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The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3541 - The Trump-Epstein Enigma w/ Heather 'Digby' Parton & Francesca Fiorentini
02:42:03
Break out your soft collar, it's Casual Friday and today's whole episode is a freebie. We open with an enigma that never ages, Jeffrey Epstein and his relationship with his proclaimed best friend, Donald Trump. We take a look at the Wall Street...
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- [00:03]
Sam Cedar
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. Where every day is casual Friday. That means Monday is casual. Monday, Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual Hump day, Thursday casual Thurs, that's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. Foreign it is Friday, July 18, 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 Digby Parton, the Uber blog Hullabaloo and contributor to Salon.com to wrap the week to share secrets with us. Also on the program today, Francesca Fiorentini, comedian and host of the Bituation Room will be joining us later in the program. Meanwhile, public broadcasters and foreign aid programs devastated by Republican clawback cuts. It's going to hit local public radio stations the most. And on the foreign aid side, the Lancet Medical Journal anticipates at least 14 million deaths by 2030 because of these cuts. Meanwhile, Trump threatens to sue Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal after they had the audacity to release a super cryptic bromance birthday card that Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein. Corporate Democrats join Republicans in passage of the Genius Pro Money laundering act. That's not its official name. ACA prices to skyrocket in the wake of the Republican big bill's health care cuts as insurance companies are looking to raise rates. CBS canceling the highest rated late night show. That's the one with Stephen Colbert. In what looks like a sop to Trump to Greece, its Skydance merger. Trump administration tells embassies to stop criticizing foreign elections. Huh? Attorneys sue to restore deportation protections for abused migrant children. Trump diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. However, his chronic venality still more than sufficient. Jim Jordan may be deposed over his turning a blind eye to the Ohio State University student sex abuse case. Maybe there's a problem within the Republican Party to this. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us.
- [03:41]
Emma Vigland
It is casual Friday.
- [03:45]
Sam Cedar
Casual Friday, yes. Emma Viglund in with the catchphrase that we use on Fridays to justify dressing down a little bit.
- [03:58]
Emma Vigland
Right. Soft collars for you.
- [04:00]
Sam Cedar
Yep. There we go. It's my time to sit back, relax, think about the, think about the world. Yeah, exactly. It's very relaxing, like a desecration. But you go ahead.
- [04:13]
Emma Vigland
You go ahead.
- [04:14]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, you go ahead. We should, let's put up the, let's put up number eight and then we'll do the, the number 10 stuff. Apparently, the White House has known for some time that the Wall Street Journal is working on this big story about Donald Trump's very, very intimate bromance that he had going with Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, people sort of had a good notion that they were buddies at one point, I think like Jeffrey Epstein said, like, oh, we're best friends.
- [04:56]
Emma Vigland
Oh, he told a journalist that, I mean, a few years before his death. But Sam, this is so puritanical of you. I mean, the personal is not political. You can't endorse everything your friends do, right?
- [05:11]
Sam Cedar
No, of course not. Of course not. But here's Donald Trump calling in to a radio show. What is this? It's called Just the News. I think it's like a Roku News.
- [05:24]
Francesca Fiorentini
Channel, Real America's Voice show. Just the News. No noise.
- [05:28]
Sam Cedar
No noise. And he's calling in and in anticipation of this article dropping, I think on some level there they were trying furiously to stop the Wall Street Journal from publishing this because I don't know government secrets. I'm not sure. Well, how grounds that they would say don't.
- [05:49]
Emma Vigland
Well, he says it's fake and he told Rupert Murdoch that it was fake and they published it and they published it anyway.
- [05:55]
Sam Cedar
Boy. Well, I don't care. All right, good. For all the things that have happened, there is the Russia collusion against you. There is Jack Smith against you. There's all the things that happened in 2020 not investigating China interference in the. Pause for a second. Is this, is this, is this Jonathan Solomon? Is that who that guy? Is that guy like an AEA guy or in former, I think, AP reporter? It doesn't matter. Go ahead. No idea happened. There is the Russia collusion against you. There is Jack Smith against you.
- [06:30]
Heather Digby Parton
There's all the things that happened 2020.
- [06:31]
Sam Cedar
Not investigating so much against interference in the 2020 election.
- [06:35]
Heather Digby Parton
Where do you think what are the.
- [06:37]
Sam Cedar
Things are most important that you would like to see the FBI get to the bottom of? I think they could look at all of it. It's all the same scam. They could look at this Jeffrey Epstein hoax also because that's the same stuff that's all put out by Democrats. Yeah. And you know, some of the, the naive Republicans fall right into line like they always do. They just don't have the, they don't have the sustainability. They don't have. There's something they don't have that stick to it. Like Lou, the Democrats, you know, they have bad policy, they have bad candidates, they have bad everything, but they stick Together. The Republicans don't do that. But they ought to look into the Jeffrey Epstein hoax too, because that's another hoax that's frankly put out by the pushing. Pushing the Republicans and put out by the Democrats.
- [07:24]
Heather Digby Parton
Definitely set the Republicans up one.
- [07:26]
Sam Cedar
One big prospect. They definitely. Wait, wait, wait. Positive wait. They definitely set the Republicans up.
- [07:32]
Emma Vigland
Yeah. You know, I've been saying this the whole time. They're playing a real long game. First of all, Trump has accused Hillary Clinton of helping forge these documents, which I, we should look into it, because she must. She's diabolical, as we know. She was playing the long game by, you know, like having her husband become very close friends with Jeffrey Epstein, being photographed with him all the time, inviting Ghislaine Maxw to his daughter, to their only daughter's wedding, that kind of thing. She must, she was so burned by being humiliated, and rightfully so, by the Monica Lewinsky thing, that she just played this really long game to fight to, to, to set her husband up and then also take down the Republicans.
- [08:11]
Sam Cedar
You know, who forged this stuff, of course, was Vince Foster. That's why they had to. That was a loose end point that they had to get rid of. But let's go back to listen to how the Republicans got set up here. Pushing the Republicans and put out by the Democrats. Now they definitely set the Republicans up one, one big prosecutor. Look at it all. Would that make you feel good, you think? Well, I think it's in the case of Epstein. They've already looked at it and they are looking at it. And I think all they have to do is put out anything credible. But, you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files, just like they did with the others. I mean, the Steele dossier was a total fake.
- [08:54]
Heather Digby Parton
Right.
- [08:54]
Sam Cedar
It took two years to figure that out for the people. All of the things that you mentioned were fake. So I would imagine if they were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey, and because it was actually even before that administration, they've been running these files. And so much of the things that we found were fake with me, but especially you look at that Steele dossier where they paid like 14 or 16 million. That's more than James Patterson gets paid to do a number one bestseller and turned out to be a total stand. Just to remind, folks, Donald Trump was president from 2017 to 2021. Really? I mean, technically speaking. And Jeffrey Epstein was arraigned and imprisoned in 2019.
- [09:56]
Emma Vigland
And died.
- [09:56]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, and died. But My point being, I mean, died, but my point being that all of those files actually were in the hands of all people that Trump had control over for those three years in leading up to it. Now, I guess it's possible that after those files were assembled, upon his death, when Biden got in, they said, we've got to reopen these files, we've got to make it look incriminating for Trump. And in the run up to the election, we're not going to say anything about it. We're going to wait for him to win the election, then we're going to start having calls to. To release the information. This is a brilliant plan.
- [10:43]
Francesca Fiorentini
We'll put him in the most powerful office in the country, in the world, and then we'll have him right where we want him.
- [10:49]
Sam Cedar
Exactly.
- [10:50]
Emma Vigland
You know, that was the Pied Piper strategy.
- [10:52]
Sam Cedar
Oh, wait, hey, man, you know, the old strategy, of course, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. So we'll wait until he's president to release these documents. But Trump is worried in that conversation about the article that comes out in the Wall Street Journal, and there is a. Apparently, one of the things that they found was a birthday card that Donald Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday.
- [11:30]
Emma Vigland
By the way, this was like a booklet that Maxwell had put together for Epstein, and it included, according to the Journal, other cards from Alan Dershowitz. And Wexner, who. Who managed his money for decades, would you say?
- [11:49]
Francesca Fiorentini
Is Wexner the Victoria's Secret guy?
- [11:51]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. So there are other letters in there from his known associates, bolstering the claim that this is not a fake letter. Like Donald Trump is alleging here.
- [12:03]
Sam Cedar
All right, and we obviously need to read the card. It was typewritten within the outline of a nude woman, which of course is, you know, it's very classic divorce, 50 year old guy birthday card. But this one is signed Donald to look like, we'll call Southern hair on the lady.
- [12:37]
Emma Vigland
His name Donald. Well, we've seen how he signs his name. It's very inky. So he was attempting to make it look like the woman's pubic hair. I don't know why I'm dancing around.
- [12:50]
Sam Cedar
Why are you dancing around the word hair as opposed to pubic?
- [12:55]
Francesca Fiorentini
That's what I don't understand.
- [12:57]
Emma Vigland
You know, I'm not. I'm not like James Patterson. I don't have a way with words, you know, James Patterson.
- [13:08]
Sam Cedar
Here is the card, and it starts with a voiceover, which, of course, because it's a voiceover, I'll read in a British accent.
- [13:24]
Emma Vigland
Okay, so, well, this is an imaginary conversation that Trump wrote out for Epstein in the third person. Them talking.
- [13:33]
Sam Cedar
There must be more to life than having everything.
- [13:37]
Francesca Fiorentini
Oh, God.
- [13:38]
Sam Cedar
The note begins. DONALD. Yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is. JEFFREY Nor will I, since I also know what it is. DONALD we have certain things in common, Jeffrey. JEFFREY yes, we do. Come to think of it. Enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? That's what they always say, Enigmas never age.
- [14:14]
Emma Vigland
What about who's aging?
- [14:15]
Sam Cedar
They never age.
- [14:17]
Francesca Fiorentini
That statutory age.
- [14:18]
Sam Cedar
They never age. They all stay the same age. Things that confused me when I was 10 confuse me now. Jeffrey As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. DONALD A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. And may every day be another wonderful secret.
- [14:49]
Emma Vigland
So that's like, the most incriminating thing I've ever seen in my life.
- [14:57]
Sam Cedar
Well, but this is what the strange thing is, is that, like, the best thing is, like Donald says, enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? And Jeffrey says, as a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Now, like, is this is Donald talking about himself and then having Jeffrey compliment him for Jeffrey's birthday card.
- [15:21]
Emma Vigland
It would.
- [15:21]
Sam Cedar
That's what makes his birthday card in the way. So that you have an opportunity to compliment me for your birthday.
- [15:29]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, I.
- [15:33]
Sam Cedar
I mean, there's a lot that you could make from this in terms of, like, you know, I wonder what the, the secrets that they, they share.
- [15:44]
Emma Vigland
It's so hard to figure out.
- [15:46]
Sam Cedar
Well, I, I don't, I mean, I don't think it could, it could be just the fact that they, you know, that Epstein has a, you know, a huge child trafficking ring that Trump enjoys. I mean, you know, I mean, not to wildly speculate here, but to wildly speculate. And of course, this is just a wild speculation. The late Wayne Barrett, who reported on Donald Trump more than any other person in New York from the village voice for 30 years, who died, literally, I think, on the day he was inaugurated, the first time he was on the program. And he was saying, it is all about Felix Sater. And who was Felix Sater? Well, he was a big name in the first Trump administration. We don't hear from him at all anymore. He was a special advisor to Donald Trump. He had a card. He had his office in Trump Tower. But he also, it turns out, was a CIA asset and an FBI asset, so much so that Loretta lynch, when she was U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Manhattan wrote an affidavit in support of leniency for him when he stuck a guy in the face with a champagne flute in a bar fight. And Felix Sater supposedly has been attributed with getting Osama bin Laden's phone number, cell phone number that they used to track Osama bin Laden when they killed him. And Sater was basically helping launder money from Russian oligarchs into the Trump properties. And Wayne Barrett was always convinced it was all about him. So who knows what Donald Trump was doing at that time? I mean, I've often wondered, like, how is it possible that nobody ever went after Donald Trump after, like 1972 when the DOJ just gave him a consent decree? Like the idea that Donald Trump was on the up and up and wasn't a perfect target for an ambitious Attorney general or district attorney or whomever. I mean, it's sort of fascinating.
- [18:10]
Emma Vigland
He and Epstein might have that in common. Somebody, a couple of enigmas who, somebody who got away with seemingly in broad daylight crimes over and over and over again. And there. Acosta. Matt found this old clip of Acosta right before he was fired in 2019 over this scandal from the Trump administration or had to resign. And he's asked about the claims that Epstein belonged to Intelligence, and he gives a complete non answer like it was shocking. I hadn't seen that clip before about how evasive he was at that reporter's question. So, I mean, I think that he might have more in common with Epstein in terms of, like, their collaboration with intelligence than we might think. And that's part of why Trump is down to keep covering this up despite it being a political problem for him. And I would hear you on this if the whole card wasn't filled with illustrations of naked women which seem relevant to the little secret he's talking about.
- [19:08]
Sam Cedar
Well, well, two things can be true.
- [19:11]
Emma Vigland
Two things can be true.
- [19:13]
Francesca Fiorentini
Emma works on two levels.
- [19:17]
Sam Cedar
For Christmas. I never draw for pictures. I've never drawn a picture ever in my life. But if I were, I wouldn't do a full woman's body. I just do the breasts. It's much easier to draw. Yes.
- [19:32]
Emma Vigland
Look at my calculator. I wrote 8,000. What? 8,005. What is it?
- [19:38]
Sam Cedar
Yes.
- [19:39]
Francesca Fiorentini
Yeah, 8,008 or 8.
- [19:43]
Sam Cedar
80,085.
- [19:44]
Emma Vigland
80,085. You know what I'm talking about.
- [19:46]
Sam Cedar
I pretended to be slow on that. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? All right, we got a couple of sponsors and then in a minute we'll be talking to Heather Parton, who I would imagine Also has some thoughts about this stuff. One of today's sponsors, ExpressVPN. How did you choose which Internet service provider to use? Well, the sad thing is most of us have very little Choice. Why? Because ISPs operate like monopolies in the regions they serve. Then they use this monopoly to take advantage of customers data caps, bandwidth throttling, the list goes on. But worst of all, ISPs have the ability to keep a log of every website you visit. So can a ton of other third parties. Unless you use ExpressVPN. Visit expressvpn.com majority. You can get an extra 4 months free without ExpressVPN third parties like your Internet service provider, your mobile network provider, your WI FI at work, or your school. Network administrators can see every website you visit, even in incognito mode. ExpressVPN reroutes 100% of your traffic through secure encrypted servers, so third parties cannot see your browsing history. ExpressVPN is the best because it hides your IP address, making it extremely difficult for third parties to track your online activity. ExpressVPN is easy to use. All you do fire up the app, click one button and you are protected. Works on all devices. Works on your phones, your laptops, your computers, your smart TVs. Also it allows you to stay private on the go. That's my biggest use case for a vpn. When I go to like an airport or to a mall or to a coffee shop with wi fi it's great. Oh, free wi fi. That's fantastic. I hope there isn't some dude sitting in the corner basically intercepting that traffic and getting into my stuff. So one click on my phone or on my computer, I'm protected by ExpressVPN. Super easy to do. Protect your online privacy today by visiting expressvpn.com Majority that's E X P R essvpn.com Majority you can get an extra four months free. Expressvpn.com Majority also sponsoring the program today, one of my favorite sponsors, Sunset Lake Saba Day.com I have even more reason to to love these guys. They have brought back their two most popular topical products as convenient extra strength sticks that you're sure to love. These guys know a thing or two about sore muscles after the harvest, so trust me, these sticks are packed with powerful relief. Sunset Lake took their classic Seba Day salve with Arnica, an extra strength muscle rub. Put them in twist up mess free sticks just like Chapstick or Deodorant twist from the bottom. Apply where you need it and you're good to go. No more digging around in a jar or messy hands. Plus they doubled the Seba day per ounce in both formulas. That means more relief and longer lasting effects all for the same price you are used to. I gotta tell you two days ago I had eczema on my finger. People have eczema. They know it's the worst possible place to get is on your hand or on your knuckles. And it's an off, it's, it's off label use of the arnica stuff because that's you know used for muscles or the other one with the lidocaine used for your muscles your sore. But I just, I don't know how I ended up doing it was just like I need some relief. And I first used the solve and I used the stick and it is practically gone. Never mind. I mean it gives you pain relief almost immediately. But it's. I don't know, I don't get it. But I love it. I love all their products. They're all third party tested. They're all grown up in Vermont with no pesticides. They use integrated pest management. They are movement supporters. They have donated tens of thousands of dollars to strike relief funds to carceral reform Planned Parenthood. Right now you can try these new sticks for 25% off with the code news. Excuse me. New sticks, that's new sticks. That's new sticks all one word. The sale ends July 20th at midnight. Head over to sunsetlakesabade.com use the code new sticks to treat your aches and pains to some much deserved relief. Check it out, see their site for terms and conditions. Quick break and we'll be talking to Heather Digby. Party.
