Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Trump, Elon & DOGE-20 Incredible Days Cause Dems' Heads to Explode

Transcript

Trump, Elon & DOGE-20 Incredible Days Cause Dems' Heads to Explode · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Good Monday morning.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is verdict was Centator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you, Senator.
0:05
Speaker 2: It was a sleeper of a Super Bowl is just
0:08
Speaker 2: say the least. It wasn't that great of a game,
0:11
Speaker 2: but all of America I'm sure was watching.
0:13
Speaker 1: Well.
0:13
Speaker 3: It was a blowout and and congratulations to the Eagles
0:17
Speaker 3: for for a dominating night. All of the hopes of
0:20
Speaker 3: Kansas City having a three peet those were dashed almost
0:24
Speaker 3: from the from the kickoff. The Eagles dominated the game.
0:27
Speaker 3: It was uh, it was impressive to watch, although I
0:30
Speaker 3: got to say, the guy on that field sure didn't
0:32
Speaker 3: look like Patrick Mahomes, not the one we've uh uh
0:35
Speaker 3: we we we've come to expect and and and listen.
0:39
Speaker 3: The Eagles were expected to come in with a run game.
0:41
Speaker 3: Their run game didn't materialize, but Kansas City spent so
0:44
Speaker 3: much time trying to stop the run game that that
0:47
Speaker 3: that kind of short and short and medium pass game
0:49
Speaker 3: was there the entire night. And and they owned the game. Uh,
0:54
Speaker 3: from from the beginning to the end.
0:55
Speaker 1: It was. It was truly incredible.
0:57
Speaker 2: What was also crazy was the fact that we had
1:00
Speaker 2: the President United States of America that was a center
1:03
Speaker 2: point of being at this game and the media didn't
1:05
Speaker 2: like it. They're having a melt down about that, as
1:07
Speaker 2: they're also melting down about Doge.
1:09
Speaker 3: Well, that's right, and we're going to talk about that.
1:11
Speaker 3: So I had dinner with President Trump Friday night along
1:15
Speaker 3: with a number of other Republican senators. We're going to
1:17
Speaker 3: talk about that. We're also going to talk about Doge.
1:19
Speaker 3: We are twenty days into the administration, less than three weeks,
1:24
Speaker 3: and the media and the Democrats are losing their mind
1:27
Speaker 3: over Elon Musk's efforts to cut government spending. We're going
1:31
Speaker 3: to break that down. We're going to talk about some
1:33
Speaker 3: of the egregious abuses that are being uncovered, but we're
1:36
Speaker 3: also going to walk you through what to expect how
1:39
Speaker 3: this is going to play out in the days and
1:40
Speaker 3: weeks ahead. We're also going to talk to you about
1:43
Speaker 3: the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which which is
1:49
Speaker 3: being ordered to halt all of their efforts right now
1:53
Speaker 3: and being ordered to halt that by their new acting head.
1:56
Speaker 3: We're going to break that down for you as well.
1:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, really important story and it's going to affect a
1:59
Speaker 2: lot of people lives. Want to tell you real quick
2:01
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3:22
Speaker 2: So let's just enjoy for a moment just how different
3:26
Speaker 2: this Super Bowl was than a year ago from a
3:28
Speaker 2: political standpoint. Uh, the President went, a lot of other
3:32
Speaker 2: conservatives showed up, other elected officials were there. Uh, the
3:36
Speaker 2: media was covering Donald Trump. He was talking at the
3:39
Speaker 2: before the super Bowl and during the flight and tweeting
3:43
Speaker 2: out about the government working for you, and Doge and
3:46
Speaker 2: and one of those.
3:47
Speaker 3: Uh.
3:48
Speaker 2: At CNN, Brian and Skelpter came out with an interesting
3:51
Speaker 2: tweet I think you saw it as well, where he said,
3:55
Speaker 2: I think think about it. A year ago, you could
3:57
Speaker 2: go days without seeing or thinking about Joe Biden. Now
4:01
Speaker 2: you're lucky if you can go hours without thinking about
4:04
Speaker 2: President Trump. His point is he's controlling everything, and now
4:10
Speaker 2: he says the Super Bowl is also the Trump Bowl.
4:13
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing to watch this melt down.
4:16
Speaker 3: Well, listen, the media is melting down. The Democrats are
4:19
Speaker 3: melting down. I gotta tell you. This past week I
4:23
Speaker 3: enjoyed a number of times turning to my Democrat colleague
4:26
Speaker 3: and colleagues and just dead padding. Well, three years and
4:30
Speaker 3: fifty weeks to go.
4:34
Speaker 1: What's the response, Because I mean some of them you're friendly.
4:36
Speaker 3: With that, they start twitching with no affect at all.
4:43
Speaker 3: I just just say those words, and I've yet to
4:45
Speaker 3: see a Democrat who doesn't start shaking at that thought.
4:49
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, there has never been in the history
4:52
Speaker 3: of a country a two weeks like this. And as
4:56
Speaker 3: I mentioned, I had dinner with President Trump on Friday.
