3/10/25: Trump Refuses To Rule Out Recession, Elon Rubio Infighting Over DOGE, Trump Tariffs Save Canadian Liberals

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Released March 10, 2025

Hosts: Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti
Publisher: iHeartPodcasts
Title: Trump Refuses To Rule Out Recession, Elon Rubio Infighting Over DOGE, Trump Tariffs Save Canadian Liberals

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this compelling episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, the hosts delve into a spectrum of pressing political and economic issues shaping the United States and its international relations. From President Trump's ambiguous stance on a potential recession to intense cabinet infighting involving Elon Musk and Marco Rubio over Dogecoin (DOGE), and the ripple effects of Trump's tariffs on Canadian politics, Ball and Enjeti offer incisive analysis and insights.

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2. President Trump's Economic Outlook and Potential Recession

Timestamp: 04:43 – 11:12

Krystal and Saagar kick off the discussion by examining President Trump's recent interview where he refrains from ruling out the possibility of a recession. This uncertainty is largely attributed to the administration's tariff policies and other economic strategies.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (05:29): "Donald Trump has given an interview now which is nothing short of extraordinary, asked to rule out a recession as a result of the tariffs and as a result of some of the other problems that we have right now in the economy."

The hosts analyze the stock market's performance under Trump's administration, noting a 5% decline in the S&P 500 over the last month, juxtaposed with a 12% increase over the past year. They discuss how Wall Street's short-term focus may overlook longer-term economic fundamentals.

• Saagar (08:55): "The issue is that people have got to really feel as if you're presenting a genuine alternative and doing everything possible to actually change the circumstances of their lives."

Krystal emphasizes the need for comprehensive policy changes beyond tax cuts to address economic disparities and prevent further decline in consumer confidence.

---

3. Elon Musk and Marco Rubio's Infighting Over DOGE and Government Efficiency

Timestamp: 39:07 – 53:54

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the tumultuous cabinet meeting between Elon Musk and Senator Marco Rubio, centered around DOGE and agency management. The confrontation highlights internal conflicts within the administration regarding the direction of economic and technological policies.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (41:57): "Rubio has been privately furious with Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was under Rubio's control, USAID."

The discussion outlines how Musk's aggressive management style has clashed with traditional cabinet roles, leading to public disputes over agency staffing and operational control.

• Saagar (43:37): "Sean Duffy, Department of Transportation, FAA, is under him. That is one of the departments that Elon has taken the most interest in."

Krystal and Saagar critique Musk's approach to federal agency management, arguing that his methods undermine established governmental structures and lead to inefficiencies.

---

4. Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on Canadian Politics and Nationalism

Timestamp: 62:02 – 75:57

The episode transitions to examining how Trump's imposition of tariffs has inadvertently bolstered Canadian nationalism and revitalized the Liberal Party in Canada. The hosts discuss Trudeau's leadership challenges and the strategic shifts within Canadian politics in response to American economic pressures.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (72:19): "Pierre Poilievre... he is really trying to distance himself from Trump and said he is, quote, not MAGA."

The analysis includes the rise of new Canadian leaders like Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre, who navigate the complexities of responding to Trump's aggressive trade policies while maintaining Canada's economic stability.

• Saagar (73:19): "The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and... will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."

Krystal notes how Canadian leaders are adopting firm stances to protect their national interests, leading to increased tensions and potential shifts in North American economic alliances.

---

5. Social Safety Net Cuts and Medicaid Implications

Timestamp: 26:04 – 55:55

A critical discussion ensues on the Trump administration's plans to cut the social safety net, particularly focusing on Medicaid. The hosts argue that these cuts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, exacerbating economic inequalities.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (55:12): "If you put in work requirements, that's about $100 billion. So you still have $700 billion more that you are going to cut."

The conversation highlights the administration's strategy to reduce government spending through substantial Medicaid cuts, coupled with wage suppression tactics aimed at controlling inflation. Both hosts express concern over the long-term societal impacts of these policies.

---

6. Geopolitical Tensions: Syria, Iran, and Canada

Timestamp: 06:08 – 14:03

Krystal and Saagar explore ongoing geopolitical conflicts, including the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Trump's attempts to negotiate a deal with Iran amidst widespread skepticism from the international community.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (06:47): "You're going to have to raise prices and commit to undermine your American consumers to fight inflation."

They also discuss the strained relations with Canada over border treaties and territorial disputes, questioning Trump's intentions and the feasibility of altering longstanding international agreements.

---

7. Columbia University Funding Cuts and Arrests

Timestamp: 14:03 – 29:42

The hosts address the Trump administration's controversial decision to strip Columbia University of $400 million in federal funding and the subsequent arrest of a pro-Palestine protest leader. This segment underscores the administration's aggressive stance on higher education and political dissent.

• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (29:43): "The same time in the Middle East, Trump is trying to negotiate a new deal with Iran. Maybe so far Iran has rejected that outreach, saying basically like why should we trust you?"

Ball and Enjeti critique the administration's actions as detrimental to academic freedom and political expression, raising alarms about the potential for increased authoritarianism.

---

8. Future Implications and Concluding Thoughts

Timestamp: 77:02 – 80:22

In wrapping up, Krystal and Saagar reflect on the broader implications of Trump's policies and internal government conflicts. They project possible outcomes for the U.S. economy, political stability, and international relations, emphasizing the precarious balance between economic growth and social welfare.

• Notable Quote:
  Saagar (58:08): "None of it is coherent whatsoever. And it's not even like he's a senior member of the White House staff."

The hosts call for increased vigilance and advocacy to counteract policies that favor the wealthy at the expense of the average American, urging listeners to remain informed and engaged.

---

Key Takeaways

• President Trump's ambiguous stance on a potential recession raises concerns about the administration's economic policies and their long-term sustainability.
• Infighting between Elon Musk and Marco Rubio highlights deeper issues within the administration regarding control over federal agencies and economic strategies.
• Trump's tariffs have inadvertently strengthened Canadian nationalism, revitalizing the Liberal Party and complicating North American economic relations.
• Cuts to the social safety net, particularly Medicaid, are poised to disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, exacerbating economic disparities.
• Geopolitical tensions with countries like Iran and Canada underscore the complexities of Trump's foreign policy approach.
• The administration's actions against academic institutions and political dissenters signal a troubling trend towards increased authoritarianism.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Krystal Ball (05:29): "Donald Trump has given an interview now which is nothing short of extraordinary, asked to rule out a recession as a result of the tariffs..."
• Saagar Enjeti (08:55): "The issue is that people have got to really feel as if you're presenting a genuine alternative..."
• Krystal Ball (41:57): "Rubio has been privately furious with Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency..."
• Saagar Enjeti (43:37): "Sean Duffy, Department of Transportation, FAA, is under him. That is one of the departments that Elon has taken the most interest in."
• Krystal Ball (55:12): "If you put in work requirements, that's about $100 billion. So you still have $700 billion more that you are going to cut."
• Saagar Enjeti (58:08): "None of it is coherent whatsoever. And it's not even like he's a senior member of the White House staff."

---

This episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar offers a thorough examination of the intersection between economic policies, political infighting, and international relations under the Trump administration. The hosts skillfully navigate complex topics, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of the current political landscape.

Transcript

[Matt]

Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm Leah and we're from the Grown Up Stuff Podcast. And just in time for tax season. On this week's episode, we're chatting with CPA Lisa Green Lewis about how small businesses can tackle their taxes using TurboTax Business.

[Leah]

A Forbes study mentioned that a whopping 93% of small businesses overpay their taxes and 17% of Gen Zers believed that you could write off any expense as a business expense.

[Matt]

So can't blame them.

[Leah]

It's really important to do your taxes.

[Matt]

Listen to Grown up stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Grown Up Stuff At Lowe's our members get more with the Mylo's rewards programs. You can shop member only deals for your home and business every week. Plus members earn points on eligible purchases. Members so what are you waiting for? Join for free today Lowes we help you save loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. [e-mail] Terms subject to change Free standard shipping not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusions and more terms apply with the.

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[Matt]

[e-mail] hey guys, Sager and Krystal here.

[Leah]

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[Matt]

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[Leah]

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.

[Matt]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Have an amazing show everybody. Say what do we have?

