3594 - Israel Intercepts Sumud Flotilla; Corbyn's New Party w/ Ryan Grim & Natasha Hakimi Zapata

Summary

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The Majority Report with Sam Seder – Episode 3594

Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Emma Vigeland (in for Sam Seder)
Guests: Ryan Grim (co-founder, Dropsite; co-host, Counterpoints), Natasha Hakimi Zapata (journalist, The Nation)

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Episode Overview

This episode navigates two urgent developments: Israel's high-profile naval interception of the "Sumud Flotilla" attempting to deliver aid to Gaza, with analysis by reporter Ryan Grim; and the unraveling of Britain's Labour Party, as examined by Natasha Hakimi Zapata, including the fallout of Jeremy Corbyn’s exodus and the formation of a new left-wing party. The show also threads in the dynamics of the ongoing US government shutdown, the ACA subsidy crisis, and how both US and UK political elites are mishandling a moment of sharp public discontent.

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1. Israel Intercepts the Sumud Flotilla [28:05–45:44]

Main Points & Timeline:

• Background: Over 500 activists, journalists, and lawyers participated in the Sumud Flotilla, a 44-vessel fleet trying to breach Israel’s naval blockade and deliver aid to Gaza, marking the first such effort since 2009 ([28:07]).
• Intercepted at Sea: Israeli navy intercepted 43 out of 44 ships in international waters; the fate of the last ship remained uncertain during the broadcast ([29:00–33:06], [34:11]).
• International Involvement: Italian and Spanish naval ships escorted the flotilla partway due to public and union pressure in their home countries, but withdrew at the "Orange Zone" (about 90–110 nautical miles from Gaza), leaving the rest vulnerable ([29:00–32:48], [40:18–41:48]).
• Israeli Response and Tactics: Israel used drone strikes, “skunk water” (an odorous crowd control agent), and boarding raids. Organizers preemptively livestreamed and jettisoned potential weapons to ensure their nonviolent intentions were visible ([34:11–35:21], [41:48–44:01]).
• Legal and Political Ramifications: The interception took place in international waters and violated an International Court of Justice order, which explicitly bars Israel from blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza ([44:07–45:18]).
• Diplomatic Fallout: Unions across Europe, most notably Italy’s largest, launched actions in solidarity. South American governments, such as Colombia’s, reacted more aggressively than European counterparts ([38:35–39:28]).

Notable Quotes:

• “They left from Spain… picked up another fleet in Tunisia, where one of their boats was hit by an Israeli drone strike... mostly cosmetic, but it sent a message that kinetic force was planned.”
  — Ryan Grim, [29:00]

• “The fact that they can disable flotilla boats without casualties… is more evidence that they have the capacity to limit casualties in Gaza if they choose.”
  — Emma Vigeland, [37:00]

• “Not only do they have no authority to board these vessels… they have been specifically barred from doing so by the International Court of Justice. Clearly, they had no intention of abiding by that order.”
  — Ryan Grim, [44:24]

Memorable Moments:

• Video footage of the flotilla’s interception, with activists dumping kitchen knives to avoid any pretext for violence ([34:11]).
• IDF spraying skunk water at activists, described as “conspicuous sadism” rather than practical crowd control ([42:49]).

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2. US Politics: Government Shutdown & ACA Crisis [05:23–24:46]

Key Topics:

• Government Shutdown Stalemate: Republicans, at Trump’s direction, refuse to negotiate, halting several federal agencies. ICE, with a budget boost, continues its operations unaffected ([05:23–06:59]).
• Negotiation Leverage Lost: Democrats previously caved in the spring allowing large ICE/FBI budget increases, reducing leverage now ([05:35–06:59]).
• ACA Subsidies & Health Care Threat: ACA premium subsidies are expiring, with the GOP banking on letting rates double for millions. Most vulnerable—low-income Americans—could lose coverage or die due to inaccessibility ([12:11–14:56]).
• Democratic Messaging Fractures: Leadership is consumed with viral memes and personal slights (“say it to my face” from Hakeem Jeffries), instead of focusing on life-and-death policy consequences. Frustration voiced that only progressives understand effective communication ([11:49–24:46]).

Notable Quotes:

• “We are now in a government shutdown… Republicans are attacking Alexandria, attacking me. Why didn’t you vote for this ‘clean’ CR to keep the Government open?”
  — Bernie Sanders, [12:24]

• “There’s nothing clean about it. This is one of the dirtiest tricks that is being pulled on the American people right now… insurance premiums are going to double for millions.”
  — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, [12:41]

• “According to studies at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, 50,000 low income working class Americans will die every single year.”
  — Bernie Sanders, [13:37]

Memorable Moments:

• Bernie Sanders and AOC’s impromptu sidewalk video, outlining the real-world crisis from subsidy expiration ([12:11–14:56]).
• Ongoing exasperation with centrist Democratic leadership; “The era of the liberal celebrity, self-centered Democrat [...] is ineffective and distracting from the real fight” (Emma Vigeland, [18:19]).

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3. Labour Party Collapse & Corbyn’s New Party in the UK [46:54–68:24]

Guest: Natasha Hakimi Zapata

Key Points & Timeline:

• Labour’s “Loveless Landslide”: Despite winning the 2024 election, Labour claims less share of the popular vote than Corbyn’s party ever did ([50:35]).
• Policy Rightward Shift: Under Keir Starmer, Labour adopts austerity and anti-immigration rhetoric, moving rightward, stoking public anger ([47:24–53:35]).
• Public Discontent: NHS in crisis, cost-of-living crisis, child poverty up; Labour fails to differentiate itself meaningfully from previous Tory rule ([47:24–50:16]).
• Authoritarian Crackdown: Mass arrests at pro-Palestine protests; Labour designates Palestine Action a terror group, emboldening the far right ([49:31]).
• Corbyn’s New Party: Corbyn, Zahra Sultana, and other ex-Labour MPs launch the “Your Party” (provisional name) to fill the left vacuum; quick mass signups highlight demand for genuine left alternatives ([55:37–58:10]).
• Spoiler Debate & Prospects: The UK’s first-past-the-post system means the left vote might split, but Labour pushed socialists out—“Maybe don’t expel your left wing if you don’t want a spoiler” ([63:23–65:35]).
• Far Right Ascendant: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is polling to win a majority; local elections in 2026 seen as a proving ground ([60:03–61:52]).
• Coalition Possibilities: Potential green-left alliances could challenge the mainstream duopoly ([63:49–65:35]).

Notable Quotes:

• “The reason it’s being called a loveless landslide is that Keir Starmer’s Labour actually had less share of the vote…though they have a huge majority in Parliament…”
  — Natasha Hakimi Zapata, [50:35]

• “Many people see Labour’s continued support… of the Israeli state during what the UN has called a genocide, just impossible to support.”
  — Natasha Hakimi Zapata, [55:37]

• “Corbyn and Sultana, for the first time, are outside the Labour party… a lot of people are looking for an alternative and they’re not going back to Labour.”
  — Natasha Hakimi Zapata, [63:49]

Memorable Moments:

• Natasha describing Labour’s immigration rhetoric echoing Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech ([54:23]).
• Immediate groundswell—800,000 join new left party in days ([57:28]).

