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Trump Comes for the Judges · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:22
Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about Donald Trump's probably unlawful
0:25
Speaker 1: order to kill the Department of Education and his move
0:28
Speaker 1: to starve colleges of funding. that have political views he
0:31
Speaker 1: doesn't like. Doge is busy making it harder for seniors
0:34
Speaker 1: to get their social security, which seems efficient. And they
0:38
Speaker 1: literally staged an armed invasion of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
0:43
Speaker 1: We'll get to that wild story. And because we're nerds,
0:47
Speaker 1: we're going to dive into the election postmortem from David
0:49
Speaker 1: Shore and Blue Rose Research. which is notable because it
0:52
Speaker 1: includes 26 million survey responses. So lots of data to
0:57
Speaker 1: dig through. But first, now that we have a Republican
1:00
Speaker 1: Congress that seemingly exists only to do whatever Trump tells
1:04
Speaker 1: them to do, the last remaining check on the president's
1:07
Speaker 1: power is the judicial branch, which Trump and Elon and
1:11
Speaker 1: the MAGA regime are now going to war with. So
1:15
Speaker 1: for several weeks now, the president's Billionaire top advisor has
1:19
Speaker 1: been using his social media platform to call for the
1:21
Speaker 1: impeachment of judges that rule against the Trump administration. But
1:26
Speaker 1: the situation escalated last week when James Boasberg, the chief
1:30
Speaker 1: judge of the D.C. Circuit Court, tried to block Trump
1:33
Speaker 1: from jailing people in a foreign prison without due process,
1:37
Speaker 1: an order that the Trump regime partly ignored, arguing that
1:41
Speaker 1: some of the flights were already over international waters when
1:43
Speaker 1: the ruling came down. The MAGA position is apparently that
1:47
Speaker 1: the president should be able to lock up whoever he
1:50
Speaker 1: wants in an El Salvador mega prison run by a
1:54
Speaker 1: brutal dictator. So long as he tells us they're a
1:57
Speaker 1: threat to America. We just have to take his word
2:00
Speaker 1: for it. So one of Trump's minions in Congress, Brandon Gill.
2:06
Speaker 1: introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg. Trump himself also
2:10
Speaker 1: called for the judge's impeachment. And here's what he said
2:13
Speaker 1: when asked about it by Laura Ingraham this week.
2:16
Speaker 3: Many people have called for his impeachment, the impeachment of
2:19
Speaker 3: this judge. I don't know who the judge is, but
2:21
Speaker 3: he's radical left. He was Obama appointed. We have very
2:24
Speaker 3: bad judges, and these are judges that shouldn't be allowed.
2:27
Speaker 3: I think at a certain point, you have to start
2:30
Speaker 3: looking at what do you do when you have a
2:32
Speaker 3: rogue judge.
2:33
Speaker 2: The judge that we're.
2:34
Speaker 3: Talking about, you look at his other rulings, I mean,
2:37
Speaker 3: rulings unrelated, but having to do with me, He's a lunatic.
2:44
Speaker 3: You have local judges, local federal judges, local judges, period,
2:47
Speaker 3: and DAs and prosecutors, DAs, state attorney generals, attorney generals
2:54
Speaker 3: that want to really take over. I think some of
2:57
Speaker 3: it's for the publicity. They love the publicity. All of
3:00
Speaker 3: a sudden, they're on the front page of every newspaper,
3:02
Speaker 3: but they have no right to be.
3:03
Speaker 1: So we are only about 60 days into Trump's second term,
3:07
Speaker 1: and we are in a very dark place already. So dark,
3:12
Speaker 1: we even got this highly unusual statement from Supreme Court
3:15
Speaker 1: Chief Justice John Roberts this week. Quote, for more than
3:20
Speaker 1: two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not
3:23
Speaker 1: an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The
3:28
Speaker 1: normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. What do
3:33
Speaker 1: you think? John Roberts, welcome to the resistance.
3:36
Speaker 2: I mean, good job, John Roberts. Not a sentence we
3:38
Speaker 2: say very often on this podcast.
3:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
3:42
Speaker 2: The fact of the statement is very notable. And I
3:44
Speaker 2: will say that the statement was– there was a lot
3:47
Speaker 2: of sort of criticism online that he never mentioned Trump's name.
3:52
Speaker 2: But then when I actually went and read it, it's
3:56
Speaker 2: actually a lot less mealy-mouthed than I assumed. And John
3:59
Speaker 2: Roberts is pretty mealy-mouthed in a lot of ways. And
4:00
Speaker 2: so to his credit here– and I think the statement
4:03
Speaker 2: probably speaks to what we're going to see from John
4:05
Speaker 2: Roberts over the course of the next few years here,
4:06
Speaker 2: which is trying to walk this fine line between defending
4:11
Speaker 2: the independence of the judiciary and preserving his legacy. He
4:15
Speaker 2: has overseen the greatest drop in trust in the Supreme
4:18
Speaker 2: Court in its history during his period of time as
4:20
Speaker 2: Chief Justice, while not going so far as to poke
4:24
Speaker 2: the bear to the point where Trump will outright defy
4:27
Speaker 2: in order or even begin to radicalize people against the
4:30
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. Because if Republicans stop liking the Supreme Court,
4:34
Speaker 2: no one's going to like the Supreme Court because they
4:35
Speaker 2: already turned off a whole bunch of Democrats with everything
4:38
Speaker 2: they've done, but most notably the Dobbs decision.
4:41
Speaker 1: We should also say this about Judge Boasberg. He was
4:45
Speaker 1: elevated to the D.C. Circuit Court by Obama, but he
4:48
Speaker 1: was not appointed by Obama. That is incorrect from Trump,
4:52
Speaker 1: from the White House. Every Republican has been saying that.
4:54
Speaker 1: He's a George W. Bush appointee. Some of the things
4:57
Speaker 1: Boasberg has done, he dismissed Trump's tax return lawsuit so
5:01
Speaker 1: that we couldn't see Trump's tax returns. He ordered the
5:04
Speaker 1: release of Hillary's emails, limited grand jury material disclosure in
5:08
Speaker 1: Trump's classified documents case. So not exactly.
5:12
Speaker 2: Maybe we should impeach him.
5:13
Speaker 1: Not exactly a radical left lunatic. He used to be
5:16
Speaker 1: the head of the FISA court, which is the court
5:18
Speaker 1: that approves surveillance warrants. So this is not some lunatic leftist.
5:24
Speaker 1: So the White House and Republicans in Congress, they have
5:27
Speaker 1: to know that they don't have anywhere close to the
5:30
Speaker 1: votes needed to impeach anyone, let alone a judge. You
5:34
Speaker 1: need 67 votes in the Senate to convict. So why
5:38
Speaker 1: do you think they keep pushing this? Like, is the
5:39
Speaker 1: hope that the constant threats and accusations are just going
5:43
Speaker 1: to undermine the legitimacy of the judicial system? Is that
5:46
Speaker 1: the play?
5:47
Speaker 2: Do you think you're sure they know that it takes
5:49
Speaker 2: 67 votes?
5:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think Elon does. He's been tweeting
5:52
Speaker 1: about it forever, and I think he's just a dumb
5:54
Speaker 1: shit who has not spent a lot of time studying
5:57
Speaker 1: up on the government he's trying to destroy, but that's him.
6:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think Elon, maybe even some of these
6:02
Speaker 2: members of Congress, there is a collection of people with
6:04
Speaker 2: broken brains who spend too much time online, have time
6:06
Speaker 2: reading books, who don't know it, but they're... Stephen Miller
6:10
Speaker 2: was tweeting about this. Those people do know. And I
6:13
Speaker 2: think the goal here is pretty clear. It is to
6:17
Speaker 2: set the stage to till the ground for the moment
6:20
Speaker 2: when Trump wants to defy a court order. Because he
6:23
Speaker 2: has not done that yet. He has said he's not
6:24
Speaker 2: going to do it. And he does not have the
6:26
Speaker 2: public on his side, right? There is a Washington Post-Ipsos
6:28
Speaker 2: poll that shows that 84% of voters, including strong majorities
6:32
Speaker 2: of Republicans, believe that if a court declares something the
6:35
Speaker 2: Trump administration is doing is illegal, that Trump must abide
6:37
Speaker 2: by that order. Only 11% think you should defy it.
6:40
Speaker 2: And so if you want to get to the point
6:42
Speaker 2: where you can actually do that, you have to do
6:45
Speaker 2: what they did to the media, do what they're doing
6:46
Speaker 2: to the universities. You have to destroy trust in that institution.
6:50
Speaker 2: And this is the beginning part of that process.
6:53
Speaker 1: We should say that just before we recorded, Judge Boasberg
6:57
Speaker 1: just accused the government of evading its obligations and moved
7:01
Speaker 1: closer to holding them in contempt for not explaining, they
7:05
Speaker 1: still haven't explained, why they didn't abide by his order
7:09
Speaker 1: to turn the planes around. So he is not backing
7:12
Speaker 1: down with all these threats, but he's pretty angry at
7:18
Speaker 1: the government, and I think he should be. The Trump
7:22
Speaker 1: administration thinks that they are on solid ground on this
7:26
Speaker 1: one because they think, you know, who really wants... Venezuelan
7:31
Speaker 1: gangs in the United States. But the more we learn
7:36
Speaker 1: about this and the more information that's come out, not
7:38
Speaker 1: because of the government, but because of reporting and because
7:41
Speaker 1: some of these people's families and lawyers have learned about
7:44
Speaker 1: where they are, it is shocking, shocking what is happening.
