
It's Casual Friday my friends, and boy do we have a lot to celebrate. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are having an ugly public break up and we are here for it. Bit what does all this mean for Trump's Big Beautiful Bill? Heather "Digby" Parton is here to...
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Sam Cedar
Hey folks, today's episode brought to you by sunsetlake sabade.com use the code left is best. You'll get 20% off. 20% off of things like the goodnight oil. I always bring that up first because it's my favorite. But that's Saba day and Seba N helps you go to sleep. But you can get tinctures with just Seba day. You can get them in three different flavors. You can get them in multiple different concentrations. They even have a seven day tincture for your pets. Also it is longtime listeners will know I am a summer eczema sufferer and I have some on the top of my toe.
Matt Lech
That's not a fun place.
Sam Cedar
Too much information but it is really uncomfortable. But I have been using my Seba day solve which is actually for muscles but I don't know what it is. The arnica or whatever it is.
Matt Lech
It works.
Sam Cedar
It works on my eczema. That is an off label usage. But they also have fudge which I also use as an off label usage. I use it as just fudge with Seba day which is gets a little bit mellow. They also have Seba day coffee and they have smokables, keefe pre rolls, all sorts of products, all third party tested, all grown without pesticides. All grown by a company that has $20 minimum wage and mostly employee owned and a company that is a movement partner. They have donated tens of thousands of dollars to things like strike relief funds, Planned Parenthood, carceral reform, refugee resettlement. They've engaged in a mutual aid up in Vermont. You cannot go wrong with these guys. Sunsetlakesebade.com use the code. Left is best. 20% off. Also I should get to tell you they got, you know, they got the gummies and this and that but all of it makes a great gift.
Matt Lech
Nice.
Sam Cedar
Makes a great gift. I mean I don't know what the occasion would be. Father's day is coming up.
Matt Lech
True.
Emma Vigeland
If you know somebody that needs to relax.
Sam Cedar
Exactly. Now time for the show the Majority Report with Sam Cedar. Where every day's 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, June 6, 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, Heather Parton, you may know her as digby writer@salon.com and the Uber blog Hullabaloo to look back on this interesting week in the news. Speaking of which, Trump Musk fallout cost Tesla bigly. But will it make a difference to America? Meanwhile, Republicans scramble to save their huge tax cut bill for the rich from the fallout from Musk's implosion. And the Senate decides to consider cutting Medicare. US Imposes sanctions on four International Criminal Court judges for having the audacity to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant. No word about any problems with Hamas leaders. Russia launches biggest attack of the war on Ukraine in retaliation for the drone attack on the Russian air force. Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order banning Trump's order to shut down international students at Harvard. ICE arrests 15 including a 3 year old child in San Francisco.
Matt Lech
That makes me feel safer.
Emma Vigeland
Criminals is a gang member.
Sam Cedar
University of Michigan is using private undercover spies to surveil pro Palestinian rights groups on campus. Trump administration to fire over 90% of the voice of America workforce and hiring slows to 139,000 in May but beating expectations. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us. It is casual Friday and this is I think the first casual Friday where I'm wearing a soft collared shirt and a short sleeve shirt for the season.
Matt Lech
There you go. It's an auspicious day.
Sam Cedar
Yes. People are very excited about that because.
Emma Vigeland
What should have put that in the show notes.
Matt Lech
Yeah, it got over 80. Yeah, there you go.
Sam Cedar
Well, I can't, I can't get into it. But I'm worried about my cat jumping out the window because of the screens. I have, I've got to fix the screens so I can't open the window. And it is, it is like a, it is like one of those like sweat lodges in my apartment. So it was an easy choice for me.
Matt Lech
Wow. So, you know, the, the sensory feelings or. I'm thinking about it probably smells pretty good.
Sam Cedar
Okay.
Matt Lech
Yeah, I'm okay.
Sam Cedar
Oh, no, it smells.
Emma Vigeland
No, it smells crazy in there.
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
Matt Lech
I was trying to be polite, but.
Sam Cedar
The cats, your apartment, probably the cat's been like marking his territory. It's been, it's been, it's been a difficult. That's what this way. June may been a tough couple of months.
Emma Vigeland
This is what you say to the cat.
Heather Parton
You're not, you don't respect the rule of law.
Matt Lech
You've shat all over it.
Heather Parton
That's what you did.
Sam Cedar
Yes. Say that to the cat. That does not Respond this. I am snake balloon Sam. Sorry for awkwardly saying left his best to you on the street yesterday, then running away. I got too nervous and didn't want to bother you on your day off. I can't tell you how much I appreciate when people come up and say that. It's very nice and. And it's even better. I think I was with Saul.
Matt Lech
Cool points.
Sam Cedar
It gives me somewhat. Somewhat, somewhat. It's really just more. It becomes confusing for him.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
He's like, what?
Matt Lech
Yeah, who cares about this guy?
Sam Cedar
Exactly. But I had a nice day off. We went to the top of the Empire State Building.
Matt Lech
Oh my God.
Sam Cedar
Had it off for eid.
Matt Lech
I've never done that here my whole life.
Sam Cedar
We both had weak knees. Before we get into it, we got an email from Ronald Reagan, who is our unofficial immigration attorney correspondent. He doesn't know that I just actually gave him that title.
Emma Vigeland
He's not compensated for it?
Sam Cedar
No, no, not at all. And. But in return, we don't tell his clients that he spends an inordinate amount of time calling the show making like lewd jokes, impressions. Yeah, he does have some points that he would like us that he thinks would be helpful for immigrants to understand in this time where there is like the ice. We know now from reporting that Stephen Miller and DHS head Kristi Noem have told ICE that they want a five fold increase in the number of daily detentions up to 30, excuse me, 3,000 a day.
Matt Lech
We just hit a record. I think it was 2200 Wednesday or Tuesday. That was the highest point yet in the administration. And they're achieving this by basically going to people's scheduled immigration hearings and picking them up there.
Sam Cedar
Here is his advice. If you're an immigrant, and we will clip this so that you can send it to friends and family. If you're an immigrant who came to this country to seek asylum and have been in the United States for less than two years, there's a chance, but not a guarantee that the ICE attorney at your hearing could move to dismiss proceedings which would put you at risk of being detained in the hallway on your way out. That's what's starting to happen. It is important that you tell the judge you object to the motion and that you should be afforded at least 10 days to respond to any motion per the E O IR practice manual. The E O IR practice manual. And you can look that up for what that is. But I think if you say that to the judge, they'll know if you're arrested. There is still a pathway for seeking credible fear interview and pursuing your asylum application. However, failing to appear will result in an absentia removal order and no opportunity to pursue relief. So far, he adds, we have not seen action against people who are appearing for immigration hearings after having spent more than two years in the country, for what it's worth. But it's quite possible they may work their way up to that. ICE attorneys across the country have begun the process of recalibrating.
Matt Lech
Recalibrate, recalibrating.
Sam Cedar
Thank you. Old cases that were administrative administratively closed as a matter of prosecutorial discretion. One of the goals here, I believe, writes this immigration attorney, is to hand out more in abstention removal orders when many of these people fail to appear for newly scheduled hearings. If you're an immigrant who ever had a case closed, it's going to be very important that your former attorney has your current contact information. If your attorney has moved, retired or died, RIP it is a good idea to contact a new attorney who can help you update your contact information with the Immigration Court. If you ever had a case that was closed but don't have an attorney or cannot afford one, you can call the Immigration Court hotline and check for future hearing dates. The number is 1-800-898-7180. There is also a link we will put that in the podcast description where you can check online if you have a future hearing date. So the idea is they could go back and I think they could go back at least 10 years and if your case was closed, like during the Obama administration because they had, out of prosecutorial discretion, decided not to pursue people in your situation, ICE is going to reopen those cases or they're, you know, that seems to be their strategy. Put them on the docket, know that it's unlikely you could hear about it, then say you didn't show up for your hearing, then go after you. So get in touch with your attorney and let them know where you are. Maybe we can get this posted in the Discord as well, but we will clip that.
Matt Lech
And there was a great article in Boltz magazine about this local race, but it opened with this anecdote from a woman who drives around even though she, I think, became a citizen when she was three or four with her passport on her all the time now. And we hate to have to give that advice, but there's you should like you're going to be racially profiled very likely as this continues to escalate. And so for folks that have those documents, it's disgusting, but we'd encourage you to hold onto them for your safety and have them on you at all times.
Emma Vigeland
And we should say, like, these sort of forces who do this, they're so unlawful, lawless that even if you have IDs, sometimes they can say, well, I don't believe that, and detain you for a long time anyway.
Matt Lech
We saw that in Florida.
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
Matt Lech
That. That American citizen. So, yeah.
Sam Cedar
Meanwhile, let's turn for the moment to there, apparently there was a tiff between Elon Musk and Donald Trump yesterday and Fight. Exactly.
Matt Lech
We're rooting for the fight.
