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Latest Interview of Elon Musk and DOGE team! · Elon Musk Thinking

0:00
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us and doing this. I know there's
0:04
Speaker 1: a lot of interest in this, you know. First let
0:07
Speaker 1: me start with you elon what are the budgetary savings
0:11
Speaker 1: goals and how much do you think you've achieved so far.
0:15
Speaker 2: Our goal is to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars,
0:19
Speaker 2: so from a nominal depth SIT of two trillion to
0:22
Speaker 2: track cut depth SIT in half to one trillion, or
0:25
Speaker 2: looked at it in total federal spending, to drop the
0:27
Speaker 2: federal spending from seven trillion to six trillion. We want
0:30
Speaker 2: to reduce the spending by eliminating waste and forward reduce
0:33
Speaker 2: the spending by fifteen percent, which seems really quite achievable.
0:38
Speaker 2: The government is not efficient and there's a lot of
0:42
Speaker 2: waste and forward, so we feel confident that fifteen percent
0:45
Speaker 2: reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical
0:52
Speaker 2: government services.
0:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to all the making it better
0:54
Speaker 1: and talk to all the guys here about the specifics.
0:56
Speaker 1: But for you, what's the most astonishing thing you've found
1:00
Speaker 1: out in this process?
1:01
Speaker 2: The sheer amount of waste importing the government. It is astonishing,
1:04
Speaker 2: it's mind blowing. Just we routinely encounter wastes of a
1:10
Speaker 2: billion dollars or more casually, you know, for example, like
1:16
Speaker 2: the simple survey that was literally ten question survey that
1:22
Speaker 2: you could do with survey monkey qushed about ten thousand dollars.
1:25
Speaker 2: Was the government was being charged almost a billion dollars
1:28
Speaker 2: for that for just the survey a billion dollars for
1:31
Speaker 2: a simple online survey do you like the National Park?
1:34
Speaker 2: And then there appears to be no feedback loop for
1:36
Speaker 2: what would be done with that survey, So the say
1:37
Speaker 2: we would just go to nothing because like you're saying.
1:40
Speaker 1: You technically are a special government employee and you're supposed
1:44
Speaker 1: to be one hundred and thirty days.
1:45
Speaker 3: Are you going.
1:46
Speaker 1: To continue past that or do you think that's what
1:50
Speaker 1: you're going to do?
1:50
Speaker 2: Or well, I think we will accomplish most of the
1:54
Speaker 2: work required to reduce the deficit by trillion dollars within
1:57
Speaker 2: that timeframe.
1:58
Speaker 1: So in that timeframe one hundred out of days, and
2:01
Speaker 1: the process is a report at some.
2:03
Speaker 3: Point at one hundred days.
2:05
Speaker 2: Not really a report. We are cutting the waste and
2:07
Speaker 2: prod in real time. So every day that passes, our
2:10
Speaker 2: goal is to reduce the waist and prod by four
2:13
Speaker 2: billion dollars a day. Every day, seven days a week,
2:16
Speaker 2: and so far we are succeeding.
2:17
Speaker 3: And I'm going to talk to the specifics.
2:19
Speaker 1: But there obviously are DOGE critics who are reading all
2:23
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. Obviously lawmakers on the other side of
2:26
Speaker 1: the aisle are attacking you, and they characterize the approach
2:31
Speaker 1: is this fire ready and then aim, and how do
2:35
Speaker 1: you approach that? How do you respond to that?
2:39
Speaker 2: Well, I do agree that we actually want to be
2:41
Speaker 2: careful in the cuts. So we want to measure twice,
2:45
Speaker 2: if not thrice, and cut once. And actually that is
2:50
Speaker 2: our approach. They may characterize it as shooting from the hip,
2:55
Speaker 2: but it is anything at that which is not say
2:58
Speaker 2: that we don't make mistakes. If we were to approach
3:00
Speaker 2: this with the standard of making no mistakes at all,
3:03
Speaker 2: that would be like saying someone in baseball's got about
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Speaker 2: a thousand. That's impossible. So when we do make mistakes,
3:10
Speaker 2: we correct them quickly and we move on.
3:14
Speaker 1: Some people say this shouldn't take a rocket scientist. Steve Davis,
3:18
Speaker 1: you are a rocket scientist. It used to be yeah,
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Speaker 1: and now essentially you're the chief operating.
3:25
Speaker 3: Officer of dough day to day operations.
3:29
Speaker 4: Fair to say, yeah, part of part of the Dose team.
3:32
Speaker 3: So how did you end up here? What's the biggest challenge?
3:35
Speaker 2: You see?
3:37
Speaker 4: The reason I'm here, which is probably for many, is
3:39
Speaker 4: that I think the goal is incredibly inspiring. I think
3:41
Speaker 4: most of the taxpayers in the country would agree that
3:45
Speaker 4: in order to have the country going bankrupt would be
3:47
Speaker 4: a very bad thing, and therefore the country going not
3:49
Speaker 4: bankrupt is a good thing that all of us are
3:53
Speaker 4: willing to kind of put our lives on hold in
3:54
Speaker 4: order to do. I think the thing that's special right
3:56
Speaker 4: now is we actually believe there's a chance to succeed,
4:00
Speaker 4: that there's an administration that's supportive and a great cabinet
4:04
Speaker 4: and just a great group that will actually make success
4:08
Speaker 4: a possible outcome. And I think that's given the inspiring
4:11
Speaker 4: mission and given the non zero chance of success, it
4:15
Speaker 4: was worth down.
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Speaker 2: I just like to sort of reemphasize that point. The
4:19
Speaker 2: success but those is only possible with President Trump and
4:22
Speaker 2: with the outstanding cabinet that he's selected. It would be
4:25
Speaker 2: impossible without the support of the President and the cabinet.
