← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3630 - Trump Tanking, Calls for Dem Executions and Champions Incompetence
01:27:17
Loading summary
Transcript234 lines
- [00:01]
Sam Cedar
Hi, folks. Today's episode brought to you by my favorite sponsor. That is sunsetlakesabade.com and of course I am covering up the coupon code. Why am I doing that?
- [00:13]
Emma Vigeland
The air of mystery.
- [00:14]
Sam Cedar
Yes, you're going to have to wait and find out because our friends at Sunset Lake, they know it is not always easy to feel thankful these days. So they wanted to extend their thanks to this show, to our amazing listeners and of course for Brian for keeping them. For basically keeping them their lifted t in a volume business. I want to in on that IPO when it happens. Exactly. Holidays are coming up. Less daylight, colder temperatures and of course a little extra stress on top of the already highly stressful year that we've been going through. And so Sunset Lake has a special surprise for you. 30% off@sunsetlakesebade.com on all their products. All you got to do is use the coupon code. Friday 25. That's Friday to 5. The word Friday and the numbers 2 and 5. No spaces. They got everything you need. They've got tinctures, tinctures that help you sleep. Tinctures that help you relax. Tinctures that help your dogs relax. They've got gummies, gummies to help you sleep, gummies to help you relax. Gummies with a little tad say to help you have a little fun during the. I mean, let's put it this way. There are worse things you can do than sit down at Thanksgiving meal with your relatives and have had a couple of those.
- [01:40]
Emma Vigeland
Right. And you'll have to go for a walk with your cousin. You can just pop one of these. And it's very subtle.
- [01:48]
Sam Cedar
Let's hope your folks aren't listening. Emma.
- [01:51]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, this is a trope, not something I would ever do.
- [01:53]
Matt Lech
You can do a cousin walk with Sunset Lake.
- [01:55]
Sam Cedar
You can, you can actually, because they also have smoke and you can mix that smokables in with some other smokables. But they got keef, they got pre rolls. They've got sunset like fudge and with Saba day and coffee with Saba Day. They've got lotions and creams. Saul's been using. He had. I don't want to get tell too many stories, but he had a rash. I think he has some of that eczema. And we tried all sorts of things and it was the unscented Sunset Lake hydration lotion that did it for them. But they've got solves all around. Great products, all grown without pesticides, all grown with great farming practices. Regenerative farming and great business practices, Mostly employee owned. $20 minimum wage when they pay, you know, during the harvest season. And of course these are great political movement partners donated tens of thousands of dollars to things like strike relief funds and Planned Parenthood and carceral reform, refugee resettlement. They just gave $5,000 to celebrate this sale to Vermont Food Food Bank. So check it out. Sunsetlakesabaday.com not only are they a great company, but it's a great product to check them out. And now time for the show. Oh, get again. That is Friday to five is the code. Look for, look for the information in the podcast and YouTube description. And if you spend more than 100 bucks they give you or 125 bucks they give you a free 750 milliliter tincture. Okay, bye bye. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar where every day's casual Friday. That means Monday is casual Monday, Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual hump day. Thursday casual Thirs. That's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, November 21, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Zelensky meets with European leaders over Trump's US peace plan slash giveaway to Russia. Also on the program today, Trump threatens Dems with a death penalty over the release of a video saying don't forget, your oath is to the Constitution. A U.S. federal district judge orders an end to the national guard deployment in D.C. unemployment rate to the extent that we really know it edges up. But worse than that, job losses were in manufacturing and gains only came in two sectors. Health care and what was the second one? I can't remember. We'll be back to that in a moment. Coast Guard no longer to classify swastikas and nooses as hate symbols.
- [05:46]
Emma Vigeland
What?
- [05:46]
Sam Cedar
Yeah. Comey indictment falls apart as incompetence dominates Trump's DOJ. RFK Jr's supporters are relaunching his political.
- [05:59]
Emma Vigeland
Party.
- [06:02]
Sam Cedar
Perhaps for a potential run in 2028. Larry Summers goes on leave from Harvard. He tried to weather the storm.
- [06:16]
Emma Vigeland
I can't believe he was still there.
- [06:18]
Sam Cedar
Yep, I'm going to the Bahamas. I'm not going to an island. Just Eric Swalwell declares for California governor and justice Dems Avila Chevalier. I know that's not how you pronounce her name. To challenge New York 13's Espeon didn't say that right, either. All this and more on today's Majority Report. It's Casual Friday, folks. I'm a little thrown off and I think you'll see why this is why.
- [06:48]
Emma Vigeland
Because we're matching.
- [06:49]
Sam Cedar
We're matching.
- [06:50]
Emma Vigeland
We're matching today. I love when that happens.
- [06:54]
Sam Cedar
The truth is Emma and I are going to get show pictures done at Sears today. And so we went, we decided that we're all going to be wearing. Brian and Matt are also going to be wearing shirts like this, but we're switching into turtlenecks so we have lasers behind us in the back.
- [07:12]
Emma Vigeland
Searching nearest Sears because I don't know if I think most of those are closed down.
- [07:16]
Sam Cedar
Have they closed them down?
- [07:17]
Emma Vigeland
We may have to carpool out to New Jersey for these photos, obviously.
- [07:21]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, well, we'll go. I mean, do they have them now at Walmart? You can do it at Walmart, right? Yeah, you can get the group photos there.
- [07:28]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, yeah.
- [07:29]
Matt Lech
There's not a Walmart here either. There's no Walmart within.
- [07:33]
Sam Cedar
We'll go out to New York, right?
- [07:34]
Emma Vigeland
We're going, we're leaving to get our photos done. Not in New York where there's a lot of photographers and artists. We're gonna go to my home state, my home turf of New Jersey.
- [07:44]
Sam Cedar
Do you think? We're gonna go in and there's gonna be some artists who are gonna be like, oh, I'm glad you guys are all wearing the same blue long sleeve shirts because that way I don't have to use mine.
- [07:54]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, I just, I think that, I think we're set up well today.
