← The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3672 - Susan Collins' Duplicity; Alan Greenspan's Lifelessness; AIPAC vs DSA w/ Rick Perlstein
01:18:36
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Emma Viglin
You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily.
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Sam Seder
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Rick Perlstein, historian, author of Reagan Land. Really an entire trilogy of history from the mid-60s almost up to the day, talking or rather joining us to speak ill of Alan Greenspan. Meanwhile, also on the program, Iran connecting its control or I should say cementing its control of the Strait of Hormuz as Trump and Iran disagree over whether Iran has agreed to to nuclear inspections. It's primary day in New York. Maryland, Utah runoffs in South Carolina. Go out and vote. France records its hottest night ever. Europe swelters in an early and extreme heat. Trump finds five scapegoats to be charged with tampering with his reflection pool to cover up his corruption and incompetence.
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Emma Viglin
Thank God our national nightmare is over.
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Sam Seder
It's still ongoing. There's still more possible tamperers out there.
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Emma Viglin
Can't sleep yet.
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Sam Seder
Liverpool day for
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Unknown Guest 1
youth.
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Sam Seder
You have to go through me before you get to that pool. The first National Labor Relations Board post CEMEX ruling says Amazon must recognize a San Francisco delivery union. But it appears Amazon is teeing up a test case to challenge that CEMEX ruling. Pentagon wants another $80 billion to pay for Republicans failed war. The number of insured through Medicaid and the ACA Marketplace has dropped by 5 million in the last 12 months.
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Emma Viglin
Jesus.
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Sam Seder
Millions more to come. Graham Platner endorsed by Planned Parenthood Trump regime to roll back rules against oil drilling on public lands. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen.
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Emma Viglin
It is news day.
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Sam Seder
Tuesday, Tuesday. And we, we match today.
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Emma Viglin
We do match today. I mean, I guess some I'm in white for the most part. This is some. Yeah, it's a white gray thing. But I voted. That's most important part about my outfit. And there you go. So people can see it there.
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Sam Seder
I vote early.
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Emma Viglin
I typically vote early, but I don't know, I'm excited by the energy today with all of these DSA electeds. I wanted to get out there and do it on the day. We've got a great slate in New York City. Big races all across the city, specifically the Mamdani ones that in terms of his endorsements in New York 13, New York 7 and New York 10. Dariel. Lisa, we'll talk about this later. But yeah, just, it's, it's insane. What, what, how they're campaigning against these DSA candidates.
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Sam Seder
Very important to get out and vote, particularly if you're in those districts. But really, anywhere your election is today. We will get to some of that New York primaries stuff in a moment. And first, let me just say one word because I don't know if people remember the CEMEX ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. I hope they do. But it occurred to me as I was reading it, like, this is exciting. The first post CEMEX National Labor Relations Board action. That's why I wore my CEMEX ruling T shirt. The same ex ruling, you will recall, took place in, I think it was late 2003. And Cemex was a case where basically the National Labor Relations Board, one of the problems that unions have is they vote for a union and there's all these stalling technique techniques that a company will use to keep them from voting. Then we'll keep them from negotiating a contract once a union is recognized. And there was attempt by those who support unions and the Biden administration pretty good about this stuff in terms of the National Labor Relations Board that he appointed, particularly their, their counsel. And the CEMEX ruling basically says if a company gets petitioned for by a union to have a union and it's basically like card check. If over 50% have signed a card saying we're interested in pursuing a union, then the company has, I think it's a two week window in which to respond to that and either provide the National Labor Relations Board a legitimate reason why these people can't unionize, maybe it's like, well, you've got, you know, they do two different types of jobs or the jobs that they do are so different that we can't have them in one union because we, we couldn't collectively bargain for them. It would make sense. They have to address it or they have to basically agree within two weeks. And if they don't, the union is automatically recognized. And there were hopes that in the course of a second Biden administration, you would have a similar process for getting into contract negotiations. If you don't get into negotiations after a certain period of time, 90 days or it's not being resolved or whatnot, then a contract could be imposed. That was the sort of like golden chalice. This is the first ruling since CEMEX and the National Labor Relations Board Judge from that agency ruled that Amazon must collectively bargain with its California warehouse workers. Amazon violated federal law by refusing to recognize the Teamsters union after it obtained majority support from employees at a San Francisco delivery center. Amazon's going to appeal the ruling. And the hope would be, I think, from Amazon's perspective, that Trump's National Labor Relations Board would undo that precedent. We will see going forward. But that's an important case to keep in mind for union power. All right, let's get to this. Planned Parenthood issued their endorsement of Graham Platner yesterday. And a big issue of Susan Collins is, of course, that she pretends that she's a maverick, that she's not really a boot licking Republican, and it's the way that she goes about it. Watch this clip here. This is clip number
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Unknown Guest 1
two.
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Interviewer or Moderator
Sir, you voted with President Trump about 94% of the time, which might sound high, but most people in your party have been with him 100% of the time.
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Sam Seder
Pause it for a second. I think even though 100% exists, 95% is quite a bit. Yeah, and so 94% too.
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Emma Viglin
Yeah.
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Sam Seder
So her trying to argue that she's independent 4 or 5% of the time is the time. It doesn't count.
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Emma Viglin
Although, to be fair, in terms of the cult that is the Republican Party, that is at best the most independent you're going to get. Or Trump's going to endorse your opponent and you're going to be ousted in the primary.
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Sam Seder
Right, here we go.
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Interviewer or Moderator
The time. And he has pointed the finger at you several times over different issues. One of them was the fact that you held up for quite some time on your vote of support for just now, Justice Kavanaugh, is this an issue that you think is troublesome for you in this race now that Roe v. Wade was overturned in Maine, across the country?
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Susan Collins (clip)
Well, first of all, let me make clear that I disagreed with The Supreme Court's 6 to 3 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. But the fact is that whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned given the 6 to 3 vote.
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Sam Seder
Okay, first off, I have no doubt that Collins also voted for the other Supreme Court justices, the Republicans who helped overturn that. Nevertheless, she's lying. There were two separate rulings in the context of this case. The first was Dobbs, which was an abortion case. And you can scroll up here, Dobbs, which was an abortion case that came up in terms of a Mississippi law that would ban abortion at 15 weeks. There were two separate rulings here. One was six, three. That was the Dobbs case. But to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey for that matter, which were more than just at a certain point, it was the idea that there is a right in the Constitution to an abortion. And the question as to when the state could abridge it. Oh, keep the other one back up there. Please keep the other one back up there. The question as to when a state could abridge that right was different than Dobbs. Dobbs just said 15 weeks. So the court said, okay, we're going to allow states to abridge that right at 15 weeks. But then they went further and they overturned Roe v. Wade.
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Emma Viglin
And that was five, four. And Roberts was the one that dissented from the rest of the conservatives.
