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2470 - Recession Watch; Trump’s NLRB Firing Blocked w/ Matt Bruenig
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Funday Monday! Today, Emma is joined by Matt Bruenig to talk about the state of the economy and trade. Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: Follow us on TikTok here!: Check us out on Twitch here!: Find our Rumble...
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- [00:00]
Emma Vigeland
Listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily. It is Monday, April 7, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and 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, Matt Brunig will be with us to talk about the legal battle between Trump and, well, the law, but for the nlrb. Also on the program, Trump stands by his beloved tariffs as the stock market continues to tumble with US stocks losing over 6 trillion in value in two days. Last week, Trump also shared some slop on Truth Social that says he's crashing the market on purpose. At least that's what the animation the President shared said accidentally return tweeted that. Sorry, sorry, I wasn't supposed to say that out loud. JP Morgan puts the odds of a recession at 60%. Now Elon Musk breaks rank on tariffs. Estimates show that he may have lost $30 billion since they were announced. Hundreds of thousands of people in all 50 states protested Trump's authoritarian power grab over the weekend. The Social Security website has been chronically crashing over the past few weeks due to Doge's slashing of its workforce. Netanyahu is back in the United States today after his jaunt to Hungary, no doubt to push Trump to escalate with Iran. In Gaza, Israel has rapidly escalated its genocide and also its land grab. It now controls 50% of Gaza just openly ethnic cleansing. Israel was also caught lying. I know everyone's shocked here about its systematic killing of Palestinian medics and burying them in a mass grave. A judge has denied the Trump administration's effort to resist an order to return Kilmar Obrego Garcia from the El Salvador Gula. CBS reviewed hundreds of records of men flown to that prison and found that 75% had no criminal record. None. A second Texas child has died of measles and the infection numbers reach 500 people that we know of as RFK Jr. Begrudgingly tells people to get vaccinated. And lastly, Trump's NIH cuts delay a major cancer research breakthrough. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show everybody. It is Monday. Funday Monday. Sam is not here. He's not feeling well. He's okay, but just send him your good energy and say hello to Russ and to Matt and and excited to be talking to Matt Bruneg later on in the program, this NLRB stuff is really important. But he can also shed some light on the tariffs and the fallout and Trump's justification, whatever that may be. I mean, Trump is holding firm on these tariffs. He seems to, from an emotional level, be holding the entire global economy hostage and tanking it because he wants every leader to come kiss his ring. And his buddies who have advanced knowledge of what's going to happen, they'll buy the dip, they'll be okay. But Trump really is into the idea of every world leader coming and cutting a deal with him. And Crystal Ball said it best on their show Crystal Kyle and Friends, that this should also be viewed as a way for him to consolidate his power. It's more of this kind of move towards authoritarianism because if he's able to hold the global economy hostage, he's able to make decisions because we are all in massive distress, he's able to benefit himself given the chaos that he's created. They're creating a problem to sell the solution. This is what scam artists do. And we have appointed a multiple bankrupt or elected, unfortunately for a second time. A guy who's been bankrupt over and over and over again and now it's time for him to bankrupt the country. And the stock market doesn't equal the economy. 40% of Americans don't even own stocks. And the 1% I saw this stat this morning is Incredible. Owns over 50% of stocks. And the bottom 50% owns just 1%. I mean, talk about some poetic symmetry there. But the effect of this market dip crash will affect everyone, especially if there's a recession which now JP Morgan makes. It says it's more likely than not. Goldman Sachs forecast says the same thing. The Asian markets were catastrophic at opening today. And this is also going to affect the poorest countries in the world, many of whom are already in these horrifically exploitative debt obligation situations with the imf. And these are developing countries that can't possibly buy more from the US Than the US Buys from that country. These are what. This is what Trump is saying about trade deficits. He defines a deficit by if the United States buys more from that country than they sell to us. We are the global superpower. He is making the biggest kind of like capitalist. Well, China's. China's creeping in, but he's making us into the victims. It's the opposite. The terms of our global trade market could not be more favorable to the United States. We benefit from the cheapest labor around the world so that our plasma TVs are cheaper. So we can buy iPhones. It is extremely beneficial to the United States. And there's also stuff we just can't literally produce here. Diamonds. We're putting all these tariffs on, on impoverished African nations that sell us diamonds. You think let's we're going to produce diamonds here, I guess in the United States. Not maybe always the best example because you can do lab grown diamonds and those are ethical choices. But like coffee is another example of something that we need to import. We cannot make that here. So it's insane. But if you view it as an authoritarian consolidation of power, if you view it as shock therapy on the rest of us so that they can get theirs, it makes a little bit more sense. Here is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant on the on Meet the Press yesterday, speaking about folks who are approaching retirement. Because as we'll get to in a second and as was the case in the financial crash in 2008, the people that are nearest to retirement who have 401ks that may be cut in half right now and they don't have the opportunity for that to replenish, they're the ones who are most affected by this insanity.
- [08:08]
Scott Bessant
Certainty, I think that people are feeling and seeing. In President Trump saying he wants people to hang tough, acknowledging there's going to be what he has described as a short period of pain. Can you help provide some clarity for folks? How long will this period of uncertainty be? Are we talking about weeks? Are we talking about months? Are we talking about years?