[Leah]

First of all, indeed we do many things to get to this morning so Trump will not rule out a recession. We'll tell you what the hell is going on there? As best as we can figure anyway, we're going to take you inside that cabinet meeting showdown. Marco Rubio versus Elon Musk Musk. Sean Duffy also getting in the mix. So some interesting things happening there. What does it mean for the future of Doge Canada had elections. The Liberal Party there elected their new leader. So he will be the prime minister until they call new elections. There has been a dramatic turnaround in fortunes for the Liberal Party since Trump started threatening them with significant tariffs. So really interesting dynamics there too. Civilians are being mass slaughtered in Syria. Story you will not hear in the mainstream press. We will take you inside. What's going on there. Just really shocking images and footage that we can reveal here. Not for the faint of heart whatsoever. The same time in Middle East, Trump is trying to negotiate a new deal with Iran. Maybe so far Iran has rejected that outreach, saying basically like why should we trust you? We had a deal with you before. How did that go? But still an interesting development and certainly one to track there. We are also following this situation with Columbia University. The Trump administration has stripped them of $400 million in federal funding and they have arrested, DHS has arrested, essentially disappeared. At this point we don't know where this guy is. A green card holder who was a leader of pro Palestine protest on campus. So obviously a horrific situation there. And I'm taking a look at Tim Walls spilling the tea on the Kamala campaign and what might be next for him.

[Matt]

That's right. Can't wait to listen to that one especially. There's been a lot of discourse in the Democratic universe over his interview, which I've been enjoying absolutely thoroughly. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to the. We really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. We've been working extra hard here. We've got five days a week now of coverage here at Breaking Points. So go ahead breakingpoints.com you can become a premium subscriber and just had to say we will overcome this time change, my fellow morning folks. It's a difficult time out there. Crystal I will be happy to report traffic was much better today despite Elon's return to work mandate. My theory is that people are too lazy to get up in the dark. So maybe I am pro Daylight savings time because people don't want to commute whenever it's very dark. But for the rest of us, for the rest of us who have to get up, no matter what it is, we shall overcome this.

[Leah]

I wonder if some of the Agencies, though, because one of the things is like, they just literally don't have space for all the work.

[Matt]

That's right.

[Leah]

To actually be a work. So I wonder if it's also partly the agencies reasserting themselves and being like, you know, some of y'all actually don't need to come in.

[Matt]

I'll save some of this for the Cabinet, but I spent the weekend, I talked to a couple of folks who are actually victims of the return to office mandate. And it's, it's actually unbelievable. If I were one of them, not only would I quit and take that buyout, I would, I would be absolutely furious. So that is a secondary conversation that we can get to. But let's turn now to recession watch. So Donald Trump has given an interview now which is nothing short of extraordinary, asked to rule out a recession as a result of the tariffs and as a result of some of the other problems that we have right now in the economy. And he's basically not saying no. So let's take a listen. And I want to ask you about.

[Leah]

Ukraine and the blow up the other day with Zelensky.

[Matt]

Let me stay on the economy for.

[Leah]

A moment because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve say we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a.

[Matt]

Mess and you said that the other day.

[Leah]

I've only been here. Are you expecting a recession this year? I hate to predict things like that.

[Matt]

There is a period of transition because.

[Leah]

What we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America.

[Matt]

That's a big thing.

[Leah]

And there are always periods of.

[Matt]

It takes a little time. It takes a little time.

[Leah]

But I don't, I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great. It's going to be great ultimately for the farmer. You know, don't forget, I mean, before you came into the Oval Office the.

[Matt]

First time, you were a very successful.

[Leah]

Businessman, very successful real estate executive. And a lot of people said, oh, this is the business president.

[Matt]

This is it. He's watching the stock market. He knows all about, you know, he.

[Leah]

Doesn'T want the market to go down. And now we've got tariffs and the.

[Matt]

Market has been going down.

[Leah]

Well, not much. I mean, in all fairness, you said.

[Matt]

Look, we're going to have a disruption.

[Leah]

But we're okay with that.

[Matt]

Is that what you meant?

[Leah]

The stock market going down was the disruption. What other disruption were you alluding to? Look, what I have to do is.

[Matt]

Build a strong country.

[Leah]

You can't really watch the stock market.

[Matt]

If you look at China, they have.

[Leah]

A hundred year perspective.

[Matt]

If you look at. What did he say? If you look at Canada, they have a hundred year perspective. Oh, is that what you say, China? Because if you said China, that's correct.

[Leah]

That makes sense.

[Matt]

You said Canada. Not so sure about that. I mean, look, the truth is is that the stock market S and P in the last month is down by about 5%. I guess to be fair to Trump, it's down because it went up after he was elected. The market didn't necessarily expect him to be like this. If you look at the last one year, you know, the S and P still up by some 12% or so. But you know, this is the problem for Trump is that people are not really that people are not that retrospective, especially people on Wall street. It's all quarter by quarter and you gotta look at it now. And it's what have you done for me lately? That's how Americans are. And I think the real problem with some of that talk again is I don't disagree at all. Of course. How many times have we Jo about stock market is a graph of rich people's feelings, et cetera. We're gonna get to some comments by Scott Besnant, the Secretary of the treasury, about how the American dream should not be consumption based. Could not agree more. The issue is that people have got to really feel as if you're presenting a genuine alternative and doing everything possible to actually change the circumstances of their lives. And if we don't have more policy now and in the future, like with the tax bill and others that are not combined not only with just industrialization, but with immediate relief and feeling as if you're fighting, fighting for the average common working person, then you're going to have the divergence where you both will have more difficult consumption, you'll have worse unemployment data, high home prices and no change to your fundamentals and your overall retirement portfolio will go down. I mean you should not forget we are swimming up against 75 years of basically so called free trade policy and the consumption based economy. It's basically the dream that was sold to the American people. And it's not even a dream anymore, they believe it. If anything, it's the conditions of their lives. So you have to basically not only take a whole of government approach, you're also trying to change the American culture at the very same time. And I'm not somebody who would ever bet against telling Americans that actually recession could Be fine. And yeah, you should just go ahead and change your consumption based patterns that you've had for your entire life. Not usually a good way to get elected. What do I know?

[Leah]

It was a shocking response. It was crazy to get asked point blank, are we going to avoid a recession? And he's like, maybe. Well, I don't like to predict that. I mean that is wild. And it does give credence to, you know, the idea that actually they sort of want to maybe not necessarily spark a recession, but certainly to spark a slowdown. And the theory here is basically that the tariffs, without some sort of significant slowdown, crushing of people's wages and ability to consume, and that goes along with slashing the government social safety net and all the austerity that Elon is bringing to bear for regular people. Of course rich people are getting their tax cut and they're getting their regulators gutted and all that sort of stuff. But for regular people, this mass auster, the theory is that if you do tariffs without doing that, then you get inflation. So they've decided that the way to crush inflation is basically to screw you over and make it so that you don't have money to spend. That's the sort of theory. And I have to say with his answer like this, that sounds kind of correct at this point. Not to mention that you have heard. I think it's Scott Besant who has said things are very similar and more sort of like technical economic jargon. I do think at this point that that is probably the plan. We could talk more about this once we play Besant saying like, oh, the American dream shouldn't just be like cheap consumer goods. True. But your agenda that you've laid out and that you're implementing is to shift the economy even more in the direction of the wealthy through those tax cuts, through the social safety net cuts, through getting rid effectively of the cfpb, gutting the sec, gutting enforcement through things like we're gonna have this crypto reserve fund that we can use to funnel public resources into backstopping the crypto bags of billionaires through even the foreign policy, which is all geared towards creating new areas of potential exploitation for the rich. So yes, the economy should be rebalanced. Yes, the core of American prosperity shouldn't just be how much cheap goods can we get at Walmart, but you're going in the total opposite direction of that and just tilting the economy even more in the direction of the rich. It's sort of like Reaganomics and Paul Ryan on steroids.

[Matt]

Well, it's just very confused. And I think that's the easiest way to put it. And if things are confused, people are not going to read the best intentions into it. Now you also have the commerce Secretary who has had some wild moments on television. First of all, he did say there will not be a recession, while Trump did not rule it out. But he also went off about AI and robots. So, guys, let's go ahead and play these two sides back to back just so people can get a full taste that our economy is in very good hands right now. Let's go ahead and play Howard Ludnick.

