← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3575 - Trump Slump Hits Jobs; Epstein Files Loom; Trump as Murderer-In-Chief w/ Heather 'Digby' Parton
01:44:18
It's Casual Friday on the Majority Report On today's show: Revisions to the June and July job numbers show they were actually 21,000 less jobs added than initially reported. However, the ever optimist Howard Lutnick tells us to wait until a year from...
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Hey, folks, this is our second attempt going live today. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Do you ever walk into a wine store and say, what am I doing here? I have no idea what kind of wine I'm looking for. And I always feel pressure because my sister worked in the wine business and I didn't really learn that much. I know I like roses in the summer. That's nice. And I know I like red wine and I know I like them a little spicy. Well, now I've got an easy way to get wines that I love. This sponsor. This podcast sponsored by Naked Wines and Naked Wine is a wine club that directly connects you with the world's best independent winemakers. And you can get world class wine delivered straight to your door. And if you use our code majority for the code and the password@nakedwines.com you will get six bottles for just 39.99. These wines have been approved by my sister, who, like I say, is a massive wine snob. I mean, in a good way. Julie, if you're listening, how do they do it? 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My favorite sponsor, with all due respect to the other sponsors, sunsetlakesabaday.com use the code. Left is best. You get 20% off. You get 20% off some of their great new lifted tea. We are massive fans here. Brian's shaking his head. His girlfriend now is like, like living off those teas. You thought she was excited I got a job exactly last month. But they have all sorts of great Saba Day products that lifted tea comes with a little bit of tetze as well. They have gummies with ted, say a tiny bit. But then they have seven day smokables. They have tinctures, tinctures that are specific to help you sleep, tinctures for your pets. If they're a little bit jumpy. They have salves that saved me over my break. I got a bunch of eczema here. I mean the salve is actually for your muscles but I use it off label and it really helps with my eczema. They've also got lotions and they've got Saba day coffee and Saba day fudge. 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Monday, Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual hump day, Thursday casual Thirs, that's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, September 5th, 2025. My name is Sam Ceder. 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, it's casual Friday. Joining us Heather, Digby Parton, the contributing writer to salon.com and the proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo. Also on the program today, the Trump slump hits the job market hard. The economy adds just 22,000 jobs. We need something like 170,000 plus to keep up with people entering the workforce. It gets worse when you dig into it. Last month's numbers were also revised down. Meanwhile, Trump to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War as he claims unilateral power to summarily execute people he thinks are drug dealers. ICE invades a Hyundai EV plant and arrests Koreans working there. Unclear if they think these people are undocumented. New Times report. Trump sent special ops in 2019 into North Korea where a failed mission led to the killing of North Korean civilians. DOJ acting deputy chief caught on camera a secret mic, I should say, saying they will redact every Republican name from the Epstein client list once they decide to release it. Maybe just leave one or two on there just to make it look convincing. Yeah. Hochul to authorize New York pharmacists to provide Covid boosters to all who want it, contrary to RFK's edict from the CDC. US imposes sanctions on Palestinians who sought Israel war crime investigation. New report. New York City Mayor Adams being offered ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia in an effort to clear the field by Donald Trump for Andrew Cuomo. And this as Zoran Mamdani reaches the max fundraising cap and tells his donors stop. Trump's military invasion of California ends up costing taxpayers $120 million as Chicago announces record low violent crime rate, lowest murder rate since 1965 over the summer. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Emma is out today. I just laughed because I just saw an IM to say back to here how everything is worse today. Love you, Sam. Yeah, the news is bleak, folks, and it's going to be that way for a while. But we're, you know, it's Friday. Trying to have a little bit of fun. I took some inspiration, I have to say. I can't. I think it was Momdani's interview with, with I've had it. Yes. Where he was talking about the scavenger hunt and saying, like, you know, we got to have some fun, too. Which is, it's, I'm not gonna lie, it's hard to do in the face of a lot of the horrors that are going on around the world. But you need to have a little bit of fun so that you maintain the energy for pushing for some justice and positive change now. Otherwise you're just going to go batty. Did I mention you might still go bad? I still, I was just about to say, like, did I mention Emma's out today? And I can't remember anything. The. We've been told for a while from economists that it's going to take a while to start to see the job losses and the hit the economy is going to take and the inflation as the tariffs sort of work their way through the system. This past month we got data, I think it was two days ago, saying that our imports and exports were up a little bit. And that suggests that the stuff that US Retailers, wholesalers, had bought, importers essentially had bought in the early months of the Trump administration in anticipation of a possible tariff regime and had been stored in warehouses had started to run out. And now they're having to import more stuff. And so we're going to see the impact on inflation, I'm convinced, over the next couple of weeks, next couple of months. And now we're also seeing the impact of the tariffs on job losses and even all the deportations. It's counterintuitive. The, the, the deportation regime has also inhibited hiring of, of native born Americans because businesses can't operate a, in many instances because they've lost a significant amount of their trained workforce, whether it's construction or other services. They've also lost a considerable amount of their customer base in many instances. And so we're looking at all sorts of job losses. The youth unemployment is up and the black unemployment is up 7.5%. It's the highest since October of 2021. And it both a shows that, you know, supposedly the immigration roundup is not going to help young people and black people in the workforce, but black people, job numbers, they tend to be sort of the canary in the coal mine, if you will. It's always black people. And I'm sure it's not because there's any systemic racism in this country or that black people are in any way structurally disadvantaged in our workforce. But, but black people always tend to be on the front edge of job losses. Repeated a financial crisis. Yeah, exactly. And here is Fox Business News actually having to admit that. Now remember the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was fired because of the last month's job numbers. So these are the good ones.
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B
Good I sure do. 22,000 jobs added in the month of August. That was much less than the expectation of 75,000. Guys. The July number was revised. I will get to revisions in a moment. Unemployment rate revised down as expected, 4.3%. So that would be higher than July's 4.2%. Again, 20, 22,000 jobs added in August. Let me get you the revisions because this is what everybody is focused on for June and July together combined 21,000 jobs lower than previously reported. I'll, I'll categorize that now. So you see for June, it was Revised down by 27,000 getting you to negative 13,000. And the change for July up by 6,000, getting you to 79,000.
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A
Negative jobs. Over the last three months, job growth has averaged 29,000. Again, way, way below what you need to keep up just with population. And outside of health care, all of these jobs have taken place in health care. Outside of health care, the economy has lost 26,000 jobs since May. Of course, health care is very much helped by tariffs because you get people who lose their businesses and then they get ill and then there's people who get hired to take care of them. I'm being facetious, but we have an aging population and so health care numbers are going to go up. The hourly. The average hourly wage has increased 3.7% year over year. That's down from 4.0% rate in 2023 and 24. And it has grown just 3.5% if you annual annualize. The last three months, the rate of wage growth for low paid non supervised visory restaurant workers has been just 3.2%. Inflation rising more rapidly than that unemployment rate for black teens. I said Black people in general 7.5% rose 0.3% to 7.5. The unemployment rate for Black teens rose to 24.8%. That's the highest since May of 2020. May of 2020 we were locked down. Remember that job levers were only 10.7% of the unemployed in August. And that's compared to 13.2% in 2018 and 2019 when the unempl unemployment rate was comparable. These numbers are put together by Dean Baker. And so what that means is people are afraid. People have a sense that the job market is really soft and they're not going to willingly leave. The share of unemployed who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more rose to 25.7%. That's the highest since February of 2022. Again, that's in the wake of COVID the manufacturing sector. Remember this is a big thing of the tariffs. We're going to. We're going to build things in America again. Look at this poster. We just need time. We just need time. 12,000 jobs lost in August auto manufacturing. 70300 jobs lost in August. Jobs in auto manufacturing are down almost 23,000 over the last year. But things that we're building, we're building. How many concentration camp guard jobs did we create that's that's coming in? We haven't seen those numbers yet, but we're building lost 7,000 construction jobs in August. And jobs in scientific research and development fell by 3,600 in August. Not that many, except for it tends to be research and development in science that we get innovations, et cetera, et Cetera, we're not going to be in that business anymore. That number I suspect is going to go higher and higher and it's going to be driven by voluntary job leaving, if not job losses because people are going to go to different countries. The, the scientists are going to go where their skills are actually wanted and rewarded. So manufacturing loss, that's a function again. The tariffs are supposed to be geared towards that jobs for men that were going to come back once our manly men are making all the manufacturing again. Men have lost 56,000 jobs over the last four months. Women have gained 76% of the jobs in 2025 compared to a regular 50%. That's probably my guess. My guess is that's a function of most of the job gains coming in health care. The native born unemployment rate is at the highest levels since the pandemic. Huh. Somehow don't think Stephen Miller will stop using reason to hunt down every non white person. I suspect you're right. But what happens when you fire the head of the bls so you can no longer pretend like these jobs numbers are rigged. And again I'm going to trust that the numbers coming out here are not rigged just because there's a Trump crony in there now because you know the idea of a limited hangout, well, we got to don't make the lie too, too big. But let's just assume these numbers are in fact accurate. The Trump people can't complain about anymore because it's their people at the BLS and they obviously know things are getting worse. So what, how do you respond? Well, it's sort of like they're getting religion in the sense that like your reward will come to you in the next life. And here's Howard Lotnick doing his version of that. I mean think of the employment. You look at next year's employment, it is going to explode. All these factories we're building, all the plants that are coming into America. You look at the unemployment rate numbers today until a year from today. Wow.
