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- [00:01]
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- [01:41]
Jennifer
All right, Joining me today on IHIP News is the creator and host of the Majority Report, live here in studio on Game three Day Sam Ceder. How are you?
- [01:51]
Sam Cedar
I'm well, I'm very well, thanks.
- [01:53]
Jennifer
Well, you know, he was strolling into New York to rain on everybody's parade. They're shutting down Midtown Manhattan. Pop this up. NYPD news. Starting at 4pm Vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be closed from West 30th street to West 35th. Yak Yak, blah blah. And he's already being met with a lot of pushback. First they had to build a wall around msg, which is so stupid. Let's put. Here it is. Here's the video.
- [02:22]
Sam Cedar
Oh, geez. I hadn't seen that. That's ridiculous.
- [02:26]
Jennifer
And so what's so sad about that is so many people I live pretty close to there like celebrate in front. They can't afford to go, but they can at least get close.
- [02:34]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I mean, you know. Well, there's Two things, right. Obama was a huge NBA fan and refused to go to any games because of the disruption it would cause. But also, New York ticket prices are insane. I mean, this is, you want a perfect example of the K shaped economy? This is it. Right. I mean, because you got tickets, nosebleed seats are for thousands of dollars. I saw some breakdown that it was like, cheaper for New York fans to fly to Texas to see a game in San Antonio, pay for a hotel, buy yourself a meal and buy the tickets then to see one in New York City. And at least the overflow stuff with like the, the, you know, the, the feed was provided for that and Trump has taken that away. And there's a clip of him. I don't know, maybe you were playing on. Play it. Where he's just like, that's, that's life.
- [03:31]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [03:31]
Sam Cedar
And for him, it is life. Like his whole life has been avoiding the fact that this guy was born with hundreds of millions of dollars in his bank account. Yeah. And the idea that, like, none of this stuff has been out of his reach at any time in his life. And it's just life for him to have to, like, realize, like, I'm going to inconvenience people, but what I do is more important than them. Yeah.
- [03:59]
Jennifer
He's just like, tough titties. Well, of course, New York is already greeting him appropriately. Pop this up. So this is in the subway. Go Nicks Trump. And then there's sidewalk chalk all in front of Madison Square Garden. Go Nicks Trump. And I love this for him. Now, predictions. Do you think they're going to put his face up on the Jumbotron when he went to the US Open? They did not.
- [04:26]
Sam Cedar
I, I can't imagine they're going to do that because they have to know. Someone in his entourage has to know because I think mum Donnie is going to be there. I think he's going to be in the nosebleeds.
- [04:40]
Jennifer
He's going to be in the nosebleeds.
- [04:41]
Sam Cedar
And I suspect they won't put his face up on the Jumbotron because then people will be like, why didn't you put Trump's face on the jumbotron? But if I had to bet, and I don't, I actually have a problem with how, how easy it is to bet on these things. But that if there isn't a F Trump chant that happens at one point, I'll be shocked.
- [05:07]
Jennifer
I would be too. Okay, okay. True serum polygraph. Do you think Trump, deep, deep down is hoping he runs into Zoron I mean, the happiest I've ever seen.
- [05:18]
Sam Cedar
Do you think he's just, like, chasing him around?
- [05:20]
Jennifer
I do. You know, he texts him. He gets all fluffed up in his bed and texts him. Like, he texts him frequently.
- [05:27]
Sam Cedar
You know, I have no idea. But I wouldn't be surprised. He's a very demented guy. I mean, I think, like, literally and sort of like colloquially speaking, I think he's a very demented guy. I think he's just so excited that he doesn't have to deal with the war that he has lost. And, you know, just all of the planning about, I've got to go to New York and I'm going to see the game. I mean, the best is going to be if it's a tight game when he leaves with like, 10 minutes left in the. In the game, because he doesn't really care.
- [05:59]
Jennifer
No, he doesn't give a.
- [06:00]
Sam Cedar
No, he doesn't give a.
- [06:01]
Jennifer
All right. Speaking of not giving a, I came across this tweet on Twitter, and this is Congressman Ted Lou. And this is just really revealing. And I want us to analyze this. Pop this up. I endorsed Xavier Becerra. That's why I hope Republican Steve Hilton remains in the top two. The latest vote updates show Hilton will likely beat Steyer. So let's dissect that. Here is a Democrat rooting for a Republican. And we see this right now. This is at the epicenter of the Democratic Party, where you have corporate Dems. And I have a question. Do they hate progressive Dems more than they hate maga? Because why wouldn't he want two Democrats in there making us a stronger party?