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4. Analytical & Commentary Highlights

Material Harm, Not Memes:

• Emma Vigeland blasts Democratic leaders and media for indulging Trump’s racist persona and viral memes, rather than highlighting the real-world harms being inflicted by health care cuts and the shutdown ([18:19–24:46]).

Political Messaging:

• Bernie and AOC’s direct style is lauded as a model for clarity and authenticity, in contrast to the self-absorbed, evasive manner of establishment figures ([15:02–15:18]).

Grassroots Pressure Matters:

• Europe’s labor unions and dock workers moved governments to act—or at least posture—on the flotilla, showing that organized pressure can alter the behavior of even right-wing leaders ([29:00–32:48], [39:28]).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Gaza Flotilla Background & Interception: [28:07–34:11]
• Italian/Spanish Navy Involvement: [29:00–32:48], [40:18–41:48]
• Legal Status (International Waters): [44:07–45:18]
• AOC & Bernie Health Care Video: [12:11–14:56]
• Labour Party’s Collapse: [46:54–53:35]
• Corbyn’s New Left Party: [55:37–58:10]
• Rise of Reform, Farage: [60:03–61:52]

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Tone and Takeaways

The episode is sharply irreverent and critical, mixing humor and frustration at political inertia. Vigeland and guests stress that, both in the US and UK, centrist leaders are failing to meet the historic moment—focused on optics and intra-elite feuds as millions face material crises. In contrast, grassroots movements and left-populist figures are generating surges of support, signaling the public’s hunger for substantive, coherent alternatives to the status quo.

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Select Memorable Quotes & Attribution

“The fact that they can be so targeted in their strikes [on boats]... it’s just another piece of evidence that obviously they have the capacity to limit casualties in Gaza if they choose.”
— Emma Vigeland, [37:00]

“According to Yale and University of Pennsylvania, 50,000 low income working class Americans will die every year if these cuts go through… If you don’t have the money... you die. That’s what this ‘clean’ bill is about.”
— Bernie Sanders, [13:37]

“There's such a desperate desire for a mass left party that it seems like people still have enough goodwill to go forward…”
— Natasha Hakimi Zapata, [66:37]

“Not only do [Israel] have no authority… they have been specifically barred from doing so by the International Court of Justice.”
— Ryan Grim, [44:24]

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking an in-depth recounting of this episode’s core discussions, insights, and notable exchanges.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday, October 2, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and this is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Ryan Grimm will be with us to give us an update on the Gaza Sumud flotilla. A drop site editor was sailing on one of the 44. And later in the show, Natasha Hakimi Zapata will be with us to talk about Corbyn's new party in the UK and why labor is falling apart. Also on the program, Israel has illegally intercepted almost every humanitarian flotilla ship sailing to Gaza except one, according to reports. If true, this would be the first time a humanitarian ship reached Palestinian waters since Israel implemented a naval blockade on Gaza in 2009. Just a reminder that history did not start on October 7th. Okay, Italy's largest union with over 5 million members calls for a general strike in support of the flotilla shutdown. Day two. Trump threatens more federal workforce layoffs if Democrats don't agree with no negotiation to the Republican continuing resolution. Trump starts by freezing billions of dollars for blue states and uses government websites to blame the left, which is illegal under the Hatch act, by the way. The shutdown halted at the official jobs numbers, but ADP releases downward August revisions and awful September numbers showing thousands of losses. The Trump administration has brought its family separation policy back and it's more severe than ever. Per a Guardian investigation, Trump has pulled 42, 000 federal officers working on crimes like human trafficking into ICE operations, per totals compiled by Mother Jones.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah, get out of those luxury hotels. Nothing going on bad in there. Yeah, look into the kitchens.

[Brian]

I would know.

[Emma Vigeland]

I would know.

[Matt Binder]

Get out of the luxury hotels. Go into the Home Depots.

[Emma Vigeland]

Miller, Bondi and Hegseth head down to Memphis to rally cops and troops ahead of the occupation. The footage of Stephen Miller trying to rile people up is something else, not an alpha male. And lastly, Planned Parenthood has been forced to close its two remaining clinics in Louisiana, but Ezra Klein says we should see it on this issue. Can't get over that. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show everybody. It's an M. Majority Report Thursday. Hello to Matt, hello to Brian. Great show for you today and I'm glad we were able to get Ryan to come on today to speak about the, the flotilla. We're still getting information coming in and out, but at the very least, Israel illegally intercepted 43 out of the 44 ships in international waters and one we don't know yet. And we'll be talking to Ryan about what he's heard and what Dropsite has been doing in terms of their excellent reporting on this. But we are officially in day two of the government shutdown. As a reminder, the longest shutdown ever was in Trump's first term. It was 34 days. And we'll see how long this one goes. Republicans, really at Trump's directive, are refusing to negotiate with Senate Democrats despite needing 60 votes to get this continuing resolution through. Non Essential Services have begun to shut down. There have been furloughs at places like the sec. Other agencies like the FTC are not able to do their work. ICE is still running though. Ken Klippenstein reported that they prepared for this so that don't worry everybody, ICE is still operating and breaking up families and shoving grandpas to the ground and breaking their bones so we can rest easy knowing that that is still going on.

[Matt Binder]

Would have been nice for Congress to have asserted the Democrats in Congress to asserted their authority over such sort of spending measures before ice FBI sized budget to carry themselves through this exact moment.

[Emma Vigeland]

Exactly. I mean, this is what we were saying in the spring. They could have used this leverage in the spring to curtail the explosion of the budget for the modern day Gestapo in the United States to say resvat.

[Matt Binder]

Can'T just project 20, 25 things that your Congress members voted on. That's not the executive branch's function.

[Emma Vigeland]

And think about this for a second. How much does it undercut their negotiating power right now when in the spring you had. Can you clarify if it was 10 Democrats? I would love just that number on the 10 Senate Democrats I believe that capitulated and voted on this. We know that Schumer and Gillibrand were two of them because. And Fetterman, of course. But we were speculating at the time that you had these two New York Democratic senators. Really the reporting was that Gillibrand was screaming at the caucus saying we can't shut the government down. We have to. It was 10. Okay, great. We have to shut. We can't, we can't shut the government down. She was yelling at the rest of the members. And why would that be the case? Well, one, they have this like blinkered idea, to borrow a word from Sam, that you just gotta lay down in the grass and Play dead, basically, as.

[Matt Binder]

You do when you're being attacked by a bear. That's advice from James Carville, who is, by the way, Palantir advisor.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, and hasn't been relevant in elections since before I was born. But that's like the best case scenario. But what in reality, I think it is, is that Wall street hates a government shutdown. It's not a coincidence, in my view, that the two New York Democrats in the Senate were in lockstep on this front because it disrupts the market. You have things like what I mentioned in headlines that we don't have. The jobs report that came out. You have to have estimates from private entities like the ADP to see how this data, what this data actually indicates, inflation data is not going to be able to come out. It's been disrupted. So it also indicates stability and the markets begin to tank. And that's who they represent. But we. But what they allowed is the terrorization of communities across the country and the largest transfer of wealth in maybe 100 years from the. To the top 1%. And so by the way, all polling shows that the public will blame the government shutdown on Republicans. And the margins on those polls have been in double digits. There's no ambiguity here. But Trump is making threats because he is afraid that this is going to hurt him. This is what he posted this morning on Truth Social. I have a meeting today with Russ Vote. He is of Project 2025 fame to determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political scam, he recommends be cut and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can't believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people. So maybe this is their way of wanting to quietly and quickly make America great again. The President does not have the authority to eliminate agencies. Congress creates agencies. So he's lying about that. He's bluffing.

