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Tesla Attacks, DOGE, & Government Waste with Senator Marsha Blackburn | 3.29.25
00:10:23
Senator Marsha Blackburn challenges Democrats to condemn organized violence against Tesla. Plus DOGE’s mission to eliminate government waste, and the Senate's role in supporting President Trump's cost-cutting agenda. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
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- [00:03]
John Bickley
Amid a wave of protests and vandalism targeting Tesla and Doge, Republicans in the Senate are working to protect Tesla owners and make permanent the cost cutting measures being carried out by President Trump.
- [00:15]
Georgia Howe
In this episode, we sit down with Senator Marsha Blackburn to discuss how her colleagues in the Senate plan to fortify Trump's efforts to shrink the federal government. I'm Daily Wire Editor in Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Saturday, March 29th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
- [00:35]
John Bickley
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- [01:06]
Georgia Howe
Joining us now to discuss the targeting of Tesla and the broader mission of Doge is Senator Marcia Blackburn of Tennessee. Senator, first of all, thank you so much for coming on.
- [01:15]
Marsha Blackburn
Sure.
- [01:16]
Georgia Howe
I wanted to start by asking you about Tesla. Recently there have been a lot of left wing violence against those cars. It's been rather shocking. We've seen legacy media seem to almost promote this at times. Some key personalities directly promote this. In fact, what action is Congress and specifically the Senate taking here?
- [01:34]
Marsha Blackburn
Yes, we will take up my resolution which condemns these attacks against Tesla. It should be on the floor of the Senate on Thursday. And what this resolution does is to say that the Senate stands against these horrific attacks of violence, destruction, domestic terrorism, against electric car owners, charging stations, dealerships, maintenance facilities, and condemn this. And we are hopeful that we will get all of our Senate members, Democrats and Republicans, standing in support of this.
- [02:18]
Georgia Howe
Now, the term domestic terrorism carries a lot of weight here. Is this an attempt to basically force the Democrats to go on the record on this issue? Is there a reason you feel that that is, in fact, necessary?
- [02:29]
Marsha Blackburn
I think it is stunning that we are seeing this take place and that Democratic leadership is not standing up and calling out these acts of domestic terrorism. We have lived through four years where every time you turned around, they were talking about domestic terrorism. They were calling parents that went to school board meetings domestic terrorists. They were calling individuals that would stand across the street from a Plan Parenthood and pray for the women and the unborn children, and they would call that domestic terrorism. And now we are going through this where they're actually firebombing and shooting up Tesla dealerships. They are destroying the cars of Tesla owners. They are stopping people in the middle of the streets that are driving a Tesla and are condemning them for owning those vehicles. And nothing is being said. So we think it's appropriate that we have the resolution and we give them the opportunity, members of the U.S. senate from each party and the couple of independents that we have, give them the opportunity to stand up and say, we condemn these attacks.
- [03:53]
Georgia Howe
Now, we've seen some reports, and Elon Musk has highlighted some of these, that this is a very organized protest effort and also has some big money behind it. Do you have any specific information on that?
- [04:05]
Marsha Blackburn
What we have read and what we've heard is that this is something that is quite organized. We know that they are planning for a global day of action against Tesla. And I think it really is quite remarkable when you look at their excuse for. For doing this. I mean, maybe this is a group of people that just want to go rave on and complain about everything. But what we hear is that they are doing this because of their hatred for Donald Trump and their disdain for Elon Musk and his role in setting up the Department of Government Efficiency. And what we know that the DOGE efforts are yielding because this is a partnership between DOGE and the DOGE caucuses in the House and the Senate and then also the secretaries of the various departments. We are trying to root out all, all waste, fraud and abuse that is happening to the taxpayer dollars that are going in to fund and support a federal government structure. It is inappropriate that fraud would be allowed to continue to exist or that waste would be tolerated. So it is good stewardship of the taxpayers dollar to root that out. Now, the leftists have to have a big government structure to survive. That is their mother's milk, if you will. They have got to have government funding because their organizations and their concepts can't survive on their own. And so now that we are cutting off that pipeline of money, they are distraught. And you can look at the last four years of the Biden administration and the amount of money that went into some of these absurd NGOs, nongovernmental entities, or nonprofits, such as Stacey Abrams, Climate justice nonprofit, that couldn't raise money on their own. They only had $100 in the bank, but the Biden administration gave them 2 billion, billion with a B. $2 billion when they had no ability to stand on their own. All that money needs to be clawed back. It needs to be recouped from these entities. It needs to come back to the U.S. treasury. It needs to be down our $36 trillion debt. And then we need to remove all of this, actually codify all of this out of control spending, get it out of the budget and have it gone forever. Cut into that baseline and reduce what the federal government spends.
- [07:05]
Georgia Howe
Well, I know we've been tracking polling very closely and the American people continue to support the mission of Doge. Whether or not the name Doge itself is popular, the mission is for sure people want to see exactly what you just described. So you're going to take these steps. What other ways can the Senate help the Trump administration in this particular effort in eliminating waste? What's the Senate's role here?
- [07:27]
Marsha Blackburn
What you'll see us do is this as we move forward on a reconciliation bill that will make the Trump tax cuts, the 2017 tax cuts permanent. And then we'll go ahead and we will address some issues like no tax on tips and overtime and Social Security. You'll see those components. Now, what we will be able to do as we do a reconciliation bill, you will see us do what is called a rescission bill. And we will put together a lot of these Doge cuts and spending reductions. And that actually cuts that out of the baseline of the budget. This is how we get that baseline down. It is how we get to a pre Covid level of spending. And then next year, this is what will help us get to President Donald Trump's goal of a balanced budget, which would be a five and a half trillion dollar budget. Right now, Biden has it up to a $7.3 trillion budget. So the action of the Senate and House will be to codify these cuts using the rescission process. The good thing about that is it passes the senate on a 51 vote margin, not a 60 vote margin.
- [08:53]
Georgia Howe
Yeah, very key there. Final question. We've seen a lot of pressure mounting on the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer. Do you foresee a real shakeup with the Democrats in the near future? Is an AOC going to be the voice of the Democrats on Capitol Hill? What do you see coming for Democrats in terms of their leadership amid these internal struggles?
- [09:13]
Marsha Blackburn
Yeah, and first of all, I don't think Chuck Schumer is going to go anywhere. I think he'll probably end up being there. I do believe that what you will see is the Democrats struggle over their footing. They have gone so far left. If you look at the issues that are facing us right now, Primarily they are 80, 20 issues, as we call them, 80% of the people are in favor, 20% are opposed. And when you look at the key issues, securing the southern border, deporting criminal illegal aliens, addressing crime in communities, getting men out of women's sports, ending domestic terrorism, ending two tiers of justice at the doj, reducing the size of the federal government, restoring our standing in the world, getting inflation under control. Those are the things that the American people are talking about. They're 80, 20 issues. And lo and behold, here come the Democrats and they are opposing everything that's being done to secure the border and deport criminal illegal aliens and get inflation down and get men out of women's sports. The list goes on and on. So they're rudderless. They have no message, they have no messenger, they have no designated leader. So they're pretty much out of the game.
- [10:41]
Georgia Howe
There's no doubt they're in a real crisis right now. Senator, thank you so much for joining us.
- [10:46]
Marsha Blackburn
Sure.
- [10:47]
Georgia Howe
That was Senator Marsha Blackburn, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.