Brian Tyler Cohen
Feb 4, 2025 Interviews with Brian Tyler Cohen
[Jamies Raskin] We need to be very clear about what's going on. And I think the easiest way to wrap your head around it is that this is a coup, which is a a seizure of state power by unelected actors by taking control over the central institutions and functions of government. So Elon Musk has essentially seized control over the financial payment systems of the US government, much of the communications systems of the United States, the data infrastructure, and of course he's got his claws also into the military infrastructure as well.
INTERVIEW - Brian interviews Jamie Raskin about his feud with Elon Musk, Trump's government overreach, and what Americans can do to fight back.
Transcript
I'm joined Now by Congressman Jamie
Raskin Congressman thank you for joining
me you bet I'm delighted to be with you
Brian all right so we are in a
constitutional crisis right now where
the executive branch led by the
unelected richest man in the world is
basically usurping all power in
government and unilaterally accessing
sensitive information has access to the
treasury he's shutting down agencies
deciding where congressionally allocated
funding can go and whe whether it can go
so I I I want to start off by channeling
The Voice of millions of people out
there who want to know really what the
hell is going on right now, and and what
Democrats are doing to push back against
this?
[Jamie Raskin] Well thank you Brian for putting
the question so clearly I do believe
that as um despondent as it is uh we
need to be very clear about what's going
on and I think the easiest way to wrap
your head around it is that this is a
coup which is a a seizure of state power
by unelected actors by taking control
over the central um institutions and
functions of government so Elon Musk
has essentially seized control over the
financial payment systems of the US
government, much of the
communications systems of the United
States, the data infrastructure, and of
course, he's got his claws also into
the military infrastructure as well
so um you know in addition to everything
that Donald Trump is doing to dismantle
every part of government that doesn't
profit him personally and his friends
personally we have this additional
problem of Elon Musk essentially
trying to consolidate state power under
him and transform the nature of our
constitutional order.
[Brian] So as it relates to
Elon I I know that the answer is that he
can't do the things that he's doing but
the reality is the the Practical reality
is that he is doing them so given that
we're beyond the point where he and
Trump are respecting the law what is our
recourse then
here well we're going to have to fight
them um in every channel and uh social
context and governmental Arena that we
can uh we're going to fight them in
subcommittees and in the Committees of
the house and of the Senate we're going
to fight them in court um there have
already been several setbacks dealt to
the administration in court as you know
Donald Trump tried to impose a new
Birthright citizenship rule basically
taking millions of people who are United
States citizens in the country and then
making them into undocumented immigrants
based on who their parents were uh that
was shut down by a Reagan appointed
judge
uh they're appealing it but that's a win
uh as you know they froze uh federal
spending um at the end of last week and
over uh the weekend completely
nullifying congressional power over
Appropriations that's a central power of
the legislative branch of government the
power of the purse um and um again a
United States district court judge in
the District of Columbia shut that down
and enjoined it and there were oral
arguments on that uh yesterday that went
very well uh for our side so uh we are
going to assert the Constitution the
rule of law the Civil Service rules as a
blockade against what they're doing at
every turn and public pressure public uh
vigilance about what's happening um are
going to be essential in this process
Congressman among your Republican
colleagues is there any red line for
them I mean to to see an unelected
bureaucrat basically on this on the
pretense of trying to block other
unelected bureaucrats even though that's
what he is at this point to see him
going in there and putting his his
Clause into everything getting access to
sensitive information putting high
school graduates in charge of payment
processing systems that that include
Social Security numbers is there any Red
Line in in public or private among your
Republican colleagues well we'll see
Brian I mean we weren't in session last
week and we weren't in session the last
couple days I think that they sent us
out of session early actually because
there was such popular and political
rejection of their Mass pardons of The
Proud boys and the oathkeepers and the
insurrectionists they wanted to change
the subject that's what I think gave a
lot of people the impression that our
leadership wasn't doing anything and
people were beating up on the Democrats
we weren't here I mean for someone like
me whose district is right next door to
Washington it's easy enough for me to go
down to usaid
and to protest and to object and we had
a bunch of the Maryland and Virginia
people there uh but in any event uh we
have gotten our fight back people are
ready to fight this now as for the
Republicans we don't know there are one
or two who have been uttering uh some of
their reservations and their objections
to what's going on but I've been
absolutely shocked and really devastated
at the way that they've fallen into line
for these completely um corrupt and
unqualified cabinet nominees that Trump