4:59
Speaker 3: We had a retre treed of Republican senators down in
5:01
Speaker 3: Florida and we went to forty three of us went
5:04
Speaker 3: and had dinner with President Trump and mar A Lago
5:06
Speaker 3: Friday night. I got to tell you, the President was
5:09
Speaker 3: in in great mood. He was happy, he was energized,
5:15
Speaker 3: and and there's never been shock and awe. You know. Actually,
5:20
Speaker 3: I have a theory about this, and I have a
5:23
Speaker 3: theory about the speed and volume of what's coming, which
5:29
Speaker 3: is that the media, I believe has a specific quantum
5:32
Speaker 3: of outrage. And that quantum I call the arsenic quantum
5:37
Speaker 3: of outrage. Now what does that mean? Ben If you
5:40
Speaker 3: remember back to the first term of George W. Bush
5:43
Speaker 3: in two thousand and one, one of one of the
5:46
Speaker 3: first things Bush did is the EPA rescinded a rule
5:51
Speaker 3: concerning arsenic and it regulated how many parts per million
5:55
Speaker 3: of arsenic could be in water. And the media for
6:00
Speaker 3: weeks lit their hair on fire about how evil Republicans
6:04
Speaker 3: want to poison all our children with arsenic, and they
6:07
Speaker 3: just went on and on and on arsenic, arsenic, arsenik.
6:10
Speaker 3: It was on the six o'clock news night after night. Well,
6:14
Speaker 3: my theory is that is the amount of outrage they have,
6:18
Speaker 3: and when Trump does one hundred things, or two hundred things,
6:21
Speaker 3: or three hundred things, they have that same quantum of outrage,
6:24
Speaker 3: but they have to divide it up among everything, and
6:27
Speaker 3: so instead they just just light their hair on fire
6:29
Speaker 3: and begin running in circles.
6:31
Speaker 1: It is weird.
6:32
Speaker 2: And I was talking to a colleague of mine who
6:34
Speaker 2: worked in the first Trump ministruation and he's now working
6:38
Speaker 2: the second. And the way he described it to me
6:40
Speaker 2: on Friday, he said, Ben, in twenty sixteen, he goes
6:43
Speaker 2: go ask any center, any congressman that met with the president.
6:45
Speaker 2: The meetings revolved around around Okay, what are we going
6:48
Speaker 2: to do or what do we want to do? He said,
6:50
Speaker 2: this time, it's all right, this is what we are doing.
6:54
Speaker 2: And this is how we're going to do it, he said,
6:56
Speaker 2: it's a completely different mindset. Have you found that when
6:59
Speaker 2: you're having dinner at more of like, Hey, we're in charge,
7:01
Speaker 2: let's go down the field. Let's use the super Bowl
7:04
Speaker 2: now as he throw the long ball, and let's let's
7:06
Speaker 2: make the pass, and let's get the points on the board.
7:08
Speaker 3: Well, listen, in twenty seventeen, when President Trump came into
7:11
Speaker 3: the White House, I don't think he was expecting to win.
7:16
Speaker 3: I don't think his team was expecting him to win.
7:19
Speaker 3: And and and and they came in and and he
7:22
Speaker 3: never worked in the federal government. Virtually every senior official
7:26
Speaker 3: in the Trump White House had never worked in the
7:27
Speaker 3: federal government. And so they came in and did not
7:31
Speaker 3: know how how the agencies operated. They they did. They
7:34
Speaker 3: did not understand the machinery they were attempting to turn around,
7:40
Speaker 3: and and and they didn't understand the deep state. They
7:44
Speaker 3: didn't understand the embedded career bureaucrats who were going to
7:48
Speaker 3: fight against them tooth and nail. One of the results
7:53
Speaker 3: is is they made some real mistakes when it came
7:55
Speaker 3: to personnel. Uh, they appointed people to senior positions to
7:59
Speaker 3: cabinet positions who ended up fighting against the president from
8:02
Speaker 3: day one. This time around, I think they've done a
8:06
Speaker 3: much better job with cabinet nominees and and they've hit
8:10
Speaker 3: the ground running. The level of preparation the executive orders
8:13
Speaker 3: they've rolled out, one after the other after the other,
8:16
Speaker 3: it is clear that they have had teams working on
8:19
Speaker 3: these orders for months, if not years, that that they
8:24
Speaker 3: came in with a fundamentally different level of understanding and
8:28
Speaker 3: sophistication about how the government operates, about what are the
8:34
Speaker 3: levers of power and authority within the government, and how
8:40
Speaker 3: you turn the machine and understand they're dealing with four
8:47
Speaker 3: years of Joe Biden the Democrats weaponizing every aspect of
8:52
Speaker 3: the federal government. Not just doj and FBI, We've talked
8:55
Speaker 3: a lot about that, but but weaponizing every grant they give,
8:59
Speaker 3: weaponize every program, weaponizing from agency to agency to agency.
9:05
Speaker 3: That the holistic approach that the Biden administration did, that
9:10
Speaker 3: every dollar they had was there to reward their political
9:14
Speaker 3: allies or to punish their political enemies. And sadly, it
9:18
Speaker 3: was all politics all the time. And I think that's
9:20
Speaker 3: a big part of the reason why if you look
9:24
Speaker 3: at what Elon Musk is doing it dough. She's he's
9:26
Speaker 3: going in and he and he's working around the clock.
9:29
Speaker 3: And and I know Elon well, he does not he
9:31
Speaker 3: does not sleep much. And he works and and and
9:35
Speaker 3: he is going at the federal government. And it's it's
9:38
Speaker 3: a remarkable thing. Ben I got to say, So Trump
9:41
Speaker 3: derangements syndrome has been a thing for a long time
9:44
Speaker 3: that Democrats in the media going nuts. Well there's now
9:48
Speaker 3: a new phenomena, new disease has come to Washington and
9:52
Speaker 3: and that's called Elon derangement syndrome.
