2508 - Trump's Fortunate Failures w/ David Dayen

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder – Episode 2508: "Trump's Fortunate Failures" Featuring David Dayen

Release Date: May 30, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 2508 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Cedar welcomes executive editor of The American Prospect, David Dayen, for an in-depth discussion on the ongoing political and economic maneuvers of former President Donald Trump. The episode delves into Trump's recent actions regarding immigration, tariffs, and his broader impact on government regulation and economic integrity.

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Key Topics Discussed

Supreme Court Ruling on Immigration Status

At the outset, Sam Cedar highlights a significant Supreme Court decision permitting Donald Trump to revoke the legal immigrant status of approximately 550,000 individuals from Ukraine, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua. This move follows Trump's temporary stay of a tariff court ruling that declared his tariffs illegal [04:10].

Sam Cedar:
“The Supreme Court allows Trump to cancel humanitarian parole, potentially revoking the legal immigrant status of 240,000 Ukrainians and another 250,000 from other nations.” [04:10]

This decision raises concerns about the stability and security of immigrants who sought refuge in the United States due to perilous conditions in their home countries.

Tariffs and "Taco Trades"

A focal point of the discussion centers around Trump's imposition of tariffs on China and the ensuing legal battles. The episode introduces the concept of "taco trades," where Wall Street investors bet against Trump's promises to maintain or escalate tariffs.

Emma Vigland:
"It's a chicken taco and I am hungry." [10:52]

Sam Cedar:
"A taco trade is one where you're basically betting that his promise of imposing tariffs are actually not going to happen. So you buy when certain companies dip because of anticipation for the tariffs." [11:03]

The hosts explore how these trades reflect Wall Street's skepticism about Trump's ability to sustain his tariff policies, suggesting a strained relationship between Trump and financial institutions.

David Dayen’s "Golden Age of Scams" Series

David Dayen introduces his American Prospect series, "Golden Age of Scams," which investigates the proliferation of fraudulent activities exacerbated by the Trump administration's rollback of consumer protections.

David Dayen:
"One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration is the nullification of crime as a concept, dismantling systems that enforce consumer protection." [32:06]

He elaborates on how regulatory bodies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been weakened, allowing scams in various sectors—financial services, student loans, healthcare, and more—to thrive without adequate oversight.

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Insights and Analysis

Impact of Tariffs on the Economy

The discussion delves into the practical implications of Trump's tariff strategies. Despite imposing tariffs intended to bolster domestic industries and reduce trade deficits, the immediate economic impact remains unclear due to companies stockpiling goods before tariff implementation.

David Dayen:
"We're just not seeing the effects yet in stores because some of the goods were already here. They bulked up their inventory before the tariffs hit." [70:26]

However, Cedar and Dayen anticipate significant disruptions in the coming months as inventories deplete and supply chain relationships with Chinese suppliers become strained.

Emergency Powers and Constitutional Limits

A critical analysis is provided on Trump's use of emergency powers to impose tariffs unilaterally, bypassing the traditional legislative processes.

David Dayen:
"Trump used the Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose unlimited tariffs based on an economic emergency of a trade deficit, bypassing judicial scrutiny." [56:19]

This approach not only tests constitutional boundaries but also sets a precedent for future administrations to exploit similar emergency provisions for policy implementations without adequate oversight.

Crypto Regulation and Financial Scams

Dayen connects the deregulation trends to the burgeoning cryptocurrency market, highlighting how the lack of oversight facilitates scams and financial instability.

David Dayen:
"The Genius Act brings Bitcoin and crypto into the broader financial system, which could lead to a catastrophic cascade into the traditional economy if stablecoins fail to maintain their pegs." [40:52]

He warns of the potential for massive financial repercussions similar to the 2008 mortgage crisis, emphasizing the dangers of integrating volatile crypto assets with established financial institutions.

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Conclusions

The episode underscores the detrimental effects of Trump's policies on regulatory frameworks and economic stability. By weakening consumer protections and enabling fraudulent activities, the administration has paved the way for a surge in scams across various industries. Additionally, Trump's unpredictable tariff policies and reliance on emergency powers pose significant challenges to both domestic and international economic relations.

Sam Cedar:
"Trump is experimenting with authoritarian tactics, testing constitutional limits, and undermining institutional checks and balances." [67:30]

David Dayen echoes this sentiment, highlighting the long-term implications for the U.S. economy and governance structures, suggesting that these actions could lead to a "Golden Age of Scams" with widespread financial consequences.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Sam Cedar:
  “The Supreme Court allows Trump to cancel humanitarian parole..." [04:10]

• Emma Vigland:
  "It's a chicken taco and I am hungry." [10:52]

• David Dayen:
  "One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration is the nullification of crime as a concept..." [32:06]

• David Dayen:
  "Trump used the Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose unlimited tariffs..." [56:19]

• Sam Cedar:
  "Trump is experimenting with authoritarian tactics, testing constitutional limits..." [67:30]

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Majority Report with Sam Seder provides a comprehensive examination of Donald Trump's policies and their broader implications on American society and the economy. Through insightful analysis and detailed discussion, Sam Cedar and David Dayen shed light on the potential long-term consequences of undermining regulatory institutions and engaging in unpredictable economic policies.

Listeners are encouraged to explore David Dayen’s "Golden Age of Scams" series on The American Prospect website for a deeper understanding of the systemic issues discussed in the episode.

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Note: Interviews and discussions are based on the transcript provided and reflect the viewpoints expressed by the participants during the podcast.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, they're always popping those.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

Time for the show.

[Sam Cedar]

Time for the show. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. Where every day casual Friday. That means Monday is casual. Monday, Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual hump day. Thursday casual Thirs. That's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, May 30, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. 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 editor of the American Prospect, David Dane will be joining us for a simulcast. Whoa. With their Prospect Weekend review show. Also on the program today, Supreme Court allows Trump to cancel humanitarian parole. Revoking the potentially revoking the legal immigrant status of 240,000 Ukrainians and then another 250,000 Cuban, Venezuelan, Haitians and Nicaraguans. This after Trump gets a temporary stay of the tariff court ruling that his tariffs are illegal. Only of course for the purpose of appeal. Meanwhile, in a bid to stop taco trades, Donald Trump says China violated its our trade agreement that we supposedly had with that RFK pulls funding for pandemic flu vaccine.

[Emma Vigland]

No big deal.

[Sam Cedar]

This after his child health care report cites fake studies.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Meanwhile new report Trump regime knew that the vast majority of the Venezuelans sent to the El Salvador gulag not guilty of any U.S. crimes. They knew it. In the wake of Stephen Miller's demand to quintuple the daily ICE detentions top ICE officials pulled from their posts and Trump now pardoning anybody for any crime. If they were outspoken MAGA supporters. Trump hires Peter Thiel's Palantir to build surveillance data bank on every American.

