3564 - China Wins Big at Davos; The Next Socialist in Congress? w/ Jostein Hauge, Claire Valdez

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3564 – China Wins Big at Davos; The Next Socialist in Congress?
Date: January 22, 2026
Host: Emma Vigeland (in for Sam Seder)
Guests: Jostin Haga (Cambridge University, “Global Currents”), Claire Valdez (NY State Assembly/Congressional candidate)

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Overview

This episode centers on two major political developments: the global power shift evidenced at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, where China made significant diplomatic and economic gains, and the rise of socialist and labor politics within the US, spotlighted by the congressional campaign of Claire Valdez. The show also provides an urgent investigation into ICE’s increasingly lawless and violent tactics in the US, the erosion of constitutional rights, and the groundswell of grassroots and labor resistance—particularly in Minnesota.

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Key Segments & Analysis

1. ICE Raids, Whistleblowing, and Resistance

(00:27–22:40)

• Escalation of ICE Tactics

  • Emma Vigeland and the crew describe the spread of ICE terror: recent high-profile raids in Maine and Minnesota; kidnapping of children; use of operation names like "Catch of the Day."

  • Whistleblower revelations exposed ICE’s issuance of unconstitutional, administrative warrants—not signed by judges—to justify forcible home entries and arrests ([07:16]).

  • ICE trains new officers with a secret memo, distributed only verbally, to avoid leaving a paper trail ([09:54]).

  • Violations center around the erosion of Fourth Amendment rights and circumventing due process.

    Quote (Emma Vigeland, 07:16):
    “ICE’s directives internally have said basically to disregard [constitutional warrants]... They issued this memo earlier this year, then stopped circulating it because they didn’t want a paper trail.”

• Chilling Human Impact

  • Accounts of children seized as bait to arrest parents:

    • “Liam”, a 5-year-old nabbed in Columbia Heights, MN, used to lure out his father.
    • Additional minors detained on their way to school.

  • Community-wide fear: 27,000 local families now too afraid to go grocery shopping ([19:29]).

    Quote (Pastor Sergio Amezcua, local report, 19:23):
    “Let child protection services take care of them while the parents battle the legal battle.”

  • Labor response: MN unions call for a statewide shutdown in solidarity—“no work, no school, and no shopping” on January 23 ([21:29–22:17]).

    Quote (Union Rep, 21:29):
    “Working people cannot stand aside while our neighbors are terrorized and our families are fractured—because those are our families. Those are our neighbors. Those are us.”

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2. Davos 2026: China’s Rising Power and the Death of US Hegemony

(31:54–51:54) — Interview with Jostin Haga

• Trump’s “Unapologetic” Imperialism

  • Prof. Haga deconstructs the Trump admin’s national security strategy:

    • Open, domination-focused foreign policy, especially in Latin America and Europe ([32:41]).
    • Contrast with historic “liberal international order”—Trump discards cooperative rhetoric.

    Quote (Jostin Haga, 32:41):
    “It’s not just about dominating Latin America—it’s about interfering in Europe. It’s about making sure China doesn’t arise as a competitor, although it’s a bit late for that.”

• China’s Diplomatic Wins: Turning Allies

  • Canada, under Carney’s leadership, formally pivots toward China, setting a potential “domino effect” for other Western and European nations ([34:54]).

  • Trump’s erratic style alienates US allies, pushing them into China’s orbit.

    Quote (Haga, 34:54):
    “Traditional allies of the US … are turning toward China. Carney is probably the prime example after his recent visit to China.”

• Collapse of the Rules-based Order

  • Carney’s Davos speech marks a rare elite acknowledgment of the post-WWII order’s end ([38:10]).

    • The “facade” of globalism has unraveled; now replaced by overt imperial competition.
    • Europe is torn by reliance on US security (NATO) but chafes at being forced into US imperial and economic policies.

    Quote (Haga, 38:10):
    “He admits that the liberal international order was a facade, and Trump has destroyed it in many ways, replaced it with traditional imperialism.”

• US as “Paper Tiger”

  • Segment highlights:

    • US growth is concentrated at the very top; wealth inequality skyrockets ([40:40–43:45]).
    • GDP and productivity stats conceal broad immiseration and stagnation.

    Quote (Haga, 43:45):
    “In the United States, the bottom 50% of the population own 1 to 2% of the total wealth. That is among the worst among OECD economies.”

• China’s Approach vs. US Childishness

  • China, simply by acting “like the adult in the room,” is perceived as stable and reliable next to Trump’s volatility ([46:42]).
  • Cooperation with China is limited by Russia’s presence but is accelerating worldwide.

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3. Interview: Claire Valdez, Socialist Candidate for Congress (NY-7)

(52:49–66:08)

• Background and Political Trajectory

  • Claire Valdez: labor organizer, former UAW member, NY Assemblywoman.

  • Running in one of the nation’s bluest districts—a seat open with Nydia Velázquez’s retirement.

    Quote (Valdez, 53:19):
    “First and foremost, I’m a labor organizer. This is so needed right now in our federal government...”

• Labor and DSA Roots

  • Valdez’s union organizing (Columbia University, UAW) “taught me what power can look like and how we win it.”
  • Early endorsement by UAW President Shawn Fain ([54:17–55:56]).

• Foreign Policy and Gaza

  • Valdez was politically radicalized by the Iraq war—draws explicit connection to today’s Gaza genocide.

  • Vows to “support an arms embargo both defensively and offensively” if elected ([58:04]).

    Quote (Valdez, 58:04):
    “There’s no appetite for our tax dollars going to uphold a government that has shown very little respect for Palestinian human rights.”

• Movement Politics vs. Establishment

  • DSA process and grassroots movement distinguishes Valdez from establishment rivals (e.g. Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn BP) ([59:16]).
  • Praises participatory, working-class leadership pipeline in NYC DSA.

• Immigration and Public Housing

  • Full-throated call to abolish ICE and expand protections:

    • "First step is we have to abolish ICE. This agency... cannot exist anymore and should absolutely be abolished." ([61:22])

  • Addressing housing crisis: calls to repeal the Faircloth Amendment (federal ban on new public housing), fully fund NYCHA, and pursue social housing ([63:38]).

    Quote (Valdez, 63:38):
    “Our public housing should be the jewel of our society and it should be abundant. These models already exist, but we’re up against a rich and rapacious real estate industry...”

