'Concessions to Russia,' RFK Jr. backs vaccine: Trump’s First 100 Days - Day 43 | MSNBC Highlights

I guess we should have known that everyone who signs up to work for Donald Trump is signing up for one single project and that is the transition of American democracy to a kind of kleptocratic oligarchy in which the billionaires rule in which they get to steal from regular Americans and if that's the domestic project then the way that you normalize um that kind of government is to associate yourself with similar governments abroad like the Kremlin so it's all part of one big domestic project the foreign policy the affection for dictatorships abroad is in effect um

a means towards transitioning our democracy to something very very different something we've never ever seen before in this country Mr Ambassador that is all true but the the the amazing thing about Putin and Russia and it it almost sets itself up like a bad joke and I'm not a comedian but how bad is he he's so bad that even Donald Trump's massive propaganda arm it starts at Fox News but it has tentacles throughout radio and and the internet and Elon musk's company um cannot change this stubborn number 81% 81% of all Americans right now today

do not like or trust Vladimir Putin and that's after nine years of this project that I think Chris Murphy accurately describes um doesn't mean they'll give up but what should people be prepared for in terms of trying to turn what is hardened and correct distrust and dislike for Vladimir Putin well I think the first comment I would make is the American people at least 81% have a better understanding of Russia and the threat that Putin poses than the president apparently does you know we've seen over the last three or four weeks what I would call

concession after concession after concession to Moscow so already three weeks ago uh the president and the Secretary of Defense are talking about well Ukraine can't get its territory back it can't join NATO so before the president even has the Russians and ukrainians at the negotiating table he's already making two big concessions to the Russians View for the last three years there's been a western agreement that we will isolate and boycott Trump I'm sorry boycott Putin and then Trump agrees to meet with Putin and then we had this uh it's already been mentioned uh the vote

at the United Nations where we joined Russia North Korea and Iran the vote against a UN resolution because it mentioned Russia as the aggressor and I look at this and I say what has the United States received in return and I can't see a single thing and I fear that Trump is going about it all wrong in negotiating with Putin Putin looks at the White House now and he sees weakness and he's not inclined to make any concessions because he can just sit back and see what tomorrow will bring and maybe there'll be another gift

uh this is not working even in the terms of President Trump's own profess goal which is to try to find an end to the Russia Ukraine War because Russia sees no reason whatsoever to move president Trump heads the most powerful country in the world he has leverage that he could impose on Putin to inflict costs if Putin continues this war and thus far for understand reasons that are very hard to understand he's not chosen to use that leverage Peter Baker um a lot has been made of Trump's Affinity not just for Putin but for the

the Mana spere it includes a bunch of who who look like Dan Bonino and Joe Rogan I don't know who they all are but they're very the masculinity seems to be the the beginning the middle and the end of all their stories um here's how weak the Republicans and Trump look in front of their own voters this is a caller to the Mark Levin radio show and um some voters in a trump District a district Trump won 5247 one thing that's really Disturbed me today is all the people people who are blaming zinski like he's

the problem like he's the villain in this story and he's not it's Putin I mean Russia invaded Ukraine Ukraine did not invade Russia and I am just perplexed at all these people who are saying that zinsky is a crook or that Ukraine wants War listen everybody's freaking out everybody's like you know I'm mred like let's work together let's try and find common ground and what happened in the white house yesterday I was so pissed off that it was just so I knew you had to get that out of your system I I wanted you to

get that out of your system should the point there the man getting a standing ovation in a district Trump one 5247 not a republican not a trump Cabinet member not a man from the manosphere but a Democrat look I think that it reminds us how people felt about the Ukraine war when the full-fledged Invasion happened in 2022 remember Americans all across the board uh flew Ukrainian blue and yellow flags there was a great deal of uh you know empathy and sympathy on the part of the American people for a people for a nation that was

invaded unprovoked let's be honest about that by its more powerful neighbor simply because the more powerful neighbors leader says it doesn't deserve to be an independent nation remember that by the way when you hear Russians or people who are uh sympathetic to Russia say it's really all about NATO expansion Vladimir Putin wrote a 5,000-word treaties in July of 2021 saying Ukraine historically is non-independent Nation doesn't deserve to be an independent nation it's not about whether it's a member of NATO it doesn't deserve to be on the map as far as Vladimir Putin is saying and

