Progressive Political Commentator (5:20)

Well, let's think about the breathtaking hypocrisy that the major majority of the people in this administration identify as Christian nationalists. And the central character of Christianity, Jesus was radically empathetic to the poor and the sick. And yet this administration constantly attacks the working class and the poor and then tells you the 1% you should be worried about are these immigrants who are good, hard working. Actually, the majority of them religious people of the same faith that they are, or trans people, which are less than 1%. Meanwhile, these downright diabolical billionaires, when they're not kissing Trump's ass, are taking corporate welfare subsidies from the American taxpayer. And it is just unbelievable. The whiplash and the hypocrisy from the party of family values, from the party of Christianity. And then when it comes time for them to show us what their faith means to them, when it comes time for them to show the American people that they are empathetic or care about every American, instead, they demean the poor. And then they try to blame people like you and Bernie Sanders who have never had to change your political positions. You always stand for the working class people. And now they're trying to make it illegal. They're trying to be the thought police and say that we can't call them fascists when what they're doing is fascist shit. And so I think it's a time for us to. Never obey in advance, Senator. Never obey in advance and call them exactly what they are. And I want to play this clip, and I want you to discuss the way that this president, this, this felon spoke to all of these generals yesterday at Quantico.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (7:11)

Play the clip, Kylie.

Donald Trump (7:12)

Important mission. And I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid. They threw him out of his family business. He was so stupid. I know the family. He becomes governor, he's got money. Not money that he made, but he ran for governor, he won, and now he criticizes us all the time. Last week they had 11 people murdered, 44 people shot. The week before that they had 5 people murdered, 28 people shot. Every weekend they lose 5, 6. If they lose 5, they're considering it a great week. They shouldn't lose any.

Progressive Political Commentator (7:59)

So, Senator, he's priming the public and the military at the same time that we're going to be against each other. And this, if anybody is a student of history, this is what fascists do. This is what autocrats do. What is your take on how dangerous and disrespectful that is to not only American citizens, but also to these career serving patriots that have served in our armed forces?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (8:22)

Boy, you hit the two words, dangerous and disrespectful. You know, all three of my brothers served in the military. One of them was career military. My oldest brother, John Reed, six years off and on in Vietnam. My brothers served proudly, but my brothers weren't trained. And my brothers didn't sign up to go after fellow Americans in our cities. That's not what they did. My brothers were willing to put their lives on the line because they wanted to defend our country from foreign adversaries. And for this president to turn that around and say, no, he wants to be able to use the military for political purposes. He's used them before as political props. He wants to be able to use our military, and he wants them to use as a training ground our cities. It is fundamentally wrong. And it's exactly as you said. Watch what he does. He kind of puts it out there and then pulls it back a little bit and then puts it out a little further and tries to get the American people to adjust to the idea that we're going to see armed soldiers walking our streets. That's not what we do in a democracy. And I often think, where is the moment when you just stand up and say, we can't do this anymore? What this man is trying to do to our democracy, and I want to say here, with the help of spineless Republicans in the Senate and in the House, is to take away the very foundation of our Constitution. And for the rest of us, it's time to stand up and be counted. It's time to say, no, no more of this. I am a proud American and I'm willing to fight for what I believe in.

Progressive Political Commentator (10:37)

When I listen to comments from leadership, I think the leadership said this week they're hopeful Republicans will come to the table on the budget bill. And I look at that and I think, are we still hopeful these Republicans are going to do the right thing? Because they haven't done the right thing yet. They have done nothing but capitulate to this man and enable this illegal behavior. So do you have hope that they are going to somehow turn around and start being fiscally responsible and do what's best for the American people instead of Trump?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (11:08)

