2455 - Rubio's Lawless Deportations, Dems Blast Schumer

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder | Episode 2455 - Rubio's Lawless Deportations, Dems Blast Schumer

Release Date: March 17, 2025

In Episode 2455 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder delves deep into the tumultuous political landscape of early 2025, focusing on the Republican strategies under Donald Trump, the Democratic Party's internal conflicts, and the ensuing impact on immigration policies and party favorability. The episode offers a critical examination of recent legislative maneuvers, executive actions, and their broader implications for American politics.

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1. Senate Cloture Vote and Republican Funding Bill

Timestamp: [02:43]

The episode opens with a detailed analysis of the recent Senate vote on cloture concerning the Republican funding bill. Sam Seder explains that ten Democrats voted in favor of cloture, effectively allowing the passage of a funding bill that diverges significantly from a standard continuing resolution.

• Sam Seder highlights, “The idea that the Democrats wouldn't have used keeping the government open as a leverage point... was a complete usurpation of Congress's ability to appropriate in two different ways.” ([04:41])

This maneuver not only shortens the government's funding process but also insulates Republican members from accountability regarding tariffs, shifting the responsibility solely to the executive branch.

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2. Trump's Deportation Policies and Legal Challenges

Timestamp: [05:40]

A significant portion of the discussion centers on President Trump's aggressive immigration policies, including unauthorized deportation flights to El Salvador despite court orders halting such actions.

• Sam Seder details, “These people were sent to El Salvador in three planes that, while they were in the air, defied a court order.” ([07:27])

The administration's justification hinges on the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used statute historically applied during major conflicts like the World Wars.

• Emma Vigeland explains the historical context, “But it was first used in the War of 1812... used to detain and intern Japanese Americans in World War II.” ([12:20])

The episode critically examines the Trump administration's rationale, questioning the legitimacy and potential overreach of invoking such an act in the current political climate.

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3. Alien Enemies Act: Implications and Controversies

Timestamp: [11:45]

Sam Seder provides an in-depth exploration of the Alien Enemies Act, highlighting its vagueness and the potential for misuse in contemporary politics.

• Sam Seder warns, “The problem is that there is no criteria that is any more specific than the idea of an incursion that is predatory... there is no limiting principle to this if there's no criteria.” ([19:44])

The discussion emphasizes the fear that broad interpretations of the act could grant the President excessive powers, undermining constitutional checks and balances.

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4. Deportations to El Salvador and Legal Defiance

Timestamp: [06:44]

The podcast scrutinizes the Trump administration's deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, bypassing judicial orders.

• Sam Seder states, “The administration is ignoring court orders... The flight to El Salvador has already happened.” ([21:14])

Legal experts and advocates raise alarms about the constitutionality of these actions, suggesting they may precipitate a broader constitutional crisis if left unchecked.

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5. Chuck Schumer's Leadership and Democratic Party Dynamics

Timestamp: [43:20]

A significant segment criticizes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his handling of the funding bill and the broader implications for Democratic Party unity and strategy.

• Sam Seder asserts, “Schumer is so out of touch... Completely no clue.” ([56:32])

The discussion highlights Schumer's decision to cancel his book tour amidst low party favorability ratings, attributing it to a perceived capitulation to Republican pressures without adequately rallying his base or maintaining party solidarity.

• Emma Vigeland observes, “They are much more insulated from the Democratic will of the people. Who is Chuck Schumer serving here? It's not the rest of the members of his party.” ([63:47])

This internal strife within the Democratic Party is linked to unprecedented low favorability ratings, with polls indicating a drop to their lowest since 1992.

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6. Impact on Democratic Party Favorability

Timestamp: [67:44]

The episode references a CNN poll revealing that the Democratic Party's favorability has plummeted to 29%, a historic low.

• Sam Seder notes, “The Democratic Party's polling numbers in terms of their favorability is the lowest since 1992.” ([71:58])

This decline is attributed to perceived failures in leadership, especially under Schumer, and the party's inability to effectively counter Republican strategies, which are now seen as emboldened by Senate defections.

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7. Government Shutdown Risks and Executive Overreach

Timestamp: [50:23]

Sam Seder discusses the looming threat of a government shutdown, arguing that it would grant President Trump and allies unprecedented control over federal agencies.

• Sam Seder warns, “Trump could do a lot of damage. They’re literally doing that now.” ([53:07])

The conversation underscores the potential for executive overreach, where essential services like SNAP, Social Security, and Medicare could be disproportionately affected, exacerbating public hardship.

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8. Legal and Humanitarian Concerns Over Deportations

Timestamp: [33:11]

The podcast brings attention to individual cases of deported U.S. Green Card holders, highlighting alleged human rights abuses and legal irregularities.

• Sam Seder recounts the case of Fabian Schmidt, “his son was stripped naked and violently interrogated and sent to an ICE detention facility.” ([07:27])

Such cases illustrate the administration's aggressive deportation tactics, raising concerns about due process and the humane treatment of immigrants.

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9. Critique of Senate Democrats' Strategy

Timestamp: [73:55]

The episode critiques the Senate Democrats' inability to present a unified front or effectively utilize procedural tools like the filibuster to counter Republican maneuvers.

• Emma Vigeland comments, “The Democratic Party is so out of touch... not just the voters.” ([63:47])

This disunity is seen as a strategic failure, allowing Republicans to push through legislation that undermines Democratic priorities without sufficient opposition.

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10. Conclusion: The State of American Politics

In wrapping up, Sam Seder emphasizes the precarious state of American politics, marked by executive overreach, legislative gridlock, and declining party support. The episode calls for renewed Democratic leadership and unity to address the challenges posed by Republican strategies and to safeguard democratic institutions.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sam Seder: “This is a complete usurpation of Congress's ability to appropriate in two different ways.” ([04:41])

• Emma Vigeland: “It's temperature regulating... They have a durable weave fabric that won't pill, guaranteed for 10 years.” ([23:47]) (Note: This appears to be part of the sponsorship segment and may be excluded from the main summary.)

• Sam Seder: “The problem is, our law is only as ensconced as the particular court that they go to decides it will be.” ([15:16])

• Emma Vigeland: “It's hard not to...” ([05:42])

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Analysis:

Episode 2455 of The Majority Report provides a scathing critique of current Republican strategies under President Trump, particularly focusing on immigration policies and legislative tactics that undermine Democratic efforts. The discussion underscores a growing rift within the Democratic Party, exacerbated by leadership decisions that have led to historically low favorability ratings. By highlighting specific cases of deportation abuses and questioning the constitutional implications of the Alien Enemies Act, the episode calls for vigilance and unified action within the Democratic ranks to counterbalance executive and legislative overreaches.

Listeners are left with a vivid portrayal of a political landscape fraught with executive authoritarianism, legislative paralysis, and diminishing public trust in the Democratic Party's ability to effectively govern and oppose Republican agendas.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

You are listening to a free version.