7:49
Speaker 1: The New York Times reports that the Trump folks believe
7:52
Speaker 1: that the Alien Enemies Act, which is what Trump invoked
7:55
Speaker 1: to do this, allows federal agents to enter homes without
8:00
Speaker 1: a warrant. So currently, immigration agents without a warrant can
8:05
Speaker 1: basically just knock on your door and ask to come in,
8:07
Speaker 1: and that's all they can do unless they have a
8:09
Speaker 1: warrant because of the Fourth Amendment. But Trump and the
8:13
Speaker 1: government are basically now saying, well, Alien Enemies Act, if
8:16
Speaker 1: we think that there's a Venezuelan gang in there and
8:19
Speaker 1: we've labeled them a domestic terrorist organization, then we can
8:24
Speaker 1: just send federal agents in federal ICE agents into people's
8:28
Speaker 1: house without a warrant, which now you may say, okay, well,
8:31
Speaker 1: if I'm a U.S. citizen, then they're not going to
8:33
Speaker 1: come to my house. Well, how is anyone going to know?
8:36
Speaker 1: How's anyone going to know? They can show up at
8:39
Speaker 1: a U.S. citizen's house and say they suspect that Trende
8:43
Speaker 1: Aragua is hiding in your house and then take you away.
8:47
Speaker 1: And who's going to know since we're not doing due
8:49
Speaker 1: process anymore? We're just fucking putting people on planes, sending
8:52
Speaker 1: them to El Salvador and locking them up for indefinite
8:55
Speaker 1: periods of time.
8:56
Speaker 2: It is just truly astounding that they've taken all of
9:01
Speaker 2: the checks and balances out of the system, right? You
9:03
Speaker 2: don't need to go to a judge to get a
9:05
Speaker 2: warrant to go in the house. And the person you
9:07
Speaker 2: get in the house, you do not have to present
9:09
Speaker 2: to a judge before you send them out of the country.
9:11
Speaker 2: And if the Trump administration can be so fucking stupid
9:14
Speaker 2: as to accidentally cancel an Ebola prevention program, do we
9:17
Speaker 2: really think they're not going to make some mistakes on
9:19
Speaker 2: the people they're deporting? And we're already hearing stories of these.
9:22
Speaker 2: There are people waking up in an El Salvadorian mega-prison.
9:26
Speaker 2: that is famous for how horrible the conditions are, infamous
9:30
Speaker 2: for how horrible the conditions are, who were not members
9:33
Speaker 2: of these gangs, right? Who should not have been subject
9:36
Speaker 2: to this because the point is you stop in front
9:38
Speaker 2: of a judge and a judge helps verify that this
9:40
Speaker 2: is the person that the Trump administration says it is.
9:42
Speaker 2: And then if they are a member of this gang
9:45
Speaker 2: or if there's another reason why they should be deported,
9:46
Speaker 2: then they're deported. But now this is just, I mean,
9:49
Speaker 2: it is fully and totally authoritarian. It runs against everything
9:53
Speaker 2: that our system was set up for.
9:55
Speaker 1: They grabbed this guy who's a professional soccer player player
10:01
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. This guy showed up at two protests to
10:06
Speaker 1: protest Maduro, the dictator in Venezuela. And Maduro's regime tortured him.
10:14
Speaker 1: And he got away. He came to the United States.
10:18
Speaker 1: He applied for asylum. And they mistakenly think his tattoo
10:26
Speaker 1: is Tren de Aragua when it's actually a fucking soccer tattoo.
10:31
Speaker 1: And so they got the tattoo artist to like sign
10:35
Speaker 1: an affidavit to say this. And so the family was
10:38
Speaker 1: waiting for an immigration hearing and all this because the
10:40
Speaker 1: guy had been held for a while and then just
10:43
Speaker 1: woke up one day and was just taken to this
10:45
Speaker 1: El Salvador in prison. So a man who was tortured
10:47
Speaker 1: by the Maduro regime is now being held indefinitely in
10:51
Speaker 1: a prison in El Salvador because they mistakenly think he's
10:55
Speaker 1: a gang member. And then when DHS was asked about this,
10:57
Speaker 1: they're like, well, that's one tattoo. And there was also
11:00
Speaker 1: a social media post where he had a gang sign
11:02
Speaker 1: and that everyone's like, no, that's just a, like a
11:05
Speaker 1: thumbs up, like soccer sign that they have. I mean,
11:09
Speaker 1: it's fucking ridiculous. This is what's happening. No hearing, no evidence,
11:13
Speaker 1: no nothing. It's not good. It's not good. You see
11:16
Speaker 1: Elon's maxing out on donations to Republicans who support impeaching judges?
11:21
Speaker 2: Of course he is, right? The guy loves to buy
11:23
Speaker 2: a politician. And giving federally regulated campaign contributions is a
11:28
Speaker 2: pretty inefficient way for Elon Musk to flex his muscle
11:31
Speaker 2: because he can only give the same amount as people
11:33
Speaker 2: like you and I or anyone else out there. But
11:35
Speaker 2: it just creates this incentive structure for more people to
11:37
Speaker 2: act like morons and support these impeachments. Yeah, exactly. So
11:41
Speaker 2: you're going to get more people that because they want
11:42
Speaker 2: the money, they want the support, they want the attention
11:44
Speaker 2: that comes from me associated with Elon. And that is
11:46
Speaker 2: one thing Elon Musk is very good about doing. It
11:47
Speaker 2: is leveraging his money for attention to influence. And this
11:50
Speaker 2: is another way in which he's doing that.
11:52
Speaker 1: He's also spent well over $ 10 million on a Wisconsin
11:55
Speaker 1: Supreme Court race that could flip the state's liberal majority
11:58
Speaker 1: back to a conservative majority. So early voting is now
12:03
Speaker 1: underway in that race. And the election is April 1st. Dan,
12:06
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the stakes here?
12:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:08
Speaker 2: So if you live in Wisconsin, this is an absolutely
12:10
Speaker 2: essential race because the balance of the Supreme Court is
12:14
Speaker 2: once again... in question. You may remember, not that long ago,
12:17
Speaker 2: we talked on the show a lot, there was a
12:19
Speaker 2: race to, a couple of years ago, with Janet Porosiewicz,
12:24
Speaker 2: who I think you guys even campaigned with in Wisconsin,
12:28
Speaker 2: won an election, gave the liberals a majority. These are
12:32
Speaker 2: technically nonpartisan races, but the parties have lined up behind
12:34
Speaker 2: the candidates, Democrats behind Susan Crawford and Elon Musk and
12:38
Speaker 2: Republicans behind Brad Schimel. And When the liberals have the
12:43
Speaker 2: majority now, we're able to undo one of the nation's
12:45
Speaker 2: most unfair gerrymandering systems and make it so that we
12:49
Speaker 2: have more free and fair elections because Wisconsin, as we
12:51
Speaker 2: all know, is the quintessential battleground state, but Republicans were
12:54
Speaker 2: dominating the legislature and the congressional delegation because of that.
12:58
Speaker 2: And going forward, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear cases
13:02
Speaker 2: on things like abortion, personal freedom, civil rights. And if
13:05
Speaker 2: you think about this from the perspective of people who
13:06
Speaker 2: aren't in Wisconsin, many of the big cases that are
13:09
Speaker 2: about– how the 2026 and 2028 elections are going to
13:14
Speaker 2: be conducted will come before that court. So you're either
13:16
Speaker 2: going to have a majority of people who abide by
13:18
Speaker 2: the rule of law or a Supreme Court majority that
13:21
Speaker 2: is bought and paid for by Elon Musk. And just
13:25
Speaker 2: even beyond that for everyone else is this is the
13:29
Speaker 2: first major election in a battleground state since Trump won.
13:33
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is on the ballot here. He has spent
13:35
Speaker 2: $ 10 million. The Democrats and the Crawford campaign have made
13:38
Speaker 2: Elon Musk a centerpiece of it. Brad Schimel has not
13:41
Speaker 2: committed to recusing himself of any cases involving Elon Musk
13:44
Speaker 2: come up before the court, even though Elon Musk has
13:46
Speaker 2: spent already $ 10 million to elect him.
13:48
Speaker 1: And Tesla is currently suing the state of Wisconsin. So
13:52
Speaker 1: the case may come to Brad Schimel.
13:55
Speaker 2: And if you want to send a message to Elon
13:57
Speaker 2: Musk and to every Republican in the country about how
14:01
Speaker 2: toxic it is to be associated with what Elon Musk
14:03
Speaker 2: is doing, the best way to do that right now,
14:05
Speaker 2: the best way to inform... flick some measure of political
14:07
Speaker 2: accountability on Elon Musk and Donald Trump is to win
14:09
Speaker 2: this election in Wisconsin on April 1st.
14:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's close, as they always are in Wisconsin.
14:15
Speaker 1: So it's going to be a really tight race. In
14:17
Speaker 1: order to tip the race, we're sending John Lovett to
14:20
Speaker 1: Wisconsin this weekend. He's doing six kickoffs. He's going to
14:25
Speaker 1: be around Madison on Saturday and Milwaukee on Sunday. So
14:28
Speaker 1: Go see Lovett if you're in Wisconsin.
14:31
Speaker 2: And he'll be with Ben Whitcliffe. So just, you know,
14:34
Speaker 2: he's chaperoned. On this trip, yes. To be clear, he's chaperoned.
14:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't send him to Wisconsin by himself. And
14:40
Speaker 1: you can also go to votesaveamerica.com slash Wisconsin. And there's
14:43
Speaker 1: going to be– there's plenty to do as we get
14:46
Speaker 1: to Election Day here. Also– Tommy and I are not
14:50
Speaker 1: going to Wisconsin, but we are going to Norco, California
14:54
Speaker 1: this weekend, Dan.
14:55
Speaker 2: That is not NorCal, California. That is Norco, California. Norco, yeah.
15:00
Speaker 2: Stay on your side of the grapevine, okay?
15:02
Speaker 1: It's about an hour and a half east of LA.
15:05
Speaker 1: We're going to be with Ro Khanna, who's doing a
15:08
Speaker 1: town hall in the district of a House Republican who
15:11
Speaker 1: refuses to hold a town hall. Ken Calvert. We've already
15:15
Speaker 1: been to Ken Calvert's district once when we were trying
15:18
Speaker 1: to elect Will Rollins in this last cycle. So we're
15:21
Speaker 1: heading back this time with Ro Khanna. Ro's doing, much
15:24
Speaker 1: like Bernie and AOC are doing these town halls, Ro
15:27
Speaker 1: is doing a series of town halls as well. So
15:31
Speaker 1: that'll be fun. We're going out to see some folks.
15:35
Speaker 1: So come say hi if you're in Norco. Or come
15:37
Speaker 1: out to Norco if you're in L.A. Pod Save America
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. Big day at
17:28
Speaker 1: the White House on Thursday. Trump signed an order eliminating
17:31
Speaker 1: the Department of Education, which has already seen its workforce halved.
17:36
Speaker 1: Promises made, promises kept. The AP notes that the department
17:40
Speaker 1: handles $ 1. 6 trillion in federal student loans and billions of
17:44
Speaker 1: dollars in programs for colleges and school districts. It also
17:48
Speaker 1: accounts for roughly 14% of public school budgets. The White
17:53
Speaker 1: House claims that none of the department's services or benefits
17:56
Speaker 1: will be disrupted, though they aren't saying how they'll do
18:00
Speaker 1: that without, you know, an actual department with actual employees.
18:04
Speaker 1: Here's what Trump had to say at the signing.
18:07
Speaker 3: Today, we take a very historic action that was 45
18:10
Speaker 3: years in the making. In a few moments, I will
18:14
Speaker 3: sign an executive order to begin eliminating the Federal Department
18:18
Speaker 3: of Education. And it sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education,
18:23
Speaker 3: we're going to eliminate it. And everybody knows it's right.
18:27
Speaker 3: And the Democrats know it's right. And I hope they're
18:29
Speaker 3: going to be voting for it because ultimately it may
18:32
Speaker 3: come before them. But Everybody knows it's right. It's doing
18:35
Speaker 3: us no good. We want to return our students to
18:39
Speaker 3: the States. Look, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. I have to tell you,
18:43
Speaker 3: I give them a lot of credit. China's top 10.
18:47
Speaker 3: And so we can't now say that bigness is making
18:50
Speaker 3: it impossible to educate because China is very big.
18:53
Speaker 1: What the hell is he talking? Bigness. So as you
18:56
Speaker 1: heard him there, like they're acknowledging that they'll need Congress
18:59
Speaker 1: to officially shutter the department. though they certainly don't have
19:03
Speaker 1: 60 votes in the Senate for that. Republicans have already
19:07
Speaker 1: said they'll introduce legislation right after Trump's announcement. What do
19:10
Speaker 1: you think happens here? What do you make of all this?
19:12
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, they're not passing this bill, right? Congress
19:15
Speaker 2: is not going to act on this. To put that
19:17
Speaker 2: in some perspective about how hard it is to shut
19:22
Speaker 2: down the private education, Ronald Reagan ran on it. It
19:24
Speaker 2: was a big part of his campaign platform. after winning
19:28
Speaker 2: more than 500 electoral votes in 1984, he couldn't get
19:30
Speaker 2: any traction on it. It's not become any more popular
19:34
Speaker 2: since then. The Economist YouGov ran this interesting poll where
19:37
Speaker 2: they asked people about the Department of Education, do you
19:39
Speaker 2: want to expand it, keep it the same, reduce it,
19:43
Speaker 2: or eliminate it? The plurality was expanded at 39%. The
19:46
Speaker 2: combined keep it the same and expand it was over 60,
19:50
Speaker 2: and only 17% of people wanted to eliminate it. There
19:53
Speaker 2: is absolutely no appetite for this anywhere. What it is,
19:56
Speaker 2: is it's just, this is sort of like the birthright
19:58
Speaker 2: citizenship EO he did. He can say, promise is made,
20:02
Speaker 2: promise is kept, and he did this, and then it
20:04
Speaker 2: goes nowhere. But it does sort of create the predicate
20:08
Speaker 2: for Musk and Doge to go in there and eliminate
20:11
Speaker 2: it even further, right? Like maybe the building will still
20:13
Speaker 2: stand and there will still be an office that Linda
20:14
Speaker 2: McMahon will have the opportunity to go to periodically, but
20:18
Speaker 2: the core functions, absent some judicial intervention, are going to
20:22
Speaker 2: be gutted and it's going to have devastating effects.
20:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, they keep, I think they
20:28
Speaker 1: know how unpopular it would be to sort of cut
20:30
Speaker 1: the funding or disrupt benefits and services. You got student
20:33
Speaker 1: loans in there, you got the education, the federal education
20:37
Speaker 1: department is responsible for Title I funds for the state.
20:41
Speaker 1: Title I funding is for public schools in disadvantaged communities,
20:46
Speaker 1: so poor working-class families. It's for children with disabilities. And
20:52
Speaker 1: so you have kids with disabilities, low-income schools, and all
20:56
Speaker 1: the student loans in the country. And the Trump administration
21:00
Speaker 1: is trying to say, well, they're either going to move
21:02
Speaker 1: the distribution of those under other departments, or they're gonna
21:06
Speaker 1: have a smaller, or they're gonna have, I don't know
21:08
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do, but the idea that those services
21:12
Speaker 1: are going to be completely uninterrupted just doesn't square with
21:18
Speaker 1: what most people in education believe, experts in education believe,
21:22
Speaker 1: and also how the entire Doge process has gone so far.
21:27
Speaker 2: That's the key point. That's the key point.
21:29
Speaker 1: They might think to themselves genuinely that they're not going
21:32
Speaker 1: to disrupt any services and benefits, but they keep firing
21:34
Speaker 1: everyone who knows anything about education.
21:38
Speaker 2: It's like to what end, right, is that they want
21:40
Speaker 2: a real estate transaction to sell the building?
21:44
Speaker 3: Right.
21:44
Speaker 2: They think they're.
21:45
Speaker 1: Saving so much money just like getting rid of all
21:48
Speaker 1: those employees, and they're not because that's not where most
21:50
Speaker 1: of the money that the Department of Education oversees is
21:53
Speaker 1: coming from.
21:54
Speaker 2: It's also stupid. This is a way to check off
21:57
Speaker 2: something that was on the wish list long before Project 2025.
22:01
Speaker 2: It was a big part of Project 2025. Newt Gingrich
22:05
Speaker 2: ran on this in the 90s with the Contract for America.
22:07
Speaker 2: This has been a Republican pipe dream, and this is
22:09
Speaker 2: a way to get a chance to say they did it.
22:12
Speaker 2: Even if they're not accomplishing the specific goal because they
22:14
Speaker 2: do need Congress for it, they can accomplish the goal
22:16
Speaker 2: in spirit, which is to gut public education in this country.
22:20
Speaker 1: It seems like a good fight for Democrats to take on.
22:23
Speaker 1: What do you think?
22:25
Speaker 2: I very much think so. In fact, if you're a
22:27
Speaker 2: Messagebox subscriber, you have in your inbox right now a
22:31
Speaker 2: full messaging guide on this. If you are not a
22:33
Speaker 2: Messagebox subscriber, you're.
22:35
Speaker 1: Lost, I guess.
22:36
Speaker 2: Well, then I don't know what you've been doing. So
22:39
Speaker 2: I go through a whole bunch of the polling on
22:41
Speaker 2: a bunch of the message guidance, but let me give
22:43
Speaker 2: the short version of how I think Democrats should talk
22:45
Speaker 2: about this, which is Elon Musk and Donald Trump are
22:49
Speaker 2: shutting down the Department of Education and gutting public education
22:51
Speaker 2: to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. The result of
22:54
Speaker 2: this is going to be teachers are laid off, more
22:57
Speaker 2: kids in the classroom, dilapidated schools, and huge cut to
23:00
Speaker 2: special education funding, all to pay for tax cuts for
23:04
Speaker 2: the ultra-wealthy like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. That is
23:07
Speaker 2: how you talk about it. It is not about cutting
23:10
Speaker 2: individual funding streams. It is important to say why they're
23:14
Speaker 2: doing it, be specific on what's going to happen, and
23:17
Speaker 2: who it benefits.
23:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think along with some of the healthcare cuts,
23:22
Speaker 1: this is going to be probably what's going to piss
23:24
Speaker 1: people off the most, especially if and when we start
23:28
Speaker 1: getting the stories about people whose benefits or loans or
23:32
Speaker 1: whatever else or funding for certain schools was disrupted. Then
23:36
Speaker 1: I think it's really going to blow up.
23:38
Speaker 2: There's just a context for eliminating the Department of Education
23:40
Speaker 2: that does not exist for USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
23:46
Speaker 2: or the Institute of PEDAs we'll talk about in a minute.
