Bannon's War Room - February 12, 2025


WarRoom Battleground EP 705： Winning The Culture War 2.0; Going After Amoral Judges


Episode Stats

Length

58 minutes

Words per Minute

170.91995

Word Count

9,995

Sentence Count

756

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

On this episode of the War Room, Stephen K. Bambao and I discuss President Trump's decision to remove most of the board of the Kennedy Center, and the implications for the future of the place where the elite congregate.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
00:00:18.440 Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
00:00:23.780 I got a free shot on all these networks lying about the people.
00:00:28.040 The people have had a belly full of it.
00:00:30.000 I know you don't like hearing that.
00:00:31.420 I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.
00:00:34.080 It's going to happen.
00:00:35.340 And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
00:00:38.740 MAGA Media.
00:00:40.080 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
00:00:45.480 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
00:00:48.640 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
00:00:55.560 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.
00:01:00.000 Tuesday, 11 February, Year of the Lord 2025.
00:01:06.060 We're going to play this that just came out of the Oval Office, this kind of press for you.
00:01:11.020 President Trump, Elon Musk was there.
00:01:12.760 We're going to break it all down for you.
00:01:15.000 Pretty amazing stuff.
00:01:16.220 First, though, I want to get one of the biggest blows the president gave to the administrative state, Imperial Washington, the deep state this week, was to name himself chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center and then announce that he's thrown out most of the board of directors.
00:01:32.160 And he just went on a couple of riffs about how upside down the Kennedy Center had gotten.
00:01:36.740 The Kennedy Center is high church in the imperial capital is really the I call it the clubhouse.
00:01:42.580 People said you're wrong.
00:01:43.680 It's the church where they worship the secular humanist.
00:01:47.600 Rick Rennell, one of President Trump's closest advisor, a good buddy, has been is already in charge of the L.A.
00:01:54.100 He, you know, overseeing the L.A., what is it, refurbishment, rebuilding, rejuvenation.
00:01:59.880 He's on top of that.
00:02:01.300 And now he's been named the interim head of the Kennedy Center.
00:02:04.240 I'm going to try to get Rick on here in the next day or two.
00:02:06.760 Roger Kimball joins me.
00:02:08.320 Roger, when I talk about the Kennedy Center, I want to go back and pull back to my old partner, Andrew Breitbart, and really an inspiration for him was his Italian, Gramsci.
00:02:20.180 Tell us who this guy is.
00:02:22.060 Why is he important?
00:02:22.960 Why is some obscure Marxist who became, I guess, a fascist earlier, you know, all back in, what, the 20s, why is he such an important theoretician?
00:02:32.960 And we're a huge believer on the show that ideas have consequences, and his ideas had big consequences that actually roll through why Donald John Trump took control of the Kennedy Center, sir.
00:02:46.940 Yes.
00:02:47.460 Well, Antonio Gramsci was, as you say, an Italian Marxist, and he helped popularize the idea that in order to foment the revolution, one needed to take over the institutions.
00:03:03.460 So you were saying just yesterday that Donald Trump has embarked upon a forced march through the institutions.
00:03:13.460 Gramsci talked about the long march through the institutions, and the institutions he had in mind were the educational institutions, the cultural institutions,
00:03:25.460 the churches, the churches, the museums, all of those places where the elite would congregate and promulgate their toxic ideas to the young and watch them grow and become ever more poisonous.
00:03:53.460 And that we've certainly seen that in this country.
00:03:58.460 And you mentioned the Kennedy Center.
00:04:00.460 So this is a, I think the person who said it was like a church is that's a, that's a good, that's a very good analogy.
00:04:07.460 It is a place where, um, the beautiful people congregate and they, um, they go there to admire each other and to put on shows.
00:04:19.340 This, just this last year, uh, July, they had a show called, um, uh, drag queens for divas or some such, uh, some such title.
00:04:29.640 So that's what they're promulgating.
00:04:31.640 They're, they're, they're, um, it's not only Gramsci, it's also the people he, he influenced like the Frankfurt School Marxist Herbert Marcuse, who was very important in, uh, refining these Marxist ideas for, um, the American, uh, uh, intelligentsia.
00:04:53.640 Angela Davis, for example, was one of his students at Brandeis and he had, he had the insight that, uh, we, we would bend together Marx and Freud.
00:05:08.640 And that was a very poisonous, um, combination that we see unfolding everywhere.
00:05:17.560 One of the remarkable things about the recent revolution, revelations about the USAID, as you look at their, their grants, you know, billions of dollars and how many of them, really quite, quite a large number of them are going to fund all of these sexually exotic, um, uh, enterprises across the world.
00:05:38.640 You know, so LBGTQ, uh, um, things in, uh, you know, Suriname or the 50, you know, billion dollars, $50 million.
00:05:50.640 I think it was, uh, $15 million for condoms for the Taliban.
00:05:55.640 It's a long list of very, very strange things.
00:05:58.460 Why is it, why is the American taxpayer paying for all of this stuff when the people who are living in North Carolina and who were devastated by Hurricane, uh, Helene, why?
00:06:10.920 And they're still out of their houses there without, you know, water and so on.
00:06:15.240 The government, what did the government do for them?
00:06:17.860 Nothing.
00:06:18.180 And that's where we are now.
00:06:20.940 We are beginning, we, we've taken the, the, the scab off, uh, uh, this unbelievable, uh, uh, amount of money that comes from us and is going to basically support, uh, the enemies of our culture.
00:06:41.240 Uh, it's, uh, it's, it's not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
00:06:45.560 It's millions and millions and millions of, of the taxpayers' money going to fund, uh, what Mike Benz calls a CIA front and a money laundering observation.
00:06:57.620 Uh, uh, or, and it's, um, you know, finally we're beginning to see, uh, uh, what the, the, the, the engine room of the administrative state.
00:07:11.540 So when we find out, for example, that, uh, the, some of these treasury department, um, uh, revelations, we find out that they're, they're not de-duplicating social security numbers.
00:07:25.420 So there are many people who have the same social security number.
00:07:28.560 They're just being passed out to migrants, uh, so that they can get, you know, get into the country.
00:07:34.540 They can, uh, get jobs and so on.
00:07:37.320 Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing.
00:07:39.860 Then you have a, a district judge who said, oh, this is terrible.
00:07:43.340 We have to, we have to squash it instantly.
00:07:45.680 So we'll have a temporary restraining order that has nationwide, uh, effect where he gets the authority to do that is an interesting question that should be, um, should be looked into by the Supreme Court very soon.
00:07:59.980 But it's basically what they're saying is, you have uncovered this corruption and we don't want this transparency.
00:08:08.960 These people are like vampires.
00:08:11.360 Uh, the sunlight is fatal to them.
00:08:14.160 And we now know that.
00:08:16.560 And so we have to turn on the sunlight.
00:08:18.880 We have to cue the sun, as I said in that movie.
