2459 - The GOP As Anti-Constitution & Humanizing Trans People w/ Jamelle Bouie & Laverne Cox

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Episode 2459 - The GOP As Anti-Constitution & Humanizing Trans People w/ Jamelle Bouie & Laverne Cox
Release Date: March 21, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 2459 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder delves into pressing political issues surrounding the Republican Party's actions perceived as anti-constitutional and the ongoing efforts to humanize transgender individuals. The episode features insightful discussions with Jamelle Bouie, a New York Times opinion columnist and host of the podcast Unclear and Present Danger, and Laverne Cox, acclaimed actress and activist. The conversation spans topics from legislative maneuvers against the Department of Education to the challenges faced by the Democratic Party's leadership, culminating in a heartfelt discourse on transgender rights and representation.

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1. The GOP's Anti-Constitutional Actions

Sam Seder opens the discussion by critiquing recent executive orders signed by former President Donald Trump aimed at dismantling the Department of Education. He argues that such actions are not only unconstitutional but represent a broader strategy by the Republican Party to undermine established governmental structures.

Sam Seder [14:11]: "And they're redirecting these resources to combating antisemitism. So when he says the word Western civilization, well, let's decode that. We are going to defund programs that help fill the gaps in poorer areas of this country or that help kids with disabilities to go towards suppressing free speech for the Zionist project."

Jamelle Bouie expands on this by characterizing the Department of Education as being staffed by individuals hostile to foundational American values:

Jamelle Bouie [13:15]: "The Department of Education here in Washington D.C. is overwhelmingly staffed by radical left Marxist bureaucrats who are in every way hostile to Western civilization, hostile to American interests and hostile to our founding documents and culture."

The discussion highlights the Republican Party's long-term agenda to restrict federal influence over education, emphasizing the return of authority to local levels and the potential erosion of civil rights protections.

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2. The Struggles of Democratic Leadership: Chuck Schumer Under Fire

The conversation shifts to the internal challenges within the Democratic Party, particularly focusing on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Seder and Bouie critique Schumer's leadership, suggesting that his inability to align with the party's base has led to a leadership crisis.

Sam Seder [44:45]: "I mean, just as you have a CEO presidency. The idea of moral righteousness being a function of how much money you have, you know, so who's going to argue with Donald Trump?"

Jamelle Bouie [46:34]: "I think it's more ossified than incompetent, you know, and there's certainly lack of confidence there as well. But I think ossified is the big thing."

Emma Vigeland adds to the critique by stating that Senate Democrats appear leaderless and overly focused on institutional maintenance rather than active political combat.

Emma Vigeland [47:45]: "They have become so obsessed with institutional maintenance that I don't think they know what their role is other than that."

Bouie further elaborates on Schumer's inability to adapt to the current political climate, attributing it to his long tenure and lack of agility.

Jamelle Bouie [50:23]: "The initial strategy to sort of like, yeah, we'll pose the worst nominees for cabinet positions, but we'll throw some votes and we'll confirm people who seem mainstream. That was the original sin."

The discussion underscores a perceived disconnect between Democratic leadership and the evolving expectations of their constituency, suggesting a need for new leadership that is more in tune with contemporary political dynamics.

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3. Humanizing Trans People: Combating Dehumanization and Promoting Representation

In the latter half of the episode, Laverne Cox brings the focus to the critical issue of transgender rights and representation. She underscores the systematic dehumanization of transgender individuals through legislation and media portrayal.

Laverne Cox [69:44]: "The change that we've seen, like, from a personal perspective, like, what does that feel like?"

Cox traces the progression of anti-trans legislation, highlighting how initial failed attempts like North Carolina's HB2 paved the way for more targeted bans on trans participation in sports and access to public facilities.

Laverne Cox [73:33]: "And so many individual citizens have but are so uncomfortable looking at themselves and critically interrogating the ways in which they've been complicit and indoctrinated into white supremacists and anti black thought or anti trans thought or misogynist thought."

She emphasizes the importance of rehumanizing trans individuals through accurate and respectful representation in media and everyday interactions.

Laverne Cox [86:32]: "When we use words like chemical castration, mutilation of children, surgeries on trans, all of that language is false and it's dehumanizing. So we have to embark on a rehumanizing project and setting an agenda instead of reacting to one that we, that everyone does ultimately like."

Cox also discusses her new show Clean Slate, which aims to bridge generational gaps and foster understanding, serving as a vehicle for humanizing trans experiences.

Laverne Cox [83:05]: "It's about being like, so, I mean, yeah, I'm trans, but it's, it's in the south and it's set in the church and the little gossip that happens in little in small towns."

The conversation highlights the intersectionality of struggles faced by the transgender community, intertwining issues of race, class, and gender within broader societal hierarchies.

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4. The Intersection of Politics, Capitalism, and Patriarchy

Throughout the episode, the guests analyze how anti-trans legislation is not merely a series of isolated actions but part of a coordinated initiative rooted in white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and capitalist exploitation.

Sam Seder [84:40]: "Because you’re protecting our property, women's bodies, essentially, we have the ability to inspect it. And that inspection also sort of edifies the idea this is our property inspected as we would inspect any other goods that are, you know, traveling across state lines or, you know."

Laverne Cox [80:19]: "It's a coordinated, well-funded dehumanization project that has led to all the executive orders that are affecting trans people on the national level in horrifying ways and potentially genocidal ways."

Emma Vigeland and Bouie further dissect the sociological underpinnings of these movements, connecting them to broader agendas aimed at maintaining hierarchical power structures and suppressing marginalized communities.

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5. Strategies for Resistance and Building Solidarity

Concluding the episode, the guests discuss actionable strategies to counteract the anti-trans agenda and the GOP's constitutional challenges. They emphasize the need for grassroots mobilization, rehumanizing narratives, and fostering unity within the Democratic Party to reclaim political influence.

Laverne Cox [95:19]: "We need to mobilize tens of millions of people to rise up. And we are so divided and we don't trust each other because so many of us, you know, the anti trans stuff, the racist stuff, like there's a lot of the misogyny."

Emma Vigeland [97:38]: "It's about David versus Goliath struggles that need grassroots organizing to combat."

Sam Seder and the guests advocate for ballot initiatives to reduce corporate influence in politics and restore democratic integrity, though they acknowledge the significant challenges posed by existing legal frameworks like Citizens United.

Laverne Cox [95:27]: "A ballot initiative would need to be funded in all 50 states that we get the word out in messaging where the people would vote to get money out of politics."

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Conclusion

Episode 2459 of The Majority Report offers a comprehensive examination of the Republican Party's attempts to undermine constitutional norms and the societal challenges faced by transgender individuals. Through the expert insights of Jamelle Bouie and Laverne Cox, the episode underscores the urgent need for political reform, inclusive representation, and grassroots activism to combat systemic injustices. The discussions illuminate the intricate ways in which political agendas intersect with social identities, calling for a unified and informed response to preserve democratic values and human rights.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sam Seder [14:11]: "And they're redirecting these resources to combating antisemitism."

• Jamelle Bouie [13:15]: "The Department of Education here in Washington D.C. is overwhelmingly staffed by radical left Marxist bureaucrats..."

• Jamelle Bouie [46:34]: "I think it's more ossified than incompetent..."

• Laverne Cox [69:44]: "The change that we've seen, like, from a personal perspective, like, what does that feel like?"

• Laverne Cox [86:32]: "When we use words like chemical castration, mutilation of children, surgeries on trans, all of that language is false and it's dehumanizing."

• Laverne Cox [80:19]: "It's a coordinated, well-funded dehumanization project..."

• Laverne Cox [95:19]: "We need to mobilize tens of millions of people to rise up."

• Jamelle Bouie [50:23]: "The initial strategy to sort of like, yeah, we'll pose the worst nominees for cabinet positions..."

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This summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights shared by Sam Seder, Jamelle Bouie, and Laverne Cox, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the episode's key themes and arguments.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, Casual Friday. It is casual Friday where we didn't have that intro. So sorry about the show. Well, we're all getting.

[Sam Cedar]

I can't be expected to know what day it is.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, right. Sam barely knows.

[Sam Cedar]

Honestly, like for whatever reason this week I have not been able to get the, like, I keep thinking we're coming back from break, we're starting the show. I don't know.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, well, apologies about yesterday. Everybody not pregnant. Although feels like it's inevitable. Whenever I say nausea, that that's what happens. But I've been dealing with this nausea for like a year now. I think I figured out what's causing it. But sorry about the late delay yesterday.

