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- [00:00]
Isaac Saul
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John Law
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Ari Weitzman
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John Law
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Ari Weitzman
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John Law
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- [01:48]
Isaac Saul
From executive producer Isaac Saul. This is Tangle Foreign.
- [02:03]
Ari Weitzman
Good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some unattended thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host, Ari Weitzman, and today we're going to be talking about some recent lawsuits involving Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. What do these lawsuits mean? What do they mean for Elon Musk? What do they mean for Trump, and what do they mean for the departments that they are going after? But first, a quick announcement for podcast listeners. Last year, by popular demand, we rolled out premium podcast subscriptions to allow listeners to skip ads and access bonus content. However, we did so without first allowing listeners to bundle their podcast subscriptions with their newsletter subscriptions. After spending several months working on it, we're excited to announce that Tangle members can now bundle their subscriptions. That's starting today, February 10th, 3:30pm Eastern Time, 12:30pm Pacific Time. You can go to your membership page over@readtangle.com and access podcast bundling. Existing subscribers to both the newsletter and podcast do not need to do anything and for those of you who want to upgrade your memberships, you can do so with a limited offer of 10% off the life of your entire subscription. Again, do that at retangle or just retangle.com that said, I'm going to kick it over to John to get us started with our quick hits and today's topic and I'll be back for my take.
- [03:35]
John Law
Thanks Ari and welcome everybody. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Let's approach this week by giving our work and our relationships and our lives the absolute best we have to offer. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 183 imprisoned Palestinians, the fifth such exchange since the ceasefire agreement started on January 19. Separately, Israel's military withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor, which divides Gaza's north and south, as part of phase one of the ceasefire. Elsewhere, the White House announced $7.4 billion in military sales to Israel. Number two, Russell Vaught, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, closed the Office of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and told its staff to pause all of their supervisory efforts. Separately, the National Institutes of Health announced that it would cap the indirect cost rate on all new and current research grants at 15% of the total cost as part of an effort to prioritize direct research funding over administrative costs. Number three, President Donald Trump said that Japan's Nippon Steel would drop its $14.1 billion deal to acquire U.S. steel and instead invest in the company, though the terms of the proposed investment have not been confirmed. Separately, President Trump said he plans to levy 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imports into the U.S. early this week. Number four, U.S. employers added 143,000 jobs in January, slightly below economists expectations of 170,000 jobs added. Additionally, the unemployment rate fell from 4.1% to 4%, an eight month low. And number five, President Trump announced that he has ordered the U.S. treasury to stop minting new pennies, saying that the coin's production cost is too high.
- [05:37]
Isaac Saul
A federal judge issued an injunction today blocking Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department's Central Payment System, which is containing the private data of millions of Americans. This comes in response to a lawsuit filed yesterday by 19 state attorney generals, including Minnesota's Keith Ellison. The judge ruled that the president and the Treasury Department secretary violated federal law and ordered anyone given access since January 20th to destroy anything that they have downloaded. A hearing is scheduled for next Friday.
