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Speaker 2: So, as Saga and I debated extensively yesterday, Trump invoked
Speaker 2: the Alien Enemies Act over the weekend. In this set
Speaker 2: off a mad scramble and a lot of questions about
Speaker 2: whether or not.
Speaker 3: They openly defied cored orders.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to give you some details about the
Speaker 2: timing that is coming out now with regard to when
Speaker 2: a judge issued a temporary restraining order saying you cannot
Speaker 2: move forward with deportations under these powers, when planes took
Speaker 2: off where they were when he issued his ruling from
Speaker 2: the bench, saying, even if planes are in the air,
Speaker 2: you need to turn them around where they were when
Speaker 2: the final order came out, et cetera. We'll get to
Speaker 2: that in a moment, But yesterday there was another court
Speaker 2: hearing with the same judge who was demanding answers from
Speaker 2: the government about what the hell happened here? Under what
Speaker 2: justification did you not listen to my order? And how
Speaker 2: did we get to where we are? So let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and put this up on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: from Kyle Cheney, who is Politico's court reporter and has
Speaker 2: done a good job tracking the many lawsuits against this
Speaker 2: administration at this point, so.
Speaker 3: He says the hearing is over.
Speaker 2: Boseborg was incredulous that DOJ claimed he had no authority
Speaker 2: to order the plane to turn around just because it
Speaker 2: crossed out of US airspace, something he said was well
Speaker 2: established in many contexts. He wants details about whether DOJ
Speaker 2: openly defied his order on March fifteenth when it ordered
Speaker 2: planes to take off and leave US airspace, even after
Speaker 2: he orally ordered the government not to do that. The
Speaker 2: remedy for an order they don't like, Bosborg said, is
Speaker 2: to appeal or seek to modify it not simply to
Speaker 2: ignore it. He wants a sworn declaration by noon tomorrow
Speaker 2: with details about how this played out. Can put the
Speaker 2: next tear sheet up on the screen. It has some
Speaker 2: additional details here ties together some of the different places
Speaker 2: where the Trump administration has at least tested the bounds
Speaker 2: of defiance of court orders.
Speaker 3: Will say.
Speaker 2: The headline is Trump already on a collision course with
Speaker 2: the courts hits the gas. This is kind of the
Speaker 2: most combustible situation with regard to potential, like just outright
Speaker 2: direct defiance. And part of what they write in this article,
Speaker 2: which is also by the same guy, Kyle Cheney, along
Speaker 2: with two other co authors, is on Monday afternoon, the
Speaker 2: Justice Department urged Boseburg to call off his scrutiny of
Speaker 2: Trump's decision to label some Venezuelan migrants as terrorists in
Speaker 2: order to quote de escalate the grave incursions on executive
Speaker 2: branche authority that have already arisen. When Bosberg refused to
Speaker 2: cancel that Monday afternoon hearing, the dj asked a federal
Speaker 2: appellate court to remove this judge from the case altogether,
Speaker 2: an extraordinary step to circumvent judicial scrutiny. The White House,
Speaker 2: for its part, is dismissing arguments that the presence actions
Speaker 2: are pushing the country toward a constitutional crisis. Officials agree
Speaker 2: the nation is in one, but they blame it on
Speaker 2: the courts, framing recent rulings as the moves of radical
Speaker 2: leftist judges, though some of those judges were appointed by
Speaker 2: Republican presidents.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The constant pitutional crisis is not in the executive branch,
Speaker 2: it's in the judiciary branch, White House spokesperson Harrison Field said,
Speaker 2: adding that the pushback to the administration's weekend deportations quote
Speaker 2: speaks more of democrats loyalty or lack thereof, to this
Speaker 2: nation than anything else. So the government has made a
Speaker 2: few claims here, you know, to claim that they are
Speaker 2: not defying court orders. One is they say that while
Speaker 2: you issued the order to turn the planes around from
Speaker 2: the bench, and we don't really think that that has
Speaker 2: the same weight as.
Speaker 3: A written order.
Speaker 2: The judge judge very much yesterday and that hearing rejected
Speaker 2: that particular claim. Another claim that was made was that, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the planes were over international waters when you issued your ruling,
Speaker 2: so that's you know, that's it was too late. Basically,
Speaker 2: we couldn't or wouldn't once it was over international waters.
Speaker 3: We weren't going to turn them around.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing that came out yesterday, I can put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen, this chart of the flights.
Speaker 2: At least one of the flights was actually still on
Speaker 2: the ground at the time in Texas when the initial
Speaker 2: order at six forty eight was read from the bench. Okay,
Speaker 2: So another claim that the government has made is well,
Speaker 2: actually that particular plane, the third one, and by the way,
Speaker 2: the other two had not yet reached their destination, either
Speaker 2: when that initial order was read from the bench or
Speaker 2: when the final ridden order came down. So the other
Speaker 2: claim was, well the third plane, that one was subject.
Speaker 2: That wasn't Alien Enemies Act, that was different powers. Of course,
Speaker 2: we don't know who was on the plane, so we
Speaker 2: have no idea and basically Savary yesterday the government pretty
Speaker 2: much stonewalled.
Speaker 3: It just wouldn't answer any question the.
Speaker 1: Government aside in Title fifty authority, which is intelligence, like
Speaker 1: you said, on the third plane. The result of the
Speaker 1: hearing yesterday basically is Judge Bosberg is demanding that the
Speaker 1: government issue a sworn affidavit that the third plane was
Speaker 1: not invoked under the Alien Enemies Act and was used
Speaker 1: under a different authority. They said none of the plaintiffs
Speaker 1: of the five plaintiffs that were ordered under Judge Bosberg
Speaker 1: were on board that plane. It was the other two.
Speaker 1: So this is almost certainly rocketing to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: within the next two weeks. The authority over Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 1: Over the ability of a federal district judge to order
Speaker 1: something what I think is extraordinary. We debated it extensively yesterday.
Speaker 1: To literally force a plane that is outside of the
Speaker 1: United States to turn around and come back to the
Speaker 1: United States. There's both legal scrutiny over that specifically, and
Speaker 1: as I understand it from Boseburg, this is not a
Speaker 1: ruling on the Alien Enemies Act whatsoever. He is asking
Speaker 1: for a declaration of who is covered under the Alien
Speaker 1: Enemies Act. But the Act provision is not itself the
Speaker 1: one that is under a legal scrutiny. It's the removal
Speaker 1: authority for deepprocess under the government for the specific plaintiffs
Speaker 1: that were named by the ACLU. But I was just saying,
Speaker 1: in terms of what I read yesterday from the review
Speaker 1: of the Alien Enemies Act, the judge. It's complicated, basically,
Speaker 1: they It's not as cut and dry, I think as
Speaker 1: saying this was up to the judge as to whether
Speaker 1: this was the Alien Enemies Act or not, as to
Speaker 1: whether it is employable. It is these specific individuals, the
Speaker 1: legitimacy of applying that to these specific individuals under the
Speaker 1: ACLU of the plaintiffs were this car with this action
Speaker 1: that the planes took off, And I know this is
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated. I've genuinely tried to read for hours about
Speaker 1: something called like judiciability or something judicity, which is the
Speaker 1: ability to apply judicial review, which is what the government
Speaker 1: is also claiming. That came out in a Steven Miller
Speaker 1: interview anyway.
Speaker 2: So here's here is the timeline, and this will help
Speaker 2: clarify some of what happened here. So obviously Trump has
Speaker 2: been saying for a long time, including on the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: I'm going to use the Alien Enemies Act. So lawyers
Speaker 2: with the ACLU and other groups were like ready to go, like, okay,
Speaker 2: when he does that, we're going to challenge that.
Speaker 3: And they started to.
Speaker 2: Get There were news reports that he was moving towards
Speaker 2: invoking the Alien Enemies Act, and some of the people
Speaker 2: that they were in touch with started to get moved around.
Speaker 2: Some Venezuelan migrants started to get moved around and all
Speaker 2: shipped excuse me, to this Texas ice detention facility. And
Speaker 2: so they suspected, okay, this is imminently coming. So, knowing
Speaker 2: that the government was going to act really fast, they
Speaker 2: filed an initial suit with these five particular migrants as
Speaker 2: their as their clients involved in this suit.
Speaker 3: Then once it became.
Speaker 2: Completely clear and perhaps even waited for the official declaration,
Speaker 2: then they expanded it to the entire class of migrants,
Speaker 2: so that this was now not just about these five individuals.
Speaker 2: This was about the entire class of migrants and who
Speaker 2: were held undocumented migrants who were held in DHS facilities,
Speaker 2: so that it would apply to everyone who might be
Speaker 2: put on these planes and shipped down. So that's how
Speaker 2: this ends up. The judge the court system actually in
Speaker 2: this instance acted quite quickly.
Speaker 3: The judge from the bench.