[Matt Binder]

Not yet.

[Emma Vigeland]

And by the way, remember when Trump and Republicans kept denying that they were a part of Project 2025 and you had some people in media who were really like on board and believing them, he. Trump says he's not involved in this Heritage Foundation Project 2025 thing, despite his staffers all being involved in it and it looking like a blueprint for his agenda as president. So why not trust the most notorious liar in politics?

[Matt Binder]

And why would you think that the Heritage foundation wouldn't have a huge say in a Repub administration anyway? Well, you know, anyway, getting back next time.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, yeah, try again. This whole political commentary thing. But Trump is already doing these mass firings. He's already doing it. These buyouts, these resignations, they're already in process. And the easiest thing the Democrats are going to be able to extract if they get something in these negotiations and don't cave, is the extension of the Affordable Care act tax credits. They expire at the end of this year. And if they expire, premiums are going to skyrocket for folks on Obamacare. And Republicans are actually not, I think at least thune and non Trumpy Republicans, Congressional Republicans, frontline Republicans, are terrified of this prospect because they timed in their budget, the Medicaid cuts, the bulk of them, to happen after 2026, after the midterms, because they know how much this is going to hurt people. But if these ACA tax credits expire, that's immediate evidence of how they're hurting people. And so Democrats need to be asking for more rain and ice. Stop sending in the National Guard into our cities. They need to reach an agreement on Trump not rescinding federal funds that Congress has agreed to. This ACA subsidies thing is the bare minimum. But they're not even articulating that well, leadership at least. But there are people who are. And if you were like an alien that came down from another planet and I guess for some reason you had like an understanding of electoral. Just run with this for a sec.

[Ryan Grimm]

Electoral.

[Emma Vigeland]

If I went into politics. Yeah.

[Matt Binder]

If I went into another alien world, I would look at their political system.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. Okay. Well, it's just this. This is a very strange hypothetical. But it's like, say you, you could understand politics and you were like, who? But you didn't know for some reason who the leaders of the Democratic Party were. Okay, see, I'm Brian's like, shut up.

[Matt Binder]

Say you're part of an advanced civilization that visits Earth, so clearly you're a communist.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, obviously, I'm sticking with it. But if you saw this video, you would think that these two people were the leaders of the Democratic Party because they are the only people who know how to message, apparently. Here are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, explaining what is happening with the government shutdown.

[Bernie Sanders]

Hey, everybody, I was walking here in Washington, D.C. and who did I bump into? One of my favorite members of the United States Congress, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, one.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Of my favorite senators.

[Bernie Sanders]

Right. Anyhow, as everybody knows, we are now in a government shutdown. Republicans are attacking Alexandria, attacking me. Why didn't you vote for this clean CR to keep the Government open.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Well, there's nothing clean about it. This is one of the dirtiest tricks that is being pulled on the American people right now. Starting today, October 1st, and throughout the rest of the the month, Americans across this country are going to start getting notifications that their insurance premiums are up to doubling. We're talking about, say that again, your insurance, your monthly insurance premiums are going to double for millions of people across.

[Bernie Sanders]

The country at a time when we already paying by far the highest prices in the world for health care at a time when people can't afford it right now.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

So what happens that means people getting bankrupt over chemotherapy, people going to the pharmacy and not being able to get their insulin. And frankly, it means a lot of Americans are going to be in danger and Republicans want us to rubber stamp that. So what are we going to say to that, Bernie?

[Bernie Sanders]

Well, I'll tell you, it's not only be in danger, let's be clear. And that doesn't make me happy to have to say this, but there have been studies out there. But would you combine doubling premiums for the ACA and then throwing 15 million people off of Medicaid and the ACA? The result is, according to studies at Yale and University of Pennsylvania, 50,000 low income working class Americans will die every single year. All right, if you don't have the money to go to Vedanta and you're sick, you die. That's what we're looking at. That's what this clean bill is about.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

And so Republicans want us to rubber stamp that. And we're saying, no, we need to stand up for the American people. We need to stand up for our health care system. And if they want our votes, they need to make sure that we're protecting every American and making sure that we can do what we can to continue to make healthcare accessible, affordable as we work to make it a human right for.

[Bernie Sanders]

All right, Some just back that up. Right now our health care system is broken right now. We're the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people. And these guys want to make it even worse. We're not going to let that happen.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

No, we're not.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thank you.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Onward.

[Emma Vigeland]

It's refreshing.

[Matt Binder]

So like there's all this talk about, you know, you get from people saying, well, if you don't like old people in Congress and what do you say about Bernie Sanders? Well, if your senator can do a straight two and a half minutes or three minutes without a cut talking about this stuff, then they pass. That's the test.

[Emma Vigeland]

Completely. I mean, I itch. I was thinking that exact same thing. How vibrant he is. It's. It's amazing. And how there were a lot of folks worried about that heart attack. Well, he's, he's, he's still kicking and sounds as good as ever, honestly.

[Matt Binder]

But we're talking about hundreds of dollars a month for people on their health insurance if they're on the exchanges and without those subsidies that, like you said, that's if you need health insurance. Because that's if I was like 25 again and I'm looking at that and I don't have a job, I'm thinking, oh, well, I'm gonna go without health insurance.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Matt Binder]

Unless you need it.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. And the central claim from the Republicans to combat this is a complete lie. They are saying that Democrats want illegals in their framing to have access to this statutorily the Affordable Care Act. Even if you were to buy it out of pocket as an undocumented immigrant in this country, you are legally not allowed to. Immigrants who have no documentation in the United States subsidize our social safety net because with taxes they pay into it, but they cannot get anything out of it. They are lying to you. People ask the reverse.

[Matt Binder]

People going to ask themselves like, am I a undocumented person? No. Okay. What's gonna happen to my health insurance rates? They're still gonna go through the roof. And you have the Republicans saying these just Nazi lies. Oh, it's de. We have to look into this infrastructure project in New York and New Jersey because of. To check if it's DEI or not. That's just appealing to racists. That's Klan. That's a Klan appeal. The exact same thing with this. You think your services in America, your healthcare services suck because of immigrants. Are you stupid? Like, I mean, Republican voters are. Democrats need to be forceful in saying like no people, the general person is not persuaded by this just Nazi lie, Nazi playbook type lie where we're going to blame the failure of a state of a government's controlled by cap by billionaires on immigrants. The people that are frankly, like you say, either propping them up by being having their wages garnished despite not being able to take benefits or even like, you know, actually doing a lot of the labor in this country.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. And unfortunately, though, we can't really expect that right now from Democratic leadership. And Hakeem Jeffries, when he's been going on these media hits, he'll talk about affordability and mention the health care piece, but he lingers on this racist meme that Trump posts that we posted, that we spoke about, say it to my face. It's driving me insane. This era of celebrity Democrats centering themselves is over. You need to get on camera and redirect as Zoran Mamdani does. And as Bernie said, they're attacking the Republicans are attacking me. And then they go into the spiel and speak about how people are being materially affected.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

The era of the liberal celebrity, self centered Democrat who's there to own Donald Trump and get into some beef with him, it's over and it's ineffective and it's creating oxygen for the Republicans to distract from this. But here's versus Nancy Pelosi being asked about how AOC is. Republicans are doing her a favor to a degree, saying that she's responsible for these negotiations. And Chris Hayes asked her about, about this the other night and she was like, yeah, come talk to me directly if that's the case. She's trying to position herself as more of a leader than Schumer and Jeffries, which I like. Of course, if she's gonna, if she's.

