Transcript
Claims
  • Unknown A
    So, extraordinary Cabinet meeting. I guess that's one way to put it. Everybody else is inside.
    (0:00:00)
  • Unknown B
    Unprecedented.
    (0:00:04)
  • Unknown A
    We'll say Elon's in a dark MAGA hat, wearing an overcoat and a T shirt. Okay, yeah, got it. That's definitely how we dress inside of the White House. Don't ask me why. Well, what the most interesting part was, Trump basically settled the Elon question with his Cabinet, which is, who has the authority over this email and compliance? And previously I really thought that that email was a very important jump off point. Cause I was like, oh, the cabinet's really asserting itself here as the executive there. The people who have been Senate confirmed to run these government departments. But here is what Trump had to say. He said, if you're against Elon, we'll throw them out of here. Let's take a listen.
    (0:00:05)
  • Unknown C
    I just wanted to ask you that. President Trump put out a truth social today, saying that everybody in the Cabinet was. Was happy with you. I just wondered if that. If you had heard otherwise and if you had heard anything about members of the Cabinet who weren't happy with the way things were going. And if so, what are you doing to address those. Any dissatisfaction?
    (0:00:41)
  • Unknown D
    Let the Cabinet speak just for a second. If you are, well, throw him out here. We have a lot of respect for Elon and that he's doing this and some disagree a little bit. But I will tell you, for the most part, I think everyone's not only happy, they're thrilled.
    (0:01:02)
  • Unknown A
    Okay, all right. I mean, settle the question. There you go. You have got there. Trump basically endorsing it 100%. And he said, well, if anybody disagrees with it, get outta here. Elon also expanded. This is more in terms of the relationship. This is why it's important during the meeting where he expanded on why he decided to send that email in the first place. And as Trump had said previously, it was at his own urging. Here's what Elon had to say.
    (0:01:30)
  • Unknown C
    Like last week, the president encouraged me via Truth Social and also via phone call to be more aggressive. And I was like, okay, you know, yes, sir, Mr. President, we will indeed do that. The president is the commander in chief. I get what the president asks, so. And I said, can we send out an email to everyone just saying, what did you get done last week? The president said, yes. So it did that. And, you know, we got a partial response. We're going to send another email, but our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. It's. We want to give people every opportunity to send an email and the email could simply be what I'm working on is too sensitive or classified to describe. Like, literally just that would be sufficient. You know, I think this is just common sense.
    (0:01:54)
  • Unknown B
    And what is your target number for.
    (0:02:48)
  • Unknown A
    How many workers, employees, you're looking to cut total?
    (0:02:50)
  • Unknown C
    We wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well. But if the job is not essential or they're not doing the job well, they obviously should not be on public payroll.
    (0:02:54)
  • Unknown A
    So I just think it's important to say Trump has settled the Elon question. It's like, all right, this is what the future conceivably looks like now, and he is in control in terms of his ability to send these emails and whatnot. And I will fully admit I had no idea that this would ever be the dynamic. And I would never have predicted that Donald Trump would allow this kind of subsuming of his own presidency over this. If I were a Cabinet official, I would be furious, obviously. Cause this is like, I got confirmed by the Senate. My shit is all out there. I have to comply with all of these laws and sell stock and all these other ethics things that you're allowed to do. Meanwhile, somebody can just Bigfoot and come on in here. But I do think at a certain point, we just have to be like, all right, this is what Trump wants.
    (0:03:08)
  • Unknown A
    It's no longer some sort of secondary project like Trump fully. He's had the information. It's February 27th. It's 37 days into Donald Trump's presidency. The fights and all of that have happened, and he has settled the question now that he wants Elon to at least be in charge of all of these cuts and basically of setting the guidance for federal agencies, and so he can bear the consequences of that. Now, Donald Trump has made it clear that this is not some sort of fall guy or any of that. He's either endorsed some of the positions and. Or is basically saying he's the person who's in charge. And in a sense, that seems to be the point of that whole Cabinet show. When I covered the White House last time, Trump famously would have the cameras. He would bring them in here and force his Cabinet officials to be like, Mr.