23:48
Speaker 2: People have been talking about this for a very long time.
23:50
Speaker 2: This country probably has been trying to do it for
23:51
Speaker 2: a long time. Voters keep rejecting it time and time again.
23:55
Speaker 2: And now Trump is doing it unilaterally at the behest
23:57
Speaker 2: of the world's richest man in order to pay for
23:59
Speaker 2: tax cuts for billionaires. And so this is a huge
24:01
Speaker 2: opportunity for Democrats. It is one of the things that
24:03
Speaker 2: has the best chance of breaking through in the flood
24:06
Speaker 2: of all the terribleness that's happening.
24:10
Speaker 1: And Trump is also targeting colleges and universities he doesn't like.
24:14
Speaker 1: We have mentioned before the $ 400 million in federal funding
24:17
Speaker 1: he's threatened to withhold from Columbia unless the school acquiesces
24:21
Speaker 1: to the administration's demands, the deadline for which is Friday
24:24
Speaker 1: when you're listening to this. Some of those demands, banning
24:28
Speaker 1: masks because they were used at the protest last year,
24:31
Speaker 1: giving campus law enforcement wider latitude to arrest, quote, agitators
24:34
Speaker 1: who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment,
24:38
Speaker 1: and placing the school's Department of Middle East, South Asian,
24:41
Speaker 1: and African Studies in, quote, academic receivership, which means it's
24:44
Speaker 1: no longer overseen by the actual faculty who teach within it. Now,
24:49
Speaker 1: Trump is also going after his own alma mater, the
24:51
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania, where the administration froze around $ 175 million
24:56
Speaker 1: in federal funds because of a trans athlete and swimmer,
25:00
Speaker 1: Leah Thomas, who competed and graduated in 2022. The White
25:06
Speaker 1: House rapid response account posted a clip of Fox News
25:09
Speaker 1: announcing the move with the given that Leah Thomas graduated
25:14
Speaker 1: three years ago, is this promises made, promises kept, or
25:18
Speaker 1: just another way to own the libs that's going to
25:20
Speaker 1: end up just hurting a lot of students at the
25:22
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania?
25:23
Speaker 2: I mean, it's clearly punitive. It's clearly not based on
25:25
Speaker 2: any sort of substance or reality. And I think we
25:28
Speaker 2: have to view it in the context of the larger
25:31
Speaker 2: conservative project to systematically and strategically take out any institution
25:37
Speaker 2: that they view as an opposition to right-wing thinking in
25:39
Speaker 2: this country, right? It's why they spent so much time, uh,
25:43
Speaker 2: to try to take down unions, passing right-to-work laws. It
25:46
Speaker 2: is why they have gone after the media, which they
25:50
Speaker 2: view as, incorrectly in my view, but view as an
25:52
Speaker 2: ally of liberals and Democrats, in part because they are
25:55
Speaker 2: fact-checking and calling out the hypocrisy of what's on the right.
25:59
Speaker 2: And universities, they've always believed to be a breeding ground
26:02
Speaker 2: of liberal thought. And so they are trying to destroy them.
26:04
Speaker 2: They are trying to cowl them into acting a certain way,
26:07
Speaker 2: and they are trying to gut their funding. And it
26:09
Speaker 2: is part of a bigger project. And we have to
26:11
Speaker 2: view it in that context, I think.
26:14
Speaker 1: Alan Blinder at the New York Times reported on Thursday
26:16
Speaker 1: about layoffs, hiring freezes, lab shutdowns at universities across the country.
26:22
Speaker 1: What did you make of that story?
26:25
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the end result of what they're doing.
26:27
Speaker 2: I thought what was notable in that story was that
26:30
Speaker 2: they wrote that academia was caught flat-footed. I was like, oh,
26:34
Speaker 2: the one time the famously nimble academia was asleep at
26:39
Speaker 2: the wheel. I mean, there is a longer term challenge.
26:43
Speaker 2: There is more appetite for what Trump is doing here.
26:45
Speaker 2: And it's not just because of the protests around Gaza
26:50
Speaker 2: and the controversy of how a lot of universities handle
26:52
Speaker 2: that and what some of the presidents said before Congress. Pew,
26:55
Speaker 2: this was in the New York Times, I don't know,
26:56
Speaker 2: Pew tracks how people feel about the impact of various
27:01
Speaker 2: institutions on American society. And they ask people at universities.
27:04
Speaker 2: And in 2012, only 21% of Americans thought that universities
27:08
Speaker 2: had a negative impact on our society. And by last year,
27:12
Speaker 2: it was up to 45%. And that's not just Trump
27:15
Speaker 2: and Republicans. That is the high cost of college. It
27:19
Speaker 2: is student debt crushing people. People have been told on
27:24
Speaker 2: this idea that the best pathway to success is a
27:28
Speaker 2: four-year college education, but you're going to leave there with
27:31
Speaker 2: so much debt that it is going to crush you financially.
27:34
Speaker 2: And universities have done a very bad job of both
27:37
Speaker 2: in the short term around Trump and the time before
27:39
Speaker 2: that of, one, dealing with the sort of indefensible rise
27:43
Speaker 2: in tuition, but in sort of explaining the role they play.
27:46
Speaker 2: And because they are these nonprofit institutions, some of whom,
27:50
Speaker 2: like the most famous ones, have billions of dollars in endowment,
27:53
Speaker 2: but then take taxpayer money. And what we have not explained,
27:56
Speaker 2: and they have not explained, and maybe people before Trump
27:59
Speaker 2: did not explain well, is that these universities are the
28:01
Speaker 2: laboratories for America, right? They're the ones doing the research
28:06
Speaker 2: that is helping us build new technologies, discover new medicines,
28:10
Speaker 2: figure out how to fight disease. And the universities haven't
28:12
Speaker 2: made that case, and people supporting that sort of R
28:16
Speaker 2: & D funding have not made that case.
28:18
Speaker 1: Well, and the two problems you just mentioned are undoubtedly
28:21
Speaker 1: going to get worse because of what the Trump administration
28:24
Speaker 1: has already done. Universities have not kept tuition down. They
28:27
Speaker 1: haven't done a good job. And so Therefore, we are
28:31
Speaker 1: subsidizing higher costs at universities through financial aid, student loans,
28:38
Speaker 1: and all the other stuff that the federal government does
28:40
Speaker 1: to help students attend school. Meanwhile, the costs keep rising
28:44
Speaker 1: and rising and rising. So that's a huge problem. But
28:47
Speaker 1: gutting a bunch of federal funding at universities, do we
28:50
Speaker 1: think that's going to make tuition go down? Do we
28:52
Speaker 1: think that's going to help costs at college?
28:53
Speaker 2: Well, they're not interested in it. They want fewer people
28:55
Speaker 2: to go to college.
28:56
Speaker 1: Right. Right. And then the other and then the big
28:58
Speaker 1: one that you mentioned is between what the Trump administration
29:01
Speaker 1: is doing to colleges and universities, between what they're doing
29:04
Speaker 1: to the NIH, what they're doing to other public health agencies,
29:08
Speaker 1: other agencies that are responsible for medical research, for technological research.
29:13
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not look, part of this is you
29:17
Speaker 1: got research here and innovation and medical research and scientific research.
29:21
Speaker 1: There's going to be a huge brain drain here. And
29:24
Speaker 1: a lot of these scientists and researchers and experts are
29:26
Speaker 1: going to go to other countries and other countries are
29:30
Speaker 1: going to develop the breakthrough technologies and discoveries and cures
29:36
Speaker 1: that usually happen in the United States and the interventions.
29:40
Speaker 1: and jobs and everything else is going to go overseas
29:43
Speaker 1: as well. And we're not going to have them here.
29:45
Speaker 1: But then there's a broader issue, which is like the
29:47
Speaker 1: United States is the place where a lot of these
29:49
Speaker 1: discoveries happen. And if they don't happen here because we're
29:53
Speaker 1: gutting the funding for them, they're just not going to happen.
29:56
Speaker 1: And there's like, there's like, it was a, a diabetes study.
30:00
Speaker 1: That was like a 30-year diabetes study that they just
30:03
Speaker 1: canceled the contract for. And you're not getting that back.
30:07
Speaker 2: You can't turn this stuff back on. There was a
30:09
Speaker 2: report right before Trump took office about how close we
30:12
Speaker 2: were coming to a vaccine to deal with colorectal cancer.
30:16
Speaker 1: I thought it was pancreatic, wasn't it? Or maybe it
30:19
Speaker 1: was both. I think there was an mRNA for pancreatic cancer.
30:22
Speaker 2: Well, we can leave all of this in.
30:25
Speaker 1: But anyway, there was multiple.
30:26
Speaker 2: But we're on the cusp of something incredibly important. All
30:29
Speaker 2: of the progress that's made on Alzheimer's research, all of
30:32
Speaker 2: that stops and it doesn't start again. So that's the,
30:35
Speaker 2: as you pointed out, that is the progress on very
30:38
Speaker 2: specific things that have tremendous benefit to people in the world.
30:43
Speaker 2: It's going to stop and it's not going to happen.
30:45
Speaker 2: And then there is sort of the economic impact in
30:46
Speaker 2: the United States where these universities, like in this story,
30:49
Speaker 2: they talk about how they may have to stop teaching biochemistry.
