Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And the Senate has passed a sanctions
Speaker 1: bill named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham. We have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. The Majority Report
Speaker 1: Sam Cedar stops by you talk about Trump's bad economy
Speaker 1: and the increasing bill for the endless war in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Duckworth about
Speaker 1: her new resolution addressing the Trump administration hiding the death
Speaker 1: poll of the war in Iran.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: Smileye, we got some rough job numbers. Everybody's been astounded.
Speaker 3: Our economy has stayed strung the song. But a lot
Speaker 3: of those people who've been thinking, wow, we've averted the
Speaker 3: recession are starting to go row.
Speaker 1: So listen, this is a bad These are bad numbers.
Speaker 1: This is revised the prior two months job reports by
Speaker 1: one hundreds of thousand jobs. It shed twenty three thousand
Speaker 1: jobs in July. That's a sign that the labor market
Speaker 1: hasn't stabilized. The unemployment rate ticked down. There's another problem
Speaker 1: with the two right, which is that it also showed
Speaker 1: that workers' average hourly earnings also fell short, and wage
Speaker 1: growth was just zero point one from June or three
Speaker 1: point two from a year ago. And that's below inflation.
Speaker 1: So that means that things are still getting more expensive
Speaker 1: and your wages are not keeping up. And look, we
Speaker 1: all know, I mean, this is the elephant in the room, right,
Speaker 1: Like we know tariffs are making things more expensive. We
Speaker 1: know tariffs are not bringing back my manufacturing. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: there are three things this administration is doing that are
Speaker 1: making things more expensive. Tariffs, deportation, because it means people
Speaker 1: aren't coming to work, and the labor market is tight,
Speaker 1: and if you're building a house, you know one day
Speaker 1: all your workers might be arrested. It creates instability in
Speaker 1: the market, which makes things more expensive and makes people
Speaker 1: more freaked out and less likely to build things. And
Speaker 1: then the tariffs, and then the high price of gasoline,
Speaker 1: and then the president you know, gases up like almost
Speaker 1: two dollars, and then you have Donald Trump saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the war's over, the war starting, We're going to blow
Speaker 1: them to smithereens. I mean, what Donald Trump has done,
Speaker 1: which is what's really I think hurting the economy ultimately
Speaker 1: is like all the credibility of the White House has
Speaker 1: been squandered. So it used to be that when the
Speaker 1: government did things, you may not like it, but you
Speaker 1: sort of trusted it, and all of that has sort
Speaker 1: of been eroded by almost two years of trump Ism.
Speaker 1: So we find ourselves in a situation where, and we
Speaker 1: know this to be true, it feels like the president
Speaker 1: is the most interested in things that benefit him and
Speaker 1: the least interested in things that benefit the people who
Speaker 1: put him in office. And you know, even with these
Speaker 1: executive orders, like he has just signed a bunch of orders.
Speaker 1: One is a birthright citizenship another worth right citizenship order,
Speaker 1: like these are things that will not make life less expensive.
Speaker 1: Like if you were laser focused on affordability, the first
Speaker 1: thing you would do is you would end the tariffs,
Speaker 1: you would end the trade war. You would encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to bring their prices down. That would, you know, cut
Speaker 1: inflation by a little bit, and then you would end
Speaker 1: the war and ran and that would cut gas prices.
Speaker 1: But that's not what's happening here. He's just focused on
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And supposedly the reporting is that he's
Speaker 1: going to do a executive order on childhood vaccines another
Speaker 1: thing that is both unpopular and unhelpful, and that does
Speaker 1: not help anyone. So that's where we are. And it's
Speaker 1: just as such a stupid time to be alive. Is
Speaker 1: it the stupidest time to be alive?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's the stupidest time to be alive.
Speaker 3: Well, that will be evidence by our next headline, which
Speaker 3: is that Trump is freaking the fuck out just not
Speaker 3: stop truths about the judge who ruled his ballroom is illegal.
Speaker 1: Remember, like earlier in the week, we had Donald Trump
Speaker 1: almost firing Judge Box of Wine over the reflecting pool.
Speaker 1: Why because she would not support his lie that the
Speaker 1: reflecting pool was actually somehow damaged by vandals when it's
Speaker 1: very clear, like on Earth one, we know that the
Speaker 1: reflecting pool was damaged by shoddy workmanship. So here's the
Speaker 1: new thing. He's crashing out over a federal appeals court
Speaker 1: ordering him to stop construction on the illegal White House ballroom. Remember,
Speaker 1: he never was meant to do this in the first place.
Speaker 1: He got no approvals, you know, like this was all
Speaker 1: illegal to begin with. So the reason why he's crashing
Speaker 1: out is because he knows this is a problem for him.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a two.
Speaker 1: To one ruling that said that he has to seek
Speaker 1: approval from Congress for the exclusive authority to demolish White
Speaker 1: House structures. FYI, the structure already demolished, and at this
Speaker 1: preliminary stage, the National Trust has shown compellingly that Congress
Speaker 1: has not seeded unfettered authority to the executive branch to
Speaker 1: dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstructed the White House the People's House,
Speaker 1: to fit a particular president's desires. I think it's a
Speaker 1: really an important point because so much of the last
Speaker 1: eighteen months, almost two years has been Donald Trump just
Speaker 1: running roughshaw over Congress and Congress being pathetic. For example,
Speaker 1: I think about Senator Cassidy today, who decided to vote
Speaker 1: for Todd Blanche despite the fact that Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: ruined him right, has made it so he lost his primary.