has put through including cash Patel an
election denier a
j6 uh Enthusiast and supporter um and uh
you know an avatar of Mega lawlessness
um who is just about to become the
director of the FBI I mean it's just
dumbfounding to me this is taking place
and Lincoln's party of Liberty and Union
has become a Trump's party of chaos and
dysfunction you you'd mentioned that
that there were all of one or two who
have been you know issuing some
Rumblings behind the scenes what do you
think that these same people these
Republicans would say if George Soros
all of a sudden was anointed some
special government uh adviser and got
access to every sensitive agency every
sensitive piece of information all of
Americans private data Social Security
numbers what do you think those same
Republicans all of whom are falling in
line right now would say about that well
Brian I used to perform that mental
experiment all the time including during
the impeachment crisis where I said
imagine if Bill Clinton or Barack Obama
had incited a mob of tens of thousands
of people to go and fight and fight like
hell and if you don't you're not going
to have a country anymore and sat back
and watched it eating hamburgers uh
outside of the Oval Office and not
saying anything other than my vice
president didn't have the courage to do
what need to be done and I would always
flip it over and I would POS it to them
and then I realized that that represents
an obsolete mode of thinking which is
that uh the GOP members will act
according to principles and to
principled reasons for Action they have
dissolved in into complete
tribalism they believe including the
ones they've stuck on the Supreme Court
that Donald Trump can do no wrong oras
Trump you know so vividly put it you I
could uh shoot somebody um in the middle
of Fifth Avenue and I wouldn't lose
their support he was right about that he
understood the cultish dimensions of
their support so I try to flip these
over in the mental thought experiment
that you propos but it's meaningless to
them they don't understand it for them
whatever Donald Trump does goes they
will defend it no matter what and
whatever he says about the foes or the
enemies of Donald Trump uh they will
believe and they will follow that too
right is a complete moving Target gone
are the days where there's any
long-standing principles that you can
pin them to at this point to your exact
point it's just complete difference to
whatever Trump says and does and if that
changes by by the week the day the hour
the minute so be it they they're just
along for the ride it's a completely
humiliating thing to them I mean you
have members over there like Marco Rubio
or Ted Cruz whom uh Trump has personally
insulted he's called their lives uh ugly
said Ted Cruz's father uh assassinated
John F Kennedy or was in on the plot to
do it I mean just outrageous things and
they all come and uh uh they kiss his
ring and that's not all um and so it's
utterly abasing and humiliating and
denigrating for them um but they do it
so ours in addition to being the party
of democracy and freedom now is the
party of self-respect yeah you know you
got into a public argument with Elon
Musk over the last couple of days where
you know you were standing up along with
some colleagues to protect us usaid Elon
came out he called it a coup because of
course he's trying to to draw some false
equivalency between January 6th and
rightfully standing up for an agency
that that Elon Musk has no power to
dissolve um while you were standing up
for USA ID uh Elon Musk wrote back and
I'll put the Tweet right here on the
screen what Raskin actually means is that
he wants his kickbacks and bribes to
continue. So that was obviously a
defamatory statement by Elon, because
Elon, and Trump, and Republicans now
clearly have their marching orders, and
that is to destroy everything that
really doesn't serve the ultra wealthy,
doesn't serve these Republican donors.
And so they're on this scorched earth
mission to just denigrate every agency
that doesn't help them.
First off, can you
very briefly explain what USAID is, and
why it's important?
[Jamie Raskin] [USAID] was created originally by President Kennedy and by Congress to engage in what today we call, "soft power," or the projection of American influence, and American foreign policy objectives by rendering aid to people. And that could be anything from helping people build effective water projects, to fighting HIV AIDS, to malaria nets, and antimalaria campaigns, to building up development projects, democracy -- we're all over the world with USAID. It's less than 1% of the overall budget. The whole foreign aid budget's around $40 billion a year, compared to 900 billion that goes to the Department of Defense alone, without getting into other national security agencies and departments. So it's a a tiny fraction. But that money means something, and has helped to buy lots of goodwill for America, and also help to prevent diseases that come back and haunt us, and also prevent the disease of authoritarianism and autocracy. Which is one of the key reasons that Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to dismantle it right now.
[Brian Tyler Cohen] At the risk of getting too wonky here, on that
exact point, this is a really important
point I think about USAID. China has what's called the Belt and Road
initiative. So why is USAID important to
combat Chinese soft power, and what are
the implications going to be if we cede
that ground to the Chinese?
[Jamies Raskin] But we're already hearing now, with them having pulled the plug on all foreign aid projects of USAID all over the world, that China is moving in to say, "Well, they don't want to help you, but we're happy to help you.
