← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3565 - Entering the New New World Order; Minnesota Strikes w/ Matt Duss
01:19:20
Loading summary
Transcript253 lines
- [00:01]
Sam Cedar
Hey folks, today's episode brought to you by sunsetlake sabade.com use the code left is best 20% off. Big storm coming this week, this weekend I should say and stuck in home. It would be nice to have some Saba day around this flower. There's Keith pre rolls, there's fudge, there's coffee, there's if you're having trouble sleeping, there's tinctures and gummies. Gummies with a little to hit say. Oh, I got, I think we got an email about the tea the other day. I can't now. I can't remember anything but somebody was talking about how the, how great the tea was and of course Brian knows that's why he can things much better at the house these days. Brings home a little bit of tea. If they want to stock us back up, I'd appreciate that. There you go. It's the only way he gets through the week now. Sunsetlake sabiday.com all of their Saba day is grown without pesticides. They use integrated pest management, great business practices, great movement partners. They've donated tens of thousands of dollars to things like refugee resettlement and strike relief funds and Planned Parenthood carceral reform. They're involved in mutual aid up in Vermont. I mean just an all around great group of folks, great company and a great product and you can get 20% off with the coupon code. Left is best put that in the podcast and YouTube description. And now time for that show 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 Thirs that's what we call it. And Fred Friday casual Shabbat the Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, January 23rd, 2026. 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, Matt Duss, executive vice president of the center for International Policy, co host of the Undiplomatic podcast. Also on the program today, no work, no school, no shopping. Minneapolis general strike happening today in protest of ice invading that city. Meanwhile the House votes to approve DHS funding with the help of seven Democrats House on almost a total party line vote, House Republicans defeated a resolution to curb Trump's attacks on Venezuela. Meanwhile US formally leaves the World Health Organization. What could go wrong? Trump administration halts the use of human fetal tissue in NIH research. This was a six month a year.
- [03:53]
J.D. Vance
Long.
- [03:55]
Sam Cedar
Debate issue during the Bush years and now just one more day.
- [04:01]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [04:02]
Sam Cedar
More studies come out show that a shingle vaccine lowers Alzheimer's risk by up to 25%. Also keeps you from getting the shingles. National Park Service tears down a slavery memorial in Philadelphia's president's house. Cash Patel fire senior FBI linked to the Trump investigations. US and China sign off on a tick tock spin off. And Amy Klobuchar, the Char files paperwork. Charizard to run for Minnesota governor.
- [04:44]
Emma Vigeland
All this that fire baby.
- [04:46]
Sam Cedar
On today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
- [04:50]
Emma Vigeland
What do you think Charizard is? If you were to guess, just guess. What is a Charizard?
- [04:56]
Sam Cedar
Char Z. Charizard.
- [04:59]
Emma Vigeland
What's Charizard?
- [05:00]
Sam Cedar
Charizard. It has something to do with Swiss Charizard.
- [05:03]
Emma Vigeland
No, it's a Pokemon.
- [05:04]
Sam Cedar
I thought, I have no idea. 12 year old boy that you would know.
- [05:08]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [05:08]
Sam Cedar
That's no Pokemon.
- [05:10]
Matt Duss
Is.
- [05:11]
Sam Cedar
You know what he was actually from.
- [05:13]
Matt Duss
Back in the day.
- [05:14]
Sam Cedar
He was actually, now that I think about it. But he never got deep into it. It was more just like his friends were doing it. So he got some cards, but he never seemed to really care that much about it. There was like one. He only liked it because he thought like there were some cards that were really valuable and others that were fraudulent. Yeah. For him it was just asset management. That's all I care about.
- [05:35]
Emma Vigeland
Teaching them.
- [05:36]
Guest or Additional Commentator
I never, I never played the game either. I collected the cards for exactly that reason. Like he's a holographic.
- [05:41]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He just thought like somehow he was gonna make some money off it or something. I don't know.
- [05:47]
Emma Vigeland
Well, anyway, I think that's a funny name for Amy Klomachar. So the Charizard.
- [05:53]
Sam Cedar
There you go.
- [05:53]
Emma Vigeland
Although, I mean, dang, I wish that someone better was running for governor there. But what are you going to do? Yeah.
- [06:00]
Sam Cedar
I think it's time for someone to return.
- [06:03]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Oh, my God, I would love a Ventura return.
- [06:07]
Sam Cedar
The real question is also who's going to be running for Senate? That Senate seat?
- [06:12]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, two brand new senators in Minnesota then.
- [06:15]
Sam Cedar
Yep.
- [06:18]
Emma Vigeland
By the way, hello, it's casual Friday.
- [06:20]
Sam Cedar
Oh, did I not say that?
- [06:21]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [06:22]
Sam Cedar
My name is disjointed today.
- [06:26]
Emma Vigeland
We all are disjointed, I think.
- [06:29]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's been a very, very long three weeks now. We are three weeks into January, really just one year into the Trump administration almost to the day. And we'll be talking about this vote later in the program to fund the DHS in the House. The big thing is that Jeffries did not whip this vote. Only seven Democrats voted for the funding. It is unclear and probably unlikely that Democrats could have stopped it in the House anyways. There were, there could have been maneuvers, you know, earlier on in the way that they structured or attempted to structure these bills that might have helped the vote in some fashion, but it's really going to come down to the Senate. And the, the thing to keep in mind is when someone like Tom Suozzi votes to fund the dhs, he's not just voting to fund today's dhs, he's voting to fund everything that DHS is going to do over the course. I mean, presumably, let's just, you know, he's doing this for electoral reasons. Everything they're going to do for the next 10 months. And if we look at the progression of ice over the course of the past 10 months, the idea that you're gonna bet in 10 months out that this is a, you can defend funding this agency to the majority of your voters, I'd say is a pretty bad bet. Yeah.
- [08:17]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Look at how Angie Craig's having trouble after signing on that thanks for ICE thing now up in Minnesota.
- [08:23]
Sam Cedar
Yep.
- [08:24]
Emma Vigeland
Here are these seven. I just wanna say their names. Mary Gluson, Camperez, Jared Golden, Don Davis, Tom Suozzi, as you mentioned, Laura Gillen, Vincente Gonzale are the seven that voted to fund the agency that is currently wreaking havoc. Shooting mothers in the face, kidnapping children. We're seeing videos out of Minnesota of them tackling a little boy to the ground as he says that he's legal and harassment in Maine. It's horrendous. By the way, two of those were Ezra Klein's suggestions in his piece about how to defeat Trumpism of people who should have just as much say in the democratic party's future. GlusenKamperez and Jared Goldin as Bernie Sanders and Zoran Mamdani. It's a big tent. We need to include the people that have decided to fund the Gestapo in this country.
- [09:16]
Sam Cedar
I mean, putting aside like just sort of even the sort of the moral aspects of it from an electoral perspective, like, this seems to be an incredibly bad bet. And certainly it would be even more so if more Democrats were to do it. I mean, you know, the idea that these people are trying to burnish their law enforcement bona fides, ICE is not performing law enforcement. That's exactly the point. And it makes it much harder to communicate that. So. And now Jared Goldin's not running for reelection. I mean, I don't, I mean, I hope he doesn't think that he has any future in Maine politics because this is pretty poorly timed. We're going to play footage coming out of Maine later in the program, but. All right. We will talk more about that in a bit. But let's get to J.D. vance. The. Yesterday, Emma talked extensively about this memo that came out whistleblower. And it's not like as a lawmaker, you can't say you didn't have a heads up as to what's going on, where the agency basically is telling its ICE agents that you don't need to follow the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Essentially, the case law and the Constitution itself calls for a warrant to enter someone's home. And a warrant is a specific thing. And, and maybe like, you know, we shouldn't even have anything called like a, an administrative warrant, because theoretically we could issue administrative warrants.
