Held here entire — 193 passages across 11 chapters, set down from the first word to the last.
- 0:00Introduction to Doge and MarsThe host introduces the discussion on Doge and Mars, highlighting their importance in President Trump's agenda.
- 10:06The Fourth Branch of GovernmentVivek Ramaswamy questions the existence of a fourth branch of government, an unelected bureaucracy.
- 12:23Anecdotes of Government WasteSenator Joni Ernst shares shocking examples of taxpayer money spent on frivolous projects.
- 14:08USAID's Fraud and AbuseThe speakers expose USAID's massive fraud and resistance to oversight, leading to its proposed shutdown.
- 20:05The REINS Act and BureaucracyThe discussion turns to the REINS Act as a solution to curb bureaucratic overreach and restore legislative power.
- 28:26Government Spending and InflationThe panel explains how excessive government spending directly causes inflation and higher living costs.
- 38:11The Doge Revolution's VisionVivek Ramaswamy outlines the Doge Revolution's goal to redefine government's purpose and restore federalism.
- 40:00Zero-Based RegulationsThe speakers advocate for a 'zero-based' approach to regulations, promoting freedom and economic growth.
- 44:55The Path to Economic RecoveryThe panel discusses the potential for significant deficit reduction and economic growth through Doge initiatives.
- 56:00Combating Entitlement FraudThe conversation highlights the staggering scale of fraud in entitlement programs, including foreign fraud rings.
- 1:01:15Support for the Doge MovementThe speakers urge public support for Doge, anticipating strong opposition from those benefiting from fraud.
The Transcript
Speaker 1Let's see. Let's see. Senator Rose, do you have any?
Speaker 2I am here. Yes. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1Can we hear you okay, Vivek? You're good there?
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 1Can you? Cool. Excellent. Well, this is just a spaces conversation, and it's not meant to be anything big or formal, just kind of an update. I've got little X here in the background. And we can also take some questions about Mars and other things that people are interested. We're talking to people on the internet.
Speaker 1So let's see. Well, first of all, it's obviously a tremendous honor to
Speaker 1be working on Doge and for this to be something that President Trump recognizes as important enough to include in his inauguration speech. It's worth noting that both Doge and Mars were in the president's inauguration speech, which is very notable because, you know, there's a very limited amount of things you can talk about in that speech.
Speaker 1And both government efficiency and Mars were prominent elements of the inauguration speech and in the early executive orders as well. So meaning that President Trump takes improving government efficiency very seriously. Obviously, although it is a humorous name, ironically, I think Doge will have a very serious and significant impact on government waste and fraud and abuse, which is really
Speaker 1astonishing in its scale and scope. And Senator Ernst actually has been working on this for, I think, perhaps more than a decade, I think, a long time, and has uncovered many crazy things. So that's why I invited her to speak, as well as Vivek, who's been thinking about this for a long time. And maybe there'll be some others that come along.
Speaker 1But there's already been really tremendous progress we um you know rough estimate is is that there's at least a few billion dollars a day of savings um now that may sound like a lot but when you're talking about a federal spending that's seven trillion it's it's actually you know we still need to do quite a bit better than than we have thus far um so um yeah uh well let's see with that perhaps uh senator uh it would be great for people to hear from you i think not not not that many people have heard from you
Speaker 1And you've been spending more time on this than we have. And it'd be great to hear your thoughts on government waste and efficiency and things that could be better, maybe some anecdotes about some of the crazy things you've seen.
Speaker 1Hopefully you can hear me.
Speaker 1Well, oh. We might have lost her, unfortunately. Let's see, Vivek, can you hear me?
Speaker 4Yeah, I can hear you, man. You hear me?
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome. Perhaps you'd like to say a few things.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, it was cool to lay the foundation for the first couple of months. You've been kicking ass in the last couple of weeks. And it's been funny to watch the public processing of this, which is... basically on the side of eliminating waste, fraud, abuse from the government. And, you know, the basic idea of a democracy is that the people we elect to run the government should be the ones who actually make the laws in Congress.
Speaker 4And the bureaucrats have no place in doing it. And so, you know, I guess my question for you is, two weeks in now, the thing we're taught is that we have three branches of government, not four.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 4What's your experience now, two weeks in? Is there actually a fourth branch of government?
Speaker 1There most definitely is. This is actually really, what Vivek's saying really goes to the heart of the problem.
Speaker 1In order for us to be a true democracy, a functioning democracy, the government must be responsive to the people. That's literally what democracy means. However, when you have a vast, unelected bureaucracy... that is not answerable to the public. And if the elected officials, if the president, the people in Congress and the Senate actually don't have, if they don't have the power to affect the bureaucracy, and it's actually extremely difficult to affect the bureaucracy, then you do not have rule of the people.
Speaker 1You do not have democracy. You have rule of the bureau, bureaucracy. And this is obviously wrong. It is unconstitutional. And it is imperative, therefore, that we return power to the people of the country and not have tyranny of the bureaucracy, which we most definitely have had to fall out to a degree that is absurd. It's not just that there's an unconstitutional fourth branch of the government, but it is arguably the most powerful branch of the government.