[Matt Binder]

Going to be positioned as a leadership. The Democrats need to give her leadership powers.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. But listen to how Nancy Pelosi, who we. Ryan Graham will be on with us shortly. His book We've Got People, speaks about how they had a very difficult kind of contentious situation because Pelosi was, you know, not in favor of AOC's more grassroots energy and things like that. This is what she says when asked about AOC's role in these shutdown talks. There was a thought from the Republicans that AOC is directing this and she.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Said that senators are welcome to go.

[Emma Vigeland]

To her office directly. Is she driving that?

[Brian]

Why are you saying such a ridiculous thing?

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

I'm just quoting what AOC said.

[Emma Vigeland]

She said, go to her office directly.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Do you think there's any credibility to that?

[Brian]

She's directing this. She's wonderful, real team player in the rest of that. You started by saying Republicans saying that she's directing this. She is not. Hakim Jeffries is. And this takes a lot of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus in terms of the point of view. And that's what this is. She's an articulate spokesperson for her point of view.

[Emma Vigeland]

Hakeem Jeffries is when you have to say it. Yeah, when you have to say it.

[Matt Binder]

I mean, he's who you picked, but there's no confidence in his leadership, clearly.

[Emma Vigeland]

And I mean, I've gotten many problems with Pelosi, but I mean, Pelosi would have been doing a better job than this right now. There's no question. In my view, she's at least a partisan. Hakeem Jeffries is a fundraiser primarily. And the idea that Democratic leadership is spending any amount of time speaking about this meme, this is literally the first time most Americans are paying attention to anything Hakeem Jeffries is doing. Anything you have a finite amount of time to show and media attention to show what you're going to do for the American people. And they are taking the bait or direct. I can't tell if they're just taking the bait or actively directing the conversation to the frickin meme. But listen to J.D. vance yesterday. This is what leadership has allowed them to do. Distract, more circus, more memes. Nothing but the material implications of what they're trying to do. Jeffries allows for this distraction. Here I give you the Vice President of the United States. Good thing.

[Unidentified Caller/Guest]

On the sombrero thing, I mean, Hakeem Jeffries said it was racist. And I know that he said that, and I honestly don't even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme? I mean, I saw one of the major TV stations put the meme up and then say, this is AI generated. And he had like the curly animated mustache too. It's like, do the American people, do you really notice, realize the American people recognize that he did not actually come to the White House wearing a sombrero and a black curly animation mustache? Like, give the country a little bit of credit. We're all trying to do a very important job for the American people. The President of the United States likes to have a little bit of fun when he's doing it, and I think that's okay. I'll take one more question.

[Emma Vigeland]

I know that Jeffries was the subject of the racist meme. I understand that. But as leader, you have a responsibility to represent the hundreds of millions of people who are going to be affected by this horrific Republican budget. And you have to use every opportunity to communicate that.

[Matt Binder]

You get one quote in this.

[Emma Vigeland]

They're ill equipped.

[Matt Binder]

This is from yesterday. Ap the Democrats embrace a shutdown fight in a rare moment of unity against Trump. We need unity. Pelosi says, right, so you get one quote, Leader Jeffries, you get. You're one quote. And what's that going to be? In a press conference, Jeffrey offered a harsh message to the President. What's that message?

[Emma Vigeland]

What was it about?

[Matt Binder]

The next time you have something to say about Me, don't cop out through a racist and fake AI video when I'm back in the Oval Office. Say it to my face. And then what happened was that four.

[Emma Vigeland]

Times he mentioned himself in one quote.

[Matt Binder]

Then he got invited into the Oval Office and Trump had Trump 20, 28 hats that there. And he got a nice little photo op with Hakeem Jeffries. And we're right. We are where we are now. So again, you had one opportunity to get a quote in a place like the ap, which is going to set the record across because that's just reran and paper and paper and paper across the land.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Matt Binder]

And you made it about say it to my face and not Americans health insurance premiums are going to double. That is from three. Like, say, for instance, $350 to $700. Maybe mention that and not the personal slight against you and how people should take it. I mean, it's.

[Emma Vigeland]

Zoran has been attacked in the most racist, vile ways and you can. But he never lingers on it. Never, never. He had that one emotional speech where he spoke about those death threats and that was it. He's always redirecting it back to what he's gonna do for New Yorkers. You see the contrast in what how Zoran messages things aoc Bernie leftism versus this liberalism, a hollow ideology that is about individuals and markets and capital and is ill equipped to handle the responsibility of beating fascism because we can only do it as a collective. No one cares about your personal beef with Trump and it's distracting from us all coming together to fight this.

[Matt Binder]

He in that mentioned me when he was talking about the racism. He says zo Ryan said of on the people that I love. And I try to talk about it because the function of racism, as Toni Morrison says, is distraction. So maybe read Toni Morrison, who you claim, like I imagine Hakeem Jeffries probably thinks he represents, like the legacy of Toni Morrison or some shit reader.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. Also say it to my face. Is this an 80s like John Hughes movie?

[Matt Binder]

Yes, that's. That's where Hakeem Jeffries heads at right now.

[Emma Vigeland]

In a moment, we're going to be talking to Ryan Grim, but first, a word from one of our sponsors. I don't know about you, but my social media feed is filled with all of these different health trends. Can red light therapy solve your skin? Should you be slamming olive oil shots? Well, the algorithm, you've got to give it a rest. Leave it to the professional and turn to healthcare professionals. With ZocDoc, it's easy. You can Find doctors that are right for you and instantly book an appointment. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment. Zocdoc lets you book in network appointments with more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty. You can filter for doctors who are near you, take your insurance and are a good fit for you. You can find the type of care you're looking for from good bedside manner to fast wait times to doctors with the best listening skills. You can see their actual appointment openings. Choose a time slot that works for you and click instantly to book. Appointments made through Zocdoc also happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. You can even get same day appointments. I found my dentist who I love through Zocdoc and it's the interface is just very intuitive. The fact that other doctor's offices don't have websites like this that are so easy is just like an indictment but good for Zocdoc because they have it figured out. You can see the calendar, you can do it online, you can input your information. It's as easy as it gets. I'd like to thank zocdoc for sponsoring today's episode. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com majority to find an instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's Zocdoc.com Majority Zocdoc.com Majority link will be down below in the video and episode descriptions [e-mail] that's zocdoc.com majority and you can download the Zocdoc app to sign up for free and book a top rated doctor. Zocdoc.com majority quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Ryan Grimm. We are back. And we are joined once again by friend of the show, Ryan Grimm, co founder and reporter at Dropside News, co host of Counterpoints. Welcome to the show, Ryan.

[Ryan Grimm]

Oh, thanks Emma. How you doing?