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B
Well, let's talk about that.
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We do have that dude, you know, people like, how could he be so excited? How does he maintain that? Well, because his sons just made billions of dollars on having bought up all of these tariff refund financial instruments several months ago, betting that the tariffs are going to be found to be illegal. Next year is going to look great for Latinx. Oh, this dude is like fire me now, I've cashed in. He is so excited about next year. I can't even contain myself. I'm so excited about the next year. I can't wait. I can't wait. Think about next year's employment. I'm thinking about this next month's rent. But incidentally, it's September, right? So let's just give him a couple of months into next year. He's saying six months out. I mean, how many, literally tens of hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs between now and his mystery time when we're going to get mystery explosive job growth to make the robots that clean. And the amazing is like if construction's down 7,000 people, like where are these mystery jobs going to be created? Ice. And incidentally, we have yet to see all of those federal workers who took involuntary or voluntary, you know, so called retirement. Those are all people who thought they could enter into the job force in another place. So those people are going to be at one point filing for unemployment. I suspect that's going to be sometime around the first quarter of next year. And now we're going to probably see the Fed raise rates, I should say drop rates to deal with this unemployment. And it just increases the chances of stagflation because our economic numbers are no better than the job numbers. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're okay with that. It won't be much. Don't worry. Latnick says it's gonna be great. 2026, maybe 2027. We'll see how it looks. But one of those years gonna be great. Next year everybody's net worth will be up 5 bill so good. Heather Parton will be with us in just a moment. In the meantime, a couple words from our sponsors. Oh, I've gotten back into my Babel because Saul is now taking Spanish in school and I've told him we're going to learn together. And Babel is a super easy way to learn a new language. It makes it incredibly convenient for you when you're walking. The the, the lessons are in 10 minute chunks. It just makes it much easier. And for those of us who are contemplating maybe a future that involves being in a different country, I would go to the English speaking part of Canada or Mexico. So for me it's Spanish. But you can start speaking a new language with confidence thanks to Babbel's conversation based technique. Like I say, it very quickly teaches you useful words and phrases about things you actually talk about in the real world. And my plan is, is to do this when I go out to dinner with Saul, go to places where I can speak Spanish so that he gets into it and sees how cool it is because you know you take Spanish in junior high and you're like you need the practical application, you need to see it in practice. As somebody who learned Spanish in North Dakota, there are 200 language experts who handcraft Babbel's lessons. They are voiced by real native speakers. They're built with science backed cognitive tools like spaced repetition and interactive features to fit any learning style. Staying motivated to learn a new language has never been easier because like I say it provides you real time feedback. They give you like progress trackers to give a sense of like where you are and you can get lessons like in 1012 minutes on the app. One study found that using Babel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college. They have over 16 million subscriptions sold. They have 14 award winning language courses. They're backed by a 20 day money back guarantee. So get start talking with Babbel. I want you to join me in learning another language. So I'm teaming up with Babel to give you 55% off subscriptions@babel.com Majority get up to 55%@babbel.com Majority spelled B A B B E L.com Majority that's B A B B E L.COM Majority rules and restrictions may apply and.
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We'Ll put.
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The info on the podcast and YouTube description also. I'm about to do this again to get my fall going off. Well, about a year ago I did the Prolon five day fasting mimicking diet and it was pretty amazing. It sounds like it's incredibly difficult to do but but you can do it and it's great for things like longevity. It's great for things like metabolic health. This five day fasting mimicking diet was developed at USC's Longevity Institute. It is backed by top US medical centers. Prolon provides fat loss, metabolic reset and helps your skin too. Apparently it is a Prolon is a plant based nutrition program. They have soups, snacks, beverages designed to nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state which which by like day four starts to trigger cellular regenerate, rejuvenation and renewal. You go past like the keto stage into another stage. They have a new generation that builds on the original prolon with 100% organic soups and teas, richer taste and ready to eat meals. I did it. I thought I was going to feel wiped out. I actually felt energized. My sister did it. She loved it, had the same reaction that I did. It really is about, I mean for me it's about longevity. I should be doing this on a regular basis, but I'm going to do it this this fall for a limited time. You can be first in line to experience the new next gen savings. Prolon's offering you 15% off site wide plus a 40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five day nutrition program. Just visit prolonlife.com majority that's P R O L O N l I f e.com Majority to claim your 15 discount and your bonus gift. Prolon.com Majority head over to that website and read about this stuff. It's fascinating and like I say, developed at USC's Longevity Institute. All right, quick break. When we come back, Heather Parton will be joining us. We are back, Sam Cedar on the Majority Report, Emma Viland out today. It is a pleasure as always to welcome back to the program. Yes, well done, Matt. Heather Parton, otherwise known as Digby, writer@salon.com proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo. Heather, welcome. I, you know, I feel like we start every one of our conversations or end them almost identically over the past, you know, a decent amount over the, the past six, seven, 10 years, I don't know. But before we, we get on air, when we're in the sort of the green room, we're going over like the topics we were going to talk about and I've got a list now of 15 top stories and that's just the highlights.
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B
So I mean, there's so much more than that.
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The, I mean, I don't, I honestly don't know where to start this week because there's been so much happening. But let's, let's work backwards a little bit. Let's talk about this Venezuela thing because or I should say, you know, presumably Venezuelan, I mean, like, you know, we don't know much about the whoever.
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B
Yeah. Eleven people Venezuelans. Yes.
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A
That we blew up in a boat in the Caribbean. People who were they were going to, I think it was Trinidad was it? No real relationship to the United States whatsoever as far as we know. And we decided to blow them up. I, I can't help but think, I mean, I tell us, you know, what, what your thoughts on this. But I can't help but think that like this was Trump thought this was going to be a much bigger story. And it happened the day that you had Epstein survivors on Capitol Hill as they're pushing dramatically to keep the Republicans, you know, any two Republicans from signing on to this discharge petition. But, but, but tell us on both sides of that Story.
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B
Okay, well, the Venezuela thing, I think people should start to pay attention to it, start reading up on it when it comes out. You know, it's just been sort of in the periphery for the last month or so that there's something going on down there. They deployed this rather large deployment of naval ships and all kinds of support to cruise just outside the Venezuelan waters. And this has been going on for the last few weeks. And, you know, there's already a bounty on the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro's head, for $50 million. The United States has put up a bounty on him, captured and potentially killed. And it's pretty clear there's something happening down there, let's just put it that way. Well, this week it kind of. It escalated, and they decided to blow up this boat. I think you're right. I think a lot of it was that Trump wanted to create a big story here, and he is the one, according to Marco Rubio, who gave the order. He personally. They told him, they gave him the option of saying, well, we can just interdict this vote and, you know, do what is lawful and what is normally done in that situation. Usually it's the Coast Guard, it's not the US Navy. But assuming that they would use the US Navy to this, they would board the ship, check it out. If there's drugs on board, they arrest the people, they take them back, and, you know, try them like, you know, like normal, like what you do with drug runners of any kind. Or they could blow the ship out of the water. This. And that was. Those were the two choices. And Trump decided to blow the ship out of the water. He was very proud and excited about that. He tweeted about it. He would say, this was really great. They even sent out a video of it so we could watch these people being murdered on the high seas. What this is really about, I think, and, you know, we'll see. I could be wrong here. Part of it is an escalation of this idea that these alleged gang members, we have no idea who these people really were. They could have been completely innocent people. We have no idea. And they're not offering any evidence of anything. But what I think this is happening is that I think that Trump is looking to provoke the Venezuelans into doing something against this big deployment that's sitting right outside their waters. And in fact, they did a flyover yesterday, the Venezuelan Air Force did, to give them the excuse to go in. I think this is regime change. I think that's what they're talking about. I think that's what they plan to do.
