Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!

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Same. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Dan Bongino, a MAGA podcaster who says his life is all about owning the libs, is now the deputy director of the FBI.
We'll talk about why we've always been big fans of his, and we'll cover Trump's Pentagon purge of top generals and military lawyers who he viewed as insufficiently MAGA, I guess. We'll also get into Elon Musk's mass email to every single human employed by the federal government demanding to know what they did last week or else risk getting fired.
And later, I'll talk to our friend Daniela Diaz, now a congressional reporter at Notice, about whether Trump's legislative agenda is running into trouble with Republicans. But first, Donald Trump held a press conference Monday afternoon with French President Emmanuel Macron on the three-year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine, which, to be fair, was asking for it.
According to our new administration, Trump refused to call Putin a dictator, telling a reporter that's a word he doesn't take lightly. Also a word he's now used multiple times to describe the democratically elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky

Who said over the weekend that he'd step down if it meant peace for Ukraine. Doesn't really sound like something a dictator would do.
No. The U.S.
also joined North Korea and other pro-Russian countries, our new gang, in voting against a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for all of its territory to be returned, not even China or Iran voted against the resolution.
They at least abstained. I miss the old days when we only used to do that for the death penalty.
At the UN? Yeah. Okay.
Good. Trump was asked about this and other topics in appearances with Macron on Monday.
Let's listen. Can you explain the rationale in having the U.S.
vote against the U.N. resolutions that Ukraine proposed and also the U.S.
proposed? I would rather not explain it now, but it's sort of self-evident, I think. If you call Zansky a dictator, would you use the same words without including them? I don't use those words lightly.
I think that we're going to see how it all works out. Let's see what happens.
People are saying it was the best month for a president in our country's history i hope that's right but i feel it's right we've we've done a lot of things in a very short period of time four weeks last part is true bill clinton had a pretty good month during that shutdown took me a minute okay leave it to love it to do a call back to the 90s the simpler time tommy yeah you know about this stuff sure uh which stuff the the real stuff okay trump made it sound like they're close to a deal that would end the war there's also been some reporting that maybe zelinski will accept this agreement to give the u.s 50 of its mineral rights in perpetuity forever you know in exchange for a it seems like a vague security promise awfully vague what do you make of all that it just seems like zelinski's negotiating a gunpoint and he feels like he has no choice i mean it's it's it's as simple as that the war is still raging i think um to honor the anniversary of the full-scale invasion the russians fired the largest drone attack since the war started so you know he is getting attacked by the russians and then now the americans are coming in to extort him it's like what if i'm Vladimir Putin? Why don't I just I would make this deal. And then what's to stop him from like a couple years later, just saying, all right, I'll go in and get the rest of Ukraine.
And first, I'll just talk to my new buddy, President Trump and be like, hey, you can keep the mineral rights. I'll let you keep those.
And I'll just go into Ukraine. Does that sound good? Yeah.
I mean, I think the theory of the, well, first of all, I mean, there was a report in the FT today that Putin said Russia was prepared to offer to help the US on some sort of cooperation on extraction of these minerals. Oh, wow.
That's so helpful. He wants in on the action.
I mean, the kind of Trump theory of the case is that increased economic cooperation might be seen as a deterrent to Putin to invade again. I don't think that's remotely credible.
So I think it's very likely that Putin is viewing this as a chance to refresh his army and rearm and then, you know, try to take the rest of Ukraine in a couple of years. Were you shocked by the UN resolution? I mean, yes, but no, right? I mean, we've picked a side and I think the UN resolution just showed how much of a change there's been in US policy.
At least our stalwart ally Israel voted with us as well. Nice.
You guys have a better plan to get all the graphite we need. I'd love hear it wasn't there another resolution that the u.s had proposed that was sort of like uh uh there's been blame on both sides that we had to withdraw yeah it was like we we we very much uh mourn all the deaths in the conflicts between the russian federation and ukraine or something like that that's like the common thread i mean trump refuses to say the russians invaded right he refuses to say who's the aggressor.
Very, very Charlottesville coded. It's baffling.
There were also German elections on Sunday where the extreme right AFD party, which Elon's been boosting and JD Vance met with, came in second place with a little over 20% of the vote. Tell me, what's your take on the results there? Very bad that the AFD doubled its support from the last time, but most of their success came from mobilizing new voters.
So it just tells you there's a lot of energy there. So there's some AFD voters who support their really disgusting policy views.
I think there's some people that view it as a way to give a middle finger to the system and just show a protest. Where have I heard that before? Yeah, exactly.
The more traditional conservatives, they got the most votes, but they underperformed. The Social Democrats had the worst result for them since 1887.
So tough day for former Chancellor Schultz. So it's most likely that Friedrich Meritz and the CDU will go into coalition with the Social Democrats.
And that's the next government. And that's kind of the best possible outcome in terms of what's next for Germany and their ability to govern.
What's the worst, Tommy? The worst is they form a government. They can't get anything done.
It collapses. And then in the next election, you see the AFD do even better.
Because the real growth in this election was on the far right for the AFD and then on the far left, especially among 18 to 24-year-olds. The far left and the far right did really well because everyone is just furious at the two traditional political parties and um you know now we just have to see if they can form a government that seems responsive to the people and it seems like their far left party which i think got like nine percent which is like was like it was it it had crushed the five percent threshold and it like more than doubled its support from time.
Yeah, they did well. And they're skeptical of NATO and supporting Ukraine, just like the AFD.
So you can see some horseshoe stuff happening there. Yeah, they're Euroskeptics.
And so that's worrisome in the long term. And then Friedrich Mertz, who's the head of the CDU, which is Angela Merkel's party, he said during the campaign that his top priority is going to be strengthening Europe as quickly as possible so they can achieve independence from the United States because they know the Americans are now largely indifferent to Europe's fate.
And he also said that Elon Musk's interference in German elections was not less dramatic and drastic than what Russia did. So they're just viewing a future without us.
Wonderful. As is Zelensky.
Wonderful. So, now that we've covered authoritarian

movements abroad, let's talk about our authoritarian

takeover here at home.

It's just like our State of the Union

transitions from

Yeah, sure.

