You've tapped Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to head up this Department of Government Efficiency. Correct. Which proposes cuts to the federal government. Think a lot of people hear that and they get concerned about Medicare and Social Security and Medicare. Anything to do with defense spending we're talking about. [00:00:15] You won't touch Medicare or Social Security. Okay. No. I said to you, we're not touching Social Security, other than we might make it more efficient, but the people are going to get what they're getting. - Okay. - So the entitlements are not. Raising and we're not raising ages or any of that. Low income voters who voted for the president elect are counting on him [00:00:33] to keep their benefits, like Social Security and Medicare intact. But as we have been seeing, a lot of Trump's top cabinet picks are all for slashing entitlement programs. Do you think these Trump voters have reason to be hopeful, or are they maybe putting their faith in the wrong guy? [00:00:50] Yeah. So look, proof's in the pudding. And so Trump in his first term, his major accomplishment was corporate tax cuts. So that is a very ironic populist. So we're going to see this time around with all of our with our own eyes and ears, what he does, but not off to a great start to begin with. [00:01:08] And I now see and we'll talk more about this in a second. More right wing hosts starting to talk about cutting Social Security. Oh. Yeah. So it seems a lot of those struggling Trump voters are asking a lot of questions post-election about their entitlements this election cycle. [00:01:24] Trump gained massive ground with low income voters. Take a look at this. According to the Washington Post exit polls, Trump erased the advantage that Democrats had with low income voters 50% of families with an income of under $50, [00:01:39] 000 a year, which makes up 27% of voters, voted for Trump. And that's compared to just 48% of that same bracket voting for Harris back in 2020. Joe Biden carried those voters by 11 percentage points. Clinton won them by 12 points in 2016, and before that, Obama won them [00:01:58] by 22 points in 2012. So quite the decline there. Now for a bit of a case study. The Washington Post decided to dive a little bit deeper and hone in on the city of New Castle, Pennsylvania, where Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win there in 70 plus years. [00:02:15] In, 1 in 4 of the city's residents live in poverty, and it has one of the lowest ranked median incomes in the state. Federal benefits have helped keep residents afloat, and today that safety net is deeply interwoven with daily life. The 8.5mi² city includes ten public housing projects. [00:02:34] About 60% of the houses in the city are rental properties, and federal housing vouchers help countless families afford rent. Many residents also receive Medicaid and food stamps. Federal aid is also key in keeping New Castle's children fed. [00:02:49] About 90% of students come from low income families and qualify for free school lunches, and many are sent home with food to eat over the weekend, according to the superintendent of the New Castle Area School District. He said it's very depressing. [00:03:04] So if our funding were to go away and I have not heard, it will, but if it were to go, we would be in serious, serious trouble. Residents are, of course, hopeful that Trump will spare their benefits, but they do have their doubts. One resident, Lori Masura, originally a Democrat, switched parties [00:03:22] after coming to the conclusion that Trump would put Americans like her first. She told The post he is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich. I think he knows it's the poor people that got him elected. So I think Trump is going to do more to help us. [00:03:37] We helped get you in office. Please take care of us. Please don't cut the things that help the most vulnerable. It's probably not a good thing to elect a guy who you then have to beg to just protect you and do the bare minimum. Another resident, Steve Tilea, who received $1,600 a month on disability [00:03:55] and $300 on food stamps for him and his son, believes that Trump is going to cut the fat to reduce spending. I'm going to guess that he's not going to cut the fat that this guy wants cut. It's not cutting government programs, he said. It's cutting the amount of people needed to run a program. [00:04:11] But they're they're cutting staff, which could actually increase the amount of the programs that we get. I am I am doubtful of all of that. That's very optimistic for him. More from The Washington Post says Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have [00:04:26] said that they want to trim $2 trillion from the government's annual budget, a cut that some experts say could be accomplished only by slashing entitlement programs. Trump's pick for white House budget director was a key architect of project 2025, a plan drawn up by conservatives to guide his second term that calls for steep [00:04:45] cuts to programs such as food stamps. Others in Trump's ear, including top GOP heads in Congress and Trump advisers, have also started brainstorming significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other federal aid. - Take a. - Look. Well, I. Mean, what is the budget for the Pentagon? [00:05:02] I mean, you know, Doge co-leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to meet with GOP lawmakers this week. Elon is proposing to cut the Pentagon's $824 billion budget after it failed its seventh audit in a row. We can't just talk about the military, though. [00:05:19] The military can do some things better. We can save some money just in the way contract. We're going to be careful that we don't decrease our abilities because China is right on our heels. However, if you talk about 75% of the budget, 