- [25:36]
Heather Digby Parton
It.
- [26:22]
Sam Cedar
We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority report. Want to welcome back to the program the proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo and the commentator or writer Essay is@salon.com digby welcome back to the show.
- [26:42]
Heather Digby Parton
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Happy Friday.
- [26:45]
Sam Cedar
Yes. Well let's talk about some fun stuff up front and then we've got some grimmer stuff to talk about. I mean it's been pretty grim over the past even since the last time you've been on the passage of that big bill, the the rescission package that happened the genius act passed. Want to get into like those things and what you feel the Democrats are doing about it too. But first let's talk about this Epstein thing because it's sort of fascinating here is I want to Play this clip from, from Harry Anton on cnn. And it shows that Donald Trump's polling amongst Republicans, just to be clear, this is just Republicans has not been hurt by this Epstein, you know, MAGA saga as we call it. Here we go. I mean, look, I think this one surprised me a bit because of all these complaints online. Going after Trump and the Epstein files, you might think his approval ratings were going down. Republicans, if anything, they're going up. Republicans who approve of Trump. Look at our CNN poll. The prior one, 86%. The one out this week, 88% were Republicans. How about Quinnipiac? The prior poll, 87% approved with Republicans. This week out 90% with Republicans. If anything, Donald Trump's approval rating has gone up since this whole Epstein saga started. He is at the apex or close there too in terms of his popularity with Republican voters. Epstein files complaints or not.
- [28:24]
Heather Digby Parton
You just proved that not everything online is real.
- [28:29]
Sam Cedar
Who knows? Amazing. Twitter not reality. Positive for one second. You can. Positive for one second. That's incidentally not what it proves. It just proves that there might be other people besides Republicans online. But nevertheless, let's just keep going. There's.
- [28:45]
Emma Vigland
But, but the margin of error is 6. Like I don't understand the framing. I'm not saying that Trump's supporters are going to abandon him. I'm not saying that. But it's a very odd framing when it's both of these are within the margin of error to frame that he's increased his support.
- [29:02]
Sam Cedar
Well, let's put it this way. I mean, if, if the poll had said he's losing three points a poll, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be talking about it now. But let's keep playing this. Complaints or not, you just proved that not everything online is real. Yes, I know. Am Twitter and they're not reality.
- [29:22]
Heather Digby Parton
Is there any reason that you can find that this hasn't taken hold and hurt him?
- [29:26]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I mean, on X all you hear about is the Epstein files. But how about out in the real public, Republicans who said the top issue was Epstein case. The answer is 1:1 and not 1% 1 responded. This is a great little finding that Ariel Edwards Levy, who of course is part of our polling unit, found just one single Republican said that the nation's top problem is in fact the Epstein case. Not much of a surprise that therefore Donald Trump's approval rating has not suffered with Republicans because of the Epstein case. Because the bottom line is most Americans say it's not up high up on their priority. Now, I have no doubt that it's not up on their priority list, but it is important and it's sort of an interesting narrative that they're trying to push here. But let's put up the graph of Trump's actual approval rating. It appears there's more than just Republicans in the country. I mean, it's not going well for him. It really isn't. I mean, he's, and this is just, this is the, understand, this is the poll average. His disapproval is about as high as it's gotten.
- [30:46]
Emma Vigland
Could you just scroll up quickly to see which polls are also included in this as well? I mean, Rasmussen is a joke and that's included in the average. So right there, there are some junk Republican polls that have kind of, I think proliferated over the past maybe two presidential election cycles.
- [31:11]
Sam Cedar
But yeah, definitely. But nevertheless, his, his approval rating appears to be, you know, going down, not dramatically, but. So Heather, like, give me your sense of, like what, what interests me about this is why are all the right winger media people still pursuing this? Like how come they haven't been able to get past this?
- [31:39]
Heather Digby Parton
Well, I mean, I don't know what to make of the Harry Anton stuff. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Not because I don't. I mean, we've seen this before when, when Bill Clinton was under, you know, the scrutiny for, over the Monica Lewinsky thing, his poll ratings went up. They went up substantially and not just with Democrats. They went up among everybody who felt that it was kind of a media created scandal and that people were making too much of it. And of course the country was doing very well at the time economically, things were going well. People did not want to rock the boat. I mean, it was a very different sort of circumstance, but the same thing kind of happened. So I guess that part of it doesn't really surprise me that Republicans would sort of do a quick wrap rally around the flag kind of thing, especially for Trump. The media though, I think that there is a sense among the right wing media and this is starting with the influencers on the right who I think have much more clout than people give them credit for among the mainstream right wing media, meaning Fox or, I don't know, the New York Post or whatever, although I would have said the Wall Street Journal until a few days ago or maybe last night. But they, you know, they know that the MAGA movement is, they are dependent on it. These influencers are dependent on what we think of as the MAGA movement, which is very, very online. It's very, very much concerned with these kind of things. And they do care about this. And, you know, we'll see whether or not this, this, you know, kind of emphasis on it. People like Alex Jones, people like Joe Rogan, people, what's her name? Libs of TikTok or Laura Loomer or, you know, these kind of people who we look at and go, you know, why is anybody paying attention to these people? They do have a following that. It seems to me pretty clearly that there are plenty of people who are very worried about that following. And that following is where their money is made. And honestly, that's where I think down in Bongino was this past week. I mean, just to recap, Bongino was in the midst of this whole release by the Department of Justice saying that the Epstein files is nothing. We found nothing. Kate closed, let's move on. And Bongino reportedly was very upset by this. Now, I don't know if that's actually what happened, because what I read, and I can't remember where I read this, but I think it may make a little more sense than what people are saying was that he was being blamed for leaks that went to the. To the press because they leaked that memo and he was being blamed for it and got very upset with Pam Bondi and they had a screaming fight in the White House and Bongino didn't go to work the next day and they thought he was going to quit, etc. Etc. Bongino is a creature of this influencer world on the right. That is what he is. That is his life. He misses it, obviously. He said so. He doesn't really like his job. He liked being a podcaster and he also made a boatload of money doing it. He made a lot of money and all these people made a lot of money doing it. Having this thing out there, you know, this is going straight directly to their financial bottom line is this Epstein thing, they made money on it to begin with. They will make money, they will lose money if it disappears. There's a whole lot of incentives there for them to, you know, be at least concerned with it, if not obsessed with it. So I think that that's part of it. I don't know. It's a full explanation, but I think that it's a big part of it. I mean, I really felt from the beginning when I saw that Bongino was thinking of quitting. I'm going, he wants to go back. You know, he's preserving his ability to make a lot of money, and he doesn't want to be caught up in some cover up of, you know, Epstein.
- [35:32]
Emma Vigland
Well, this is the thing that I think is really important about this story. And regardless of your feelings about like, I still think it's just incredible that it's not being screamed from the rooftops that they edited out three minutes of that supposedly raw footage that they released. Like, I mean this is, that's insane. And the incompetence is insane too. But what it hits at is, is the Democrats for Trump for the past 10 years have enabled this narrative of Trump being an outsider who is combating the elites. That's how he won in 2016, the Deep State. Right. And they've continued down that course with the MAGA extremists. You hear this every time from frickin Hakeem Jeffries on TV now, calling them Republicans, tying him to the establishment of the party. What this does for his base is it makes it look like he's covering up for the amorphous elites that they've been talking about him combating. And so I am skeptical that this is not going to actually hurt him at least a little bit.
- [36:39]
Heather Digby Parton
I am too.
- [36:41]
Emma Vigland
And so I found the inclusion of like saying he increases support with a six point margin of error to be a little weird because it may take a little bit longer. And the hardcore MAGA's Republicans, they'll always be with him. But what this really hurts him with are like the bro manosphere people who voted for him after. You know, Taylor Lorenz did this piece about how in the aftermath of the pandemic 2020 on there wasn't this divide between the online world and the traditional political world that used to exist. It podcasts exploded. All of these right wingers can start to consume this kind of media as well, including like anti vax stuff and more conspiracism. And that's where I think this could cause an issue for him is within this new media ecosystem.
- [37:33]
Heather Digby Parton
Well, there's no doubt. And I think also, I mean keep in mind there was some fraying around the edges before the Epstein thing happened in that manosphere group. There was Joe Rogan was complaining about the immigration thing, saying, hey, I didn't know they were going to do that. They weren't going to go after God working at, you know, as gardeners and at Home Depot. I thought it was going to be the worst of this. Worst of the worst. This guy, what's his name? Adam Schultz. Is it Adam Schultz?
- [37:58]
Emma Vigland
Andrew.
- [37:59]
Heather Digby Parton
Andrew, sorry, yeah, Andrew Schultz. I mean he was kind of going on and showing some skepticism and Kind of going, you know what? This isn't really what I thought it was going to be. So then along comes the Epstein thing, and it's exactly what you said, Emma. They had big, you know, they had based everything on this idea of him being the guy who was going to clean up this cabal of whatever among the Epstein Q. And, and, you know, there's a direct line between QAnon and Epstein. Obviously, it's about this international pedophile cabal and that they, you know, when they, when Epstein came along, all those QAnon people went, Eureka. There it is, the proof. Here's the big pedophile. And he was flying around with Clinton and had, you know, Ehud Barak and then Mossad. This was a perfect conspiracy theory for them to latch onto. So, you know, there's. They have, there's that, you know, that kind of hardcore there among the MAGA faithful that actually, for them, this is it. I mean, I think Glenn Beck called it the Rosetta stone of the MAGA movement was. This was the Epstein files.
- [39:08]
Sam Cedar
I would like to see what the polling is on Pam Bondi because I think to a certain extent, we could be in that stage where it's like Donald Trump is getting screwed by his advisors and they're, you know, you know, like, Pam Bondi could be part of the deep state. And. But I think, I think the point you guys are making about this Epstein thing being less about Donald Trump being a pedophile and more about him not cleaning the swamp and protecting people. I don't think it's landed on him yet. I think it's on Pam Bondi. And frankly, like, I'm okay with that insofar as, like, make them fire Pam Bond, make them hire, you know, a new Department of Justice. I mean, that, to me, ultimately, is the value of this, of this whole scandal is just how can it, like, make it more difficult for them to govern?
- [40:07]
Heather Digby Parton
And I think that the next step, though, I don't think they're going to fire Bondi right away. The next step will be a special prosecutor. And you guys aren't going to believe who they're talking about among the MAGA.
- [40:17]
Sam Cedar
People as Laura Loomer will be the special prosecutor.
- [40:20]
Heather Digby Parton
It's even wilder than that. Although that would be good. They would. They're thinking that the guy, the one that is most obvious to choose is Matt Gates. They're actually saying that that's not a joke. I looked it up and, you know, they're right. Because when it comes to underage sex trafficking, that Guy knows his stuff. He really. I have no doubt that guy knows what he's doing when it comes to that. So, you know, I mean, that's a real thing. They're actually talking about it. So, you know, this is. I think there are several steps here. And I actually thought about this the other day. I thought, you know, what we're dealing with? Trump is finally dealing with the Clinton rules. The Clinton rules are when a scandal like this comes along, which is always something sexual, sexy, it's got some sexy thing going on, whether it was Clinton back in the day or, I don't know, Anthony Weiner or, you know, there's always, there's, you know, this is. The right wing is a dog with a bone on this. They love this stuff. They love it, they love it. They won't admit that they love it, but that's what it is, and they're not going to let it go. So every time you do something, and I don't think Trump has learned this, because if he had learned this, he would not be feeding it the way he is. You know, he's insulting his followers. He's saying this is all nonsense, a hoax and whatever. If you do that, it just fans the flames. And that's, I mean, that's Clinton rules. And the next step is we're going to do something. We'll name a special prosecutor, we'll fire Dan Bonjeano, or Dan Bongino will quit. Or, you know, there's these steps that you go through. Oh, he already started. He said that, you know, we're going to release the grand jury transcripts. And in the process.
- [41:59]
Sam Cedar
Well, the ones that are relevant.
- [42:00]
Heather Digby Parton
The ones that are relevant, the credible ones, not the ones that had to do with, you know, anything to do with me.
- [42:05]
Sam Cedar
The beautiful ones.
- [42:06]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah, the beautiful. The perfect ones. So he's, you know, he's already started. And by the way, in the process of that, he also, you know, proved that he's ordering the Department of Justice to do stuff which, you know, the President isn't supposed to do. And he's claimed, oh, I have nothing to do with it. And then he orders Pam Bondi and she goes, yes, sir, we're on it right there. We'll do it in the morning. So that's the, you know, that's. You start doing these steps, it's never enough, right? Never enough. There will always be a next step. It will always be something else that they're going to need. So the scandal isn't going to die as long as they're Going to. They're doing this stuff. And then you've got people like the Wall Street Journal. Now, the Wall Street Journal has, you know, a following of a very special, discreet part of the Republican coalition called People with Money. And Trump's already got some issues there. Right. I mean, you know, they want, they've got their tax cuts. That's done right now.
- [43:05]
Sam Cedar
They're just like you, we're done. We got what we wanted. Thank you.
- [43:10]
Emma Vigland
They're worried about the tariffs and the markets and, and, yeah, they've got their.
- [43:15]
Heather Digby Parton
Own stuff going on.
- [43:16]
Sam Cedar
See, that's what I think is going on here on some level. That's the thing that makes this different. Right. Like, I mean, I get the, the idea of that. This is a very easy thing to talk about, and it's got intrigue and it's not really political. And, you know, except for, we should also say Ron Wyden has a whole nother front of this, which is about the finance and which I think ultimately could be more important, too. But, but I do think that this is being pushed. Like, this isn't coming from the left. I mean, I think, you know, or, you know, I should say center, center to the left. This isn't coming from Democrats. It isn't coming from, you know, the dsa. I think they're, you know, people are hopping on the bandwagon. We certainly are. But I think part of this is a function of, like, now it's time to discipline Trump because we got really what we want. We have the largest wealth transfer from a single piece of legislation in history. Nothing else in this administration is going to pay off the big money in the way that, that. And so now it's just like, now it's time to discipline and sort of like, trim his sails a little bit. And so this is getting more sort of, like, resonance. You know, nobody want. The New York Times, certainly doesn't, and nor would the Wall Street Journal. Like, we should focus on the gulags that are being built or the scandal of the detention centers or what they're doing to, you know, mothers and grandmothers. Yes. In the cuts. No, they'll, they'll, they'll push this because this is the way that they can discipline Trump without having to get into the politics of things.
- [45:09]
Heather Digby Parton
I think you're right. I mean, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that makes sense that this is, they're going to jump on that bandwagon. The fact that the Wall Street Journal, I mean, you know, the Wall Street Journal just has a regular journalistic enterprise. It's not that bad. I mean, in the straight reporting that they do, it tends to be as good as anything. It's not. It's not any worse. Anyway, the editorial page is a totally different story. But this was surprising that they would, to me, that they would be the outlet that would publish that story from last night about the letter. You don't think so, Emma?