- [08:30]
Kristen Welker
Again, this is an adjustment process. What we saw with President Reagan when he brought down the great inflation and we got past the Carter malaise, that there was some choppiness at that time, but he held the course and we're going to hold the course. And this has been years in the building, years in the making, this unsustainable system. Our trading partners have taken advantage of us. We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits. And also, Kristen, this is national security problem, which we saw during COVID We.
- [09:10]
Emma Vigeland
Saw during our really quick. Did he say budget deficit? Did he mean trade deficit, trade deficits? Or was that a bit of a slip? Because they're trying to say that these are not taxes and tariffs. They shouldn't function as taxes in a society that makes sense. But King Trump wants them. So this is how this may go, which is that basically, yes, the imported, the importer has to pay the tariff to the federal government and they can raise revenue in that way. But then the importer, the company, when they sell those goods in the United States. They offload the cost on the. Onto the consumer. So even though, yeah, the tariff is being paid by the corporation, the company that wants to sell their parts in the United States. And by the way, we don't have the customs officials to deal with this. David Dayang was saying this. I mean, this is an insane amount of like, just total shift in the way we approach things. But even though it's not directly being taxed from Uncle Sam to the consumer, the consumer still bears the cost. And so if he's talking about the deficit in. I think he meant to say trade deficit. But either way, as I just explained earlier, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for those smaller countries to be selling more to the United States than we're selling to them. It's literally impossible. And also, given population numbers. But keep going.
- [10:39]
Kristen Welker
This has been years in the building, years in the making. This unsustainable system. Our trading partners have taken advantage of us. We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits. And also this is national security problem, which we saw during COVID We saw during COVID that optimal supply chains are not resilient. And what I could say is the only good outcome from COVID is it was a beta test for what would happen if our supply chains got broken.
- [11:14]
Emma Vigeland
From pausing it just really quickly. Yes, this is true. This is true. During COVID our supply lines were affected by bottlenecks. That's what caused the inflationary period initially. I mean, we were in the middle of a global pandemic. There were work stoppages. We were unable to conduct global trade efficiently during that time period. And that lasted for quite a while. And then it subsided. And we were able to get back on track with the mechanisms that run our trade. And you know what happened? Corporations kept prices as high as they were during that inflationary period that was caused by those supply chain bottlenecks. And then they took home record profits.
- [11:54]
Matt Brunig
But that wasn't because our trading partners were taking advantage of us. It was because people like Scott Besant and all the investor class people like him have for putting production outside of this country, because that's where the profit is. This idea that it's all these other foreign leaders and trade partners, that it's people like Trump and Besson saying it's actually you guys, you're the reason that we are where we are in up Schitt's creek economically. It's because of you guys and your Investment priorities. It's not, you know, some Japanese guy who wants to sell shoes and they.
- [12:28]
Emma Vigeland
Have it in the reverse. If they, if we were to have it pass a massive re industrialization bill and then do tariffs and implement them as we go, as we develop our capacity to create some of these goods, again, as I say, coffee, other goods, we just literally can't make it here, then it doesn't make sense. But even if we were able to create it, you would need billions of dollars in industrial policy prior to that. And then doing these tariffs in a targeted way.
- [12:58]
Matt Brunig
Tesla itself got massive government subsidy under the Obama administration. We should be doing a lot more to that. And also once those companies do grow to size, be controlling their capitalists instead of letting them run our country, right.
- [13:15]
Kristen Welker
Has decided that we cannot be at risk like that for our crucial medicines. For semiconductors, they have forced shipping. And we are going to move forward so the American people can know that they are going to have a more secure future.
- [13:32]
Scott Bessant
And yet President Trump promised, I'll just.
- [13:36]
Matt Brunig
Say he didn't answer the question of is this going to be months, years, how long is this process you're signing us all up for?
- [13:42]
Emma Vigeland
And no, Welker just moves on, okay?
- [13:45]
Kristen Welker
They're going to have a more secure future.
- [13:48]
Scott Bessant
And yet President Trump promised that he was going to improve the economy starting on day one. He said prices are going to come down. More than 160 million Americans, Mr. Secretary, as you know, are invested in the market. Many of them have spent their lives saving for their retirement. What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now and who've just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly?
- [14:14]
Kristen Welker
I think that's a false narrative. Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who are put away for years in their savings account, I think they don't look at the day to day fluctuations of what's happening. And you know, in fact, most Americans don't have everything in the market. Most Americans in a 401k have what's called a 6040 account, that 60 or 40 accounts are down 5 or 6% on the year. People have a long term view, they have a program that the reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it's a long term investment. If you look day to day, week to week, it's very risky over the long term.
