Chapo Trap House - 907 - Big Balls feat. Kath Krueger & Jeff Stein (2/10/25)

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Kath joins us for our annual review of the Big Game spectacle. We give our appraisal of what this year’s ad slate says about the state of American culture, plus reactions to Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, and how conservatives continue to be oppressed by the TV. Then the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein joins us to discuss his reporting on what exactly Elon Musk & the DOGE team are trying to do to the federal government. Jeff’s piece on Elon & DOGE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/08/doge-musk-goals/ If you’re in LA, check out Jacques & Grace’s Game Show Pig variety show at the Loge Room this Wednesday, 2/12: https://www.lodgeroomhlp.com/shows/game-show-pig/

All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum

All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum That's very telling to me that I haven't seen anyone post any clip of that interview. It was like the John Stewart, Hakeem Jeffries interview were like out of an hour plus long interview like the clip that was like sort of edited to highlight and Hakeem Jeffries interview were like out of an hour plus long interview, like the clip that was like sort of edited to highlight was Hakeem Jeffries going,

saying of Elon Musk and Doge, he was like, it's definitely a scheme. Like, literally, like if you said that on public broadcasting, you would not get dinged for making political speech. It would not be under the fairness doctrine. It's barely speech. It would not be under the fairness doctrine. It's barely speech. That's the same thing as like when Katy Perry was in Brazil and they had to zoom in on the crowd and people were like if you've got to zoom in on a crowd in Brazil, you're really you're in dire straits.

Yeah, if you're doing a concert in Brazil and there's anything less than 400,000 people in attendance, you're really fucking out. People aren't just ants. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're rolling. Okay. We're rolling. Okay. It's Monday, February 10th. It's Chopper Trap House. Welcome back, everybody. Happy day after the Super Bowl. Sadly, there will be no more football for the next seven months. We are now living in the time of the of the girlfriends. So joining Felix and I on today's show is the wonderful Kathryn Krieger, my favorite guest on

the show. Kathryn, welcome back. Hello, thank you for having me. You know, this is kind of fortuitous. I was the first guy to break this news. This is a big thing and girlfriend knows. Oh, Taylor Swift This is a big thing and girlfriend knows. Oh. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, they will be breaking up. They'd have massive blowout. I knew it. Because Taylor Swift made Travis Kelsey famously stop using the word finna. And he's convinced that they would have won

if he was still saying finna and all the stuff he used to say. I fully believe that he says the soft A in the locker room though. No, she took all that stuff away from him. Well, and you saw the results. Yeah, terrible. You saw the results if you watched the game.

One of the most lopsided football games I've ever seen. She did however hook him up with a hair transplant though. I'm pretty convinced. Yeah, he's rocking the Wilmen occur these days His hair is flowing I saw that like An outfit that like Sean Penn would have worn in Carlito's way. Oh my god That's what he wore. The fit that he showed up to the game in Yeah, think about losing horribly and putting that back on

It reminded me it reminded me of the like the leather trench coat that Ziggy gets in season two of the wire Yeah, they're doing their coke deal and they're like now don't spend any money And then he shows up with a leather trench coat and I believe method man's character says of it shit Even a black man can style that shit But obviously, the big game was sort of a dud, but as we do, sort of, I guess, an annual tradition on the show, I do want to talk about this spectacle of the Super Bowl. It's like, sort of, like, the defining sort of event on the calendar year that sort of focuses the attention of America through both athletic competition, but more importantly through advertising that I think like is

Can can be used as sort of augury to determine perhaps where we're headed where we're going We all remember a couple years ago was the crypto Super Bowl Most of those companies are either, you know dead or in prison right now, but Catherine and I we watched the game together and You know made note of the don't tell people about business dead or in prison right now. But Catherine and I, we watched the game together and you know, made note of the- Don't tell people our business. And we made note, we- okay, well so I'm giving a little, just a keyhole glimpse into this. That's a shout out to the woman in Pakistan, Felix. Is that the story you followed, Felix? Well, which? Oh, that like American black woman who just like, she, like, she went to Pakistan,

flew to Pakistan, like to meet this guy she met online. And it turned out that he was like a teenager and his family and his family was just like, Oh, absolutely not. Um, and then she was just hanging out in Pakistan being like, and like she became kind of a cause to love who like, you know, people were like constantly interviewing her and being like, you know, your cause like let her marry this 15 year old. No, the cause, the cause is just like her hanging out there and being like really annoying. Like she was like, people would be like, are you ever going back to it? You got to check this out. People would be like, are you ever going

back to America? And she'd be like, uh, it's private, but no, I'm from Pakistan now. Um, yeah, it's really good. I can't believe I haven't heard Pakistan now. Yeah, it's really good. I can't believe I haven't heard of this. Yeah, this is really up your alley. Incredibly annoying woman. I think she's back now. I know a lot of Pakistanis too. I try to keep abreast of Pakistani culture.

I've never heard of, what's her name? Oh, Nabi. Oh, and just Google woman in Pakistan. Okay. And she's the only one, so this is a big deal, I assume. Oh, I forgot she also made material demands of the Pakistani government. She was just like, I demand $2,000 a month. Like I'm just, she's there like, we're going to send you back.

She was like, no, I'm from Pakistan now. It's none of your business. But I do demand, I demand like $2,000 a month to make Pakistan a better place. I like, Imran Khan would have sorted this situation out in like a day. Oh, her name is Onesha Robinson. And she was on her way back to New York three days ago. She's never on the show. Anyway.

That's sad. Pakistan never acknowledged what she did for them. Yeah, she was trying to make it better. What if that was like the last USAID program? They were like, just let us do this. I know it sounds weird, but it's going to help somehow. Returning to the big game spectacle, though. Sorry for sorry for the fire for letting people in our business.

Our business. All right. We did. We did watch the we did watch the game last night. And I guess like it was hard to discern. I don't think there was a particular flavor or style of commercial this year outside of just bad and exhausted. But Catherine, like if you had to like diagnose American culture based on what we saw at the Super Bowl last night, how would you describe it? Deeply, profoundly ill.

