← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Pentagon Chief Under Fire
00:41:39
Trump defense secretary Pete Hegseth is under fire and facing allegations of having committed or overseen a war crime. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports on the latest developments.
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- [00:00]
John Caramanica
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David Frum
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I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle and I started Olive in June because let's be real, we all deserve to have gorgeous nails. But who wants to spend a fortune? That's why I created the Gel Mani system so you can have that salon quality gel manicure right at home. And guess what? The best part, each mani only costs $2. And here's a little something extra. Head over to OliveAndJune.com and get 20% off your first gel mani system with code HELLOGEL20. That's code HELLOGEL20 for 20% off your first mani system at OliveAndJune.com HELLOGEL20 the Trump administration is facing very real problems right now. That includes a legal rejection. This has been breaking late breaking news. The Trump DOJ has failed in what was a do over of another failure. You may recall all of these cases they've brought against perceived opponents, their so called enemies list. Well, what you see is several of those were dismissed. And the update is tonight we have the news. They have failed to re indict the New York Attorney general, Letitia James. A judge had dismissed the original charges. That was within the last two weeks. So that's a huge rebuke. It shows they keep legally falling on their face. I'm going to get to that. So if you're interested in how that happened, what it means, how many of these cases are doomed, stay with us. We begin with an even larger story by any estimation because it involves allegations of war crimes by the Trump administration. Shifting narratives about the timeline, real questions from both parties, Republicans joining in the demand for answers on Capitol Hill. Shifting responses from the administration have added confusion and concern to what we already know was a problem. A deadly boat strike that legal experts and veterans and military experts have said based on what we know amounts to a war crime. Now usually you can't say that so quickly, but because of the nature of the multiple strikes and the clear evidence not really disputed that survivors were killed in a follow up strike that looks like a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A war crime. Who would be responsible and whether there will be accountability are the big open questions roiling Washington. Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley was the commander in charge, reporting, of course, up to the defense secretary appointed by Donald Trump. He was on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers today. If that seems like a faster reaction and transparency than we sometimes see, that's because it is an administration that has withheld all sorts of things. I'm not gonna list them all right now, did not try to prevent him from going in there and testifying, essentially providing testimony and information to lawmakers. They wanna know about the second strike which killed, as I mentioned, the two survivors of the first strike from the U.S. this has become a scandal, starting with Washington Post investigative journalism. Credit to the reporters who are still working across all of these stories in a difficult environment where the administration, including at the Pentagon, has tried to quash exactly this kind of reporting. Now, the Post's initial report had many details that have remained corroborated, some that are widely contested, including the report that Hegseth gave a verbal command to kill everybody. Bradley stated today to lawmakers that there was no actually such an order to kill all video of the second strike has not become public. A Democratic congressman who saw it today, however, which is part of the transparency and oversight process, somebody sees it and can give a readout to the public what they said.
- [03:58]
What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've.
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David Frum
Seen in my time in public Service. Under the DoD manual for abiding by.
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Paul Krugman
The laws of armed conflict, the specific.
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David Frum
Example given of an impermissible action is attacking a shipwreck.
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Host/Anchor
Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.
- [04:25]
That's the account. The video of the first strike is public, but not what was just referred to by that congressman there, Himes the second strike. A Republican senator said Admiral Bradley testified that the strikes were minutes apart. If that is an accurate summary of the testimony, it would differ from what Hegseth claimed that he watched the first strike and not the second, which, again, we'll play it for you. But it had sounded like, and senators have spoken on this, that Hegseth was implying it was a much greater amount of time, potentially over an hour. Here is some of the new exchange.
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Mark Nevitt
Were those strikes on September 2nd?
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Host/Anchor
I mean, they're several minutes apart. You had obscurance both the smoke from the first strike and then cloud cover as well. I couldn't tell you exactly how long, but minutes. The minute, I think minutes.
- [05:17]
Mark Nevitt
I watched that first strike live.
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Host/Anchor
As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of Things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, Mr. Secretary.
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Paul Krugman
And on the second strike, you said.
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John Caramanica
It happened more than an hour after the first. Did I hear correctly, the exact amount.
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Host/Anchor
Of time, minutes or do I left the room is what you're saying? I already stated my answer quite clearly.