[Sam Seder]

Of the Majority Report.

[Emma Vigeland]

Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Seder]

It is Monday, March 17, 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, White House denies really lies about ignoring a court order halting deportation planes. Meanwhile, Trump invokes the alien enemies act. Dr. Professor deported despite a court order. The NIH now advising mRNA to be scrubbed from any grant applications. On Friday, Saturday, Trump launches massive airstrikes on Yemen. It's the now officially poorest country in the world. Chuck Schumer sadly postpones his book tour as Democratic party favorability at an all time low following Schumer's massive capitulation to Donald Trump. Doge cutting Los Alamos scientists. They deal with nuclear stuff.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Trump now claiming Biden's pardons are void because his signature was done by a robo signer. Voice of America goes dark. Essentially all journalists put on leave. And the judge who ordered the rehiring of probationary employees says OPM head's failure to testify is a direct defiance of the court. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining us. Sorry we got a little bit of a late start today.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's all right. I don't know why I'm saying that's all right. We're supposed to be apologizing to them, but it should be all right.

[Sam Seder]

Well, if you, if you give the.

[Emma Vigeland]

Blessing, playing the part.

[Sam Seder]

There she is. If Emma gives the blessing, then it's all good.

[Emma Vigeland]

Everyone says that.

[Sam Seder]

Folks got a lot to cover today on the program. Last we left you, the vote was still up in, in the air in the Senate.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

And ultimately 10 Democrats ended up voting for cloture, allowing the essentially at that point voting in fact for the inevitability of the Republican funding bill to go forward. It's not a continuing resolution. It is significantly different enough from just passing a continuing resolution, which is we're just going to do this budget as is going forward, which in and of itself would have been bad enough even if there was a clean continuing resolution. The idea that the Democrats wouldn't have used keeping the go of the government open as a leverage point, really their last leverage point to get Doge to stop what they were doing, which was a rolling shutdown of the government, even if even in that instance, that would have been bad enough. But this so called continuing resolution, which in fact wasn't, not only did it cut to existing programs, not only did it add to defense and to be honest, like not enormous amounts of money, but enough. It also said that Congress has no role in approving or denying tariffs by Donald Trump, essentially inoculating all the Republican senators, all the Republican House members from having responsibility on the tariffs. So they could say it's up to the president, we have no say in it.

[Emma Vigeland]

As they duck town halls, as constituents are infuriated about what the administration is doing and how it's affecting the economy, which affects their lives, but also literally sometimes resulting in the firing of people that voted for them.

[Sam Seder]

And it also funds agencies that are no longer operable, therefore, essentially. And it explicitly allows Trump to take that money and appropriate it in other places. So this is a complete usurpation of Congress's ability to appropriate in two different ways. One, because they statutorily allow for it and two, because it doesn't address what's going on Right. With Doge. And then recall. And we will get to this later in the program what Schumer's sort of whole theory is about this. But we will get to this stuff later.

[Emma Vigeland]

I just, it's hard not to.

[Sam Seder]

I know all of a sudden it just. Exactly. But in the meantime, over the past three days we have seen, perhaps emboldened by the fact that Chuck Schumer capitulated in this fight with Trump. I mean, it would have been a lot harder politically to justify what is going on with immigration over the past three days and immigrants if people were afraid of losing fundamental essential services, but still essentially in some instances, torturing, rendering different green card holders, etc. Had gone on. This is a video of a rapid response video of supposed Venezuelan gang members being deported and imprisoned in El Salvador.

[Emma Vigeland]

This was tweeted out by the Trump like their truth social, but also their White House account, which is this rapid response 47 thing that tweets out basically state propaganda for Donald Trump.

[Sam Seder]

Now understand these people were sent to El Salvador in three planes that while they were in the air and it has now been shown by flight records that they defied a court order. A judge had specifically said a judge Boasberg had issued a, an order. I've lost it here.

[Emma Vigeland]

Now, essentially, if you want me to fill in the gaps here, Trump signed this order on Friday and it was kept very quiet because they wanted to get the logistics in place to Transport these around 250 Venezuelan immigrant men to El Salvador, where Bukele is notorious for essentially prison labor, putting their prisoners to work for no pay and extraordinarily harsh conditions. So even Guantanamo Bay, it appears, was a little bit too close to the eye of the public for Donald Trump. He prefers to outsource the detention of these people to an alt right maniac in El Salvador.

[Sam Seder]

The worst part about this, though, is in addition, obviously, if you're one of those people, that the plane bringing these was ordered halted and the Trump administration ignored it.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

And then later claimed it was already over international waters and therefore a judge's requirement of the US Government has no effect, which of course is. I mean, contemplate what the implications of that. If that were true, and no one thinks it's true, it would mean that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Anytime that Trump's in Air Force One, say a judge's order doesn't apply to.

[Sam Seder]

Him or a military personnel is, you know, deployed or somebody's on a cruise liner, it's absurd. National Security attorney Mark Z wrote on X court order defied first of as many I've been warming and start of a true constitutional crisis. White House said this is headed to the Supreme Court and we're going to win.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, we can get to why. Maybe he's right in just a second, but do you want to play this? This is this basically propaganda and they show. I don't know if we see this part, but they show them shaving the heads of these men here you. So this is footage of a.

[Sam Seder]

Again, this is. You know, Lenny Rifenstahl made this footage. This is Trump's propaganda team.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. And the truth says these are the monsters sent into our country by crooked Joe Biden. Here you go. And then you can see this.

[Matt Lech]

Radical left Democrats.

[Sam Seder]

Always, always a.

[Emma Vigeland]

These prison guards have their whole faces covered.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Matt Lech]

Why are their faces covered?

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, I'm sorry, but shaving people's body hair. This evokes some of the worst instances of genocide of human rights abuses in our history. They're claiming that these men are Trende Aragua, a gang which Trump immediately classified when coming. I mean, this footage immediately classified as a terrorist organization when coming into office. But there's been at least one lawyer who's raised the alarm of one of these men who was transferred there, who says actually he was seeking asylum. My client. I think we're good on this. Yeah. Seeking asylum. My client because he was an LGT LGBTQ person in Venezuela and was a tattoo artist. So he had a bunch of tattoos on him. And the Trump administration is reportedly claiming that because of these tattoos that he is a part of this prison gang. But he was supposed to have a hearing on Monday one of these men with proof that he was not a part of Trend Aragua. And it's an interesting piece. It's an interesting, you know, it's interesting timing that the Trump administration did this when they did it.

[Sam Seder]

Again, this is a, the administration is. And as you can see, do we have this up the Judge Boseberg ordered deportation flights carrying these alleged Venezuelan gang members to return to the US and blocking Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act. What is the Alien Enemies Act? It is an act. And we mentioned this earlier, I guess last week from 1817, 1798.

[Emma Vigeland]

But it was first used in the War of 1812.