- [06:12]
John Law
On Saturday, a federal judge blocked the Department of Government Efficiency staff from accessing the treasury department's payment systems. U.S. district Judge Paul Engelmeier ruled that only civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties may use the system while special government employees are explicitly banned. The ruling will remain in place until at least this Friday, when another judge will hear arguments in a case brought by 19 Democratic state attorneys general challenging Doge's access to the treasury system. For some context, President Donald Trump established DOGE as a temporary organization within the Executive Office of the president to modernize federal technology and software and to maximize government efficiency and productivity under Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In the ensuing three weeks, DOGE claims to have cut over $1 billion in federal spending, primarily focused on agencies diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Engelmeier's decision follows a separate ruling on Thursday by U.S. district Judge Colleen Kohler Catelli, who approved an agreement to grant two DOGE staffers who had been made treasury employees read only access to the department's payment systems, meaning they could look at the information but not alter or share it. However, Engelmeier's ruling goes further, barring the two DOGE staffers and most other government officials from accessing the system due to the risk and that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking. Some legal experts have questioned the language of Engelmeier's ruling, suggesting that it could apply to Treasury Secretary Scott Besant due to the language barring political appointees from accessing the agency's system. On Sunday, the Justice Department sued to end the court order. The treasury case is one of several legal challenges against DOGE since President Trump took office. On Friday, a federal judge declined to block DOGE from accessing the Department of Labor's systems, ruling that the plaintiff, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, had not established standing to sue. Separately, a student group sued the Department of Education for allegedly disclosing personal and financial information to Doge. On Saturday, NBC News reported that two Doge staffers had obtained administrator email accounts for the department, which followed comments by President Trump that Musk was preparing to recommend significant cuts. Today, we'll share perspectives from the left and the right about Engelmeier's ruling and the latest actions by Doge, and then Managing editor Ari Weitzman will give his take.
- [08:53]
Duke Thomas
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [08:58]
John Law
G'day America It's Tony and Ryan from the Tony and Ryan Podcast from Down Under.
- [09:03]
Ari Weitzman
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John Law
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Ari Weitzman
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John Law
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Ari Weitzman
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- [09:36]
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- [10:44]
John Law
All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left is critical of Doge's actions, arguing Trump must put limits on Musk's authority. Some say the courts are the last remaining constitutional check on Trump's agenda. Others say the courts are ill equipped to respond to the speed with which Doge is moving. The Washington Post editorial board said Trump needs to erect guardrails for Doge. Trump promised before the election that he would put Musk in charge of Doge and then won a mandate for disruption. It's also true that the $36 trillion national debt is unsustainable and there's plenty of bloat in the government. Musk became the world's richest person by relentlessly innovating and constantly cutting costs, and this gives him a valuable perspective, the board wrote. Yet he lacks governing experience and any accountability to voters. He has treated the federal workforce rudely and recklessly, neglecting to distinguish between what's working in government and what isn't. On Thursday, a federal judge signed off on a temporary agreement to limit the sharing of sensitive data outside the Treasury Department. The White House should see that Musk complies with the law and follows the best practices for data privacy, the board said. Musk has understandably focused on low hanging fruit, but ending some periodical subscriptions won't change the government's fiscal trajectory. To have any chance of achieving Musk's audacious goal of $2 trillion in cuts, Trump will need to work with elected representatives in Congress to reform entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare before they become insolvent. In cnn, Stephen Collinson suggested the courts may be the last constraint on Trump. The new Trump presidency has arrived where it always was destined to land in the courts. The White House suffered a pair of hitches Thursday in its drive to shred the US Government using expansive and questionable executive power, collinson wrote. The legal system is about to be clogged with multiple battles over his second presidency. But they are among the most significant early tests of the judiciary's capacity to constrain what many experts see as blatantly unconstitutional acts that have the capacity to fundamentally change the presidency and the political system. Three weeks in the growing storm of lawsuits means some of this young administration's most extraordinary applications of unilateral presidential