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Dana Goldberg (0:01)
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John Fugelsang (0:28)
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Dana Goldberg (0:28)
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John Fugelsang (0:53)
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Dana Goldberg (0:58)
Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. Today, Trump is seeking unconstitutional power over our elections. The Trump administration's pausing some Medicaid funding in Minnesota. Kansas has sent letters to trans people demanding the immediate surrender of their driver's license. And a Nobel winner is stepping down as head of Columbia's Brain Institute over his ties to Epstein. AG is out for one more day. So I'm your host, Dana Goldberg. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Friday. We made it. We made it together. You made it with me. I'm not going to do too much in the discussion. As we know, it's Fuglsang Fridays. I have a fantastic interview with John Fuglsang after the news. And so to waste no more time. Let's do it. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. This first one is from the Washington Post. Pro Trump activists who say that they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17 page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November's midterm elections. And the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump's promised executive order on this issue. The White House, of course, has declined to elaborate on any of Trump's plans because I'm sure they're just a concept of a plan. Actually, not for this. I'm sure he's got it written. And this is a quote. Under the Constitution, it's the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections. And the president doesn't have any power to do that. This is from Peter Tickton, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Okay? He's one of the bad guys. Tickton attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. It did. And this is a quote. But there we have a situation where the President is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes. Again, this is from Tickton. He went on to say, that causes a national emergency where the President has to be able to deal with it. The emergency would be empowering the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference. This is what he's arguing. Okay? Now, the idea of claiming emergency executive powers based on allegations of foreign interference attaches new significance to the administration's actions to reinvestigate the 2020 election. Because they can't fucking let it go. An earlier version of this proposed draft obtained by the Washington Post. It cites a 2018 executive order that declared an emergency to impose sanctions on foreign entities targeting election infrastructure. President Joe Biden repeatedly extended that emergency into 2024. The Treasury Department used the order to place Iranian and Russian entities under sanctions. And another quote, there is now clear and compelling evidence from court cases and forensic analysis that these threats have not been mitigated, but instead have intensified. This is what the proposed draft reads, by the way. It's dated April of 2025. And goes on to say, this constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the United States. No, all of this is bullshit. I want to say the stage is largely being set by the revelations coming out of foreign powers being involved in influencing the 2020 election. This is from Jerome Corsi, who circulated the draft executive order in July. Corsi helped spread the birtherism smear against Barack Obama. These guys are pieces of garbage. And he also helped to spread a conspiracy theory involving slain Democratic staffer Seth Rich, for which he later apologized. He said if there was a provable foreign intrusion. This is from Corsi, that would be a national security emergency, and the order could be issued under his powers as commander in chief. Well, Senator Mark Warren of Virginia, the top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is absolutely no national emergency. He said, we've been raising the alarm for weeks about President Trump's attacks on our elections, and now seeing reports that outline how. Warner said in a statement in response to this article went on to say, this is a plot to interfere with the will of the voters and undermine both the rule of law and public confidence in our elections. Now the measures listed in the 2025 draft of the proposed Executive order include requiring hand marked and hand counted ballots, paper ballots, requiring voters to register a new for the 2020 midterms with proof of citizenship, and restricting mail in ballots to limited circumstances. The draft also proposes authorizing The Justice Department, U.S. citizen and Immigration Services and Social Security Administration and the Postal Service to have a role in identifying ineligible voters. All of this just reeks. Reeks. Now the draft cites emergency authority from laws including the national emergencies Act of 1976, the Federal Information Security Modernization act of 2014, and the Defense Production act of 1950. As we know right now, Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution assigns the powers to regulate elections to state legislatures and Congress with absolutely no role for the President. Presidential emergency on elections has never been tested in court, by the way. That is a horrifying story that we're going to keep very close contact with and let you know what's going on in the future. This next one's from the Associated press. Vice President J.D. vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration would temporarily halt some Medicaid funding to the state of Minnesota over fraud concerns as part of what he describes as an aggressive crackdown on the misuse of public funds. This asshole Vance, who made the announcement next to Dr. Oz, the administrator for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services and the administration was taking the action, and I quote, in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money. Now Dr. Oz, who referred to people committing fraud as self serving scoundrels, said the federal government would hold off on paying $259.5 million to Minnesota for fund Medicaid, the health care safety net for low income Americans. This is only hurting them because they're a fucking blue state and they're not doing what they want them to do when it comes to this immigration crackdown. And this is a quote. This is not a problem with the people of Minnesota. It's a problem with the leadership of Minnesota and other states who do not take Medicaid preservation seriously. Bullshit. That's bullshit, Dr. Oz. Wednesday's move is part of a larger Trump administration effort to spotlight fraud around the country. That effort comes after allegations of fraud involving daycare centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis prompted a massive immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city, resulting in widespread protests. President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address on Tuesday announced Vance would spearhead a national and I quote, war on fraud. Dr. Oz said the administration was simultaneously notifying the Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, as he was making his announcement publicly. He said, we will give them the money, but we're going to hold it and only release it after they propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem. They're blackmailing them. He said wahls would have 60 days to respond and advised healthcare providers and Medicaid beneficiaries who were concerned to contact the governor's office. Now, Wahls said, and I quote, this is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities and working people across the state. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement that his team has secured over 300 Medicaid fraud convictions since he took office in 2019. He also noted and he called on the Legislature earlier Wednesday to give him more staff and legal tools to combat Medicaid fraud. He said courts have repeatedly found that their pattern of cutting first and asking questions later is illegal. And if the federal government's unlawfully withholding money meant for the 1.2 million low income Minnesotans on Medicaid, we will see them in court. So we'll keep you posted on this story because obviously this is a big deal and it is retribution. We'll probably see it happening in other blue states too. This next one is a really terrible story that I'm going to cover a little bit more in depth as well on the Beans Talk, but we need to cover it here. This is from Aaron Reed's substack, Aaron in the Morning Today, and this was of yesterday. Transgender people across Kansas are reporting receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles stating that they must surrender their driver's licenses and that their current credentials will be considered invalid upon the law's publication in Kansas Register on Thursday. Okay, as of today, when I'm recording this, should any transgender person be caught driving without a license, they could face a Class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and $1,000 fine. Kansas already required county jails to house inmates according to sex assigned at birth. Now, the letter obtained by Aaron in the Morning marks one of the most significant erosions of transgender civil rights in the United States to date. The letter, which has been reported to Aaron in the Morning by Kansas based activist states that under House substitute For Senate Bill 244, Kansas issued driver's licenses and identification cards must now reflect the credentials holder sex at birth. It warns that upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday, February 26, current credentials for affected individuals will no longer be valid. The Legislature, the letter notes, did not include a grace period, no grace period for updating credentials and anyone operating a vehicle without a valid credential may be subject to additional penalties. Those whose gender marker does not match the sex assigned at birth are directed to surrender their current credential to the Division of Vehicles for reissuance and let me just put a question out there. How the hell do you think most of these people are going to get a new license if they're not allowed to drive? Okay now. SB 244, also known as the bathroom Bounty bill, contained heavy identification document bans as well. The bill was rushed through the Kansas Legislature in January using a gut and go procedure that bypassed nearly all public input and its key provisions. Governor Laura Kelly vetoed that bill everybody on February 13, calling it poorly drafted. But the legislature that is mainly Republican overrode her veto days later. In addition to the driver's license provisions, the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in the restrooms. Released $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms. Who the fuck and how the fuck do you think this is going to get enforced? Seriously, do you know how many CIS women who do not fall under the guise of what they think femininity in this country should look like are going to get approached in These restrooms from cis people who think that they want to take home $1,000 in bounty? Are you kidding me? The bill takes effects immediately upon publication in the Kansas Registrar. Rather than the standard July 1st effective date giving transgender Kansasans just days between the override and the invalidation of their identity documents, the consequences for non compliance could escalate really quickly. Under Kansas law, driving without a valid license is a class B misdemeanor punishable by, like I said, six months in jail. A thousand dollar fine though first time offenders are more likely to face a citation and a fine. A conviction however, triggers an automatic 90 day license suspension. If a person drives during that suspension, they face a charge of driving on a suspended license which carries a mandatory minimum of five days in jail. The other thing, and I'll talk about this more, you need an id. You need an active ID to vote in Kansas. This is also a step of voter suppression for the trans community because between now now and the midterms, they need to make sure that they have a valid ID to be able to vote. It's a ridiculous attack on their civil rights. We're going to keep covering it. I'm just so sorry that the transgender community has become the scapegoat of this administration and so many people across this country. It must be fucking exhausting and I am so sorry. We're going to continue to cover these stories. You know we will. This last one is from Forbes, and of course it has to do with the Epstein files because everything seems to these days other than the attack on our trans community. Nobel Laureate and Columbia University professor Dr. Richard Axel announced Tuesday that he's stepping down as the CROW director of the school Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavioral Institute after the Justice Department's Jeffrey Epstein documents released highlighted his friendship with convicted sex offender. In an official statement, Axel said that he has informed the university about his plan to step down from the co director role to focus on research and teaching in his lab. Axel is also resigning from his position as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He said, my past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret. I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students and colleagues. Again, this apology only came after this guy got caught. The noble laureate, who hasn't been accused by the way of any wrongdoing himself, added, what has emerged about Epstein's appalling conduct, the harm that he has caused so many people, makes my association with him all that more painful and inexcusable. Columbia University said that it has seen no evidence that Dr. Axel violated any university policy or law, but agreed with his decision to resign amid the continued fallout from the release of the DOJ files. The university statement praised Axel for his extraordinary contributions to the university and his dedication to his colleagues, to his students and to science. I'm sure there's going to be a lot more fallout from these Epstein files and you know, these people that are resigning. I do feel like it's a little bit of an easy way out. I want to see more harsher consequences. I would also love to see people who had a relationship with Epstein testify about what they knew. You know, if they're saying the judgment was bad, they should not have had a relationship with them. I think they know more than they're letting on. All right, everyone, thank you for being with me for this part of the Daily Beans. I have a fantastic interview with our Dear John Fungal saying so we're going to get to that right after this break. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. We all have that person who refuses to change anything because it technically still works, even if it's still costing them too much money even with their phone plan. Our podcast producer decided to stop doing that. He switched to using Mint Mobile and he told me that the service is better than ever, coverage is just as reliable as his old provider and the speeds are just as fast. The best part is that he's paying less than ever. Let's thank Mint Mobile for supporting this episode. 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