- [07:59]
Sam Cedar
I mentioned at the top of the show that the, or I should say, I mean just seconds ago that the job numbers are sort of released. The job numbers for September were, were released. We are still waiting for job numbers for October and they're not going to release those until next month. Which means that it's going to be after the Federal Reserve hear meets for potential rate cuts. Now they have signaled, as far as I know, the Federal Reserve has signaled that they may not be cutting rates. People were anticipating it. That's supposedly why the stock markets went down yesterday. The hiring in September was higher than, than people had imagined. I think people are anticipating that there would be 71,000, or I should say closer to like 60,000 jobs in September. We have averaged 71,000 jobs for the, for 20, 25 at this point. And you should be aware that just the just population growth means that we're actually shedding jobs in those instances. 119,000 jobs in September, however, numbers for the previous two months in July and August were recalculated down 33,000 jobs. Now we were told by the Trump administration that that is indication of like some type of shenanigans. It's not, we've explained this in the past, that you get estimates for the first initial job numbers and they get readjusted as you go forward. This is to give people a sense of where the economy is at any given time. However, the 119 was better than thought and again, it's quite possible those get revised down as we go further on into the year. But those jobs came from largely the health care industry and bars and restaurants, adding 37,000 jobs, 43,000 for the health care industry. And we have talked about this in the past that the economy right now and I think largely because of wealth disparity and which is also sort of like somewhat tracking to age to some extent. But the wealth disparity is off the off the charts. The problem is, is that two sectors gaining jobs and everywhere else basically not shedding jobs net anyways is a problem. Transportation and warehousing lost 25,000 jobs. Manufacturing lost 6,000 jobs. Temporary help services lost 16,000 jobs. And the reason why that's problematic is if your business is building, the first thing you do not always, but what businesses tend to do is they'll hire temp jobs before they make these full time jobs because they're expanding. If they're shedding those, that means that they are contracting, that that sector is now as small as it's been since 2012. So what we're really getting from this is a sense that things are beginning to decline except for areas where people age. So there's going to be more health care jobs and bars and restaurants may be expanding a little bit, could be seasonal. But again, these are not necessarily. These can be indicative of these two sort of dual tracks of the economy that is taking place. It is again the equivalent of like, if you use average, if you have two people in a room and you want to get a sense of like how wealthy are they? If you use average, it's a problem as a metric because I could be in a room with Bill Gates and we would both look like billionaires if we look at the average. The problem is, is that many of our economic indicators, GDP and others, are being buoyed by really, really wealthy people spending ungodly amounts of money. But it's not necessarily indicative of what's. And that money gets getting just churned within a very narrow band of our population. And so it's a problem ups Amazon have started to shed jobs and are replacing them with AI or with robots or just pulling back because their business is not as big job openings as measured by the job search website. Indeed. Which of course, you know, is again, take it with a grain of salt. We just don't have the data have reached their lowest level in four years. So four years ago was we were still sort of like coming out of COVID I should also just make a little note when I say that I'm not talking about the existence of the virus. What I am talking about is the shutdown. I mentioned this the other day in the context of education and someone was ma, you know, sent an email, said they were upset because I was ignoring the fact that Covid's still around and the implications long Covid here. What I was talking about specifically was there was an extended period of time where a lot of students were out of class and it obviously hurt them. You know, you're not sitting in class. And so I was talking about that. The unemployment rate for workers between ages 20 and 24 is 9.2%, the highest it's been since 2015. Across all age groups. The number of people working part time who would rather work full time has been drifting up. There's a lot of concern in these numbers. The problem is, I think that investors are also convinced that inflation is going to be a problem. And so the Fed is sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Yeah, their job is to try and shore up employment numbers, but also to contain inflation.
- [15:27]
Emma Vigeland
And it looks like we are in prime conditions for stagflation as well, which is what they're concerned about. And the fact that in terms of like, you know, we played to start the show yesterday, Trump once again musing about wanting to fire Jerome Powell because he's maybe considering not lowering rates in this upcoming meeting, which might be today. In part, part of the problem is that because the administration, because of these jobs numbers being withheld for a while, like they don't have the information necessary. Also to understand the full economic picture.
- [16:04]
Sam Cedar
Here is Fox News reporting on what these economic woes are doing to Donald Trump's numbers. This is Fox News, folks. And so just so you know, it's very hard for these bad numbers to. It's rare when Fox will report this.
- [16:25]
Emma Vigeland
Type of stuff and they couch it even a little here, I feel like.
- [16:29]
Sam Cedar
But the issue of affordability, the issue of how people feel about the economy popping up in our latest polls Personal financial situation now excellent, good 40% only fair or poor, 60%. You can see that changing from July condition of the US economy also a perception totally upside down, 76 to 25 and that changing a bit. And then economic conditions for the nation and you personally, again, 25% positive, 76 negative for the nation for a second. This is, this is really interesting because a lot of times you will see, you will see a much greater disparity between what people think it is for the nation, what it is personally. In fact, like a year ago, I'm quite convinced that these numbers there would be far greater disparity, never mind the positive negative differential, which I think would have been somewhat similar in 2024. But the difference between this is impacting me negatively personally versus this is impacting the nation negatively was far greater than 16 points. People generally, they'll see. And what's also surprising about this, or I should say maybe, perhaps not unsurprising, is that we have not seen the blitzkrieg of media attention on the economy like we did in the run up to the 2024 election. Now part of that is because it's a run up to an election and it becomes much more salient. But we have not heard as much about the stumbling in the economy as we did then. And so people are just talking about what they are actually feeling. 60% of the country is personally saying that things are negative and then they're looking around at their friends or what meager amounts of, of news media coverage they're seeing about the economy and going like, ooh, so this is pretty damaging stuff.
- [18:54]
Emma Vigeland
It is the lowest approval that Trump has ever had on the economy ever recorded in this Fox poll, 38%.
- [19:01]
Sam Cedar
And, and, and just this, you know, unlike other things on what's your opinion? You know, how economic conditions are for the nation is an opinion more often than not. But how it's impacting you personally is an indication of just not just like what your opinion is, but what your material situation feels like. So that's pretty good. Let's play this one. Here's Harry Anton on inflation and improve. Just from this morning again when Fox is putting out these polls, you know you've got a problem. I guess he's only going to now go on. What is it? What, what's left now? One nation. What is it called? One One America News or I don't know. Here's Harry Emden.
- [19:54]
Brian Vokey
John Berman. I would say this is probably the worst 10 day period for the president in the polls his entire second term. The numbers are just atrocious. What are we talking about here in terms of net approval rating? Well, take a look. These are all November polls. The best one of the group puts him at 14 points underwater. That's the Marquette University Law School poll, tied for the worst he's ever had in that poll. Fox, 17 points underwater. Maris, 17 points underwater. The Reuters Ipsos ball, 22 points underwater. And then taking the cake, the AP North Pole, 26 points underwater. When your best poll has you still 14 points underwater, you know it's truly bad. And it's as bad as 26 points underwater. We're talking about an average. Well, well, well underwater with the deep blue sea, swimming with the fishes.
- [20:44]
Sam Cedar
And now this is all parties here. Yeah, keep going, keep going. You think this is bad, Harry?
- [20:51]
Brian Vokey
If you think this is bad, what is driving these horrific numbers for Donald Trump? Well, why don't we take a look at independence? Trump's net approval rating with Independence back in January, he was close to even. He was at minus four points. Not great, but not terrible. Look at this number. 43 points underwater with independence. In the most recent average of these polls. When you are 43 points underwater with Independence, you know you're doing terribly. You can't win with this if this holds for next year's midterm election wave. Adios, amigos, Goodbye, see you later. To that House Republican majority and that Senate Republican majority very much in danger as well. When you take a look at the Pew Research validated voter survey going back to last year, he was basically even among independents with Kamala Harris. Now he is 43 points underwater. Whatever he is doing with Independence, it ain't working. They despise him at this point.
- [21:47]
Sam Cedar
It's just a colossal.
- [21:48]
Brian Vokey
Oh, my God. It's a 40 point move.
- [21:50]
Sam Cedar
Okay, that's.
- [21:51]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, my gosh. You want the inflation part, we can.
- [21:56]
Sam Cedar
Do the inflation part. But, but you have to ask yourself, what is that? Like what. And I don't know, you know, maybe we had a chance to look at some of, like the. Well in the internals in that poll, but the. That it would be that this bad right now, I would imagine is a function in part of what we're seeing with the immigration stuff and how people are experiencing that and the government shut.
- [22:29]
Emma Vigeland
Down the health care and.
- [22:31]
Sam Cedar
Epstein.
- [22:32]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, and I just, I want to correct myself just that the meeting is not, I guess it's in December for the Fed. Just, just so people know. But the Fox poll does have a good sense. They asked on six different issue sets how people approve or disapprove. And the only issue that they asked about that he has sub, you know, or above 50 approval on is border security. But then when you go to immigration, to your point, he's Underwater there now, 53% disapproved of 46%, 55% approve of his foreign policy to 43%. And a lot of that is buoyed by, like, you know, the fact that he was able to, at the very least, get a ceasefire that Israel's repeatedly breaking, but in Gaza for a little while, and then he's over 60% disapproval on the economy, tariffs and healthcare. And I'd imagine that that is like, you know, when people are starting to also think about their premiums. And you've got 20 million people with the subsidies from the ACA that are looking down the road that's tied into, like, just the cost of living as well. So it's really, I would imagine, people's wallets that's driving this three or four.