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• ICE Avoids Paper Trail:
  “They issued this memo earlier this year, then stopped circulating it because they didn’t want a paper trail.”
  — Emma Vigeland, [07:16]

• Whistleblower on Secret Memo:
  “One of the two whistleblowers was allowed to view the memo only in the presence of a supervisor and then had to give it back. That person was not allowed to take notes.”
  — Emma Vigeland, [11:57]

• Union Solidarity:
  “Working people cannot stand aside while our neighbors are terrorized and our families are fractured—because those are our families. Those are our neighbors. Those are us.”
  — MN Union Rep, [21:29]

• Trump’s “Naked” Imperialism:
  “Trump is basically saying, I don’t want that [liberal] language anymore. I’m going to just say straight up that I’m going to take what I want in this world...”
  — Jostin Haga, [32:41]

• Economic Illusion:
  “Even if you were to accept that the US Economy has grown, GDP-wise… What has that achieved? …The end is not being achieved in the United States right now.”
  — Jostin Haga, [43:45]

• China: Stability in Contrast:
  “China, honestly, the only thing China has to do is to act like the adult in the room when we have the president … acting in this narcissistic, childlike manner…”
  — Jostin Haga, [46:42]

• Valdez on Abolishing ICE:
  “ICE has just told its agents that they do not need to present warrants in order to open people’s doors. Blatantly unconstitutional and attack on all of our fundamental freedoms … It should absolutely be abolished.”
  — Claire Valdez, [61:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• ICE Raids & Whistleblower Details: 00:27–22:40
• Davos/China/World Order Interview: 31:54–51:54
• Claire Valdez Interview: 52:49–66:08

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Memorable Moments / Tone

• Panel celebrates surpassing 2 million subscribers (04:09)—with trademark self-deprecating humor.
• Emma and guests maintain a tone of irreverent, indignant, and passionate progressivism throughout.
• Emma: “This is the Protect the Kids party… just reminding people…we have masked unidentified men paid for by your tax dollars stationed outside your kids’ school.” [13:07]
• Union rep quotes MLK’s “inescapable network of mutuality” to frame solidarity ([21:42]).

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Recap/Takeaway

This episode underscores (with urgency and outrage) how Trump’s second term has transformed the US into a country shaped by open imperial ambition abroad and deepening authoritarianism at home. As ICE abuses escalate and the international order decays, the grassroots response—be it labor action in Minnesota or DSA-fueled campaigns like Claire Valdez's—offers a blueprint for resistance. The guest interviews deliver clear, accessible breakdowns of global realignments, economic mythmaking, and the necessity of mass politics.

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For More:

• Jostin Haga’s newsletter: “Global Currents”
• Claire Valdez campaign: clairevaldezforcongress.com

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Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

You are listening to a free version of Majority Report with Sam Steater. To support this show and get another 15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority FM please.

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday, January 22, 2026. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and this is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Yosine Haga back with us to talk about Davos Trump's declining support on the global stage as well as America's and China's rise. And later in the Show, Claire Valdez, New York State assembly person and candidate for New York's 7th congressional district will be with us to talk about her race. Also on the program, after a stock market panic, Trump reverses on wanting to invade and annex Greenland. That's good news. ICE terror picks up in Maine, a state with many refugees. Stay safe up there. ICE also kidnapped a five year old boy in Minnesota using him as bait to lure out his father from their home. A whistleblower reveals that ICE told agents to enter homes without a judicial warrant, then hid the paper trail and issued the orders verbally. The case of an immigrant strangled to death in a Texas concentration camp has been officially ruled a homicide. An appeals court panel stack with Republican appointees reverses a judicial order that and now they say ICE can pepper spray and arrest peaceful protesters. House Democratic leaders will oppose ICE funding in a vote today, but Jeffries is reportedly only recommending his caucus vote against it and isn't whipping votes. Remember that Chicago ICE raid where children were zip tied while naked and ICE broke a bunch of windows and wrecked the property? Well, Illinois is now investigating the slumlord for calling immigration on their own tenants. The show told you that was very likely the case many, many months ago. So Trende Ragua. A Texas jury has acquitted a former Uvalde school police officer who failed to stop the gunman at the elementary school. Israel killed at least 11 people in Gaza yesterday, including three journalists at Davos. Jared Kushner advertises his master plan, his words to carve up Gaza for real estate developers. And lastly, the Supreme Court appears poised to prevent Trump from from firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court will stand up when Capitol is in trouble. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show everybody. It's an M. Majority Report Thursday. Hello Matt. Hello Brian. Hello audience hello. Hello. Hey, what's up guys? There's 2 million of you now and we're pretty popular.

[Audience Member]

Woohoo hoo.

[Brian]

I guess keeps bumping.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, the Brian bump meant something different like 10 years ago, right? We have reached 2 million subscribers. So again, I keep forgetting to fix my soundboard. I thought my iPad was stolen and locked it, but forgot.

[Matt]

Oh, what's my soundboard being messed up?

[Emma Vigeland]

Forgot that I had brought it into the office for my soundboard.

[Brian]

Anyway, great way to celebrate 2 million at majority point with a. A bunch of errors.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, I am in it to win it. In keeping with the show's tradition. So, I mean, gosh, when you started here, Matt, do you remember what the subscriber count was?

[Jostin Haga]

Yeah, I do.

[Emma Vigeland]

What was it?

[Matt]

About 40,000.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh my God.

[Audience Member]

Really?

[Guest/Caller]

Wow.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, well.

[Brian]

Can't believe you thought that was a job.

[Matt]

I was impressed at that time.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thank you all so much. We love you all. Couldn't do this without you. If you'd like to support this program, join themjorityreport.com your membership keeps us afloat. If YouTube went away tomorrow or they changed the revenue system, we would be really screwed.

[Matt]

If you all on jointhemajorityreport.com yes.

[Emma Vigeland]

But let's get to the news here. So, as I mentioned, ICE has arrived in Maine. Maine. Stay safe. Maine has a disproportionate number of refugees relative to other states, or at least has had an influx of refugees recently. And they're calling this operation Catch of the Day. Why do they have to have different operational names for every state? Just seems like it's just part of the whole cosplay. I get it, but like, why not just make your fascist operation one thing? It doesn't need to be state specific, but they like to play with words.

[Matt]

I mean, they're occupying different parts of the world. It's different strategies. Like that's what's happening is instead of Iraq and other Afghanistan, it's Charlotte and.

