Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. Hope everybody had
Speaker 2: a great long weekend. Super excited this morning because I
Speaker 2: have a special celebrity co host guest co host, Emma
Speaker 2: Viggilins of The Majority Report, the One and Only, joins
Speaker 2: us this morning.
Speaker 4: Great to see you, my friends. Oh, great to see you, Crystal.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 2: Many things to talk through. We got the all in
Speaker 2: crew trashing Trump's big beautiful Bill and some know detailed
Speaker 2: provisions about what's going on with that. We've got the
Speaker 2: Dems with some man outreach boondog element they're contemplating as
Speaker 2: they try to try to return from the Abyss. You
Speaker 2: just can't make this stuff up. We've got putin versus Trump.
Speaker 2: Emotional overload is what the Russians are described, how the
Speaker 2: Russians are describing Trump's uh latest reactions, and unfortunately, peace
Speaker 2: looking further away in Ukraine than perhaps ever. We've got
Speaker 2: the world potentially turning on Israel and a new just
Speaker 2: absolutely horrific atrocities unfolding there. And then I'm going to
Speaker 2: speak with Aaron Bustani. He wrote the book Fully Automated
Speaker 2: Luxury Communism several years back, which I read at the
Speaker 2: time then I just reread and rereading it. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like a leftist, techno optimist view, but really is
Speaker 2: conditioned on, you know, us having control over the AI
Speaker 2: and the robots and the technology. So I'm curious to
Speaker 2: get his thoughts he's also the founder of Navara Media,
Speaker 2: to get his thoughts about just how long period of
Speaker 2: time we have to completely rewrite the social contract before
Speaker 2: AI steals all the jobs and does all the things.
Speaker 5: I mean, that sounds great.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to talk about the Andrew Schultz clip too,
Speaker 4: because I have a bunch of mixed feelings about that
Speaker 4: and just what it represents and how the Democrats need
Speaker 4: to move forward.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, excellent, all right, Well let's get into
Speaker 2: this stuff. Well, actually, before we do this, before we
Speaker 2: get into the big beautiful bill, I have a disclosure
Speaker 2: about my weekend. So put up this Trump tweet on
Speaker 2: the screen. I apparently needed to listen to our president's advice.
Speaker 2: Here he says, I always said golf can be a
Speaker 2: dangerous sport. My friend being bit at Bedminster. So I
Speaker 2: did not listen, and Emma, I did play golf over
Speaker 2: the weekend, and much to my undying shame and humiliation,
Speaker 2: I crashed the golf cart, ran it into a tree,
Speaker 2: flipped it over, and broke my nose. Oh the reason
Speaker 2: I'm disclosing this, it's because I think I did a
Speaker 2: pretty amazing job with the makeup. To be honest, I
Speaker 2: mean that you can't really tell, but I know there'll
Speaker 2: be some eagle eyed person out there who will notice, like,
Speaker 2: my nose is not quite the same shape, and my lip.
Speaker 6: Is a little bit fat, and I've got a little cut.
Speaker 2: Over my eye, and maybe some weird coloring going on
Speaker 2: underneath my eyes, and I just know there would be
Speaker 2: wild speculation about what exactly happened to my face, but
Speaker 2: we can put up. This is what I looked like
Speaker 2: before the makeup goes on.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, wow, how did you Okay?
Speaker 4: So will you be able to text me some tips
Speaker 4: off air, because I'm kind of makeup challenge and this
Speaker 4: is a miracle work, like.
Speaker 6: So I never can't take my uh.
Speaker 2: One of my very good friends is like really good
Speaker 2: at the stuff, and so she broke out the color
Speaker 2: wheel and was like, Okay, this is exactly the shade
Speaker 2: that you need to cover up this intense like purple
Speaker 2: and black and red and there's some yellow going on
Speaker 2: at this point as well, and so it really really
Speaker 2: is courtesy of her. But in any case, if my
Speaker 2: face looks a little bit fucked up today, it's because
Speaker 2: I crashed a golf cart and hit a tree and
Speaker 2: flipped it over and broke my nose.
Speaker 4: Well, if anyone ever question your toughness, I mean, you've
Speaker 4: made it on air despite looking like you just got
Speaker 4: out of the ring with Rocky Balboa something like that.
Speaker 6: It looks it looks rough.
Speaker 2: I mean Honestly, it looks like either somebody beat my
Speaker 2: ass or I got like a nose job. Is kind
Speaker 2: of what it looks like. So anyway, neither of those
Speaker 2: things are true. No one could make up as a
Speaker 2: ridiculous story as me crashing the golf cart.
Speaker 6: But whatever.
Speaker 2: In any case, let's go ahead and get to the
Speaker 2: important matters here, which is Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. So
Speaker 2: this has passed through the House, it has not yet
Speaker 2: passed through the Senate. We'll get in a moment to
Speaker 2: like Ron Johnson and Ran Paul who are not terribly
Speaker 2: happy with it. But it's kind of interesting because it
Speaker 2: seems like with Elon kind of on the ounce, with
Speaker 2: the administration and DOAJE being a complete failure, you're starting
Speaker 2: to see some of these tech right voices be a
Speaker 2: bit more critical. And this was is emblematic the All
Speaker 2: In podcasts, which David Sacks is one of the co
Speaker 2: hosts of. He was on there defending the Big Beautiful Bill,
Speaker 2: but the other hosts, all three of them, were quite critical.
Speaker 2: So let me go ahead and play for you two
Speaker 2: different clips. The first one is chimof sounding off on
Speaker 2: what he sees as the problems with this bill.
Speaker 7: Who does it benefit current Courson speed Right now, this
Speaker 7: bill is about traditional Republicans and traditional Democrats circling the
Speaker 7: wagons and putting on a platter a set of things
Speaker 7: that I think will be hurtful to average Americans. You're
Speaker 7: going to see energy prices spike, You're gutting the number
Speaker 7: of electrons that will be available for things like AI.
Speaker 7: You're going to increase medicare prices, and the math is wrong.
Speaker 7: So when you sensitize this thing to a four and
Speaker 7: a half or five or five and a quarter rate,
Speaker 7: so meaning not what the CBO used, but the real
Speaker 7: conditions on the ground, this thing as an albatross. And
Speaker 7: I think unfortunately for President Trump's agenda and for a
Speaker 7: MAGA movement, this is the worst of all conditions. The
Speaker 7: financial markets will punish this. And then the last thing
Speaker 7: I'll say is now, to top it all off, I
Speaker 7: think that Jerome Powell will see the writing on the wall.
Speaker 7: Many aspects of this thing are inflationary, and if they're
Speaker 7: not handled well by the Senate, he has a lot
Speaker 7: of room to actually increase interest rates. So I would
Speaker 7: just say that the Senate has an incredibly difficult job.
Speaker 7: I think the president has an even more difficult job
Speaker 7: about what to do right now. But the House did
Speaker 7: nobody favors. They did not do anybody a favor.
Speaker 2: So am I listened to this whole section of this podcast,
Speaker 2: and even David Sachs wasn't like, oh, this is great
Speaker 2: and it's amazing.
Speaker 6: He was like, well, here's the pluses.
Speaker 2: But also you have to remember, like you're working with
Speaker 2: you know, the Democrats aren't going to do anything for you,
Speaker 2: and you're working with this very difficult caucus, and you
Speaker 2: know this is the best we can get, and you've
Speaker 2: got to try to see the upside. So none of
Speaker 2: them was like outright selling it, and let me play
Speaker 2: you this one other one. This is I think this
Speaker 2: is Jason Calacanis who kind of calls out the other
Speaker 2: three co hosts and is like, you all are pretending
Speaker 2: like it's the Republican's Falder's the Congress's fauld or whatever.
Speaker 2: Like if Trump wanted this bill to be a different bill,
Speaker 2: he could make it a different bill.
Speaker 6: So let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 1: This president action in a laterally all the time, whether
Speaker 1: it's immigration, DEI, he has no problem and this is
Speaker 1: what he is doing. He's endorsing this bill. He's saying
Speaker 1: it's big, it's beautiful, he is saying this is historic.
Speaker 1: I think this is bad leadership. I'll just say it
Speaker 1: straight out. He was elected to balance this budget and
Speaker 1: to have austerity. He's going to put more onto the debt.
Speaker 1: And we sat here on this very podcast, the four
Speaker 1: of us, and said this was the most important issue
Speaker 1: on the world, and Trump is putting gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 1: I think it's bad leadership. Let's Getntinue on the docket.
Speaker 8: I suggest you look at the Constitution, because the power
Speaker 8: of the purse rests with Congress.
Speaker 1: He's endorsing this, He's endorsing it when it comes to
Speaker 1: putting up a fight.
Speaker 8: When it comes to immigration, these other areas. The president
Speaker 8: has far more unilateral power and he's used that every
Speaker 8: chance he gets. But when it comes to spending, you
Speaker 8: have to get Congress on board. This is a bill
Speaker 8: that passed with a one vote margin. I don't know
Speaker 8: where you think the opportunity is to squeeze out more
Speaker 8: concessions from Congress.
