2/6/25: Blue MAGA Meltdown, Trump Influencers Lying To You, Judge Blocks Elon Coup, Ro Khanna Calls Dems 'Cringe' On Trump Pushback

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Recap: February 6, 2025

Title: Blue MAGA Meltdown, Trump Influencers Lying To You, Judge Blocks Elon Coup, Ro Khanna Calls Dems 'Cringe' On Trump Pushback

Hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, this episode of Breaking Points delves deep into the tumultuous political landscape of early 2025. From the destabilizing effects of the Blue MAGA movement to the legal battles surrounding Elon Musk's influence, the hosts provide a comprehensive analysis of the current state of American politics. A highlight of the episode is an insightful interview with Congressman Ro Khanna, who discusses his confrontations with Elon Musk and the broader implications for democratic institutions.

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1. Democratic Response to Trump's Gaza Policies

Krystal and Saagar kick off the episode by scrutinizing the Democratic Party's reaction to President Trump's controversial Gaza policies. They explore how some liberal voices are attributing Trump's election to voter apathy and self-serving Democratic strategies rather than acknowledging structural failures within the party.

• Krystal (02:06): "The liberals blamed the voters for staying home or voting for Trump out of fear of genocide, ignoring their own failed policies in Gaza."

The hosts highlight the sentiments of key liberal figures who argue that Democrats squandered the opportunity to present a viable alternative, thereby enabling Trump's rise.

• Saagar (02:00): "Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show."

2. Dissecting Trump's Influence and Liberal Accountability

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the accusations that Trump's supporters benefited from Democratic missteps, particularly regarding Gaza.

• Krystal (02:06): "Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were the better alternative and they blew it."

Saagar underscores the blame placed on Democrats for not effectively countering Trump's narrative, leading to a narrow election loss.

3. Legal Challenges Against Elon Musk's Influence

The conversation shifts to Elon Musk's attempts to influence federal funding and media outlets, which have sparked legal battles.

• Saagar (15:46): "The Doge team is working on canceling those pay. This is a whole of government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government's books."

Krystal and Saagar discuss the implications of Musk's actions, including the freezing of funds to Politico, and the broader threat to journalistic independence.

• Krystal (26:32): "Every single one of those has some sort of corresponding legal action that we're seeing."

4. Interview with Congressman Ro Khanna: Confronting Elon Musk and Protecting Democracy

A pivotal moment in the episode is the interview with Congressman Ro Khanna, who provides an in-depth perspective on his clash with Elon Musk and the ongoing constitutional crisis.

a. Background of the Conflict

Congressman Khanna recounts his long-standing relationship with Musk and the origins of their current conflict.

• Khanna (45:35): "I've had a relationship with him for 15 years, and I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong."

He emphasizes Musk’s unilateral attempts to control federal funding and undermine congressional authority.

• Khanna (62:44): "It's certainly a violation of the Constitution. These terms get thrown around."

b. The Impact of Musk's Actions on Federal Agencies

Khanna outlines specific instances where Musk's influence has disrupted federal operations, including shutting down funding streams and challenging labor laws.

• Khanna (29:06): "There's a hearing today on maybe the biggest threat, which is the accessing of the Treasury Department's payment system."
• Khanna (34:41): "If you have a group of House members, 20 to 30 in relatively safe districts. And you see Elon's numbers have been declining."

c. Strategies for Democratic Pushback

The Congressman advocates for a robust response from the Democratic Party to safeguard constitutional integrity and restore congressional authority.

• Khanna (52:10): "We need to assert the power of Congress. We're going to punch back in terms of our power."
• Khanna (67:42): "We're in a situation where this is a real, real fight for constitutional democracy."

He stresses the importance of anti-trust enforcement and expanding social media platforms to dilute Musk's influence.

• Khanna (50:39): "We need many more platforms... we need to push back on Musk."

d. The Role of Anti-Trump Republicans

Khanna highlights the role of a minority within the Republican Party who resist Trump's overreach, suggesting that building alliances with these members is crucial.

• Khanna (55:28): "They didn't fold on increasing the debt ceiling. And Elon didn't get a dollar actually saved."

5. The Broader Constitutional Crisis and Future Implications

The episode concludes with a reflection on the ongoing constitutional crisis, emphasizing the delicate balance between executive power and congressional authority.

• Krystal (62:49): "It's not going to succeed, but we need to push back."
• Khanna (66:19): "We're in a situation where this is a real, real fight for constitutional democracy."

Krystal and Saagar, along with Khanna, articulate the urgency of addressing these challenges to preserve democratic institutions and prevent unilateral actions that threaten the country's foundational structures.

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Notable Quotes

• Congressman Ro Khanna (45:35): "I've had a relationship with him for 15 years, and I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong."

• Krystal (02:06): "Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were the better alternative and they blew it."

• Saagar (15:46): "The Doge team is working on canceling those pay. This is a whole of government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government's books."

---

Conclusion

This episode of Breaking Points offers a critical examination of the intersection between political strategy, media influence, and legal battles shaping the United States in 2025. Through incisive analysis and an engaging interview with Congressman Ro Khanna, Krystal and Saagar shed light on the urgent need for democratic resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges posed by influential figures like Elon Musk and shifting party dynamics.

For listeners seeking a thorough understanding of these complex issues, this episode serves as an essential resource, providing both depth and clarity on the forces threatening to reshape American governance.

Transcript

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[Sagar]

Hey guys, Sagar and Kristal here.

[Leesa]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Sagar]

This is the only place where you.

[Leesa]

Can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

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[Leesa]

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[Sagar]

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[Leesa]

All right, let's go ahead and get to some of the liberal Democratic reaction to Trump's Gaza ethnic cleansing plan so, you know, par for the course rather than saying, you know, gee, it would have been good if Democrats could have beat this guy because this is all really going terribly. And maybe if they hadn't been so committed to their own genocidal plans with regard to Gaza, maybe they could have eked out a win since it was really, really quite close. You have a number of significant liberal accounts who have decided that the real fault was the people who either stayed home and didn't vote or who actively voted for Trump because they were so horrified by the genocide that was being perpetrated by the Biden administration. So let's go ahead and put the first one up on the screen here. We can do a speedrun through these. These are Simone Sanders. I think now it's very appropriate to reiterate that elections have consequences. Obviously a jab at people who were worried about the genocide. We can go up to Harry Sisson next. Says, I hope all of the losers who said and posted things like this understand they played a crucial role in helping Trump get elected. He will now hurt millions with that power. This was somebody who said, hey, Kamala, Gaza is speaking now, bitch. Next up, we have Adam Gentleson, who said, in 2000, the left said there was no difference between Gore and Bush. So vote Nader. Then Bush started a war of choice in Iraq. In 2024, the left said there was no difference between Harris and Trump. So vote uncommitted. Now we have Trump proposing that the US Take over Gaza.

