← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
2446 -Ukraine, Tariffs, And The Assault On Social Security
01:31:47
It's News Day Tuesday! Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day. First, they run through updates on the free-fall of the markets amid Trump’s tariffs, Trump’s cut off of aid to Ukraine, Trump’s joint session, state-level...
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- [00:00]
Emma Vigeland
You are listening to a free version.
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Sam Seder
Of the Majority Report.
- [00:04]
Emma Vigeland
Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily.
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Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, March 4, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, markets fall, prices set to rise as Trump launches tariffs against China, against China, Mexico and Canada. And at this point, China and Canada have already retaliated with their own tariffs. Meanwhile, Trump suspends aid to Ukraine because Zelensky didn't wear a suit. Tonight Trump to address the nation in a joint session. Some Democrats will be protesting. Some Democrats will boycott. Meanwhile, Democrats block Republican attempts to ban trans athletes from school sports. Trump State Department quashes a USAID report showing that hundreds of thousands of children will die over the next decade without support from usa. The Supreme Court weakens the Clean Water act to allow more raw sewage in your drinking drain. I should say more raw sewage discharge. Oh, okay, not directly into your drinking water, but it'll get there.
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Emma Vigeland
I mean making America healthy again by drinking a bunch of everybody's poop.
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Sam Seder
Let raw sewage discharge be free. Stop trying to curtail everything your woke discharge controls. Trump Musk's federal federal spending freeze is starting to break agencies doge to close two key NOAA facilities, NOAA facilities which provide the nation's weather forecasting. So for farmers, construction workers, air transportation, ground transportation, the number of industries that rely on this and also just, you know, people. Well, it'll be fine. It'll be privatized Social Security. Meanwhile, the assault ramps up as Trump looking to fire thousands of Social Security Administration workers. U.S. post Office is up next. Meanwhile, the Department of Education has frozen affordable repayment plans, exploding loan payments sizes I should say Trump orders huge swaths of US Forests cut and handed over to loggers. And good news, Democrats appear right now primed to take the government shutdown seriously and offer no support to Republicans. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen. It is a very busy news day Tuesday, very busy news day Tuesday. The you know, I have a 3 inch stack of stories that we will not even get to in the headlines that I think arguably could be worthy of headlines. There's a lot of court cases that are ongoing trying to pick out the sort of the most relevant ones. And it's just an overwhelming amount of news. One, one or two things. One Good news is the other day we told you the story of maybe this last week and I think I first heard it by Greg Sargent in the New Republic. If I remember correctly, One of the USAID's plan programs provides essentially like, it's almost like pre, it's not pre digested food, but it's a peanut butter based paste, protein paste that comes in tubes for children who are literally so malnourished that they cannot actually digest food because their systems have more or less shut down. I think literally the technical term was like wasting, you know, wasting away. And there were two factories in the country that had USAID contracts to provide this stuff and hundreds of thousands of these, I don't remember what they call them, not ready made meals, but some other technical term for it, were sitting in these factories unable to move anywhere because they couldn't reach anybody at usaid. The contract seems to have been canceled, et cetera, et cetera. The story which we, I think first talked about maybe a week or so ago again, I think it was from Greg Sargent over at the New Republic, migrated over to cnn. CNN covered the story over the weekend. Supposedly the Fuhrer, I'm sorry Musk, saw it and in his benevolent grace decided to allow the contract to be fulfilled. Oh, and merciful king and yes, all glory. And so these kids are going to get the food. Now they're very lucky that Greg Sargent and the New Republic happened to write about this and then somebody at CNN happened to read Greg Sargent and cover this because if it didn't happen, you would have 5,000, 10,000, 1,000, 50,000 kids just not have any food and die.
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Brandon
They're ready to use therapeutic food sat in a warehouse, right?
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Sam Seder
And this is the type of sort of fiat that government is being run by now. Just, it's not even fiat, it's just a complete lock. I just wanted the lucky ones or the connected ones. That's it. And also I also want to make a point and we'll cover this later in the program. But to that woman from the Biggest Loser who I was on Piers Morgan with the other day, who said this, feeding the starving kids is, and I quote, a red herring. Go F yourself. Yes, go take your maha and shove it up your ass. You worried about people's health with the processed food and you say that starving kids are a red herring. Go F yourself. I doubt she'll hear this or see this, but I felt like I had to say that.
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Brandon
We should clip it.
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Sam Seder
We should clip it. Let's clip it and we'll Play it at the end of the. In the fun half. Just tag her, honestly. Oh, you mean clip what I just said? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes, we should prop clip it.
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Brandon
We're prop clipping right now.
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Sam Seder
Meanwhile, what we were going to start with. Oh, yes. Overnight, Trump decided to suspend aid to Ukraine. Look, this is, this is all been just for show. The idea that Trump was going to suspend aid was decided upon a while ago, or at least that this stunt. I don't know if Donald Trump was an asset of Putin or if it was just because of his relationship with his father that he desperately, you know, looks up to Putin or who knows what it is. But you're a fool if you think this is a thing of, like, Donald Trump not wanting to waste American dollars.
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Emma Vigeland
Oh, well, three days ago, he approved billions of dollars more to be sent to Israel, including unleashing the 2,000 pound bombs which kill everybody within the radius of two football fields. The one good thing Biden, the one thing Biden did to reign in Israel was stop those shipments. Trump's doing it again. Turns out you can stop weapons to a country that's committing a genocide, but for a country that's defending themselves against an invasion. No, no, no, no, no. We side with the strongmen here.
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Sam Seder
The idea that Trump is doing this because he doesn't like war, days after he's expanded the US Military's ability to kill civilians, days after he's provided billions of dollars to Israel to kill more Palestinians is simply, patently absurd. I don't know why Donald Trump is doing what he's doing, but he's not doing any of these things based upon, you know, some love of peace, some love of civilian life, some desire to save money for Americans. You know, is it out of some semblance of vengeance because he never got the goods that he wanted to get to implicate Joe Biden in 2020? Or is it because, you know, there's a pee tape, or is it because he just, like, has some weird attraction to men he perceives as strong and he's seen too many pictures of Putin riding a horse without a shirt? I don't know. I have no idea. But to imply that this is his agenda is about peace is ludicrous. Now, will it lead to peace? It might. It also very well might lead to Russia invading other countries because it's worked.
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Brandon
And, you know, we're just continuing the Ukraine invasion.
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Sam Seder
Continuing to Ukraine. I mean, there were two countries that joined NATO that never had intentions of joining NATO, but did so because of fears of Russian aggression, take it up with them. In the years prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had folks on here talking about, is NATO really worthwhile or is it anachronistic in this age? And then Putin comes in and basically says, well, let me weigh into that argument here. Is J.D. vance playing up, I mean, the, the fake controversy he drummed up as an excuse to cut off aid to Ukraine. And let's also be clear, the rare earth minerals deal, all the experts who have weighed in on this are basically like, yeah, these aren't really, I mean, we call them rare earth minerals, but they're not really rare anymore. And they're not used, they're not used for batteries in the way that, that's not where battery technology is heading. So this was all just sort of like part of a way of Trump selling some notion to, for some reason to some constituency out here. And here's J.D. vance sort of being sent out, I guess. Who's the point person on. Zelensky was rude to us. Back to the Oval Office Friday. Yep. From your perspective.
