2472 - Trump's Middle East Gambles w/ Matt Duss

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Majority Report with Sam Seder"

Title: The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Host: Sam Seder
Guest: Matt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy and Former Foreign Policy Advisor to Bernie Sanders
Episode Number: 2472
Release Date: April 9, 2025
Duration: Approximately 71 minutes

---

Introduction

In Episode 2472 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder engages in a comprehensive discussion with Matt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. The episode delves into the complexities of former President Donald Trump's foreign policy maneuvers, particularly focusing on the escalating trade war, its ramifications on both domestic and international fronts, and the broader implications for U.S. foreign relations.

---

Trade War and Tariffs

Escalation of the Trade War: The discussion begins with an overview of the intensifying trade war initiated under Trump's administration. Sam Seder highlights the immediate economic impact on small businesses and the broader market instability caused by reciprocal tariffs.

• Sam Seder (00:28:00): "We're seeing the first of countries impose or have a response to the tariffs that Trump imposed on this country... Small businesses don't have a ton of cash lying around that they didn't anticipate a week and a half ago that they were going to need."

Impact on Small Businesses: Matt Duss elaborates on how increased tariffs, such as China's 104% tariff on U.S. goods, are crippling small businesses, leading some to seek extensions on their lines of credit and, in extreme cases, turning to smuggling to bypass the high costs.

• Matt Duss (00:05:39): "And some of them will turn to smugglers. Because that's what's going to be a response to this, too, if these continue, there's going to be smuggling."

Historical Context and Purpose of Tariffs: Sam Seder provides historical context, referencing the Boston Tea Party, and distinguishes between the traditional use of tariffs as economic tools versus Trump's seemingly unfocused application of tariffs without a clear strategic objective.

• Sam Seder (00:09:52): "Our perspective has always been here is that tariffs, in and of themselves, they're just a tool, and they're a tool to achieve an agenda."

Expert Insight on Tariffs: Matt Duss explains that tariffs are not inherently bad but can be detrimental when the targeted country imposes high tariffs in retaliation. He emphasizes that Trump's approach lacks a coherent strategy to eliminate reciprocity and achieve favorable trade agreements.

• Matt Duss (00:08:30): "Tariffs are horrible when you are on the receiving side of the bad end of the tariff. Trump is trying to tariff so we can eliminate tariffs... There's few people that are arguing for tariffs for the sake of tariffs."

---

Foreign Policy Implications

Restructuring Global Trade Order: The conversation shifts to the broader implications of Trump's trade policies on the U.S.-led global trade order. Emma Vigland, co-host, and Matt Duss discuss how these unilateral actions are undermining multilateralism and damaging America's alliances.

• Emma Vigland (00:38:20): "Trump just seems to have no idea, other than we're going to use trade now as a weapon to get things that I want."

Impact on U.S. Alliances: Matt Duss highlights the challenges in maintaining alliances as countries like China, Canada, and members of the European Union respond with their own tariffs, weakening the traditional U.S. leadership role in global trade.

• Matt Duss (00:13:00): "You ever play Monopoly... That guy is America."

Economic Consequences: Sam Seder outlines the cascading effects of rising tariffs on manufacturing and consumer goods, using the example of increasing costs for everyday products like sneakers due to inflated tariffs on manufacturing inputs.

• Sam Seder (00:17:37): "A $150 pair of running shoes will be $230. Right."

Shortcomings of Trump's Tariff Strategy: The guest criticizes Trump’s lack of a comprehensive plan to support domestic industries alongside the imposition of tariffs, leading to economic instability without fostering the intended industrial growth.

• Matt Duss (00:35:07): "You have few people that are arguing for tariffs for the sake of tariffs. Yes, I want more tariffs and I want them to tariff more and then we're all going to pay more for everything."

---

Middle East and Iran

Potential for Military Escalation: Sam Seder and Emma Vigland discuss the volatile situation in the Middle East, speculating on potential military actions Trump might take, such as strikes on Iran, and the implications of such moves.

• Sam Seder (00:43:20): "It seems like Iran would be the most likely place that we would strike at this point."

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions: The conversation delves into Iran's nuclear program, assessing the country's reluctance to develop nuclear weapons despite long-standing tensions and the impact of regional conflicts on its strategic decisions.

• Emma Vigland (00:47:23): "Our intelligence community has assessed that they have not made that decision to go forward."

Shift in U.S. Middle East Policy: The guest critiques Trump's failure to present a coherent foreign policy strategy in the Middle East, contrasting it with previous administrations' approaches to alliances and negotiations.

• Matt Duss (00:36:55): "We need an economic policy that does what Trump says he wants to do, which is protect American workers."

---

Ukraine Conflict

U.S. Involvement and Diplomacy: Sam Seder reflects on the U.S.'s limited effectiveness in brokering peace in Ukraine, highlighting a staged meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky that yielded little substantive progress.

• Sam Seder (00:55:01): "Trump had Zelensky here... it felt like some type of K. Fab thing."

Internal Pressures within Ukraine: Emma Vigland discusses the internal challenges Ukraine faces, including public opinion fatigue and the complexities of maintaining morale and support for the ongoing conflict against Russian aggression.

• Emma Vigland (00:58:03): "Ukraine has been careful about the age of conscription... They do want to have a population into the future."

Captured Chinese Soldiers: The episode touches upon the intriguing incident of Ukrainian forces capturing two Chinese soldiers, raising questions about China's clandestine involvement and its implications for international relations.

• Sam Seder (00:60:18): "They have captured two, presumably Chinese soldiers who have credit, Chinese credit cards and ID. I mean, what do we make of that?"

---

Conclusion and Insights

The episode concludes with a critical analysis of Trump's unilateral and aggressive foreign policy strategies, emphasizing the lack of a coherent plan to complement the imposition of tariffs. Matt Duss underscores the potential long-term damage to U.S. economic stability and international standing, suggesting that while Trump's intentions to protect American workers are acknowledged, the execution is deeply flawed and counterproductive.

• Matt Duss (00:64:42): "We want to get ripped off. That is, you know, Trump's. He says that about everything, domestic and foreign."

Sam Seder and his guests express concern over the unpredictable and destabilizing effects of continued trade wars and isolationist policies, warning of a fragmented global economy and weakened alliances.

---

Notable Quotes

• Sam Seder (00:05:39): "If you buy I don't know, a thousand little jars from China... $1,040 to release this stuff. Small businesses don't have a ton of cash."

• Matt Duss (00:08:30): "Tariffs are horrible when you are on the receiving side of the bad end of the tariff."

• Sam Seder (00:17:37): "A $150 pair of running shoes will be $230... These prices will exponentially grow."

• Emma Vigland (00:38:20): "Trump just seems to have no idea... We're going to use trade now as a weapon to get things that I want."

• Matt Duss (00:35:07): "We're all going to pay more for everything. That's, I'm not really hearing much of that argument."

---

Key Takeaways

1. Unilateral Tariff Strategies: Trump's imposition of high tariffs without a complementary strategy for domestic industry growth is destabilizing the U.S. economy and harming small businesses.

2. Erosion of Global Alliances: The ongoing trade war is undermining traditional U.S. alliances, as countries like China, Canada, and members of the EU respond with their own tariffs.

