3593 - Trump's Iran War Flip Flops; Section 230 30 Years Later w/ Brian Reed, Mike Masnick

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

Episode 3593 - Trump’s Iran War Flip Flops; Section 230 30 Years Later
Guests: Brian Reed (KCRW’s “Question Everything”), Mike Masnik (Techdirt, Blue Sky)
Date: March 4, 2026

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Episode Theme

This episode opens with coverage of President Trump’s rapidly escalating and controversial military campaign against Iran and then shifts into a deep-dive conversation on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, marking its 30th anniversary. The hosts, joined by special guests, examine both news headlines and the technical, legal, and philosophical battles over online free speech, responsibility, and corporate power.

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Key News & Discussion Segments

1. US-Iran War: Escalation, Confusion, and Congressional Response

[00:12–21:06]

• Escalation in Iran & Region:

  • Death toll in Iran from US bombing exceeds 1,000, including at least 160 children (18:59).
  • US is arming Kurdish groups along Iran’s border to prompt regime change (10:30).
  • Israel has invaded southern Lebanon amid the broader conflict.

• Political Fallout & Senate Actions:

  • US Senate set to vote on War Powers Act; Chuck Schumer angles to fund the war (0:12, 21:06).
  • Democrats and Republicans both scrambling to justify actions, reflecting confusion and lack of transparency.

• Commentary:

  • Hosts and guests express alarm at weak justifications for war, calling administration explanations "incoherent."
  • Sam and Emma note a disconnect between overwhelming public opposition (60–80% against the war) and Washington's actions.
  • Emma: “Foreign policy is completely untethered from public opinion. This is the runaway train.” [06:23]

• Notable Exchange:

  • Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) after a classified briefing:

    “I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground… but I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be of the administration going forward…” [08:26]

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2. Trump & GOP: Shifting War Rationales and Blame Game

[11:36–21:06]

• Strategic Contradictions:

  • GOP leadership (Marco Rubio, Mike Johnson) offer conflicting justifications for war:
    • Rubio: US struck Iran to prevent Iran from attacking in retaliation to an Israeli strike. [11:36, 13:07]
    • Trump tries to claim credit for the timeline, then passes blame to Israel, resulting in a parade of flip-flops.
  • Host Sam Seder ridicules the incoherence:

    “I’m sorry, that answer is equally as incoherent. I don’t even know what it means that we're not going to let Iran hide behind their missiles.” [14:43]

• Media Critique:

  • Press is letting obvious contradictions slide, not adequately challenging the shifting narrative.

• Moral & Human Costs:

  • Emma compares the public’s muted reaction to mass civilian casualties in Iran to a hypothetical Israeli or American tragedy, underscoring double standards and media bias. [18:59]

• Quote:

  • Emma:

    “Can you imagine what the press would be saying if 160 Israeli girls were killed by a bomb from Hamas?” [18:59]

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3. Primaries: A New Democratic Surge

[21:06–22:53, 125:10–139:41]

• Texas: James Talarico wins the Democratic Senate primary, propelled by a surge in Latino turnout and a broad coalition.

  • Talarico’s coalition “could actually break the Trump 2024 coalition. So just from a pure electability standpoint, this is a success.” – Emma [22:15, 135:20]
  • Republicans headed for a runoff: Paxton (polarizing) vs. Cornyn (establishment).

• Other States:

  • Democrats flip a state Senate seat in Arkansas.
  • Nida Alam narrowly loses in North Carolina’s 4th, with local analysis attributing it to underwhelming campaign strategy and local divides (144:15).
  • Justice Democrats score a big win in a Dallas-area House race. New congressmember Frederick Haynes (blue seat) openly calls Israeli policy “apartheid” and criticizes U.S. complicity. [140:03]

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Featured Debate: Section 230 at 30 Years

Participants:

• Sam Seder (Host), Emma Viglund (Co-host)
• Brian Reed (Question Everything, KCRW)
• Mike Masnik (Techdirt, Blue Sky)

[32:44–94:53, with further reflection threaded through the episode]

A. Section 230: Origins and Purpose

[32:44–37:03]

• Background:
  • Section 230 was created to incentivize moderation: to let online platforms edit/remove content without inheriting legal liability for user posts.
  • Mike: “If you're an interactive computer service... we don't hold you liable as if you were the publisher of someone else's content...” [32:53]

B. Divergent Perspectives: Reform or Status Quo?

[35:47–39:36]

• Brian Reed’s Position:

  • Section 230 was a bargain for “Good Samaritan” moderation, but platforms have not lived up to those ideals.
  • The law confers powerful immunities, even when companies enable serious societal harms.

• Mike Masnik’s Defense:

  • Section 230 isn’t a blanket immunity, but directing liability to content creators is fundamental.
  • Repeal/reform won’t fix platform abuses; instead, it risks harming free speech and innovation, and leads to over-censorship or consolidation.

    “All the law is doing is saying we put the liability on that person… not this other tool that they used.” [37:46]

C. Gray Areas & Test Cases

[39:36–55:08]

• What about algorithmic amplification of harm?

  • Mike: “What YouTube did there is just the distribution or recommendation of content… which would still be protected by the First Amendment.”
  • Brian: Points to cases where algorithmic product design (e.g., minors recommended to groomers at Meta) facilitates real-world harm that’s not adequately deterred by Section 230. [43:25]

• Attempted Reforms & Unintended Consequences:

  • Sesta/FOSTA carved out sex trafficking liability, but led to greater harm for sex workers and less ability for law enforcement to track sex traffickers, as platforms preemptively censored or shuttered services. [48:00]

D. Regulation, Liability, and Real-World Effects

[54:34–75:35]

• Should we impose a “deliberate indifference” standard?

  • Brian: Cites expert suggestions to strip immunity from platforms that show “deliberate indifference” to harms like scams or grooming.
  • Mike: Warns compliance costs will ensure only the largest companies survive, leading to less competition. [54:46, 55:08]

• Risk of Chilling Speech:

  • Emma: “How are [platforms] not incentivized to more censorship if Section 230 is repealed?” [63:00]
  • Mike: The “heckler’s veto” becomes real—legal threats will prompt platforms to preemptively censor.

• Are there preferable alternatives?

  • Mike: Strong privacy, antitrust, and anti-SLAPP (to suppress nuisance lawsuits) laws may better address platform abuses than amending Section 230 per se. [57:21, 84:17]

E. First Amendment, Transparency, & Corporate Power

[75:44–87:42]

• Can we require algorithmic transparency as a condition for Section 230 protection?

  • Mike expresses skepticism, citing failed California laws and First Amendment limits.
  • Sam argues Congress can attach reasonable transparency requirements to “eligibility for the carve-out,” as with other regulated industries.

• Who benefits from increased platform liability?

  • Mike: “Any messing with [230] will almost certainly make it worse. Every attempt I've seen at reforming it will make it worse.”
  • Brian: Still uneasy with accepting “feeding minors to groomers” or “facilitating illegal gun sales” as protected speech. [85:51]

• Agreement on Antitrust?

  • All parties recognize that monopoly power aggravates the worst problems.
  • Mike: “The world needs more upstart competitors that can chip away at Google and Facebook dominance.” [87:13]
  • Emma: “It seems like it’s anti-monopoly… that’s the solution.” [75:17]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The noise is the new censorship. The volume of content and the overwhelm… is actually a new form of censorship.” – Brian Reed [70:50]
• “Section 230 is a procedural benefit to the First Amendment… it gets the cases that would lose tossed out at the earliest stage, when it is less expensive.” – Mike Masnik [82:25]
• “I’m not convinced there’d be a draconian censorship regime. None of us know what a world without Section 230 would be like.” – Brian Reed [63:00]
• “We shouldn’t have to accept an algorithm that feeds minors to groomers in order to preserve free speech online.” – Brian Reed [85:51]

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Political Update: Democratic Primaries & The Progressive Bloc

[21:06, 125:10–143:53]

• Talarico's Victory in Texas:

  “The coalition that he’s accrued of Latino voters could actually break the Trump 2024 coalition... this is a success.” – Emma [135:20] “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics, and it’s working.” – James Talarico [137:18]

• New Progressive Texas Congressman:

  “I'm coming to get in trouble. Israel... is engaging in apartheid with Palestinians. And so the Palestinians, who don't have the weaponry of Israel, ... throw their rocks and shoot their arrows, and the Israel is able to bomb them and kill them.” – Frederick Haynes [140:13]

• DC Dynamics:

  • Gavin Newsom’s shifting rhetoric on Israel scrutinized—demonstrates that political winds (and constituency pressure) are forcing prominent Democrats to at least raise longstanding critiques.
  • Justice Democrats score several big gains, and the “Squad” dynamic broadens, even as the movement becomes more diffuse.

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Additional Memorable Observations

• Media Critique: Repeated throughout the episode that press allow hawkish, incoherent narratives about Iran to go unchallenged.
• Congressional hypocrisy: Schumer’s split priorities, collaborating with GOP on war funding—“Fascist collaborator, resign!” – Emma [109:51]
• Human Cost:
  • Details of civilian deaths in Iran, including children, and the likely futility (and immorality) of US aims in the region are given heavy emphasis.

  • “The deaths of 100 children in a school in Iran is going to be, you know, a mistake, if it’s mentioned at all.” – Sam [115:56]

• Political Dysfunction: Scenes of confused, exhausted Senators asked about the war, showing the lack of real debate or oversight in Congress (John Fetterman, Mark Wayne Mullen).

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:12–06:36: Headlines—war with Iran, primaries, ICE, war powers
• 06:36–18:59: Deep dive—war rationale, Blumenthal/Schumer critique, atrocities
• 21:06–22:53 / 125:10–143:53: Democratic primary results and progressive gains
• 32:44–94:53: Main Section 230 discussion/debate
• 140:03–141:20: Frederick Haynes on Israel and US foreign policy

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Final Thoughts / Tone

The episode is highly energetic, irreverent, and occasionally profane—a classic Majority Report blend of outrage, humor, and granular detail. The hosts display urgent skepticism about military adventurism, and the Section 230 discussion—while wonky—remains grounded in real-world impacts on democracy, digital culture, and corporate accountability.

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For more information visit majority.fm

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Transcript

[Emma Viglund]

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Seder]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday, March 4, 2026. My name is Sam Seder. 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, Brian Reed, investigative journalist, host of Question Everything on kcrw. And Mike Masnik, editor of Tech Dirt and on the board of directors for Blue sky to discuss Section 230 of the Communication Decency act from 1996 on and about its 30th anniversary. But of course. Meanwhile, Trump widens the illegal war with Iran. Asks defense contractors to make more bombs because we're running out of them. Death toll in Iran now over 1000 at least. CIA planning to arm or is arming or has armed Kurds. The plan to Balkanize Iran. Israel invades southern Lebanon. And the U.S. senate set to vote on the War Powers act today. This as Chuck Schumer sets a table to give Donald Trump more money for this war against Iran.

[Emma Viglund]

Fascist collaborators. Say it with me.

[Sam Seder]

Meanwhile, primaries yesterday. James Calarico wins Texas, driven by Latino voters and highlighting a massive Democratic turnout, outvoting the Republicans in their primary for the first time in 24 years. Someone should write a book about how Texas the myth of Radishes as we think.

[Emma Viglund]

Shout out, David.

[Sam Seder]

Meanwhile, Justice. Justice Democratic back Justice Democrats backed candidate to take Crockett's old House seat. Good stance on God incomplete.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Republicans headed for a runoff in their Senate primary between Paxton and Cornyn. Sadly, Nita Alam comes up just short. In North Carolina's 4th district, Roy Cooper to run against Michael Watley in the North Carolina Senate general election. Democrats pick up a rare state Senate seat in Arkansas, flipping a Republican seat there. Meanwhile, south of Arkansas, U.S. special forces involved with the Ecuadorians on a narco traffic raid in Ecuador. Trump DOJ reverses again. Will resume its fight against law firms and support for abolishing ICE reaches 50%. Populists everywhere now getting gearing up for their anti ICE campaigns. All this and more on today's Majority report. It is hump day. Yeah, that's good news, Emma Viglund, because I feel like I'm exhausted just from reading the headlines.

[Emma Viglund]

There was a lot today. There is a lot. We didn't even get to everything that was in the news from yesterday. We'll talk, I'm sure. More about the results of these, these primaries. I mean, Dan Crenshaw losing his seat because he dared to say Biden won the 2020 election. He was rhino, rhino. The only House GOP incumbent Trump didn't endorse. And it made a difference.

[Sam Seder]

And that's in Texas, too. So you got to keep that in mind. Of all places, Donald Trump is going to have most influence. I think in places like Texas, probably. Well, you know, look, editorially speaking, I just want to say this up front. You know, it is, it is very difficult to sort of deal with what this show does. And with the war in Iran, there is not as much news resources as there has been in the past for these things. We obviously don't report on stuff we're going to be covering, obviously, this, this war for as long as it lasts. But it's also important to keep an eye on the future. And so things like section 230 is a big issue that I think is going to be dealt with in one form or another over the next year or so and important for, for, for people to have an awareness about these things. So I just want you to, you know, I say that only because I feel self conscious. On some level, we should be covering every single aspect of this bombing and war that Donald Trump is getting in. On the other hand, you know, it's different from Iraq in the sense to me, because we do advocacy journalism here. We have a pretty clear opinion on this. And during the Iraq war, part of it was fighting disinformation and people's perspective in favor of the Iraq war. And the fact of the matter is, is that anywhere from 60 to 80% of Americans are against this war in Iran.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah, we've known that foreign policy is completely untethered from public opinion for quite a while. And we knew that under Biden, this is just another example of it. This is the runaway train.

[Sam Seder]

But even under militarism, the perspective on Israel and Palestinian conflict changed over time. And so there was, you know, there was advocacy and stories to tell people that they didn't know. In this instance, we don't even have to push back against the reasons that the administration is offering to attack and perhaps invade Iran, because they're not offering any. And so, like, you know, it is, it's like almost like pushing against the rope on some level. You know, we will cover this stuff, obviously, and in particular, what Democrats are doing because frankly, to the extent that there's stories that are not getting out, it is the reality of the way that a significant portion of the Democratic Party, particularly the leadership, is dealing with this because they are trying to obscure what they're doing. But this should come as a warning. And this is the obviously the idea of escalation. This is clip number six. They

[Emma Viglund]

there was a briefing yesterday, a classified briefing, with the senators, and the Democrats that came out of it were immensely alarmed. Most Democrats that came out of it. We'll talk about Chuck Schumer later in the program. But this clip from Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is immensely concerning, if what he's saying here is accurate.

[Sam Seder]

I just want to say

[Brian Reed]

I am

[Sam Seder]

more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have. But I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be of the administration going forward, whether it is destroying the nuclear capacity of

[Brian Reed]

Iran or simply the missiles or regime

[Mike Masnik]

change or stopping terrorist activities.

[Sam Seder]

And I think the administration owes it to the American people to have briefings not just for members of Congress, but

[Brian Reed]

for the American public.

[Sam Seder]

Nothing here should have been classified. It should be available to the American people. Do they describe, I mean, what that sounds like to me is that the lack of clarity that we are seeing from the administration in terms of, like, what the agenda is here and why now and what are we doing is exactly what they're. What they're providing for the senators, short of, like, a notion that they believe they can foster. And if you pair what Blumenthal has said in this reporting about the CIA

[Emma Viglund]

arming Kurds along the Iraq, Iran border,

[Sam Seder]

the idea is, of course, that they want to have an armed uprising. And Blumenthal takes from that, like, they're gonna need to put boots on the ground to facilitate this. Now, look, the most savvy commentators will say we probably already do have boots on the ground. It's just a question of how many and will we own. It is really in many instances. And so that is. That's where we're at here.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, this is just the tried and true playbook of arming an ethnic minority within the context of trying to overthrow a regime that has burned the United States so many times, whether it's the mujahide in Afghanistan that turned into the Taliban, whether it's literally the Kurds in Iraq. This whatever objective they're talking about here is undercut by the fact that now it's being reported immediately that this Kurdish militia is being sponsored by the CIA, this arrogant administration waging this illegal criminal war in Iran thinks that there's not going to be cultural memory in Iran of of course, the Shah and other US Influences in trying to overthrow their government, that they're not going to have some skepticism about the Kurdish militia in this four to five week time frame that Trump is setting for regime change. It's absolutely absurd and it puts Iranian dissidents in grave danger. As the US Plays its is so heavy handed in showing how it's influencing the opposition here.

