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Does the power reside with the president
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to make large scale or you know riffs or
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do they have to consult Congress first?
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Your thoughts on this issue?
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It's an incredibly important ruling,
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incredibly right.
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I think President Trump should have
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absolute leeway to decide how the people
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that report to him act and do their job.
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M
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if you take a step back, Jason, there
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are more than 2,000 federal agencies,
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employees plus contractors,
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I think number almost 3 million people.
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If you put 3 million people into 2,000
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agencies,
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and then you give them
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very poor and outdated technology, which
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unfortunately most of the government
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operates on, what are you going to get?
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You're going to get incredibly slow
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processes.
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You're going to get
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a lot of checking and double-checking
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and you're going to ultimately just get
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a lot of regulations because they're
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trying to do what they think is the
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right job. So since 1993, what have we
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seen? Regulations have gotten out of
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control. It's like a 100,000 new rules
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per some number of months. Like it's
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just crazy. So eventually we all succumb
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to an infinite number of rules that we
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all end up violating and not even know
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it.
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So if the CEO of the United States,
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President Trump, isn't allowed to fire
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people, then all of that stuff just
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compounds. So I think that this is a
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really important
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thing that just happened. It allows us
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to now level set how big should the
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government be? But more importantly, the
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number of people
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in the government are also the ones that
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then direct downstream spend that make
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net new rules. And if you can slow the
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growth of that down, you're actually
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doing a lot. In many ways,
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I wish Elon had come in and created Doge
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now.
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Like, could you imagine if Doge was
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created the day after this Supreme Court
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ruling? It would have been a totally
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different outcome, I think, because with
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that Supreme Court ruling in hand, these
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guys probably would have been like a hot
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knife through butter,
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Travis.
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So, I I think it's a big deal.
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Except that ruling doesn't happen
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without Doge. That Doge caused that
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ruling to occur.
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True. Well, the EO did you could have
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passed all that was all Doge style,
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though. You know what I'm saying? It was
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If if they wasn't firing people, yeah,
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they probably wouldn't felt the need to
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your point, Travis, to actually file
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this. Travis, if you are living in the
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age of AI efficiency right now,
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operations of companies is changing
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dramatically. Can you imagine telling
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somebody you you can be CEO, but you
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can't change personnel. That's the job.
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You get to be CEO, but you just can't
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change the players on the team. You can
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buy the Knicks, but you can't change the
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coach.
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No, you can grow it. You just can't
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shrink it.
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It's like a It's like running a
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unionized company, which actually does
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exist or largeized companies where you
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can't do any of these things,
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right? Do do they still exist or are
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they all gone?
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They're going quickly.
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Yeah, probably.
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I think this just gets back to what what
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is actually Congress authorizing when a
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bill occurs. And there's certain things
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that are specific and certain things
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that aren't. And I don't I'm not sure
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that in a lot of these bills, it's not
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very specific about exactly how many
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people must be hired. And so if it's I'm
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just doing the common man's sort of
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approach to this, which is like if if
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the law says you have to hire X number
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of people, then that is what it is. If
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the law says you here's some money to
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spend, here are the ways in which to
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spend it, but it's not specific about
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how many people you hire, then that is
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different.
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Yeah. It should be outcome based. Hey,
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here's the goal. Here's the the key
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objectives, right?
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Travis Travis is totally right. Like
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there are there's a variety of different
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laws, some with incredible
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specificities, some with very broad
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mandates. The Constitution clearly says
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that all executive power resides in the
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president of the United States. Period.
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There's no exceptions there. However,
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Congress does appropriate money and post
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Watergate,
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many people think Congress has the power
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to force the president to spend the
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money. And you can debate that. You can
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debate it on a per statute basis. and
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that will be more nuanced and that's
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going to get litigated whether the
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president can refuse to spend money that
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Congress explicitly instructed him to
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spend sometimes called empowerment.
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That's a very interesting intellectual
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debate. This one's a little bit easier.
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It'll get more complicated again like
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this EO is only approved to allow for
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the planning. I think the vote might be
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closer. I think there's still a majority
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on the Supreme Court for the actual
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implementation, but it may not be 81
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when there's a specific plan that has to
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navigate its way through the courts
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again.
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Yeah, it's super fascinating.
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Yeah. I wonder if they're going to get
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to the point where they're going to say
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in every bill, you need to hire this
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number of people to hit
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I don't I don't know if they can. Like
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that's where it gets borderline
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unconstitutional. like where you
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actually prescribe that the president in
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the exercise of his constitutional
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duties has to hire certain number of
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people
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that feels pretty precarious.
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Well, I I I'm not sure, Keith. It's just
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like they prescribe a whole bunch of
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other things like you must you must
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appropriate money for to this specific
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institution to do this specific work.
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But that's not an executive function.
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Like if you said like the secretary of
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state has to have x number of employees
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doing something. The secretary of state
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is your personal representative to
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conduct foreign affairs on behalf of the
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president of the United States. It gets
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a little bit more messy as you translate
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it to people um that the president
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should I mean yes Congress does set you
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know which people are subject to Senate
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confirmation, what their salaries and
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compensation bans are. So it's it's
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never going to be fully binary where the
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president can do whatever he wants and
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it's never gonna I don't think it'll be
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constitutional for Congress to mandate
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and put all kinds of handcuffs on the
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president.
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Well, then you you also have performance
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that comes in here. What if you look at
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the Department of Education? You say
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scores have gone down. We've spent this
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money. We're not getting the results.
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Therefore, these people are incompetent.
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Therefore, I'm firing them for cause and
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I'm going to hire new people. How are
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you going to stop the executive from
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doing that? There's been a bunch of
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litigation, you know, in parallel to
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this litigation about the president's
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ability to fire people. And for the most
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part, the Supreme Court's basically,
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with maybe the exception of the Federal
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Reserve chair, said that the president
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can fire pretty much anybody he wants.
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I mean, that's the way to go is like I
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mean, I hate to be cut, but if the
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results aren't there,
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I think if they're presidential Yeah. If
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they're a presidential appointee, the
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president should be able to fire you at
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will. Just like if you were a VP at one
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of our companies, the CEO should be able
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to fire you at will.
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But what about Keith? If the whole
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department sucks. Hey, you guys were
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responsible for early education. You had
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to put together a plan. The plan failed.
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Everybody's fired. We're starting over.
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Like, you should be allowed to do that.
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How are we going to have an efficient
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government?
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Some of these departments were created
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by congressional statute like the
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Department of Education in 1979. And
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you're right, every single educational
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stat has got worse in the United States
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since the department was created. But
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there is a law on the books that says
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there shall be a department of
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education. So you may have to repeal