power could be reined in. But the litigation also conjures a scenario that no one wants to think about what would happen if the administration refused to recognize court rulings, Collinson said. The constitutional remedy for a president who breaks the law is impeachment. But Republicans have twice shown that they will not hold Trump to account in such trials, making moot this key check on power envisioned by the founders. In the Nation, Elie Mistahl argued the courts can't stop the Trump Musk coup. Many of Trump's orders are illegal and unconstitutional, and brazenly so. Most good faith lawyers can see that. But good faith does not describe the current state of the federal judiciary. Trump and Maga have captured and corrupted the courts, mestal wrote. This doesn't mean that cases brought by the aclu, afl, cio or Democratic state attorneys general are destined to fail. Their cases are righteous and legally speaking, right and must be brought, and some may even succeed. But the courts will not save us the most obvious reason for this is that the courts are moving slowly. A court has to wait for a bad thing to happen, a case or controversy, then gather evidence on the bad thing that happened, a trial, mistel said. Consider the constitutional crisis unfolding right now. Musk has reportedly seized access to the private information of every U.S. taxpayer and the payroll information of every government employee. He has no right to this information, but he has it. Who's going to lead the crack team of forensic digital investigators to make sure that Musk is in compliance with this or any future court order? My guess is no one. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is mostly supportive of Doge's actions, though many concede that their legality is still in question. Some say Trump and Musk are showing how to efficiently target government waste. Others frame Doge's efforts as squarely in line with voters wishes, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote. Doge hits the courts President Trump and Elon Musk might be able to ignore the squawking of Democrats in Congress and the press, but they can't ignore the courts. Two judges weighed in Thursday to temporarily hold up the effort by Trump and Musk to shake up the government. Whether those court orders become permanent will depend on the law, the board said. Federal Judge Colleen Kohler Catelli issued an order Thursday limiting access to Treasury Department systems by a parachute team from Mr. Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. While deferring a broader decision. Judge Kohler Catelli signed a temporary order with the consent of the parties to restrict Treasury's ability to let outsiders peruse the checkbook, the board wrote. The American legal system has a good track record for sorting out such disputes, which is one of the reasons not to panic every time Mr. Musk sneezes in the direction of another agency. If he and Mr. Trump want their economizing to stick, their actions must be legally defensible. If not, the two men will achieve much less than their frenetic energy suggests. In the Federalist, Eddie Scarry said, if Elon's Doge is to successfully cut government waste, there can be no but about it. As Democrats and the media continue to grip their groins in agony over Elon Musk and his Doge team's audit of the federal government, it's fun to hear them all periodically pause to offer some variation of everyone wants to end wasteful spending but, scarry wrote. What follows the but is inevitably some excuse for why a proposed cut is impractical a claim that the cut will result in literally millions of deathsor my personal favorite, an assertion that the target of the cut is only some infinitesimally small fraction of the budget. I don't know to what extent Musk and Doge will be successful in reducing even just one penny from the federal budget, but their approach so far, auditing the treasury payment systems and aggressively pushing to eliminate mass numbers of government workers is the only serious way to try. Scary, said Democrats and their media friends are pretending the process has been in breach of various laws and violated privacy rights and a court has intervened. But whatever the case, when this all shakes out, cutting hundreds and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse from the federal budget is only possible by doing exactly what Musk is doing. In the Washington Examiner, Christopher Dramatli argued, the idea of Doge is at the root of American values. Democrats in Congress have become apoplectic at the idea that Trump has engaged the services of an independent person to conduct an audit of federal expenditures. The reasons for this have become quite obvious in recent days. Spending tax dollars is the engine that powers the Democratic Party's political machine. Anything that jeopardizes this engine jeopardizes their power, tramogli wrote. Not surprisingly, it took very little time for Musk to find billions of taxpayer dollars being spent extravagantly, frivolously, wastefully, and even possibly corruptly. The Republican Party represents Main street, the forgotten person, social conservatism, fiscal responsibility, freedom from fear, freedom from poverty, freedom to worship, and freedom from war. It reveres the triumphs of Western civilization and American culture, accomplishments of human civilization that have improved the quality of life for all, tramogli said. Simply put, Doge is the latest manifestation of one political party's efforts to prevent the other from using America's treasure to spread its toxic ideals while pursuing greater influence and power. All right, let's head over to Ari for his take.