- [14:56]
Emma Vigeland
It's a good investment over the long term. What did I just say? Retirees don't near. Retirees don't have the luxury of waiting years potentially. And he didn't answer the question. Prior to that, how long will this last? They don't have the opportunity to wait around for their 401ks to replenish. This is a broader conversation about what we have done to retirement funds by basically moving towards defined contribution plans and funneling people into the marketplace as opposed to having these defined benefit pension plans that have been just they're dinosaurs at this point, abandoned by major corporations because it benefits the speculators and the capitalists to have more and more of all of us invested in the stock market and more money in there. If your 401k is funding the stock market, that's more money for these people to play with. But let's pull this up here from 2 days ago NBC 3 days ago @ this point, retirees stunned as market turmoil over tariffs shrinks their 401ks. Is the title of this article just some quotes from people here. I'm just kind of stunned and with so much money in the market, we sort of have to hope we have enough time to recover, said Paula, 68, a former occupational health professional in New Jersey who retired three years ago. What we've been doing is trying to enjoy the time we have, but you want to be able to make it last. I have no confidence here. Another quote from Victor Fettes of Georgia I look at my looked at my 401k this morning and in the last two days that's lost $58,000. That's stressful. If that continues, I can't stay retired. You retired last week as a senior director of risk management and compliance at Verizon. More quotes I don't want to have to to worry that everyone is constantly changing my financial reality, said Allison Carey, 64, of Oregon, a freelancer in the theater industry. Let the economy do its machinations, but don't put me in the gears, paula said. She and the other older Americans are living with anxiety about something where you don't really know what's going to happen. You can't do anything. Though she and her husband have decided to pause and reduce spending on big ticket items. They are reconsidering vacations and home renovations. We can't change anything right now except our spending, she said. I'm sure there are consumers across the board that want to be cautious, too. Then it becomes a vicious cycle. Consumer confidence goes down. One in five Americans age 50 and over have no retirement savings, and more than half, 61%, are worried that they will not have enough money to support them in retirement, according to a survey published by the AARP last April. So that's that. And they're also trying to gut Social Security, which keeps two thirds of our seniors out of poverty. So here it is again though. Peter Navarro says that tariffs are tax cuts again. This will be offset on the consumer. More from this insane administration.
- [18:33]
Peter Navarro
You have talked a lot about how.
- [18:36]
Emma Vigeland
Tariffs and the president's talked a lot about how tariffs can be helpful as a tax effectively as a way to raise revenue here in the United States. Terrorists are.
- [18:46]
Andrew
And they do raise revenues. They will. I see them as a tax cut, Andrew, because they're going to help pay for the biggest tax cut in American history. Every dollar that we extract from foreigners who are cheating us is going to go to the American public in the form of debt reduction and tax cuts, including, for example, in our auto industry. Anybody who buys an American made car is going to get. Get a healthy tax cut. We were given $7,500 away for EVs made partly in China. That's crazy. If he don you.
- [19:20]
Emma Vigeland
So that's. But he admitted it there, that this is going to pay for the largest tax cut in history. That's why I want to play that is because this is how they are setting up taxes for the rich. This is. They are going to claim that tariffs can offset the revenue that they're going to do for tax cuts for the rich and to gut Medicaid. That's what they're going to do. What?
- [19:39]
Matt Brunig
Tariffs can't do that.
- [19:41]
Emma Vigeland
They can't. But that's.
- [19:43]
Matt Brunig
So we just take the word of some fucking criminal. Which is what Navarro is basically.
- [19:47]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [19:49]
Matt Brunig
Okay.
- [19:50]
Emma Vigeland
Less Republicans stand up in the Senate. In the House, though.
- [19:53]
Matt Brunig
That's the other point is, you know, I do see people saying, oh, how can only one man have this so much power? He has a whole party behind him.
- [20:01]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. Like they, they could, they could stand up to him. They could, but they aren't.
- [20:06]
Matt Brunig
But they would rather collapse the world economy than, you know, go against daddy.
- [20:15]
Emma Vigeland
Before we get to Matt, let's just do this story really quickly in the, in the free part of the show because this is important. In late March, there were workers in Gaza who were aid workers, ambulance crews, people, rescue workers who were sent to the scene of an airstrike around Rafah in the south part of the Gaza Strip and they never returned. And Israel, of course, initially denied that these 15 medics were killed by the IDF. This is what they do every single time. They said we didn't do it. Then they claim it's a mistake. Right. Oh, and then they claim, well, they didn't have their sirens on, their lights on. So we didn't know who these folks were. Many of them were zip tied hands behind their back found in this mass grave. And there has now been footage, video that was released that contradicts their claim and debunks it, that they didn't have their emergency lights on. And of all places, Fox News did a report on this debunking this narrative. Here is that report and credit to whoever the producer and reporter is on this story who got this through. But this did air on Fox News the other day, and this is a very good segment.
- [21:53]
Trey Yingst
Paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent dig through the earth of southern Gaza. They're recovering the bodies of their colleagues killed by Israeli forces. On March 23, first responders were dispatched to this area of Rafah. When they arrived, Israeli soldiers opened fire.
- [22:16]
Kristen Welker
Health workers should never be a target.
- [22:18]
Matt Brunig
And yet we're here today digging up a mass grave of first responders and paramedics.