- [23:43]
Sam Cedar
Weeks away from those subsidies, lack of subsidies being locked in. And it seems like the Senate is running out of time to do anything about it. And it doesn't look like they're going to. Trump is telling him not to. And so that's where we're at at this point. But let's just look at the inflation numbers and then we'll continue on. Now, this is, the idea that the Senate could be in play is really, in many respects, nuts. But here is the thing that Democrats need to keep in mind. If you want to hold these things for more than two years, if you want to hold the House for more than two years or more than two years after 20, 28, you need to have an actual plan. You cannot all, let's put it this way, the Republicans cannot step on the rake if they don't have the rake. And when Democrats are in power, the Republicans don't have the rake anymore. Democrats, there is a. They have to do more than Republicans, because that's the whole point of Democrats, theoretically, the difference between Democrats and Republicans. And right now, the health care stuff is a complete disaster. And 10 years later, 12 years later, we now see the fundamental weakness of the aca, and that is it did not control costs in the way that it should have a B. Those people who are, who are influenced by the aca. And I'm not talking the patient protection part of the bill, I'm not talking about the expansion of Medicaid, is a narrow set of people in this country. And so if we're really going to Deal with, with health insurance in this country, you need to, to present some form of single play, a payer plan.
- [25:46]
Emma Vigeland
And on the patient protection part, I just think it's important to note that, like while the ACA was really important with the preexisting conditions piece and protecting people from that, we saw how health insurance companies were able to find other ways to deny care in the years that followed. And so it's not comprehensive enough because they make money by denying you care. That is the incentive and that's the reason that this middleman needs to be cut out.
- [26:15]
Sam Cedar
All right, let's just look a little bit at the inflation numbers and then the groups here. How about what issues may be driving?
- [26:23]
Brian Vokey
Okay, yes, so we say that independents are driving Trump's decline overall. But what is pushing independents and the rest of the electorate away from Donald Trump? Away from Donald Trump. John Berman, move out of this screen away from Donald Trump. Well, it has everything to do with inflation. It's the cost of living, baby. That is the name of the game. You go back to January, he was three points above water. This was the reason why that voters gave him a second term. You look at this, look at this now. 34 points underwater. My goodness gracious. That is a 37 point move in the wrong, wrong direction.
- [26:57]
Sam Cedar
All right. I mean, inflation, you know, if people, one of the things the Fed could do to fight inflation, if that were a concern, is they would raise interest rates. Right now, right now there's been an issue of whether they'll cut them or lower them. After the, the mixed jobs report yesterday, what are the prediction markets say now?
- [27:12]
Brian Vokey
Yeah, okay, so Donald Trump has been pushing, has been pushing, pushing, pushing. And you know what, the chance at the Fed reserve in December cuts interest rates now up to 70% because one of the Fed reserve members said essentially there was still room for cuts. This will be welcome news for Donald Trump. Whether it ultimately though gets, it is true problem, which in my opinion is the cost of living. I think a lot of economists would disagree that it would, but that, so.
- [27:35]
Sam Cedar
I mean, that's the, that's the dilemma from the Fed's perspective. I don't necessarily think that a Fed rate cut is going to necessarily spur more inflation. I think frankly, the, the immigration stuff that's happening, the, the, the tariffs and the uncertainty creates an environment where I think a lot of corporations either are forced to raise prices or see an opportunity to raise prices and walk away with more profits.
- [28:17]
Emma Vigeland
Exactly.
- [28:18]
Sam Cedar
I mean, the, I just, it's hard for me to imagine that a quarter percent cut is going to, you know, spur that much more economic activity in this environment where everybody's just like, I have no idea what's going on.
- [28:36]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, I mean, we'll see, we'll see. But we saw the lessons that the, these corporations are from the pandemic, which is, is that we can just, we.
- [28:44]
Sam Cedar
Can get away with whatever we want.
- [28:46]
Emma Vigeland
Yep. And Trump is giving them every excuse. Even if he rescinds these tariffs, what are they going to use as the excuse this time?
- [28:55]
Sam Cedar
A couple of words from our sponsors. If you're dealing with hair issues, maybe it's thinning, maybe it's shedding. That's the problem is it's the, it's the shedding and then you don't get it growing back and that's where you get the thinning. But you're not sure what to do next. I totally get it. I've been there. Actually, I didn't really spend that much time there, I got to be honest, because we had neutral fall in the office and it was sort of more of like a, a lark. People know the backstory, why we had in the office. They wanted to sponsor the program. They want us to try it out. At the time, nobody was interested. I had it in the office. I'm like, I'm starting to feel like I'm, I'm starting to thin a little bit up top, not so much around the gut. And, and so I tried it because I didn't want to take, you know, drugs. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement. So I figured why not? And I will tell you, it's not just type, it's physician formulated, it is clinically tested and like I say, even recommended by dermatologists, you can feel great about what you're putting into your body. Since Nutrafol hair growth supplements are backed by peer reviewed studies and NSF Content Certified, which is the gold standard and third party certification for supplements. It's trusted by over one and a half million people. And part of that reason is that many supplements will rely only on ingredient studies. Nutrafol clinically tests its final formulations and to ensure their efficacy, they use a bunch of hair measurement tools, hair counts, pull tests to assess growth and quality and shedding and texture. Super easy to add neutral fall to your daily routine. You can see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in three to six months with neutral for a limited time. Neutral offering you 10 bucks off your first month subscription and free shipping. When you go to nutrafol, dot com. Enter the promo code TMR10. That's the letters TMR and the number 10 no spaces. Find out why Nutrafol is the best selling hair growth supplement brand@nutrafol.com spelled n u t r a f o l.com promo code tmr10 that's neutral.com promo code tmr10. Description in the podcast and YouTube I should say links in the podcast and YouTube description. Emma One Skin.
- [31:38]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, I would like to thank Oneskin for sponsoring today's episode. If you are like me, your skin needs some extra care this time of year, between colder weather and the holidays fast approaching. And you know, in the summer sometimes I like to lay out and I need to recover in the wintered months. That's why I have continued to rely on one skin. I've talked about this before. I love the OS 1 face, the OS 1 eye. It's been invaluable in my daily routine and it delivers a powerful, powerful skin care benefits, powerful longevity benefits, all in just a few simple steps. I love the texture of the cream. I love the fact that the eye cream in particular is lighter. And also sometimes eye cream can cause like tingling. For me, the skin around my eyes can be a little bit sensitive, but not with one skin tingling. Yeah, skin around your eyes is a little more sensitive than other areas because it's just like kind of baby skin. And I really love how One Skin's eye cream feels. In particular, I wanted just a little bit more brightness, some more clarity, the ability to like recover a little bit from some sun damage. And Oneskin has been excellent so far on that front. At the core is their patented OS1 peptide, the first ingredient proven to target senescent cells. The root cause of wrinkles, crepiness. That's how you say it, right? And loss of elasticity, which are all key signs of skin aging. And these results have now been validated in five different clinical studies. I've been getting some compliments recently on my skin. Shockingly, I think it was Francesca Fiorentini, friend of the show when I was out in la, saying, oh, your skin looks nice. And they said, thank you.
- [33:28]
Sam Cedar
My friend Julie's loving that stuff.