[Emma Vigland]

That's a little. Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Concerning and foreign visitor spending to drop nearly $9 billion this year.

[Emma Vigland]

We are great again, baby.

[Sam Cedar]

What is that?

[Emma Vigland]

I don't know.

[Sam Cedar]

Friday.

[Emma Vigland]

It's, it's from my drunk.

[Sam Cedar]

From her. From the Knicks last night. All this and more on today's majority.

[David Dayen]

You are.

[Emma Vigland]

You are Ms. You are Mistaking my lack of sleep, which could be mistaken for drunkenness. I'm feeling a little loose, feeling a little giggly. We were laughing earlier about Eric Adams, so I'm bringing.

[Sam Cedar]

Where's the. Where, where is, where's Emma?

[Matt Binder]

Oh, sorry.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, I'm here. It's all right. I'm feeling you know, we're just, we're having fun today. This is the energy I'm bringing to the show today.

[Sam Cedar]

All right. God did that. I believe that, too. Someone's saying that my shirt looks like I slept in a dumpster.

[Emma Vigland]

That is really rude.

[Sam Cedar]

All right. Just, it's casual Friday.

[Emma Vigland]

God did that.

[Sam Cedar]

First of all. How dare you. Thank you for that. We got a lot to get to. The, the Supreme Court story is just breaking this morning and so don't have too many details on it, but the essentially it is opening the way for Trump to get to revoke legal status for almost like 550,000 migrants who are here because there's something either extremely dangerous for them in their country or extremely dangerous for everybody in their country. I think it's fairly obvious if you're Ukrainian, whether you're Cuban or Venezuelan. Now, this is not to be confused with the temporary protected status. This is a different status that has been in use for at least 60 some odd years, at least. But apparently Trump can pull that away just like Trump is attempting to pull away student visas for people who have made plans. I mean, these are real human beings, I think it goes without saying, but these are real human beings who are, who are relying on promises that were made by the United States and obligations that were made that then they have the rope, the rug pulled out from under them. And I would imagine for some percentage, I don't know how big the idea that they went to the United States and the idea that they may go back to those countries could put them in a lot of jeopardy. Certainly I don't know if there are Afghanis under that, that classification, but certainly I would imagine there are going to be some. But let's get into the, the latest regarding the tariff. As you know, the, the court that specifically the deals with tariffs and trade found that Trump's invocation of the tariffs under a the Emergency Economic Powers act was wrong and illicit. That ruling has been stayed for the sake of appeals. In the meantime, Donald Trump, as you know, you played this clip yesterday, much to my chagrin, because I found this clip to be one of the most fascinating clips of Donald Trump in ages. Donald Trump was asked about this new acronym for that is being used by Wall street traders called taco, which is Trump always chickens out. Chickens out.

[Emma Vigland]

It's a chicken taco and I am hungry.

[Sam Cedar]

And Trump always chickens out. And apparently that's a taco trade is one where you're basically betting that his promise of imposing tariffs are actually not going to happen. So you buy when certain companies dip because of anticipation for the tariffs. But you're betting that this guy is always going to choke, essentially, and that he's cowardly.

[Emma Vigland]

I'm sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. No, it has actually nothing to do specifically with digestion a food. And it's just the name of it. And so these taco trades. And a reporter made the mistake made, obviously, the. I mean, you got to do it. Asked him about it, and he had, honestly, his reaction. We won't play it again. You saw it yesterday. I think he completely falls apart. I mean, completely falls apart. He. It feels like there's nothing that could. That could set him off more than the idea that he is cowardly and he's chickening out because his whole thing is bravado. And if. And it's not just that, like, it's coming from Wall street, and there is no doubt in my mind there is a dynamic between a guy who was a real estate developer in New York and the implication of Wall street money.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

And that. That relationship between finance and his real estate.

[Emma Vigland]

Well, he's obsessed with the stock market, too. Right. And he's desperate, I think, always throughout his whole life to be taken seriously by the real money people.

[Sam Cedar]

Indeed. And on top of that, like, theoretically, I mean, you all remember that we played that video early on this year of him right after he won the election in 2017 or 2016, walking into the. The 21st Club or whatever it was. Get your taxes down, and I'm going to get your taxes done. I mean, these are his people.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

And the fact that they're making fun of him behind his back. This is the thing. And I generally don't buy into, like, the Donald Trump's gonna be really mad if you retweet this meme. But this is different because this is not, you know, he's orange or it's hair, whatever.

[Emma Vigland]

And it's also, unfortunately, creating the wrong incentives for him because it's trying to get him to engage clearly in more like, risky, destructive tariff negotiations to create more uncertainty. Like, why are we egging him on with this?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, here's the thing, is that, like, you know, I am of the mind that you don't back down because you're afraid that he's going to do something crazy, because that's exactly what he wants. However, there are consequences to that. Scott Bessant went on the yesterday and on Fox News to talk about the supposed negotiations with China. And the bottom line is China basically said to us, f you, we don't need you.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

We're not going to bend to your demands. We're just not, you know, you want to end this, this relationship, end it. And here's Scott Passant, who, you know, a week or two ago was saying, like, we got this. You know, we got so many deals on the table. And here he is today. He's got a signal to his business. But, friends, that's what's going on here.

[Emma Vigland]

Right.

[David Dayen]

And what about China? Specifically China. And that obviously started in a different place. How can you characterize those talks now? I would say that they are a bit stalled. I believe that we will be having more talks with them in the next few weeks. And I believe we may at some point have a call between the President and Party Chair Xi.

[Sam Cedar]

So stalled.

[David Dayen]

There was a time when the President thought that that was moving forward pretty significantly. Again, I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other. They have a very good relationship. And I am confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his promises known.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, so let me go. Okay, Wait, wait, wait. No, just, I mean, just first off that I'd like to see him when he's exuding not confidence. He thinks the talks will start in the next few weeks. He thinks eventually Trump and Xi will talk on the phone. And then he believes that unless they do, nothing's ever going to happen.

[Emma Vigland]

That is not leadership.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, he clearly is just sitting in the bleachers for this.

[Emma Vigland]

They're at the window of the Mad King. It depends on how he rolls over in the morning and what he decides to do. And that's the whole administration is designed to. To that effect.

[Sam Cedar]

Now, the Mad King turns out to also be a coward, both in the fact that, like he's now been told to his face, you chicken out every time Passant goes on television yesterday and he's told that he chickens out on. That happened on Wednesday night, right? And he's fuming. And there's no doubt that he has not slept a wink because of that. And then Bessant. Bessant gets on there and says, basically, I can't do anything, and nobody short of the president can do anything because we can't tell what the president wants us to do.

[Emma Vigland]

Right?