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A
People forget that because the Democrats sort of participated in this, at least some of the Democratic leadership. But Trump, I think, had Guaido, Juan Guaido, who was the. Not the. Not the president elected by Venezuela, but the president sort of claimed the presidency in Venezuela and had him, if I remember correctly. I think he was at a State of the Union address, like, literally physically showed up there. And so this has been an ongoing bugaboo for Donald Trump and of course, Marco Rubio, also virulently hardcore against any type of social movement that would come to power in Venezuela.
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B
That's right. And the thing is, I mean, Maduro is not a great guy. I'm not going to defend him. He's done a lot of things, authoritarian things. He's a, you know, kind of a lefty authoritarian in many ways. But he was democratically elected, although they say that he wasn't and that of course, he rigged the election. I mean, don't they all? And this has been a bugaboo. And there's one reason for it. Venezuela has a lot of oil. It is an oil country. It is the biggest supply of oil in South America. And Donald Trump has always believed, people will remember this, that he always thought that, you know, Iraq was a mistake, but if we went in, we should have at least kept the oil. He said it over and over and over again so that you can see what the motives are for this. And it's also. And it's not just that. I mean, I think that's the ultimate goal, certainly on the part of Marco Rubio, who apparently is driving the bus on this one. Everything I read says that he's the guy who wanted to, who pushed for this deployment down there, that he's the guy who's been out there. He gave a press conference after this event where they blew up the boat in Mexico City. That was just bone chilling. I mean, I couldn't believe it. It was like, you know, we're going to take them out. And that's just it. You know, they want. Nothing else will show what's going to happen. I mean, he sounded like Sebastian Gorka. It was creepy. And he was very, very hostile and violent. And this is. I think this is his plan. This is what he wants to depose Nicolas Maduro. So. But there's also this, this new excuse. There's this whole legal framework they're trying to build. It's not really. Shouldn't call it a legal framework. They're basically saying the president has the authority to do whatever he wants. And we know that he says that in every case this is his new thing. They don't. There is no rule of law when it comes to the president. He has an article.
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A
I mean, article in court may not disagree with him on that.
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B
It doesn't seem like they are at least not adamantly opposed as yet. So it does look like this may be something they will grant him the right to do. Now, you know, look, you and I been through a lot over the last 20 years. We watched what happened in Iraq. They lied us into that war, but they did go to Congress and they got that vote to do it. They. I mean, as horrifying as that whole thing was and the lies that went into it, you know, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam, you know, but let me just point out. Look what, look at the results of those two things. Those were the two longest wars in American history. They were an absolute nightmare. They totally destroyed America's, you know, place as a, you know, a country with, with principles at least, or that adhered to international principles. But in both those cases, the Johnson administration and the Bush administration, there was at least a sort of a fig leaf. You know, one of those you hypocrisy is the, Is the tribute vice pays to virtue kind of thing, where at least we'll try and create the illusion that there's a legal authority for doing what we're doing, and we'll follow, we'll do some kind of kabuki dance to pretend like we're doing that. Trump isn't even doing that. He's just saying, I have the authority. They asked Rubio and they asked Hegseth whether or not what authority, by what authority they murdered a bunch of people in the middle of the ocean, blew him up. And they just said, the President has the authority. That's it. That's his authority. And they're doing this based on the Article 2 thing, which is going to come to the Supreme Court. There's going to be a lot of. There's already a ton of litigation on that. But apparently the idea that Congress has anything to say about this is just out the window. They're not even bothering. They don't care. And neither does the Congress, by the way. The Congress is fine with it, too, as far as I can tell. No, but I'm not hearing anything. I mean, this one with the Venezuelan vote, I didn't hear any Democrats talking about this. Maybe I missed it, but I haven't heard anything. And I mean, there must have been somebody I mean, if Rand Paul is the only one I've heard that came out and said, hey, you know, where's the authority to do this? You have to come to Congress before you start blowing people up. But I think that that is really, I mean, it shocked the legal, you know, the people who study the law of war were stunned by this action because it is clearly a, you know, and it's murder is what they did with impunity. And by the way, just, just one, one little thing. Rodrigo Duterte, who ran a drug war in the Philippines where he rounded up drug users and drug, you know, runners in his country and killed them, was arrested last March by, and was, is now under indictment in Hague for crimes against humanity for what he did. That is the only legal authorization that the, that the Trump administration is claiming on this, that these are drug, you know, they're, they're drug lords and they have the right to take them out to protect the American people in Venezuelan waters a thousand miles from America. But apparently Trump's claiming. Yeah, well, Trump's claim, they were coming to America in a speedboat a thousand miles away. Yeah, I mean, but whatever, you know, but this is the, this is the only hint of legal authority that the Trump administration is claiming is that this is, they have attacked us under the Alien Enemies act and some other. Just basically Article 2, giving the commander in Chief the ability to do whatever he wants, they say. But it's basically based on this drug war that Trump is claiming. And I'm just pointing out Duterte is under indictment right now in the Hague. They arrested him, Interpol arrested Duterte last march on this very thing that he had committed crimes against humanity. So just saying, I think that may be what we've done and we'll see where that ends up. Just, everybody just start reading. When you see Venezuela pop up in the news, take a minute to just sort of catch up, because I think this story is going to potentially get very, very ugly.
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A
I can't help but think too, when you see these rogue actions that one of the projects, and I know this is far afield, but I, but, you know, so much of recent history has, it just gets memory hold basically because, you know, I don't know, they're just too much, too much information. But one of the projects that Obama had coming into office was to take the, the extrajudicial, extra legal activities of the Bush administration and put them into a legal regime. And so, you know, when we had things like you can assassinate a U.S. citizen if they, you Know, if a committee on Tuesdays decides it, then we did it. And it was, it was all sort of like codified within at least executive administrative law, if not actually passed by the Congress. And, you know, these type of actions. If we do have an opportunity to vote Donald Trump out in 2028 and have the opportunity to elect someone else, this is something to watch for because, yes, presidents don't give up power. And so once this is established, like this is a viable thing that the US can really. There's no other way to describe it. I mean, it may not be arbitrary, but it is random. Blow up a boat full of people who have absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the United States. They pose no remote threat. They just, in a boat in a place that has nothing to do with the United States just anywhere. It's, it's sort of extraordinary. Like, I wonder at what point we would have to do something like this. Like, could we blow up, I don't know, a cruise liner that is down in the, the Caribbean. We think there might be a drug dealer on there. Boom. We killed 200 people. I wonder if that's what it would be, would take for like Congress to go, like, hey, wait a second, you can't do that. I mean, it seems sort of crazy to me.