    (0:03:55)
  • Unknown A
    President, you're the greatest president to ever serve in the history of mankind. And I do feel like this was the purpose of this entire gathering, especially to try and publicly be like, if anybody here has a problem, go ahead and get out of here.
    (0:04:39)
  • Unknown B
    Yeah, there we go. Yeah. And also just get on camera.
    (0:04:55)
  • Unknown A
    Yeah, exactly.
    (0:04:58)
  • Unknown B
    Saying, oh, no, of course we Love Elon, do whatever. So, yeah, I mean, that's what's wild is you're right. In the first administration, these gatherings of the cabinet secretaries about Trump were about licking the boots of Trump. This one was about licking the boots of Elon. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone could have predicted that. I mean, I saw the dynamic developing pretty quickly. I think the first real indication was over the H1B fight.
    (0:04:59)
  • Unknown A
    Yes.
    (0:05:25)
  • Unknown B
    Where Trump really had to decide, are you going to back Elon in an issue that he said he's going to go to war over, or are you going to stick with the previous incarnation in your MAGA base and some of your longtime supporters, etc. He came down very clearly. He didn't equivocate. He came down very clearly on the side of Elon. And at every juncture he has handed power over to Elon Musk. And I don't think that there's any doubt that that trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Our friend Jeff Stein over at the Washington Post, who is doing fantastic reporting, he's also going to make an appearance in the Jeff Bezos blog because he made it there as well. But anyway, he's reporting. Major changes coming to the federal government led by Musk's doge. Most significant move to dismiss federal workers now underway.
    (0:05:25)
  • Unknown B
    This is the big one. Agencies must submit plans to significantly reduce staff size by March 13. Social Security Administration under instruction to cut staff in half. GSA says terminations there are imminent. The Labor Department is eyeing gutting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Office by 90%. Oh, you mean the office that Elon Musk and his companies have run afoul of? How interesting they're going to be gutted by 90% mass lease cancellations of federal buildings underway, which is also interesting cuz everyone's been recalled to the office, but now they're not going to have any office. They already don't actually have enough office space for everybody to be in the office. 100 IRS leases to be nixed per records. Helps make sense. Jeff says of why Musk and Trump wanted a unified front today with cabinet secretaries. And you know, I also just want to reflect a little bit on the optics here, which you referenced a little bit with.
    (0:06:11)
  • Unknown B
    You know, everybody else is forced to be in their formal attire. Everybody including Trump seated at the table. And there's Elon standing in the sort of commanding position and really kind of running the flow of this meeting wearing whatever the hell he wants to marry wear and his own branded dark Maga Hat, which is not the original Red Make America Great Again hat. He has created his own brand, his own following. And you know, both of these individuals, Elon and Trump, their main genius really is around branding and symbolism. Like they think about what this imagery means. And so I think all of those pieces are very intentional. And Elon is the person in the government more than anyone, including Donald Trump, who holds the power and is making the decisions right now. And you're absolutely right, Sagar. Like if you're one of these cabinet secretaries who, this is your shot and you get to run the show and you went through the Senate confirmation, you did all this and now you get in there and some 20 something year old doge kid actually has more power in your agency than you do because they're
    (0:07:06)
  • Unknown B
    Musk's apparatchik. That is a wild situation. And so at the beginning of the week, there was a real question, Are they gonna stand for this? Are they gonna dissent? Are they gonna revolt over this? And yesterday we got the definitive answer, and that is no. They're going to do what Elon Musk wants them to do.
    (0:08:11)
  • Unknown A
    You know, and that's my thing now with Donald Trump and all of this. I thought maybe this is one of those times where you're gonna try and set somebody else to absorb this. But when you definitively endorse it and then order your people to comply and listen, that's your prerogative. You're the democratically elected leader. Okay. To build a little bit on your optics. For anybody who's never been in that room, if you ever get the chance, you go on an Oval Office tour, one of the very first things they're gonna point out is in the Cabinet room is that the President's chair is bigger than everybody else. Cause nobody's ever supposed to be taller.
