Latest / Pod Save America / Is Elon a Drag on Trump?

Transcript

Is Elon a Drag on Trump? · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Hot Safe America is brought to you by Helix. We
0:02
Speaker 1: love Helix.
0:03
Speaker 2: I think all of us have Helix mattresses somewhere in
0:05
Speaker 2: our house. And they're super comfortable. I have a guest mattress.
0:09
Speaker 2: Charlie has a Helix mattress. And, you know, they sleep soundly.
0:13
Speaker 3: Good for baby making.
0:14
Speaker 1: Good for sleeping. All of the above. Good for babies
0:17
Speaker 1: and baby making. And babies.
0:19
Speaker 2: So how will you know which Helix mattress works best
0:22
Speaker 2: for you and your body? Take the Helix sleep quiz.
0:26
Speaker 2: And find out your perfect mattress in under two minutes.
0:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to spice up that quiz after they hear
0:30
Speaker 1: this hat.
0:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, what did you get on the Helix Sleep Quiz?
0:32
Speaker 2: Did you get a Dawn Lux?
0:35
Speaker 1: A plus. Because I wanted something that felt firm. I
0:39
Speaker 1: like a firm mattress. Yeah, I like a soft one.
0:41
Speaker 2: Helix lineup offers 20 unique mattresses, including the award-winning Lux
0:44
Speaker 2: and Ultra Premium Elite Collections. Helix Plus is a mattress
0:47
Speaker 2: designed for big and tall sleepers. Helix Kids, a mattress
0:49
Speaker 2: designed for growing bodies. Helix knows there's no better way
0:52
Speaker 2: to test out a new mattress than by sleeping on
0:54
Speaker 2: it in your own home. That's why they offer a
0:55
Speaker 2: 100-night trial and a 10- to 15-year warranty to try
0:58
Speaker 2: out your new Helix mattress. Plus, your personalized mattress is
1:01
Speaker 2: shipped straight to your door free of charge. Go to helixsleep.com
1:04
Speaker 2: slash cricket for 27% off site-wide, plus two free dream
1:07
Speaker 2: pillows with mattress purchase, plus a free bedding bundle with
1:10
Speaker 2: any Lux or Elite mattress order. That's helixsleep.com slash cricket
1:13
Speaker 2: for 27% off site-wide, plus two free dream pillows with
1:16
Speaker 2: mattress purchase, plus a free bedding bundle with any Lux
1:19
Speaker 2: or Elite mattress order. This is their best offer, exclusive
1:22
Speaker 2: to our listeners, and only available by visiting helixsleep.com slash crooked.
1:48
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:50
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
1:51
Speaker 2: On today's show, the free speech warriors in the White
1:54
Speaker 2: House are kicking out media outlets that still call the
1:56
Speaker 2: Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. Elon Musk holds
2:00
Speaker 2: an Oval Office press conference where he admits that he
2:03
Speaker 2: and the dogebags haven't quite gotten everything right while breaking
2:07
Speaker 2: our government and our laws. And while they brag about
2:10
Speaker 2: finding a few billion in cuts, we'll take a look
2:12
Speaker 2: at the trillions that Republicans in Congress want to cut
2:15
Speaker 2: from the budget in order to help pay for their $ 4. 5
2:19
Speaker 2: trillion tax cut for people like Elon and Trump. Then,
2:23
Speaker 2: Lovett sits down here in studio with Rohit Chopra, who
2:27
Speaker 2: Trump forced out as director of the Consumer Financial Protection
2:30
Speaker 2: Bureau last week, so that banks and credit card companies
2:33
Speaker 2: can go back to screwing us.
2:35
Speaker 1: Great times. Great times.
2:37
Speaker 2: But first, big congrats to Bashar al-Assad and the measles.
2:43
Speaker 2: for getting Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. confirmed as cabinet secretary.
2:48
Speaker 2: Big congrats to measles. In the end, every Republican senator
2:53
Speaker 2: but resistance hero Mitch McConnell voted yes on Gabbard and Kennedy.
3:00
Speaker 2: So rest assured that our health and national security are
3:02
Speaker 2: in good hands, Dan. Things also look good for Kash Patel,
3:06
Speaker 2: even though he was reportedly purging the FBI before even
3:10
Speaker 2: being confirmed. But the big news this week, at least
3:13
Speaker 2: according to a very excited President Trump, was his announcement
3:17
Speaker 2: of reciprocal tariffs. He said this was the big one.
3:21
Speaker 2: This was the big one. He said, I had three
3:22
Speaker 2: great weeks, but this is the biggest one yet. He
3:25
Speaker 2: was asked about those tariffs after announcing them in the
3:28
Speaker 2: Oval Office. And here's part of the presser.
3:32
Speaker 4: And prices could go up somewhat short term, but prices
3:35
Speaker 4: will also go down.
3:37
Speaker 1: Would you also.
3:37
Speaker 3: Direct agencies to study the impact they would have on
3:40
Speaker 3: prices in the U.S.
3:42
Speaker 4: No, there's nothing to study. There's nothing to study. It's
3:45
Speaker 4: going to go well. The United States is going to
3:47
Speaker 4: become a very, very strong economically country. Yeah.
3:51
Speaker 2: Prices could go up. Prices could go down. There's nothing
3:54
Speaker 2: to study. Don't worry about it. So an announcement that
3:58
Speaker 2: lots of shit we buy is about to be more expensive.
4:02
Speaker 2: Just a few days after we learned that inflation is
4:04
Speaker 2: rising again, the biggest.
4:06
Speaker 1: One-month jump since August of 2023. What do you think, Dan?
4:12
Speaker 1: Promises made, promises kept?
4:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems great. Seems like things are going exactly
4:16
Speaker 3: as planned. I mean, it is noted that Trump went
4:19
Speaker 3: to the, at the convention, declared that the inflation crisis
4:22
Speaker 3: would end immediately. Inflation has gone up. He is doing
4:25
Speaker 3: things to raise prices. And that's even before we get
4:28
Speaker 3: into the potential impacts of his mass deportation plan, what
4:31
Speaker 3: a giant tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits corporations and the
4:35
Speaker 3: wealthy would do. And I think it is just worth
4:39
Speaker 3: We're living this in truly insane time. We're going to
4:40
Speaker 3: talk about a lot of the really insane, dangerous, and
4:43
Speaker 3: dumb things that are happening over the course of this podcast.
4:46
Speaker 3: But it's also possible that politics really hasn't changed that
4:49
Speaker 3: much and Donald Trump simply won the presidency because people
4:53
Speaker 3: were really mad at the incumbent administration because prices were
4:55
Speaker 3: too high. And now Donald Trump is the incumbent administration
4:57
Speaker 3: and people are still mad the prices are too high.
5:00
Speaker 3: And instead of trying to address that as he promised
5:02
Speaker 3: he would do, he is doing things that would actually
5:05
Speaker 3: exacerbate the crisis. And so we will find out soon
5:08
Speaker 3: enough whether political gravity is a thing that still exists.
5:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned that people still think that
5:13
Speaker 2: prices are too high. On Tuesday's show, we talked about
5:16
Speaker 2: the CBS poll that showed 66% of voters think that
5:20
Speaker 2: Trump is not doing enough to focus on prices. Echelon Insights,
5:25
Speaker 2: which is a Republican-run polling firm, they just came out
5:28
Speaker 2: with their latest poll right before we started recording. 43%
5:32
Speaker 2: of voters, said cost of living is either the biggest
5:36
Speaker 2: or second biggest issue facing the country. And the next
5:41
Speaker 2: closest issue was immigration at 29%, and then political corruption
5:46
Speaker 2: at 23%. Seems like there's plenty of that these days.
5:49
Speaker 2: But number one, 43% are still concerned about the cost
5:53
Speaker 2: of living. So no, it wasn't vibes. No, it wasn't
5:56
Speaker 2: just in people's heads. It was a real concern about
5:59
Speaker 2: prices throughout the Biden administration are real concerned about costs,
6:03
Speaker 2: and people are still concerned that Donald Trump is not
6:06
Speaker 2: focusing on costs. And now these reciprocal tariffs, which is
6:09
Speaker 2: basically any country that has levied a tariff on our goods,
6:14
Speaker 2: now we're levying tariffs on any goods that are.
6:17
Speaker 1: Imported from them.
6:18
Speaker 2: But again, tariffs are charged to the U.S. companies that
6:23
Speaker 2: are importing the goods, and then the companies pass on
6:26
Speaker 2: the price increases to us.
6:29
Speaker 1: So we will be paying more.
6:31
Speaker 2: It's like someone said, it's like we're shooting ourselves in
6:34
Speaker 2: the foot for other countries shooting themselves in the foot.
6:36
Speaker 2: That's what a reciprocal tariff is.
6:38
Speaker 3: The other thing about this that is notable is because
6:41
Speaker 3: inflation went back up again, the Fed is now less
6:45
Speaker 3: likely to and highly unlikely to cut interest rates again,
6:49
Speaker 3: which we often treat interest rates and inflation as two
6:54
Speaker 3: separate but related things when they're actually for the voter
6:57
Speaker 3: the same thing. If interest rates stay up, credit cards
7:00
Speaker 3: are more expensive. Buying cars is more expensive. Getting a
7:02
Speaker 3: home loan is more expensive. Your costs are more expensive.
7:05
Speaker 3: You're locked into your homes. And so Trump, maybe he
7:08
Speaker 3: will just fire the Fed chair against the law. He
7:11
Speaker 3: will bully him into lowering interest rates. But in a
7:13
Speaker 3: world in which he is not demonstrating to the Fed
7:15
Speaker 3: that he is trying to bring down inflation, he is
7:18
Speaker 3: going to make his own situation worse because they are
7:21
Speaker 3: going to feel like Trump is an untrustworthy partner in
7:23
Speaker 3: this or an unreliable partner. and are therefore going to
7:26
Speaker 3: keep interest rates high for a much longer period of time.
7:29
Speaker 2: And again, we're going to talk about the Congress moving,
7:34
Speaker 2: trying to move Trump's legislative agenda, which is just a
7:36
Speaker 2: giant tax cut. And that tax cut is not primarily
7:41
Speaker 2: for most people in this country who are concerned about inflation.
7:44
Speaker 2: Most of the tax cuts are going to billionaires, big corporations,
7:49
Speaker 2: the wealthiest people. And he's got his no tax on
7:53
Speaker 2: tips thing if that gets through. that I guess is
7:57
Speaker 2: if you're in the restaurant industry, or if you work
8:01
Speaker 2: on tips, right, anywhere, then that helps you. But there's
8:04
Speaker 2: nothing else in that agenda for middle-class people. In fact,
8:08
Speaker 2: there's a lot of cuts coming to health care and
8:10
Speaker 2: education that are going to hurt middle-class people. Something to watch.
8:14
Speaker 2: Certainly something to watch. Any comment on the confirmations on
8:17
Speaker 2: Gabbard and Kennedy going through? I know you wrote a
8:19
Speaker 2: message box Thursday morning about what we can learn from
8:22
Speaker 2: the Gabbard vote.
8:25
Speaker 1: It is.
8:27
Speaker 3: Deeply alarming that we have an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist at
8:31
Speaker 3: the head of our healthcare system and someone who has
8:36
Speaker 3: played footsie with Bashar al-Assad and Putin and has also
8:40
Speaker 3: embraced all kinds of conspiracy theories in charge of our
8:42
Speaker 3: intelligence agencies. If you had told people six months ago
8:49
Speaker 3: that that's how this was going to end, people would
8:50
Speaker 3: have laughed at you. People would have treated it as
8:53
Speaker 3: liberal MSNBC positive America hysteria to suggest such crazy things.
8:58
Speaker 3: And look, I think as it relates to the Republican Party,
9:02
Speaker 3: and this is particularly true of the Gabbard confirmation, but
9:05
Speaker 3: also true of the RFK Jr. one as well, is
9:07
Speaker 3: that the fact that every Republican except Mitch McConnell voted
9:11
Speaker 3: for these folks is proof that the Republican Party as
9:15
Speaker 3: an independent entity is dead. It is now just a
9:18
Speaker 3: vehicle for Trump's whims and desires. They have no independent policy.
9:22
Speaker 1: Positions, right?
9:22
Speaker 3: They just confirmed someone who spent most of their life
9:26
Speaker 3: being pro-choice to be in charge of the healthcare system.
9:29
Speaker 3: They just confirmed someone who is the closest person to
9:33
Speaker 3: Russia in the United States Congress when they were there
9:36
Speaker 3: to be the head of the intelligence agencies. And this
9:41
Speaker 3: is different than when it was before. If you remember
9:43
Speaker 3: in 2017, the Republican House and Senate passed a bill
9:47
Speaker 3: to keep Trump from taking sanctions off of Russia. When,
9:51
Speaker 3: during the Biden administration, when a bunch of Trump's allies
9:55
Speaker 3: at the behest of Trump wanted to get rid of
9:58
Speaker 3: funding for Ukraine, it was the Republican Senate who stopped them.
10:01
Speaker 3: And now it's just like, we will do whatever they want.
10:04
Speaker 3: And even on foreign policy, the one place they had
10:06
Speaker 3: held the line over the years, and it's just like,
10:08
Speaker 3: this is the end of the party as an actual
10:12
Speaker 3: entity that will survive Trump. And they gave it all
10:14
Speaker 3: up for nothing more than avoiding a primary challenge in
10:17
Speaker 3: the next election. Because that's how you know that that's
10:19
Speaker 3: what this is about, because Mitch McConnell is almost certainly
10:22
Speaker 3: retiring now. And so he's the only one who feels
10:25
Speaker 3: like he can vote his conscience without suffering the repercussions
10:29
Speaker 3: because he's immune from them.