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Sam Seder
He wanted to leave part of it existing. So in other words, words, you could say you have a right to an abortion up to 15 weeks all across the country, but no, they wanted to allow total bans.
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Emma Viglin
Yes. In fact, that, that he was the deciding vote in that instance. In the very key extremist part of the Dobbs decision that removed the right to the abortion. To an abortion right.
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Sam Seder
The Roe v. Wade overturning, the explicit 1 was 5, 4. And that was Kavanaugh. But aside from her lying about this, it's not just this situation. This is how Susan Collins has skated by her entire career. This is her number one move is lack of accountability and obscuring her role in the worst of Republican offenses. Let's go back to 2018 and hear what Susan Collins said at that time. This is number one.
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Interviewer or Moderator
Decided. He refused to answer. He would only say these cases are entitled to respect.
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Rick Perlstein
How can you be, OR Are you
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Interviewer or Moderator
100% certain, without a doubt that Brett Kavanaugh will not overturn Roe v. Wade?
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Susan Collins (clip)
I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn.
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Interviewer or Moderator
Precedents are overturned all the time.
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Susan Collins (clip)
They aren't overturned all the time.
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Interviewer or Moderator
More there.
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Susan Collins (clip)
And listen to the standards that he put forth in his conversation with me and also in the hearing. He says for a precedent, a long established precedent like Roe to be overturned, it would have to have been grievously wrong and, and deeply inconsistent. He noted that Roe had been reaffirmed 19 years later by Planned Parenthood versus Casey and that it was precedent unprecedent. He said it should be extremely rare that it be overturned and it should be an example.
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Interviewer or Moderator
You have obviously full confidence.
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Susan Collins (clip)
I do.
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Interviewer or Moderator
One last question.
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Sam Seder
So there it is. She either is incompetent or she's lying here. And to be fair, though, I want to be generous Here it was extremely rare. They only overturned Roe v. Wade once.
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Emma Viglin
Yeah.
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Sam Seder
And they did it with five votes. And that fifth vote was Kavanaugh.
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Rick Perlstein
Right.
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Sam Seder
And this is her M.O. it's not just Roe v. Wade. It is her M.O. that 5% of the time that she doesn't vote with Donald Trump are irrelevant when it counts, whether it's Kavanaugh or anything else. When they need her vote, she will be there for the Republicans. Iraq war. Yeah.
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Emma Viglin
You know what else is irrelevant? That she disagreed with the decision. I don't care if she fully agreed with the decision. And she was, you know, chanting Death to Roe v. Wade in the streets with pom poms. The reality is that it's not about what's in your heart. It's about what you do with your power. And so she is, as you say, either incompetent, stupid, or is playing a game. And we know she's been playing this game for quite a while.
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Sam Seder
Here's Graham Platner responding to her comment.
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Susan Collins (clip)
The fact is that whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned given the 6 to 3 vote.
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Graham Platner
So either Susan Collins is lying or she doesn't remember one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions of modern history. It was not 6 to 3. It was 5 to 4. And Justice Kavanaugh was the deciding vote. Susan Collins was the deciding vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh. Now, whether or not she's forgotten or whether or not she's lying to us, either way, that's disqualifying for United States Senator. Now, she says she was disappointed in the ruling of the court. Well, just last week, she said she doesn't regret her vote for Brett Kavanaugh. So clearly she's not that disappointed. But you know who is disappointed? The voters of Maine in voting for her, in believing her when she said she was going to stand up for reproductive rights in this country. She didn't. But we're going to rectify that this November when we beat Susan Collins and turn the United States Senate blue.
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Sam Seder
She also voted for violence. She also voted for settled. I just want to make that clear, too. She voted for Alito. She voted for Gorsuch, But Kavanaugh was the one that they were. That she was really made a big stink about. I got a. I got a. A real ironclad promise from him, and now I disappoint.
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Emma Viglin
She's so independent that she's openly thirsting for AIPAC money right now. We'll play that clip later. But so Independent, such a maverick that she's just completely in lockstep with the genocidal Zionist foreign policy of basically every other DC Elite.
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Sam Seder
The real issue for Maine people, I think, is that Susan Collins is never who she says she is. She never has been that person. She has always been someone whose entire Senate service has been a function of trying to obscure what function she serves in the U.S. senate. And this is, you know, this is the question as to whether, you know, Mainers will see that about her this time around. She's certainly not going to change now if there was ever an opportunity to break with Donald Trump, but she won't do it until she's a lame duck. That's another great reason to do it, because God knows what Donald Trump is going to do after the election, particularly in the if the Democrats take the House, never mind the Senate. So the more former, the more lame duck Republicans you have after November, essentially, the more protection the country has. You're worried about Donald Trump putting ice on your streets after the November elections. The best thing you can do is to make sure that there's half a dozen Republican senators who are in there right now. You have three Cassidy, Cornyn and Tillis who are not coming back. If you get three more in there, the, the Senate can actually have an impact on Donald Trump. So there's, we've got some time, I guess, to talk more about Susan Collins. In the meantime, the, the knives are out. There is a real, I mean, AIPAC is freaking out now.
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Emma Viglin
Yep. There was an item this morning in Politico about APAC spending. And this is just the tip of the iceberg because, you know, Israel money is not just going through aipac, it's going through other vehicles. But Politico has tracked that they've spent more than $38 million this cycle. They spent 26 million in total in 2022, 46.3 million total in 2024. So they're well on track to exceed their spending from 2024. And they're doing it through this United Democracy Project. And because the tag of AIPAC money has become so toxic through AIPAC into United Democracy Project into, they're funneling it in two times through other PACs. And they're doing it so close to the election to that the filings that would report where this money is coming from in many instances aren't going to come out until after the primary. That's how broken art can be.
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Sam Seder
They do it in the final quarter. They do it in the final quarter. So you never know I mean, this was always the argument that Anthony Kennedy would make about Citizens United. Well, they'll be reporting, so the people will know, but they're not going to know until afterwards.
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Unknown Guest 1
Right.
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Emma Viglin
And so they're saying it's ridiculous to speculate, but we know that DMFI is also propping up espiat in New York. 13 It's a little less clear in New York 7 because Reynoso is more progressive than SBI. But both have DSA candidates running in those races. And it's in my view most important to build up the institutional power of DSA right now as a way to one, advance Mamdani's agenda, but two, also to make DSA a national force that the party has to listen to. And that starts here in New York.
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Sam Seder
So Mamdani gave a speech. Should we show that speech the original?
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Emma Viglin
Sure. Mamdani's been going hard for particularly the two candidates that needed most, Valdez in the 7th and Dariel Issa in the 13th, who has, as I mentioned to start the show, been the brunt of the most insane racist attacks in the 11th hour of this race. So he's rallying here and calls out AIPAC because of their attacks on these candidates.