- [18:46]
Ari Weitzman
All right, that's it for what the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. Let me say right off the bat that I don't support the way President Trump and Doge are going about slashing federal spending. And that's a very different thing from saying that I don't support cutting federal spending in general. In each of the last three years, the federal government's budget deficit has grown, reaching an eye popping of $1.83 trillion in fiscal year 20. So far. In fiscal year 2025, the deficit is set to grow again with November 2024 outpacing 2023, spending by $200 billion. Again, that's just the month of November. Solving the deficit can only be done by raising revenues or cutting spending. And 60% of U.S. adults think the government is overspending, something that I agree with, too. However, very few issues divide people along ideological lines more than what should be cut. 84% of Trump supporters want a smaller government with fewer services, compared to 51% of Kamala Harris supporters. On the question of whether government aid to the poor does more harm than good, that split was a similarly dramatic 72 to 18%. In principle, I don't have a big problem with the majority party targeting services the minority party prefers. That's just politics. So what's my issue with Trump empowering Elon Musk and Doge to slash spending? I actually have three problems in increasing order of how they're cutting, who's doing the cutting, and what exactly is being cut. First, what Musk and Doge are doing is likely breaking the law. After Doge gained access to data at the Treasury Department, a judge blocked it. While a separate legal challenge plays out after USAID placed all its employees on administrative leave and recalled all workers stationed abroad back to the U.S. a judge paused that plan. Several more lawsuits are working their way through the courts, and I think Doge's leash is about to get shortened. I don't have a moral issue with the president probing the perimeter of his power to try to enact his agenda. Remember, liberals made the same argument when President Biden tried to cancel student aid. If these actions are illegal, then they'll be stopped by the courts, and many of them will probably end up appealed to the Supreme Court, where we'll get a definitive ruling one way or the other. If the high court decides that these cuts are constitutional or legally sound, reasonable people can disagree, even vehemently disagree, with that ruling, but it will still have been made through the democratic process. My bigger issue with the possible illegality, however, is a practical one. Even if I were rooting for everything Trump's doing, I'd still be opposed to this course of action because I just don't think it'll work. I think Musk's access will be blocked, the courts will rule that Trump can't ignore the funding Congress allocates, and this path to budget balancing will be a dead end. Second, I object to the people leading the budget slashing charge. Musk, Doge and his cadre of young contractors. Let's start at the top. Elon Musk is a billionaire government contractor with conflicts of interest. All over the place from his position as the head of a major social network, X, that influences public discourse, an electric car company, Tesla, whose success is impacted by energy and taxation policies, and a space flight company, SpaceX, dependent on government contracts. There's no doubt that Musk has been incredibly successful in the private sector, but Trump could have tapped someone without his own interests to consider. Then there's the whole issue of Doge, a quasi governmental agency that just 30% of Republicans and of course 17% of Democrats say should have a lot of influence on government operations. Why not leverage an existing agency, the Government Accountability Office or the Congressional Budget Office to lead this charge? Nobody vetted the people Musk tasked with accessing government spending data, which has already created major problems for it. One of the two government contractors who was granted read only treasury access, Marco Iles, resigned after his incredibly racist posts were made public. Then Musk said he'd rehire him. How was someone like Elas hired at all? There are plenty of other smart and capable people Doge can employ who don't require Republicans to bend over backwards to defend inexcusable racism like we recently saw Vice President J.D. vance do on Twitter or X. However, these arguments opened themselves up to some valid counterpoints. Unelected bureaucrats already have access to our information. Taking Trump's perspective, it makes sense that he'd be so distrustful of the civil servant class, which prefers Democratic executives, that he'd consider starting from scratch and totally remaking something like the Government Accessibility Office into a new agency that he can control. Furthermore, Doge may have been founded by the president out of whole cloth, but so is the agency it's operating within the digital service, which Obama founded in 2014. Personally, I don't think those counterpoints do enough to justify what Doge is doing. Trump's uniting an opposition force around Musk, someone as polarizing as Trump but easier to attack. There's also a deep irony with Doge as an organization looking to cut waste. Once federal agencies are founded and funded, they become hard to remove. Exhibit A is Obama's digital service. Exhibit B, maybe Doge itself a task force for Government Accountability, a kind of