[Sam Seder]

It was used in the War of 1812 and then it was used again in World War I and then in World War II. Now those are the only three times it's been used. Do you see the pattern? The War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

[Emma Vigeland]

And in World War II, it was used to detain and intern Japanese Americans.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. To put them in concentration camps.

[Emma Vigeland]

Horrible.

[Sam Seder]

But the invocation of this act, again, War of 1812, World War I, World War II, and it has not been invoked since then or prior to those times. It is again only used in those instances in rather horrible ways. According to the, the statute, the president may invoke the Alien Enemies Acts in times of declared war or when the foreign government threatens or undertakes an invasion. That's a quote. Or predatory incursion against U.S. territory. In the War of 1812, the idea of predatory incursion was a fear of essentially, you know, sleeper cells.

[Emma Vigeland]

The French, the French, the Federalists were concerned about the French.

[Sam Seder]

Now let's remember when it wasn't invoked in the wake of 9, 11, when there was a lot of talk of sleeper cells in the United States because we had just seen so called sleeper cell actually engage in a series of massive terrorist attacks against the country. So you may be asking yourself, why does he get to invoke this? And that's also what a bunch of lawyers are asking. The problem is, is that our law is only as ensconced as the particular court that they go to decides it will be. And at the Supreme Court, the President is counting on the idea of the Supreme Court essentially saying we will not get involved in this because of the doctrine of political questions. This is essentially the political question doctrine, essentially allows the Supreme Court to avoid addressing things when they don't Want to.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And the problem is that there is no criteria that is any more specific than the idea of an incursion that is predatory. You will note that over the past several years we have seen right wingers, we have seen the President of the United States, we have seen conservatives, we've seen even some wayward former progressive shows and media outlets claim that we are being invaded by immigrants. Now no matter how you define that. Pull up that graph I just sent in the im. It's surrounded by. It's right. The last thing I sent in the im, this is from these hippies over at the US Customs and Border Protection.

[Emma Vigeland]

So much wokeness in our government. How can we get that out?

[Sam Seder]

Southwest land border encounters because oddly we don't hear how we're being invaded by the Canadians. But look at the scroll down to this graph here. The. You will notice there are different color coded lines here and we have 2025 is that red line that's down at the bottom that is dramatically lower than any of the other lines which are in the past three years. In terms of the annual or I should say southwest land border encounters by.

[Matt Lech]

Month and a continuation of 2024.

[Sam Seder]

I would point out exactly in 2024 at no point except for I think like briefly at the beginning of, or I should say at the end the somehow that says December, but that's got to be December 2025. Oh, fiscal year they're looking at. So that's the end of. These are fiscal years. Yep, that's the end of 2023. But even if you were to go back. But regardless the point is, is that right now in 2025 and in the last seven, eight months of 2024, the land border encounters by month in the Southwest have been dramatically lower than they had been prior. I don't know how you justify an invasion or a predatory incursion when there are 11,000, 12, basically 12,000 border incursions or encounters.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Matt Lech]

A tenth what there had been previously.

[Sam Seder]

A tenth of what there had been.

[Emma Vigeland]

But, but the problem with this statute is that it's particularly vague. Right. So like because it was, it's a late, you know, 1700 statute. The Brennan center for justice writes that the term invasion is used literally, typically referring to large scale attacks. The term predatory incursion is also used in writings of that period to refer to slightly smaller attacks like the 1781 raid on Richmond led by American defector Benedict Arnold. Today some anti immigration politicians and groups urge a non literal reading of invasion and predatory inclusion or incursion so that the Alien Enemies act can be invoked in response to unlawful migration, et cetera. So the question is, does the Supreme Court grant them, when this inevitably goes there, the broad definition of what an invasion and incursion is? And if they do do that, that is such an, a terrifying precedent that gives the President basically broad powers under this authority to determine, I don't know, anything as a potential invasion or incursion based on their, his political enemies. And that's what the fear is, is the fact that this can really mean a lot under this definition. If this, if this, if those numbers constitute an invasion and incursion. There are many things that can.

[Sam Seder]

Right. There's no, there's absolutely no limiting principle to this if there's no criteria. And land border encounters can be at a fraction. In December of 2023, there were 300,000. In February, there are 12,000. That's 1/30. Yeah, my math right there.

[Emma Vigeland]

I can't, I'm not the person.

[Sam Seder]

What was it, 12, 300. We're at 12,000 versus 300,000 in 2023. That is almost 1 30th. Maybe it's 1 26th. If that can be justified as reason for the Alien Enemies act to be invoked, then there is no criteria for it.

[Emma Vigeland]

A rational Supreme Court would respond with this by saying the statute, the Alien Enemies act is lawful, but you have to apply it in conjunction with Congress and the President or Congress declaring war and us being in active wartime. That would be the kind of thing where like that would be a much more good faith reading of the statute. But I have no faith that the 6:3 Supreme Court is going to read it in that manner.

[Sam Seder]

So we're now in that period where. And let me. Well, we have more to talk about this in a moment. We're going to do some sponsors first.

[Matt Lech]

Can I just point out this tweet here that was by Naive Bukele where he quotes the New York Post saying feds judge orders deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang banners. Naive Bukele tweeted, oopsie, too late. Crying, laughing face. And Marco Rubio retweeted that.

[Sam Seder]

So, I mean, Marco Rubio, he's the Secretary of State.

[Matt Lech]

Yeah, Secretary of State, our lead diplomat.

[Emma Vigeland]

It was probably the only adult in the room this time around is what it's has been said. And that's the, that's the best case scenario for somebody to talk Trump off the ledge.

[Sam Seder]

Now a couple of sponsors today. I slept in today, actually. Tough day to do it for everybody involved. But I want to thank Cozy Earth for making my bedding comfortable. Also because of all that Jubilee stuff I got. Everybody has seen that. Yeah, I mean everybody. Saul and I went to Micro center the other day to get Saul a gaming computer. I need to ask you some questions, Matt, about this. Some guy came up, recognized me from Jubilee and then pointed out that I was wearing a Cozy Earth sweatshirt.

[Emma Vigeland]

Wow.

[Sam Seder]

My hoodie.

[Emma Vigeland]

Wow. Must have made your day.

[Sam Seder]

I wear that all the time. I want to thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring this episode. Cozy Earth products are designed to transform your 5 to 9, the time that matters most most, into the coziest sanctuary. Unlock exclusive discount up to 40% using the code MAJORITY REPORT at cozy earth.com/ Majority Report. I Cozy Earth. I have their sheets, I have their towels and I have a jogger. But my sweatshirt is like my sweatshirt. My hoodie is every day. It's virtually an everyday wear from me. It's a staple. Thank you. The stuff is incredibly soft. I mean, there's something weird about the hoodie is that it's light, but it's warm. It's also cool.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's temperature regulating.

