980: Elon Musk's Nerd Coup

Summary

Pod Save America: Elon Musk's Nerd Coup Episode Release Date: February 4, 2025

Hosts: Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor
Guest: Brian Deese, Former Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Director of the National Economic Council under President Biden

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of Pod Save America, the hosts delve into the tumultuous actions of former President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk as they navigate and manipulate federal government mechanisms. The discussion centers around Trump's aggressive tariff policies and Musk's unprecedented influence over federal agencies, raising significant concerns about governance, national security, and the integrity of democratic institutions.

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2. Trump's Trade War with Canada, Mexico, and China

Announcement of Tariffs: Trump initiated a series of tariff impositions, announcing a 10% tariff on Chinese goods and 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico. These tariffs were aimed at pressuring these nations into making concessions favorable to the United States.

Host Reactions:

• Tommy Vietor pointed out the erratic nature of Trump's trade policies, suggesting they are more about political theatrics than economic strategy. At [03:22], Tommy remarks, "Trade war is over if you want it."
• Jon Lovett questions the effectiveness of these tariffs, noting the lack of substantial gains from the concessions made by Canada and Mexico.

Concessions and Reactions:

• Mexico agreed to deploy 10,000 additional troops to its southern border to combat illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
• Canada consented to implement a $1.3 billion border security plan and appoint a fentanyl czar to address drug trafficking issues.

Analysis of Tariff Strategy: The hosts debate whether Trump's tariffs were genuine attempts to rectify trade imbalances or merely tactics to generate media buzz and demonstrate toughness. Dan Pfeiffer likens Trump's approach to wielding tariffs as a "scalpel versus a whole army," emphasizing the lack of strategic targeting compared to the Biden administration's more calculated use of tariffs ([78:43]).

Notable Quote:

• Donald Trump: "We put tariffs on. They owe us a lot of money and I'm sure they're going to pay...I'd love to see [Canada] become our 51st state." ([05:07])

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3. Elon Musk's Involvement in Federal Government Systems

Access to Treasury Payment Systems: Elon Musk, alongside a group comprising recent graduates, managed to gain access to the Treasury Department's payment system, which handles federal disbursements. This unprecedented move raises alarms about data security and the potential misuse of sensitive taxpayer information.

Actions Taken:

• Musk claimed to have discovered illegal payments, including those to terrorists, and claimed to shut them down without providing evidence.

Host Concerns:

• Tommy Vietor expresses skepticism about Musk's claims, highlighting the lack of transparency and evidence backing these allegations ([19:48]).
• Jon Lovett questions the legitimacy and potential motives behind Musk's actions, suggesting it could be a reckless power grab.

Notable Quote:

• Elon Musk: "I discovered the treasury was making illegal payments, including to some terrorists, and that I was shutting them down." ([19:48])

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4. The USAID Takeover

Host Actions and Government Response: Musk's team attempted to access USAID, leading to the shutdown of the agency's website and communication channels. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID would be merged into the State Department, making him the acting administrator.

Testimony from Brittany Brown: A former USAID division head, Brittany Brown, testified about the dire consequences of these actions:

• Disruption of Humanitarian Efforts: Key personnel responsible for aiding regions like Gaza and Sudan lost access to their systems, hindering life-saving operations.
• Impact on International Assistance: The $60 billion foreign assistance was effectively paused, leaving vulnerable populations without essential support.

Host Analysis:

• Dan Pfeiffer emphasizes that eliminating USAID without Congressional approval is unconstitutional and constitutes a power grab.
• Jon Lovett highlights the immediate humanitarian crises resulting from the shutdown, underscoring the moral and ethical dangers posed by such unilateral actions.

Notable Quote:

• Brittany Brown: "The guy who is in charge of holding together the humanitarian portion of the ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, he cannot access his email or computer." ([28:57])

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5. Interview with Brian Deese

Impact of Trump's Tariffs: Brian Deese provides an expert analysis of the implications of Trump's tariff policies:

• Consumer Prices: Tariffs are expected to inflate prices for everyday goods such as fruits, vegetables, gas, and consumer electronics by approximately 25%.
• Auto Industry Vulnerability: The interdependence between the U.S. and Canadian auto industries means tariffs could disrupt supply chains, leading to significant job losses and manufacturing setbacks.

Strategic vs. Reckless Tariffs:

• Strategic Use: Tariffs can be justified when addressing unfair trade practices that threaten national security or economic stability, particularly concerning China’s market manipulations.
• Reckless Use: Trump's broad and untargeted tariffs, amounting to $1.4 trillion, lack a clear strategic objective and are more self-defeating, ultimately causing more harm than good ([78:43]).

Preservation of Executive Constraints: Deese emphasizes the importance of Congressional oversight and legal constraints on the executive branch to prevent abuse of power. He warns that Trump's actions could erode the balance of power and democratic institutions.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Deese: "The total amount of goods that the Biden administration put tariffs on these strategic tariffs was about $18 billion...Trump’s approach is literally saying, we'll just put a tariff on anything." ([78:43])

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6. Democrat Response and Strategies

New DNC Leadership: The Democratic Party elected Ken Martin as its new chair, aiming to revitalize the party's strategic response to the current administration's challenges.

Legislative Actions:

• Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, introduced a 10-point plan to counteract Trump's strategies, including leveraging the debt ceiling negotiations as a bargaining tool.
• Brian Schatz, Senator from Hawaii, placed a hold on Trump’s State Department nominees until USAID is operational again.

Host Suggestions:

• Dan Pfeiffer advocates for Democrats to focus on the Elon Musk angle, highlighting the dangers of unelected individuals exerting undue influence over federal operations.
• Tommy Vietor underscores the need for Democrats to act swiftly and confidently, seizing opportunities to regain control and uphold democratic norms.

Notable Quote:

• Tommy Vietor: "We have to uphold the rules. And then three, what Bernie talked about was building this long term political power and making an argument for a positive vision." ([88:03])

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7. Conclusion and Final Remarks

The episode concludes with a call to action for Democrats to focus on immediate threats posed by Trump and Musk, while also strategizing for long-term political gains. The hosts emphasize the urgency of defending democratic institutions and the necessity of proactive measures to counteract the destabilizing actions of the current administration.

Final Thoughts:

• The democratic response must be both reactive to immediate challenges and proactive in building a positive political vision.
• The integrity of governmental institutions is paramount, and any undermining attempts must be firmly resisted to preserve the foundation of democracy.

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Notable Transcripts:

• Jon Lovett at [06:03]: "All right, what do you guys think? Did Mexico and Canada cave to Trump's pressure and just his tough negotiating tactics, or are these just fake concessions that just let everyone save face?"
• Tommy Vietor at [10:15]: "Are we like... we're on the other side of this right now. But the threat is still there. And Trump knows that the prospective threat of tariffs is more useful to him than ever implementing them."
• Brittany Brown at [28:57]: "I'm Brittany Brown...I think this is a test to see is Congress actually going to stand up for their right and for something that the Constitution protects?"

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the critical discussions from the Pod Save America episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the complex interplay between Trump's tariff maneuvers and Elon Musk's controversial involvement in federal government operations. The analysis underscores the perils to democratic norms and economic stability, urging immediate and strategic actions from the Democratic Party to safeguard national interests.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Rob Lowe]

Hey everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Lovett]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Jon Levitt.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Tom Vivator.

[Jon Lovett]

On today's show, we got Donald Trump and Elon Musk seizing control of the federal government's money spigot, accessing all of our private information like Social Security numbers, purging federal law enforcement of nonpartisan FBI agents and prosecutors who aren't loyal to Trump, and shutting down multi billion dollar agencies that they're not legally authorized to eliminate, starting with usaid, we'll hear from a USAID vet about what is actually happening and what it means. Or we'll also talk about the Democrats who seem like they're trying to get off the mat. Over the weekend, the party elected Ken Martin as its new chair. And Democrats in Congress are starting to use the limited power they have to fight back. And later, Lovett talks tariffs with our old friend Brian Deese, who is a top economic advisor to Presidents Obama and Biden. But first, America's dumbest trade war with two of its closest allies and biggest trading partners, seems to have ended before it even began. We started today ready to talk about a trade war. And then just before we started recording, first Mexico goes down, then Canada goes down.

[Tommy Vietor]

Trade war is over if you want it.

[Jon Lovett]

So over the weekend, Trump announced 10% tariffs on Chinese goods and 25% tariffs on goods from our toughest adversaries, Canada and Mexico. That would mean every time a US Company imports products from those countries, food, cars, medicine, electronics, they would have to pay an extra tax to the US Government. And then most companies would make up for the added expense by raising the prices they charge American consumers. The tariffs were scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday night, but then Trump agreed to last minute deals with both Canada and Mexico to pause tariffs for one month. Mexican President Claudia Schoenbaum agreed to send 10,000 additional troops to the border to help with illegal immigration and drug smuggling, which Mexico also did at the beginning of Joe Biden's administration. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would implement the $1.3 billion border plan that it had already announced in December, launch a Canada U.S. joint Strike Force to fight drug smuggling and money laundering, which it also announced in December. And the new thing, a point, a fentanyl czar, a Canadian fentanyl czar.

[Tommy Vietor]

That guy's always late for work.

[Jon Lovett]

My God. As far as we know, as of this recording on Monday afternoon, the tariffs on China are still going into effect as planned, though we're keeping a close eye on Xi Jinping's Twitter feed. Just gotta keep a close eye on that while we're recording. Now, why was Trump doing all this in the first place? Here's a sampling of the explanations he's offered over the last few days, including threats to start trade wars with our European allies as well.

[Donald Trump]

We put tariffs on. They owe us a lot of money and I'm sure they're going to pay. UK Is out of line, but I'm sure that one, I think that one could be worked out. But The European Union is. It's an atrocity. We may have short term, some little pain, and people understand that. Canada's been very abusive of the United States for many years. What I'd like to see Canada become our 51st state. As a state, it's different. As a state, it's much different. And there are no tariffs. So I'd love to see that. But some people say that would be a long shot.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, some people do say that's a long shot.