- [05:38]
That would sound like a discrepancy and his reticence to speak more about it. I've stated my answer. Well, no, the follow up question is about what your answer is. Sounds like someone who is either on the defense evasive or has already lawyered up and is trying to avoid committing to one timeline. The Pentagon is facing demands to release the entire unedited video. There are of course times where secrecy is understandable in military or war operations. But remember, there's no declared war, there's no foreign army here. These are boats that are alleged to be doing international illegal activity and it's not clear why. According to the Trump administration, you could release part of the first video of the operation, but not the very controversial alleged war crime Part two. There's a real time written text system that military officials have used. New York Times reporting on this during planning scenarios ahead of the attack and the operation. Again, all of the records and the way the military operates, plus the surveillance, if you had it all, would seem to provide more clarity about what is now a conflicting story. There are big questions about what the rules of engagement were provided, whether there was that kill all order. The Times reports that officials say the plan to deal with survivors would be to attempt to rescue survivors who were helpless, shipwrecked and out of what the administration considered a fight. The military would try again to kill them if they took what the US Deemed to be hostile action, like communicating with suspected cartel members.
- [07:08]
We have heard from a lot of military experts that this is exactly why you don't typically send the military to do warlike operations in peacetime or for law enforcement.
- [07:22]
As bad as communicating with other drug cartels may be, it is not clear how you square that with the ucmj. What we have heard from experts, what I've reported for you and reminded everyone legally, which is if they are survivors, you are not allowed to go execute them. This goes all the way back to Nuremberg and the United nations founding and human rights, the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights. And one of the things that again put aside partisanship, that has united the American experiment for a long time, that even with failures, we have this code, we apply it and we don't go around doing terrorism for example, where you target civilians or war crimes, where people are defenseless and you just execute them. There is a whole body of law around prisoners of war as well. And as one expert reminded us on this program earlier this week, the United States has a vested interest in this because getting most countries to follow this means that our soldiers, of course in the main, maybe not against ISIS or Al Qaeda, but against other countries that abide by these rules, are also afforded some of this protection. Officials say the survivors were spotted radioing, meaning they may have been contacting others, and that is one of the reasons, or critics would say pretext for the attack. But what were the survivors supposed to do if they are again shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean after taking on that attack? Here is a view from a longtime conservative outlet you might remember all the way back from the days of Buckley, a National Review discussing these obvious contradictions. On the serious matter of what we, the United States, are, what do we do? And what do we allow our civilian control of the military, our politicians, to do in our name with this mighty military quote? Depending on which administration official you're listening to or when the review writes the boat was headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean, and it was also an immediate threat to the US the target of the second strike was the cargo, or the target of the second strike were the survivors, to ensure they didn't call anyone to pick them up and retrieve the cargo, which could be the contraband. The review goes on to say the entire narrative of the second strike is, quote, completely false, according to the Pentagon spokesman, except the parts that were later corroborated. Even here, reading you the news and trying to be fair, I added some of the implied skepticism and sarcasm of that conservative publication. That seems like others downright upset with how the Pentagon and the people who wear the uniform are being treated by Trump and his appointees. Now, there is a watchdog at the Pentagon. They had that report on the same Pentagon chief Hegseth's intelligence errors in Signalgate. That report is redacted partly, but we know it says that Hegseth, who made all these obvious mistakes. We know he violated policy because he wasn't using the official channels, but that in so doing, he put the lives of service members at risk, a potential compromise of sensitive information which could cause harm to DoD personnel and objectives.
- [10:28]
Now, that scandal, you might recall, went on for months of investigation. We are in the early days of this other one. And while the lives lost right now are not American, the military code of justice cares about following the law and avoiding war crimes no matter who the victims are. And people have died. So it is a serious time and a scandal that even Republicans are not brushing under the rug, at least in their investigative duties. So it's an important time. As I mentioned, we have that other report on the DOJ failure coming up, but we're going to get into this with two experts in 90 seconds.
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We'Re back with the.
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Host/Anchor
White House veteran David Frum, who writes for the Atlantic and also hosts the David Frum show podcast. And Mark Nevitt, a retired US Navy tactical jet aviator, a former judge Advocate general. He is an attorney and a professor at Emory. Welcome to both of you. Mark, mentioning all your titles, I can address you by any of them. What's important based on what we know right now?