30:52
Speaker 2: universities because the labs are funded by research grants. And
30:56
Speaker 2: if the research grants are not there, the labs are
30:58
Speaker 2: not there, and then they won't teach that. And so
31:01
Speaker 2: the next generation of scientists, researchers, doctors, technologists, all of
31:06
Speaker 2: that is not going to happen because of this idiotic,
31:10
Speaker 2: short-sighted effort from the Trump administration. And Fixing this is not...
31:16
Speaker 2: For nothing. This is not saving us much money. This
31:19
Speaker 2: is not changing bloated budgets that needed to be changed.
31:24
Speaker 2: This is just destroying shit because they don't know what
31:27
Speaker 2: the fuck they're doing. They're going in with a sledgehammer.
31:31
Speaker 2: Elon Musk doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Doge
31:32
Speaker 2: doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. Donald Trump certainly
31:34
Speaker 2: doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Neither does his
31:36
Speaker 2: dumb fucking cabinet. And the saddest part is we're not
31:41
Speaker 2: going to know.
31:42
Speaker 1: You know, like there's just going to be these, these
31:44
Speaker 1: studies are going to go away and these researchers are
31:46
Speaker 1: going to lose their jobs. And we're not going to
31:49
Speaker 1: know all of the potentially life-saving discoveries that we lost
31:54
Speaker 1: like 10 years down the road. Yeah.
31:57
Speaker 2: It is deeply depressing because so much in between administrations
32:01
Speaker 2: can be turned back on, right? There's tremendous damage in
32:03
Speaker 2: the four years, but you come back in, you can
32:05
Speaker 2: put in new policies, sign a new executive order, pass
32:07
Speaker 2: a new law. The things that Trump is doing both
32:09
Speaker 2: to universities and the federal government itself, are not things
32:11
Speaker 2: that can be fixed in one four-year term.
32:14
Speaker 4: I know.
32:14
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about like the next Democrats running for
32:17
Speaker 1: president or, you know, God willing, the next Democratic president.
32:21
Speaker 1: And there's going to have to be like a sort
32:23
Speaker 1: of a massive nationwide, maybe even global effort to like
32:28
Speaker 1: try to recruit really good, smart people back into government
32:32
Speaker 1: and public service and researchers and scientists and medical and
32:37
Speaker 1: just like an expert's. And it's going to, I think
32:40
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really fucking hard too, because again, why
32:43
Speaker 1: are you taking it? Like, maybe you want to work
32:45
Speaker 1: for the next democratic administration, but what happens when another,
32:50
Speaker 1: a JD Vance or another Trump comes into office and
32:53
Speaker 1: then you don't have job security anymore.
32:55
Speaker 4: Right.
32:55
Speaker 2: Like can the next democratic president bring in a bunch
32:57
Speaker 2: of incredibly talented political appointees to tackle these problems? Absolutely.
33:03
Speaker 2: And I suspect that will happen. There will be a
33:04
Speaker 2: mobilization of the best and the brightest to come in
33:07
Speaker 2: and do that. But what about the people who keep
33:09
Speaker 2: the government running all the time, the ones who have
33:11
Speaker 2: these jobs in part because of job security? They could
33:13
Speaker 2: do other things, but they're in it for public service
33:15
Speaker 2: and they're in it because there's a stability in government
33:18
Speaker 2: employment with good benefits. You know what the pay structure is.
33:23
Speaker 2: You can be there a long time. And if that
33:24
Speaker 2: security will no longer exist, having those people there is
33:27
Speaker 2: going to be deeply damaging. I don't know what we
33:29
Speaker 2: would have done when we arrived in the White House
33:31
Speaker 2: if there hadn't been a whole bunch of people who'd
33:32
Speaker 2: been there for the last three presidencies who had been
33:35
Speaker 2: making everything work, who knew things, who had institutional knowledge.
33:38
Speaker 2: I mean, it just, it is deeply concerning.
33:51
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35:31
Speaker 1: of Doge, let's check in with the Doge bags and
35:33
Speaker 1: Trump's broader effort to destroy the federal government. Politico reported
35:37
Speaker 1: Wednesday that the Department of Agriculture, USDA, is stopping millions
35:42
Speaker 1: of dollars worth of deliveries to food banks in at
35:46
Speaker 1: least six states. And earlier this week, the Social Security
35:50
Speaker 1: Administration announced that you can no longer apply for benefits
35:53
Speaker 1: or change the account where your benefits are delivered over
35:56
Speaker 1: the phone. you either have to verify your identity online
36:00
Speaker 1: or go in person to your local social security office,
36:04
Speaker 1: which will be tough because the AP reported that almost
36:06
Speaker 1: 50 social security offices have shown up on Doge's list
36:09
Speaker 1: of federal government site closures. Is this government efficiency at
36:14
Speaker 1: its finest, Dan? We're just making it harder for seniors
36:17
Speaker 1: to obtain their social security benefits.
36:21
Speaker 2: It is Donald Trump waging war on his own voters.
36:23
Speaker 2: The people who are going to be affected most are
36:25
Speaker 2: the people in the rural parts of the country where
36:28
Speaker 2: they are not near a Social Security office, and probably
36:31
Speaker 2: the nearest one just got on that list of 50
36:33
Speaker 2: that's going to get closed, and it's going to make
36:35
Speaker 2: it impossible for people to get their benefits. There was
36:38
Speaker 2: a report today that there was a two-hour wait time
36:41
Speaker 2: for calls right now and a one-month waiting period for
36:44
Speaker 2: appointments in an office that may close sometime soon. It
36:47
Speaker 2: is truly insane. And these are the kind of things
36:50
Speaker 2: that have real political impact. Congressman Michael Lawler, the Republican,
36:53
Speaker 2: today put out a statement attacking criticizing Trump and Musk
36:57
Speaker 2: for trying to close the Hudson Valley Social Security Office.
37:00
Speaker 2: So I think you're going to see that from a
37:01
Speaker 2: lot of people because this is where it matters. This
37:03
Speaker 2: idea that you're going to make it impossible for people
37:06
Speaker 2: to access their benefits, you're going to make people, you know,
37:09
Speaker 2: older folks have to verify their identity online as opposed
37:12
Speaker 2: to be able to call or, I mean, is truly,
37:15
Speaker 2: is going to be, is deeply damaging and I think
37:17
Speaker 2: is going to hurt politically too.
37:20
Speaker 1: 39 million people live in households without any internet connection.
37:23
Speaker 1: 25% of Americans 65 or older have reported never going online.
37:30
Speaker 1: So those are Social Security beneficiaries. And like you said,
37:35
Speaker 1: the low-income areas, rural areas, people with disabilities, people who
37:39
Speaker 1: just can't get around because they're older, those are going
37:43
Speaker 1: to be the people hurt by this. And I don't know,
37:45
Speaker 1: maybe Mike Lawler, because he's a Republican in good standing,
37:48
Speaker 1: or will do something crazy. Maybe he'll argue, Maybe he'll–
37:51
Speaker 1: Mike Lawler will introduce a couple articles of impeachment against
37:53
Speaker 1: a federal judge and then they'll open up the Hudson
37:55
Speaker 1: Valley office and they'll close one down in a blue district.
37:59
Speaker 1: That's probably where we're headed. I do think this is–
38:02
Speaker 1: I'm sure Democrats are going to be all over this
38:03
Speaker 1: one because every single poll you see everywhere is– Social
38:08
Speaker 1: Security is like the number one issue for folks and
38:11
Speaker 1: it's probably– It's the number one vulnerability for Republicans, and
38:15
Speaker 1: it's probably why Donald Trump has said over and over
38:17
Speaker 1: again he's not going to touch Social Security. So I'm
38:20
Speaker 1: hoping that the Democrats jump all.
38:22
Speaker 2: Over this one. I mean, this is old school, but
38:24
Speaker 2: go to press conferences outside the Social Security offices on
38:27
Speaker 2: that list.
38:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good idea.
38:29
Speaker 2: Invite some influencers. We'll make it New Age Communications, but
38:33
Speaker 2: go stand in front of them. Take a vertical video
38:35
Speaker 2: of yourself in front of one, but go to a
38:36
Speaker 2: Social Security office.
38:37
Speaker 1: Bring all your canes.
38:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:41
Speaker 1: Wave them around. Go from the Tesla dealers to the
38:45
Speaker 1: social security offices, right? Fewer Tesla dealers, more social security offices. Again, peaceful.
38:52
Speaker 1: One last Doge item. Not so peaceful. We got to
38:56
Speaker 1: talk about Doge's armed invasion of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
39:02
Speaker 1: This is unfortunately a real story, Dan. Here's the short version.
39:07
Speaker 1: Some dogebags gained access to the Institute of Peace on
39:11
Speaker 1: Monday night. The Institute of Peace, we should let you know,
39:14
Speaker 1: is a nonprofit organization. It is not part of the
39:18
Speaker 1: executive branch. It is funded by Congress. It was founded
39:21
Speaker 1: by Congress, funded by Congress. It's a nonprofit, but of
39:25
Speaker 1: course it has government money. And the job of the
39:29
Speaker 1: Institute of Peace is to help resolve conflicts around the world,
39:34
Speaker 1: as the name suggests. But Donald Trump decided we're going
39:39
Speaker 1: to zero out the Institute of Peace, a couple other agencies,
39:43
Speaker 1: just like they're doing everywhere else. Okay. So the doge
39:46
Speaker 1: bags get access to the Institute of Peace on Monday night.
39:49
Speaker 1: by apparently threatening the federal contracts for the outside private
39:54
Speaker 1: security firm that the Institute employed. This is according to Politico.
