The Young Turks - The Resolute Mess

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Biden & Trump Admins Warn That Israel Plans On Striking Iran. DOJ Files Charges Against N.Y. Over Sanctuary City Policies. Elon Defends DOGE Amid More Federal Workforce Reductions. Trump Evades Question About When Prices Will Come Down. Hosts: Ana Kasparian 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. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and I'm here to report that maybe me and my team shouldn't have a 9 a.m. production meeting. Because what's the point when the Trump administration and the news cycle associated with the Trump administration is so insane, so chaotic, it is hard to keep up? So we've got so much news to get to today. I just want to thank my team, everyone that you guys don't see on camera, working so hard to get you the news as it breaks. I mean, there's a lot of work that goes into that. And so I just want to give them my thanks for all the hard work they're putting into the show every single day. But without further do. Let's get to one of the big news stories that broke later in the day having to do with a potential hot war with Iran. An exclusive report in the Wall Street Journal today indicates that Israel is in fact planning to strike Iran's nuclear sites, which would be catastrophic for the

Middle East and potentially for the United States. Now, this would of course lead to a massive escalation of war in the Middle East. And here's what we know about this so far. So U.S. intelligence basically had already concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that Israel was planning to strike Iran's nuclear sites. Now, they perceive Iran as significantly weakened as a result of the ongoing war on Gaza, the war that also spread to Lebanon briefly. And so Because of the weakness of Hezbollah, because of Bashar al-Assad, essentially being ousted from power in Syria, all of these allies to Iran have been weakened. All of these proxy groups, they've been weakened. So the idea that Israel has right now is, if we're going to strike, now is the time to do it. But they might be underestimating the military capabilities that Iran has because they might be mistaking. Iran's unwillingness to really fully retaliate against Israel for everything that's happened in this war as weakness. But we don't really know whether or not Iran is really weaken to the

point where Israel could just easily strike their nuclear sites and face no blowback whatsoever or little blowback from Iran. So we're going to get to the details on that in just a minute. But the intelligence analysis concluded, Israel would push the Trump administration to back the strikes, viewing him as more likely to join an attack than now former president, Joe Biden. Now, Joe Biden was terrible on the issue of Israel. We didn't give him much credit because he didn't deserve much credit. One area where he appeared to pump the brakes, at least a little bit, was this notion that Israel should do. strikes in Iran, specifically when it comes to their nuclear sites. Donald Trump, though, in the lead up to the presidential election, made it clear that he felt

totally comfortable with Israel striking the nuclear sites within Iran. But he has kind of changed his tone a little bit. Now, back in November, Israeli defense minister Israel Katz argued that Iran is more exposed than ever to take strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the state of Israel. So U.S. intelligence then went on to produce a subsequent report in the early days of Trump's second term. I know we're all, we're still in the early days, but in the very start of Trump's term, they had produced a second intelligence report in regard to the possibility of Israel carrying out these strikes. And so what they found, U.S. military

support and munitions would likely be needed for an Israeli attack on Iran's heavily fortified nuclear sites, given their complexity, U.S. military officials say. So let's pause there for a second. If Israel carries this out, understand this wouldn't simply be a war between Israel and Iran. This would be a war that would require Americans there in the region, boots on the ground, they would need American military support. Okay, this is based on what U.S. military officials are saying. And of course, it would require weapons that we, American taxpayers, would be paying for, which would really put a damper on Donald Trump's goals of cutting spending.

Because that's what we keep hearing about, right? They want to cut spending in order to justify the tax cuts that he wants to extend and the additional tax cuts he wants to add, which would lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%. Republicans claim they're worried about the national debt. It costs over a trillion dollars a year to service our national debt. So I too am actually a little bit concerned about where we stand with national debt. So this idea that we should continue aiding and abetting,

whatever Israel wants to do in the Middle East with our military and our taxpayer dollars is ludicrous. And really, at this point, I mean, Israel is saying, oh, we've totally weakened Iran. We've totally weakened Iran. Hezbollah, we've wiped out their leaders. Hamas, we've wiped out their leaders. Even some of Iran's military capabilities, Israel claims, they've managed to weaken. Okay, excellent. So why escalate this into a hot war with Iran by targeting and striking their nuclear sites?

And I want to note, by the way, that Iran had stopped enriching uranium, which could be used for a nuclear weapon when they were part of the Iran nuclear deal, the deal that President Barack Obama had negotiated. There were checks to ensure that Iran was following through with their part of the deal. And then Donald Trump came in because his daddy, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he didn't like that deal. It just ripped it up. And look, Donald Trump loves the idea. of reversing anything a Democratic president accomplished or did, whether it be an executive order or in the case of the Iran nuclear deal, it was a deal that former president, Barack Obama, had negotiated with some of our Western allies. It wasn't just between the United States and

Iran. There were European countries involved, and they were also involved in the oversight to ensure that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. When Trump ripped that up, that allowed for Iran to begin enriching uranium again. Now, they claim up and down. They always swear that they are not developing a nuclear weapon. But U.S. intelligence isn't buying it. I think U.S. intelligence has gotten things wrong in the past as well. So I wouldn't just take what U.S. intelligence says at face value.

