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TRUMP ... SIGNALGATE BUTTIGIEG COMMENTARY Pete Buttigieg: Pete Blasts Trump Officials for Epic Security Failure PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOEixXu4GM Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Pete Blasts Trump Officials for Epic Security Failure Pete Buttigieg Mar 26, 2025 51.2K subscribers ... 388,731 views ... 21K likes Stay in touch with Pete: On Instagram: / petebuttigieg On Facebook: / petebuttigieg On TikTok: / petebuttigieg On X: https://x.com/petebuttigieg On BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/petebuttigie... On Threads: https://www.threads.net/@pete.buttigieg And on Substack: https://substack.com/@petebuttigieg Transcript 0:00 welcome everybody to the Jim Acosta show or should I call this the Jim Acosta chat group uh those seem to be very popular in Washington right now as you can see joining me on today's show is Pete Budaj the former Secretary of Transportation uh during Joe Biden's Administration and also a Democratic presidential candidate at one point uh do we call you mayor Pete anymore just Pete what we call you now secretary Pete yeah let's go with Pete we'll go with Pete hey Pete thank you so much for doing that's what the folks who are chiming in with their chats are saying right now now um really appreciate it you know let's there are lots of places where we can start one is you know welcome to this new uh New Media re Revolution that's taking place right now in Independent Media uh that's what substack is all about and so it's good to see you here and I've noticed you you've already picked up quite the following yeah I'm really excited about substack and planning to spend more time using this platform I think probably like a lot of people who are a little familiar with it I had assumed it was something kind of along the lines of uh some of the other blog uh sites you see 1:03 there good for publishing uh longer essays which I did recently uh explaining my decision- making about running for office but didn't really understand how you can do everything from a short comment to uh something like this so uh this is me I guess dipping my toe into the Waters of video on substack but uh excited to be in touch with your audience and and with mine in a new way absolutely yeah no I mean just a couple of months ago I thought substack was a place where you would write articles and and that sort of thing didn't realize I had this live feature so it's it's very fun it's intimate uh subscribers get to weigh in and and give their comments and and perhaps we'll take a look at some of those comments but I have to ask you about the news of the day um it is day three of signal gate here in Washington as the White House and top Administration officials are engaging in basically all outlying let's just be honest about this to cover up the divulging of classified War planning information to reporter Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic in a chat group text thread on the encrypted messaging app signal um you're here as well we're 2:03 going to have hakee Jeff the house Democratic leader later on in the program I should note note that but I I'm just curious the Senate intelligence committee was looking at this yesterday the house intelligence committee was looking at all of this today asking big questions the chairman of the Senate armed services committee a republican Roger wicker of Mississippi uh has called for an investigation where does it go from here do you think well what we've seen so far is that it was bad from the jump and the admin ministration in the White House keep making it worse uh you know in my experience when something bad happens when there's a big mistake uh you deal with it you own it and you move on especially if you want people to believe that that you care about accountability uh the really shocking thing for me is you know this is a president whose entire Persona was about firing people right the the whole shtick of his show was firing people kind of for fun he was play acting at firing people but still that was his whole thing now now in my experience 3:01 including as as mayor of a city you know I hated firing people but there were times when you had to hold somebody accountable for their performance and they had to go we're seeing no indication of that here on the contrary we are seeing what is at best stonewalling at worst lying to Congress uh somewhere on that Spectrum that's exactly what's been happening these last couple days Congress has questions really basic questions like were you using your personal phone How could somebody have gotten onto this chat who wasn't author why were you discussing highly sensitive classified information uh on a uh an unclassified channel uh if you're claiming for some reason this somehow wasn't classified what's up with that because it definitely should have been and a whole bunch of other questions and they won't even answer the basic factual questions or when they do they don't seem to be telling the truth so where do we go from here I think this is a Moment of Truth for congress because this should not be a Democrat Republican thing I mean if if this happened in a democratic Administration I would be 4:00 just as horrified and I think Americans would be just as upset and I can tell you uh you I think Congress democrat or republican would have been all over us if anything of these proportions had ever happened during the time that I was involved u in administration uh to say nothing of what happen you know part of me thinks that this is a former Cabinet member yeah part of me thinks that this is a Former Intelligence officer right if anything even close to this had happened when I was a lieutenant I mean they would have had your ass so quickly I can't even begin to tell tell you how much trouble you would have been in and and how fast so this is a moment of Congress where we're a Moment of Truth we're going to see if Congress is serious now you mentioned uh the uh Senator wicker I know him well because uh he was uh before he was chairing armed services he was chairing the committee