Speaker 1: Happy Friday, everybody. I was lamenting yesterday when we were
Speaker 1: trying to put the show together that there's just too
Speaker 1: damn much news to try to cover. So we've got
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that's interesting in the show today.
Speaker 1: Ryan and Emiley, how are you guys doing.
Speaker 2: Hey, good to see you, Lovely, great to see it.
Speaker 1: Lots of Elon updates, some Laura Lomer updates, we got
Speaker 1: some Gavin Newsom, some the latest with the tariffs. Are
Speaker 1: they on or off? What does it all mean? Nobody
Speaker 1: really knows. Some interesting stuff from the Democrats as well,
Speaker 1: as they continue to find themselves a little bit lost
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. More than a little bit lost in
Speaker 1: the wilderness, I'd say, so, lots to get through. Let
Speaker 1: me go ahead and start with this image to set
Speaker 1: the stage for today. We had another starship that you
Speaker 1: know from Elon's company, SpaceX, that blew up upon launch yesterday.
Speaker 1: This is a somebody who was a passenger on a
Speaker 1: commercial flight that took this video. You can see all
Speaker 1: the debris in the air there, and we were talking beforehand.
Speaker 1: So this is the second blow up that Starts has
Speaker 1: had this year. The FA was previously investigating the last one,
Speaker 1: you know, at least before SpaceX guys basically came in
Speaker 1: and did like a hostile takeover the FAA. This is
Speaker 1: out of eight starship launches, four of them have failed,
Speaker 1: so not a great success rate, especially since NASA is
Speaker 1: effectively pinning the future of the Space Shuttle program on
Speaker 1: Elon and SpaceX at this point. So any reflections on this,
Speaker 1: guys so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean after the last one, right,
Speaker 2: they launched investigation and then you know, Doge has been
Speaker 2: able to shut that investigation down.
Speaker 3: As producer Mac was pointing out before this show.
Speaker 2: Started, the last one had you know, you know, real
Speaker 2: repercussions for people who were.
Speaker 3: In the.
Speaker 2: Blast zone, the radius of that debris, you know, collapsing
Speaker 2: back down to Earth. And I think it's an awkward
Speaker 2: time because if you're looking at doing cuts to federal
Speaker 2: spendings such as closing security offices, such as firing eighty
Speaker 2: thousand VA workers, which we'll talk about later in the show,
Speaker 2: to have that paired with sending all this money to SpaceX,
Speaker 2: and then to have it just blow up in the sky,
Speaker 2: it's not a great image, not a great look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the investigations of SpaceX have been not just
Speaker 1: from the FAA, they've also been environmental issues with them
Speaker 1: not you know, following compliance and causing damage to the
Speaker 1: you know, the area where they're testing these rockets and
Speaker 1: the surrounding communities. This one caused multiple commercial flights to
Speaker 1: have to be diverted. The last one also caused I
Speaker 1: think around a dozen commercial flights to have to be diverted.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's the FA that's doing all that work. So
Speaker 1: again Elon's involvement at the FA becomes directly, you know,
Speaker 1: direct conflict there. And you had a couple of Florida
Speaker 1: airports that had to shut down completely for at least
Speaker 1: a couple hours while this debris was falling from the
Speaker 1: sky to avoid any you know, further incidents. So yeah,
Speaker 1: said Ryan, not a great look. There's a bunch of
Speaker 1: other Elon news here to get to. This is probably
Speaker 1: the most significant from yesterday, which is Trump gathered the
Speaker 1: cabinet together to let them know Elon Musk is not
Speaker 1: in charge of hiring and firing.
Speaker 4: They are.
Speaker 1: Kyle Cheney here, who's a great follow in terms of
Speaker 1: just like the legal ins and outs. In particular, she
Speaker 1: says it was an abrupt admonition that appeared aimed at
Speaker 1: the mounting legal scrutiny of Musk's power over the government.
Speaker 1: And what he's pointing to there, Emily, I think is
Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, there have been these all
Speaker 1: these court cases. One of them is focused on whether
Speaker 1: the Office of Personal Management has the ability to just
Speaker 1: blanket fire federal employees across the government, not just obviously
Speaker 1: within their own agency, you know, as part of that,
Speaker 1: like obviously DOGE does not technically have the power to
Speaker 1: just blanket fire whoever they want across the entire federal government.
Speaker 1: So one way to read this that some people are is, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is Trump actually.
Speaker 4: Reigning in elon.
Speaker 1: Another way to read it is this is the Trump
Speaker 1: administration trying to position themselves in a stronger way legally
Speaker 1: without really changing the dynamics of what they're doing here.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I mean I think that's absolutely true. I
Speaker 5: actually think in a weird way, both are true. But
Speaker 5: this was always an easier I don't want to call
Speaker 5: it a loophole, but this was always an easier way
Speaker 5: to approach the situation. And I think maybe part of
Speaker 5: it is now they have the whole cabinet in place.
Speaker 5: Basically I think maybe tchaves Derrimer, who'll get a vote soon.
Speaker 5: They're a couple outstanding people. But now most of the
Speaker 5: cabinet is in place, so you have people who can
Speaker 5: make those decisions who aren't big balls, and it's like
Speaker 5: it's it always just made more sense to have that.
Speaker 5: It's like legally easier. And Trump the only other interesting
Speaker 5: thing in that I think was Trump saying now according
Speaker 5: to Politico, that these cuts will be done with the
Speaker 5: scalpel and not the hatchet. So that makes me think
Speaker 5: it's a little bit of both that he actually has
Speaker 5: realized that there's been and a lot of like sledge
Speaker 5: hammer like rehirings and maybe like not not the most
Speaker 5: efficient way of going towards efficiency. And so he's like
Speaker 5: just saying, we've got the cabinet at place now, like
Speaker 5: you guys are actually in charge of this, just know
Speaker 5: that we want cuts. Because the other thing he says,
Speaker 5: according to the political story, is if you don't do
Speaker 5: the cuts, Elon will do the cuts. So now he's
Speaker 5: just like using Elon Musk as the sort of damaclets
Speaker 5: like hovering over anyone who's out of compliance with the
Speaker 5: spirit of DOGE, and Elon Musk is not, I guess
Speaker 5: in charge of DOGE. I mean he's the head of DOGE,
Speaker 5: but he's not the administrator of DOGE. It's hard to
Speaker 5: keep up, right up.
Speaker 2: According to the speech, Yeah, Doge or something.
Speaker 5: Everyone is Doge in their hearts.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And from that, from the outside, it looks like chaos.
Speaker 2: It looks like wait a minute. You know, you told
Speaker 2: us that you've spent the last four years putting together this.
Speaker 2: You know this, this detailed, sophisticated play. Talking to people
Speaker 2: who know what they're doing. You got former own B
Speaker 2: director Russ Votis back at OH and B.
Speaker 3: He did his project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: They're gonna come in, they're gonna do exactly exactly what
Speaker 2: they've wanted to do. And then they do that thing
Speaker 2: and then they're like, actually, never mind, We're going to
Speaker 2: do it a completely different way. And they're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, re hiring thousands of USDA employees. I noticed,
Speaker 2: and they're a bunch of others are in limbo. We're
Speaker 2: on administrative leave, but we can't get in touch with anybody.
Speaker 3: Are we fired?
Speaker 2: Are we still going to get our paychecks? Are are
Speaker 2: we coming back because you're now acknowledging that what this
Speaker 2: judge said about our firings that they were illegal, they
Speaker 2: are illegal. So am I rehired? Or am I still fired?
Speaker 2: How's this all gonna work? Or or is it just
Speaker 2: going to be like the tariffs where we talk about
Speaker 2: it a lot, do a little bit, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of pain for some in a micro level for
Speaker 2: some people, but then it all gets flipped and we
Speaker 2: kind of move on and pretend like it never happened.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a great point. I mean, for what
Speaker 1: it's worth. My personal read of this is that the
Speaker 1: real message was sent in that public cabinet meeting where
Speaker 1: Trump says to all of them like, if you don't
Speaker 1: like it, get the hell out. So the message is
Speaker 1: sent you better do what Elon wants you to do.
Speaker 1: But you know, technically, of course it's up to you.
Speaker 1: You're in charge, and use the scalpel, not the hatchet.
Speaker 1: But if you don't do what we want, then get
Speaker 1: the hell out of here. I mean, that's the way
Speaker 1: I read it, until I see a different posture. To me,
Speaker 1: some of his language is more about recognition that this
Speaker 1: is profoundly unpopular. You know, if you look at the
Speaker 1: polling of you know, oh, we're slashing the Social Security Administration,
Speaker 1: and like Ryan said, is just like chaos everywhere, and
Speaker 1: why are we firing all these veterans and people showing
Speaker 1: up to town hall saying like, what the hell is
Speaker 1: going on? This is an attempt to be like, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: everything's normal. We're doing this in the way that you
Speaker 1: would want. Because if you poll just like hey, should
Speaker 1: the government be cut and should it be more efficient?