- [33:30]
Emma Vigeland
Yes, yes, she's been telling me too. And so Oneskin has been a huge part of that. Oneskin also just launched their limited edition holiday sets, including the Nightly Rewind gift set, which is one of those rare gifts that's both impressive and genuinely useful, providing an upgrade to anyone's nightly routine, featuring their best selling face moisturizer their new peptide lip mask and a cool Gua Sha tool. Each component of the set is designed to work together as your body enters its natural nightly repair mode, helping renew skin at the cellular level for a stronger, smoother, more resilient skin. And that limited edition holiday set is pretty awesome. If you want to give it as a gift this season, don't just moisturize. Support your skin at the cellular level with Oneskin for a limited time. Try OneSkin for 15% off using code majority at OneSkin C. That's 15% off at OneSkin Co Majority with Code Majority. After you purchase they will ask you where you heard about them. Please help us and tell them the Majority reports sent you try Oneskin today and we will have a link down below in the video episode description and also at majority fm get 15% off one skin with the code majority@www.oneskin.co majority.
- [34:51]
Sam Cedar
Www yeah so it's on the worldwide web.
- [34:54]
Emma Vigeland
It's on the worldwide web.
- [34:56]
Sam Cedar
I just wanted to make sure that that was the case.
- [34:57]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [34:58]
Sam Cedar
Lastly, we got one other sponsor. This is like a life hack. I know. G. Gift giving is. I mean frankly, it's horrible. Nobody likes to do it. No, I like Fox News says you shouldn't even do it. This is I've got the greatest gift to give and I gave this to my girlfriend's family and I was all of a sudden like a hero. Aura frames, they are literally like the cheat code for winning the holidays. Super personal, super, super easy to give and something they will literally use every day. I'm talking your grandparents, I'm talking your parents, I'm talking your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your kids. It doesn't matter. It works for everybody. Aura frames are digital frames. They give you unlimited free photo and video. All you got to do is you download the Aura app. It's super easy to use. You connect to Wi Fi. Obviously you can upload all these pictures. There is a gift box included for every frame. So you're already there. And here's the thing. You can order it, you can preload the photos on it from afar. Do you understand what I'm saying here? You don't have to even see it. You order it, you get the code that the box is. It goes to grandma's house, it goes to your folks house, it goes to whatever. Or you could bring it in person. Of course to don't even got to open it. You don't open it. You don't. It's all wrapped in plastic still and you can Upload the photos. So when they plug it in and they connect to WI fi and it's super easy to connect to WI fi too. The photos are there. Photos and videos and with sound. Super easy. People love this. And you've got 12 kids in your family, okay. You give it to your parents, all 12 kids can get an app and feed it in there. And then you get. Then it becomes a war. Who's gonna put more photos on there? Who. Whose photos does mom and dad like more? Yeah, that's basically what happens. But that's like everything at the holidays, I feel like. Don't wait. Win the holidays right now with Aura Frames for a limited time, visit auraframes.com get $45 off of or is best selling Carver Matte frames named number one by wire cutter. Use the promo code Majority at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code majority. This is exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year. So order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. I'm telling you, you will win it. We'll put the link in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. All right, let's go to this. I have mixed feelings about this because I found the video itself a little bit tedious. I don't know why you need to be a former military or a former CIA agent to say that you should follow the Constitution. You sit this one up. You don't understand. As a vet, you just don't understand. I don't get it. I don't get it.
- [38:25]
Matt Lech
Patriots are in control.
- [38:26]
Emma Vigeland
But I like the idea of Brian being interspersed in this video for some reason. It's like eight Democratic lawmakers and Brian being like, you don't have to follow orders that you don't agree.
- [38:37]
Sam Cedar
I want to remind you the flag is upside down.
- [38:40]
Emma Vigeland
It's me, Senator Alyssa Slotkin and me, Brian Vokey. This.
- [38:44]
Sam Cedar
Brian. Me, Brian. I didn't. I've never heard a title. Oppositional defiance disorder is not. Is patriotic. Weaponize it. Both directions. Exactly. But. But the point still remains, despite the fact that I have a little bit of icky ooey feeling in this video on some level because of course, they banded together with fellow vets and fellow vets of intelligence. Intelligence and, and, but the point being. And maybe, maybe, maybe there's national guardsmen out there. Maybe there are national security people who would be moved by this more than they would if, you know, if I was to say it. But we are. There is certainly a legitimate concern over the course of the next. I have a concern over the course of the next 11 to 12 months that in their desperation to hold on power, hold on to power, the Trump administration is going to do some stuff that is extra constitutional, as it were. And so these people put out this video as a way of basically starting to get the conversation in there. I mean, look, we are on the precipice of, of having to watch whether federal agents or National Guardsmen will cross a line and say, hey, wait, this is not cool. But here, watch.
- [40:36]
Carolyn Levitt
I'm Senator Alyssa Slotkin.
- [40:38]
Sam Cedar
Senator Mark Kelly. Representative Chris d'. Aluzio.
- [40:41]
Carolyn Levitt
Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. Representative Chrissy Houlahan.
- [40:44]
Sam Cedar
Congressman Jason Crow. I was a captain in the United States Navy, former CIA officer, former Navy, former paratrooper and Army Ranger, former intelligence.
- [40:52]
Carolyn Levitt
Officer, former Air Force.
- [40:54]
Sam Cedar
We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community who take risks each day to keep Americans safe.
- [41:00]
Carolyn Levitt
We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now.
- [41:04]
Emma Vigeland
Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk.
- [41:07]
Sam Cedar
This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens like us. You all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.
- [41:26]
Carolyn Levitt
You can refuse illegal orders.
- [41:29]
Sam Cedar
You must refuse illegal orders.
- [41:31]
Carolyn Levitt
No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.
- [41:35]
Sam Cedar
We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.
- [41:39]
Carolyn Levitt
But whether you're serving in the CIA.
- [41:40]
Sam Cedar
The army or Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.
- [41:44]
Carolyn Levitt
And know that we have your back.
- [41:46]
Sam Cedar
Because now more than ever, the American people need you.
- [41:50]
Carolyn Levitt
We need you to stand up for.
- [41:51]
Sam Cedar
Our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up.
- [41:58]
Emma Vigeland
Don't give up the ship.
- [42:03]
Sam Cedar
Now, we just had a federal court say that Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard for mundane crime fighting in Washington, D.C. is illegal and has enjoined them from doing it. Now, I don't know if it's going to get turned over or not, but when Donald Trump Is training squads, 500 National Guard men per state as a rapid deployment force, there's reason to be a little bit on alert and concerned.
- [42:46]
Emma Vigeland
Yes. I mean, well, a silly point is, I like when, how twice in a row it was like Kelly, then Slotkin who said, you can refuse illegal orders. And then they cut to Jason Crowe saying, you, you do it. You Must refuse illegal orders. It's just maybe they have a little CIA military break. I know. And then, and then Brian comes on. You will refuse illegal orders.
- [43:09]
Matt Lech
You already have.
- [43:11]
Sam Cedar
It's like, it's the para. It's the parallax view of footage.
- [43:15]
Emma Vigeland
But, but I actually think it's somewhat important in the sense that, like, we've been saying this, I think for a little bit is that the Democrats have to probably remind some of these people, people that there's a chance they're back in power at some point. And like, if you have an off ramp, if you like, don't. If you think an order is illegal, like, we can protect you. It's kind of the reverse of what we're seeing from Pritzker is like, we will prosecute you if you violate these laws. Don't think this is forever.