- [06:51]
Sam Cedar
I mean, that's the. I mean, his tweet doesn't hold up because it's not going to be Steyer vs Hilton. It would be Steyer vs Becerra if Steyer got in there, because Becerra is clearly going to be the candidate. You know, there was a writer, Kevin Drum from the Washington Monthly, who years ago wrote about the iron law of institutions, which was that people would rather have the institution fail and not lose their position in it than have the opposite lose their position, have the institution succeed. And I think there's a lot of Democrats who feel really threatened by the. The energy behind the more sort of progressive wing of the Democratic Party. And I think that's a big fear. And I think, you know, Lou doesn't understand that he's telling on himself in that instance. This is not a choice between, you know, Hilton and Stier. It's a choice Between Becerra and Stier, if Styr gets in there. I mean, we see it like, you know, that's the funny thing about what's going on with the, the, the Democratic or, or the, the conspiracy theories around the, the mayor race because the establishment, which ostensibly would be in charge of, you know, faking the ballots, they want Bass. Right. And Bass has a much better chance against Spencer than she would against a progressive Democrat.
- [08:25]
Jennifer
Right.
- [08:26]
Sam Cedar
And so it, it's fascinating, but this is something that I feel like I've seen for a long time, and I think we're seeing it a lot with, like, in the, the. The Platner race. I think we're seeing it. I mean, the, the level of desperation there is. Is intense. I think there was, you know, this goes back to like, the abundance stuff. There was a Sen establishment and the corporate influence could influence Harris. And that they were gearing up for that. They were gearing up from it, like, you know, trying to demonize Lena Khan. They were trying to undermine some of the more progressive things that Bide. The Biden administration did. And when Harris lost, they were not ready for it. And you're seeing, I think, like, you know, progressives don't have the strength. They don't have the money yet that the, the corporate wing of the party does. And frankly, like the APAC money that filters in through derivatives. But there's, you know, Chris Robb in Pennsylvania, we have others. Well, they're worried about Syed and they're worried about Platner because it, it's. In the event that these guys make it to the Senate, it's going to be a very different Senate caucus than we've seen in the past, without a doubt. And I think we're going to see a more progressive Democratic caucus. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's, like, dominated by them. It won't be, but it's headed in the right direction. From my perspective, anyways.
- [10:09]
Jennifer
I agree it's like baby steps. But I think at the epicenter of Ted Lou's tweet where he's cheering for a Republican to win because he wants a Republican versus a Democrat is really telling. And it reminded me a lot of the mayoral race here. And you had all of these headlines, you everybody's going to leave New York. Crime's going to go 25%, I think was the prediction, 25%. And then, so his accomplishments in 2026, major crime is down 8%. Citywide, he secured over 1.2 billion in a partnership with centrist Hokel. So they Work together, he secured more than 9 million in restitution for workers and small businesses. He expanded, protected time off for 4.3 million workers and filled 100,000 potholes in his first 100 days. And here were the headlines before. Let's look at these. Electing Zoran Momdani New York City Mayor would Spur Huge Cop exodus. Rising crime Straight out of Gotham City. Zoran Mamdani Success is a warning Escape from New York Researcher Predicts New York City Business Exited Exodus of Zoron Mamdani wins. Well, then he does the pieta tear tax and was like, oh, luxury real estate's gonna tank. It's up.
- [11:23]
Sam Cedar
Right. Well, and, you know, are they scared
- [11:27]
Jennifer
that once somebody like him shows us
- [11:30]
Sam Cedar
100%, you know, who didn't leave, who promised he would, is Andrew Cuomo. He's supposed to be in Florida right now. I honestly, like, I don't know, like, the idea that this guy is still even in New York State is an abomination. But, yes, they are scared. And I think, like, this is, you know, and I think to some extent, this is what scares them about Platner with New York. And remember, they also compared him to Spanberger, right? Like in Virginia. Like, they were trying to make it like both Spanberger and Mamdani after Mamdani won, they were trying to make a comparison there. Her approval rating is in the toilet now, and Mamdani's has soared. It has increased by, I don't know, 25% since he's not 25 percentage points, but maybe 10, 15 percentage points. But since he's gotten an office. And there's also, like, even from an intangible standpoint, he's worked on, like, creating a spirit about the city and about what government can do. And I think, to a large extent, that's very threatening because, you know, part of the reason why a corporate wing of the Democratic Party wants to get out there and say, there are certain things you can't do, you just can't do them? Well, I would love to, but we can't do them. And to see Mamdani have this success, they said he's never going to get the money for universal childcare. They're not going to do anything with the buses. Like you say, people are going to leave, et cetera, et cetera. And then their fallback position is like, this is New York. The rest of the country is not like New York. And then you start to see Platner build a movement up in Maine and really just destroy the establishment candidate. I Mean, regardless of what people say about, like, there's no way that Janet Mills is going to win and we're going to find that out tomorrow. But for sure. But obviously he just destroyed her and he motivated people with a very similar tact, not the exact same policies, but this perspective of like, there's, there are people who are responsible for the immiseration of the American public. Like we are making. The country has huge gdp, somebody's getting that money, and it's increasingly in the hands of a smaller group of people. And I think that is very threatening. And then once it happens in Maine, I think there's even a fear like, what if it happens in Nebraska? And then this is something that begins to undermine the narrative that we've been told that you don't understand in New York what people want in the heartland of the country. And it's true. I mean, there are states that there's a lot of conservatism. A lot of it is like social conservatism and cultural conservatism, and that's what's most important to those people as opposed to sort of like a material benefits. But at the end of the day, I think they're very threatened by an economic populism. They are. And every time it succeeds, they've got to find something. And now in New York, the complaints against Mamdani have gotten increasingly sort of like narrow and just bizarre. Yeah, I mean, at one point they were trying to push that he had cursed the Mets.