[Leah]

Anybody who bets against Donald Trump, it's like the same people who thought Donald Trump wasn't a winner a year ago. Donald Trump is a winner. He's going to win for the American people. That's just the way it's going to be. There's going to be no recession in America. What there's going to be is global tariffs are going to come down because President Trump has said, you want to charge us 100%, we're going to charge you 100%. You know what they say?

[Matt]

They say, no, no, no, no, no. Don't charge us 100%.

[Leah]

We'll bring ours down. We'll unleash America out to the world, grow our economy in a way we've never grown before. You are going to see over the next two years the greatest set of growth coming from America as Americans. You saw it, 1.3 trillion of new investment coming in America. That speak of all those jobs. And remember, each trillion of investment in.

[Matt]

America is 1% of growth GDP.

[Leah]

So Donald Trump is bringing growth, growth to America. I would never bet on recession.

[Matt]

No chance. Do you think by moving everything back as you describe it, that they're going to be able to be competitive globally? Aren't prices ultimately going to actually have to rise?

[Leah]

I think if you want to buy things from other countries and you want to bring it into America, then the price is going to rise. But if you make it here, then of course the price won't rise. So make it here, make it here.

[Matt]

How hard is that to say?

[Leah]

You know, just keep repeating it to yourself. There's no tariff if you make it here. So tsmc, the biggest chip manufacturer says, okay, okay, I'll make it here. You're going to watch everybody come to that realization. Apple, who builds it all in China, Why are they building it all in China and giving us our iPhone? Why don't they make it here? You know, they used to say, we don't have it's cheaper.

[Matt]

One answer, Mr. Secretary is that wages are lower over there and now there.

[Leah]

Are robots who can do it. You're going to see robotic production of iPhones and the jobs that are going to be created, people who build those factories, the mechanics who work on those robots, these jobs are going to be millions and millions of those jobs. These are great high paying jobs and you don't need a college education to do it.

[Matt]

So yeah, that's what we're dealing with. Okay, I got it.

[Leah]

This is not gonna do the job. Wait a sec. I mean you're build a robot so it's gonna be great. Like he kind of let the cat out of the bag with that one. That like oh, the way we can keep the prices low is just like AI and robots.

[Matt]

But that's why it drives me nuts is that it needs to if we're gonna have a coherent again. I'm very pro tariff, I'm against a lot of usmca. The truth is, is that nafta, USMCA have been devastating for the American manufacturer. Fact is that we don't build or have not only the def, the industrial base period that we have here to be like a sustainable and a real country. You know, God forbid that we ever have an actual financial crisis. We're not Russia, we're not China, we're not India. We don't have policies in place to make sure that we can function in the bad times as well as in the good. But you know, this type of talk just makes it so completely incoherent and it makes it again so that the American consumer just has no idea what to do. And when they have no idea what to do, they're gonna pull back their overall consumer spending. And actually you know, the fact is, is that you know, you accept this thing people have said, oh who cares about the stock market, it's rich people. Well I'm gonna turn it over to our treasury secretary now because here's the problem. We live in a complete bottom up economy where or sorry top down economy. 50% of all consumer spending is rich people. It's unbelievable. Right now I was looking not only at some of the Wall Street Journal stats, but luxury services for high fine hotels like first class air travel, all of you know, like Ramoa bags, all that exploding right now. But, but if you look at the bottom part of the economy, places where people have to penny pinch and others, it is devastating. And so you both are going to have consumer pareback at all levels, which is really bad. Not only for the stock market, but bad broadly.

[Leah]

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[Matt]

Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm Leah and we're from the Grown Up Stuff podcast. And just in time for tax season. On this week's episode we're chatting with CPA Lisa Green Lewis about how small businesses can tackle their taxes using TurboTax Business.

[Leah]

A Forbes study mentioned that a whopping 93% of small businesses overpay their taxes and 17% of Gen Zers believed that you could write off any expense as a business expense.

[Matt]

So can't blame them.

[Leah]

It's really important to do your taxes right.

[Matt]

Listen to Grown up stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Grown Up Stuff.

[Leah]

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[Matt]

Let's take a listen now to our Secretary of the Treasury Cody. Again he's pitching a vision very much like mine, but it has to be backed up with a lot of policy. Let's go and take a listen to Scott Bessant. Top 10% of Americans are 40 or 50% of consumption and that is an unstable equilibrium. The bottom 50% of working Americans have gotten killed.

[Leah]

We are trying to address that.

[Matt]

We're trying to get rates down and.

[Leah]

You know, could we be seeing that.

[Matt]

The this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure. And there's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public.

[Leah]

Spending to private spending.

[Matt]

The market and the economy have just become hooked and we become addicted to this government spending and there's going to.

[Leah]

Be a detox period. The United States also provides reserve assets, serves as a consumer of first and last resort, and absorbs excess supply in the face of insufficient demand. In other countries, domestic models, this system is not sustainable. Access to cheap goods is not the asset is not the essence of the American dream.

[Matt]

So I mean, look, you know, access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream. I want that to be true. It has, however, been true for the last 75 years. In fact, much of the degradation of our country is a result of that mindset, but it's baked into the culture now. We are Black Friday America. Like, let's be honest, we are Cyber Monday America. That's who we are. We have decided that those cheap things from China and all that, and in a sense, you can't necessarily blame people because all policy has been guided towards that direction. When you have no policy geared towards anything else, that's the easiest way to function in our society. But again, whenever you have major consumable goods or, sorry, major goods that are vital parts of the American life, like health insurance and, or home prices become completely unaffordable on top of education, well, what do we have? We have a complete mismatch of the things that are actually important are way too expensive and the things that are not important to your life at all are the cheaper than ever. You can thank. By the way, he was speaking at the Economic Club of New York. Ironic, because you can thank the people like that. However, again, not to beat a dead horse, but if you have tax policy which is basically geared towards giving the Economic Club of New York a huge tax cut and, or you don't have policy that's put into place which makes it so that you have more things like this that happen. Tariffs, for example, like if they took three months to do a real study of the tariffs, but then they come into place and they're strategic and they're staying and they're not part of some wish wash chaos with the markets, well, then at least you know, the American consumer, the American business, Canada, Mexico, all of us can say, all right, you know, we can negotiate, let's say on these terms. Right now it all just feels chaotic to an end. Now their defense from the White House. Their defense from the White House is this is how you actually get things done in terms of being able to just Throw things, keep the Canadians and the Mexicans or, you know, the entire world really on their feet, create chaos in the system and then work to that advantage whenever there's a vacuum. And if you had true faith that a good outcome would come as a result of that, it's possible. I still think Trump has got a decent amount of Runway. However, day after day after day, you see market down, see consumer sentiment and all of that, you're flirting with a bit of disaster the closer that we get to the first hundred days and no real action on many of the things that he ran on, like inflation and on immigration. While you also basically just have Doge as the centerpiece story of the entire country, you are very much moving away from that. We're coming up on 50 days, right? So you've only got 50 more to go. It's really not that long of a time. And so I do think that they are really flirting with fire here. And, you know, and soon enough we're going to have that tax cut. It's not that far away and that will only make things even worse.