Sam Cedar
And we'll get into the potential implications of this with Digby. I mean, at the end of the day, that's the most important thing about it. But at one point, Elon Musk was contemplating essentially pulling back his SpaceX services contract that NASA has contracted with him to bring things to the. What is it called? The space station. And this is an idea that we will never see happen. But remember, Steve Bannon has been moaning about Elon Musk almost since the beginning of the administration. If not, then. And Bannon has a very specific take that I do not think is really. It puts a veneer on the Republican Party that I think it's not warranted. And I suspect, you know, if Bannon could actually follow through on this, rather than it being sort of his brand niche. Exactly. But nevertheless, he doesn't like that Musk.
Matt Lech
Is an immigrant, basically.
Sam Cedar
And here is Bannon, though, with a. With a solid idea about what we should be doing with the space program and what we use from Elon Musk.
Unknown Speaker
Doge was for any fanboys that still exist while you're wrapping up in your cape tonight, understand on Doge, there was. He didn't find any fraud. There's plenty of fraud out there. He didn't fight. This is President Trump's first complaint. Was this all bs, right?
Emma Vigeland
Say, like, there's not plenty of fraud out there. That's him continuing the same lie.
Sam Cedar
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Matt Lech
Except by providers.
Sam Cedar
Like. Like, what would be the. The motivation for Elon Musk to not find the fraud that he supposedly was out there? It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing. The whole Doge project was embarrassing. Is there fraud in Medicare and Medicaid? Yes, there are providers who rip off the program.
Matt Lech
Nursing homes, butchers. Yeah, yeah.
Sam Cedar
But across the, across the government, if you want to find fraud, the place you look for it first would be at the IRS and not the agency. But if you want to look at people who are defrauding the US Government and you don't want to look at providers, look at people who are evading taxes.
Matt Lech
But, and this is where Bannon's whole brand proposition is toothless, because he's supposedly against the Medicaid cuts, but he's backing up the pretext by which there be this, this, These Medicaid cuts are happening.
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
Unknown Speaker
Voices still exist. While you're wrapping up in your cape tonight, understand on Doge there was. He didn't find any fraud. There's plenty of fraud out there. You didn't find. This is President Trump's first complaint. Was this all bs, right? With the, with, with, with the Doge. The act that President Trump should be taking immediately. I think when he threatens to take one of the big programs out of SpaceX. President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production act to be called in SpaceX and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. The US government should seize it if a guy's going to sit there and start making quotes. Also, as we, Stuart Stevens talked back in January, I don't know why we haven't had a full investigation. Look, if you're going to deport illegal aliens, you got to deport illegal. Illegal aliens. The good go with the, you know, the goose and the gander. They got to go back to this. As Stuart Stevens talk about and go through everything about his immigration status. I happen to believe, given the facts that I've been shown, that he's an illegal alien and illegal aliens got to be deported.
Matt Lech
I mean, so it was Musk that all evidence points that he over. He came here on the student visa and then just didn't go to school and started working.
Sam Cedar
So, you know, to lie in that way, that's the fraud. I think there is a. Exactly.
Matt Lech
He committed immigration fraud. Yeah.
Sam Cedar
Now, the only, you know, issue I have with Steve Bannon calling for the seizure of SpaceX under the Defense Production act is that it gives people an opportunity to characterize it as, as authoritarian and fascistic. But, you know, maybe we should be doing some expropriation from folks like that now. I wouldn't want it to happen because there was a fallout between, you know, two former buddies or, you know, bro. You know, an interrupted bromance.
Emma Vigeland
Just men.
Sam Cedar
An interrupted bromance. But why do we allow Elon Musk to insert himself within a program that has obvious national security implications? This is a guy who has as much business with any other country. Unless we're going to make this technology open source, which we don't seem to be in the mood to do generally, why would we allow it to be held by a private individual who doesn't necessarily have the United States best interest in mind. In fact, I'm not even necessarily concerned that if he had a universalist best interest in mind, I'd be more interested. But no, he has an Elon Musk interest in mind. And so I think it shows the problem with allowing him into this process in the first place.
Emma Vigeland
It's a textbook example of why you don't have a billionaire. It's like, because hypothetically, he could get his feelings hurt and say, I'm not going to help the space station now. And that's literally what happened.
Matt Lech
Well, he already did it with Ukraine, with Starlink. Right. He already had some hissy fit and, like, tried to strong arm that. Arm them like a mafia boss. And this is what billionaires are, glorified mafia bosses who can throw their weight around and it can bend the rest of us to their will.
Emma Vigeland
They can do Sig hails and it's just like, oh, maybe that wasn't one.
Matt Lech
No consequences. You can be drugged up everywhere and try to do all this illegal crap in the federal government and no consequences. This the, like, what's. What has to come out of this, like, feud and where. Another thing why Bannon falls short is, yeah, we should be nationalizing this stuff because it should have never been outsourced in the first place. And it was also outsourced to enrich one guy to create the richest man on the planet who has all of this power because of the Republican policies that have been supported in the past. No billionaire should exist and they shouldn't be able to create these problems for the rest of us.
Sam Cedar
Nothing more to say after that, I hope.
Matt Lech
Yeah, abandoned wants to come out. Billionaire shouldn't exist. Then perhaps we can have a conversation. But until then is like his whole dancing around, it's all about. He's bummed out that he didn't get to prance around in the dark maga hat on stage with Donald Trump. And Elon took his place with his buddy. Yeah, he's just a YouTuber like us.
Sam Cedar
Yeah, he's just. For him, it's just booze. You know, you need to up your game to the ketamine, I guess, to get into the club.
Matt Lech
Yeah, that's the lesson.
Sam Cedar
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I do not.
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Matt Lech
Wow. Yep.
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Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
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Matt Lech
You gotta maintain.
Sam Cedar
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Matt Lech
It's ram. It's sa.
Heather Parton
And back.
Sam Cedar
We are back. Sam Cedar. What? Oh, took a little while. This is delayed response. Matt over there leaving some type of weird.
Matt Lech
I, I think it was you that messed up, actually. But we all need to go down that road.
Sam Cedar
I mean, it's been, it's been like eight years, 10 years that Matt's been working here. All of a sudden he just like rolls out a new hand signal gesture that I've never seen before.
Emma Vigeland
I mean, I think it was pretty apparent like this.
Sam Cedar
He like that. I don't know what that.
Emma Vigeland
Got something here.
Heather Parton
Hey, just keeping it for you.
Sam Cedar
Yeah, we got to keep it fresh. Heather Parton, Digby from the blog Uber. The Uber blog, hullabaloo, hullabaloo and salon.com. thanks so much for joining us, Heather. This week's a little more fun than some of the weeks that we've been talking about in the past. I mean, and it's, it's, it's cheap fun.
Heather Parton
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
But it could have some consequences. But let's talk about the cheapness first. I know you've written a bit about this. Did you anticipate this coming? Because I got to be honest, I, I did not think that they would have a breakup now. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow they're there, you know, they get back together. But I did not think they would come to this because they have too much value to each other.
Heather Parton
I think, yeah, I did think that they would have a breakup. And I've been writing for the last, I don't know, month. I think about how I could tell that something had shifted and that their relationship was definitely on the rocks. Maybe I've just been around long enough to see too many relationships start to go downhill. And I could see the signs of it between the two of them. And despite the big send off that they had in the Oval Office with Elon and his black eye and the whole thing, it just seemed really tense to me. And it seemed like there was something. It wasn't a policy thing. I think it was a personality thing. I think that Elon, as Trump said yesterday in one of his tweets, he was wearing thin and I think that became clear. And the fact that the White House was leaking like a sieve about his drug use and about all that stuff, I thought something, something's definitely gone wrong in the relationship. But I had couldn't have dream, my wildest dreams have thought what happened yesterday was going to happen. I thought it would be much subtler and that he'd just ease out and basically kind of disappear a little bit and doge it kind of, you know, fade away and they'd, you know, we, we'd take the place of it with this, you know, stupid one big beautiful bill thing and that would be the end of that. I had no idea there'd be a massive blow up the way that it was yesterday. So, you know, but they're both Dr. McQueen's and you know, what do you expect? I mean that's the personality that you're dealing with. And truly watching them in action yesterday, you know, this is a case of arrested development. I mean, I'm sorry. And I think, you know, this is MAGA all the way. It's their little boys. I mean who acts like this? What adult, I don't care who you are. What kind of adult behaves this way in you know, this tit for tat and Trump whining with the German chancellor sitting next to him and doing all this stuff. I mean it was just ridiculous. So yeah, it's fun. But you know, basically schadenfreude is the only fun we get to have these days. I'll take it. I mean, but it's kind of a mixed bag because when you realize that these people are the most powerful people in the world, basically it kind of gives you a sick feeling in the middle of your stomach to see this unfold.
