3645 - Trump's China Humiliation; Growing Progressive Power w/ Ryan Grim

Summary

The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3645: Trump's China Humiliation; Growing Progressive Power
Date: May 15, 2026
Guest: Ryan Grim (Breaking Points, Drop Site News)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sam Seder engages in a wide-ranging discussion with journalist Ryan Grim about the recent political humiliation faced by Donald Trump during his trip to China, the evolving power dynamics within the Democratic Party, and the growing influence of progressive forces. The conversation also explores the Democratic Party’s recent failures, the controversial DNC autopsy, redistricting battles, the effects of court-led voting rights rollbacks, and a spirited debate about building coalitions with unlikely allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The tone is characteristically irreverent, deeply informed, and laced with humor and inside-baseball observations about politics.

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Main Discussion Topics & Insights

1. Trump’s Humiliation in China and the “Thucydides Trap”

• Trump’s China Visit: Sam opens by discussing Trump’s perceived diplomatic humiliation during his recent visit with Chinese President Xi.
• The “Thucydides Trap”: Xi references the concept, which describes the risks when a rising power threatens to displace an established one (China rising, America "sunsetting").
  • Sam’s take: “Xi, I think it’s fairly obvious that America is sort of sunsetting or sundowning and China is ascending.” (12:03)
  • Trump’s Response: Trump blames Biden for America’s “decline” and touts his own “16 spectacular months,” ignoring larger historical trends (15:00–16:30).
  • Sam derides Trump's self-soothing statement: “It is honestly, it’s like literally like a pacifier... He’s chewing on his blankie...” (16:27)
• Panel Jokes: Lighthearted banter about Trump’s fixation on obscure geopolitical theories (17:00+).

2. Rising Progressive Power and Democratic Establishment Backfooted

• Establishment Malaise: Ryan Grim and Sam observe that the Democratic Party establishment is more “back-heeled” and “flailing” than at any time in decades, increasingly unable to suppress insurgent progressive and left voices.
  • Ryan Grim: "The thing that was holding back Bernie and the Squad was Democratic primary voters' respect for the institutions... That’s gone." (29:51)
  • Sam: “The argument used to be, ‘Don’t get too ambitious ideologically or we’ll lose.’ What’s being revealed is that this cadre doesn’t know how to win.” (31:59)
• Loss of Faith in Leadership: Noting Nancy Pelosi's former 90% approval and the souring on Schumer and Jeffries by party insiders (30:00–31:00).
• Shifting Coalitions: Discussion of how progressive candidates are gaining ground where centrism has repeatedly failed, with references to recent primaries in Michigan, Maine, and Pennsylvania (33:15–34:27).

3. DNC Autopsy, Branding Issues, and Donor Power

• Secret or Embarrassing DNC Autopsy: Debate about the DNC postmortem, with speculation it’s being withheld due to incompetence or even more damaging findings. (34:55–36:00)
• Rob Flaherty’s Bulwark Piece: Examination of a Democratic strategist’s public analysis and missed branding opportunities for Kamala Harris in contrast with the donor class’s agenda.
  • Ryan: “He talks about the lack of a brand identity Kamala had... She did not have like a Mamdani brand. Mamdani had a brand.” (36:21)
• Missed Opportunities: Critique of the campaign’s refusal to highlight popular Biden policies like antitrust and labor, due to donor influence (37:29–39:00).
• Failure to Tie Trump to the GOP: Democrats repeatedly avoid linking Trump’s extremism to the broader Republican party (40:13–42:18).

4. The Gaza Issue and Its Demobilizing Effect

• Gaza as a “First Order” Problem: Biden/Harris’ Gaza policy demoralized the Democratic activist base, making it impossible for the campaign to generate enthusiasm.
  • Sam: “I was so disgusted by the policy that I didn’t want to say anything nice about Biden..." (42:54)
  • Ryan: “What was stopping me was the exact same thing. I’m not talking about this NLRB ruling right now, 100%.” (43:33)
• Impact on Ground Game: Organizers and digital creators lost motivation to campaign; the moral weight of Gaza “meaningfully reduced enthusiasm.” (44:37–45:20)
• Kamala’s Constraint: Debate on whether Harris could have distanced herself from Biden on Gaza, and how even modest distinction would have helped (46:17–48:08).

5. Supreme Court, Voting Rights, and Redistricting Fights

• Impact of SCOTUS Decisions: The Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act has profound, regressive implications,
  • Sam: “We’re in a new Jim Crow type of scenario... we’re in a distinct revanchist era right now.” (49:00–50:16)
• Post–Reconstruction Dynamics: Discussion of the partisan gerrymanders now enabled by SCOTUS and the loss of Black representation in Congress (50:54–53:40).
• Court and Institutional Reform: Growing sentiment among younger Democrats for bold institutional reform (packing courts, aggressive redistricting in blue states) (51:57–54:12).
• Coalitions and the CBC: Potential for new working-class Black-white progressive coalitions as gerrymandering breaks traditional Voting Rights Act “safe” seats (55:00–56:40).

6. Nebraska Progressive Challenge and Party Tensions

• Ryan's Former Intern Runs for Congress: Austin Almond, with a compelling personal and anti-monopoly focus, challenges centrist Democrats (58:21–61:04).
• Inside Baseball of State Party Endorsements: Negotiations over who stays in the race to maximize progressive chances—illustrates rising tension between grassroots and establishment.

7. Debate: Working with Marjorie Taylor Greene?

• Twitter Controversy: Sam and Ryan dissect Ryan’s much-dissected tweet giving partial credit to MTG for crossing party lines on genocide and Trump (64:29+).
• Sacrifice or Self-Interest?: Sam disputes that MTG "sacrificed" her career; asserts she acted out of frustration at blocked career advancement (64:35–66:41).
• Ryan: “She could have and should have stayed there. Like, there’s no question about that... It’s marginally good that she’s saying the things she’s saying.” (69:00–69:22)
• Broadening Coalitions: They debate the utility and risk of building trans-partisan coalitions with toxic figures, drawing parallels to media appearances and the risk/reward of platforms (70:29–76:06).
  • Sam: “Should a congressperson join with Alex Jones?... Are we helping? Are we really expanding?... Or are we basically whitewashing Marjorie Taylor Greene...?” (71:07–73:05)
  • Ryan: “A lot of people on the right-wing media spaces are open to left-wing populist ideas, and if they start hearing them, can move over.” (73:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s self-soothing:
  • “It is honestly, it’s like literally like a pacifier... He’s chewing on his blankie and it’s really... for himself.” – Sam Seder (16:27)
• On Democratic Establishment Unpopularity:
  • “Even the like, like everyone is like, you guys have led us to Armageddon and defeat.” – Ryan Grim (29:52)
• On missed Democratic communication strategy:
  • “They always try to separate MAGA from Republican... like, we need a strong Republican Party... They still wouldn’t do it.” – Sam Seder (41:23)
• On Gaza demobilizing base activism:
  • “The campaign’s not giving us any reason to hope even that it’s gonna be better.” – Sam Seder (44:37)
• On working with toxic politicians:
  • “She could have and should have stayed there. Like, there’s no question about that... It’s marginally good that she’s saying the things that she’s saying.” – Ryan Grim (69:00)
  • “Should a congressperson join with Alex Jones?” – Sam Seder (70:29)
  • “A lot of people in the right-wing media spaces are open to left-wing populist ideas...” – Ryan Grim (73:05)
• Show-ending snark:
  • “I think we can agree that I demolished you all caps on this.” – Sam Seder (76:33)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Trump’s China Trip & Thucydides Trap: 08:50–18:00
• Progressive Shift & Dem Establishment Panic: 26:21–34:27
• DNC Autopsy & Campaign Strategy Failures: 34:55–42:18
• Gaza, Enthusiasm, and Voter Motivation: 42:18–48:08
• Voting Rights, Court, and Redistricting: 48:44–56:40
• Nebraska Progressive Challenge: 58:14–61:04
• Coalitions with MTG & Populism Debate: 62:10–76:33

