4/16/25: Dem Flies To El Salvador, Trump Polling Crash, Bill Burr Unloads On Robber Barons, Iran War Looms, Harvard War With Trump, Bernie Picks Successor & MORE!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 3 (00:31):
Good morning, Ryan Grim. This is so great to have
your hair, cris. If people are listening to this, they're like,
that's not very funny. You're just talking to Ryan Grim.
But no, I'm indeed joined today by the one and
only Crystal Ball.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I would be happy to download Ryan's brain, but I
know I'll do my best here.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
So we're going to start with updates this morning, Crystal.
In the case of Kilmara at Brego Garcia, we have
a lot to get to that happened over the last
twenty four hours. We're going to talk a little bit
about some of the movement in the markets and developments
in the trade war, also development in potentially an upcoming
hot war. Hopefully not, but Iran intentions continue to escalate

(01:12):
with Iran. There are so there were some moves taken
here in DC towards Trump administration officials who may not
be on board with the administration's plan just yesterday, who
ended up on administrative leave.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Will dive into all of that, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
The story of the IVY leagues in the second Trump
administration is heating up. Harvard is now pushing back on
Donald Trump, and you will be shocked to learn that
the Dems are in disarray.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Dare I say, maybe I don't know there? Yeah, I mean, yes,
they're always in disarry. But there's some interesting emerging data
about how, first of all, the Trump two point zero
era plus sort of centrist capitulation has really shifted the
Democratic base both against their leadership and also for the

(02:02):
first time that I can certainly recall, a majority are
saying they actually want the party to be more progressive,
and AOC is, according to one new poll, really rising
in the esteem the Democratic base as like an actual
potential national leader. So a lot of shifts happening there.
And then we have Brian Goldstone on written a really
important Wroten. Oh, this is going to be a great show,

(02:25):
written a really important new book about you know, we
talk so much about the working poor. He digs into
the working homeless, which is increasingly a reality. People who
are doing everything they can, working full time, but because
housing and rent is so expensive, they still cannot afford

(02:46):
a home. And he specifically tells the story of a
number of families in and around Atlanta. So I'm really
looking forward to talking to him about this because obviously
housing is just a central issue to everyone in the
entire country.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that as well. Crystal.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Let's start with developments in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Yesterday,
the judge in that deportation case said that she was
going to demand information from the government. Judge quote, we
have to give process to both sides, but we're going
to move There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or
grand standing. Now, we have a clip here of Abrego

(03:22):
Garcia's wife speaking ahead of the hearing that happened yesterday
in Green Belt Maryland, so actually not too far from Washington, DC.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
We can go ahead and roll this clip. It's a one.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
You will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive, Kilmar.
If you can hear me, stay strong. God hasn't forgot
her about you. Our children are asking when would you

(03:55):
come home? And I pray for the day I tell
them the time and date that you'll return. As we
continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, Whoshia.
I had been here leading our Easter prayers. Instead, I
find myself leading with the Trump administration and the Bugel

(04:20):
administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.
Our family is torn apart during the scary time, and
our children's missed their dad so much so.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Crystal at the district judge in this case, ordered administration
officials I'm reading from NBC News here to quote turn
over evidence of their efforts to help bring him back
to the US, and she first ordered them to quote
facilitate his return, saying the government had not shown her
anything of note on that front. I've got nothing, she said,
I've gotten no real response and no real legal justification

(04:58):
for not answering, adding that if the admin is not
going to answer questions quote, then justify why that's what
we do in this house. And many people read that
as a sign that she was waiting weighing contempt charges
in this case, which would get incredibly interesting. It's already
quite an interesting case, but that would make it even
more interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, So just to as a refresher for people, I know,
you guys probably know already some of the contours of
this case. And we actually, Emily, you and I and
Ryan had a chance to interview one of his lawyers
and get some of the specifics about the timeline.

Speaker 6 (05:30):
Of how all of this ultimately unfolded.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
But the Trump administration at least initially admitted that this
was an error. He had a court order saying you
cannot deport this man to El Salvador, and they deported
him to El Salvador and specifically do this notorious torture
dungeon in El Salvador. So they acknowledged that they had
made a mistake, both in court filings and also in
their presentation in court. And their position was we screwed up,

(05:57):
but we're not going to do anything about it.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
You can't make us and.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's been their official position now over the past several days,
led by Stephen Miller, they are now reversing course and
claiming that no, actually this wasn't a mistake.

Speaker 6 (06:13):
This is the place where he should be.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
So they've had a rhetorical shift, but in terms of
their court posture, the things that they said previously and
attested to previously remain that this was a clear cut
error that he had in order barring his removal to
El Salvador, and the administration screwed up when they sent
him to this torture dungeon. So now where we are

(06:38):
is the Supreme Court says you have to facilitate his return.
They say, we want a clarification on this term effectuate
that came from the District Court because it could potentially
conflict with the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive So
we want a clarification there. The district court judge said,

(06:59):
you know, just facilitates good enough. I'm just going to
take that word effectuate out. Then she ordered the government
to on a daily basis, provide an update about his
well being and status and about every step they are
taking to facilitate his return. The Trump administration has at

(07:20):
this point done nothing to facilitate the return those filings
which are supposed to come in I believe at five
pm every day. They've been late with them. They have
not been sufficient in terms of what they are supposed
to provide. They frequently know. One of them just said, like,
he's alive and he's in the sovereign custody of l Salvador. Basically,
so this judge has been for a little while now

(07:43):
sort of building a case for potential contempt is certainly
what it looks like. And if we put a five
up on the screen, this is the headline from Politico.
Yesterday's hearing really was kind of a coming to a head,
kind of a moment after Trump had hosted Kelly himself
in the White House and they played this little game
with Trump saying I can't bring him back, and but

(08:03):
Kelly saying, oh well, I don't can't release him.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
Both of them.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Acting like they're powerless, which obviously is utterly absurd. Politico says,
the judge is now launching an inquiry into the Trump
administration's refusal to seek the return of this wrongly deported man. Again,
this is really directly in convention of a nine to
zero Supreme Court ruling, saying you have to help to
facilitate this man's return. And so what the judge is

(08:29):
saying is, Okay, you've got two weeks. We are launching
an intensive investigation. She even said, cancel your vacation plans.
I don't want any messing around, no gamesmanship. She's giving
the the uh, She's giving them a chance to depose
the government witnesses, people who have specific knowledge, to get

(08:49):
them specifically on the record about what they know. And
then it does seem like potentially this is building up
to a finding of contempt. You know, we have had
many instances at this point, Emily of this administration either
really taking liberties with how they're interpreting judgments, with trying

(09:10):
to escape by of not really complying with judicial orders
but giving themselves some sort of rhetorical cover. And I
think we've all been wondering when does this come to
a point where there is a direct clash between the
courts and between the Trump administration, And I think this
is the case that is heading to that point. The

(09:30):
last thing I said, I'll say, and this is going
on a bit of a tangent, but the reason this
case is important is because and the reason why the
administration is fighting so hard on this case is because
the moment you open the door to being able to
bring people back from that prison, then it ruins their

(09:51):
plan to be able to send people there whoever they want,
including apparently American citizens, with no due process. If the
courts have any sort of say over what happens in
that prison, then it screws up what they have been
wanting to do, which is to use the Alien Enemies
Act and whatever provisions potentially the insurrection or whatever they

(10:12):
want to do with regard to US citizens, where they
feel like, if we can just get them on the
planes fast enough, then we don't have to deal with
the court system. We don't have to go through due process,
they don't get to have their say in court, and
we can just say, oopsie, they're already there. There's nothing
we can do. The moment that you are able to
bring kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States and

(10:34):
they are forced to do that, that plan is completely undermined,
which underscores that even though you know, we've talked a
lot about the specifics of the case, the specifics of
the case certainly matter. All that is important, but this
is about much more than this one man. And it truly,
especially with Trump out there talking about the quote unquote homegrowns,
truly does have direct implications for the entire population, citizen

(10:58):
and non.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Well, let's get to that clip. Actually, control room, I'm
going to go out of order, but this is a four.
It was from an interview that Donald Trump, or at
least aired yesterday evening on Fox and Notesius with Rachel
Kipo Stuffy.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
So here's Donald Trump a four. Could we use it
for violent criminals? Our own violent criminals.

Speaker 7 (11:18):
I call them homegrown criminals. I mean the ones that
grew up and something went wrong and they hit people
over the head with a baseball bat. We have and
pushed people into subways just before the train gets there,
like you see happening. Sometimes we are looking into it
and we want to do it.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
I would love to do that. So to your point, Crystal,
that is rather chilling.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I'm not quite sure how the Trump administration envisions that
process or that execution, but something that we will obviously
be keeping an eye on. And I want to play
this clip of Caroline Levitt as we transition into how
Democrats are now mounting a response. This is a three
Carolyn Levett Yesterday's White House Press briefing addressing many questions

(12:05):
on the case of Abrigo Garcia, still going.

Speaker 8 (12:07):
Off the Alfabador questions.

Speaker 9 (12:09):
Yesterday in the Oval Office, administration officials made it very
clear that Al Salvador is responsible for mister Abrido Garcia.
Yet Al Salvador's president said, we're not going to do.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Anything with him.

Speaker 8 (12:19):
So my question is who is responsible for this man
and where he's going.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
To end up.

Speaker 10 (12:24):
Well, No, first of all, President Bukelli said that he
is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into
the United States of America as many in this room
in the Democrat Party seemingly want him to do. Abrago
Garcia was a foreign terrorist. He is an MS thirteen
gang member, He was engaged in human trafficking.

Speaker 11 (12:45):
He illegally came into our country.

Speaker 10 (12:47):
And so deporting him back to El Salvador was always
going to be the end result.

Speaker 11 (12:53):
There is never going.

Speaker 10 (12:54):
To be a world in which this is an individual
who's going to live a peaceful life in Maryland because
he is a foreign terrorist MS thirteen gang member. Not
only have we confirmed that President Bukelly yesterday in the
Oval Office confirmed that as well, so he went back
to his home country where he will face consequences for
his gang affiliation and his engagement in human trafficking. I'm

(13:16):
not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone
in the media to understand.

Speaker 11 (13:20):
And it's appalling, truly appalling that there has.

Speaker 10 (13:23):
Been so much time covering this alleged human trafficker and
this gang member MS thirteen gang member.

Speaker 11 (13:34):
It's truly striking to me.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
So Crystal, I just this case study. The Trump administration
picked the dumbest possible fight as it's trying to do
mass deportations because.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
An I think from your perspective, there's.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Maybe strategy in it about what they can do with
deportations to Al Salvador in particular. But it is founding
how stupid this particular case study is. There are, according
to the New York Times, there were like eight million
net new migrants into this country over the course of
the Biden administration. That is the population of multiple states

(14:08):
put together. And their case studies are kilmar Abrego Garcia.
They have very little evidence that he actually is MS thirteen,
and there were also legal processes in place that they
did not properly deal with and you have the other
alleged trend Aragua members, the Venezuelan barber et cetera, as

(14:29):
Dropsite has reported, and more down in Al Salvador as well,
and they're trying to do mass deportations, but they keep
stumbling into the dumbest possible fights, not just for a
media perspective, but also for the actual substance of doing
these policies. The execution has really been disaster, and it's

(14:53):
just like unbelievable how poorly they've handled this situation. It's
a real like when you're looking back in the last
four years of the Biden administration. For the Trump administration,
this is a slam dunk. And I think that's almost
hurt them because they came into this with so much
confidence and hubrious and political capital that they've just wasted

(15:15):
it by not handling these legal processes carefully enough, because
they thought, ah, it won't matter. People just want others gone,
so it'll be like a cool Libs on the Libs
moment to send people down to bu Calae. Now as
we transition to Democrats, I want to.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Let me just let me just say, look, I'm sorry,
these people are fascists. They want to be able to
ship whoever they want to a torture dungeon for life.
The entire purpose of that prison is so that people
never leave, never leave. You're talking about this man who
Caroline Lovitt says alleged human traffic. There is zero evidence

(15:54):
of human trafficking. No one has ever said that they
will just make shit up MS thirteen. Bullshit is because
he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. That's what we're
talking about here. We learned about a nineteen year old
who didn't even have a tattoo, who I said, this
is the wrong guy. Didn't matter. He is now there
being tortured in this prison for life. And their position

(16:18):
is we don't care. It's not that they genuinely think
these are gang members and they're no. The point is
to prove they can send anyone you, me, your family,
your brother, That is the point. So yes, it's a strategy,
and that's why this fight is so important, because number one,

(16:41):
you should care about this man who does not deserve this.
I mean very few people do deserve to be locked
in this dungeon, which is rife with human rights abuses.

Speaker 6 (16:50):
You barely get fed.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's like sixty people in a cell, no mattresses, no blankets,
no time outside, even none life. That's what they have
sent these people to do. And again, yes, there was
a significant backlash against the Biden administration immigration policies, but

(17:12):
when you ask people even more specific questions about like, hey,
should we depoor people who've been here for ten years
and have no criminal record, they're like no. But they
were convinced that the immigrant population was just rife with
all sorts of criminals. And that's the other thing with
this policy that the reason why they can't send off
the worst of the worst is because, yeah, of course

(17:34):
there are some number of undocumented immigrants who are criminals,
much less than the native born population, and so it's
not so easy to round up planeloads of criminals to
make your big statement.

Speaker 6 (17:45):
So what do they do instead?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
They round up the gay barber, They round up this
nineteen year old who's done nothing wrong. They round up
Kilmar Abrego Garcia who has a court order saying you
cannot do this, and then they ship them off before
anyone has a chance to say, well are these gang members?

Speaker 6 (18:01):
Did they commit any crimes?

Speaker 2 (18:02):
We now know ninety percent of the people that they
sent committed no crimes ninety percent. So that's I want
to be really clear about what we're dealing with here.
It's not an optics problem, it's not a strategy problem.
It is an authoritarian fascism problem. That's that's what it is.
And so when Trump is out here saying the homegrowns

(18:26):
are next, you know again they're actually When they've pulled
even on criminal American citizens being sent to this torture dungeon,
people have said no, I'm no, no way.

Speaker 6 (18:37):
Like, why would we do that?