Speaker 9: I don't he could speak up.
Speaker 1: He could speak up and say do better. He's doing
Speaker 1: the opposite. He's doing the opposite.
Speaker 8: This bill passed by one vote margin. It was hanging
Speaker 8: on by a thread, and if it failed, you get
Speaker 8: basically hundreds of billions of taxing priests, which we don't
Speaker 8: need right now. He's not even in terms of in
Speaker 8: terms of I think he's trying.
Speaker 2: I love how now David Sachs is very concerned about
Speaker 2: the constitution.
Speaker 4: Emma, Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure he is very concerned
Speaker 4: about the Constitution. He's pretty concerned about I think that
Speaker 4: crypto the value of his crypto wallet. But it's interesting
Speaker 4: because Moody's is downgrading the United States credit rating in
Speaker 4: part based on this bill, and that's not getting a
Speaker 4: ton of coverage because I think the Republicans have benefited
Speaker 4: from thirty to forty years of positive media coverage about
Speaker 4: their effect on the economy.
Speaker 5: When we know.
Speaker 4: That the Republicans when they're in power, they explode the
Speaker 4: debt and deficit. You can both under Bush, under Trump
Speaker 4: last time, and it's about to happen again. And the
Speaker 4: Great Recession happened under a Republican president. The speedier parts
Speaker 4: of our recovery from COVID happened under a Democratic president.
Speaker 4: And so there's concern here in part because this is
Speaker 4: a bill that, yes, is going to completely explode the debt,
Speaker 4: raise it by over three trillion dollars over ten years.
Speaker 4: But we already have such a threadbare social safety net
Speaker 4: in this country that taking a hatchet to what we
Speaker 4: have here, which is Medicaid, is keeping so many people afloat.
Speaker 4: Around eighty million people I think, if you include Chip,
Speaker 4: rely on Medicaid for their coverage, and that had been
Speaker 4: one of the more effective parts of the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 4: which is it took a while, but states basically adopting
Speaker 4: the Medicaid expansion and allowing for the federal government to
Speaker 4: subsidize healthcare for the poorest people in their state. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that I don't think is getting
Speaker 4: talked enough about is how this bill will decimate rural
Speaker 4: areas of the country. Over sixty million Americans I think
Speaker 4: maybe sixty five sixty six million are classified as having
Speaker 4: lived in rural areas and are there is such a
Speaker 4: dearth of hospitals, there's such scarcity around hospitals and medical
Speaker 4: care in this country. And there was an analysis done
Speaker 4: that shows that up to a third of rural hospitals
Speaker 4: are now at risk of closure because of what the
Speaker 4: Republicans are potentially going to pass. I mean, we'll see
Speaker 4: what the Senate Doug does with it. But that analysis
Speaker 4: said that rural hospitals in Medicaid expansion states are around
Speaker 4: sixty percent less likely to close than the ones that
Speaker 4: didn't expand under Medicaid. And now and half of rural
Speaker 4: hospitals already operate on negative margins. And now if you
Speaker 4: got the program Medicaid that's keeping them afloat, you're going
Speaker 4: to see hospital closures all across the country, and it's
Speaker 4: going to be in the areas that Republicans represent. And
Speaker 4: your co host Ryan Grimm made this point with us
Speaker 4: I guess on Friday, saying, well, why why don't the
Speaker 4: Republicans care about this?
Speaker 5: Was my question.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are their own constituents, they should care
Speaker 4: about this. But he said I sounded like Steve Bannon,
Speaker 4: which was you know, I had mixed reactions to that
Speaker 4: statement because that's, yeah, well that's what.
Speaker 5: He said, right like that, that's the truth.
Speaker 4: Apparently Bannon's been saying something similar because these these districts
Speaker 4: are so deep red that basically Republicans because they need
Speaker 4: to appease the demands of Donald Trump with these steep
Speaker 4: cuts to justify uh, you know, all of the other
Speaker 4: insane things he's proposing, including the largest military budget increase
Speaker 4: in terms of percentage that we've seen since what World
Speaker 4: War two eras that that they're banking on the fact
Speaker 4: that these districts are so deep red that they can
Speaker 4: lose people and the miserate them and still win because
Speaker 4: of the way that our districts are drawn. And that's
Speaker 4: deep cynicism that honestly, I think needs to be talked
Speaker 4: about more.
Speaker 2: And I think what Ryan was pointing to as well
Speaker 2: is that you know, he closed a rural hospital that's
Speaker 2: going to depress for their depress the not I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously it's just like a loss of services, which is
Speaker 2: important in and of itself, it's also a loss of jobs.
Speaker 2: It's also a loss of vitality for that area, because
Speaker 2: people won't want to live in an area that doesn't
Speaker 2: have a hospital that's nearby if they have a choice.
Speaker 2: You'll see a drain of you know, people who have
Speaker 2: the ability to move. And as the Democratic Party has aligned,
Speaker 2: you know, more with college educated voters, those are the
Speaker 2: people who would tend to be more democratic voting, and
Speaker 2: so counterintuitively, you can end up with those red rural
Speaker 2: areas becoming even deeper red as a consequence of the
Speaker 2: pain that's being inflicted on them by Republicans, which is
Speaker 2: pretty wild when you think about it. But I've been
Speaker 2: talking to some of my friends in Kentucky. Kentucky is
Speaker 2: one of the states that the hardest hit in terms
Speaker 2: of rural hospital closures, and you know, it's it's a
Speaker 2: very dire circumstance. And I was also curious, you know
Speaker 2: what was noteworthy to me with the all in exchange
Speaker 2: where you had, like I said, even David Sachs wasn't
Speaker 2: like this bill's amazing. He was like, well, it's the
Speaker 2: best we can get, and blah blah blah. You know,
Speaker 2: and it does do some good things, don't forget about that.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you check the Constitution the power
Speaker 2: of the purse, which of course none of these guys
Speaker 2: cared about when it was Elon with the chainsaw coming
Speaker 2: in with Doge. But it was interesting to me that
Speaker 2: there was such, you know, pretty aggressive criticism from this podcast,
Speaker 2: which is very emblematic of like the tech right and
Speaker 2: the type of you know people who have shifted into
Speaker 2: the Trump coalition, and I do feel like for them.
Speaker 2: And you see this even a little bit with Elon
Speaker 2: moving away from this administration, even though he's still involved
Speaker 2: in ways that can sometimes be you know, under sold.
Speaker 2: I do feel like there's a bit of a bloom
Speaker 2: is off the rose with the tech right folks in
Speaker 2: terms of what they got, and I think that probably
Speaker 2: started with the tariff policy, which they certainly, you know,
Speaker 2: business people not super excited about. And then now as
Speaker 2: you see the market realities and their concerns are more
Speaker 2: around the debt and the deficit, which at this point
Speaker 2: I also share those concerns, just because if the world
Speaker 2: is moving away from the dollar and the world is
Speaker 2: moving away from buying our debt, that becomes a much
Speaker 2: more real consideration for us all to have to care about.
Speaker 2: But in a case, I found it sort of noteworthy
Speaker 2: that there seemed to be a little bit more, you know,
Speaker 2: some disappointment expressed, even you know, Jason coming out and saying, listen,
Speaker 2: this is bad leadership, like this is on Trump.
Speaker 4: It's a good point, and I agree with you, Crystal
Speaker 4: that I've been citing Stephanie Kelton's work in the past.
Speaker 4: You know, the Deficit Myth, which I think is an
Speaker 4: important book, really important in the Obama era, right to
Speaker 4: kind of undercut a lot of the Republican claims there.
Speaker 4: But I actually think that the Democrats could benefit from
Speaker 4: reclaiming the conversation around the debt and even fiscal responsibility. Yes,
Speaker 4: if there is a budget surplus, that means that there's
Speaker 4: less money that's circulating in the regular economy. And when
Speaker 4: there was a budget surplus under Clinton, we did go
Speaker 4: into a recession. There was a small recession after that,
Speaker 4: So that's an important point to make. But we're at
Speaker 4: pretty extreme levels here. If this bill goes through, and
Speaker 4: when you pair it with yes, yields a long term
Speaker 4: yields increasing and the value of the dollar going down
Speaker 4: because of Trump's completely schizophrenic economic policy and the way
Speaker 4: that he operates with tariffs, which changes on the daily basis,
Speaker 4: So that creates such economic uncertainty. If you're a company
Speaker 4: that's trying to invest in the United States and you
Speaker 4: don't know what the tariff policy is going to be
Speaker 4: weak to weak, you're just going to stay away because
Speaker 4: you don't know how you can budget and how you
Speaker 4: can invest if there's this kind of shift all the
Speaker 4: time based on the whims of the president here, So
Speaker 4: I think they are sensing that that this is a
Speaker 4: bit of a problem. And the way that Democrats can,
Speaker 4: perhaps or progressives talk about the debt and the deficit,
Speaker 4: that isn't budget hawkery, That isn't this return to sequestration
Speaker 4: and payg and neoliberal austerity.