3. Middle East Volatility: Trump's ambiguous and aggressive policies in the Middle East, particularly regarding Iran and Ukraine, risk further destabilizing an already volatile region.

4. Economic Consequences for Consumers and Businesses: Increased tariffs are leading to higher prices for consumers and financial strain for businesses, potentially leading to closures and increased smuggling.

5. Lack of Coherent Foreign Policy: The episode underscores the absence of a clear, strategic foreign policy under Trump's administration, resulting in unpredictable and often counterproductive outcomes.

---

Conclusion

Episode 2472 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder provides a critical examination of Donald Trump's foreign policy strategies, particularly his approach to tariffs and the resulting trade war. Through an in-depth discussion with Matt Duss, the episode highlights the economic and geopolitical repercussions of unilateral tariff impositions and the erosion of multilateral alliances. The conversation emphasizes the need for a coherent and strategic approach to foreign policy that balances protectionist measures with the growth and support of domestic industries, ensuring both economic stability and strong international relations.

Transcript

[Sam Seder]

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday, April 9, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Executive Vice president, the center for International Policy, former foreign policy Advisor Bernie Sanders MacDus on the rather tumultuous seen in foreign policy, not just from our perspective, from the rest of the world. Also on the program Today, Canada imposes a 25 tariff on automotive imports into that country. From this one, striking back, China fires back, imposes an 84% tariff on US goods as the market slide. Treasuries are now being sold off. Small businesses are fearing a tsunami. IRS head quits over having to share data with immigration cops. And if you think it's going to stop with immigration cops, I've got a tariff to sell you. Meanwhile, the AP wins reinstatement after a federal court finds Trump's violated its First Amendment rights. Trump White House freezes $1 billion in health and defense grants to Cornell. Another 790 million for Northwestern. New report it's up to 90% of the migrants sent to that El Salvador gulag had no criminal record. At least 90% now government judge gives the Trump administration until 5pm today to produce evidence to support why Mahmoud Khalil should be deported or he walks. On Friday Montana legislative vote to reject a bill criminalizing people who help trans kids get health care and disgrace Ken Paxton to challenge deservedly disgraced John Cornyn in 2026, perhaps putting that Senate seat in play. And today is marks 160 years ago Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, ending the civil war. And boy, did we not follow up on that properly. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Emma is off today and the hits keep coming. We are now entering the really the middle of the beginning of this trade war which is we're seeing the first of countries impose or have a response to the tariffs that Trump imposed on this country. Already people are just now starting to feel the impact of these tariffs and we're going to see it in prices very, very quickly because I mean, I can tell you we have advertisers who, you know, small businesses who are saying like, you know, the, the packaging that we use that we get from China has gone up. We haven't figured out how we're going to deal with it. But remember, if you buy, I don't know, a thousand little jars from China and they're going to hold it at customs now, and let's say those jars cost a dollar each. I don't know. I'm just making this up. And it's a thousand bucks. Well, now customs is saying to you, hey, we need 104% of that would be what, $1,040 to release this stuff. Small businesses don't have a ton of cash lying around that they didn't anticipate a week and a half ago that they were going to need. So they're all rushing to their banks now to get an extension on their line of credit. And then at one point, they're going to start doing the numbers and they're going to be like, we got a problem here.

[Dave Rubin]

And some of them will turn to smugglers. Because that's what's going to be a response to this, too, if they, if these continue, is there's going to be smuggling, because that's what the sort of.

[Sam Seder]

Stuff Silent country was founded, incidentally.

[Emma Vigland]

That.

[Sam Seder]

Was all about tariffs back in the day at that Boston Tea Party. But I want to be fair to the idea of these tariffs. Now, listen, again, I just want to repeat this. Our perspective has always been here is that tariffs, in and of themselves, they're just a tool, and they're a tool to achieve an agenda. And generally, the way the tariffs are generally used, at least in modern times, as a mechanism in which to shield or build a domestic industry, or maybe not even an industry, a specific, I mean, an industry. I would go that narrow. So, like, we want to make sure that we are producing enough steel in this country. We want to make sure that we're producing semiconductors. Or we realize during COVID that we have a. A problem in manufacture, well, semiconductors. And if, if China shuts down, we're gonna have no semiconductors or we're not gonna have any chips and we're gonna have no cars and we're not gonna have computers. And so we need to build that industry here. And so we will put tariffs on products like that coming into this country. But on the other hand, we'll also incentivize and build factories, like give money to build factories. Now, of course, the way you would sequence that would be we have a plan to build factories to train workers to make this stuff. Whatever is involved, we're going to institute that plan, and it's going to take six months to a year, two years to get those factories built. And then we're going to put the squeeze on these products coming in so that this industry happens. Or maybe we roll it out a little bit. I mean, it's obvious how you sequence these things. Trump administration didn't do any of that. It's not even clear what the goal is to any of this. But here to explain it to you, because none of us have the sort of the brain capacity to understand this, we need to bring in an expert, someone whose keen mind and love of ideas is able to wrap their heads around this and explain the one dynamic that you don't realize. If tariffs are so bad, why do they exist?

[Matt Duss]

If tariffs are so bad, then why do they have. So it might not be that tariffs are inherently horrible. Tariffs are horrible when you are on the receiving side of the bad end of the tariff. Trump is trying to tariff so we can eliminate tariffs. And we just told you what's happening in Vietnam and Argentina and Israel and Italy and a couple other countries and apparently 50 other countries and the European Union that are now coming back to the table. So there's few people that are arguing, arguing for tariffs for the sake of tariffs. Yes, I want more tariffs and I want them to tariff more in the world.

[Sam Seder]

We should say that all the reporting that is available says that these people are willing to negotiate these different countries. Obviously, China has just levied a 104% reciprocal tariff against this. Canada has levied a tariff. But there are other countries that are interested in negotiating. Philippines, several others that are basically saying, like, we're calling, but nobody's answering the phone.

[Dave Rubin]

I want to do the tariffs instead.

[Sam Seder]

I. Dave is a smart guy, but I just like tariffs. I like tariffs. I've always liked tariffs. I want to read this. This quote that's going around from. I think it was a piece written about Gary Cohn. Gary Cohn was the. The under the first Trump administration. Cohen was. Was a Treasury. Right. Or was he? He wasn't Commerce Secretary. I think it was Treasury. He was one of the early ones to leave the administration, I think. And this is a retelling of what Cohn said to Donald Trump. Why don't we manufacture things at home? Lindsey asked. We're a manufacturing country. I'm not sure who that refers to, but of course, the United States manufactured things. But reality did not match the vision in Trump's mind. The president clung to an outdated view of America. Locomotives, factories with huge smokestacks, workers busy on assembly lines. Cohn assembled every piece of economic data available to show that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories. Each month. Cohen brought to brought Trump the latest job openings and labor turnover survey called jolts, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He realized he was being an a hole by rubbing it in because each month was basically the same. But he didn't care. Mr. President, can I show this to you? Cohn fanned out the pages of data in front of the president. See the biggest levers of job levers, people who leave of jobs, people leaving voluntarily was from manufacturing. I don't get it, trump said. Cohen tried to explain, I can sit in a nice office with air conditioning in a desk or stand on my feet eight hours a day. Which would you do for the same pay? Cohen added, people don't want to stand in front of a 2000 degree blast furnace. People don't want to go into coal mines and get black lung for the same dollars or equal dollars. They're going to choose to do something else. Trump wasn't buying it. Several times Cohen just asked the president, why do you have these views? I just do, trump replied. I've had these views for 30 years. Well, that doesn't mean they're right, Cohen said. I had the view for 15 years. I could play professional football. It doesn't mean I was right. He was the chief economic advisor. I guess he wasn't. He was ahead of the, I think the National Council of All right, let's go back to Dave Rubin.