[Ryan]

Gentleson, by the way, you can check FEC records. He's still a consultant for John Fetterman. He's a former chief of staff to Fetterman. People knew that. But go ahead and look. He's on Fetterman's payroll.

[Leesa]

There you go. All right. And next, one last one we can put up here. Genuine question. Not aiming to dunk on, et cetera, but for the pro Gaza folk who yell genocide, Jill and killer, Kamala and abstain voted. Jill's Diner voted for Trump. What's your reaction to Trump saying US will own Gaza? Same thing in your eyes as Harris or regret now or question mark. So this is all very, very productive. Ryan, always genuine question at least. Yeah, it's a genuine question.

[Ryan]

So if it's a genuine question, like, here's a genuine answer. Can anybody point me to any moment where Kamala Harris said that she was going to do anything different than Joe Biden and was going to ever use US Leverage to force a ceasefire in Gaza? Right. Was there any moment where Kamala Harris told voters that she would be less hawkish or less warlike than Donald Trump? Good question. So, genuine question, back to this genuine question.

[Leesa]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Can anybody find me an example of either of those? Cuz I can find you many, many examples of Harris saying the opposite. That she would continue the Biden approach to arming Israel no matter what. And also that she would be tougher when it came to making war than Donald Trump.

[Leesa]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Most lethal army ever.

[Leesa]

You know, like prosecuted transnational gangs.

[Ryan]

Yes. So tell me, like, what is the.

[Leesa]

Running around with Liz Cheney and bringing.

[Ryan]

Liz Cheney up on stage talking about Dick Cheney. So what is the argument to make the case that the war would not still be going on right now as we speak if Kamala Harris were president? Like setting aside everything else that Trump is doing, like, what's the case to make that right now we'd have a ceasefire in Gaza if Kamala Harris were president? Like, how do you, in your mind, how do you get what happened from election Day in November to today in February that brought about a cease fire? Cuz we have a ceasefire with Trump as president. What does it hold? Does he send troops in there? We don't know. We'll see. Yeah, but right now we have a ceasefire. What's the evidence that Harris would have gotten that done?

[Leesa]

Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And also, you know, the uncommitted movement, they really went above and beyond to give her an opportunity to.

[Ryan]

And a bunch of the uncommitted leaders endorsed Harris.

[Leesa]

Endorsed her anyway. That's right. And you know, they like the ask to have a Palestinian American make vetted comments endorsing Kamala at the dnc. That's how low the bar was in terms of her trying to extend an olive branch. How many times was did she have the opportunity, you know, at a time when people were saying, hey, you really need to separate yourself from this guy. Biden's really unpopular here. On a platter is an area where he is profoundly unpopular, where you could easily distance yourself. It would be the right political thing and the right moral thing and she would never, ever do it.

[Ryan]

Right. And putting a Palestinian American on the stage at the DNC would have meant something materially because people said that's nothing. Why not do that? It would have pushed back against her, the donors and the voters who represented the pro Israel faction, who wanted no pressure applied whatsoever to Israel.

[Leesa]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And Harris willingness even to put a vetted two minute speech from Palestinian American on the stage that endorses her and endorses her strategy, her willingness to do that would be a glimmer of a possibility that she's willing to take some risks on behalf of a ceasefire.

[Leesa]

Right.

[Ryan]

And so that's why.

[Leesa]

That's why it was in.

[Ryan]

There was some meaning to what seems kind of like a meaningful ask and also is why she said no to it, because she was not willing to take those risks.

[Leesa]

That's right.

[Ryan]

So if she's not willing to tick off a tiny sliver of her donors, because a lot of those donors be like, okay, fine, Palestinian American speaks. Like, we had lots of different. We have different vast array of speakers up on stage. It's not that big a deal. We can get over it. If she's not even willing to do that, why on earth would she be willing to pressure Netanyahu to do something he doesn't want to do?

[Leesa]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And so people concluded that she wouldn't be. And the other thing that I think this freakout shows is a recognition that Gaza did actually play a role in the election.

[Leesa]

That is very true.

[Ryan]

Because otherwise, what are you so worked up about here?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Yeah.

[Leesa]

I mean, they love to be like, oh, you lefties, you don't matter. We don't care about you. And then that they lose, like, it was your fault. You're so powerful, you know, and it's like, all right, well, which, which is it? Here we have a statement from one of the co chairs of the Uncommitted Movement. We can put up on the screen. This is from Layla El Abed. Layla is. She wasn't one of them related to Rashida Tlaib, Is that.

[Ryan]

Oh, maybe. Yeah. Well, certainly one of the uncommitted organizers was.

[Leesa]

Was okay. In any case, she says, I feel sad, angry and scared for our communities. For months, we warned about the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our calls largely went unheard. Harris left a vacuum by not visiting Michigan. Families impacted by US Supplied bombs create a permission structure for their trust, while Trump visited Dearborn and filled a community in despair with lies. Trump's illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific. But as on so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were the better alternative and they blew it. I think that is all very accurate in spite of the former Kamala Harris aide responding deeply unserious people who want to shirk their responsibility. Clowns. Because again, it's always the voter's fault, never the fault of the people in power who had many opportunities.

[Ryan]

Responsibility.

[Leesa]

Do something different.

[Ryan]

Yeah, responsibility is so an interesting word there. Like who has the responsibility there, Right?