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Mark Nevitt
Well, what we know right now is that the administration is putting forward an argument that these shipwrecked survivors were engaged in some sort of hostile act which would have somehow obviate or eliminate their protection under the law of armed conflict and their putting a lot of effort and a lot of emphasis on the fact that they were communicating with people on the vessel itself. But we don't know exactly what they were communicating. Maybe they're just asking to be rescued, which actually is an affirmative duty for the US Navy to provide. Following each naval engagement, there's an affirmative duty to search for and rescue the shipwrecked consistent with the security of their forces. And so I would want to know a little bit more about what exactly they're communicating. What I've seen right now, there is no hostile act that would somehow eliminate the need for the shipwrecked people to not be saved.
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Host/Anchor
Are we at war there and what are we doing?
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Mark Nevitt
We're not at war. This is a point that many people must have said we're not involved in an organized armed conflict akin to what happening with Al Qaeda. So peacetime laws do apply. And just by labeling these group narco terrorists or something along those lines, doesn't automatically provide extra legal authorities. Labels don't derive the law. You can't reverse engineer this. And so we're in peacetime law of the sea. Even in peacetime sort of laws, there's again, an affirmative duty that dates back centuries. And we want our US Service members or mariners to have these protections when we're operating throughout US and international waters to basically be saved if they're in distress. And from what I can tell, after your boat is blown up in the Caribbean. Caribbean, there's little, little evidence to me that these groups were able to reform and somehow attack US Forces.
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Host/Anchor
David.
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David Frum
I think, I imagine that most Americans would say if the Trump administration were successfully keeping drugs off American shores, even if they're using rough methods, even if they're breaking laws, maybe that's a price worth paying to keep drugs away from American shores. So I think it needs to be pounded home. What a colossal failure and farce this policy and how completely irrelevant it is to any real American drug problem and how much this is all about the TV cameras, you know, prices have been up during the Trump years. There's one price Donald Trump has successfully brought down, and that is the price of cocaine. The Wall Street Journal reports in September that cocaine prices have fallen dramatically in this year, 2025. If an introduction the one there's an interdiction is a policy, there's a very easy measure to tell whether it's working. If you're successfully interdicting drugs, the price goes up. If you're not successfully interdicting drugs, the price goes down. And the price has been going down, down, down. And most of the why is it going down? Because there's a huge increase in cocaine production in Colombia, a country that used to be a close ally of the United States, but that Donald Trump has alienated. Donald Trump sent people back in chains to Colombia. He's threatened sanctions, he's threatened military action against Colombia. Colombia has a president who's a little difficult to deal with, no question. But this former ally has been pushed away, so they're not cooperating. And most of the cocaine that comes from Colombia to the United States goes through Ecuador, up the Pacific coast, bypassing the Caribbean entirely. That's not to say that no cocaine comes from through the Caribbean. Some does. But if you were serious about this problem, you would cooperate with Colombia. There's going to be a new president next year who will be easier to deal with, cooperate with Colombia, crack down on production in Colombia, and monitor the Pacific coastline of South America and the United States. This is a show for TV cameras. And Hegseth, who produced the show, he should be. This whole question of who the order is. His name's on, he's in charge. He's always strutting about and doing these performances about what a commanding figure he is. And then when there's trouble, he doesn't know how long he spent. He doesn't know what he did. All he knows is it's somebody else's fault. What a punk.
- [16:41]
Host/Anchor
Well, you put it strongly, and you're certainly accurate about how much he has performed, but then how little accountability he wants. And as for the drug trade, I mean, you also have a president who just freed a drug lord and former narco state leader, so that there's no consistency about any of that. Mark, here's what Senator Tillis said, which overlaps, I believe, with part of the point that David raised.
- [17:09]
I'll take at face value right now what Secretary Hegseth said. He said he wasn't there. He said he was busy doing other things. I would assume a part of the record was what was the other thing that he was doing that was more important than a battle damage assessment over the first strike in the Caribbean.
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Mark, how about that point?
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Mark Nevitt
That's a fair point. And a lot of people have been focused on the video, which I think we need to see. The American pig people need to see. We also need to see the strike bridge, which is the chat, which is how the Joint Operations center is basically coordinating real time, their operational picture of what is happening in the Caribbean as it applies to the second strike. That would get to the intent, that would really put a more fulsome picture of the operation picture in those chat transcripts themselves. And what we know is that it was just minutes away after the first strike. So we need a more fulsome picture of exactly what happens.