I mean one of the things people love about America is the compassion of America, the Democratic solidarity of America, the fact that we're a country with a big heart made up of people who come from all over the world, and we stand with people. And then suddenly, we're sending the message that we are going to stop programs to help pregnant women and infants all over the world? We're going to stop programs to bring food raised by farmers in Iowa, and Louisiana, and California, to starving people in Asia and in Africa? It just makes no sense. But it is coherent from a political philosophy. Which is that America can only get its way by being a bully.
[Brian Tyler Cohen] And we're seeing that same strategy play out right now with these tariffs and these trade Wars. In your estimation Trump
basically pushing all of our allies away
showing them that America's word is no
good anymore that if we negotiate a
trade deal by the way a trade deal like
the usmca which Trump himself signed
into law that those are only as good as
you know the person in power in the term
that he's in it and maybe not even
beyond that and so can you just speak on
what that is what the implications are
going to be what the impacts are going
to be more broadly on America's standing
in the world and our ability to even
have alliances when even among our own
closest friends we are instantly picking
fights from Canada to Mexico to Panama
to Greenland and on and on
[Jamie Raskin] I mean I've seen tv ads that the Canadian government and Ontario government are running in America saying, "Remember we are allies; we are closest trading partners; we are friends; we go back and forth; we were together in World War II fighting the Nazis." And so good for Canada reminding the American people of the relationship that we actually have. And that's something that obviously people who live in Michigan and Minnesota and the northern states understand better than people who live in the South, and so. But you know, the Wall Street Journal itself called this the Dumbest trade war in American history. Nobody can even understand why Donald Trump is doing it. It just makes no sense. It's incoherent. More chaos. More dysfunction.
[Brian Tyler Cohen] Can you speak on the fact
that really at the end of the day what
he was able to extract from the
Canadians was border security that they
had announced back in December and so it
would seem to me that what Trump is
trying to do is just create a crisis
manufacture a crisis out of nowhere look
for whatever vague excuse of a of a
concession he can he can cast out as PR
win and then and then beat his chest as
some master negotiator and that that
none of this is really amounting to
anything they're building ill will all
over the world inclus including from our
closest allies and you know it may be
that you're right Brian that he knew all
along he was going to have to give
nothing essentially or rather get
nothing because right what was given by
Canon and Mexico was already given I
think they pulled the wool over his eyes
I mean uh Mexico said they're going to
put 10,000 Troop troops on the border
they already had 15,000 troops on the
border that been negotiated I think a
year or two ago so you know he just
likes a lot of rasle Dazzle and noise
but the leaders of the world are
laughing at him um and we can recognize
what like fraudulent pretense this whole
thing was and at the same time you've
got Mexico and Canada's leaders who
recognize that Trump really just is
looking for some PR win that he's
looking for anything he can slap his
name on and say look I've averted crisis
that by the way I created but then you
look at the Chinese for example they
have placed retaliatory tariffs on the
US and so now this trade war is is
happening we're in it because they're
not they're not playing playing into his
gamesmanship and so his his effort
basically to Stave away uh again a
crisis of his own making at least as it
relates to Canada and Mexico is not
going to work with the Chinese.
[Jamie Raskin] That's right, that's right. Well, In fact, Elon Musk, who's obviously pulling Donald Trump's strings now, is completely in bed with the CCP and the Chinese government. So they're not going to do anything to help people in Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or the Tibetans. They're not going to do anything to challenge the authoritarian autocrats who they emulate. They think that there might be some political mileage in having a fake trade war with China, but everybody understands the game that's being played. This is like Orwell's 1984. They basically want to cede a sphere of influence to China so China can just stomp on the human rights of anybody under them. And they want to be able to do the same thing here. I mean, to the point of ridiculousness, of saying they're going to take over Panama and Greenland. We do need two new states in America, but it's not Panama and Greenland, it's Puerto Rico and Washington DC. That's what we're fighting for.
House Democrats say GOP caved to Musk in funding bill, protecting his China interests
by Lora Kolodny
CNBC
Published December 21, 2024 Updated on December 21, 2024 at 10:45 pm
• House Democrats Jim McGovern and Rosa DeLauro accused Republican colleagues of bending to Elon Musk's demands in sinking a bipartisan funding bill.
• Congress passed a stopgap funding bill instead on Saturday, but discarded a provision to screen and regulate U.S. investments in China.
• The scrapped provision "would have made it easier to keep cutting-edge AI and quantum computing tech — as well as jobs — in America," McGovern wrote on X.