75% is non-discretionary. We're going to have to have some hard decisions. [00:05:34] We've got to bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. There's hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved, and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on. Do you believe that the defense budget should be cut? [00:05:49] I'm not a big fan of that. I think we could do things a lot better. We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state. - Okay. - No Obamacare. No. No. The ACA is so deeply ingrained. We need massive reform to make this work. And we got a lot of ideas on how to do that. [00:06:05] You know, I'm not confident that the lawmakers making these tough decisions and these tough cuts are going to make decisions that are actually going to benefit the majority of Republican voters, or Democratic voters, for that matter. But, Jake, there's a lot going on here. But there's a common theme that we're starting to see with a lot [00:06:21] of these stories, not just for from today, but, you know, just lately, people just need help and they're desperate for it, and they're willing to support whoever they think will best help them. It seems the political divide in this country is more about, you know, they on this side think that Trump will be the one to help us. [00:06:38] And we over here on this side think that he's the last guy to help. Yeah. So, when you talk about cuts, there's like a version of Nimby, you know, Nimby. Not in my backyard. Hey, I'd like there to be shelters for the homeless, etc., but not in my backyard. [00:06:53] The cuts is the same way. Not my program. Right. So. Oh, I thought when you said cuts, you meant cut the Pentagon or cut this, or cut fraud. Waste? I didn't know you meant cut Medicaid. Yeah, brother, they mean cut Medicaid. Okay, so Medicaid and food stamps are number one on the Republican list of cuts. [00:07:12] They always are. They will be this time guaranteed. Lock it in. So now I think that's going to have massive repercussions for the Republicans, because, you know, how we talk about how the Democrats lost because they didn't deliver enough for their voters? Well, when it's true that more poor people voted for Trump, and when he starts [00:07:31] taking away literally food off their table while they thought he was going to, you know, cut fraud, waste and abuse, they're not going to like that. So, Republicans, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. [00:07:46] So now I've been on a lot of right wing shows. One of the advantages of that is that I begin to see things that are coming down the pike. So Doctor Fauci get get legal counsel. Okay. So I'm very worried about it. I think they're almost certainly going to try to arrest him at some point. [00:08:02] But in this case, the other thing that I see is several right wing hosts talking about cutting Social Security, and they have all of these excuses and things. Look, David Smith is. David Smith is a guy who's a libertarian who I actually agree with on a lot of issues on war, on corruption. [00:08:20] He's no fan of Trump at all. And and so he I thought I think he's a principled and really interesting smart guy. Even he started talking about cutting Social Security. I'm like, oh, you guys, you're crazy. You're nuts. Well they're libertarians. I know. Yeah. Well, to be fair, yeah, Dave's a libertarian. [00:08:35] And so but, here's who's not libertarians, the American people. It polls at about 85% popularity. You cut people's Social security and. Well, okay, I hope we got a good Democratic party by the time the next elections come around, because they're going to be in charge. Okay. [00:08:51] So and the excuse they're using is, oh, Social Security is just the senior citizens robbing young people. No it's not. The reason why it's called an entitlement is because you paid into it your whole life. [00:09:06] You are entitled to your money back. Okay. It's your money. Don't let anybody tell you anything different. So when they go to do these cuts, why look so that Pentagon thing. I mean, I kind of feel bad saying it because it seems like. [00:09:22] Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was you, but, like, literally, I suggested it to Elon Musk. He said yes. Donald Trump Jr said, we're working on it. And next thing you took off like a wildfire. But it wasn't because of me. And it wasn't because Elon and Don Jr. As much as the right wing reaction to it. [00:09:37] They love that idea, right? And so whichever show I go on, the audience is like, and now the hosts are all like, cut the Pentagon, cut the Pentagon. But did you notice? Bartiromo asked about it. And the politician and media is like, oh no. [00:09:54] China's coming. China's coming. We're not going to cut the Pentagon. - I'm not. - A big fan of. That. Not a big fan of that. Not a big fan of that. Georgia. Yeah. So right wing populists are going to have a big test coming up soon because they ain't going to cut the Pentagon. Right. Those politicians, all the Democrats and Republicans, they got a piece. You know, the plants in their districts. They got campaign checks coming in. [00:10:13] There's no way. So will Trump actually deliver and cut the Pentagon like his base wants? That would be amazing. And that would be a little bit of unity and get to the right place. But if they don't, and instead they cut the money, that's going to help [00:10:28] the Americans that need it the most. Well, we're going to have our answer about what kind of populist they are. And and then at that point, I'm super curious as to what the right wing populist base will do in reaction. Will they be like, oh, that's fine, or will they be like, this is not [00:10:45] what we asked for at all, Michael. Yeah, well, we also did. I mean, I agree that an element of why we got Trump was because of the fact