Speaker 2 (18:39):
But there is no reason you should have any confidence
that this administration would truly send the quote unquote worst
of the worst. Their worst of the worst is Andre
the gay makeup artist who was applying for asylum. That's
their definition of the worst of the worst. We know
the way that they're expanding the definition of terrorism to
include people who dare say the wrong thing about Israel,

(19:00):
people who harbor ill sentiment against Tesla's, people who go
to hands off protest to push back against the insanity
that they see unfolding in their country. That's who they
want to use these powers against. To transition to what
the Democrats are doing and why they've finally somewhat woken up.
You've got Chris van Holland, who's the Senator from Maryland,

(19:23):
and kil Marra Brego Garstia, of course was living in Maryland,
and he said, you know what, I'm going to El
Salvador to Apparently today, I'm going to El Salvador and
I'm going to try to figure out what is going on.
I'm going to try to get access to him. I'm
going to try to talk to you diplomats or if
he can, the president of El Salvador himself. There are
other efforts for other politicians to be able to go

(19:44):
because they finally realized that this isn't this is part
of a broader project. This is not just about this
one man. And guess what the people are on your side.
There is the when you ask people, do you want
to and send to a torture dungeon an innocent man
because of an ad ministry of error and never get

(20:05):
him back. Guess what you're going to be on the
right side of those politics. Let's take a listen a
six to chrispin Holland.

Speaker 12 (20:10):
I saw the comments of President ou Kayley and I
look forward to meeting with them. I've requested to meet
with him. I reached out to the ambassador here to
ask to meet while he's here, but I've also made
clear if we can't meet here, I do intend to
go to El Salvador to discuss the release of this
individual who is illegally detained. First President Trump could have

(20:31):
just said, you know, bring him home. Of course, he
could have done that, but this is an administration that
has lied about mister Brago Garcia, right, the Vice President
the United States tweeted out that he had a criminal record.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
That was a lie.

Speaker 12 (20:45):
They're just lying. They've gotten caughtline, they don't want to
admit it, and they have an obligation to bring him home.
But I will say the President of El Salvador should
not now take it upon himself to say that he
is detaining him for one more day, because that is kidnapping.
I understand that the Attorney General said that we would

(21:07):
provide a plane to bring him home. So all the
President of Al Salvador has to do now is hand
over and release an innocent man and let him come
home to his family.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
And oh, go ahead, Chrysal.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
I was just going to say, and of course, if
Trump asked b. Kelly, we need this guy back. He
would be back.

Speaker 6 (21:24):
If b.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Kelly went to the prison that he runs under a
state of exception and said we need this guy, of
course he would.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
Be able to get this guy back.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
There were some women who we tried to send to
in a few individuals who are from other Central American countries,
and but Kelly said, no, we can't take women. We
can't take these other people. He's worried about his relationship
with these other Central and South American countries, so he
sent them back as well. Like they're playing this game

(21:52):
as if we're idiots and we can't see what's going
on here.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
So we can put the next element up on the screen.
Other Democrats are doing what Van Holland is doing a
horribly including Senator Corey Booker and planning trips down to
Al Salvador. Trying to plan trips down to Al Salvador.
This is according to a new report from Axios. Meanwhile,
the Trump administration, if we put a seven up on
the screen, continues to to your point, Crystal Lean very

(22:18):
firmly into this case.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Vice President J.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
D Vance was mixing it up with actually zed Jlaanni
on X yesterday, going.

Speaker 6 (22:26):
Back Richard Hannanian too. I think, oh, really.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Was he tweeting Hanani? Oh my goodness, Okay, he was.
He was definitely tweeting back and forth with Zed. In
this particular exchange, Zed was making the point he said,
why do you say berger Garcia has no legal right
to be here when the Supreme Court's at the opposite
nine to zero. And that was in response to JD saying,

(22:49):
are you proposing that we invade This is to Michel Jellette,
we invade Al Salvador to retrieve a gang member with
no legal right to be in our country. Where in
the Supreme Court's decision does it require us to do that?

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Now?

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Obviously, Crystal bou Kelly is an ally of this administration.
Bu Kelly was sitting next to them in the Oval
office just twenty four hours before that tweet was posted,
and would obviously help them facilitate or effectuate the return
of Abrego Garcia to the United States. But the administration
is very much leaning into this idea that this is

(23:23):
a guy MS thirteen.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
He can be sent anywhere.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
And I just want to say the point that you
were making about El Salvador in particular, it is a
this is going to be an enormous problem I think
for the right in the next couple of years, this
relationship with Boukele this particular prison, because a lot of
Republicans Democrats are now making the truck down to El

(23:48):
Salvador or trying to a lot of Republicans have gone
with Christinome. Republican members of Congress have gone and done
photo ops inside of that prison. They have done their
photo ops with Nahebukel. That is anti American. What is
happening in that prison is anti American. And I get

(24:08):
that other countries are not accepting their own citizens, and
I think.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
That is genuinely a problem. I agree with JD.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Vance and Donald Trump on I think that is genuinely
a problem. Sending them to dungeons in El Salvador is
not actually going to long term fly with the public.
If you are also ignoring the legal process is that
are in place when people have done things, and this
is what Biden I mean.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Some of this is through Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Abrado Garcia applied for asylum, and I think he actually
applied for asylum during the Trump administration. When he first applied,
I think it was twenty nineteen but there are a
lot of people because these pathways were open up to
the Biden administration, and that means the Trump administration has
to deal with that. It sucks and it's not fair
in every case, but it does mean that we have
legal processes in place where you do have to deal

(24:57):
with those things. Otherwise, to your point, Crystal, everyone else's
rights get eroded down the line. And the flippancy is
I mean, it has some conservatives. Andy McCarthy is one,
Rod Dreher is another, like really freaked out by what
they're seeing from the Trump administration more than I Honestly,

(25:18):
I think this is more than I've seen on another
issue in the second Trump administration. It's been upsetting to
some people on the right. The only other thing I'll add, though,
is Democrats need to be really careful because as important
as I think this is, it's going to make it
look like they got all up in arms about one

(25:38):
guy who did legitimately enter the country illegally when net
eight million people came into the country. They need to
play this very very carefully. Under the Biden administration, often
with their support, So I do think they have to
be careful with how they approach going to Al Salvador,
which I think, by the way, is legitimately a brave
thing to do, given how Bugle is likely to try them.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
And respect on that part.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
But they with their own constituents, I mean, Democrats were
unhappy with the Biden administration and immigration policies, so they
do need to play that pretty carefully.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I think some of that is overstated because, like I said, yes,
if you ask people, okay, should we do mass deportation,
there's still you know, somewhat of a consensus there. If
you ask them any of the specifics, the view is
very different, and no, they are not on board with
shipping random innocent people to this torture dungeon for life.
So but also, frankly, even if the politics were bad,

(26:35):
like sometimes you have to fight. Sometimes it's important, sometimes
you have to make the case.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
You know this, Yeah, I think they should have done
that during Biden. I genuinely think that's on the substance.
They should have done that during the Biden administration, done
what they should have taken what was happening at the border.
Much more seriously, during the Biden ad ministries, I've been
saying Republicans did it for the right reason. But I mean,
I think it was pretty obvious there was something DISASTERUS.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Well.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I mean, that's a whole other conversation because in my view,
what Democrats did is completely capitulate to the right wing
immigration hawk framing in a way that was utterly disastrous.
Now I think there is likely to be a huge
backlash in the other direction. I mean, immigration expansion has
ever been more popular than it was during the first

(27:18):
Trump administration because people were disgusted with the tactics that
he was using then and it is nothing compared to
what they're doing now. And also the very clear with
Trump talking about homegrowns, very clear implication that US citizens
are going to be next. So last thing, just with

(27:39):
regard to the specifics of Abrego Garcia, if we could
put a eight up on the screen, just in terms
of their supposed proof that he's some hardened MS thirteen
gang member. Apparently the cop who was the person who
initially claimed that he had alleged MS thirteen membership based
on some sketchy confidential informant that are you know, they're

(28:00):
known to be not particularly reliable. He was fired and
indicted like weeks later after making this claim for sharing
case info with a sex worker, and the only other
evidence that they have that and by the way, the
confidential informant claim that he was part of MS thirteen
in a part of the country in New York where
he doesn't live and like has you know, rarely, if

(28:24):
ever even been to. And then the only other piece
of evidence they have is that he was wearing a
Chicago bulls hat.

Speaker 6 (28:30):
So that's what.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
We're talking about. And then when Caroline Love it's like, oh,
he's a human trafficker. No one has ever said that.
That is completely utterly made up false. So, you know,
I think Democrats have to fight on this issue both
you know, I do think they're on solid political ground.
But even if they're not, Like, you cannot create a
massive loophole in the law that allows the Trump administration

(28:54):
to disappear whoever they want, whenever they want, and be
able to uphold this and we can can't do anything
once they're there.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
That's that when it's not good for anyone.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
I mean, that's the whenever civil liberties are threatened, it's
you know, always the point. You can tell if people
are principal defenders of civil liberty by how vehemently they
defend due process when their enemy's due process is threatened.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
And so yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Mean it could very well end up being used by
a democratic administration down the road if we slide fully
into Banana Republicanism in a way that hurts Republicans, in
a way that hurts conservatives, Christians, whatever. You can see
how it would. Those standards can can very easily slip.
So we have to before we run on this, Crystal,
we have to get the next element up on the screen.

Speaker 6 (29:41):
The way we found this.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Love this Christine Nome.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
It's sort of a funny image if you're watching this.
The Daily Beasts made a funny image to go along
with that of Christy Noman, all of her outfits, kind
of treating herself like a Barbie. And the Daily Beast writes,
Ice Barbie keeps creating all kinds of headaches for homeland security.
But actually there was a wash Journal is a long
while street journal story yesterday that indicated Christy Nomes peers

(30:06):
are not pleased with her. They think that she, according
to this report in the Journal, is harming their efforts
actually to try and do mass deportations. And Crystal, I
think what this highlights is there are real fractures within
the administration because doing these mass deportations in a way
that is actually mass if you're if you're actually going

(30:29):
to hit the targets that the Trump administration promised to do,
if you are going to do it without causing these
protracted legal battles where even the right is divided on
how legally or how legally dubious your track is in
that case, and if you're also going to do it
in a way that is politically.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
Going well, they are not doing that right now.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
There's a lot of internal consternation about how ably this
administration is approaching it. And it looks like Christy No
is going to be taking some arrows Charity is in
the Wall Street Journal, But this could bubble to the
surface for her in a rather problematic way going forward
that can make all of those bouquele photo ops and

(31:13):
outfits look really foolish.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, I mean, she's playing dress up like it's preposterous.
She's just making herself look utterly ridiculous. Did you see
the video where her like big ass gun was like
pointed at some at the dude next to HER's head
and he like takes a look at where her gun
is pointed and like backs up sort of subtly. I mean,
it's just she's a ridiculous person. I mean the Barbie

(31:37):
Moniker is actually accurate here because she has all these
little like dress up outfits she's taking here herself, swapping
in you know, Oh, she's doing her coastguard thing. She's
doing her She's got her ice flat jacket on. I
mean she had like a freaking ice like the big
bulletproof vest on in Manhattan, like the streets of New
York City, Like, girl, where do you think you are?

(31:58):
It's in with the full extension and the full eyelashes
and the whole bit. And it's also like, lady, you're
like fifty something years old. You know, it's I don't know,
the whole thing is just it is just a part
of a grotesque spectacle to me. So I'm glad at
least someone is also noticing and being like, you know what,
this is kind of gross.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
Well, Megan Kelly went after her. That reminds me.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Megan Kelly and some others have started, I think and
Culter have started going after her.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Sarah Palin went after her. Really, so yeah, she's doing
taking some eras.

Speaker 6 (32:29):
What did Megan go after her for the outfits? Really? Yeah,
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
It is.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
It's like embarrassing.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
It really is, like she's a law enforcement officer. It's
starting to look complete. I mean, I shouldn't say its
starting to look it looks completely unseerious and ridiculous. But
I think this is genuinely a problem for the administration
because this was like their big ticket issue that they
can't at well. And the economy. The Trump administration has

(32:56):
some real problems ahead. Let's get to that, because actually,
what we want to say to start with is this
sort of Harry Enton on CNN yesterday talking about some
of the movement for Donald Trump in the in polling
as this trade war has proceeded.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
So let's go ahead and roll b one here.

Speaker 13 (33:15):
Focus in on Independence here, and Independence feel that Donald
Trump has vacated the center of the electric catering to
his base. What are we talking about, Well, let's talk
about the overall net approval ratings. We're going to look
at the worst ever at this point in a presidency.
The old record among Independence for the worst ever was
Donald Trump back in twenty sixteen, a net approval rating
of minus sixteen points. While Donald Trump has broken his

(33:38):
own record here, he now holds, in this particular term,
the worst ever net approval rating at this point in
a presidency among independents. At get this, minus twenty two points,
he is twenty two points underwater with independence. That breaks
the old record that belonged to Trump. He is set
the new record. He is come completely underwater with the

(34:02):
center of the electric k pot.

Speaker 14 (34:03):
And this is overall, this is on all the issues
now focus on specifically on the economy.

Speaker 13 (34:08):
Yeah, let's focus in on the economy, right, what is
driving this overall approval rating for Donald Trump among independents
to go underwater. Let's take a look at the economy,
and let's take a look at Trump's NOTT approval rating
on it. And look at the trend line over just
the last few months. You go back to January, he
was slightly above water a month with independence at plus
one point. Look at this drop, Kate, oh my, minus

(34:31):
twenty nine points. That's a thirty point drop in under
three months of time. What independents are hearing from Donald Trump?
They hate, they hate what they're hearing from Donald Trump,
and they are abandoning him in record numbers.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
And Actually, what the Chiron said behind Harry Eton there,
who I have to imagine is hopped up on ghost
energy every single day. But what the Chiron said, what
is like Sager at the DNC, was that was the
worst for any president, the worst net number with independence
on the economy. And so that drop in three months time, Chris,
I can't remember seeing anything like that. Now, that's huge

(35:10):
on the economy with independence. Now, obviously it's early in
the midterm election cycle. God forbid we even consider that
we may be in the midterm election cycle.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
But those numbers are devastating.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Oh, utterly devastating. And you know, the tariff policy changes
every day, even if tomorrow he's like just kidding, I
made amazing deals and the teriffts are off and we're
back to normal.