[Sam Cedar]

But you really, you really went in depth with that.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, I don't think I did, but I just want to be transparent and.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, you can say I was ill. Transparent to get into the specifics of the illness.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm constantly fighting my desire to overshare and sometimes it just comes out in a weird, stilted way.

[Sam Cedar]

This is the most transparent administration. As you know, Trump yesterday signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. Now, this is, he doesn't have the legal authority to do it. And part of this, of course, is theater. But then the other part is they just start firing people. They create realities on the ground. They challenge the judiciary to stop them. They Want to bring this to the Supreme Court. We're going to talk more with Jamelle Bouie about this because there is, you know, the Trump administration wants to see essentially if the Supreme Court will give them this unilateral power to essentially usurp the Congress's appropriation power. Here is Donald Trump. I mean, this is just Stephen Miller.

[Laverne Cox]

No.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, let's do, let's just do a quick of the, the signing order. Just because it's so twisted that he's surrounded himself with children as if this is a benefit for children.

[Emma Vigeland]

He did this before with the trans sports ban where it was almost identical to the Tim Walls photo op where he was signing free school breakfast and lunch for children as opposed to scapegoating trans kids.

[Sam Cedar]

Should I do this? Are these all private school kids?

[Emma Vigeland]

I don't know.

[Sam Cedar]

It's a good question.

[Emma Vigeland]

Maybe charter school, but they're all signing mini executive orders. This is his shtick now. Like when he made that kid the Secret Service agent.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, Authoritarian kitsch.

[Emma Vigeland]

Dress up like me.

[Sam Cedar]

This is, this is so twisted. Honestly, I can't even watch any more of that. So twisted. Understand what this means in the Department of Education. Let's just briefly go over what they do. They basically have three major buckets of functions. One is to supplement local school systems and specifically ones that are poor, rural and inner city poor school systems. They provide more funding. They also provide funding specifically for things like special ed and whether those, you know, those disabilities are physical or in terms of learning. The second thing that they do is basically enforce the right that children have to a free and minimally good, I guess is the best way to put it, education. And that's through their Department of, of Civil Rights. They go in and basically enforce Title 1 of the Education Act. And then the third thing they do is manage student loans. Apparently the Department of Education has had a tough time figuring out where they're going to offload these things. They're just probably looking for some type of private enterprise. This Office of Civil Rights is going to be the hardest hit by cuts. And that's what, that's what the Department of Education does. It just makes sure. And this is a department that was established in 1979. The first one happened in the wake of the Civil War, basically started off reconstruction because there was an understanding that you cannot have a fair society without making sure that everyone is educated. And it was specifically to provide education or make sure that education being provided for recently freed slaves. And in many respects the Department of Education's mission started again in 1979, was very similar to, at least in spirit, to that which is we cannot have a fair and equal society if poor people, marginalized people, kids, kids with disabilities are not provided a free and basic education. And that's been the mission of it. And that's why it's under assault here by the Republicans. And make no doubt about this, this has been a long term project of the Republican Party. This is not. Donald Trump was just a, you know, an obnoxious guy in New York. And decades before Donald Trump even became a presidential candidate, this was an agenda of the Republican Party. Here is Stephen Miller losing his. And he's a Homeland Security adviser, incidentally, losing his shit about, excuse me, about the Department of Education.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Well, as we know, the Department of Education here in Washington D.C. is overwhelmingly staffed by radical left Marxist bureaucrats who are in every way hostile to Western civilization, hostile to American interests and hostile to our document.

[Sam Cedar]

Pause it for one second. I just want to make this clear. What he's talking about is this. The Department of Education makes sure that we do not discriminate against black brown children and poor children because there is, in creating the Department of Education, this is what Congress had in the bill. No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary to exercise any direction, supervision or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration or personnel of any educational institute, institution, school or school system over any accrediting, etc. Etc. There's no involvement in the curriculum.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

In terms of, you know, inserting Marxism into it. It's value.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, but the decoding is that he's saying, and they're redirecting these resources to combating antisemitism. So when he says the word Western civilization, well, let's decode that. We are going to defund programs that help fill the gaps in poorer areas of this country or that help kids with disabilities to go towards suppressing free speech for the Zionist project. And you can, that's how you square that circle where a white supremacist like Stephen Miller can support Israel. It's because they view that as an extension of Western civilization. And that's why those two things coexist.

[Sam Cedar]

And his problem isn't with Marxists so much, it's with MLKists. Right, right, exactly.

[Jamelle Bouie]

The left Marxist bureaucrats who are in every way hostile to Western civilization, hostile to American interests and hostile to our founding documents and culture. And so they are using their position and influence inside the Department of Education, to try to force agendas like radical gender ideology, like critical race theory, like diversity, equity and inclusion, and all kinds of anti America curricula and policies on the American people, on our students, on our children. So it's taking away from parents the ability to control and direct the education of their own kids, of their own families. So what we're going to do under President Trump's leadership and direction, is to return that authority to the greatest extent possible to the local level where parents can control outcomes, while at the same time making sure that no federal funds are used to support racism, to support gender ideology, or support other ideas and principles that are offensive to the American taxpayer.

[Laverne Cox]

All right, now let's talk about somehow.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm sorry, can we. Is that it? Basically, like when he, when he says parental choice, we know that that is an inaccurate description of the program that they're supporting. Trump was flanked at this event by a bunch of Republican lawmakers who are pro voucher. They want it to be that these schools have a choice in terms of which students they let in, which is contrary to our broad based system of public education. But what they want to do is create vouchers, redirecting public funds to subsidize parents to send their kids to private school. So it's quite literally taking money out of the pot of money that's supposed to be going to public education, giving vouchers to kids that may already, or parents that may already be sending their kids to private schools and making it cheaper to send your kid to a private school. And these are parents that presumably already have the funds to do that. And private schools, in this vision, mean religious schools as well.

[Sam Cedar]

Totally.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. Which should be unconstitutional. But.

[Sam Cedar]

Stephen, it would take, by most.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Reports, an act of Congress to abolish the Department of Education. But it's expected that today, through executive orders, you can do much to dismantle the power of the doe. So how will this affect what you just described? How will this stop what we've seen in the past from the doe? Yes. So we've already seen. In anticipation of this action, secretary Linda McMahon announced her plans to lay off half of the bureaucratic workforce here in Washington, D.C. obviously, those efforts are going to be scaled up and we're going to. So a major thing the President has full and complete control over is the federal workforce. Now, you mentioned a district court judge inevitably will try to interfere in that. But the President, and the President alone has the authority to lay off federal workers to decide how many people he needs to execute that mission. Congress has never set. This is an important point. Congress has never set an employment floor for the federal government or for departments of the government like the Department of Education. There's no floor. In other words, you don't have any minimum number of employees you have to have. So a big part of this is just shrinking that workforce down to its core minimal functions and then working to give those funds over to states and over to communities and over to localities so they can direct how they're spent.

[Sam Cedar]

But again, so understand that in this instance, what you're talking about is a destruction of the mission of the, of the Department of Education. And those bureaucrats he's talking about are the people who are charged with making sure that schools provide the services that they are obligated to provide under federal law. That's basically it. And those services generally and largely involve providing for marginalized students, poor students, both rural and urban, basically people who are in jeopardy of being left behind. And I don't know, it remains to be seen if a court will be able to stop this. But you know, who could have maybe stopped it? We'll talk more about Chuck Schumer later in the program. In a moment we'll be talking to Jamelle Bouie. He is a opinion columnist from the New York Times, host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast. Got a couple of sponsors today. It's that time of year folks. 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[Bradley]

Thank you for having me.

[Sam Cedar]

This week you wrote about a column in the New York Times and then sort of followed it up with a blog post about that column outlining the difference between or I guess the move of the Trump administration from being unconstitutional to anti constitutional. Walk us through broad strokes the difference there.