Speaker 5: People are like, yeah, sure.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 1: But when the rubber hits the road and you see like, oh,
Speaker 1: the people who are tracking bird flu are gone, and
Speaker 1: planes are crashing into each other and I no longer
Speaker 1: can you know, reach someone when I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: something resolved of my Social Security check, or like in Maine,
Speaker 1: where now because they cut the link between the Social
Speaker 1: Security Administration and the health services, you now have to
Speaker 1: go in person to a Social Security office to like
Speaker 1: register your new baby. As if when you have a
Speaker 1: newborn you don't have enough on your mind to deal
Speaker 1: with they're adding that to the burden as well. So
Speaker 1: when you see all that chaos and the reality of
Speaker 1: those cuts, the feel and the political ramification becomes much
Speaker 1: different than if you just ask people like, hey, should
Speaker 1: the government be more efficient, to which most people, you know,
Speaker 1: overwhelming would be like, yeah, sure, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that should be an easily winnable fight, right emily,
Speaker 2: like from the right to you know, the public thinks
Speaker 2: that there's waste in government and the public it's not
Speaker 2: particularly sympathetic.
Speaker 3: To federal workers in general.
Speaker 2: To fire federal workers and still wind up on the
Speaker 2: wrong end of public opinion takes a massive level of incompetence.
Speaker 5: Really well, I mean, the scalpel versus hatchet diconomy is
Speaker 5: interesting because a lot of people on the right were
Speaker 5: using that the reverse from Donald Trump, like the reverse
Speaker 5: of what he said to justify Doge's chaos. This is
Speaker 5: like the callous like you have to break a few
Speaker 5: eggs to make an omelet maxium, like this is always
Speaker 5: it's necessary, like you will never ever scale down the
Speaker 5: size of the federal government if you don't do it
Speaker 5: with the hatchet first. And so I guess in a sense,
Speaker 5: I'm curious and I should probably talk to some people
Speaker 5: to day and ask around if they see this now
Speaker 5: as like phase two of Doge, Like they came in
Speaker 5: with the hatchet, and now they can afford to be
Speaker 5: like more precise and targeted. But if it's not true
Speaker 5: that they got through like some type of first phase,
Speaker 5: which I think most people until yesterday would have said
Speaker 5: they didn't, then that defeats what everyone thought the purpose
Speaker 5: of DOGE was, which was to be this generational opportunity
Speaker 5: to actually use the hatchet, because if you use the scalpel,
Speaker 5: people say you will never ever scale back the size
Speaker 5: of the size of the federal government because it's too
Speaker 5: It gives everybody time to fight back, it gives everybody
Speaker 5: time to sort of come up with a strategy, and
Speaker 5: you end up just kind of back where you started
Speaker 5: and trimming around the edges. But DOGE was supposed to
Speaker 5: be like the generational chainsaw opportunity to borrow from Elon's
Speaker 5: imagery at Seapack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And instead, as always happens, a bunch of Republicans
Speaker 2: went out on a limb that Trump asked them to
Speaker 2: go out on. Then Trump grabbed their chainsaw and chop
Speaker 2: the limb off. Yeah, And now there they are explaining
Speaker 2: how they actually always meant to be at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the tree with broken legs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very relevant to the terror of conversation as well,
Speaker 1: where you know, the whiplash of that leaves his defenders,
Speaker 1: you know, defending every single policy under the sun in
Speaker 1: an attempt to curry favor with him and to you know,
Speaker 1: curry favor with a base that's very committed to him.
Speaker 1: Let's say, Ryan, let me have you explain this one,
Speaker 1: because you've been all over this D banking vote that
Speaker 1: occurred in the Senate.
Speaker 4: So Laura Lumer.
Speaker 1: Here upset because she says, every Senate republic with the
Speaker 1: exception of Centaer.
Speaker 4: Josh Holly, just voted to legalize D banking.
Speaker 1: Now apps like PayPal can get away with banning you
Speaker 1: for your political views thanks to Senate Republicans who just
Speaker 1: voted to repeal a rule that made that illegal in
Speaker 1: December of twenty twenty four. And Elon Musk replies, really question,
Speaker 1: Laura says, yes, really, hopefully.
Speaker 4: You can put an end to this.
Speaker 1: Elon GOP does not like CFPB, and so they are
Speaker 1: now just opposing everything CFPP has done, including the good
Speaker 1: things like implementing a law on twenty twenty four that
Speaker 1: ban payment platforms like PayPal, Stripe and Venmo from banning
Speaker 1: people based off their political affiliation. Senate Gop just voted
Speaker 1: to legalize D banking. They should kill the companion bill
Speaker 1: off in the House, Ryan, What is going on here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think that this has contrasting perspectives? How about
Speaker 2: Laura Lumer and I teaming up to try to save
Speaker 2: this cfbb D banking rule, like the whole, the whole.
Speaker 3: It's not even horseshoes.
Speaker 2: It's like just looping in like a Nascar trek, you know,
Speaker 2: on itself. So yeah, so so Laura Lumer, you know,
Speaker 2: shared our reporting over at drop side and we covered
Speaker 2: it here at Counterpoints. I had reached out to her
Speaker 2: because she has herself been de banked in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know what her you know, far
Speaker 2: right particular offense was, but PayPal stopped working with her,
Speaker 2: Venmo canceled her accounts. She can't use like uber eats,
Speaker 2: like basically shut off from all of kind of contemporary
Speaker 2: app activity. There were even some like comical ones that
Speaker 2: like the apps don't even exist anymore. What was that
Speaker 2: one where all the tech bros were on audio talking
Speaker 2: to each clubhouse? Yeah from clubhouse? Yeah, big thing, Yes,
Speaker 2: is clubhouse even still a thing?
Speaker 3: I forgot I don't think so, I guess maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so and she and she confirmed, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 2: she's still actually, uh can't use PayPal in some others.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: The CFPB passed a rule under Biden an under row
Speaker 2: hit Tropra that says banks cannot dbank over political reasons,
Speaker 2: for ideological reasons. And he said, and and what And
Speaker 2: I'm including in that anybody that does more than fifty
Speaker 2: million transactions a year, so that that lumps in PayPal,
Speaker 2: Zell who will pay Apple pay.
Speaker 3: All all of these apps.
Speaker 2: And they all fought this, you know, relentlessly because they
Speaker 2: don't want it's they don't want to be regulated, period.
Speaker 2: And so uh Elon Musk and WhatsApp Zuckerberg both have
Speaker 2: been talking about getting a payment app, you know, getting
Speaker 2: you know, allowing payments on you to move money through
Speaker 2: What's app or through your d MS on Twitter or whatever.
Speaker 5: They that's one of his most important ambitions for Twitter.
Speaker 5: It's one of the reasons he bought it. He wants
Speaker 5: it to be x and in everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been very clear about that and that they
Speaker 2: would instantly then be covered under this under this new regulation,
Speaker 2: and it would just mean they can't debank people for
Speaker 2: political reasons and they'd have to have serious, uh fraud
Speaker 2: prevention efforts, just like banks are supposed to have and
Speaker 2: fraud dispute mechanisms. So you get you get scammed, you
Speaker 2: can you can there's a process that you can dispute it.
Speaker 2: Scams on Twitter now like there's just you're you're absolutely screwed,
Speaker 2: Like you get you get scammed, you get shut out,
Speaker 2: you you better know somebody who can who can like
Speaker 2: get your case in front of Elon. Otherwise you know,
Speaker 2: you're shut out of your account and you're the account
Speaker 2: is going to be controlled by whatever crypto scammers you
Speaker 2: know took it from you and rupar got got caught
Speaker 2: by that recently. So they don't want that regulation, and
Speaker 2: so they persuaded the Senate to pass this resolution getting
Speaker 2: rid of this CFPB rule, and so Josh Hawley voted
Speaker 2: against it. I've seen Steve Bannon is now engaged on
Speaker 2: this question. It still has to go over to the House.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Now Democrats just had another one of their members die
Speaker 2: who so that they're what needed four seat majority now,
Speaker 2: so maybe five seeds at this point Democrats, you know,
Speaker 2: if everybody shows up, they'll all vote no. Republicans only
Speaker 2: need to find a handful of people single digits low
Speaker 2: single digits to say no. Sorry Musk like sorry, PayPal,
Speaker 2: like we're going to regulate you here, and then the
Speaker 2: regulation is going to say you can't dbank people for
Speaker 2: political reasons. Elon Musk saying really, like, as this is,
Speaker 2: as if this is like coming as news to him,
Speaker 2: is it's kind of hilarious.
Speaker 1: But I think when Zuckerberg was on with Rogan pretendingly
Speaker 1: he didn't know what the CFP I've never even heard of.
Speaker 4: Why are they even going after me?
Speaker 3: You're telling me this for the first time. It's very sad.
Speaker 2: So I think if you're Elon Musk, curious Emily for
Speaker 2: your take on this. If you're Elon Musk, you take
Speaker 2: the l here and you tell the House do not
Speaker 2: repeal this rule. This is outrageous because it shows then
Speaker 2: you're you can you can be performatively non conflicted because
Speaker 2: they're look, Okay, yes this would hurt me, but I
Speaker 2: am willing to let this go through because it's so
Speaker 2: obvious that conservatives should not be, you know, kicked off
Speaker 2: of you know, banking apps just for being conservative. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to stand up for I'm going to stand
Speaker 2: up for this, and then he can figure out down
Speaker 2: the road how he can get there destroying far about
Speaker 2: for his little coin.
Speaker 4: They're destroying the CFP B so exactly he doesn't need
Speaker 4: this in place.
Speaker 2: They already like ifower him, I would cynically just get
Speaker 2: behind this and say, yeah, don't don't do this.
Speaker 3: This is terrible.