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Mamdani
And we need that because, as Gramsci once wrote, the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters. These monsters take many forms today in those who fund television ads that blanket the airwaves with misleading and bad faith attacks about Claire, Brad and Dari. Those who would rather spend far more on political contributions than they would ever
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Rick Perlstein
be made to pay in taxes in
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Mamdani
aipac, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu's wars. They move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary in a politics.
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Sam Seder
And so this guy, whatever it was that reported on it, said no mention of Mayor Zohrandani calls AIPAC a monster that moves dark money. And no mention he does not call aipac. Well, whatever. But no mention of Russia or the rapid support forces in Sudan. I guess they aren't as bad as aipac. To my I spend as much money
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Emma Viglin
you guys care so much about this so bizarre.
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Sam Seder
First off, he's not accusing AIPAC of actually committing the genocide, just raising money to make sure that politicians in this country support providing money for that. There is. Were there a Russian super PAC pouring money into. I mean just imagine if the top three most expensive congressional races in the history of this country was not because AIPAC poured money against a progressive candidate, but if Russia or some Russia PAC poured millions of dollars into it. The entire country would be on fire right now.
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Emma Viglin
And if they went 3 for 3 in taking out those members of Congress,
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Sam Seder
they wouldn't have a chance to do one because like the FBI would be raiding. Like it would just be a five alarm fire. So Josh Gottheimer, who is. Just an incredible corporatist, I mean this guy is on the far right of the Democratic party and you're supposed to
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Emma Viglin
as a member of Congress. Some of the unwritten rules that they use against progressives don't endorse challengers against us. Gottheimer has been going after the leftist members of Congress with some of his PAC fundraising as well.
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Sam Seder
Monsters, Dark money, A hidden hand turning us against one another. Swap a pack for Jews. And it's the oldest anti Semitic conspiracy theory in the books. I mean that's not criticizing it. Like first off, you can't switch AIPAC for Jews. That's the whole point.
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Emma Viglin
Why is he playing Mad Libs? He didn't say Jews, he said apac.
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Sam Seder
AIPAC is a lobby. Jews are a people. There's that old meme that says I hate Space Jam 2 now switch out Space Jam 2 with women. You see, not so funny anymore. Exactly. What's really dangerous is the way that he is absolutely been part and it's almost done. Like you can't take real anti Semitism seriously now because of the way that they have used interchangeably Israel's desire to have a greater Israel with somehow having something to do with the Jewish people. I'm sorry, it doesn't. Here is Mamdani stepping up because here's gottheimer trying to intimidate Mamdani and Mamdani won't have it.
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Rick Perlstein
Some members of the Jewish community, including Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, were alarmed by the language he used at the rally last week. Calling a pact monsters who move dark money. These are phrases that invoke old anti Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories. What do you say to those who are concerned that the language you used is dangerous?
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Mamdani (continued)
Now I want to be very clear. We're talking about a status quo where children are being killed on a daily basis. More than a thousand Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the so called ceasefire. Even an Al Jazeera journalist, Ahmed Wishah was killed this past Saturday by an Israeli strike. And when I am speaking about aipac, I'm speaking about an organization that has been supportive of the status quo, that has fought any attempt to actually deliver safety to people, not just in Palestine, but frankly through much of the region. And it is a status quo for immorality. It is one that I will not accept. And when it comes to the way in which they defend the status quo, oftentimes they defend it through direct contributions, as we are seeing right now in New York. 13 Oftentimes they also support the status quo through dark money by filtering money that would have previously been directly from aipac, now through other shell organizations whose identities of their contributors are only made clear after an election. And I think that it is important that when we ask ourselves how such death and destruction is happening overseas, we also name those who allow it to take place.
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Sam Seder
All right, we're going to go. That is boom. It's, I mean, it's effective in two ways. One, it basically says to Godheimer, I won't be intimidated, you won't be able to intimidate us. You're just some dude from New Jersey that nobody cares about now. And two, it was also a great opportunity to inform people of these other sort of like second order, third order organizations that AIPAC is now funneling money through it. So I don't know what to tell you. Poor Josh gottheimer less and less relevant with each passing day that did. There was a time where he was really holding things up. In a moment we'll be talking to Rick Perlstein, who's got some ill things to speak of. Alan Greenspan, first, just a word from our sponsors. You hear a lot of stuff about, you know, hair care products. What's going to help your hair, what's going to grow back your hair. What's different about Nutrafol is it's actually built like a real game plan. It is physician formulated. It is clinically tested. They test the complete formulation of neutrophil, not just its ingredients. Neutral is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. It's used by over 1.5 million people. I started taking it about a year and a half ago because I was getting a little like thin around here. I didn't want to take a, a drug, but I also didn't want to do nothing beforehand. And Nutrafol's been great. I know also we both know women who have had really good experience with Nutrafol. Nutrafol has formulas built for men and women for that matter. At different life stages. Nutrafol Men for guys is 18 to 49 and the new Nutrafol men 50 plus, which I've been in that zone for a while but have just started with the 50 plus, which is the first product of its kind specifically made for men over 50. They address the key root causes of thinning hair wherever you are at life grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in three to six months. I use the towel shedding test and it's been great. Start Nutrafol today. Make the hat optional. Visit nutrafol.com Enter the promo code TMR10 for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. 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 neutrophil.com promo code tmr10. We'll put the info in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. Also, things have been going very, very well with my cat.
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Emma Viglin
That's good to hear.
- [30:15]
Sam Seder
He has been like the other night I'm in bed and he comes in and he decides he wants to sleep on me. Oh, which was very, very cute. And I know exactly why. And it's sort of, it's a little bit disturbing because, you know, the cat travels back and forth a little bit. We have a custody situation and when the cat first gets there, I pour the Smalls broth on my fingers and give it to him so he associates a food he loves with my spell. Now, I don't have any technical expertise when it comes to cats or even layperson expertise when it comes to cats, but I think it's working. Smalls is a a cat food that basically uses human grade ingredients. So it does much more than feed your cap. It helps, I should say it helps them live a long and happy healthy life. Most cat food is made with beat by meat, bright meat byproducts. I think I'm having a stroke. Cheap fillers and artificial ingredients. Basically stuff that's not great for your cat. Big Pet food does this because it's cheaper to make. But what they save on cost your cat pays for with their health. Smalls is different. Their fresh recipes are made with at least 80% animal protein. They're gently cooked to retain their nutrient and flavor. They never add fillers or artificial ingredients. Their food is so healthy at 88% of cat parents say that after feeding Smalls their cats have better digestion, softer and shinier coat, more energy to play. I've also noticed less poop smell because it's actually good for cats. Your cat's health and longevity starts with what they eat. Try smalls and get 60% off your cat's first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you go to smalls.com majority one last time. That's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com majority. All right. That info will be in the podcast and YouTube description Quick Break Rick Pearlstein, We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Viglin, it is a pleasure to welcome back to the program Rick Perlstein, historian, author of an amazing trilogy which starts with before the Storm. Oh, Quadra, what do I call that? Quadrilogy, which starts with before the Storm, which is being reissued in December with a new afterword. Also his he's got another book coming out in, I guess in about a year from Haymarket Press, and he was just telling us that he blew off some of the bigger publishers that I'm sure they were lining up. You've had some very, very successful books. Rick Perlstein, always a pleasure. Thanks for joining us.
