Jay Weber Show transcript 2-21-25
My friends- one of the greatest benefits of this ‘forensic’ effort by Elon Musk and DOGE-whether it saves taxpayers 160-billion dollars- or one trillion dollars-
It is going to be the ‘once in a 100 year’ review that they are doing on our federal government. I hope Musk and Trump follow thru on their promise of a ‘top to bottom’ review- so that doge can point to all inefficiencies, corruption, fraud, or simply ‘bad bookkeeping’ that they come across.
The Democrats and their media accomplices are offering such ludicrous excuses and ‘push backs’ on this DOGE effort that their complaints shouldn’t even be taken seriously-
Especially when they aren’t admitting that all of this- everything being found- is all wasteful spending and very real problems that need to be rectified.
For example- why aren’t they agreeing that it’s alarming to find such back book-keeping at our social security administration that we have the names of 20-million Americans still on the roles who are over the age of 100...with some of them allegedly being 370 years old...which means they went onto the social security roles over 100 years before the country was founded....and hundreds of years before social security was even invented!
Why wouldn’t the democrats have at least a modicum of integrity and say, ‘oh. Okay, now that’s nuts, and we need to absolutely clean up our social security database and ensure every check is going to someone who is eligible- and has a pulse’.
Why was that -not-the reaction or -any? - democrat lawmaker- who has been elected by their people back home to represent them in dc?
And I don’t care if it’s just...mistakes...or intentional fraud...or...illegals...using those numbers. We have 20 million names in our soc security database that obviously flat out-shouldn’t be there. They either represent fraud or awful bookkeeping, or illegal aliens ‘gaming’ the system-
Forget the reason for a moment why aren’t democrats saying, well, okay, now DOGE has found something. That’s nuts. We have got to fix that.
First-
It is the natural reaction to anyone hearing such a ridiculous thing- second- it should be alarming to anyone who was sent to Washington as an elected official-regardless of party-
And third- it’s the reaction that makes a lawmaker took more honest and reasonable to the American people.
If you don’t want to be viewed as a lying crook-don’t act like a lying crook when the crime is discovered, correct?
But one of the greatest benefits of these doge audits is going to be rooting out all sorts of ‘bad bookkeeping’, waste, duplication, ‘runaway’ programs. Whether they are saving taxpayers a million dollars-or a 100-billion dollars. It’s all wasteful government.
Here's another great example: the 40-billion dollars worth of expenses that are being put on federal credit cards.
It’s not all fraud: these are the credit cards that our federal government-across all its agencies- have handed out to managers, bureaucrats, and employees.... who might need to purchase something as part of their job. Maybe their job includes travel. Or unexpected supplies, etc.
You can see the reasons that a govt employee might need a credit card. And if-geez- over the course of a year...our 3 million govt and military employees need to charge 40 billion in expenses to keep our govt going- wow- okay. That’s a big figure. But it’s a big govt- with a 7-trillion-dollar budget. Okay. There might not be anything wrong, fraudulent, or criminal about those expenses.
So- okay- if that’s the case- then this is nothing more than an interesting new piece of information: wow- this govt is so large, our federal workers are putting 40 billion a year on credit cards paid for by the taxpayer.
But. It’s the ‘other pieces of information’ that doge investigators found that raise serious questions that need to be answered-
For example: they found our federal government has 4.6-million active credit cards floating around in govt worker’s wallets.
4.6- million cards. Actively having things charged on them.
Does anything about that number strike you as odd?
Even counting the military- we only have 3-million federal workers!!! And most federal workers aren’t in jobs in which they have-or need- a govt credit card?
So, where in the hell are all these cards? And who’s using them?
This is something we wouldn’t have known without the doge audit: really? We have 3 million govt workers...but for some reason...our federal bureaucrats have created 4.6 million govt credit cards and handed them out?
To whom!!!
Do some bureaucrats and diplomats have 3 or 4 each? How does that number even add up?
Another finding: no one’s watching or auditing what’s being charged.
What?
Yeah- no.
40 billion in charges each year- which -in 2024- was 90-million transactions by govt employees- on 4.6-million credit cards- and no one in government is really auditing this, watching this, checking expenses. Looking for fraud. Asking workers to reimburse the taxpayers for unnecessary expenses.
Yeah.
Doge found that- not a single person in government is really watching this.
The biggest spender? The Dept. of Defense:
And DOGE auditors haven’t really started doing the largest audits- or looking for the fraud in our entitlement programs and biggest govt agencies yet.