[Sam Seder]

There does not seem, I mean, and on day two, when you have to call in defense contractors and ask them to start producing more weapons, Has a sense that there's been not a lot of planning for this. Let's just go to clip number four. This is Marco Rubio. Yesterday, I guess it was Monday, Rubio came out and said we had to attack Iran because we knew that Israel was going to attack Iran. And if they attacked Iran, then Iran would strike us. And so we had to strike first to prevent Iran from striking us after Israel struck them. Game theory. And Mike Johnson repeated the same thing. And then people said, hey, wait a second, so are you saying that Israel dragged us into this war and the only reason why you bombed was because Israel made us do it? And this upset Donald Trump. So the next day Donald Trump said, no, no, I probably made them do it. I made Israel do it. And instructed Netanyahu to go on Sean Hannity. And Sean Hannity asked the question, I've known this guy for 30 years. I don't think people make him do stuff. And of course, Netanyahu, you're right, nobody can make Donald Trump do anything.

[Mike Masnik]

I mean, it's, oh, I'm a, I'm

[Emma Viglund]

a mere servant to Donald Trump.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. I don't, I don't, I mean, now

[Emma Viglund]

do my laundry us as I bring it to the United States for my seventh meeting in two months or whatever.

[Sam Seder]

It's more like, oh, did I just encourage you to do my laundry? I had no idea.

[Brian Reed]

And so he loves doing laundry.

[Sam Seder]

Day three. Is Marco Rubio now doing a little bit of this? Good.

[Mike Masnik]

Please, guys, I can't hear him all.

[Emma Viglund]

Yes, yesterday you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that that's why we needed to get involved today. The President said that Iran was going to get.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, your statement is false. So that's not what I was asked very specifically.

[Brian Reed]

Were you there yesterday?

[Emma Viglund]

Yes, I was.

[Mike Masnik]

Okay.

[Brian Reed]

No, did you, Were you the one

[Mike Masnik]

that, because somebody asked me a question,

[Sam Seder]

did we go in because of Israel?

[Mike Masnik]

And I said, you asked me that you. That follow Up.

[Emma Viglund]

And I said, no, I told you

[Mike Masnik]

this had to happen anyway.

[Brian Reed]

The President made a decision and the decision he made was that Iran was

[Mike Masnik]

not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran

[Sam Seder]

was not going to be allowed to

[Mike Masnik]

hide behind its ability to, to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The President made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had.

[Sam Seder]

And we carried that out.

[Mike Masnik]

I was very clear in that answer.

[Sam Seder]

This was a question of timing, of

[Brian Reed]

why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent. Once the President made a decision that

[Mike Masnik]

negotiations were not going to work, that

[Brian Reed]

they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that

[Mike Masnik]

was untenable, the decision was made to strike.

[Sam Seder]

I am sorry, that answer is equally as incoherent. I don't even know what it means that we're not going to let Iran hide behind their missiles. But he's now arguing that no, we always were going to do this once we determined that that negotiations weren't going to happen. And he's suggesting it was just a coincidence that Israel determined that exactly at the same time, but maybe like 15 minutes earlier than we did.

[Brian Reed]

Great minds. Think alert.

[Sam Seder]

So they were going to attack. And so the timing was just a function of we needed to get in there before Israel attacked. But the intent, we were always going to attack since we determined that the negotiations which had happened two days earlier weren't going anywhere. Crystal clear. So there you go. I mean, these guys are.

[Emma Viglund]

It's on camera. It is literally on camera him saying,

[Sam Seder]

were you there, Emma?

[Brian Reed]

Were you actually there when the question was asked in the same.

[Sam Seder]

The best part is the person I was, I asked the question. That's what she said.

[Emma Viglund]

Perhaps CNN and Fox News and the Associated Press and the other outlets that were there on their live feed were using that Tim Pool filter that we use to make his music sound so bad. And that's why we misunderstood Marco Rubio explicitly saying that from yesterday.

[Sam Seder]

Did we play that yesterday because Israel

[Emma Viglund]

was going to strike?

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, Mike Johnson said the exact same thing.

[Brian Reed]

Yes, he did.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, let, let's pull up Mike Johnson because he said the exact same thing right after Rubio said it. So they clearly were told at least at one point yesterday or the day before. I think we did play this, but let's just play it again. Yeah, this is quite a coincidence.

[Brian Reed]

To me, the most critical point is that this was a defensive measure, a defensive operation. And why is.

[Sam Seder]

Pause it for a second now. He just said it was a Defensive measure. Whereas Rubio said, no, we had intended to do this because we weren't going to let them have all this capacity. And now he's saying it's a defensive measure because notes, and this is not classified.

[Brian Reed]

So I'll tell you what I think is important. Israel was determined to act in their own defense here, with or without American support. Why? Because Israel faced what they deemed to be an existential threat. Iran was building missiles at a radical in a rapid clip to the point where our allies in the region could not keep up. As you know, Iran has long vowed to take out Israel, wipe it off the map, and they have long seen that as a critical threat to their very existence. Because Israel was determined to act with or without the us, our commander in chief and the administration and the officials I just named had a very difficult decision to make. They had to evaluate the threats to the us, to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond. And they determined because of the exquisite intelligence that we had, that if Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then they would have immediately retaliated against US personnel and assets.

[Sam Seder]

That doesn't sound remotely like what Rubio said hours after that, having said what Johnson said hours before Johnson said it, and then going back and saying, no, no, we were always going to attack. It was just a question of timing. That's not at all what Mike Johnson is saying. No, I mean, this is. And then you watch the news and there's some news outlets that are more skeptical than others. But I mean, honestly, this is like for years and years and years, Republicans were the responsible people when it comes to waging war. And no Democratic president could hire a secretary of defense that was anything but a Republican. This is ridiculous.

[Emma Viglund]

It is also, I mean, the crime of this also, I feel like in the Western press is completely being papered over. Tehran is like the equivalent of New York City for Iran. It is massive, it is sprawling. And we are bombing over and over again this major urban center in a country with tens of millions of people with we killed over 160 little girls with a bomb that was dropped on the school there. Can you imagine what the United States response would be to that? Can you imagine what the press would be saying if 160 Israeli girls were killed by a bomb from Hamas, from a bomb they would nuke the country of Iran tomorrow. And like, I mean, as we're talking about nuclear weapons and the possibility of Iran building a nuclear weapon, which the US's own intelligence says they have not been pursuing since, I think, 2003, 2002, in part because the Ayatollah Khamenei, who they just killed was more conservative and the more hawkish Iranians were critical of him, saying that he should take a more aggressive posture towards the United States. Now, apparently, his son is going to be taking over in the interim. What do you think his stance is going to be after they just killed his. His mother and father? I'm not sure if it's the same mother, but at the very least, his father, like, there's no strategy. Trump even said it himself that they killed some of their other options to take over this country. I mean, we are committing a horrific crime against humanity, and we have some Democrats who are on board with it in a way that doesn't just morally scream how horrible this is. But the destabilization effects are going to actually really harm United States interests. And it's because the Zionist lobby has completely, and the weapons manufacturers and all of it completely taken over, frankly, U.S. policy beyond what actually is going to advance U.S. interests.

[Sam Seder]

All right, and we're going to cover the primaries that took place yesterday. The big news, of course, is that James Tallarico is going to be the Texas nominee for Democratic nominee for the Senate. And we don't know who the Republican nominee is going to be. It's going to be a runoff between Paxton and Cornyn. And in some respects, that may be more relevant than who actually won the Democratic primary in Texas, because Paxton is a lot more of a polarizing figure than. Than is Cornyn. I think probably Crockett was probably more of a polarizing figure on the Democratic side. But again, I don't know that if Crockett or Talarico were to win the Texas Senate seat that they would be our favorite senators based upon the politics coming out of Texas. But at the end of the day,

[Brian Reed]

be my favorite one out of Texas.

[Emma Viglund]

But Talarico. But just a quick note on it, but Talarico's theory of politics is actually a lot more productive than Crockett's. And that's what I like coming out of it. I'm a little bit more bullish on this being a significant improvement than if Crockett won that primary. He goes to all the counties and campaigns everywhere. The coalition that he's accrued of Latino voters could actually break the Trump 2024 coalition. So just from a pure electability standpoint, this is a success.

[Sam Seder]

I think the electability question was answered with the Democratic primary.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, Definitely.

[Sam Seder]

If you can't win the Democratic primary, you're probably not that electable. It's not like Talarico was running to the left. Dramatically to the left of Crockett I don't think is from an issue standpoint anyways. All right, in a moment we're going to be talking to Brian Reed and Michael Masnik on the question of section 230 is not quite a debate, but they have different opinions on it and I'm sort of somewhere maybe in the middle, I'm not sure, but we'll talk about that in a moment. First, a couple words from our sponsors. You cannot out exercise a bad diet. A balanced diet is a crucial component of supporting healthy lifestyle. Nutrient gaps can still happen, however, due to genetics, due to dietary preferences and even modern farming practices that deplete soil of its nutrients. You don't really think about that that much. 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Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save. That was exactly my point. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.com majority that's ritual.com majority for 25% off your first month also. And we'll put the information in the podcast in YouTube description one of my big projects has been going more plastic free in my house for years. You've heard about this and the number one factor in doing that has been Blueland cleaning products. I used to carry home a huge jug of dishwashing liquid. I used to carry home a huge jug of laundry detergent. I used to carry home all these plastic bottles of, you know, spray window stuff and bathroom cleaner and multi cleaner. I no longer do that. Or and for the toilets as well, I have those like little bombs. Blueland is on a mission to make it easy for everyone to make sustainable choices. They believe that hardworking clean products can be the norm, not the exception, and you can do better for your family and the planet at the same time. The Blueland products are independently tested to perform alongside major blands and their formulas are free from dyes, free from parabens, and free from harsh chemicals. Blueland is a certified B corporation and certified cruelty free by Leaping Bunny. Their formulas are EPA Safer Choice certified and many have received the Gold Material Health certificate from Cradle to Cradle and Blueland's trusted in over 1 million homes, including mine. I've got the dishwashing tablets. They're fantastic. They're not wrapped in plastic so none of that stuff ends up in your dishwasher. I've got three color coded spray bottles with cleaners and you buy the tablets. First of all, it's also much I find it to be much less expensive. I have laundry tablets. I get the laundry extra powder for extra cleaning. I mean the whole suite of Blueland products are fantast. I've got the toilet bombs. You just drop the tablet in there. You don't have that big spray bottle. The plastic it really is. It saves you a lot of time. I don't know if it saves you time. Well, you don't got to go to the supermarket, but it saves you a lot of space in your your house or your apartment. Blue Land has a special offer for listeners right now. Get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com majority. You don't want to miss this. Blueland.com majority for 15% off. That's blueland.com/mainvance, get 15% off. All right, quick break. When we come back, Brian Reed, investigative journalist, host of Question Everything on KCRW and Mike Masnik, editor of Tech Dirt and on the board of the directors for Blue Sky. We're going to talk about Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. We'll be right back after this. We are back. Sam Seder, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. It is a real pleasure to welcome to the program. Brian Reed, investigative journalist, host of Question Everything on kcrw. Also the co host, the Trojan Horse, one of my favorite podcasts of a couple of years ago, Mike Masnik, editor of Tech Dirt and on the board of directors for Blue Sky. I should say I'm on Blue sky and I also read Tech Dirt. So this is fun for me, guys. About 30 years ago, almost, I guess a month 30 years ago and a month ago, the Telecommunications Act, I should not say the Telecommunications act, but the Communications Decency act was passed containing Section 230, which is really now the most famous part of it and in many respects largely the only remaining part after the Supreme Court dealt with this, my understanding. And Mike, why don't we start with you on this. This came out of a court case or a series of court cases, Cubby versus CompuServe and then subsequent to that, Stratton Oakmont versus Prodigy. And this comes out of there is a concept in tort law which hopefully my audience knows what tort law is. I go to the conference every year that being like when a harm is done, it is a civil proceeding against the corporation. And there's this concept of Good Samaritan. If you start to help somebody in some way, you gain more liability than if you just sort of walked on by and didn't try and interfere. And this case, Prodigy vs Oakmont, Prodigy was moderating. I can't remember what Oakmont was. They were some company. They were getting, I guess, besmirched because Prodigy moderated. It actually increased their liability. And Ron Wyden and I can't remember who the Republicans, Cox, Chris Cox, decided to really encourage moderation. Right. And tell us, pick it up from there and tell us what the what the idea behind 230 was.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah. And just so you're familiar with it, if you've seen the movie the Wolf of Wall Street. That was Stratton Oakmont.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah, I was just thinking that, yeah,

[Mike Masnik]

a boiler room operation. And somebody went on to prod Prodigy's forums and basically said these guys are scammers. Which, you know, hey, in retrospect, probably, but they didn't, they didn't like that and they were aggressive. And so they sued Prodigy. And the argument that the, the judge in the case bought was that because Prodigy set itself up as we want to be family friendly, which means we moderate, we will, you know, take down anything that we think is inappropriate. That meant that anything that they left up then they were liable for in any kind of torture lawsuit, which was what happened with Stratton Oakmont. And so Chris Cox and Ron Wynton said that is going to lead to very bad results. If companies that feel that they want to create a family friendly environment are suddenly facing massive, you know, potentially ruinous liability. They're not going to do that. They're going to just allow all of the worst stuff and not do any of the moderation that we want. So can we create a tool within the framework of the First Amendment that creates incentives for companies to moderate and the way that they do that? The struct of section 230, which you were correct in the beginning by the way, when you said the Communications act, because the Communications Decency act was tucked into the Communications act, was to basically say if you're an interactive computer service, if you're a website or app or whatever, or a user of one of those apps, we don't hold you liable as if you were the publisher of someone else's content that you do publishing related activities to, whether that is hosting, promoting, sharing, anything like that. We're not going to hold you liable, which means you can begin to do the kinds of moderation because you have the incentive structure that if you make a mistake, you're not, you're not going to be punished, you're not going to be sued. Out of business is really what it is.

[Sam Seder]

And so we should say there are two subsections that are the most important, I think of section 231 is C1, which has the famous 26 words. No provider or user of interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. And the second subsection, C2 says no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntary taken in good faith to restrict access. That's the moderation or Availability of material that the provider user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected. Okay. All well and good. But Brian, from your perspective, where are we 30 years later with Section 230?

[Brian Reed]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's an argument for why Section 230 was passed at the time, and there's an argument for it now still. I think my perspective on it and others, and I would say, like an increasing number of Americans who say they're unhappy with the way that the Internet is and how it's affecting our society is that a lot of companies haven't lived up to that Good Samaritan end of the bargain. And the bargain didn't require them to. It's not, you know, the law had no requirement that they be Good Samaritans. It was just a hope that they would be in exchange for this immunity. And I just think the evidence, the changing nature of the Internet, the growing power of a lot of Internet companies, even though this law does protect companies and non companies big and small, it does confer protection onto some of the most powerful companies in our society. And I think the evidence has increasingly shown they haven't lived up to that end of the bargain. And I think it's worth reconsidering it while really keeping in mind the effects it could have on free speech, which is very important on the Internet. But I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the tradeoffs that are involved in, you know, one of the stated purposes of section 230, which is to protect free speech on the Internet. It's also, I believe, allowed a lot of bad behavior.