    (0:08:30)
  • Unknown B
    Or bigger than the President.
    (0:09:02)
  • Unknown A
    Okay, interesting, right? In terms of who gets to stand and to speak. Look, am I reading too much into it? Not necessarily. It's more just why are you allowing this to happen like this? These are people who are branding and so called marketing experts. And I have no choice but to just say like, yeah, he believes it. This is that he wants. And now Trump will have to bear the consequences of that. So Elon also spoke a little bit about, quote, mistakes that have been made over at Doge. Let's take a listen.
    (0:09:03)
  • Unknown C
    And we, and I should say we also, we will make mistakes. We won't be perfect, but when we make mistake, we'll fix it very quickly. So for example, with USAID one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola. Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly if we are to achieve a trillion dollar deficit reduction in financial year 2026. It requires saving $4 billion per day every day from now through the end of September. But we can do it and we will do it.
    (0:09:32)
  • Unknown A
    So there you go. In terms of the numbers that evolves. This is part of why I'm also starting to get very annoyed. You can doge all you want. If Congress continues to fund it then I mean even if the government is not quote spending the money immediately, like at least it's being printed and or held or whatever in escrow by the government for the future, it's not like it's actually changed the stuff there. And also as I understand it, the current way that the tax bill and all that is shaking out is we're Looking at some $4.5 trillion increase in the overall overall debt limit for what the cap that's being allowed. This is openly acknowledged. Like I just want people to understand that it's not only a few hundred more billion in the continuing resolution, it's an extra hundred billion to be spent over at the Pentagon on top of a major tax cut.
    (0:10:14)
  • Unknown A
    I mean we've talked here til we're blue in the face about the Pentagon and how if you ever really want to cut spending like it all exists right there, we can easily change procurement systems and all that we could spend. We could literally save hundreds of billions and all of that if we want to. I will say, I mean on the popularity of this I still have no idea. I think it's now obvious that there is a like blue MAGA backlash against this. The resistance is activated and it exists. And I don't think anybody can say that's deniable. What's open question to me is a similar question of Democrats and Obamacare back in 2009. Will this be depressing to overall Republican turnout? Will it be one of those things where Republicans are tacitly okay with it but they're not enthusiastic about coming out or will they actively turn against it?
    (0:11:03)
  • Unknown A
    And that's one of those very open question. I also wonder about the independents and all of this attitudes around government institutional trust still remain very very low. Maybe this will change their mind. I'm still not sure. I still think of course the economy will be the number one determined factor out of all of this. But part of the issue is that at the very same time that all of this is happening, consumer sentiment is starting to tick down. Go take a look at the S&P5 and others and some of the reasons why even though Nvidia beat its earnings yesterday, while you're still seeing some shaky results in the overall stock market, people are pretty worried about tariffs and about the economy. And without a big plan that kind of sells it to the American people, you kind of just get this chaotic feeling where feeling about the economy and savings and all that is bad.
    (0:11:52)
  • Unknown A
    The fundamentals remain horrible obviously as we talk about here all the time for cost of living. And you could end up in a.
    (0:12:40)
  • Unknown B
    Really bad situation when it becomes increasingly clear it's a pro oligarch agenda. I mean, when you're doing massive $4 trillion tax cut for the rich, you know, we'll see whether they do any of the populist no tax on tips or whatever. But even if they do, compared to the size of the 4 trillion that is going to the wealthiest, it's peanuts. So you've got that, you've got massive cuts to Medicaid, which you're talking some 70 to 80 million people, many seniors, I don't know if people realize this many seniors who are in long term care. It's Medicaid that pays for that. Millions of births in this country paid for by Medicaid. Many rural hospitals are utterly dependent on this program. I saw a stat yesterday about the number of hospitals, rural hospitals in Alabama alone that would close were in the double digits. So huge cuts to social safety net programs, massive giveaway to the rich.