[Bradley]

Sure. I think most people understand what it means. It says something's unconstitutional, violates the Constitution. The administration recently was rebuked for its attempt to try to ban transgender people from the American military. And that would straightforwardly the court that said that this was unconstitutional action. Straightforwardly. You can't just discriminate against categories of people like this. You can't just say this whole category cannot participate. That violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And it's a straightforward kind of you're operating within a sphere of power. You have kind of determining the composition of the military, the standards, but you're doing a thing within that authority that's just not allowed, that's unconstitutional. Anti constitutional is more just rejecting kind of the very premise of constitutionalism itself, which is that you as an official of the government are not the sovereign in the society. Right. Like you can't determine who exists outside the law or within the law. You are merely an instrument of the Constitution. You're an instrument of the will of the people, so to speak. And you are bound by laws and you are bound by laws and you are bound to operate according to those laws. And as well, you are operated in a system where the government is limited in the authority that it can exercise, it does not have unlimited authority to do whatever it wants. And it's clear to me at least that the administration, in addition to doing all these unconstitutional things, is clearly making a set of anti constitutional claims. It's saying that it doesn't have to listen to the legislature and the legislature make spending decisions. Now the Constitution clearly states the legislature has the power of the purse, but the administration is saying we can just cancel whatever they say. We can destroy entire agencies without their input. We have actually the legislative authority. And that both violates the Constitution, but is also a statement of authority of being above the Constitution as well. And I described that as anti constitutional. This thing or the administration is basically renditioning non citizens to El Salvador on the basis of an accusation of gang membership without due process. That's also anti constitutional. That's just a violation of the law. It's not just a violation of the process clauses of the Constitution. It is a statement of power, of sovereign power that I and the President have the right to decide inherent in my authority who gets to be here and who doesn't and no one can review it. That is the kind of claim that you might find in a dictatorship, an absolutist system, but it's explicitly against the very notion of a constitutional system. So I would throw that in there as well.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, well, let's talk about that sort of paradox. How can you claim that the president has inherent authority when it only exists that supersedes the Constitution, when any authority a president has or even just the existence of the president is literally defined by the existence of a constitution.

[Bradley]

So this word inherent that the administration throws around that, and I'm sure you'll remember this, that the Bush administration used to throw around a lot as well.

[Sam Cedar]

This is the unitary. I was going to ask you like, you know, how does this dovetail with the unitary executive theory?

[Bradley]

It's this. So the, the, the first clause of Article 2 says the executive power shall be vested in the President. And there are a group of conservative legal scholars who read this extraordinarily broadly. They say that this vesting clause, that the, the executive power is this broad, almost amorphous thing that is separate from the enumerated powers in Article 2, that vesting it in a president gives that president all kinds of authority to operate according to sort of what's inherent in being an executive. And so they'll argue, for example, that what's inherent to being an executive is the ability to hire and fire. So the president therefore has the ability to Fire anyone in the civil service and doesn't have to listen to any congressional rules, judicial judgments about standards for removing someone from their position. They'll say that the Executive has inherent power to execute a war, to fight a war, and anything they do in relation to that is constitutional is lawful because of that inherent authority. And that anything a Congress or a judge might try to do to limit that is illegitimate because this is an Executive's inherent authority. Now, I'll say say a couple of things about this. The first is that the US Constitution is sort of famously a constitution of a limited government and enumerated powers. And although there are certainly implied powers that the various branches have. Right. This is the holding of McCulloch v. Maryland. Right. That the necessary and proper clause in the, in Article 1 does give the Congress set of implied powers. If you got to make a bank to do something that you have an explicit power to do, you can do it. And in the same way there are some implied powers that the President has to go back to kind of the military thing I mentioned earlier. If the President needs to set out standards for who can serve, the President can do it. The Constitution doesn't explicitly say it, but Commander in Chief, it's kind of implied. But this notion of inherent, that that's not really constitutional, right? Like because it says that there are all these powers the executive has that aren't enumerated and that kind of just exists by virtue of that person being the executive. And to my mind it's like a contradiction, right? Like why would you go through the trouble, the freight, the framers spent a lot of time trying to figure out the powers the President has. Why would they have gone through the trouble if they had actually created an office with all this inherent authority they wouldn't have. It doesn't make any sense because.

[Sam Cedar]

No, let me, let me just so clarify. So in one instance, in the first instance, we're talking about subservient powers to an enumerated power, right? So it's like, you know, how do I go about executing and the sort of subservient questions and issues that I might, might arise and decisions I have to make in fulfillment of that sort of like top line power. Right, exactly. And then it also occurs to me that this notion of there being inherent powers and those inherent powers are just sort of like this, almost like they emanate outside. Well, they literally do emanate outside of the bounds of the Constitution that have been written and offered to him. But this also seems to me to be a complete 180 of conservative legal thought from as recently as, like 10 years ago, where the notion of any type of rights associated with anyone associated with government that wasn't specifically enumerated didn't exist. Right. I mean, am I wrong about that?

[Bradley]

I mean, it's, it's, it's. When it comes to rights that people possess, conservatives have tended to have an extremely narrow reading of what the Constitution provides. Right. People believe they have a right, right to privacy. And conservatives say, well, it's not explicitly said, even though, you know, I think we would all say it's clearly implied. Right. The Fourth Amendment implies a right to privacy. They would say, yeah, you know, it's not said, so maybe it doesn't exist. But when it comes to executive power, their view is that, in fact, there are all these inherent powers that cannot be violated. And typically this applies to Republican presidents and not Democratic ones, of course. I think, I think if you're looking for an explanation for this, I think you'll go awry. Looking for an ideological explanation, I think it's much more sociological, which is that the originators of unitary executive theory, the people who have been at the vanguard of trying to push these notions expansive, Dick Cheney, John Roberts, Sam Alito, put out a few names. They cut their teeth basically, in the post Watergate era when Congress, in response to Nixon, begins aggressively trying to limit the president. The War Powers act, the Impoundment Control act, the establishment of the FISA courts, like all these things that Congress begins to do to really try to limit the power of the presidency in the wake of Watergate, a scandal that we all know about. But it's worth saying that Nixon, Nixon had won these two. This one narrow popular vote victory in this popular vote landslide. Nixon is sort of making these what we'd recognize as like Trumpian claims about possessing the will of the people. And so these conservatives are looking, they're like aligned with Nixon. They're looking at the congressional pushback to Nixon and they're saying this has gone too far. They're weakening the President. The President who represents the people should not be bound by all of these illegitimate laws. And I think it's a very easy way to see how like, these conservatives are kind of step by, have step by step laid down the theoretical groundwork, taken the legal actions to like, unbound the presidency or unbound the presidency that they believe to be bound.

[Sam Cedar]

This feels like a confluence between sort of like one strand of, of conservative thought that, you know, of this unitary executive that has sort of like mutated or you know, commingled with this Curtis Yarvin notion of a new monarchy. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, in the same way that we've seen Doge and the Heritage foundation sort of, like, meld in their agendas. It's almost as if this sort of. These two strands of intellectual thought that ultimately lead to the same place have also sort of, like, commingled and created a more even, I guess, lethal strain of this. Of this ideology.

[Bradley]

No, I think that's right. I think it's sort of. It's like opportunism from the tech side of things, recognizing. Well, it's a lot. I mean, it's a lot of stuff. It's the opportunism of the tech side, recognizing that there is this framework that allows for the exercise of extra constitutional power. There's the fact that Donald Trump himself has. No, I don't think that guy has any particular ideology or any particular beliefs other than what most benefits him. And what most benefits him is, like, this untrammeled, unaccountable power. That's what he wants the most. He wants to be able to be the ultimate boss. And then you have legal conservatives who see Trump as a vehicle. Vehicle for their interests. And so there's like, this entrance convergence of all the. Of these three groups. Well, two groups and one guy. Two groups, one guy.

[Sam Cedar]

No, I mean, that's it. I mean, that's what it feels like. And they're putting it. They're putting it in action. What? Just. I don't know. I mean, you could take even, like, you know, the Bozberg case seems to be. And this is the. The deportation where he keeps asking, you need to provide me more information. And they're like, why would be. I mean, this seems to be the first case where they are inching closer to the idea of, like, we don't really need to deal with the courts. I mean, that to me. I mean, as far as I can tell, that seems to be the one most on the. But the one where they're already ignoring Congress's authority, but it's a question of whether they're ignoring the authority of the court to adjudicate that question. Like, where. Where do we go from here? It's like, Boseberg, give me your sense of Boseberg. Because you brought up that those deportations as, like, one of the more sort of, like, illicit acts. Blatantly illicit. Like, what is your sense of what's going on there? Because it feels like Boasberg is like, he sort of. It Seems like knows that maybe this is the. He's at the fulcrum right now and doesn't want to be the one to sort of like declare constitutional crisis.

[Bradley]

Right. There's no one wants to be. No one wants to bear the brunt of whatever is going to come next. You know, I think you're right to say that that's the case where they're really pushing with just disregarding the courts altogether, saying that you don't have the authority to adjudicate these things. I don't have a great sense of Boseberg the person. I figure that he's as much, he's likely to be as much motivated just by the fact that the administration is showing such open contempt for him and open contempt for the proceedings as any particular theory, frankly. I kind of imagine he's a Republican appointee, probably a conservative guy. I imagine that if the administration had come to him, hat in hand, willing to cooperate, that he would rule favorably for them.