[Sam Seder]

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They have the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants and other deals and our listeners of the show get 15 off their first purchase when using the Code Majority at checkout. That's an additional 15 off at fast growing trees.com using the code majority at checkout. Frassgrowingtrees.com code is majority. Now is the perfect time to plant right now. Early spring. Use Majority as a code and save today. Offer valid for limited time. Terms and conditions apply. We'll put the link in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. Okay, let's get back to this we were talking about. I want to read this. This from the I think it's from the Boston Globe. A is a green card holder guy named Schmidt. Let me see if I got it here. Here it is. All the papers have it now. Papers Newsweek reported that the mother of Fabian Schmidt, a US Green card holder, said her son was stripped naked and violently interrogated and sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility upon his return to the country last Friday. They claimed. Oh, this is what they said, U.S. customs Border Commissioner of Public Affairs Hilton Beckham Beckham told Newsweek on Saturday. These claims are blatantly false with respect to cbp. He went on to suggest the incident may be related to drug charges, saying when an individual is found with drug related charges and tries to reenter the country, officers will take proper action. Schmidt is a New Hampshire resident, live free or die, who has been who has had a held a green card since 2008 after moving to the US in 2007. He was detained at Logan Airport upon returning from Luxembourg last week. This is according to the Boston's wgbh, the public radio there. His family told the public radio station that he recently renewed his green card and was flagged as he reentered the country. It was just said that his green card was flagged, she said. Her son was violently interrogated, stripped naked by immigration officials and put into a cold shower. Schmidt works as an electrical engineer. He's reportedly being held at ICE's Donald Wyatt Detention facility in Rhode Island. His mother said that he was also spent sent to the hospital last week. So this happened a week ago, but they've only just now figured out what's going on. He was sent to the hospital last week, which was the first time she had heard from him directly on Tuesday, when one wonders why he went to the hospital when he'd been in custody for four days. Schmidt has no ongoing legal issues, but he previously had a misdemeanor charge for having marijuana in his vehicle. The charge Was dismissed after laws about cannabis changed. His mother said he missed a hearing about the case in 2022 because the notice was not forwarded to his correct address. A decade ago, he had a DUI charge. Beckham, this is the speaker. The spokesperson from Newsweek said if statues or visa terms are violated, travelers may be subject to detention and removal due to federal privacy regulations. They basically picked out an immigrant, my guess is from a European country, just to show that they're going to be supplies to everyone. Yep, this is what's going on now for green card holders. It has come out and it's been around for a little bit that one of the people who was originally sent on that deportation flight to. Was it El Salvador of the first or down to Guantanamo, was sent to Guantanamo. Remember, it was just criminals because he was cited for.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, the. It's a horrible crime. Get ready for this. Bicycling on the wrong side of the road. So, again, there's a lot of media outlets, and it's been a very, very frustrating exercise since Trump was inaugurated nearly two months ago, who are swallowing these claims about them targeting criminals whole. Because the problem is that these are folks who don't want outsized media attention. These are folks that are afraid if a spotlight is shown on abuses towards them, that they will be put on the list and targeted for deportation. So the Trump administration knows this. This is how they can crack down on people who have extremely limited resources and power. So they're mostly targeting those folks. And then they're also targeting. There was a story about two Brown University professors who are being targeted for deportation. A professor and a doctor. They have been deported to Lebanon defying a judge's order. And it appears that the justification that they're using for one of those deportations is because they're claiming that this Brown professor had sympathetic photos of Hezbollah leaders on their phone. Not really much evidence presented to this, but the physician at Brown told Customs and Border Protection agents that while visiting Lebanon last month, she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and supported him from a religious perspective, but not a. And so they're basically using images from her phone to justify deporting her.

[Sam Seder]

Speaking of being arrested and disappeared based upon. Well, in that. That person's case, it was just simply having photos that were deemed sympathetic on her phone. I don't know how they got a hold of those photos.

[Matt Lech]

Is there a law against that?

[Sam Seder]

Apparently there's a law against that being sympathetic to people. There's also apparently a law against protest. And for now, it's if you are a legal resident as opposed to citizen. I'm sure we'll get there at least, you know, in a full throated manner. But here is the footage of Mahmoud Khalil being arrested by ICE agents in front of his wife. This is. This was posted on Friday by the ACLU via, I guess the family confirming.

[Emma Vigeland]

That one of the officers was playing or they were plain clothes.

[Sam Seder]

They're all plain clothes. They also don't seem to have identified themselves.

[Emma Vigeland]

Nope.

[Sam Seder]

This seems to be what ICE does. They get out of a car, an unmarked car. Goons, they have no identification. They don't feel obligated to tell anybody who they are. They barely mention where they're taking people. If they do. Understand, aside from the optics of this, asides from, like, the implications for the people who are being rounded up now, the idea that we're now allowing any type of, like plainclothes agents to grab somebody off the street without having any rules about identifying themselves is rather dangerous for the entire public.

[Emma Vigeland]

Do you know who else were plain clothes officers that rounded up people and disappeared them? Gestapo.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, to be fair, also Stasi. You probably also get this in a lot of authoritarian countries. Here's Khalil being arrested. Of course he didn't need to be cuffed, but they were going to. And also you should know, a lot of these ICE agents, they are washouts from. From police academies in many instances, just to give you a sense of. And now they have all sorts of power in their mind.

[Emma Vigeland]

But this is his wife. You can hear who's filming it, but.

[Chuck Schumer]

You'Re going to be under arrest.

[Sam Seder]

So turn around, turn around, turn around.

[Chuck Schumer]

Turn around, turn around.

[Khalil's Wife]

Okay, he's not resisting.

[Emma Vigeland]

He's giving me his phone.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, now pause it, pause it. Notice the guy says you're under arrest.

[Emma Vigeland]

What are the charges?

[Sam Seder]

But we still don't know what the charges are. Here, go ahead.

[Emma Vigeland]

Is he reading him his rights?

[Sam Seder]

No, I doubt it.

[Khalil's Wife]

Okay.

[Emma Vigeland]

Hold on. Sorry. Pause. Matt, we're just not on the screen. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Khalil's Wife]

You guys really don't need to be doing all of that. Hi, Amy.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, they.

[Khalil's Wife]

They just like handcuffed in my. Dustin, I don't know what to do. Okay, then what should I do?

[Sam Seder]

I don't know. Pause it. Just a reminder. This woman's voice you hear, she's eight months pregnant. This is Khalil's wife who's born in America.

[Khalil's Wife]

Let me ask, can. Can we get a name, please? Of. Can we get your name? I understand the lawyer is asking for your Name Coward.

[Matt Lech]

Stay back.

[Khalil's Wife]

The lawyer's asking for your name. She's saying that. He's saying they don't give their names.

[ICE Officer]

Immigration custody at 26.

[Khalil's Wife]

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

[ICE Officer]

Immigration custody at 26 Federal Federal Plaza.

[Khalil's Wife]

She said, she said they're taking him to 26 Federal Plaza. Can you, can you please specify what agency is taking him, please?

[Emma Vigeland]

Excuse me.