[Matt Duss]

And Israel and Italy and a couple other countries and apparently 50 other countries and the European Union that are now coming back to the table. So there's few people that are arguing for tariffs for the sake of tariffs. Yes, I want more tariffs and I want them to tariff more and them.

[Sam Seder]

To tariff more and then we're all.

[Matt Duss]

Going to pay more for everything. That's. I'm not really hearing much of that argument. But if tariffs are bad, then why do they all do it? So you might understand why the markets are struggling right now because Trump is trying to even the playing field. I think I used this analogy last week. You ever play Monopoly when you're a kid?

[Sam Seder]

Oh, pots. And before we go into his dumb argument about evening the playing field, let's be clear. They're not even the tariffs that we're imposing on these other countries are not even one to one on the tariffs that other countries have. There's a reason why we can't sell F250s in Europe. It is because the roads are smaller. You would not be able to drive an F250 or an F150 for that matter. Or really almost any one of every single pickup truck that is made in America, short of maybe an old Ford.

[Dave Rubin]

Ranger driving a cybertruck in Bruges.

[Sam Seder]

You cannot drive through these cities in Europe, the roads are just too small. But that is factored into the tariff that we levy on them because they consider that a non tariff trade barrier. And there's a whole host of things like that that are encountered in this. And so we're not even putting reciprocal tariffs on them. But Rubin doesn't understand. Because Rubin doesn't care. I mean, he's just trying to justify this.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you haven't let him do his metaphor yet.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, but here's his metaphor. And this metaphor is to explain how.

[Matt Duss]

You even things out this analogy last week. You ever play Monopoly? When you're a kid and you're playing Monopoly, you got a couple friends around the Monopoly board and somehow the guy who's also the banker always has a little more cash than everybody. He can somehow buy all those hotels on Baltic Avenue, Atlantic Avenue.

[Sam Seder]

Who in this analogy is the guy who has access to more cash than anybody else? Who is that? If the Monopoly board and all the players of the world, who is the guy who has the most cash? I mean, it's America, right? Is that what it's. So that guy is America. I'm just trying to figure out the analogy here.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, Monopoly, a game, you know, very consciously an analogy itself of Monopoly, capitalism. So it's hard to sort of say, well, it's other countries and it's about tariffs. No, it's. They were showing how capitalism works.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, but put aside what the actual game is, because it's not that deep of. It's really just about a game for him. Him. He doesn't understand what Monopoly is about. He hasn't made that connection. But there's somebody who has control of the bank. That would be. Who is the car. Who controls the world currency?

[Dave Rubin]

Singapore.

[Sam Seder]

Clearly it's. It's the United States. All right, so let's just go back and follow this. The United States is the one who controls the world's currency. Go ahead.

[Matt Duss]

So the banker always has a little more cash than everybody. He can somehow buy all those hotels on Baltic Avenue and turn it into Atlantic Avenue. And then you start realizing, oh, every time I turn around or pee, this guy's taking a little cash. That's basically what's been happening here. And then what happens? Then you throw the board. You hit him with it. You force some of those hotels down his throat. We've all been there. That's what's been going on here. So unless you want Trump to do that to you, come to the table. People rumble premium. And then more on just the general state of.

[Sam Seder]

So he doesn't realize in his own analogy that we're the one who's getting hit with the board.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

And the reason that they keep the money is that we're buying their things. It's not some sneaky like.

[Sam Seder]

Somebody on the IM said. Obviously the banker in this metaphor is naturally transgender athletes.

[Dave Rubin]

Of course, not the richest man in the world who has factories.

[Sam Seder]

Let's just take a peek into what's going on in the real world. The one that Dave Rubin does not inhabit. The one where even like his mixed metaphors or improper analogies don't exist. This is the one where people have to buy sneakers.

[Emma Vigland]

The spot here. But just ballparking, if a hundred dollar pair of sneakers costs $100 made currently, whether it's in China, Vietnam or Indonesia, if it was made in the U.S. how much would that pair of sneakers cost?

[Sam Seder]

Three or four hundred dollars easily. In fact, we've even just looked at the tariffs coming in place tonight at midnight.

[Emma Vigland]

$150 pair of running shoes will be $230. Right.

[Sam Seder]

And that's coming from overseas sources without tariffs.

[Emma Vigland]

That's just with the tariffs. Yeah. Folks will feel that.

[Sam Seder]

Oh yeah, I think they will. Unless they don't realize that somebody's playing Monopoly somewhere and taking money from the till.

[Dave Rubin]

Good. There's going to be a robot factory that's going to spring up to make all your running shoes.

[Sam Seder]

That's the other thing. Like they're going around saying there's going to be robot fat. Like, can we do this in a half an hour? What we really need. This is. This is. I just want to pitch this one thing because I've heard nobody talk about this. We get a huge 3D printer and it prints an entirely different world.

[Dave Rubin]

Who needs to go to Mars? Just make another world.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. We could just make it another whole nother planet where we're the only people on it and then we'll be fine.

[Dave Rubin]

Like New Balance actually does do some have some made in UK and made in America lines. And I'm not even sure of how they source all the materials to assembly those, but they make them in the United States. They're 200 to $250 shoes already.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. And to have to build the new capacity to do. I mean this is just absurd. Also, the other thing that you should understand about this is that when the initial inputs into a supply chain go up. So for instance, let's say you have a, you sell food products and you buy your bags, maybe some of your ingredients from China and that goes up, well, 104%. You add that cost to your manufacturing, you sell it to a distributor. The way that that distributor takes their cut, it's not a fixed figure, it is a percentage. So when you raise your price, it exponentially gets raised. If something I Produced cost me $5 yesterday and today it cost me 10. When it gets to the distributor, they don't just say, okay, well we take 10%, we're going to take that 50, 50 cents. They say we take 10%, that's another dollar. So that product that was $5 yesterday and cost me $10 to make today, now instead of costing 550, costs $11. And then when that distributor sends it to the retail outlet, they also have a percentage markup. It's not a fixed figure. We don't add 25 cents, we add 25%. So these prices will exponentially grow. All right, well, I guess we'll see.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm not sure who I believe Dave Rubin or that other guy.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, that guy on cnn?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, we'll have to see.

[Sam Seder]

Well, he's just a footwear distributor retailer.

[Dave Rubin]

He's got terror arrangement syndrome.

[Sam Seder]

And here's the other thing. I also have no doubt that that guy is, who's on CNN is like, we have an excuse to raise prices again. And so everybody's going to raise their prices. Then they're going to say it's the tariffs. Because here's another secret. Corporate America don't give AF if they feel they can get away with charging you more because they have the COVID of these tariffs, they'll do that too.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, the big corporations are going to do that and, and the smaller ones are going to die out because they don't have the capacity to.

