-
Unknown A
All right, let's move on to the latest of whatever the hell is going on with this Doge Elon email that he sent out and asking for everybody to send in their five bullet points, etc. So Trump yesterday, when he was with Emmanuel Macron, got asked about the Elon email and whether or not people should respond and how he felt about it. He seems in this conversation to really go to bat for Elon and back him up. Let's take a listen. What he had to say, people to ignore it.
-
Unknown B
But Elon Musk, the last email that we sent where he wanted to know what you did this week, you know why he wanted that, by the way? I thought it was great because we have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi fired or you're fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist. They're trying to. That's how badly various parts of our government were run by and especially by this last group. So what they're doing is they're trying to find out who's working for the government. Are we paying other people that aren't working? And, you know, where is all this?
-
Unknown B
Where's the money going? We have found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far, and we've just started.
-
Unknown A
Some of the agency heads instructed their employees not to respond because they were waiting on further guidance. But Elon Musk's tweet said a failure to respond would be taken as a resignation. So there's been a disconnect communications. Are you concerned at all about that?
-
Unknown B
No, no, no. That was done in a friendly manner only things such as perhaps Marco at State Department where they have very confidential things, or the FBI where they're working on confidential things and they don't mean that in any way combatively with Elon. They're just saying there are some people that you don't want to really have them tell you what they're working on.
-
Unknown A
Last week, they don't mean that in any way combative. So he's. Yeah, I mean, so number one, he's backing up Elon. Number two, he's trying to downplay what we covered. Yester is that a bunch of these agency heads really started actually by Cash Patel, but then the Department of Defense jumps in. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a reference. RFK Jr went one way and then went the other way. Tulsi Gabbard, like, basically all the agency heads ultimately were like, no, to their own people. You don't have to reply to this email. So Trump's trying to downplay that dispute, but he seems to back up Elon there. Then let's put this next piece up on the screen. This is great reporting from our friend Jeff Stein and co. By the way, Jeff Stein got a promotion over the Washington Post. Congratulations to him. He's going to be their chief economic correspondent.
-
Unknown A
In any case. Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk's order on this email reply. The Office of Personnel Management told HR officials that employees would not be let go for not replying to an email asking what they did last week. So seems to contradict Trump, but this is the direction coming from effectively, like the HR Department of the whole federal government. This is the OPM email that came out later in the day that seems to now indicate people are supposed to respond to this email. They say to further clarify response. The email sent on Saturday is voluntary. Was strongly encouraged. Once again, you should not transmit any confidential or sensitive privilege or investigative information. Please send your bullets to this email going forward. I've asked the office to operationalize this exercise, so please stay tuned for instructions. In the future, OPM may consider incorporating expectation that employees submit weekly accomplishment bullets into its regular weekly reporting structure.
-
Unknown A
Because, you know, having to send in five bullshit bullets every week is certainly going to improve government efficiency. Again, thank you for your dedication to our agency's mission. So they're saying here they're going to operationalize this exercise moving forward. And then we've got one other piece here from Elon. He says subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance, referring to employees who did not respond. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination. So anyway, kind of indications all over the place. Trump backs up Elon and the Office of Personnel Management says, no, you don't have to respond. Elon says, you're going to have to. You get one more chance. Then OPM comes in and says, well, it's not mandatory right now, but we're going to operationalize this. So that's basically where things are.
-
Unknown C
Yeah, I have a theory now of Elon blowback, which I was trying to tease out to you yesterday is boss theory is that the more Elon is seen as a dickhead boss as opposed to a visionary entrepreneur, the more Americans will turn against him. So the vast majority of Americans are not like us. They're not self employed. You know, they don't own their own business. And that's fine. It's a pain in the ass for all. For the people who wanna know what it's like out there, they work for W2 or they have a boss, right? Or they and or are the boss having been subject to somebody's authority previously. You and I previously have worked office jobs. So you know intimately what it's like to have a literal mor trying to performance review you or tell you what you can and can't do differently in some sort of like HR software that rates you one out of four.
-
Unknown C
It's both dehumanizing and also incredibly stupid at the same time. But the stakes are so high because your salary is on the line. And so I believe that the more Elon is seen as a capricious and an annoying boss over the vast majority of over the largest employer in the United States and the more that people have a connection to that employer, there will be more pushback against that. Now part of the reason why most Americans had not really cared about it previously is, you know, at the end of the day, the private institutions like Tesla or SpaceX, you have a choice of whether you want to work there or not. You're also incredibly well compensated and it's not like worldly important that you work in your job, which at least some government jobs are. But I think that the more publicity that there's a spotlight on this type of behavior that Americans really don't like to be screwed with by their boss.
