Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 6/26/26: Trump Dirt REVEALED: Iran, Zohran, Pardons, Deportations, Ro Calls Out Elon Lawsuit

Transcript

6/26/26: Trump Dirt REVEALED: Iran, Zohran, Pardons, Deportations, Ro Calls Out Elon Lawsuit · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Here, independent media just played a truly massive role in
• 0:04
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• 0:31
  Speaker 4: It is Friday, June twenty sixth. Here at Breaking Points.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: We have an amazing show for you this morning, don't we, Crystal.
• 0:39
  Speaker 5: Indeed we do.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I don't never really get to do about it on Friday.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It is a little bit of an unusual show, though.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: We've got two major interviews. I would say, We've got
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Maggie Haberman and Johnson Swan coming on to talk about
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: their new blockbuster book, which is like the Uh Look
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Inside the Trump Administration. You've probably seen a bunch of
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: their reporting already about the Iran War, about the Epstein files,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: about the way these debates have played out, So very
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: excited to speak with the two of them, like fancy
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: guests for our show, so it was exciting.
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: To get them on.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And then we've got a long time front of the show,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Rokana coming on to talk about his big fight with
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk, which I think is actually really important and
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: significant because you've got the richest man on the planet
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: threatening Rocana for having the audacity to cite publicly available
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: studies about the impact of what Elon Musk's cuts at
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: USAID have meant to real human beings in the world.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: So you've got the specter of the richest.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Man on the planet contributing to the death of many people,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and Elon doesn't apparently like that being pointed out, which
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I think is interesting in and of itself. And then also,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: of course we want to talk to Roe about the
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: events of the week, which I think have been as
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: politically consequential as you could possibly imagine, so should be
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: an interesting one.
• 1:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and on on Maggie and Jonathan. You know they
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: I don't think they get enough credit for the quality
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: of journalism that they produce because they're often surrounded by
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: people in their immediate field that are total hacks.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Like, because what they do is they they do that kind.
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: Of gal where you have extraordinarily good access at very
• 2:13
  Speaker 6: high levels, and people like Barack Revite have just given
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: a very very bad kind of reputation to that kind
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: of reporting because he just becomes a conveyor belt for
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: whatever somebody is saying, and it becomes news because the
• 2:26
  Speaker 6: person who's saying it is a news maker, even though
• 2:29
  Speaker 6: they are lying and have been lying and are constantly lying,
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: and you end up miss misleading the world. But if
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: you notice, they don't really do that. They have that
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: type of access, but they they write in a much
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: more contextualized way, in a way that allows people to
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: actually learn things about the world.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: And that's yeah, they're not going to just put it
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: in access.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, the Barock Revied approach is just basically like
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: to funnel a press release into your you know, into
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: your copy, Like you're getting whatever the regime line is
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and you're just printing it unquestioningly and then it's up
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to the rest of us to sort of sort through.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's still interesting to know what their line is,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: but there's none of that scrutiny on what it means.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And you know, I know Jonathan in particular has done
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: one of the toughest interviews with Trump that I've ever seen,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: one of the best. You know, Trump is difficult to
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: interview on TV, and Jonathan did not pull any punches.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: So it's not like they've been shrinking violets either here.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: So that'll be really interesting, role be really interesting. We'll
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: do the AMA at the end, and you know, guys,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: really appreciate your support. Thank you for hanging with us
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: through the transition. I think it's gone pretty smoothly. Everybody
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: seems pretty happy with us back on Supercast. And of course,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: if you want to continue to support us and get
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: access to all the things Breakingpoints dot com.
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: That's right. Well, now a little bit of regime change.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Well, guys, we are very fortunate to be joined this
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: morning by the two foremost journalists and chroniclers of the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Trump presidency, both one point zero and two point zero,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann, who are out with a
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: new book that you must pick up and read because
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: it has so many extraordinary anecdotes from inside the rooms
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: where all the things are happening regime change inside the
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: imperial presidency of Donald Trump.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Welcome guys, great.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: To have you, Thanks for having us, Thank you, Yeah, of.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Course, of course.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: So Maggie, let me start with you and with kind
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: of a general question to dive into some of the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: specifics of the book. We've seen Trump make some what
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I would consider sort of inexplicable decisions over the course
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: of Trump two point zero. In particular, just this week,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: he blew up his own affordable housing bill, holding it
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: hostage to some other election priorities. What do you think
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: are the top priorities and top influencers of the way
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: that he has operated in this administration.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It's a good.
• 4:48
  Speaker 8: Question, and the housing bill is actually a great example
• 4:51
  Speaker 8: of so much of what we write about in this book,
• 4:53
  Speaker 8: which is Trump operating on pure gut and he is
• 4:58
  Speaker 8: his infla ruence the people around him who influences thinking.
• 5:03
  Speaker 8: It's like a half a dozen people in the room
• 5:05
  Speaker 8: of this government and this White House who are making
• 5:07
  Speaker 8: the decisions every day. And if you were in this
• 5:10
  Speaker 8: government and you're not in that room, you often have
• 5:13
  Speaker 8: no idea what's going on. And that includes top officials
• 5:16
  Speaker 8: at the State Department, Justice, Department, CIA, and so forth.
• 5:22
  Speaker 8: He is not especially interested in domestic politics. This term,
• 5:28
  Speaker 8: I mean as one of this term is in so
• 5:30
  Speaker 8: many ways not recognizable to the first one. It's not
• 5:34
  Speaker 8: a binary. It doesn't mean that he's never going to
• 5:37
  Speaker 8: pay attention. But certainly, if he had been seeing the
• 5:42
  Speaker 8: poll numbers that he has now that he does actually
• 5:45
  Speaker 8: have by all external metrics and some from his own
• 5:49
  Speaker 8: internal pollsters, if he had been seeing the complaints about
• 5:53
  Speaker 8: affordability from his own base, if he had been seeing
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: how vocally angry members of his own bab were about
• 6:01
  Speaker 8: the Warren Iran, he would have been more responsive in
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: term one. Now he is really doing the things that
• 6:07
  Speaker 8: he wants to do because he is very, very concerned
• 6:11
  Speaker 8: with and focused on leaving his indelible imprint on.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Washington and on the world. And we write about this.
• 6:20
  Speaker 8: You can't argue that he has been an unbelievably consequential figure.
• 6:22
  Speaker 8: He's certainly the most consequential president of my lifetime. I'm
• 6:27
  Speaker 8: in my fifties, but I think he will be the
• 6:30
  Speaker 8: most consequential figure for the next few years going forward,
• 6:33
  Speaker 8: and so on. Something like the housing bill, just to
• 6:35
  Speaker 8: bring it back to your question, he wasn't interested in
• 6:38
  Speaker 8: this housing bill. This was a bipartisan housing bill that
• 6:42
  Speaker 8: Republicans wanted, that Democrats wanted. That's not his personal priority,
• 6:48
  Speaker 8: and he doesn't really care that it is going to
• 6:50
  Speaker 8: hurt the Republican Party because he is not on the
• 6:53
  Speaker 8: ballot this fall.
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: But Jonathan may have another thought on this.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Not I co sign, Maggie, I co sign what you
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: just said. Don't do that one.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I'm drinking, donthan just a really quick follow up though
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: on that. You know, I've been trying to discern whether
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: or not he cares about the midterms, because I mean
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: he'll say things like I don't think at all about
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Americans kind of financial conditions. You know, He'll say I
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: love the inflation. Things that anyone with like a you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: basic understanding of politics, let alone someone who's been savvy
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: enough to wind up in the presidency twice now, would
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: know we're completely politically toxic, not to mention the tariffs
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: being politically toxic, the Iron War being politically toxic, all
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of these sorts of things. And I look at that
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, he just doesn't care that there's midterms
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: at all. But then to go back to the housing example.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: At the same time, what is he pushing here? He's
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: pushing this, you know what I would call an election
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: rigging bill to tilt the playing field in favor of Republicans,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: which indicates that maybe he does care what happens in
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the midterms. So how does he is he seeing the polls?
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Is he aware of how he's viewed? Does he care
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: if there is a sort of electoral reckoning that happens,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: you know, in the midterms and moving forward?
• 8:07
  Speaker 9: It's not It's not black and white, right, It's kind
• 8:09
  Speaker 9: of nuanced. His as we report in the book, his
• 8:13
  Speaker 9: aides wished he cared more about the midterms. They really
• 8:18
  Speaker 9: care about the midterms. It's not that he doesn't want
• 8:21
  Speaker 9: to hold the House. Of course, he wants to hold
• 8:23
  Speaker 9: the House, you know, all things can you know, he
• 8:25
  Speaker 9: doesn't want to be impeached again and realizes that he
• 8:27
  Speaker 9: will be, But he's also not that worried about these
• 8:30
  Speaker 9: things happening. The Supreme Court gave him sweeping immunity. It
• 8:34
  Speaker 9: gave all presidents swipping immunity in their twenty twenty four decision.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: He's already we have reporting in that book.
• 8:38
  Speaker 9: He's told people he's going to pardon anyone who comes
• 8:41
  Speaker 9: within two hundred and fifty feet of the Oval Office.
• 8:43
  Speaker 9: Sometimes he says two hundred feet, sometimes he says twenty
• 8:46
  Speaker 9: five feet.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: But some radius around the Oval Office is a pardon zone.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And so what's he really got to fear. Not very much.
• 8:55
  Speaker 9: And his family's making more money than they've ever made
• 8:58
  Speaker 9: ever by orders of magnitude.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So he's in that position. Maggie's right.
• 9:03
  Speaker 9: The information ecosystem around Trump is much more sealed off
• 9:07
  Speaker 9: than it was in term one. He would scroll Twitter
• 9:11
  Speaker 9: and he would be exposed organically to a lot more
• 9:15
  Speaker 9: just opinions and whatever this time, and by the way,
• 9:18
  Speaker 9: in Turn one, of course, you know it's become this
• 9:21
  Speaker 9: tiresome cliche, but it also happens to be true.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: He was surrounded by a bunch of aids.
• 9:25
  Speaker 9: Who, and we know because we talked to them, held
• 9:29
  Speaker 9: him in contempt, viewed him as dangerous and detestable, and
• 9:33
  Speaker 9: in many cases pushed back very aggressively on all kinds
• 9:36
  Speaker 9: of issues with him.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have that anymore.