Speaker 6 (35:35):
The damage is done.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
You know.

Speaker 6 (35:36):
It does remind me.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Of the drop off that Joe Biden unfortunately had during
while he was doing one of the good things in
his administration, which is withdrawing from Afghanistan, and the negative
media coverage and you know, Americans getting killed and the
chaos of all the Taliban taking back control. Like he
took a hit to his approval and he never recovered
and I do think with Trump, the honeymoon is over. Certainly,

(35:59):
the sense that oh, this is a businessman and he's
going to be good for me economically, et cetera, like
that is that is done, and that has always been
his strength. That has always been the area where he
has performed the best. You know, as much as we
like talked about immigrations role in the in the election,
the economy was the number one issue, inflation in particular,

(36:22):
and people were never really super psyched about the things
he was saying about tariffs, but they he also talked
a lot about I'm going to get prices down, and
they just sort of assumed. I think, like, yeah, you know,
it went pretty well last time, like he knows what
he's doing. We'll do some stuff on the economy that's
going to be good for me. And no, the reality

(36:44):
is that he is instituting this massive terror regime. It
will be if he continues with it, a huge regressive
tax on working class people. Rather than price is going down,
they're going to go up. That is what their you know,
consumers increasingly expect, and huge numbers are already saying that
what he's doing is making them personally financially worse off.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
Now.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
I'm actually right now in the process of drifting modelogue
probably for tomorrow. About as his approval rating falls, I
think you will see more of these sort of authoritarian
tactics that are being deployed with regard right now to immigration,
with regard to crushing descent on college campuses. This ties
into the Harvard conversation that we're going to have as well,
because that's what you know, people who have who are

(37:31):
authoritarians or have authoritarian tendencies, when they're back to into
a corner, they don't back down. I mean, this is
what we saw with Trump with January sixth. He didn't
just say, oh I lost, I guess you know, I
have to peacefully go away.

Speaker 6 (37:41):
No, they crack down.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
They go further in terms of expanding the police state
and crushing descent and using whatever weapons they can against
their ideological enemies too. Yeah, yeah, you know, to make
sure that they are able to hold their grip on
power even as they become less and less popular. And
so I think you know, that's where on the one hand,

(38:07):
the fact that his popularity is diminishing is going to
give him less power with regard to Republican politicians some
of these institutions, like the media and the universities. The
Democrats are starting to like get a little bit of
energy because they can see the way that his popularity
is waning and his plans are being rejected by the public.
But it also enters us into a sort of like

(38:28):
new precarious phase in terms of what his reaction to
that will ultimately be.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Well, and so I think the way we set up
this block is really helpful on this note because as
a sort of anti free trade orthodoxy or like dogma
type person, the question of short term pain was always
going to be part of this picture. And that's sort
of the way the elite set up the system is
that if you ever want to bring us back from

(38:55):
relying entirely for national security purposes for pharmaceutical purposes on
other countries that are on the other side of the world,
there is going to be short term pain. But the
question is how short term that pain is going to
be and if it ever is relieved. And so this
is we can put the next elpant element. I think
I just an elephant up on the screen element up

(39:16):
on the screen, Crystal. This is from Joe Eisenthal, who
was pointing out quote dismal expectations for the economy and
the New York FED survey of regional manufacturers. Basically every
line new orders, employment, et cetera. Is going down, with
the exception of prices received and paid, which are going up,
and then control them. Whenever you're ready, you can put
the next element up on the screen as well. This
is the outlook for new orders from the New York

(39:37):
Fed's regional manufacturers literally hit the lowest level in the
history of the survey. Another Joe Wisenthal post on x
that he highlighted from these New York Fed numbers, and
that gets to crystal whether in this push or pull
there's more that's going to be lost or more that's
going to be gained. So, even if this is a

(39:57):
long term battle, even if we accept that there may
be some short term pain, these numbers over the course
of the first week have been not great for the administration.
They are pointing to deals with like Nvidia and other places,
but it seems like the industrial policy that they want
to couple this with is one going to be codifying

(40:19):
a corporate tax cut, which I will say as annoying
as that is may help with onshoring, but it's not
industrial policy. And then their second part of their industrial
policies just Trump calling up these companies and talking to them.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
So far, that's what it looks like the approach is.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
And you can understand then where these Wisenthal number numbers
are coming from. And let's just get to this element
from NBC News. This is before United Airlines. Here's the headline,
gives two twenty twenty five profit outlooks, calling economy quote
impossible to predict.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
So just the lead of the story.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
United Airlines maintained it's full your forecast on Tuesday, but
took an unusual step of offering second forecast should the
US slip into a recession, calling the economy quote impossible
to predict.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Either way, it expects to turn a profit.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
NBC Rights But says the carrier warned alongside its first
quarter earnings that a recession could drive down profits this year,
but said booking trends are stable, stable for now. And lastly,
Crystal this next element from Newsweek. This is according to
Chinese media. I should add, but this is from Newsweek,
saying that Greenland's foreign minister has set it as seeking

(41:29):
deeper cooperation with China and potentially a free trade agreement,
according to China's state news agency Shinha. So all of
this evidence points to a very if this is a
period of temporary pain, Crystal, it is going to be
an enormous period of temporary pain, and the signs that

(41:50):
there is more onshoring that's going to happen so far
to offset the people who say we are actually going
to bet on Tchin, or we are going to bet
outside of the United States because the United States, you know,
is not a safe haven for us right now. We
don't feel confident that we can make long term investments.

(42:10):
It doesn't make sense supposed to do that. These are
these are not great scigns for the Trump administration.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, well Trump himself said something like, you know, some
of these countries, we may have them pick between US
and China.

Speaker 15 (42:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (42:23):
Yeah, that's not a hard.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Choice if I was running in a country, like why
would you do a deal with this person? He's all
over the place, Like China is rising power. They have
been much more strategic in terms of securing like the
rare earth minerals that they need. Technologically, they are just
as advanced at least. I think that's actually being charitable

(42:45):
to the US at this point as we are, like
they have mass manufacturing capacity. What they have been you know,
reasonable to work with in terms of the Belton Road initiative.

Speaker 6 (42:58):
Why what do we have going for us?

Speaker 4 (43:00):
We just have lots of customers with a lot of
disposed boys to come.

Speaker 6 (43:03):
And that's a real thing.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Like I mean that China has even more customers. Yeah,
just by the numbers, we are, you know, continue to
be per capita wealthier country and no doubt about that.
And you know, I don't want to undersell it, but
you also have a human element to this too, like
Jade Vance going to Europe and you know, tutting them
about their supposedly sensoriues practices, which is legit, except then

(43:26):
he comes back home and they're crushing descent on college
campuses and being way more authoritarian in terms of their
like crackdown on any sort of wrong thing on Israel.
So you know, they haven't exactly endeared themselves to the world.
Not to mention, China is fighting a trade war against us.
We are apparently fighting a trade war against the entire

(43:48):
freaking world. So who do you think has the better.
You know, they can think strategically just about us and
making alliances and trying to you know, isolate us. We're
rapidly isolating our and giving the rest of the world
a very cular choice in terms of what they you know,
what direction they would want to go in. And that's
why Greenland is sort of emblematic here. And you know,

(44:09):
just a couple two other points that I just want
to hone in on. I mean, first of all, even
with the tariffs in their current sort of rolled back state,
we have one hundred and forty five percent terraffs on China.
If you are a big guy, you can pay your
million dollars, you can go to mar A Lago, you
can get your car ount, you can be Charles Schwab

(44:30):
in the White House and happen to be you know,
perfectly timed Trump's announcements, so you can make two point
five billion dollars in a single day, something that Trump
bragged about. If you are your average small to medium
size business which had no choice but to import, usually
from China, you're screwed.

Speaker 6 (44:50):
You are screwed.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
There is no way you can survive one hundred and
forty five percent terraff even if you wanted to bring
manufacturing and build your own factory and do all these things,
you're not getting any help from the government. The tariffs
are they're here, Like, it's not like you have any
sort of runway to be able to figure it out
or raise capital or do any of that. We don't
in many instances even have the specialty skills here. So

(45:14):
you've got to, you know, go over seas to even
bring the people in who would know how to do it.
Like it's it is not possible, it's not possible. Instead,
you're just gonna die. Like your company, your business, your dream,
your life, it's just gonna go under. Yesterday I highlighted
this woman. She's a veteran. She founded this company called
Busy Baby. They make these little mats that you can

(45:36):
that's actually very cool product. You can put it on
the table at the restaurant and you can hook the
baby's like toys onto and so it's clean and the
baby can't throw the toys down on the ground, which
is a constant issue.

Speaker 6 (45:45):
And this thing was taken off. She got to go
on Shark Tank.

Speaker 16 (45:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Her sales were through the roof Walmart and Target came knocking.
But she had to take out alone in order to
finance the expansion into Walmart, and she leveraged her house
in order to get cure those small business loans. And
now so not only is she at risk of losing
her business, she and her dream, which was succeeding and
which is a product that people genuinely liked, she's also

(46:11):
at risk of losing her home. I mean, these are like,
you're messing with people's lives and for what, For what?
The manufacturing index should tell you everything you need to
know about whether this is actually going to bring manufacturing
back Quite the opposite, Quite the opposite, especially if we
end up in recession.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Well, one of the problems with those small businesses as
well is that people are having a harder time getting
in touch with reportedly. I mean, obviously I haven't tried this,
but with the Small Business Administration because of cuts, and that's.

Speaker 4 (46:40):
You know, I think, Crystal. We remember with NAFTA.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
I was I still a lot on an interview with
David Obie recently from like two thousand where he was
talking about he was on CNN and he was talking
about how he supported NAFTA and wto because there were
promises of job training and investment in the communities that
would be really hard hit, And he said, you know,
I regret that because I never saw that stuff happen.

(47:06):
And I think that's a real lesson for the Trump
administration in that there will be casualties. They know that
there will be casualties of this adjustment period if it's
just an adjustment period, by the way, that's assuming it's
an adjustment period.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
And what are they doing to make up for that?

Speaker 3 (47:22):
What are they doing to help the people who set
up their businesses around the pre existing system because it
had existed for years and was the way to turn
a profit, was the way they were told to be
productive members of the American economy, small business owners. I mean,
this is the Republican electorate, by the way, has been

(47:44):
the Republican elector for a really long time. So they
need to tread very very carefully. And there just aren't
a lot of signs that they're taking seriously the need
to augment. Again, this is taking their argument charitably that
this is an adjustment period.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
But even then, even if we give them that the
size that.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
They're augmenting this with serious off ramps for people effective
I just don't see much there at all.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
No, No, I mean there's been some floating of a
bailout for farmers again, which you know he did in
his first administration, but that's it. And you know, I
think these tariffs are less about economics and more about power.
I think Trump likes having the companies coming on bend
and me I think he likes being the person who
has soul control over like the entire freaking global economy,
certainly the national domestic economy. I think that's really what

(48:33):
it's more about. And the last thing I'll say with
regard to like bringing back manufacturing, something I support for
a variety of reasons, both in terms of, you know,
they should be good union jobs. There are certain things
that we should produce here simply because of you know,
national security.

Speaker 6 (48:49):
We all learn this during COVID.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
We learned about the fragility of the supply chain and
the way that put us at rice. Like, I support
all of that, right, but when Trump is talking about
bringing manufacturing, when Lutnik is talking about it too, all
the armies of millions of people or robots screwing in
the little little screws. First of all, Number one, they
a lot of it will be robots. It won't be
human beings. So there's number one, you'll be like, you know,

(49:12):
you'll have some humans to like service the air conditioning
to keep the robots cool. That's the kind of thing
that we're talking about. But number two, to the extent
that you do have human beings. Trump is not talking
about bringing us back to the nineteen fifties, when we
were at the peak of post war manufacturing power, at
a time when somewhere around half of the industrial workforce
was unionized. He wants to take us back to nineteen hundred.

(49:34):
To William McKinley, that's what he talks about all the time.
Guess what that was. That was before you had progressive
era labor reforms. That's before you had even federal child
labor laws. That's before factory jobs were good jobs. That
was much more like think of you know, mord Deckenzian,
think of like you know, Upton Sinclair and the way
workers were treated in you know, in the jungle, think

(49:55):
of the triangle shirtwaist fire. That's the era he want
to bring America back to, where our workers are part
of the global race to the bottom. That's the era
that he envisions, So everyone really needs to be really clear.
There's nothing inherently like good, stable middle class about a

(50:17):
factory job. You have to have unions and labor power
in order to secure both the safety and the wages
and the working conditions to make those jobs good jobs.
They were in the fifties, They honestly at this point
they are not great, especially in the South. You know,
the I saw Matt Burning tweeted out that like Honda

(50:39):
workers in Alabama make less than McDonald's workers in Denmark
because of those labor conditions. And so no one should
fool themselves about the actual era that in his idealized
world he would be returning us to.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
So I went and looked at this yesterday, just before
we move on.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
It is interesting the bien Industrial Policy brought manufacturing jobs
back to red states with right to work laws overwhelmingly,
And if you look at the map, it's like basically
not just red states, but it's states like swing states
even that of right to work laws, including Michigan until
twenty twenty four when that was repealed. So it's really

(51:17):
like the Trump administration wanting to be pro labor, pro
middle class. There's a complicated puzzle that needs to be
put in place. And again we're what two weeks into
the liberation era, but there's just the all of the
energy right now is to fix this tax bill and

(51:37):
to figure out this reconciliation bill, which is tax policy basically,
and I mean that'll probably haven't expanded child tax credit,
but that's about it when it comes to, you know,
like relief for middle class, working class families, and there
are just there's not a lot of policy.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
Momentum at all.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
And again maybe that'll change, but there's not a ton
of evidence of that right now. Just ask someone on
the right. I just don't see a lot of energy
on that right now.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
Crystal.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
We should play this Bill Burr clip because it's really something. Yeah,
here's Bill Burr on his podcast. David Sarota actually pointed
this clip out. We can go ahead and roll B six.
Bill Burr addressing the economy over the course of the
last couple of weeks.

Speaker 17 (52:26):
This whole idea that other countries stole our jobs, like
our factory jobs and all that. As far as I remember, that's.