[Sam Seder]

And I gotta say, like I, broadly speaking, that is sort of my perspective too. So Michael, from your perspective, is 230, like, is it sacrosanct? Should we not be reforming it? I mean, in 1996, I'm old enough to remember dial up and I was there and I remember getting my first computer in the, in the late 80s, I guess. But the, there was like 2% of people were online and it was a huge pain in the ass. And it wasn't, I mean, it. Do you think that Section 230 needs to be updated? And if so, how? And if not, why.

[Mike Masnik]

Sure. So I would argue, I mean, there's a few different things. One is, what is it that you're actually trying to accomplish? And Brian laid out a few different things that he's concerned about and we can go through them one by one. I don't think Section 230, either repealing or reforming it actually helps with any of the things that were laid out. So I, I think that Section 230, you know, I would keep it. I, I would, in fact, if, if I had a magic wand, this is never going to happen, I would expand its coverage. It's actually a lot more limited than people make it out to be. People think that it's the sort of wide blanket immunity that's not actually the case. I would actually make it wider. But the, it is enabling a lot of really important, valuable things online that we would absolutely miss if it were changed. And the, the idea that changing it suddenly makes these companies act better is, I don't think, borne out by the realities of the legal structure and what would happen. We can go into the specifics of why, but the thing that I always try and get at is the key point of Section 230 is that it's just about placing the liability on those responsible for, you know, violating the law for creating the violative content. The content. So if it's defamation, which is sort of the classic case, who actually said the thing that is defamatory, if it's something else, who actually is creating that content that creates the problem that violates the law? All the law is doing is saying we put the liability on that person, not this other tool that they used. We don't blame the telephone if somebody calls in a bomb threat. We don't blame Ford if somebody gets into a car accident of their, you know, because of their own driving activity. That is all that Section 230 is doing is saying put the liability on the person who's actually responsible.

[Sam Seder]

Let me just ask you about this. And Brian, if you want to jump in too, my understanding, like, when you talk about, I mean, the. And we can get to the sort of the analogy of the car, but if I'm walking down the street and I say, you know, Jim Stevenson, who's not a public figure, that that guy stole money, he is a thief,

[Mike Masnik]

I'm

[Sam Seder]

not going to get it sued by, you know, for defamation or liable in any way because there's no damages. Because I'm just saying it on the street. I mean, maybe if I had said it to, you know, like his boss or something like that, and he got fired, maybe there's an argument there, but there's no damages. The reason why there's damages in these instances, because I did it on YouTube and YouTube has an algorithm that may reward, reward controversy and promote something and then has the ability to project that to a million people. I mean, so how are they not in your, in the way that you have structured that? You said like it's got to be, you know, hold people responsible for the crime. But what YouTube did there also actually creates the tortious, you know, one important element of a torrent, which is the damages.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah. So it's, it is a different situation. There's no sort of perfect analogy. But the, the simple fact is that what, what role in that case YouTube plays is just the sort of distribution of content or the recommendation of content. Neither of which, if you separate it out from the content itself, violates the law. So even in those scenarios, if you were able to sue yout, they would still be protected by the first amendment, which would say that they are just sharing. They're hosting the content. They're sharing the content. They're recommending the content stripped of the, the specific content, which is, what if

[Sam Seder]

they're told, what if they're told, hey, what if I write in go, hey, I am not a criminal? Or Jim Stevens is not a criminal, here's proof of it, he was acquitted. Or, you know, and they're informed of it, do they have liability then?

[Mike Masnik]

So, so that scenario. So there's a case, it depends on where you are in. There are a bunch of very specifics, you know, within the scenario. So in most cases, what happens is if someone says, you know, people will always say like, oh, I didn't do it if a company like YouTube is not in a position to know they're not a.

[Sam Seder]

If I was acquitted.

[Mike Masnik]

So in, in that case, I mean,

[Sam Seder]

these things are provable.

[Brian Reed]

Sure.

[Mike Masnik]

So if you've gone through an entire court case and you have that ruling and you send it to YouTube, they will take that content down. That is actually something that all of the big companies will do if there is a court case and there is a ruling.

[Sam Seder]

But they're not, they're not obligated to.

[Mike Masnik]

They, they are, they are not obligated to. But in almost every case, because they know it reflects very poorly on them, they will. And in fact, that has led to people going around faking lawsuits, faking rulings. There's like, there was a few years ago, there was this whole story of this reputation management company that was doing that.

[Sam Seder]

But so Brian, let's ask about that. So, you know, this is. We're at that point where I think you might take issue because it's really up to a reputation for YouTube here. But there's no legal. They are actually immune in that instance, I mean, if.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah, I mean, Mike, I agree with you. Like, I agree with, like, very strong protections for all First Amendment protected speech. I just see more and more things coming out of these companies that does not appear to me to be First Amendment protected speech, but that has been protected and shielded from being litigated in court by section 230. So, for instance, even just in the last week or so, there's this big case moving forward in New Mexico against Meta that the Attorney General is bringing for their negligence in protecting minors from being contacted by suspected groomers online. The Attorney General held a sting operation where he found that Meta wasn't doing a lot to stop this. One internal document that came out shows that the algorithm and Meta knew this was recommending the accounts of minors at a rate of four times to accounts that they had flagged as suspected groomers than to regular adults. So the algorithm was seeing that these suspected groomer accounts liked the accounts of minors more and recommended it four times as much. I'm just not sure that that is First Amendment protected speech that we need to have a shield around. And I'm, you know, so, like. And there's, like, a bunch of examples like that, you know, but can I. Have been traditionally protected by section 230.

[Emma Viglund]

Can I ask, though? Is that. But. But the behavior that you're describing there is criminal and is. Involves.

[Sam Seder]

Facebook's. Is not.

[Emma Viglund]

Sorry, Facebook's.

[Brian Reed]

I'm not sure it is. It's a civil suit in New Mexico. And I think it is true that criminal behavior is not protected by Section 230 or shielded by Section 230. But those civil courts have a really important role. Like most criminal behavior is a really high bar, and First Amendment protective speech is also a really high bar in the criminal courts, which should apply. But that is not a criminal case against Facebook. But until this case moved forward on a product design case, you know, there was no recourse for. You know, and that is. I know it's different, but that case is something we arranged on a phone. I know what you think about that, Mike. Does that prove to you that section 230 is working or that something has gone wrong, that it's moving forward? I'm very. I'm genuinely curious.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of these cases, and each one has different specifics. And I think that, you know, we could get into the. The deep weeds, but I don't think

[Brian Reed]

we want broadly skirting section 230 by arguing product liability. Right. That's generally the legal Legal theory.

[Mike Masnik]

So basically where the, where the fight is right now is that a lot of people are trying to get around 230 by arguing products liability. There may be some cases where I think that could be an interesting area to explore. But I think a lot of the cases are really, you know, they're, they're, they're just trying to get around 230 and they don't have a real case underlying it. They're just arguing that it's, it's products liability. When you look at what is the product liability really for, and it gets back to the underlying content specifically. And then you get into a First Amendment case. You know, in, in certain situations, it's not always true and each case is different. So it's, I don't know if we want to get specifically in there, but, but it is important that, like, for all the talk of, oh, 230 is giving these companies this blanket liability, we're seeing all of those product liability cases dismissed on 230 grounds and move forward. So I, you know, whether or not,

[Brian Reed]

but it's taken a long time. And we've talked to the lawyer, talked to a bunch of the lawyers, and they say they expect these companies to keep bringing up 230. It's a constant hurdle that they're able to throw, you know, even once there's been a ruling that a case can move forward to a certain extent. So, and I would argue it, you know, it's taken this long to get these cases because,

[Emma Viglund]

so then could, I mean, is it there a possibility of 230 being amended to, say, include some of, you know, what you're talking about there, Brian, which is facilitating something related to child abuse? I'm sorry, you can expand on an example again, but is it possible that you can amend it while still having the speech protections in place for, say, creators on these sites?

[Brian Reed]

I mean, there's been a case study here that didn't go great, which maybe, Mike, we were about to bring up.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Reed]

You can take it. But yeah, there was one amending basically to section 230 that carved out liability when knowingly facilitating sex trafficking, basically. And there were a bunch of unintended consequences essentially, and it didn't really do a lot arguably to help sex traffickers or sex trafficking victims.

[Emma Viglund]

What were those unintended consequences?

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, so Sesta Foster was the bill. And again, it's one of those things that sounds good in theory, which is obviously sex trafficking is bad. So we're going to carve out part of Section 230 doesn't apply to anything that is facilitating sex trafficking. But what that did in practice was it, you know, forced sex workers offline. There were various communities that they had or various services that they use that companies were saying, oh, we're going to get sued for this and therefore we can't have you on these platforms. You had things like Craigslist shutting down their, their entire dating platform because they were afraid that, that if anyone used it for sex trafficking that they would get held liable for it. EBay, that was removing LGBTQ content because there was fear that they would be accused of sex trafficking. Even the very few lawsuits that have showed up under Sesta Foster were sort of ridiculous. Salesforce.com got sued because they were providing the CRM for that backpage used to manage their advertisers. And so they got accused of sort of very, very indirectly enabling sex trafficking. So there were a whole bunch of things and, and even worse was that you actually had law enforcement, you had police come out and say that back when there were services like Backpage around, they actually cooperated with the police. And so if they were trying to track down actual sex traffickers, those tools were really useful with the, with Sesta Foster sort of shutting down all those Internet services, it became actually harder to track down those who were actually engaging in sex trafficking. So you have to be very, very careful about how you calibrate these things and sort of the consequences that come out of them can often be the opposite of what you actually want.

[Sam Seder]

And we've touched on those failures of Sista Fosta. I mean, I think concurrently too, when that was up. But I want to get back to the part about it is in the best interests of these corporations, particularly the ones that have monopolies in many respects, but regardless to respond if they're told even though they have no liability associated with it. Because I'm thinking about, I think it was Xeron versus aol. This is a case where somebody, basically the scenario I had laid out, there was a Xeron, some guy was associated,

[Brian Reed]

guy living in his parents house in Seattle. Real estate agent. Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Who, who was, who was Xeron, who was somehow associated with the attack in Oklahoma?

[Mike Masnik]

No, he wasn't associated.

[Sam Seder]

He was associated on these. He was random and he wasn't involved whatsoever. But he was associated by like some advertiser. I can't remember the exact details, but it had to do with like, like his number on some like, it was

[Brian Reed]

like merch, like come to Oklahoma City, have a blast like a month after the city bombing and then it had his number on it.

[Sam Seder]

So I mean, from your perspective, Brian, I mean, you make the case as to why AOL should have had some liability there once they were told this was happening and they, and they didn't make that case that they should have, if that's your.

[Brian Reed]

I mean, I'd rather make the case with like a current like case. Like, honestly, like, I think, like, I don't know, I think about this story that Reuters just broke in the fall where a reporter there, Jeff Horowitz, got a hold of. And this has to do with the same idea of like, if a company knows something's happening and they're still not liable. Like, I think it gives you a picture of what it looks like inside a lot of these companies behind the Shield of section 230, which we're starting to get more of a picture of only because of whistleblowers and a few lawsuits moving forward. Otherwise it's really hard to get that picture. And you know, in the fall, Reuters broke this story where they got leaked a bunch of documents from inside Meta showing that Meta estimated that last year they were going to make something like 10% of their overall revenue was going to be from scam ads, ads for scams and banned goods that they knew were scammy and banned goods, I think like $16 billion. Their own, you know, internal like judgments made it like they're like a pillar of the scam fraud economy in America. Like a third of all fraud happens on meta platforms. And some of the most shocking like data to me had to do with, they have algorithms and ways of judging the likelihood that an ad or a account that's providing an ad is scammy. And it had to be over 95% sure in order for them to consider taking it down. So if it was 90% sure that this was a scam and it was going to steal their users money, they left it up and they took money from the advertiser. And then something like, I have the number here. It's like they were getting hundreds, they get a hundred thousand complaints from users about scam ads in a typical week and they'd only look into 4,000 of them. And they know that they're making, you know, 10% of their revenue on this. So I, to me, that's a picture of what it's like when you don't have liability for your behavior.

[Sam Seder]

Right, but I want to just hear, Michael, how does that justify it?

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, so there, there are a bunch of specific things there too so, so say, say you were to change the law. So say, okay, if you believe that there are, if you, you know, run this test to determine if there are scam ads on your platform, you will be liable. What is the first thing that lawyers, the, you know, thousands of lawyers that Mark Zuckerberg employs.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't write the law that way. I would say we're going to have a standard. We, you know, this is not a, the concept of a reasonable standard in all aspects of the law is, is ones that we have and that would be developed through case law. There could be maybe some statutory implication. But you know, I think if you have, you know, I think we can all agree looking into 4% of scam complaints is probably lower than we think is reasonable. Maybe looking into 99.9%, maybe that's a little bit much to ask. But if you have a 95% assuredness, and we now know we can also obligate companies like you got to run a reasonable assurance of, of scams if you want.

[Brian Reed]

One expert who I really respect like her proposal, is that you lose the immunity of section 230 if you show a deliberate indifference to this type of content. I mean, to me that's what those numbers show.

[Mike Masnik]

So, so yeah, again, so let's, let's, let's take an example like that. So if you do that, suddenly you're making it so that basically the only company that will, will host those kinds of ads at all are the largest companies in the world. And I actually think part of the problem is that these companies are way too powerful. And we need, you know, more smaller companies and smaller communities out there.

[Sam Seder]

But doing it, let's put a requirement on it. I mean, we do this in OSHA and other things. If you have a certain amount of employees, if you're a certain amount of revenue, if you have a certain amount of users, we could, we could, we could easily do that. Right? Sure.

[Mike Masnik]

But again, like immediately, then you begin to bring up all sorts of issues with, with that where, you know, we, we see that in other instances where then companies start to game that and you have subsidiaries and all these things, everyone starts to, to, to game it, but it just creates more, you know, more compliance costs, more legal issues that generally the larger companies are able to handle and the smaller ones aren't. Even if it's just like, you know, okay, well, if you're, if you're smaller, we let you out, but you still have to be then monitoring how close you're getting there's all sorts of things that get into. I'm not saying it's. It's the worst solution in the world. It's better than certainly some that people are talking about, but creates all of these compliance costs that historically we see that tends to lead to more consolidation and more power of the biggest guys who are able to have. Have the building full of lawyers who can handle it.

[Sam Seder]

How can we have more consolidation?

[Mike Masnik]

You absolutely could. There are more Internet companies out there than Facebook and Google. Right?

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, I am, I'm compelled by this a little bit because I think what we're talking about here is there's a major issue of scale and the amount of content that is constantly posted on these platforms. And my deep concern here as we're talking this through is how are this incentivizes broader censorship in my view. Maybe because these corporations are going to take the stance, it would seem to me, of more censorship because they don't have the capacity to monitor all of the posting on their platform. And so it means that broader rules are going to be what protects them from more liability, which is more censorship and stricter rules in terms of what content can be published. Like, why are we even go. My question is, why can't we go about regulating these companies outside of the auspices of section 230? That doesn't give this incentive to these corporations?