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm doing all right. Lots of news. I'm sure you're busy as well. And by the way, congrats on, you know, dropsite. It's moving on up. I mean your reporting is really getting, getting recognized, especially on the international stage right now because you have an editor, Alex Colson, who has won of the 500 activists, lawyers, journalists and more around that number who were sailing on the Mediterranean Sea for over a month trying to break the siege with this mud flotilla. Last night, Israel's navy illegally intercepted These ships, except one as of the reporting right now. But Ryan, if you could just give us a recap of the last month and where things stand over the past 24 hours. After the past 24 hours.

[Ryan Grimm]

Yeah, it's been, they've been, they left from Spain, so it's, you know, been, been quite a long, you know, several week long journey across the Mediterranean. Picked up a, another series of another fleet basically in Tunisia. In Tunisia, one of their, one of their boats was hit by some type of Israeli drone strike that caused some, you know, mostly cosmetic, you know, significant but not debilitating damage and was there to send a message, you know, that kinetic force was planned to be used against the boats in the flotilla. And throughout their journey, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs continued putting out baseless assertions that the flotilla was actually Hamas. Just in the last day or two, they put out what they said were never before revealed documents that they had obtained in 2021 and before that proved that Hamas had sponsored this flotilla, which is absurd on, on its face, like the flotilla was not organized in 2021. It quickly became clear they had actually tried to put these exact same documents out the last time Greta was on a, on a flotilla. And there were all sorts of other, you know, self contradictory elements to it. But what was concerning about the claims was not the substance of them because everyone could see through that, but what it foreshadowed in terms of a potentially violent response. About a week ago, nine of the ships were attacked by what can only be Israeli drones. One of them, completely disabled, had its mast destroyed. And the organizers were getting signals from around, from their sources and around Europe that the next night was going to bring even more serious attacks because nobody was seriously hurt, despite the nine ships being attacked by drones. And it was around then that it was then actually that the Italian navy said it was going to send its ship alongside them. Spain then followed them instead of Spain that they were also going to send one. And so the attack that they were expecting the next night did not materialize. That was a real consequence of the Italian navy getting involved. Now Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister, was highly critical of the flotilla, wanted nothing to do with it, had nothing but ill things to say about it. But because the Genoa dock workers and other unions were out in the streets demanding that Italy stand up for the flotilla, which had a number of members of Italian members of parliament on it, Meloni had no choice but to, but to act. The Spanish and Italian ships that left the flotilla when it, when it got to what they Call the Orange Zone. Orange Zone being this, this area roughly 90 to 110 nautical miles off of the Gaza shore where Israel in the past has intercepted all of these glotils. And so once, once they got there, these 40 plus ships were on their own and then it was last night that all of them were boarded. Except it's unclear what's going on with the last one.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, right.

[Ryan Grimm]

It might be a technical malfunction with the ship's not moving and it hasn't moved for like 12 hours. So it's likely that that crew has been taken into custody. But I don't, we don't know like it remains an open question and people are trying to track it and figure.

[Emma Vigeland]

Out what's going on. I saw a reporting from the Guardian this morning that seemed to confirm at the very least that one boat, Mikano, was reported to have escaped the blockade. And even if they were intercepted, which is obviously quite likely, this would still be if they crossed a certain threshold. The first time that a humanitarian vessel has crossed into Gaza's nautical territory since 2009, which is when Israel implemented its naval blockade of Gaza. Another reminder to folks that, you know, Israel has basically been controlling Gaza's borders, land and sea for decades and controlling the flow of trade, controlling what goes in and out of Gaza well prior to October 7th. So this is historic. If they even got into the like territory of Gaza, Gaza's waters.

[Ryan Grimm]

Right. And so, and so our editor Alex Colson was on a ship called the Sirius and he and the ship, they live streamed both their CCDV footage as well as from his own phone so that the world could see that this was a completely non violent action. In fact, when they got close to what they considered to be the Orange Zone, they actually filmed themselves dumping all of their cooking, kitchen knives for instance, overboard. Anything that could be remotely misinterpreted as a threat to the Israeli military was, was tossed overboard. And they were trained in, you know, nonviolent response to the, to the Israeli incursion. And as far as we could tell so far, we'll learn more when we can talk to Alex again on the other side that we're not aware of any like major, you know, violent incidents.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's good so far.

[Ryan Grimm]

Yeah, they have, they have said that the European and Americans will be kept for 72 hours and then deported to Europe. And so we'll, you know, we'll will continue to monitor that situation and see whether or not they, they abide by.

[Emma Vigeland]

That and what's concerning a little bit though is that you have. I was seeing that they're. They may be held for a little bit longer because of Yom Kippur and the court system may, courts may be shut down. I'm not sure what the status of that is at this point. But let's just play a little bit of footage here from the flotilla. This is footage as Ryan was speaking about. I'm not sure who recorded this is from the global Simud flotilla's Instagram account itself, but of the IDF intercepting at least one of these ships. So it says for more than 14 hours, heavily armed Israeli occupation forces intercepted intercepted flotilla vessels. And you see them approaching, obviously. Heavily armed, these ships. Yep. Wait, what'd you say, Ryan masked up. Masked up, right.

[Ryan Grimm]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigeland]

Like.

[Ryan Grimm]

Like ICE agents.

[Emma Vigeland]

Exactly. They must be very proud. And yeah, we're just kind of scrolling through. You can see them boarding. And this is some of the footage that Ryan was referencing. You mentioned earlier, this strike on the, on one of the, on the flotilla in Tunisia. This is not the first time that Israel has done this. They did this in, I believe, Greta, prior to Greta boarding in Greta Thunberg boarding. In a previous effort, they had bombed it as a show of force and a message. But like the fact that they can disable these flotilla boats without any casualties, the fact that they can be so targeted in their strikes on these boats, it's just another piece of, you know, a mountain of evidence that obviously they have the capacity to limit casualties in Gaza if they so choose. I mean, you see these drones that are. That shot that doctor in the head the other day, a precision strike. You see that they have the ability to take over, like to blast Netanyahu's UN speech into Gaza, to take over their phones and intercept their communications. I mean, Anthony Loewenstein's book, the Palestine Laboratory is so important here because it's basically 141 square miles of experiments of the most sadistic military technology possible. And they pretend like they can't be precise in any way when they can be the most precise of any military in history.

[Ryan Grimm]

Right? Yes, because they did manage to strike nine of these ships plus, plus in Tunisia. And, you know, without, without doing what they were nervous about doing, which is going over the line and killing somebody from Spain or Italy or the United States, which then ratchets up the, the diplomatic pressure that, that they would be under. Just, just the fact that they were attacking and setting fire to these boats, you know, brought significant amounts of diplomatic blowback, even from a country like Italy where that has an Extremely pro Israel prime Minister. So yeah, you're right. It does show that if they decide that they don't want to kill people, they do actually have the capacity to not kill people.

[Emma Vigeland]

Gustavo Petro of Colombia expelled I believe in response to this, Israeli diplomats over the interception of the flotilla, just as a contrast to the European governments. I think it's important to point that out. But can you shed any light on the decision of these European ship escorts to retreat once the said Orange Zone approach? Obviously Meloni is far right and was not in favor of this. And then you have this, Italy's largest union striking just overnight in response to this. But you know, talking about Spain and Greece and what their role is in this is interesting to me too.