- [45:42]
Emma Vigland
No, no, no. I just think you kind of sparked something, just a theory, like, they've been getting all the scoops and the New York Times has been getting nothing. Maggie Haberman is reduced to going on CNN to give her extremely dry opinions about the Trump administration because I, I just find, like, her background, her parents were like PR fixers for the Trumps, and then she gets all these sources and gets hailed as the savior of journalism anyway. But she's not getting anything anymore because they're all vindictive and they don't trust the Times. So the Wall Street Journal has been getting leaks from what it looked like Rubio about certain. Like the stuff with Elon Musk and the fights. It sounded like Rubio or Besant talking to them. I could see Bongino being the guy behind this because.
- [46:28]
Sam Cedar
Or Bassett. I mean, this could be. I mean, look, this could be a, you know, right now we've got a deadline looming in two or three weeks that I think most people who follow the economy think this is going to really could seriously derail the economy. And also the firing of, of Powell. And so there's a lot of incentive for people who are close to the Wall Street Journal, you know, who would have those relationships to, I don't know, trim Donald Trump's sales.
- [47:11]
Emma Vigland
And the other theory Sam and I were talking about before the show, just throwing this out there. I don't think Bongino and Cash Patel are the guys editing the Epstein video in Adobe. Someone left 15 markers at the time that they cut as a door. Looked like it was going to be open near Epstein cell. Take with that what you will, but Wired found that metadata that was left as breadcrumbs or its incompetence or it's breadcrumbs. It's one of the two.
- [47:42]
Heather Digby Parton
Well, and I had heard, you know, that, that obviously, I mean, when I read that article in Wired, I'm going, you've got to be kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. I mean, this is so. Nothing could spur conspiracy theories more than something like that. And yet there it is. And you would have thought that if they really Wanted to shut this down. That, that, that would have been something they would have, you know, said, I want every, you know, get Elon in here and it's, you know, top Doge boys. I want them to look at this before we start to put this out, to make sure that everything.
- [48:14]
Sam Cedar
I feel like the FBI forensics people.
- [48:16]
Heather Digby Parton
Know how to get rid of pretty good. Yeah, I think they are too. And if they want to, but not this time. No. For whatever reason, whatever, send it out there, it'll be fine. You know, nobody will look at that.
- [48:28]
Sam Cedar
Or maybe, or maybe. I think Emma's point is they will look at it.
- [48:33]
Heather Digby Parton
Yes, exactly.
- [48:34]
Sam Cedar
Like, you know, if I'm the guy in the forensics department at the FBI, I know how to make it look like there's more here, whether there is or isn't.
- [48:44]
Heather Digby Parton
And I mean, who would have had access to the, to the notebook that they, or the birthday book that they gave to the Wall Street Journal to look at other than people who were doing that investigation that had access to that, to that information. And by the way, apparently, and you know, I think this has been underreported. They sent in the quote investigation, they sent a bunch of FBI agents and various people in the doj, attorneys to some off site, you know, institution somewhere, I guess in Virginia to look at all that stuff, to look at everything. They were all sitting there looking at the child porn and Jeffrey Epstein and all that stuff. And so who knows how many, you know, I mean, the pressure on the Department of Justice and FBI, they put a guy in to run the FBI, Cash Patel, who treated every, who talked about the FBI like they were a bunch of criminals for years, every FBI agent, in fact, I can't. Somebody said, you know, they were complaining that, you know, we're going to find out if any FBI agent ever said anything derogatory about Donald Trump, they'll be fired. And some guy who worked at the FBI, former FBI agent said, well, that means every single FBI agent is going to be fired because there's not one who hasn't been said derogatory things about Cash Patel and Donald Trump because of the fact that they were blaming the FBI for years for everything. They treated them like garbage. So, you know, you put those guys on this story. Some, you know, it is not surprising that someone might leak that. And of course, you're absolutely right. Leaking it to the Wall Street Journal makes perfect sense. There are huge incentives. And you know, some of these people might be right wingers too. I mean, I would assume. Well, you would assume they have to be. Right. I mean, who are the liberals in the FBI? They didn't exist in the first place. And in the administration itself, in the White House, I mean, there might be, you know, in the first administration, there were plenty who were leaking all over the place. And as you say, they're leaking to right wing organizations, not to main, you know, mainstream New York Times or Washington Post. So there's a lot going on there. And I think you're so right, Sam, about this idea that the Jay Powell thing, I think that absolutely sent shockwaves because Trump is. Trump is acting out of control. Right. I mean, he is just so drunk with power or kind of losing his mind a little bit or some combination that I think they're afraid that he could fire Powell on a whim, wake up in the morning, just do it.
- [51:20]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [51:21]
Heather Digby Parton
And just crash the market and just do it. The tariff thing, I think. Yeah. Something like the thing that he did with Brazil. Right. Putting a 50% tariff on Brazil over his buddy Bolsonaro, which makes no economic. I mean, even in his twisted economic logic, it makes no sense. This is just. I'm doing it because I can, because they're persecuting my buddy that had to start worrying some of the money people, they've got their tax cuts, so, you know, they're fine. And now they've got to start looking at the big picture. What's happening, you know, what is going to happen to the global economy if this guy really is so drunk with power that he's doing things like that. And then he said. And he went to the Republicans and this is. This did happen this week with a piece of paper in which he said that this was the firing memo of Jay Powell. And he showed it to the Republicans in Congress and he said, you know, should I do it or not? And he showed that. And they all were suddenly telling everybody. They went out, the market went boom, it sunk like a stone. And then he was asked about it in the meeting at the Cabinet with. With whoever he. Or the meeting in the White House. And he said, oh, no, I don't think we'll be doing that. And the market went back up. Okay. Clearly he's. That is, you know, I don't know if he was testing anything, but I don't think he was. I think he was thinking about it, he wanted to do it. And they told him the market just sank and he decided to go back up. But that's what they're worried about. That is what they are worried about. They want to put Kevin Hassett or somebody like. And I wouldn't be surprised if he names Peter Navarro to run, you know, to run the Fed. And that's just. That's death to the global economy if that happens.
- [52:58]
Stephen Miller
Or.
- [52:58]
Sam Cedar
Ron, what is it?
- [53:01]
Emma Vigland
I was just making that joke off, Mike.
- [53:04]
Heather Digby Parton
Ron Veran.
- [53:06]
Sam Cedar
Darren is gonna be.
- [53:08]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah. Navarro will still be at the White House advising, but, you know, Ron Beer will be the head of the Fed. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, you know, he's that. He's that. What would. Inconsistent. What's the word I'm looking for? He's nuts. I guess that's the word I'm looking for.
- [53:24]
Sam Cedar
So, yeah, we had a lot more that we want to talk about, but maybe let's talk about it more, sort of like, more broadly. You have a great piece on the cuts to biomedical research. I mean, that are going to both, like, inhibit the development of new medicines, new treatments. It's also going to drive a lot of scientists out of the country. It's already happening, frankly, at this point. Like, we're going to be subject to a brain drain. It's also going to drive a bunch of, like, capital that would invest in these things out of the country into different countries. I mean, on and on.
- [54:08]
Heather Digby Parton
We had the envy of the world. Our biomedical research institutions were the envy of the world. There was a lot of money put into it, went through universities. Much of that is being dried up because of the, you know, I don't know, Trump's, you know, agenda to get rid of dei and in the midst of it, he's getting rid of cancer research for some reason. Then what they're doing at the national.
- [54:32]
Sam Cedar
People get cancer. Yes. So let's get rid of it. Yeah, exactly.
- [54:36]
Heather Digby Parton
We don't need to talk about that. The NIH, you had Bobby Kennedy and, you know, Dr. Oz and Dr. Makari, the head of the new FDA, coming out and saying ridiculous things all week about how, you know, it's our patriotic duty to stay healthy and we shouldn't eat carrot cake. That literally, that's what Dr. Oz said. People have to stop eating carrot cake because it, you know, and eat healthy, eat real food.
- [55:02]
Sam Cedar
He said, patriotic duty to remain healthy. Honestly, like, I start hearing Uber Alles playing in the background, that kind of.
- [55:11]
Heather Digby Parton
Talk starts me too.
- [55:13]
Emma Vigland
Michelle Obama said, and they called her a communist or whatever she wanted to.
- [55:17]
Sam Cedar
Put in is like, it's our patriotic duty. That's the thing. That's the weird part about it.
- [55:21]
Heather Digby Parton
And if you don't stay healthy, that means you're not A patriot, Right. Except you get sick because you, like, trade the country.
- [55:28]
Sam Cedar
That's like the baby steps towards, like eugenics. I mean, absolutely.
- [55:34]
Heather Digby Parton
And that's. And that Donald Trump is definitely. He's a eugenicist for sure. Apparently Bobby Kennedy is too. And this group is, you know, this is what they're pushing now is this idea, you need to stay healthy and, you know, you need to go to work. If you want to get health care, you better work for it. You don't deserve it if you're not contributing something. You know, this whole idea is very terrifying. And meanwhile, they are cutting all of this research. The National Institute of Health is going to cut like 40% of its budget. And there are all these studies now. The one that I concentrated in my piece is the one that just, just absolutely makes my skin crawl. The MRNA platform that has been developed, it's been developed over the last 20, you know, 20 years or so, a couple of decades. And it just happened to have been really coming online when Covid hit. And of course, they immediately, they were ready to develop those vaccines which saved a ton of lives all over the world. Millions and millions of lives were saved that would have died if they hadn't had the vaccines. They may have gotten Covid, they may have gotten sick, but they didn't die. They didn't go to the hospital. Okay. Miracle, right? Happened just overnight. Even Donald Trump. Trump was the guy who signed the paper. You know, they put the pen in his hand and he signed it to do the. To warp speed, you know, program. Well, MRNA is one of. It is a potential game changer in medicine. It's a vaccine that they are looking at this, this platform that is curing. They really believe that it has the potential to cure a huge number of diseases. Cancer among them. They, they've done a study recently about pancreatic cancer, one of the most dead, deadly cancer, I would say, because it's not discovered usually until it's too late. It has the potential to cure, cured a number of people of pancreatic cancer with this. Okay. We're still in the early stages, but they're talking about it.
- [57:25]
Sam Cedar
I know some people working on this type of, specifically on MRNA technology, they've been doing this obviously for 10 years, I think, or so or more in terms of cancer.
- [57:38]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah. And in terms of Alzheimer's, in terms of heart disease, it is a potential, you know, huge. It could be, you know, the, the discovery of the century. It is that. It is that, you know, big of a possibility of doing this now. I Don't know anybody in America who doesn't have. We're all going, you know, as Joni Yurd said, we're all gonna die, right? And many of us are gonna get sick with these diseases and many of us have family members who have, who already are. Many of us have it and are dealing with it. You want a kitchen table issue, America? Here's a kitchen table issue. If you get sick and they've got a potential cure out there that these scientists have been working on and they are very close to finding all kinds of breakthroughs on this. They are canceling the MRNA contracts. The NIH is. They are canceling the research that's going to these universities. They are basically ending this as a, something that the government is going to support. And why are they doing it? Because of these stupid conspiracy theories about mRNA, because of the vaccines. That is nothing but a deep, you know, rabbit hole that a bunch of stupid people went down. And they are benefiting from it politically. And as a result, they're canceling it. They put a bunch of, of cranks in this guy Makari Bhattacharya who's at the NIH. You've got Oz, you've got RFK Jr. They are all right wing extremist cranks outside of the, of the mainstream of medical science. And I'm not saying that medical science, you know, or love big pharma or any of the rest of it. And we all know that all of that stuff has to be carefully watched and policed and there's too much profit motive on and on and on. But come on, I mean, these are baby with bathwater. Absolutely. And it's just devastating for me. I mean, every time I read about this. So I wrote a piece about it this week. I hope people continue to talk about this. I mean, the Democrats, they want the kitchen table issues. This is one and they should be talking about it. People care about cancer research. They really do. This is a voting issue.
- [59:51]
Sam Cedar
The thing is too, is that aside from the electoral power that it has, this is not something that's going to come back.
- [60:02]
Heather Digby Parton
No.
- [60:02]
Sam Cedar
Like, you know, like if you, we just got an IM saying that, you know, from somebody who's at the Max Planck, I think it was Max Planck Institute in Germany. The number of American researchers applying for positions has skyrocketed.
- [60:20]
Heather Digby Parton
Wouldn't you. I would if I. Of course.
- [60:22]
Sam Cedar
And again, the researchers are going to go, the Capitol is going to go and what, like you would need your head checked at the end of the Trump administration? Let's Just say like Trump administration ends. AOC and Bernie, you know, and Zoran Mamdani get the, you know, a co presidency. You're still one of those entities or one of those researchers and you're like, I'm not going back there. No, I'm not. I, I, I'm gonna need like 8, 12, 16, 20 years before you're gonna have to fix your.
- [61:03]
Heather Digby Parton
I come back.
- [61:04]
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
- [61:05]
Heather Digby Parton
And I need to see, maybe I'll come.
- [61:06]
Sam Cedar
It needs to be fixed long term. I'm not moving back and forth here. I've set up a life, you know, the, the money's here, you've developed relationships. I mean, this is stuff that is not going to come back. And I mean, I feel the same way about the Department of Education. I don't know how you fix this stuff because they're starting cuts right now. They're worried about September. You can't just turn these programs back on. You can't turn on the faucet of people who work with kids with special needs or these after school programs. I mean, this is, these are long term sort of scars this country is going to have.
- [61:48]
Heather Digby Parton
Absolutely. It's generational. It really is generational.
- [61:52]
Emma Vigland
And that's Medicaid cuts, which are also eugenicists too.
- [61:57]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah, of course. And usaid. The, the amount of death and destruction that is caused by that. And by the way, just to put a, to put a, you know, punctuate this a little bit. They did both, all of these things on the big beautiful bill and then they came and last night they did the rescission on the USAID money and of course NPR and PBS too. But the USAID money, $9 billion. Every Republican, save for a tiny handful, two in the Senate and I think what it was, three in the House voted for that rescission to kill USAID. Basically, that's it. The 9 billion gone. They saved PEPFAR for now, but they're going to go after it again. They saved it. But all the rest of that money for starving kids in Africa and etc. Etc. This is going to result in. They've done a study in the Lancet that said that 14 million people are going to die. But in the next five years because of these cuts, 4.5 million of them are children under five. There is blood on the hands of every one of those Republicans. And for all the bad that Democrats do, and I will say maybe it's just a sign of how extreme these Republicans are. Not one Democrat voted for it. And there are plenty of centrists out There who want to vote for something bipartisan if they can, and they did with the genius bill. This, they did not vote for it. The Republicans own it. It is them. They are the ones who killed those people. I'm sorry, they killed them. They are mass murderers in taking this money. Meanwhile, they're spending money on gold sconces in the, in the Oval Office and protecting Mar a Lago and putting a garden of, you know, in the, in.
- [63:36]
Sam Cedar
The hundreds of billions of dollars on.
- [63:38]
Heather Digby Parton
Detention centers and immigration, building concentration camps. I mean that, you know, so this is the priority. This is the Republicans. This is what they've done. It is not Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn't vote last night. This was the Republican Party en masse. All of them voted for it. So I'm sorry, you know, this. They should never be able to forget it. And all these people who are going to die of cancer because we didn't, you know, we stopped the studies right halfway, you know, three quarters of the way full through because they didn't want to pay for the money for it because some, you know, Chaya Ratchak or whatever, libs of tick tock didn't like it. I mean, this is the kind of stuff, and as you say, this is not going to be easy to ever, to ever put back in place. I don't know if it ever will. I don't, I don't know that it's possible to rebuild that. This is decades upon decades, the entire post war second half of the 20th century. They are basically throwing in the toilet and flushing it. And so we're just going to have to, you know, and this is the.