As the United States is strong at home,

so are we strong abroad.

As the social order collapses around the world.

New

FBI Director Kash Patel has named Dan Bongino as his deputy director. In case you aren't familiar, Bongino is a former Secret Service agent and New York City cop who hosts a popular MAGA podcast dedicated to owning the libs and spreading conspiracies about the 2020 election.
COVID vaccines, all the favorites. He's called the FBI irredeemably corrupt, accused the FBI of rigging

the 2020 and 2016 elections. Got to get both of them in there.
Suggested that the FBI played a

role in the pipe bombs that were placed outside the RNC and DNC on January 6th and said it's time

to, quote, clean house at the bureau. You'll be surprised to know he doesn't seem like the world's

nicest guy. Here's a selection of a recorded phone interview with reporter Mark Caputo, now at Axios.

Hey, fuck you!

Calm down. Oh, damn.
You really sound like you need some help.

Motherfucker.

I think you need some help.

Hey, fuck yourself!

Okay.

You hear me? You're a piece of shit.

Okay.

Because you're a lying scumbag.

You're swearing.

You're a piece of shit. You know what? Go fuck yourself.
All right. Well, enjoy that investigation.
Mark Caputo. What do you guys think? Right man for the job? First of all.
Very Alec Baldwin. Dan Mangino to be deputy director of the FBI feels like a bad joke from like 2015.
No doubt. It's like out of, it's just like, it's beyond parody.
So this job is not only not Senate confirmed, it's the highest ranking job of the FBI the president doesn't appoint. It's a job, because it's a real job.
It's a real operations job. It's not like a glad-handing press conferences job.
It's a COO type job. You oversee...
This is why you need Dan Bongino. This is why you need Dan Bongino.
Look, I'm preferring to see the word podcaster rather than MAGA podcaster. Why aren't we standing with podcasters? We could get any job we want now next administration.
We couldn't even get them on the fucking show. They got podcasters in the fucking FBI now.
We couldn't even get a guest. Yeah, we blew time i don't care what's happening with the democratic nominee next time we are just absolutely uh yeah that's right yeah we're not in the tank enough but the but so the other thing too is this is a job where you're involved in investigations earlier and in more detail than the fbi director which is why it's been a job that was traditionally for a career fbi official right and it's a job of someone you've never heard of the people that have done these jobs in the past.
The only two that you've heard of are Mark Felt, because he was deep throat, and Andrew McCabe, because he got fired. And that kind of tells you where we're at, right? Because Donald Trump wants someone loyal to him in that job, even if it means not having the kind of person who knows how to run an investigation at the FBI, when it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with investigating your enemies, just the day-to-day work of investigating terrorist cases and other crimes and corruption and all the other cases that the FBI has to get behind.
We know this because Pekash Patel, who of course we also love and have always loved. Correct.
Another big podcast guy. Told the FBI agents association, according to CNN, a bunch of woke libs that he was going to put a career person in that job, that he was going to choose from the FBI ranks for that job until the FBI refused to go along with a meal boves, which hunt of agents at the FBI that were involved in the investigations around January 6th.
Once the FBI refused to coordinate with the Trump DOJ, by the way, Boves is not just a Trump appointee. Boves, is it Boves? Is it Boves? Apparently, yeah.
That's what Andrew Weissman says. That's very French.
Unbelievable. But he was Trump's lawyer.
Now a DOJ trying to demand these names. And the second they had this kind of resistance, all of a sudden they sudden they're like oh we need somebody that's not a career official we need dan motherfucking bongino as you could hear there it's got some temperament issues you know i think if uh if an anabolic steroid morphed into a person it would be dan bongino and fortunately when you give people power usually they yeah they chill out yeah and and i to love its right about the experience.
I mean, the deputy director is always a career FBI agent. When we were in the administration, this guy, Sean Joyce, who had one of the best Boston accents I've ever heard, but he had been in the bureau for like 30 or 40 years.
He did all these operational meetings. He was deep in the weeds of everything.
He was always briefing the deputies committee. Dan Pangino has none of that experience.
I mean, he was a secret service guy turned gadfly political candidate turned Fox News host turned podcaster. And I think this is even more dangerous this time around because Kash Patel has no experience.
He's never worked at the FBI. He's like, what, 44 years old.
He's like a little bit of, you know, experience on the Hill and a little bit of time at the DOJ, but he doesn't know what he's doing so i know one of those people that you see a lot of liberals kind of lionizing the fbi like how dare you criticize the institutions no they've made a lot of mistakes they screw up a lot of stuff it's an incredibly conservative uh organization by the way very republican but this is the the fbi is supposed to protect us from terrorists foreign intelligence operations right organized crime they're not just raiding mar-a-lago public corruption that's corruption. That's not their only job.
And now it's run by two people who have no idea what they're doing. And like the only explanation for how they got the job is loyalty to Trump.
And, you know, if I were to think of the two parts of government, you could most easily weaponize against political opponents. It would be the FBI and the IRS, just giving the kind of tools you have in your toolkit.
Well, as you said, also think about malign foreign actors or terrorists or criminals, right, who now see that the FBI is led by the two least experienced people in the Bureau's history, that it is probably consumed with political ambition. How much are they going to be able to focus on domestic terrorism, crime, all the other things that they're supposed to be doing? There's 38,000 employees at the FBI.
They couldn't find one person, let alone two people, to run the thing that had been agents before. It's an $11 billion agency that now two people who have never been FBI agents, one was a New York City cop, and the other, yeah, was a lawyer at the Justice Department for a time.
That was it. I remember after 9-11, it was a very big deal that the FBI and the DOJ moved terrorism ahead of corruption as the number one focus.
It was a big deal. And it's a reminder too that outside of politics, how much we rely on just the fear of an investigation by the FBI into public corruption.
Corruption is a cancer. Donald Trump is a cancer.
The corruption that they are, that is already sort of going to make America worse for decades. But all across the country are people seeing that now this FBI is going to be beholden to the most corrupt president we've ever had.
And even if you put aside all the ways in which they could be proactively terrible, proactively going against their enemies, which I'm obviously afraid they're going to do, it is the things they will not care about, the things they will ignore, the things that this sends a message to people around the country that they don't care about that is so incredibly fucking dangerous in ways we may not know. We may not know for years.
We may not know ever the damage that this does. Former senior FBI official Christopher O'Leary told NBC, we now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.
One FBI official told NBC, I didn't sleep and I want to pack my desk today. And another said, it's like bringing on Alex Jones or Oath Keepers leader, Stuart Rhodes.
And by the way, Dan Bongino has supported the Oath Keepers in the past. Yeah, last night was one of those times where I sort of thought to myself, if we were slowly sliding into, you know, an authoritarian state, what would be happening differently than a purge at the FBI and the Pentagon?