[Ryan Grimm]

There was some hope among some of those either on board or watching the flotilla that these ships would accompany them all the way to the shores effectively and help to open up a humanitarian corridor. That wasn't their plan. So I've seen people argue it both ways. On the one hand say, well this is just a stunt. They're just trying to make their own domestic publics feel a little bit better about the unconditional fealty that they've given to Israel over the years. And so they're like, look, at least we're doing something. Were sending because they were very clear that it was a. They kept underlining that these are rescue ships, that they were not there to confront Israel. However, ships like the kite, the type of ship you send sends its own message. They didn't send Coast Guard, they didn't send the Coast Guard, which, you know, those are the kinds of vehicles you would send if it was just a rescue operation. So the fact that they sent actual, you know, armed up military vehicles, naval vehicles, naval ships was a political signal as well that okay, we're going to say that this is a rescue effort and we're not going to go in beyond the orange zone. But the fact that they sent it out at all is, you know, is something of a significant departure from the past.

[Emma Vigeland]

Alex Colson, your of drop site I saw in your guys write up of what's been happening, spoke about how the IDF was spraying the flotilla with something called skunk water. We have this short clip of, you know, Greg Stoker who we've had on the show before, he was on the veterans boat and he has a short footage of he's ripping a cig in this which is hilarious. But this is some footage of said skunk water which Israel has used many times over the years against Palestinians. So you can see that yellow spray all right there. I just, I'm just laughing at Greg, you know, just being a legend. But can you explain that, that skunk water stuff and, and you know, Israel's usage of it and what dropsite has found on that front?

[Ryan Grimm]

Yeah, I mean, it's a crowd control measure that Israel has been deploying for quite some time that has kind of an extra layer of sadism to it that it is from everybody. I've never been around it, but everybody who describes it, it's just produces this utterly repulsive scent. Just absolutely disgusting. And this is an unusual use for it in the sense that what. Where do you want the crowd to go? Like, is this, you know, if it's, if it's crowd control and you're trying to make an area stink and make a bunch of people stink and get them out, get them to go from, you know, the town square where they're protesting to somewhere else, that, okay, that's a use case for it. But they're on the boat. What are they going to do, like jump in the sea? And how does them jumping in the sea actually help the IDF get them into custody? So this felt more just like conspicuous sadism than anything related to any kind of operational strategy here.

[Emma Vigeland]

And that's the other thing, is that this is international waters. I mean, Israel is continuously asserting.

[Ryan Grimm]

Your early point that this is illegal is a key one.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. Can you expand on that? Because, I mean, this is like, it's just like taken as granted that, yeah, Israel should be able to do whatever the hell they want in international waters that are approaching the Gaza Strip.

[Ryan Grimm]

Right. So, A, they have no authority whatsoever over them when they're not in Israeli waters, which they weren't anywhere close to. But B, as the, as the organizers pointed out to the Israeli military over the pa, the International Court of Justice barred Israel from blocking humanitarian aid. The ICJ said that the world needs to flood aid into Gaza and that Israel must stop blocking the aid. So not only do they have no authority to board these vessels and arrest these people, they have been specifically barred from doing so by the International Court of Justice. Clearly they have no intent, they had no intention of abiding by that order.

[Emma Vigeland]

Though very, very clearly. Ryan Grimm, thanks so much for coming on also on short notice. I appreciate it. Giving us a sense of what's happening. And, you know, following dropsight right now is essential. You guys do the best explainers and you have somebody obviously on the ground reporting on this incredibly historic mission. Thanks so much, Ryan, for coming on today.

[Ryan Grimm]

Thanks for the kind words, Emma, very much. Appreciate it.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right. Talk to you soon. Quick break. When we come back, we are going to be turning to the UK speaking to Natasha Hakimi Zapata, award winning journalist about labor collapsing in the UK and the rise of Corbyn's new left wing party. We'll be right back after this. We are back and we are joined now by Natasha Hakimi Zapata, award winning journalist, author of Another World is Lessons for America from Around the Globe. And she has a new piece in the Nation entitled Labor Has Only Itself to blame for the UK's new left wing Party. Natasha, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Thanks for having me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Of course. So tell us a little bit about the Labour Party's very bad month of September because their support has already sunk like a stone since they won the election last year. But it was as unconvincing and as narrow as possible. What has been happening under Labour Party rule, I guess in the uk yeah.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

So just to back up a little bit, you have 14 years of conservative rule and then one very bad year of labor rule in which there just seemed to be sort of muddling through with kind of Tory light policies, sometimes moving even further right on certain issues. And people are really hurting in the UK So public services are crumbling. You have the beloved National Health Service through systematic underfunding and austerity policies, really struggling to recover from the COVID 19 pandemic. There's a cost of living crisis fueled by an energy crisis. And you have about over a third of children in poverty in the uk. And so even though a lot of that was inherited by this new labor government that won what's called a loveless landslide last July with Keir Starmer at the helm, labor hasn't been seen to really change anything meaningfully, which when they were elected last summer, that's what a lot of people were hoping for after 14 years of Tories. But things sort of came to a head this past September. So just a few things that happened was that the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, had to quit over a tax scandal. She didn't pay enough tax on a property sale or property purchase. It was the same week that the UK's ambassador to the US was found to be to have close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. So Peter Mandelson then you had. Yeah, well, that's just a few things that happened that week. You also, the week was kind of bookended with on Saturday, September 6, 900 activists being arrested in London during A demonstration for support of Palestine Action, a group that Starmer's government has recently designated a terrorist organization.

[Emma Vigeland]

This.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Yes. And you know, this is actually the second time that hundreds of activists have been arrested at a pro Palestine protest. And you know what's being seen as an escalating clampdown on free speech. And on the other end of that week, you have the largest far right protest in British history. So over 150,000 people again coming out in London in support of white supremacist figures like Tommy Robinson, with Elon Musk appearing via livestream calling for an end to this government. And so all of this is to say it has been a pretty bad September for Labor and Keir Starmer.

[Emma Vigeland]

And could you give people some more context if they're unfamiliar as to the nature of Labor's victory last year and how, yes, they are the majority government, but it was as unconvincing as it gets in terms of how they were able to take power.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Right. So the reason it's being called a loveless landslide is that Keir Starmer's labor actually had less share of the vote thanks to what's called the first past the post system. So they don't have proportional representation here in Parliament, which is less share of the vote than Jeremy Corbyn's labor did a few years ago. And so even though they have a pretty huge majority in Parliament, they actually have less popular support in absolute numbers than Jeremy Corbyn's labor did. And so a lot of this kind of loveless landslide also reveals just how fragile things are in the uk you have the sort of two main parties, the Labour Party and the Conservatives of Tory party, slowly falling apart in many ways. So the Tories are kind of becoming irrelevant. You have the rise of Reform led by Nigel Farage, who sort of led the charge for Brexit and has since started a new party called Reform. And at the same time, labor, which especially under Jeremy Corbyn, was a left wing socialist party, obviously a broad church party in which you had people like your Starmer, who would be considered a sort of the center, center right of the party, moving further and further and further. Right. So just to give you an idea on things like immigration, in this last cabinet shakeup that Keir Starmer had after his deputy prime minister resigned and he had all this embarrassment with the UK Ambassador to the US he had Shabana Mahmoud, who's on the right of labor, who's further right than even him, take over as Home Secretary and recently announced at the labor conference that they're going to, even there are going to be even more restrictive barriers for immigrants to get citizenship in the uk and so many people see all of this as further normalizing the far right, further fueling the rise of reform that is being seen in many polls to possibly win the majority of seats in Parliament in a coming general election. And again, as I said earlier, at the same time, people are really suffering. And this labor government has done very little to show them that they actually care about workers, that they actually care about public services. They've continued with austerity policies. They've even implemented some very mean ones of their own, like getting rid of a winter fuel payment for the elderly and eventually having to backtrack on that, but then reimplementing it with means testing. So just, you know, things like that, like the elderly not even being able to depend on being able to heat their homes during winter.