Speaker 1Tony, I see you're back. Would you?
Speaker 5Yes. Can you hear me now?
Speaker 1I can, yes.
Speaker 5Yep. Oh, I apologize, gentlemen. Yes, it hopped to my laptop. So, you know, I've been working on this for, as Elon said, over a decade now with my Squeal Awards. And there are many in Congress that actually really do care about this. Absolutely. The problem, I think, is there are not enough of us that have... paid attention to this.
Speaker 5And so while I highlight a lot of the abuses, and you wanted some anecdotes, Elon, and I've shared a number of those with you and Vivek.
Speaker 1You've got some there. So it's like, I think it's hard for the public to resonate with statistics because it's sort of like, but people can really resonate with, you know, powerful anecdotes. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 1So do we lose again? Hopefully not.
Speaker 4I mean, Joni had a bunch of them. Yeah, you had a bunch of them, Joni.
Speaker 5Yeah, I did. So, you know, sending kitties to spas to find out whether they produce less furballs, heck up less furballs. So, yeah, we've spent taxpayer money on that. We put shrimp on a treadmill to see how fast they run. I'm sorry, but, you know, all of these things, while they may be fun, why are we spending taxpayer dollars on them?
Speaker 5And it goes to the point of we've sent millions of dollars to China to study what? COVID. We saw how that ended.
Speaker 1Well, in fact, it's pretty outrageous that the COVID, the virus was developed in, you know,
Speaker 1a lab in Wuhan, and yet was funded by US tax dollars, which was simply routed through this sort of fake nonprofit, EcoHealth, because the US government can't give directly to China, so they just gave to EcoHealth, knowing that it would go to China. So our US tax dollars were used effectively to, in the end, kill Americans, which is insane.
Speaker 5Absolutely insane. And I know, Elon, you have been on USAID. You have really... That's the one that's missed, for sure. This was another one of my efforts. And this began years ago when we were trying to figure out what they were doing with our American taxpayer dollars that were going to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
Speaker 5So I wanted to know exactly how those dollars were being spent. And not just- A reasonable request. Yes, oh my gosh. And I shared this with you earlier, Ilan, just privately, but we got all kinds of threats from USAID because I was trying to exercise my oversight capacity in Congress.
Speaker 1So they- That's just shocking. I mean, honestly, it's outrageous that a taxpayer-funded organization would threaten A U.S. senator who is simply trying to figure out if American taxpayer money is being spent correctly and not fraudulently.
Speaker 5Yes. And so what my staff and I had estimated was that 30 to 40 percent of the USAID's awards would go to indirect costs. So their overhead, you know, their rents. employees, things like that. What are they living in, a tunnel hall? Okay, but get this. Okay, after months and months and months of obstruction where USAID wouldn't let us in, they told us the NICRA, the Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreements, it's a lot of government jargon, but anyway, the indirect cost, they said that the database, oh, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 5That was a lie. That was a lie. It was false because we found it. And then we were told we weren't allowed to access the database. And then that's when Congressman McCaul and I came together and we launched an official congressional investigation so that we could gain access to the rates. And then after about six more months of negotiations,
Speaker 5Then my staff was finally allowed to access very limited data. They were allowed to go into a room and they couldn't take notes. They were on camera the whole time. They couldn't remove any of the information. But what my staff found is you were laughing at that 30 to 40 percent because that is outrageous. That was understated.
Speaker 5In some of the cases, the NYFRA rates were upwards towards anywhere from 50% to 60%. And that doesn't include the cost for subcontractors, what the subcontractors were adding on. So this is the problem with USAID. And that's why, Elon, I'm with you on this, because so much of that taxpayer money is not even going to, you know, we love to feel good about helping starving children and name your country, but it's not going there.
Speaker 5It's going to pay rents in Paris. It's going to support somebody's fancy dinner to entertain whoever.
Speaker 1Yeah. Exactly. So to be clear in shutting down, which we're in the process of doing, shutting down USAID, the reason for that, as opposed to simply trying to do some minor housecleaning is that as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms.
Speaker 1If you've got an apple that's got a worm in it, maybe you can take the worm out. But if you've got actually just a ball of worms, it's hopeless. USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when you resell Apple, you've just got to basically get rid of the whole thing. That is why it's got to go. It's beyond repair.
Speaker 4There's a solution to this, which is that let's say something's cut, that the people of this country just demand needs to exist again. It can always be voted back into existence via Senator Ernst and her colleagues. 100%. The fact that that isn't going to happen reveals exactly why many of these agencies, really, deletion is the only answer that's left.
Speaker 1Well, yes. That's exactly right. If it turns out we really need such an organization in the future, we just create it. Problem solved. By the people. Yes. By the people and answerable to the people and to the people's elected representatives. That is the way that government is supposed to work.
