Air Date: 4–18-2026

Full Episode Notes

Welcome to this episode of the Award-Winning Best of the Left Podcast.
Today we examine how the US War with Iran has exposed the deep structural rot at the heart of American power, the global economic catastrophe quietly building beneath the surface and the cuts felt at home in order to pay for it all.
For those, looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 45 minutes today include DwightT Eisenhower, the Briefing, Paul Krugman, the Independent Drop Site News, democracy now, Brendan Miller and LBC.
Then in the additional deeper dives, half of the show there will be more in six sections, section A, Lebanon under attack, section B, the world D idolizes, section C, world Economy in peril, section D, the moral rot of war profiteering, section E, the damage our military does, and Section F making China great again.
But first, a reminder to check out our new show solved on the best of the left YouTube channel.
We're really proud of the show we're making and think you'll get real value out of it.
Plus you checking it out will help us find new viewers on YouTube.
So thanks in advance for all of your views, likes, subscribes, and comments.
That's all on the best of the left YouTube channel.
Linked in the show notes and now onto the show.

A burden of arms draining the wealth and labor of all peoples, a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system, or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every worship launch.
Every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not theft.
Those who are cold and are not closed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants each serving a town of 60,000 populations.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat the best way of life to be found on the road.
The world has been taken.
This is not a way of life at all in any 2 cents under the cloud of threatening war.
It is humanity hanging from a cross of island.

Before I play you this next very instructive clip, I wanna note that the only reason we have it is because the White House seemingly accidentally posted a live stream of it, which they then tried to delete, but not before the internet saved it for posterity.
And just for context, Donald Trump starts by referring to the head of the Office of Management and Budget, the Christian nationalist author of Project 2025 Russell Vought.

We can't take care of daycare.
We're a big country.
We have 50 states.
We have all these other people.
We're fighting wars.
We're we can't take care of daycare.
You gotta let a state take care of daycare.
And they should pay for it too.
They should pay, they have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it.
We have to take care of one thing.
Military protection, we have to guard the country.

All right, all these little scams that have taken place like that, little scam daycare.
Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland, member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator, good to see you.
Thank you for being with us.
Lemme throw some numbers out at you.
Apparently the Penn Wharton budget model says we, this war has cost $65 billion so far.
White House is asking for $200 billion for it.
The tomahawk missiles alone are $3 billion.
They take a year to two to build per missile.
We've, we've spent $3 billion on them.
This is in a country where we had doge ripping apart the government last year.
We had people not getting their food stamps.
We have people not getting their, Their Obamacare subsidies, but we're spending somewhere between 65 billion and $200 billion on a war that no one is able to explain.

Well, Ali, that's right.
And we should all remember that during the campaign candidate Donald Trump promised that he would keep us out of foreign wars and focus instead on trying to make things better right here at home.
Instead, he is, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu started a foreign war.
Prices are going up.
And now he says, well, we've gotta pay for this war in Iran by cutting back on federal investments.
You played the clip with childcare, but there are also other points in that speech where he talks about cutting Medicaid, cutting Medicare.
So the bottom line is the President who said he wouldn't start a war now wants to pay for it by cutting deeply into American healthcare programs and other, other programs that help American families here at home.
But that's not that surprising, is it, Senator?
I mean, you go back to the history of wars that America has started.
One group tends to benefit from this very well either oil producers or, or or, or munitions makers.
I mean, that's just, that's the nature of the game.
It becomes too much money that we have to pay for a war.
So you're gonna have to cut it from the people who can least afford it.

Well, that's, that's exactly right.
I mean, you've got defense contractors who are gonna be raking it in and other folks who are close to the president are gonna be raking it in.
But the American people will suffer.
And of course, this comes on top of what Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington did last year, right?
They passed their so-called big beautiful bill, which was beautiful.
If you're a billionaire, you got really big tax cuts.
But to partially pay for that, they cut Medicaid, they cut food nutrition programs.
So now comes this year and Donald Trump goes off and starts a war and says, well, we're gonna have to cut back on Medicare.
We're gonna have to cut back on Medicaid.
We're gonna have to cut back on our efforts to make childcare more affordable.
At the end of the day, he is screwing the American people and doing exactly what he said he was going to avoid.
He said he was gonna focus on things here at home, keep us out of foreign wars.
He's done exactly the opposite.
I was talking to Ben Rhodes about this a minute ago.
I wanna play it for you.
Something that he said about gas prices in the Oval Office.
Let's listen.

Gas prices today, they hit $4 and we have $4.
Yeah.
And we have a country that's not gonna be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months, of course.
But Americans are feeling the effects in the interim of, and they're also feeling a lot safer.
What is the plan to bring them back down?
All I have to do is leave Iran and we'll be doing that very soon, and they'll become tumbling down.
We're not gonna have a country that's gonna be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in, in six months.
That's just nonsensical talk.
There.
There was, there there's no I mean, These things you're on, you're on serious committees in the Senate.
There was no you discussion about Iran throwing a nuclear weapon at America in six months or six years.

It was a complete and total lie.
Ali and the president himself told the country last year that he had decimated, obliterated it.
Iran's nuclear richen program.
Obliterated it.
And then his DNI, Tulsi Gabbard testified publicly the other day that Iran has made no effort to try to reconstitute, That nuclear enrichment program.
And so that was just a complete and total lie.
And as you and Ben Rhodes discussed, I mean, they're nowhere near any kind of ballistic missile that can reach the United States.
So this was all a fabrication by the President of the United States to try to justify his actions while Americans are here hurting here at home, we've lost 13 of our service members.
Hundreds wounded, as you discussed, thousands of civilians killed in the region.
We're paying $2 billion a day.
We the American taxpayers, while gas prices are going up.
And now Donald Trump says, well we've gotta cut back on other investments that are important to the American people.
This war should never have started.
We should end it.
Now, Donald Trump is talking about asking for another $200 billion, and I can tell you, Ali, I won't vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice.
I think we're gonna find a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who are gonna say, no one has given us an explanation as to why we need to be spending another dime on this war.

