← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump In Crisis Amid High Prices, Deportation Backlash
00:41:58
President Trump is facing backlash over ICE, the ongoing Epstein scandal and the economy. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports and is joined by Jen Psaki.
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Jen Psaki
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- [00:45]
Ari Melber
Off welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We begin with Trump in crisis, an eruption of anger over his agenda and warnings from Republicans that this could doom their party. Both Trump's agenda and their elections in November. You have the economy, health care, the Epstein scandal, the backlash over ice. It's coming to a head protest today at the House hearing for Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem. One protester dressed as a cardinal holding up a sign saying stop ICE raids with me.
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Jen Psaki
I'd like to introduce them to you. Anti partitions, the disruptions of congressional businesses, of get ICE off our screen.
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Ari Melber
Stop terrorizing our community. Go get ICE offers free subterrority to your community. Today the AP reporting on polls showing Trump's longtime issues, things that, whether you agree with him or not, there were periods where we can accurately report that independents, moderates, even some conservative Democrats thought that he was strong on say the immigration agenda or the economy when people were angry at the then incumbent Biden Harris administration. So think about those two issues. They have become weaknesses for Trump. The two signature issues that, as one outlet put it, got him, quote, elected a year ago. That's what the AP says could be turning into liabilities as his party is gearing up for these midterms since taking office. We'll just show you the facts. Do with them what you will. Trump down 11 points on immigration. Remember his so called get tough on immigration plans were something that he said helped him last year and that people wanted. Well, they don't like it now when it's actually happening, at least the way they're doing it. And the economy again, where he did run effectively on inflation concerns, well, now he owns them and he's down nine points to a sad 31% if you're thinking that sounds low, it is. It's a low for this term. Politico says Trump allies now worry he is basically a quote, imperfect messenger on this economic issue because he won't admit, temperamentally, that Americans face high prices. You might call this a kind of Freudian problem for Trump, that his ego is getting in the way of his actual goals, which would be, and it's not that hard to do, the goal would be to tell people, I get it, you want prices lower. I'm not perfect. I'll work on it. But that's not what the White House is saying. Politico reports, quote, unfortunately, I just don't think Trump is temperamentally capable of reversing himself and saying, yes, affordability is a concern. He's stubborn. They quote this ally as saying, the problem is the overall cost of living has continued to climb under Trump. Grocery costs up about 3 points. The lights are up 5%, and most people don't want to ration their electricity. So people are upset. Trump promised to address this problem. He is not doing that. And then there's health care, which for so many Americans is not only a constant concern, whether you're getting the right health care and enough, whether your kids will be okay, but also, if you had a health care emergency, what would you do? That's something in the back of the mind for people because we don't have a system right now that looks out for everybody and makes it affordable. Now, it's complicated. I probably told you that before. And if you're watching the news, you probably know that. But if you talk about the government, which has been under Trump cutting taxes for the super rich and cutting crypto deals for their buddies. Does the government under Trump want to help allay any health care costs? The news today is no. Trump's party controls the Senate. They could not extend even the prior agreed upon money, the subsidies for people under current federal health care programs under what you might have heard of as Obamacare. And that will cause, according to these estimates, premiums to double for over 20 million people. Guess what? Higher healthcare costs. That's not a partisan thing. It's generally unpopular. Then there's the Epstein files deadline. That's December 19th in eight days. And some prominent voices on the right are warning this has become a bigger problem. It's not just Epstein or just immigration, as I mentioned, or even just the debates over whether America's committing war crimes and a foreign entanglement. It is snowballing together for Republicans. Hard stops in American politics typically create Massive political blowback and 2026 looks like it's going to be pretty ugly for Republicans anyways. The political blowback is going to lead to Democrats in power in 2028.
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Jen Psaki
You can't gaslight people and tell them that their bills are affordable and you can't tell them that the economy is an A plus plus plus. You just can't do that. And I think it's insulting to people's intelligence.