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The episode is marked by the Majority Report’s signature blend of sharp humor, critical skepticism, and tactical insight. It lays out the current American political landscape as one where old coalitions and assumptions are crumbling: the Democratic establishment finds itself unable to contain a rising, disillusioned progressive base, and Republican institutional attacks on democracy are out in the open. The hosts remain hopeful about new progressive coalition-building, institution-shaking reforms, and public awakening—but also deeply cautious, foregrounding both peril and opportunity.

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For more, visit Majority.FM

Transcript

[Sam Seder]

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[Greg]

of

[Sam Seder]

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[Greg]

Besides that.

[Sam Seder]

U.S. border Patrol Leader quits amid accusations that he has frequented over the past decade prostitutes in Colombia and Thailand and then brags about it to his coworkers. White House blocks Medicaid payments to blue states over supposed fraud. Newly released disclosure forms show that Trump has been making millions of dollars on day trading in the past three months on corporations impacted by U.S. policy. Pete Hegseth unilaterally cancels deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland. And today marks the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes driven out by Israel. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Mediocreant on the IM says today's the ides of March of May. What is the ides of May? First of all, isn't it March, Isn't it? What? Yeah, it's March 15th. This is May. Maybe it's just a joke. Beware the ides of ides are just

[Greg]

the middle of the month.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, all right. So you could say that theoretically, of every month.

[Greg]

Every month has Ides.

[Sam Seder]

But wasn't that a specific Julius Caesar? Yeah. Was there something about March that was particularly bad?

[Greg]

Yeah. Presumably other big stuff has happened on some of the other ides.

[Sam Seder]

All right, I'm sorry. I got confused. We got a lot to get to today. It's casual Friday. Emma is out today living la vida loca, I guess. I mean, she did not, you know. Hey, she put in a couple days. One. One day. One day. Yeah. She was in one day this week. It's nice. That's. Yeah. Must. Must be nice. No, she is on Special assignment. And you will find out more by Monday, maybe even before then, frankly. So she'll be back. And I just, you know, want to make it clear I'm not wearing a soft collared shirt today. I'm wearing crewneck shirt because of a laundry issue that has been going on. So I didn't do my laund an ongoing laundry issue. Thank you for getting, getting that out of the way up top. Well, I felt weird about it because

[Greg]

the chat can relax now.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, everybody, everybody can relax. It's just that when I switch shirts out of this rotation, I get a little bit uptight about it. I mean, I suspect that sounds weird to people. That's just everybody's got their one thing. That's one of mine. Yes, you got several. You got several. But that's.

[Greg]

All right.

[Sam Seder]

So Donald Trump went to China and the past couple of days, I mean this has been. And listen, I am all in favor frankly of the US Leader kissing the ass of other leaders. I have no problem with that. All right. I think that like the President, United States could kiss the ass of every single world leader for the next five decades and it still probably wouldn't make up for, nevermind our entire history just what's happened over the past five or ten years. Iraq, I mean, we could keep going on and on. So Trump has been on this like sort of ass kissing tour for the past couple of days, giving an interview at one point where he's saying like, I think it's good that we have students come from other countries to study in America. Like really, you've been deporting all of them. They diversity is our. If you look at the numbers, like we've never had a drop off of people who don't want to come to the United States like we have now. We have net negative migration. More Americans are leaving. Here is President Xi though, and he is talking about the Through Cities trap. And we will tell you what that is in a moment.

[Translator]

The whole world is watching our meeting

[Sam Seder]

posit. I should say for those of you listening on audio only, that's obviously not President Xi. That is a translator. I mean this sort of goes without saying, but I just wanted to make

[Translator]

sure the whole world is watching our meeting. Currently, transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe and the international situation is fluid and turbulent. The world has come to a new crossroads. Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world? Can we, in the interests of the well being of our two peoples and the future of humanity, build a brighter future together for our bilateral relations? These are the questions vital to history, to the world and to the people. They are the questions of our times that you and I need to answer as leaders of major countries this year.

[Sam Seder]

So Xi is basically saying like, you know, can we get along? Can we negotiate this? And he talks about the Thucydides trap, which is a theory developed by a Harvard professor, and I imagine he's like a history or political science professor. And it basically is describes what happens when there is a rising power that is supplanting or challenging an existing power. So in other words, this guy's saying, Xi, I think it's fairly obvious that America is sort of sunsetting or sundowning and China is ascending. And is there a way to avoid the incredible sort of like tumult potential, you know, violence and etc. And is there a way for us to sort of like function, you know, cooperatively? Some people I think are very suspicious of the Chinese and, you know, over this. Personally, like, obviously I have some major issues with the, with the Chinese government, but also their imperialism has not been, let's just say ours has been a lot more dramatic than theirs over time. And apparently Donald Trump found out what it meant. I am willing to bet he didn't go like, oh, not quoting, not talking about the Thucydides trap again, is he? And so here he shut up about it, somebody must have explained it to him. And here he is trying to sort of save some face. When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden administration. And on that score he was 100% correct. Our country suffered immeasurably with open borders, high taxes, transgender for everybody, men and women's sports, dei, horrible trade deals, rampant crime, and so much more. President Xi was not referring to the incredible rise that United States displayed to the world during the 16 spectacular months of the Trump administration, which includes an all time high stock markets and 401ks, military victory and thriving relationship in Venezuela, the military decimation of Iran, to be continued, strongest military on earth by far, blah, blah, blah. In fact, President Xi congratulated me on so many tremendous successes in such a short period of time. Two years ago, we were in fact a nation in decline. On that I fully agree with President Xi. But now the United States, the hottest nation anywhere in the world. And hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger, better than ever before. I mean, first off, nobody, nobody really in the general public would be paying attention to what the Thucydides trap is were he not to have tweeted this. It's just nobody. And this is a guy who's just like, so there's so, like, who is this for? Like, who is this for? There's nobody who's reading this who's going to go like, oh, well. Oh, yeah. He must have been referring to the Biden. Just those four years.