[Tommy Vietor]

He said something so bizarre right after that, which was if people were smart about the pain, they'd be for it, but they're not smart about the pain. He said something deeply, deeply troubling right after.

[Jon Lovett]

That's unlike him.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right after.

[Jon Lovett]

All right, what do you guys think? Did Mexico and Canada cave to Trump's pressure and just his tough negotiating tactics, or are these just fake concessions that just let everyone save face?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Does that seem leading to you that question?

[Tommy Vietor]

It seems as though Trump really enjoyed beating the ever loving shit out of the Colombians and now he's like feeling tough and he's ready to move up the chain. He's got a taste of regional economies and he's taking that, that, that quick victory out for a spin.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Are we at like King Hippo? If it's Mike Tyson, punch out. Where are we at in the escalation ladder?

[Tommy Vietor]

I always struggle. I never got the timing right. I never got the timing right. Who's the first person I always struggle? Glass jaw J. I was terrible at that.

[Jon Lovett]

The drunk Russian.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that sounds right.

[Tommy Vietor]

King Hippo.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, the, the fentanyl czar is going to have some free time because I think US CBP had some data about seizures at the northern border in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and they found 70 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border as compared to over £66,000 at the Southern border. So I don't think the fentanyl issue was one with Canada as much as it was with Mexico and with China also.

[Tommy Vietor]

He said some number. I think he said, like there were 200,000 fentanyl deaths, but the number is actually lower and had been dropping. And so he's already gonna be able to declare that he's brought the number down. He can already from his fake number.

[Jon Lovett]

So obviously Trump thinks this is a big win. He'll get some coverage that says it's a win from regime media and his people, his supporters will all say it's a big win. Maybe some low info voters out There, if they're paying attention at all, will see headlines and think, oh, maybe Trump won. But as you heard in the clip, Trump's problems, at least his stated problems with Mexico and Canada, and especially Canada, is that they have abused us, they've treated us poorly economically. He's got all these economic concerns about both of them. He doesn't like the trade. He says that we don't even need Canada for all the stuff that we buy from them. We can make it all here. This is ridiculous. And yet all he got from either of them were announcements about border security that they had already made or already implementing or had already implemented in the past without threats of a trade war. So I don't know what he got at all or what he's doing. There's a potential that as he tries to renegotiate trade deals with Canada and Mexico, because he's going to open up the trade deal that he himself negotiated with them last time, that maybe he'll try to bring up some of these issues again. You know, he's. He's upset about a trade deficit, I guess, but I don't know. I don't think he. I don't think he got anything.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, there was a moment he did yet another press availability from the Oval this morning. Sort of his daily ritual at this point, and he said, who the hell negotiated these deals? You did.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, Jared Kushner did.

[Tommy Vietor]

We're in your deals. These are all your. These are all part of your deal. Yeah, it's hard to. It's like, you know, we've just been in this endless. We were right before recording. So, like, I wonder what's. Trump. Trump's. Trump is thinking about this, which is always just sort of a fool's errand to try to figure out. So you never know. Like, is this but one that we've.

[Jon Lovett]

Based much of the show around?

[Tommy Vietor]

And that's the contradiction at the heart of this show. But the. But. But. But it's. It's. Are we like. And I think there's always a mix, right, between his sort of feral desire for just news cycles. Right. He's just. He's ravenous for news cycles and he's. He got a great one out of Colombia. He's going to declare that this was a great. He feels this is a great one for him. Right. He threatens these tariffs, the media goes nuts. He gets these concessions that he can brag about, declare victory, and we're on to the next fight tomorrow. But then part of it also is he is. This is now A cycle. Right. He has said, I will tariff you unless you come to the table and negotiate. Right. They can. He's showing that, you know, they never apply this on, on sanctions, but they do on tariffs. Which is the way you prove that if you concede something, you might be rewarded by Trump is he withdrew them. Right. He's showing, he says he's willing to be capricious and put in place these disastrous tariffs that would harm both countries, but he's also willing at a moment's notice to withdraw them. So he's setting now we have a 30 day cycle. We're gonna do this again in 30 days, I guess.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think just, it's gonna be a lot easier to get either real concessions or just lip service out of the Canadians and the Mexicans than it will be out of the Chinese. Xi Jinping is not going to bend or break easily. And so it does look like. Look, ultimately, I think the results matter a lot less to Trump than the politics. There were stories in the Wall Street Journal a week ago about how the Canadians, like, didn't know what he wanted. They were on the other end of this fight. They didn't know what they were negotiating.

[Jon Lovett]

Turns out the answer was a fentanyl czar.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, they wanted a new czar. And, but like, Trump looks like he's taking action. He's getting stuff done. He's making progress, he's picking big fights. So it's splashy, it's getting covered. You're right. State media is covering it, but so is every other news outlet that's, you know, trying to follow this administration. So I think it's really smart politics for him.

[Jon Lovett]

I think, though, that you just have to ask yourself, like Justin Trudeau and Claudia Schoenbaum right now, what are they thinking? Are they thinking, oh, he really got us? No, probably not, because they didn't have to give up anything.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, Trudeau's out of a job, so he's thinking.

[Jon Lovett]

Right. But I'm saying it's not like, sure, everyone can say whatever they want and he can say whatever you want about how he pulled one over on people. But, like, the two, the two people, the two countries he supposedly pulled one over on are probably pretty happy right now because there's no trade war and they didn't have to spend any more money than they were going to.

[Tommy Vietor]

I was, I clicked on over to, clicked on over on over to CNBC to see what those guys were up to. I don't really check in with them very much how they do Today was a great day. They're there every day, you know, which is crazy.

[Jon Lovett]

But yeah, Jim Cramer this morning said really bad and it's going to be a really long bad day.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, you know what you do with the Jim Cramer prediction? You bet. The other side, almost exclusively.

[Tommy Vietor]

But they had the oil industry types on to talk about what they thought about all of us. And they were all being very, very careful not to say anything to offend Mr. Trump. But they talked about how they had negotiated basically from their own pressure, they had pushed for Trump to lower the tariffs on oil. So it's. Why is he doing that? Well, he's facing, the lobbyists are getting through, which is just a reminder, by the way, that tariffs are a great mechanism for Trump not just to have news cycles, but to keep American industries in heel. But you say it's like a, you know, I'm sure they're relieved that these tariffs aren't going into effect. But like the, the auto industry that is incredibly interdependent is jeopardized by the threat of these looming tariffs that will hang over these companies for months to come based on these free to trade agreements, build a whole bunch of, of interdependent industries, oil refineries and all the rest that depend on the United States not being a malicious actor that suddenly on a dime decides they're going to throw a giant tariff on our closest neighbor. And so like, yeah, we're on the other side of this right now. But the threat is still there. And Trump knows that the prospective threat of tariffs is more useful to him than ever implementing them. Sure. But I don't know how you get out of a cycle where people start to decide the United States is not worth doing business with.

[Jon Lovett]

Right? No, no, I think the whole thing is damaging for sure and damaging to us probably, as people want to do business with us. Because at some point someone's gonna say, well, I'm gonna call this bluff. Because so far all he does for his first term and now this term is he threatens and then maybe he slaps a small tariff on something or targeted tariffs here, but it's not really a big deal. I also think that, you know, there was this whole debate, is he using the tariffs as a negotiating threat or, or does he just really believe that tariffs are good? And by nominating and then confirming Scott Besant for Treasury Secretary, he seemed to be of the view that tariffs are just a good negotiating tactic. But then of course, over the weekend, when it seemed like it was going to happen, all of the maga People are all arguing Trump's point that tariffs are actually great. And this is, you know, Trump himself posted, we should get rid of the income tax and just have tariffs. And these tariffs are going to fill our coffers and we're going to have so much more money and we're going to show these countries, blah, blah. And it's like, well, what happened to that now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, yeah, the J.D. vancy of the case is you throw in the tariffs and you create a big domestic industry. But these are all long game proposals that will take decades to play out. And Trump's just dicking around and doing a political move. Like, it's clearly just naked politics. He wants to look like he's taking action. I think it's pretty effective in that sense.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. I talked about this with these briefly, but when I woke up, I was like, let's see what's happening with this trade war. And I just checked the Dow. I don't know if I checked the Dow in the morning. I'm not a Dow checking guy. But then you look and it's like, the people that are so keyed into this are not that afraid. Right. It went down a little bit. Then they saw the Mexican deal and it kind of ticked back up again. So they all like, there is a kind of collective belief that at the moment, in the morning, I was like, it is either a delusion or not that this Trump is just bluffing. He doesn't actually want to do this. But Trump is so emboldened and gain so much power from the fact that we don't totally know what he'll do and we're not really sure what he means. And like, we pay for that. We pay for that by the fact that the whole, the whole world today was focused on whether it was gonna happen today.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. I also don't, I don't really understand. I know how he thinks about it, but I don't really understand what kind of political win he thinks he's getting. Two weeks into his administration in one news cycle, it's like, great. Everyone's gonna forget about it in, you know, three days until we get, unless we get 30 days from now. And then, you know, he makes up some other big fucking problem that Canada and Mexico are doing. He does this all over again.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I just think it's like the casual news observer, the just the headline person, like, you see Trump, he beat up on the Canadians, he got some concessions, like, good for him doing stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Rob Lowe]

Helixsleep.comcrooked hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here, if you haven't heard. I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Lovett]

All right, let's talk about Trump's war at home against the government he leads. The President has essentially given Elon Musk the keys to the kingdom. And the world's richest man is now acting like he's the one people voted for. Here's the headline from the libs over at the Wall Street Journal. Musk moves with lightning speed to exert control over the government. Elon and his gang of Gen Z Doge Bros. Got a couple 19, 20, 21 year olds right out of college, fresh out of college. Now they are just running around the federal government.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Jesse, who's in the Oval Office today?