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Ari Melber
Now, will it be enough to save the Republicans in the midterms? Probably not. But that's okay. This is a long term deal. You're going to lose the House, you may keep the Senate. I'll take that. The voices you're hearing are people who are actively, publicly aligned with Trump and the Republican Party. They would like things to be going better. They would like Trump to be ahead. They would like Republicans to be on track in their view. And nobody knows for sure to win the midterms or hold on to some seats. And if it were really close in politics, those are the type of people we know from history who don't usually jump to the worst conclusion for their side. Things have to get this bad. Not day one of the Epstein vote or day one of the Venezuela clash or even day 10 of the bad polling. No, this has been building and things get this bad that they're saying something out loud in public that we know Trump and the White House won't like. But they think they got to help these guys and deal with the quote I read you from Politico, the warnings from people around Trump that he will not right the ship if he is not emotionally there. And then you have of course, the evidence. It's not a hypothetical. Dems swept all the races where people did vote last month. This week they flipped a mayor's race in a city that hadn't gone Democratic in 28 years. Again, there are places where Democrats don't do well. I will always give you the facts. Make of it what you will. Miami is a place, diverse, interesting city that had not chosen Democrats in a long time. Now they are. Whether that's because they're fed up with Republicans or they like Democrats, people can debate. But that's bad news if you're a Republican. Looking at the trends. Let me show you something that gets a little less attention as we take this in tonight. State level elections. This is a new report that shows Democrats, when you look at the small races, and some of them don't make national news, have actually already flipped 25 Republican seats this year. I have Jen Psaki coming up. And I asked her about this because you say, okay, well, what about the other side of it? Republicans have flipped none, zero. At the local level where politics really happens. There has not been an instance yet this year where voters have said, hey, we want to go more red, just hasn't happened. And that's where we start a red alert that's gotten loud enough that even Republican allies, FOX News voices, people who want Trump to win are saying they got to address the problem now before it's too late for them. I want to bring in Jen Psaki, our leadoff guest, of course, host of the Briefing on Ms. Now, she's also a White House veteran, having served in the Biden administration and the Obama White House. Welcome.
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Jen Psaki
Great to see you, Ari. Thanks for having me on.
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Ari Melber
Great to have you on. You know, your record is that top level experience, which is cool. Most people don't get a White House job. But you've started, I know, and worked in local campaigns. And I wonder what you think those local numbers show because whatever's going on out in the community, wherever people are getting their information, Democrats flipping all the local seats, plus the environment I just mentioned seems to be a pretty big.
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Jen Psaki
Indicator, no question about it. I mean, yes, there's 11 months or just under 11 months until the midterm elections, but you referenced a couple of the races this week. And if you look at those races, the Miami mayoral race, which as you noted, there hasn't been a Democratic mayor elected there in 28 years. But what's also interesting when you dig into the numbers is that Vice President Harris won Miami by just one point a year ago and this mayor won by 19 points. And a big part of that seems to be a flip in Latino voters. And that is a trend that we're seeing also across the country and other parts of the country as well. And that is a big voting block that has sort of moved away from from Democrats in recent years to some degree. And the hope, I think, for a lot of Democrats is that they are moving back. This also I would also note on the Georgia race, the state legislative race that was won the other night as well. That is a race that flipped by more than 10 points. And that is an indicator too, that there's not just excitement out there in local races. It's not necessarily not typically about topics we often talk about like the Epstein files or even the potential war crimes in these strikes in the Caribbean. It's about issues impacting people, affordability, the cost of living and whether the party in Power is achieving that. So it's an indication that people are dissatisfied with that as well, which is, which is a good lesson for Republicans to do more and also a good message for Republic, for Democrats moving forward.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And the economy is the great reality test. You're alluding to that. You know, people can debate whether you can get really accurate information from Real Housewives, the Kardashians or the Apprentice. Right. That's, that's up to the people. But there was an indication that some people have watched Trump's Apprentice long enough to think, well, look at him in the boardroom and he'll be good on the economy. And I don't patronize to that. You know, we talk a lot about culture and different ways to message on this program and elsewhere. So the idea, though, that he's good on the economy has been blown up this year, more so than in his first term, because Covid, while it hurt the economy, was a whole different issue. And we all know what happened. I want to mention that and get your response, because this is some of the questioning at the White House.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah. I also think part of it.
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Ari Melber
Is it a good look for him.
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Doug Brinkley
To be telling parents, oh, you can.
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Ari Melber
You should only buy, you know, two.
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Doug Brinkley
Or three dolls for your kids when he's one of the wealthiest people in.