[Greg]

It's like, for himself, when he sees it represented in media, it's.

[Sam Seder]

It is honestly, it's like literally like his. Like a pacifier.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg]

Self soothing.

[Sam Seder]

It's. It's insane. He's chewing on his blankie and it's really. It is. It is for. For himself. It is fascinating. I mean, honestly, like, who is the audience that is like, oh, well, you know, okay. Yeah, I guess maybe it was the Biden thing. Weird that he'd bring it up now, two years later. We had to get ahead of Maga because they obviously know what the Thucydides trap is. I wonder if there is, like, a version of the Thucydides trap that you

[Greg]

avoid just by electing the right guy.

[Sam Seder]

No, but, like, I'm wondering if, like, Thucydides, I guess Thucydides was like, was a Greek historian who would recount these dynamics. But I wonder if there's like, maybe Thucydides had, like an assistant. So it would be like the assistant to Thucydides, you know, variant, where it's like, you're really talking about how they were a declining nation two years ago, but now they're back. It's actually fine now, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Greg]

Thucydides avoided.

[Sam Seder]

Have you heard of the Thucydides rebound trap? Super, super weird that he's still talking about Thucydides trap when that should have been over 18 months ago. Weird.

[Greg]

Thucydides. You're welcome.

[Sam Seder]

He said Thucydides and I said, God bless you.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm sorry,

[Sam Seder]

are you numb to it yet? The. Oh, in a moment we're gonna be talking to Ryan Grimm, a journalist, co host of Breaking Points, co founder of Drop Site News, and the guy who tweeted out something sympathetic to Marjorie Taylor Greene the other day that I didn't appreciate. So I have him on. Things have been crazy. I don't know. I mean, obviously we're on the huge rebound right now, but things have been crazy. A lot of stuff on people's minds, despite the spectacular 16 months. Yes, folks are worried about their jobs in certain instances, folks are worried about AI. People are just in general worried about the future. Not a lot you can do about all of those things in the future. But there are some things that are in your future that you can deal with and mitigate the implications of them. What am I talking about? Life insurance. You have a family, you have a significant other. You got sisters, brothers, kids. You haven't gotten life insurance yet. 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Emma Vigland out today on special assignment. Want to welcome back to the program Ryan Grimm, journalist, co host of Breaking Points, co founder of Drop Site News, who was just in mid tweet when we brought him on confirming that he knew people who bought oysters from Graham Platner.

[Ryan Grim]

Take that New York Times.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, a lot of important stuff going on over there. Is there a question as to whether Platner was actually like an oysterman or was like some question like was he doing lobsters or this guy's, you know, there's dragon soft shell clams in what's going on?

[Ryan Grim]

There's some effort to call into question whether or not he's an actually an oysterman or rather where he's just kind of playing games at one. It's ironic that you know, now that Abdul El Sayed and Platner, you know, he's leading, Platner's winning. They're, they're taking Elsaya down a few pegs and they're trying to push Platner up a few pegs. They're like, this guy's not as elite as he says. He wasn't actually a physician. This guy Platner, he's more elite than he says. He went to this private high school. So maybe they're just going to meet in the middle and they're just then average guys each.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I mean this is actually, this is good because I wanted to talk, I want to touch on, on all the stuff about the redistricting wars and whatnot. Maybe we'll get to that. Well, why don't we start with this because it is sort of fascinating to watch the, the freakout that is happening. Like because you and I have been doing this stuff, I mean, for 20 some odd years now from your days as a cub reporter at the HuffPost. And there's never been a time where I think the establishment corporate wing of the party was as back heeled as they are now. Which is not to say that they still don't retain power in the party, but they're more Back heeled than I've ever seen them before. And they're flailing in a way that I also haven't seen them before. Like, we saw the abundance thing and whatever you think about the zoning restrictions in San Francisco or in specific parts of California or whatnot, they attempted to make that into some type of movement because they realized, like, they can't push the sort of moderate centrism. It's quite obvious what that is now. And they're freaking out.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, no, it's true. You know, they've freaked out a little bit at Bernie Sanders, but then they were in 2015. But then they're like, all right, we got this. We've got this under control. Then they freaked out a little bit more when AOC and the squad came in, but they're like, nah, that we. We've kind of got this. But yeah, it's just been building and building and building and the anger is continues to build. And I think what they're seeing is that the thing that was holding back the kind of Bernie and the squad was that Democratic primary voters still had a lot of respect for the institutions of the Democratic Party and even for their individual leaders. That's gone. Like Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer. Somebody was telling me they were at a room full of most of donors for like a book party event, 50, 60 private thing in Washington D.C. and Schumer got the iciest reception that she. That she'd ever seen him get anywhere. And this is among like party brass.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Even, even the, like, like everyone is like, you guys have led us to Armageddon and defeat.

[Sam Seder]

People. People forget, like Nancy Pelosi amongst Democratic voters had something like a 90% approval rating. You know, and, and Hakeem Jeffries is, I think, doesn't have the. Isn't in the depths that Chuck Schumer is.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

But he's not. He is not at a 60 or 70% approval rating by, by Democratic voters. I mean, that's. That seems to be the big difference is that really just the Democratic voters are changing in this way and are being in some ways more sophisticated. And the way that they're attacking Platner still, even, you know, a little bit. And the way that they attacking Abdul Al said the. Chris Robb is running for Congress in Pennsylvania's third. I think it is. We had him on and when he came on, I realized like I had interviewed him, he used to be a blogger back in the day, Netzie, and I think it was. Or something like that. I mean, I don't know if you remember that blog. Yep. And we're seeing folks like Cory Booker, Josh Shapiro apparently coming out against them. And there's some controversy about one of the. Was it Sharif street who had tried to redistrict away other Democratic seats in the state to maintain his. Yes. This is like, in 2022. Yes, and yes. I mean, the problem, I think that is that it's becoming clear is that the. The argument always used to be Democrats have to win this, so don't get too ambitious on an ideological level. And they would claim that it was ideological ambition. And I think we could argue against that. But the idea was don't be going for somebody who's so progressive because we need to win this.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And I think what's being revealed is that, like, this cadre of people don't know how to win.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And don't necessarily care about winning outside of themselves.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Yeah. If your whole thing is being a winner, you get. Then you have to do some winning. And Sharif Street's one is incredible because. Yeah, he. What he tried. He cut a deal with Republicans in Pennsylvania. The courts came in and, like, blew it up. So, like, it wasn't as if he even failed at that. Like, he only failed because the courts. He took Brendan Boyle and Dwight Evans their congressional seats and mashed them together, trying to force a Democrat on Democrat primary so that he could have this other seat that he could then run for. And his dad is like a corrupt, you know, Pennsylvania legacy guy, too. And it would have meant fewer Democrats in both. At both the state level and the congressional level. And he was comfortable with that in order to get a leg up himself. That was just a couple of years ago. Yeah, I think you're exactly right that regular voters are paying or, like, you know, I don't know about that.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I think the. And they're tired of the sort of, like, failure of partisanship as opposed to. From an ideological standpoint. And one of the things that I think that is, you know, it's clear. You know, I think there's. I think, like, when you look to Michigan, ideology is definitely playing a big part in it. I think one of the things that helped Platner was a certain amount of partisanship, too. I mean, he obviously, ideologically, is also very much to the left, but he articulates an idea of, like, we've got to fight these people. Like, we can't not go into it. I mean, there.