[Leah]

And Medicaid cuts, very likely Medicaid cuts. I mean that's what they're floating is $800 billion Medicaid cuts, which will be devastating to millions of people across the country. I mean, one thing that Obamacare did, and we'll talk more about this probably later in the week, prob Republicans put forward their continuing resolution as we move closer to this potential government shutdown. But you know, the Obamacare Medicaid expansion made Medicaid much more popular because it made it, you know, it's not anywhere close to universal program, but it made it so that there was much more public buy in. So it wasn't just something that felt like it's on the fringes. Half of Americans are either on Medicaid themselves or have someone who's close to them who is on Medicaid. So this program has really become an integral part of the fabric of, you know, the healthcare system in this country. Everybody has problems with the healthcare system, but certainly they don't want to go in the direction of making it A, more expensive and B, less available. And that gets to your point, Sagar, about education, health care and housing. So if you were going to remake the social contract in America and say, you know what, the essence of the American dream isn't cheap consumer goods, what could that look like? Because I would like to move in that direction. I think cheap consumer goods have been like the opiate of the masses and really has that mindset, which is this very neoliberal mindset, really has been quite detrimental to the overall well being of Americans and especially the American working class. So what could a new social contract look like? I think it would look like, okay, things that you're buying at Walmart are gonna be more expensive, but you're gonna have universal healthcare. You're gonna have healthcare, it's gonna be in prescription drugs. You're gonna be able to just go to the doctor and get careful. Housing is going to be much more affordable. You can actually imagine yourself like, getting on that ladder of home ownership. It's going to be much more widely available. We're going to get back to an era when there was such a thing as a starter home that a person with a regular salary could afford while they're in their 20s, or at least early 30s. We're going to make it so that education is widely available, that you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt that you're taking on. And in each of those categories, the Trump administration has already made moves to make things worse. So with education, they're rolling back some of the existing student loan relief. There's of course, you know, an assault on certain institutions which could certainly translate into higher tuition. So you've got that on education. With regard to health care, you know, we rolled back one of the executive orders that the Biden administration had put in place to try to make drugs cheaper. And you have these looming cuts to Medicaid, which are going to be, you know, devastating, especially, especially in rural communities across the country. And with housing, if you're putting tariffs on building materials coming from Canada, you are very likely to have housing construction be even more expensive than it is right now. So instead of offering, okay, here's a new social contract, here's what you are going to get out of it, here's how it's going to overall improve the quality of your life, your well being, your communities, et cetera. Instead, we're getting, we're taking away the cheap consumer goods and we are pushing the economy even more in the direction of the wealthy, even more in the direction of Trump and Elon and whoever are their billionaire friends to benefit from. So that's why, when Scott Besant says that, why it is not gonna ring true for people and there would be a tremendous trust deficit to begin with. It would take an extraordinary level of proof that they're actually gonna deliver for you in these other categories. I think for people to accept, accept that new bargain at this point, but certainly not when another part of his speech was telling these bankers that we're going to cut some of the post financial crash regulations with regard to your supplementary leverage ratio and make it so that there's less regulatory landscape holding you back. And you see what they're doing with the cfpb, you see what they're doing with the sec, you see what they're doing with making sure that bad bosses can bust your union itself, et cetera. And there's nothing being offered for people in exchange for giving up those cheap consumer goods.

[Matt]

Yeah, I mean I was looking just now. Americans in 1971 spent 7.6% of their income on health care. The exact data today is a bit unclear, but GDP wise in 1971Americans spent about 7.2% of GDP on healthcare. Today it's 18%. Right. And so we've actually gotten fatter, we've gotten sicker, it's gotten worse. So I mean, look, I understand, you know, that's the Bernie Sanders vision, but like you don't even have to go that far. You could just make it like relatively affordable. Like you can make it so that. But it's not crazy. Too expensive starter homes and all that. Or you don't need free college to make college affordable. It's actually not that difficult. You just make it so that these people can't ridiculously screw over their own students with student loans. You also don't need the government backstopping all of this as well. There are a lot of different ways. But the problem again is I don't see necessarily some major changes. I will say there's one good news is that apparently the House did include a 20% tax or so on on endowments for colleges. I think it should be much higher than that. But the problem here is that then we would need to make sure that it is pegged as well to affordability so that you can avoid the tax very easily. Avoid the tax as long as percent income wise or whatever it is affordable. They're never gonna spring for that and they're lobbying as hard as they possibly can. Overall, the overall picture, it's not good. Let's go to the next one. This was from the Financial Times. I actually thought it was a very good piece and it says is this.combus 2.0. But really what she tries to argue throughout all of this is just that these crashes that end up happening not like 2008, but more like.com or a few others, they don't have a single precipitating event it's basically just a lot of different stuff that somehow just comes together in a moment, roughly either a day or maybe a month or over the last couple of months, months that make it so that you just start to ask fundamental questions and look at fundamentals and then the dream or the bubble can just get popped without any real knowledge. And what they're worried about is something we've talked about here ad nauseam, which is the makeup of the so called magnificent seven stocks in the S&P 500. And really is that they say particularly worrying for those who see parallels to 2000. Magnificent seven that powered the broader market are now in correction territory. They're down 12% from the highs that collectively hit in December. And their fourth quarter profits were not particularly bad. Investors are starting to ask more questions about the billions of dollars spent on AI data centers and power sources and how that's going to translate to overall growth. To some long term investors, that seems eerily familiar to the loss of the dot com bubble in 1999. Once funding became more expensive, loss making startups such as pet.com and webvan ran out of money. Their telecom and technology providers started destruction, pulling down the broader market and you enter a recession in March of 2001. And so again, nothing is one to one. It's just the fact that you see similar things that are happening and if the Trump administration is not careful, they will find themselves in very similar territory. That's the issue. Let's go to the final part here, which you know, I'm not really sure why we're doing this. This is a post from both Charlie Kirk and from Trump on Truth Social. It's from Charlie Kirk saying shut up about egg prices. Trump is saving consumers millions. You know the ironic part about this is the Trump administration actually did something pretty good on eggs a couple of days ago. But like Biden, they're not doing anything about it. They have the Department of Justice actually investigating egg sellers. Now. The reason why I think that they're not doing it is it sounds eerily familiar to the whole price control drama that happened during the campaign. And you and I talked about this, but remember Biden's Department of Justice went after the meatpacking in industry but they just never talked about it to anybody.

[Leah]

That's right.

[Matt]

And so Trump, look, your Department of Justice is doing something good here that's very popular to go after people who are either price gouging and look investigation. Let's see what it bears out. Are you making undue profits or you're Using bird flu as an excuse to jack things up? Or is Whole Foods. What's the real profit margin on all this stuff? You could call that communist if you want. I would say that's living in a society whenever you have one of the most subsidized industries, literally on earth. But that's the issue is at the same time, it's like, shut up about egg prices. Like, no, egg prices are way too high. Here's what I'm doing about it. Let me talk about it all the time. And instead we get doge nonsense. So, look, it's a messaging problem as much as it is a policy problem. We will find out. You know, we'll find out how. How much people are willing to put up with it. I really have no idea. Because overlying all of this is that Trump is the strongest cult of personality in modern, modern American history. People love him. If you look at Republican confidence in the economy, it's sky high right now. Like, their overall approval are they really much like a lot of Democrats were under Joe Biden. So it's really a question of both independence and of Democratic activism to see if that will be able to be overcome at a partisan level, even beyond the midterms and all that. Like, how they're gonna coalesce for whatever the argument comes in the future. So. But that's my only caveat. If anybody can survive this, it is Trump. He has more Runway than anybody other politician I've ever seen.

[Leah]

Yeah, well, I mean, certainly with his base. Like, they'll follow him into the Gatesville. It's true. Really true at this point. Listen, how are we feeling about the, like, Zelensky, Trump, White House JD Vance situation? Have you seen the chart of the way that Republican opinion changed after that meeting? Incredible. It just. It went from, like, actually liking Zelensky pretty well to falling off a cliff. Cliff over. Just that one. Like, Trump signaling, I don't like this guy. And so, yeah, they'll go. I mean, they will buy. Okay, a recession is good for us somehow. The stock market crashing is good for us somehow. It really is that, like, closely tied to him and whatever he says. But, you know, that's like 30% of the country. And then you have, obviously, Democrats hate the guy and are gonna continue to hate the guy and are going to continue to make a lot of noise about the cuts to the social safety net, the giveaways to the rich, et cetera, et cetera. He's only likely to strengthen their hand with the policy moves anticipated from here. And then you've got the independents who really swung towards Trump in this election and the sort of new swing coalitions which are more up for grabs. And so are they able to really buy into the story of the tariffs are to re industrialize America even though Trump is not even really telling that story consistently at this point? Are they able to look at the sort of glossy top line of we're making the government quote unquote more efficient and ignore the specifics of the cuts that are happening, the way they're incredibly damaging, the way they've been done with the hatchet, the way they've had to scramble and rehire people that they realized were really critical for the government. I mean that's, you know, that's the question. You guys won't be surprised which direction I think things are going to go in, especially with the economy turning increasingly sour. But you know, similar to the point that you've been making, Sourab Marijuana tweeted this and I thought this was really well said. He's like, listen, Trump came in with a mandate and trifecta and he's gonna waste it on letting banks pile up the overdraft fees on low income customers and firing vets and nuclear weapons safety specialists, then scrambling to hire them back. What even is a legislative agenda here? And I think that's well said. The first hundred day priority has been this just like doge ramming through all sorts of gutting the regulatory system and, and pushing to fire air traffic controllers as we're about to discuss in the next block, et cetera. And none of it is coherent whatsoever. I mean it does feel sometimes like you've got Trump's national populism somehow with this Frankensteinian mashup with Elon Musk's anarcho capitalism. And the whole thing is just like a dog's breakfast that somehow still is very clearly gonna benefit the rich.