Sam Cedar
It is amazing and disturbing to. And I feel like that it's hard to sort of like to conceive of this as, you know, as just like being, you know, not of that class of people in terms of power. Right. But these are two of the most powerful individuals on the planet and you realize they're both effing idiots. Like they're just, they're idiots and they have, they have no ability, no self composure and they're just completely in enthralled with themselves. But I think like the, the big, the big reason why this took place yesterday, who knows what's going to happen going forward. We can talk about that was because of Wisconsin. Because if Elon Musk doesn't go into Wisconsin with all that money and personally sort of like going in there to Seal the deal and fails. If he had been successful, he would have been a much bigger asset to Donald Trump than he is today. But all of a sudden, this threat of Musk coming into your primary with $10 million became a little less scary. I don't think it, you know, completely less scary, but a little bit less scary because, you know, you could actually run, somebody could run against Elon Musk on some level. And that really, I think, undermined his power with the administration for sure.
Heather Parton
There's no doubt about it. And I actually, it's been a big part of what I've been writing about in that his influence in the Republican and in the administration was massively diminished by that performance that he put on in Wisconsin. And you know, consider the fact that yesterday Trump brought up the Pennsylvania thing. You know, Elon's been running around saying from the very beginning that he got, he won Pennsylvania for Trump and therefore won the presidency. And it's been obviously galling Trump to hear that. And apparently Susie Wiles, because Trump referenced her in his comments. Susie Wilde has been saying, no, that's not true. He didn't. He wasn't the, you know, the defining factor in that race in Pennsylvania. Trump brought that up yesterday. It wasn't Musk who brought it up. Trump did, said, well, you know, he says he got Pennsylvania, but no, you know, Susie or Susan, I guess said has told me, no, that's not what happened. And then Musk came roaring back and said he wouldn't have won if it hadn't been for me. And there'd be a 50, you know, they would have if the Democrats would have kept the House and it would have been a 51, 49 Senate. You know, what ingratitude. The Wisconsin thing proved to Trump that Musk probably didn't win Pennsylvania for him, I think, and that changed his calculation as well. It's exactly what you say, Sam. And it also said something to the Republicans. These people were quaking in their boots. And it makes a difference in what we're looking at now, which is the influence Musk is going to have on the one big beautiful bill because that you recall last December when they had, they had had a very delicately negotiate because the Democrats still had the Senate. The government funding was about to run out. They were going to shut down the government if they didn't do a continuing resolution through Christmas. And they had a very, you know, they had a good continuing resolution negotiated with the Democrats in the Senate. They were set to go leave for Christmas. Everybody was happy. And Musk Went and threw a bomb in the middle of that, said on Twitter, kill the bill, and the whole thing fell apart. Trump knew nothing about that. He was in Mar a Lago having fun and he'd signed off on it. You better believe Mike Johnson did not negotiate that bill, that continuing resolution without Trump's okay. I mean, of course Trump had said, yeah, do whatever you need to do, just get it passed and you know, we'll deal with that. Trump threw a bomb in the middle of that and the whole thing fell apart. And remember, we were looking at Christmas with a government sh. And they finally kind of, you know, finessed their way through it and did that.
Sam Cedar
Well, Schumer capitulated.
Heather Parton
Schumer capitulated. And Johnson at the same time made a deal, a side deal that said he would do. When they finally did the big budget deal, you know, the big budget bill, the one big beautiful bill that he would make sure there was at least 2.5 trillion in cuts and that, you know, they would ensure that it would go, they'd get rid of the debt ceiling. That was the deal that he made on the side in order to get that thing through and to appease, you know, Chip Roy and the rest of the Freedom Caucus weirdos. So Musk had some juice. It was clear that he had juice with those guys that he could, he could get through his Twitter feed could, you know, motivate those guys to just stand up and say, absolutely no. Wisconsin changed that calculus because that was all based on the idea that he could bring in a primary candidate into any of these guys districts and basically throw $100 million at it. And of course he would win. So that has been a big, big part of it. And I think you're right, Sam. From the minute that happened, from the time I think you can time Musk's influence waning from the moment he. And he didn't just lose it. It wasn't just a narrow, you know, loss, it was a massive loss. And he had put his name all over it, you know, with the cheese head hats and the whole thing and all that money. And he actually made things worse for the Republicans. And that was a big lesson for them. And it's going to be a big lesson now because we're looking at the one big beautiful bill. A lot of people don't want to pass this thing for various reasons. I mean, we're talking about Republicans, Democrats, of course, they're against it 100%. But the Republicans, you've got, you know, two warring factions, you've got These, you know, so called populists, the Josh Pauly people who are concerned about Medicare, about Medicaid and the, you know, the populist appeal of the MAGA coalition. And you've got the hardcore deficit hawks and Musk is definitely on the side of the hardcore deficit hawks. But they're, you know, going to have to tread a little carefully because Donald Trump wants this bill passed. So it's going to be very interesting to see. I'll be interested to hear what you guys think. What are the odds that it's going to pass?
Matt Lech
You know, pretty much more likely than not.
Sam Cedar
Yes. Yeah, I would say 98%. Now, you know, what the exact form is going to be? I don't know. And I want to, I want to come back to this because I think the Democrats are not doing a particularly good job of, of making it harder for the Republicans to vote for this bill because they have no overarching narrative that deals with the really tremendous amount of lies that the Republicans are telling about this. And you know, but let's get there in a moment just for the sake of, you know, of this is a little TMZ ish. But the implications of this whole squabble are important. And if, if our recounting the timeline of this squabble in any way inflames it. That's good.
Matt Lech
Yes.
Sam Cedar
Yeah. And so, you know, butterfly wings.
Matt Lech
Yes. Fire. Yeah, I'm happy about that.
Sam Cedar
So. Okay, Emma, walk us through this.
Matt Lech
I will.
Sam Cedar
Because I will say, like, I was very, very surprised about this.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
Because I still thought Musk would deploy. You know, it's one thing for Musk to deploy, you know, $10 million and show up support, you know, and end publicly a primary, but it's another for him to like set up a third party independent expenditure, put the $10 million in, walk away. Nobody really understands that it's him until, you know, three months after the primary. And so I thought there was that mutual understanding. But these two boobs are so moronic that they couldn't help themselves. And I also wonder, you know, the rumors about Stephen Miller. Miller and Steven Miller's wife going with Mosque leaving the White House. Miller is probably the most powerful guy in the.
Heather Parton
He's running, he's running the administration, no doubt.
Matt Lech
And his longest running, a. Thank you, Matt.
Sam Cedar
And so, you know, if he wouldn't take much for him to say to Trump, like, first of all, it's gross about how he's taking drugs, you know, when he comes to meet you.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
And he's doing in front of you.
Matt Lech
Well, well, that is important, right? Just to, to, to highlight where I feel like it all started to go south. There was a New York Times article last week about his drug use. And within the first two paragraphs it mentions that Musk has not made good on his $100 million that he promised for 2026. Which feels like something that being thrown towards the top of the article means that it was being emphasized by the sources who were clearly in the Trump administration. Right. So that's when I saw that. I was like, that was a week ago. Then you start like he does that, that weird ceremony with, where Elon showed up with the black eye. Trump gives him the key and makes a point to be like, I give this to everybody. It seemed weird then. And then, then this is what happens. So he has the, this happened yesterday when we were on air. He has the meeting with the German chancellor and, and Trump basically says, like, I don't know what happened.
Sam Cedar
Yeah, play this one.
Matt Lech
I guess they have these little clips in here. So the Times is helpful.
Unknown Speaker
John and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we're well anymore. I was surprised because you were here. Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send off. He said wonderful things about me. You couldn't have nicer, said the best thing.
Matt Lech
So sad. Then this is what happens here. This is the other part.
Unknown Speaker
And you know, Elon's upset because we.
Sam Cedar
Took the EV mandate and you know.
Unknown Speaker
Which was a lot of money for electric vehicles and you know, they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. And you know, I, Elon knew this from the beginning.
Sam Cedar
He knew it for a long time ago.
Unknown Speaker
That's been, that's been, I would say, J.D. that hasn't changed. That's been right from the beginning. We've done a great job.
Sam Cedar
Elon knew that.
Unknown Speaker
Elon endorsed me very strongly. He actually went up and campaigned for me. I think I would have won.
Matt Lech
All right, we got it. We got it.
Sam Cedar
I would have won anyways.
Matt Lech
Susie says, I would have won Pennsylvania.
Sam Cedar
There is your point, Heather.
Matt Lech
So Elon responds, whatever, whatever. Keep the ev solar incentive cuts in the bill even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched. Very unfair. But he's starting to talk like him. But ditch the mountain of disgusting pork. You can be slim or beautiful with the bill. It's true that the EV subsidies aren't as important to his finances right now because like, that's more, I think in Europe, which is also significantly hurting Tesla. But he's worried about Space X. That's his new frontier. You're hearing that Tesla's meeting with people behind his back. Right. To try to replace him. He's on to the next thing. And I think the EV subsidies are a part of it, but not the full picture. Trump says he's very disappointed in him. Let's just go through what Musk said, because we heard this yesterday. False. This bill was never shown to me once and was passed in the dead of night. So almost no one in Congress could read it. Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 5,149 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.
Sam Cedar
Can we just pause here for a second?
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
How insane this is. Because. All right, let's just assume that it's, that it's true.