• 9:38
  Speaker 9: He has aids who like him, believe in him, want
• 9:43
  Speaker 9: to implement essentially whatever he says. And so you don't
• 9:47
  Speaker 9: get a lot of friction there, and then of course
• 9:49
  Speaker 9: when he goes to mar Lago, he's surrounded by flatterers saying,
• 9:52
  Speaker 9: great job, you're crushing the eyatola. Keep at it, you know,
• 9:56
  Speaker 9: rah rah rah. He doesn't travel really. Last time he
• 10:00
  Speaker 9: would do quite a bit of domestic travel. He's really
• 10:02
  Speaker 9: quite housebound. So again, all presidents live in a bubble.
• 10:07
  Speaker 9: This just happens to be a smaller, tighter bubble, although
• 10:11
  Speaker 9: at the end I guess Biden was in a very
• 10:13
  Speaker 9: small type bubble too, so but it's very small and
• 10:17
  Speaker 9: it's very tight.
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: So.
• 10:21
  Speaker 9: Part of me he does care to some extent, just
• 10:24
  Speaker 9: not as much as his aides would like to pick.
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: Up on the point that Maggie was making about the
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: kind of indelible legacy that he wants to leave behind.
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: I noticed in his very long press conference recently around
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: the Iran mlu he twice brought up the idea of
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: him becoming Herbert Hoover as driving why he didn't for
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: the more prosecution of the war and why he wanted
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: to end why he wanted to end the war. So
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: it was it seemed like he was shifting from kind
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: of the positive things that he wanted to leave on
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: the world, Like he's getting rid of the Ryan Revolution,
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: he's overthrowing the government of Bene Venezuela to like the
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: other guardrail, which is I don't want to be Carter,
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: I don't want to be har Renouver. So with that
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: in mind, what else is left for him? I mean,
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: Cuba seems like something that he clearly has his eye on.
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: That's kind of thing he can say, I'm the guy
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: that ended the Cuban Revolution. What else? Like the world
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: is a fairly small place, and there are not as
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: many spots where he may want to kind of leave
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: his mark, then you might otherwise think so like if
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: you're him and you now have two and a half
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: years God help us of time left, Like where do
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: you think he's going to look, especially if he doesn't
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: care about domestic policy here in the US.
• 11:45
  Speaker 8: A couple of things, Ryan, It's interesting that you pointed
• 11:49
  Speaker 8: out the Herbert Hoover moment. I was fascinated by that,
• 11:52
  Speaker 8: And you know he did that at that G seven
• 11:53
  Speaker 8: press conference where he just talked and talked and talked
• 11:56
  Speaker 8: for quite some time. That used to be something he
• 11:59
  Speaker 8: would say in term of one and he would say
• 12:00
  Speaker 8: it during the campaign a lot, you know, he would
• 12:03
  Speaker 8: he would use nineteen twenty nine had tipped Andrew Russ
• 12:07
  Speaker 8: Sorkin as like, you know, an epithet.
• 12:09
  Speaker 10: It was.
• 12:09
  Speaker 8: It was something that you know, you don't want to
• 12:10
  Speaker 8: see a crash, you don't want to see a bubble
• 12:12
  Speaker 8: burst on the economy, and he was very mindful of that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 10: And then he really.
• 12:17
  Speaker 11: Stopped talking about it last year in our reporting that
• 12:21
  Speaker 11: was not coming up over and over again in fact,
• 12:24
  Speaker 11: and we again have a very vivid scenes about this
• 12:28
  Speaker 11: the lead up to Liberation Day, which was his you know,
• 12:32
  Speaker 11: global teriff for global trade war, which was something he
• 12:36
  Speaker 11: wanted to try for decades.
• 12:38
  Speaker 8: He didn't have an economic theory of the case around tariffs.
• 12:40
  Speaker 8: He saw terriffs as a blunt instrument and a tool
• 12:43
  Speaker 8: of power, and he had wanted to do this sweeping
• 12:46
  Speaker 8: terriff implementation program. In turn one, AIDS kept it pretty tailored.
• 12:53
  Speaker 8: It turns out with the reason you know, they used
• 12:55
  Speaker 8: this formula that was sort of incoherent and indescribable and
• 13:00
  Speaker 8: is asking AIDS. We have this vivid scene where he
• 13:02
  Speaker 8: doesn't believe the numbers that his own Commerce secretary is
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: giving him and he tells his ever present aid Natalie Harp.
• 13:09
  Speaker 8: You know, get me the real numbers. Go find literally
• 13:11
  Speaker 8: just googling whatever these numbers were. The degree of fear
• 13:16
  Speaker 8: and terror, frankly that a number of his advisors had
• 13:20
  Speaker 8: and cabinet officials had the lead up to Liberation Day
• 13:23
  Speaker 8: and then the lead up to the almost total meltdown
• 13:26
  Speaker 8: of the bond markets on April ninth. When he finally
• 13:29
  Speaker 8: pulls back, we weren't hearing a ton about Herbert Hoover.
• 13:33
  Speaker 8: It was you know, he tried this, He took it
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: as far as he could. It's sort of hard to
• 13:40
  Speaker 8: argue otherwise right now with the reality that he just
• 13:43
  Speaker 8: can't bend to his will on this front.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: The gas prices are what they are.
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: This MoU might be the paddle that gets them out
• 13:49
  Speaker 8: of this particular creak, but it hasn't yet, and they're
• 13:52
  Speaker 8: still moving toward it. I was surprised to hear him
• 13:55
  Speaker 8: just say that, but at a press conference. But as
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: we write in the book, whatever thin filter he once
• 14:02
  Speaker 8: had on what he says has pretty much evaporated. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: I don't know how much he wants to conquer left Cuba. Obviously,
• 14:09
  Speaker 8: he talks about quite a bit. Cuba is very important
• 14:11
  Speaker 8: to Marco Rubio, his secretary of State. This has been
• 14:15
  Speaker 8: a subject of focus for months and months and months.
• 14:18
  Speaker 8: Whether that will happen remains to be seen. Whether he
• 14:21
  Speaker 8: re ups his Greenland push, I think remains to be seen.
• 14:24
  Speaker 8: I think the Canada one has receded to the background.
• 14:27
  Speaker 8: But what you do see as a president who is
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: focused on spheres of influence, hemispheric spheres of influence as
• 14:32
  Speaker 8: opposed to, you know, sweeping imprints in far off lands.
• 14:37
  Speaker 8: For the most part, when we talk about leaving his imprint,
• 14:40
  Speaker 8: what we're referring to, and we describe this in the
• 14:42
  Speaker 8: book a lot is imprint all over Washington, the Ballroom,
• 14:47
  Speaker 8: the Arc de Trump, the Kennedy Center, which you know
• 14:51
  Speaker 8: is still an ongoing fight. This these beautification projects he
• 14:56
  Speaker 8: has all over the yielding of the Oval Office, which
• 15:00
  Speaker 8: we saw when we went in to see him in March,
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: and we hadn't neither of us had been there in
• 15:04
  Speaker 8: the Oval since that had happened, And it really is
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: it takes a second to take it in. One of
• 15:11
  Speaker 8: the things to remember about him is he was infuriated
• 15:18
  Speaker 8: during and after his first term that his name kept
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: being taken off of buildings in New.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: York, that he lost a PGA.
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: I don't remember if his tour PGA forgive me for
• 15:27
  Speaker 8: being a precise tournament that he really wanted at Bedminster,
• 15:30
  Speaker 8: that New York City took away his lease and that
• 15:33
  Speaker 8: ultimately had to give it back for a Trump Links
• 15:36
  Speaker 8: golf course that was city property. In the Bronx, he's
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: not waiting for anyone else to recognize him this time,
• 15:43
  Speaker 8: and that is really the imprint that he's leaving. But
• 15:46
  Speaker 8: also it's across the culture, and Jonathan I think can
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: speak better to that than I can.
• 15:54
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, one thing we cover in the book
• 15:56
  Speaker 9: is his efforts to influence the arts and the museum.
• 16:00
  Speaker 9: You know, it's sort of flown under the radar a
• 16:02
  Speaker 9: little bit. Obviously there's been a lot of coverage about
• 16:05
  Speaker 9: eradicating DEI from universities and the government and corporate America.
• 16:11
  Speaker 9: But we have a portion of the book where they're
• 16:14
  Speaker 9: trying to essentially influence what artwork is shown in different
• 16:19
  Speaker 9: museums around the country. And there's a pretty extraordinary scene
• 16:22
  Speaker 9: where there are these Board of Regents meetings of the
• 16:26
  Speaker 9: Smithsonian that we got inside and you've got like Lonie Bunch,
• 16:31
  Speaker 9: you know, the first African American director of the Smithsonian.
• 16:34
  Speaker 9: You have the Chief Justice, John Roberts, various other luminaries
• 16:38
  Speaker 9: in the room, and Vance is in there and he
• 16:40
  Speaker 9: leaves the room and one of his aides, who's like
• 16:44
  Speaker 9: in his early thirties, holds up an iPad and it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 9: a photo of that Amy Sheryld painting the Transforming Liberty,
• 16:51
  Speaker 9: the trans woman with the torch. You know, she canceled
• 16:55
  Speaker 9: her exhibition, and he's holding up this thing. It's like
• 16:57
  Speaker 9: John Roberts Lonie, but actually goes, this is not what
• 16:59
  Speaker 9: an Americans want to see, you know. So these are
• 17:02
  Speaker 9: the kind of it's you know, they are trying to
• 17:04
  Speaker 9: influence the culture, and it's a big, big part of
• 17:08
  Speaker 9: this administration that I think has flown under the radar
• 17:11
  Speaker 9: to a large extent with all the other reporting.
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: So it's another realtion.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that makes sense in light of the
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: birthday celebration and all of that, these big cultural events
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: that they're spending a lot of time and money and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: focus on, right and.
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: The rendering of history. Maggie and John.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Another question just about his mindset with how he's handling
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: the Iran War. We feel like a kind of a cycle,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: like a vortex of repetitive agreements and then rescinding those agreements.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Jeremy Scahill with Ryan at drop Site News did some
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: reporting that the Iranians have enlisted psychologists mental health experts
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: to analyze how Trump is thinking about this, and that
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: he might actually be mentally ill in some way. Has
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: any reporting in the book covered Trump's health or uncovered anything.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know a lot of pictures about the
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: makeup on his hands and just anything into his internal
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: mental health mindset that you might have uncovered.
• 18:05
  Speaker 8: We say with humility that this was any area of
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: reporting in this book.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: This was a failure.
• 18:10
  Speaker 8: You know, we spent a lot of time trying to
• 18:13
  Speaker 8: understand what's happening with his health. You know, there are
• 18:17
  Speaker 8: so many secrets this administration keeps. They make these great
• 18:20
  Speaker 8: displays of transparency. He's the most transparent president in the world.