But I don't doubt that Israel is considering striking Iran's nuclear sites because they've been talking about this incessantly. It's not like they've been trying to hide it. The only thing really standing in their way in their minds was the possibility of the U.S. president not being on board, but they believe that Donald Trump would be on board for this. And as I said earlier, there was some indication that Trump would give them the green light to do it. But now he's changing his tune a little bit. So let's talk about that.

So during the presidential transition, some members of Trump's team considered the viability of Israel launching preventative strikes. That sounds like preemptive war to me, just like what we did in Iraq. Preventative strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, including having U.S. forces join Israeli aircraft in a bombing campaign. But now Trump has allegedly changed his tune, and he claims that he would actually like to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran. And by the way, if he's being honest about that, it should be encouraged. Okay, if he wants the cookies, if he wants us to validate him and,

tell him that his Iran nuclear deal is bigger and better than Obama's. Great. Anything to prevent a hot war with Iran. So he had actually posted this on Truth Social over the last week. He said that reports that the United States working in conjunction with Israel is going to blow Iran into smithereens are greatly exaggerated. And I hope that's true. I hope that is greatly exaggerated because we heard from Donald Trump's own mouth that he was totally comfortable with Israel carrying out these strikes. But now he wants to make a deal. So Iran, luckily, would also like to negotiate a new nuclear deal. So its foreign minister was quoted as saying the following on Iran state media. If the main obstacle for the U.S. is Iran pursuing nuclear

weapons, then that can be resolved. Iran's stance on nuclear weapons is clear. Now, while Iran has amassed a large stockpile of enriched uranium, which could theoretically be used to build a nuclear bomb, they swear they're not developing the weapons. U.S. intelligence last December, though, concluded that the risk of them doing so is heightened, that they've developed so much of this enriched uranium, that if they wanted to carry out the development of a nuclear weapon, they would have the ability to do so. So that has made U.S. intelligence incredibly uneasy. And look, understand what a nuclear weapon does. Obviously, nuclear weapons incredibly dangerous.

The idea of countries who are considered nuclear countries disarming themselves from these nuclear weapons would be better. But that's not going to happen. So when you look at what has transpired with this war against Ukraine, with Russia's invasion into Ukraine, a lot of the decisions that get made in regard to U.S. foreign policy have to do with the fact that we're dealing with a nuclear power. So Israel's a nuclear power. No one complains about that ever, but understand that being a nuclear power also serves as a deterrent. other countries are less likely to attack you, knowing that you are a nuclear power. So Iran having a nuclear weapon could potentially serve as a deterrent to Israel's power in that region. I think that's what Israel's most concerned about. Because it is true that right now Iran is not posing much of a threat to Israel.

Israel has wiped out all the leaders in the Iranian proxy groups, Hezbollah and Hamas. And in regard to Iran's retaliation against Israel for doing strikes on Iranian territory already, I mean, you can just see that they are holding back. They are resisting the urge to engage in a full-blown war. Why are they doing that? I don't think it's from the kindness of their own hearts. I think they understand that Israel is aligned with the United States, which is the greatest military power in the world.

So our relationship with Israel is a deterrent when it comes to aggression from Iran. And really, there is no deterrent when it comes to provocative moves or the possibility of engaging in a hot war that starts with Israel carrying out strikes. So look, we don't know what's going to happen here. This Wall Street Journal exclusive really, really has me concerned. what I have noticed with Donald Trump is, while he might, to some extent, have this instinct to negotiate, to enter peace agreements, seems like he's making some headway with Russia, for instance. He's also very easily swayed by money and by the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, earlier this week, Donald Trump talked about torpedoing the ceasefire deal because

Because some of the Israeli hostages who were returned by Hamas looked emaciated. And his argument was, oh, my, they look terrible. This is terrible. I can't believe they look like they've been starved. Yeah, buddy, they've been starved. Just like all the Palestinians who didn't have access to humanitarian aid because the Israelis were blocking the humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. Do you think it's only going to impact the Palestinians?

Or could it be that that kind of blockade is going to have a negative impact on the Israeli hostages being held captive in Gaza as well. And of course, Donald Trump was paid handsomely by the likes of Miriam Edelson to do the bidding of Israel's government and whatever they want. And so I don't feel at all comfortable that Trump is going to do the right thing in preventing a hot war with Iran. So brace for impact. We'll see how this story develops.

But right now, it is not looking good. There is that tiny silver lining of Trump saying that he wants to do a new nuclear deal. I hope he does. But make no mistake, Israel's not interested in a nuclear deal. Israel and Netanyahu in particular is the main reason why Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal to begin with. So we're going to see what kind of leadership we can expect from Donald Trump when it comes to a very specific type of foreign policy pertaining to Israel and what the Israeli government wants. happened, but we're going to give you the information that we know at the moment. Let's get

into it. We're here today because we have filed charges against the state of New York. We have filed charges against Kathy Hochle. We have filed charges against Latisha James and Mark Schroeder, who is with DMV. This is a new DOJ, and we are taking steps to protect Americans. As you know, we sued Illinois and New York didn't listen. President Trump has directed this to stop. And if you don't comply with federal law, we will hold you accountable. We did it to Illinois, strike one.