Speaker 1: Even in spite of that, He's still voted to bring
Speaker 1: Todd Branch through the committee and into a general vote.
Speaker 1: And it's just such incredible amount of cowardice. These people
Speaker 1: cannot stand up to Trump. Even when Trump is pulling
Speaker 1: at the Bush line below the Bush numbers are at
Speaker 1: the same as the Bush numbers. They still cannot stand
Speaker 1: up to him, and it's because they're cowards.
Speaker 3: So another story that is just a perfect summation of
Speaker 3: what the Trump era is like is that the Trump
Speaker 3: administration has refunded one hundred billion dollars in tariffs. It's
Speaker 3: all going to corporations who are now saying we have
Speaker 3: record earnings to drive up their stocks instead of the
Speaker 3: people who paid them.
Speaker 2: Yes, who could have seen this? Is this capitalism? Who
Speaker 2: could have seen this?
Speaker 3: Car It's this stage of capitalism for sure.
Speaker 1: Major corporations. They're getting hundreds of millions of dollars back
Speaker 1: for tariffs you are not. Some of these companies have
Speaker 1: raised their prices, some haven't, some have sneakily raised their prices,
Speaker 1: but either way, they're making bank on your tariffs. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's not like the tariffs are gone either.
Speaker 1: Trump just put them back on. So they're getting paid
Speaker 1: back for tariffs that are going to come right back on.
Speaker 1: And also you're not getting any money back, which is
Speaker 1: just an insane way to be. So the Tax Foundation
Speaker 1: estimates that an average US household spent an extra thousand
Speaker 1: dollars thousand dollars as a result of these tips. Remember
Speaker 1: how we were talking about how Donald Trump is not
Speaker 1: focused on affordability. Here are there are people who are
Speaker 1: making choices between like food and gas. Okay, and here's
Speaker 1: Donald Trump an extra thousand dollars because of the tariffs.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy is so stupid. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out the new thing he
Speaker 1: is using, the new law he's using to enact these
Speaker 1: tariffs was from the Smooth Holly era of tariffs, like
Speaker 1: smooth Hollie. You'll remember Smooth Holly because it brought on
Speaker 1: the Great Depression. I mean, it is literally like being
Speaker 1: in hell, like everything is so incredibly stupid.
Speaker 3: Yep. Well, we do see a sign in Trump's script
Speaker 3: on the GOP with the loss of one representative, Andy Ougle's,
Speaker 3: who you may remember as one of the biggest racists
Speaker 3: and a hotly contested contest inside the house. He really
Speaker 3: was one of the most vile, disgusting, disgusting racist people
Speaker 3: to tweet every day, and he has lost his primary.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again, this is an important story for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that it shows the really diminished power of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Number one.
Speaker 1: So Trump used to be a king maker, used to
Speaker 1: be able to endorse anyone he wanted make them the nominee.
Speaker 1: Everyone from Roymore to herschel Walker to carry Lake. You know,
Speaker 1: a rogues gallery of some of the worst politicians, the
Speaker 1: least talented and most you know, ideologically insane politicians.
Speaker 2: And that is no longer word looking for him.
Speaker 1: Representative Andy Ogles is the second Trump backed House candidate
Speaker 1: to lose this week, okay, because mar Hassan lost in Michigan,
Speaker 1: and by the way, he was running against someone who
Speaker 1: had dropped out. Trump is now up to six failed
Speaker 1: endorsements this primary season. That's six, okay, which is more
Speaker 1: than in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty and twenty four. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty he had four. I mean, it's just like,
Speaker 1: what you're seeing here is that Donald Trump his power
Speaker 1: is diminishing, and that's what we're watching here, and that
Speaker 1: I think is meaningful. Donald Trump has always had a
Speaker 1: like a lock on his face, and the fact that
Speaker 1: that is not working anymore, I think is meaningful. I
Speaker 1: also want to talk about one thing that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: said to punch Bowl today. He said, Trump argues he
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be campaigning on behalf of Republicans, telling
Speaker 1: Punchball he already won his own race. He added that
Speaker 1: he doesn't know if his supporters will go out and
Speaker 1: vote for GOP candidates, claiming they're not angry at me,
Speaker 1: but they are angry at Republicans. I don't think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think they are angry at him. The anger of
Speaker 1: the base problem is a real problem, and like that
Speaker 1: Democrats are feeling that too, and that I really do
Speaker 1: think is a failure on the part of Republicans because
Speaker 1: they're in power right now, but also Democrats to some extent,
Speaker 1: a failure to deliver on promises. Right, Like, these people
Speaker 1: voted for Trump because he said he was going to
Speaker 1: make things cheaper, and now the average family is spending
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars more because of tariffs which don't even work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just unbelievable, unbelievable energy, but exactly the type of
Speaker 3: energy we get from this administration.
Speaker 1: Sam Cedar is the host of the Majority Report. Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Sam Cedar.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, Molly. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5: It's fun to see you.
Speaker 4: Glad to see you.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: So we have these.