[Sam Seder]

They all remember how they made money hand over fist during COVID and they could jack up prices and keep them inflated for longer even after their logistics issues went away because they had the COVID of COVID They had a built in excuse and that created a little bit more elasticity on what people were willing to spend. In a moment, we'll be talking to Matt Duss, executive vice president of the center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders. First, a couple of words from our sponsors. This one is one of My favorite sponsors, I've been using them for, I don't know, 10 years. And then they came and wanted to just totally coincidentally wanted to advertise and I was like, absolutely. Fast Growing Trees. It is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with more than 10,000 different kinds of plants and over 2 million happy customers in the U.S. i have bought apple trees from Fast Growing trees. I have bought Korean pear trees, chokeberry trees, a bloomerang. Do you remember that one, Matt? The Bloomerang. It is a lilac that blooms once in the spring and then comes back around in July. But they have all sorts of like, they have so many varieties. And that's the thing that's better than a big box store. You go to a big box store, you got three types of apples. I'm not going to disparage, you know, a gala or a Fuji, but you know, like a delicious or whatever. That's not what you want. You want to get the right trees for your area where you're growing. You want to get all sorts of advice about how to grow these things. Fast Growing Trees is the place to get all of that. They curate thousands of plants. You find the perfect fit for your specific climate, your specific location needs. They have 24, 7 care advice available. Doesn't matter if you want privacy or shade or beauty or fruit. Fast Growing Trees will help you out. You can talk to a plant expert about your soil type, by your landscape design, how to take care of your plants, everything else you need, no green thumb required and no dirt spilling out in the back of your Subaru. You can also grow stuff in your house too, like avocado plants, fig plants, lemon. And obviously they have tons of other houseplants this spring. They have the best deals online, up to half off on select plants and other deals. Listeners to our show get an additional 15% off their first purchase when using the code Majority at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growingtrees.com using the code majority at checkout. Fast growing trees.com code is majority offer valid and for a limited time, terms and conditions may apply, folks. Next sponsor is Shopify. And when we started this program years ago, I was very, very hesitant to do a merch store because I didn't want to. I thought it was going to be a huge hassle. And then we got Shopify and then ba boom shop. Majorityreportradio.com we have all our merch there. It is so easy to use. It can be totally intimidating to start a shop like that, but it was much, much easier because of Shopify. I mean, frankly, the whole business was scary for me. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that are just getting started. You can get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style. Shopify packed with AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, even enhance your, your, your product photography. It is so easy and the beauty is, it's so scalable. So if our merch, for whatever reason started to really, really take off, I mean, our main business is podcasting, but if our merch took off, we'd be able to handle it. Shopify, it's all in one. You can create email and social media campaigns. Shopify integrates into all the social media sites and irl. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce experts with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business into Cha Ching with Shopify on your side, huh? How's that? Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling at shopify.com majority. Go to shopify.com/main majority. Shopify.com/main majority. Lots of cash on that one. We will put the link in the description in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. Quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Matt D. We are back. Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Vigland out today, joining us in studio. So the only people that ever come into studio, the only people that we actually allow into studio.

[Emma Vigland]

Thank you.

[Sam Seder]

Executive vice president of the center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor, Senator Bernie Sanders, Matt Duss. Matt, as always a pleasure to have you here.

[Emma Vigland]

Thanks very much. No, I came, I think the first time a couple years ago. You can't keep me away from the studio now.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, that's it. You're the only person we let in outside of, you know, occasionally the people who work here and. But we've got a lot of things happening obviously on the foreign policy front, the most prominent of which is, you know, I don't know that we've ever really had a, any conversation in the many years that we have talked about foreign policy. Have we talked about tariffs, except for maybe in passing and certainly not in the context of what is now a burgeoning trade war. China has Announced that as of tomorrow they will put a 84% tariff on any goods that are coming in from the United States to China. That would be our top five or soybeans, aircraft and engines, integrated circuits, pharmaceuticals and petroleum products.

[Emma Vigland]

A lot of stuff.

[Sam Seder]

A lot of stuff. Farmers are going to get hit hard obviously with this. And of course we also have what appears to be 104% tariffs on Chinese goods coming in here. Aside from the turmoil that's going to, that it's going to cause in this country economically and I would imagine in other countries around the globe. And we're seeing weird stuff in the treasury market, particularly in terms of the dynamic with the stock market. Leaving that aside, what does this do in terms of like changing the physics it feels like in the international space?

[Emma Vigland]

Right, Yeah. I mean, going back to what you said about tariffs, I mean, in Trump's first term, after decades of this kind of economic theology of free trade that saw tariffs as this. No, no, Trump kind of reintroduced this I idea of using tariffs as a tool. I love tariffs. Trade wars are very easy to win. But that was pretty tightly focused on China and maybe a few other places. Now it's a trade war with everyone, you know, based on this weird formula that they came up with based on trade imbalances, regardless of what tariffs other countries have on us. And it really is just a massive restructuring of the US Led global trade order and leading to what, I don't know. That is, what is part of what's so concerning here is that he does not seem to have like a theory of the case beyond we'll do this and then something will happen and then things will be better. I mean, he's just using these as a blunt instrument to get what better deals bilaterally with all of these countries. I can't see it. I don't think anyone has offered a real explanation of, you know, how he gets from A to B to C here.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, it's not even clear where C is. And just to sort of walk through a little bit, you know, like you mentioned, Trump imposed tariffs on, on China in his first term. I think they were about 10% and I think they were more or less across the board. Biden expanded these a little bit. Maybe they were, you know, Trump's tariffs were with steel and aluminum coming from China and Biden expanded these a little bit. But also essentially provided, you know, the, the, a trade war goes two ways, obviously.

[Emma Vigland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And so when you're, when you're, you're, you're keeping certain products out the idea is that you want to essentially, you know, onshore these products either, you know, in terms of the way that they're, they're processed or manufactured, and you need to provide for both. There needs to be like a sort of stick and carrot type of relationship to growing an industry in there. And we had that under Biden. We have the largest expansion of manufacturing jobs that we've had. But there isn't that second part here. And what also strikes me, we, I mean, aside from this is, you know, at this point, everybody's saying the same thing, like, there, there's no, there's nothing that comes after the. And we're going to do this. And, and nobody knows what the, what, what the second part of that is, because it can't onshore, like you know, he said yesterday, pharmaceuticals. It's not like there's, there's pharmaceutical factories that are just sitting around waiting for.

[Emma Vigland]

Revved up.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, you got to build these things and they're not, you know, you got, they got to be pretty clean, apparently, because these are contaminations and stuff like this. But I'm thinking to, you know, Obama, the last thing he tried to do before he left was the tpp, which is the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was essentially to try and isolate China and get the all, all of Asia, but China essentially into one trade regime that was to inhibit Chinese, I guess, hegemony. And that seems to be like we've just thrown all that out the window.