Americans felt that at the time Americans felt like the way they did when you know the Nazis were invading Poland and so forth now that doesn't mean that they want to necessarily spend you know hundreds of billions of dollars if that's what it comes to there's certainly a part of America that is tired of being involved in other people's Wars and Trump uh Taps into that sort of feeling uh but there's a difference between that and suddenly uh taking sides with Vladimir Putin that's not something that Americans have historically been uh in favor of just

yesterday I think CBS came out with a poll with UGA showing that of those who had a choice 55% I think said they prefer Ukraine over Russia only 4% said uh Ukraine and 44% I may have those numbers wrong there something in that range didn't didn't take position one way or the other so a lot of people don't want to be involved but if they do have a position they're 10 to one in favor of Russia sorry Ukraine Ukraine um here's the poll number I have um a lot of this Trump has made about spending

and even on spending 65% of all Americans in the latest NPR PBS Maris poll that we've either spent the right amount or not enough aiding our Ally Ukraine in the war against Russia 34% say we spent too much um here here's my question and it's about politics um the cuts um not popular um siding with Russia 81% of all Americans don't don't like Russia very much um inflation going the wrong direction um the the stock market going the wrong direction um Trump has not kept a promise other than putting all the pieces in place for

Retribution and I guess has dropping the case against Eric Adams but I didn't hear him mention that in his stump speech very often what is happening politically well it's interesting um because people are still saying that he's doing what he said he would do I think primarily that's probably around immigration deport because they're trying to do this big show like they're really taking out people and and yeah they're not removing anywhere near the number of people that they said they would remove on day one and the other thing that's interesting politically is he's picked a

fight with Canada now keep in mind that Canada has intercepted more fentanyl coming across their border from the United States than we have coming from Canada so he tried to blame Canada and say well you're not doing anything about drugs coming across our border meanwhile Russia allows cyber criminals to operate with impunity in Russia you don't think that Vladimir Putin can go in and murder all these cider cyber criminals that are shutting down hospitals in the United States they're impacting manufacturing companies they are doing cyber warfare Russian actors are doing cyber warfare today in our

country ask anybody in the intelligence community and they will tell you that but for some reason Donald Trump is not bothered by Russia letting their criminals weak Havoc with some of our most important institutions that deliver important services to America but he picks a fight with Canada now all of these chickens are going to come home to roost and I'm using chickens because Easter's coming and everybody's not going to be able to decorate that many eggs because they're not going to be able to afford it so uh eggs have become a symbol of Trump's failure

but it's one of many and it's going to take a while it will take six months maybe a year um but if this continues the way it's going um there will not be good midterms for the Republican party is that the Democrats thinking that they need 6 months to a year to really mount a robust well I think the democrat's thinking is probably no different than your thinking or my thinking um horrified feeling somewhat helpless depressed this is really a time where there's not one leader and so everyone's looking to people to Rise Up from

a phoenix From the Ashes one figure that will lead us out of the desert and take on Donald Trump effectively uh that will happen in time but for now I think the Democrats have to be disciplined about staying on the message of affordability and that your government is here to serve you and if your government can't serve you because you can't get in the Parks you can't get your question answered by the IRS you can't get your mother's social security check straightened out that will all now be blamed on Donald Trump not the Deep statey

he met with European leaders this weekend after he left the US the UK prime minister announcing a multi-billion dollar Aid package now for Ukraine UK and European allies seem to be racing to try to fix this fracture between the US and Ukraine will that work I don't know uh it's hard to say and and fixing the fracture to what end and to how far right so they had a I think a very good meeting for anybody who cares about National Security for Ukraine in Europe they came up with new Aid and an idea perhaps for

a ceasefire and a peace agreement and the Trump Administration should be happy about that they keep saying the Europeans need to do more they're doing more number two when it comes to repairing our bilateral relationship of the three points that GAR just laid out let's just just be clear two of them are are points about personal differences it's about the personalities the whims of our president that's not his job his job is to represent American National Security interest and leave his own personality out of it and and moreover that the notion that that Zin needs

to say thank you to to the president and the vice president needs to say thank you to the American people he's done that a thousand times but what have they done for him remember they are giving Putin everything he wants before negotiations has started they voted Mr Vance as a senator voted against the very Aid package that he now wants to be thanked for so I hope they'll just put aside the personal stuff and focus on very concretely the minerals deal Point number two that Garrett just said president zinski his team has made it Crystal