[Jon Lovett]

Oh, yeah, Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Larry Ellison.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, Ruth's hanging out during the, during the press avail. They asked Trump about the Wall Street Journal saying that this was Trump's dumbest trade war. He didn't love that and he didn't like it. He said he's going to have to bring that up with Rupert and I guess he really meant it. That day Rupert was sitting right there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Where the question was asked.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, we didn't talk about that. I did wonder if some of the market stuff and Rupert and Wall Street Journal and the old establishment Republicans that basically no longer exist started getting him like, hey, the markets could be fucked here.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well this was the whole thing, the whole first term. His China policy was flip flopping back and forth between hardline hawks and the market whisperers like Mnookin and others who were saying don't do it. You don't want a dow to go down. You don't want the S and P to drop.

[Jon Lovett]

So anyway, so Elon and all of his fucking nerds, they're running throughout the federal government now. They demanded and ultimately won access to the Treasury Department's payment system, which is how the government pays its bills and delivers benefits to people that are already mandated by law. So by the time it gets to the payment system, it's all a bunch of career officials. They're non partisan, they're just like. It's just the spigot, they're just turning it on. All right now we're just paying the bills. So now this means that Elon and his crew has access to the personal information of every U.S. taxpayer. Social Security numbers, all of it. Elon then claimed without any evidence whatsoever that treasury, he discovered the treasury was making illegal payments, including to some terrorists, and that he was shutting them down. Seems bad. What's your level of alarm on this one, guys?

[Tommy Vietor]

Presumably we're mailing the checks to those terrorists, so probably see that address go there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, Uncle Sam's Venmo. Do we have the ISIS account?

[Tommy Vietor]

It just sort of like seems like that's like a. You're kind of over promising and under delivering. If you found terrorists in the payment system, let's see where the checks are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I meant hummus, not Hamas. So how do we route that money.

[Jon Lovett]

The wrong place, you know who we sending hummus to?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, it was payment for hummus. I'm sorry, you know what I mean. We split that app.

[Tommy Vietor]

It was hummus for Hamas, unfortunately. And condoms.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Which was just made up. And you said it again.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Anyway, I mean this, this is pretty. I didn't, first of all, I didn't know that Uncle Sam had a Venmo. This seems alarming and unprecedented. And like Elon Musk, just an unelected tech billionaire wrestling away congressional authority to spend money in the Treasury Department's role in the whole process. And I don't know, like this vindictive, unstable man calling USAID evil and leftist Marxists terrorist supporters. This all seems like a pretty bad setup.

[Jon Lovett]

I forgot to mention that when they originally demanded access, they were told no by the career official in charge of the payment system at treasury, who was acting Treasury Secretary at the time, before Besant was confirmed and had been appointed, I believe, by Donald Trump in the first administration. So this is no crazy Marxist lib. And he said, no, that's crazy. You can't have access to the pain system. You're not like this group of kids that you brought in from Silicon Valley. They're not even government employees. And they don't have, they don't have security clearance emails. No, we're not giving you access to the sensitive payment system that distributes trillions of dollars every year. And then he had to step aside. They got him right out of there.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's also, you know, it's, it's like a, it's, it's obviously like the, the most sort of sensational example, but it's also just, if your goal is getting government spending under control, obviously this is dangerous and unhinged. It's also very stupid because if you're trying to get overall government spending under control, I don't care how many 19 year olds you brought with you from Dojan or I don't care how many fucking sofa beds you bring into the omb. You're going line by line through the fucking ledger. Like, this is a vast apparatus. There are.

[Jon Lovett]

But also it's the wrong ledger. You didn't need access to the payment system. There's the federal budget that you could just go line by line.

[Tommy Vietor]

But that's my point. Like, these people have so little knowledge or respect. Like, I wanna get to the danger that this poses, the moral and ethical risks that this poses. But let's just start by pointing out, like, this is a stupid thing to do. This is a stupid way to try to achieve what they wanna achieve. Because it is not actually about results. It's about being the stars of a drama. The drama of, of reforming the government from the inside. With our daybeds and our doge and our hardcore and our emails and our exciting, exciting progress. And now, and now. And that to me, is driving all of this not the actual practical realities of what anything they, on their own terms, what they want to do.

[Jon Lovett]

Well, but that, that's the key. On their own terms, it's if, if what they want to do really is cut spending in the government and that's it, then the whole thing is really stupid and they're going about it the wrong way. But maybe that's not what they really want to do. And that's why they tried to get access to the payment system in the US Government. And where the shit really hits the fan is we're going to go into a, probably a debt ceiling crisis in March. And when they're trying to raise the debt ceiling and treasury already is using extraordinary measures to keep us from hitting the debt ceiling because we should have raised it. As always, we're raising it late, as we have for the last two decades. And treasury and that department are responsible for making sure that the US Keeps paying our bills and that the full faith and credit of the United States government is respected and counted on all over the world.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Also, apparently even in past financial crises or debt ceiling fights, the political staff have never done this. They've always let career civil servants handle this kind of sensitive information. And by the way, there was some reporting about the identities of members of the Doge team, these tweens and teens running around the place. You don't know that. No, you don't know that. They're.

[Jon Lovett]

I like calling them tweens. Good job.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is threatening to arrest people or prosecute people that I guess expose their identities or put them at risk in some kind of way. And now you've got like Elon's army of dipshits and losers on Twitter now doxing the reporters who reported on the Doge staffers and leading to them getting threats. So this is just incredibly fascistic.

[Jon Lovett]

The U.S. attorney for D.C. who now who used to be the guy who defended all the January six rioters, he was, now made the U.S. attorney in D.C.

[Tommy Vietor]

So much of this too, like, it's Trump, how Trump is threatening tariffs, how Elon is operating Doge. It is all kind of childish, kind of buffoonish people drafting off the like stability and success and institutions that they don't respect at all, like Elon and this group of people, they don't care or know why we make why we did things the way we did for a really long time. They don't know or care why we had these independent parts of the government. They don't haven't thought deeply about why it's actually a very good thing that when the treasury says, hey, we have four months until we're out of money, that both Democrats and Republicans that are negotiating overspending in Congress respect that. And more broadly, they don't respect that. Like, yeah, cutting the budget, finding waste and fraud. Like, these are time consuming and difficult projects that require audits and negotiation and compromise, that are slow and annoying and frustrating and imperfect. Like, they don't respect or care about that process at all. It's not hardcore. It's not how they do it in business because they don't understand the value of, like, democratic legitimacy. They don't appreciate or care about these institutions and the fact that they belong not to, like, Elon or Trump, but they belong to us. And that basic lack of respect that, like, humility is, is, is. It's just absent. It's absent. And I know it, like, kind of almost goes without saying, but I think.

[Jon Lovett]

It'S worth saying, well, yeah, because billionaire tech founders don't run their businesses like a democracy. That's the whole point. They're like, they're authoritarians in their own little fiefdoms. And they look at the federal government and they're like, oh, it's so wasteful and inefficient. And why don't, why can't they just run? Why can't the person in charge just make all the, make all the calls there, too? Oh, wait a minute.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right? We tried that. We tried that.

[Jon Lovett]

The system that we have here, democracy, this seems, I don't know about this.

[Tommy Vietor]

And a lot of people thought it was stupid to do it the way we decided to try to do it. They're like, what do you mean? You don't have one person making all the rules. Isn't that going to be messy? Yes, yes. But it turns out it has some perks.

[Jon Lovett]

When Bessen found out about the whole thing, apparently he told the Journal, the Wall Street Journal, or sources told the Wall Street Journal that they have only read only access to the payments and stuff and that they cannot cut off any, any, any payments themselves. Which, you know, contradicts Elon's tweet where he said, we are stopping these payments immediately. So a little unclear what's going on there.

[Tommy Vietor]

Who knows? I just. Who knows what's going on? It changes hour to hour. We have no idea.

[Jon Lovett]

Doge also busted into the USAID building this weekend. That's the agency responsible for humanitarian assistance around the world. And they demanded access to classified information and personnel information. When USAID security Officials resisted. They were put on leave. Elon then tweeted that USAID is an evil criminal organization, a viper's nest of radical left Marxists who hate America, and that it's time for the agency to die. This was quite a Tweet spree Sunday. USAID's website and Twitter account were then taken down and staffers were locked out of the building in their email accounts. Even staffers all over the world in some very dangerous places could not access USAID contacts, their emails, nothing. Then on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID would become part of the State Department and that he was now acting administrator. Trump also weighed in on all this insanity. Let's listen.

[Brian Deese]

Will it take an act of Congress.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To do away with usaid, or do you believe.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't know.

[Donald Trump]

I don't think so. Not when it comes to fraud. If there's fraud, these people are lunatics. And if it. If it comes to fraud, you wouldn't have an act of Congress. And I'm not sure that you would. Anyway, I love the concept, but they turn out to be radical left lunatics. And the concept of it is good, but it's all about the people.

[Jon Lovett]

It's interesting that he says he loves the concept there.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't think you do.

[Jon Lovett]

Of course, you do need a law passed by Congress to completely defund and eliminate an agency. Anyway, that's. It's obviously not how the people who actually work at USAID see it. The way that Elon sees it. We talked to Brittany Brown, who's a former division head at usaid, right after she got back from her protest outside the agency's headquarters in D.C. on Monday. Let's listen to Brittany.