- [11:22]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. Here's a piece of paper. It's. That's worth it as just as much like a piece of paper. If I were to write I can break into your house, that's the equivalent of what an administrative warran.
- [11:32]
Sam Cedar
It doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. The whole point is that you're supposed to have a judge look at it and determine whether the request to enter someone's home is warranted. And. But here is J.D. vance in Minnesota. They send him in, it appears, just because he is the most shameless liar of the bunch. And. Well, let's listen to what he's he. There, there's, there's a multitude of lies in this comment, but let's listen to him respond to this question.
- [12:15]
Emma Vigeland
The Washington Post reported today that an ICE memo allows agents to enter people's houses without a judge's warrant. What do you say to people who say we're concerned about this violating the Constitution and how much is this tactic being used?
- [12:27]
J.D. Vance
Yeah, so I saw that story and the story is like so much that I read in the mainstream media, it's missing a whole lot of context. And when you appreciate the context, it makes sense. No one is saying, look, there are exceptions. For example, a crazy exception. If somebody is fired at from inside a house, they don't need a warrant to go inside that person's house. There are very narrow exceptions to the warrant requirement where law enforcement officers don't need, you know, a warrant if, for example, they're an imminent threat of their lives. But what we've said and what ICE has proposed, what the Department of Homeland Security really has proposed in the Department of Justice is that we can get administrative warrants to enforce administrative immigration law. Now, it's possible, I guess, that the courts will say no. And of course, if the courts say no, we would follow that law.
- [13:14]
Sam Cedar
Pause it. Literally the functional equivalent of us of, of saying, listen, we're going to sign warrants so that we can go into people's houses and force them, set their, you know, force them to subscribe to the majority report.
- [13:29]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [13:30]
Sam Cedar
And now it is possible that a judge may find that. That we're not allowed to do that. But, you know, it's. I just want to put that out there.
- [13:39]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah. And it really is telling too, that. I mean, I was talking about this on the show yesterday, like when the Bush administration was forced and then the Obama administration to get warrants for their warrantless wiretapping, they at the very least were going through these FISA court judges that were. Yeah. Rubber stamping it. Of course, that process was corrupt in and of itself. This isn't even that they're circumventing the judiciary in the way that the administration has effectively made the legislature so inept and is like, yeah, we can rescind whatever money we want when Congress passes the budget or whatever. They're doing the same thing with the judiciary.
- [14:18]
Sam Cedar
And we should say immigration judges do not issue administrative warrants.
- [14:24]
Emma Vigeland
Yep.
- [14:24]
Sam Cedar
That is. It's definitional. The administrative warrants are just like essentially internal documents for ice. For ICE that are generated by ice.
- [14:37]
Emma Vigeland
Right. The admit they would be.
- [14:38]
Sam Cedar
If they were issued by a judge, they wouldn't be called administrative warrants, they'd be called judicial warrants.
- [14:45]
Emma Vigeland
And he's a lawyer and he knows this. Obviously he's lying. But the point, they can issue an order of removal that is not the same as a warrant to enter a home.
- [14:53]
Sam Cedar
He also, I think, calls immigration judges administrative judges. And I think that's to conflate the use of administrative warrants. A warrant that's an administrative judge.
- [15:06]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [15:07]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Because she says a judge's warrant, which is how you should phrase that when they're doing the administrative warrant bullshit.
- [15:15]
J.D. Vance
In the Department of Justice is that we can get administrative warrants to enforce administrative immigration law. Now, it's possible, I guess, that the courts will say no. And of course, if the courts say no, we would follow that law. But nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant. We're talking about different types of warrants that exist in our system. Typically, what happens. Not always, but typically in the immigration system, those are handled by Administrative law judges. So we're talking about getting warrants from those administrative law judges. And then of course, with other cases, you get judges or you get warrants.
- [15:48]
Sam Cedar
We're not talking about that at all. These are not signed by judges. That's the point. He can begin to create all these sort of like new categories where. Or sort of like vague categories of judges, but they're not signed by a judge.
- [16:07]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Warrants are a land of contrast.
- [16:10]
Sam Cedar
This sounds like a used car salesman trying to explain to you why the price is $10,000 more than he originally stated.
- [16:17]
Emma Vigeland
It really is like that. But it also. Is this a retreat too? Are they basically kind of saying that they're going to maybe go through some sort of pretense at this point? Because. Because, at least publicly, because like what we. In that Associated Press article, it's incredibly damning. They said that this memo was issued in May or something like that of 2025. And then from that period on it was. They couldn't take the documents with them when they were showing these ICE agents and one of the whistleblowers couldn't make a copy of it. It was just verbal from there on out. So they know they're hiding something.
- [16:52]
Sam Cedar
And I think, I mean, I think, look, Vance's visit to Minneapolis is a show of weakness. He would not be there if this was going the way they wanted it to. That doesn't mean that they are weak. They are not. They have a ton of money, they have a ton of weapons. They have a bunch of thugs working for them. But it does show on some level that they feel like they need to do some type of, you know, damage work or crisis work or whatnot. And so they send the. This guy who's a really a world class liar, I mean, he does it with a. With an ease that is disturbing. Go ahead.
- [17:47]
J.D. Vance
Thinking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant. We're talking about different types of warrants that exist in our system.
- [17:53]
Emma Vigeland
Different.
- [17:53]
J.D. Vance
Typically what happens. Not always, but typically in the immigration system those are handled by administrative law judges. So we're talking about getting warrants from those administrative law judges. And then of course, with other cases, you get judges or you get warrants from a judge that's very consistent with the practice of American law. I'm sure the courts will weigh in on that. But we're never going to enter somebody's house. House without some kind of a warrant. Unless of course, somebody's firing on an officer where they have to do something in order to respond, protect themselves.
- [18:22]
Sam Cedar
Right.
- [18:25]
Emma Vigeland
I'm Reminded of when Vance earlier this year was at a press conferencing, was asked about the War Powers act and he said quote, that it's a fake, fundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law. There's no such thing as fake laws.
- [18:42]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I mean, I mean sure, but.
- [18:45]
Emma Vigeland
Like for, for, for him like that you don't just get to call a law fake and not abide by it. But I guess this administration, that's the lesson they learned from the first go around and I guess currently.
- [18:57]
Sam Cedar
So he's there or was there yesterday, I guess just trying to do damage control. Meanwhile, we've seen ICE agents enter into homes without, without even their administrative warrant. But the administrative warrant is again, it's.
- [19:15]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Like a janitorial warrant.
- [19:16]
Matt Duss
Exactly.