Speaker 5I agree. And more transparency. You know, sunshine is the best disinfectant out there.
Speaker 1And they hate sunshine. That tells you something. Yes.
Speaker 5So, you know, we really we need to be able to exercise our oversight. And this is where we have been blocked so long in Congress. I mean, you can go on to my official website on the Internet. You can look through my priorities, go to my squeal area. You can go back. I've got the last several years on there of efforts, whether it's USAID, NIH, the National Institutes of Health, those taxpayer dollars that were going to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, snap overpayments through USDA and the states.
Speaker 5I mean, you name it. Gosh, just even my back to work, my back to work report, you know, the out of the office that we've talked so much about. And on day one, you know, the president came in and said, hey, everybody back to work. You know, I don't I don't think most Americans understand that. only 6% of our federal workforce shows up to work in the office every single day.
Speaker 5Only 6%.
Speaker 1Yes, absolutely. It's truly insane. In fact, one of the most insane things I've seen was that I was speaking with the hopefully soon to be Attorney General Pam Bondi, and she was telling me that
Speaker 1The U.S. engraving, which I guess was used for the U.S. Mint, which is actually a building that is an historic building, actually a beautiful building. It's here in D.C., and the windows are all broken and it's turned into a homeless encampment. That means like there's nobody, like there's no one comes to work to such a degree that this beautiful building has all the windows broken and it's turned into a homeless encampment in downtown D.C. That's how absurd it is.
Speaker 5it's beyond belief yeah and that's why so so many of these buildings if if we could repopulate them that would be great. And that way we can have oversight and make sure employees are doing what they're supposed to do. I'm gonna hammer on USAID one more time. We talk about the locality pay abuse and that's what happens when people aren't working in the office.
Speaker 5what they're doing in dc and not everyone i don't want to accuse every federal worker of being a bad actor but but i have seen so many examples of this we had a usaid employee that was falsely using an office supply retailer's mailing address you know think like staples and places like that um using that address in virginia to defraud the taxpayers by claiming
Speaker 5higher Washington, D.C. locality pay, but they were actually living in another state full time. And they had the full knowledge and assistance of their supervisor in pulling off this scam. And then the IG, the USAID IG, blew off my request for an investigation.
Speaker 1Did they give, that seems, I mean, How can they do that?
Speaker 5They can. How can they do this? This is the problem we have, is that there are checks and balances in place where we can write letters all day and we can request IG oversight. But if that IG says, I'm not going to investigate, I'm not interested, I, as a United States Senator... don't have the power to force them to do it.
Speaker 5And this is why I'm so excited that we have Doge and that we have a president that's willing to back us up.
Speaker 1Absolutely. So really, none of this could be done without the full support of the president. And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed with the that we should we should shut it down i mean that's uh i want to be clear that's you know and i actually checked with him a few times are you sure like yes so we're shutting it down um and uh yeah it's it's uh it's also incredibly politically partisan and has been supporting radical left causes uh throughout the world including um things that are anti-american which is insane
Speaker 5Right. And that's why, you know, there are probably some arguments to be made about what could be important work that falls under USAID. But the fact of the matter is that it has been overshadowed by these bad actors.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 5If there are truly good pro-American programs, then let's move them to the State Department. Exactly. Let's make sure we have proper oversight. Exactly. Let's make sure that when senators and congressmen are asking for documents that they provide them in a timely manner.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 5Let's make sure the IGs are upfront and honest and wanting to be the watchdog over the agencies that they are charged with. I mean, this is not rocket scientist and you're a rocket scientist.
Speaker 1This is simply common sense and being responsive to the electorate. And you just can't have these sort of institutions which are taking lots of taxpayer money, but then are not answerable to elected representatives of the public. Then they're totally disconnected. So I sort of, I call it like, we must move away from rule of the bureau to rule of the people, demos.
Speaker 4And, you know, I would say I'm hopeful that some of this creates momentum, Joni, with Senators, with some of your colleagues as well in passing the REINS Act, right? I mean, half of this is decades of Congress effectively just punting off the responsibility. avoid accountability not you but many of your colleagues over the years and you know hopefully if this is a catalyst to say congress and the senate say we make take the law making power back to the elected representatives of the people and you know get the kinds of things done that haven't gotten done for years like the rains act and other mechanisms to say law making power comes back to congress i think that could be one of the best things to come out of all of this
Speaker 4I'm hopeful that happens this time. I know you're supportive.
Speaker 1Yeah. Fundamentally, there's got to be a feedback loop to the people. You can't have these organizations that are just disconnected from the will of the people. Like I said, you just fundamentally do not have a democracy in that situation. You have tyranny of the bureaucracy, which is just inappropriate and needs to end.
Speaker 4By the way, Len, you know who's pumped up about you bringing everybody back to work is actually – Muriel Bowser, mayor of D.C. You're talking about the homeless encampments. I talked to her maybe last month or month and a half ago. That's a Democrat. It doesn't matter. It's basically the base principle of A, self-governance, and B, saving money and making sure that our buildings aren't being infested by homeless invasion, but instead is actually creating a thriving capital, I think is shockingly a bipartisan idea.