00:08:20.940 And, uh, reveal in the dark corners of this, uh, this incredible web of, of corruption, uh, just what is going on.
00:08:31.840 And I think that, uh, uh, you know, I was, I was expecting great things from Donald Trump, but he has exceeded even my high expectations.
00:08:41.680 The, the velocity and the, the, the depth of what he's doing is, I think, simply extraordinary.
00:08:49.560 And he's got to keep the pressure on because believe me, these people are going to go after him and, uh, he, he can't let up.
00:08:58.000 He cannot let up.
00:09:00.640 What is your fear on that?
00:09:02.120 Uh, Roger, you, you, uh, uh, have, you're a man of a lot of wisdom.
00:09:06.660 What is your fear about this?
00:09:07.960 I know you're very excited about the scale of it, the depth of it, the velocity of it, the urgency of it.
00:09:13.580 What, what is your fear out there?
00:09:15.020 Because you and I talk every day is like Christmas day for us, right?
00:09:18.320 There's like 10 boxes under the tree every day.
00:09:21.040 What is your fear?
00:09:22.920 Well, um, you remember this last July, somebody tried to assassinate Donald Trump and somebody else did.
00:09:30.540 Um, I fear the rekindling of the lawfare establishment.
00:09:37.040 What is law?
00:09:37.540 Lawfare is warfare by, uh, another means.
00:09:41.740 What, what, what Donald Trump had to go through these last four years would have killed most of us.
00:09:47.460 Uh, it's, I mean, the fact that he was able to not only survive, but thrive, you know, the, the, you know, um, indictments in, I think, four or five different jurisdictions, a totally spurious 34 felony count, um, uh, conviction in, in New York.
00:10:04.940 You know, you know, you know, fines of hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:10:08.800 It was, they wanted to bankrupt him and send him to jail for the rest of his life.
00:10:14.380 It was quite extraordinary.
00:10:16.100 Um, and those people have not, they're not gone yet.
00:10:19.040 Uh, Letitia James, the, the attorney general of New York and, and her, uh, partner in crime, Alvin Bragg, they're still there.
00:10:27.880 They're still being funded by, um, by George Soros.
00:10:31.820 And, uh, I, I hope that, that this time, at least we have, uh, an attorney general on our side.
00:10:39.380 Pam Bondi seems to me, I don't know her, but she seems to me to be quite tough.
00:10:44.260 And I, I think that she might be a big help in this.
00:10:47.860 And I hope that Cash Patel will be confirmed for the FBI.
00:10:52.240 If we get, if, if we get Cash, I think we'll be in pretty good shape, but do not underestimate these people.
00:10:58.900 They're, they're evil and they're, um, they're determined.
00:11:02.560 So we have to be equally determined, uh, to oppose them.
00:11:09.160 You're a New Yorker, right?
00:11:10.800 How, how, I mean, how did we get in a situation?
00:11:13.620 The source runs the deal.
00:11:15.960 Bragg is as radical as they can get.
00:11:17.820 And Bragg, folks, I got newsflash for you.
00:11:20.160 He's running unopposed and the elections are next year.
00:11:24.020 So, and I think that primaries are in the spring.
00:11:26.740 Uh, Letitia James oversees it.
00:11:28.740 They've got a perfect system up there.
00:11:30.220 How did, how did this happen?
00:11:31.860 And I realize it's a progressive left.
00:11:34.480 Manhattan is a nutcase, but you've got a lot of conservatives up there.
00:11:37.620 How do it get to a situation that they literally have in the financial capital?
00:11:41.080 It's not like if this was Peoria or St. Paul, Minnesota or something like that, it would
00:11:45.480 be bad, but it wouldn't be terrible.
00:11:47.100 You're in the financial capital of the world of the greatest financial power in the world
00:11:51.980 and they control the courts.
00:11:54.020 They control it.
00:11:54.980 And every transaction, all data goes through there.
00:11:58.000 All commercial data, trade data, financial data, the biggest, the Federal Reserve, like
00:12:02.040 I said, the bridge of the ship is in Washington in the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.
00:12:07.260 The engine room in the Commerce Department, the engine room is in New York City.
00:12:10.800 It's in Manhattan and that gives them jurisdiction.
00:12:13.380 How did this, how did we allow these radicals?
00:12:15.480 I mean, these people are so far off the hook that it's, it's incredible.
00:12:19.880 Well, how did that happen?
00:12:21.860 Well, you know, I think it's the same way that the corruption of the universities happened.
00:12:26.680 People are, many people are well disposed toward their fellows.
00:12:35.160 They think, well, you know, they can't really be as evil as some people say.
00:12:42.220 You know, they mean well, you know, they talk about justice.
00:12:48.920 They have a lot of good language, but actually they are evil.
00:12:53.980 And I think that part of our problem, the whole culture war metabolism has been that people
00:13:06.060 who are, could do something are just, they're, they're timid.
00:13:14.020 There's a reason that Aristotle says that courage is the most important virtue, because he says,
00:13:21.240 if you don't have courage, you can't practice any of the others.
00:13:25.260 And people don't want to be involved.
00:13:27.700 They don't want, they don't, they've been, they've been seduced by the rhetoric of virtue.
00:13:33.820 Why is it that the left has a virtual monopoly on the rhetoric of virtue?
00:13:39.440 You know, they, they, they, they're beginning with the word liberal.
00:13:43.040 There's nothing liberal about the left.
00:13:45.160 I mean, they're, they're illiberal.
00:13:46.640 They're intolerant.
00:13:47.980 It used to be that tolerance was the primary liberal virtue, but that was a long time ago.
00:13:53.760 Now they specialize in intolerance.
00:13:57.020 They look at 1984, George Orwell's novel, and see it not as a, um, uh, a scarifying admonition,
00:14:07.080 but as a, a kind of how to manual.
00:14:11.220 Uh, that's why they've, they've become, they've enrolled themselves in the party of censorship,
00:14:16.640 uh, where, where there, you know, you have people like John Kerry saying, well, you know,
00:14:21.780 maybe if the election goes, well, we can finally get rid of the first amendment.
00:14:25.980 You remember that this, uh, this summer?
00:14:28.840 Amazing.
00:14:29.360 I remember.
00:14:29.860 People would, yeah, people would say, say things like that.
00:14:34.080 That's why.
00:14:34.940 I think that's why.
00:14:39.820 Roger, where do, uh, how do people get to you?
00:14:42.100 How do they get you a new criterion?
00:14:43.640 How do they get to your books?
00:14:44.680 How do they get to your columns?
00:14:46.440 Yeah, I'm, I'm easy.
00:14:47.840 I'm easy to find.
00:14:48.740 I, I have an X account, which is just, you know, at sign my name and, uh, I'm the editor
00:14:54.460 of the new criterion.
00:14:55.680 There's a website there and I'm just unveiling a personal website.
00:14:59.340 So I've got a lot of my stuff there too, as well.
