This is an opportunity, being the chair of a subcommittee on Doge, where I will finally get to work on the very things that led me to run for Congress in the first place. I ran for Congress to gut the federal government of waste, fraud, and abuse and get rid of the unelected bureaucrats and the horrible spending [00:00:19] and ridiculous programs that have brought us to $36 trillion in debt. The Subcommittee on Oversight is extremely important piece, because this is why this is the way Congress can work hand in hand, to expose everything that needs to be exposed. [00:00:37] Congresswoman Marjorie Greene is teaming up with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to take a machete to the federal government. Now she's been chosen to chair a new subcommittee known for the Department of Government Efficiency. [00:00:53] It's an oversight subcommittee. And if you're wondering what the purpose of this is, the creation of the new subcommittee, establishes a congressional arm to the broader effort by Trump and his allies to make significant cuts to the federal government. The Subpanel will examine the salaries and status of members of the federal civil [00:01:13] service and intergovernmental personnel, among other oversight measures. In a statement, Greene said this of her new role, new leadership role. Our subcommittee's work will expose people who need to be fired. The bureaucrats who don't do their job fail audits like in the Pentagon. [00:01:33] I like that part and don't know where billions of dollars are going. Will be getting a pink slip. We will identify and investigate the waste and corruption and absolutely useless parts of our federal government. Our subcommittee will provide transparency and truth to the American people through hearings. [00:01:50] The goal of Doge is to bring accountability and gut useless government agencies. So look, there's a lack of specificity with with the exception of what she had to say about the Pentagon. I think there should be some, you know, deep investigation into where the money [00:02:09] is actually going with the Pentagon. The fact that they have failed seven audits in a row does show that there is some waste going on. And that is, you know, I mean, the amount of money we spend on defense, it goes up every year and we're very close to reaching $1 trillion a year on defense spending. [00:02:27] Yeah. So look, all of a sudden they're talking about cutting the Pentagon. And the people who said that I should not propose that idea because it would help the Republicans like, are you like, are you being serious? [00:02:43] I mean, it's they were going to cut Medicaid and Medicare first, and they probably still will. Right. And I don't know that they're going to cut the Pentagon at all. But the very fact that they're even talking about it now is amazing. And so and by the way, I don't remember the Democrats talking about cutting the Pentagon. [00:02:59] - I mean. - Obama did, didn't he? - Obama did. - He did. - He cut the Pentagon. - If I remember correctly. He did cut spending for defense. Let's look it up. So, you know, it was a while back. We'll refresh our memory on that. And so, but certainly Biden didn't. [00:03:14] And Kamala Harris didn't. Kamala Harris talked about how she was going to expand the Defense Department and spend more money on the military. So. Okay, look, guys, I'm worried about this, significantly, obviously. [00:03:29] Right. Because one of the other, news stories was that they're first thinking about cutting Medicaid and Medicare, which then gets to the core of the the issue here when they go to cut some of these programs. Donald Trump will either see his popularity rise or fall, [00:03:48] and when he sees it fall, will he react positively or negatively? Positively is, oh, I'm going to adjust. It turns out Medicare is incredibly popular. I said 100 times that I wouldn't cut it. And so now we're going to cut it. And then people hate it. Okay, I'm going to turn back around and not cut it. [00:04:05] If he does that okay. He's responding to the polls and he's responding to the American people. Good, right. But if he does the unpopular ones and his popularity goes down and he just keeps digging and digging and digging, then we're going to go in a very bad direction. [00:04:21] Right. But by the way, if he cuts the Pentagon first, my guess is that will be very popular because both the right wing and the left wing voters want the Pentagon cut. Now, the Democratic and Republican politicians don't. [00:04:37] Right. They're part of the pork industrial complex that goes into the Pentagon. So trust the American people. They'll show you which way to go. Look, why does the Pentagon have the most fat in it? Because they claim that if you touch it, that you're going to endanger all of [00:04:55] our lives and endanger national security, and they demagogue over it. So that's why they hide all their pork barrel projects inside the Pentagon. That's why they killed a report in 2015 that showed that they had 125 billion in wasteful spending [00:05:14] just gone total utter waste. And of course, this waste of our money. But it's not waste to them because those criminals stole that money and put it in their pockets. And a lot of people got super rich off of stealing our money at the Pentagon. Okay, so between 2011 and 2014, the Pentagon's budget fell [00:05:33] by more than $100 billion. And in 2013, automatic budget cuts known as sequestration kicked in, forcing across the board reductions that led to widespread concern that the military services would be unprepared to fight the nation's wars. [00:05:49] So this is from reporting in 2016. While the defense budget has dropped in recent years, the cuts were approved by Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress, then signed into law by Obama. You guys have to remember what that era was like because we had, [00:06:05] you know, there was a lot of backlash toward the Bush administration for its preemptive war in Iraq. The country was over it like. And so it kind of it was the right environment for this bipartisan effort to cut some military spending. [00:06:20] And Obama signed that into law. So that's what. Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of that. Give Obama credit. Give the Democrats of that time credit for cutting the Pentagon, which almost nobody ever does. So huge credit. And I remember now the sequester and how that was across the board. It didn't just affect the Pentagon. It affected programs we cared about, too. [00:06:38] Exactly. But at least it did cut the Pentagon. And then there was other instances that Anna talked about. So that's better. But and look, I don't know what Trump's going to do because Trump kept talking about how, you know, oh, we're gonna have the greatest military. We have to spend more, spend more. And does he really care about rooting out corruption and waste? [00:06:54] I'll believe it when I see it, but do I want to encourage them in that direction? Hell yeah, I do. And even if they just pass the the suggestion that that I brought out that Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr reacted favorably to, which is make sure the generals are not allowed to become defense contractors [00:07:13] after they retire, because that represents a giant conflict of interest, because they're going to get paid by those guys after they retire. So they have every incentive to give them all of our money, billions of dollars in contracts. So end that conflict of interest. [00:07:28] And by the way, I know for certain that right wing voters are definitely in favor of that. It's a very popular proposal. There's no reason not to do it. So at least that came out of this. That would be one positive thing. Yes. That's true. I do want to just briefly touch on something else. [00:07:44] And it has to do with this ongoing legal battle involving dozens of plaintiffs who are arguing that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional. And among those challenges you have, SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, [00:08:04] and Amazon, which, of course is owned by Jeff Bezos. And so this is this is the area where I think most of the so-called cuts and cost saving is going to be focused. Now, the National Labor Relations Board is an incredibly important government agency [00:08:19] that seeks to protect workers rights, especially their right to organize their right to, you know, be notified of of why they were fired, you know, protections against wrongful termination, that kind of stuff. And Elon Musk has been on the record as absolutely despising the NLRB [00:08:37] and especially not agreeing with the NLRB stance on protecting unions and workers who are trying to unionize. And so this week, both Amazon and SpaceX, which is owned by. Musk argued in federal court that the National Labor Relations Board [00:08:54] is unconstitutional. The company claims that the law that created the NLRB back in 1935 improperly prevents the president from removing its staff, including board members and judges, and gives officials an unconstitutional mix of judicial, executive, and legislative powers. [00:09:13] Luckily, though, the federal judges who questioned the two companies on Monday appeared skeptical of the employer's arguments made after lower courts declined to stop the board's proceedings. And I should also remind you that two years after the creation of [00:09:30] the NLRB, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the government agency. So look, my point in bringing this legal battle up Is a lot of the focus, I think [00:09:45] is going to be on government agencies that actually carry out good work on behalf of the American people. And if and when that happens, obviously we're going to report on it and be abundantly clear about it. So I don't want anyone to think that we're naive and we think like, oh no, [00:10:02] they're only going to do good things like cut the Pentagon's budget. No, they're going to be important roles within the federal government that they're going to target. It remains to be seen if they'll be successful in doing away with those government agencies. But I also agree that there is a lot of government waste. [00:10:18] And so if they do good work, we'll give them credit. If they do bad work, we will not give them credit and we'll call them out for it. I think that's so obvious. - Like I know, but I just. - Want to be clear. They live. You're right to point it out because people live in such a binary world, you either have to disagree with everything they're doing 200% or agree 200%. [00:10:37] Is it possible that they might do some things? If you're a Republican, is it possible they might do some things that overreach? And then a lot of Americans don't like. Of course that's possible, right? If you're on the left, is it possible that while they're doing other bad things and cutting essential programs, they do some good things like hold [00:10:52] the Pentagon a little bit accountable? Apparently it's possible. Don't you want to encourage that? And wouldn't that be better than getting absolutely nothing? So these are to me super obvious things. Now the last thing is on the National Labor Relations Board, cutting American [00:11:07] workers rights and protections is the least populous position you could have. Exactly. Yeah. So don't tell me that you're a populist and say, oh, if a company is doing wage theft from their workers, we should let them keep stealing from their own workers, [00:11:24] and they should have no protections. Oh, they're endangering their workers lives through X, Y or Z. Yeah, we should let them endanger their workers lives because I'm a populist. No, that is not a populist position. Corporate tax cuts are not a populist position. [00:11:40] Getting rid of Labor's wages and rights and protections is not a populist position. So let's get it right on all the issues. Let's be fair to all sides and let's see what they actually do. And when they start doing bad things. My guess is if they do. [00:11:57] But in this case it is incredibly likely. Even if they do some good things, it is incredibly likely they will do very many bad things here. And when they do, my guess is their popularity will go down because these programs are very, very popular. So let's see what happens. [00:12:12] And the key will be how will Trump react if his numbers go down? Will he turn around or make it much worse. And that will decide the whole four years. - Agreed. - Hey, thanks for watching the video. We really appreciate it, guys, and we appreciate it if you become members, because that allows us to be independent, [00:12:28] honest, progressive, all the things that you don't get from corporate media and all of that is because of you guys. Hit the join button below and become one of us. Become a young Turk.