-
Unknown C
I remember reading a statistic, it's like 70% of people like hate their boss or they're just like 20 some percent of people would literally like kill their boss if they had or say they would if they could. People really hate their boss. I get it. You know, it's one of those where I've been in that position before where they're so annoying. And so I think that the more that this permeates two people, it will really start to piss people off. Because if you think about it white collar service based, everybody knows what it's like to have an annoying supervisor or to be scheduled or to be told one thing and then told the opposite. I mean, how often does that happen when you work in a workplace? It's maddening.
-
Unknown A
And white collar employees get treated way more humanely and I mean like literally like human beings than blue collar workers who you know, are completely dehumanized, often like searched subject to these ridiculous security procedures. And surveilled even while they're in the break room eating their lunch and all that sort of stuff. Crap. And so, yeah, everybody hates bosses. Everybody hates bosses. So I think you're right about that. And I think Elon is leaning hard into the asshole boss Persona. So when you couple that with the fact that these federal government jobs, I was telling Sagar before the show, one of the states that has the highest proportion of federal government workers is actually Alaska. People think of federal government workers being here in D.C. they by and large are not. I mean, there are many here in D.C. this is obviously the greatest concentration of them, but they're spread out across the country and their impact is felt across the country.
-
Unknown A
And then you think about like the ancillary workers and just the, you know, anytime you have this level of like glee and delight in firing people and destroying their lives and their livelihood, it's going to. It's going to rub people the wrong way. So I think we are starting to see that pushback. You know, what's going to happen with this fricking Elon bullet point situ, I don't really know. And it is an interesting subplot to see. And one thing I didn't anticipate is the possibility that the agency heads themselves could be somewhat of a check on Elon, because they got their Senate confirmations, they went through the thing, they thought they were getting this level of power and agency within these departments, and then they're watching Elon just completely bigfoot them, even to the point of like, well, I get to say who works for you and who does what and how this whole thing is run, and I'm gonna get access to all your data and my little like goofy 20 year olds are going to come in and run wild through your agency whenever the hell they feel like it, whether you want
-
Unknown A
them there or not. And so while the Congressional Republicans, because of the politics around it, will just bend the knee to Trump and Elon, and Elon has threatened them with primary challenges and that's an important enforcement mechanism, et cetera. It's a little bit different dynamic with these agency heads. So it is a particular dynamic that I want to watch and I think is a little bit unsettled as of now in terms of how all of that is going to play out. There was yesterday an interest protest, I guess you would say, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We can put this up on the screen. Somebody hacked into the screens in the building and played this AI generated video of Elon having his like, Feet kissed by. Yeah, it's kind of disturbing to see.
-
Unknown C
You should put a trigger warning on.
-
Unknown A
To be honest with you. And then across the screen it reads, long live the real king. Of course, a reference to, you know, the position of power Elon has taken and also Trump's previous reference last week to Long live the King in the context of the New York congestion pricing situation. So that is something that happened that was confirmed by multiple reporters, including Jeff Stein. As I said, there's also a few developments in terms of the legal battles against Doge. We can put this next one up on the screen. So the federal ethics watchdog that Trump has been blocked from firing by a federal court has ruled that some of the terminations of probationary employees appear to be illegal. So Trump tried to fire this dude. A court said you can't do that, or at least there's a temporary injunction put in on that. And so he has said that, according to, and this is not a court ruling, to be clear from Hampton Dellinger.
-
Unknown A
This is just, he's the federal ethics watchdog. He's advising that some of these probationary employee firings may be illegal. You also had, we don't have an element for this, but yesterday you had a judge that really harshly questioned the constitutionality of the entire setup of Doge. And part of this saga comes down to you guys. Remember, the Trump administration put in this court filing, like, Elon, he has nothing to do with Doge. Like, he's not in charge of Doge, he's just an advisor to the president. But then when this judge was questioning them, okay, well then who is in charge of Doge? They couldn't answer. They had no idea. And the reason that this is important in terms of its potential constitutionality is there's something called the Appointments Clause, which means if you have a significant position, it has to be confirmed by the Senate.
-
Unknown A
That's why the government is trying to say like, oh, Elon doesn't have anything to do with that. Cuz obviously he's not confirmed by the Senate. And so the fact that they're this far into the administration and they're pretending Elon's not in charge when like, clearly he is, number one. And number two, they can't say who the acting director of Doge is when it obviously has been given these incredible whole of government powers, that's why this judge was questioning whether or not this whole situation was constitutional at all.