[Sam Cedar]

And so he's fuming. He's mad that he's getting mocked by people on Wall Street. And this is what he comes out with. There's two things he actually came out with. One, he came out going after Leonard Leo because Leonard Leo had promised him, if you choose my judges, they'll never go against you. And it was a Trump appointed judge.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Who went against him on the tariffs.

[Emma Vigland]

It was a three judge panel, Reagan, Trump and Obama unanimous. That went against this, like just the emergency authority with the 1977 law. So we said this yesterday, but the aluminum and steel tariffs that affect the auto industry, they were used under like a more traditional authority where you have to apply and then public comment. But this, the schizophrenic Liberation Day tariffs are the ones that are affected by this.

[Sam Cedar]

And, and, and a huge portion of the Chinese tariffs are part of this sort of like Liberation Day. And okay, so this is where he goes after Leonard Leo and he refers to them. I mean, this is, he says, the US Court of International Trade incredibly ruled against the United States of America and desperately need tariffs. But fortunately, the full 11 judge panel on the US Court Appeals has stayed the order by the Manhattan based Court of International Trade. The implication, of course, that this has something to do with the fact that it's in Manhattan other than the fact that like, well, Manhattan's probably the center of where these trade deals are actually executed. Where do these initial three judges come from? How is it possible for them have potentially done such damage for the United States of America? They all three come from America. And as Emma said, Reagan and Trump and Obama. Trump and Obama. I was new to Washington. It was suggested I used the Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges. I did so openly and freely and then realized they were under the thumb of a real sleaze bag named Leonard Leo.

[Emma Vigland]

Let's go.

[Sam Cedar]

A bad person who in his own way probably hates America and obviously has his own separate ambitions. We'll, we'll go through this in a bit, but. So what does Trump do then? Today he says two weeks ago China was in grave danger. The very high tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to trade in capital letters, I don't know why, into the United States marketplace, which is by far number one in the world. We went in effect cold turkey with China. And it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, civil unrest. Now, incidentally, all of that is untrue. I mean, blatantly untrue. There was no civil unrest in China because of, there was a guy who.

[Matt Binder]

Stood in front of a tank with some groceries. That's an old fashioned word, groceries.

[Emma Vigland]

No, Trump's like the guy, like the ex, like, she's definitely not over me. She thinks about me all the time. China's like, we could do this all domestically. We don't care about you. You rely on our cheap goods.

[Matt Binder]

Also, the rest of the world buys from us, too.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly. And then he says, I saw what was happening and I didn't like it for them, not for us. In other words, I'm gonna. I'm a good guy. I'm nice. I saw that. So I made a fast deal with China in order to save them for what I thought was going to be very bad situation. And I didn't want to see things happen. This is where, like, a significant portion of Republican voters go, Donald Trump is so benevolent. Like, he even shows grace to our. Our chicom enemies.

[Matt Binder]

I guess we will sacrifice so that China doesn't have civil unrest now.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, what a good guy. But then they stabbed him in the back. Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. They must have reopened those factories and the civil unrest calmed down. Uh, everybody was happy. That is the good news. The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, has totally violated its agreement with us. So much for being Mr. Nice Guy. In other words, he is backfilling. I didn't get chicken out on the tariffs with China. I helped them out. Yes, I was a nice guy.

[Emma Vigland]

But this is where we have to, you know, make chicken taco out of chicken shit and create a situation where Trump is like, like, now that we. We can exploit this fissure with Leonard Leo. Right? Trump always chickens out of throwing Leonard Leo into a cold, dark cell.

[Sam Cedar]

I think you're overusing the taco met. Stop trying to make taco work, Taco. You're just trying to shove it into every meal.

[Matt Binder]

Shove tacos down my throat.

[Sam Cedar]

Taco chicken into chicken shit.

[Emma Vigland]

Trying to be creative. Chicken salad out of chicken shit. That's the phrase. Chicken taco out of chicken shit. There is no judgment in brainstorming, and I really feel like my creativity.

[Sam Cedar]

We should do this before the show.

[David Dayen]

It's like legalized comedy.

[Sam Cedar]

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No.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

It's. It's, it's foreign.

[Sam Cedar]

We are back. Sam Seder, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. And we are also simulcasting right now to the American Prospect audience and have with us the executive editor of that very same publication, David Dayan.

[David Dayen]

Thank you. I will welcome my audience to the weekly roundup. And I will welcome Majority Report audience. Thank you for having me.

[Sam Cedar]

And thank you for outclassing me in terms of the dress today. I've already been told that what I'm wearing looks like I slept in it practically. So.

[Emma Vigland]

Sam's getting bullied a little bit.

[Sam Cedar]

But that's all right. I can handle it.

[David Dayen]

I'm happy to join in, as usual.

[Sam Cedar]

That's very kind of you. So. Well, I, I want to talk about the A piece, but before we do, let's. You guys are running a. I don't know what you call it, a feature or. I mean, you do this. You've done this in the years now that you have been the executive editor, where you guys focus on one particular angle of what is going on within our government without it. And the Scam Economy series, I guess, that you're doing. I mean, tell us a little bit about that because there's some great stories there that people need to check out.

[David Dayen]

Right. So it's part of our June print issue. We actually send out dead trees to people if they want them. And so one thing we were thinking going into that is that when you look at the Trump administration, one of the hallmarks, and we've seen even more of this this week, is kind of this nullification of crime as a thing, as long as you're friendly with the Trump administration. Right. And this goes beyond just, you know, these sort of splashy, high profile pardons that have been going on, but it's really about the dismantling of, of an entire system of enforcement, many of which affects consumer protection. But it goes to a whole host of factors, whether you're talking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is on life support, or elements of the securities and Exchange Commission. All of these things that protect, whether it's investors, whether it's consumers, whether it's workers, those have been pushed aside. And so what we were thinking about was, okay, what does this mean then? What are the consequences of pulling back on enforcement to this degree? Who is going to come out of the woodwork and capitalize on the fact that crime is effectively legal to, you know, where are the emerging growth markets in scams? And so we identified a handful of these and did a series of pieces, I think five features about some of these areas where these scams can proliferate. And we looked at a bunch of different areas of the economy, everything from financial services to student loans to health care to energy efficiency and renewable energy to small business. And we found just some incredible stuff in all of those buckets and had some great reporters and writers bring that to people. So you can, if you look at the golden age of scams tag on our website, you can find all those stories.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, I missed, I missed. I misnamed it because of Matt Bender's podcast. But it's the golden age of scams. And I mean, we, we just had Luke Goldstein on the other day to talk about the Genius act, which is, I guess, slightly different in that it's going to be, or it appears that it's going to be codified in statute, essentially opening the door. But this is all part of a whole, in many respects, there are multiple sort of constituencies that are looking for these opportunities to essentially scam people. I mean, scam, I mean, I think it's a fairly accurate word. Right? I mean, that's what the, the idea of a scam isn't necessarily that. It's that it's like in this sort of gray area in terms of Legality in part because there's nobody there to, you know, to I guess enforce laws that may be on the books or that some laws are just sort of like rolled back. Right.