Before we go on, did you see that the U.S. attorney for D.C., who is also Trump's former

lawyer, Ed Martin, put out this ridiculous statement saying, as President Trump's lawyers,

we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing

against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.

First of all, just want to note, he puts the apostrophe on the wrong side of the fucking S. So it's Trump S apostrophe, which is the least offensive piece of the statement, obviously.
He's not Trump's lawyers. This guy to me went from scary, and I think he still is scary in that position because that position holds a lot of power, to like, he's like a little thirsty for Trump to see him

and be like,

hey, look what I'm doing.

I'm posting quote graphics

on Twitter all the time

telling you like,

hey, Mr. Trump,

I'm here for you.

Like, I think that there are probably

like Trump supplicants

in his administration

who are looking at Ed Martin's

tweets and statements

and are like,

honestly, that's too much.

Yeah.

That's too much.

Yeah, sure.

I hope so.

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The all-electric Cadillac family of vehicles. Escalate IQ, Optic, and the top uniform lawyer in each of the main service branches, the judge advocates general or JAGs.
Trump didn't give a reason for firing Brown, who was the first black American to serve in the role. But Hegseth had previously said that Brown was too focused on DEI, of course.
As for the JAGs, Hegseth said they, quote, existed to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens. In his book, he called them jagoffs and blamed them for being a bunch of prudes who insisted on rules of engagement he didn't like.
Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks wrote a Twitter post that's making the rounds where she says firing the jags is, quote, even more chilling than firing the four stars. It's what you do when you're planning to break the law.
You get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.

Any concerns here, guys?

Look, I've always said the rules of engagement are for fags.

But, you know, look, you can put these two things together.

It's just fucking terrifying, right?

This is about, you know, you're talking about the possibility of, you know, deploying the military in ways that are illegal on U.S. soil and then not having anyone at the FBI or the DOJ that's willing to investigate or hold them accountable.
We don't know how far they'll go, but they're setting up the possibility that they can go as far as they want. And that is terrifying.
I just want to point out that before C.K. Rano was the chairman, he commanded the Pacific Air Forces.
He was the chief of staff of the Air Force. He was the deputy commander of CENTCOM.
He logged 130 hours in combat. This guy was like eminently qualified for the job.
And he was fired because he is black. Pete Hegseth, as you mentioned, sort of questioned in his book whether Brown had been promoted for because of his race.
Hegseth later said on a podcast, I think last year, that Brown had to be fired because any general involved in quote, DEI woke shit has to go. In CQ Brown's case, that meant literally just like talking about his experience as a black man in the United States after George Floyd's murder.
And then you mentioned the head of the Navy was fired. That was Lisa Frenchetti.
She was the first woman to lead the Navy. About a month ago, Trump fired the commandant of the Coast Guard, who was the first woman ever to lead a branch of the U.S.
military. So they're just pushing out all women and all people of color.
And again, as we talked about before, like the military is very diverse at the lowest ranks at the senior level. It is almost exclusively white men.
And Trump is just destroying any diversity that was, you know, had been improved by the Biden administration. And as these guys are ranting and raving about DEI, they're putting Pete Hegseth in charge, who is a weekend Fox anchor.
and then Lieutenant General Dan Kane is going to be the replacement chairman.

He's the guy that Trump always talks about, Raisin Kane, who he met in Iraq,

who said, I can kill ISIS in like two hours, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Cain doesn't actually meet the statutory requirements needed to hold the position.
He was a three star. You needed to have been a combatant commander or a service chief.
Trump can give him a waiver. But again, the idea that this is like a fucking merit based appointment is ludicrous on the facts facts mega dei all across the government it's the it is the deepest and most infuriating irony that they have just they are filling the government with people who have no qualifications for the job save that they are unquestionably loyal to donald trump it is the only hope right now that like the federal government we'll talk about what what Elon's doing in a minute, but like the federal government is a big, complicated beast.
And you're putting in these people like Dan Bongino and Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth that are just unqualified and don't have the organizational experience to actually change these places. That is going to be part of the hope that their inability to do what they want to do and the chaos in which they do it is a kind of protection because they are putting unqualified people and whose only qualification is that they're willing to do whatever Donald Trump wants.
He said that Mark Milley, the former chairman, should be executed. So I guess it could be worse.
Yeah, that's true. I do.
He's going to have to go hide with Mark Caputo. I've watched that show.
Just that minute escape room. I'm sure, have listened to this section and are like, why the fuck are you bumming us out so badly? And like, what the hell are we supposed to do about it? Because this is, these are appointments that, you know, unlike some of the doge cuts and the town halls that we're seeing, like it's going to be hard to reverse those.
I wonder what the 38,000 employees the fbi the uh the the united states military the all the people who serve honorably in this country like what they do and like i don't know do you leave do you stay do you wait for these unqualified assholes to actually do something bad to make a bad decision to speak out like i just don't know what you do at this point but i feel i really feel for all these people because i do think there are enough of them that if they you know if they they stand up to some really unlawful or un-american orders then you know they could make a difference yeah i mean like you know americans love a tragedy with a happy ending yeah like it would be nice if there was some resolution we could talk about here. It's a very terrible situation.
We're going to be in it for some time. One of the reasons you have to talk about it is we have to make sure we're talking about this and and representing what the truth is here, because there are tens of thousands of people serving under these leaders who need to know that they're not crazy.
The world has gone crazy. And that there will, like, just because every Senate Republican has failed the greatest test of their life, even though they've ever gone to fucking every vacation, you know, every Republican senator, every vacation they've ever had, they've read a World War II book and a Churchill book, and then they're in the test of their lives and they don't see it.
Like, they may all be failing, but there's going to be other times where we're going to expect or hope that people in roles like this don't fail. And it sucks sucks that that's where we're at but that's where we're at just i feel for these workforces because you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't right i mean you have to either you stay in you maybe you have to go along with something because you're ordered to that you know it's wrong either morally or legally or you leave and potentially someone worse and more loyal to trump gets your job.
I mean, it's terrible. Or there's malicious compliance, which is a term that the MAGA folks have invented for people who are saying what they aren't able to do anymore.
Like, you know, there's like, oh, we had a Black History Month celebration that we weren't allowed to have anymore. And they're like, that's not true.
That's malicious compliance. You're just saying that you had to cancel it, even though you didn't really have to cancel it.
This is their new thing. Every time something happens that's really unpopular, that's due to something that the Trump administration did, they're now, they're saying, oh, these employees are doing, it's malicious compliance.
Donald Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed.
Right. That is the world we live in.
It's always a victim. Yeah.
All right, let's talk about the fourth branch of government, Elon Musk, who was last seen wielding a chainsaw at CPAC while wearing sunglasses indoors and mumbling about how he's, quote, living the meme, living the dream, and has helped legalize comedy again. He sure has.
Sure has. Trump posted on Truth Social that he thinks Elon is doing a great job, but that he wants him to, get more aggressive.
Musk then tweeted a screenshot of that post with the message, will do, Mr. President.
Three hours later, Elon tweeted that all federal employees, all two million of them, would be getting an email asking them to explain what they, quote, got done last week, and that if they didn't respond, it would be considered a resignation. By Saturday evening, that email had gone out, giving people until midnight on Monday night to respond with five bullets about their accomplishments.
But almost immediately, the heads of some major government agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department, the Justice Department and Kash Patel, started telling employees that they didn't need to respond, or at least not yet. NBC News reported that Elon's plan is to feed the responses into an AI system to determine which job should be eliminated.
But right before we recorded, the White House Office of Personnel Management notified all agencies that actually responding to the email is voluntary and employees won't be fired if they refuse to answer. What do we think happened here? i mean i'm no ai expert but the idea that you can just put a five paragraph like what i did