10:32
Speaker 2: I don't really get what Murkowski and Collins were doing
10:34
Speaker 2: on these, though, either. Their statements are basically like, well,
10:37
Speaker 2: I got assurances from them and they've put my, you know,
10:40
Speaker 2: that both nominees sort of like put our concerns to rest.
10:43
Speaker 2: So I guess we'll just trust them. And I guess
10:45
Speaker 2: that means that Collins is, maybe Collins is worried about
10:48
Speaker 2: a primary challenge. So I guess that means she's probably,
10:51
Speaker 2: she's thinking about running again and not retiring, that she
10:53
Speaker 2: could very well retire.
10:55
Speaker 1: She's old enough. And Murkowski too, like I just, the credulousness,
10:59
Speaker 1: I just can't understand. None of them believe it.
11:01
Speaker 3: Not a single one of them believe, like maybe like
11:03
Speaker 3: Tommy Tuberville believes this bullshit, but if you gave truth
11:07
Speaker 3: serum to the Republican Senate caucus and overwhelmingly, they would
11:11
Speaker 3: say it was fucking insane to confirm Tulsi Gabbard for
11:15
Speaker 3: this job, that it was ridiculously irresponsible to confirm RFK Jr.
11:20
Speaker 3: for this job. They all believe that, but they won't
11:22
Speaker 3: do it. And I think this is really interesting about
11:24
Speaker 3: Trump's brand of politics is, normally, if you don't need
11:28
Speaker 3: the votes, and they weren't going to need every single
11:30
Speaker 3: Republican this time, you let people take a walk on
11:33
Speaker 3: a tough vote, right? Particularly someone like Susan Collins, who
11:35
Speaker 3: was in a blue state. like give her a chance.
11:38
Speaker 3: They don't need her vote to confirm either of these people.
11:41
Speaker 3: Let her vote the other way so she can show
11:43
Speaker 3: her brand of independence or whatever else. But Trump does
11:46
Speaker 3: not do that. Everything's a loyalty test, right? You have
11:50
Speaker 3: to walk across the hot coals for him, even at
11:52
Speaker 3: your own peril. And you do it because he is
11:56
Speaker 3: so vengeful, he's so petty that you don't even know
12:00
Speaker 3: what he could do. He and his allies could unleash
12:02
Speaker 3: upon you if you vote. And that says just how
12:05
Speaker 3: sort of perverted the political incentive structure has become under Trump.
12:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's, I mean, this is what happens in
12:13
Speaker 2: authoritarian governments. Like it's just exactly that, right? Like he's
12:16
Speaker 2: got the whole, the party belongs to him and they
12:20
Speaker 2: are scared of him, scared of both like their professional careers.
12:24
Speaker 2: And in some cases, people are literally scared of death threats. So,
12:28
Speaker 2: I mean, it's wild. It was another big week for
12:31
Speaker 2: Chancellor Elon Musk. who held his first Oval Office press
12:34
Speaker 2: conference while two fidgety toddlers looked on impatiently, Elon's four-year-old
12:38
Speaker 2: son and his 78-year-old boss, Donald Trump. Elon droned on
12:42
Speaker 2: about Doge in a weird, rambling monologue that did include
12:48
Speaker 2: one newsworthy admission.
12:50
Speaker 5: Some of the things that I say will be incorrect
12:53
Speaker 5: and should be corrected.
12:54
Speaker 2: So nobody's going to bat a thousand.
12:56
Speaker 1: Oh, well, nevertheless, you know.
13:00
Speaker 2: And sure enough, many things he has said over the
13:04
Speaker 2: last several weeks and months have been incorrect. Here's a
13:07
Speaker 2: real doozy from this week. The Justice Department had to
13:09
Speaker 2: admit in a court filing that one of Musk's dogebags
13:14
Speaker 2: didn't just have read-only access to Treasury's payment system, but
13:19
Speaker 2: was accidentally given full access.
13:23
Speaker 1: Accidentally. So all this time.
13:26
Speaker 2: That Elon and Doge were like, no, no, no, they
13:28
Speaker 2: only had read-only access, no big deal. And then the
13:31
Speaker 2: Justice Department, of course, believes that. And then they file
13:34
Speaker 2: in court. And then suddenly the Justice Department talks to Treasury,
13:37
Speaker 2: talks to Elon.
13:38
Speaker 1: Oh, shit. Whoops. Our bad. So that happened.
13:42
Speaker 2: Doge is also, at least so far, having a rough
13:45
Speaker 2: go at it in court. They've been kicked out of
13:47
Speaker 2: the Treasury payment system. The federal funding freeze has been
13:50
Speaker 2: temporarily blocked. And the gutting of USAID is... And the
13:55
Speaker 2: National Institutes of Health have been temporarily blocked as well.
13:59
Speaker 2: Would you make of Elon's weird oval presser and all
14:03
Speaker 2: the latest Doge news?
14:05
Speaker 3: I have so many questions about the press conference. So
14:07
Speaker 3: many questions. How did it happen? Why is he, like,
14:11
Speaker 3: why was he there? Why was his child there? Why
14:14
Speaker 3: was he dressed like that? Why was he wearing a hat?
14:17
Speaker 3: He had on a hat and some.
14:18
Speaker 1: Sort of overcoat.
14:19
Speaker 2: That's his Make America Great hat, but it's in black.
14:22
Speaker 3: The dark MAGA hat, which you know because he replied
14:24
Speaker 3: to your tweet this morning.
14:25
Speaker 1: He did reply to my tweet.
14:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, he's about the story that the State Department
14:31
Speaker 2: looked like they wanted to buy like a couple hundred
14:34
Speaker 2: million dollars worth of Tesla, armed Tesla trucks. But apparently
14:40
Speaker 2: it was a request made in the Biden administration that
14:43
Speaker 2: And it was to armor maybe electric vehicles that they
14:46
Speaker 2: already had. But then someone in the State Department, once
14:49
Speaker 2: it was reported, changed it and erased Tesla. So they'd
14:53
Speaker 2: get in trouble and just made it like it's a
14:55
Speaker 2: whole thing. But Elon wanted to tell me that it
14:58
Speaker 2: was fake news. So there you go.
15:02
Speaker 3: Congratulations on reaching this boss level of clout you now have.
15:07
Speaker 3: And I can't wait for Kash Patel to come crashing
15:10
Speaker 3: through the.
15:10
Speaker 1: Media doors now. Don't necessarily want to be on that
15:13
Speaker 1: radar screen.
15:14
Speaker 3: The key, if you're a mole, the key to not
15:16
Speaker 3: getting whacked is keeping your head in the hole. So
15:18
Speaker 3: there you go.
15:19
Speaker 1: So much for that.
15:20
Speaker 3: Look, I think the whole thing was ridiculous. It was strange.
15:22
Speaker 3: It was internally long and incredibly awkward.
15:26
Speaker 1: Yes.
15:27
Speaker 3: I mean, it is in many ways just sort of
15:30
Speaker 3: like a metaphor for what the Trump presidency has been.
15:33
Speaker 3: Trump is just sitting there quietly while Elon Musk holds
15:37
Speaker 3: court and sort of runs the government.
15:39
Speaker 2: Though I will say, though, that he was sitting quietly,
15:42
Speaker 2: like surprisingly quietly for Trump. But, you know, we've all
15:45
Speaker 2: watched Trump enough now for the last however many years, decade.
15:49
Speaker 2: He looked like alternately sort of annoyed and kind of like,
15:53
Speaker 2: come on, hurry it up. He had to like interject
15:55
Speaker 2: once in a while. He's like, and tell them what
15:57
Speaker 2: you found. Tell them what your team found. Like he
16:00
Speaker 2: was you could tell. I don't know if Trump's going
16:02
Speaker 2: to let that happen again.
16:03
Speaker 3: No, he was he was also trapped because he was
16:05
Speaker 3: sitting down.
16:06
Speaker 1: Right.
16:06
Speaker 3: So it's like, he really was in the, like this
16:08
Speaker 3: terrible position where he could not get up from where
16:10
Speaker 3: he was without, I guess, I mean, just, it was very,
16:13
Speaker 3: it was like a strange thing. I like for people
16:16
Speaker 3: like you and I, we watched the whole thing. It
16:17
Speaker 3: seems like it should be a disaster for everyone involved.
16:20
Speaker 3: Elon seems strange and weird and incorrect. And Trump look,
16:25
Speaker 3: you know, Trump is being basically told to shush his
16:27
Speaker 3: mouth by a, by a small child, all kinds of
16:29
Speaker 3: weird things are happening. And it's like, ah, what a
16:31
Speaker 3: clown show. But it's worth just stepping back and recognizing
16:39
Speaker 3: that this does fit within Trump's strategy the first few weeks,
16:43
Speaker 3: which is just grab all the attention all the time.
16:47
Speaker 3: And this dominated attention. The cable news covered it the
16:51
Speaker 3: whole time, just went live for this whole thing. It
16:55
Speaker 3: led the network news that night. Now, No one should
16:58
Speaker 3: really give a lot of shits about what leads to
17:01
Speaker 3: network news these days or goes live on cable. But
17:05
Speaker 3: more importantly, it became like a moment online. It was
17:07
Speaker 3: a thing that broke through. It became this topic of conversation.
17:11
Speaker 3: It was immediately memefied. And there were all these memes
17:13
Speaker 3: going around about, you know, with Elon, with this kid
17:17
Speaker 3: on his shoulders answering the questions. And I'm not sure,
17:20
Speaker 3: to the extent that the public consumed any of it,
17:22
Speaker 3: and they're probably at most just like glancing by it
17:25
Speaker 3: or seeing moments on TikTok or Instagram or whatever else.
17:28
Speaker 3: It is just sort of like this political outsider who's
17:31
Speaker 3: such an outsider, he's dressed like a weirdo in the
17:33
Speaker 3: Oval Office with his kid on his shoulders, defending his
17:36
Speaker 3: efforts to cut government and get rid of waste. And
17:39
Speaker 3: that's not in itself totally bad. It's just, I just
17:42
Speaker 3: think as we look at all these things, it's just
17:44
Speaker 3: another reminder that in this day and age, the quantity
17:47
Speaker 3: of attention is more important than the quality. And this
17:49
Speaker 3: was a massive quantity of attention.
18:01
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. Well,
18:03
Speaker 2: it's officially too cold to do anything.
18:05
Speaker 1: The upside?
18:06
Speaker 2: You can cocoon yourself in Bombas socks, slippers, and underwear
18:09
Speaker 2: all winter long. The secret is in their fabrics. We're
18:12
Speaker 2: talking about the good stuff like merino wool, which feels
18:14
Speaker 2: as cozy as a ski lodge. But if you want
18:16
Speaker 2: to brave the cold on the slopes or on a
18:18
Speaker 2: snowy run, Bombas has athletic socks built for that too.
18:21
Speaker 2: Bombas also knows little things really do make a big difference.
18:24
Speaker 2: So they removed all the itchy tags, fixed that annoying
18:27
Speaker 2: toe seam, and perfected the fit of everything. No more
18:30
Speaker 2: socks that slip down or underwear that rides up. I
18:33
Speaker 2: hate the itchy tags and the seam.
18:35
Speaker 1: The seam really sucks. Really sucks.
18:38
Speaker 2: They even have slippers, which is nice. It's always good
18:40
Speaker 2: to have some slippers in the winter. But it doesn't
18:42
Speaker 2: matter which Bombas you get because every Bombas item gives back.
18:45
Speaker 2: For every item you purchase, Bombas will donate another item
18:47
Speaker 2: to someone facing homelessness. Really, they've donated over 150 million
18:51
Speaker 2: items thanks to purchases like yours. And if for some
18:53
Speaker 2: reason you're not a fan of what you get, don't
18:55
Speaker 2: worry because they have 100% happiness guarantee. that covers free
18:58
Speaker 2: exchanges and returns too.
19:00
Speaker 1: We love Bombas. Everyone in our house has different pairs
19:03
Speaker 1: of Bombas. They look cool and they're super comfy. So
19:05
Speaker 1: try Bombas now.
19:06
Speaker 2: Head over to bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked
19:08
Speaker 2: for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash crooked.
19:13
Speaker 2: Code crooked at checkout. So, you know, you raise a
19:20
Speaker 2: debate that's been going around in democratic circles and it's like,
19:23
Speaker 2: what do people really think of Elon? And how do
19:26
Speaker 2: we talk about Doge and cutting government, knowing that people
19:30
Speaker 2: do want to, you know, get rid of government waste,
19:33
Speaker 2: but maybe what Elon's doing isn't so popular and he's
19:36
Speaker 2: not so popular. So I got some more data from
19:39
Speaker 2: Echelon on this right before we recorded. Trump's approval is
19:44
Speaker 2: at 52-46, right? So he is still above water. Elon's
19:48
Speaker 2: approval is 43-50. So he is underwater. They asked what
19:56
Speaker 2: you think about Elon's role in government right now. Only
19:59
Speaker 2: 40% approve, 51% disapprove. So that's underwater. Then they asked
20:04
Speaker 2: two questions. One, Elon is right to try and fix
20:08
Speaker 2: broken D.C. bureaucracies that waste hundreds of billions of dollars
20:11
Speaker 2: and spend taxpayer money on radical ideologies that most Americans
20:14
Speaker 2: don't agree with.
20:15
Speaker 1: Agree or disagree.
20:17
Speaker 2: And it was 50 agree, 42 disagree. Then they did
20:20
Speaker 2: a statement, Elon is wrong to dismantle vital aid programs
20:23
Speaker 2: and other agencies when he wasn't elected and has no
20:26
Speaker 2: expertise in government. And people agree with that statement, 57-43.
