Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Targets Minneapolis, the Fed, and Greenland

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Trump Targets Minneapolis, the Fed, and Greenland · Pod Save America

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• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the government is responding to the killing
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of Rene Good by sending more agents to commit more
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: violence against the people of Minnesota as protests break out
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: all across the country. Donald Trump says he's pondering military
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: strikes against the Iranian regime as the anti-government demonstrations there
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: heat up. Meanwhile, Trump has declared himself the acting president
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of Venezuela and said that he's going to take Greenland
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: whether they like it or not. Then former Federal Reserve
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Vice Chair Lael Brainard stops by to talk to Tommy
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: about Trump's DOJ launching a phony criminal investigation into Fed
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Chair Jerome Powell because the president doesn't care for his
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: monetary policy. So let's start there. The news broke Sunday
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: night that former Fox personality Jeanine Pirro approved the investigation
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: into Powell, which is supposedly related to his congressional testimony
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: last summer about the ongoing renovations at the Federal Reserve headquarters,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: which are over budget. We know how seriously this administration
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: takes spending too much on renovations to federal buildings, so
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't be too surprised. Trump has been publicly
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: attacking and threatening Powell for a year now, including with
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: termination and legal action for not bringing down interest rates
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: fast enough. Powell had mostly turned the other cheek, but
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: almost immediately after the news broke on Sunday, the Federal
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Reserve posted a two-minute video statement from Powell where no
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: punches were pulled. No one.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Certainly not the Chair of the Federal Reserve, is above
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: the broader context of the Administration's threats and ongoing pressure.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: of what will serve the public, rather than following the
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: will be able to continue to set interest rates based
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. Public service
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Asked about the investigation later on Sunday night, Trump told
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: NBC News, quote, I don't know anything about it, but
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  Speaker 1: he's certainly not very good at the Fed, and he's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: not very good at building buildings. He's not good at Fed.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: He's not good at Fed.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Not good at Fed. On Monday morning, every living former
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Fed chair and a bunch of former Treasury and White
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: House leaders put out a joint statement saying that the investigation, quote,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: has no place in the United States, whose greatest strength
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is the rule of law, used to be, which is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the foundation of our economic success. All right. Thoughts on
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the substance of the investigation and Powell's reaction to it?
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, in terms of the substance... This
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: is not as if the administration did a press conference
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: and said, here's what we're investigating. We're learning about this
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: in a pretty strange way. Like apparently this began in November.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Powell apparently was already aware of some sort of grand
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: jury investigation when they're now, Besant is now, there's now
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: reports of Besant being peeved about this and telling that
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: to Trump. So the whole thing is like sort of
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: convoluted and strange. Like we're learning about it through news reports.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: But as far as we can tell, they're saying that uh, Powell, uh,
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  Speaker 3: lied to Congress when he was asked about the renovations. Uh,
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  Speaker 3: and I, I apparently did so said like, you know, look,
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  Speaker 3: am I the chair of the fed? Do I have
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  Speaker 3: great responsibilities?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: But I'm going to, uh, commit a, uh, a crime
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  Speaker 3: in front of Congress to dissemble about a VIP dining
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  Speaker 3: room at a specific federal building, uh, and put my
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: entire career at risk to, to protect my, my designs
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: for a nicer marble countertop in my, in my office.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: That's sort of, I think, the claim, basically.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Initially, they accused him of violating the National
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Capital Planning Act because they didn't get approval for some
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: of these changes. Because again, we know Trump cares deeply
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: about federal permitting when he changes buildings. But then in June,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Powell did this testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee,
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  Speaker 2: and he denied that there was a VIP dining room
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: or new marble or whatever. And the Trump administration had
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  Speaker 2: clearly laid down this narrative in the New York Post
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: because they had a big story about it. And so
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  Speaker 2: now they're investigating him for lying to Congress. And so
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: What I liked about Powell's response is he just didn't
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: talk about any of that. He was just like, no,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: this is about Trump is mad that I won't cut
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: interest rates more quickly because he thinks it'll juice the
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: economy in the short term and that's all he cares about.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Or more likely, he wants to do something that'll juice
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  Speaker 2: the stock market and he wants to make his rich
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  Speaker 2: friends richer and he wants to make his real estate
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  Speaker 2: buddies richer. So I'm glad he's pushing back. I'm glad
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  Speaker 2: he's being honest. I tried this with Lael. My free
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: advice for Jerome Powell was tell Trump that if he
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't back off, he's going to triple interest rates. Like
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: fire with fire. She didn't like that idea.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I had the same reaction, Tommy, that I was like,
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  Speaker 1: you know what? By giving the statement that he did,
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  Speaker 1: Powell instantly made the story about Trump's political prosecutions and
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  Speaker 1: the motivation behind them, as opposed to, you know, what
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  Speaker 1: a lot of bureaucrats would do and probably have done
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: when faced with threats and intimidation from Trump, which is
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  Speaker 1: like calmly refuting each detail of the allegation, which would
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  Speaker 1: have made it about that. You know, did he do this?
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  Speaker 1: Did he do that? And it seems pretty simple when
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  Speaker 1: he was talking to Congress about this. The original plans
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: had some of the stuff, the more exorbitant renovations that
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they had submitted. And then Powell said, yeah, but since then,
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  Speaker 1: those plans either fell out or I stopped them or
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: whatever else.
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  Speaker 3: Every contractor gives you a plan with too much shit
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  Speaker 3: in it. You got to go through and get the
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  Speaker 3: budget down. This one's like, it's so ridiculous on its face.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: It's not that different. I think this is more... ridiculous
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  Speaker 3: than the Comey one, right? But really what they're doing
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  Speaker 3: is when one of their enemies has at some point
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  Speaker 3: testified before Congress, they're like, oh, let's go through that,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: find something we can claim is untrue, and then claim
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  Speaker 3: it was someone lying to Congress as a pretense for
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  Speaker 3: an investigation.
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  Speaker 1: Lying to Congress and second home mortgages. That's the bread
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  Speaker 1: and butter of the criminal investigations that DOJ is conducting
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  Speaker 1: right now, basically. Good for Powell, though. You know what?
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  Speaker 1: More people should fucking stand up to Trump like that.
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  Speaker 1: It's like good for– and he's the Federal Reserve and
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  Speaker 1: he's supposed to– Federal Reserve chairman, you don't get into politics.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Most Federal Reserve chairman do not get into politics at all,
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  Speaker 1: try very hard to be apolitical. Even Powell, we all
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  Speaker 1: remember when he was standing with Trump to fucking.
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  Speaker 2: He toured the building.
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  Speaker 1: He toured the building and renovations.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's when he brought it up the first time.
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  Speaker 3: Like Trump has been on this for a while.
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  Speaker 2: This has been his little like pressure play. Individually, like
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  Speaker 2: is a $ 2. 5 billion renovation absurd?
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: But I mean, I don't know. That's clearly not what
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  Speaker 2: this is about.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Powell's term ends in May, at which point Trump will
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: get to name a new Fed chair who will still
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: have to be confirmed by the Senate. Powell also has
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the option of staying on the board as a Fed
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  Speaker 1: governor through 2028, which you have to imagine this might
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: make him more likely to do. Why do you guys
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: think Trump would do this right now?
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  Speaker 3: It seems similar to the Lisa Cook thing. He's just
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  Speaker 3: trying to fire. He wants to fire him for cause
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  Speaker 3: and just get the slot. He assumes Powell would stay
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: and he wants to have more openings to a point, right?
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Is it necessarily more complicated than that?
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  Speaker 1: Probably not.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I do think that there's a piece of
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  Speaker 2: this that Trump's real passion is just punishing his enemies
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: and he doesn't care if it's strategic or not. And
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  Speaker 2: the method to the madness could be, okay, make life
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  Speaker 2: hell for this guy. Make him quit before his term
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  Speaker 2: is up in January of 2028 when he will no
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: longer be a governor. But you'd still have to replace
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: him with someone. They'd have to get confirmed by the Senate.
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  Speaker 2: So I don't know. It's hard to tell. It does
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  Speaker 2: remind me. He's been attacking the president of Columbia, the country,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: not the college. And it's a similar situation. I'm referencing
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: the country, not the college. But again, it makes no
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: sense because Petro's term is up in early August. The
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: first round of their elections is in May. So it's like, why?