Clear they are ready to sign whenever under what conditions uh I hope president Trump and his team will do that immediately as a first baby step for repairing uh us Ukrainian relations we are seeing president zalinsky give thanks he's been posting on X after that meeting that he is grateful for us support that he's thankful to president Trump despite that Oval Office meeting let's remind our viewers how that unfolded here's just part of it you're not in a good position you don't have the cards right now with us you start having cards you're gambling with

the lives of millions of people you're gambling with World War I what you're doing is very dis disrespectful to the country this country that's back you far more than a lot of people said they should have you're not winning you're not winning this you have a damn good chance of coming okay because of us you have to be thankful you don't have the cards Igor as you reflect now on on what went down do you think seninsky should have done anything differently there well and if you remember you've asked me what my advice would have

been and I said resist the theatrics but unfortunately I was wrong uh not in the sense that President zinski didn't resist the theatrics but you know the whole situation reminded me of that class classic James Bond film remember when James Bond basically says do you expect me to talk and the villain says no Mr Bond they expect you to die it was exactly like that so I I don't believe there was anything that zalinsky could have done differently for a different outcome and to be honest what's worrying here is not the actual meeting I think

you know there's a very fine line between uh pushing for peace and outright helping Russia and certain things some of them are not Ukraine related like for example the infamous news about the Cyber command stepping down against Russia recently you know I believe that line has been crossed and therefore I think president zalinsky needs to sign the Minal deal if it's on the table and if it's sane uh president ziny needs to be open to this relationship but you know there's only so much he can do it's not personal it's a bilateral relationship between two

countries Ambassador this fracture is also playing out domestically with how speaker Johnson over the weekend suggesting zalinsky may need to resign after what happened take a listen well something has to change either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country to do that yet Republican senator James lenford defended zilinski so from a diplomatic perspective how do you view demestic lawmakers openly debating whether zalinski should continue to lead his country after clashing with President Trump it's outrageous it's absolutely outrageous the arrogance

of the speaker to say that the democratically elected leader of of Ukraine fighting for his existence for his country should resign it's absolutely outrageous it does no good it doesn't help any national interest the United States I want to keep coming back to this what is good for American National Security leave the ukrainians aside this is no good for our American National Security and it's exactly what Putin has been wanting since he invaded Ukraine so what team are we on have we switched to the Russian side because I don't think the American people want to

go along with President Trump and the speaker to to end up on the Russian side the the side of dictatorship against democracy 81% of the American people don't trust Putin and I think the president is playing with fire if he tries to move us in that direction I think it's going to backfire you're already seeing it in town halls you're already seeing protests when the vice president goes skiing about Ukraine I think they're seriously misjudging the American people we are not so foolish as to think that it's in America's interest to join the a autocrats

and and throw under the bus the Democrats yeah we're showing some of that video from those protests over the weekend this is what vice president JD Vance faced when he went skiing with his family you see these prot testers holding Ukrainian flags and signs this was a weekend ski trip in Vermont eor what's the reaction inside Ukraine how are ukrainians feeling in this moment well first of all we're seeing a major rally around the flag effect now I mean everyone is behind the president even some of the fierce opposition leaders are either remaining quiet or

openly speaking in support of President zalinski secondly it's not Nobody's Business who are democratically elected president is only ukrainians decide that and that's exactly why we're fighting the Russians the Russians wanted to decide for us tough luck that's not going to happen but I have some good news as well uh I think I think it was vice president Vance who said that Ukraine does or president Trump who said Ukraine doesn't have any cards we're not playing cards I fully agree with my president but at the same time I think they're wrong Ukraine has a number