20:31
Speaker 2: And then they asked, which of those statements do you
20:33
Speaker 2: agree more with? And by 50 to 44, people agreed
20:37
Speaker 2: with Elon is wrong to be doing this and not right.
20:41
Speaker 2: So it's, you know, one indicator, one poll, but it's
20:44
Speaker 2: an early indicator that like, A, it tells you, I think,
20:48
Speaker 2: how to talk about this. But B, that, you know,
20:51
Speaker 2: while people don't like bloated government and do like cutting waste,
20:55
Speaker 2: they are not super excited about the way that Elon
20:58
Speaker 2: has gone about it.
20:59
Speaker 3: The way I think to read that poll is that
21:01
Speaker 3: Elon is actually a drag candidate. on what would be
21:04
Speaker 3: an otherwise more popular effort.
21:06
Speaker 6: Yes.
21:06
Speaker 3: Because if you can only get to 50 on the
21:08
Speaker 3: idea of getting rid of bloat and waste in government
21:11
Speaker 3: because Elon's name's attached, it's because if you send the
21:13
Speaker 3: world's richest man into government who has billions of dollars
21:18
Speaker 3: in government contracts to manage federal spending, that seems pretty
21:23
Speaker 3: sketchy to just about any person. And so it's just–
21:27
Speaker 3: there is a secondary debate about how much we focus
21:29
Speaker 3: on Elon, how much we focus on Trump. I think
21:30
Speaker 3: there's real advantage in focusing on Elon. And I think
21:33
Speaker 3: I've been sort of playing with like a little, not
21:38
Speaker 3: a message per se, right? Not a slogan, but like
21:42
Speaker 3: a framework to think about how to describe what's happening
21:45
Speaker 3: in the Trump administration, particularly as it relates to Doge.
21:47
Speaker 3: Because there is, how you talk about this does matter somewhat,
21:52
Speaker 3: but is to center the, like the two themes of
21:55
Speaker 3: the Trump presidency to date are chaos and corruption. And
21:59
Speaker 3: I think if you– the way to get into the
22:01
Speaker 3: Doge stuff is, yes, talk about all the vital programs
22:04
Speaker 3: that are being– and be specific about what they are.
22:06
Speaker 3: But it's also just pure fucking chaos, right? There's a story,
22:09
Speaker 3: I think it was in The Times, about this school
22:12
Speaker 3: that's been– has this federal grant to get new school buses.
22:15
Speaker 3: They're like they've made four of the five payments, but
22:17
Speaker 3: they didn't withdraw the fifth payment before Trump was sworn in,
22:19
Speaker 3: and now they can't get the school bus anymore.
22:22
Speaker 2: Now they're going to have to pay out of their
22:24
Speaker 2: own budget for the school buses, even though they were
22:26
Speaker 2: promised the money and now they can't hire the new
22:27
Speaker 2: teachers they needed.
22:28
Speaker 3: You know, just a very close friend of mine who
22:32
Speaker 3: works in education, just doing consulting for school districts, a
22:37
Speaker 3: bunch of her, you know, these are like long-term grants
22:40
Speaker 3: where they've been working with these school districts on like
22:42
Speaker 3: teacher accreditation and teacher training for years, just all gone
22:45
Speaker 3: two days ago. Just in the middle of the program, right?
22:48
Speaker 3: Just like- They're working through, like you're halfway through. It's
22:51
Speaker 3: one thing to stop new money from going out the door, right?
22:55
Speaker 3: Or looking at not, I don't mean like the fifth
22:58
Speaker 3: of the seven payments, but to say, here are the
23:02
Speaker 3: new grant applications that have come in since Trump was president,
23:05
Speaker 3: or it is time to renew the grant. And then
23:08
Speaker 3: you can, the voters voted for you, you can put
23:11
Speaker 3: within all legal frameworks, your ideological framework on what kind
23:14
Speaker 3: of grant should get approved. But to stop things in
23:18
Speaker 3: the middle, right? I mean, you guys talked a lot
23:20
Speaker 3: about what's happening to the folks in USAID who just,
23:23
Speaker 3: but just it's pure chaos. It's wrecking chaos in people's lives.
23:27
Speaker 3: And then the fact that you have on top of that,
23:29
Speaker 3: the world's richest man doing it while he is cutting
23:33
Speaker 3: agencies that are regulating his businesses is just like that.
23:40
Speaker 3: That is what everyone hates about politics, right? It is
23:42
Speaker 3: the cynicism that drove many of them to vote for Trump.
23:44
Speaker 3: And it can be the cynicism that caused in the
23:46
Speaker 3: rightfully well-earned cynicism about government in this case that causes
23:49
Speaker 3: them to go the other direction.
23:51
Speaker 2: Well, and to your point about like Elon being a
23:54
Speaker 2: drag on Doge or on the effort, Echelon did like
23:58
Speaker 2: a battery of approval, disapproval on various public figures and agencies.
24:04
Speaker 2: The least popular in the whole list was Elon, by
24:06
Speaker 2: the way, which was great. Doge was at 39.33% approve, disapprove. So, like,
24:13
Speaker 2: slightly above water for Doge, but Elon was very much underwater.
24:17
Speaker 2: And then even USAID was 39-28 approve. And so, I
24:22
Speaker 2: know everyone says that everyone hates foreign aid and it's
24:25
Speaker 2: bad and stuff like that, but I do think that
24:27
Speaker 2: it's been in the news. My guess would be it
24:30
Speaker 2: has been in the news so much that, you know,
24:33
Speaker 2: people are sort of hearing stories about the humanitarian assistance
24:37
Speaker 2: that's gotten cut and It's not as unpopular as foreign
24:40
Speaker 2: aid might usually be in a poll.
24:42
Speaker 3: It's reflexive partisanship, right? This is the same impulse that caused,
24:48
Speaker 3: in 2017, Democrats to become huge fans of the New
24:51
Speaker 3: York Times has caused us to become huge fans of USAID.
24:54
Speaker 3: It's like Trump's against it. It must be good.
24:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:56
Speaker 3: And I would say, actually, in the long run for
24:59
Speaker 3: the world, one half of America's two parties becoming– you know,
25:04
Speaker 3: full-throated advocates for humanitarian assistance is more valuable than subsidizing
25:08
Speaker 3: wordle acquisitions at the New York times. Wow.
25:14
Speaker 1: I just like that. You really swerve to hit that.
25:16
Speaker 1: That was what I, that's what I enjoyed.
25:17
Speaker 3: That wasn't, I didn't even plan that. That was just
25:19
Speaker 3: like came naturally to me. I don't know why.
25:21
Speaker 2: Before we move on from Elon, did you see that
25:25
Speaker 2: weird ass photo of Elon? So, so prime minister Modi
25:30
Speaker 2: of India is in DC and, I think he's, like,
25:33
Speaker 2: doing a presser with Trump, probably.
25:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's doing a bilateral with Trump today.
25:39
Speaker 1: He also, though, met with Elon Musk.
25:42
Speaker 2: And there's a picture of Elon shaking his hand, sitting
25:45
Speaker 2: down shaking his hand, like Elon's the fucking president. And
25:48
Speaker 2: then it's also very funny because, like, when you zoom out,
25:50
Speaker 2: it looks like a traditional bilat with, like, all of
25:53
Speaker 2: Modi's staffers and officials from India on one side. And
25:57
Speaker 2: then on the other side, it's just like, A couple
25:58
Speaker 2: of kids, Elon's– a couple of Elon's kids.
26:01
Speaker 3: Several of Elon's kids, yes. There was this funny line
26:03
Speaker 3: in one of the stories. It was like, Modi had
26:05
Speaker 3: this– obviously, all of his staff. And it said, Elon
26:08
Speaker 3: was only accompanied by this woman who's a longtime lieutenant
26:11
Speaker 3: and the mother of three of his children. So I
26:13
Speaker 3: was like, that's who came?
26:15
Speaker 2: It's also just– and Trump has asked about it in
26:19
Speaker 2: the press conference that he did. And they're like, oh,
26:22
Speaker 2: do you know Elon– met with Modi and he's like, no,
26:25
Speaker 2: I'm not really aware. And he's like, well, do you
26:28
Speaker 2: know why he met with him? He's like, well, I
26:30
Speaker 2: assume he wants to do business in India. Do you
26:33
Speaker 2: know about what he had? He had no clue.
26:35
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, I assume he wants to do business.
26:38
Speaker 3: I would really like some real reporting, especially if it
26:40
Speaker 3: came from those wordle people I just unfairly attacked, but
26:44
Speaker 3: about how the meeting came to be. When you look
26:47
Speaker 3: at the picture, that is the classic State Department setup
26:52
Speaker 3: for a bilateral meeting. I know. If the Secretary of
26:55
Speaker 3: State is traveling abroad or even like a lower government
27:00
Speaker 3: official is traveling abroad as an official representative of something,
27:03
Speaker 3: it's always that, right? It's the flags, the chairs, the handshake.
27:07
Speaker 3: And so was that set up? Who booked that? Who
27:11
Speaker 3: talked to Modi? Who in the White House signed off
27:14
Speaker 3: on it? I mean, this is small pennies, but assume
27:18
Speaker 3: that's all State Department stuff that was put together for
27:21
Speaker 3: that meeting. How did that happen? The fact that Trump
27:27
Speaker 3: just acknowledged in that Q & A that Elon was
27:29
Speaker 3: doing this because he wants to do business in India,
27:31
Speaker 3: which he definitely does, and that Trump had no problem
27:33
Speaker 3: with Elon using his special government employee status to get
27:38
Speaker 3: meetings with foreign leaders in places where he wanted to
27:41
Speaker 3: do business. We just did the chaos part of the
27:44
Speaker 3: equation I wanted to get to. This is the corruption part.
27:47
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable. It's like, yeah, he's Elon Musk.
27:51
Speaker 2: So he gets to meet with all the people that
27:53
Speaker 2: President Trump gets to meet with. Only for him, it's
27:55
Speaker 2: purely financial.
27:57
Speaker 3: There's this, it really is like White House fantasy camp.
28:03
Speaker 3: You know, it's like these people, these are the people
28:04
Speaker 3: who pay like a ton of money to go to
28:06
Speaker 3: Duke basketball program, like grown adults and like put on
28:11
Speaker 3: the uniform and they run out through Cameron and they
28:12
Speaker 3: go to a practice with Coach K back in the day.
28:15
Speaker 3: And it's like, this is the same thing. It's like,
28:17
Speaker 3: He spent a quarter of a billion dollars of his
28:19
Speaker 3: own money and he gets to play pretend president with
28:21
Speaker 3: some actual real authorities for as long as he wants.
28:25
Speaker 2: And he gets to break government and he gets to
28:27
Speaker 2: make sure that his friends and his allies, I mean,
28:29
Speaker 2: it's Trump's thing too.
28:30
Speaker 3: His companies.
28:31
Speaker 2: Everyone's friends, allies, ideological allies, they get stuff, right? They're
28:37
Speaker 2: taken care of for now. And then everyone else, yeah,
28:41
Speaker 2: go fuck yourselves. One outlet that was not in attendance
28:44
Speaker 2: at the Oval Office Presser or any White House press
28:46
Speaker 2: availabilities this.
28:47
Speaker 1: Week, the Associated Press.
28:49
Speaker 4: Why?
28:50
Speaker 2: Because the AP refuses to use Trump's preferred name for
28:53
Speaker 2: the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, even though
28:57
Speaker 2: the body of water doesn't belong to America. The AP
29:00
Speaker 2: put out a statement on Tuesday calling the ban alarming
29:03
Speaker 2: and a plain violation of the First Amendment. This comes
29:06
Speaker 2: after Trump's lawsuits against ABC and CBS. And as Trump's
29:10
Speaker 2: new FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, said, has launched investigations into NPR, PBS,
29:15
Speaker 2: and now NBCUniversal for, of course, DEI. Carr said in
29:20
Speaker 2: a statement on Wednesday, I would encourage any business that
29:23
Speaker 2: wants the FCC to approve a deal to end any
29:27
Speaker 2: invidious forms of DEI discrimination with all deliberate speed. I
29:32
Speaker 2: don't know if I've ever heard the word invidious before.
29:35
Speaker 1: Have you?
29:35
Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of an awkward thing to say.
29:38
Speaker 1: Oh, was it a wordle?
29:41
Speaker 3: No, no, no. Too many letters for wordle. I have
29:46
Speaker 3: heard it, but I certainly couldn't spell it. And I'm
29:48
Speaker 3: not sure I could. I could maybe win a multiple
29:50
Speaker 3: choice question on what it means, but kudos to Brendan
29:53
Speaker 3: Carr for using it.
29:56
Speaker 2: And kudos to him for nothing else. What do you
29:58
Speaker 2: make of all this? All the AP thing, the FCC investigations?
30:03
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they went after a local radio
30:07
Speaker 2: station in your hometown here of San Francisco just for
30:10
Speaker 2: reporting on ICE raids.
30:12
Speaker 3: It is very scary. It is quite scary. This is,
30:17
Speaker 3: in all of the major Supreme Court cases on free
30:21
Speaker 3: speech over the years, the ultimate time when the reasons
30:24
Speaker 3: they ultimately put real limits on what the government can do,
30:28
Speaker 3: whether it's on New York Times versus Sullivan, whether it's
30:31
Speaker 3: on the Online Decency Act, whether it's stuff that was
30:34
Speaker 3: done in the anti-communist push at points in our history,
30:41
Speaker 3: it's because government action has a chilling effect on free speech.
