in a derisive way. I mean, people believe in him because they think that he's the first guy who ever fought back against the establishment. You can disagree with that, but that's their earnest belief, right? So that's why they're so animated, like we were animated with Bernie, right? Right? But if Bernie is like going up against like Richie Torres and say, and Richie Torres is like, no, this is illegal. We should definitely help Israel more, right? And Bernie fires them. We're going to side with Bernie. Right. But if it was, and again, fill in the blank, I don't know, Crystal Ball or someone that we like, trust Ryan Grimm, David Serota. And David Serota comes in, you should check out the lever. You should check out all the work that all those folks do. And says, Bernie's asking me to do something illegal or unconstitutional on resigning.

That would have a lot more weight with me. Yeah, okay, I get what you're saying. Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, it really depends on whether or not the public. And in this case, Trump's base trusts the individual and has some credibility, like that individual has to have some credibility with the base in order to have some chance of getting the base to side with them in doing the right thing and pushing back against Trump.

So we'll see what happens. Look, it's difficult to comment on some of these controversial figures getting appointed for these roles because they haven't had a day in the job yet. So we'll see how he does and obviously we'll fill you in as that story develops. Yeah, actually just last thing on that. Yeah, look, again, what we're talking about is a percentage of a percentage of a percentage. It's unlikely to happen in a lot of circumstances. What's way more likely to happen is how they execute the job.

We're all going to see that, right? And all the downsides and the upsides. So if you say, hey, I already hate Dan Bongino and I'm going to judge everything he does, everything he does as 100% wrong and I don't need to look at it, that's where I disagree, okay? Now, if he says or does things that are right, like Cash Patel just did and we're shocked out of our minds, but we will say it is right, okay? Because it's our job to deliver the facts to you. If he does things that are wrong, which is, you know, given the circumstance very, very likely, then we'll come out and say what he did was absolutely wrong and explain

why. You should, that's how you should handle things based on what they actually do rather than what we think of them ahead of time. Well, when we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about where Donald Trump currently stands on the multiple polls that have come out recently about his, you know, job approval, how Americans are feeling about how he's carrying out certain elements of the presidency, including his response to immigration, the economy, and more. We've got that and more when we come back from the break. Don't miss it.

The new BMO-V-I-Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the i.porter to learn more. Americans think Trump is overusing his executive powers. So with all these firings and executive actions, is voter enthusiasm for President Trump changing? You might notice there's a lot of red on the screen and a lot of negatives. Trump is underwater in all these polls. There's net approval rating. Look at this. Minus five points in the CNN poll, minus six points in Gallup, minus seven

points in Ipsos, minus four points of Quinnipiac. Negative, negative, negative, and then negative. Several new polls evaluating President Donald Trump's performance among the American people are out today, and it does appear that the honeymoon is somewhat over for Trump. Even Republicans are really split on how Trump is handling one issue in particular, right, Jank? Yeah, and I am actually shocked by it, so I can't wait to get to that. And on one issue, he's nearly unpopular with Republicans. With Republicans, yes. So this poll was super interesting, but there's a new poll that also has Trump at relatively

popular. So there's lots of twist and turns here, but it's really important. So you see the diversity of opinion within the country and apparently even within Trump voters. So we're going to get into the details of two separate polls just to juxtapose them and the results. The first one being the Reuters Ipsos poll that was out today. Now, according to this poll, Americans think that Donald Trump's first month in office is a mixed bag over all. For instance, here are the key takeaways from the Reuters Ipsos poll. Only 25% of respondents support the United States taking over the Gaza Strip in the Middle East.

And by the way, that actually does include 50% of Republican voters. Also, so let's take a look at that. All right, so this gives you the results of the respondents in regard to resettling Palestinians, aka ethnic cleansing, and essentially the U.S. government taking over Gaza. Among all Americans, only 25% are in favor, 68% are against. 50% of Republicans are in favor, while 46% are against. You look at Democrats, only 9% are in favor, 88% against, and individual. rules who identify as other, meaning independence, non-affiliated voters.