Speaker 1: Numbers, these economy numbers. I feel like every day is
Speaker 1: groundhog Day. Right, it's not working. The Terriff's don't working.
Speaker 1: The endless war in the Middle East, we thought, I
Speaker 1: mean that always seemed like a great idea that's not working.
Speaker 1: Like it just feels like everything Trump is doing is
Speaker 1: not working, and somehow he doesn't. You know, the job numbers.
Speaker 1: We're seeing these revisions like and it's just like typical
Speaker 1: Republican president stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think there's two things, right. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think there's like a really major structural problem with
Speaker 4: our economy that I don't think like, you know, the
Speaker 4: second half of the Biden administration, let's put it, you know,
Speaker 4: largely because of Mansion in cinema, but also of Biden
Speaker 4: allowing the process to drag out the way he did
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, because there was a lot of great
Speaker 4: stuff in the American Rescue Act that would begin to
Speaker 4: address some of this stuff and ended up basically sunsetting
Speaker 4: and then built back better, which I think was going
Speaker 4: to address some of.
Speaker 2: This manufacturing, certain.
Speaker 4: Manufacturing, I mean all of like the industrial policy, but
Speaker 4: also like sort of like support for parental leave and
Speaker 4: you know, an extension of the erin income or the
Speaker 4: child tax credit credit. Yeah, there was a lot of
Speaker 4: things that would have addressed essentially our k shaped economy.
Speaker 4: The antitrust too also would have addressed this. None of
Speaker 4: that was sufficiently addressed under Biden, and the Trump administration
Speaker 4: is doing nothing but sort of like embedding the case economy.
Speaker 4: I mean Exon and was it Exon and Mobile came
Speaker 4: out with their largest profits quarters in the history of
Speaker 4: these massive money juggernauts. So we have this increasingly wealth
Speaker 4: disparity which ends up hurting people in a myriad of ways.
Speaker 4: We have this inflation. Now, the job numbers came out today,
Speaker 4: they were negative territory. Yeah, Kevin Hassett would have you
Speaker 4: believe that that was a function of like, well, now
Speaker 4: there's no more immigrants.
Speaker 1: I mean that fucking die. So he said, well, don't
Speaker 1: worry because the jobs. Yes, there are less jobs, but
Speaker 1: there are less people to take the jobs. When you
Speaker 1: don't know how social security works, this makes sense.
Speaker 5: But when you realize that that means there are less
Speaker 5: people paying into social Security, that means there's less growth,
Speaker 5: there's less workers.
Speaker 2: There's us that the economy is affected by that jet but.
Speaker 4: Also it sort of puts to the lie that they
Speaker 4: were taking our jobs. Right, well, that I'm seeking our jobs.
Speaker 4: Why did the jobs go away? Like I mean, like
Speaker 4: like it doesn't make any sense. If they went away,
Speaker 4: where are the jobs? Then there should be extra jobs,
Speaker 4: and there's not. Wages are depressed, wage growth is down,
Speaker 4: which also indicates there aren't jobs for somebody to go to.
Speaker 4: I think we're at some type of peak in terms
Speaker 4: of women having to work two jobs. None of it's working,
Speaker 4: and you get into really really dangerous territory where you
Speaker 4: start to see the economy flag and inflation still creeping up,
Speaker 4: and then you're talking about stagflation a little bit. So
Speaker 4: I mean, the economy is a crap show. The Trump
Speaker 4: is never going to address the structural issues with it
Speaker 4: at all, right now, definitely not. And I have this
Speaker 4: to say as a sidebar. You know, the the economy
Speaker 4: has to be addressed in a structural way. I mean,
Speaker 4: it has to happen or we're going to keep going
Speaker 4: bouncing back and forth between fascists and you know, just
Speaker 4: basically non fascist. But I'm most scared about things like,
Speaker 4: you know, the agencies that have been completely debil both
Speaker 4: from a every other day you find out a new
Speaker 4: you know, Republican version strain of diarrhea that people are
Speaker 4: getting because of whatever food is not healthy and the
Speaker 4: irs seems to be essentially completely broken, like just broken,
Speaker 4: and people aren't getting their refunds. We're obviously not auditing
Speaker 4: people with money anymore. Real problem.
Speaker 1: And it's worth remembering that the child tax credit actually
Speaker 1: like lifted half of all children out of poverty. Like
Speaker 1: it was wildly successful. It wasn't like a weird experiment
Speaker 1: that might have worked in twenty years, like it literally worked. Republicans,
Speaker 1: and with the help of Christian Cinema, who now lobbies
Speaker 1: for data centers, and Joe Manchin, who wants to come
Speaker 1: back and.
Speaker 2: Does the political spotlight.
Speaker 1: With the help of those two, it just expired, like
Speaker 1: just no fan fair nothing. So I do think that's
Speaker 1: a really important point. But I do also think like
Speaker 1: Trump is pretty clear that he just wants corporations to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money and rich people and mostly
Speaker 1: himself and his family to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And what I think that nobody is talking about here,
Speaker 1: and I think we should be talking about it is
Speaker 1: how angry voters are. Because voters are really mad, and
Speaker 1: they're mad. I think in a way that we will
Speaker 1: not really be able to get the full picture until
Speaker 1: after the midterms, but they're knocking out incumbents left and right.