[Brittany Brown]

I'm Brittany Brown. I was at USAID for four years, starting the second week of the Biden administration. And I stayed through January 20th at noon of this year. So about 10 days ago, what happened was they put a stop work order on all U.S. foreign assistance and that impacted about $60 billion of assistance. I think we've seen now in the last three days that it really is an attempt to shut down the US Agency for International Development, or usaid. What is really important about this versus just like a pause on assistance is they didn't just stop new money from going out the door. The thing that's like really scary to me is the guy who is in charge of holding together the humanitarian portion of the ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, he cannot access his email or computer. He's the one who's supposed to be like, Actually making sure the humanitarian portion of that is working. And he can't get into his email. The woman who is running the humanitarian response in Sudan, where we just declared a genocide, she can't access her email or get into her systems to try and move money, to try and move commodities so that we actually can support the people who are now, you know, without any international support. These are all people that I know. I spent the first seven months of the first Trump administration at the Trump White House as Trump's senior Africa person. And I saw firsthand that things were rarely what they said they were. And that is why I feel so panicked about what they're saying versus what is happening. I think this is a test to see is Congress actually going to stand up for their right and for something that the Constitution protects? USAID is a really safe organization to test this with. It is difficult to explain to the average American why spending $60 billion overseas makes sense. It's not like the people in Wisconsin are concerned about what is happening necessarily in Somaliland or in Eswatini, like they're thinking about Wisconsin.

[Jon Lovett]

So it seems to me again that if President Trump and Elon Musk wanted to root out wasteful spending at usaid, they could have just conducted an audit of the agency's budget and then asked their Republican controlled Congress to make a bunch of cuts. Clearly, that's not what happened. What, Tommy, what do you think's going on here and how big of a deal is this?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that this is not about wasteful spending or even about usaid. I think this is a broader effort to usurp Congress's role in the spending process and create a precedent that they can then use again and again. Just to be clear, the President does not have the legal authority to abolish USAID. Congress established USAID's authority apart from State, and merging it with State would also be unconstitutional. So this is just a power grab. And I think how it goes could determine whether there is another power grab. You're seeing some reporting that the Department of Education could be next. That's the thing in Elon's crosshairs. And it is part of a broader pattern that we're seeing in these first two weeks of them ignoring or breaking the law, ignoring norms to seize power. So they fired those inspectors general at all these agencies. They did it illegally by not giving Congress sufficient notice. It would have been very easy to give Congress 30 days notice and then fire all these people. The Republicans wouldn't stop them. They wanted to have this fight and Maybe take it to courts and win in court. They have crippled the National Labor Relations Board by firing a member. So now the NLRB doesn't have enough members to meet, so they don't have a quorum. That means, in practice, this independent agency that is supposed to investigate and prosecute labor law violations cannot do its job. Similar thing happened at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or eeoc. They are browbeating Republican senators into supporting unqualified nominees. Like, this is a massive, unprecedented power grab. And Democrats, I think, don't really know how to fight it or don't have the power to fight it. And Republicans just refuse to.

[Jon Lovett]

And, you know, you said maybe they're looking for a fight that they can take to court and win. The thing that has been keeping me up at night for months is that they go to court with some of these fights and then they lose. And then Donald Trump says, fuck you, John Roberts. And the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, what are you going to do about it? And I think that this was corrupt, and the justices are wrong, and I don't agree with them. And I'm going to do what I want. Yeah. Bob Bauer, who is a White House counsel in the Obama administration, and Jack Goldsmith, who was in the White House counsel for a Republican administration, they both wrote this and they said that Russ Vogt, who's going to head up omb, his view of the Constitution is that you should try to push the court and maybe defy court orders because you want, or you want the court to give you favorable rulings because the court is afraid that if the court gives you. Gives Donald Trump, like, rulings that he doesn't like, then he'll say, fuck you, and then that'll be it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. That the court needs to balance its constitutional prerogative with the fear that Trump will break the rules. And so they negotiate. They negotiate against themselves, allowing Trump to be unconstrained without him ever having to break a rule, by the way, not dissimilar to what news agencies are doing when they capitulate to Trump on lawsuits that they're afraid to fight all the way to the Supreme Court. There are two pieces of it that I think are worth splitting up. One is what they're doing around these firings or the National Labor Relations Board, in which they are basically asserting that any bounds on Trump and his ability to decide who works for him and where in the executive branch are unconstitutional. Which is not A theory that Donald Trump invented is called unitary executive theory. It. It precedes him, and it is the way in which Trump's instinctive strongmen politics merge with the Republican desire for an imperial presidency. Incredibly dangerous, in part because that ideological desire for an extremely powerful presidency is not just in what Republicans in Congress want or what previous Republican presidents want. It's what the Republican courts seem willing to go along with. The other part of this is the power of the purse. And it is interesting that Trump, whether it is because they didn't want to have the fight on this issue, or they do think they would be constrained by a court ruling that they withdrew the federal funding freeze and were willing to kind of give on that. Right. It points to the places in which they're still responding to kind of the old rules, at least a little bit. At least that's maybe a glimmer of hope that they are.

[Jon Lovett]

One of the federal judges that, you know, tried to freeze the freeze and issued a restraining order said just today, Monday that she doesn't believe that the Trump administration is abiding by the restraining order. And ordered them. Yeah, ordered them again to stop the freeze.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It also sounds like that OPM letter went through Elon's shop and did not go by people like Stephen Miller and other top White House officials. So I'm sure there's some intra administration.

[Tommy Vietor]

Stuff, too, and they're just there are benefiting from chaos and incompetence. Right. Like Bill Cassidy, Republican senator, put out a letter today saying Pepfar still seems to be on hold. Just Pepfar was a Bush initiative, Republic initiative to spend vast amounts of money to combat HIV and AIDS in Africa. I remember when this was a debate at the time, Bush didn't like usaid, and so he set it up separately because he wanted it to run through the State Department because of the previous Republican problems with usaid, that's still being held even though they're claiming that these things have a waiver. But on the power of the purse, what Trump is doing here is he's basically saying, I have the latitude to turn off everything and then by noblesse oblige, turn it back on. Right. And I don't like we've spent a long time watching as the presidency kind of encroached upon Congress's prerogatives. Like, that's something that was happening under Democrats and Republicans and it's gotten complicated. And when Obama is president, a bunch of Democrats are defending certain things that now we would not defend. And Republicans are doing the same in Republican administrations. But this is as basic and core to the Constitution as it gets. If the president can decide what to spend or not to spend based on what Congress has passed. The Congress is no longer determining how the money is spent. The President is. That is one of the core dangers. That is one of the core reasons we have a Constitution. And I agree with you. Like, my concern too is that they're going to obliterate, that they're going to bash through a court ruling at some point. I think the question is like, how long do we hold that off, right? Four years ago, what Elon Musk is doing, impossible to imagine eight years ago, impossible to imagine four years from now. I have no idea.

[Jon Lovett]

It's also important that like, this isn't just about, you know, norms and institutions and theories of government and all that, which is incredibly dangerous, threats to the system, to the system of democracy. But like this is just causing needless suffering and death because again, if they, and you know what they're going to do is they're going to, I'm sure, come out with, you know, programs and spending at USAID that seem ridiculous or wasteful.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They already have.

[Jon Lovett]

Again, there's probably plenty of that, right? And no one is saying we shouldn't go through the federal budget and go through the federal government and eliminate wasteful spending and try to find more efficiencies. But pausing it the way they did, cutting it off immediately, like people, children, a lot of children are gonna die because they can't get the medication they need in other countries. For what? For nothing. We're not gonna save money for this. You heard from Brittany. This is money that was already out the door. This isn't new money. So no one's saving this. I think there was guards, prison guards that were guarding ISIS prisoners who just had to walk off the job.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, they didn't know if they should show up for work. So some of them didn't.

[Jon Lovett]

There's, there's USAID people in dangerous areas around the world that now can't get access to, to help if they need it. All kinds of health, you know, programs we're funding around the world that are just going to just lead to more suffering and death. I mean, it's fucking ridiculous. It's inexcusable.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I also think like, there's this lack of clarity now about whether some parts of USAID funding has been unfrozen. Like Rubio said that Secretary Rubio said that life saving assistance, like medicine, medical service, food and shelter would be exempted from the aid freeze. But no one really knows what that means. And I think that's kind of the point because this Uncertainty has just upended everything USAID is doing. And I think, honestly, I think talking about this as a freeze is probably a mistake. I have zero confidence that the vast majority of this funding or these programs will be turned back on. And I think that, by the way, Rubio used to be a big defender of USAID funding. He said it was critical for our national security and now he's totally flip flopped. But let's just say that something you're working on is paused for 90 days. If you're a contractor working for USAID in like Kenya or Ukraine or Southeast Asia, you don't have 90 days worth of savings to just sit on to like see if your job is around in three months, like you're going to go do something else and it's going to like completely cripple all this work that has taken decades to set up this infrastructure, these contractors, these networks of people in these countries. And to your point, I mean, if you're getting antiretrovirals through pepfar and you stop, you're gonna die.

[Jon Lovett]

And again, that's how it is. And I, and I get the domestic politics on all this. I get that no one likes foreign aid or not a lot. Most Americans don't like foreign aid. And you tell people it's like 0.7% of the whole budget and that still doesn't matter.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, they think it's 10% is the big problem.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that is a big problem. But I do think if you, I think for most Americans, you tell them, hey, this kid showed up at a clinic today. Like they have every day for, you know, once a month to go get some, some medicine and now it shut down and now this kid could die. Like for what? When? What, for what purpose? So that Elon can post about like vile communists, Marxists.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's, there's a, there's like a, a way in which their kind of base incompetence and then their kind of like viciousness work together here, which is they didn't know or care very much about what USAID did. They didn't care very much or know very much about what PEPFAR did before. They have an ideological set of assumptions about, about non, about nonprofit work, about foreign aid, that it's all bullshit. Right? They like internalized a bunch of that.

[Jon Lovett]

I wonder if you, if Elon Musk knew that USAID played such a big role in fighting apartheid in South Africa.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I mean, but, but, but the.

