2483 - Trump’s Memecoin Scam; Michigan Senate Race Heats Up w/ Jacob Silverman, Abdul El-Sayed

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Episode 2483 - Trump’s Memecoin Scam; Michigan Senate Race Heats Up
Release Date: April 24, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 2483 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder delves into two pressing political issues: former President Donald Trump's alleged involvement in a memecoin scam and the intensifying Michigan Senate race featuring candidates Jacob Silverman and Abdul El-Sayed. The episode provides an in-depth analysis of these topics, enriched with insights from experts and notable quotes that highlight the complexities of contemporary American politics.

---

Trump’s Memecoin Scam

Guest: Jacob Silverman, Journalist and Author

The episode opens with a comprehensive discussion on Donald Trump's foray into the cryptocurrency market, specifically focusing on his controversial memecoin. Jacob Silverman, co-author of several investigative books on cryptocurrency and capitalism, elucidates the intricate web surrounding Trump's involvement.

Key Points:

1. Formation of World Liberty Financial:

   • Trump’s initial skepticism towards cryptocurrency shifted dramatically post-2020, influenced by donations from the crypto industry.
   • In 2023, Trump founded World Liberty Financial, launching his branded memecoin as a means to re-engage with modern financial trends.

2. Shady Associates and Financial Maneuvering:

   • Silverman highlights the involvement of dubious figures like Justin Sun, a notorious crypto entrepreneur under SEC investigation for fraud, who invested heavily in Trump’s memecoin.
   • The memecoin’s price surged by over 60% following Trump’s announcement of an exclusive dinner for top investors, a clear sign of a "pump and dump" scheme.

3. Regulatory Evasion and Potential Fraud:

   • The Trump administration's rollback of financial regulations has paved the way for such schemes to flourish with minimal oversight.
   • Silverman describes this as "the largest financial scandal in presidential history," emphasizing the potential economic repercussions.

Notable Quotes:

• Jacob Silverman [27:52]:
  "They found a way to breathe new life into it by using it to sell access again to him. So you kind of got to admire."

• Jacob Silverman [34:40]:
  "This is really just like a Dropbox for putting money in Trump's pocket."

• Jacob Silverman [40:17]:
  "It's certainly in the hundreds of millions. I mean they seem to be able to cash out and move some, some amount of, some of these tokens that... easily I think a few hundred million dollars if they know what they're doing."

---

Michigan Senate Race Heats Up

Guest: Abdul El-Sayed, Former Wayne County Public Health Director and Senate Candidate

Transitioning to the Michigan Senate race, Sam Seder welcomes Abdul El-Sayed, a prominent Democratic candidate endorsed by Bernie Sanders. The conversation underscores the growing tensions within the Democratic Party, particularly concerning endorsements from influential groups like AIPAC.

Key Points:

1. Campaign Strategies and Funding Challenges:

   • El-Sayed emphasizes his commitment to grassroots funding, rejecting corporate PAC money, including funds from AIPAC, to maintain campaign integrity.
   • He criticizes other candidates, such as Haley Stevens, for accepting significant financial support from AIPAC, framing it as aligning with MAGA interests.

2. Healthcare Advocacy:

   • A central theme of El-Sayed’s platform is Medicare for All. He discusses the inefficiencies of the current healthcare system and the potential benefits of a government-run healthcare program.
   • El-Sayed argues that eliminating private insurers would reduce overhead costs and ensure equitable healthcare access for all Americans.

3. Addressing Anti-Intellectualism and Anti-Science Movements:

   • El-Sayed expresses concerns over the erosion of trust in science and public health, exacerbated by figures like RFK Jr. and policies under the Trump administration.
   • He advocates for policies that support scientific research and evidence-based decision-making to combat public health crises effectively.

Notable Quotes:

• Abdul El-Sayed [46:22]:
  "We have failed to guarantee basic access to quality healthcare for our country. And people have suffered the consequences."

• Abdul El-Sayed [52:06]:
  "Traditional Medicare is just more efficient... It's just the crosstalk between them. When you end up having not 700 health insurers, but one now the billing becomes easy because everybody just bills the government system."

• Abdul El-Sayed [61:15]:
  "We need your help. If you're here in Michigan, please sign up to volunteer... I don't take corporate PAC money so our line with people like you, I'm not taking AIPAC money."

---

Conclusion

Episode 2483 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder offers a critical examination of Donald Trump's involvement in the cryptocurrency arena and the ongoing Michigan Senate race. Through insightful discussions with Jacob Silverman and Abdul El-Sayed, the episode highlights the implications of unchecked financial maneuvers at the highest levels of power and the importance of integrity and grassroots efforts in political campaigns. The episode underscores the need for vigilant oversight in both financial and political realms to safeguard democratic values and public trust.

---

Notable Exclusions:
The summary intentionally omits advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content segments to focus solely on the substantive discussions and analyses presented in the episode.

Transcript

[Emma Bigland]

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Bigland]

It is Thursday, April 24, 2025. My name is Emma Bigland 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, Jacob Silverman back with us to talk about Trump's meme coin scam. And later in the show, Abdul Al said, candidate for U.S. senate in Michigan, joins us to talk about that race. Also on the program, amidst peace negotiations led by the US that are newly favorable to Putin, Russia bombs Ukraine's capital Kiev overnight, killing at least 10. Trump asked Putin to stop over Truth Social.

[Sam Cedar]

You can't do it, Vladimir.

[Jacob Silverman]

You do it.

[Sam Cedar]

It's going to be a bad day.

[Emma Bigland]

Coincidence alert. That's like almost exactly what he said. He just said, Vladimir, stop please. Coincidence alert. Billionaires including Mark Zuckerberg and Jamie Dimon apparently liberated themselves of billions of dollars in shares right before Trump's tariff announcement. China is dog walking Trump on tariffs, publicly calling out the administration as Trump quietly caves. More than a dozen states joined California suing the administration over tariffs. A Fox News poll shows Trump is underwater in approval rating on every issue except immigration and is -11 overall on approval rating. That is like pretty unheard of in the first hundred days. Pete Hegseth had signal installed on his Pentagon office computer as well as a makeup studio in the Pentagon. He's gotta hide that flush for the cameras, you know what I mean?

[Abdul Al Said]

Get these mirrors to judge these sideburns.