    (0:12:45)
  • Unknown B
    The richest man on the planet running the government to his own benefit. And I just always think it's important as we go through all of these individual developments of he said this and he did that and here's where the cutting now and Social Security administration is being hacked by 50%. I think it's really important to zoom out and try to understand what the big picture is. As Sager says, this isn't about cutting spending. We know that because of the bill that just passed the House with every Republican supporting it, Safer, Thomas Massie and Donald Trump behind it. Okay. Which would massively increase the debt and the deficit. This is about Elon's ideology and personal goals. Number one, I think, you know, as best I can tell, he wants to suck up as much data from the federal government to feed his own AI to try to win that competition.
    (0:13:39)
  • Unknown B
    Number two, he wants to use the federal government as his own personal piggy bank for his goal of getting to Mars and making humans an interplanetary species number three. I think Sager was right the other day. He wants to be a trillionaire. And so the plan here, which has been laid out by Curtis Yarvin and discussed by J.D. vance and Peter Thiel's behind it, and Marc Andreessen as well, is to have Elon be the CEO dictator of the country, and Trump to be the chairman of the board. And I don't think we've ever seen a clearer image of exactly that dynamic as we saw in this Cabinet meeting this week. That's exactly the dynamic that was playing out there, where it's really Elon making the decisions. And yes, Trump gets to have some sign off and gets to be involved, but Elon is really the one who has taken charge.
    (0:14:26)
  • Unknown B
    And of course, if you are taking the power of the purse from Congress, if you are completely consolidating power within the executive branch, if you are flirting with, I mean, now they are defying court orders, but they're not in technical open defiance of court orders. But if you're flirting with that, all of those things are unconstitutional. All of that is illegal and unconstitutional. Now, how this is all going to play out in the court system, how the Supreme Court's going to respond when their own legitimacy is on the line, that also remains to be seen. But I also, just before we move on to the next slide, I have to also in like clarify that Elon with this Ebola thing. It's not even true that they turned the funds back on.
    (0:15:20)
  • Unknown A
    Those.
    (0:16:02)
  • Unknown B
    Yes, those funds are frozen, as are almost all the funds, actually, probably literally all the funds coming out of usaid again in defiance of a court order, in defiance of even the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who had put out some waivers for things like pepfar and Doge, came in over his head. This is a dynamic Ryan was talking about yesterday. It's still frozen. So it's not even the agency heads that have control. Here literally is Elon Musk and Doge, et cetera. But Ebola prevention has not actually been turned back on. And of course, this is not the only time when they've accidentally fired something that was really or frozen something that was absolutely critical. There was the people who were watching bird flu that they had to scramble and rehire. There was the nuclear safety guy that they had to scramble and rehire. There were some transportation safety people, there were some FDA people.
    (0:16:02)
  • Unknown B
    All of these big mistakes that if you saw them unfolding in any other part of government, Elon would be calling for these people. Look at how incompetent they are. Look at how poorly they're doing their job. They would be fired immediately. But no, in fact, Ebola prevention aid has not been restored. It continues to be frozen, as is almost everything in usaid.
    (0:16:51)
  • Unknown A
    Yeah, the only thing I would quibble with there is I think that Elon's agenda is not nearly as aligned as you may think with Curtis Yarvin and or Peter Thiel slash JD Vance. I think all of these are a little bit more distinct. Elon is like a power in and of itself who probably likes the idea of the so called dictator. But if you really think about the CEO dictator model that Garvin and others had put out, it's a lot more rooted in like actual small D democratic legitimacy and being like a popular figure who takes strong control of the government, not dismantling the government itself. Much more like that's true.
    (0:17:12)
  • Unknown B
    I mean. Cause Yarvin talked about the rage like hire all government employees.