[Ryan Grim]

And there was. And also, like, how many. I think Maine voters were like, how many moderate women In a row are we going to put up against Susan Collins? So I think some of it was just raw identity politics from Maine Democrats who were like, we've tried this type of moderate centrist Democrat against Susan Collins so many times and we get waxed every time. Let's try, let's just tactically, let's try something different. So I think that played a role too. Like, yeah, you guys aren't winning.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. And, and I mean, I think that's, I think there's some of that is, is changing on some level. But let's, let's talk about the one other element to this. And I want to pivot into, like, we don't have a DNC autopsy apparently, because Ken Martin, one of the stories that we've been given is that it was just done so poorly that it's embarrassing to show people prepared to believe

[Ryan Grim]

that in part, I am too.

[Sam Seder]

Although that does also feel like a limited hangout in some respects in that there could be other stuff that's worse. Who, who knows? It's quite clear we're not getting it. In fact, I mean, and there was a piece in the Bulwark by

[Ryan Grim]

Rob Flaherty.

[Sam Seder]

Rob Flaherty, who had, who was in charge of like digital. Is that basically it? Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And he was in the leadership. Yeah, he's in that senior leadership.

[Sam Seder]

And you know, I. It's an interesting piece. It's definitely worth reading. There are some parts that I want to highlight as we talk. I have to say, in general, I'm skeptical because this is what I would do. You know, if I'm on Project Limited Hangout, I'm going to get out there, I'm going to give my version of the autopsy. And if I have some friends I want to protect, I protect them. You know, I do a somewhat mea culpa, but it's like really a mea coal and I'll save some of the paper and that's what's going on there. But there was a couple of things that I thought were interesting in it. What was your, let me hear your take on this. Just the overall arching, both the idea of we may not see the autopsy in what Flaherty wrote here.

[Ryan Grim]

You know, he writes it in this very marketing oriented kind of democratic style. And he talks about the lack of a brand identity that Kamala had. And while I recoil at that, the use of that kind of language when it comes to politics. Okay, fine. Like if we use that language. Yeah. Like she didn't really have a brand other than the Brad Summer type thing. But to the extent that she didn't, she did not have like a Mamdani brand. Mamdani had a brand. He's going to make New York more affordable for you. Like, you just that you got that from him and you're. And he, and he loves New York and he wants it to be for everybody. And you know, he didn't. I would have liked to see him get into more of the kind of the fight between Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman and the major donors who prevented her from having that brand because that brand would have cut against their oligarchic interests.

[Sam Seder]

That, I mean, that part was real. There was two things that I thought, I mean, like, in that way that was missing was everything was supposed to be like, we're going to do what Biden says. You know, we're going to be an extension. We're not going to make any changes from Biden. Which was, which was also a decision. That was a bad decision. We'll talk about Gaza in a minute. But just in general and in a change election, that was a bad decision. But if you're going to do that, then why not promote the most popular aspects of Biden's agenda, which were the antitrust and the labor stuff.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Sam Seder]

And the extension of like all the, like the, you know, the, the problem is the American Rescue act stuff did not have durability. It got sunk in build back better. You could have pushed those. But like you say, they couldn't do that because Tony west, because of Mark Cuban, because of the, the chief litigator for Google who is fighting the antitrust and, and, and doing her debate prep. I mean, so there was a, there was the lack of a brand, was a reflection of a campaign and maybe a future administration that was unclear as to what they were doing and cutting against their sort of like, best attributes. The stuff with. But there was other stuff, like they shut down Tim Walsh, which is I think, part of that fight. They shut down the weird stuff, which was, I think, the single most effective thing you could say about Republicans ever. There's a story about where they shut down using Project 2025 as a thing and wanted to call it the Trump extreme agenda. And then they sort of dropped the ball on all that. He writes it as if it was just like, just a poor choice of assessing what to call it. But there's been a habit over the past decade with Democrats, particularly like Biden, Democrats and Schumer, I mean, of not tying Donald Trump closely enough to the Republican Party, like.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Or just Being gentle, just being too gentle. And I mean, it's not gentle to say extreme, blah, blah, blah. But those are not words people use. Like, what do they say? You know, extreme Trump, like whatever.

[Sam Seder]

Extreme maga. At one point they called it or something like that. But my point being that they always tried to separate MAGA from Republican.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Sam Seder]

And you know, then they had another qualifier, extreme maga. So we have three different types of like, you know, people that we have maga, extreme MAGA and Republican. And the fact is, is that every single thing Donald Trump is getting away with, all of the incredible amount of corruption, all of the, just all of it could not happen if there was 10% of the, of the Republican Party that said, no, this is way out of bounds. This is a Republican party project. Project 2025 was a Republican Party project. It has all of the greatest hits from the years and years and they never tie them into one. They have their. Schumer was allergic to it in 2016, Clinton was too. Like the last three months of that campaign, it was like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell were on like, you know, a witness protection program. You never heard anything of them. And they should have been held to count, but they wanted to protect. The fever is going to break. The Republicans are going to come around. We need a strong Republican Party. All that stuff, and they still wouldn't do it. The other thing that struck me was the, the Gaza stuff. And some of this I agree with. I've been saying this since in the run up to the election, given the Biden's administration position, Gaza was an impossible issue to communicate around. Now, that in of itself is also like, excuse me, it wasn't the Biden administration's position. The campaign seemed to go at great lengths not to differentiate whatsoever. They could have had a slightly different position. They could have indicated there's going to be a change. They could have indicated any of that, but they didn't want to. That was a choice.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, right. And a terrible choice, a bad choice.