Speaker 2: I mean, if it hadn't been elevated, then he wouldn't
Speaker 2: have even had to make the choice.
Speaker 5: I think the cynical calculation is absolutely smart. But I
Speaker 5: don't know that they're actually going to even bob.
Speaker 3: They're going for everything.
Speaker 2: They might just they might just repeal the rule and
Speaker 2: be like, you know, what, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 5: Well, And they also have a fairly arcane argument about
Speaker 5: how how the rule actually is. It's like the opposite.
Speaker 5: You've probably seen this, Like they flip it on its
Speaker 5: head and they say the rule is what allows for
Speaker 5: the debate. They say that what they're doing is fighting debanking,
Speaker 5: like that's their argument. They have this like arcane like
Speaker 5: lobbyist crafted clearly like tech lobbyist crafted argument.
Speaker 2: And Tim Scott is out saying well, I've got a
Speaker 2: bill that's going to ban de banking.
Speaker 3: But it's like that's.
Speaker 2: That's treating people like like they don't have any.
Speaker 3: Idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: It's like there's already there are laws on the books
Speaker 2: that are interpreted to mean that you can't discriminate against
Speaker 2: people on their viewpoints. The CFPB's rule is just implementing
Speaker 2: that law. So Tim Scott coming and saying he's going
Speaker 2: to pass a new law means that somebody then has
Speaker 2: to implement a rule to enforce it. Laws that aren't
Speaker 2: enforced don't matter. And so what these what Tim Scott
Speaker 2: and these other republics would want to do is say well,
Speaker 2: we're going to pass a law, but we're not going
Speaker 2: to enforce it, So that way they get to tell
Speaker 2: their audience that they're with them. But the bank lobbyists
Speaker 2: are comfortable that the law will never be enforced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because all the agencies that would enforce it are
Speaker 1: being destroyed.
Speaker 5: I'm threatened that you're going to replace me with Laura Lumer.
Speaker 3: Right, we got to get we got to get on
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: That we would we is she allowed on YouTube like like,
Speaker 2: she's like every we could just.
Speaker 1: Post that one on Rumble only they could be a
Speaker 1: Rumbel exclusive Ryan Ryan and Laura Lumer to team up.
Speaker 1: That's like I wanted to talk to Steve Bannon for
Speaker 1: similar reasons.
Speaker 5: It is. It is.
Speaker 2: Whatever she said, I'm sure I disagree with it. She
Speaker 2: should not be banned from Uber eats ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Yep, yeah, well too far.
Speaker 4: I mean you also, like, there's few people who are.
Speaker 1: Actually willing to really stand up to, you know, on
Speaker 1: any sort of principle.
Speaker 4: Most of them are busy being.
Speaker 1: Like terifts are great, You're so brilliant for taking the
Speaker 1: tariff's off. Tarif's are great. You're so brilliant for taking
Speaker 1: the tariff's off. So to see someone who will like
Speaker 1: stand on any principle, as you know, you gotta.
Speaker 3: She's got her views and sticking with it.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's go to some of the latest Doge
Speaker 1: cuts here that are really significant washing posts with a
Speaker 1: good piece on what's already happening at Social Security, as
Speaker 1: Jeff Stein puts it here. So you know, they've slashed
Speaker 1: a lot of the workforce, They're closing a bunch of offices,
Speaker 1: and people are already feeling that the impact of that.
Speaker 1: And Ryan, I think you pointed out this is like,
Speaker 1: this is a way to social security effectively without actually
Speaker 1: cutting social security. So this article says wait times for
Speaker 1: basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours.
Speaker 1: Coordinate employees, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Speaker 1: Delays and reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative
Speaker 1: law judges are already starting. Employees at a field office
Speaker 1: in Indiana have been forced to pick up calls for
Speaker 1: other offices. When employees said and are feeling phone inquiries
Speaker 1: for an area covering two thirds of the state, the
Speaker 1: phone quote never stops ringing. Now, the employee said, phone
Speaker 1: backups have prevented the staff from processing retirement claims. So
Speaker 1: you know, how good is a program? How good is
Speaker 1: a program for you? Like how much does it actually
Speaker 1: exist when you cannot actually get in touch with a
Speaker 1: human being in order to avail yourself of said program.
Speaker 1: Like if you can't get your claims processed, then it's
Speaker 1: like the program doesn't exist for you effectively.
Speaker 2: Right, it's a way to kill the program, the program
Speaker 2: through attrition, because obviously social security itself something like ten
Speaker 2: thousand plus people a day are dying who or on
Speaker 2: SOLI security, so you're moving them out. Then you know
Speaker 2: ten it's fairly automatic to get in to just straight
Speaker 2: up self security. But SSI and SSDI, which are huge
Speaker 2: components of the program, are implemented by the states through
Speaker 2: these Disability Determination Services offices and they're kind of run
Speaker 2: by SSA, and those are the places where it takes
Speaker 2: a long time to get your claims approved, and once
Speaker 2: you're on, they're kind of always looking for ways to
Speaker 2: kick you off, like, oh, your bank account went over
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars this month, You're you're out. Then you
Speaker 2: have to appeal and you try to get back in.
Speaker 2: And if you can shut those offices down, then you
Speaker 2: can slow the process of getting new people in or
Speaker 2: just completely block it and then through attrition, you know,
Speaker 2: get people out through paperwork violations or death and gradually
Speaker 2: take this program that is the most popular and has
Speaker 2: reduced poverty by by more than any other program in
Speaker 2: world history.
Speaker 3: And I say this as a.
Speaker 2: Huge fan of some communist governments and they're anti poverty programs,
Speaker 2: but nobody.
Speaker 3: Has like reduced.
Speaker 2: Poverty like Social Security did, like taking it from ninety
Speaker 2: like a huge, huge, like a ninety percent drop in
Speaker 2: elderly poverty from the from pre sol Security to post
Speaker 2: Social Security. Not even Stalin not even installing this can
Speaker 2: claim credit for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So.
Speaker 2: That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to reverse
Speaker 2: it by through attrition.
Speaker 5: I don't think that's wrong. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 5: probably well. So I think it's there's Ryan and Crissel,
Speaker 5: you were both talking about this the other night when
Speaker 5: we were discussing how much austerity like featured in Donald
Speaker 5: Trump's joined addressed to Congress. Yeah, I think they're like
Speaker 5: real ideological and Trump may not even be aware of
Speaker 5: this ideological goals from people like Russ bo or people
Speaker 5: in that orbit, as it pertains to these programs that
Speaker 5: are baked into the massive reforms that they want to do.
Speaker 5: So like, for example, when Trump says we're not cutting Medicaid,
Speaker 5: we're reforming the waste fraud in abuse, or like we're
Speaker 5: rooting out waste broad in abuse. You can make all
Speaker 5: of these cuts to Medicaid and it doesn't have anything
Speaker 5: to do with the solvency of the programs long term.
Speaker 5: So they think it with Social Security, like you can
Speaker 5: get fraud out of Social Security. It doesn't have anything
Speaker 5: to do with the solvency of the program's long term,
Speaker 5: but it does sort of handicap them. So I think
Speaker 5: some of that is baked into these broader conservative movement
Speaker 5: policy designs. I agree with that. I just don't know
Speaker 5: if Trump. I don't know if it's like on Trump's radar.
Speaker 3: Sure it's not.
Speaker 2: And I was talking to it as somebody who works
Speaker 2: in a state dds office yesterday, and they said that
Speaker 2: this censorship that they've been bizarrely carrying out at SSA offices,
Speaker 2: and you saw this report that like you can't you
Speaker 2: already couldn't, you know, go to YouTube on your work
Speaker 2: computer in a lot of places, public schools, lots of places,
Speaker 2: but they expanded that to like all almost all news sites.
Speaker 2: And the THEDS employee I talked to you said that
Speaker 2: that also caught up their contractor, you know, because there's
Speaker 2: so much corporate kind of conglomerization and concentration of corporate
Speaker 2: power that you hit one company, you might hit seventy
Speaker 2: five companies.
Speaker 3: You didn't know we're like connected to it.
Speaker 2: So like these these state workers now can't get into
Speaker 2: their contractor portals to do just the basic work that
Speaker 2: they have to do to implement the program. And it's
Speaker 2: like that's kind of on purpose, like that's the goal,
Speaker 2: Like they want they want these workers not to be
Speaker 2: able to do their work because the work that they're
Speaker 2: doing is they don't support gradually bringing more people into
Speaker 2: the program.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and I also think, I mean the you know,
Speaker 1: the State of the Union where he was talking, he
Speaker 1: was spreading this total lie about the number of people
Speaker 1: over two hundred or whatever who are Social Security tecks.