[Leesa]

Yes, exactly right. And then lastly, can put this up on the screen. So the group that was called Arab Americans for Trump has now changed their name after the president's Gaza Riviera. Comments. They say that the chairman of the group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump said during a phone interview, the group is now going to be called Arab Americans for Peace. Name change came after Trump held that Tuesday press conference alongside Bibi Netanyahu and proposed the US Take ownership in redeveloping the area into the Riviera of the Middle East. The talk about what the president wants to do with Gaza, obviously we're completely opposed the idea of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in historic Palestine. And so we did not want to be behind the curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has been our objective from the very beginning. I mean, I will say, I don't know how you could look at Trump's first term in office and think that he was gonna be, like, pro Palestine. I mean, he gave Israel everything they wanted, and he had Miriam ADELSON Giving him $100 million and being like, we're gonna take over the West Bank. This was all out there publicly. So no one should be surprised by the approach that Trump is taking at this point. But one thing, Ryan, one reason in particular why this discourse has kind of annoyed me in particular because, I mean, this is the kind of shit that liberals do all the time. But post November, post Trump winning again, there actually has been some liberal lefty alliance and community building because it's so clear that the liberal establishment approach was a failure. Right? They had this theory of, oh, we have an anti Trump coalition and we need to focus on the suburban moderates. We're gonna use Liz Cheney to do that. You know, that's. That's how we're going to approach this. We're going to focus on, rather than addressing people's material concerns, which is what contributed to the rise of this, I would say, fascist movement. Rather than dealing with that, we're just going to talk about democracy, talk about fascism in the abstract and not fully deliver for people. And all of those theories were really wrong. Not to mention that they spent so much time destroying the Bernie Sanders movement both in 2016 and then again vanquishing him in 2020. That, I would say, was their primary goal over ultimately defeating Trump. And all of that edifice has been. Has crumbled. You know, and some of the favored media personalities, the Joe Amicas of the world, have, you know, capitulated to Trump after making lots of money being these big resistance figures. And so, you know, when he actually gets in there and they want to continue to have access to power they immediately bend the knee. So there has been a real opening and I think a real radicalizing of a lot of liberals who have fled MSNBC, who are going to more like lefty YouTube channels like My husband's, Kyle's, but a lot of others do. David Dole, Mike Figueiredo have seen huge growth. So the other thing that irritates me about the liberal discourse here around Gaza is that I think it undercuts that new movement and sort of community building within the Democratic base and radicalizing in a lot of ways of the Democratic base.

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[Ryan]

Elon Musk's Doja Committee hasn't been able to turn up any serious evidence of fraud, waste or abuse yet, but did manage to get a win out of White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt. Let's roll this clip. Talking about a Politico scandal.

[Sagar]

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[Ryan]

Oh boy, this was a wild one yesterday. Normally it wouldn't be the kind of thing we're talking about, Crystal, but it rose to the level of the White House press secretary claiming that they're gonna come in and cut off these payments. So to bring people up to speed, what happened here? USASpending.gov is a website that turns out to be very dangerous if you don't know how to use it.

[Leesa]

Okay.

[Ryan]

So people went in and searched somehow Politico and came up with this idea that Politico is funded by usaid. And that then was connected to the fact that Politico had recently had a glitch in their payroll. And so some Politico reporters didn't get paid. And was then also connected to the fact that Politico had been one of the many news outlets that had reported on the letter from 50 former intelligence officials.

[Leesa]

Hallmarks of Russian information.

[Ryan]

Infamous letter, that infamous letter. So they said aha. So USAID the State Department, basically. CIA funded the deep, state funded Politico. Politico then laundered this letter from these intelligence officials to benefit from Biden and then gets all of this money from usaid. And then Musk finds out about it, cancels the money, and now all of a sudden, Politico can't make payroll. Like, wow, we've got him. Incredible. So in fact, what to me actually, these guys did actually stumble on a scandal, which is the way that a lot of our beltway media is funded, which is Politico Pro Bloomberg.

[Leesa]

Some of the newsletters, all of these trade, sort of like insider trade publications basically.

[Ryan]

And it goes back many decades to the advent of this trade, what's called a trade publication. So if you are either a government official at the Department of Transportation, you own a trucking company, you own a shipping company, you're a lobbyist, or more particularly. Exactly, you're a lobbyist for those people. You really want to know what everybody, every lawmaker on the subcommittee that oversees your industry is thinking up to the minute. And you want to know what the commissioners and the senior staff at the agency that regulates you are up to at the moment. And you're not going to find that in the New York Times or drop site or here on Breaking Points. We're not getting into the weeds like that.

[Leesa]

Very specialized, like, yeah, down to the subcommittee kind of knowledge.

[Ryan]

The fact that it's lobbying intelligence is an entire thing whose job is not to actually lobby to pressure members of Congress to do a thing. It's just to find out information and then deliver it privately to different corporations that pay for it. This is the same thing, really. Politico Pro Bloomberg, all these others that do this. And so they charge through the roof.

[Leesa]

For this thousands of dollars because they know that, first of all, it's not coming out of any individual's pocket. It's coming out of either the government or the lobby shop or the corporation or whatever. So for them to spend a few thousand dollars on this information that's gonna prove valuable to, if you're a corporation, your bottom line, eh, that's nothing.

[Ryan]

Right. And so I think it's a reasonable question, like, does a government agency need this?

[Leesa]

But we're talking about people here who are raising these questions, who are capitalists who would presumably just appreciate the hustle here.

[Ryan]

Right? And this is over more than a decade, by the way, this amount of money.

[Leesa]

Well, the other thing that's.

[Ryan]

Not all of it is Politico. Not all of it is. And not all Is USAID like, it's a completely different.

[Leesa]

And even the number is wrong. So, like, 8 million. Do they make it sound like, oh, they got $8 million from USAID in a year? Even that's not true. Is $8 million over a decade from all government. From all government agencies combined. Now, again, I still think the business model is sort of preposterous, whatever. But it's wildly different than how it was presented. And then the other thing that's funny to me, Ryan, especially talking to you, is that you guys have actually done reporting about some news agencies that USAID is actually funded. And I don't think any of these people cared anything about it.

[Ryan]

Right now.

[Leesa]

They're interested.

[Ryan]

Now they're starting to notice. Michael Shellenberger actually did a piece based on or advancing some of our recent reporting. So now they're starting to see. But yes, USAID does fund foreign. Does fund journalism that's done in foreign countries. And that journalism is often geared towards US US interests. Yeah, that is a thing. And that should be probed and should be scrutinized. They're not funding now. I had sent this. I don't know, maybe we can add this in post. It's gotten even more absurd. We can go back to Politico in a second. But the New York Times got lumped into this scandal. Somebody went through and typed in New York into USAspending.gov and pulled up a number of like $29 million, something like that, saying that the US government is funding the New York Times to the tune of $29 million. Turns out, bro, so it's Ian Miles Chong looks like completely unreliable online figure. And then Huberman, who has a massive following, shares it and he's like, I have to speak out now. This is outrageous. This money could have been spent doing NIH research. As Lee Fong points out, they searched New York, not even New York Times. So New York University gets a lot of money for research, et cetera. Anything with the word New York in it showed up in here. And in the old days, so to speak, this wouldn't matter. This would be kind of funny that people got this kind of thing wrong because Twitter X has now taken on this central place in the MAGA ecosystem. What goes viral there becomes just true and then gets sent to the press secretary, and then the press secretary responds to it, even though it's just fundamentally wrong. And the inability of the community notes to respond to this stuff is also very telling. Like, this is just wrong. But it's not getting noted for the Most part, yeah.