The story keeps changing.
We're either going to apply force and devastate Iran, or our job is done, and it's up to other countries to reopen the strai of horror moves because we don't rely on it as the President.
Which is first of all, it turns out not to be true.
The, the United States does not import significant amounts of crude oil coming through the Strait of Horus.
But we do import fertilizer, which I didn't, wasn't aware of.
Lots of things that are coming to light now that we're facing the crisis.
And the reason we are getting fertilizer mostly from Qatar is that the fertilizer is made, urea and some other things are made from natural gas.
Natural gas can be exported, is exported in large quantities from the Persian Gulf or was until this war began.
But That's expensive.
You have to super cool it and liquefy it and ship it out through special terminals and special ships and it, it can be done and it's become really critical to a large part of the world.
But the other thing you can do with the natural gas that's available in, in the Persian Gulf area is converted into fertilizer, which is a lot easier to ship.
And so a lot of the world's fertilizer turns out to come from that area and normally get shipped through the strait.
And the United States we're a great agricultural nation and we do import significant amounts of fertilizer.
We import a large share of our fertilizer and some of it from the Persian Gulf, a significant share of that.
So this is having a direct impact on US farmers.
The price of urea is way, way up.
And there's something that I recently been alerted to.
They're just quite scary.
The planting season is coming up, says somebody who has no idea what agricultural life is like, but that's what I'm told.
And the farmers have long since contracted for their fertilizer.
They, they already they, they, they've already paid or at least signed the contracts.
The prices are locked in.
But will there actually be fertilizer available?
It's not at all hard to imagine that the suppliers will declare a force majeure say there's a war on which is normally a, a valid excuse for backing out of contracts and simply fail to supply the fertilizer.
That would be a real catastrophe.
By the way, there are other places where that's going to matter.
The airlines quite often, Airlines cancel flights all the time and sometimes they declare force majeure and cancel flights and don't even compensate.
Although that I think is less of an issue right now.
But Jet fuel.
The price of jet fuel has risen at last.
I checked 88% since the crisis began.
Airlines they're already talking about it, Cutting back schedule.
It's not about canceling well, it's not entirely clear.
And for the mo, my, I'm as insulated as anybody can get from all of this.
But Robin and I do have, Some travels planned starting in, in late April.
And the mixture of, of pleasure and business and some of it we really need to be in certain places seems entirely possible that flights will be canceled.
We may or may not receive compensation, which I don't really care about, but the, but just not being able to get to the places that I have promised to be would be a really serious disruption.
Now, this is trivial compared with farmers are facing potential financial ruin.
But this is just an illustration of the disruptions, and of course, at a fundamental level, saying that because the United States doesn't buy its oil from the Persian Gulf, That therefore we are insulated.
This doesn't matter to us.
I mean, take a look at your gas station.
Gas prices are up about a dollar a gallon since the, since the war began.
Wholesale gas prices are up about a dollar 20 a gallon.
So this is gonna get worse.
Diesel is up even more.
So this is the fact that the United States actually produces more oil than it consumes is pretty much irrelevant.
If you want to ask our how does the US economy get affected?
Well, the economy is people like soil and green.
I mean, the economy is people, and most people in the United States are significantly adversely affected.
By the spillover from this war.
Now oil companies particularly oil refiners who seem to be seeing a big explosion in their margins, they're doing well.
But what good does that do?
The rest of us, it's not as if the US has any fiscal measures in, in place to capture those gains.
So this is, in fact, hitting the United States is hitting all of us quite hard.
And it may be actually kind of catastrophic because plans, plans to travel, nevermind.
But plans to plant crops may be seriously endangered by all of this.
Has anybody told Trump about this?
From everything we're reading?
The answer is probably not.
Basically we're in a situation where the, the court here is don't tell the the emperor that he has no clothes and don't tell them that.
Actually warn the Persian Gulf really hurts the United States a lot too.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it launched its heaviest ever strikes across Lebanon hitting a hundred targets in just 10 minutes alone.
That's killed more than 250 people and injured over a thousand others.
According to the Lebanese authorities footage taken from the ground in places like Beirut to the East in Bakar and in the South was horrifying.
We were speaking to witnesses, including the wounded from their own hospital beds, and they described the bombardment like a ring of fire and an earthquake.
Now, this all happened just a few hours after Pakistan announced that it had successfully brokered a truce between the U.S.-Israel and Iran.
A truce it said included Lebanon.
This was refuted immediately afterwards by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since then, Israel has been continuously bombing Lebanon.
The concern is that this is not only going to exacerbate an already existing humanitarian catastrophe in Lebanon that could actually scupper those peace talks, which are due to start in just a few days in Islamabad.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the conflict in the Middle East has had an unprecedented impact on the world.
We've already seen the worst disruptions to global energy supplies in history.
We've seen major transport hubs like the Doha and the Dubai airports close.
All of us have felt this.
Our energy bills have been soaring over the last few weeks.
Everything is dependent on those talks which are due to start imminently.
The hopes for these torques actually resulting in a workable peace plan are already pretty slim.
There's massive differences between what all sides want out of it, including who's gonna control the straight of M.
What's gonna happen to Iran's nuclear program and its ballistic missile capabilities.
Putting any external pressure onto those talks is going to make that job even harder.
And so the fear is if Israel keeps bombing Lebanon, those talks won't be successful, and the hopes for peace for the region and for the world will only be further away.

The Iranians in the statement from the Supreme National Security Council, that was Iran's first.
Official response to this.
That's the highest decision making body when it comes to national security issues.
And it operates directly under, Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of, of Iran.
You can take that to the bank in terms of it being the policy of the state.
And what they said was that they do not trust the Americans at all, that their assumption is that the US will not abide by anything that it publicly states that it agrees in.
And the Iranians for many, many weeks have been told, telling us that the, that any deal must apply to all fronts of resistance.
And they also mention Palestine as well.
And we'll be talking later to Abu Ubaida, but the Israelis are continuing to carry out sporadic but heavy and lethal attacks inside of Gaza.
One, one thing this is, is related in a sense, but we understand that the this interim governing committee that is supposed to be entering Gaza is being blocked by the representative in charge of the implementation of this from Trump's so-called Board of peace.
So the Iranians represent the most significant military force within the axis of resistance.
What Maz, I think is a hundred percent right.
I've heard a lot of frustration expressed by Iranians that there hasn't already been a swift response to the fact that Netanyahu just killed several hundred Lebanese, most of them civilians, including small children.
And and I think that the Iranians are being very, very serious when they say that this entire deal may be blown up.
Now, it's also possible if you study the track record of Trump and Netanyahu and so-called Ceasefires, it's possible that the Trump administration has let loose some leash on this for Netanyahu, have given him a certain amount of time where they feel like he can push it so far get his last kind of massive attacks in before they have to take a two week break and try to see.
If they can get more interceptors to the region they still, I think, are deluding themselves into believing that the Iranians are gonna capitulate in some format.
From the Iranian perspective, again, they feel even though they've endured this massive bombing, that they have greater leverage right now.
And an ability to call for a lifting of sanctions in a way that never was possible prior to the, the, the start of these wars.
And they're not going to just simply abandon that on this issue of Trump saying that he was gonna bomb, you know, bomb their civilization and he was gonna hit their energy plants, et cetera.
It's very interesting because many thousands of Iranians, including some prominent people who are known for being critical at times of the Iranian government, vowed to create human chains around Iranian infrastructure.
And they went out and they, they did this.
And I think there's been a real unifying force that has set in as a result of this US Israeli bombing.
Trump recently said out loud that the US gave a tremendous amount of weapons mm-hmm.
To to people inside of Iran, To who, who tried to engage in some sort of an uprising, Or rebellion in, in January.
People who were saying, who were pointing this out at the time and saying that Iran is not lying when they talk about their being for an influence.
They were derided as regime apologists and, you know, massacre denialists.
And the fact is that now the president of the United States has openly stated what Mike Pompeo implied at the time.
Mm-hmm.
What prominent Israelis close to Netanyahu implied at the time that the entire thing was that, that Netanyahu sold Trump on the idea that there was some kind of gonna be some kind of color revolution and you just needed to, to, to light the spark.
And the reality is the opposite has, has set in.
And if the US had done this to Iran.
If they had started to attack major power facilities, I believe that the Iranians would've made good on their promise to just absolutely light up the the Persian Gulf.
Mm-hmm.
To hit infrastructure in an unprecedented way across that region.
You would have Ansarallah then close the Bab el-Mandeb, the US economy.
The world economy would've gone into a total free fall, and there would've been utter panic among the Gulf allies that have been cultivated as business partners by Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Yeah.
And I, I know you have to go on a moment, so I wanted to ask you about this another comment that I saw, I think it was from Mohammad Marandi as well, it, but the, basically he was saying, you know, there's a possibility here that you could see a situation develop, Where we reach in a, we reach a, an agreement with the United States for a ceasefire, but Israel refuses to recognize it, and that we continue our conflict directly with Israel.
And you described that as sort of a kind of best case scenario now from Israel's perspective, that what I would imagine be somewhere in the ranks of worst case scenarios.
But, and this, this is what I, I wanna ask like, is, is that, is that something that's being discussed?
Is that a potential strategic outcome for the Iranians out of this?
And from the Israeli perspective, like, what are they thinking?
Because that possibility seems, Pretty like a pretty awful outcome for them.
Is it related to the fact that this, this current outcome is devastating for Netanyahu?
Like if, I think that if it stops at this point, I, I mean, I think there's a couple levels on which we need to think about this.
Fir first.
I, I get the sense, and I think this is borne out in the public statements of Iranians for many, many years.
That Iran believes that it is going to remain in a perpetual state of war against the Zionist entity against Israel.
And that nothing that happens right now is going to fundamentally change that.
I think that primarily the Iranians are looking for a non-aggression pact with the United States.
Remember in the ceasefire that was signed between Ansarallah and the Trump administration, Ansara Law often referred to as the Houthis in Yemen it was a bilateral agreement with the United States, but Ansarallah did not agree to stop attacking Israel as a result of its ceasefire with the United States.
And so I, I think that the Iranians and, and actually the late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, would frequently talk about this in his speeches on who's actually controlling the levers of power.
Is it the United States or is it Israel?
And I think that what, what the Iranians recognize is that they've sent a very serious message about the endurance capacity of the US military presence in the Persian Gulf region in the Middle East.
I think many people across the Arab and Islamic world believe that Israel has set in motion events that ultimately could lead to the total destruction of the Zionist project.
And so, I, I wouldn't I wouldn't assume that Iran is calculating that if a deal is reached to end this war, even in a long-term sense with the United States, that it means that the war with Israel is going to come to is gonna come to an end.
Israel may think that it's winning and running the deck right now, but, History has a long arc.
And, and I think some some years from now we will look back and recognize that when Netanyahu and Israel decided to wage the genocidal war against Gaza, they set into motion events that then spiral beyond their control and potentially will cause the entire collapse of the leaning Tower of Zionists.
On