of cards it can play and if we ever want to surrender I'm pretty sure president zalinski will travel to Moscow rather than Washington Ambassador we have seen the US do things say things to try to get on Putin's good side it would seem including we learned stopping the Cyber operations against Russia which apparently took place before Friday's meeting with zalinsky and I know eigor mentioned those earlier but there's also president Trump calling zilinski a dictator other Russia friendly rhetoric we've been hearing Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about that yesterday and take a listen

to his response we've spent 3 years calling Vladimir Putin names that's not the point now the point that we're at now is we're trying to get the man to a table that's the goal here it's that simple can we try to sit with them and figure out whether there's anything what are the Russians demands what under what conditions would the Russians be willing to stop this war and as I said we don't know what those are because we haven't talked to them in three years goal get them to the table what's your response to Rubio's

argument or or the strategy that is laying out there first of all if they were actually serious about trying to mediate an end to this war and I want to underscore I'm not sure they are serious about that but if they were the first move would be to increase military assistance to Ukraine to create a stalemate on the battlefield Wars end in two ways one side wins or there's a stalemate if you want to create the permissive conditions for an actual peace negotiation that is your first move they're doing exactly the opposite second to your

point they have thrown all kinds of concessions at Vladimir Putin before negotiating so they said Ukraine can't join NATO they said president zalinsky has to give up territory they said there won't be American soldiers as part of this they' they've cut foreign assistance to Independent Media uh they've invited President Putin to join the G7 I could go on and on and on there's no evidence whatsoever that any of this is working and the fact fact that he doesn't know what they think he just spent four hours with foreign minister lth I have yet to see

one concrete step that they've taken to to put pressure at all on Vladimir Putin right now it's complete capitulation and I've negotiated with these guys I've negotiated with the Putin Administration capitulation does not work they just put that in their pocket and they demand more and you're already seeing that in the Russian press they've already pocketed all those concessions and now they want more they want the ukrainians to limit their army to under 100,000 they want the ukrainians to not import weapons anymore they want to de facto turn Ukraine into a vassel state and oh

by the way they also want zalinsky to be removed isn't it strange that all of a sudden Americans are now saying the same thing former Ambassador Michael McFall and eagor avakov thank you both for coming on back I appreciate the conversation when a school full aged child died of the measles in West Texas last week HHS secretary RFK Jr downplayed the outbreak calling it quote Not Unusual never mind the fact that no one had died of measles in the United States in a decade since then though the past week cases are continuing to pile up

including in New Jersey and now RFK Jr is amending himself ever so slightly writing in a Fox News oped quote the situation has escalated rapidly and adding quote all parents should consult with their health care providers to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine joining us now is senior scholar at John's Hopkins Center for Health security Dr Amish Adalia all right amsh Adalia I'm sorry um measles vaccine can you say what RFK is refusing to say the measles vaccine is the solution to this outbreak and RFK Jr is kind of going around that he's

not really giving it a full throated defense he's giving it a very kind of anemic kind of perfunctory type of uh position on it when he should be doing what for example Trump's first HHS secretary Alex AAR did during the first Administration was a very full-throated very aggressive defense saying this is the solution this is the way out of this this is why the outbreak occurred but you're not really seeing seeing that and I think it's what you would expect not why not I think it's because he's shown who he is for the last several

decades we know that he's an antivaccine activist we know he is aligned with people who have said that the MMR vaccine causes autism he wouldn't even disavow that during his confirmation hearings he wants to make a statue to Andrew Wakefield who was the guy who made that false statement so this isn't somebody who actually believes in what he's writing there I think he's written about maybe for political reasons and that's what you're getting is that kind of a response that's what you would expect from someone like so when you hear measles you think oh God

it's going to be something like the chicken box I'll get over it I'll be fine if I get it or you know most kids will be fine um or if they survive it then they'll be fine there's some new uh literature out there new studies that show that the measles does something that has longer term um ramifications can you explain so the measles virus doesn't just cause a rash and a runny nose and red eyes it actually affects your immune system it actually deletes some of the memory that you have to other pathogens other infectious