Speaker 18 (52:35):
Not the case.

Speaker 17 (52:37):
There's a little quick history from someone who doesn't read
a lot in the eighteen hundreds during the what was
that period called the Industrial Revolution. They had like kids
working in factories like fucking twelve fourteen hour days, like
four or five year old kids, in dangerous situations, and
people weren't making any money and the one guy who

(52:58):
owned the factory was keeping all the money. The working
man finally has enough, they start organizing unions. The robber barons,
hire police, the army, all of these people to come
in and kill these people in riots, crack their skulls,
do unbelievable sorts of damage to them to try and

(53:18):
force them to go back to work for sweatshop wages.
These people died, were maimed, catastrophic fucking injuries so that
we could have a decent wage in this country. And
they had unions and all of that. So then there
was like a forty to fifty year period where being

(53:39):
a middle class person, middle class white person, was the dream.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
It was.

Speaker 17 (53:44):
Eventually, these corporations just got sick of dealing with these
unions and they're hard nosed negotiating all that, and then
they just said, well, fuck you, then you will here.
You don't keep your union, keep your factory, we're leaving.
And they took their factories out side of the US
and went back to eighteen hundred wages. What the fuck

(54:05):
you should be making those things here? And then what
the corporate guy said was, well, you know, we would
make sneakers here, but if to pay the American work
and everything, the sneakers would then instead of costing fifty bucks,
they now cost seven hundred. And I was always thinking
why it would cost seven on a buy? I can't

(54:26):
afford that.

Speaker 16 (54:27):
And what it really was was they weren't going to
lose the profit of sweatshop labor, so if they came
back to America, we weren't going to work for that,
so and they weren't going to take They weren't going
to lose the profit of sweatshop labor, so they were
going to pass it on to the consumer.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
You's gonna see why Bilberg's popular. Crystal.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yes, he needs to run for president. I'm not even kidding, Like,
have you heard anyone else, any Democratic politician explain it
as well as him?

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Like we were talking yesterday, and you made such a
good point that I'm producer Griffin I think mentioned this
as well, that he just sounds like a normal guy,
which is something that most like left class critics don't right.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Said is he doesn't come off as soy.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Yes, I was going to leave that for someone else
to say, but what if if we're.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
Attributing it to producer Griffin.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yes, and I think that's actually very well said, because
it's the problem. We're going to run a James Carvell
clip later in the show. But I do think that
James Carvell was right about that. Nina Turner has said
this too. The way democrats talk because so many have
been sort of funneled through academia, is really academic. It's
it's quoted in a way that I don't want to

(55:40):
say feminine because it's not all feminine, but it comes
across as like very like it.

Speaker 6 (55:45):
Doesn't always connect.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah, that says the thing is it just doesn't frequently
does not connect. No, he's got a gift for that,
and he's one hundred percent right. You know, the the
Trump framing is like all these countries stole are workers.
No politicians here, collaborate with corporations to create this global
race to the bottom.

Speaker 6 (56:04):
That's what it is.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
And so you know, the left, people like Bernie Sanders,
who has been extremely consistent, extremely prescient about the impact
of NAFTA, the impact of PNTR. It's not that they're
opposed to trade. They're opposed to trade. That creates a
race to the bottom where you are just you know,
where you aren't dealing with labor standards, you aren't dealing
with wages, and so of course capitalists are going to

(56:28):
search for the lowest paid labor force they can possibly
find so that they can endlessly juice their profits. Like
that is the system that we have. And so you know,
Bill Burr I think explains it really perfectly there. In
the post war period, the US in a lot of
ways was kind of like the only game in town.
So we benefit of from this unique period of prosperity.

(56:52):
And then once you get into the neoliberal era and
they're stripping away of union rights and there there's you know,
bad trade deals like NAFTA, like you know, then the
opening up fully of trade to China. Once you have
those deals and you create the global race to the bottom,
that's you know, that's how you end up with the

(57:13):
dynamic that we have now. And to go back to
my earlier point, Trump doesn't want to reverse those trends.
He just wants to get American workers back into that
global race to the bottom. Right, he wants them to
also or robots, right, also participate in that global race
at the bottom. And we know that because you know,
there's relentless attacks on unions from this administration. The Natural

(57:36):
Labor Relations Board has been gutted as effectively without a quorum,
unable to operate. That's been a lifelong project and direction
for him. He's always been a union buster, we see
with regard to like the labor labor standards, you know,
just like basic workplace safety and stuff. Even in industries
where Trump has a particular affinity, like for example, with

(57:57):
coal miners, they are completely destroyed the health and safety
measures for coal miners already an extremely dangerous job where
younger and younger men are getting an incredibly virulent form
of black lung. The dog just stripping that away, and
dog just stripping the ability of the government to be
able to regulate any big business so that even without

(58:20):
changing the law, they can kind of sort of go
back to when you could have your sweatshop and you
could lock people in and you could pay them whatever
wage you wanted, and you could get away with it.
So when you couple the tariffs with the direction of Doge.
That's the picture that you ultimately get. And then you
add to that the other piece that Bill Burr talked about,

(58:41):
which is how somehow these billionaires keep being in a
position to make lots of money on these big market swings.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he
had to say about that.

Speaker 17 (58:50):
And I don't understand what that whole fucking thing was,
But all I know is once again the market tanked,
and a bunch of rich people, right before they turned
it back on again, went in and made a ridiculous
amount of money and they're all high fiving.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
With each other.

Speaker 17 (59:05):
And I don't know. This guy told me something a
long time ago.

Speaker 18 (59:10):
He says, when you.

Speaker 17 (59:11):
Watch the stock market and they go like up two
billion dollars was lost today, He's like, money isn't lost,
Like where did it go? That's just how they frame it.
It isn't lost. It changes hands. All right, that's enough
of that shit.

Speaker 6 (59:28):
Well, and obviously go ahead him.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Well, I was just going to say, I mean, I
do think there are elements of the Trump administration actually,
even thank Donald Trump himself, who thinks that he is
somehow like the savior of the American working class and
all of this, and like genuinely believes that what's happening
is going in that direction. The problem is his administration
is infiltrated by billionaires and now a lot of influence

(59:52):
from Silicon Valley and out the Wall Street for example,
and to one extent, you can look at what he
did with the tariffs and all Street freaked out and
say he just gave them the middle finger. The ten
percent global tariff is still giving Wall Street the middle finger.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
They absolutely hate that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
The huge China tariffs, they absolutely hate that. But in
a way it also does put them in the driver's seat.
And that's the bond market is what made him. People
were getting quoe yippie, is what made him walk back.
And again he hasn't walked everything all the way back.
We still that massive ten percent global tariff and the
massive tariffs on China. Nobody in the business community wanted that.

(01:00:31):
But what happens next is really critical for ver Donald
Trump and for people in the administration who want to
genuinely it's people on the right who say, these are
our voters now, and you let's just attribute to them
political motivations and say, we are going to lose these
voters back to Democrats. We're talking about that later in
the show. How Dems have taken their fighting the oligarchy

(01:00:52):
tour to really really big audiences, increasingly big audiences. So
even if they're politically motivated and they look at that,
you have to then step back and say, well, why
is uh Howard Lutnik behind the scenes the operator here?

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Why that's interesting? He seems to be the one that's
making the deals. Didn't he just get off the street?
Has he been a Washington the line?

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Yeah, well, and I mean it wasn't infiltrated by billionaires.
Trump is himself a billionaire and he brought a bunch
of billionaires to be around him. I mean, the terror
policy is clearly all him.

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
Clearly definitely, it is absolutely all him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, and his that you know, Scott Besten is like
putting his game face on and going out and defending it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:34):
And that's his job is to be a sick of fan.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
That's all these people's jobs, to be a sick of
fan and go out and defend whatever the mad king does.
But there's no doubt the like Tariff, some penguins and
this ridiculous formula and the whole chaos of the whole
situation like that is all one Trump And where I
thought you were going with the like them being in
the driver's seat is they're in the driver's seat because
if you are a well connected CEO oligarch, you get

(01:01:58):
to be the one that's you know, the auto part EXE,
like this is really a problem for us. Or you
could be in Nvidia and get your examiner, or you
could be iPhone. I mean think about this, like these
high tech components that actually we really should have and
under the Biden administration did have some concerted policy industrial
policy to reshore here and manufacture here.

Speaker 6 (01:02:21):
Those are the pieces that are getting the exemptions.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Meanwhile, like you know this lady's busy baby Matt, American
consumers just will not be allowed to buy it. She's
gonna look for markets all around the world to sell
her product because not only could she not make it here,
she won't be able to sell it here because of
one hundred and forty five percent tariff yep, so people.

Speaker 15 (01:02:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yeah, and then on the insider trading piece, like not
only did you have the Charles Schwab and some other
billionaires there the day that Trump sends the market soaring
with a single tweet and he brags about Charles Schwab
making two point five billion dollars on the day. Real
main Street, you know main Street over Wall Street, guys right.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
Posts good time to buy.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
I guess who can make the argument that that's actually
very egalitarian.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
But yeah, what a day that was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
And then and then you know, we'll look at Marjorie
Taylor Green bought a bunch of stock on the day,
and you just like, okay, when you and this is
the problem with having one person in sole control of
this massive economic web, nuclear weapon, you single handedly can
move the market up and down in huge ways. And

(01:03:25):
so then it's okay, well, who knew you were going
to do that instead to profit? And we know that
this administration, you know, Trump's got his hitcoin and whatever
and his development properties all around the world, like they
are extraordinarily corrupt, nakedly corrupt. So I would be shocked
if people weren't out there trading and making billions based
on these like monarchical announcements that are coming down on

(01:03:46):
high on a day to day basis. Now some people
are theorizing that's the whole point of the policy. I'm
not there, and I think the whole point of the
policy is more about Trump's power, which I guess is
like sort of related to that. But I would be
shocked if there weren't insiders who were trading based on
knowing like ten minutes ahead of time, an hour ahead

(01:04:07):
of time, what was coming down, because you know, that's
them of this administration, that's what they do well.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
And Trump gave everyone cover with his good time to
buy post on true Social because it'll be and they
knew that. I mean, if you're somebody who's really in
the trading on this, like, it'll be impossible, impossible to
prove that this was motivated by inside knowledge because it'll
be impossible to disentangle. Well, here's this vague true Social
post from the president. I just had the sense that

(01:04:34):
when he posted that it really was a good time
to buy, or it really was there got a bunch.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
There were a bunch of purchases though, betting on the
markets to go up before like ten minutes before that
post even dropped.

Speaker 6 (01:04:47):
But you're right, I mean, are they going to be
able to track it back?

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Also, we're relying on Trump's sec to track this out, like,
come on, they're going to get away with whatever they
want to get away with, but everyone should be clear
about while you know, small business owners are getting screwed
and consumers are worried are having to dye potatoes because
eggs are too expensive, and they're worried about prices, et cetera.
While all of that is going on, Charles Schwab's making

(01:05:12):
two point five billion dollars somehow, somehow, and he just
happens to be at the White House one day.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Well, and all the spokespeople for this policy and the administration,
and this is for all of the dunking on Peter Navarro,
who is genuinely an odd man. There are other spokespeople
are billionaires, are multi multimillionaires, and increasingly when I mean
Trump is one thing, he's obviously like a singular figure.
He can, you know, wear a multi thousand dollar suit

(01:05:36):
and give helicopterids to kids at the Iowa State Fair
and people will still connect with him more than any
other Republican politician, even if they roll up their sleeves.
But these other guys don't have that. It just doesn't
hit the same way. And that if you're messaging this
trade war. As you know Wall Street veterans who are

(01:05:58):
worth multimillions yourself, it's going to start to wear really thin.
The public's patients for that is going to start to
wear very thin already.

Speaker 6 (01:06:06):
Has I would say yes.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
As the Harryenton polling numbers showed to bring this block
full circle. Crystal, Let's move on to Iran so we
can put D I'm sorry, we can put C one
up on the screen. This is a tear sheet from Axios.
This is a Barack Revied story. The headliner is Trump
holds situation room meeting on Iran nuclear deal negotiations. Trump

(01:06:29):
reportedly held a meeting yesterday morning in the Situation Room
about the ongoing nuclear deal negotiations with Iran. The high
level meeting with all of the Trump Admin's top nat
SC and foreign policy officials was focused on discussing the
US position in the next round of talks planned for Saturday,
according to those sources.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
Now those talks are.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Being led by special envoids the Moddle East Steve Whitcoff,
who is somebody that Donald Trump trusts very very much.
According to this Axios report quote JD. Vans and Steve
Whitcoff think diplomacy could lead to a newnuclear deal and
think the US should be ready to make some compromises
in order to get it. Other senior members of the administration,
including Rubio and Mike Waltz, are highly skeptical and support

(01:07:10):
a maximalist approach to the negotiations Crystal. Interestingly enough, we've
started to see the argument, actually, Eli Lakemande this argument
in the Free Press yesterday that what is emerging from
the Witcough camp looks a hell of a lot like
the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration that
Donald Trump sort of famously scrapped. And I've started to

(01:07:32):
see arguments from iron Hawks that are appealing to Donald
Trump on this basis, saying, do you want to look
like you are Obama, that you are just copying Barack
Obama a couple of years later and trying to kind
of goat him out of the deal that Witcof seems
to be intent on getting. Witcoff himself walked back his

(01:07:53):
comments about nuclear enrichment, saying at one point that Iran
could do minimal levels, that they would be limited to
certain levels of nuclear enrichment, and then within I think
it was like twenty four to forty eight hours saying
no nuclear enrichment. So there are enormous pressures on the
administration right now, and that's where I think it's worth
mentioning C two.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
Just very quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
A couple of top advisors to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
we're put on administrative lead administrative leave yesterday, including Dan Caldwell,
who was basically hegsas probably still is hegsa's top advisor.
He was put on an admin leave yesterday and escorted
from the Pentagon following a quote leak investigation to include polygraphs,

(01:08:34):
according to Jennifer Griffin, that was launched by hegsa's chief
of Staff, Joe Casper on March twenty one. After March
twenty New York Times story detail plans to allow Elon
Musk to attend a briefing in the Quote Tank with
members of the Joint Chiefs to hear about future.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
China war plans.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Caldwell, Crystal is a guy who comes from skeptical sort
of coke world that has always been very critical of
the foreign policy Blob, meaning he has always been critical
of hawkish, neo conservative approaches to Iran policy. And another
top advisor to heg Seth seemed to suffer a similar fate.
According to Jennifer Griffin and other reporters yesterday, Caldwell is

(01:09:15):
familiar to a lot of people who cover this stuff,
but which is why that example stands out. But I
have a really hard time separating these two developments, Crystal.
It seems like this pressures is coming from a place
of uh, it's coming from a frantic place.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Yeah. I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it at all.
I mean, Caldwell, I've never read him personally, you know,
my understanding of his ideology is that he was one
of the better and more consistent voices within the entire
Trump administration. And so you can't look at it as
an accident that this guy.