9:55
Speaker 1: It's almost worse in some ways.
9:57
Speaker 2: I mean they this man has become like more hated
9:59
Speaker 2: and in some circles and even Trump, and that's hard
10:02
Speaker 2: to do.
10:03
Speaker 3: So I'll tell you in exchange I had last week
10:05
Speaker 3: with several reporters, but it was following so I had
10:10
Speaker 3: a closed door briefing from the FAA and the National
10:13
Speaker 3: Traffic Safety Board on the horrific crash outside Reagan Airport.
10:20
Speaker 3: And as I came out, the reporters that we were
10:24
Speaker 3: talking about the accident and where the investigation is going.
10:27
Speaker 3: And reporters were asking, well, aren't you worried that Elon
10:33
Speaker 3: Musk is going to be involved in updating the technology
10:38
Speaker 3: for air traffic control. And I just started laughing, and
10:44
Speaker 3: I said, look, our air traffic control system is desperately
10:49
Speaker 3: in need of modernization. We are literally using nineteen fifties technology.
10:54
Speaker 3: We use radar and little slips of paper, that's how
10:57
Speaker 3: they do it. And you're telling me that one of
11:01
Speaker 3: the world's greatest technology CEOs who has ever lived, is
11:07
Speaker 3: willing to work for free to modernize the technology for
11:11
Speaker 3: air traffic control, to use GPS and current technology rather
11:16
Speaker 3: than nineteen fifties technology to take us into the twenty
11:19
Speaker 3: first century. And you somehow think that is a bad thing.
11:23
Speaker 3: And I got to say, the reporters were just bewildered.
11:27
Speaker 3: They're just like, no no elon bad Trump bad. That
11:30
Speaker 3: that's the extent of analysis they're capable of.
11:34
Speaker 2: You look at the access that he's also gained, and
11:38
Speaker 2: it is to fifteen different government agencies. The President has
11:42
Speaker 2: made it very clear now he believes this as part
11:45
Speaker 2: of his mandate why the American people sent him to Washington.
11:51
Speaker 2: And he said this in an interview on Sunday for
11:54
Speaker 2: Super Bowl Sunday with Brett Bher where there's some people
11:58
Speaker 2: trying to Honormine, and I think this is the machine
12:00
Speaker 2: going after a Musk. They're trying to undermine and they're
12:02
Speaker 2: trying to somehow get him kicked out of this or
12:04
Speaker 2: to have some sort of press conference where Elon Musk
12:06
Speaker 2: is no longer with us and working in you know,
12:08
Speaker 2: in the government. We've we've dismissed him. That's what they're clearly,
12:11
Speaker 2: it's like a way of impeaching him in essence, and
12:14
Speaker 2: and Brett asked the question like, do you does he
12:17
Speaker 2: have your full faith? Because this is where the media
12:19
Speaker 2: is going, right, and so he's like, does does he
12:21
Speaker 2: still have your full support? And I want everybody here,
12:23
Speaker 2: this is what Trump said.
12:25
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's kickback, so what's going on?
12:27
Speaker 4: But the people, look, I ran on this and the
12:29
Speaker 4: people want me to find it. And I've had a
12:32
Speaker 4: great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific. I'm one
12:36
Speaker 4: you say you trust him, Trust Elon. Oh, he's not
12:40
Speaker 4: gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote
12:42
Speaker 4: the time to it. He's so into it. But I
12:44
Speaker 4: told him to do that. Then I'm going to tell
12:46
Speaker 4: him very soon, like maybe in twenty four hours to
12:50
Speaker 4: go check the Department of Education. He's going to find
12:53
Speaker 4: the same thing. Then I'm going to go go to
12:55
Speaker 4: the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions,
12:58
Speaker 4: hundreds of billions of DIFE is a fraud and abuse.
13:02
Speaker 4: And you know the people elected me on that.
13:05
Speaker 1: People elected me.
13:05
Speaker 2: He's listening to the people and that's why it's populated
13:08
Speaker 2: right now. Is about fifty percent fifty three percent in
13:11
Speaker 2: one of the polls today.
13:12
Speaker 3: Well and understand what Elon is doing. So so Elon
13:15
Speaker 3: this weekend he tweeted the following quote. To be clear,
13:20
Speaker 3: what the DOGE team and the US Treasury team have
13:23
Speaker 3: jointly agreed makes sense. Is the following require that all
13:29
Speaker 3: outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is
13:35
Speaker 3: necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently
13:39
Speaker 3: left blank, making audits almost impossible. All payments must also
13:45
Speaker 3: include a rationale for the payment in the comment field,
13:49
Speaker 3: which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet
13:54
Speaker 3: applying any judgment to this rationale, but simply require that
14:00
Speaker 3: some attempt be made to explain the payment more than nothing.