that the Democrats didn't do as much as they had set out to do for for the Biden years. But by the same token, I think it also has to do with Democratic messaging. [00:11:02] And, you know, low income voters usually mean low information voters, too. I mean, those two have gone hand in hand, but Democrats have always been able to message a lot better than they have during the Biden administration, and certainly the second half of the Biden administration, certainly in their successes. Right. [00:11:18] I mean, they weren't able to talk about it. And Vice President Harris, when she ran for president, would talk about sort of, you know, nebulous things. And, again, she had a truncated time to run for president, to plan for run, to run for president, to to have a blueprint for it. But they talked about joy, which is a, you know, beautiful idea, [00:11:35] a beautiful name, but it isn't necessarily speaking to voters. And voters who are low income are also low information. We also have a a country right now that is enamored of celebrities. So already Trump had that advantage going in with low income voters [00:11:52] who didn't hear what the Biden years had brought them or didn't bring them. There was no messaging. The messaging was terrible, like we didn't get this done, but we plan on doing this now or we got this done, we're going to continue doing it. And there are litany of things that they could have done with that, that they weren't able to do. [00:12:08] And that was the that's going to be, I think, one of the biggest failings of the Biden administration. The other side of that is, is that when you have this sort of, you know, conflict between low and low income voters and low information voters, you inevitably get where we are today. [00:12:24] I saw an interview and I'm sorry, I don't know who it was. It was a man on the street doing what we do at TYT sometimes. He was in the district of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He was asking voters if they voted for Trump and if they voted for representative Ocasio-Cortez. All of them said they voted for Trump. [00:12:40] All of them said they voted for representative Ocasio-Cortez. You have to explain to to an Ocasio-Cortez voter why voting for Trump goes against everything, or most of the things that she stands for. I would imagine I would imagine everything. And so that's what low information and low information voters do to us. [00:13:00] And that's why we have Donald Trump, and that's why this is going to be an uphill battle with saving entitlements. Yeah. And you know, the Democrats love to say that they're bad at messaging. And you got to wonder if that's a little bit intentional. You know, they try to say certain things that sound very good, and they're all [00:13:15] very good at making speeches. The Democrats really know how to craft a speech and deliver it well and deliver it forcefully. But the speeches don't always have a whole lot of substance. And Michael, I love the fact that you brought up Trump's speech patterns. Right. And the way that he presents information to the public, [00:13:31] because I feel like I've been saying this for years where, you know, he really hones in on that repetition, right? If you really want to drive a message home, you just keep repeating it over and over again. It doesn't matter if it's real, if it's fake, if it's a lie, whatever. If you say it enough times, people will begin to believe it and it'll just [00:13:47] be something that they they understand as being a reality in their lives just because they keep hearing about it. And Trump has always been so good at his messaging. Right. He picks something. It doesn't matter how he came up with it, if it just came to his head while he was giving a speech. [00:14:03] But he sticks with it, you know, and he just keeps driving it home. And so a lot of Republicans and, you know, Trump supporters specifically, they have this idea that he is going to of all these things that he is and all these things that he is going to do for them, because that's what he keeps saying. [00:14:18] But the reality has not been reflective of the things that Trump has been saying. And I don't know how blatant that reality needs to get before they finally get that Trump is not the guy for whatever like however they came to believe this, Trump is not the guy who's going to save your entitlements for you. [00:14:34] He's not going to be the guy to look out for for the poor people. The man was born a millionaire. He's a billionaire now. He doesn't he doesn't resonate with the pause. But you know that that's what they believe. I want to give one of the last words to one of our members on twitter.com. You can join there now actually, and get 20% off. [00:14:52] Erica, like America says, I'm a single disabled mom with a disabled ten year old. We depend on Social Security, Medicaid, and Snap to live. If we lose the $800 a month we get to live on, we literally have nothing. No family to fall back on. Nothing. So, Erica, it's our job to try to protect you. [00:15:08] So that's what we're going to try to do. And look, you can tell who is genuine and not genuine by the oil subsidies. We now give about $30 billion a year in subsidies to the most profitable companies in the world. [00:15:24] That would be the very first thing you should cut. There's absolutely no need for it at all. Instead, they're going to try to cut what Erica and her family live on. So if they cut the oil subsidies, then I'll say, oh, they're genuine about cuts, but they're not going to because the oil companies are [00:15:39] among the top donors to Donald J. Trump. Okay, so but it's our job to hold them accountable, both sides and at all times. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. [00:15:59] You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. [00:16:14] Thank you.