[Tommy Vietor]

Only, just the point that I'm only making is that like the way in which these things work together is that they're so fucking careless. They're so. And like, they're just careless people. It's so. It's a. It's a glib carelessness that is just like. It's beneath contempt. And the stakes are so high. We're just. Yes, there are many ideological kind of warriors, but a lot of the people at the top of this are just capricious, glib fools that don't understand that they just don't care that they're playing with matches.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But in some instances, it's worse than that. It's. It's. They are folding this into their preconceived ideological anger, and they've decided that USAID funded programs that led to gain of function, research that led to Covid. You know, this is all kind of getting folded into like, prosecute Fauci madness. And it's like, you know, Elon Musk retweeting Allstreet Apes, which is his source on someone found some 40 million in taxpayer funding that went to some scientists in Wuhan. And it's just like, I don't know. Apparently this is all just part of a conspiracy theory about how the lab leak was on purpose from, you know, thanks to Fauci's funding from usaid. I guess that's the new theory of the case here.

[Jon Lovett]

And again, you have the richest man in the world with one of the biggest platforms, now one of the most powerful people in government just accusing entire organizations of being criminal enterprises. And you can see the slippery slope, right? Like, you can see where now, you know, Pam Bondi and Cash Patel get in there and they start processing, well, this was criminal activity. We're going to investigate it like this is. This is how it goes. Unless anyone think this is just about foreign aid. The Trump administration also pushed out the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, and ordered the agency to stop all investigations and enforcement actions against banks and payday lenders and credit card companies. They have saved just consumers billions and billions and billions of dollars in refunds. And they've got the consumers. It's a great agency, indivisible.

[Tommy Vietor]

This is. There is no simpler like the Delta between what Republicans claim that CFPB is and what CFPB is. That is one of the biggest and starkest gaps in politics is an agency that has such a singular, simple purpose, which is to go after big corporations that are defrauding and fucking over consumers and getting them money back. It is being punished because it. Well, it's being punished in Part because it was originally Elizabeth Warren's idea. That's its original sin. But it is so fucking effective. It is such good government. They put Mick Mulvaney in there the first term to try to destroy it. Biden was able to put in Rohit, who did an amazing job, and now they're gonna try to destroy it again.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. And as Tommy mentioned, Wall Street Journal reports and now the Washington Post that Trump and Elon are preparing an executive order to try to shut down the entire Department of Education. This was a campaign promise from Trump. They acknowledge in the order that they can't shut the entire thing down by executive order. They want to go to Congress to do it, but they want to move some of the functions out of the Department of Education. Of course, you know, most schools are funded by local and state taxes, but you know, for poor schools get a lot of Title 1 funding from the Department of Education. All of student financial aid, the federal financial aid program is run out of the Department of Education. Students with disabilities are funded through the Department of Education. It goes on and on and on. New York Times reports that more than 8,000 federal government web pages have been taken down, including thousands of research papers that were available on the CDC website, informational IRS videos about how to avoid tax penalties and the state level hate crimes data on the Justice Department website. Speaking of which, there is an ongoing purge at the DOJ and FBI. Trump is firing any prosecutors or FBI agents that had anything to do with any of the criminal investigations that led to his indictments.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, in fairness, that's because they were also incredibly ineffective. Got to get some good prosecutors in that can get a fucking conviction and get them get him in jail.

[Jon Lovett]

At the FBI, employees were given until 3pm Eastern time on Monday to fill out a questionnaire about whether they were involved in any way in investigations into January 6th.

[Tommy Vietor]

I just. That's such a funny trap to set for prosecutors.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, should I fire you Y or N?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

The FBI has estimated that the number of people who were agents and staff could be about 6,000. This comes after DOJ fired about 12 prosecutors in D.C. who had been brought on to investigate January 6th cases.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And most of those 6,000 are like so tangential. So, yes, people who got random leads, who passed along information or were part of a wiretap or God knows what.

[Jon Lovett]

And by the way, that's the real concern is that so many of these people working or like career officials who've been at DOJ or the FBI for a decade, some of them are very senior people with like counterintelligence experience. And they're going after national security threats and they've been working all these cases and now they're just going to be gone.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or they were just assigned a case and they don't have a. You don't have a choice, right?

[Tommy Vietor]

Seasoned prosecutors, they're seasoned prose. Seasoned prosecutors who have no reason to be fired. And it's not as though America is short on white collar crimes to prosecute. So it's fucking terrible.

[Jon Lovett]

So I mean, you talked about the unitary executive theory. You know, JD Vance tweeted today, you know, look, unelected bureaucrats should not be resisting the President United States. They work for him. He gets to staff his government with who he wants and then he is answerable to the people. So the people elected Trump and Trump gets to have the entire government he wants. So everyone else should just shut the fuck up, basically. Why is that wrong?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I was thinking about this earlier, which is this, that we are watching these guys make these kind of simple arguments against these like hard won institutional protections, right? Some of which are imposed by Congress, some are just norms that evolved over decades, if not centuries. And a lot of those norms, institutions, processes that are designed to constrain the executive were put in place in the kind of like long before the Internet. And they were put in place when you had a kind of like elite bipartisan set of actors that didn't feel like they had that kind of established this order long ago. And it sort of been in place in a way that was like never really defended.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

We took no one really making the argument for why the DOJ is separate from the presidency and why that's a good idea and why that's important. There's no real, there hasn't been a real kind of, I don't know, like legal, broad based, kind of public legal argument against originalism and like kind of the values of the kind of what we've learned about constitutional governance over the last 200 years. But what we do have is just example after example after example of why we put these restrictions in place. And they were meant to stop presidents from abusing power. The reason we have bureaucrats who are not accountable to the President, can't be fired by the President is because of the spoil system and because when the government was filled with cronies, it didn't fucking work and it was a corrupt bargain. Why is the DOJ separate from the White House? Because the presidency is too powerful. And when the DOJ isn't separate from the White House, it Means the President is not accountable to law. There's an answer to every one of these questions, but it's like they're relying on the fact that we're like fighting these guys on every front and they can just spout off and say, make these sort of claims to the power of the people. Well, we're left kind of following behind. Well, actually there's a good reason. You know, RFK was actually Attorney General.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm so sick of this. This is what people voted for line. Like no, no one voted to give Elon Musk a line item veto for the entire federal government. And like voting for Donald Trump doesn't mean we get rid of basic civil service protections for government employees. Those are in place to ensure merit based employment, to ensure that political influence isn't dictating every single person who is hired or fired, that there isn't discrimination or arbitrary actions. They have collective bargaining rights, there's whistleblower protections, there's all sorts of workers rights. They don't go away because Donald Trump gets elected president.

[Jon Lovett]

I do think that, you know, people don't necessarily love bureaucrats. Even the name has a connotation that's not too positive. And I don't think like, you know, even during the campaign we didn't want to talk a lot about Schedule F and how we wanted to replace all of the government workers with loyalists cuz we knew that wouldn't, wouldn't really pop in the polls. And I think that as he's doing all this, you know, those of us who are paying attention are rightly freaked out. I think what's gonna have to happen is adverse consequences from having a government completely gutted and really good professional people who've been there forever, not there. And like when something happens, it's going to have to be like, well, Donald Trump, it's your government. You and J.D. vance said it's your people. You get to pick who you want.

[Jon Favreau]

You're running the whole thing.

[Jon Lovett]

You don't have the deep state to blame anymore. So it's your fucking fault.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, they have to.

[Jon Lovett]

And I don't know, I don't know what else to.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, there's just, there's just like, I don't know what the equity is. And just a defense of the annoying, difficult hard work of like democratic governance. And like, you know, I think about like just the prospect of the trade war and it's like it's not good tv, right? Like the, the, like the difficult work of diplomacy behind the scenes to gain contentions without threatening your partners and without creating a scandal. Like, it's just, it's just not good tv. And like a lot of you're not.

[Jon Lovett]

Sticking around for the readout of the bilat.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right? It was just like democracy has. Like, what Trump figured out is that democracy isn't good tv. And like, I like it's incumbent on us to figure out how to make it more like good tv. But it's hard. It's hard.

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe, maybe next Democrat should try to take over Greenland, you know?

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

To you and licking your hand.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, that's nice.

[Jon Favreau]

Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com Crooked ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[I]

I'm poet Saeed Jones.

[J]

And I'm producer Zach Safford. And we are the host of a podcast called On Vibe Check.

[Tommy Vietor]

We talk about everything. News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels.

[J]

That's right. We talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

[I]

Yes, indeed. And it doesn't stop there. We have got a lot to say, so join our group, chat, come to life, follow and listen to Vibe. Check wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Lovett]

Speaking of Trump getting to do whatever he wants, one more mad king move I want to talk about here. That was just drove me crazy. So. Trump apparently ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to begin releasing water from two reservoirs in California's Central Valley because he mistakenly believes the water from the Central Valley will flow three hours south to Los Angeles.

[Tommy Vietor]

I think people. I think people because. Because south is down.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, gravity will take us down.

[Tommy Vietor]

South is down.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I guess.

[Jon Lovett]

I guess what's supposed to. You're supposed to release the water from the reservoirs up there and then it'll flow right into the hydrants in the Palisades.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

That's how it's going to happen.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is the word valley doing nothing for him?

[Jon Lovett]

So he mistakenly believes it will flow down here to Los Angeles, helping us put out fires that are now 100% contained in advance of an atmospheric river event that's predicted to dump 10ft of snow and up to 20 inches of rain in the area this week of the Central Valley where he. Where he just dumped out all that water. According to the Washington Post, Trump released enough water to supply as many as 7,000 households for a year. And now that water won't be available to Central Valley farmers who really need it to irrigate the fields later this year. Trump talked about this, quote, long fought victory at the White House on Monday. Let's listen.