[Khalil's Wife]

They're not talking to me. I don't know. Excuse me. The lawyer would like to speak to somebody. Oh, my God. They're literally like running away from me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. He was not resisting, but prem. I think points this out. Prem talker in this caption. He's clearly not resisting at all. His resistance. Asking for the names of the officers for the agency that's doing this for where he's going to be held.

[Matt Lech]

If I sat on a jury and they're saying he was like, why wouldn't he resist? They're not telling them anything.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Matt Lech]

They're black bagging him.

[Emma Vigeland]

It could be anybody.

[Matt Lech]

That shouldn't be. That's not lawful.

[Emma Vigeland]

They could be impersonating a police officer.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly.

[Emma Vigeland]

They could just be somebody to come in and kidnap him. I mean, that's why we have our rights for one of the many reasons we're supposed to have rights. This is just fascism. Fascism.

[Matt Lech]

We don't need to allude to any historical illusions or comparisons. It's just what we have right now.

[Sam Seder]

Let's turn our attention to the other story. I mean, this is going to develop. I don't know what the. What happens next in terms of this Boasberg class wide temporary restraining order, but I imagine that's in effect until it is reversed by another judge. The flight to El Salvador has already happened. The White House claims it was too late for them to turn around. And so I guess the next thing is if it goes to either an appellate court or to the Supreme Court, we'll see. Noel from San Francisco says, can you have a lawyer on to discuss what to do when the authorities knock on your door? Yeah, we'll work on that. We're working on hopefully to have someone tomorrow. Let's go back and just talk a little bit about what happened Friday. When we had left on Friday afternoon, there was at the very least a growing sense that there was pushback against senators who were going to vote to vote yes on. On cloture, basically to vote to end discussion on the Republican budget bill, which then would allow it to have an up or down vote, 5050 vote, as opposed to the two thirds that's required to close cloture. We had mentioned the other day that it was unlikely it was going to be a seven vote.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Seven Democrats would defect. They probably all would not do it unless there was more than 7. So that no one could be held individually responsible for it to be passing. Right. If there's 10 people who vote for it and all they need is seven Democratic votes, then everybody says, well, even if I hadn't voted for it, it would have passed.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep.

[Sam Seder]

And that is by design. You will see these defections that will happen in that way.

[Emma Vigeland]

And there's a weasel thing that some of the Democrats that voted for this are trying to engage in right now, which is to say I voted for cloture, but I didn't vote for the continuing resolution. A vote for cloture is a vote for the continuing resolution. It means that you're bringing it to a vote. That the hurdle of needing 60 votes to. Basically it's a whole, you know, the debate process. I forget if it is to start an end debate or there's this cloture.

[Sam Seder]

Is to end debate.

[Emma Vigeland]

End debate. Right. So basically they're trying to say like, hey, we voted to end the debate, but we didn't vote for the continuing resolution. Oh, okay. But you just allowed it to go to a simple majority vote where the Republicans have the majority.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. They know what they were doing.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. But they thought they could get away with it. That's the thing about what Schumer did over on Friday that is just so cynical is that they think that the voters or they thought that the Democratic voting base was dumb enough to get fooled by that trick, but they were not. And we're seeing overwhelming backlash. A poll came out on CNN that showed that this Democratic Party's polling numbers in terms of their favorability is the lowest since 1992.

[Sam Seder]

We'll get to that in a second because we should. We should note that was before. That was 10 days before this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

And when you hear the reasons why. When you hear the reasons why, you will. You will see. This is. This is a clip from a the New York Times podcast posted on Sunday. Chuck Schumer, I guess, presumably did this on Saturday or Sunday. He is doing this. Understand this is. Was a pre scheduled interview with Schumer because Schumer was going on a book tour which he has canceled.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. Yep.

[Sam Seder]

In fact, it's too bad because I cleared my schedule tomorrow to go see him.

[Emma Vigeland]

Me too.

[Sam Seder]

Richie Torres speak about anti Semitism because. Which is a topic I've become really interested in since my Twitter feed essentially became a glossary of it recently.

[Matt Lech]

Some tells me they were going to focus on that.

[Sam Seder]

And Richie Torres, I mean, here's a guy who must have a lot of insight to anti Semitism. Anyways, it turns out that the interview was less about his book. And God, I can't tell you how excited I am that his book tour is going to be postponed because there is no day where Chuck Schumer as minority leader in the Senate can go on this book tour. I don't care if he schedules this in 2053 where I won't be at the New York one and other people won't be protesting.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I had tweeted out all the locations to it. It kind of went a little bit viral. And then the announcement came on Monday that his book tour is being postponed because he had a location stop this evening in Baltimore and protests were scheduled. But, you know, there's a lot of hiding from the public that's happening right now, all from the Republicans, but also except for Schumer. Schumer as well.

[Sam Seder]

I think maybe, you know, the Bailey's called me and they said they couldn't make it. So here is Schumer talking about the, the government shutdown. Now, we went through all of his very lame, really genuinely lame excuses and justifications for this. There is no doubt in my mind that I don't know if it's 10% of his decision or 20% or 30%, 40% or 50% of his decision was like people don't want to hang around, you know, through the weekend and then have to legislate this next week. People have different responsibilities.

[Emma Vigeland]

Like I have a book to sell.

[Sam Seder]

People have a book tour. But here he is with one of his lame arguments as to why this was important.

[Chuck Schumer]

Lulu, nice to talk to you again.

[Lulu]

Senator, a lot has happened since we spoke on Monday and you've been at the center of most of it. In our first conversation, you said you had a plan going forward to fight Republicans, but then only a few days later, it looks like your own party is in a civil war. Do you think that you made the wrong choice?

[Chuck Schumer]

Let me, Lulu, say this. I don't. I think it was a very, very difficult decision between two bad a partisan Republican CR and a shutdown that Musk and Trump wanted. For me, the shutdown of the government would just be devastating and far worse than the Republican cr. Let me explain. A shutdown would shut down all government agencies and it would solely be posit.

[Sam Seder]

Let me just say what he's trying to do here. It is not a continuing resolution if it is fundamentally different than what the budget was last year. And it's fundamentally different in four or five ways.

[Emma Vigeland]

Really important ones.

[Sam Seder]

One, it completely eviscerates Washington DC's budget by like a billion dollars. And he supposedly has said in other places, we'll go back to that. We'll deal with that later. Oh, I'm sure the Republicans will be open to that. Now that you've been rolled to. The funding levels are not the same. Three, the funding levels create actual slush funds because Doge and Elon Musk and Trump and the Republicans have been engaged in a rolling shutdown of the government. And so any money earmarked for those agencies suddenly becomes some type of slush fund that Trump can do other things that are not appropriated by Congress. So even to call it a continuing resolution is a lie. And he knows he has to use this lie because it sounds even worse that he just passed a Republican budget with not a single amendment, without a single negotiation, without a single, with one single vote in the House.

[Emma Vigeland]

He's, he's using the Republican lie.