- [19:19]
Sam Cedar
In a minute we're going to be talking to Matt Duss, executive vice president of the center for International Policy and the co host of the Undiplomatic podcast for what we, about what we saw this week at Davos. Perhaps what's also going to happen this weekend in regards to Iran and really the, the final nail or just sort of like the dawn lights on Marblehead. The international, the so called international rules based order, the mirage of it has been I guess revealed. I don't know how maybe we come up with better language for that on some level, but the drapes have dropped from the eyes. Is that what it is?
- [20:10]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Scales.
- [20:11]
Sam Cedar
Scales. I knew there was something that fell from the eyes. Here is the fundamental question from our sponsor today is the worst thing about having a cat litter box?
- [20:27]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, definitely.
- [20:28]
Sam Cedar
Yes. I would argue the worst thing about having a cat is when they don't use the litter box. But then the second worst thing is the smell from the litter box.
- [20:39]
Emma Vigeland
If you don't have the right kind of litter.
- [20:43]
Sam Cedar
Oh, spoiler alert. Emma must be talking about Boxy. Yeah, we're gonna Tarantino this ad. I want to thank you for. I want to thank Boxy for sponsoring the majority report. Boxy Pro has probiotics. I mean it sort of seems like a fairly obvious idea that maybe they didn't have the technology to do it before or maybe nobody thought about it. But Boxy Pro has probiotics right in the litter that gobble up odor causing bacteria and keep the box continuously odor free. Yes, continuously. Not for 10 days or 20 days, but like infinite days of continual odor free nests, if you will. Now caveat one. Of course you have to scoop, but Boxy's got amazing clumping power. It does it brilliantly and then you gotta top off the box. But if you do those two things, you're ready to stop giving your litter box the stink eye. Oh, and your cat won't smell anything either. As in no fake sense. Which gives him or her one less reason to avoid the box. You've been using Boxy Cat now for what?
- [22:06]
Emma Vigeland
For a few months now, I guess. I got it in in the fall and it's been phenomenal.
- [22:11]
Sam Cedar
And you got two cats.
- [22:13]
Emma Vigeland
Yes. So need it, need it. It's an essential.
- [22:16]
Sam Cedar
And they both go in the same litter.
- [22:18]
Emma Vigeland
They do. They're brothers. They. They like each other.
- [22:20]
Sam Cedar
Well, that's very sweet.
- [22:21]
Emma Vigeland
And they like the boxy cat.
- [22:24]
Sam Cedar
And I guess the best thing that you can tell about is that you can't smell it. You don't even know it exists.
- [22:29]
Emma Vigeland
Exactly. And we're in small apartments. You need it, need it, need it. Boxy cat's been very helpful.
- [22:34]
Sam Cedar
I have. If you want to find out what the airflow in your apartment is, get a cat.
- [22:41]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
- [22:43]
Sam Cedar
You will find out very quickly. If you're tired of switching litters and you're looking for the one, get Boxy Cat at box I E C A T dot com. It's the last litter you'll ever switch to. Enjoy. 30% off with the code TMR@boxycat.com TMR that's Boxycat. B O X I E C A T dot com TMR we will put the link in the podcast in the YouTube description. Also, finding a doctor you actually like feels like discovering a diamond in the rough. Sure, you want someone in network, you want someone nearby with open time slots, but let's be honest, that's just the beginning. You also deserve someone who listens, who makes you feel comfortable, explains things clearly, and still gives you a lollipop even though you're a full grown adult. I actually got some chocolate at my doctor's office the other day. Doesn't matter.
- [23:51]
Emma Vigeland
You're still thinking about that.
- [23:51]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, you're diamond in the rough. Doctor exists and you can find them easily on zocdoc. Z o C Doc. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors so you can find someone you love. We're talking about booking in network appointments with more than 150,000 providers all across across all 50 states. It doesn't matter whether you're looking for dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, or one of the other 200 plus specialties offered on Zocdoc, you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you. You want to see a doctor in person, Great. You want to see a doctor over video call, no problem. You can do that too. When you're ready, you can see their real time availability. Click to book instantly. No phone tag, no waiting around, no negotiating with someone working at the front desk and being put on hold. And then, I'm sorry, where were we? And then you go back, I mean appointments made through Zocdoc, super easy. You see all the available appointments, you click on the one you want and usually they happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. You can even score sometimes same day appointments. I have found a dentist in an emergency on Zocdoc. Emma and Matt have both used it and now I got my daughter using it because she's at school and she's got to find a doctor. Want to thank Zocdoc for sponsoring today's episode. Stop putting. Remember, it's free. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments. Go to zocdoc.com majority find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's z o c doc.com Majority z o c doc.com Majority Thanks Doc for sponsoring this message. We'll put the link in that information in the podcast and YouTube description. Quick break. We come back, Matt Duss, executive vice president of the center for International Policy. We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. Joining us now, Matt Dust, executive vice president of the center for International Policy, co host of the Undiplomatic podcast. Matt, welcome back to the program.
- [27:30]
Matt Duss
Thank you. Always great to be here.
- [27:33]
Sam Cedar
You know, I don't ever remember a time where I, Davos seemed as, how I say, important, I mean, but important in that like there was a lot of markers put down at Davos that in the past I've just associated with like multimillionaires being pissed that they don't get to go up to the lounge where the billionaires go like, you know, and this seemed really, really significant on a number of fronts. Let's start, I mean, we were just going over this before we came on air. The Carney speech, Zelensky's speech. Well, I guess Trump's speech, but also Jared Kushner's sort of like rollout of Vision for Gaza. Let's start with Carney and Zelensky in some way because they both had critiques of the existing world order, as it were, but Carney's was, and I would say also Vanderlijen I think that's her name. The head of the EU alluded to this too. Let's play this clip from Carney and then we will speak. This is when he quoted. Oh, I thought we did have that. Sorry, we got it.
- [29:10]
Emma Vigeland
1212. Yeah.
- [29:15]
Sam Cedar
Sorry. Here is a clip from that speech.
- [29:21]
Clip Speaker (Vaclav Havel quote)
1978. The Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called the Power of the Powerless. And in it he asked a simple question. How did the communist system sustain itself? And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning the shopkeeper places a sign in his window. Workers of the world unite. He doesn't believe it, no one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this living within a lie. The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the green grocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. Four decades.
- [30:47]
Sam Cedar
What's interesting, and I mean, it's unclear whether he perceives himself as that first person to take the sign down, and we should say the critique is it seems to me less about the economic systems that have grown up in the wake of a World War II, but America's role as it's been played for a long time. He goes on to say, like, you know, we espouse a rules based international order. And when America broke those rules, we all sort of pretended like they didn't, even though we know they did. What are your thoughts on this?
- [31:27]
Matt Duss
Yeah, I mean, it was a landmark speech, there's no question. But like, let's unpack that reference a little bit because I think it's very interesting, that Havel essay, many of us read it in high school or college, graduate school, whatever. It is a really powerful essay. But as you ask the right question, okay, who is Carney here? Is America being put in the role of the communist empire of the Soviet Union? It appears so. But what's really interesting to me is acknowledging that we've all been telling this lie, the rules based order. It's time to admit that this is a lie and take our signs down. Now there's a whole part of the world, the Majority of the world that has never had their sign up in the first place, that has always been clear that the rules based order does not mean them. I mean, this has been a US and Europe and mainly Western Europe led order. So if I want to be cynical and yet truthful about what Carney was saying, he was like, you know, we were all fine with this when we were kind of part of the privileged few, but now that we realize that we're on the wrong side of this protection racket, it's time for us to stand up and tell the truth. So good. Let's live in truth. Absolutely. I'm very much in favor of telling the truth and having an honest debate. But let's also realize that the timing in this is very convenient. There is much of the global south or the global majority that I'm sure has looked at this speech and it's like, it's about damn time. This has been our experience. You know, now that you are on the pointy end of this order, you suddenly realize it's time to tell the truth. So I think we could acknowledge both of those things.