- [18:07]
Host/Anchor
Understood. And appreciate both of you with your experience and care about this. Mark Nevitt, thank you. I'm sure we'll be coming back to you and your expertise in the days ahead. David, please stay with me. I promise. This update on the other big breaking stories we were coming to the air tonight. Trump DOJ failing again to get this new indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James. She had clashed with Donald Trump previously. It is a failure in a do over to go after someone on the so called enemies list. David, I wanted to get you on this and you know, there's so much negativity. I'm gonna begin with something you said that was true. Call that a intellectual compliment if you will, but it was months ago when some of these appointments were coming in and you said, look, if these are going to be the wannabe Stasi police state types, you've put together a pretty incompetent bunch. And you remember saying that?
- [19:03]
David Frum
Yes, I do.
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Host/Anchor
Yeah. And you were making the point that we can talk about law and ethics and how things work and we do that a lot. But that this wasn't exactly, I don't know because you don't wanna put a positive spin on it, but this wasn't exactly J. Edgar Hoover level organized individuals. Where does your point which was possibly prescient and this utter failure over and I put the faces up, we might put a backup of how many cases have already collapsed and dismissed tonight. They fail to re indict her.
- [19:29]
David Frum
Well, look, they've been doing these kinds of strikes on the executive capabilities of the United States government through doge, through other things, driving out talented people. And then they've recruited for, they said the people we want, especially in the doj, are the people who will do whatever Donald Trump wants. Lawyers have long careers in front of them and lawyers are very attentive to what their community thinks about them. And they know, yeah, you can get a little bit of a leg up temporarily by doing dirty work for Donald Trump. But your career is going to last decades. And you want to know, do I have the respect of my community and the people in the Department of Justice, the federal Department of Justice, they mostly have pretty good career options. Most of them are making big economic sacrifices to serve the public. So if you say to them we want you to disserve the public, they're going to say, and for this I'm working late making a fraction of what I could make in the private sector for this. I'm not going to do it. And so the good ones go and you're left with, with the Schmendricks.
- [20:26]
Host/Anchor
Is that a technical term?
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David Frum
Yiddish.
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So I guess it counts. I guess it counts as a technical term.
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Host/Anchor
Well, if you're going to go there. And again, we, you know, we balance the dark and the light. A lot of the draft indictment was mishugas and so the, the folks say no to that. I'm, I'm right here with you. David from I'm More Than One Topic. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
- [20:50]
David Frum
Bye bye.
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Host/Anchor
Appreciate it. Bad Bunny enraged the MAGA crowd. Now other artists are standing up and saying to Ice and Trump, don't use our music. We have that clash which has millions of people turning against Trump by the end of the hour. But first, the high prices, the affordability. Trump's polling crashing. Guess who's Bizak? Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman. He knows the facts, the stats. We always learn something. I'm thrilled to tell you he's my guest. Next.
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Donald Trump has a lot of problems and affordability is one. About half of Americans say the cost of living is now the worst they can ever remember. 37% of people who backed Trump just last year. If you're wondering why he's hemorrhaging on issues like Epstein or military policy, remember the baseline for that is a third of the people who voted for him thinking he failed on that big promise. Politico says Trump's own voters blame him for this affordability crisis. Faced with all of that and a president who does follow the coverage, we know that about him. Here's how he sounds.
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It's a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job. They look at you and they say affordability. They don't say anything else. Everyone says, oh, their prices were so low, no, they had the worst inflation.
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Which is it? Affordability is a con job or inflation is bad because it affects affordability? He just doesn't like being accountable. The Daily Beast says Trump is now panicked and trying to convince voters that their experience in the economy just isn't reality. While we turn to someone who actually deals in economic reality, you might say it's his thing. Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist professor who now writes the Paul Krugman substack, which we read. Welcome back.
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Paul Krugman
Hi there.
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Host/Anchor
Hi. Your view of the actual affordability problem. You can educate us on what's happening out there. And then this pseudo Trump response.
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Paul Krugman
Well, affordability is a real issue. Inflation continues. It's accelerated some since Trump took office. And he made really, really big promises. I think a lot of this is that he didn't just promise to bring inflation down, he promised to bring prices way down. The day after he took office, he said, I'm going to cut the price of gasoline under $2 a gallon. All of this stuff. And none of which happened. I think people are really mad. They feel that they were taken for a ride, which they were. And then this sort of affordability has become a catch all for a lot of things that people feel. And what really stands out from the numbers is prices are up. But even more striking is this is a really lousy job market. We don't have high unemployment. There haven't been big layoffs. But hiring rates are way down. If you've got your job, okay. But if you lose your job or you're young and just entering the labor market, the jobs are just not out there. So the overall unemployment rate isn't that high, but the long term unemployment rate has really shot up. So this is not a good economy. And Trump is. I just saw that Trump is planning to do a tour to go around convincing Americans that the economy is really good and that they're wrong. So if I were a Democratic strategist, I'd be extremely happy at that.