[Emma Bigland]

A little bit better, right? Yeah, he missed that. Israel kills at least 26 people, including the family of six sick. A family of six with four children in overnight strikes near Jabalia. Far right, Israeli National Security Minister Ben Gvir was pelted with water bottles at his talk at Yale University where encampments have once again cropped up. Trump denies disaster relief to Arkansas to help them rebuild after deadly tornadoes killed dozens of people a month ago. Kilmar Abrego, Garcia's wife was forced to move to a safe house with her children, two of whom are special needs due to maga's harassment. Trump reportedly strikes a deal with Rwanda to accept deportees. And lastly, the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes is stepping down after Trump baselessly sued sued the network because they edited out Kamala Harris coughing or something during an interview all this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It's a Majority Report Thursday. Yes, it is. Hello, Russ. Hello, Matt. Hello. Special in Studio Thursday guest and it will be revealed soon who that is a mystery. But very excited to have this person in studio for the fun half. Let's get started. We have a lot to talk about today. Wanted to highlight this because this is an enormously important development, and it's just one of the many ways that the Trump administration is harming all of us. Well, at least 50% of the population. Since before, since the early 90s, 1991, the NIH has been studying women's health. They started this women's health initiative because there is a major gap in research for women's health. Because historically, I mean, there are still people alive. Now, when this was the case, research on medicine and health outcomes has largely been focused on men, male subjects. That's not just for women. Even when they use animal studies, it's more focused on male animals in clinical trials. Historically. And so this has resulted in poorer health outcomes for women, particularly women of color, LGBTQ people. There's been lots of misdiagnoses, less understanding about pain. I mean, things like hysterectomies were widely given out to women based on pain that they were experiencing that could have been solved with less intervention. I mean, that's an extremely painful and difficult surgery. And that could have happened if health outcomes had been better understood. And so the NIH in the 90s started to look into this and wanted to launch a major study to fill in the gaps in studying women's symptoms and so that their health care is better. Trump is gutting this study. Let's put up this article from Science magazine. President Donald Trump's administration appears to be killing much, if not all, of a historic initiative. That was the first and is still the largest National Institutes of Health efforts centered around the health needs of women. The Women's Health Initiative. WHI has enrolled tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials of hormones and other medications and track the health of many thousands more. Over more than three decades, its findings have had a major influence on health care. WHI leaders announced yesterday that contracts supporting its regional centers are being terminated in September and that the study's Clinical Correcting Coordinating center, based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Cancer center, will continue operations until January 2026, after which time its funding remains uncertain. They added that the contract terminations for its four main sites will significantly impact ongoing research and data collection, severely limiting WHI's ability to generate new insights into the health of older women, one of the fastest growing segments of our population. There are about 55 million postmenopausal women in the United States. So scientists familiar with the initiative, whose annual funding is currently just under $10 million. This is like the. I mean this is like a penny in your couch cushion in terms of what the federal government spends.

[Abdul Al Said]

I was going to underline that for like the type of impacts, like, just to underline like. The World Women's Health Initiative challenged long held beliefs about the benefits of hormone therapy for preventing heart disease. And postmenopausal women revealed that combined estrogen. This is just one example, progesterone hormone therapy actually increased the risk of heart disease. Like these sorts of things. For $10 million. That's like a not high level NBA player salary.

[Emma Bigland]

No, you're coming off the bench. It's. This is nothing, nothing for the federal government that spends trillions and trillions of dollars. It's like you picking up a pack of gum at the. At the gas station.

[Abdul Al Said]

An economic analysis estimated a $35.2 billion savings in medical expenses in the decade following the release of WH's H therapy results due to fewer cardiovascular disease and breast cancer cases. That's $10 million a year program.

[Emma Bigland]

Yep. This trial just taught us an immense amount about the prevention of disease in women, says Sarah Temkin, a gynecological. Gynecological oncologist who until the 11th of April was Associate Director for clinical research in the Office of Research on Women's Health at nih. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to have happen. Scroll to the next paragraph, if we could. NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has largely funded WHI. Launched in 1991 under NIH's first woman director, Bernadine Healy. It was hugely ambitious, focusing on treatments that might prevent heart disease, breast and colon cancer and bone fractures from osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. More than 160,000 women participated in its initial clinical trials or later tacked into its observational study or community prevention extension arms. It soon produced key findings, including, and Matt just alluded to this, that combined estrogen and progesterone pills taken from menopausal symptoms did not prevent heart disease in women after menopause. The follow up of patients has continued to yield insights such as that calcium and vitamin D supplementation does not prevent fractures in postmenopausal women, which was. I remember literally my mother telling me about this kind of thing. When she was going through her own health issues with breast cancer. And as these things were developing, it gave women in that age bracket a better understanding of their health care. It should be noted that this study, because it's been going on for 30 years, is now more focused on postmenopausal women, which the Trump administration doesn't care about because you're no longer a baby making factory for them. Because he's talking about being the fertility president and borrowing all of these Viktor Orban style Natalist policies. And Elon Musk is pronatalist, basically saying that the white birth rate in European and and countries in the United States is too low. Their eugenicists for anybody that isn't in the cohort that they view as the dominant race or gender or serving to further create the dominant race in their mind. So once the woman can't have children anymore if she was never able to, well, they're basically useless at that point. So why not just cut this study? That's couch cushion money for us. This was really meant as a makeup project for women because women have been excluded from research for so many years, says Garnet Anderson, a biostatistician who runs the WHI Coordinating Center. Anderson says WHI currently enrolls 42,000 women who update their researchers regularly on their health. The contract cut will Prevent researchers at WHI's foresights from continuing to interact with women in this cohort, which has enabled researchers to create the country's largest data set on women in their 80s and 90s. Our ability to understand what's going on with those women will be severely curtailed, Anderson says. They have been dedicated to this process for 30 years and provide their data generously. They've told us they want to be followed. It'd be disrespectful not to do that. So there you go. That's just one of the ways that the Trump administration is harming all of us or anybody that cares about a woman who is postmenopausal, as mothers, as family members, as people that they care about, let alone what we're seeing. The gutting of cancer research, research into other diseases just slashed for no apparent reason, except for the fact that this actually pairs nicely with what I was talking about earlier, a fundamentally eugenicist worldview. The slashing of USAID is going to kill millions if they keep this up in Africa, across different countries there because of the HIV prevention measures that the United States was funding. In part due to Bush, by the way. Maybe the one of the only good things that George or George W. Bush did in his administration was back up that research, just cutting it, cutting it, sentencing all of these children to death and to HIV and potentially aids, because the administration thinks this is a handout to the global south, which we already exploit for capitalism. Right. We, during deindustrialization, with the gutting of unions to make goods cheaper, and with all of this focus on consumption as opposed to workers rights, we have outsourced the worst of capitalist exploitation to the global south, almost reifying what we did under colonialism and extending it. And the Trump administration sees the people who are bearing the brunt of this as takers, as opposed to the obvious victims of our economy that's so favored towards us.