- [64:38]
Sam Cedar
Same, I mean, you know, like, you know, Emma mentioned the Medicaid cuts. Yeah, Medicaid, you know, we saw you can expand it with Obamacare. Not easy to do, but it can be done because the infrastructure remains. These are things where we're going to lose the infrastructure for these things where you can't just sort of like expand it. It's, it's a fundamentally sort of like different relationship to. Yeah, it's incredibly.
- [65:11]
Heather Digby Parton
Dr. Oz is in charge and he says just don't eat carrot cake and it'll be fine. Just stay healthy for America.
- [65:17]
Sam Cedar
Such a weird thing to choose too. Such a crude comment like carrot cake isn't real food.
- [65:22]
Heather Digby Parton
Carro.
- [65:23]
Emma Vigland
I mean, who said that? Well, it was on the screen. I think they had some sort of carrot cake there at, in the studio.
- [65:30]
Sam Cedar
Okay. I mean that makes a little more sense.
- [65:32]
Heather Digby Parton
I mean I thought why pick, don't.
- [65:34]
Sam Cedar
Eat, you know, Twinkies, I can understand somebody saying, but, you know, like, don't.
- [65:39]
Heather Digby Parton
I mean, as desserts go, carrot cake is pretty healthy.
- [65:42]
Sam Cedar
You know, at least lay off that. Lay off that tiramisu.
- [65:47]
Emma Vigland
Right. Like, this is how people talk about health care. They talk about it with the. In the way that they engage with it. And RFK Jr is the same way, where it's like this bespoke, like, choice, and it's all. It's. It's libertarianism. And they have no answer for health care affordability because they don't even consider anything being unaffordable. They're just like, okay, I'm going to have my second homeopathic doctor prescribe this for me or whatever. Exactly.
- [66:15]
Heather Digby Parton
And have a little organic orange juice that's going to. That's gonna solve. You get cancer. Take some cod liver oil. That works just great.
- [66:23]
Sam Cedar
Dig me one last question. I am less inclined to believe that, frankly, the Republicans care about those 14 million people who are projected. I don't even know that they care about the people largely who are gonna die from cancer. I mean, one of the things that, like, Covid sort of exposed was sort of like this nihilism and. And like, okay, million people, they're sick. They, you know, I mean, there's a eugenic. Like, there's a. You know, this. But where are Democrats and, like, what their ability to message this stuff. I mean, the. The polling for Democrats is just absolutely, just awful. And the Jeffries Schumer, the messaging has just been anemic. They haven't done anything. It's all been messaging. They didn't block any bills. They could have slowed the rescission down. It would have been a procedural thing, and it would have been slow. They could have made it more difficult. But, I mean, lawmakers are human, too. And if you make things more and more difficult, people remember Fatima and whining like, I want to go home and go to July 4th celebration with my family. I mean, there's a lot of that on the Republican side as well. And. And I just. I don't see them doing anything. They just keep saying, hypothetically, people are going to be upset about these Medicaid cuts. Well, yeah, that's happening in 2027. It's all like, well, people are going to be upset about these hypothetical things. We're going to see the aca. We're going to see the insurance premiums go skyrocketing at least 15% over the next year. They should be messaging these things that are actually going to be felt Short term, they should be out there saying from the beginning, this, this bill is just nothing but a rollback of the aca. They're going to try and destroy the, you know, Obamacare. They didn't do any of this stuff.
- [68:28]
Heather Digby Parton
You know, I just don't know. I don't, you know, I feel like, I mean, I'm. I mean, part of me says, you know, this is. It's very tough environment to actually be able to penetrate with anything, but then you don't really see much effort to do that. So that remains a big question mark. Are they just not. Do they just don't have any ideas? Is that what it is? They don't have. They don't know how to. To do these things? Or is it that they're just waiting? I mean, sometimes I think they're just waiting for the James Carville thing. You know, just. Just let them shoot themselves in the foot over there and that's all you need. And I'm not sure it is one of the things I saw Nancy Pelosi yesterday. They were talking about the Epstein thing and, you know, Trump being upset, and she goes and said, it's all a distraction. You know, it's just a distraction from the kitchen table issues. We have to talk about the kitchen table criminal. It's just, yeah, just a distraction. I'm just sitting there going. And I mean, again, this is the part of the generational problem, right? I mean, Nancy Pelosi's in her age. I think maybe some of it is that they have not yet grasped that we are in a new political world. They can't seem to understand that the rules that we have lived, that they lived by for decades, I lived through it, too. That just is not the way that it works anymore. There needs to be creativity. And you see something. Well, you see, Mamdani is a good example. I mean, he's going to face some real. I mean, it hurts my heart to think about what he's going to be faced with, with what they're going to throw at him. But what you do see from him is something that I don't see anywhere else in the Democratic Party, which is this kind of, I don't know, hopeful, joyfulness kind of thing. It's an attitude that is so much of a contrast between all the ugliness that you can't help when you look at it. You're kind of drawn into it just as like a. A balm, a breath of fresh air.
- [70:27]
Emma Vigland
That's a positive vision for the country, which when we're Talking about what Jeffries and Schumer are doing. They seem to be spending more and more time and energy eschewing him and his movement and his overwhelming grassroots.
- [70:45]
Heather Digby Parton
You know, I mean, I think it's fine to go after Trump. Some people are really good at it. You know, Let them do that.
- [70:49]
Sam Cedar
They're going after Mom Donnie.
- [70:51]
Emma Vigland
That's what I mean.
- [70:52]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. Well, going after Mom Donnie, it's like, what are they talking about? I mean, and I don't. You know, whatever. I mean, obviously, you know, I'm. I think he's great, and I. And I enjoy watching his videos. I look at that, and it's just. It's almost like, you know, I sometimes, because I have to breach my blame bleach my brain because of so much horrible stuff that I have to read and look at every day that I watch animal videos. Right. I'll watch some. Some cat videos or something. He's kind of like that. For me, I will go and watch a Mom Donnie video and go, oh, I feel, you know, well, I mean, people need that. And I think that that's. That. That's something. That's creative. That's something different.
- [71:30]
Sam Cedar
It's also. But it's. He. That is the style in which he maintains strength and fights.
- [71:38]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [71:39]
Stephen Miller
Like, he's not weak.
- [71:41]
Heather Digby Parton
He's not wisdom.
- [71:44]
Sam Cedar
Aside from, like, you know, Jeffrey's and Schumer's sort of, like, crappy aesthetics, they're not doing anything. They are literally just waiting. They are just waiting for Trump to implode. And I'm sorry, that just doesn't cut it. It's just so frustrating.
- [72:04]
Emma Vigland
They're also compromised. I mean, we should just be like, they are corrupted in a way that Mamdani is not, or a AOC is not, or other members of the squad where they can go after Trump and not piss off their donors. And that is part of the problem here is they're incapable of standing up for the moment as leaders.
- [72:23]
Sam Cedar
You are an anti Semite.
- [72:25]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, right.
- [72:26]
Sam Cedar
It's no kings.
- [72:30]
Emma Vigland
Right.
- [72:32]
Sam Cedar
I don't know why you would say that, but you're the Baileys. I disagree. I respectfully submit, so.
- [72:43]
Heather Digby Parton
Oh, God.
- [72:44]
Sam Cedar
Yeah. Well, Heather, always a pleasure. We will link, of course, to your salon.com pieces and the Uber vlog.
- [72:57]
Emma Vigland
Appreciate it.
- [72:57]
Heather Digby Parton
Thank you very much.
- [72:58]
Sam Cedar
Thanks so much, Digby.
- [72:59]
Heather Digby Parton
Have a great weekend, guys.
- [73:01]
Sam Cedar
You too. All right, folks, we should. We just. Do we need to take a break? Yeah, we'll need to break. We'll take a break and reframe. Literally reframe and when we come back we will win. We will win. Franchesca Fantini will be here from the bituation room and we'll be right back after this.
- [73:34]
Stephen Miller
It.
- [74:00]
Emma Vigland
Sam Ram.
- [75:04]
Sam Cedar
We are back. Sam Cedar. Emma Vigland. It is casual Friday, ladies and gentlemen, joining us from the Bituation room, Francesca Fantini.
- [75:14]
Stephen Miller
It's very hot in this situation room.
- [75:16]
Sam Cedar
I just.
- [75:16]
Heather Digby Parton
I am.
- [75:19]
Stephen Miller
Sorry, is it? It's like really hot in LA these days.
- [75:23]
Sam Cedar
I see you anyway with notes from your.
- [75:28]
Francesca Fiorentini
From your.
- [75:29]
Stephen Miller
Oh, there's like a few talking points that I have.
- [75:32]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [75:34]
Stephen Miller
Wonderful pals. May every day be another. What is it? Wonderful secret.
- [75:41]
Emma Vigland
You know, enigmas never age.
- [75:43]
Sam Cedar
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
- [75:46]
Emma Vigland
Someone wrote into us and said, I didn't realize this. Mountain west leftist those engaged in illegality frequently use coded language. Think of all the words for drugs. Enigma just so happens to be an anagram for gaming Gay mine which means girl. I can't speak French which means girl or young woman in French.
- [76:06]
Stephen Miller
I don't. I mean do we need to do this kind of thing to know?
- [76:10]
Sam Cedar
You mean to never age? Have you noticed that I know French? I'm still on the fence. I need more.
- [76:16]
Emma Vigland
You need more information.
- [76:17]
Stephen Miller
You need something else.
- [76:18]
Heather Digby Parton
Yeah.
- [76:20]
Stephen Miller
My God. Beautiful time. It's been a while since I've, you know, joined you guys last time things went really bad for this country. So I hope they stay at the equal amount of awful. I'm talking about, of course in Brooklyn on that fateful night.
- [76:35]
Sam Cedar
That was not the last time you've been on. Was What? No, that's not true. No, pretty sure. No, no, that is not true.
- [76:44]
Stephen Miller
Okay, all right, all right.
- [76:51]
Emma Vigland
That was in person and I mean, God, having to keep it together on stage as just like Kamala. It was immediately apparent she was losing within like the first results that came.
- [77:02]
Francesca Fiorentini
Out were like, oh, she's down everywhere. She needs to be doing well in and Trump is roaring. Yeah, well, I hope this turns around at some point in the night.
- [77:08]
Emma Vigland
Oh man.
- [77:09]
Stephen Miller
No. I kept on being no because the early stage get the red states get their ballots earlier or something. It's the same day voters. Same day voters, guys. And then we were going back and we went back and now we're in the sunken place and desperately trying to get out of it. I'm actually going to be back in Brooklyn on October 13th. You guys should come. I'm also going to be in Seattle in August 1st and 2nd. Matt Lieb and I will be there. So I hope everybod the gets Tickets and comes to see me live.
- [77:38]
Sam Cedar
Oh, you're going to be at the Ranier Rainier Mountain. Do they still call Mount Rainier, or did Trump change the name of that place, too?
- [77:46]
Stephen Miller
No, I think that's a colonial name. I think Mount Rainier. I think Mount Rainier is the colonial name, if I'm not mistaken. So that stays. Yes. Rainier art center on August 2, 8pm, Ijoma Oluo, awesome author, talked a lot about Palestine. We're gonna talk to her and it'll be a good time. So come. And then Friday at Laughs Comedy. So that'll be tight. Live entertainment is getting crushed by the economy, y'. All. Like, this is. I know we're gonna talk a little bit about cbs, but it's crazy because la obviously now is being terrorized by DHS thugs everywhere, you know, saving us from the scourge of delicious street tacos. But, you know, we're suffering like, entertainers are suffering. Cause, like, the pandemic fucked us, the strikes fucked us. Sorry, I'm real f bombs up top. And then with Trump coming back into office, it's like, people don't wanna spend money. They're like, you know, they're tightening their belts. They don't wanna go out. And so the thing that a lot of folks were like, well, look, if the industry's messed up, there's no writing jobs. I'm gonna go back on the road. I'm gonna do standup again. I'm gonna do this and that. And now people are just not buying tickets as much. So it's a rough time. But we're gonna have so much fun in Seattle, so come through.
- [79:04]
Sam Cedar
Well, if I was anywhere remotely close, I would say probably Colorado. Just like, you know, Colorado, probably. I would be heading to Seattle to see you guys. That sounds like a good show.
- [79:19]
Stephen Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [79:20]
Sam Cedar
Maybe as far south as, like, California. Oh, yeah. Southern California. San Diego, like. Yeah. So we will put a link to that show.
- [79:35]
Stephen Miller
Thank you.
- [79:36]
Sam Cedar
On Saturday. Oh, so it's in two weeks. Okay, let's talk about the CBS thing. The. Do we have a clip of this? Do we have a clip of Colbert announcing or anything like that? No, I can find one real quick. Nah, it's all right. So Colbert, he announces, I guess it was what he does Thursday taping. He might do that. Like, Thursday tapes for Friday type of thing. And he announced that the show was getting canceled in, like, what, the spring of 26.
- [80:12]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, May 2026 will be, I guess, his last show. So they've got around 10, 11 months. Left.
- [80:20]
Sam Cedar
What, what, what's your take on this? I mean, the, the. It is the most viewed late night show by, by twice almost of any of its rivals. I don't know the, the, the sort of like metrics of this, but it seems a little bit suspiciously with Paramount's attempt to. I think it's a merger or purchase getting purchased by skyview Television or media, I should say. And Redstone wants to make billions of dollars and this is like a bone. They just paid $16 million to Trump over that lawsuit. That was also seems to be like just a tribute more than anything else.
- [81:15]
Stephen Miller
He wanted like 90 billion or something insane. But yeah, it's hard not to think that this is related to their overall acquiescence to Donald Trump. Even though it sounds kind of corny and lived up to say that either way, no matter how you slice it, whether this was a financial decision or whether it was a political one, I mean, can't both be true and both are depressing as hell. My first reaction was, yo, you just took out the king of late night. In a time when late night shows are struggling, everyone's screwed. Like, what does this mean for all other late night hosts, the writers, the people who work on staff, the 200 people who work with Colbert, and on and on and on. And sort of, as I call like the downward pressure of entertainment. You know, Colbert is going to start a podcast. It's like, I've got a podcast. These are the kinds of things where, you know, people who are trying to rise or climb or like, you know, be a writer or, or one day, I mean, look, you've got Taylor Tomlinson, who actually left her own late night show at midnight because she wanted to focus on standup. And it was kind of like, oh, they were renewed for another season, but then she wanted to go focus on standup. And you're like, that's great, that's great. But if you're taking out again the premier late night host, it really does not bode well for an industry that's already struggling and just like under the boot of, yes, mergers and private equity and all this, the fact that Stephen Colbert did his monologue about that merger and pulled no punches. And about the $16 million payout to Trump, what, three days before.
- [82:47]
Sam Cedar
Yep.
- [82:47]
Stephen Miller
It just looks terrible. And so either they had always planned it. I've seen some reporting. Look, they're losing 40 million a year, which is like, you lose 40 million a year on nothing. Like, come on now we're losing 40 million a year. But either way, the Optics are such that it does look like it was politically motivated. And I don't care if people think that Colbert was like Orange man, bad comedy. You know, he's, he is an excellent host, he's an excellent entertainer and he did great there. So yeah, it's.
- [83:23]
Emma Vigland
I mean, Jimmy Fallon's still over at NBC and I don't know if he's like been relevant to the discourse in like six or seven years. Like, I didn't like how Colbert. Colbert handed that Colbert handled that interview with Zoran. Right. But for the most part, his politics. I know your theory on it, Sam, is like giving him an opportunity to, to address it.
- [83:44]
Stephen Miller
I mean, no violence against Jews.
- [83:46]
Sam Cedar
Are you sure?
- [83:47]
Stephen Miller
No violent.