[David Dayen]

And you know, some of these areas that we were looking at, the previous administration was really on the verge of putting in actual binding constraints on these particular scams to kind of eradicate them. And in some cases had already eradicated some of these more lurid scams, taken them completely out of the marketplace. And this is in a host of areas. So one of the big pieces we talked about was door to door solar scams, solar sales loans. And it's kind of a web between the lenders, these door to door solar bros that sell people on rooftop solar and fintech companies that kind of put it all together along with the contractors. And the CFPB under Biden was doing workshops, they were looking, taking testimony from people, looking very directly at this issue. And we're on the verge of putting together regulations on it. And then the party changeover happens and CFPB kind of becomes a non entity and now these scams are ready to proliferate. What I say in the intro to this series is that there's an old, kind of an old concept in finance and in the economy, broadly called Gresham's Law. And what that means is the short version of it is bad money pushes out good money. And at the time Gresham, this was during the Elizabethan age in England and there were a lot of sort of private currencies out there. And the ones that were willing to be deceptive were getting, you know, the dishonest businesses were pushing out the honest businesses. And you see this across a broader segment of the economy. So if you have an honest business that's trying to sell rooftop solar to people, but you're trying to compete with these sort of deceptive organizations that sign people up to high cost loans and maybe don't do the work at all. There's just lower overhead in scamming people than there is in actually providing a good product and a good service at a fair price. So the bad businesses are going to push out the good ones. And this is sort of the pattern that we see repeated over and over in these stories is that it's impossible for honest business to compete with dishonest ones.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's turn to Trump achieving his goals, because I don't know if, you know, I don't know how much you know there. And we've said this from the beginning, you know, in the run up to this administration that destruction of our government functioning is much easier than sort of building it out. Right. And it's much easier to essentially handicap the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the sec, whatever, the Federal Trade Commission, I mean, on and on, these agencies that are supposed to protect citizens from scams in various ways. It's much easier to tear them down than to actually, like, establish goals of they're going to fix these things. It's obviously just much easier to do. I think, at least from the perspective of the constituencies that support Trump. I don't know if he's sophisticated enough to know, like, we've got to make it easier for these specific scams to continue on. But I do think that, like, the constituencies that support him are moneyed interests that largely just don't want regulation on businesses and want to maximize their profit on the backs of people in one form or another. To the extent that he has any good.

[David Dayen]

One of the constituencies per se that is wanting that type of deregulation so that they can engage in this wild amount of enrichment is the Trump Organization. Right. I mean, you know, one of the pieces we had Jacob Silverman, who you've probably had on the show, who is a real expert in crypto.

[Sam Cedar]

I am Quickie.

[David Dayen]

Is that right?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes.

[David Dayen]

There you go. So we had him to write about, you know, the sort of interlocking set of crypto businesses that the president and his family have taken on. Everything from meme coins to defy, which is deconstructed. I forget what it even stands for. But as part of Trump Social, they're putting in a financial services operation.

[Emma Vigland]

Decentralized, Decentralized finance.

[David Dayen]

That's right. And thank. Thank you. And, you know, all of the other various things. And the new, you know, Trump has. You talked about the Genius act, and that was regulation, to sort of legitimize stablecoins. Trump, through World Liberty Financial, which is one of the crypto firms that Trump Organization owns, is starting its own stablecoin. And they named it USD1.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[David Dayen]

Really, to associate it with the US dollar. So there are a host of these things, and it's, you know, a vehicle for bribery, a vehicle for, you know, a foreign country saying, hey, I just bought, you know, $2 billion in your meme coin. How about some favorable treatment on trade there? There are all sorts of ways this can proliferate, and ultimately the retail investors in these various crypto tokens and things like that will be left holding the bag. But that's an instance where, you know, there's no sort of line of Demarcation between the government that is making decisions on prosecutorial discretion and what to actually regulate and what not to regulate, and the regulated entities themselves. It's literally the same family, and it's the family that happens to be the President of the United States.

[Emma Vigland]

I just want to give people, because we covered this a little yesterday, a sense of how insanely corrupt this is. Like the story of Elon leaving Washington also is because he's a little pissed that there was this AI deal that was given to David Sachs and Sam Altman. Sam Altman with the uae, because the Trump family is all in bed with the Emiratis, but also the Qataris. Pam Bondi, so talking about the cops on the beat was literally a lobbyist for Qatar for before she was with Donald Trump, joined with Donald Trump. And now that was what that whole trip was about, the whole World Liberty Financial thing. They just did a multibillion dollar deal with Binance, which was the crypto exchange that the CEO just applied for a parting with Trump. He pled guilty. He was sentenced to four months in prison and was fined tens of millions of dollars. And as I guess that's, that's pending, Trump's company, crypto company, World Liberty Financial, is doing a deal also with the Qataris and with this Chinese cryptocurrency company.

[David Dayen]

And, and just to add on to that, just this week, the SEC ended all of its investigations of finance. So, you know, there's this, there's this synergy here between, you know, and.

[Sam Cedar]

Very coincidental.

[David Dayen]

Yeah. Binance isn't the only company where you've seen this. Justin sun was an investor in the Trump World Liberty financial situation and gave like 75 million to underwrite it, and then he magically got pardoned and his case got dropped. So, you know, we've seen this across the board. In fact, the Binance guy, Czech cz, modeled his pardon application after Justin sun. And all of this is in the piece. And it's such an enormous scandal that you almost don't believe it when you hear it. And it certainly has not been described in the media with the enormity of which it actually is.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Now, David, why don't you give Donald Trump any credit for not talking about the swamp anymore? And, you know, because at least, at least he's not being hypocritical about it. It would be a lot worse, don't you agree, if he was like, I'm here to clean up the swamp. But he stopped saying that he's here.

[David Dayen]

To build the swamp. I mean, right there's this like $500,000 invitation only club that his son. You have to give his son half a million dollars to be part of the club so you can get special access to the President. I mean, yeah. Yes, the rhetoric has gone. The rhetoric has gone from both sides. I don't hear Democrats talking about smart anymore either.

[Sam Cedar]

Nope.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. Well, Kirsten Gillibrand is heading the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee and is determined seemingly to make the Democrats as corrupt as the Republicans on cryptocurrency for some reason. Well, I know, we know the reason. It's Wall Street, New York City. Like, I mean, I. This whole effort with this Genius act thing to cement cryptocurrency instead of basically making like killing it is, is going to really scam people. And like, I don't know, David, like, what are the implications of all of this wealth being played around in these circles as opposed to like going back into the economy that would be circulating and like providing actually material goods for people? Because it seems to me that all of this, these billions and billions of dollars, trillions that are just in speculation for speculation's sake, that has to have an effect on every day's material, everyday people's material experience.

