With Donald Trump's blessing, Elon Musk and a small crew of inexperienced software engineers take near full control of the government, moving to shut down USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and taking control of a critical payment system at the Treasury Department. Trump delays his trade war with Canada and Mexico by a month after securing minor concessions that were probably already in the works. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats begin to push back harder—though whether it'll be enough is still an open question. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy break down all the latest, and Lovett speaks with former Obama and Biden economic adviser Brian Deese about just how bad things could get if a real trade war kicks off over the next four years. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Full Episode
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On today's show, we got Donald Trump and Elon Musk seizing control of the federal government's money spigot, accessing all of our private information like social security numbers, purging federal law enforcement of nonpartisan FBI agents and prosecutors who aren't loyal to Trump, and shutting down multi-billion dollar agencies...
that they're not legally authorized to eliminate starting with USAID. We'll hear from a USAID vet about what is actually happening and what it means. We'll also talk about the Democrats who seem like they're trying to get off the mat. Over the weekend, the party elected Ken Martin as its new chair and Democrats in Congress are starting to use the limited power they have to fight back.
And later, Lovett talks tariffs with our old friend Brian Deese, who was a top economic advisor to Presidents Obama and Biden. But first, America's dumbest trade war, with two of its closest allies and biggest trading partners, seems to have ended before it even began. We started today ready to talk about a trade war.
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