The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3542 | Bernie Sanders on Oligarchy; Trump Sponsored Wage Theft

Guests: Senator Bernie Sanders, Kalena Thomhave
Date: December 10, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into two major topics: the erosion of labor protections for home care workers under the Trump administration, and Senator Bernie Sanders’ ongoing fight against oligarchy in the United States. Pittsburgh-based journalist Kalena Thomhave discusses the insidious rollback of worker protections, and Sanders joins to examine runaway military spending, the deepening oligarchy, and urgent calls for systemic reform. Throughout, Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland offer their signature incisive, irreverent commentary on pressing political developments.

Key Segments

• [24:48] - [37:59]: Interview with Kalena Thomhave on home care worker wage theft
• [38:51] - [63:45]: Senator Bernie Sanders on oligarchy, military spending, and the stakes for working Americans

1. Current Political Landscape Recap

Sam Seder kicks off the main content with a rundown of notable political stories:

• Third federal judge approves the unsealing of Epstein documents ([04:34])
• Democrat wins Miami mayoral race for the first time in 30 years ([04:44])
• Special election in Georgia flips a state house district previously won by Trump, despite “dummy mandered” redistricting ([04:54])
• Trump’s so-called “affordability tour,” including racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric at his Pennsylvania rally ([05:06]–[15:27])
• Republican efforts to end probes and roll back Obamacare subsidies ([05:15])
• The Trump administration’s proposed social media vetting for foreign tourists and the shutdown of student loan forgiveness ([05:42])
• Illinois law protecting immigrants from courthouse arrests ([06:04])
• Monsanto-authored glyphosate “safety” study retracted ([06:19])

Quote:
“There is, so there you have it. That’s Donald Trump’s response to the affordability crisis in the country.”
— Sam Seder ([14:54])

2. Home Care Workers Face Wage Theft: Interview with Kalena Thomhave

[24:48] – [37:59]

Context & Historical Background

• Home care workers, historically excluded from key labor protections, faced systematic exploitation.
• The original New Deal excluded roles primarily filled by Black women (e.g., domestic workers, porters), denying them Social Security and wage protections.
• In the 1970s, the “companionship exemption” was created, reclassifying home care workers as mere “companions” and stripping them of labor rights.

Quote:
“Domestic workers were one of the groups of workers that were excluded from federal labor protections...in the original New Deal, domestic workers being, of course, mostly Black women in those roles.”
— Kalena Thomhave ([25:33])

Obama-Era Protection and Recent Rollbacks

• The Obama administration in 2015 tightened definitions, closing loopholes exploited by agencies.
• Under Trump, the Department of Labor reversed these protections, telling investigators to stop enforcement—putting 3 million workers at risk.
• Now, about half the states will maintain some wage/OT protection; in the other half, virtually all federal guarantees will disappear.

Quote:
“Essentially, what’s going to happen is that these 3 million people are going to lose their federal protections...half [the states] don’t [protect workers].”
— Kalena Thomhave ([29:10])

State Vulnerabilities and Corporate Influence

• Even progressive states like Oregon risk losing protections because their laws piggybacked federal standards.
• The rollback is part of a massive deregulatory blitz—63 Labor Dept. actions in a single day—targeting everything from overtime to workplace safety.

Quote:
“In Oregon, they’re also going to lose protections even though they passed a [domestic worker] bill of rights.”
— Kalena Thomhave ([30:07])

Immigrant Labor and Wage Suppression

• Many home care workers are immigrants, already vulnerable to exploitation.
• Industry lobby pushed for these rollbacks explicitly to suppress wages and sidestep a tightening labor market—foreclosing upward wage pressure.

Enforcement Gutted

• Although changes are technically proposals, the Dept. of Labor has ordered cessation of enforcement, leaving workers with no federal recourse.
• Workers can try state-based claims or private lawsuits, now expected to overwhelm state labor agencies.

Quote:
“It’s not official, but there’s no enforcement mechanism.”
— Kalena Thomhave ([34:53])

Union Responses and Outlook

• Unions like SEIU and United Domestic Workers succeeded in protecting California workers, but national outlook is grim.
• The National Domestic Workers Alliance has been campaigning for years, but federal change is hostage to executive priorities.

Conclusion

Kalena underscores the precarious situation for home care workers and the critical role of state and union organizing to resist wage theft.

3. Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders:

[38:51] – [63:45]

A. Out-of-Control Military Spending

• Sanders points to the “insane” scale of U.S. military budgets—over $1 trillion a year, more than the next nine nations combined.
• Congress regularly gives the Pentagon more than even the president requests, a “bipartisan effort to give huge amounts of money to the military industrial complex.”
• Sanders calls for a “national conversation” about priorities, referencing past legislative successes like dramatically reducing child poverty with a single provision.

Quote:
“We don’t need to be spending more than the next nine nations combined. What we need to be doing is investing in our people—in childcare, in education, in infrastructure, not just more money for the military.”
— Bernie Sanders ([41:10])

B. Connecting Militarism, Oligarchy, and Domestic Policy

• Sanders notes structural connections between militarism abroad and inequality at home.
• Democrats, fearful of seeming “soft on defense,” have abandoned their antiwar legacy.
• U.S. complicity in Gaza and domestic militarization are two sides of the same coin.