• 18:24
  Speaker 8: He takes every reporter's phone call, blah blah. They're actually
• 18:26
  Speaker 8: very good. It's obviously a canard. They're also very good
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: at keeping secrets when they want to, And his health
• 18:32
  Speaker 8: has always been a lock box for him over decades,
• 18:36
  Speaker 8: not just since he became president. Many of his aides
• 18:39
  Speaker 8: don't have a full picture of what is happening with
• 18:42
  Speaker 8: his health.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: They put out that statement recently when he went to
• 18:45
  Speaker 8: Walter Read again that he had been seen by twenty
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: two specialists. We can't get an answer on what those
• 18:50
  Speaker 8: specialists treat or who they were. I can't even really
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: begin to imagine what it would have been or if
• 18:56
  Speaker 8: it was twenty two. We know what you know, which
• 18:59
  Speaker 8: is he's an eighty year old man who you know
• 19:02
  Speaker 8: when this we do talk about in the book is hearing,
• 19:05
  Speaker 8: by all accounts, is not as good as it was.
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: He obviously is falling asleep in these meetings. His sleeping
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: habits are a little more unusual than they were in
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: Turn one, and they were strange, you know initially too.
• 19:18
  Speaker 8: He sleeps a few hours a night. We write about
• 19:21
  Speaker 8: how you know, at about ten am one morning, when
• 19:23
  Speaker 8: he hadn't been heard from, a Trust to aid went
• 19:25
  Speaker 8: up to the residence and he was still asleep, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 8: they assumed that he had had some late night of
• 19:31
  Speaker 8: posting or reading or whatever, and he went back to
• 19:34
  Speaker 8: sleep for a while. He's got the makeup on his hands.
• 19:36
  Speaker 8: They've been saying it's because of handshaking forever, but we
• 19:39
  Speaker 8: certainly don't have any greater visibility into it than anyone else,
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: and definitely not mental health.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Jonathan, I wanted to ask you a little bit more
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: about what things have served to check Trump at all
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in this second administration, because one of the themes that
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: you all tease out is certainly the fact that in
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: the interim period, the effort was all, Oh, the problem
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: with Trump one point zero was I had these people
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: who were trying to rain me in, and I had
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: these institutions that would stand in my way. What can
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: we do to make sure there's none of that the
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: second time around? And they've been pretty effective at destroying
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: any of the bounds or guardrails that existed. He had
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: made some extraordinary comment like, well, the only limit is
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I think he said, my own mind or my own morals,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: both of which are are pretty scary. But there have
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: been times when they've been forced to pull back, you know,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: on the tariffs. Now you was talking earlier about the
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: bond markets were a problem. We were just talking about
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: how with the Iran warris like, oh my god, I
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: might be courting being Herbert Hoover here, so it seems
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: like the markets are one piece. We're also seeing some
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: significant it seems like at least public pullback on the
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: most maximalist version of the immigration agenda. They're selling some
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: of these warehouses that they had acquired. You've got Christy
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Noam out, mark Wayne Mullen in. So what are the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: things that have limits him over the course of the administration.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I am particularly curious about the immigration agenda, since that's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: something that has been so core to Trump since he
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: wrote down the Golden Escalator.
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: Totally.
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: It's a great question, and the story is shifting a
• 21:14
  Speaker 9: little bit in the last few months, but through twenty
• 21:17
  Speaker 9: twenty five it was pretty extraordinary. We haven't really seen
• 21:23
  Speaker 9: an unbridled expression of executive power like that, certainly not
• 21:26
  Speaker 9: in our lifetime, and in some respects, with some areas,
• 21:30
  Speaker 9: we've never seen it. Congress essentially just ceded the field
• 21:35
  Speaker 9: to Trump. I mean, when Bush went to war in
• 21:38
  Speaker 9: Iraq and Afghanistan, as we all know, every all the
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: problems with that lead up and the intelligence and everything,
• 21:46
  Speaker 9: it still went through Congress, right there was still a
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: congressional debate. In the congressional vote, Trump didn't even talk
• 21:51
  Speaker 9: to Congress just went He just did it. He just
• 21:54
  Speaker 9: went in, sent Delta force into Karrakas and snatched a
• 21:57
  Speaker 9: sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in his pajam.
• 22:00
  Speaker 9: He didn't talk to Congress. He determined himself in his
• 22:03
  Speaker 9: own mind that fishing boats carrying cocaine were quote unquote
• 22:07
  Speaker 9: enemy combatants, and they just blew them up. You don't
• 22:11
  Speaker 9: get a back season that one when you kill someone.
• 22:13
  Speaker 9: So you talk about, you know, an expression of power,
• 22:16
  Speaker 9: taking someone's life without any discussion with Congress, without any
• 22:20
  Speaker 9: authorization for the use of military force. It doesn't really
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: get more profound than that. And that's before I even
• 22:25
  Speaker 9: get to, you know, using leaders of government to coerce
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: law firms and universities and all.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: The rest of it.
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: So let's let's acknowledge all of that. What is also
• 22:36
  Speaker 9: true is that so far, at least, they have not
• 22:38
  Speaker 9: disobeyed Supreme Court rulings.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: There is pretty extensive.
• 22:42
  Speaker 9: Reporting that they have been in many cases either ignoring, disobeying,
• 22:48
  Speaker 9: or fudging around with lower court rulings, particularly on immigration.
• 22:52
  Speaker 9: A lot of examples of that, and we have a
• 22:54
  Speaker 9: lot of reporting in our book about how serious the
• 22:57
  Speaker 9: discussions were inside the most senior level of the Trump
• 23:00
  Speaker 9: administration about suspending habeas corpus, one of the most basic
• 23:04
  Speaker 9: human rights you could have the right if you get
• 23:06
  Speaker 9: locked up by the government to challenge your detention. They
• 23:09
  Speaker 9: Stephen Miller absolutely was looking at wanting to and Trump
• 23:14
  Speaker 9: himself suspend that right for illegal immigrants. The conversations were
• 23:19
  Speaker 9: so serious the staff Secretary of the White House, Willschaft,
• 23:22
  Speaker 9: wrote confidential memos to the Chief of Staff, essentially outlining
• 23:25
  Speaker 9: why this was a line the White House shouldn't cross.
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: But they didn't cross that line. Supreme Court decisions on
• 23:31
  Speaker 9: tariffs they have obeyed. And then Congress. Now you're starting
• 23:35
  Speaker 9: to see in the Senate some signs of life, and
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: that's I think the natural outgrowth of Donald Trump alienating
• 23:43
  Speaker 9: a few key senators. You know, it turns out when
• 23:45
  Speaker 9: you drive someone into retirement and you support their opponent,
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: they feel somewhat liberated.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: But I don't think people who are you.
• 23:52
  Speaker 9: Know, I hear this sort of Oh, Donald Trump's it's
• 23:54
  Speaker 9: the end of Donald Trump in his power whatever. Anyone
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: who's opposed him in the Republican Party is basically out
• 24:00
  Speaker 9: of a job. I mean, Thomas Massey MTG retired, till
• 24:06
  Speaker 9: Us is out. Cassidy, you know, go down the list
• 24:09
  Speaker 9: in the Republican Party. As unpopular as Donald Trump is
• 24:12
  Speaker 9: nationally and with independence, he's still an incredibly dominant figure.
• 24:17
  Speaker 9: So I do think there are limits. I think on immigration,
• 24:20
  Speaker 9: he is not as hardcore as Stephen Miller. We have
• 24:22
  Speaker 9: a thing in a book where Trump privately joked that
• 24:25
  Speaker 9: if it was up to Stephen Miller, the country would
• 24:27
  Speaker 9: only have one hundred million people and they'd all look
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: like Stephen Miller. So Trump on immigration is much more
• 24:32
  Speaker 9: of a it's just the truth, It is the truth.
• 24:36
  Speaker 9: But Trump is much more of a finger in the
• 24:38
  Speaker 9: wind on immigration, and when he sees bad press, he's
• 24:41
  Speaker 9: much more willing to pull back, where Stephen Miller, you know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 9: has been obsessed with this issue since he was a
• 24:46
  Speaker 9: child and is a passionate ideologue. So that's that's an
• 24:51
  Speaker 9: example of where Trump, after he sees all the bad press,
• 24:53
  Speaker 9: after the killings of re An A Good and Alex Pretty,
• 24:56
  Speaker 9: you know, he pulls back. But there aren't that many gils.
• 25:00
  Speaker 9: There are certainly no guard rauls inside the executive branch.
• 25:02
  Speaker 9: They've removed every pocket of independence and the very quaint
• 25:06
  Speaker 9: notion after Watergate that the president doesn't interfere with Justice
• 25:11
  Speaker 9: Department investigations, that is obviously obliterated. He's ordering up investigations
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: of named individuals. So you know that's the overall landscape.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Can I had one point. I'm sorry, just very quickly, Ryan,
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: just on the immigration point.
• 25:25
  Speaker 8: We're recording this at a time when the Supreme Court
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: has actually just granted the administration pretty sweeping hand to
• 25:34
  Speaker 8: end temporary protective status for Hitian immigrants and other groups.
• 25:40
  Speaker 8: I think that's going to affect at least three hundred
• 25:42
  Speaker 8: and fifty thousand people, possibly more. And essentially the Court
• 25:47
  Speaker 8: is saying, you know, we can't interfere with executive branch
• 25:50
  Speaker 8: decisions that way. The TPS is entirely an executive branch choice.
• 25:55
  Speaker 8: And so it is true that they did as Jonathan said,
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: they pulled back from these you know, very very splashy
• 26:03
  Speaker 8: pushes into cities. But Tom Holman keeps saying they're going
• 26:06
  Speaker 8: to do it in New York. They are selling these warehouses.
• 26:10
  Speaker 8: But we have a bid in the book about how
• 26:12
  Speaker 8: Stephen Miller was telling people he thought the warehouses were
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: crazy and he didn't understand why they were being bought,
• 26:17
  Speaker 8: and so you did have this visure of the NOME
• 26:20
  Speaker 8: run DHS NOME slash Corey Lewandowski run DHS and what
• 26:26
  Speaker 8: Stephen Miller actually was pushing versus what he was tolerating
• 26:29
  Speaker 8: in the name of having officials who would go along
• 26:31
  Speaker 8: with what he wanted. They still have a deeply, deeply
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: restrictionist immigration policy and for the most part it's working well.