at camp this week letter into the machine and it can just tell you if your job has value seems. Like it's the machine that checks whether kids are good or evil in Willy Wonka.
It's going to look at the five bullets and be like, I saw a D, I saw an E, and I saw an I. You're right.
Have you guys ever heard of something called Roko's Basilisk? No. Of course I have, yes.
Love a basilisk.

So Roko's Basilisk was a post on a web forum, and the post said the following, if at some point in a distant future there is a super intelligent AI that is ultimately benevolent and wants the best for us, it will also believe that the sooner it is invented, the better. But it can't go back in time and make us invent this AI faster.
But what it can do is if in this future, it can see who helped bring it about and who didn't. And the people who brought it about will be rewarded.
The people who didn't bring it about will be punished. You can introduce that into the past by having someone like me at this table explain this.
Now that I've explained it, you know that in the future, the super advanced AI will punish all those that didn't bring it out into existence. And so because you now know that, you now face your test.
And your test is whether you will do everything you can to bring it about. Now, the problem is you don't know whether what you're in right now is real or a simulation of that test.
But either way, either way, you now know that you either

have to choose

to help bring about

this AI

or potentially face

an eternity

in some kind

of simulated hell.

It is very clear

that you have not

been raised Catholic

because this is the basis

for my religion.

The point being...

And I wish the Pope well.

I think this is... Steady recovery.
How is the Pope doing? Slight improvement today. We can't lose the woke Pope.
I know. Not right now.
I know. Alternatives are not good.
And so every once in a while he refers to people as some kind of like fracciacini or something. Whatever he was referring to us as.
So do you. So do I.
Yeah. So me and the Pope.
Woke Pope. Con Clay.
Three pods in a row now. Really? I think so, yeah.
Wow. Keeping track.
When do I get my free sub? Anyway, the point is, when I saw they were feeding this into AI, I thought Elon knows what Rokos Baskillus is. And I think that if you are going to respond voluntarily, I think you should talk about the fact that you're open to bringing about the super intelligent AI.
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That's GoCollette.com. I listened to our friend Sarah Longwell's focus group podcast this weekend, as I always do.
She had our other friend Kara Swisher on. And floated a theory that now i now is keeping me up at night which is that the real reason that elon wants access to all the data to all the data in the government the personal data the personal info the social security numbers the employee data is because he wants to feed it into an ai LLM.
Because he has fallen behind the other LLMs. And the only data left.
Because basically a lot of the AI systems now have run out of data. Because we fed them all the data that there is publicly available.
And the two entities with the most data left over that haven't been fed into AI. Is the Chinese government and us, the US government.
And so ultimately Elon and the Doge boys want to export the data to an AI machine. And I was like, that sounds like something out of a fucking horror movie.
And I want to say, obviously, that's crazy, but I don't know. Look at everything we've talked about today.
So wait, you can make better pictures of fish? No, look, I'm sure there are terrifying ways in which that can i think the data can be exploited in a million terrifying ways i didn't know to be afraid of that one and i guess i'll figure out why to be more afraid of it but i'm much more afraid of him just digging around looking for information on people that have tweeted negative things about him than i am about him feeding it into a fucking grok just just so that it can pump out a an answer about uh why why parcheese exists just save it as a dot csv file that's's exactly right. I think it's just a .csv.
What is it? Rococo Basilisk? It's Rocco's Basilisk. But that's Elon, the drug dealer.
But Elon has talked about Rocco's Basilisk. It's tied into this idea of whether or not we live in a simulation.
I'm sure he has. It's interesting that the agency heads, the cabinet officials, who are all as MAGA as they come, obviously, push back on this one a little bit.