[Sam Seder]

But it says protesters drove coverage away from campaign events. Digital creators or even supporters were afraid to say anything nice about Biden because their comments section would get rocked. I mean, also, I mean, I could just say, speaking for myself, I was so disgusted by the policy that I didn't want to say anything nice about Biden, even though there was a lot of things that, you know, prior to his Gaza policy, one of the best presidents I've had in my lifetime for my issue sets.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, there's actually a tweet from Prem tucker right around October 7, 2023. Of all the things that Biden had just done that last week, when it came to NLRB antitrust Ira, a list of things that you could never even have dreamed he'd be able to accomplish when he was sworn in. And I had the exact same feeling. I don't care about my comment section or whatever people can. I think I have standing to say that I get roasted constantly by my own people, even by our people too.

[Sam Seder]

We're gonna get to that in a second.

[Ryan Grim]

But bring it people. That never has stopped me from saying anything. Obviously what was stopping me was the exact same thing you're talking about. So disgusted by what they're doing that I'm not talking about this NLRB ruling right now, 100%.

[Sam Seder]

And for many voters watching the horrific, painful gaze footage out of God, it became a moral question, one we didn't have a good answer for. In ways that may not be reflected in a poll, it meaningly meaningfully reduced enthusiasm. And this is what I was saying all the time, because I was hearing this from everybody I knew in sort of like get out the vote, you know, sort of like outside groups who go and motivate people is that we're telling our people to go out and nobody's psyched to do this. Cuz they all feel the exact same way, like this is gross. You know, I know that Trump needs to lose, but there is absolutely, you know, the campaign's not giving us any reason to hope even that it's gonna be better.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And the way these campaigns work that

[Sam Seder]

everyone,

[Ryan Grim]

a couple people that are pretty active in politics and then kind of look to them for guidance on how to think about. You ask your friend about the Senate race or whatever. In my case, that's me. And then I tell them. But if you separate that link between the national party and, and the people who are in the middle there, that's a multi billion cost billions and billions of dollars to recreate. You can't pay your way into reproducing that linkage.

[Sam Seder]

And you know, I mean, I think that assessment is correct. It was the first order problem of some votes being lost. And then there's the second order, which is actually the bigger problem is that all of the people who are supposed to motivate people to go out are completely demoralized because they're the ones who are paying attention to this and they're just disgusted by it on fundamental level. But he allied the, the, the primary question is like this is all fallout from Harris not signaling in Any way that she was going to have any type of change of policy, whether it was to, you know, have a Palestinian speak at the dnc, I mean, to forefront Phil Gordon or something like, there was a, there was a multitude of ways that they could have done it, but they were afraid to. And that speaks to, I mean, that, that speaks to, I think, like, her failure as a, as a politician.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. She was also probably after Biden, uniquely the worst person to run because of that exact reason. She was caught in this trap of which he talks about. If she breaks with Biden, she's worried. Okay, well, then the question is, well, why did, why didn't you do anything about this? This is your administration. Like, it's very hard for you to run against the administration where you're the vice president, which is why Biden shouldn't have run. And there should have been a primary.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Which he says in the beginning, you know, if there was a kind of populist outsider that ran against the Biden administration, they probably would have been better positioned to be Trump. But that's, that's, that's neither here nor there for his analysis. I think, obviously, that person would have been better positioned. The things that dragged her down were the things that she really couldn't have done much about. She could, like I think you say, look, I was the vice president. I did, of course, I didn't agree with it. I got overruled.

[Sam Seder]

Like, yeah, I mean, like, I don't think that's such a hard thing to have done.

[Ryan Grim]

And I also was running the administration.

[Sam Seder]

That's the thing is that, like, there was plenty of room for her to create even a slight distance. You know, there are always ways to improve. And nothing I could do that would be different, could have existed without the foundation that Biden created. And we should be listening to Palestinian voices more. And in my administration, I'm going to endeavor to hear that side more, and we'll see. Like, even that would have been an indication of at least some daylight, and they didn't even try that. I don't know if that would have been sufficient.

[Ryan Grim]

But how about this War ends the day I'm sworn in, and if they want a better deal, they better get it from Biden now.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about the least. I'm like, I'm, like, just, like, calculating the very, very, very least that she could have done. And she didn't even do that. That's the point.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

I am still skeptical as to, like, what would be in an actual autopsy and whether they have one or not. But it also feels like Ken Martin's got to go, like, and even though we're six months away from an election, it doesn't feel like it would make much of a difference based upon what seems to be going on over there.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. He's going to hold on and they'll win the House and Senate maybe.

[Sam Seder]

And then he'll say it's because of us. Well, let's.

[Ryan Grim]

I will let Michael Steel, he always remind people he was the chairman in 2010. Like, he's like, that was me, buddy.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, maybe it was the. Let's talk about the, the, the, the outlook for the House and the Senate has changed, particularly the House, not the Senate, really, because of the assault on the Voting Rights Act. Aside from like, and I should say this is not to downplay the fact that like, there, the implications of reversing the Voting Rights Act, I think are far greater than just how many seats Democrats are going to get and even far greater from, like, the fact that we're going to lose probably 20 seats of black representatives across the country. It is the most explicit expression of like, I don't know, the we're in a post Reconstruction era. Like, we're in a new Jim Crow type of scenario. Obviously, same laws haven't been passed, but we'll see. But the we're in a, we're in a distinct revanchist era right now.

[Ryan Grim]

It is, it is. The current Supreme Court opinion is that it is legal to gerrymander for partisan purposes, but it is illegal to draw districts in line with, with the Voting Rights act, which was an act of Congress that was passed repeatedly and renewed repeatedly. I think Most recently in 07, right before they struck it down again.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

1960s act. No, bro. They passed it. They passed it. They renew it.

[Sam Seder]

It was 98 to maybe 2 or 1 in 2007 in the Senate. And Scalia cited it in 2013 in the Shelby county when their first assault on the Voting Rights Act. They've been hitting different sections of it over the course of the past 12 years, 13 years. And he said in that. I don't know the exact words, but he said they only reauthorized it because they were afraid to vote against it. They were too embarrassed. They want to be seen as racist. Like, when what planet can a judge go into the minds of lawmakers and A, assess why they vote for something, but B, judge why they vote for something? You can't say they only did this because they were afraid of their constituents.

[Ryan Grim]

They Only did that because it represented the will of their constituents.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly. It's insane.

[Ryan Grim]

Like what? Why else should they do something?

[Sam Seder]

So the only up side to this is that there seems to be a greater understanding amongst at least the younger Democratic establishment and other Democrats that we need to do something about court reform. Like, this is something that should have happened under the Biden administration. And there also seems to be at least some understanding. Maryland, I think now is going to redistrict the governor. Starting to come around. Spanberger. I mean, they could do more stuff in Virginia that would highlight the fact that there have been three Republican states that have packed their courts in the wake of other decisions that in, like, in the past five years, six years.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

Utah. I can't remember where else it was. There were two other states. Utah was the most recent. Whis. No, not Wisconsin. I think it was like, Ohio.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, yeah, Ohio. They overruled it and they just ran with it anyway.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, Virginia could do this.