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Rick Perlstein
It's great to join you.
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Emma Viglin
Thanks so much.
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Sam Seder
Now, I've been wanting to get you on for a while, but, you know, just to sort of like talk about things more broadly. And this seemed like as good of an excuse as any. Alan Greenspan passed away. You know, I don't even know if I headlined it yesterday because I was like, f this guy. But there's a, there's so much of what we're going through that he was one of those people who had a big hand in it, but not the level of accountability that like, you know, we typically think of, like, in terms of politicians. Give us, give us the background on Alan Greenspan first, and then we'll we'll take it through what he did.
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Rick Perlstein
Sure. I mean, the first piece of background is the Federal Reserve itself, which is this colossally important decision institution that decides basically how the American economy works and most importantly, how many people work in the American economy. Right. So either loosening money in order to rush the economy or tightening money or to slow the economy, ostensibly to control inflation, but also almost explicitly to make sure that workers don't get too antsy and kind of demand too much. And then you get to, let's just kind of make a quick detour through this guy, Paul Volcker, who was the Federal Reserve chair under Jimmy Carter, who basically decided to induce a massive recession that had a huge role in what we're facing now, because it changed the balance of power between, to put it it bluntly, in a Bolshevik kind of way, labor and capital, right? And caused a massive recession that caused massive employment, but was great for the stock market. And comes Paul Volcker, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and at his kind of ceremony for his appointments in the Oval Office with Ronald Reagan and. And Alan Greenspan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, who we should really talk about, too, is Ayn Rand. And of course, you guys know Ayn Rand is the philosopher of selfishness who says that showing any compassion for any other human being is the ruin of human civilization. So that's who this guy was. He was in Ayn Rand's cult. And as the economy, quote, unquote, boomed during the Clinton administration, he received an enormous amount of the credit. And he became among the media elite, his wife, Andrea Mitchell, being kind of one of the doyens of that elite. As a NBC News reporter, a God, he was treated like. And that's an important thing to understand. I just actually discovered a piece from the year 2000 when Bob Woodward's book about him came out. Do you remember what the book was called? Maestro. And the great Bill Greeter, who had been a Washington Post reporter but became a Nation magazine populist left winger, wrote a great book about the Federal Reserve called Secrets of the Temple. And it came out in the late 80s and explained how all this worked. But he wrote this article about Bob Woodward's book, and do you mind if I read just like a couple paragraphs? Because it really gets. No, please do reference. This guy received. Woodward engages in a literary flourish that resembles a rite of apotheosis, which means turning someone into a God. Father. Greenspan is portrayed as a strong and trusted parent who supervises the children's interests. He loves us all, notwithstanding the dour expression. Indeed, he is seen as a God like Olympian who does the hard thinking on our behalf, worries constantly for us, and makes unpleasant decisions for our own good. Although his words are almost unbearably opaque, he appears to be doing something rare. This is a quote from Woodward, telling the truth. And then in an epilogue, Woodward suggests that the Fed chairman even embodies the American spirit. With Greenspan, we find comfort. He helps breathe life into the vision of America as strong, the best, invincible. The fascination with Greenspan has become one of the ways in which the country expresses confidence in itself and its future. Outside the Fed, Woodward observes, with Greenspan, hardly anybody can muster the courage to criticize him anymore. So this is the year 2000, when the stock market is rocketing up to 10,000 and it's the new Gilded Age. And in this piece, lots of other places too. He explains that, as I said with Paul Volcker, this trick was achieved basically by squeezing the market power of the working class. He says for the past two decades, the Federal Reserve has been an engine of inequality. And in the case of Greenspan, in this book, Woodward, I mean, Greeter points out that. What did he say? He paraphrases him saying that the reason we did so well was because workers were, quote, unquote, traumatized. I mean, it's really. This is like looking at the career. This guy is enough to turn him into a Marxist. Because I'm not even getting to, we're
- [40:43]
Sam Seder
not getting to the worst part. This is just the sort of like. But I just want to add one or two things. One, he famously talked about worker insecurity is what. And the Fed has two mandates, right? One is to maintain as much employment as possible, but also to keep a lid on inflation. And he said worker insecurity is helpful because it prevents wages from going up and curtails inflation. Now, for a long time, and I just want to go back also with Greenspan because he was involved in the Social Security committee with Reagan that, that, that ended up increasing wage taxes on middle class workers and capped it.
- [41:30]
Rick Perlstein
Right.
- [41:31]
Sam Seder
Which of course was a way of basically encouraging wealth inequality. Because as soon as you get above. I don't remember, I don't know what it was in 1981 when they did this, but you know, in, in today's dollars, $160,000, it's off to the races, you don't owe that 6% anymore.
- [41:50]
Rick Perlstein
And so, and they talked about a crisis of Social Security. All they really were saying is by refusing to tax, you know, the income of rich people above a certain amount, we don't get enough money to distribute that money that people have paid into already.
- [42:05]
Sam Seder
Yes. And you know, the rest is history. We, we traditionally took 90, 92, 91% of the nation's wealth would be touched by that tax. Now it's closer to 85, 86%, but go ahead.
- [42:21]
Rick Perlstein
So all the pies. But at least in the 90s, you know, things were, you know, seemed to be working the way they were supposed to. There was a lot of shared prosperity, quite frankly. And you know, it turned out to be built on this series of bubbles. And you know, then we.
- [42:42]
Sam Seder
Let me jump in and say one more thing too. He really pressured. There was all this pressure on Clinton to cut the deficit. And he did.
- [42:50]
Mamdani
He did.
- [42:51]
Sam Seder
But then after the deficit is closed, yeah. Greenspan goes and encourages Bush to cut taxes and blow the deficit up again.
- [43:05]
Rick Perlstein
Yes, exactly. There's so many points of indictment for this guy and this whole veneration of him.
- [43:23]
Sam Seder
Oh, we just lost a little bit.
- [43:25]
Rick Perlstein
I think we just is the perfect example.
- [43:27]
Sam Seder
Here we go. I'm sorry.