[Emma Vigland]

Well, I mean, that basic idea, if Trump's goal is to limit China's economic growth or to use these tools as a weapon against China, you do want to have allies. He's making that much more difficult. Now, personally, you know, I have concerns about China and their, their policies, but I don't think that limiting Chinese growth is a way to frame this. And I'll just go back to Obama. I mean, this, you know, that the tpp, I think, and this is one of the reasons I think Trump won, is because he really came in and said this economic model that, this kind of theology that all of Washington and the global trade, you know, the global economic smart guys have subscribed to for the past decades has not worked for us. We need something different now. That basic conjecture is right. Bernie said the same thing. Now Bernie has a different idea of how we should fix this system. But it, you know, so the, since 2016, Washington has been going through these stages of grief of, okay, what did we get wrong? Do we need to change change? Give Biden some credit because he did his Administration did recognize, okay, we need to build a post neoliberal, you know, global economic order, and started to do that. Trump just seems to have no idea, other than we're going to use trade now as a weapon to get things that I want. And meanwhile, everything else that was bad about that trade order, weakening the state, weakening the social safety net, getting the government, you know, you know, essentially pulling the wiring out of the administrative state, those were also things that were bad about the global trade order. And Trump is tripling down on that.

[Sam Seder]

That's the weird thing, is that there's like a third thing that, you know, the problem with the tpp, you could have two separate problems with it. One is like, why do we have to. Why do we have to aggressively isolate China?

[Emma Vigland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

But the mechanism in which that was done with the tpp, which was the most problematic in my estimation, was we're giving up all sovereignty to corporations. That's exactly in this international dispute. Isds. I can't remember.

[Emma Vigland]

The problem with free trade is not free trade. It's that it prevents states, governments from intervening on behalf of their own workers. That's the problem with it.

[Sam Seder]

And this is sort of like it's almost as if Trump has found a third way to do the bad things.

[Emma Vigland]

Take the worst part.

[Sam Seder]

Take the worst parts of both of those things and put them together. So what, what does this do to. And then I want to move to sort of specific areas around the globe. But what does this do to foreign policy, more broadly speaking? Because it seems to me that there's going to be a lot of countries who are going to say, and, you know, I think we talked about this in 2016, you know, and through the years of the Trump years, which was the rest of the world has to say, like, okay, maybe you go to, you know, you, after Trump, it's going to be somebody else. But there's a problem in your society, like, that you would go to Trump.

[Emma Vigland]

That's right.

[Sam Seder]

You could go back to Trump or somebody worse, and it turned out to be Trump. Some and worse there. It seems to me that in the context of trade, there's going to be a lot of people who are going to just say, like, we're going to go into a different order.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

And that's going to have implications not just in terms of trade, but everything else.

[Emma Vigland]

Right. We're going to seek to continue multilateralism just without the United States and in many ways, defensively against the United States. We've already seen this happening with U.S. adversaries. Right. The kind of aggressiveness even pre Trump, that the United States after 9, 11 started to use sanctions tools, you know, the treasury secondary sanctions to punish countries, to punish terrorist groups, but also countries that were seen as not doing what we wanted on those issues. We started to see bandwagoning and alternative sources and possibly currencies. But now our friends are doing it right, because it was like, okay, fool me once with Trump. You know, Joe Biden came back and said, america's back, everybody chill out, we got this under control. They don't. Their illusions are being dashed now, probably too late, but you definitely see that happening. And so even if we were to get after this a different probably, you know, I don't know if I want to say more normal administration because I don't even know what normal is after this. But it's the, you know, we are past going back in some ways. Listen, this might be controversial now, but I'll say that's probably good because I.

[Sam Seder]

Think I was just going to say, like, I mean, I'm not convinced that, you know, maybe our time of being the world's sort of like cop and, you know, conductor. You know, maybe we were done with that.

[Emma Vigland]

Right. I mean, I think it took far too long for this memo to land. I mean, you know, a lot of Donald Trump is in so many ways a symptom as well as a cause, but a symptom of a failed, you know, corrupt set of institutions. So, yeah, I mean, it's challenging in some ways scary, but to think through, okay, what does that new order look like? What's America's role in it? But ultimately we are going to, we need an economic policy that does what Trump says he wants to do, which is protect American workers. And I'm just not seeing that right now.

[Sam Seder]

Right. I mean, I am all for, you know, being USA number, you know, two, three. Okay. I mean, I'm not convinced that that's going to mean, except for the fact that he's also trashing our, our economy. Like, we don't have what he's doing. I can imagine a scenario where like this is a seven year plan or eight year plan and we need to like flood the country with, you know, funds to make this transition. But without it, he's doing it in two weeks and he's doing it sort of the second part first.

[Emma Vigland]

Right. And he seems, and this tends to be one kind of consistent through line is his, you know, deep suspicion of multilateralism. He believes in just bilateral agreements, the concept of multilateralism. He sees that as A way for other countries to gang up on the United States. When he talks about the European Union, I mean, he has said this. He said the European was created to screw the United States. That's why he's, you know, he's opposed to it. So this is what he's talking about. Now. I'm going to hit all these countries with these massive tariffs and then go back to them one by one and renegotiate deals that will be good for us. That is me.

[Sam Seder]

It also seems to be the sort of the same strategy that Elon Musk is doing. We're going to fire everybody and then find out which people control the nuclear codes or the pandemic stuff. And then, you know, if we can get them back, we get them back.

[Emma Vigland]

Exactly. We're going to take apart the government and then figure out what everything does.

[Sam Seder]

So amidst this sort of like, sort of like moving target, like, how do you form, like, is there any type of foreign policy, broadly speaking? I want to ask you again about the specifics, but how do you formulate a foreign policy when it seems like not only are the people that you want or the other parties that you want to develop a policy towards always in flux, but you're in such dramatic flux.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes, right. I mean, you have to try and pay attention to other things that are happening. There's a lot of crises around the world, some of which the US is deeply implicated. But that, you know, the challenge of, you know, separating the signal from the noise here is the name of the game and it's always difficult. But coming up with good policy at a time when Trump is in the process of destroying so much wealth and not just, you know, people talk about, you know, the stock traders and the very wealthy. It's not just that, as, you know, I mean, this is, these are workers retirement accounts, you know, these are, you know, not just the very wealthy who are being hurt by this. So it is hard and we should.

[Sam Seder]

Say like in a week or two. I mean, I think we're saying that we're going to have a much better notion of just who's going to be hurt by this. Like.

[Emma Vigland]

That's right.

[Sam Seder]

You know, farmers starting tomorrow are going to be in a full on panic. Yes. And you know, small businesses, when they starting to see like, wait a second, the stuff I've got coming in from China, whatever the plastic bags or whatever it is that I've, they're not releasing them unless I pay twice the amount that I thought they were gonna cost.

[Emma Vigland]

And the thing that kind of Frightens me about this is that when this really hits and Trump starts to, if he, if this outrage starts to penetrate his bubble, what does he do? How does he try to distract or externalize that? Right. And here I'm thinking about that, like, notorious comment from Freed Zakaria back in, I think it was April 2017 when Trump struck Syria and Fareed Zakari goes. Donald Trump became president today.

[Sam Seder]

Was he. I thought there was like a half.