[Ryan Grim]

Could. Constitutional amendment. Like, it's not up to the Virginia Supreme Court paperwork. It's like

[Sam Seder]

the technicality was not even a legitimate technicality, frankly.

[Ryan Grim]

So, yeah, the Constitution is. It's. You interpret the Constitution. The Constitution has been written by the voters. Like it. The interpretation is. It's not up for interpretation. It's very crystal clear what they passed.

[Sam Seder]

It does feel like. I don't know, I just. We had read a quote from Hakeem Jeffries where he said, like, you know, we're going to crush their soul on this stuff if we take over the House and the Senate. And, I mean, it's nice to hear that stuff. And I think that there's a sense amongst, like, progressives in the House that Jeffries is a lot less ideologically cemented than Nancy Pelosi was.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. And also a lot of these CBC members worked on issues when it. When it came to, you know, business interests for their states, worked very collaboratively over decades with Republicans. So I think they feel an actual sense of betrayal as well.

[Sam Seder]

The CBC does.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

There's also an interesting thing that, like, John Lewis, apparently, like I've been reading, I think it was. John Lewis was, like, hesitant about some of the Voting Rights act stuff in 1985 where it was sort of expanded in some ways because he felt that it was going to break up the relationship between white progressives and the black community, which traditionally was actually had like, a more vibrant sort of like, radical tradition. And, you know, it's funny because I had the late Glenn ford on in 2012. He was arguing that Obama had killed that tradition and that Obama because of that was the greater evil. And I've been thinking about this stuff with the Voting Rights act and the idea now that like white progressives and black candidates, because you got guys like Gregory Meeks and this guy's about as corporate as they get. I mean, he's like Chris Coons, but from Queens.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

And, and it could bring about a different type of coalition that you see in some places, like Chris Robb, for instance, in Pennsylvania's third, where the, where identity politics in and of itself doesn't carry the day that it's going to cause. And now I think overall this is not a good thing for our country for a myriad of reasons. But it'll be interesting to see if coalitions grow. And there's, and we get more. The CBC pulls to the left because of this.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, the younger CBC members are already like, if you just chart them out, way, way more way to the left of the, of the older CBC members. That's an, that, that is, that's an interesting point that he makes. Now, in a lot of those states, there won't be a coalition to be put into power.

[Sam Seder]

Right, right.

[Ryan Grim]

They'll just, they'll just nuke them down to zero. Now there's that. Now it also, as Democrats have been saying, careful what you pray for. I think as, as Clyburn put it, he thinks that three seats become viable in South Carolina if they try to nuke his. Now maybe Republicans win all three of those, maybe they don't.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And a working class coalition in the long run might be more competitive in those three seats. And so they may end up having fewer Republicans and more black Democrats, but supported by more white voters. So yeah, it's what. Now what they're trying to do is indefensible. That they might fail is not a defense of what they're trying to do.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. I mean, I know as soon as you say that, I think of some folks justifying January 6th by going like, oh, they're, they're old and not adept and, you know, nobody there was, you know, like, I'm sorry, you rob a bank. Just because you're incompetent at it doesn't mean that you didn't break the law.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And it won't work for them.

[Sam Seder]

And there's also like, just while we're on this, and then we'll get to the big debate that we're going to have you have an intern who's running for Congress, is that right? I do.

[Ryan Grim]

That's Right. I got an intern. I got an oysterman.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, tell us about him.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, Austin. Austin Almond. I used to be. Five years ago or so he was my intern back at the Intercept and he went on from there to do work in like the anti monopoly space.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, he was. Was writing for the Prospect occasionally and also at. What was the name of the open markets.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. Yeah, he's from. So he's from Lincoln, Nebraska or not Lincoln. I think a town out Nathan, maybe it's called some town I've never been to outside of Lincoln. Grew up, you know, he struggled hard, worked his. Worked his way out of Nebraska to Minnesota for college and then has moved back there since his, you know, he launched his campaign ad is brutal story of brutal story. His mom taking her life as the bank. Bank is coming for their home. And you know, he, you know, fighting to get it back and fighting to like uplift his family members. So a. There was a primary in Nebraska last week. The kind of centrist Democrat who I think the progressive candidate raised like 50 grand or something. Very little.

[Sam Seder]

He was outspent. The 50, 50 grand candidate. That candidate. I want to say it was Kavanaugh or something like that. Kavanaugh was outspent over 10 to 1, I think in that.

[Ryan Grim]

Was that the Denise Powell Kavanaugh race?

[Sam Seder]

Oh, maybe. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. That was the other race.

[Ryan Grim]

This is the other one. Regardless, I think Buckmire is a guy's name who won the race. He was a. He's worked in the State Department for 20 years. Whether you believe Austin's Paul or not, they did a poll that showed that when you laid out the bio of the Democrat in a very favorable way, like they write, you know, he worked in the State Department for both administrations. He's going to bring down costs. His numbers went down like I've almost never seen that before in a poll where like you. You very honestly and fairly describe who the guy is. It's like 20 years in the State Department and then coming back to Nebraska, people are like, you know what? They're gonna pass on that.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, there's an anti. Like, like there's an anti government. There's a pro change sentiment and I don't want to say anti government as much as maybe anti government personnel.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

The. The Democrats plan to essentially endorse or more or less like quiet endorse Dan Osborne running for Senate. The Democrat who won the race has promised to drop out.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

So that she will not be competition with Osborne. What are the chances of that happening? In this congressional race.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, so he, he met with the chair of the Nebraska party. He pitched, you know, a plan. I talked to her yesterday. She rejected that plan. She. The party is currently standing behind the Democrat. What Austin is saying is that he's going to make the case over the next few months that he's the viable one. And then it would be, let's say he, let's say he manages to pull that off. Then it's up to the party whether or not they agree and whether or not they want to step aside. And then you would think that it goes both ways, that if he can't prove it over the next several months, he's viable. Yeah, right. That it would, that he would drop out. Drop out.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Whether he'd do that or not, I don't know. But like, it's a different situation than Osborne, which makes him in some ways more independent, like us. Because the biggest knock on Osborne is they, they'll say he's actually a Democrat in independence clothing.