- [33:09]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, I mean it's fascinating. And do me a favor just with your mic, just keep that off your.
- [33:15]
Emma Vigeland
Sweater or if you're tapping the table or whatever.
- [33:18]
Sam Cedar
But it really does feel like we just need to restructure. We just need to create a different sign is really on some level what it feel feels like. But it does mark the end of, of an era. Now I've. Or it appears that it does, but certainly. Right. Like this sign was not being hung up in Palestine, let's say, or among.
- [33:45]
Matt Duss
Other places or Indonesia or Chile or you know, run down the list, you know, Venezuela.
- [33:51]
Sam Cedar
I mean we could go on and on. And it does just seem like we're, we've. It's less again, I guess like an attack on a system and more just sort of like the way that this system has been led and structured. It really is just basically saying like America is not what it was and we got to stop pretending. And this feels like this has been coming for 20 years at least. Right. I mean, Iraq was I think, where it became quite clear. It seems to me that there was a creeping awareness of like this whole idea of the new World Order in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. It didn't last very long.
- [34:36]
Matt Duss
Yeah. And that's, you know, I do feel the need to mention that, you know, Iraq was a very key moment in the kind of chain of events that I think led to the corrosion and now destruction of this order. And one of the prominent supporters of that invasion was of course Vaclav Havel. So just worth noting, a lot of the folks who felt, even Havel was among those who felt that well yes, this order, we have the right to do these things because we are acting out of these kind of pure motives in defiance of international norms and international law. And that has now these are the results.
- [35:13]
Emma Vigeland
And in dragging Europe into America's wars also that was significant there as well. And perhaps in this acknowledgment of that break, we're basically Carney's is essentially saying, yeah, we had the economic, we wanted the economic benefits of kind of being on the side of the global hegemon and the driver of capital. But it's self serving because we also see like we were showing some data yesterday on the show, the United States may have some growing gdp, but tech is very overvalued in what it's providing globally. China is much more efficient and is much more ahead technologically than the United States. So it's both that, you know, Greenland was under threat that, that this is being discussed now, the erosion of the international. But also like it's not as risky to cut ties with the United States because we are an empire on the decline economically.
- [36:18]
Matt Duss
I mean, I think there's some truth to that. I mean your point about Greenland is also really important. I mean for many of us, I mean Gaza is where the rules based order was buried. Greenland is just where Europe suddenly realized, as I said, they are now on the wrong side of the protection racket. Just this realization that for the longest time Europe believed that they got to be part of the imperial core and that came with special privileges. It is now clear to them that those privileges no longer obtain or at least if they want to continue them, they're going to have to cough up a lot more tribute than has been inspected in the past.
- [36:56]
Sam Cedar
Isn't it also too that the idea like, you know, and I'm sure we must have had conversations to this effect over the course of the, you know, the first Trump era. But if you're outside of the country and you're looking in to the country, I mean, you know, the, the idea that Trump gets reelected does not speak to the stability of the United States. And you know, I wouldn't want to bet the next 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 70 years of my country's economic future, national security future, whatever future it is on the United States at this point because it's, it's over. And like as soon as, like, we elected Trump again and he did everything and we're still, you know, I mean, part of it. I'm sure they're looking at the Democrats and saying, you know, I think if you look at the polling, you know, it, you don't see the American public sort of lining up behind Trump at this point. But the opposition party has not gotten that memo showing up.
- [38:15]
Matt Duss
Exactly. No.
- [38:16]
Sam Cedar
And so you're just like, there's no brakes on this train and it's careening off somewhere.
- [38:22]
Matt Duss
Yeah, I think that's right. And let's also, you know, remember, I mean, you know, they did, you know, they should have gotten the memo in 2016, but they were kind of lulled and sung back to sleep by Joe Biden, who came in and said, hey, America's back. We got past that weird anomaly. Let's just get back to business. America's back helping run the rules based order. It's all good. Transatlantic NATO, right.
- [38:45]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, dust like, particularly on. It's amazing how Biden was all in on this and Trump is completely reversing. Sorry, right.
- [38:54]
Matt Duss
No, no, no, but that's right. But I also think, you know, rather than taking, you know, really, you know, addressing some of the factors that gave rise to Trump that are giving rise to these right wing populist movements across democracies, especially in Europe, it was, it was basically just like, all right, let's get back to, you know, the kind of unipolar moment that Joe Biden was used to and that most of the people running his foreign policy were used to. And the Europeans were like, okay, we're really comfortable, you know, operating in this way, so let's keep doing that. But now, as Sam said, there is no denying it.
- [39:27]
Sam Cedar
There is a certain poetry that the guy who was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for, I don't know, decades, I guess, in the Senate, and the guy whose whole shtick was foreign policy.
- [39:42]
Emma Vigeland
Remember that speech? It was so impressive after the debate performance.
- [39:47]
Sam Cedar
That was always his thing. I mean, he came in the symmetry. I mean, he came in and replaced Fulbright not as chair, but Fulbright left that committee because he was primaried, in his words, by the Israel lobby at that time. And he comes in and takes that seat 54 years ago and.
- [40:17]
Guest or Additional Commentator
And then.
- [40:17]
Sam Cedar
Presides over essentially like, you know, maybe the car was tipping on the edge of the cliff, but he sort of pushed it over the edge.
- [40:25]
Matt Duss
No, I think that's right. Not only that, I mean, he was like the embodiment of the serious Washington foreign policy. Establishment and the people around him, the best and brightest, the A team is what everyone was told. And yet that you are, you are right, there is some poetry to the fact that this was the team, this was the President who put the American led, rules based order in its grave.
- [40:48]
Sam Cedar
And we should say, you know, or at least my thoughts on this are, well, this isn't necessarily a bad thing from the perspective of, of, you know, the, the ruling class in the United States. It might be the US Hegemony. Both, you know, are projecting. Our foreign power is really just a function of protecting a specific class of people's assets in one form or another or opportunities down the road. And it's quite possible that 10, 15, 20 years from now, the, without the specter of, of having to expend resources on those things. I mean, because United States is fairly unique, you know, Britain, Britain didn't have the resources that, that this country has, I mean just the natural resources, etc. So when their empire fell there, it was not a soft landing in any respect. And there was not really the same. It couldn't be as isolated as we could.
- [42:01]
Matt Duss
Right.
- [42:01]
Sam Cedar
Or they needed some of that power to project, to maintain in a way that I think the United States may not need as much. I mean, it's not going to work its way out itself. I mean people are going to have to. But there's opportunity here. But certainly this marks the, it feels to me, you know, the easy place to mark an end of an era.
