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Krystal Ball
Wherever you go, whatever they get into, from chill time to everyday adventures, protect your dog from parasites with Cridellio Guattro. For full safety information, side effects and warnings, visit cordelioquatrolabel.com consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973. Ask your vet for Cordelio Cuatro and visit quattrodog.com the President of the United States. He's a convicted felon. He's an adjudicated rapist. He is clearly suffering from dementia. Cankles that are like super wide, puffy, teeny, tiny little hands with all these bruises all over him. This is not a sane person. And to prove this point, this is what the President of the United States. You used to be able to say that, and it could have been a Republican or a Democrat, but by saying that, it didn't come with an eye roll. And now it comes with this horrific, cringy eye roll. Because the President of the United States. Kanks, short for cankles McTaco tits, we want to bully the shit out of this guy as much as possible because that's what he does to the most marginalized people in this country. Here's what he puts on. Lysocial. I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War. And then there's a Photoshopped picture of him, which, according to J. Waters, real men don't Photoshop their photographs. But Kanks does it all the time. Ship Apocalypse Now. Like, this guy's some badass. I mean, if this guy were even remotely, I would say even 500 yards away from active combat, I don't think there's a diaper big enough that could contain how badly this guy would his pants. Well, JB Pritzker keeps fighting for us and he keeps popping back. The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strong man. He is a scared man. Illinois won't be intimidated by a wannabe dictator. And he ran on this, you guys. He said, I'm gonna fight the enemy from within. And that means anybody who doesn't like him or anybody who didn't vote for him, that's who his enemy is. Not Vladimir Putin. No. Not Kim Jong Un. Not Xi. Americans. This is really what's new about this. As an American president that wants to actively go to war against American citizens in blue cities, and he's not even trying to hide it.
Saagar Enjeti
And is it about crime? Because all we've heard about is he needs to go because of the crime. The crime, the crime, the crime. But then now it's the deportations. So which is it? He doesn't. He doesn't give a shit why he's going. He wants a blue city with a black mirror. In my opinion. He wants to keep the midterms from happening. He wants to prop himself up as a Putin. And it is so alarming. Every single person should be alarmed. And I'm not even going to touch how undignified that picture is, but it gets me every time, okay?
Krystal Ball
And then, you guys, it gets worse. So his number two in command, as everybody knows, is Smokey ey sociopath, who for spite we call little Smokey. And the pun is intended in that smoky for the eye and little because little dick energy from this guy. So the United States of America. You guys bombed and took out a boat that was going from Venezuela, I guess, to the United States of America. Who knows where it was going? We'll never know because it was bombed. And here is the way little Smokey presents this on Twitter. Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military. Brian Krassenstein responds. Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime. JD Vance responds to him and says, I don't give a what you call it. This is the sitting Vice President of the United States of America. And for eight years Fox News lost their goddamn minds because said Obama was trying to be a king. This is moral collapse of the highest order. But let's talk a little bit, a little bit about Little Smokey. Little Smokey wrote a book, Hillbilly Elegy, about the opioid epidemic that has plagued the United States of America. His mother, an opioid addict in recovery now. And never. Do you hear these people talking about going after Big Pharma?
Saagar Enjeti
No.
Krystal Ball
So by their logic, can you just bomb the Sackler family? Should you just bomb these pain management clinics? Should you really get strict. No, they don't do it. They don't care. This hits hard because Venezuelans are brown skinned. And in an interesting twist of this, a lot of this is the birth child of Senator Marco Rubio, Secretary, now former senator, now Secretary of State. And he has like three other jobs because that's how badly he's capitulated. Marco Rubio was confirmed 99 and 0 through the Senate. And I always think back on that because it shows you how unserious the Democrats are to fighting fascism. For me, I would think a senator would think, if this guy can triple Trump, if this guy can serve for a man that started an insurrection against the United States of America, whose supporters wanted to kill the Vice President of the United States of America, we need to think about Lil Marco's judgment. It should have been the opposite of that. The Democratic Party from the jump should have started voting no to every single one of these things. They need to defund the government. They need to get as serious as possible, because these diabolical sociopaths are dead serious on the demise of this country.
