“Bad People Who Are Stunningly Ignorant” Are Running The Country, Nobel Winner Warns

Nobel Memorial Prize winning economist Paul Krugman issued a warning this week that the United States is being run by “bad people who are stunningly ignorant,” and that might be the most on-point analysis of what’s happening in the country today. Donald Trump has no idea what he’s doing, and neither do the people that he’s put in charge of federal agencies like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Linda McMahon. We are a confederacy of dunces for sure, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Paul Krugman, who of course won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences, uh, many years ago, posted an article on his substack this past week that I felt was just probably the most accurate description of what we are seeing from the Trump administration today. And I'll just get right to the point. He said, the federal government has been taken over by bad people who are also stunningly ignorant, bad people who are stunningly ignorant. I want that phrase burned into your brains. I want you to start using that phrase every single day of the week. If you ever refer to anything having to do with this Trump administration, bad people who are stunningly ignorant, needs to be a phrase that comes out during that discussion. Because never in my life, in 20 plus years in politics, have I ever seen such a single sentence that so succinctly captured What is happening in this country today?

Bad people who are stunningly ignorant. Now Krugman does in fact go on to basically only talk about Elon Musk. And look, he's right. I personally believe that Elon Musk is a very dumb person. Um, he, he, he, he's never done anything to me that screams, I am smart. But ignorance is not the same as stupidity, right? Ignorance is almost like just, I don't know these things yet, and I could, but I'm choosing not to. Ignorance is more of a choice. Stupidity is just kind of how you are. And I do think Elon Musk falls into the stupid category, but Krugman puts him in the ignorant category. But he continues and he says, so why is Musk such a hysterical enemy of the agency whose main purpose is providing humanitarian aid? There may be some backstory here in which USAID somehow interfered with a Musk project, and Musk is surely banking on public innumeracy, abolishing an agency sounds as if it will save a lot of money.

And few voters understand how small 40 billion is in the federal context. But my guess is that in Musk's worldview, the mere fact of trying to help people in need makes you a radical left Marxist who hates America. Imagine that you're a federal contractor who has made campaign donations to Democrats. Suddenly the government stops paying what it owes you and brushes off inquiries by saying that they're working on the problem. You know, now he's referring of course to Elon Musk, basically taking over the computers of the Treasury Department. Or you're a federal employee who according to somebody in your office, who has a personal grievance, has expressed sympathy for DEI. Somehow your regularly scheduled salary payments

Stop being deposited into your bank account. Or even imagine that you're a retiree who canvased for Kamala Harris, and for some reason, your checks from Social Security stop coming. The terrifying thing is that Elon Musk, with his access to these systems, could do that. Now, would that be hugely illegal? Absolutely. Would they blame it as Krugman points out on just, oh, it's a technical glitch. We're trying to figure it out Absolutely as well. Not to mention, even if they didn't, even if they said, yeah, we illegally did this, what are you gonna do? They'd be right. Like, who's, who's gonna prosecute DO J's? Not gonna prosecute 'em. It's run by the same people. The US attorney in DC has already told Musk, I'll do whatever you need me to do, man. I'll prosecute all these people standing in your way. There, there, there's no more checks.