39:59
Speaker 1: Some of the staff at the Institute of Peace tells
40:02
Speaker 1: the dogebags that they're trespassing, but then they ignore the
40:06
Speaker 1: Institute of Peace staffers, the dogebags, and they, quote, proceeded
40:11
Speaker 1: to walk towards the gun safe. Then the Institute of
40:16
Speaker 1: Peace staffers contact DC's Metropolitan Police Department on the trespassers,
40:22
Speaker 1: on the Doge people. But in an alarming twist, the
40:25
Speaker 1: police end up detaining the Institute of Peace's head of
40:29
Speaker 1: security and lawyers instead at the direction of a State
40:33
Speaker 1: Department flunky, who has since been declared the U.S. Institute
40:37
Speaker 1: of Peace's new acting president, and who by that time
40:40
Speaker 1: had shown up with even more Doge bags, D.C. police
40:43
Speaker 1: said in a statement that they were contacted by the U.S.
40:47
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office, our pal Ed Martin, his office in D.C.,
40:51
Speaker 1: eagle-eyed Ed, who's threatening, you know, members of Congress and
40:56
Speaker 1: everyone else. Crazy man. The Institute then filed an emergency
41:00
Speaker 1: request in court trying to deny Doge access. Which Judge
41:04
Speaker 1: Beryl Howell denied, though she did question Doge's tactics. Good
41:09
Speaker 1: for her.
41:09
Speaker 2: Thank you.
41:10
Speaker 1: She said, quote, this conduct of using law enforcement, threatening
41:14
Speaker 1: criminal investigation and using armed law enforcement from three different agencies.
41:18
Speaker 4: Why?
41:19
Speaker 1: Just because Doge is in a rush? Feels like all
41:21
Speaker 1: this could have been handled in a few emails. Like,
41:24
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, could you clear out of the office?
41:25
Speaker 1: We've zeroed out your budget.
41:27
Speaker 2: Like what?
41:29
Speaker 1: Or if they refuse to– like, hey, we're going to
41:31
Speaker 1: take you to court then because we believe we can
41:33
Speaker 1: shut your agency down and you don't think we can.
41:35
Speaker 1: But we– like, what did you make of all this?
41:40
Speaker 2: I mean, just it's truly perfect. A bunch of tech
41:44
Speaker 2: flunkies arranging an armed invasion of the Institute of Peace.
41:48
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just– I mean, they don't have– probably
41:51
Speaker 2: don't have the authority to shut the thing down. Like,
41:53
Speaker 2: that is– it is not, as you said, not a
41:56
Speaker 2: part of the executive branch per se. Created by Congress.
41:59
Speaker 2: And like this sort of like brute force activity taking
42:05
Speaker 2: on the deep state. Ooh, we bullied the Institute of
42:08
Speaker 2: Peace guys. It's like bravado. It's just, it's like, there's like,
42:13
Speaker 2: that is, that'll get you plaudits in MAGA Trump world.
42:16
Speaker 2: And so you can just, you'll see more of this absurdity.
42:20
Speaker 2: Like they seem so tough the way they got the
42:23
Speaker 2: cops to help them get into the Institute of Peace.
42:25
Speaker 2: And as opposed to just doing it, like, I guess
42:28
Speaker 2: another way I think about this is there is a
42:31
Speaker 2: right way and a wrong way to do these things.
42:33
Speaker 2: Even if you disagree, no matter what you feel about
42:35
Speaker 2: the value of the Institute of Peace, there's a way
42:40
Speaker 2: to go about it. But Elon Musk and Doge will
42:44
Speaker 2: not and cannot do it the right way, which constantly
42:47
Speaker 2: keeps hurting their efforts to do the thing that we
42:49
Speaker 2: disagree with because they keep getting stopped in court and
42:51
Speaker 2: it keeps being messier and dumber than it needs to be.
42:55
Speaker 2: but this is just like the extreme example of that.
42:58
Speaker 4: Yeah.
42:58
Speaker 1: And it's what's really, I mean, it is, there's a
43:01
Speaker 1: lot of humor to that story because it's so fucking absurd.
43:04
Speaker 1: What's really worrying about it is like, so now we
43:07
Speaker 1: have the department of Homeland security and ice agents deciding
43:12
Speaker 1: that they don't need a warrant anymore and that they
43:15
Speaker 1: can now, you know, go in and look for trend
43:17
Speaker 1: day or agua in any house that they want. We
43:20
Speaker 1: are flying people to prisons in El Salvador and, With
43:25
Speaker 1: no due process, we have a U.S. attorney in D.C.
43:30
Speaker 1: who is now like sending FBI agents and D.C. police
43:34
Speaker 1: in to detain these staffers at this agency who just
43:39
Speaker 1: didn't want to let a bunch of people in to
43:43
Speaker 1: shut them down. And it like who who what kind
43:47
Speaker 1: of like government bureaucrat or person at a nonprofit is
43:51
Speaker 1: going to want to live in Washington, D.C.? And you
43:53
Speaker 1: start thinking like, oh, yeah, that's what they're trying to
43:55
Speaker 1: do here. They're trying to make the city Trump City now.
43:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
44:00
Speaker 2: To make everything so uncomfortable that people will just leave.
44:02
Speaker 2: And they've had great success at that. They've had great success.
44:05
Speaker 1: And like the number of examples now of using the
44:09
Speaker 1: power of the state, the force, police, FBI, like just
44:14
Speaker 1: against Americans, against immigrants, against people they don't like. It's
44:20
Speaker 1: very scary.
44:21
Speaker 2: We are so far past right now what even some
44:25
Speaker 2: of the most hyperbolic arguments about what Trump would do are.
44:29
Speaker 2: We are right there.
44:31
Speaker 4: Yep. Yep.
44:32
Speaker 1: And it is, I don't know if it's like, part
44:35
Speaker 1: of it is the, I know part of it's the
44:37
Speaker 1: media environment. I keep wondering why there's not more alarm
44:40
Speaker 1: every day. And I don't know if it's just some
44:43
Speaker 1: people are like, I can't tune in all the time.
44:46
Speaker 1: I can't. you know, get worried about this all the time.
44:50
Speaker 1: If it's just that people don't know, if people aren't
44:52
Speaker 1: hearing about it all, if Democrats aren't fighting hard enough
44:56
Speaker 1: or making enough noise, like, I don't know what it is,
44:58
Speaker 1: but it feels oddly quiet for the level of insanity
45:04
Speaker 1: that's taking place right now.
45:07
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot about, there are a million
45:09
Speaker 2: reasons for this. I think we, as a society, like
45:14
Speaker 2: political stakeholders, the media, just average everybody, people lack the
45:18
Speaker 2: vocabulary and the imagination to talk about what's happening here
45:21
Speaker 2: because it's not something that we ever thought would happen
45:22
Speaker 2: in this country. And so we just don't know how
45:25
Speaker 2: to do it. And almost every other country in the
45:27
Speaker 2: world has faced this down at some point, or they've
45:32
Speaker 2: gone through it, where they've had an authoritarian regime, where
45:35
Speaker 2: they've been a dictatorship and they've come out of that
45:37
Speaker 2: with so much reform. That's never happened here. It's never
45:38
Speaker 2: been a fear here since the very beginning. And so
45:41
Speaker 2: we can't we can't comprehend it. I'm not complaining about
45:47
Speaker 2: the New York Times headlines here, but as an example,
45:49
Speaker 2: when Trump gave that insane speech at the Department of Justice,
45:52
Speaker 2: where he goes to the Department of Justice, a place
45:53
Speaker 2: where presidents almost never go, and gives a speech calling
45:56
Speaker 2: out his enemies while surrounded by his self-appointed law enforcement hacks.
46:00
Speaker 2: And it was like, Trump gives unusually fiery speech at
46:03
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice or something like that. No one
46:07
Speaker 2: knows how to talk about it. But there is a
46:09
Speaker 2: media environment change here too. Think about what it felt
46:14
Speaker 2: like in 2018 when people became aware that Trump was
46:19
Speaker 2: putting kids in cages in detention centers. And the outrage,
46:23
Speaker 2: it dominated the conversation. I mean, I was on a
46:25
Speaker 2: book tour at the time. I lost all my interviews, right?
46:27
Speaker 2: Because that's all I didn't want to talk about for
46:28
Speaker 2: good reason, right? That was the right choice. But it
46:31
Speaker 2: became the dominant national story. Now- Think about the.
46:34
Speaker 1: First week, the first week when people flooded the airports
46:37
Speaker 1: because of the Muslim ban.
46:38
Speaker 2: Well, that's the response, right? That's another point is that
46:41
Speaker 2: there was- is that there was a way in which
46:45
Speaker 2: the quote-unquote resistance was involved in attention-getting tactics that did
46:50
Speaker 2: drive some of these things, which is not happening now
46:52
Speaker 2: to the same extent. But just think about everything you
46:56
Speaker 2: said about what's happening in El Salvador. If that had
46:59
Speaker 2: happened in a 2017-2018 media environment, it would be a
47:03
Speaker 2: dominant conversation, but nothing can be a dominant conversation right
47:05
Speaker 2: now in the same way. And that's not just because
47:08
Speaker 2: Trump is a more effective flood-the-zone strategy now. It's because
47:11
Speaker 2: just the world has changed so much and people are
47:13
Speaker 2: living in these algorithmically designed bubbles. The power and reach
47:17
Speaker 2: and influence of the people who could drive the conversation
47:20
Speaker 2: on a mass scale just massively diminished from where it
47:24
Speaker 2: was years ago. This is how this happens, right? This
47:28
Speaker 2: is exactly how it happens, is that people aren't paying
47:30
Speaker 2: enough attention. And the people who are opposing it are
47:33
Speaker 2: not drawing enough attention or grabbing people by the lapels
47:36
Speaker 2: to make them pay attention. And we are headed someplace
47:38
Speaker 2: very dangerous.