4:29
Speaker 1: But you're finding the money. I mean, it's big numbers, right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: Like Jon said, the minimum impulse bit is often a
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Speaker 4: billion dollars. So for example, the eight hundred and thirty
4:37
Speaker 4: million dollars which was the online survey, that's an enormous
4:40
Speaker 4: amount of money that wouldn't have been found if the
4:43
Speaker 4: dog team wasn't working with it, in that case the
4:44
Speaker 4: Department of Interior. But then taking it one step further,
4:47
Speaker 4: DOGE then publish publishes these things on our website for
4:50
Speaker 4: maximum transparency. So now the general public it would have
4:54
Speaker 4: been impossible for the general public to have seen that.
4:57
Speaker 4: Now anyone can just log into Dodakov anytime and see
5:00
Speaker 4: these payments as they're not yet in real time. They're close,
5:02
Speaker 4: but they're probably be in real time with the next
5:03
Speaker 4: few weeks.
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Speaker 1: But the process it still involves Congress, right at some level.
5:08
Speaker 2: We try to keep Congress as informed as possible. But
5:13
Speaker 2: the Lord does say that money needs to be spent correctly.
5:17
Speaker 2: It should not be spent fortunately or wastefully. It's not
5:20
Speaker 2: contrary to Congress to avoid waste and for it. It
5:22
Speaker 2: is consistent with the law and consistent with Congress. And
5:25
Speaker 2: we've seen actually great support at least from the Republican
5:30
Speaker 2: side of the House and occasionally start Democrats too. You know,
5:34
Speaker 2: it's nice to see people cross the out once in
5:36
Speaker 2: a while, but usually when they attack doors, they never
5:42
Speaker 2: attack any of the specifics. So they'll say what we're
5:45
Speaker 2: doing is somehow unconstitutional or legal or whatever. We're like, well,
5:50
Speaker 2: which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?
5:53
Speaker 2: And they can't point to any and we list them
5:56
Speaker 2: all on door struck up and the doge had line,
6:00
Speaker 2: and you'll see just outrageous things, one outrageous thing after another.
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Speaker 1: Jill Gabyam, besides Elon, you're one of several billionaires here,
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Speaker 1: co founder of Airbnb, and you wanted to help out.
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Speaker 5: I bumped into Anthony d Elon probably back in February,
6:18
Speaker 5: and they told me somebody about a mine that was
6:22
Speaker 5: dealt with retirement, and they said it needs somebody to
6:25
Speaker 5: help out to fix retirement in the government.
6:28
Speaker 3: I love the challenge, so I jumped on board.
6:30
Speaker 5: And it turns out there is actually a mine in
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Speaker 5: Pennsylvania that houses every paper document for the retirement process
6:37
Speaker 5: in the government. Now picture this. This giant cave has
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Speaker 5: twenty two thousand filing cabinets stacked ten high to house
6:45
Speaker 5: four hundred million.
6:46
Speaker 2: Pieces of paper.
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Speaker 5: It's a process that started in the nineteen fifties and
6:50
Speaker 5: largely hasn't changed in.
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Speaker 3: The last seventy years.
6:53
Speaker 5: And so as he dug into it, we found a
6:55
Speaker 5: retirement cases that had so much paper they had to
6:58
Speaker 5: fit it on a shipping palate. So the process takes
7:02
Speaker 5: many months, and we're going to make it just many days.
7:05
Speaker 5: Well it would be digitized or how absolutely so this
7:07
Speaker 5: will be an online digital process that will take just
7:10
Speaker 5: a few days at most. And I really think, you know,
7:13
Speaker 5: it's an injustice to civil servants who are subjected to
7:17
Speaker 5: these processes that are older than the age of half
7:20
Speaker 5: the people watching your show tonight. So we really believe
7:24
Speaker 5: that the government can have an Apple Store like experience
7:28
Speaker 5: beat if we designed great, easier experience modern systems.
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Speaker 3: Because right now it's by hand.
7:34
Speaker 2: Yes, the retired processes all by paper, literally, with people
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Speaker 2: carrying paper and Manila envelopes into this gigantic mind.
7:42
Speaker 1: So they can't retire more than a certain number every month.
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Speaker 3: About eight thousand a month.
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Speaker 2: That's how we do. The reason we discovered it was
7:49
Speaker 2: we were saying, like, well, let's encourage voluntary retirement. Well,
7:53
Speaker 2: the most you could do is eight thousand a month.
7:57
Speaker 2: And even I don't know a second houses it can
8:00
Speaker 2: take six to nine months just to have your time
8:03
Speaker 2: at pavework process and they often get the calculations wrong.
8:06
Speaker 2: So we're like, well, why would it take so long
8:08
Speaker 2: to retire? And they're like, well, because of the mind.
8:11
Speaker 2: We're like, what do you mean of mine? What's the
8:12
Speaker 2: mine got to do with retiring? And that's where we
8:14
Speaker 2: discovered that all the retirement stuff is done by still
8:19
Speaker 2: done by paper, in a process that looks identical to
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Speaker 2: what occurred in the nineteen fifties. Like if you took
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Speaker 2: a snapshot of the mind when a posts ot in
8:25
Speaker 2: the fifties, today it looks the same.
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Speaker 3: It's amazing. So how long do you think it'll take
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Speaker 3: to turnover.
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Speaker 5: Orgon as vast If we can, probably the next couple
8:33
Speaker 5: of months, we'll have this overhauled. And you know, I
8:35
Speaker 5: really think again, like why are we subjecting our federal
8:38
Speaker 5: workers to processes that they actually have to go through
8:41
Speaker 5: a training just to retire from the government. There's a
8:44
Speaker 5: whole training program that people have to go through in
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Speaker 5: order to retire. I think we can do better for them.
8:49
Speaker 3: Arem Mogandaci doje engineer?
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Speaker 1: You go into these places one of the more than
8:56
Speaker 1: a dozen engineers. First people to go into the agencies
8:59
Speaker 1: and view the puter data sets. Tell me what you're finding,
9:02
Speaker 1: and for people who don't understand how that process works,
9:06
Speaker 1: explain it for him.
9:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll say the first thing that got me really
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Speaker 6: excited about DOGE was learning basically the state of government computers.