14:08
Speaker 3: The okay, and just just keep listening. Because this is
14:14
Speaker 3: so simple that for government at shocking. The do not
14:18
Speaker 3: pay list of entities known to be fraudulent, or people
14:24
Speaker 3: who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations,
14:29
Speaker 3: or do not match congressional appropriations must actually be implemented
14:34
Speaker 3: and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to
14:40
Speaker 3: a year to get on this list, which is far
14:43
Speaker 3: too long. This list should be updated at least weekly,
14:47
Speaker 3: if not daily. The above super obvious and necessary changes
14:52
Speaker 3: are being implemented by existing, longtime career government employees, not
14:56
Speaker 3: anyone from DOGE. It is ridiculous that these ch didn't
15:00
Speaker 3: exist already. Yesterday I was told that there are currently
15:04
Speaker 3: over one hundred billion dollars a year of entitlement payments
15:10
Speaker 3: to individuals with no Social Security numbers or even a
15:15
Speaker 3: temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When
15:21
Speaker 3: I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guest
15:25
Speaker 3: for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud,
15:29
Speaker 3: the consensus in the room was about half, so fifty
15:35
Speaker 3: billion a year or one billion dollars a week. This
15:39
Speaker 3: is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.
15:44
Speaker 2: Why would anyone be angry at that? And I say
15:47
Speaker 2: that look is a rhetorical question. The people that don't
15:52
Speaker 2: want you to find this out are clearly the ones
15:54
Speaker 2: that are abusing the system for whether it's their corruption,
15:58
Speaker 2: family friends. The list goes on and on that has
16:01
Speaker 2: been mentioned there. But if you are a taxpayer, I
16:05
Speaker 2: don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat. You should
16:07
Speaker 2: want to know where your money's going and want to
16:09
Speaker 2: know if there's waste fraud abuse, so we get rid
16:11
Speaker 2: of it because it could mean that we're all paying
16:14
Speaker 2: way more in taxes than we ever could have imagined.
16:17
Speaker 2: We should be able to pay to get great services
16:19
Speaker 2: at a much lower rate because you get rid of
16:21
Speaker 2: all the fraud abuse.
16:22
Speaker 3: Well, i'll get I'll give you another interesting data. Do
16:27
Speaker 3: you know what has what the median household income is
16:32
Speaker 3: in Washington DC. It's one hundred and twenty one thousand
16:35
Speaker 3: a year. That's the median. The national median is eighty
16:39
Speaker 3: two thousand dollars a year, So Washington d C. Is
16:42
Speaker 3: fifty percent greater. And by the way, compare that to
16:49
Speaker 3: the only place higher is California's Bay Area. So Washington
16:53
Speaker 3: DC has a higher median income than New York ninety
16:56
Speaker 3: five thousand Bridgeport one hundred and eleven thousand, Chicago eighty
16:59
Speaker 3: seven one thousand, Dallas eighty six thousand, Baltimore ninety four thousand,
17:04
Speaker 3: New Orleans sixty one thousand, Boston one hundred and ten thousand,
17:08
Speaker 3: Raleigh ninety six thousand, San Diego one hundred and three thousand,
17:12
Speaker 3: Los Angeles ninety one thousand, Honolulu one hundred and three thousand, Washington,
17:17
Speaker 3: d C. One hundred and twenty one thousand. Right at the.
17:20
Speaker 2: Top question you got to ask yourself, is I wonder
17:22
Speaker 2: why could it be? There's so many people there that
17:24
Speaker 2: are getting hookups with the government and jobs and making
17:28
Speaker 2: sure money is spent and going to the right places
17:30
Speaker 2: that they get compensated very well for that.
17:33
Speaker 3: Well, there are a ton of people a and senior
17:36
Speaker 3: government jobs that are making six figure incomes and many
17:40
Speaker 3: of the government buildings are empty. That the average across
17:45
Speaker 3: the federal government right now for showing up to work
17:48
Speaker 3: is five to eight percent of the employees, and they're
17:51
Speaker 3: adamant that they have an entitlement to do this, that
17:53
Speaker 3: it is horrific to expect them to show up to work.
17:57
Speaker 3: They're also armies of lobbyists and contractors and people getting
18:02
Speaker 3: rich off government, and so those two together are are
18:07
Speaker 3: operating powerfully. And it's interesting that Elon has been able
18:10
Speaker 3: to affect such significant change simply by starting with saying,
18:15
Speaker 3: where is the money going? Show me the flow of
18:19
Speaker 3: cash going out the door. I want to see it
18:22
Speaker 3: dollar by dollar. That that is a threat right to
18:27
Speaker 3: the heart of the deep state and and the corruption
18:32
Speaker 3: machine the Democrats have had for a long time.
18:35
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you another question about dinner. And
18:37
Speaker 2: you are one of those that this is a compliment.
18:41
Speaker 2: If you've ever had dinner with you, you're a working dinner guy.
18:44
Speaker 2: You're one of those that just likes to get stuff done.
18:46
Speaker 2: I think that's probably one of the reasons why you
18:48
Speaker 2: and Eli get well get along so well. You're having
18:52
Speaker 2: these dinners now where you're getting stuff done, and in
18:56
Speaker 2: government that's not always the case. How happy and how
19:00
Speaker 2: much fun is it for you personally to know now
19:03
Speaker 2: that when you're going into these meetings with Trump and
19:05
Speaker 2: these other senators like you guys are actually getting to
19:08
Speaker 2: do your job, Because I know that's driven you crazy
19:11
Speaker 2: over the years when you just feel like you're just
19:13
Speaker 2: spinning your wheels because governments spinning their wheels and not
19:16
Speaker 2: getting stuff done?
19:17
Speaker 1: Is this like that? Is this what made you want
19:19
Speaker 1: to get into politics and to serve.
19:23
Speaker 3: Listen, it is fun and it is exciting because we
19:29
Speaker 3: have a unique opportunity right now. You look at the
19:33
Speaker 3: mandate from November. Obviously, the people re elected Donald Trump.