Over these last four weeks- everything-
The hundreds of instances of wasteful spending and bad bookkeeping that has been found- is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just a ‘taste’ of the sort of routine abuse of our tax dollars that Washington elites have been doing-over many decades.
Stephen miller is a long-time trump advisor- and he popped up at the white house press briefing yesterday- to read reporters the riot act on how they were choosing to report all of doge’s findings. Attacking Elon Musk. Pretending as if tens of billions and hundreds of billions in wasteful spending isn’t shocking- because the east coast media outlets-have been- just indefensible accomplices of the left- over these last few weeks. Here’s part of the scolding.
So, Stephen Miller torches these fake news reporters to their faces- and he’s right on every count. But you know the news coverage isn’t going to change.
The people running most of these so-called newsrooms now- are just despicable people. They’re frauds, themselves. Pretending to be fair and balanced.
Also, this week: it was discovered that two-billion dollars in taxpayer money. Two-billion- was due to be funneled to a group run by Stacey Abrams.
She’s that fat, gap-toothed charlatan from Georgia who pretended she had the Georgia governor’s race stolen from her …who the left tried to turn into a hero.
This two billion was in that larger 20-billion dollar ‘secret stash’ of money that Biden’s EPA leaders moved over to a private bank-in an attempt to hide-and use for leftist causes- after they were out of office.
Well, two billion of that was going to go to Stacey Abram’s cake fund.
It was earmarked to be sent to the quote ‘power forward community grant fund’.... But if it was for Stacey Abrams, it was for cake.
But see? - this is how failed and former democrat politicians continue the grift and keep paying themselves after they’ve left office or fallen out of favor. Time and time again, they are only doing ‘whatever they are doing’ to pay for themselves. Whether it’s Stacey Abrams pretending to combat global warming and only stealing taxpayer funds...or.... the Clintons setting up the bogus Clinton foundation to syphon away govt grants to pay for Chelsea’s wedding and pay for their own elite lifestyles-
That’s what’s been going on with much of this money. Whether it’s through
USAID, or the EPA, or DOD, or whatever. The amount of secret ‘sleight of hand’ corruption that doge and trump’s cabinet members are finding-is staggering. And it all must stop. Right along with the sloppy bookkeeping and the more traditional wasteful spending they are finding – like our examples from the soc security agency-or related to govt credit cards.
SEGMENT 2
I did an earlier segment about how this doge effort by Elon Musk is still in its infancy-and is already exposing how routine, engrained and widespread wasteful and corrupt spending has become in Washington DC over the decades.
DOGE is finding three basic types: they’re exposing how left-wing activist groups, along with failed and former democrat politicians are funneling money to themselves and their causes-without congress ever honestly approving it.
We are discovering widespread fraud on that front. DOGE is exposing how- whatever they are doing’ ...they are only doing to pay themselves and to funnel taxpayer money into their campaigns and political causes.
Then, doge is finding ‘wasteful spending’ of the sort that’s more honest...but occurs over time as bureaucracies bloat and calcify.
And third basic type: they are finding fraud and stealing-either by people inside or outside of government. The more traditional type of ‘bad checks’ being sent out to people who shouldn’t be getting them, etc.
And this is the truth about doge: it’s nothing more than an audit of federal spending for the first time in 100 years of ‘ever growing’, ‘ever less responsive’, ‘ever more corrupt’ government.
And as such, it and its findings are incredibly important.
And as a general matter- virtually everyone in America and on both sides of the political aisle should welcome an audit for government waste, fraud, and inefficiency. Correct?
We should all be interested in a more honest, transparent, and efficient government...to the point that...DOGE and Musk shouldn’t even be getting any push-back on it.
Not really.
And what’s been most infuriating to me about all of the ludicrous democrat, talking head, and never-Trumper push back has been this claim that ‘the effort isn’t worth it because doge isn’t finding any real savings.
Well, that’s idiotic. And you’re an idiot if you’re saying it.
This top-down audit of all govt agencies just started-and already something like 160 billion in fraud and waste has been identified and tagged.
Even ten bucks worth of wasteful spending, when it’s taxpayer money, should be a big deal-
But it’s such a dishonest and asinine argument to say that: because Joe Biden and the dems have us spending seven-billion dollars every year as a federal budget.... that cutting out hundreds of billions in fraud isn’t worth it. Taking that position is-flat out- idiotic.
And yet, that’s the position that the democrats, their media talking heads, and the hold-over ‘never Trump’ meatheads are taking.
That this effort isn’t worth it.