47:40
Speaker 1: I've been wondering if this also partly explains sort of
47:44
Speaker 1: the odd polling numbers for Trump that we've been getting,
47:46
Speaker 1: which is he's so underwater on the economy and it's
47:51
Speaker 1: like the one issue that's dragging him down the most
47:54
Speaker 1: and on a lot of other issues and his overall
47:56
Speaker 1: approval rating, it's not as low as you would think.
48:00
Speaker 1: And I wonder if it's because the economy and inflation
48:04
Speaker 1: and cost of living is like the one issue that
48:06
Speaker 1: people are experiencing every day, even if they're not tuning
48:10
Speaker 1: into the news and the Trump show version two. And
48:15
Speaker 1: all the other stuff is just not breaking through as
48:16
Speaker 1: much because people aren't paying as close attention and because
48:19
Speaker 1: the media environment is so diffuse.
48:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Your news consumption is not correlated with your exposure
48:25
Speaker 2: to high prices, right? Like your news consumption is correlated
48:28
Speaker 2: with whether you know about what's happening in El Salvador
48:31
Speaker 2: or shutting down the Department of Education or any of
48:33
Speaker 2: the other 12 terrible things we're going to talk about
48:35
Speaker 2: on this pod and future pods. But whether you can
48:37
Speaker 2: follow no news, you still have to go to the store.
48:39
Speaker 2: and buy eggs, gas, food. You have to pay your rent,
48:43
Speaker 2: your mortgage, et cetera. And that's always been true, right?
48:46
Speaker 2: Even before we entered this fucked up era, the one
48:50
Speaker 2: issue that you cannot make go away is the economy,
48:54
Speaker 2: whether that's layoffs, high unemployment, or inflation.
49:08
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile.
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Speaker 1: Mint Mobile for details. Okay, before we get to the
50:28
Speaker 1: new 2024 post-mortem, it's time for our weekly corrupt date.
50:33
Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan? That's pretty good.
50:34
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty good. We've been through a lot
50:36
Speaker 2: of options here, and I think that's well done.
50:39
Speaker 1: That gave us corrupt date. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who's
50:43
Speaker 1: become a real hype man for the administration's griftiest stunts,
50:47
Speaker 1: was focused this week on the only commerce that matters,
50:51
Speaker 1: the kind that puts more money in the pockets of
50:52
Speaker 1: the world's richest man. Here's Lutnick on Jesse Waters with
50:56
Speaker 1: a free ad for Elon and free stock tips for
50:59
Speaker 1: all of us.
51:00
Speaker 2: Buy Tesla. It's unbelievable.
51:03
Speaker 4: That this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be
51:05
Speaker 4: this cheap again. People are going to be dreaming of
51:08
Speaker 4: today and Jesse Watters and thinking, gosh, I should have
51:11
Speaker 4: bought Elon Musk's stock. Elon Musk is probably the best
51:16
Speaker 4: person to bet on, I've ever met. He's building the
51:20
Speaker 4: coolest robots you've ever seen. Go online and look up Optimus.
51:24
Speaker 4: It is the coolest thing you've ever seen. We're all
51:27
Speaker 4: going to be buying robots. They're going to cost about $.
51:28
Speaker 1: 30, 000.
51:29
Speaker 4: You're going to be buying a Tesla robot and anybody
51:32
Speaker 4: who doesn't buy a Tesla robot is going to be silly.
51:35
Speaker 4: No one's going to be key in anything.
51:36
Speaker 1: Here's a tough headline from Axios that followed Lutnik's appearance.
51:40
Speaker 1: Tesla falls after Commerce Secretary recommends buying stock.
51:45
Speaker 2: That's a good headline.
51:46
Speaker 1: What do you think? Are we all idiots if we
51:49
Speaker 1: don't buy $ 30, 000 Tesla robots?
51:52
Speaker 2: It feels like there's a real chance those robots are
51:55
Speaker 2: going to turn on people, and I don't want them
51:57
Speaker 2: in my house.
51:59
Speaker 1: You know, you got $ 30, 000 laying around. You buy a
52:02
Speaker 1: Tesla robot. Buy some stock.
52:05
Speaker 2: The Commerce Secretary telling people to buy an individual stock.
52:09
Speaker 2: Everyone else has to specifically put in, leave their tweets
52:13
Speaker 2: about it. This is not financial advice, right? And here
52:15
Speaker 2: he is, an official of the federal government who is
52:20
Speaker 2: theoretically an expert in the economy, just pitching the stock
52:23
Speaker 2: of the president's biggest donor.
52:26
Speaker 1: I mean, his boss was hawking Teslas on the White
52:28
Speaker 1: House lawn. So it's kind of all fits.
52:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:32
Speaker 1: Did you see that Pam Bondi announced, quote, severe charges
52:35
Speaker 1: against violent Tesla arsonists who she's accusing of domestic terrorism
52:39
Speaker 1: now that vandalism against Tesla dealerships is domestic terrorism? Up
52:44
Speaker 1: to 20 years in prison for lighting Teslas on fire.
52:47
Speaker 2: I have three thoughts on this. One, don't light Teslas
52:50
Speaker 2: on fire. Don't light anything on fire. Arson is bad.
52:52
Speaker 1: Arson is bad. Two, I don't know. That's our squishy
52:56
Speaker 1: centrist opinion.
52:58
Speaker 2: That's right. Make it the episode title, Arson is Bad. Two,
53:02
Speaker 2: arsonists should go to jail, although I'm not sure this
53:04
Speaker 2: is technically domestic terrorism. And three, there is a bigger
53:09
Speaker 2: thing here, and you see it in the comment, you
53:11
Speaker 2: see it on Trump selling Teslas in the White House lawn,
53:14
Speaker 2: is that the world's richest man spent $ 300 million to
53:16
Speaker 2: get this president elected. Now he has basically bought a government, right?
53:20
Speaker 2: Where you have the Congress secretary pitching his stock, the
53:21
Speaker 2: president is pitching his cars, and the Attorney General of
53:24
Speaker 2: the United States, the chief law enforcement officer, going before
53:26
Speaker 2: the cameras to threaten the people who were protesting at
53:30
Speaker 2: his dealerships. Specifically, she's not doing that for other things.
53:34
Speaker 2: She specifically, like he has his own government to do
53:37
Speaker 2: his bidding. And it is truly wild.
53:42
Speaker 1: It's a good corrupt date. All right. So we're finally
53:45
Speaker 1: getting some higher quality data about what happened in the
53:47
Speaker 1: 2024 election. At least higher quality than exit polls. David
53:51
Speaker 1: Shore and the folks at Blue Rose Research combined precinct
53:54
Speaker 1: level data from across the country with the 26 million
53:57
Speaker 1: survey responses they got from voters in 2024 to give
54:00
Speaker 1: us a pretty clear picture of who voted and why.
54:03
Speaker 1: Here are a few of the big takeaways. None of
54:06
Speaker 1: them too surprising, but they really just sort of confirm
54:10
Speaker 1: some of the initial findings that we have been going
54:14
Speaker 1: over over the last couple of months. Number one, Hispanic, Asian,
54:19
Speaker 1: young voters, immigrants, and politically disengaged voters swung towards Trump
54:24
Speaker 1: by significant margins. In fact, politically disengaged voters swung towards
54:31
Speaker 1: Trump by so much that if everyone who stayed home
54:34
Speaker 1: in 2024 had voted, Trump would have won the popular
54:38
Speaker 1: vote by nearly five points. Number two, Trump's favorability rating
54:43
Speaker 1: on Election Day 2024 was almost exactly the same as
54:46
Speaker 1: it was on Election Day 2020. The difference was that
54:50
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party were much less popular.
54:54
Speaker 1: And number three, the issues most important to voters were
54:57
Speaker 1: the issues where trust in Democrats were lowest. Cost of living,
55:01
Speaker 1: the economy, inflation, taxes, and spending. The next most important
55:07
Speaker 1: issue to voters was healthcare, which is the first issue
55:10
Speaker 1: where Democrats were more trusted than Republicans. In fact, the
55:14
Speaker 1: only five issues that were ranked important by more than
55:17
Speaker 1: 50% of voters were where Dems were also trusted more
55:20
Speaker 1: than Republicans were healthcare, poverty, housing, mental health, and Medicare.
55:28
Speaker 1: And by the way, except for Medicare, maybe mental health, healthcare,
55:32
Speaker 1: they weren't trusted that much more than Republicans.
55:35
Speaker 2: And Republicans are trusted more on Social Security than Democrats. Yes.
55:38
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.
55:39
Speaker 2: All right.
55:40
Speaker 1: Where do you want to start?
55:42
Speaker 2: So we can get into the details here, and I
55:45
Speaker 2: would encourage everyone to read the whole study. I will
55:47
Speaker 2: stipulate at the beginning here that this report has some
55:50
Speaker 2: controversy in democratic circles. There are people who disagree with
55:54
Speaker 2: some of the conclusions from it. This is one report, right?
55:57
Speaker 2: We're going to get other reports. I think David's a
55:59
Speaker 2: pretty smart guy and he's been pretty pressing on a
56:00
Speaker 2: lot of things, but we're looking at one report here.