[Leesa]

And even if it was, I don't know that it would really matter. I mean, Elon Musk himself is what, the most community noted person on Twitter. And it hasn't stopped anyone. Well, it has. I mean, some people don't believe is nonsense, but plenty of people do, regardless of the fact that he will just take a claim like this and spread it like it's nothing without thinking twice about it. So, yeah, it's a total destruction.

[Ryan]

It was D3. I don't know if we put that up already.

[Leesa]

Yeah, it's a very like, yeah, it's a very post truth, postmodernist kind of a reality. And you're right that now the Biden people back in 2020 were able to win with this bedrock assumption that like, oh, what happens online isn't real life. And that's just not true anymore.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Leesa]

Now what happens on Twitter, as preposterous as it is, they have filled this administration in part with people who are good posters. I mean, that's basically how J.D. vance ends up as Vice President of the United States.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Leesa]

And Elon Musk has. I mean, obviously he has a number of power sources, but one of them is the fact that he runs this platform to his own benefit, including something else that you've talked about, Ryan, including silencing critics from within maga. So Elon is a Javier Milei fan, an anarcho capitalist, a fan of this tech feudalist nonsense. Crazy. And it is directly at odds with the Steve Bannon populist. Right. Ideology. I mean, Steve Bannon will tell you that in quite existential terms. Go read his interview with the New York Times. And so the kind of original MAGA type people like the Laura Loomers of the world who were going out and trying to, you know, trying to push back against this direction, which is an existential threat to the, you know, populist, Right. Steve Bannon esque view of what Trump should be and what he should be doing. It truly is. Elon Musk is a existential threat to them. They have been vanished on Twitter and suppressed, and you no longer really see them bubbling up. So it has become this incredibly influential platform that has a direct pipeline into what is coming out of the press secretary's mouth, which is why we have to pay attention to stupidities like making up these numbers about Politico and New York Times.

[Ryan]

And then what you will then see is that the most absurd and incorrect claims will end up getting noted. And then that gives credence to ones that aren't noted. And so, for instance, now finally, this Ian Miles Chong one does have a community note. And so they'd be like, hey, this guy is saying it's the New York Times. Actually, it's New York. This guy's saying it's the last five years. It's not the last. He didn't run it for the last five years. Because if you don't put in, if you don't put the time in right on USA spending it gives you like.

[Leesa]

For a decade or whatever. Yeah.

[Ryan]

And then what they're noting here is that the actual total to the New York Times over five years would be 1.6 million. But most of that is from the Department of Defense Pentagon. These are people in the Pentagon or service members who subscribe to the New York Times and expense it to the government. So instead of uncovering some scandal, they just discovered, like people read the New.

[Leesa]

York Times for better or worse. Maybe to them that is quite a scandal. I guess they still do. All right, we've got David Dayan standing by to break down some of the legal challenges and legal movement. Pushback against Doge, pushback against the Trump administration. Some new court decisions have come down, so let's get to that.

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[Leesa]

So for a look at the legal pushback against Elon Musk, Doge and also the Trump administration more broadly, we are glad to have David Dayan here, of course, is the editor of the American Prospect and great friend of the show. Great to see you, David.

[David Dayan]

Good to see you.

[Leesa]

Yeah, of course. So give people broad contour and then I'll get into some of the elements. We have some of the specifics of some of the legal, most significant legal pushback against the moves to, I don't know, seize the treasury and make Congress irrelevant and fire a bunch of people who and get rid of an agency and all of these sorts of things.

[David Dayan]

Well, really, every single one of those has some sort of corresponding legal action that we're seeing. There was a hearing today on maybe the biggest threat, which is the accessing of the Treasury Department's payment system at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Justice Department agreed to restrict access to just two people, Tom Krause, who's kind of leading this Doge team at treasury and this 25 year old Marco Iles and to make sure that their access was read only. And apparently that has happened to a degree. There's been some limitations, particularly on Marco. So that was an example of an early success. That's a temporary restraining order. Of course, there was also two temporary restraining orders on the payment freeze that was put together by the Office of Management and Budget. And what that led to was a rescinding of the order to pause all grants and loans that the federal government makes. That hasn't fully kind of taken hold. I think what we're learning is once you turn off some of that stuff, it's hard to turn it back on. So there's projects all over the country like Head Start that aren't getting the money that they were supposed to be able to get. There are other lawsuits, particularly around the firings. There's a lawsuit, as we know today, is the end of this buyout offer, this kind of fake buyout offer. Unions have sued, saying that that isn't authorized by law anywhere. And then another big one is Gwen Wilcox, who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board who was fired in violation of the NLRP's own statute, which says you can't fire a board member unless there's malfeasance in office. She sued to try to block that firing. There are other lawsuits about illegal firings. For example, the USDA's inspector general who came to work saying, this is an illegal firing when you fired me, and was escorted out of the building by security. She is also sued to get her job back. So, you know, a really broad section of these across the federal government, across some of the things that have been done.

[Ryan]

Let's talk about the buyouts for a moment. It's been reported that roughly 20,000 people, maybe it's a few thousand more since then, have taken these buyouts. You guys pointed out over at the prospect that that's actually under the kind of expected turnover. So in other words, the people that have accepted this quote, unquote buyout are people who were ready to retire anyway, and they're like, oh, wait, that's likely the case. Yeah, or most.

[David Dayan]

I mean, it's quite a bit under. I mean, the average annual turnover within the federal civil service is something between 5 and 10%. 20,000 employees would represent 1% of the federal government's workforce. There are new numbers out today that say that's up to about 40,000, but that's still quite a bit less. So these are people who were going to retire who figure, okay, maybe I'll get several months of severance as a result. Now, whether they will get that severance is really very much in question. We know from the experience at Twitter that many, many people sued after they were given a buyout offer because they didn't get the money that they claimed they were going to get. And there's a little clause at the end of the resignation offer that has been made by the government that essentially says that you're not allowed to sue the government over any reason. So clearly they're setting up for a situation where they kind of pull the rug out from these people who have accepted the buyout offer.