Strike two is New York. And if you are a state not complying with federal law, you're next, get ready. I think it's become abundantly clear what the main agenda for the new Attorney General Ham Bondi will be in the Trump administration. They've already sued the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois last week. And as you just heard from Attorney General Bondi, they're now suing Kathy Hochel, the governor of New York and the state attorney general Letitia James

over the state's sanctuary laws. Now, New York's New York City's sanctuary laws all but stop the city's police and jails from helping ICE deport undocumented immigrants, according to the New York Times. And communications between the city's Department of Corrections and ICE are very limited. And part of the reason why is in sanctuary cities, it's important to know that these laws really do vary depending on which city or which state we're talking about. So in the case of New York, if someone is arrested, for instance, they're not going to ask for the immigration status of the individual who's been arrested. And so that does have an impact on the ability for ICE to target individuals who have committed serious crimes and deport them

so they're no longer in the country because it would require communication between local authorities and federal authorities who work with ICE. Now, the city can only honor ICE detainer requests for those convicted of violent or serious crimes, though requests also require a warrant from a federal judge. And ICE also cannot arrest people at state, city, and municipal courthouses in New York, or enter a city building without a judicial warrant. So these are all seen as major obstacles to detaining and deporting, you know, what the Trump administration considers, violent, dangerous, undocumented immigrants who should be sent away deported. Now, ICE officers can still arrest non-citizens, but state laws have eroded the practice of

transferring jailed immigrants to ICE custody, according to the New York Times. So that's the main reason why the Trump administration is pursuing this lawsuit, in addition to the fact that this essentially sends a message to other sanctuary cities and states. So they essentially end their practice of protecting undocumented immigrants and essentially go along with what ICE and the federal government is attempting to do here in mass deporting individuals or deporting individuals who have committed violent crimes. For example, in the 12 months from June 22 to June 23, the correction department got 201 detainer request from ICE, but they only complied and transferred 10. 10 people. Similarly, the police department received 109 detainer requests from ICE, but transferred zero. None. None of them were transferred to federal officials for deportation. So this has obviously greatly frustrated members of the Trump administration. Pam Bondi made clear that she was

going to pursue these types of lawsuits. And that's exactly what she's doing here. And look, Through the courts, we are going to learn what kind of power the states have and what kind of power the federal government has in superseding these state laws. But one other thing that I will say, you know, the federal government has essentially fumbled on this issue of reforming our immigration laws. And that needs to change. We can't have different policies, depending on who's in charge in the executive branch. There's no, you know, there's no uniformity. You know, you have the Biden administration, which did drop the ball in immigration. You got to keep it real.

When you have one month, the month of December, 2023, where 300,000 people come into the country, that's insane. And obviously, that is going to overwhelm our immigration system. It's going to overwhelm the courts when it comes to judges, listening. to and deciding on asylum cases, it's not fair to legitimate asylum seekers. I mean, that is definitely a broken system. But then you enter the Trump administration and you have a completely different treatment toward immigrants, totally different treatment towards sanctuary cities.

And really, this is, in my opinion, the breakdown of our system of checks and balances. We have a totally broken Congress that has no interest in actually accomplishing a damn thing. They're so obsessed with their own partisanship and unwillingness to negotiate that you can't get any immigration reform. So the lack of uniformity from one administration to another is a problem. It's a huge problem. And we need to have a better system in place So it's not up to the states to decide what they're going to do about a federal government issue. We'll see how these lawsuits play out. But I have no doubt that aside from adjudicating what states can and can't do in the courts,

this is all about really scaring some of the other states, other cities that have pursued sanctuary laws. And I want to say one other thing. Look, I do not agree with sanctuary cities and states harboring violent criminals. who have been convicted of violent crimes, if they receive a detainer from ICE, they should follow through on those detainers as it pertains to violent criminals. However, there's the other side of sanctuary laws

that I think needs to be addressed, and it's the good side of sanctuary laws. Sanctuary laws protect undocumented immigrants who have been victimized by crime, by criminals, who might have been victimized by other undocumented individuals who are committing violent crimes, they need to feel comfortable going to the authorities to report these crimes without any fear of punishment or deportation. And if you don't have those protections and they don't feel comfortable going to the authorities to report these criminals or these crimes,

well then those individuals who are committing those crimes will be free to commit more crimes. They will be free to victimize more people and there will be no justice for the undocumented individual who didn't feel comfortable going to the authorities because he or she didn't have the protection that is provided by current sanctuary laws. So that's something else to keep in mind. I think it's really difficult to address these issues because everyone wants to think about it as good or bad, black or white. But these are complex issues. And I do fear that the way the Trump administration is approaching this issue has some downsides that they haven't really considered. All right. For now, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about Donald Trump's joint presser with Elon Musk yesterday. It was quite a show. So we'll get to that and more. Don't miss it. Special shout out to Bart, who's playing the kind of music I like.