-
Unknown C
Yeah, it's very interesting in terms of how this will continue in the court process. But for me, I Am just still mystified at this whole OPM situation because it does really get to a crux of. It gets to the crux of not only who's in charge, but to what extent they will have authority going forward under their own department. And if Elon can just parachute in and outside of some programs like is he gonna be able to run the so called day to day? I mean, I guess the thing is with Trump, and again, I think this is the thing about Trump as well. Trump is also a boss. Right. Trump is also somebody who probably empathizes with this idea, like my employees are stealing from me or they're taking advantage of me. And so now that he runs the government, he probably empathizes with sending such an email.
-
Unknown C
But this, like I said, I think it's starting to flirt with people who are feeling jerked around because that's where I think most people can again empathize with the chaotic nature of all of this. And if there was a plan and there were going to be cuts, I think a lot of people would be fine with it, you know, but. Or at least Trump MAGA folks would be. Not necessarily liberal ones, but the idea that your job weighs in jeopardy or not and all of these legal theories and you have to send this email or not, it detracts from the idea that there's like a steady hand and competence on the wheel. Which if you think about it, that was the pitch that Donald Trump made whenever he came back to office as I'm gonna make everything normal and restore it to 2019. Again, those are very different interpretations of that.
-
Unknown C
And that's why it's important, but that's why I think it matters.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, absolutely. And then just to go through some of the impacts here and some of the things that really cut negatively against them. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. It's impossible to keep up with all the things that are impacted and all the things that are going on. So this is a bit of a sampling. This CNN article actually was really good and pointed out something that I hadn't thought about before. They say military families rocked by Trump's federal government cuts. We've talked here before about how much of the federal government is employees are retired military. And so that's very significant. But this article looks specifically at. There have been all kinds of federal government programs, including one that was championed by Trump in his first term to hire military spouses and give them work and flexible work and often telework within the federal government.
-
Unknown A
And the reason is Pretty obvious here you've got this group of military spouses who are oftentimes having to be moved around the country based on where their significant other is stationed at the time and what deployments they're dealing with. Also, if your significant other is deployed overseas, that's going to create childcare issues, et cetera, if you're having to commute a long way to your job. And so when the order came down of, okay, everybody back to the office, initially, military spouses were not excluded. So, you know, people for whom they'd been given an ability to be able to work these jobs and have that kind of flexibility, being able to work from home and, you know, be able to work long distances even when they get moved around, et cetera, they were not excluded. And then there was some memo that went out that was like, maybe you are excluded.
-
Unknown A
And it's just been total chaos and really unclear. And the other piece with this is, you know, in terms of firing all of the employees that are on this probationary period, it's important to understand that that doesn't just apply to people who've been newly hired by the federal government. If you move positions in, you know, between agencies or even sometimes if you get a certain promotion, but certainly if you're, you know, moving from, okay, he was stationed here, now he's stationed somewhere else, and I'm totally switching to work at a different agency that's closer to where he lives now to where we live now. Those people would be on probation. So that means that you would have a disproportionate impact on these military spouses that I think everybody finds pretty like, oh, it's a good thing for the federal government to, these are people who are capable of skills that are useful to the government.
-
Unknown A
It's not like it's, you know, they're not deserving of the positions, but they require some flexibility and they're more likely to be in this probationary period. So it's hit them in particular really, really hard. In addition, something we can put the next one up on the screen that Sagar and I were mentioning yesterday is you're already having big impacts at the national parks. So National Park Service was already pretty bare bones in terms of they'd faced staffing cuts and also staffing freezes. So the workforce has declined by 15% since 2010, but park visitation is way up. It's increased by 16%. If any of you guys have been to these national parks in recent years, you've seen they are quite busy. People really love and enjoy. It's like an affordable vacation. They're incredible, they're beautiful, It's a wonderful experience. And my greatest, you know, favorite memories are at some of the places in the national park system.