19:37
Speaker 3: They elected a Republican Senate, not just a Republican Senate
19:41
Speaker 3: with a relatively big majority. Fifty three Republicans is sizeable
19:46
Speaker 3: in the Senate. They gave us a majority in the House,
19:48
Speaker 3: albeit a very narrow one. We have an opportunity to
19:52
Speaker 3: accomplish an enormous amount. And I'll tell you, Ben, it's
19:55
Speaker 3: fun and exciting, but there's also a seriousness to this.
19:59
Speaker 3: We can't screw I think failure is not an option
20:03
Speaker 3: and and so I'm jumping out of bed every day.
20:06
Speaker 3: I am excited to go. And you look at the work,
20:11
Speaker 3: all right, and you see everything Elon's doing. Here, here's
20:14
Speaker 3: a story that broke that gives you the sense of
20:16
Speaker 3: why there's so much work to be done. Headlined from
20:20
Speaker 3: the weekend, Biden admin filled terrorist coffers with over one billion,
20:27
Speaker 3: three hundred million dollars before Trump took wrecking ball to
20:32
Speaker 3: foreign aid and I'm just going to just start with
20:36
Speaker 3: that article. More than one point three billion dollars in
20:39
Speaker 3: taxpayer funds from the Biden administration ended up helping groups
20:42
Speaker 3: that sponsored or committed terrorism, and the biggest part of
20:46
Speaker 3: that was to UNRA, the United Nations Relief and Work
20:51
Speaker 3: Work Agency. The Biden administration gave one billion, fifty three
20:58
Speaker 3: million and four hundred thous thousand dollars in US taxpayer
21:02
Speaker 3: money to UNRA and an UNRA. Remember but by the way,
21:06
Speaker 3: under Trump, initially there was a ban on unrefunding because
21:09
Speaker 3: they have been so intertwined with Hamas and Hamas terrorists.
21:14
Speaker 3: We now know that in the wake of October seventh,
21:16
Speaker 3: you had Hamas terrorists on the UNRA payroll.
21:20
Speaker 2: And yet yeah, that's a fact. By the way, we
21:23
Speaker 2: need to make that clear. That is one hundred percent confirmed.
21:26
Speaker 2: It is a fact.
21:29
Speaker 3: Here is intelligent. This is also from the article quote.
21:33
Speaker 3: Intelligence officials later revealed that more than one thousand UNRA employees,
21:38
Speaker 3: or around ten percent, were linked to the groups Hamas
21:43
Speaker 3: and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. According to documents found on the
21:48
Speaker 3: bodies of dead terrorists and other evidence, ten percent of
21:54
Speaker 3: their employees were linked to Hamas and Palestinian Islam Jahad,
22:01
Speaker 3: and the Biden administration right up till the last day
22:05
Speaker 3: was shoveling cash. And I got to say, it's one
22:07
Speaker 3: of the things that I think is most offensive about
22:11
Speaker 3: what Biden the Democrats did is they didn't just spend
22:15
Speaker 3: four years pushing a radical agenda, but after election day,
22:19
Speaker 3: when the voters made clear, we don't like this agenda,
22:22
Speaker 3: we want to change course. Right up until the moment
22:25
Speaker 3: Trump was sworn in, they did everything they could to
22:28
Speaker 3: frustrate the ability of the new administration to turn things around.
22:33
Speaker 3: I've never seen a president do that. To the best
22:36
Speaker 3: of my knowledge, We've never had one do that, and
22:39
Speaker 3: it really demonstrates a contempt for the voters.
22:42
Speaker 2: This goes back you just mentioned contempt of the voters.
22:45
Speaker 2: Democrats now trying to figure out their footing. They had
22:49
Speaker 2: Alamomar who went on TV today saying that Trump has
22:53
Speaker 2: decided he will not abide by the constitution, just throwing
22:57
Speaker 2: it out there, and then she says, by the way,
22:59
Speaker 2: every exact kive order that's been to court now has
23:01
Speaker 2: been shut down by the court.
23:03
Speaker 1: That's a lie, not true.
23:04
Speaker 2: But even face the nation try to softly correct her
23:09
Speaker 2: because they want this to be true, right, And then
23:13
Speaker 2: there's this new threat of like, all right, we'll just
23:15
Speaker 2: shut down the government. I kind of laugh because for
23:19
Speaker 2: many concerns are like, great, let's shut it down and
23:21
Speaker 2: save some money for a while. I wish it worked
23:23
Speaker 2: that way. I wish it was that simple. It's obviously not.
23:26
Speaker 2: But this is the new temper tantrum of the left.
23:29
Speaker 2: They're saying, if we aren't in charge, then we want
23:32
Speaker 2: to destroy what the government does. Well, we want to
23:35
Speaker 2: hurt people, and we want to shut down the government
23:37
Speaker 2: to hurt people. So you'll blame Donald Trump. That's what
23:39
Speaker 2: this is really all about.
23:40
Speaker 1: Am I wrong?
23:42
Speaker 3: Well, look, understand, there's a battle going back and forth,
23:46
Speaker 3: and at some level, this battle is inherent in the
23:48
Speaker 3: structure of our government. It's inherent in the Constitution. Congress.
23:52
Speaker 3: Under Article one, all legislative power is vested in the
23:55
Speaker 3: Congress of the United States. Congress passes the laws, the
24:00
Speaker 3: President signs into law, and that are then binding federal law.