disease so after you get measles your immune system is kind of crippled hobbled for some time when it responds to any other type of infectious disease so this is not something you want so it means like when you're a kid you're building up a giant um immunity a set of immunities um from all the various viruses that you pick up in elementary school and you and you pick up in daycare and whatnot and so if you get the measles and you survive it and you're 16 years old and you come up and you come across

a pathogen that you would normally be able to overcome pretty easily are you suddenly struggling yes your your immune system your immune response has blunted now it's been sort of taken a step a couple steps back because of what misles has done it's deleted it literally deletes and kills certain cells that would be there to respond to those infections okay so um remind us again if you want to get the measel shot you haven't yet gotten one who's what is the normal schedule for for measel shots so usually children get measles the vaccine between 12

and 15 months and then again around 5 to seven years of age you can sort of adjust that a little bit they're not Ironclad but those are the times when people get how can you adjust it say you have a a three-year-old or a four-year-old and you want to get them that second shot build that immunity you can call the pediatrician and get it early they can move it up it's not really that big of a deal if they get it when they're age four or age five and certainly if you're living in an outbreak

area it might make sense to have the added protection and remember there's a bunch of people that didn't get a second dose because that second dose was added around late 1980s or so so there's people that were born before then who got one dose which is good but not completely optimal so if you're going to Texas if you're go traveling internationally where there's lots of measles you may want to get that second dose as well what about a booster I mean would I be Avail would it be available to me if I wanted a booster

and I had those two shots would it be necessary would it be helpful it wouldn't be harmful I don't know if it would actually help you if you already fully immune with two doses of the vaccine this is one of our most effective vaccines this is what keeps measles at Bay and I think if you're fully immunized unless you've had some kind of imuno compromising condition like you've had a transplant or something there's no reason to get a third dose of it but it it's not going to hurt you if you get a third dose

using myself as the standin for everyone else um Dr amadala thank you so much for joining us in person today we appreciate it joining us now Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin she's a member of the Senate Appropriations Commerce and health committees very good to have you here with us this morning great to be here so since you're on the Appropriations Committee you're perfect person to ask uh is is the the the continued impoundment by Doge of funds appro authorized and appropriated by Congress is that a constitutional violation of article one Powers it absolutely is

and it is so clear in article one that Congress makes the laws passes the budgets and the appropriation bills and it is the administration the president who implements and administers those and we're seeing conflict there started with that Federal funding freeze uh and of course uh lawsuits were filed immediately but the harm occurred we had head starts in Wisconsin that closed 250 families in wakashaw Wisconsin uh dis place for a week because they couldn't access the federal funding to run their Head Start program and uh in the courts of course we got a a stay

of those freezes we got a recision of the OM directive has the funding started back it has most of the portals have opened but reopened however some were so archaic in terms of the it infrastructure that they didn't open immediately even though I think the intent was to but we're seeing impoundment in other areas we're seeing uh you know the closure of agencies like usaid um and you know firing people not necessarily impoundment but this is by um an unelected unaccountable organization I mean we got to remember Doge the department of government efficiency is not

an official organization of any sort and Elon Musk they claim is not the head of it but he clearly is calling the shots he's not elected there's no accountability here and some of the contracts that have been canell have resulted in business going to his uh you know his operations corruption at the highest levels right there out in the open so so I don't want to get too deep in the weeds but I think this is important for viewers to know not only does this seem to be unconstitutional because these are these are article one

Powers also breaks the law when whenw when Nixon tried to impound funds Congress passed a law in 197 for the impoundment uh act 74 that explicitly States a president can't do this exactly and um I think they are uh trying to break it to uh create a case that they ultimately bring up to the Supreme Court and I hope the Supreme Court would stand firmly with article one and the impoundment ACT uh but I think uh his top advisors have said that they think it's unconstitutional and we will probably see this play out at some

point during uh this this Trump term so by the way if I can just say none other than William renquist uh said that the impounding of funds uh by the president was there it was a breach of article one Powers William renquist not not exactly Justice Roberts will be key in this uh in terms of the Integrity of the Court and so we hope he's paying close attention to this yeah we will have to watch there uh you obviously won in Wisconsin state that Donald Trump also won uh these Cuts here we're talking about it's

also slashing like Alzheimer's disease research other health issues do you think that the people who voted for Donald Trump this is what they cast their ballot for because there's also rumors of Medicaid Cuts we might even hear from Trump in his speech tomorrow night to Congress you know it on Medicaid and Medicare uh Trump a little over a week ago said on Fox News um I'm not touching Social Security Medicare Medicaid and he said it multiple times the next morning he endorsed the Republican house budget which calls for nearly a trillion dollars in cuts to