[Sam Cedar]

Right.

[Bradley]

He would be like, you know, sure, show more evidence next time. But we understand what you're doing. The contempt they're showing for him and the court and the attacks on the court may lead him to the kind of negative ruling that the administration does not want, but then it's. It's.

[Sam Cedar]

Or is it is. It is a ruling they do want. I mean, it sort of feels like for them, I mean, it sort of feels like for them, this is, this is their best sort of like, from a, from a public standpoint, this is their best polling. Immigration.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, they're, you know, supposedly criminals, hardened criminals. They put all the propaganda money into it. This feels like the case that they want to have, like to create this crisis.

[Bradley]

Right, right. And I mean, this is, we're in this, like, this realm of speculation. I honestly don't know what happens. Right. If he rules that you got to bring these people back, that this is a terrible violation of due process, that we already have evidence that these people are not hardened criminals, and even if they were, they deserve a hearing and the administration just says, no, we're not going to do it. I don't, I'm not sure what comes next after that. My, my, my hunch is that no one really in American civil society or very few people have the stomach for this kind of direct confrontation with the president, especially over an issue like immigration. And so it'll be kind of like, will it happen? We'll just kind of ignore it. But the problem there is that obviously the administration's claims to the kind of authority the president has aren't going to end there. The president's claiming the authority to rendition people without due process, rendition non citizens or undocumented residents, then they're probably going to claim with regards to just non citizens in general and to short hop and step there from just citizens themselves. Right. Like anyone.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, the lack of due process is really the sort of the line Right. Where you. And if you get blow out the due process, then do we even know if it's a citizen or not? It doesn't matter.

[Laverne Cox]

Right?

[Bradley]

It doesn't matter because you'll have no way to prove it. And it doesn't feel like there's anyone willing to just like make that argument. You know, everyone's so afraid to say listen, even if they are criminals, who's to say that if it's not you say you're not the next person picked up because you look the wrong way, that you have the wrong tattoo and how can you prove if you're innocent or not? Yeah, this is a little bit of an aside, but I continue to find the way that so many political actors are treating Trump as if he did win a landslide and not as if he won the most exceedingly narrow victory you could win on basically the basis of groceries are too expensive. And so to my mind, those are great grounds for political contestation. Right. Like you can say, what does this have to do with getting prices down? What does that do with anything? This is just like power hungry nonsense. But there's this fear. And the more the fear is allowed, the more the administration is allowed to act unchecked by civil society and political society, the more that fear just grows and the more real effective power they can claim, even if they don't have the legal power.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I'm glad you added that aside because literally the next thing I want to talk about was, was, was, was Chuck Schumer. And the, the seeming, I don't know if it's a lack of alarm or if it's a lack of will or just bad strategy. And depending on which day of the this past week you've seen him on television in his evolving sort of attempt to justify both, I think both at least the tactical failure. I mean, I like, you know, when Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi are going where Nancy Pelosi is saying, you know, you're something for nothing. And Hakeem Jeffries won't answer a question as to whether you should maintain a leadership. And you've got like a cascading sort of, it seems to me process of saying it's time for him to go, he failed. I mean, just as a leader, he failed. Even if you could somehow, you know, agree with his strategy, I don't. But what, what is your take on this? Like, like are we just looking at an ossified leadership, I mean, or just, just incompetent one?

[Bradley]

I think it's more ossified than incompetent, you know, and there's certainly lack of confidence there as well. But I think ossified is the, is the big thing. I think there's this tendency to want to look for, you know, nefarious external causes. I've seen some people speculate that, like, oh, maybe it's the donors or whatever, but I think it's a very simple explanation. Chuck Schumer is a man and he's in the 70s, early 70s. He's been in political office for most of his adult life. He's been in this leadership position for, you know, almost a day, more than a decade at this point, or almost a decade. He is, was acculturated in a very different political culture than the one that exists now and is encountering a new kind of political situation for which the old tools don't necessarily work and is flat footed. I mean, there's a whole, we have a whole aphorism about this. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. And we're in a situation where we have a lot of old dogs in political leadership who are struggling to deal with the situation. You aren't agile enough or creative enough to respond to what's happening. And I think that's, I think that's 95% of it. It's almost a classic problem of human leadership. You see this thing happen again and again in all kinds of different contexts. And I think the solution is just, it is new leadership. It's people who have been acculturated in this political era and you recognize it for what it is and you understand that the old ways of challenging the other side don't work and that the proper orientation to have towards the other side may not be my misguided colleagues. It may just be they're my opponents and I have to beat them.

[Sam Cedar]

Right, right.

[Emma Vigeland]

And I think that there's a problem with that generation of Democrats viewing themselves as kind of responsible stewards of governance. And there is an animosity that really just seeps out of them when the base demands that they do politics. I think Schumer, Sam has described him before as a concierge, but people aren't looking for you to kind of stabilize things while also giving Trump what he wants. People are looking for you to fight and use every point of leverage. And he's seemingly completely incapable of doing that. And I don't think he ever will be. And I think the problem goes, goes deeper. Like I'm, I'm disturbed by Senate Democrats. Broadly, we're seeing a good amount of fight from the House Democrats and from governors across the country. But Senate Democrats, I feel like ossified is the best word for them. They have become so obsessed with institutional maintenance that I don't think they know what their role is other than that.

[Bradley]

There is, it's a wonderful novel, but I encountered it first as a movie, the great film the leopard from 1960 and there's a lie I believe it's both in the movie and the film where a character and the story is about Sicilian nobles at the time of the Italian unification. And there's a line one of the nobles has where he says, you know, to keep things the same, things will have to change. Right? That you have these Democrats, this, this generation of Democrats who want kind of a stable, well ordered political system and think that the way to get there is to, is to maintain the old ways. But this is a situation where if you want to maintain that status quo, if you want that back, you gotta do, you actually have to change, you have to behave in ways, you have to try strategies that may appear to be radical in order to have the capacity to at least try to go back to the way things were. And that, that, that, that paradox, I think they're having a really hard time with, and I'm not even sure they can conceptualize what that would look like. Another way of putting it is that obviously everyone, you know, everyone in the sense of partisan in one way or another, but a lot of Democrats don't appear to be the kind of genuinely hard nosed partisans that understand that political combat is necessary and that that's part of, part of what this is. And that the kind of genteel mid century politics, or even politics in the 90s, to an extent, although that's often overstated, just doesn't work or it just isn't going to work for this situation, for this scenario.

[Sam Cedar]

And this isn't ideological, this is more of a dispositional and partisan critique. And I'm sort of agnostic as to why at this point, why Schumer did what he did. Sort of the second, the sort of third order, I guess is about, it's like how poorly he managed his, you know, the House, which was also like, if you're going to do this, why did you do it so badly that you're getting blowback from the House? But that's also a second order issue. Like, what do you think the underlying strategy should have been? Like, what, what? Like, what should Schumer have done?

[Bradley]

Well, I think this goes all the way back to the beginning of Trump's term, which feels like it was three years ago, but it was 60 days ago.

[Sam Cedar]

Gosh.

[Bradley]

The initial strategy was clearly, first of all, I don't think that Schumer or Democratic leadership, and I find this bizarre, had any sense of how radical and far gone things were going to get as quickly as they did. I figured that that was going to be the case. Right. I'm not going to say they'd been saying it. Right. They've been telegraphing it and saying it that we're gonna. We're really gonna go for it.

[Emma Vigeland]

And supposedly that's what the Democrats were running on, believing that sincerely. And now they clearly didn't believe it sincerely. And I think voters picked up on that.