Speaker 1: I mean that to me is also a way to argue,
Speaker 1: like we're cutting this program because of all the fraud,
Speaker 1: to avoid violating his or avoid the appearance of violating
Speaker 1: his pledge that he wasn't going to cut touch Social Security. So,
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is one of these areas where
Speaker 1: you see the tug of war between what Trump has
Speaker 1: positioned himself as politically and what Elon's ideology is, and
Speaker 1: certainly Russfod's ideology as well, and the Elon ideology seems
Speaker 1: to be consistently winning out. I mean, this is kind
Speaker 1: of a somewhat similar You've got they're firing eighty thousand
Speaker 1: Veterans Affairs workers as part of Trump cuts. They say,
Speaker 1: this is sparking a backlash. I mean, many of these
Speaker 1: people are veterans themselves that work at the Veterans Affairs
Speaker 1: Administration and certainly critical to you know, delivering for the
Speaker 1: promises that we have made to people who have served
Speaker 1: the country, and only I think politically these have been
Speaker 1: some of the more difficult for Republicans to be able
Speaker 1: to answer when you have people who stand up like,
Speaker 1: how could you be firing all of these tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of veterans who serve the country. How could you
Speaker 1: be firing all of these military spouses who are sort
Speaker 1: of disproportionately on probationary status because the nature of having
Speaker 1: to move around the country and you know, depending on
Speaker 1: where your your spouse is being stationed and deployed. And
Speaker 1: so I think politically this has been some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that's been more difficult for Republicans and as part
Speaker 1: of why Elon had to meet with them this week
Speaker 1: and assuage some of the Republican Caucus concerns about what
Speaker 1: they're hearing from constituents in their district with regard to Doge.
Speaker 5: Well, my favorite part of that report was at the meeting,
Speaker 5: Elon Musk handed out his phone number to senators but
Speaker 5: not House members, which is especially pretty finely. It reminds
Speaker 5: me of the veepline where she can't get something through
Speaker 5: the Senate. She says, Okay, then lift the sewer grade
Speaker 5: to the House and we'll go over there. So funny.
Speaker 5: So what's really interesting to me? And I was very
Speaker 5: surprised to find out by this that that actually pairs
Speaker 5: it back down to twenty nineteen levels. So in the
Speaker 5: last several years, the growth of the VA was eighty
Speaker 5: thousand people, which is very like the last six years,
Speaker 5: the growth of the VA was eighty thousand people, which
Speaker 5: is interesting because it's about a four hundred thousand person
Speaker 5: department and they're going to get it back down to
Speaker 5: around three hundred thousand. But even if that, even if
Speaker 5: that on paper you look at it, the politics of it, Krystaler,
Speaker 5: are going to be I mean, we played that video earlier,
Speaker 5: but what was a few days ago from Roger Wicker.
Speaker 5: I want to say it was Roger Wicker at a
Speaker 5: town hall where he was getting specifically confronted on veterans.
Speaker 5: I was listening to an NPR segment about their local
Speaker 5: va outside of Seattle getting hit by this, and you're
Speaker 5: just like, when you localize this, it's going to I
Speaker 5: don't know that we've actually fully seen the bleeding politically
Speaker 5: shown show up and polling it because I don't know
Speaker 5: that it's been fully like people haven't reckoned with it.
Speaker 5: They don't realize they're still uncertainty as to whether this
Speaker 5: stuff is permanent or whether it's going to get real. First,
Speaker 5: people are gonna get rehired, because we have seen people
Speaker 5: get rehired, so I don't I mean, if if some
Speaker 5: of the stuff is permanent, the politics of that are
Speaker 5: going to be extremely difficult for Republicans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, you know we're already seeing and this
Speaker 1: is a good transition to the next piece about tariffs,
Speaker 1: we're seeing some real economic warning signs and making massive
Speaker 1: cuts to the federal government that is going to have
Speaker 1: an impact not just on those workers, but obviously we're
Speaker 1: verberates around communities, you know, different industries that were federal
Speaker 1: government funding is important. They just sort of everything is
Speaker 1: frozen in place. And when you couple that with the
Speaker 1: tariffs and what's going on there and general sense that
Speaker 1: there's you know, a slow down coming. It can have
Speaker 1: devastating economic impacts outside of just the direct buyings and
Speaker 1: what that means for individual people's lives. So here's the
Speaker 1: latest on the tariffs. As of yesterday, we have Trump
Speaker 1: delaying some tariffs on Mexico and Canada at least for
Speaker 1: a month, So we get to do this all again
Speaker 1: in April. Guys, don't worry. But basically anything that falls
Speaker 1: under any products that follow fall under the USMCA. They're
Speaker 1: saying the terrafts are not going to apply. And have
Speaker 1: a note here about what percentage. So about fifty percent
Speaker 1: of Mexican imports thirty eight percent of Canadian imports are
Speaker 1: covered by that trade agreement.
Speaker 4: It does create a lot of.
Speaker 1: I mean, so you still have a significant portion of
Speaker 1: goods that will be tariffed. And also I was reading
Speaker 1: about this as well, it's like a little bit complex
Speaker 1: to even figure out which goods are covered by the teriffs.
Speaker 1: Some things will be straightforward, but some things, you know,
Speaker 1: where you have different component parts coming from different places, etc.
Speaker 1: It's actually complicated to figure out which falls under this
Speaker 1: agreement and which doesn't. So you know, I saw I
Speaker 1: think the markets were reacting pretty positively this morning, but
Speaker 1: yesterday was a total bloodbath in the market. So, you know, Emily,
Speaker 1: what do you think about where we are with all
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 5: It's hard to know where we are because it's like
Speaker 5: you don't know if you're in the middle of something
Speaker 5: until you have some clear idea of what the end
Speaker 5: would look like. And I don't know what Drum's end is.
Speaker 5: It's I fail two because yeah, I mean, we talked
Speaker 5: about this at length the other night. But he has
Speaker 5: this conflation of his economic goals and his immigration fentanyl goals,
Speaker 5: and it's really obviously confusing for Mexico and Canada. At
Speaker 5: this point, I think he's just like straight up mad
Speaker 5: at Canada and wants to mess with Canada. But like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, I think it's really hard to say
Speaker 5: what he does going forward because he has gotten some
Speaker 5: things like, for example, the Honda Civics being made in
Speaker 5: Indiana rather than Mexico. Like, he's seen some of this
Speaker 5: stuff start to happen. So does that mean that he
Speaker 5: sticks with a more targeted version of some of these
Speaker 5: that's my best guess. I would say that he ultimately
Speaker 5: lands on targeted tariffs and can claim a win on
Speaker 5: the blunt force tariffs by getting Mexico to cooperate with
Speaker 5: immigration stuff and getting Canada to cooperate with fentanyl and
Speaker 5: that sort of thing. So I have no idea where
Speaker 5: it's going, but that's my best guess right now. Ryan.
Speaker 1: One of what the Canadians think is that he's using
Speaker 1: this economic warfare against them to try to weaken them
Speaker 1: so that he can take them over as the fifty
Speaker 1: first state. I mean, that's what they that's what they believe.
Speaker 1: Some Trump officials have even effectively said that that is
Speaker 1: the goal. I mean, do you put much stock in
Speaker 1: that as that's what's going on here because it's so
Speaker 1: hard to figure out what is actually going on here.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do think that that's that needs to be
Speaker 2: taken seriously because the United States economy definitely has the
Speaker 2: power to, you know, shrink the Canadian economy by an
Speaker 2: absolute extraordinary amount.
Speaker 5: Which is already not good by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's crushing. You know, we're already crushing
Speaker 2: the economy now, you know, we we benefit from trade
Speaker 2: with Canada, Like there's an enormous number of raw materials
Speaker 2: and resources that would the paper you know, energy that
Speaker 2: come in from Canada to the United States. But our
Speaker 2: economy is so huge, you know, obviously we can withstand
Speaker 2: a trade war with Canada. We would you know, we
Speaker 2: can outlast them. And so now the question is like,
Speaker 2: is there a Trump in power long enough to like
Speaker 2: execute on that long term strategy and does he have
Speaker 2: the the ability to kind of see it through. There
Speaker 2: were people in the eighteen nineties when McKinley was doing
Speaker 2: this that thought that that was the plan, that they
Speaker 2: were gonna, you know, weaken Canada to the point that
Speaker 2: we would be able to annex it.
Speaker 4: So I didn't realize that, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was that was part of the thinking. It collapsed
Speaker 2: really quickly because even in the you know, in the
Speaker 2: eighteen nineties, people were like didn't like paying more price,
Speaker 2: you know, higher prices, and we had that giant crisis
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety three that kind.
Speaker 3: Of ended that.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, what like it wouldn't be new, But I
Speaker 2: don't think, you know, just like then, I don't know
Speaker 2: if we.
Speaker 3: Have the follow through.
Speaker 1: This comes as Secretary Besant yesterday, as the Treasury Secretary
Speaker 1: said that cheap goods are not the essence of the
Speaker 1: American dream. Which actually there's I mean, we could do
Speaker 1: an hour just talking about the reflecting on those comments
Speaker 1: and what the reality is and what a different version
Speaker 1: of the American dream, because certainly, in the neoliberal era,
Speaker 1: what has been sold to the citizens in lieu of
Speaker 1: like high wages, unionization, a manufacturing base, like you know,
Speaker 1: intact communities, we have been sold that actually, chief goods
Speaker 1: are the thing that we're giving you in exchange for
Speaker 1: the way we're going to run the economic system. And
Speaker 1: so in certain sense I'm sympathetic to Yeah, I agree,
Speaker 1: I don't think that should be, but that is the
Speaker 1: value that we've been sold. And if you're going to
Speaker 1: effectively intentionally raise prices, which is what these tariffs will
Speaker 1: almost certainly do, then you better have some other things
Speaker 1: in place to raise wages and you know, restore some
Speaker 1: other allow people to be able to buy houses, for example,
Speaker 1: afford college education, afford healthcare, or be given you know,
Speaker 1: universal healthcare. If you are going to completely reorient things
Speaker 1: on the contrary, what they have seemed to be pushing
Speaker 1: towards is if not outright generating a recession, generating a
Speaker 1: massive slow down intentionally in consumer spending and in wage growth,
Speaker 1: so that in using that as the way to curb inflation.