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  Speaker 2: Why are you messing with this guy? He's going to
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: be gone soon. It's like, well, I like to. This
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: guy messed with me, so I'm going to bludgeon him.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: And I don't care if I'm making his political standing
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  Speaker 2: stronger in the near term or making his political party
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: more likely to win the elections. I like to punch
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  Speaker 2: people that make me mad.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: And the ancillary benefit is if there is a debate
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: about rates between now and the end of his term,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: maybe he feels a little bit more nervous about not
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: doing what Donald Trump wants. Maybe he leaves early because
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: 28 is after the midterm. You know, it's a while away.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of angles.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump has miscalculated. I think this is a,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to blow up in his
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: face and already is. There's also, we should talk about,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: there's some back and forth about how this happened and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: whether Trump was involved. So Axios has an administration official
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: saying Jeanine Pirro, quote, went rogue. Come on. Another said
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Trump heard about the investigation after the fact, but that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Pirro wouldn't have gone forward without a signal that he'd
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: be supportive. That sounds more like... Trump. Politico, they have
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a different story. They have a bunch of administration sources
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: blaming Bill Pulte, the mortgage fraud czar, who reportedly recently
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: pitched Trump on firing Powell and actually brought wanted posters
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of the Fed chair to his meeting with Trump. And Apparently,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it was just at Mar-a-Lago recently that he met with Trump.
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  Speaker 1: And then Pulte was asked about this today, and he
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: was like, I have no idea. I have nothing to
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: do with this. It's DOJ. And so they're all basically
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: going back and forth, blaming each other and trying to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: keep Trump out of it, which here's the thing, they're
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: all liars all the time. But I think it goes
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to show that they are, it doesn't seem like many
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: people in the administration are all that happy.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: About So whether it was Jeanine Pirro just taking the
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: hint from Trump, and by the way, from Trump allies
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: in Congress who have referred Powell to DOJ for an
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: investigation over this, or they had a conversation, who fucking knows?
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: There's a simple way to prove that Donald Trump doesn't
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: think it's a good idea. Fire Jeanine Pirro for doing
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: what is obviously a misuse of her job. This is ridiculous.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Can't politicize the Fed. She's fired. We'll put in somebody better.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Of course, that's not what's going to happen. So whatever
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the actual a path to this. Like Donald Trump wants this.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: They're doing Donald Trump's bidding. Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: The only reason it's worthwhile is because they are, um,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: they don't see this as a political, I don't think
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: they see this as a political winner right now. And,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and this is partly why Republicans, Tom Tillis and Lisa
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Murkowski have already said they will not vote for any
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of Trump's fed nominees until this gets resolved. Tillis also
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: said it's now the credibility and independence of the justice department,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: not the fed that's in question. Murkowski even said that
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the justice department should be investigated by Congress and it
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: really doesn't take both of them to kill a nomination
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: at this point because Tillis is on the banking committee
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and the split is 13-11. And so if he's a no,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: 12-12 does not get the nominee out of committee. So
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Tillis can single-handedly block a Trump nominee for new Fed chair.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: So already Trump has, this is blowing up in his face.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Other Republicans in the House and Senate have also spoken
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: out against the investigation. And Axios reported that a Source
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: familiar with Scott Besson's call to Donald Trump about the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: issue said that the Treasury Secretary let the president know
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: he isn't happy and that the investigation, quote, made a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: mess that could be bad for financial markets.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know Scott Besson is taking a lot of
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: calls from the CEOs of various banks today, and he
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: is trying to distance himself from this.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And added bonus, maybe, it's an opportunity to shiv Bill Pulte,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: if you remember.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: His enemy from the podcast Birthday Party.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, he shivved them once before with his elbow, right?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: What a fighter, that guy.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know. You guys think the mini mini rebellion
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: here will have staying power or what?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, Tom Phyllis, a lot of H's
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: in that name. His term ends January 3rd, 2027. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: we can make trouble for a while. But Murkowski won
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: reelection in 2022. So she's not and presumably will run
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: again in 28. So if she really sticks to this
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and they decide to use their power, it could create
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: real problems for Trump in terms of filling a vacancy here.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Just quickly on this. Did Trump know about this thing?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I don't believe for a second he didn't know. Think
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of the number of times you've heard him get asked
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: a question about something major and controversial. And he's like,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that. Right. Like the pardoning
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: of Juan Orlando Hernandez. He's been asked about it three
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: or four times now. The fucking narco criminal former president
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: of Honduras that he pardoned. He still acts like he
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: didn't know. There's never a follow up from the reporter
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: that's like, shouldn't you know who you're pardoning? But whatever.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: So I think he likes to float things and then
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: he'll blame, you know, Jeanine Pirro, whoever else, if it
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: goes poorly.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Also, if he met with Bill Pulte recently at Mar-a-Lago
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and Bill Pulte brought with him a fucking wanted poster
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of Jerome Powell.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Hopefully it's a photo.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: The two of them could have had a nice conversation
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: at Mar-a-Lago where that was it. That was the conversation.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And maybe he didn't run it through the chain of
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the administration officials. But I don't know. It does seem
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: like this is going to have staying power. Also, again,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: if Powell decides to stay on now, then Trump's going
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to have to name a new Fed chair from the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: current board of governors because there's not going to be,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: or I guess there'll be one vacancy. He won't get
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: two vacancies. Right now, he could get two vacancies next year.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: But if Powell stays, that's one less vacancy that he
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: can fill. And the Fed chair nomination is now going
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, that person's going to have to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: really prove their independence from Donald Trump because Tom Tillis
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and Lisa Murkowski and Now a bunch of other Senate
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans are pretty worried about this.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: And he's talked about appointing one of his various sort
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: of local goons into that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Role, right?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Does he still want to do that? We're going to
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: go through the song and dance of some Trump advisor
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: pretending that they're going to be independent. We talked about
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: this earlier today, that the cycle of Donald Trump threatening
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: something that if carried out could lead to an economic crisis,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: double-digit inflation, massive unemployment, just like huge degradation to the economy.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It's incredibly dangerous, like just sort of striking at the
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: foundations of how our system works, but the markets don't react.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Why?
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Well, because they think cooler heads are going to prevail.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: They think the Murkowskis and the Besants are going to
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: win at the end of the day. But who he
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: picks to be Fed chair, and if that person gets
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: through the Senate, if they take fake assurances, well, we'll
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: be there.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: How big of a deal do you guys think Democrats
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: should make out of this? It does fit with the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: affordability message.
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's objectively a huge deal. I don't know
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: that voters necessarily know much about the Fed or its independence.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I think to the extent we talk about it, it's
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: like this is about Trump trying to help out special interests.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: This is Trump wanting a rate cut for Wall Street
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and his real estate buddies who want rates to come
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: down so they get richer, even if you have to
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: deal with more inflation forever. That is the mission of
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: the Fed. So I wouldn't get bogged down with the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: renovation stuff, obviously, except to be like, well, this guy's
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: ripping down the East Wing or whatever, taking bribes from
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: billionaire buddies to build a ballroom. But I do think
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: the reason this has some staying power is Republicans are
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: getting calls from rich donors on Wall Street. And I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: do think the market's not reacting because of the same
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: taco phenomenon, right? They probably think he's going to cave
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: just like he did with China. Or maybe they quietly
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: don't hate the idea of going back to zero interest
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: rates because That makes the market rip.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Especially at other tech goons.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you're starting to see these interesting.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: They love a low interest rate.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: It's the best thing for them. You're starting to see
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: some articles from Wall Street analysts about how like the
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: jobless boom, like jobless, like because companies are doing well.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: They're like kind of pocketing efficiency from layoffs after COVID
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and also after from A.I., Um, and so they're making
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: more money, but, uh, there aren't any jobs. So it's
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: a bad politically, but it's helping wall street.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I think an easy way to is, and Jason Furman, um,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: mentioned this and, uh, one of his tweets about this,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: which is like, there's a list of countries where the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: independence of the fed was demolished by a leader of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the country who just wanted to use it for their
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: own political purposes and, uh, didn't go well for any
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of their economies.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I talk about this specifically.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: That, that like, I, Donald Trump is threatening something that
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: could cause double digit inflation. Some of the worst inflation
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: countries have experienced around the world has happened after they've
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: politicized their central banks. And I feel like the kind
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: of people that are going to make that argument, even
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: if they're the kind of people that would like lower
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: interest rates, but threatening the independence of the central bank
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: is incredibly dangerous, are the kind of validators that reach
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: out beyond like normal political validators, the kind of people
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: that are like, on CNBC that are in like economics
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: and like financial advice podcasts that will talk about how
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: dangerous and stupid this is. And I like, I do
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: think that will matter. I do think that that reaches people,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump is like a chaos agent and this
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: is dangerous.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And this is what Nixon did in the 70s and
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: it was a disaster. So there's an example here too.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Volcker is rolling over in his giant coffin.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: He is dead, right?
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: He's gotta be.
• 18:10
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• 20:49
  Speaker 1: let's turn to the follow-up from an ICE agent killing
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Renee Good, an unarmed mother of three in Minneapolis, which
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration has not only defended but praised as
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a necessary action to fight what they're calling domestic terrorism.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: That determination is based not on the results of any
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: kind of law enforcement investigation, but on their own subjective
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: analysis of various social media videos, which has now been
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: contradicted by media outlets, former and current law enforcement officials,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and people who have eyes and ears. Over the weekend,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: protests broke out in Minnesota and all across the country,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and on Sunday, the administration continued to defend the killing
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: with a mix of obvious lies and non-answers, like Kristi
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Noem did in this viral exchange with Jake Tapper when
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: he asked why the administration treated the January 6th rioter
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: attacks on law enforcement so differently. Let's watch.