[Donald Trump]

All we're doing is giving Los Angeles and the entire state of California virtually unlimited water, which they could have done five years ago, which I told them they should do, but the environmentalists stopped them and we opened it and we did it regardless of the state. And now the state seems to be very happy. I spoke with Gavin New Newsom and he. He's very happy. I almost called him by the other name. My little nickname stopped it.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's being very presidential this morning.

[Jon Lovett]

Just gonna go on a limb here and say that I don't think Gavin Newsom was probably too happy about this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's so stupid.

[Jon Lovett]

What the fuck?

[Tommy Vietor]

He makes up a problem and he solves a problem. We're gonna be living with that over and over again. But he doesn't Care about the like, apparently. Was it Padilla who was saying that he wanted to open it up even further in a way that was extremely dangerous?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. No, he wanted them to release a ton. They only gave the local officials hours notice. Usually when you do releases like that, you prepare for with local officials and farmers and everyone else for many days to make sure there's no flooding. So they almost had to just open it up and cause a whole bunch of flooding. And then finally, last minute they were like, can we just do a little less, sir? Because this is just for your fucking adult mind about. Water has nothing to do with anything.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's very Stalin being like, well, we'll double the wheat if we plant all the wheat much closer together, you know.

[Jon Lovett]

It'S so fucking dumb. So fucking dumb. Yeah. So the question again becomes, what are the Democrats up to? Good news is we're getting some signs of life from the opposition party. Democrats elected a new DNC chair over the weekend. We of course were supporting Ben Wickler. But a big congrats to Ken Martin, who we also interviewed and are very much rooting for.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's my enemy.

[Jon Lovett]

He's John's enemy. On Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laid out a 10 part plan to fight back against Trump that includes using the March deadline to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling as leverage. Stay tuned for that. Our pal Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, says that he's placing a hold on all of Trump's State Department nominees until USAID is open and functioning again. And just a ton of Congressional Democrats actually held a press conference outside USAID after trying to enter the building themselves. Spoiler alert. They were not allowed in.

[Tommy Vietor]

Our sweet little insurrectionist. Oh, look at you guys doing your little extra direction.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So sweet.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sweet little Democrats. Knock, knock, knock.

[Jon Lovett]

What do you guys think Democrats? Are Democrats doing enough? Are they making the right moves? What else could they be doing? What's our latest, what's our latest feeling on this?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I didn't love the USAID press conference setting. The reason being, as we just discussed, the Republicans are about to find a bunch of examples of USAID programs that seem silly even to us or seem like a bad use of money. And if the shorthand is Democrats defend USAID while the White House bully pulpit. And Elon's Twitter amplifies all these bad things about usaid, I don't think that's a winner. I think I want them to focus in on the Elon piece of this right now because I do think it's genuinely scary. He's a nefarious new element to Trump 2.0 that is newsworthy and he's the shiny object right now. And reporters want to cover it and everyone knows who he is and want to know what's going on. And there's been some recent polling that shows that Elon's favorable ratings are underwater in some cases by like 16 points. And I think Democrats should drive a wedge in between Elon and Trump and drive both their unfavorables up by talking about why an unelected billionaire is just kind of combing through the government books and doing whatever the hell he wants. Like, that is a weird, crazy, interesting story that no one is going to like. And I think it'll get covered. And like, I'm good for Brian Schatz for blocking all these State Department employee nominations. I think that's great. Hakeem Jeffries 10 point plan has some good stuff in there. I read through it all, but I learned about it when I read the outline for this episode. So I don't know that it's broken through. I know a lot of it is like planning for down the road, but I don't know. I would focus on the Elon piece right now and just go hard.

[Tommy Vietor]

So Bernie Sanders put out a video over the weekend that I really liked. It was everything you want out of Bernie Sanders. And I think speaks to his sort of moral leadership. He just. It's just a camera. This is a very dangerous time. There are three things we gotta do. One, we gotta accurately describe what's happening. Two, we need to find the short term. And three, we need to find the long term. And in the short term. I think he was talking about what Tommy was talking about. I think there's. And the importance of fighting Trump wherever we can. Ezra Klein made this point about sort of also just not taking Trump at his word. Right. Like when he claims certain authorities, we shouldn't concede to it.

[Jon Lovett]

Trump today, he's trying to be scary and powerful. That's what he wants. He wants everyone to see him as a strong man.

[Tommy Vietor]

Trump today announced a sovereign wealth fund. He can't do that. He does not have the authority to create a sovereign wealth fund. And we shouldn't lend him. We shouldn't do what we're afraid what legacy media companies are doing or what judges might be doing, which is because we assume Trump will break the rules to not uphold the rules. Right. We should just uphold the rules. And then three, what Bernie talked about was building this long term political power and making an argument for a positive vision. And look, I don't think it's revelatory, but just the kind of clean, simple, to the point, direct way talked about it, how serious this moment is, how dangerous it is without high dudgeon, without kind of theatrics. But just to camera explaining it, I thought was really powerful.

[Jon Lovett]

I, along with you guys, have yelled about Democrats needing to do more on this very show. Still think we haven't quite found our footing just yet. But I do think just seeing a lot of people on Twitter and Blue sky, you gotta check the skeets too, these days.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do not.

[Jon Lovett]

Over the weekend, there's a lot of anger at the elected Democrats and I think we should level set on how much power Democrats have right now, which is almost none. And that is just a consequence of the election. And we probably have less power now as a party than we have any time I can remember. Because Trump's got the courts, he's got the executive branch, he's got billionaires all around him. They all own media platforms like they have, they got Congress. They have a lot of power. And Democrats can yell and scream. And you know, Tommy, I had the same thought about the USAID press conference because of the politics. But then I started thinking to myself, you know what? We told them to go fight. They're out there fighting. An election's not in a couple months. Let them do it for today. They'll get used to it. And then maybe they'll go to the Department of Education next, maybe they'll go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau next and they'll find more politically popular things to yell about. But I'm glad to see them do it. And Shotz is gonna hold up these nominees, but everyone should realize with that too, that's gonna eat up a lot of floor time and it's gonna slow things down, which is great, but John Thune's gonna be able to get those nominees through. Like, Democrats don't have the power. We have the power to slow things down in Congress. We don't have the power to stop a lot of things. We just don't. And I think everyone should realize that. And you know, as we criticize Democrats rightly, for a lame tweet here or a lame speech there or whatever else, we should just know that, you know, everyone should be suing the Trump administration on everything. The Democratic AG should be out there. We, we should take them to court on everything. That's a lever that we can pull. We can do everything. I do think like, we're gonna have some leverage on funding in the debt ceiling because Mike Johnson is going to need Democratic votes on those things. They're not gonna be able to get Chip, Roy and all the Republicans to get together and vote to raise the debt ceiling and vote to this. So, like, that is a choke point for us. But there's not a lot more. There's just not a lot more. We have to win elections again, guys.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. The part that I'm, like, questioning that I find myself, like, feeling, like, unsure about is don't get distracted by usaid. We got to talk about the impact of terrorists and don't get distracted by the impact of terrorists. We got to talk about the oligarchs and don't talk about the oligarchs because we got to talk about the price of eggs. And then I turn on the television and there's Trump every day for a couple hours a day, just hitting whatever he's going to hit, talking about it all, talking about it all. And, you know, Trump declared that he was going to create a sovereign wealth fund. I mentioned. Right. It is not. Is barely news. It's barely news. It's a big fucking deal. It's a big deal.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's not a bad idea either.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I think it's a bad idea to. To have a. To have Trump. Have Trump basically create a kind of an administrative led investment vehicle.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't want him to have a slush fund. But for the United States having a sovereign wealth fund, it's like, it's worth. It's a conversation worth having.

[Jon Lovett]

How else are we going to buy our Chinese spyware app?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's right. Sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I don't. Listen, I would rather put the money back in the hands of the American people, but that's just me. But all it's a way of saying maybe even that is kind of overthinking at this point. Fight everything everywhere you want to fight USA Today. Fight usaid.

[Jon Lovett]

Take some reps. Yeah, just get out there and get out there and take some reps. And I want them to show passion. It was funny because a lot of people were making fun of Chuck Schumer because he had this series of tweets over the weekend where he was like, you're gonna watch the super bowl next weekend, and beer's gonna be more expensive. You're gonna be trying to buy avocados, and those are gonna be more expensive. And, like, those were his tweets. And everyone's like, there's a fucking emergency. Elon's Breaking into usaid. What are you doing? And I'm like, yeah, Chuck Schumer's tweets are dumb.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's an expectations management problem.

[Brian Deese]

But it's like.

[Jon Lovett]

But if Chuck Schumer's tweets were amazing, what would that have done?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, there's a funny moment where Schumer gave Francis. He's like, I've never seen people more aroused than they are right now. And everyone's like, ah, no, he's saying they're aroused. It's like, who cares? That's how Chuck Schumer talks. What's the difference?

[Jon Lovett]

We played that on Pod America was really funny.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think we can critique it.

[Jon Lovett]

We can make fun of that.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, for sure. But it's just sort of like arousal. They're also not going to become different people. Chuck Schumer is going to be a senior citizen Jewish New Yorker out there talking about whatever he's going to talk about the way he's been talking about it for 50 fucking years.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We need them to look, they need to step up, like, good to do a press conference today. They've been slow. There's all these reports of, like, the Democrats, the Congressional Democrats doing a conference call to figure out their response as the news changes. Right. The OPM memo gets rescinded. Whatever. It's like, be a little more nimble. Take some shots. Don't worry about the. The words being perfect. Make sure you try to get it to the people who need to hear it. Maybe don't use the word aroused. Maybe don't defend the most unpopular spending. We do. And defend some of the popular spending. But look. Yeah, points for fighting, I guess.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. Agree. Yeah, I totally agree with all of that. And I just. I just want everyone to know, like, there is. Even if the Democratic Party was perfect and fucking nailed it every single day, there is a limit to what we can stop right now because we fucking lost the election. And we're gonna. And, you know, and I say this because there's gonna be people like, oh, now Democrats are just gonna tell us to vote for them in 2026. Yeah. Yeah, we are. Because that's the only way to. To stop legislation from happening.