I saw some reporting from Jeff Stein at The Washington Post that it's not necessarily like they disagree with Elon's overall vision or tactics here. They just are sort of like, maybe we slow things down here and maybe this is the best way to call the workforce with an AI LLM.
That's just right. It's self-evidently stupid.
that also like at some point you're the secretary of fill in the agency name education you're ostensibly running the thing you're supposed to be in charge you want your little fiefdom to be yours you want to decide who you're hiring and firing so I think there's probably just an ego piece of it but it also seemed like a legal part well there's there's a legal part there's also they they know that they have been firing people that Elon's been firing people so far that they've had to rehire, like the people who secure our nukes and the people who are fighting bird flu. Like there's just agency after agency now.
They are firing people. Elon and Doge are going there firing people who then later they all realize, oh, shit, we actually need those workers.
And then they try to hire them back. In some cases, they can't hire them back because they can't find their fucking contact info and the email this time went it not only went to everyone in the federal government like in all these agencies and in the trump administration it went to everyone in the judiciary it went to like judges got this email federal judges you can't fire judges yet but yeah wild but yeah it does seem like it does seem like just like a little bit of normal politics is poking through like these Republicans are getting hammered at these town halls.
Like there's clearly interior like Republican blowback from the agencies. Right.
They're saying don't respond to this. I mean, the other thing about this, too, is it's like part of it is like you can imagine like a more like competence does matter, like not doing this in a chaotic way does matter.
This is something that the Trump administration. Well, they did.
They did learn this right. Project 2025.
One of the lessons it was supposed to learn from the first Trump administration was that they really paid for some of the chaos because doing things in a hectic way without being fully baked, got them pushed back in the courts, got them blow back in the press, and they were going to do this better. And I do think Russ Vogt would do this better than Elon Musk.
But Elon Musk is doing it like this. You could, like Mark Warner even posted this, like there is a way that you could do a, hey, like we're doing a review of what different agencies are doing.
We're going to interview everybody or get information from everybody about what they're doing. But it's in this sort of cavalier and careless and mean-spirited way.
It just seems like he accidentally replied all. what i mean maybe he maybe then accidentally reply all i do think these you mentioned the town halls like people are wondering what to do like the town halls the this guy rick mccormick who's a republican house member in georgia deep red district i think it was like a trump won it by 20 points 18 20 points people were just like filled the town hall yelling at him and this is in like a very very republican district and then after and then the video went viral everyone's talking about and then today apparently he was like you know I think some of this doge stuff they need to slow it down a little bit uh Lisa Murkowski uh responded to Elon Musk's email about tell me what you did last week with like, this is this is outrageous.
She was she's got really mad about she spoke out probably more forcefully than any other Senate Republican. There is another Republican in Ohio, Troy Balderson.
He has an R plus 18 district. He was like, yeah, I think we need to be careful with the cuts.
So I do think that like showing up Republican House members, especially Republican House members, in some of these more competitive districts. Bernie Sanders was on a tour this week.
He was in Iowa and Nebraska. Part of the reason he picked those two spots was he picked two districts where there are Republicans sitting in districts where it's very competitive in 2026.
So I think putting real pressure on these frontline Republicans in the House and in the Senate is going to be really important and it actually can work. Trump's goons are also aiming to make even bigger cuts to health care and other services people count on by passing actual legislation.
I'm going to talk to Notices Daniela Diaz about all that in just a minute. But one last thing I wanted to hit.
A week ago, the Department of Homeland Security released two new taxpayer-funded ads featuring Secretary Kristi Noem delivering a message to undocumented immigrants that started with this powerful and important tribute. I'm Kristi Noem, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
Thank you, President Donald J. Trump, for securing our border, for deporting criminal illegal immigrants, and for putting America first.
For too long long weak politicians left our borders wide open they flooded our communities with drugs human trafficking and violent criminals they put american lives at risk well those days are over guess how much we all paid for that 200 million dollars that's that's on the taxpayer dime talking about weak politicians politicians just a just a pure political ad yeah indistinguishable from the campaign ad they were running it on fox like oh is that where is that where all the undocumented immigrants in the country and the ones who are thinking about coming here they're tuning into fox for christine omad we know i know who's watching exactly i know it's for him it's for fucking It's for fucking him. It's, it's, it's for him.

And I think it's for their base to be like,

look,

we,

you know,

promises,

promises made promises kept.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just so like,

we're so,

you know,

that's a,

that adds a crime.

That's a,

that's a crime.

It's a,

it's a political ad.

It's a misuse of government funds.

Remember that?

Yeah.

The hatch act.

There's a whole,

whole bunch of ways in which I'm sure if we had a DOJ that was going to be run by other people might have have been something he would look into, but oh well. You don't think Dan Bongino is going to be all over that? Dan Bondi? Here's the thing.
People will surprise you. Cash Patel? People will surprise you.
Who's going to be the hero? Somebody. Somebody's going to surprise us.
Maybe. Not Emile Beauvais? Not him.
Mr. Beauvais? I don't think Mr.
Beauvais is doing it. Christine Noem has also been doing kind of the job as performance art.
Have you seen this? Lots of costumes. I think there was a she was in a cowboy hat.
She might have been on a horse at one point. This is what Trump wants.
Bulletproof vest in some photos. Really kind of live in the part.
She's going method. Yeah, she's going method.
Maybe there'll be more ads. 200 million dollars.
I wonder if Doge is going to take a look at that. That's going to be a line item.
Doge is going to be upset about.

Yeah.

I see.

There's a, yeah.

That and the fucking Tesla armored trucks or whatever the fuck.

The, you guys know what Newcom's Paradox is?

Jesus Christ.

It's all those.

So Newcom's Paradox.

Here's the idea.

All right.

You're presented with two boxes.

All right.

One has a thousand dollars in it.

The other is either empty or has a million dollars. Okay.
Okay. You have a choice.
You can take just box B that's either empty or has a million dollars or you can take both boxes. However, weeks ago, a supercomputer that knows everything.
I thought we were so close to the choice Okay, supercomputer that knows everything predicted which box you would choose.

If you choose both boxes,

if it predicted you'd choose both boxes,

the million dollar box is empty.

The second box is empty.

But if you just pick the one that's supposed to have a million dollars

or nothing in it,

it always has a million dollars, okay?

Now, you're at these boxes.

The choice was made long before you got there.

So you should take both.