why launch a war without a clear objective or plan and it won't even help you politically at home?
Well, I think I have an answer, and it lies with a series of essays by a French thinker titled The Gulf War did not take Place.
This book with its confusing title was about the 1991 action against Saddam Hussein and caused a lot of controversy at the time.
But I believe it gives an insight into how Donald Trump views war.
One that not only explains this conflict, but helps predict what he might do next, and that also reveals the flaw at the heart of Trump's thinking word that Iraq has invaded neighboring state of Kuwait with fighting reported along the border.
The residents say that they were awakened by machine gunfire and heavy artillery saying the Gulf War didn't take place.
Obviously seems mad.
It was after all a real war with bombs, violence, death, and so on.
So what did he mean?
Well, at this point, I should admit Jean Baudrillard, like many such thinkers is stimulating and interesting, but also elusive.
There are essentially, on my reading of his essays, three things he sang.
First, Baudrillard was saying that the Gulf War was such a one-sided conflict that to use the label war with its sense of uncertainty and drama was kind of a disgusting fiction.
Second Baudrillard was reacting to the way the Gulf War was the first live TV war, CNN broadcasting 24 hours a day full of videos of laser guided bombs hitting their targets for Baudrillard.
One of the reasons the war did not exist was that it was grotesquely, sanitized and clean.
One where the public saw the missile hits, but not the violence or death that followed.
Third, and this is the strangest part, he was arguing these images didn't just represent or misrepresent the war.
They were the war.
In other words, the videos, tv, all these images that represented reality had come to almost replace that reality.
As Ian Leslie, who wrote a great essay on this, puts it everyone, politicians and generals included, was lost inside the simulation.
The spectacle had swallowed the reel.
Baudrillard's word for this statey.
A state where the representation of something becomes more real and more important than the thing itself, almost to the point where there's no difference.
Now, I think Baudrillard was wrong about the Gulf War.
Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and threatened the world's oil supply.
And George Bush senior's action had real world consequences, even for the Americans watching it on tv.
But what if you had a president who wasn't like George Bush?
What if you had a president who didn't just see how the media can shape the experience of war, but who saw the war on TV as the reality you would have seen what happened?
I mean, I watched it literally like I was watching a television show, the speed, the violence.
They say that the speed, the violence they use that term.
It's just, it was an amazing thing when I made my video on the Venezuela attack.
I examined various theories about Trump's motivation.
I asked whether it was a reverse domino strategy to topple the regime in Cuba or part of a Monroe Doctrine, where the US would focus on the western hemisphere or maybe an imperial project to get the country's oil as Trump claimed.
But all the theories fell short.
Even Trump's rationale about getting the oil was scoffed by oil execs saying the project wasn't viable.
But when you think of the conflict as a TV show, shaped by a desire to maintain and keep tension.
Then it makes a lot more sense.
You notice how important it was for Trump to post that iconic photo of Maduro.
You notice the weird video set to a Vietnam era protest song, or the way White House photos of the operation showed that the largest screen visible in the room was open to X, seemingly so the administration could monitor how the campaign was going on social media, and when you considered that, the operation started with promises of huge change.
So we are gonna stay until such time as we're gonna run it essentially until such time as a proper transition can take place, but ended with the same regime in place and the whole incident.
Now basically memory hold.
It really does feel like you could say the Venezuela War did not take place finishing this fight.
Yeah, and when it comes to the Iran conflict, it feels like once again, Trump is in hyper reality where the war exists mainly as videos and images.
This explains the endless flow of videos mixing up clips of the conflict with popular culture.
Time to find out maximum.
It explains the administration's obsession with media coverage.
Trump administration is threatening to go after US TV networks for their coverage of the war with Iran.
FCC Chair, Brendan Carr threatened to revoke their licenses over the coverage, accusing the media of running what he called hoaxes and news distortions related to the war.
For example, a banner or a headline, Mideast war intensifies splashing on the screen the last couple of days.
What should the banner read instead?
How about Iran?
Increasingly desperate?
And it explains the grotesquely unserious way in which Trump seems to think about this war repeatedly calling it an excursion.
Answering a question about whether Americans should worry about Iranian attacks at home with the words, I guess, or talking about how the US has totally demolished much of Iran's key oil island before adding.
We may hit it a few more times just for fun.
If you understand Trump as living in hyper reality, just seeing war as a TV show, it makes sense that the objective of the war is always changing, that the operation was so badly thought out, and that there is an ever changing timetable.
It makes sense because the objectives, plans and timetable don't matter if this is just a TV show.
And the quote that really sums it up was in an interview with ABC's Jonathan Carl saying, I hope you are impressed.
How do you like the performance?
I mean, Venezuela is obvious.
This might be even better.
How do you like the performance?
It's similar to something he said in that interview about the Venezuela attack I played earlier.
Yeah.
And don't forget, I've done some pretty good ones in in other parts of the world.
Okay.
I've done some pretty good ones, but I've never seen anything like this.
I was, I was able to watch it in real time and I watched every aspect of it.
Some good ones.
I mean, it really is like he's a TV producer whose job it is to put on some good episodes for the audiences at Home Flash.
The Pure has just received a post card from a friend vacationing abroad on.