Actually, I observe this. There's one through line for the commercials, which is body horror. Yes. There was so much body horror. You had to see the commercial twice where guys' heads looked like foreskins wearing like cowboy hats. Yeah, like their head was like their skull was like their skull was like a cowboy hat but covered in flesh or something. Yeah.

It was very crimes of the future. You saw the one where people's tongues were like dancing out of their mouths. We had not only Eugene Levy's eyebrows flying away, but also like mustaches from James Harden and like in a Pringles commercial. Like body horror is in. That was the through line that I observed. And we're not, we're not okay. These rotting museums of flesh will soon abandon us, but not before being mutated horribly in some way. I think that's not before consuming nerds rope. Going through the like, I mean, there was really there was really nothing of note. And I guess like the outside of body horror, the

only other thing, the only other through line I could take was just like, celebrities, like it's just, I feel like celebrities are now just robbing work from commercial actors, like, we used to be like, that was your job. You were an actor in commercials, but now it's just like Harrison Ford pitching you a jeep. Hard to compete with that. Yeah.

And they were also all short films. I don't know if they were actually longer than 30 seconds, but they all felt like the Harrison Ford one kind of felt like Yellowstone and there was just like, you know, like really big name actors. I don't know what I was on like watch for was kind of like, because like ad departments spend, I'm sure all fucking year or even like buy it like two year cycles planning these, you know, huge Superbowl campaign rollouts. So I was on guard for like, was your ad campaign too far planned along or had you already spent too much that you couldn't pull the plug after Donald Trump was elected? So like, you know, as that we're still woke in spite of themselves. And I think like we there were like a few of those, the usual like Dove, Women Should Play Sports, and there was the Nike one. But wokeness, wokeness is basically dead, I think in commercials,

as is AI. I was expecting there to be AI commercials, but there were only a few. And interestingly enough, like they all had to like have an angle about like AI is actually for like a kid with cancer, not for taking your jobs. They were all like really like weirdly humanitarian angles on AI. The wokeness in commercials seems to be on the way. We have yet to run the corner of having openly racist nationalism in commercials, but who knows? Give it another year. Well, I say save for the Tom Brady Snoop Dogg's. Oh my God. Did you see any of that?

I saw that. Snoop Dogg, has he ever turned anything down? I put this out as a challenge to myself. I think that like with only about like a week's worth of work, I could get Snoop Dogg to do an identical commercial, but for Ansarullah. Like if you work for Ansarullah's ad buyer department, get in contact with me because I think I can make this happen. Also, like, Tom Brady, one of the most horrifying looking people we have now.

He looks terrible. He looks like a skull. Yeah. When Catherine and I were watching the broadcast, I was like, I will, Mr. Brady, I'm not a fan of yours, but I will donate some of my buckle fat to put back in your face because He's looking like the guy from the Phantom Pain feel. It's you know, yeah. Yeah. He looks like skull face when Tom Brady

Looks like that is and is on TV and he's like we need you need to be nice to Jewish people The in the mind of like the the you know, Idahoan someone who's never met a Jew, he sees this and they're like, oh my God, did the Jews do that to him? He was mean to them and they sucked all the life out of his face. These guys are really scary. We should kill them.

I think it was interesting though that like they did not foreground that it was about anti-Semitism. It was just kind of like anti-peat. No, not at all. And then like right at the end, they like slid in, like it was not one of those very annoying billboards just like jubelong.com or something.

It was kind of lo-fi. It was like, it was like Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg and they were like, I hate you because we from different neighborhoods. I hate you because you look different. I hate you because I don't understand you. I hate you because people I know hate you. I hate you because I think you hate me.

Because I need someone to blame. Because you talk different. Because you act different. Because you you look different. I hate you because you worship different. I hate you because hating is fun sometimes. And then at the end they're like, man, I hate that we have to do a commercial about this. And it was like, it was so vague and like non-specific. Yeah. Those are the two types of like Israeli lobby funded, like anti-Semitism ads. It's either like so plotting and literal where it's like, would you have taken a selfie with Anne Frank? You know, the Jew belong style. No, no, I tried to turn the location off before.

Yeah. But then the other style- That's how rappers get killed all the time now. You know, your girl's through no selfie. But the other style is like this extremely vague, almost like if you asked like a space alien to make an anti-racism ad during summer of 2020, where it's just like, there are so many people on earth. Don't be someone who hates them before you meet them. And it's then at the very end, it's like sponsored by the Removing African Immigrants to Israel's Uterus Foundation. foundation. So, yeah, if I feel the ads of note, the one ad I thought was kind of funny was the one

with Willem Dafoe and Catherine O'Hara where they're like sort of pickleball hustlers who hustle people for Michelob Ultra. That was the only commercial that got a chuckle out of me because, you know, Willem Dafoe. And it was like, at least it had a concept like, I really think they're, they're right. You're using AI to write a lot of these ads now. Yeah. I think AI commercials have gone away because people hate it. But they're using AI technology because like, there were many commercials that like had a premise, but like no follow

through or punch line. It was like, there was one where like aliens wanted some guys Doritos and that was it. And then like the punchline of the commercial was a guy just sitting next to an alien going hey cool. Okay I have a very important data point to go back to body horror just for one minute. I'm forgetting the biggest offender of all which was the Mountain Dew commercial with Seal as a seal. Felix I want to give you three guesses who directed that commercial. Oh, Taika Watiti. Yeah, all right, all right. Which is absolutely insane.

Like, I was like, is this offensive somehow? It was just really, yeah, really off putting. How like, is there any way to like, get rid of him? I can't stand that guy. He's really bad. He's very lucky that Elon Musk exists, because he would be the most annoying public figure by far, if not for Elon Musk. He kind of has Elon Musk energy, if you think about it.