that oversaw my department the US do he is very conservative very Republican but I have also seen him show a lot of Integrity over the years it' be very interesting to see what he does next yeah and I mean let's talk about another Pete Pete hexat the Secretary of Defense because during his confirmation hearings he was all about you know you should be merit-based he was very anti- 5:05 Dei he suggested that anybody who who got a position at the Pentagon who was not a white Christian was basically there because of Dei and it wasn't merit-based and you know all along a lot of the critics were saying well what about you uh secretary Heth you didn't exactly become this nominee for Secretary of Defense just on Merit I mean it was mainly because Donald Trump liked watching you on Fox I mean this is what he he texted in this group chat um I'm just going to read some of this for our viewers who are just catching up on this time now 11:44 Eastern Time weather is favorable just confirmed with sencom we are a go for Mission launch 12:15 Eastern Time f-18s launch goes on and on uh Pete and and the the astounding thing to me is the way the administration is trying to say oh well this isn't classified information or this isn't War planning information it's clearly if you go through these texts it's very detailed uh attack planning for these air strikes and and it it just strikes me as uh Amateur hour over there at the 6:04 Pentagon and among several of these folks who were on this group chat well they they would be a lot more credible if they said yeah this was a huge screw up and here's how it happened we're getting to the bottom of it instead they're trying to minimize it I mean trying to quibble over the difference between a war plan and a battle plan or an attack plan and a strike plan the the point is that sensitive information about an impending military attack involving uh physical movements of US troops uh in a kinetic environment was sent on an unclassified Channel and sent to the wrong guy right and it's a good thing it wasn't the wrong wrong guy because this could have gone to the Russian Ambassador who knows who could have gotten this and just as importantly if we know about this this one time and we're only what a few weeks into this Administration how many other times might this have happened that we don't know about because the person who found out about it best kept it to themselves and at worst used it in some nefarious 7:03 way yeah that's true and um Senator Adam Schiff is requesting information on the travels of Director of National Intelligence telsey gabard and the US Special Envoy Steve wit uh witkoff um and and one of the reasons why is because wickoff apparently was in Russia at the time meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin uh Pete I remember during my days covering the the White House during the Trump white house uh we went to Beijing for a podus trip to see Xi Jinping they took you know we had to give up our phones we had to give up our laptops you know you couldn't bring you know comm's equipment into Beijing because you had the assumption that everything was going to be hacked into you have to have the assumption that wickoff knew that or the people around him knew that his devices were going to be hacked into by the Russians or surveilled by the Russians I mean that is that is a scary proposition there that perhaps his devices were being Sur surveilled as he was you know involved in this group chat absolutely look we don't know whether he what he if 8:01 anything he would have been doing with his personal device in Russia but that's exactly one of the questions that needs to be very quickly answered uh you know when I went to Ukraine uh I left my my phone with somebody on the other side of the Border just knowing how much Russian surveillance could be in there and so the idea that somebody again it almost defies imagination we're talking about a basically a text thread with the vice president of the United States SE death and a whole bunch of others on somebody's phone while they were in Russia we need some answers on that uh you know we know the kinds of things that they do by way of phone hacking by the way this is exactly why we have classified systems right for discussing this kind of thing and these are it's not like it's impossible for these guys to get onto a classified system some of them like this the Secretary of Defense and the VP will literally have an airplane going with them not just for convenience but specifically to carry the kind of the kind of hardened communication systems that are not susceptible to that kind of interference or Espionage so that you can I don't know do things like talk about a 9:05 military attack before it happens without wondering if it was going to get in the wrong hands right I mean everybody has a uh access to a skiff uh at this level inide an Administration now they have the Situation Room over at the White House presumably you know they they could have had access to some kind of skiff wherever they were so they could join this kind of conversation or have a classified satellite phone cell phone or something along those lines and I mean Jeffrey Goldberg picked up on this because he was getting a text I think he said in in this parking lot of a Safeway in the DC area which is incredible Hakeem Jeff who's going to be on in the program in a little bit has called for Pete heg to be fired do you think head should roll we should see somebody fired over this yeah no question uh even more so because he has refused to take responsibility if you screw up this badly the very least you could do to save your job would be to man up explain yourself and make clear why it wouldn't happen again I don't think that would have been good enough but it would have been better than just 10:05 blurting out insults at the reporter who is involved and not answering any of the actual questions when he was asked about this uh after having you know I think some time during his plane ride to think up a better answer the other thing that he needs to explain and this is a question Congress I know is asking and it would be the