- [14:50]
Jennifer
How much do you think the through line with the hysteria over Zoron, the hysteria over Mamdani, the hysteria over Abdullah Said has to do with AIPAC and Israel and the optics for somebody like me who grew up in middle America, Muslims, bad terrorists, multiple wives kill white people with impunity. I mean, that's, that's the propaganda. And then you see this Muslim man in New York that has the tri, you know, the trans flag and he's fighting for workers and never really talks about religion ever. Where the politicians where I come from are using religion, you know, to control. How much do you think these people bashing that stereotype, A senator named Abdul Al Sayed bashes that stereotype. How, how scared do you think the propagandists that keep all of that intact, the Israel dream intact, how scary is that for them?
- [15:50]
Sam Cedar
Well, I think for, for like from a Zionist perspective, it's very scary because much of what, you know, having grown up in a Jewish family where, I don't know that we perceived ourselves as Zionists back Then it was just, you supported Israel and there was a narrative about Arabs and you know, maybe not till after 9, 11, from like a Muslim perspective. And I think like without the ability of demonizing Arabs or Palestinians or whatnot, things become a lot harder. And I think, you know, what has happened over the past couple of years, we saw it with Cori Bush, we saw Jamaal Bowman, is that the corporate forces found a way to basically launder their money to run against these progressives through DMFI or apac and their, and, and then also combined with Democrats who are also Zionists and they all sort of found like a common home like this. These are the, these are the same people that we're going to go after. So I think like a lot of that money has co, mingled and yeah, I think there's a tremendous amount of fear that these things are being normalized and it's harder to otherize people who are of Arab descent or Muslim. And that's a problem. I mean it's, and it's a problem that is happening at such a rate for them. I mean it's, it's stunning. The popular opinion has changed both in the Democratic Party for sure and amongst independents. But even younger people in the Republican Party no longer sort of knee jerk support Israel. And I, I, I think they're going to get increasingly desperate frankly, and I don't know how that plays out, but it's scary.
- [17:43]
Jennifer
Don't you think that desperation is playing out a little bit right now with Netanyahu knowing, okay, we have this idiot in America right now, Trump, we can go all gas, no brakes. This is our moment. This is the time to Balkanize Iran. This is the time for the Greater Israel Product Project. And not only is it Netanyahu, but it's all of these tech oligarchs everybody's just sucking out of him and he doesn't give a shit. He's just worried about his, you know, vanity projects.
- [18:11]
Sam Cedar
Absolutely. I mean, I think that's the dynamic. I mean, I think it, Netanyahu knew this was his last bite at the apple. I mean, also for him personally probably too. I mean he's, you know, he's in his 80s and I think Trump allowed him and I think Trump was, is, you know, either of not sound mind enough or easily convinced or, I mean, I, I'm convinced that there's a dollar that he feels like he's going to make from this or at least initially. I don't know what that was, but that's usually what. And so Yes, I think they're going full force. There's a real quality and I think amongst the Republican Party in general and we're seeing it like, you know, with like, guys like Russell Vogt and the Heritage Foundation. There's a real quality of like, we're in the getaway car now. Like, this is it. I mean, you know, so polling be damned. Politicize, you know, trying to trim our sails in some way to try and maintain be damned. We need to get everything we can. And we're seeing that like, on a daily basis, like Supreme Court.
- [19:18]
Jennifer
Well, the shadow docket.