Among those, 19% support the idea of taking over Gaza, Jank. Yeah, real quick on this one, because this was so important, told you on several grounds, it's deeply unpopular to support Israel on Gaza, only 25% of the country agrees. But yet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will walk that plank anyway. Now Donald Trump is in the middle of walking that plank. And Donald Trump, unlike the Democrats, loves to be popular, but yet he's willing to be unpopular if you give him $337 million as the Edelson family has, let alone all the money from APEC, etc. Second of all, told you, independents hate the idea of financing this genocide, down

at 19%. I mean, what Biden and Kamala Harris did was political malpractice to not change their position on that just for their donors' sake. Now the political malpractices on Trump. Finally, the told you is, I told you that the right wing voters didn't want to go into Gaza and put boots on the ground. And there's half of them going, what the hell is this? No, no, we don't want to do that. In fact, Reuters spoke to one Republican lawyer, his name's Willard Moore, and I thought

his quote was interesting. He says, I thought that, meaning taking over Gaza, was a moronic idea because it's infeasible. If you did it, it would cost a lot of money, and at the end, what would you have? Some sort of resort? Like, what good is that for anyone? Yep. I love that comment. And obviously, it would be insanely cruel to displace millions of Palestinians who have the right to that land.

But going back to the Reuters Ipsos poll, obviously the respondents were asked about other areas of the Trump administration thus far. Now, only 32% approve of Trump's handling of inflation, which, look, I get it, the data that we recently delved into in regard to inflation being stickier, unfortunately going up a little bit in recent months relied on data from January. So it's easy to misrepresent that and put that on Trump. But look, in my opinion, it's too early to judge. him too harshly on how he's handling inflation. With that said though, he has been, you know, lowering expectations in regard to lowering inflation in recent weeks, you know, through interviews, through posts on social media. It's almost as if he wanted to run on the issue,

but now that he's in power, doesn't really want to focus on lowering inflation and following through on that specific promise. To which I say, of course. And so this goes to the inflation goes to back to the bubbles. So in a Democratic bubble, pre-election, what do you mean? We have a great economy. The stock market's up, unemployment is low, yeah, inflation is a little bit of a problem. And we're like, yeah, maybe it's a little bit of a problem if you're super rich and live in Washington.

But it's a massive problem in the rest of the country. And if you ignore it, you'll run right into that brick wall, and that's what happened. So now in the Republican bubble, they're like, oh, it's okay, the country loves Doge, and they want to do all these cuts and everything's going great. So we it's handling inflation is not that big a deal and they're gonna be like now you're I don't know what it's gonna take to get through your thick heads all of you guys on the Democratic and Republican side it's a big deal because that affects our lives more than anything else I just wanted to go buy eggs and I was like god damn

it right that's what normal people go through when they go shopping and now Trump is pulling a Biden on that and it's going to be a disaster for him and guys the other part The problem is they don't actually have a plan to help any Americans. They have a plan for trillions and tax cuts. They never had a plan to lower inflation. That's the core of the problem. I want to go to Graphic 4 so we can discuss what the Reuters Ipsos poll found on Americans approval of Doge.

And as you can see by the numbers here, well, a lot of Americans not in favor of it. Among all adults, only 42% are in favor of what the Department of Government efficiency is up to. 53% disapprove, Republicans obviously find it a lot more appealing. So 82% of Republicans approve of what Doge is doing, only 16% disapprove. 9% of Democrats approve, while 90% of Democrats disapprove. And in the other category, you have 38% of respondents saying that they approve of what Doge is doing. So vast majority of Democrats against it, vast majority of Republicans in favor of it, What really might make the difference for someone like Donald Trump is whether the independent voters and their distaste for what's happening in regard to Doge ends up lowering his approval rating overall.