30:44
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what's happening with the San Francisco radio station.
30:49
Speaker 3: Because the government has unlimited power and unlimited money. So
30:52
Speaker 3: if you're a local radio station, a local newspaper, An
30:56
Speaker 3: individual reporter who just has their own newsletter or whatever else,
31:03
Speaker 3: you have to think very carefully about what you say
31:06
Speaker 3: and what you do because if you become one of
31:09
Speaker 3: the targets of one of these attacks, you don't have
31:12
Speaker 3: the resources to fight back. You will be bankrupted in
31:14
Speaker 3: this process. And then on the other end, you have
31:17
Speaker 3: this with the FCC, with the threat about DEI from
31:19
Speaker 3: Brendan Carr, you know, Invidious or not, is you have
31:23
Speaker 3: all of these businesses, these large corporate entities of which
31:26
Speaker 3: journalism is usually a money-losing part of it, or it's
31:31
Speaker 3: at least not a part of their revenue future. And
31:34
Speaker 3: they are making decisions about the larger company that's affecting
31:38
Speaker 3: the journalism of the entity there. And there is this
31:43
Speaker 3: whole thing about whether Paramount which has a merger before
31:46
Speaker 3: the FCC is going to settle this ridiculous lawsuit for
31:52
Speaker 3: 60 minutes, just as a way to ensure that they
31:54
Speaker 3: can get their merger greenlit by the FCC. It's like,
32:00
Speaker 3: and then, and then just, sorry, the other thing I
32:02
Speaker 3: say is just like, that is very, very real. I'm
32:04
Speaker 3: always torn. Like it is insane that the white house
32:08
Speaker 3: is so petty that they're not gonna let the APN
32:09
Speaker 3: cause they won't give Trump's fake name to something real.
32:14
Speaker 3: And it's sort of like the way– and sometimes the
32:18
Speaker 3: press overstates or overreacts to smaller things and claims it's
32:24
Speaker 3: in a free speech. Like the way people treated Barack
32:26
Speaker 3: Obama not doing enough press conferences was– or not taking
32:30
Speaker 3: enough questions on the rope line as the end of
32:34
Speaker 3: the free press. Or when Jim Acosta lost his White
32:38
Speaker 3: House badge briefly. But these– like doing– trying to bully
32:42
Speaker 3: the AP– has an impact on what others will do.
32:45
Speaker 3: And I think it is quite concerning.
32:48
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, just look at how many times Donald Trump,
32:51
Speaker 2: since he's become president again, has gone and taken questions
32:54
Speaker 2: from the press, right?
32:55
Speaker 1: Which is a lot of times.
32:56
Speaker 2: And in some of those instances, and we've talked about
32:59
Speaker 2: them on the show, people have asked a challenging question
33:02
Speaker 2: or a critical question of Trump. Like, If you get
33:05
Speaker 2: to the point where they kick out the AP, they
33:07
Speaker 2: kick out all the legacy media outlets or all the
33:10
Speaker 2: outlets that they think might ask difficult questions, and all
33:12
Speaker 2: you get is just fawning questions from Newsmax and OAN
33:16
Speaker 2: and the Ruthless podcast and all the other fucking idiots
33:21
Speaker 2: that they let into the briefing room now, if that's
33:23
Speaker 2: all the questions that we get, then it's going to
33:25
Speaker 2: just sound like North Korean television.
33:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like a longer conversation about the differences
33:32
Speaker 3: between press access and press freedom.
33:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
33:35
Speaker 6: Right.
33:36
Speaker 3: And I think Caroline Leavitt, the Trump press secretary, said
33:39
Speaker 3: the AP doesn't have a right to cover these events.
33:43
Speaker 3: Because ultimately, what the freedom of the press is about
33:46
Speaker 3: is the government cannot stop you from printing what you
33:48
Speaker 3: want to print.
33:49
Speaker 4: Right.
33:50
Speaker 3: But democracy suffers when there is not press access.
33:55
Speaker 1: Yes.
33:56
Speaker 3: There is less transparency. There's less scrutiny. And we've already
33:59
Speaker 3: saw this in the Pentagon, where it's not that Pete
34:02
Speaker 3: Hagseth is keeping out mainstream press, but he has kicked
34:06
Speaker 3: the mainstream press out of their offices and allowed a
34:07
Speaker 3: bunch of ideological allies to come in and cover those places.
34:11
Speaker 3: And that's just, it's all like, this is the same thing,
34:13
Speaker 3: point you made earlier, is this is what happens in
34:16
Speaker 3: authoritarian regimes. Like it is slowly over time, the very
34:21
Speaker 3: tired metaphor of the frog getting boiled, but the water
34:24
Speaker 3: is boiling and you can see it happening.
34:35
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Armour Colostrum.
34:39
Speaker 2: Everyone's looking for ways to be healthier and stave off
34:41
Speaker 2: winter illnesses. Give your immunity and gut health their best
34:44
Speaker 2: chance with Armour Colostrum. Discover the transformational health benefits of
34:48
Speaker 2: Armour Colostrum that have earned tens of thousands of five-star reviews.
34:52
Speaker 2: Probiotics and other supplements are touted as a gut health solution,
34:55
Speaker 2: but most products on the market are dead before they
34:57
Speaker 2: even reach your gut. Armour Colostrum naturally fortifies your entire
35:01
Speaker 2: gut wall system. It optimizes your whole body microbiome, which
35:04
Speaker 2: helps guard against irritants that can trigger digestive issues and
35:06
Speaker 2: compromise your immune system. Research has shown that colostrum helps
35:10
Speaker 2: to enhance nutrient absorption. Armor colostrum can help stabilize blood
35:14
Speaker 2: sugar levels, modulate hormones, and ignite your metabolism. This enhanced
35:17
Speaker 2: nutrient absorption has been a closely guarded secret of elite athletes.
35:22
Speaker 1: No more.
35:22
Speaker 2: Colostrum has been shown to promote lean muscle building and
35:25
Speaker 2: fuel cellular repair regeneration to fuel better performance and faster recovery.
35:29
Speaker 2: Colostrum bioactives have also been shown to reactivate hair follicle
35:32
Speaker 2: stem cells and activate collagen production, promoting hair growth and
35:36
Speaker 2: enhancing skin radiance. We've worked out a special offer for
35:40
Speaker 2: our audience. Receive 15% off your first order. Go to tryarmra.com
35:44
Speaker 2: slash cricket or enter cricket to get 15% off your
35:46
Speaker 2: first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash cricket. Let's talk
35:55
Speaker 2: about Congress, which apparently is still a branch of government,
35:58
Speaker 2: I guess. Republicans have begun their attempt to pass Trump's
36:01
Speaker 2: legislative agenda, and the cuts they want make what Doge
36:06
Speaker 2: is doing seem like couch money. The House's budget proposal
36:09
Speaker 2: would cut at least $ 1. 5 trillion in health care, education,
36:13
Speaker 2: food assistance, and other spending in order to help pay
36:16
Speaker 2: for a small portion of the $ 4. 5 trillion Republicans want
36:22
Speaker 2: to spend on tax cuts, which would mostly benefit the
36:25
Speaker 2: biggest companies and billionaires like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and
36:28
Speaker 2: most of the Cabinet. And since they're not paying for
36:31
Speaker 2: all those tax cuts, they also want to raise the
36:33
Speaker 2: debt limit by $ 4 trillion. This seems like it should
36:38
Speaker 2: be a huge political problem for Trump and the Republicans.
36:42
Speaker 2: But what do you think and how do you think
36:44
Speaker 2: Democrats should make sure that's the case?
36:47
Speaker 3: It is a huge political problem for Trump and the Republicans.
36:51
Speaker 3: This is the exact rhythm of Republican governance since Reagan.
36:58
Speaker 3: run on reducing the deficit and government being too large,
37:02
Speaker 3: getting an office and then having to actually make the
37:04
Speaker 3: cuts and having the public turn on you very quickly
37:07
Speaker 3: for doing so, getting booted out, getting Democrats in office, rinse, repeat.
37:11
Speaker 3: And for Trump, this is particularly dangerous because unlike all
37:14
Speaker 3: those other Republicans, he didn't run on any of this.
37:17
Speaker 3: That was one thing Elon kept saying in the weird
37:21
Speaker 3: White Oval Office presser was the public voted for this,
37:23
Speaker 3: public voted for this. The public did not vote for this.
37:25
Speaker 3: This is not what Trump ran on. He did not
37:27
Speaker 3: run on cutting spending. He ran as Pat Buchanan, and
37:34
Speaker 3: he's now governing like Paul Ryan. He has lost touch
37:38
Speaker 3: with what... He's not a populist anymore. This is not
37:41
Speaker 3: a populist agenda. This is very improper stuff. Let's just
37:44
Speaker 3: take Medicaid, for instance. Navigator Research had a poll out
37:47
Speaker 3: in late January. 81% of voters opposed cuts to Medicaid.
37:51
Speaker 3: 75% of Republicans opposed cuts to Medicaid. This is incredibly
38:00
Speaker 3: unpopular stuff. And then you get to all the other
38:02
Speaker 3: spending cuts. You're looking at $ 800 billion in cuts to Medicaid.
38:06
Speaker 3: That is cuts to health care, cuts to nursing home.
38:09
Speaker 3: It cuts to children's health care. That is a huge
38:12
Speaker 3: deal that will be felt by huge swaths of the population.
38:15
Speaker 3: And then after that, even if they did that, then
38:17
Speaker 3: they have to cut billions and billions and billions more
38:20
Speaker 3: from all the stuff that Elon. What Elon's doing is
38:22
Speaker 3: small potatoes compared to this. You're going to have to
38:25
Speaker 3: slash food safety. slash medical research slash public education slash
38:30
Speaker 3: emergency response to natural disasters, all of those things. We've
38:33
Speaker 3: seen this happen every single time. And they want to
38:35
Speaker 3: eliminate the Department of Education, something Donald Trump just reiterated
38:38
Speaker 3: he wanted to do. And that is so unpopular. Huge
38:42
Speaker 3: majorities oppose it. And we've seen this before. After Newt
38:45
Speaker 3: Gingrich took power in 1994, the Republicans had the majority.
38:48
Speaker 3: They tried to eliminate the Department of Education. They got
38:50
Speaker 3: in a huge fight with Bill Clinton about it. Bill
38:51
Speaker 3: Clinton won that fight. The Republicans lost it so bad
38:54
Speaker 3: that when George W. Bush ran for president in 2000,
38:57
Speaker 3: he ran on increasing education funding. Like it is so,
39:00
Speaker 3: this is such politically toxic stuff. And this is where
39:04
Speaker 3: Trump's honeymoon ends. Because right now he's out there, he's
39:07
Speaker 3: just signing the things he wants, saying the things he
39:09
Speaker 3: wants to do. But now if he wants to actually
39:11
Speaker 3: do something, he has to get in the fucking muck
39:14
Speaker 3: with Congress to do this stuff. And it's incredibly unpopular.
39:18
Speaker 3: And as we know also painfully well, Once you start
39:22
Speaker 3: doing difficult legislative stuff with Congress, you'll lose the post-election
39:27
Speaker 3: sheen and you start looking pretty weak and pretty much
39:29
Speaker 3: like a typical politician.
39:32
Speaker 2: So I think I agree with all of that. I
39:35
Speaker 2: want all that to be true. The things that worry
39:38
Speaker 2: me this time around that I think the advantages that
39:41
Speaker 2: Trump has that Republicans didn't have in the past is
39:48
Speaker 2: number one, the information environment now favors them in a
39:51
Speaker 2: huge way. And so we can all be screaming about
39:54
Speaker 2: all these cuts that we're seeing and numbers and look
39:57
Speaker 2: at this in the budget and it's crazy, blah, blah, blah.
39:59
Speaker 2: And he's going to be out there being like, well,
40:01
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? I've given everyone a tax cut.
40:04
Speaker 2: And I have this, you know, he's got some small
40:05
Speaker 2: provision here and there, like they might close the carried
40:08
Speaker 2: interest loophole or I saw something like, you know, they're
40:11
Speaker 2: going to take away tax breaks from billionaire sports team owners,
40:16
Speaker 2: you know, like flashy stuff that gets attention, right?
40:18
Speaker 1: That like breaks through.
40:21
Speaker 2: And, you know, they're going to say, we're not going
40:23
Speaker 2: to touch Medicare and Social Security, like he promised. And
40:26
Speaker 2: then on Medicaid, all we want to do is just
40:28
Speaker 2: add a work requirement. Don't we think that people who
40:31
Speaker 2: get health care from the government, if they're able to work,
40:34
Speaker 2: should work? What's so crazy about that?
40:38
Speaker 3: That can't get you the numbers he needs, though.
40:40
Speaker 1: No, I know. I know.
40:41
Speaker 2: But I'm just I do think that fighting this is
40:44
Speaker 2: going to be difficult and also really important to make
40:48
Speaker 2: this about, I think, people who are going to be
40:51
Speaker 2: hurt by these cuts and not just the numbers. And also,
40:55
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't underestimate like it's obviously difficult once
40:58
Speaker 2: you get to Congress and you have to deal with Congress.
41:00
Speaker 1: That's true for every president.
41:02
Speaker 2: But and they have a very narrow majority of Republicans,
41:06
Speaker 2: but also they have proven themselves to do whatever he
41:10
Speaker 2: wants and not oppose him on almost anything so far.
41:15
Speaker 2: So I do wonder about, you know, some of the
41:18
Speaker 2: troublemakers in the Republican house, like the freedom caucus and
41:21
Speaker 2: some of those people, like, I wonder if they'll behave
41:24
Speaker 2: this time around just because they're guys in charge in
41:27
Speaker 2: the white house and they want to show unity and
41:30
Speaker 2: get something done.