- [43:44]
Sam Cedar
Right. The idea that there's some accountability out there and if this is a way of basically sort of laying down a marker and saying there is a line that you can cross, we're aware of it. And if you're going to do this, you better hope that the Republicans are in power forever and ever. Here is Donald Trump responding on Truth out now. Washington examiner writes Democratic veterans in current in Congress urge service members to refuse unspecified unlawful orders. Now, this is worded in such a way as if it's like saying specifically refuse orders as opposed to Democratic veterans in Congress remind service members to refuse to follow unlawful orders. Your oath is of the Constitution. Exactly. Which is a fairly more sort of like mundane but important and not coincidental in terms of this era. Donald Trump says this is really bad. Now, for some reason, bad is not capitalized, but dangerous is. So this is really bad. It's more dangerous than bad, comma, and dangerous to our country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. Again, remember, the words are do not follow illegal orders. Keep going. Seditious behavior from traitors. Lock them up. Question mark, Question mark, question mark, question mark. President djt and then is it illiterate? So funny.
- [45:29]
Emma Vigeland
Well, I mean, it's.
- [45:30]
Sam Cedar
Is there more? Didn't it do too? Yeah.
- [45:32]
Emma Vigeland
Epstein also would have a bunch of. Yeah. Errors in his thing and people say it's a power move, but for Trump, it's just idiocy.
- [45:39]
Sam Cedar
So then they're idiots.
- [45:40]
Matt Lech
They're powerful idiots.
- [45:41]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, that's a powerful move. Now some, some guy whose avatar is like a. Is that like a believer?
- [45:49]
Matt Lech
Iron Cross.
- [45:51]
Sam Cedar
Iron Cross.
- [45:51]
Matt Lech
That's the thing that made me stop wearing my Motorhead t shirt about 10 years ago.
- [45:55]
Sam Cedar
And they Reply, hang them, George Washington Wood. And Donald Trump retruthed it. Now, first off, I don't have any explanation why Iron Cross would be speaking like Yoda. Hang them, George Washington. Nice.
- [46:16]
Emma Vigeland
Wait, do it again.
- [46:21]
Sam Cedar
I was feeling it. That was good, Brian. George Washington Wood.
- [46:25]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [46:27]
Sam Cedar
And then Trump again says, put this up here. Seditious behavior punishable by death.
- [46:34]
Matt Lech
So Steve Miller's in the room.
- [46:36]
Sam Cedar
Yes. Steve Miller is like, you're on to something. And look, as a political matter, like, you know, this is a good way for Trump to get a little bit of distraction from the crap show that he has been involved in over the past couple days. I don't think it's going to work. It really just entertains people, largely, it seems like. But Caroline Levitt was asked about this, and they are purposefully conflating a couple of things in terms of the Supreme Court, what the Supreme Court ruled while Donald Trump was out of office, which is that the President has immunity from anything he does. Criminal prosecution of anything he does, as long as he does it as part of his official duties as president. Which is not to say that he. The orders that he, that it's impossible for him to issue illegal orders. It just means to say that even though it's illegal, he is protected from prosecution. But the people who respond to those illegal orders and the illegality of those orders still exists. It just means he can't be held accountable.
- [48:06]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [48:06]
Sam Cedar
And it means that if you follow it, you will be. But here, Carolyn Levitt tries to sort of muddy the waters with her machine gun.
- [48:16]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah, I love the way she.
- [48:20]
Carolyn Levitt
They are literally saying to 1.3 million active duty service members, not to. To defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders. Every single.
- [48:30]
Sam Cedar
Pause it for a second. Yeah, they literally, we just watched it. And they literally said don't follow unlawful orders. But she's going to try and make the argument that there's no such thing.
- [48:42]
Matt Lech
But, but even her making that slip, she knows that if she says they're supposed to just follow orders, everyone's alarm would go off. So she has to put lawful in there.
- [48:52]
Emma Vigeland
Right. Well, and also, but the premise of her, her argument also is just the Nixonian. If the President does it, that means it's not illeg. Right. Any order he issues by definition cannot be. And so that was a national scandal back in the day. Now it's just modus operandi in active duty service members.
- [49:11]
Carolyn Levitt
Not to. To defy the chain of command, not to follow lawful orders. Every single illegal order. But they are. But they're suggesting. They're suggesting, Nancy, that the President has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander in chief and through this chain of command, through the Secretary of War, is lawful. And the courts have proven that this administration has an unparalleled record at the Supreme Court because we are following the laws. We don't defy court orders. We do things by the books. And to suggest and encourage that active duty service members defy the change of command is a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do. And they should be held accountable. And that's what the President wants to see.
- [49:59]
Emma Vigeland
They are literally 1.30 more like.
- [50:03]
Sam Cedar
I mean, they're really having to dance around this. But. And it's unclear, like, you know, I don't know if Donald Trump does anything other than just sort of react, like with his lizard brain, and then we just watch the backfilling by everybody around him to sort of justify what he does. They have the benefit of having absolutely no shame. So it may often come off of like, wow, nobody. The fact that she could get up there and try and justify this and tell these lights, it's sort of indicative. They must have gotten together and planned this out and done that. But it, no, it's really just an absence of shame because that's what, when professionals get out there and lie like this, it's that they are aware that everybody's going to know that they're lying, and it makes it harder for them to do it. It's just sort of like a human reaction. But these people have so little shame that that's not there anymore, and that's why they're able to do what they do. It really is just, at the end of the day, a certain amount of shame. And I think just sort of like they live in a different ecosystem where if it doesn't matter what you have to do to get past this, certain, you know, just move the chains essentially, as you march down the field is really the only agenda they have.
- [51:25]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, I don't want to also, like, trivialize it too much. I mean, I think it's there. Slotkin is by far from my favorite Democrat, but she is apparently now has 24,7 security from Capitol Police because of this. Like, Capitol Police having to protect these lawmakers from the president and from the actions that he takes and, like, what he inspires, the death threats that he's. That she's gonna get. I mean, like, we saw how the January 6 rioters reacted to Donald Trump's words. I mean, the way that they stormed into Nancy Pelosi's office, they didn't they defecate on her desk. And like, I mean, the AOC was literally thought she might be sexually assaulted, was hiding in the Capitol. And this is because of the rhetoric of Donald Trump. So it's just, it's easy to be blase about it, it's easy to be used to it. But this like kind of leadership does matter and this has deleterious effects that can end up in violence.
- [52:21]
Sam Cedar
I mean, she's from a state slack.
- [52:23]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [52:24]
Sam Cedar
Where the. Wasn't the governor almost. Yes.
- [52:27]
Emma Vigeland
Subject to a kidnapping plot. Right. So that like, you know, there needs to be. People have no shame or responsibility anymore. But this is going to have an impact in some way or another.
- [52:40]
Sam Cedar
Now, the flip side of all this is that there is just a tremendous amount of incompetence by the Trump administration in everything they do. I mean, we. If you're going to have your country subject to a fascist takeover, may your fascists be as stupid and as incompetent as the ones we have. That will be the saving grace. As you know, Donald Trump pushed for a push for Texas gerrymandering. And this started off a gerrymander war, essentially. And the idea was he's so desperate to maintain the House at the midterms, knowing that now it's going to be tough to keep control of the House. Right now they have what, a three vote margin? They wanted Texas to gerrymander, to pick up five, six seats. I think it was maybe more. And this started off a gerrymander war and there was a lot more opportunities for Republicans to gerrymander across the country because most Democratic states had already passed laws saying that we're only going to do independent commissions to draw lines because we want to keep it relatively fair. They could have gotten away with this in Texas and they still very well may. But it's going to be a lot more difficult because the way that the, the Trump administration did this, they made these Texas gerrymander maps completely racialized. And it's literally the one thing they shouldn't have done if they wanted this to stand. The DOJ sent a letter, I'm reading now from, from the decision issued by the judge in this case. It was a couple of days ago, but this is worth hearing some of this language. DOJ sent a letter to the governor and Attorney General of Texas making the legally incorrect assertion that four congressional districts in Texas were unconstitutional because they were coalition districts. Majority non white districts in which no single racial group constituted a 50% majority. In the letter, the DOJ threatened legal action if Texas didn't immediately dismantle and redraw these districts. A threat based entirely on their racial makeup. Notably, the DOJ letter targeted only majority non white districts. So this is from the first couple paragraphs of the decision. The public perception of this case is that it's about politics. Oh, we should say at the top of the introduction, there's a quote that the trial judge wrote, or I should say circuit judge wrote. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. This is a quote from Chief Justice John Roberts. Now, this is a quote that he used in dismantling the Voting Rights act by saying, like, you should be colorblind and that's the way you end racism is just pretend like it hasn't existed up until this moment and just keep pretending like that's not there.