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: I wanted to ask you briefly about Stephen Miller. I
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: remember Trump when he was introducing him to maybe it
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: was MBZ and the UE. He said, this is the
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: guy who runs my government. I've heard he's jokingly referred
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: to as the kind of prime minister. What is his
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: relationship like with Trump now? But also more importantly perhaps
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: for us as we go on in the world when
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: Trump is gone, what's his purchase in the Trump orbit
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: kind of absent Trump, Like, if we're in a post
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: Trump world, does he maintain this status or is he
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: pretty connected to Trump's project?
• 27:17
  Speaker 9: Stephen Miller did a pretty good job in the off years,
• 27:21
  Speaker 9: you know, twenty one through twenty four, of cultivating a
• 27:24
  Speaker 9: wide range of relationships in the Republican Party. A lot
• 27:28
  Speaker 9: of members of Congress consult him. You know, they see
• 27:32
  Speaker 9: him as a big brain, a sort of a policy luminary.
• 27:38
  Speaker 9: We write in the book that he's arguably, maybe even objectively,
• 27:44
  Speaker 9: the most powerful domestic policy staffer in recent White House memory.
• 27:49
  Speaker 9: In Turn one, he was young, inexperienced, very valued for
• 27:54
  Speaker 9: sure as the speech writer, but he was pretty narrowly
• 27:56
  Speaker 9: focused on immigration. He's got a much broader remit. Now
• 28:00
  Speaker 9: he's got this other title as Homeland Security Advisor, which
• 28:03
  Speaker 9: gives him a much broader remit. You know, Western Hemisphere, Mexico.
• 28:08
  Speaker 9: He was heavily involved in the drug bombing, planning for
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: the drug bombing campaign, the drug boats, so he's really
• 28:14
  Speaker 9: got his hands in everything. He's often in the room
• 28:17
  Speaker 9: for foreign leader phone calls and meetings. We have reporting
• 28:21
  Speaker 9: in the book that he wanted to be National Security
• 28:23
  Speaker 9: Advisor to succeed Mike Waltz. Many people in their belief
• 28:27
  Speaker 9: that he has designs on the Chief of Staff role. Eventually,
• 28:31
  Speaker 9: Trump values him because he gets things done, he said,
• 28:35
  Speaker 9: and he also talks to Trump in a way that
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: instills a lot of confidence. You know, yes, sir, we
• 28:41
  Speaker 9: can do it, and don't worry like weill bulldoze through anything.
• 28:44
  Speaker 9: We have a lot of reporting in the book about
• 28:46
  Speaker 9: these phone calls that Steven Miller would have inside the government,
• 28:49
  Speaker 9: which became sort of legendary.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: He would brate.
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: These staffers at DHS and ICE and the agencies and
• 28:58
  Speaker 9: basically threatened to fire that if they didn't pick up
• 29:01
  Speaker 9: the deportation pace.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: He just drives them relentlessly. So I think he's.
• 29:07
  Speaker 9: Got a big future in the Republican Party almost no
• 29:11
  Speaker 9: matter what happens, because he sort of made himself indispensable
• 29:14
  Speaker 9: with someone who has real experience in the executive branch,
• 29:17
  Speaker 9: knows how to get things done, and has lots of
• 29:20
  Speaker 9: relationships across the party.
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: One of the key relationships, just to add to what
• 29:24
  Speaker 8: Jonathan just said, and I don't think you said this,
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: but I apologize there was a siren outside was Elon Musk.
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: In these off years, he developed a very close relationship
• 29:34
  Speaker 8: with Musk, was advising him on political donations. That is
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: a relationship that as far as we know, continues and
• 29:43
  Speaker 8: will be quite useful endurable for him going forward.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Speaking of other close friendships, zorroon Mom. Donnie has been
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: to the White House now twice to visit Trump kind
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: of shocked the world.
• 29:57
  Speaker 7: How much of a romance it seemed that they now have.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: What was the reaction from the rest of the administration
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: from such a positive experience, You know, the DSA now
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: is a national topic and Trump is calling them these
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: crazy communists, but he still has nice words for Zoron
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about Uh, those Zoron trips
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: to the White House.
• 30:20
  Speaker 8: It's interesting that the Zoron Trump UH text messaging back
• 30:25
  Speaker 8: and forth is like one of the lock boxes that
• 30:28
  Speaker 8: I've certainly been trying to understand for a while. It
• 30:32
  Speaker 8: certainly wasn't a surprise to us that that Trump was
• 30:37
  Speaker 8: so enthralled by Zoron mom Donnie's presence, because a Trump
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: doesn't He'll attack people online, but one on one interpersonal
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: direct conflict is not always his thing. Uh, Zoron mom
• 30:49
  Speaker 8: Donnie is a really good political performer, and like he is,
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: he's a generational talent, and so that didn't really surprise
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: us either. He has attracted crowds he was for that meeting.
• 31:00
  Speaker 8: Apparently in their meeting he talked about how there was
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: overlap between some of his own rally attendees and Trump's
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: or you know, campaign event attendees. And Trump's and that
• 31:11
  Speaker 8: is true. It was actually a little less than I
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: thought it was going to be. It might get challenging
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: for Trump because, as you say, not everyone in his government.
• 31:21
  Speaker 8: By the way, I don't think, for instance, that the
• 31:23
  Speaker 8: White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, objects to having
• 31:26
  Speaker 8: a good relationship with the mayor of New York. We
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: certainly know that Trump. You know, we're at the Simon
• 31:31
  Speaker 8: and Schuster offices right now, and Trump Tower is a
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: few blocks away. So it's just a reminder that the
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: Trumps have a business interest in this city and maintaining
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: a good relationship with the mayor is something they care about.
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: But yes, it's going to be hard for Trump to
• 31:49
  Speaker 8: use everyone everyone in the extended Maga orbit, who I
• 31:53
  Speaker 8: speak to, was very excited about the elections in New
• 31:55
  Speaker 8: York the other day, as this will give fresh life
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: to Trump's attacks on democratic social And it's true, except
• 32:02
  Speaker 8: it's harder to maintain that when Trump is is yucking
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: it up with Zorn Mamdani. So it's there are many
• 32:07
  Speaker 8: places where Trump is not always in lockstep with everyone
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: around him, and this is.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: One, yeah, even a million problem for at least a
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: phonic Yeah, but there's also.
• 32:16
  Speaker 9: An element of like, we don't need to over complicate
• 32:18
  Speaker 9: too much. He also just likes handsome men. I mean,
• 32:21
  Speaker 9: I don't know if he saw who does his reaction
• 32:24
  Speaker 9: to Jelani over and when I was traveling with Trump
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: in the Middle East, I mean it was almost like, yeah,
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: so you know, we've seen this a parade of these,
• 32:35
  Speaker 9: you know, handsome men he likes.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Here's a type, he has a there's a there's a type.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: There's a type. He likes to be looking men and women.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: But yes, better look at the time cruise, big strong.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Guy exactly talks about theles well.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate you guys taking the time, and I
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: just want to also applaud you for spending so much
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: time in the book on Trump the Trump family corruption,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: which you know is truly world historic, hard to wrap
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: your head around, and difficult to cover because there is
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: just such an overwhelming flood of it. So we didn't
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: get a dig into that part this morning. People just
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: have to go and buy the book and read it
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: to see all of the reporting there. But Jonathan and Maggie,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: thank you both so much for joining us this morning.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it and congrats on the book. It's spectacular.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you.
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having us guys.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, and I like that it's gold. I like the
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: book is gold. It'll fit nicely too.
• 33:27
  Speaker 9: It's actually it's gorgeous covering, beautiful.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Look at it's all behind me.
• 33:33
  Speaker 10: Look at this.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: I think gets Trump a copy. I think it'll be
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: on the wall there. Thank you very much.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Thank I think he's aware. I think he's aware of it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 8: Thanks God, ask them all right.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, guy, guys, thanks for having us.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Sia joining us now about to talk about the political
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: earthquake in New York City and potentially across the country,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: as well as his major fight and the threats coming
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: from Elon musk Is Conresson, Rocanagrit Caesar.
• 34:05
  Speaker 10: Great to see you, Thanks for having me back.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: On what do you think is the import of these
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: elections this week? All of Zoron's candidates winning, the rise
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: of DSA, especially in the context of New York, but
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: you obviously see candidates like Graham Plattner Abdolsayed also rising
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: in a way that would have been perhaps hard to
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: imagine previously. The base of the Democratic Party supporting these
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: candidates fullheartedly or full thwartedly, whatever the term is. What
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: do you think is the political import of what we
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: saw unfold this week?
• 34:38
  Speaker 12: So, Crystal, you were right about a year ago and
• 34:41
  Speaker 12: you said that any candidate who does not acknowledge that
• 34:46
  Speaker 12: there was a genocide in Gaza is going to lose
• 34:50
  Speaker 12: a moral credibility with the base, that this is going
• 34:52
  Speaker 12: to be sort of a moral test for a party.
• 34:55
  Speaker 12: And I know people talk about affordability and it's important,
• 34:58
  Speaker 12: and they talk about a lot of other issues, but
• 35:00
  Speaker 12: at its core, many of these elections came down to
• 35:04
  Speaker 12: candidates who recognized what was happening on their phones and said,
• 35:07
  Speaker 12: I'm not going to be beholden to anyone. I'm going
• 35:09
  Speaker 12: to say it was a genocide, and I'm going to
• 35:12
  Speaker 12: be very clear we need a new moral direction versus
• 35:15
  Speaker 12: those candidates who were at best op fuse skating or
• 35:19
  Speaker 12: at worse still getting support from APEC and other pro
• 35:23
  Speaker 12: Israel groups. That was the central issue in many of
• 35:28
  Speaker 12: those New York races, and of those race and grab
• 35:30
  Speaker 12: Platner's race. And the other central issue is the massive
• 35:33
  Speaker 12: economic inequality, not just worthing the mounts. I want to
• 35:36
  Speaker 12: bottom up economy I want a middle class economy. I
• 35:38
  Speaker 12: want to work in class economy. Are you four wealth
• 35:41
  Speaker 12: tax on billionaires? Are you for medicare for all? Are
• 35:45
  Speaker 12: you four universal childcare at ten dollars a day? Do
• 35:48
  Speaker 12: you actually stand for these policies?
• 35:52
  Speaker 10: And you had.
• 35:54
  Speaker 12: In these candidates a clear willingness to take on extreme
• 36:00
  Speaker 12: wealth and extreme power.