Speaker 2: At six forty eight says, you cannot issuing a temporary
Speaker 2: restraining order. That is not a finding on the merits.
Speaker 2: But his view was it is likely that the use
Speaker 2: of the Alien Enemies Act is going to be found
Speaker 2: to be illegal, and so in order to prevent harm
Speaker 2: in the meantime from occurring, issuing this temporary restraining order.
Speaker 2: So this can work its way through the courts on
Speaker 2: the merits and decide whether it's appropriate invocation. You know,
Speaker 2: it's never before, like he's claiming that Venezuela, by dint
Speaker 2: of their proxy, this gang trender Aragua has invaded the country.
Speaker 2: It's never been issued before outside of like Clearcut wartime
Speaker 2: instances eighteen twelve, World War one, World War II. So
Speaker 2: a lot of legal questions, to say the least, about
Speaker 2: whether this is appropriate. You know, what it led to
Speaker 2: is the Trump administration being able without any due process
Speaker 2: to take people. They sent them to this foreign prison
Speaker 2: notorious in Nol Salvador for torture and human rights abuse.
Speaker 2: So anyway, all of this is very is legally dubious,
Speaker 2: to say the least. So he issues the temporary restraining order.
Speaker 2: It's meant to apply to all migrants, not just the
Speaker 2: five that were specifically originally named in the lawsuit. And
Speaker 2: that's where these you know, timings come in. So six
Speaker 2: forty eight is when he issues the ruling. Those planes
Speaker 2: are two of the planes are in there one of
Speaker 2: them still on the ground.
Speaker 3: Again, the.
Speaker 2: Government has refused to say who was on these planes.
Speaker 2: They've refused in the hearing yesterday. They refused even to
Speaker 2: reveal when the planes took off, when they landed their
Speaker 2: citing national security, et cetera. So the very latest from
Speaker 2: judge out of this hearing was, you have to tell
Speaker 2: us by noon. I believe today the answers to these
Speaker 2: questions and if you need to do it under seal, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's fine, and we're going to have another hearing on Friday.
Speaker 2: But the judge is very perturbed, seemingly at the government's
Speaker 2: stonewalling and defiance of what the judge ultimately asked them
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's incredibly well said. That's exactly right. So I
Speaker 1: know it's really complicated for people to stick with. It
Speaker 1: will eventually come down to a ruling on Friday, It
Speaker 1: will almost certainly immediately be appealed, and then it is
Speaker 1: going to rocket its way to the US Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: where it is almost certainly that the meta questions around
Speaker 1: this are going to be solved. And it is one
Speaker 1: that is now like this is always the issue. Like
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to everything.
Speaker 1: I've done my best to look at the TikTok, Like
Speaker 1: I said, to look into the title fifty authority, the
Speaker 1: judicious judice, the ability to apply judicial review, reading the
Speaker 1: Statue of the Alien Enemies Act itself, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is actually worth reading because it's from seventeen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: But the point being is we are in a situation
Speaker 1: where this is almost certainly going to get resolved at
Speaker 1: high level, and that is it appears, just from what
Speaker 1: I've been able to see, that's kind of something that
Speaker 1: they want because this is a fight that they are
Speaker 1: very comfortable picking with the public. As you said, Tom Homan,
Speaker 1: who is the White House Borders are appeared on television
Speaker 1: immediately afterwards and was defiant. Let's take a listen, probably
Speaker 1: be a part of this administration.
Speaker 4: We're not stopping.
Speaker 5: I don't care what the judges think, I don't care
Speaker 5: the left things we're coming.
Speaker 1: So I mean, pretty defiant there for you, Tom Homan.
Speaker 1: This is the thing at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of messaging war that's also happening here
Speaker 1: because that's not even really true, Like they do care
Speaker 1: what the judge thing because they're not continuing the deportation flights.
Speaker 1: They keep saying they're going to, it's not actually happening.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those where they're both trying to
Speaker 1: placate an incredible amount of frustration in the administration over
Speaker 1: the numerous amounts of temporary restraining orders and other things
Speaker 1: have come out. This one is a fight that they
Speaker 1: feel very comfortable both picking and getting the precedent set
Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court to resolve it in the incoming
Speaker 1: years of the administry or the outcoming years of the administration,
Speaker 1: to try and resolve these and to basically try and
Speaker 1: basically force a fight on the ability for tro district
Speaker 1: judges to intervene on every individual deportation case. But I
Speaker 1: think what's happening is that we're watching a fight that
Speaker 1: they feel very very comfortable picking, in particular on this one.
Speaker 1: And it's actually kind of noteworthy to me that this
Speaker 1: is the one that's been the most high profile one
Speaker 1: and it's not doge where Look, they've talked a game
Speaker 1: in the past and Elan has said what we need
Speaker 1: to impeach judges, etc. They have never really gone all
Speaker 1: that far. There's been some questions over like I would
Speaker 1: say like modern compliance or whatever on USAID, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But like this is the one where this is the
Speaker 1: big one, and for them they I think it too.
Speaker 1: Just yesterday a poll came out showing border and immigration
Speaker 1: is actually the number one issue that Trump has right now.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for him, he's underwater on the economy. We're about
Speaker 1: to talk about that in a second. It actually maybe
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this. I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that all of this is happening right now is
Speaker 1: it doesn't take a genius to look at the news
Speaker 1: and say, oh my god. Every day we're getting pummeled
Speaker 1: on Doge and on the stock market, our tarif stuff
Speaker 1: not working. Now we've got a full born war in Gaza.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, what do we have left? Well, this
Speaker 1: is the immigration promises, which we literally have not even
Speaker 1: kept for the first fifty days of the administration. Any
Speaker 1: serious immigration person could have told you that the numbers
Speaker 1: were basically on par and for actual deportation with the
Speaker 1: Biden administration, and they were using Doge excuses saying, oh,
Speaker 1: these flights are too expensive to carry that out, which
Speaker 1: you know, as we talked to us like oh things
Speaker 1: are too expensive for source security, for immigration, but we
Speaker 1: have unlimited missiles that we can fire into Yemen. So
Speaker 1: it was a priorities mismatch. And this is clearly political
Speaker 1: ground that they feel very strong fighting on.
Speaker 2: I think your political analysis there is correct, and I
Speaker 2: suspect the same that they wanted to provoke a reaction
Speaker 2: with this invocation at this moment, because look, the market
Speaker 2: shit the bed last week. There is you know, incredible
Speaker 2: upset and concern as we're about to talk about with
Speaker 2: regard to the economy, there is probably even more upset
Speaker 2: and concern with regard to the attacks on social security.
Speaker 2: Elon is dramatically underwater. Trump's approval rating in almost every
Speaker 2: poll is on the downslide. It's still very early in
Speaker 2: the administration, and I think that they feel that they
Speaker 2: are on very firm political ground to pick a fight
Speaker 2: over people that they describe as Venezuelan gang members. And
Speaker 2: you know, so I think you're right that they welcome
Speaker 2: this fight and they feel politically that this benefits them.
Speaker 2: You can watch our lengthy debate yesterday. I just will
Speaker 2: remind that what we're talking about here with regards to
Speaker 2: you know, in this particular case, they're arguing, not only that,
Speaker 2: you know, can they invoke the Alien Enemies Act and
Speaker 2: then just deport whoever they want with no due process,
Speaker 2: where we don't even get to know who they are,
Speaker 2: whether they're actually gang members, whether they're even Venezuelan migrants.
Speaker 2: And by the way, can go and look at some
Speaker 2: news reports already of US citizens who have gotten mistakenly
Speaker 2: swept up by ICE, which now, because of upset over
Speaker 2: the relatively low deportation numbers, now has had a quota institute,
Speaker 2: which of course leads to them being more aggressive about, like,
Speaker 2: let's just sweep up anyone who looks like they.
Speaker 3: Might be undocumented.
Speaker 2: So in any case, what they're trying to claim is
Speaker 2: that the president has sole discretion to deport anyone he
Speaker 2: wants at any time.
Speaker 3: And as I.
Speaker 2: Said yesterday, they have offered no proof that these individuals
Speaker 2: were actually gang members. We actually don't even know one
Speaker 2: hundred percent that they are migrants, that they are Venezuelan.
Speaker 2: I suspect that that is the case, but we don't
Speaker 2: know who they are. Some of the people who we've
Speaker 2: been able to learn who they are, their family members
Speaker 2: and their legal counsel insists they are not gang members.