But if you take both

and the machine is always right, it means that the second box is empty. So you just take the one box which means you're leaving a thousand dollars behind this is shredding or segment that i'm alive but i want to die because and and it's debated it's debated hotly to this day and then the other point is you should probably was this was this on the card you didn't get to for bill maher there's a lot of the cards i didn't get.
There's a lot of the cards I didn't get to on Bill Maher. I haven't been able to listen to that.
When he walked out, was it a huffy walkout? You know what? The way that everyone talked about it, I was waiting for it to be more huffy, and then I listened, and it was pretty clear he was late. He wanted to leave.
He wanted to leave. At some point, he decided he was done, and then he left.
It was like halfway between. I don't know.
I wish... I was like...
If I left it was it was it was like halfway between i don't know i wish i had i was like i was if i knew if i knew he was about to walk out i would have gotten to the trans debate sooner because i was really interested in that topic and he's like sorry i gotta go and you previewed that you were gonna get there i did i had a card what are all those cards for and you're like this one's got trans written on it it's coming this one's coming later and it yeah and And it did. And it did.
And it did. And it did.
Okay. And as he discussed, yeah, never mind.
I'm done.

Okay. like this one's got trans written on it it's coming this one's coming later and it yeah and it did and it did and it did and it did and as he discussed yeah never mind i'm done okay we're gonna take a quick break but we're a good fox pickup it did although they're only using it's so funny it's such classic they're just they just play his one line they're like got him it's like i'm in there too yeah it's so weird they didn't they didn't do that in a.
Yeah, they made fun of my Stephen A. Smith thing.
They just made fun of me being like, who the hell is Tommy Vitor? I'm like, you just excerpted our interview. Obama pod bros.
But the fun, there was a clip from it apparently on Fox this morning where the guy doesn't just say that I got annihilated, obliterated. He's like, check out this guy in his t-shirt and sweats those are called off duty pants from bonobos sir they're the bonobos off duty pants he also accused you of not showering you look showered in that picture shiny it's hot in the studio yeah I could have used one of those maybe some powder before you thanks for saying I shower John yeah you do shower we'd rather have our dress code than have to just put on like a half pound of bronzer every time you walk into the studio I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt at 4 o'clock you're wearing a suit at 4.30 in the morning who's winning Jesse Waters looks like he's in a coffin yeah all that makeup Gutfeld's in a long sleeve in a in a long sleeve tee every goddamn day Gutfeld is the most hilarious wardrobe and posture on all of television The Five has been on a lot they have fucking makeup artists at Fox and morticians Jesus Christ makeup artists are very nice Jesse's like this Jesse's like this and then Gutfeld is just basically like fucking woke bitches.

Not that we watch it.

All right.

All right.

We're going to take a quick break,

but a reminder before we do that,

if you're in LA,

come see Love It or Leave It live.

Yeah.

We just added 12 new show dates through May.

This Thursday's show at Dynasty Typewriter

features special guests,

Liza Traeger and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Grab your tickets now at cricket.com slash events.
And if you're not in LA, there will be a fresh pod in your feed or on YouTube every Saturday morning. When we come back, Daniela Diaz.
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Restrictions apply. Joining us today from the Capitol, our friend Daniela Diaz, now at notice.
How are you? I'm great. I'm talking to you from this very unattractive closet right by the House chamber on the House side of the Capitol, the main Capitol building.
So I couldn't be better. It's an honor to be here talking to you.
It is wonderful to have you back. So the big question this week is, can Mike Johnson get all the Republican votes he needs to pass the $4 trillion budget resolution? That's essentially the blueprint for Trump's entire legislative agenda, which is massive spending cuts and tax cuts.
What are you hearing? As of now, he does not have the votes. I'm talking to you, of course, Monday afternoon on Eastern Time on Capitol Hill.
The House has not voted yet. They will vote in just a few hours.
For the first time this week, they were back in their home districts, House lawmakers, last week. So this will be the first time we see them in person where we'll be able to really ask them a lot of questions.
And by we, I mean reporters like myself who pepper lawmakers with questions for our jobs. That's what I do on a daily basis.
But as of now, he has a handful of people on both sides, very conservative House Republicans who want more spending and moderate Republicans who don't want to see cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, social benefits that their constituents really rely on that have not been guaranteed won't happen in this budget resolution, John. So a lot of dynamics at play right now.
And Speaker Mike Johnson has been trying to really weave all of the personalities together to see if he can pass this budget resolution. It does seem like Groundhog Day, though.
I feel like every time I talk about what's happening on Capitol Hill, it's that. It's Speaker Mike Johnson is facing his first real test of his leadership.
And I would argue this might be his first real test of his leadership. But right now, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to pass that budget resolution Tuesday evening.
Yeah, I'm wondering on this one, which group he has the bigger problems with right now? Is it House members who are in competitive districts, maybe more moderate, worried about cuts to Medicaid? How many of them are there that he might have problems with? And then how many of the hardliners in the Freedom Caucus does he have problems with, the Chip Roys and all those folks? Well, someone like Congresswoman Victoria Sparks, another very conservative member of the conference, is saying that it doesn't go far enough. Of course, Thomas Massey, another staunch conservative, is also against this measure.
But another group that we're keeping an eye on that I've been talking to closely is the Congressional Hispanic Conference. Think of a very small group of Latino lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are Republicans, who have their own group, not the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, could be confused.
They're the Democratic group and very influential in that and that side of the Capitol. But they really want assurances from Speaker Mike Johnson that he is not going to cut Medicaid, SNAP, these social benefits that are incredibly important to their constituents.
And they're planning to meet with Speaker Mike Johnson, have been having conversations with him to get those assurances to get them to vote for this budget resolution. But they're the big group that we have to watch because there's enough of them that could tank this.
John, remember, this is a slim majority for Republicans in the House. He can only really afford to lose, and by he I mean Speaker Mike Johnson, can only really afford to lose one to two votes depending on absences, depending on which Democrats show up to vote for this federal resolution as well because of that slim majority.
So he's really got a tricky situation on his hands. Yeah, he does.
He has a tricky

situation in terms of getting the votes. He also has a really tricky situation in terms of like getting the math to work for all of this.
Like, I don't know. It seems like he's either going to go ahead and the Republicans are all going to hold hands and jump and pass a resolution or and then maybe a final bill that actually does cut Medicaid by quite a bit, way past just adding work requirements, by the way, right? It's like $880 billion, which is quite a huge cut.
Is there a version of this where they just decide they're too nervous about the cuts because there's too many frontline members worried about Medicaid cuts. And they end up just passing it like last time in 20 in the first Trump administration.
They just end up passing a huge tax cut that adds to the deficit. And they really don't get into all the cuts.
Like, I just don't know how the math works out on all of this. You're asking very valid questions.
I'm by no means a mathematician. So I'm also asking these types of questions when I'm talking to lawmakers in charge of these decisions.