Now obviously media has always been part of war, but the way I see it, this was media used to sell a war.
War that was happening for a real reason.
But Trump's wars feel different.
Sure, there are definitely key people involved who have reasons.
Marco Rubio seems to want to regime change his way through Latin America.
And Netanyahu wants, I suspect, to create a failed state in Iran that will weaken it as an adversary.
But these are not the motivations of the person at the top.
He's running the TV Trump show, and if you bring him storylines that will gather attention of viewers, then he's happy to say yes to them.
Alright.
I think we've seen enough.
What do you think this is?
This is gonna be great television.
I will say that once you notice this aspect of Trump, you see it everywhere.
The way he retreated on ice once the TV pictures went bad, the way he focuses on ratings when he insults people, his appointment of TV pundits rather than actual serious people that could get things done.
And it's clearly an obsession that is lifelong pursuing tabloid coverage and celebrity even once pretending to be his own PR person so he could impress a reporter.
He's somebody that has a lot of options and frankly you know, he gets called by everybody.
He gets called by everybody in the book in terms of women.
But if Trump was happy for this war to be a TV war or a meme war disconnected in this hyper real world.
Well, the reality is turning out differently.

Four months.
The question hanging over the Middle East has been simple.
Are we heading towards a deal or something much worse?
This weekend, we got our answer.
After 21 hours of talks in Islamabad, the most senior direct engagements between Washington and Tehran in decades.
For now at least it's over.
No deal, no breakthrough, no path forward.
And with that, we're back to where we started, probably because strip away the noise, the threats, the strike, the war, the talk of regime change from the Trump administration and the basic reality before the war is the same as now.
It hasn't changed at all.
What the last five weeks has proven is that the United States cannot force Iran to abandon its nuclear program down the barrel of a gun, or at least guns wielded from the air alone.
If war is politics by another means, it has not worked.
This politics, arguably both sides are now further apart than they were before this war began.
In fact, you could argue that the war has made things worse.
Iran now has more leverage, not less sitting a stride.
The strait of M able to squeeze the global energy markets without ever having the need to even build a bomb.
And the Americans, well, they've expanded their demands from nuclear limits to missiles, to regional proxies.
Turning what was once something of a narrow deal with a narrower set of aims into something almost impossible to agree.
So here we are, no regime change.
In fact, a regime which is more hard line, less theocratic state, more standard issue military dictatorship than before the Iranian state still standing.
The nuclear ambitions still there and diplomacy back to square one, which leaves an uncomfortable conclusion because however much politicians may dislike it in Washington, however toxic it sounds, under President Trump, the only deal that has ever worked, even imperfectly, is the one we already had a version of the nuclear agreement, a version of the JCPOA as it's called, the one abandoned that, the one that Trump abandoned.
But in effect, he must now try and recreate with a regime stung, yet feeling empowered in a ous shaped driving seat.
The JCPOA Obama era wasn't perfect, but at least it had some effect because it recognized a basic truth.
You don't get everything you want from Iran, you settle for less than that, or you get nothing at all.
And right now, right now, we've got nothing.
We've got worse than nothing.
And the question of what comes next is, while nobody in Washington or Toran seems ready to answer or even able to answer,

the blockade is being forced according to centcom by 10,000 US troops, over a dozen warships, dozens of aircraft.
Can you explain exactly what's happening and for the geographically challenged the difference between the Strait of Horus, the Persian Gulf, and how it's extending beyond to the Red Sea and the sea of Oman.
Okay.
Thank you very much for having me on.
And yes, sadly, this is a terrible way for my area of expertise to actually be of relevance.
So for first the geography of the area.
The Persian or Arabian Gulf sits between Iran on the north, sliver of Iraq on the west, and then the various countries that, that are known as Emirates or kingdoms of the Gulf, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates around the southern shore of the Persian Gulf at the narrowest bit where the Persian Gulf meets the Gulf of Oman on the other side that's the Strait of hormones, which, Depending on how you measure it, it's Around 25 to 30 nautical miles.
So the Gulf the, the, the Strait of Hormones lies in the north between Iran and the North, and, The Musandam Peninsula, which is an extension of Oman in the South.
So in fact, the water of the Strait of Horus is divided between those.
There is no high seas.
There is, this is not, this is, this is territorial waters divided evenly between the two countries.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that of course the whole the Iran has basically lies on the entire northern shore of the Persian Gulf, but also the Gulf of Oman.
So it does have capacities.
In fact, one of Iran's big ports in which India invested Chabahar is, In the eastern part of Iran in the northern shore of the Gulf of Oman.
Red Sea is on the other, the Red Sea is on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.
So the Red Sea lies on the western shore of Saudi Arabia.
And the way that Iran can disrupt, Trade in that in the Red Sea is through firing missiles.
For example, as it has done already to the Port of Yanbu, which is a oil lifting port for South Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea, but also through possibly having its ally the Ansarallah of, Yemen, which are otherwise also known as the Houthis disrupting trade there as they did during the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
But there are a couple of things about that blockade question that I think is really important to note.
First of all, the US claims to have stopped completely and totally the trade of oil out of Iran.
Or indeed that has blockaded any kind of ships going to or from Iran.
In fact reporting from shipping companies that actually track this stuff, comes back that in the four days since the blockade has started, somewhere between 14 to 15 ships, Have gone through the straight of formers, at least half of them to Iran.
And the way that they have done so is either through route that obviously the US is incapable or of or not particularly good at policing through spoofing their, Automatic identification system.
Spoofing is this process where the automatic identification system is essentially presented as somebody else's, Either system indicating a different country or different flag, country for the ship.
And or ships have gone dark, which is something that ha happens all the time.
In fact, when I traveled on a freighter many, many years ago 10, 11 years ago, one of the things that was most striking when going through the Red Sea the Gulf of Aiden and indeed the Persian Gulf was the extent to which warships, particularly US or the eu warships actually turned off their a IS and went dark.
So this is a practice, although a lot of people like to present it as some kind of a nefarious thing if we are gonna think of it as nefarious.
In fact, a lot of ships take take part in this, in this practice of going dark including especially the United States.
In fact, this is in the case of us.
Naval ships has resulted in all sorts of in all sorts of problems collisions indeed with US Navy ships.
Now, in terms of the actual blockade and the effects it's having, I was just looking at the Bloomberg today and forgive me as I read this out, because it was really striking to me.
Bloomberg, which is of course one of the most reliable financial reporting sites anywhere in the world, reports that we are moving from short-term jolt to long-term shock as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market takes place.
So this is what's happening, and obviously the blockade continues because before the war, before the US and Israeli war on Iran started on the 28th of February somewhere between 140 to 170 ships a day were crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
Now it's only 50 14 to 15.
And one of the things that this has meant is that about 10, 10 million barrels per day of oil supply has been lost.
This includes, although of course, the primary people being punished by this, shortage of oil.
Are the economies in Asia.
In fact, it actually also affects the United States because, Some of the last ships that left the Persian Gulf before the war started were actually, Delivering their supplies now.
So we are going to see the effects of the blockade in the coming week or two.
And apparently one of these ships actually arrived in California because unlike the rest of the United States, California actually does receive oil from the Middle East.
And it it's refineries, Use a medium sour oil a kind of a medium grade and sour meaning high sulur kind of oil that comes specifically from the Middle East.
So the effect of this are of course, being felt incredibly widely.
Another really striking statistic was that an, an actual real world barrel of oil was sold in Sri Lanka at a more than $280 a barrel.
That is double what the price is going elsewhere in the world.
And so, so the effects of this are incredibly, incredibly striking.
What the blockade might mean of course, is that the US will start firing on ships that it assumes are Iranian or carrying oil from Iran or other cargo to Iran.
But of course, if it does so within the context of the ceasefire, it is violating the ceasefire.
And if it does so outside the context of ceasefire, Iran can interpret this as a belligerent action because of course, a blockade is exactly that, Particularly as it is blockading Iran in its territorial waters.
So the state, the, the state that we're in is that of course, we're not getting any reliable or credible kind of reporting from the Trump administration whatsoever.
And the state of play in the region, of course, is that Iran is going to defend itself against this imperial imposition and how it's going to do that remains to be seen.