[Sam Seder]

Yep.

[Emma Vigeland]

About that. It's not, it's not continuing. It's a new, you know, it does new things.

[Chuck Schumer]

Ncr, Let me explain. A shutdown would shut down all government agencies and it would solely be up to Trump and Doge and Musk what to open again because they could determine what was essential.

[Sam Seder]

Right now it is solely up to Doge and Trump as to what they're going to allow to function. Right now, it's that way. Headline VOA goes dark Headline NIH now advising grant application applicant applications to scrub any mention of mRNA which incidentally, if you know anybody who's like working on cancer. I know actually a guy.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

And his hit, for years he's been like, we are close to figuring out a specific type of cancer. It's going to be mRNA that incidentally, that research done at the hospital that he is going to be working, that he's working at, he may have to move to a different hospital. These cuts in Los Alamos where they take care of our nuclear weapons and engineers, there's a rolling shutdown of the government that has been going on since about the fifth day, fourth day, second day, first day of this administration. So the idea that this is going to, that a non continuing resolution would empower Trump and Musk to do anything differently than they're doing right now is rather specious. The only difference would be is that there would be more news about it, and I say this only because, sort of, there's an inherent contradiction in what Schumer's strategy is. His strategy is to let them hang themselves, but also, we don't want to give them the rope to hang themselves.

[Matt Lech]

Give them a lot of slack.

[Sam Seder]

Go ahead.

[Chuck Schumer]

A shutdown would shut down all government agencies, and it would solely be up to Trump and Doge and Musk what to open again, because they could determine what was essential. So their goal of shutting down, of decimating the whole federal government, of cutting agency after agency after agency would occur under a shutdown. It would be devastating.

[Sam Seder]

Headline. Trump and Musk decide ICE is the only essential service. As people go without food, as people go without snap, as people go without Medicaid, whatever it is. I mean, this is the nightmare scenario that Chuck Schumer imagines. Whereas now they're just chipping away at this stuff.

[Emma Vigeland]

Under.

[Sam Seder]

They're cutting the Social Security Administration.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. This is what a government shutdown would have indicated. It would have alerted people to the more subtle ways that the Trump administration is engaging in a rolling government shutdown, because people would have felt it, as opposed to it being in quiet two.

[Chuck Schumer]

Days from now on a shutdown, they could say, well, snap. Food stamps for kids is not essential. It's gone. All veterans offices in rural areas are gone. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, they're not essential. We're cutting them back. So it'd be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown is much worse than any other damage that they could do.

[Sam Seder]

Positive. They're literally doing that now. They're literally doing that now. And so Schumer's own justification for this is actually giving cover to Musk for what he's doing now in minimizing it. Like, there is no material strategy here. There is no political strategy here. Good.

[Chuck Schumer]

We're cutting them back. So it'd be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown is much worse than any other damage that they could do. Isn't that it can last for. Wait, let me just finish, Lulu. It can last forever. There is no off ramp. One of the Republican senators told us, we go to a shutdown, it's going to be there for six months, nine months, a year. And by then, their goal of destroying the federal government would be gone. And finally, one final point here, and that is that right now, under the present law or under the cr, you can go to court and contest an executive order to shut something down. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power. So, in conclusion, I knew this would be an unpopular decision. I knew that. I know politics, but I felt so strongly as a leader. Pause.

[Sam Seder]

Did he know that? Did he think that maybe I shouldn't go on my book tour prior to doing that vote? No, I don't think he did. In fact, it was. Wasn't until after that interview that he paused his book tour. That's weird. How did he not know that? He's been in politics for a long time.

[Emma Vigeland]

And why did he know that? Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Neera Tanden, that.

[Matt Lech]

Jamie Harrison.

[Emma Vigeland]

Jamie Harrison. Jamie Harrison, every MSNBC host.

[Sam Seder]

Did he know that? Murphy, that Jefferies, that aoc. I'm trying to do like as wide a net as possible.

[Emma Vigeland]

Basically. Bill Kristol, every Democrat that you can think of, the only guy he has hanging around him is Matty Glaciers. God bless that man. He will defend Democratic weakness until the end of time.

[Sam Seder]

Is there any more to that? Let's just listen a little more to this.

[Chuck Schumer]

I couldn't let this happen because weeks and months from now things would be far worse than they even are today. That I had to do what I had to do.

[Lulu]

Can I just ask you about the tactic here? Because the choice that you made to vote with the Republicans, isn't that an argument to get rid of the filibuster? You wanted to keep it when you were in the majority, but if you're not gonna use it in the minority, then what's the point of it?

[Emma Vigeland]

Good question.

[Chuck Schumer]

Point again. I'll repeat what I said would be how devastating a shutdown would be. Just think a month from now if half the federal workers.

[Lulu]

But I'm asking about the use of the filibuster.

[Chuck Schumer]

No, but the bottom line is if we would have. If the filibuster would have been used and the government shut down, the devastation would be terrible. Terrible. You see, we've had government shutdowns before, but never again.

[Emma Vigeland]

Such a.

[Chuck Schumer]

Sorry, such anti government.

[Emma Vigeland]

The question that is being asked is you are. The arguments have been to get rid of the filibuster so that it's just a simple majority vote. What the Democrats have been saying is we need the filibuster so when Republicans are in charge, we can stop them from doing the most harm possible to the government. This was a prime example right here where you could use the filibuster for those ends. And he didn't do it. They. He gave the Republicans exactly what they wanted without using the filibuster to even really. Although I guess it was for a short period of time, but meaningfully shut down the government to get what they want.

[Matt Lech]

And the question should be like, okay, fine, you don't think it should exist here? Why should it exist anywhere ever? Then, like, you're. Why keep it around so Republicans can, when they're in your position, actually crash the government? Because they can stay together on this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Because they actually use the filibuster for political leverage. So this is just an example of where they can get or shut down the government. So this is how they show that they can get walked all over here.

[Sam Seder]

Trula Flop says, I don't trust Schumer, but is he right that a shutdown would do more harm than good insofar as the President gets special powers during a shutdown that Trump could really do a lot of damage with?

[Emma Vigeland]

Let's steel, man.

[Sam Seder]

There is no, there is no doubt.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

That Trump could do a lot of damage. Yep. There, there probably would be more opportunity for court cases that Schumer says is our big savior right now in terms of what is essential or not. But the, the difference is, is that Musk and Trump are doing this now. And it's also absurd that Schumer acknowledges that Musk can do this. Right.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, at the beginning is Musk and Trump could do this, that Musk and Trump can do during a shutdown. Everything they're doing now, they're doing without Republican lawmakers feeling the brunt. They had to cancel their. Their town hall meetings. But outside of that, they're not feeling the brunt. They're not having to step up and do anything. If what Schumer is saying is true, that he was going to cut down snap, he was going to cut down all of these programs, you're at least in a state where the Republicans would need Democrats to escape the political firestorm that would be created. You understand, they cannot get out of this. They can't escape it without going to the Democrats because they cannot pass a bill to fund the government. So suddenly, Trump and Musk becomes every single lawmaker in the Senate and the House. It becomes their liability.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And they're not going to be able to turn on food stamps in red states as opposed to blue states, because that's a much bigger court fight and a much harder one to win. And so you have basically given away all of your political power. In other words, there is no point.