He is kind of like an epic sauce guy for guys who hate Elon Musk. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it that's a, that's a very good way of putting it. Yeah, they are. Yeah. They're mirror images of one another. Yeah. The yin and the yang. Uh, Chris, you said like, uh, did we touch on the commercial that you, that you,

that you wanted to come? There was one moment that stood out to me. Uh, and I, at the whole party I was at, I don't think anybody else noticed this and I kept describing to people. So maybe I hallucinated it, but Fox News ran an ad for Fox News. They were in three. The tagline for all of them is Fox News for all of America. And the conceit of these were kind of like black and white images or footage of current events with one item highlighted in color. And the thing that stood out to me. Yes. And the thing that stood out to me was that the Fox News for all of America, the only flag

that was colorized in this photo was the flag of Israel. Yep. I clocked that immediately, Chris. Yes. That got a good chuckle out of me. There was also a Fox News commercial with Bret Baier and Sean Hannity. They're in their makeup chairs and they're like, it's tougher than ever to make a decision this year. They're sort of like, you think they're talking about politics

and then they take off like little barbers smock or whatever for their pancake makeup. And Brett bears in an Eagles jersey. And Sean Hannity is in a chiefs jersey. Sean Hannity is a long is a Irish guy from Long Island. He's rooting for the fucking chiefs is just about the weakest shit I've ever seen. I mean, so is Donald Trump. It makes sense. You know, like, it's just like, you know, like, they win. It's for New York people who want to be racist and want to win. It used to be the Giants and the Jets. We had two options for that, but not anymore. Thanks to woke. Now, an ad that I was reading about this this morning, but that I did not actually experience because I guess I wasn't in the correct market was Kanye West's ad

that featured him in a dentist chair directing people to his website, which is now shuttered save for the sale of a t-shirt that just a swastika. You know, I know Kanye had had had a I'll say he had a big week this week, but you know what? Like the the thing about it is like every time he comes out with something even more offensive and ludicrous people care even less. I think he's just mad that Kendrick Lamar is getting all the fucking like attention and like he can't make a good album anymore. And I think this is just like it's past desperate for him at this point. This is the pattern with insane guys. Like insane guy only has so many tricks up his

sleeve. He's already done half of those tricks. Like, you know, the I figured it out. All you need is love. Like, you know, haven't been saying that since the dawn of time. Then, you know, Hitler stuff. And then it's like, you know, you just rewind, you're playing the hits. Um, it would be such a better world if we went back to the thing we did where we would capture these guys with butterfly nets, send them to the funny farm and, you know, just be like, be like no you know one flew over the Cuckoo's test stuff I would not authorize lobotomies of anyone unless they kept doing this then I mean what is being addicted to nitrous other than a self-elected lobotomy but yeah yeah but you know when we did that to insane guys, they invented game theory, like John Nash, computers.

The uniform. The pedophilia. They did, no, pedophilia was probably invented by sane people, unfortunately. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, people who run governments. Yeah.

You know, philosophers. Yeah, you know, there's a lot I like to put on the insane, but I'm not gonna blame them for that one but I yeah, no he is he's a real case study in that in the failure of the post butterfly net world I Just I was thinking back to your tweet from years ago Felix where it was like Kanye reporting for the irony drill instructor And then he's like I love Hitler and I miss my family. Nope. Take a lab back to the drawing board kid. No, no, I was supposed to talk about the other big spectacle

from last night, the the halftime show. Does anyone have any thoughts on the halftime show? I thought it was. I mean, like, I'm loving I mean, I love the culture war reactions the day after the halftime show, which are which are, let's be honest, the halftime shows I mean, I love the culture war reactions the day after the halftime show which are which are let's be honest The halftime shows are never good, but the culture war reactions to them are great and this year It's sort of like even it's it's sort of like there's several different It's not like even least what there are different like categories to it on the one hand It's like people who are like that was the most revolutionary moment

you know sort of like they like cut you know, he like this subversive takedown of America and everything. And I will say, I give a lot of props to the guy who was in like in the crowd or like in one of the among the dancers who unfurled the flag of Palestine in the Sudan before getting arrested. That didn't make the national broadcast. Well, you know, a lot of overheated, overheated praise for Kendrick Lamar here, but then on the other side, the right-wing culture war reactions to it break down into two very weird sort of like contrasting

reactions. One is the very standard predictable one, which is like going at a DEI halftime show, which is, I mean, the guy had the biggest song of the year, just won five Grammys last week and has had like, I mean, whether you're a fan of his or not, the idea that they were like, oh, can we get some unqualified minority to do the halftime show? Yeah. Is a bit rich. I've really enjoyed, yeah, the polarization reaction where on one side you have people going like, you don't understand what he did to Trump by doing all that.

And then people would be like, what did he do? And people would go, ha, you don't know. It's so much to educate you. I was legitimately trying to figure out what the statement there was and no one would tell me. But then on the other side, I've enjoyed all the conservatives who were like, you know, grand funk railroad still touring. Why don't we have them instead of this hip hop crap? I saw one tweet that hand to God said, at least his pants were up to his waist. I saw you retweeted someone last night who said like,

why couldn't we just have a marching band? There's been so many good reactions for that from like... There was a marching band at the beginning. Yeah, I've been farming cat turds replies for like that where it's like with like, like 68 year olds who are like, you know, Captain Freakout would be a great choice. Everyone loves him. Like these acts from literally the Carter administration. I saw Jack Poseybick being like, here's a real halftime performance. And it was when Creed played a cowboy. It wasn't even even the Superball and someone was like, like, what's so good about this? And then Jack's reply was, there's literally a man flying. And like, I'm watching this clip and it's like, this ball shirtless man, like, like sort of like doing that Cirque du Soleil thing where they're sort of like spinning around on large pieces of flowing fabric or something it was yeah what he saw that that supercharged the the Polish aviation

Shocked him But they don't have wire food in Poland yet, maybe in a thousand years. Yeah But the other the other interesting reaction is the number of people who sort of took the the the red, white and blue color motif of Kendrick's halftime performance to be like, this is the first non satanic halftime show we've had in years. Thank you, Kendrick. And we had Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam, finally, they're they're showing love and respect for America. But then I saw some interesting ones.

That to me is even more baby brain. Like it clearly was intended to be subversive. Like Uncle Sam is black and all this red wine and blue. I just, you know, I don't want to make anyone too mad. It just doesn't matter. I just thought, I also just thought it was pretty lo-fi, you know, and like, I really wish it just fully called. But you know, it's really good family fun.