It really does get me hyped up for the show. But I'm not hyped up about is all of the content that we've got to get into. So with that in mind, let's get to the big press conference that Elon Musk had with Donald Trump to defend Doge. If you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, and then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have there will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy. Well, I mean, who elected you, Elon? I mean, did you think about what you were saying as you were saying it? Because you weren't elected. And it seems like Elon Musk has a bigger role in the federal government than Donald Trump does.

What you just watched was just a snippet of a joint press conference that was taking place in the Oval Office yesterday with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. You see Trump sitting while Elon Musk is standing and addressing the reporters who were in the room. It was incredible to watch that. But look, there is the substance of what happened yesterday, which I'm going to address. but then there's also the optics and the politics of it. And I want to be honest and I want to preface the rest of the segment by saying, look, you have to consider that most Americans are not in the weeds of everything that the Trump administration is doing, all the cuts that Elon Musk is engaging in.

A lot of people's political beliefs and views, the way that they evaluate an administration, is based on optics. And when you compare what you're seeing from the Trump administration in regard to transparency to what we saw with Biden and the fact that he was like nowhere to be seen, he very rarely gave press conferences. Well, it's going to appear like the Trump administration is far more transparent with the American people, right? It's about the optics, okay? Now, is it actual transparency? We're going to get it to that in just a minute. But I think politically holding that press conference probably worked to Donald Trump's benefit because it gave the appearance of transparency.

And so we're going to get to all of the different things that Elon Musk said in the context of this press conference. But before we do, let me set up the whole point of the press conference to begin with. And we're going to compare Donald Trump's administration to what, Bill Clinton did when it came to cutting down on federal government bureaucracy. So the press conference was meant to tout Trump's latest executive order. There's literally been hundreds of them, so it's kind of hard to keep up. But he did sign a new executive order, which by the way, was not made public until after this press conference with Elon Musk and Donald Trump

had ended. It's called the Workforce Optimization Initiative. So the text of this executive order ordered agency heads to pursue large-scale workforce reductions and gave Musk's team an expanded role in overseeing any subsequent hiring at certain agencies. So look, there is a lot of panic among the left in regard to Trump's efforts in cutting down on federal workers or federal bureaucracy. And I understand that, especially because it's being done in what appears to be a haphazard way by a literal billionaire who's literally the richest person in the world. He's got conflicts of interest. He has access to our private information, social security numbers, bank accounts, things like that. That should make you uneasy. However, the idea or the notion of cutting down

on federal government bureaucracy shouldn't make you uneasy. That has happened before. And it happened to a large extent under the Clinton administration. It's just that the Clinton administration was far more methodical about it. And it worked to the benefit of the American people. So let me get to the details on that. So in the 1990s, he wanted to balance the budget. And he did balance the budget. Bill Clinton actually was the last president who managed to get the economy, the U.S. economy in an area where we have a surplus as opposed to debt, as opposed to a massive deficit. So we had an economic surplus under Clinton, and he had to make some hard decisions, including cutting down on the number of federal employees.

Clinton reduced the federal government's workforce by more than 377,000 employees as part of an initiative called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Now, again, I just want to reiterate. He did this very differently from what we're seeing from Donald Trump. So as a result of the job cuts and his decision to raise taxes, the U.S. federal budget had a surplus between 1998 and 2001, whereas right now we have a $36.22 trillion debt. Okay, so we are not in good shape right now. But there were notable differences in how Clinton did it. So let's talk about how Clinton did it, how it differs from Donald Trump. So you can kind of understand the differences here. So in March of 1993, just two. months into his presidency, Clinton announced the creation of the national performance review led by his vice president Al Gore. The review lasted six months and made 384 recommendations to improve the federal bureaucracy. There was no review with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And you

don't have the vice president carrying out a review. You literally have a billionaire who has multiple businesses in the tech sector making these decisions on his own. And I think what Elon Musk has chosen to focus on says a lot about what the priorities are. And we're going to get to that in a minute. But anyway, the implementation of those policies took a lot longer in the Clinton administration. Clinton ended up signing a bill, by the way. So Congress was also involved in cutting down on the bureaucracy. So he signed a bill in 1990. that offered federal workers a buyout of $25,000. And so what was the end result of that?