Speaker 4If we give people the permission to come out as Democrats and say those things make sense, which I think we're seeing some of, which I think is cool.
Speaker 1No, you're absolutely right. The lack of people showing up for work in D.C. has actually made D.C. look like a ghost town. In fact, I mean, it looks kind of post-apocalyptic in parts of D.C. because once people start coming to work, then the restaurants close down, then the stores close down, and then you just have boarded up stores and restaurants.
Speaker 1And it destroys the small businesses in downtown D.C. So, you know, yeah. And there's a reason why people come to work and are more effective and more collaborative in one place. We're sort of rediscovering, why do you have offices? Oh, it turns out there's a reason. You know? And the president has made this world clear.
Speaker 1return to work. That's it. End of story.
Speaker 4I think the first two weeks have been pretty massive. If it continues at that rate, even if you think about one of the big economic questions right now is the 10-year treasury rates. They're going up. Bond markets don't like our national debt. If this is the pace of what cutting looks like presented in a a coherent plan, I'm hopeful that bond investors and credit investors in the US government debt can at least say, okay, this is positive progress, which actually will bring down not only the costs that you're cutting directly, but also our interest rate costs.
Speaker 4And I think that's really when we hit a virtuous cycle here, which I think could happen soon.
Speaker 1No, I agree. Actually, the bond markets do not currently reflect the savings that... i'm confident we can achieve um and i'm actually i'm giving a talk later this week uh um with uh jp morgan chase um and jamie dimon um and this little bit obviously a financial audience and um and and really to just to say look if if you're shorting bonds i think you're on the wrong side of the bet um yeah i mean you know it's it's basically seriously yeah yeah it's it's it's like really like basically the bond i mean
Speaker 1there will be less debt needed. As we stop wasting taxpayer money on crazy things, like whatever the $50 million for condoms to Gaza, which I suspect didn't actually end up being condoms in Gaza. That's a lot of condoms, guys. What is that, a super tanker of condoms? I mean, who needs a need?
Speaker 5Oh my gosh, you guys. That's a real line item.
Speaker 1Is this fiction?
Speaker 5I don't doubt that we did have those items going to Gaza. I don't know if it was that many. No, no, that was the line item.
Speaker 1It was $50 million.
Speaker 5This is the problem. Well, it was probably that line item, but God knows what it was. Yeah, what was it really? right exactly but that's the problem we have with the budget and why when monies flow through all of these entities we may have a line item that goes to um say usaid and or maybe goes through usaid to the united nations and then from the united nations it goes to a subcontractor and from that subcontractor it goes to someone else
Speaker 5It is a nightmare trying to follow that money and to understand what it's actually being used for. So again, going back to the transparency, we need to make sure that we have our eyes on it and that it's easily accessible. And maybe not just by members of Congress, but also the public as well.
Speaker 1I agree. If it's public money being spent, it should be in full view of the public. But when they want to hide the stuff, frankly, the reality is just because there's massive fraud and abuse. That's the reality. Nobody needs to hide something unless they have something to hide. Once in a while, you've got something that's say an intelligence operation or that actually needs to be classified, but that's a rare situation.
Speaker 1That's a tiny fraction of expenditures. The vast majority of these things, it's unfortunately, a tremendous amount of fraud and abuse. And the reason that that is so extreme with the federal government is that the checks never bounce for the federal government. So the federal government can always make more money. And the problem is that in doing so, that's what creates inflation.
Speaker 1Something that I really want to reinforce for people is that it's government spending that creates inflation. So when you see prices go up at the grocery store, It's because the government spent more money than it brought in taxes, increased the money supply, diluted the value of money, and made your paycheck be less valuable.
Speaker 1The prices are going up because of government spending that results in inflation. Now, it's just very important to connect those dots because people don't they sort of think like, well, maybe the supermarket is taking advantage of them and they're not. You can look at the financials of the supermarket. They have like 2% margins.
Speaker 1So it's got nothing to do with price gouging in the supermarket. It's just that the government spent too much. That increased the money supply and diluted the value of somebody's paycheck. And that's why the prices go up at their grocery store. So but the good news is
Speaker 1If we solve government overspending and the money supply grows at the same rate as the output of goods and services, there will be no inflation. And the prices in the supermarket now will be the same as the prices in the supermarket in a year. And that's a super big deal. And that really affects people's lives. That's what we're aiming for.
Speaker 1And we're going to do everything possible to succeed in that goal.
Speaker 4And I think every dollar saved, I mean, the problem you just mentioned, Elon, is exactly why in your interest rates on US treasuries are persistently going up. Even if the government's trying to make them go down, the market's bidding them right back up. But conversely, for every dollar, hard dollar actually saved, right?