Speaker 5: Is like, you're worried about the budget.
Speaker 4: Deficit, you know what, we could doe raise revenue, and
Speaker 4: what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 5: Tax the rich, raise.
Speaker 2: And cut the pentagon. Yeah, that's the other piece of
Speaker 2: this is I was told.
Speaker 4: Trump was anti war, and now we're going to win
Speaker 4: a trillion dollar budget for the Pentagon.
Speaker 5: Give me a break here.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at the priorities of this bill,
Speaker 2: it really is perfectly reflective. You've got a giant increase
Speaker 2: in the you know, defense industrial complex, trillion dollar defense budget,
Speaker 2: giant increase in the police state with massive funding for
Speaker 2: ice and you know, private prison contractors. And then you
Speaker 2: pair that with giant tax cut for the rich. So
Speaker 2: you're funding the police date, you're funding the oligarchs, and
Speaker 2: you are taking food out of the mouths of children literally,
Speaker 2: and stripping healthcare from some eight point six million Americans
Speaker 2: is the estimate of how many people. Between the Medicaid cuts,
Speaker 2: some sort of technical changes to Medicare, and then some
Speaker 2: changes to the Affordable Care Act, all told, you're talking
Speaker 2: about eight point six million Americans who are set to
Speaker 2: lose health insurance because of this bill. There aren't guarantees
Speaker 2: that it's going to get through the Senate. You know,
Speaker 2: this is a sense. It's a reconciliation bill. They only
Speaker 2: need a bare majority, so I think they can afford
Speaker 2: to lose three, but not four of their caucus. And
Speaker 2: you already have a couple people who are out saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, Rand Paul is out. We also have some
Speaker 2: comments from Ron Johnson that seemed to indicate that he
Speaker 2: also is not on board with this bill. They take
Speaker 2: it from the you know, the fiscal austerity perspective controm
Speaker 2: Can we roll these two thoughts back to back, A
Speaker 2: six and a seven. This is Ron Johnson and Rand Paul.
Speaker 10: President tron if I suggested that the debt is not
Speaker 10: really top of mind of his concerns. He wants Republicans
Speaker 10: to fall in line. He wants Republicans to pass the bill.
Speaker 10: You told CNND quote, somebody's got to be the dad
Speaker 10: that says, I know y'all want to go to Disney World,
Speaker 10: but we can't afford it. I guess I'm going to
Speaker 10: be that guy unquote. So how determined are you to
Speaker 10: be that guy? If it actually means telling President Trump
Speaker 10: you are going to vote against the bill, and you're
Speaker 10: going to try to get other Republican senators to join
Speaker 10: you unless there are major major changes.
Speaker 11: Well, in twenty ten, I sprang on the Tea Party movement,
Speaker 11: and as I did praise my I would shout, this
Speaker 11: is a fight for freedom. We are mortgaging our children's future.
Speaker 11: It's wrong, it's immoral. It has to stop. I haven't
Speaker 11: changed my campaign promised in twenty ten and every campaign
Speaker 11: after that, was to stop mortgaging our children's future. It's immoral,
Speaker 11: it's wrong, and it has to stop. And so he
Speaker 11: may not be worried about that. I am extremely worried
Speaker 11: about that. That is my primary goal running for Congress.
Speaker 11: This is our moment. We've witnessed an unprecedented level of
Speaker 11: increased spending fifty eight percent since twenty nineteen, Other than
Speaker 11: world War two. This is this is our only chance
Speaker 11: to reset that to a reasonable pre pandemic level spending.
Speaker 11: And again, I think you can do it. And this
Speaker 11: spending that we would eliminate, people wouldn't even notice.
Speaker 12: Somebody has to stand up and yell. The emperor has
Speaker 12: no clothes and everybody's falling in lockstep on this pass
Speaker 12: the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 9: Don't question anything.
Speaker 12: Well, Conservatives do need to stand up and have their
Speaker 12: voice heard. This is a problem we've been facing for
Speaker 12: decades now, and if we don't stand up on it,
Speaker 12: I really fear the direction of the country.
Speaker 6: So you've got those two.
Speaker 2: But to be honest with you, like, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: who the other dissenters would be in the House. You
Speaker 2: had a few moderates who made some noise about like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe these Medicaid cuts are too deep, but then they
Speaker 2: all ended up voting for it. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's probably the same here, which is really a
Speaker 2: sign of how extreme even the quote unquote moderate Republican
Speaker 2: senators are. Like I haven't heard Susan Collins or Lisa
Speaker 2: Murkowski or any of these type of people really objecting
Speaker 2: to the cuts in this that would kick eight million
Speaker 2: Americans off of healthcare. You know, the massive up It's
Speaker 2: an insane upward transfer of wealth, like possibly the largest
Speaker 2: upward transfer of wealth and history, and I don't really
Speaker 2: hear a lot of concerns about that coming from any
Speaker 2: Republican right.
Speaker 4: And then when you compound it with the tariff policy,
Speaker 4: which regardless of how Donald Trump reverses himself, prices are
Speaker 4: going to go up because of the uncertainty that I
Speaker 4: described earlier, but also because he's incentivizing what happened in
Speaker 4: the pandemic, which I think is interesting that Johnson brought
Speaker 4: that up, which was that there was naturally occurring inflation
Speaker 4: because of supply chain bottlenecks because the pandemic was so
Speaker 4: disruptive and there were work stoppages and all of that.
Speaker 4: And then once that subsided and things got back to normal,
Speaker 4: prices continued to go up, and there was greedflation, which
Speaker 4: was called a left wing conspiracy at the time, not
Speaker 4: so much anymore. Companies took home record profits and they
Speaker 4: took advantage of the prices from the shock that was
Speaker 4: happening to our economic system and obviously to our health system.
Speaker 4: And I think that companies are going to do the
Speaker 4: same exact thing with Donald Trump's tariffs. They may blame
Speaker 4: it on tariffs, but they're going to try to extract
Speaker 4: as much money as they can from the public.
Speaker 5: And the pandemic is important because.
Speaker 4: We're in this reality right now where I think people
Speaker 4: got a taste of what government could do right where
Speaker 4: they sent out stimulus checks. Yes both under Trump and
Speaker 4: Trump sign those and so he gets more credit, which
Speaker 4: Democrats could learn something from that. Don't be above marketing yourself.
Speaker 5: It's insane.
Speaker 4: Uh And and and then also under Biden, but we
Speaker 4: cut child poverty in half.
Speaker 5: We cut child poverty.
Speaker 4: In half in the pandemic with the child tax credit,
Speaker 4: and then that went away, we pause student loans, and
Speaker 4: now suddenly I saw a headline over the weekend that
Speaker 4: student loan payments are about to resume, and you're going
Speaker 4: to see huge dips in people's credit scores because that's
Speaker 4: going to go back onto what's being scored for them
Speaker 4: if they have high levels of debt with their student loans.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: You can understand I think this political moment without understanding
Speaker 4: that there was a period of time where people saw
Speaker 4: that government could literally provide them with money to help
Speaker 4: them and get them out of a very insecure situation
Speaker 4: during a scary time, and then to see that getting
Speaker 4: yanked away and prices to continue to go up because
Speaker 4: of what I described earlier. These are the conditions that
Speaker 4: allow Donald Trump to get elected. And we have to
Speaker 4: have a democratic party that understands that and responds like,
Speaker 4: where are the Democrats saying, Hey are the rep If
Speaker 4: the Republicans are concerned about the deficit and debt, raise revenue,
Speaker 4: tax billionaires out of existence. You can be a nine
Speaker 4: hundred and ninety nine millionaire. Good for you. Everything above
Speaker 4: that goes back to everybody else. It provides people with healthcare,
Speaker 4: It cuts child poverty, It sustains our rural hospitals. It
Speaker 4: makes it so that people can go to college without
Speaker 4: going into this indentured servitude situation.
Speaker 5: It can be done, and that is part of problem.
Speaker 2: And it makes it so democracy can have a chance
Speaker 2: to function. I mean, this is really really the thing
Speaker 2: that I've realized is like, democracy can't coexist with someone
Speaker 2: with the level of wealth of Elon Musk, you know,
Speaker 2: or Jeff Bezos or whoever you want to you know,
Speaker 2: Bill Gates. Those two things are intention so even in
Speaker 2: terms of the like you know, pro democracy message from
Speaker 2: the Democrats. You have to bring the oligarch class to
Speaker 2: heal or else you do not have a democracy.
Speaker 6: They will run the show.
Speaker 2: And you know it has become blatantly obvious in the
Speaker 2: Trump era, undeniably obvious in the Trump two point zero era.