House Democrats Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut say their Republican colleagues in Congress caved to the demands of Elon Musk, sinking a bipartisan government funding bill that would have regulated U.S. investments in China.
Congress passed a separate stopgap funding bill over the weekend, averting a government shutdown.
In a series of posts on X, McGovern said more could have been accomplished. The scrapped provision "would have made it easier to keep cutting-edge AI and quantum computing tech — as well as jobs — in America," he wrote. "But Elon had a problem."
Tesla, run by Musk, is the only foreign automaker to operate a factory in China without a local joint venture. Tesla also built a battery plant down the street from its Shanghai car factory this year, and aims to develop and sell self-driving vehicle technology in China.
"His bottom line depends on staying in China's good graces," McGovern wrote about Musk. "He wants to build an AI data center there too — which could endanger U.S. security. He's been bending over backwards to ingratiate himself with Chinese leaders."
SpaceX, Musk's aerospace and defense contractor, has reportedly withheld its Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan at the request of Chinese and Russian leaders. Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan's status is one of the biggest flashpoints in U.S.-China relations.
DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, wrote in a letter to Congress on Friday that Musk needs "Chinese government approvals for his company's projects in the country." It's concerning, that Musk "has ingratiated himself with Chinese Communist Party leadership," she wrote.
In the letter, DeLauro referred to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as "President" Musk, alluding to the fact that the world's richest person began railing against the prior funding bill on Wednesday, before President-elect Donald Trump came out with a statement of his own.
Trump had wanted the GOP to sink the bill, and issue a new one that would raise the debt ceiling so he could avoid that fight during the start of his second term in office. The stopgap funding bill, which President Joe Biden signed on Saturday, did not include the two-year suspension of the U.S. debt limit that Trump was seeking.
Musk responded to DeLauro's concerns by calling her an "awful creature" in a post on X.
After acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk rebranded it X and used it to help propel Trump back into the White House, becoming a close adviser and major backer to the incoming president along the way.
Musk contributed $277 million to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes during the 2024 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Since the election in November, Musk has become a nearly constant presence at Trump's side, including in meetings with foreign leaders.
Trump appointed Musk to co-lead a group that's not yet formed, but will be tasked with finding ways to cut regulations, personnel and budgets.
[Bryan Tyler Cohen] All the while, by the way, with this
trade war in effect, that means prices
are going to go up on Americans because
we import goods
ranging from clothing, to electronics, to
to shoes, to toys, and everything in
between from China. And so that's
going to have absolutely adverse impacts
on everybody in this country thanks to a
President, by the way whose entire
election campaign was predicated on this
idea that grocery prices were too high,
and that's something that he himself
admitted that the cost of groceries is
why he won this election. And his first
act as president is to launch a
trade war for no reason at all where the
consequence of that is that Americans are
going to be paying more money for all
goods under the sun. The price of eggs by
the way have never been higher in US
history.
Yeah I want to end with this.
What can Americans be doing right now? I
I get a lot of emails from people
saying look I I I understand this is
what Democrats are doing in Congress
this is what Democrats are doing in the
Senate this is what our elected
officials are doing but what can we do
out here you know we we may not be
having women's marches with you know
millions of people taking to the streets
but there are people agitating at home
they're looking for some way to help
what can they do well first of all we're
not having marches of millions of people
right now because uh Trump would
undoubtedly deploy his private militia
of uh
pardoned oathkeepers and proud boys and
3centers and violent insurrectionist to
come and clash with protesters to claim
antifas there and to create Street
violence so as to give Trump an excuse
for imposing martial law so so uh I
think that the forces of opposition
which represent a majority of the
American people are being far more
Nimble and clever than that and there
are lots of rallies and demonstrations
breaking out all over the country in
different ways um in different places
but not allowing one to be the focus
that they can uh try to go and crack
down on but we need to be expressing
solidarity that's the watch word
solidarity with everybody who's under
attack whether it's you know high school
kids in the lgbtq
uh Community whether it's refugees and
immigrants who are under attack whether
it's federal civil service workers um
people who just did their jobs as FBI
agents and prosecutors we are defending
the whole American constitutional order
so um when people say what do we need to
do I say what day and what hour are you
talking about because we need everybody
to be vigilant uh to be awake uh to
everything that's taking place because
we are witnessing an attempt to replace
the American constitutional order but
they don't know what they're messing
with on their side because every time
they attack another institution another
Community another person that's one more
Ally for us and our forces are growing
we get stronger every day well
Congressman I appreciate you being in
this fight and for taking some time out
to talk to me today thanks for
everything that you're doing Brian
[Music]