Speaker 2: One is a teen who happened to have a rose
Speaker 2: tattoo that he thought looked cool that he got in Texas,
Speaker 2: according to his sister. Another is a tattoo artist. Again,
Speaker 2: one of the common themes is there's just seems to
Speaker 2: be an assumption that if you have a tattoo, you
Speaker 2: are a gang member. Another thing the Washington Post uncovered
Speaker 2: with regard to some of the gang members alleged gang
Speaker 2: members in Quantanamo Bay is that they also were not
Speaker 2: gang members. They were just from the state of Ragua,
Speaker 2: which is where this gang originates, and were actually fleeing
Speaker 2: gang violence. So all of this is to say, that's
Speaker 2: why I think due process is important, so that look,
Speaker 2: the government can make their claims and people have a
Speaker 2: chance to robut them. The fact that they've been put
Speaker 2: into this El Salvador prison that is quite notorious means
Speaker 2: that journalists, family members, lawyers, no one has access to them,
Speaker 2: No one could determine the veracity of the claims that
Speaker 2: are currently being made by the government whatsoever. And so
Speaker 2: if I'm also not a lawyer, so I can't say
Speaker 2: whether which direction the courts are likely to go in
Speaker 2: with this extraordinary claim of power. But what they're trying
Speaker 2: to assert is that they can literally remove anyone that
Speaker 2: this government decides to remove with no scrutiny whatsoever. And
Speaker 2: so I agree with you, Sager, that I think it
Speaker 2: is an intentional provocation. But the reason why I think
Speaker 2: it's important to fight is because that is an extreme
Speaker 2: breach of civil rights, constitutional rights, not just visa VI,
Speaker 2: you know, migrants, undocumented immigrants, et cetera, but genuinely has
Speaker 2: consequences for all of us because again, if you have
Speaker 2: no due process, you don't even have to prove that
Speaker 2: they're undocumented immigrants, let alone gang members, let alone criminals,
Speaker 2: let alone anything else.
Speaker 3: And so in any case, that's why I view this as.
Speaker 2: Quite an extraordinary moment and an important one to follow,
Speaker 2: even though I do think it is a political provocation
Speaker 2: to try to cover up from some of the things
Speaker 2: that they're doing that have become profoundly unpopular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I I take what you're saying. I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about it yesterday. I do think, however,
Speaker 1: that this, you know, and I think the new press
Speaker 1: process claims etc. Are fair. However, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that missing the context of the broader illegal immigration situation,
Speaker 1: the extraordinary developments that have happened over the last four years,
Speaker 1: not just to mention the last twenty five years even
Speaker 1: before that, not to mention as well, much of the
Speaker 1: legal precedence as to why I don't think it will
Speaker 1: lead to what you're saying between Homdi so I actually
Speaker 1: looked at some case law Homdi v. Rumsfeldt, which previously
Speaker 1: talked to the US government's detention who was a US
Speaker 1: citizen who was captured in Afghanistan. This cannot actually be applied,
Speaker 1: you know, to a United States citizen, which the Bush
Speaker 1: administration wanted to in the past, for both indefinite attention
Speaker 1: and the removal of due process. US citizens specifically have
Speaker 1: much stronger and male litigated due process rights than those
Speaker 1: who are present in the country, especially who are present
Speaker 1: in the country illegally. And then secondly, there was a
Speaker 1: second case here, which was Alwiki v. Penetta, which followed
Speaker 1: the drone strike after Amar Alwiki and his family were
Speaker 1: struck by the United States. Now, I still think that's
Speaker 1: an insane thing that happened there in the past, but
Speaker 1: the court basically basically ruled through dismissal that they do
Speaker 1: not have the ability to challenge national security authority. Now,
Speaker 1: the solution here is staring everybody in the face. If
Speaker 1: everybody thought that the law was so terrible, they should
Speaker 1: have repealed the law. I think they keep it on
Speaker 1: the books, you know, because they want the ability to
Speaker 1: be able to use it. Trump did telegraph this previously.
Speaker 1: I think that the case law there is actually quite
Speaker 1: strong and that there are enough backstops. You can disagree
Speaker 1: with me, that's fine to protect US citizens. We just
Speaker 1: have a big disagreement, I think, which comes to the
Speaker 1: treatment of how we should think of people who are
Speaker 1: president in the country illegally and whether that's a country
Speaker 1: problem and or not. I think it's extraordinary and in
Speaker 1: particularly that these laws asylum, tps, etc. Have been dramatically
Speaker 1: abused to facilitate mass illegal immigration, have put a huge
Speaker 1: amount of strain, and I don't think it's surprised to
Speaker 1: me as well. On the political front, you know, looking
Speaker 1: just back at the approval numbers that I have in
Speaker 1: front of me. Here, the issue breakdown is Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has got border security and immigration literally higher than and
Speaker 1: he's the only issue area where he is more popular
Speaker 1: than not on foreign policy, on the economy, on inflation,
Speaker 1: and on Russia Ukraine underwater on all four of those things.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. It could be that there is
Speaker 1: a genuine change in the way that the United States
Speaker 1: has happened and thinks that this is an extraordinary action.
Speaker 1: But part of me also feels that the administration wants
Speaker 1: to pick bread fights about this, not even to facilitate
Speaker 1: mass deportation. What I have heard from many is that guys,
Speaker 1: you're an idiot if you ever believed mass deportation was
Speaker 1: going to happen. We have to do these stunts effectively
Speaker 1: to facilitate mass self deportation, which is not a surprise
Speaker 1: considering the launch just a few days ago of a
Speaker 1: CBP home app by the administration the two hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars add buy. I was watching Fox News the other
Speaker 1: day and I Christy Nome popped up on my TV
Speaker 1: and I was like, who is watching Fox News? That
Speaker 1: is going to self deport You know, that was another thing,
Speaker 1: just as it's another basic level.
Speaker 3: And escape that dose scrutiny that we've been talking.
Speaker 1: Can you tea me it costs two hundred million? Right,
Speaker 1: I thought I was watching that, I'm like, is this
Speaker 1: not just basically like feel good propaganda. That's the government.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm not, you know, cheerleading all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I don't even disagree that the government should handle
Speaker 1: this differently. I think I said that yesterday they absolutely
Speaker 1: should have released the dossier and or whatever they're doing
Speaker 1: it to the maxixkinding because they think that this is
Speaker 1: a fight that they can win and they want to
Speaker 1: try and set that legal president basically like all presidents
Speaker 1: before them who are beefing with the courts. I was
Speaker 1: reading a little bit about the Bush administration response to
Speaker 1: hamdiv Rumsfeld, where Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez actually told Bush
Speaker 1: to keep colding Homdy for unlimited detention and not ignore
Speaker 1: We're not talking about district cut judge. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the United States. So anyway, some
Speaker 1: historical and reading other things that I put and thought
Speaker 1: into the case, which I know is very emotional and
Speaker 1: is a difficult topic.
Speaker 2: Let me go ahead and play Pam Bondi, the Attorney
Speaker 2: General who was on the shows last night on primetime
Speaker 2: on Fox, I think with Janine Bureau maybe who indicated
Speaker 2: that the flights similar to this one under the Alien
Speaker 2: Enemies Act were quote absolutely going to continue.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: The amazing thing about this Attorney General is that you've
Speaker 6: got a local district court judge now who is saying
Speaker 6: that he can stop the president from enforcing his powers
Speaker 6: under Article two to protect the America?
Speaker 1: Can people? Number one?
Speaker 6: Will his order this temporary restraining order on the on
Speaker 6: the Alien Enemies Act? Will that be you know, respected
Speaker 6: going forward? And where does he get this power to
Speaker 6: stop the president engaging in national security and foreign policy?
Speaker 3: Well, that's it.
Speaker 7: He's attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs
Speaker 7: and he can't do it. What he's done is an
Speaker 7: intrusion on the president's authority. You know, this one federal
Speaker 7: judge again thinks he can control foreign policy for the
Speaker 7: entire country, and he cannot. And right now we're evaluating
Speaker 7: our options.
Speaker 6: Okay, so you made the administration may continue doing these flights.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, these are foreign terrorists that the President has identified
Speaker 7: them and designated them as such, and we will continue
Speaker 7: to follow the Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 2: So she says, the flights will absolutely continue, we will
Speaker 2: if that is the case. I'll just last thing I'll
Speaker 2: say about this is I think it can both be
Speaker 2: the case that it is a stunt, which I tend
Speaker 2: to agree with you, Sager, and that it is extraordinarily
Speaker 2: important and dangerous development, because there actually is no backstop
Speaker 2: from anyone getting swept up, especially if they're being sent
Speaker 2: to this prison where we have no access to them,
Speaker 2: that is known for torture, where Bkelly is out there
Speaker 2: bragging about the way they'll be used for slave labor
Speaker 2: to make the prison quote unquote financially sustainable. So if
Speaker 2: you don't have due process, is not even an ability
Speaker 2: to check that these are not American citizens, that these
Speaker 2: are not legitimate Green colored holders, or legitimate visa holders.