- [42:48]
B
Well, it does. And like you say, this has been going on for a long time. I mean, there's nothing, it's sort of. It's the frog in boiling water thing, you know, which I know is apocryphal. Nobody needs to point that out. But the idea that over time, this has incrementally become more and more and more with every successive executive branch has become, you know, they've assumed more and more power to do this sort of thing. And I think now, of course, Donald Trump is, you know, he's sui generis. He's a guy who, you know, I mean, he has no limits. Of course he is going to take this to an entirely new level. But as with everything else, this has been, this has been in the works for a long time, this idea. And we know this because look at a guy like Marco Rubio. He comes out of the Republican establishment. He's not, you know, he's not didn't come out of the MAGA movement. He's been part of the Republican establishment and he's the guy leading the charge on this. So, I mean, that tells you something. And it tells you something that nobody seems to have any, you know, real, you know, any kind of strong reaction to what, to what's happened other than legal scholars and people who, you know, observe, who are sort of study this sort of thing. They see that this is taking it to a new level. But most people in the Congress and I think in the political establishment generally just, yeah, well, what else is new? The problem here, though, is, I mean, let's look at this sort of global situation. Donald Trump's declared war on the entire world, economic war with his tariffs. I mean, he has basically alienated most of the world by what he's done. The Europeans are, you know, they're moving as fast as they can to arm up and extricate themselves from the American security umbrella. You have this meeting in China just last week with Xi Jinping and Kim Jong un and Vladimir Putin and Modi of India all hugging and kissing and holding hands and saying, we are the best of friends and creating an alliance that is very, very formidable. And that alliance is not aligned with us. And I'm not saying that that's only Donald Trump's doing. You know, this has been happening for quite some time, but he has exacerbated it. And with that, with. I mean, in the case of India, it is him. He did it. I mean, India was just licking his boots. Modi was his best friend. He endorsed him for president. Modi did. And Trump comes along and says to him, you know, he wants to take credit for the rapprochement between Pakistan and India in this latest skirmish. And they've had skirmishes for many years so that he can get the Nobel Peace Prize. And Modi says no, because domestically, that's just poison, right? To have a third party in India, you know, come into India and say they created a peace agreement between them and Pakistan. That's poison to hit to Modi's politics and to the country at large because they're very independent and very, you know, proud of their independence, and they don't want the US Interfering and things like that. And Trump just wouldn't listen. So he's going around taking credit for it, and it has completely alienated that relationship. And so Modi's running, you know, and Modi was, you know, I mean, he's. They're all looking around for, you know, how they can get away from having to answer to the United States because we're so unstable and so completely unpredictable because we keep voting in, you know, clowns and corrupt monsters into our leadership that, you know, he was already looking to China, but that just blew up the relationship as it was. So that's the kind of thing that's happening globally. So yeah, sure. We're in a situation where, you know, I could totally see the United States, you know, doing well, Venezuela, I think that's a place where you can see there's absolutely no, you know, way that they could do, you know, perpetrate a regime change in Venezuela without completely inflaming the world. I don't think. But I don't think Trump knows that. And if he did know it, I don't think he cares. You got Pete Hexis running around going, you know. Yeah. The Secretary of the Department of War, you know, he's saying today because they've changed the name of the Defense Department.
- [47:12]
A
That's one of the few things where I'm like, you know what? Good. Because now every time they use it, like the idea that he's somehow the anti war, I actually think it's like, I think it's healthy. I think, like Department of Defense. At least the way that the United States has been using that department for the last 80 years is arguably a misnomer and misleading. And so Department of War. Okay, good. If, you know, I know that the reason why they did it wasn't for that. It was so that they could feel more masculine. And I imagine I will have, you know, the same. It needs to feel a little less soy when I am, you know, in Trump's. In the shape that Trump is in, I would imagine. Let's talk about Epstein, because I. I can't help but think they may have had this sort of like, idea of like, this is how we're going to escalate it. But the timing. We're going to use the bombing of a. Of. Because I think he was. I think they must have been surprised. Like, nobody seemed to like, oh, we just blew up a boat of Venezuelans. But, you know, they were probably narco terrorists and, you know, or Trent at the agua. And, you know, why not? But I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened on the same day, the same news cycle as the Epstein survivors testify or testifying, having a press conference on the Hill. This is, I guess, at the beginning week. It also occurs to me, like, Donald Trump had disappeared five days.
- [48:56]
B
Yeah.
- [48:58]
A
And he's got these blotches on his hands, which My understanding is that there is some. There are some anti Alzheimer's drugs, some very expensive ones that need to be administered IV on a monthly basis. Who knows? I think he was training Muay Thai or he could have been doing part of his workout. Could have his workout. But people can look up. I think It's Kasoon.
- [49:32]
B
Interesting. I hadn't heard that.
- [49:34]
A
But sure, they give it either. They either give it in the vein here or right here. And, you know, sometimes you don't have the veins here. Yeah. And so you got to get. This is the place you give it.
- [49:48]
B
Yeah. And old people bruise very easily. I mean, that's just a common thing. My dad's hands were all bruised up, too.
- [49:53]
A
Tell me about it. I think I got one right here. But the Epstein thing. It now appears that they only need two more Republicans to do this discharge petition, but it appears that Massie may not be able to find them.
- [50:14]
B
Well, Trump was calling them all up and saying it will be considered a hostile act if you vote for this. And which, I mean, to me, that's such a cell phone. Right? A hostile to who? Trump. Well, that kind of proves the point, doesn't it? I mean, if it's hostile to release this, obviously he personally has something to hide here. He's personally involved himself in it now. He's not. He doesn't even, you know, I mean, he says, oh, it's a hoax, and they're a bunch of Democrats. And I read something, maybe it's on the D beast or one of the sort of gossipy sites saying that he was known to be saying that these women were all liars and, you know, and whores. So he's. He's definitely. But this has all been behind the scenes. He actually came out and said, it'll be a hostile act. You will be hostile to me personally if you do this. And that seems weird. Yeah. Why would that be? Why would it be hostile to him? Why would he even involve himself in this thing?
- [51:13]
A
Why is he nothing to do it. Do with it except for just the memory of Jeffrey. I just. I don't.
- [51:23]
B
I wish. I wish him well. I wish him well.
- [51:26]
A
Let's put this up. This is number seven. This is. He posted this today. I so don't care about this at all. That he writes what, as far as I can tell, maybe the longest thing he's ever written his entire life.
- [51:43]
B
Life.
- [51:43]
A
I'll read it here. The confused and badly failing Democrat Party did nothing about Jeffrey Epstein while he was alive except befriend him, socialize with him, travel to his island, and take his money. So at least he's acknowledging that there were some relationships like this. They knew everything there was to know about Epstein. I suppose also they could have just asked Donald Trump's former Labor secretary, Acosta, who is testifying behind closed doors. I think in a week or something. But now, years after his death, they out of nowhere are seeming to sow such love and heartfelt concern for his victims. Does anybody really believe that? Where were they during the very public trial, his public trial, and all those years before his death? The answer is nowhere to be found. Now dying after the DOJ gave thousands of pages of documents in full compliance with a very comprehensive and exacting subpoena from Congress, he wrote that sentence. That does not sound like Donald Trump signature. DJ Boss, can I put in a. A parentheses of what? What? It won't be. It'll just be a parentheses. How many times has he said exacting? Exacting? Yeah, capital the S on subpoena, so they know it's from me. Epstein case was only brought back to life by the radical left Democrats because they're doing so poorly with the lowest poll numbers in the history of the party, 16%. While the Republicans are doing so well, among the highest approvals the party has ever had. The Dem don't care about the victim. I mean, whatever. It's all the. It's all the same stuff. But what's interesting is between. And his saying that the bags being thrown out of the White House, his instant lie of like it's all AI Anything bad is AI. And then his little treaties he's written about like the Democrats. It's interesting because this radical left wing organization set up like a sting with a guy who turns out to be deputy acting Deputy Secretary of the DOJ or acting Deputy chief of the doj. Oh, in this radical left wing organization is like James o'. Keefe. I don't know if he's still involved with Project Veritas.
- [54:23]
B
No, it's his new. It's his new. New group that did this.
- [54:27]
A
New Veritas or whatever it is.
- [54:29]
B
He got kicked out of Project Veritas because he.
- [54:32]
A
Well, I know.
- [54:33]
B
Stole money.
- [54:33]
A
Yeah, I know he did. But he. On the video, he's talking in front of a Project Veritas thing, so I can't quite make it out, but this is Joseph Schmidt. He is the acting deputy Chief Office of Enforcement Operations in the doj. Now there's, I think like a dozen deputy chiefs, although, like traditionally, but they've gotten rid of the. The Civil Rights division practically. So I don't know if there's a. I don't know if there's any deputy chiefs, frankly, around. Enforcement Operations is really sort of like the. He's in charge of the shock troops. And so I would imagine he is like the. He is in The. He's not like some holdover from the civil rights division. In other words, like, he is a Trump political approved hire. And here he is on. I guess it was a hinge date, you know, shout out and being secretly recorded talking about what he later claims is just news reports. I want you to just think that because his claim was like, oh, I was talking personally. Everything I just got from the news and I haven't heard, you know, I haven't read anything about this news to me. Yep. Good. U.S. attorney's office. Recently, the FBI and DOJ have come under fire for promising transparency. Yeah. So this is a joint, I think, play with. With o' Keefe and Veritas. Okay.
- [56:27]
B
Those files do exist. Yeah.
- [56:29]
A
Thousands and thousands of ages. Oh, pause it for one second. Go back, go back. I just want you to hear this. The date, the. The undercover journalist says those files exist. They're talking about the Epstein files. And he's like, oh, yeah, good.
- [56:49]
B
Those files do exist.
- [56:50]
A
Yeah. Thousands and thousands of ages. They'll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files. Leave all the liberal Democratic people in those boxes.