- [56:34]
Emma Vigeland
But using his own words against him is a really interesting choice by this three judge panel or the two judges that. But one I think was a Biden appointee.
- [56:44]
Sam Cedar
One maybe was a Trump appointee.
- [56:46]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, one was a Trump appointee. Okay, there you go.
- [56:48]
Sam Cedar
And, and so using John Roberts own words.
- [56:54]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [56:55]
Sam Cedar
The public perception of this case is that it's about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 map, but it's much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. Here's why. Earlier this year, President Trump began urging Texas to redraw its U.S. house map to create five additional Republican seats. Lawmakers reportedly met that request to redistrict on purely partisan grounds with apprehension when the governor announced his intent to call a special legislative session. He didn't even place redistricting on the legislative agenda. But when the Trump administration reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup, Texas lawmakers immediately jumped on board. On July 7, Harmon Dealand, the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice DOJ sent a letter, the DOJ letter to the Governor and Attorney General of Texas. This is what I read above. Making the legally incorrect assertion that four congressional districts in Texas were unconstitutional because they were coalition districts, majority non white districts in which no single racial group constituted a 50% majority. In the letter, DOJ threatened legal action if Texas didn't immediately dismantle and redraw these districts. A threat based entirely on Their racial makeup. Remember that John Roberts quote? Notably, the DOJ letter targeted only non, only majority, non white districts. Any mention of majority white districts, which DOJ presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial, was conspicuously absent. So they could have gone further. But when they start to bring up racial intent, that's like literally the only way that this, like they could have had these exact same lines drawn. But the question is, were they drawn with an intent to be racially biased? And the fact that they acted upon this of a racially biased agenda gives up the ghost. Two days later, citing the DOJ letter, the governor added redistricting to the special sessions legislative agenda. In doing so, the governor explicitly directed the legislature to draw a new U.S. house map to resolve DOJ's concerns. In other words, the governor explicitly directed the legislature to redistrict based on race. That's literally the only thing you can't do now with the, with what the Supreme Court has ruled at this point. Yep, the legislature adopted those racial objectives. I'm skipping ahead now. The map ultimately passed by the legislature and signed by the governor achieved all but one of the racial objectives that the DOJ demanded. So in other words, they were hoisted by their own petard, in this case the Trump administration. If they had not made it about racial motivations, but instead political motivations, the Supreme Court would have let that slide. Now we still don't know. The Supreme Court could very well. But in the past, Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot allow race to predominate when drawing lines, but has given them free rein to use political calculations. So if Texas has said. Or if the DA judges shut its mouth.
- [60:31]
Emma Vigeland
Yeah.
- [60:31]
Sam Cedar
And said nothing about it. And Texas has said we're doing this because we want Republicans to win more, that would have been okay. But because they said, ooh, we don't. We're giving too much power away to brown people. They screw themselves. And this is the thing, it's just. And now it's quite possible that California will still go ahead with their redistrict redistricting. And this entire war, Indiana is backing off, I guess their own push for redistricting.
- [61:06]
Emma Vigeland
Right.
- [61:06]
Sam Cedar
Delaying Maryland may go forward. This entire Republican initiated redistricting war where Democrats had to be pushed kicking and screaming into redistricting, may end up netting Democrats another seven, eight seats. But. But if the Supreme Court reverses and says it's okay now to racially gerrymander, Texas still may have a problem. Because again, we mentioned this in the wake of the last election, the Entire we were told that this election was a realignment. I remember this from when I went into college. The Reagan, the second Reagan election was supposedly a realignment. And it probably was where you had a bunch of more sort of like racist Democrats shift over to the Republican Party. And the argument was that young people, Latino people, maybe even black people, there was a realignment going on. They were following Donald Trump. All those numbers have reversed. And so the gerrymander was based on those Latino votes in Texas, and it may end up also costing them seats in Texas. So they may be screwed either way. Now in Texas, either they lose their gerrymander and Democratic states go ahead with it anyways, or they keep their gerrymander and end up losing more, more seats than they, they would have originally.
- [62:55]
Emma Vigeland
And just a quick note on that. I'm not sure if you saw that there was. The third judge on that panel was a Reagan appointee. And he like, published this insane opinion in response to it in which he invoked George Soros no fewer than 17 times. I'm reading from Mark Joseph Stern here, derided the plaintiffs, expert witnesses as Soros operative, et cetera. So just to give people a sense of like, what the right wing conservative legal minds actually are bandying about in.
- [63:32]
Sam Cedar
Their heads, I read that thing and it honestly reads like a guy who is teetering on the edge of reality. It was like a series of jokes that he put in there that were sort of like, I mean, it doesn't.
- [63:45]
Emma Vigeland
Sound like a legal opinion. It sounds like.
- [63:47]
Sam Cedar
No, he started it off by saying, look, I've got a bunch of jumbled thoughts and I'm just going to dribble this out on the page. And that's exactly what he did. And they're all over the place. And remember, the Reagan era was particularly like, hostile to, to black people. I mean, that was really the big thing. You know, Reagan started his campaign just the welfare queen stuff, but he launched his national campaign just outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where those at the Neshoba County Fair, just miles from where those three civil rights workers were famously killed by the KKK and cited states rights as one of the things that he was running his election for.
- [64:45]
Matt Lech
Those were, those were the folks that were the movie Mississippi Burning was based on.
- [64:50]
Guest/Reporter
Right.
- [64:53]
Sam Cedar
And of course, John Roberts, who would go on to be Supreme Court justice and oversee the dismantling the Voting Rights act, was trying to dismantle the Voting Rights act as a lawyer in Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice 30 years earlier. So, but this is where we're, we're at with this. And lastly, as we make this case for incompetence, they. And I listen, I don't care about James Comey. I, you know, I. The myriad of issues I have with James Comey going back to the, you know, his, his work with this guy, just only God, no other kings let the mighty. Back during the Bush years, he worked with Ashcroft's doj, and they spent a lot of time sp on Muslims.
- [66:03]
Emma Vigeland
And do you remember earlier this year, he posted a, like, photo on Instagram of seashells that spelled the numbers 8647.
- [66:13]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, he was a real. I got that tattooed on me to.
- [66:16]
Emma Vigeland
Get, yeah, to get, to get attention. Like, he pretend he's like, it was just a nice, like, numerical sequence that I'm, I mean, dude, are you, are you an influencer? Are you 16 years old? Or are you. Are you like, James Comey, former FBI Director?
- [66:31]
Sam Cedar
He, I mean, he both was responsible for Trump's election in many respects. And I mean, just I. On and on, whatever. That's not the point. The. We should not be weaponizing the DOJ in the way that we have. They have attempted to indict, and I say attempted because it looked like they had indicted James Comey. They went to a grand jury over the course of this week. They could not find, just to be clear, going back a little bit, they could not find any professional prosecutors in the Department of Justice who was willing to bring charges in front of a grand jury to try and get an indictment because there was so little there. And so Trump's DOJ hires. What's her first name? Halligan, Lindsey Halligan, who apparently was like an insurance lawyer or something to that effect to prosecute the case. She had. There were two issues this week. One was on Wednesday and one was on Friday. One was on Wednesday, and when was on Thursday or on Wednesday, she was chastised for. For. Well, actually, two things. One, for telling the grand jury stuff that was wrong as a matter of law.