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J.D. Vance
Yeah. Great tv, as the President said. Yeah, well, you know, it's, it's funny. So we have a 40, 45 minute press conference and the President normally does this, and I've seen this now three or four times with foreign leaders where he likes to bring the media in, likes to have a conversation, but answer questions with the press. As you know, he's very open with reporters. And what I noticed is that for the first 25, 30 or so minutes, he, he tried to sort of bend over backwards to be gracious and kind to Zelenskyy. Even when Zelenskyy was kind of needling him, even when Zelenskyy was saying things that I thought were untrue. The President just tried to be diplomatic. Right. I think that's, that's his natural instinct in that situation. And then when it really went off the rails, of course, is when I asked, or you had a Polish journalist who asked a question, the President answered it and then I answered it. And then something about my answer just really set Zelensky off. So then he came at me.
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Sam Seder
So you're blaming yourself.
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J.D. Vance
And then I went back at him. And what I tried to do originally was actually try to diffuse the situation a little bit because I'm like, you know, we're having this meeting, obviously there are a hundred television cameras here, but.
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Sam Seder
Pause it for a second. Like, listen to the way this guy is talking about this exchange. There is not one substantive thing. It is all like literally I've heard, you know, rappers go back and forth about their beasts with more specificity and substance.
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Emma Vigeland
Well, he opens with saying it's good tv. And then he just said, again, there's something about television.
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Sam Seder
I mean, he knows on the, on the Bachelorette where people go back and forth and retell an exchange that go awry with more depth.
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Emma Vigeland
I know.
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Sam Seder
Well, this is just absurd.
- [15:24]
Emma Vigeland
We need, like, the black and white cutbacks like they do on Real Housewives. But, like, he starts with the. He starts with the TV point, which he knows his audience. Donald Trump wanted to make a TV moment. We said when we reacted to it live on Friday that he was acting like he was doing a firing on the Apprentice. And that's the mode that he slipped into. And it's just incredible when he says Trump's open with reporters. The reporter that asked that question about Zelensky's suit was Marjorie Taylor Greene's new boyfriend from some bizarre right wing outlet. Because in part, the administration has kicked out all of the legacy media, like the Associated Press, because they don't say Gulf of America. I mean, there's just so many lies here. And we talk about how, like, the Republicans are. The look what you made me do. Oh, folks, this is worse than that. It's like the look what you made me do would be like, you offended me, Zelensky, so we're going to punch you in the face and cut off your aid. But he didn't even do anything offensive. They started the aggression. It was like he punched Zelensky in the face, then said, okay, look what you made me do. You made me punch you in the face. So I'm going to punch you in the face again and take the aid away. And. And he's revealing way too much by referring to TV all the time, because that's what he was brought in there to do, was to do a publicity stunt as a pretext to say he was so disrespectful when he wasn't to take the aid away.
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J.D. Vance
Continue having this meeting. Obviously, there are a hundred television cameras here. Let's try to have this conversation private. And then the president, as we kept on going back and forth, I tried again to say, well, maybe we should have this conversation private. And the president was like, nope, actually, I don't want to have it in private anymore. I want to have this actual conversation in public for the American people to see. And I do think that there was just a certain sense of. There was a lack of respect. There was a certain sense of entitlement and most importantly, look, we can look past all that stuff, but the President has set a very clear goal for his administration. He wants the killing to stop. And I think that it's very important that President Zelenskyy, and of course President Putin, too, they've both got to come to negotiating table. And that's ultimately where things broke apart. I really don't care what President Zelensky says about me or anybody else, but he showed a clear unwillingness to engage in the peace process that President Trump has said is the policy of the American people and of their president. That's the real breakdown is I think Zelensky wasn't yet there, and I think, frankly, now still isn't there. But I think he'll get there eventually. He has to.
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Sam Seder
This peace process started off with not even inviting Ukraine to the table.
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Emma Vigeland
They were meeting in Saudi Arabia with Russia a day before Trump appeared at this Miami summit hosted by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, where he then called Zelensky a dictator. I mean, come on.
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Sam Seder
He's so diplomatic, you know, he's such.
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Emma Vigeland
A dumb, like, idiot to Trump is. And he's so far gone, his brain is just fried. Like, if you really had this grand idea that he wants the Nobel Peace Prize or whatever, he showed. He's talking about, like, you have no cards, Alinsky, Trump, you showed all your cards about how for some reason you're fixated on Russia. And we still don't know the extent to that of that connection or whatever. But, like, you, you were pretending like you were going to come in and, and solve this on day one. But he couldn't help himself by showing his disdain for Ukraine and his favoritism for Russia right away. So no one buys that you're actually looking for peace in this instance, it was so obvious and, like, it's causing, I don't know, major controversy about it, I guess. Although, who knows if this is more than just, like, I don't know, people like us who care about this, the kind of thing, but I don't know.
- [19:17]
Sam Seder
Well, all those EU leaders shouldn't have made fun of me the first time around. Now they're gonna pay.
- [19:23]
Brandon
They should start boosting the speech of their Nazis, and then maybe we'll have something to talk about.
- [19:28]
Sam Seder
We need a more militarized Germany. How could that go wrong?
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Emma Vigeland
Also, come on. Like, again, not to moralize, but, like, why is he laughing like this? We're talking about a war that has killed many, many people.
- [19:40]
Sam Seder
Well, that's what they're concerned about. They're Concerned about all the deaths.
- [19:42]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, I can tell by the. That's why they want peace and the TV mentions.
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Sam Seder
In a moment we'll be talking about other news that we have. The President has initiated tariffs against the, against the Canada and Mexico. Good. Stop letting those guys, these Canadians go up there booing our national anthem.
- [20:14]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
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Sam Seder
So we're going to show them we're going to drive our economy into a recession. Now we'll see who, who's who. Canada. We'll get to that in a moment. First, couple words from our sponsors. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, Deleteme does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. Delete Me knows your privacy is worth protecting. Sign up, provide Delete Me with exactly what information you want deleted and their experts take it from there. Delete Me sends you regular personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it and what they removed. Delete Me isn't just a one time service. Delete Me is always working for you. Constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. I've been using this service for years before they became a sponsor. 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Okay, couple of words about tonight. Tonight is Donald Trump is going to be giving it's not a State of the Union address because I guess the tradition is that within, you know, two weeks or a month of taking office, you can't, can't give a State of the Union. But it is a joint session, so it's not technically called the State of the Union. He's going to go up there, he's going to talk about all the horrible things that Joe Biden did, and then he's going to talk about all the great things that they've done and how we're going to make America great again. And we are not going to cover it live because, frankly, want to pace ourselves. And we'll probably cover the State of the Union next year and the year after and the year after.
- [26:26]
Brandon
And I read something the State of Unions actually haven't moved the needle in any of his State of the Unions like people like Trump as much as they do after his State of the Union or dislike him as much as they did before.
- [26:37]
Emma Vigeland
But he's also like the biggest, one of the bigger indicators for who voted for him is lower information voters or people who consume very little political news. So the people that are already watching the State of the Union already hate him and the people that are voting for him aren't watching the State of the Union.