- [43:28]
Rick Perlstein
Of this infernal triangle paradigm I have where you can't look at any Lincoln. Right. Democratic center and incompetent media. Right. So one of the things that he had an enormous role in was after people realized that these risky derivatives, right. Were causing enormous financial risk, Orange County, California literally went bankrupt because they invested in these kind of hanky derivatives. And then this enormous hedge fund almost went bankrupt and required a $3.6 billion bank bailout from all the other banks who had invested in it. So the whole system didn't collapse. So there was never a time when the consequences of this weren't quite evident. Right. In 1996, this woman who should be familiar to everyone, Brooksley Born, whose job in the federal government was regulating futures, which is derivatives, what derivatives are, said these derivatives aren't regulated at all. Literally. Senator Graham made it illegal to regulate them after this sold tobacco. She said, we need to regulate these things because this is going to keep on happening and it might actually cause a contagion that, lo and behold, might destroy the entire economy. And he just went ballistic. I wrote a. I've been writing on substack rickroltine.substack.com and I wrote a post about Greenspan which I told this whole history. It's called Speak Ill of the Dead early and often, Please, Alan Greenspan's monstrous legacy. He told her economics should inform these decisions. You're trying to induce us to do things that will undercut the system we are beholden to serve. And then he called her for a private lunch. And this is a quote. He said, well, Brooksley, I guess you and I will never agree about fraud. She asked why? He replied, you think there should be laws against. So this is this Ayn Rand acolyte, this radical free market avatar, right, who's saying there can't be fraud because it's economically irrational and the market will take care of it. And while all this is happening and they're not going to be regulating derivatives, this is when the dot com boom happens, right? So I point out that there were 16 commercials for dot coms, for dot coms, including dot com stock companies and the Super bowl in 2002 weeks before the bubble popped and destroyed $4.5 trillion in wealth. Right. And so suddenly this golden age was over. And Greenspan's response was to basically lower interest rates to zero to make sure there would be another bubble. And people couldn't invest in stocks because they look really unreliable. So what happens was the investment banks invented this investment vehicle that bundled subprime mortgages and we all know what happened. Seven years later, the entire economy of the world collapsed because of the actions of this guy who remained venerated until in 2008 in one of his usual testimonies before Congress he'd retired, he said, well, he made a mistake and it turns out the market won't take out.
- [47:20]
Emma Viglin
We have that clip. Yeah,
- [47:23]
Sam Seder
let's play this. This is number 18 and this is Alan Greenspan testifying. And like Rick has told us, this is a guy who is an Ayn Rand. Milton Friedman was also sort of like an ag. You know, he's sort of a bit of a Milton Freeman acolyte. They had some daylight, I guess, and here he is being questioned by Henry Waxman and I, I cannot remain. Yeah, I can't remember what committee this would have been, but maybe the government oversight, what is it, House oversight. Right.
- [47:57]
Unknown Guest 1
Rather than enforcers, their trust in the wisdom of the markets was infinite. The mantra became government regulation is wrong, the market is infallible. Gentlemen will state as unanimous, those of us who have looked to the self interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders equity, myself especially, are in a state of shocked disbelief. Such counterparty surveillance is a central pillar of our financial market state of balance. If it fails, as occurred this year, market stability is undermined. You found a flaw in the reality, in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak. In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right, it was not working. Precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
- [49:10]
Rick Perlstein
And the point about this is, you know, saying exactly that. Including you know, like one of the guys, what's his name, Gramlich, one of the guys who was actually on the Federal Reserve Board was saying that this bubble, this asset bubble in represented by subprime mortgages was going to crash the economy. And all while this was happening, every time he'd go before Congress, you remember, you know, one of the things that, you know, crashed the housing market was everyone was refinancing their houses using these option ARM mortgages that would kind of balloon after a couple of years. And he said that it's literally because then or they were getting cash out of their houses, using their houses as a piggy bank. And this is all because of financial deregulation that allowed, you know, basically people to act like speculators using their house as collateral. And the reason they thought that this was a safe thing to do, both people, consumers and bankers and everyone, right, Because Alan Greenspan told them that a housing bubble was impossible because you can't treat a house like a stock, just kind of flipping it, you know, buying it one day and selling it the next. And one of the things I point out in my post is that, you know, him and Andrea must not have had a TV show. They must have been, because they'd never seen Flip this House in which the show that made fun of the rogues who were kind of, you know, what the first episode of Flip this House was called? Permits. We don't need no stinking permits. Right. And then the FBI in 2005 was saying that there was a record levels of mortgage fraud. You know, he didn't get that memo. But it also turned out that, you know, everything is connected. The FBI never really looked into it because they were spending so much of their energy looking for fake terrorists after nine, 11 omni shambles of, you know, it's enough to turn the person into a Marxist, let me tell you.
- [51:11]
Sam Seder
I mean, it's amazing. And if I remember correctly, I mean, there was not enough made of the fact this guy said 40 years of my ideology, it never failed.
- [51:23]
Rick Perlstein
And you know, we had, you know, a recession after a recession after a recession. Of course, the 1991 recession was massive.
- [51:30]
Sam Seder
But his, but the, the, the. There was nothing as systemic, as systemically threatening as what we had in 2008. And that was because of all the deregulation that took place really in the mid-90s and increasingly so. And, and if I remember correctly, he sort of like backed off that a year or two later where he said, well, I was, I was not totally incorrect and started to like, try and walk it back a little bit when I think it was during the arguments around Dodd Frank when there was people who wanted to reimpose Glass Steagall, and he didn't want that to happen.
- [52:17]
Rick Perlstein
Yeah, I think his dinner invitations might have dried up.
- [52:20]
Sam Seder
That's possible too. But this is this ideology. What's fascinating to me too is that, like, things have changed. And I know obviously you're working on On. You're working on. On a project right now to deal with. But things have changed so dramatically. Like, the idea of having a technocrat be venerated seems impossible now.
- [52:50]
Unknown Guest 1
Right.
- [52:51]
Sam Seder
And one with like, a libertarian ideology, because those people were completely vanquished, it seems to me, when Paul Ryan got booted by this Republican Party. They still have the sort of, the underlying principles of it, you know, just like they put it on a shelf and they're gonna bring it back out when they need to cut, you know, when they need to cut more services, like, we can't afford this stuff. Meanwhile, $80 billion going out to the military. But there doesn't seem to be the elite sort of mouthpiece for this now.