That kind of like, you know, brought me back to probably the halftime show that most shaped my childhood. And you know, it's dishonest even to compare these, but like the Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson one. Oh, right. Yeah. That, that's carved grooves in my brain. You know, the family memories that will be formed around everyone just saying A minor, the whole family.

I love what that says about America. I mean, like, Kendrick Lamar is obviously like a billion times better as a rapper than Childish Gambino. But the people talking about like this specific halftime show, like it was just the most incredibly socially significant piece of art they've ever seen. It reminded me of when you would be arrested if you said you didn't like the This is America thing. Yes, yes. It reminded me of that.

It's the same idea. And that's, as long as it's still on the books, so watch yourself. My favorite reaction though was this from, this is a Twitter account, Texas Magadad. And he was a fan of Kendrick and he writes here, I actually was not entertained. However, my wife tells me the songs were a direct attack on Drake and the cabal. So maybe we white folks don't just like rap, we just don't like rap and hip hop.

I sure didn't like the music. But if this truly was a diss track against the Cabal, I'm all for that. Pfft. These people are on reachable. Anti-Cabal diss track? I mean, what's wrong with it? Like, you already have 4G out of blow,

and he's the best rapper in the world. Why do you need more rappers? Another good one was from Benny Johnson, who was not a fan of the Halftime Show. he says hey NFL hey NFL well I mean he wanted Lady Gaga he wanted Lady Gaga or Charli XCX or something like that. She is back. Yeah but well I bet Benny's more excited about that than just about anyone but he says here hey NFL Trump won we no longer let talentless mumbling pagan satanic cultists do halftime shows and

pretend like people like it. Thanks everyone. And like this to me is the perfect thing. It's the eternal dissatisfaction of the MAGA mindset where it's just like, you've just won the election. You know, like it's just you're making the world in your image. Yeah, like I mean, we'll talk to Jeff Stein in a second about what they're up to. But like, could you just like, like the fact that the Super Bowl halftime show wasn't to your liking, you're like, this is a memo to the NFL. It's illegal to have a bad halftime show now. Yeah, I mean, there was never going to be anything that like Benny Johnson specifically

liked unless it was like, you know, starring Liza Minnelli, which maybe in the second year of Trump will have that. But yeah, no, it was very revealing. I mean, Satan was like, Patti LuPone is still around. She could belt out Broadway standards that everyone would love. Yeah, I'm just thinking Bo is afraid starring Benny Johnson. Benny is afraid. With Benny Johnson, it literally just is like depression.

It just is like being in a loveless marriage where like fucking your wife is this awful chore like cleaning the gutters. But like they're supposedly at their lifelong, their lifelong dream of obliterating the administrative state, Roe v Wade is gone. But I mean, to rework a famous quote, they don't want cultural power. They just want to endlessly critique culture. Yes, yes, that's exactly it. And like, and again, like, they just want to endlessly critique cultural power. Yes, yes, that's exactly it. And like, you just won the election.

You just won the election. Like, you know, 40 years ago, like many people thought that was impossible. Donald Trump, like I said, dominant political figure of our era. They're changing our federal government soup to nuts right now to fit their preferences. But the thing is, for the right wing, for conservatives specifically, what you see on TV is power. And if what you see on TV displeases you, then you are being oppressed. That is oppression to them. Well, they're going to love the next three years.

It's having a super little halftime show that's not Morgan Wallin or something like that. You know, like to have a single moment on TV that doesn't cater entirely to your specific tastes and prejudices is intolerable to them. It's sad. It's on some level, it's sad. It would be nice to feel like a winner once in a while. They're going to love it the next four years.

They don't really have anything to offer up to replace this. And again, people don't really want it anyway. I guess, yeah. We'll see. I mean, that is sort of an interesting economy though. The split between the sort of cat heard more traditional Republicans that is like guys who would be Republican, no matter if Trump had happened or not. Yeah.

Versus the younger either women who are married to gay guys or the gay guys who are married to the women themselves. And run like beef tallow multi-level marketing schemes. Yeah. Yeah. The older, more traditional Republicans are saying, well, this sucks because it isn't, you know, Dr. Underage and the freak out for gay. Dr. Nugent, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, hey, what the fuck? You know, Fox Butterfield, is that a guy? Fox Butterfield? That's a journalist. I'm thinking of Paul Butterfield. That guy is the 70s music.

Paul Butterfield still alive, isn't he? They're at least like suggesting something that they like, even though they're also miserable. But the younger Trump people, there's no even like calling back to an idealized past even. It's just, this all fucking sucks. I hate it. You're all satanic. This sucks.

It's your fault that I don't enjoy having heterosexual sex. Fuck you. Like just, you're misery. It's your fault that I don't enjoy having heterosexual sex. Fuck you. Like just your misery. It's your fault cartoons aren't real. You know, it's just like, it's once again, it's contrast between like unprecedented political wins to like dismantle the liberal state and enter a new and enter now officially the hour of the wolf or like, you know, strength, the golden age. Yeah, strength is truth. And you know, we'll just conquer countries and, you know, deport American citizens, brown them

up, put them into camps. But like, all of that is like ashes in your mouth. If you're your personal life or like, what is perceived as cultural, I like how you feel in your everyday to day life still suck shit. You're still a loser with no job, no girlfriend, like, you know, no prospects. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens with that. But it's just like, there's no political victory that can assuage the essential feeling of loneliness and misery and self-loathing that these people have.

And cultural disenfranchisement. I am very interested to see what happens on the cultural front for that reason. Because I do think the hard lesson that a lot of these companies are going to learn is A, that there still are a lot of, whether they are libs or just wholly disinterested in this cultural and political program, there's still a lot of those people in this country also. And that nothing you can do for these people will satisfy them. Yeah. There is no perfectly anti-woke cultural product that they will love.

That won't also freak out or annoy the remainder of the country. If you think about it, making it the Super Bowl halftime show kind of does necessarily make it a part of the woke apparatus. Yeah, exactly! And so it's an Ouroboros of like dissatisfaction and discontentment. Exactly, like no matter what it is, it's going to be satanic. Yeah. That satanic just means like, I don't know, that like people under 70 know about it.