- [26:53]
Sam Seder
There, there is value in it. But I think, you know, we will, we will cover it tomorrow. There's value in a couple of things in terms of at least analyzing it. One is to get a sense of where he claims he's going to go, and maybe we can divine from there where he is going. What, whether they feel like they're feeling political heat in any way will be reflected in this speech. We will get a sense of what Democrats think they need to do, which is really important, particularly when we are now 10 days away from a potential government shutdown. I mean, this is going to be a big deal. I'm looking at reporting now. I don't know if it's true in Politico. Maybe we'll go through it in a second. That suggests the Democrats are not going to, they're not going to vote for a continuing resolution unless, not a clean one, unless, and certainly not one that edifies the cuts that Musk has made unless they get some promise in the form, I think, of legislation or reiteration that what Elon Musk is doing is not authorized. It is illegal, it's beyond undocumented, it runs contrary to the law. And so hopefully we will see maybe some indication of that tonight that the Democrats understand. And this story, we'll read this political story maybe a little bit later because, you know, people were critical of, although not many, I have to say were critical. Like, why are you getting on the Democrats? What can they do? And there is stuff they can do. They can't win, but they can lose. Much better to set up another win.
- [28:56]
Emma Vigeland
Well, by doing politics. I mean, this is different than the other times in the sense that the base is very unhappy too. That's the way the Democratic leadership is responding. It's borne out in polling. I've never seen polling like this. I wonder if Hakeem Jeffries can survive. I mean, we'll see. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.
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Brandon
But it's gonna be interesting to see some of the other Democrats if they start showing that upset with Hakeem Jeffries. Whereas you said in eight years ago Pelosi was much more popular.
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Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [29:26]
Sam Seder
So all that is encouraging, I guess, in some respects. As you know, Israel, I think we mentioned this yesterday headlined Israel has decided to prevent any humanitarian aid to reach Palestine. Palestinians in Gaza now.
- [29:51]
Emma Vigeland
Which is an admission that they could do it. I just want to point that out. We heard for so many months that, I mean, Hamas is blocking it and stealing all of the aid and we're trying to get all of these trucks in, but the terrorists are thwarting us. And now they're just saying, essentially saying now we're cutting it all off. And there was a top Likud official that was saying, oh, actually bomb the aid that's already in there. And they've cut off water salination for all of central Gaza. And the photos of devastation like they were doing Ramadan celebrations amidst this rubble. There's nothing left, not barely any homes left. And now they're trying to, I think, execute their final solution in Gaza by starving them to death.
- [30:39]
Sam Seder
The ostensibly it is about the hostages, but the Israel has been breaking the cease fire deal over and over again. Three days ago, was it? Four days ago, they announced that they would not be leaving the Philadelphia corridor, which of course also contrary to the ceasefire deal. And the US government once again consistently saying, oh, you're violating a ceasefire deal. Well, perhaps you would like $4 billion more in aid. Here you go. That's what we're going seeing here is Bibi Netanyahu On Sunday, thanking Trump for his unwavering support of Israel.
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Bibi Netanyahu
I want to thank President Trump for his unwavering support for Israel. During my recent visit to Washington, I said that Donald Trump is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. Now, and President.
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Sam Seder
Pause it for a second. This is Sunday, two days after J.D. vance is in the White House with Donald Trump telling Zelensky that he hasn't properly thanked the President. Yep. Now, incidentally, Zelensky at the beginning of that press conference did in fact thank the American public. The Ukrainians are running like training schools for the US and EU on what they've learned in the three year fight that they've had with Russia, which is a, which you know, is obviously pulling people away from the front and the fight. But that type of payback is invaluable. Whereas Israel is probably just spying on our top government officials based upon, just based upon past experience.
- [32:47]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [32:48]
Sam Seder
But here is Netanyahu coming out, making sure to do a very splashy thank you to Donald Trump. It's almost as if there is a nexus between Russia and Israel in the US in this instance.
- [33:05]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [33:06]
Bibi Netanyahu
Is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. And President Trump shows that friendship each and every day. He has shown it through his visionary plan for Gaza. This is a plan which Israel fully supports. He's shown it by sending us all the munitions that were being held up this way. He's giving Israel the tools we need to finish the job against Iran's terrorists.
- [33:30]
Emma Vigeland
I'm sorry, just. You don't even need to take it down. But just want to clarify, that's 2,000 pound bombs that the one thing Biden did was block, even though he let Israel commit genocide the entire time. It can take out two football fields of people.
- [33:46]
Bibi Netanyahu
And you've shown it by fully backing Israel and putting the pressure to release the hostages where it truly belongs. On Hamas, Israel has accepted President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff's plan to extend the temporary cease fire by 50 days. During that time, we can discuss the conditions. Conditions for a permanent ceasefire that will end the war in Gaza. In Witkoff's plan, half of the hostages would be released right away and the remaining half would be released if we reach an agreement on a permanent ceasefire. Again, Israel has accepted this plan. I accepted this plan.
- [34:24]
Emma Vigeland
Okay. I'm sorry. But so far he's lying here again. So Jeremy Scahill tweeted this. He has connections with people in high levels of Hamas that they didn't even see. Witkoff's plan or were not briefed about it at all. According to Scahill, prior to Netanyahu coming out publicly and saying that they had rejected Witkoff's plan and the ceasefire deal that initially they'd agreed to, had said that if negotiations are still ongoing about the second phase of the ceasefire deal and the hostage release, that you can't violate the cease fire. You still have to be engaging in these negotiations. So he's claiming that Hamas is violating it, even though they weren't briefed on this new Witkoff proposal.
- [35:12]
Bibi Netanyahu
Israel has accepted this plan. I accepted this plan, but so far Hamas has rejected it.
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Emma Vigeland
No.
- [35:18]
Bibi Netanyahu
Hamas had also put forward positions for a permanent ceasefire that are totally unacceptable. Israel has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza. Something we've done for the past 42 days. We've done that because Hamas steals the supplies and prevents the people of Gaza from getting them. It uses these supplies to finance its terror machine, which is aimed directly at Israel and our civilians. And this we cannot accept.
- [35:44]
Sam Seder
Posit we will. So we are to believe that they are turning around. They're completely surrounded. The only way to get supplies in to Gaza is through Israel. Right. Because they're at the Philadelphia quarter and they're obviously in their northern border. So the argument is, is that somehow Hamas is selling all of these supplies in, I would imagine, like great prices to all the people in Gaza who have been completely wiped out. It's not like, you know, there's ATMs on every corner in Gaza. Prior to everything being leveled, 50% of the people were unemployed. People are starving there. Yet they have enough money to buy all these supplies from Hamas so that Hamas can build, use its money to weapons. Like, what is Hamas? Where is Hamas selling these supplies? Yeah, it's just absurd. It's just impossible. They don't have some type of, like they have this underground railroad. They're selling these supplies in the Sinai Desert.
- [37:09]
Emma Vigeland
It's insane. I mean, he's under icc. You know, there's a warrant out for him. And one of the crimes that is alleged is starvation as a part of the genocide that he's committing. And then in this video, he's laughably trying to claim that he cares about people starving. So what's the alternate? If you're so concerned that Hamas is taking all the aid and it's not going to people, how are you going to get aid to them? Because he doesn't answer that second part of the question. Because the whole thing is just a pretext for starvation to kill them.
- [37:43]
Sam Seder
All Hamas, presumably, is selling all the food aid to, like, a McDonald's or some type of big restaurant chain. And that's how they're getting all this.
- [37:53]
Bibi Netanyahu
Money, which is aimed directly at Israel and our civilians. And this we cannot accept. We will take further steps if Hamas continues to hold our hostages. And throughout this, Israel knows that America and President Trump have our back. Thank you again, President Trump. Thank you for all you're doing to return our hostages, bolster our security, and provide a future of prosperity and peace for all the peoples of the Middle East.
- [38:21]
Sam Seder
Oh, my God. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is out there. This is the Free Speech warrior.