- [57:03]
B
They visited that Maxwell person.
- [57:05]
A
Yeah. And also got transferred to a minimum security person too, recently, which is again, against BoP policy because she's as. She's a convicted sex marriage. They're offering her something to keep him out shape. That was the acting deputy. Whoa, wait a second. Second date incoming. Yeah, I guess so. Wait, has James o' Keefe been negatively polarized to be against the Republicans now? I mean, I think the guy who needs hits. And now what's interesting is, like, how little this is traveling through those channels. Like, it's almost as if all the regular conduits. But this seems like a big deal now. Again, the. This deputy chief claims, like he only read about this in the news. Now the Maxwell thing, I don't know. He's talking about BoP policy. I think that must be Bureau of Prisons. I didn't know that was Bureau of Prisons policy. That's sort of news to me, but maybe I don't. I didn't. I don't read the right newspapers. But this. I mean, this Epstein thing, it's hard to imagine it goes away unless, like, because those women who. Who are at the press conference said, we have a list, we're compiling a list, and we will put it out if Congress does nothing.
- [58:38]
B
Well, that's right. And the fact that o' Keefe did this. Let me just say that he was quoted later. He posted on X that sort of a weird, tepid thing Well, I think that guy might be a Democrat. He's not. I mean, the DOD came out and defended him and said, you know, yes, he does work here, but he doesn't have access to the information and blah, blah, blah. But they did not come down on him as they would have if he was a Democrat. He's one of them. There's no doubt about it. But anyway, that's what o' Keeffe said. But the fact that o' Keeffe is one of the people doing it, I don't think he's been negatively polarized. He's a part. Well, he needs hits. Yes. That's what it's all about for him and for many of these influencers. But there is a whole faction on the MAGA side that is not letting go of this. And we know this because Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people, and Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace are the three, aside from Thomas Massie, who have signed on to the discharge petition. And when the survivors came out and said, we've got, you know, we've been waiting for somebody to put out the names, and they're not doing it. So we will do it because we know who trafficked us. They, you know, their lawyers were concerned because what they've been afraid of this whole time is they're naming very powerful people. And that's kind of terrifying, especially in today's environment, that they would, you know, find themselves on the wrong side of, you know, I don't know, violence even. So Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie said, that's okay. They can give us the list. We'll go on the floor of Congress and we will name all these names. And we have a constitutional protection that, you know, we. You cannot, you know, hold anyone liable for. What they say on the floor of Congress.
- [60:28]
A
Was done in the context of Mike Revell.
- [60:31]
B
That's right.
- [60:32]
A
Pentagon paper.
- [60:32]
B
Pentagon papers.
- [60:34]
A
Former senator from Alaska.
- [60:36]
B
Yeah. And so this is. Greene came out and said. She was at that press conference, and she came out and said it. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene is as MAGA as it gets. Right? I mean, she was the space lasers and QAnon and everything before she got in Congress. Total Trump.
- [60:52]
A
After she got in Congress, too, I think.
- [60:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, of course. After she got. Yeah, she got in Congress. But, you know, this is not a per. This is a person who has tremendous credibility among the MAGA faithful. There's no doubt about it. I mean, I think she's nuts. But nonetheless, on this particular issue, she is representing a fair number of MAGA people. Who do not believe, who see this as a cover up and are beginning to see the COVID up is Donald Trump and the Republican Party. They're already hostile to Pam Bondi, they're hostile to Kash Patel, both of whom promised to release this stuff and didn't really do it. They're starting to turn on members of Congress like James Comer. And so you've got, that tells you something. And that is why this thing is not going to go away. If it was just Democrats holding another press conference on the steps, Trump wouldn't care. I don't think it would matter. The MAGA people would be behind him. He would know. He wouldn't have to call up people personally and say, I will take it personally that this is a hostile act. If you vote for this. He knows that there is a, that this is a problem for him among his own people. And so, you know, I don't think it can go away. There's no way it can go away because this thing, by the way, these people will never be satisfied. I don't care what they put out at this point, they're not going to believe it. So this is going to jog him forever.
- [62:13]
A
Do you have a sense of, like, what's driving someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene?
- [62:18]
B
I don't, I don't get it.
- [62:19]
A
It, I mean, like, let's speculate for a moment, right, Because Trump can't come out and be actively hostile to somebody who wants this released. Because if it's all Democrats on the list, right, like, it doesn't make sense. Like, you know, we can read reporting in Axios that he's like, this is a hostile act. But, you know, nobody's going to see that on, on Fox. And to the extent that it's not being released, he's just going to throw people under the bus. He's not going to fire him. But like, it's, it's a much better story to tell your MAGA supporters that like, oh, Trump just Trump is in, you know, it's, it's Pam Bondi, it's Cash Patel. They're, they're the ones who are doing this. And you know, Trump doesn't know because he, see, he's very busy. He's got to attack Venezuela or whatever it is. I wonder if this isn't Marjorie Taylor Greene, like envisioning a post Trump era already, which seems early to me. But she is one of the few people who it seems is outside of Donald Trump directly attacking her. She has her own base. She's like one of the top fundraisers. You know, she's sort of like. And in the Republican Party, there's enough like sort of MAGA adjacent people. And we could see this just from like, how many, you know, two weeks ago, we're like, I'll sign the discharge petition. And now they sort of cave to Trump. Only that, you know, it's not that she's sort of their aoc. Except for the Democrats. There's not enough sort of like AOC lights in the Democratic Party for AOC to have the sort of play that, that Marjorie Taylor Greene has in the Republican Party. It feels like she's setting herself up for a post Trump era in some way by doing this because someone's going to inherit the MAGA base. And I don't know that it's J.D. vance. I mean, I'm getting a little aspirational here too, where in my mind, Donald Trump takes a vacation from the presidency, if you know what I mean. But I can't figure out any other sort of like, I mean, Massie, I think it's like he, he is also in the situation where Trump already, he's on the wrong side of Trump anyways. So you might as well at that point, like, go as far as you can looking for support. And that's with the, the people who do care about the Epstein thing in the Republican Party. But Mace and Boebert, I can't quite figure out.
- [65:09]
B
I don't get it either. But I think you may be right about Greene. And, you know, she's all, she, she marches to her own drummer in more ways than one. It's more than just Epstein. She's also very anti, you know, forever war. This is one of her things. She hates the idea of the US supporting Ukraine, for instance, you know, and not. She, she, she sort of took seriously a lot of what Trump said and, and has not moved off of that. And so I think you're right that she's tried to claim that MAGA mantle. And she may just believe all this stuff. I mean, I don't even know. I mean, maybe she thinks there is an international pedophile ring run by Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates or something. I mean, I don't know. She may believe that stuff. She, she's pretty crazy. But I think you're right. Just on a political level, she's not, you know, she's not idiotic. She has a certain kind of feral savvy, kind of like Trump does about the people that support her and understands what they want to hear. That's why she is important in this thing because I think she really does represent a fair number of maga true believers and I think that she knows who they are. I think she understands them perhaps better than even Donald Trump does. And certainly on the sepste thing, he dug himself a hole with this. And you know what's starting to bubble up, what I think is starting to bubble up, and I could be wrong, is the fact that all this is going on and Trump's calling it a hoax and saying, why are we wasting time? I mean, when he ever talks about it, it's always a waste of time. Why aren't we talking about how great everything is and how great I am and, you know, what a wonderful person I am? Instead, they were talking about this and what they're seeing, though, is they're seeing all these pictures of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and it's relentless. It's everywhere. The pictures of him and Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and Melania, and it's clear that he was part of that group. Yeah, AI, yeah. Going way back, 20 some odd years, the AI has been out there. So I think that start. There's, you know, they're not the brightest, but there is a little cognitive dissonance happening among the megabase and, you know, Green may definitely be on that now why Boebert and Mace are on it. I don't. Mace is just a. She's just a drama queen that's. She just does whatever's going to get her. You know, she came crying out of the, out of the testimony the other day and, you know, but, but Boebert and Greene are not close friends. They're not, you know, they're kind, they're rivals. Yeah. And I'd give. Put my money on Green any day against Boebert, but, you know, so I'm not quite sure why the three of them have banded together to do this, but, you know, it's good to see and I absolutely believe that Marjorie Taylor Greene will walk onto the floor of the house and read those names off. I think she will do it. You know, that's just something that she, the kind of thing she would do. She's not, you know, say, say many things about her, but she's not a coward. She will, she will, you know, go way out front and do whatever she feels like is going to benefit her and what, you know, what is going to get her the kind of attention that she's looking for. So, you know, in some ways I have to wonder if Trump isn't, you know, A little afraid of Marge. She's kind of like Laura Loomer in some ways. We haven't even talked about her, but that's another one, that there are some.