[Matt]

I think about it all the time. I'm just like, how did we get here? And at first it's interesting too, cuz I was really thinking about the backlash in the beginning. I was like, look, in a certain sense the chaos is actually what a lot of people voted for. They love it. There's nothing they love more than seeing like liberals cry. But I think the reason it is starting to turn is not only the consumer sentiment and the tariffs per se, but you do have a lot of federal government employees, as I keep saying, across the country. It's the largest employer in the entire nation and everybody kind of knows somebody who works for the government. Not even here. In D.C. that's a given. But I'm saying all across the country, be it International Park Service, whatever, Pentagon contractor. And not only that, you know, I hear of a story, these are all just in my own life of somebody I know works at a private firm. It's like a marketing company. One of their major. One of their major clients was like a major U.S. government agency. So the U.S. government agency freezes all future contracts, which means what, they have layoffs at this agency. And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. That's one of the just. I mean, obviously I feel bad for those people, but I meant more on a sociological level of those people. Probably never in their lives thought about the government or Doge or whatever, you know, beyond like the way a normal person would. But that's when there's something gets touched and when something touches you. We saw this during COVID What's the most radicalizing event for a lot of people, Covid, why vax mandates, lockdowns, whatever that school closures was. School closures. Exactly. Because that's an actual concrete policy. And that was enough to turn people Republican, at least in my circles, for what it's been several years now since that happened. And the hangover effect from that has been years of political ramifications. Well, I could see the similar change if there is a slash in funding or if somebody gets laid off or somebody finds themselves genuinely materially harmed by one of these policies. Let's say there's a crash. I talk about that one a lot. Hurricane season, we'll see that one soon. And the effects of whether NOAA has something, a major international crisis which is not handled properly and troops get killed. Those are the types of things that really make and force people to change. So we will see, as I said. But I do think I can just see risk. And part of the problem is I think what a great leader should always do is to anticipate those issues. I'm just a moron. At the end of the day, it's not that difficult to come up with these scenarios in your head. These are elected officials and many of them working in professional politics, and they often wait to pounce for a great moment. You should always apply that thinking and you should do everything in your power to make sure, sure that you're not susceptible to those types of macro change events, whatever that could change your political fortunes. And so that's just generally how I've been thinking about where the organic change and the pushback may be. The Democrats were always gonna be upset, but really it's about independence and also about how people will materially feel about this at the end. And yeah, I just checked. It's been 49 days since January 20th, so tomorrow's the 50th day of Donald Trump, Trump's presidency. You really don't have that much longer left for the goodwill of the American people. And if the latter 50 days look more like the first, I think it'll be a problem for them.

[Leah]

This is Ashley A. Netti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. You could have lost 10 pounds already if you already started one month ago. So are you ready to start today? Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just 3 minutes at try fh.com try fh.com try fH.com results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet, exercise and program goals. Data based on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretion.

[Matt]

Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm Leah and we're from the Grown Up Stuff podcast. And just in time for tax season. On this week's episode we're chatting with CPA Lisa Green Lewis about how small businesses can tackle their taxes using TurboTax business.

[Leah]

A Forbes study mentioned that a whopping 93% of small businesses overpay their tax and 17% of Gen Zers believed that you could write off any expense as a business expense.

[Matt]

So can't blame them.

[Leah]

It's really important to do your taxes right.

[Matt]

Listen to Grown up stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Grown Up Stuff.

[Leah]

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[Matt]

Let's get to the cabinet, shall we? All right, this is an extraordinary showdown in the Cabinet meeting. We're getting some Details here. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. Apparently, in this Cabinet meeting, which was convened by Donald Trump over tensions inside of Doge, Marco Rubio had a complete standoff with Elon Musk. And you'd be surprised, which is not just over over Doge and the State Department, but it was also over USAID and more broadly about Cabinet level authority. So let me just read from some of this here. He was in the Cabinet Room of the Oval Office, the White House Secretary of State seated beside the president, listening to a litany, attacks from the richest man in the world. Seated diagonally opposite across the elliptical mahogany table, Elon Musk was letting Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired nobody, Mr. Musk told Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps he was. The only person he had fired was a staff member from Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Rubio has been privately furious with Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was under Rubio's control, usaid. But in an extraordinary Cabinet meeting in front of President Trump and 20 others, details of which have not been reported, Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest. Musk was not being truthful, Rubio said. What about the more than 1500 State Department officials who took the buyouts? Did they not count as layoff? He asked sarcastically whether Musk wanted to rehire them so that he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing. The State Department was unimpressed. He told Rubio he was on good tv, good on tv, with a clear subtext that he was not good for much else. Throughout all of this, the president sat back in his chair as if he were watching a tennis match. After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable amount of time, Trump finally intervened to defend Rubio as, quote, doing a great job. So Rubio has a lot to deal with. He's very busy, he's always traveling, so everyone just needs to work together. That was only one of two clashes, apparently, that happened inside that meeting. The second was actually between Sean Duffy and Elon Musk. Sean Duffy is the Secretary of Transportation. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk's team were trying to lay off air traffic controllers. Quote, what am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers. Musk told Duffy his assertion was a lie. Duffy insisted it was not and he had heard from them directly. Musk said, who has been fired? Give me their names, tell me their names. Duffy said, there are no names because I stopped them from being fired. At another point, Musk insisted people were hired under DEI programs working in control towers. Duffy pushed back, and Musk did not add any details, but said in the longer back and forth that Duffy had his phone number and should call him if they had any issues to raise. The exchange added with Trump telling Duffy he had to hire people from MIT and that the people and the controllers need to be geniuses. I guess we can agree with that one. And, you know, just a little bit of. We're just taking a look at what exactly.

[Leah]

Duff Daddy had no use for these highfalutin, you know, universities like mit.

[Matt]

No, no, we want the best of the best. Mit, by the way, has got no affirmative action in place. So shout out to mit. Let's go to the next one here, just to show you some of the fallout. Elon is no longer following Secretary Duffy on his personal account. So he's a very petty man.

[Leah]

Teenage girl.

[Matt]

The point being that there's been some flare ups here in the background. Now, how it all works, I don't actually know because at the same time, if you read the article, Trump did back up Elon saying, at the end of the day, like, if they're not firing enough people, Elon, you get it done, or Elon will. But he also was trying to telegraph at the same time that the Cabinet officials themselves are the ones with the ultimate authority to hire and fire. And this is a Washington tale as old as time. Who has jurisdiction? Who are the people who are actually in charge of the government? And usually it's the Cabinet secretary. But when the White House, and in this case Doge under Elon, is trying to take control over this, not only causing political problems, but also, like, extra judicial problems in terms of, like, who has the authority to do this and whether Elon's technically in charge of Doge or not. This was the overall end result. In some sense. This is what Trump loves. You know, he loves the drama and he loves all of that.

[Leah]

He likes how these factions fight. And they talk in here about how he was sitting back and watching this like he was watching a tennis match.

[Matt]

There's nothing he loves more than that. But, you know, it's funny if it's something stupid like Omarosa versus John Kelly, but it's not funny whenever it's about, you know, major government programs like air traffic control controllers. So that's where I think there's a little bit of an issue right now.