[David Dayen]

I think one of the reasons we wanted to do this series is because these kinds of growth spurts in scams often lead to a greater financial catastrophe. We saw in 2008 that what was just sort of a series of Penny Annie kind of mortgage fraud scams where, you know, they would, they would forge people signatures on documents to get them mortgage loans. What we learned inevitably was that was because they were so cross pressured, these mortgage origination firms, by this desire for more and more loans to securitize that it built this bubble. Built this bubble ultimately popped, causing, you know, massive pain, including for people who never bought a mortgage or had anything to do with the real estate industry. So if you look at that sort of in the context of crypto. Right. What the Genius act would do, it does a lot of things, but one of the, I think the major things that it does is it brings this bitcoin crypto world into the broader financial system. It connects the two in a way that I think Gary Gensler's main project at the securities and Exchange Commission under Biden was to keep these things separate. So that when we had this meltdown in 2022 with FTX and all these other companies that went under crypto firms, it did not affect the broader economy because there was this kind of firewall because you could not sort of have crypto assets tied to things in the real economy. Now, what a stablecoin is, right, is a crypto token that is backed by US Dollars or backed by real assets in some way. And because we're talking about enormous sums of money, the amount of money in treasury bonds and assets like this that are tied in these stablecoins actually have a market moving ability. So if there's a run on a stablecoin, and by the way, no stablecoin to date has kept its peg like they always seem to have problems. If that happens now under regime where it's essentially blessed and presumably that market will get even bigger, you could have a run. A run on a stablecoin would mean a run on U.S. treasuries. So the opportunity to cascade out a catastrophe that's localized in crypto into the broader economy is magnified by this legislation that sort of brings it into the perimeter.

[Sam Cedar]

And when we talk about these stablecoins we're talking about, they're going to be generated by platforms that hundreds of millions of people are already on in many respects. Right?

[David Dayen]

I mean, this is the other, this is the other big problem here is that you essentially have allowed a private currency, you know, constructed by big tech, to be be issued and, and blessed by the government. So, you know, back In, I think 2018, 2019, Mark Zuckerberg started talking about doing a private currency. We called it Libra, if you remember. And on a bipartisan basis, you know, that got completely shot down and ultimately was scuttled. This brings it back under a different form. So you could see, you know, Facebook, and they're already talking about it, building their own currency and saying, well, if you want to do transactions in Facebook, you're going to need to get this token. And that's the way that you sell and buy on Facebook, Marketplace, for example. And so then that stablecoin becomes an essential facility for the hundreds of millions, billions potentially of people who do commerce on Facebook. And that just magnifies this even more.

[Sam Cedar]

And this whole thing with the Genius act is that there's essentially none of the banking regulations that would constrain. I mean, what's to stop them? They peg it to the dollar on day one, but on day two, what's to stop them for going, like, we've issued a bunch more. And, you know, so like, there was.

[David Dayen]

A point a couple years ago where every single major stablecoin issuer was under investigation for exactly what you're talking about. You know, so that's the industry that we're sort of leaning into the Democrats. Sixteen Democrats who voted to advance that bill are leaning into with this legislation.

[Emma Vigland]

Ossoff voted for it too. Right. And that's cuz he's concerned about the Sherrod Brown situation. He's arguably the most vulnerable seat in 2026.

[David Dayen]

Right. You, you can't separate the situation with the genius act and other forms of bipartisan agreement on crypto with money in politics. I believe that the last numbers I saw were that if you look at all corporate spending in the 2024 elections, half of it came from crypto firms. A massive amount of money. And the 37 races that they took on, I believe they won all of them, except for Elizabeth Warren Seed. And that was just sort of token money that was thrown at that. That wasn't even a serious attempt. So, you know, crypto has essentially bought Washington and now they're calling in the chips. That's what this is about.

[Sam Cedar]

Aside from that being arguably one of Donald Trump's goals, self enrichment. You wrote a piece that. Because really, the only other agenda he seems to have other than extension of the tax cuts are these tariffs. And I don't know that anybody can really say why. Like, we. I don't. He certainly has not been able to articulate what the actual goal of the tariffs is supposed to be. It's both a revenue raiser in his mind, but also a way to build industry. And you sort of can't have both if it's gonna effectively raise revenue. It means that it's not necessarily building new industries in this country, it seems. Seems to me. But it's unclear what his goal is other than to impose tariffs and then let the tariff magic work.

[Emma Vigland]

It could also be an extension of the first thing where he likes tariffs because everybody has to come to him and then they have to do some corrupt deal. It's a way to cement his power.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, but in terms of like a. An active goal, tariffs seem to be it. And he has, he has not figured out how to do this.

[David Dayen]

I mean, I just think it's really funny. So, you know, you look at the Constitution and it clearly gives the full responsibility for imposing these kinds of duties or imposts, or I forget the exact phrasing in the Constitution, but it clearly gives that authority to Congress. I mean, like, no doubt everyone agrees over time, Congress has essentially given up that authority, and they've given up that authority in various trade pieces of legislation, whether it was the Trade Expansion act of 1962 or the Trade act of 1974. And there are you know, I read a Congressional Research Service report. There are six different ways that a president can impose tariffs that have is basically authority derived from Congress delegating it to the president. Trump picked the one way that did not have the kind of authority placed behind it, that would not subject it to judicial scrutiny. There are, you know, hundreds of times where presidents, maybe not hundreds, but there are a number of times where presidents have imposed these kinds of tariffs and used the system as it stood, whether it was for national security reasons or various other reasons. Trump instead decided, okay, I don't want to be limited by any, because some of these other things you have to do a fact finding or you're limited by the amount of the tariff or that involves reading.

[Sam Cedar]

That involves reading. I know he didn't want to be.

[David Dayen]

Constrained by any of that. So he said, okay, here's what we're going to do. This is the quickest way to do it. And you'd think like, if this is your project, like your four year legacy project, you'd take the time, like, you wouldn't worry if it wasn't ready in place the first, first day.

[Matt Binder]

Delayed gratification.

[David Dayen]

He's like, no, speed is the most.

[Sam Cedar]

I want the marshmallow now.

[David Dayen]

So what he did was he said, okay, if I use this emergency powers law and just say there's an economic emergency, and that emergency is we have a trade deficit. And so because of that economic emergency, I can impose unlimited tariffs whenever I want on whatever country I want, even if it's uninhabited. That is the path that he went down. And it was the one path that would not only would raise the ire of judges, but would raise the ire of libertarians. You know, if you look at what that. Who is actually the plaintiffs in the case that was decided this week, the lawyers are the Liberty justice foundation, which, like argued for Second Amendment rights, and a bunch of law professors at George Mason University, which is funded by the libertarian movement. He actually touched a third rail, which was the serious hardcore free marketers who then found in the International Court of Trade willing people to listen to their arguments.