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: And they're supposed to speaking of support for Israel, there's
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: supposed to be a vote what was it today on
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: a foreign ops appropriations measure that were MASSI is pushing
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: an amendment to cut funding to Israel. There's some apparently
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: there was some uh, some real drama or tensions, and
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: the Democratic Caucus meeting about it yesterday. Were you at
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: that meeting? What have you heard about this? Like the
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: reporting is that a lot of rank and file Democrats
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: are now very kind of uncertain about how they should
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: be approaching this issue, which a couple of years ago
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: they were quite certain it was just whatever Stanny, Hoyer
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: and Apak told them to do, they did it, and
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: now they're kind of at sea. What what is this
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: massive vote and how are Democrats thinking about it? Were
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: you in the were you in the meeting yesterday where they.
• 36:50
  Speaker 12: I wasn't really heard about it, and there's been a
• 36:52
  Speaker 12: sea change in the perception Adred Democrats are to the
• 37:00
  Speaker 12: extent that moderate Democrats are saying that we shouldn't ever
• 37:05
  Speaker 12: vote for funding for Israel, that I don't want to
• 37:08
  Speaker 12: vote for a bill that has funding for Israel, And
• 37:12
  Speaker 12: a number of Democrats came up to me saying, we
• 37:15
  Speaker 12: are going to vote for your in Massy effort when
• 37:18
  Speaker 12: the NDAA comes up to strike section two twenty four,
• 37:21
  Speaker 12: and we don't want to have foreign Appropriations bill passed
• 37:26
  Speaker 12: that has Israel funding. So it'll be interesting to see
• 37:30
  Speaker 12: how many Democratic knows they're going to be. But I
• 37:34
  Speaker 12: would argue at this point we're getting to at least
• 37:37
  Speaker 12: half the caucus that is opposed to funding for Israel.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: How freaked was were your colleagues this week, because we're
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: seeing some public signs of meltdown, you know, James Carvel's
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I know there should be a schism in the Democratic Party,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of hand ringing going on. I know there
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: was some anonymous Democratic House me member perhaps rhymes with Rothheimer,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: who's saying maybe he's looking at switching parties because he
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: can't he can't possibly coexist with someone like Daria Liza,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: or with Claire Valdez or other you know, candidates that
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: would be supported by the Zoron Mamdani wing of the party.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: So I wonder what you're hearing and seeing and is
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: this serving as a sort of wake up call, because
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: that's what the angst over this vote would indicate that
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: it's suddenly their eyes are open, like, oh, we actually
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: have a big problem here. People actually want us to
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: signal some moral direction and are not going to just
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: stand by and watch us run cover for a genocide.
• 38:34
  Speaker 12: Suddenly they have are seeing what we've been seeing for
• 38:38
  Speaker 12: the past year. I mean, this New York election was
• 38:41
  Speaker 12: a wake up call.
• 38:43
  Speaker 10: It's in the epicenter of democratic power, right.
• 38:45
  Speaker 12: I mean, you can't dismiss it as oh, that's just
• 38:48
  Speaker 12: one of rose districts in the West Coast, or this
• 38:51
  Speaker 12: is where all the media is. This is where Hillary
• 38:53
  Speaker 12: Clinton came from. Sure when it comes from a team
• 38:55
  Speaker 12: comes from where the Clintons that live near New York City.
• 38:59
  Speaker 12: It's where all the funding is for the party. A
• 39:01
  Speaker 12: lot of the funding comes out of there. And suddenly
• 39:04
  Speaker 12: they're electing progressive Democrats and the epicenter of democratic power
• 39:10
  Speaker 12: so absolutely it.
• 39:11
  Speaker 10: Has been a wake up vote.
• 39:13
  Speaker 12: One of the things that drives me crazy is are
• 39:17
  Speaker 12: a bit inability to stand by progressive Democrats or Democrats
• 39:21
  Speaker 12: for that matter, because of some dumb thing or inaccurate
• 39:26
  Speaker 12: thing they may have said in their past, Like how
• 39:28
  Speaker 12: about all of the collective idiocy of Donald Trump and
• 39:32
  Speaker 12: JD Vans, Like I don't want to ever hear a
• 39:34
  Speaker 12: lecture from the Republicans about some statement that someone may
• 39:38
  Speaker 12: have made. And yet we freak out about the mildest
• 39:42
  Speaker 12: things that someone may have said in the past and
• 39:44
  Speaker 12: drive and feed into Fox's narrative as opposed to simply
• 39:49
  Speaker 12: saying the Republican Party should never lecture us about any
• 39:53
  Speaker 12: issue of morality, patriotism, or normalcy. Ever, for a generation,
• 40:00
  Speaker 12: anyone on our side has incredibly more patriotic and a
• 40:04
  Speaker 12: moral vision than anyone on their side who has been
• 40:07
  Speaker 12: complicit with Donald Croup. And so you know this is
• 40:11
  Speaker 12: not in good faith what they're doing. And it's because
• 40:14
  Speaker 12: they fear that the Progressive Party winning. And I saw
• 40:17
  Speaker 12: your tweet that the Progressives have already won. I don't
• 40:19
  Speaker 12: know if I I don't know if I'm ready to.
• 40:22
  Speaker 10: Go that far.
• 40:23
  Speaker 12: We still have a long battle and go and underestimate
• 40:26
  Speaker 12: these folks, but we certainly have the momentum.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Well, they've won the ideological war, is what I meant
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: by that. You know, if you look at the poll
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: and you see the media talking motto the divide on
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Israel with the Democrats, and there is no divide, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: in terms of the Democratic base. Divide is between that
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: base and the elected officials who were trying to figure
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: out how to catch up real quick, or at least
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: some of them are at least trying to figure that out.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: But there is no real divide with the base. My
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: last question on this, then, I want to talk about
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: your fight with Elon is you've been willing to endorse
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: against incumbents. You know, you endorse Bradlander against Dan Goldman
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: even though he is your your colleague. I don't have
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: a list in front of me, but I know you've
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: in other instances, not that you do all of them,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: but you will selectively endorse against incumbents. It seems like
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: people still like you, like it seems like you're still
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: able to be effective in the Congress, that this doesn't
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: just poison the well with everybody there. You know, how
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: how do you think about endorsing against your colleagues and
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: the discomfort that that brings. Has there been have there
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: been repercussions for you internally within the caucus?
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: What does that look like?
• 41:28
  Speaker 12: You got to have lunch to the capitol. I can
• 41:29
  Speaker 12: introduce you to the people who hate my guts?
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: Are you not allowed to sit with them anymore?
• 41:36
  Speaker 12: You know you're going to make some people upset. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 12: you know, I think if there's one thing I've done,
• 41:45
  Speaker 12: I've been willing to take some risks, and I'm willing
• 41:47
  Speaker 12: to not be liked by some folks. Now, you can't
• 41:49
  Speaker 12: make everyone upset, and and that's where I've tried to
• 41:53
  Speaker 12: have some balance. But you know, I just after we've
• 41:56
  Speaker 12: done this, I'm cutting an ad for Elijah many who's
• 41:59
  Speaker 12: running against a DEBI Wahltz.
• 42:00
  Speaker 10: That's another place I had uplifted.
• 42:02
  Speaker 12: I'm an endorse, but I lifted Milt, who's, by the way,
• 42:06
  Speaker 12: an extraordinary candidate, has a great.
• 42:08
  Speaker 10: Shot in Colorado.
• 42:10
  Speaker 12: And there are other places where I mean in claar
• 42:13
  Speaker 12: Valdez wasn't against an incomment, but it might as well
• 42:15
  Speaker 12: been against any comment because Nydia was basically acting like
• 42:19
  Speaker 12: endorsing her was burning a bridge with Nydia. And I
• 42:24
  Speaker 12: guess what I do is I one, I'm transparent. I
• 42:26
  Speaker 12: will give leadership a heads up if I'm going to
• 42:29
  Speaker 12: do it. I give them the rationale.
• 42:32
  Speaker 10: They know that.
• 42:32
  Speaker 12: I don't do it gratuitously in every case.
• 42:37
  Speaker 10: And in some cases I'll endorse.
• 42:39
  Speaker 12: In other cases I'll lift people up on social media,
• 42:42
  Speaker 12: short up endorsement, and other cases I'll help get some funding.
• 42:45
  Speaker 10: And I look, I beat my Conda. I ran against
• 42:48
  Speaker 10: him twice.
• 42:48
  Speaker 12: I ran against Tom Lantos against the war, and I
• 42:50
  Speaker 12: promised myself that if I ever got there, I wouldn't
• 42:55
  Speaker 12: close the drawbridge and I would help other people. I
• 42:58
  Speaker 12: remember what it was like running the anst incumbent and
• 43:01
  Speaker 12: seeing the entire party endorse the incumbent and walk away
• 43:04
  Speaker 12: from me.
• 43:04
  Speaker 10: And so I'm not perfect, but I've tried to do that.
• 43:08
  Speaker 12: And you know what, when you do that and you're
• 43:10
  Speaker 12: transparent and you have some strength, people often respect that
• 43:15
  Speaker 12: and you don't have to always tow the exact line.
• 43:20
  Speaker 12: Of course, politics is an art more than a science,
• 43:23
  Speaker 12: and you can go too far and it's always a judgment.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: Congress, and you appeared on Jennifer Welch's show a while
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: ago and created a storm that is still going, that
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: is still ranging. I want to play a little bit
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: of your comments from that interview.
• 43:39
  Speaker 12: To come out in huge numbers. And I do believe
• 43:42
  Speaker 12: that once we take power, there has to be accountability.
• 43:45
  Speaker 12: There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk. You know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 12: they're celebrating that he created forty four hundred millionaires, but
• 43:50
  Speaker 12: they don't talk about the four point five million children
• 43:53
  Speaker 12: around the world who he possibly sentenced to death by
• 43:56
  Speaker 12: dismantling USA. He needs to answer for. That needs to
• 44:00
  Speaker 12: be subpoena. He needs to face investigation. He needs to
• 44:04
  Speaker 12: answer for what he did with Doge. That it's not
• 44:06
  Speaker 12: just let's move on and we will use the Oversight
• 44:11
  Speaker 12: Committee and the Judiciary Committee. The whole people accountable. Who
• 44:15
  Speaker 12: violated the law on ice and abused power with ice,
• 44:19
  Speaker 12: who violated the law on killing people on boats in
• 44:23
  Speaker 12: the Caribbean, who violated the law when it came to Iran,
• 44:27
  Speaker 12: and some of the strikes who violated the law with Doge.
• 44:30
  Speaker 12: There will be accountability. There needs to be accountability before reconciliation.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: Out of that, you've had Elon Musk say he wants
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: to arrest you, say he's going to sue you. You
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: responded with a decent amount of data and also an
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: offer to kind of debate him publicly on this question.
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: Has he any chance you think that that's going to
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: happen now?