- [68:41]
A
Things that I don't know that we're ever going to understand.
- [68:44]
B
It's just too weird.
- [68:46]
A
No, the Laura Loomer thing is. Is absolutely bizarre. And. But, you know, the thing is with Marjorie Taylor Greene is like, once she's boxed out of leadership in the House or, you know, for the moment, she's sort of untouchable because it's not like she's a senator. She has her district. She's not going to lose. There's not going to be anybody to her right. In the. In the primary, and she's not gonna lose in the general, and she's raising all this money. So that's where her. You know, with Laura Loomer, I. God knows what is going on with that.
- [69:26]
B
She's gotta have something on Trump. Right. She has to have something on Trump, but he's afraid of her. It's gotta be that because. Because she is operating completely with impunity by coming by, dictating who can be on the National Security Council. It's canceling intelligence meetings. I mean, this isn't just.
- [69:49]
A
She just canceled an intelligence meeting, somehow got the.
- [69:52]
B
The.
- [69:52]
A
The intel community to cancel their. Their meeting with. With Mark Warner on the Intel Committee. Like.
- [70:00]
B
Yeah.
- [70:01]
A
Who is in the meeting going, like, Laura Loomer says, we can't do this.
- [70:05]
B
Okay, never mind. Yeah.
- [70:06]
A
Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, I realized Laura, like.
- [70:12]
B
I think.
- [70:13]
A
I think it's pretty straightforward. I think. Listen. I think it's pretty straightforward. This is. The reports of Laura Loomer's activities on Air Force One from the campaign where they had to keep her away, are done. And she probably has some evidence of those activities. And, And Trump doesn't give two shits about the governing. What he cares about, I am quite convinced, is whatever documents he has with Melania about any type of, like, public revelations about anything like that.
- [70:55]
B
Yeah.
- [70:55]
A
And I'm just convinced that it is. So. So it's almost impossible to wrap our heads around the idea that this is just like. Well, she fooled around with me and I don't want her to tell anybody. So whatever she says, she was a fire general or the entire general staff or no intel or what. Whatever it is, she. What she says goes.
- [71:29]
B
Yeah. I mean, people are just like, Yeah, I mean, whatever. You know, dear leader says that that's the way it's got to go. That's the only thing that makes any sense, honestly, that he is just terrified. She has evidence.
- [71:42]
A
I can't even come up with an alternative.
- [71:44]
B
Like, I can't either.
- [71:46]
A
She's very bright, guys. She's bright in so many different areas of our government that whatever she says, you follow security, FDA to national security and everything in between. Whatever Laura says goes.
- [72:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's the only thing that it can be. I mean, that's, that's where I've come up to Sam. I mean, there's no explanation that it has to be. There's no other reason why this person could have this level, this high level of influence on, on these very, very important aspects of our government. But there it is. And you know, I don't know if we' know either, but I just. I think it's beyond speculation. I think it's the only logical.
- [72:32]
A
They call It P tape 2. That's what they call it. The P tape 2. Total fake news.
- [72:42]
B
It's a Democratic hoax. Definitely.
- [72:46]
A
All right, we have to talk about this because you're the only person I'm, I'm watching writing about this. I mentioned it. I think on the first day I was back from vacation in March, there was a government shutdown showdown, if you will. And I think it was like eight or a dozen senators ultimately voted to essentially fund the government. And at the time, and I'm sure you were too, we all hear where our hair is on fire and it's like there is no other leverage. And Chuck Schumer desperately wanted to go on his book tour about his anti Semitism book. But he argued that if we don't fund the government, it gives Elon Musk and Donald Trump total power. And what's his face over at omb, Russ, Vote total power to shut down whatever they want and defund it, whatever they want in the government. And it was. You did not have to be a soothsayer. You could look at what was going on and noticing they're already doing that.
- [74:08]
B
Exactly.
- [74:09]
A
They're already doing that, that. And they're doing it in such a way that it's so piecemeal that the American public's not aware of it. Now. Schumer passed the bill, aided and abetted in the passing the bill. It was a but for Schumer support. And a lot of people say that it was Gillibrand who was really for it and Schumer was giving cover. I have a feeling it's some combination of both of them. And then others joined on and absolutely. Donald Trump continued fire 80% of the consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We just had the other day, like, you know, tens of thousands of other federal workers fired, usaid, foreign aid support, you know, on and on and on and on. They have, they have not slowed one iota. Yeah. And it was the only opportunity for Democrats to push back, fight and make the Republicans as a group own all of these cuts so that they weren't like, oh, it's in the courts. And then three weeks later an appeal court says you can go ahead and do it. And then six months later it happens and nobody notices it because it's not, you know, it's not a big thing. It's these tiny things and, and normal human beings aren't, you know, supposed to follow this stuff in the way that we do. And there's another showdown coming down up, and they seem to be taking the exact same tact.
- [75:45]
B
I honestly cannot believe what I'm seeing. I did not, I didn't think that they would actually do that this time. You know, we all watched that go down and, you know, people were just furious with Chuck Schumer. And it wasn't just people like you and me. His own senators were furious with him. Cory Booker talked about it in that big 24 hour marathon speech that he gave, that he was upset with Chuck Schumer for doing it. Even Hakeem Jeffries, who barely has anything even slightly spoken in anger about anyone, Donald Trump or otherwise, was openly critical of what they did because the Democrats all hung together on that. Even ones in the frontline districts who are always terrified that they're going to be held liable for a shutdown, they all held together. And, you know, Schumer and his gang, that group mostly in the leadership and the few around him decided to go ahead and do that. And they, and they ended up, you know, breaking the filibuster, which is how that happened. And they ended up passing it. And it was a continuing resolution at that point. They passed that they couldn't pass a budget, of course, but I don't even think they had a budget at the time. They just passed a continuing resolution to come up through here, through.
- [77:04]
A
And let me just add, that was not a clean continuing resolution. There was a lot of actually cuts in a lot of things that.
- [77:11]
B
The.
- [77:11]
A
Details, but that we've been feeling the impact of down the road, but go ahead.
- [77:18]
B
Absolutely. And the Democrats knew that. And I thought at the time, though, I thought, all right, if there's any strategy here, it's that they want to get it closer to the election. You know, It's a little too far away. Maybe they can have their big showdown closer to the election and push this up past the summer and do all that. It was lame, but I thought maybe that's what they were thinking. And so here we are. Now we have even less to go on to justify allowing this budget or even another continuing resolution to go forward. I don't know what excuse they can actually come up with. Oh, think of all the bad things Trump can do if we shut down the government. I mean, what could be worse than what he's already doing? And that was obvious in March. It's doubly obvious now. He spent the entire last eight months just taking a wrecking ball to the federal government. And in the interim, they passed the one big beautiful bill and look at what they've got in there. I mean, they're cutting subsidies for Obamacare, the Medicaid cuts. I mean, it was an absolute travesty. Now, that was done under reconciliation. And the Democrats really didn't have this kind of leverage at the time. I mean, you know, they did, you know, they did what they could, I guess. They rallied against it, they spoke against it. But the Democrat, the Republicans had the votes to get that passed. That's not the same thing here. Now is the time to say, no, we're not. This is what we demand. And I read a great thing by Brian Beutler, you know, who writes, I can't remember, his substack is called off message, I think. And he has a lot of sort of strategic advice and much of it is quite, quite good. And he's absolutely beside himself over this particular thing, saying what Jefferies and Schumer have done, have come in and they've sent strongly worded letters to the Republicans saying, we'd really like to know what you're doing about trying to come up with a bipartisan agreement. And we don't see why, how you're making any effort to get. You find common ground. That's what they're saying. And that is not what you do. You make demands, make some demands, come in and say, unless you reverse all the Medicare things, unless you stop occupying cities, unless you withdraw your tariffs, unless, you know, and I mean, there's a lot that Democrats could be demanding here, and they're demanding nothing.
- [79:41]
A
They're, they're just more automatic rescission, you know, or unilateral rescission. I mean, the list could go on and on and on. And it can be, if they want, like, you know, kitchen table issue. It could be something oh, there's tons.