9:16
Speaker 6: By some estimates, government it costs about one hundred billion
9:19
Speaker 6: dollars and it's funding systems that are over fifty years
9:24
Speaker 6: old in the case of something like Social Security or
9:26
Speaker 6: the IRS. So really critical systems are old, they cost
9:31
Speaker 6: a lot of money to maintain, and they can be
9:35
Speaker 6: the efforts to improve them are often very delayed. So
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Speaker 6: I thought, I'm a software engineer that that maybe can
9:42
Speaker 6: make a difference here. And that's really what inspired me.
9:47
Speaker 3: At a high level, I gave a.
9:49
Speaker 1: History about social Security and a lot of words about it.
9:52
Speaker 1: From here's what Democrats have been saying about it.
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Speaker 4: It's absurd that Elon Musk is trying to eliminate billions
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Speaker 4: of dollars from Social ste Security.
10:00
Speaker 7: Elon Musk and President Trump have set their sites on
10:03
Speaker 7: cutting social Security.
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Speaker 1: Their goal is clear, destroy social security from within. You're
10:10
Speaker 1: in the building, I mean you're in the computers. What's
10:13
Speaker 1: happening there? What are you doing?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, it doesn't line up with my experience on the ground.
10:19
Speaker 6: And I'll say the two improvements that we're trying to
10:22
Speaker 6: make to Social Security are helping people that legitimately get benefits,
10:26
Speaker 6: protect them from fraud that they experience every day on
10:30
Speaker 6: a routine basis, and also make the experience better. And
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Speaker 6: I'll give you one example is at Social Security. One
10:39
Speaker 6: of the first things we learned is that they get
10:41
Speaker 6: phone calls every day of people trying to change direct
10:44
Speaker 6: positive information. So when you want to change your bank account,
10:47
Speaker 6: you can call Social Security. We learned forty percent of
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Speaker 6: the phone calls that they get are from frauds stars
10:54
Speaker 6: that's right, almost half.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and they steal people's social Security. Is what happens
11:00
Speaker 2: is they call in, they say they claim to be
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Speaker 2: a retiree. Then they they and they convinced the post
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Speaker 2: the Social Security person on the phone to change the
11:10
Speaker 2: where the where the money is flowing. It actually goes
11:13
Speaker 2: to some fraudster. Is this happening all day every day?
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Speaker 2: And then and then somebody doesn't receive their Social Security
11:19
Speaker 2: it's because of all the fraud loopholes in the Social
11:23
Speaker 2: Security system.
11:24
Speaker 1: How do you reassure people that what you all are
11:27
Speaker 1: doing is not going to affect their benefits.
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Speaker 2: No, in fact, what we're doing will help their benefits.
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Speaker 2: Legitimate people, as a result of the work of doage
11:36
Speaker 2: will receive more social security, not less. When emphasize that,
11:40
Speaker 2: as a result of the work of Doge, legitimate recipients
11:43
Speaker 2: of social security will receive more money, not less money.
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Speaker 3: All right, I'll emphasize that.
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Speaker 2: Point and then and let the record show that I
11:53
Speaker 2: said this and it will be proven out to be true.
11:56
Speaker 2: Let's let's check back on this in the future.
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Speaker 1: So, Washington Post, the Social Security Administration website crashed four
12:02
Speaker 1: times in ten days this month because the servers were overloaded,
12:05
Speaker 1: blocking millions of retirees and disabled veterans from logging into
12:08
Speaker 1: their online accounts. Freaked people out. Is that going to change, Yes,
12:16
Speaker 1: We're going to make sure that the website stays online. Yeah,
12:20
Speaker 1: But is it a result of going in there something
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Speaker 1: you're doing.
12:23
Speaker 4: Since the amount of issues that were the Social Security
12:27
Speaker 4: system are enormous. As an example, there are over fifteen
12:31
Speaker 4: million people that are over the age of one hundred
12:33
Speaker 4: and twenty that are marked as alive in the Social Security.
12:37
Speaker 3: System, and that's an accurate figure. Correct.
12:40
Speaker 4: Correct. This has been something that's been identified as a
12:43
Speaker 4: problem again pre existing problems since two thousand and eight,
12:46
Speaker 4: at least from an IG report. So there are some
12:50
Speaker 4: great people working at the Social Career Administration in Social
12:52
Speaker 4: Security Administration that found this two thousand and eight, and
12:55
Speaker 4: nothing was done. And so fifteen to twenty million the
12:57
Speaker 4: Social Security numbers that were clearly fraudulent, we're floating around
13:02
Speaker 4: that can be used only for bad intentions. There'd be
13:05
Speaker 4: no way to use as for good intentions. And so
13:07
Speaker 4: one of the things the DOOSE team is doing is
13:09
Speaker 4: carefully and very methodically looking at those and making sure
13:13
Speaker 4: that any fraudulent ones are eliminated.
13:14
Speaker 1: Brad Smith working at HHS, and obviously another element is
13:21
Speaker 1: Medicare and Medicaid NIH, what do you finding.
13:26
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, I'd say there's a couple of things we're
13:28
Speaker 8: really committed to in our work at AHHS. Number one,
13:31
Speaker 8: making sure we continue to have the best biomedical research
13:33
Speaker 8: in the world. And number two, making sure which President
13:36
Speaker 8: Trump has said over and over again that we one
13:38
Speaker 8: hundred percent protect Medicare and Medicaid, but there's a lot
13:41
Speaker 8: of opportunity. So if I take NIH as an example today,
13:45
Speaker 8: if you're inih researcher and you get one hundred dollars
13:47
Speaker 8: grant at your university today, you get to spend sixty
13:50
Speaker 8: of that and your university spends forty of that. The
13:53
Speaker 8: policy that we're proposing to make is that you get
13:55
Speaker 8: to spend eighty five of that and your university spends fifteen.
13:58
Speaker 8: So that's more money going directly to this scientists who
14:00
Speaker 8: are discovering new cures. Another example at NIH is today
14:04
Speaker 8: they have twenty seven different centers. They got created over
14:06
Speaker 8: time by Congress and they're typically by disease state or
14:09
Speaker 8: body system. There's seven hundred different IT systems today at NIH,
14:13
Speaker 8: seven hundred different IT software systems. They can't speak to
14:16
Speaker 8: each other, so they don't talk to them. They have
14:18
Speaker 8: twenty seven different CIOs, and so when you think about
14:21
Speaker 8: making great medical discoveries, you have to connect the data.