    (0:17:52)
  • Unknown A
    Let me explain it. So rage is not a Javier Milei style thing. Rage is about displacing the current regime by putting in a new regime. I don't think Elon wants a new regime. Right. That's kind of the point that I'm trying to explain. As in Steve Bannon. One of the reasons Steve Bannon is against the administrative state is because he thinks that the administrative state as it's currently constituted is against the like MAGA ideal. But Steve Bannon would not be against the idea of a MAGA administrative state.
    (0:17:56)
  • Unknown B
    Right.
    (0:18:24)
  • Unknown A
    Neither. I cannot speak for the JD or any of these other people. I don't think so just in terms of the stuff that they have said previously about government, I don't even think Yarvin would necessarily disagree with what I'm saying. I do think that Elon is against an administrative state, period. And is much more in line with the privatized nature of where things are currently headed. And so, so that's where you can come at the same problem, attack vector and say we need to get rid of the current government employees. But then from there is the divergence point. And this is what Steve Bannon ultimately correctly sees is he sees this as an attempt to basically privatize out all of these things so that you can have no regulatory regime as opposed to, I would say people probably more like Curtis and JD or other figures who would swim in these waters who would say no, we actually need our own government mechanism to enforce our abilities and, or control over the broader market.
    (0:18:25)
  • Unknown A
    So that's Why? I think it's still important to say why. Elon is really his own strain of whatever the hell is going on.
    (0:19:21)
  • Unknown B
    I think that's probably true. I think he's less a true believer in the Dark Enlightenment and the neoreactionary movement. And Moore finds it to be a very useful construct.
    (0:19:28)
  • Unknown A
    Yeah, exactly.
    (0:19:42)
  • Unknown B
    For his own power grab.
    (0:19:43)
  • Unknown A
    Yeah.
    (0:19:44)
  • Unknown B
    But I mean, in the end, whether he's like a true believer or whether he's just using that ideology for his own ends, the outcome is basically the same. And you're right, Elon doesn't want there to. He is, I think it's closest to say, he's an anarcho capitalist. I mean, he believes that every function of the government should effectively be privatized. And that relates more to this other related idea of network states where they want to have these, you know, many states and they're already like, you know, there already are some of these cities that are set up this way that are basically private corporations and they are completely privatized. When Elon says he thinks every single federal government worker should be out of the public sector and into what he describes as more productive private sector jobs, what you're describing is an anarcho capitalist ideology which is distinct from, you know, Russ Vote, I think you would put more in the like libertarian category where he wants to, he wants, you know, libertarians want a small state, but they still think like, we should have a military and a police force and a court system
    (0:19:45)
  • Unknown B
    to enforce private property rights. You know, anarcho capitalists truly believe in privatizing literally everything, including security forces. And Elon appears to be much more in that camp. And as the richest man on the planet, even though he himself was the recipient of massive government aid. Washington Post, a great report on this. At critical times like Tesla and SpaceX probably would not even exist today were it not for loans and subsidies and the government ignoring him, missing milestones at SpaceX and a massive, almost $500 million loan that came into Tesla under the Obama administration at an absolutely critical time. So even though he personally has been a massive beneficiary of government support, he wants to, number one, make sure his competitors don't benefit from that same support. Number two, that the government is not powerful enough, that none of these regulatory agencies are powerful enough to rein in his power.
    (0:20:49)
  • Unknown B
    And that's, number three, to be able to have access personally and have the US taxpayer backstop his own net worth and fund his own ambitions. So if these ideas that are floating out there that have become very popular like the neo reactionary movement, the Curtis Yarvin CEO dictator with the chairman of the board thing, whether it's that, whether it's the network state idea, whatever is out there in the ether that he can grab onto to pursue his own personal ideological interest goals. And one other thing, and I'm sorry I'm going on here, but I think it's important for understanding his ideology as well. Is he also is a believer in simulation theory. And I think that's.
    (0:21:45)
  • Unknown A
    Is he is Elon a simulation theory guy?
    (0:22:25)
  • Unknown B
    I believe he is.
    (0:22:27)
  • Unknown A
    That might be the lowest IQ thing that he does.