- [53:31]
Rick Perlstein
Right. I mean, I think that, yeah, I think there's a lot of, kind of a sense, and maybe this is what you're getting at, that the Chuck Schumers and Hillary Clintons and Steny Hoyers of the world or, you know, or, you know, Barney Frank on his deathbed, you know, are kind of saying, if we can only go back to this time in which we had really smart PhD economists in charge, you know, instead of Peter Navarro, could get this in hand. But they were the ones who lit the fuse, right? And, you know, if the bubble that collapsed with the housing crisis in 2008 was kind of, you know, atomic bomb, nuclear fission, right? What we're looking at now with, you know, I, you know, and, you know, I don't know if you read Cory Doctorow new book on AI yet, but basically the entire investment bubble in AI is based on this implicit promise that their labor bills are going to go to zero. It's like nuclear fusion, right? It's like a hydrogen bomb. But it's basically the same dynamics in play and very little, you know, countervailing power, at least through the 90s and 2000s. And then, of course, with Obama, you know, kind of turning economic policy over to Larry Summers, you know, his acolyte Robert Rubin. The three of them were called in a very famous 1999 Time magazine cover, the Committee to Save the World. Right there. You know, once that cat was out of the bag, it was almost like, to mix my metaphors of Pandora's box, right? Because what was going to stop them, right? And luckily we have, you know, kind of a grassroots, you know, kind of groundswell of populist. Populist candidates, right. Who won yesterday, by the way. I mean, it's today, right? Today's election.
- [55:41]
Sam Seder
It's today.
- [55:42]
Mamdani
It's today.
- [55:46]
Rick Perlstein
What are the odds here?
- [55:47]
Emma Viglin
I mean, you did almost just.
- [55:50]
Sam Seder
Emma handles the odds.
- [55:51]
Emma Viglin
Yes. I try not to, to, to say the W word or on, on the day. And it took me to a Knicks championship. So I mean, I must be working a little bit.
- [56:04]
Rick Perlstein
I went to college with Brad Lander and he was the guy who busted out his like guitar and sang Woody Guthrie songs and all that.
- [56:10]
Emma Viglin
Well, I think that that's tracks not shocking to me. I. Brad's my hopefully new representative. I think Brad's gonna put up Reagan, Reagan numbers. I'm less. I'm a little bit more reticent to make predictions in the other races because they're closer. But you have New York 7, Claire Valdez, and then you also have New York 13, which is going to be really tough. That's Dariel Lisa Avila Chevalier against Espiat, who's the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. But those are the two Mamdani endorsements that aren't Lander. Lander is a very safe endorsement.
- [56:44]
Rick Perlstein
Okay. Yeah. I mean, so that, so you know, the institutionalism of, you know, the other wing of the Democratic Party that we just kind of have to put things back in the hands of the grown ups, you know, really kind of opened the field for, you know, right wing populists who just wanted to kind of burn it down. Right, right. And you know, this is a parable of, you know, that danger. I mean, one more detail about, you know, the way that, you know, someone like Alan Greenspan serves like an aristocrat. I mean, the fact that he had this unaccountable power is, you know, his wife, Andrea Mitchell, I found this quote from her right. On the eve of the Iraq War, after the war was authorized, but before the actual invasion began. And remember, the Authorization to Let America go into Iraq was written by Tom Daschle. And she said, we've received word that we have actually located some missiles that could be nuclear armed. And what did she say? I got to tell you this quote because it just really kind of shows how systematic this thing is. She said if Iraq destroys the missiles, it will be much harder to get support for military action. And she called that a nightmare scenario.
- [58:06]
Sam Seder
Right. In other words, if they do what we want them to do, then we won't have the opportunity to invade Iran.
- [58:15]
Rick Perlstein
It's like a science fiction movie.
- [58:18]
Sam Seder
Rick. I mean, this is maybe a weird question, but do you feel like the pace of history as we are living it now is just much more. Been much more rapid in the past two decades? Like, is that something? Is that.
- [58:44]
Rick Perlstein
I feel like you Know, it's like a, like, you know, like 1776-1792 kind of movement, you know, or, you know, you know, like, you know, when the Magna Carta was signed, you know, when stuff is really kind of going down. Right. It's almost like this perverse guilty pleasure of being kind of a historian living in an era in which, you know, genuine seismic changes in, you know, the arrangement of power across the planet, you know, conceivably, you know, ending in, you know, the vanquishing of human life on the planet. Right. Whether through some crazy, you know, nuclear war in the Middle east or a slow burn of climate change. Absolutely true. And it's kind of. Remember in the 90s, everyone talked about how boring everything was.
- [59:34]
Sam Seder
Yes.
- [59:35]
Rick Perlstein
It's like longing for something interesting to happen. And then when 911 happened, a lot of these same elites, kind of, obviously the neocons, right, because they saw the opportunity to kind of set the world on fire. But a lot of the so called liberal pundits were like, wow, now history is happening again. Isn't this great? You know, so it's, it's, it's a really interesting insight, but interesting makes it sound like this kind of armchair thing. Right. Because, you know, chaos often is a fount of opportunity. And since the institutions that got us here are, you know, have so little legitimacy, you know, like radical, strange things can happen, like, you know, Israel losing its, you know, sanction, you know, from, you know, the majority of the country. You know, I mean, it's like a once in a, one of many, once in a generation things that represent, you know, I mean, the old, what's the old cliche, you know, crisis. The word for crisis, word for opportunity in Chinese is a famous opportunity or something like that.
- [60:39]
Sam Seder
Yes, it's the word. The, the Chinese character for crisis includes the word opportunity, I guess.
- [60:49]
Rick Perlstein
Get out and knock on doors all you New York left populists, this is the time.
- [60:55]
Sam Seder
I mean, it is also. I also wonder if it's something that you've observed in the context of writing about, you know, our fairly recent history. Much of it I was alive for, maybe all of it actually, but not necessarily conscious of what was going on. But, but it seems to me when I look at like in, in growing up, the idea of democratic socialism or people identifying within the political fear sphere, even like in college, like I, you
- [61:33]
Rick Perlstein
know, I knew would show up with his guitar and there would be like three people there.
- [61:37]
Sam Seder
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I knew people who I think, well, without a doubt today would identify as socialist. But then during the, you know, the 80s, really in college, like, no. Does the sort of, like the fall of the Soviet Union open up opportunities
- [62:02]
Susan Collins (clip)
for
- [62:05]
Sam Seder
both the financial havoc that we had? Because in many ways, the United States is like, unconstrained. It doesn't feel like it has a rival. And so the idea of, like, banking controls is so, you know, Cold War thinking. But also simultaneously 1993, 20 years later you get, you know, 18 years later, you get Occupy Wall Street. And out of that, like, the ability. I mean, even in Occupy Wall street, people weren't saying that they were. People are talking about being socialist there. And I mean, a little bit, but not in the way that.
- [62:48]
Rick Perlstein
Because I just got an invitation from the New York Times Magazine to like, join a panel of historians for the 175th anniversary of the New York Times. They haven't read my book yet. Then the New York Times will never let me inside it that. But to name the five most consequential days in the last 175 years. And yeah, I mean, the follow the Soviet Union. Whatever you thought about the Soviet Union, you know, did have these profound consequences because, you know, historians who write about the civil rights movement will say one of the reasons that the elites in the country were so adamant about, you know, pushing for civil rights was because we look really bad, 100%, you know, and, you know, like, when, when, when the, you know, when the Ugandan ambassador, you know, gets arrested, you know, for using the wrong bathroom or whatever, you know, and then by the same token, without the Soviet Union as an albatross for some kind of alternative to go go capitalism, you know, showing only failure, right. And only misery and privation and lack of freedom. You know, it really opens up the imagination for people to say, no, there's a different way to do this. You know, let's try more to look, you know, like, we don't need to look like Vladivostok. We can look like, you know,
- [64:01]
Sam Seder
Right.