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Jen Psaki
The country a year ago, as you know, when grocery prices have been up. So we've covered the economy, but there's mixed signals in terms of what that looks like. But inflation is down from where it was. He said he's working to find a solution. He wants to see a solution to lower healthcare costs. He does. But these, but these subsidies are expiring at the end of the year. So what is the plan and what is he going to do to put this in place in the next two, three. You'll hear more from the president and from the White House on that very soon. Jen, I, first of all, I almost cut off the White House reporters there, which is just, I was just going back to my old, my old stomping grounds there. You know, I think it's, I think it wasn't even intentional. I think it's a clear indication, Ari. I mean, these are the issues which you see in these polls. I mean, 31% approval rating on the economy isn't a big, abysmally low number for any president. And in addition to the cultural side, which I think is definitely a truth here when it comes to Trump, in terms of what people believed out there, it's much easier to run as the opposition to run against what the sitting party that is in power is doing and say, I'm gonna do it all better. It's much harder to govern and actually do the things you're promising to do. And the thing with Trump is that he's not a policy guy. He's not a guy who's interested in the details or somebody who really gets engaged to date in really legislating and policymaking. And so the things that he said he was going to do, when he doesn't deliver on them, people are going to ask questions. The health care question which came up, and I expect they're going to just get. The more Caroline Levitt goes out there, the more they're going to get questions on this. The clear message from the public is affordability is the issue. Affordability is not just economic data. In fact, it shouldn't be thought of as economic data. The cost of health care is a huge affordability issue. And right now, Republicans, they don't have a clear plan. They don't have agreement on what the plan is. This would be a case where any normal president would engage and figure out what the plan is moving forward because nearly three quarters of the public wants these premium tax credits to be extended. And it doesn't seem to be what they're doing at this point.
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Ari Melber
I'm curious how you think the dramatic rejection of Trump's year long effort on Epstein last month affects this. I'm asking you, and we showed the calendar, we'll cover this when the deadline hits. But I'm asking you less about the innards of that, of that bill, which we've reported, and more about the wider political impact of Trump losing that badly in public, both parties being forced to sign something that everyone knows he opposes. How does that spread to these other issues? Because, you know, we don't have a magic, you know, calculator or measurement device for all of politics. But I have observed, noticed, I'm curious what you have, that since losing that vote, there seems to be more criticism of him on other issues on the right.
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Jen Psaki
It seems to have given license, to your point, Ari, to Republicans to question him, to challenge him, to reject him. We've seen that on the boat strikes and there have been some Republicans who have come out and said the video should be released. We need legal justification. There should be more information on this. We've also, we just saw it this afternoon and evening in Indiana where Indiana Republican state senators declined to pass a redistricting bill that Trump very much advocated for. So I think for a long time or this is what I've observed for a long time. It was a feeling among many in the Republican Party up and down the ranks that they could never challenge Trump, that they couldn't reject him because their own voters would reject them. And that premise seems to be being questioned right now. And they seem to be. Some seem to be thinking more about what is politically advantageous, and it isn't as often aligned with what the President is asking them to do.
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Ari Melber
Finally, I wanted to ask you about this big loss in the Enemies List campaign. They have repeatedly gone after Letitia James, the attorney General in New York. They did bring an indictment, but it was so flawed, and the Trump prosecutor who brought it turned out didn't work there. I don't know if you remember the Seinfeld. Yeah, where George loses his job, but he still tries to go in and work for the Yankees. You know, this is someone who, no, no disrespect, but Ms. Halligan didn't have the job. And so when she realized she didn't have the job because the judges told her, you don't work here, you certainly can't indict people, they threw the indictment out. They've now tried twice. And today we'll show the headline Lost Again. In their efforts to get American citizens who are grand jurors to indict James, it certainly hasn't helped them that their prosecutor was illegal. And this looks like a vendetta. The case looking thin. I'm curious what you think about how this plays in what is often called, quite deliberately, the court of public opinion, because these are jurors who are not legal experts. They're called to do a duty, and I can remind viewers, they tend to approve over 9 out of 10 of the cases presented. But if the case is bad enough and weak enough, you get this. What do you think about that?