[Bradley]

I think that they. So they lost and Trump won the popular vote. And even though it was the tiniest margin, this persuaded a lot of people, including, I think, Democrats in Congress, that the public was with Trump. Right. And so we have to. We have to throw them a bone. We have to be. We have to be a combat. We have to be a combinationist in some way, shape or form. And so the initial strategy to sort of like, yeah, we'll pose the worst nominees for cabinet positions, but we'll throw some votes and we'll confirm people who seem mainstream. That was the original sin, I think, right then and there. Because it's hard to jump from that to a position of, like, maximal opposition. It's hard to sort of, like, finesse that. And Schumer couldn't. Schumer could not finesse a transition from, we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt to now we're going to let the government shut down because he's too dangerous a threat. He was a dangerous threat the whole time. So why now and not then? I think that the way things should have gone is that from the jump from the top, we're not going to give any votes to Trump nominees. They're all going to be unqualified, they're all going to be destructive, and we're not going to. Our fingerprints are going to touch any of it. And if they want to do a partisan funding bill, we're not going to touch that either. And when the Doge stuff started happening, when it became clear just how authoritarian this administration aspires to be, that orientation would have given them the ability to say, the only thing that's going to, that's going to bring us to work with Republicans is if they cut all this stuff out. But that was a lost opportunity. And now I think, you know, Schumer is obviously flailing and Senate Democrats are basically leaderless.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, it feels like to some extent the entire party is leaderless. I mean, let's just move just briefly to a. What seems to be a nascent sort of like a fight for what comes next. And part of that is 15,000 people in Arizona going to, you know, I guess a speech, a rally against oligarchs, Bernie Sanders, AOC on this tour. And these are numbers that sort of like, are significantly larger than when Sanders ran for president in 2016. And, you know, you don't often see this level of engagement in politics a month and a half into an administration, like the equivalent time for this in the Biden administration. Republicans were enraged about Dr. Seuss.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

And that was it. Simultaneously, there's a, you know, this sort of new, maybe new maybe not new economic doctrine of abundance that is being really aggressively pushed, like in a way that I don't ever recall seeing. It's ostensibly from a book by Ezra Klein and I can't grasp Derek Thompson. But it's, you know, the, the. There's a whole strategy that's been put out by the nicheson center, which is a sort of a Coke derivative sort of libertarian, ish centrist think tank. What do you make of all this? I mean, is it like it's. There's a fight for what comes next before we really have sort of finished. You know, there's still a grip on the Democratic Party, you know, until I guess Schumer goes down. But I guess people are anticipating this.

[Bradley]

Yeah. I mean, the thing about political leadership and it's like inherently entrepreneurial. Right. Like, just because you have a formal position doesn't mean that people recognize you as like the leader of a party. That's at least on the American system. Right. Like, other than the president, the president, uncontested leader of his party. But if there's no president that your party has at the moment, then it's a very fluid and flexible thing. And I think that this is what this is. It's sort of people trying to establish a claim to leadership. I think it's more so I would Separate the AOC Sanders thing and the abundance thing, because I think that the former is an attempt to make a claim for popular leadership of Democrats and AOC in particular, who has been sort of, who was at the forefront of opposition to this continuing resolution and has been like a vocal opponent of Trump. It's clearly emerging as someone who rank and file Democrats, not just progressive Democrats, but like ordinary Democrats see as a leader, someone who's leading the party. And Bernie already has the status with many Democratic voters as well. So I think they're trying, in the absence of any attempt, to do this from more centrist Democrats. I suppose Chris Murphy is trying to do some of this, but it's not in the same popular way. Governor Pritzker is trying to do this to a certain extent, but there aren't that many Democrats trying to make this explicit claim to popular leadership. But I think that's what they're doing.

[Sam Cedar]

But it's also.

[Bradley]

But that seems to me more elite focused. It's more saying to Democratic elites, right. Like, here's what we think the perspective for the next Democratic policy agenda ought to look like. It should be more focused on building state capacity, on freeing the government to be able to actually produce things and build things effectively and efficiently. It should be focused on removing barriers to all kinds of stuff. Right.

[Emma Vigeland]

But that's. And that argument, you can have that argument. I don't necessarily think it goes far enough. Right. It's not. We have to build affordable. I mean, it's not just zoning stuff. But like I'm. It feels like to me, this is an effort to have the same folks making the arguments about where the Democratic Party should go from here while reframing it and calling it abundance and cutting out the existing critics that were saying that this is the wrong way to go while still centering these same voices in the conversation. Like, what AOC and Bernie are doing is building off of the discontent and the. Basically, it's a bit of a victory lap, I guess, for their brand of politics. And what I don't love about this kind of very focused, tested, elite abundance kind of push here is that it seems to be like a way to consolidate power with those same folks who have been a bit discredited by the way, the Democratic Party is at its lowest point since the early 90s.

[Bradley]

So I'm not, I'm actually not sure that's the case, in part because the abundance folks aren't really making a political argument. Right. This is actually one of the, one of the criticisms of the book is that it doesn't have much of a theory of politics behind it. That it really is. It's more technocratic than that. I think that. I think that it may be important to. All right, I'm going to pull back a little bit. The fact that part of the argument of the book and of Ezra and Derek is that there are aspects of American political economy that are not conducive to the production of things that people need is like a different kind of argument than the dlc. You know, we need to get government out of the picture. I think the. I think the abundance argument is much more about like, what can we do to enhance state capacity, which may mean looking at things that the government does not particularly well versus we got to get the government out of there entirely. And that the private sector is the best place to make things happen. But regardless of the practical differences, like, I think these are. I think these are like two different things happening simultaneously. And it's like really not that hard to imagine a kind of populist, Populist Democratic energy like you're seeing with AOC and Sanders merge with this sort of like, we got to make it easier to build public housing.

[Sam Cedar]

Right.

[Bradley]

Like that's a very natural kind of thing. And you can imagine kind of a left inflected abundance kind of political orientation, but also like a right inflected one as well. I think it's a little bit separate from. From the claim for political leadership or the bid for political leadership.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, Josh Shapiro is embracing it. Right. And that's my concern is like, it's just, it's a bit of circling the wagons where I want this to be a worker led resurgence in the Democratic Party to reorient it past appealing to Republican suburbanites, which seems like it still is a fever that won't break with Democrats, frankly. That's my concern.

[Bradley]

Yeah, I'll say. I don't necessarily think the abundant stuff would appeal to Republican suburbanites because part of it is like you have too many property rights. Part of the argument is that like homeowners have too many property rights. This is why I'm not sure it's a political thing because the actual politics of it are kind of not popular with, well, even some of the new members of the Democratic coalition. I think I live in a college town and I will say 100% when you say to people it should be easier to tear down a shack and build like a public apartment, they lose their minds. And these are, you know, these are liberal Democratic voters.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, I think that I Mean, I think that's true. And I think, you know, the timing for this obviously was sort of like a hoping that this was a Harris administration. I mean, it reminds me of what we saw with antitrust in 2012, 2013, where there was trying to build an infrastructure there. But it does feel and there doesn't seem to be any sort of like right now, it seems to be like an ideology without a political base other than sort of like people potentially searching for, for an ideology to go forward. Because there's sort of a, there's a, there's a there. I think there were people who felt during the Biden administration that the antitrust in the and the labor people were able to sort of like plant their flags, but nobody else from an economic standpoint. But that is inherent in the what AOC and Sanders are doing on some level. I mean, it's a far more, much more of a political project, but they come with an ideology. And so it does feel like there is an attempt to sort of like and I again, I think it's happenstance. I think they thought this would be a very different, this book would be coming out in a very different circumstance.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

And it's sort of, you know, this is a book that's been planned to come out probably for a year and I think they would not have anticipated because it really depends on what kind of infrastructure gets built in the wake of this without the resources that they anticipated existing because a lot of those resources are going to go towards like, hey, Donald Trump is president, we've got to fight him as opposed to sort of like we need to, you know, work on and I guess maybe we'll see this, you know, the application of this more on sort of a local level or an attempt anyways to, to do it there because obviously there's no federal apparatus. What give me your sense before we let you go. How much time do you think Schumer has? Do you think that like this is going to, we're going to start to see the same cascade we saw with Biden?

[Bradley]

I. It certainly seems like more and more Senate Democrats was it Michael Bennett yesterday was like maybe we need new leadership. I think we'll see more Senate Democrats voice that I think if Schumer consumers flailing right now. It's, you know, it's one, it's one, it's one thing to mess up, right. And like, you know, really damage your credibility. But if you could recover from that, you could, it's, it's possible, it's possible to be able to reorient yourself, to be deft enough and agile enough to reorient yourself and recover. But he, he's just flailing the entire time. And I think the more he flails and the more kind of pathetic it kind of looks, the more you'll see Democrats just say we got to get someone new. And so as far as how much time he has, I don't know, could be a month, could be a week, or maybe there's no will within the caucus at all to find new leadership. But that's what happens. And I think things are way worse than we even think now.

[Sam Cedar]

Totally. It does feel like that time where everybody was like, well, let's wait if Biden comes out and gives a really banger interview and prove that he can do this. But I think Schumer's Schumer had a, you know, like really, like a sort of a multilayer, layered level of a mess up. He both chose a strategy that was not aligned with the base and then was incapable of communicating it to his peers and to the House and now seems to be incapable of delivering some type of explanation, as you say in media. Jamelle Bouie, New York Times opinion columnist and host of the podcast Unclear and Present Danger. We'll put links to all of that, of course. Thanks so much for joining us. Always a pleasure.