• 44:59
  Speaker 12: First of all, shows the power of independent media, right.
• 45:02
  Speaker 12: I mean, I'm on a podcast with Jennifer Walsh and
• 45:05
  Speaker 12: I say this and Musk goes crazy. He literally has
• 45:11
  Speaker 12: I don't know if he still has it, but few
• 45:12
  Speaker 12: till yesterday had a pin tweet on his acts of
• 45:17
  Speaker 12: Jennifer Walsh and me like, the guy who's a trillionaire
• 45:21
  Speaker 12: doesn't have better things to do other than spending a
• 45:24
  Speaker 12: week responding. But I think it goes to a core
• 45:27
  Speaker 12: of what I believe about politics, which is it shouldn't
• 45:31
  Speaker 12: just be performative, it should be effective. Right that the
• 45:33
  Speaker 12: Epstein files, we actually got legislation done. There was just
• 45:39
  Speaker 12: a lawsuit yesterday that succeeded with the Administrative Procedure Act
• 45:43
  Speaker 12: that could get more of the files released.
• 45:45
  Speaker 10: It was a coalition that was effective. And there are
• 45:47
  Speaker 10: a lot of.
• 45:47
  Speaker 12: People who tweeted out in Musk and who've tweeted out studies.
• 45:51
  Speaker 12: Why was this effective in actually getting a response and
• 45:54
  Speaker 12: driving a national conversation in the USA because I talked
• 45:56
  Speaker 12: about the subpoena power and he's not dumb that when
• 46:01
  Speaker 12: I said I'm on the Oversight Committee and I'm with Garcia,
• 46:04
  Speaker 12: we're gonna subpoena you and we're gonna have the votes,
• 46:07
  Speaker 12: and that it's criminal contempt to avoid the subpoena. Suddenly
• 46:12
  Speaker 12: he said, Wow, these guys are serious. They're not just
• 46:14
  Speaker 12: tweeting or going after me. They may actually hold me
• 46:18
  Speaker 12: to Congress. And this is when people say they want
• 46:21
  Speaker 12: fight from the Democratic Party. I think what they want
• 46:23
  Speaker 12: is not just tweets or speeches. They want things that
• 46:26
  Speaker 12: are going to have in effect. And this the reason
• 46:30
  Speaker 12: that had in effect is the combination of indimendal media
• 46:33
  Speaker 12: and the combination of the threat of the subpoena.
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: Power and Congressman.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: There's been, like you said, quite a bit of cope
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: from Elon I'm outside the pin tweets. I wanted you
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: to react to a video of his thoughts on on
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: doge in USA.
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: I d let's take a listen.
• 46:49
  Speaker 13: Thoughts of usaid that we found to be even slightly useful.
• 46:53
  Speaker 13: We're transferred to the stage profits. They have not been
• 46:55
  Speaker 13: deleted there, so we've been transferred to the stage PUBMIT.
• 46:58
  Speaker 13: But many, many times with yours and other organizations, when
• 47:02
  Speaker 13: they said, oh, well this is going to help you know, children,
• 47:05
  Speaker 13: or it's going to help some disease eradication or something
• 47:10
  Speaker 13: like that. And then when we ask for any evidence whatsoever,
• 47:13
  Speaker 13: I say, well, please connect us with this group of
• 47:16
  Speaker 13: children so we can talk to them and understand more
• 47:18
  Speaker 13: about their issue.
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: We get nothing.
• 47:20
  Speaker 13: We don't they even try to prevent show. I come
• 47:23
  Speaker 13: up with a with a show, often meaning like it's
• 47:26
  Speaker 13: sort of like, well, can we at least see a
• 47:28
  Speaker 13: few kids, like where are they if they're in trouble,
• 47:32
  Speaker 13: we'd like to talk to them and talk to their caregivers.
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: And then we get something.
• 47:36
  Speaker 13: As a response, because it's what we find is an
• 47:41
  Speaker 13: enormous amount of fraud and graft. Example, very little actually
• 47:46
  Speaker 13: gets to the kids, if anything at all.
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: Your reaction to that, Congressman, most people know it's absurd.
• 47:53
  Speaker 12: Basically, USA is giving food and medicine to the world's porous.
• 47:58
  Speaker 12: And Elon Mus didn't go to Africa, he didn't go
• 48:02
  Speaker 12: to South America, he didn't go to Asia where these
• 48:05
  Speaker 12: programs were He's sitting in Washington, d C.
• 48:08
  Speaker 10: And he ends.
• 48:09
  Speaker 12: Eighty three percent of these programs. Eighty three percent of
• 48:12
  Speaker 12: the programs. It does so much damage that Congress or
• 48:15
  Speaker 12: Republican Congress has to reauthorize some of these programs. So
• 48:19
  Speaker 12: it's not as bad as what he did. Now it's
• 48:21
  Speaker 12: maybe twenty or thirty percent cut. But he has just
• 48:26
  Speaker 12: oblivious to what he has done. But he's afraid because
• 48:32
  Speaker 12: he now knows that he's going to have to start
• 48:33
  Speaker 12: explaining this. So this entire week he's been out there
• 48:38
  Speaker 12: trying to cover for Doge.
• 48:40
  Speaker 10: But we've had this conversation before.
• 48:42
  Speaker 12: There's a new generation, Robert Carcia, myself, others who are
• 48:46
  Speaker 12: not going to say let's just kumbaya move on, who
• 48:48
  Speaker 12: are going to expect accountability, not just for Elon Musk,
• 48:52
  Speaker 12: but for the Trump officials who engaged in into main conduct.
• 48:57
  Speaker 12: And that is part of the healing and rec conciliation
• 49:00
  Speaker 12: of this country, is to take on the people who
• 49:03
  Speaker 12: have caused the divisions and the cruelty.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Ro you actually know Elon, I mean he I guess
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: he's not your constituent anymore, but was at one point.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I presume and you've spoken with him, you know, you've
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: met him in person, Like, what is the deal with
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: this guy? How do you view him? Why do you
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: think this touched such a nerve? What do you think
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: of his arc here to you know, really hard right
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: politics where now he's getting involved like inciting race riots
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: in Ireland.
• 49:34
  Speaker 12: That's why I feel like I have some objectivity because
• 49:37
  Speaker 12: we were on friendly terms for.
• 49:41
  Speaker 10: I would say at least a decade.
• 49:44
  Speaker 12: I mean, he blurbed my first book after the Obama
• 49:47
  Speaker 12: administration on bringing manufacturing back to the US.
• 49:51
  Speaker 10: We had a disagreement back then.
• 49:52
  Speaker 12: I had pushed that we linked the Obama grant to
• 49:57
  Speaker 12: labor neutrality, which I wish we did. Tesla would be
• 49:59
  Speaker 12: Union eyes if we had done that. It was the
• 50:01
  Speaker 12: biggest miss in the Obama administration. I was public as
• 50:05
  Speaker 12: a Deputy Assistant Sedior Commerce, low level person, saying we
• 50:08
  Speaker 12: should link it to labor neutrality. But ELIN was begging
• 50:11
  Speaker 12: Anna Ashoe, who is my neighboring member of Congress, for
• 50:14
  Speaker 12: that loan. I mean every week she would call Ani issue,
• 50:17
  Speaker 12: I need this loan to be able to get Tesla.
• 50:20
  Speaker 12: After that, he blurred the book We had on and
• 50:23
  Speaker 12: off conversation. He was very passionate about climate. He was
• 50:27
  Speaker 12: a very strong supporter, at least of immigration in Silicon Valley.
• 50:31
  Speaker 12: And I thought that the reason he initially was upset
• 50:37
  Speaker 12: was that we didn't invite him to the EV summit
• 50:39
  Speaker 12: with Biden, even because people didn't want him there in Union,
• 50:45
  Speaker 12: that the union didn't want him there, and I thought,
• 50:46
  Speaker 12: you know, even though he should be unionized, we probably
• 50:49
  Speaker 12: should have had him there, and we had conversations, but.
• 50:53
  Speaker 10: Then he just has gone.
• 50:54
  Speaker 12: We gets to Dulge, and you know, I gave him
• 50:57
  Speaker 12: initially the benefit of doubt. We were going to have
• 50:59
  Speaker 12: a meeting with him and Bernie and Warren't on the
• 51:00
  Speaker 12: defense budget and cutting the defense budget because that's something
• 51:03
  Speaker 12: we've all wanted to do. He gets there and he
• 51:06
  Speaker 12: does nothing with defense, He does nothing with any of
• 51:08
  Speaker 12: these agencies, and he starts on an ideological agenda against USA,
• 51:13
  Speaker 12: and he goes on an ideological agenda on immigration, an
• 51:17
  Speaker 12: ideological agenda on krans Kids. And I think he's just
• 51:21
  Speaker 12: been swept in to this right wing ecosystem and that's
• 51:27
  Speaker 12: how he governed. And even his responses to me aren't
• 51:30
  Speaker 12: trying to convince the independent person there he's getting affirmation
• 51:35
  Speaker 12: from this right wing media ecosystem, and that's who he's
• 51:37
  Speaker 12: playing to.
• 51:38
  Speaker 10: It's very sad and very scary.
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: And the problem that he has here and I'll put
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: this element up here. This is February third, twenty twenty five.
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: He said, we spent the weekend feeding usaid into the
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: wood chipper. Could have gone to some great parties, did
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: that instead. And so if you contrast that with what
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: you what he's saying less than two weeks into Trump's term,
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: with the deliberative process that he claims that he engaged in,
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: where they went, you know, program by program and aid
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: recipient by aid recipient asking to be connected with you
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: orphans or otherwise to like get some validations for the program.
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: What actually happened is he did literally destroy it and
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: then when there were attempts to reach out to the
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: aid recipients, they failed because he had shut down all
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: the programs. Like the employees were literally like locked out
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: of their out of their emails and otherwise you couldn't
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: couldn't communicate. He shut the entire thing down. And that's
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: literally what happened. But I do want to get you
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: to respond to some of the right wing counter arguments,
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: some of which I'm sympathetic to, which is a lot
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: of the good work that they do is in this
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: direct giving. They also have a political and ideological element
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: to them, where they they'll fund kind of quote unquote
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: pro democracy organizations that will you know, back like you know,
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: an opposition party that is actually just sympathetic with whatever
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: the US interests are or whatever the US cut slash
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: corporate interests are it. And so Musk is able to
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: accurately cite a decent number of foreign leaders in Central
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: America or Africa who say, you know what, actually USA
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: idea is not helpful to us.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: We don't.