Speaker 2: That that is simply the case. Last element I want
Speaker 2: to put up on the screen here, guys, is a
Speaker 2: five which is this chart of the change in household
Speaker 2: income that will result because of you know, be the
Speaker 2: result of this budget bill. That long, long green line there,
Speaker 2: that's for the top point one percent. And then you
Speaker 2: can see, you know, the wealthier you are, the more
Speaker 2: dramatically you benefit from this bill. And if you are
Speaker 2: you know, if you are in the first or second
Speaker 2: quintile of income earners, so you know, lower income people,
Speaker 2: you actually are going to lose out from this bill.
Speaker 2: So that is the way this is stacked. To me,
Speaker 2: it's the easiest messaging opportunity in the world. And I
Speaker 2: think Republicans, I mean, I think they kind of know
Speaker 2: that this bill is a political albatross for them, you know,
Speaker 2: going back to the words of Chamoth, that it is
Speaker 2: a political albatross that funding a bunch of tax cuts
Speaker 2: for the rich at the expense of healthcare and you know,
Speaker 2: food stamps for the poor is not really a great
Speaker 2: political message, especially when you're trying to be the you know,
Speaker 2: working class party, which is why they put a few
Speaker 2: of these provisions. Well, we to you know, we're not
Speaker 2: to tax on tips and tax on overtime, so that
Speaker 2: they can use that as sort of cover for this
Speaker 2: gigantic upward transfer of wealth, as I said before, perhaps
Speaker 2: the largest in history.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think they know that, but they're basically
Speaker 4: being held hostage by Trump in the way where like
Speaker 4: he has these kind of crazy theories about how tariffs
Speaker 4: could be a way to eliminate the income tax altogether.
Speaker 4: You hear him talk about that a little bit, and
Speaker 4: so he's pretty disconnected from the legislative process. I think
Speaker 4: you can also see his tariff policy as a way
Speaker 4: in which he wanted to circumvent the Congress's power of
Speaker 4: the purse. So he kind of wants to just like say,
Speaker 4: get it done, figure it out, and I want.
Speaker 2: The terrible I mean, they have to deliver this tax
Speaker 2: cut to the rich, like they have to for their constituency.
Speaker 2: This was like the core promise that Trump made on
Speaker 2: the campaign trail, and every single Republican quote unquote moderate
Speaker 2: to the most far right, they all they all are
Speaker 2: united and wanting to give this four trillion dollar tax
Speaker 2: cut to the rich. So you know, they are going
Speaker 2: to make sure that gets done, come hell or high water.
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 4: And the thing for this kind of you know, for
Speaker 4: Republicans here is that it's much easier to break and
Speaker 4: it's much easier to slash than it is to make
Speaker 4: the case that we're talking about. And so unless the
Speaker 4: Democrats make it an anti oligarchy message and talk about
Speaker 4: how these tax increases are going to be completely directed
Speaker 4: at the folks that are remiserating you and the billionaire class,
Speaker 4: the Republicans are setting up, you know, a difficult situation
Speaker 4: for the Democrats to build back, not to you know,
Speaker 4: take us back to Biden level framing.
Speaker 2: So interesting comments from Andrew Schultz and Charlemagne, who were
Speaker 2: you know, talking about the state of the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: in the state of the country at large.
Speaker 6: Let's go ahead and take a listen.
Speaker 2: They're reflecting also a little bit on that Bernie Sanders
Speaker 2: conversation with Flegran, Which did you guys, did you watch that?
Speaker 5: I'm a yeah, I did, I did.
Speaker 4: I thought it was really good overall, although I would
Speaker 4: say that Bernie's had some great conversations with some of
Speaker 4: the people in this podcast sphere and they still go
Speaker 4: right like Rogan, but we'll see.
Speaker 6: I mean, well, he's only one man. What can you do? Exactly?
Speaker 6: All right, let's go and take a listen to this club.
Speaker 13: You know what you'r reflection is, and Bernie said it
Speaker 13: on flagrant everybody's the fucking blame.
Speaker 9: You're saying a democrat thing? Is that a Republican thing? Exactly?
Speaker 9: This is government has failed the people.
Speaker 13: We live in a capitalist society where you've got all
Speaker 13: of these motherfuckers with all the wealth.
Speaker 9: Elon Musk has more wealth than.
Speaker 13: Fifty more than half of the bottom of America. Like,
Speaker 13: come on, Like, there's no way we live in a
Speaker 13: society that's claims to be the most wealthy society on
Speaker 13: the planet and we can't fix homelessness. Well, in that case,
Speaker 13: the Democrats pivot should be there to go more socialists.
Speaker 9: Yeah, which I'm fine with. Yes, the should that's what, Yes,
Speaker 9: that's what everybody's Barnie, that's what everybody's saying, because.
Speaker 13: The Republican solution to what you just described is going
Speaker 13: to be capitalism, so.
Speaker 2: They say the Democrat solutions should be to go more socialists.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Emma, I love.
Speaker 5: To hear that, obviously.
Speaker 4: I think you know the that there's more of an
Speaker 4: appetite for this. I know you've spoken about this a
Speaker 4: lot within uh Democratic voters than I have seen since
Speaker 4: I've been doing this professionally or since I've been paying
Speaker 4: paying attention to politics, where there's this understanding where it's
Speaker 4: like we see Donald Trump whield the executive branch in
Speaker 4: a way, sometimes in ways I think are stretching the
Speaker 4: boundaries of our law to put it, to put it mildly,
Speaker 4: but with the desire to govern and to be aggressive
Speaker 4: with his vision, however much I may disagree with many
Speaker 4: parts of that vision. It's like it's highlighted the weakness
Speaker 4: of the Democrats, which also I thin I think was
Speaker 4: evident in how net and Yahoo quite clearly had his
Speaker 4: finger on the pulse of how weak the Democratic Party is,
Speaker 4: how he could exploit that kind of that tension there,
Speaker 4: and you see it in also electoral results with the Democrats, right,
Speaker 4: it's encouraging to hear that, just because I think I
Speaker 4: was just having a conversation with one of my good
Speaker 4: friends from from growing up who listens to you know,
Speaker 4: Rogan and listens to like THEO Von and things like that,
Speaker 4: and she was just talking about how Bernie Sanders makes
Speaker 4: a lot of sense when she when he goes on
Speaker 4: some of these shows, and I wish every Democrat could
Speaker 4: be talking about healthcare like that. This person's also kind
Speaker 4: of interested in RFK. And you see how like with
Speaker 4: the Right having success in certain areas, like say, let's
Speaker 4: take RFK Junior and Trump adopting him into his coalition,
Speaker 4: for example. There's this massive anxiety in this country that
Speaker 4: people have around the issue of health care. And it's
Speaker 4: not because just because they're worried about getting sick. Everybody
Speaker 4: in the world has that concern, but it's because medical
Speaker 4: debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country.
Speaker 4: It's because you have anxiety that you're going to have
Speaker 4: to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for routine
Speaker 4: visits to check if you're okay. You're going to have
Speaker 4: to pay a bunch of money if your kid has
Speaker 4: some sort of condition to see a specialist. There's a
Speaker 4: general anxiety that people feel when they relate to their
Speaker 4: health care. What RFK Junior has proposed for people is
Speaker 4: a vision that is more libertarian right where they're He's
Speaker 4: not in favor of a socialized health care system, but
Speaker 4: he does address people's anxiety and then sells them solutions
Speaker 4: that are a bit bespoke or his whole ecosystem is
Speaker 4: about if you purchase certain supplements or if you do
Speaker 4: this kind of action, you individually can take control of
Speaker 4: your health care and it can empower you. Think that
Speaker 4: that's what he sells. That's more of a libertarian view,
Speaker 4: but it can.
Speaker 5: It has a.
Speaker 4: Narrow, narrow overlap with a leftist socialist vision that I
Speaker 4: wish we could kind of absorb into what we're advocating here,
Speaker 4: which is that, yes, you are right to feel anxiety
Speaker 4: about your health care, and here's how we can fix
Speaker 4: it by cutting out the middleman between you and your
Speaker 4: health care and making it so that you have a
Speaker 4: direct relationship and you have socialized government insurance, and that
Speaker 4: we will guarantee healthcare for all is a right. We
Speaker 4: will fund it by taxing the billionaire class and not
Speaker 4: make it harder on your wallet. And those are just
Speaker 4: some of the ways that this vision is so much
Speaker 4: more poignant when you contrast it with the right, even
Speaker 4: the right that gestureds towards things like economic populism or
Speaker 4: towards empowering you over your health care. So you see
Speaker 4: how like these traditional paradigms of left and right, these
Speaker 4: consultants in DC on the Democratic side are missing it
Speaker 4: and they're paid to miss it.
Speaker 5: But like you can have somebody.
Speaker 4: Coming on Andrew Schultz's podcast who May the other week
Speaker 4: he said that you know, now he likes the Republicans
Speaker 4: because they get laid.
Speaker 5: All the time.
Speaker 6: Analysis, yes, right.