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, I would say it's. In some ways it's even worse than that because it's not just that the companies will put in place more rules and be more aggressive about it, but it gives effectively a heckler's veto for any particular content. Because if there's any content that someone doesn't want out there, and let me tell you, there are tons of people who don't want certain content out there. They just send a legal threat. And it's the threat alone is often enough for the company to say, man, you know, the, the risk of having to fight this or argue back on it if. If that is a 5, $10 million take down the content. And so you do get a vast censorship regime. And I think you're exactly right. There are other levers out there that aren't. I don't know why everyone is zoomed in on this one law as if changing it somehow fixes the problems that we see. Because there are problems. You know, I think all of us agree that we don't like this world in which a company like Facebook or Google have as much power as they have. And I think that the focus on 230 is misguided because there are things out there, there are privacy laws we could have that I think would be really helpful. There's antitrust enforcement, obviously, that I think would be helpful if done well. I think a lot of it has been done in a very messy way. There's a whole other law that I think is actually more in all this, and I'm going to bring it up even though we could go down a whole other rabbit hole. But the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act I think is the worst law that has really led to most of these problems. Brian, if you want to do a whole podcast on why we should fix the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, I would do that. There was a whole situation where someone built a company to try and help people get their data out of Facebook and Facebook sued them saying they violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse act and won and killed that company. But getting your date your own data out of Facebook seems like a good thing that would enable more competition to exist and they were able to shut it down. So I think there are other laws that we should focus on messing with 230 is just a recipe for.

[Brian Reed]

I mean, I would love for regulation to work. It's just, it's hard to. First of all, like, when you think about what the FCC is up to right now, or do we really want to be empowering them to have more of a wet, you know, of a leverage over these, these companies that are already doing bidding without it, you know,

[Mike Masnik]

but that's what changing 230 would, would do that, right? I mean, that would give the FCC more power right now. Like the first sort of review of 230 in 2020 was by the FCC.

[Sam Seder]

Would the FCC necessarily.

[Brian Reed]

I mean, it's opening up a free market liability.

[Sam Seder]

Would it, would it, would it give the FCC more power to regulate or would it simply allow for more civil action?

[Emma Viglund]

Action?

[Mike Masnik]

It depends. I mean, because technically, as we said at the beginning, the 230 is in the Communications act, which is, you know, the FCC's authority. You know, there is an argument, but, but the, in 2020, the FCC under, in the first Trump regime made the argument that they had the authority to interpret section 230 and determine how different websites should or should not be using 230 as a, a, you know, as a, as a tool. And so any messing with 230 in some sense can go back to the FCC to determine, to interpret how that law should, should be enacted. And right now we have someone in Brendan Carr who will absolutely use that and he made it clear in 2020. You can look back at what Brendan Carr said about 230 in 2020 and see what he would do if we were to amend 230 now.

[Brian Reed]

But Brian, is true that that is like, you know.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah, yeah, no, you can respond. I just wanted to ask you a more direct question about this, but keep going.

[Brian Reed]

I was gonna say like it is true that that is in, for instance, Project 2025, you know, have, you know, empowering the FCC to interpret section 230. To me, I gravitate more towards reforms that give agency to more Americans to bring suits and make a case in court. I'm worried about the consolidation of rules and regulations in authorities like the FCC in this area. That does involve a lot of speech that concerns me, frankly.

[Emma Viglund]

So, so my question there is what how if we're looking at the perspective of like say a Facebook or a publisher or YouTube. Right. Google, whatever.

[Sam Seder]

They're not a publisher. That's.

[Emma Viglund]

Sorry, sorry. Yeah, they are, but they can't be held. They can't be held. This is. All right.

[Mike Masnik]

So everyone gets into this thing where they think like, oh, you know, 230 means you're not a publisher. No, it means you are. They're encouraging you to do publishing activities, to edit, to recommend, to take down. Those are all publishing activities. The whole idea is that you get to do publishing activities. You get to be a publisher without being held liable as a publisher.

[Emma Viglund]

Exactly, exactly. So my, my then, then. But the amount of content that is being produced on these platforms on a daily basis is, is. It's so, so, so so much. Right. It's. It's impossible to tally. Is it not the most obvious incentive for these tech companies to create as many restrictions, to have a large umbrella that restricts the content that is published on their site if Section 230 is repealed to avoid the constant litigation that is going to be involved here, here, which has the effect of severely limiting speech. Like where is it not in. If section 230 is repealed, is it not their direct financial. In their direct financial incentives or best interests to do what I'm describing here?

[Brian Reed]

I mean, repeal and reform could be different things, but let's, let's take the drastic like repeal version. I'm not convinced of that. None of us know what a world without section 230 in the Internet would be like. We haven't had it in any sense of the modern Internet. I think it's very possible that the profit motive with some of these companies is so strong that it wouldn't change drastically. It might change some. And also I think there's a conflation sometimes with Section 230 and the First Amendment, which I love and desperately want to protect. The First Amendment doesn't protect tech companies and social media companies and the scale of speech that we have necessarily.

[Emma Viglund]

But I'm talking about the profit motive too. But, but my, but my point is, is that if they're tied up in litigation constantly, does that not affect their bottom line in the same way that you're talking about? If not more than.

[Brian Reed]

No, I think there'd be changes, but I don't know that to be as draconian a censorship regime as you're imagining. We don't know that's what's concerning.

[Emma Viglund]

Because you're also talking about a time period before there was this amount of consolidation amongst tech companies where like it worked for a little while until there was right now.

[Brian Reed]

I mean, take the flip side, Emma. Like, like you have TikTok is now owned by Larry Ellison and River Murdoch and whoever else. So they can do whatever censorship regime. I was just gonna argue completely opaque. We have no very worried about censorship. Get discovery and see what's happening. So I just think, I think there's two ways to think about it. Like right now.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I just to reiterate Brian's point to add to this from my perspective, like every, every sort of apocalyptic vision we have of them being overly, overly concerned because they're going to get sued is already existing now. But that's ideological with people who know. Not just ideological with. No, but in YouTube. YouTube. I mean, I can tell you they

[Brian Reed]

reinstated Donald Trump like account and gave him money rather than exercising their section 230 prerogative to keep them off the platform.

[Sam Seder]

But I will also just say like as a commercial thing, like, you know, having gone through the ad apocalypse, hadn't gone through all of, all of this stuff. I know that YouTube has different rules for different, different content creators. I mean it is completely like there is the idea that it's just like we let everything go. No, they have their own set of rules in which they do this stuff. There is no recourse whatsoever. And so the idea that somehow specific types of like we're talking about a fear that it's going to chill. They're going to like take a hatchet it and be censorious in that way because they want to be afraid. They're afraid of being sued. I'm not a convinced that they would do that and that they're not doing that now. I mean, the reason why they don't, why they don't want the obligation of having to moderate on this level and why the idea was this is going to make it safe for these companies to moderate is because they don't want to expend the manpower that it would require because it cuts into their bottom line. And what I'm suggesting would, I think, undermine a lot of businesses in various ways. I don't necessarily have a problem with that. In the same way that like when I was on radio, I'm like, let's put the fairness doctrine back in. Yes, it creates a burden, but so

[Brian Reed]

like, I'd be interested to see these business models if they have to take into account some liability the way that I do and you guys do on your show.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, exactly.

[Mike Masnik]

But, but I think, I think, I think you're. Brian, is, is overstating the case that we don't know what happens if we change it, because we do have examples of other regimes and in particular in the US we have the DMCA in the copyright world because copyright is exempted from section 230. And we see what happens with copyright. There's all sorts of things where content gets taken down based on bogus DMCA claims all the time. And in fact, the fact that you're on YouTube, that YouTube is basically the only platform for video that is, that is big enough to be out there that everyone uses, is the direct result of a DMCA regime that is problematic because there was a really big competitor called veo, which was backed by Michael Eisner and was supposed to be the big winner because it had the Hollywood backing. And they got sued under the dmca and the case went on for many, many years and they won. But by the time they won, they were dead. They had spent all this money fighting the case and YouTube was the only one left standing because of that. So we have that example we have in Europe, they have, under the gdpr, they have this thing called the right to be forgotten. And there have been studies on how many people have used the right to be forgotten to try and get content taken down. And the studies show that over 50% of the requests are illegit legitimate. But the companies feel obligated because they don't want to go through the process of having to litigate every one of these things. Same thing with the dmca. There was a study, it's a little bit old now, but there was a study of DMCA requests and that showed that over 50%, I think it was like over 60% of them were false DMCA requests. They were not legitimate copyright takedowns. But companies still take it down because they don't want to face the liability issue. When you change that regime, you giving, you're giving people a tool to take down copyright content or you're creating this, this massive amount of, of compliance work that is going on. We're waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on a DMCA case right now. That also is, is representatives. If you increase the liability, you create real difficulties for, for companies that want to host content to the point that only the biggest companies will be able to do it. I,

[Sam Seder]

I am very sympathetic as, as an entity that has, has been sued for the most ridiculous of things from a copyright standpoint and had to settle because it's like I don't have the resources to go up against. I'm, I'm very sympathetic to that. However, and frankly, just more coincidentally than anything else, I'd like to loosen copyright laws not because of the lawsuits, but because I think I would like to see this information be free. But it seems to me be that, you know, with any compliance like building codes, it's a pain in the ass. But then again, the building stays up or is more likely to honestly that like there's trade offs. There's no doubt about it. The question is like, what are we trading off? And you know, from a. I'm not just concerned about like sort of the health of a business per se. I'm concerned more about the health of a society. And you have to make a determination that our structure that exists now is creating a overwhelming benefit to society that we can't tweak in some way. And I find that hard to believe in this era that, I mean, there's one vision of the Internet in 1996 and then it's what it looks like today. And it's pretty hard to argue that,

[Brian Reed]

that

[Sam Seder]

because in the absence of the civil system for mo, for, for enforcing moderation of some form. Right. We're getting other entities that are in many ways worse. You follow me? Like, you know, it would be nice.

[Brian Reed]

Just a heady thought that like, has affected my thinking because, you know, this has been an evolution for me too. Like, I have the generally had a very absolutist view of like, more speech is better the more, you know, you, you, you answer speech that you don't like with more speech. But I heard, I did an interview with a reporter named Natalia who makes the case that the noise Is the new censorship that like the volume of content and the overwhelm of content is actually a new form of censorship. And it helps me to think about that and to not just think as you know of like kind of an overly traditionally censorious company as the only way that we're being, that the ability to speak and to have speech register, you know, is being overwhelmed and that the tools of the Internet are being co opted by authoritarian or authoritarian or wannabe authoritarian regimes. And I don't know, it's been helpful to keep in mind and like has helped. Has played a role in my thinking as well.

[Mike Masnik]

But even if that's true, even if we accept that, and I think there is some, some truth to that, to some extent the, the, the way to deal with that has been historically algorithmic recommendations, which is one of the things that many people are now pushing to exempt from 230 which will create all, you know, won't help that situation will actually make it worse. The ability to have the good stuff rise to the top and, and get rid of the, the, you know, the, to find the signal and the noise is the, you know, the way it's often phrased is you need the tools to do that. And if you don't have a 230 protecting that, then it, there's a liability risk. Right? There's a, there are a whole bunch

[Brian Reed]

of people accountability mechanisms. You can imagine, Mike, that would give us more accountability over the algorithms and not just like hoping that there's like kind of like more user control, but actual, I don't know, regulation or I

[Sam Seder]

was going to say like legislation. How is the algorithmic conventions that we're living under now helping in that way as opposed to hurting?

[Mike Masnik]

Right? I mean, it depends. So one, it can always be worse. So, so be careful about, about what you wish for. This is what we found.

[Sam Seder]

Get rid of algorithms. The algorithm's not going to be worse. But it is true.

[Brian Reed]

Like you could use an algorithm to, to you know, screen out deep fake, you know, intimate images, for instance. That's a use of an algorithm which is a good use. Yeah, right.

[Mike Masnik]

I mean like every.

[Sam Seder]

But it's not a profitable one.

[Mike Masnik]

No, but no, it, I mean to some extent it is, right? I mean like every trust and safety team right now uses algorithmic tools to handle things including searching for and getting rid of CSAM and reporting it to ncmec. And like these things matter. But there are, there are, in fact there are studies. There was a study done by NYU a few years ago that looked at they sort of forced people into not using algorithmic feeds and they found that they saw more disinformation because the tools actually tend to filter out some of the disinformation. But the real thing to me is sort of who controls these things? Right. The, you know what, what, what I want is for more users to have control over the algorithm. And what it is that they're, that they want to see that they can indicate to the algorithms or they can design the algorithms themselves or have options over what algorithms. The problem comes when the only person who has control over the algorithm is Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. But that's not a 230 issue.

[Brian Reed]

Well, it could be. You could leverage 230 to do that. That that's something people talk about.

[Mike Masnik]

See how. I mean, again, like you begin to get back to a First Amendment question in terms of, you know, it is an editorial decision making thing of, you know, what content.

[Brian Reed]

You're just saying you don't get immunity. It's not a First Amendment issue if you're just saying you don't.

[Mike Masnik]

But then you get back to the same thing, which is what we started this out with is, okay, so you take away that you still have the First Amendment to rely on, people are going to sue, there's going to be all of these lawsuits, and the only companies that can afford those lawsuits are the big ones.

[Brian Reed]

Well, you, how do you get companies to do what you're saying to give users more control rather than kind of like shout.

[Mike Masnik]

I mean there, there are other mechanisms beyond just the law, right? Beyond just the regulation. So in my case, like I'm working with Blue sky to encourage them to do it. They have algorithms that you can choose, you can make your own, you can do what you want with it. And if we see more people saying like, oh, that is a better solution, one that I will adopt then, and that, that puts pressure on other companies.

[Emma Viglund]

Well, that's where we, that's where we'll have it. That's the, that's the rub is. But, but Mike, I mean, I, you're, I was so with you until the like basically we can't. No, we have to compel corporations to do that. I mean, there's.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah, it can't be a hope in a way.

[Mike Masnik]

If you want to do that. How do you do that with the First Amendment in place? Right.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, but because it's an editorial decision, guys, it seems like the solution is doing this outside of section 230 and like, I'm just a Little bit more skeptical about the idea that civil liability in and of itself is going to be the thing that. That is a solution here. It seems like it's anti monopoly and congressional regulation. That's the, that's the solution.

[Sam Seder]

Well, section 230 is congressional regulation. It is, it is one that says they're not subject to me.

[Emma Viglund]

Okay. Additional. But I think I can give an

[Sam Seder]

example, I can give an example on, on how you leverage section 230. Is that to the. To get the section 230 protection you need to do X, Y and Z, you need to provide this amount of transparency in the algorithm. Like if Twitter wants Section 230 protection, they need to provide the same amount of transparency as Blue sky does in Twitter in terms of the algorithm. That's one way to leverage it. Another way to leverage it is to say like you know, I mean those. To me you could say there's a strict level of liability where there's an opportunity where things can be dismissed in easily in a summary judgment if these basic requirements haven't been fit. I mean I think like the, the chastity around section 230 is. Where I have a difference is I am willing to pay the price for some regulation and constraint on these things because in my mind it evens the playing field for corporations right now. What you're talking about in my estimation happens already with corporations. It just happens based upon on where you're situated. No,

[Mike Masnik]

I will reinforce this over and over again. It changing 230 in the way that you're talking about gives way more power to the big companies because the changes that you're talking about things around like transparency and stuff, you still run into the First Amendment problem. And Facebook will the First Amendment problem the transparency in terms of what you recommend. The First Amendment issue is could, could the government go to Fox News and say we need transparency into how you choose which stories you lead with.

[Sam Seder]

Fox News doesn't have immunity in that respect. I'm just talking about the First Amendment.

[Mike Masnik]

I'm talking about the First Amendment though

[Sam Seder]

because I'm sorry, this is different because Section 230 is a carve out in liability in tort liability law and the government can put a requirement as to what makes you eligible for that carve out. This is not a restriction on free spend speech. You will have exactly the same rights that Fox News has and obligations.

[Mike Masnik]

Okay so but we, we already have have a case like this which is in California. They passed this age appropriate design code which tried to do something like that which was trying to require transparency in algorithms. And it was thrown out on First Amendment grounds because they said the real reason behind it was an attempt to interfere in the editorial decision.