- [22:22]
Trey Yingst
On March 31, the IDF provided a statement to Fox News saying, quote, several vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. Video released five days later by the Palestine Red Crescent directly contradicts that statement. The IDF also claimed in the initial findings that nine out of the 15 medics were operatives in Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Asked multiple times for evidence to support that claim, none was provided. Funerals were held late last week for those killed by Israeli bullets. Families mourning the dead, mothers trying to make sense of the senseless. He went to save the martyrs and injured and we've been waiting for him for a week. We were told that he was either martyred or injured, but I realized that they had killed them from the very first moment. They had killed them and buried them underground. As bodies of these medics rest inside white plastic bags with a photo attached, the face of Rifat Radwan stands out. The man who recorded his final moments with a final message. Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose to help you, he said.
- [23:37]
Emma Vigeland
The reporter is named Trey Yingstown. Good job. Chief foreign correspondent for Fox News. In the midst of this, Israel has now taken 50% of the land in Gaza. There a buffer zone to the buffer zone to the buffer zone till the entire Gaza Strip is the buffer zone until it's part of Greater Israel. Because the one state reality is what they're trying to create and escalating at a rapid pace. But it's one state where they just envision Israelis, one state of racial supremacy and dominance.
- [24:13]
Matt Brunig
Israel can only do this when you say Israel has a right to exist. You say that this has a right to exist because Israel is about creating a majority for one population at the exclusion of another population. So they're going to kill journalists. Ryan Grimm just tweeted out IDF statement that said IDF and ISA have struck the Hamas terrorists Hassan Abdel Fattam Mohammed Asli in Khan Eunice area overnight. Grimm's characterization IDF says it deliberately struck a photojournalist who was whose work was used by a range of Western media on October 7th. His specific crime, according to IDF, Astley documented and uploaded footage of looting, arson and murder to social media. This is what Israel is. This is what Israel is going to be as long as we support Israel. So we should stop doing it.
- [25:01]
Emma Vigeland
We should stop doing it. And we believe one state reality with one democratic state. There are two options at this point. One state where Israel commits genocide and ethnically cleanses the people in the west bank and well, Gaza, they're doing a final solution right now. Let's be real. Let's be real what's happening right now in Gaza. It was health officials I heard this this morning on Democracy now said that at least 600,000 children in Gaza are at risk of permanent paralysis because Israel has been blocking polio vaccines. There was also footage of a journalist being burned alive last night. So we the it's hard. It's been a year and a half of this genocide and it's hard to come up with new angles to talk about this. But this is still happening. And in fact, we're maybe at one of the most dangerous stages of this genocide right now. So with that said, here is a word from some of our sponsors. 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- [32:35]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [32:36]
Emma Vigeland
So I guess I just wanted to start here with you, cuz we were just going through this, this insanity. There's a lot of theories about Trump's motivations with these tariffs. Like what does he understand trade deficits even are, is my question.
- [32:54]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, I mean that's its own, you know, interesting element of it. I mean, I don't know what all the theories you've gone through about how people have tried to kind of dress up what he's doing, whether he's trying to bring down interest rates or onshore manufacturing or whatever it happens to be, bring down oil prices. What he has consistently said for decades, and he just said again last night, is that essentially he believes that if you sell more goods to a country than they sell to you, then, then you're essentially losing money, that you're, you're, you're kind of giving them money. And he's been speaking like this forever. I remember when he first became president, he Said that we subsidize Canada to the tune of something like $200 billion a year, which is not us sending money to Canada, but, but it's just how much we buy from Canada more than they buy from us. So he really, he just seems to believe that if you buy more from one entity than they buy from you, then you're, you're kind of losing money. They're, they're, they're like taking money from you.
- [33:53]
Emma Vigeland
Right. But obviously the United States as the global capitalist superpower, that's going to be the instance in many different cases with a variety of countries. Like, we can't produce so many of the goods that he's saying are the result of people ripping us off. Like, good luck with creating diamond mines here. Good luck getting coffee grown in the United States. I mean, this is just like, he doesn't seem to fundamentally get that some of this stuff is just not possible.
- [34:25]
Peter Navarro
Yeah. And it's especially weird that he applies it on a country by country basis. You know, some people can have concerns with the overall trade deficit, but to go to each particular country and suggest that you're supposed to sell more to them or the same amount to them as they buy from you for that specific country for all 100 plus of them, is, is kind of wild. And I know there's been a lot of people trying to come up with analogies for this, to try to people's head around it. Probably the best I've seen is to think about your household and the trade deficit that you run with the local grocery store where you buy a lot of stuff from that grocery store, but obviously they don't buy very much from you. And that's all well and good because you run a big trade surplus with your employer where they buy a lot of labor from you, but you don't necessarily buy as much in exchange from them. And, you know, we do this with all sorts of entities and to pick each specific one and to say, hey, I buy more from you than you buy from me is, you know, it's, it makes no sense. Even among people who are very trade skeptical and worried about the trade deficit, they don't do it what's called bilaterally, country by country by country, like, like he does.
- [35:33]
Emma Vigeland
And labor's reaction to the tariffs. I mean, I can see some of where Sean Fain is coming from. And you know, 20% of our economy is the auto industry. And so it would benefit a lot of workers to have some of these parts manufactured here in the United States. But clearly the Broad based nature of this is going to have a compounding effect on working class people given the fact that it just kind of functions as a regressive sales tax in practice.