- [64:01]
Emma Viglin
And compare that impulse to say the US and bipartisanly not seeming to see any contradiction in our support and the validity of our support for Ukrainian sovereignty as we help commit genocide in Gaza, for example.
- [64:16]
Rick Perlstein
Well, these contradictions are coming to a head, right? Yeah. It was a lot easier to yoke ourself to very bad regimes when you saw the world in these Manichean terms as, you know, the good guys and the evil empire. Right. So let's support Jonas Civimbi, you know, and that's just harder to get away with. So, like, yeah, I mean, let's end on a note of this. There's lots of exciting opportunities out there for progressive social change. But also, you know, it's like, it's like they would say, you know, the socialists in the 1920s Germany would say socialism or barbarism. You know, this is the choice we have a choice for kind of economic democracy. I mean, the way ordinary people with, you know, no previous political consciousness at all are going berserk about, you know, the AI data farms, you know, showing up in that yard. And only the mayor is, only the only the mayor of their town has any knowledge of how much electricity they're going to use. Right. There's a great piece I think just dropped just a day or two in the New Republic website. It's an oral history all over the country of what happened in all these towns when anthropic and all the rest, who unfortunately has the endorsement of the Pope decided that they're going to suck up all their water and electricity.
- [65:44]
Sam Seder
Yeah, it's an interesting time
- [65:48]
Rick Perlstein
living interesting times.
- [65:50]
Sam Seder
Yes, indeed. It cuts both ways, doesn't it? You say it when you're bored, but then when you get there you're like, you know what?
- [65:57]
Emma Viglin
That's also the good.
- [65:58]
Sam Seder
Miss the boring part.
- [65:59]
Emma Viglin
Yeah, that's also the go to from like when I tell people what I do, they're like, oh, interesting times. They don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. But yeah, interesting time for your work. You could say that.
- [66:10]
Rick Perlstein
You could say that for sure. You know, 2008, that Sarah Palin bought my trip to Mexico. You know, I wanted to hear all this craziness went down, but, you know, now I got a gray beard and I look like Santa Claus and I'm kind of looking back and just trying to hike and fish as much as possible.
- [66:27]
Sam Seder
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Yes. We will put a link to your substack. Really fascinating stuff and encourage people to read it regularly. Rick, looking forward to the new book and we will hopefully talk to you many times before that comes out. Appreciate your time.
- [66:54]
Rick Perlstein
Always a pleasure, guys, here's.
- [66:56]
Emma Viglin
Thanks so much.
- [66:58]
Sam Seder
All right, folks, before we go.
- [67:02]
Emma Viglin
Yes, Let me just. Here we go. So if you're watching this at the last minute, are we good? Oh, what were you looking at? Oh, you just look. I thought, I thought you were startled by something. Sorry, I just was thrown off trying to find this link. Forget it. So 3pm today.
- [67:24]
Sam Seder
I was trying to show urgency.
- [67:25]
Emma Viglin
Okay.
- [67:26]
Sam Seder
When you said at the last minute,
- [67:27]
Emma Viglin
I did the I mean, you certainly demonstrated it. Okay, so urgency today is the election. Okay. And if you want to get the word out, I mean, Hassan last night on over 90,000, 90,000 calls were made because I think he had 30,000 people watching him live. And he encouraged everybody to phone bank and he was able to do so. So Hasan is just, I mean, he's helping change the country. Not to suck up to him too much, but it's incredible. I'm trying to do my part a little bit. I'm phone banking for Claire Valdez at 3pm today. You can check that out. But also if you just want to phone bank in general and you know, you can't wait till three or you want to do it now or I guess this starts at 4pm forget it. So this is a different length than I had, but this is a national phone bank starting at 4pm with Mayor Momdani. He's going to be joining. So you can join me at 3pm if you want to phone bank for Claire Valdez. But Dariel, Lisa really needs it here. So the link will be down below in the video and episode descriptions.
- [68:37]
Sam Seder
I mean, the bottom line is these type of primaries are all about turnout.
- [68:44]
Rick Perlstein
Yep.
- [68:45]
Sam Seder
And there are people undoubtedly sitting at home who are like, you know what, I was supposed to go after work, it's raining and I didn't go, and it's raining and this and that. And you calling them, you're not going to have to convince them of anything except for it's worth their while to get up and go vote. These numbers are undoubtedly going to be people that are that the campaigns of our identified as, you know, lean supportive at least. And these are people now who just need your motivation, how important it is. And it's both important in terms of representation for the state, but it really is going to implicate how Democrats run across the country. They're not necessarily going to run like they would from New York's 12th or 10th or 7th or whatever, but they're going to run to the left of where they would run in their district.
- [69:54]
Emma Viglin
Yeah.
- [69:54]
Sam Seder
And so this is. You can really have some genuine impact. And I would not be surprised. I mean, these primaries are going to come down to, you know, it's not going to be a difference of tens of thousands of votes. You know, it's going to be a difference of. Yeah, a couple thousand maybe.
- [70:14]
Emma Viglin
And turnout's unfortunately down as compared to last year. So I'm not sure how, you know, we don't know the full picture yet. That could be in districts where there aren't competitive primaries, for example. So I don't want to overstate the case, but youth turnout and left wing turnout is essential, particularly in the 7th for Valdez and in the 13th for Chevalier.
- [70:40]
Sam Seder
All right, just a reminder, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member. Join themjorityreport.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, you also get the fun half. And you can IMs using the app. The app is free to everybody. MajorityApp.com you can get it for your iOS or your Android phone. And then when you become a member, you can also get the membership member show through it. But you can use it. It's free. You can listen to live show, you can get video clips, you can go back to the archives. Majority app.com also, don't forget, am quickie am quickie.com three days a week, free in your email box. Top stories of the day or the week. And follow us on Instagram. Right, we got a new handle. Oh yeah, Majority FM on Instagram.
- [71:35]
Emma Viglin
Very nice. Good job.
- [71:36]
Sam Seder
Very clean.
- [71:37]
Matt
Wait, what were we?
- [71:38]
Emma Viglin
Majority Report fm. Yes, much better. Follow me on Instagram.
- [71:43]
Sam Seder
How about that Twitter, Actually, I am
- [71:45]
Matt
only, you know, Emma. Whatever. Excuse me. I'm only like 600 away from 10,000. So. Yeah, check it out. Just. I gotta come back from London, have some photo photos that you can check
- [71:57]
Sam Seder
out after you about to say Photosh.