Right. Here's a conservative guy who doesn't like sports. I watch the big game for the PsyOps and the humiliation rituals. Oh, fuck off. Fucking, oh my god, the PsyOps, yeah, there are tons of PsyOps in your life. Shut the fuck up. That's worse than any sports ball tweets. Oh, the PSY-OPs are worse than ever this year.

They're really giving up trying. Beyonce should do it every year. Beyonce should do the humiliation ritual every year. There's a football in the middle of my Beyonce concert. every year. There's a football in the middle of my Beyonce concert. All right. Well, I think that's a good transition point to we're going to be talking to Jeff Stein of the Washington Post about the DOGUE department and the ongoing evisceration of the federal government. So without further ado, let's turn it over to our interview with Jeff Stein.

Great. And just before we log off, I have been asked to plug something on behalf of friends of the show. Jacques Gosselin and Grace Freud, they have a show coming up this Wednesday, February 12th at the Lodge Room here in Los Angeles. It is called Game Show Pig. It is a variety show. I will be trying to make it out there. The last show Pig that they did here in LA

was a lot of fun. A lot of friends of the show are going to be featured there including Brandon Wardell, Will Sennett, Nate Fisher, April Clark. So show Game Show Pig this Wednesday, February 12th at the Lodge Room here in Los Angeles. Check it out. All right. Now on to Jeff Stein and talk to you soon. Okay joining us on the program now is Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein who has been covering the inauguration of the Department of Government Efficiency, the power of the Doge. So Jeff, I'm wondering if you could perhaps like for our listeners, could you just like narrate like the first couple weeks of this new government department or is it is it part

of the government? Is it not? But like, how would you describe so far Doge and Elon Musk's interaction with the federal bureaucracy? Yeah, I mean, so just to go back for one second, I'll try to be quick here. After the presidential election, Trump said that Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk would be leading this Doge thing outside of the government and giving non-binding recommendations for the White House to consider implementing.

And at the time, you know, I was taking it seriously because I'm a reporter and whatever I cover is by virtue of me covering it important, but it objectively didn't seem necessarily that big of a deal. But shortly around the time of the inauguration, we were getting word that Vivek was considering leaving. And sure enough, what we've reported since is that Ramaswamy had almost certainly sort of legal concerns about what Doge was becoming. And what that was, was something very different than sort of this non-governmental outside panel giving advice.

It was saying, can we sort of transform the government from within to not just follow the typical procedures of saying, hey, Congress, you should do something about this or that, which is like any old Washington DC think tank can just say that and do whatever they want, but to say, can you just put this guy in there and have him go to town on getting rid of all kinds of stuff he didn't he doesn't like doesn't want and that's you know, been the last few weeks musk has really not only is he sleeping in the executive office building, which is just kind of

amazing for like the world's wealthiest man to just be sleeping in a cot in like, government office. But that's how much he cares. Yeah, no, that's how much he demonstrates that he truly does not need to go visit his family. Jeff, I mean, like, just just like, like, from watching from the outside here, I mean, so far, I've seen, like everything being couched in terms of like, look at like, look at look at all the fraud and illegality we've uncovered. But mostly all I've seen

are like screenshots of spreadsheets showing money appropriated by Congress that's being going to spent in a way that they don't approve of. But like as far as a fraud hunting operation here, what like have they uncovered anything that's actually illegal or fraudulent? Or are they just saying these laws passed by Congress are illegitimate and this is fraud and this is corruption and we're saving all this money for the taxpayer? That's a really good question, actually. And, you know, there are instances in which they clearly just said, you know, oh, we don't like the fact that Congress approved money for healthcare for this group, so it's illegal, which is not how laws work.

On the other hand, there is this sort of grayer area where Trump, when he came in, signed these executive orders. You remember the ceremony where he was holding them up? That's a good one. Yeah, that was amazing. And there is some question about whether spending money in violation of the EO is itself illegal because those executive orders do carry the force of law. On the other hand, if the president is just going to say like anything I declare to be illegal is we've like, it's, it's, um, I mean, the president, like the president can't, that's not under executive powers that like, okay, no more, like the government can't exist anymore.

I feel like that's not like that's not one of the outline powers that like Congress controls the purse strings. That's what everyone learned in the schoolhouse rock anthology. And like the president does have like some discretionary spending power, but it's like and I guess that could extend to a lot of things, but not like a total spending freeze. No, I mean, and this is the thing where it's like, I have been wary, as I know you guys have, about the idea of TDS and just like this sort of overly reactive, hair on fire, lib, MSNBC response to every fucking thing

that happens that Trump does. But you look at the facts here, I mean, it's just like, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that you just articulated Felix, but they basically put, you know, like do you guys remember the scene in the loop where Malcolm comes to Washington? And he's like, wait.

Yeah. Is this it? Yeah. And it's like a 19 year old guy. And he's like, no disrespect, but it looks like you have your head being shoved on a fucking toilet right now. Oh, and here we are. The fucking vice president has also graced us with his presence.

Give him a bottle of milk. That guy is now in charge of like literally every agency. I know. OK. No, no, no. I have to take issue with that because you remember the guy from In The Loop was like the 19 year old Heritage Foundation, like intern, but he was wearing a crisp suit. The guys in charge of the government now are fucking a different breed. Big balls. Big balls. I mean, that is sort of the problem though with this sort of Trump won framing of all this, especially the idea of Trump as an aberration that the

Republican Party must be saved from. That plus all these doomed Lev Parnas type shit against Trump that added the delegitimized future attacks on him, it like took away any remaining muscle memory that the Democrats as like a nominally center left opposition party had of opposing austerity. Like this should be the- I don't put down Lev Parnas. I learned so much about Lev Parnas from the digler.

That I can't deal with all those years wasted. I was really excited to find out that Lev Parnas' son is one of those like, shouting pro-DNC TikTok children. Oh, is he on Donut Twitter? Yeah, well, yeah, he's like, he hangs out with like Harry Cisson and all those other kids. You really can't become anything in America. It's sort of beautiful.