- [36:06]
Peter Navarro
Yeah. I think it's also important to identify, you know, the difference between the goal and the mechanism. So if you're someone like Sean Fain who thinks it would be very useful to onshore certain kinds of automotive, automotive production, some of the parts that are made in Mexico or whatever down the line, you know, that's, that's all well and good, but then you have to ask yourself, is this the way to achieve it? Is this the best way to achieve it? To slap, you know, random kind of random ish tariffs on 100 plus countries around the world? You know. No. Right. There's something called industrial policy which is, you know, when you're trying to promote certain kinds of industries or sectors, growth employment in those industries and sectors. And tariffs is one possible tool of industrial policy. But there are other tools as well. And even if you're using tariff as tariffs as a tool, this sort of indiscriminate, sort of random tariff slapping, you know, doesn't, doesn't really achieve that goal. I think a good like contrast to this would be, you know, in, during the Biden administration they really wanted to increase semiconductor construction or manufacturing in the US because we didn't have a lot of that and they had this whole policy of subsidies and other kinds of things to get was a TMSC to build a semiconductor plant in Arizona and it's about to start producing chips like pretty soon. Like that's all been very successful. Right. So.
- [37:31]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [37:31]
Peter Navarro
You know, there are smart ways to do that. And you know, I think Fain maybe should, you know, think a little bit more about does this achieve the goal of onshoring automotive, automotive production or not? And is it the best way to do it?
- [37:45]
Emma Vigeland
Like the tariffs would have to come after the industrial policy. That's what I just. And there's no industrial policy except there we have chips that is still hanging on. But Trump has said that he wants to repeal the bill. I saw that there were some upstate red, upstate New York lawmaker that was getting a little bit scared by that talk because the CHIPS act has been a significant benefit to New York State in particular. There's been some more investment in trying to, you know, create those semiconductor facilities here in this state too. Arizona as well.
- [38:21]
Peter Navarro
Yeah. And I think, you know, one aspect of that is the public investment function. Right. So if the tariffs work the way it's supposed to work kind of in the, in the perfect world is you, you, you slap these tariffs on these parts that are coming from the other countries and then you hope that private capital will go in and start building all these facilities, investing all this capital to replace those parts to, to build them locally in the US and you know, that's quite a, you know, a fingers crossed kind of scenario. And I think it's very obvious that there, there's not a whole lot of appetite for that in, in this scenario where the tariff situation is so unstable, no one knows how long, how long they're going to last, et cetera, et cetera. So with Chipsy, you kind of had both sides of it, right. The public investment and then maybe some protectionist measures as well. Here you just kind of protect and then you hope that capital helps you out. In real reality, capital is just going to flee to the less risky investments.
- [39:27]
Emma Vigeland
Right now, if we, if, if capital was allocating itself in a way that benefited our economy, I don't know if the amount of investment in AI compared to how say Deep Seek was created in China would count as an efficient orientation of the amount of investment money in this country.
- [39:50]
Peter Navarro
Sure. And I mean, capital is seeking a return. It doesn't care what the industrial or sectoral composition of the US Is. Public investment can be directed towards that. But private investment, unless you set up the return environment so that it perfectly aligns with, with that goal, they're not going to put their money where you want them to.
- [40:14]
Emma Vigeland
Right. Well, I appreciate your thoughts on that. Let's turn to the NLRB and the news from, I guess it was this morning you wrote about in NLRB Edge, about how Gwen Wilcox, who is the Democratic appointed board member for the nlrb, has been reinstated, at least for now. Trump tried to fire her fairly early on in his presidency, although, God, it's been like less than three months. But yeah, I mean, it was in January he fired her, which is supposed to be illegal. Then there have been some back and forth in the courts. Take us through this saga and why it's so important now that she's been reinstated.
- [40:57]
Peter Navarro
Yeah. So for the last, you know, almost before Trump, if you think about two years before Trump got in, there's been this theory. I mean, I guess you could run it back decades if you wanted to. But the most active application of this theory that says that the board members at the NLRB and really leaders at almost all these other administrative agencies, their removal protections that exist that prevent them from just being fired for any reason, they have to be fired for cause that those are unconstitutional. And so in the fifth Circuit, they've been, that's essentially the law in the fifth Circuit and has been for the last couple of years. And, but it hadn't gotten up to the Supreme Court yet. So when Trump got into office, obviously as part of the kind of like conservative legal movement, Federalist Society type block of the legal profession, they were able to get through this idea. Let's, let's start firing some people that it says we can't fire. And then we'll challenge those restrictions on termination. We'll make a constitutional challenge against them. So he fired a lot of people. It was Gwen Wilcox at the nlrb. There was another person at the Merit Systems Protection Board. I think some FTC people been fired. All these people are not supposed to be fired according to the statute. But you know, Trump and the conservatives are hoping the Supreme Court will say, oh, those restrictions are unconstitutional. The President needs to have the power to fire anyone in the executive. So, yeah, eight days in the end of the presidency fires Gwen Wilcox. A little over a month later, the D.C. district Court puts Gwen Wilcox back in, reinstates her, says this was illegal. Then we had this D.C. circuit panel stay that. And so they essentially refired her. And then the d, the entire DC Circuit came back and then reinstated her. So she's been fired, reinstated, fired, reinstated. And when she clicks on and off the board, the board goes from having a quorum to not having a quorum. So for a month there, well, even when she was in power, they've only really issued maybe two or three decisions this since January 28th, the whole agency. So for as long as we're having this problem, she's getting kicked in and out of office. The NLRB is not able to issue decisions, which means that, you know, essentially any employer that's really dedicated can just refused to follow the National Labor Relations act, which is our private sector unionization law.