Speaker 4So how many ever billion it was in the first two weeks, there's actually, it's almost like a two to one saving because that means that the interest rate that lenders to the U.S. government charge will go down at a time when the interest rate payment itself on our national debt is one of the biggest items of our federal budget.
Speaker 4So that automatically comes down for every one of these other savings. And the only thing presented as a coherent plan, which I think you're already beginning to do, that alone I think will have a two-to-one savings for every dollar that's actually, hard dollar that's actually saved because you get the interest cost next year.
Speaker 4that comes down as a consequence as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's actually a very good point you just made, Vivek. I just want to basically repeat that and reiterate that for the audience. You actually get a double benefit when you bring down government spending. And it's a very important double benefit, which is that you stop inflation and interest payments go down because the government is no longer borrowing money.
Speaker 1So if the government is borrowing money, it's actually competing with everyone else to borrow money, and that drives up the interest rate. So if we solve government spending, in a nutshell, your grocery bill stays the same, your mortgage payment goes down, and your car payment goes down, and your credit card bill goes down.
Speaker 1Exactly.
Speaker 1the people of America want. I mean, obviously.
Speaker 5Yeah. I couldn't agree more gentlemen. I mean, it's, it's really important. And I, you know, I'm sitting here tonight in Iowa and, you know, I took my mom to church this morning and man, everybody at church, we all kind of stand around afterwards and visit and, and, everybody's just really excited about the opportunity that the new administration is bringing because costs are just through the roof for people in my neighborhood in southwest Iowa.
Speaker 5I mean, it's hard. These are folks just getting up every single morning trying to do their job and do the best. And yet we as a government have failed. to listen to their needs and then to be able to cut the spending at the federal level, to make sure that their taxes stay low and make sure that we are paying down our debt.
Speaker 5No more deficit spending. Let's try and balance this budget as best we can. And we've heard plans from Ron Johnson and others in the Congress, but we've really got to get serious about it because every one of my constituents owes $67,000 to our national debt. That's outrageous.
Speaker 1And it's getting worse over time. Really, if we don't do something about it, America is going to go bankrupt. That's the fact. So we must do something about it. It's imperative. Senator Mike Lee, I see you've joined. Would you like to add something to this conversation? I know you've got some great stuff as well to talk about.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'd love to. Thanks so much for the invitation. Look, I see this as an inflection point. Every 75 to 90 years in Anglo-American history, we've seen a major upheaval. We had one in 1776, another one in 1861, another one in 1937. 2025, we're due for one. And I think that's going to be the Doge Revolution. And I think it has to be about much more than just the individualized wasteful spending pet projects.
Speaker 3At the core of all this is a fundamental ailment, which is that we've misconstrued the purpose of the United States government. It's supposed to be about just a small handful of things, weights and measures, trademarks, copyrights and patents, regulating intercept foreign commerce. Yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1I mean, the founders of the country, it would blow their minds that the federal government has gotten so gigantic and is interfering with people's lives in so many ways.
Speaker 3That's exactly right. And then we've compounded the problem once we lost track of what the federal government's purpose is. We put the wrong branch in charge of the wrong responsibilities. We've been making most of our law, 100,000 pages a year, through the executive branch, which the Constitution says you can't do. It says you cannot make a federal law unless you go through both houses of Congress and then give it to the president.
Speaker 3So we've destroyed federalism and separation of powers. I think for Doge to succeed, we have to restore both of those. In my view, the best way to start is by passing the REINS Act, which would... require Congress to enact those laws. And I think to get that passed this year, we've got to attach it to the debt ceiling bill.
Speaker 3I posted that on my base, Mike Lee.
Speaker 1I mean, I absolutely agree with you 100%. I mean, what you're saying is absolutely true. There's vast amounts of federal regulation, which are de facto laws that are created, that it's an incomprehensible amount. It's literally no human could possibly even comprehend it if you tried... your hardest your whole life. You could barely understand a small fraction of the regulations.
Speaker 1And these regulations, if you look at them, there's millions of them. And it's not like any one regulation is the showstopper. I mean, the way I sort of visualize it, it's like Gulliver. America's like Gulliver, tied down by millions of little strings. And when you cut those strings and free the giant,
Speaker 3Exactly. That's exactly right. Those laws, which they are laws, those will put you in prison. Those will shut down your business. Those will ruin your life if you disobey them. No different than any other law.
Speaker 1It's totally crazy.
Speaker 5Well, it is exciting. Ilan, isn't it true? President Trump has an executive order that says for every one new regulation that is put into place, 10 have to be resented.
Speaker 1Yes. Now, of course, the bureaucracy is going to try to gain that by having the one regulation. When somebody says, everyone can ask one question, but then have a question in 10 parts. It's possible to gain the regulations.
Speaker 1I think in addition to that executive order, which I certainly applaud, I think we need to go and do wholesale removal of regulations. Regulations basically should be default gone. Not default there, default gone. If it turns out that we missed the mark on the regulation, always add it back in. These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time.