[Abdul Al Said]

Well, that's the dirty little secret about this whole birthright thing, is that it's a relative issue, not an overall issue. I don't believe Elon just wants more and more people. He wants people that have his genetics. He said that, says genetics and that, that. And it's, it's of course, you know, in other countries, one way to make our birth, the Elon approved birth rates look better is just have the other ones come down a little bit and their quality of life worse because then it's relatively better. But also again, 40% of births in America and it's close to 50% when you get to rural areas are covered by Medicaid and they're slashing that. They're going after it. So like he does not care about, in a way, this is he looked at as a depopulation agenda.

[Emma Bigland]

Absolutely.

[Abdul Al Said]

Approached under the guise of some sort of pronatalism. Yeah.

[Emma Bigland]

Sorry to interrupt you, but I just like that what you're saying is exactly right because that, what Elon says, that we have a population problem in terms of like the population isn't increasing, but we see the data that shows that it is. It is globally, but it's not in certain places. It's not in certain places like the United States where some women are choosing maybe not to have children because it's too expensive. Like, the biggest problem is that we don't have the capacity to support people to have children. But, but they distort that.

[Abdul Al Said]

Oh, here's 5,000 bucks.

[Emma Bigland]

Yeah, they distort that into. Well, you know, it's the problem with everybody else. It's the immigrants. They're takers. This is why you can't have the life that you've dreamed of and you want to have children and you can't support your family. It's because of these People as opposed to it's literally them scamming the rest of us. And this is what the agenda and the other point, and I'll wrap up here, is that RFK's agenda also also fits into this, where he essentially views people with diseases or disabilities as a price tag. A price tag and disgusting. He's disgusted by them. And so that is the anxiety he taps into. He wants. People want to feel empowered over their health care and their family's health care. And if they're pregnant and they have this anxiety that maybe their child may have a disability, he sells you snake oil that makes you feel like you can control it. But once people are born, what is the administration doing cutting funding, cutting support for these folks and speaking about autistic people in general in this really dehumanizing way. And you kind of see where that's going, right? Where if you don't make the right choices about your health care, which I'm giving, I'm giving. RFK is giving people all the tools, but not the finances in the same way that they're approaching the global South. Well, it's survival of the fittest, folks.

[Abdul Al Said]

The first thing he mentioned was they'll never pay taxes. That is not an accident. That is because he views them as a cost, a burden. And this is true of when he was running for president and he wasn't a pro universal health care guy because from his aristocratic ass perch, he views your health problems as too expensive to guarantee by Uncle Sam.

[Emma Bigland]

Exactly right. Clumsy poet. I had estrogen positive breast cancer three years ago. I had my ovaries removed as a part of the treatment surgical menopause. Now I'm on a med to prevent further bone density loss. All of this has impacted my ADHD and autism. Feels like the government is trying to hurt me. I'm so sorry. I mean, this is the reality. Alison Portland hi all. I've been living with stage four ovarian cancer since 2022 and I'm receiving care through Medicaid in Oregon. I'd love to share my experience and talk about all of the different types of care that are covered for me, highlighting how comprehensive the coverage is, including how treatments related to the study you're talking about regarding hormones, post radical hysterectomy, etc. If this is something you would like to hear about, let me know. I'll call in. Yes, Alice, please call in and just write in what your area code is. We will flag it and JD's pants. The nephew of Rosemary Kennedy, Eugenicists. I'm shocked. And you can, you don't have to look too far into the Kennedy history to see what they're experiences with people who, I mean, but that's what happened to when you say you never saw autistic people. That's what happened to folks with disabilities or people that were lobotomized. They were institutionalized and warehoused and abused. And that's the vision that the Trump administration has for the rest of us. All right, before we get to Jacob, a word from our sponsors. Aura Frames or Frames. Sam was literally just telling me yesterday that he got this for a family member, an older family member. And they were just like in awe of how amazing it is. And it's a big family. So they can have a slideshow of all of the different members of their family on this Aura frame. And Mother's Day is coming up. The number one thing your mom wants from you is for you to call her this Mother's Day. You can give her a call, of course, but you can also give her an Aura digital picture frame. I got this maybe two Christmases ago. Huge hit. As I mentioned. Sam just got it for family. Huge hit. It's really easy to set up. It takes around two minutes to set up the frame. Using the Aura app. There's free unlimited storage. You can add unlimited photos and videos. Invite as many people as you want to a frame. There are no hidden fees or subscriptions. You can upload videos up to 30 seconds long, but also they play live photos. You can add those iPhone live photos and they play right on the frame. There's an embedded speaker as well that can play audio on demand. Aura frames have meticulously calibrated high resolution displays. The photos look like real prints. Unless you look really closely and see photo transition, you would never know that it is a screen. The frame can be set up basically from anywhere. Share photos or videos from any device and they will instantly appear on the frame, whether it is wherever you are in the world or and wherever that frame is in the world. No memory card required. Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off plus free shipping on their bestselling Carver Mat frame. That's Aura A U R A frames.com promo code. Majority support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Another service that we use here at the Majority Report is really essential for my personal safety and my family's. Deleteme. Deleteme Makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. Data brokers make a profit off of your data. Your data is a commodity. Anyone on the web can buy your private details. This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, harassment, et cetera. But now you can control your privacy with Delete Me. Your name, contact information, Social Security number, home addresses, even information about your family members could all be compiled by data brokers and sold online. We want to thank me for thank Delete Me for sponsoring today's episode. As a person who exists publicly and especially as somebody that shares my opinions online that are sometimes a little inflammatory, I'm hyper aware of safety and security and it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. All of this data is hanging out on the Internet and it can have actual consequences in the real world. I started using Deleteme before I even started here, before I even knew that they were a sponsor of this show. It was recommended to me by a bunch of other people in this particular industry. Those MAGA folks, they're no joke. They try to come after you. Delete Me has been an essential tool and I'm basically a lifetime user of it. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your delete me plan by texting majority to 64,000. The only way to get 20% off is to text majority to 64,000. That's majority to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. And lastly, spring is sprung in. Spring is springing. It's springing up right now. And Fast Growing Trees is the best way to celebrate as the flowers bloom. Did you know that Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the United States with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers including myself, including Sam Cedar. They have plants for your yard needs like fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and so much more. Whatever plants you're interested in, Fast Growing Trees has you covered. Find the perfect fit for your climate and space. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard order online and get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days without ever leaving home. They're alive and thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy. That's what happened with me. I got a plant for my bookshelf. Low light. Great instructions from Fast Growing Trees. I kept the light alive inexplicably probably because it was such high quality and my lack of green thumb could not affect it. And it's right there on my sill. It adds a little bit of life to my apartment. I know Sam has grown trees, apple trees and many other trees via Fast Growing Trees because he's got a little bit more space than me. But even if you don't have too much space, you can find what works best for your home on Fast Growing Trees at Fast Growing Trees. And they have a 14 point quality checklist which ensures you're getting the best quality plants possible. You can talk to a plant expert about your soil type, landscape design, how to take care of your plants, et cetera. No green thumb required. And if you like to do your own research, their resource center is full of tips and advice from plant experts to help you learn more about your yard's needs so you know what will thrive in your area and with your yard conditions. Check out their zone finder to see what growing zone you are in. Fast Growing Trees has the best deals, up to half off on select plants and other deals. And listeners to our show get 15% off your first purchase when using the code majority at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growingtrees.com using the code majority you at checkout fast growing trees.com code majority. Now's the perfect time to plant use majority to save today. Offers valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. All right, quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Jacob Silverman. We are back. And we are joined once again by friend of the show, Jacob Silverman, journalist, co author of the New York Times bestseller Easy Money, Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism and the Golden Age of Fraud, author of the upcoming book Gilded Rage, Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley coming out in October. Jacob, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Brandon]