[Sam Cedar]

And of course, first off, Ron Vera said that he could do this. The Navarro's nom de plume. And that scumbag Leonard Leo assured him that if he appointed one of his judges, he would always win, I guess, by the way.

[David Dayen]

So there was a three judge panel of the International Court of Trade was a highly technical court that hears these kinds of cases. And three judges on the panel were appointed by Obama, Reagan and Trump. And it was a Unanimous ruling.

[Sam Cedar]

So the Trump judge, Leonard Leo, told.

[David Dayen]

Me the rules against this is, this is the entire reason for that outburst today, is that it was a Trump judge that put this together. It was a pure curium opinion. So no judge actually put their name to it. It was just a unanimous opinion. But a Trump judge said, well, no, you've gone. There's no way for the Constitution to allow full delegation of unlimited authority just if you create a national emergency. And so now they have to think about other means. But the thing about this is important is a, this just sort of delays what is a legal authority. Right. I mean, he didn't do it the right way. But there are many other ways that are readily available to presidents to impose tariffs. And now today in the Wall Street Journal, they're talking about this plan B. The International Court of Trade in this ruling said, well, here's a way that you can do actual tariffs based on trade deficits. It's part of this other section of the Trade act of 1974. And you can do them at 15% for 150 days. So their plan B is, okay, we'll do that. And then in those 150 days, we will do the findings of fact that allow us to use other authorities to impose, you know, the tariffs that we want. So there is a legal way to do this. They just didn't opt for it. So that's number one. But number two, which is even funnier, is because they went down this road and because the Liberation Day tariffs were based on something that at least this court has found to be illegal. Now, we'll see if on appeal it continues that way. And this is probably headed the Supreme Court. But if, let's say the Supreme Court says, okay, you know, we, we agree, we're not going to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on this one. Wall street matters more to us than Trump and we're going to go ahead with it. In that instance, all businesses that paid these tariffs are entitled to refunds from the federal government. Think about, you're talking about thousands, maybe tens of thousands of companies that would then be entitled to a full refund of billions, tens of billions of dollars from the government at a time.

[Sam Cedar]

Trump coins.

[David Dayen]

Yes. Maybe at a time when they're trying to get under, get a situation where they pass the debt limit. Right. Because we're heading up on that.

[Emma Vigland]

It seems a little inefficient that they, you know, we have to now pay back all these companies. But like I just back to the first point you were making about the emergency authority. I think it's like Trump, that's part of the point, in my view, is that he's using emergency authorities both on immigration and on tariffs, the Alien Enemies act and this 1977 law that allows him to do it unilaterally. Like, even if this, he's not able to do whatever his goals are, he's already testing the limits of the Constitution and creating the situation and the precedent where he uses emergency authority for the actions he wants to take is part of the point.

[David Dayen]

Yeah, I think testing the limits is a, is a good way of putting it. You know, you would think that when there are authorities that are proven and well established, that he could just go ahead with those on his signature. His signature policy. Right. But I think there is, at least to Trump and some of his allies, value in seeing, you know, where the Constitution and where the current system limits his conduct. And, you know, if they, if they poke enough and find a place where it's not limited, they'll just flood things into that zone. Right. And so, you know, I think there's been, you know, we, what was it FDR during the Depression talked about bold and consistent persistent experimentation. This is bold and consistent or persistent experimentation in authoritarianism. Right. They're experimenting with, where they can break our system down. And they're just going to keep trying that over the next several years until they find a weak point. And that means that on one level, it looks like failure. And I do think that it's funny that the fact that Trump has this ambition that he keeps failing, he keeps flailing at. Because he doesn't do the reading. Right. But at another level, the way Emma's looking at it, it's like, no, they're just, they're just trying to find the soft spot. And when they do find it, they're, they're, they're, they're well set up to capitalize on.

[Sam Cedar]

Do you have a sense of, of where it, like, where is this stuff coming from? I mean, you know, supposedly Trump Jr. Read this book by Peter Navarro, and Peter Navarro in the book cited Ron Vera, who turned out to be him.

[Emma Vigland]

An anagram of his name to justify.

[Sam Cedar]

All of his theories on trade. And after speaking to Mas Reddis by an expert on, on the workings of the administration, my taco joke was better than that. Yeah, I guess. So I'm just trying to figure out, like, like, where is this coming from? Because, like, Scott Passant, we just played a clip before this segment of him besant of him talking about China, and it's clear this guy is, has about as much influence about what's happening as you or I do. He's just like sort of on the outs of this thing, you know, watching vaguely as to what's going on. He's our secretary of treasurer. Like, like, who, who is, who is it? Who is, where is this coming from?

[David Dayen]

Well, you know, I think once, once Trump, and for many years he has had this kind of very basic view that if you impose tariffs, then you force companies to do their manufacturing in the United States and then you build a new Gilded Age where we have a bunch of jungle like workers going into these factories and that's the glorious economy, the McKinley economy that he wants to recreate. So, so, you know, once you establish that, then he finds sort of willing yes men, people like Navarro who will put that together for him. And certainly there's no shortage of yes men in at least this Trump administration. Everyone from Lutnik to dissent to a certain degree. And, you know, I don't know who's like going, 1, 2, 3, here's what the policy is. But I'm sure when they brought the options to Trump and they said, okay, right, we could use these one, tariffs, but we have to go write a report and the report has to get public comment and then we can impose the tariffs. And this is what we did in the first term and you know, we announced it in 2017 and by the middle, I'm already bored.

[Sam Cedar]

We got bored. Do the big one or what's the big one where I get to say it's going to happen. Exactly.

[David Dayen]

There's an emergency and then you can do whatever you want and it turned out you couldn't. But you can see why that would appeal to.

[Emma Vigland]

Well, isn't he also banding about this idea that tariffs can replace the income tax? I feel like this doesn't get talked about enough. But this is like, this is. It reminds me of the gold standard libertarians from a while ago. Like, this is just real weird conspiracy right wing stuff about like the nature, like almost that's almost libertarian. But the tariffs aren't.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, that was, that was my point. If it was, if it raised the money that they were talking about it raising to replace the income tax, which of course is absurd. It's not going to. But if it did that, it would mean only that Americans are paying this money and therefore they're buying these products still. And therefore there's no domestic industry that's being built because they're still buying these other products.

[Emma Vigland]

Right.

[David Dayen]

It's an effective transfer from the progressive income tax that we have right now to essentially a flat tax. Right. A tax on all goods. And obviously on a marginal basis, people with lower incomes buy a greater use, a greater percentage of that income to buy those same goods. Right. So, you know, it's essentially we're going from progressive to regressive. Every dollar that you transfer into a tariff from the tax system that we have now is, is a dollar that, that marginally speaking, goes into the hands of the rich. And this is happening all at the same time when they want to, you know, change that tax system even more to make it more beneficial for the wealthy.