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Jen Psaki
And you are the lawyer, not me. But it is not a conviction. A grand jury indicting. This is just as, again, what did they say? A ham sandwich. They could indict a ham sandwich often in these grand juries. You know, I think that because this has been one of Trump's stated objectives, to go after his enemies, to have people working for him go after his enemies. It seems one, it's, it's an obsession, and it seems very vindictive, which is, of course, a legal term, too, but it is a failure. Again, it is a loss of power in some ways. And if you look at the big scope of things, he's losing his power and his ability to win on legal cases. We're seeing that over and over again. Remember today also, Kilmar Orego Garcia should be being released at this point. That's a case he's been also obsessed with in the courts. And at the same time, he's losing his political power. These are kind of two of the levers that he always felt he was all powerful on, that he was Teflon on. And I think if you're looking at it from just the perspective of what does it mean for him and his ability to assert power or exert power, it's all challenging it in one big pool together, in my view.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. Makes sense. Jen Psaki, great to have you here. And you've agreed to come back later in the hour with DJ Bobito Garcia. I think that'll be fun. So I'll see you soon.
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Jen Psaki
I do, too. I'll see you in later in the hour.
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Ari Melber
Okay. Coming up, we turn to a big anti Trump south park finale that has rattled the White House. As you see, it involves what you see here. Him involved. Bed with Satan. We'll get to that. But first, fact checking. Donald Trump's broken vows on stopping foreign wars. It matters. It's new. And it's next in 90 seconds.
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Ari Melber
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Ari Melber
Foreign escalation in the Caribbean. Trump has announced the seizure of that oil tanker. And the attorney general released rather dramatic footage which shows first you see the tanker in the distance, then you see the repelling of agents down there. They repelled from those helicopters and it was a search of cabins and compartments. Bondi says this was done safely, securely and lawfully with U.S. oversight. But there's, of course, larger legal scrutiny on operations like this and the powers the administration has been seizing under Trump. Killing people, sometimes killing survivors who appear to be unarmed and innocent, based on what we know, which led to the talk of a war crime probe. They say they're targeting drug boats. One of the strikes carried out in September had these reports of the second strike I mentioned, and two basically shipwrecked survivors killed by the United States. That's put scrutiny on the Pentagon and Hegseth as well as Admiral Bradley, who carried out the strike. The Post reports, in a period of time that has gotten a lot of scrutiny, rather long, 30 minutes between strike one, which killed most people, and strike two, which killed the two people who apparently were just clinging to wreckage, that Bradley consulted a military lawyer to determine whether they were, according to the Uniform Code of Military justice and the laws of war, officially shipwrecked, in which case you can't kill them, or were they perhaps a threat? Bradley ultimately decided that the definition did not apply. Shipwrecked, which would have given them, of course, in the views of the military and that strike protection, as everyone knows who's ever followed any war or really any war movie, when people are no longer a threat, they become prisoners of war. In modern Western war, you don't go around executing everyone who's been disarmed because those are war crimes. I say it plainly and slowly because we are now in a position where this is being debated and the reportedly unarmed shipwrecked individuals were killed by your government. Now, Bradley defended the decision to lawmakers when he had discussed it last week. That was in a closed door session, reportedly, and I say reportedly because it wasn't public, so we don't have a transcript. He did not say whether the lawyer considered the survivors shipwreck. The Post reported there was. And this matters again, now that you think about what I just told you, quote, dissent in the operations room over whether the survivors were viable targets once they were shipwrecked after the first strike. In other words, even the military folks, who of course are deemed to be pretty aggressive, they just killed the other guys. And their military lawyer whose job is to find the best defense of whatever they want to do. That's kind of what being general counsel of the Pentagon means. Even in that hawkish room, they were saying, I don't know that we can go this far. That's what the dissent was. Lawmakers had the impression there was uncertainty about whether there were even drugs on board and whether the survivors had any means to call for help or intended to surrender. Again, we don't have the second video, but if they're just holding wreckage in the water, they don't look like a threat. The House approved a bill that will try to pressure Hegseth to release the rest of the video. Evidence experts warn the boat strikes in general are contested. And Politico reports that the administration's top lawyer signed off on a memo just this summer which says officials have criminal immunity because the US Is in an armed conflict with drug cartels. Now there is a lot of protection for the military to do what it needs to do. That's why you don't see very often indictments, let alone prosecutions and convictions of our armed service members inside the US but the wider problem here on a policy level, because we don't know yet everything that happened in the strike, journalists, the Washington Post reporting, and now Congress are trying to find out. But the wider issue is what are we doing out there with your tax dollars and your soldiers and now lethal, deadly efforts in a so called drug war where the president wants to seize a lot of war powers because a lot of people are old enough to remember that. One of the things where Trump really did differentiate himself from the traditional hawkish Republican Party of the war on terror and the Bush wars in the Mideast was he repeatedly, loudly promised that he would take a different route, be less hawkish than Bush, even be a so called, quote, peacemaker. Remember what he said? We're uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars.