[Emma Vigeland]

Minneapolis and in Minnesota, it's still just absolutely horrific there. There was a really important whistleblower complaint that came out yesterday. It appears that Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut is kind of responsible for digging some of this stuff up. I think they're leaking this stuff right now. And Sam kind of floated this theory to me as well last night when we were chatting in anticipation of the vote today in the House on ice. Funding Jeffries and the rest of leadership is recommending that the rest of the caucus vote against it, but not whipping votes against it. Yeah, or what A distinct, distinct difference. Capitulation to fascism whipping votes involves, you know, Sticks and carrots as well. And that's.

[Matt]

There's no point to a party. You're just gonna whip for what, supporting Israel.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's what competent leadership does. I mean, for all of our issues with Nancy Pelosi, she was quite effective at keeping her caucus together. We'll see what this vote ends up being in the House, but it's really the Senate that has the power to stop this. And Chuck Schumer has shown no indications, no indication that he's willing to do so. And so leaks need to start happening to reveal the horror of ISIS operations, the illegality, the lawlessness that is inherent to ISIS operations. That is a very bedrock foundation of how they conduct their business, their terror across the country. So this leak, very significant, the AP writes. Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judicial warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by the Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of long standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits, government searches. The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities. That's by design, of course. They're trying to circumvent the recommendations that advocates have given. And local leaders have told the people, you can't. You don't need to. They need a judicial warrant to enter your home. Well, turns out ICE's directives internally have said basically to disregard that. To disregard that. Now, you're going to hear this term administrative warrant throughout this piece, and I'm going to explain why that's not actually a warrant. It's basically the equivalent of your teacher gives you a permission slip for your parents to sign and instead of just like forging the signature or something like that, you just make your own permission slip and call it a permission slip. That's not what this is. Warrants are filled out by judges, not the administration, not ICE officers, which is what administrative warrants are.

[Matt]

And this end runner on the Constitution has been telegraphed by the president, the vice president, when they talk about, well, we can't do due process because it's such an emergency that Joe Biden has left us with. And a lot of the toadies and media have also said that, like, it's too big of a problem. So now f the Fourth Amendment, just screw it. And every single person who supported this deportation hysteria also supports that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Exactly. The memo Itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the president's immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo's guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure. I just want to sit with this for a second. It's a verbal only order. The article will continue and lays this out. But they issued this memo earlier this year, then stopped circulating it because they didn't want a paper trail, and now have just been training ICE officers with a verbal confirmation of this illegal policy because they're afraid of having a paper trail. And we have Democrats that are considering funding this agency right now. The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an official in Congress who shared it on a condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive documents. Again, I think this theory is correct, that it's some Democratic staffer or someone working with a high level Democrat trying to box in some of these Democrats who aren't standing up to this lawlessness. The EAP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the complaint. The memo signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons and dated May 12, 2025, says, Although the U.S. department of Homeland Security has not historically relied upon administrative warrants, relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest alien subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence. The DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. constitution, the immigration and Nationality act and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.

[Matt]

The DHS Office of the General Counsel created after we were all alive in our teenage years.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. It was an outgrowth of the war on terror. These warrants are forms filled out by ICE officers. This is the. It's a Form I205. They're signed by immigration officials, not regular judges. And when we're talking about the war on terror, this is a good opportunity to bring up political nerds may remember the term FISA judges. So you know, when we're talking about DHS and ICE being an outgrowth of the war on terror infrastructure, you might recall that the Bush administration was overseeing warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance throughout both terms of Americans without the approval of judges. Now, towards the end of his second term, it was basically discovered that this was happening. And the Democrats go, okay, but can you please go through a judge first? That was what happened. And in the end, they turned to FISA judges. These are these secretive, specialized judges, specifically for surveillance warrants, specifically for things like intelligence and national security. And they would just rubber stamp all of this. So it gave them the pretense of going through a judge. But these were special judges. And even still, this is much more legal than what ICE is doing here, because those are still federal judges. Those are still warrants from a judge, not administrative warrants that are just signed by ICE officers. So we're seeing here the complete erosion of our Fourth Amendment protections and other protections because the war on terror and specifically the Patriot act blended these operations, foreign intelligence and, and domestic law enforcement. And because of, like, the way that power is accumulated and rights can be eroded much more easily than they can be built up, it's gotten worse and worse, even when you're looking at, say, like, you know, the FISA judges as a point of comparison. And one more part from this piece, and then we'll get to this awful story about how they're rounding up children in Minnesota. But the memo says ICE officers can forcibly enter homes and arrest immigrants using just assigned administrative warrant, known as an i205, if they have a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals, or a district judge or magistrate judge. The memo says officers must knock on the door and share who they are and why they're at the residence. And. But they're limited in the hours they can go into the home after 6am and before 10pm the people inside must be given a reasonable chance to act lawfully. But if that doesn't work, the memo says they can just use force to go in. The memo is addressed to all ICE personnel, but it has been shown only to select DHS officials who then shared it with some employees who were told to read it and return it. Whistleblower aide wrote in the discourse and disclosure, one of the two whistleblowers was allowed to view the memo only in the presence of a supervisor and then had to give it back. That person was not allowed to take notes. A whistleblower was able to access the document and lawfully disclose it to Congress. There, there feels legal, feels legal. That's what you do. This memo, you can't take it with you, but we're going to read it to you. And you got to be secretive about it. I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable. So with that, you're just seeing here, this is the Trump administration, the executive branch, trying to completely circumvent the judiciary as they've tried to circumvent the legislature. This is about authoritarianism. And ICE is now taking just children. They've kidnapped multiple children. You have Minnesota community members saying that ICE is basically stationed outside schools. This is the Protect the Kids party. Just reminding people here that are okay with masked men whose identities we have no identity. We have no idea who they are. There's no way to verify they're trying to hide their identities. We have masked unidentified men paid for by your tax dollars stationed outside your kids school ready to kidnap them. The Protecting Kids party. And it's not just happening in Minnesota. I saw there was an article in Seattle that in surrounding areas they had to shelter in place half a dozen schools due to ICE activity a day or two ago. And now there's this story of Liam. This photo that you're going to see here has gone viral. He just turned five. He's one of four children in this school district near Minneapolis, Columbia Heights, which is a heavily Hispanic and Latino district in the metro area. And apparently ICE when this kid was was coming home, got him, asked him to knock on the door to see if anyone was inside because they wanted to take his father and they were successful in that using this child as bait. And Liam's older brother, who's in middle school, came home about a half hour later and found that his father and brother were missing. Here is a local KARE 11 NBC Twin Cities report on this incident.