[Sam Seder]

That's why you need to leverage 230 because 2:30 does not exist in nature. 230 is not in, in the Constitution. So if you want 230 protections, you must meet certain standards.

[Mike Masnik]

But the standards that you're setting there involve speech. And the First Amendment is going to apply. So what if. What, okay, so let's, let's use that mechanism that you want. But why do you have to focus it on 230? What if you change the mechanism? What if you say that it's antitrust law? What if you get, you know, a freedom from antitrust law if you make the algorithms transparent? There are other tools out there. Again, like I would focus on two thirds.

[Sam Seder]

I want them subject to antitrust law. I don't want.

[Mike Masnik]

I know, but I'm saying we live in the world.

[Brian Reed]

It's not happening.

[Emma Viglund]

But there's also, it's different than Fox News being a publisher, than the amount of millions and millions, billions of people who are publishing on these sites. Sam. So that's the difference here is, is

[Brian Reed]

that like, that's just like a too big to fail argument. Like

[Emma Viglund]

we're not talking about journalism and journalistic standards. We're talking about billions and billions of people posting all the time and creating an incentive for a mega corporation to create, to broadly censor because they want to avoid liability. This is why. I don't understand why this conversation is purely within the context of civil liability. It feels like the wrong area.

[Sam Seder]

What, what other area?

[Emma Viglund]

You mean the other area is. Is, is congressional regulation. Additional congressional regulation about what terms about

[Sam Seder]

regulation makes the basis for the civil.

[Emma Viglund]

I understand that that's the basis for section 230, but I'm saying that basically you can have it in terms of like both regulating the algorithms to a degree. You can go around it and I mean, what I listed before, now I'm completely blanking on, but I'm confused a little bit as to why the why this is the basis for.

[Brian Reed]

Here's why. Emma. I think of it that way. One of the ways I think about it and listen, I'm open to other ideas. I just don't see, you know, like, I haven't seen like, really compelling paths there. Section230 is this extra thing that Congress gave to this class of Internet service providers. And once you. So it is, it is this, this stick that you can Use there's. Once you start having Congress make laws about what, like they can't make laws about what content is harmful or not. Like, to me, that is where I get tripped up. Like, what is Congress going to do? They're going to say this type of content. We have to be able to see the algorithm. Like, I don't want them doing that. You know, I would much rather like take the framework that we've had for a long time in other scenarios and kind of import more of that. We have this relatively new framework that's 30 years old for the Internet that goes beyond, in a lot of cases, very strong First Amendment protections. And yes, it might mean, it might mean a less, less volume of speech. The First Amendment doesn't protect that volume of speech necessarily. Like, it doesn't mean that you have a right to get algorithmically boosted to millions of people that is not protected by the First Amendment.

[Sam Seder]

Michael, the government can't stop you from saying something. Yeah, we provide gun manufacturers immunity from torts that involve the design of their, their product that if used correctly in a way that we don't for car manufacturers, in a way that we don't for other machine whatever. I mean, I think it's, it's rather unique. Do you think that's a fair analogy?

[Mike Masnik]

No, guns aren't speech. I mean, that's, that's what it comes down to. Right? We're talking about regulating speech. That's what this is. Everything on the Internet in some form or another is speech.

[Sam Seder]

Then why do we. I don't need, why do we need

[Brian Reed]

even, like, even an algorithm?

[Sam Seder]

Why would we need 230 minors? First Amendment? I mean, if, if 2:30.

[Mike Masnik]

No, that's, that is a good question. It's a question that comes up. A lot of people will say, well, if, if all you're saying is true, that this all goes back to the First Amendment, why do you need 230 in the first place? And the simple fact is, is that 230 is, it's, it's a procedural benefit to the First Amendment. What it does is it gets the cases that would lose on First Amendment grounds tossed out at the, at the earliest stage when it is less expensive. What if you want to do a First Amendment case that you have to go through summary judgment, you might have to go through trial.

[Sam Seder]

It.

[Mike Masnik]

Someone figured this out recently in terms of like the difference of cost. If you're using 230 to get out of these cases, it's in the range of 50 to $100,000, which is expensive for. For me at least but like for. For a larger company that's. That's doable. If you want to win the exact same case which you will win on First Amendment grounds you're talking 5 to 10 million dollars. So at that range it becomes existential for smaller companies. And so you. You make it impossible for smaller companies to exist and you put more power in the hands. If you're just relying on the first Amendment you are giving much more power to the biggest companies. If you have 230 is this procedural benefit that allows you to get out of these cases at the earliest stage very quickly and say you can't bring this case because 230 protects it. You can have smaller companies, you can have competitors, you can have new entrants into the marketplace and you can take away from the dominance of the Googles and Facebooks of the world.

[Sam Seder]

And and230 is written perfectly in that respect.

[Mike Masnik]

I mean it's. I think any messing with it will almost certainly make it worse. Every attempt I've seen at reforming it will make it worse worse. If you can show me a reform that makes it better I am open to it. I'm happy to talk about it. I have not seen one yet.

[Brian Reed]

Brian, do you think there's any way you like and I'm genuinely curious on like if you replace 230 with a national anti slap.

[Mike Masnik]

That is. That is about the closest I've. I've thought about that. I've talked about that a lot. I think one that would help one. I think we should have a national anti slap plot. We should have a. In every every. Every state. I think that they should be stronger and and do more even anti slap

[Sam Seder]

laws just for people are are laws about bringing frivolous lawsuits and ones that are meant to intimidate.

[Brian Reed]

It's a similar procedural tool that's state by state where you know if you get sued for speech that's clearly like the lawsuit is vexatious. You can get it thrown out right.

[Mike Masnik]

And and make the other side pay your. Pay your legal fees in some cases which I think is really important as well.

[Brian Reed]

Do you think copyright thing as a replacement would. Would. Would solve some problems?

[Mike Masnik]

I think that that would. That would solve some problems. I don't think it would solve all of the problems. I still think you would want something 230 like to handle a class of problems that 230 has protected that an anti slap law would be more difficult to in terms of how they protect also to get an anti slap successfully has proven to be fairly difficult. The procedural benefits of 230 still stick in place. If you look at how anti slap laws have developed and how they're being used and where they're being used, it's been harder to actually enforce the end or make the anti slap laws useful. And so like maybe there's a world in which you could build out the anti slap regime, but I think what you would end up doing is effectively getting back to 230 free to make it that effective in the first place. But yeah, like that would make sense

[Brian Reed]

to solve for is like I feel uncomfortable saying we have to accept an algorithm that feeds minors at a higher rate to groomers in order to pervert preserve free speech online. Or we have to accept like a, a website that is facilitating illegal gun sales that are then used to kill people as speech in order to protect speech online. Like there has to be a way to thread this needle.

[Sam Seder]

That's specifically referring to arm's list, the arms, which we should just talk about. And we're running out of time here. We've got a little bit long, but I find this, personally, I find it fascinating. And so what are you going to do?

[Brian Reed]

Sometimes wonky but good. I appreciate it.

[Sam Seder]

But the algorithm part, if algorithms were not given 230 grease or protection, however you want to refer to that, you, your problem with that is just that the absence of algorithms aren't going to help. Or is there some other problem with it?

[Mike Masnik]

Mike, there's a few things. One, the absence of algorithms won't help in the way that people think they will help. There's lots of people who insist that algorithms are just inherently bad. They don't realize how much they actually do rely on algorithms. And algorithms are in fact very useful. You know, search itself is an algorithm. Finding the stuff that you want is

[Sam Seder]

broadly speaking, it won't be. You think think it's. But do you think it's problematic in some other way?

[Mike Masnik]

So yeah, I mean again, it gets back to if you were to exempt them, who, who is actually going to be willing to still go through the process of, of using algorithms that will be useful for people? And it's the big companies because they can afford the legal liability. And again, so therefore you're putting more power in the hands of a Facebook and a Google and less in the, in the hands of smaller upstart competitors. And I think the world needs more upstart competitors that can chip away at, at Google and Facebook dominance.

[Emma Viglund]

Can we agree on antitrust? How about antitrust?

[Mike Masnik]

So I'm all for antitrust, but antitrust is slow and messy and has been wielded by, you know, not well, by our government. I think there are ways to reform that and change that and make that better.

[Sam Seder]

230 isn't necessarily leading to a more 230. We've lived under 230 regime. And let's be clear on what's happened with the Internet. Internet, it's gone like this. It's not gone like that. I mean it's gone in one direction and it's not slowing.

[Mike Masnik]

It can, it can be worse is what I'm saying. There are, there are competitors, there are new, new companies that show up all the time that are trying to chip away at these companies. You don't see that as much in the copyright space. YouTube is the, the really the dominant and only player. You don't really see competitors showing up for YouTube because you have this worst liability regime in copyright under the DMCA that nobody else can really handle other than YouTube.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, okay. And the arms list. Just address the arms list case. This is a story where someone was able to use arms list which was like a, basically like a, you know, almost like a Craigslist, I guess. Right. But for.

[Brian Reed]

It was a marketplace for guns, online guns.

[Sam Seder]

And there was no sort of moderation as to whether this is an illegal sale or a non illegal sale. And somebody got bought a gun at like a McDonald's from somebody and then went out and shot somebody,

[Brian Reed]

shot his wife or his ex wife. And people then they tried to sue arms list for liability and section 230 protected. And I just, I, you know, I just wonder if you, you know, if somebody was putting up Michael address now

[Sam Seder]

like what is that a, is that, is that, is that a good thing about 230 or.

[Mike Masnik]

Well, I mean, I don't, I don't think that the scenario is good, but I do think, I do, I do think 230 was used properly in that case. And I actually filed an amicus brief in that case. I do think that, that, that was, that did come back to a 230 issue. Because if you were to set it up where anyone who was a marketplace was potentially liable for the sales that were made for what is then done off platform. And outside of that, you create a world in which, which no one will offer you any marketplace service at all or it will only be Facebook again. You will only have a Facebook marketplace. So I think you need to sort of recognize what is the, the. And again we can look at what happened with Fosta sesta. As soon as there was liability, we lost all of this. These other services that we actually, I think a lot of us thought were very valuable and important services that got taken away. And so you can say, like, yes, here's this one. Bad use, really problematic use, but, like, we have criminal law to deal with the fact that someone went and shot someone, and like, that's where that should apply, rather than trying to throw in this other thing like, oh, we also get to sue the marketplace.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, gun control largely is built upon the idea that we're not just going to wait till someone shoots somebody. It is that we're going to inhibit the sales of guns outside of, of specific channels.

[Mike Masnik]

Right. And then, but, you know, then you have the whole Second Amendment issue, and we're already spending so much time talking on the 1st. I don't want to mess up.

[Brian Reed]

What do you think about this idea? Like, I, I'm sure you know her, but I, you know, this professor, Marianne Franks, like, her proposal is, and I believe she worked in the arms list case, is to change the word information in the first part of section 230 to speech. That she argues that the word information is as, what you don't get liability for is too wide and actually goes beyond First Amendment protected speech and is what allows, like, an arms list scenario to happen. Like, would we really consider someone putting up posters on, like, telephone poles in your neighborhood saying, come get a gun. I won't check you, you know, if that's First Amendment protected speech. And then number two, you know, putting this basically saying, like, you don't get the immunity if you can demonstrate that there was deliberate indifference to harmful content. And again, harmful will not be defined by Congress. It would be litigated in court.

[Mike Masnik]

Yeah, I, I think that, that there would be, it would be very difficult to have that actually work. I think the, the distinction between information and speech that Marianne makes is one that I've never seen a court agree with. I mean, if she can get a court to agree with it, that'd be interesting. But I've never seen that the courts look at, is this expressive in some form or another. And whether that is information or directly speech, I haven't seen them make that distinction. I think it's interesting that she's, she's suggested that, but I, I, I don't quite understand why she thinks especially this particular Supreme Court would ever buy into that. And so I'm, it's interesting. I appreciate that Marianne is out there trying different, different ideas, but that one,

[Brian Reed]

what about the second part, which I think is the more important part, you

[Mike Masnik]

know, sorry, explain the second one again.

[Brian Reed]

You lose them, you lose immunity. If it can, if you can show, if it's shown that you had a deliberate indifference. To me, that, to me that, that's Facebook essentially getting a hundred thousand complaints about scam ads and essentially taking action on none of them.

[Mike Masnik]

So delivered indifference. You know, again, like, I think that becomes really tricky in practice because as soon as you, you enter this, this possibility of saying, well, oh, okay, you were, you were indifferent to, to the potential harm, you have now taken away the procedural benefit of Section 2 theory that we talked about, because everyone will sue and say no matter what your decision was, you were procedurally indifferent. And if you can get past that motion to dismiss stage, which was the, the inexpensive out, and then you have to go through to summary judgment, you make it really expensive. And therefore you again, create that sort of, of censorship regime where you just send the threat and the fact that we can take you to court and we're going to cost you a million dollars, it's easier to just remove the content.

[Brian Reed]

I don't know. How's it different? Actual malice.

[Sam Seder]

We've got to wrap this up. But I would deal with that by saying this applies to companies that have $100 million a year revenue. I mean, you know, like. And yes, you always have that problem, but we're going to pretend like we're $99 million and we're going to be six different companies. But we deal with that in the law all the time. But we're gonna have to save this for another day. Not 30 years from now, but maybe on the next anniversary. This has been very helpful for me.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Although I, I haven't changed my mind.

[Mike Masnik]

But I, I just, I'll keep working on it.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, you won the free speech absolutist. A and B. The expansion of free speech and to protect corporate rights, I think is actually has its own dangers when it comes to all sorts of things like OSHA and labor laws. But that's for another day. Brian Reed, Michael Masnick will put links to both of your shows and Tech Dirt and kcrw and obviously we'll give your Blue sky handles as well. Thanks so much, guys. Really, really appreciate it.

[Mike Masnik]

Thanks, everybody.

[Emma Viglund]

Thank you.

[Brian Reed]

Appreciate it.

[Sam Seder]

All right, folks,

[Emma Viglund]

it reminded me a little bit of when I first started here. I think I had some skepticism about like the, that you got. We had a small debate about which I think was like, if a bar owner should be able to be sued if somebody gets really drunk at the bar and then drives drunk and kills somebody.

[Sam Seder]

It is similar. Yeah, it is a. And, and there's something similar. And I said yes. And you said no.

[Emma Viglund]

I didn't say no. I just, I don't necessarily. Like, I understood Bernie Sanders for not basically supporting the fact that gun manufacturers be able to be sued based on how people use their weaponry.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, I definitely think you should be able to be sued because it's, it's a carbon out from every other, from every other utility that we have, supposedly on second amendment grounds. I don't buy that.

[Emma Viglund]

I'm more like ambivalent about that. I guess I'm just, I'm, I'm curious about like, I'm, I'm a little more skeptical of like the civil litigation being able to solve some of these problems like this. But I know you go to the Tor conference twice a year.

[Sam Seder]

It's hard for me to make fundamentally. I don't believe that. I know I go on to playgrounds and I see that those rubber mats in New York City, that is a function of tort law. Everything we know about cigarettes, function of tort law.

[Emma Viglund]

I'm not saying it doesn't have a very important place, but with some of these trickier questions where like it's legal to buy a gun, does it make sense that the gun manufacturer should be held liable for how the person uses it? I'm not sure that that, but that's something that I believe.

[Sam Seder]

If you can design a gun so that a 5 year old can't get it and accidentally shoot themselves, I think there's an obligation to do so.

[Emma Viglund]

Agree, agree.

[Sam Seder]

That is.

[Emma Viglund]

But I mean then that comes like, but that you can go at that through regulation or you can go at that through civil liability, but we have a corrupted Congress that isn't going to do that.

[Sam Seder]

Well, the distinction you're making is not as cut and dry like the civil liability would exist. But. And in fact we do have that regulation. You do. There is a, there is laws that basically say you can't manufacture a product that's going to be harmful in and of its nature if it's used properly.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

And the gun immunity is actually another law that exempts the guns from that obligation. Same with 230.