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Commercial Narrator
Can you rule out an American ground invasion?
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Ari Melber
I don't want to rule in or out.
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Doug Brinkley
I don't talk about it.
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Ari Melber
My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. We have officially renamed the Department of Defense back to the original name, Department of War. I've been working every day to put the world at ease a little bit to get rid of the wars. We take them out and we've taken out four. It's amazing what strength will do. This is one of the most significant real world shifts by Donald Trump. There's some things that he ran on, like lower prices, that he's not delivering on and people say, well, he would like prices to be lower, maybe he's not doing anything about it, but he holds that view and it becomes kind of a political rhetorical debate here. People are dying. And you may remember in recent years we have not been doing random deadly strikes all over the Caribbean without knowing even where the boats are headed. The most recent reporting also shows that that earlier strike boat was not headed towards the US anyway. And so someone who actually found there was enough public support for a less hawkish approach, who knew that the politics favored ending more foreign entanglements because apparently a lot of Americans agree is now doing the opposite from the rhetorical renaming it the Department of War to the literal by killing all these people and facing a war crimes probe and not letting up. Even as the question remains, what are we doing in the Caribbean and if there is going to be a war, shouldn't that war be declared by Congress as required by the Constitution? Presidential historian Doug Brinkley has tracked exactly these issues across our history and will give us perspectives next.
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Jen Psaki
For an America first president, the number one focus should have been domestic policy and it wasn't. And so of course I was critical because those were my campaign promises. Once we fix everything here, then fine, we'll talk to the rest of the world.
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Ari Melber
As we look at this shifting so called war on drugs in the Caribbean, we're joined by presidential historian and Rice University professor Doug Grinkley. Your thoughts on this and what history teaches about these entanglements.
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Doug Brinkley
Well, Ari, one wonders whether this is really a war on drugs. I mean President Trump is pardoned 90 drug kingpins just giving them free walk and including the founder of Silk Road. It seems to me more about trying to be perceived as a muscular foreign policy president. Now he came in and said he was going to be the peacemaker in a day one he'd figure out Russia and Ukraine and it continues to grow onwards. But he started to learn one of his first foreign policy talks the second term was about getting Greenland and getting Panama and this sense of American, American empire. And I don't think he's a dangerous president wanting to tripwire a big war with China or Russ, but he sees this as low hanging fruit. He has the Monroe Doctrine at his back of 1823, the non militarization of the Western hemisphere. So it's sort of a built in American prerogative he's running on. And then secondarily their memories still fresh about General Manuel Noriega back in 1989, Operation Just Cause, Bush 41, Noriega and we went in with troops, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, 23Americans killed and many injured, and got the so called drug lord who used to be an asset for the CIA but got Noriega out of Panama. Democracy held firm. I'd be looking at that in 89 with Noriega right now because it's similar. But Venezuela is a big country. There's not the presence in Panama had a built in American presence. Venezuela does not. And in fact, since 1999, the US has been opposed to Venezuela by and large since the advent of Hugo Chavez. Trump likes dictators, but he likes them right wing. He likes them in North Korea or Russia. And in Maduro, you're dealing with a left wing dictator. And so Trump sees him as a perfect target to bully. And he's running these videos of blowing up these cartel boats as if it's some sort of game in a old video game in a shopping mall.
- [29:05]
Ari Melber
What do you think history tells us about people who run on peace or diplomacy and then end up leaning into these war tools? Renaming it Department of War was a long ways from him doing something that at the time was unusual, running from the left of GOP foreign policy.