[Sam Cedar]

Is there a timeline as to, you know, how many of these experiments on tariffs he can do? Assuming that Democrats are going to take the House, let's say, like, is there, is there any capacity for them to slow this role? You know.

[David Dayen]

Not really. I mean, we, we, you know, interestingly, with the tariffs that have been invalidated with the, the national emergency, there is a way for Senate to end the House, to force a vote on the emergency, to basically end the emergency, which would then end the tariffs. And we saw that in the Senate, and it actually got a positive vote to get rid of the tariffs on Canada and Mexico, I believe. And then the House just never brought it up. So under a situation, under a scenario where somehow these emergency tariffs are found legal, there is a path. There were 51 Republican, 51 senators in a Republican Senate that were willing to do that. So, yes, if in 2027 there's a Democratic House, maybe there's a way to invalidate the national emergency, but then you can just sort of start a new national emergency, I suppose. But, you know, if he uses the sort of Section 301, Section 201 of the Trade act of 74, or Section 232 tariffs, I mean, this gets really wonky. But those tariffs are pretty well established in law. Like, a lot of presidents abuse them, including Democratic presidents. And so I don't really see a way, it doesn't really matter what the makeup of Congress is as to the authority they've already given up to presidents to impose certain tariffs under certain conditions.

[Sam Cedar]

So, I mean, briefly, I mean, this is so hard to predict at this point. Like, but what is, like what is the impact that going to be on the economy and inflation? Like, we're not seeing the inflation numbers that I think people started to think we would start to see now. Like, you know, there are anecdotes. Walmart says they're raising prices. I think Target said that they were raising their prices. You know, I saw the. That style New York Times guy. I can't remember his name, but on Twitter, Derek. Yeah, maybe it was on Blue Sky. You know, J. Crew pants are now like 20 bucks more than they were five weeks ago or something. Are we gonna see, like, when are we gonna start to. It just. It's changing so much. Aside from the taco trades, where people are making money just betting that Trump is going to F this up or back down at any given point. Although now maybe that dynamic has changed. Like, where are we going to first see the implication of either the tariffs themselves or the incredible unpredictability of what the tariffs will be?

[David Dayen]

Right. I mean, you know, first of all, the fact that he has backed down on numerous occasions means that not back down.

[Sam Cedar]

I was being nice.

[David Dayen]

Yeah, he was being nice. The fact that that's happened has diminished the impact here because nothing has been in place for more than at the largest number a month. So we just haven't had time to see that manifestation into the economy. There was a huge sort of forward movement trade where a lot of companies got their goods in, in January, February and March and locked in those with. With the lower tariff number. So that that one month when goods really weren't coming in from China because you had 145% tariffs, if you look at the numbers in the first quarter, that the trade numbers are through the roof because people were trying to get their goods in before that number expired. So that's one big reason why we're not seeing the effects yet in. In stores is because some of the goods were already here. They bulked up their inventory before the tariffs hit. And so I think the next few months are going to be really interesting because we had a month of essentially no trade between the US And China and turning that back on just because they went down to 30%. First of all, some companies might not even be able to afford the 30%. Second of all, Chinese suppliers have kind of moved on there. It isn't as easy as, okay, they're down to 30%. Get me those goods. Again, there's a lot of sort of sequencing and stuff that has to go on. Those suppliers might have gone out of business. Those suppliers may be supplying companies in Europe or other companies in other parts of the world. So US Companies have a problem with getting those relationships restarted. So, you know, once it takes time for those increases in inventory to sort of draw down. But I think we were just starting to see them draw down as we hit the beginning of May, right before, you know, Taco man decided to do his business, we do a podcast. Matt Stoller and I do a podcast called Organized Money. And we had on a guy who's the CEO of a stainless steel water bottle maker. And we were talking to him about the whole tariff situation. He said, you know, and this was in early May. He said, I'm starting to get calls from retailers saying, do you have any inventory? I'll take anything you have. And he was one of these guys that pulled his inventory forward. So he did have some inventory that was available. The point is that there were signs and hints of desperation of how are we going to fill these shelves? So the stocks were just starting to go down and then he pulls off the trade, he pulls off the very large tariffs. So it's unclear, you know, where that landed. After he pulled off the tariff. It's going to take some time to reestablish those relationships. And we could, you know, I would say June, July. It's going to be very interesting to see what is happening at your local retailer, particularly in retail establishments that have disproportionately, disproportionately large numbers of Chinese goods. Toy companies, you know, for example, Dollar Tree, dollar stores. I take a look in the next couple months and see if their shelves are still stocked and see what their prices are, because that's going to tell the tale. I do think that there was enough of a gap there that we are going to see some serious disruption. We're just not there yet.

[Emma Vigland]

Trump's approval rating. Dave Weigel made this point the other day on Twitter. Like, Trump's approval rating has, has kind of gone back up again because I don't think that the hit has happened yet, but just, just undercutting, as Dave said, the premise that like Chuck Schumer basically say we should just roll over and play dead and let the economy fall apart and then people will automatically blame Trump for that. Like, that's not. That may happen.

[David Dayen]

Taco is a self preservation instinct that Trump still has. The reason that he chickens out is that he knows that the economy won't be able to sustain his insane ideas. And he, you know, there is a lizard brain part to this where he's like, okay, yeah, I can only push this so far. And we saw massive rebounds this week in consumer confidence because Trump took off the China trade and suddenly everyone thinks everything's okay because the effects have not trickled down into people's lives just yet. I think that that's coming and we'll probably See some moves back in that direction, but it really depends on how much taco ing goes on. Like he could pull off all of these. Eventually he could get around to the idea of what he should have did in the first place, which is ride the Biden economy that was actually working and just message it differently. I don't know that we're going to get all the way back to that, but when he chickens out, it's basically saying, yeah, Biden had a good economy. I mean, that's effectively where he's going to that.

[Sam Cedar]

It's called being nice. You don't get it. You don't get it. David Dayan, always a pleasure. We will put a link to the, to your feature on the scam, the golden age of scams.

[David Dayen]

Yeah, I just, I just want to say real briefly, I can talk about just in abstract. We talked about the crypto story, we talked a little bit about the solar story. We did a piece on medical credit cards. These are, if you go to the doctor and you can't afford it, they will offer that has.

[Sam Cedar]

Layaway.

[David Dayen]

It's not layaway, it's a credit card. But if you don't pay it off, there's this massive amount of interest that comes in. Sometimes these credit cards are given to people while they're under anesthesia. That's when they're enrolling people.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh my God.