Speaker 1We just got to do wholesale spring cleaning of regulation. and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done and the government doesn't have a sort of boot on the neck of the average Americans. Because what are the core founding values of this country? What has made America great?
Speaker 1What will lead to further greatness is a focus on merit, that you get ahead as a function of your hard work and skill, and that you have freedom. It's the land of freedom and opportunity. And if the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it's not freedom.
Speaker 4We've got to restore freedom. And by the way, that's copied, multiplied, and 50-fold higher where each of the 50 states then do the same thing. And many of these federal regulations are duplicative of the states doing the exact same thing. where the bureaucracies in each of the states are behaving like the federal government.
Speaker 4So you think about the impact on people's lives, it just layers one on top of the other. And, you know, like you talk about zero-based budgeting, I really like this concept of zero-based regulations, where the default is nothing and build back on top.
Speaker 1Exactly. I mean, it used to be like...
Speaker 4I mean, that's what our founders wanted.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. It used to be like, not that long ago, if you wanted to start a business, you just start a business. You just go, you know, you just... No license. You can just do it. You know, the government's not like prying into every part of like, get the license for this, do the license for that, get 17,000 permits.
Speaker 1I mean, like you look at L.A. and like how it's like, I mean, when I lived in L.A., it was hard to get a permit to remodel your kitchen. And now with this disaster that's happening in L.A., this terrible tragedy, just the sheer number of permits required to build a house. are staggering. Basically, they've made it illegal.
Speaker 1But we've got to start somewhere on the regulatory front. And certainly, at least if we address federal regulation, then people can choose to move from one state to another and still remain in America and move to the state that has less regulation where the government gives you more freedom. And you've got that competition between states.
Speaker 1You've got that federal system that was meant to be the case. That was how the country was created. Let the states compete. And if your state is being oppressive, you can go to a neighboring state and live there. That's the whole idea.
Speaker 4Federalism is the answer, no doubt. You've got two things going for us right now in the country that... haven't happened in a long time. One is a willing president, Donald Trump, who actually believes everything that all four of us have just said, which is a beautiful thing. And without that, it wouldn't be possible.
Speaker 1Let me just say, the more I've gotten to know President Trump, the more I like him. Frankly, I love the guy. He's great.
Speaker 4Yeah. And he's full bore more than any president we've had since the creation of the administrative state. So I think that's number one. And number two is... thanks to him actually in his first term, you got a Supreme Court that six to three vehemently agrees with everything we've just said. And so I think it's possible now.
Speaker 4It's actually possible.
Speaker 1Yes, in fact, if it's not possible now, it'll never be possible. This is our shot. This is the best hand of cards we're ever going to have. And if we don't take advantage of this best hand of cards, it's never going to happen. So we're going to do it.
Speaker 5I agree.
Speaker 1Now or never.
Speaker 5Yeah, now or never. And I do think you're right, Vivek. I mean, with the first administration of President Trump and kind of lessons learned through that administration and now in the second administration, the stage is set and he knows how to aggressively tackle a lot of these issues that have plagued us for years. And folks ask me, oh, Trump's
Speaker 5you know, first 100 days, what is that going to be like? And I'm like, forget the 100 days, folks. You know, it's going to happen a lot faster than that. And he needs to continue to be aggressive. And we all know there's going to be bumps along the way. Of course there are, because we're moving at the speed of relevance here.
Speaker 5But we've... got to get in there and make an impact so that our constituents can actually see the benefit. Because we've got a tough mid-cycle or mid-presidential year election coming up in 2026, and we cannot lose the House or the Senate, because then the president will be dead in the water. And we just need to move out.
Speaker 5Move out.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I think that's... Really, the people will judge the performance and whether actually we got things done and whether things were better off in two years. And I think if people feel like, yeah, they're better off, the country's working better, they feel like the reward for hard work is there, that their paycheck's going further than it used to.
Speaker 1that their standard of living is better, their mortgage is lower, their credit card bills are lower, the prices at the stores are the same, they haven't risen dramatically, then I think there's no problem. We will win the next election, the people will reward that performance. So I think that's what needs to happen.
Speaker 1But I think if it does happen, there will be a Republican win in the midterms, which is unusual. But I think if we make these goals happen, I think we'll actually have an increased majority in the House and Senate and be able to continue to, as the president would say, make America great and even greater.
Speaker 5Love it.
Speaker 4The case, the blanket that, I mean, Elon, you and I have talked about this, Mike Lee, you and I have talked about this, but might as well just say it here as well, is when in doubt, push it to the states, right? If there's some doubt about, okay, well, we're not sure about this regulation. You got a whole nuclear energy framework at the federal level.
Speaker 4You have an entire one in each of the 50 states. Same thing for spending or some other program. Are people going to really suffer if this is taken away? Federalism is the answer. Just push it to the states. And, you know, I think that that's a big part of, you know, obviously what I'm looking to do next, but it's governors across the state, whatever, let them bear the load of what the federal government needed, because that's actually what the founders envisioned in the first place.