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Doug Brinkley
Well, Secretary of War Hexith seems unfit for the job in my opinion because he shows zero concern in his career about human rights. He wants to be seen as the kill, kill, kill guy, which is a tradition in the US Military, but it's not the tradition of an Eisenhower or Marshall or tradition of our great secretaries of defense from, you know, James Forrestal on down. It's a kind of cowboy shoot them up. Okay, corral view of foreign policy hexif. And President Trump now can get himself in big danger if he doesn't do correctly, which is go to Congress over what's going on. If we're at war with Venezuela and we're shooting these boats down, do the due diligence. Say this about Bush 41, for example, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq in 1990, we waited months, got NATO behind us, got the UN behind us, and eventually we went in and liberated Kuwait with Operation Desert Storm. This is Donald Trump just pulling and shooting at things that are moving. It's the Trump Doctrine is just a willy nilly surprise, surprise. Here's what I decided to do today. And it has consequences. And what happened needs to be released. The video needs to be released so the American people can judge for themselves what transpired in this boat game incident.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, understood. Historian Doug Brinkley, thank you so much. Up next, we have something you really have to see. And everyone's talking about it. South park had its finale, a takedown of Trump. We'll show you some of the key parts. There's a new south park and it is hammering Donald Trump. Now, remember, they are under the network that is owned by Paramount, owned by the Trump ally, who's meddled with CBS and wants to get a hold of other media. But this new season finale basically took on this bizarre storyline that got so edgy, some would say dark, that we can't show parts of it on the news. They make jokes. It's a satire, of course, about Trump as a kind of father of the literal Antichrist. But there were other big moments that we can show you, including a come upon Trump and affordability.
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Commercial Narrator
Talk me holidays.
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Ari Melber
Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have any spare change. Okay. The government cut school funding, so I lost my job. And then, you know, everything costs more with all the tariffs and my health care got cut. So I'm just struggling like a lot of Americans are. All right, well, Merry Christmas, Mr. President.
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Doug Brinkley
What happened?
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Ari Melber
I don't know. I got another Christian dip to help.
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Commercial Narrator
Me get what I want.
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Ari Melber
And that's just the parts we can show you. It's an example of how what Donald Trump is doing to our country, how he governs, how he leads, is sparking a backlash. You see it in the polling we showed you that he's deeply unpopular and that a third of Trump voters are upset about him on the economy. It's also the way that culture matters. And that brings me to something else I want to share. Our colleague Rachel just joined Stephen Colbert, who decided to take his show, which is partly just comedy and interviews, and make it a place to register his objections to Trump and the government and the way things are going. Colbert also, for a range of reasons, saw his show come to a planned end. They didn't renew it, but Rachel and Steven talked and also shared a cocktail. And some hope you don't trust somebody else to make a Manhattan for you.
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Jen Psaki
I'm controlling. Made sure that we have exactly the same amount.
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Ari Melber
Oh, wow.
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Jen Psaki
Because I'm a liberal and so I want everything to be equal.
- [33:33]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
Yes, there you go.
- [33:34]
Ari Melber
Exactly.
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Jen Psaki
We've had really racist, terrible, awful, pointless policies in the past, and fighting it is worthy. You don't know when you're necessarily gonna win. It may take a long time, but if you stick with it, ultimately history will reward the people who are righteous in these moments, and they will chase the bad guys to the ends of their days.
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Ari Melber
I certainly hope you're right. Rachel making some fair points. And as a treasured colleague, we also enjoy seeing her in that different format. Now, as promised, Jen Psaki returns. We're going to get into it next.
- [34:16]
Commercial Narrator
This episode is brought to you by Alloy Health. Use code Alloy Pod20 for $20 off your first order at myalloy.com struggling with hot flashes, brain fog, or restless nights? It's not just you, and it's not just aging. It's hormonal. Alloy gets you the care you need from menopause trained doctors wherever you are. No waiting rooms, no pharmacy lines. Visit myalloi.com that's my a l l o y dot com and don't forget to use code alloypod20 for $20 off your first order.
- [34:47]
Doug Brinkley
The McDonald's snack wrap is back.
- [34:49]
Ari Melber
You brought it back.
- [34:50]
Doug Brinkley
Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap.
- [34:54]
Ari Melber
You broke the Internet for a snack.
- [34:57]
Doug Brinkley
Snack wrap is back.