[Emma Viglund]

It's a more extreme example. But I just, I think 230 presents. Repealing it presents way more problems than even that scenario that we're talking about here. Which is like what, what it incentivizes these mega corporations that have such monopoly Power over our platforms to regulate in terms of what's posted on their platforms. I mean, that. That's. That's my fear. That's my fear.

[Sam Seder]

Well, that's. I mean, that was Masnik's point.

[Emma Viglund]

I. He won the. Over. Over. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

All right. I guess it's weird seeing a debate

[Brian Reed]

on this show that doesn't devolve into like a libertarian screaming at Sam.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, I'm being slightly libertarian about some of this stuff.

[Sam Seder]

It sounds a little bit Libertarian is to me, that is like when we waiting on corporations to do the right thing.

[Emma Viglund]

You've ever said to me.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about magic. But you like second order.

[Emma Viglund]

Sure.

[Sam Seder]

Second order stuff.

[Emma Viglund]

Sure.

[Brian Reed]

I'm fencing, but I'll go. I'm basically authoritarian against the copyright claims person. So whoever can get those out of my hair, I will. I will be behind.

[Sam Seder]

Now I'm also. I'm open for loosening that, but I think like property is being protected. I think with the 230 and with the copyright laws, frankly, like, I think there's a reason why, you know, but. All right. Should we. What should we do?

[Brian Reed]

140. So we're doing a freebie.

[Sam Seder]

We're doing a freebie Wednesday.

[Emma Viglund]

Wow.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, A freebie Wednesday.

[Emma Viglund]

Can I quickly take a break then for just a second?

[Sam Seder]

Sure, go ahead. I'll read some IMs. Triple flops. Mom and dad are fighting. David Davo down. Dunder lawyer. I don't even know her. Turbo flink. Happy Friends day, folks. The US doesn't have a government. It has a bunch of call of duty addled 12 year olds pretending to be a government. To make matters worse, Chuck Schumer's attitude is effectively mindfuhrer. The power to increase the use of gas chambers lives with the Reichstag. While Strawmer appears to be determined to remembered as Tony Blair without the charisma Colonel Berner. We get it, Sam. You hate freedom and you hate America. Sickle up economy. That was a great chat with a lot of compassion. Good on you for having it. Definitely think the algorithms need oversight, especially in social media. Me too. Me too. Cole from Little Rock, don't know if you saw this, but in Arkansas county elected sheriff last night who was awaiting trial for murder. Most folks down here praise the man without stopping to think what they're asking for. The Wild West. When you're free to use violence whether or not it's lawful.

[Brian Reed]

One thing that people forget about the Wild west is that often including figures like Wyatt Earp would impose a strict gun control regimen on new entrants to the town where you'd have to check in with the actual sheriff. And actually, that's my position on the second amendment. I think people should have a right to guns, but I think you should have to deal with the game and fish type departments. And we shouldn't even have private gun sales.

[Sam Seder]

Cauliflower. Brad Lander is called out for reforming the Supreme Court in order. No. And adding additional seats. Let's see more of this from politicians.

[Mike Masnik]

Okay. Brad.

[Sam Seder]

Kaju beetle says. Wow. Sam, take it back. Sorry. We. You believe we should have IDs in order to operate a toaster.

[Brian Reed]

Oh, remember that? The 2016 Libertarian Convention?

[Mike Masnik]

Yes.

[Brian Reed]

Vermin Supreme. That was my guy. I remember him as much. I remember the freaking toaster guy. The seatbelts.

[Sam Seder]

Vermin supreme was the guy who wore

[Brian Reed]

the boot on his head.

[Mike Masnik]

That's all I remember.

[Sam Seder]

So, Molly Gray Jetty Jetty Jedi. We want to hear alpha males are back.

[Brian Reed]

Oh, well, sorry we're not going to the fun half today.

[Sam Seder]

Henry, another daily reminder for the clip the soundboard saying nasty. Very nasty. Sam saying nasty. Very nasty. Ad hominey. Since when is attacking someone first defense. Marco, the Brazilian good news. That's. That's the way you tell me? Yes, Sam, it is the rule. You don't mean rule of jail? County jail.

[Mike Masnik]

That's just boot camp for prison.

[Sam Seder]

Marco, the Brazilian good news. Nashville city council blocked Elon Musk from building a stupid boring company tunnel. Sweet.

[Brian Reed]

Oh, really?

[Mike Masnik]

I mean, it's crazy.

[Brian Reed]

They just saw a groundbreaking for a Australian subway tunnel that looks so much more impressive than anything Elon Musk has done.

[Mike Masnik]

And we.

[Sam Seder]

They have multiple cars going through it at the same time. Or is it just gonna be a

[Brian Reed]

giant train carrying multiple multiples of people that could fit in a car.

[Sam Seder]

But wouldn't it be much easier if you had just like 12 cars, right? Like each holding one person.

[Mike Masnik]

We.

[Brian Reed]

We live in a cargo cult.

[Sam Seder]

Which. Oh, let's get to our friend Chuck Schumer. Here is.

[Emma Viglund]

I sent this clip in our slack last night with some expletives that gives you an indication of what we're about to watch.

[Sam Seder]

Chuck Schumer is reportedly now trying to prep the Senate. Now, understanding if you're going to have more funding coming from the Senate, obviously also from the House for let's say a supplement to fund all of the new bombs that we need to buy to drop on Iranians Republicans for their free ints and peence. You're going to need A veto proof majority in the Senate to pass this in the House. Theoretically, there's still enough Republicans to pass it without any Democratic votes, although I'm sure there'll be a couple in the Senate. Fetterman, it sounds like, is willing to vote for as many new weapons as possible. And this is based upon what is anticipated for the War Power Act. All the Republicans will vote for it except for Rand Paul, maybe Mike Lee. That dude. Forget that dude. He's not even pretending anymore. Are scheduled to vote against the War Powers Resolution. But it gives you a little bit of a preview of money that is going to be given. Now why would you, so why would you, if you were voting to enforce the War Powers act that Congress needs to sign off on this, why would you then support more money for the war that you said is not. Is illicit? Because you haven't gotten congressional approval. Well, if you were really confused and had only one agenda and your name was Chuck Schumer, that's the answer to that question. Here he is talking about preventing a nuclear. What is that country that starts with an I.

[Emma Viglund]

Do you think Israel, you know, forced

[Sam Seder]

the U.S. s hand here, boxed the U.S. in on this? Look, no one wants a nuclear war. No one wants a nuclear Israel, but we certainly don't want an endless war, plain and simple.

[Mike Masnik]

What did I say?

[Brian Reed]

Nuclear Israel. Oh, no, got it.

[Sam Seder]

Let me say that again. No one wants an endless war, but we certainly don't want a nuclear Iran, that's for sure.

[Mike Masnik]

Okay, okay.

[Sam Seder]

Now, you know what's interesting about. I mean, aside from the fact that he made a little Freudian slip there.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah.

[Emma Viglund]

There's only one country in the Middle east that has nukes and that is Israel.

[Sam Seder]

What's interesting is in the second formulation sounds a lot worse to me than the first formulation. Right. I mean, in the first formulation he's saying we don't want any. Meant to say a Iran with nuclear weapons. Now, of course, he's the guy who voted against the Iran nuke deal which inhibited them from getting nuclear weapons. But let's just take him. You know, he made a little mistake. He's getting older. These. I go through this myself and I'm not quite as old as Chuck Schumer, but in the second, in the second construction, we don't want a forever war. But that's a limiting principle on how much we don't want a forever war. But. But we don't want Iran to have nukes. So in other words, words, we don't want a forever war. However, it's okay to have one if it prevents Iran from having nukes.

[Emma Viglund]

Well, I mean, at least it's not just an argument right now on the basis of procedure. Whether or not Trump has come to Congress to ask for authorization for this war, it has slightly more political salience when he's speaking about what, another endless war, another forever war. That seems to be the line. But then when you look into how much many exit ramps there are for Chuck Schumer and his Zionist ideology and his deep desire to collaborate with the fascist administration, you can see where the issue is there. Okay, no endless war. So do you support what Trump's proposed timeline is that he said to the New York Times of four to five weeks as we arm the Kurds and say, here's your time to seize the government and we're going to make it really clear that the CIA is funding you? Will that go over well domestically in Iran that hates US Intervention and our support for the brutal Shah and all of that cultural memory there? And then the first part is even more egregious, conceding that this action was or backing the idea that this action, this war crime, was about preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Iran has not been in, like, like, seriously developing a nuclear weapon for decades. That's what US intelligence says. That's what US intelligence has said since the beginning of the 2000s. But the Zionist lobby wants this as a pretext to destabilize Iran because it's the greatest threat to Israel in the region. And the Greater Israel Project means that we have to take over more and more land, including in Lebanon, and, and Iran supports Hezbollah and they fight back against us in Lebanon. So, I mean, it's just. It's really. It's really disgusting. And the Politico has this article where they're talking about the supplemental funding for Iran, and it seems like there's this emergency funding package that's coming up. Chuck Schumer's quote is, before you can feel satisfied about a supplemental, and I haven't seen it, you have to know what the real goals are and what the end game is. Chris Coons, Democratic senator from Delaware, Biden's, I would say, protege, says he expects the Pentagon will send Congress a supplemental funding request and vowed to, quote, make sure we are making all the investments we can to keep US Troops safe. So when you look, read between the lines there, what does that mean? They are trying to prime the public and their base to say we're going to support the supplemental funding package for Trump's illegal Criminal war in Iran. Fascist collaborator, resign.

[Sam Seder]

Let's go to the idea of that Chuck Schumer is so concerned about a nuclear armed Iran. Now we have had report after report after report after report after after report. I mean, I'm being literal now from the CIA that Iran is not near and in many instances not pursuing the building of a nuclear weapon. And we've had counter report from Israelis, counter report from people who want to go to war. We heard from the foreign minister of Oman that the Iranians had agreed to no stockpile of uranium enriched material, which meant that it was impossible for them to build a bomb under those auspices. And the next thing we heard from the White House and the Israelis is we need to bomb them then in that instance. Here is a report from David Rhode on msnow. Witkoff apparently was on Hannity last night saying that the Iranians had enough enriched uranium material to build 11 nuclear bombs. And it turns out this is going to be shocking. That was a lie.

[Brian Reed]

I had the same questions about no real explanation about why this had to happen. Now as you. He brought up something that we've actually done some reporting on. It's basically claims that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. And this is something Steve Witkoff talked about in a Fox News interview a couple nights ago. And we contacted people with knowledge of the negotiations. Witkoff claimed that the Iranians bragged that they had enough enriched uranium for 11 nuclear bombs. It was a Sean Hannity interview. People who were present during the negotiations said that never happened, happened that the Iranians never made that statement. And in fact they said we have enriched uranium because we started enriching uranium again after President Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal President Obama negotiated. So it's a continuation of the administration struggling to explain why they had to do this now. And in terms of the objectives, you know, I was struck like you. It's just they're unused. We talked about exquisite, you know, standoff munitions. At one point he compared it to a football game.

[Sam Seder]

And at the end he was sort

[Brian Reed]

of talking about, you know, pushing the throttle up.

[Sam Seder]

Waging war is one of the most

[Brian Reed]

serious things the American government can do. Six Americans have lost their lives already. And so it's, he seems enamored with the ability of air power alone and these bombs to break the will of Iranian forces. And maybe they will and this is a terrible regime and maybe they will be toppled. But I'm still concerned about the strategy the administration has here. And I still think that the objective is unclear.

[Emma Viglund]

We're going to Have a guest tomorrow, Professor Robert Papan, who's going to talk about how it's a complete lie. When you look at the historical examinations of using air power to try to topple regimes, that there's a 100% never, never, never happened.

[Sam Seder]

Never happened.

[Emma Viglund]

You need ground troops. It necessitates ground troops. And that is what we're hearing in terms of what some of the options are that we're hearing coming out of that classified briefing that the Democratic senators spoke about yesterday.

[Sam Seder]

And I also want to be clear, because if we were moving into this posture again, being at war, six American servicemen have died. When I listened to my morning AP feed, there was an extended story about one of them. It's heartbreaking. A father talking to his son on Saturday, and then he's gone, and they can't believe it. And the sister. I mean, it's horrible. There's been at least 1,000 Iranians killed, and we know that at least 100 plus were children.

[Emma Viglund]

And

[Sam Seder]

even when this guy talks about why this is not a good idea. We're bombing Iranian forces to topple the regime. No, we're not.

[Emma Viglund]

Nope.

[Sam Seder]

We're bombing Iranians. Some are Iranian forces, but others. And some are. But others are infrastructure to make Iranians suffer. Or it's just we're bombing Iranians. Just civilians. To make them suffer. People who, according to the own premise of this conflict, have less of a say over their government than we do. And so, you know, as we move forward in this, and I went through this with Iraq, you know, the. It is. It is inevitable we're going to have US Service men and women killed. And it's horrible. They don't deserve to die. Neither do Iranian civilians deserve to die. And frankly, you know, I don't know if Iranian soldier. I mean, we can't go into each individual in person, but. But it is just be conscious as we get the news reports of how. And we saw this obviously with Israel and Palestine, but it's going to be sort of a little bit closer to home where the loss of a US Service person is going to be considered a horrible, horrible tragedy. The deaths of 100 children in a school in Iran is going to be,

[Emma Viglund]

you know, a mistake if it's mentioned at all. I'm not even hearing it at all.

[Mike Masnik]

On Was mentioned to Hegseth yesterday, and

[Sam Seder]

he said they're investigating.

[Emma Viglund]

Oh, I'm sure it's gonna be.

[Sam Seder]

It's a mistake that we're investigating.

[Brian Reed]

Clay Travis said it might have been the Iranians themselves, but the point Being that before.

[Sam Seder]

The point being is that, you know, human beings are human beings. And it is one thing to be able to justify this, at least in your own mind, when this is a kill or be killed situation, if we don't. If we don't fight back against it. But there. No one has been able to even make a remote, like the remotest argument that Iran was a threat to anyone.

[Brian Reed]

They know our intelligence services have undercut that claim.

[Emma Viglund]

Yes, yes.

[Sam Seder]

We should just keep that in mind.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, if we want. The one funny clip on this is the Mark Wayne Mullen one.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, yeah, it's good. Mark Wayne Mullen. I mean, let's just go through the people who are. Are defending this action. Some of them can't even explain what it is. Mark Wayne Mullen is the guy who got the short straw, I think, in the Senate. And they're like, you got to do this, dude. And he's like, really? Okay, so wait, can somebody just give me some talking points? No, get out there. Get out there. You can do this.

[Brian Reed]

Try not to say anything.

[Sam Seder]

Can see this as war.

[Brian Reed]

We haven't declared war. They declared war on us.

[Sam Seder]

But we haven't.

[Mike Masnik]

Secretary Hex.

[Sam Seder]

We haven't declared.

[Brian Reed]

They've called it war.

[Mike Masnik]

What I was saying. Okay, well, that was misspoke. What I was saying that they've declared war on us.

[Sam Seder]

But. But war is ugly. It always has been ugly. But we're, you know, we're at a.

[Mike Masnik]

We're taking out a regime that's been trying to attack us for quite some time. But you're not.

[Sam Seder]

He doesn't want to say it's a war.

[Emma Viglund]

Apparently when he came up, there's a longer.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, there's a longer one where he walks out and he goes, look, this is war.

[Emma Viglund]

Yes.

[Mike Masnik]

And then they go, I'll find that.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, this is war. And they say, oh, so you concede this is war.

[Brian Reed]

No,

[Sam Seder]

that was a mystery. Doing war. We're not doing war.