- [19:19]
Sam Cedar
The shadow docket. But just the other day, you remember schedule F from the end of the first Trump administration. And this was a plan. There's about 40,000 civil servants in the government. And there was a plan that the, that Russ vote and the Heritage foundation and the whole project, 2025 people had to get rid of the civil service protection. They want to do it for 40,000. They've done it now just the other day for 8,000 of the top level of civil service. So these jobs are going to be, and we're talking about this has been in something that's been in effect for, you know, 150 some odd years in this country to make sure that we have good government. And Trump is going to replace us with a political patronage system and he's going to make people take a, you know, some type of loyalty test and whatnot. And, and this is, you know, when we, when I came in here, like, how you doing? I'm like, this is the thing that's really keeping me up at night because there's, there's things that a new Democratic administration in 2029 can change. Right? And there's, you know, stuff that's more obvious and there's policies that you can reverse. But my biggest fear is, regardless of who wins that election in 2029, and hopefully it'll be a Democrat, is that there's only so much bandwidth, there's only so much resources an administration has. There's only so many bodies, there's only so much money. And the destruction of our administrative state is so extensive that nobody coming in, in their first four years, you're going to be able to fix everything. I mean, it's going to take two terms, three terms, four terms to fix this stuff. And you don't start in the destruction that's happening today. You don't see for years. And so five, ten years from now as we start to see, like the degradation of sciences I had on the program. Today we had Jonathan Cohen, who had written this piece about there has been a incredible discovery or the development of a treatment for pancreatic cancer, one that caused all these oncologists in the middle of a presentation to get up and spontaneously standing ovation. But the mechanisms that led to that, it doesn't happen overnight. You're talking about 20, 25 years of government funded research that has led us to this moment. Well, now that pipeline is done, like we've destroyed it, we've destroyed the grant making. You've got people, you know, you've got a somewhat of a brain drain. You've got people going into other professions and not pursuing this stuff. We're not going to feel that as a population for five, 10 years down the road when all of a sudden there's just nothing in the pipeline. None of these things are being built on because we've lost a generation of scientists and I don't know how many people are going to say like, oh, well, the reason why we haven't had this progress is a function of what happened five, seven years ago. And this is the case with the epa, the fda, with climate change. There's a whole host of the sec. The next financial crisis we have, if it doesn't happen immediately, the seeds are being planted down the road, whether it's from like the D regulation in crypto, I mean, on and on. And this is the part that really keeps me up at night because this is. We're undermining the structure of things in such a way that even a candidate that we would love, pick your favorite coming in, they're not going to be able to fix all this quickly. And I don't know what kind of patience the American public is going to have for this. I don't think there's a broad understanding of it. We don't even cover it because there's so many other stories. Like, you know, what would have been a top line story, you know, five years ago is like the 12th story of the day type of thing. It's scary.
- [23:33]
Jennifer
It's really scary. And it brings everything, always brings me to how the Democrats are messaging. That's why when I come across Ted Lieu's tweet, I'm like, our number one mission should be anybody who is a Republican we want to defeat, period. We don't care if it's a primary where, you know, like in the ranked primaries like they have in California and the patronizing way that corporate Democrats treat the electorate, electorate really bothers me. And so here's A video of David Brooks who was married to a woman for 28 years and he left his wife to marry a research assistant who was 23 years his junior. And I don't give a shit if he does that. Free country whatevs. What I hate is, are hypocrites. I can't because I grew up in the Bible Belt and always the most sanctimonious people are always the biggest hypocrites. 12 times out of 10. So here's David Brooks talking about Graham Platner.
- [24:34]
Sam Cedar
Play the clip to a public office, a person of basic integrity. And second, do I agree with him? But if you haven't, if you've gotten rid of the first criteria, then you have weakened your democracy. And Republicans clearly did that with Trump and now Democrats, really, if they, if they side with Platner, I don't want to hear too much about Trump in the future and his moral degeneracy. Jonathan to that.
- [24:55]
Jennifer
Okay, so here's my thing about this. Susan Collins has a record of being a fascist, period. She is, it's no longer fascist collaboration. I called her a fascist the other day and we have a decades long record. Her rat women in states where I'm from, in Oklahoma, where she voted to give rapists more rights and more privacy than a rape victim. She has enriched herself, you know, millions upon millions of dollars. She votes with Trump over 90 something percent of the time. She voted for all of these unqualified dipshits to be in his cabinet that are dismantling all of the stuff that's keeping you up at night. She is a, an absolute fascist. And this guy gets on here and lectures us. And I think it was James Carville who said, look, we got a fucked up candidate, but he's got to win.
- [25:45]
Sam Cedar
Right?
- [25:46]
Jennifer
And that's kind of where I think we are in this fight for democracy. What's your take on all that?
- [25:50]
Sam Cedar
Well, David Brooks is a Republican and nobody's taken him seriously. And the thing is he's not had a constituency for years. You know, the New York Times would hire people like David Brooks ostensibly to represent the conservative perspective on things, but he's not a conservative. I mean he is hated by the conservatives. Just he is the corporate Democrats fantasy of what a Republican is, honestly. And, and you know, part of the problem has been, and it's changing slightly, but we still have some holdouts. Starting in 2016, the Democratic Party had the opportunity to tie Donald Trump to the Republican Party. Like if you go back in October and September of 2016, they were not attacking Paul Ryan. They were not forcing Paul Ryan to say, like, what is your perspective on this guy? They were not saying it to Mitch McConnell. You had Chuck Schumer, in fact, in October of 2016, was saying, like, I've got Schumer, for whatever reason, talked about himself in the third person.