Glad to be back.

[Emma Bigland]

Glad to have you. Thanks for taking the time to talk about this meme coin scan. Meme coin scam. There we go. Not, not speaking so well today. But it's just like we've been, you've been, of course, writing about this for so long and following this story, it feels like it hit a new peak with the New York Times report that came out last night that said that Trump is hosting a, quote, intimate private dinner with the top 220 investors in his meme coin. So this is just like essentially a way to pay to play, to get access to the president. But also maybe that's secondary to the fact that his meme coin price surged more than 60% after this announcement, because the investors that wanted to have dinner with Donald Trump, they needed to acquire as much of this meme coin as possible. And so Trump cashed in just by announcing this dinner.

[Brandon]

Exactly. And that's the important dynamic to note, and that there is some savviness to here, I guess. I mean, they know what they're doing. If not him, then the team behind the. This. This token. So they've already been selling access with the dinners in Mar a Lago, and this is just another form of that. I mean, one thing with meme coins is they're pretty ephemeral in nature. And usually there's the initial pump and dump, even with a prominent one like, like Trump Token. But they found a way to breathe new life into it by using it to sell access again to him. So you kind of got to admire.

[Emma Bigland]

The hotspot, I guess. I mean, like, can you take us back to how Trump got involved in crypto altogether? Because he used to be pretty against it. He's more, you know, he's the. He's the New York guy that likes Phantom of the Opera. He's not, he's not up on the new technology that the kids are talking about these days. But it seems like things turned after he lost the election and Melania started getting involved in NFTs. Where did this all start?

[Brandon]

It started in 2023, probably, and really came to a fore in 2024, when first his sons and then some of the tech people who increasingly gathered around him and became some of his biggest donors, said, hey, there's a lot of money, at least in donations from the crypto industry. He, Trump had said when he was president in his first term that he thought bitcoin was a scam and that it competed with the US Dollar, both of which are largely true statements. But of course, once he started seeing that the crypto industry was becoming the largest donor to Trump and the Republicans by industry in the 2024 cycle, I think that pretty easily changed his mind. But what was different was the extent to which he became involved in crypto as an entrepreneur and as a businessman. That started during the election cycle, and he launched World Liberty Financial, which had a token associated with it. But he has gone so much farther, I think, than anyone, even in crypto, perhaps, or maybe especially in crypto expected. He's really in the deep end with lots of shady characters.

[Emma Bigland]

Can you talk a little bit about some of those shady characters who Are they?

[Brandon]

Well, first thing is, I think it's important to say that all the various ventures that Trump has in crypto are just generic, like white labeled crypto products with Trump branding. And I think that's one reason why this makes sense for him. You know, this is like putting his name on a school or steaks or vodka or whatever else, but just of a different style. And it's very easy and low effort. So he had. His main company is World Liberty Financial, and he founded it in part with the sons of Steve Witkoff. And Steve Witkoff himself seems to present, seems to present himself as a backer. He tweets approvingly about deals that they make. He is, of course, Trump's top diplomatic envoy to the Middle east and has done negotiations with Russia. It really does seem like he's mixing business with politics quite a bit. And through World Liberty Financial, it's become kind of this, this just this open fun for anyone who wants to put money in Trump's pockets. The most prominent example is probably Justin sun, who's this kind of notoriously shady crypto entrepreneur who bounces between various island nations. And he does not come to the US or at least did not before. And he was being investigated by the SEC for a major fraud. And he, in two very highly publicized transactions invested a total of 75 million in World Liberty Financial, basically just bought some tokens, gave them the money. And this was celebrated by the Witkoff sons, by Steve Witkoff, you know, and this is really someone who is like on the Sam Bankman Fried end of the crypto spectrum. He was actually Sam Bankman Fried at one point thought he was going to get a bailout package from this guy when everything was falling apart a few years ago. And then of course, a week later, this was in February, I believe, the SEC paused its case against sun, the billion, multi billion dollar fraud case. So the pay to play is pretty clear. There are other people, the guy behind this company called DFW Labs, you know, people who have sort of who have Russian or Chinese nationality who seem to move money between various jurisdictions, but are headquartered in the UAE or Switzerland or other places like that.

[Emma Bigland]

And the, what's amazing is what I was reading that this World Liberty Financial Company, which was created in August 2024, so right. Like just months before the election, they initially tried to create the impression that Trump was not as involved. And then he got more involved publicly after being inaugurated because he's already in power and seems like completely emboldened by this. But they don't even have a platform and they've raised half a billion dollars is my what I read this morning.

[Brandon]

Yeah, there's an extraordinary amount of money just kind of flowing into these various Trump crypto entities. Their World Liberty Financial doesn't really do anything and like I was saying before, there's nothing innovative here and most of these platforms are just, or these crypto ventures are just kind of notional or, you know, like the World Liberty Financial token is what's called, without getting too much into this stuff because it's silly, a governance token. So you, you pay, you pay to buy and have them and you have, you can supposedly vote on changes to the platform. Well, there's nothing to vote on and nothing to do and you can't move the token. So this is really just like, you know, a Dropbox for putting money in Trump's pocket. And then he has a fund, sort of a fintech fund through the Truth Social parent company. He's got the meme coin stuff and this other company called CIC that's managing that. And there's nothing here except just opportunities for minting fake tokens and accepting money from whoever will give it to them.