00:15:03.820 What's the personal website?
00:15:06.660 Uh, it's actually, it's rogerkimble.org because a, uh, a bass player in Massachusetts,
00:15:12.640 uh, glories in the name, glories in the handle, rogerkimble.com.
00:15:21.540 Rogerkimble.org for all you non-bass players.
00:15:24.980 Roger, thank you so much, brother.
00:15:26.660 Fantastic.
00:15:27.340 Fascinating.
00:15:28.700 Roger Kimble, one of our leading intellectuals, public intellectuals, a MAGA.
00:15:32.580 Okay.
00:15:32.880 We're going to play in its entirety, just came a hot off the press, this amazing, uh,
00:15:38.020 presser availability, signing executive as president Trump.
00:15:40.960 I will be back to break it all down at the end of it.
00:15:44.760 Let's go ahead and rip.
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00:20:16.580 Billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse, and I think it's very important, and that's one of the reasons I got elected.
00:20:25.760 I say we're going to do that.
00:20:27.500 Nobody had any idea it was that bad, that sick, and that corrupt, and it seems hard to believe that judges want to try and stop us from looking for corruption,
00:20:36.340 especially when we found hundreds of millions of dollars worth, much more than that, in just a short period of time.
00:20:43.360 We want to weed out the corruption, and it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don't want you to do that.
00:20:50.600 So maybe we have to look at the judges, because that's a very serious, I think it's a very serious violation.
00:20:58.240 I'll ask Elon Musk to say a few words, and we'll take some questions.
00:21:04.620 Elon, go ahead.
00:21:05.280 So, at a high level, if you say, what is the goal of Dojo, and I think a significant part of the presidency, is to restore democracy.
00:21:20.520 This may seem like, well, are we in a democracy?
00:21:23.180 Well, if you don't have a feedback loop, FBX, we'd have to, if you, if you, sorry.
00:21:28.400 I'll tell you, gravitas can be difficult sometimes.
00:21:33.340 So, if, if there's not a good feedback loop from the people to, to the government, and if, if you have rule of the, the bureaucrat,
00:21:43.560 if the bureaucracy is in charge, and, then, then, what meaning does democracy actually have?
00:21:48.840 If the people cannot vote, and have their will be decided by their elected representatives, in the, in the form of the president, and, and the Senate, and the House,
00:21:58.860 then we don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy.
00:22:02.680 So, it's incredibly important that we close that feedback loop, we fix that feedback loop, and that the public, the public's elected representatives,
00:22:10.920 the president, the House, and the Senate, decide what happens, as opposed to an, a large, unelected bureaucracy.
00:22:17.220 This is not to say that there aren't some good, there are good people who, who, uh, are in the federal bureaucracy, but, but you can't have an autonomous federal bureaucracy.
00:22:27.480 You have to have one that is responsive to the people.
00:22:30.720 That's the whole point of a democracy.
00:22:33.140 Um, and so, um, and if, if you, if you looked at the, if you asked, look at the founders today and said, what do you think of the way things have turned out?
00:22:41.360 Well, what, we have this unelected, uh, fourth, unconstitutional branch of, of government, which, which is the bureaucracy, which has, in a lot of ways, currently, more power than any elected representative.
00:22:52.920 And this is, uh, this is not something that people want, um, and it's, it's, it's not, it does not match the will of the people.
00:23:01.760 So, it's just something we've got to, we've got to fix.
00:23:04.260 And then we've also got to address the, the deficit.
00:23:06.240 So, we've got a $2 trillion deficit.
00:23:08.660 And if this, if we don't do something about this deficit, the country's going bankrupt.
00:23:13.740 I mean, it's, it's really astounding that the, uh, the interest payments alone on the national debt exceed the Defense Department budget, which is shocking.
00:23:24.560 Because we've got a lot, we spend a lot of money on defense.
00:23:27.560 But, and, and if that just keeps going, we're essentially going to bankrupt the country.
00:23:31.440 So, what I, what I really want to say is, like, it's not optional for us to sit, to reduce the federal expenses.
00:23:37.520 It's essential.
00:23:39.040 It's essential for America to remain solvent as a country.
00:23:42.760 And it's essential for America to have the resources necessary to provide things to its citizens.
00:23:47.760 And not simply be servicing vast amounts of debt.
00:23:51.340 And also, could you mention some of the things that your team has found?
00:23:55.860 Some of the crazy numbers, including the woman that walked away with about $30 million.
00:24:01.440 Right.
00:24:01.680 Et cetera.
00:24:02.240 Well, we, we, we are, we do find it sort of rather odd that, um, you know, there, there are quite a few, uh, people in, in, um, in the bureaucracy who, who, who have a, ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars,
00:24:16.220 but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth, uh, while they are in that position, which is, you know, what, what happened to USAID.
00:24:25.000 We're just curious as to where it came from.
00:24:26.680 Um, maybe they're very good at investing.
00:24:29.020 In which case we should take their investment advice, perhaps.
00:24:31.440 Um, but, uh, just, there seems to be mysteriously, they, uh, they get wealthy and we don't know why, where does it come from?
00:24:39.120 Um, and, uh, I think the reality is that they're getting wealthy at the taxpayer expense.
00:24:43.940 That's, that's, that's the, that's the honest truth of it.
00:24:46.160 So, uh, you know, we, we're looking at, um, say, uh, well, we, we, we, we, we just, if you, if you look, say, say, treasury, for example, um, basic controls that should be in place, uh, that are in place in, in any company,
00:25:00.820 uh, such as making sure that any given payment has a payment categorization code, that there is a comment field that describes the payment, um,
00:25:08.780 and that if it, if a payment is on the do not pay list, that you don't actually pay it.
00:25:13.840 None of those things are true currently.
00:25:16.200 So, the reason that departments can't pass audits is because the payments don't have a categorization code.
00:25:22.100 It's like just a massive number of blank checks just flying out the building.
00:25:25.580 So, you can't reconcile blank checks.
00:25:27.920 Um, you've got comment fields that are also blanks.
00:25:30.400 You don't know why the payment was made.
00:25:32.260 Um, and then we've got this, a truly absurd, a do not pay list, which can take up to a year for an organization to get on the do not pay list.
00:25:40.080 Um, and, and this, we're talking about terrorist organizations, we're talking about, uh, known fraudsters, known aspects of waste,
00:25:48.500 known things that do not match any congressional appropriation, can take up to a year to get on the list,
00:25:53.220 and even what's on the list, the list is not used.
00:25:57.240 It's mind-blowing.
00:25:59.360 So, so, what, what we're talking about here, we're, we're, we're really just talking about adding common sense controls
00:26:05.020 that should be present, uh, that, that haven't been present.
00:26:09.080 So, you say, like, well, how could such a thing arise?
00:26:11.700 That's, that seems, that seems crazy.
00:26:14.140 The, when you understand that, that really everything is geared towards complaint minimization.