There is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.
A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses, development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture.
A dramatic expansion in basic and applied research.
These and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration, the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy.
Balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.
Good judgment seeks balance in progress.
Lack of it.
He eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have in the main understood these truths and have responded to them well in the face.
Of threat and stress,

but threats, new and kind or degree, constantly arise.
Of these, I mentioned two, only a vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment.
Our arms must be mighty ready for instant action so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peace, time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments.
Industry.
American makers of plowshares could with time and as required make swords as well.
But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense.
We have been compelled to create a permanent armin industry of vast proportions.
How to, to this?
Three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.
We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporation corporations.
Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.
Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved.
So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must car guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex, the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial military posture has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, re research has become central.
It also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly.
A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by or at the direction of the federal government.
Today the solitary inventor tinkering in his shop has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields In the same fashion, the free university university, his historically, the fountain head of free ideas and scientific discovery has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research.
Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
For every old blackboard, there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet in holding scientific research and discovery in respect as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become.
The captive of a scientific technological elite is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time.
As we peer into society's future, we, you and I, and our government must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.
We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.
We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent fan of tomorrow.

We've just heard clips starting with an excerpt from President Eisenhower's cross of Iron speech in 1956 describing the trade-offs when investing in military buildup.
The briefing examined a leaked Trump video dismissing daycare alongside Senator Chris Van Holland's case that the Iran war was justified by a complete fabrication.
Paul Krugman discussed the global economic fallout that's likely to unfold threatening global farming and energy costs across the board.
The independent described Israel's unprecedented bombing campaign across Lebanon, killing over 250 people and cautioned that continued strikes could derail fragile peace stocks.
Drop site News warned that Iran's demand for any ceasefire to cover all fronts of resistance, including Palestine, makes a workable deal with the US and nearly impossible while Israel keeps bombing Gaza.
Democracy now traced how Iran's proposal to trade oil in Chinese Iran threatens the Petrodollar system, one of the fundamental bases of the US Imperial order since World War ii.
Brendan Miller drew on Baudrillard's essay

to explain Trump's Iran and Venezuela conflicts as hyperreal TV spectacles showing that he cares more about imagery than real objectives.
LBC traced how five weeks of conflict proved that military pressure failed, leaving Iran more hard line and the US holding expanded demands that made any nuclear deal nearly impossible.
And finally, that was Eisenhower's January, 1961 farewell warning against the military industrial complex and its potential to seize, unwarranted influence over government liberties and democratic processes.
And those were just the top takes.
There's a lot more in the deeper dive sections.
But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get this show ad free, as well as early and ad free access to our other show solved, including a members only backstage segment, all via podcast.
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As for today's topic, you just heard excerpts of two of Dwight d Eisenhower's most famous speeches.
In 19 53, 3 months into his presidency, a five star General who led the allied invasion of Europe stood in front of a room full of newspaper editors and said that every gun, every warship, every rocket fired is a theft.
From people who are hungry and cold, and he did the math one.
Bomber costs you 30 schools.
One destroyer costs you 8,000 homes.
This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.
He said it is humanity hanging from across of iron.
Then in 1961, on his way out the door, he warned that the military industrial complex would consume democratic governance if left unchecked.
Both things happened, and Trump just said the quiet part out loud.
On April 1st at an Easter luncheon at the White House, Trump told the room, it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things we have to take care of one thing, military protection.
In the budget he released, two days later, he proposed the largest increase in military spending as a share of the economy outside of a ground war in modern American history, one and a half trillion dollars for the Pentagon.
Next year, a 44% increase to pay for it.
His budget cuts the Department of Health and Human Services by 12.5%.
Slashes medical research funding by 5 billion cuts the CDC by a third.
Eliminates the program that helps low income families pay their heating bills and guts.
K through 12 education funding by almost 70%.
And this comes on top of what they already did.
The one giant ugly bill cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid over the next decade since it passed over 800 healthcare facilities across the country have closed cut services or are teetering on the edge.
One third of all rural hospitals in America are now at risk of shutting down and the new budget goes further, eliminating programs specifically designed to stabilize rural hospitals.
Meanwhile, the war operation Epic Fury, the Joint US Israeli military campaign against Iran cost $11.3 billion in its first six days.
According to Pentagon.
Briefings to Congress has been running at hundreds of millions of dollars a day since then.
The Penn Wharton budget model estimates the total could reach 47 billion through April alone with broader economic damage, potentially reaching 210 billion, and that's assuming it stops Six days of bombing Iran costs more than the entire proposed cut to medical research funding.
The daily cost of this war is roughly what it would take to keep multiple rural hospitals open for a year.
But things are more complicated now than in Eisenhower's time.
The direct costs are devastating enough, like the trade off between bombs and hospitals that Eisenhower described.
But we've spent the last 70 years building a global economy, so interconnected, lean, and optimized for a profit and efficiency that a single reckless act can set off a chain of consequences.
The people who started it clearly don't understand.
Now, I'm not an expert on global food systems, but here's who is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the United Nations Trade and Development Agency, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, and they're all sounding the same alarm.
So here's what they're saying.
About a third of the world's trade fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
Basically, the bottleneck for a huge share of the world's energy and fertilizer.
Since the war started and Iran effectively closed the strait shipping through, it has dropped by over 95%.
The price of a nitrogen fertilizer essential for growing wheat, corn, and rice jumped roughly 50% in the weeks after fighting began.
Countries around the world have reserves of oil, but almost nobody does that for fertilizer.
China's the exception, and they've been drawing down their stockpiles while restricting exports to protect their own farmers.
Beyond that, no strategic reserves, no alternative pipeline, no emergency buffer, and it's because fertilizer is worth less per ton than oil.
So it gets less protection, less infrastructure, less political attention.
We built the global food system, the way we build everything under capitalism, as lean as possible, maximum efficiency, maximum profit, and just hoped nobody would be reckless enough to break it.
This disruption hit right at the start of planting season in the northern hemisphere, which is the worst possible timing.
Farmers are making decisions right now about what's to plant, how much fertilizer they can afford, or whether they can get any at all.
The president of the American Farm Bureau wrote directly to Trump warning that this is a threat to both food security and national security.
Countries like Sudan, Tanzania, and Somalia, which were already struggling, are among the most exposed.
So here's where Eisenhower's accounting falls short, because the globalized economy is the real domino theory, and we are about to put it to the test.
In 1953, you could calculate the cost of a bomber in schools and hospitals.
The trade off was direct.
In 2026, the costs cascaded.
A war launched by two leaders, both trying to stay outta prison, one who treats military operations like television programming, has closed a shipping lane that disrupts the fertilizer supply, that could reduce crop yields, that could drive food prices higher across continents that had nothing to do with the conflict and the system that's supposed to prevent that from happening.
Strategic reserves, stockpiles, international coordination simply doesn't exist for the commodity that actually feeds people.
Now, I'm not predicting famine.
I don't know enough to make that call.
And neither do the people launching the missiles.
That's sort of the point.
The consequences of this war extend so far beyond anything the decision makers considered or are apparently capable of.
Considering that the rest of us are left reading reports from the UN and the Carnegie Endowment trying to figure out how bad it might get.
Eisenhower a five star general looked at this dynamic 73 years ago and called it a theft from people who are hungry, from people who are cold, from children whose futures are being spent on weapons.
He was right in 1953 and he was right in 1961, and the country ignored him both times.
The military industrial complex he warned about didn't just survive.
It won.
It captured the budget, it captured the legislature, it captured the media, and now it has a president who will stand in the White House on Easter Sunday and say out loud that taking care of children is not the government's job, but dropping bombs is the direct costs are a choice.
Someone made a hospital closes in rural America, so a tomahawk missile can launch in the Persian Gulf that part Eisenhower could see coming.
What he couldn't have seen is that 70 years later, the missile would also threaten the fertilizer supply that feeds a billion people because we built a global economy with little margin for error and then handed the controls to people with no interest in understanding what they're breaking.