first question I would be asking if if I were the president and and knew this happened is how did the information move from a classified system to an unclassified system I me again the amount of trouble you could get in as a a sergeant in the Army unbelievable if you took a a sheet of paper that was printed off a top secret printer and left it in a folder that could have gone into a non-top secret room is enormous there are whole different computer systems so this information was on a classified system and then it wasn't somebody and that somebody would would be secretary hea he needs to explain how he 11:05 did that and why yeah there's no question about it and and it's not going to be I mean you have to have hearings it seems to me with these individuals testifying or else it's just a cover up and they're trying to sweep it under the rug and I suppose you know Trump appears to be in the middle of that right now he's trying to change the subject Wag the Dog a little bit apparently he's announcing tariffs on the Auto industry uh at this hour I I do want to switched to other topics because I know you did think about running for the Senate uh for governor in Michigan uh that's a state that has been affected by tariffs uh put in place by the Trump Administration by Donald Trump what do you think about the way he has handled these tariffs do you like tariffs what what are your views on tariffs well I think uh there is a real risk of destroying American jobs and hurting American workers and I think that's what's going to happen let me be clear there are some times cases and places where it makes sense to use tariffs last 12:00 Administration we would use tariffs sometimes to protect uh American industry but the kind of stuff they're talking about in order to work it's got to be targeted it's got to be predictable it's got to be part of a strategy what we're seeing here is this incredibly chaotic on again off again I've talked to small business owners as well as people in in Industry who are kind of paralyzed because they don't know uh how to respond to this given that it keeps changing from week to week we know this is going to make cars more expensive uh our whole policy uh when when I was in Washington was try to make cars less expensive um they seem to be deliberately making cars more expensive at a time when you know the biggest problem in our economy is still affordability and things costing too much uh and what we're seeing here is an incredibly Reckless approach now we'll see exactly what is going to be announced today but given their track record so far uh it's not very encouraging especially when you see the chaos that it's already brought to the Auto industry and and look the Auto industry is at the heart of why I'm in 13:02 public life uh I grew up in a city that was a company town for studa Baker they made cars until 1963 when the last stud Baker rolled off the line and and congrats to you for knowing what a stud Baker is but anyway go ahead oh yeah I mean where I'm from that's a huge deal South Bend Indiana uh much bigger employer than Notre Dame ever was at the time was stud Baker wow and when I became mayor 50 years later we as a city were still our wounds from losing that that kind of manufacturing um so much so that the the whole uh kind of project of of the time I was in office was to move on from that economically and then I got into politics running against uh an ideologue who was the state treasur of Indiana who tried to block the Obama Biden Administration when they were saving Chrysler because I knew what letting Chrysler grow out of business would do and I wanted to take a stand for them I didn't win that race but that was the first race I ever ran wow I really care about this stuff and uh having grown up 14:02 in a former Auto Town living now in in America's biggest Auto state of Michigan you know they're playing with people's lives whether you work directly in the Auto industry and your jobs could be on the line or whether you're just like most of us and and you're hoping to be able to afford your next car and uh not wanting to see the prices go through the roof yeah I mean and you know sure the Democrats lost in 2024 race um but the economy was trending in the right direction I mean I think just about if you turn on CNBC just about anybody who comment comments on CNBC would agree that the economy was heading in the right direction stock market was looking good the jobs picture was looking good inflation was trending in the right direction and now there's a huge amount of economic uncertainty in the air Wall Street does not know what to make of the tariffs that are being put in place they don't know what the effect is going to be on inflation Allan excuse me uh the over at the the FED um they they just don't seem to know what to do about interest rates at this point uh because of what's taking place with these 15:05 tariffs and you know I'm just curious what what your thoughts are are on how to perhaps add a little more certainty to the economy right now I mean should Trump just revers course on these tariffs I mean what's what's the Buddha you know I know we're a long way off from 2028 but what are your thoughts yeah yeah I'm not here to say everything was fine a year ago and we should make it just like it was uh I here's the way I would put it um the economy that was handed to the Trump administration had a lot of things going well and a lot of things that were not going well so let's break this down a little bit what was going well actually one of the things that was going best was investments in factories uh the most Factory building in my lifetime happened last year um you know the jobs numbers were looking good uh stock market was was high but what was the thing that was not going well that was prices affordability right now here's the really weird thing what they're doing now is upside down um the 16:04 problems that you would theoretically solve with tariffs was if nobody was building factories but like I just said factories here manufacturing here was Rising it was moving yes exactly meanwhile the thing that tariffs definitely make worse