Like, your dad can be like a sort of like thumb shaped Ukrainian crook. But then but you can become like a screaming Democratic twink. It's awesome. I love the idea that the Harry's the song types are going to like rediscover donut Twitter in like four years. And you're like, these are like our ancestral roots. Is there a lot version? Yeah. It's like the the forerunners in Halo for that. Yeah. But Jeff, can I just come back to Musk and Doge here? Like I said, like this, this is all couched in the language of

we're rooting out corruption and we're returning all this money to the American taxpayer. But like like what does but like I get this sense that like what government corruption is or what corruption is it means something different to Elon than it does to I don't know myself or other people because like himself like he is a government contractor to the tune of something like 200 billion dollars like I just get the sense here that like his conception of government corruption is when the government spends or gives money to anyone who isn't him.

Yeah, I mean, the thing that I've been like, having a hard time, like adequately communicating in my coverage, I feel like is like, the scale of the amount of money they're talking about. I mean, there are obviously fraudulent payments that the government does, but it's a small fraction of the federal budget. But more importantly, it's like, they are currently as we speak in the process of passing a tax bill that conservatively is going to be at least four to $5 trillion. And Elon Musk is like on Twitter like every day being like, Oh my god, I found

like this like $300,000 program, or like, Oh, we found out these, these like foreign aid programs for Mauritania cost like $2 million. And it's like you are in the process, the scale here is so disproportionate, like their bill is 10, 20, 100 times potentially bigger than anything that they've even purported to have found thus far. Yeah. I mean, it is like, if you were to take them in earnest and act like this is just a genuine search for inefficiencies and overblown costs and fraud, then this would be like the greatest example of amphetamine thinking ever. Just this idea that you can just go in with no special knowledge of the administrative state and just cut things like

$100,000 at a time until you get to 26 trillion, I guess. There's also ways in which like, I think they are discovering from what I've heard like in the last few days that, like, to deregulate, you actually need people to do that. And it's kind of like a somewhat counterintuitive thing. But like, to get rid of a business regulation that like corporate America wants to get rid of, you actually have to have the civil servants put that in motion. That's not just the thing that you go to a code and switch it off. You need a person to do it.

Even the deregulatory agenda is stymied by just annihilating the civil service. A competent functioning bureaucracy is not just crucial to American empire in a way that I think even the Trump people would want to preserve, but it's also crucial to maintaining the functions of business. The American neoliberal state, whatever, actually does need a civil service that is not just constantly in this complete crisis mode that they've been in the last few weeks where they're accidentally turning off entire government systems, like for NIH funding or Head Start. Those are things that are... I mean, just to go back to what you were saying earlier,

Felix, I'm torn because I very much have heard and appreciate some of the left critique of this idea that Trump is not a normal Republican misses the ways in which he's just a typical pro-business guy who wants to cut government programs. That is quite normal for Republicans, but the legal mechanisms here really are so extraordinary. The levels of chaos is beyond what the business community itself wants. Yeah, no, I mean, I kind of think like both things are true. I mean, like, I think the answer to that is that it's not that he's an aberration.

It's that this is like the logical conclusion of like, you know, 40, 50 years of a deregulatory agenda that it ends with this. Yeah, the ultimate, the point of deregulation where you get so far into gutting government that you can't even deregulate anymore. Exactly. That everything is so degenerative that just like how Tony Blinken thinks that he's Dean Rusk, you have 19-year- olds who don't even know how to convert a file to PDF because they were raised on tablets by parents that hate them.

Could Dean Rusk and Jam, like Tony could? You know, they think they're, I guess like the inheritors of like the Grover Norquist mantle, but Nor, Norquist was like a bureaucratic knife fighter. All these guys were, they had like a working knowledge of the regulatory state that they wanted to obliterate. And arguably were like much more successful in the long term and also set the stage for this because of that knowledge.

Yeah, and like, Jeff, the question I wanna ask is like, when you get into things like defunding the National Institutes of Health, or even getting rid of the Department of Education, which is this big liberal sacred cow, conservatism and trying to get rid of it forever, but things like the NIH and Department of Education represent a huge source of federal money for many states and employment in those states as well. So are you beginning to see fractures between the sort of professed sort of nationalist populism of the MAGA movement with this, like with Musk's agenda of completely just getting rid of the federal government

and everyone who works for it? I mean, I think this is a really important sort of tension point to emphasize and not just sort of the MAGA movement. I mean, sort of normal so-called, you know, Republican types like Susan Collins and just normal Republican senators, like, don't like having all the hospitals in their districts being like, where's our funding coming from next month? Like, there is enough institutional resistance to the GOP that I think like, to just sort of just cutting all this stuff, that I think the Republicans on

the Hill, I mean, got at least some of the measures that the Trump White House started in terms of funding freezing, freezing funding reversed. I will say that like, I think Elon has done, not to be masterful gambit sir, but he has managed to keep the reputation as fairly based in a way that has lasted longer from the MAGA perspective than I thought possible. Steve Bannon was out there going hard on Elon a few months ago and it looked like when the H1B fight happened, did you guys follow that closely? Whereas, on a few months ago and it looked like when the H1B fight happened, you guys followed that closely, whereas like, yeah, and Rama Swami were like, basically agreeing with Trump that there should be a skilled immigration program. And then basically all of Mago world

turned on the Swami or it's like, well, you can't make that argument, you know, but like, right. I mean, but I guess like, like, just just quickly, the the Musk ability to go up on inauguration day and do that, like, salute that triggered the lives to such a degree that like it like reversed, reverse polarized maga into liking him again, I think it's given him like a leash within shrump world that I was hearing a lot. So like, so basically, like like we will allow programmers from India as long as the person hiring them is openly Nazi. And the programmers themselves, I mean, like he's over the weekend.

This guy tweeted, you see this story about Marco. He was like, I hate Indians. He said, I said, I was Indian hate. I was normalized. And he also said, you could, you couldn't pay me to marry out of my marry outside of my ethnic group. It's like, buddy, you're gonna need to be paying them to marry you, regardless of the ethnic group. JD Vance was like, who among us didn't have a tweet at 24? That

was for him. He was like, this 25 year old boy, literally have a tweet at 24 that was very he was like this 25 year old boy didn't let it have a have a bad tweet ruin his career it's like this isn't just some kid who's getting fired from like you know like a summer job because they said something edgy this guy now is like running the Treasury Department apparently like his iPad time tonight he doesn't get as much screen time by the way like did they did they rehire that I mean, I say kid that 25 year old child, innocent child. They're bringing him back to doge. So he's going to be working for Elon is his sentence. That's great. That's really good.