Speaker 4Mike, you've been a crusader for this since day one.
Speaker 3No, that is right. That is the whole reason I ran for this job 15 years ago. The fact is the people of our country are upset. They're upset about our government because it manages things poorly. And what a lot of people are starting to grasp is that it's not just a matter of changing from the red team to the blue team and back to the red team and making sure you've got better personnel on there because better personnel won't make those same mistakes and won't fund the stupid studies about the drunk gerbils on a treadmill.
Speaker 3The point is it's poorly run. Because when the US government is doing all kinds of things that it's not supposed to be doing, that should be left to the states or to the people, in the words of the 10th Amendment, it becomes very poor, very bad at doing things that it is supposed to do. You can't be good at running the Pentagon and at making sure that traffic lanes, lines of commerce are open when you are doing all kinds of things that the federal government wasn't built to do.
Speaker 3We're using it as the wrong tool. There are very few things the federal government currently does that the federal government is itself uniquely equipped and constitutionally authorized to do. That's what we've got to get back to. And that's why this is going to be a painful, radical, transformational change in many circumstances.
Speaker 3But it's going to be a huge relief to the American people. Once we get through the initial shock and once we get through the stage where the media is telling us the sky is going to fall, dogs and cats living together in the streets, apocalyptic stuff. Once they realize that's not true, they're going to feel this huge burden lifted.
Speaker 3That's what we want. We want a better future for America. We can't get to that. Absolutely. Returning to our founding document.
Speaker 1Exactly. Couldn't agree with you more. I'm actually pretty optimistic that we're going to make it happen. I think it's going to happen. The progress is good so far and if it keeps accelerating, then I think it's going to be awesome. The cost of excess regulation on economic growth and prosperity is really underestimated.
Speaker 1If you basically don't even permit allow people to do things, make it illegal. Well, the builders can't build. America is a nation of builders.
Speaker 1But we need to give the builders permission to build. And that's really what deregulation is all about. Just letting people do things.
Speaker 4Deregulation and meritocracy go hand in hand, actually. They're two sides of the same coin. And you want to actually measure Doge's success as not just the deficit reduction. I don't think that that's the sole metric, although it's a really important one. And bringing down the national debt and the interest payment cost as a consequence, that's really important.
Speaker 4But actually, a lot of these benefits of delivering economic growth won't be measured in this year's deficit reduction, but will be measured in long run. GDP growth, long-run economic growth, long-run prosperity of the country. And I think that that's equally important.
Speaker 1I'm optimistic that we'll see a material impact in FY26, which starts in October. A lot of the stuff, I think we'll make significant gains in FY25, government financial year 25, which ends in September. But I think that... like the sort of metric we're tracking sort of kind of startup style or just, and we're gonna be posting more and more detail on the Doge website and Doge handle on X is just in, so people can see in detail, like this is where we're seeing the Delta in spending between current spending and government financial year 25, or 26, which starts in October.
Speaker 1And that number is really, We think it's, at this point, over a billion dollars a day, maybe two billion, maybe approaching three. And I think we can take a trillion dollars out of the deficit next year. Obviously, this is going to require strong support from the president, but thus far, we certainly have that, and also support of the Congress.
Speaker 1and support and also hopefully support from the judiciary as well but um but it's it's i mean basically the goal in a nutshell is pretty straightforward it's like we have a two trillion dollar deficit which is foreign which is a foreign in excess of economic growth if we can get that deficit in half from two trillion to one trillion and we can get the economic growth to to match that one trillion uh growth in the money supply that means there will be no inflation and the and the
Speaker 1And also that interest rates will drop. Credit card interest down. Mortgage interest down. Car payment interest down. And prices at the store stay the same. That is a great outcome for people. And I think we can do it.
Speaker 4People say it's unrealistic. People say it's unrealistic. But the funniest part about this is just the hard number here. The four of us here know the answer, but for people who are listening, it might just be eye-opening. How much money did the federal government actually spend last year? Not the mumbo-jumbo, not discretionary this.
Speaker 4How much did the federal government spend last year? It was just under $7 trillion.
Speaker 4How much did we spend in this ancient time period known as 2019?
Speaker 6Not that long ago. This year called 2019. Not that long ago. We all kind of remember 2019. It was less than $4.5 trillion. $4.45 trillion. About $4.5 trillion. That's $2.5 trillion right there. So if you just go back to 2019, that's $2.5 trillion. Exactly.
Speaker 4Which is insane, actually, that they think that that's impossible. 2019 was not that long ago.
Speaker 3And nobody thought that there was an apocalyptic hellscape underway in 2019.
Speaker 4It was pretty cool, actually.
Speaker 3I like 2019.
Speaker 12019 was not some nightmarish hellscape. Exactly. In fact, things were just fine in 2019.
Speaker 5Mike can vouch for this too, though. What we saw with COVID, as we were pushing all those dollars out the door, they started a lot of programs with those dollars. And people just continue to expect those dollars to come, even though we're way beyond COVID.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 5Way beyond COVID.