Quote:
“There was once a time...where a significant percentage of Democratic elected officials stood strongly against unnecessary military spending. And I fear that is not quite the case.”
— Bernie Sanders ([42:51])

C. Oligarchy: The Central Crisis

• Sanders identifies oligarchy as America’s central crisis: a handful of billionaires amassing grotesque wealth and power.
• Elon Musk, for example, now has more wealth than the bottom 52% of Americans combined.
• These super-rich use political spending (e.g., $270 million supporting Trump) to further concentrate power, often working globally with like-minded oligarchs.

Quote:
“Elon Musk now owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households...Meanwhile, Musk again spends $270 million to help Trump get elected.”
— Bernie Sanders ([44:54])

D. Breaking the Cycle: Campaign Finance & Political Reform

• Citizens United is called out as the most destructive Supreme Court decision for democracy, opening the floodgates for billionaire electoral dominance.
• Sanders highlights small-donor and matching-funds systems (e.g., NYC) as positive counterexamples.
• Ultimate solution: a broad, grassroots movement against corporate/oligarchic rule and for working people.

Quote:
“We cannot allow billionaires and their super PACs to buy elections. And it is getting worse.”
— Bernie Sanders ([50:26])

E. Policy: Affordability, Medicare for All, Housing

• “Affordability” is critiqued as a poll-driven buzzword with no teeth unless linked to structural issues like health care profiteering and housing costs.
• Democrats’ lack of ambitious vision lets Trump pose as an agent of change, while party leadership merely “defends the system that’s immiserating people.”

Quote:
“You cannot go around defending the Affordable Care Act when rates have soared...so we need to move in an aggressively different way. I believe Medicare for All is the way to provide cost-effective universal health care.”
— Bernie Sanders ([52:01])

F. The Need for Systemic Change

• Sanders catalogs systemic failures: inequality, broken health care and education systems, lack of affordable housing, crumbling infrastructure, monopolization, and exploitative food industries.
• Calls for “a radical and fundamental transformation of American society.”

Quote:
“If you look at the basic necessities of life—health, education, nutrition, housing—we’re not doing well. We are doing rather poorly. So we need a radical and fundamental transformation of American society.”
— Bernie Sanders ([56:10])

G. Authoritarianism and Scapegoating

• Sanders eviscerates Trump-era nativism and the tendency of autocrats to blame powerless minorities for societal failures.
• Points out the destructive impact on American institutions, public trust, and democratic norms.

Quote:
“What demagogues always do is...say, ‘You know who the cause of that problem is? It’s the undocumented people, or those people from Somalia.’”
— Bernie Sanders ([57:09])

H. Real-World Stakes: NYC and the Mamdani Mayoralty

• The importance of real, deliverable success for progressive movements is stressed, especially for new NYC Mayor Mamdani.
• Establishment actors will move aggressively to subvert left reformers; failure risks being catastrophic for broader movements.

Quote:
“The point is, what the establishment, what the oligarchs, what the Republicans want him [Mamdani] to do is to fail...[but] his agenda is not terribly radical...if he can deliver...what a disaster for the Trumps of the world.”
— Bernie Sanders ([62:14])

4. Memorable Quotes & Exchanges

• Sam Seder: “The Department of Labor...change a couple of sentences in their regulations and completely change the fate of millions of people.” ([28:11])
• Kalena Thomhave: “This is clearly like...a change that came about directly because of lobbying by home care associations. Essentially, they were lobbying the Department of Labor directly.” ([37:06])
• Bernie Sanders: “I don’t want to proselytize here, but am I missing something in suggesting this is an issue of enormous importance?” ([46:39])
• Emma Vigeland: “You sound like you are defending the system that’s immiserating people. And Trump sounds like he’s changing things.” ([53:36])
• Bernie Sanders: “If you create a democratic form of government with a small d...you improve the schools, you improve health care, you improve transportation, you improve nutrition, you stabilize the cost of housing...what a disaster for the Trumps of the world.” ([62:40])

5. Takeaways

• Regulatory Sabotage: The episode spotlights active sabotaging of worker protections as part of an intentional realignment of power toward employers and away from labor, particularly affecting the most vulnerable workers (women, people of color, immigrants).
• Oligarchy as Existential Threat: Sanders situates everything—from war to health care to city government—in the context of a rising, global oligarchic system threatening democracy itself.
• Progressive Policy and Movement-Building: The show urges listeners not to settle for empty slogans (“affordability”) but to pursue real, radical, broad-based change. Electoral victories must be matched by tangible results for working people.

[Key Timestamps]

• [24:48] – Introduction of Kalena Thomhave, history of domestic worker exclusions
• [29:10] – Implications of lost protections for 3 million home care workers
• [33:06] – 63 deregulatory DOL actions revealed
• [36:05] – SEIU and union responses, state-level fights
• [38:51] – Begin interview with Bernie Sanders
• [39:49] – The “absurd priority” of military budgets
• [44:54] – America’s oligarchy: statistics, political implications
• [50:26] – Campaign finance reform and the fight against billionaire influence
• [52:01] – Medicare for All and the fight for affordable health care
• [56:10] – Systemic failures: country “doing poorly” on all essential metrics
• [57:09] – Authoritarian scapegoating and democratic backsliding
• [62:14] – The stakes for Mamdani and the progressive movement

Tone:
Critical, urgent, occasionally wry, rooted in deep concern for social justice and democracy.

For Listeners:
This episode provides a granular breakdown of how both policy and politics continue to shape the fight for workers’ rights and against oligarchic rule in America. Accessible but substantive—essential listening for anyone invested in progressive change.