Speaker 1: And so let me just put this pull up on
Speaker 1: the screen on and get you guys to reflect on
Speaker 1: all of that. But you've got nearly two and three
Speaker 1: Americans now saying they think tariffs are going to drive
Speaker 1: their costs up. That includes a majority of Republicans. Those
Speaker 1: members have moved substantially in just a month period of time.
Speaker 1: So you can see here even among Republicans, you've got
Speaker 1: fifty one percent saying yeah, they're going to cause costs
Speaker 1: to go up, only nineteen percent saying they'll go down,
Speaker 1: eighteen percent saying no impact. And overall, sixty seven percent
Speaker 1: of people say yeah, this is going to cause prices
Speaker 1: to go up, and you know, only twelve percent say
Speaker 1: they will cause them to go down, in twelve percent
Speaker 1: saying no impact. Here, so very lopsided in terms of
Speaker 1: how people help people expect these tariffs to affect their
Speaker 1: lives at a time when obviously emily inflation has been
Speaker 1: you know, a core part of the political story and
Speaker 1: political upset during the Biden administration that helps usher Trump
Speaker 1: into power. Trump promises very much like we're going to
Speaker 1: get prices under control, et cetera. And right now people
Speaker 1: feel like, well, actually, your policy is pushing in the
Speaker 1: exact opposite direction also.
Speaker 2: And I think, Emily, while you think on that, let
Speaker 2: me clean up my McKinley comment real quick, because it
Speaker 2: actually fits in this. It wasn't that McKinley's tariffs led
Speaker 2: into and were upended by the eighteen ninety three crisis.
Speaker 3: It was the reverse.
Speaker 2: There was the eighteen ninety three crisis that created this depression,
Speaker 2: that created this like demand among the American people that
Speaker 2: you do something about it.
Speaker 3: And McKinley ran then.
Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety six saying I'm going to do something
Speaker 2: about this, and the thing I'm going to do is
Speaker 2: is tariffs. And so he's elected then and people were like, oh,
Speaker 2: this actually didn't solve the problem.
Speaker 3: Like you were right that there.
Speaker 2: Was something wrong, but this didn't fix it. So let's
Speaker 2: get rid of let's get rid of these tariffs. So
Speaker 2: before people dragged jump on your flipping the timeline there.
Speaker 1: Actually his speech that he gave before the before an
Speaker 1: assassin you know, came and took him out, was about
Speaker 1: how he was rolling back a lot of the tariffs
Speaker 1: because basically like, yeah, we you know, that served its
Speaker 1: purpose for its time, but we're we're moving forward in
Speaker 1: a different direction now.
Speaker 5: And Trump We've talked about this before too, But I
Speaker 5: think he actually just thrives on the sense of confusion.
Speaker 5: And I think the reason that even people who follow
Speaker 5: his moves, his every move when it comes to tariffs
Speaker 5: don't have a good idea of what's coming next is
Speaker 5: completely intentional on his behalf, because he legitimately doesn't want
Speaker 5: Trudeau and shine Bomb to know either, or China for
Speaker 5: that matter. But the bestent speech, I pulled it up
Speaker 5: in front of me. I just wanted to read a
Speaker 5: little bit more from where he says. He starts to
Speaker 5: talk about the United States finds itself subsidizing the rest
Speaker 5: of the world's underspending in defense. This is not just
Speaker 5: a security issue. The United States also provides reserve assets,
Speaker 5: serves as a consumer of first and last resort, and
Speaker 5: absorbs excess supply in the face of insufficient demand in
Speaker 5: other countries domestic models. The system is not sustainable. Then,
Speaker 5: he says, access to cheap goods is not the essence
Speaker 5: of the American dream. The American dream is rooted in
Speaker 5: the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility,
Speaker 5: and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral
Speaker 5: trade deals have lost sight of this. And so what
Speaker 5: I thought was particularly interesting about that is it doesn't
Speaker 5: help you sell higher prices. And what Donald Trump talked about,
Speaker 5: like most Americans are going to like that to them
Speaker 5: sounds like airy in the clouds bs. I really like
Speaker 5: it because it's not how the conservative movement has talked
Speaker 5: about these things ever, and it's true, and I think
Speaker 5: it's sort of interesting. He didn't include families in that
Speaker 5: calculation and didn't talk about neighborhoods and communities. He just
Speaker 5: talked about economic mobility and all that sort of thing,
Speaker 5: which is great, but you know, we could go into
Speaker 5: a different rabbit hole in that. But most Americans like, sure, yeah,
Speaker 5: but these eggs are ten dollars right. Oh man. So
Speaker 5: Trump pivoted to Biden when he was talking about eggs
Speaker 5: in the joint address, and you can only coast off
Speaker 5: of that for so long. I think he's probably fine
Speaker 5: right now, still blaming Biden. But I don't think that
Speaker 5: lasts much longer politically. I think that is it only
Speaker 5: is going to last for a little bit longer for them.
Speaker 3: And think about what actually worked.
Speaker 2: Its Crystal's point about McKinley getting gout by that anarchist
Speaker 2: who comes in then Teddy Roosevelt, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got an actual solution here. I'm going to smash
Speaker 2: corporate power. I'm busting up all of these trusts, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to raise up regular people. So you went
Speaker 2: from this kind of fake populism of we're going to
Speaker 2: do We're going to do tariffs and he's trying to like,
Speaker 2: you know, drain off the energy from William Jennings Bryan.
Speaker 4: Tariffs and imperialism by the way.
Speaker 2: Tariffs and imperialism exactly that that actually turned out to
Speaker 2: be just bs and didn't work. What when then Roosevelt
Speaker 2: comes in and takes on corporate power and and brings
Speaker 2: in a progressive era, you know, launches like government regulation
Speaker 2: of these of these corporate entities, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you start getting real economic growth again combined with
Speaker 2: a loose monetary policy by accidentally finding a whole lot
Speaker 2: of silver in the West, which actually proved William Jennings
Speaker 2: Bryan right that you did need looser silver policy.
Speaker 3: But anyway, that's a different.
Speaker 5: Part of it, just like Crypto. It's just like Crypto.
Speaker 4: There you go, some parallels there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, all right, let's move on to a little
Speaker 1: bit of the the Democrats here and uh this, I'm
Speaker 1: curious for Ryan's reaction first and foremost of this. So
Speaker 1: you know, al Green did his protest on the floor saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you have no mandate to cut medicaid. He's
Speaker 1: been really on a tear like very laser focused on Medicaid,
Speaker 1: in particular because his debt district has a lot of
Speaker 1: Medicaid recipients, so he feels it's you know, quite important
Speaker 1: to the fortunes of his constituents. And you had Jeffries
Speaker 1: and other leaders, Catherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, who gathered
Speaker 1: what they describe as roughly a dozen Democratic disruptors. They
Speaker 1: were called into a come to Jesus meeting on Thursday morning.
Speaker 1: The Senior dam told Axios, this also comes on the
Speaker 1: heels of a censure vote of Al Green in the House,
Speaker 1: where you know it's mostly overwhelmingly obviously every Republican voting
Speaker 1: to censure him, but you did have ten Democrats across
Speaker 1: the aisle Ryan to stand up in favor of decorum,
Speaker 1: so you know which is it just says so much
Speaker 1: about this party. To be honest with you, by Ryan,
Speaker 1: was what was your thought about this come to Jesus
Speaker 1: meeting over how dare you disrupt the President of the
Speaker 1: United States?
Speaker 2: And these were all Democrats who are in pretty you know,
Speaker 2: Republican leading districts had very close elections, so this is
Speaker 2: you know, this is them kind of pandering to that,
Speaker 2: to that constituency.
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 2: Jesus had a way forward for people, for his his
Speaker 2: his flock, his you know, his disciples, like Emily can
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit more about this. But if
Speaker 2: you have a come to Jesus meeting and Jesus doesn't
Speaker 2: actually have any ideas for.
Speaker 3: You, like what do you that meeting is going to
Speaker 3: break up pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Jesus got his power in his charisma and his following
Speaker 2: because you know, he had ideas about how they were
Speaker 2: going to go forward in the world. True, I don't
Speaker 2: think Keemja has any ideas right now. So it's like
Speaker 2: come to Jeffries, to come to Jeffries and they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: well can you tell us then you know what is
Speaker 2: the path forward? And he's like, I don't know, what
Speaker 2: are you asking me for.
Speaker 3: We don't have any power.
Speaker 1: He's like, I know, we're going to put out this
Speaker 1: cringe TikTok video with you.
Speaker 2: Why haven't you guys done your TikTok videos yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one, the one where they were all scripted doing
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 4: That's what that's been.
Speaker 1: The Democratic parties, in compliance with decorum, approached your resistance here.
Speaker 5: Can I say that reminds me so much of like
Speaker 5: two thousand and nine twenty ten, when like just the
Speaker 5: lamest Republicans who are trying to catch up with Democrats
Speaker 5: after like the Facebook, Electric Facebook, Twitter, and it's it's
Speaker 5: like shocking.
Speaker 3: To take the picture of their breakfast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's.