They should make him like the deputy for big balls. Like that should be his punishment. Going back to the sort of like the seeds of like intramagid dispute and like Musk's retained negative polarization based popularity. I sort of think that if there is a schism there, it's not going to come from the direction of Trump ejecting him so much as it will be the stress on Elon of sort of being the sin eater for Trump. And by that I mean Trump's general popularity will fall just because he weirdly came in on sort of a similar pitch to what Biden came in on 2020.

And when you come in on like, we're going to make everything go to normal type deal, and within three months, everything isn't dramatically better, people really start to hold that against you. But I think that Elon is going to absorb a lot of the immense unpopularity that we personally saw for Trump during Trump 1. And I don't think there's a floor for that, quite like there is for Trump himself. There is a floor, but it's much lower. And I don't really think that he's prepared to be quite that despised. And I just like, I think his just the unpredictable elements of his personality and his sort of like need to be liked will cause some type of like volatility that may see him like split with it also on popular administration at

that point. I do think we see with Trump though, like, you know, he is fairly Teflon among his supporters. I think we're going to see this, you know, like without getting too far afield, you know, like I've already seen people kind of being mad, you know, Trump voters about tariffs, but they're just never, they're totally disinclined to ever hold Trump responsible for what our policy decisions made by his administration. And I think like we'll probably see the same thing, you know, like as people lose their jobs to, I don't know, automated, you know, everything because of Doge, you know, like they'll just find someone else to be held responsible.

And I think Felix is right, like that very well could be Elon Musk. Well, you say that, Catherine, but I think I think what you will find is that as America gets great again, people will realize that paying overdraft fees on their from their bank and having medical debt count against their credit score is actually quite epic and based. I think they will find that. Yeah. But Jeff, I like one of the things you talk about in the article you wrote is about like

Elon's plans here. Is it like one of the things they're already doing is just trying to make physically coming into work for federal employees almost impossible and like that includes shuttering like I think their plans are to shutter half of all federally owned buildings and make the buildings that people do have to come into work in be as like have like no heating. They're turning up the AC to get all the women to stop working there. I mean, I felt kind of stupid when this finally clicked because in my head I've been thinking like, okay, well, they like want return to office. So like they must prize a culture

of hard work from, you know, with your colleagues. But then I'm like, wait, why are they also trying to liquidate like half of all non-military federal buildings? Like these things seem like contradictory, but then they're resolved when you realize that they're both driven at the idea of increasing attrition. And this is something that Musk has been

like tweeting about a lot where he's like, he doesn't know how exactly to get rid of as many federal workers as possible. But this is clearly part of the game plan. And when you layer in sort of this attempted buyout offer and the fact that they're gathering information on sort of low performing people or people with bad performance reviews and people on their probationary periods, I mean, we're looking at, you know, they've set at least 10% reduction in the size of the federal workforce. I think

that's going to be an undercount because that's also kind of just their goal for the buyouts. And yeah, what it does to like what they don't know that they could break as they do this is pretty interesting. Yeah, like I'm really curious, like to me, this whole thing just basically, you know, like, obviously, I see it as part of this, this much broader Silicon Valley plan to like, you know, make most Americans totally obsolete and not participants in the economy other than having to buy high priced goods. But I also just see this whole like Elon Musk pushes a huge data mining operation, you know, like he just wants to get his teens in, like as quickly as possible and under

the hood to like basically steal as much American confidential like medical data. God knows what else like now they're in the Treasury, you know, and and to what end I guess, you know, we're probably going to be living with the effects of for years, like, do you have any kind of like insight into, you know, like what the big plan is there? I mean, like, and just a follow up question on that on top of that, like, I've heard a lot about these teens, like big balls having access to quote, read and write privileges over the code that governs the systems of, for instance, like the departments of the Treasury or labor.

What like what does that act? What would that actually mean? Or like, what is the I guess, like implications of that? Like, should we take it literally? So I think everything Catherine I guess like implications of that like should should be taken literally. So I think everything Catherine said is like absolutely worth like paying close attention to and like closely scrutinizing. I can say like in terms of what we know already about what they are hoping or planning or have already done in some cases with

the data they're hoovering up is basically like to feed all this information that they're consolidating on these internal systems into some sort of like AI machine learning, yada, yada, yada thing that I don't understand. Oh, God. It's so bad. It's so bad. And then come back with a list of things that could be automated. So it's like we've taken all of the treasury payments. This is sort of me guessing a little bit based on reporting and some other things, but my understanding is that

at the education department, for instance, they've taken all this data on loans and grants and who does that work, and they feed it into the AI, and then they're like, oh, actually, we don't need a human being to approve XYZ grant. We can actually just have like, you know, GROC, like decide like whether you like, so like nine years of paying for public student loan forgiveness was like not accurate or not, you know. So have everything everything in the administrative state will run like,

when UnitedHealthcare won't approve a claim. Yes, everything will run everything will run like when United Healthcare won't approve a claim. Everything will run like, yeah, the United Healthcare chatbot. That's fucking amazing. Or it's AI that made like, you know, that just out of hand denied 90% of claims the first time around. No, that's what I mean. Like this exact same system.