[Audience Member]

Inside Valley View elementary in Columbia Heights, there's a preschool classroom filled with four and five year olds who may soon wonder what happened to one of their classmates, Liam Ramos.

[Claire Valdez]

He's a bright young student and he's so kind.

[Audience Member]

Ella Sullivan is Liam's preschool teacher. She says her students haven't asked about Liam yet, but they will. And she and other teachers wonder how they can possibly answer the their questions.

[Claire Valdez]

All I want is for him to be safe and back here.

[Audience Member]

The family's lawyer says Liam is likely being held with his father at a detention facility in Texas.

[Jostin Haga]

We have clients that once they're picked up, they're whisked away to the airport literally within hours.

[Audience Member]

School officials say Liam is one of four students who have been detained by ICE agents over the last two weeks, including another student who was also detained on Tuesday on the way to school.

[Emma Vigeland]

A 17 year old high school student, a minor was taken by armed masked agents alone. No parents were present.

[Audience Member]

Superintendent Zena Stenvic says the other two students include another 17 year old and her mother who were detained by ICE last week and a 10 year old girl who was also detained with her mother on their way to school two weeks ago.

[Emma Vigeland]

And by the end of the school day, they were already in a detention center in Texas. And they are still there.

[Jostin Haga]

He's terrifying.

[Audience Member]

Pastor Sergio Amezcua is also working with Liam's family. He says many in the Latino community are deeply concerned about children being taken by federal agents.

[Jostin Haga]

Let child protection services take care of them. While the parents battle the legal battle.

[Audience Member]

Amezkwa says many in the community are now afraid to leave their homes. His church has now received food delivery requests from more than 27,000 families who are scared to go to the grocery store.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep, scared. I mean, of course they are. Of course they are. How much longer is Minnesota going to be terrorized like this? How much longer? We're getting IMs here. Apparently there was a woman in ice or a woman in Portland tased by ice or tasked. Perhaps I'm misreading that, but either way, yesterday after dropping her kids off at school, we saw that they're targeting daycare centers.

[Brian]

That story in New Jersey where there's a six year old girl who's just.

[Emma Vigeland]

Left alone wandering the streets, it is an absolute horror show in this country right now. And so if you're in Minnesota tomorrow, unions across the state, bus drivers, janitorial workers, teachers, they've joined this call for a statewide shutdown here on January 23rd. Let's hear a little bit here from local union reps in Minnesota on what they're asking for tomorrow, January 23.

[Union Representative]

On January 23, the ATU Local 1005 stands in solidarity and endorses the call for a collective refusal to work in solidarity with immigrant communities. With protesters demanding an end to militarized raids and with all of those who refuse to accept a normalized state of violence. Where's the morality in tear gas directed at a family? Where's the justice when a mother's life is taken? Where's the accountability when federal power overrides community safety and constitutional rights? Working people cannot stand aside while our neighbors are terrorized and our families are fractured because those are our families. Those are our neighbors. Those are us. They are us.

[Emma Vigeland]

The community made the call for this.

[Union Representative]

Day of no work, no school and no shopping. Members started telling us in large numbers that they were going to honor that call.

[Emma Vigeland]

Of the 23rd, 95% of them said.

[Jostin Haga]

They were planning not to go to work.

[Guest/Caller]

In his letter from a Birmingham jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Said, We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in A single garment of destiny. Wearing whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As Dr. King describes, an injury to one is an injury to all. This belief is the bedrock of the labor movement. Active solidarity. Right now, labor unions must stand together in a network of solidarity to demand that ice leave Minnesota and stop inflicting this public safety hazard on our community.

[Emma Vigeland]

So Minnesota, stand up there. Tomorrow is the day. And I mean, I know Minnesota is already standing up, but point being is, is we hope that tomorrow is a big success and organized labor being behind this is a really good sign. Did you want to add something?

[Guest/Caller]

No.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay. All right.

[Brian]

Well, I was just gonna say Trump pulling back from Greenland over a dip in the stock market shows that this administration only understands money.

[Emma Vigeland]

There you go. There you go. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Yosine Haga. But first, a word from some of our sponsors. You know, in the new year, I'm starting to think about, like, changing some of my habits and some of my daily routines and reducing my reliance on things like single use plastic. Especially as, you know, with we start to think about the looming climate catastrophe. Well, Blueland has already helped us wean our office off of single use plastic. And I've already started to incorporate Blueland and have, you know, with their little dishwasher washer pods in my life at home as well. And so I've made the switch to Blueland for all the cleaning products in the office and probably, probably like half in my home, especially as I've been going into the new year. And I love that their cleaning sprays and like their toilet bowl cleaner and their dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets are.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigeland]

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That's 20% off your first order with Code MAJORITYREPiquidiv.com link down below in the video and episode description and at Majority fm. Quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Jostin Haga. Sa. We are back and we are joined once again by Jostine Haga, political economist and assistant professor in development Studies at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. You can also read his newsletter, Global Currents. Jostin, welcome back to the show.

[Jostin Haga]

Thanks for having me back, Yema, of course.

[Emma Vigeland]

So Davos, pretty significant this year. You actually, you wrote in Global Currents, your newsletter last month, about Trump's national security strategy, basically what this memo or publication that the administration had published about US Priorities around the world, that piece you put out in December. But I guess I'm wondering if you could connect that to what we saw at Davos over the past few days, because it appears to be a cementing of the Trump national security strategy, which is just like we're going to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and try to dominate our backyard.