Speaker 1: Republicans are getting creamed, and you know, Trump plus ten,
Speaker 1: Trump plus fifteen, and even Democrat Democratic incumbents losing like
Speaker 1: and ultimately this group I think is going they I
Speaker 1: think they want to see real change, and I think
Speaker 1: that these four years, these two years of trump Ism,
Speaker 1: or these eighteen months of Trumpism have made them only angrier.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I I mean, I totally agree, and I think
Speaker 4: I mean, I think there's I think there is a
Speaker 4: general anger. I think there is a unique anger towards
Speaker 4: the Democratic leadership, I.
Speaker 2: Guess the established stablishment.
Speaker 4: I think there's two things going on there. I think one,
Speaker 4: we're seeing, like, you know, really a fifteen year project
Speaker 4: from Occupy Wall Street, where the left is you know, organizing, coalescing,
Speaker 4: getting understanding what they need to do, finding the vehicles
Speaker 4: in which they can do this. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: that's part of a process. You know, we saw that
Speaker 4: with si Ed this week. I also think that there
Speaker 4: is a broader, non ideological anger towards the Democratic Party,
Speaker 4: which is you guys suck, you like you suck on
Speaker 4: a competence level, not on an ideological level, although that
Speaker 4: may come through, but like.
Speaker 2: You just want fighters.
Speaker 4: But it's also like there are these issues that I
Speaker 4: think it's it's not just that they're not fighting and
Speaker 4: that they're ineffective, right, I mean they're failing. They failed.
Speaker 4: They did not beat Donald Trump. They failed. They haven't
Speaker 4: stopped any of this. But also I do think that
Speaker 4: like you know, Agaza has become I mean, it's not
Speaker 4: a limus test, it's more of like a ticket to entry,
Speaker 4: Like what are you talking about? You know, if you
Speaker 4: can't answer this one question, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: There's no way. I mean, this is what was really
Speaker 4: interesting to me about the race this week in Michigan.
Speaker 4: The most interesting dynamic, it seems to me, was Malory mcmurrow,
Speaker 4: because she was sent there as the cavalry for the
Speaker 4: failure of the Democratic establishment to have enough self awareness
Speaker 4: as to even like a quality candidate. I mean, Hailey
Speaker 4: was aside from her positions, which I think were bad
Speaker 4: positions to have, particularly in this environment, particularly around Israel,
Speaker 4: She's just a bad candidate. She wasn't crisscrossing a Michigan yeah,
Speaker 4: not articulating things well, you know, she got like defensive
Speaker 4: about her voice and it's like, I'm sorry, let's grow up,
Speaker 4: you know. So mcmurrow was sort of primed to become
Speaker 4: her replacement essentially at this race, and the fact that
Speaker 4: she couldn't pull it off, and she is like just
Speaker 4: a better candidate than Haley Stevens genever speaking, but the
Speaker 4: fact that she had to maintain a certain issues set
Speaker 4: to get into position to get the money that Haley
Speaker 4: Stevens had, that's what doomed her. I mean, there were
Speaker 4: two things that basically doomed her in my estimation, but
Speaker 4: the biggest was when she decided, like I've got to
Speaker 4: go after Hassan Piker and it's like, nobody knows who
Speaker 4: you're talking about, But why doing that? She's doing that
Speaker 4: for the donors, right, Like, yeah, she's doing that for
Speaker 4: the donors. And so there's this interesting sort of like
Speaker 4: catch twenty two that like mcmurrow represents, which is, if
Speaker 4: you're not going to go the populist route, if you're
Speaker 4: not going to go the route where you know, Israel
Speaker 4: Gaza is an eighty twenty issue in the Republican the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party right now. Yeah, if you're not going to
Speaker 4: go that route, you're gonna have to take money that's
Speaker 4: going to put you on the wrong side of that
Speaker 4: eighty twenty divide. And so there's a real sort of
Speaker 4: interesting dynamic at play, and it's not going to play
Speaker 4: out too much more because we got our uh we're
Speaker 4: almost done with the primary season, but it's really interesting
Speaker 4: for the future.
Speaker 1: I also think that the underwritten story here, like there's
Speaker 1: so much anxiety in the punning class about like is
Speaker 1: this the radical left coming?
Speaker 5: And the reality is, like doctor el said, it's a
Speaker 5: good candidate. He speaks really well. Manei out apologics money
Speaker 5: in your pocket, Medicare for all.
Speaker 1: Like that's I want that, Like that's those are simple
Speaker 1: things that people want.
Speaker 5: And I think with Mallory, you she just wasn't as
Speaker 5: good a candidate.
Speaker 1: But I also think that I think you're right, and
Speaker 1: I think the Democratic establishment kind.
Speaker 2: Of blew it.
Speaker 1: I think of Daniel Biss who won that very hotly
Speaker 1: contested Illinois primary, and he was a candidate who ran
Speaker 1: Jewish from Israeli family. Grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and
Speaker 1: Apak came in and said, if you do not support
Speaker 1: unconditional ads, we're going to come into this primary and
Speaker 1: we're going to take you out and we're going.