Saagar Enjeti
Well, firing on that boat, there was no evidence. They're saying, oh, it's a drug boat, but we don't know that. They could say that Trump wants to start a war with Venezuela. And here's the thing. When you look at J.D. vance and Marco Rubio 10 years ago, we've got America's Hitler. He's the con man. And now, because they have no conviction and the only thing they pledge their loyalty to is power. And they are sitting there and they are embarrassing themselves and the American brand. And J.D. vance, I think he thinks he can play the tough guy really well, but he is so inauthentic, and he's just such a low ris dick that it comes off like he's a nut. Like, he comes off every bit as crazy as Trump. And I know his problem is not dementia. It's straight up no conviction for anybody but himself.
Krystal Ball
But it's more than just embarrass themselves. They're killing people and it's crime.
Saagar Enjeti
These are crimes.
Krystal Ball
These people are killing people. They don't give a. About addiction. They do not give a shit about addiction. If they cared about addiction, then you would see a massive, massive restrictions and regulations put on the opioid industry. And it's been a little bit, but not what it needs to be. And when people can't go to their pain management clinic anymore, guess where they end up going to the streets for heroin. And so it's just all of this is total bullshit. But even Rand Paul agrees with us on this. Put this up. Rand Paul says, JD I don't give a. Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the highest and best use of the military. Did he ever read To Kill, Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without A trial. And here's the problem, you guys. Millions of Americans think little Smokey's tweet hit hard. Millions of Americans who have addicts and alcoholics and their family do not have the ability to objectively think about anything happening to anybody else until it happens to them personally. They like seeing shit blown up. They like seeing brown people being denied due process. And Donald Trump and J.D. vance is the accumulation of all of the worst of America's impulses put into one place at one time. To where even Rand Paul is the voice of reason in this and moving along. Now, these people, you guys, it's. They. They come up with stupid that they think is just like. It's all the optics of this propaganda. Pete Hagseth, who is an untreated alcoholic, back to the addiction thing. These are broken people, emotionally stunted, formed around the biggest, most emotionally stunted person on the planet right now, Donald Trump. And they've decided that we're the United States of American military has been on defense too much. Oh, God. So we're going to switch it up, you guys. We're going to go on offense. We're going to change the name the Department of War. And this is the Secretary of Defense, or now I guess I should say the Secretary of War. This is him speaking in the Oval. And this is just. Just listen to this. During victory and clarity as an end state, restoring intentionality to the use of force. So at your direction, Mr. President, the war Department is going to fight decisively, not endless conflicts. It's going to fight to win, not not to lose. We're going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct. We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. You guys, this is like regressive inner child issues, cosplaying. What's so fascinating to me about the MAGA movement is like, if you were to go and talk to a therapist in any country and say, yeah, you know, if I don't support it blindly. And I, you know, I think that we should kill people. All these things. That therapist is probably going to think you need to be institutionalized. And we have this effect of all of these Americans that go along with this, that hear this, that claim to be good Christian folk, and they hear that talk about, you know, maximum violence and maximum lethality, and they. They have a Pavlovian reaction to it. They. Their mouth salivate. So they go to church on Sunday and they pray to their Lord Jesus Christ, and then they go and Vote for a political party that does the exact opposite of all of the things that the central character of this religion does. And they like it. I mean, there is a cruelty that has been released re released because there's been a lot of cruelty in our past. But it's important to remember that all of the people now, the Christians that are with this, they've been here the whole time. These are the ones that fought against desegregation. These are the ones that were kkk. All of this has a white Christian problem. All of the worst points of American history, all the roads lead to white fanatical Christianity. All. Every single point.
Saagar Enjeti
You're completely right. And another thing that I just want to bring up is the cost of all this waste, fraud and abuse. That was doge. That was the big deal. Everything Donald Trump has done has cost billions and billions of billions of dollars for nothing. Gitmo being redone, alligator, Alcatraz, many pit money pit. Now we're spending a billion dollars on his plane from Qatar. This whole changing it to the department when it's really going to be the defense, because it's just symbolic, is a billion dollars.
Krystal Ball
Yes, I read that this is why.
Saagar Enjeti
Donald Trump bankrupted casinos right here. This kind of where you do stupid. That costs a fortune for no reason. Building, you know, turning the Rose Garden into a cement patio. That's the dumbest looking thing on the planet. That costs money. So we're going to take money away from education, we're going to take money away from cancer research so we can do stupid. That's why bankrupt casinos.
