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Thank you so much for listening and supporting us. We couldn't do it without you. Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast featuring Kate Riga.

Well, we are in the thick of it. I don't know how else to put it. We have, since we talked to you last, we have had this unfolding story of, you know, Elon Musk's sort of wilding spree throughout the federal government.

And we certainly knew that Donald Trump had these plans to, you know, politicize the federal workforce to, he was, he was less

clear on downsizing it, although that was certainly a big part of Project 2025, which obviously he

denied he had anything to do with. So it's sort of, you know, when we talk about, you know,

what Trump said he was going to do, this is a very, you know, kind of Schrodinger's cat discourse

where, you know, it depends at which time. But in any case, the point is that we knew going

into this that Donald Trump had it in for the federal workforce and, you know, everything that goes

with that. But what we have seen over the last three weeks is something is an accelerated

version of that and something that I think is qualitatively different in the hands of Elon Musk.

And here we get into things we have to speculate about, but my distinct impression is that,

you know, Trump gave Musk the sort of, you know, a carte blanche, go see what you can do, right? And he has run with that.

And my distinct impression is that he has run with that. And Trump has, when asked about it,

he says, you know, thumbs up. Awesome. I love what Elon's doing. And, you know, at some points, he kind of says, if it gets out of hand, I'll say so. And, you know, but it is just, it is my distinct impression. And I, I, this looks undeniable to me now that Elon Musk is driving this train. Donald Trump clearly made it possible. and he is, you know, okaying everything,

but there's a critical difference there. This is Elon Musk's operation. You know, there was a,

...