Speaker 5: To spend against you. And he said okay, And he
Speaker 5: made his whole campaign. I mean, he's quite smart. He
Speaker 5: was the mayor of Evanston and he's he's a mathematician
Speaker 5: he taught, I mean, very smart.
Speaker 2: But he made a big part of his campaign him
Speaker 2: running against APAC.
Speaker 1: And the importance of having in Israel that does not
Speaker 1: do things that hurt you is ultimately besides hurting Palestinians.
Speaker 1: And I think it was very effective yeap.
Speaker 4: What we're seeing as an analogy, when Elon Musk went
Speaker 4: to Wisconsin a year ago April to win the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court for Conservatives there, his presence, the eighteen million dollars
Speaker 4: that he dumped into that race actually became a liability,
Speaker 4: I think. And that's what we're seeing now with APAC.
Speaker 4: I mean, you come in with sixty million dollars from
Speaker 4: APACK and it's almost like you're going to lose. That's
Speaker 4: an interesting dynamic. I think that's that's going on there,
Speaker 4: and I don't think that's gonna change. I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot of anger. There's a lot of frustration with
Speaker 4: Democrats from the Democratic side, and I think that's we're
Speaker 4: in the sort of like the harvest of that anger
Speaker 4: that has been sown.
Speaker 5: Sam, I have a question for you, because like we're
Speaker 5: both liberal Jews. People will say to me, they're mostly Republicans,
Speaker 5: but some Democrats will say, like, the left has become
Speaker 5: anti Semitic.
Speaker 2: What do you say to that?
Speaker 5: Because I often say, like, well, tell me something anti
Speaker 5: semitic that Al Faeid has said, and the keyn't they say, well.
Speaker 2: What is happening there?
Speaker 4: What they're talking about, I think is they're conflating Zionism
Speaker 4: with Judaism. And I have a lot of theories as
Speaker 4: to why that happens. I mean, you and I, uh.
Speaker 4: I think I'm a little older than you, but we
Speaker 4: grew up. I mean, let's put it this way, the
Speaker 4: Holocaust when I was my son is thirteen. The Holocaust
Speaker 4: was a closer to temporarily from when I was thirteen
Speaker 4: then my son is, to when Kurt Kobang killed himself.
Speaker 4: And so, like I think many people who are still
Speaker 4: growing up with that specter, there is a fear. I
Speaker 4: certainly I know that in my Jewish education, it was
Speaker 4: you learned about the Holocaust and then you learned about
Speaker 4: Israel as the sort of like the response to the
Speaker 4: predicati of the Holocaust. And personally, I think this conflation
Speaker 4: is in and of itself is anti Semitic. When Jews
Speaker 4: do it, they're obviously not doing it out of an
Speaker 4: anti Semitism. I think they're doing it out of, frankly,
Speaker 4: like an ignorance or a trauma or whatnot. But I
Speaker 4: could tell you, like I had a guy who went
Speaker 4: to my bar mitza, went to my sister's bar mitzvah,
Speaker 4: went to my other sisters bar mitzvah, probably spent half
Speaker 4: a dozen Satyrs with us over the years, maybe more. Oh,
Speaker 4: my dad a year ago and ask if I was
Speaker 4: anti Semitic. And then my dad wanted to know if
Speaker 4: I was going to invite this guy to my son's barmitzva.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, guess, no, I'm not going to. I'm
Speaker 4: not going to allow any Jews at my son's.
Speaker 2: This year because you're anti.
Speaker 4: San Yes, I mean so, I think in some instances
Speaker 4: it comes out of a genuine fear. I think there
Speaker 4: is also a conflation and a knowing inflation mean Zionism
Speaker 4: and Judaism. The fact of the matter is is, if
Speaker 4: you're genuinely concerned about anti Semitism, you should look at
Speaker 4: what's happening on the right. I'm not saying that there
Speaker 4: is an anti Semitism on the left. There's a Semitism
Speaker 4: everywhere on some level, but or at least a bias
Speaker 4: towards Jews, but there isn't anything remotely close on the
Speaker 4: left as to the right. If you're going to break
Speaker 4: it down in that way, it's just it's an absurd comparison.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: What they're talking about is they're they're they're they're pushing
Speaker 4: back against anti Zionism. And I think sometimes you know,
Speaker 4: when you look at like Mamdani and Abdul say Ed,
Speaker 4: people are responding to the fact that they're Muslim, there
Speaker 4: is a lot more Islamophobia at play here than there
Speaker 4: is anti Semitism in those instances, in my opinion. But
Speaker 4: I also think it's cynically used at times as a
Speaker 4: way of saying, I don't want somebody who's anti Zionist.
Speaker 4: I also don't want somebody who's Medicare for all right.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that it's it's used in many
Speaker 4: ways in that way. I personally feel like Israel is
Speaker 4: making Jews a lot less safer than safer for sure,
Speaker 4: you know, just on a purely empirical level. Don't tell
Speaker 4: me that we need Israel because it's the only place
Speaker 4: for Jews to be safe. And then I'd say, and
Speaker 4: they're always in bomb shelters. Well, I get news for
Speaker 4: you in this country.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And net Yahoo clearly is really mostly interested in
Speaker 1: protecting Net and Yahoo from going to jail, which, in
Speaker 1: that way, he's very trumpy.