14:25
Speaker 3: Time.
14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, time, twenty seven different chief information officers correct, correct.
14:30
Speaker 2: And most of them are non technical.
14:32
Speaker 3: So there's a lot there.
14:33
Speaker 8: There's a lot of opportunity, and it will make science better.
14:35
Speaker 2: Now, yurse, And when I say that, our job is
14:38
Speaker 2: tech support I really mean it.
14:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to fix the computers.
14:42
Speaker 2: If the computers can't talk to each other, you can't
14:44
Speaker 2: get research done. If the computers can't stay online, people
14:48
Speaker 2: won't receive as social security. So what we have here
14:52
Speaker 2: are a bunch of failing computer systems that are preventing
14:54
Speaker 2: people from receiving their benefits, that are preventing people from
14:58
Speaker 2: preventing research from happening, that are extremely vunerable to fraud.
15:04
Speaker 2: And we're fixing it.
15:06
Speaker 1: And does that include AI does that include kind of
15:10
Speaker 1: changing the system overall?
15:11
Speaker 3: That's what I guess what people are afraid.
15:12
Speaker 1: Of is they don't know what this is all looking
15:15
Speaker 1: like and is it going to affect me in the
15:17
Speaker 1: long term.
15:18
Speaker 2: It's going to affect them, It's going to affect people
15:20
Speaker 2: very positively. So the changes that we're doing here will
15:23
Speaker 2: ensure the solvency of the American government, of the American
15:28
Speaker 2: of the United States of America. This is what this
15:30
Speaker 2: is what we're trying to do is ensure that people
15:33
Speaker 2: do receive their benefits in the future. And you can
15:36
Speaker 2: all receive your benefits if the if the country is
15:39
Speaker 2: operating in a healthy and competent way.
15:43
Speaker 1: Up next, how the Doze team plans to streamline some
15:46
Speaker 1: federal jobs and agencies, and later Elon Musks answers some
15:50
Speaker 1: of your questions that you asked Vax Anthony Armstrong, Doze,
15:58
Speaker 1: Office of Personnel Management, Morgan Stanley Banker M and a
16:02
Speaker 1: guy you know money and this is a lot of
16:05
Speaker 1: money slashing around.
16:07
Speaker 9: There's a lot of money slashing around. There's a lot
16:09
Speaker 9: of money slashing out the door. And if you look
16:11
Speaker 9: at the federal government in the way the workforce works,
16:13
Speaker 9: it's really a one way ratchet over decades.
16:16
Speaker 3: So it's going up. It's only going up. You never
16:18
Speaker 3: take it away.
16:19
Speaker 9: So that leaves you with duplicative functions, It leaves you
16:22
Speaker 9: with overstaffing, and it leaves you with functions in the
16:25
Speaker 9: wrong places. So a couple of examples duplicative functions Brad
16:29
Speaker 9: mentioned twenty seven CIOs.
16:31
Speaker 2: If you had kept going.
16:32
Speaker 9: With Brady, probably talk about the communications office. I think
16:35
Speaker 9: you've got forty forty distinct communications offices in HHS, right, forty.
16:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not unusual, by the.
16:43
Speaker 2: Way, multiple offices like anyone healthy.
16:46
Speaker 9: This is not about the employees. There there's been many
16:48
Speaker 9: many hard working, well meeting people who took these jobs.
16:51
Speaker 9: These jobs were out there, they applied for them, they
16:53
Speaker 9: took them. They're doing what's there. It's just that they're
16:55
Speaker 9: duplicating the effort of forty offices. So you've got that,
16:59
Speaker 9: you've got overstaffing. A good example of overstaffing would be
17:03
Speaker 9: the IRS has got fourteen hundred people who are dedicated
17:07
Speaker 9: to provisioning laptops and cell phones. So if you join
17:10
Speaker 9: the IRS, you get a laptop and a cell phone.
17:12
Speaker 9: You're provisioned. So if each of those IRS officers or
17:16
Speaker 9: employees provisioned two employees per day, you could provision the
17:21
Speaker 9: entire IRS in a little more than a month, so
17:24
Speaker 9: twelve times a year.
17:25
Speaker 2: You can read this. Why would you have fourteen hundred
17:26
Speaker 2: people whose only job it is to give a laptop
17:29
Speaker 2: and the phone.
17:30
Speaker 9: The whole IRS could be one a month, So that
17:33
Speaker 9: doesn't make any sense. And President Trump's been very clear
17:36
Speaker 9: scalpell not hatchet, and that's the way it's getting done.
17:39
Speaker 9: And then once those decisions are made, there's a very
17:44
Speaker 9: heavy focus on being generous, being caring, being compassionate, and
17:51
Speaker 9: treating everyone with dignity and respect. And if you look
17:54
Speaker 9: at how people have started to leave the government.
17:57
Speaker 3: It is largely through voluntary means.
18:01
Speaker 9: There's voluntary early retirement, there's voluntary separation payments, we put
18:05
Speaker 9: in place, deferred resignation.
18:06
Speaker 3: The eight month severance program.
18:08
Speaker 9: So it's a very heavy bias towards programs that are
18:11
Speaker 9: long data, that are generous, that allow people to exit
18:14
Speaker 9: and go and get a new job in the private sector.
18:17
Speaker 3: And you've heard a lot of.
18:21
Speaker 9: A lot of news about riffs about people getting fired.
18:24
Speaker 9: At this moment in time, less than zero point one five,
18:29
Speaker 9: not one point five, let's than point one five of
18:32
Speaker 9: the federal workforce has actually been given a riff notice, so.
18:36
Speaker 3: They're selected, if they're living.
18:38
Speaker 2: It is mostly almost no one's gotten fired.
18:41
Speaker 3: That's what we're saying, Tom Crass.
18:43
Speaker 1: Working at Treasury, you are having access to the payment system,
18:48
Speaker 1: oversees all the outgoing payments. Essentially those payments were going
18:53
Speaker 1: places we didn't know where they were going.