- [71:59]
Emma Viglin
After you follow me.
- [72:00]
Matt
I'm having an allergic reaction to something, so I can barely speak.
- [72:03]
Emma Viglin
Okay, well, after you follow me, you can follow Matt. But I'm just like Twitter and then me and. But you don't post anything.
- [72:12]
Sam Seder
I do.
- [72:12]
Emma Viglin
I do now on your stories. Right.
- [72:14]
Sam Seder
Sam's been posted. Wait, what do I do? That's the other thing. I don't know what I'm doing. But people, I'm people responding, going like you're. You're posting stuff.
- [72:22]
Emma Viglin
There's three different kinds of posting. It's ridiculous. There should. They should have just mainstreamed some of this. But there's your story, then you can repost posts and then there's a grid post, which you have never done. You've never done a grid post.
- [72:33]
Sam Seder
He's got one grid post with Molly John.
- [72:35]
Matt
Fat.
- [72:37]
Sam Seder
Well, that's because she sent it to me, right? Yeah, it was a collaboration. Yeah, I didn't have to do that collaboration.
- [72:43]
Mamdani
He.
- [72:44]
Sam Seder
So he said, so Gino sends me stuff and then I hit accept. And what does that put it on? Yeah, no, he's got his grid full now.
- [72:51]
Emma Viglin
Oh, that's okay.
- [72:53]
Sam Seder
My grid is full. You've got about 10 posts on your grid.
- [72:55]
Emma Viglin
Very nice. That's so. So you have been doing grid posts that have just been done for you, and all you have to do is accept. So I'm just telling you the machinery here. I guess I haven't been on your page.
- [73:07]
Unknown Guest 2
Whoa.
- [73:07]
Graham Platner
Okay.
- [73:09]
Sam Seder
Well, it's all right. But I wouldn't worry about it.
- [73:11]
Emma Viglin
But point being, like, I. I'm not on TikTok because I don't want that Zionists, like, I haven't. I haven't signed that. Updated terms of service. Instagram is, like, really the best place right now for politics because Twitter is not dead and everything is a bot. Everything is bots on Twitter now.
- [73:27]
Matt
Well, it's like, it's also Elon sort of promoting Zionists to the page, which also are like. That's just an invitation for me to, like, quote, tweet them disparagingly.
- [73:38]
Emma Viglin
Yes.
- [73:38]
Sam Seder
It's kind of a bad. Twitter is just a place for.
- [73:41]
Rick Perlstein
I did that last night.
- [73:42]
Sam Seder
To work out is issues.
- [73:43]
Matt
Exactly. It's just like T ball for, like, hatred.
- [73:48]
Sam Seder
They have these. They have this playground on Roosevelt island which is just all junk, and kids go in there and they just take, like, a bat.
- [73:56]
Mamdani (continued)
Yeah.
- [73:57]
Sam Seder
Or like a hammer and just start banging stuff. And that's what Twitter is doing.
- [74:00]
Matt
Plasma.
- [74:02]
Emma Viglin
Yeah.
- [74:04]
Sam Seder
Also just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code. Majority get 10% off. You can buy the majority report blend.
- [74:14]
Matt
Matt, have a great episode on a book. One of my favorite books of the year, the Veiled Prophet. Look at this secret society that's been running St. Louis since the Gilded Age came up during the Ku Klux period. And you can see a lot of the crossover with the sort of secret white supremacist threat of violence in case workers like an 1877 rail strike or black folks trying to get their civil rights try to rise up. So a fascinating book with a look into, like, the Truman administration, the Manhattan Project, the recent Ferguson stuff. Like, it's crazy. And also Ellie Kemper from the Unbreakable, Kimmy Schmidt, who was the 1999 Belle of Queen Love and Beauty. Yes. And it. It has since blown up in her face. And it's gonna be hard to get bankers daughters to want to be that in the future, I think, going forward. So, yeah, a really great book coming up right after the show today.
- [75:17]
Sam Seder
Quick break, fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks. 646-257-392. 0. See you in the fun. Are you ready? Who sent us this?
- [75:41]
Unknown Guest 2
Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious
- [75:49]
Sam Seder
as you could imagine the alpha males
- [75:51]
Unknown Guest 2
are back, back, back, back, back Boy, back and the alpha males are back
- [75:58]
Sam Seder
Just want to degrade the white man
- [76:00]
Unknown Guest 2
Alpha males are back, back I take
- [76:03]
Sam Seder
all of it to my throne Alpha
- [76:05]
Unknown Guest 2
males are back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are.
- [76:12]
Sam Seder
You are a madman.
- [76:14]
Unknown Guest 2
And the alpha males are back, back.
- [76:17]
Unknown Guest 1
Oh, no.
- [76:17]
Sam Seder
Sam Cedar.
- [76:18]
Unknown Guest 1
What a. Whoa.
- [76:19]
Sam Seder
What a nightmare. Yeah, or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.
- [76:25]
Rick Perlstein
DJ, dinner.
- [76:26]
Matt
Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't
- [76:29]
Rick Perlstein
know if they're enough of a break. That's nonsense.
- [76:33]
Sam Seder
See, white people doing drugs that look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting.
- [76:38]
Unknown Guest 2
And the alpha males psych them, them.
- [76:45]
Graham Platner
Oh.
- [76:46]
Sam Seder
Snowflake says, what, what, what?
- [76:48]
Unknown Guest 2
What?
- [76:48]
Sam Seder
What?
- [76:48]
Unknown Guest 2
What?
- [76:48]
Sam Seder
What?
- [76:49]
Interviewer or Moderator
What? What?
- [76:49]
Unknown Guest 1
What?
- [76:50]
Interviewer or Moderator
What?
- [76:50]
Sam Seder
What, what, what, what, what, what, what? Snowflakes says, what
- [76:58]
Unknown Guest 2
a hell of a lot of bank. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of banks. Lives matter.
- [77:19]
Sam Seder
Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?
- [77:23]
Unknown Guest 2
I. I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this. Psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back and the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African and the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black and the Africans are back, back, back, back when you
- [77:48]
Sam Seder
see Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists?
- [77:53]
Unknown Guest 1
Keeping it 100.
- [77:55]
Unknown Guest 2
Can't knock the hustle.
- [77:56]
Graham Platner
Come on. Them.
- [77:58]
Sam Seder
Them things I do for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday.
- [78:05]
Unknown Guest 1
Happy birthday to me.
- [78:07]
Sam Seder
Jill boy, I have a thought experiment for you.
- [78:10]
Unknown Guest 2
And the alpha males are back, back. Africa are black, black Alpha males are black black Africans are back, back.
- [78:19]
Sam Seder
Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price for blasphemy around here. I am in total. Question, question, question, question, question, question, question, question, question, question.