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Host/Anchor
Yeah, I mean, we have, here's that headline, Trump travel plans to tout, quote, affordability, a travel blitz. The President will aggressively push back against criticism over the cost of everyday essentials. It's sort of striking to see him sort of meet his match on that topic. And how do you put that in the context of what has happened this year? Because the markets we've seen are sort of volatile. The tech folks still seem happy. The safety net is now due for a cut. That won't help people who are dealing with these price crises.
- [24:51]
Paul Krugman
Yeah, I mean.
- [24:53]
It would be nice if history would serve us just one thing at a time. And so we've got two things. We've got Trump policies which are destructive, and we have this huge boom in AI spending, which without that, we'd be in a recession right now. That's pretty clear. But both are going along. And stocks have been sustained up to a point by AI that, sure, it feels like a bubble, though. That's an endless argument.
- [25:22]
But of course, one thing that is really notable about businesses, tech companies are enthusiastic about AI. The public is not. People are not seeing that. They're not seeing anything positive happening to them.
- [25:37]
Make a lot of comparisons with the 1990s, when we also had that technology bubble. But I remember I've been around for a while, gray hair and all that. I remember. And during the 90s, everyone was having fun. We thought people were very optimistic about technology. Now we have massive spending on data centers, but the public isn't seeing any benefit from this.
- [25:59]
Host/Anchor
I hear you on that. And while there are fun sort of leisure experiments you can do with the most consumer models. Right. People say, oh, I can make a picture. We've covered that in this program. A lot of people are being told at work, well, this might replace part of you or all of you. And that doesn't really warm you to the program. Professor, I want to have you stay with us. I want to show some video that just about everybody in America has seen. Donald Trump looking so happy with Zoran Mamdani. Now his administration is pushing something that on its face sounds like redistribution. We think you're the perfect person to walk us through it. So these baby bonds and the Trump accounts when we come back with the professor.
- [26:44]
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- [28:18]
Host/Anchor
Now we're going to turn to something totally different and we think pretty interesting. Donald Trump going left. Not just a little left, but all the way into the far left land of redistribution. For context, you have the video that everyone has seen, a kind of glee over perhaps Zoran Mamdani's winning swagger, but also quite directly Donald Trump in the Oval Office saying, maybe some of those democratic socialist policies are all good.
- [28:49]
Would you feel comfortable living in New.
- [28:51]
Paul Krugman
York City under a Mahandani?
- [28:53]
Host/Anchor
Yeah, I would.
- [28:54]
John Caramanica
I really would.
- [28:55]
Paul Krugman
Especially after the meeting. Absolutely.
- [28:57]
Host/Anchor
What makes you comfortable? We agree on a lot more than I would have thought.
- [29:02]
I think he's, I want him to do a great job and we'll help them do a great job.
- [29:09]
What do they agree on? I mean, Mamdani disagrees with Donald Trump on a list so long, I can't give it all to you, from policing to foreign policy to how you deal with diversity. But on economics, Trump has repeatedly tried to claim the mantle of populism while not always delivering something we were discussing with Professor Krugman and remember, Mamdani is pushing out what are basically a type of distribution policies where you tax the rich higher and the benefits of that go to other people. I am simplifying, but here we go. Some of Trump's policies are, whether you've heard about them or not, trying a version, however perverted, of socialism. As these headlines attest, Tax the rich proposals are typically considered something of not even the current Democratic Party, but the old left or the new Mamdani wing. And now Trump is tapping some very big billionaires to get in on the action. So here's an important story. You may not have heard much about Trump this week hosting the Dell family there, Michael and Susan Dell, of course, from that big company. They are very rich billionaires and they were announcing a $6 billion program where they will give money to essentially about 25 million children. And it's redistributive because they're billionaires and they're excluding recipients who are from high income area households. So right there you have something that sounds like redistribution. Indeed. It mimics past programs we've heard about, like so called baby bonds. And yet There is a big wrinkle because they're not actually doing this through the overall tax code for everyone, which would actually address national wealth inequality. They are sort of tapping a billionaire friend who then has a lot more sway over the policy than all of us normal voters. Dell even said that under one plan he wanted to limit his gift to just a certain group. Initially talked about making donations to just children in Texas rather than other places. Now a more transformative or holistic approach would be through the tax code overall and not letting the billionaires have extra sway as if they don't have enough policy power just because they are the ones chipping in. I want to bring back Paul Krugman on this story. There's plenty of caveats, but I'd love for you to speak first to the headline that this MAGA president and some conservative leaning donors want to do what looks like a version of redistribution. And then perhaps in part two, you can tell us any of the concerns.