- [80:00]
B
Of them, tons of kitchen table issues there.
- [80:02]
A
The entire strategy seems to be pretend we're not here. Yes, just, just pretend we're not here. And let's wait until November20, 26 and two weeks before we'll, we'll like announce we're on the ballot and the other guy, it's either us or the other guys, and we don't have to do anything else. I mean, that seems to be it.
- [80:31]
B
That's the James Carville advice, right?
- [80:33]
A
Oh, I mean, it certainly was.
- [80:35]
B
Don't get in their way. If they're, if they're, you know, shooting themselves in the foot, just let them keep doing it. Well, the problem is that really hasn't been working. And not to mention the fact that, you know, one of the things that I don't understand why Democrats don't understand this, they have voters too. You know, it's not just MAGA people who are voters. It's, you know, look at what the Republicans do backflip to try and appease their voters, to get them to come out and vote. And the Democrats just completely take their voters for granted. And this one really has me stymied. I mean, you know, granted, we've been winning off year elections, it looks like, you know. Yeah. And the thing is that that doesn't even matter what's happening here. It's not, it's beyond just winning elections. We are under assault from this administration and more importantly, the Republican Party, which has completely abdicated its duty to do anything in the Congress. We've got a Supreme Court that looks like it's going to rubber stamp everything Donald Trump is doing. And there are, you know, vast tens of millions of Americans out here who are sitting here going, what the hell? You know what this is? This is an abomination. And I mean, basically the Democratic Party is saying, hey, if you don't like it, maybe you need to take to the streets and get violent or something, because nothing we can do. And that is, you know, that seems to me to be, you know, that that's all that's left. And this is crazy because it is not all that's left. The Democrats have a lot of leverage here. They have a lot. They can shut down this government. Donald Trump does not want that to happen. This economy is going south very quickly. The jobs numbers that came out today were absolutely horrible. And it's getting worse every day. These tariffs are getting worse every day. The cost of living is going through the roof. And I think a lot of Americans are waking up and going, hey, you know, maybe things aren't going that great. And the Democrats could make that, make them own every bit of the Republican Party, own every bit of this. And they're just terrified.
- [82:47]
A
They're just terrified that they're going to get the government reaction and they're going to get blamed for the government shutdown. And, yeah, that's the thing is that, first of all, I guarantee you a government shutdown In September of 2025, no one is going to remember what happened. But. But it's going to send a message that there is. There is a. I mean, we have talked about this. We have. I feel like we've said this so many times. You know, it's like both of us having come from the film business in some respect, if you don't have a reaction shot, the audience does not know how to respond to 98% of what it watches. Yeah, you need to have somebody go, like. Like, whoa, what the. You know, and the Democrats are providing no reaction shot whatsoever. Hakeem Jeffries, there's a video of him the other day at some baseball field in Brooklyn because he's now starting to worry about his job, as well he should going, like, we got. I got haters in Washington, D.C. i got haters in the Trump people. I got haters in maga. But it doesn't matter because God is great. And it's like, oh, okay.
- [84:09]
B
Oh, okay, never mind. Yeah, sorry. Yeah.
- [84:13]
A
What's God doing right now? Because maybe he should, like, yeah, maybe we need to do something to get the great God's attention so he starts to focus on some of the shit that's going on here. Because he may be great, but it seems like he's distracted by other things right now. So maybe we need to do something to say like, hey, just, you know, five minutes of your time here. It's. This is insane. It's insane.
- [84:38]
B
It is. It's absolutely insane. And it is incredibly stupid because, you know, let's just assume that we're looking at elections. You know, we've got one in about a year. We've got another one, you know, two years after that. I mean, it seems like, you know, God only knows what will happen in that interim, but they are coming up and assuming they happen and we survive and, you know, there's the Democrats ever take power again, they. They will be taking charge of a government that has been. That is in totally eviscerated rubble. It is rubble. And it is going to take something very, very, very creative and very, very bold to be able to rebuild in some way and hopefully in a better way than what it was before and what it is now. But they are not laying any kind of groundwork for that being done to suggest that what is required in order to set our country. And if you look at the right way, wrong way, and the people's pessimistic versus optimistic views, this country is clinically depressed about the future right now. And well, it should be. I mean, I am. I'm sure you are. I mean, you're looking at something. You know, this is a nightmare that we're living through. This is a historic time. I hope everybody knows you're living through some really historical moments here. This has never happened before. This is brand new stuff in many, many ways. And the Democrats are doing nothing to sort of, you know, lay the groundwork for, or to just express this, to express what's actually happening. Right.
- [86:18]
A
You have to emotionally set people up for this stuff. You cannot do it on the 29th day at the end of the month, as it were. And here's the other thing. And really, over the past, past, like, month, I, my attitude towards this has really, I mean, not dramatically turned, but I mean, six months ago, if you said to me, like, there's, you know, they're going to Cancel Elections in 2026, I would have been like, not. But right now, there does not seem to be any reason in the world why Donald Trump won't say, October 20th of 2026, we have an emergency.
- [87:03]
B
We're at war.
- [87:04]
A
We're at war. Trent Aguas here, we're fighting Venezuela or I have, I have secret intel that says the Epstein list is actually, like, radioactive and they've released it. Whatever. And the thing is, is that, that how do you then mount any type of resistance?
- [87:30]
B
Exactly.
- [87:31]
A
If there has been no even, like, dry run or fight amongst Democratic leaders, like, how do you then all of a sudden, like, you need to build, yes, A, the organizational support and the sort of awareness that something is wrong, wrong here. Something is fundamentally wrong. So we're going to do something that is fundamentally different than we've done in the past to make it clear that there's something fundamentally wrong here. Because like, like Trump's getting away with it, whatever he wants. And a year from now, he's only been in office for nine months, eight months, less than nine months. When he's in office for 21 months, like, he's going to be that much bolder, assuming that, you know, he knows what day it is. But Stephen Miller, Steve Miller's Got to, you know, stick his hand up his. His rump and move his mouth or just, you know, type into truth social. And the Democrats are not showing the American public that there's something wrong. Even if you lose that fight. Fight, which of course they will, but I mean, even if you lose that fight, you're indicating to the American public, hey, it's time to start paying attention.
- [88:51]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's time to start paying attention. I get it. It's depressing. I meet people in my civilian life here that they're just going, oh, I can't stand it. I can't stand there, watch the news. It's just so awful and blah, blah, blah. And yet, so they don't know anything. And, you know, they turn to me because I write about politics and I say, you know, what do you think? And I start laying out the litany, and they're shocked because they literally do not know it. And that this is a huge problem and people have got to start paying attention. And the Democratic leadership, that's their job. I'm sorry. It's their job. The media. The media will go, will follow. Their credo is unless the Democrats are saying it, then it's not. It's not an issue. So they're not.
- [89:37]
A
I don't like that idea of us counting on a media that is going to sort of like articulate the truth in the urgency of a situation is absurd. That that does not happen. They always wait for who is going to lobby at them. And, you know, I mean, look, we do this show every day. If somebody reaches out to us a half a dozen times and there's anything remotely compelling about it, like, that's what gets our attention.
- [90:07]
B
Of course.
- [90:08]
A
And, you know, I. We just, it's just a matter of resources. If the Democrats are breaking a case, you cannot wait for the, the public. And that's like, I don't know if people like, who watch this show or in general understand how little of this stuff breaks through, you know, in terms of the actual details. And so you need the Democratic Party, like, this is the value. When people say, like, I'm not interested in electoral politics, that's all well and good, but the fact of the matter is our society is set up in a certain way.
- [90:39]
B
Yes.
- [90:39]
A
And I don't, I don't. I wouldn't prescribe it. I don't, you know, I don't advocate it. I, you know, and I am happy to push back against. But it is what it is. There are certain physics. And so these people at the Very least, they're in a position. Their rhetoric and what their performative acts do is important, and they need to perform. And there's one way to perform this, and it's the one time they have leverage. Where everything's going to come to a halt. Like, this is why people block highways is because everything comes to a halt and you have to pay attention.