I'll make a quick prediction on that. That number is already low at 42%. Independence, 38% is a really bad number. It's so, hey, is it going to recover? And by the way, we have a poll in the live chat shows live 68 p.m. Eastern every day, Monday through Friday. And we're asking if Trump's numbers are going to go up or not. In the case of Doge, my bold prediction is they will only go down. They will not come back up. Because what's going to happen next is you're going to hear more and more stories of how dumb these cuts were. I don't mean making any cuts as dumb. There's actually a ton of waste in the government. I mean, the way they did this, a blind hatchet, oh, let's just chop things off.

And who cares if they're veterans? who cares if they're working on cancer research, who works like it cares on how we do. And they're gonna, by the way, and that's in a good case scenario. In a bad case scenario, they really screw something up and they don't send Medicaid payments or something. And then you're going to have that number in the teens. So it's not going to ever recover because they're doing it in a way that it's reckless. It's reckless in that they're just kind of wiping out federal workers who are on probation.

So probationary federal workers, they're usually on probation for about two years. And so the idea is these are brand new federal workers, do we really need them anyway? But also keep in mind that federal workers who are promoted are on probation in their new position. And think about it, they've been promoted. Meaning they've done a good job and there was reason for them to be promoted and their individuals who are experienced in the government agencies that they're employed by. And so that's how a lot of these mistakes are being made. It's just this indiscriminate firing of probationary federal.

workers. And by the way, some of those federal workers, and a lot of them apparently are Republicans, and certainly a ton of them are independents. And so now you're losing all the votes of all of their, not just them, but all their families. So this is politically and for both politically and from a policy perspective, clearly the wrong way to go about it. Even if you believe in Doge, this is the dumb way to do it. I want to give you one statement from a Republican that Reuters spoke to. His name is Gerald Dunn. And in regard to the cuts on federal employees, he says, he's just rushing a little bit.

I think the whole thing with the doge is being rushed a little bit. I like what he's doing. But I think a lot of what he says is just BS. When he starts talking about annexing Greenland and annexing Canada, you know that's just smoke. So Gerald Dunn likes the idea of getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I like the idea of getting rid of waste fraud and abuse, and I have no qualms with anybody who says that that exists. I think it does exist within the federal government.

You just have to do a better review and have a better method of rooting out where the waste is instead of indiscriminately firing probationary federal workers. All right, let's go to immigration now. So this is a graphic six where you're going to see how Americans are judging how Donald Trump has handled the issue of immigration. 55% of Americans are in favor of increasing the deportation of people who are in the United States illegally. Among Republicans, that number is 89% among Democrats, much lower at 24.

with 74% disapproving of that idea. And so this is really interesting because while the majority of Americans are in favor of increasing deportations, turns out that Americans are not happy with how Trump is carrying this out. So let's go to Graphics 7 here, where across all respondents in the Reuters Ipsos poll, just over half, 55% supported increasing deportations compared to 41% who are opposed. But Trump's performance on immigration was approved by less than half of respondents at 47%. So what do you think is happening there?

Yeah, so I don't think that the voters were unclear. They wanted to stop illegal immigration. So they said it in every poll, and it was one of the top three issues in every single poll. So they're still sticking with their position. But both on that issue and throughout all these issues, what you're saying, In the polling is, yeah, we asked you to do it, but we didn't ask you to do it in a maniacal way. We didn't ask you to do it in a super draconian way. We didn't ask you to take a hatchet to things that need a scalpel, right?

We didn't ask you to cut everything, we, but like we asked you to cut the things that are problematic. We asked you to control the border. We didn't ask you to drag people out of their houses, et cetera. Now they haven't done that much of it, they've done, they've gone after their undocumented criminals so far mainly and so I'm surprised I'm a little bit surprised that how he's handling immigration is already a little bit unpopular so but that's the good news because it might provide a the polling is good news because it might provide a break in the trump and miss it might not but they might look at it and go oh wow yeah if we go further and we start going after people