Well, in a 2013 appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former National Performance Review Leader, her name was Elaine Carmark, said the agency actually ended up cutting 426,200 jobs by September of the year 2000. But again, what we're seeing from Trump isn't this methodical approach where we're, you know, we're looking at a review. Are these workers important? Are there workers that maybe we can lay off? We don't necessarily need them. There's no review happening. It's just this chaotic, ham-handed approach. And it's concerning because you do need to differentiate between the federal workers who are necessary, who are skilled, who we need in order for our government to function appropriately.

and individuals that we might not necessarily need. Individuals that we might be able to cut back on, okay? So Musk opened his statements with the usual skewering of government bureaucracy and how it's costing Americans way too much money. Let's take a look at that. And they're also going to address the deficit. So we've got a $2 trillion deficit. And if this, if we don't do something about this deficit,

country's going bankrupt. I mean, it's really astounding that the, The interest payments alone on the national debt exceed the Defense Department budget, which is shocking. Because we've got a lot, we spend a lot of money on defense. But if that just keeps going, we're essentially going to bank up the country. So what I really were saying is like it's not optional for us to reduce the federal expenses. It's essential. It's essential for America to remain solvent as a country.

And it's essential for America to have the resources necessary to provide things to its citizens. and not simply be servicing vast amounts of debt. So I'm going to give Elon Musk credit for what he said in this clip. Okay, I'm not going to give him credit for everything he said. So bear with me if you're upset that I'm giving him any credit at all. But the point that he's making about how much it costs to service our debt is absolutely true. So I looked into this just to make sure that I have my facts, right? Last year, CNBC actually published this piece in September titled interest payments on the national debt top $1 trillion as deficit swells.

So they found this is insane. This is a lot, right? This is a problem. They reported that the government had laid out $1.049 trillion on debt service up 30% from the same period a year. ago and part of a projected $1.158 trillion in payments for the full year. Substracting the interest the government earns on its investments, net interest payments have totaled $843 billion. So this is a legitimate concern. And so cutting back on spending is, in my opinion, not a bad goal to have. The question is, where do you cut the spending? I am not interested in having a conversation about cutting things like the social safety net. I'm not interested in doing a way with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is literally a cop on Wall Street, big banks, financial institutions, payday lenders. They received their funding not from American taxpayers,

But specifically from the Federal Reserve, they received $700 million, which sounds like a lot of money, except it's not, when you consider the fact that the CFPB uses that money to conduct investigations into Wall Street firms, big banks, financial institutions, and since that government agency was founded in 2011, they have returned $21 billion to Americans who had been defraud. by these financial institutions. The idea that doing away with a federal agency that barely costs us anything and returns billions of dollars to Americans is ridiculous to me. Elon Musk in that clip talked about how much money we spend on the Pentagon. Fascinating that cutting the Pentagon budget wasn't priority number one for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. They claim they're going to focus on that soon.

But again, the fact that the first thing they cut was USAID or USAID, which accounts for less than 1% of our federal budget, kind of tells you what their priorities really are. Now, let's get to the next clip because it is interesting that Elon Musk claims that they have identified so much waste, tens of billions of dollars in waste. But did they really? So I'm going to go to the next clip. When we come back, I'll explain a little more about what's really going on and whether what you're hearing from Milan Musk is true. Are you concerned at all that some of the cuts or that shutting that agency altogether may lead to diseases or other bigger problems starting in other countries that then come to the United States? Yeah. So that's an interesting example. So that's something where we work closely with the state department and Secretary Rubio. And we have, for example, turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for HIV prevent prevention. Yes, correct. And we are moving fast, so we all make mistakes, but we'll also fix the mistakes very quickly.

So the method that Elon Musk has used in regard to these federal agencies is similar to how he has managed X after he purchased Twitter. He just fired a bunch of people. Twitter was malfunctioning as a result of that. And he hired additional employees as a result. And look, that's fine for a social media platform. Right? That's not the end of the world. But it's not fine when it comes to government agencies that are actually carrying out services, either on behalf of the American people or in the case of USAID. He referenced AIDS prevention or treatment, malaria, stuff like that in countries, African countries, for instance. Okay, if we cut too much, it's okay, we'll reinstate the funding. But when you cut the funding, the harm is already done. Obviously, takes time to reinstate the funding. It takes time to look at everything you've cut and determine what you want to reinstate. And as you're doing that, real harm is being caused to people

in the countries that we had committed to helping on very specific projects. So I'll give you an example. The New York Times has recently reported on some research that was being done by a scientist in Africa in regard to AIDS prevention, HIV prevention. And so she was testing out doing a trial of these vaginal rings that help to prevent the transmission of HIV and AIDS. She's in the middle of this trial. Okay. These women like basically put their lives on the line because you don't know what kind of adverse effects might arise from this. This is a clinical trial, right? But they put their lives on the line to do this because they trust the United States.

We had developed a relationship with these communities. Suddenly, the fundings pulled, and she was told, this researcher was told, don't even tell them what's going on. Just leave them in the dark about it. But she found that to be unethical. So she explained, you know, this program is ending. The funding has been cut. And so I need to let you know what's going on.