[Bradley]

Oh, my pleasure.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thank you.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, actress activist Laverne Cox will be joining us. Be right back after this.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's it.

[Sam Cedar]

We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vligand on the Majority Report. Real pleasure to welcome to the program Lavon Kerr, I can't even say vigilant. Coming back. I don't know what's happening today. I don't know what's going on.

[Laverne Cox]

Luckily, I watch regularly and I've heard you butcher so many people's names. Don't take it personally. And there is such a and I have such a deep respect for you. I have to tell one. Well, one thing I have to tell you is that I'm in Los Angeles now and I forgot to pack my begonia hoodie that I had hoped to wear on my first appearance in the Majority Report. So I am so sorry I left it in New York. And I also want to say that over the years that I've been watching the Majority Report, my political education has really grown and I'm super grateful for that and for the work you're doing. Side note, I posted a little clip of one of your many Discussions on Social Security. On my Instagram, it got live. Lots of engagement, and I heard from a lot of my followers and friends that they learned things that they did not know.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, great.

[Laverne Cox]

Security. So.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, thank you. Spreading the word on Social Security. Much, much appreciated and much needed.

[Laverne Cox]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah.

[Laverne Cox]

All right. What do you want to talk about?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I mean, I'd like to just start. I mean, you know, and we can get. It is casual Friday. We can get lighter as we go. But I mean, this is a. There's a lot of things going on that have people distressed now, but one of them, you know, obviously is. And this has been growing, it seems, or you tell me, like, it feels like the past couple years, certainly we've seen it from a legislative standpoint, but like. And obviously you don't. You're not exactly situated like every other trans person or. And whatnot. But you're an activist. You're in the community. The. The change that we've seen, like, from a. From a personal perspective, like, what. What. What does that feel like?

[Laverne Cox]

So I'm a. I have. I have followed. I'm 52 years old and I have tried to be aware of.

[Sam Cedar]

You look great for 52, I should say.

[Laverne Cox]

Thank you so much.

[Sam Cedar]

I have to say that because someone.

[Laverne Cox]

Also in her 50s, Mellon is amazing. Clean living. I don't drink, never done drugs, never smoked. Anyway, thank you. I appreciate that. But. So for my whole life, I've been like, sort of following anti trans legislation and the trajectory. I think it's important to remind people that in 2016, HB2, the North Carolina bathroom bill, was introduced and failed. And there were several bathroom bills prior to that year that failed. And once. Once that failure happened, organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been sort of at the forefront of a lot of this anti trans legislation, did focus groups and asked people, what trans issue would, you know, sort of most galvanize you to be anti trans? And they started with sports. The first anti trans sports bill was introduced in 2019. It failed, but by 2021, the first sports ban on trans girls competing in sports was passed in 2021. And now I believe it's 24 states have bans on trans girls competing in sports. Soon to follow was, we have to protect the children. These LGBTQ people are indoctrinating our children and they use this old thing. But. And then. And then it started with gen and cure bans for kids. Now 26 states, I believe ban though. So it's. It's simultaneously a propagandistic measure that's happened in right wing media that they've pushed. I mean if you watched Fox News, because I did the research. If you watch Fox News between 2019 and 2023, you would think that trans people were dominating in sports and taking over because every other story, there were literally hundreds of stories on trans people in sp on Fox News in conjunction with Alliance Defending Freedom presenting this legislation in mostly Republican led legislators. We can sort of talk about how all that happened post 2010. And so what the sports thing did was create a permission structure for people to dehumanize trans people that led to what about the children that now we do have bathroom bands. Right. The bathroom bands seem working 2016. But now several states, Florida, several states have bathroom bans that criminalize trans folks using the bathroom that aligns with our gender identity. Obviously we'll get to the federal in a second. But one thing that I think this is all leading to is what Michael Noel said several years ago. We want to eradicate transgenderism from public life. There's a recent bill that was introduced in Texas. It's how things bill. It's not likely to pass, but I just want to make note of it because it's I believe, a precursor. It's House Bill 3871 that was introduced in Texas and Texas is at the forefront of discriminating against trans people. And that law would make it a felony to assert that you are a gender other than you were assigned at birth to an employer or to the government. It would be a felony, I think two years in prison, ten thousand dollar fines, $25,000 fines, but two years in Yale. So to assert your transness in Texas would be a felony. It's not likely to pass this session, but they're going to keep reintroducing it. And what we're seeing now, particularly with people like Gavin Newsom and so much of the Democratic Party who are capitulating to and conceding to right wing talking points about trans people. His sort of just saying he thinks it's not fair creates a permission structure for trans people just to be dehumanized across the board and to watch in the media, in congressional hearings, in Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the dehumanization of trans people. And when I talk about dehumanization, I love what Brene Brown says about it. In her book Braving the Wilderness, she says that we dehumanize using primarily words and images to move a particular group into a place of moral exclusion, meaning that like we as human beings are not hardwired to harm each other, to discriminate, to commit violence against someone. But if we take a certain group of people and move them into this space of moral exclusion where they're no longer thought of as human beings, then it's fine. And I think when we look at how trans people have been spoken about in the media, particularly on the right wing that has infiltrated all of media, it is a coordinated, well funded dehumanization project that has led to all the executive orders that are affecting trans people on the national level in horrifying ways and potentially genocidal ways. And I use that term intentionally. It is really about erasing us from existence. I mean, they're erasing us from websites, literally not acknowledging us. But all of this is in Project 2025. You know, I did do a post, literally page four of the forward, if you recall, I don't know how long ago you read. And on page four of the forward, they said, we want to eliminate these words and some of the words from every government document, piece of legislation that exists. The words were gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender identity, sexual orientation, diversity, equity, inclusion, reproductive rights, et cetera. And they're doing it. We see it in real time. I mean, it's a scary thing to read about. And now to watch everything that they've sort of written about come to fruition is horrifying. And I'm just going to focus on the trans folks, but this is across the board, the dehumanization of undocumented people. Of undocumented people. I mean, just, it is just so, so culturally. And then the relationship between. There's, there's a lot of. And I want to ask you, you guys about this because you're steeped in this. A lot of folks, when they talk about, you know, trans issues or abortion, they call it culture war issues. I, I prefer civil rights issues and sort of that language. And then they also say that it's a distraction. And, and I get the or argument that it's a distraction because, you know, we understand that there's a capitalist, you know, agenda here, that there's a, you know, plutocrats trying to take over everything. But in when you read a Project 2025, it's so clear that the Christian nationalist agenda is about a certain kind of patriarchal white supremacist order that is constantly intersecting with capitalism. Right? So I don't think it's a distraction for me. I think it's, it's part of an overall plan that is white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist in a way that's predatory. What do you think about that?

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, I totally agree with you. I don't like the framing of distraction. I think it's minimizing and it makes it so that once again, and the person that's saying it's a distraction is validating the idea that trans people are just kind of political footballs as opposed to people who are experiencing real outcomes based on what the Trump administration and what Republican governors across the country and legislatures are doing. And I guess like the transports as a wedge issue thing is something we've talked about before, or it's, it's there to evoke a visceral reaction to further dehumanize trans people. The thing that sticks out to me is how Trump brought these folks to the inauguration and Riley Gaines became this kind of celebrity. They're all white women, right? And they're using these tropes of white women being victimized or CIS white women being victimized, whether it be by an undocumented immigrant. They're using that same playbook with the Lake and Riley act, or whether it comes to Riley Gaines, who tied for fifth place in a swim meet with a trans woman. They're using age old tropes about protecting white female purity to discriminate against all these groups. And then we're told, oh, this is a distraction. No, no, this is just white supremacy and Christian nationalism again.

[Laverne Cox]

Absolutely, absolutely. And what we're seeing too in AOC made this point, like, how do you enforce a bathroom, a bathroom ban, Right. Are there going to be police outside bathrooms sort of inspecting genitals? How do you enforce the sports ban? Right. Are we inspecting people's genitalia? But then what we're seeing in real time empirically is that there are gender police trans investigators saying, oh, I think a man just went into the bathroom. And we see many cases on TikTok where usually women of color have been accosted in bathrooms. You're a man, you shouldn't be in here. And they're not men, they're not even trans. They don't identify as trans. They're just cisgender women who are trying to use the bathroom. So these. What, what, what we know is that these anti trans laws affect all women in negative ways. I mean, the Imani Khalif situation at the Olympics last year, I mean, there's so few trans athletes that we have to invent them. That was so incredibly shameful. And how, you know, the J.K. rowlings and Trumps continue to that she's trans and she's not. Is sort of an indication if there's a certain kind of. But then that, again, is linked to a certain kind of white supremacist delusion that wants womanhood to be a certain kind of woman, but it's linked to capital and race.