Speaker 6 (01:09:49):
All these people are leaking.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
They're all leaking, but this is the one that you're
going to point out, Oh, we can't have this guy around,
come on, right, I mean, if it feels very targeted.
I don't know anything about the other dude that you
know also got caught up in this, or what his
ideological inclinations are. But especially as these Iran negotiations are
heating up.

Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
In a way, that could be encouraging.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
I mean the fact that there's direct negotiations going on,
the fact that you have someone who's as pragmatic as
wit Cough has seemed to be, who also, by the way,
has come under fire significantly from some of these same types.
It's pretty clear there's a massive, like internal battle being
waged here. And just to return to the Iranian nuclear

(01:10:32):
deal piece, I mean the Hawks who are trying to
sink it by saying like, oh, you're what, You're just
renegotiating Obama's Obamas Deale, I mean, they're not really wrong.
I do think that the Trump administration is kind of
realizing that the JCPOA it actually was a good deal.
Iran was actually complying, and they're not going to be

(01:10:54):
able to get something that's a lot better than that.
Because when Beebe came to town, whole plan was to
convince Trump like, oh, you need to push the Libya
model on Iran, which, of course no country in the
world is going to go for the Libya model. After
watching what happened to the Libyan leader momark Adavi, who

(01:11:16):
was murdered on camera after following the quote unquote Libyum
out something that Trump has talked about before, by the way,
when he was trashing John Bolton and saying that he
was pushing the Libya model for North Korea, so he
knew at least at one point that that direction was
a complete non starter. Iran is not going to agree
to the quote unquote Libya model. But that's what bb

(01:11:37):
netnah who was pushing specifically to try to blow up
these negotiations. Now we're a long way from being there.
As you're pointing out, there are a lot of very
sticky issues. There are a lot of internal tensions. There
are the Miriam Addison's of the world, who contributed a
whole lot of money to the Trump campaign to try
to make sure that something like this never happens. Bb

(01:11:59):
Netanyahoo frequently gets his way with this administration in every
other American administration in history. So a lot of big
question marks, but at least there's a little bit of hope,
and it will be a ridiculous outcome if Trump blew
up the Obama deal, one of in my opinion, one
of the best accomplishments of the Obama administration. Actually, Biden

(01:12:21):
had a chance to get back in never did. That's
on him. You know, he should have right away as
soon as he was elected gotten back into that deal.
He never did, so that's his failure as well. And
then it would be ironic if Trump basically but good,
do it, Please, please do it. If Trump ultimately gets
back into the something very similar to the original Obama

(01:12:43):
JCPOA deal, I have no doubt he can message it
as like this is totally different and this is way
better in art of the deal or whatever. Fine, whatever
your ego needs, go ahead and do it well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
And there may be some argument there that the sort
of regimes, the regime's credibility with its own people, that
maybe make an argument that the economy is really weak
and that it's weakened it's the regimes hold over its
own people, and so maybe it makes more sense now.
But that's actually the argument that some hawks are using
the other way around, saying iron is especially vulnerable right now.

(01:13:15):
But obviously, I mean, I just there's so much history
in the opposite direction saying that when countries are vulnerable and.

Speaker 4 (01:13:21):
Desperate, that's actually really not the time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
To try to turn the screws on them when they
are unpredictable and eccentric. So let's put speaking of those
pressures C four on the screen. This is John Bolton's take.
I mean, this Bolton post about Witcough is just gross.
He says Trump black strategy and vision with regard to Iran.
While we do not know what Trump has the result
to do, we do know special Ambi Witcough, Special Envoy

(01:13:45):
Witcough is busy building trust with the Ayatolas. But the
ia Tolas aren't to be trusted. They have played us
for over a decade. Accusing wit Cough of trying to
just build trust with the Iyatola is foolish, like he's
some type of idiot. Well, if you're going to make
any type of deal ever, ever, it is built on trust,

(01:14:08):
and that has to be the like predicate for any
type of negotiation. You can trust and verify, to paraphrase
Ronald Reagan John Bolton. But the idea that you can
just make a deal with people who don't believe any
part of the deal is going to be worth the
paper it's printed on is I don't even know where

(01:14:28):
to begin with this.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
Christ.

Speaker 6 (01:14:29):
I mean, like just Bolton wants a war.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
He doesn't want there to be a deal because I mean, obviously,
like obviously I do think it's a very negative sign
that people like Caldwell are being purged right now in
terms of who's winning those internal battles. I think that's
a pretty ominous sign.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
And did you know that Jennifer Griffin tweet that this
was an investigation that came out of March twentieth and
March twenty first. I mean, it's the timing, I think
is quite why are you hearing about this now?

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
And you know, if he was the one that leaked that,
like Elon was going to get briefed on our China
war plans or whatever like that was a genuine public service.
So thank you, sir if you were in fact the
one that that leaked that piece of information, because that
was a crazy, crazy situation and one of many crazy
situations that's just like, you know, we almost forget that
it even happened. But but yeah, I think it's ominous

(01:15:19):
that whatever forces are trying to purge the more you know,
frankly America First factions within the Pentagon. I think that
is troubling. And I think Trump's increasingly perilous political situation
could be read into different ways. One is he's long
thought and said publicly you know that he thinks, like

(01:15:41):
he thought Obama was going to start a war with
Iran because it would be good for his reelection prospects.

Speaker 6 (01:15:45):
For example.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
So he might have this I think totally idiotic mindset
that a war is good for politicians approval ratings. He
also may just like, look, he loves using war powers, right,
He's that's his tear justification is like some national emergency.
His Alien Enemies Act is martial law. He's exploring whether

(01:16:07):
to invoke the Insurrection Act. Obviously, that's also like, you know,
sort of wartime or rebellion powers. And so he may
also like just the power that comes with being in
charge during a war and what that could, how that
can inorder to his benefit, or perhaps he is intelligent
enough to realize that if he thinks he's got political problems,

(01:16:28):
now good luck. If you start a war with you
know that almost no one in the entire country, including
your own base, wants to actually see the American involved.
And that doesn't mean that, you know, his base, the
hardest core they'll go along with wherever he goes. But
the American public overall is not down for this whatsoever.

(01:16:48):
They will be absolutely, they will absolutely reject some sort
of hot war and escalation with Iran.

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
So before we run on this block, Crystal, some interesting
news just hit my end box, which is you know,
so we mentioned earlier Steve Witcoff is negotiating in Rome
over the weekend with the Iranian counterparts. Actually, we have
a press release from the White House that I just
got that says Vice President jad Vance in the Second
Family will travel to Italy in India from April eighteenth

(01:17:17):
to April twenty fourth, depending on the timing there, it
looks like Vance will be in Italy during these negotiations
in Rome that wit Coough is taking part of and Vance,
according the Barack reviewed report, and just what we know
of Jade, Vance is clearly aligned with Witcoff on this question.

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
Some of the dynamics from that signal chat.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
May be pulled into these discussions about Iran going forward. Actually,
and that's quite interesting if Vance is sort of dispatching
himself or maybe he's being dispatched by the White House
to go in and be a wingman for wit Cough
during these discussions.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, a lot of dynamics to keep
an eye on there.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
Well, the Trump administration is escalating its war on Ivy
League institutions, in particular, let's put d one up on
the screen. Harvard is now under fire because the Trump administration,
as everyone likely remembers, just from the last couple of days,
has sent a letter threatening at least two million dollars

(01:18:22):
worth of billion sorry billion, yes, two billion dollars worth
of funding that could go up to as much as
nine billion dollars worth of again federal funding to Harvard
than what you see on the screen if you're watching
this is MIT put out a letter. This is from
Sally kornb Both to the President, who said, I write
to bring you up to date on developments in two
areas where recent government actions are interfering with the normal

(01:18:43):
functioning of miit diminishing our ability both to serve the
nation and to attract the world's finest talent. One relates
to federal funding, the other to our international community. They
say we are responding to certain federal actions by going
to court. Now, this is all on the heels of
what the Trump administration did with Columbia University, and they're

(01:19:04):
competing reports on Columbia University's willingness to actually comply with
this list of demands. That the Trump administration has sent
and said. We'll get into that in the moment, by
the way, but what those demands are in particular, but
has said your federal.

Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
Funding depends on X, Y and Z being done.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Columbia, there was a leak that said Colombia was assuring
people privately that it wasn't actually going to comply with
the administration's demands. Now it looks like Columbia's standing by
it's a statement that it will comply with the demands
to keep the funeral funding. But Harvard is pushing back
hard like we haven't seen other universities do.

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
But it seems like it's.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
Actually creating a template for other universities to follow. And Cristal,
let's just get into this back and forth that Carolyne
Levitt had with Peter Doocey. Wasn't really much from back
and forth, but this is what we heard from the
White House yesterday.

Speaker 14 (01:19:56):
Follow up on something that you just said, Why do
Ivy League schools get so much federal footage?

Speaker 10 (01:20:01):
It's a very good question, and it's a question the
President has obviously raised in his discussions and negotiations with
not just Harvard but also Columbia.

Speaker 11 (01:20:09):
And many other Ivy League institutions.

Speaker 10 (01:20:12):
We have the Anti Semitism Task Force, which the President
promised and delivered on. The anti Semitism task forces across
the government representatives from various federal.

Speaker 11 (01:20:23):
Agencies who meet on a weekly basis to discuss the
question that you just raise.

Speaker 10 (01:20:27):
And I think a lot of Americans are wondering why
their talk dollars are going to these universities when they
are not only indoctrinating our nation students, but also allowing
such a egregious illegal behavior to occur.

Speaker 3 (01:20:38):
And here's a post from Donald Trump on True Social
yesterday he weighed once again and perhaps Harvard shall lose
its tax exempt status to be taxed as a political
entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological and terrorist inspired
slash supporting quote sickness. Remember, tax exempt status is totally
contingent on acting in the public interest, Christal. That is
separate from the federal funding question. A similar question, but

(01:21:00):
it's obviously a different question federal funding. What is being said,
and maybe it's worth actually just bringing up D six
at this point. Sorry to skip ahead, control room, but
this is an argument that has been made for generations
in the Conservative movement that if you are getting federal funding,
it is tied to complying with civil rights legislation. And

(01:21:22):
this has actually been something that conservatives have pushed back
on forever, and it was Rufo who really popularized the
idea a couple of years ago, a few years ago
now that if Republicans regain power in the White House
and the dj etc. In the Department of Education, they
should use that power to turn the screws on these
Ivy League administrations that have benefited from this sort of

(01:21:48):
relationship with the federal government, back and forth relationship with
the federal government, to punish.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
Those universities for not.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
You know, being as opened conservative ideas as people in
the right want to be. And it is true, I mean,
like Harvard is wildly like the faculty of Harvard is,
it's not a balanced faculty at all. Like I think
we all know that these institutions lean left. So the
plan was then to use the Civil Rights regime like
Title nine is a good example. Conservatives used to be

(01:22:18):
against Title nine because it forced compliance with the federal
government in the schools in ways that would sometimes you know,
disproportionately hurt men's sports. And we could donate a debate
whether or not that was righteous and just, but conservatives
used to be against it because it was using federal
funding as a carrot in particular ways.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
So that bringsists a D four.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
What is the Trump administration threatening Harvard over? Well, some
of it is civil rights, but Michael Tracy points out
that one of the bullet points, among the many bullet points,
and the Trump administration's letter to Harvard that kicked all
of this out off, is titled reforming programs with egregious
records of Anti Semitism or other bias. Chris le, I'm

(01:23:02):
going to kick it to you on that point.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't want to hear from
Christopher Rufo or any of these people again about supposed
like woke wokeness. This is the most woke authoritarian shit
you could possibly imagine, including effectively. What they want from
Harvard is some sort of like mega affirmative action program,
both in terms of the students coming domestically and abroad

(01:23:28):
and in terms of the professors they also. I mean,
there's just all kinds of ridiculous demands here, and the
demand that you get rid of DEI does not sit
easily with the demand that you also do everything to
combat anti Semitism. Like the whole thing is just the

(01:23:48):
specifics of it are almost less important than the fact
that this is about the Trump administration, just as they
have with media, just as they have with lawyers, just
they have with the courts, trying to bring to heal
in institutions that they see as ideological adversaries and potential
alternative power centers. It is also a very classic authoritarian playbook,

(01:24:09):
right They want to be able to have to ultimately
control what is taught, who teaches it, and what students
get into the school. Now to zoom out, because the
Columbia thing is I think important. Harvard was seemingly planning
to kind of comply. They got an initial list of
demands from the Trump administration, things like banning masks, that

(01:24:30):
they were like, yeah, I can probably live with that.
Then they got a more elaborate list from the Trump administration,
you know, the one that Michael Tracy is referencing there,
and they saw that when Columbia tried to comply with
what the Trump administration wanted, It's not like the Trump
people like, Okay, you're good to go, thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:24:53):
We've art of the dealed it. We're good to you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Know, all no harm, no foul, no Colombia's capitulate only
led to more and more demands. Now the federal government
is seeking a consent decree with Columbia that would give
them direct power over, you know, over that university and
specifically have taken into like have taken over the Middle

(01:25:17):
Eastern Studies department.