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: Those are law enforcement officers being physically attacked by this standard.
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: Would any of those officers being justified in shooting and
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: killing the people causing them physical harm?
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: Every single situation is going to rely on the situation
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: those officers are on.
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: President Trump pardoned every single one of those.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: And every single one of these investigations comes in the
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: full context of. the situation on the ground. And that's
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: one thing that President Trump has been so focused on
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: is making sure that when we're out there, we don't
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: pick and choose which situations are in which laws are enforced.
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers.
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: Undisputed proof, undisputed evidence. And I just said President Trump
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: pardoned all of them. And you said that President Trump
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: is enforcing all the laws equally.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: It's just not true.
• 22:26
  Speaker 7: There's a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked
• 22:30
  Speaker 7: if they're being attacked by Trump supporters.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: We just saw them.
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: This individual and these instances and these investigations all have
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: to be taken and done and done correctly in context
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: of every situation that is happening on the ground.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Fucking robot, just repeating the word situation 10 times makes
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: no sense in the way she used it in any
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of those sentences.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Just, it was... You know, we spent a lot of
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: time on the ways Gnome is kind of defending the indefensible.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: She's also just like in over her head, not up
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: to this.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: She's a moron.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's just not.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: She's a moron.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Not like clearly just not prepared for how to address
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: any of this. There is no way to defend what
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: they're doing or how to make that. There's no way
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: out of that question. But you just see she's just
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: a deer in headlights.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Every situation is depending on the situation that the officers
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: are in.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It's hard to disagree with that.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: No? So it's so fucking dark. The three of us
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: haven't had a chance to talk about all this since
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Good was killed. What's your reaction been to the Trump
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: administration's response, especially over the last few days and over
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the weekend?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I just keep feeling like this is literally
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: the kind of thing you'd expect from Vladimir Putin or
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Bashar al-Assad or the Iranian regime, which is like a
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: An officer of the state kills a protester by shooting
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: her in the face three times at point-blank range. And
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: officials at the highest level of government call her a
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: terrorist or a deranged lunatic. And they view it entirely
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: through the prism of, like, are you on our side
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: or are you not on our side? And so I just, like,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: it's so chilling. It should be chilling to every U.S. citizen,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: especially all the people, the MAGA types, who put, like,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: don't tread on me flags in their social media avatars
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: and said that, you know, Joe Biden making you wear
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a mask made him Stalin-ish. Um, a good for Jake
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: in that clip for calling Kristi Noem out like that,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the hypocrisy is so glaring. Um, January 6th, by that
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: was just a clear cut example of terrorism. It was
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: people using violence to advance a political end, but like,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you know, it.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Didn't happen upon it after dropping off their kids at school.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And, and, you know, the white house website now
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: includes a section that about January six that says Ashley
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Babbitt was quote murdered in cold blood, that she posed
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: no threat, despite the fact that she broke into the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Capitol and then tried to climb through a window to
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: get into the speaker's lobby. Um, so like, uh, like
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on, on law enforcement procedure. Um,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: but we've all now read like a million, you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: former ice officers or cops talking about what this, uh,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: individual did in this, uh, in the case of, uh,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Renee good. And like this guy, this ice officer clearly
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: screwed up. He never should have stepped in front of
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: her car. He never should have shot her in the
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: face three times when clearly he could get out of
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: the way and avoid getting hit by her car because
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: she was not trying to hit him as we all
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: saw from the video. And I think mostly I've been
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: just disgusted by the total lack of Humanity or empathy
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: from elected officials who could have all just said a
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: woman died. She's an American. It's a tragedy Let's investigate
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: before commenting further But they did the opposite and you
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: can see how it's emboldening Other ice officers because there's
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: videos all over social media of them beating up people
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: beating up Americans detaining Americans Threatening people who film them
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: or otherwise observe them and then saying things like didn't
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: you learn your lesson? Didn't you learn your lesson last week,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: like talking about the Rene Good shooting?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I've seen two videos where they say that now.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's very chilling stuff.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about this over the weekend, which
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: is sort of, why is this important? Why is this
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: one incident important? If the officer had been justified in
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: the moment in shooting Rene Good, it wouldn't make their
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: crackdown any less extreme and egregious and beyond what is required.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: It wouldn't make their immigration policies any less heinous. And
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: had they just said, we don't believe anyone should be
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: killed simply driving their kids home from school and whatever
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: the specifics of this case, we're gonna investigate, but we
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: want everybody to feel safe and you have a right
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: to protest and to write to know that our agents
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: are gonna enforce the law faithfully, right? It would actually
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: have been a less important incident, right? But that's not
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: what they did. They decided to defend it. And in
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: defending it, by the way, they've been forced to, because
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: they can't admit error, And that's part of their sort
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: of effort to dominate. They have to continue to defend
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: using words like domestic terrorists that they that they use
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: from before they had any information. If you go back
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: to Christine Ohm's first statement, which had the cowboy hat on,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: what she said is just has absolutely no bearing, no relevance,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: no connection to what actually took place in the moment.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: But they have to keep it up and keep defending
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: it and keep saying it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: And so they've just like they are radicalizing each other.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: They are radicalizing these people. And by the way, they
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: are radicalizing people in Minnesota who are feeling threatened and
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: unsafe in their own communities.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The administration leaked a video and then they amplified a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: video where after the ICE agent shot Rene Good in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the head three times, you hear an ICE agent say,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: fucking bitch.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Jake asked Kristi Noem about that, and there's
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: just nothing to say.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: She basically, like, smirked.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: She said, I don't know, sir.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And they seem to think that was helpful for them,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: helpful to their case.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is stunning.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, J.D.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Vance.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Well, it's telling. I mean, the Trump administration has responded
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to the unrest by doubling down. They're sending, quote, hundreds
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: more federal officers to Minneapolis. Those sources told CNN that
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: around 1,000 Border Patrol agents are expected to be deployed
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to the region. They also instituted a new policy, limiting
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: congressional access to ICE facilities a day after the shooting.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: There's a law that allows Congress to do this, but
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: they are changing the policy anyway. Meanwhile, local and state
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: officials are asking the public to submit videos, eyewitness accounts,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and photos of the incident in order to gather evidence
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: after federal authorities, including the FBI, shut them out of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the investigation despite initially agreeing to cooperate. Do you guys
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: think the administration just doesn't see this as a political
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: problem for them, doesn't care, or actually sees doubling down
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: as politically beneficial in some way?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I think the lying, like the amount of lying and
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: dissembling they're doing about this, it does suggest like they are,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: they know that the facts are bad for them. They're
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: trying to tell a story about it that's less politically damaging.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: But behind all their bluster, like these are not, these
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: are not images that like, it's still America, right? And
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: we have a suspicion of police states, of too aggressive
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: law enforcement, of infringements on our basic liberties, on what
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: it should feel like to live in an American city.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And that continues to be true. And they know that.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: They know that. So I do think the lying is
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: a sign that they view this as a risk.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see it a few different ways. Like
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I think their primary, if we really think they're thinking
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: about this politically, like their primary political frame of reference
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: is often strength. So not backing down would fit into that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: And also they think like nativism, anti-immigrant, anti-Somali rhetoric is
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: beneficial for them or making that the focus of the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: debate is beneficial for them. And we also know that
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: racism and xenophobia are Stephen Miller's passion and the reason
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: he is here. And he's surrounded by white nationalists throughout
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the government who are advancing that project too. So Miller
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: seems like the most powerful person in the White House
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: besides Donald Trump. He's never going to back down. I
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: don't think any amount of data will convince him that
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: he's taking the wrong course either on the merits or
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: politically because he went from random racist hill staffer to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: someone called him the prime minister of the White House.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Or at least the intellectual force behind the Trump project. Yeah.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I think the darkest version that might be the most
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: accurate is that Trump doesn't care about the politics and
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: he likes violence. Like, he likes violence against political opponents.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: It's more than just tolerating it. Like, he told people
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: at rallies that if he paid their legal bills, that
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: they'd beat up protesters. He sicked the January 6th mob
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: on the Capitol. He's hosting an ultimate fighting event at
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the White House. He just loves this stuff. And so
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I just... Everything you see from him, he just doesn't
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: seem like he cares at all that someone was killed.