- [38:35]
Bibi Netanyahu
He.
- [38:36]
Sam Seder
Announced on Truth Social. And again, I don't think he has the legal authority to do this, but I think people are, you know, at least the mainstream media completely missing the point. But he writes, all federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests. What are illegal protests? We don't know.
- [39:02]
Emma Vigeland
Hmm.
- [39:03]
Sam Seder
Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. No masks. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
- [39:16]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, that is so revealing. Because remember, we covered that story about how Nassau County, Long island, banned masks? That's not it. That's not about COVID I mean, some parts of the country it is. It's really about this. It's not. It's about protests against Israel.
- [39:36]
Sam Seder
But people don't seem to understand. You know, you watch mainstream reporters going, like, how is this more efficient? And. But this is really going to hurt these agencies that they supposedly want to help. Like, do people not understand what the agenda is here? The agenda. This is the feature. This is not the bug. All they care about is creating this type of confusion, making it relentlessly hard for federal workers to do their jobs. This is just, you know, a SOP to, I guess, you know, Miriam Adelson.
- [40:15]
Emma Vigeland
And the Zionist lobby.
- [40:17]
Sam Seder
And the. Yeah, the Zionist lobby. Aipac.
- [40:22]
Emma Vigeland
Do we have the RFK thing, too?
- [40:24]
Sam Seder
Oh, yes. Here is Maha.
- [40:28]
Emma Vigeland
You know, there's a measles outbreak throughout the country. I saw some reports of. There's an increase in dysentery in the Pacific Northwest. But this is how we have to really worry about making America healthy again.
- [40:40]
Sam Seder
They fired, incidentally, all at the usda accidentally. All the people who were in charge of keeping the bird flu under control. Under. In our av. Chicken populations, basically a poultry populations. Here is Secretary Kennedy talking about the need for vaccination and public health. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Talking about College students.
- [41:10]
Emma Vigeland
Antisemitism, like racism, is a spiritual and.
- [41:13]
Sam Seder
Oh, let me help.
- [41:15]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [41:15]
Sam Seder
Anti Semitism, like racism, it's a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history's most deadly plagues. In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of the woke cancel culture. The woke cancel. I can't even believe that he wrote that. So embarrassing. The false narratives of the woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence. Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect based upon speech freedom and open debate and not open wokeness.
- [42:13]
Emma Vigeland
Was this the same day Trump said that there are illegal protests as he's talking about speech freedom and open debate?
- [42:20]
Sam Seder
I mean, it's the same thing.
- [42:21]
Brandon
It's the same project.
- [42:22]
Sam Seder
It's the exact same project. It's grotesque.
- [42:25]
Brandon
Michael Brooks said, like one of the reasons he was over and rolled his eyes at standpoint epistemology and sort of identity politics, a cancel culture was because of the pro Israel arguments he heard growing up that were very cynically deployed in this exact same sort of way. And this has always been the case on free speech that the number one. What is one country you have to pledge allegiance to to sign contracts in this country because of anti BDS laws? It's Israel. And this has been the case for so long. And it's. I think it's a real shame that this is the way we've ended up. And as these universities get attacked and like Peter Thiel's on Dave Rubin saying maybe we don't need them anymore the way that they are, are failing this test of standing up for their students. Right. To protest the things that they would put on their websites to draw people like me to the universities in the first place to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a place like nyu, take that out on financing. And now they're folding over in a way that was so predictable because APAC style donors also have a huge say at these institutions and they're completely incapable of meeting this moment. A complete capitulation to just an assault on free speech. And I don't like again, deserve and what people deserve, there's going to be a lot of harm. But the administrators at these institutions, as Peter Thiel like burns through them, they have a comment with this sort of thing.
- [43:49]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, I mean you're, you're exactly right. And it's just crazy to see Kennedy like Health and Human Services. The guy is like, not. They did send out some directive about okay, please get vaccinated for measles. But, but, like, he's focused on spiritual health in that, in that response here. That's essentially what he's saying. I don't give a crap about this. What is he, like the top priest of the Health and Human Services secretary? Oh, anti. Yeah, the spiritual guru. Moral malady.
- [44:22]
Brandon
And then spiritual guidance from that guy.
- [44:24]
Emma Vigeland
Likening, likening the protest movement against Israel's genocide to a plague. I mean, come on. This is just crazy stuff. But I guess this is what he's there for.
- [44:36]
Sam Seder
We'll talk about his sort of like, tepid endorsement of getting a measles vaccine and how it was considered such a relentless betrayal of his base in a minute. But let's go over some of this tariff stuff. Trump announced 25% tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and, and 10% on China. It was in addition, in addition to the existing 10% on Chinese goods. As of now, it is unclear if he's just going to end up issuing waiver after waiver, but here's Fox News yesterday. Watch as the Dow goes down. Now, this is funny to watch, unless, of course, your pension is invested in this and you're about to retire. Also, it's a good teachable moment for people who are like, we need to put our money in the stock market instead of Social Security.
- [46:01]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [46:02]
Sam Seder
Are all our money. Why isn't all our Social Security money in the stock market? Now, I imagine it's going to bounce back up at one point, but we'll see. But here is Trump announcing the tariffs yesterday. Stock market is plummeting. And the real problem, of course, is going to be that there is going to be real inflation for people. And these tariffs are going to function like a regressive tax. Yep. Because they're going to raise the price of goods. This is just like a vat, just like, like using a sales tax as a mechanism in which to get revenue. Because rich guy, poor guy both got to buy a car. If the car is now $1200 more expensive on average, which is what the.
- [46:54]
Emma Vigeland
Reporting says it may do, that is a minimum.
- [46:59]
Sam Seder
It is more of a percentage of that poor guy's net worth than that rich guy's net worth.
- [47:07]
Emma Vigeland
That's why flat taxes in general are so insane. But it's why the sales tax in and of itself is regressive because it affects poorer people more. This is just a compounding sales tax, essentially.
- [47:18]
Sam Seder
Exactly. And here is Donald Trump announcing it. And watch the Dow. I'm a huge fan of Ronald Reagan, but he was bad on trade. Very bad on trade. He allowed a lot of people a lot of business to be taken. So I say that with due respect because I he was so great on other things, but he was bad on trade. We are setting records right now, records like nobody has ever seen before. When you have companies like this coming in and almost 40% of their company in one signature is going to be devoted to what he does, which is one of the most important, important businesses in the world, that's an unbelievable thing. When Apple now is going to start building all of their plants here.
- [48:04]
Emma Vigeland
Doubtful.
- [48:05]
Sam Seder
Goes down to 177.
- [48:07]
Emma Vigeland
I mean people put the curb for your enthusiasm music to it. It would be funny if it didn't harm us all.
- [48:15]
Brandon
I can't help but think that and this is maybe a little bit conspiratorial but it does look like they're driving us toward a recession just headlong.
- [48:24]
Sam Seder
The Atlanta Fed, like you said yesterday, is predicting one we heard from Kowalski in Nebraska, our farmer friend saying that was it wheat futures are price of wheat has dropped significantly which is strange when you're not at harvest because that means that the futures are down. Cost of oil is down, which means that people aren't is you know, our economy is starting to slow. We'll see. But this is the thing is that, you know, people have said like what are they thinking about? Like why would they do this? I just don't think that the normal rules that we apply to politics are operating here because a I don't think Elon Musk cares. I think he is completely shielded from any type of of of public backlash. I'm not sure that Trump cares. I think they're confident that they will be able to win the election one way or another four years from now. And certainly like lawmakers are just sitting there like deer in the headlight because there is an unlimited amount of money that can be deployed against them in the primary and for them in the general.