- [42:28]
Matt Duss
I agree with that. I mean the fact that we are having an honest conversation, I think is a positive, my own view of what the United States should try and do here is a rules based order, but for real, I mean, I think that is something that would actually benefit the United States, would benefit people around the world. What a concept. You're right. The United States still has a lot of advantages. We have resources, we have two huge oceans on either side of us. We have neighbors to our north and south who are peaceful and friendly, or at least they were friendly. That may change, but there's still a lot to work with here. Even though America's relative share of power is declining. But the era we're moving into, and Trump still has three more years to do, this is just an era of global mafia. I mean, that's really all it is, 100%.
- [43:19]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [43:19]
Matt Duss
And who knows where we'll be. We already see this deal that Canada has now signed with China and it makes total sense for them to be hedging like this. But just the fact that Our closest neighbor to the north, with whom we've had extremely important relationship that we have completely taken for granted. Now that Canada feels the need to hedge in this way, I think should be an enormous alarm bell.
- [43:43]
Emma Vigeland
But we're raising the military budget. I mean, that's the other thing is when we're talking about, yeah, this is gangsterism. And you can also see it as like, this is our Western hemisphere. We do whatever the hell you want. We want. And then, you know, our vassal state, Israel can commit genocide on our behalf or whatever. And then Russia, you do whatever the hell you want over there. And like, the. The. But they're. We're still loading up on arms. And that's the scary thing here is. Is that it's the retreat from international cooperation, but, like, we are gonna continue to be as militaristic as possible. And I think that. That we are a threat to the globe in that way.
- [44:27]
Matt Duss
I agree. I mean, I think this kind of global mafia is a threat to the globe. It's a threat to Americans and certainly threat to communities outside our borders. We see this. We don't need to look any farther than Latin America for what's happening. But, you know, if you look at the national security strategy that came out at the beginning of December, it kind of lays this out. I mean, for a long time, Washington was super hyped up on great power competition. The first Trump administration laid that out as kind of the focus of US Foreign policy. The Biden administration certainly followed through on that. They changed it to strategic competition. But the focus on China, containing China, competing with China was the real obsession. Trump has kind of dialed that down a little bit, and it's more kind of a great power collusion, which is, as you said, this is our yard. We get to determine all outcomes here in the Western Hemisphere. And yes, Russia, by virtue of its power, gets to kind of determine its sphere of influence. Israel will be our. Our sheriff in the Middle east that gets to do what it wants. We still have interests in Asia, but China will get some respect, as you know. You know, one of the families represented around the table. But the United States is still the top boss. And we want. When we want to do something, we get to do it simply by virtue of the fact that we are militarily powerful.
- [45:40]
Sam Cedar
Right. It's. I can't remember the. The guy's name, but in Chicago, walking around the table with the bat, essentially, Capone walking around with a bat. Talk just briefly. I mean, you know, you served as Bernie Sanders, foreign policy advisor. Talk about like the relationship between what we're seeing simultaneously domestically with what we're seeing in terms of sort of like this mob boss mentality of carving up the world internationally. I mean, you know, people, we're getting stuff like, you know, how is it that these, you know, wealthy elite can't see that it's not in their best interest down the road to, you know, share the wealth or whatnot. And it's like, what, this is what we see in every, like, repressive, you know, maybe, you know, very often developing countries now, you know, some, some of them, even more developed countries in the past, like, we never question, why did Imelda Marcos have, you know, 5,000 pairs of shoes? Like, how could she not? You know, it's just, this is the nature of what they do, right?
- [46:59]
Matt Duss
I mean, you just, it's, you get so powerful and you have no one to tell you no, and you just lose control. You kind of lose touch with reality. That's sort of part of it, but it's also just an ethic of gain, of taking of constant accumulation, you know. And listen, I wish some of these fantastically wealthy people would think a bit more solidaristically. I mean, that might be the first time that's ever happened in history. I mean, we see this play out over and over again. But I think the way this connects to our domestic politics, and again, this is something that Bernie has talked about. We have a lot more, I think, Democrats talking about this now, whether it's aoc, Chris Murphy, a few others. Part of this is like reasserting Democratic control over wealth and power. I mean, that's not gonna solve all the problems, but the enormous influence and power that these fantastically wealthy individuals have over our politics, such that they can essentially obviate Democratic control over our economic and political life. And this is a long standing problem. Again, Trump is just the latest iteration of, of this corrosion. But that really gets at the core of the challenge right now. And I think this craziness we're seeing in foreign policy is in part a product of that.
- [48:18]
Emma Vigeland
The lack of Democratic responsiveness to what the public is saying about, I mean, the genocide in Gaza is an example of this, you know, and like you also have, there were dozens of Democrats that joined on to increase military spending in that vote. I believe that was yesterday. Stephen Semler, the pollster Point, made this point. 4% of Democratic voters want to increase military spending and 70% of House Democrats just voted to increase military spending. I mean, and on the issue of Gaza, like single digit percentage points from back in August, support Israel's military action. That is not proportionate to how the military action in Gaza. That is not proportionate to how the votes are tallied with the Democrats in the House and the Senate. And so, like, the Republicans are completely undemocratic. But this is like an overall problem really, of also corruption and lobbying and money and politics that has completely separated how our leadership operates from public opinion as we call ourselves a democracy.
- [49:29]
Matt Duss
Right. I think that's absolutely right. It's about corruption. It's also about elite impunity. It's about the fact that time and time again, the powerful, the well connected, the influential pay no price. And I think that's one of the things we have to look out. You know, why does Trump act this way? Why does Pete Hegseth act this way? Why do they act as if they won't face any consequences? Well, because they know very well they won't face any consequences. You know, if you want to kind of understand why Trump fears, doesn't fear accountability, look at the guest list for Dick Cheney's funeral. Right, okay. I'm sorry, this is, we don't need for this audience to go through the list of offenses of Dick Cheney, whether the Iraq war, torture, kidnapping, you know, getting his Halliburton buddies into Iraq to take money out by the tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. And 20 years later, ex presidents, first ladies, senators, members of Congress, former cabinet secretaries line up to pay their respects.
- [50:25]
Sam Cedar
MSNBC hosts.
- [50:27]
Matt Duss
That is elite impunity. That is corruption.
- [50:31]
Sam Cedar
Yeah. And the irony is, I think, like, Carney's just saying we just need a different set of elites. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, Right. I mean, Carney's not saying we need a more democratic vision for the world. It's just that, like, the leaders that we've had up to this point, they're hollowed out now, and we need to figure out another strategy now. Meanwhile, Zelensky is gave a speech where he was basically saying that, like, Europe is also not rising to the moment in many respects. You know, he's talking obviously from a perspective of Europe being. Not being aggressive, I think enough in dealing with what he perceives to be the Russian threat. And he said something, the fact that he sent 15 people to Greenland, you don't seem like you're willing to guard, you know, that country. I happen to think actually, like, the 15 people made it a little bit more complicated. I think the, you know, had, had Trump sent in 500 troops three weeks ago. I think what are they going to do right at that point. And I think that was sort of like why they just put nominally some people there. So they made it look like. But the Greenland thing seems to have stopped just because he was being disciplined by the bond market. And again, like, I mean, it was a classic Taco Trump. I heard this story about the Apprentice, and I know this story is true. I can't be too explicit about how I heard this story because the people involved. But Trump wanted to have. What's her name?
- [52:23]
Emma Vigeland
Stormy.