18:55
Speaker 10: Right, Yeah, Unfortunately that's the case, right you know, as
18:59
Speaker 10: in CFO of a big public tech company. Really what
19:04
Speaker 10: we're doing is we're applying public company standards to the
19:07
Speaker 10: federal government.
19:08
Speaker 2: And it is.
19:09
Speaker 10: Alarming how the financial operations in financial management is set up. Today,
19:15
Speaker 10: there is actually really only one bank account that's used
19:19
Speaker 10: to disburse all monies that go out of the federal government.
19:22
Speaker 3: About one bank account.
19:24
Speaker 10: It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a
19:25
Speaker 10: big one. It's a big one. A couple weeks ago,
19:28
Speaker 10: I had eight hundred million dollars in it. But it's
19:29
Speaker 10: the Treasury diedital account. So when you hear, you know,
19:34
Speaker 10: some of my colleagues here what they're talking about in
19:35
Speaker 10: terms of the fraud, you have to ask, well, why
19:39
Speaker 10: is this allowed to happen at a financial level. Well,
19:42
Speaker 10: it's actually quite simple but alarming the Treasury up until now,
19:46
Speaker 10: and thanks to President Trump, we're fixing this. In fact,
19:49
Speaker 10: there's an executive order that he just signed the other
19:52
Speaker 10: day which is protecting America's bank account because it really
19:54
Speaker 10: is the taxpayer's money, you know.
19:56
Speaker 3: One, we're changing the culture.
19:58
Speaker 10: The culture is and not a lot of caring and
20:02
Speaker 10: not a lot of commitment to doing what's right relative
20:05
Speaker 10: to financial operations.
20:07
Speaker 2: There's a five.
20:08
Speaker 10: Hundred million dollars a fraud every year. There's one hundreds
20:10
Speaker 10: of million dollars of improper payments, and we can't pass
20:13
Speaker 10: it on it. The Consolidated financial report is produced by Treasury,
20:18
Speaker 10: and we cannot pass it on we have material weaknesses.
20:20
Speaker 3: What that means is that if I was a public.
20:23
Speaker 10: Company CFO, I would effectively be removed. I couldn't file
20:27
Speaker 10: financial statements, I couldn't issue securities.
20:29
Speaker 2: Of course, can't pass it on right, The federal government
20:32
Speaker 2: cannot pass it in ordered, it's impossible. In fact, in
20:38
Speaker 2: order to pass order, you need the information that's pass
20:41
Speaker 2: and ordered. You need to have the payment code, you
20:43
Speaker 2: need to have the payment explanation, and you need to
20:45
Speaker 2: have a person who can contact to understand why that
20:47
Speaker 2: payment was made. None of those things were mandatory until
20:51
Speaker 2: until just recently, just a few weeks ago, in fact,
20:53
Speaker 2: maybe last week.
20:54
Speaker 10: Yeah, we're serving five hundred and eighty plus agencies, and
20:57
Speaker 10: up until very recently, effect they could say make the
21:01
Speaker 10: payment and Treasury just sent it out as fast as possible,
21:04
Speaker 10: no verification. And so what we're doing is what any
21:08
Speaker 10: household would do. But imagine you're a household. You have
21:10
Speaker 10: a bank account. Everyone has an ATM card connect to
21:14
Speaker 10: that account, everyone has a check book to that account.
21:16
Speaker 10: It's not just your children, it's not just your parents
21:19
Speaker 10: at your in laws, it's your extended family and they
21:21
Speaker 10: all can go to the account and disperse funds, no
21:24
Speaker 10: questions asked, no justification, no verification.
21:28
Speaker 1: Up next, the DOSE team targets government contracts and we'll
21:32
Speaker 1: show you what they're finding. Tyler Hasson, Interior Department. You're
21:40
Speaker 1: a former oil company CEO. You're reviewing contracts before they're
21:45
Speaker 1: approved for funding.
21:47
Speaker 3: What do you find?
21:48
Speaker 7: Well, Elon and Steve kind of stole my thunder a
21:51
Speaker 7: little bit, but I actually found that customer service survey contract.
21:55
Speaker 7: I actually had an example of one right here.
21:58
Speaker 3: I could have done this in high school, and.
22:01
Speaker 2: I found it that bad.
22:03
Speaker 7: I found it on the weekends because under the Biden
22:05
Speaker 7: administration there was no departmental oversight within the Department of
22:09
Speaker 7: Interior whatsoever.
22:11
Speaker 3: None.
22:11
Speaker 2: We've now reviewing every.
22:13
Speaker 7: Single contract, every single grant, and when things come to
22:16
Speaker 7: my attention that don't make sense, I'm bringing him to
22:19
Speaker 7: Secretary Bergham, and he's been fantastic. He's a businessman, he's
22:23
Speaker 7: very supportive of DOGE. It's been wonderful to work with them.
22:27
Speaker 1: Is the battle between government of decades and decades of
22:31
Speaker 1: build up and business, which you guys are, is that
22:35
Speaker 1: like a.
22:35
Speaker 3: Train hitting each other. I mean, it seems like it's
22:39
Speaker 3: pretty disruptive.
22:40
Speaker 2: Well, this is a revolution, and I think it might
22:44
Speaker 2: be the biggest revolution in government since the original Revolution.
22:48
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, America is going
22:50
Speaker 2: to be in much better shape. Mecca will be solvent,
22:54
Speaker 2: the critical programs that people depend upon will walk, and
22:59
Speaker 2: it's going to be a fantastic future. But we're going
23:03
Speaker 2: to get a lot of complaints along the way. Absolutely.
23:05
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things I learned at PayPal was,
23:07
Speaker 2: you know who complains the loudest and with the most
23:10
Speaker 2: amount of fake righteous indignation the fraudsters. That's it's a tell.
23:17
Speaker 2: Is that a crazy like the two billion dollars to
23:20
Speaker 2: Stacey Aprons ANDNGO that basically didn't exist and suddenly gets
23:23
Speaker 2: two billion dollars awarded from the federal government. She has why?
23:27
Speaker 2: And there are many such cases like that.