00:26:19.560 So, that, that, then you understand the motivations.
00:26:22.740 So, if people receive money, they don't complain, obviously.
00:26:26.180 Um, but if people don't receive money, they do complain.
00:26:30.080 And, and the fraudsters complain the loudest and the fastest.
00:26:33.760 So, uh, then when you understand that, then it, then it makes sense.
00:26:38.080 That's, oh, that's why everything just, they approve all the payments at Treasury.
00:26:43.040 Because if you approve all the payments, you don't, you don't get complaints.
00:26:47.660 But now, now we're saying that, no, actually, we, we are going to complain.
00:26:50.940 If, if money is spent badly, if the, if your taxpayer dollars are not spent in a sensible and prugal manner,
00:26:56.300 then that's not okay.
00:26:57.580 I, your, your tax dollars need to be spent wisely on things that matter to the people.
00:27:04.540 I mean, these things, like, it's just common sense.
00:27:07.240 It's not, it's, it's, it's not draconian or radical, I think.
00:27:11.940 It's, it's really just saying, let's look at each, each of the expenditures and say,
00:27:15.820 is this actually in the best interest of the people?
00:27:18.500 And if it is, it's proved, if it's, if it's not, we should think about it.
00:27:22.500 So, um, you know, there's crazy things, like, just cursory examination of Social Security,
00:27:29.720 and we've got people in there that are 150 years old.
00:27:32.780 Now, do you know anyone, there's 150?
00:27:35.080 I don't, okay.
00:27:35.780 Um, they, they, they should be on the Guinness Book of World Records.
00:27:39.080 They're missing out.
00:27:40.760 Um, so, you know, that's the case where, like, I think they're probably dead.
00:27:44.840 It's my guess.
00:27:46.220 Or, or they should be very famous, one of the two.
00:27:49.120 Um, and then that a whole bunch of Social Security payments where there's no identifying,
00:27:53.420 identifying information.
00:27:54.720 Well, like, why is there no identifying information?
00:27:57.540 Um, obviously, we want to make, we want to make sure that people who deserve, uh, to receive
00:28:02.100 Social Security do receive it.
00:28:04.100 Um, and that they receive it quickly and accurately.
00:28:06.980 Um, also another,
00:28:08.740 another crazy thing.
00:28:09.520 So, you know, one of the things is, like, we're, we are trying to sort of right-size
00:28:13.340 the, the federal bureaucracy, just make sure that this, obviously, there needs to be a
00:28:17.020 lot of people working for the federal government, but not as many as currently.
00:28:19.980 So, we're saying, well, okay, well, let's, if, if people can retire, you know, with full
00:28:24.920 benefits, benefits and everything, that, that would be good.
00:28:27.140 They can retire, get their retirement payments, everything.
00:28:29.680 And then we were told, this is actually, I think, a great anecdote, uh, because we're
00:28:32.780 told, no, the, the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000.
00:28:37.240 And we're like, well, why, why, why is that?
00:28:40.300 Well, because all the, all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper.
00:28:45.600 It's manually calculated, then written down on a piece of paper.
00:28:48.400 Then, it goes down a mine.
00:28:50.580 And I'm like, what do you mean a mine?
00:28:51.580 Like, yeah, there's a limestone mine, where we store all the retirement paperwork.
00:28:58.060 That look, and you look at a picture of, at a picture of this mine, we'll post some pictures
00:29:00.600 afterwards.
00:29:01.620 Um, and this, this mine looks like something out of the 50s, because it was started in
00:29:05.540 1955.
00:29:07.220 So, it looks like, it's like a time warp.
00:29:09.640 And then the, the speed, then the limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft
00:29:14.600 elevator can move, determines how many people can retire from the federal, federal government.
00:29:21.180 And the elevator breaks down, and then, sometimes, and then you can't, nobody can retire.
00:29:26.680 Doesn't that sound crazy?
00:29:28.620 There's like a thousand people that work on this.
00:29:30.100 So, I think if, if we take those people and say like, you know what, instead of working
00:29:34.260 in a, in a, in a mine shaft and, uh, carrying manila envelopes to, you know, boxes in a mine
00:29:40.340 shaft, you could do practically anything else, and you, you would add to the, the goods and
00:29:46.080 services of the United States, um, in, in a more useful way.
00:29:50.820 So, anyway, so I think, you know, that's an example.
00:29:55.020 Like, at a high level, if you say like, how do we increase prosperity?
00:29:57.520 Is we get people to do, to, to, to, to shift from roles that are low to negative productivity
00:30:02.640 to high productivity roles.
00:30:04.940 And, and so you increase the total output of goods and services, which means that, that
00:30:08.660 there's a higher standard of living available for everyone.
00:30:11.740 That's, that's the actual goal.
00:30:15.060 Everyone's very quiet.
00:30:16.920 So, you know, are people normally as quiet?
00:30:18.620 You're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're detractors, Mr. Musk.
00:30:21.380 I've, what?
00:30:22.040 Including a lot of Democrats.
00:30:23.780 I have detractors?
00:30:25.100 You do, sir.
00:30:25.700 I don't believe it.
00:30:26.440 Say that you're orchestrating a hostile takeover of government and doing it in a non-transparent
00:30:32.520 way.
00:30:33.240 What's your response to that criticism?
00:30:35.960 Well, first of all, uh, you couldn't ask for a stronger mandate from, from the public.
00:30:41.360 Uh, the public voted, uh, you know, we, we have a majority of the public vote, voting for
00:30:47.520 President Trump.
00:30:49.000 Uh, we've won the House.
00:30:50.880 We won the Senate.
00:30:51.540 Um, the people voted for major government reform.
00:30:58.260 There should be no doubt about that.
00:30:59.820 That was on the campaign.
00:31:01.860 The president spoke about that at every rally.
00:31:04.320 The people voted for, for major government reform.
00:31:06.780 And that's what the people are going to get.
00:31:08.220 They're going to get what they voted for.
00:31:09.480 And, and a lot of times that, you know, people that don't get what they voted for, but in
00:31:14.380 this presidency, they are going to get what they voted for.
00:31:17.060 And that's what democracy is all about.
00:31:18.900 Mr. Musk, the White House says that you will identify and excuse yourself from any conflicts
00:31:25.820 of interest that you may have.
00:31:27.700 Does that mean that you are in effect policing yourself?
00:31:30.680 What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that there is accountability
00:31:33.800 and transparency?
00:31:36.040 Well, we, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible.
00:31:39.060 In fact, our actions, we post our actions to the, the Doge handle, uh, on X, um, and to
00:31:45.400 the, the Doge website, so all of our actions are, are, are maximally transparent.
00:31:49.660 In fact, I don't think there's been, I don't know of a case where, where an organization's
00:31:54.520 been more transparent than the Doge organization.
00:31:57.260 Um, and, and, so, you know, and the kind of things we're doing are, I think, very, very
00:32:02.960 simple and basic.