- [49:57]
Emma Vigeland
And tariffs can when like they're applied to specific industries and being targeted it's there they can incentivize onshore manufacturing of certain goods. Say if you want to be competitive with a Chinese company that doesn't have strict labor laws. Like the idea that Apple's going to manufacture iPhones here please like that you can compete with them by raising their prices with tariffs so that our products here are sold more. But to do it across the board like this just functions as a regressive tax on the poorest people in so that the billionaires can keep getting richer because A lot of them, they're just doing crypto speculation. That's outside of all of this.
- [50:38]
Brandon
That's the thing is people like Warren Buffett and private equity and you see a lot of this crypto speculation because there's no good investments. Well, they're sitting on billions of dollars of cash and they will go on a shopping spree that the second that all of this stuff crashes and so they feel fine about it, they don't care about it because they are looking forward to the clearance sale.
- [50:58]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [50:58]
Sam Seder
Can you pull up this wall Clarified. Its corn futures are down.
- [51:03]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, yeah.
- [51:04]
Sam Seder
Even though we're six months away from harvest.
- [51:06]
Emma Vigeland
Can you just. This is just so such a helpful thing that I think the Yale budget lab did that. Just even these top key takeaway points at the start here that they. They've done a model of the plan. 25% Canada and Mexico tariffs. Just, just scroll down a little bit.
- [51:23]
Sam Seder
And again, like Emma says, if you have tariffs that are targeted in certain industries that you want to build and give an advantage to within this country, it makes sense. But when you blanket a country for no reason with no ask, like, what's the ask of Canada?
- [51:40]
Brandon
And no, like, yeah, now you're not trying to develop any of your own industry.
- [51:43]
Sam Seder
On the day that he imposes the 25% tariff on Canada because lumber is going to skyrocket, he also, Trump just a day or two ago basically said that, well, you can log the hell out of our old growth forests in this country. Huge swaths of US Fortis are ordered to be cut down by Trump. I don't know his ability to do so. I imagine there's going to be lawsuits because endangered species law shield about 400 species in national forests, including bears, owls, salmon. The future of some of America's most prized forests now appear uncertain. Under Biden, the US Committed to protecting last fragments of old growth forest. Obviously these help for global warming. They soak up carbon dioxide. But Trump has all changed that his. Do you know who? Biden. Just. And we'll get back to the tariffs in just a second. Sorry. Biden's leader of the Forest Service was. It was a guy named Randy Moore. He was the first black person to lead the Forest Service, but he was a soil scientist.
- [53:09]
Emma Vigeland
Sounds qualified.
- [53:10]
Sam Seder
Sounds qualified, doesn't he? The new guy who is leading the Forest Service was the vice president of the Idaho Forest Group. Oh, well, I mean, so the guys knows forests, which incidentally is a company that chops down wood and sells wood.
- [53:32]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [53:33]
Sam Seder
So literally putting the industry that you have the Forest Service to protect our forest from, in charge of management of the national forests and millions of acres of land.
- [53:49]
Emma Vigeland
But that's connected to this because of how much lumber we import from Canada in particular.
- [53:54]
Sam Seder
That's the point. Yes. Is that we're, you know, and so we're going to destroy our forests to justify Donald Trump's 25% tariff on Canada.
- [54:05]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. And just because I think this can be obscure for people, just because Trump is bringing back Gilded Age style politics that haven't been relevant quite a while. So they've modeled this. The Budget Lab modeled the total effects of the plan. 25% Canada and Mexico tariffs, 10%, Chinese tariffs. Trump already imposed 10%. So this is additional. The policy is the equivalent of a 7 percentage point hike in the US effective tariff rate, raising it to the highest since 1943. The price level rises by 1 to 1.2%, the equivalent of an average per household consumer loss of $1,600 to $2,000 in 2024 money. This also would hurt GDP growth. It appears in the long run. The US economy is persistently smaller. I care less about that. And it says, points out tariffs are regressive taxes. Losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution would range between $900,1100, but that is obviously, as we say, proportionately harder. And electronics and clothing and motor vehicles and food are going to be affected. But figure three is, I think, really helpful here too in envisioning that. This is the distribution of the 20% tariffs on China and 25% Mexico and Canada tariffs. And you can see there different shades.
- [55:39]
Sam Seder
Are for the limited retaliation and then the other is the full retaliation. So, and it appears that at least China and Mexico, or I should say Canada are gearing up for a full retaliation. But we shall see.
- [55:57]
Emma Vigeland
Either way, this is how the, how the Democrats need to frame this is, is that this is a tax on the poor and the middle class. Straight up. Straight up. Instead of increases, increasing taxes on the wealthy, which they are now cutting according to the Republican negotiations in the House and the Senate, they're going to try really hard to do that. They are putting that on the backs of people going to the grocery store, people buying a car, people buying a cell phone. That is where they're trying to raise this revenue from. And it's not even the most effective way to do it. But it's also even more taxing on lower income people than the tax cuts would be alone for the wealthy that they're already discussing in the House And Senate. It's a compounding effect. This is just a way to continue to drive incoming wealth inequality. And I really do think you're onto something about how this won't affect like the people that matter, these billionaires in the Trump administration, because they're all in this speculation bubble outside of the practical realities of goods and services and needing to buy things to feed your family or to put a roof over your head. If this really does go into effect and he's not just using this for some weird negotiating purpose, it will be devastating. And the Dow is not overreacting.
- [57:19]
Brandon
Which by the way, he says we're doing this for a couple reasons, the fentanyl stuff and immigration issues. But then also it's also about our trade imbalance, which kind of shows that maybe the other things are just mentioned just to have.
- [57:34]
Sam Seder
Of course the amount of fentanyl that comes across our Canadian border is infinitesimally small.
- [57:41]
Emma Vigeland
And post coconut clarity writes in But I care less about the GDP thing. Yeah, I do know what GDP is. My point is, is that GDP isn't ways the best indicator of how lower and middle income people are experiencing the economy. That's why it was just a little less interesting to me. But sorry, keep going.
- [58:00]
Sam Seder
I mean, I don't. Outside of like using it as a way in which he can give gifts to his friends in terms of waivers, it's unclear to me what they think is going to happen from this.
- [58:12]
Brandon
I'm curious how Elon's businesses are implicated because if he crashes like Detroit and Elon gets scot free somehow it'd be really a bad out.
- [58:23]
Sam Seder
Tesla is having some problems apparently. I hope stock because people aren't buying Tesla's anymore because they don't want to be associated with the guy who gives all of his heart to everybody.
- [58:33]
Brandon
Well, they're not buying Teslas. They shouldn't buy anything.
- [58:36]
Sam Seder
Do the tariffs I am seeing. And look, you know, there's a lot of people bought Tesla's because they were like, this is electric vehicle, that's good. I'm going to help the environment. And so they did it with the best of intentions. Which is why I don't believe that you should deface these vehicles. Although I have seen flyers going around with pictures of Elon Musk giving his Nazi salute and people putting them in the windshield, you know, wipers, you know, like putting it on the car just to remind people. So I think it's okay to make people feel bad about their car. Maybe they'll sell it or you know, flood the market with used Teslas.
- [59:19]
Brandon
Well, you can't resell cybertrucks that you have to pay back the price difference to Elon for something like that. But one cybertruck I did see, which I think.