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: We think that it's overly interventionists and undermines our internal politics. Obviously,
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: you can, you know, both things can be true, and
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: you can protect the formula for infants while also addressing
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: the political dimension. But what is your what is your
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: response to that critique that that there are a lot
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: of people in Africa and in South and Central America
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: we're like, yeah, actually we don't like us A I d.
• 53:49
  Speaker 12: I acknowledge some of the critique, And if he had
• 53:52
  Speaker 12: come in to reform it, he could have come to
• 53:55
  Speaker 12: Congress and made those arguments, and maybe he would have
• 53:58
  Speaker 12: gotten some support. And that's this is why I say
• 54:00
  Speaker 12: that initially I was open minded about Doge. Sometimes journalist
• 54:05
  Speaker 12: asked me that as a gotcha, Oh you were open
• 54:07
  Speaker 12: minded about Doge. I said, that's not gotcha. Yeah, I
• 54:09
  Speaker 12: was open minded about it. I'm usually open minded to
• 54:12
  Speaker 12: working with people for constructive solutions. And he would have
• 54:16
  Speaker 12: found an audience if he had said, look, bro, I
• 54:18
  Speaker 12: want to go after programs that are overly interventionist and
• 54:22
  Speaker 12: undermining popular sovereignty and other nations. Maybe he would have
• 54:26
  Speaker 12: gotten even Democrats, progressive Democrats to do that.
• 54:30
  Speaker 10: But he didn't do that.
• 54:31
  Speaker 12: He basically took a sledgehammer with no one's input by Fiat,
• 54:36
  Speaker 12: as he himself says, and put it in a wood chopper.
• 54:39
  Speaker 12: And that's why we have so many potential potential debts
• 54:43
  Speaker 12: now in the rebuilding. And this, I think is a
• 54:45
  Speaker 12: broader point in the rebuilding of all of these agencies.
• 54:49
  Speaker 12: We want to do it with human rights, with progressive values,
• 54:53
  Speaker 12: with a sense of what the future is going to require,
• 54:56
  Speaker 12: and not just let's just you know, get Samantha Power
• 54:59
  Speaker 12: back in there and and do exactly what we were
• 55:01
  Speaker 12: doing in the past, and that's the opportunity why I
• 55:04
  Speaker 12: think we can have a new deal for our time,
• 55:06
  Speaker 12: that there could be really a rebuild of government around
• 55:10
  Speaker 12: a progressive vision, around an effective vision for government.
• 55:14
  Speaker 10: And that's the opportunity.
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: Row I had a question about the future political relationships
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: of all these tech billionaires. Now, you mentioned that you
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: and Elon were friends. A lot of these you know,
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: tech CEOs were seen more as liberal democrats in before
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: the Trump era, but now we see Zuckerberg, we see
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: these AI CEOs, you know, CosIng up to Trump. Where
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: do you think they go post Trump? Do you think
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: that they will be sort of always now marked as
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: more conservative tech CEOs or will they flip back over
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: and be good Democrats again if there's a Democrat in office.
• 55:54
  Speaker 10: They're opportunists.
• 55:55
  Speaker 12: I mean, some of them will play ball with wh
• 56:00
  Speaker 12: who ever is in office. But you're going to lose
• 56:03
  Speaker 12: thirty percent of them if we take a real platform issue,
• 56:07
  Speaker 12: which is a wealth tax. If we're saying, look, we're
• 56:09
  Speaker 12: going to tax these folks, then you're not going to
• 56:11
  Speaker 12: get thirty percent of them.
• 56:12
  Speaker 10: There'll be some.
• 56:14
  Speaker 12: Who either on billionaires or who get that we don't
• 56:17
  Speaker 12: want revolution, who will be fine with that coalition, but
• 56:23
  Speaker 12: will you have to lose some of those folks? And
• 56:25
  Speaker 12: this is the big basic fight I'm having with Gavin
• 56:28
  Speaker 12: newsomwhere I've supported a five percent tax on two hundred
• 56:32
  Speaker 12: and fifty billionaires in California so three million Californians don't
• 56:35
  Speaker 12: lose health insurance. He then is opposed to it, is
• 56:38
  Speaker 12: leading the charge against it because these two hundred and
• 56:41
  Speaker 12: fifty billionaires are important donors and political contributors. And he says, well,
• 56:46
  Speaker 12: I'm for a national billionaire's tax, But he doesn't want
• 56:50
  Speaker 12: to do with Bernie is time out or I five
• 56:52
  Speaker 12: percent tax on billionaires. He doesn't even want to do
• 56:54
  Speaker 12: what Warren is time about three percent tax. He wants
• 56:56
  Speaker 12: to just say, Okay, they can't borrow against act and
• 57:00
  Speaker 12: it should be taxed on that, which is exactly what
• 57:02
  Speaker 12: the tech billionaires are proposing, I mean, and and would
• 57:05
  Speaker 12: raise the fracture of the revenue. So at some point
• 57:08
  Speaker 12: you got to be choos. Are we going to be
• 57:10
  Speaker 12: against the oligarchs or for the oligarchs? Yes, we can
• 57:13
  Speaker 12: be against them, and which is what Bernie and I
• 57:15
  Speaker 12: and Warren are, And then some of them may come
• 57:18
  Speaker 12: along and then new social Contract.
• 57:20
  Speaker 10: But what we can't do is pander to them.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Hey, Roe, just to remind everybody, what percent of the
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: vote did your billionaire back to primary opponent?
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: What did he end up with?
• 57:31
  Speaker 10: Six percent?
• 57:32
  Speaker 12: They spent over a million dollars and we didn't spend
• 57:35
  Speaker 12: a dollar on it because I wanted to kind of see.
• 57:37
  Speaker 12: I mean, we were doing town halls and they spent
• 57:40
  Speaker 12: over a million dollars. He gets six percent of the vote.
• 57:42
  Speaker 12: We got sixty two percent, and the Republicans got the rest.
• 57:45
  Speaker 12: And he did worse than kendidates who haven't spend a
• 57:48
  Speaker 12: dollar against me. And I think it's that people really
• 57:51
  Speaker 12: understood that, you know, he was the candidate of the
• 57:56
  Speaker 12: tech holigarchs.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want people to understand, you represent Silicon
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Valley and that is the level of popularity of those views.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: So just so people get out there in the democratic
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: elite world how absolutely toxic and abhorrent pro billionaire politics
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: are to the democratic to the population at large, but
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: certainly in the Democratic Party are at this point. I
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: think that's a very good example. But you know, if
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: I could actually answer a little bit of Griffin's question here,
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: I don't think that Silicon Valley ever stopped playing both sides.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not like they abandoned giving money to
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, and Gavin Newsom's perfect example of that.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, also the Abundance Movement is very much
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: funded by these guys, and I think that's their entree
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: into Okay, how do we keep our relevance and how
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: do we make sure we've still got a hand on
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: what's going on with these people. So it's going to
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: be a real choice I think going forward for party
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: voters to understand the differences. And I think, and you
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: can tell me if you think this is true. Elon's
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: mad about what you said about usaid. He's mad because
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: it's true. He's mad because he knows how disgusting it
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: is to people the op of the world's first trillionaire
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: and world's rich just man, you know, stealing literally like
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: the life force of some of the poorest people in
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: the world and ripping away from them some of the
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: basic needs that they have. He understands that that doesn't
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: look great. But he's also mad at you because you
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: have been a leading voice in terms of saying, hey,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: maybe we should tax these guys, Hey maybe we shouldn't
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: have trillionaires. Maybe that doesn't Maybe we can't have a
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: democracy and actually have that level of wealth. And I
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: think that's exactly what a lot of people are waking
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: up to right now.
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah. And on that point, if twenty twenty nine comes
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: and Democrats have come back into power, are we on
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: track to get to a place where they can actually
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: implement a wealth tax? Is it getting enough energy within
• 59:45
  Speaker 6: democratic circles? Because if it's the push for it can't
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: really start then like it's gotta it's gotta be happening now.
• 59:52
  Speaker 10: So that's it.
• 59:54
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, that's why this fighting California is so
• 59:57
  Speaker 12: important em raids. You know, California started the anti tax
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 12: moment with Prop thirteen in nineteen seventy eight, that leads
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 12: to Reagan winning in nineteen eighty. We can get the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 12: five percent tax in California in twenty twenty six, that
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 12: could lead to that nationally in twenty twenty eight.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 10: And you really have.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 12: You know, the SEIU United Health Career Workers West supporting it.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 12: I'm one of the leading voices for it. And then
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 12: you have the governor leading the opposition against it, not
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 12: just saying okay, I'm neutral and let this play out.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 12: He's literally out there trying to kill the ballot measures.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 12: So we need to win this fight, and we need
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 12: to start to get more people on board, because then
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 12: it's going to be a fight in the Supreme Court.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 12: I personally believe the sixteenth Amendment makes it constitutional, but
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 12: we should not be naive that it won't be a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 12: fight in the Supreme Court.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 10: But the first thing we.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 12: Got to do is get the get our own party
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 12: on board and not fall for these gimmicks. You know, Okay,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 12: I'm for a billionaire tax, but it's not really a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 12: billionaire's tax. It's really just a tax, and they're borrowing,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 12: which is going to raise a fraction of the revenue.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 12: I mean, these people are really clever and they're trying
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 12: every means to preserve their wealth. But you know, Elon,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 12: that is his fundamental problem. And it's not just that
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 12: he cares about the wealth, though he does.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 10: He cares and control.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 12: He doesn't like the fact that I'm calling him out
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 12: and calling these billionaires out is being sort of part
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 12: of a broken social contract. But the reality of how
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 12: you know what's broken is you go around the country
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 12: and you say, okay, Elon Musk has become a trillionaire,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 12: and I hear booze right from the audience. It's not
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 12: even I'm not even saying anything. I'm not saying you
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 12: did anything wrong. It just said and did you hear
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 12: Elon Musk became a trillionaire? Sort of the setup to
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 12: what I'm going to say, and the audience starts booing.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 12: They started booing at the team stirs. You know Trump
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 12: voters in there, and that should tell you something, right,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 12: I mean, I'm not sure there are other times, you know,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 12: in our history where people have done these things and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 12: they're just reflexibly hated. If there was much more shared
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 12: prosperity in this country, you wouldn't have that same reaction.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 12: But you have all this wealth being accumulated. Well, people
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 12: can't buy a house, can't have childcare, can't have healthcare.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 12: And this, to me is going to be the central
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 12: fight for the Democratic Party. Two central fights gaza and genocide.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 12: Are you going to really take it on? And are
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 12: you really going to take on the billionaires and trillionaires
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 12: or are you going to mouth the focus group tested
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 12: stuff because we all know that it's affordability and we
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 12: all know people want to hire a tax on the bridge,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 12: and we all know that people don't like Israel are
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 12: malth enough to get by, But then when you get in,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 12: you really haven't taken the actual fight.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 10: So there's no structural check and that's really the question.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: One last thing that I would just add to that,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: in terms of the billionaire's right wing turn, I think
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: this is sort of inevitable because you know, the moment
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: of immense inequality that is only set to skyrocket more
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: with the advances of AI.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: There's really two directions.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: One is that you do bring the oligarchs to heal
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: so you can have a democratic society so that the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: you know, abundance that we already enjoy if it was
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: even you know, distributed not evenly, but in some sort
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: of a relatively equitable way where people are able to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: live and survive. You can either go in that direction
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: of taxing the oligarchs, or you can go in the
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: scapegoat direction, which is you know, the right wing fascist
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: rise that we've seen here and around the world of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: it's the immigrants fault, it's the transperson fault, right, it's
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: the you know, pitting people against each other. And so
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: in order for these billionaires to avoid scrutiny on themselves
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: and the possibility of their own wealth being taxed at
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: some you know, reasonable level. The most obvious direction for
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: them to go in is, you know, to start inciting
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: race riots, as Elon has become wont to do with
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: the social media platform that he purchased. So in a sense,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: I think that this right wing turn is is sort
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: of inevitable.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, because they fundamentally are
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 12: about protecting their their their their capital.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 13: Uh.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 12: And they were fine with it when the Democratic Party
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 12: was a party focused on women's rights, focused on immigrant rights,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 12: focused on voting rights.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 10: But now that the.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 12: Party is also focused fundamentally on economic uh, inequality and
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 12: going after the capital class, they are much more uncomfortable
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 12: with the with the Democratic Party. I mean they are
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 12: not They don't want it to be an FDR party.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 12: I mean, they wanted to be a party like Clinton
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 12: focused on the social issues, which is not to discount
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 12: the social issues. Those social issues matter, but it is
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 12: the economic issues that they find threat.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: All right, Congressman, thank you for your time. We hope
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: Elon sees this interview and gets so triggered that we
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: are the next pin tweet on his Twitter.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 12: Account or you may get soon. Are you set up?