41:31
Speaker 1: I don't know. What do you think? Yeah.
41:32
Speaker 3: So let's just, so I guess there's two separate questions.
41:34
Speaker 3: I'll take the second one first, which is, can they
41:37
Speaker 3: pass this?
41:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
41:38
Speaker 3: They absolutely can't. It's not going to be easy. It'd
41:40
Speaker 3: be incredibly messy. And it may end up where the
41:43
Speaker 3: Senate has to go first. And then the Republicans are
41:46
Speaker 3: put in this position to just like eat it or
41:48
Speaker 3: have Trump's agenda fail. And I think that that's probably
41:52
Speaker 3: more likely. I mean, the House Republicans have not passed
41:54
Speaker 3: some sort of consequential budget measure without Democratic help in
41:59
Speaker 3: other than sort of the fake debt ceiling thing that
42:01
Speaker 3: McCarthy did. I think that might be the only one
42:02
Speaker 3: in like a decade. Like they always need Democrats because
42:05
Speaker 3: they cannot agree on this stuff. But push comes to shove.
42:09
Speaker 3: It's very possible that they will put aside anything they
42:13
Speaker 3: possibly care about to help Trump. So we should assume that.
42:15
Speaker 3: So it's like, how do you win the fight? And
42:17
Speaker 3: you're 100% right. This is not the media environment in
42:20
Speaker 3: which Democrats had previously succeeded in these fights at all.
42:23
Speaker 3: Because there's one thing the press loves. It's like stories
42:28
Speaker 3: about cuts. What's going to go away? What are the specifics?
42:32
Speaker 3: Let's interview the people who are going to lose their program.
42:35
Speaker 3: And particularly in a world Especially when Bill Clinton did
42:37
Speaker 3: this with a very robust regional press, like it is
42:41
Speaker 3: death for Republicans. They're like doing local standups outside the
42:45
Speaker 3: nursing home that's going to close without Medicaid funding, right?
42:47
Speaker 3: That kills them. None of that exists anymore. And so
42:50
Speaker 3: we're going to have to be deft and strategic and
42:53
Speaker 3: loud in a way in which our party has been
42:55
Speaker 3: unable to do so at any point in recent history.
42:57
Speaker 3: So that is hard. But we have the political high
43:01
Speaker 3: side and we have the better story to tell. So
43:03
Speaker 3: it is possible to do it. The most important thing
43:06
Speaker 3: here is to– there are two important things, message-wise. One,
43:10
Speaker 3: be very specific about what is being cut, right? Even
43:14
Speaker 3: though Medicaid actually has a quite popular brand, don't just
43:17
Speaker 3: say Medicaid. Talk about specifically what Medicaid funds, right? Children's
43:20
Speaker 3: health care, nursing homes, right? Prescription drugs, all of that.
43:25
Speaker 3: Be specific. When you get to the other cuts, be
43:27
Speaker 3: incredibly specific about what they are, right? There's a lot
43:29
Speaker 3: of language guidance we can get to when these cuts
43:30
Speaker 3: actually happen about how to talk about education cuts and
43:32
Speaker 3: things like that. But to connect, why are they doing
43:35
Speaker 3: these cuts? To pay for tax cuts for huge corporations
43:41
Speaker 3: and rich people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
43:43
Speaker 1: That is why they're doing this.
43:45
Speaker 2: And again, everything has got to be a story and
43:48
Speaker 2: we've got to attach people to it, whether it's the
43:49
Speaker 2: cuts or whether it's the tax cuts. And we should have,
43:53
Speaker 2: which companies are going to be benefiting? How much they're
43:56
Speaker 2: going to get into the tax cut? How many billions
43:58
Speaker 2: they're going to get in a tax cut? Which billionaires
44:00
Speaker 2: are going to benefit? and then which people are going
44:03
Speaker 2: to be hurt and how they're going to be hurt
44:04
Speaker 2: across all the different kinds of spending areas, whether it's education,
44:08
Speaker 2: whether it's healthcare, whether it's food, whatever it may be.
44:11
Speaker 2: Like we just have to be very vivid and detailed
44:14
Speaker 2: in order to like break through in this environment, like
44:18
Speaker 2: fewer numbers, more stories, more people on everything that we
44:22
Speaker 2: do around, around.
44:24
Speaker 1: This fight, I think.
44:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
44:26
Speaker 1: Okay.
44:27
Speaker 2: Before we get to love it's interview with Rohit Chopra,
44:30
Speaker 2: It's time for a new segment we're calling, wait, did
44:33
Speaker 2: that really happen? Just three quick, hard to believe, holy shit,
44:38
Speaker 2: are you serious clips from this week that you may
44:41
Speaker 2: or may not have missed. First up, the Kennedy Center
44:45
Speaker 2: for the Performing Arts, the nation's cultural center right here,
44:52
Speaker 2: has a new board and a new chairman.
44:54
Speaker 1: Let's listen.
44:55
Speaker 4: So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn't like
44:57
Speaker 4: what they were showing.
44:58
Speaker 7: It's a very exciting development.
45:00
Speaker 6: It's going to be great.
45:02
Speaker 4: I think we're going to do something very special. It
45:05
Speaker 4: got very wokey. I think we're going to make it hot.
45:08
Speaker 4: We made the presidency hot.
45:09
Speaker 1: So this should be easy. Going to make it hot.
45:13
Speaker 3: Just like the presidency.
45:14
Speaker 2: It was getting too wokey. Why was the Kennedy Center
45:17
Speaker 2: too wokey? He was saying something like no more drag shows.
45:20
Speaker 2: Were there drag shows at the Kennedy Center? That would
45:22
Speaker 2: surprise me.
45:24
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it's like, this is- It's so
45:27
Speaker 3: funny that he fires the whole board and the chairman
45:31
Speaker 3: and he makes, he names himself chairman.
45:33
Speaker 2: And then he puts a post up that's like, congratulations,
45:36
Speaker 2: Donald J. Trump is the new chairman. Like, oh wow,
45:39
Speaker 2: how'd you get that? How'd you finagle that one?
45:42
Speaker 3: It is, I love it made this point on Twitter,
45:43
Speaker 3: but on the day we find out that inflation's going up,
45:46
Speaker 3: Donald Trump appoints himself programming opera program director.
45:49
Speaker 2: So it's like- I like that he also, he originally
45:53
Speaker 2: put Rick Grinnell as the acting director. Rick Grinnell, who
45:56
Speaker 2: some people thought was going to get Secretary of State. Man,
45:59
Speaker 2: what a consolation prize.
46:01
Speaker 1: That's right.
46:02
Speaker 2: Temporary acting director of the fucking Kennedy Center.
46:06
Speaker 1: Or maybe he's the permanent director. Maybe Trump's the chairman.
46:08
Speaker 1: I don't know. I couldn't keep track.
46:09
Speaker 3: Trump is the chairman of the board, and Rick Grinnell,
46:11
Speaker 3: as of the last time I looked at the internet,
46:13
Speaker 3: was the interim director.
46:14
Speaker 1: Oh, so he's still got it. Oh, congrats to Rick Grinnell.
46:17
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I'm tracking the story as closely as,
46:19
Speaker 3: I don't know, the Medicaid cuts or Elon Musk, but
46:22
Speaker 3: At one point, he was the interim director.
46:24
Speaker 1: I think Lee Greenwood's on the board. Yes, obviously. Usha Vance.
46:29
Speaker 2: I think they got a whole– Susie Wiles, the White
46:32
Speaker 2: House chief of staff. It's just going to be some
46:34
Speaker 2: great entertainment there. Great entertainment at the Kennedy Center.
46:37
Speaker 3: The whole point of the Kennedy Center board was to
46:39
Speaker 3: raise money for the Kennedy Center. The chair of the
46:41
Speaker 3: board was David Rubenstein, the incredibly wealthy private equity hedge
46:45
Speaker 3: fund guy who owns– Sir Richie owns a copy of
46:48
Speaker 3: the Constitution, I think. Uh, so when you get rid
46:51
Speaker 3: of him, like, is Donald Trump going to raise that
46:53
Speaker 3: money and give that money?
46:54
Speaker 2: No, I think Donald Trump just wants to, he just
46:57
Speaker 2: wants to be a host, right? This is like the
46:59
Speaker 2: whole thing of this. He just wants to have a
47:01
Speaker 2: lot of shows at the Kennedy center that are extremely
47:03
Speaker 2: tacky and he gets to go on stage and welcome everybody.
47:06
Speaker 2: Like he's just like, it's just, you know, it's an
47:08
Speaker 2: apprentice thing.
47:09
Speaker 1: Well, I think cause he never.
47:10
Speaker 3: Went to Kennedy center honors when he was president, I think.
47:15
Speaker 3: because I think he would know he would be made
47:16
Speaker 3: fun of by everyone because it's all the comedians. And
47:19
Speaker 3: so this is just a way to, if he, if
47:21
Speaker 3: he can't be invited to the club, he's going to
47:23
Speaker 3: just buy the clubhouse.
47:25
Speaker 1: Good luck, buddy. Good luck.
47:27
Speaker 2: Next up, the Kennedy Center's new chairman welcomes the anti-vax
47:31
Speaker 2: Kennedy in his cabinet with a brand new health conspiracy
47:34
Speaker 2: of his own.
47:35
Speaker 4: Well, I feel sorry for Mitch. He's not equipped mentally.
47:38
Speaker 4: He wasn't equipped Ten years ago, mentally, in my opinion.
47:41
Speaker 4: He'd let the Republican Party go to hell. If I
47:43
Speaker 4: didn't come along, the Republican Party wouldn't even exist right now.
47:47
Speaker 3: He had polio, obviously.
47:50
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about he had polio. He had polio.
47:54
Speaker 6: Are you doubting that he had polio?
47:55
Speaker 4: I have no idea if he had polio. All I
47:57
Speaker 4: can tell you about him is that he shouldn't have
47:58
Speaker 4: been a leader. He knows that. He voted against Bobby.
48:02
Speaker 4: He votes against almost everything now. He's a very bitter guy.
48:06
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is a Mitch McConnell polio truther.
48:11
Speaker 3: Of course he is.
48:12
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, who voted against RFK Jr. and explained why.
48:17
Speaker 2: It was partly because he had childhood polio and he
48:19
Speaker 2: thinks that the, you know, Kennedy's stance on vaccines is
48:24
Speaker 2: just outrageous and he couldn't do it.
48:26
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump is like, oh, he had polio? Oh, really? Oh, yeah.
48:30
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about that.
48:31
Speaker 2: Prove it.
48:32
Speaker 1: Prove he had polio. Prove he had polio. What a...
48:35
Speaker 1: That is just... fucking wild. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
48:40
Speaker 2: I hope all the Mitch McConnell lackeys out there that
48:43
Speaker 2: have become full MAGA bros are all happy about that one.
48:49
Speaker 3: I'm sure they have dropped. Now Mitch McConnell doesn't have
48:52
Speaker 3: the authority and power in Congress to hook up all
48:56
Speaker 3: their lobbying clients. They've dropped him like a dirty sock.
48:59
Speaker 1: Embarrassing. Totally embarrassing.
49:01
Speaker 2: And finally, I saved the best for last, Georgia Congressman
49:04
Speaker 2: Buddy Carter. gets in on the hot new trend of
49:07
Speaker 2: renaming places we don't own.
49:10
Speaker 5: The bizarre bill has been introduced in Congress to allow
49:12
Speaker 5: the United States to acquire Greenland and rename it Red, White,
49:17
Speaker 5: and Blueland. The bill was presented by Republican lawmaker Earl
49:20
Speaker 5: Buddy Carter from Georgia.
49:22
Speaker 2: It's the stupidest fucking people. Our country is being run
49:28
Speaker 2: by the stupidest fucking people.
49:32
Speaker 3: I learned about this directly from you this morning at
49:34
Speaker 3: our production meeting, and I laughed so hard, I mean,
49:37
Speaker 3: that it hurt my gut.
49:39
Speaker 2: Well, it happened earlier in the week, and I made
49:42
Speaker 2: a quick note to myself in my to-do list that
49:44
Speaker 2: just said, don't forget Greenland. Because it just sort of
49:50
Speaker 2: went under the radar, as it should have, and there's
49:52
Speaker 2: a lot of other important things, and some fucking backbench
49:54
Speaker 2: congressman from Georgia, Republican Yahoo, uh, decided to do it,
49:58
Speaker 2: but wow.
50:00
Speaker 1: Red, white and blue land. Okay.
50:02
Speaker 3: It is like, this is obviously freedom fries type stuff.
50:05
Speaker 3: But if you ever just want to just have an
50:08
Speaker 3: interesting experience, find a much younger person and try to
50:12
Speaker 3: explain to them the time in American history, 20 years ago,
50:15
Speaker 3: when we renamed all of our French fries, freedom fries,
50:17
Speaker 3: because France would not follow us into a really stupid
50:20
Speaker 3: and losing war.
50:22
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's not going to sound so shocking to them
50:24
Speaker 2: now if they've paid attention to the news in the
50:25
Speaker 2: last several years. They'll think, oh, well, that seems quaint.
50:28
Speaker 3: Well, then actually, if you hear that story, then everything
50:31
Speaker 3: that's happened since probably makes a lot more sense to you.
50:34
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, he's good. What is he going to
50:39
Speaker 2: rename Europe? He's going to rename Europe like East America?
50:43
Speaker 1: Is that what it's going to be?
50:44
Speaker 3: We are recording this before the Trump-Modi press conference, and
50:48
Speaker 3: I've been wondering whether there's a chance Trump's going to
50:50
Speaker 3: announce in there he's going to start calling.