- [59:26]
Sam Seder
Cybertruck, cybertruck, I feel a little bit less inclined to, but I saw one.
- [59:32]
Brandon
Guy give dispensation Toyota across the back of his cybertruck. Funny.
- [59:36]
Sam Seder
That is very funny. Funny.
- [59:39]
Emma Vigeland
Oh.
- [59:42]
Sam Seder
That'S funny. You got to give, you got to give. You get a props for that. Let's see, we get any of these clips or should we move on?
- [59:52]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, well, you want to talk about Social Security, right?
- [59:55]
Sam Seder
Oh, yes. We have somebody who listens to our show, has some, you know, some inside information. We've helped uh, uh, connect her to uh, some people who are, who can, who can disseminate that. But there are insiders who are talking about what's going on at Social Security right now. And the Government Executive is a sort of trade magazine that we keep an eye out. And there is a real sense within the Social Security administration. Yesterday we heard from Martin O'Malley, the former administer of the Social Security administration, also the guy who I believe could have won in 2016, he could have beat Trump, that there is a full on assault on Social Security administration workers. And understand, like, particularly in the context of the low information voters who voted for Trump, but just broadly speaking, Americans know very little about how their government works. I would be surprised or wouldn't be surprised if a significant percentage of people who are on Medicaid are not aware that the federal government created Medicaid, pays for Medicaid. I don't know what that number is. 10, 20, 30%, 40%. And I don't, you know, it would be nice if we had a, an electorate and a population that was aware of, of its government more than it is and that have more interest. But it's not necessarily the most, the easiest thing to get savvy about this stuff. You could listen to this show, I guess, particularly if you're interested in Social Security. But aside from that, Social Security Administration in recent days has initiated a flurry of actions aimed at decimating its workforce. And that, Democrats warn, are an effort to sabotage the agency and prepare to privatize its functions. The reason why you inhibit the Social Security Administration is the same reason why they love to complain about the dmv. Now my experience at the DMV has never been as painful as my experience at the cable company. Never. It's never going to come close.
- [62:33]
Emma Vigeland
How about with your health insurance company.
- [62:35]
Sam Seder
Or the amount of work that I put into my private health insurance. It's literally a second job. And dmv, sometimes you go, it's crowded, depending on which city you're in. But they know what they're doing. You get in there and you get it done. I've waited for like an hour cable just to return my cable box. But the point is, what they want to do is they want to make Social Security dysfunctional. They want people, they want to drive a wedge between Social Security and. The general population is the most beloved of government programs. After a rash of abrupt retirements of senior leaders across the agency last week, the agency on Friday confirmed that it's seeking to shed 7,000 employees, which would bring its workforce down to 50,000 people. Now, that's approximately off the, you know, back of the book. If you're talking about us, let's just call it a 60,000 person or 57,000 person agency to get rid of 7,000, you're talking about over 10% of the population. Last fall, the agency hit a 50 year staffing low after congressional Republicans refused to agree to append the agency's funding to account for fixed cost increases as part of continuing resolution to keep agencies open. In other words, you know, they're renting buildings. The buildings prices have gone up, everything's gone up. In terms of inflation, I don't know. Their paperclips may have gone up, their computer software costs may have gone up. Their computers, they may have had to buy new computers have gone up. 50 year staffing low 50 year. And now they're going to cut another over 10%. The agency will consolidate its current 10 regional offices down to four. So they're cutting their regional offices by greater than half, incidentally. Boomers are, you know, we have the, one of the biggest contingencies probably that we've had in the history of the country on Social Security. Right now, Musk's Doge operatives have canceled leases for 45 field offices across the country, as well as the Office of Hearings Operations in White Plains, New York. We're watching the direct assault on the agency that provides perhaps the best functioning and the most beloved social insurance program we have in this country. And it's all being done without authorization, without having to take a vote, without Americans having a single say in it. And Ding dongs out there can pretend that Donald Trump had a mandate, whatnot. I dare them, I dare them to have Donald Trump go up and national television say, we are really cutting back on Social Security. He won't no, he won't.
- [66:15]
Emma Vigeland
In the same way he wouldn't endorse Project 2025. It's almost like the guy is a sociopathic liar and it's been proven to us over the past 10 years of his political career he will lie and say anything in public and do whatever the hell he wants in private. He may try to justify it on the back end. But if he, if the, basically Mike Johnson is telling him our members are concerned about the optics of touching that third rail, cutting Social Security and Medicare, what's the most expedient way for him to do it? King Trump using the Russ vote. Russ. Yeah, Russ vote. I never remember what it is Russ vote method of just gutting it from the administrative state side.
- [67:03]
Sam Seder
There's also a fun story about Russell Vogt trying to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and then realizing he's been caught and it's illegal and a judge is telling him, you can't do this. And now they're pretending that they'd never tried to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And what are you talking about? Except for they put it all in writing.
- [67:23]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, it's the same thing with Elon Musk's lawyers arguing he's not leading Doge. Like, are you joking?
- [67:31]
Sam Seder
All right, we're going to head into the fun half of the program. We'll try and lighten it up a little bit. Look, the bottom line is in here. Let's, let's tell this one story about the Democrats so that there's at least we're going out with something positive to.
- [67:49]
Emma Vigeland
Say about the Democrats.
- [67:54]
Sam Seder
I mean, shockingly. Well, okay, it's, and I'm not going to qualify it. I'm just going to say, like, let's hope that this is the reporting we're seeing now is indicative. But there's two things to be, you know, feel positive about. One is that all of the pushback and the amplification of the reporting and the reporting of, you know, those, those meals, squeezy tubes of, of peanut butter, you know, set to be sent to kids who are literally wasting away, ended up causing enough of a stink that it was reversed. A month ago, maybe even just weeks ago, the Democrats looked like they were going to heed the advice of James Carvel from his, I don't know what, 75,000 square foot house in God knows where to do nothing. Just sit back and do nothing. Wait 30 days, all going to fall apart on him. Don't worry, you don't have to communicate to the American Public, anything, they'll just see it because we know how adept the American public is and how we know that there's no other forces that are going to inhibit the real story from getting out. I mean, just absolute, just bonkers. So much so that like people from ranging across the political spectrum saying to Democrats like you really should do something, like, it's not enough to say presidents come and go, but the Lord is always on the chair. That's not enough. Even if Rachel Maddow makes you feel uncomfortable as a Democrat, you know, you are really out of touch with what's going on. They talk about a leading, I mean, a lagging indicator.
- [70:00]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. By the way, Biden tried this. Didn't communicate anything. Trump got elected.
- [70:04]
Sam Seder
So I'm staying in the race or.
- [70:06]
Emma Vigeland
Couldn'T communicate, communicate anything. Sorry.