Speaker 2: There's certainly no check to verify that they are actually
Speaker 2: gang members and terrorists as is being claimed, and in fact,
Speaker 2: the government has been caught in those lies with regard
Speaker 2: to people being alleged gang members in the past. As
Speaker 2: I mentioned yesterday, there are The estimate is there are
Speaker 2: a few hundred trend de Iragua members in the entire country,
Speaker 2: So they're purporting to have deported to this El Salvador
Speaker 2: prison several hundred just with these flights, so the numbers
Speaker 2: don't work out. There are almost certainly people who were
Speaker 2: part of this, and you know, family members and lawyers
Speaker 2: are already asserting as such that were part of this
Speaker 2: deportation that had nothing to do with trend de Iragua,
Speaker 2: and who have now been put indefinitely into this prison
Speaker 2: where no one can reach them, no lawyers, no family members,
Speaker 2: no journalists, et cetera, and they're actually without due process.
Speaker 2: Is no backstop from this being able to happen to anyone.
Speaker 2: So if the courts rule on the merits in Trump's favor,
Speaker 2: that means he then has claimed these wartime powers to
Speaker 2: disappear anyone he wants to disappear. And that's why this
Speaker 2: is to me. Yes, it's a stunt and also extraordinarily dangerous,
Speaker 2: troubling abridgment of not just the rights and the human
Speaker 2: rights of you know, people who are migrants, of people
Speaker 2: who are here without papers, but also of American citizens
Speaker 2: who could easily easily and have already been mistakenly snatched
Speaker 2: up by ice, who could easily be caught up in
Speaker 2: this as well. If the courts don't take a stand
Speaker 2: here and enforce say, look, we are not at war,
Speaker 2: this is not an invasion. You don't get to claim
Speaker 2: these wartime authorities. And the other thing is I mean
Speaker 2: they've also been they've also floated in booking the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 2: This would be another sort of like wartime authority that
Speaker 2: they could claim. And the trend with this president, which yes,
Speaker 2: other presidents have done similar things, certainly George W. Bush
Speaker 2: comes to mind, but the dramatic, rapid expansion of the
Speaker 2: powers that he has claimed is something that I think
Speaker 2: is quite extraordinarily extraordinary and deeply troubling.
Speaker 1: I think that's understandable. As I said, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of case law and a lot of differences,
Speaker 1: especially withholding any of this from happening to a US citizen.
Speaker 1: But will continue to cover it here. Why don't we
Speaker 1: move on to the economy. Let's talk about consumer sentiment,
Speaker 1: which is not very good right now. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Came out a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago. It was absolutely you know, it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of missed. We weren't able to cover it in the
Speaker 1: last couple of days. But there's a University of Michigan
Speaker 1: survey which is very closely watched, which looks at consumer sentiment. Now,
Speaker 1: what is consumer sentiment? That's actually a very important question.
Speaker 1: The way the consumer sentiment is basically defined is your
Speaker 1: want and think about how you're going to spend money
Speaker 1: and how you're feeling about the economy. So it is
Speaker 1: a subjective thing, but overall actually has a pretty good
Speaker 1: track record about people's subjective view of the economy. That
Speaker 1: can then obviously have a lot of impacts going into retail.
Speaker 1: So the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey showed an
Speaker 1: eleven percent decline in mid March to fifty seven point
Speaker 1: nine from sixty four point seven the last month. Quote
Speaker 1: a downward trend that has taken hold since office. That
Speaker 1: is the single lowest level since November of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: when inflation was rampant, and compared with just one year earlier,
Speaker 1: it is down some twenty seven percent, so nearly third
Speaker 1: drop in overall consumer sentiment. Now why does that matter?
Speaker 1: Because consumer economy spending is seventy percent of our economy.
Speaker 1: We'll put the next one up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: The long term inflation view within that consumer sentiment also
Speaker 1: jumped the most since nineteen ninety three, meaning that people's
Speaker 1: feeling that inflation will continue for the foreseeable future has
Speaker 1: had such a precipitous incline that I thought, more than
Speaker 1: the consumer sentiment was the biggest headline is not not
Speaker 1: only do people have bad consumer sentiment in their wont
Speaker 1: to spend money in the overall economy, they also believe
Speaker 1: that right now that inflation will be higher in the future. Now,
Speaker 1: when you do that all kinds of downstream effects. People
Speaker 1: hoard cash, people or even worse, you know, for our economy,
Speaker 1: they just don't spend any money, or they think that
Speaker 1: because their bills and all that are going to go up,
Speaker 1: they basically lock it in place. And if you don't
Speaker 1: spend money, money is not being spread around. Then everybody's
Speaker 1: overall income is beginning to go down and the aggregate
Speaker 1: and we're going to watch stocks go down, retail businesses collapse, vacation, etc.
Speaker 1: And probably the worst outcome is that the only group
Speaker 1: that's not going to pair back consumer spending is rich people.
Speaker 1: So we will only increase the pyramid function that we
Speaker 1: already have in the economy right now. So overall, it's
Speaker 1: not a good trend. And this is the piercing heart
Speaker 1: of this will pierce the heart of any successful Trump administration.
Speaker 1: You can overcome a lot, but you cannot overcome a
Speaker 1: bad economy as Joe Biden did, especially not we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about social security that stuff in the future.
Speaker 1: If people feel like their services are getting cut and
Speaker 1: stuff is going to get more expensive, you're done, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, put mid terms and all of that aside.
Speaker 1: Just in terms of a political movement and strategy, you
Speaker 1: will lead yourself down the George W. Bush path of
Speaker 1: destruction of legacy administration and put yourself in the wilderness
Speaker 1: for a decade, just like they did.
Speaker 3: Very possible, very tall.
Speaker 1: I mean that seems to be like what they want
Speaker 1: to do. I don't really understand any of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is a theory that they want a crisis,
Speaker 2: because a crisis again, what your presidents do in a crisis,
Speaker 2: they are able to claim more powers and you know,
Speaker 2: a certain more authority. So you know, as you see
Speaker 2: these things that you're like, this is insane. I mean,
Speaker 2: especially around the economy, You're like, this is insane. It
Speaker 2: feels like you're trying to trigger a stock market crash
Speaker 2: and a recession, et cetera. You know, there's a theory
Speaker 2: that first of all, recession, who comes down on top
Speaker 2: as you said, the only people who don't really suffer
Speaker 2: are ultimately the richest. And when and everything crashes and
Speaker 2: prices are at rock bottom. We saw this with COVID,
Speaker 2: We saw this with the financial crash. We saw this
Speaker 2: even out of the dot com bubble. The richester are
Speaker 2: able to buy up more assets and then they're the
Speaker 2: ones who are able to benefit. On the other side,
Speaker 2: you know, even with the DOGE cuts on the National
Speaker 2: Weather Service, the FAA going after Social Security, all these
Speaker 2: things that could also precipitate either mass public resistance or
Speaker 2: some sort of an active crisis. Again, those are times
Speaker 2: when presidents are able to claim more power. So that
Speaker 2: is one thought that is out there. Is that to
Speaker 2: your point about like it feels like they want this,
Speaker 2: one theory is that they do.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's true or not, but that
Speaker 2: is one theory that is out there. Just to go
Speaker 2: back to the economic numbers here and why when you
Speaker 2: look at these consumer sentiment what do they expect about inflation? Like,
Speaker 2: why does that matter? Part of the reason that there
Speaker 2: was so much difficulty getting inflation under control in the
Speaker 2: seventy was because of consumer expectations of inflation. So it
Speaker 2: had a self fulfilling aspect to it. Once people thought
Speaker 2: prices are going to go up, then for one thing,
Speaker 2: you get you know, corporations like we saw coming out
Speaker 2: of COVID that are like, oh, well, people think prices
Speaker 2: are going to go up, so I can get away
Speaker 2: with hiking prices. That was actually big part the greedflation
Speaker 2: was a big part of the inflation, not one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: but a significant chunk coming out of the COVID crisis.
Speaker 2: But it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Not to mention
Speaker 2: retailers who many of whom Target reported soft sales big
Speaker 2: lots forever twenty one actually filed for bankruptcy. I think
Speaker 2: this is their second time filing for bankruptcy bedback. A
Speaker 2: bunch of retailers have been warning that their sales are
Speaker 2: soft and are seeing a pullback from consumers already, and
Speaker 2: then when you layer on top of that, they're watching
Speaker 2: these indexes very closely to determine how much stock are
Speaker 2: we going to buy, how many people are we going
Speaker 2: to hire, how many people are we going to lay off.
Speaker 2: All those sorts of things are based on these types
Speaker 2: of metrics and expectations of what consumers feel now and
Speaker 2: what they're likely to do in the future. So that's
Speaker 2: why when you see these metrics, it's not just about like, oh,
Speaker 2: how's Billy feeling about shopping this week, how's his sentiment.
Speaker 2: It has a real impact in terms of the way
Speaker 2: that business reacts in the immediate term and can then,
Speaker 2: like I said, have a self fulfilling prophecy aspect to it,
Speaker 2: especially at a time when the White House's economic policy
Speaker 2: is we'll just call it chaotic, Okay, if there's a plan,
Speaker 2: no one can figure out what the hell it is.