24:05
Speaker 3: The executive all executive power is vested in the President
24:09
Speaker 3: of the United States. That's under Article two of the Constitution,
24:13
Speaker 3: and the president is charged with has given the authority
24:16
Speaker 3: to and also the responsibility to quote take care that
24:21
Speaker 3: the laws be faithfully executed. That's the Constitution's language, and
24:26
Speaker 3: so a lot of you know, it's interesting as I
24:28
Speaker 3: travel around and talk to people back back home in
24:30
Speaker 3: Texas or around the country, they ask, Okay, so is
24:34
Speaker 3: what Elon's doing? Is what Trump is doing cutting off
24:38
Speaker 3: funding at USAID pausing other funding? Is that going to stick?
24:43
Speaker 3: And this is a battle back and forth between the
24:47
Speaker 3: executive and legislature that has occurred since the very first
24:50
Speaker 3: days of the Republic. And one of the things right
24:53
Speaker 3: at the heart of this battle is about something called impoundment. Now,
24:59
Speaker 3: what is in pound mean? Impoundment is when the president
25:02
Speaker 3: of the United States decides not to spend money that
25:07
Speaker 3: has been appropriated by the US Congress. Now you might ask, okay,
25:11
Speaker 3: is impoundment some crazy theory that Donald Trump cooked up
25:15
Speaker 3: or Elon Musk cooked up? Well, no, no, impoundment has
25:18
Speaker 3: been around for more than two hundred years. The first
25:21
Speaker 3: president to exercise impoundment was Thomas Jefferson, and he did
25:25
Speaker 3: so in eighteen oh one. And if you look at
25:29
Speaker 3: what Thomas Jefferson did, the first use of impoundment involved
25:34
Speaker 3: a refusal to spend fifty thousand dollars, which fifty thousand
25:39
Speaker 3: dollars in twenty twenty three dollars is about one point
25:41
Speaker 3: twenty four million in funds that were appropriated for the
25:45
Speaker 3: acquisition of gunboats for the United States Navy, and Thomas
25:50
Speaker 3: Jefferson said in eighteen oh three that quote, the sum
25:53
Speaker 3: of fifty thousand dollars appropriated by Congress for providing gunboats
25:57
Speaker 3: remains unexpended. The favor and peaceful turn of affairs on
26:01
Speaker 3: the Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary. Now,
26:08
Speaker 3: Jefferson did so, and in the years that went on,
26:11
Speaker 3: presidents did so for two hundred years. Now what happened, well,
26:16
Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies, Richard Nixon had a battle with Congress,
26:21
Speaker 3: and Congress got angry with Richard Nixon and felt he
26:24
Speaker 3: was using impoundment too aggressively, and Congress passed a law
26:30
Speaker 3: called the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of nineteen
26:35
Speaker 3: seventy four that purported to remove the power of impoundment,
26:41
Speaker 3: or at least to severely curtail it. And the Supreme
26:45
Speaker 3: Court heard a decision. It was a decision called Train
26:49
Speaker 3: versus City of New York, where the Supreme Court upheld
26:55
Speaker 3: the Impoundment Control Act and significantly red reduced the president's
27:01
Speaker 3: power to exercise impoundment. Now, by the way that there
27:06
Speaker 3: was a subsequent wrinkle in this in that Congress came
27:10
Speaker 3: back afterwards and passed a bill called the Line Item
27:15
Speaker 3: Veto Act of nineteen ninety six. This happened after the
27:18
Speaker 3: Republican takeover of Congress, Knut Gingrich came in, and the
27:23
Speaker 3: line Audam Veto Act gave the president the power of
27:26
Speaker 3: line Adam Vito, which Bill Clinton used on the federal
27:30
Speaker 3: budget eighty two times. However, that law was struck down
27:35
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety eight by the Supreme Court. It was
27:38
Speaker 3: a five to four vote. Actually, my former boss and
27:41
Speaker 3: very good friend, Chuck Cooper, the man who taught me
27:43
Speaker 3: how to be a lawyer, argued that case. Unfortunately, he
27:46
Speaker 3: was on the losing side of that case and lost
27:49
Speaker 3: five to four. The point what Elon is doing and
27:54
Speaker 3: what Trump is doing, there's a long history of presidents
27:57
Speaker 3: saying I don't want to spend money is wasteful and
28:01
Speaker 3: I'm not going to Now there's also a history of
28:03
Speaker 3: Congress pushing back what's likely to happen. There is already
28:09
Speaker 3: and there will be more a crap ton of litigation
28:15
Speaker 3: challenging these actions. We're seeing Democrat attorneys general bringing lawsuits.
28:21
Speaker 3: We're going to see Democrat interest groups being bringing lawsuits.
28:25
Speaker 3: We're going to see activist judges striking down actions executive orders.
28:32
Speaker 3: And this is going to test the legal boundaries. At
28:35
Speaker 3: the end of the day. Part of what is going
28:38
Speaker 3: on is this is designed to go to the Supreme
28:42
Speaker 3: Court and to restore the power of impoundment to the president.
28:47
Speaker 3: I think that would be a very good thing. I
28:48
Speaker 3: think it is consistent. It is an inherent authority of
28:52
Speaker 3: the president to exercise the authority of impoundment. But understand,
28:57
Speaker 3: we're going to see a mitigation battle Royale and it'll
29:03
Speaker 3: take in all likelihood.