- [43:30]
Emma Vigeland
So it potentially, it had the potential, or we'll see how this court battle plays out, but it has the potential to freeze labor disputes and basically give free rein to any employer that wants to union bus. It has the potential to do that for the rest of Trump's term if they are unable to reach a quorum and if, say the Supreme Court sides with him on this.
- [43:55]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, and I mean her, her term was going to end in a couple years anyway, so he could bring it down to less than a three member quorum after that point. There were two periods in the 2000s where the board did not have a quorum during those periods. It wasn't clear that they didn't have a quorum, so they still kind of operated. Now, we're to the point where we all know what the quorum rul are, so it would essentially make the board not functional. And I'll say, even right now, even though she just got reinstated today because it's unclear whether the Supreme Court is ultimately going to say she can or can't be fired, any decisions that she makes over the next year, two years, whatever how long it takes for the Supreme Court to deal with this issue, there's no certainty at all that those decisions are going to stand. They could be retroactively invalidated because she'll be determined to have been on the board illegally. So even right now, if you're really, really dedicated as an employer, you could appeal the board's decision against you up to a circuit court and say, oh, this decision was unconstitutional, it was illegal because Gwen Wilcox was not a legal board member. So it's almost not really functional, even with her on the board right now.
- [45:17]
Emma Vigeland
And how does this decision to, according to the statute, illicitly fire her? How does that pair with the overall efforts by Trump and Russ Vote and the administration in, like, reclassifying so many of these federal workers in a manner that makes it easier under Schedule F, which Biden reversed and then Trump reversed again.
- [45:46]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, it's all part of the same kind of conservative legal movement, though, what they call the unitary executive theory, where.
- [45:55]
Emma Vigeland
I remember that from back in the Bush days. Yeah, I mean, they're perfecting it now.
- [46:00]
Peter Navarro
There's this sentence in the Constitution which is, you know, a very short, vague document that says that the president must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. And so they read into the phrase take care to mean that he needs to be able to fire anyone in the executive at will, et cetera, et cetera, including these appointees who are meant to be part of independent agencies and whatever. So, you know, that's. That's the kind of. That's the sort of weird, almost juvenile thing that we're engaged in is figuring out whether take care means that or not. And so it's all. It's all part of the same. It all stems from that, really.
- [46:40]
Emma Vigeland
Right. What is it? What does is mean? It's just this kind of. Yeah, it's amazing how these conservative Federalist Society freaks can bend every word to mean exactly what they want. And like, also, as you write, the case law seems pretty clear if you were actually the site precedent on this as it relates to the nlrb. Can you talk more about how like the Supreme Court has ruled on this in the, in the past that should inform potentially how they'll view it going forward?
- [47:12]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, this is a really kind of a niche thing, but it's, it's been kind of annoying and a little bit scandalous. Even aside from what conservatives think the Constitution, you know, let the phrase take care means. And that is, what are the lower courts supposed to do when this kind of thing happens? When someone is trying to float a new theory that goes against existing precedent? Because the supreme court decided in 1935 in a case called Humphreys Executor, that we're allowed to have removal restrictions for government officials that are on multi member adjudicatory boards. So the NLRB has multiple members and they adjudicate unfair labor practice disputes and other things like that. So they're clearly covered by that. And that has never been overruled. It was affirmed in a case what 23 years later called Wiener, and in a more recent case in 2010, they refused to overrule it. So Humphrey's executor is the law of the land. Now. I think it's, it's pretty likely that this Supreme Court will decide eventually to overturn Humphrey's executor, but it hasn't yet. So until it has, the circuit courts and the district courts really should just say they have to defer to the.
- [48:25]
Emma Vigeland
Precedent and it's insane that they're not.
- [48:27]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, they should say, look, Humphrey's executors of Law of the Land, we're going to side with whatever. If you want to take it up to the Supreme Court, take it up to the Supreme Court. But instead you have these conservative judges who write these opinions and the D.C. panel that initially refired her, the one that got overruled today, they just kind of basically write this opinion where they say, I don't think the Supreme Court's going to uphold Humphrey's executor anymore. So we're going to go ahead and get her fired again until it gets to that point. And that's not how it's supposed to work. You don't get to predict what the Supreme Court that the Supreme Court's going to overrule its existing precedent. You just apply the precedent.
- [49:02]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. And do they feel the conservatives feel that it would strengthen their case to have these lower courts take their side so it makes it so that the Supreme Court can overturn Humphrey's executor because it has the history of the lower courts backing them up, basically.