50:52
Speaker 7: India, Indiana.
50:56
Speaker 1: At least, at the very least, the Indiana Ocean.
50:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Indiana Ocean.
51:00
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, it's all of it. Everything is America.
51:04
Speaker 1: Everything is something about America and the world now.
51:06
Speaker 3: Still waiting for him to discover New Mexico.
51:12
Speaker 1: New Mexico, watch out.
51:13
Speaker 2: Okay, when we come back from the break, you're going
51:15
Speaker 2: to hear Lovett's conversation with Rohit Chopra, the now former
51:18
Speaker 2: director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about why Trump
51:21
Speaker 2: and Elon are so hell-bent on closing the agency. Two
51:24
Speaker 2: quick things before that. If you're wondering just how we
51:27
Speaker 2: let billionaires hijack the government, tune into the newest episode
51:30
Speaker 2: of Assembly Required. This week, Stacey Abrams talks with Wired
51:33
Speaker 2: editor Leah Fager about Elon and Doge's grip on the Treasury.
51:37
Speaker 2: Then Strict Scrutiny's Kate Shaw joins to talk about the
51:40
Speaker 2: legality of it all. Listen to Assembly Required wherever you
51:43
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
51:44
Speaker 1: Or on YouTube.
51:45
Speaker 2: Also this month, Vote Save America's Anxiety Relief Program is
51:48
Speaker 2: donating to black-led organizations and candidates of color, including Kimberly
51:52
Speaker 2: Pope Adams, who's running for a Virginia Statehouse seat this year,
51:55
Speaker 2: a prime opportunity to expand the Democrats' one-seat majority. Here's
51:59
Speaker 2: how the Anxiety Relief Program works. You set up a
52:01
Speaker 2: recurring donation at any amount that feels right for you.
52:04
Speaker 2: And Vote Save America will use it to build progressive
52:06
Speaker 2: power in 2025 and beyond. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash donate
52:10
Speaker 2: to donate now. Paid for by Vote Save America. Votesaveamerica.com.
52:13
Speaker 2: Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we
52:16
Speaker 2: come back, Rohit Chopra. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace.
52:30
Speaker 2: Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand
52:33
Speaker 2: out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or
52:36
Speaker 2: managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create
52:39
Speaker 2: a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything
52:41
Speaker 2: from products to content to time, all in one place,
52:44
Speaker 2: all on your items. Introducing design intelligence from Squarespace, combining
52:48
Speaker 2: two decades of industry-leading design expertise with cutting-edge AI technology
52:52
Speaker 2: to unlock your strongest creative potential. Design intelligence empowers anyone
52:56
Speaker 2: to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their
52:58
Speaker 2: unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use
53:01
Speaker 2: across one's entire online presence. Start a fully custom on-brand
53:05
Speaker 2: website with Squarespace's latest AI-enhanced website builder, Blueprint AI. After
53:09
Speaker 2: a few questions, our interactive design system transforms basic information
53:12
Speaker 2: about your brand or business into an elevated online presence
53:15
Speaker 2: with curated premium quality content automatically added and matched to
53:19
Speaker 2: your profile and aesthetic. Squarespace makes it easy to sell
53:22
Speaker 2: access to content on your website like online courses, blogs, videos,
53:25
Speaker 2: and memberships. Earn recurring revenue by gaining your content behind
53:29
Speaker 2: a paywall. Simply set the price and choose whether to
53:31
Speaker 2: charge a one-time fee or subscription for access. Upload video content,
53:35
Speaker 2: organize your video library, and showcase your content on beautiful
53:37
Speaker 2: video pages. You can even sell access to your video
53:40
Speaker 2: library by adding a paywall to your content. Head to squarespace.com
53:44
Speaker 2: for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,
53:46
Speaker 2: go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10% off your
53:48
Speaker 2: first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked.
53:56
Speaker 7: Joining us now, he was until being fired by the
53:59
Speaker 7: Trump administration a little over a week ago, the director
54:02
Speaker 7: of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra. Welcome to
54:05
Speaker 7: Pod Save America.
54:06
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me.
54:07
Speaker 7: So weird week for you, I imagine. You're fired on
54:10
Speaker 7: a Saturday, I believe.
54:12
Speaker 1: I was.
54:12
Speaker 7: And what was the rest of that daylight?
54:14
Speaker 6: You know, in some ways, it was pretty clarifying that
54:19
Speaker 6: we have big issues that we're going to have to
54:22
Speaker 6: deal with, including agencies that this administration may want to
54:27
Speaker 6: destroy and defund.
54:29
Speaker 7: So two weeks before the election, the CFPB put out
54:32
Speaker 7: a rule to protect consumer privacy. that led to praise
54:36
Speaker 7: by the Republican chair of the Financial Services Committee in
54:38
Speaker 7: the House, a foe of the CFPB for a long,
54:42
Speaker 7: long time foe, somebody who was, when the agency was
54:45
Speaker 7: first proposed, got into an argument with Elizabeth Warren before
54:48
Speaker 7: the agency even existed, and she was the creative founder
54:51
Speaker 7: of it. There was a moment where people thought, you
54:54
Speaker 7: know what, Republicans are actually going to become populist. Republicans
54:57
Speaker 7: are going to become anti-big tech. And now, because of
55:01
Speaker 7: what the administration is doing, there's a bunch of regulations
55:05
Speaker 7: that would have reigned in big tech on hold, specifically
55:08
Speaker 7: on hold at the CFPB. Can you talk about the
55:12
Speaker 7: long-term impact of this Republican antipathy towards CFPB? And then
55:18
Speaker 7: how does that fit in with at least their public
55:20
Speaker 7: posture of claiming to be these economic populists?
55:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that when you really boil it down,
55:28
Speaker 6: what you see is that most of the things that
55:31
Speaker 6: the CFPB works on are not particularly sexy in some ways.
55:38
Speaker 6: Are your medical bills that are showing up on your
55:40
Speaker 6: credit reports, the fees that you're paying on your bank account,
55:46
Speaker 6: how much you're paying for a mortgage or auto loan.
55:50
Speaker 6: And really what we did in these past few years
55:53
Speaker 6: was prosecute some of the biggest corporations in the country
55:57
Speaker 6: for cheating people repeatedly. So obviously the CFPB's work is
56:03
Speaker 6: pretty popular. It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is.
56:07
Speaker 6: The only place it is unpopular is with lobbyists and
56:11
Speaker 6: politicians in Washington. And it seems pretty obvious to me
56:16
Speaker 6: that big tech giants who are increasingly entering banking and
56:22
Speaker 6: payments do not want anyone looking under the hood and
56:27
Speaker 6: do not want to follow the laws of our land.
56:30
Speaker 6: So I think that's really the big question is, are
56:34
Speaker 6: we in a moment where they are going to defund
56:37
Speaker 6: the police over Wall Street and Silicon Valley, or they're
56:41
Speaker 6: actually going to stand up for people and lower their costs?
56:44
Speaker 6: And I think it's looking more and more like the
56:48
Speaker 6: people are going to get the short end of the
56:50
Speaker 6: stick on this.
56:51
Speaker 7: Let's just talk actually about the specifics here. What happens
56:56
Speaker 7: when I mean, CFPB is in the middle of a
56:57
Speaker 7: bunch of investigations. There's a bunch of ongoing, very important
57:00
Speaker 7: investigations going on right now. What happens if those are
57:03
Speaker 7: just stopped in their tracks?
57:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, that would be a big wet kiss to a
57:09
Speaker 6: lot of the defendants who want to get off scot-free.
57:14
Speaker 6: There is active courtroom battles right now on many of
57:19
Speaker 6: the cases we have filed. We sued JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo,
57:24
Speaker 6: Bank of America for their role in fraud on Zelle.
57:29
Speaker 6: We've sued the nation's biggest pawn lender for cheating military families.
57:33
Speaker 6: We've sued one of the nation's biggest subprime auto lenders
57:37
Speaker 6: for their misdeeds. And the list really goes on and on.
57:42
Speaker 6: There's also advanced investigations against big Wall Street firms and
57:46
Speaker 6: big tech firms that that means that that will just stop.
57:52
Speaker 6: And it means that We will not be able to
57:56
Speaker 6: get justice and money for the people who have been.
57:59
Speaker 1: Harmed by that.
58:00
Speaker 7: So Trump just announced the replacement, your replacement, somebody that
58:06
Speaker 7: was at the FDIC. Now, is there any hope that
58:11
Speaker 7: once that person's in place, some of these investigations can
58:15
Speaker 7: get unpaused? Or does the leader not matter when there's
58:18
Speaker 7: such a, when you have you know, the Doge Boys
58:22
Speaker 7: scrambling around the basement?
58:23
Speaker 1: I have no clue.
58:24
Speaker 6: I mean, it's all a mystery as to what would happen.
58:28
Speaker 6: But ultimately, I think you'll see a Senate confirmation process.
58:34
Speaker 6: I've been through two of them. You get, they're hard.
58:39
Speaker 6: And I think you'll, we'll see a lot of questions
58:42
Speaker 6: as to whether or not the law enforcement mission of
58:46
Speaker 6: the CFPB is going to actually, actually be fulfilled.
58:52
Speaker 7: I think people, certainly listeners, have heard about the various
58:54
Speaker 7: successes of the CFPB of clawing money back. What is
58:58
Speaker 7: one of the most just shocking and egregious kinds of
59:02
Speaker 7: fraud you've seen? Not from, I think, people who, just
59:05
Speaker 7: for lack of a better term, expect it from payday lenders.
59:08
Speaker 7: They expect it from sort of skeezy financial institutions, but
59:11
Speaker 7: from big blue chip companies that are supposed to be respectable.
59:15
Speaker 7: What's the most disgusting or outrageous thing you guys were
59:18
Speaker 7: able to.
59:18
Speaker 1: Find and stop?
59:19
Speaker 6: I mean, I could go for a whole hour on this.
59:23
Speaker 6: We've seen everything. We've actually seen People charge fees, one
59:28
Speaker 6: of them a paper statement fee where the company didn't
59:32
Speaker 6: even print anything or mail anything.
59:35
Speaker 3: Those are small.
59:37
Speaker 6: They're egregious, but maybe it's not going to affect someone's
59:41
Speaker 6: financial life that much. The thing that I think is
59:44
Speaker 6: so high stakes actually relates more to healthcare. You have
59:50
Speaker 6: so many people, whether it's an emergency room visit or
59:54
Speaker 6: they have a chronic condition, whatever it may be, they
59:57
Speaker 6: deal with this slew of paperwork and bills where they're
1:00:03
Speaker 6: covered by insurance and get stuck in this doom loop
1:00:08
Speaker 6: between the insurance company, the provider, the facility, the long
1:00:13
Speaker 6: list of players. And you know what happens? Their medical
1:00:18
Speaker 6: bill gets parked on their credit report. And all of
1:00:22
Speaker 6: a sudden they can't pass maybe even employment verification checks
1:00:26
Speaker 6: or can't get an apartment, can't get a loan because
1:00:31
Speaker 6: of a sickness that they've had and for a bill
1:00:33
Speaker 6: that they do not even owe. And I think a
1:00:38
Speaker 6: lot of people are sick and tired that these credit
1:00:41
Speaker 6: reporting conglomerates, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax have so much power
1:00:50
Speaker 6: over what happens in our financial life And in some cases,
1:00:55
Speaker 6: don't take the basic steps to make sure that the
1:00:59
Speaker 6: information on your credit report is real. Allowing people to
1:01:03
Speaker 6: put phantom debt or park it on the credit report
1:01:07
Speaker 6: as a means to coerce you into paying a bill
1:01:10
Speaker 6: you don't owe, I think is absolutely egregious. The CFPB
1:01:15
Speaker 6: finalized a rule to ban that practice and I hope
1:01:21
Speaker 6: that it actually takes effect.
1:01:23
Speaker 7: And those rules, obviously, I think the future is unknown here,
1:01:27
Speaker 7: but like telling people to stay home, trying to gut
1:01:30
Speaker 7: the agency, are some of these rules still going to
1:01:32
Speaker 7: keep moving forward passively? Or does it require, are they,
1:01:38
Speaker 7: by sending people home, are they stopping those rules right now?
1:01:41
Speaker 6: Well, someone needs to enforce those rules, but we also
1:01:44
Speaker 6: have seen reporting that they've instructed the staff to try
1:01:50
Speaker 6: and delay them. to make sure that they never see reality.
1:01:56
Speaker 6: Or maybe if the CFPB has been sued by these
1:02:01
Speaker 6: big industry players to stop it, maybe they just won't
1:02:05
Speaker 6: defend against that. So to me, I think there's just-
1:02:08
Speaker 6: It just makes your blood just boil. But that's why
1:02:11
Speaker 6: this matters so much is that maybe it's small, this
1:02:14
Speaker 6: issue of a credit report, but for somebody who's dealing
1:02:18
Speaker 6: with it in the moment, it is a big, big deal.
1:02:21
Speaker 6: You know, maybe that one single overdraft fee doesn't matter
1:02:24
Speaker 6: to a person, but for somebody who got hit with
1:02:27
Speaker 6: four fees rather than one, it can send them on
1:02:31
Speaker 6: a treadmill of debt. Maybe one student loan payment being
1:02:35
Speaker 6: misallocated is not a big deal, but when they screw
1:02:39
Speaker 6: up your entire loan so that you don't get to
1:02:42
Speaker 6: qualify for a public service cancellation, that's a big deal.