23:29
Speaker 1: I think that most people, common sense wise, would say
23:33
Speaker 1: the fraud's got to end. They're concerned about the ninety
23:36
Speaker 1: four year old mother who skips a check or somehow
23:41
Speaker 1: doesn't get what she's supposed to get.
23:43
Speaker 2: Right, And what we're trying to say is actually that
23:45
Speaker 2: the ninety four year old grandmother is actually, as a
23:48
Speaker 2: result of jo Dog's work, going to get her check.
23:51
Speaker 2: She's not going to be robbed by frauds's like she's
23:53
Speaker 2: getting robbed today. And the solvency of the of the
23:58
Speaker 2: federal government will ensure that she can tinages to receive
24:01
Speaker 2: those Social Security checks that Medicare continues to work, without
24:06
Speaker 2: which we're all doomed. And the reason we're doing this
24:10
Speaker 2: is because if we don't do it, America is going
24:13
Speaker 2: to go insolve it. We're going to go bankrupt and
24:17
Speaker 2: nobody's going to get anything.
24:18
Speaker 3: Why are you guys all doing it? I mean, you
24:20
Speaker 3: can pipe up, but you don't have to be here, right,
24:24
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't have to be doing this.
24:26
Speaker 10: I have four blet's with four beautiful children with an eye,
24:31
Speaker 10: but we have a real fiscal crisis and this is
24:34
Speaker 10: not sustainable. And what's worse, back to my children and
24:38
Speaker 10: everyone else's children, is are burdening them with that debt
24:42
Speaker 10: and it's only going to grow.
24:43
Speaker 3: See, there's not a lot of hierarchy here.
24:45
Speaker 1: You guys are kind of all approaching it in different
24:48
Speaker 1: you know, silos, but with the same kind of goal, right,
24:53
Speaker 1: I mean, this is really silicon Valley private sector colliding
24:57
Speaker 1: with government.
24:58
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly, we're heading in bad path, but that the
25:01
Speaker 4: chance of success exists. And just the one that I
25:04
Speaker 4: just is in my head right now, which is a
25:05
Speaker 4: fairly mundane one but I think is very illustrative, is
25:08
Speaker 4: credit cards. There are in the federal government around four
25:14
Speaker 4: point six million credit cards for around two point three
25:17
Speaker 4: to two point four million employees. This doesn't make sense,
25:22
Speaker 4: and so one of the things all the teams have
25:24
Speaker 4: have worked on is we've worked with the agencies and said,
25:28
Speaker 4: do you need all of these credit cards? Are they
25:30
Speaker 4: being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?
25:33
Speaker 3: I hope they're getting frequent flyers.
25:35
Speaker 4: Actually, on a different note, the rewards program the federal
25:38
Speaker 4: government has is actually not very good because that's a
25:41
Speaker 4: whole other negotiation, right, yeah exactly, But so far the
25:44
Speaker 4: teams have worked together and they've reduced it from four
25:46
Speaker 4: point six million to four point three million, So we're
25:51
Speaker 4: taking it easy.
25:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but clearly the should not be, you know more,
25:55
Speaker 2: they should go more credit cards than there are people.
25:58
Speaker 3: Joe, middle level employees.
26:01
Speaker 1: Are they seeing a benefit to being empowered by taking
26:05
Speaker 1: out bureaucracy?
26:07
Speaker 5: I mean absolutely, I mean I think what you're seeing
26:09
Speaker 5: is taking the best of silk combelling in the business
26:11
Speaker 5: world and bringing it into the government. We're bringing the
26:12
Speaker 5: best practices and the best methodologies, and people are inspired
26:18
Speaker 5: right especially on the retirement processors I can speak to.
26:21
Speaker 5: They've been trying to modernize and get off of paper
26:25
Speaker 5: since early two thousands, very unsuccessfully. Every attempt has gone
26:30
Speaker 5: over budget and been canceled because it hasn't been successful.
26:35
Speaker 5: And so you know, I showed up and I feel
26:37
Speaker 5: like I'm here because it's an interesting problem. We can
26:40
Speaker 5: use design to solve it and good engineering and really
26:44
Speaker 5: create a better experience for everybody.
26:45
Speaker 2: We're talking about elementary financial controls that are necessary for
26:49
Speaker 2: any company to function. So like if these can if
26:53
Speaker 2: the pedal comment, if a commercial company operated the way
26:57
Speaker 2: the pedal comma does, then it would be immediately go bankrupt,
27:02
Speaker 2: it would be delisted, the officers would be arrested, and
27:04
Speaker 2: the changes were putting in place will enable the federal
27:07
Speaker 2: government to pass an ordered It will enable taxpayers to
27:10
Speaker 2: know where the money is going and know that they're
27:12
Speaker 2: harder and tax tax dollars are being spent well. The
27:17
Speaker 2: ways that the government is defrauded is that the computer
27:19
Speaker 2: systems don't talk to each other. So if the computer
27:22
Speaker 2: systems don't talk to each other, then you can you
27:25
Speaker 2: can exploit that gap, and frauds that exploit that gap
27:29
Speaker 2: take advantage. For example, there were over three hundred million
27:33
Speaker 2: dollars of small Business Administration loans that has been given
27:36
Speaker 2: out to people under the age of eleven.
27:39
Speaker 4: We'll actually to add to it three hundred million under
27:41
Speaker 4: the age of eleven and over three hundred million to
27:43
Speaker 4: over the age of one hundred and twenty.
27:46
Speaker 3: Definitely small business loans.
27:48
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, the oldest American is one hundred and fourteen,
27:51
Speaker 2: so it's safe to say if their age is one
27:53
Speaker 2: hundred and fifteen or above, they're fake or they should
27:57
Speaker 2: be in the games. Spoke on world records, and we
28:00
Speaker 2: should not be giving out loans to babies. So the
28:06
Speaker 2: youngest recipient of a Small Business Administration loan is a
28:09
Speaker 2: nine month year old, which is a very very concious
28:12
Speaker 2: baby we're talking about here, So obviously it was just
28:15
Speaker 2: fraudulent and what they and they do terrible things. They
28:18
Speaker 2: actually will see that a kid's been born, they will
28:20
Speaker 2: steal that kid's Social Security number and then take out
28:23
Speaker 2: a loan and leave that kid with a bad credit rating.