But something to remind you, John, anyone listening to this, is that the Senate has been moving forward with their own plan.

They are completely disregarding what Trump endorsed last week.

The one big, beautiful bill, as we've been seeing that phrase floated over and over again, that massive agenda that would this this budget resolution, which includes, of course, extending the 2017 tax cuts that Trump enacted in his first administration, border security and cuts to the national deficit and raising the debt ceiling. Republicans, Senate Republicans have said we're doing our own thing.
We have a plan B and we're moving forward with it. They started last week.
And that's what we call a slimmer budget resolution that does not include tax cuts, but does include defense spending, energy spending, border provisions in a way to try to have Republican wins because they don't think. and this is of course not my thoughts what i'm hearing from senate republicans that Republicans, that the House Republicans can get their work together.
Let's put it that way, that they can't move forward on their own bill that includes everything, encompasses all of Trump's massive agenda. So Senate Republicans are moving forward with this.
They still haven't passed it. Well, they had their voterama last week with all their budget resolutions, but now they have to start the work of this bill.
That's what I mean when I say that. Another thing to keep in mind for anyone listening, this is just the first step of this whole process of a budget reconciliation bill on Capitol Hill.
They need to still pass the final version of this bill that hasn't even been written. So that's actually an argument that Speaker Mike Johnson is using with his rank and file members.
This is just the beginning. Work with me on this.
Let's pass this first step so we can start the real work on trying to write this bill. Senate Republicans, of course, moving forward with their own version that doesn't include tax-ex.
So that people know it could look very, very different, the final bill from whatever budget resolution passes. And, you know, I think the Democrats did this with Build Back Better, which is you can get all the Republicans potentially to vote for it by saying, maybe you don't like some of the numbers in there now, but you know what? We can change it later.
Let's just keep the process moving forward. Yeah, and this process isn't something that happens in a week, maybe even in a month.
I mean, Speaker Mike Johnson was at an event earlier today talking to a group of conservatives saying, my hope is to get this passed by the first week of April, the final version of this bill. Now, all of us that were listening to him do that interview thought that's really optimistic.
This is going to be a major uphill climb for him and for Senate Republicans, too, because that is a matter of uniting every single Republican to get behind this bill to pass it. They don't need Democratic votes.
As you mentioned, they did this with lots of bills in the Biden administration, you know, Inflation Rejection Act. These bills don't need, in that case, needed Republican votes.
In this case, they don't Democratic votes, but it does mean they need every single Republican for the most part to support it. And we all know there's a lot of personalities in both sides of the Senate and the House Republican conferences.
What are you hearing from both House and Senate Republicans in terms of how anxious they are over the size of these cuts, particularly the Medicaid cuts? Do you think that is something that they could eventually live with? Or are there some people who are like, no, I'm not going to vote for huge cuts? This is a major red line for a lot of vulnerable Republicans facing tough re-election campaigns in blue districts and battleground districts. I mean, remember, not every Republican serving in Congress came from a district that is completely red.
They have to speak to their constituents, especially these Republicans that I mentioned in the Congressional Hispanic Conference. Not all of them are from swing districts, to be clear, but a lot of them represents constituents who rely on these social benefits to get by day to day and who are talking to these members saying, I won't vote for you this next election unless you can guarantee that these won't get cut.
Those members, of course, being led by Congressman Tony Gonzalez, a Republican who, of course, came from a Trump district in Texas, but represents this group of Republicans who might be facing tough reelections, who want guarantees from leadership that they won't touch these very crucial programs that their constituents need. If Johnson can guarantee that that's the case, that they won't get cut, they won't even be touched, which is what these Republicans want promises on, there's a likelihood that they would support this massive budget resolution and passing this massive bill that would, of course, enact Trump's massive agenda.
But it depends on whether they can get those assurances and they haven't gotten them yet. So the government also runs out of money in a few weeks.
Do you think Republicans can pass a continuing resolution that keeps the government open by funding it at current spending levels, which is just kicking the can down the road again? Do you think they, because otherwise, they'd need Democratic votes. We can talk about that in a second.
But what do you think the prospects are of Republicans being able to keep the government open on their own? I think it's very unlikely, John, because if, you know, you and I know this because we love Congress, but, well, I assume you love Congress. I love Congress.
Love Congress, yeah. I love covering this whole thing.
I worked there once upon a time. There's a handful of House Republicans who have never voted for a CR, and it's always passed with Democratic votes.
Now, Democrats won't obviously support a CR based on, you know, all the, I covered so many CRs. So I'm coming at this from, you know, ground like it's almost like a trauma for me at this point to cover another CR being passed on Capitol Hill.
But they won't support a CR unless they can get something out of the whatever bill is passed, any any more additional measures that will benefit Democrats.