[Emma Bigland]

So like with, with the, this company or almost, it's just that they're not even producing anything. It's almost like a, just a shell. Like who, who else is involved here? Because I remember reading about how I think it was either Javier Millet, I think it was Malay's pump and dump crypto scam is, involves many of the same players and for people that don't know who that is, he's the far right anarcho capitalist maniacal leader of Argentina who is close with Elon Musk. It seems like Trump is modeling a lot of his actions based on this guy who now over half of the population in Argentina is in poverty, based on some of his actions, which also include gutting the administrative state and crypto scams. Very similar to Trump.

[Brandon]

Like what is that?

[Emma Bigland]

What's that, what's that connection? How much is he borrowing from Malay here?

[Brandon]

Quite a bit. So Milei is a connective figure here. He, he's made common cause with the tech reactionaries who love his sort of crazy right wing libertarian austerity stuff and his interest in crypto and with maga. And he endorsed a token called Libra, was not supposed to be an official presidential meme coin, but he endorsed it and was possibly compensated for it. There's a man behind it named Hayden Davis who's a kind of straight up central casting, ridiculous crypto Operator who has been involved with the Melania and Trump tokens along with a few other people. And there seems to be a developing almost network or kind of service industry for letting or facilitating politicians doing crypto pump and dumps. I have a piece coming out related to this this weekend in Airmail. I've written about Libra and Malay and some of the stuff for the nation. But again, this is very easy if you live at least in the United States. There's no consequence for Malay is actually being investigated by his own legislature. And the guy then I mentioned, Hayden Davis, who's sort of one of the operators behind these various tokens. He they are requesting Interpol red notice for his arrest, some Argentine lawyers. So we'll see if that happens.

[Emma Bigland]

And what do we have any idea of who's buying all this stuff? Like, I mean, I know it's all dark money. I know it's under the cloud of secrecy and the Trump administration, administration is making that easier, dropping all these investigations into crypto firms that the SEC was doing. Like, it seems as if there, there's just all of this like underlying information that we will not have access to because of the way, because of the incredibly corrupt nature, historically corrupt nature of this administration.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you have a few things going on simultaneously, which is the Trump impunity and immunity from the Supreme Court basically on. And then he's wiping away all these financial regulations and kind of facilitate the passage of crypto bills and then he's just brazenly doing what he wants. So to me, this is the largest financial scandal in presidential history. I mean, some of this stuff we'll never know. But already we know that Justin sun seem to pay him off $75 million. There's, you know, you can count some of these other numbers that are available out there, but a lot of this is unknowable without kind of proper investigatory tools or resources behind it, which like, you know, all the IGs have been fired. The SEC is obviously not going to do anything. So Congress, the Democrats are in the minority in Congress. I don't know how this gets investigated, much less, you know, prosecuted in a comprehensive way. And so that's why I think it's only going to grow. I mean, he has, or Witkoff supposedly has had meetings with Binance, which to me is basically a criminal organization. Its CEO took a plea deal and did a four month sentence in federal prison. And they agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine, which is the biggest corporate fine in US history. And apparently according to Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and others. They saw the Justin sun deal because Justin sun and the former CEO of Finance are close. They saw that as a model. They said, oh, he was able to pay $75 million, got his SEC situation worked out and they've had similar conversations about brokering a pardon and then a Trump investment. And like these are really the companies like that are facilitating cybercrime money laundering on a global scale. These aren't just kind of normal crypto players, even by the lower standards of crypto.

[Emma Bigland]

Exactly. And lastly, Jacob, I'm sorry, people really should check out your piece. Welcome to the soft world. How the hostile Internet driving us crazy. But our next guest has a hard out. So I got to wrap you here.

[Brandon]

I mean to go long.

[Emma Bigland]

No, I went long earlier. It's my fault per usual. But, but my, I really like. Do we know how much money this dude is made or Trump has made from, from these scams so far?

[Brandon]

It's certainly in the hundreds of millions. I mean they seem to be able to cash out and move some, some amount of, some of these tokens that. The number that's been going around is $100 million in trading fees related to the initial launch of the Trump token through this platform called Meteora, which involved that the guy I mentioned behind the Libra token. But you're going to hear a lot of big numbers because in crypto numbers are kind of fake and everything's manipulated, but easily I think a few hundred million dollars if they know what they're doing.

[Emma Bigland]

And his legal bills were astronom after the over 90 charges that were levied against him before he won again. So like this isn't, this is a way to pay that back. But also I do think he wants, this is his legacy. He wants to be a real rich guy.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean this is how you get like $10 billion for nothing basically is like you start making your own tokens. Supposedly they're going to start issuing a stable coin which is kind of like a digital dollar. We don't have to go into that. But like his the ambitions are like the willing, the willingness. He's going, he's willing to go very far. And this is not just a dabbler. This is someone who's like seeking to make billions of dollars and maybe run.

[Emma Bigland]

Away with it because the guys at Wall street think he's a joke. Like the tariff stuff. You see this, right? But this is how you, this is how you become a real rich guy in the real room, which has always been his, his ambition. He's always his eyes have always been bigger than his stomach. And that stomach is massive. We've seen it like he wants to he overextends himself, whether it's by lying or it's by, you know, bankrupting his casinos and going big. This is just another version of that pathology, it seems to me.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And I think it'll probably end badly in one way or another. And I think the next crypto collapse will end badly for the larger economy. But he's going to try to grab as much as he can.

[Emma Bigland]

Well, Jacob Silverman, really appreciate your time today, everybody. Check out Jacob's work, including his latest piece in the Financial Times. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Emma Bigland]

All right, folks, quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Senate candidate in Michigan. Abdullah Sayed.

[Abdul Al Said]

It.

[Emma Bigland]

It's we are back. And we are joined now by Abdul Al Said, former Wayne county public health director, co author of Medicare for All, A Citizens Guide, now a candidate for United States Senate in Michigan's Democratic primary just endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Abdul, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Jacob Silverman]

Emma, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

[Emma Bigland]

Thrilled to have you. Really excited about your candidacy. Let's just start there. I mean, you ran for governor in 2018. Gretchen Whitmer obviously won that primary. What was the reason that you decided to jump back into electoral politics?