Speaker 6 (01:25:19):
Harvard is extremely wealthy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
I think it is one of, if not the wealthiest
school in the country in terms of it has like
a fifty billion dollar endowment. If anyone was going to
stand up and fight, it was Harvard. And so I
think watching the way that things went down with Columbia,
they realized that there was no choice but to stand
up for themselves. And the fact that MIT then rapidly

(01:25:42):
follows in their footsteps, I think it's an indication that
you will see more of a united front from the
university system in trying to stand up to what are
you know, ultimately like insane and like peak woke kind
of authoritarian demands coming from the Trump administration. So, you know,
I think those are kind of the dynamics that are

(01:26:04):
playing out here, is that they realized they were not
going to make them go away by attempting to comply
with the things that they ultimately wanted. And you know,
last thing on this question of like, oh well, why
do they even get federal funding? Right, A lot of
this is like research grants. You know, Harvard does a
lot of medical research. They run a bunch of hospitals,
a lot of the larger nine billion dollars that would

(01:26:25):
be threatened, that's like funding that goes to a number
of these hospitals. I know there were some researchers who
already were I think one that was researching tuberculosis, if
memory serves correctly, like their grants are already being pulled.
So that's the sort of thing that a lot of
this money is ultimately going towards. In case people were wondering,
it won't be easy for Harvard to make up the
multi billion dollar gap because their endowment comes with certain

(01:26:49):
restrictions about how the money can be spent, et cetera,
et cetera. But I think they feel like they have
the firepower to be able to fight this, and that frankly,
they really don't have much of a choice.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
I mean, some schools take the funding and put in
lazy rivers, which is genuinely a serious problem. They take
the research funding and then they have these big endowments,
and they keep using tuition jacking tuition up for stupid
stuff that gets them up on the US News and
World Report list and attracts more students or doesn't attract
more students. But I think the Trump administration's definition of

(01:27:21):
anti Semitism is obviously woke, and it is obviously undermining
what listen as a conservative I think is a very
righteous cause, which is to scare the living daylights out
of these universities that have done, I think, a very
poor job preparing people to enter our society after four

(01:27:42):
years of education at supposedly the best institutions in the world.
Ruvo is right like he's run down these examples of
where Harvard in particular has engaged in actual discrimination by
the definition in our civil rights legislation and in our
court system. And that is something that again was used

(01:28:02):
repeatedly during the Title nine battles of roughly the last
ten years the Obama administration. We don't have to get
into all of this, but this has been going on
for generations. Used federal funding as a way to get sports,
to change their policies about men's and women's schools, to
change their policies about men's of women's athletics and locker
rooms and bathrooms and all of that, which I think

(01:28:24):
brought conservatives to their sort of boiling point.

Speaker 4 (01:28:28):
And that's where you saw this.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
New momentum come from to actually do these things. I
think that's you know, Rufo has pointed out a lot
of DEI coming from all of this, and DEI can
be used in a way that is not in compliance
with federal discrimination laws. So again, like schools like Hillsdale
have had to operate without federal funding forever so that

(01:28:52):
they didn't get the ideological coercion, I always think that
that's the best model, even if it's sad that we
can't fund public universe in a way that's ideological. I
mean maybe we can't, but ideologically beneficial to everyone. But anyway,
all of this is to say, the woke definition of
anti Semitism is like undermining I think a pretty legitimate

(01:29:13):
conservative policy argument here, because you end up scooping people
like os Turk off the streets of suburban Boston and
then claiming the moral high ground on free speech. It
is just completely stupid on by the way, a generational
opportunity to flip the script on the left and actually
like get some genuine concessions out of schools. I'm not

(01:29:36):
talking about like quotas and affirmative action for conservatives, but
just like scaring the living daylights out of them to
like just using the money that they have in a
way that is actually beneficial to the public.

Speaker 4 (01:29:48):
That's all great.

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
I think that's fantastic, but this is completely You do
not have the moral high ground when you're scooping kids
off the street for op eds and it's just stupid.

Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
Well, and I mean a lot of the like the
lazy river and the fancy dorms and athletic facilities or whatever.
I mean, we know what that's about. That's about attracting
rich students. It's that's what it's about. It's a market
capital kind of a situation where yeah, who can not
only pay filled tuition, but are then going to be
in a position them and mommy and daddy to help

(01:30:18):
to continue to fund the endowment. The direction I would
go in is, you know, public funding for colleges and
making tuition for or at least much more accessible but
you know, certainly the cost of education is a big issue.
This has nothing to do with the cost of education.
And even on the DEI piece, like you know, this
is specifically about these these Ivy League universities, although there's

(01:30:41):
some I think the number is sixty universities across the
country that have gotten similar letters. They're not all you know,
Ivy League. I know the school I went to, University
of Virginia, was one of the people who got these
letters of like you know, threatening them. Basically you have
to do X and Y and Z in order to
continue to receive your federal funds. So it's not just
the elite, but they like picking the fight with the

(01:31:01):
elites very publicly because they feel like they're on solid
more solid ground there in terms of their kind of
ideological framing. But you know, these broader executive orders about
DEI something that you know, I am in certain ways
sympathetic to because I do believe in like a color
blind meritocracy. Well I don't really believe in meritocracy, but

(01:31:24):
I do believe in color the color blind aspiration, and
I think that the you know, the sort of like
extremes of wocism with the as emblematically Abramax Kenny and
these sorts of people went too far. But also these
executive orders read it could be interpreted to ban the
teaching of things like redlining, the history of redlining, you know,

(01:31:48):
the accurate history of reconstruction, the accurate history of slavery
and Jim Crow. And that is a tremendous step backwards.
And it's also you know, this is part and parcel
of playbook of like, you know, wanting to control history.

Speaker 6 (01:32:02):
History is always contested.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
Wanted to control the narrative that we're allowed to tell,
the story we're allowed to tell about ourselves, and to
erase how central the battles over race and racism have
been in this country. And so you know, this is
a little bit removed from the Harvard example, but I
see all of these things ads connected to an attempt

(01:32:27):
to you know, they'll use language about, oh, we want
it to be neutral. No, you want a certain narrative
to be taught. You want certain students to be allowed
to attend. You want like Maga affirmative action, both in
terms of the students and the professors. You want to
control these This is not about academic freedom.

Speaker 6 (01:32:49):
This is the polar opposite of that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
This is about this administration specifically wanting to control these
institutions in terms of what they can teach, how they
can teach it, and who they can teach it to,
even including you know, they wanted they wanted to. One
of the demands from Harvard was that they should be
vetting all international students for quote unquote anti American sentiment. Well,
what does that mean? What does that mean? You know,

(01:33:14):
are you allowed to be, you know, have a critique
of the Iraq war? Are you allowed to have a
critique of Tesla? You know, are you allowed you know, certainly,
are you allowed to have a critique of our policy
means of eve the Middle East? That's those are the
sort of like authoritarian, woke demands that were laid at

(01:33:34):
the feet of Harvard, and you know, I the last
point I'll make about this just zooming out from education
is I do think as Trump has become more unpopular
and as there has been a visible grassroots movement in
the streets to push back against him, et cetera, I
do think it has bolstered the courage. You're starting to
see a little bit more galvanized resistance from these you know,

(01:33:58):
cultural institutions, whether it's Harvard, the media is being a
little bit more outspoken. There's still a lot of problems there.
Some of the law firms are now getting together and
fighting back. You see, certainly the courts are starting to
take a harder line. Democrats are getting a bit of
a spy and that's you know, we're about to talk
more about the Democrats in.

Speaker 6 (01:34:15):
The next block.

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
So you do see some of these elite institutions getting
their act together to push back a little bit. And
I guess you could say that with regard to like
some of the business institutions on the tariffs too.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
Huh. Yeah, that's an interesting point.

Speaker 3 (01:34:29):
I mean, if people want to read a good book
on this age of entitlement by Christopher Caldwell is a
short read and it was hugely influential. I mean, I've
seen some people point to the book Richard Hannania wrote
a couple of years back, but Caldwell is the book
that really was influential on the right at kind of
mapping out how civil rights legislation and then it's I

(01:34:54):
guess it's process of moving through the courts. So over
the course of decades allow the federal government to use
a lot of that for ideological purposes. And what you're describing,
Crystal is the Trump administration saying, all right, screw it,
we're not going back to neutrality, which is what a
lot of or quote unquote neutrality. There's such thing as

(01:35:16):
real neutrality, but sort of this pro American, pro Western
civilization sense of consensus in society that used to exists, whether.

Speaker 4 (01:35:26):
Or not that's good or bad.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
That is the that was the aspiration of a lot
of critics of this, actually on the left and on
the right, mostly on the right for a long time.
But this is the Trump administration saying.

Speaker 4 (01:35:36):
Screw it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:37):
This is about I guess our agenda items. And that's
where I think this definition of anti Semitism is dragging
down what is a great project overall. And it is
a real I mean, it's a huge unforced error. I
don't know who in the administration is pushing this so
forcefully without listening to any of the feedback on it.

(01:36:00):
I actually like, again, I agree with what a lot
of Christopher Caldwell at Lines and Age of Entitlement, But man,
I don't know how you.

Speaker 4 (01:36:07):
Can approach this issue.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
As you know, it's it's like we were talking about
earlier the shows Jadie Vance going to Munich and then
being the vice president for and talking to the UK
about speech policies and EU about speech policies, and then
being the vice president of an administration that is defending
scooping kids off the street for op eds against Israel.

Speaker 4 (01:36:26):
I mean, it's just.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
This is like a generational opportunity for people on the
white on the right, on the white's that'll immuse some people,
but on the on the right that is being like
utterly squandered. And I do think by the way that
the way that civil rights bureaucracy has been wielded by
the left has been intentional in some cases, not in

(01:36:49):
every case, but I do think, you know, there there
were abuses of it that were for ideological purposes over
the course of the last however many decades. Uh, that
doesn't mean that the right thing to do is do
it yourself like it's just it's stupid whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
Yeah, it's it's I mean, anti Semitism is the cudgel
that's being used to you know, embrace it's truly authoritarian tactics.
I mean, that's what we're talking about here, both, I mean,
and I'm not just talking about with regard to you universities,
but certainly with the snatching up these kids off the
street and you know, cracking down on speech and descent,
forcing universities to you know, either kick kids down school

(01:37:29):
who are American citizen. Isn't just about immigrants either, the
actions that have been taken, and so they've adopted this
like the most hyper woke language you could possibly imagine
about like safe spaces and microaggressions.

Speaker 3 (01:37:45):
Sciences anti Semitism, that is what I mean. We saw
this argument made at a Senate hearing recently from a rabbi.

Speaker 6 (01:37:53):
It's right.

Speaker 4 (01:37:54):
Matt Walsh pointed.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
Out, actually of all people that this is exactly what
Abrams Kendy has argued. You know, Natalie Winters, I was
talking to her yesterday from Bannon's war room.

Speaker 14 (01:38:04):
She makes a.

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):
Great point that like the and you would still disagree
with it, Crystal, but like anti Americanism would have been
politically a better framing for the administration than anti this
definition of anti Semitism that is also anti Zionism. Now
where you and I might disagree with that is okay.
Now that you have defined anti Semitism as anti Zionism,

(01:38:27):
I'm going to need to see you outlining exactly what
you think anti Americanism is, because I'm not sure that
I trust that definition at the point. So if they
want to do anti Americanism, which they are trying in
like some different ways that aren't as I think Front
centers the anti Semitism point, then they should enumerate exactly
what they're looking for when they are when they're telling

(01:38:50):
schools to screen for anti Americanism. I would be very
curious to see that because, you know, personally, I'm like, yeah,
maybe you shouldn't bring people here who hate the United States,
and there are people who hate the United States, But
what are you going to do to screen for that?
Is it gonna be people who didn't like the Iraq War?
Is it going to be people who don't like Israel
and the way that it's treated pass?

Speaker 2 (01:39:09):
I mean, it's just like, who aren't a fan of
Elon Musk? Who you know South African board. You know,
I personally would like to screen this administration for anti
American sentiment, given that they want to turn us into
El Salvador. Yes, and apparently are not acquainted with the
First Amendment and freedom of speech or you know, whatever

(01:39:29):
it requirements for due process either.

Speaker 4 (01:39:31):
So devs can do that. As soon as they get
the power back, they can do it again. Right. But
that's really like, that's part of this.

Speaker 3 (01:39:36):
I mean, if if you want to write the template
for to be exploited in terms of deportation and all
of that, here's the template for devs.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
All right, Well, let's talk about dems and what's going
on with them, because there are a lot of interesting developments.
Let me go and start with this. So AOC and
Bernie have been doing this stop oligarchy tour and they've
been going to all these like super red places I'm
talking about, like Idaho and Utah and getting insane crowds,

(01:40:12):
insane crowds, bigger crowds than Bernie ever got in his
either of his presidential runs. And he you know, he
was also famous like Trump for attracting significant crowds. Let's
just take a look at a little bit of one
of their recent rallies and some of the way he's
interacting with AOC and also the energy the crowd.

Speaker 18 (01:40:29):
Now I want to say a word about my daughter, No,
I want to say a word about Alexandria and why
why what she's doing is so important. And here's the story.
Six years ago, six years ago, what were you doing

(01:40:56):
for a living? She was a waitress, but she looked
around her and she saw a society that was fundamentally
unjust and in many ways ugly to the people in

(01:41:18):
the community in which she lived in New York City.
She stood up and took on one of the most
powerful people in the House of Representatives. And she started
with almost no money against the guy who had unlimited funds,

(01:41:41):
and she'd beat him.

Speaker 19 (01:41:43):
Okay, we saw it just happen with Trump's corrupt and
disastrous and rushed tariff scheme. We saw Marjorie Taylor green
by that dip. I dont question for her, how much
did you make? How much did you.

Speaker 11 (01:42:03):
Make off of people's despair?

Speaker 19 (01:42:05):
How much did you make off that panic? How much
did you make off of that suffering? No more, we
can't accept it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
And I think, Emily, what you've seen as Bernie and Aose,
they were first out of the gates. They launched this tour.
They've been all over the country. They're attracting these just
absolutely blockbuster crowds everywhere. They're putting up a fight. They
have a strategy. And then you see the Centrists like
Chuck Schumer who are completely adrift, have nothing to say,

(01:42:38):
out of touch with the moment, putting up no fight,
capitulating the Republicans in the one moment that they have leverage,
et cetera. And watching this dynamic play out has completely
shifted the Democratic base in ways that we have not
seen before where they are disgusted with their own leadership,
very different from last time Trump was in office, where Nance,
Bloci and Adam Shift and all these four heroes.