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Paul Krugman
Look, fundamentally this is really grotesque. I don't think people are putting it in context enough. Now we have two fundamental federal programs that make a huge difference to children, which is food stamps and Medicaid. And we have overwhelmingly slashing all that. Yeah, we have overwhelming those programs. Children who receive those programs grow up healthier, more productive than children who don't. And so what we're saying is, well, okay, we're going to slap. Those are savagely cut in the one big beautiful bill. So savage cuts to the programs that we know make a huge difference in children's lives and never mind, that's okay because we're going to give some kids miniature 401ks. I mean that is a really grotesque trade off.
- [32:32]
Host/Anchor
So what do you think's going on here? Because it has. And maybe it's just cynical politics, even though I'm also asking you that the economics. But is it. It's wrapping in it in a little, little bit of Mamdani esque. Oh, we're gonna move things around while you're actually doing safety net cuts that are far worse for those kids in their households.
- [32:50]
Paul Krugman
Well, it's cynical politics and it's also this notion that only they don't really believe in a society where we take care of people. They just believe in that people should have investments. Back in the days of George W. Bush, he used to talk about the ownership society. And again, the idea that we might actually make it our responsibility to make sure that kids have enough food and have adequate healthcare. No, we're not gonna do that. But try and make them into, some of them into members of the investor class. Well, then we're for that. This is, I, I really kind of lose it here, but I think this is grotesque. It borders on obscene.
- [33:27]
Host/Anchor
Yeah. And you're bothered by it because you think it's taking whatever one drop 1% of something and trying to sort of draft off that, but not actually delivering. I mean, someone watching this might say, huh, okay, Krugman's upset, but why didn't he once upon a time think baby bonds along with the social safety net would be fine.
- [33:46]
Paul Krugman
Yeah. If there was an addition. But remember, the context here is fundamentally, whatever Trump may claim to be a populist, the fundamental agenda here, this is the Project 2025 agenda. The fundamental agenda is gutting the safety net. And the biggest victims of that gutting are children. And so, wow, I mean, the idea that a few billion dollars from Michael Dell, and that's a not big sum even for Michael Dell, let alone for America's children, that that somehow compensates for this extremely anti child policy which is now the law of the land.
- [34:21]
Host/Anchor
Yeah, really interesting. And I was saying to one of my colleagues as we were preparing this, I wonder where Krugman's going to be on this. But again, you've broadened it to the whole point, which is you have this massive budget and you have all these programs and that's the way you affect people's livelihoods. And here it becomes sort of trading symbolism for that. Professor, always good to see you.
- [34:39]
Paul Krugman
Good to see you.
- [34:41]
Host/Anchor
Thank you. We're going to fit in a break, but when we come back, I'm going to show you what has the President panicked? Tens of millions of music fans listening to the most popular artists today saying, don't play our song and your ICE policy is wrong. That's next.
- [35:01]
For many Americans, 2024 was all about politics. And as 2025 draws to a close, many have continued to press their political activism. We have seen that out in the streets. But there are also signs that for others, it's really been a year to step away from politics and news and maybe go back to their lives, to concerts, to pop culture, to looking at stuff on their phone other than what sometimes seems like a never ending hellscape. One of the largest music services in the world, Spotify, has now just released its list of its most popular artists. Now, where we once counted Beatles albums in the millions on the old school charts, today, of course, largely free music is counted in the many billions. Artists like Lady Gaga, the Weeknd, Sabrina Carpenter, and The next super bowl performer, Bad Bunny, drawing billions of total listens. Female artists also dominating. Now, if you weren't listening to all of these all the time, all the new artists this year, we have you covered. Here's some of the top songs.
- [36:04]
Abracadabra, Abra Unana In a tongue she said.
- [36:13]
So be it.
- [36:14]
Paul Krugman
So be it.
- [36:16]
Host/Anchor
Smoke, so be it.
- [36:19]
Paul Krugman
So be it.
- [36:59]
John Caramanica
She's got.