- [26:48]
Jennifer
I've got Clinton do the impersonation.
- [26:50]
Sam Cedar
Well, I don't have the right glasses, but I've got Schumer, I've got Clinton, and I've got Paul Ryan. And we're going to do a repatriation of overseas taxes, and we're going to do an infrastructure bill. And they wanted to protect, like, you know, and we've had this over and over again. Obama, Biden, the fever's gonna break. The Republican Party's gonna return to the mean Nancy Pelosi. We need a strong Republican Party. They rhetorically, and I would argue also even legislatively, in some respects, protected the Republican Party instead of tying Donald Trump to it. He was not a Republican. He was not the Republican Party. He was maga. And then he wasn't just maga, he was extreme maga. Like, I mean, they constantly add these qualifiers to take him away from the Republican Party. In fact, you know, Kamala Harris go around the Republican Party and I represented by, you know, Liz Cheney and I, we're, you know, we're the normal people. He's this outsider. No, he exists today as president because the Republican Party was this party. They had created a suit and he walked into it. He was exactly what the Republican Party had been building.
- [28:07]
Jennifer
They incubated him.
- [28:08]
Sam Cedar
They incubated him. Well, they were waiting for a guy like him to come along totally. And the. The Democratic leadership refused to sort of acknowledge this for years. Now, even Democrats, who I don't agree with from an ideological perspective, younger ones of a different, or I should say of a different political generation, recognize that you need to be partisan, that the Republican Party, you can't. But we still have a leadership that refuses to take this position. And it gets complicated with a guy like Chuck Schumer who is, in fact, I think, very much behind a war with Iran. I think he would argue, like, maybe Trump has messed it up in some way, but he was very slow to come out. You know, he was complaining about side deals with Iran, a side deal to avoid a war. Like, I mean, this is not the messaging that is helpful. And I think the Democrats are going to underperform.
- [29:08]
Jennifer
Now.
- [29:08]
Sam Cedar
We. They very well may do. They may take the House, they very may well take the Senate. But I think there's probably a point or two that they're underperforming because they're trying to build a narrative now that these Republicans are supporting Donald Trump, that there is no difference. When you vote for Susan Collins, you're voting for Donald Trump. And they're behind and they've had 10 years to do this. But our last president was, was inviting the Republicans. And when they were talking about the build back better bill, the reason why that thing stalled and ultimately fell apart was because Joe Biden, instead of after the American Rescue plan passes in February or March of 2021, he puts the brakes on. And he says, the Republicans, mind you, at that point in the wake of the passage of that, you can go back and look at this. You know what they were talking about? They were talking about Dr. Seuss. They were talking about two books that Dr. Seuss were not publishing. So you have your opponents, like completely flailing around. Joe Manchin at that time. If you go back to what Joe Manchin was saying in March and April of 2021, he was saying that the build back better bill, while Bernie was saying it should be 6 trillion, Joe Manchin was saying it should be 9 trillion. And instead of like taking this momentum, Joe Biden says, like, I gotta show the American public that we're bipartisan. And he invites the Republicans in and they dick around for two or three months because they have no interest in doing this. I mean, come on, like, like, how many times do you have to learn this lesson? They have no interest in voting for any of this. And then when they don't come up with anything, he allows Portman no longer an elected Republican and Sinema no longer an elected Democrat come in with their deal. And meanwhile, just around that time is when Joe Manchin's on tape with his donors finding out like, oh, I shouldn't vote for this. And that's when Joe Manchin becomes a problem there. And that's when the whole thing. And that's when health insurance expires for Americans, Extended unemployment dies for Americans. The child, the earned child income, or I should say the child tax credit, which kept. Which took 45% of children out of poverty. We did that in a year. We did that. That's when that expires. I mean, all of the benefits that came from the American Rescue act just vaporize essentially because of this notion that the Republican Party is still a legitimate good faith partner in governing. And it is so clear they are not.