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about their goals, right? One
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: goal is to increase deportations by a lot. And they're
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: clearly having trouble doing that because it's hard. First of all,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: they think that there's like tens of millions of more
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants in this country than there are. And also
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: they see as targets people who aren't just undocumented but
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: like legal residents with visas or temporary protective status or
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: here on parole or anything else. And so finding all
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: those people is difficult. And so there is a hope
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: for self-deportations. And so what do you need to do
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to get people to self-deport? You need to instill fear
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: that you're going to, you know. You also need an
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: excuse to send even more federal agents to places like Minneapolis.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: To just start stopping everyone and checking everyone, setting up checkpoints,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: which they are also doing. And then the other thing
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you don't want is you don't want people to film
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. You don't want eyewitnesses. You don't want
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: protesters because then the country is going to be alerted
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to what you're doing. And so you want to delegitimize
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: protest and stop the protest from happening. And by dragging protesters,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: by killing protesters, not that I'm saying that the killing
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: was intentional or part of some plan, but if there's
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: violence against protesters, then maybe it sends a message, which
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: is what those ICE agents were saying to some of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: those people, like, didn't you learn a lesson? And I
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: do think they want to kind of focus on one
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: incident and do all the freeze frames and all that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I really would encourage everyone to watch
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of the videos from over the weekend in
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis and love it. And I did a YouTube reaction
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: on Monday to some of these videos, but the clips
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: are all over social media. And, you know, you see, uh,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: they're going up to people in random parking lots who
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: are charging their electric vehicles and just asking them they're
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: demanding papers. You know, they rammed into a car. They
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: literally hit a car, demanded papers from the driver. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: then when a bunch of people showed up, they sped away,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you know, they're, they're dragging protesters out of cars and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: beating them. Like, It's just, it's taken, each individual incident
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: is enraging and, you know, deep injustice is being committed.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: But when you see them all together, it's nuts.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: It's also, it is the first. So this week, Homeland
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Security has been celebrating that they were able to double
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: the number of agents in ICE in a year. Now,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: it was only a few months ago that ICE officials
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: were saying it takes 18 months to recruit trained and
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: deploy somebody, yet in a year they've doubled it. So
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people on the streets that just
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: weren't in ICE before, that have been recruited as part
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: of this program. And by the way, a lot of
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: the people that are part of these deployments, even if
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: they've been in ICE for a long time, it didn't
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: look like this before, right? And by the way, we're
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: also losing the distinction between Border Patrol, which has a
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: different mission, but is now being kind of co-opted and
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: used as part of one kind of amorphous single mission
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: in these things, led by Greg Bovino.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And in many cases are much worse than ICE.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, but I do think like the doubling of ice,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: you know, we're in Los Angeles. They've done, you know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: surges into Los Angeles. They've, you know, tried to instill
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: fear in Los Angeles, a giant place. This is the
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: first time they've gone to a city with the numbers.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: There are what, two times, three times now as many
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: ICE agents and border patrol agents in Minneapolis as there
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: are police officers in this city. This is the first
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: time they've done it at a scale where it is like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: it is something that is being felt across the city.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: in a big way. And that I do think is
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: like fundamentally different than what they've done before.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And I think Chicago is pretty, Chicago is a big
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: city too, but I think the force there was massive.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Yes. But this is a huge number of people that are,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: you hear it from people that, you know, in Minneapolis,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: you hear it from people that are just saying they're
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: from like, this is the, the, how it feels on
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: the ground is that this is everywhere. And you have
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people that are radicalized, that are angry,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: that feel under threat, that feel have been trained by
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: their superior or sort of instilled in by their superiors
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: to be afraid of the community, to be worried about
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: what they're seeing, to feel isolated like pilgrims in an
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: unholy land. And it's just a powder keg. It is
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: incredibly dangerous.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: ICE is not recruiting the best and the brightest from
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: the United States. I mean, these people are barely trained,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: like they're lowering standards. These are people that are not
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: looking to deescalate, who are not acting professionally, who are,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: you know, chanting like MAGA slogans at people who are
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: threatening random protesters or people simply observing them, who don't
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: seem to know the rules or the rights of the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: individuals that they're yelling at, or maybe don't care, who
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: don't like they're going to win, don't look like they're
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: going to win the road race against the fleeing suspect,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: if we're being honest. These people are just like, these
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: new ICE recruits look like idiots, and they're not effective,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: and they seem pretty dangerous. To your point, I think
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: there is a counterpoint, which I think Stephen Miller and
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Trump want protests because they want clashes. I think, personally,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: that's my view. Well, and also, I mean, the Rene
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Good video is, you know, he got in front of
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: the vehicle and she was driving away. But, like, you
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: get enough protests and you get enough ICE agents, some
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: protester is going to do something stupid, right? And they
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: are going to be at fault for, like, starting the violence.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: That's just the law of averages, right?
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. they're betting, they're very excited for when that happens,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, because then they can point to someone
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and say, see, that's a bad person. That person was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: doing this.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I just like the, you know, Trump's thing is like, look,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: you don't have to like me, but look how tough
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I am, right? Immigration enforcement is ugly. And look at
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: these crazy people trying to stop me, but this is
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: what you elected me to do. Like that, whatever, that
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: is the kind of lens to see that through. And no, like,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: even if these things are in the, in and of themselves,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: like unpopular on their own, you say you have this
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: as one set of images, plus all these sort of
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the claims of all the things they're trying to do
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: on the economy, the kind of populist things they're trying
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: to do on the economy. And then you put those
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: things together and that like, I'm really tough, even on
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: shit that looks ugly. Here's this thing I'm doing over here.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I think that's like the story they're trying to tell.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: The Times interviewed the current Minneapolis police chief today on
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: the daily.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: It's really good. People should listen to that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Great episode, really worth your time listening to. And it's just,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: you know, he talks about how much time they've spent
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: trying to dig out of the whole left by 2020 thing.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: and the George Floyd protests and the lack of trust
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: between local law enforcement and the population. And he just,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: he feels like what ICE is doing in the subsequent
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: protests and tensions are going to completely unravel like five
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: or six years of work. And so there's just a
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: real question of like, Donald Trump is selling this as
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: making us safer, but the police chief of the city
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: where this enforcement operation is happening is saying it's making
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the entire population less safe. And he's scared that it
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: could light the place on fire and no one's listening
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: to him.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: It was also striking how when asked about the actual
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: situation with Rene Good and what the ICE officers did,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: it was so matter-of-fact and obvious from him. He was like,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: you never stand in front of a vehicle. You never
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: put yourself in the position like that ICE agent did.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: It's just like an obvious thing. Democrats are now in
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the situation where there's a funding bill, we get another
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: government funding deadline, and a number of senators have said
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: they don't want to fund DHS budget with ICE like this,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: especially an increase for ICE after ICE got more funding already,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: without some new restrictions on ICE. Chris Murphy is preparing
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: to propose a bunch of reforms for the agency. Obviously,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: we've been down this road before. It's very hard to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: get something done, even if there were enough votes to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: shut the government down. We've seen how much the Trump
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: administration cares about this. Shutting the government down would not
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: necessarily stop any of these enforcement operations. They still have
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: plenty of money that they got from the big, beautiful bill.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: So I don't see that something is happening. But, you know,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: it's worth pointing out that YouGov poll conducted the same
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: day that Rene Good was killed, found that Americans overall
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: are turning against ICE. Plurality support the protests. We'll wait
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: to see a bunch of other polling. It's still early.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: But how do you think Democrats should handle dealing with
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: this issue?
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: So Fox News asked Benny Thompson whether Congress should use
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: appropriations to rein in ICE. And he said that it's
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: above my pay grade. he's the chair of the, he's
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: the ranking member on Homeland Security. So it felt like,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: it seems like it's sort of right smack in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: middle of his pay grade. He's just getting paid the
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: right amount to answer that question. So I think the
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Murphy answers have been better. And it is also, by
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: the way, complicated. Part of this is there's still the
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: Obamacare funding fight that's ongoing. There's a bunch of other
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: bills and funding bills. They're trying to do actual normal appropriations.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: One of them is for the Justice Department. I think
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: we're kind of watching the full politicization of the Justice Department.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: It seems as though that would be a place you
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: might want to think about some fucking reforms about how
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: this kind of rogue Department of Justice is operating. But
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: put that aside. We're heading towards January 30th. There's either
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: going to be a standalone Homeland Security funding bill. I
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: do not understand how anybody could get behind funding this
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: agency right now, given that Nome is kind of out
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: of control. ICE is out of control. Bovino is out
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: of control. Like, you're going to just put more money
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: in this that you're going to vote to fund. But
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: what is acting like kind of like Trump's pride, like
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: state police, that seems insane to me. And then you
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: end up talking about what happens on January 30th, if
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you funded most or some of the government, but haven't
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: done Department of Homeland Security. And I agree, like it's complicated, right? Like, well,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: they'll still be able to do certain things. And and
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: they'll actually be able to move money around. But before
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: you even get to the kind of political and kind
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: of strategic machinations, what are the reforms that you think
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: are necessary right now that you would want to have
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: on a funding bill for ICE, for Border Patrol, even
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: knowing that Donald Trump is president, Republicans control Congress, it's
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: only so much you get? What do those look like?