Speaker 5: Truly that they would. It's truly shocking to me as
Speaker 5: someone who grew up in the era were like Republicans
Speaker 5: were the epitome of cringe on social media. Yet that
Speaker 5: it is now Democrats And it happened very very quickly,
Speaker 5: like Republicans used to. I mean, I think politics is
Speaker 5: always pretty cringe on social media, but Republicans used to
Speaker 5: actually envy the way Democrats were able to speak more
Speaker 5: like fluently on social media, and they spoke the language
Speaker 5: of social media more fluently, and now it's completely reversed.
Speaker 5: But on this point about Hakim Jeffreys, he is terrible.
Speaker 5: He is so so bad, surprisingly, surprisingly the man for
Speaker 5: the moment.
Speaker 1: I never thought I long for the leadership of Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker 1: but at least the woman has some skills.
Speaker 5: Like val Republicans would look at Nancy Pelosi and they
Speaker 5: would say, what we did with George Santos. This is
Speaker 5: how they would see it. They lost, they actually lost
Speaker 5: battles because they kicked out George Santos, and they looked out.
Speaker 5: They looked back on that afterwards, and they were like,
Speaker 5: Nancy Pelosi would never have done that, in the same
Speaker 5: way that Nancy Pelosi probably would never have forced this
Speaker 5: like struggle session over what alc. I don't think Algren's
Speaker 5: optics were great for Democrats, but two things can be true.
Speaker 5: That could have been a hilarious image of like an
Speaker 5: elderly man waving his cane at the president. And on
Speaker 5: the other hand, you don't have to have a struggle
Speaker 5: session to like censor him when people want you to
Speaker 5: be harder on Trump, like the optics of both are bad.
Speaker 1: Well, and here's the thing, too. Sorry, I'm I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to cut your way. But the thing with al
Speaker 1: Green is, Okay, let's say you feel like, oh, the
Speaker 1: optics were bad of him, you know, standing up with
Speaker 1: his cane and the thing. But you know what Republicans
Speaker 1: have figured out, and Trump in particular is figured out,
Speaker 1: is if you are able to generate controversy and a conversation,
Speaker 1: which aug Green did, then you can move the political
Speaker 1: dialogue in the direction that you want. And so what
Speaker 1: I appreciated about what al Green did is immediately afterwards
Speaker 1: he's escorted out and he says, I am here and
Speaker 1: I'm willing to stand up, and I will take the
Speaker 1: consequences because they will not cut medicaid and they will
Speaker 1: not go after my constituents.
Speaker 4: And I don't care if they do sense me. I
Speaker 4: am here to fight.
Speaker 1: And so now if Democrats were smart enough to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right, these Medicaid cuts are outrageous and they're going
Speaker 1: to be incredibly destructive. Now you switched the conversation to
Speaker 1: an issue where you are overwhelmingly on the side of
Speaker 1: the people, and it's Republicans who are having to respond. Instead,
Speaker 1: you have the Democrats forcing some handwringing conversation about decorum,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile, you're also pissing off your own base, who
Speaker 1: are like, yes, Al Green, You're a hero, Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing something. Yes, Jasmine Crockett, who also was called
Speaker 1: into this meeting and berated for her resistance.
Speaker 4: Not being appropriate with decorum whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't think Ryan, that Democratic leadership has internalized that
Speaker 1: it's not just like lefties like you and me who
Speaker 1: are mad at the establishment Democrats. At this point, they
Speaker 1: have lost the Libs, like the like the Democratic base,
Speaker 1: like the backbone of this party, who were in love
Speaker 1: with Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. They are like, fuck you,
Speaker 1: Hakeem Jeffries, screw you, like we are disgusted. And I
Speaker 1: don't think they've reckoned with the fact that it's not
Speaker 1: just you know, this group of like progressives and lefties
Speaker 1: that they're used to sneering at and used to marginalizing
Speaker 1: that has they have gotten crosswise with at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're.
Speaker 2: Lucky that you know, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times
Speaker 2: seem okay, you know, They're just they're just gonna kind
Speaker 2: of let this. They're just gonna step back and let
Speaker 2: Hakeem Jeffries just play this thing out, because, as Emily
Speaker 2: pointed out wisely the other day, that there's a very
Speaker 2: similar dynamic to the problems that Republican leadership faced during
Speaker 2: the Tea Party. Yeah, and there was an insurgency then,
Speaker 2: and within like a cycle or two they had been
Speaker 2: wiped that, you know, the old guard had basically been
Speaker 2: been wiped out and sent back to their kind of
Speaker 2: readout at the Chamber of Commerce. The what they had
Speaker 2: though was Fox News, like, you know, sending cameras to
Speaker 2: every single Tea Party rally. You know, thirty guys in
Speaker 2: Bangers District would would be driving the news for that
Speaker 2: night on Fox. And once you know, Eric Canter was beaten,
Speaker 2: Fox was like all in on the Tea Party movement,
Speaker 2: and Left it was still allow ac AOC beat Joe
Speaker 2: Rowley and became an enemy for several years. Right, if
Speaker 2: there was a left media that then rallied behind that element,
Speaker 2: it would it would own the party by now.
Speaker 3: But of course.
Speaker 2: CNN, MSNBC, these are like corporate backed media, and there's
Speaker 2: no overlap between you know, left populism and corporate media,
Speaker 2: where there can be with right populism.
Speaker 1: And corporate media because they're not at odds ultimately with
Speaker 1: upper power.
Speaker 5: But the what's interesting is that in twenty seventy ish whatever,
Speaker 5: actually I thought, we did see an interesting reception that
Speaker 5: like the sort of populist left got on corporate media
Speaker 5: because everybody was together under the banner of the resistance.
Speaker 5: And now there's nothing like that because right right, exactly so.
Speaker 5: But now corporate media, like Hakim Jeffries is terrified that
Speaker 5: the Jasmine Crockets of the world, and Crockett has been
Speaker 5: an missibus he or whatever else, but like they're terrified
Speaker 5: of the Jasmine Crocketts of the world actually making them
Speaker 5: look like they've they're still on the wrong side of
Speaker 5: the culture war. And so CNN and Hakim Jeffries right
Speaker 5: now are going to be really risk averse about platforming populism,
Speaker 5: anything that smacks of populism, even if it's coming from
Speaker 5: like corporate friendly Democrats, because they are like, we need
Speaker 5: to get back. They don't understand that actually economic left
Speaker 5: populism is what people want. And if you get rid
Speaker 5: of cultural populism, like cultural left populism, you're taking down
Speaker 5: the left economic populists with them. And what's left is
Speaker 5: really unpopular corporate democratic BS right, and.
Speaker 2: Jasmine Crockett doesn't have doesn't bring forward and she doesn't
Speaker 2: lead with a class analysis and so so there's nothing
Speaker 2: threatening about that. And she's extremely talented, you know in
Speaker 2: the way that she kind of rips apart Republicans and
Speaker 2: so she makes for great TV. And there's nothing threatening there.
Speaker 2: You that what was that Marjorie Taylor green Riff?
Speaker 3: She had bleach blonde? I mean that, Yeah, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true that whatever it was, she just nailed that.
Speaker 2: But there's nothing threatening.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a polymarket populist, if you
Speaker 1: because she is like Crypto backed you very like you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of her economics.
Speaker 2: She's I reported in my book Squad that like the
Speaker 2: Crypto people came to her during her first campaign and
Speaker 2: it was basically like I will will will wipe you
Speaker 2: out or we'll support you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she loves her remember.
Speaker 3: That, remember that section?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was She's like she's like, what's the give me,
Speaker 2: give me the damn questionnaire? Yeah, I don't care, and
Speaker 2: I'm not for crypto, not against it. I don't care,
Speaker 2: I don't understand it, and I just tell me where
Speaker 2: I need to sign to get Yeah, and you can
Speaker 2: blame her for that, but it's also that's a real
Speaker 2: problem with how our campaigns are financed.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 1: And they made an example, as you point out, of
Speaker 1: Katie Porter. And after that it really was just like
Speaker 1: basically capitulation. I real quick want to get to it
Speaker 1: because this ties in so much the Gavin Newsom Charlie
Speaker 1: Kirk thing before Emily has to jump you have a
Speaker 1: heart out.
Speaker 4: At ten m ish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, so we can get it. We
Speaker 1: can get a few minutes from you on this. So
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast, God Save Us okay,
Speaker 1: and he's announced a few.
Speaker 3: What's what's called? Is it like Gavin Gavin?
Speaker 1: I don't know Gavin. With Gavin, I don't know, But
Speaker 1: his I don't know. I think his first episode, I
Speaker 1: haven't tracked it that closely. It was just himself, which
Speaker 1: is kind of appropriate.
Speaker 5: He talked about the Menandos brothers.
Speaker 4: Are you serious?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 1: The second episode he has Charlie Charlie Kirk on, and
Speaker 1: first of all, this was interesting to me. He tells
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk what a big fan his son is.
Speaker 4: Of him.
Speaker 1: So let's take a listen to a little bit of that,
Speaker 1: and then we can play the piece that has gotten
Speaker 1: the most attention, which is Gavin Newsom on trans Girls
Speaker 1: in Sports.
Speaker 6: Last night, trying to put my son to bed. He's like, no, Dad,
Speaker 6: I just what time? What time is Charlie gonna be here?