is prices so you're making the thing that was worse in our economy which is prices you're making it even worse in order to theoretically do something about jobs and Manufacturing but those were some of the things in our economy that were headed in the right direction so it's it's perfectly upside down yeah and I mean the other thing that has gotten people pretty fired up these days is what Elon Musk is doing with Doge I mean you know to me it it's kind of Staggering that you would see you know the richest man in the world be given the keys to you know basically every Federal agency uh and you know and in cases where they don't have the keys they're trying to barge their way in and take over these agencies and in some cases you have these young staffers at Doge trying to get access to people's personal private information they're hoovering up data data at various 17:04 agencies and so on I guess first of all your thoughts on what Elon Musk has been doing as he's been you know been given a very big role in this Administration and then also the impact of places like the Social Security Administration one thing that's been coming out in the last couple of days there are all these job and and staff Cuts over at Social Security and it's leading to long lines and a a great deal of stress from people wondering am I going to be able to get my Social Security check look to me the whole point of government is to deliver services that make people better off and to help make people free to protect people so that you're more free in your everyday life and what we're seeing here look in theory what they claim they're doing is something that if they were actually doing it I would love to see which is finding cases where something is broken or wasteful in the government and fixing it if that was really the mission i' be all on board because I can tell you both as an American and as somebody who's been in the middle of a big Federal agency there's all kinds of 18:05 things I would uh I would like to change we changed what we could when I was in there there's more to do to make things less bureaucratic simpler more straightforward more transparent if Doge was about that I would be cheering them on but instead what we're seeing is they're just breaking stuff right and left and the most important thing is results you mentioned Social Security and this is a huge deal uh and you can't fake this uh if you're watching this and you're on Social Security and you have uh gotten on the phone trying to get something done you're probably aware that the wait times have doubled on the phone lines since these guys came in they've taken some things you can't even do them over the phone anymore you've gotta they're telling people to go online they're telling seniors they're telling people in their 80s and 90s to just do it online yeah and there was some guy out in Seattle who was told this was reported in this Seattle newspaper uh that that they think he he was dead and 19:03 that he couldn't collect any more Social Security payments so he had to go down to his loal local Social Security office and and he tried to jump the line is what he told the local press out in Seattle so he can get to the bottom of what was going on I mean it just seems that that people are freaked out right now about social security and then just the other day the Commerce Secretary Howard lutnick who was a billionaire he's one of uh several billionaires in this Administration said his mother-in-law would not complain if she didn't receive her social security check I mean I just thought that was the epitome of being toned deaf what what in the world are they thinking over there making those kinds of comments look I don't think they're terribly worried about social security these are very rich men more than that I mean a lot of them ideologically would rather not have social security which is why project 2025 contains a lot of evidence of their agenda uh it's one more part of this very ideological agenda you know I got a I got a piece of mail right here in my mailbox in Michigan during the campaign from the Trump campaign swearing up and down that Donald Trump had nothing to do with project 2025 yeah but now we're 20:03 seeing that agenda play out in a lot of different ways and one of them is Republicans have been trying to dismantle or privatize social security for decades and now they feel like they have their chance now they know that if they just passed a bill to get rid of Social Security uh you know the American people wouldn't stand for it so instead they're kind of screwing it up from the inside they're making it uh kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy as they break the system but you know we got to get out of this idea that these are quote unquote entitlements this is something you pay for right you and I and every American worker on our paycheck we we pay into this system it's an insurance system not a gift and they're screwing it up from the inside yeah I mean and and I've heard you describe yourself as an elder Millennial I'm a I consider myself a youthful gen xer and if somebody takes my Social Security way before I turn whatever it is 62 65 67 whatever it is I'm going to be pretty pissed off off I mean I'll just be really honest with you I just you know 21:02 and I I probably don't need Social Security uh to retire I I I will admit that having worked in the news business for a long time I should be okay but hell if I'm not going to get that money that I paid into the system you know and I think a lot of other people feel the same I think about my dad my parents who work bluecollar jobs uh raising me I mean you can't monkey around with that system that's right because people really do count on it and look I think there's actually a through line here between the news of the day on on Signal gate or whatever we're going to call it uh and this stuff with Social Security which is they're incredibly Reckless because they're not that worried about it uh you know uh uh most of the folks uh playing these games fast and loose with with unclass with classified information or sensitive information that could get