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: And how far are you willing to go to fight
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: for those? Because before we get to kind of answering
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: our own threat with how it might not work and
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: the challenges of a shutdown. I do think it's worth
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: saying like, what would we actually think is the right
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: thing to do in this moment? And before, and if
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: that requires talking through a shutdown, I think that that's
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: worth doing because this is, we are kind of, we
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: keep going up the escalatory ladder every single time. The
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: next deployment will be worse. The one after that will
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: be worse. And I don't know how, look, if I
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: were in Congress, I do not know how I could
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: vote to fund this Department of Homeland Security regardless of
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: of the political implications i just don't.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: You probably wouldn't have to and i wouldn't vote for
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: it either and then someone some democrats are gonna have
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to walk the plank and actually vote for it yeah
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: like i bet most of them won't vote for it
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: but it's just gonna be just like look i'm i
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: was way out there on this and saying like don't
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: don't fund the government last time make it over ice
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: make it over immigration and then watching what happened and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: watching how the administration just doesn't fucking care and is
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: not going to accept any restrictions whatsoever. I'm like, yeah,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: they should talk about it all the time. They should
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: push this issue. They should not be politically fearful of
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: this issue. But I do think we should just be,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: our expectations of what they might be able to do
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: should be in check.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I agree with Lovett. I'd like to
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: know what the reforms are. But there was this sort
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of sentiment in the wake of the Rene Good shooting
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: that the video had become a political RORSEC test and
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: that everyone who saw it only viewed it through a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: partisan lens. I just don't think that's true. Like, I
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: think that's just like a broken, like that's a, that's
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: how Twitter has broken all of us because you know,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: there's a bunch of people that respond in ghoulish ways
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and make everything partisan and the algorithm rewards it. And
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: that's all that we see. I bet you that 95%
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: of the country sees that video and thinks, Oh my God,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: that is horrifying. That is a tragedy. You know, like
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that happened to this woman who doesn't
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: look like a domestic terrorist, Kristi Noem. And so, if
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: you could use this funding debate to talk about reasonable reforms,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I think you can make the argument. I think you
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: might be able to convince the voting population. I don't
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: think you can convince MAGA or Donald Trump, but you
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: could have a conversation or make a political fight in
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: a way that I think would be beneficial.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I definitely agree with that.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the lesson of the last year or so
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: is to make these fights salient, you have to actually,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: you have to be willing to push for the shutdown.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: You have to raise the stakes on it. because that's
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: why we ended up, we're going to have an Obamacare
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: vote because they shut down the government. And by the way,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: we've talked about this a million times, like making that
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: fight about healthcare, I think was more successful than a
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: lot of people, myself included, thought it would be. We're
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: watching a paramilitary group, poorly trained, itchy and twitchy on
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: the streets of a city, like terrorizing people. There's no consequences.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: There's no government response to half of these incidents. Because
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: of the decimation of local news, the, the, the, the
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: media more broadly, we are now just parsing through videos
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: one at a time, hoping they're reliable because there's so
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: little reliable information about what the government is doing. And
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: we can't trust what they're saying. We are so far
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: down this path. And to the, like the idea that
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: the Democrats in the Senate are going to, that there's
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: going to be whatever, you know, a 10 of them,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: nine of them that are going to be able to
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: go along with this. It's just like, come on, at least,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: at least lay down a marker for what you want
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: to see in it. make a threat that you think
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: you can stand by and see if we can have
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: like at least a debate about what restrictions or some,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: some guardrails could look like, even if it's not enough.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Do you have ideas on guardrails?
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I would like, I would like to see what Chris
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Murphy's cooking up. I would like to see one thing
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: is we have border patrol. It's supposed to operate within
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: a hundred miles of the border that already includes most
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: of the U S population. Minneapolis is not within a
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: hundred miles.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Of the border. And there's, there's legal reasons they're allowed
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: to operate in that way. But, but actually disentangling what
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: border controls job is, what ice control job, that's great.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: What happens in the event of an incident? What happens
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: when you arrest American, a citizen, what's documented, what's not,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: why are these guys holding up phones, but not wearing
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: body cams, right? Like there are a lot of simple
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: things you could start to masks, masks, get the fucking
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: masks off.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: There was a great, actually the CBP stuff is like,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: they're counting the great lakes as, uh, as the border.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: And so that's how they're willing, that's how they were
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: operated in Chicago. And it's such fucking bullshit.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: But there was a, you know, look, I know, I
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: know it's, it's, you know, Tony DeCoppo's in the barrel.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: But from inside the barrel, he did an interview both
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: with border patrol, but with or someone, a spokesperson for DHS,
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure who, talking about why they're wearing ice
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: and then some protesters about why they thought it was ridiculous.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: And watching these sort of protesters saying our faces are
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: out here, we're at risk of getting doxxed. You're a
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: public official. You're serving the country. Of course, you should
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: be put your face in front of the public. It's
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: so obvious that that's something that we should sort of
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: put in a reform.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I also think that just more people, more prominent people
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: who have been quiet up until now for the last year,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and maybe were less quiet in the first Trump term,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: like it's time to fucking speak up. And they could
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: tell themselves that like, well, it doesn't matter. And, you know,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: more people who are seen as elites that speak up,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the worse it is. But I do think we're in
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: a situation where being quiet about this stuff Speaking up
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: is not going to necessarily fix it. It's not any
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: kind of magic bullet on this stuff. But not saying
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: anything is letting everyone else know that maybe it looks bad,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: but maybe it's not as bad as it seems. I
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: do think more people saying something about this and not
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: being afraid to actually fucking speak up is worth doing
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: right now. Pod Save America is brought to you by
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  Speaker 1: when I had signed up for it also. Still paying
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• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And it won't let me make Joe Biden voices anymore.
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• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Lots going on in the rest of the world right now,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: most notably in Iran, where the regime has responded to
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: massive anti-government protests with a brutal crackdown that has reportedly
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: killed at least 500 people and led to the arrest
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of more than 10,000. Trump is weighing military strikes. He
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: told reporters on Air Force One that, quote, the military
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: is looking at it and we're looking at some very
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: strong options. He also claimed that the Iranian leadership called
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: up his team and wants to negotiate over their nuclear program.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And it seems like Iran's foreign minister has been in
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: touch with Steve Witkoff, who else, over the weekend. On
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: the plane, Trump said a summit of some kind would happen,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: but that, quote, we may have to act before a
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: meeting if the regime keeps targeting protesters. Trump cares about
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: protesters now. Publicly, Iran is vowing to retaliate against American
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: military bases or Israel if we do something. Tommy, where
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: do you come down on all this? And what do
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: you think is actually going on?
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, the protests themselves, they started in late December.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: It was a bunch of merchants who were pissed because
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: the currency suddenly devalued and they were mad about other
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: economic grievances. And then they quickly just grew in size
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: and geographically and the demands became pretty radical, including calls
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: for the regime change. And what is so interesting about
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: these is they're not, it's not just cities, it's not
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: just women. it's like poor people in rural areas. It's
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: like all across the country and they're massive. And so
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: initially the regime tried to seem reasonable and suggest they
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: would sit down and talk. And now they're cracking down.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: There's been, they cut off the internet a few days
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: ago and there's just been massacres, it seems. So about
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: two weeks ago, Trump clearly laid down what one might
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: describe as a red line, where he said, quote, if
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: the regime kills protesters, quote, the United States will come
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: to go. So now he has a meeting on Tuesday
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: when this podcast comes out where he'll reportedly make a decision.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And the range of options are like military strike, cyber attack,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: more sanctions, maybe some like communication support for the protesters.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there's some like covert action stuff the CIA
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: is pitching him on that we don't know about. The
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Journal says that J.D. Vance is pushing for diplomacy. Steve Witkoff,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: as you said, is in touch with the foreign minister.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I have no idea what he's going to do here.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, he clearly said, if there's a massacre, I
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: will respond militarily. So it seems like he's on the
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: hook to respond, but it's just like, there's not an
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: obvious solution here to the problem.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Where does the nuclear program fit into all of this?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: And like, do you think that these protests were in
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: any way like fueled by the strikes on their nuclear
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: facilities that Trump ordered last summer?
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think the Israeli and US strikes on
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Iran showed the weakness of the regime militarily, and they
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: couldn't defend their own people. I mean, I think The
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: difference here is like the Iran nuclear program strikes were discreet.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: It was like a clear objective. They hit three sites
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: that were all nuclear related. In some cases, like the
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: planning on those targets had been ready in practice for decades.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Like I remember being briefed on one of the strike
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: packages for the Florida strike. And so the risk in
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: those was pretty low. It was like, you know, Israelis
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: had already taken out the air defense systems. We have
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: overwhelming military superiority. And it was easy to explain to
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: the American people why Bombing Iran's nuclear program keeps us safe, right?