[Emma Viglund]

They're doing war. By being bombed by us.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. The classic. They say it's war, but only because

[Emma Viglund]

we bombed them and killed their leader and are bombing their. The capital of their country and the biggest city in the country. Country.

[Sam Seder]

They didn't bomb us, so we're not at war. You understand the way that works, right?

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

You're only at war if you're getting

[Brian Reed]

bombed and never mind those soldiers dying.

[Emma Viglund]

I do love this new.

[Sam Seder]

That was friendly fire. So that could have happened anywhere. That could happened over North Carolina. Well, we had, you know, the friendly fire and Fighter?

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah, yeah, the friendly fire one. Those people survived, I believe. But no, it was the. The bombs in Kuwait, I guess, the six that were killed.

[Sam Seder]

But that wasn't in America.

[Emma Viglund]

Right. And I just. The new rules of engagement in the Trump 2.0 world is if Washington, D.C. were to be repeatedly bombed and a school of over 100 girls were to be bombed by the Iranians, and Trump and Melania were to be killed by the Iranians, plus a bunch of other cabinet officials. It's not a war.

[Sam Seder]

Well, it would be for us if we struck back.

[Emma Viglund]

That's true.

[Sam Seder]

We would. If we start, then nobody's waging war on us.

[Emma Viglund]

Exactly. Our response would be us being just absolutely bloodthirsty, horrible people. And responding in that way would be. This is warmongering.

[Sam Seder]

This is complicated. So let's go to someone who we can appreciate a little more, the one Democrat who seems to be in favor of this, at least vocally, and he will explain this to you. Here is. What's that? Okay, here is Fadiman. We only have a brief clip of this. This is. He is speaking after the intelligence briefing on the US Attacks. Go back just a little bit there. Matt's got it at 43 times speed.

[Mike Masnik]

You know, we can't even maintain our

[Brian Reed]

core responsibilities to keep our government open. Open, you know. So right now, would you change your position on war powers in terms of a ground invasion into Iran? What?

[Sam Seder]

No, I. I'm saying it's like this is.

[Emma Viglund]

Should the US have done order to protect Americans who are now stranded of law?

[Sam Seder]

Israel received a warning on Friday before

[Emma Viglund]

this attack there, but there are many

[Sam Seder]

Americans in other countries now at that.

[Mike Masnik]

Anything else, Senator, concerned about with regard to retaliation here domestically? Any cells that we need to worry about? Anything?

[Sam Seder]

I don't have any specific kinds of

[Mike Masnik]

intelligence on that, of course, but, you know, our DHS system is shut down,

[Brian Reed]

so that's probably not great timing for that.

[Sam Seder]

And again, I'm the only Democrat that votes that's wrong to do that.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah, we all want to make some changes on ice, but we all know

[Mike Masnik]

that won't have any impact once they've done. And now it's shut down.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, okay. I feel like we're in good hands.

[Mike Masnik]

This is irrelevant, but how much help

[Sam Seder]

do you think it is to bend

[Mike Masnik]

your ear when you're trying to.

[Sam Seder]

I get. I get when you can't hear things, but one of the ways that I respond when I can't hear things is I'll do this because my hearing's not great. You Know, particularly after, like, 25 years of, you know, head science sets. One of the things I'll do is. What's that? Could you say that again? I couldn't hear you not.

[Mike Masnik]

I know.

[Sam Seder]

You asked me. That's like, what a 100-year-old man. The first question, incidentally, just can't. The first question was, will you revisit your perspective on the War Powers act if we put boots on the ground? I can't stand that phrase, boots on the ground, ground, because it's actually human beings in the boots. I have no problem. We want to drop boots on Iran. I'm open to that. It would be good for the boot industry in this country, and it would be maybe helpful for people if we just did it in the right way. But it's humans on the ground shooting at other humans and killing other humans. And he was asked, would you reconsider or revisit your perspective on the War Powers Act? And I think his answer was, and then turn away.

[Emma Viglund]

Why are you bothering me with this? Can I go to bed, please? God, it's like a. You see how it's a struggle for him just to even be standing there? Why not resign?

[Brian Reed]

Honestly, what's the point? Yeah, it's undignified.

[Emma Viglund]

Apparently, though, his dad is a big Republican, and he's in this, like, completely almost like, childlike mental state, and his dad is giving him all the praise. And so it's good to know you're doing good.

[Sam Seder]

You're doing good.

[Emma Viglund]

You're doing good, buddy. It's good to know that we have a senator whose mental and emotional capacity is so diminished that he's basically becoming a Republican because he's trying to make his daddy proud.

[Brian Reed]

There was the thing with Nixon's vice. Someone's vice president candidate in the Democratic Party. I forget what election it was, but it turned out that he was getting therapy, and that was Eagleton. Eagleton. And there was a huge scandal. He had to drop out of the race. Fetterman's whole thing has set that back about to exactly the 1970s, with his sort of be acting like he's a good example for it and then coming out and being this sort of atrocious, like, it's done harm, I think.

[Sam Seder]

Well, yes, I would imagine. But I mean, to be fair, you know, I would like to. It's obviously not possible to traverse time in this way. Way, but it would be fun to see, like, a mental competition between him and Dianne Feinstein. I was thinking Mitch McConnell. Now, Mitch McConnell just has large periods of time where he doesn't speak.

[Brian Reed]

But this would be a great TV show.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Brian Reed]

It's like, are you smarter than a senator?

[Emma Viglund]

But maybe Joe Biden can sub in for.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, he moderates it.

[Emma Viglund]

AI Dianne Feinstein at 92. We only use the data from the hearings on the Supreme Court picks. And then current John Fetterman moderated by Joe Biden.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Emma Viglund]

Boom. And that's what I want. Instead of the UFC fights on the lawn for 250. That. That's the real display of American competition. Yes, I want. Yes, yes, that's. That's my suggestion. And maybe the Republicans can get on board because it's all Democrats. That's my blood sport.

[Sam Seder]

I want to talk about the primaries, but before we do, I think this is important because we will give grief to politicians when they support things that we don't like. Right. But we never ever. Well, not ever ever.

[Emma Viglund]

But.

[Sam Seder]

But I think we should also acknowledge when they do say things that we do like. And it is a rare opportunity that you get to have those two different dynamics with the same person within, like, just a matter of weeks of each other. And so congratulations to Gavin Newsom. There's a saying, and I'm sure Brian knows this in New England, if you don't like the weather, than just wait. And that's the same thing with Gavin Newsom.

[Brian Reed]

They say that everywhere.

[Sam Seder]

I know they do say that. I found that out, like, the other day. But. But you'll recall when Gavin Newsom implied. Was it. Was it with like, with Van Lee?

[Emma Viglund]

Van Lathan. Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Lengthen asked them a question, not a particular, but was it about apac?

[Emma Viglund]

It was about if you were going to take APAC money and we should give credit to friend of the show, Jasper Nathaniel, who, quote, tweeted this clip and literally was referencing that. He said, it's interesting that Newsom is suddenly changing his tune on Israel.

[Sam Seder]

It's Medicare.

[Brian Reed]

Oh, maybe Jasper did the same thing.

[Emma Viglund]

Well, I'm reading from Jasper Street. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Everybody was doing.

[Emma Viglund]

I just find it interesting because this quote, that's the clip that happened with Van was when Van was asking him about AIPAC support, his response just a few months ago was was, it's interesting you'd ask me that. Implying that Vang was anti Semitic for asking that question.

[Mike Masnik]

So fixated. Van Lathan on.

[Sam Seder]

So fixated on the whole Israel thing. What a weird thing to do.

[Emma Viglund]

I just think it's weird.

[Sam Seder]

And do you recall, like, when he was on with Shapiro, Gavin Newsom was also sort of Like, I'm not into this whole Israel bashing thing. Well, well, folks, seasons change and Gavin Newsom does, too.

[Emma Viglund]

And he got some poll numbers back.

[Brian Reed]

Here we go. And a lot of Democrats have looked

[Mike Masnik]

at the Netanyahu regime and felt like,

[Brian Reed]

you know what, we don't like the trajectory he's on.

[Mike Masnik]

It's time to rethink the US Relationship with Israel, especially military support.

[Sam Seder]

We're just making that easy right now. Let's talk about that. But the issue of Bibi is interesting because he's got his own domestic issues. He's trying to stay out of jail. He's got an election coming up. He's potentially on the ropes. He's got folks, the hard line that want to annex the West West Bank. I mean, Freeman and others are talking about it appropriately, sort of an apartheid state. They couldn't even, I mean, we're talking about regime change. For two years, they haven't even been able to solve the Hamas, Hamas question in Israel. So this is, I mean, you know, I want to be careful here, but you know, in so many ways, that influence in the context of the conversation of where Trump ultimately landed on this is pretty damn self evident. And so Rubio may have been saying something else in the context of what he ultimately said in terms of being sort of pulled into some of the, of these things. But I will say this didn't surprise me in this context. I don't know if it's Napoleon. Whoever said about a sword, the only thing you can't use a sword for is sitting on it. And when you bring two aircraft carriers out there and you assemble the kind of military force that Trump did over the last few weeks, it didn't surprise me. Ultimately, they moved that direction.

[Emma Viglund]

Okay, all right. So I just. One second. Just a quick pause to take it point by point, point. So this is going to be the line from Democrats who don't actually want to fundamentally change our relationship with the genocidal colonial state of Israel. They are going to say it's Netanyahu and put it all on him. We played this clip last week. The leader of the opposition to Netanyahu, which includes kind of liberal slash centrist groups within the context of Israeli society, endorsed after Mike Huckabee came out, out on with Tucker Carlson and said, we want to support the Greater Israel theory, which is the expansion of the Israeli state into conquering land in Lebanon, in Syria and other countries around the Middle East. He said that he was basically all for that. So on the fundamental issues of Israeli society and the expansion of the state and the seizure of land. There is absolutely zero meaningful political opposition within Israel that's going to oppose this. That. So everybody that hears Netanyahu come out of the mouths and they're not being any sort of systemic critique about Israel from democratic politicians, should know that that is a signal that they are not going to be good on this issue. That's just, that's just the case.

[Sam Seder]

But, Emma.

[Emma Viglund]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Can you make an assessment of the politics of a country just because over the past 30 years, more than half of that Netanyahu's been prime minister? Can. Can you really just say, oh, they have put a literal terrorist in charge of the west bank and the finances of the entire government. He's in charge of that. Can you really just say that it's not like the government there. Like, what other, like what other functions does a government have besides spending money?

[Emma Viglund]

Right, right. That's just the fundamental point there.

[Brian Reed]

Well, we got more. He might turn it around in the second half.

[Emma Viglund]

All right.

[Brian Reed]

Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe rethinking our support for Israel?

[Sam Seder]

It breaks my heart because the current leadership in Israel, ding, ding, ding, is walking us down that path where I don't think you have a choice, but that consideration. I mean, to say this is in America's interest at a time when affordability is the crisis levels, where you had an administration who literally got elected saying this is exactly the opposite of what they would ever consider doing. The fact that we are in this now regional war, all these proxies, the fact that we, you know, and all the grift and the corruption that also marks a huge part of this. And that's a real conversation. We need to have this board of peace and the peace that the Witcoff family is getting in, the peace that Kushner is getting and the piece that Trump Jr. Is getting, that's the same joke that Elon did, that was also taken from somebody else, wasn't Mel Brooks

[Emma Viglund]

also, we're not going to allow you guys to pivot into just throwing chum to the audience about hating Trump and his cronies. The issue right now is genocide. The issue is a fundamental reorientation of our relationship with this failed colonial state in the Middle east that is like, that is dragging us into like. And of course, the Trump administration is complicit in this, as was Biden, but into horrific, horrific conflicts that have knock on effects for Americans, which I know they're supposed to care about. About.

[Mike Masnik]

Well, it's funny, him going on the, the affordability crisis. Like, I'll be honest, like, we just hacked rich people.

[Brian Reed]

We hate.

[Mike Masnik]

We can afford stuff.

[Sam Seder]

Wait a second.

[Mike Masnik]

Our obligations to this part of the

[Brian Reed]

world and our foreign policy have nothing to do with the fact that we can't pay rent. We should not be supporting Israel. Even if I could afford, if we could all afford to go to a new apartment right now.

[Sam Seder]

The other, I mean, sort of broader point about this clip, too, is that, that the idea that Gavin Newsom can go through a primary without having to deal with his twists and turns like he is going to fight to stop this billionaire billionaire tax. Billionaire tax in California. Billionaire tax in California. And then watch him if the wealth tax that Bernie Sanders is going to introduce and start to talk up if that gains any type of traction, watch him months from now, like, well, actually, I can see, you know, it's interesting. I'm heartbroken by this, but I'm starting to realize, like, maybe, maybe there's too much wealth concentration and we need to figure out some mechanism to deal with this. And. But I don't know. You know, taxing seems like a blunt interest instrument.

[Emma Viglund]

This is. Maybe we should do his record. If once people get past the fact that they're tickled by the fact that he has somebody who runs his social media who is online enough to understand memes, perhaps we can get into the substance of what Gavin Newsom actually represents, which is somebody who is fighting right now, as Sam says, to combat this billionaire tax. Somebody who is more comfortable with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and throwing and Ben Shapiro and throwing trans people under the bus. Bus than standing up for them. As he likes to look at his past support for gay marriage. Once it was a majorly popular position in the state of California as an example of his political bravery. But throws trans kids under the bus. That's easy for him. Just at the end of 2024, he vetoed or killed a bill that would have required hedge funds and private equity to have more rules and regulations on jacking up prices for prescription drugs. This cannot be somebody who represents the Democratic Party billionaire coward who goes where the political winds tell him to go.

[Brian Reed]

Some free advice and you know, I will not vote for him. But if he wants to make if

[Mike Masnik]

I was his advisor, you can't.

[Brian Reed]

Saying this stuff with Pod Save is one thing. Go you want to do Ben Shapiro show you want to do Dave Rubin,

[Mike Masnik]

whoever, you say this to them and

[Brian Reed]

then you see what happens and dig in there and then we'll be Interested. But this sort of thing of belatedly acknowledging what the people.

[Mike Masnik]

I mean, he just, he just basically chameleons whoever shows.

[Sam Seder]

Totally.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah. And, well, this as a contrast, like James Talarico's politics are not where we've talked about this is not, not great on Israel, not all of our politics, not great on Israel.

[Sam Seder]

It's also not running in the bluest state in the country.

[Emma Viglund]

But it's a contrast as to say, like, you know, Talarico, he supports the proactive. Our friend David Griscom has a really good piece in Jacobin speaking about this and how also he identifies a villain, the billionaires. Talarico will unequivocally talk about how the billionaires are the problem and that we need to be standing up to them with his message. In Texas, you can still be sort of moderate on issues like that and identify the villains in a way that, like, actually builds political power and builds a constituency that can be lasting. What I also like about Talarico and how he was able to win yesterday is the one, the constituency that he cultivated being a salient way to defeat Trumpism in 2026. He just was absolutely dominant in this primary with Latino voters, particularly in the south and western parts of the state. He ran up the numbers with Latino voters around Houston. Latino voters are key here to. Because Trump made such historic gains with them in 2024. He also was pretty dominant in the white suburbs. But, like, this is his appeal to those groups is like a path to victory potentially in Texas. But it's not just the groups that he appeals to, really. The fact that he identifies billionaires as the villain and he speaks about, like, Christianity in this humane manner, I think is like a potent antidote to the sadism of Trump in this era. So we'll see. But I was encouraged that he won fairly decisively in Texas last night.

[Sam Seder]

We're going to play this.

[Emma Viglund]

Oh, and here's a clip of him and his victory speech.

[Sam Seder]

We are not, we are not just

[Mike Masnik]

trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics, and it's working.

[Sam Seder]

The number of young people who showed

[Mike Masnik]

up to vote in this election is unprecedented. The number, the number of Texans who

[Sam Seder]

have never voted before but showed up,

[Mike Masnik]

up in this election is unprecedented.