Matt Lech
Sure.
Sam Cedar
The idea that one individual in the country, and he knows it at least the idea that one individual in the country can change the outcome of which party controls the entire government. Government is so effed up. And, and, and all of this is going to be allied as like Elon Musk, you know, illusion, delusions of grandeur. But although some people may, may, may buy into it. But it is very arguably the case that it could be the, could be true. He donated at least one quarter of what we know, at least a quarter, quarter of what we know to Trump's entire sort of campaign fundraising. And this is why we should not have billionaires. I mean this is like, this is. Now this is going to be a crazy ass word if people don't know what this is. They can look it up on chat GPT. But this is what an oligarchy is.
Matt Lech
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Cedar
It really is. Yeah.
Matt Lech
So right. He, then he, he keeps going. We can go to the other spicier ones. He suggests a new political party. Andrew Yang immediately responded, then Trump.
Sam Cedar
Oh, and so did Mark Cuban, incidentally.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
With a big thumbs up of a third party with supposedly 80% of the people in it. But, but again, this is why the idea that, that Democrats would throw in with their own billionaires. Like they have their agenda. Yep. And it's, you know, at various times, just like we do on some level, like we find the Democratic Party to be the most useful party to carry out our agenda because there's just limited amounts of choices, frankly. So to do the billionaires. But the thing is, is the billionaires have a lot more influence and their agenda is a lot more narrowly tailored for A specific set of people than ours might be. Right.
Matt Lech
And so really, lastly, this is Elon's big bomb. He says that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That's the reason they have not been made public. Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.
Heather Parton
And then just take a second on the Epstein files thing.
Matt Lech
Sure, sure.
Heather Parton
Because I don't know, there was some utility in that. The hardcore Magus and the QAnon conspiracy freaks, of course, they all know what the Epstein files issue is and why that, you know, this is. It's huge, absolutely huge. On the right, they are obsessed with the Epstein files. They think that there's something in there that is just going to. It all has to do with this QAnon pedophile obsession that they have. And they think they're going to break this story wide open and it's being covered up by the deep state. And there's been a lot of churn among the MAGA people in this particular part of the MAGA coalition about why the Trump administration is not forthcoming with the files that they think are going to do that. They had this big pageant with Pam Bondi, who put out a bunch of binders full of stuff that had it and, and handed it out to these influencers, you know, this. What's her name, Libs of TikTok and these weird people that, you know. Yeah, yeah, Sarnovich and this group who are involved in all this Epstein, you know, conspiracy theory, they had them to the White House, they gave them the binders, and here you go, this is what you've been looking for. And of course, they were all thrilled to have their pictures taken. Then they looked in it and there's nothing new in it and most of it's redacted. So they are suspicious, very suspicious. And Bondi is kind of on the run on this, as is Trump, because they are being pressured hardcore by this, by the far right to release these things. And Bonnie said, well, I just found out that they're withholding some at the, in the New York, in the district, Southern District of New York FBI office. And I put, told Cash Patel that he needs to go and get these things. So this whole thing is happening on the Right. The thing is, is that Musk putting that out there, just absolutely put on, you know, online what they all suspect, which is that Trump is involved in this thing. Now, of course, and for a lot of people, this is the first they heard of the.
Sam Cedar
Well, that's the thing is it's of course, for us. Right. But the yeah, this is Elon Musk is talking to the people who watch Fox News all the time and those people have never heard a word of it.
Matt Lech
And I know, I just don't think it's that significant. This is my, my theory on this is it's worse that he said that help you win the election. And he took that. Trump doesn't care.
Heather Parton
Oh, I don't disagree. Yeah, like, I think it's worse. The rest of it's worse. The fact that he then he threatened to leave the astronauts stranded up on, up in the space station and not, you know, and he'd disassemble his thing, all that stuff is worse. But it's just interesting to me that the Epstein stuff, which suddenly now we're seeing all this stuff, you know, being, being out there in the right wing, you know, in the right wing ecosystem that may be reaching a few people who hadn't heard the idea that Donald Trump was involved. And let me tell you something, this pedophile thing that's on the right, it is a potent thing. I mean that's part of what their whole obsession with trans and all the rest of it is the bathrooms and everything else. And it, because I actually had people, you know, I'm related to saying in the last election going, well, I can't vote for Democrats because of all the pedophilia. I mean, believe me, these people are, or, you know, they're not exactly the Mensa. But nonetheless it's, you know, it's out there and you can, you know, I just think it was valuable. I agree with you totally. It's not.
Matt Lech
No, no, I'm not, I'm not even making valuable, I'm not even making an assessment on like the, the, the importance of it politically. I'm really saying that I doubt the sincerity of all of the MAGA people in caring about it. To be honest with you. They're on to PD Diddy. And I think that if Donald Trump is implicated, then they don't care. Like Trump.
Heather Parton
You may be right. Yeah.
Matt Lech
Trump is, is almost, is almost a religious figure to them. So like they explain it away. Like they do everything with him, with his philandering with like he's proud of his history in the past of being basically like a, a lothario. And he almost owns it and likes that he can get these people to vote for him in spite of it. The election stuff, his ego about victories is for me, this where I think Elon maybe have burned the bridge permanently. That's just my point on that.
Heather Parton
Yeah.
Matt Lech
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Cedar
I mean, the, and the long and short of it, and then, you know, this goes, this goes on and on with the whole Musk stuff. I mean, the, the big question is, and, you know, should we play this Ingram thing just to get a sense of, like, will this have any implications? Will this in any way harm Trump? Or really, the most important thing is what impact will it have on this reconciliation bill? Because I don't think. I think whether they get back together or whether they pretend to get back together or whether they stay apart and they just, you know, move on and find new, you know, new people to, to have a bromance with, I think the only thing that really can come out of this at the end of the day is going to be what happens with this bill. And you know what I'm saying? Like what, like what impact has it here is let's play this Laura Ingram thing because there's so many different cross currents that impact the House and the Senate bill. And we've already heard some squawking out of the House that they're, you know, people were a little bit upset about this and that being in the bill, they weren't aware of it. The Senate, you know, has issues that are different from the House bill. And if Musk is no longer a, a tool by Trump to discipline his people, people forget, and I imagine these politicians remember Trump doesn't do so well when he's not on the ballot. And so Musk had the cash that could actually fuel a race against it. He was the enforcer. The enforcer's gone. And it may just loosen things up a little bit in the Senate. Here's Laura Ingraham.
Heather Parton
And as for the president, he should simply disengage. Musk is his own person.
Matt Lech
The government contracts that he has stand on their own merit. They shouldn't be called into question. Threatening to poll them. That's not why, when five minutes ago, you were, you know, of course, hailing Musk's work and helping rescue the stranded Americans in space. Elon Musk is like the Thomas Edison of our time.
Heather Parton
He sacrificed for America personally and professionally.
Matt Lech
And he wanted to make the Trump presidency happen. And it did. And I will. All right, this is my quick theory on this. She's siding with Elon a little here.
Heather Parton
Yeah.
Matt Lech
So Laura Ingram's already been demoted from 10, right? To seven. That or her time slot.
Emma Vigeland
You're talking about time. Not on a 10 scale.
Sam Cedar
Sorry.
Matt Lech
Well, I mean, Trump and she's a seven now. The older she get, she's like she's aging out of the Fox News. They don't like women, you know, that are older and a little long and too. Yeah, she, yeah, she saw her colleague Tucker Carlson. We know from the Dominion lawsuit that they at least would like text and shit talk Trump and things like that. That, that who moved over to X to Twitter. Elon has deep pockets and he's seemingly willing to fund a lot of these right wing influencers, including, you know, just some of the like the shit posters you see on Twitter who spread all of this disinformation. Clearly there's like Twitter money behind that. Right. I wonder if she's planning an exit strategy and is trying to suck up to Elon on the way out. That's just my one thing I'm throwing.
Heather Parton
Out there, following Katie, Katie Miller, you know, I mean, maybe there's a whole crew of them that are gonna follow, follow Musk out the door. I don't know. That was interesting. I hadn't seen that with, with Laura. Seemed to me like she was pretty well hedging. You know, she sang Trump should disengage. I mean, that's a pretty strong sort of statement to him, I'd say. And this, this hero worship of Musk is enough to make me just hurl. Honestly, I just can't take it. Have you guys watched that movie Mountainhead by the guy who did Succession? No, I actually wrote about it in the context of Elon Musk earlier this week as I was watching this thing break down. And you know, there have been all these profiles of Curtis Yarvin, the guru, the Silicon Valley guru. These people, I swear to God, you know, I said earlier that it's a mass case of arrested development. It's so true with these guys. I mean, these people are just, they're like children. There's, there's just, I mean, it's all some kind of sci fi, pseudo intellectual intellectual, you know, bullshit basically, that they're all following. And, and these people, like Laura Ingram and a number of people on the right, maybe on the left too. I mean, you know, I don't doubt it. Are looking at these people like they calling him the Thomas Edison of our time. That's ridiculous. He didn't invent Tesla, he bought Tesla. You know, he's a huckster, he's a marketer, he's an entrepreneur. He's somebody, you know, he's very good at it. I'm not going to take anything away from his ability to make money because he does, does have a real talent for it. But as far as him being some kind of a super genius, look at him in action yesterday. You tell me, is that a genius? Because it. She shouldn't sound like a genius to me.