- [35:02]
Jen Psaki
Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Gentlemen, the Go to Crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying or while you work, let us keep you company with new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [35:36]
Ari Melber
There's a lot going on, but we're still making time to fall back. And tonight we have two very special guests joining us. You know Jen Psaki from the Briefing interviewing some of the top names on her Washington show, including leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Pelosi. Jen was, of course, a White House official in the Biden administration, where she faced reporters in that context. And she is joined by a legend from the White House of radio, if you will. And that's being generous. Bobbito. DJ Bobbito Garcia is a beloved musical icon. He hosted with our friend of the beat, DJ Stretch Armstrong on the Stretch and Bobbito show, which pioneered acts throughout the 90s, Jay Z, Biggie, and Nas. He has a new book, Quabito's Book of B Ball. Bong Bong, a memoir of sports style and soul. And for the gamers out there, he will actually be an announcer on the upcoming video game NBA to run. So don't tell us he's not, you know, a multi hyphenate. Welcome to both of you. How you guys doing today?
- [36:42]
Jen Psaki
Good. How are you? I love the multi Hyphenate. Congrats on the book.
- [36:46]
Ari Melber
Thank you.
- [36:46]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
I appreciate that. And, Ari, I've been waiting for this moment for, I think, almost two years. This is my fifth time on the beat and always love being here. Jen, how you doing? You look great.
- [36:57]
Ari Melber
Five Timers Club is special.
- [36:59]
Jen Psaki
You do, too. I love the T shirt. It's perfect.
- [37:03]
Ari Melber
Yes. Thank you. We look at. And I love seeing by the way, we got your records up on the screen. Everyone can see. That's a real collection. That's. That's. If you know the. If you know the line, take the old records off the shelf. Bobbito.
- [37:19]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
I'm all analog, 100%. Never switched to Serato CDJs. None of that. I love that warm sound.
- [37:27]
Ari Melber
Respect. Yeah, no, there's. There's something to texture to it. Jen has home. Home court advantage. Jen, we'll go to you first. What's on your fallback list this week?
- [37:36]
Jen Psaki
Oh, man, there's so many competitors, but I. Top of my list, I think, is the George Santos return to party hosting. I don't know if y' all have seen this, but it was a holiday party where he, Anna Delvey, of all people, was attending. Lots of members of the Republican Party. I'm just gonna quote Tim Burchett here, who I particularly love, what he said. I'm glad he's out of prison. The party was rocking, man. I guess good for him. But I don't know. I think I'm ready to move forward. From George Santos, let's just say.
- [38:10]
Ari Melber
Well, and Jen, we hear a lot about criminal justice reform, but Trump clearly delights in going farther than anyone could imagine. Drug lords. We've seen corruption at home and abroad. I mean, these aren't popular things to free people. For Jen.
- [38:31]
Jen Psaki
No. It's almost like he thinks if he pardons people out there and they are guilty of corruption and they're guilty of all sorts of things, it means it's no longer illegal. And he can do all the things because he's already pardoned the people who have done the crimes that he may or may not be doing himself or knows people who are doing. That's my theory. But, yeah, his. His approach to criminal justice reform in. In the last year has been left a lot wanting given who he's been pardoning and who's at the top of his list there. There's lots of other people he could pardon, and he's not choosing the right people.
- [39:06]
Ari Melber
It's wild. It's wild. He pardoned Larry Hoover. Bovito, which creates a sentence That I don't know if it's ever been said in world history, but it's the one thing Donald Trump, Rick Ross and Kanye west have in common is they all want this very violent drug dealer out of prison. And not a lot of people agree with them on that. On the Larry Hoover front, Bobito. Yeah. You got anything on that? Or we go to your fallback, you tell me.
- [39:39]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
Yeah, I'm going to leave that one alone. You on your own on that one.
- [39:45]
Ari Melber
But sometimes, sometimes you gotta leave it alone. All right, what's, what's on your list, sir?
- [39:50]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
Yeah, my fallback right now is. And I've been talking to a lot of dear friends lately and they just, you know, some of them are very progressive, well read, educated, and they're just like, yeah, back during COVID And I'm just like, they talk about it as like, you know, back in the acid wash jeans era or the Byzantine era. It's like, like this long forgotten time. But unfortunately, we're still in an ongoing pandemic and the medically high risk typo on the banner is highly affected by this. And I just would like to see people not. I know, I know that people were exhausted by all the protocols and mitigation, but, you know, there's still people out here who really need to be masking and distancing and be vaccinated so that they can be safe. And you know, by, by putting it in the past, it almost like minimizes the reality for a huge community in the United States and abroad as well.