- [91:24]
B
That's right. You have to read the sign because you're just sitting there and you've got to read that sign and just, I mean, before we go, I do want to just give. There is a. That there are some people who were trying, I mean, and also just some, Some leadership. I think Governor Pritzker in Illinois, he get, you know, he's, he's out there trying to do it. Newsom, in his way, is trying to do it here in California. There are the governors. There's some, you know, action there where they're, you know, because they're kind of on the front lines of this invasion by Trump's, you know, stormtroopers of ice, stormtroopers in the cities. So there is that. But, you know, it's kind of disparate. You know, it's kind of all over the place. And the Congress is, you know, front. What they are running against, what they, what their job is, is to confront the Republican Party. That is who they're running against in this next election. They are. The Republican Party across the board has completely abdicated its responsibility as, you know, a reasonable majority party. They are nothing but a cult now. And they absolutely, they're following the edicts of their, of their, you know, basically their king. And the Democratic Party in Washington has an opportunity to make that clear, to make it clear it's not just Trump, it is the Republican Party. This is what they have to do. And I've been saying this. I don't know what to do.
- [92:49]
A
And they have no interest.
- [92:51]
B
I do know what to.
- [92:52]
A
It's extremist Maga. Extremist Republicans, Not Republicans. It's extreme Magus. It's like hyper. What did.
- [93:00]
B
What did Trump.
- [93:00]
A
What did Biden have? Uber Maga. Extreme Mega Maga. Mega Maga. Like, anything to say, like Republicans, anything.
- [93:13]
B
Oh, and there are good Republicans. I'm going where. I mean, I don't even know how to define that anymore. So, you know, this is. This is a problem. And, you know, watch this unfold this, this government shutdown thing. I think they're probably going to kick the can because they don't anything.
- [93:32]
A
Well, the Democrats are going to agree to kick the Can. And they're going to kick it to Christmas. Exactly. And then people are going to be.
- [93:38]
B
Quiet, shut down the government, because everybody.
- [93:40]
A
Christmas. It's Christmas.
- [93:42]
B
What about the toys? Yeah, I mean, that's going to be the thing. It's what we're doing now. And it's just. It's so infuriating, indivisible.
- [93:49]
A
And a couple other groups, I think, run for something. And there's a couple other groups and maybe we got to have some people on who are pressuring Democrats, House Democrats to the extent that you can, Senate Democrats to like Hakeem Jeffries needs to be primaried and he needs to be primaried by somebody who can beat him. And this is. They need to have fear for their own jobs. They need to be forced. Like we have seen it now with aipac where you're starting to see, you know, backbench Democrats go, I'm no longer taking APAC money. Some dude from Kentucky. What was his name again? MacGyver, or something like that. And somebody else said, I'm no longer taking APAC money. And we're starting to see this because they're getting afraid, you know, that the being associated with AIPAC is a liability. I mean, no shit. I mean, the polling is so obvious on this. Beyond Jeffries and Schumer and everybody who is not. All these electeds who are not pushing back on their leadership of basically playing dead, they need to feel like that is also a threat to their fortunes going forward. So any groups that are in any way challenging them and making them the. Feel the heat on this in particular is the best way to get any type of activity.
- [95:25]
B
Absolutely.
- [95:27]
A
Digby, always a pleasure. We went way long, but I really appreciate it. We had a lot to talk about and we probably could have gone for another two hours.
- [95:34]
B
Frankly, I feel bad.
- [95:37]
A
What would have been a top story three years ago.
- [95:40]
B
I know, I know. But at least, you know, we got some Epstein, we got some Venezuela, we got the showdown. I think we've covered at least, you know, some of the bases here today.
- [95:51]
A
Let's just hope that like, you know, somebody's. Somebody's careless with their intervenous stuff and, you know, things get. Things get bacteria on these things. Is not unheard of. Does.
- [96:04]
B
Oops. An air bubble. Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, who knows?
- [96:08]
A
Heather Parton, always a pleasure. Because we were talking since. Totally.
- [96:15]
B
Yeah, of course. Don't even know what that was about.
- [96:17]
A
Thank you.
- [96:18]
B
All right, talk to you later.
- [96:20]
A
Bye bye. All right, we're gonna head into the fun half of the Program short fun half today. Got a lot of, got a lot of that free show watch Harry Emden. Yes. There you go. It's so cool, like having these old guys be president where they're very clearly not there. I think it was the woman who is running to be DC's non voting representative. She's running for reelection and she is what, like 80, 80, 88. 88 battle tested years. 88. She'll be 89 when she runs. Right? Like it's, it's, it's, it'S 13 months ago. She must have another birthday. She's gonna be 89. I don't even vote. What difference does it make? I never missed a vote. I mean, I like the Navy bean soup on Tuesdays. Exactly. In terms of my neurological capacity. I can't remember who it was that had a piece on that. I think it was Atrios wrote about this, like one thing that people don't understand. And he was saying this as a way of giving credit to Jerry Nadler who stepped down. He said, you know, being that age and having a staff that is around to make sure that like everything's cool for you is very helpful. I mean, it, you know, having had parents who are in their late 70s, in their 80s, like, you know, there are times you're like, hey, can you get somebody to help you with this? And like, you know, so those parents, sometimes they, they can, sometimes they can't. But even if they can, they're like reluctant to do it. But these, you know, Representative, they're not reluctant. No. Remember Feinstein, they should build a shadow. Well, I mean that, I mean, that was like, you had to have people do it, but people who are Steven, like, aware of what's going on. I don't think Feinstein had had a clue as to where she was at, you know, 80% of the time. Time. But you know, Nadler is like, he's gonna have to, you know, like your staff, they're doing, there's like at least 20% of the work they're doing is just like not full, you know, the most ridiculous of errands for you. But I think they're just doing errands. It's sort of like what we got around here. With how much. Yeah, exactly. With how much like nursing home homes and stuff cost already. You think they could just build a giant replica of Congress in West Virginia somewhere and have like pretend. Yeah, exactly. Right near that foam Stonehenge in Virginia. Just put him right there would be so awesome. It's like, like instead of Like a model UN it's like a model congress but for all old people so they can all pretend like they're still there. I'm going to my committee meeting. I think that place is called the Villages. The chairs are extra padded. Oh, God. The only difference, folks, it's your support that makes the show possible. You can become a member@jointhemajorport.com when you do, you know, I get the free show. You also get the fun half and you keep this show surviving and thriving. Join the MajorityReport.com that's where you do it. Join the MajorityReport.com also just coffee. Just coffee. Co op. Fair trade coffee from a co op in Madison, Wisconsin that they got great politics. They got set up to protect and help farmers in places like Chiapas and in East Africa. And they work with their farmers. They got great coffee, too. And you can get the majority report blend and use the coupon code. Majority get 10% off. Check them out. Matt. Left reckoning. Yeah, Left reckoning. For anybody who hasn't seen it yet, Brian appeared. Our very own Brian appeared on Left Reckoning on Tuesday. Talked a little bit about comedy. I heard he really handed it to you. Yeah, I mean, we debated. It was a big debate. And also, yeah, we'll have a Sunday show for folks. Patreon.com reckoning to get access to that on Sunday. See you in a fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow, but what is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. Matt. What is up, everyone? Fun half. No, Mickey, you did it. Fun half.
- [101:49]
B
Let's go, Brandon.
- [101:49]
A
Let's go, Brandon. On hat. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.
- [102:00]
B
Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women.
- [102:02]
A
Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.
- [102:05]
B
Where is this coming from?
- [102:06]
A
Dude? But. Dude, you want to smoke this? 7 egg.
- [102:10]
B
Yes.
- [102:14]
A
Hi.
- [102:14]
B
Me? The zinc.
- [102:16]
A
Yes.
- [102:20]
B
Is this me?
- [102:21]
A
Is it me? It is you. If it's me. Hello, it's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go Skyline. Who? Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says. Of course.
- [102:45]
B
Gobbledygook.
- [102:46]
A
We bailed him.
- [102:47]
B
So what's 79 plus 21?
- [102:49]
A
Challenge. Matt.
- [102:50]
B
I'm positive.
- [102:51]
A
Equivalent. I believe 96. I want to say 857-210-355, 011 half. 3, 8, 9, 11. For instance.
- [102:59]
B
$3,400. $1,900. 5, 4.
- [103:03]
A
$3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game, actually.
- [103:07]
B
You're making you think less.
- [103:09]
A
But let me say this. You can call it satire.
- [103:13]
B
Sam goes satire on top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do.
- [103:20]
A
Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We seen you. All right, folks, folks, folks.
- [103:31]
B
It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously. Yeah.
- [103:34]
A
Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.
- [103:40]
B
But you should know, people just don't.
- [103:44]
A
Like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. 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.
- [104:08]
B
Outrageous.
- [104:09]
A
Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye. Bye.