[Emma Vigeland]

And it should be noted that many of the British consultants that have assisted Keir Starmer in this center right takeover of labor were advising, unfortunately, the Kamala Harris campaign in the fall. And you can see how some of those similar capitulations were adopted on issues like immigration and you know, a more abundance focus on like free market solutions to housing and things like that. But this seems even more severe to me than, than that, like embracing austerity. Are we back in the 90s or something like that? It's, it's so retrograde that it's obviously untenable.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Yeah. And you know, just to go back to immigration, speaking of how shocking some of this has been, Keir Starmer himself made a speech in which he said that the UK was at risk of becoming an island of strangers with echoes. Many pointed out there were echoes of the white supremacist Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech. And that kind of language was just impossible to expect from a Labor leader, even, even from some Tories just a few years ago.

[Emma Vigeland]

And obviously the issue of Palestine looms so large over all of this. We can trace the devolution of kind of all of this to the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn from Labor. And he is forming a new left wing political party that seems to be generating a lot of enthusiasm. It's called the your Party Y O U R along with, I believe this former Labour Parliament member Zahra Sultana, although I did read some article that maybe she's being a little bit sidelined, although perhaps that's too in the weeds. But tell us a little bit about this new party that Corbyn's trying to form.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Yeah. So Corbyn and Sultana and a few other independent MPs who last summer during the same general election, were elected as independents partly because of their stance on Gaza, because many people on the left here in the UK and many others, there's actually more than half of Britain's say that Israel's actions in Gaza aren't justified. 65% of labor voters do. And many people see Starmer's continued support and funding and arming of the Israeli state during what the United nations has called a genocide, just impossible to support. And so recognizing that Gaza has become a key fault line in British politics, Corbyn and Sultana, who was actually kicked out of the Labour Party, not just because she voted against one of these sort of mean austerity measures that was going to really affect vulnerable people. She was told she could not be let back into the party because of social media posts that she had being critical of the government's support of Israel. And so this is kind of a key reason that this new party, your party, gets started. But again, a lot of the support that it immediately gets is based as well on just how much people are suffering, how the labor, how labor seems to have been purging the left, as you've pointed out, starting with Jeremy Corbyn himself in 2020, as soon as Starmer essentially took the reins of labor, but also continually kicking out left wing MPs who vote against their austerity policies. And this new party, your party, has been announced to sort of fill that void on the left that many, many, many people here feel. And you had within days, despite a rocky start, which, you know, I described. And as you said, there's still quite a few issues and some infighting and things that are kind of messily publicly or spilling into the public. About 800,000 people have signed up now to support this party, and that was just within a few days, actually. So there's clearly this really desperate desire for a left alternative.

[Emma Vigeland]

And Palestine is the tip of the spear in that way, just like here in the US It's a litmus test for bravery on other issues. Even issues like housing, for example, is an issue that you highlight in your piece. Can you describe the split between what labor is proposing on that front and what say the left wing vision of the your party would be speaking about? Just as another example.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Right. So this is a notoriously landlord friendly country. It goes all the way back to feudalism, honestly. And you have the labor government, this current labor government, finally passing, you know, renters protections there. There's no rent control. Your landlord can kind of turn around and just raise your rent 30% the next time you're trying to get a contract. There's a ton of other issues. And this renters rights bill that has still not been implemented, that is hopefully not going to be killed, but there are already rumors that it might be killed is a step in the right direction, as many people told me. And yet they stopped short of doing things like rent control, which were actually common before Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. And that's just kind of indicative of what this labor government has done across the board. So on some issues moving further right, like immigration, but on others, just kind of messing around the edges of things and not going far enough, not really creating or articulating an alternative vision from the chaos that people have experienced here for the past over a decade.

[Emma Vigeland]

And reform, that's a good place to turn Nigel Farage, we've, we've covered him on our show a bit sparingly. But like a rising right wing figure in UK politics, once dismissed as a crank, now leading this kind of like alternative far right party that's centered around anti immigrant sentiment. Stop me if you've heard this before. What is the, what are the prospects of reforms? You know, the Reform Party making significant gains next election cycle. I know they already did, but we could be talking about a far right government if trends continue.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Right. I mean, the most recent polls show Reform UK actually getting a majority in Parliament, meaning that Nigel Farage could possibly be the next prime minister of the UK labor are now, you know, really talking about reform as the opposition, they just had their conference and Starmer and all of these other labor leaders made all of these speeches and reform was mentioned constantly. Farage was mentioned constantly. But importantly before another general election, which won't be for another few years, you have local elections in the spring of 2026, which in which labor is expected to lose a massive amount of council seats. And that's actually they're expected to lose them to reform. But also your party insiders tell me that the party is positioning itself to take back some of those disaffected left wing voters that Starmer seems to have nothing but contempt for these days.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the can you speak a little bit about more about that effort? What are the issues that are central to that kind of attempt to bring voters over?

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Right. So as you pointed out, the party, so the party is still forming, set up all of these assemblies and a conference in November in which they're going to vote on a name. So it's actually not going to be called your party. Or maybe it is. They're trying to make it as democratic as possible, which you know, has has its pros and cons. But so a lot of things haven't been decided yet. And a policy platform hasn't been decided yet. But what, what is their assumed policy platform? Just based on things like Corbyn's track record, Sultana's track record. And what they've said is that they'll, you know, they'll be anti austerity, they're in favor of tax rises on the wealthy. They are also in favor of funding the National Health Service, which is extremely popular in the UK as you know, and keeping it in public hands and kind of rolling back some of that stealth privatization that we've seen since the 1980s and things like rent controls. These are all extremely popular and are things that your party would presumably run on and yet sort of the exact opposite of the direction that labor has been taking.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, I mean and I'm seeing this Im here saying, you know, your party could be a spoiler. I just want just to educate some people a little bit on the parliamentary system, if you don't mind expanding on how it's quite different than the United States.

[Matt Binder]

Maybe don't expel your left wing if you don't want a spoiler.