Speaker 2: It's all over the place. You've got mass austerity in
Speaker 2: the government. But meanwhile a tariff policy, which if a
Speaker 2: tariff policy is going to be effective, you actually need
Speaker 2: government spending, industrial policy, investment, etc. The teriff policy's on,
Speaker 2: it's off, it's here, it's there, it's coming in April,
Speaker 2: it's back again. It's all over the map. So there's
Speaker 2: no clear direction there either. And then you also have,
Speaker 2: you know, coming down the pike, the Reconciliation Bill and
Speaker 2: what all of that is going to mean. You've got
Speaker 2: these cuts happening at the government level, which really do
Speaker 2: reverberate in a way that I don't know.
Speaker 3: That people have fully anticipated.
Speaker 2: You see already universities pulling back in terms of their
Speaker 2: spending and hiring. You see healthcare pullbacks in terms of
Speaker 2: their spending and hiring because of the cuts and the
Speaker 2: threats of those cuts to come. So all around it
Speaker 2: is a There are a lot of giant red flags
Speaker 2: and warning signs. Even as you know the stock market
Speaker 2: did better this week, I don't know the markets. I
Speaker 2: think right now it's nine twenty seven, so bad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's stock futures have edged down. We'll see what happens
Speaker 2: for the rest of this week. But there is still
Speaker 2: a lot to be very concerned about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's play Secretary Treasury Scott Besson. He was asked
Speaker 1: about the market crash. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about what happened in the stock market this week,
Speaker 3: worst week for the market in two years. Does that
Speaker 3: worry you, mister Secretary, not at all.
Speaker 8: I've been in the investment of business for thirty five
Speaker 8: years and I can tell you that correction are healthy,
Speaker 8: They're normal. What's not healthy is straight up that you
Speaker 8: get these your ford markets. That's how you get a
Speaker 8: financial crisis. It would have been much healthier. If someone
Speaker 8: had put the brakes on in six oh seven, we
Speaker 8: wouldn't have had the problems in eight.
Speaker 1: So I'm not worried. Well, you know, Okay, it's one
Speaker 1: of those where, look, it's bad optics. I'm not even
Speaker 1: saying it's funny the best and I like best and
Speaker 1: I like a lot of the stuff that he says.
Speaker 1: And if it was just somebody like him, and it
Speaker 1: was a total you know, a government approach which was
Speaker 1: tariff and it was studied, and he was also out
Speaker 1: there saying, you know, the American dream he keeps saying
Speaker 1: is the American dream is not flast screen TV. I
Speaker 1: totally agree on all of this, but when it's coupled
Speaker 1: with literal just madness and chaos that is back and forth,
Speaker 1: obviously no real plan at all, then you're getting into
Speaker 1: territory where people are like, no, well, if all I've
Speaker 1: got going for me is a flat screen TV, then yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're going to try and make that more expensive
Speaker 1: and not sell me on some big broader plan, You're
Speaker 1: going to find yourself in real trouble. Having a not
Speaker 1: billionaire I don't know what he is, several hundred millionaire
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Treasury basically trying to lecture consumers and
Speaker 1: downplaying a stock market return. That's how it's just simply
Speaker 1: going to come off. Even though I agree with the
Speaker 1: guy on a lot a lot of things that he says,
Speaker 1: but just generally five hundred.
Speaker 3: Million, it's poor in the context of this is poor.
Speaker 1: That's right, he is a poor man. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: bad optics over and over again, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that it's being received in the way that they want.
Speaker 1: I mean stuff like that. Imagine you know, if you
Speaker 1: you probably agree maybe I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: agree the who flat screen thing and all that, But
Speaker 1: you gotta feel as if your country's getting a whole
Speaker 1: lot better and you yourself in the immediate and in
Speaker 1: the long term, are buying in to a real plan
Speaker 1: that's going to change overall in the future. The chaos
Speaker 1: when you're also making stuff more expensive and nuken consumer
Speaker 1: sentiment and the stock market in the immediate term, you're
Speaker 1: just making it so that people are more stressed out
Speaker 1: in their day to day life, and people hate that,
Speaker 1: and they should.
Speaker 2: I think it was our now who made this point
Speaker 2: on Twitter about like, yeah, I mean there he's.
Speaker 3: Not to your point, he's not wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's right that if you have you know, our
Speaker 2: economy is way over financialized. It is almost certainly these
Speaker 2: tech stocks are almost certainly overvalued in anticipation of AI.
Speaker 2: I mean, Tesla's stock has been wildly overvalued. Just come
Speaker 2: back to earth a little bit. But it's still you know,
Speaker 2: we likely are in a giant sort of everything bubble.
Speaker 2: And if you look at an analogous situation, you know,
Speaker 2: we actually covered here on the show how China intentionally
Speaker 2: let the air out of its real estate development bubble
Speaker 2: and did that because they wanted to focus financial resources
Speaker 2: in other parts of their economy. So they had a
Speaker 2: priority to you know, maintain their manufacturing industrial base. Also,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk probably on Thursday about the way
Speaker 2: they have just technologically developed at an astronomical pace. Now
Speaker 2: they have byd has an EV that can charge almost
Speaker 2: three hundred miles in five minutes like that is astonishing,
Speaker 2: And so they wanted the tech investment, they wanted the
Speaker 2: you know, to maintain the industrial base. So they intentionally
Speaker 2: let the air out of this giant real estate bubble.
Speaker 2: But it had it was done in a like planned
Speaker 2: and concerted fashion. If you're just causing a stock market
Speaker 2: crash and a recession, but there's no like here's how
Speaker 2: we're going to build back better on the other side,
Speaker 2: then you're just causing pain.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: You're taking from people what has been created as the
Speaker 2: American dream. We've had decades that have been directed towards
Speaker 2: making this a consumer driven economy where basically what you
Speaker 2: get instead of having a vibrant factory in your town
Speaker 2: and middle class union jobs, et cetera, is the flat
Speaker 2: screen TV. You're going to take that away from people,
Speaker 2: and you're not going to offer anything else. And on
Speaker 2: the contrary, you're cutting their Social Security and you're cutting their.
Speaker 3: Medicaid, etc. Then yeah, that's not going to.
Speaker 2: Be a plan or a program that anyone signs up for,
Speaker 2: especially when it's being sold by a bunch of billionaires
Speaker 2: and a near five hundred millionaire in this particular case,
Speaker 2: and go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that's the issue. Let's put D five
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. This is US shoppers cutting
Speaker 1: spending as their economic outlook concerns mount. This goes exactly
Speaker 1: to the same problem. And overall, you know, if we
Speaker 1: have inflation, tariff on off changes to people's retirement status quo,
Speaker 1: possible cuts to services, or at least the appearance of
Speaker 1: cuts to services. One thing I remember talking about this
Speaker 1: with Biden. Sometimes the facts don't actually matter. And yes,
Speaker 1: I know that that's disconcerting a lot of consumer sentiments,
Speaker 1: stock market and all this stuff. It's bullshit. It's just feeling.
Speaker 1: You need to feel confident. People feel confident, they change.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that. Think about your own life. Well, if
Speaker 1: people feel as if there's chaos, that will do just
Speaker 1: have downstream effects that feed more into bad market. So
Speaker 1: even if the reality and all that doesn't change, it
Speaker 1: won't even matter in some cases if people feel as
Speaker 1: if you're going in the wrong direction. This consistently happened
Speaker 1: under Biden. You know, liberal economists and all that world
Speaker 1: like actually everything is fine. It's like that's literally never
Speaker 1: worked in all of history. Same thing here, Trying to
Speaker 1: sell a false vision of what people feel never works.
Speaker 2: At Yeah, politically, there's also just big structural like the
Speaker 2: cost of living crisis is incredibly real, and it was
Speaker 2: real before inflation hit. I mean, the cost of healthcare, housing,
Speaker 2: and education has been skyrocketing for decades, vastly outpacing any
Speaker 2: any wage gains that the American public, minimal wage gains
Speaker 2: that the American public has experienced over the past let's
Speaker 2: say thirty to forty years, and so you know, it
Speaker 2: really has reached a point where so many people housing
Speaker 2: is just an unbelievable burden. Rent is so incredibly high,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, the you know little bit of this
Speaker 2: or that that they did, or the unemployment rate being low,
Speaker 2: whatever metrics that they're pointing to, it's like, you don't
Speaker 2: get it. I am still struggling. And the price increases.