[Leesa]

My understanding is there's also a question about whether this offer itself is legal because it would, again, require some expenditure of funds. And, you know, there's what, a budget deadline coming up in March, and there's nothing that can really be authorized beyond that, et cetera. So isn't there also just a question over whether the courts may say, hey, you can't even go forward with this? So all you people who took this deal, like, you're kind of high and dry because we're. This was an illegal offer to begin with.

[David Dayan]

Yeah. And that's part of the lawsuit to enjoin this offer because as you say, on March 14, federal government appropriations run out. So you can't make a promise to the federal workforce that we're going to keep paying you until September 30th if they only have authorization to pay anybody in the federal government until March 14th. So, yes, that is a major part of the lawsuit that was put together by two federal employee unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and I believe, seiu.

[Ryan]

And can you talk a little bit about the nlrb? Unpack not just this illegal firing that's being challenged, but the broader effort to actually deem the NLRB to be not an agency to be effectively unconstitutional. Where is that fight?

[David Dayan]

Yeah, there are two things on, like, parallel tracks going on. So first, by firing the head of the nlr, one of the board members of the nlrb, Trump has put this agency down to two board members. And here's why that's important. Normally it's a five member panel. Two members means that the NLRB does not currently have a quorum. And under Supreme Court precedent, that means that it cannot, it cannot actually adjudicate any case right now. And the NLRB sort of operates as an appeals court on federal labor law. So there are regional NLRB offices that make decisions. There are administrative law judges that make decisions. But if anything is appealed, it has to be answered by the nlrb. So it's like having an appeals court or having no appeals court, but people can still appeal. So if a company has a union election and the union wins and the company decides we're going to sue because we're going to challenge this election, it goes up to the lrb, where it effectively stays there. At this point, it can't. Nothing else can be done on the case. So this kind of stalls out US labor law, Whether it's union elections or illegal firings or other grievances, anything that gets elevated to the NLRB level can't be done right now. And so that's the benefit that Trump gets from this firing, which has been challenged in court. Separately, there's a process by companies like SpaceX and Amazon, familiar names, the richest people in the world who are trying to make the NLRB unconstitutional. That's what they're arguing in court. They've been doing this since the Biden administration. But these cases are starting to wind their way up through the courts. They're at the appeals court level right now, and they may get to the Supreme Court where they would have to decide whether or not the NLRB is unconstitutional. It's a really kind of operatic argument, but you never know with this court. And so at that point, you would end up having no labor law, in fact, rather than just in practice, as we have right now.

[Leesa]

David, one question, one big question I have right now is whether they're going to follow these court orders. So they've already suffered a few losses. You mentioned one at the top. There's an injunction against the freezing of all the payments. We can actually put E4 up on the screen. You were referencing some of this. The Trump administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants in spite of the fact that two different federal courts have now barred it from doing so. And maybe that's a misunderstanding or maybe they just.

[David Dayan]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Leesa]

Maybe they just aren't listening to the court orders. There also was injunction against the Birthright Citizenship executive order, which is just like brazenly, preposterously unconstitutional. There's an injunction against transferring transgender women into men's prisons as well. So what indications do we have about how much they're going to actually listen or care about these various court injunctions and rulings that ultimately go against them? Because you do have people like J.D. vance, who previously, when he was just doing podcasts was like, yeah, we're gonna be like Andrew Jackson and say, okay, well go enforce this ruling with your army.

[David Dayan]

Yeah, it's obviously one of the bigger concerns that we can possibly have and we're not going to really know the outcome of that until you get sort of a final ruling. Right. Until we get a Supreme Court adjudication of some of these cases is adverse to what Trump wants. That's when we're going to find out if the rubber meets the road here. What we do know right now is that, that let's start with the one that started today with the payment system. Apparently, according to reporting from Nathan Tankus, the Treasury Department has started to limit the access of at least one, the 25 year old kid, Marco Eliz. They've limited his access to the payment system. It's more closer to read only at this point, which complies with that order, the OMB memo was rescinded. But as you say, there are several other what seem to be illegal impoundments going on. Some of that is because the authority or the alleged authority for some of those impoundments, like the stuff at EPA is derived from different sources. So there was an executive order that said we're going to terminate the Green New Deal is the way that it was put in the EO and that tries to pause all disbursements of climate related investments that were made under the Inflation Reduction act and under the Investment Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. And so even though the pause on all grants and loans has been blocked by two federal courts, there are these other authorities that say we're allowed to block foreign aid or pause foreign aid. We're allowed to pause these EPA grants and things like that. And those haven't really been challenged to the same degree saying your authority in the executive order to do this is bogus. And it would represent, you know, basically stealing the power of the purse away from Congress and deciding that you don't have to spend money on things you don't like. So that battle sort of remains to be seen. They haven't really pushed that yet. So that's, I think that's been lost a little bit. People think, oh, the OMB memo was rescinded and so now federal money is flowing again. And it's not true. I mean, there are still these illegal impoundments happening in violation of the Constitution, in violation of federal law, the Impoundment Control act, which sets very strict limits on when a president can delay funds that have been duly appropriated by Congress. And it violates Supreme Court precedent as well. And eventually we're going to get to a reckoning on that because that's what the Trump administration wants. They want to pick a fight over impoundment to try to get this power for themselves to unilaterally cancel certain types of spending. And so we're going to see that fight happen at the court. But you know, the really dangerous question that you asked, Crystal, whether after the end of that fight, we're still going to see an administration adhere to whatever it is the Supreme Court says that's still in question.

[Leesa]

Well, David, thank you so much for your expertise in laying all of this out. We're always really grateful for your time and it's great to see you.

[David Dayan]

You got it. Thanks a lot.

[Kristal]

On Saturday, February 22nd at 1:30pm Eastern, it's the Pro Volleyball Federation's first All Star match. The league's biggest stars will clash in a can't miss event hosted in the Indy Metro area, home of the Indy Ignite. Catch every serve, spike and save live on cbs. Don't miss this historic showdown of volleyball's finest, the Pro Volleyball Federation all star match on February 22nd at 1:30pm Be there.

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Excited to be joined this morning by Congressman Ro Khanna who found himself in a little bit of a Twitter dispute with our new God King Elon Musk. So great to have you Congressman.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Great to be back on.

[Leesa]

Yeah. So okay, let me I'll give people a little bit of the backstory, and then you can explain the full backstory. So Politico reporter put out that you had abstained from a vote that would have subpoenaed Elon Musk to come and testify about whatever he and Doge are up to at this point, that was not entirely accurate. So you clarified on Twitter, and that leads to the exchange with Elon Musk. Just give us a little bit like, what exactly happens here?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

So first, let me just get to the bottom line, which is I want Elon Musk to testify, to be transparent, to be subpoenaed, that what he's doing is blatantly unconstitutional. If I was scared about that, I would not have had on Twitter. Knowing that he follows every one of my tweets made that very, very clear.