[Leah]

So there's an update this morning. I don't know if you saw this. Marco Rubio has a new pinned tweet which says after a six week review, we're officially canceling 83% of the programs at USAID. The 5,200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve and in some cases even harmed the core national interests of the U.S. in consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs are keeping approximately 1,000 to be administered under, more effectively under the State Department. Thank you to Doge and our hard working, who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform. And Elon replied, tough but necessary. Good working with you. The important parts of USAID should always have been with Department of State. So Rubio there trying to signal to the Doge fans that, no, he's on board, he's a good Doge ally. And it seems like they sort of kissed and made up in terms of the Twitter back and forth. But some of the backstory with Rubio I think has to come down to as well. Well, when pepfar funding was cut and there was a backlash, Rubio signed a waiver saying, no, no, these funds still need to go out. But the funds still did not go out. So it was like he had actually no control over the agency that he was running. And I'm sure that and things that we have no idea about contributed to this tension. But the fact USAID was such a direct target and Elon really took the helm and sidelined Rubio there, that is part of what led to this blow up between them. Now, the other thing that you have to keep in mind with this Cabinet meeting and the way it's been sold to the press and the way Trump is positioning things, et cetera, is that part of the legal problems for Elon and Doge is that it does have to be the agencies who decide who to hire and fire. So by putting this out to the media, media and positioning it as like, no, no, no, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, they really are ultimately in charge. That could also help them with their legal case because the courts have already signaled, like, you can't just, you know, Doge can't just blanket fire people. Office of Personnel Management, which is like government hr, can't just blanket fire people outside of their own agencies. That has to come from the departments themselves. So that's the other piece, is that repositioning this narrative where it's, oh no, the cabinet secretaries are actually in charge. Could be an attempt as well to help them with their legal trouble.

[Matt]

Yeah, I actually read that as well. I mean, no one should confuse it to say Marco Rubio's not a conservative who probably doesn't agree with cutting usaid. Right. Of course, that's always been the case. The question for them is about authority and about the ability to actually put these cuts in and see as if it. Basically the question is, does Sean Duffy himself get to decide who gets cut and what's not? And in general, this is one where, look, I'm not a big like expertise worshiper or any of that. But at the very least, if we think about norms, you know, for people who've been Senate confirmed to these positions who have the authority and the reporting of their underlings to like actually go and find out who should get cut or not, then sure, but that's a different story about who gets cut. And especially at a media level, as opposed to just coming, coming in and deciding what gets cut and what's not. And that's really where again, you can have all the so called ability like Elon supposedly has to be able to come in and just be like a domain expert almost immediately. But with the government, it's just fundamentally different than a private company. That was actually the fascinating part of when you were reading in the Times article is he just kept coming back. He's like, look, my market cap of my companies is hundreds of billions. I've been able to run them this, this and that. And I mean, I've just said from day one, it's like, look, it is just not the government like efficiency, while it should be a goal, is not the ultimate goal. Like, it's not about increasing the profitability of the government. There are a lot of government programs which are super inefficient, but they're very popular and or necessary for a lot of people. They could be more efficient, but it would look what's more efficient? Social Security or letting people starve? Obviously letting people starve is more efficient. It's not a sociological, you know, it's not like a benefit to society. So we say, okay, we're gonna pay it. That's one of those where the business mindset has just never made a lot of sense. And part of the reason why I don't think business people have ever been particularly good politicians.

[Leah]

Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. And also, I mean, Elon's arrogance and his lack of ability to work with People, his total unwillingness to try to smooth things over. I mean, that's part of his character that he's actually proud of. I mean, he tweeted that thing about what the downfall of Western civilization is, like, empathy. Like, that's. He thinks that. I mean, there's stuff he makes similar type of comments in that direction in the biography, the Walter Isaacson biography.

[Matt]

Oh, that book sucks. That's the worst book. Sorry, sorry.

[Leah]

But it's still like, you know, you get a sense of his character and empathy is something that he looks down on. So the idea of, like, oh, people are gonna die in Africa because of HIV because we don't have that funding, like, he doesn't care. The idea that he's pushing that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and he like, that elderly people were lifted out of poverty by this program has been incredibly important. He doesn't care. Like, the fact that Marco Rubio is pissed off at him, he certainly doesn't care. And the fact that it was also Sean Duffy was one of the other people who was most pissed off at Elon also makes a lot of sense because Sean Duffy, Department of Transportation, faa, is under him. That is one of the departments that Elon has taken the most interest in. Why? Well, I mean, FAA has been investigating SpaceX because of. Now we just had another SpaceX rocket that blew up and caused mass diversion of commercial flights and airports had to be closed, et cetera. So he's been pissed off at them for a while. There's also reporting about the way his SpaceX people have come in and are trying to take contracts away from other countries, countries, other companies, and redirect them to Starlink in particular, which is under SpaceX. So it's not surprising that Sean Duffy would be one of the others that had the most sort of grievance and rubbed up against Musk the most here. But in terms of how this plays out and whether Elon will actually be reigned in or not, color me a little bit skeptical. Because as Sagar was saying, after this whole thing, Trump gets asked, okay, well, what went down in the Oval Office? And he does make this comment that's like, well, it's up to the agents, but if they don't, Elon will do it. Take a listen.

[Matt]

You spoke today with your cabinet members and Elon Musk.

[Leah]

I did.

[Matt]

What did you tell them in regards.

[Leah]

To Elon Musk and his authorities to carry out actions?

[Matt]

We had a great meeting.

[Leah]

We had Elon and we had some of the representatives for, you know, the Business reps. We also had most of the cabinet members, not all of them. It doesn't really pertain to all of them, but many of them. And I thought it was a really good meeting. It was about cutting because we have. Everybody knows the country is way out of control in terms of the number of people. We have many people that don't work. We have many people probably that aren't even living, that are getting checks. And we're finding all of that out, and it's being reported. We're going to save hundreds of billions of dollars. We've already saved a lot. And parts of it are contracts that are expired, that we're paying on many crazy things that, you know, you can see it happening. It shouldn't happen, but you can see it happening. You see a lot of it being put out. But the other thing I think most important for today, I want the Cabinet members to keep good people. I don't want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut. I want the Cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good job, that are unreliable, don't show up to work, et cetera. Those people can be cut. So I had a meeting and I said, I want the Cabinet members go first. Keep all the people you want, everybody that you need. And it would be better if they were there for two years instead of two weeks, because in two years, they'll know the people better. But I want them to do the.

[Matt]

Best job they can.

[Leah]

When we have good people, those. That's precious, that's very important. And we want them to keep the good people. And so we're going to be watching them. Them and Elon and the group are going to be watching them. And if they can cut, it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting. So if they can cut, it's better. But if they don't cut, then Elon will. So still ultimately, the final decision resting with Elon there. So we'll see.

[Matt]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Leah]

We'll see. I mean, I just. It's been the level of subservience from Trump, the level of the amount of the direction of the government that he has just handed over to Elon has been truly extraordinary. And so maybe we'll look back at this as like a turning point where I think from Trump's language and the fact that he said this thing about we want to cut with a scalpel, not a hatchet. Like, I do think he realizes some of the political peril here. And I think he's felt blowback from. And there are a lot of Republicans who were like, this thing that was important in my district got cut. And by the way, Elon went and gave them his number so that they can petition him directly. They can petition the cat king directly to have their particular cuts reversed. But I do think he has a bit of a sense that he's on politically perilous ground. Does that make him change course? I think that's a real open question.

[Matt]

Yeah, I don't know. That's the point is that we really cannot tell because for all of that, Elon. Yes, he's been put in his place a little bit. He does wear a suit now. Thank you. Elon finally showed up in a suit to a Cabinet meeting. Even Trump, I guess, could no longer countenance that anymore after. After he just threw a comment at him. Unlike Zelensky, apparently Elon listens. But even then, the audacity to lecture the US Secretary of State in the American Cabinet room when you're unelected is just unbelievable. And Trump just puts up with it. Right. And it's not even like he's a senior member of the White House staff, like a Stephen Miller or somebody like that, who has been on board the campaign since 2015, Symbiotic with Donald Trump, who genuinely has the authority and the political standing to do so. It's like this person didn't really support Trump until, like, July of 2024.

[Leah]

Right.

[Matt]

And then just ended up bandwagoning and paying for the campaign to basically leapfrog all of these other people who've been with him for such a long time. Not even Steve Bannon would ever dare to sit there in the U.S. cabinet Room and to lecture the United States Secretary of State. Right. And he's got 10 times more authority, in my opinion, to be able to do so. Look, is it a turning point in all that? Maybe my only political caution is it's still just so early that Trump could reverse course and he'd probably be fine. A lot of this may be energizing all that to Democratic base. He still got 17 months till the midterms, and all that start to really kick into gear. So that's where I'm the most curious is what direction they decide to go in. But I still think the tax bill is like a looming political detriment to them politically, where. That's one where being a normie Republican alone, like, even sans Elon, is going to be very politically Difficult for the White House. That's where I just can't look away. I'm like, this is a blinking red light of political problems that you're just waiting to pass, and they're frothing at the mouth for it. But I don't think America's gonna take it down lightly.