who are not criminals this is going to get really unpopular everybody always well that's not true The Democrats, I was about to say everybody overreys their mandate. No, the Republicans overread their mandate. The Democrats underread their mandate. Yeah, and look, I wanna be clear, like, Jank is speculating. Like, we don't know why the respondents to the Reuters poll are unhappy with how Donald Trump is carrying out, you know, the immigration policies, but I should note this. So a federal judge, and we're gonna do a longer story on this in just a minute, but a federal

judge has just blocked Donald Trump's unlawful and harmful immigration raids. at houses of worship. So early on in this administration, you know, we heard from Tom Homan, who is Donald Trump's borders are, that they will, in fact, go into churches or places of worship if necessary in order to carry out deportations. But a federal judge has stepped in and said, no, that actually goes against religious liberty and constitutional protections for religious liberty in America. I'm unclear as to whether the Trump administration is going to appeal or challenge that decision by the federal judge.

But nonetheless, I do think that most people in America get super uncomfortable when you start talking about ICE agents, raiding places of worship in order to carry out deportations. Now, I want to juxtapose this Reuters Ipsos poll, which was pretty harsh toward Trump, to be honest. The respondents at least were harsher toward Trump. This Harvard Harris poll is a little bit different because according to the Harvard Harris poll, more than half of Americans are actually liking what they're seeing from the Trump administration so far. According to the survey of 2,433 registered voters, 52% of the electorate approves of Trump's performance in office thus far. Trump's approval rating is high among specific

key constituencies that he actually struggled with in the past. And that includes independent, 45% of which approve of how Trump is handling his job so far. 47% of women approve, 50% of Hispanics, 47% of Asians, and 50% of suburbanites. Now polling also shows that Trump's approval rating overall sits at 50% starkly different than some Democrats. So Joe Biden was at 34%, Kamala Harris at 39%. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 25%. I know she's real hot within the Democratic Party among Democratic voters, but in regard to her appeal for the rest of the country, she sits at 25%. And Chuck Schumer, shockingly, at 23%. And I only say shockingly because I think it should

be much, much lower. Yeah, so if you're wondering why Donald Trump is still popular in that poll, and remember with polls, they're directionally correct. They're not, you know, always absolutely correct on the specifics. So other polls will have Trump at a little lower number. I haven't seen any at a higher number, but it's in that range, right? And the same thing on the policy issues. So if you look at it just as a range, you might be wondering why is it still so high for Trump,

especially given all the numbers we gave you on the policies and how they're starting to sour on Doge and other things, right? The reason is because the American people are gracious and they give presidents some decent leeway in the beginning of their turn. in the beginning of their terms. Especially because they just voted for them, right? And Trump won the popular vote. And he has the leeway of 52%, as I've told you many times,

because it's one of the most interesting polls I've ever seen in my life. Barack Obama at about the same time in his first term, had an approval rating of 83%. So the entire, almost the entire country was behind him, right? And so, and then obviously that number went down, as they normally do, and then Obama still left fairly popular, Trump doesn't have as much room to go down, but the more he does these unpopular things, the more he'll go down.

The more he doesn't address the number one thing he was elected for inflation and the economy, the more the numbers will go down. I think Trump is an interesting cat. I think that when Bush went down, I said there was no way he was going to recover. He doesn't have the capacity to recover. When Biden went down in the last two years, I said he has no capacity to recover, and that was also true with Trump since he cares so much about being popular and he turns around so quickly and so often, there is some chance he could go, oh, okay, I'm diving, I got to get

back up. But that hasn't happened yet. So far as a person, he's still holding while things are deteriorating underneath him. Right. And so we'll see, you know, again, whether the unpopularity that the American people have consistently communicated in regard to Elon Musk is going to eventually, you know, seep into Donald Trump's approval ratings. We're going to see. But for now, it does appear that, you know, some Americans who voted for him or supported him in the beginning are now starting to question how he's performing in his role as president. We got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour, we're going to talk about that federal judge blocking the Trump administration as it pertains to immigration raids in places of worship.

And then we're also going to talk about how the DOJ has launched an investigation into fraud that's been carried out allegedly by United Health. Fascinating story. Can't wait to share the details on that and more. Come right back.