-
Unknown A
And so you're having already massive lines. You've had reservations at Gettysburg National Military park that were just blanket canceled because they weren't able to manage the reservation system. You had waits in order to get into the Grand Canyon national park were like multiple hours long because some of the people who just, you know, let people in and give them the map and take the money and whatever had been let go. So you're having significant impacts there already. And then the other piece is you've had a fair amount of what appears to be self dealing, although you could never say for sure, but certain certainly the appearance of self dealing coming from Elon as well. Put the five up on the screen. So they laid off a bunch of workers at the auto safety agency that oversees Tesla. They've, you know, this agency had come like Elon had expressed his disgust at this agency previously, prior to being the head or not the head of Doge, according to who you believe he's they've mandated that Tesla and other automakers report crash data on vehicles, specifically like self driving technology equipped vehicles have to report this crash
-
Unknown A
data. He didn't like that they've launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company's cars. He didn't like that either. So again, can you say, ok, they got fired because Elon wanted them fired? You can't say that, but it certainly has the appearance of self dealing and very similar with this next piece as well. You can put this up on the screen. So employees that had been reviewing Neuralink also were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge. So 20 people in the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, several of whom specifically worked on Neuralink, according to two sources, they were all let go. Now after the fact saga. Some of these people, they're like scrambling to bring back because they realize that we really need some of these people. So they're scrambling to bring them back. But to your point, I think you're absolutely right about the more that he appears like the evil dreaded boss, I think that's really bad.
-
Unknown A
The more people see him less as the visionary and more as the self interested, self dealing billionaire, the worse and then the more that it impacts groups that are sympathetic and services that people actually value, the more of a political problem this is going to be.
-
Unknown C
That was my prediction is if you Start to actually come after stuff that people use and. Or our beloved, for example, national parks, one of the literally most beloved national programs in the country.
-
Unknown A
And we should expand the national parks system. Sure, yeah. Because they are sort of overcrowded at this point because they're so popular.
-
Unknown C
I know, yeah. Actually, like I said, I went to Zion during COVID and it was only, oh my God, the reservation system was a disaster. So if anything, you should make it better and make it easier. One of the reasons I love and I support them is that it's literally free, or as close to free as you can get. A lot of the accommodations around the area are actually very cheap. It's very easy to take a very cheap vacation there, especially if you're nearby. You see it all the time. If you're into camping or any of this, you know, you can use the reservations. The park people will help you. They have it all set up. They really do. It's awesome. In terms of the government support for it, that is an example again of people who are like, hey, hold on a second here.
-
Unknown C
I also think that where it comes down to not only with the military strategy, but the slap shot nature of it. The more again, people are fine with the plan. I really believe that. Especially Republicans. Most Republicans hate the government. They wanna see it gutted and all that, but they want to see it done in such a way not necessarily that doesn't impact them, but is for a goal. So if it's just about dei, it's like that's actually not that difficult. You can pretty much, even with the widest DEI definition, you could identify and publish all of the programs that have that and you could ax them and. Or you could fire the employees involved. The problem with the 10% layoff or with any of that and then bringing people back is it just feels as if it's doing it for the sake of it.
-
Unknown C
Which is fine if you're at Twitter. And honestly, it may be fine in the long run. Right? It really could be. It could be one where they all leave and we don't even notice, which is Elon's kind of theory of the case. I don't really think that's true in democratic institutions, but I could be completely wrong. And that's where I currently see especially the pushback for families. Cause I keep thinking about the statistic. If 4 million people work for the government, that means that there are 8 to 10 million people out there who know somebody or are related to somebody who are directly related and. Or married to that person. Not to mention their kids, if they're older or their cousin. I mean, we could do the tree out. And everybody's a couple degrees removed from somebody who directly works with us here in Washington.
-
Unknown C
I know dozens of people who are affected. Also, my commute's gotten worse. Thank you, Elon, for calling all these people back in. It's a pain in the ass. And that's another one where you are we really, like, what is the metric? Are we asking people to come into work? I think that's fine. But to what end is it just to clock in and to clock out? Like, what is the theory of what is all happening here? And, you know, the government's not a startup. I've always said that. And this is the problem with treating it as such. It's a literal Democratic institution. Sometimes things are done stupidly and inefficiently, but in a sense, that's only because people like it that way or because congressmen or senators like it that way. And many constituents do as well. So it's a very complicated dance that I don't think that currently they are winning.
-
Unknown C
And Trump seems enthralled by the whole thing. I think Trump. And this is where I need to check my own bias, and I always say this. I think it would be a little too cute by half to have some great liberal backlash against Elon and Doge. It seems just a little too on the nose for what the media wants and what the liberals want, which, by and large, their political theories have been wrong over the last four years, outside of abortion. So I just don't know. Maybe he's correct. I mean, he's a very smart person. For him, the media and the liberals are against it. So he continues to fight. He could still have millions of people who rally, even not to him per se, but to the Republicans who defend it.