[Jacob Silverman]

I've had the privilege of being in a conversation with folks in Michigan for the last 10 years since I jumped into public service. And the overwhelming realization that you get when you talk to people on the ground is that it just shouldn't be this hard to get by in the richest, most powerful country in the world. It shouldn't be this hard to afford your groceries. Shouldn't be this hard to go to a doctor and not have to worry about getting huge levels of medical debt because you did. It shouldn't be this hard to take a big deep breath or take a drink of water and know that those things are going to do more for your body than the takeaway. It shouldn't be this hard to pull your face up from your phone because corporations spend billions of dollars to keep you looking at it. And I think for all of those reasons, I think we need leadership. And right now we're watching as the very people who've exploited that pain have been making it worse, whether it's passing stock tips to your buddies after destroying the global economy or it's destroying the best things about American government in the form of the NIH and The cancer research that it funds or it's the fact that they're disappearing people off the streets. So I'm somebody who never dreamed of being a politician. I dreamt of being a doctor. And I started to realize that the things that were making people sick had a lot more to do with what was happening in our society, which is what led me to public service. I'm somebody who has been building in government, whether it's erasing $700 million in medical debt for Wayne county residents or it's putting glasses on kids faces, or it's standing up to corporate polluters. And I think we need somebody who's got the audacity to step up and fight back. And I got receipts there. But also somebody who knows what to build after the wreckage of Trump and Musk and all of their supporters has, has come by. And so I think right now is the time for leadership. I'm hoping to be able to show that and build on the conversation I've gotten to share and to turn that into public policy that works for people.

[Emma Bigland]

Can you speak a little bit about health care and your background in providing health care for people? We're in this very scary political moment of an assault on science and assault on researchers and assault on peer review. I mean, RFK Jr under Donald Trump is spouting the most insane conspiracy theories that would not, would be left out of the room in any professional setting when it comes to health care, except for the fact that I don't know some podcasters like him. So now he's one of the most powerful people in the country when it comes to determining health care. What do you observe with this kind of like anti intellectualism and this anti science movement on the right?

[Jacob Silverman]

Yeah. First I really want to start at the central premise. RFK Jr is what happens when you put an Internet troll in charge of the nation's public health. And that's exactly how he's going about it. Now here's the thing. He identifies the problems like the problems he identifies are actually accurate. A lot of us in public health have been trying to spend a lot of time to call people to action when it it comes to our extremely broken food system and all the disease that comes downstream of that. The problem, though, is that the way you get right answers in healthcare is to use science to rigorously identify answers to big questions and then to follow where the science goes. But when you throw away the scientific process because you've got a preconceived ideological perspective about how you solve the problem, you get what RFK Jr is doing and I worry that it's extremely dangerous. We've got a once in 25 year measles outbreak at the southern border. It's now in 25 different states across the country. And this guy's out here demagoguing vaccines, which are the reason why we had kept diseases like measles and polio and mumps under wraps for so long in this country. What's worse though is that they're gutting so much of the cancer research and research on chronic disease and research on autism. That is one of the best things our government does. I know folks rag on government all the time, but it does some really good things. It just usually does them quietly and in the background. And the NIH is part of that. But I want to help to try and explain why I think RFK and all of the, all of the trolls that have helped put him in this place have been able to succeed. It's that in this country we have failed to address the central biggest challenge when it comes to health and health care, that you get monetized for getting sick in this country. We have failed to guarantee basic access to quality health care for our country. And people have suffered the consequences. And what that that means is that in the midst of a global pandemic, when you come up to them and say, hey, listen, here's a medication that didn't exist a year ago that can protect you from a disease you don't yet have, their question is, okay, but what about medication for the disease I actually have that I have to get nickeled and dimed for? And it leaves us looking ridiculous because we're not answering the questions to the problems that people know they have. And until we get about solving the problem in this country where too few people have access to high quality healthcare that they don't have to pay at the point of care for, that they don't have to go into debt for, then it's going to erode trust in the science and the public health that we want to do every single day. And so those two things go together. I came to health care activism by way of public health. Until we solve the problem of the fact that we pay 20 cents on the dollar, a lot of which goes to the back pockets of corporate CEOs in this country, while too many people go without health care, I worry that that trust is going to continue to be eroded in there. We're going to continue to get taken advantage of by demagogues like RFK Jr.

[Emma Bigland]

Medicare for all central to your ideology. You wrote a book about it. There was a forward written by Bernie Sanders, the Citizen's Guide. You can see it back there on your bookshelf. Can you expand a little bit more on. Oh, there we go. Can you expand a little bit more on Medicare for all? And like how as a United States senator, you would attempt to reintroduce that back into the, the zeitgeist, into the range of what is possible. Because, you know, hopefully we elect a Democrat in 2028. But it seems as though the party broadly abandoned health care and acted like, hey, we solved it with the Affordable Care act and that's that. But obviously there are people who are still hurting and even turning to snake oil salesmen because there's a vacuum in terms of health care policy with the Democratic Party.

[Jacob Silverman]

Yeah. Emma, first, I want to say I look forward to joining stalwarts like Senator Sanders who've been fighting this fight for a very long time and they've been keeping this, this flame alive when it comes to Medicare for all. It is, it should be simple in this country, the richest, most powerful country in the world, to guarantee access to high quality government health insurance for everybody. That's not to say that if your union, for example, negotiated a quality private plan that you like, that you couldn't keep it. That is to say that if the factory shuts down, you shouldn't be without health care, that you can come back to a high quality government plan that supports you from cradle to grave. That should be something we can definitively afford if other countries that don't have nearly the resources that we do can do so. Now, the reason we don't do this thing, even though 60% of all healthcare offered in this country is public through Medicaid or Medicare, is because we've created a system where private health insurance corporations literally garnish our wages every two weeks to four weeks so that we have the right to pay a deductible, which again, they hide behind these big words, literally money you have to pay to see get the health care that you thought you already paid for.

[Emma Bigland]

Right?

[Jacob Silverman]

And they profit off that. Every single dollar that corporate CEOs of health insurance companies make, every dollar was a dollar that somebody spent to provide health care for themselves and their families. And they don't want to let go of that. So they build corporate packs, things like 527s and Super PACS to corrupt the public conversation. Now, Emma, you know this and you've studied it more even than I have, but Anytime there's a public consensus on an issue and then there's a political consensus that is way off from the public consensus, meaning members of both parties say a thing that's not what the public believes. The difference is usually somebody's money. And in this case it's the money that corporations can pay to buy access to politicians to literally write their legislation to make sure that we don't get that thing that should be so easy to provide. And then they spend all kinds of money demagoguing us and fear mongering over what we would lose rather than what we have to gain. We can have nice things, we have to believe it. And we have an opportunity through Medicare for all to finally make good on that guarantee for health care for everybody. We can do it. It's the only way that we do it though is that we step up to the way that corporations have been able to rig our system against us so they get to profiteer off of us. And we've got to focus on what we can have, not what they tell us we're going to lose. Because at the end of the thing that we have to gain is access to the rest of our lives. The ability to go see a doctor without being told what doctor you can see or at risking going into bankruptcy to do it.