- [49:18]
Peter Navarro
No, I think what they want to do is just make the whole thing as disruptive and chaotic as they can. Because if you make it to where these entities can't, the basic question we're having right now is, are we going to allow these entities to function the way that they have for the last 20, 30, you know, whatever, 100 years until the Supreme Court issues a decision, or are we going to blow them up right now? Until the Supreme Court issues its decision? Right. It's a question, what do we do in this interim period? And so I think they want to see it more chaotic in this interim period instead of just having it run exactly how it has. And then the Supreme Court makes this decision. You keep going. Because if once the Supreme Court makes this decision, it's really not. It may not even be that big a deal. Right. If they say, okay, look, you now have the. The president now has the power to fire the head of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Okay, whatever, he probably won't. Who cares? And so, you know, but in this interim period, if you can cause all this chaos, then that can actually create damage. Whereas simply changing the rule on when you can fire someone and then just carrying on like we always have, but now you can fire them, is not. Not that big a deal necessarily.
- [50:32]
Emma Vigeland
Right. Well, we're going to be watching that case. Another you wrote about this. Just some few quick stories. Everyone should check out NLRB Edge for more news like this. But you wrote, I guess, maybe a week or so ago about this Louisiana charter school fight with the nlrb. This is another case that could have broad implications, I think, especially when you have Trump declaring that his intention is to eliminate the Department of Education. And there's this war on. On public education as an institution. And it's more this, like, absorption of a pile of charter school policy where public money goes to these private institutions. How does that affect labor disputes within those schools?
- [51:22]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, so there's actually an interesting case at the Supreme Court coming up soon that's also related to that NLRB case. But the charter school situation is very interesting because you run into a question of are these public schools or are they private schools? And if they're public schools, then they're governed by each state's public sector labor law. If they're private schools, then they're governed by the National Labor Relations Act. And we'd go through the NLRB process. And lo and behold, what you'll find is these states, especially the conservative states like Louisiana, they want them to be private until the NLRB says, okay, well if they're private, then they can be unionized under private sector labor law. And then at that point they come back and say, oh no, no, no, they're public. And they'll try to make little changes in the law to make them seem a little bit more public, maybe give state officials more power over the board. But then we have this case at the Supreme Court where you have the reverse kind of desire, which is that these states also, this is happening in Oklahoma, they want to allow religious, private, religious charter schools that still receive public money. And so if they're public schools, well, you can't have a religious public school. Right. That's a first amendment problem. If they're private schools, then you know, you could, you do have private religious schools and some of them do receive public financing, so that might be allowed. But if they're private, if we're going to call these private, then now we've reintroduced the problem that you can unionize them under the nlra, which they also want to avoid. So they want it to be public for certain purposes, private for other purposes, all to kind of get their end goal, which appears be a union free religious school system that's still taxpayer funded.
- [53:13]
Emma Vigeland
Can you speak about that a little bit more? Just how we can view some of these attacks on education via their hatred of teachers unions? Because I'm old enough to remember Fox News had an obsession with teachers unions in particular. They're okay with other public sector unions like cops, but teachers unions bother them and, and a lot of the COVID culture war stuff. And when you saw how teachers unions were standing up and saying we want to be safe in schools, that infuriated them as well. Teachers unions are a big thumb in the eye of conservative ideology in their agenda.
- [53:56]
Peter Navarro
Yeah. And even for a time the sort of more center liberals were really interested in education reform, as it was called, education reform movement, which focused a lot on teacher unions as well. That's where we get the charter schools that are meant to shed these teacher unions.
- [54:14]
Emma Vigeland
And Cory Booker comes to mind as somebody in my home state. Right.
- [54:18]
Peter Navarro
Give rise to these legal disputes now that we're having over them. But you know, the, the US has a lot of inequality. I don't know if you've noticed that it's extremely unequal. There's a lot of poverty and I think there's a, you know, one of the big questions in our politics is fighting over why is that? Like what's the issue? What do we do about that and I think one easy scapegoat is to say, well, it's because our education system is so bad. And why is it so bad? Well, it's because of the teacher unions, because you can't fire them. And it's a very lazy way around, you know, a lazy way to explain why we have such high inequality and such high poverty and avoid the issue. And then I'll, and then we can focus our energies on getting rid of the teacher unions, charter schools, education reform, and we don't have to deal with things that might actually reduce inequality like, you know, the welfare state, universal health care, cash benefits, free child care, what, you know, on and on down the line. We don't have to do the taxing, we don't have to do the welfare state. All the problems spring from the bad public education, which itself springs from the teacher unions.
- [55:33]
Emma Vigeland
Well, Matt, really appreciate your time today, everybody. As I keep plugging, check out NLRB Edge. Thanks so much for coming on and explaining some of this stuff to us.
- [55:43]
Peter Navarro
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [55:45]
Emma Vigeland
All right, folks, with that we are going to wrap up the free part of this program, head into the fun half. We will take your calls and read your IMs and we will have some fun. Matt Leck, what's happening on Left Reckoning?