- [40:54]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And Jen, where does the White House fit into giving people the right information on that? Because that's been a problem. That certainly hasn't helped what, what Bobbin was mentioning.
- [41:04]
Jen Psaki
Yeah, look, I think that is such an important thing for people to hear. It is, you know, they've pulled back on the funding of science and research and data, and there are so many people impacted by that.
- [41:18]
Ari Melber
Right.
- [41:20]
Jen Psaki
And people and really saying that vaccines don't work and that science doesn't work. You know, it's not a partisan issue in any way. It's not a Republican or Democratic issue. It's one that's impacting millions of people. And I think it's incredibly sad that that's the state of where we are in terms of the message coming from the White House right now and coming from the Secretary of Health and Human Services too.
- [41:46]
Ari Melber
And Jen, I know you wanted to get we jump around here into Time magazine's person of the Year. Always kind of gives you some snapshot. But you Saw a fallback there as well. Tell us.
- [41:56]
Jen Psaki
Well, Time's Person of the Year are essentially the AI tech billionaires, which, look, there's a lot to be said about tech, but I have to say it feels tone deaf to me. It almost felt AI generated, like the fact that that's who they made the Time Person of the Year. And that to me is just there are so many other choices or people or movements or just people out there who are marching in the street. The Epstein survivors, journalists. There's so many people who could have been on the COVID of that magazine. I don't think they have the same juice they used to have Time magazine and who is named Person of the Year. But that was a little bit of a really for me and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.
- [42:41]
Ari Melber
Right. Well, I'm almost out of time, but what do you think are your favorite people this year? The, the tech billionaires or does anyone else come higher on your list?
- [42:51]
DJ Bobbito Garcia
Nah, it's definitely tone deaf. I mean, especially when you see communities in Memphis and in other underserved areas where these AI generated, what do you call those? The centers. The data centers are being built and it's affecting the data center electricity bills and it's just sucking the environment out of its, out of its healthy. It's. There's a, It's. I'm just disgusted by seeing that, quite honestly. But I'll leave that. I'll leave it there. That's a fallback. I'm with Jen on the fallback.
- [43:24]
Jen Psaki
All right. A shared fallback.
- [43:27]
Ari Melber
We love a shared fallback. And, and you're right, Bobbito, the other side of it is the communities that are affected, the jobs that may be lost, and if they're breakthroughs, great, let's explore them. But Person of the Year, like it's only the one side of it, is really striking. Jen flagged that and that's why we love getting ideas from guests around here. Jen and Bobbito, great to have you both together. And we will be right back. Donald Trump has been clashing with Fed chair Jerome Powell, who was first appointed by Obama and then Trump. And now of all issues, what has come up is the beloved rock band the Grateful Dead and their fans known as Deadheads. We have a, you know, a Deadhead Fed, Fed hair. I mean, this guy, the head of the Federal Reserve is a stiff. So the Deadhead part is actually noticeable, especially if you follow your rock and roll all the way back to Haight ashburn in the 60s. Powell, who's pretty straight laced is a huge Deadhead fan of the Grateful Dead. This has been noticed in August papers in the financial community like the Journal. He was even spotted at a related concert in 2023 by Dead and Co, which has many members of the original band. An eagle eyed fan snapped a blurry shot of noting, well, wait a minute, the Fed Chair is here at the show and he's asked about it before. You were at the most recent Dead.
- [45:06]
Jen Psaki
And Company Dead and company show.
- [45:08]
Ari Melber
How was the show? Did you like it? No, it was terrific. What can I say?
- [45:12]
Jen Psaki
So it was great.
- [45:14]
Ari Melber
I've been a Grateful dead fan for 50 years. That is a flex both for longevity and being an OG Dead fan. Whether estimated profit ever comes up at the interest rate debates those meetings, we don't know.
- [45:30]
Commercial Narrator
This episode is brought to you by Alloy health. Use code alloypod20 for $20 off your first order at myalloi.com struggling with hot flashes, brain fog or restless nights? It's not just you, and it's not just aging. It's hormonal. Alloy gets you the care you need from menopause trained doctors wherever you are. No waiting homes, no pharmacy lines. Visit myalloy.com that's M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y.com and don't forget to use code AlloyPod20 for $20 off your first order.