Speaker 1Well, so often people will say like, well, you can't reduce deficit that much because what about all the entitlement spending? You know, like there's the sort of guaranteed spending. Well, but here's the thing, and especially during COVID, as you alluded to, there was actually a massive growth, a massive increase in the amount of fraud and waste in entitlements with like fake people collecting social security, like bogus payments to Medicare.
Speaker 1The level of fraud is actually staggering and it just cutting back on that. And by the way, it's not just even US fraud rings. I don't know if people realize this, But the estimates I've seen are between $100 and $200 billion in foreign fraud rings. There are professional foreign fraud rings operating that are taking somewhere between $100 and $200 billion a year of U.S. taxpayer money out of the country.
Speaker 1A lot of people realize that. So the fraud in that case isn't even going to American fraudsters. It's going to other countries.
Speaker 5Well, Ilan, I sent that example to you the other day, sat down with a friend of yours, works in ID technology. And he showed me that video of a deep fake where it was a Chinese scammer trying to receive U.S. federal government benefits. You know, just it's outrageous.
Speaker 5Chinese scammers are taking out of the pockets of our taxpayers.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 1American entitlements are being defrauded by people not even in the U.S. and from many other countries because the fraud controls are so weak on the entitlements programs, the due diligence is so bad that it's actually possible to operate hundreds if not thousands of fake people and get entitlements sent to you that you then take the money out of the country, out of the United States.
Speaker 1This is happening as we speak. It's utterly insane. So this is why I'm actually quite optimistic that a trillion dollars can be saved just by addressing waste, fraud and abuse. While it's a lot of work,
Speaker 1I don't think this is some insurmountable task. I am confident it can be done, and we'll do everything in our power to make it happen. And I think that'll be, if we succeed, and I hope, you know, I'd like to ask for the support of the American people, because we're going to get a lot of opposition. Because let me tell you, like, you know, from what I remember most from, one of the things I remember from the PayPal days was that
Speaker 1You know who complains the loudest? It's the fraudsters, okay? So when somebody was trying to commit fraud to PayPal, where we would see the most amount of righteous indignation, like it would be like immediate over-the-top righteous indignation was from the fraudsters, not from honest people. Because honest people are like, oh, I think there's something wrong with my account, I guess.
Speaker 1I wonder what's wrong, let me inquire. But the fraudsters will come at you immediately It's like a tell that someone's actually doing fraud because the level of sort of faux outrage is way over the top. So we're gonna get a lot of that. A lot of people claiming with fake outrage, claiming that they're sort of a single mother with kids just trying to feed them.
Speaker 1Meanwhile, it's like some dude operating a fraud ring out of another country, actually. You know, that's the kind of thing we'll see. So really, you know, I would like to ask for the support of the American people in pursuit of this goal and bearing in mind that we're going to see some pretty outrageous stuff from the fraudsters as we crack down on fraud.
Speaker 1They're going to be the loudest complainers. So, you know, to anyone in America listening to this, your support in pursuit of this goal is very much appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 5Oh, absolutely. And thank you, Ilan and Vivek. I think we've got a ways to go, but I'm glad it's rolling along. And this Doge has been the most aggressive effort really to downsize or right-size our government since probably at least the Reagan revolution. So just excited to be part of it and have the support of the American people as we move through and, you know, make them squeal in Washington, D.C. Yeah.
Speaker 4Thanks to DJT. Thank you, Elon. And you keep kicking ass. And when in doubt, send it to the states. And we'll take care of it there. Exactly. All right.
Speaker 1Cool. Well, thank you, Senator Lee.
Speaker 1perhaps one day Senator Ramaswamy. Well, Governor Ramaswamy. Yeah, that's kind of the direction we're headed. And everyone who tuned in. And once again, I'm asking for your support for a noble goal. And please help in any way you can. Sometimes it's like the small things that happen on the side that, you know... the sort of small thankless tasks that actually will result.
Speaker 1Like, Doge is going to win. Doge will win if millions of people support it in ways that I wouldn't even know how they supported it, but just that you did. And so, you know, thank you to the unknown soldier.
Speaker 5Yeah, definitely. And hey, Ilan, before we all break out of here, I do want to acknowledge the, you know, I've founded the Senate Doge Caucus on my side of the rotunda. We've got some great co-chairs over in the House as well with Pete Sessions and Aaron Bean and Blake Moore. They have got now, I think, over 100 people.
Speaker 5members of Congress that have joined the Doge Caucus. And we've got 18 and climbing in the United States Senate as well. So you and the president and Vivek have all kind of really gotten everybody to come together. And I'm just really grateful that we have an outlet and are able to do this. So thank you all so much.
Speaker 1That sounds good. And we'll be doing this every week. So I look forward to having members from the House and other contributors and try to keep the people informed of the progress. And I think it'll be very interesting to follow along. So thanks, everyone.
Speaker 6Thanks so much, Elon.
Speaker 1Thanks, guys.