28:27
Speaker 2: There's literally a baby. The terrible things are being done,
28:30
Speaker 2: is what we're saying, and how we're stopping these terrible things,
28:32
Speaker 2: and you can stop it. I mean, well, we are stopping.
28:35
Speaker 9: The reason this is happening is because the two systems
28:38
Speaker 9: are not talking to each other.
28:39
Speaker 2: Yes, right, And.
28:40
Speaker 9: So you don't know at the Small Business Administration that
28:44
Speaker 9: you're giving a loan to a nine month old, which
28:46
Speaker 9: happened in one case, because you're not cross referencing that
28:49
Speaker 9: with the Social Security Administration data that has birth dates.
28:52
Speaker 9: So that very very simple fix eliminates tremendous frat and
28:56
Speaker 9: that there are multiple systems across the government where the
28:59
Speaker 9: systems are not speaking with one another.
29:01
Speaker 2: And if you just.
29:02
Speaker 9: Solve that simple problem, you would solve a huge amount
29:06
Speaker 9: of fraud.
29:06
Speaker 7: Are you.
29:07
Speaker 2: One of the ways, like one of the key tricks
29:10
Speaker 2: that the frauds is pull is that they will use
29:12
Speaker 2: the fact that someone is marked as live as sort
29:16
Speaker 2: of just that that Social Security numbers marks is live
29:19
Speaker 2: in Social Security and then then get disability and unemployment
29:23
Speaker 2: insurance for a dead person. Because the databases don't talk
29:26
Speaker 2: to each other. All they got was from Social Security?
29:29
Speaker 2: Is like, is this person alive? Yes, they're not. They're
29:32
Speaker 2: not alive if it's falsely mark person's falsely markerslive Social Security,
29:36
Speaker 2: but they didn't. But fraudser can now get unemployment and
29:41
Speaker 2: disability from a dead person. This is happening all the
29:45
Speaker 2: time at scale.
29:47
Speaker 1: Are you surprised at some of the legal efforts and
29:51
Speaker 1: some of the judges that have weighed in there's about
29:53
Speaker 1: eight or ten now of these cases that are at
29:57
Speaker 1: least temporary holds. They're being challenged by the d JAY.
30:01
Speaker 1: Are you surprised by that pushback?
30:04
Speaker 2: Well, it's the DC circuit is notorious for having a
30:08
Speaker 2: very far left blias. And when you look at the
30:12
Speaker 2: people close to some of these judges, who are where
30:15
Speaker 2: are they working? Are they working at these NGOs they're
30:18
Speaker 2: getting the other ones getting this money? Does that seem
30:21
Speaker 2: like a system that lacks corruption? It sounds like corruption
30:24
Speaker 2: to me.
30:25
Speaker 1: Last thing, do you guys all see this as a
30:28
Speaker 1: patriotic duty?
30:29
Speaker 3: Is that really what this is about?
30:31
Speaker 2: It's essential?
30:32
Speaker 7: So I do one hundred percent. I was running five
30:37
Speaker 7: businesses in Houston and I left that. I left great
30:40
Speaker 7: people to do this and my wonderful wife said go
30:44
Speaker 7: for it, and here I am. But I feel like
30:46
Speaker 7: this is me giving back to the country.
30:48
Speaker 2: If we don't do this, we're sunk the ship. Unless
30:52
Speaker 2: unless just exercise is successful, the ship of America will sink.
30:57
Speaker 2: That's why we're doing it.
30:58
Speaker 1: Well, gentlemen, I really appreciate the today, and hopefully it
31:03
Speaker 1: took some of the myth and mystery out of DOGE
31:06
Speaker 1: and what's happening behind the scenes.
31:08
Speaker 2: Thank you.
31:09
Speaker 1: We asked on AX your platform for some questions, and
31:14
Speaker 1: here is c.
31:15
Speaker 3: Spurling.
31:16
Speaker 1: He writes, Are they happy with the speed at which
31:19
Speaker 1: they're making changes? Are there any changes they would like
31:22
Speaker 1: to make but haven't yet?
31:24
Speaker 2: Well, I think in the context of the government, we're
31:27
Speaker 2: moving like lightning. In the context of what I'm used
31:31
Speaker 2: to moving, it's slower than I'd like. So what seems
31:36
Speaker 2: like incredibly fast action by GOUTMA standards is slower than
31:40
Speaker 2: I'd like to be totally frank but we're all making
31:44
Speaker 2: solid progress. A very sort of thorny problem, a tough problem. Really,
31:51
Speaker 2: it's kind of like painful homework. Frankly is reconciling all
31:55
Speaker 2: of the government databases to eliminate the waste and fraud.
31:58
Speaker 2: These databases don't talk to each other, and that's really
32:01
Speaker 2: the source of that's the biggest vulnerability for fraud is
32:05
Speaker 2: the fact that these databases don't talk to each other.
32:07
Speaker 2: So we need to reconcile the databases. It's a frankly
32:11
Speaker 2: painful homework, but it has to be done and we'll
32:16
Speaker 2: greatly improve the efficiency of the government systems.
32:18
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about any plans to approach cuts at
32:21
Speaker 1: the Pentagon.
32:22
Speaker 3: You're in there.
32:23
Speaker 2: The Pentagon has not passing udits in a very long time.
32:27
Speaker 2: I mean, as crazy as it sounds, they will lose
32:30
Speaker 2: twenty thirty billion dollars a year and they don't know
32:33
Speaker 2: where They literally don't know where it went. I mean,
32:37
Speaker 2: Senator Collins was telling me about how she gave the
32:40
Speaker 2: Navy twelve billion dollars for extra submarines, got zero extra submarines,
32:45
Speaker 2: and then when she held a hearing, said where the
32:47
Speaker 2: twelve billion dollars go? They didn't know.
32:50
Speaker 1: Talking to those guys, and you have a great team
32:52
Speaker 1: from all over the country, you don't have to be here.