- [83:48]
Emma Vigland
I. And it's still, it still is lingering to the point where Zorin had to like apologize. I felt for him because it was so insane yesterday. But like the 60 minutes thing is also a part of this picture. I feel like that's another story that we memorize. Hold. That was basically the head of the longtime, I don't know, editor or producer or whatever at the top of 60 minutes basically was forced out because of pressure from the top to edit their. And censor their coverage of Donald Trump, the president. Why would we be shocked that they would say, like Colberry's critical of him. It's expensive to employ all these writers and to do this show just, just kill.
- [84:33]
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
- [84:34]
Stephen Miller
And it's, remember, you remember that like cancel culture. You know, I'm not sure if it started before this. I know it was more like kind of just like turn of phrase or whatnot. And maybe it was like, you know, I don't know where, like where exactly when you said something's canceled, it came from. But initially in 2016, when Trump became president and Colbert came out swinging against him, the right freaked out and they wanted to cancel Colbert. You remember that it was cancel, cancel, cancel. And since then they've been obsessed with other people being canceled because of things they've said and free speech and all this. So there is again this little like lib inside of me that's very sad that like Trump won out and he's openly gloating now about, you know, winning out. And what's interesting is they weren't even like, we're gonna replace him with a half drunk guy like Fallon, you know what I'm saying? We're gonna replace him with a no talent ass like Fallon who's never gonna like punch up and ever. Sorry. But like, no, they're going to completely get rid of the entire show altogether.
- [85:33]
Sam Cedar
Well, he's full drunk, by the way. Yeah, you got to be. Don't be rude. The. I mean, I think you're right. I think both things can be true here. This is. It's a twofer, I think, for Paramount and Skyview. It is. It is to grease the regulatory wheels or to make sure that there's no friction. You know, it really is just a tribute to Trump. But I also think, look, you know, the writers strike became. And the actors strike became a vehicle for these massive companies who spent billions with a B on these streaming services, only to find, like, oh, oh, wait, what? It's. Maybe we need to bring back commercials like. Like to go back to essentially find out that, like, we're just gonna do TV now.
- [86:32]
Stephen Miller
Channels. Whatever's on is on. What?
- [86:35]
Sam Cedar
And so this is hap. I mean, it is. It is a twofer for them. It is a way for them to sort of, like, downsize the. You know, if the idea is that CBS and Paramount is going to become more a streaming service, you know, the idea of live stuff doesn't have the same sort of, like, allure as it used to have in some ways. And, like, you know, having a, you know, this sense of a Daily show is not necessarily the same. You know, the habits are changing, and it's just not worth the amount of money for them to spend on it. But. But it is pretty nuts. And cbs, we should say, has a record of this. They canceled the Smothers Brothers because Nixon was mad that they were making fun of him and. And, you know, talking about the. The Vietnam War. And so the Smothers Brothers actually got canceled directly because of political interference. But who knows? Who knows if there isn't a lawyer going around? Like, you know, one of the guys at the FCC said, maybe if you get rid of somebody who's critical of Trump, they'll. It will be much easier for you.
- [87:53]
Stephen Miller
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I agree with you. And this is the. Again, it's like, people are like, oh, I didn't really like Colbert. That's fine. But it is a form of censorship. And I also think the other thing is, like, the late night monologue, right? Responding to Daily News, da, da, da. People are, like, on their phones getting meme jokes. And, like, so even streaming as, like, someone who likes topical humor. I hate monologue. Jokes have their limits, let's be real. But, like, even that, I think, is a hard. It's just a harder sell. It's a. It's a different beast anyway. It's all. It's all pretty depressing out here in la.
- [88:31]
Sam Cedar
Oh, yeah.
- [88:33]
Stephen Miller
I mean, they film over there, but you know what I'm saying.
- [88:35]
Sam Cedar
Ryan likes Gutfeld anyways. Huge Gutfeld guy.
- [88:39]
Heather Digby Parton
King of late.
- [88:40]
Sam Cedar
Is it?
- [88:41]
Stephen Miller
He's crushing it. Did you look into getting a job with Gutfeld before the majority report, Brian? Because I feel.
- [88:47]
Sam Cedar
Why do you think I'm here?
- [88:49]
Stephen Miller
I know.
- [88:50]
Sam Cedar
Can't get into. That's too prestigious. Brian. Brian tried, but then they were just like, sorry, door is shut for you. We do have a quick clip of the kind of humor they're doing over there. I mean, this is the 5, but this has got brand.
- [89:07]
Emma Vigland
So this is daytime. So the less edgy stuff.
- [89:11]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, yeah.
- [89:11]
Emma Vigland
The less offensive stuff, like this, this.
- [89:14]
Sam Cedar
Is like, this is when he's working workshop and stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [89:18]
Emma Vigland
Oh, yeah.
- [89:19]
Sam Cedar
This is why the criticism doesn't matter to us. When you call us Nazis.
- [89:23]
Heather Digby Parton
Nazi this, Nazi that.
- [89:26]
Sam Cedar
You know, I'm beginning to think they don't like us. You know what? I've said this before. We need to learn from the blacks the way they were able to remove the power from the N word by using it.
- [89:38]
Heather Digby Parton
So from now on, it's what up, my Nazi?
- [89:40]
Sam Cedar
Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging my Nazi?
- [89:46]
Stephen Miller
Nazi, please.
- [89:49]
Sam Cedar
Thank God you did. Kennedy from three. What does it tell you, though?
- [89:53]
Emma Vigland
Okay, so Nazi is like a way to describe a political movement and ideology. It's not a racial slur.
- [90:04]
Sam Cedar
Well, we're reappropriating it and, and, and making it into something that is not as a powerful and reminiscent of. Of a time of injustice.
- [90:15]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [90:15]
Stephen Miller
The thing is, is that they just want to say the N word. So this is the question. It's like. And by virtue of just wanting to say the N word and feeling so upset that they are not allowed to say the N word. That in their mind is like, well, I'm just gonna go full Nazi. So it's even more fitting than we thought. And you know, Trump loves saying the N word, right? He like the N word nuclear, loves to do the N word joke.
- [90:43]
Emma Vigland
Gutfeld just did a version of that where he said the blacks, because they're like edge edging, they want to get, like, right up to it because in private they say this kind of stuff. Right. Remember that, that quote from the. The Wall street worker who anonymously, of course, gave after Trump's victory saying, we get to say the R word again. Because now they get to say the R word. And they're like, what's next? What can we get to Say next.
- [91:10]
Stephen Miller
The market's crashing. That's so hard.
- [91:14]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [91:16]
Sam Cedar
The attempt at comedy is the most offensive part. That video, though, right?
- [91:20]
Francesca Fiorentini
Well, where he says we have to say, like, you know, a couple times, and then Kennedy bombs. And then Kennedy comes in to save him.
- [91:28]
Stephen Miller
No, because it's so striking. I watch that clip multiple times, and I think every time my draw is on the floor. Because they're openly just saying, why don't we normalize calling one another Nazis? I mean, every joke has a shred of truth. That's what makes it funny. And that's what he's effectively saying. So the one guy's like, oh, God, I don't know who they are, but.
- [91:45]
Sam Cedar
I'm trying to, though. To figure out the construction of this. They call us Nazis. They. They call us fascists. Right. And that is a pejorative term, I guess, in their mind. That is just sort of like, brought out to make fascists less than the rest of us. And we're going to reappropriate that term so that we can liberate ourselves as Nazis and feel some pride in being fascists.
- [92:24]
Stephen Miller
Well, we made them do it. I mean, we. The left really needs to stop calling Nazis Nazis because that's why they're doing Nazi stuff.
- [92:32]
Heather Digby Parton
Ah.
- [92:33]
Stephen Miller
I think some of the wisest voices.
- [92:35]
Emma Vigland
Have said, look what you made us do. We wouldn't have Nazis if you didn't call us Nazis. Duh.
- [92:42]
Stephen Miller
Yeah, I wasn't gonna say Kyle twice on stage. And then you called me a Nazi.
- [92:48]
Sam Cedar
I thought, though, that comedy was legal. Again, I don't understand what happened to that. But since we're talking about sort of a term that was used to denigrate and other the blacks so that they could be more easily enslaved. Let's check out Tim Pool for a moment while you're here. Francesca. Tim, the other day pinpointed what the problem with liberals is. And the big one is, of course, they don't understand what slavery is. I've. I've gone to foreign. I've gone to. I'll just keep it kind of private because the people who are at this restaurant might know. But it was a non American style of food, and their employees appeared to be indentured servants. And they got very mad when I pointed something like this out. That's legal.
- [93:51]
Emma Vigland
Can I guess it's sushi. Can I just guess it's sushi with the boys?
- [93:57]
Sam Cedar
No, they'd have. The sushi with the boys is brought in.
- [94:00]
Emma Vigland
The boyish.
- [94:01]
Stephen Miller
Wait, are the boys the servants?
- [94:04]
Sam Cedar
Don't we have the picture of the pool table. I mean, the poker table. Oh, yeah, we got to bring that up.
- [94:11]
Stephen Miller
Are there a bunch of dogs playing again around it?
- [94:14]
Sam Cedar
No, it's actually. They have a sushi with the boys poker table at Tim Pool's place. So it's not. I mean, it's not the same table. Oh.
- [94:28]
Stephen Miller
This whole time they've been eating sushi off the poker table.
- [94:33]
Sam Cedar
Sushi as the chips, these things. But I like how he said, like, they appear indentured servants. How do you. What, what makes someone appear to be an indentured servant?
- [94:45]
Stephen Miller
They look Asian.
- [94:47]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [94:47]
Francesca Fiorentini
Okay.
- [94:48]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, yeah.
- [94:49]
Sam Cedar
Oh, got it. Of course. Good. I've. I've gone to foreign. I've gone to. I'll just keep it kind of private because eery the people who are at this restaurant might know, but it was a non American style of food and their employees appeared to be indentured servants. And they got very mad when I pointed something like this out.
- [95:10]
Francesca Fiorentini
What did you say?
- [95:10]
Sam Cedar
That's legal. You're allowed to do that. Like if, if you live in say, like China and you're like, I want passage and say, okay, we're going to, we're going to have you work debt off for us. We don't do the United States. The issue is that children cannot enter into these contracts. Children cannot agree to be smuggled. That's trafficking children who are on a farm doing labor illegally in this country. For a second, hold on. I mean, just in case, for any of our foreign restaurant tours. Listening. Even if they're adults, you cannot traffic them in this country. You can't.
- [95:50]
Stephen Miller
Like, but if, if they're your aunt or mom, it's always like a grandma peeling a bunch of fava beans in the corner and you're like, she's been at it for a long time. That's not indentured servitude, though. That's just love of the game. But I will say it's not clear that he's in the United States. I went to foreign.
- [96:07]
Heather Digby Parton
Dot, dot, dot.
- [96:08]
Stephen Miller
What? I don't want to name the cuisine.
- [96:12]
Emma Vigland
I think he's talking about the Japanese restaurant that he frequents all the time and took Kanye to and asks and talks about it a lot in West Virginia, where he's from.
- [96:21]
Francesca Fiorentini
Like, because if he said, like, yeah, it was a Japanese or a Chinese restaurant or whatever, it would pretty be there. There's only a few options in a.
- [96:29]
Emma Vigland
50 mile radius of where he's at.
- [96:33]
Sam Cedar
All right, but let's go back good legal. You're Allowed to do that. Like, if you live in say, like China and you're like, I want passage United States, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna have you work debt off for us. We don't do the United States. The issue is that children cannot enter into these contracts. Children cannot agree to be smuggled. That's trafficking children who are on a farm doing labor illegally in this country. They're kids aren't allowed to work on farms like this. To the degree that they're having these people, this is. That would then be upgraded from nature servitude to slavery because they don't have a choice. And so here we are. The question is, you know, I think, you know, I think it is. I think it's because the American liberal thinks slavery as a black man in a field being beaten. Yes. They don't realize that slavery affected every level of American society from grocery stores to governments to. To building houses. In the mind of the liberal, when you talk about slavery, they imagine it's a guy in a field for a second. It's possible there were grocery stores in the late 1800s, probably more of like a general store. But the idea that liberals are not aware that slaves weren't just in the field. Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation doing everything from building stuff to, you know, black to baking. He brought his slave to France to learn French cuisine. I mean, for God's sakes, Tympo's perspective on what other people know is a projection of things that he just didn't realize until he was in his early 30s.
- [98:18]
Stephen Miller
What's the conclusion? I'm waiting for the conclusion and I'm excited for it, but I also don't understand, like, I still haven't heard slavery bad come out of his mouth. Like, they don't understand that actually, you know, when you're making some delicious Japanese food within a 50 mile radius of my home, it's not, it's not slavery. Like, I'm not quite sure what he's saying. I love the idea that the place that he frequents all the time was like, not happy that he was like, hey, you got slaves here. Other slaves, anyway, it's pretty good. Yellow tail, like, I like what they were mad.
- [98:52]
Sam Cedar
Let's put it up. Keep going. Yes. They don't realize that slavery affected every level of American society from grocery stores to governments to building houses. In the mind of the liberal, when you talk about slavery, they imagine it's a guy in a field. But they were. There were people who worked. Smith, a blacksmith, and he had slaves. And the slaves. Dave would make horseshoes. Nobody was hitting him. But that was not his choice. He did not want to be there. And they were enslaved. Wait, so I see. Nobody was hitting him. If that guy tried to leave, he would be beaten.
- [99:30]
Emma Vigland
There were also things called house slaves where there were often, you know, women whose did. They didn't. They were. Weren't supposed to be beaten because it was better for the master to rape them when she didn't have, you know, welts all over her face or body or things like that. That.
- [99:47]
Heather Digby Parton
That.
- [99:48]
Emma Vigland
I don't know any liberal that has not. That has said that slavery was just confined to the field.
- [99:53]
Sam Cedar
Liberals.
- [99:54]
Francesca Fiorentini
Yeah, liberals know that the people making the. Say the barrels, like Coopers, in other words, those were also black people in Virginia, like the Smiths.
- [100:03]
Sam Cedar
Like, yeah, yeah. This is.
- [100:04]
Francesca Fiorentini
What's the point is he trying to make.
- [100:06]
Sam Cedar
This is him finding this stuff out very recently and then projecting it on. Like, nobody, no liberal ever told me before that there were slaves in just working in the fields. And so I just assume they don't know this.
- [100:24]
Francesca Fiorentini
It's kind of Desantisy. Like, they had skill. Remember when Desantis is like, oh, slavery.
- [100:28]
Sam Cedar
Actually, they.
- [100:28]
Francesca Fiorentini
They learned a bunch of. Of great skills underneath that.
- [100:31]
Sam Cedar
And maybe, like I said, Jefferson brought one of his slaves to France when he was there for a year or two to learn French cuisine and bring it back.
- [100:45]
Emma Vigland
And yeah, I mean, the amount of labor violations for child laborers, by the way, has been dramatically increasing over the past few years. And you have governors in red states like Sarah Huckabee Sanders rolling back paperwork requirements for employers when they use child labor, because it's quite obvious that they're using children who are undocumented, and they don't want to have a record of that. So if he was so concerned about things that resemble indentured servitude in this country, perhaps he would address it.
- [101:20]
Heather Digby Parton
But the.
- [101:21]
Emma Vigland
But the caption of this video from Tim Cast just this bottom thing makes me think that. Can we put that up? The American liberal doesn't view illegal immigrant children forced to work on farms as slavery because they don't understand what slavery truly is. And the liberal media refuses to report on it. Just how they frame it. So the question is, is are you essentially saying that these ICE raids are liberating these kids?
- [101:45]
Sam Cedar
That is exactly what he is saying. So.
- [101:49]
Emma Vigland
So that's the implication. Well, ask them. Ask them if that's the case. What the. Like, what he's trying to say is this is for their Own good, our brutalization of them. If he was interested in addressing labor exploitation, Join all of the left in talking about raising the minimum wage, in cracking down on companies that abuse Chinese children in this way, on allowing these people to become citizens so that they can have full rights and protections and they can't be exploited by the legal gray area of immigration and national security, by a government that's now throwing people into a concentration camp down in Florida and just basically black sites.