1:02:47
Speaker 7: It's just, it's the, like the, you know, we're in
1:02:50
Speaker 7: this moment where, you know, oh, Democrats are falling into
1:02:52
Speaker 7: a trap of defending institutions. And it's like, man, this is,
1:02:56
Speaker 7: I know people don't believe government works for them, but
1:02:59
Speaker 7: I think a lot of that is people have no
1:03:00
Speaker 7: fucking idea that this is happening. And like, this to
1:03:03
Speaker 7: me is like, if there's anything that you would want
1:03:06
Speaker 7: your government to do, it is to have a consumer
1:03:09
Speaker 7: watchdog empowered with enough force and might to actually take
1:03:13
Speaker 7: on these institutions and win. It's an extraordinary story of
1:03:16
Speaker 7: government at its best. And I'm glad to hear you
1:03:19
Speaker 7: still think there's value in telling that story right now.
1:03:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I hear every day we would get thousands
1:03:26
Speaker 6: of people who would file complaints with us on our website.
1:03:31
Speaker 6: And what was great is it didn't go into some
1:03:33
Speaker 6: black hole. We actually sent it to the company and
1:03:35
Speaker 6: told the company respond. And without really any resources at all,
1:03:42
Speaker 6: other than the tech that we created, People every day
1:03:46
Speaker 6: were getting refunds. They were getting their credit report fixed.
1:03:49
Speaker 6: Sometimes they saved their home or their car. And for
1:03:53
Speaker 6: those individuals, you hear, I've read the letters that they
1:03:58
Speaker 6: would send about finally they felt like their government was
1:04:03
Speaker 6: doing something that they really benefited from. And I think
1:04:08
Speaker 6: that's just so important that we demonstrate we don't do
1:04:12
Speaker 6: this just because there's some acronym that maybe people won't remember,
1:04:16
Speaker 6: we do it because we want to give people power
1:04:20
Speaker 6: and dignity in their life. And I think that's exactly
1:04:22
Speaker 6: what the CFPB has done for so many.
1:04:24
Speaker 7: Well, I called the CFPB helpline before we recorded, and
1:04:29
Speaker 7: I called it during business hours, and it is no
1:04:32
Speaker 7: longer open right now. That number leads to go straight
1:04:34
Speaker 7: to voicemail. So they are trying to stop people from
1:04:38
Speaker 7: having that experience, which I think tells you a lot. Well,
1:04:40
Speaker 7: that sounds like censorship to me. So- Nine days before
1:04:45
Speaker 7: Elon's Doge initiative got into the CFPB, Musk made a
1:04:49
Speaker 7: deal with Visa to add a digital wallet feature to
1:04:52
Speaker 7: X as part of a broader plan to turn it
1:04:54
Speaker 7: into an everything app. It seems like a lot of
1:04:57
Speaker 7: inspiration is being drawn from these Chinese super apps. There's WeChat,
1:05:00
Speaker 7: there's Alipay. And I want to get your sense on
1:05:03
Speaker 7: what the dangers are there, especially if there isn't a
1:05:08
Speaker 7: active CFPB?
1:05:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:05:10
Speaker 6: So I think everyone realizes there is a totally different
1:05:14
Speaker 6: way that we pay for things now. When we go
1:05:16
Speaker 6: in the store, we tap. Online, it's different. There's a
1:05:19
Speaker 6: whole set of new choices. But here's what's really shifting.
1:05:26
Speaker 6: The more and more that tech companies and big financial
1:05:30
Speaker 6: firms know about our purchase history, know our transaction history,
1:05:36
Speaker 6: know our location, know our friends and social networking, the
1:05:40
Speaker 6: more and more we are gonna creep into a world
1:05:44
Speaker 6: where there aren't price tags for goods, but instead we're
1:05:48
Speaker 6: gonna have surveillance-based personal pricing based on our mood, based
1:05:53
Speaker 6: on what we're searching for. And you see a lot
1:05:57
Speaker 6: of big companies, Google, Facebook wanted to create its own currency,
1:06:02
Speaker 6: in fact, And now we're seeing how even X, even
1:06:06
Speaker 6: Twitter wants to be a way that you can move
1:06:10
Speaker 6: money and pay. And there's enormous value in all of that.
1:06:14
Speaker 7: And, you know, I don't know.
1:06:15
Speaker 6: I cannot, I have no idea if Doge is there
1:06:20
Speaker 6: to snoop or to find out what its competitors are
1:06:25
Speaker 6: up to, to find out the plans that other companies have.
1:06:30
Speaker 6: I just don't know, but certainly that is something that
1:06:32
Speaker 6: many are worried about.
1:06:34
Speaker 7: So this would be like, just as people understand, like
1:06:36
Speaker 7: what's so bad about that, right? Like what's so bad
1:06:38
Speaker 7: about having like surge pricing for pizza or like Google
1:06:41
Speaker 7: knows that, Google knows based on my mood or whether
1:06:45
Speaker 7: or not I've had an edible, how much I want
1:06:48
Speaker 7: this takeout right now. Like what's the negative consequence of
1:06:51
Speaker 7: having these companies with this level of access to data?
1:06:55
Speaker 6: Well, I certainly think that for those of us who
1:06:58
Speaker 6: have serious medical diagnoses, when we're targeted or charged different
1:07:03
Speaker 6: prices because they know we need certain medication or they
1:07:07
Speaker 6: know we need certain medical supplies, or for teenagers who
1:07:12
Speaker 6: are maybe in a rough place personally, being able to
1:07:17
Speaker 6: target them with certain information or to be able to
1:07:20
Speaker 6: extract from them, from older adults who might be lonely.
1:07:25
Speaker 6: I think actually the price tag is probably one of
1:07:28
Speaker 6: the best consumer protections we have out there And when
1:07:31
Speaker 6: we individualize every single price, we're setting ourselves up for
1:07:36
Speaker 6: an economy that I don't think we want. I've long
1:07:39
Speaker 6: been worried about people who call for an Uber or
1:07:43
Speaker 6: Lyft and late at night that maybe a woman calling
1:07:50
Speaker 6: a ride share is getting a higher price than a
1:07:53
Speaker 6: male in the same exact place. Or that there are
1:07:57
Speaker 6: ways to discriminate. based on our personal characteristics. And I
1:08:02
Speaker 6: also don't think that we want these big companies knowing
1:08:06
Speaker 6: everything that goes on in our life before we are
1:08:09
Speaker 6: about to purchase something.
1:08:11
Speaker 7: This is why they were afraid of you. You know,
1:08:13
Speaker 7: Mark Zuckerberg, in a recent interview, he did this kind
1:08:18
Speaker 7: of aw shucks routine about like, it was so weird.
1:08:21
Speaker 7: All of a sudden, CFPB was looking into Facebook, which
1:08:25
Speaker 7: doesn't make sense because we're not a bank. And he
1:08:27
Speaker 7: kind of implies that, or suggests that it might have
1:08:30
Speaker 7: been political in some way. You talked about the fact
1:08:33
Speaker 7: that they were introducing a currency, which would obviously be
1:08:36
Speaker 7: a reason for them to be.
1:08:39
Speaker 1: Looked at.
1:08:39
Speaker 7: But beyond that, why would CFPB need to be a
1:08:44
Speaker 7: watchdog when it's supposed to be a consumer financial protection agency?
1:08:47
Speaker 7: Why would it have to go after Facebook?
1:08:49
Speaker 6: We're supposed to police banking, lending, and payments. And when companies...
1:08:57
Speaker 6: like Facebook, are creating their own currency. and fortunately it
1:09:01
Speaker 6: got killed, but you see more of these big giants
1:09:05
Speaker 6: lurching into lending and payments. It's not the CFPB expanding
1:09:10
Speaker 6: into tech. It's these companies expanding into the core work
1:09:14
Speaker 6: that we do. So it is true that Google actually
1:09:18
Speaker 6: sued us because we were asking questions or wanted to
1:09:22
Speaker 6: ask questions about how they were handling people's money and
1:09:26
Speaker 6: their data. So I think that this is really about power,
1:09:31
Speaker 6: is that there are certain companies who feel that they
1:09:34
Speaker 6: should not have to follow the laws that our Congress passes,
1:09:39
Speaker 6: that they are somehow special, that there is an exemption
1:09:42
Speaker 6: for fancy technology. But I think we as people should
1:09:46
Speaker 6: want a lot of technological progress but not if it
1:09:50
Speaker 6: comes at the expense of our dignity, our democracy, and frankly,
1:09:55
Speaker 6: fairness in our economy.
1:09:56
Speaker 7: And you've been accused of being anti-tech or sort of
1:10:01
Speaker 7: anti-capitalist or whatever it may be because of this position,
1:10:04
Speaker 7: but you were a McKinsey person. Yeah, it's funny.
1:10:08
Speaker 6: I actually think most business people want there to be
1:10:13
Speaker 6: some rule of law.
1:10:14
Speaker 7: But that's what I was going to say. Like, presumably
1:10:16
Speaker 7: these companies would like to compete on a level playing
1:10:19
Speaker 7: field in which they don't have to be in a
1:10:20
Speaker 7: kind of race to find the most kind of invasive
1:10:24
Speaker 7: forms of data monitoring or the most kind of rapacious
1:10:28
Speaker 7: kind of pricing. Presumably some of these companies would be
1:10:31
Speaker 7: interested in having a clear set of rules that they
1:10:33
Speaker 7: know allows them to compete without having to do these
1:10:35
Speaker 7: kinds of things.
1:10:36
Speaker 6: Actually, I really feel for all the businesses out there,
1:10:40
Speaker 6: who sometimes think that they're chumps because they're following the law,
1:10:46
Speaker 6: especially small players, while big giants can break the law
1:10:51
Speaker 6: with impunity, pay a fine and move on. I mean,
1:10:55
Speaker 6: you asked about Facebook. When I was an FTC commissioner,
1:10:59
Speaker 6: Facebook was embroiled in a scandal related to Cambridge Analytica.
1:11:04
Speaker 6: It had flagrantly violated an FTC law enforcement order And
1:11:10
Speaker 6: what happened was that they paid billions of dollars so
1:11:14
Speaker 6: that Mark Zuckerberg and other executives could get an immunity
1:11:18
Speaker 6: clause in the settlement. And I actually think most people,
1:11:22
Speaker 6: it's not just everyday citizens, it's even business owners are
1:11:27
Speaker 6: asking themselves, how do these big CEOs seem to always
1:11:31
Speaker 6: get off scot-free? You know, after the financial crisis, John,
1:11:37
Speaker 6: it felt like there was absolutely no accountability. Millions of
1:11:41
Speaker 6: people lost their home, but barely any executives were held accountable.
1:11:45
Speaker 6: In fact, their companies were bailed out and they got bigger.
1:11:50
Speaker 6: And I think that's just fundamentally wrong.
1:11:52
Speaker 7: Are there any lessons you have from being at CFPB?
1:11:55
Speaker 7: You know, there's a way in which right now, I
1:11:57
Speaker 7: think it feels a little bit like, like, oh, Democrats are,
1:12:00
Speaker 7: we didn't know you could just dispatch your favorite billionaire
1:12:03
Speaker 7: into the bowels of every agency and start slashing people.
1:12:06
Speaker 7: burning things that you don't like. Obviously, we have this
1:12:11
Speaker 7: very difficult challenge, the classic challenge of we are trying
1:12:15
Speaker 7: to defend democracy. And one of the ways we're trying
1:12:17
Speaker 7: to do that is to demonstrate why the rules are important,
1:12:19
Speaker 7: which means we're following rules that the other side doesn't.
1:12:22
Speaker 7: And we're trying to defend the game. And you can't
1:12:24
Speaker 7: defend the game while breaking the rules because then you're
1:12:27
Speaker 7: no longer playing the game. But are there ways in
1:12:29
Speaker 7: which looking back, you think, man, if I knew how
1:12:31
Speaker 7: bad this was going to be, I would have pushed
1:12:33
Speaker 7: harder here. I would have fought this harder. we were
1:12:36
Speaker 7: a little too conciliatory here. We were trying to reach
1:12:39
Speaker 7: compromise with the Republicans there. Are there any places like
1:12:41
Speaker 7: that where you look back and think the lesson for
1:12:42
Speaker 7: me here is we should have gone harder?
1:12:44
Speaker 6: Well, you always have some regrets. And I think when
1:12:49
Speaker 6: it comes down to it, there is so much abuse
1:12:54
Speaker 6: of power by some of the biggest powerful companies. And
1:12:59
Speaker 6: it takes a lot of effort to stand up to
1:13:02
Speaker 6: that and prosecute that when they violate the law. And
1:13:05
Speaker 6: we could always use more energy from the public to
1:13:10
Speaker 6: unearth that fraud. So yeah, I mean, look, at the
1:13:13
Speaker 6: end of the day, we always made sure that we
1:13:16
Speaker 6: were following every law.
1:13:18
Speaker 3: And we did.
1:13:19
Speaker 6: And I don't regret any of that. I think we
1:13:21
Speaker 6: cannot have a strong society if individuals feel that they
1:13:26
Speaker 6: can just sidestep the laws of the land.
1:13:29
Speaker 7: So one aspect of CFPB that's hard to measure is
1:13:32
Speaker 7: where it has had an impact on by scaring institutions
1:13:37
Speaker 7: preemptively from doing shady stuff with fees, misleading rules, interest rates,
1:13:45
Speaker 7: whatever it may be. What are you worried about right
1:13:47
Speaker 7: now that like, you know, banks that are, that some
1:13:50
Speaker 7: of these, that are like kind of raptors testing the fences.
1:13:52
Speaker 7: What is the next iteration of consumer abuses that you're
1:13:57
Speaker 7: worried about?