- [70:09]
Sam Seder
So Politico reports that's from this morning at 4:45am I imagine the reporting was done last night. One senior House Democratic aide says nobody wants a shutdown, but they don't feel like aiding and abetting what's happening with Musk and Trump taking a wrecking ball to health care in particular. Said one senior Democratic aide, why would we be complicit in that? What they're referring to is we are what it's the 13th or the 15th, 14th is when the government is scheduled to shut down 10 days from today. The only thing that they're going to pass because they're, they did their budget resolution, they're giving themselves until really September to start working on the new budget for 2026. The only thing they can pass is a continuing resolution, which is the budget we have now just continues into the future. Now that's almost like a cut because inflation has increased. It's a cut for the IRS because there's $20 billion from the last one that was cut because of a deal that, that Biden made. And at one point we've played clips of Johnson saying we're going to do a clean cr except for maybe. And when Kaitlan Collins said, wait a second, Elon Musk is cutting stuff, he's not doing it legally, but he's cutting stuff. This continuing budget resolution is going to fly in the face of that because if the Social Security administration is supposed to get a 10 million dollar budget for operations, I'm making up a number. And Elon Musk is in there and just eliminated $2 million of that. And you pass a budget that says they get $10 million, like how does that work? And he goes, well, we may have some, you know, little things in there that we'll mix in and whatnot to address that. And what he was talking about is we'll cut the Social Security budget. We'll have a little rider on there. Well, Democrats are now saying, A, we're not going to sign off on that, and B, we're not going to sign off on a clean continuing resolution of the budget. Why should we if the president thinks he has the authority to go in and cut regardless of what we vote for anyways? Like, why do you need Congress to sign? Why do you need our votes?
- [72:55]
Emma Vigeland
Right. Mike Johnson is asking the Democrats in his own chamber, in his own branch of government to make their jobs obsolete. And he's willing to jump off that, that bridge with Donald Trump, basically, or on behalf of Donald Trump.
- [73:09]
Sam Seder
And understand, like, they need Democratic votes because there's no way they can just get a clean continuing resolution, at least they believe. So now it's possible. Maybe all the Republicans will be there and they won't lose one or two votes in the House. But I find that hard to believe. But we'll see. But this is Rachel Bade writing in Politico reporting a senior Democratic lawmaker was blunter. At some point you have to have a goddamn backbone. I'm not giving them a blank check until September. Well, this is interesting. I love to hear Democrats actually talk. Now we'll see if they actually do have a goddamn backbone. Because it's a little bit vague. At some point you've got to have a backbone. But then, you know, maybe the internal monologue is. But not right now. Rachel Bade, I don't know who she is, writes, that's a big pivot from just a few weeks ago. In early February, I poo pooed the left's push to use the March 14 government funding deadline to make a stand against Musk and then heard from a number of senior Democratic officials on both sides of the Capitol who privately agreed with my assessment. A Democrat induced shutdown they agreed would backfire on their party politically and only empower Musk even more to slash and burn his way through federal agencies. And they were frustrated with the base for not seeming to understand that playing with fire wasn't the answer. You recall Richie Torres. I resent and reject that. We're not doing anything in Politico, maybe written by Rachel Bate. You recall Hakeem Jeffries going on TV shows saying, the extreme left protest me as much as the extreme right. Well, guess what, folks? It works. You got the message through to them. Those phone calls that you Made it worked.
- [75:14]
Emma Vigeland
Keep it up.
- [75:16]
Sam Seder
Is this going to make a massive difference in the great scheme of things? Maybe not. Probably not. But we are now in a fight for literally for inches. Literally in a fight for inches. And when you called after Richie Torres complained that I resent and reject and this and that, it changed. It changed something. And maybe it didn't change his mind.
- [75:42]
Emma Vigeland
No.
- [75:42]
Sam Seder
But it changed other people's minds.
- [75:44]
Emma Vigeland
And I just want to just point out really quickly that when he says something like that, that is functionally the same as that Republican who walked out of that town hall yesterday, the senator from Kansas, basically saying, I turn my back on my constituents and I resent the fact that you're asking me to do my job.
- [76:01]
Sam Seder
Well, how could they, how could they.
- [76:03]
Brandon
Come to a good faith agreement when Elon could just say, well, actually that's a secret fraud.
- [76:07]
Sam Seder
But the point is, three weeks ago they thought their strategy was different. And here's the, here's a key quote. 2nd Senior House Democratic aide said, people now feel like the more perilous position is giving votes without the perception there's been any change in accountability. Now, what do they mean by more perilous position? They mean for their own political futures.
- [76:31]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [76:32]
Sam Seder
They go on to say the incentive structure right now is to not provide votes for the Republicans. You people create the incentive structure for them. You're fighting against other constituencies, they're donors. You're fighting against maybe their half baked ideologies. You know, Richie Torres is for a reason, announcing that he is working on creating a bipartisan congressional crypto caucus. There is one reason why he's doing that. Put up his tweet. There is one reason why Richie Torres is adjoining with Republicans to create a crypto, a congressional crypto caucus. And that one reason is money. Because when they start writing that the incentive structure has changed because so many people called and so many voters said, hey, we got a problem with you doing nothing. Sitting around listening to James Carville doing nothing to show the American public that what's going on with Elon Musk is wrong. Richie Torres, his response to that is I got to get my money from somebody else. Oh, yeah, from somebody who is in favor of destroying our regulatory, administrative state. And that is the crypto boys.
- [78:05]
Emma Vigeland
Which the. It's not a coincidence that Rishi Torres is one of the biggest lackeys for aipac. So he's shown and auditioned for the fact that he can be bought by right wing money. And he's doing it again for crypto.
- [78:20]
Brandon
Any money that's playing in D.C. crypto is a very good indicator, if you'll just take it. Yes, take it, whatever it means.
- [78:26]
Sam Seder
Yep. House Democrats in. Even in private. During a recent meeting between Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his committee leaders, top appropriator Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut steamed about how Speaker Mike Johnson was going to try and make them swallow the clean funding extension. No effing way. She shouted. A person in the room told me Jeffries didn't push back and now his leadership team is gauging whether his members are willing to take this fight all the way. So listen, call your congresspeople regardless, obviously, if they're Democrats, and tell them, no, vote for the Republicans. Do not help them keep the government open. They must indicate to the American public that what's going on is fundamentally wrong in a very distinct and dramatic way. And then also tell them anybody who's supporting the crypto caucus will not be getting their vote. Let Richie Torres be the only Democrat in this crypto caucus when this is done. So it can be pretty clear exactly what it is. These are the same people who got Sherrod Brown voted out. Same exact people. Incidentally, Donald Trump yesterday. Apparently there's a big crypto convention on Friday or something. It is rumored, it's certainly been mentioned in the past that Trump is looking to get rid of capital gains tax on crypto, which is insane. I mean, it's utterly insane. You sell your crypto like there's, there's capital gains tax on gambling and they're talking about getting rid of it on crypto.
- [80:38]
Emma Vigeland
It's almost like he has a personal financial incentive. We need to know what's happening here. What is his financial relationship with Elon Musk, with Andreessen, with all of these tech guys and their cryptocurrency scheme. We know that there was the meme coin sold off for both Melania and Trump right around the inauguration, created quick sell off, similar to what happened in Argentina with Milei, which also used shock therapy to plunge the economy into a much worse situation. Nearly 10 point increase since, I think late 2023 in a year and a half in terms of the poverty rate in Argentina. Milei is also doing these crypto meme coin scams. That's the model here. That's the model. And as we were saying about the tariffs, they are, they may want a recession. They may want it because then as, as Matt was saying, they can buy everything up on the cheap. And if all of their money is in this separate, just like area of the economy. That's just about speculation for speculation's sake. That's not going to get hurt as much in the short term by tax, by tariffs on goods and services and increased prices. So they'll be able to still have all of their billions. And that means more. Those billions that are untouched can go towards up. I don't know what private equity buying all these other things up.
- [82:05]
Sam Seder
Well, also. And cutting and getting rid of their political opponents.
- [82:11]
Emma Vigeland
Exactly.