[Leesa]

And we can put that up on the screen, by the way, you can continue talking.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

And within minutes of me putting that tweet up, he tweets back, don't be a dick. And we get into it because I said to Elon, I said this, I've said this privately to him. I've said it publicly. If you want to have an exposure of waste in the government, then the best way to do it is to have sunlight come. Do your have your findings, show them to the Congress and force us to cast up and down votes. I was, I got hammered from my party in the beginning when Musk was at Doge. I said, okay, if he has wasteful spending on the Department of Defense, I'm willing to hear him out. But the.

[Leesa]

I was one of those people that.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Yeah, so it's not like. So I got hammered. But I said, when you're doing something that's fundamentally unconstitutional, you can't be the decider of what is wasteful spending. And that is just a blatant violation of Article 1. And so, you know, I will stand up to him if and have very, very clearly. And what got noticed, actually, ironically, was my tweet, not any of the committee's efforts, because people know that I have had a relationship with him for 15 years, and I'm willing to call balls and strikes where he's wrong. I will be the loudest is standing up for the Constitution.

[Ryan]

How did you meet him? Do you remember your first interaction with him? He did represent Silicon Valley for people.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

He does. He's never supported me in terms of politically because he actually wasn't very, very political. But I met him. He blurred my first book when I wrote a book about manufacturing in the United States. And someone, Esther Wojcicki, who's known in the Valley, introduced me to him. He blurbs the book. And then we got into it on Tesla because he was begging Anna Eshoo, who's the neighboring member of Congress from Silicon Valley, for a Tesla loan from the Obama administration. I was in the Obama administration.

[Ryan]

You were Commerce Department.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Commerce Department. And there are those of us saying, well, okay, but you need labor neutrality. And we don't get labor neutrality out of it. But I'm active on the record in Fremont saying that Tesla should unionize. And so he knew we've known each other for years, but I've said Tesla obviously was a great company in terms of electric vehicles, but should unionize it. So I've known him for many, many years.

[Leesa]

What do you think he wants?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

You know, he's maniacal about when he believes in something. I mean, this is those people who say, okay, he's just in it for financial reasons. That's not my read on him, though. I think he should have financial disclosures like I do, and there shouldn't be conflict of interest and he shouldn't be the one deciding. But I think what he believes that he's out there in a mission to save the American people for $36 million of deficit. And it's actually a bigger problem, because when you have an ideological drive like that and when you're Elon Musk and you believe that you've been right time and time again in the private sector when other people have been wrong, he's basically thinking, okay, Khanna, standing in my way. I'm doing great service for humanity, and anyone is in my way is going to be roadkill. And that's why it's so important to stand up to him. And to stand up very, very clearly and say, this is unconstitutional.

[Ryan]

Having the richest man on the planet also be one of the most powerful people in the federal government is itself a unique situation. But he also controls X Twitter, which still, despite his best efforts, is a central organizing platform for how we understand public sentiment. And so I'm curious if your colleagues, or you think about his power over that platform as your colleagues think about how hard to go after him. Because he could, with the flick of.

[Leesa]

A switch, he could nuke you on Twitter.

[Ryan]

He could nuke you on Twitter.

[Leesa]

He did.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

I knew he would. Right.

[Leesa]

No, but he could suspend you, or.

[Ryan]

All of a sudden you're getting two likes and one retweet.

[Leesa]

All of a sudden your follower count starts to go down and people aren't really seeing your tweets anymore. I mean, this has happened to many people who have come after him on Twitter, right?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

No, I mean, look, in my case, my reply to him saying, don't be a dick got more views than his actual tweet. So, I mean, in my case, so far at least he hasn't done that type of censorship. But I do think it's a problem more generally, which is why we need many more platforms, which is one of the reasons I was defending TikTok and saying that we shouldn't ban TikTok and we shouldn't have Musk or Meta acquire TikTok because you need alternative social media platforms. And I think TikTok actually is a place where we've gotten the most response, frankly, on standing up to Musk. And we need more social media platforms so we can push back on Musk, et cetera. That's going to be important on the platform. But what we really need is antitrust enforcement and more platforms coming up where progressives can have a voice.

[Leesa]

One of the things Ryan and I were talking about is like, Elon describes what he's doing as a revolution. And I think that's accurate. I mean, you don't go into the Treasury Department and now we have new reporting that they are changing the code that they. The New York Times says that there were emails flying around saying we want to use our access to the treasury payment system to freeze funding to usaid. I don't have to tell you that USAID is authorized by Congress as an independent agency. Elon Musk and no one else. Donald Trump can't just single handedly say, we don't like this agency, we're getting rid of it, or we're subsuming it understate, et cetera, et cetera. They're doing that. They've gone into the center for Medicare and Medicaid, into noaa, gsa, the list goes on and on. And none of this congressionally authorized. It's obviously a constitutional crisis. They have a broader plan to have this go to the courts. Whether they even abide by court decisions is an open question. I think as well, there's already indications that some of the court injunctions are already being ignored. So while he's doing what he describes as a revolution we were earlier talking about, they're trying to keep themselves free from foia. I mean, it just feels so small ball compared to the grand plan that they are executing before our eyes.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Yeah.

[Leesa]

So how are you grappling with that as a member of Congress? And what are the conversations, like among your colleagues about how to, about the gravity of this threat.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Right.

[Leesa]

And how to truly push back against it in a way that's not just gonna be sort of like impotent or pointing to like, you weren't confirmed by the Senate and where's my FOIA request?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Right? Well, you're asking what people in my district around the country are asking, which is what the hell's the plan and why don't we have a clear plan from the Democratic Party to meet the moment? Because I think you actually understand Elon really well. He views this as revolutionary. He views this as, there's a $36 trillion debt and Congress has been part of the problem. And that he's not just going to be some bureaucrat who gives a report to Congress. Cuz that's what he. When you say, well, why don't you just get the transparency and the sunlight? He's like, I'm not just going to just give some report to Congress that they're going to disregard. And I'm going to try to, to stop this.