You need to take out these rings and the clinical trial is over. So damage is already done. guys. When it comes to the federal government, freezing funding as it pertains to federal grants, take a look at what's happening to these health clinics in rural West Virginia. We're talking about a red state. We're talking about rural Americans who have lost access to health care because these clinics that were relying on federal grants are no longer receiving those grants. Real damage is already being done. I just want to be clear. I actually have no problem doing a real audit, a real review of where tax dollars are being spent

and deciding, hey, you know what, this program is wasteful. This is not a good investment of U.S. taxpayer money. Let's cut this program or that program. But to come in and just willy-nilly dismantle an entire federal government agency and say, I don't know, if we made mistakes, maybe we're going to reinstate the money later is insane. The other thing I want to say is he overstated how much government waste the Department of Government Efficiency has found so far. So an analysis done by the Washington Post notes that Elon Musk claims that they found tens of billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. He suggested that it could be as much as $500 billion when you get down to it. Well, the president,

numbers do not come anywhere close to matching the figures posted on the Doge account on X. So they added up the figures posted, taking most of them at face value, because, I mean, what else are you going to do? Elon Musk has failed to really provide any documentation or proof or evidence of what he's up to. But the Washington Post added up the numbers that Elon Musk himself cited on X. The numbers add up to about $6 billion a year, though, 4 billion comes from a proposed cap on national institutes of health research, overhead payments to universities, medical centers, and other grant recipients. When we're talking about cutting government waste, we're talking about the fact that the Pentagon has not passed a single audit.

Seven audits in a row, the Pentagon has failed. When we're talking about government waste, We're talking about funding wars that other countries are waging against other countries. Like, that's what we're talking about when it comes to government waste. Yes, there were definitely wasteful programs in USAID. I'm no problem cutting those programs, especially when there are programs that make it clear that that funding was being used as a slush fund for the CIA to try to topple governments that we don't like. That's not soft power. Okay, I'm not interested in that.

But again, most of the focus that we've seen from the Trump administration so far has been on USAID overall, in general, cutting back funding for the National Institutes of Health. Like, what are we doing here? All right. So Musk also claims that he has been very transparent. Let's take a look. The White House says that you will identify and excuse yourself from any conflicts of interest. that you may have, does that mean that you are in effect policing yourself? What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that there is accountability and transparency? No.

Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions, we post our actions to the Doge handle on X and to the Doge website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been, I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Dojo organization. But if there is a conflict of interest when it comes to you yourself, for instance, you've received billions of dollars in federal contracts, when it comes to the Pentagon, for instance, which the president I know has directed you to look into.

Are you policing yourself in that? Is there any sort of accountability check and balance in place that would provide any transparency for the American people? Well, all of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything, you say like, wait a second, hey, Elon, that seems like that seems like Maybe that's, you know, there's a conflict there. I thought like people are going to be shy about saying that. They'll say it immediately.

Well, you have received billions of dollars in federal government contracts and you are now in a position of essentially picking and choosing winners and losers in regard to federal government contracts. Are you going to cut your own access to those federal grants? Just curious about that. Also, in reality, Musk's team is operating in deep secrecy. I know that there's the appearance of transparency, and that's where the politics come in. That's where press conferences like this are actually well played politically speaking.

But there's the optics, and then there's the reality. Musk himself is a special government employee, which the White House has said means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public. Also worth mentioning that one of Elon's hackers actually did, in fact, gain reading and editing access to the Treasury Department's payment systems. That was a big story reported by the New York Times today. In a nine-page affidavit, Joseph G.O.E. The third, Deputy Commissioner of Transformation and Modernization at the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, states that Doge Staffer, Mark Ellis, was mistakenly given read and write permissions

over part of the Treasury Department's payment system. Those permissions were promptly corrected, and a subsequent review found that he did not modify the existing Treasury database when he had access, according to the affidavit. But look, everyone was told that, no, no, no, no one's getting any editing or writing abilities here or access here. Just read-only access, that's it.

Read-only access is bad enough. Okay, because, again, the conflict of interest when it comes to Elon Musk is definitely at play here. What do tech executives like more than anything? What do they rely on when it comes to people using their social media platforms? Data. They collect our data. That data is very valuable for their businesses.

Not only do they collect that data for their own businesses, they also sell that data to third parties. Data is the most valuable thing that the tech industry wants. And the fact that we have Elon Musk, who no one elected, having this kind of access to our personal information is a problem. You might agree, and I do agree, with the notion that we need to cut spending as it pertains to our federal government bureaucracy. But there's a way to do this that is fair to the American people, that is methodical to ensure that we are maintaining important federal government workers so our federal government actually functions appropriately. And I just don't feel that that's what's happening right now. But everyone was told, you know, just this is great. This is great. I mean, look, it seems like we have a federal government, an executive branch that's actually doing something now. Whereas previously, with the Biden administration, we barely heard from him.

We heard more from Anthony Blinken than we heard from the president of the United States when Biden was in charge. Finally, Musk, along with Trump, keep spreading inaccurate information through their transparency. Let me give you a taste of that. Ms. Musk, you said on X, that an example of the fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms was sent to Gaza. But after fact check this, apparently it goes in Mozambique and the program was to protect them against HIV. So can you correct the statements? It wasn't sent to Hamas, actually. It was sent to Mozambique, which makes sense why condoms was sent there.