[Emma Bigland]

Can you talk a little bit more about why a government system would be more efficient? I think that people get scared off by the idea that because of frankly things like austerity or other government programs that are needlessly complicated just to avoid doing something that is broad based and taxes, the rich folks get scared off. But we know that cutting out the middleman of health insurers does provide more equitable outcomes. Talk to people about that a little bit.

[Jacob Silverman]

Yeah. First I just want to say I don't know many seniors who graduated into Medicare, turned 65, got their Medicare and didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Medicare operates at an overhead of about 3%, whereas private health insurance operates at an overhead of about 15%. Literally 15 cents on every dollar we spend on private health insurance goes to pay for some overhead. So much of it goes to pay the tens of millions of dollars that go to the salaries of corporate CEOs. We didn't pay that money so that they could take it. We paid it for our health care, which is exactly what Medicare does. Now don't get me wrong, corporations are trying to profiteer off Medicare through programs like Medicare Advantage. They're coming for that too. But traditional Medicare is just more efficient. And here's the thing, we rely on that program to provide health care for people who need the most healthcare. Traditionally, as you age, you end up needing more health care because it tends to be that you get sicker as you get older. So when you get older, you get the system that's way more efficient. But it's when you're younger and healthier, you have to pay a ton so that CEOs can make a lot more off of it. And the reason that, that, that Medicare can be so much more efficient, the reason Medicare for all could be so much more efficient is because, well, in a government program, you're not paying a corporate CEO, you're not paying for marketing costs, you're not paying for all of these other things that private companies have to pay for. The other part of it is this. There are about 9,000 healthcare providers in our country and there are about 700 health insurance companies, companies you can imagine when they have to bill each other. There's a whole rigmarole that has to happen so that they can talk to each other. And that requires both sides to hire armies of billers on both sides. And those billers cost a ton of money. It's just the crosstalk between them. When you end up having not 700 health insurers, but one now the billing becomes easy because everybody just bills the government system. And so you end up eliminating a lot of the churn, the cost that has to go into the system. So this could be more efficient. It would enable us to see any doctor we wanted. It would make us all equal health care consumers. It would make sure that we could have our healthcare covered without having to worry about a deductible or a copay or a premium. Again, all words that they hide behind so that you don't know all the different ways that they nickel and dime you. We could do so much better if we are willing to embrace what's possible and not fall prey to the cynicism that folks who exploit our pain are so interested in selling to us.

[Emma Bigland]

Absolutely. Let's just turn before we have to let you go to another topic. Back to the race a bit. There's two other candidates who have joined in or two other major candidates. Representative Haley Stevens as well as State Senator Mallow Mallory McMorrow. Let's play a little bit of this clip here. This is Haley Stevens being asked by a constituent about her getting support from aipac. And this isn't just standard support. She's receiving a lot and also saying things like, you know, she supports aid to Israel Unconditionally, basically. She was asked about this publicly. Here's that clip.

[F]

It's your first four. And you're walking with the Congress.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes.

[Emma Bigland]

Oh, my gosh. Please.

[F]

Well, thank you so much for your community service.

[Emma Bigland]

Can I ask you a question?

[F]

Yeah. I was wondering, with all the support of Republicans and people who are anti choice and people who are working to disrupt our election systems that APAC is doing right now, I'm wondering why you're accepting their support. I'm a Jew and my family lives here in this community, and I really think that those kinds of candidates are making the druid people less. I'm wondering why you're accepting there. Well, thank you so much for coming and bringing your kiddo. It's so nice to meet with you. It's nice to meet you too. But I'm just wondering. I want to make life and this country safe place for him to grow up. And I'm wondering why you would want to accept their endorsement and $800,000 in, in ads this year. Yeah, I, I, guys, I have received.

[Emma Bigland]

Is that.

[F]

How many endorsements have I received this election?

[Jacob Silverman]

A lot.

[F]

I think. I've got a lot of local labor. You are a great representative and we really appreciate your support. I'm just hoping you guys. Oh, my gosh.

[Emma Bigland]

Look at boat. Let's ride the boat. Okay, so she walked away, literally walked away from that question. Obviously, Michigan has been a major flashpoint in the conversation about Israel's genocide in Gaza and some of the support or lack thereof for Israel in the state, that's been a bit of a dividing line. Right. And of course, it came up in the presidential race. What's your stance and what's your message to voters who may hear statements like that? And seeing her walking away from a constituent asking that question about how that fits into your Senate campaign.

[Jacob Silverman]

Yeah, I tell you, that's hard to watch. I think there are two central questions here. The first is, what should we do with our tax dollars? And the second is how do we want our democracy to work when it comes to our tax dollars? I want anybody to think about their local public school and ask yourself whether or not it could benefit from a few million dollars more of investment. And then ask yourself whether or not you think that the best use of our tax dollars is to be sent abroad to foreign militaries to allow them to bomb other kids, schools and other kids when we should be spending it right here on our own. And that really is the question. We just talked about healthcare for a while, and the Big thing they wanna tell you is that we can't afford it. Well, yeah, we can't afford it if we're sending tens of billions of dollars abroad to a foreign military. And I think that's a real problem. Then the question about how we transact our politics, we know that there's too much money in our politics, there's too much special interest money and a lot of that money is spent across party lines. And so AIPAC has become just another vehicle by which Republicans can spend in Democratic primaries to pick what Democrats they want to run against. And I'm just saying that anybody running in a Democratic primary should not be accept accepting money from MAGA to decide what Democrats win or to beat up on other Democrats. And so I hope that everybody in this race will join me in saying that we are not going to accept the MAGA money to beat up on fellow Democrats and that we believe that special interest money should not be used to decide who are. And I'll tell you this, I'm proud that MAGA doesn't want to fight against me and it tells you something about who they're worried about. And so, you know, they don't want to face me in the general election. They know that if we're willing to have conversations about working people's issue about guaranteeing people health care, about protecting our air and water and doing so clearly, honestly and with a concise and direct appeal to the pain that people are experiencing and how to solve it that we win elections. And they don't want that. And so they're trying to muddy the message and it's not surprising to me that they're reaching in. I just hope that fellow Democrats aren't going to accept that money to try and decide who the winner of a Democratic primary will be.

[Emma Bigland]

Abdul Al said thank you so much for your time today. How can people support your campaign if they would like to?