[Jostin Haga]

Yeah, I'm glad you bring up the national security strategy, because I think more people should to have a look at it. It's a very important document. Every presidential administration publishes one of those during their terms. So it's pretty important. And this one in particular, if you read it by Trump, you see clearly a language of domination, a language somewhat similar to traditional imperialism. I'd like to say after I've seen this document and also heard now Trump talk for a year into his second term, we're seeing kind of a shift from the type of imperialism we saw under more liberal administrations, where it was kind of hidden. There was talk about global cooperation and so on. And Trump is basically saying, I don't want that language anymore. I'm going to just say straight up that I'm going to take what I want in this world and in the security strategy focuses a lot on on Latin America. But sort of throughout the strategy, you see very clearly that it's not just about dominating Latin America, it's about interfering in Europe. It's about making sure that China doesn't arise as a competitor, although it's a bit late for that. So it's sort of an unapologetic language of imperialism and of global domination. And that's also something we saw in Davos in his speech.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the idea that this is about curbing China's influence is a little shocking to me because does the administration really think they can do this with just the force of US Military? And that's how they're going to try to impose their will on trying to maintain hegemony? Because the exact opposite is happening here. You have Canada and we saw Carney's speech. We played it yesterday saying, to hell with this, we're going to go with the emerging power here and make plans for our economy that acknowledge that reality.

[Jostin Haga]

Yes, very much so. It's funny because for a while we were all talking about the trade war between us and China. And eventually we saw how Trump's tariffs and his trade policies backfired a lot and in fact benefited China directly to some degree in that China got more technologically independent and more speedily and hastily implemented measures to technologically advance various sectors. Well, now we're seeing another element of China sort of becoming a more important player in the world, and that is that other traditional allies of the US because of Trump's erratic and volatile and to be honest, narcissistic and childlike foreign policy, is turning, is turning traditional allies of the United States toward China. Carney is probably the prime example. And we saw that his recent visit to China. And they struck a trade deal with very few sort of antagonistic caveats that to some degree Europe still has with China. But I think we'll see more European countries follow as well. And this was something that Carney alluded to in his speech, that countries like Canada now need to be more realistic and cannot look to the United States any longer.

[Emma Vigeland]

Can you expand upon that and where Europe is relative to Canada here and what Carney's plea entailed, because there's this tension, of course, with the post World War II international order. And we're seeing this is the end of that. And Gaza was really, I would say, the death blow. But we've been bleeding out since that point. And Carney finally acknowledge, hey, we're bleeding out. And it's like Europe's entanglement with the United States economically is very much tied into NATO and the security guarantees that the US has provided. And the emotion around that is obviously, and the fears are heightened because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And NATO has added member states and that makes rational sense for those states to join NATO for that reason. But it has been a unsustainable long term project for Europe to continuously rely on the United States for security, but also being roped into US Imperialism and siding with the United States on things like Iraq and even Gaza, like having to kind of co sign that. But and also, you know, going along with the United States foreign policy objectives as it relates to like tariffs and sanctions, you know, so Europe is kind of folded in and they can't make economic relationships with other countries based on U.S. policy. That appears to be something that seems to be cracking here.

[Jostin Haga]

Yeah, there's a lot of things to unpack here, but let me do it by looking at Carney's speech because it was quite remarkable and I think the way I interpreted it, he made two important points. The first is the admission of the death of the rules based international order. And this rules based international order has existed supposedly for a long time, since the end of World War II, the start of the Bretton Woods Conference. These international organizations were supposed to have to ensure global cooperation. And Carney said this was in large part a facade and that wealthy nations played along with this facade, especially the middle powers, because it benefited them and the US Was spearheading this international order. I think first it's important to point out that it's quite remarkable coming from a figure like Carney who's been part of the liberal establishment. Goldman Sachs, Harvard, Oxford. This was maybe the last, in many ways a so called globalist. Right. But he admits that the liberal international order was a facade and Trump has also been critical of it. He's destroyed it in many ways and replaced it with traditional imperialism. The other important point here, and then I'll take this more towards Europe and how Europe is a bit different from Carney and also similar. The other important point is about Trump and how Carney approaches the US And Trump. And he did not mention Trump specifically and strategically in his speech. But Carney has been very consistently, very consistently against Trump in some ways. And there I think he has more integrity than the European countries because here we've seen, as you mentioned, Europe has been very careful about condemning Israel's actions in Gaza. They've been very careful about saying that Trump broke international law when he bombed Venezuela and kidnapped its head of state. But somehow they are very forcefully telling Trump that he should not invade Greenland. So we're seeing that many of these big European leaders really only dare to stand up to Trump when he subjects them to the same kind of colonial mindset that they subjected to the rest of the world for centuries.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the other part of it too, just to return to maybe the economic piece, is that the United States is a paper tiger right now economically. You've been writing and done so much academic work on how technologically advanced China is, how far ahead they are, how a lot of this is obscured by the Western press. But this was a great thread that you retweeted here from. This is here Gabriel Zuckman about the United States economy. I just want to show some of these charts for people. This one's on the annual real growth of national income per adult in the United States. And. And so if you could just scroll up here a little bit up. Actually. Yeah. Just to. Yeah. The idea that the United States has pulled ahead economically isn't necessarily true. You can see that in annual real growth of national income per adult in the US but then scroll down to the next part of the thread here. This other chart, income growth, that was the similar one that we just showed there. But GDP is also not where it's advertised at. And keep scrolling down here. Here. This one is what I wanted this to. Sorry. The. The GDP one. Annual real growth of productivity. GDP per hours worked. I need to see the caption. Sorry. There it is. So you can see that the period from 1980 to 2010 is not what it was. It was much more productive from 1950 to 1980. Much more productive in 1980 to 2010. And not the same there. And you can tack it to. There's a final chart here about incoming wealth inequality. I just want to get to that. This is the big one. Look at this chart. When we're looking at GDP growth, this is the wealthiest point.0001%. And I need to see this caption. If you could scroll up here. Yeah. The one thing that is growing extremely fast is the wealth of the top billionaires. The top.00001% used to own the equivalent of 3% of national income in wealth. In 2010. They now own the equivalent of 12% of national income in the United States. So even from 2010 to 2026, that has absolutely exploded from that time period. So when we're looking at like, oh, the United States economy and tech is booing it and AI and it's so it's growing. It's growing with these traditional economic metrics. It is not accounting for the fact that regular. That this is a big kind of speculative bubble and a lot of capital that's going towards like speculation or investment in the stock market. But people's actual experiences are not reflecting that.