Sam Cedar
Well, to be fair to Elon Musk, he is under the influence of probably enough prescription and non prescription drugs, I forgot could kill a horse.
Matt Lech
I mean, ketamine's initially for. Isn't it a horse trick?
Heather Parton
It was a horse tranquilizer. This movie Mountainhead is, you know, it takes place among. It's these four guys who are, you know, there's the Elon Musk character and some others. I think one Steve Jobs and you know, these other guys that are all billionaires and they're all competing with one another at a time when the world is burning literally because the Elon Musk character has put out a new app that is making it possible to do deep fakes that are unique. You know, you can't, you can't tell that they're deep fakes. And so all over the world people are putting out these deepfakes and it's causing wars and refugee crises and they're, you know, they're terrorist attacks and all this stuff. And these guys are all sitting there watching it on their phones, right? They're at this mountaintop aerie for a poker weekend and they're watching the whole thing happen. It's fascinating. Not because it's a great movie necessarily, although it's done by the guys did Succession. So it's not like, you know, it's not cheap or anything, but you're. The way they speak, this nonsensical, you know, this, this, you know, I don't know, the self glorification of them as gods of the universe. And they talk about how they're going to take over the world, take over the country and stuff. This is what I feel like we're dealing with. It's like college freshman Ketamine Molly Fueled. And this is, these are these people. I mean they have way too much money as you said, Sam. No one should have it, especially not them.
Matt Lech
Right?
Sam Cedar
Let's talk about a little bit about just like the. There's two things that are, you know, relevant that are more relevant I guess to our politics ultimately than this fight. One is, is the attempt by or the failure of the Democrats to have an overarching narrative of their politics right now from which their attacks on this reconciliation bill can fit into. So when you have, and we'll do this, you know, a couple of these clips in the fun half, but you have The Republicans going out there and they have basically two major talking points about the cuts to Medicaid. One is, is that there's 1.4 million undocumented immigrants. They say illegal immigrants on Medicaid. That is 100% not true. It's just not true. Statutorily they can't be on there. There are, there, there are programs in the states, about 14 states that have, provide health insurance for undocumented in some way. The vast majority are probably children. Nevertheless, the Democrats have not formulated a policy on immigration that they can leverage into going after that talking point. And it fits back into an existing narrative that they've been talking about. And then they go on to say there's 4 million able bodied men out there who are just like, they don't want to get a job, but they also really care about their health. And they, they, they don't want to, they don't want any cash to pay for things, but they want to make sure that they, you know, they have a provider so that they can check their, you know, whatever it is.
Heather Parton
After all. Yeah.
Sam Cedar
As a 24 year old, 25, I just want to make sure that, you know, I'm healthy, my body's a temple.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
Somehow they're paying for their gym membership without any money, whatever.
Emma Vigeland
Mom's basement of the hospital.
Sam Cedar
Exactly. And because there is no sort of like cohesive message by the Democrats, cuts on health care. Right. Like, what is the Democratic position on health care? Maybe universal access. Like, it's just, it's not there. There's very little opportunity for Democrats to have any attacks on these lies resonate because they don't have a larger narrative for this to fall back in, into, to be, to be deployed to. There's no, you know, dryer, clothespin for them to hang stuff on essentially. And so that's one of the problems. Then the other problem is, which I think contributes to that problem, is that you have people now kissing up to Elon or still out there pursuing our billionaires. You know, and I have no problem with a billionaire who comes out and says the agenda should be to keep people like me from having a billion dollars and I support, you know, taxing this money away.
Matt Lech
Right.
Sam Cedar
You know, like, I would have no problem with that at all. There's nothing inherent in the individuals. But, but Emma, let's just use this tweet because I think this is instructive.
Matt Lech
Okay. Yeah.
Sam Cedar
So Emma tweeted out, go to my original.
Matt Lech
Yeah, so there was an article in Politico about this like immediately after the feud where Democrats some Dems want the party to be open to Musk as he torches GOP signature bill this is the quote from Ro Khanna. He has known Musk for over a decade. He said Democrats should quote be in dialogue with Musk given their shared opposition to the GOP's mega bill quote. We should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with. Khanna said a commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him. Also quoted in that article was Richie Torres saying very similar things. So Ro Khanna took it upon himself.
Sam Cedar
Well wait a second before I want to just analyze this because this is such garbage.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
First off off is Elon Musk a genius or not? Because a genius could could know what the different positions are of the you don't need what Khan is saying. There is not that trying to convince him the Democratic Party has more of the values he's agree with. Like how? Like just compare the fact like where did he get all the Tesla? Where did he get all this funding from? Where did he get the EV stuff? Where did the IRA happen?
Emma Vigeland
Obama didn't do enough for him.
Sam Cedar
Yeah, he knows except for Musk may have an agenda that maybe Khanna knows about or doesn't know about. I mean he's known for 10 years that agenda. There was an agenda in which Musk had that made him a lie with Eli, with Donald Trump despite the fact that the Democrats had done this. That's the part like where wait a second, everybody should stand back and say like maybe the question isn't is Elon Musk too stupid to know who gave him all the subsidies? Maybe the question is what is it that Elon Musk wants from the Democratic Party to be supportive of them and what isn't he hasn't he gotten And I suspect Ro Khan is also smart enough to know what that is. Now I don't know what it is. I have, you know, ideas, replacement theory.
Heather Parton
Maybe that's he seems to want that.
Sam Cedar
That it could be also just sort of like don't be so anti oligarchic. Don't be you know, coming down on I don't want the FTC sniffing around. I don't want there to be a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I want to be able to set up my own payment system and become essentially my own sort of economy. I mean those are the things that he wants and he knew he couldn't get him from the Democratic Party before maybe now Ro Khanna is saying, like, we should get it from there.
Matt Lech
And that is what's insane is this, this is why we're in this exact situation, because the Democrats took it upon themselves to help subsidize this industry as opposed to, like, you know, taxing the rich and not saying, like, hey, we should give all these Silicon Valley billionaires whatever they want. So Conor says this, then responds with this, like, if Biden had a big supporter criticize him, him, Trump would have hugged him the next day when we refused to meet with Robert Kennedy Jr. Trump embraced him and won. We could be the party of sanctimonious lectures or the party of FDR that knows how to win and build a progressive majority. And I just responded with it with the Nazi salute. Just this image here. And Kyle Kalinsky has a good point above it, too, where he just says, like, can I see Kyle's response really quick? Yeah, like, Musk illegally cut pediatric cancer research as well as hundreds of other things. He's a criminal, he should be in jail. And you should be calling for that. And that's the thing is, is like we're going to. The people don't think that the Democrats have strong leaders, such a low approval rating. People don't know what the Democrats stand for. They think they stand for weakness. Now we're going to say that the past five or six months where we have called out this guy for being a Nazi, for doing a Sig Heil, for cozying up to the far right, AFD Holocaust denying German party, for cutting pediatric cancer research for the USAID cuts, which, which likely mean that thousands, thousands and thousands of children are going to die because they don't have HIV medication. That, that's all okay as long as you give us money. That is what Ro Khanna is saying and that is why the Democrats continue to lose.
Sam Cedar
And I want to add one more thing too, here and then. Sorry, Digby will let you weigh in on this, but Kevin Cruz had a response to which I didn't realize at the time was a response to Emma's tweet. And Cruz made the point after Khanna cites FDR. In 1936, FDR closed out his reelection campaign by bragging to a massive crowd at Madison Square Garden that organized money hated him. And I welcome their hatred. He took 60% of the vote in a 523 to 8 electoral college landslide. FDR knew that having the right enemies could be a useful thing.
Emma Vigeland
Where did I hear that quote before for?
Sam Cedar
Well, yeah, we happen to play it on the show. But the opening of the show. But that's the point that, that, that Connor and I would imagine there's also a large contingency. We just, you know, he's. This is the one out there sort of promoting this because he has this personal relationship, I think, with Elon Musk.
Matt Lech
Frankly, and financial one with David Sachs, which continues to this day.
Sam Cedar
But the idea that, like, we should have negotiated with RFK on what exactly? And the, the idea that going after organized money, going after oligarchs, going after is a bad idea as an electoral strategy is bull. It is bull. It is bull.