Speaker 4: He's very trumpy, except for Trump is at a thirty
Speaker 4: two percent approval rating in Net Yahoo's probably a seventy
Speaker 4: eight percent of prove or seventy two percent approval rating
Speaker 4: of somewhere there. I mean, Net Yah, who's been wasn't
Speaker 4: for almost a third of the country's history, prime minister
Speaker 4: or whatever. Maybe it's maybe it's a quarter. I mean so,
Speaker 4: so the I wish there was greater daylight between Net
Speaker 4: and Yahoo and the Israeli people. I wish there was
Speaker 4: a growing political movement in Israel, growing that provided an
Speaker 4: alternate version of of what Israel could be. I don't
Speaker 4: see it. I interview Israeli journalists, they don't see it.
Speaker 4: There's a problem with Israel. And you know, I remember
Speaker 4: having this conversation with a semi conservative buddy of mine
Speaker 4: fifteen years ago, and I was like, Dude, people like
Speaker 4: you who are going to endanger Israel the most because
Speaker 4: you're letting them drive drunk, and if you don't take
Speaker 4: away the keys right now, it's going to end with
Speaker 4: them careening off the side of a of a of
Speaker 4: a highway and in a fiery explosion. And I worry
Speaker 4: about that. You can only push people so much. You
Speaker 4: can only you know, commit a genocide so publicly without
Speaker 4: the world responding. And I think that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: Sam Cedar.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll come.
Speaker 4: Back, of course I will, you know, I will.
Speaker 1: Tammy Duckworth is the junior Senator from the state of Illinois. Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Senator Jeremy Duckworth. First, let's talk about what it must
Speaker 1: be like to be a Democrat who is a veteran,
Speaker 1: who is watching this president who said he was going
Speaker 1: to end foreign wars just completely blunder his way through
Speaker 1: American foreign policy. Will you talk us through sort of
Speaker 1: what it's like for you at this moment in the Senate.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, there's a lot of frustration, but I'm
Speaker 7: really focused on holding Donald Trump and his completely incompetent
Speaker 7: Secretary of Defense accountable for their actions and their decisions.
Speaker 7: They continue to again, as you mentioned, you know, get
Speaker 7: us involved in conflict or receives when Trump actually ran
Speaker 7: for office based on no more forever wars, and yet
Speaker 7: you know he's engaged in conflict in many places around
Speaker 7: the world, and now what's beginning to look like another
Speaker 7: forever war in Iran. You know, Trump knows his illegal
Speaker 7: war is deeply unpopular, and he knows it, and so
Speaker 7: you know, he's trying to basically hood with the American
Speaker 7: people about it.
Speaker 1: So Secretary of what he calls himself, the Secretary of
Speaker 1: War obviously not his real name, but he came to
Speaker 1: you guys to ask for more money. And during that process,
Speaker 1: did you get some insight into sort of the level
Speaker 1: of money that is being squandered at this moment? And
Speaker 1: because it strikes me that a lot of money is
Speaker 1: being spent in ways it's probably not supposed to be.
Speaker 7: Oh no, because they have been lying to Congress and
Speaker 7: to the Marria people. By lying to Congress, the only
Speaker 7: figures we've received from the Pentagon so far. Was many
Speaker 7: weeks ago they said the war had cost thirty five
Speaker 7: billion dollars. By that point, that was a good six
Speaker 7: weeks ago, I believe. And then they said it had
Speaker 7: cost thirty nine billion dollars. But by the way, that
Speaker 7: doesn't include the cost of infrastructure that has been damaged,
Speaker 7: and that was from weeks ago. So we have no
Speaker 7: idea how much money they're blowing on this war. On
Speaker 7: top of that, Trump has made statements in the public
Speaker 7: saying that he's going to ask for anywhere from two
Speaker 7: hundred to three hundred billion dollars to rebuild Iran. To
Speaker 7: rebuild Iran, I'd like him to rebuild America. I'd like
Speaker 7: to take you know, I mean the state of Illinois
Speaker 7: with like one fiftieth of two hundred billion dollars, we
Speaker 7: could use it to rebuild the infrastructure in Illinois. Yeah,
Speaker 7: come spend some money. You know here in the United States,
Speaker 7: why are you worried about Iran? Well, you know there
Speaker 7: they are are running through money so quickly, while Americans
Speaker 7: are suffering and unable to pay to fill up their
Speaker 7: gas tanks as a result of this war.
Speaker 1: So there's this munitions question that I've read a lot
Speaker 1: about that we might be running out of munitions, can
Speaker 1: you I mean, I assume that you don't necessarily that
Speaker 1: they're not being honest with Congress any which way. But
Speaker 1: I'm just curious if you have any insight, even just
Speaker 1: from your own experience, about the munitions question.
Speaker 7: So they're using very advanced munitions. Sometimes they're using very
Speaker 7: advanced munitions that cost millions of dollars to attack things
Speaker 7: like drones that cost tens of thousands of dollars right
Speaker 7: attack THEMS and that type of thing. So this is
Speaker 7: this speaks to the incompetence of the Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 7: who you know is not leading this war in any
Speaker 7: way that shows any understanding of tactics or techniques. And remember,
Speaker 7: this guy was an infantry officer who made it to
Speaker 7: the rank of major without ever having a come any command,
Speaker 7: ever earning a ranger tab jump wings on aerossault badge.