Government Accountability Office, if you will. Lastly, Doge is just cutting the wrong things. I don't just mean that cutting an entire agency like USAID is a bad idea because it's, quote, only 1% of the U.S. budget, or that cutting funding to the National Institutes of Health is bad because it's going to hurt local economies, like Senator Katie Britt from Tennessee recently discovered. Remember Republicans want a smaller government, and enacting that policy was always going to result in some pain along the way. Foreign aid and scientific research are the number one and number five areas where voters think the government overspends, and cutting the areas where US Voters think we overspend is sensible. However, Musk can only have a real impact by cutting the major sources of government spending. Healthcare, comprising Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security and defense spending are three of the largest areas of government spending. Without investigating those behemoths, Musk is fighting a losing battle. However, the more important issue is Doge's focus on personnel. Musk's approach to reform through staff cutting is well known at this point, but the federal government isn't X or Tesla, and as much as we'd like to make the analogy, it isn't a business. The total cost of government employee salaries and benefits is less than 5% of the federal budget, as opposed to the more common allotment of 25 to 35% of the budget a private business would spend on personnel. Additionally, as the budget and population have grown, the size of the federal workforce has remained pretty much the same for about 50 years. Lastly, by antagonizing government employees with buyout offers and making them come to the nearest federal office to work, which for many people outside D.C. can mean added hours long commutes to and from an unrelated federal building each day, Musk's approach could be making the government less efficient. Already, 1% of federal employees have taken the buyout offer, but 6% of federal employees churn organically each year, and the ones who are quitting now are likely the ones with the most options. So Musk could have just paid the government's best employees to leave. I've been offering counterpoints to each of my big three concerns, but on this issue, on the issue of focusing on the wrong areas, I just don't see a good defense. Musk says he wants to cut federal spending by $2 trillion. He simply won't find that where he's looking again. Even if taking Trump's goals of balancing the budget entirely through spending cuts and with no increases of tax revenue, the Doge approach is still not a good strategy. It will be stopped by the courts at worst and tied up with lawsuits at best, unite opposition against an easy target and ultimately fail at its stated objectives. I'll say this about Trump's strategy until I'm blue in the face. You don't have to flood the zone. You have Congress. That could easily change in 2026. And if the President doesn't start coordinating his efforts with the Legislature, all of his short term wins could simply evaporate with lawsuits and legislative gridlock.
- [27:36]
Duke Thomas
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [27:42]
Ari Weitzman
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- [28:11]
Isaac Saul
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- [28:47]
Ari Weitzman
All right, that's it for my take. Which brings us to your questions answered. This one comes in from Bob from Concord, Massachusetts, who asks, recently you included two opinion writers, Jeff Jacoby and Max Butte, who I would never consider left on what the left is saying side of the issue, which got me wondering, how do you decide which side to put someone on? The media outlet they write for or something else? Tango editor Will K. Back, answered Bob, saying, Max Boot, a columnist for the Washington Post covering national security, used to call himself a conservative, but has since written at length about his rejection of the American right since President Trump's ascension. Even writing a book titled the Corrosion of why I Left the Right while criticizing the right does not inherently make someone quote on the left, we decided. But repudiations of modern conservatism and his support for actions of the Biden administration make him a better fit for the left. In Tango's format, Jeff Jacoby's inclusion on the left in our December 12th edition was simply an oversight. Like Boot, Jacoby is a frequent Trump critic, but he still holds clear conservative positions and levies many criticisms against Democrats and the left. We were unfamiliar with his background when we criticized him as a writer on the left. At the time, his recent columns were mostly Trump criticism, and we didn't realize the mistake until weeks later when a few readers wrote in to question his placement. Broadly, we categorize writers based on their stated political identities and the topics and figures they choose to criticize and praise. We do not group them based on the bias of the outlet they write for. Jacoby writes for the left leaning Boston Globe, while we'd classify someone like Doug Schoen, who regularly contributes to Fox News, as on the left. Even so, as the Jacoby example illustrates, these lines can get blurry, which leads us to sometimes miscategorize a writer. Thanks for asking. All right, that's it for a reader question today. I'm going to send it back over to John for the rest of the pod and I'll talk to you all soon. Have a good one.