    (0:22:28)
  • Unknown B
    I think that part of how he sees himself is that we all, including the President of the United States, including all those Cabinet secretaries, we are quote unquote, NPCs non playable characters. And he is ready player one. He is the hero of the story. He is the only acting person with agency who is acting and creating this grand adventure of humanity. And if you internalize that, that that's the way he thinks of himself. I think his actions and his willingness again to do whatever to, you know, whether it's. He doesn't care about the kids in Africa with hiv, doesn't care about the thousands of veterans who've already been fired, he doesn't care certainly doesn't care about the laws or the Constitution or whatever. He is the ready player one who is going to save humanity by bringing us to Mars. And anything is justified in pursuit of that quest.
    (0:22:30)
  • Unknown A
    Yeah, well, does remind me that the movie is also very good. Let's continue here, shall we? Let's put the next one up on the screen. This one is about Medicare and we're gonna go ahead and play. That was just reaffirming what you were saying about Ebola. Let's get to the Medicare part because this is also important for what the future of Doge and all of that will look like in terms of whether they're actually going to be even able to achieve any cuts. Let's take a listening bill that passed.
    (0:23:29)
  • Unknown B
    Last night, aims to cut $2 trillion.
    (0:23:53)
  • Unknown A
    Can you guarantee that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security will not be touched?
    (0:23:55)
  • Unknown D
    Yeah, I mean, I have said it so many times. You shouldn't be asking me that question. Okay, this will not be read my lips. It won't be read my lips anymore. We're not going to touch it now. We are going to look for fraud. I'm sure you're okay with that. Like people that shouldn't be on people that are illegal aliens and others criminals in many cases. And that's with Social Security. We have a lot of people. You see that immediately when you see people that are 200 years old that are being sent checks with Social Security Security.
    (0:23:59)
  • Unknown A
    All right, so there we go. Trump continues to say that he will not cut Medicare. As we said, the problem is that the current spending bill aims to cut $2 trillion. It's gonna be a difficult one if you, I mean, I was talking with a tax expert just yesterday and we were like, okay, so how do we even get to 4.5 trillion if we're doing no tax on tips, no Social Security? We're also raising the salt cap up to 20%, which is not even what the New York delegation and all those other people want. And you extend all of it. It doesn't pencil like period, does not matter. And I'm not even talking about Medicare or Medicaid. That's leaving all that stuff untouched. So either they're lying or they're gonna have to cut something else. I'm gonna probably bet on lying. Speaker Johnson yesterday was on TV and was asked specifically about this.
    (0:24:31)
  • Unknown A
    He says, yes, we won't cut Medicare or touch Medicare literally at all. But, you know, we'll see. As I predicted, though, Medicaid is the.
    (0:25:17)
  • Unknown B
    One that's really on the block.
    (0:25:24)
  • Unknown A
    Sorry.
    (0:25:25)
  • Unknown B
    Well, Johnson is out there saying, we're going to do work requirements. Yes, if you're a single mom or whatever, it'll be there for you. But if you are able bodied, you're going to be kicked off. I mean, they are talking about significant Medicaid cuts. And the numbers just, I mean, the numbers just don't add up to make that level of cuts with adding money to the defense budget, by the way. And most of the federal government is military spending, health care spending, Social Security, and the bucket that they have targeted in particular for massive cuts is Medicaid. Now, when I hear Trump saying that in that particular soundbite, what I hear is him giving himself some wiggle room of, no, we're not going to cut benefits. Oh, but we're going to root out fraud. And I think that's going to be the fig leaf of, you know, we're not really cutting benefits to people who deserve it, but they're still kicking millions of people off of Medicaid that they decide are undeserving or they decide are, quote, unquote, fraudulent because that's certainly the direction that things are heading in right now.
