This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, February 5th.

I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, filling in for Brian today.

Now, let's look at the new Trump administration's effort to remake the federal bureaucracy through Elon Musk's Department of

Government Efficiency or Doge, with sweeping actions that are shaking of Washington and the people

who rely on the agencies now in disarray through freeings, firings, and takeovers.

The legality of all of which is a little TBD.

And where do his comments on taking over Gaza fit in?

Andrew Procop joins us now.

He's a senior politics correspondent at Voxox where he covers the White House elections and

political scandals and investigations. His latest article on this has the headline, what Trump and

Musk are doing could change the American system forever. Andrew, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much for having me back.

And it's tough to know where to start.

As we look at the bigger picture of what the president and Elon Musk are doing to reshape a government they see as determined to thwart them, either through inefficiency or liberal bias, do the president's remarks on moving the Palestinians from Gaza and the U.S.

taking it over fit into that effort? Well, I think it's just the latest example of Trump feeling completely unchained. I don't really view this as, you know, similar to the efforts to take on the deep state or transform the American

system. This is the sort of, this falls into a genre, I think, of, you know, Trump saying

something and then the system eventually deciding whether or not, you know, it will actually

mean anything. Is this an idea he's

throwing out? It seems to come as a surprise to a great many people, like, how serious is it?

Like, logistically, is this something that he's actually going to try to make happen? Or is it

more the kind of, or is he more just kind of you know tossing off

...