Speaker 5: And I have actually some other thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: But like he he can have that view, but he
Speaker 4: can also say the Democrats should become more socialists. Like
Speaker 4: this is what the independent voter is. It's not somebody
Speaker 4: who's like afraid of the trans people.
Speaker 2: Right, it's not ideologically consistent either. I mean Schultz, from
Speaker 2: my conversation with Bernie, I picked up from his conversation
Speaker 2: with Bernie. Rather, I picked up that he had been
Speaker 2: a Bernie bro He really wanted Bernie to win in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and now here he is, you know, on
Speaker 2: the right and favorable towards Trump, etcetera. And I'll tell you, Emma,
Speaker 2: for a long time, I really resisted the whole Bernie
Speaker 2: to Trump pipeline conversation. But at this point is is undeniable.
Speaker 2: And you know, part of that is certainly like the
Speaker 2: way that the bros in the Bernie coalision were smeared,
Speaker 2: All of us were smeared by the way as like
Speaker 2: toxic and sexist and racist and all these sorts of things.
Speaker 5: You and I we just hate women.
Speaker 6: Just hate women. That's what we're really known for here.
Speaker 2: But you know, the whole movement was speared, but in
Speaker 2: particular the bros were smeared, and so that's certainly part
Speaker 2: of it. But part of it is just this sense
Speaker 2: that you know, Trump was critical and again this is
Speaker 2: surface level. I'm not talking about the reality of the
Speaker 2: fact that he serves oligarchs, perhaps more than any other
Speaker 2: Republican president in history has. But he critiqued the party,
Speaker 2: felt like he was a change and you know, not
Speaker 2: sort of in the mainline old school Republican party. Bernie
Speaker 2: had that same like critique of the Democratic Party and
Speaker 2: at a time when faith and institutions has been broadly broken,
Speaker 2: Like you have to be a critic from the outside,
Speaker 2: and that's how you can end up with someone who's
Speaker 2: like favorable George Trump, but is also like, hey, Democrats
Speaker 2: should try socialism. And I have to tell you, I
Speaker 2: think the biggest challenge, Emma, that we have on the
Speaker 2: left right now is getting people to have faith in
Speaker 2: any sort of possibility of a collective project. You know,
Speaker 2: That's why the libertarian appeal of like, well you can
Speaker 2: work out, well, you can better yourself, Well you can
Speaker 2: take these supplements. Sure the world is going to ship,
Speaker 2: but here's things in your life that you can have
Speaker 2: control over. That's why that has appeal right now. And
Speaker 2: you know, it reminds me. I think it has historical
Speaker 2: echoes with like the you know, the nineteen seventies, the
Speaker 2: back to the Land movement where people tried the sixties
Speaker 2: like collective change.
Speaker 6: It didn't work out.
Speaker 2: You know, people were getting assassinated and they're like, all right,
Speaker 2: well forget it, we're just checking out. We're going to
Speaker 2: go live on like a commune in Vermont and see
Speaker 2: what we can individually do in our own lives. Separate
Speaker 2: and apart from society, and I do think that there
Speaker 2: is a pretty healthy strain of that right now, where
Speaker 2: it's like, I just don't you know, where a lot
Speaker 2: of people feel that there isn't a possibility of meaningful
Speaker 2: collective action that can better everyone's lives, and especially when
Speaker 2: you talk about you know, these big threats that are coming,
Speaker 2: Like you know, I think people are increasingly concerned about
Speaker 2: technology and AI and what that's going to mean for
Speaker 2: all of us and what it's going to mean for
Speaker 2: our kids, et cetera. Like I feel that instinct of
Speaker 2: like let me just let me just go live in
Speaker 2: the woods and disconnecting close, yes, and like try to
Speaker 2: protect me in mine or whatever.
Speaker 6: Like I understand where that instinct comes from.
Speaker 4: Right, And Naomi Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor had a
Speaker 4: piece so that've been recommending to everybody in The Guardian
Speaker 4: maybe a month ago at this point, about the rise
Speaker 4: of end times fascism, and uh just.
Speaker 6: Did with her about that, by the way, wonderful.
Speaker 4: I want to I want to hear what you guys
Speaker 4: had to say too, But just the idea that like
Speaker 4: of uh, fortressing yourself right in this time period and
Speaker 4: fortressing the nation, protectionism, and even the way that the
Speaker 4: administration operates where we're.
Speaker 5: Just gonna get ours.
Speaker 4: Like Trump is maybe the most pro oligarch president in history,
Speaker 4: but it's really his his or pro a billionaire, but
Speaker 4: it's really his billionaires too. Like he's very focused on
Speaker 4: the folks that have benefited him and is trying to
Speaker 4: scratch their back.
Speaker 5: To a degree.
Speaker 4: But like, I do want to be clear that I think,
Speaker 4: you know, when Andrew Schultz is common about how he
Speaker 4: used to be a Democrat because like can I swear
Speaker 4: on the show? Yeah, okay, because because they fucked or
Speaker 4: like because like you know, Bill Clinton was a badass
Speaker 4: or whatever, and now he's all on board with Trump.
Speaker 5: He's got all the baby mamas. He's cool. I just
Speaker 5: want part of me was like you think Obama would.
Speaker 4: Have been able to get elected if he was like
Speaker 4: bragging out how many baby mamas he had, or if
Speaker 4: Hillary Clinton was like yeah.
Speaker 5: I get laid like you know so I or Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, there was a lot of the opening
Speaker 4: attack on her was that she sucked her way to
Speaker 4: the top, and when I want to bring in those
Speaker 4: the voters that you know, we're speaking about here, the
Speaker 4: Bernie or Trump people, the folks that are sometimes unnecessarily
Speaker 4: smeared as being like sexist or misogynists, but they just
Speaker 4: want somebody who wants to break up the system. But
Speaker 4: there is something that if we're trying to also, at
Speaker 4: least from my end, the progressive left meld with Democratic voters,
Speaker 4: we should acknowledge that, like the messenger also is important
Speaker 4: to some of these voters, Like they can listen to
Speaker 4: Bernie Sanders, but they tuned out Kamala Harris, who, like
Speaker 4: if Trump had been putting forward the Abundance agenda about
Speaker 4: deregulating housing and building more and more and giving x
Speaker 4: amount to first time home buyers like Harris was doing,
Speaker 4: which was a more centrist kind of liberal, not left
Speaker 4: wing policy, I don't think any of.
Speaker 5: These guys would have had a problem with it.
Speaker 4: So there is that I want to recognize that because
Speaker 4: I think that's important for like say, the base of
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party. In many ways, these are people who
Speaker 4: feel like when Republicans get into power, it's an existential
Speaker 4: threat to them if they're a marginalized group, And that's
Speaker 4: really important that we have to incorporate.
Speaker 5: But it's also true that the.
Speaker 4: Independent voter isn't just how it's being characterized the MAGA people.
Speaker 5: You know, it's tough.
Speaker 4: There are the two far gones, but there are this
Speaker 4: group of folks who are open to different ideologies politically
Speaker 4: that they wouldn't have been, say, twenty or thirty years ago.
Speaker 4: Along this very convenient spectrum for our ruling class of
Speaker 4: left versus right. There are people that are listening to
Speaker 4: this show that may like Trump but may also hear
Speaker 4: Bernie and go, I just want somebody that's going to
Speaker 4: change things for my life. And these Democrats they come
Speaker 4: off like bureaucrats. They don't offer anything transformational. And the
Speaker 4: key to this, I think is also when you look
Speaker 4: at New York fourteen and AOC's district, which has a
Speaker 4: lot of Latino voters, Black voters, voters that the Democrats
Speaker 4: lost ground with. Because Trump gained an appeal with those
Speaker 4: voters and she didn't drop off from the rest in
Speaker 4: the way that the rest of the Democratic districts did
Speaker 4: or other areas that have similar demographics. There were a
Speaker 4: lot of Trump and AOC voters on the same ticket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we actually interviewed some of those folks.
Speaker 2: We did like focus group with some of those folks
Speaker 2: to figure out and it was crazy because you know,
Speaker 2: you and I, coming from an ideological lens, would say
Speaker 2: AOC and Trump could not be further apart. They didn't
Speaker 2: see it that way. One lady even thought that they
Speaker 2: were in the same party, like they they saw a
Speaker 2: commonality in I guess of like a critique of these
Speaker 2: parties that they said, you know, don't have particular faith in.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's it's important to understand the
Speaker 2: way people are the lens through which they're viewing our
Speaker 2: political system, even if to us we'd look at that
Speaker 2: and be like, that's here speaking of AOC. Guys, put
Speaker 2: jump ahead to B five because I'm sure you saw
Speaker 2: this poll. They did an AOC Chuck Schumer head to head.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, And so overall.