And how can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct so we can trust what you say? Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's going to about a thousand. I mean, any, you know, we will make mistakes, but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes. So, you know, if the, I'm not sure we should be sending $15 million with the condoms to anywhere, frankly. Okay, well, look, yes, people make mistakes, but this isn't X, this isn't a social media platform. We're playing with people's lives. And while, again, there might be some.

good ideas, these ideas are not being executed well, and we're being told that they are when they aren't. Okay, so that's the reality of the situation. Again, the priorities here are genuinely questionable, especially coming from a party that has, in my opinion, pretended like they wanted to do something about the waste in the Pentagon, pretended like they really wanted to take big pharma to task. Did they though? Did they want to take big pharma at a task? Because if they do want to save some money, a really great way to do that, great way to start is to, you know, allow our Medicare system to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices. I'm not talking about price fixing. I'm simply talking to

about allowing our Medicare system to negotiate for lower drug prices. That would save American taxpayers quite a bit of money. But that's not a priority, is it? I haven't heard anyone in the Trump administration talk about the fact that pharmaceutical companies are not only price gouging Americans who are not on Medicare, but they're also, also price gouging American citizens who are paying their taxes into the Medicare system because Medicare can't negotiate for lower drug prices. They just have to accept what the pharmaceutical industry wants to charge for these drugs. How exactly is that supposed to fall under the category of a free market capitalistic system?

In a free market, you're supposed to be able to negotiate. Instead, the system is rigged against the American people, against the taxpayers. So we get price gouged when we need our medication and we get price gouged again with having our taxpayer money essentially stolen by these price gougers through the Medicare system. It's disgusting. So get your priorities straight. Are you serious about cutting government waste or are you not? Because so far, to me, it appears all of the focus is on retaliating against government agencies and government programs that the right wing doesn't like. And when you take all those programs and put them together, they barely make a dent in our federal budget. We got to take a break. We'll be right back. I got to read this comment from Velvet Goldmine because it's such a great point. It's in regard to Elon Musk bringing his son X to that press conference, which I had no problem with, personally. I thought it was cute, whatever, it doesn't bother me. But Velvet Goldmine makes a really

good point. If a woman had brought her kid into that meeting, they would have used it as a reason for why women aren't fit for the workplace. I have no doubt about that. I have no no doubt about that because I haven't personally experienced it, but I have seen how other women have been treated in the workplace if child care fell through and they have no option but to take their kid into work with them. And it's just, yeah, I mean, if we're going to be okay with it when a father does it, and I am okay with it when a father does it, we should treat women the same. That's my take on that. All right, well, we got to do an economic update because things are not looking good when it comes to inflation.

You said the tariff is a beautiful word. There are some signs in the markets, consumer confidence, that they're a little jittery. So if all goes to plan, when do you think families would be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy, or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better? Remember when Trump claimed he would lower inflation on day one? a ridiculous exaggeration. But now it seems he's just totally forgetting about it. We've become a rich. Look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because

we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing, like $200 billion with Canada. We owe $300. We have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let that happen. So there's Donald Trump responding to a question about inflation by pivoting to tariffs, which could exacerbate inflation, doesn't seem like ending inflation on day one was really the priority to begin with. And we're now seeing some new economic data that does not bode well for Americans who have been really crushed with higher grocery prices, higher energy prices over the last few years. Turns out inflation has been rising under Donald Trump, which is a far cry from the bold promises he made on the campaign trail.

Take a look. Starting on day one of my new administration, we will end inflation and we will make America affordable again because the prices are too high. The prices are too high. So when I win, I will immediately bring prices down starting on day one. We will end Kamala's war on American energy and we will drill baby. drill. We're going to drill. Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again. We're going to make it affordable again. Starting on day

one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again. Starting on day one of the Trump administration, we will end inflation and we will make America great again. We will drive prices down and we'll drive them down very fast. alert, he did not drive prices down really fast. The opposite has happened. But look, I want to be fair because when it comes to things like the cost of eggs, okay, avian flu is obviously the reason why we have an egg shortage. And since we have a shortage, we have limited supply, we still have demand. That's going to drive prices up. Donald Trump is not responsible for that. Now, you can definitely, definitely ding him for the fact that he said he was going to end inflation

on day one. That was a ridiculous claim to make because there are multiple factors that play into why inflation is an issue to begin with. And it really depends on which sector of the economy you're talking about. But let's get into the details in regard to the latest economic data, which the markets certainly did not like. So U.S. inflation did rise to 3% in January. So that is the highest spike in inflation in seven months. And to really kind of put things in perspective, inflation was at its worst in 2020 when it hit 9% at one point. So 3% inflation isn't like catastrophic compared to what we experienced in 2022. However, the current 3% inflation rate represents overall inflation with energy and food prices included. And to be sure,

energy and food prices have gone up. Let's start with groceries. Grocery prices climbed 0.5% compared with the previous month or 1.9% on a yearly basis. That was driven in large part by a nationwide egg shortage caused by an outbreak of avian influenza or bird flu, which has pushed prices up 15.2% over the past four weeks. Now, since last year, egg prices are up 53%. It was the largest monthly increase in egg prices since June of 2015, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the total increase in grocery prices since December. So avian flu and the way it's impacting egg prices is obviously distorting overall inflation as it pertains to grocery prices. But still, I mean, the other thing to keep in mind, right now the Federal Reserve wants to lower inflation to 2%.