Speaker 6: What time?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, dude, you're in school tomorrow. He's thirteen.
Speaker 6: He's like, no, no, no, this morning wakes up, it sicks up.
Speaker 6: Then he's like I'm coming. I'm like, he literally would
Speaker 6: not leave the house.
Speaker 3: Did you let him tick off the school?
Speaker 6: No, he did, of course not.
Speaker 3: He's not here for a good reason.
Speaker 7: But the point is you canceled school for two years. Once.
Speaker 6: The point is the point, which is you are making
Speaker 6: a damn dad answer. I'm kidding when you go to
Speaker 6: these college camps. I love watching your TikTok, which is
Speaker 6: nice level.
Speaker 1: All right, that's enough of that, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to use that as a way to say, like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, you're a bad dad, Like you should not
Speaker 1: be letting your kid watch this trash. And also if
Speaker 1: you are raising your child with any sort of quote
Speaker 1: unquote progressive values like maybe reflect on where you want
Speaker 1: astray that he is in love with Churley Kirk.
Speaker 3: To me, I don't.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to ban my kids from watching Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk or anybody, but I would do a lot of
Speaker 2: deep self reflection about what I had done.
Speaker 4: There is no way get them there. I am an
Speaker 4: eleven year.
Speaker 1: Old son, almost twelve. No way in hell I would
Speaker 1: let him watch any of that kind of trash. No way,
Speaker 1: no way.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting yeah, because YouTube is such a mess.
Speaker 2: You go from Minecraft and then you're quickly you're into this,
Speaker 2: you know, right manisphere stuff.
Speaker 4: True, Absolutely true.
Speaker 5: I mean any reflection, Well, I don't have children, so
Speaker 5: I don't have to make this decision.
Speaker 3: But watching, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 5: I'd be off for that. I think it's the I
Speaker 5: do work with a lot of like younger people because
Speaker 5: I'm in that like right wing world of like student stuff.
Speaker 5: And what I find is the reason they're drawn to
Speaker 5: people like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro is this. They
Speaker 5: feel like they're getting a moral clarity from it. And
Speaker 5: actually a lot of them watch us on Piker two
Speaker 5: because they like watching people who aren't like machine middle centrists.
Speaker 5: They like watching people who tell them something and are
Speaker 5: utterly convinced of it because it makes them feel like
Speaker 5: they're listening to something that's true. So I have no
Speaker 5: idea what path Gavin Newsom's son is on, but I
Speaker 5: think the podcast is really interesting for the exact reason
Speaker 5: we were just talking about with Jasmine Crockett, which is
Speaker 5: that Gavin Newsom is totally the type of person who,
Speaker 5: like he can he's going to pivot. He's such a chameleon.
Speaker 5: He's like, he's smart enough to know that you have
Speaker 5: to look transparent and authentic, and like Kamala Harris could
Speaker 5: have gone on Joe Rogan and shot herself with the
Speaker 5: foot by just looking like a robot, like she went
Speaker 5: on Call her Daddy, and it didn't really make a
Speaker 5: dent because she just was Kamala Harris like talking to
Speaker 5: Lester Holt when she was on Call her Daddy, Like
Speaker 5: it was just there was nothing authentic about it, with
Speaker 5: same like, same old political robotics. But he's at least
Speaker 5: smart enough to know that you got to try to
Speaker 5: just look down to earth like you're shooting the shit
Speaker 5: with Charlie. But he can't. He's not going to be
Speaker 5: able to be a chameleon on economics. He could do
Speaker 5: it on culture stuff, but he's not going to be
Speaker 5: able to do it on corporate stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, and he's smart enough to realize, like, oh I
Speaker 1: got to do a podcast, you know, I gotta be
Speaker 1: relatable that he was common denominator. He's not smart enough
Speaker 1: to recognize that. So when I saw he had Charlie
Speaker 1: kirk on and I think he has some other right
Speaker 1: wing guests booked next. I can't remember who it is,
Speaker 1: but Ricruso maybe.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, if he has him on
Speaker 1: and he fights with him, liberals are gonna love that
Speaker 1: because Gavin is cape. I mean, he did the Rond
Speaker 1: DeSantis debate. Democratic base voters never loved him more than
Speaker 1: when he did that, and he has the capability to
Speaker 1: then when I see that, actually this was like a
Speaker 1: hot Stone massage interview, Like you don't understand where the
Speaker 1: base of the Democratic Party is right now. Because you
Speaker 1: may think this is smart positioning, you know, with regard
Speaker 1: to like you know, taking the l so to speak
Speaker 1: on trans girls and sports, throwing them under the bus.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 1: You may think that smart positioning for a general election,
Speaker 1: you get a primary to get through first, and right
Speaker 1: now he's sort of placing the same bet of like
Speaker 1: the Heeme Jeffreys of the world and leaping past where
Speaker 1: the Democratic base is to where he thinks the quote
Speaker 1: unquote moderate middle will ultimately be. While to your point, Emily,
Speaker 1: you know, totally totally skipping up because you know he's
Speaker 1: a corporate back guy, corporate don't or guy. There's no
Speaker 1: way he's going to move on economics and he's sort
Speaker 1: of a populous piece.
Speaker 4: So instead, what has he gotta do.
Speaker 1: He's got to like throw trans people under the bus,
Speaker 1: oral immigrants under the bus, etc.
Speaker 4: But I think this is.
Speaker 1: So misreading the moment in terms of what the Democratic
Speaker 1: base needs to say wants to see that It was
Speaker 1: honestly a little bit astonishing to me that he was
Speaker 1: this tone deaf.
Speaker 5: Well, I just put up on the screen to your point,
Speaker 5: this he chose to tweet this excerpt with the line,
Speaker 5: no one believes pornography should be taught in schools, obviously,
Speaker 5: but that's not why four thousand plus books have been banned.
Speaker 5: The Republican Party has been on a banning bench. I
Speaker 5: disagree with that, but whatever It's so interesting to me
Speaker 5: that he chose to post that excerpt because I feel
Speaker 5: like he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Speaker 5: He's trying to throw red meat at the Democratic base
Speaker 5: and then also create clickbait on the right, you know,
Speaker 5: like he is trying to use this.
Speaker 1: Where's the red meat for the Democratic base? That part
Speaker 1: I didn't see.
Speaker 5: The Republican Party has been on a banning binge right,
Speaker 5: like he's trying to like pump up the left, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: the Republicans are book banners and Gavin Newsom is he's
Speaker 5: holding the line while he's talking, you know about cultural
Speaker 5: issues like transports in a different.
Speaker 4: Way, what did you think of all thats? Ryan?
Speaker 2: In this clip, he didn't actually hold the line he had.
Speaker 3: It was like he didn't know where he was yet.
Speaker 3: In the clip, he's like.
Speaker 5: But he posted it in a way that made it
Speaker 5: look like he did.
Speaker 2: In the clip though, he's like, there shouldn't be pornography
Speaker 2: in the schools. We all agree with that, And then
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's like, Okay, then I'll show you some books
Speaker 2: that are pornographic and have pornographic images in them, and
Speaker 2: you agree we should remove those and then he goes
Speaker 2: back to, well, I don't really want the government making
Speaker 2: those decisions, which is like, well, you just said that
Speaker 2: the government shouldn't allow, you know, pornography in schools, like
Speaker 2: so should there shouldn't they? So you come, like a
Speaker 2: voter watching that from both sides would be like, well
Speaker 2: where not actually sure where you stand on this question yet?
Speaker 3: And ye like it should be an easy one, be like.
Speaker 2: If because if you say that there shouldn't be geography
Speaker 2: in schools, like you just said that that's your position,
Speaker 2: then obviously you have to take get out of there.
Speaker 2: If somebody identifies one that fits that category when they
Speaker 2: come back and they're like, well the Bible should be
Speaker 2: banned and so should this bill O'Reilly book and Soshia
Speaker 2: Tony Morrison, then you slam them as like extremist nut jobs, right,
Speaker 2: But he it's I don't know, I don't know, and
Speaker 2: I don't quite know why he can't like just make
Speaker 2: that little concession.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, here's here's why I'm a little bit grateful that
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has misread the moment to this extent, because
Speaker 1: I think right now liberals just want someone who's going
Speaker 1: to like put up a fight like that's just that's it, right,
Speaker 1: It's very inco a. They're very disappointed in leadership. They
Speaker 1: want to see someone match the energy of the moment,
Speaker 1: and the people by and large you're matching the energy
Speaker 1: of the moment are on the left. Then you have
Speaker 1: some people who are like you know, a Jasmine Crockett,
Speaker 1: who look, I've appreciated that she's been out there fighting,
Speaker 1: and like you said, Ryan, she's really talented. But there
Speaker 1: is a danger that you end up with someone like
Speaker 1: a Gavin or a Peek who are politically like they're
Speaker 1: good at being sort of like political debate bros, who
Speaker 1: use their willingness to directly challenge Republicans as a way
Speaker 1: to Trojan horsen yet another standard neoliberal establishment agenda. Like liberals,
Speaker 1: I think would be very susceptible to that. Right now,
Speaker 1: if you just see someone who is like a normal Democrat,
Speaker 1: but who is willing to fight with the Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 1: who's willing to tell them to their face to go
Speaker 1: on Fox News and like hold their own.
