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With it, you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFI personal loan. Visit sofi.com stunt to learn more. Loans originated by Sofi Bank NA member FDIC terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 well, the final numbers are in and Elon Musk and Doge and Trump lied to the American people about the Department of Government Efficiency. They weren't aimed at efficiency or cost cutting at all. They didn't save the country $2 trillion. They didn't come anywhere near that. In fact, under one study by the Cato Institute, a libertarian and conservative institute, Elon Musk actually wasted about $27 billion. The only thing he did was to put 10% of the federal workforce on the unemployment lines, but did nothing about spending. In fact, two separate institutes, both independent, the Brookings Institute and the Cato Institute, say that the spending is up under the Trump administration more than 6% and hundreds of billions of dollars over the Biden administration. Not only do we have a jobless recovery, we have a a more wasteful government spending more money on things like the Commerce Department, the Homeland Security Department on immigration, the Department of Justice to defend against Donald Trump's unconstitutional and illegal executive orders. So spending up over Joe Biden Federal workforce down jobless recovery and one contributing factor is the amount of federal workers on the streets and the US Brand and reputation in the trash bin because of cuts to foreign aid and foreign spending. So did nothing about the major drivers of expenses in America, which are the entitlement programs didn't touch the military. In fact, we're throwing more money into the military. And this is all after Elon Musk hopped up on whatever he was hopped up on during a rally for Donald Trump during the campaign, said he's going to cut $2 trillion as introduced by the Commerce Secretary. How Lutnick? The only thing that went up is Howard Lutnick's budget. Elon Musk, he went from two. I felt like I was watching an old episode of Get Smart. Would you believe $2 trillion? Would you believe $1 trillion? And then finally at a cabinet meeting in April, he said 150 million. It's not even that. Let's break down the fiasco and the fraud and the sham that is Donald Trump's Musk Doge experiment. It's hard to believe we're all. It was only about a six or seven month experiment. One person, no one person could do more damage in such a short amount of time than Elon Musk unleashed by Donald Trump. I'm Michael Popo. You're on Midas Touch. We're at the end of the year. We're coming into 2026 and we are revved up and ready to go. Let's dive in to this report. Help us on Legal AF YouTube. Help us get to 2 million subscribers. And I'm running a sale. Everybody Legal AF substack, 30% off on substack annual membership. We're number two and rising in all substacks related to American politics. Now is the time to join us on Substack. All right, let's get down to the new reporting coming out about Elon Musk and what he didn't do first. Let me just remind you now, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, in an interview with Vanity Fair, she, she suggested, and Elon Musk has said it in the past that he, you know, during his most irrational periods where we thought, is this guy on drugs? He might have been like on ketamine. Well, you be the judge. Here's him bragging with Howard Lutnick, the Commerce, soon to be Commerce Secretary during the campaign about cutting $2 trillion in government waste. Let's watch it. All right. As you can see, I'm not just mag. I'm dark gothic maga. Well, it's the energy in this room is incredible. What a great group of people. All right, I've only got one question for you and then I'm getting out of here because this is your stage. But we set up Doge. Yes. How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris Biden budget? Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion. Yeah. Yes, 2 trillion. Okay. How'd that go? Remember the big wall of receipts he kept posting? I cut this, I cut that. Turns out, according to the Cato Institute, which is a conservative member when Republicans used to be conservative. Small business, small government, pro business instead of big government, take over businesses, compete with businesses. Remember that? Cato Institute said he didn't save money. He cut the federal workforce by 9% in 11 months. Okay. Several hundred thousand people unemployed who are also consumers in a consumer driven economy. But he did nothing except waste about. We get this number. He wasted, according to the CATO Institute, about $27 billion in order to, sorry, $21.7 billion in order to buy out federal contracts, employment contracts. So there you go. Not, not 2 trillion, not 1 trillion, not even 150 billion. Just wasted 21 billion. Okay, now, so the only thing he gets credit for is. But I think it's not credit. I think he should be, it should be an accusation of mismanagement is to cut the fuel line between the American people and the federal government, particularly the social safety net and the arts programs and the education programs under the false flag of we're going after diversity, equity and inclusion. We want to keep transgender people