Speaker 2: She was kicking his butt by twenty one points fifty
Speaker 2: four to thirty three in New York, but specifically among
Speaker 2: Jewish voters she was beating him by seven points here
Speaker 2: forty five to thirty eight, which again goes against every
Speaker 2: stereotype that you could possibly have of like, you know,
Speaker 2: Jewish equals pro Israel equals you know, you're going to
Speaker 2: be supporting the most Zionist candidate you can possibly imagine.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and I mean honestly support for Israel, at least
Speaker 4: within the Democratic Party. It's becoming very clear who the
Speaker 4: supporters of Israel actually represent. And I'm not just saying
Speaker 4: it's APAC, it's also billionaires and who the critics of
Speaker 4: Israel also support. It's no coincidence that that a pack
Speaker 4: was going after the most progressive candidates, and that it
Speaker 4: was Republican money also that was going into kind of
Speaker 4: pro Israel groups, uh dark money groups to fund challenges
Speaker 4: against them, in part because it's not if you're a
Speaker 4: critic of Israel, you're also you're more likely to stand
Speaker 4: up to big money. That's what the litmus test is.
Speaker 4: So you don't just have to be somebody who's a
Speaker 4: rabid Zionist to basically be a supporter of APAC going
Speaker 4: after these people. You have to be somebody that maybe
Speaker 4: isn't interested in healthcare for all, or taxes on billionaires
Speaker 4: or raising the minimum wage.
Speaker 5: It's the.
Speaker 4: Most pro Crypto Democrats are also the most pro Israel,
Speaker 4: and I just think that's something to note it means
Speaker 4: that you're you have demonstrated that you can be You're
Speaker 4: for sale.
Speaker 5: You're for sale. You put a for sale sign.
Speaker 4: Hey, I will support the worst, one of the worst
Speaker 4: crimes in the history of humanity that we're witnessing right now,
Speaker 4: this genocide. I'll do it. I'll eat shit for you,
Speaker 4: pay me money. All industries just calme and pour money
Speaker 4: into my coffers. And that that is a huge line
Speaker 4: of demarcation I think right now is y is.
Speaker 2: Real my campaign, which is I mean, that's the other
Speaker 2: thing that's crazy is oftentimes not even like they're like
Speaker 2: personally financially benefit.
Speaker 6: It's like, fund my campaign.
Speaker 2: I will support a genocide, and I will also support massive,
Speaker 2: like worldwide financial scams. If you just funnel enough money
Speaker 2: into my pack or into my you know, campaign, or
Speaker 2: fund some ads for me, it is wild. And that's
Speaker 2: that's such a great point. Let me just go through
Speaker 2: a couple more things here with you, Emily, Emma, sorry
Speaker 2: having Emily as my co host on here. Your ideology
Speaker 2: is a little bit different from hers, though, but apparently
Speaker 2: similar to Steve Bannon's.
Speaker 4: According to to Ryan, all right, well, I'd love to
Speaker 4: have a conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in any case, put a b. Two New York
Speaker 2: Times did this triple trending counties meeting counties that shifted
Speaker 2: right over the core of the last three presidential cycles.
Speaker 2: A lot of red there. And then we can see
Speaker 2: the dem triple trending counties, the ones that shifted blue consistently.
Speaker 2: We got like Georgia actually doing pretty good there. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure what that's about. It could be the demographics
Speaker 2: of like the in migration there.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure. You've got some Virginia counties.
Speaker 2: You got a little bit sporadically, but the picture is
Speaker 2: pretty dire. And then let's go to before guys. This
Speaker 2: is this article from the New York Times about how
Speaker 2: six months later, Democrats are still searching for the path forward.
Speaker 2: And one thing that people noticed from this article is
Speaker 2: that they are apparently planning a new twenty million dollar
Speaker 2: effort aiming to reduce the erosion of democratic support among
Speaker 2: young men, especially online. It's code named SAM short forced
Speaker 2: Speaking with American Men, and promises investment to study the syntax, language,
Speaker 2: and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.
Speaker 2: It recommends buying advertised in video games among other things.
Speaker 4: Or you know, what might be a little more cost
Speaker 4: effective would be developing the technology to create a time machine.
Speaker 4: So we could go back to twenty sixteen and tell
Speaker 4: all of these people so concerned about young men, maybe
Speaker 4: to shut the hell up about this whole group of
Speaker 4: people getting excited about Bernie Sanders and not smearing them
Speaker 4: as sexists and misogynists. If they were so worried about
Speaker 4: young men, perhaps that might.
Speaker 5: Have been a good idea.
Speaker 2: Well, And when you think about you know, Bernie's strongest
Speaker 2: demographics young people in general, but young men in particular,
Speaker 2: and Latinos in both of those demographic groups were really
Speaker 2: smeared and dismissed as like not important by the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: If we think about the way that the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: primary played out, Bernie wins in my opinion, in Iowa,
Speaker 2: wins in New Hampshire, wins in Nova with this very
Speaker 2: diverse electorate, heavily Latino electorate, and we were told that
Speaker 2: doesn't count, doesn't matter, not important, And then you're shocked
Speaker 2: to see that these groups move away. Now, I don't
Speaker 2: think that's the only reason, but I think that is
Speaker 2: worth noting that, you know, these are demographic groups. The
Speaker 2: two demographic groups perhaps that have moved the furthest and
Speaker 2: the fastest away from the Democratic Party are precisely the
Speaker 2: groups that were most smeared, undermined and dismissed, you know,
Speaker 2: when they were part of the Bernie Sanders coalition.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's definitely it.
Speaker 4: And I think the root of the disaffection is the
Speaker 4: same as the support previously, which is a lack of
Speaker 4: economic opportunity. And I mean that there's a lot that's
Speaker 4: over said about, you know, the young man and how
Speaker 4: we have to empathize with what young men are going through.
Speaker 4: There's not many think pieces as much about like what
Speaker 4: young women and we're going through. So I have some
Speaker 4: frustrations from a feminist angle on that front, but there
Speaker 4: is a point to be made and I think that's
Speaker 4: why we're in this me too reactionary backlash period. And
Speaker 4: you see the rise of these manosphere influencers like Andrew
Speaker 4: Tate among others, or the other guy Aiden Ross the
Speaker 4: Trump went on his stream and stuff and why Trump
Speaker 4: was successful with this campaign of I want to you know,
Speaker 4: Kamala should get in the ring with Mike Tyson and
Speaker 4: whatever the case may be. Those arguments that are like
Speaker 4: secondary to people's economic precarity become more salient when people
Speaker 4: are experiencing that economic precarity.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 12: But it.
Speaker 4: Does, I think, show that there's this ecosystem of people
Speaker 4: that are searching for meaning and control because they feel
Speaker 4: like they don't have it in their lives and because
Speaker 4: what young men have been told their whole life is
Speaker 4: you got to be a provider, you have to be
Speaker 4: a family man, and that's become increasingly impossible. In America,
Speaker 4: rent prices have never been higher. We just hit a
Speaker 4: record of credit card debt earlier this year. People are
Speaker 4: feeling like, perhaps it's not even worth it to save,
Speaker 4: or I'll take riskier bets like with cryptocurrency or gambling.
Speaker 4: And you see how for young men in states that
Speaker 4: have legalized sports gambling, bankruptcies and debt for them has
Speaker 4: gone through the roof because people are taking riskier personal
Speaker 4: bets on their own finances in future because nothing is
Speaker 4: being offered to them from either party at the end
Speaker 4: of the day. And this is not for me to
Speaker 4: say that the Democrats are equal to the Republicans in
Speaker 4: any way, no, but they are a party of institutional
Speaker 4: maintenance and we are in a period that is that
Speaker 4: necessitates some sort of revolutionary thinking, and Trump embodies that.
Speaker 4: I think it's going to make things worse. I think
Speaker 4: we're going to be in the recession, likely by the
Speaker 4: end of the year. But that is the lesson, and
Speaker 4: I think that that schultzon and Charlemagne hit on that
Speaker 4: in that clip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it is also worth noting
Speaker 2: that the demographic that appears to have moved the most
Speaker 2: rapidly away from Trump is also young men. You know,
Speaker 2: if you look at the polling and the places where
Speaker 2: Trump's approval rating has fallen off, the age breakdown is
Speaker 2: quite significant. Where the young younger you are, the more
Speaker 2: likely you are to have moved away from Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Huge decline and support there in terms of approval rating,
Speaker 2: and young women, we know were already not too enthused
Speaker 2: about Trump. So if you think about where that decline
Speaker 2: likely came from, it likely did come from young men.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that this is a group that
Speaker 2: is very much continues to be up for grabs. I
Speaker 2: think Latinos continue to be up for grabs. I think
Speaker 2: there's a big question for Republicans. You know, we showed
Speaker 2: those triple trending counties. Those were for presidential cycles. So
Speaker 2: when Trump is not on the ballot, you know, just JD.
Speaker 2: Vance exact, that's still sort of like cool, Oh he
Speaker 2: gets pussy vibe? Does you know, Don Junior? Like, is
Speaker 2: there any one else who can replicate the unique pull
Speaker 2: of Trump and Trump is?