Speaker 6 (01:43:01):
And now that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:03):
Is also being reflected in who they see as the
leaders of the party and in what direction they want
the party to shift. So this is one of the
fascinating dynamics is playing in. I think what was important
about that clip where Bernie says, you know my daughter Alexandria.

Speaker 6 (01:43:18):
Yes, Like, first of all, he clearly loves her.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
He is not a like warm and cuddly guy like
to have that level of affection from Bernie Sanders, that's
very telling.

Speaker 20 (01:43:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
And number two, you know people have been asked you like,
who's Bernie's successor who's he gonna you know, annoint for
to lead this movement going forward? Like I think we
have our answer. He's he has picked AOC like that
is the person he is elevating, and I think very
likely will be the person he pushes forward in twenty
twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (01:43:47):
Yeah, I think that's right. And actually we teased the segment.
I tease this segment earlier in the show by saying
Dems are in disarray, and I still stand by that,
but both parties are always in disarray.

Speaker 4 (01:43:57):
The reason I stand by that here though.

Speaker 6 (01:43:59):
And should be by the way they should be in
disiroy totally ruth.

Speaker 3 (01:44:02):
But the reason I stand by this here is, you know,
what Bernie and Alexandria Casio Kortez are doing here is
showing the establishment of the like. This is as much
a message to all of those people in the crowd
and to people who support them as it is to
democratic elites who really, really really don't want to hear this,
but it's going to get hard for them not to

(01:44:24):
hear it. And I know this is going to be
a little bit out of border. But the reason I
want to kick to James Carvill actually now that i'm
thinking about it, Crystal, is because he's proposing that the populist,
the economic populist Deems break away from the sort of
he wouldn't use this phrase centristems, but I think that
has to be accurately described as centrist stems. What he's

(01:44:45):
talking about, he's sort of saying the third way Dems
should own the Democratic Party and everybody else should beat
another party.

Speaker 4 (01:44:50):
And Alexandra A.

Speaker 3 (01:44:51):
Cosio Kortez has said herself, you know, if we were
in Europe, Nancy Pelosi and I would not be in
the same party, and that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:57):
These two poles. Krvil is just proposing a toll divorce it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
And the reason I want to tick it to this
with that, and I'm curious for your thoughts, is that
is not even good for the movement he wants to succeed,
Like you're just asking for everyone to agree on pronouns
and neoliberal economics. So anyway, let's rule carvel and then

(01:45:21):
we can get into some of those.

Speaker 15 (01:45:22):
At most of the things at the faculty lounge that
Dynasty Left wants eighty five percent of them. I want
to we like to expand opportunity to people. We'd like
to expand people that to have health care. We'd like
to do more to help young voters. We think that
environmental problems are totally crushing every phrase. We want solutions there.

(01:45:43):
We think income inequality is a terrible thing, and we've
got to do certain things to address it, like, okay,
we be around, raise taxes on incomes over four and
thousand dollars here, raise them in wage the the things
that we can work on. I don't think we can
work together on pronoun politics. I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:46:04):
I think that you're not.

Speaker 15 (01:46:06):
This election did not teach you how damaging that is.
I don't think there's anything that I can tell you.
And you say, this guy is stuck in another century,
not another decade, and he represents nothing to do with
the future of our movement. I can accept that you're

(01:46:30):
not really going to hurt my feelings. So maybe we
could have a kind of amicable split here and we
go to post in twenty twenty six, because you don't
have a run again. They never run against a Republican, Okay,
all they do is run against other Democrats. Don't quite

(01:46:52):
understand why you're so anxious to have the word democrat
in the description of what you do. But we can
have a amical split here.

Speaker 3 (01:47:03):
Chrystal, this is a very bad time for James Carvel
to be making this argument because the split screen is
AOC and Bernie Sanders drawing record crowds in red states.

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
Right, and you want them out of your coalition? Like
what are we talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:47:19):
You're in a message of economic populism, quote fighting oligarchy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
Right, Because here's the thing is, like previously AOC would
have been the emblem of that like faculty lounge language
that he talks about. Okay, she sounds there like Marjorie
Taylor Green's insider training and stop oligarchy, and they're comming
for your social security and your medicare Like she is
fully on the economic populist message, and you know Bernie

(01:47:43):
always has been more or less fully on the economic
populist message. So talk about being out of touch and
missing the moment. And also, by the way, if you're
like setting up your tent pole of who wants to
come over the James Carvel version of the Democratic Party
versus the AOC and Bernie Party, I gotta tell you
there ain't gonna be a lot of takers on your
side because even people like MSNBC Nicole Wallace, I'm here

(01:48:08):
and things coming out out of their mouth that I
never in my wildest dreams would have imagined, because they,
I think were chastened by the fact that Joe Amiga
made their trip to mar A Lago and there was
such a massive backlash and the network was sort of
like cratering, and they took their cue of like, Okay,

(01:48:28):
we have to at least align with the part of
the Democratic Party that wants to stand up and fight
back against Trump because otherwise, what like what are we
even doing here? Like why do we even exist? And
we will have zero people watching us and they will
all hate us. So they've followed the ratings and the
people who are demonstrating, as you said, how to fight
and putting on the class for all of the Democratic

(01:48:51):
elites are AOC and Bernie. So you even have people
like Nicole Wallace, who is out there former George W.
Bush spokesperson, Cole Wallace out there freezing the Bernie and
AOC stop oligarchy to artagalism.

Speaker 20 (01:49:06):
And we should say AOC and Bernie Sanders have been
traveling the country and generating crowds that size Christie all
over the place, and not just in Democratic strongholds. There
is an appetite for economic populism that there hasn't been
in many years.

Speaker 3 (01:49:23):
And here comes AOC. We have the next element we
could put on the screen.

Speaker 4 (01:49:27):
This is a poll.

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
Look who's catching up in the like these numbers are.
It's obviously early, but look who's catching up In twenty
twenty eight Democratic primary poll numbers from Yale. We've got
Kamala Harris at twenty eight percent, AOC at twenty one percent,
twenty one percent. So Crystal's your point. If Bernie chooses

(01:49:51):
Alexander A. Kaser Cortes as his heir man, things are
going in quite a good direction for populists on the left.
We can put the n pole. This is the next element.
We can put this next poll up on the screen.
Among Democrats, here are the net favorables. AOC is up
sixty two percent plus sixty two percent, Harris plus fifty
nine percent. So that's close. But Harris right now probably,

(01:50:15):
I mean she's just getting off a presidential run. So
that's even a failed presidential run with name recognition and
all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
It's it's just kind of like the default. Yeah, yeah,
but then you see is there at the bottom. See
it is with friend John Patterman.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Yeah, But anyway, the argument that, and I will say
Bernie and AOC I think have learned from the last
four or five years in politics and are not leading
with identity messaging in a way that I think AOC
genuinely did struggle with Ryan documents that in some book
like that really was a stumbling block for some left populace.

Speaker 4 (01:50:53):
But I think and maybe the right is underestimating this
they have learned from that. And James jamesting that too.

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):
Yeah, apparently I'm like, the who are you talking even
talking about? Like the pronouns are out of the bio
you won, Like that's you know, go look at who
is the emblem of that politics. And she's touring the
country getting massive crowds, many of whom were not Bernie supporters,
talking about how we're going to fight back against oligarchy and.

Speaker 4 (01:51:22):
Probably Trust supporters.

Speaker 3 (01:51:23):
By the way, Yeah, I mean to some of those
people there probably are Trump voters.

Speaker 6 (01:51:28):
That's very possible.

Speaker 2 (01:51:29):
Possible if you're going to Idaho, there's going to be
some likely Trump supporters there. And you know the thing
that to me is even more noteworthy because you know
it's one poll whatever, who knows other poles have said
other things, et cetera. But the thing to me that
was even more noteworthy is if you could put the
last element up here on the screen. As long as
I've been following these polls, when you ask Democratic base

(01:51:52):
do you want the party to move to the left,
to move to the right, or to stay the same,
they generally say they should be more moderate. Now, I've said,
usually people's version of moderate is like they should increase
social security and they should increase the minimum wage. It's
like very economically populous. But you know, maybe that was cope.

Speaker 6 (01:52:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:52:11):
So in January end of January of this year, that
continued to be the trend. Forty five percent of Democratic
base voters said they want the party to be more moderate,
only twenty nine percent said more liberal. Now, in a
new poll, things have completely shifted. Now you have a
majority fifty percent who say they want the party to

(01:52:32):
be more progressive, twenty four percent who say that it
should stay the same, and only eighteen percent that say
it should become more moderate. Now, again, I think these
terms are very squishy. The one pole says liberal, the
other says progressive. Maybe for us is better branding, et cetera,
et cetera. But when you see this big of a shift.
I do think it signifies something going on here because again,

(01:52:55):
who are the people that they're seeing who are actually fighting.
I mean, this is all the Democratic base ones they
want people to fight back against Trump, and who is
fighting back against Trump. It's the progressives. So they're like, yes,
we need to do that more. And I think that
is what is causing this real sea change within the
Democratic base and their conception of who their leaders are,

(01:53:17):
who their leaders should be, and the way that the
party should orient itself going forward.

Speaker 3 (01:53:22):
James Carvel got Bill Clinton elected so we could get
on the path to wto I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
It's just like well, and not to mention Emily, his
whole thing like oh they only run against Democrats. DLC
was all about taking over the Democratic Party and like
kicking out the establishment of Democrats.

Speaker 6 (01:53:39):
Yeah, so, like, you know, there's a lot there.

Speaker 3 (01:53:41):
The last thing I'll say is this just reminds me
so much of what happened on the right in twenty
twelve after Mitt Romney lost the Republican National Committee. At
this time, under Wright's previous if I'm remembering correctly, put
out what is known infamously in Republican circles as the.

Speaker 4 (01:53:55):
Autopsy, and that autopsy called.

Speaker 3 (01:53:58):
For the Republican Party to quoteunk moderate on issues like immigration,
social stuff, and you could. I mean, if you read
it now, you can tell it's just sort of dripping
with anger over kind of tea party voters. And what
that missed is Republican voters. To the exact point that
you were making, Actually, some of this popular stuff is

(01:54:21):
moderate to voters. It's not moderate to d C because
it's really radical for the clients of many people in Washington,
d C. And the influences in Washington, d C. It's
radical to their bottom lines and to the way that
they do business. But most people would be like, oh,
campaign finance reform, that's not radical.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
It's totally everybody having healthcare that seems moderate, you know,
like that seems like something we should reasonably do.

Speaker 4 (01:54:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:54:46):
So yeah, I mean, Washington is just completely out of
touch when it thinks that something that is like the
dumbest statement in the world because it's so obvious at
this point.

Speaker 4 (01:54:54):
But when it thinks that.

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
Tune into breaking points for these stellar insights about how
Washington is out of touch but in all serious is
like they never learn and that's what we can do.

Speaker 4 (01:55:04):
Like, this pattern just doesn't stop.

Speaker 3 (01:55:06):
And James Carvill should look at what Republicans did in
twenty twelve when they said the only way to win
presidential elections is to moderate on immigration and social stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:55:15):
And then Donald Trump beats Hillary.

Speaker 3 (01:55:16):
Cutting on a platform of like political incorrectness and building
a wall. I mean, they're so stupid, They're so stupid,
and they can't stop being stupid. And isn't it isn't
it Carville's statement, it's the economy stupid?

Speaker 4 (01:55:31):
Isn't that? Like him? Yeah, that's him?

Speaker 2 (01:55:33):
I just I mean, and this has been the case.
This has been the case since the advent of you know,
the rise of the Bernie movement. You see the energy
for this guy. You see how powerful this is. I
mean the number of people who gave him ten twenty
dollars whatever they could. Yeah, the agenda that they rallied around,
that they would show up, they would knocked doors, they

(01:55:55):
would do anything for him.

Speaker 6 (01:55:57):
And you want that out of the.

Speaker 2 (01:55:58):
Party, Yeah, Like, I mean not really is a big
part of where they want went sideways. Instead, you're going
to foist on as Hillary Clinton. You're going to foiste
on as Joe Biden, like Joe Biden even more so
than Hillary Clinton, because she did have some genuine like
supporters are excited, first woman president, etcetera, etcetera. Joe Biden
had none of that. And then you're like, oh, why
aren't we cool anymore? Why doesn't anyone want to talk

(01:56:21):
to us? Why did all these you know bros that
we spent years maligning as being toxic and spearing relentlessly?
How come they don't want to support us anywhere? Oh gee,
I wonder, I wonder, wonder what caused them to shift
away from you? And so once again here you have
just very clear example of where the energy is in
the party, and you still have people like James Carvill

(01:56:44):
and I would say also like the Ezra Cline abundance
movement thing like no, not that thing, that thing which
is garnering massive amounts of energy in which people are
responding to in real time. No, that can't be the
message of the party. It's like, you know, sometimes you
have to put the think tankers side. Sometimes you have
to even put you know, some of the like focused
group tested popularism stuff aside and just see where's energy,

(01:57:08):
what works? And you know, the Democratic base is going
to have a say in the future direction of the party,
and it's very clear right now what direction they are
heading in.

Speaker 3 (01:57:19):
By the way, some of those bro podcasters, Rogan for example,
support universal health care. Maybe, I mean, that's why Bernie
sat down with him. I mean, it's just it's such
a mess and it's their solution is exactly what the
Republicans was in twenty twelve. Trump woke the Republican Party
up to what their base actually wanted. So that's what
AOC and Bernie Sanders are trying to do in a

(01:57:40):
less Trumpian way.

Speaker 4 (01:57:42):
Yeah, well, we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 3 (01:57:44):
Let's move on Crystal to housing, speaking of things Democrats
struggle with, and get to our guest.

Speaker 2 (01:57:53):
So one of the issues we've really tried to consistently
cover on this show because it is so central to
literally everyone, is the issue of housing. And with that
in mind, we are really happy to be joined by
an author, Brian Goldstone, and journalist who's just put on
a fantastic new book called There Is No Place for Us,
Working and Homeless in America that takes a look at

(01:58:14):
a number of families in and around the Atlanta area
who are working doing everything right and yet still because
of the cost of housing, find themselves homeless a much
undercovered And I guess we could talk to Brian about
whether or not it's a new dynamic. But Brian, I'm
great to have you, welcome.