That is their target. That is their goal. That doesn't mean that the prices are going to come down. That means that prices will continue overall, the consumer price index, overall will continue going up little by little 2%. That is the goal. So that's a little disastrous. Okay, so if anyone's expecting prices to come down, the price of eggs might come down, obviously. when bird flu is over, but overall prices, what you're spending overall on groceries is likely to continue going up. Now let's look at energy. Gasoline prices also rose another 1.8% over the course of the month. And in a story that I covered last week, I talked a little bit about how Donald Trump's grand plan was to pressure Saudi Arabia to drill for more oil, thus increasing the global supply of oil, you know, the ideas that that would lower prices. The United States is

already the top producer of fossil fuels, also the top exporter of fossil fuels. So any notion that we are not energy independent, it's a ridiculous talking point because no matter what we do, will never be energy independent. We are part of the OPEC plus cartel. That's the global economy of oil producing countries. We have not nationalized our natural. resources, these natural resources belong to oil companies, you know, multinational corporations that are looking to sell the fossil fuels to the highest bidder. So we could drill even more and we still won't be energy independent because we don't own the energy. Private companies do. And Saudi Arabia is not interested in drilling for more oil because doing so ends up hurting

their economy. So part of Trump's big economic plan is not playing out the way he expected it to. So Trump is also getting a lot of heat from the left over the cost of eggs. Please don't be ridiculous. Okay, you guys provided cover and defense for Biden because he wasn't responsible for the spike in egg prices. So don't turn around and do the same thing to Trump. But I think we should look at the core consumer price index, which removes volatile. food and energy prices. And when you look at that, yeah, inflation's still a problem. Core CPI also showed little improvement. It rose 0.4% from December or 3.3% on a year-over-year basis, both higher than economists expected. The monthly increase in core prices was the highest since April of

23. And I mean, what would an American economic update be if not for an increase in the price of housing? So shelter prices also increase 0.4% over the month or 4.4% on a year-over-year basis. And among other categories to increase were airline fares and hotel rates, boy don't I know it, used cars and trucks as well as automobile insurance rose with prices up about 2% from December. So this information, all this data, has reinforced the Federal Reserve's decision to hold off on lowering interest rates, which is something that Donald Trump desperately wants them to do. He wants them to lower interest rates. But the Fed wants inflation at 2% as opposed to 3%. And interest rates are currently hovering around 4.25% to 4.5%.

So when asked if rate hikes are likely in the near future, former Fed economist Jonathan Wright said a rate increase from the central bank is at least as likely as a rate cut in the near term. And so far, the Federal Reserve has signaled that they are not going to cut rates anytime soon because they see inflation rising again. So let's talk a little bit about the uncertainty, as we all know, There is a lot of uncertainty in the economy right now. Donald Trump loves to talk about tariffs, but we don't really know if he's serious about implementing the tariffs that he's announcing. Oftentimes he announces tariffs without any real intention of implementing the percentages that he's talking about. It's really like a public negotiating tool that he likes to use at his disposal, but it does end up shaking up the markets. And so that has led to uncertainty and that uncertainty along with,

these data points in regard to inflation led to the markets opening with a dip this morning. So the S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ all opened with a noticeable dip this morning. And here's what White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said after getting asked by a Fox reporter about Donald Trump's plans and when we can expect inflation to go down. How long will it take to cycle through? get some of the actual prices that Americans are paying to come down? The prices at the store and at the grocery pump across the board, sure. Well, the president is doing everything he can, obviously, to reduce the cost of living

crisis in this country as quickly as possible. That's why he signed a litany of executive orders across the board. In the first couple of weeks here, he declared a national energy emergency. He committed to cutting 10 regulations for every new one on the book. As you know, working for a Fox business-related outlet. Deregulation and energy independence are huge drivers of reducing inflation in this country. And I think Americans can be assured by the results President Trump had in his first term when again, inflation was 1.4% when he left office.

Is it months or is it a year? And will Americans have the patience to wait for it? I don't have a timeline. You don't have a timeline. Interesting. Well, last month, Vice President J.D. Vance also tempered expectations related to consumer prices dropping. He said, quote, Rome wasn't built in a day. Vance told CBS News last month explaining that it's going to take a little bit of time for grocery prices to decline. Look, this isn't shocking. Politicians love to promise the moon and the stars when they're campaigning and then they immediately lower expectations after they are in power. And so I expected this. But the question is, what's the

plan because if the big plan was to produce more oil to lower energy prices and that would have a domino effect on everything else, that's not playing out at all at the moment. And with inflation increasing and with interest rates remaining where they're at, it doesn't look like there's going to be relief for Americans anytime soon. We got to take a break. We'll be right back. Thank you.