- [102:34]
Francesca Fiorentini
In fact, that's the solution to slavery was to. Oh, instead of. Instead of, we're not going to send these people to Liberia or wherever, back to Africa, we're going to make them full citizens and we're going to be citizens next to them with full, equal rights.
- [102:48]
Emma Vigland
Right? Yeah.
- [102:49]
Stephen Miller
I mean, I think it's simpler than you guys are making out to be. I think he's basically just like, slavery wasn't that bad because you didn't just work in the field. It's the Ron DeSantis thing. It's the same old thing. They were taken care of. They were offered poker and sushi with the boys. That's what he thinks slavery was like. And also there's a little bit of an implication that, like, that it wasn't just black people. Like, I feel like he wants to sort of go there. Like he was eating at a restaurant. And yet again, it's very, like, Asian coded that, you know, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't just black people. That's the vibe I'm getting. But, yeah, I mean, here in la, people, you know, street vendors are being swept up off the streets and their children are working their stands and carts for them. And it's just insane what is happening. Nannies are being disappeared. I'm on, like, mom groups, you know, nannies are being disappeared from, like, nice neighborhoods. You know, people who can afford nannies and their kids are being put in, like, the back of ICE cars to wait. It's a really wild time. We're like, in a very unprecedented moment right now and continue to be.
- [104:00]
Sam Cedar
It's going to get. Only going to get worse. Do we have more? Is there more on that?
- [104:05]
Emma Vigland
That's it. Matt says. But, like, on the part about him arguing that it is slavery, it might be a good thing, I mean. Or that it wasn't that bad. Francesca, that actually kind of pair. That might be logical based on what he's arguing in terms of, like, the construction of his. Of his argument. If he's saying it's a good thing for these ICE raids to happen because they're being liberated from, I don't know, the worst, worst parts of slavery, the ones that work in the fields. But the reality is, is that immigration enforcement is a tool of bosses to keep these employees in check. And slave catchers.
- [104:39]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I was just going to say I would love to see some footage of ICE raiding one of these job sites and walking out with the boss.
- [104:49]
Francesca Fiorentini
Never happened.
- [104:50]
Emma Vigland
Yep.
- [104:52]
Stephen Miller
Well, Sam, I think that's a very harsh way to frame what we're trying to do in this country.
- [104:57]
Sam Cedar
Did you hear that? She was feels the Epstein stuff is a distraction.
- [105:03]
Stephen Miller
Oh, absolutely. But anything to take the heat off of my massive failures in. In Texas are good.
- [105:12]
Emma Vigland
No, Sam, you're confusing Pelosi or Francesca's Pelosi and Kristi Noem. This is.
- [105:17]
Sam Cedar
Oh, I didn't get here. Oh, I see now.
- [105:21]
Stephen Miller
Christy Noams. Him, I think, is much more sheer.
- [105:24]
Sam Cedar
Activated the gnome a little bit more the nasal.
- [105:28]
Stephen Miller
Every single muscle in your face must be activated. And as soon as we roll out new alligator Alcatrazes, you're gonna see some. Some things you have never seen before. And we're gonna go after podcasters. Indeed. You're gonna be held at what we're calling in Montana Grouse Guantanamo, and you don't want to be attacked by a grouse. It's quite something else.
- [105:59]
Sam Cedar
God.
- [106:01]
Stephen Miller
She tries. She tried. I don't have enough makeup on. I apologize.
- [106:08]
Sam Cedar
What should we talk about here? We got a bunch of clips.
- [106:12]
Emma Vigland
So Don Jr. Matt just saw this, has weighed in on the. The Epstein stuff. He's defending his dad.
- [106:23]
Francesca Fiorentini
My father has a very specific way of speaking. People all over the world have mimicked it for decades. The insanity written in the Wall Street Journal, ain't it? I love that.
- [106:31]
Emma Vigland
Wow.
- [106:32]
Francesca Fiorentini
This ain't it. And everyone knows it. Also, in 47 years, I've never seen him doodle once. Give me a break with the fate journalism. Mean. Now, that's kind of a sad thing to say when he says, I've never seen him doodle once.
- [106:46]
Sam Cedar
Because.
- [106:47]
Francesca Fiorentini
Because it turns out he's a doodle machine.
- [106:50]
Sam Cedar
Yes.
- [106:52]
Stephen Miller
Dude, I love this. I.
- [106:56]
Sam Cedar
Oh, my God, he loves doodling. Actually pretty good. That's amazing.
- [107:01]
Emma Vigland
Yes. And he loves to doodle the two things he knows. Big building and women's tits.
- [107:07]
Sam Cedar
All you got to do is turn those skylines to the side. And then all of a sudden, he's got. He's got basically his drawing of a woman's body. I mean, what the amazing thing is, is, like, if the argument is, this is A thing to drop. If this is, if this is a, a fake, like, it's so if, if it's so obvious what Donald Trump sounds like and it's a fake, why wouldn't they made it more like this is a big, beautiful card or something? You know, like what.
- [107:39]
Emma Vigland
I think?
- [107:40]
Stephen Miller
Yeah, Don Jr. It needed to be like, in 47 years, I haven't seen my father. That's, I think, the proper way to express what he's saying. It doesn't matter whether he's doodling or not. You just haven't really seen him much. But I just think it's so on brand and so funny. And this is what's annoying about how comical Trump is, because of course he would draw the New York fucking skyline so horribly. So third grade, learning how to like, like shade and do, like draw cubes over and over and over again. It's so corny.
- [108:13]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, it's impossibly corny. And I just, I like, why would you fake things like. Okay, so in this article from the Wall Street Journal, they also have a letter from Alan Dershowitz in it where it had a mock up. So clearly Ghislaine was saying, get creative, people. Dershowitz's letter included a mock up of a vanity unfair magazine cover with mock headlines such as, who was Jack the Ripper? Was it Jeffrey Epstein? By the way, Jack the Ripper murdered sex workers.
- [108:48]
Francesca Fiorentini
This is in 2003. He's making jokes like that. Okay.
- [108:52]
Emma Vigland
He joked that he had convinced the magazine to change the focus of an article from Epstein to Bill Clinton. Dershowitz, who represented Epstein after his first arrest, said, it's been a long time and I don't recall the content of what I may have written. He kept his underwear, but it was just a massage.
- [109:09]
Stephen Miller
And she was definitely 18.
- [109:11]
Emma Vigland
Yep, yep. I mean, what do you think of, like, I'm obsessing a little bit about the sloppiness of the COVID up and maybe other people don't care about it, but I think, like, this is, this is a way to, to really hit at Trump's credibility. And I know it sounds insane because we know he's such a liar, but like, the, the. Does this break some sort of trust with the new MAGA people? I mean, what's your assessment?
- [109:41]
Stephen Miller
Yeah, I think it absolutely. I mean, super anecdotal. Like, I know someone whose mom is like stalwart MAGA and is having just a crisis of faith. I think there's a lot of crisis of faith. I mean, true believers, like, like Democrats release Weather bombs and cloud clustering or whatever, seating and whatever. True believers in that stuff, obviously, anti vax. And of course, I think they really should have nipped this in the bud before. Someone should have brought the line down and said, okay, you can be good on the anti vax stuff, but don't make too big of a deal of the Epstein thing in case we win. But they did. They. They really hung their hat on that. And it is absolutely blowing up in his face. I think it will lead to broader mistrust. I mean, it's only the biggest sex trafficking crime maybe of our lifetime that mysteriously ended when he mysteriously committed suicide. And they were BFFs, they shared girlfriends. And again, this is the thing we don't, like, talk about, but not really, but there have been women interviewed about this. A former Sports Illustrated model spoke to, I think it was CBS last year, and she was like, yeah, I was Epstein's girlfriend for like a couple months, and he introduced me to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump immediately started groping me and trying to kiss me. And it was really weird. And it felt like a game between the two of them. There was a beauty queen who came over from Scandinavia. I forgot where, same thing. She was like. And then Epstein, after I met Trump, really tried to set me up with, like, going to his Mar A. His Palm beach home. And they were sending me all these letters and that Trump wants to meet me. And it just skeeved me out. It weirded me out. So she, like, left it there. She went to the beauty pageant contest, I think, you know, in Manhattan. And then. Then that was it. That was all last year. So there's just. It's endless, right?
- [111:33]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [111:34]
Sam Cedar
That's why I still think, like, the. The timing of this stuff. I mean, I guess Pam Bondi did that folder thing, and I don't know what they thought they were doing with that. You know, that was, I guess, two or three months ago. I don't know what they thought they were. I guess they just sort of the train car got away from them in some way.
- [111:55]
Francesca Fiorentini
I think they thought they could get away with that stuff. But I think Elon blowing up and saying this stuff will never come out because Trump's implicated in it. I think that's what sort of reset the dominoes fallen.
- [112:05]
Sam Cedar
Yeah.
- [112:06]
Emma Vigland
Although it's interesting that Elon's defending him now and saying the letter's not real because it doesn't sound like him. I mean, he's a dumb guy too, but. But you wonder why there's that flip.
- [112:16]
Sam Cedar
There Maybe he's walking back. Maybe there's like a. There's a. There's a EV subsidy or something floating around out there that he's looking for.
- [112:25]
Stephen Miller
Yeah, I mean, I don't think Pam's going anywhere. So to your earlier conversation, I don't think they're getting rid of Bondi. Bondi knows way too much. Bondi is right hand woman on all of this. She's Bongino and Patel's boss. They're not in on it at all. They have nothing to do with it. They're just being told. And yeah, he would never fire Bondi.
- [112:46]
Emma Vigland
And she's eating for him. She's eating like it's his cover up. And it's just Pam's gonna be.
- [112:54]
Sam Cedar
She's gonna be the new ambassador to Italy. That's. That's gonna be the announcement, really? To the Caribbean. She's gonna be with a new Caribbean ambassador.
- [113:07]
Stephen Miller
Mysteriously meet her demise.
- [113:11]
Sam Cedar
Exactly. Balls in their hands, Francesca. Folks can see you most, I guess, in the soonest in Seattle at the. At the.
- [113:29]
Stephen Miller
Yeah. August 1st at Laughs Comedy, August 2nd at Rainier Arts Center. I'll also be in Houston, Texas, at the Punchline on August. August 28th with Matt. And then moving forward October 13th in Brooklyn.
- [113:42]
Sam Cedar
Where do people get tickets in advance if they want?
- [113:44]
Stephen Miller
Is there any Francesca fiorentini.com? good luck with my name. No, yeah, there's a QR code. You can also go to bit.ly TBR, Seattle. Bit. Ly.
- [113:56]
Sam Cedar
Can't you do something like a Fran F or something?
- [114:02]
Stephen Miller
Fran F?
- [114:03]
Sam Cedar
I don't know, just as a website. Franf.com or something?
- [114:07]
Stephen Miller
Franf.com. no, no. You got a name as ridiculous as mine, as Italian as mine. You want everyone to spell it all out? All of it all make them. And. And now that Luigi Mangione is, you know, it's like now everyone puts a little respect on my name, you know?
- [114:25]
Sam Cedar
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely. All right, well, we will put a link@majority fm and in our podcast and YouTube description, go see Francesca out in Seattle and among the other places you're touring around.
- [114:45]
Heather Digby Parton
Yes.
- [114:45]
Stephen Miller
And may every day be a wonderful secret. You guys, always good to see you.
- [114:49]
Sam Cedar
That is so sweet.
- [114:52]
Emma Vigland
All right, thanks, Francesca.
- [114:54]
Sam Cedar
Thanks, Francesca. I guess it's a freebie Friday now, right?
- [114:59]
Emma Vigland
So.
- [115:02]
Sam Cedar
Let'S take a couple IMs. Franz Brosef. Great to have Fran on the show. Tippy tappy toe. It's funny how years ago, Trump and Epstein were competing to be America's biggest sex fiend, but Now Trump is trying desperately to shed that reputation. Nolan from the Detroit suburbs, correct me if I'm wrong, but if we think of slaves in the fields, it's because the biggest part of the southern economy was farming in those times. Yes, but you didn't know there were slaves other places, which I'm not sure what his point was of that, but.
- [115:40]
Francesca Fiorentini
I mean he was, as ever, arguing at cross purposes. So he's arguing a little bit of this. And also that indentured servitude is so bad because people don't understand. Very confused. But he's just filling there.
- [115:50]
Emma Vigland
Right.
- [115:53]
Sam Cedar
People don't understand that slavery existed in grocery stores and in car repair shops and in.
- [116:00]
Francesca Fiorentini
And if you don't want ICE to basically rip families apart that you're basically. Jefferson Davis is kind of what he was trying to argue.
- [116:07]
Sam Cedar
Exactly. Living coder. My father in law Republican, doesn't care at all about the big, the big beautiful bill, but is very focused on the Epstein stuff. Maybe this is to keep distracting their base. I mean, I don't distract them from what?
- [116:27]
Francesca Fiorentini
Like the whole thing is they is all a distraction for them. Like, yeah, that's all they operate in. But they, they're going to cut Medicaid and all this other stuff. That's the important thing. But yes, I hope that Emma and Digby are right about like the influencers are going to get traction with the base and take down his support. I think that's possible. But I also think that stuff doesn't matter as much as like the real Republicans. I remember again, like I talked to one of my relatives and she was very sort of wanting to impress upon me how she was a Trump supporter before, but the bullet just missed him almost a year ago and now it means God has selected him. Like, I think that's more of a Republican than the people who are following the Epstein stuff closely.
- [117:19]
Emma Vigland
I 100% agree. I'm just talking about the people, the new voters he turned out and the data shows that he did. And I think those are the podcast listeners who care about this kind of thing. And it's more reminiscent, it's more about the fact that like, like we don't have good material politics that are communicated to people in this country, but everyone has a sense that the elites are, are ripping them off and play by different rules. And that's why this Epstein story matters to people who aren't just the normal secret cabal anti Semites, like weird evangelical freaks, QAnon people. It's expanded and it has cross appeal. Everybody I know that, that, that is a millennial, I think really cares about the story in part because the, our, my, our generation lived through the Iraq war, the financial Crisis, now Trump 2.0. It's also the millennials are way more Democratic in terms of voting than other people.
- [118:29]
Sam Cedar
People.
- [118:30]
Emma Vigland
But there are also more independents. It's just less Republican too. And I think that there's a sense of like this is a story where it makes us, that a clear story of a group of elite people that are getting away with the worst crimes that could have ever been done and that there's a cover up. And if Trump's participating in that cover up, it's bad for his brand. That's my contention.
- [118:53]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I think that's the. And, and if it gets bad enough, then he has to blame somebody. And that's really where this could have value. It's not gonna, I don't think it's gonna scare any voters away from Trump, but I do think that it could create pressure on him enough where he would be worried about that, where he has to throw somebody under the bus, which could be really inconvenient. But even the problem with throwing her on the bus on some level though is that there's clearly something there. And I don't know how they satisfy the desire for it other than like, you know, I don't know, he starts a war. But here is Ron, I mean honestly, like at one point he'll do something to change the narrative. But here is Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee. This is fascinating stuff because there, there is an element to this Epstein stuff that is not as sexy in some respects literally, but like, or rapey. But it is, it speaks to the, the more the elite stuff like how did this guy amass his money? What, what was going on? How did this dude who was a substitute teacher end up hobnobbing with all these people? It wasn't his talent or his conversation skills. There was something else going on. Here is Ron Wyden on the Senate Finance Committee yesterday.
- [120:34]
Heather Digby Parton
Last year the Biden administration allowed our investigators to look at portions of the file. We did that at the treasury building. Here is what it says. Treasury's Epstein file details Mr. President. 4,725 wire transfers. Let me repeat that. 4,725 wire transfers adding up to nearly $1.1 billion flowing in and out of just one of Mr. Epstein bank accounts.
- [121:13]
Sam Cedar
If you ask me, that is more.