56:03
Speaker 2: My takeaway from this is it adds some granular detail
56:06
Speaker 2: to what we've been talking about since the election. But
56:10
Speaker 2: one way to think about these results is that everything
56:13
Speaker 2: that we thought was going to happen after Trump was
56:16
Speaker 2: elected in 2016 is politics, to the Republican coalition, to everything,
56:22
Speaker 2: the exact opposite happened. The idea was that Trump came
56:27
Speaker 2: in with this racist rhetoric, and he was doing all
56:30
Speaker 2: this horrible immigration stuff, and he was going to forever
56:32
Speaker 2: cost the Republicans votes with Latinos and Black voters. Instead,
56:38
Speaker 2: he made gains there. And in fact, now, politics has
56:42
Speaker 2: actually become less racially polarized with Donald Trump as president,
56:46
Speaker 2: where Black and Latino voters who identify as moderate or
56:50
Speaker 2: conservative are now voting for Republicans at levels similar to
56:54
Speaker 2: white moderates and conservatives, right? Young voters, like the belief
56:58
Speaker 2: was that Donald Trump was going to radicalize all these
57:00
Speaker 2: young voters to be Democrats. The view was that in 2017,
57:03
Speaker 2: people who were young voters then were the most progressive
57:07
Speaker 2: generation in history. Now, by some measures, you could argue
57:09
Speaker 2: that Gen Z is the most, driven mostly by young men,
57:12
Speaker 2: but not entirely, that Gen Z is the most conservative
57:16
Speaker 2: generation out there. And this is one stat here that just,
57:21
Speaker 2: we have to just germinate on a 75 year old
57:26
Speaker 2: white man was more likely to support Kamala Harris than
57:30
Speaker 2: an 18 year old white man. That's the exact opposite
57:35
Speaker 2: of what everyone thought after Trump won in 2016.
57:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also the, um, numbers around naturalized citizens.
57:45
Speaker 4: Yeah.
57:46
Speaker 2: This is going to be my, my other huge.
57:49
Speaker 1: Our best estimate is that immigrant voters swung from a
57:52
Speaker 1: Biden plus 27 voting block in 2020 to a Trump
57:57
Speaker 1: plus one group in 2024. He fucking won immigrants.
58:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
58:05
Speaker 1: And this is not, and not, they note here, this
58:07
Speaker 1: is not a small group, either naturalized citizens make up
58:10
Speaker 1: around 10% of the electorate. Now, Again, that is based
58:15
Speaker 1: largely on precinct data. And of course, you can look
58:19
Speaker 1: at heavily immigrant precincts and look at the swings. Lovett
58:25
Speaker 1: and I were talking about this. You might also guess that, okay,
58:28
Speaker 1: maybe in these precincts where there are a lot of immigrants,
58:33
Speaker 1: maybe the white voters swung more or maybe other voters
58:35
Speaker 1: swung more or Americans by birth swung more. But When
58:41
Speaker 1: you combine that with their survey responses and you look
58:45
Speaker 1: at the districts they looked at or the precincts they
58:46
Speaker 1: looked at, which were heavily, heavily immigrant, that can explain
58:50
Speaker 1: maybe some of it on the margins, but it can't
58:51
Speaker 1: explain the whole swing.
58:53
Speaker 2: That can make a little bit difference in the battleground
58:56
Speaker 2: states when you look at precincts in Queens and the
58:59
Speaker 2: Bronx and some of the other ones where we saw
59:01
Speaker 2: huge Trump swings. This is one of the reasons that
59:05
Speaker 2: the Republican advantage in electoral college diminished this time because
59:10
Speaker 2: Trump was making these gains in immigrant communities in blue states.
59:15
Speaker 4: Yeah.
59:15
Speaker 1: Are there any charts or other takeaways that jumped out
59:18
Speaker 1: at you the most? And we can always put the
59:21
Speaker 1: charts up on the screen because we have the presentation here.
59:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say the immigrant chart was the one
59:26
Speaker 2: that really stuck out to me because that once again
59:28
Speaker 2: just goes, runs counter to the exact opposite of what
59:30
Speaker 2: you would think. Here is someone who ran on building
59:34
Speaker 2: a wall to keep immigrants out, who passed a Muslim
59:36
Speaker 2: ban or signed a Muslim ban to keep immigrants out,
59:39
Speaker 2: who put kids in cages and then ran on mass
59:41
Speaker 2: deportation in his next presidential campaign, and he won immigrants.
59:45
Speaker 2: And we have to really dig in to why that
59:49
Speaker 2: is and where it is we failed to be able
59:51
Speaker 2: to make a case to those voters.
59:53
Speaker 1: Before we move on, overall, real quick, what kind of
59:57
Speaker 1: messaging strategy an attention strategy would you take from this
1:00:01
Speaker 1: data that you haven't already taken away from the results?
1:00:07
Speaker 2: So when you look at that chart that runs issue
1:00:11
Speaker 2: salience with issue trust, obviously it's devastating for Democrats. But
1:00:15
Speaker 2: when you look at that, you sort of are saying,
1:00:16
Speaker 2: how do we win power back? And so you have,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: there are two potential paths there. One is you can
1:00:23
Speaker 2: look at the issues that voters already care about that
1:00:25
Speaker 2: they don't trust us on. And we can try to
1:00:27
Speaker 2: win trust back there. And we should definitely do that.
1:00:31
Speaker 2: That is our medium and long-term strategy. But in the
1:00:32
Speaker 2: short term, the strategy is to erode trust in the
1:00:37
Speaker 2: Republicans and Trump on those issues, right? And you're seeing
1:00:39
Speaker 2: that already on inflation in the economy. And so we
1:00:41
Speaker 2: have to keep doing that. And there is a seesaw
1:00:44
Speaker 2: effect to politics where if one side goes down, the
1:00:45
Speaker 2: other side goes up. So that will help us there.
1:00:47
Speaker 2: But the other strategy that you have to think about
1:00:49
Speaker 2: is you have to, is can you take the issues
1:00:52
Speaker 2: where we are trusted and make them more front of
1:00:55
Speaker 2: mind and sell you? Like you're never going to get,
1:00:58
Speaker 2: as we were mentioning before, you're never going to make
1:00:59
Speaker 2: inflation not top of mind to voters, right? The economy
1:01:01
Speaker 2: will always, people's personal financial situation will always be top.
1:01:03
Speaker 2: But immigration is an issue that Trump made front of mind, right?
1:01:06
Speaker 2: He made it front of mind even before the border crisis.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: He created the idea that in people's minds, completely fabricated,
1:01:12
Speaker 2: that we were living in a wave of migrant and
1:01:14
Speaker 2: immigrant crime. And Democrats are defeatist on this sometimes. And
1:01:18
Speaker 2: so we sort of say, we don't have the power,
1:01:21
Speaker 2: the gumption, the megaphone, the messengers to take an issue
1:01:24
Speaker 2: that people trust us on. make it a top issue.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: Some of that is true. Some of that's a reality
1:01:30
Speaker 2: of our messaging situation. But the thing I look at
1:01:32
Speaker 2: is that healthcare dot. You say, there's our opportunity right there.
1:01:36
Speaker 2: And there's two opportunities right in front of us. One,
1:01:38
Speaker 2: if Republicans in Congress do not act, premiums are going
1:01:41
Speaker 2: to go up for millions of Americans because the additional
1:01:44
Speaker 2: funding and tax credits that went in place during the
1:01:47
Speaker 2: pandemic are going to expire this year. And so Trump
1:01:50
Speaker 2: is going to raise people's premiums. And the second one
1:01:52
Speaker 2: is Medicaid, right? Medicaid is healthcare for many Americans. It
1:01:56
Speaker 2: pays for so much of healthcare. You know, what is it?
1:01:58
Speaker 2: Something like 40% of births in America are paid for
1:02:00
Speaker 2: by Medicaid. And the Republicans want to gut that. And
1:02:02
Speaker 2: so here's a chance where there is an issue that
1:02:04
Speaker 2: voters care about, where we have a huge trust advantage on,
1:02:06
Speaker 2: and we have two opportunities to drive that message home
1:02:09
Speaker 2: this year. And raising trust, like these things are, they're not,
1:02:14
Speaker 2: they don't operate independently of each other, right? If we
1:02:16
Speaker 2: raise the salience and trust of us on healthcare, that's
1:02:21
Speaker 2: going to help us on the other economic issues, right?
1:02:23
Speaker 2: Because it's going to seem like we're fighting for people.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: And that's what we have to do.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Almost as you were talking, I was looking at some
1:02:28
Speaker 1: of the issues. There's a cluster of issues in this
1:02:30
Speaker 1: chart where people rank them above 50% importance. And people
1:02:36
Speaker 1: trust Republicans more, but only slightly. So those are issues
1:02:39
Speaker 1: that I think we could like. And education is one.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: We just talked about that. Housing, we're slightly more trusted.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: Civil liberties and privacy, which they are destroying right now,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. Social security, which is talked about. Um, and, uh,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: and political division. So all, uh, issues that people really
1:02:59
Speaker 1: care about and they trust Republicans slightly more, those seem
1:03:03
Speaker 1: like issues that we can claw back some, uh, some
1:03:05
Speaker 1: trust on. Um, okay. So because we're nerds, uh, we
1:03:09
Speaker 1: have a lot more we want to get into on this.
1:03:12
Speaker 1: If you really want to hear us go deep on this, um,
1:03:15
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1:03:17
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1:03:21
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1:03:31
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1:03:33
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