- [68:14]
Brian Vokey
Right.
- [68:14]
Sam Cedar
So you can have, like, a matter of facts. And, you know, prosecutors always sort of play a little bit with that. And grand jury is very easy to get an indictment out, but the grand jury would ask questions and she would say, well, we don't have the answers to those, but you'll hear James Comey testify and you'll figure it out during the case. But if you're a defendant, you're not. You're not obligated to testify. There's something called the Fifth Amendment. So if there were facts that they Felt like needed to be addressed. It is, as a matter of law, incorrect for her to say this. There was one or two other things that came up. But then in the course of examining this, it became clear that the indictment she filed with the court was actually never voted upon by the grand jury. She couldn't get the original indictment that she wanted. When she found out that they had rejected it, she rejiggered it a little bit and then went to the foreman and one or two other members of the grand jury, like, you know, like after hours, like at 7:30 at night, got them to sign off on it and submitted that to the court. And I don't know, like, I don't think it says. I don't think as lay people we can fully understand how completely batcrap crazy that is.
- [69:38]
Emma Vigeland
I mean, it seems deliberately deceptive in a way that should be illegal. Oh, I, like, I understand that we can talk about their incompetence, but. But like that is absolutely insane. Basically trying to get around the process by submitting an indictment that was altered but not approved by the grand jury to the court.
- [70:00]
Sam Cedar
Well, it was approved by representatives of the grand jury.
- [70:07]
Emma Vigeland
Their wives in the parking lot.
- [70:09]
Matt Lech
Two years ago, I was on a grand jury, heard a number of cases. The main thing that they're trying to do is cross all those T's and dot the I's, saying the jury heard this. They were instructed this way and not that way.
- [70:21]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, like that is all they're doing in those rooms, I should say. She also argued that the grand jury did not have to decide whether there was even probable cause to indict Comey. This is not. This is not the case. You sure about that? As a, as a matter of law. Because she said the government might have even more evidence that we're going to do a trial. So you can, you. It's like basically saying like, you, you don't need to have probable cause to indict Comey. You need to have possible probable cause to indict him. Like it's possible there could be more probable cause. And then you can't. So these are like bad jury instructions, you know, that people would normally appeal, but these are basic things for prosecutors. And then Halligan, the judge had to address another motion. And that other motion was that the Comey's defense was saying that like, this is not even a real prosecution. It's being brought about because of bias by the president, the government. In this instance, I, you know, either one. And that this is a, specifically a vindictive prosecution. And so the judge, a guy, Nakmanov, I can't remember exactly. The judge basically asked her, are you a puppet or are you a stalking horse? And she got incredibly offended, went to the New York Post and said, the judge needs to be removed because he's being personally insulting. She did not know, which apparently all prosecutors know in terms of a vindictive prosecution, that those are not quite terms that are state of art, but they are terms that are in the case law about vindictive prosecutions. So there's a test as to whether a prosecution is vindictively prosecuted. And it's literally a defendant claiming vindictive prosecution must show that one, the prosecutor harbored genuine animus toward the defendant or was prevailed upon to bring the charges by another with animus. People follow that, right? Like, if I'm prosecutor and I don't like Brian, I'm going to charge you with jaywalking or something. Or maybe Matt is like, I don't like Brian. Sam bring charges of jaywalking against Brian by chart, by another with animus, such that the prosecutor could be considered a stalking horse, a vehicle to carry out this vindictive stuff, or a puppet to carry out this vindictive stuff. But she didn't know this because she's not familiar with prosecution or any of this stuff. Here is a ABC News report on this.
- [73:44]
Guest/Reporter
The case against former FBI Director James Comey may be in jeopardy after prosecutors acknowledged a possible problem with the way it was presented to the grand jury under questioning by the judge. Lindsey Halligan, the inexperienced prosecutor President Trump hand picked for the job, but who has never tried a criminal case, admitted she never showed the entire grand jury the indictment it was supposed to have approved. The disclosure silenced the shocked courtroom. Comey's lawyer said the charges must be dismissed. Prosecutors downplayed the misstep. President Trump chose Halligan, his former personal lawyer with an insurance background, to replace a career prosecutor he had previously appointed but who refused to charge Comey. Sources told ABC News the initial decision not to charge was included in a memo. When the judge asked about that memo, Halligan's partner said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ordered him not to discuss it. Comey pleaded not guilty to making a false statement and obstructing Congress.
- [74:39]
Sam Cedar
I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I'm innocent. Get off Instagram, so let's have a trial.
- [74:45]
Guest/Reporter
His lawyers call the case vindictive, pointing to Trump's social media post demanding prosecution of his political enemies, writing, we can't delay any longer if this is not A direction to prosecute. Comey's lawyer argued. I'd really be at a loss to say what is but prosecute.
- [75:03]
Sam Cedar
I mean, the point being is there's a lot of things that incompetent people can do with malicious intent, but there are some things that they can't do because they're so frickin incompetent. This is like incompetence. I mean, I'm sorry. Like, the idea that they were going to get away with the grand jury not signing off on the indictment and they were pretending that they were going to is close enough. I just think they like you.
- [75:35]
Emma Vigeland
It's literally like what a kid would do, resubmitting an assignment that they'd submitted to for another class after they clearly.
- [75:42]
Matt Lech
Looked at the answers of their neighbor.
- [75:44]
Sam Cedar
It's unbelievable. It's. It's just. It really is amazing that she thought she was going to get away with this. And do we have more. Is this.
- [75:54]
Matt Lech
This is just a little bit more on her. This is her talking about museum slavery exhibit.
- [75:59]
Emma Vigeland
Oh, this is her now.
- [76:01]
Sam Cedar
This is before. This is before. Yeah. This is before she's appointed the job of prosecuting the former FBI chief. Like, this is not a small prosecution. You may want to start off small. Like, I got this guy for jaywalking and his name is Ryan, and it's like your first step. I still feel like I would win.
- [76:23]
Brian Vokey
Yeah.
- [76:24]
Matt Lech
It's like having a T ball player go up against Shoei Ohtani.
- [76:29]
Emma Vigeland
Here she is in full drag, I guess.
- [76:32]
Carolyn Levitt
Yep. I think there. The fact that we had. Our country was involved in slavery is awful. No one. No one thinks otherwise. But what I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery. And I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we've come since slavery. Our country is a country of progress. Progress. And it's the greatest country in the world. And we should be able to take our kids, our students, through the Smithsonian and feel proud when we leave.
- [77:08]
Emma Vigeland
There's.
- [77:08]
Carolyn Levitt
There's a lot of history to our country, both positive and negative. But we need to keep moving forward. We can't just keep focusing on the negative. All it does is divide us. And we really need to posit for.
- [77:19]
Sam Cedar
One second so we take it. We need to move forward. When we look at history at the History Museum. At the History Museum, yeah. It seems so just, like, caught up in the past. It's so dated.
- [77:33]
Emma Vigeland
Why. I mean, why. Like, why feel unhappy at any museum at all? Right. They should convert the Holocaust Remembrance Museum into like some sort of Disney trampoline room.
- [77:44]
Sam Cedar
House of air.
- [77:46]
Emma Vigeland
Right? Like as like a spaceship or something like that. Make it really cool and kid friendly.