- [52:24]
Sam Cedar
Stormy Daniels on the show. He wanted to have Stormy Daniels on the show.
- [52:27]
Emma Vigeland
While they were having.
- [52:27]
Sam Cedar
He had expressed this to her. She was asking people, do you think I'm going to get on? And he was bringing it up with the ABC executives, and they didn't know what to do. So finally what they did is they basically took a sheet of paper and wrote down a number which they projected to be what they were going to lose in advertising revenue for the show. And his. He as an ep, like, he participated in that. They put it on his desk. They went into a meeting and they just put it on his desk. And he looked at it. He just saw this. And he goes, oh, rolls it up, throws it away, never talks about it again. He had been talking about it for months and months and months, but as soon as he saw he was going to lose a dollar, he was like, forget it. And. And I sort of like, that's what we keep seeing playing over and over again.
- [53:19]
Matt Duss
Right. So you want to send Stormy Daniels to Greenland is what you're.
- [53:23]
Sam Cedar
I mean, the idea is if this guy thinks he's going to lose a buck in some fashion or it's going to cost somebody, he's done that. None of this stuff has been like some type of principled, ideological.
- [53:34]
Matt Duss
I think it's been clear it's not principled. I mean, I think, you know, what you said makes sense. There's also the, you know, people have been asking, you know, what's. What's going on here? And for me, it's like this temptation to try and impose some kind of strategic logic. It's very much that Greenland is big. And he looked at a map and he was like, damn, Greenland's big. I would love for the US to have it. But it's also like, he does this. He just throws this stuff out there, and everyone spends a week or two weeks running around like crazy trying to figure out what we're going to do. And then he dials it back. When he dials it back, the reasons he dials it back. I think what you're saying helps explain it, but there's also a whole bunch of other things that he's under pressure about that we've not been talking about. While we've all been kind of freaking out about Greenland, we can't forget that either.
- [54:22]
Sam Cedar
So he just announced today, and people knew this, but I think that we have a aircraft carrier headed to position itself somewhere. I can't recall where exactly was the. But presumably to give him the option to decide whether he wants to attack Iran or not. And ostensibly this is because Iran has been engaged in a bloody put down of. They've killed, at least now, 5,000. I've heard numbers up to 20,000 of, of, of protesters. And ostensibly, I guess that's why Trump is thinking about doing this, because he cares about protest.
- [55:09]
Matt Duss
Trump, like, always supports human rights and democracy and is always willing to bring the United States in on the side of, of these, of these principles everywhere.
- [55:18]
Sam Cedar
So what, I mean, what is, like, what is, what, what is going on with it? Like, what is he doing it just for that? Like, to, as a distraction or to pretend like he's involved in this? Or is it. How tied is it into the idea that Jared Kushner is at Davos, basically going like, here's our plan for Gaza, we're going to turn it into Miami beach and we're going to have essentially concentration camps of Palestinians who, you know, we're going to allow certain ones of them to come and work as like, busboys.
- [55:53]
Matt Duss
And all of this reconstruction will be through our shell order organizations, of course, and those of our partners. And it's just this absolutely towering grift and how Iran fits into this. He certainly came around. We saw this in June after a massive lobbying campaign by Netanyahu and Netanyahu's allies in Washington, people like Lindsey Graham, he went in and just bombed for a few days, declared victory. And as he sees it, that actually was a political benefit for him. I mean, he, you know, he loves to declare victory. The polling doesn't show that and the polling doesn't show that in Venezuela, by the way, either, which by agree or disagree with it. I disagree with it. I think it was completely illegal and should not have been done. But, you know, tactically, it was an impressively executed raid that he received no polling bump for, you know, which I do think is notable. But. But yet.
- [56:42]
Sam Cedar
Well, part of the reason why is because people are just like, why did we do that?
- [56:46]
Matt Duss
Yeah, yeah.
- [56:47]
Sam Cedar
How does this make, you know, like, it's not. It doesn't there was not, you know, any of the groundwork set up to like, you know, that we, 90% of the American public does not know the name Maduro. And the honestly and the idea that like, oh, great, now some, somebody in Qatar is getting Venezuelan oil money. Like, like what?
- [57:11]
Matt Duss
So I think with Iran now, he threatened, you know, he just threatened for whatever reason, the, the Iranian government, you know, against don't, don't be killing protesters ahead and did. And now that they've, they unfortunately seem to have quelled the protests once again through the massive application of violence, he is really, you know, he's got people in his ear like Lindsey Graham and these others are like, oh, you made a threat, you need to follow through. It'd be bad for your credibility. But there's also, in the intervening, you know, weeks, we saw reports from, you know, Arab governments in the region, including some very close to Trump. They don't want a new war in the region. Netanyahu, depending on what kind of reporting you believe, he also wanted to wait in part to get more U.S. assets in the region to help with the very likely Iranian response in terms of missiles and drones being fired back at Israel. So it does seem like those assets are now in place should Trump choose to strike. But even a few weeks ago, when the protests were much larger, the kind of argument for doing it, if you're really interested in helping in the protesters, was extremely weak. There's no path to extreme. Show me how striking Iran actually helps the protesters win and democracy to come to Iran. There's really no way it would do that. It's just a way to punish the Iranian government for people who've always been trying to get up a conflict between the US And Iran.
- [58:33]
Emma Vigeland
But for Netanyahu's purposes here, I mean, a military buildup of US Aircrafts in the region, he probably sees this as another way to manipulate Donald Trump once again because Iran does have the capability to strike back back at Israel. They do. And if they do significant damage and there are US Air carriers in the region and you have the Stephen Millers who's by the way, a rabid Zionist and anti Palestinian racist in his ear saying, well, you got to look strong here, too. What are you going to do? Take that lying down? I mean, that's my fear here, as I'm very pessimistic on this casual Friday.
- [59:11]
Matt Duss
Right? That's right. I would add a thing here is that Iran has, you know, having spoken to a number of Israeli analysts, they know that Iran has actually been able to reconstitute their ballistic missile capability faster than was expected. They have not fully done it, but it is now, you know, very formidable again. So part of this is just Netanyahu wanting the United States to help him go in and mow the lawn. Again. That's an offensive term. I hate using it, but that is how they refer to it. This is their policy for Gaza for many years. When. When. When we see Hamas or Islamic Jihad or some of these other factions getting too powerful, we go in, we do a bunch of strikes, we kill a bunch of people, we destroy a bunch of rocket facilities, we mow the lawn, and then we restore a kind of status quo that we're comfortable with. And I think that's part of what's going on with Netanyahu here.
- [60:04]
Sam Cedar
I guess, lastly, I mean, do you think, like, we are like, the Venezuela thing, it is done. I mean, that we have Delta Rodriguez is basically like, we're gonna. I'm gonna pay you off. And, you know, she'll get, who knows, I imagine, some benefit out of it. I don't know what kind it would be. You know, but for all we know, maybe she gets cash from it. Maybe she just keeps the United States from invading Venezuela. Although that seems absurd, but it feels like another one of those situation where Trump went in there because, you know, maybe Scott Besant's hedge fund buddy needed some cash, and boom, we did that. We have the, you know, the loan terms that we want now, and we've just bumped ahead to being first creditor. And then he just walks away and says, mission accomplished. I got rid of Maduro. Like, I say, most Americans, I don't even think we're paying attention to. Okay, and you can't see anything. And that's it. We're done. He's just on to the next thing, right?