Speaker 2: The inflation that came, you know, in the wake of
Speaker 2: COVID for a variety of reasons and was not dealt
Speaker 2: with effectively by the Biden administration just pushed people past
Speaker 2: the brink. So you know, all of those things are
Speaker 2: incredibly real and not well captured by some of the
Speaker 2: macroeconomic indices. But you know there's again like if the
Speaker 2: Trump administration was like, here's how we're going to deal
Speaker 2: with that, and you know, yes, there's going to be rebalancing,
Speaker 2: but we're going to make sure like you're gonna be
Speaker 2: able to afford a home, and here's the plan. Here's
Speaker 2: how we're bringing down the cost of education, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And here's how, here's how we're going to get you healthcare.
Speaker 2: But on the contrary, you know the minimal reforms that
Speaker 2: were made by the Biden administration to try to bring down, like,
Speaker 2: you know, drug prices for example, some of those have
Speaker 2: been rolled back by the Trump administration. So there if
Speaker 2: anything going in the opposite direction on those key pieces
Speaker 2: that I still think.
Speaker 3: Are like the major drivers of.
Speaker 2: Economic discontent, and then they're just laying layering on top of.
Speaker 1: That extra chaos, playing with fire.
Speaker 2: I think we're getting more clarity on what the plan
Speaker 2: is here from Doge and from the Trump administration. And
Speaker 2: just to back up before I show you this memo
Speaker 2: that has been now revealed by a couple of different
Speaker 2: news outlets about the plan. With regard to Social Security,
Speaker 2: Elon has been targeting Social Security for a long time.
Speaker 2: He went on Joe Rogan's podcast called it a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 2: He's retweeted Mike Lee, who's a libertarian, who calls it
Speaker 2: a Ponzi scheme and a fraud, etc. Trump has long
Speaker 2: positioned himself as an anti austerity republican basically didn't care
Speaker 2: about the debt and the deficit until this term, and
Speaker 2: has always said I will not cut Social Security Medicare.
Speaker 2: He really distinguished himself from the Republican pack by making
Speaker 2: those particular pledges. However, in his Stay of the Union address,
Speaker 2: he echoed some of the same fraudulent claims made by
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and the DOGE people, claiming that there were
Speaker 2: all these people who were dead who were receiving Social
Speaker 2: Security benefits and painting a picture of widespread fraud within
Speaker 2: the Social Security system that is just not true. So
Speaker 2: that was very troubling because it seemed that he was
Speaker 2: joining in with Elon in laying the groundwork to cut
Speaker 2: Social Security whilst claiming they were just cutting the fraud
Speaker 2: from social Security. So now we have, like I said,
Speaker 2: some more clarity from this memo that was leaked from
Speaker 2: inside the Social Security Administration that reveals what they're planning
Speaker 2: to do and can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: Axios obtained a draft of this memo. It was signed
Speaker 2: by the Acting Deputy Social Security Commissioner for Operation, someone
Speaker 2: named Doris Diaz on March thirteenth, and it was written
Speaker 2: on behalf of the agency's Operations department. So it was
Speaker 2: first reported by Popular Info. Show you some more details
Speaker 2: from them in a moment. That's Jed Legums outlet. But
Speaker 2: Axios here confirming the reporting, and they say that this
Speaker 2: memo was sent one day after the agency had denied
Speaker 2: a report that they were scrapping their toll free phone line. Well,
Speaker 2: so they denied that, and now in this memo they
Speaker 2: say that they are actually moving forward with getting rid
Speaker 2: of most phone service for Social Security beneficiaries. Now why
Speaker 2: does this matter? As I was reading through this, apparently
Speaker 2: what happens frequently is people have to go through a
Speaker 2: process either online or currently by the phone, to verify
Speaker 2: their identity. Okay, that seems like a good thing. A
Speaker 2: lot of old people and a lot of people, remember
Speaker 2: social securities for people who have disability as well, a
Speaker 2: lot of people struggle with that online process, and according
Speaker 2: to some people who are at the Social Security Administration,
Speaker 2: for some people, the online process just literally doesn't work
Speaker 2: for whatever unique circumstances they have going on, and so
Speaker 2: then they either have to go to a Social Security
Speaker 2: field office to reserve all those problems, or are more
Speaker 2: commonly to call the toll free Social Security line and
Speaker 2: get help over the phone. And verify their identity that way,
Speaker 2: So that is what they're planning to get rid of.
Speaker 2: This comes at a time also when they're cutting the
Speaker 2: funds for the Social Security field offices, so that avenue
Speaker 2: is also becoming less available. So officials are really sounding
Speaker 2: the alarms. You had one person who said these proposed
Speaker 2: changes are a way they're trying to use red tape
Speaker 2: to literally block people from getting benefits. Another one said
Speaker 2: the money that it would cost to implement these changes
Speaker 2: would dwarf any savings that would come from cracking down
Speaker 2: on quote unquote identity fraud. They also said that the
Speaker 2: proposed limitations would be really a problem, in particular for
Speaker 2: people live in rural areas who may have either no
Speaker 2: internet or poor internet access, and for whom the field
Speaker 2: office is far away and difficult to access. We could
Speaker 2: put put the E one slideshow back up on the
Speaker 2: screen here so we can go through some of the
Speaker 2: details that we review by jud Legam as well.
Speaker 3: Well. So he says exclusive.
Speaker 2: Internal Social Security Administration memo lays out a plan to
Speaker 2: sabotage the agency, predicts service disruption, operational strain, and budget
Speaker 2: shortfalls that will result. It's going to put the next
Speaker 2: piece up on the screen here, revealing additional details. He says,
Speaker 2: under the new system, this would force these populations to
Speaker 2: visit an office to have their clean process. The memo
Speaker 2: estimates it would require seventy five thousand to eighty five
Speaker 2: thousand in person visitors per week to ssay's offices to
Speaker 2: implement the policy. They do not have the resources to
Speaker 2: handle and influx. These concerns are raised in this memo.
Speaker 2: I think we have one more piece of this that
Speaker 2: we can share with you as well. A source said
Speaker 2: there are no significant concerns about frauded intake because multiple
Speaker 2: layers of ID verification takes place before a claim is approved.
Speaker 2: The source said they believe the new steps are an
Speaker 2: effort to create additional hurdles to filing claims and quote
Speaker 2: overwhelm the system. So to back up and take this
Speaker 2: all in, Okay, this change is not going to save
Speaker 2: any money because implementing it is going to you know,
Speaker 2: the program currently, like the way it's administered in the
Speaker 2: phone system, it's not that expensive. Making these changes is
Speaker 2: actually going to cost money, So you're not saving any money.
Speaker 2: You're just making it more difficult for people who are
Speaker 2: entitled to the benefits to be able to access the benefits.
Speaker 2: So does it matter that social security exists and it
Speaker 2: hasn't been officially quote unquote cut if more and more
Speaker 2: and more people are unable to get access to the benefits,
Speaker 2: And so that seems to be the plan here is
Speaker 2: basically to hobble the system and strangle it with red
Speaker 2: tape and with cuts so that it is more and
Speaker 2: more difficult for people to actually get the benefits that
Speaker 2: they are entitled to.
Speaker 1: What's so dumb about it is they're not wrong that
Speaker 1: the ID dot ME you know, verification is incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: to use and is not a very good system. So
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you, when you phase it out implement a
Speaker 1: new system That seems like rolling something out that makes
Speaker 1: something easier is exactly the way that you would want
Speaker 1: to show efficiency and access to service. And instead, what
Speaker 1: basically from what I have seen and I looked as
Speaker 1: much as I could into this is that it basically
Speaker 1: is trying to reduce the amount of phone reliance while
Speaker 1: at the same time, as you said, increasing foot traffic
Speaker 1: to these offices. Now, you know, our debate, notwithstanding on
Speaker 1: whether we're coddling old people too much and all that
Speaker 1: You're not wrong that there are They are entitled to
Speaker 1: this money and they did pay into it is the
Speaker 1: right of every American citizen. So I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to provide customer service in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. But the promise originally was to create a
Speaker 1: new system which would make it more accessible. They've recently
Speaker 1: come out and said that they're cleaning the data or
Speaker 1: whatever to reflect that one hundred and twenty year olds, etc.
Speaker 1: Are not getting it. I mean, that's one of those
Speaker 1: where I'm like, Okay, thanks, Like I didn't know that
Speaker 1: was a huge problem in my life and in the
Speaker 1: government right because there wasn't there was a lot of
Speaker 1: money that was so like, yeah, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that the US government is not archaic, doesn't use
Speaker 1: as stupid systems, doesn't need database, et cetera. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a political genius. I would just say screwing
Speaker 1: with old people's money or making it more difficult to
Speaker 1: get with them seems like a bad idea just in general. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, what you would want to do is to
Speaker 1: be a very easy way for dose become much more
Speaker 1: popular would be to roll out or implement something that
Speaker 1: makes it way easier to get access to your Social
Speaker 1: security Yeah, I will say, though it's not that fricking hard.
Speaker 1: I actually went I myself. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever done this. I once logged into my Social Security account.
Speaker 1: I be like, I wonder how much money I'm going
Speaker 1: to have, you know, whenever I'm old, just inflation adjusted.