- [31:55]
Jennifer
It's so clear they are not. And it's so Clear that we're talking about Schumer, that he isn't really a good faith actor in our government. And here's what I have to say as a person who lived 51 years in a red state. Republicans love rat Democrats. And when they rat Democrats, everybody gets. And I wish that Democrats would rat Republicans because what that ends up looking like is a lot of the way that Zoron is governing here. You get. They will hate it so much. So you get to satisfy that, you know, just you, you fascist pieces of we're going to govern well. But it trick it actually is trickle down. The only thing that trickles down in Republican policies are lies. They are pathological liars. The branding have done marching into red site saying wealth will trickle down. And you know, we have to, we, we have no regulations at all. And the. You and I talked about this one night at a party in Christmas over Christmas was how the Democrats abandoned all of these rural states. So where I live right now in Oklahoma, you have the primaries tomorrow. These Republican gubernatorial candidates, Sam, they are out anti transing each other so bad. One of the candidates has a banana on a butcher block and talks about we're going to get rid of the W trans ideology in school. Like he's castrating the banana. And it's, it's such a race to the bottom and one of these nuts is going to win. But what happens is the electorate gets crazier and more unhinged. So this, this idea that Biden or that Obama has, we have to work with Republicans. The Republican Party and their media ecosystem is incubating something worse than Trump. And I know this because I saw the Tea Party become maga and I just know these people. MAGA is now going to become the gripers or the Tucker Carlson thing. And it's not good. The Mormons are finding out right now just how welcome they are in that tent.
- [33:55]
Sam Cedar
Yep. Yeah. I mean the failure of the 50 state or I should say to maintain the 50 state strategy, Rahm Emanuel resented it and shut that down. When Obama got elected in 08, I mean it was sort of like you were starting to develop an infrastructure. You're not going to necessarily win. Not necessarily. At least in the short term, maybe long term, you'll hit some places and you'll win. You'll also draw resources. I mean, I don't know if Talarico is going to win, but I do know that the Republicans are going to have to pour a ton of money into that race. Same with Dan Osborne in Nebraska. I don't know, and it's going to pull money from Maine or Maine is going to pull money from other places. I mean there's, it makes a difference. And it also makes a difference just because so many races have become nationalized that it's important to spread your message to these other places. And I think it's been an abject failure of the Democrats from a strategic standpoint to go after, to compete in these states because you don't know, you don't know who's going to come out of these elections. You don't know if you're going to build one, one person. You don't know if there is a, you know, a particularly talented politician in one of these, these states that could become national. I mean, you know, here's one of the things about Platner that I'm excited about. He's gone around the state, he's been around the state at least once. The places like where no Canadas have gone in a long time. Maine's a small state. I mean it's physically big, but it's, but it's, you know, not many people, people know each other, but he's getting people involved. And the value of that is not just he can win in the fall. I think that's going to help him and hopefully he can. But again, Colin, you know, Collins is like, she survives a lot of these things. But if he does win, not only has he built an infrastructure to support him from a legislative perspective going forward, but you know, Angus King is 81, 82 years old. I think he's, I don't know if he's up for reelection now. I can't remember in 28 or, or 30. But the, the fact is, is that like that infrastructure.
- [36:07]
Jennifer
Yes.
- [36:07]
Sam Cedar
That Platner is going to build gives us a much better shot than just, I mean, just as how flawed Mills was as a candidate. Like, you know, she's one term like yeah, first of all that would have helped hurt the Democratic Party because then they got to restart again. Right?
- [36:24]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [36:25]
Sam Cedar
A typical Mainer would be like, wait a second, we're, we're trading the seniority of one 80 year old in Collins for an 80 year old who's not going to have the seniority and then it's going to go and start the clock again. But if Platner builds this infrastructure and can win, that's an infrastructure that is going to get us a much better candidate. When Angus King goes and you know, he's 81, 82, I don't, and I
- [36:48]
Jennifer
would argue Because I see the rot at what happens in a red state where Republicans are the only operating party and all of the electorate is, is pathologically lied to and propagandized to and they end up, you know, they're capitalists with no capital that go and vote for Elon Musk. And all these people have all these tax break it. It makes for a better electorate. Texas keeps trending and trending and trending and it's helping people realize what the fundamental problems with unregulated capitalism and the fundamental problems in the United States what they are. Because in Oklahoma when you just hear these two nut job radical. I'm talking everything that everybody thinks a Muslim is. Those people exist and they're Christians and they Bible Belt. They. It is the scariest ever and it keeps a healthier electorate for the electorate to hear two different sides of what's going on. If it's only Republican politics, these people get incubated and so mad and so crazed. Oklahoma in the early 2000s we had a Democratic governor Brad Henry. We were ranked 17th is in education. Since then we've had Republican super majorities, House, state House, state Senate, Supreme Court and Governorship. We went through Mary Fallon and now Kevin Stitt. We are ranked 50th in education and there's nobody there.
- [38:17]
Sam Cedar
There's no infrastructure there to remind people of this and point it out.
- [38:20]
Jennifer
Exactly.
- [38:21]
Sam Cedar
I mean you know had we kept that 50 state strategy in the aughts I think about Kansas when Sam Brownback came in and brought in Arthur Laffer of the Laffer Curve and they did their big experiment. They got rid of the regulations, they got rid of, of, of income taxes. They let the S Corps essentially run wild there and it took about, I think it was two or three years. They, they had full control of everything. They imposed the, you know, the Laffer curve and the whole theory that like you know, without if you're not taxing then you're going to get more revenue. Well, well it turns out if you don't tax, you don't get more revenue. Revenue. They start cutting the education system in Kansas, including the higher education which was like the jewel of Kansas and there's no Democratic Party. The Republicans voted to increase taxes because they were in such dire straits. And you don't have a Democratic Party there that's functioning in a way that can articulate this to people in the real time in local media markets.