- [82:13]
Sam Seder
You get that extra 20%. I sold my crypto for $50 million, $100 million. I got an extra $20 million that goes in to attack the politicians who have an issue with me not paying taxes on this.
- [82:31]
Brandon
Where some of the Trump tax cut money went.
- [82:34]
Sam Seder
We should. Maybe we'll call Richard Torres again.
- [82:37]
Emma Vigeland
We should.
- [82:38]
Sam Seder
His office.
- [82:38]
Emma Vigeland
You should if you're his constituent, especially. But if people are looking for a book that kind of navigates them through this time period, I've been re listening to the Shock Doctrine just like on my way into work just because it reminds me and grounds me of in terms of like what they're. What they really are trying to do here. And it's never, I don't think fully been done to the United States in the way that we did it to Iraq or Russia or countries in Latin America. But the call is coming from inside the House.
- [83:10]
Sam Seder
All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break.
- [83:13]
Emma Vigeland
Wasn't this the segment where we were supposed to end on a positive note?
- [83:17]
Sam Seder
Yeah, I'm positive. You should be calling in.
- [83:21]
Brandon
Richie Torres feels harassed.
- [83:22]
Sam Seder
That's the positive call into your Congress people. What's the number again? 202.
- [83:29]
Emma Vigeland
It's on this. Just look. Capital Capital switchboard.
- [83:31]
Sam Seder
We will put it in the podcast and YouTube description. Call your congresspeople, remind them no votes for a clean resolution. We need to have curtails on Elon Musk's law breaking. And also tell your congresspeople don't join the crypto caucus. We're watching you.
- [84:00]
Emma Vigeland
Yep. 202224 3. That is. I sound like I'm leaving a voicemail. 202-224-3121.
- [84:09]
Sam Seder
When I said call Richie Torres, I meant we literally called his office on the show a couple weeks ago.
- [84:13]
Emma Vigeland
I remember. I was out. Right. You told me about that.
- [84:16]
Sam Seder
Left a couple messages. Somehow I got him blocked by Richie too, which I think is. He's gonna find is probably a mistake on Twitter.
- [84:25]
Brandon
He's pretty free with the blocking.
- [84:27]
Sam Seder
He blocked me before I ever had an interaction with him. But we'll See if that changes. Also, I want to do a shout out to folks who would normally be watching Hasan. Apparently he was. It's temporary, though, right, isn't it?
- [84:44]
Emma Vigeland
Hopefully, yeah, of course.
- [84:47]
Sam Seder
What did he do? He.
- [84:49]
Brandon
He said if Trump was serious about Medicaid fraud, he would do so. He would pursue the harshest penalty against Rick Scott.
- [84:59]
Sam Seder
Oh, I mean, I don't. Capital punishment seems. Yeah, I mean, that seems excessive. I'm against the capital punishment across the board. Although I wouldn't mind him being per blocked. Lock him up, folks. Want us to cover the speech tonight in the event that Donald Trump has a stroke? I think it's unlikely, but that's why we'll do the next three. With the hopes that he does.
- [85:26]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [85:27]
Sam Seder
I mean, not the hopes that he does, but I'm saying, like, if he does that, the hope that we would be able to alert the authorities if.
- [85:34]
Emma Vigeland
He does have a stroke, I would like it on camera.
- [85:36]
Sam Seder
Oh, wait, he's unbanned.
- [85:38]
Emma Vigeland
Okay.
- [85:39]
Sam Seder
Poggers. Poggers.
- [85:41]
Emma Vigeland
It was all those poggers you said yesterday.
- [85:43]
Sam Seder
Yeah, it's like if you chant poggers enough, people get unbanned. That's the way.
- [85:47]
Brandon
Victory for free speech.
- [85:49]
Emma Vigeland
That's what prayers do, folks.
- [85:51]
Sam Seder
Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. If you're on Twitch, you can give us your sub for the month. If you're got a prime membership, you can just. You don't have to pay anything. You just redirect it to us for a month. You, if you listen to the show, give us a good review on itunes. That still matters. And if all else fails, you can become a member. Join the majorityreport.com. you get the free show, free of commercials. You get the fun half. You get to IM us. You get to feel like you're helping allow and help this show survive and thrive. Also, don't forget, just coffee Co op, Fair trade coffee and hot chocolate. They're out of Madison, Wisconsin. Real movement partners. They really treat their. Their farmers right. Protect them through bad growing seasons, good growing seasons, increases in prices, whatever it is just Coffee.co op ESBN on hiatus. Left reckoning. Look at Matt with the Left Reckoning merch.
- [87:09]
Brandon
Got the what a.
- [87:13]
Emma Vigeland
Wow.
- [87:14]
Brandon
Exactly. Left Reckoning.
- [87:17]
Sam Seder
That hat is nice. Came in today, was like, do you have a black.
- [87:21]
Emma Vigeland
I want it in the black.
- [87:22]
Brandon
We do. There's a. Yeah, there's a black version. Yeah. Left reckoningstore.com store. Also tonight, Jason Miles on talking about his work at Means tv and we'll probably Be covering a little bit of the speeches, maybe a little bit of Bernie's response in the post game tonight. So patreon.com left reckoning.
- [87:39]
Sam Seder
Do you. Do you go to, like, Chelsea Piers in golf with that?
- [87:44]
Brandon
Chelsea Piers? No, Chelsea, they have golf.
- [87:46]
Sam Seder
I think they have a driving ring.
- [87:48]
Brandon
Not a Chelsea Piers member, unfortunately.
- [87:51]
Sam Seder
I don't think you have to be.
- [87:52]
Emma Vigeland
You're thinking of the gym. But there's the Chelsea Pierce Piers.
- [87:56]
Sam Seder
Literally at the piers where you hit the ball into the. I've only gone bowling water or whatever.
- [88:00]
Brandon
I haven't been down there.
- [88:01]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. Although there are some more fun cooler bowling places here in Brooklyn, honestly, than there are in Manhattan. That's where we have some Brooklyn supremacy here. Brooklyn bowl or the other ones. The. I forgot the name of that. That other lane. Anyway, this is not good broadcasting. Let's go into the fun half.
- [88:19]
Sam Seder
See you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks. 646-257-3920. See you in the fun. Are you ready? Who sent us this? Alpha males are back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious as you could imagine the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back and the alpha males are back Just want to degrade the white man Alpha males are back, back I take all of it. Alpha males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are. You are a madman. And the alpha males are back, back. Oh, no. Sam Cedar. What a. Wow, what a nightmare. Nightmare. Yeah. Or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation. DJ, dinner.
- [89:28]
Brandon
Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're enough breaks.
- [89:34]
Sam Seder
That's nonsense. You see white people doing drugs they look worse than normal white people and all white people look disgusting. And the alpha males psych them, them Snowflake says, what? What? What? What? What?
- [89:51]
Brandon
What?
- [89:51]
Sam Seder
What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What, What? What A hell of a lot of bank A hell of a lot of bank A hell of a lot of bank okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank A hell of a lot of bank All I lives matter.
- [90:22]
Bibi Netanyahu
Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?
- [90:26]
Sam Seder
I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this. Psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African and the alpha mal black and the Africans are back, back, back, back when you see Donald Trump out there doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists. Keeping it 100. Can't knock the hustle. Come on. Them. Them things I do for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday. My birthday. Happy birthday to me. Jill boy. I have a thought experiment for you. And the alpha males are back. Back. Africans are black. Black Alpha males are black. Black Africans are back. Back. Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for blasphemy around here. I am a total question.