00:32:04.140 They're, they're not, we're, you know, what I mentioned brings, for example, about treasury,
00:32:07.840 just making sure that, that payments that go out, taxpayer money that goes out, is categorized
00:32:12.960 correctly, that, that, that the, the payment is explained, that organizations on the Do
00:32:17.640 Not Pay list, which are, takes a lot to get there, that actually are not paid, which currently
00:32:22.260 they are paid.
00:32:23.800 These, these are, these are not individual judgment decisions.
00:32:27.140 These are about simply having sensible checks and balances in the system itself to ensure
00:32:31.340 that taxpayer money is spent well.
00:32:33.200 So it's got nothing to do with, like, say, a contract for some company of Vine at all.
00:32:37.120 But if there is a conflict of interest when it comes to you yourself, for instance, you've
00:32:41.240 received billions of dollars in federal contracts, when it comes to the Pentagon, for instance,
00:32:46.320 which the president, I know, has directed you to look into.
00:32:48.760 Yeah.
00:32:48.960 Are you policing yourself in that?
00:32:50.680 Is there any sort of accountability check and balance in place that would provide any
00:32:55.740 transparency for the American people?
00:32:57.400 Well, all of our actions are, are fully public.
00:33:00.760 So if you see anything, you say, like, wait a second, hey, you know, that doesn't, that
00:33:04.280 seems like maybe that's, you know, there's a conflict there.
00:33:07.780 I, I, it's not like people are going to be shy about saying that.
00:33:10.660 They'll say it immediately, you know?
00:33:11.940 Including you yourself.
00:33:12.920 Yes.
00:33:13.860 But it's, it, what, transparency is what builds trust.
00:33:17.500 Not simply somebody asserting trust.
00:33:19.900 So not somebody saying they're trustworthy, but transparency.
00:33:22.820 So you can see everything that's going on.
00:33:24.640 And then you can see, am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not?
00:33:27.840 It's totally obvious.
00:33:29.720 And if we thought that we would not let him do that segment or look in that area, if we
00:33:35.100 thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest.
00:33:39.820 And we watched that also.
00:33:42.120 He's a big businessman.
00:33:43.740 He's a successful guy.
00:33:44.700 That's why we want him doing this.
00:33:46.100 We don't want a, an unsuccessful guy doing this.
00:33:49.480 Now, one thing also that, uh, Elon hasn't really mentioned are the groups of people that
00:33:55.660 are getting some of these payments.
00:33:57.360 They're ridiculous.
00:33:58.520 And we're talking about billions of dollars that we've already found.
00:34:01.660 We found fraud and abuse.
00:34:04.940 Uh, I would say those two words as opposed to the third word that I usually use.
00:34:09.080 But in this case, fraud and abuse.
00:34:12.240 It's abusive because most of these things are virtually made up or certainly money shouldn't
00:34:18.500 be said to him.
00:34:19.420 And you know what I'm talking about.
00:34:20.940 It's crazy.
00:34:22.360 So, uh, but we're talking about, uh, tens of billions of dollars that we've already
00:34:27.680 found.
00:34:28.680 And now a judge is an activist judge, uh, wants to try and stop us from doing this.
00:34:35.560 Why?
00:34:35.900 Why would they want to do that?
00:34:36.960 I campaigned on this.
00:34:38.000 I campaigned on the fact that I said government is corrupt and it is very corrupt.
00:34:42.840 It's very, very, uh, it's also foolish as an example of man has a contract.
00:34:48.500 You have a contract for three months and the contract ends, but they keep paying him for
00:34:52.880 the next 20 years, you know, because nobody ends a contract.
00:34:55.440 You got a lot of that.
00:34:56.220 You have a contract that's a three, a three month contract.
00:35:00.380 Now, normally if you're in a small, in all fairness, it's the size of this thing is so
00:35:05.320 big.
00:35:06.020 Yeah.
00:35:06.220 But if you have a contract and you're in a regular business, you end the contract in
00:35:10.880 three months, you know, it's a consultant.
00:35:13.240 Here's a contract for three months, but it goes on for 20 years.
00:35:17.880 And the guy doesn't say that he got money for 20 years.
00:35:20.100 You know, they don't say it.
00:35:21.160 They just keep getting checks month after month.
00:35:23.600 And you have various things like that.
00:35:25.720 And even much worse than that, actually much worse.
00:35:28.660 And I guess you call that incompetence.
00:35:30.580 Maybe it could be corruption.
00:35:32.400 It could be a deals made on both sides.
00:35:34.140 You know, where you got to get some money.
00:35:36.420 He kicks.
00:35:36.960 I think he has a lot of kickback here.
00:35:38.640 I see a lot of kickback here.
00:35:40.200 There's a lot of kickbacks.
00:35:41.080 A tremendous kickback.
00:35:42.160 Because nobody could be so stupid to give out some of these contracts.
00:35:44.860 So he has to get a kickback.
00:35:47.100 So that's what I got elected for.
00:35:50.860 That and borders and military and a lot of things.
00:35:53.980 But this is a big part of it.
00:35:55.940 And I hope that the court system is going to allow us to do what we have to do.
00:36:00.960 We got elected to, among other things, find all of this fraud, abuse, all of this horrible
00:36:07.800 stuff going on.
00:36:08.540 And we've already found billions of dollars, not like a little bit, billions, many billions
00:36:14.860 of dollars.
00:36:16.340 And when you get down to it, it's going to be probably close to a trillion dollars.
00:36:21.280 It could be close to a trillion dollars that we're going to find.
00:36:24.620 That will have quite an impact on the budget.
00:36:28.140 And you'll go to a judge where they handpick a judge and he has certain leanings.
00:36:33.760 I'm not knocking anybody for that, but he has certain leanings.
00:36:36.700 And he wants us to stop looking.
00:36:39.920 How do you stop looking?
00:36:41.260 I mean, we've already found it.
00:36:42.920 We have a case in New York where a hotel is paid $59 million.
00:36:47.900 $59 million because it's housing migrants, illegal migrants.
00:36:54.000 All illegal, I believe.
00:36:55.440 And they were being paid twice the normal room rate at 100% occupancy.
00:36:58.440 Unbelievable.
00:36:58.880 So it's a racket.
00:36:59.600 So it's a racket.
00:36:59.620 I just want to ask a question.
00:37:01.680 If I may, sort of just go in for the President's comments.
00:37:06.460 At a high level, you say, well, what are the two ingredients that are really necessary in
00:37:14.980 order to cut the budget deficit in half, from two trillion to one trillion?
00:37:18.840 And it's really two things, competence and caring.
00:37:24.240 And if you add competence and caring, you'll cut the budget deficit in half.
00:37:29.160 And I fully expect to be scrutinized and get a daily proctology exam, basically.
00:37:35.260 Might as well just camp out there.
00:37:36.380 But so it's not like I think I can get away with something.
