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Unknown A
So relevant to the discussion. We were just having lots of protests breaking out over various reasons and issues across the country. But in particular J.D. vance, after the whole dust up with Zelensky in the Oval Office, took his family on a ski vacation in Vermont and the protesters certainly showed up there. Let's take a look. We can put some of these images up on the screen. So people were lining the roadways here with signs, most of them like pro Ukraine signs. We can see all the Ukraine flags, lots of anti Russia and JD Vance is Putin's puppet. And that sort of sentiment going on here in Vermont. You can see these signs, Stand with Ukraine. Trump serves Putin. Jating Fance is a traitor Goski in Russia. I was kind of surprised that they were able to spin up this protest this quick. Yeah, it's a lot of just happened and I mean it does go to what I do feel like this kind of really touched a nerve for a lot of people who were.
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Unknown A
Because it's easy on this show. We've had tried to have a nuanced view of this conflict and have been pushing for an end to the war since the war really began. But if you look at the polling, people are over. It's not like people love Vladimir Putin, they hate Putin. Zelenskyy has a higher favorability rating than JD Vance or Donald Trump in our country. And so I do think it's easy to get in a bubble where you feel like because online there's all this anti Zelensky sentiment and interest in being more aligned with Russia, which look, I think if we had better relations with all the nations of the world, that would be a good thing. But that is not really reflective of where public sentiment has been on this conflict.
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Unknown B
I mean, the protest to me looked like a bunch of sort of and I say this lovingly, like crunchy boomer Vermont hippies, which is interestinge I that lovingly. But what's interesting is the energy where you're able to mobilize a bunch of people to get. I mean if you're listening to this, what you missed on those videos, if you hadn't seen them, is there actually are a lot of people lining the road and to Crystal'point this is within like 24 hours of all of that going down. So I think it does speak to. We're going to talk about Democrats later in the show, but I think it does legitimately speak to the energy that does exist on the left, even though some people aren't like it's obviously not 2017 right now. There's not a women's march happening, but there's still significant, significant hostility to Trump to the point where it can rally people.
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Unknown B
And you Russia exists. It looms large in the boomer imagination. So there's an emotional trigger. I think anytime it looks like the United States is aligning or you can make the argument that the United States the lining with Russia, which I don't agree with in this case, but that just gets people out into the streets. So there's something there. There's a spark.
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Unknown A
Well, and I think you're right that it is part and parcel of a larger just like anti Trump antian resistance that has truly fomented and really without much leadership from the Democratic elites, you have some of these groups like Invisible and Move on that have really taken the lead. You've got a few members, I mean Bernie being the primary example, who have sor of led the charge. But a lot of this is very grassroots organizing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership is meeting and being like let's make ourselves more friendly to billionaires, et cetera. Like Emily said. We'll get to that in a minute. But in addition to those protests, there were some also some videos of J.D. vance on the ski slopes getting yelled at and stuff. Anyway, I enjoyed Would you do it.
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Unknown B
If you were there, would you yell at them?
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Unknown A
Probably not. Just because I'm like a public person.
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Unknown B
Crystal ball goes viral.
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Unknown A
Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't want to put myself in the center. But do I support prominent powerful people getting yelled at when they're in public places? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And not just on the Republican side. Cross the board yell at your Especially because they were't even like these senators and congresspeople they're backing out of their town halls is they're so terrified that someone's going to beat you to them or ask them hospital question or whatever. So what other chance do you have to get to express your views than when they decide to go on their ski vacation?
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Unknown B
You really ran on the wrong side of the Tea Party ticket, Crystal. Remember, this is the exact argument the right was like. Yeah, let them hear it. Just shout them down. Which I agree with obviously.
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Unknown A
I think they should be required to submit themselves to debates. Town halls like you cannot hide from the public if you're supposed to be a public official. But let's put this next piece up on the screen. There was a local ski report. This is kind of funny. Who writes the snow report locally who used her platform to express her views against this was less to do with Zelensky and war to do with climate and with the attacks on the National Weather Service in particular. She wrote a a long piece there that also included the news about the snow. But she was upset about the NOAA cuts. She was also upset about the attacks on some of the things that were being done to mitigate climate change. So that was interesting as well. Then a few members, Republican members did decide to go forward with their town halls.