[Emma Vigeland]

In you being there and say, say he's, you know, has a crystal ball and he could see into the future two different realities or multiverses. I mean, to throw back to that Gestapo ICE agent wearing A Marvel T shirt. We didn't even point that out when arresting Mahmoud Khalil. But like, even if he could see into the future and knew that the government shutdown would give Donald Trump and Musk more power to dismantle the federal government more than they already would, it is still political malfeasance. For this reason. Can we just put up AOC's response here? Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with the House. We had an agreed upon plan. House took immense risk. Then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it with a fear based, inexplicable abdication. They own what happens next. What AOC is referring to is that every House member, save one, except for one, stood and held the line on this continuing resolution. That is a dirty continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk more power and Senate Republicans less accountability. That there was a plan going in and Schumer basically, fairly, unilaterally and with, in conjunction with those other 10 abandoned that plan. And there was something that happened over the course of the past two weeks or something like that. And my theory is, is that Wall street is panicked about the stock market and tariffs crashing and the economy, and that they made some calls to Schumer and Gillibrand because a government shutdown hurts the stock market even more. And they said this will create immense instability and that's why he caved on this. But something happened that severed the plan between Jefferies and Schumer. So even if he ended up being correct that this would have given Donald Trump and Musk more power, it is still complete, a complete failure of leadership that he did not coordinate with the rest of the party on a plan and put the House members in a very horrifically precarious situation where they had to put themselves out on the line, as AOC is saying. And it had some political risks because Elon Musk might spend against them and he threw them all under the bus. So even if you're just a Democratic partisan and you don't really care about these things, about fighting and creating leverage, he's hurting other Democrats. Schumer just did.

[Sam Seder]

It's hard to find that person that you talk about. Usually we can find, well, that some people whose knee jerk, you know, he's the, he's the leader of the Senate. He doesn't know what he's doing. We, it's, it's, it's extremely hard to even find that person. When Hakeem Jeffries was asked on the day of the vote. Is it time for new Senate leadership? His response was, of course not. No. I have full faith in Chuck Schumer actually. No, no, that's what they normally give. He said. Next question, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. Because this is the problem with the Senate right now and these institutionalists there with their every six year terms and Chuck Schumer basically consolidating power. They are, they are much more insulated from the Democratic will of the people. And it shows. Who is Chuck Schumer serving here? It's not the rest of the members of his party.

[Sam Seder]

This is from Sahil Kapoor at 10:52pm Friday night, maybe two hours after the vote. I can't remember when the vote ended up happening. Two Republican told me, Senators told me tonight this vote shows they can execute the same strategy again. Cut Democrats out of the negotiations on a government funding bill, pass it through the House and expect Senate Dems to back down and not filibuster. We liked it over here. One said.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Matt Lech]

Oh, but Musk and Trump wanted the shutdown. That's why they, they wanted the shutdown. Do it.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's why Trump threatened a primary challenge against Thomas Massie for voting against it.

[Matt Lech]

I mean, just having our intelligence insulted every goddamn day.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's ridiculous. It's. I want to read the names.

[Sam Seder]

You know how easy it would have been to crash it in the Senate? Mike Lee and you know, if Trump went over to Mike Lee and, and to what's his face, Rand Paul. Rand Paul and a couple others and said, this is your time to grandstand, guys. Just do it.

[Emma Vigeland]

We want the government shut down.

[Sam Seder]

Government shutdown.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay, these are the ten folks. Schumer, Gillibrand, Dick Durbin, Angus King, Brian Schatz, Cortez Masto, John Fetterman, Gary Peters.

[Sam Seder]

Fetterman, who kept saying that he was going to vote for it, my understanding, voted against the actual bill.

[Emma Vigeland]

No, he, he's one of the.

[Sam Seder]

Did he do. Yes, yes. Are you sure about that?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, I'm sure. He tweeted about out his explanation that no, not yes, yes, he voted against the. That's what I'm saying.

[Sam Seder]

No, but that's the thing is that originally he was going to vote vote for, but both yes for cloture and yes for the bill. And even he realized that it was politically untenable for him to do that.

[Emma Vigeland]

So. But the point being is he, he. But he still tried to pull the fast one that Chuck Schumer thought he could, you know, feed to people the idea that a vote for cloture was not a vote for the cr. That's what Fetterman's explanation was, which is just no one in the world insulting.

[Matt Lech]

Anyone who knows what cloture is, understands a lie. Anyone who, who doesn't know what clutches.

[Sam Seder]

Is not paying attention to the, to the entire thing at all. Yeah, they're following the James Carvel's just give him 30 days and he'll do it himself. And it's this notion of we can just wait. I mean, how many times does that strategy have to fail or for us.

[Emma Vigeland]

To see the material implications of this government descending into kind of like a fascist authoritarianism. And Schumer said this, he said, I've been through shutdowns before. This is blah, blah, blah. This is not the same as before. Like, and, and why is the Democratic Party at this all time low with popularity prior to this? Maybe because all of the talk about the urgency of Donald Trump and how he's a threat to us, which your voters believed isn't represented by the urgency of your actions. So you come off as liars, which you are liars, liars. And they couldn't sell themselves as better. In contrast, when that was such an inauthentic proclamation at its outset being proven by their actions. It's like the, you know, the horrible ex everybody's had that says all the right things but never does what they're supposed to. In the end, you eventually break up because the actions aren't meeting the words.

[Sam Seder]

Pull up this CNN poll, Matt, if you can just find this. This is from. Was released yesterday among the public. Overall, the Democratic Favorability Party's favorability rating stands at 29%. This is a record low in CNN's polling dating back to 1992 to 1992. Incidentally, that's disturbing. Bill Clinton won with 45% of the vote. And Bill Clinton's entire campaign was sort of built around this idea of we've got to run away from the Democratic Party. A drop of 20 points since January of 2021. Republican Party stands at 36%. And this is what's fascinating many in the party. This was taken in March 6 and 9. So about, I don't know, like four or five days it ended before the Democrats capitulated to Trump or those 10 did. Chuck Schumer did the part. Many in the party saying publicly their leaders should do more to stand up to President Trump. Democrats and Democratic aligned independents say to do this 57 to 42% that Democrats should mainly work to stop the Republican agenda rather than working with the Republican majority to get some Democratic ideas into legislation. Understand that relative to this time, more or less probably 6, 7, September of 2017, eight months into Trump's first term, 74% of Democrats. You remember the resistance at that time, 74% of Democrats in 2017. And Democratic leaders said their party should work with Republicans in an attempt to advance their own priorities. Just 23% advocating for a more combative approach. And now the numbers are 57 to 42% flipped prior to this, in the days before Schumer does this. He is so out of touch where the Democratic Party is so out of touch, not just the voters. Here's an example of that. Right. Right there. He has no clue what's going on. Completely no clue. Writes a book about anti Semitism. I'm glad he did. Good for him. But it's about as relevant to this moment when you're capitulating to Donald Trump. I mean, during the Bush years, Josh Marshall had this theory that I doubt he talks about anymore because it's. But it was called the bitch slap theory of politics, that it didn't matter what it was that George Bush was doing and the Republicans were doing to the Democrats. He was beating them up. And what that communicated to Democratic voters was that if the Democrats can't even stand up for themselves, if they don't keep getting personally and as a party humiliated, how are they going to stand up for us? There's like a meta story that's going on here, and every time you empower Donald Trump, every time you do not show an act of resistance or a willingness, and I understand, believe me, the impetus for saying harm reduction. But they're cutting SNAP benefits now.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