[Sam Seder]

Right. Interesting. I mean, it really is. I mean he really is a, you know, an independent in this regard. I mean, but his policies, I think are very aligned with progressives. All right, let's get to this. This is what people, why are people are tuning in? And, and so for, you know, my radio instincts are like, you backload this. We would have held people over the commercial break many times. So you tweeted out, can we find that tweet? We should have probably pulled this. You tweeted out. There's always like, like this happens over and over again. It seems like there's like waves of, in which ways that AOC is, is attacked. I'm not saying you were attacking aoc, but that in, in that waves of, of, of attacks. And here it is, right? Ryan Grubb, here it is. This is what you tweeted out. What was the date on this? May 8th or something. Okay, so this is in response to AOC saying that she doesn't personally trust Marjorie Taylor Greene, thinks he's sort of Johnny come lately. She was talk. She was at a, an event where they asked her about making trans partisan coalitions and she's talking about legislation. She's paired up with a. She's done this many times, maybe more than most in, in Congress with Republicans to push legislation. She said, I wouldn't do this with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And you swooped in and wrote MTG sacrificed. Hold on for one second. You wrote MTG sacrificed her political career to stand against genocide, against Trump, against the Epstein class, and to defend the survivors of Epstein's trafficking. If that doesn't earn credibility, I don't know what possibly could. Okay, what. I mean, come on.

[Ryan Grim]

Why don't we also read what I didn't say There. There are a lot of things I didn't say that people ascribe to that.

[Sam Seder]

Well, let me say this. I disagree with the second word in that, sacrificed. Because if you'll recall that her one piece of legislation that she promoted this amendment to a defense bill, which AOC voted against. The entire bill, we should say, came immediately after she was rejected by Donald Trump to run for Senate and for governor in Georgia. He said no, Marjorie. This is also after she was basically kept from House leadership. So she's got her millions of dollars that she has done by insider trading in the House. Not illegal, but arguably unethical. And she decides she doesn't want to be in Congress anymore, so much so that she's going to resign in five months. From that time, it was. It was mid July where she got the ax on the. And that's when she also introduced the legislation. So she didn't really sacrifice her political career. She took the only path that was available to her, which is, I'm going to leave. Maybe she'll come back someday. But she had nowhere else to go.

[Ryan Grim]

No, there's another path. The path is continuing to be in the House. Lots of people have tried to get Trump's endorsement to run statewide for something. Not gotten it. And they keep it moving. Like, she. She didn't have to go out. You don't have to quit. She. She could.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, she was pissed. She was spurned. I mean, yeah, she didn't have to do that. But we've seen her impulse control. We played the video of her peering through AOC's letter slot. Maybe drunk, maybe not. I'm not sure which is a better explanation. Sandy. Like we have seen, impulse control is not necessarily her thing. And I don't know, did.

[Ryan Grim]

And I. Oh, by the way, I said separately that I fully understand why AOC personally has a grudge that she's not going to let up. Oh, sure. MTG has not apologized for that. MTG has targeted her personally. Like, creepily at, you know, at her door, online, constantly at, on the floor, like, acting like a weird bully.

[Sam Seder]

Like, oh, yeah, no, I'm not even talking about that. I'm. I'm actually, I want to stay on the. Like, yes, I think she has every reason to personally be like, f. This person. I'm never. But if she, like, if she meant what she was doing if, like, if her MTG's agenda. And look, I am happy to have her saying these things that, that are. I agree with and I think they are marginally helpful. I'm not sure who constituency is for this, but I do think they're marginally helpful in the same way that like, you know, the Washington Wizards are helpful to the, the Globetrotters. Like, it's good to have, you know, our version of. Alan, what was that guy's name on hand? Combs.

[Ryan Grim]

Combs. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. I mean it's good to have apostates. Right? Like, I'm happy that Bill Crystal is, you know, is out there and Jen Rubin. Yeah. And all of the, like, you know, all of those never Trumpers. And she is basically a never Trumper, except for she could have stayed in Congress for another year and had a material impact on votes and she decided not to do that. And my question is like, how can you say that she sacrificed her political career to stand up against genocide, et cetera, et cetera, when her career, I think in her mind was over? At least, at least that career play, stay in the House, do something. Because I think she felt like she had to pivot and the only way that she could do that, she could have done it in the House. She could have been voting with Massie. She could have been, you know, like co sponsoring things with Ro Khanna. She could have been doing all of those things. But instead she just like pulled a what's her face from Sarah Palin.

[Ryan Grim]

She should have stayed in the House and she would have earned more credibility if she'd have done that. And I think she loses credibility by leaving the House. I think that's true. She could have and should have stayed there. Like, there's no question about that. You and I basically agree that it's marginally good that she's saying the things that she's saying.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

And the question, the question I was, the thing that I was responding to was AOC saying that, that MTG didn't have credibility on this issue.

[Sam Seder]

She doesn't. I mean, like, she doesn't, but who cares? I mean, you know, I responded to

[Ryan Grim]

it like, right, you can not care. Apparently a lot of people care days talking about it.

[Sam Seder]

Yes, but. Well, I care more about the idea that like she somehow sacrificed and that she.

[Ryan Grim]

The other part that frustrated me in those comments was she said when there are issues where there's bipartisan establishment support for something, then in those cases and she said like for instance, banning stock trading in those Instances. I think it's appropriate to work with people we disagree with on other issues. So it's okay to do that for stock trading? What issue has stronger bipartisan establishment support than unapologetic support for Israel? So it's okay to do it for stock trading, but stopping a genocide? Well, you can't go there.

[Sam Seder]

Well, wait a second. What is, I mean, what is Marjorie Taylor? What are they going to do together? Like, she's out of Congress. She left Congress. She might as well be. She's just some gadfly like Alex Jones. Like, Alex Jones, I'm sure has agreed with something at one point. Should aoc, like, like a congressperson joined with Alex Jones?

[Ryan Grim]

That, that, that's a fair, that's a fair point too. She brought up mtg. Like, why did, like, why, why, like, what's the point of bringing her up to like, sideline her? Like, if she's, if she's nothing to work with her on?

[Sam Seder]

I think, I think in that context she should not be paying attention to, you know, a, a former congressperson. But I imagine that's probably driven by like her personal animosity.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Which, which again I get like, but

[Sam Seder]

I think the question was like, in what, what circumstances do you make a trans partisan thing? And I think like, there is put this way, do you think just broadening out from it. Do you think there are circumstances where there are people that it does not make sense to do, like, you know, go with God, Tucker Carlson? I'm glad that you are. But I also know for, you know, like, I also know there was back in the early days of msnbc, way, way back when Pat Buchanan would fill in for Tucker on his show. Pat Buchanan would have me on because he knew I was the only Jew he could get that would criticize Israel. And I felt dirty as shit. But, but it was not like I had an audience that I was delivering to Pat Buchanan. I mean, that's also the question. I mean, this is the same question that like when Sirota asked Platner about going on Tucker Carlson show and his, you know, assessment I thought was pretty, or his assessment of the calculation is pretty important. Like, who's helping who in this situation? Like, you know, are we helping? We really expanding. Who is hearing an anti genocide message when we welcome Marjorie Taylor Greene into our home to talk about it? Or are we basically whitewashing Marjorie Taylor Greene who still has a bunch of other odious policy sets and also someone who like, has. No, she gave up her material power,

[Ryan Grim]

I think because of the way that different media environments are structured, that you're much more likely to persuade some people in her base of your position than you are going to accidentally get a bunch of Majority Report viewers to all of a sudden start hearing MTG's other ideas and be like, oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about the way weather can be controlled. Like, I don't think that. I think that they're mostly immune because it's a much more kind of open and like, you know, they've gotten the vaccine. Whereas like, I think a lot of people in the right wing media spaces are open to left wing populist ideas and if they start hearing them, can move over.