Note that we've begun putting my commentaries on YouTube, so if you find 'em insightful, check out our channel and share them.
Link in the show notes.
And now we'll continue to dive deeper on six topics today.
First up, section A, Lebanon under attack, followed by section B, the world D idolizes, section C, world economy in peril, section D, the moral WR of war profiteering, section E, the damage our military does, and Section F, making China great again.

It took just 10 minutes for Israel to carry out the biggest atrocity that Lebanon has seen in almost 40 years.
In just a little over 600 seconds, Israel struck more than 100 sites across Lebanon.
On Wednesday, raining 1000 pound bombs down on a densely populated residential area in Beirut in southern Lebanon.
The result was carnage with over 300 people killed, and we knew well over a thousand people.
Residents, as well as Lebanese officials have said that the majority of those killed in injured with civilians, including children and the elderly, the country's prime minister.
Nawaf Salam posted this while we welcomed the agreement between Iran and the United States of America and intensified our efforts to reach an agreement for the ceasefire in Lebanon.
Israel continues to expand its aggressions that have targeted densely populated residential neighborhoods, claiming the lives of unarmed civilians in various parts of Lebanon, particularly in the capsule Beirut.
He list of all regional and international efforts to stop the war, not to mention its utter disregard for the principles of international law and international humanitarian law, which is never respected in the first place, and all friends of Lebanon are called upon.
To help us stop these aggressions by all available means sky News as Alex Crawford spoke to first responders on the scene in Beirut on Thursday.
What did you notice as soon as you arrived here?
It was a devil.
Mm-hmm.
It was a devil.
People is burning as real in what you saw as you arrived, which sounded like a scene no one would want to see.
First I was realizing I arrived to za or to the route.
Mm.
In the same point.
It was the same as a disaster.
Yes.
As, as you put a a, a a piece of burger on a grill, people was grilled.
Really?
The, the, as I tell you, it's not like you see people was grilled.
The one who I pick him up, up.
I, I take him bones.
Bones, all around here, all around here are large residential blocks.
How, how would you describe this area?
Because you are hearing the Israeli military are saying they were specifically targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, command and control centers.
I want to tell all people, all, all world, this world that will tell us there is Hezbollah here in Hezbollah, no Hezbollah as we are a child of, of pirate.
We are not Hezbollah and we are not including for Hezbollah.
And we're not with Hezbollah.
Well, they, there clearly are some Hezbollah elements in the capital city.
If now, if now they tell me that as a Jewish people here and you need our help, we will help.
Mm-hmm.
Our message, it's peace and humanity.
But, but what happened here yesterday, this area, it's food and beverage containers and as we know, as we see it's forec closes container.
Mm-hmm.
There's no military here buried.
Not bay.
It's under.
Community under under government yeah.
Mm-hmm.
But don't take this big for war, that Hezbollah and in Beirut, no, Hezbollah is not in Beirut.
Israel's narrative of targeting Hezbollah in Beirut came under further pressure on News Night.
Nada Maucourant Atallah is a correspondent based in Beirut for the UAE paper, the National, and she began by telling News Night the impact of the brutal Israeli assault.
What it means concretely on the ground, it means that until now you still have people looking for their loved ones.
It means that people were just frantically calling everyone, calling their families because these tracks, they happen in like residential building.
They happen in densely populated area.
And they came with no warning.
They, they did not happen in, Hezbollah affiliated areas.
They did not happen in, in areas, in neighborhoods where the group is influential.
It happens in, in the central in the central of, of Beirut, in, in areas.
You have lots of shops, you have lots of families.
I visited myself, three of those strikes, and there were all residential buildings that were almost completely collapsed, and they all had many victims.
And and rescuers still looking for survivors or just human remains.
Now, Israel claims that it was targeting more than a hundred Hezbollah command centers, and that most of it was inside civilian areas as a part of the hezbollah's strategy of using human shields.
So this all sounds pretty familiar, as do the kinds of sites Israel struck yesterday, including such deadly military centers, such as a funeral, a mosque, a traditional bakery, and even a car wash.
Israel also said it did everything it could do to mitigate harm to civilians.
Atallah was asked if she seen any evidence of that at all.
And they're not providing us with any evidence so they can say whatever they want.
What I see on the ground, I see a family terrorized.
I've seen videos of family jumping out of balconies because they were so scared.
I've seen videos, pictures of of children injured by Shrapnels young, young girl trapped under the rubble.
And this, this is also my city.
I live here.
I've, I've walked on the streets countless time.
I had friends who lived in the very same building one of the very same buildings that wa that was targeted.
So that they should be providing evidence.
And as the fact that the strikes came without warning and also during rush hours.
So it means that the streets were packed.
It has really increased the, the number of, of casualties and especially also the fact that all the strikes came at the same time.
Dalia, when it comes to these strikes, of course, Israel have said, as we mentioned before, they were specifically targeting Hezbollah military command centers, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, for people who dunno, home, there's a thing called the DIA, which is Israel's military strategy of deliberately targeting civilian structures to try and lower the morale of the people.
They're attacking so low that it forces them into capitulation, essentially.
What do you think is more likely the former or the latter?
I mean, that's exactly what what I was gonna, was what I was gonna talk about, the the DIA.
It is the.
Core principle of Israeli military strategy that obviously we saw unfold in Gaza, but it actually originated in 2006 in Beirut.
There's a, an area of Beirut called Dahieh.
And this is when we first saw these, the, the indications of this as a new military strategy by the Israeli state, which is, as you mentioned, Helene, you know, traditionally in warfare, in modern warfare, there is a sense of you have civilian infrastructure, you have hospitals, you have universities, You have residential areas, and you have military infrastructure.
And in a war military infrastructure is vulnerable and is up for being targeted.
And civilian infrastructure in civilians is supposed to be sacrosanct.
Now, the DIA doctrine represents a complete inversion of that, where in fact, you hammer the civilian infrastructure more in fact, than you hammer the, the military infrastructure in order to, as you say, that Helena create, destroy, Civilian morale to force.
There's some kind of bizarre idea that if you cripple a population, then they will be more likely to overthrow their government.
Well, obviously if people are sort of rebuilding their lives from the ashes of nothing I don't think that, you know, forming some kind of organized political force to take over a, from a, an organization that has been in power for, since like the eighties is really gonna be what they have capacity for.
But I also think part of it is a sense of trying to, 'cause one of the issues that Israel has had in Gaza is that no matter how many times they killed Hamas operatives, HAES was just able to replenish itself cons several times over the ranks of Hamas were never actually weakened numerically and.
So I believe Israel makes this calculation where they say, well, look where is Hamas?
Where is Hezbollah able to draw them, their personnel from?
It's from the society.
It's from the community.
And so what we'll do is we will just destroy that society, destroy that community, so that there is no one to draw from.
Now, obviously that is tantamount to genocide and that is what the Dahieh doctrinee is.
So what we have is an incredibly powerful military that is has as its, as its.
Named military strategy, a genocidal one that is specifically targeting the breaking down of a civil society.
And we are not just seeing it in Lebanon, obviously we saw it in Gaza.
We're also seeing it to an extent in Iran.