[Leesa]

I'm going to be CEO of the country and rule it in the same dictatorial way that he rules Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, et cetera.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

And one is a company. I mean, fine, maybe a great company, but a company is not even a few pages in the American story. Right? This is a much, much bigger thing. This is a country that won the Revolutionary War, that wins the Civil War, that WINS World War II, wins the Cold War. It's the greatest enterprise ever. So. So you can't have one individual do it. But I say that so we understand his psychology. And it needs a equally tough response. What is that response here? It needs to come down first to the debt ceiling. We need to have every House Democrat and Senate Democrat say we will not give a single vote to the debt ceiling increase unless Donald Trump. Trump in the beginning commits in ironclad writing that he will spend every single dollar that is appropriated and authorized by Congress and honor the Congress on every agency. And you know what? Donald Trump's going to fold. You know why he's going to fold? Because when the stock market went down 500 points, he folded to Prime Minister Trudeau and he folded to President Shane Bomb. And the reality is that the Democrats need to be strong. Who's asserting the will of Congress like it's not. We're going to go FOIA request. It's like you want to crash the economy, then defy the will of Congress.

[Leesa]

Well, let me, let me ask you a question. About that, because, again, they have control of the treasury payment system. So what is the response if they say, okay, that's fine, we just are going to ignore the debt ceiling and we're going to just pay the bills.

[Ryan]

14Th amendment.

[Leesa]

We're just going to pay the bills that we want to pay. We just want to pay the bills that we want to pay. And, you know, I mean, I think the debt ceiling is a ridiculous, you know, absurdity that we even have it.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Right.

[Leesa]

And so you could easily say Trump saying, we're just not doing that anymore and we're gonna at treasury, like, pick and choose what funds go out as they already say they are doing and wanna do.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Well, I think if they actually do that, they're gonna lose the Chip Roys. I mean, where Chip Roy and others would come in and say impeachment or other things. I genuinely think there are 30 for.

[Leesa]

Me to believe, Congressman.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Well, I'm not talking about the average Republican, but there are 30 people in the Republican caucus, the Freedom Caucus, who have stood up to him. They stood up to Elon Musk before Trump was inaugurated. And they said, Elon said, let's blow up, you know, this deal. And they stood up to him on that.

[Leesa]

And I can I tell you what I'm looking at. You know, Pete Hegseth was his, his confirmation was in big trouble. And Joni Ernst in particular, who is herself a sexual assault survivor and was deeply concerned about his comments saying women can't serve in the military, etc. She seemed like she was a no. And then Elon comes out and says, I will drop an infinite amount of money on the head of anyone who opposes any of the confirmations. And lo and behold, Pete Hegseth looks like all of them are going to ultimately get through. So I just don't see, I mean, even with the, you know, the spending flap that happened in December.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Yeah.

[Leesa]

I mean, Elon drove that whole train and again threatened to use his billions and billions, you know, soon to be probably trillions of dollars to primary anyone who didn't give him the bill that he wanted. And it worked. Chip Roy and all the rest folded like a, you know, like a deck of cards.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

They didn't fold on increasing the debt ceiling. And Elon didn't get a dollar actually saved.

[Leesa]

Now, I think he got his. The restriction on investment in China, China.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Taken out that he may very well have. I'm not saying that he doesn't have influence, but I think if you have a group of House members, 20 to 30 in relatively safe districts. And you see Elon's numbers have been declining. I mean, he's. The big question for Trump is how long is he gonna have someone who is as unpopular as Elon is becoming? I do think the House can assert back, and at the very least the House, we need to have a plan of what we're going to do to take the fight to Trump. Now maybe you're saying, okay, we take this fight and then Trump makes a countermove. Right now, I think why people are so upset is they don't see us having a real plan. I mean, at least Shatz, Senator Schatz had a plan. He said, okay, I'm going to put a hold on every nominee to the State Department, including Stefanik. But what we need from our leaders is three or four things that says we are going to assert the power of Congress. We're going to punch back in terms of our power, and then we're going to wait for Trump to make the next move. The only people who are winning against Trump are President Shane Boom and Trudeau. They're the only ones who've gotten to fold on anything.

[Ryan]

Is there any regret among Democrats? So the other day, while oversight was doing whatever it was doing, AOC was having an Instagram live that had tens of thousands of people tuning in. She's clearly still one of the party's.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Leading messengers, one of the best communicators. Authentic.

[Ryan]

And you watch some of these rallies. No offense, just deeply cringe stuff coming out of Democrats.

[Leesa]

Schumer was not made for this moment.

[Ryan]

Al Green was shaking his cane. Any regret from your colleagues telling aoc, getting the back of the line? Like, because it's not as if Democrats aren't doing things. Like, there are a million lawsuits that have been filed. Like, lots of things are happening and people are active, but there's no national voice now.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Well, let me. Let's take an example. This oversight hearing. The fact is, everyone is yawning about the subpoena until I tweet out that Musk should be subpoenaed because of the missed vote. And then Musk replies, imagine if AOC was the ranking member leading that. It would have been a very different case. That would have been national news.

[Ryan]

And he's fighting with her because. He's fighting with her because he loves to fight with her.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

He loves to fight with her. He would have. She would have said something. He would have responded. That would have been national news. It would have been.

[Ryan]

Democrats would look like they're doing something right.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

It wouldn't have Taken my missed vote to provoke that. So I think it was such a blunder not to put it there, what I said to moderate Democrats, because I was one of the first out of the gate to endorse her support her rally support for her. And I said, okay, you disagree, I get it. You disagree with AOC and her position on Gaza, you disagree on immigration, but she is not running to be ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. She is not running to be ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. She is running to be ranking member of the committee that punches Donald Trump. Isn't this the role where she would be the best in our caucus? And, I mean, this is where the Democrats need to get the next generation out there. The optics of some of the stuff at the rallies has just been cringe. I mean, because it looks ineffectual. It's not an actual plan. And it doesn't look like we're flexing our power like Congress. You know, it's not like J.D. vance and Donald Trump are out there protesting Congress. They're saying, we have power. Well, we need to act like we have power. We do. We have the power of the purse, and we have the power of votes and confirmation, and we need to stand together.

[Leesa]

What are you hearing most from your constituents? Like, what kind of, first of all, are you getting, like, a flood of calls? Is there a lot of energy? What are you hearing from them? What are their concerns? What are they? You know, what is that vibe like?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

So for two months after the loss to Trump, it was pretty muted. But as soon as Trump became president and Musk stopped those payments, I think a light bulb went off. And in my last town hall this weekend, over 600 people showed up, people holding up signs, stop the coup. Stop the Musk coup. In a sense, bluntly, that the Democratic leadership has not been tough enough. That we are. Our response has not been and clear enough. I do think Hakeem has an opportunity to be the voice, because it's not coming out of the Senate. I think this fight in the House debt ceiling is that opportunity. And one of the things we gotta do. Yes, take on Musk, but we also need to take on Vance and Trump. I mean, they're the ones who are ultimately responsible. And not give them a free pass on taking away funding for kids in working class neighborhoods for their schools, I mean, and taking away money for kids with special needs, then we've got to just be tougher as a party.