Medicaid uh how does that impact rural Health Care in Wisconsin devastate critical access hospitals and rural areas nursing homes will have to close remember that uh 8 million seniors depend on Medicaid especially when they need skilled nursing care uh and a third of all children are on Medicaid adults with disabilities often are on Medicaid for their health care and transportation needs and so I can tell you our phones are ringing off the hook um my guest for the State of the Union tomorrow will be um a woman with uh stage four metastatic breast cancer who

relies on Medicaid for her treatment she is terrified about the possible impacts of a cut to Medicaid um because it will mean either she and her family go bankrupt or she'll stop treatment Senator I want to ask you about Democrats finding their voice and footing against this no one none of us in civics class none of us in college were quite prepared for what we're seeing now this kind of anti-constitutional coup this unelected billionaire dictating policy standing in the cabinet office talking about accidentally cutting Ebola funding um but I think a lot of people have

felt like Democrats don't quite know how to speak to quite this level of severity and I think a lot of people I meet feel very undefended uh they feel kind of rampaged by the right and undefended by the left I know you and your colleagues are doing things things are being done there are meetings there are committees but I just a very visceral level I would say most lay Democrats that I meet feel just very undefended feel it's not clear there's no briefings there's no Shadow cabinet a lot of different ideas have been proposed do

you think there's truth in that feeling even though you and your colleagues are doing something and and how how close are Democrats to figuring out a way to respond to this moment that would address that so Steve Bannon and Steve Miller advising the president said we are going to flood the zone and we're seeing that and we've never uh you know how many announcement each day uh just uh that and especially on Friday nights and over the weekends um but there are are sort of thre pronged strategy for all of this and that is the

courts we're just talking about the strategy in the courts to uh uh make sure that um these actions are constitutional and lawful and uh the Congress and we're Limited in what we can do because we're in the minority in both houses but you do require super majority to pass most laws in the Senate so 60 votes we can do we have leverage there and our constituents um and as I said my phones are ringing off the hooks uh we're organizing folks and saying don't just call me call my Republican counterpart call your uh Congress people

they're attending these Town Hall meetings are are because people are organizing and understand the critical nature of their voice and I just think back to to the first Trump Administration it was the people and the Congress and the Democrats who saved the Affordable Care Act and we're going to have to do the same on Medicaid we're going to have to do the same against Doge's indiscriminant firing of people who keep our veterans healthy who keep our air air space safe and uh you know are on the front lines of of uh fighting the Aven flu

outbreak just on the question of making people people feel defended yes and and have communication do you do you think there's a role for maybe the Democrats appointing one person A Gifted Communicator a Pete bud or someone else to do a daily briefing something to actually centralize all these many good things are happening but a lot of people are not feeling like they know what the democrat's response is so I have uh long um faulted my own party for uh for for not being as you know message focused as my Republican counter Parts who will

go and say the same thing over and over again but we're getting there we've held the floor uh we we've held more allnighters that uh than I've had since College just in the last couple of weeks on the floor holding the floor talking about some of the nominees that are very dangerous um as well as uh uh you know noting the consequence of proposals like cutting Medicaid so Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin thank you so much thank you thank you for being here Elon Musk says doge is saving billions but the numbers don't quite

add up New York Times reports that for the second time in a week musk's group has deleted hundreds more claims from its quote wall of receipts erasing 4 billion in savings they made or they say they made for taxpayers and on the agency's mission to root out fraud The Washington Post finds it hasn't been able to point to much fraud at all the posts Philip bump puts it bluntly the point of this exercise it's safe to assume is not cost cutting but to to decimate government so that Trump can rebuild it to his liking to