Speaker 1: It's not that difficult to set up. So I will
Speaker 1: say that that's my only my last swipe at the
Speaker 1: at the elderly. Just ask somebody and you could figure
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: I want a base on this, but I will say
Speaker 2: that the experts indicate that for some people, you literally
Speaker 2: this online system doesn't work. So you're right though, if
Speaker 2: you know, in the idealized, hypothetical version of DOGE, in
Speaker 2: which they're actually interested in efficiency and not just like
Speaker 2: an ideological project to consolidate power for Elon Musk and
Speaker 2: his billionaire buddies. In the hypothetical version of DOGE, they
Speaker 2: would look at that and say, well, we got to
Speaker 2: fix that. Right, everybody should be able to get access
Speaker 2: to social security online. It should be straightforward and easy,
Speaker 2: and then that eases the burdens on the field offices.
Speaker 2: And then maybe we can cut the fat and trim
Speaker 2: some of these field offices because they're just not needed
Speaker 2: as much. Maybe we can trim the phone lines after
Speaker 2: we get a new system that allows people to enroll
Speaker 2: in this way, that's like super easy. But of course
Speaker 2: you want to maintain the phone lines at least to
Speaker 2: some extent, so that some people who struggle or don't
Speaker 2: have internet access or whatever can get access. But that's
Speaker 2: not what we're talking about here. I mean, it just
Speaker 2: becomes very plain that there's an ideological vendetta against social security.
Speaker 2: They realize it's a political problem to say we're cutting
Speaker 2: social security, and so instead they're making it impossible for
Speaker 2: some people to be able to access it. And then
Speaker 2: with regard to the cleaning the data, we may have
Speaker 2: some potential fallout from that cleaning of the data where
Speaker 2: some people are getting kicked off who are rightful beneficiaries.
Speaker 2: We could put this up on the screen. There have
Speaker 2: been two news reports thus far. You've got one person
Speaker 2: who was marked dead but is very much alive.
Speaker 3: You could see him pictured here.
Speaker 2: It was hell on earth for him to be able
Speaker 2: to This one is extraordinary because they actually went into
Speaker 2: his account and clawed back some five thousand dollars that
Speaker 2: he was right had rightfully received through Social Security because
Speaker 2: they marked him dead. Perhaps as part of this quote
Speaker 2: unquote data cleaning, they're actually you know, revoking some people
Speaker 2: who are rightful beneficiaries. He tried calling the phone lines.
Speaker 2: There were hours upon hours wits because they are flooded
Speaker 2: and they have cut back on staff, so they're understaffed.
Speaker 2: They're flooded with calls right now, probably from other people
Speaker 2: who've been marked dead, and whatever goes to the field office,
Speaker 2: the line is out the door. Hours of wait there
Speaker 2: before he can finally talk to someone and figure it
Speaker 2: out and get it fixed. But even then he still
Speaker 2: has these like lingering effets, because once the government marks
Speaker 2: you as dead, it creates all sorts of problems. Your
Speaker 2: bank assumes you're dead, your credit card issuers assume you're dead, like,
Speaker 2: all sorts of problems that he's now going to have
Speaker 2: to deal with. The other one just put it back
Speaker 2: up on the screen there for one more second. The
Speaker 2: other one, the benefits weren't clawed out of his account,
Speaker 2: but normally his Medicare payment comes directly on of his
Speaker 2: Social Security check, so he gets a notice. This is
Speaker 2: a man who lives in Oklahoma City gets a notice
Speaker 2: from Medicare of like, oh, you know, we're not getting
Speaker 2: your payment. So he's like, okay, well, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: So he goes on looks and finds that he has
Speaker 2: is also been kicked off of Social Security, is not
Speaker 2: getting the benefits that he is entitled to receive. He
Speaker 2: thinks it's because he was actually born his dad served
Speaker 2: in the military. He was born overseas on a military
Speaker 2: base in Germany. Now that, of course he's still an
Speaker 2: American citizen, like being born on an American military base
Speaker 2: means you were born in America, etc. But he thinks
Speaker 2: that's what caused him to be marked as you know,
Speaker 2: probably like a fraudulent beneficiary or whatever, because some idiot
Speaker 2: saw that he was born in Germany and just assume
Speaker 2: that meant that he wasn't entitled to these benefits. That's
Speaker 2: his theory of what's going on here. But if you
Speaker 2: start to see more and more of these rightful beneficiaries
Speaker 2: just getting kicked off, these two individuals were lucky that
Speaker 2: they were financially secure enough that this was not their
Speaker 2: entire income, but given the time it took to resolve,
Speaker 2: and the fact that those five thousand dollars were clawed
Speaker 2: on the account. Like if this was someone who this
Speaker 2: was their sole source of income and they were entirely
Speaker 2: dependent on this would have caused a massive, massive financial
Speaker 2: disaster for an elderly person for no reason. So those
Speaker 2: are some of the things that are starting to happen here,
Speaker 2: you know, to get to the political fallout, this looks
Speaker 2: to be one of the biggest pain points and fears
Speaker 2: and concerns that has been incited by the Trump administration overall.
Speaker 2: Indulged in particular, could put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was the line at a town hall for Chuck Edwards,
Speaker 2: Republican congressperson in Asheville, North Carolina. This person says there
Speaker 2: were seventeen hundred and seventy people lined up for this
Speaker 2: town hall. The space holds around four hundred. There were
Speaker 2: some extraordinary images and outraged constituents who were filmed at
Speaker 2: that town hall. I think that's the one where a
Speaker 2: veteran was yelling at him and got escorted out, etc.
Speaker 2: But the very first question put the next hair shade
Speaker 2: up on the screen. The very first question at that
Speaker 2: town hall had to do with social security benefits. The
Speaker 2: first questionnaire said, would he ensure the protection of our
Speaker 2: social security benefits? And apparently the room erupted in applause.
Speaker 2: They also have to impost tracks another town hall with
Speaker 2: a Michig Republican where some of the of the thirteen
Speaker 2: questions that this representative took, nine were related to social security.
Speaker 2: In a nearby mid Michigan district, they say that was
Speaker 2: among the most competitive US House races last year. A
Speaker 2: poll taken at the beginning of first term GP Rep.
Speaker 2: Tom Barrett's telephone town hall showed social security and medicare
Speaker 2: as the top issue for attendees. So this is a
Speaker 2: major political fault line, and they are trying to use
Speaker 2: backdoor methods to cut this program without coming out and
Speaker 2: saying we are cutting the program. But people are wising
Speaker 2: up to what.
Speaker 3: Is going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Ashville is very liberal area, but still
Speaker 1: I mean it's one of those where.
Speaker 3: They've got a Republican congressman and they can't be that liberal.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's one of those very gerrymanner districts
Speaker 1: if I recall big But anyway, look, you don't want
Speaker 1: it no matter where you are. If people are liberal,
Speaker 1: whether they're Republican, if they're old, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be hearing this and there, you know, aside from the
Speaker 1: Israel lobby, the only other lobby that you don't ever
Speaker 1: want to mess with in Washington is what aar and
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you that if you start coming and
Speaker 1: stories like that start to go viral on Boom or Facebook,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have yourself a real problem on your hands.
Speaker 1: Senator Chuck Schumer, he's canceling a bunch of established book
Speaker 1: events citing security concerns, even though there's no evidence of that.
Speaker 1: In reality, he just doesn't want to face any tough questions.
Speaker 1: John Stewart, as always sounding off. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: Did Schumer get anything from Republicans in exchange for those
Speaker 3: dumb boats?
Speaker 1: He did not.
Speaker 5: Senator Schumer, no disrespect, but you are a disgrace to
Speaker 5: Jewish stereotypes about financial negotiations.
Speaker 3: You're going to keep out it.
Speaker 9: Keep at it, keep out it, keep pat it at what.
Speaker 3: This was it?
Speaker 5: This was the it that you would have been keeping
Speaker 5: at the keeping of the it.
Speaker 4: It's not the keeping of it.
Speaker 1: That's the issue, it's what.
Speaker 9: The it don't you have to start it to keep
Speaker 9: at it.
Speaker 1: If this wasn't it, then.
Speaker 3: It's what is it?
Speaker 4: If this not be it?
Speaker 5: But apparently the grand plan is Dems keep fecklessly complaining
Speaker 5: until the forty eight approval comes down to forty which
Speaker 5: is a plan, but it's forgetting one crucial piece of
Speaker 5: information in Schumer's popularity.
Speaker 10: Calculation, devastating cascading poll numbers for Democrats. Only twenty seven
Speaker 10: percent of voters have a positive view of the party,
Speaker 10: the lowest favorability rating in the history of NBC's polling.
Speaker 9: You're a twenty five person, You've got to get Trump
Speaker 9: to lose eight points of popularity just for you to
Speaker 9: get to the point where you're thirteen points below him.