[Sam Cedar]

I would add that the way I think. I mean, what you're talking about, to just go further in that connection is because you're talking about control as if we're talking about a piece of property. And ultimately this is a property right that goes along within the context of that hierarchy. And we don't hear that much about trans men in the context of these things. And I think that is part of the conscious effort by sort of like. Like making it clear when we put people in front of the women's bathroom, because of it, because we're protecting our property, women's bodies, essentially, we have the ability to inspect it. And that inspection also sort of edifies the idea this is our property inspected as we would inspect any other goods that are, you know, traveling across state lines or, you know, and this all, I think, ties in. I mean, I think there's no doubt that the, this, the. The use of this by the right is. Was in part distracting, but really, ultimately to feed in and essentially fire up those cylinders from an easy entrance, from their perspective, in sort of like triggering that notion of hierarchy. Intriguing that, that notion of patriarchy, which both both functions within the context of Christian nationalism and within the context of capitalism. Because I just remember, like, Paul Ryan with that fake story about the brown bag lunch of kids and the whole push in that era of Republicans to talk about rich people as being morally righteous and poor people not being. I mean, this is why Donald Trump was able to get on that stage with eight other Republicans and completely blow them away, because George Bush had set the table. We need a CEO presidency. The idea of moral righteousness being a function of how much money you have, you know, so who's going to argue with Donald Trump? Definitionally, everything he says is correct because he's, you know, a supposed billionaire. And that. That's where it begins to tie in. It's no coincidence that, you know, kings were there because God said they could be. They were the sort of the first stop on the hierarchy. They also had all the money, and that's where this all sort of, I think, sort of like it combined. So, yeah, I had.

[Laverne Cox]

I was on the View promoting my new show, Clean Slate, currently streaming on Prime Video.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I want to talk about that, too, but.

[Laverne Cox]

But on. When I was on the View. I said that they're focused on the wrong 1%, that it is not trans people who are the reasons for the price of eggs and that we can't, you know, housing prices are through the roof and people can't afford health care. Trans people are not the reason. There is another 1% that is responsible for that. And I think part the damage. So much damage is being done. And you've spoken about this across the board on so many levels that it's gonna be really hard to undo. But I think on a messaging level, on a cultural level, for people who claim to be allies, people who are liberally or in the Democratic party or left aligned, what I would really suggest is embarking on a rehumanizing project and setting an agenda instead of reacting to one that we, that, that everyone does ultimately like. Some of these anti trans laws too were also a response to states and state legislatures, including trans people and civil rights protections in states. Right. That literally was what happened in North Carolina. But so we have to change, rehumanize trans people. And that is about language. When we use words like chemical castration, mutilation of children, surgeries on trans, all of that language is false and it's dehumanizing. So we have to. I don't want to be language police. And I think that like it's, we get really tricky around like, you know, people feeling censored. But language matters. And for me, I think thinking about whether this language is dehumanizing or not, I mean, it was really clear when Trump said, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, that that was dehumanizing. But when Rand Paul or Josh Hawley says, you know, they're mutilating and chemically castrating children, that language is dehumanizing and it reduce, because it reduces us to procedures and medicalization instead of human beings. There was a recent bill in two bills in Montana that one would ban drag altogether and another one I forget was the anti trans bill. And Zoe Zephyr got up and made this impassioned speech and another, then a Republican woman stood up in support of her and they overturned this bill. And I think part of it is that these legislators in Montana know Zoe and work with her. And most Americans don't actually know a trans person. They've met her child. She is human to them. And that is so much of the work. And since most Americans don't know someone trans, the media is really important in that. And that's part of what I try to do with my work as an artist, as an actress, as a documentary filmmaker, et cetera, is to humanize us and invite people to see us as human beings and not as these sort of made up fictional characters that have come to sort of ruin humanity.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, that's, that's part of what your show, I think, is getting such praise for. Right. For Clean, Clean Slate is. It's like this very, you know, recognizable and warm, you know, heartfelt comedy show. But it's, it's like modern, but it doesn't, it's, it's not cloying. Right. Like, the relationship that you have with your father is very familiar for people. Like, like, were you. I'm sure the answer is yes. But you were thinking of. Of course, I'd imagine, about the political context of the time when you signed on to do this show. And like, I mean, is there. I saw a clip, this is a bit of an aside the other day of an old clip of Joan rivers talking to RuPaul about how he was even able to get Drag Race on the air. And he was saying, like, well, there are times of contraction where society is more conservative. But there are also. This was in the Obama years and there was more openness to this. But it just feels very important that you're. That this show is coming out at this particular time.

[Laverne Cox]

Well, we've been working on the show for. We started developing the show seven years ago. It's the first show, that scripted show that I've co created, executive produced and starred in. And we got the deal at prime video in 2022. We shot it in 2023, and now it's just coming out. So when we conceived of it, it came from George Wallace, and he wanted to redo Sanford and Son, but with a twist. And he went to Norman Lear, the late, great Norman Lear, and he's like, you can't redo Sanford and Son. And so Dan Ewing, who works with George, thought of me and the twist on that, and we had a meeting, and Dan, after the meeting, went and wrote a pilot in four days. That a lot of the pilot of what you see on TV now is what he wrote in that first draft. And it was really about for me. I mean, I'm from Mobile, Alabama, so it's loosely based on my life, but it was about, like, how do we connect across generations? How do we find our ways back to each other? She was deeply traumatized by her father, who she felt didn't protect her when she was a child, which I didn't feel protected as A gender non conforming kid growing up in Alabama and she's in the art world and she's found that she's consistently chosen unavailable men because of the first unavailable man in her life. And her therapist. The first, her first scene pilot is her on a Greyhound bus because she's lost all her money on a FaceTime with her therapist. And she start. It starts about wanting to have healthier relationships and then she reconnects with her dad and finds this whole other. I mean, it's hilarious. George Wallace, a comedian, is just a genius and I really want him to get an Emmy nomination for this work. He's brilliant, he's funny, he's touching. And it's really just about being like, so, I mean, yeah, I'm trans, but it's, it's in the south and it's set in the church and the little gossip that happens in little in small towns. And Mardi Gras originated in Mobile, Alabama. So we have a Mardi Gras episode. We have a vote. Should we have a voting episode that think is really brilliant where we don't really talk about voter suppression. But it's like, well, why are these lines so long and why are they closing polling places? And I think it's, I find it's really funny. So I love our show and people have been. And it's like a warm hug. It's not overtly political, but it's political because, you know, I guess because I'm a trans woman starring in it in 2025 and I'm a human being and we human and we people get to see that and connect. And I believe that is a huge part of what needs to happen and that we need to push back when. And I think we can't consort with people like Charlie Kirk and folks who just want to dehumanize us and erase us from existence. It's like, I feel like it's like negotiating with terrorists. There's no middle ground when someone wants you extinguished. It's just you can't do it so well.

[Sam Cedar]

Laverne, it's been really great having you here and I'm looking forward chat too.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, thanks for watching.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, I'm looking forward to. You know, I barely watch any TV anymore, particularly these like past 60 days, to be honest.

[Laverne Cox]

I know.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm really looking forward to checking out this program. And it is so. I mean, everything you've said today I think is so wise and important for people to hear. But the television has had a capacity and frankly, Norman Lear.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right, Norman.

[Sam Cedar]

Learning over the years has had a capacity to influence culture. And I think on the right they know this, they're just not very good at it it.

[Laverne Cox]

But they've been very good in the podcast world. They've been very good at infiltrating in non political ways, like non political programs. And then all of a sudden they become right coded and they introduce all the, all the misogyny and then it becomes this whole thing. So they've cracked the code really in terms of new media and we don't have a monoculture.

[Sam Cedar]

They've always, I mean, you mentioned Charlie Kirk. He's taking over Dennis Prager's 12 to 22 slot on about 100 affiliates. I mean he's going to have about 500 affiliates, basically supplanting where Rush Limbaugh was. And they've always had in many respects a stranglehold on that type of media in this country. And even Limbaugh, so much of his early days, in addition to being sort of like a right wing conspiracy theorist around the Clinton. But a lot of it was sort of like more, you know, self helping. And you see people like, you know, guys like Dave Ramsey who get into something like that and Jordan Peterson, I mean that is an angle. But when it comes to actually sort of like producing fictional comedy stories, fortunately.

[Laverne Cox]

For whatever reason isn't quite hitting.