[Ryan]

And you've been going advance a little bit. What's your sense of his position here.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Well, I think he wants to be the nice guy. He kind of wants to be. I'm the reasonable guy. I think Tim Waltz made a huge mistake in that debate by not going after Vance. They were coached to say, just go after Trump. And Vance comes up as this, like, oh, I'm reasonable. Giving Trump the sense of that, oh, he's appointing reasonable people. And what the reality is, Vance is driving the nominations of Hegseth and Gabbard behind the scenes. He's the one pressuring the senators. Vance hasn't raised his voice once to question why we're going to get rid of all of these programs for working class kids in the Department of Education. Pell grants, Title 1 funding for decent schools. He's basically quiet. And the Democrats have an opportunity to define him for the extremist he is and not let him just kind of be this reasonable person. I mean, look at what the Republicans did to Vice President Harris.

[Leesa]

Yeah. And to Walz as well. You said that constituents showed up with signs that said, you know, stop the must coup. Like, do you think that that language is correct? Do you think it is a coup?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

I think it's a constitutional crisis. I mean, I think a coup would be if he succeeds, but I don't think he's going to succeed. I think we will push back.

[Leesa]

Ferocious. Ferocious. So we'll go with attempted coup.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

It's certainly a violation of the Constitution. You know, these terms get thrown around. And I'm not saying that it couldn't come to that if we're complacent. But if we push back and we make sure that we stand up for our constitutional prerogatives, I think we have, we have them on the defensive. I actually think they have really overreached. I was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania this past weekend. I met Traci. She's at a barbecue place. She's a part owner. She said, you know, I voted for Donald Trump. I said, that doesn't surprise me. But she said, I have some concerns. I said, why? She said, well, I voted for him because he was going to make sure that there were no taxes on overtime pay. I voted for him because he wasn't going to tax tips. I was like, wow, these messages are really getting through. I said, what about Kamala Harris? She said, you know, candidly, I considered her. I really did, but I felt she was a phony. And I said, well, what do you think now? Well, I'm concerned. My mom is in the hospital and Medicaid is maybe cut. So there is a chance to be talking to people like Tracy, we've got to go on the offensive and be willing to assert our power.

[Ryan]

Last question for me. Are you. Are you sensing any institutional prerogative from Congress? Like, like, if this continues, this idea that Elon Musk and Donald Trump can, like, pick and choose where they spend money, Congress doesn't really have a role in this. Like, three.

[Leesa]

Congress is basically irrelevant.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Congress can, I guess, Congress could, like, settle ceilings.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And then if you need more money than that, you have to go figure it out some other way. But that becomes it. And if all you're doing is setting a ceiling, you don't need you. You certainly don't need 535 members of Congress to do that. That's just two people and basically just Trump telling them what to do. So is there any sense from Republicans that, like, okay, we are ideologically and politically Republicans first, but secondly, we serve in this institution that is potentially being wiped out as a force in American politics, and we should do something about that? Is there any sense of that, or is it more. We're so partisan now that that's okay as long as the Republicans come out on top in the new system.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

So we need to make the argument you made more because where are the three Republicans that are going to stand for the institutional prerogative of Congress? And there may be, if this fight happens with the debt ceiling, I mean, it's something like a Chip Roy or something. But the reality is there's fear. And the fear is that the people who have taken on Donald Trump in the Republican Party are gone. You know, they're Adam Kissinger, they're Liz Cheney's, They're a whole list of people who are not even as famous. And the ones who have stood with Donald Trump are national security adviser and in the Cabinet and are gonna be UN Ambassador. So if you're a politician on the Republican side, the lesson is pretty clear that you stand with Donald Trump if you care about your career, and people rationalize it saying, well, he'll be there for four years and then something else will happen. And so it's a palpable fear that's not irrational about losing their jobs. And that's, I think, why they haven't spoken out.

[Leesa]

Yeah, well, and like I said before, now you have the additional enforcement mechanism of Elon Musk being willing to spend, which would be a trivial amount of his network in order to primary and take down anyone who doesn't fall in line.

[Ryan]

Right. That graveyard was filled before Trump had.

[Leesa]

Access to Musk's to unlimited, virtually unlimited money for.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

And he would spend it if he.

[Leesa]

Feels not an idle threat.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

It's not an idle threat. And it's a. And for a House race that can, you know, $10 million, $20 million, even if you don't beat an incumbent, you know, people, this is, you instill an enormous amount of, amount of fear.

[Leesa]

Yeah.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

So, you know, we're in a situation where this is a real, real fight for constitutional democracy. And I think what people are frustrated that watch probably breaking points or come to my town halls is they don't see the Democratic Party right now rising to the moment, understanding the stakes, taking on the fight, having a clear plan and saying, okay, we're going to push back.

[Leesa]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're really on the, on the Elon Musk, Doge side. They're, as Ryan said to me, they're really going for it.

[Ryan]

I think it's pronounced doggy.

[Leesa]

I prefer that pronunciation. Doge is the other one you go with. They're really going for it. You know, they're. Now, there are no guarantees they'll succeed, but they are mounting a revolution. And so people want to see a response that is commensurate with that, with that true threat. So, Carson, we always appreciate your time.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Leesa]

I guess it worked out for you to miss that vote since it drew attention to the whole situation. You guys drew attention. Thank you, Gaggerton.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Thank you.

[Ryan]

All right, that's it for today. Tomorrow, Emily and I have our interview with Natalie Winters that'll be up for premium subscribers later today. Up for everybody else, the freeloaders tomorrow. She is the war room, Steve Bannon's war room White House correspondent. It was a fascinating and wide ranging conversation.

[Leesa]

Could you get us an interview with Steve Bannon? Cause I would kind of like that.

[Ryan]

I'll ask her. Sure. That'd be fun.

[Leesa]

Yeah, make that maybe get both of them for us. That'd be very interesting. So in any case, Ryan, thank you so much for filling in and stay tuned for that tomorrow. And we will see you guys next.

[David Dayan]

Week.

[Kristal]

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[Congressman Ro Khanna]

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[Ryan]

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[Congressman Ro Khanna]

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