[Jacob Silverman]

I hope that folks will go to abdul4senate.com we need your help. If you're here in Michigan, please sign up to volunteer. Sign up to host me at a house party. I love to come to your space and then if you can from all over the country when you 5 bucks, 10 bucks. I don't take corporate PAC money so our line with people like you, I'm not taking APAC money. Take that much and they're going to be spending a whole lot of money to beat me because they're afraid of what I have to say about common sense, foreign policy and about so many issues affecting Michiganders. So please abdul4senate.com Emma, it was just a privilege to get to share space with you and share a conversation today.

[Emma Bigland]

It was great to, great to talk to you again. Thanks so much. Abdul.

[Jacob Silverman]

Thank you.

[Emma Bigland]

All right. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half.

[Abdul Al Said]

If you're in Michigan, you gotta be on that.

[Emma Bigland]

If we have more time with him, I would have, you know, asked, okay, what happens? Because this is the people are getting out early, right. I mean, Gary Pierce is retiring. The general election will be next year's midterms, but I'm not sure when the primary is going to be held sometime next year. The concern is, is like Mallory McMorrow and Abdul Al said, do they split votes and this pro Israel Stevens woman gets put to the forefront and like that's my, my one fear. But we have a lot of time and I'm hoping that it is she's, because of the stance is more marginalized and then it's a race between those two options, which is definitely better than if Stevens were to come up because like Slotkin is not my choice. And I do think that Michigan deserves better than to kind of centrists, foreign policy hawks for Democrats, honestly. And I don't want to, I don't want to see the state go by the way of like Pennsylvania or even.

[Abdul Al Said]

Saying we need to bomb Iran because we have a window.

[Emma Bigland]

Right. Because these are states that have turned blue and it's been hard work to turn them more blue. And yet there's been a flood of corporate cash in some of the, in I would say Colorado and Pennsylvania to elevate more corporatist, centrist Democrats.

[Abdul Al Said]

I mean, that's really the key thing. And you know, I generally side with David Hogg when it comes to challenging incumbents. Of course, you know, we support AOC and all these sorts of things. The real question is are we going to continue to allow corporate and APAC money to buy these elections? Because if so, like, I'm less, I'm less positive about how good it is that we're challenging incumbents because I think the incumbents being challenged are going to be like Ilhan Omar.

[Emma Bigland]

Right, right. He did say progressive, but he's being. Well, I would love to have David on to ask him what's the criteria because I'm in favor of it. But I don't want us to be squishy about what it's just to me.

[Abdul Al Said]

It'S just downstream of that more fundamental question is how are, how are These campaigns being funded, who is allowed to pay, slash, play in them? And is it going to be corporate interests and Israel? And if it is, then, you know, we have a much more fundamental problem than whether we give deference to people who are incumbents.

[Emma Bigland]

Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning?

[Abdul Al Said]

Oh, gosh. You sprung that on me. Well, actually, I'm very excited. Our Sunday show, I believe we're going to release it for patrons on Sunday. Vincent Bevins talking about the MST Landless workers party in Brazil. He had a great piece in the Nation about that. I have the hat that is actually the one mentioned in the piece that is very popular. So I'll be wearing that during the interview, actually. And so we'll be talking to him about that.

[Emma Bigland]

All right, sounds good. Check it out. And then you got a big week next week. Should we bring our guest in now, or you want to just come behind here and so we can do a preview and then we'll hook you up?

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, sure.

[Emma Bigland]

Hey, look who it is. All right, Brandon.

[Abdul Al Said]

We'll let Brandon plug his stuff when he gets on Mike.

[Emma Bigland]

That's the preview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just. Just your face. That's all. That's all we needed right now. On the other side. We'll see Brandon, get him all hooked up in Sam's chair. You know, when Sam's away, we bring in. We bring in the cool kids. See you on the other side. And Bender will be with us soon. 646-257-3920. Will open up the phone lines on the other side. See you in the fun half.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, Emma, please.

[Emma Bigland]

Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.

[Jacob Silverman]

Wait, look, look.

[Sam Cedar]

Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World, so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show.

[Emma Bigland]

It is Thursday.

[Abdul Al Said]

I think you need to take over for Sam.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, please, sir, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this, and I'll tell you why. So was offered a tour sushi and poker with the boys. Twerk sushi and poker with the boys. Who was offered tour sushi and poker with the boys. What? Tour sushi and poker.

[Emma Bigland]

Tim's upset.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk sushi and poker with two boys. Was offered with twerk sushi. And that's what we call biz. T sushi and poker with two boys.

[Emma Bigland]

Right. Twerk sushi and we're going to get demonetized.

[Sam Cedar]

I just think that what you did to Tim Pool was mean free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about him. I think you're responsible.

[Emma Bigland]

I probably am in a certain way. But let's get to the meltdown here.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh, my God. Word. Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I losing my mind. Someone's offered with twerk. Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Twerk. Sushi and poker with boys. Boy. Boy. Twerk. I think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a kid. Twerk. I think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a little kid. Had this debate 7,000 times. Little kid. Think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a dick. I'm losing my mind.

[Abdul Al Said]

Some people just don't understand.

[Sam Cedar]

So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but, like, I absolutely think the youngest us should be colliding me with a wife and kids.

[Emma Bigland]

That's not what we're talking about here.

[Sam Cedar]

All right? It's not a fun job. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Real thing. Willie Walker. That's a real thing. That's real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Logan has done it again. That's a real thing. I think he might be blowing it out of proportion. Real thing. That's Poker with the boy. Offer to work. That's a real thing. Let's go, Joe. Sushi and poker. Take it easy. Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with boys. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube.

[Emma Bigland]

Sam has the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore. Anymore. It was so much easier when the majority report was just you.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's change the subject.

[Emma Bigland]

Rangers and Nicks are doing great now. Shut up. You don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

[Brandon]

That's one of the most difficult parts about this show.

[Emma Bigland]

This is the pro killing podcast.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury.

[Emma Bigland]

The house Action Left his best trump. Violet.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk. Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me. And don't. The way Emma has cucked all of these people.

[Brandon]

Love it.

[Emma Bigland]

That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it. She wrote an honest thesis.

[Jacob Silverman]

I guess I should hand the main.

[Sam Cedar]

Mic to you now. You are to the right of the unfore.

[Emma Bigland]

We already fund Israel, dude. Are you against us?

[Sam Cedar]

That's a tougher question. I have an incredible theme song.

[Emma Bigland]

Hi, bumbler.

[Brandon]

Emma Viglin.

[Sam Cedar]

Absolutely one of my favorite people, actually. Not just in the game, like, period.