[Jostin Haga]

Yes. First, I think I like to say that Gabriel Zuckman, whose thread you just shared, he's done a lot of good work on this. And he also recently wrote an essay in the French newspaper Le Monde where he compares the European to the American economies, which touches upon a lot of the subjects you talk about here. So I really urge the audience to go and have a look at that. Even if you were to accept that the US Economy has grown, GDP wise, slightly more than Europe growth, as the inventor of gdp, Simon Kuznets, said, GDP growth is just a means to an end. So what has that achieved? And in the American economy, compared to a lot of other wealthy nations, as this chart showed, a lot more of the growth has gone to the top 1% or 0.1% or 0.0001%. Let me be clear. This has been a trend in many wealthy nations, more income inequality, that billionaires and the rich are capturing a larger share of growth. But in the United States, it's much more so. So this is why I think it's important to know in these discussions that or when people say that innovation is stronger in America or tech is booming and we have the greatest tech companies, yes, there's a lot of tech. But let's see how prosperous the American economy is as a whole. Here's, I think, a very important statistic. In the United states, the bottom 50% of the population own 1 to 2% of the total wealth. That is astonishingly bad and among the worst among the OECD economies. It has the lowest social mobility among all the OECD economies and it has lower life expectancy than most OECD economies, even China. Now, I'm not trying to say that all the other OECD economies are doing great and so on, but we need to understand that growth and, you know, big tech and so on, these are, you know, having huge corporations, having GDP growth. These are means to an end. And the end is not being achieved in the United States right now. So, yes, as you say, the U.S. economy is somewhat of a paper tiger and now being overshadowed increasingly by the Chinese economy.

[Emma Vigeland]

So China now here, where, where is your assessment of their feeling or their standing here after Davos, but even maybe more, not notably after this deal with Canada, do you foresee other European countries following suit here? And how is that going to impact with this kind of capricious, psychotic president here in the United States? Our relationships with Europe economically?

[Jostin Haga]

Yes, I do think other European countries will follow suit, obviously. And this is also worth noting that the rest of the world have already preceded Carney. China works together with tons of countries across the global south already. And has built relationship relationships across the south for over two decades now. But it is, you know, Macron has already alluded to wanting to attract Chinese investments. But now that we saw this clear deal between Canada and China, where Canada is working hard to attract more investments from China and establishing joint ventures with Chinese companies, and made tons of social media posts about the new partnership that Canada has with China, I do think we'll see more partnership. And China is here not doing something radically new. China has been for a long time had a consistent strategy of trying to cooperate with as many countries, as many countries as possible, and it does not have the intention of replacing the US As a global hegemon. I think it's important for people to know this. The one elephant in the room and the one issue that might prove tricky for European countries to cooperate more with China is Russia, because China does not have the same stance towards Russia that many Western European countries has. And China is, you know, Russia shares a big border with China and China prioritize having a decent relationship with Russia. But China, honestly, the only thing China has to do is to act like the adult in the room when we have the president of the most powerful country in the world. Debatable, of course, but when the president of the United States acts in this narcissistic, childlike manner which we saw in Davos, they honestly have to do no more than just be the adult in the room. And that has been working well for China so far.

[Emma Vigeland]

Lastly, are people overreacting to this Carney speech? We didn't get to it and I think we will later in the show. But earlier today, Jared Kushner was at Davos and was speaking about his plan to carve up Gaza for a bunch of real estate developers. And so of course, it's important to point out that the so called rules based international order very much died with the genocide in Gaza. But that doesn't, I think, take away from the significance of the Western, of Western leaders acknowledging that death. And do you find that, do you think that what happened with Carney's speech and what occurred at Davos here is as historically significant as perhaps is being reported?

[Jostin Haga]

I think this speech will be remembered as one of the most important speeches at least in this decade. Now, if the speech will actually translate to a new practice of a new world order like the one Carney envisions, we have yet to see. Will we see middle powers building alliances like Carney alludes to and wants in his speech? We have yet to see. You know, I want to say that because I've seen some people saying, yes, middle powers now need to, you know, maneuver more strategically in a more realistic way with respect to the great powers, the U.S. china and Russia. Building a corporationship and a partnership with the US Is very different from building a cooperation in partnership with China. And I think it's important to know that. And that's something we've definitely seen in the last year. But still, yes, we're seeing the death of the rules based order. It's the law of the jungle. A lot of countries are now delinking somewhat from the United States, but the United States still has tremendous power. And Trump is trying to show that he's not getting popularity on the world stage by showing that, and certainly not with his Gaza peace plan. And to be honest, I saw that clip by Jared Kushner, I thought, how is this any different from traditional colonialism? Yeah, I really struggle to see the difference there. They're coming in there. You know, Kushner's trying basically say, this is what we have planned, this is what we want to do. You know, why are you supposed to shape the future of the people of Gaza? And this is someone who's for a long time has had very close relationships, a very close relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and committing and leading a genocide in Gaza. This is absurd to me. So we'll have to see law.

[Emma Vigeland]

The jungle is right. Yosin Haga, thank you so much for your time today. Always appreciate your insights. And everybody should check out your newsletter, Global Currents. Thanks so much.

[Jostin Haga]

Thanks, Ellen.

[Emma Vigeland]

Quick break, folks. And when we come back, we're going to be joined by Claire Valdez, candidate for New York's 7th congressional district.

[Sam Cedar]

It.

[Emma Vigeland]

We are back and we're so happy to be joined now by Claire Valdez, New York State assembly person representing the 37th district in Queens and now candidate for New York's 7th congressional district. Claire, welcome to the show. So happy to have you.

[Claire Valdez]

Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Of course. So Representative Velazquez is retiring. This is one of the bluest districts in, in the country. So why the hell not run a socialist? I mean, tell us a little bit about your background.

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah, absolutely. You are correct. This is one of the most progressive, if not the most progressive district in the country. It's a congressional district that voted for over 40% for Zoran Mamdani in last year's primary election. Very primed for the kind of mass politics that our movement represents. First and foremost, I'm a Labor organizer. I come out of the UAW. I was a member of Local 2110 and a shop steward. I organized alongside my coworkers for better contracts and to know our rights as union members. And this is something that is so needed right now in our federal government and in Congress where very few congressional members have any direct relationship to the labor movement and certainly very few have been union members. And the reason we've seen this incredible concentration of wealth with the 1% and this crushing oligarchy is because there's been a decades long war. Unorganized labor. I'm running for Congress to change that.

[Emma Vigeland]

You, a day after you announced your campaign for New York 7th congressional district, you were endorsed by Zoran Mamdani and also though Sean Fain, the President of the uaw. Can you speak a little bit more about your work with the UAW and what the lessons you learned from the labor movement have been.