- [121:16]
Heather Digby Parton
Than 4,000 potential lines of investigation right there. Hundreds of millions more flowed through Other accounts. That's even a lot more to investigate. The file shows that Mr. Epstein used multiple Russian banks, which are now under sanctions, to process payments related to sex trafficking.
- [121:47]
Emma Vigland
Hmm.
- [121:48]
Sam Cedar
I imagine those banks were also used for a lot of other things too. I mean, it really does raise questions. I think just my experience is always just sort of like. Like they are usually hiding something other than what people think it is in these situations and that the exposure is to other things that we're not supposed to see. And Bessant has apparently been stonewalling a lot of these questions from. For a while about the finances. And I mean, who knows where the next sort of like, break in the dam is going to be.
- [122:40]
Francesca Fiorentini
It's interesting that Wieden is the guy doing this because his father, Peter Wyden, was a journalist with really good sources. He wrote one of the first good exposes on the CIA's involvement with the Bay of Pigs planning and fiasco. So if there's somebody who has sources in on the Democratic side of the aisle, it would be, I think, widen.
- [123:02]
Emma Vigland
And things like, I mean, some of the eps. The Times writes here, some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in the report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subjected to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions, Red Flag were for as much as $100 million. And it's interesting that Wyden would be on that, given his background, because of, you know, the claims about intelligence and things like that. But we still don't even know how Epstein made his fortune. He went from high school teacher to a guy that was responsible for basically billions of dollars in transactions. And he was managing the money for one particular particular person for around what, 20 to 30 years.
- [123:52]
Francesca Fiorentini
An enigma.
- [123:53]
Sam Cedar
It's the American dream. Yeah, Real gaming, if you know what I mean. Bootstraps guy. The secrets we will share. I'm gonna trust my friends in the government. What's up?
- [124:11]
Emma Vigland
Oh, did you want to do Dave Rubin on it? Was that our lead up to that?
- [124:15]
Francesca Fiorentini
There's a Dave Rubin.
- [124:15]
Emma Vigland
Oh, yeah.
- [124:16]
Sam Cedar
Oh, there's a Dave Rubin. Oh, we definitely need to parody clips.
- [124:20]
Francesca Fiorentini
Channel at Dave Clips.
- [124:21]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, Dave Clips. Let's be clear, it's not a parody of Dave Rubin. It is Dave Rubin being a parody of himself. And this guy clips it.
- [124:30]
Francesca Fiorentini
Yeah, it's a watchdog, but it's just funny.
- [124:34]
Sam Cedar
The government, they're not good at anything. What did Ronald Reagan say? The eight scariest words in the English language or. I'm here from the government. I'm from the Government and I'm here to help. Ronald Reagan. Reagan. The eight scariest words in the English language. I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Don't trust the government, don't trust the agencies, don't trust the media. But yes, the government is the bad guys. But they, they want you to believe that the government are the good guys and could never lie about so many things or get so many things wrong and still have your job unless you worked for the government. Right? They lie about everything. Slow roll the lies about everything. Remember when Jeffrey Epstein died in jail and somehow the cameras weren't working for those few minutes? Nobody was checking the cameras for those few minutes. You know, we have cameras at my house. The Epstein list. Why is it that, that Jeffrey Epstein dies in jail and the cameras went out and all that kind of thing? And why would the FBI be hiding that unless there's something really weird, particularly with the Democrat Party and all the celebs. Do you trust the government? The government? I trust Dan Bongino. I have no reason not to trust. I trust Donald Trump at the moment as much as I trust anyone else. But they may just not have it. Like maybe Epstein was smart enough not to have an actual list written out that said, all of the specifics are we to believe, like is. Is what I'm supposed to do up here as someone that's trying to make sense of this just the way you are. Just tell you, boy, I think, I think they got got to Dan Bongino. They magically got to Dan Bongino and they got to Patel and they got to, and they got to Donald Trump. Or is it possible, as he says, what you want to hear actually isn't the thing we have evidence of. So either we're going to believe when they give us information, when, when Dan Bongino tells us certain things or not. And if we don't, then, then either you're just swimming off in complete conspiracy theory theories or you better have some concrete evidence of something. So if what she is saying is true, that basically every 24 hours it's an old system, so it resets and that's why it reset if that's actually true, which again, I, I don't know. I don't know any more than you do. And, and I guess it is what it is. But be careful what you ask for, because if the Democrats are clamoring for this thing, how do you think that's going to work out for Trump? And then thus, how do you think it's Going to work out for the country.
- [126:51]
Heather Digby Parton
Country.
- [126:51]
Sam Cedar
Unbelievable, master. Unbelievable. That is.
- [126:58]
Emma Vigland
Yeah. He and Ben Shapiro. What are you guys doing?
- [127:01]
Francesca Fiorentini
The funniest part is when he's like, this is going to be really embarrassing, especially for the Democrats and the celebrities.
- [127:07]
Emma Vigland
Like, no, the celebrities. That's why they moved on so to that P. Diddy thing. And we're obsessed with that because for them, for them, that crowd, it's the titillating thing. It's like honestly, probably darker than that. Like they have their own kind of like sick fantasies about young girls and then they like kind of live vicariously through their curiosity in these stories. But once it got to a bit of a systemic critique and one where there's rumors about things like Israeli intelligence, Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro are very much against talking about that, which is interesting. I think the rest of right wing media will follow.
- [127:48]
Sam Cedar
I want to believe Patel.
- [127:51]
Emma Vigland
Patel and I believe Dan Bongino.
- [127:54]
Sam Cedar
I'm going to trust my friends in the government.
- [127:58]
Emma Vigland
And even Charlie walked it back. Sam. We were, we played yesterday, Charlie Kirk who after he walked back his walk back. He walked back his walk back and all of the comments, it's. They're in, they're furious at him legitimately.
- [128:14]
Sam Cedar
Walking back his walk back. Or.
- [128:17]
Francesca Fiorentini
Yes. They weren't satisfied with the walk back of the walk back. They said, hey, stop saying that. It's just Gen Z that's obsessed with this because Charlie kept saying like Gen Z is pissed and everyone's like, I'm a 57 year old woman who watches your show and I'm upset about.
- [128:32]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I mean this is the fascinating thing is that, you know, you can look at those polling numbers of Republican support for him and yes, 6% margin of error is pretty substantial. But the Epstein thing is so much a product and I don't even mean this controversy. I mean the entire controversy is so much a product of, of social media and it's so part and parcel of social media. I mean it's not like there were big stories on Epstein on ABC News or any of this. It was all sort of like YouTube and Twitter and Twitch and all the social media outlets. And so the people they're hearing back from are like the, are the, their core audience. That's the problem.
- [129:31]
Emma Vigland
And it's cross. Yeah, it's crossed over to the mainstream now obviously because they bungled it so poorly. But it is interesting when I, I've been turning on cable news to see how they react and I listen in the morning before, you know, as I'm getting ready and it's basically uniform if you're on cable news. And I, I said this on Chris Hayes, where I had some more conspiratorial tone about it than the other guests. Yes. But most, almost all of them are saying, you know, he killed himself. This is just a conspiracy theory. Don't think about it too much. And I don't know, I don't think that's going to keep working. It's for an older audience that has a little bit more trust in, like, some of the institutions in our government versus the generational divide of people that, you know, are on the Internet and listen to podcasts like this, for better or for worse.
- [130:20]
Sam Cedar
I mean, I don't want to give Nancy PELOSI Credit for 12 dimensional chess.
- [130:29]
Emma Vigland
Right.
- [130:29]
Sam Cedar
But Nancy Pelosi saying this is a distraction. Don't pay attention to it. That's like an accelerant. Right. I mean, that's an accelerant. The idea that she is going to say the same thing as Trump. Trump is an accelerant for this. Right. You know, I mean, if I was.
- [130:51]
Emma Vigland
I'm not giving her credit for that. I think she's just one, she's one of those. Christine Pelosi, her daughter tweeted when he got arrested. Some of our faves may be implicated, but we'll have to deal with it. That's who she's, that she is part of the old guard that let this story fester on the right because they didn't want to implicate Bill Clinton and we could have used this for political capital.
- [131:10]
Sam Cedar
I don't have to give her credit or not give her credit. Her credit to know that, like, you know, if I wanted to stoke this. In fact, let's just Nancy Pelosi saying.
- [131:22]
Francesca Fiorentini
This because she should say that everyone who doesn't credit, give credit or trust Trump on this is deplorable.
- [131:30]
Emma Vigland
Exactly.
- [131:34]
Sam Cedar
This type of conspiracy mongering is bad for, for society. We shouldn't do it. I mean, that is like, could there be more fuel on the fire than that? And that is really the thing for her to say. Really, Hillary Clinton should come out and say, I really think there's nothing to this.
- [131:57]
Francesca Fiorentini
I trust the President on this.
- [132:00]
Sam Cedar
There's many things that Donald Trump and I disagree on. But keeping the, the Epstein client list under wraps is, I think, very important.
- [132:08]
Emma Vigland
I mean, she insists on remaining in the public eye. Could she do good for once?
- [132:13]
Sam Cedar
Honestly, that would be the best thing she, she has could have ever done in the past eight years.
- [132:20]
Emma Vigland
Yep.
- [132:22]
Sam Cedar
If she wants to give that thing legs. That's what she does.
- [132:26]
Francesca Fiorentini
Nothing to see here.
- [132:27]
Emma Vigland
The problem is that she. She doesn't want to give it legs.
- [132:29]
Sam Cedar
This is a nothing. Yes, yes. This is a big nothing burger. Oh, God, that would be so fantastic.
- [132:40]
Emma Vigland
Can we get our deepfake technology to use that evil for one piece of good here and get Hillary Clinton on tape saying that kind of thing?
- [132:48]
Sam Cedar
Honestly, like putting out a parody of Hillary Clinton doing it. It would take like 15 minutes before it all of a sudden morphs into something that is real. And I mean, we just write up Hillary Clinton probably right now. There's nothing to see here. Let's see. What should we.
- [133:17]
Emma Vigland
Oh, the. I mean. Oh, well, if we're gonna have fun, then 19 isn't good. But.
- [133:25]
Sam Cedar
Come on, we got another 20 minutes for the week. 20. Let's. Let's have something good.
- [133:30]
Emma Vigland
Okay. Oh, I mean. Got him.
- [133:33]
Sam Cedar
Although, you know what? The Stephen Miller thing is worth looking at? I mean, this is footage of Stephen Miller from 2003. I don't know how old he is. It seems like it's on a high school bus or a college bus. Okay.
- [133:46]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, I've been reading. The reason I put this in there is because I've been kind of skimming through Gene Guerrero's book, Hate Monger, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. You had her on, like, right before I joined the show.
- [133:58]
Sam Cedar
Oh, was it that long ago? Okay.
- [134:00]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, yeah. And it's just like. It's a book about his background and how he was such a virulent racist. Specifically about Latinos growing up in a high school that had a lot of Latino classmates in Southern California. And. And there's just like. You see the origins of that hatred even then. So this. That's why this clip kind of just stuck out to me here.
- [134:25]
Sam Cedar
Also, I think thing to pay attention to is the reception he's getting, because I think this is the story of Stephen Miller. This is. Think of a guy who is not getting. Who's probably, you know, socially ostracized. And think of this response. This is. This reminds me of that Errol Morris film. Was it Mr. Death or Dr. Death? I can't remember. But play this to the issue of the Iraqi civilians. I think that as many of them.
- [135:05]
Emma Vigland
Should survive as possible because the goal.
- [135:09]
Sam Cedar
Any military conflict is to kill as few people as possible. But as for Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, I think the ideal solution would.
- [135:17]
Emma Vigland
Be to cut off their fingers.
- [135:19]
Sam Cedar
I don't think it's necessary to kill them entirely. We're Not a barbaric people. We respect life, therefore, torture is the way to go, because tortured people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity. We need to remember. Remember that as we enter these very dark and dangerous times in the next century.
- [135:39]
Emma Vigland
And I only hope that many of.
- [135:40]
Sam Cedar
My peers and people who will be leaving this country will appreciate the value.
- [135:43]
Emma Vigland
And respect that torture shows towards other cultures. To the issue of the Iraqi civilization.
- [135:50]
Sam Cedar
I mean, the. The laughter he's getting. Yeah. You see it building. Totally. Totally. And this is what that guy. This is what.
- [136:01]
Heather Digby Parton
What.
- [136:01]
Sam Cedar
What draws that. The film is Dr. Death. And it's the same thing, you know, same sort of Dyn, where a guy who, you know, is not, you know, is just seeking some type of, like, reinforcement and feedback. And that's the. The people laughing at Stephen Miller back then, I would imagine. I would hope that they're like, we shouldn't have laughed at him. We shouldn't have encouraged him in any way, because this is. This is what he. You know, this is what led him on this. You know, it gave him his moment, him, in some ways.
- [136:39]
Emma Vigland
Guerrero writes that he was kind of, like, average in popularity. He did play some sports. He did start to lose his hair all the way in high school. So at least, you know, that happened to him, fortunately for us. But, I mean, he was also seemingly obsessed with harassing Latina girls in his school who were a part of clubs where they would sometimes speak Spanish. And there were new, numerous anecdotes that she collects in her book of that being the case and that being particularly animating to him. She also, in the book, interviews a Latino friend of his that cut off ties because of the things that Miller had said and how racist he was. And then there's that old clip we've seen of him shrieking about how we shouldn't have to pick up our trash because we have janitors that will do it for us. Us. This is a guy that gets off on seeing people humiliated and seeing people in pain.
- [137:37]
Sam Cedar
It's.
- [137:38]
Emma Vigland
He's a sadist. And he makes that clear in that clip right there to the laughter, of course, of the students, which I think also reflects, like, what our country was like in the aftermath of 9 11.
- [137:49]
Sam Cedar
Yep.
- [137:49]
Emma Vigland
But when we're talking about him calling the shots right now for Donald Trump, who's ailing and old and lazy, he just articulated the alligator Alcatraz thing.
- [138:04]
Sam Cedar
We have that in the sound.
- [138:05]
Emma Vigland
She do have that.
- [138:06]
Sam Cedar
I mean, let's. Let's play this. I mean, there's a couple of things in this clip, Steve Miller is on with Jesse Waters. There's a couple of things in here that are just blatant lies, but it's the same thing they did with Guantanamo. Yeah, let's just remember this. Rush Limbaugh was selling Club Gitmo merchandise and claiming that this was like a, you know, a Caribbean vacation they were taking. Here's Stephen Miller on with his good buddy Jesse Waters. Even Miller is there an internment camp in the Everglades. Miller There is an ICE facility that.
- [138:48]
Francesca Fiorentini
Provides a far superior level of housing.
- [138:50]
Sam Cedar
And economy accommodation than is available to millions of Americans who are living in Section 8 housing and other low income areas of our own blighted cities like Baltimore, like Detroit, like Chicago. How many Americans are living in abominable conditions compared to the pristine conditions of our ICE facilities and our border Patrol facilities? Look at every turn. Illegal aliens have always been treated better than Americans. The difference difference is in this administration. They're getting a ticket out of America so that we can take care of our own people. Do you have any idea how many resources will be opened up for Americans when the illegals are gone? No more waiting in line at an emergency room. No more massive traffic in Los Angeles. Your health insurance premiums go down. Your public school classroom size will shrink dramatically. They have more time to educate every student. You won't have to to compete for public benefits. If you're hardif you're down on your luck, you're having a hard time and you do need to get support from the government, you're not going to be in line behind millions of illegal aliens from the third world. This is going to be such a gift to the quality of life of everyday Americans. Jesse, it's hard to even express the wonders that await for working people. I mean, you had me at no traffic in la. If you guys can get that message broadcast loud and clear over there, I mean, I think you'll have a lot. His O'Reilly impression is so annoying. But let's just go through these things. I mean, aside from the fact that we know the conditions in this detention center in Florida are abysmal. Abysmal to the extent that we've gotten any word out of it flooded a week after they built it. Attorneys can't even reach their clients for the most part. And the people who we play that clip from Maxwell Frost, that was after they had four days to clean it up. But as far as like undocumented people, meaning that you don't have to wait at the ER or there'll Be no traffic in la. Health premiums are going to go down. Health premiums are about to shoot up dramatically from that big bill they just passed. The ACA subsidies were cut back. And because so people going into the marketplace are going to lose the subsidies that they additional subsidies they got from COVID On top of that, we now know that insurance companies are looking for up to a 15% increase in rates because of the anticipation of cuts from Medicaid. And so and the, the subsidies, they're going to lose people in the marketplace. When you lose people who are paying for health insurance, insurance rates go up, not down. Insurance gets cheaper when you have more people in the system. That is just a basic law of, of, of essentially physics. The idea that school size is going to be impacted by this. Schools are given funds as a function of the number of students that are there. What's far more likely is in some areas, low income areas, you're going to see schools close because of this. As far as public benefits, you're not competing against people for things like snacks or Medicaid because you are eligible up until this bill based upon your income levels. So it doesn't matter what the person next to you is making. Your income levels are what make you eligible for these type of public benefits. I mean these are all lies. They're all lies that Miller is proposing. But it's also twisted.