out of bathrooms. Yeah. How do you feel about that now after you sit half a day on the phone at Social Security trying to get somebody to answer your call? Or at Medicare, Medicaid or for disability, how do you feel now about having voted for Donald Trump? So the, the spending, which of course is the. At the heart of libertarianism, conservatism, is control government spending. Well, how they do there, not great. As you can tell from my, my giggling. According to two different studies, Cato and Brookings, it looks like government spending under Donald Trump in year one is up between 6 to 8% over Joe Biden. You see how he's a poor steward of your money and of the economy. Just to give you a framework, according to the Cato Institute, the total amount of money spent by the federal government under Donald Trump is $7.6 trillion. $7.6 trillion. Five trillion of that is non discretionary spending. It's like Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, that kind of thing and other programs. 7.6 trillion. That is 250 billion more than Joe Biden. According to the Brookings Institute, it's even worse. They think federal spending is 7.1 trillion and that it was 400 billion over, which is a 6% increase either. Any way you slice it, that arrow is going in the wrong direction. Jobs lost, spending up. Okay, where does it come from? See, Donald Trump always had this false representation of the American people, among many, about his tariff program, combined with his Doge program was gonna not only bring in tons of money, it was going to create a dividend that people would get a check for. It would fill the deficit and balance the budget. None of that happened. The money's not flowing in under the tariffs. And the tariffs, I believe, are about to be either completely overturned or pared down considerably by the United States Supreme Court sometime in early January. And Donald Trump knows it. That's why in the middle of the night, he always freaks out and starts yelling at the Supreme Court like the, you know, the old guy trying to tell people, kids to get off his lawn, you know, no, you can't take away. It's the basis of my whole economic program. Yeah, right. And all the tariff money and investment that was supposed to come along with it. Japan is going to invest a trillion dollars, and so is Portugal. And so none of that's happening. First of all, these countries don't have that kind of money, okay? In their economies. They don't have sovereign wealth funds of billions of dollars to make that investment. In addition to that, private investment in those countries are like, I will invest in America if it makes sense to invest in America. Most of them are investing in another America, Latin America, South America, Brazil. That's where they're putting their money. Mexico, Canada, you know, China. They're avoiding the United States like a plague. The plague called Donald Trump. You know that feeling when your morning coffee is supposed to kickstart your day, but instead your stomach's grumbling, your focus isn't sharp, and by 10am you're already craving a nap. It's frustrating because the ritual matters. But sometimes traditional coffee just doesn't play nice with your body or your brain. 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That's everydaydose.com legalaf for 45% off your first order. Now, let me show you a clip just so you don't think I'm going crazy. You got Musk bragging about $2 trillion later, he lowers the number when nobody was looking or paying attention in the middle of the fire hose of executive orders by Donald Trump, he lowers it to a trillion. But then in April, right before he got fired, he lowers it to 150 billion. That's actually less. That's actually less than the amount of increased spending that Donald Trump has done under his administration. Let me show you the Cabinet meeting where he's bragging about now 150 billion as if he's not the same guy that said 2 trillion just in about 8 or 9 months earlier. Play the clip. Well, thanks to your fantastic leadership, this amazing Cabinet, and the very talented DOGE team, I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion. And some of it is just absurd, like people getting unemployment insurance who haven't been born yet. I mean, I think anyone can appreciate whether, I mean, come on, that's just crazy. So, you know, some of these things people ask me, like, well, how are you going to find ways to report in the government? I'm like, well, actually just go in any direction. That's how you find it. It's just, it's very common, as the military would say, target rich environment. So. So I think we're doing a lot of good and excellent collaboration with Cabinet to achieve these savings and it will actually result in better services for the American people and that we're going to be spending their tax dollars in a way that is sensible and fair and good. And your people are fantastic. In fact, hopefully they'll stay around for the long haul. We'd like to keep as many as we can. They're great, smart, sharp. Right. Finding things that nobody would have thought of. Very computer savvy. Yes. Working with hard to get the Trump Gold Card operational, hopefully in the next week or so. That would be very exciting. Really excited. It's A pathway to citizenship into the