I would not be surprised. Everything becomes United Healthcare. To Care to see you on do like a chatbot that's literally named after big balls. I think that's where you like process your doctor. So we mentioned a couple of times who is big balls. What do we know this young man and his balls? He's a 19 year old who now has a State Department email address. He is, my colleagues reported today and I'm just pulling this up because I don't want

to be sued for libel for telling you the wrong thing. He, yeah. It's easier on your thing. Jeff, that never happens to anyone currently on the show. Yeah, no Washington Post reporter has ever gotten in trouble for something they've said on Chappo. Shout out, shout out friends of the show. Friends of the show, if you're listening, which I bet you are. Yes, he worked for Neuralink and now he's a senior advisor at 19 for the State Department's

Bureau of Diplomatic Technology. And literally as I'm reading this article to you, I got a message that I cannot confirm about him having permissions at a separate federal agency. So we will have to run that down and see if Big Balls is not just in the State Department. Wait, do we not know his name? I really haven't thought this through at all. Oh yes, his name is Edward... Is he like a hacker? ...Cora Stein, and he's worked for a bunch of the Musk companies. And

so he's part of this. He's part of the Doge team that's been going agency to agency. And we think based on what we've understood, is working to like look through all their data and see what can be automated, essentially. You know, Jeff, when I was reading your piece in the Washington Post, like, and I was thinking about this when when you when you brought up like up the critique of like, oh, Trump is just a regular Republican. But then when you really consider the full scope of what

they're trying to do right now, it would seem to contradict that. And I got to say, Jeff, when I was reading your piece, a significant part of me had to admire the sort of, I don't know, political will to enact an agenda in this administration, damn the consequences or legality of all of it. I mean, it seems like they are really dedicated to this goal, regardless of whether it's constitutional or legal. I mean, they're not going to, what I'm saying is they're not going to let the parliamentarian stop them from doing this.

And I guess like, I admire it, aside from the fact that everything they're trying to do is evil. Like I admire the big aside from the fact that everything they're trying to do is evil. Like I admire the big balls of it. But like, Jeff, like what is the end goal here? Because like it starts with gutting the federal workforce and then like it goes from there. But like is the end goal here is essentially to make Elon Musk and all his subsidiary companies, the US government, because that's what it seems like to me. I mean, if you take Musk literally at his word of what, the US government, because that's what it seems like to me.

I mean, if you take Musk literally at his word of what he said, and we can get into whether this is yes or not, but his stated goal is to say that the most important thing for humanity is to build extra planetary, you know, civilizations and to establish beach heads on other planets. Oh yeah, we're so close to that. We're so close. and to establish beachheads on other planets. We're so close. If only it wasn't for the Department of Education, we'd be on Mars by now.

Clearly you need to cut education funding to have the next generation of researchers help us get to Mars. That is what he repeatedly says. You look at his speeches, he's quite explicit. That's the goal here is how do we prevent the US government from defaulting because the stability of the US government is the precondition for establishing life on Mars. Will, I really like your point about their willingness to just go for it. I feel like that meme where it's like Dems just like, a dog can't play basketball. Yeah. And then and then fucking Yeah. And then Lassie is doing like a 360 jam right in their face. Yeah. Like, what is,

what is the response? Like, there's no, we're at the point now, like, as we speak on Monday, where courts, like several judges have said, like, this is breaking the law. You can't do this, that or the other thing. And over the weekend, JD Vance and Elon Musk were repeatedly tweeting about how, you know, you have to be all this language, like about a judicial coup and the legitimacy of like, left-wing Obama judges and all this stuff is like, I don't want to get ahead of myself. We're not quite there yet, but they're clearly laying the groundwork for this very, I mean, I don't want to, I mean, this, I don't want to be too dramatic here, but like this potential link, Lincoln

suspension of habeas corpus or like Jackson ignoring the Supreme Court and trail of tears. Something that has happened very rarely in American history where the president just says like, I'm not listening to any of the other branches of government. I'm doing what the hell I want. And, like, they're clearly, like, telegraphing that that is a legitimate place that they could go. Jeff, like, I mean, I have to credit Dylan Saba, who posted this today, and I thought it was like, put things into perspective. It's like, over the course of my entire lifetime, the conservative, like, right wing movement in this country has finally achieved basically a complete stranglehold over the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary with their religiously fundamentalist Heritage Foundation vampires.

At this exact moment, as Elon tries to take over every aspect of our government, they're going headlong into overturning judicial review. And like we're going straight into Marbury v. Madison right now. So like, Jeff, like, what is the state of opposition to this? Because right now, it seems like the courts are the only roadblock here and maybe not for long. But like, is there any political opposition that's in any way effective? It's just people saying dogs can't play basketball. It's like,

that's where we are. I mean, I guess the question is, have you guys seen Show Me a Hero at HBO show? Yes, I do. I don't remember that. It was Oscar Isaac, an owner writer. It's about housing and Yonkers. Yeah. And in that story, a judge orders the city of Yonkers to basically comply with the order

to build public housing. And when the city doesn't do it, they start imposing greater and greater penalties on the officials themselves with the threat of jail time. And I mean, I don't know, but where we could be headed is a situation where a judge is saying to Trump officials, like, if you do not rescind this offer, you are personally, criminally or civilly liable to the court. Which would be like, I don't know, I can't think of a time where that happened in American history. Does Trump, I mean, he has, you know, he has the pardon power. So where does, where does

that go? But right now, you mean, the only check on this is the courts, but it's not clear that even the courts will be. Well, I think that's a good place to leave it. I certainly don't have any answers or solutions here. It does seem like kind of doom and gloom, but I heard a podcast this week that sort of like it made me realize that like people everywhere are standing up to fight. Hakeem Jeffries was on, you know, whatever Jon Stewart's new show is called, and he was

just on fire. I mean, I think I think Hakeem Jeffries has what it takes to put an end to this. As soon as he discovers the leverage, we've got to find some leverage. Yeah. I thought you were going to say you were listening to Hakeem Jeffries podcast, which I didn't know was a thing. Oh, no, no. Even the Democratic Party-

We're working on it right now. That more Hakeem Jeffries media is not helping anyone. The new cafe.com is just a game, Jeffrey. Although I did say to just before we hopped on from Politico that like, you know, the Democrats big plan is there like, like just today, I think launching some big task force and like one of the biggest prongs of it involves litigation. And it's kind of like, didn't we just see like the limitations of going after Trump, you know, through litigation? Yeah. It's a of like, didn't we just see like the limitations of going after Trump, you know, through litigation?

Yeah. It's a task force, Catherine. It's a task force. They're going to study the problem. It's it's it's it's they're they're being tasked and they have some force. We'll see what happens though. Yeah, I don't want to keep it too much longer, Jeff. But Jeff, thanks for the reporting and thanks for your time.

Hey, my pleasure. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Thanks for the reporting and thanks for your time. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks guys. We'll dance around, pick a moon