- [61:21]
Matt Duss
I mean, I think that's right. But you know what's maddening here, and this is, you know, everything is not Iraq. But one of the ways in which Venezuela did remind me of Iraq is that there was, like, a buffet of arguments for different audiences. And you can pick the one that is most tasty to you, whether it's the oil, whether it's immigration, whether it's drugs, whether it's Cuba, and, you know, for Marco Rubio, it's definitely Cuba. Now, he is someone who is clearly disappointed that we didn't go all the way, that we kind of just did a regime decapitation. But if the new Rodriguez government is going to kind of really diminish support for Cuba which it seems that they could be, that could satisfy his purpose as well. But in the longer term, you know, it just as you said, it just seems like we did this operation and we're going to leave this government in place, essentially.
- [62:08]
Sam Cedar
Is there anything else that we should touch on? I mean, it's a huge crappy world right now and I don't want to leave anything. I don't want to. Don't leave anything on the table, as it were.
- [62:20]
Emma Vigeland
Well, I have just a slight. Maybe I'll. This opens us up just to turn us domestically a little bit. Like we're talking about Iraq so much. We open our discussions speaking about the Iraq war and that being really where this all corroded. I mean, domestically, dhs, ice, you know, it all traces back to the war on terror. Yeah. I mean it's incredible to see how much of the, like the erosion of civil liberties and the brutality of both abroad and home is all embedded in the infrastructure that came out of the war on terror.
- [62:58]
Matt Duss
Yeah. And these guys walking around in this tactical gear wearing desert camo in Minnesota. I mean, what. You know, and this has been a problem with police forces long before now you've got, I mean, you know, and watching them just like break into these homes. I mean, there was this guy that, it was in the news, you know, over the past week, this older guy who was dragged out in the middle of sub zero weather in his underwear. Turned out a complete misidentification. This is, you know, an occupation.
- [63:28]
Sam Cedar
Yep. And as we learn more too about the detention part of it, I think it's going to be even more disturbing. Matt Duss, thanks.
- [63:41]
Matt Duss
Sorry. Yeah, really sorry.
- [63:45]
Sam Cedar
Appreciate you coming on. Executive vice president of the center for International Policy, co host of the Undiplomatic podcast. We'll put links to both of at in our podcast and YouTube description. Thanks, Matt. Really appreciate.
- [63:58]
Matt Duss
Thanks a lot.
- [63:58]
Emma Vigeland
Thank you.
- [64:01]
Sam Cedar
Well, don't know what else to say about that. We're going to be talking about. I want to take some calls from Minnesota again today in the fun half as there's an ongoing strike there also. And maybe we'll play a clip from this PBS report. What's going on at these detention centers, if we ever really get it widely exposed, I think are going to be just like crimes against humanity. I've heard reports of a detention center up in New Hampshire where not only are they feeding people like, you know, just the bare minimum, some of it's like rotted food, et cetera, et cetera. But people are in incredibly. They're not providing clothes or warmth. There's no heat on in these facilities, and they're not allowing people blankets or any type of clothes. The whole idea seems to be to take people who are not actually undocumented, people who are in process of maybe refugee status, maybe asylum proceedings, whatever proceedings they're in the midst of, which means that they are not here illegally. They are literally here within the legal process. Maybe this also applies to even people who are here without documentation. And the idea is that they are essentially attempting to torture them to the point where people give up their claims for asylum for refugee status or in pursuit of whatever their green card or in pursuit of their citizenship, whatever it is.
- [66:09]
Emma Vigeland
It's a concentration. They're concentration camps. They're not. They're not paying. They haven't paid for their medical care since October. There's over 70,000 people detained. What does that mean? They just stopped? You think 70,000 people have no health issues?
- [66:23]
Sam Cedar
And let's be clear again, this is an agency that has received the biggest bump in funding, one that propelled it to a budget larger than many, many countries military. So it's not. This is not for lack of money. This is a willful policy choice to essentially torture these people.
- [66:52]
Matt Duss
I just want to be fair and.
- [66:53]
Sam Cedar
Say DHS has tweeted out denials of all of this.
- [66:55]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, thank you.
- [66:56]
Sam Cedar
Thank you, Brian.
- [66:57]
Emma Vigeland
Thank you, Tony.
- [66:59]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, docapill. It's whiskey Fridays here, ladies and gentlemen.
- [67:05]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, maybe I don't even like whiskey. And I'm like, okay, maybe what's the.
- [67:13]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Poly market on mass graves at these places?
- [67:15]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, yeah, well.
- [67:19]
Sam Cedar
All right, well, let's. What should we do? Should we do?
- [67:23]
Guest or Additional Commentator
We got to play this Minneapolis thing before the fun half. This is just a C here from Sarah Lazar, editor, reporter at Workday magazine. She's on the scene here, and there's Looks like clergy protesting at the airport. And I believe there are some arrests later in here. But here I'm singing about abducted people from ice.
- [68:00]
Sam Cedar
Everybody's got a right to live. Everybody.
- [68:09]
Emma Vigeland
That's lovely.
- [68:11]
Sam Cedar
A lot of people not going to work, not going to school, not shopping today in Minnesota, also freezing cold there, obviously.
- [68:20]
Emma Vigeland
I think I saw minus 8 was the real feel they're arresting. We'll play this in the fun half too, but the woman who was. We played the footage of. In the church that Don Lemon took where they were disrupting a church service because one of the pastors there is a like a literal ICE agent.
- [68:45]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Despicable.
- [68:46]
Emma Vigeland
And the Trump administration wanted Don Lemon to be arrested you know, the judge has refused. Judge refused. But they did arrest the woman, who's a pastor and she's a black woman. They, as of this morning, she's still in detention. And they digitally altered an image.
- [69:09]
Sam Cedar
Do we have the images of that?
- [69:11]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, I mean, the image is in the video. Do you want to just play this? I mean, I was listening to this this morning, just my blood boiling. This is. They were trying to get her on this morning. Her name is Namika Levy Armstrong.
- [69:27]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Nakima.
- [69:27]
Emma Vigeland
No, sorry, Nakima. And this is her lawyer who was on Democracy now this morning explaining how this arrest went down.
- [69:37]
Caller or Guest
Well, the arrest was a horrible ordeal. She was and some other people in her group were staying in a hotel. The group of FBI and Homeland Security agents busted into the hotel the night before her arrest, roughed people up. They were thrown out by the management. Later on, at three in the morning, someone left Nikima Levy Armstrong's room. The police tacked or the agents tackled her violently and took her to a detention facility before they realized that she wasn't leaving Armstrong. So she was obviously terrified about turning herself in. A legal team, including myself, went to the hotel that morning. We contact reached out to agents to try to arrange for her to turn herself involuntarily at the federal courthouse, which was only about six blocks away. They put the U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, Trump appointee Dan Rosen. He called me himself. I made my request to him. He said it was very reasonable, and he was just going to call me back in a few minutes with the specific logistics. Then he calls back and says, oh, we're not going to let her turn herself in. We need to arrest her at the hotel, so she needs to voluntarily leave the hotel room and turn herself in. So after he talked to his bosses in D.C. he completely reneged on his commitment. They then sent agents up there to the hotel room to arrest her. One of the agents was filming the arrest as they put her in handcuffs. He was filming it on his cell phone. I've never seen anything like that. They can have their body cameras. This was completely unprofessional. He said he was just doing it because of instructions, and he promised it wasn't going to go on Twitter. Nevertheless, it went on Twitter. It went on the Department of Justice's Twitter. So this was their trophy. And then, as you said, the White House subsequently altered the video to make it look like she was crying. I observed the whole arrest. She was dignified, rational, calm, and reasonable the whole time. It just shows the complete political motivation of the government making this a circus. This has nothing to do with enforcing the law. It has nothing to do with protecting anyone's religious rights. It's all about. It's about, frankly, just about fascism. I mean, in a fascist.