- [56:00]
Matt Brunig
Yeah, Luke Savage of Jacobin and podcasting great writer Luke, we've had him on the show a number of times, came on to talk about his giant piece on abundance and how unimpressed he is with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's effort to get Americans not to notice how much, how far advanced the Chinese economy is with what the central planning of it. And just think that to do even more for our venture capitalist stateside and then they'll bequeath just, you know, abundance, I guess to us.
- [56:32]
Emma Vigeland
All right, check it out folks. Left Reckoning also if you can, please, it would be lovely if you could become a member. Jointhemajorityreport.com we could use your support as we head into or we're in the thick of it. But it's, it's a marathon here. This era of Donald Trump and resistance and building up the left and trying to take back power. Not saying that we're the show that solves that, of course not. But hopefully we highlight some of the people who are doing the work to help solve that. So join themjorityreport.com you can im the show if you become a member and get access to the show without commercials, you get access to the fun half, all that good stuff. All Right, guys? See you in the fun half.
- [57:31]
Russ
Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's gonna be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily gonna 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, what is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second.
- [57:55]
Matt Brunig
The Majority report.
- [57:57]
Russ
Fun hack. Emma, welcome to the program. Fun hack. Matt. Fun hack.
- [58:04]
Peter Navarro
What is up?
- [58:05]
Russ
Everyone? Fun hack.
- [58:07]
Peter Navarro
No.
- [58:08]
Russ
Mi.
- [58:08]
Emma Vigeland
Keen, you did it.
- [58:09]
Russ
Fun hack.
- [58:11]
Emma Vigeland
Let's go, Brandon.
- [58:12]
Peter Navarro
Let's go, Brandon.
- [58:13]
Russ
Fun hack. Bradley, you want to say hello?
- [58:18]
Matt Brunig
Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.
- [58:21]
Russ
It's all boys today.
- [58:22]
Emma Vigeland
Fundamentally false. No. I'm sorry. Women.
- [58:25]
Russ
Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.
- [58:27]
Emma Vigeland
Where is this coming from? Dude?
- [58:29]
Russ
But. Dude, you want to smoke this?
- [58:31]
Emma Vigeland
7A. Yes. Me. Is this me?
- [58:39]
Russ
Yes.
- [58:42]
Emma Vigeland
Is this me?
- [58:43]
Matt Brunig
Is it me?
- [58:44]
Russ
It is you?
- [58:48]
Emma Vigeland
Is this me?
- [58:49]
Russ
Hello? Is this me? I think it is you.
- [58:51]
Matt Brunig
Who is you.
- [58:53]
Russ
Goes out every single freaking day. What's on your mind?
- [58:58]
Emma Vigeland
We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go snow white.
- [59:03]
Peter Navarro
Libertarians.
- [59:04]
Matt Brunig
They're so stupid.
- [59:05]
Russ
Though common sense says of course.
- [59:07]
Emma Vigeland
Gobbledygook.
- [59:08]
Peter Navarro
We nailed him.
- [59:09]
Emma Vigeland
So what's 79 plus 21?
- [59:11]
Russ
Challenge. Man.
- [59:12]
Emma Vigeland
I'm positively quivering.
- [59:14]
Russ
I believe 96.
- [59:15]
Peter Navarro
I want to say.
- [59:15]
Russ
8 5, 7, 2, 1, 0.
- [59:18]
Matt Brunig
35. 500.
- [59:18]
Russ
1, 1 half.
- [59:19]
Matt Brunig
3, 8, 911. For instance.
- [59:21]
Emma Vigeland
$3,400. $1,900. 5, 4.
- [59:25]
Russ
$3 trillion.
- [59:27]
Emma Vigeland
Sold.
- [59:28]
Russ
It's a zero sum game.
- [59:29]
Peter Navarro
Actually.
- [59:30]
Emma Vigeland
You're making me think less.
- [59:31]
Russ
But let me say this.
- [59:34]
Peter Navarro
You call it satire.
- [59:35]
Emma Vigeland
Sam goes satire.
- [59:36]
Peter Navarro
On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just.
- [59:40]
Emma Vigeland
Like every day, all day. Like, everything you do. Without a doubt.
- [59:43]
Russ
Hey, buddy. We see you. All right, folks. Folks.
- [59:53]
Emma Vigeland
It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.
- [59:56]
Russ
Yeah. Sundown. Guns out. I. I don't know.
- [60:02]
Emma Vigeland
But you should know.
- [60:05]
Matt Brunig
People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore.
- [60:07]
Russ
I have a question. Who cares?
- [60:11]
Matt Brunig
Our chat is enabled.
- [60:13]
Peter Navarro
Folks.
- [60:14]
Russ
I love it.
- [60:14]
Emma Vigeland
I do love that.
- [60:17]
Peter Navarro
Gotta jump.
- [60:18]
Matt Brunig
Gotta be quick.
- [60:19]
Russ
Wait, I get a jump.
- [60:20]
Kristen Welker
I'm losing it, bro.
- [60:23]
Russ
2:00. We're already late. And the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.
- [60:30]
Emma Vigeland
Outrageous.
- [60:31]
Russ
Like, what is wrong with you?
- [60:34]
Peter Navarro
Love you. Bye.
- [60:36]
Russ
Love you. Bye.