29:05
Speaker 2: So this is that you're saying, this is a fight
29:07
Speaker 2: that we want to go to the Spring Court and
29:09
Speaker 2: and and if it does go to the Supreme Court and
29:12
Speaker 2: it plays to our advantage the way that you're describing
29:14
Speaker 2: it with the law, how long is it going to
29:16
Speaker 2: take us to get it there?
29:17
Speaker 3: Probably a couple of years, two to three years.
29:19
Speaker 2: So and so in the next two or three years,
29:21
Speaker 2: we're going to be just dealing with pure fights with
29:25
Speaker 2: with the media. Democrats coming after and trying to stop
29:28
Speaker 2: everything that they're trying to cut with waste, fraud, abuse.
29:30
Speaker 3: Yes, and and understand Elon and Doze that they're embodying
29:35
Speaker 3: right now, the Silicon Valley mantra of move fast and
29:39
Speaker 3: break things. I mean, that's what they're doing. Not everything
29:43
Speaker 3: that they do is going to be upheld. There will
29:45
Speaker 3: be injunctions issued, and I think they understand that, and
29:49
Speaker 3: I think they're trying to They're trying to implement the
29:54
Speaker 3: mandate that came from the voters as rapidly and effectively
29:58
Speaker 3: as possible. Listen. One, I'm excited about that. And and
30:02
Speaker 3: I think if you look at some of the egregious
30:05
Speaker 3: abuses that have been uncovered so far, it gives an
30:08
Speaker 3: illustration of just how important this is.
30:11
Speaker 2: Before we move on to the federal financial watchdog order
30:14
Speaker 2: to ce se activity, and that's important we're gonna do
30:15
Speaker 2: with that. In a second, one final question on this,
30:19
Speaker 2: we could go back I think whenever the sale was
30:22
Speaker 2: a year and a half whatever it was, when Elon
30:24
Speaker 2: Musk took over Twitter and we saw the Twitter files
30:29
Speaker 2: and then we saw the corruption. I actually think you
30:32
Speaker 2: can trace this all the way back to there. When
30:35
Speaker 2: people really start paying attention to saying I don't trust
30:37
Speaker 2: the government. You add COVID in there, and the lies
30:40
Speaker 2: of the vaccine and the and the two weeks stuff,
30:42
Speaker 2: the spread, and then we want into virology, and then
30:44
Speaker 2: the lies over the hunter Byden laptop. And there started
30:47
Speaker 2: to be these moments that were big where people are like, Okay,
30:51
Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't be so trusting of the news, Maybe
30:54
Speaker 2: I shouldn't be trusting of the government, the deep state,
30:56
Speaker 2: the president, and then you have him take over or
31:01
Speaker 2: Twitter now X. Part of the reason why I think
31:03
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's having so much success now is because we're
31:06
Speaker 2: getting the word out about the waste and the fraud
31:10
Speaker 2: and getting the line out of it, and people are
31:12
Speaker 2: seeing it. Because before you go back twenty sixteen, center,
31:16
Speaker 2: big tree falls in the forest, no one's around.
31:18
Speaker 1: Does it make a sound, right? The answer is no.
31:21
Speaker 2: But now what we're getting in the info that we're
31:24
Speaker 2: getting and it's getting out because big tech can't suppress
31:27
Speaker 2: it on X, how valuable is that to saving our democracy?
31:31
Speaker 3: Look, I think it's incredibly valuable. I believe Elon Musks
31:35
Speaker 3: buying Twitter was the most important development for free speech
31:39
Speaker 3: in modern times because it turned around the rampant censorship
31:45
Speaker 3: from big tech. It put positive pressure on the rest
31:48
Speaker 3: of big tech, and it created a vehicle for the
31:52
Speaker 3: truth to get out. So you know, we've gone through
31:54
Speaker 3: in previous podcasts all the examples, not all the examples,
31:58
Speaker 3: but a number of examples of abuse. Of spending two
32:02
Speaker 3: million dollars for sex changes in Guatemala. Now, who the
32:07
Speaker 3: hell can defend that? Why US taxpayers are paying for
32:11
Speaker 3: sex changes in Guatemala money to the BBC, the British
32:14
Speaker 3: Broadcasting Corporation, By the way, that why the hell are
32:18
Speaker 3: American taxpayers paying for the BBC? The last I checked,
32:22
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom is a major developed country. They can
32:25
Speaker 3: pay for their own damn television station. What we need?
32:28
Speaker 3: What do we need to pay for that? And what's
32:30
Speaker 3: amazing is the Democrats are just digging in. Give a
32:33
Speaker 3: listen to Senator Chris Coons defending spending twenty million dollars
32:38
Speaker 3: on American taxpayer money for Sesame Street in Iraq. Give
32:42
Speaker 3: a listen.
32:43
Speaker 5: Is funding Sesame Street a judicious use of soft power? Well,
32:48
Speaker 5: Michael the way you put it is the way I
32:50
Speaker 5: hope folks considering your poll today will think about it.
32:54
Speaker 5: This isn't just funding a kid show for children, millions
32:58
Speaker 5: of children in countries like it's a show that helps
33:02
Speaker 5: teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from
33:06
Speaker 5: dying from dysentery and disease, and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness,
33:13
Speaker 5: cooperation in a society where the alternative is isis extremism
33:19
Speaker 5: and terrorism. And to your point, it's pennies on the dollar.