- [77:51]
Sam Cedar
I went to Bummer Cosmic Museum and I'm thinking to myself, there's no Seinfeld there. Yeah, like nobody's talking about like, I know. What about like the Catskills? Like why can't we go in and like see like the Catskills and you know, like the, the, the Seinfeld stuff or the Jews who are involved in some like research about stuff.
- [78:12]
Emma Vigeland
All those shoes, all those shoes that were there to represent all of the people that were killed and exterminated in the Holocaust. Why don't we replace them with like Air Jordans to remind people of how far America has come?
- [78:23]
Sam Cedar
I mean, surely there must have been some Jews involved in, in, in getting the whole Air Jordan thing happening. Why don't we emphasize that instead of the whole sad pasta sad. I like to feel happy.
- [78:38]
Emma Vigeland
I go to museums to feel joy.
- [78:40]
Sam Cedar
She's making a pretty good argument here though. This is, you get, you get a sense of why she's is now one of the top prosecutors in the government.
- [78:47]
Carolyn Levitt
Love her does is divide us and we really need to unite the country and focus on all the positive as we approach America's 250th birthday.
- [78:57]
Sam Cedar
Yeah, yeah, that was her application. I, I, I think she'd be great. Yeah.
- [79:05]
Matt Lech
Go take on, go take on the FBI director.
- [79:10]
Sam Cedar
Folks. That's it for us today. Reminder, it's your support that makes the show possible. You can become a member. I joined the MajorityReport.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials these days we got a lot of ads because it's, you know, getting near Christmas time. This is like, it's when everybody dumping their advertising budget, which I'm not complaining, I'm just saying you, you don't have to listen to those commercials. If you become a member@jointhemajorityreport.com also just coffee.go up. Fair Trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code majority get 10% off. They're a co op. They're in Madison, Wisconsin. The coffee is great. And you can get the majority report blend on top of getting a discount for 10 off with the code majority. Check out the AM Quickie three times a week. Free email in your email box at 9am with the top news stories from a decidedly left perspective. With two great writers, Corey Pine and Whitney Is Whitney's killing it over at, at the Prospect, Whitney Wimbish is. Let me just go a couple of things that she's just written about. Like today, health insurance costs spike. She's been writing about a bunch of stuff in New York too. Where's this Justice Dems pick Longtime organizer. Take Harlem. She's all over the place there. So check it out. Am Quickie. For a couple of bucks a month you can get the, the new the email five times a week. Check it out. Also join our discord. If you want to get involved in organizing. You want to. Oh, and I should say this made a call for people who can make whistles on their, their 3D printers. I feel like 98% of our audience apparently have large scale industrial 3D printers because we get so many emails that we. I was like a deer in a headlights. I'm like, I don't know what we're going to do about this. So we're going to try and maybe, I don't know, in a perfect world what we'd be able to do is somehow marshal people's ability to make these whistles and get them to rapid response groups all around the country. So we're working on that. But if somebody wants to, I don't know, somebody wants to sort of organize that type of thing, we can provide you with like, you know, contacts for that and that would be a great thing to do. I mean, you know, the whistles aren't too expensive, but they very helpful for people around the country because. Oh yeah, but, but we're working on that. It's, you know, we don't, we don't have like a, it's not like we got people sitting around the office who were like, hey, what do you, what's your job here? I don't know, I'm just. Yeah, just come in. So whistles were so effective in Chicago. You remember that, that school that got tear gassed, they were blowing those whistles and then there was hundreds of people in front of that school in like a moment's notice. They're very, very effective and they're also good at just like communicating to other people. Like there it is, Matt. What's happening? Oh, I see what it is. I got just a suggestion somebody just sent. You should have someone design an Mr. Whistle STL. That's the 3D file that is printed. Just have your logo inset into the file, then off of the file for free and people print it. Yes. But then what we got to do is we got to get the, we got to get the, the Whistles to the right place and figure out some type of clearinghouse for them. But we'll work on that. Matt left reckoning in Jacob. Oh, Jacobin today, this morning.
- [83:23]
Guest/Reporter
Yeah.
- [83:23]
Matt Lech
New Jacobin show with Brendan James of the Blowback Podcast. A really great guest to have on to talk about Dick Cheney Dine. I wish we had known that Maddow was going to be at the funeral because we would have probably thrown that picture up. And also Robin Wansley, a socialist member from Ward 2 in Minneapolis City Council talking about forming a socialist caucus so people like Jacob Fry don't get to take credit for the good things that socialists are passing at the municipal level. So two great interviews. Check that out and go subscribe to it after we're done with the majority port today.
- [83:59]
Sam Cedar
Fun half. We're going to take phone calls, I think. See you in a minute. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's gonna be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily gonna be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're gonna look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program.
- [84:38]
Brian Vokey
Matt.
- [84:40]
Sam Cedar
What is up, everyone? No, McKee, you did it. Fun path.
- [84:47]
Emma Vigeland
Let's go, Brandon.
- [84:48]
Brian Vokey
Let's go, Brandon.
- [84:49]
Sam Cedar
Fun path. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint and everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.
- [84:58]
Carolyn Levitt
Fundamentally false.
- [84:59]
Emma Vigeland
No, I'm sorry.
- [85:00]
Guest/Reporter
Women.
- [85:01]
Sam Cedar
Stop talking for a second.
- [85:03]
Emma Vigeland
Let me finish. Where is this coming from? Dude?
- [85:05]
Guest/Reporter
But.
- [85:05]
Sam Cedar
Dude, you want to smoke this seven egg?
- [85:09]
Emma Vigeland
Yes.
- [85:12]
Sam Cedar
Hi. Me.
- [85:14]
Brian Vokey
This thing.
- [85:15]
Sam Cedar
Yes. Is this me? Is it me? It is. Is you. Is this me? Oh, it's me. I think it is you who is you. No sound every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to go snow white. Libertarians.
- [85:40]
Matt Lech
They're so stupid.
- [85:41]
Sam Cedar
Though common sense says. Of course.
- [85:43]
Emma Vigeland
Gobbledygook.
- [85:44]
Sam Cedar
We bailed him.
- [85:45]
Emma Vigeland
So what's 79 plus 21?
- [85:48]
Sam Cedar
Challenge. Man. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1 0, 35. 5, 011%. 3, 8, 9, 11. For instance.
- [85:58]
Emma Vigeland
$3,400. $1,900.
- [86:00]
Sam Cedar
54. $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.
- [86:05]
Carolyn Levitt
Actually.
- [86:06]
Emma Vigeland
You're making me think less.
- [86:07]
Sam Cedar
But, but let me say this. You call it satire, Sam goes in, satire, tired. On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just.
- [86:16]
Emma Vigeland
Like every day, all day, like, everything you do.
- [86:19]
Sam Cedar
Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks, folks.
- [86:29]
Emma Vigeland
It's just the week being weeded out, obviously.
- [86:32]
Guest/Reporter
Yeah.
- [86:32]
Sam Cedar
Sun's out, guns out. I, I. You don't know, but you should know.
- [86:41]
Matt Lech
People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore.
- [86:43]
Sam Cedar
I have a question. Who cares?
- [86:47]
Matt Lech
Our chat is enabled, folks.
- [86:50]
Sam Cedar
I love it.
- [86:51]
Emma Vigeland
I do love that.
- [86:53]
Sam Cedar
Gotta jump, gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw them. Sent to a gulag.
- [87:06]
Emma Vigeland
Outrageous.
- [87:07]
Sam Cedar
Like, what is wrong with you? Love you.
- [87:11]
Brian Vokey
Bye.
- [87:12]
Sam Cedar
Love you.
- [87:14]
Emma Vigeland
Bye.
- [87:14]
Sam Cedar
Bye.