Speaker 7: So who was taken off the streets of DC on
Speaker 7: January sixth because his leadership doubted his ability to do
Speaker 7: his job.
Speaker 2: So that's who is.
Speaker 7: Secretary of Defense right now.
Speaker 6: And so I'm not surprised that they're blowing through munitions
Speaker 6: the way they are and again this has to do
Speaker 6: with decisions that's being made by the leadership and the
Speaker 6: Pentagon on how to expand these munitions.
Speaker 1: I have another question, which is supposedly the Ukrainians offered
Speaker 1: the United States help with the drug you know, because
Speaker 1: they have this incredible drone program which has basically almost
Speaker 1: won them the war with Russia, kept them way punching
Speaker 1: weight above their weight. That supposedly the Ukrainians had offered
Speaker 1: this technology to America and we had declined.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's true?
Speaker 1: Have you heard any insight into that and do you
Speaker 1: have any sense of that?
Speaker 7: So, the Ukrainians do have a very advanced a drone
Speaker 7: program that is constantly being refined hour by hour, like
Speaker 7: they'll learn something in the morning that they will put
Speaker 7: into play that evening. In fact, I've gone out to
Speaker 7: look at some of their processes that they're working on
Speaker 7: with allies located in Poland. For example. They call them
Speaker 7: Franken programs like Frankenstein programs because they're just cobbling together
Speaker 7: what they need to to make for air defense and
Speaker 7: the like. So I don't know, I don't have confirmation
Speaker 7: that heck Seth turned down to Ukrainians I would not
Speaker 7: be surprised that they did. But I know that Ukrainians
Speaker 7: have a very advanced drone program and that they've also
Speaker 7: offered it to other allies. They've offered Tornado allies to
Speaker 7: help them as well. And so I think this is
Speaker 7: where we concern me work with the Ukrainians to really
Speaker 7: take advantage of what they've learned to make our forces
Speaker 7: safer and also more deadly if we need them to be.
Speaker 1: So you have served. I can only imagine because I
Speaker 1: read these articles about Pete Hegsath going and making they're
Speaker 1: not promoting women, they're not promoting people of color. The
Speaker 1: way the army works, from what I understand, you know
Speaker 1: much better than I do. The way the US Armed
Speaker 1: Forces works is that there's a lot of protocol for
Speaker 1: these promotions that usually when you've gotten to that point,
Speaker 1: it's because you've done the things you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So can you talk to us about how this kind
Speaker 1: of anti woke agenda is really just seems like discrimination.
Speaker 7: Oh, it's racist, it's racist, a misogynist. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 7: for all of his bless about bringing meritocracy back to
Speaker 7: our military, the most unqualified secretive defense our nation's history
Speaker 7: is doing the opposite. And you're right when you are
Speaker 7: finally made put onto the promotion roles. You've done everything
Speaker 7: that you're supposed to do. You've held every command, you've
Speaker 7: done all of your stuff. You've done your education, military education,
Speaker 7: and your leadership not just one level up, but your
Speaker 7: leadership two and three levels up. Stay this person sin
Speaker 7: should be promoted. They put you on a voter role
Speaker 7: on the promotion rolls, and it goes forward for the
Speaker 7: Secretary of Defense to personally reach down and cancel the
Speaker 7: promotion of every woman who is getting a promotion in
Speaker 7: the general officer's rank and half of the black men.
Speaker 7: He actually did that personally shows a level of racism
Speaker 7: and misogynistic tendencies of this Secretary of Defense. All I
Speaker 7: can think of is this man must have been beaten
Speaker 7: out by a woman or a person of color at
Speaker 7: some point when he failed as an army officer, and
Speaker 7: now he's just trying to get some of his own back.
Speaker 7: But here's the problem. It's going to drive highly qualify
Speaker 7: folks out of the military. Who's going to see this happening.
Speaker 7: You're going to see colonels like, why am I going
Speaker 7: to try to make it to general officer. When you
Speaker 7: know hard work and merit doesn't matter. It's only only
Speaker 7: the color of my skin and whether I pee standing
Speaker 7: up matters, right, And so this is this is where
Speaker 7: we are, and we certainly can't afford to get back
Speaker 7: to a military that's hollowed out, which is what Pete
Speaker 7: Hexseth is doing.
Speaker 1: I think that in the last Trump administration there was
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety that they were going to do
Speaker 1: this in the military, and they maybe did a little
Speaker 1: bit of it, but not the same way. This time,
Speaker 1: it's much more pronounced, right, It.
Speaker 7: Is much more pronounced. And the reason that they were
Speaker 7: not able to do this in the first term was
Speaker 7: that there were Trump administration appointees who stood up to them.
Speaker 4: Right this term.
Speaker 7: They put completely incompetent, unqualified individuals who are not willing
Speaker 7: to stand with them. Hexset is one of those individuals.
Speaker 1: So you have a little news for us, But I
Speaker 1: would love you to talk about what it is that
Speaker 1: you are putting on the floor right now.
Speaker 7: So I'm going to be introducing a bill that will
Speaker 7: honor the sacrifices of our troops in war. Basically what
Speaker 7: Donald Trump and Hexseth are doing is that they on
Speaker 7: their own decided that at some point in April, because
Speaker 7: we were not actively bombing Iran at that point and
Speaker 7: they were negotiating with Iran, that the war had ended.