Speaker 8 (01:58:33):
Thank you so much, Crystal, it's great to be with you.

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
Yeah, of course, just tell us share if you would,
the inspiration for the book, and also a little bit
about just one of these families and how they end
up in this situation.

Speaker 8 (01:58:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:58:46):
So I first got launched into the subject when my wife,
who's a nurse practitioner, was working at a community health
center here in Atlanta where we live, and she was
just stunned by this trend that she was seeing where
you know, pats who were working at like Walmart or
McDonald's or driving for Uber and Lyft when they finished
their shifts, they weren't going to an apartment. They were

(01:59:08):
going to shelters or living with others, or sleeping the
very cars they had just done, you know, an airport
run in for Uber and Lyft.

Speaker 8 (01:59:17):
So as she told me about that, I was shocked.

Speaker 14 (01:59:19):
I was like, I haven't in all of the reading
I've done about homelessness, I've never seen this sort of
discuss this phenomenon of the working homeless, and so I
ended up writing a magazine story for The New Republic
about it. And even when that was over, I felt
like I had only scratched the surface. And you know,
one of one of the families who I profile in

(01:59:41):
the book, who I followed, I think their story really
illustrates this trend, this this dynamic where families aren't falling
into homelessness, they're really being pushed this one family, Celeste
is the parent's name. She Her story begins in this
really dramatic way with her her rental home burning down.

(02:00:02):
But as the reporting shows, it wasn't this dramatic house
fire that pushed her family into homelessness. It was the
fact that months later, after the house burned down, she
realized that the private equity firm that owned her home,
who was her landlord, had filed an eviction on her
on a home that was no longer standing, that was uninhabitable,

(02:00:24):
and her credit score was tanked, this three digit number
that has come to determine whether millions of Americans have
access to something as basic as a place to live.
Her credit was destroyed, and that is what forced her
and her children into homelessness?

Speaker 3 (02:00:40):
And what are some of the common I mean, how
I'm sure every story is unique, but what are some
of the commonalities throughout the families and the.

Speaker 4 (02:00:50):
People that you talked to? What are some of the
common themes?

Speaker 14 (02:00:55):
Yeah, I mean, each of the five families who I
followed over several years, you know, to write this book,
they all have really singular, really distinctive stories and journeys.
But I think what comes through really clearly is the
common denominator that the reason so many people are becoming
homeless in this country is because they don't have access

(02:01:19):
to housing they can afford. And you know, the term
working homeless really demands that we confront not just the
homeless side of that equation, but the working side as well.
These are people who are working and working and working
some more. And it's not just that their wages are
too low, although they're certainly that as well. It's that

(02:01:39):
the very nature of work has changed for millions of Americans.
It's become ever more volatile, insecure. People don't know how
many hours they're going to be working from one week
to the next. Celeste, that woman who I just talked
about who's house burned down. She was later diagnosed with
ovarian and breast cancer and she was having to choose
do I go to my warehod house job or do

(02:02:01):
I go to my chemo treatment, because if I miss
a shift at work, I don't get paid, and then
me and my kids go from being the squalid extended
stay hotel room to being on the streets. So that
it's not just wages, it's not just rents, it's not
the nature of work, and really the nature of housing,
a lack of basic tenant rights and tenant protections that

(02:02:21):
has caused homelessness to rise to the highest level in
recorded history.

Speaker 2 (02:02:26):
Yeah, I mean, it's really a perfect storm that spells
disaster for these families because you have years of wage stagnation,
years of attacks on unions, you know, and fits in
with the conversations we've been having about de industrialization, and
you know the fact that it is so difficult to
earn a living wage in this country, and then you

(02:02:48):
add to that skyrocketing rents, skyrocketing housing costs, and you
have utter disaster for so many families that are trying
to do everything right. You know that are they're working hard,
they're trying to, you know, follow the playbook of how
you get in a head in America, and it just
doesn't work for so many people. Now, you know, I

(02:03:10):
was curious as I was reading the book. I'm sure
you've been watching some of the discourse about the abundance agenda,
and you know how one of the factors that has
led to housing on affordability is too many owners, zoning
regulations and the way that's limited construction or made it
so that it's you know, there's less affordable housing available.
I just was curious, based on your reporting with these

(02:03:33):
individuals and the dynamics that go into the housing market,
how much of a fix some of that you think
really would be.

Speaker 8 (02:03:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:03:40):
I mean I take a kind of ecumenical approach to
solutions and how we can finally solve this this mounting catastrophe.

Speaker 8 (02:03:49):
I think we need a kind of both and approach.

Speaker 14 (02:03:52):
But I do think that simply like deregulating the market,
letting the market do its thing, cutting the red tape
and really allowing the private market to sort of, you know,
provide for the housing needs of Americans who need it,
is not adequate.

Speaker 8 (02:04:09):
I think what some of that discourse maybe leaves.

Speaker 14 (02:04:12):
Out is power, the question of power, who has it,
who doesn't have it, the immense power asymmetry that exists
in this country between the renter class and those who
are fortunate enough to own property and to be landlords.

Speaker 8 (02:04:26):
And also I think what's missing is just.

Speaker 14 (02:04:28):
How incredibly profitable all this insecurity has become, not just
for you know, nimby homeowners who don't want an affordable
housing complex built near their you know, neighborhood, but how
profitable it's become for some of the most you know,
influential and powerful Walsh Street firms in this country. I

(02:04:49):
was absolutely shocked to discover that at every step in
these families journeys, the five families who I follow in
this book, there were entire business models designed to capitalize
on their precarity. And that's not only the private equity
firms like Celeste Landlord who are buying up vast swaths
of America's rental housing and really making that housing much

(02:05:12):
much more insecure, pushing people out through these automated eviction
systems and algorithms that determine, you know, that someone just
gets an eviction filing if they're two days later on
their rent and there's no human to interact with, not
only pushing people out of their housing, but increasingly buying
up the very sites and places where families and individuals
are pushed into once they become homeless. And nowhere is

(02:05:35):
that truer than with this phenomenon of extended stay hotels.
It's an entire world of homelessness that we're not seeing.
And you know, during the pandemic, Blackstone and star Ward Capital,
these two private equity giants, they saw that that Extended
Stay America was raking in hundreds of millions of dollars
while all other hotels were at like zero occupancy, and

(02:05:57):
they spent six billion dollars buying this because they saw
that these hotels are concentrated in areas of our country
we're working people are most likely to become homeless and
to lose stable housing. And so you have entire business models,
very powerful business models, that are actively exacerbating and really

(02:06:18):
profiting off of this this insecurity.

Speaker 3 (02:06:21):
Are there examples of communities or policies that have dealt
with this in a constructive way? Are there, you know,
things that we can point to and say, you know, look,
this does work, this community used it.

Speaker 4 (02:06:35):
You know, to some success. What do you make of that?

Speaker 14 (02:06:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think as far as like if
we really open the lens on this crisis. And you know,
one of the big things I'm trying to show in
the book is that the official numbers on homelessness, as
bad as they are, and again we had over the
last two years the highest level of homelessness on record.
As bad as those official numbers are, the reality is

(02:07:00):
actually much much worse.

Speaker 8 (02:07:02):
It's exponentially worse.

Speaker 14 (02:07:04):
And I estimate that it's that the actual number is
roughly six times that of the official number. And the
reason I say that is because once we get a
sense of the true severity and magnitude and crucially the
actual root causes of this homelessness catastrophe, we realize that
that the kind of nibbling around the edges solutions that

(02:07:24):
are often floated will simply not be enough. And a
huge thing is keeping people in the homes.

Speaker 8 (02:07:29):
They already have.

Speaker 14 (02:07:31):
And you know, I think I've been disabused in the
process of reporting this book of the notion that, like,
if this is solved, it's going to be because some
policy maker in Washington or at state level wakes up
and is like, I'm going to he's the suffering for
these people. Some of the most promising trends that we're
seeing is the emergence of a really powerful and vibrant

(02:07:53):
tenant rights movement across the country, people organizing in their buildings,
in their run properties and saying this is intolerable, We're
not going to stand for it. And in cities like
Kansas City, we had the emergence of casey tenants over
the last several years that has demanded large scale policy shifts.
And I think that's the most promising thing we have

(02:08:16):
right now that this is going If solutions come, they're
going to come from those who are closest to the
problem and those who are directly impacted and their neighbors
who simply say, you know, like, we're not going to
allow millions of people to be the casualties of our
city's renaissance, of our city's success and growth, Because that's
another dynamic. All of these people are losing their housing

(02:08:38):
not in the midst of like poverty, but in the
midst of mounting prosperity in cities like Atlanta, Nashville. So
that's really what I see as most right now.

Speaker 2 (02:08:47):
Yeah, because you have this mass inequality too, where you know,
in these cities you need the people who are going
to work at McDonald's, who are going to do the
uber eats or the door dash you need, you know,
given that's the economic system system we apparently have. You
need that working class, but you increasingly have completely priced
the amount of housing and then you don't have you know,

(02:09:09):
I know, Atlanta's notorious for not having sufficient public transit
also so that people can actually you know, conveniently commute
in and you know, speaking to some of that gentrification aspect,
one of the families I'm blanking on the name of
the woman that you focus on. One of them had
lived previously and grown up in Atlanta in a public

(02:09:30):
housing project and actually have very fond memories of that
public housing project and what life was like there. Those
were demolished and then I believe what happened is they
built some replacement that was like mixed income housing, but
never sufficient to replace the number of units that it
previously been lost. And so I wonder what we can

(02:09:53):
learn from that dynamic and the way that you know,
this kind of like well intentioned reform movement ultimately exacerbated
the issue of a housing crisis for people in the city.

Speaker 8 (02:10:06):
Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 14 (02:10:08):
I mean, I think through Britt's story, Britt is the
name of the person that you were just referencing. Through
her story, I mean, you kind of get American housing
policy in the life of one one single family, one
single individual. And like you said, she grew up in
public housing. She was determined to make Atlanta her home,
to make a home for herself and her kids in

(02:10:28):
the city. And she has this line like this city
is just mine, as is just as much mine as anyone's,
Like I'm not going anywhere. But the title of the
book comes from Britt, there is no place for us,
because she realizes that the city that she's.

Speaker 8 (02:10:43):
Given everything to.

Speaker 14 (02:10:44):
You know, Brett works at the airport when the book begins,
she's working at, you know, a place that's like the
pride and joy of Atlanta's economy, the busiest airport in
the world.

Speaker 8 (02:10:55):
And I think it's important.

Speaker 14 (02:10:56):
To note that one of the most perverse things that
this book documents is that the working homeless, these are
not people on the fringes of society. They are the
people whose labor, whose bodies are powering the very growth
that again, perversely is not just pushing them out of
the neighborhoods they grew up in, but pushing them out
of housing stable housing altogether. And you know, the policies

(02:11:21):
that emerged in the in the absence of public housing.
Once all the public housing in Atlanta was demolished because
Atlanta was the first city in the country to build
public housing in the thirties, and it was the first
city in the country to sort of undertake this neoliberal
experiment in demolishing it, demolishing public housing and turning to
the private market through vouchers and through other you know,

(02:11:43):
incentivizing private development to fill that need. And Britt's story
is are really tragic example of how how much that
promise has failed, and ultimately her story is an example
of how we need just a radical paradigm shift in
how we think about housing in this country. Like housing

(02:12:03):
is as it's currently conceived, it's just auctioned off to.

Speaker 8 (02:12:06):
The highest bidder.

Speaker 14 (02:12:08):
We've you know, one caseworker in the book refers to
it as the housing Hunger Games. And what we've done
is we've said this essential human need is going to
be you know that people are just going to be
at the mercy of a market that may or may
not have an incentive to keep them housed. And if
rents skyrocket past the rate of inflation, so be it.

(02:12:30):
We need a different approach where we start to treat
housing the way we do like public education, where we
just say this is a basic part of being in
this country. We're going to guarantee it for everybody. And
there was a time when we had that vision as
a country, and there are pure nations who have implemented
that vision. It's not this utopian, you know, radical ideal.

Speaker 6 (02:12:52):
That's that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (02:12:54):
Well, the book it will break your heart if you
read it, will absolutely break your heart. But I really
recommend it to people because you have so many examples
of you know, people who they win what they consider
as like the lottery, they get the voucher to be
able to help them afford you know, housing, and just
how that process is all but you know, fraught with

(02:13:14):
insecurity and no guarantees and creates this housing hunger game
situation you're talking about. You go through some of that
history and just the dynamics that that people are really
dealing with on a granular scale, very much reminded me
of the work of Barbara Aaron Reich, so highly recommend
it to people. And Brian, thank you so much for
taking some time both to explore this issue, which I

(02:13:36):
do think that is there's a complete blind spot in
society for and also to join us today and help
us understand your work.

Speaker 8 (02:13:42):
Thank you so much. It's really meant a lot to
talk to you.

Speaker 6 (02:13:45):
Our pleasure, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (02:13:47):
That was depressing, but I think a very important discussion.
Thanks for bringing my guest to us and for being
here today.

Speaker 2 (02:13:54):
Yeah, my pleasure as always. And yeah that I really
genuinely recommend the book, even though it will absolutely break
your heart multiple times as you read it, but it's
so important to understand what's going on in this country.
And Emily, always a pleasure to get to chat with you.
And guys, I'll be in like normal with Sager tomorrow
in the studio, so I will see you then. And
then oh, one last thing, we made it official. Friday

(02:14:16):
Show is now every week every Friday. We're committing to it.
We're doing the thing so and with a bonus second
half that's just for premium subscribers. So thank you guys
so much for supporting us and making that possible.

Speaker 3 (02:14:28):
We'll see if Sager decides to show up fingers crossed.

Speaker 2 (02:14:32):
Well, as everybody learned, he's got some things going on
right now, so.

Speaker 6 (02:14:39):
Yeah, he is more than forgiven.

Speaker 3 (02:14:41):
Yeah, but the two of us are always happy to
slum it with Ryan. So we will see everyone on
Friday for that show. Breakingpoints dot com for a premium
membership if you want that second half otherwise

Speaker 4 (02:14:52):
We'll be back here with more tomorrow

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