Krystal Ball
All right. And then lastly, I want to leave you with the way the propagandist arm of this dictatorship operates. Put up a tweet by Caroline Levitt. 55% of Americans approve of President Donald J. Trump. She put this up yesterday. My gal over at decoding Fox News immediately fact checks her most polls have him at 37 to 40% approval. And so you're gonna. You see a lot of that. Just believe Caroline Levitt because she Christian washes. She Christian signals. All of these people, Pete, Hegseth, Moses, Mike, all of these people, Christian signal and Christian wash. The depravity, the diabolical nature and intent of this fascist regime. I know this has been incredibly uplifting. Yeah. But, but it's important that you stay engaged because I believe that his approval rating is in the low 30s. And we have to stay focused. We have to stay locked in. Thank you so much for subscribing to our channel. If you haven't, please do so and support us by going to get our book. It's the coolest read of the fall. Life is a lazy Susan of shit sandwiches, written by none other than myself in this broad here. And we'll see you all later. It.
Episode: JD Vance Under Fire After Disgusting Rant, Sending MAGA Into Civil War
Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Date: September 8, 2025
In this fiery episode, progressive hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan (joined by commentators Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti) dissect the most recent political firestorm surrounding Vice President J.D. Vance’s inflammatory comments following a U.S. military bombing of a Venezuelan boat. The discussion explores the hard-right pivot of the Trump-Vance administration, its increasingly violent rhetoric, and the complicity and hypocrisy of right-wing Christian nationalism. The hosts satirically highlight the hallmarks of “MAGA world” politics, including cruelty towards the marginalized, performative authoritarianism, and open hostility toward blue cities, all while skewering the administration’s propagandist strategies and the Democratic party’s failures to mount a serious resistance.
"[The] President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strong man. He is a scared man. Illinois won't be intimidated by a wannabe dictator."
"I don't give a [expletive] what you call it."
"Never do you hear these people talking about going after Big Pharma."
"By their logic, can you bomb the Sackler family?... They don't care."
"J.D. Vance thinks he can play the tough guy really well, but he is so inauthentic... comes off like he's a nut."
"There is a cruelty that has been released... All the roads lead to white fanatical Christianity."
Populist Appetite for Violence
"Millions of Americans think little Smokey's tweet hit hard...They like seeing shit blown up. They like seeing brown people being denied due process."
Even Republican Senator Rand Paul—often a libertarian contrarian—is now a moderate voice for due process.
"Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment..."
"Donald Trump bankrupted casinos right here. This is where you do stupid [things] that costs a fortune for no reason."
"Just believe Caroline Levitt because she Christian washes. She Christian signals...All these people, Pete, Hegseth, Moses, Mike, all of these people, Christian signal and Christian wash the depravity..."
On President Trump’s War Language:
"Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War."
— Krystal Ball quoting Trump (01:06)
On J.D. Vance’s Indifference:
"I don't give a [expletive] what you call it."
— J.D. Vance, as recounted by Krystal Ball (03:49)
On Religion as Cover:
"They go to church on Sunday and they pray... then they go and vote for a political party that does the exact opposite of all of the things that the central character of this religion does. And they like it."
— Krystal Ball (10:41)
On Democratic Enabling:
"It shows you how unserious the Democrats are to fighting fascism."
— Krystal Ball (05:03)
On GOP “Strength”:
"We're going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct."
— Secretary of Defense (Oval Office, as quoted by Krystal Ball, 09:11)
The episode is marked by a mix of sharp humor, exasperation, and candid moral outrage. The hosts skewer right-wing personalities with biting nicknames and unfiltered language, calling out hypocrisy and cruelty while maintaining a comedic, conversational tone intended to resonate with frustrated progressives.
Summary for New Listeners:
This episode is a scathing, darkly comedic sendup of the Trump-Vance administration’s increasing authoritarianism—exposing their attacks on American cities, embrace of state violence, disregard for due process, and use of religion as a shield. Both hosts and guests deliver insightful, unsparing commentary, laced with satire, on the political moment’s most disturbing developments.