Heather Parton
There has never been a better time to do that than right now. I mean, we've got, but they're not doing it. We've got Democrats in the Senate voting for this crypto bill to make, you know, stablecoin legal and use it as an alternative form of, you know, legal tender, you know, legally do that. This is insane stuff that they're doing. And it's all because they're chasing the money. It's obvious. There can't be, it can't be any more obvious if it, you know, if you ever thought before that maybe people were being a little bit too, you know, too suspicious by thinking that the Democrats were chasing money because they're really good guys who care about unions and blah, blah, blah. I think you have to, you know, right now, there's no excusing it. We've got these billionaires out there. This whole crypto scheme is beyond belief that they're actually doing this, that the President of the United States is making billions from this stuff while he's in office and his kids are running around running businesses to do this, that. And yet, for whatever reason, just this week there was a meeting among centrist Democrats in D.C. talking about how we really need to, you know, we need to moderate and we've got to be a little bit more say, we've got to figure out how to win by going for that moderate vote. And, you know, when you, you know, recite that quote by fdr, that was in the middle of the Great Depression, I mean, things were really bad. And, you know, anybody else might have said, hey, excuse me, maybe we need to, you know, back off on some of our plans and whatever, because Roosevelt was out there throwing everything he had at it and failing a good part of the time, but succeeding a good part of the time, and he didn't back off a bit, and he won with 60% of the vote. And, you know, which also shows that there's always 40% of, you know, know dipshits out there who, you know, are going to vote for the other side. But the, but the fact is, is that, that this is the time for this argument. There's never been a better time for it. Now it's here. People are showing up to those rallies with AOC and Bernie in vast numbers. There's an appetite for it. And it's not just among the far left. That is, that, I really think that that is a, that is an absolute illusion. If you saw anything in the last election, there were many reasons why the Democrats lost. It was a squeaker. But they did lose it, and they lost it legitimately. It was around. Economics was the thing that brought the, you know, the great middle to Donald Trump. For whatever reason, they were just unable to grasp that, you know, things were getting better. It didn't feel that way. I suggest that it's also this tremendous kind of sense that things have gone off the rails economically because of all this money. We've never had had billionaires before and now there are dozens of them. I mean, it's not just, just one or two. And look at the amount of money that a guy like Elon Musk has or Jeff Bezos or any of these, you know, super rich people. And I think there's a clear sense out there that there's something really, really, you know, wrong, fundamentally wrong with this. And the Democrats, it's an opportunity, I'm sorry, this is an opportunity for them to make this case that they've been wanting to make for. Many have been wanting to make for a long time about the big money. I mean, Bernie's been making it since the 70s. You know, I mean, this has been out there, but, you know, there had, there have been a group and it's not socialism. It's not, you know, there's no ideology in it beyond the sense that you cannot allow this much money to be in the hands of these, this few people. It never works out. It's going to be a bad end for us if we do it. And this little feud between the two billionaires that we saw yesterday, having a little boyfriend, friend spat, you know, in public, that tells you everything you need to know about how wrong this is, that there's something, I mean, come on, any adult who looks at that and says, oh, yeah, that's good, these two are the most powerful people in the world. Excellent, you know, wonderful. Things are going great. So I really hope the Democrats wise up on this and I hope that they, you know, stand together at least when we're dealing with this budget bill, God help us, because now they're coming after Medicare. And one of the reasons that they're doing that is because they've discovered they can lie and just say, no, black is white and up is down and there are no cuts. This isn't cuts. We're not cutting. Nobody's going to lose anything. It's all going to be great. And all we're doing is getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse. So all you people, settle down. The Democrats have got to make an argument on this and they've got to do it now. And it's got to be clear. And I know, you know, you got Ro Khanna out there saying, well, let's talk to Musk about an RFK Jr. I mean, you know, what are we going to do?
Sam Cedar
Exactly, exactly. And frankly, Chuck Schumer going on, attacking the Iran deal, things like that. I mean, this is all sort of like wasted. And it is. There should be one message and they should be going at this bill, not this other crap that they think is going to in some way, way disempowered Donald Trump. This is the fire that is, that is raging right now. The idea that FDR is out there going like, we need to explain to the Rockefellers and the Astors how the Democratic Party is on their side.
Emma Vigeland
The Duponts need to make an argument.
Matt Lech
I just have to connect these two things because I think it's really important what you're saying, Sam, what the Taco Trump daring of of him does and why it fits with what Ro Khanna is saying is both of these messages, messages undercut the extremism of the Republican Party. Taco Trump means. I dare you to do what you want to do. I dare you to go and go after Iran or whatever. I dare you. You're always chicken and out. Why don't you do these tariffs? So what does that mean if he doesn't chicken out? It means you're just saying he should just like do what he wants and there shouldn't. There aren't going to be consequences for it. Aren't we supposed to be talking about how there's real consequences for what Trump is doing? And then this, this also undercuts the, the extremism of Elon Musk and the Doge cuts and everything that he did prior to this. Why is this from Khanna, who likes to populate, brand himself as a populist, all the way to Chuck Schumer? Why is this the impulse for 90% of Democrats to make it so that we are not highlighting the extremism of the actions and the consequences of the action. Actions.
Heather Parton
I wish I could tell you. But I'll tell you one thing. This week, watching that, you know, the reports of that little meeting that they all had that the centrist Democrats had, where they were plotting on how to do it, you know, I've been around a long time and we did this already. It was called the Democratic Leadership Council. And after The Democrats lost three elections in a row back in the 1980s and Ronald Reagan won in landslides and the Republicans were on a roll, they decided that they needed to do something. And what did they do? Exactly this. And it was devastating for the party which lost the Congress for the first time since, what, the 50s, I guess.
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
Heather Parton
And of course they got Bill Clinton who came in and he would. And he, you know, one, only a plurality is over. And, you know, that's when this whole thing started to slide. So, you know, I mean, the Democrats, we've done this before for. It's like, I'm going, no, learn lessons from the past. We didn't lose in a landslide. This was no Ronald. Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan. He's barely got. He hasn't even got half the country with him. And he is not that popular. There are, you know, this whole thing is not a popular, this MAGA movement is not a popular movement. And don't, you know, over overreact here. But there's nothing happening since November. They've been overreacting.
Sam Cedar
This is what I have come to believe that this is not a question of like, learn from the past Democrats. When we see these people assemble for the new DLC or with third way or whatever we want to call it, whatever that, you know, their abundance, their, you know, a blunderance movement or whatever it is, they. This is not, not people not learning a lesson on how to make the Democratic Party successful. This is a faction within the Democratic Party that is trying and fighting to take it over. This is. There is no, you know, I think for. I know that like in the context of our, you know, like we have these conversations for the past 20 years, years, there was a sense of like, these people are never going to learn. But no, they know already. They know already. And they're just, to the extent that we perceive them being ignorant of history and misreading history, that is our failure. That is our failure to realize they are fighting a fight. And they may deny it sometimes. They don't. They don't. But they are fighting a fight. We need to Fight a fight. We need to realize this is not. There's no learning a lesson, you know, regardless of, like, you know, Hillary Clinton lose. There's no lesson to be. There's nobody learning a lesson. There's no, it's. Which entity within the Democratic Party or without it or whatnot is going to influence the direction of that party. It is a fight, period. End of story. There is no, like, lessons learned. We are. We have this mentality that, like, well, people are going to be rational, but, no, they have a different agenda. They have a different agenda and, and they push it. You know, Josh Barrow out there at that, you know, corporate Appaloosa saying, well, if you scratch the surface, you realize the problem is unions, you know, and that's their agenda. They said it out there.
Heather Parton
He was at that, Josh. Oh, yeah.
Matt Lech
Sitting with Richie Torres. And then they were so vague and abundance about groups are the ones that are the causing the bottlenecks.
Heather Parton
Right?
Matt Lech
And Barro says it right there on stage, like, so, well, unions.
Sam Cedar
And then, you know, I mean, the, the agenda is out there to see.
Heather Parton
Look at it this way. The opportunity that I just outlined for, you know, the, the great, you know, middle left and middle of the Democratic Party to jump on right now is this oligarchy that, that's there. It's obvious. Obvious. I think everybody knows it. There's something wrong with the richest man in the world dictating policy. An unelected billionaire dictating policy and having, you know, spats with the president in public, basically running the country. There's something wrong with that. People know that. So you, the three of us are sitting here going, well, yeah, that's an opportunity for the Democrats. Everybody knows there's something wrong. Let's, you know, let's get out there and make that case and, you know, try and fight back with that. These people that you're talking about also see this as an opportunity. There's a boatload of money out there. There's a lot of money. And our good, good plutocrats, they've got money and, you know, hey, the bad plutocrats like Musk, I mean, come on, he can be reasoned with. You know, he's got a lot of good qualities. He takes drugs like liberals do, you know, great. He's one of us.
Sam Cedar
Here's the thing that annoys me is that, is that. Well, not annoys me. Ro Khanna is personal friends with Musk. And if there's any educating going on, why does Ro Khanna need the whole Democratic Party to gather round and say, and convince Elon Musk, why don't you pick up the phone and go, hey, dude, you know, just. The Democrats provide more benefit from you. Like, he know this has to be disingenuous on his part. He knows this. The whole Democratic Party doesn't have to, like, warm embrace the Elon Musk and go along with Elon Musk's agenda. If Elon Musk wants to support Democratic agenda, he can, he can, he can. There's plenty of ways he can do it.