They're not going to support something that's Republican-led. So Republicans are already starting to paint this as if Democrats aren't going to support us on this issue, then they're the ones that caused a shutdown.
Meanwhile, there's always a handful of Republicans who don't vote for continuing resolutions, which I should note is funding the government at its current levels for a certain amount of time. So I don't bet anything when it comes to Congress because I've been surprised in the many years that I've been covering this building.
You know, they do sometimes come through, and by they I mean both sides, both chambers, with solutions. Like, for example, what happened in December when very last minute after Elon Musk tanked in a tweet, a post on X the current CR situation one week ahead of the holidays and then Republicans had to scatter around and really get put push forward a CR that they could get behind that the majority of the conference could get behind that Democrats could get behind it happened they prevented a shutdown very last minute I did not that coming.
So it could be another situation like that in just two weeks, however long it is till March 14th and government funding runs out. But as of now, Republicans are Republican appropriators who are in charge of funding levels are blaming Democrats for bad faith negotiations.
Democrats appropriators are blaming Republicans for bad faith negotiations. They are at a standstill on these negotiations for government funding.
In order to keep the government open at this point, it's probably going to be a CR. Democrats are not going to support that without any sort of additional measures attached to it that they can get behind.
So this is going to get messy. Do you think that Hakeem Jeffries has his whole caucus unified in not giving Republicans votes for this? Or do you see, are you hearing anything from the more conservative House Democrats or the House Democrats in frontline districts or the Problem Solvers Caucus or any of those characters? Like, do you think that the Democrats seem unified on this so far? Well, if there's something I can say about minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is he does a really good job, based on the numerous CRs I've covered, of keeping his caucus united when it comes to votes that matter.
And while there might be sometimes one or two Democrats that are against the overall caucus goal of tanking a vote, passing a vote, he's in a good job of keeping them in line. And as of now, a lot of rank and file Democrats are going to take his lead on how he handles this issue.
But if you ask Leader Hakeem Jeffries about this, he'll say it's too soon and he wants to see what appropriators come up with as they tend to have these bills written and on the floor the week of a government shutdown pending. So he wants to leave appropriators to figure out how they're going to handle this.
When that timeline comes to an end and it's now crunch time to try to fund the government, that's when we see him come forward or behind closed doors, talk to his caucus and say, you got to stay behind me. You have to vote against this bill.
We want to see what happens. As you noted, there are always more vulnerable House Democrats, blue dogs, Democrats from red districts who have a lot of pressure to vote with Republicans and keep the government open or or at least help listen to their constituents to side with Republicans.
It seems like Jeffries does a really good job of listening to them as well. And, you know, in that case, I'm sure we'll know closer to then what kind of message he'll give them, whether it's to quote something we hear along the lines of very often here, vote your conscience.
Yeah. Republicans holding town halls last week were flooded with constituents angry about Elon's Doge antics, among other things.
I saw your former colleague, Rachel Bade, write that Republicans aren't at all nervous about these town halls, at least on the Doge stuff, maybe a little bit more on the Medicaid side. Is that your sense as well? Yes.
Doge, largely, even just a couple hours ago, has been praised by Republican leaders. Speaker Mike Johnson speaking very highly of Elon Musk and his efforts to cut down government spending, cut government jobs.
Now, our rank and file Republicans hearing from their constituents, like Rich McCormick, who has been out. I've seen a lot of videos.
I'm sure you have two of his town hall over the weekend going viral because he heard from a lot of angry constituents in Georgia about Doge. He's actually coming out and saying, I actually think the White House needs to go about this a little more slowly.
He told a Republican or excuse me, a Georgia podcast that just an hour ago that he believes that they need to take a look at what Elon Musk is doing without, you know, blanket support of his measures and his actions in cutting government spending. So we're hearing from him in that sense, but the majority of Republicans from who I've talked to in the last, you know, how many weeks has Elon Musk been doing this now since, you know, he took office or sorry, not took office, took over Doge, I should say.
They're really largely supportive of his work and they support his efforts to cut government spending. They think it might help with trying to pass this massive proposal that would enact Trump's agenda items.
And they think continuing to cut government spending is really what their goal is as they have this Republican trifecta. And they're committing to what their constituents wanted.
But you are hearing, to be clear, John, from a couple of Republicans. I mentioned Rich McCormick, Lisa Murkowski, senator from Alaska, who is coming forward and saying she's not supportive of what Elon Musk is doing.
And she is very concerned that his cuts will affect conservation efforts in Alaska, energy projects in Alaska. So there are a couple of senators, House members, Republicans, namely Democrats, of course, are very against what Elon Musk is doing, that are coming out and saying specifically how these efforts could affect them back home.
Yeah, it seems like they're all in favor of cutting government and making government more efficient and even getting rid of some of the federal workforce in principle. It does sound like the ones who are facing town halls and facing angry constituents or the ones who have constituents who are affected by these cuts are starting to get maybe a little wobbly.
Is that fair? That's fair. And, you know, something to keep in mind is something we're hearing from Democrats in argument is that they didn't vote for Elon Musk.
And that's something that we're hearing these constituents in these town halls also tell these Republicans. But I do want to note that in-person town halls have also become really rare these days.
Most Republicans and Democrats, I should note as well, do tele-town halls, virtual town halls. So seeing these in-person town halls is really unique and a show from these members that they do want to hear from their constituents and are willing to put up with the criticism that they're receiving.
So seeing Rich McCormick deal with that, really interesting because most members don't really like to do that anymore. Last question, I'll let you go.
I just was wondering, as a reporter, you've been watching the last month unfold, the Trump White House has booted the Associated Press out of the White House for not calling it the Gulf of America. Just today, we're talking Monday afternoon.
Trump did a joint press conference with Macron. And the AP reporter based in France was allowed to ask a question because the French decided that would be their first question.
So that was the decision by the French. The AP reporter based in the US that's supposed to cover the White House was not allowed in.
Again, Trump also posted this morning about how MSNBC is illegal and should be shut down and should have to pay a lot of money and for I don't know what. Has there been discussions between outlets like yours and other outlets about like how to handle this as a sort of as an institution? How are you dealing with it? How is Notice dealing with it? What are your thoughts on all this? John, I can't speak to what Notice is doing or my former employer Politico is doing or even my former employer CNN is doing.
I've worked in a lot of news outlets in D.C. But something that I know and that I truly feel is that I'm supportive of freedom of the press.
And I think it's incredibly important for all reporters to have access to newsmakers, be able to be allowed in those rooms, to be able to ask those questions. And I stand by making sure that, you know, with the institutions that have been in these rooms and have always been in these rooms, should be in these rooms.
Yes, I think that's very well said. Daniela Diaz, thank you so much as always for joining us on Pod Save America.
And congrats on your new gig at Notice. And keep in touch.
Thank you so much. That's our show for today.
Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to you then.
Great thing about going to lowly is you're guaranteed not to see Bill Maher. Maybe.
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