Speaker 7: And so anybody who was wounded or killed between April
Speaker 7: and in July of this year were not wounded or
Speaker 7: killed during combat actions. And this is their way of
Speaker 7: playing a shell game to hide the true number of
Speaker 7: kias and wounded from the American people. And so four
Speaker 7: individuals who lost their lives where the reclassified is not
Speaker 7: having lost their lives in combat, and over two hundred
Speaker 7: service members who were wounded were reclassified as not having
Speaker 7: been wounded in combat. This is a way to hide
Speaker 7: the true number in terms of human cost of war
Speaker 7: from the American people. It also has a consequence that
Speaker 7: those particular troops who were reclassified will lose benefits as
Speaker 7: you get higher benefits, and if you are killed, your
Speaker 7: children and your spouse would get higher benefits if you're
Speaker 7: killed in a combat action as opposed to not. And
Speaker 7: so now he's literally stealing out of the pockets and
Speaker 7: the mouths of military families.
Speaker 1: It's such it believably dark moment in American history. I
Speaker 1: want to ask you, do you think that Like One
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm struck by is I have
Speaker 1: a kid who's an ROTC. So I see how incredible
Speaker 1: the military is at being this egalitarian organization. The way
Speaker 1: it works is really well, are they going to be
Speaker 1: able to break it? Is my question for you.
Speaker 7: They're trying to break it. We're going to not let them.
Speaker 7: It's why I'm introducing this built We're going to resist
Speaker 7: them every step of the way, and we're not going
Speaker 7: to let them do it. I love the military, and
Speaker 7: I love the Army too much. I never thought I
Speaker 7: would join the military, come from a military family, but
Speaker 7: I was going to go into the diplomatic core. But
Speaker 7: when I showed up at basic training, it didn't matter
Speaker 7: that I was a little Asian girl who was on
Speaker 7: food stamps.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 7: It only mattered that I could shoot straight, and if
Speaker 7: my buddy couldn't carry his rucksack, that I was going
Speaker 7: to help carry his rucksack. It only mattered that I
Speaker 7: wanted to be part of the team. And that's when
Speaker 7: I fell head over heels in love with the Army
Speaker 7: because it was a pure meritocracy and it didn't matter
Speaker 7: who I was, where I came from, what I look like.
Speaker 7: It only mattered that I was helping, willing to carry
Speaker 7: the load and be part of the team. And Donald Trump,
Speaker 7: the five time draft dodging coward of a president that
Speaker 7: we have, can do all that he can to try
Speaker 7: to destroy the military. But we're not going to let them.
Speaker 7: It's why I'm still here fighting them. That's why I'm
Speaker 7: introducing legislation. Our nation and our men and women in
Speaker 7: uniform and their families who also sacrifice and serve, they
Speaker 7: deserve better.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm here in Congress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Senator Duckworth, thank you. No moment, Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.
Speaker 3: You know, when I think of who I want making
Speaker 3: decisions and who's in touch with what really needs to
Speaker 3: be addressed to this country, I think of ninety two
Speaker 3: year old guys in Iowa who've been married for seventy
Speaker 3: two years and then are making laws about whether or
Speaker 3: not flifters should be policed by ice.
Speaker 1: This is yet another Republican thing where it's like they're
Speaker 1: looking for problems that don't E's as to counter the
Speaker 1: purported national scourge of organized retail crime. By the way,
Speaker 1: it's worth knowing that a lot of this retail crime
Speaker 1: actually is coming from like a little bit higher level
Speaker 1: than shoplifters. It's like people who have an organized crime ring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was proven that the consulting that did the
Speaker 3: report on this was some of the most insanely off
Speaker 3: reporting there was, and the data was totally fought right.
Speaker 1: But Chuck Rassley, who is very old though he is
Speaker 1: very into vacuuming, he has a bill that eliminates coordinated
Speaker 1: retail theft and shoplifting, which he says is happening at
Speaker 1: unprecedented levels. It's not really but okay, and he wants
Speaker 1: to use ICE to do it. Now, a few thoughts
Speaker 1: on this. ICE is really not trained. Part of their
Speaker 1: charm and part of their problems is that they're not trained,
Speaker 1: which is why they've killed so many people and why
Speaker 1: they're constantly getting into trouble in any which way. So
Speaker 1: why would you give them more responsibility, and why would
Speaker 1: you have them police citizens, and why would you have
Speaker 1: them in stores? I mean, there are so many different
Speaker 1: reasons why you do not want ICE wandering around and
Speaker 1: trying to arrest people. You don't want them arresting non citizens,
Speaker 1: but you really don't want them arresting citizens.
Speaker 2: That's where we are.
Speaker 1: I do not think that this is a good idea.
Speaker 1: I think this is a bad idea. I think this
Speaker 1: is dumb, and I think that it's a problem. I
Speaker 1: just think like this has got disaster written all over it,
Speaker 1: Like this is the president's secret police. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that they should.
Speaker 2: Have more power, more.
Speaker 1: Jurisdiction, more any of this. It's just a fucking disaster
Speaker 1: way to happen. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear
Speaker 1: the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.