1:13:58
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's really interesting. When I got actually
1:14:01
Speaker 6: to both the FTC and the CFPB, it really was
1:14:07
Speaker 6: so clear to me that it was a sleep at
1:14:11
Speaker 6: the wheel. I mean, we saw so much crime against
1:14:14
Speaker 6: consumers that really it was almost a catch and release policy.
1:14:21
Speaker 6: You find them and you let them go. And I
1:14:24
Speaker 6: do think that just having someone who is a watchdog
1:14:31
Speaker 6: it actually does scare off some of the worst, worst
1:14:35
Speaker 6: abuses against people. And this is why I really do
1:14:38
Speaker 6: think that corporate law enforcement, where people can actually stop
1:14:43
Speaker 6: those abuses, it's not just the tens of billions of
1:14:47
Speaker 6: dollars we've gotten back for people, but we have stopped
1:14:51
Speaker 6: market abuses like we saw in the financial crisis that
1:14:55
Speaker 6: destroyed trillions of wealth you know, and led to so
1:14:59
Speaker 6: many people losing their homes. And look, John, you ask like,
1:15:02
Speaker 6: what are we learning from this moment? I do think
1:15:06
Speaker 6: that there are sometimes places where we need to say openly,
1:15:11
Speaker 6: this part of government isn't working. That was certainly true
1:15:15
Speaker 6: in the start of the CFPB. We actually shut down
1:15:18
Speaker 6: a corrupt and failed agency called the Office of Thrift Supervision.
1:15:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:15:23
Speaker 6: And created a new one.
1:15:24
Speaker 7: I remember when the letters came down off the building.
1:15:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:15:27
Speaker 6: And I do think sometimes we got to find places
1:15:30
Speaker 6: that aren't working and shut them down. But when we
1:15:34
Speaker 6: do it, it's because we are doing it to serve
1:15:38
Speaker 6: people better, not to serve the powerful even more.
1:15:42
Speaker 7: Are there ways you're worried about AI being used to
1:15:45
Speaker 7: harm consumers in a way that the CFPB could have
1:15:47
Speaker 7: protected against or could protect against in the future?
1:15:49
Speaker 6: Well, one thing that we have not really reigned in
1:15:53
Speaker 6: enough is the explosion of chatbots. And now when you
1:15:58
Speaker 6: are struggling with something, it is very hard to talk
1:16:03
Speaker 6: to someone to fix it. You're often speaking to a chatbot.
1:16:08
Speaker 6: The CFPB, when I was there, we did a study
1:16:10
Speaker 6: of these chatbots that banks use, and they all had
1:16:14
Speaker 6: these human-like names. For example, Bank of America called their
1:16:18
Speaker 6: chatbot Erica. And you say to them, something is wrong.
1:16:24
Speaker 6: I did not make this charge. My payment wasn't processed right.
1:16:32
Speaker 6: And sometimes you just want to get things fixed. And instead,
1:16:36
Speaker 6: you feel like you're in a doom loop with the
1:16:38
Speaker 6: chatbot where you're saying something and they're saying the same
1:16:42
Speaker 6: thing back to you. We also really worry about AI
1:16:45
Speaker 6: being used to impersonate people. A lot of older adults
1:16:51
Speaker 6: in our country are getting very realistic texts, calls that
1:16:57
Speaker 6: are mimicking the voices of their loved ones. And I
1:17:02
Speaker 6: think that that's a place where there's a lot we
1:17:05
Speaker 6: can do with technological progress to make life better, but
1:17:09
Speaker 6: we should not delude ourselves that it can also be
1:17:12
Speaker 6: used as a weapon and it can also be used
1:17:15
Speaker 6: as a tool by foreign nations that are seeking to
1:17:19
Speaker 6: do our people harm.
1:17:21
Speaker 7: So when Elon Musk posted delete CFPB on social media,
1:17:27
Speaker 7: he replied to someone and it is an unfortunate reality
1:17:32
Speaker 7: of our current dystopia that I have to describe in
1:17:34
Speaker 7: detail the posts of this unelected billionaire.
1:17:36
Speaker 3: But he said with such generosity, CFPB.
1:17:41
Speaker 7: Has done a non-zero amount of good or something to
1:17:43
Speaker 7: that effect.
1:17:45
Speaker 3: Have you.
1:17:46
Speaker 7: considered trying to reach out to him? Have you reached
1:17:48
Speaker 7: out to him? Have you spoken to him about this?
1:17:51
Speaker 7: And if you did or could, what would you want
1:17:54
Speaker 7: to convey?
1:17:54
Speaker 6: Well, I guess my view is that I don't think
1:17:58
Speaker 6: any of us should be groveling to billionaires to save
1:18:04
Speaker 6: our country. We should believe that people control our country.
1:18:11
Speaker 6: And I think we should be worried that when there
1:18:14
Speaker 6: is a click of CEOs that seem to call the shots.
1:18:19
Speaker 6: And frankly, I do think that that's part of the
1:18:21
Speaker 6: problems that not only, that everyone is worried about when
1:18:27
Speaker 6: it comes to the massive mismatch in power. It's why
1:18:30
Speaker 6: I think so many of us are huge fans of
1:18:33
Speaker 6: Lina Khan and all the work she has done to
1:18:36
Speaker 6: really challenge that power. And I think that that is
1:18:40
Speaker 6: going to be something that we have to continue to
1:18:43
Speaker 6: do We shouldn't be asking these individuals for permission. They
1:18:48
Speaker 6: are not our elected officials.
1:18:50
Speaker 7: Well, you could just tell them to fuck off.
1:18:52
Speaker 6: Well, look, it's very clear that there are individuals who
1:18:57
Speaker 6: have an agenda and they're going to pursue that and
1:19:02
Speaker 6: it's going to take us to make sure that people
1:19:05
Speaker 6: are following the law and we're using our own voices.
1:19:09
Speaker 7: And our own You're not giving me, you're not giving
1:19:10
Speaker 7: me an inch on this.
1:19:12
Speaker 6: Well, look, I mean, do, do I like, do I
1:19:16
Speaker 6: like what he says about the CFPB? No, but I
1:19:19
Speaker 6: don't think we should be saying, you know, he, he
1:19:22
Speaker 6: may have his own motives for this, but it's up
1:19:26
Speaker 6: to us to make sure that we can reign that
1:19:29
Speaker 6: power in. So not ask them to just be nice.
1:19:33
Speaker 1: Well, for sure.
1:19:34
Speaker 7: It's a pretty worrying time for people at the agency.
1:19:36
Speaker 7: What's your message? It's like, it's a, group of dedicated
1:19:40
Speaker 7: nonpartisan people who are there to kind of protect the
1:19:43
Speaker 7: interests of consumers. It's returned an extraordinary amount of money
1:19:47
Speaker 7: to consumers. It's hard to come up with a better
1:19:50
Speaker 7: example of government that is currently being lied about and
1:19:54
Speaker 7: undermined by this unelected clique. There are people in that
1:19:57
Speaker 7: agency that are worried about, some people have been fired.
1:19:59
Speaker 7: They're worried about being fired. They don't know whether or
1:20:02
Speaker 7: not the right thing to do for their families is
1:20:04
Speaker 7: to try to stay and fight or leave if there
1:20:07
Speaker 7: is some kind of an offer.
1:20:09
Speaker 3: To get out?
1:20:10
Speaker 7: What is your message to the people at your former agency?
1:20:14
Speaker 6: Well, look at people all across our government. There are
1:20:19
Speaker 6: people who specialize in certain roles. Some of them prosecute terrorism.
1:20:26
Speaker 6: You can't really do that in the private sector. There
1:20:28
Speaker 6: are just some things that are done for the public's sake.
1:20:34
Speaker 6: And I think that this is a moment where it's
1:20:37
Speaker 6: really hard to tell them what they should do because
1:20:41
Speaker 6: they have to really live their life. And I always
1:20:44
Speaker 6: encourage them to serve as long as you possibly can.
1:20:50
Speaker 6: But look, this is a real moment for everybody who
1:20:53
Speaker 6: is trying to serve the public. I think that it
1:20:56
Speaker 6: forces all of us to reflect on how do we
1:21:02
Speaker 6: talk about those who serve the public. I can tell
1:21:06
Speaker 6: you a lot of people who work at the CFPB
1:21:09
Speaker 6: can make a lot more money if they were in
1:21:13
Speaker 6: the private sector. And many of them choose to do
1:21:17
Speaker 6: that work because they believe that people shouldn't be treated
1:21:22
Speaker 6: poorly by a bank or a mortgage company or a
1:21:24
Speaker 6: student lender because it's about people's personal dignity and they
1:21:28
Speaker 6: believe it so deeply.
1:21:30
Speaker 7: After you cracked down on ITT Technical Institute for its
1:21:33
Speaker 7: illegal recruiting tactics, the former chief executive called you an
1:21:36
Speaker 7: economic terrorist who should be sent to Guantanamo Bay for
1:21:38
Speaker 7: about a decade of R & R, which should include
1:21:41
Speaker 7: an aggressive regimen of water sports. So what is your
1:21:44
Speaker 7: favorite water sport?
1:21:50
Speaker 6: Sometimes in this business, there will be CEOs that threaten you,
1:21:56
Speaker 6: that hire people to follow you. And it's pretty damn scary.
1:22:01
Speaker 6: But we just got to keep going because we know
1:22:05
Speaker 6: that these individuals clearly feel that the law doesn't apply
1:22:11
Speaker 6: to them and that their answer when we ask questions
1:22:17
Speaker 6: is to tell people that they were to fundamentally threaten
1:22:21
Speaker 6: their lives. And I think it's pretty disgusting.
1:22:24
Speaker 7: You know, you just had this period of... You ran
1:22:28
Speaker 7: this agency that has survived from its inception a concerted
1:22:36
Speaker 7: effort by major financial interests, lobbyists, right-wing conservatives, Republicans to
1:22:43
Speaker 7: destroy it. First of all, they tried to make it
1:22:45
Speaker 7: so it couldn't exist. They wouldn't let Elizabeth Warren run
1:22:48
Speaker 7: it from the jump. They have lied about it from
1:22:50
Speaker 7: the beginning, claiming it's a sludge fund, which is a lie,
1:22:53
Speaker 7: claiming it's trying to debunk conservatives, which is a lie, right?
1:22:56
Speaker 6: Actually, exactly the opposite. We put into place policies to
1:23:00
Speaker 6: block that and the bank lobby sued us for it.
1:23:05
Speaker 7: What right now do you see as the most hopeful
1:23:09
Speaker 7: path for the CFPB to survive until a time in
1:23:16
Speaker 7: which we can put a leader in charge of it
1:23:19
Speaker 7: who believes in it? Well, it's really what the public.
1:23:24
Speaker 6: says and does and calls their members about what they protest.
1:23:33
Speaker 6: We need everyone's voices. And you know, John, I think
1:23:36
Speaker 6: a lot of people, including many people who probably listen,
1:23:40
Speaker 6: they probably feel pretty fatigued. They feel beat down. They
1:23:45
Speaker 6: feel like this is such a chaotic moment and they
1:23:48
Speaker 6: just need a break. And I understand that. I know
1:23:54
Speaker 6: how that can feel. But I also feel like it's
1:23:58
Speaker 6: so important to remember why we love this place, this country.
1:24:03
Speaker 6: And part of it is because we can fight back
1:24:06
Speaker 6: and really make sure that we do not lose the
1:24:10
Speaker 6: things that are so important. And I just think that's
1:24:12
Speaker 6: really important to remember, even when times are really tough.
1:24:16
Speaker 7: And I just think it's really impressive that you simply
1:24:19
Speaker 7: will not acknowledge how maybe cathartic it could be to
1:24:23
Speaker 7: tell Elon Musk to go fuck himself?
1:24:26
Speaker 6: Well, even if it is, I think that I'm not
1:24:31
Speaker 6: going to dignify any individual billionaire and what they want
1:24:36
Speaker 6: to dictate about our country. Because the whole game of
1:24:42
Speaker 6: why this country is better is because we're not supposed
1:24:45
Speaker 6: to allow that to happen. We fought hard for one
1:24:48
Speaker 6: person to have one vote. We fought hard to make
1:24:51
Speaker 6: sure that we weren't being controlled by royalty. And that's
1:24:56
Speaker 6: maybe some of those lessons applied today too.
1:24:59
Speaker 7: Rohit Chopra, thank you so much for your time.
1:25:01
Speaker 6: Thanks so much, John.
1:25:07
Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Rohit Chopra for
1:25:10
Speaker 2: joining us here in LA. We will be back with
1:25:12
Speaker 2: a new show on Tuesday.
1:25:14
Speaker 1: Bye, everybody.
1:25:14
Speaker 7: Bye, everyone.
1:25:16
Speaker 2: If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free
1:25:18
Speaker 2: or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts,
1:25:22
Speaker 2: consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com
1:25:25
Speaker 2: slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the
1:25:28
Speaker 2: Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod
1:25:31
Speaker 2: Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes,
1:25:35
Speaker 2: bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button,
1:25:38
Speaker 2: you can help boost this episode by leaving us a
1:25:40
Speaker 2: review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod
1:25:43
Speaker 2: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are
1:25:46
Speaker 2: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
1:25:50
Speaker 2: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is
1:25:53
Speaker 2: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
1:25:56
Speaker 2: Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio
1:25:59
Speaker 2: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is
1:26:03
Speaker 2: our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our
1:26:05
Speaker 2: head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks
1:26:09
Speaker 2: to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford,
1:26:12
Speaker 2: Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv,
1:26:17
Speaker 2: and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with
1:26:20
Speaker 2: the Writers Guild of America East.