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Even if we disagree on the efficacy of the strikes.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: In this case, how do you do an airstrike that
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: deters a crackdown on protesters? That doesn't make sense to me.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: There's not universal opinion on whether it would be helpful
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: or welcomed or not. There's some people who think the
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Iranians might rally around the flag if we bomb them
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: again or the Israelis bomb them again. And then you
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: just don't know who comes next if the regime is toppled.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Like, is it the IRGC?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Is it hardliners? Is it chaos?
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Is it civil war?
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: We don't know. This threat to retaliate, I can see
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Trump maybe thinks they're a paper tiger given that the
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: retaliation last time didn't do much to US targets, but
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: what if the regime thinks this is existential and they're
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: about to be toppled? Maybe they go a lot harder.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Trump has gotten really lucky. Only by the grace of
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: God were service members not killed when he executed Cosmo
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Soleimani in 2020. Remember, they fired a bunch of ballistic
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: missiles at the US base, 100 Service members got traumatic
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: brain injuries, but no one died. We have since learned
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: that in the Venezuela raid, one of the helicopter pilots
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: got shot in the leg three times. And if that
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: person had been killed and that helicopter had downed, like
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: this would be a very different mission. So one of
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: these days, something really bad is going to happen. This
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: won't be cost-free. But I, you know, it just, it's not,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: it's not clear to me what he's going to do
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: or what a good option even looks like.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: You see, Lindsey Graham said he hasn't slept in three
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: or four days because he's so excited about the possibility
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: of regime change.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, man, that guy, therapy for that guy.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I think this is his therapy.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: It's funny to think that Trump used to make fun
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: of him all the time. Remember he'd say like, there's
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: no war he didn't want. He's a, he's a neocon
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: warmonger who wants to invade everywhere. And now he's just
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: executing his foreign policy.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: I will say some of the videos that I've seen
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: from Iran of just like, You know, when the internet
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: has been on or people have been able to get
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: videos out of just what they're doing to protesters and
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: like the bodies is just horrific.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: If this weren't Trump and all that goes along with
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: this being Trump, a U.S. president threatening a dictatorship with
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: retaliation on behalf of a protest, like a protest of
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: the people against the evils of the regime. Like, you know,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: if one outcome of it is the regime is afraid
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: to kill more people in the streets, that isn't a
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: bad thing.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Look, people are probably looking at, screaming at their
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: phones right now, being like, this is Obama and the
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Syria red line, and he failed to implement it. And
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: it's been like, look, I have a lot of, I
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: hear you. Like, I think with the benefit of hindsight,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: he probably should hit some targets and, you know, set
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: the message about chemical weapons and why it mattered. I
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: just think if for the Iranian regime, if this is
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: an existential fight against being toppled, no number of American
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: airstrikes is going to slow them down, in my opinion.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Like if they think that they are no longer to
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: be in charge. Like they're dead anyway. So I think
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: they're going to battle. And so the question is like,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: if you look again at Syria, Syria ultimately had a
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: change in government that came from within. It took, you know,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: a decade plus 15 extra years. But that's how it happened.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: And the question is like, even Netanyahu is kind of
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: being restrained in this moment, like kind of not talking
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: about Iran, not talking about intervention, talking about how this
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: needs to be an Iranian led regime change, because there
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: is concern that if Internally, it starts to be viewed
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: as kind of jiving with the regime propaganda, which is
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: that this is the U.S. and the Zionists trying to
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: topple the Iranian government. That could weaken what is actually
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: a completely organic set of protests.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: One thing to know is the turmoil in the Middle
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: East isn't distracting our America's first president, America's first, from
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: his plans for hemispheric domination. Over the weekend, Trump said
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: he'd love to make a deal with Denmark. but that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: one way or another, we're going to have Greenland.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Wait, is it America's first? Is that a real thing?
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I just made that up. That's what it seems like now.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: He also added whether they like it or not. So
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that's nice. Trump officials are apparently going to meet with
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Danish officials on Wednesday. I think there's a congressional delegation,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: bipartisan delegation that's also going to meet with them. So
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: everyone's meeting with the Danes. Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting that
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the UK and Germany are talking about putting together a
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: NATO troop presence there to discourage an invasion by us,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: another NATO member.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: If they think Minneapolis is cold, wait till this administration
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: gets to fucking Greenland. Wait till the videos of guys
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: slipping on ice in fucking Greenland.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Send ice to Greenland. I have to admit, I don't
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: quite get the explanation that if we don't take Greenland,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Russia or China will take it. since Greenland is currently
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: part of the NATO alliance. Am I missing something?
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing, John, you are missing something.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: This is what Trump's been saying. Are you sure China's
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: going to take it if we don't take it? As
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: if it's like up for grabs?
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: In the game of risk, Greenland is a key point
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: to access Europe. If you can hold Greenland, you can
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: put a lot of your troops into Greenland so that
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: even under withering assault from the European continent, they'd have
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: to roll six after six after six to be able
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: to reduce the number of of troops you have in Greenland.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Did you notice on that map, too, in the game
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: of Risk, because I went back and looked at it
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: when all this was happening? Did you really? Oh, yeah. Well,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: people have been posting about it. Venezuela is much bigger
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and takes up many more countries in South America than
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: it actually does. It goes from Central America, Mexico, right
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: to Venezuela taking up basically a quarter of South America.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing about South America.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: It does make you wonder, has Trump really been just
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: looking at risk this whole time?
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: Because if you can hold Brazil and Venezuela, those two spots,
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: you can keep the whole continent of South America.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: The other theory along these lines that I've heard that
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: I actually buy.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Is- The Mercator map?
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: The Mercator projection, yes.
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: So it's a way of drawing maps, for those who
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: don't know, that makes Greenland look really big. Anything around
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: the poles looks really big. And there are some people
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: who think- Maybe Trump thinks that Greenland's like the size
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: of the continent of Africa.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing. He definitely either does or if he
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: knows that it's not that size, he still thinks that
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: owning all of it would be cool because on most
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Mercator maps, it will look like we have more territory.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I am sure the map in his mind.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: It's either one of those things for sure.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: The map in his mind is the same map that
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: was in our elementary schools.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: When we were kids with that big blob of USSR.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: He's an 80s guy.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: And the plasticity in his brain dried up in like 1988.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: And so that's what he's got. He's got a big
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: fucking Greenland there and he wants it.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: It's why he also thinks like Canada's the 51st state
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: because Canada looks pretty big up at North on the
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Mercator map as well.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: But to your question, I mean, not only is Greenland
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: part of Denmark, which is part of NATO, under an
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: agreement that dates back to the 1950s, the US has
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: troops in Greenland and it has the ability to put
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: in more. All we have to do is talk to
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: them first, but we can construct, install, maintain, operate military
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: bases across Greenland if we want. We could put personnel there.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: We can do anchorages, moorings. There's already a base there
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: that monitors missile launches. And so again, we just have
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: to consult them. And so if the Russians or the
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Chinese tried to take Greenland by force, they would be
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: starting a war with NATO, which is why it's probably
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: not going to happen. But if Trump wants to unravel
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: NATO by taking Greenland, he might make that actually an option.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: So do you see that the times... The interview Trump
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: did with The Times I think gave up the gain
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: on Greenland. He said owning Greenland is what he feels
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: is psychologically needed for success.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: So Dan and I were talking about it on Friday.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Right. So like this is– he just wants to be
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: the dude, the president who added a lot of territory.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Like this is a legacy project. This is not about
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: security in any way.
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: It's real estate, right? It's like, well, you don't want
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: to lease a building. You want to own a building.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: That's basically what this is all about.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And he's got in his mind like the expansion
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: of the country, like who got the Louisiana territory, like
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: who went west, who made America bigger.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: I also think it's worth pointing out, you're all listening
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to this probably on Tuesday. which is Trump's kicking off
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the next stop on his affordability tour. And what a
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: tour it is, because he wants to pay each Greenlander
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: up to $ 100, 000. That's been floated to buy Greenland. So
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: to make things more affordable for Americans, we are trying
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: to arrest the Fed share so that we can keep
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: inflation high. He just said that we're ruined if the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court rules against him on tariffs. He also just
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: added more tariffs, 25% tariffs he just announced on any
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: country that does any kind of business with Iran, which
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: is quite a few countries. So we're trying to do
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: more tariffs. We're trying to spend $ 100, 000 apiece on Greenlanders
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: while Americans can't afford most things. And also he did
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: threaten to board Air Force One to veto a potential
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: ACA extension on the subsidies if it happens. So he
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: is just crushing it on affordability day.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: Whose nightmare do you think we're in? Are we in
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: Kamala's nightmare, where she wakes up and realizes she has
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: to give a different answer on The View. Are we
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: in Merrick Garland's answer, where he wakes up after becoming
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: Attorney General and realizing he has to move quickly to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: make sure Donald Trump can never seek higher office again.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: Whose nightmare is this? Hillary Clinton's. Could be Hillary Clinton.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: That's a long, she's been asleep for a long time.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Whose sleep demon? Whose sleep demon is this?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, whose perilous demon is troubling us today?