- [37:04]
Host/Anchor
All right, you're caught up. You know, there's the old saying that people stop listening to new music after 30 or when they have kids or when they get busy. But it is easier than ever to listen to new music. And even if not all of it is your cup of proverbial tea, much of it is more relevant than ever to what's happening in our culture and our politics. With that in mind, as we mark the end of the year, in this list, we have a very special guest, someone whose byline you've probably come across. John Caramanica is a renowned music critic of the New York Times and has covered popular music there since 2008. He's covered everyone this year, from new faces like Kehlani to long term stars like Justin Bieber and Lorde. One of our favorites, Erykah Badu, who was in here. And these days, everyone has a podcast, but not everyone has a popcast with some of the top artists. Here you see Bad Bunny himself and Ed Sheeran right before and a lot of other artists who choose to sit down with the New York Times phenomenal, musically nerdy podcast co hosted by John. Thanks for being here.
- [38:09]
John Caramanica
Happy to be here.
- [38:10]
Host/Anchor
Ari, longtime reader.
- [38:11]
John Caramanica
That's incredibly kind. Longtime viewer, lighter enthusiast.
- [38:15]
Host/Anchor
Lighters up.
- [38:16]
John Caramanica
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Host/Anchor
What jumps out to you and who's getting listened to most particularly Bad Bunny.
- [38:21]
John Caramanica
On top of the thing that Spanish language music did this year was announce that it is not a secondary tier of pop music. This is primary pop music. When Bad Bunny was on our show, one of the things that he said is that it's great if you can understand every word that he says, but it's not crucial. He wants people from all parts of the spectrum to show up to his party. This is also a person who's making historically minded music about Puerto Rican music history, connecting it directly to the contemporary reggaeton and Latin trap on the moment and making an album that appeals cross generationally.
- [38:57]
Host/Anchor
Now define traditional reggaeton.
- [39:00]
John Caramanica
So if you go back to what was happening in the Dominican Republic in the 90s into the early 2000s, what you had was at the time, you would think of it as Caribbean hip Hop, right? And then ultimately that becomes global pop music, especially when it starts to move to Colombia. The Colombian artists in the 2010 really took it and took it to what we think of as mainstream center of pop. Bad Bunny is an artist who's traversed both the underground and the mainstream versions of that style. And then this year was like, what if I look back at my island's heritage? What if I look back to Puerto Rican music from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s and wove that together with the music that I was making before?
- [39:39]
Host/Anchor
Right. So he always was really cross pollinating. But having one going forward, he then does this, this sort of throwback that resonated.
- [39:49]
John Caramanica
What's interesting to me is I think when you and I were young and an artist hit their mid career stride and they said, I'm gonna make a heritage album, I'm gonna make an album that's kind of like what I grew up with. That album felt old fashioned. What Bad Bunny has done is he's made an album that has old reference points, contemporary reference points, and sounds like it was made today.
- [40:07]
Host/Anchor
It's very interesting when you put it that way and then the speed of it. Cause some of these younger artists really get it.
- [40:12]
John Caramanica
Oh yeah.
- [40:12]
Host/Anchor
And we all know about the global echoes of music. You can have Paul Simon doing stuff in South Africa or going down also to Latin America. And the US folk tradition then melds with that. But I think that took years and happened slowly. And now it's like zip, zip, zip.
- [40:29]
John Caramanica
It's instantaneous.
- [40:30]
Host/Anchor
Yeah. Let's take a listen to the new Taylor. For those who haven't heard it.
- [40:43]
John Caramanica
Sleepless in the Onyx night But now.
- [40:48]
Advertisement Voice
The sky is over.
- [40:53]
Host/Anchor
Taylor is inescapable. She's evolving. You are a Taylor ologist fair.
- [40:57]
John Caramanica
I like to think so.
- [40:58]
Host/Anchor
And you write in the paper of record the gray lady assessing this showgirl in our midst. Quote Showgirl has hints of what a Swift album about requited love contrast to her past might sound like. But for now, quote she's not quite over the Taste of Blood.
- [41:15]
John Caramanica
Yes. So Taylor's in an interesting transitional moment. And you tend to think of pop stars who are that huge as maybe not having transitional moments. You think they're just big and kind of they're too big to fail, as it were. But I see Taylor albums in two categories. There are the innovation albums, your folklore reputation Red and then there's the in between albums. The sort of setting myself for a change. I think this is a transitional album that's incredibly pop focused. But Isn't her biggest stylistic innovation. A lot of the things that Taylor's doing right now are also being replicated out in the marketplace. She's a big Sabrina Carpenter supporter. Sabrina Carpenter, Chapel Roan, Olivia Rodrigo. These are younger performers, very much in the mold of a Taylor Swift.