United States. It's a big deal. Yep, it's a big deal. Thank you very much. Great job. Tariffs are not going to bring in trillions of dollars. Doge is not going to save and has not saved. It will not save trillions of dollars. All. And there's no way to plug the gap. The amount of debt that Donald Trump has heaped on will be the same as his first term, where he spent like a drunken sailor firing $100 bills out of a fire hose and left for future generations, starting in 2028. The wreckage. See, the next president, whoever that's going to be for the Democrats, is going to have to dig ourselves out from a major deficit problem. We're spending. We're spending trillions of dollars in debt payments before we can make one payment to the American people. It just reached $1 trillion. That means the economy and tax revenue and other revenue has to bring in at least $1 trillion. Not to break even, just to pay expenses, just to pay the debt, not even pay it down, just to pay the interest on it to foreign nations and people holding treasury notes and treasury bonds and that type of thing. Then you can start spending on the American people. Talk about waste. The more debt he puts on us, the bigger the budget deficit, the more future generations are burdened. And they're already burdened. This is what crushes the American dream, not the interest rates at the Fed. You know, as he's busy attacking the Federal Reserve chairman again, Jay Powell, calling him a fool as he embarks on cost overruns of double the amount for the. For the big golden ballroom. And the American people are saying, we don't want this person to be the steward of our money or our economy any longer. And if they could pull the trigger now, pull the. Pull the switch now on the ballot and vote him out, they would. If this was a country like parliamentarian version, where we could do a vote of no confidence, does anybody think out there put in comments that Donald Trump would survive a vote of confidence or no confidence? No way. Government would collapse. We'd be in new elections already. That's what should happen. But we like stability in this country, even if it means hitching our wagon to a completely demented, criminally insane president. We got to just ride it out. We got to watch the watch until this is over, you know? But in the meantime, the American people are voting in their own way. Special elections, election nights in America, getting ready for the midterms. And in polling, polling numbers, 65% of America hates Donald Trump, I mean, I'm just putting, I'm just telling you what the Gallup polls say. 65%, 75% of you are independent. And his numbers about his key issues, immigration, foreign policy, foreign affairs, the economy in the trash, more than 70% of America. That means a fair number of Republicans that voted for him have now flipped over and are now not voting for him or MAGA or the policies. So we're gonna continue to follow. You know, and I needed to drill down here towards the end of the year, a Midas on the Doge fiasco and its increase in spending as Donald Trump and the MAGA continue to run for office. We have 435 seats up for grabs in 10 months in the House, all 435, 35 Senate seats up for grab grabs. This is their body of work, this is their legacy. And I'll just leave you on this, the Congress that hopefully we're going to flush out, literally flush the toilet and get rid of them. The Republicans under Mike Johnson passed almost no laws. I think it's five or six laws in total were passed during this past term. That's not working for the American people. That's working for the oligarchs. That's working for the, for the rich. The rich got richer. The friends of Donald Trump and family of Donald Trump got richer by billions of billions of dollars. You didn't, I didn't. The economy didn't. And that is the report card to judge this administration and anybody associated with it. You got an R next to your name. This is your president. This is your leader of your party. This is your legacy. Don't forget it. Michael Popak here. I might as touch. Come over to Legal AF YouTube channel. Hit the free subscribe button there. Legal AF substack. 30% off sale to the end of the year on annual membership. See ya. I'll see you tomorrow. Can't get your fill of Legal af. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF sub stack. Every time, time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AOFF are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe. Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree. Zoe. This thing weighs a ton. Drew Ski, lift with your legs, man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter? He's talking to you, Bridges. I'm not that. Of course he did. Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list and elf. I'm six three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and that T mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus? I'm Mrs. Claus much younger sister. And at T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch. So you can keep your old phone or give it as a gift. And the best part, you can make the switch to T mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes. Nice. My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber. 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