[Claire Valdez]

Absolutely. So a lot of my life I've spent working customer service jobs, low wage jobs like many, many Americans. And at no point in my life had I felt as powerless as I did then on my feet, working hours and hours for terrible wages. When I joined uaw, that completely changed. I found power in my union. I was a member of our bargaining committee at Columbia University, bargaining against this multibillion dollar institution for better wages that I and the 500 clerical workers and call center workers who make Columbia run but are often forgotten about deserve. I was a member of. I helped campaign for Shawn Fain when he ran in 2022. And you know, under his leadership, we've seen the UAW transform. It's an incredibly democratic union. He led the standup strikes in 2023 and it's a really inspiring moment for organized labor. UAW was out in front calling for a ceasefire early in the genocide in Gaza, which is very much in line with their long history of social justice work and international solidarity. And UAW taught me what power can look like and how we can win it.

[Emma Vigeland]

You mention the genocide in Gaza. You have been unequivocal in your condemnation of that. I want to ask you more specific policy questions in just a second, but I read in your interview in Jacobin that you were radicalized by the war in Iraq. That is how I would also describe my kind of political trajectory. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because there was this insistence in the last election that people don't really vote on foreign policy. And we show that that's. Unfortunately, now that we have a fascist in office, it's quite clear that that was not the case. So what was important to you about the war in Iraq and your political trajectory?

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah, so I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, very conservative part of Texas. And seeing the invasion of Iraq as a young person really radicalized me. Just knowing that billions of US dollars were going to attack a civilian population in an unjustified war and a war that was not proven to be needed. And it changed the way that I thought about US foreign policy and our role in it. I saw that we were going to war for massive profits, for oil profits, and to keep this military industrial complex machinery going. And it was really horrible to see. But like many millennials, I was radicalized in that moment and continued being an anti war activist for the rest of my life. And so when the genocide began over two years ago in Gaza, I was unequivocal in saying it is a genocide, that we need an immediate ceasefire and that the US cannot be complicit in embalming civilians and destroying refugee camps. We have to put an end to it.

[Emma Vigeland]

And in terms of if you were to get into Congress, you would support an arms embargo both defensively and offensively?

[Claire Valdez]

Absolutely. I think there's no appetite for our tax dollars going to uphold a government that has shown very little respect for Palestinian human rights.

[Emma Vigeland]

Love to hear it. Can you speak a little bit more about DSA and New York, specifically how important that's been to your role in the assembly, but also just organizing in this city. I know that there's somebody else currently running in your district, Antonio Reynoso. Who? The Brooklyn Borough President. Not a DSA member. And there's been some sort of like kind of intra progressive infighting about this very topic. I mean, for my. I'll editorialize and say like, I mean, DSA success is so unequivocal that the idea that we should be fighting about this kind of stuff seems insane to me. But that it seems to be that, you know, there's New York DSA and there's still like kind of an older political establishment within the Democratic Party that has some issues with that. So just if you could expand on the differences between you and Reynoso, your opponent in this primary.

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah. And since you asked about dsa, I'll just say I've been a member of New York City DDSA for almost seven years now. The process that we're going through now with the endorsement is this kind of long and very democratic process. But it's exactly the thing that brought me into the organization feeling trusted as an Everyday working class person to make, you know, strategic decisions and considerations. That's how we build our movement and it's how we deepen our democracy and our society. So it's a really, this is always my favorite time of year endorsement season. But it's that movement that I think distinguishes myself and my opponent. I come out of the same movement that, that brought us, Zoran Mamdani. He and I have a lot of similar experience organizing within dsa, starting out, just knocking doors and then being field leads, field coordinators, growing in leadership. And that's exactly what good campaigns can do, is develop organic leaders who gain confidence and strategic insights into the way that everyday working people can be powerful. It's about recognizing the power in each other to change the world and change our conditions. And, and so that's the movement that I hope to bring to, that I've been organizing with in Albany as a State assembly member and that I want to bring to Washington D.C. building our democracy and really making working people feel that they are part of upholding it is going to be so essential as we take on, as you said, this fascist administration that wants to gut due process, voting rights, workers rights, and we have to be on the front lines of defending it.

[Emma Vigeland]

How would you act in Congress to say, protect your community from ICE and you know, hopefully if you end up being the nominee, you would be a part of Democrats, knock on wood, taking back the House. That's the hope that I would imagine that there could be some tools at your disposal to help protect your community. What do you see as your role as a member of Congress in that sphere?

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah, we have to, I mean, the first step is we have to abolish ice. This is an agency that has become, you know, funded by million, billions and billions and billions of dollars and militarized and is now running roughshod over our basic democratic rights all over the country. ICE has just told its agents that they do not need to present warrants in order to open people's doors. Blatantly unconstitutional and attack on all of our fundamental freedoms. Not even to mention that they are now openly murdering protesters and bystanders on the street in broad daylight, on film. It's an agency that cannot exist anymore and it should absolutely be abolished. In my office in the assembly, we've been organizing know your rights trainings, you know, attending rallies and marches and really demonstrating that everyday working people can come out and stand for their neighbors when moments when they might not feel safe to do so. And so I think really public demonstrations of support Saying that this agency cannot exist anymore and that we need critical funding to make sure that all of our neighbors who might have to go through these immigration proceedings have representation which is proven to help them get through, navigate these systems and bring them back home safely. So first of all, abolish. But then there are a lot of other tools at our disposal to make sure that our immigrant neighbors are protected and have the same dignity that every single person in this country deserves.

[Emma Vigeland]

Lastly, of course, rent tenant protections. I know you've done work in that area, but we're hopefully Zoramdani's beginning to make some progress. The rent is still too damn high here. But on a federal level, you know, we have. There were a few. A few years ago, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez were trying to like revive efforts to repeal the Faircloth Amendment, for example, which has, for people that don't know, It's a over 25 year moratorium on federal funding for public housing, which is a relic and should be done away with at the bare minimum. But just, you know, that's one thing that comes to mind for me. What would you support on the federal level to address the housing crisis?