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy. As for Venezuela, because we're not done with
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that yet, on Sunday, Trump posted an image of his
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia page mocked up to give him the title acting
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: president of Venezuela. And he also said that he's, quote,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: inclined to keep Exxon out of oil development in the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: country because he didn't like their CEO's statement at the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: White House the other day that it's too dangerous to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: make investments in Venezuela unless there are big changes in governance.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: The sin of telling the truth. Trump seems to have
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: his eye on Cuba as well, posting that they won't
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: be getting any more Venezuelan oil or money and that
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: they should, quote, make a deal before it's too late,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: all caps. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote back that Cubans are, quote,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: These all seem like healthy developments now.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: And what's crazy about Trump being mad about the Exxon
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: CEO's comments is he's talking about their assets getting seized
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: when the Venezuelans nationalized the industry in the 70s, then
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: again under Hugo Chavez. And he was criticizing the laws
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: and the political climate under Maduro. And Trump just told
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: us that he toppled the Maduro government and installed Delcy
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Rodriguez to change the exact political climate that this CEO
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: is complaining about, but Trump is like angry that it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: sounded negative.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's because it's like, hey, hey, you're making me feel,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: you're making it sound like what I did isn't going
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: to work. I don't need that right now. I want
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: positive people at my table. I want people that can see.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: I want to hear yes.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's yes and my invasion of, my not invasion
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: of Venezuela.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: This is toxic, guys.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: It's toxic. It's toxic.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, I can't believe it's been just over a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: week since we invaded Venezuela. We bombed Nigeria on Christmas.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: He bombed Syria again over the weekend. They're talking about
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: toppling Cuba. We're talking about taking Greenland by force. We're
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: talking about bombing Iran again. Actually, there's two different pitches
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: in the hopper for bombing Iran. There's the bombing to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: support the protesters. Then Netanyahu has been saying, hey, let's
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: bomb the ballistic missile stuff. So Maybe we'll get a two-for-one.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Also, Marco Rubio, who's out there just getting blowjob profile
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: after blowjob profile.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: For my friend in the barrel.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: And everyone else. He's taking great pains to be like,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: all we're doing is using our oil embargo on Venezuela
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: to sort of nudge them towards the right direction and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the right policy. And then Trump's like, acting president of Venezuela.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: It says so on my Wikipedia page.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: Ha, ha, ha.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: It's... We're so far from the things I think we
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: should be doing to make America succeed. And I just
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: was like thinking like, okay, well, I don't think this
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: is good for the long-term health of the country or
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: the short-term. And it's like, well, what would be some things? Like,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Not invading Venezuela?
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: STEM education.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Better schools.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Maybe some better transmission lines for clean energy. I'm Dunkelman-pilled,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: as you all know.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: And just, we're just abundance bro over here.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: But it, but it just like what the, there's such a, it's,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: I know it sounds stupid, but, and we're so far
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: from it, but they have such a lack of understanding
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: of like what made America a powerhouse in the first place.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: And it like, like power and force. And there, listen,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: there was plenty of hegemonic America, America kind of asserting
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: ourselves on the world stage, but, but in the country, like,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: why are we, why do we have such a big economy?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: We had, really smart people inventing really amazing things that
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: transform the world. And there's something about our culture and
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: our people and all the people who came here and
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: all the people who were forced to come here that
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: have something magical about them that makes, make amazing things happen.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: And there's just absolutely no, there's no thought to like
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: a bet that the success of America is about like
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: growing America. It's about how we slice the pie of what,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: like fucking oil derricks in South America?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, growing America isn't taking Greenland and Venezuela?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, I guess you're right. I guess you're right. Sort
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: of geographically, there would be more. I do think we
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: do great with- We're.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Kicking out a bunch of people. We're building a fortress
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: around a much bigger country.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's- Let's take some of the failing schools
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: here in the US and build them on Greenland. And
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: then you can be like James K.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Polk.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: Just to be a baby for a minute, the Rubio
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: profiles are making me so crazy. It's like, I've never
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: seen a group of people spike the football on first
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: down before. Don't you guys remember Mission Accomplished in Iraq
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: and everything? The Venezuela operation, the Delta Force raid day
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: one will very likely be the best day.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: The first profiles do not matter. The first profiles... They
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: become a joke in history. Donald Rumsfeld was the, remember
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: how much they loved him? The press would get, they
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: would love his little questions, his little snowflake briefs that
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: he was dropping all about the building. That's the same vase.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: You're seeing it twice. Like people thought he was a cat,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: a fun guy. What an old fun geezer up there.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: My favorite is there's a Politico profile and there's a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: quote in there from someone that says like, you know
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: what though? Rubio is building up a lot of capital
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: right now inside the GOP. and he really could make
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: a run at 2020. I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: because we all know how valuable the capital inside the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: GOP is.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: Talk about inflation.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: And has been in the Trump era. Usually it's the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: insiders in Washington who didn't really want to see Trump
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: to come to power in the first place. They're the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: ones who are going to decide 2028, right?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio building a beautiful kind of, cathedral of his ambitions.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: And Donald Trump just tweets, Rubio, fart-a-moo-gee, it's over. Just
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: truly is one post away from being eviscerated by this guy. Ridiculous. Oh, gosh.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: All right. When we get back from the break, you'll
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: hear Tommy's conversation with Lael Brainard about why it's so
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: crucial to have an independent Federal Reserve Bank. Can't wait
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: to learn. But two announcements before we get to that.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: I'll be so different, Joy. Thank you for your question.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: What a great question. How different from Joe Biden? Let
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: me count the ways. You won't believe it.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: It's what would you have done differently?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: So many things.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: It was looking backwards.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: So many things, Joy. Honestly, I don't think we have time.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I don't think we have time to talk about how
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: many different things I would have done in that old fuck.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Fuck him. I'm different.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Two announcements before we get to that. The interview. Strict
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Struton is coming to the West Coast in the spring.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: The show in San Francisco is sold out, but you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: can join Kate, Melissa, and Leah in Los Angeles on
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: March 7th at the Palace Theater. You think we can
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: get tickets to that?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we can get, or worst case, we can just
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: sit backstage.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, look, it says in brackets, mention if you plan
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: to attend. Thank you.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll be there.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Grab your tickets at cricket.com slash events. Also, Lover Leave
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: It is back with a whole new slate of shows
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: at Dynasty Typewriter for 2026. Love it. Here's when I ask,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: who do you guys have coming up? And hopefully, you know.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: We've got Ted McGinley. Legend, Michael Urie, they're both in Shrinking.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Robin Thede is coming. We have Frankie Quinones. We have
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: Lisa Rinna coming up. We have a bunch of amazing
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: shows coming up at Dynasty. Go to cricket.com slash events.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: Come to the show Thursday nights. It's very fun. We
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: cut a lot of the stuff that we can't include
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: in the pod.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: You mean future Fed chair, Lisa Rinna.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: That's good. It's good. Turns out she doesn't trade us.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: Turns out she doesn't trade us.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Go to cricket.com slash events to check out the lineup.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: We're always adding guests. Pate of America is brought to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you by Helix. We love Helix mattresses here.
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  Speaker 2: They're very comfortable.
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  Speaker 1: slash crooked for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked
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  Speaker 1: for 20% off site-wide. Make sure you enter our show
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: name after checkout so Today, I'm lucky to be joined
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: by an economist who's held several of the most senior
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: economic posts in the U.S. government, including Director of the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: National Economic Council from 2023 to 2025, Vice Chair of
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve from 2022 to 2023, and.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: And you had a bunch of other roles at the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Treasury Department, Deputy National Economic Advisor during the Clinton administration.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: The list goes on. Welcome to Pod Save America, Lael Brainard.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Great to see you.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: Well, it's great to be here.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for doing this because I don't
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: know much about the economy. So let's just start with
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: a quick Fed 101 for listeners who might be like
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: me and aren't that familiar with what the Fed actually does.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Can you just give us the quick description of what
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: the Fed's mission is and why it's so important that
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: it be independent and what it needs to be independent
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: from exactly?
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: So look, the Fed is really important to keeping inflation
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 6: under control and also having a strong job market in
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: the US. Back in the 1970s, when the Fed was
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: being pressured by the White House, they lost control of inflation.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: Inflation went up to double digits. It took a decade,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 6: Paul Volcker, and double digit unemployment to get inflation back down.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 6: So the Fed is just central to affordability in the
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: American economy, to people's ability to plan their budgets over
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: the next few years and have a sense of what
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 6: they'll be able to afford. And it's also really important
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: for the long-term economic stability of our economy. You asked
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 6: about independence, independence from what? So politicians generally operate on
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 6: electoral cycles. And in every country, and certainly in US history,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: heads of state, elected presidents, they are very focused on
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: their next election. And so they often just want interest
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 6: rates to be low. And that leads to longer term
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 6: high inflation And that's the reason that central banks all
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 6: around the world, but particularly in the US, are asked
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 6: by Congress to operate in a way that is independent
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: of the president, independent in order to make sure that
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 6: inflation stays low over many years rather than juicing the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: economy for the next election and then living with high
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: inflation for many years after that.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so President Trump, He wants Chairman Powell to take
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: steps to cut interest rates. Could you just talk about
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: why Chairman Powell is hesitant to do that and what
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: the impact could be, you think, of a premature rate cut?