[Leah]

Yeah, I don't think so either. If Democrats were smart, they would talk relentlessly about Medicaid and tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that would. You would be on just like endlessly solid.

[Matt]

Well, it'd be smarter to not cut Medicaid. I mean, that's the other thing. Look, Medicaid. We'll see. They say the budget and all that has quote, unquote cuts. Trump says he won't sign Medicaid or a Medicare cut if they do work requirements. I still think that's very different. I mean, liberals can argue about it till they're blue in the face. Work requirements are very popular.

[Leah]

I was looking at the numbers this morning, and let's say that even if you put in work requirements. So they have slated in the Republican budget that passed the House, $800 billion in cuts that would likely be from Medicai. The way that the process works, it's not like specified, but it would almost have to come from either Medicaid or Medicare. And Medicare is even more politically difficult to cut at all. So if you put in work requirements, that's about $100 billion.

[Matt]

Right.

[Leah]

So you still have $700 billion more that you are going to cut. So you will be cutting into the bone. And I mean, I oppose work requirement. I think everyone should have health care. But even if you do that for people who don't, aren't disabled, it's a drop in the bucket of how much they ultimately want to cut. But the last thing that I'll say about the Elon situation is Elon has his own agenda. Right? And Elon, as much as he may put on the suit and make nice with Trump and get, oh, Mr. Trump, thank you so much, and you're so amazing. And he may butter him up, but Elon has his own ideological agenda. And Elon believes himself to be ready. Player one, the primary actor, not Trump. It will take more than a little leaked to the press, slap on the wrist to get Elon to stop pushing ahead with whatever the hell he wants to do. It's the way he operates and in this way, the fact that he is this businessman who sees violating the law as a cost of doing business and just something that he does as part of his daily practice and charging forward no matter what, no matter who would object or what the norms are, what the procedures are, whatever. It does give him a tremendous advantage in this battle. And we've already seen the way that his DOGE apparatchiks have rolled through all of these departments and gotten access to all these data and sent out his five bullet point email without getting anyone's permission to the whole of government and forced everybody to react to him. That is the way that he operates. And so it's going to take much more from Trump than just saying like the agency heads are in charge. But ultimately Elon gets to decide to cut. It's going to take a lot more actual effort in actually checking Elon and perhaps even just removing Elon from the post before he would ever stop pushing in the direction that he is pushing. So that's why I'm skeptical that this will represent a true turning point. But perhaps if Trump realizes how politically perilous this is, or if Elon pisses him off or offends his ego in some certain kind of way, maybe things change. But I just don't see any sign of that yet.

[Matt]

Well, yeah, I'm excited to see. I certainly am. Listen, if they get what's coming to them, nobody can say you weren't warned, even in the White House. What you think Steve Bannon and all those other people aren't telling them what's coming. But listen, I mean, if that's what they want to do, I guess that's what they want to do.

[Leah]

That was one other thing. He apparently told Steve Bannon to back off the Elon Curtis assignment.

[Matt]

Yeah, of course.

[Leah]

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[Matt]

Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm Leah and we're from the Grown Up Stuff podcast. And just in time for tax season. On this week's episode we're chatting with CPA Lisa Green Lewis about how small businesses can tackle their taxes using TurboTax Business.

[Leah]

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So check out lenovo.com yoga and supercharge your creativity with yoga. Empowering creators everywhere. So we got some updates from our neighbors of the north and our President's relationship with them. Let's go and put this up on the screen. The New York Times reporting on a conversation between Canada, Trudeau of Canada and himself. He told Justin Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. Trump offered no further explanation. And you know, this is obviously in the context of, of the trade war which tariffs were put on. Some of them have been rolled back, but there's still a significant number that are in place. All of them are supposed to go back into effect on April 2nd. So still very much up in the air what's going on there? And Sager Trudeau has really become convinced that Trump is quite serious about the whole 51st state conversation or at least about moving the borders and the US Just annexing part of Canada that Trump wants to annex. And you know, as we look at these tariffs in the context of the Canadian economy, in the context of our economy, Trudeau at least really believes that the purpose of these, it's certainly not about fentanyl, but that it's not even really about the, you know, re industrialize of the American economy. It's about waging economic war to try to get Canada to capitulate to these territorial ambitions of Donald Trump of his new manifest Destiny of acquisition.

[Matt]

I don't know how serious it is beyond just literally like a feeling that America's been getting ripped off by Canada and just wanting to have some punishment. There's also an element here of political management of which I've been trying to get my head around. Clearly Trump respects Claudia Sheinbaum and Mexico much more than Trudeau. I don't really know why. I mean, Claudia Scheinbaum, I mean, if we're talking border disputes, we got way more border disputes with Mexico than we do with Canada. So if we really wanna talk real revisionism or Baja California or any of that stuff, I'm game. We can talk about that all day long. So with Canada, I actually think it's a lot more ideological because Justin Trudeau not only being a liberal per se, but just more neolib and critical, I think of the Trump administration over the four years after for them as well. I mean, Trump has got fixations that go back decades. Canada and Japan are the two. If you go and you look at his Comments from the 1970s onwards, it's all Japan and Canada, the Japanese. It drives him crazy because he's still living in the world of like 1980, where it's Japan is filthy rich and growing decade over decade.

[Leah]

They were the China of their time.

[Matt]

Yeah, they were the China of their time. I'm not saying we still don't have trade problems with Japan, but it's different now. The point I think with all of this is that Trump just has a theory of tariffs, which he's always wanted to be able to do, and being both unrestrained and having that ability, this so called like madman theory and, and all of that, he wants to see how far that he can push it while running up against the realities of the market and of overall US consumer sentiment. I think what he did not necessarily grapple with is the reaction from Canada that we've seen domestically in their politics and with their rise now of the Liberal Party basically saving them completely, saving them, reigniting like this Canadian nationalism, which I didn't even. I thought they all hated each other anyway and they're divided over language, but they really have come together. You gotta give it to em, you know, in a way you do need like an external threat force to really make yourself, your country, come together for your national identity. But the problem that I actually think is whenever we're igniting that Canadian identity and bringing them together, their capacity to suffer as opposed to the American consumer is probably much higher because they feel like they're sticking it to, to the man. Whereas Americans are like, I don't know about this, like, right, we're a way more consumerist society too.

[Leah]

Well, not only that, but as we were discussing before, like, for the Canadians, they would know exactly what they're fighting for, like, to keep their country. For us, be like, what. Why are we even doing this? Like, what is going on? They don't even, like, there's a tiny, miniscule amount of fentanyl coming across the border, which is the line that we've been sold about why we have to do all of this.

[Matt]

It's the legal pretext.

[Leah]

Yeah, yeah, that's the legal pretext. But, I mean, they talk about it. That's what they're trying to sell is like, oh, this is why we need to do it. You had what Peter Navarro talking about how the Mexican cartels had taken over Canada. So there's not any clear reason why Americans would want to wage this war, economic or otherwise. But for Canadians, like, the stakes are very clear and they're very high. So, listen, I don't know what the hell is going on in Trump's head. I do think that part of it is, like you said, something like Trudeau is this very. He's sort of like the Obama of Canada, you know, and came quite literally right, and came in opposite during the Obama era and all of that, and positioned himself in a very similar way in terms of this sort of, like, you know, high iq, liberal, internationalist approach. And I think Trump just, like, he just hates all those people. He just hates them. And it's partly this chip on his shoulder that Trump has about how they look down on him and all of this sort of stuff. I do think that plays into it, but I also think partly, maybe as a result of that, you can't just dismiss the things that he has himself said about wanting to use an economic war to annex Canada as the 51st state. And maybe that's, like, the opening negotiating position. But I thought it was very revealing here that he has recognized, like, all these treaties and stuff that set the border. I'm just not gonna agree with those, and I just don't accept. Accept them. And I'm gonna. You know, I'm gonna see about annexing this area just north of the Great Lakes. I'm gonna see what I can get away with. I think we have to take him seriously at that. And you talk about things that are politically unpopular, like the US Expanding into Canada is not something that anyone voted for, and it's wildly politically unpopular, as is acquiring Greenland. Probably the most popular of his territorial conquest things is the Panama Canal, which he's already, like, sold off to blackrock.