- [72:03]
Matt Duss
Yeah.
- [72:08]
Sam Cedar
I don't know what else there is to add on that. I mean, they are manipulating this. The whole thing was a setup.
- [72:15]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [72:15]
Guest or Additional Commentator
And I mean, I'd just say the issue here isn't that a mascot disrupted. The issue is that an ICE director is the pastor and he's supporting the active, ongoing occupation of that community. That's not. Not peacefully worshipping, in my opinion.
- [72:31]
Emma Vigeland
And he explained at another point in the interview, the lawyer, that they're basically charging her with a civil rights era law that was about saying that she was basically infringing upon the civil rights of the worshipers in the church as a pastor herself.
- [72:51]
Guest or Additional Commentator
And I'd just like to also emphasize it's a Southern Baptist church. It's in Minnesota. Interesting, but just people should know the Southern was added because the church split because a lot of the Southern Baptists wanted to continue supporting slavery in the 90s. They apologized for all that. Five years ago. They turned back on that and said there's too much crt, too much of this white guilt stuff going on. Young people that go to that church should know that about the church. Because I saw it on Reddit, a lot of people had no idea where the Southern comes from in Southern Baptists. People should know about this stuff. It's time for a little bit of sunlight to disinfect some of these spaces.
- [73:32]
Sam Cedar
All right, we're gonna head into the fun half, but Stars Pond says can you recommend where we could donate to help people fight survive in Minnesota? If you go to standwithminnesota.com I believe there's a couple of places. They actually have a very long list of places where you can donate. So stand with Minnesota Mutual aid dot com.
- [73:58]
Emma Vigeland
Yep, you have rent. There's rent relief, food support, Mutual aid. We'll put a link to that down below.
- [74:06]
Sam Cedar
All right, folks, we're going to head into the fun half. Before we do, just a reminder, you can support the show by becoming a member. Go to jointhemajorityreport.com help this show survive and thrive. And when you do, you know, we get the free show, free of commercials, but you also get to IMs in the fun half and sometimes even in the non fun half. We read the IMS also. Just Coffee.co OP, Fair Trade coffee, hot chocolate. It's co op in Madison, Wisconsin. They have a majority report blend that you can get. You get 10% off with the coupon code majority. But they have all sorts of coffees there. It's a co op. They're great movement partners out there in Madison. Check them out. They do great by their providers and whatnot. And also just a reminder, am quickie. Am quickie.com if you if you read the American Prospect, you will see that Whitney Wimbish is out there. Been talking to folks in Minnesota and half the time you get her writing in the AM Quickie. The other half, Corey Pine, also a great writer. Every day in your mailbox for a couple of Bucks, free three days a week. Amquickie.com Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian media universe?
- [75:36]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Yeah, this morning over on the Jacobin show, we had a conversation with Hasan that we recorded yesterday before he took off to Minneapolis where going to be streaming from today. So check that out. We talk about, among other things, we compare the democratic responsiveness of both Chuck Schumer and Mohammed bin Salman and you'll be surprised at who comes out on top.
- [75:57]
Emma Vigeland
Maybe we won't be.
- [76:01]
Sam Cedar
All right, folks, quick break. Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's gonna be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily gonna be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're gonna look back and go like, wow.
- [76:25]
Matt Duss
What?
- [76:27]
Sam Cedar
What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a sec. Emma, welcome to the the program.
- [76:38]
Emma Vigeland
A fun half.
- [76:40]
Sam Cedar
Matt. Fun. What is up, everyone? Fun path. No, me. You did it. Fun path.
- [76:48]
Emma Vigeland
Let's go, Brandon.
- [76:49]
Matt Duss
Let's go, Brandon.
- [76:50]
Sam Cedar
Fun path. Bradley, you want to say hello?
- [76:55]
Matt Duss
Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.
- [76:59]
Sam Cedar
It's all the boys today.
- [77:00]
Matt Duss
Fundamentally false.
- [77:01]
Emma Vigeland
No. I'm sorry.
- [77:02]
Sam Cedar
Women's talking for a second and let me finish.
- [77:05]
Emma Vigeland
Where is this coming from? Dude?
- [77:06]
Matt Duss
But.
- [77:07]
Sam Cedar
Dude, you want to smoke this? 7A.
- [77:10]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [77:14]
Matt Duss
Hi.
- [77:14]
Sam Cedar
Me.
- [77:15]
Matt Duss
This thing.
- [77:16]
Sam Cedar
Yes.
- [77:20]
Caller or Guest
Is this me?
- [77:21]
Emma Vigeland
Is it me?
- [77:22]
Sam Cedar
It is you. Is this me? A lot of it's me think it is.
- [77:28]
Matt Duss
Who?
- [77:28]
Sam Cedar
Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?
- [77:36]
Emma Vigeland
Sports.
- [77:36]
Matt Duss
We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.
- [77:40]
Sam Cedar
I'm gonna go Skyline Libertarians.
- [77:42]
Guest or Additional Commentator
They're so stupid.
- [77:42]
Sam Cedar
Though common sense says of course.
- [77:45]
Emma Vigeland
Gobbledygook. We nailed him so what's 79 plus 21?
- [77:49]
Sam Cedar
Challenge.
- [77:50]
Caller or Guest
Matt, I'm positively quivering.
- [77:51]
Sam Cedar
I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 00. 855-011-2. 3, 8, 9, 11.
- [77:58]
Clip Speaker (Vaclav Havel quote)
For instance.
- [77:59]
Emma Vigeland
$3,400. $1900.
- [78:01]
Sam Cedar
5, 4, $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game. Actually.
- [78:07]
Emma Vigeland
You're making me think less.
- [78:09]
Sam Cedar
But let me say this. You can call it satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just.
- [78:18]
Emma Vigeland
Like every day, all day, like everything.
- [78:20]
Sam Cedar
Do it without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks, folks.
- [78:31]
Emma Vigeland
It's just the week being weeded out, obviously.
- [78:33]
Sam Cedar
Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I, I, I don't know.
- [78:40]
Emma Vigeland
But you should know.
- [78:43]
Sam Cedar
People just don't.
- [78:44]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Like to entertain ideas anymore.
- [78:45]
Sam Cedar
I have a question. Who cares?
- [78:49]
Guest or Additional Commentator
Our chat is enabled, folks.
- [78:51]
Sam Cedar
I love it.
- [78:52]
Emma Vigeland
I do love that.
- [78:55]
Sam Cedar
Gotta jump, gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.
- [79:08]
Emma Vigeland
Outrageous.
- [79:09]
Sam Cedar
Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye up. Love you, Bye bye.