[Tommy Vietor]

I took Twitter off my phone again, and I think it was good. I think it's good not to have that on my phone.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. You don't want to get into the Skeets.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, I can't. I can't do it. I can't take it anymore.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do think everyone really needs to keep an Eye on these media lawsuit settlements with Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not just ABC and their defamation suit. It's not just Facebook and their $25 million. You call it whatever you want. To Trump and to his library. There's reports that CBS might settle a suit that didn't even involve problems. The most ridiculous 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that they edited. Like every news organization edits everything always. And Paramount might settle that. And by the way, they happen to have Paramount Skydance merger that's sitting before the Trump administration. But suggesting that those things are connected would be untoward. So I wouldn't do that.

[Jon Lovett]

Larry Ellison just was in the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

In the ocean, literally in the Oval Office, just for.

[Jon Lovett]

He was.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So if we see the biggest media organizations in the country and their corporate overlords preemptively caving to the Trump administration and settling lawsuits, they could have won. That is a very scary signal about press coverage and fighting for the First Amendment right to cover the White House in the second administration. And we need to keep an eye on that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it's like you talk. You talk about, like, you know, we need. We need to be nimble. We need to be out there, like, who's gonna hear? Well, there's that, but then there's also, like, journalists themselves are struggling to cover all this. And so now you have the President States, who is lying and making shit up and completely misconstruing his various policy proposals on a daily basis. And if anybody covering him slips up for even one fucking second, he's going to be the president suing these people into oblivion while they're where. They're where their parent companies have business for the government. It's terrifying.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. The media point is really important also, because sometimes I feel like all of us are having, you know, there's like a 500,000 of us that are all having a conversation about strategy with each other. And then there's like a country of 300 million people, most of whom aren't. Who aren't paying attention and can barely get some of this information from news sources that are now under intense pressure. And so, like, one of the things we all have to think about is not just making sure that our other tweeters and other Democrats are saying the exact right message, but, like, you know, getting it out there to more people.

[Tommy Vietor]

Gotta put some kind of message at the bottom of the Costco samples. Gotta get creative, people.

[Jon Lovett]

And we can shop at Costco.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, we can still go to Costco. Gotta get messages to those rotisserie chickens. Get the messages to the chickens.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Just like, we've dealt with this guy for a decade. And Trump's like, we gave $50 million to Hamas for condoms. And then they used the condoms as bums. It's completely made up because some dork over a doge. She was 19 years old and has the Twitter handle Big Balls 69420 misread a spreadsheet and didn't realize this funding was going to, like, Mozambique or something. And then the response, though is like, fact check.org has Trump administration makes unsupported claim about 50 million for condoms to Gaza. It's like, oh, my God.

[Jon Lovett]

And then we're done. And then we're like, what's breaking through? None of this is breaking through. And then I listened to Sarah Longwell.

[Tommy Vietor]

Now with all those condoms, condom bombs breaking through.

[Jon Lovett]

Then I listen to Sarah Longwell.

[Tommy Vietor]

You got it, Tony.

[Jon Lovett]

Sarah Longwell's focus group this weekend. And she's got first time Trump voters, Biden and Trump voters, asking them how they're thinking about Trump. And they're like Tommy said earlier, like, they're all always taking action on stuff. Taking action. And then like, he promised.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hamas is raw, dogging, promise made, promise kept.

[Jon Lovett]

No, one of them, One of the people. He's like, I haven't heard much, but I heard about these condoms that they're spending. He's like, I'm glad they're cutting all that. The condoms for Hamas. That's crazy. And I'm like, oh, that fucking broke through. Of course that broke through.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Of course it did.

[Jon Lovett]

Anyway, we got a lot of work.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And Twitter, Twitter's assessable. The Elon fluffers are just out in force. They're everywhere. They're attacking everything.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, no, I realize. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Sequoia management partner. No, I know, I know. You know a lot about the federal government.

[Tommy Vietor]

Fucking asshole deleted the app to download the New York Times cooking app instead.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's good.

[Jon Lovett]

That's good.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. We may live in a fascist state, but I'm making Marry me chicken.

[Jon Lovett]

And you know what? You're making it with ingredients, no tariffs.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's right.

[Jon Lovett]

Thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. All right, when we come back, Lovett talks to the deputy director of the OMB in the Obama administration and director of the National Economic Council under Joe Biden, Brian Deese.

[Tommy Vietor]

And just so you all know, we talked in between the Mexican tariffs being paused and the Canadian tariffs being paused, but we talked about it both as a negotiating tactic and what it might look like if These tariffs are ultimately implemented, including the Chinese tariffs, which as of this recording are still, we believe, going into effect.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[I]

I'm Poet Saeed Jones.

[J]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford and we are the hosts of a podcast called VibeCheck.

[Tommy Vietor]

On Vibe Check, we talk about everything. News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels.

[J]

That's right, we talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

[I]

Yes, indeed, and it doesn't stop there. We have got a lot to say, so join our group, chat, come to life, follow and listen to Vibe Check wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tommy Vietor]

Foreigning us today for a quick and dirty breakdown of Trump's trade war. He's the former Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Director of the National Economic Council under President Biden Brian Deese. Welcome back to the pod.

[Brian Deese]

Thanks for having me.

[Tommy Vietor]

As of this recording Monday afternoon, 25% tariffs are set to go into effect against a broad range of Canadian imports, with the exception of a 10% tariff on Canadian oil. Though there are last minute negotiations that could push this off another month. There will also be a 10% tariff on Chinese imports. Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum negotiated a deal to delay tariffs by at least a month against Mexico, with Mexico promising to send more troops at southern border and shine bound securing some sort of a promise over guns flowing south from the United States into Mexico. Let's start with this. I woke up this morning and I just opened my phone and I just checked the Dow. I don't, I don't live my life yoked what the Dow does, but I was like, are we in an economic crisis or not? And what I saw was that the markets dipped a little bit. And then upon the news that Trump had this deal with Sheinbaum, they went back up. Does that tell you that there is still a kind of belief that Trump is just negotiating that even as we're recording this, he's threatening these massive and terrible tariffs, but is ultimately just in some way negotiating?

[Brian Deese]

Look, I think a lot of the market reaction can be explained by exactly that, which is initially the market thought he wasn't serious and he wouldn't do this. And then the market thought, well, he will threaten these tariffs, but he won't actually put them into effect. And now I think there is still a belief that he may put them into effect, but they'll only be in effect for a short period of time because this is negotiating. All of that is to say, though, the right way to think about the impact is not what happens to the Dow today, it's what happens to the prices that people pay on typical things for no apparent reason. The Wall Street Journal called this the dumbest trade war in history. And it's one of the few times I think that the Wall Street Journal actually understated it. This is all self imposed. And so even if the impact is only for a short period of time or only muted, we're still the end result is people are paying more for no apparent reason.

[Tommy Vietor]

So let's talk about what the impact could be. Again, these tariffs against Canada may go in effect tomorrow, they may not. But if they did, some estimates found that they could cost a typical household about 26 dol hundred dollars. But that's an average. It'll affect certain goods more than other goods. And because of the unique interdependence of Canada and the United States, it would affect some parts of the country more than others. What do you think? The. I want to just divide it half first. What would be the biggest price impacts and then I want to talk about the broader economic impact.

[Brian Deese]

Sure. So start the price impacts on the, the goods that we rely most on a Canada and Mexico for so fruits and vegetables, super bowl time, avocados. Most of our fruits and vegetables we import from Mexico. The price of those things is going to go up by about 25%. Gas at the pump. There are certain regions of the country, particularly the Midwest, that rely on imported petroleum products from Canada. Most estimates are that you'd see a 50 cent increase in gas in the Midwest, probably more like 25 cents across the country, but it could be higher in particular places. And then the kind of typical goods that you see walking down a Target aisle or a Walmart aisle. So iPhones, toasters, consumer electronics are all going to go up by in the ballpark of 25%. Because when a tariff is applied, it's not just that the importer pays the tariff, it's that the competitors then raise their prices to match those and so the consumer ends up paying most of that. So in terms of practical and practically most of what you buy, if you're walking down the grocery store or you're walking through a Target or Walmart, the prices are going to go up. The first order impact is typical consumers pay more on things like groceries and gas and consumer electronics. The second order impact is if that actually gets washed away by a stronger dollar, then it hurts American manufacturers. Which is why I saw a cartoon trying to say what is Trump actually doing? Where Trump was pissing into a fan and it was spitting all back into his face. And usually that's sort of evocative, but actually I think that's not an unreasonable way of thinking about what's going on here. It's hard to avoid this coming back in and being self defeating in some way or shape or form.

[Tommy Vietor]

So then what could be the job impact? So that's the kind of the consumer price impacts, but there's a lot of interdependence between. So some of the goods that could be tariffs are products that are brought down into the US to be part of domestic manufacturing here. Who are people, what jobs are at risk because of these tariffs?

[Brian Deese]

Look, the place I'm most worried about is the auto industry. Because the auto industry is incredibly dependent on the interrelationship with Canada and Mexico. A lot of the, the, the parts that go into making a car are produced in Canada and they go back and forth over the border. Anyone who lives in Michigan or has been up in Detroit, the Windsor Bridge, you know, the, the, our auto industry is essentially one industry that operates across a border. So to build a, you know, to build a typical, if GM is building a typical car parts might go back and forth across that border five, six, seven different times. And so the industry right now is really freaking out and saying, we've never had to grapple with the question of is a part going to be tariffed, steering wheel going to be tariffed four or five different times as it goes across the border. How is this going to work? Work? And by the way, if Canada retaliates and starts to cut off access to parts, that's going to have a broader cascading impact on our company's ability to actually produce vehicles in the first place.