- [39:26]
Jennifer
It makes people sick. It makes for a sick electorate.
- [39:29]
Sam Cedar
They took Brown back in the first Trump administration and they literally made him Ambassador to faith. Because they wanted to get rid of this guy so quickly, like shot him into the ether. Because this was a perfect example of like, you got everything you wanted.
- [39:46]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [39:47]
Sam Cedar
You followed the, the laugher curve, which is like their Bible, right?
- [39:50]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [39:51]
Sam Cedar
The less we tax, the more people are going to make money. It's going to trickle down. This is where it trickled down or voodoo economics came from, as George Herbert Walker had said to Ronald Reagan. And we had the perfect, like, from, from the perspective of, of Democrats who, who believe that we should have taxes both to fund government, which you definitely need on a state level, but also to maintain some type of total wealth equality. But the inequality we have now is just absolutely insane. And that opportunity was completely missed. You never hear any reference to Kansas. And it was a perfect example. I mean, Arkansas, when they did the, when they did. In Georgia also when they did the, the means testing or the. You need to work if you're on Medicaid. Complete failures. Complete failures. But there's nobody there locally. There's not enough infrastructure there locally to communicate this.
- [40:54]
Jennifer
And that's the thing my husband always says, because people in Oklahoma are like, you know, Oklahoma is just in such a bad place, blah, blah, blah. And he always says if there were a Democrat here to say, if you're upset with the way things are being run, it is a Republican's fault. They control everything and they have for over 20 years. This is what Republican policies look like. You have it live and in real time. Okay, I want to play one final video for you. This is Tom Homan fuming to Lara Trump. Play the clip.
- [41:24]
Sam Cedar
When you keep using those, you know, the Nazis secret police racist, that instills violence. That's why Death threats against ICE officers are up 8,000%. When a U.S. senator or a congressman or a governor or a mayor can come out and call us the Nazis racist secret police that encourages these protests that turn violence and that small percentage of, I mean, what do you call a police force that they're all in masks. They're all in masks.
- [42:01]
Jennifer
Yeah. And they can kill people and there's no investigation. They get. Just relocated to another place.
- [42:07]
Sam Cedar
I mean, the, the idea that, like this is that complaints are up or that threats are up against them and God knows, you know, how they're. They're calculating. But here's what strikes me as incredible. They're going after the worst of the worst. Right. They're going after trend agua or, you know, gangland. If there had been an ICE agent shot in a shootout with One of these really dangerous immigrants. Do you think we would have heard about it? I mean, honestly? I mean, this person would be, you know, running for whatever, for governor of whatever state. I mean, they are going after mothers, grandmothers, fathers, children.
- [42:59]
Jennifer
They're going after people with paperwork issues and not criminals.
- [43:02]
Sam Cedar
Oh, 100%. Right, 100%. And you know, look, the Biden administration, the Obama administration, the Obama administration went hog wild with it. Went after, you know, immigrants who. With criminal records. This, this stuff, when Homan does that, this is just, he's just talking to the base. I mean, that's, that's the only thing that like, you know, gives me some encouragement. Whether it's like the people going after Mamdani at this point, they're just talking to an increasingly smaller. Now granted, it's making them more rabid.
- [43:39]
Jennifer
It is.
- [43:39]
Sam Cedar
And making them more intense, but it's an increasingly smaller group of people and they're not even trying to extend their message. And the, and the, and the trouble they have. You know, this, maybe this is hopeful thinking. My part is that the more they talk to those people, the crazier they sound to other people. I don't know if you remember when Michelle Bachman did.
- [44:02]
Jennifer
Yes.
- [44:03]
Sam Cedar
Fonts of the State of the Union. It was a fascinating thing. And I call this the, the Bachmann after that, that speech she gave, she was doing CNN had their camera in and there was a closed circuit camera for the Tea Party. And so she's, this is the CNN camera, but she's talking to the Tea Party camera. So the CNN camera is looking at her and she's talking like this. And it looks like you're just sitting there going like, wait, who is she talking to? And it just seems like you, and the point is like increasingly you can't talk to those people simultaneously.
- [44:42]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [44:42]
Sam Cedar
Because if you're talking to normal people on that camera, the MAGA people or the Republican Party says like what? That's crazy. But if you're talking to the Republican people, the majority of the country go, that's crazy. And so they are talking to a smaller, increasingly smaller group of people. And it's scary because, you know, I don't know what Trump is going to do. I mean, if the, if the Democrats are able to take both houses of Congress, at least there's going to be some, you know, leverage there. Less so if they just take the House. But it's going to get a lot uglier.