Speaker 1: Thirteen points below he shredded him as only Stuart Kenny
Speaker 1: did a good job. Yeah, I mean it's one of
Speaker 1: those with Schumer his I just don't get what is
Speaker 1: going on on a policy level. I genuinely do understand it.
Speaker 1: As I said, They're like, look, if we shut the
Speaker 1: government down, then Elon and Trump will get to decide
Speaker 1: who's essential or not essential. Let's actually pretty good argument.
Speaker 1: But the issue is that it just is all couched
Speaker 1: for Schumer in this like in this sense of he's
Speaker 1: trying to pretend that he's standing up for Trump, but
Speaker 1: he's also not even dispositionally planning anything months ahead of time.
Speaker 1: Like if we had come to this outcome, I think
Speaker 1: with the liberal planning for you know, two months or
Speaker 1: so before this, and this still is how we ended up.
Speaker 1: But at least people would say, Okay, we thought we
Speaker 1: tried this, we extracted concession. It would be a very
Speaker 1: very different scenario. But here especial, as they got caught
Speaker 1: flat footed. Now they look like idiots. And then even worse,
Speaker 1: Schumer is now doing what they're accusing Republicans are doing,
Speaker 1: which is hiding from angry constituents. Right, you're a hypocrite.
Speaker 3: Oh you're not buying his security concerns. Come.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing is he's just he provoked
Speaker 2: a mass liberal, moderate progressive, like whole of party backlash.
Speaker 2: I think he's got madgal asis on his side. And
Speaker 2: that's about it at this point, because across the board
Speaker 2: they want to see people fight. This is the only
Speaker 2: moment when you have leverage. You have known that for
Speaker 2: months to come. Where was the plan? Where was the fight?
Speaker 2: I mean to me, we played this on the Friday
Speaker 2: Show and Zagery probably saw it too. Chris Hayes laughing
Speaker 2: in his face, Oh yes, yeah. When he says basically
Speaker 2: like we got to fight him at every step, and
Speaker 2: he's like, what are you talking about? You're literally here
Speaker 2: on my show. This is not how he frees it,
Speaker 2: but this is how went in my head. You're literally
Speaker 2: here on my show to announce your intention to not fight,
Speaker 2: so fight every step of the way, Like where is
Speaker 2: the fight? Where is this theoretical fight? And so I
Speaker 2: think there are in my estimation, three things going on
Speaker 2: with Chuck Schumer. Number one, he's old as an outdated
Speaker 2: mental model about politics. He thinks this is all just
Speaker 2: like politics as usual. Shutdowns are bad, like he's still
Speaker 2: operating on a mental model from circle let's say nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four. I think that's number one. I think number two,
Speaker 2: that idiotic James Carvell op ed in the New York
Speaker 2: Times that instructed Democrats to lay down and play dead
Speaker 2: and let Trump make his own mess and not make
Speaker 2: any sort of affirmative case against him or fight him
Speaker 2: in any way. I think that Carvell and others actually
Speaker 2: buy into that, which is idiotic, the polar opposite of
Speaker 2: the way that Republicans have effectively fought Democrats whatever Democrats
Speaker 2: get any semblance of power. So I think that's part
Speaker 2: of it. And number three, Yeah, I do think the
Speaker 2: fact that it was Chuck Schumer and Kirsten jelibrand the
Speaker 2: two senators from New York who led the charge to
Speaker 2: cave at a time when Wall Street was very on edge.
Speaker 2: Stock market went on down a lot last week. We're
Speaker 2: worried what our stocks might do if the government shuts
Speaker 2: down for a period of time. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 2: that that is an accident when you look at the
Speaker 2: fact that both of those centers senators drive a lot
Speaker 2: of their power and their campaign contributions from Wall Street
Speaker 2: to like, I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to
Speaker 2: say they would have been responsive to those concerns and
Speaker 2: that it's not an accent that those two that.
Speaker 3: Ultimately lead the charge here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, New York Times even skeptical of him on
Speaker 2: his strategy here, but they also asked him so his
Speaker 2: book tour is supposed to be about this whole like,
Speaker 2: you know, anti Semitism thing, and he was supposed to
Speaker 2: have his first event with Richie Torres, etc. And they
Speaker 2: asked him about, well, you know, isn't it legitimate to
Speaker 2: criticize Israel? And isn't it legitimate even the UN body
Speaker 2: has suggested that these were genocidal acts. Take a listen
Speaker 2: to what he had to say in response.
Speaker 4: Hummas made it much to and no one blames him us.
Speaker 4: I mean, the news reports every day for a while
Speaker 4: showed Palestinians being hurt and killed. And you know, I
Speaker 4: see the pictures of a little Palestinian boy without a
Speaker 4: leg where I saw one sticks in my head. There
Speaker 4: was a little girl like eleven twelve crime because her
Speaker 4: parents were both killed. I ache for that, But on
Speaker 4: the news reports they never mentioned that. So much of
Speaker 4: the time Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields.
Speaker 4: And so when these protesters come and accuse Israel of
Speaker 4: genocide and said what about Hamas, they don't even want
Speaker 4: to talk about Hamas again. Genocide is a vicious, vicious
Speaker 4: word to use.
Speaker 6: I will say it's a word that a UN special
Speaker 6: committee has used police.
Speaker 4: The UN has been anti Israel, anti semitically, against Israel,
Speaker 4: double standard. Moynihan was my idol. He became famous when
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy six they tried to pass the resolution
Speaker 4: Zionism is racism. To say that the Jewish people should
Speaker 4: not have a state when every other people should have
Speaker 4: a state is anti semitism. The old double standard ipso
Speaker 4: fact dope, and the international organizations. I have no faith
Speaker 4: in them being fair.
Speaker 2: I mean I get spend an hour disia like there
Speaker 2: is nothing like, there's nothing wrong proposing at no states.
Speaker 3: Number one. Number two.
Speaker 2: His claim is that the news reports are too pro Hamas,
Speaker 2: Like have you read these news reports the way that
Speaker 2: they twist and turn themselves and tie themselves into knots
Speaker 2: to avoid laying any responsibility for the mass slaughter of
Speaker 2: women and children and non combats and innocent civilians and
Speaker 2: starving them. I mean, Israel's currently starving them, has institute
Speaker 2: of a complete siege.
Speaker 3: And the way these news reports.
Speaker 2: Seek to avoid laying any blame and responsibility isn't okay.
Speaker 2: So to claim that they're too pro Hama, that's insane.
Speaker 2: Not to mention his whole thing about like, oh, people
Speaker 2: never want to talk about Hamas and how they're using
Speaker 2: them for human You know why the focus of the
Speaker 2: protests is is our government is funding Israel, we are
Speaker 2: not funding Hamma. So yes, we take a great interest
Speaker 2: in the way that we are sending bombs to a
Speaker 2: country that is dropping them on top of innocent civilians.
Speaker 2: I think that's reasonable. And then the claim O, you know,
Speaker 2: genocide is anti Semitic and the un is Hamas like
Speaker 2: just it's just you can't make it up, like it's
Speaker 2: he hits every single note. And I almost have to say,
Speaker 2: Sagart like to insist that the one of the largest
Speaker 2: problems that the country faces right now is the scourge
Speaker 2: of anti Semitism, like there is no evidence to back
Speaker 2: that up, and to the extent, and I think it's
Speaker 2: probably true that anti Semitism has spiked. Perhaps it has
Speaker 2: to do with people like you who are constantly tying
Speaker 2: all Jewish people to the actions of a state that
Speaker 2: is currently starving and bombing babies. Maybe that has something
Speaker 2: to do with the spike, alleged spike in anti Semitic sentiment.
Speaker 1: It's a moral panic complete it's that you change the
Speaker 1: definition of anti semitism to include criticism of Israel. Than sure,
Speaker 1: anti Semitism is a huge problem, but if you're talking
Speaker 1: about actual hatred of Jews. It's ridiculous. This idea that
Speaker 1: there are literally like raving, roving gangs of anti Semites
Speaker 1: across America is so preposterous. And beyond that, you're obviously
Speaker 1: watching how many of these Jewish students themselves are called
Speaker 1: anti Semitics. So the whole thing, you know, by by
Speaker 1: Schumer's own standard, a lot of these Jews are anti Semitic,
Speaker 1: which I love watching people twist and turn in the
Speaker 1: wind on that one. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It's
Speaker 1: complete and total false moral panic, and it is one
Speaker 1: used to basically use the legacy of that from the
Speaker 1: past to bring this insane you know, censorship and dialogue,
Speaker 1: you know, restricting dialogue here in America to create a
Speaker 1: political environment that is beneficial for a foreign government. And
Speaker 1: you put it that way, that's when people start to
Speaker 1: get real quiet and real uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Alright, Okay, great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow. We'll see
Speaker 1: you all then,