[Emma Vigeland]

But yeah, anyway, go on. But.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Well that's kind of exactly right and that's what a lot of people told me. You know, like people are blaming Corbyn and this new party for possibly this rise of reform. But the reality is even before this party that your party existed, it the rise of reform was sort of happening in large part because of the way that labor and the Tories have normalized Farage and this anti immigrant rhetoric. But also as Matt pointed out, if you get rid of your left, it sort of follows that they have to figure something else out. Jeremy Corbyn is an independent. He was in the Labor Party for decades and for the first time in his career is outside of it. And so a lot of people both within politics and outside of it are looking for an alternative and they're not going to go back to labor with regards to the way that the parliamentary system works. It is true that with a first past the post system in which it's not proportional representation, you could have a situation in which the left vote is split. But again, it's sort of questionable whether the left would even vote for labor anymore. Many, many, many labor voters have told me that they wouldn't, especially with the direction that the state government's taking. There's also a possibility of coalition with the Green Party. So the Green Party now has a new leader, Zach Polanski, who actually has very similar views to Corbyn and Sultana, who's kind of an eco populist, as he calls himself. And despite the fact that there are clearly electoral challenges, there is still quite a lot that seemingly can be done even within the system.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right. I mean, you can form a coalition. I just. It's different than, of course, the United States on that front. So I guess lastly there, what. Where do you see this going over the next year or so, ahead of the 2026 elections that you're speaking about? I mean, we've talked about it in broad strokes, but can the worst be avoided? Like you're talking about Elon Musk doing virtual rallies on behalf of reform. We saw that at the very least, the worst was avoided. In a somewhat similar example in Germany, I know that the Conservative government still ended up winning there, but that was where Elon was trying to put his thumb on the scales. And you can see the global far right trying to coalesce behind Farage and Reform. Do you think they'll be successful? What's your read?

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

So, despite the fact that, as we pointed out earlier, there's been some sort of chaos within the party and a bit of public trust has been lost recently for this new party, your party, there's such a desperate desire for a mass left party that it seems like people still have enough goodwill to kind of go forward and go to this conference and really establish this party and set an agenda and hopefully, you know, be ready for those local elections. And when it comes to the far right, this country has a long history of fighting off the far right. You had Edward Mosley and his black shirts in the 1920s and 30s and he never rose to power, really, because just as much as there are fascist elements and far right elements within British society, there's also a very strong left. And although has been weakened in recent decades, there's still a very strong left and still a very strong anti fascist tradition. And so I don't know exactly what's going to happen in these upcoming elections, but as someone who lives here, I'm really hoping that a new, better vision for the UK starts to take form soon.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, thanks for leaving us with a little bit of a glimmer of hope, Natasha Hakimi Zapata, you can read this piece talking about a lot of this in the nation labor has only itself to blame for the UK's new left wing party. And then of course, Natasha's book Another World is Lessons for America from around the globe. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

[Natasha Hakimi Zapata]

Thanks so much, Emma.

[Emma Vigeland]

Of course. With that, folks, we are going to wrap up the free part of this show and head into the fun part of the show. We will have fun today. I'm very excited to make fun of Benny Johnson and Corey Lewandowski obsessing over Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl.

[Ryan Grimm]

Every American will soon receive their own medved card.

[Emma Vigeland]

Matt, I just a little behind the scenes. Matt has not stopped talking about the med beds since Monday.

[Matt Binder]

I've played that song clip pretty much every 15 minutes.

[Emma Vigeland]

Med bed, med bed, med bed, med bed. It's fun to say.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah. Brandon Sutton.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, hey, Brandon.

[Brandon Sutton]

Good afternoon, party people. How's it going?

[Emma Vigeland]

It's going well. Have you heard about med bed? Have you placed your name on the waiting list?

[Brandon Sutton]

I mean, I'm trying to get my name on the waiting list, but it's so popular that it's, you know, it's like getting a little boo boo.

[Emma Vigeland]

Now.

[Matt Binder]

Do you think the med bed can, like work out for you? Like you can just sit in there and it's like the equivalent of like going to the gym.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, it incorporates Trump's scientific kind of explanations for things. So in fact, resting is better than going to the gym and laying horizontally. That's how, that's how your battery recharges in the med bed. Anyway, Brandon, what's happening on your show?

[Brandon Sutton]

Oh, well, I think I've had a few days off. And by I think, I mean I know because I was visiting the uk, but now that I'm back, we're going to be diving right back into where we left off, which is Charlie Kirk conspiracies. And they've really been percolating since I've been away for the past three days. I feel like where we are now is nowhere near where we were yesterday. And by yesterday, I mean last week. And other than that, I think we'll just be looking to have a lot more fun over the weekend. Just like, you know, dance as the ship goes down.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I'm all for that. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning?

[Matt Binder]

Yeah, Left Reckoning. We had a couple of great guests. Gwen Howerton talking about the attack on trans folks down in Texas. One ground zero in that fascist assault. And also Gil Duran talking about Peter Thiel's obsession with the Antichrist and how let's say, like, if there's one group of people Peter Thiel would want to impress, it's sort of like religious fanatic Austrians. And they apparently did not. They were not fans of his lecture series, which is probably very. It's very disappointing for him. But I would talk about that. And also over at YouTube, where we're 100 subscribers short of 50,000. We're going to be premiering part of our look into Ezra Klein's identity Crisis right after MajorityPort finishes today.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, check it out, folks, for Matt Binder. He'll, I believe, be joining us in the fun half, but check out Scam Economy, Doom, Leftist Mafia. Also the. Yeah, like his newsletter as well, which I need the name of, but I can't remember right now. That's why we need him here. He'll tell us on the other side of things. We will see you in the fun half.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, Emma, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the Majority Report.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, please. No, no, no.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm. I'm.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this, and I'll tell you why. Who was offered a tour? Sushi and poker with boys. Tour, sushi and poker with boys. Who was offered a tour?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with boys. What? Twerk. Sushi and poker had Tim's upset twirl. Sushi and poker with turquoise was offered with twerk. Sushi and that's what we call biz. Sushi and poker with dude boys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and.

[Emma Vigeland]

We're gonna get demonetized.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

Free speech.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh, my God. Wow. Sushi. Sorry, I'm losing my mind. Someone's offered with tour. Yeah, Sushi and poker with boys. Logic. Sushi and poker with boys. Boy twerk. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a kid. Twerk. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate 7,000 times.

[Brian]

A little kid.

[Sam Cedar]

I think I'm like a little kid.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay?

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

That's not what we're talking about here. All right?

[Sam Cedar]

It's not a fun job. That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. Real thing. Willy Wonka. That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. What's that offer to her? That's. That's a real thing. That's real thing. That's a real thing. That's offered. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. Offered. That's a real thing.

[Brandon Sutton]

I think he might be blowing it out of proportion.

[Sam Cedar]

Real thing. Offered. That's a real thing. That's poker. Let's go, Joey.

[Emma Vigeland]

Twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker.

[Bernie Sanders]

Take it easy.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with the boys. Illusional sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on live YouTube.

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

Anymore.

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Brian]

Shut it up.

[Emma Vigeland]

Don't want people saying reckless things.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

This is a pro killing podcast.

[Sam Cedar]

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

[Emma Vigeland]

Left his best trump.

[Sam Cedar]

Violet. Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me. And don't the way Emma has all of these people.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it.

[Sam Cedar]

She wrote an honest thesis.

[Ryan Grimm]

I guess I should hear am the.

[Sam Cedar]

Main mic to you now you want to the right of the unformed policy.

[Emma Vigeland]

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

[Sam Cedar]

That's a tougher question.

[Emma Vigeland]

I have an answer to.

[Sam Cedar]

God. Incredible theme song.

[Emma Vigeland]

Hi, bumbler.

[Sam Cedar]

Emma Viand. Absolutely one of my favorite people, actually. Not just in the game like period.