[Emma Vigland]

A dozen people who said, they said variations on that. But what that taught Donald Trump is that when you get into trouble, a way to make Washington like you is to press this button.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Emma Vigland]

So the question is, what horrible misadventure does he consider doing, you know, to make people liking him again? Cuz unfortunately, that's still part of Washington's sickness. It's like, oh, starting up a war, everybody rally around the flag.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, that is, you know, a sickness I think a lot of countries have, frankly, it's my sense it's not unique to us. The way that you create that nationalism is to create. But it doesn't feel like, I mean, let's talk about, let's talk about Iran and in the Middle east and then we'll, we'll, you know, work our way down through into the Middle east from Iran and then maybe swing back up.

[Emma Vigland]

Sure.

[Sam Seder]

To Ukraine.

[Emma Vigland]

We'll do a tour. All right.

[Sam Seder]

It seems like Iran would be the most likely place that we would strike at this point. I mean, we've been striking Yemen for two weeks straight now. And to the point where I'm reading stuff where, like, naval commanders are saying we should have used the cheaper bombs.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes. I mean, like, literally running through standoff weapons here to, you know, little effect, apparently, as, again, no one who's been watching the effort to bomb the crap out of the Houthis for the past literally 10 years should be surprised by this. I mean, if you read that that signal chain, it is. The plan was quite literally, we're gonna do this, but harder and that will work. And it has not worked.

[Sam Seder]

Why? I'm just out of curiosity, why has not that. Not. Why has it been so hard to, to stop the Houthis?

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, they're, I mean, Saudi Arabia.

[Sam Seder]

Was bombing them around. We were, we were supporting all the support.

[Emma Vigland]

Exactly. Intelligence, air refueling, weapons, all this stuff. They're dug in there. You know, they are. It's their country.

[Sam Seder]

Right, right.

[Emma Vigland]

That is always something you need to keep in mind. And so trying to do this from the air or through, you know, you know, cruise missiles and Such it has a very bad record of working. You can do damage, certainly you could hit certain facilities. You can kill a lot of people.

[Sam Seder]

We certainly seems to have killed a.

[Emma Vigland]

Lot of people, are good at doing that. But dealing with the problem by bombing it is not something that really seems to work.

[Sam Seder]

So Iran would be the next candidate, it appears to me. And it certainly had been feeling for a while like the. Between us bombing Yemen and Israel, going back into Gaza and going into Syria, and also, you know, sort of sporadic attacks on Lebanon after the wake of their mini war, I guess, with Hezbollah. But it also appears that Trump now has decided that he wants to get back into the deal, essentially, that he crashed 10 years ago.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. Or some new version of that deal. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty remarkable set of statements he made in the Oval Office with Netanyahu. And I have to say, this was yesterday. Yeah, I just. I enjoyed watching Netanyahu sit there. As Trump basically said, yeah, we're gonna have direct talks with Iran, which are a good idea. I mean, we should be talking to Iran. We have real issues with them. We should be talking to them. Obviously, you want these talks to be as well prepared as possible. I mean, we saw this with North Korea and Trump's first term talking with North Korea. Talking with Kim Jong Un is a good idea. Unfortunately, he did not seem very well prepared. You know, he just went. He did a photo op. What did we get out of it? I don't think we got much out of it, so I hope we won't simply see a rerun of that. But as a basic principle, yes, we need the way to deal with Iran's nuclear program is through a negotiated agreement. Trump tore on up back in 2018. He seems interested in getting a new one, I think. You know, you mentioned the way things seem to be going. We seem to be preparing for some kind of action. B. Two bombers over in the region, another carrier strike group. Was this just signaling to Iran that we are serious about option B if they don't want to do option A and talk? Perhaps. But it does seem from statements coming from Tehran, from the Supreme Leader, from the irgc that they are interested or more interested than they have been in the recent past. And I think that's positive.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, it also occurs to me now in 2025 that Iran has been incredibly. I don't know what the word is. It ranges from reluctant to considered in terms of not building a nuclear weapon, because they have been supposedly on the brink of this for what seems like since the invasion Of Iraq.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that the first reports, I believe it was 2002, when that intelligence was. Was. Was. Was publicized, that there's evidence that they had a nuclear. A program, a nuclear weapons program. But our intelligence community has assessed that they have not made that decision to go forward. So they're keeping that option open, but they have not. You know, countries that get a bomb usually rush for it. It's a small sample set, but. Right. That's what the sample set is. And at the same time, Iran is. Has been weakened by some of the actions that Israel has taken with US Support. You know, they lost a major ally or their major ally. Hezbollah has been weakened. I think the loss of Assad was a huge deal. Again, that was done by, you know, with Turkey support, not Israel. But the loss of the Assad regime was a huge deal. So, yeah, I can understand why they.

[Sam Seder]

What did the Assad regime do for Iran in terms of strengthening it?

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, it received incredible amounts of support, funding, but also just physically as a. It was a land. As a land passage from, you know, Iran to Iraq, through Syria, into Lebanon to resupply and support Hezbollah, that's gone now. I think the danger is you always have kind of this little chorus of hawks in Washington for whom the time to bomb Iran is always now. And, Right. Their argument is, well, Iran is weakened. Now is the time to really do it. And I think now is the time when to actually take talks with Iran seriously, when they could sign on to an enforceable and solid set of concessions around their nuclear program. Because if they get the sense, you know, given how they have been weakened, have lost some real allies in the region, a nuclear deterrent looks much, much more attractive to Iran right now. And I don't like that equation. So I think making it clear to Iran that they can get security another way would be the best move for the US Right now.

[Sam Seder]

So let's turn towards Ukraine. Donald Trump had promised that he was going to end this in the first week of his administration, maybe the first day.

[Emma Vigland]

It'll be very easy.

[Sam Seder]

He told us it would be very easy. Well, I guess before we get to Ukraine, let's go to. I mean, you mentioned Netanyahu sitting in the Oval Office with Trump. We had a brief, essentially, like, ceasefire, I guess. Israel has now seems to have ratcheted up its assault on Gaza at a time where, I think, like, the Palestinians living, you know, the Gazans are completely exhausted, and it feels like they have just. Yeah, I mean, I can't even imagine now we having. We're having jets, bomb tents. Israel just seems to be paired with the. And I don't know. I mean, I have felt this is the case for almost for over a year, but it seems they are completely unabashedly, like, there's no longer any pretense of what they're doing. It has been over a month since they've let in aid. We're getting reports from the UN now of, like, this is just. We're. It's incredibly dire.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. Guterres called it a killing field. He used those words.

[Sam Seder]

And there does not seem to be any international pressure whatsoever, because even with. When Biden, who was abysmal on this, Biden felt pressure, theoretically. Right. I mean, he didn't respond to it, but there was some pressure I would argue that it actually caused. Harris was one of the big reasons why she lost her election. But there is no pressure on Trump, it seems like, at all, other than from Birya Madison. Yeah. And so what. Is there any constraining Israel in this instance at all?