- [45:27]
Jennifer
It's going to get uglier. And he's already completely rat JD Vance I mean, he has completely rat him. He sent him to Pakistan. He sent him to an Erica Kirk thing. He sent him to campaign with Viktor Orban. He made him. The frauds are. He said he could. If JD does a good enough job with as the frauds are, he'll clean up the national devs. It's such intentional rat, and I love it. But I'm on a Marco Rubio rat watch, because right now they need Marco because Marco is the only one that actually knows how to govern, that has an idea, because the rest of them are such dipshits. But Trump doesn't have the decency to be like, all right, Marco, you take on the MAGA movement. He doesn't have that in him. He's a petty old queen. So I'm on this Marco Rubio rat watch because I think it's coming because he doesn't want to think about anybody being the heir apparent. And now Marco Rubio is, like, going up in the markets, the bed cow or whatever all that is. And as soon as that gets on Trump's feed, the rat in Marco is going to happen, and I cannot wait.
- [46:33]
Sam Cedar
And the only thing I can imagine is that Susie Wiles is saying that Marco can help with the Senate in a way that Vance can't. And if the Senate is, you know, 51, 49 after this election, I mean, if the Democrats take control, then Marco is useless.
- [46:49]
Jennifer
Yeah, right.
- [46:50]
Sam Cedar
I mean, he's just useless. But if it's very tight, then Marco probably has some utility to. To Trump. So we'll see. But I think, yeah, he just gets, like, he gets, you know, he wants to see which one is going to be, you know, more sycophantic to him. And I think on some level also, Trump is in the realm, like, I'm not going to run again. I don't need Peter Thiel's money. I don't need, you know, this money. All I need is, I need to, like, have my. My beak wet by whatever is going on at any given point. He's just like, this is just that. They're just, like, literally in the getaway car and just grabbing as much cash as they can.
- [47:32]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [47:32]
Sam Cedar
And that's it.
- [47:33]
Jennifer
So my grandmother, before she died, she was in a nursing home, and I'd go see her and she'd go, hey, Jennifer, come here, darling. I got this wheelchair from the lady across the hall. Make sure you take it right out to your car, honey. You can have it. Then she had stolen some other people's clothes, and there was all this all this drama at the nursing home going on where they were gossiping about each other, stealing from each other, stealing motors, and I was just take it up to the nurses station. But that's what I imagine Trump is doing right now. Except for it's our federal government.
- [48:01]
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
- [48:02]
Jennifer
And we have these impotent losers, degenerates, Republicans. And that's why it makes me so insane when I hear, like Obama recently said, I want a strong Republican Party. And I'm like, my God.
- [48:15]
Sam Cedar
And that's the point, is that they should be blamed for every single thing. It doesn't like, you know, it's fine to blame Donald Trump. He's despicable. But in terms of like any type of, like, political salience and valance going forward, you need to blame every Republican for every horrible thing that Donald Trump does because they're enabling it. They could have hearings tomorrow on all the pardons. They could have hearings tomorrow on the slush fund. They could have hearings tomorrow on the idea that he's got a free pass from the irs. They could have hearings on all of the like, like the, the millions of dollars from like the detention centers, the AIs. They could, they could have hearings on every single thing. And every time we don't. It should be the Democrats saying they're standing in the way of this.
- [49:11]
Jennifer
Well, they're the pro crime party, like pro corruption party over and over again.
- [49:15]
Sam Cedar
It's not that, you know, Trump owns the Republican Party. The Republicans own Trump.
- [49:20]
Jennifer
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Sam Cedar
That's the dynamic that has to happen, happen. Like Republicans own Trump. And you've got to every day remind people that Donald Trump would not be able to do anything. He wouldn't be able to tweet. He wouldn't be able to. He wouldn't be able to like, you know, build whatever he's going to build or whatever it is that you find not, you know, obnoxious or disgusting about Donald Trump. He's able to do that because the Republicans are okay with it. And you put them on the spot. You make them like, like you make them deal with it. And, you know, and, and part of the problem is like this notion of like the Senate collegiality. And John TH really wants to do the right thing. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. He. Donald Trump is because of John Th.
- [50:03]
Jennifer
Agree.
- [50:03]
Sam Cedar
That should be the, that should be what is articulated by Democratic leaders at this point. And we don't hear it. We don't hear it.
- [50:11]
Jennifer
No. And we need to. Sam Cedar, thank you. I hope that you, as always. This is so it's the best. Watch the Majority report every day with Sam and my friend Emma and it was so great to have you in person.
- [50:22]
Sam Cedar
Thank you. It's great. I love the news hat.
- [50:25]
Jennifer
Thank you.
- [50:37]
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