American troops killed uh you know they're not very close to the front lines here right it's not their personal problem and same thing on the economy like they playing all these games and if they screw up you know if stocks keep going down like they've been doing overall since Trump came in uh if 22:05 Social Security checks don't go out if more people lose their jobs if prices keep going up uh that that's just not their problem uh you know they'll they they'll be worried about it as politicians but they're not that worried about it as people can I ask you some political questions I mean we have been talking politics but when Trump talks about invading Greenland and Canada being the 51st state and taking over the Panama kown do you do buy any of that stuff do you think he's just throwing this this horse crap out there to sort of distract people do you think he's serious about it do you think he's nuts I mean is it a combination of all three I actually think there's more cohesion to this than than he gets credit for and what I mean by that is uh he does have a certain foreign policy worldview and and the best way to explain it is that it's spheres of influence so you notice all the places you just mentioned are in uh North America or in the Americas right they're the places physically close to the United States and his attitude is they're kind of around we should control them or or run them or in some way exert 23:07 our power over them and if you think about it that way that helps to explain his attitude toward Russia I mean there might be some other stuff going on with him and Putin I don't know but but one thing that you see is uh you know there's this idea all right Russia can be the throw their weight around in their backyard and America can throw our weight around in our yard and it's a completely different idea from the idea that values and rules should matter and one area where this could come to a head is when it comes to China because even though uh you know there's a lot of belligerent rhetoric around China for a guy like Donald Trump who thinks that if you have enough power you should be able to do what you want in your backyard you know if push came to shove in Taiwan do you really think Donald Trump's going to be a credible defender of Taiwanese autonomy or do you think he's gonna try to cut the deal of the century yeah you know and and you've got me thinking about Ukraine when you make that comment 24:04 because you know when the way he dressed down Vladimir zalinski in the Oval Office the way just at every turn it seems he he caters to Vladimir Putin it worries me as an American that if if Trump were to let Vladimir Putin get away with taking over Ukraine to me that would just blow a hole in NATO NATO would basically not exist anymore because obviously the lesson Putin is going to take away from that okay let's let go after Estonia let's go after mova let's go what are your thoughts on that yeah Putin's not the kind of guy who's going to get what he wants on one thing and and be like okay I guess I'm done now I I'll go home right like obviously he will continue pushing the boundaries as far as he can I mean you would have thought that uh attacking the Integrity of our elections a decade ago was a red line uh but he crossed that got away with it kept seeing what else he could do um and now you've got uh you know obviously he's playing for Ukraine there's so many other areas where whether it's an outright Invasion or some other uh uh way that he he asserts 25:05 influence of course he's gonna keep going of course um okay I've got to ask you this how's it going being a dad um you said you didn't want to run in Michigan I assume that's because you know and and I worked at the White House for seven and a half years covering Obama and Trump I knew I needed a break after that was done I'm sure you needed a break after you done being the Secretary of Transportation which is a much bigger job how's it going being a dad are you resting up for 2028 I turned that into a political question so there you go well look on 28 it's just too soon to know what the world's going to look like and and uh what my life is going to look like but uh what I will say is uh uh I'm really enjoying being a dad being more invested in that obviously I did my best while I was serving as secretary to be there uh for my kids and and be there for chass and my husband who was doing so much of the lifting but you got a job like that and you're on the road you know uh at least half the time uh and and even when you're there you're not exactly there um phone calls in the middle of the night 26:02 matter of fact as we speak you know this is the one year mark since the Francis Scot Key Bridge collapse which one of many of those grave moments where you get a call in the middle of the night and then it's uh it's 247 for a while so being able to uh being able to turn the ringer of my phone off um being able to be the one dropping off the kids most days at school um being able to just read to them and you know do my par getting lunch and dinner ready um has been great I mean it's work parenting is work it's it's the hardest thing I think jaston or I have ever done but it's also the best and and it's just uh it every day there's something new or something funny about him you know it's funny the other day I was putting them to bed and a lot of times the last thing they ask me before I try to get them to sleep is to tell them about my work I don't know how this started but they they started doing this now it's part of the routine and I actually got to where I could explain my work as SE secretary um because they understood Transportation right they know what trucks and bridges and planes are and I tried to explain it that way so now I 27:05 was thinking about how to answer the question and uh one thing that I am doing by way of employment one day a week I teach at the University of Chicago and uh so I explained to our daughter I said well you know I'm right now I'm working as a as a teacher for grown-ups and she said uh you're not a teacher I like yeah yeah I'm sort of a teacher for grown-ups and uh and then