33:23
Speaker 5: The US Department of Defense has an annual budget of
33:26
Speaker 5: about eight hundred and fifty billion dollars. USAID was spending
33:31
Speaker 5: about thirty billion dollars. It is a small proportion of
33:35
Speaker 5: our total federal spending. And as Joe and I would
33:38
Speaker 5: often say, it's not just soft power, it's smart power.
33:42
Speaker 5: Let me leave you with one other quote, Michael, if
33:45
Speaker 5: I could, Jim Mattis, who is a four star Marine
33:47
Speaker 5: Corps general and Trump's Secretary of Defense in his first term,
33:52
Speaker 5: in a hearing back then said if you slash development
33:56
Speaker 5: and AID spending, then I'm going to need more bullets
34:00
Speaker 5: for our troops.
34:01
Speaker 2: I mean, you want to talk about stretching he's saying,
34:03
Speaker 2: Sesame's He's going to save us from extremism?
34:05
Speaker 1: Are we kidding ourselves?
34:07
Speaker 3: Well, look, the Democrats are dug into defending everything to
34:11
Speaker 3: defending all of the money that was just flowing out
34:15
Speaker 3: with no checks whatsoever. And I think these examples are
34:19
Speaker 3: having a real effect of pissing people off, saying, why
34:22
Speaker 3: is my money going to that? By the way, if
34:26
Speaker 3: Democrats think that's such a good idea, let them give
34:28
Speaker 3: their own money for that. But what right do they
34:30
Speaker 3: have to take your money that you're working hard to
34:33
Speaker 3: provide for your kids and your family, to take it
34:35
Speaker 3: and spend it on every radical agenda item they want
34:39
Speaker 3: to push. That's what's been happening. It happened at egregious
34:43
Speaker 3: levels under the Biden administration, and I think that's what
34:45
Speaker 3: Trump's working very hard to turn around.
34:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, great point.
34:49
Speaker 2: Finally, I want to ask you about this because I
34:51
Speaker 2: think it should be on listeners, radar screen. It's an
34:53
Speaker 2: important issue. The New York Times is coming out talking
34:56
Speaker 2: about this. The federal financial watchdog has been ordered to
35:01
Speaker 2: see activity, known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Why
35:06
Speaker 2: is this happening and what does this mean?
35:09
Speaker 3: Well, the CFPB the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was was
35:13
Speaker 3: created by the Dodd Frank Law. This is a creation
35:16
Speaker 3: of Elizabeth Warren and and and it is. It has
35:21
Speaker 3: descended like locusts putting putting all sorts of regulations and costs.
35:26
Speaker 3: It brings abusive litigation. It is it is an avenue
35:32
Speaker 3: for for left wing bureaucrats to try to control community banks,
35:39
Speaker 3: smaller financial institutions, and to drive up costs. And the CFPB.
35:45
Speaker 3: I've introduced repeatedly legislation to eliminate the Cfpbuh. What happened
35:51
Speaker 3: this week is russ vote was confirmed leave the Office
35:55
Speaker 3: of Management and Budget. And Russ's is a good friend.
35:58
Speaker 3: He's a good guy. He he ran omb under Trump
36:02
Speaker 3: during the first term. And Russ was just confirmed. We
36:05
Speaker 3: just confirmed him this past week to run o and
36:08
Speaker 3: be again. And on Friday he was also named the
36:11
Speaker 3: acting director of the of the Consumer Financial Protection Beer
36:16
Speaker 3: the CFPB, and as a result, he issued an order
36:21
Speaker 3: for them to halt what they're doing. So one chunk
36:25
Speaker 3: of it. So the way Elizabeth Warren structured it, Congress
36:29
Speaker 3: does not appropriate money to the CFPB, which is weird.
36:32
Speaker 3: By the way, if you look at virtually every federal agency,
36:35
Speaker 3: Congress appropriates money for them. That's part of the checks
36:38
Speaker 3: and balances of how the federal government is set up well.
36:43
Speaker 3: Dodd Frank instead has the CFPB funded with money from
36:49
Speaker 3: the Federal Reserve that flows automatically, so Congress doesn't get
36:53
Speaker 3: to appropriate and engage in the oversight that comes with that. So,
36:57
Speaker 3: as a result, on Saturday, Russ Vote wrote that he
37:04
Speaker 3: had notified the Federal Reserve that the CFPB quote will
37:08
Speaker 3: not be taking its next straw of unappropriated funding because
37:14
Speaker 3: it is not reasonably necessary to carry out its duties.
37:19
Speaker 3: The bureau's current balance of seven hundred and eleven point
37:22
Speaker 3: six million dollars is in fact excessive in the current
37:25
Speaker 3: fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB's unaccountability is
37:32
Speaker 3: now being turned off. That is fantastic. And I'll tell
37:35
Speaker 3: you what. I've introduced legislation that will zero out the CFPB,
37:41
Speaker 3: that will shut it down permanently. I believe we will
37:44
Speaker 3: get that done as part of budget reconciliation, and so
37:51
Speaker 3: eliminating the CFP would be a major victory for lowering inflation,
37:57
Speaker 3: for lowering burdensome regulation, for lowering the nanny state control
38:02
Speaker 3: of big government, and if we get that done, that's
38:04
Speaker 3: a huge victory. I'll tell you Russ vote taking over
38:08
Speaker 3: as acting director in the past few days was a
38:10
Speaker 3: major step forward in that regard.
38:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, incredible. Don't forget. We do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
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