They're destroying the Social Security Administration. Now. They're doing all of this to undermine these things. Now they're wreaking terror. Now it's ongoing. So now you're quibbling about a matter of degree. But the big difference is in this, in the second case, they're paying a massive political price and there's actually like an opportunity for pushback and to stop the whole project.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. And I mean, I think our, our friend of the show, Van Lathan, said this on Higher Learning, like, even in reference to the Democrats, where people just. If you're fighting a bully, it doesn't matter if you win the fight. You've just got to land a punch. Just gotta land a punch. Because it's that quote that you just referred to from the Republicans. They know that in the fall when they're not going to need Democrats, why Would they seek the Democrats out? They could codify in the, the, like more formal budget process process all of this stuff that is so horrible that the Democrats agreed to, but without any Democratic input whatsoever. Because this was the time to use leverage. It's the only point of leverage that the Democrats in the Senate have for the entire calendar year. For the entire calendar year. Because they don't need Democrats in the fall.

[Sam Seder]

Nope. This is Schumer responding to questions from reporters about that provision in the Republican budget bill, which he helped pass about Washington, D.C. schumer's response was, first, Republicans made this mistake. It's in their bill, so they're responsible for it. Wait, what?

[Emma Vigeland]

Why'd you vote?

[Sam Seder]

His whole dynamic has been we want to prevent harm. But when D.C. loses a billion and a half dollars in their budget because of this bill, he says, well, the tricky thing is Republicans are responsible for it. Now, this is completely contrary to the, to his perspective on the whole thing. But a number of them said it, realized it was a mistake, and I think we can fix it. And I'd work with them to fix it. Somebody just pickpocketed you and you're like, but, you know, I'm going to talk to him and see if I can get my wallet back. But this, I handed it over to him.

[Emma Vigeland]

This is. When you talk about him being a concierge, this is what it is like, sorry, you're not a wartime leader. Like, like the amount of urgency that is required here, he's completely incapable of. Because there's the other part of doing politics, which is like the communicating the theater of it, especially when you're out of power, articulating the urgency of the moment is a part of that. And you do that with your actions, and you do that by demonstrating that to people. So he's not doing any of the politics that are required for a moment where we don't have actual power, where the Republicans have the Supreme Court, the executive branch and both chambers.

[Sam Seder]

All right, we got to take a break. Head into the fun half of the program. We'll play Chris Murphy on this.

[Matt Lech]

So much fun.

[Sam Seder]

So much fun. Your support makes this show possible. You can become a [e-mail] when you do your. You not only get the free show free of commercials, you get the fun half also. Don't forget, just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee, use the coupon code majority, get 10% off ESPN on hiatus, see what's.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, to be honest, I think for now what we're going to reassess but it does feel a little weird not to do ESPN without Bradley. He's my buddy on it. So I'm going to think about it a little bit more to. In full transparency.

[Sam Seder]

All right. So deep hiatus.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. But, you know, we'll work on some other things because I right now, I just think, like, my whole investment right now is in politics. So I want to do even more on that front to be. To be determined.

[Matt Lech]

It's always crazy when sports is going off and the world's falling apart at the same time.

[Emma Vigeland]

I, I honestly, I've never been less engaged in sports recently. And it's because I just can't stop. Because you're a Giants fan and my team, it's weird.

[Sam Seder]

I don't think I've watched this many basketball games in years. And I'm doing it basically because I need an hour and a half of escapism.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Where it's the only time where I'm like. Cause you can't, unlike baseball, you can't look down at your phone in between plays or you're gonna miss something. It's. The game's so fast.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And so it requires like my undivided attention, of course, until I get to a timeout and then I'm like, what's the latest on the. On who's been disappeared now?

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. Me watching Knicks games. I mean, that's already baseline. It's just like the level of obsession, excessive engagement. I don't have anymore. And it's. It is because the Giants are really bad. Yes. Anyway, Matt, Left reckoning.

[Matt Lech]

Yeah, left reckoning. Patreon.com left reckoning. Become a member and get access to our Sunday shows, which include Dr. Abdul El Said, talking about Medicare for all and also the attack on the nih and just a horrible, horrific brain drain that we're seeing right in front of our eyes on top of everything else. And tomorrow, WSKI going to be joining us for a farm report. So check that out. Left reckoning. Go subscribe on YouTube.

[Sam Seder]

Quick break. Fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks, 646-2573, 920. See you in the fun half.

[ICE Officer]

Are you ready?

[Sam Seder]

Who sent us this?

[Naive Bukele]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious.

[Sam Seder]

As you could imagine.

[Naive Bukele]

The alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha males are back, back, back, back.

[ICE Officer]

Just wanna degrade the white man Alpha.

[Naive Bukele]

Males are back, back.

[Sam Seder]

I take all of the Dubai Alpha.

[Naive Bukele]

Males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are.

[ICE Officer]

You are a madman.

[Naive Bukele]

And the alpha males are back. Back.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, no.

[Sam Seder]

Sam Cedar. What a. Wow. What a nightmare. Nightmare. Yeah. Or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.

[ICE Officer]

DJ, dinner.

[Matt Lech]

Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're enough. Little break.

[Sam Seder]

That's nonsense.

[ICE Officer]

You see white people doing drugs that look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting.

[Naive Bukele]

And the alpha males psycho them.

[Sam Seder]

Snowflake says what? Snowflakes is what?

[Naive Bukele]

A hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank.

[ICE Officer]

Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. All lives matter.

[Matt Lech]

Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?

[ICE Officer]

I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this.

[Sam Seder]

Psych.

[Naive Bukele]

And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back. And the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African. And the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black and the Africa.

[ICE Officer]

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, Jew boy.

[Sam Seder]

I have a thought experiment for you.

[Naive Bukele]

And the alpha males are back, back. Africans. Black, Black. Alpha males are black, black Africans.

[ICE Officer]

Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for blast to be around here.

[Sam Seder]

I am a total.