Speaker 6: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: But that's not also not an argument for Democrats to
Speaker 2: rest on their laurels, because when you look at I mean,
Speaker 2: Democratic writing is just like an absolute disaster. The brand
Speaker 2: is absolutely trash. They haven't figured out what they want
Speaker 2: to stand for, how they want to stand for it
Speaker 2: their own voters. I mean, this is where a huge
Speaker 2: amount of the decline the Democratic Party approve rating comes
Speaker 2: from from their own voters, who are like disgusted and
Speaker 2: dismayed with the way leadership has failed them in Trump
Speaker 2: two point zero. So, you know, I think they're even
Speaker 2: as I do think the midterms are going to be
Speaker 2: bad for Republicans, I think it will be difficult to
Speaker 2: replicate the particular charismatic pull of Trump. I still think
Speaker 2: there are huge concerns and you know, warning signs, really
Speaker 2: quite dire warning signs for the Democrats if they don't
Speaker 2: pitch something that ultimately, you know, makes sense to people,
Speaker 2: and that people you like, explains the world in a
Speaker 2: way that is going to move them forward. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is something I know you've talked about. We've talked
Speaker 2: about as well. Trump has his story. If you're a
Speaker 2: young man and things aren't going well for you, it's immigrants,
Speaker 2: it's trans people. And then I would say the other
Speaker 2: part of that story is it's it's women, you know,
Speaker 2: who are out there getting the jobs and getting the
Speaker 2: you know, getting all the favorable treatment and keeping you
Speaker 2: down and pressing you or nagging at you or not
Speaker 2: dating you or whatever your issue is, right, and so
Speaker 2: you know that narrative is bullshit, But at least there's
Speaker 2: like a story and a theory of the case that
Speaker 2: as women's economic position has improved, that it's been at
Speaker 2: the expense of men. And so that's where the Andrew
Speaker 2: Tate and the religious right part of the coalition, even
Speaker 2: though you would think they would be like dramatically at
Speaker 2: odds and see Andrew Tait is like this incredible degenerate,
Speaker 2: but both of them are invested in putting women back,
Speaker 2: let's say, in their traditional roles. And that's where there's
Speaker 2: you know, a profound overlap there in terms of what
Speaker 2: results they want to see.
Speaker 5: I think that's like it's a bit of.
Speaker 4: A more Marxist analysis of of of misogyny and racism,
Speaker 4: which is that like, oftentimes those.
Speaker 5: Instances flare up.
Speaker 4: When the like the worker or the regular or the
Speaker 4: man in the home right doesn't necessarily feel like they
Speaker 4: can exert control in their economic situation. So that exacerbates
Speaker 4: those kinds of of attitudes amongst regular regular people or
Speaker 4: men or whatever, and and and the liberal inclination is
Speaker 4: to blame that, And sure we should be shaming that
Speaker 4: kind of behavior, but from a political perspective, it's about
Speaker 4: getting to the heart of the matter and back to
Speaker 4: the framing of like how democrats should appeal to young
Speaker 4: men there, let's pour tens of more millions of dollars
Speaker 4: into the answer that we already know, which is an
Speaker 4: economic populist, socialist vision uh for for the country. But
Speaker 4: the same consultant class is trying to get another payday
Speaker 4: to basically try to manipulate people as opposed to being
Speaker 4: honest with them. And that is also the thing that
Speaker 4: people miss about Trump, which is that the part of
Speaker 4: why he has more of a popularity than the rest
Speaker 4: of the Republican Party is because people feel he talks
Speaker 4: directly to them and he might be the weirdest guy
Speaker 4: ever and his tweets or truths are laugh out loud.
Speaker 4: But it's the same dynamic with AOC who uses social
Speaker 4: media to communicate with people directly. That is also what
Speaker 4: cuts above things, and there's no amount of manufacturing some
Speaker 4: sort of left wing media personality that's going to replace
Speaker 4: that kind of feeling I think that people have when
Speaker 4: they hear a Democrat speaking authentically about making people's lives better,
Speaker 4: and so they're in a really bad position. And I
Speaker 4: do think overall, we bring it back to Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: The blame lies at his feet.
Speaker 4: He created a leadership vacuum within the party that is
Speaker 4: making things absolutely so much worse.
Speaker 5: He couldn't use the bully pulpit because he.
Speaker 4: Was so diminished. For specifically the last two years of
Speaker 4: his presidency, the Democrats had no message because it was
Speaker 4: all about propping up this fossil so that he can
Speaker 4: continue funding a genocide or whatever, and that has had
Speaker 4: ripple effects that I think we're still going to be
Speaker 4: feeling the consequences of for years to come.
Speaker 2: All right, let's turn to what's going on in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: We've got more sort of like Vladimir stop behavior coming
Speaker 2: from Trump. There's a horrific, you know, large scale Drodan
Speaker 2: missile attack from Rush. I'll get to the details of
Speaker 2: that in a moment, but first let's take a listen
Speaker 2: to a little bit of what Trump's been saying.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I'll give you an update.
Speaker 14: I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a
Speaker 14: lot of people, and I don't know what the hell
Speaker 14: happened to Boutin. I've known him a long time, always
Speaker 14: gotten along with it. But he's sending rockets into cities
Speaker 14: and killing people, and like it at all. Okay, we're
Speaker 14: in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets and
Speaker 14: to Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all. Right,
Speaker 14: what do you want to do about I'm surprised. I'm
Speaker 14: very surprise. We'll see what we're gonna do. What am
Speaker 14: I gonna tell you? You're the fake news, aren't you?
Speaker 14: You're totally fake? Any other questions. I don't like what
Speaker 14: Putin is doing, not even a little bit. He's killing
Speaker 14: people and something happened to this guy, and I don't
Speaker 14: like it.
Speaker 2: Something happened to this guy, and I don't like it.
Speaker 2: Let's put his true social up on the screen or
Speaker 2: a similar dynamic here. But he also says some things
Speaker 2: about Zelensky. He says, I've always had a very good
Speaker 2: relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Something has happened to him.
Speaker 2: He's gone absolutely crazy. He's needlessly killing a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are
Speaker 2: being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not
Speaker 2: just a piece of it. I'm not sure if he
Speaker 2: has always said that. I know people in his administration
Speaker 2: have definitely not been saying that, and maybe that's proving
Speaker 2: to be right. But if he does, it will lead
Speaker 2: to the downfall of Russia. Likewise, President Zelenski is doing
Speaker 2: his country no favors by talking the way he does.
Speaker 2: Everything out of his mouth causes problems. I don't like it,
Speaker 2: and it better stop. This is a war that would
Speaker 2: never have started if I were present. This is Zelenski's
Speaker 2: Putince and Biden's war, not Trump's I am only helping
Speaker 2: to put out the big and ugly fires that have
Speaker 2: been started through gross incompetent, incompetence and hatred. We can
Speaker 2: also put up a little bit of the Russian's response
Speaker 2: to this outburst from Trump. Apparently Dimitri Peskov said, we
Speaker 2: are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump
Speaker 2: personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiations process.
Speaker 2: Of course, at the same time this very crucial moment,
Speaker 2: which is associated of course with the emotional overload of
Speaker 2: everyone absolutely and with emotional reactions. So that is their response, Emma.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously Trump said he'd all this in
Speaker 2: twenty four hours. That was always preposterous. You know, this
Speaker 2: will be this is a horrific situation and very difficult
Speaker 2: one ultimately to untangle, which of course he is realizing
Speaker 2: in real time. But the other language he's always used
Speaker 2: is that, you know, if it wasn't that Putin didn't
Speaker 2: respect Biden, and you know, that's why Biden wasn't able
Speaker 2: to negotiate with him, and that's why he started this
Speaker 2: war under Biden will Apparently Putin doesn't respect Trump either,
Speaker 2: given the you know, escalation in attacks that we've witnessed
Speaker 2: even as these negotiations are supposedly ongoing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot there.
Speaker 4: This is perhaps the one part of the Trump administration
Speaker 4: I have some hope for, right, I mean, I there
Speaker 4: is something to be said about the fact that he
Speaker 4: doesn't necessarily view foreign policy and ideological terms. He views
Speaker 4: it more as something that's going to flatter his ego,
Speaker 4: which is about making deals. So that's why he can
Speaker 4: be both like completely just disgustingly humiliating towards Zelenski, but
Speaker 4: he can have some sort of comment like that because
Speaker 4: he feels it's time to scold because it's a reflection
Speaker 4: on him if he's unable to get this done.
Speaker 5: So what's.
Speaker 4: Something I think we could work with with the Trump
Speaker 4: administration on this front is the fact that he is
Speaker 4: not somebody who, like Biden, is ideologically committed to a
Speaker 4: certain kind of foreign policy.
Speaker 5: Right, it's more about how he's going to get rich.