00:37:40.400 I'll be scrutinized nonstop.
00:37:43.060 But with the support of the President, we can cut the budget deficit in half, from two
00:37:47.820 trillion to one.
00:37:49.100 And then with deregulation, because there's a lot of sort of regulations that don't ultimately
00:37:55.300 serve the public good, we need to free the builders of America to build.
00:37:59.320 And if we do that, that means I think you get the economic growth to be maybe three, four
00:38:05.840 percent, maybe five percent.
00:38:07.400 And that means if you can get a trillion dollars of economic growth, and you can cut the budget
00:38:11.100 deficit by a trillion, between now and next year, there is no inflation.
00:38:17.640 There's no inflation in 26.
00:38:19.700 And if the government is not borrowing as much, it means that interest costs decline.
00:38:24.180 So everyone's mortgage, their car payment, their credit card bills, anything, their student
00:38:29.120 debt, their monthly payments drop.
00:38:32.960 That's a fantastic scenario for the average American.
00:38:38.240 I mean, imagine they're going down the grocery aisle, and the prices from one year to the
00:38:43.220 next are the same, and their mortgage, all their debt payments dropped.
00:38:51.480 How great is that for the average American?
00:38:54.840 That's what we're in here.
00:38:56.040 We had no idea we were going to find this much.
00:38:58.860 And it's open.
00:38:59.780 It's not like complicated.
00:39:01.660 It's simple stuff.
00:39:03.200 It's a lot of work.
00:39:04.360 We can't believe it.
00:39:05.160 A lot of work.
00:39:06.040 A lot of smart people involved.
00:39:07.420 Very, very smart people.
00:39:08.480 But it's, you're talking about anywhere, maybe 500 billion dollars.
00:39:14.600 It's crazy the kind of numbers you're talking about.
00:39:17.880 You know, normally when you're looking at something, you'll find, you're looking for
00:39:20.640 one out of a hundred.
00:39:22.160 Here, you're almost reversing it.
00:39:24.180 You look for one that's good.
00:39:26.040 Yeah.
00:39:26.260 And you can look at the title, and you say, why are we doing this?
00:39:29.660 Why are we doing that?
00:39:30.560 And the public gets it.
00:39:31.900 You know, the public gets it.
00:39:32.940 You've seen the polls.
00:39:33.860 The public is saying, why are we paying all this money?
00:39:36.420 This is for years.
00:39:37.720 This has gone on.
00:39:38.580 Senator Rand Paul today said that doge cuts will ultimately need a vote in Congress.
00:39:46.860 Do you agree with that?
00:39:47.760 Is that the plan?
00:39:48.220 I really don't know.
00:39:49.040 I know this.
00:39:50.220 We're finding tremendous fraud and tremendous abuse.
00:39:54.160 If I need a vote of Congress to find fraud and abuse, it's fine with me.
00:39:58.660 I think we'll get the vote.
00:40:00.080 Although there'll be some people that wouldn't vote.
00:40:02.300 And how could a judge want to hold us back from finding all of this fraud
00:40:06.100 and finding all of this incompetence?
00:40:09.840 Why would that happen?
00:40:11.020 Why would even Congress want to do that?
00:40:12.920 Now, Congress, if we do need a vote, I think we'd get a very easy vote
00:40:16.080 because we have a track record now.
00:40:18.280 We've already found billions of dollars of abuse, incompetence, and corruption.
00:40:24.800 A lot of corruption.
00:40:25.960 If a judge does block one of your policies, part of your agenda,
00:40:29.580 will you abide by that ruling?
00:40:31.460 Will you comply with that?
00:40:32.140 Well, I always abide by the courts, and then I'll have to appeal it.
00:40:34.460 But then what he's done is he's slowed down the momentum.
00:40:37.680 And it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books.
00:40:42.540 You know, if a person's crooked and they get caught,
00:40:45.200 other people see that, and all of a sudden it becomes harder later on.
00:40:49.260 So, yeah, the answer is I always abide by the courts.
00:40:53.100 Always abide by them.
00:40:54.260 And we'll appeal.
00:40:55.760 But appeals take a long time.
00:40:57.560 And I would hope that a judge, if you go into a judge and you show them,
00:41:01.520 here's a corrupt situation.
00:41:03.540 We have a check to be sent, but we found it to be corrupt.
00:41:07.780 Do you want us to send this corrupt check to a person?
00:41:10.720 Or do you want us not to give it and give it back to the taxpayer?
00:41:13.680 I would hope a judge would say, don't send it, give it back to the taxpayer.
00:41:17.760 Yeah, if I can add to that, what we're finding is that a bunch of the fraud
00:41:21.620 is not even going to Americans.
00:41:23.360 So I think we can all agree that if there's going to be fraud,
00:41:25.980 it should at least go to Americans.
00:41:27.840 But a bunch of the fraud rings that are operating in the United States
00:41:30.780 and taking advantage of the federal government,
00:41:32.560 especially in the entitlements programs, are actually foreign fraud rings.
00:41:35.580 They're operating in other countries and actually exporting money to other countries.
00:41:39.180 countries, we should stop that.
00:41:42.760 And this is big numbers, about $100 to $200 billion a year.
00:41:46.900 Serious money.
00:41:47.780 Mr. Musk, you said on X that an example of the fraud that you have cited
00:41:53.340 was $50 million of condoms were sent to Gaza.
00:41:57.880 But after fact-checked this, apparently Gaza in Mozambique,
00:42:02.740 and the program was to protect them against HIV.
00:42:06.260 So can you correct the statements?
00:42:07.960 It wasn't sent to Hamas, actually.
00:42:10.140 It was sent to Mozambique, which makes sense why condoms were sent there.
00:42:13.540 And how can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct
00:42:17.980 so we can trust what you say?
00:42:19.500 Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect
00:42:22.460 and should be corrected.
00:42:24.440 So nobody's going to bat $1,000.
00:42:26.480 I mean, we will make mistakes, but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes.
00:42:32.320 So I'm not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere.
00:42:37.960 Frankly, I'm not sure that's something Americans would be really excited about.
00:42:42.680 And that is really an enormous number of condoms, if you think about it.
00:42:46.340 But, you know, if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I'm like,
00:42:49.520 okay, that's not as bad, but still, you know, why are we doing that?
00:42:53.520 Can you talk a little bit about how closely you're working with agency heads
00:42:58.340 as you're directing these cuts?
00:43:00.820 Do they have the – how much input do agency heads have when you're making these decisions?
00:43:05.760 Yeah, we work closely with the agency heads.
00:43:09.180 And, yeah, so there are sort of checks in place.
00:43:14.100 So it's not us just going in and doing things willy-nilly.
00:43:16.860 It's in partnership with the agency heads.
00:43:20.360 And I check briefly with the president to make sure that, you know,
00:43:23.820 this is what the president wants to happen.
00:43:26.340 So, you know, we talk almost every day.