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Unknown A
Let me show you a matchshup of this. This is one Representative Diana Harshberger from Tennessee, Keith Self from Texas and then probably the most interesting one, Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas who is confronted, you'll see in the video by someone who's concerned about veterans being fired and he just basically decides to rage quit his own town hall. At this point people are yelling at him like you haven't even been here now or et cetera, et cetera. So let's take a look at the temperature at these various town halls. There's been a mandate to the President from the American people.
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Unknown B
Am I correct? No, there's not a mandate by the.
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Unknown A
American people who'overwhelming 30% congressional budget off.
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Unknown B
The you know what it's going toa be by 2035 it's gonna be 59 trillion. Did I tell you? Did I tell the other one is the do programly you this is very closely again to what Bill Clnton did between.
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Unknown A
Right now as far as cutting out those jobs. A huge percentage of those people. And I know you care about the veterans. Veterans, yes. And that is a damn shame. That is I'm not a Democrat but I'm worried about the veterans. We everyone to stand up. I do got two more commitments today. Appreciate everybody making the drive out and God bless America than so you can see people very much not happy. And that last piece was Senator Roger Marshall who was saying how I've got these other commitments got to go and people are not happy about it. And it was interesting because that guy stood up and he'like I'm not a Democrat but I am concerned about the veterans. So you're starting to get in a little bit of a broader swath. Of course most of the people that are going to show up at a town hall are re likely to be partisans.
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Unknown A
They were in the Tea Party era as well. But the cope from the right that o these are just paid activists by George Soros or whatever. I heard the same thing from Democrats during the Tea Party era. But if you know anything about politics, if you've been involved either in electoral politics or as an activist. You know, it is damn near impossible to get people to show up to things. So if people are willing to take time out of their day to go to this town hall and yell at their congressman or yell at their senator, even if they are partisans, that is representative of a real energy that exists out there that is quite consequential, especially when you think in terms of things like special elections and midterm elections.
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Unknown B
Yeah. So according to Axios, about 30% of the federal workforce is veterans, and a big chunk of that is disabled veterans. So this is mean, I think it's in comparison, about 5% of the private sector workforce is veterans. This is like a huge percentage of the federal workforce compared to the private workforce is veteran composed. So mass cuts are going to target veterans. Actually, Democrats have introduced a bill to reinstate veterans who were fired without cause by the Trump administration. So that's how vulnerable Republicans will be on this issue. We were talking earlier in this block about how Ukraine is sort of a trigger issue for some boomers. Well, this is a trigger issue for people who are across the political spectrum of all demographics. As soon as veterans in their communities, there are vas that, I mean, a lot of cases are already, people are worried or understaffed or are crumbling in every community.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
And when that hits home, that reflects on Doge. And so to the extent that public opinion on DOZ is falling, some people may say, well, it's just the chaos, blah, blah. I think a lot of it is localized. I think the more people start seeing this in their community, the more Republicans are going to need to have answers. And these town halls are not going to cut it. I mean, from a political standpoint, it's insane that they're still doing these town halls, even though it's great to see the supporteah.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
I mean, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat or Republican, I would support it. But from a political standpoint, it just seems to me they're not prepared to answer some of these questions because the broad project of slashing government, making it, quote, more efficient, might PL okay. But when you localize it, it's a very different matter.
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Unknown A
Yeah, that's right. And so I've mentioned before, my first job out of college was working for, like, a federal government contractor. And my primary client was the US Federal courts. And so I spent a lot of time working both at the administrative office here in D.C. but also one of my jobs was to travel around the country to the different court systems and help them with their software implementation. Blah, blah, blah. And it was really interesting because one of the things that I noticed is that the smaller the town, say I traveled to Sioux Fall, South Dakota, it's a relatively small city, the more impressive the people working there were. And this is not to to slam federal government employees in large cities or whatever, but because the salaries were comparatively high for that area, you really would attract the cream of the crop in terms of that local community.
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Unknown A
And those tend to be people who are pillars of the community. And so it's, it's almost like the smaller the area that you go to, the more consequential whatever the federal government jobs are going to be to that community. It's sor of the same thing with public schools. Public schools, really important teachers and administrators really the sort linchpin of the community, the smaller the town that you go in. Which is why during the teacher strike wave you had this huge backlash in red rural states because of exactly that dynamic and how significant those institutions were as centers of community and how significant those individuals were to that community. We can put B5 up on the screen. This is about the national parks is another piece that I think really hits home for people. In addition to obviously no one wants to see disabled veterans getting laid off.