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 12: Are you ready for that?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: We're hoping for just the pin before a lawsuit.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Oh sorry, really quickly, just any sign that he's actually
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: suing you ro and are.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 12: You He's made threats before with journalists and he hasn't
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 12: followed through, and he has followed through with the German
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 12: government and others, so you know, I.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: Mean he's also he also sues suit a lot of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: people at media matters and is continuing to sue them.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 10: So you know, it could be either way. I mean,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 10: I uh, he is.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 12: It just depends on what mood he is in and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 12: and you know, but it wasn't just his Whether he
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 12: sues me, of course that matters to me personally and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 12: how much headache it'll be though it'll also obviously give
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 12: me the chance for discovery in Dolge, which is uh,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 12: which which I don't know if he's fully realized.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: Interesting.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 12: But the bigger issue is he's sending a message to
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 12: everyone on that overside committee.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 10: Look, you come after me. I'm going to come after you.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 12: It's not just that I have more than one vote
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 12: and I get millions of dollars and I could spend
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 12: five million dollars against your race. I can actually tie
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 12: you up in court for years and spend unlimited money
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 12: against you. So you know what, why don't you just
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 12: focus on a hundred other things you have to do
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 12: as a member of Congress and leave me alone, Like
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 12: go refund the USA, but don't subpoena.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 10: I mean, it's not worth your time, not worth your headache. Right,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 10: that's the message.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: The headline we need row is Rocana to Elon Musk.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: Bring it on.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 10: That's what I said. I'm not going to be intimidated,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 10: you know.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 12: It's uh that that that's but that's that's what we need.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 12: That's that's where I think we've got to fight. I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 12: wish we had a Democratic party, but where we've got
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 12: other people saying, yeah, bring it on, sue me too,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 12: sue me too, Right, I mean we've got to show
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 12: actual fight where there's where there's some risk, where there's
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 12: some inconvenience, and that uh, because that's what the activists
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 12: are doing every day, Right, They're going out to pro
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 12: they're getting arrested, they're uh putting their careers on at risk.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 12: And I think that's that's really where what they want
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 12: to see from elected officials is some actual risks, some
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 12: skin in the game, and we saw that with those
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 12: candidates who won.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 10: In New York.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: All right, well they can't sue us all. Congressman Rocanna,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: thank you much for your time and we'll see you soon.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 10: Thank you, guys, appreciate you all.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: Right now, time for a little bit of AMA, and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: of course, if you're a new subscriber, you can submit
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: written questions for the Friday AMA at the link in
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: every Daily show email. With that, let's get to our
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: first question. Some reactions to Ryan on the streets of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: NYC for the DSA elections. Here, let's start with this
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: one from sebas one oh one for amazing BP. With
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: the deaf cult nature of the Israel government threats of
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: using nuclear weapons in the US and in the region,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: should we do what the older gentleman from Ryan's great
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: interview at NYC said and bomb them, making the region
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: a true nuclear weapons free zone and protecting ourselves from
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: their threats. If you that clip, Ryan was around a
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: group of Spayat voters up in Harlem and he spoke
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: to one older gentleman who I believe was reacting to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: pro Palestine protesters and sort of sarcastically said, if you
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: want to stop the genocide, bomb Israel.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: Funny. A funny coda to that interaction is that the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: next day somebody was like, by the way, you know
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 6: who that was. That was Larry Seabrook, And I looked up, Yes,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: that was Larry Seabrook. Larry Seabrook was a state representative,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: state assemblyman, and a city councilman in the city in New.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 14: York who went to prison from the prison yep, because really,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 14: because he was setting up all of these fake nonprofits
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 14: in Harlem and then appropriating money from the city to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 14: those nonprofits, and then she's keeping the money for himself
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 14: and his friends and family.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: So in like twenty thirteen, he got sent to like
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: five years in federal prison for corruption.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: I'd ask you he's going to do this guy's do
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: you know?
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: Spat like, what's your history with him? He's like, I've
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: none of the decades. I was like, what any good stories?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 6: He's like, doesn't matter with me, I I doesn't. It
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: doesn't really matter. It's about It's about him. He's a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: fighter for the people. Ironically, in twenty twenty one, when
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: Mom Donnie was an assembly they restored fell in voter rights.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: Uh so, I believe he would be able to vote
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: thanks to mom Donnie.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: He's so the bomb Israel guy is prosed.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: By it hardcore. He's an Spaiot machine. Yeah nice, he was.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: I don't not profit product that he was making, but
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: I mean amazing. Yeah, Like, hopefully Israel will just listen
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: to the United States and doesn't.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I don't think it's really necessary. How about
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: we just try not funding their genocidal actions anymore, not
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: sending the weapons to do their crimes, and forcing them
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: to act like a normal nation that has to amongst
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: their neighbors and not constantly wage war against every way.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: You should try that first.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: And if not, then then I wouldn't want the US
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 6: to do it alone. I think you would need a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: UN mandate, and then I think UN peacekeepers would I
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: think be appropriate.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: A lot of tools in you get here, Yeah, sanctions regime,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: like I think all of that is uh is before
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: we get to going to war with them, in my opinion.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, So next question for Crystal here from Jasmine Crystal,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: I'm genuinely curious is how you view slus withstand all
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: the misogynist vitriol directed towards you on social media. While
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: Ryan gets some hate online, the tenor of comments is
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: on a totally different scale. Seems like the troll's biggest
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: trigger is okay, this is their words, A hot leftist
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: woman with strong opinions and insightful analysis.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: Stay triggered. I honestly, I'm a little bit oblivious. I
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: just don't really look that much at the replies and
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: the comments, and I have developed a thicker skin now
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: where it just doesn't really bother me, you know, when
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: you've done this for And sometimes I'll send things out
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: that I that I know are like kind of going
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: to stir the pot and get a big reaction. And
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite things to do is just sort
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: of like drop that bomb and then go away and
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: not really pay attention of what happens in the aftermath.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: So that's how I handle it. It's uh, it's it
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: is what it is.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 10: Mm hmmm. Okay.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: And one last quick fun one because we're about to
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: run out of time. This is from Matthew c Ryan.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: How did you first meet Crystal and Sagar and what
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: surprised you the most about them? After working together whit
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: I did.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: We've I don't remember when we first met, right, I don't.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: Think that we interacted. When you ran for Congress, I
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 6: covered the race, but I don't remember if I interviewed
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: you or not. And then I remember when you launched
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: the I mean, and I did the five or the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: cycle or whatever the cycle.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we definitely met it in MSNBC context then.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 6: But then I remember you reached out when you were
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: launching the Working Class of.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: The People's House Project.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and then and there, and there were several candidates
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: that you Johanna Hayes, I think you were working with
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: Richard of Jeta.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 9: J D.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: Shulten.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: You have such a good memory. She was such a cool,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: interesting candidate, j D. Shulten. And and I think you
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: also flagged that the D Triple C was actively working
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 6: against a bunch of them, and that was so. And
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: then we've basically been in touch since then, right.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would say that's that's my recollection as well.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: And then you met Sager just through the context of Rising,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: right right, yeah, same, which is how I met Sager too.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: People who uh maybe don't know all the lore Rising
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: originally launched me and Buck Sexton and uh, but they
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: wouldn't let us have a YouTube channel.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: It was crazy.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Anyway, it was kind of a mess, that whole Hill organization,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: total mess. That's like you could write a book about
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: all the things that happened there. Anyway, Buck was going
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: to leave, and Sager had filled in for him a
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: couple of times because they knew each other, and so
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: Sager was the person that I wanted to come in
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: because I thought we had an interesting an unusual dynamic
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: in terms of where we agreed and where we disagreed.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: And my vision was always.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: To have this like, Okay, what's the best faith version
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: of trump Ism? Like what's the most honest, intellectual, like
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: truth centric version of trump Ism? What if we had
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: a show where you're like working with that, and then
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: you've got the burning wing, which of course is completely
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: unrepresented continues to this day to be basically wholly unrepresented
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: in mainstream press. What does that dialogue look like? Because
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: it's not being modeled anywhere else. And I think this
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: show's evolved a lot from that time, you know, as
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: events have changed all of our political views and you know,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: et cetera. But that was kind of the original the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: original conception of what we were going to do there.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 7: Very nice.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: Well with that, That'll do it for this Friday show
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: and we will see you all on Monday.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: Stay tuned.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 10: Bye bye,