[Sam Seder]

Let me give you a real world example, Ms. now, which made the pivot to having a lot of never Republicans, never Trump on.

[Ryan Grim]

They're not serving anything up. But anyway, go ahead.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, well, I mean, I can tell you that, I mean, this is just an example and it may not. When Trump in, in the first term bombed Syria, every single person on that network, and I know this because I was coincidentally supposed to be on to talk about something else, was advocating him bombing Syria and saying it shows that he's serious. And the reason is because they're all former Republicans or supposedly former Republicans. And you know, anybody looking at Bill Kristol now, you don't remember, you know, or George W. Bush or whatnot. Like there is something to be said about holding people's, you know, real record. The overwhelming part of her record was incidentally in support of Israel, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And yes, she did have a brief moment, at least legit in terms of her career as a congressperson, which she cut short, where she had a change of mind after every other avenue for her political ambition was shut down. But if she comes back into politics, I don't know that it works the way that you're talking about. I don't know that people are traveling with her. Her audience is traveling to the Majority Report. When she's on the Majority Report, let's

[Ryan Grim]

say you nervous that she's going to snow your, your audience? I don't think so. I got more faith in your audience than you do.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, I'm not saying that. But I also don't think that, like, what, what is she going to do for my eyes? Like she, Is she going to provide them more nuance on the idea would

[Ryan Grim]

be that then you would get access to her audience.

[Sam Seder]

How would I do that?

[Ryan Grim]

Persuade them by, I don't know, like there's podcasts in that network that you can go on. I'll hook you up with Tucker.

[Sam Seder]

I'll go on to her podcast.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, but.

[Sam Seder]

But that's different.

[Ryan Grim]

It's a two way street in that sense. But in any event, I thought this was supposed to end at 1. I think I thoroughly demolished.

[Sam Seder]

I was just gonna say I think we can agree. We can agree on the fact that I demolished you all caps on this.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, you write that you get to write the YouTube headline, so.

[Sam Seder]

That's right. Just proves my point. I'm sure the. I'm sure the folks at Dropsite were won't be snowed by that.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm sure they will be.

[Sam Seder]

All right, well, Ryan Grimm, appreciate you coming on and always. I really destroyed you on this. I can't believe it.

[Ryan Grim]

That's what that line says.

[Sam Seder]

We know it because that's what the YouTube title says. Folks. We will link to drop site and breaking points. Ryan, always a pleasure. Much appreciated. Have a great day. Thanks, man.

[Ryan Grim]

See you soon.

[Sam Seder]

I held them really long too.

[Greg]

He was so elegant.

[Sam Seder]

So elegant. He called majority part of declining podcast. So elegant. Folks, that's it for the free half of the program today. You want to join us in the fun half. It's very, very easy. Join the MajorityReport.com when you do become a member at Join the MajorityReport.com you not only get the free show free of commercials, you also get the fun half. Get to ims on the fun half, Greg. You could hear comments like Gregarious Christ, more like Ryan Grimace. Am I right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yep,

[Greg]

you're right.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, oh, man, I can't wait. I'm personally writing that this is going to be the first YouTube title I write. I'm going to do that clip. It's all going to be caps. It's all going to be caps. We're going to try and find and see if there's a way for us to do font that's larger than caps on YouTube.

[Greg]

You could do the Dave Rubin. Ryan Grimm goes silent when Sam Cedar says this.

[Sam Seder]

Ryan Grimm, shocked,

[Greg]

embarrasses himself.

[Sam Seder]

Just where does he go from here? Also just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use your coupon code majority and get 10% off. We're going to head into the fun half. We got to maybe, maybe put a call out to Emma on her special assignment, see what the. How that went. Ask her, Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian media empire?

[Greg]

Yeah. Coming up at 3:00 Eastern Time today, we're talking about Zoron and something about Zoron. Something promoting.

[Sam Seder]

And. Yeah, see, it's not just me has these moments.

[Greg]

More importantly, an interview with A.J. woods about a new book, the Cultural Marxism Conspiracy about our boy Jordan Peterson, James Lindsay and what, what all that stuff was that like Heritage foundation adjacent culture war stuff that we've been going through for the last 15 years. So a really great book on that that's coming up at 3 o' clock Eastern time.

[Sam Seder]

What did you guys do? Put that back up. What did you do to like Mom Donnie? You guys like? It looks like he's a bodybuilder in

[Greg]

that we put him in the AI and just told them to make it like a.

[Sam Seder]

He looks like very muscly in that. Ever since that bench pressing incident, I bet he's been working on that

[Greg]

human growth hormone.

[Sam Seder]

A lot of people offering up potential titles. Sam Cedar, Debate Mogs. Ryan Grimm. Ryan Grim Shutters. Sam Loses Only Friend. No. All right, folks, see you in the butt. Half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're 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. What is up? Everyone unpack. No.

[Ryan Grim]

Mickey, you did it.

[Sam Seder]

Fun half.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Seder]

Let's go, Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[Ryan Grim]

Fundamentally false.

[Translator]

No.

[Sam Seder]

I'm sorry.

[Ryan Grim]

Women.

[Sam Seder]

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[Ryan Grim]

Where is this coming from?

[Sam Seder]

Dude? But. Dude, you want to smoke this? 7A. Yes. Hi. Me is me. Yes. Is this me?

[Ryan Grim]

Is it me?

[Sam Seder]

It is you? Is this me?

[Ryan Grim]

Hello?

[Sam Seder]

Is this me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go throw it. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[Ryan Grim]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Seder]

We nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge. Man, I'm positively quivering. I believe 96. I want to say 8572-1035-5011-0389, 11 for a snake. $3,400.

[Ryan Grim]

$1900.

[Sam Seder]

5, 5, 4. $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game, actually. You're making me think less, but let me say this. You call it satire. Sam goes satire.

[Ryan Grim]

On top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like, everything you do.

[Sam Seder]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks, folks. It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously. Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.

[Ryan Grim]

But you should know, people just don't

[Sam Seder]

like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Ryan Grim]

Outrageous.

[Sam Seder]

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye. Bye.