    (0:25:26)
  • Unknown A
    Honestly though, that's gonna be a much more difficult fight. Right, because welfare reform, whatever you think of it, was very popular in 1996. So work requirements in general, from the polling and all that I've seen, are extremely popular. That would be an interesting way for them to square the circle. But I'm not yet sure. There was all these politics back in the day called Dole politics. Absolutely fascinating. If people wanna go back and look, let's just look in terms of any potential blowback and what all this is. Let's put this up there from NBC News. Guys, this is a six. Some House Republicans are currently hitting the brakes on town halls after some of the blowback over the Trump cuts to try and avoid some of those scenes that we've seen previously. And Crystal, you have one from your own district, which you're gonna set up and tell us about.
    (0:26:29)
  • Unknown B
    This is a district I actually ran for Congress and they've since redistricted it. So I'm not technically don't live in this district anymore. But this is Republican Congressman Rob Wittman. He's really tried to position himself. He's a real kind of like backbencher, tries not to say too much, tries not to really rock the boat, et cetera, but just goes along with the party line he had. It wasn't even him. One of his staffers had some remote town hall and it was flooded with, you know, ultimately there were some hundred constituents there. This is a very, mostly like, rural part of Virginia. It's quite Republican. You know, he usually gets reelected pretty easily, pretty handily, et cetera. And they were quite upset that he wasn't there and demanding him to show up and answer their questions. Let's take a listen. Where's wrong Whitman?
    (0:27:17)
  • Unknown A
    Where's Rob Whitman?
    (0:28:08)
  • Unknown D
    Where's Rob Whitman?
    (0:28:10)
  • Unknown B
    So flooding in even when he's not going to be there. And I predicted that they would just stop doing town halls. And I think that is certainly what's going to ultimately happen here, because I think some of the early ones, these were Republicans in super red districts that thought they would be safe. But obviously, even in very red districts, you still have Democrats, right? You still have. In almost every district in the country, you still have a pretty significant number of Democrats who can show up. And, you know, I have no doubt, like, there's been a lot of republic. Oh, well, these are just astroturfed and they're just, you know, being organized to show up. I don't doubt that that's the case that MoveOn and Indivisible and these other organizations and even just the local Democratic Party organizations are organizing people to go to these town halls.
    (0:28:12)
  • Unknown B
    But that was the same case during the Tea Party era. And there was a lot of Democratic cope at that time as well, about the way this was funded by the Koch network, et cetera, et cetera. And that was all true. But you have to have people who are upset and energized enough to listen when you send out your email blast saying, show up at this town hall. And it takes extraordinary times for people to break out of whatever their normal routine is and show up at a congressional town hall to yell at their member of Congress. So I wouldn't dismiss it just because, yeah, of course it's organized and there's involvement from these activist groups. There still is a reflection here of genuine base energy. And when you're talking about a midterm election in particular, that ends up really, really mattering. And that's certainly what we saw in the party.
    (0:28:53)
  • Unknown A
    Obviously, they're being funded and or organized. It's like, okay, welcome to politics. That's how it all works. By that definition, the entire Trump campaign, half of which was privatized by Elon, was privately was organized to get out the vote. Okay, well, he still won't say that it was fake. Obviously not. Right. This is one of those where you're exactly right. Back in the day, it was such a Democratic talking point. I can still remember the Tea Party was fake. It was all funded by the Koch brothers. I actually, I went to college here at that time and I just remember all of the protesters flooding in from across the country. Did somebody pay for their transportation by busing or whatever? Yeah, maybe. Did that mean that they were any less activated and or organized whenever they went home to get people to vote for them?
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  • Unknown A
    Absolutely not. These people were die hard. They would have paid for it if they could have, or they would have been at home cheering it on on tv. So just so people understand, like, just because you fund something and bring people here and try and bring it into tank does not make it fake per se. It's still a reflection of something. So I would very much caution Republicans from trying to get themselves out of, like, the big money groups are paying for it. I'm like, yeah, well, that's what they always do. But you got to have something to activate to be able. You have to have somebody there be ready to organize. You can't just create it out of very thin air. So caution there for Republicans definitely could continue to be a problem. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below.
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