some extent musk is running a con joining us now Washington Post National columnist Philip bump Phil really good to have you um they're putting up all these numbers and then they're erasing the numbers and then they're putting up more numbers sometimes they're they're they're uh adding something up three times they're overestimating a contract they're claiming a contract cancel inflation saves money when it doesn't in fact save any money is there anything that they've been able to do so far that does save taxpayers money that is an example of fraud well yeah I mean I think

it's important to consider those two questions separately right have they done things that might save taxpayers money assuming we're talking about federal spending as being a tax savings then yes it seems clear that if you cancel contracts wanly then you're going to save on money that you would have spent on those contracts of course when we talk about cost saving you know you you and I can save money by not paying our rent or our mortgage right there's a downside which is that we lose our house so you know when we talk about savings it's

very easy to simply not pay bills the challenge is what are you doing that for what are you what are you paying for in the first place and what's the net loss for for taxpayers then on the other side we have this idea of Fraud and waste so far what we've seen from musk's group is not that they are uncovering fraud and waste in the traditional sense of you know like the the $6,000 hammer or whatever it was during the Clinton Administration where it was obviously the case that you could get something cheaper but the

that the costs were being ballooned we're not seeing that what we're seeing instead is examples of contracts being ended that do not align with the right-wing politics of Elon Musk and Donald Trump and so when they're talking about waste and fraud the only examples that they're pointing to are examples that play to their base of things that their base doesn't like not actually necessarily waste on the part of the government but this is also what they're pointing to when they're talking about their budget deal and part of the way that they're going to save taxpayers

money and and not add to the deficit give them tax breaks but not add to the deficit and not cut into you know Medicare and Social Securities because they're going to save so much money in fraud could they save so much money in fraud is there enough fraud in the federal government to be uncovered to get him to that number well it's important to remember we used to have people who did a diligent job of trying to up uncover that fraud you know these were the inspector's General these were the Committees in the house uh

that were tasked with actually oversight that actually used to do oversight over the government and now we don't have that same sort of rigorous mechanism in place in part as Donald Trump fired the inspective General in part because the oversight committees run by Republicans who are mostly focused on targeting Democrats and so we don't have people who are actually looking for those things so it's hard to say how much fraud and waste there is of of course there is some money that is being spent that doesn't need to be spent like no one can say

that you're spending you know8 trillion and none of that uh is is unwarranted the challenge is it's it's a kin to the conversation you're just having about RFK yes people agree that the government health system isn't necessarily working right but RFK is coming in and just blowing the whole thing up it's not as though he has a mechanism for fixing it that's the same approach that Elon Musk is taking to government spending yes there are certainly examples where we're probably spending more than we ought to but instead of going through a deliberate process to uncover

that we're going and blowing thing everything up and Elon Musk is doing so largely because he can then put it on X the social media platform and get a lot of retweets and shares I want to put up what we just had on theen um the the numbers claimed saved and the numbers that were actually saved so this ice contract that they said was worth $8 billion actual worth was 8 million so from a b to an M it's a big difference uh USA cont right yeah USA contract nearly 2 billion it's actually just 18

million um the Social Security Administration 232 million actually just 560,000 those are incredibly off numbers there's a giant disparity between those two numbers h do they get to 8 billion when it's 8 million is it just a a typo yeah in that case it's believe it actually was a typo that there was either they had scanned the information wrong and they're looking at an old version of the contract that was erroneous that added those three extra zeros to it so yeah in some cases that is it in other cases uh as you noted at at

the top of the segment you talked about the fact that you know they were uh counting things that had already been paid as savings because you know if you if there's a contract 10 years you've already paid nine years of it they're saying they ended the contract and and claiming the entire amount that have been spent you know it's it is both sloppiness and overe eagerness to try and show a big number that's leading to this when at the same time there's no reason to do it this fast right like I think it's really important

to come back to that point like there there is a way to do this where you're actually being careful and attentive and not just firing people willy-nilly and not just slashing contracts by doing a keyword search in in the actual documentation and being deliberate about it but that's not the approach that they're taking and so no one should have any confidence in any of this that they're that they're actually finding something um that that that meets this deputed standard that they' set because they've not gone through a process that would that would mean that they

would be able to do that Phil bump really good to have you thank you very much