- [42:02]
Host/Anchor
Is she bigger than ever, but less cool?
- [42:06]
John Caramanica
Taylor and cool is a complicated conversation. I don't know that Taylor ever wanted to be cool, and I'm not sure she ever was cool, except for maybe a tiny period in the mid 2010s.
- [42:15]
Host/Anchor
For a lot of her young fans. I also got cool generalize, especially young women and girls. She's very cool.
- [42:21]
John Caramanica
Yes. I may be thinking from the sort of like the rest of pop music, how. How she's viewed in the music business. I don't think she's viewed as a beacon or an avatar of cool. I think she's viewed as someone who is incredibly savvy, a great songwriter, and someone who understands how to remain emotionally authentic while still making songs that can scale into the billions.
- [42:41]
Host/Anchor
Yeah.
- [42:42]
John Caramanica
But I think she very purposely doesn't place herself at the center of cool because that can burn hot and fast, and she's trying to stick around.
- [42:49]
Host/Anchor
Cool can burn hot.
- [42:51]
John Caramanica
Yeah.
- [42:52]
Host/Anchor
You're getting close to a Taylor lyric yourself.
- [42:54]
John Caramanica
I like to think so.
- [42:55]
Host/Anchor
Well, I. I showed these headlines, and this is keeps happening. And it's like, if you love Billy Joel, you notice, oh, Billy Joel, Madison Square Garden news. If you don't, it might not hit you. So for really, literally tens of millions of fans, it has been noticed. These headlines, if you follow Sabrina Carpenter, who's one of the big artists, she was on SNL with Paul Simon. She did a huge run, she says, evil and disgusting the way the Trump administration was trying to use her song. Rodrigo, who you just mentioned, naturally condemns Trump's use of her music for, quote, racist, hateful propaganda. You want to go with a throwback? Let's go, baby. Neil Young. Neil Young with that protest song. At some point, does this matter? And ding Trump with fans who are not super polarized, who might be 25 and haven't thought a lot about the midterms and go, wait a minute. Someone I look up to says, this isn't just a difference of opinion. This person is racist, quote, unquote.
- [43:49]
John Caramanica
I think that part of the Trump cultural proposition is running roughshod over convention. And so if they're violating copyright protections in service of a political message, my sense is, institutionally in the government, people don't perceive that as a problem. My sense is who's being activated on the fan side of Sabrina or Olivia. Those people are probably not oriented in this direction in the first place. I think if it was, does it.
- [44:15]
Host/Anchor
Matter to their fans? I mean Sabrina Carpenter hadn't said much against Trump until this. Then we finds out she says this is evil.
- [44:21]
John Caramanica
But you know what? I'm even more what I find more provocative. You saw what happened with Trump and Theo Vaughn. They used some Theo Vaughn audio in a Icer Department of Homeland Security video. And Theo Vaughn, someone who's political valence, is, I would say, fuzzy. And some people might say he's right leaning.
- [44:38]
Host/Anchor
Right leaning.
- [44:39]
John Caramanica
He came out and said, hey man, you can't do that. That doesn't reflect my experience, doesn't reflect my views.
- [44:45]
Host/Anchor
So you think that matters to their.
- [44:46]
John Caramanica
I think that matters more than the.
- [44:49]
Host/Anchor
We don't know Supreme Carvers politics.
- [44:50]
John Caramanica
No. We can suspect and I think on podcast this week we had a big conversation with Ross Douthat, our conservative columnist at the Times, about can a celebrity be conservative? Is that even a viable thing in 2035?
- [45:01]
Host/Anchor
Yes, it's plenty viable. I object to the paper tiger question. Is your podcast.
- [45:06]
John Caramanica
Thanks. We're going to work. We're going to workshop headlines with you next time.
- [45:10]
Host/Anchor
How many lighters do you want? Because you can have up to four.
- [45:12]
John Caramanica
I'm going to take these back and we're going to be I'm going to bring you ones when we have podcast ones.
- [45:16]
Host/Anchor
Great. I'd love to have podcasts. It's like Halloween candy at John's. First and not last time on the beat. We'll be right back.
- [45:24]
Ari signing off.
- [45:25]
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