Matt Lech
But, but, but there's. We're not even talking about how he's toxic politically. Like, we almost talked around for that.
Heather Parton
Yeah, like, for that.
Matt Lech
The money is like, it's. You get the money, but you also get like a huge sign around your neck and a dunce cap, but it comes with it.
Heather Parton
Cheese Head on, basically.
Emma Vigeland
Does the money still spend.
Matt Lech
We just saw. Right, right.
Sam Cedar
But we just saw you also get like, the legalization of comedy.
Matt Lech
Fair enough. Comedy can be. And you can say the R word again, which is like the best material benefit the, that Trump has provided for these folks. But, like, that's, that's what. It would be an albatross for Democrats to take this money. It's already toxic for the Republicans. And Ro Khan is like, for sale. Well, for sale.
Sam Cedar
Here, Put this up on the screen. This is, this is exactly the thing. Here's Matt Iglesias. I feel like Jeffries and Schumer should give Elon Musk a call and tell them about the Democratic Party's longstanding interest in electric cars, solar panels, space exploration and balanced deficit reduction. Reduction. Sort of half a joke. But it's like, I think Elon Musk knows this because he obviously has spent all that money that he got from the Democratic administrations. And I don't know who Kevin Robillard is, but Elon Musk is one of the least popular figures in American politics. 40% fave, 53% unfave. Holding some of the least popular opinions in American politics. Politics. The belief that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, for instance. And then Iglesia says, he's got a lot of money, though. I mean, there you go. And let's not, let's not forget the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris raised over a billion dollars in three or four months. Having money for campaigns is not a problem for Democrats. We have achieved the mechanism to raise money for Democrats. That has been achieved. So, I mean, this is so telling. This moment is so telling. And instead of saying, like, you know, the idea, we're going to embrace Elon Musk. No, Elon Musk can look at the terror and see. And if Elon Musk has nowhere to go, go good.
Heather Parton
Absolutely. I mean, let's hope. Let's hope Milan decides that he needs to go and concentrate on his businesses and stays out of politics altogether. I, that would be the perfect outcome for this whole thing. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen because he's got a huge ego and thinks that, you know, he's going to save the world or take us all to Mars or whatever other crazy scheme he's got in mind. But nonetheless, we don't, you know, none. Billionaires out. They don't need to be on here. In fact, there shouldn't be billionaires. I mean, honestly, I don't understand why this is such a. People feel like that's such a terrible thing. You can go out if you want to say, hey, I'm a capitalist and I believe that everybody should have a right to make money and do whatever. Having this many billionaires with this many billions is just wrong. If there's something wrong, we've gone, you know, it's imbalanced. We shouldn't have that. We need to tax these people and we need to tax them heavily and they will still be fine. They'll have plenty of money. No one's going to go hungry because of, you know, because the billionaires has only have only half the billions that they have. It would solve every problem. And I'm telling you, part of the problem here is the media as well. Who is saying. Who are not saying. Whenever they're talking about the big one, big, beautiful bill, they go, well, you know, the deficit's exploding. It's terrible. It's going to explode. The deficit. You know, they got to cut somewhere. I mean, they got to cut the, you know, Medicaid, Medicare. I mean, there's pro. They got to do it, and people have to take their medicine. I mean, they've been saying this for 30 years about how we all have to take our medicine for the deficit.
Sam Cedar
Shared sacrifice.
Heather Parton
Shared sacrifice. But they aren't. None of them are saying that. Well, I mean, maybe we ought to rethink all these tax cuts. Maybe that would be the way to go. Raise more revenue, raise a little more.
Sam Cedar
The bill is a just a total vacuum of money. Money upward to wealthy people. That's what it is. I mean, like, there's just no other way to explain what this bill is other than an upward re. Redistribution of wealth. But, Heather.
Heather Parton
Actually, this was more fun than usual.
Sam Cedar
It was More fun than usual, I was gonna say.
Heather Parton
I mean, usually we are lamenting and, you know, this is. At least we got a little something. Little something. Little schadenfreude, if nothing else.
Sam Cedar
So, I mean, I just wanted to say, like, the idea that we would tax billionaires out of existence. If we did that, we have to acknowledge that X would still be named Twitter and we would have never had that opportunity. The innovation of turning Twitter into X.
Heather Parton
What a genius. The genius. The man is beyond. I mean, who's ever. He's. He's not just the Thomas Edison, he's the Galileo. He's the Leon Leonardo da Vinci of our time. I mean, I'm sure he's a wonderful portrait artist as well. He must be.
Sam Cedar
Heather Parton. We will, as always, link to your column in salon.com and to your Uber blog, Hullabaloo. Thanks so much for joining us.
Heather Parton
My pleasure. Have a great weekend, everybody.
Sam Cedar
You too.
Matt Lech
You.
Sam Cedar
Oh, wait. I almost just signed off from the thing.
Heather Parton
Bye.
Sam Cedar
Bye. Always fun talking to Heather.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
You know, tomorrow, the Democratic Party, so they can announce they're going to nominate Mark Cuban as the. Whatever the presidential campaign. But, well, if.
Matt Lech
If Elon does go follow through and start this third party, I have some. Some suggestions for who he can bring over.
Sam Cedar
We've never had. We've never given a chance to a billionaire to start a third party except for every single past presidential election. Wasn't there. There was one last time.
Matt Lech
Howard Schultz.
Sam Cedar
No, I'm not talking even Howard Schultz. I mean, Howard Schultz was dabbling, but Andy Yang. No, I'm not talking that guy either. I'm talking. There was a no labels, wasn't it?
Matt Lech
Or no, it fell apart at the end. Probably because Kamala Run rushed to the center and they didn't need it anymore.
Sam Cedar
No, no, it was before. It was even before Biden dropped out. It had fallen apart. There was going to. There was. We've already forgot. We've already. Memory hold. Their whole attempt to have like a, you know, third party. I mean, it was like a Lincoln project side project. Lincoln project side show. They may have been involved in it, but I can't remember the name of the. I think it was no labels or something like that. It was. I. Maybe it was no labels, but we've had Bloomberg try and do it. We had, you know, Joe Lieberman was in charge of it. I think this time around or something, we're going to see this again. They're just going to keep doing it again and again and again.
Emma Vigeland
What if we get the right argument to them and they realize that we beat them and debate.
Matt Lech
Oh. Hmm. Have we tried that?
Emma Vigeland
Have you tried ideas?
Matt Lech
It is like incredible that they keep quite like what's, what's interesting about the post Citizens United World also is, is that like, are we at a point where money has diminishing returns in our elections that are largely like on the bot, on the. I don't think it's. That it has diminishing returns for presidential elections is really my viewpoint. Like, with that amount of media, with that amount of attention, it doesn't matter as much. Right. I mean, for Trump, it helped him because of some of the, you know, shortcomings with his ground game maybe.
Sam Cedar
But this is, this is, this is why that amount of money has diminishing returns. Because this is a campaign is also a capitalist endeavor ever. And the dirty little secret is you as an individual consultant working on that campaign will make more money if you focus on television ads and concerts and whatnot. Like the amount of money that is skimmed off of everything. There's just too many people making money off it.
Matt Lech
Yeah.
Sam Cedar
The way to expend this money, money, certain amount for advertising budget, but then go hire an infrastructure and pay to have more paid like organizers of, of canvassers and whatnot. Like create a paid system to which to attract volunteers and. But that doesn't make money. There's no like sort of the, the rentier class can't make money off of that. If, if you buy an ad as a consultant to debit, you get 15% of the ad buy.
Emma Vigeland
That's efficiency.
Sam Cedar
For if you book Beyonce to do a concert you're going to make and she's getting a million bucks, you're going to get 100 grand for that book. I mean that's the way that it works.
Matt Lech
And the Obama campaign in 08, I feel like also just led to the explosion of that on the Democratic side. As if it wasn't. I mean, Obama's. They pretend like it had nothing to do with how Obama ran really to the left of Hillary Clinton in that election. And that's like.
Emma Vigeland
And then they demobilized everybody who, I mean, I know people who were the first time voting in Iowa, part of winning that state for Obama. And they just demobilized. That entire organization was completely demobilized. They had an entire army of what they missed in this previous election of young animated people.
Sam Cedar
They did not want to be pressured by outside groups. In fact, during that summer, during that summer, they specifically said do not give money to outside side activist Groups, all the money comes to us.
Matt Lech
It decimated the party and we'll give.
Emma Vigeland
It to the banks. While you get thrown out of your house and wonder why people don't vote for us in the next decade.
Sam Cedar
Brent in Los Angeles says, sam, please stop moving your microphone around. Signed, everyone who listens on headphones. I apologize. I got a little bit. A little bit animated today, folks. One, one sec. Oh, oh, sorry. I thought you were going to go into the fun half. I was. Well, there's, you know, I don't take neutrophil, but it's getting hotter and there's. Is there another alternative way to keep my head from getting sunburned? Oh, yes, good point. Ladies and gentlemen, we have new trucker hats available for pre order at the Majority report merch store. That's shop. MajorityReportRadio.com. we now have the powder blue, which I have to say, originally I wanted the black, but now I want the powder blue.