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: And then are there international examples from other countries where
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: maybe the Fed got politicized or the central bank got
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: politicized and it created some sort of economic challenge or disaster?
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: So the reason that the U.S. Congress established really important
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 6: protections for the independence of the Fed including that the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: members of the Fed should not be able to be
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: fired by the president, except in very limited cases, is
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 6: because we can see historically and around the world what
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: happens when short-term political considerations drive interest rates, what happens
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 6: in those cases. And we've seen this very recently in Turkey,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: where not only does inflation go up to double digits,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: but it can soar. And it's really hard to get
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: very high inflation under control again. So once you lose
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 6: that credibility of the central bank, then inflation starts to
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: go higher and people lose confidence that the central bank
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: can bring inflation back down. And it ends up costing
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: the economy more. just a decade of lost growth. And
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 6: we've seen that in Argentina, we've seen it in Turkey,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: but we also saw it back in the 1970s after
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 6: Richard Nixon famously pressured Arthur Burns to juice the economy
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: for Nixon's reelection. And then the American people paid the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 6: price in terms of unaffordable houses, unaffordable groceries for more
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 6: than a decade.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: So Chairman Powell released this video Sunday night talking about
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: this investigation into essentially a plan to remodel the Fed
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: and whether or not he misled Congress about it. But
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: we'll set that aside. But he released this video basically saying, look,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: this is not really about whether or not I misled Congress.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: This is about Trump wanting me to do his bidding
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: and I won't. Were you surprised that Chairman Powell pushed
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: back so forcefully? He seemed like someone who is pretty
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: reticent to kind of get into the political fray like that.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. So the chair has been, I think, very much
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: characterized by restraint, by trying to stay out of the
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: political fray, which is, of course, the hallmarks of a good,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: independent Federal Reserve chair who was supposed to really not
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: be swayed by short-term political considerations. So to see that
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: kind of a forceful statement coming out think took everybody,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: certainly took Fed watchers, people who are in the financial
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: markets by surprise. But of course, it comes after a
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: series of actions that are all very unprecedented that this
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: White House has taken to pressure the Federal Reserve. And
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 6: so in the context of a series of unprecedented steps,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: it does really raise the alarm that that the Fed
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: could lose its independence, and that would be bad for
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: inflation in America.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, Powell's term as chair ends in May,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: but he could remain a Fed governor through 2028. Do
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: you think this fight makes him more or less likely
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: to want to stick it out through, I think, January 31st, 2028?
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 6: It's a good question. I mean, I think the thing
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: that you kind of have to ask, given that he
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: only has a handful of meetings at which interest rates
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 6: cuts will be debated before the new chair comes into
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: the Federal Reserve. It's really a puzzle why the Trump
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 6: White House would be taking these actions at this juncture.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 6: The Federal Reserve just cut rates three times in a
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 6: row in order to help strengthen the job market and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: cushion the U.S. economy. And the most recent GDP data
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 6: is strong. So it's a real puzzle why they're so
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 6: close to getting what they want, which is a new chair.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 6: Why this extraordinary move now? And I think it goes
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 6: to what you're asking about, which is the chair can
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 6: stay on as a regular member of the board, just
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: a voting member, which he was before he became chair
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: for another two years. which is until 2028. And so
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: the real question, Mark, given that he's going to step
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 6: down as chair in May anyway, is are they trying
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 6: to persuade him to leave the board altogether in May
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 6: with this kind of extraordinary threat? And many people might
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: actually counsel that in these extraordinary circumstances, it's important not
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: to bow to that kind of pressure. So I don't
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: think we know what's going on behind the scenes, but
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 6: it certainly raises that question of what are they trying
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: to accomplish here?
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I ask that about this administration often. Here's my idea.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: I was thinking maybe just between you and us that
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: you could relate to Chairman Powell. I think he should
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: threaten to raise interest rates a thousand basis points if
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't back off. What do you think? Good idea.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Great idea.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 6: So let's just say that the Federal Reserve is best
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: when they are doing their job, looking at the data, boring, non-political,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: and certainly not in a kind of political back and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: forth with the most powerful person in America, maybe the world.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 6: So much better for the American people to have the
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: Fed just continue doing their boring job, which is to
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 6: keep inflation low and to keep jobs plentiful. That's what
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: they're really good at. And if Americans are focused on affordability,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 6: and I think this is their number one concern on
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: the economy right now, Americans want a more affordable set
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 6: of prices. The Fed is central to that, keeping affordability
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: front and center over multiple years, not just with a
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 6: view to the next political election.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: All right, I'll take that as a maybe. So ever
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: since the financial crisis, I feel like, look, I'm like
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: a casual kind of stock market observer, but I felt
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: like ever since the financial crisis, the Fed's decisions have
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: been the primary mover of the stock market. It's been
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: Fed decisions around rates or bond purchases. They had a
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: greater impact on the stock market than like earnings or
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: the economy or unemployment, like the things you would think
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: are really the scaffolding of the economy. And so it
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: seems strange to me that today, Monday, January 12th, the
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: markets and other kind of market indicators seem to be
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: kind of shrugging off this attack on Chairman Powell and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: the Fed's independence.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: Do you have a theory for why that is?
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 6: You know, I think you're exactly right that the kind
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 6: of threats to the Federal Reserve's independence that, you know,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: the White House keeps engaging in should really have a
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 6: lot of people who are in financial markets, who are
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 6: trading stocks and treasuries. it should have them very worried
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: because it's not a today's story only. It really goes
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 6: to the fundamental stability of U.S. financial markets and the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 6: ability of the Federal Reserve to keep inflation predictable and low.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: It goes to the strength of the dollar. People who
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 6: are investing in dollar assets really depend on low inflation
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: in the United States. And so you saw a little
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: bit of a move right after that video came out
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 6: in the kind of direction you would think you would expect,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 6: stocks down, treasuries down, and the dollar down. But you're right,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: the markets rebounded. I think the markets are just getting
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 6: to the point where they're overwhelmed by just very unprecedented
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: actions on the part of this White House.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: If investors do start doubting the Fed and the health
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: of the US economy, are there places where you think
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: it might begin to show up, like the dollar? Is
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: it people buying gold? What should we be watching for?
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. So we have seen some of that concern
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 6: about the dollar in the value of gold and the
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: fact that Central banks in other countries are holding relatively
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: more gold compared to their treasury holdings than they were
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: just a year ago. You also will see it in
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 6: long-term interest rates on treasury securities because people get more
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 6: nervous that their treasury securities are not going to hold
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: value if inflation goes up a lot because the Fed
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 6: loses its ability to be independent. And that's bad, not
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 6: just because we're already paying a trillion dollars of interest
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 6: on our national debt and we need some relief there,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 6: but also because that then translates into higher mortgage costs,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: higher car loan costs. So it's bad for American households.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: This whole thing seems bad. Every day there's something to
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: do that's bad. You know, if it was about a
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: week ago, we were bombing Venezuela and all of a
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: sudden we're doing this. I mean, it's just it's hard
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: to keep up with this stuff.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: It's madness.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 6: Well, it is really hard to keep up with. And
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: it is so unprecedented, but it's really important for Americans
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 6: to stay focused on it. Because if they care about affordability,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 6: they really do care about the Fed's ability to control inflation.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: And if the White House can go after this chair,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 6: they can go after the next chair. And that makes
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 6: it much harder for any chair and any Federal Reserve
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 6: to actually do their job, which is to really promote
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: long-term affordability for Americans.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, good for Chairman Powell for pushing back. I
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: was glad to see it. Lael Brainard, thank you so
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: much for helping me understand this stuff. I really appreciate it.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: And it's great to see you again.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: It's great to see you.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you. That's our show for today. Thanks to Lael
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: Brainard for coming on. Dan and I will be back
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: with a new show on Friday.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: Can I read you my favorite Rumsfeld snowflake memo? Yeah. Two,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: Doug Fythe, subject, issues with various countries. Body the memo.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: We need more coercive diplomacy with respect to Syria and Libya,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: and we need it fast. If they mess up Iraq,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: it will delay bringing our troops home. We also need
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: to solve the Pakistan problem, and Korea doesn't seem to
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: be going well. Are you coming up with proposals for
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: me to send around? Thanks.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: I remember that memo. It is so funny. It's like, hey, hey, listen,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: if I don't see you before the end of the day,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: solve Pakistan.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Solve Pakistan.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: That's a great boss, Defense Secretary.
• 1:23:16
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