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah, I mean, bringing up the Faircloth Amendment is a great place to start. It has to be repealed. It is ridiculous that we're not able to build more public housing. And it's a shame on our society that our public housing has been left to fall into disrepair over generations. And it's a public entitlement that like so many others, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP benefits that are being undercut by this federal administration. But far beyond that, our public housing should be the jewel of our society and it should be abundant. People should be able to live in it long term. So repealing Faircloth Amendment is a great place to start fully funding our existing public housing. Here in New York City we have many NYCHA developments that have been left to without repairs, without good funding for a long time. Fully funding those developments is also priority number one. And then building social housing. Representative Ocasio Cortez carries the Homes act to develop more social housing in the United States. I was part of a delegation to Barcelona in 2024 where we got to see models of beautiful social housing that is permanently affordable and democratically controlled by its tenants. And we can have that here. These models already exist, but we're up against in New York City, especially just a rich and rapacious real estate industry that has been fighting tooth and nail to make sure that they are making as much profit as possible off of our need for safe and stable housing and we take on those corporate interests.

[Emma Vigeland]

Absolutely. I just got to say, we have an IM Noah, the intern's mom says please give the candidate greetings from a fellow socialist who grew up in Lubbock. Hard place to be a lefty. I'm now in Portland, Oregon. I'm not familiar with that town, but it sounds like you are.

[Claire Valdez]

I am deeply familiar and it is a very hard place to be a lefty. But we get through it. And no matter where you are in this country, you can be a lefty and fight for justice.

[Emma Vigeland]

Absolutely. Claire, where can people support your campaign and how would you best suggest that they do?

[Claire Valdez]

Yeah, you can donate and get involved@clairevaldez for congress.com we'll be knocking doors very soon and love getting out the word to our neighbors. So come along, join the campaign.

[Emma Vigeland]

Appreciate you, Claire. Claire Valdez, candidate for Congress who is running in New York's 7th congressional district. More socialist representation from my good state of New York would be phenomenal. So thanks so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it.

[Claire Valdez]

Really appreciate you. Solidarity forever. Thanks y'.

[Emma Vigeland]

All. Agreed. Thanks so much, folks. Well, not gonna run right into the fun half. Gonna wrap up the free part of the of this show and head into the fun half in just a second. But as we mentioned earlier, this show relies on your support. We just hit 2 million subscribers. Amazing stuff. But that could go away if, you know, say, the authoritarian Trump administration decides that we are too terroristy. So if you could go to jointhe majorityreport.com become a member, you can im the show. That would be excellent. Matt had to step out a little earlier, but we have, do we have a promotion for the Jacobin show, Brian?

[Brian]

No, I think he's recording that now. The most recent left reckoning. I pulled it up. They were joined by Judith Norman and Alex Burnell to break down James Telrico's recent controversial statements on funding Israel's defensive weapons.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, yes. Check out that episode. Also check out the Jacobin show. And then we'll also say, just a reminder, I am going to be moderating David Griscom's book Talk, the launch of his book in New York City. And that is going to be as I pull up my calendar on my screen here. Gotta type in calendar. Okay, here we go. That will be on the 25th of February. And so if you'd like to attend, we have the link somewhere. We'll put it in the description down below. But you can also pre order David Griscom's book, the Myth of Red Texas. Really honored that he asked me to blurb that book. And also that he asked me to moderate this. Very, very sweet. And also, the book is really great. So check that out. Check out the Jacobin show. Check out Left Reckoning. Soon we will be joined by Brandon Binder, but they're taking their sweet ass time. So, yeah, we'll just go into the fun half, and we will see you there. We will take your calls and read your IMs. See you on the other side. Okay.

[Brian]

Emma, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Claire Valdez]

It is Thursday.

[Emma Vigeland]

I think you need to take over for Sam. Yes, boys.

[Sam Cedar]

No, no, no. I'm.

[Guest/Caller]

I'm.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm gonna pause you right there.

[Emma Vigeland]

Wait, what?

[Sam Cedar]

You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. Someone offered a tour. Sushi and poker with the boys. Twerk, sushi and poker with boys. Who was offered a tour? Yeah, sushi and poker with boys. What tour? Sushi and poker.

[Emma Vigeland]

Tim's upset.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk, sushi and poker with two boys. It was offered with twerk, sushi, and that's what we call biz. Twerk, sushi, and poker with two boys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk, sushi, and poker.

[Emma Vigeland]

We're gonna get demonetized.

[Sam Cedar]

I just think that what you did to tip pool was mean.

[Emma Vigeland]

Free speech.

[Sam Cedar]

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible.

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh, my God. Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my mind. Someone's offered a tour.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi and poker with the boys. Kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Think I'm like a kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Had this debate 7,000 times. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid.

[Guest/Caller]

I don't care.

[Sam Cedar]

Think I'm like a dick. I'm losing my mind.

[Emma Vigeland]

Some people just don't understand.

[Sam Cedar]

So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but, like, I absolutely think the US should be providing me.

[Emma Vigeland]

With a wife and kids that's not what we're talking about here.

[Jostin Haga]

Okay.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right.

[Sam Cedar]

It's not a fun job.

[Jostin Haga]

That's a real thing.

[Sam Cedar]

That's got a real thing.

[Claire Valdez]

Real thing.

[Sam Cedar]

Willy Wonka. That's a real thing. That's that real thing. That's a real thing. That's got real thing. Real thing. That's a real thing that's offered. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. That's a real thing. Oh, I think he might be blowing.

[Emma Vigeland]

It out of proportion.

[Sam Cedar]

Real thing. That's a real thing. That's. That's poker. Let's go, Joey. Twerk. Sushi and poker. Take it easy. Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hands. Sushi and poker. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on.

[Emma Vigeland]

Sam has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

Anymore.

[Emma Vigeland]

It was so much easier when the majority were. It was just you.

[Claire Valdez]

You're happy.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nicks are doing great now.

[Jostin Haga]

Shut up.

[Emma Vigeland]

Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

[Brian]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

This is a pro killing podcast.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

Left his best trump. Violet.

[Audience Member]

Twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me.

[Emma Vigeland]

And don't.

[Brian]

The way Emma has all of these.

[Emma Vigeland]

People, that's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, sorry. She wrote an honest thesis.

[Brian]

I guess I should hand the main.

[Sam Cedar]

Mic to you now. You are to the right of the unformed policy.

[Emma Vigeland]

We already fund Israel. Dude. Are you against us?

[Sam Cedar]

That's a tougher question I have an answer to.

[Brian]

Incredible theme song.

[Emma Vigeland]

Hi, bumbler.

[Brian]

Emma Viand. Absolutely one of my favorite people.

[Jostin Haga]

People, actually.

[Brian]

Not just in the game, like, period.