Jacob Bogage
Appearances
Apple News Today
Inflation helped Trump win. Now it’s becoming a headache.
There are districts in this Republican majority where more than half of the population are on Medicaid. And those are districts Republicans need to keep in the midterm elections if they want to continue governing with a majority.
Apple News Today
Inflation helped Trump win. Now it’s becoming a headache.
It's kind of impossible to find a middle ground.
Apple News Today
Inflation helped Trump win. Now it’s becoming a headache.
You've got folks who want these really, really steep budget cuts. They want to go after different kinds of social safety net programs. Then you have moderates who are saying, over my dead body, you can't do that. Then you have super hardline conservatives saying, I want more. And because the margins are so slim in the House, every member can demand very specific policies.
Apple News Today
Unpacking Elon Musk’s claims about Social Security
And in the absence of a birthdate, it defaults to the year 1875, which is 150 years ago.
Apple News Today
Unpacking Elon Musk’s claims about Social Security
So if you had someone who maybe immigrated to this country and their birth date was in dispute or there wasn't accurate record keeping because maybe there was a home birth. Maybe those records weren't accurate or weren't immediately available when they were assigned a social security number. Their default age in some cases is 150.
Apple News Today
Unpacking Elon Musk’s claims about Social Security
By all accounts, Leland Dudek was very qualified to do what he did in anti-fraud protection and social security. But I've talked to folks in and around social security leadership about him, and their first question was, who are you talking to me about? Who is this guy? No one really knows.
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
We do know he has not gotten access to that. This memorandum of understanding between the White House and the IRS has not been codified yet. There's some details to work out. The IRS is freaking out, basically, about this. If and how and whether they should and if they can give that access and who would give it and how is it overseen and do they trust that that data can be secured?
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
The White House kind of sees this as a fait accompli and for good reason, which is because if The IRS says, no, they could just start firing people. And that's exactly what we saw over at Social Security. It's a fait accompli to the White House that their representatives will get this information. And if they don't get it, then people are going to quit or they're going to be fired.
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
That's what we're seeing across these agencies when the sensitive data is on the line.
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
They are, but it's a little bit trickier. When we've talked about legal threats at IRS, the main one we're watching right now is these mass firings that we expect at IRS. They could be 9,000, 10,000 employees in one fell swoop. Legal challenges there are really potent. When it comes to systems control...
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
You know, eventually these people just serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States. It's pretty easy to fire him on down the line.
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Have you considered resigning?': Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
Thanks for having me.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Well, thank you for having me, Rachel. It's good to be back. And that was one heck of an intro. The state of play is in flux. Like you mentioned, we reported this story with anonymous but pretty ironclad sourcing. The White House, after it published, denied it. And then President Trump today didn't just say that he and Secretary Letnick were looking at it. He acknowledged that they were...
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
planning what he called some sort of merger between the Postal Service and the Commerce Department. So this is very much an active question in the White House and at the Postal Service. People are really uncertain.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
That goes from rank-and-file letter carriers and postmasters who I've talked to today and have been texting with all through the night, really, from last night when I broke that story to today, to folks in senior leadership who are wondering what it means to have a political mail service.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
That's a difficult question to answer. I mean, yes and no, right? I mean, the story published last night and one of my sources immediately texted me, are we doing this again? This is somebody who had defended the Postal Service during the first Trump administration and was like, OK, let's take the playbook out again. And I've been talking with sources who are reviving that playbook again today.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
The legal questions around if the Trump administration can do this and if so, how they can do this. are very thorny. I mean, like I'm a postal policy geek and I don't know. And that's because it's an independent agency. It has to have a board. If you don't have a board, you can't raise prices. You can't sell stuff off. You can't make investments.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Those are things, those are powers that are not vested in the postmaster general. And it's designed that way specifically to wall people's mail and communications with off from anyone political who could tinker with it.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Thanks. Good to see you.