[Emma Vigland]

Unfortunately, right now? No. I mean, because any pressure, the only meaningful pressure on Israel was going to come from the United States. I mean, I think that was why there was so much pressure and attention on Biden. The enormous intelligence, armed support, diplomatic, political support. The United States and, you know, Europe can do things, but Europe just tends not to do things if the United States doesn't go first or at least give them a green light. And Biden simply would not do that right now, as you said, there's no pretense anymore. You know, back in the early days of the war, they would bomb a hospital and be like, Hamas was there. We're sorry. Here's all the reasons we had to kill all these civilians. And now they don't even bother. It's just. It's just going forward. I mean, you know, they. They killed, what was it, 15 aid workers, then buried them, like, in the grave. They essentially assassinated them. And they buried them in a mass grave. And only because it was all caught on film, they're like, okay. Whoops. Were looking into it. They would, you know, and the idea.

[Sam Seder]

Of that video existing like six months ago.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Or a year ago. You know, something so explicit, but it barely makes a ripple in the news.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes. They have slowly, methodically, and successfully rewritten the rules of war, essentially with US Support. And now with Trump, you know, he came in, he sent Wyckoff over, put, you know, pressured Bibi to sign the cease fire. Back in January, we had a couple months of that. And let's understand, the terms of that cease fire was that phase one will continue until phase two is agreed upon. The cease fire was supposed to continue as the parties to continue to negotiate. Netanyahu abrogated that.

[Sam Seder]

He, He. He broke that ceasefire.

[Emma Vigland]

That's exactly right.

[Sam Seder]

What, what is Europe? I mean, I feel like Europe is about to sort of turn against Israel, but that it's not going to be terribly relevant.

[Emma Vigland]

No, unfortunately not. And, you know, I see some pockets of. Of, of resistance there, but in general, I mean, you know, every time, you know, the Starmer government in the UK Says something critical, they kind of walk it back the next day. Germany, unfortunately, is completely, you know, is Right. Kind of focused on arresting and beating up, you know, pro Palestinian protesters in Germany. So really, it's hard to say who is going to lead that opposition.

[Sam Seder]

It's. I mean, I guess, you know, I guess I was just looking at yesterday. I guess today it was. Starmer had said, you know, we need a probe of the killing of all these, you know, emergency workers.

[Emma Vigland]

We need a probe. Yes, let's. Let's have a probe.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, I guess that would be involved. Like, let's watch this video.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, let's. Exactly. Well, I mean, we have it on video.

[Sam Seder]

I honestly don't know how much more evidence you could possibly have in any instance. And just horrific.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes, let's probe the person who took this video and find out their true feelings.

[Sam Seder]

And we should remind people that person is dead, shot in the head by. By Israeli soldiers. All right, well, let's turn to Ukraine for a moment. There's been what feels like some type of stalemate for a while. Trump had Zelensky here. I guess it was a month ago now.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Where it felt like a very staged moment where JD Vance was brought in to basically yell at Zelinsky for not dressing properly and for not being thankful enough. And it all felt like some type of K. Fab thing. I don't think Zelinsky was in on it, but I think he understood, like, these guys have to sort of, like, make it some type of show because they're not really. There wasn't a dramatic shift in policy that I think people anticipated.

[Emma Vigland]

Well, I mean, initially, I think there was. I mean, I don't know how staged it was. I mean, I'll say J.D. vance clearly had a plan. Right. I think, you know, I know that Zelensky was advised both by his own people and by members of Congress who support Ukraine to say, like, say the minimum possible in this Oval Office meeting. Do not Allow yourself to be provoked and then negotiate in private. Afterward at the lunch, unfortunately, he allowed himself to be provoked. And again, I don't, I'm not. It's hard to criticize him given what he's endured, given the fact that he's sitting there in a room with all of Trump, you know, Trump and Trump's flunkies all around him. And then it seems as soon as J.D. vanch introduced this idea that Zelenskyy was being disrespectful, that's what completely set everything off. Cuz that's the thing, and Vance knows this, is that that's what Trump can't tolerate. So, yeah, that, that went poorly. Zelensky then I think understood that he had to show very quickly that he was not the problem. He is ready to sign a deal, he is ready to negotiate peace. And I think he signaled that very effectively and that did what he wanted to do, which is to put the onus back on Putin, frankly, where it belongs. And I think that's where we are now because Ukraine has made clear that they are ready to talk. And Putin and you know, Russia, they're the ones who are like, well, we'll talk after Zelensky's gone, we'll talk after, you know, you know, all Ukrainians are standing on one foot. He's introducing, you know, all kinds of bizarre conditions.

[Sam Seder]

What, what is, how much pressure? I mean, does, is, does Putin have a domestic pressure to do anything? I mean, what, what is the status? It feels like there is just a stalemate there. And, and then I want to get to this thing about the Chinese soldiers.

[Emma Vigland]

I don't know what pressure Putin feels domestically. He has pretty tight control over his own domestic situation. I mean, I think he has a conception of his own legacy and Russia's security and what that requires. And it was true two years ago, a year ago. I think it's true today. That requires, you know, erasing Ukraine as an independent sovereign state, either through installing, you know, a Russian controlled government or just a more pliable Ukrainian president who is not Zelensky. And that is not something that Ukraine's going to agree to.

[Sam Seder]

And do we have a sense of what the Ukrainian people. I mean, you know, there was a narrative that was being pushed by the Trump in the right. It felt like a month ago that Zelenskyy was forcing his people into this meat grinder and against their will, and he was a dictator, they were saying. And then that just sort of went away with whatever deal Zelenskyy said to. I mean Is it really that straightforward that it's just a question of. Zelensky basically made Trump feel like he was daddy, and then daddy just said, okay, all is forgiven.

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, I mean, there was a method to it. Clearly, they were using all these tactics to put pressure on Zelensky to come, you know, to come to the negotiating table because they want. They. I think Trump genuinely wants to be able to broker a Russia, Ukraine peace deal.

[Sam Seder]

And Trump didn't realize that Putin was probably the problem here.

[Emma Vigland]

I. Perhaps he didn't. I mean, Trump does have his own view. He thinks he understands Putin. I mean, some people say he admires him. I think there is some evidence of that, although I don't want to overstate it. But, you know, let's remember he has a pretty bad impression of Zelensky from the first term as well.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Emma Vigland]

So he's not positively predisposed to Volodymyr Zelensky. But I think, you know, for the time being, Zelensky seems to have dealt with his Trump problem internally. To your question. You know, I think we have seen public opinion slowly weakening as the war goes on. I don't think that's totally surprising. It's always been weaker. You know, as the closer you get to the front, the Ukrainians who are having to endure the most of this warfare, you know, you also do have, you know, Ukraine has been careful about the age of conscription. They don't want to be conscripting all of their young and younger men. They do want to have a population into the future. And so that also contributes to a sense of resentment. Who's having to fight, who's not having to fight, who's trying to avoid fighting, and who's getting away with it? Who's bribing? So, yes, there is, you know, a tense political situation internally, but I think all evidence shows that Zelensky still is seen as a legitimate, democratically elected president.

[Sam Seder]

What is what to be made of? Apparently, they have. They have captured two, presumably Chinese soldiers who have credit, Chinese credit cards and id. I mean, what. What do we make of that?

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, they captured two and fought a group of six, is my understanding. The Chinese government has said these are independent, you know, essentially Chinese mercenaries. You know, I think China has been trying to make itself part of the solution here, at the same time continuing to support pretty massively Russia's effort. So they're both part of the problem and part of the solution, but wanting to be a major global player to say that we can help broker, we can help broker peace. But this is going to complicate that, too, which is why I think they've been, you know, pretty quick to try and say that if we had nothing.