Bull plop, it’s not. Because-as the editors of the national review put it: taking that stance to its natural conclusion-you are making an argument for never cutting or investigating anything.
Moreover: musk and doge might only be finding ‘tens of billions now-when musk promised to find at least a trillion in budget savings with this effort- but-the effort is in its early stages, yet.
Musk and DOGE haven’t even started to audit the biggest expenses related to our federal government: the biggest agencies like the defense department and the EPA, for example-
As well as- our massive entitlement programs and their administrations: just going in and rooting out the fraud and the illegal payments in those programs should lead to significant savings.
Before DOGE ever came along, the congressional budget office was estimating that we lose somewhere between 600 and 800-billion dollars a year on fraudulent payments and scams to these entitlement programs-with checks being sent globally-to global scammers.
It's not high time to investigate that and stop it?
If you’re saying ‘no’ to that, you’re an unserious idiot.
And if doge is ‘moving too fast’ for you. Tough! It’s the first time in ‘forever’ we, the people, are seeing movement on this.
Moreover – most of what doge finds cannot be stripped out or killed off until or unless congress votes to kill it off. A lot of this waste is tied to govt programs and expenditures that-congress-has to approve or block.
But let’s not let the ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the good, here. And let’s not let dough headed, or alarmist arguments derail and deter this very worthy effort.
If musk only finds half a trillion dollars in savings and waste when he said he’d find a trillion. Is that a failure? Or are we, the people, still far better off- and left with a more responsive and responsible federal government?
I tell yah-
Anyone pooping on -or nitpicking-this doge effort at this point- given all the waste and fraud that it’s already found- is a nitpicking nincompoop.
Let me give you one: a congresswoman Jasmine Crockett from Texas. She’s a younger Black congresswoman- and one that approaches AOC level of idiocy.
In all seriousness: congresswoman Crockett-in her short time in dc-has proven herself to be a genuine racist- and AOC-level idiot.
Listen to her respond to a question related to the idea being floated by Musk and Trump: maybe, when this doge effort is over, we take 20 percent of the savings and send it back to the American taxpayers in the form of direct checks.
Musk said- it could be a five-thousand-dollar check-sent to every American-given how much waste they expect to find.
Well- listen to what this dingbat said- after she admitted Biden’s regime just sent 12-hundred dollar checks to every American …. during covid. Crockett claimed, but that was during a pandemic. Here take now:
I don’t know what five thousand dollars will do for you.
Is a democrat member of congress really dumb enough to utter that phrase?
Yes, Jasmine Crockett is- and right after her party claimed sending out 12-hundred dollars to everyone was ‘live saving’ during covid-
And-
For the record: Crockett has been a long-time loudmouth about reparations. And so, I’d turn the question back around on her: honestly, at this point? How would 5-grand in reparations to every black American help you? What difference would it make?
Crockett is so dumb that she has weaponized her own logic-against herself.
But-this is the sort of nonsense, dishonesty, and hypocrisy that we are getting out of dc democrats and their left-wing accomplices-when it comes to both -the corruption and excessive spending doge is finding- and how to deal with it.
Critics of doge don’t have a leg to stand on. They really don’t. And it’s obvious in their arguments.
And no, I don’t think we will ever see-as taxpayers- direct checks sent to us after this doge audit-
But I believe in the serious need for them- and want to see a serious effort.
Because-as Elon musk said in the Hannity interview Tuesday night: America-will-go bankrupt if we continue this spending path we are on.
This country now has a 34-trillion-dollar national debt- and at least a two-trillion dollar-yearly- federal deficit.
Folks-as it is- the CBO just released an analysis last Friday that said we will be paying 14-trillion dollars-in interest- on our national debt over the next ten years.
We have hit the point that-even if Trump and republicans can clamp down on federal spending and get our budget pared back to 5.5-trillion-which is what will flow into the treasury this year-
So-even if -by some miracle-the republicans could create a balanced budget-
We would still have to spend more than a trillion dollars a year moving forward- just to pay the interest on our 34 trillion in national debt.
Math is insane. And unsustainable. And this is what musk and trump and Senator Johnson, and most republicans are talking about-seriously-as today’s democrats play games.
And even now! If we are going to get serious. This country and its leaders are going to have to get serious about reforming our three massive entitlements- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Which trump has vowed not to touch.
So- if he’s really not going to allow congress and doge to find new efficiencies and or make cuts to Medicaid- or those others-then there’s no way Elon Musk hits his goal of a trillion dollars saved.
photo credit: DOGE X account
audio version of the two segments here > The amount fraud and waste DOGE found is staggering