These strikes happened on, on, on densely populated areas.
They targeted, they happened all across the city.
The Israeli military said they conducted over a hundred strikes.
They happened on the southern suburbs of Beirut, but they also took place in central Beirut in areas, Such as Raya or or Raya.
These are areas that are spread out across Beirut, where, where that are densely populated, where, where tens of people live.
And by the Israeli military's own admission, they were constructing strikes on, on areas populated with civilians.
But under the laws of war parties to a conflict are required to take all feasible pro precautions to protect civilian harms.
But there was no effective or advanced warning ahead of these strikes.
And, and the damage that was done to civilian could be felt on the streets with continuous ambulances stream, I mean into hospitals with chaos as people tried to find their missing loved ones, as people struggled to pull people out of the rubble with children still being stuck in the rubble.
It was, it was it was a disaster that was felt across the city.
Across the country.
I wanted to go back to that quote of the Belgian Foreign Minister.
His name is Maxime Prévot.
He had just arrived in Lebanon.
He wrote on X just before I was commending President Aun for offering to open official negotiations with Israel towards a ceasefire.
Israel launched with no previous warning, one of the most massive strikes since the beginning of the hostilities, allegedly causing hundreds of civilian victims.
We were at the embassy with my delegation, just a few hundred meters from where the missile struck.
This must stop.
The Belgian foreign Minister said the ceasefire between the us, Israel and Iran must include Lebanon.
He said that was the Belgian foreign Minister Ramsey.

I mean indeed all of that took place and I think that.
Well, we, what we witnessed yesterday in terms of the large amount of civilian suffering of the attacks happening on densely populated areas coming without warning, the scale of it was massive.
It was the most it was the, the most deadly day, Since March two in Lebanon.
But the patterns that we've seen the Israeli military follow in their conduct in Lebanon as Inza is not new.
For two and a half years, human rights watch and other rights groups have documented repeated unlawful attacks, war crimes, committed in Lebanon, crimes against humanity, committed in za and acts of genocide, committed inza.
And while all of this was happening, states that were funding Israel, or that continue to funding, Israel continued doing so, arms kept flowing and transiting through countries that continued to provide military assistance to Israel.
Other states such as Israel's allies such as the United States, the uk, Germany, the eu, they have real leverage to stop these atrocities from happening.
These statements of condemnations that are, that are typically issued by, by states after such horrifying days, they, they, they have no effect on the ground, but there is real leverage that states can, can, can, can, can levy, they can immediately suspend armed sales and transfer and military assistance to Israel.
They can levy targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, credibly, implicated, and abuses.
The, the eu, for example, could suspend the trade pillar of its association of its association agreement with Israel.
But we haven't yet seen any effective measures being taken to stop these atrocities.
In fact, the silence of states and the continued flow of weapons has only emboldened Israel, where they're not only continuing to commit unlawful acts, but in fact boasting about it.
In saying that they intend to commit further atrocities.
The response from the international community has been limited to words of condemnation, but no effective action has been taken yet in order to stop these.
Atrocities from happen.
Can you talk about the number of medics who have been killed in Lebanon?
Do you believe medics are being targeted?
What's the number?
Over 50?
Yes over 57, but we don't have the full, we don't have the full number yet because we don't have the, a detailed list of number of medical workers that have been killed yesterday.
But as of the day before that, over 57 medical workers have been killed in Lebanon and Israeli attacks since March two.
If we add that to the total number of medical workers killed since October, 2023, and we're talking about over 250 medical workers killed in Lebanon, These medical workers have been killed in attacks on civil defense centers, on medical vehicles, on hospitals as human rights watch.
We, we and others have documented, Apparently deliberate and repeated attacks on medical workers in their vehicles, in their civil defense centers at hospitals that we found amounted apparent war crimes.
In our investigation, in Amnesty's investigation investigations done by international media outlets such as the Guardians, we didn't find evidence of any of these healthcare facilities, Being used for for, for military purposes in a way that would strip them of their protected status.
And this is a claim that has been repeatedly made by the Israeli authorities without evidence.
The toll is high.
And the, the, the, the, the damage that is conducted by by Israel when it strikes medical workers, isn't just limited to the personnel that are tragically killed.
It has compounding effects on the rest of the country as access to medical access, to aid to healthcare becomes increasingly more limited.
Since March two in Lebanon, six hospitals are, have had to shut down their operations for various reasons.
Three of those hospitals are located south of the Litani, where I mentioned tens of thousands of people live.
And so, increasingly, we're seeing in some places that access to healthcare is being limited, not only by by, by Israeli attacks.
But also because strikes on Bridges are limiting the abilities of hos of hospital of hospital staff to get easy and, and predictable access to medical supplies that they need.
We, we were in Sour last week, last week, and we spoke with the an hospital official at Jal El-Dib, one of the main hospitals in the city.
And they've told us that essentially in order to get supplies after bridges are, have been struck, they've had to take their own cars, drive across the Litani, go to the city of Sidon, which is several kilometers away, I think approximately 30 kilometers away get supplies and come back to, to the hospital, often having to, to do it at night, at great risk to the staff themselves.
Paramedic workers have told us that in order to send supplies into the area south of Litani, they typically wait until injured people are carried into Beirut, across the Litani, so that they send, can send back in those transport vehicle medical supplies that are desperately needed by paramedic staff and, and And, and other healthcare workers.
And so the, the, the strikes on medical workers are taking place.
We've documented, repeated, apparently deliberate attacks on these, on these medical workers.
But there's also an increasing, Increasing attacks that are, that are significantly limiting the ability of people to access healthcare in Lebanon and with the attacks yesterday, I mean, we, I, we saw hospitals quickly becoming overwhelmed with people being rushed in as ambulances streamed into them following the, the scale of the, the attacks and the number of injuries with over a thousand people injured.

As of now, just to throw out some numbers, there's been 1079 deaths in Lebanon, killed by the Israelis at least 118 children.
There's an invasion, an attempted invasion taking place in the South.
They're attacking civilian infrastructure, including bridges, And medical facilities. 128 of them have been attacked, at least 40 medical personnel, though I'm sure that number is a little bit higher now, have been killed by the Israelis.
Many of them in double tap strikes.
I mean, I can go on and on about the horrific destruction they're meeting out against this country right now.
But I think a good place to start would be maybe the basics for our audience.
As you know Hezbollah sort of entered this, this broader regional war with Iran after months of Israeli attacks and ceasefire violations over 15,000 of them.
So I'm curious, Kareem, from your perspective what, explain your perspective of why Hezbollah entered, why now?
How much of it is tied to the broader war with Iran?
How much of it is tied to sort of the domestic problems in Lebanon?