00:43:29.280 And I, you know, I double-check things to make sure.
00:43:32.520 Is this something – Mr. President, do you want us to do this?
00:43:35.580 Then we'll do it.
00:43:36.780 USAID has been one of your main targets.
00:43:40.100 Are you concerned at all that some of the cuts or that shutting that agency altogether
00:43:44.460 may lead to diseases or other bigger problems starting in other countries
00:43:49.400 that then come to the United States?
00:43:51.640 Yeah, so that's an interesting example.
00:43:53.580 So that's something where we work closely with the State Department and Secretary Rubio.
00:43:58.300 And we have, for example, turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for HIV prevention.
00:44:05.140 About that, you said?
00:44:05.800 Yes, correct.
00:44:06.320 And we are moving fast, so we will make mistakes, but we will also fix the mistakes very quickly.
00:44:14.060 Do you think that's a worthy cause, USAID?
00:44:16.840 I think that there are some worthy things, but overall, if you say,
00:44:20.800 what is the bang for the buck, I would say it was not very good.
00:44:24.880 And there was far too much of what USAID was doing was influencing elections
00:44:31.120 in ways that I think were dubious and do not stand the light of day.
00:44:35.540 Are you just a follow-up to the Pentagon contracts?
00:44:38.940 If you have received billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon
00:44:42.860 and the President is directing you to look into the Department of Defense,
00:44:46.120 is that a conflict of interest?
00:44:46.260 Yes, which we definitely need to do and are going to do at the President's request.
00:44:49.520 Does that present a conflict of interest for you?
00:44:51.680 No, because you'd have to look at the individual contract and say,
00:44:54.420 first of all, I'm not the one filing the contract.
00:44:58.000 It's people at SpaceX or someone who will be putting for the contract.
00:45:01.320 And I'd like to say, if you see any contract where it was awarded to SpaceX
00:45:06.000 and it wasn't by far the best value for money for the taxpayer, let me know.
00:45:09.860 Because every one of them was.
00:45:11.600 The President said the other day that you might look at treasuries.
00:45:15.880 Could you explain that a little bit?
00:45:17.340 What kind of fraud, and that question goes to both of you,
00:45:20.560 what kind of fraud are you expecting to see or do you see right now in U.S. treasuries?
00:45:26.380 I think you mean the Treasury Department as opposed to Treasury bills.
00:45:30.240 You also referenced treasuries on Air Force One the other night.
00:45:32.680 Go ahead.
00:45:33.460 Well, as I mentioned earlier, really the first order of business is to make sure
00:45:38.860 we're actually collecting, sorry for this.
00:45:41.380 I thought my son might enjoy this, but he's sticking his fingers in my ears and stuff.
00:45:47.300 It's a bit hard to hear sometimes.
00:45:48.600 Hey, stop that.
00:45:50.560 So, no, the stuff we're doing with the Treasury Department is so basic
00:45:56.480 that you can't believe it doesn't exist already.
00:46:00.240 So, for example, like I mentioned, just making sure that when a payment goes out,
00:46:06.040 it has to have a payment categorization code.
00:46:08.800 It's like what type of payment is this?
00:46:12.240 You can't just leave the field blank.
00:46:13.960 Currently, many payments, the field is left blank.
00:46:16.920 And you have to describe what's the payment for, some basic rationalization.
00:46:20.160 That also is left blank.
00:46:22.060 So, this is why, you know, the Pentagon, when's the last time the Pentagon passed an audit?
00:46:25.580 I mean, a decade ago, maybe?
00:46:27.100 I don't know, ever, really?
00:46:28.380 And we want to just, in order to actually pass audits, you have to have financial information that allows you to trace the payments.
00:46:36.140 So, you know, and once in a while, the Treasury has to pause payments if it thinks the payment is going to a fraudulent organization.
00:46:48.020 Like, if a company or organization is on a do-not-pay list, we should not pay it.
00:46:56.960 I'm sure you would agree.
00:46:57.960 Like, if it's quite hard to get on that payment, the do-not-pay list, it means that this is someone that is, like, dead people, terrorists, known fraudsters, that kind of thing.
00:47:11.040 We should not pay them.
00:47:12.980 But currently, we do, which is crazy.
00:47:16.220 We should stop that.
00:47:17.320 We're going to have a lot of transactions.
00:47:19.160 And by the way, hundreds, thousands of transactions like that.
00:47:23.020 You know, we have a big team.
00:47:24.000 And for the sake of the country, I hope that the person that's in charge and the other people that report to me that are in charge are allowed to do the right thing.
00:47:36.340 Namely, make sure everything's honest, legitimate, and competent.
00:47:40.860 But we're looking at just, when you look at USAID, that's one.
00:47:46.260 We're going to look at the military.
00:47:47.380 We're going to look at education.
00:47:49.200 They're much bigger areas.
00:47:50.920 But the USAID is really corrupt.
00:47:54.000 I'll tell you, it's corrupt.
00:47:55.140 It's incompetent, and it's really corrupt.
00:47:58.060 And I can't imagine a judge saying, well, it may be corrupt, but you don't have the right.
00:48:02.320 You got elected to look over the country and to, as we say, make America great again.
00:48:07.460 But you don't have the right to go and look and see whether or not things are right that they're paying or that things are honest that they're paying.
00:48:15.220 And nobody can even believe this.
00:48:16.800 Other people, law professors, they've been saying, how can you take that person's right away?
00:48:22.600 You're supposed to be running the country, but we're not allowed to look at who they're paying it to and what they're paying.
00:48:28.100 We have massive amounts of fraud that we caught.
00:48:31.420 I think we probably caught way over a lot of billions of dollars already in, what, two weeks?
00:48:38.040 And it's going to go to numbers that you're not going to believe.
00:48:42.340 And much, as I said, much is incompetence and much is dishonesty.
00:48:46.380 We have to catch it.
00:48:47.540 And the only way we're going to catch it is to look for it.
00:48:49.840 And if a judge is going to say you're not allowed to look for it, that's pretty sad for our country.
00:48:55.380 I don't understand how it could even work.
00:48:57.160 On the buyout program, can you personally guarantee that the buyout program, the offer to federal workers, can you personally guarantee that the workers who opt in to resign now will be paid through September?
00:49:08.000 Well, they'll get their money, but they're getting a good deal.
00:49:10.760 They're getting a big buyout.
00:49:12.100 And what we're trying to do is reduce government.
00:49:14.360 We have too many people.
00:49:15.460 We have office space.
00:49:16.540 It's occupied by 4%.
00:49:18.280 Nobody's showing up to work because they were told not to.
00:49:21.500 And then Biden gave them a five-year pass, some of them, 48,000 of them, gave them a five-year pass that for five years, you don't have to show up to work.
00:49:31.460 And let me tell you, this is largely, much of this stuff is because of Biden.
00:49:35.140 It's his fault.
00:49:36.540 He allowed this country, what he did on our border.