[David Dayen]

CFPB was working on doing something about this until Trump. I did a piece on student loans. Obviously we have collections that have returned on student loans. They're garnishing wages. That is opening up the landscape for scammy debt relief companies that say, oh, I'll get rid of all your student loan debt and then they do nothing, but they take 40 bucks a month from you. There are a host of these kinds of scams afoot. And then the piece we have up today by Mokatzik about merchant cash advancers, there's like payday loans for small businesses and it's populated by this absolute rogues gallery of real, like the lowest part of the economic bottom feeders who have been doing this for years and years and years. And now it's become almost normalized to the degree that you're seeing companies like Amazon get into Merchant Cash advance and United Health and other companies doing these payday loans for small businesses. I mean, we came up with some great stuff here. And so if you go to prospect.org, look up the golden age of scams, you'll find all of the pieces we have.

[Sam Cedar]

David. Dan, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us.

[Emma Vigland]

Thanks, Dave.

[David Dayen]

Thanks a lot. All right.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay folks, we're going to head into the fun half of the program.

[Emma Vigland]

It just occurs to me like as David's talking about this, how much like this industry of putting things on credit is exploding or like we. I can't get over that anecdote that Katrina Van. It's not an anecdote, but Katrina Van Den Hoovel did in her piece in the Nation about how like now Doordash and Klarna, that buy now, pay later company are entering into a partnership. Like if you're getting a fifteen dollar sandwich, you're paying it in four installments over four over, you know, what, eight weeks. And like if you don't pay, you get insane interest charges. And these are like these services that every company is kind of putting in their checkout options and it's completely unregulated. Like what kind of economic desperation are we in right now? We just hit a record of credit card debt. It's going to keep getting worse.

[Matt Binder]

Those companies own our politicians.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[Matt Binder]

What's their motivation? Do they want people with savings? Because guess what they could do is pay off their debt and not have to pay more interest on it. Of course they don't want that.

[Emma Vigland]

Right, right. So it's, it's a bad situation.

[Sam Cedar]

Bad situation. Oh, there was a couple of things I wanted to plug before we go folks. Tonight at the Elysian in Los Angeles, the Pituation Room is having a, a big show. We'll put a link to it. I can't, I don't know who the guests are.

[Emma Vigland]

Is John. I'd have Roller going to be there.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, I think so.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah. So John's a great guy, Francesca, obviously. Great. Check those guys out. You can probably meet them. Take a picture.

[Sam Cedar]

We'll put a link in the podcast in the YouTube descriptions so you can go and check it out.

[David Dayen]

By taking wanted to make comedy illegal.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, now it's going to be legalized. Also want to draw your attention. Maybe you guys can pop this up. There's a fundraiser to actually two different folks. Let me know about this, you know, as Just Coffee was started basically in support of farmers in Chiapas. The, the water in Chiapas under siege. Pop this up here. And some folks down there in Chiapas are attempting to build essentially a new reservoir to supply 30 families with clean water and irrigate 50 hectares of crop. There are droughts that are accelerating. There are families that have no backup plan. They're going to practice regenerative farming. The land is going to be divided into 70% forest reserve, 15% water access and reforestation zone and a 15% regenerative agriculture. It's essentially, basically, you know, the opportunity even for farming in Chiapas is dwindling as it goes. So if you got a couple extra bucks they're looking to raise what I as far as I can tell is somewhere around 80 grand in US dollars, about 87,000. $87,000. 87,000 in US dollars. So if you have a couple bucks, help them out. You can find it by going to Bit Ly. Bit Ly. Chiapas Water. Chiapas water. And we will put that link in the podcast in the YouTube description. It's co op they got building down there and you know, obviously there's a lot of different gofundmes that are out there, but this type of solidarity I think very helpful as a model. So we will put that link in the podcast and YouTube description also just coffee co op very supportive of their suppliers in Chiapas and in throughout I think the African continent use the coupon code. Majority get 10% off. Matt, what's happening with Left Reckoning?

[Matt Binder]

Yeah, we had a Ro Khanna on to talk. I asked him a question about well kind of is horrors of socialism Bill but we skirted past that to talk about how America is getting its clock cleaned by, you know, China on issues like rail and BYD and things like that. And he had an answer that I actually appreciate, which is that we have a model in America that we can look toward. And this weekend Sandeep Fahison who has been on this show, but he has a book called Democracy and Power about public utilities and the need to actually have more things like the TVA is how I decide to look about creating abundance of particularly energy in America. You know, it's not exactly airport read, it's more scholarly and it's University of Chicago Press and I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to get serious about doing things in the United States of America.

[Emma Vigland]

It's not a what.

[Matt Binder]

An airport book.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh.

[Sam Cedar]

Quick break. We're gonna head into the fun half of the program. We will take your IMs. We'll, we may take a phone call or two. We got a lot of clips to get to. We'll be right back after this. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second.

[David Dayen]

Hold on.

[Sam Cedar]

Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program.

[David Dayen]

Matt.

[Sam Cedar]

What is up, everyone? Fun hat. No. Mickey, you did it. Fun hat.

[Emma Vigland]

Let's go, Brandon.

[David Dayen]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[David Dayen]

It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false.

[Emma Vigland]

No. I'm sorry. Women.

[Sam Cedar]

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[David Dayen]

Where is this coming from?

[Emma Vigland]

Dude?

[Sam Cedar]

But dude, you want to smoke this? 7A. Yes.

[David Dayen]

You're safe.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes.

[David Dayen]

Is this me?

[Sam Cedar]

Is it me? It is you.

[David Dayen]

Is this me? Oh, it's me.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[David Dayen]

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm gonna go snow white. Who? Libertarians.

[Matt Binder]

So stupid.

[Sam Cedar]

Though common sense says of course.

[Emma Vigland]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We nailed him.

[Emma Vigland]

So what's 79? 21.

[Sam Cedar]

Challenge map.

[David Dayen]

I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96. I want to say. 8 5, 7, 21 0. 83 5, 5, 011 half.

[David Dayen]

3, 8, 9, 11.

[Sam Cedar]

For instance.

[Emma Vigland]

$3,400. $1,900. 54.

[Sam Cedar]

$3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game. Actually.

[Emma Vigland]

You're making me think less.

[Sam Cedar]

But let me say this. You call it satire.

[David Dayen]

Sam goes to satire.

[Sam Cedar]

On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you. All right, folks, folks, folks.

[Emma Vigland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigland]

But you should know.

[Sam Cedar]

People just don't.

[Matt Binder]

Like to entertain ideas anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

I have a question. Who cares?

[Matt Binder]

Our chat is enabled, folks.

[Sam Cedar]

I love it.

[Emma Vigland]

I do love that.

[Sam Cedar]

Got to jump. Got to be quick. I got to jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o' clock. We're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Emma Vigland]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[David Dayen]

Love you. Bye.

[Sam Cedar]

Love you.

[David Dayen]

Bye.

[Sam Cedar]

Bye.