[Sam Seder]

The number of independents and Republicans who

[Mike Masnik]

voted in this Democratic primary is unprecedented. This, this is proof that there is

[Sam Seder]

something happening in Texas tonight.

[Brian Reed]

Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope.

[Mike Masnik]

And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.

[Sam Seder]

I want to thank y' all, thank

[Brian Reed]

you for being here. Thank you for being in this fight. God bless y'.

[Sam Seder]

All.

[Mike Masnik]

Thank you

[Emma Viglund]

so. And I think all Crockett's comments about saying Latinos had a slave mentality also were circulated a lot and had an impact on this race. But, I mean, you know, she has strengths, too, and we'll see where her career takes her at this point.

[Brian Reed]

Where is it gonna take her?

[Emma Viglund]

I'm more encouraged that the candidate that's replacing her is more progressive and is actually a Justice Democrat. But I am just happy that her style of really individualized, factionalized politics that puts forward, like, this kind of clapback, I don't know, rot within the Democratic Party that's less focused on, like, collectivism and more on individual achievements. And, I mean, there's, like, a good amount of narcissism in how she campaigned. That that was dealt a decisive blow because that has had success in factionalizing Democratic voters and diluting the power of, say, like, the kind of insurgent, populous parts of the party.

[Brian Reed]

It was shameful of Allred and Crockett jumped in with both feet on it of the smearing of Talarico down the street, which was to paint him as, like, anti black, I think was disgusting and typical of certain parts of the Democratic Party. And it is very good that it lost. And hopefully we can turn the page on that sort of cynical. Cynical type of.

[Sam Seder]

That's the thing. It was just so cynical, and people saw through it.

[Brian Reed]

And there's maybe some people that don't yet, but everyone else is moving on.

[Sam Seder]

Meanwhile, here is the guy, Frederick Haynes, who is going to be. It's a blue district in Texas, all but assured to be the next congressperson from. What Texas? What number is it?

[Emma Viglund]

I'm not sure, but it's around Dallas. And this clip is from October 8, 2023,

[Sam Seder]

because I recognize that we got to be pro Israel. Yeah, we got to do that, or we get in trouble. Well, I'm coming to get in trouble. Israel, and I'mma quote Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter says that Israel is engaging in apartheid with Palestinians. And so the Palestinians, who don't have the weaponry of Israel, the Palestine Palestinians, don't have the financial backing from the United States that Israel has. And so they throw their rocks and shoot their arrows, and the Israel is able to bomb them and kill them. Watch in the news the disparity between Palestinians being killed and Israelis being killed. It is totally unfair. But this country is going to stand on the side of apartheid because that's its track record. It stood by apartheid in South Africa because it created apartheid in this country.

[Emma Viglund]

I would say it's a bit of an upgrade from Jasmine Crockett.

[Sam Seder]

It's so odd to hear a Christian

[Mike Masnik]

rhythm say something I believe in. It just. It's unsettling in some ways.

[Brian Reed]

And to draw back to the Jim Crow apartheid regime in America, I think is extremely important.

[Sam Seder]

Yep. Provide some context for. For all of this and understanding that this is not a. Something that's just cropped up.

[Emma Viglund]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

So that's a. That's good.

[Emma Viglund]

That's good.

[Sam Seder]

Pretty good. I mean, there's gonna be. This is gonna be the most successful year ever for Justice Democrats. And we don't really have the concept of the squad anymore. Right. I mean, but. But what we are going to have is maybe a platoon, larger, more diffuse,

[Brian Reed]

you know, for better and worse.

[Emma Viglund]

Right. Because like, you know, is Delia Ramirez considered a part of the squad? She's one of the best members of Congress that we have. It's not exactly clear.

[Brian Reed]

Half of the people we think of as a squad aren't even in Congress anymore.

[Emma Viglund]

Right. Well, that's true, but still. And Cori Bush running again. So.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah, people. Yeah. St. Louis, tap into Cori Bush. We need to take out Wesley Bell, which I think should be doable.

[Emma Viglund]

This is the year the Nita Alam race is a big bummer. Just to give people a little more context on that one, Valerie Fouche looks like she's probably going to win that primary by less than a point or around one point. Bernie endorsed Nita Alam, notably Alexandria Ocasio. Cortez did not. And I think that was probably one of the major factors in this race because Fouche is actually technically a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And.

[Brian Reed]

Oh my God.

[Emma Viglund]

I mean, So I, for AOC's purposes, I get not, you know, the Congressional Progressive Caucus trying to have some discipline around endorsements and stuff like that. It's not my favorite thing, but the overall point that we've tried to make on the show many times is that perhaps the CPC should have stricter standards and be a smaller bloc rather than have people like Fouche included. Cuz she'd sprinted to the left a little bit. And even her rejection of AIPAC money, but then secretly taking it via Hakeem Jeffries was a recognition of that. But I mean, perhaps people in the Congressional Progressive Caucus shouldn't take. Be, you know, should only be taking small dollar contributions or something like that.

[Brian Reed]

Chantel Brown, who's in Congress, Hernita Turner in Part because of record spending by the Israel lobby. Has taken more from the Israel Lobby than every other member of Congress from Ohio combined, including Republicans. But she's in the Progressive Caucus.

[Sam Seder]

Somebody on the IM is saying that they sent an email regarding Neta Alamo. I don't know if we can find that because we're not taking a. I can't find it at the moment, but the IM was saying. Let me get back to that if I can. No, won't be able to. I sent you an email this morning providing a little local insight into why Nida Alonso lost. I encourage you to check. You found it out. Oh, wait, there it is. Yeah, I think I got it too. Todd from Raleigh here. I wanted to pass on a little insight from the ground and why Nita lost, likely lost her race. I live in NC4 and I wanted to win. Wanted her to win very badly. And I'm grateful you had her on the show. However, it's worth saying that she did not have a good campaign strategy at all.

[Brian Reed]

All.

[Sam Seder]

It's just somebody's opinion, but they're in Raleigh and they're obviously a fan of hers. Her team did not deploy canvases effectively across areas she needed to do damage control in namely Chapel Hill and Chatham County. The Fauci name is a local political legacy family and people are primed to vote for Foushee by default in Chapel Hill. And she did not make a sufficient effort to make inroads with them in Chapel Hill or find new voters in Carrboro. When you lose by 1 percentage point, there's probably a wide array of things that could have been done better to have you in. Her team did not properly equip volunteers with training. Most volunteers only got literature in a minivan code. No training. A minivan code is fill into the app. The app that gives you information as to where who you're talking to. I can't help but think that that has to do with her burning local bridges. Nita has a history of siding with the party over grassroots organizers and she endorsed against the DSA slate for Dunham City Council. She voted against Durham county holding a county pride parade, but then hosted a private pride event that was a fundraiser for her and falsely accused the DSA aligned Durham City councilwoman of assault. She also never applied for a DSA endorsement and only started her campaign less than three months ago, but did show up to an electoral DSA event and took a picture with our local electors.

[Emma Viglund]

Okay, okay. Well, no, I mean, these are all notable. Perhaps DSA could have been more Helpful for her in that regard. I also just think, like, you know, we can also take away from this campaign something more broad, which is that with all of those pitfalls that you're speaking about, she became within 1 percentage points, also with a massive fundraising disadvantage against an incumbent. And it was basically because the incumbent had past associations with aipac.

[Brian Reed]

So it's about Nita and more about what the people wanted, which was almost to put her over the top. Despite all of that. Over a known name.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, build those relationships from the ground up.

[Emma Viglund]

Yep.

[Sam Seder]

Don't skip over because can be a thousand thousand votes make a difference. Yeah, I remember I lost by 14 for student government.

[Emma Viglund]

Class president.

[Sam Seder]

No the class president ever lost student government. But I was running as a sophomore, which is pretty rare. So. John Benjamin. John Benjamin didn't vote.

[Emma Viglund]

I didn't know we were in the presence of such political royalty.

[Sam Seder]

He's on the couch.

[Brian Reed]

Were you running against a legacy family?

[Sam Seder]

No, he was a J board guy. I mean, I liked him and we were friends, but I don't get into it. I'm not hanging on to that. Like, I did my SAT score. I get my SAT score. I'm a regular guy. I lost my first campaign. Well, actually it was my second. I mean, I won my first guy.

[Mike Masnik]

I'm an idiot. I got a 12 about lost my government job.

[Sam Seder]

I'm an idiot. All right, let's read five IMs and then we're going to get out of here. WTF? Cody James was the first politician I've donated to since I fell out of the coconut tree. I don't know what the sense is, but

[Brian Reed]

shout out Kamala Harris for getting in there with the late endorsement of Jasmine Crockett.

[Emma Viglund]

You know, she just keep showing how great her instincts are. Bonk.

[Mike Masnik]

Maybe she's got like a humiliation thing.

[Sam Seder]

That is really impressive though. Right? Like, people don't listen. Those are. They think about this stuff like, her team sat down. It was like, we got to do this.

[Brian Reed]

I took it as a very bad sign. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Crockett's like, no, the point is that it probably had absolutely no impact except to reflect poorly on. Right, right.

[Emma Viglund]

From a self preservation standpoint, lady, you're saying you want to run for president in 2028? I mean, I don't like making predictions and I want a Talarico to win, but I would not have done like a, well, robocall what she was doing calling within the final two weeks, like.

[Sam Seder]

Like, was it in the last two weeks? It was recently shorter than that.

[Emma Viglund]

It was late later in two weeks.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, that's the thing is, I think, like, if you're gonna jump in and do something, you know, and it's not like maybe, maybe there was, you know, maybe the only thing that we can't see is that there could have been, like, internal dynamics. There were friends on either campaign or there was a relationship there that like, somebody was like, please, we need you to do this. And she did it as a favor, honestly. I mean, that. That's the most likely, of course. Otherwise, like, what? Like, yeah, there wasn't. Like, Politico. Like, we don't know why Kamala Harris hasn't endorsed anybody in this race. Nobody was asking that question.

[Brian Reed]

The Dallas Dems are pretty powerful. And I think, like, that's where a lot of the Crockett support came from.

[Mike Masnik]

And that's.

[Brian Reed]

To me, it was always, is the party going to be more powerful or is it going to be this grassroots energy that looks like Talarico has and Tall Rico's grassroots energy won out.

[Sam Seder]

Well, that's the sort of the theme for this entire cycle, isn't it? Like, the party is not carrying the day in the vast majority of the really contested primaries.

[Emma Viglund]

Right. I mean, we didn't even touch on the Al Green piece. That was another Justice Democrat. Right. Who took that district? Al Green has been a good, good progressive, but that was more like he's just older and.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, who was it?

[Emma Viglund]

They were crammed into one district due to. Due to redistricting. The guy's last name starts with a C. I'm blanking on it.

[Brian Reed]

Looks like there's a runoff.

[Emma Viglund]

Maybe Christian. Yeah, there's going to be a. Yeah, exactly, A runoff. But maybe I'm wrong that he was a Justice Democrat.

[Sam Seder]

Bob Brooks for Congress has now been endorsed by the Working Families Party as well. He's in a crowded primary in the only Medicare for All. Bernie endorsed candidate in Pennsylvania 7.

[Emma Viglund]

Okay, I'm sorry, I don't think he is a Justice Democrat. My bad.

[Sam Seder]

Tack thumb.

[Mike Masnik]

A ponytail, though.

[Emma Viglund]

No, no, Green. Green's good.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, yeah, tack them. I know there's a lot going on, but with Kansas's attack on transgender people, that is sure to be followed by more states. I would love you guys to have someone like Aaron Reid on.

[Emma Viglund]

Yes, yes, I know. We need to talk more about that story.

[Sam Seder]

The good news is in New York, Tish James has four. I can't remember what hospital. I think it was Mount Sinai had cut back on its trans care for people under the age of 18 for minors under the age of 18 and because they were threatened by the federal government. And Tish James says you cannot do that. Ad hominey. Since when is attacking someone first defense?

[Brian Reed]

When you're a hegemon.

[Emma Viglund]

Orwellian America toilette.

[Sam Seder]

How many seconds did it take this war to exceed the amount of the supposed Minnesota fraud scandal? 10, 20 seconds. Just the planes we've lost to friendly fire. At least. Alone is at least $300 million getting

[Brian Reed]

the ships over there. Yeah.

[Emma Viglund]

The images out of Tehran right now are apocalyptic. Just so people are aware, over the past few hours, Israel and the US have been bombing the city out of a major city in Iran.

[Sam Seder]

Dan from Columbus. I love when politicians explain the question instead of answering it. That's a conversation we need to have. Yes, that's why I'm asking your opinion, you greasy hair.

[Brian Reed]

That's my favorite thing is we need a real conversation about that.

[Mike Masnik]

I like.

[Sam Seder]

I'm gonna have to take a big look at that.

[Mike Masnik]

That's the one I like.

[Emma Viglund]

What's a big look when you widen your eyes.

[Sam Seder]

Niles. I got laid off last year as an indirect result of the Trump administration halting wind farm development. I've since found employment with local engineering firm but just got a call from ex colleague whose current firm is looking for skilled geologists to work on the pre investment phase of the Big Bend section of the border wall. I've taken money from clients I have ethical problems with, but this is something entirely more evil. Really? Torn corn. But someone is going to take that money. Indeed.

[Mike Masnik]

With their naming sections of the wall naming Big Ben.

[Sam Seder]

I have a feeling that's probably a geographic. Yeah, like okay. But it may be like a place. I don't think they're saying like I

[Mike Masnik]

thought they were doing like America.

[Sam Seder]

Like Ben Franklin.

[Mike Masnik]

Like this is the Ben Franklin section of the wall.

[Sam Seder]

All right.

[Mike Masnik]

Two more Elvis Presley walls.

[Sam Seder]

Pope Pax Categorize and standardize Internet algorithms to create handles for regulating them, especially in regards to transparency and safety. Indeed. I think there's ways of doing this, but I know the libertarians in the office disagree. Damn it, Tim fools Beatty. See, this is why you guys don't get invited place isis. Schumer has gotten everything he wanted from Trump. War with Iran and ICE deporting Palestinian protesters. Indeed.

[Brian Reed]

And he can sit back and passively benefit from it. Or he thinks he can.

[Sam Seder]

Aaron is not cool enough with this tortmaxing. Sam's retirement is just him in a room with unplugged microphone arguing with AI video chatbot. That's probably not too far off. And the final IM of the day, Serena, Sam is Charlie Day in a Sam suit. Matt, Ryan, Emma.

[Brian Reed]

By the way, I'm gonna be on the Vanguard in about an hour.

[Emma Viglund]

Oh,

[Sam Seder]

Matt, Brian, Emma, catch Matt on the Vanguard in an hour. See you tomorrow. It might take a strength I got to get to where I want But

[Brian Reed]

I know somehow I'm gonna get there

[Sam Seder]

I wasn't looking when I just got caught between the truth and the light bar the fighting out won't make me feel any better

[Brian Reed]

yeah, I know the

[Sam Seder]

clock is ticking but the meds are gonna kick in and my pilot light shining bright I just get somewhere the choice was made for the option where

[Brian Reed]

you don't get paid for the road

[Sam Seder]

that bends before it finally breaks you I guess somehow I lost my drive

[Brian Reed]

between the 101 and the 5 do

[Sam Seder]

you know how far the teacher takes you? Yeah, I know the clock is ticking

[Brian Reed]

but the man's not gonna kick in

[Emma Viglund]

and my pilot light shining bright.

[Sam Seder]

The money shifted into gear while I

[Brian Reed]

shifted in and out of here Waiting

[Sam Seder]

for my moment to happen

[Brian Reed]

I don't

[Sam Seder]

know how much longer I can stay in or how much more I got to pay to play in I know

[Brian Reed]

somehow the lights got great in.