Emma Vigeland
You're welcome.
Matt Lech
That was Matt's idea. Yes.
Sam Cedar
I. You have a very good sense of. Of hat because I've noticed like very fashion. The other day I was. I was searching for my cap to play softball and I had the left reckoning and I'm like, this looks good, but I also don't know if I want to get it switched. Sweaty. Like, I don't. I don't wear hats enough for fashion. I have too much like utility tied up in them. But this powder blue one, I would wear that to like a formal event.
Matt Lech
That's very Tim Pool of you.
Sam Cedar
If I'll tell you something right now, I'll tell you something. If I could get it in time for your wedding, I would. I would wear that hat.
Matt Lech
It will go with your face on it. It to the wedding.
Sam Cedar
Well, that's the only thing that makes me feel a little bit. But it's different colored glasses. I don't know if people would pick up on that.
Matt Lech
You know what's funny is half the people there are going to know who you are most likely anyway my side and just like make the worst impression possible by coming up and showing up in your own merch. Just like play an egomaniac.
Sam Cedar
I have. I have a long history of embarrassing myself at weddings because of things like that.
Matt Lech
But wait.
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I was gonna wear the shirt. Is that not shirt? Absolutely.
Matt Lech
Yeah, sure. Everyone just show up in sweats, folks.
Sam Cedar
Check this out. Shop Majority Report radio. You can get the truckers hats and the Vigonia shirt. Okay. With that said, I'm gonna head to the Fun Half.
Emma Vigeland
Patreon.
Sam Cedar
Oh, gosh. Sorry.
Emma Vigeland
Sunday show coming up. Check it out.
Sam Cedar
See you in the final half, three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. Fun Pack. Matt.
Matt Lech
Boo.
Heather Parton
Fun Pack.
Sam Cedar
What is up, everyone? Fun Pack. Nomi Key.
Heather Parton
You did it.
Sam Cedar
Fun Pack.
Matt Lech
Let's go, Brandon.
Heather Parton
Let's go, Brandon.
Sam Cedar
Fun Path. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone.
Emma Vigeland
I'm just a random guy.
Sam Cedar
It's all the boys today.
Heather Parton
Fundamentally false.
Matt Lech
No.
Heather Parton
I'm sorry.
Matt Lech
Women.
Sam Cedar
Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.
Matt Lech
Where is this coming from, dude?
Sam Cedar
But. Dude, you want to smoke this? 7A. Yes. All right. You're safe. Yes. Is this mean? Is it me? It is you.
Matt Lech
Is this me?
Sam Cedar
Hello? It's me. I think it is you who is, you know, sound every single freaking day. What's on your mind?
Heather Parton
Sports.
Matt Lech
We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.
Sam Cedar
I'm gonna go smartwatch. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says, of course.
Matt Lech
Gobbledygook.
Sam Cedar
We nailed him.
Matt Lech
So what's 79 plus 21?
Sam Cedar
Challenge. Man, I'm positively quivering. I believe 96. I want to say. 8, 5, 7, 2, 1 0. 8, 5, 0, 1, 1 half.
Emma Vigeland
3, 8, 9, 11.
Sam Cedar
For instance.
Matt Lech
$3,400. $1900.
Sam Cedar
5, 4, $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game, actually.
Matt Lech
You're making me think less.
Sam Cedar
But let me say this. We have to call it satire.
Unknown Speaker
Sam goes satire.
Sam Cedar
On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every.
Matt Lech
Day, all day, like, everything you do.
Sam Cedar
Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We seen you. All right, folks, Folks, folks.
Matt Lech
It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.
Sam Cedar
Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.
Matt Lech
But you should know.
Sam Cedar
People just don't.
Emma Vigeland
Like to entertain ideas anymore.
Sam Cedar
I have a question. Who cares?
Emma Vigeland
Our chat is enabled.
Sam Cedar
Folks. I love it.
Matt Lech
I do love that.
Sam Cedar
Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. 2 o' clock, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw up. Sent to a gulag.
Matt Lech
Outrageous.
Sam Cedar
Like. What is wrong with you? Love you.
Heather Parton
Bye.
Sam Cedar
Love you. Bye. Bye.
Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder Episode 2513 - Trump & Elon Musk's Big Beautiful Breakup Release Date: June 6, 2025
In this episode of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, hosted by Sam Seder, the discussion centers around the highly publicized fallout between former President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Joined by co-hosts Matt Lech and Emma Vigeland, and guest Heather 'Digby' Parton from the Uber blog Hullabaloo and Salon.com, the hosts dive deep into the implications of this split on American politics, Republican strategies, and upcoming legislative efforts.
Sam Seder opens the discussion by highlighting the dramatic breakup between Trump and Elon Musk, emphasizing its potential ramifications on the political landscape:
"Trump Musk fallout cost Tesla bigly. But will it make a difference to America?" [04:43]
Heather Parton elaborates on the signs leading up to the fallout, noting the increasing tension and personal grievances:
"Despite the big send-off that they had in the Oval Office with Elon and his black eye and the whole thing, it just seemed really tense to me." [31:33]
Sam adds context by discussing how this fallout undermines Musk's influence within the Republican Party:
"Musk had some juice. It was clear that he had juice with those guys that he could, he could get through his Twitter feed could, you know, motivate those guys to just stand up and say, absolutely no." [35:41]
The hosts analyze how the rift between Trump and Musk affects Republican strategies, especially concerning the much-discussed "One Big Beautiful Bill" aimed at fiscal reforms.
Heather Parton connects the fallout to the challenges Republicans face in passing significant legislation:
"Musk had some juice with those guys that he could... now Musk is no longer a tool by Trump to discipline his people." [35:41]
Sam Seder predicts the near certainty of the bill's passage, albeit with uncertainties about its specific contents:
"I would say 98%. Now, you know, what the exact form is going to be? I don't know." [40:38]
The discussion shifts to former White House strategist Steve Bannon's criticism of Musk, including his call to seize Musk's SpaceX through the Defense Production Act.
Matt Lech introduces Bannon's stance:
"He just wanted... to seize SpaceX under the Defense Production Act... it gives people an opportunity to characterize it as authoritarian and fascistic." [18:01]
Sam Seder critiques Bannon's approach, arguing that targeting Musk inflames political tensions unnecessarily:
"The only issue I have with Steve Bannon calling for the seizure of SpaceX... is that it gives people an opportunity to characterize it as authoritarian and fascistic." [18:44]
Heather elucidates how Musk's diminished influence alters the power dynamics within the GOP, particularly concerning the passage of the reconciliation bill:
"Musk had put his name all over it, you know, with the cheese head hats and the whole thing and all that money. And he actually made things worse for the Republicans." [35:41]
Sam Seder emphasizes the critical role the reconciliation bill plays in the current political climate and the necessity for Democrats to develop a cohesive narrative to counter Republican claims:
"The bill is a total vacuum of money. Money upward to wealthy people. That's what it is. I mean, like, there's just no other way to explain what this bill is other than an upward redistribution of wealth." [62:19]
The hosts critique the Democratic Party's approach to engaging with billionaires like Musk, suggesting that it undermines their efforts to present a unified policy stance.
Matt Lech highlights Democratic leaders' attempts to collaborate with Musk:
"Ro Khanna has known Musk for over a decade. He said Democrats should be in dialogue with Musk given their shared opposition to the GOP's mega bill." [64:03]
Sam Seder questions the sincerity and effectiveness of these efforts, arguing that they distract from the Democrats' core policies:
"Why does Ro Khanna need the whole Democratic Party to gather round and say, and convince Elon Musk, why don't you pick up the phone and go, hey, dude, you know, just." [82:24]
A recurring theme throughout the episode is the critique of billionaire influence in politics. The hosts argue that the immense power held by individuals like Musk is detrimental to democratic processes and policy-making.
Heather Parton emphasizes the dangers of unelected billionaires dictating policy:
"There can't be any more obvious if it, you know, if you ever thought before that maybe people were being a little bit too suspicious by thinking that the Democrats were chasing money because they're really good guys who care about unions and blah, blah, blah." [75:32]
Sam Seder advocates for taxing the wealthy heavily to mitigate their disproportionate influence:
"You need to tax these people and we need to tax them heavily and they will still be fine." [86:23]
The episode concludes with reflections on the broader implications of the Trump-Musk fallout, the necessity for cohesive political narratives, and the urgent need to address billionaire influence in politics. The hosts express hope that the Democratic Party will seize the moment to organize against oligarchic control and prioritize policies that serve the wider population.
Sam Seder wraps up with a call to action for Democrats to present a unified front:
"We need the Democrats wise up on this and I hope that they, you know, stand together at least when we're dealing with this budget bill, God help us." [75:32]
Sam Seder:
Heather Parton:
Matt Lech:
This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Episode 2513, highlighting the critical discussions and insights shared by Sam Seder and his co-hosts. For a more in-depth understanding, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode available at Majority.FM.