[Matt]

So no he didn't sell it off to Blackrock. The Chinese sold it to Blackrock. And they probably shouldn't have owned it in the first place, if we're all being honest.

[Leah]

But we know why that transaction ultimately happened.

[Matt]

Okay, but why is that so bad? This is where I get annoyed. It's like, by the way, he tweeted today that Greenland will have the right of self determination. So Greenlanders, there's only 50,000 of you. I have a modest proposal. We'll give you a million bucks each. All you have to do is come over here. The Danes have treated you like shit. You will be embraced greatly by the American empire and we protect you anyway. So you might as well sign up on Canada. I don't know. Again, I have mixed feelings. These Canadians, they drive me crazy. The way that they just. Their chauvinism, when clearly we are the only reason that they get to exist and breathe is a little bit annoying, considering how much of our defense posture goes to their benefit. However, I can sympathize with being a power that is up there that is like, hey, hold on a second, I thought we were great neighbors and all that. And you're trying to change that contract so broadly. I think that their ignition of nationalism is more interesting, especially because it hasn't really existed for a long time. Like they haven't had a reason to be together. Like I said, I mean, they all hate each other anyway, whether they speak French and English, one of the dumbest countries on the planet, whatever. But my point is just that for them, they have been able, both the Conservative and the Liberal Party, to have extraordinary political benefit of standing up to Trump, which I just generally think is worse, especially if we're trying to get a better and more favorable deal on economic terms. But I mean, the truth of the matter is our trade deficit with Canada is unbelievable. And they have been a huge beneficiary both of nafta. Their own quality of life has rate not only stable, but it's actually broadly increased to the extent that it's had a problem since nafta, it's their own fault because of mass immigration, of which they're having their own fight over in their own country right now. Some of you, even Justin Trudeau admitted, and part of the reason he's so unpopular. So him getting kicked out is an interesting moment. And actually, if we see the rise of kind of the leaders in Canada, both left and right, they're having to fuse this new Canadian nationalism fight with kind of like who and what they stand for, which is broadly better for them. I kind of wish we had the same thing over here. I'm almost jealous, to be honest, of their awakening.

[Leah]

Yeah. So let's get to the Canadian politics here. The true Trudeau stepped down as Liberal Party leader because he was profoundly unpopular. And so the Liberal Party had their leadership elections. We can put this up on the screen. They chose a guy named Mark Carney. He is the former governor of both the bank of England, actually during Brexit, and also the bank of Canada. I mean, my sense of him, I've known about this guy for like, two days, is that he's sort of just like a liberal technocrat kind of a guy in terms of the Liberal Party, tends towards the more sort of fiscal conservative, as did his primary rival, Chrystia Freeland. So in any case, they've chosen this just sort of like, steady hand who has a deep understanding, obviously, of the global financial system, given his previous positions. Banker, who will now face the Conservative leader, a guy by the name of Pierre Puerto Poilievre. That's how I'm going. That's the French pronunciation. I think he says poil eve. I think is the way I'm gonna call him.

[Matt]

Mr. Pierre. That's where we're going with.

[Leah]

Poilievre is the French version. But in any case, he was looking. I mean, this dude Pierre, he looked like he was a shoo in. And if you put up C, the chart that we have, what is that? C4B. That shows the polling and the way that that Trump's tariff war has just like completely, completely rescued the Liberals from what was previously certain defeat. And you can see the red line there like they were in the toilet. I mean, we covered this when Trudeau resigned. You can see the line there. It was at an absolute low. But the combination. I'm sure having a new leader helps, but really, it's the Trump economic warfare that has rescued the Liberal Party's hopes here. Now. There's still not a lock in a shoe in. If you put the one before this up on the screen, you can see C4 that the conservatives still have an edge in terms of what the polling shows. But before Liberals were absolutely toast. It says they're still up in the polls. The Conservatives are, with the latest averages suggesting 40% of voters back them. The Liberals fortunes, meanwhile, have been revived. Their support has climbed to slightly over 30%, up 10 points from January. The new dude, Mark Carney, can call elections kind of, I guess, whenever he really wants. It has to be in the relative near term. But he can call elections whenever he should call them for like April 2, when the new tariffs are being put into place to maximize his chances of success here. Let's just get a taste of C3, guys. Let's just go ahead and get a taste of Mark Carney and the way that he is talking about the political situation. Obviously he puts Trump here front and center. There's someone who's trying to do the opposite.

[Matt]

There's someone who's trying to weaken our economy. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, as we know, has put, as the Prime Minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living. He's attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses. And we cannot let him succeed and we won't. The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and.

[Leah]

Is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs.

[Matt]

That will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada.

[Leah]

My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect. And he ran on taking an aggressive posture towards Trump. He wants to put into place dollar for dollar retaliatory tariffs that would hit the US Hard and sort of minimize the impact for Canada. I know there's been a lot of talk of targeting red states in particular going after Donald Trump's support base. And so the fact that that's what people were looking for is also really noteworthy. Apparently Pierre Puliev, who previously had really sort of compared himself to Trump and had gone viral in the American right, et cetera. Now he is really trying to distance himself from Trump and said he is, quote, not maga.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Leah]

So you can see the way the fault lines have drawn and the way that what was previously a neutral or a benefit for the Conservatives has now turned into being totally toxic.

[Matt]

Canada was ripe for a MAGA style takeover. They had the same problem. Trudeau had to resign for a reason. He was massively unpopular. They have huge problems with mass immigration that Trudeau even admitted. They have same economic stagnation. They have very similar trends. You know, we are cousins, you know, in a way, and so our problems definitely rhyme. But now with this reignition of Canadian nationalism, you have even the Conservative Party really coming out hard on behalf of Canada. We have here a great clip from Ontario from Doug Ford, the brother of Rob Ford, the Ford family, the most American family, even though they are Canadian, of coming out against Donald Trump. And here's Doug. Doug Ford, is it? The Premier of Ontario, I guess what they call him over there, says, I supported Trump getting elected. But, man, was I wrong. Let's take a listen. In response to what started earlier this week, you threatened to cut off electricity.

[Leah]

To a big chunk of the United States.

[Matt]

Well, you know something? I have a great relationship with the governors of New York and Michigan and Minnesota. I just got off the phone yesterday with Governor Walz and what a gentleman he is. And I'm going to put a 25% tariff on the electricity, the 1.5 million homes and businesses as of Monday until President Trump drops these tariffs. That's the last thing I want to do. It's the last thing. But he has to understand that he can't attack our country economically and expect us to roll over. So 25% tariff starts Monday. Starts Monday. Unless this war ends before then. That's right, yes. Which means American electric bills in the.

[Leah]

Upper Midwest and the Northeast, the Mid.

[Matt]

Atlantic, are going up. That's right. And what we're seeing already with gas prices in the Northeast, gas prices are going to go up again, people, eventually. The assembly lines, if he continues April 2, will shut down within five days. Auto parts go back and forth across the border up to eight times before it gets assembled in Ontario or Michigan or other states. And for what? He's created an absolute mess. Last I checked, you're a conservative. Yes, I am. You celebrated President Trump's victory in November. I thought it, you know, I thought he'd do a great job. Man, was I wrong. And I am first to admit I was wrong. It just shows you that even the political leaders there who are conservative are going to have to come against America, which, you know, is going to have big ramifications for them and give them a mandate because of the new election, to be able to negotiate with a much harder line against the United States, which could have a lot of problems.

[Leah]

Yeah, that's right. And he's a very, like, Trumpian. Oh, I love that politician.

[Matt]

Like I said, I love that he's.

[Leah]

Got a lot of swagger, you know, and so, look, this is a guy who has historically been able to read the mood of the public. I don't think that's a particularly hard thing to do in Canada right at this moment. Like, it's pretty clear where the battle lines are drawn. And so, yeah, we'll see where this all goes, because it truly is chaos at this point. I mean, I'm forgetting the numbers, but it still is a significant amount of tariffs that are in place even now after they rolled back whatever goods fall under the usmca. And with the threat that we're going to do all of this again in less than a month's time. So yeah, we'll see where it goes for their politics and ours. Creativity doesn't wait. It moves, shifts, evolves just like you. And with the Yoga PC from Lenovo.

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