- [142:50]
Emma Vigland
I mean this is, is exactly, exactly what the Nazis argued would be the outcome if they were to remove Jews from Germany. Economic prosperity for you. We'll have this sort of revival of German heritage of culture. It will be this sort of like racially pure utopia. That is exactly what he's saying. It's completely, completely aligned with that rhetoric. That's how dangerous this is. And I mean he's. The amount of lies, it's difficult to keep track. But just at the beginning he talks about Baltimore being this hellhole. Baltimore has been steadily increasing like in terms of safety and the community is on the upswing again. Just reported a few weeks, a week or so ago that the Baltimore homicide rate has fallen to a 50 year low at this point. So he's just lying based and using and stoking racism to support that lie.
- [143:55]
Francesca Fiorentini
I mean you see this so much like the. Was it Marc Andreessen talking about blaming multiculturalism for basically all the problems created by capitalism and how it's allocated resources. But in terms of traffic, New York actually just did something to lower traffic in the city and it's made everything better. And it wasn't get the Gestapo to make the white demographic seem larger in comparison to everyone else. It was congestion pricing.
- [144:22]
Emma Vigland
Right? It was taxing people who have the means above a certain income threshold to commute into the city via car. And it's had such dramatic improvements on air quality and traffic that it's shot up in terms of popularity and success. Because this isn't going to have an impact except to ruin millions of lives by using this Gestapo tactic on regular Americans. Or not regular Americans, but everyday Americans lives who aren't going to be directly impacted by it. It has a shelf life because people are going to figure out that this doesn't do anything to materially improve my life. It's just cruelty for the sake of things. But they're hoping that their kind of movement of anti democracy is enough to sustain it over the fact that that realization will eventually come.
- [145:10]
Francesca Fiorentini
Sorry, it wasn't Andreessen. It was venture capitalist Paul Graham who said, in retrospect, one of the things that allowed Wokeness to become so powerful at its peak was the decline of journalism as an industry. The kind of people who undertook its institutional capture in 2010 mostly couldn't have gotten hired in 1980. So it's just the woke culture that took over journalism. That's the real problem.
- [145:32]
Sam Cedar
Why are we letting other people besides white men get these jobs? Of course, we're starting to get a wide variety of stories. That's the problem. We went woke. All right, let's do one last clip. This is on Sunday, July 20. There's a new jubilee video that is dropping. And I knew this was coming a little bit. I had talked to Mehdi Austin about it after my jubilee. He was like, should I do it? They've been asking me to do it. I'm like, yeah, do it. My family lineage is set. This is gonna be. This is gonna be extraordinary. I mean, a bloodbath. And I have not seen the anything other than this clip, but it looks like it's going to be a bloodbath. Here is Mehdi Ossen. This dropped yesterday. A promo for his jubilee appearance. My family lineage of settlers from the 1500s.
- [146:47]
Francesca Fiorentini
You don't look very Native American to me.
- [146:48]
Sam Cedar
Native.
- [146:49]
Heather Digby Parton
I am Native American.
- [146:50]
Sam Cedar
Whites are Native Americans. What are you talking about? What are you talking about?
- [146:53]
Francesca Fiorentini
You're a little bit more than a far right Republican.
- [146:55]
Sam Cedar
Hey, what can I say? I think you say I'm a fascist. Yeah, I am.
- [147:02]
Francesca Fiorentini
Listen to me.
- [147:02]
Stephen Miller
I am an immigrant.
- [147:03]
Heather Digby Parton
I'm speaking for personal experience.
- [147:04]
Sam Cedar
I don't even.
- [147:05]
Francesca Fiorentini
Like I should. Get the hell out.
- [147:07]
Sam Cedar
Yes.
- [147:07]
Stephen Miller
Why I don't want you here.
- [147:09]
Francesca Fiorentini
My first claim is Donald Trump is.
- [147:11]
Sam Cedar
Pro crime and pro criminal.
- [147:13]
Francesca Fiorentini
Donald Trump is defying the Constitution.
- [147:15]
Sam Cedar
Immigrants overall are good for America.
- [147:18]
Francesca Fiorentini
Donald Trump's plan for Gaza is ethnic cleansing. I'm Mehdi Hassan. I'm a journalist and the editor of Zateo. And today I'm surrounded by 20 far right conservatives.
- [147:30]
Emma Vigland
Oh, they brought back the white culture girl, the white nationalist girl.
- [147:34]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, yeah, it looks like they stalked all. Now what's going to be fascinating is to see the reaction of like, well, you got bad fascists in there, there smarter fascists. Or if people are going to be like, these people are extremists. We have no policies that are like this except for, you know, the one that Stephen Miller, the chief aide to Donald Trump is espousing. It's going to be interesting to see how they deal with this.
- [148:03]
Emma Vigland
Well, it seems like already in that promo, they're already triggered by the fact that Maddy has an accent and that, you know, he's not a white person. So that might bring out some new different flavors of anger from these self evolved or self described fascists.
- [148:21]
Francesca Fiorentini
Does that guy say his family goes back to the 1500s in America? Because that's pretty, that's pretty early for even American settlement in like you're, you're most of Virginia. Didn't happen until like the 1600s. But it was funny about these sorts of folks is I pissed off Confederate sort of lost cause type people on Twitter the other week ago and I got so many insults about how I was an Ellis island baby and I'm like, yeah, like that I wasn't here. Take that like during like the 1750s, my family wasn't here yet. And that should make me feel like bad. And I can't tell you how like I'm more likely to feel embarrassed about drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label than I am.
- [149:11]
Emma Vigland
But are the Italians and the Irish and Jews. That's basically what the implication is.
- [149:17]
Francesca Fiorentini
Those types of folks are saying that unless you were here as like a Mayflower or like American Revolution style person, then you shouldn't be here at all.
- [149:26]
Sam Cedar
I'm sorry, the idea that those people who are saying that to you have lineage back to the Mayflower, all of them I find to be very, very dubious claim. Yeah, I mean these are all people who are just trying to be, who are trying to make some type of point about like, I don't know the. I mean, yeah, I, I'm trying to figure out like what the angle is that they, that somebody even comes in 1500 is a native American. Like it wasn't America at that time. You know, like, I don't, I don't, I don't like follow what even what they're, what their twisted argument is.
- [150:12]
Emma Vigland
I would call them anti American because look, I grew up close to Ellis island and you know, call me a lib or a commie or whatever, but I was taught that the American values were one about the immigrant experience and how what made this country unique and great is what I was taught was this blending of different cultures and experiences and people trying to come here to make a better life for themselves. Now that is also a myth that erases the genocide of indigenous Americans. And we should be clear about that. But in terms of like civic values in this country, that's what should be put back to the forefront of politics. And the Democrats shouldn't be abdicating that narrative conservative for reasons that are based in supposedly polling. But mostly it's about cowardice, corruption.
- [151:01]
Francesca Fiorentini
I agree. If Democrats, I mean even talking to the Trump supporters over fourth of July, if Democrats put a billion, billions of dollars towards Ellis island and Trent and made all immigrants go through like a process there, a lot of you wouldn't, you'd have a lot of people that are upset about immigrants getting in, don't get me wrong, but there's a whole section that buy this bullshit that it's the crime, reason for crime and the reason for blight is because we're like letting too many people in through like illegal grounds or whatever. So they just want to be formalized.
- [151:32]
Emma Vigland
Why can't we tap into American mythology? Why can't the left tap into that kind of thing and speak about like the country and the immigrant experience in a positive, affirming way? Because the leadership sucks ass. I answered my own question.
- [151:48]
Sam Cedar
That's exactly right. Right. That's exactly right. There's no, there's no political oxygen for that because you start to make that argument and the, the, the leadership of the Democratic Party goes the other way. I mean, that's been the biggest problem. And I think it existed. We, you know, it existed in the Obama administration. I think it existed in the Biden administration. I think there was a, I think there is a hostility to immigrants that is, I think, both racially and class based.
- [152:23]
Emma Vigland
I believe and I see like these, when we had a guest on yesterday to talk about Elon's Grok supercomputer poisoning Memphis, like it's more than the airport, more than all of this other stuff combined, and the author of the piece Cited this study that I hadn't seen before that showed that nearly 2 billion billion people are likely by 2070 to be in inhospitably hot, dangerous areas of the globe. That's going to be 2 billion people that are going to look to go and live elsewhere if they survive. And it's of course the Global South. So we have to prepare for that because we have an administrator.
- [153:03]
Sam Cedar
We are. We've built a wall, right?
- [153:05]
Emma Vigland
I guess so. I bet. But. But this is their solution to that coming. That coming disaster, which is just enclose and militarize and abuse and eventually, who knows, we could be leading to a moment of like actually killing these kinds of people. Given the direction of this country that we're going.
- [153:26]
Francesca Fiorentini
Does anyone want to rule that out as a possibility for what happens at Alligator Alcatraz? That becomes a death camp. It's already like half dozen people have been killed. I think in Florida.
- [153:37]
Sam Cedar
I think it's most likely to become a work camp where people churn through. There's a certain percentage that die because of the nature of the conditions. There's a certain percentage of people who are shipped out to other countries. I would suspect older people, people who are just not as good at working. And then I think they're going to just rent out the workers, these laborers, and you know, make it a revenue generating machine for the private interests who own this camp. That's what I would guess is going to happen. And then MAGA hats can say made in the usa. Exactly. Yeah. It's all going to be Trump merch that they're going to be working on. All right, let me read a couple IMs and get out of here. So much for making the last 10 minutes fun. Have fun. That was my fault.
- [154:41]
Emma Vigland
No, I know. I think I brought up the whole eco fascist pending potential genocide thing.
- [154:47]
Sam Cedar
I blame that Miller that just put. That just put the nail into the coffin that we were building global mobile info data. Thank you. We needed that living coder. This sounds like stem cell mania during Bush. Henry, Sam, can you offer your thoughts on CBS canceling Colbert two days after? Oh, we talked about that, Nicola. Lol. Why not use the word for that? Pubes says Nicola. And I am in it to win it. I liked Southern hair.
- [155:27]
Emma Vigland
Southern hair.
- [155:29]
Francesca Fiorentini
No idea what you were talking about.
- [155:32]
Sam Cedar
Is that what you were saying? I didn't even figure that out. I was trying to do like 50s radio like I Love Lucy style balls in their hands. Chris in Texas. It was typed up so Trump could send the final drawing he wanted. I'd love to see the drafts he threw away.
- [155:51]
Francesca Fiorentini
He set himself up so poorly if that. If they release a drawing and it looks exactly like all these city skylines that he's like, on record sending to every charity. I mean, it's the case closed.
- [156:03]
Sam Cedar
Violet orchid. The 6% error is insane. In high school statistics, we were taught 5% is basically the maximum error you should accept when evaluating if the results are statistically significant. It's a BS poll, Jay Tingle. It could be something as crass as Trump and Epstein did a spit roast with a 14 year old. I have read that. Guy's in prison Bond that way. I don't even want to know where you're reading that. I was just laughing that Sam read that. That's. I wasn't laughing at.
- [156:37]
Emma Vigland
These two seem to know what it is. Well, I don't know and I don't want to know.
- [156:41]
Sam Cedar
Did you? I don't want to know. Cavanaugh's confirmation. Devil's Triangle.
- [156:46]
Emma Vigland
All right. I don't even remember what it is.
- [156:51]
Sam Cedar
First of all, how dare you. Ryan has a laminated sheet with all these terms.
- [156:58]
Emma Vigland
I need a copy of that, I think.
- [157:00]
Sam Cedar
Well, I'm here to help.
- [157:01]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, that's good producing work.
- [157:05]
Sam Cedar
Bingo. Dango. Jamie, pull up Free speech. Warrior Joe Rogan absolutely trashing Trump for all his speech suppression during Paramount. CBS and Colbert. Wall Street Journal. Oh, wait, nevermind. Rogan is cheering it all.
- [157:17]
Francesca Fiorentini
It's wild how much all those guys go to.
- [157:20]
Sam Cedar
Well, you should.
- [157:21]
Francesca Fiorentini
You shouldn't disrespect Trump.
- [157:26]
Sam Cedar
New Jersey mailman. Wait, you're telling me if party of a child brides isn't upset their party is covering all this up? I for one, am shocked. All right, four more in space. Lenin. Tahoma, or Tacoma is the native name for the mountain. Martig. My husband started losing his hair in high school, too. Amazingly, it did not turn him into a Nazi.
- [157:57]
Emma Vigland
There you go.
- [157:58]
Sam Cedar
Two more.
- [157:59]
Emma Vigland
And I'm sure he wears it better.
- [158:00]
Sam Cedar
Than Steven Antifa Lockhart. Colbert still has a year left. Is it possible this is just to get the merger approved and then sign him? That occurred to me. They could maybe make a change. Skyview is a different management. You never know. You never know. And the final IM of the week, Left wing Debt squad. The DNC are not our saviors. They will not be the ones to dismantle systems of oppression. They are simply a stopgap. And more people need to understand this. This is perhaps one of the areas nuanced in this broader discussion about the viability of The DNC and the electoralism generally is lost. We don't need them to carry the ball all the way into our end zone. We just need them to get a stop on top, 4th and 1 so the offense can take over. And don't forget we're smash mouth grinded out first offense. It's going to be a long slog to get to the end zone. I mean that has been my perspective certainly with this four years. I thought like if Harris could, you know, stench the bleeding for four years and allow for some real power to build on the left. But.
- [159:24]
Emma Vigland
But in the end, I mean, I don't know if that if she won that all of those people would have been so validated. I would have never traded it all, traded it for what we're experiencing now. We should never have. But you know, there is stuff that we can do and like learn from this. And maybe the base is more open to like a left wing kind of populist thing than they would have been otherwise.
- [159:47]
Francesca Fiorentini
I mean her winning Cheney style would have been horrible. But also, I do think the left is better after say like eight years of Obama than it was even after four years of Trump. And you get Joe Biden in there.
- [159:59]
Sam Cedar
Definitely. I mean it's always the response is all. At least in my experience, the response is always. Whether it was Clinton after essentially function as 12 years of Reagan, whether it was Obama after four, eight years of Bush, whether it was Biden after four years of, of Trump. I mean, this is the way that it works. Maybe this time will be different. I doubt it. Staunch the bleeding. Sorry. Matt, Brian, Emma, great job this week, folks. We'll see you on Monday. To get to where I want But I know somehow I'm gonna get there I wasn't looking when I just got caught between the truth and the lie Wrong the finding out won't make me feel any better yeah, I know that the clock is ticking but the meds are gonna kick in and my pilot light shining bright I get somewhere the choice was made for the option where you don't get paid for the road that bends before it finally breaks you I guess somehow I lost my drive between the 101 and the 5 do you know how far the teacher takes you? Yeah, I know the clock is ticking but the men's not gonna kick in and my pilot light shining bright.