-
Unknown A
I mean, there definitely is a massive liberal backlash. That much I can tell. I mean, I think that it's showing up at town halls in every state, that everywhere they're having town halls, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican who's having them, people are showing up en masse. And so there's no doubt about that. And certainly in a midterm election, when that enthusiasm is what counts, I think that's going to be really, really determinative and important. So, you know, I do think that there will be a massive electoral backlash to all of this. But, you know, we'll. We'll see how, Laura, in this long time between now and then, et cetera. But yeah, you've got the, the evil boss piece, you've got the incompetent piece. This. It's very hard to argue that any of this is being done based on merit when it's just these very blanket, across the board, not thoughtful, having to scramble like, shit, we fired the dude who keeps our nuclear energy safe.
-
Unknown A
We better get that guy back. And no, we fired some people at the FDA that were like, keeping track of bird flu. That seems kind of important. We better get those people back as well. And that's where your point about the government not being a business is a really, really important one for people to understand. Because government is not supposed to be like, its main goal isn't actually to be, quote, unquote, efficient. And I'll give you a perfect example. Air traffic controllers, right? Businesses take all kinds of risks, especially businesses run by Elon Musk, take all kinds of risks, including safety risks, betting that the fine or the consequences will be less than the fallout from cutting those corners and taking those risks. But as a society, we wanna make sure that the planes don't run into each other. So you don't wanna just slap shot, fire a bunch of air traffic controllers and make the thing more dangerous, even if that did mean it was, quote, unquote, more efficient.
-
Unknown A
I also got news for you, like, the federal government, the amount that we pay to employ the federal government workforce is also not that large a part of the budget either. So even if you slash a preposterous amount of this workforce, you're doing very little in terms of actual cost cutting. And that's the other piece, is when you zoom out, even from just this, ok, what Doge is up to, and they're bullshit, pretending like they found this or that fraudulent program, which they have not actually identified any fraud thus far whatsoever. And you consider the broader agenda, which is like, okay, well, we're trying to cut spending so we can do what? Give a giant tax cut to people like Elon Musk who already pay very little in taxes, Then the agenda just completely departs from what most Americans want. And Sahar's absolutely right that most people, if you ask them, like, should the government be cut?
-
Unknown A
Should it be made more efficient, some of the fat be cut? And they'd be like, yes, absolutely, but the way you do that matters and the impact on people's lives matter. And, you know, I don't think that this is landing well with people based on what we're seeing.
-
Unknown C
It's a good political. It is a good test here for Trump theory. Of politics. Trump's theory of politics is if that the media and the liberals are against it, then he's gonna fight against it. And that has proven very well for him. It has worked dramatically well, actually, politically for him specifically, not necessarily the Republican Party. So how will he continue to fare? Not only his grip on the party, his ability to then perhaps transfer some of that in the midterms or in the future election? Because right now, if you were to believe a traditional media narrative, you're like, oh, it's gonna be a blowout. But I just have a sneaking suspicion that the rules might have changed only in the sense that because the mainstream media no longer has the same grip on the American culture for its ability to set narratives. I genuinely question how much of this is even penetrating, because even when the lib narratives penetrated during the election, it didn't hit to the electorate in the same way.
-
Unknown C
The electorate is huge. Right. Nobody can really know. But a lot of the memes that people tried to make that were supposed to be offensive, turn people off or whatever, in the traditional rules of politics, they didn't work.
-
Unknown A
That's only the case when Trump is on the ballot. And Trump is not really supposed to be on the ballot again, he has other ideas.
-
Unknown C
That's what you want.
-
Unknown A
He has other ideas.
-
Unknown C
That's what I want.
-
Unknown A
But as of today, based on the content Constitution, he's not supposed to run again. He's also getting, you know, he is getting old too, but, you know, so he's never been able to translate his particular political gifts in this way. He's very much like Obama, his particular political gifts to midterm elections, special elections, or really anyone else. So, yeah, when he's on the ballot, the polls are understate his support. You know, people want to give him a chance time and time again. He comes extraordinarily close in 2020, even with the disastrous state of the country under the leadership, he obviously wins in 2024 and is able to secure a popular vote victory, which is extraordinary. But the midterms before that were a disaster for Republicans, and the 2018 midterms were a disaster for Republicans as well. So I've never seen him able to translate his political gifts and talents to anyone else.
-
Unknown A
And I don't see why that would change when people are already kind of over the honeymoon period and already turning certainly on Elon, but also his numbers are going down and people aren't happy with the state of the economy either, which is a good transition, actually, into our next block.
-
Unknown C
Yeah, let's go to the next part. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.
-
Unknown A
And if you'd like to get the full show ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up@breakingpoints.com.
-
Unknown C
That'S right, get the full show. Help support the future of independent media@breaking points.com.