- [30:52]
John Law
Thanks, Ari. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. As part of President Donald Trump's actions to halt federal funding disbursements in his first days in office, he ordered the Agriculture Department to freeze funds for several programs created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Two of those programs, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Rural Energy for America Program, offers farmers grants and loan guarantees to build fencing, plant new crops and install renewable energy systems if they finance the costs upfront. However, some farmers are now reporting that these reimbursements have been canceled due to President Trump's executive order, despite the White House rescinding the pause on January 29. These farmers say they will face tens of thousands of dollars in unexpected costs if reimbursements are not restored. The Washington Post has this story and there's a link in today's episode Description alright, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of federal payments disbursed in fiscal year 2023 by the Bureau of Fiscal Service, the agency that handles the government's accounting collections and payments within the Treasury Department was 87.9%. The total payments disbursed by BFS in fiscal year 2023 was $5.4 trillion. The average daily cash flow managed by BFS in fiscal year 2023 was $205.4 billion. The percentage of US voters who approve and disapprove, respectively, of Elon Musk's appointment to lead the Department of Government Efficiency is 41% and 46%, according to a February 2025 Morning Consult poll. The percentage of US voters who approved and disapproved, respectively, of Elon Musk's Appointment to Lead Doge in November of 2024 was 45% and 40%. The percentage of US adults who believe corruption, inefficiency and red tape, respectively, are major problems in the federal government is 70%, 65%, and 59%, according to a January 2025 APNORC poll the percentage of U.S. adults who favor and oppose, respectively eliminating a large number of federal jobs is 29% and 40%, and the percentage of US adults who favor and oppose, respectively, eliminating entire federal agencies is 23% and 49%. And last but not least, our have a nice day story A stray dog unintentionally made history, becoming the first to cross the Romania Hungary border after Romania joined the Schengen area of the European Union. A now viral social media post shows the dog casually wandering through the crossing to the cheers from officers on duty as the video circulated online. One police officer was deeply moved by the moment and decided to search for the stray. The officer found the dog, adopted him and brought him to his family's farm where he now enjoys his forever home and family. Sunny Skies has this story and there's a link in today's episode description all right everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, you can go to retangle.com and and sign up for a membership. And starting today at 3:30pm Eastern Time, if you want to sign up for a newsletter and podcast bundled membership, you can do so right on our membership page. It's a pretty big deal for us. We've been working really hard behind the scenes for months trying to get this together and we are celebrating this achievement with a special 48 hour offer which is 10% off the life of a bundled subscription. So if you haven't signed up already, now is the best time to do it for the best price for existing subscribers. Nothing for you to do. We're working on your newsletter and podcast bundle behind the scenes so you'll be able to access it from one point. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Ari and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day y'all. Peace.
- [34:45]
Duke Thomas
Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman. We'll k back daily Saul and Sean Brady the logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bova, who is also our Social Media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 and if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website@readtangle.com that's readtangle.com.
- [35:18]
John Law
Foreign.
- [35:23]
Duke Thomas
Hi, this is Freddie Wong from Dungeons and Daddies and this episode is sponsored by Rocket Money Houston. Houston, we have a problem and that's too many subscriptions that I don't know about because I like to put my credit card number into sites just for the sheer thrill of it. That's the fundamental problem of the Internet and money. And Rocket Money is here to solve that. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills. You can see all those subscriptions that you've accrued over a lifetime of putting your credit card in on the Internet in one place. If you don't want them, just cancel them with a few taps. Rocket Money can help with that. Rocket Money's over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the apps premium features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com cancelsubs that's rocketmoney.com cancelsubs not submarines.
- [36:22]
Isaac Saul
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