Speaker 8: Yeah seventeen right, and the specific policy issues come sort
Speaker 8: of secondary. So I think there's a real, you know
Speaker 8: possibility that you end up with a Democratic primer where
Speaker 8: someone who is able to sort of posture as a
Speaker 8: fighter but then just really is upholding the status quo
Speaker 8: is what the liberal base wants. So I am grateful
Speaker 8: to Gavin Newsom for you know, just having this very
Speaker 8: like basically capitulating to Charlie Kirk in this conversation and
Speaker 8: not going down the path of posturing like he's going
Speaker 8: to be some renegade fighter for you know, any sort
Speaker 8: of like populist or different principle than has reigned in
Speaker 8: the Democratic Party and been a total failure for years
Speaker 8: and years. Because I do think he would be one
Speaker 8: of those candidates that, look, he's a talented guy in
Speaker 8: a certain respect, and I think he there would be
Speaker 8: a real danger of him being able to win in
Speaker 8: a Democratic primary and then just basically be you know,
Speaker 8: Kamala Harris or whatever.
Speaker 5: I've got to run.
Speaker 4: Guys, all right, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Ryan, play the last Yeah, one more clip, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got one more. This is the trans girls
Speaker 1: in sports. I can get your reaction to this. On
Speaker 1: the other side, this is the one that made the
Speaker 1: most news here, Like you right now.
Speaker 7: Should come out and be like, you know what, the
Speaker 7: young man who's about to win the state championship in
Speaker 7: the long jump in female sports. But that's that that
Speaker 7: shouldn't happen. You as the governor should step out and
Speaker 7: say no, no, And I appreciate and but like, would
Speaker 7: you do something like that, would you say no men
Speaker 7: in female sports?
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely
Speaker 6: agree with you on that. So that's easy to call
Speaker 6: out the unfairness of that. There's also a humility and
Speaker 6: a grace. You know that these poor people are more
Speaker 6: likely to commit suicide of anxiety and depression, and the
Speaker 6: way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an
Speaker 6: issue that I have a hard time with as well.
Speaker 6: So both things I can hold in my hand. How
Speaker 6: can we address this issue with the kind of decency
Speaker 6: that I think you know is inherent in you but.
Speaker 3: Not always expressed.
Speaker 4: What do you think of that, Ryan?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they're getting closer to an answer
Speaker 2: on this question that keeps be deviling them. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the first answer should always be you're raising
Speaker 2: this like distraction of an issue that affects, like, you know,
Speaker 2: point zero one percent of the population because you don't
Speaker 2: want people to pay attention to the fact that you're
Speaker 2: you're robbing them blind, Like I think that's you should
Speaker 2: always remind people of that fact. You also don't want
Speaker 2: to look like you're dodging the question, because it is
Speaker 2: something that some people care about, and if you look
Speaker 2: like you're dodging it, you got to give some answer.
Speaker 2: You obviously don't want to be embraced the kind of
Speaker 2: transphobic language of misgendering people the way that Kirk consists
Speaker 2: on doing in that conversation. But I do think that
Speaker 2: Democrats have no chance to win on this question. Like
Speaker 2: I three or four years ago, I wrote a story
Speaker 2: about a poll and a memo that the Transgender Law
Speaker 2: Center had had been circulating that you know, very very
Speaker 2: very pro trans organization that was like, we've done polling,
Speaker 2: we've done focus grouping, the numbers on this are just
Speaker 2: absolutely abysmal. Like the public and there's and every argument
Speaker 2: that we made on behalf of our position made the
Speaker 2: public less likely, not more likely to support our position.
Speaker 2: So like you're you're just you're not going to win.
Speaker 2: No amount of pushing on this issue is going to
Speaker 2: get you to a place where you're winning. And so
Speaker 2: then when you lose on that issue, you end up
Speaker 2: losing on a whole slew of other issues as well.
Speaker 2: And so I think his point about the fairness, it's
Speaker 2: so then what do you do?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Like? And I think the prison question is is an
Speaker 2: interesting one too. And so if democrats, you know, democrats say, look,
Speaker 2: there's they don't like when people say there's only two genders.
Speaker 2: But then if that's the case, why should there be
Speaker 2: only two divisions you know, men's prison, women's prison, or
Speaker 2: men's sports women's sports. You know, maybe there needs to
Speaker 2: be uh you know cis men's sist women and and
Speaker 2: and like non binary category or when it comes to prison,
Speaker 2: like transmen and trans women are segregated, SIS women and
Speaker 2: SIST men, Like this is something that we can think
Speaker 2: about as a society in a respectful way that gives
Speaker 2: dignity people, but also like absorbs, how people feel about
Speaker 2: it and aren't gonna and are not going to change
Speaker 2: no matter what according to like all of the polling
Speaker 2: and focus grouping and conversations and common sense. You know,
Speaker 2: where do you come where do you come down on it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think everything you said is reasonable. Where
Speaker 1: I get upset is you know, you had immediately after
Speaker 1: the election, you had a few members of Congress that
Speaker 1: were like, oh, well, the problem for the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is they just need to like surrender on you know,
Speaker 1: this issue in particular, and because the polling is so bad.
Speaker 1: And like, I get that the polling is bad, but
Speaker 1: it ignores a few things. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: it ignores how bad the polling is for Republicans on
Speaker 1: certain you know issues, especially like Donald Trump pardoning violent
Speaker 1: January sixers who beat up cops really unpopular, like extremely unpopular.
Speaker 1: You know, taking over Greenland really unpopular. Even core part
Speaker 1: of his economic agenda right now on terriffs really really unpopular.
Speaker 1: Cutting Social Security, cutting Medicaid really unpopular. And so where
Speaker 1: I get very skeptical is when you have people like
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom who think that this is all it's very
Speaker 1: convenient for them to say, like, oh, we just need
Speaker 1: to basically sort of throw these vulnerable people under the bus.
Speaker 1: And that's the key back to Democratic Party because it
Speaker 1: allows them to continue operating as they were. It allows
Speaker 1: them to keep taking big money, you know, from donors,
Speaker 1: It allows them to keep pushing a lily status quo
Speaker 1: agenda in terms of economics, And the other piece where
Speaker 1: I worry is, you know, Republicans initially postured like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we only care about trans you know, trans kids, Like
Speaker 1: if you're an adult, do whatever you want, of course,
Speaker 1: the free country, et cetera, et cetera. Now you've got
Speaker 1: a law up in Texas where people who identify as
Speaker 1: trans could be prosecuted for fraud.
Speaker 4: So that's the other piece is like, I think there's a.
Speaker 3: Bride the congressman from Delaware. Yeah, is.
Speaker 2: You know, being called a man by her and she's
Speaker 2: an adult, So yes, this this like claim that they
Speaker 2: only care about kids and adults should be able to
Speaker 2: make the choices that they want to make, is yeah,
Speaker 2: he lies their actual reaction.
Speaker 1: I just I reject the idea that this issue is
Speaker 1: actually the reason why Democrats are struggling. I think it
Speaker 1: has much more to do with selling out the working class.
Speaker 1: And so if your answer doesn't lead with like, there's
Speaker 1: literally like a dozen trans girls in sports in the
Speaker 1: entire country, And so if you're fixated on this, you
Speaker 1: are not definitionly like thinking about the issues that actually
Speaker 1: impact millions and millions of Americans, And then it's not
Speaker 1: that important to me. Ultimately where you fall on this
Speaker 1: particular issue, because I do think it is a challenging one.
Speaker 1: I don't think that you know, the sort of like
Speaker 1: binary works for everything. I think there is a question
Speaker 1: of fairness. I think it could even vary sport to
Speaker 1: sport what the right answer ultimately looks like. But if
Speaker 1: you are foregrounding this as like the central party for
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, that's where I have an issue, and
Speaker 1: that's I think the camp that Gavin Newsom very much
Speaker 1: falls into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like what what you said is like was
Speaker 2: not what they were saying before, before they were drawing
Speaker 2: a very hard line on this, rather than saying, you know,
Speaker 2: this is open for discussion, we need to figure all
Speaker 2: of this out.
Speaker 1: I think they're probably ultimately going to say, like, this
Speaker 1: isn't something for states and localities to work out. And
Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with that answer. What I
Speaker 1: do have a problem with is first of all, the
Speaker 1: you know, the misgendering and the just instinct to sort
Speaker 1: of throw this like, oh, this group's a problem for us,
Speaker 1: so we're just going to throw them under the buzzo immigrations,
Speaker 1: We're just going to throw that under the bus, rather
Speaker 1: than actually making a case for your views and ideals.
Speaker 1: And there's so much of an instinct in the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party right now to just capitulate on any area where
Speaker 1: they're you know, where they're underwater, pulling wise, And that
Speaker 1: is not how They're Republican Party operates at all, like,
Speaker 1: not even a little. It's certainly not how Donald Trump
Speaker 1: operates at all. So I think it is just like
Speaker 1: wildly learning the wrong lessons from the last election. Yeah, well, Ryan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for spending some time with us
Speaker 1: this morning, and hope pleasure. Yes, indeed, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are gonna be like eighteen million more stories that break
Speaker 1: over the weekend that Soccer and I will struggle to
Speaker 1: squeeze into a show on Monday. If anything truly huge breaks,
Speaker 1: we will make sure to cover it over the weekend. Then, guys,
Speaker 1: enjoy your Friday, enjoy your weekend, and Soccer and I
Speaker 1: will see you guys on Monday.