Speaker 4: But Biden had this old kind of Cold War or
Speaker 4: even post World War two view of the world building
Speaker 4: up NATO, building up August, building up alliances and not
Speaker 4: having but basically shouting out enemies and trying to isolate
Speaker 4: them and not speaking and being more diplomatic, And I
Speaker 4: think that it was a really unfortunate departure from the
Speaker 4: way that Obama conducted his foreign policy, which had a
Speaker 4: lot of problems, his escalator of drone strikes. But in
Speaker 4: the end, he did in his second term kind of
Speaker 4: put the thumb in the eye of the Israel lobby
Speaker 4: and he got that Iran deal. Over the finish line,
Speaker 4: the Biden administration didn't even attempt really to re enter
Speaker 4: into it and instead pursued the Abraham Accords. So what
Speaker 4: Trump represents, I think, is perhaps an opportunity if he's
Speaker 4: not kind of thwarted by maybe not thwarted, but if
Speaker 4: he's not influenced by the neocons that he's putting into
Speaker 4: his administration, to be somebody who approaches some of this
Speaker 4: with a bit of a more even hand. And that's
Speaker 4: not to say that Putin and Russia are not the
Speaker 4: aggressors in this instance, they illegally invaded Ukraine. But you
Speaker 4: hear certain talk I think, on like the democratic side.
Speaker 4: I heard this on MSNBC over the weekend about how
Speaker 4: you know he's got He's talking about giving up CRIMEA
Speaker 4: in the negotiations that could happen under Trump when he
Speaker 4: gives this giveaway to Putin, and it's like, there's actually
Speaker 4: no situation in which Crimea isn't likely going to be
Speaker 4: taken by the Russians officially in a negotiated peace. They've
Speaker 4: held the territory since twenty fourteen. And I go back
Speaker 4: to this comment that we heard from Hillary Clinton right
Speaker 4: after Russia invaded, and she's not in power, but she's
Speaker 4: emblematic of some of the way that those people make decisions,
Speaker 4: where she said, this is an opportunity to weaken Russia
Speaker 4: and Putin by basically creating this kind of as a
Speaker 4: proxy war. And that's something where I just don't think.
Speaker 4: I don't think that Trump uws it in those terms.
Speaker 4: So I think it's actually it was almost one of
Speaker 4: the more encouraging things for me to hear him kind
Speaker 4: of call out Putin this way, because it means that
Speaker 4: perhaps he's being more disciplinary on both sides, and he
Speaker 4: sees this as his way to get some Nobel Peace prize,
Speaker 4: and that's better in terms of motivation than like how
Speaker 4: many more arms can sell to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, I mean absolutely, And the I'm confused to
Speaker 2: be honest with you with where and I think this
Speaker 2: is intentional on his part with like where he is
Speaker 2: in terms of what he wants to do visa of
Speaker 2: the Ukraine. You know, you had the Oval Office blow
Speaker 2: up situation with Zelenski. The mineral deal was supposedly off,
Speaker 2: and then the mineral deal was back on, and you
Speaker 2: know that's been signed, and that's some sort of US commitment.
Speaker 2: It's being framed as a you know, as some sort
Speaker 2: of defense protection, with the idea being that if you've
Speaker 2: got a bunch of rich American capitalists who are invested
Speaker 2: in the minerals in Ukraine, then we're only going to
Speaker 2: let Russia do so much and take so much. So
Speaker 2: you've got that, and then you have, you know, some
Speaker 2: some frustration with Zelenski expressed here in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: the things, and I think it's I think it is
Speaker 2: appropriate to be frustrated with Zelensky because I think Zelensky
Speaker 2: has staked down a position that is fundamentally like unrealistic.
Speaker 2: And you know when Trump was like, you don't have
Speaker 2: the cards, I mean he's right about that, right. Zelensky
Speaker 2: is not in a strong position here, and there has
Speaker 2: to be some acknowledgment of reality. But I think because
Speaker 2: he has staked out such a maximal's political position inside
Speaker 2: of Ukraine itself domestically, like it's he's sort of committed
Speaker 2: himself to a perpetually unreasonable posture.
Speaker 6: You know, you have at times with Trump.
Speaker 2: You've seen him in his administration signal and agree with
Speaker 2: the Europeans that they're going to put even more sanctions
Speaker 2: on Russia, which I don't think accomplishes ultimately anything at all.
Speaker 2: The sanctions that we did put on, which were quite overwhelming,
Speaker 2: didn't seem to accomplish anything at all. So I don't
Speaker 2: think that that's a particular productive direction to go in.
Speaker 2: And you know, taking Trump's bluster and rhetoric about how
Speaker 2: he's going to solve the thing in twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: Putting that aside, I'm sympathetic to the fact that at
Speaker 2: this point it's not an easy situation to unwind. You know,
Speaker 2: Putin has a very little incentive to stop what he's doing.
Speaker 2: He's sort of, you know, got the upper hand, he's
Speaker 2: got more man in power, he's got more industrial base,
Speaker 2: he's got broadly the support of his people as far
Speaker 2: as we can tell. And you know, so there isn't
Speaker 2: a lot of motivation for him to really take his
Speaker 2: foot off off the gas. And for Zelensky, he's in,
Speaker 2: like I said, this sort of locked in domestic political position.
Speaker 2: And then at times you also see Jade Vance and Trump,
Speaker 2: and Trump sort of signals at this in these comments
Speaker 2: as well, acting like, yeah, maybe we'll just walk away
Speaker 2: and good luck to you, and that will end in effectively,
Speaker 2: you know, a Ukrainian failed state and Russia taking more territory,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So you know, I don't know that there
Speaker 2: is a great solution here at this point. However this
Speaker 2: conflict ends, it's going to end in a place that
Speaker 2: is you know, ugly and horrible for a lot of people.
Speaker 6: But to your point, like the war needs.
Speaker 2: To end because it's terrific, and can put this the
Speaker 2: details of this drone attack and missile at taxi for
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Russia defies Trump with largest everaderna
Speaker 2: of missile attack on Ukraine. Kiev says more than three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty explosive drones targeted its cities overnight. You know,
Speaker 2: this is a was a follow on from another drone
Speaker 2: of missile strike that Trump was referring to there as well.
Speaker 2: So the horrors here are grave, not to mention all
Speaker 2: of the Ukrainian men and Russian men to who have
Speaker 2: been fed into this meat grinder. And thus far, even
Speaker 2: though the rhetoric has been different from the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: the policy has been pretty It's been pretty much a
Speaker 2: continuation of the Biden policy as far as what we've
Speaker 2: seen so far, you know, back in the Ukrainian shipping weapons,
Speaker 2: allowing these longer range drone strikes that are incredibly provocative
Speaker 2: viz a VI Russia. So we haven't actually seen a
Speaker 2: policy shift, even though we do see a rhetorical shift
Speaker 2: and then the effort to actually bring some sort of negotiations,
Speaker 2: which is appreciated. But if you can't get one of
Speaker 2: these two parties to move off their current position, then
Speaker 2: you're not going to end up with, you know, the
Speaker 2: piece that and the Nobel Peace Prize that he may
Speaker 2: be seeking.
Speaker 4: Right, And I think that that's a good point, and
Speaker 4: maybe I'm not going to produce the show for you,
Speaker 4: but it's a good way to talk about Israel policy too, right,
Speaker 4: where some of these breaks that we're talking about are
Speaker 4: really welcome. But does Donald Trump have the fortitude or
Speaker 4: vision to actually implement something that would represent a real
Speaker 4: foreign policy shift or is like, are a lot of
Speaker 4: these kind of gestures more aesthetic because it's about flattering
Speaker 4: his ego about I can put an end to this,
Speaker 4: I can be the one to do X, Y and Z,
Speaker 4: or in the case of Middle East policy. Yeah, he's
Speaker 4: going and meeting with the Qatari's and he went to
Speaker 4: the Middle East and didn't stop in Jerusalem. But are
Speaker 4: these breaks from what is traditionally done being matched with
Speaker 4: substantive changes to policy? And it does doesn't seem to
Speaker 4: be the case. We're still sending, as you say, weapons
Speaker 4: to both Ukraine and Israel, and of course in terms
Speaker 4: of like abject immorality the Israel sending it to the
Speaker 4: aggressor in Israel committing a genocide just continues to be
Speaker 4: something that I think every American should be thinking about
Speaker 4: every morning, what our tax dollars are going to. But
Speaker 4: it's we like to see a shake up to the
Speaker 4: system in this sense, right, But if it's not paired
Speaker 4: with some sort of like carrot and stick approach to
Speaker 4: the Israelis to cutting off weapons, to making sure that
Speaker 4: they're not able to conduct these military operations anymore, and
Speaker 4: it's just about Donald Trump getting goodies and creating business
Speaker 4: deals and crypto data centers for his son, and you know,
Speaker 4: weapons deals for Boeing with the with the Saudia's or
Speaker 4: with the UAE or whatever the case may be. Then
Speaker 4: there's no substance there, and then we're kind of just
Speaker 4: back where we start started, especially if a new administration
Speaker 4: comes into place,