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Unknown A
No one wants to see military spouses getting laid off, which is another significant component because they're disproportionately on that probationary period because they're having to move around the country. No one wants to see these national parks that we really take pride and really enjoy being destroyed and being so understaffed that they can't handle the crowds that are coming in that you can't even. Some of them have had to shut down. Even making reservations for the future. Lots of families plan their summers and their vacations around being to go to these national parks. And so I think that's another very tangible thing to people where it contributes to this sense of you're cutting into things that we actually care about, like the things about the federal government that we actually appreciate, that we actually enjoy and that genuinely do contribute to the public goods. So this was again an impressive effort.
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Unknown A
You had thousands of people at national parks all across the country from California to Maine. There's a group called Resistance Rangers consisting of about 700 off duty Rangers that have been helping to organize these protests Able their goal was to get protests at all of the country's 433 national park sites. I think they were able to pull off protests at at least 145 sites. So pretty impressive there And I do think that that has been another locus of public upset and pushback. The other thing is, let's put before up on the screen the know Tesla has become the one of the most visible symbols of Elon Musk, who, you know, people, myself included, very unhappy about the way he has just sort of like claimed control of the federal government for himself. So there was a large protest in, I believe this was in Tucson outside of a Tesla dealership.
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Unknown A
And you can see here up on the screen this is a lot's a lot of people that are gathered there on the side of the road to protest Elon and Doge and the Custusset are being made. I have anecdotally been seeing around town, I don't know if you've seen any of the Teslas that have the bumper sticker that say I bought it before I knew Elon was insane. Tesla as a company we covered this last week is not doing well. Sales have fallen almost 50% in Europe. They're down significantly in California. Part of that is certainly because of Elon being so closely associated with the brand. In fact, every company is obligated to put out in their disclosures what are the risks to the company. And they have long said that one of the risks is Elon being so closely associated with it. And if opinion changes of him that could have a really negative impact.
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Unknown A
So we are seeing that bear out and reality in the stock price suffer as a result.
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Unknown B
It's funny because you can also make the argument that there's been a benefit, obviously not overall, but that there's been a boost now that Elon Musk has become this weird cultural litmus test in that I know a bunch of people on the right who are now into Tesla and it's hilarious because it used to be the other way around. It used to be like the people who now have those stickers on the back of their cars were like environmentally friendly. And this was sort of a badge of virtue to drive a Testla. And I saw a woman yesterday shouting at a random. I was going out to get a coffee, just a Tesla at a four way intersection. And this woman just comes and was like f Tesla. I don't support fing Elo.
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Unknown A
Really?
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
Just laying into this Tesla, you gotta get your phone out faster, girl, you gotta record that for us.
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Unknown B
It was really wild. But on the point about firing and then reinstating people, so that has happened at the VA and national parks because we were just talking about both of them. Democrats estimate like 6,000 veterans have been laid off so far. And the national parks also restored some of the jobs that were eliminated. And it'one of those things. Elon Musk's in the Oval. He was at the Cabinet meeting last week saying we're going to make mistakes. We accidentally canceled Ebola protection. Remember when he said that last week? And it's just they don't have they're just relying on this overall project. And of course both things can be true that like national parks can be great, we can love our veterans and the VA can have all kinds of problems with everyone agrees with across the political spectrum that the VA has tons of problems and probably does need to be streamlined and more efficient.
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Unknown B
But if you're going to make that argument, you need to be prepared for what it means when people are veterans who serve the country are losing their jobs and Elon is out with a chainsaw at cpac. And that is what Republicans, despite having all of this time to prepare for what Doge would do, have not been prepared to deal with.
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Unknown A
I think SAA made a good point about Elon too, that the more, the less he comes off as like, oh, the brilliant, visionary, genius businessman. And the more he comes off as like your asshole boss, the worse that's going to be politically for Elon. And you can already start to see the way that this is also weighing down Trump. And then you add to that the Republican budget proposal which includes slashing Medicaid and massive tax cuts to the rich, and you can really very clearly paint the picture of o this administration. They're just for Elan and they rich buddies. I mean the crypto thing obviously goes hand in glove with that as well. This is just a pro oligarch agenda and these cuts really have nothing to do with making the government so efficient. That's what I've heard from Normie moderates who have voted for Republicans in the past or whatever.
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Unknown A
It's like I'm all about more government efficiency and I do think the government should be smaller. But you have to be smart about how you do it. You can't just come in with a hadch hatchet and cut people chainsaw important for air traffic control. As another example here. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people. And if you'd like to get the full show ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up@breakingpoints.com. that's right, get the full show, help support the future of independent media@breakingpoints.com.