32:55
Speaker 3: You don't have to be here.
32:57
Speaker 1: You know, there's now been these many cases of violence, vandalism,
33:00
Speaker 1: at Tesla dealerships. How does that affect your employees, your customers,
33:06
Speaker 1: What does it mean to you? Like, how have you
33:08
Speaker 1: taken that in?
33:10
Speaker 2: Well? I think I think a great wrong is being
33:12
Speaker 2: done to the people of Tesla and to our customers.
33:15
Speaker 2: Tesla is a peaceful company that has made great cars,
33:19
Speaker 2: great products, that's all it's done, hasn't harmed anyone, and
33:24
Speaker 2: yet people are committing violence. They're firebombing Tesla dealerships, they're
33:29
Speaker 2: shooting guns into stores, they're threatening people that you know,
33:35
Speaker 2: they're issuing death threats against me and another Tesla personnel.
33:40
Speaker 2: What are they doing this for? Why? And what's happening?
33:44
Speaker 2: It seems to me is they're being fed propaganda by
33:46
Speaker 2: the far left and they believe it. It's really unfortunate.
33:54
Speaker 2: But the real problem is not not the people. It's
33:58
Speaker 2: not like that, the you know, the crazy guy that
34:01
Speaker 2: fire bombs at Tesla dealership. It's the people pushing the
34:05
Speaker 2: propaganda that that caused that guy to do it. Those
34:11
Speaker 2: are the real villains here, and we're going to go
34:14
Speaker 2: after them. And the Presence made it clear we're going
34:16
Speaker 2: to go after them, the ones providing the money, the
34:19
Speaker 2: ones pushing the lies, and propaganda. We're going after them.
34:26
Speaker 3: And it's been this evolution.
34:28
Speaker 1: I mean, the last administration was going to mandate electric
34:31
Speaker 1: vehicles and now you see on the far left some
34:34
Speaker 1: efforts to go after electric vehicles.
34:35
Speaker 3: It's quite something.
34:37
Speaker 2: It is ironic. I mean, it seems like the most
34:40
Speaker 2: ironic outcome is most likely.
34:44
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, un personally, it's got to take
34:47
Speaker 3: a toll.
34:48
Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, it does. I think there's some real
34:55
Speaker 2: evil out there and we have to overcome it.
35:00
Speaker 1: I mean, you have been called a Nazi, a white supremacist,
35:03
Speaker 1: a fascist.
35:05
Speaker 2: I mean they've got this sort of.
35:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:09
Speaker 2: I mean they've still got it. They haven't. I guess
35:10
Speaker 2: they still needs to call me Stalin, Mussolini, you know,
35:15
Speaker 2: whatever or whatever. I mean, they've called the president all
35:20
Speaker 2: these things. I think at one point there was a
35:23
Speaker 2: magazine cover which which said the president was worse than
35:27
Speaker 2: the president. Trump was worse than Hitler and Mussolini and
35:30
Speaker 2: Stalin combined. The president hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't started
35:35
Speaker 2: any wars. In fact, he's good at stopping wars. So
35:40
Speaker 2: this is obviously they're pushing these lies. And why do
35:44
Speaker 2: they push these lies? And I think we need to
35:47
Speaker 2: hold people responsible for pushing these lives because those lies
35:51
Speaker 2: almost got the present killed.
35:54
Speaker 1: It's something that people want to know about the president.
35:56
Speaker 1: You're pretty close to him now, you spend a lot
35:58
Speaker 1: of time with them. What's something that people wouldn't know.
36:01
Speaker 2: I think the President is a good man. I think
36:04
Speaker 2: he is an honest man. And I have yet to
36:09
Speaker 2: see him do anything mean or anything that is wrong
36:15
Speaker 2: that I would say, Mali wrong, not even once you.
36:19
Speaker 3: Know a lot is coming your way.
36:21
Speaker 1: But sometimes you say stuff or post stuff that gets attention,
36:26
Speaker 1: you give it out. In other words, Democratic Arizona Senator
36:29
Speaker 1: Mark Kelly posted on ACT about his trip to Ukraine
36:32
Speaker 1: to push for continuing to send US weapons and support there,
36:36
Speaker 1: and you posted that he was a trader.
36:39
Speaker 3: Why I do that?
36:40
Speaker 2: Well, I think somebody should be should care about the
36:44
Speaker 2: interests of the United States above the interest of another country.
36:48
Speaker 2: They don't. They're a trader.
36:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's a decorative veteran, a former astronaut, a
36:52
Speaker 1: sitting US senator.
36:55
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean it's okay for him to put the
36:58
Speaker 2: interest of another country above me.
37:01
Speaker 1: Obviously, there are some Republicans who think supporting Ukraine is
37:05
Speaker 1: the right thing still, but there is a battle back
37:07
Speaker 1: and forth about how do you think it comes to
37:09
Speaker 1: an end?
37:14
Speaker 2: Well, I think there will be a negotiated peace. And
37:19
Speaker 2: the thing that we should be concerned about is we
37:22
Speaker 2: should have empathy for the thousands of people that are
37:25
Speaker 2: dying every day in trenches for no movement in the lines.
37:30
Speaker 2: So the borders remained the same for the past two years.
37:33
Speaker 2: Thousands of people have died every week for nothing, for what?
37:40
Speaker 2: And I take great offense at those who those who
37:49
Speaker 2: put the appearance of goodness over the reality of it,
37:53
Speaker 2: those who virtue signal and say, oh, we can't give
37:56
Speaker 2: into Russia, but have no solution to stopping thou of
38:00
Speaker 2: kids dying every day. They just want that to continue forever.
38:05
Speaker 2: I have contempt for such people. I don't want to
38:07
Speaker 2: make that clear. Yeah, so you're statific because they're bot
38:10
Speaker 2: you signaling and their lack of a solution means that
38:16
Speaker 2: kids don't have a father. It means that parents lost
38:20
Speaker 2: a son for what. Nothing.
38:26
Speaker 3: To your optimistic that the President's plan my work.
38:30
Speaker 2: The president plan is the only thing that will work.