[Sam Cedar]

But this is, this is, I mean, I think it's great and it's very important for people because it to rebuild that, that sort of like sense that the trans people are, you know, human in the context of our culture when we have so much dehumanization going on.

[Laverne Cox]

I think is two more things I want to say. And it's not if you're not a parent of a trans child or a healthcare professional or the trans child itself, it's actually none of your business. These are not questions that should be up for public debate and that for legislators be talking about. These are healthcare decisions. It's none of your business what's happening in someone's doctor's office with their child. If when a child has cancer and a doctor says this is the treatment, the government isn't legislating and like passing bills to say you can't do it, it's none of your business. And so I think like even making it a debate is, is ridiculous and is the beginning of like my identity, my humanity is not up for debate. Like my right to health care, my right to my body is not up for debate. The rights of parents, right like that are in sort of the hypocrisy of all that. So I needed to say that. And then also I had a DM exchange with Matt, and I've been throwing this out there, and I know it's not immediate, and we need immediate action and resistance, but I've been thinking about, like, what. Because money is the root of so much of this. What. Sam. The brilliant Sam Cedar. What do you think about ballot initiatives? They would need to be funded in all 50 states that we get the word out in messaging where the people would vote to get money out of politics, to get, like, take money, super PACs, but also just any kind of corporate funding of elections. Is that something that's feasible? Obviously, it's gonna take organizing. It's gonna take a minute. What are your thoughts on that? Because obviously, the politicians aren't gonna do it. Maybe the people would do it. The problem is realistic.

[Sam Cedar]

A statute like that in this era would be considered unconstitutional. I mean, that's the problem, is that.

[Laverne Cox]

We have a Supreme Court, we have.

[Sam Cedar]

A Citizens United, and Buckley Vivaleo. Like the entire. We have been you know, headed there. There was at one point a move to sort of like, attempt to change the Constitution and do a Constitutional Convention. The problem was, is that when you open that Pandora's box, there's no way to limit that Constitutional Convention to that one specific provision. And when you're going up against huge hundreds of millions of dollars that is going to push back on that. There's a whole host of things they could usher in. But I do think that as a.

[Laverne Cox]

Political act, a Constitutional Convention is different from ballot initiatives.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, the ballot initiative would be. I mean, it's. It's. I don't know if you could do it on a federal level, like the ballot initiative.

[Laverne Cox]

I think I state.

[Sam Cedar]

I would think by state, you might be able to keep it out of state races, depending on what the constitutions are in those specific states. But I think, like, I think it was North Dakota that there was a case that was brought, that there was an attempt by the North Dakota Supreme Court to curb corporate spending in these races. And I. And I need to go back five or six years ago now, maybe longer, where the Supreme Court pushed back. But as a political matter, I think, like, it's. It is. It was what launched Bernie's campaign in 2016 in many respects. And we can at least do that in the context of, let's say, the Democratic primary. That's something that we don't need. You know, you can set up. Because the primaries are private. You can set up your own construction there.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

And to have that type of like.

[Laverne Cox]

There'S political will in the Democratic Party to actually do that with most Democrats take corporate money.

[Sam Cedar]

I think it's minimal. But you know, you got 15,000 people who just went into a coliseum in Arizona in the middle, you know, for what you know, like there's elections are just express frustration.

[Laverne Cox]

Maybe we start with Democratic primaries, then with ballot initiatives, then maybe it's about Democratic primaries. It's just like how do we. And then it's. And then. And Matt and I were talking about this too. How do we ultimately. Because we're so divided. We at this point the government doesn't. Can I curse? Doesn't give an F. I'll just say that. Doesn't give an F about us, about working people, about citizens. They just care about the money. So we need to mobilize tens of millions of people to rise up. And we are so divided and we don't trust each other because so many of us, you know, the anti trans stuff, the racist stuff, like there's a lot of the misogyny. So to get people. The anti immigrant stuff that is in the Democratic Party there's so much trust that's been eroded. So it's like we. To get us to trust each other again so that we can actually come together as working people. And if you do not, if you're. I say working class people, if your income is not produced by other people's labor, you're working class. I. Our actors strike and writer strike reminded me of that. No matter. No matter how much money you make, if you don't own the means of production, you are working class. So that's most of us. But we. They've divided us so much. And then so many individual citizens have but are so uncomfortable looking at themselves and critically interrogating the ways in which they've been complicit and indoctrinated into white supremacists and anti black thought or anti trans thought or misogynist thought. I'm a black trans woman who's constantly doing the work to try to divest of internalized transphobia, internalized white supremacy, classism, ableism. This is like individual spiritual work. And so many people don't want to do that. And so it's like how. These are the questions that I don't have the answers to. But I think we need to start asking them so that we can come together around our common humanity. But we have to build trust with each other so that we can actually do the work. There's so much distrust left of center for so many reasons. Reasons I think valid reasons.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, yeah, well, much.

[Sam Cedar]

I wish I had those answers right now, but I think the it starts with asking the questions. Laverne Cox, thank you so much. We'll put a link to Clean Slate and hopefully people will watch and spread around to their families. And it will.

[Laverne Cox]

We also have a documentary called Disclosure on Netflix that came out in 2020 that looks at the history of trans representation on screen the first hundred years. There is footage from the early 1900s and it really lays out and very familiar clips and films and it manages to be really entertaining and fun. Everybody on screen is trans and it really lays out how consent has been manufactured and the various tropes around how trans people have been represented and how we can maybe at least in our image making and our represent how we tell trans stories can do better. Disclosure on Netflix. Right?

[Emma Vigeland]

Check it out, folks.

[Sam Cedar]

Put a link to both. Laverne Cox, thank you so much.

[Emma Vigeland]

Really appreciate it.

[Laverne Cox]

I love all of you. Hi, Matt. Hi, Brad. Thank you, Emma.

[Sam Cedar]

Thanks, Laverne.

[Laverne Cox]

First time, long time.

[Sam Cedar]

There you go, folks. Thanks so much. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, head into the fun half of the program. Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a [e-mail] when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, you get the fun half. And you can IM us on the on the Majority app. The app is free for everybody, but you get those special bonus and you can get one of those Virgonia. Do we still have the Begonia sweatshirt?

[Emma Vigeland]

They might have been limited, but we can limited edition@shop.

[Sam Cedar]

MajorityReportRadio.com Also, don't forget, just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code majority. Get 10 off and you can get the majority report blend there. Matt. Left reckoning. Yeah, left reckoning that we got Gene Bojalon on this weekend. Patreon.com left reckoning it's gonna be for Patreon members on the Sunday show. That's an exclusive for patron members talking about Erdogan turkey, the Kurds and all that good stuff. So check that out. Patreon.com left reckoning for the Sunday show. All right, folks, see you in the fun half three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're gonna look back and go like, wow.

[Laverne Cox]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. What is up, everyone? Fun path. No, me.

[Bradley]

You did it.

[Laverne Cox]

Fun Path.

[Emma Vigeland]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Laverne Cox]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.

[Bradley]

It's all the boys today.

[Laverne Cox]

Fundamentally false.

[Emma Vigeland]

No. I'm sorry.

[Bradley]

Women.

[Sam Cedar]

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Where is this coming from?

[Emma Vigeland]

Dude?

[Laverne Cox]

But.

[Sam Cedar]

Dude, you want to smoke this Saturday? Yes. Hi. You're safe. Yes.

[Bradley]

Is this me?

[Sam Cedar]

Is it me? It is you.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Is this me? Hello? Is this me?

[Sam Cedar]

I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

[Bradley]

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm gonna go snow white.

[Sam Cedar]

Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[Emma Vigeland]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We nailed him.

[Emma Vigeland]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Cedar]

Challenge.

[Bradley]

Man, I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 0, 35. 5, 0, 11 half. 3, 8, 9, 11. For instance.

[Emma Vigeland]

$3,400. 1900. 5 4.

[Sam Cedar]

$3 trillion.

[Bradley]

Sold.

[Sam Cedar]

It's a zero sum game. Actually.

[Emma Vigeland]

You're making me think less.

[Sam Cedar]

But. But let me say this.

[Bradley]

You call it satire.

[Laverne Cox]

Sam goes satire. On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like, everything you do.

[Sam Cedar]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We seen you. All right, folks, folks, folks.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.

[Emma Vigeland]

But you should know, people just don't.

[Sam Cedar]

Like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled. I love it.

[Emma Vigeland]

I do love that.

[Sam Cedar]

Gotta jump.

[Bradley]

Gotta be quick.

[Sam Cedar]

I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. 2:00, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Emma Vigeland]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you.

[Bradley]

Bye.