[Tommy Vietor]

In the previous Trump term, there was a lot of big talk on imposing these kinds of broad tariffs, but he ultimately did a set of targeted or more targeted tariffs. The Biden administration actually left some of those tariffs in place and then imposed a bunch on their own. There was a tariff on electric cars, batteries, certain metals, certain minerals, even certain kinds of cranes. Can you talk about the difference in the logic between the Biden administration's approach to tariffs and the Trump administration's approach to tariffs?

[Brian Deese]

Yeah, to shorthand it, it's a difference between strategic and stupid. So there is. There is a real rationale and economic and national security rationale to use tariffs. If other countries are explicitly, either illegally or unfairly contorting their own industry in an effort to try to undermine American industry in areas where we have a strategic stake, things where we need components that go into building planes and tanks that support our military, things like critical minerals that are actually strategic. And China could have a stranglehold on different supply chains in those areas. You can actually see a country like China is actually taking illegal action to try to subsidize its industry in a way that could then undercut US Industry. It makes a lot of sense to actually step in and say, no, we're going to make sure that the US Industry has a way to actually build and scale its own capabilities. But to put the strategic versus stupid in context, the total amount of goods that the Biden administration put tariffs on these strategic tariffs was about $18 billion. You compare that to what's on the table right now with Trump, $1.4 trillion. So, you know, people say it's the difference between a scalpel and a sledgehammer. This is like a scalpel versus like a whole army versus sledgehammers, just hitting anything that you could possibly hit. And so even to give the first Trump administration some credit, under, you know, Bob Lighthizer and others, the ultimate approach they took to China was more calibrated. It wasn't across the board, it didn't hit everything. It exempted consumer goods. This approach is literally saying, we'll just put a tariff on anything, even if the end result is. You're pissing into a fan. It's all coming back. There's just. There's not a strategic rationale behind the approach.

[Tommy Vietor]

So Trump bullies Colombia, he gets a quick win. The damage to our reputation as a safe and reliable trading partner takes a hit. But that's, like, very hard to measure. Trump is now obviously threatening Canada. He's threatening China. He's threatening Mexico. He's also today was talking about the European Union. What happens if the US Tries to fight these different trade wars on multiple fronts? And how could not just one country independently, but how could countries together respond in a way that harms our economy, that harms our influence on the world stage?

[Brian Deese]

So we benefit when countries believe that when we say something, we're going to do it. And that's a little bit of the problem with this strategy of constantly threatening everybody with tariffs. Right. Is either one of two things happens. One, you threaten it and then pull it back. It seems like what's happened with Shine Bomb, Even today, the 25% tariff is not going to go into effect today with Mexico, but maybe it will go into effect a month from now. You do that enough times and people start to question whether the United States will actually do what it says or you follow through. And the bullying tactic causes other people to recognize, well, if you're going to bully us, we're going to go and find other friends. We're going to go and not rely on the United States anymore. And across time, what that means is when it comes to security partnerships, when it comes to economic partnerships, countries just aren't going to be as willing or set a higher price to actually partner with the U.S. and look, at the end of the day, we should be prepared to stand up more aggressively when countries are cheating and breaking the rules. And a lot of that is really a story about China. And we should be more aggressive in saying China uses all of its tools of economic statecraft to actually flood markets like steel in the US to undercut our capacity. We should be more vocal about that. We shouldn't be apologized for saying we're going to stand up for American interests. The challenge is when you're doing that on multiple fronts and not distinguishing between a country like China, where you can identify multiple instances where they're doing this, and Canada, where it's really hard to put, like, a sentence, let alone a paragraph together, of saying, what is it that we're actually so concerned about or afraid about in that context? You know, when the US Stops differentiating between this, then, you know, you start to put us in a position where we're not going to have many friends or allies around the world.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is there any part of you that sees how Trump is kind of wielding America's economic power and think, obviously, this is dangerous, this is reckless, this is careless, but there are ways in which Democrats were not as aggressive as they should have been, that President Biden wasn't as aggressive as he shouldn't have been. Like, is there a. Is there some middle distance between Trump's kind of careless and stupid wielding of America's power and our kind of not just Democrats, but a bipartisan consensus that's been kind of a little bit more deferential and a little bit more built around? Consensus?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Brian Deese]

Look, in the first instance, I don't think we should denigrate a number of the goals that President Trump and his team are putting forward. They're talking about wanting to have more sustained, strong economic growth in this country. We should be shooting for that. My concern is not that goal. It's just, I don't think that the policies are gonna get us there. He's talking about building manufacturing capacity, industrial capacity here in the U.S. right. Goal. The question is, is any of this actually going to get there? So I think we should be quite clear about saying these are goals that we share. The question is, how do we get there? And yes, I think that there are a number of places where we need to ask ourselves really hard questions about are we using the tools we have to stand up as aggressively as we can for the interests of American workers, American consumers, and where our economy is going to go over the medium term. But I also think we have to maintain this view that there is smart and stupid here. Right? There is a line between saying, just because we have a tool, we are going to bang away at it versus, you know, what, like, putting more costs on typical consumers right now at the grocery store and the gas pump is just not a good idea. And so we're going to, you know, we're. We're going to stand up and say, we could, we could be using these tools more aggressively, but to the end of actually, for example, having an auto industry that actually gets competitive again and that actually competes with China, that would be a goal worth actually fighting for. That would be a goal worth using our tools more effectively for.

[Tommy Vietor]

Before we let you go, you were the deputy director of OMB Elon Musk has basically helped lead a hostile takeover. OMB was the source of that federal funding freeze memo that sowed a bunch of chaos last week. What is your reaction to what's happening at OMB and what is the power that OMB has if it is not restrained by either deference to political impact or deference to other agencies?

[Brian Deese]

So the, the power that OMB has within the executive branch and under the Constitution is quite limited. Congress is responsible for appropriating money and the executive branch must follow the laws that Congress passes. And omb exactly. But, well, but, well, but I think we're going to come back to this, which is an OMB is responsible for then executing those strategies on behalf of the executive branches that were appropriated fund. And yes, I hear what you're saying is quaint, but at the same time, ultimately, I think what we saw with the funding freeze is where this is going, which is, notwithstanding some of the bluster, it is actually the case that legally the executive branch cannot both spend money that Congress has not appropriated and it can't fail to spend money when Congress has said so. I think we're going to have a big, we're going to have a set of fights on this and this is going to get, some of this is going to get hashed out in the courts. But look, I think having worked at OMB and having felt the constraints of the fact that, you know, you can't violate the, the Anti Deficiency act or the Empowerment act, even if there may be some impulse at some point to say, boy, it would be great if we could stop that. I think that, you know, I am, I am, I am. I believe that Congress is going to step in because one of the few roles that Congress actually cherishes in this context is they do have the power of the purse. And without that, it changes fundamentally, you know, some, some pretty big tenets of our constitutional system.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, said like a guy that didn't move a sofa bed into OMB to go hardcore.

[Brian Deese]

For the record, we worked a lot of nights and weekends at a, at OMB through the financial crisis and government shutdowns and the like. There are, there are extraordinarily talented professionals who, who I certainly worked hand in hand with over the weekend. Weekend many times during my government service.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you were hoping Democrats were out there saying one thing about the tariffs, about the trade war, what would that one thing be?

[Brian Deese]

Why would we want consumers to pay more at the gas pump and more at the grocery store and more for their iPhones and their consumer electronics when we are not achieving anything as a country.

[Tommy Vietor]

Brian Deese, so good to see you. Thanks for doing this. And I know you worked hard. I worked with you at the time. I worked with you when you were not in that role but when you were at NEC and you were always, you always were so tired looking. God, you always looked exhausted.

[Brian Deese]

That old nickname, nights and weekends. Love it. I think that's what we called you.

[Tommy Vietor]

All right, this is, this interview's over.

[Jon Lovett]

Before we go, two quick things. Love it or Leave it has some great shows coming up. I hear this week. Love it will be at the Dynasty Typewriter in LA with great guests including Andy Richter, Paula Poundstone and Jason Isaacs.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hell yeah. That's a, that's a big lineup. That's a great episode.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Solid man.

[Jon Lovett]

Tickets get go get [e-mail] events and if you can't make it, you know, Saturday morning, you can listen to Love or leave it. No big deal. Also, Vote Save America this month is making donations as part of their anxiety relief program to black led organizations and candidates of color, helping them gain ground at the state and local level. Candidates like Janelle Bynum are Oregon's first black member of Congress who won her district by less than 12,000 votes in 2024. 12,000 votes and is.

[Tommy Vietor]

She's great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

She's a great lowly guess and she's.

[Jon Lovett]

In a must win reelection bid that could determine whether Democrats take back the house in 2026. We would love it if you would consider joining the anxiety relief program. You can set up a recurring donation at any amount that feels right for you and Vote Save America will send it to candidates and campaigns that need it most without you having to worry about making those choices. Go to votesaveamerica.com donate to donate now. This message has been paid for by vote safe america votesafeamerica.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

[Tommy Vietor]

Janelle Bynum has a couple McDonald's franchises.

[Jon Lovett]

Really?

[Tommy Vietor]

She's an interesting fact about her.

[Jon Lovett]

That's cool. Well, that's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider consider joining our friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family.

[Jon Lovett]

Pod Save America is a crooked media production.

[Jon Favreau]

Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Ree Churlin is our executive editor and Adrienne Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

[Jon Lovett]

Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with.

[Jon Favreau]

Audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Singel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pelaviev, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[I]

I'm Poet Saeed Jones.

[J]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford. And we are the host of a podcast called called Vibe Check.

[Tommy Vietor]

On Vibe Check, we talk about everything. News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels.

[J]

That's right, we talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

[I]

Yes, indeed, and it doesn't stop there. We have got a lot to say, so join our group, chat, come to life, follow and listen to Vibe Check. Wherever you get your podcasts.