So I'm going to say this slightly differently. It is easy to say Trump is all powerful and he's just going to do what he's going to do. But wait a minute. That is not 100% true. You may remember last March and April when we were talking about the tariffs and what all he was doing with the tariffs, and all of a sudden, stock market dropped, the bond market dropped, and boom, Donald Trump put it in reverse and backed up. He announced that he's going into Chicago. When did he announce that? 6 weeks ago? 2 months ago. He's been threatening to. And he's gotten a lot of pushback from the governor. He's gotten a lot of pushback from the people of Illinois. He's got a lot of pushback around the country. And at least I can say as of this moment, he has not done that. He said, yay, Jimmy Kimmel is off the air. Right? And then enough people push back. And Jimmy Kimmel had his best night ever. So I want to start with a sense. It's not about hope, it's a sense of our power when we push back, when we say, whoa, that is not okay with us. It's not easy. But Donald Trump starts to move back. The Republicans in the Senate start to move back. And that's why what's happening right now is so important, why Donald Trump is threatening to hurt as many people as he can if this, this back and forth over health care doesn't stop. Because what the Republicans absolutely do not want to do is have the American people, all of them, hear that right now, we're having a head to head in Washington because the Republicans would rather shut down government than give access to health care to the 15 million people that they're trying to push out of the system and keep health care affordable for tens of millions more. You know, the Democrats are not asking for a long list of things. What we're, we're not even asking for any new money for health care. And good Lord knows, our health care system is broken. There's a lot we need to do in our healthcare system. Anyone who's lived in preapproval hell or tried to get an appointment with a general practitioner understands where the healthcare system is broken. We're not asking for more money. We're just saying, don't kick 15 million people off their health care. These are people who need that health care. That's what the fight is about right now. And the Republicans want to talk about anything else. Because if enough people hear this and fight back, Donald Trump and the Republicans will back up. They backed up before. But it takes pushing back. It takes showing that you got some fight in you and that you think that this is a righteous fight, fighting for people's health care, fighting for seniors in nursing homes, fighting for brand new babies, fighting for people with disabilities, you bet. That's a righteous fight. And that is the fight we are in right now. We just need a lot of people in it with us.

Progressive Political Commentator (14:32)

And I just want to close with the elephant in the room, and I should probably say the donkey in the room, the There is there. It feels like there's a disconnect between Democratic leadership in the Beltway and the base. And we, of course, have built a community here as long as well, with other pro democracy podcasters. And the base feels like everybody's ready to take this fight, but the leader in the Senate has been not that inspiring and not that organized. And we are craving just very black and white leadership. Absolutely, positively no. We're not voting with this fascist regime. They're trying to be the thought police. They're doing fascist stuff. They're saying, you can't call them what they are. We're going to call them what they are. We're not going to obey in advance. And I feel like we could all organize and put pressure on centrist Republican senators and people in industry, industry titans. ABC effed around and found out, Senator, to the tune of billions of dollars. And it showed that we have power. And so I feel like right now, in this moment, this moment, Senator, we need massive leadership. So if you will take that to the leaders of the Senate, because the base is literally plucking their hair out by the root right now. Because we're ready to organize, we're to ready, we're ready to fight, but the, the leadership is not trickling down. And so I just want to get your take on that and a word to the base and not just the base independence and maybe triple Trumpers that were like, oh, I didn't realize he was going to do all of this. What is your message?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (16:22)

Because we're, we're.

Progressive Political Commentator (16:23)

There's a vacuum here and it needs to be filled. And I'm afraid it's going to get filled with grifters and nefarious people on the right if Democrats don't step in and fill it.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (16:33)

All hands on deck. Now is the moment. We are in the fight. The fight is to save health care for 15 million Americans. The fight is to be able to save your insurance. The fight is to be able to save our democracy. We have no kings in this country and we are not going to let Donald Trump, helped by a bunch of spineless Republicans in Congress, take over our government and decide that it works only for Donald Trump's friends, Donald Trump's donors and a handful of billionaires. We are in this fight. Health care is the tip on the spear right now because we are fighting for our grandmas. We are fighting for our babies. We are fighting for our neighbors and our friends. We are fighting for our, our own families. We are in this fight to say to the Republicans Donald Trump is not a king. Americans want access to affordable health care, and you cannot take it away so that you can give a trillion dollars to a handful of billionaires. We will call you out and we will fight you. But we need everybody in this fight. That's what gives us real power.

Progressive Political Commentator (17:52)

We're signed up. We're fired up and ready to go. Senator Warren, thank you so much for always having moral clarity and for always fighting for the people that are voiceless and exploited by corporations and by government. It just means a lot to have somebody on here that has just always had such moral clarity. Keep fighting the good fight. Good luck at work today. Yeah.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (18:18)

Hang in there. I appreciate all that you do. Keep it up.

Progressive Political Commentator (18:23)

Thank you, Senator. We'll see you soon.