00:49:40.160 What he did on our border is almost not as bad as what he did with all of these contracts that have come out.
00:49:46.640 It's a very sad day when we look at it.
00:49:49.600 I can't even believe it.
00:49:50.860 But many contracts just extend, and they just keep extending, and there was nobody there to correct it.
00:49:56.700 And that cannot be, I can't imagine that could be held up by the court.
00:50:01.400 Any court that would say that the president or his representatives, like Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, whatever, doesn't have the right to go over their books and make sure everything's honest.
00:50:13.920 I mean, how can you have a country?
00:50:15.100 You can't have anything that way.
00:50:16.420 You can't have a business that way.
00:50:17.580 You can't have a country that way.
00:50:18.860 Thank you very much, everybody.
00:50:20.580 Thank you.
00:50:21.060 Thank you, press.
00:50:22.120 Thank you, press.
00:50:23.060 Heading out.
00:50:24.300 We're going back tonight.
00:50:27.600 The White House tonight at about 10 o'clock.
00:50:31.840 If you want to come over, you can say hello to him.
00:50:33.660 Did the U.S. leave anything in return?
00:50:36.600 Not much.
00:50:37.920 No.
00:50:38.540 They were very nice.
00:50:39.360 We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually.
00:50:41.760 I hope that's the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war and millions of people can stop being killed.
00:50:49.960 They've lost millions of people.
00:50:51.340 They've lost, in terms of soldiers, probably 1.5 million soldiers in a short period of time.
00:50:58.360 We've got to stop that war.
00:51:01.180 And I'm interested primarily from the standpoint of death.
00:51:04.400 We're losing all those soldiers.
00:51:06.280 And they're not American soldiers.
00:51:07.740 They're Ukrainian and Russian soldiers.
00:51:10.100 But you're probably talking about a million and a half.
00:51:12.240 I think we've got to bring that one to an end.
00:51:15.520 Okay?
00:51:16.100 Thank you.
00:51:16.600 Thank you, guys.
00:51:17.820 Thank you.
00:51:18.360 We're building.
00:51:19.420 Let's go.
00:51:19.960 Thank you, sir.
00:51:20.460 Thank you.
00:51:22.300 I want to show you.
00:51:23.680 I want to tell you how extraordinary that is.
00:51:25.740 And I love the way we've got opportunities now to show this.
00:51:30.260 You never saw this during Biden's time.
00:51:32.380 But we didn't really do that level of what's happening now when I was there.
00:51:38.780 And I think it's fantastic.
00:51:40.240 I will tell you, that's a lot like sitting there, having brief President Trump, him throwing out ideas.
00:51:48.820 You're seeing a very unique.
00:51:51.660 I want you to think back, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, or President Kennedy, or President Eisenhower, or President Johnson about Vietnam, or Richard Nixon.
00:51:59.400 And think about, I know it's in black and white, but you remember it.
00:52:03.000 Some of you, towards my age, the boomers, right?
00:52:05.900 Remember that.
00:52:06.700 Even the younger people, the decisions.
00:52:08.880 You're seeing, actually, President Trump thinking it through as it's happening.
00:52:15.900 That was extraordinary.
00:52:17.860 Kind of an explanation from Elon Musk about what's happening at Doge.
00:52:21.960 And it's a little bit like they're going in and doing an audit of payments and receivables.
00:52:28.420 And there's questions about data and all that.
00:52:30.280 But you see what they're looking for, waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:52:33.500 And they're saying there's going to be big numbers.
00:52:36.740 So we'll have to see.
00:52:37.820 My point on this is the 14th's a date.
00:52:43.760 And that's a date.
00:52:44.720 You know, we already have breached the debt ceiling.
00:52:46.640 We can't technically raise any more debt.
00:52:49.260 We have extraordinary measures going on.
00:52:51.080 Scott Bestance is balancing that.
00:52:52.960 That can be handled.
00:52:53.880 So the 14th, we can't, there's no more money authorized after the 14th.
00:52:58.000 The CR ends then.
00:52:59.520 We've got to converge these processes.
00:53:01.820 I'm not sure anybody's, like, talking about the processes.
00:53:04.820 I'm going to break down the middle.
00:53:06.260 I heard some numbers in there.
00:53:08.420 I just got to say, I'm not sure these numbers are realistic.
00:53:11.080 We're talking about 5% growth.
00:53:13.720 The CBO says 1.8% growth.
00:53:16.020 The difference, I don't know if we've had 5% growth in 20 or 30 years.
00:53:19.560 So I'd have to check it out.
00:53:21.760 But this has to be realistic, and it has to get on with it.
00:53:25.040 I think this is tremendous.
00:53:26.420 I think what Doge is doing, the opportunity, because it's kind of shattered the Washington
00:53:30.980 norm, and that's why it's such an important thing to take advantage of, particularly President
00:53:34.580 Trump right now as a disruptor.
00:53:36.900 But I think what was so powerful about that, for 30 minutes, you see President Trump thinking
00:53:41.780 this thing through and kind of talking out loud.
00:53:44.240 So pretty extraordinary.
00:53:45.380 Also, so many other huge events, this situation in Gaza, and President Trump's kind of throw
00:53:50.980 down on that.
00:53:52.760 Jason Medica, I want to make sure, also, we're into this trade war right now, the beginning
00:53:56.580 stage with China, the supply chains, Rosemary Gibson's historic book that talked about how
00:54:02.640 China controlled all the active pharmaceutical ingredients and generics 100%.
00:54:09.660 First time it was exposed to the American people.
00:54:11.600 Dr. Sean Rollins and the team, turn it into a business, jacemedical.com.
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00:54:20.460 Look at the Jace case, but look at all of it.
00:54:23.200 Just make sure you're comfortable where you stand with the medicines that you need in case
00:54:28.740 anything happens.
00:54:29.540 We're always about be prepared.
00:54:32.760 Also, Paradigm Press, Rickardswarroom.com.
00:54:38.060 Get the best of Jim Rickards.
00:54:39.520 I'm going to try to get him back on here the rest of the week.
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00:54:50.060 Of course, Birch Gold, end of the dollar empire.
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00:54:57.520 We're also going to be bundling these in a very special way here shortly.
00:55:02.220 Birchgold.com.
00:55:03.540 You heard Philip Patrick on the first hour.
00:55:05.300 Talk to the folks at Birch Gold.
00:55:06.800 Find out why gold is at an all-time high and where it may go.
00:55:13.080 Elon Musk said it.
00:55:14.060 He was kind of preaching the gospel of the war room.
00:55:15.820 They have to cut the $2 trillion deficit.
00:55:18.960 We cannot afford it.
00:55:19.980 It's got to be cut at least in half, minimum.
00:55:23.840 We'll pick it back up tomorrow morning.
00:55:25.820 It's going to be some big votes.
00:55:27.140 Get ready to go to work.
00:55:28.260 At 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in the war room.
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