she looked really sad and she said uh but I thought you were my papa I said well yeah no totally definitely definitely that but you know also uh also have this work and she doesn't want Dad to go back to work yeah and then she says it's hard to be both I was like yeah boy you have put your finger on something as a three-year-old it is hard to luckily my my Chicago gig is uh is not nearly as demanding as as public service was but uh anyway bottom line they're doing great um they're doing all the things three-year-olds do it's chaotic and and and beautiful and um uh I'm really thankful to have this 28:05 time with them yeah let me ask you because we you mentioned the campaign a little earlier you said well not everything was perfect going into the election if there was one thing you could go back and change and you weren't on the ticket but if there was one thing you could go back and change one thing that the Democrats should have talked about more uh have you been able to put your finger on that yeah there's plenty of things look for for two or 3 years running our party should have been clearer about the Border being a real problem uh about immigration policy and uh what we were doing about it and and conveyed the difference that it made when there was the executive action uh though that uh came in the fourth year I think if that had come in the second year instead uh things might have been very different uh I think that uh it we you know rightly felt it was our job to point out the things that were going well in the economy but uh really struggled to make it clear that we 29:03 understood what was going wrong in the economy and I think we we got painted into a corner uh because we care so deeply and rightly so about making sure that vulnerable groups don't get discriminated against uh we allowed uh Republicans to make it sound like we only cared about certain groups when our whole our whole Guiding Light is to make sure that everybody can thrive in this country yeah and well you I mean will you kill me if I ask this did President Biden wait too long to get out I gu I that's the one that's been on my mind and I'm just wondering what you think I don't know what would have happened if he' made his decision earlier it's it's easy to to imagine to speculate could have would have should have the reality is is we don't know I mean one thing we do know is that the incumbent government the incumbent party uh pretty much any developed country in the last couple years y uh struggled and 30:03 I think we saw that play that Dynamic play out um but of course you do ask yourself if uh you know if the VP had had a year or if we' had a whole Open primary process what would things have been like and uh just by definition all we can do about that is speculate and that's true I mean I had so many Democrats say to me during the camp I I just don't know that much about her I wish I knew more about and and the Clock Was ticking time was running out um what do you last question here jumping all over the place here at the end then I'll let you go I promise your thoughts on these rallies that are just coming out of nowhere because for a while there it it seemed like Democrats were in the fetal position they were they were a little despondent let's just to be diplomatic after the election was over um but there's some real fieriness that we're seeing out on the campaign Trail now and these to people are people are pissed they're pissed the F off they're angry they're angry Elon Musk they're really angry at Donald Trump uh 31:02 what are you seeing out there when you're when you're seeing these rallies yeah I think it's really powerful and really important to see what's going on and I think it's happening for a couple of reasons one uh you know you got a lot of folks who maybe went along with with this or they they they even voted for uh for this Administration but they didn't vote for this they didn't vote for uh this kind of sloppy recklessness on National Security they didn't vote for Doge they didn't vote for their social security to be messed with or Medicaid to be cut or all these Services people count on to be put on the chopping block they definitely didn't vote for project 2025 or trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich so they see this they say wait a minute you told me that if I voted for you maybe you'd make my life better and at the very least prices would start going down and instead the opposite is happening and people are pissed yeah the other thing that I think is happening is uh there is a moment of kind of moving on from just being just kind of transfixed or stupified by uh this this barrage of news and I think that did have Democrats kind of almost 32:02 Frozen for a while but I think right now what we're seeing is that people do expect someone to stand up and fight for them and this idea that we can just sit back and let them screw it up and then they'll get blamed for it I think is first of all the wrong answer for the country and also I don't think it's smart politics because while this group that's in charge right now is obviously not fantastic at responsible government they are very very talented at shifting blame so uh let's let's speak up before and not after they screw everything up but just as importantly talk about what we do differently and that's the other thing I think people are really craving not just a strong opposition not just a powerful critique uh not just the Zinger explaining why what they're doing is so bad show what we'd be doing that's a lot better yeah Pete Bud thank you so much for your time really appreciate it we could go on and on and and we'll just do that another time if it's okay I'll I'll bother you again in the future and best of luck on substack you're already blowing up so I'm seeing this in my rearview mirror it's images may be faster or closer than they appear whatever that thing is that you see on the side view P booty great to talk to you have fun with the kids thanks a lot uh really appreciate the time same here thanks a lot all right take care take care all right

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