[Sam Seder]

To do with this, what is like, if I know that there were two Chinese soldiers captured and that they were fighting six others. Yeah, it feels like that's on purpose. Like there's a lot of different ways you could respond to finding, you know, to capturing these guys, which is, like, unlikely China's sending six guys to fight. Right. And unlikely that they're going to be in this type of position. Like, I imagine we have American military over there, but they're not, you know, on the front lines fighting that they're doing, you know, support stuff or something that. So I would imagine if China, if China was participating, they would have something similar. So what is. What is Zelensky trying to do Right, with that?

[Emma Vigland]

No, I think he's clearly trying to use this to, you know, to. To push China to play a less destructive role. But I think, as you noted, that is what's interesting about where these Chinese soldiers were captured. I mean, we've seen North Korean soldiers involved in the war, but they've been in Russia, they've been in Kursk as part of the effort to retake the territory that Ukraine invaded. The fact that these Chinese soldiers were caught in Ukraine is quite notable, and I think Zelensky is using that to put some pressure on China. To do what? I'm not quite sure.

[Sam Seder]

Does that also tell us something? I mean, in the event that they are mercenaries, which it seems mostly likely to me, that the mercenaries are like that, that Russia needs mercenary fighters there?

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, that does seems kind of sketchy to me. Again, I'm very skeptical. I mean, China does have pretty tight control over its military and over its industries, including potentially its own mercenary industry. So, yeah, this. This excuse doesn't really ring true. We need to find out more. I mean, were these, you know, you know, quote unquote observers who got cornered, found themselves in combat that they were not supposed to be in, and tried to fight their way out?

[Sam Seder]

I'm not sure what else have we left on the table, Matt? I mean, it feels like everything's moving in so many directions, and from our perspective, at least, you know, the sort of the biggest player is not moving on any trajectory that is, like, plotted. It just feels like, you know, one of those. I got a cat toy for my cat that you just press the button and the thing just stops and goes and runs all. I mean, that's what it feels like.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. I mean, the only kind of consistent approach, and I said this before, I mean, a lot of people would criticize, you know, Trump as a, quote, isolationist. And I thought that was always clearly false. He is. I mean, I think at the end of this, we're gonna wish Trump was an isolationist. What we are seeing is the kind of most unbound, unconstrained, aggressive assertion of American unilateralism on all fronts, on, you know, the potential use of the military on trade, obviously. But also, you see it with the way. And there's a through line here, trade. We want to get a better deal. We're getting ripped off. That is, you know, Trump's. He says that about everything, domestic and foreign. The system is rigged. We're getting ripped off. See, this with the way he talks about NATO, the way he talks about Europe, is that the US, by virtue of his enormous power, deserves more tribute. And I'm going to go out there and get that tribute.

[Sam Seder]

It feels like we are one event away, and maybe it's in the context of trade, but I don't know what from the world saying, wait a second. Paper tiger, and then it's off to the races. Am I just.

[Emma Vigland]

No. I mean, I think people. If people start to think that we are better off for our own security, for our own future prosperity, choosing different allies and investing in a different system than the one that's led or largely led and guided by the United States, as they are starting to do now. That's a very different world.

[Sam Seder]

Hey. And I can't help but think that we're starting to see that in the treasury bond market, but I'm not sure I understand that market enough.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. No.

[Sam Seder]

People have started talking.

[Emma Vigland]

Read about Treasury.

[Sam Seder]

Read about treasury bonds. Yes. Matt Duss, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming in. Really appreciate it. We're going to take a quick break and I'll be right back in a moment. We are back. Sam Cedar, Majority Report. Emma Vigland, out. Today we're going to head into the fun half of the program. Just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. Of course, our expenses have gone up because of the tariffs, but we are maintaining the cost of our memberships. We're going to eat the whole cost. We're going to eat the entire cost of the tariffs. Of course, I'm joking. None of our costs have gone up. In fact, we're going to be selling off a lot of our RCA audio cords for.

[Dave Rubin]

If you need micro USB cords.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. If you're looking for 1440 FireWire for your Mac. Stuff's going to get expensive. We're going to talk about it in the fun ish half. The fun half today we're going to discount all the tariffs 104%. More fun half today. Equality not quantity. Just reminder, it's your support that makes the show possible. You can join the majority report by by going to join the Majority Report.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, you get the fun half. I would imagine we're going to have some problem with advertising going forward in the coming months. Both are native and you know YouTube, who knows. So if you have the means, support the program. If you don't have the means and you still want access to the fun half, send us an [e-mail] put in help with fun half and we will work you out. Work, work it out with you. Matt, what's happening on left reckoning?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, Left reckoning last night, Jonathan Ben Menachem on to talk about his work, academic work at Columbia, talking about mass incarceration and also about the last year or so of protest and who actually runs a university. So interesting conversation there. We also talked about Trump's new pannikin word, which is everyone who thinks this might be bad. What's happening with the market.

[Sam Seder]

If you're a Republican who is panicking.

[Dave Rubin]

Don'T be a panic. So a lot of panic ins out there and check that out. Patreon.com reckoning we're close to 50,000 subs on YouTube and a thousand on Patreon. So check us out.

[Sam Seder]

See you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks, 646-257-3920 see you in the fun. Are you ready? Who sent us this?

[Emma Vigland]

Alpha males are back.

[Sam Seder]

Is back.

[Emma Vigland]

And the alpha males are back, back.

[Sam Seder]

Just as delicious as you could imagine.

[Emma Vigland]

The alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back. Just want to degrade the white man. Alpha males are back, back.

[Sam Seder]

I take all of it to my throat.

[Emma Vigland]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back.

[Sam Seder]

Snowflakes has what?

[Emma Vigland]

The alpha males are are back.

[Sam Seder]

You are a madman.

[Emma Vigland]

And the alpha males are back, back. Oh, no. Sam Cedar. What a w. What a nightmare. Nightmare.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation. DJ dinner.

[Dave Rubin]

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

[Sam Seder]

That's nonsense. See white people doing drugs that look.

[Emma Vigland]

Worse than normal white people, people.

[Sam Seder]

And all white people look disgusting.

[Emma Vigland]

And the alpha males psych them them.

[Sam Seder]

Snowflake says, what? What? What?

[Emma Vigland]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What? What? What? What? What? What?

[Emma Vigland]

What? What?

[Sam Seder]

What? What? What?

[Emma Vigland]

What?

[Sam Seder]

What? What?

[Emma Vigland]

A hell of a lot of bank. That's a hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, I'm making stupid money.

[Emma Vigland]

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

[Sam Seder]

All lives matter.

[Dave Rubin]

Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?

[Sam Seder]

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

[Emma Vigland]

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

[Sam Seder]

See Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists? Keeping it at 100. Can't knock the hustle.

[Emma Vigland]

Come on.

[Sam Seder]

Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them.

[Emma Vigland]

Things I do for the bigger game plan.

[Sam Seder]

By the way, it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me, Jew boy. I have a thought experiment for you.

[Emma Vigland]

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

[Sam Seder]

Come on, come on, come on.

[Emma Vigland]

Someone needs to pay the price surplus to be around here.