Yeah, no, I think you laid this out very well in terms of introducing how things are in Lebanon.
I think basically this discussion about why Hezbollah started or I, I wouldn't say started the war, I would say escalated because there was a war.
And I think it just, I think the proper term is more that they escalated when they did.
And that's, there's, I think a couple of big reasons.
I think the proximate cause and just in their own words even was, yes, it was after HOWI was, was assassinated in Iran, but really also in terms of militarily and tactically, they wanted to take the initiative because it was fairly clear that the Israeli government had taken a decision.
To themselves launch what they call a preemptive attack on Lebanon, on, on Hezbollah, basically.
So they decided for military and tactical reasons to initiate this before the Israelis were fully prepared to do so.
And, and that's the kind of proximate cause I think as to why Hezbollah entered when it did.
But there's, I mean, I think we can discuss it, but there's of course a much deeper issue here, which is that in the end, the way I see it is that you have a resistance project and you have sort of an Israeli Zionist project an expansionist, settler colony that's there.
And these two projects simply can't coexist in the long term.
They, they're, they are, at least as they have been for these past decades, mutually exclusive projects.
So this business of there being this much larger war that we're seeing today, Is something which I think a lot of people were thinking would happen and maybe thought had happened last year in 2024 and, but, and had finished.
And clearly it hadn't, Hezbollah had been preparing themselves for this war.
And, and perhaps this is that this, the, the the so-called final war, I mean, it would seem like it, it seems like to an existential war for many actors, including Iran, and, and we can get to to, to that in a bit.
But I, I think also it's interesting to see all these sort of think tankers and analysts, Chime in, especially from DC.
Because, and I maybe I was guilty of this too, in a way.
I think there was a perception after 2024 that Hezbollah had been severely degraded.
And I mean, you look at what happened, right?
They, the Israelis killed the entire senior leadership and the organization came out of that 2024 war.
Seemingly defeated.
It, it was a loss.
It was a loss in many ways.
All that said, I think watching now what's taking place, we're seeing Hezbollah behave and respond to the Israelis in a way that definitely challenges that perception of them as having basically been defeated.
So I guess from your perspective, you know, do you look at what's happening and do you see Hezbollah's have, having been rebuilt and how do you think their capacity now as, as we're watching this war play out?
How does that compare to what we saw in 2024?
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's absolutely fair to say that most people in Lebanon, and it seems that in Israel as well assume that Hezbollah had been defeated in the kind of, in the big sense of being able to pose any kind of threat to the Israelis themselves as opposed to a kind of internal force where still they they had influence within the country itself, but not as an external threat to the Israelis.
And certainly not in any kind of, that they had no deterrence vis-a-vis any kind of Israeli attacks.
I think that it's fair to say that most of us, and most people kind of assume that it's clear that what happened since that November 2024, not even a ceasefire, cessation, hostilities agreement that took place we, we saw that on the Israeli side, there were 15,000 recorded violations by the UN and by the Lebanese government.
It's, it's clear, and on our side or Lebanon side, there was literally zero violations across the border from Hezbollah or the Lebanese side.
Towards the Israeli side, there was zero violations as opposed to over 15,000 violations.
In the meantime, the the idea of the, the main, let's say, responsibility of the Lebanese government was to, and, and Hezbollah, was to say, okay, we're gonna disarm and remove at least the heavy weapons and most of the weapons south of the Litt River, and at least move it to the north and then north of the Litani River, there would be a second phase.
Or that would be negotiated and there, you know, there'd be some kind of discussion.
The reality is that for the most part, for the most part, the Lebanese army, which did deploy to the border areas and to, to most of South Lebanon and did take control over a lot of the, the key kind of points that Hezbollah had their bases on.
They there there was disarming.
In other words, the vast majority of Hezbollah's weapons were removed from South Lebanon.
That seems to be clear.
The Army had certified that, that the vast bulk of them had been removed, except in areas that Israelis retained control.
Because remember, Israel was supposed to have withdrawn as part of this agreement.
Mm-hmm.
They were supposed to have withdrawn from all of the occupied land, and they didn't, they retained several points that they said they were going to keep obviously strategic locations that they were going to keep.
They did not allow, I think there's around 60,000 or 60, at least 60,000 you know, civilians from returning to their villages, which is what they were supposed to have done according to this agreement.
So they were, they were clearing out, they were not going to allow in this, in a 2, 3, 4 kilometer zone.
Along the border.
The Israelis were not allowing people back.
They were not withdrawing their, their, their forces from the key points that they had taken.
And so what Hezbollah was doing in this period, which was around 15 months or so, was on the one hand, according to what they own, say they were giving the Lebanese government a chance to negotiate the withdrawal of the Israelis and a kind of more permanent agreement.
On the other hand, in reality, they understood that would not happen.
So they were preparing themselves and preparing themselves for this war that has now come, and it's very clear that they have prepared in a way that has taken everybody by surprise.
The level of professionalism.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
The level of professionalism, the level of weapons that they have the, the way in which they prepared the tactically militarily, they're, they're doing a job, which I don't think anybody would've expected.
And I, and this is what we're seeing today, and I think the Israeli response.
Which is what they always do.
It's just to say, okay, we take something.
And since we can't really understand what's going on immediately, we're just gonna destroy everything in our zone.
We're gonna threaten by saying, we're going to put 450,000 soldiers and reservists and whatever, at, at at the border.
And we're going to invade Lebanon up to the Litani River, if not even north of that, and we're gonna destroy everybody and we're gonna depopulate the entire country.
And basically, literally say that they're going to create sort of Gaza type conditions in, in chunks of South Lebanon.
But in reality, that's not gonna stop Hezbollah now.
And, and this is connected to the larger regional war that Iran has.
That includes Iran.

Next, section B, the world de idolizes.

Chinese vessels have reportedly been permitted to pass through the strait.
China imports about 40% of its oil from the Middle East and has been one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil.
There are also reports that the Iranians are suggesting they'd consider allowing a small number of oil tankers to pass through the strait if the oil cargo is traded in Chinese Yuan rather than US dollars.
If you could comment on that.
This is really fascinating because of course we know that the fundamental basis of the US Imperial Orders since the end of the Second World War has been on the one hand petroleum.
And on the other hand, the US dollar the the, the Globe's production and finance worlds are dependent on the petroleum that the US has guaranteed the flow of since the end of the Second World War.
And which until the nationalization of oil in the 1970s and eighties basically controlled something like 60% of the the world's oil reserves after nationalization, that percentage dropped dramatically.
But the US dollar continues to be on the financial channels that the US has crafted, continue to be a very significant bolster for the empire.
So the fact that Iran is actually looking for alternatives to the dollar in order to challenge the Petrodollar regime, which is as I said, one of the fundamentals of the US empire is a really interesting and quite clever, Indication of how the Iranians are hoping to influence the crafting of a world post this war or a new world order, post this war where there is a multipolar financial system where, for example, the dollar is no longer a single currency that rules the world, and the US is the only channel that control, or the only power that controls financial channels because of course, the US has used this this inordinate power to strong arm various states to institute sanctions to make it difficult for its enemies, for example, to purchase oil as, and, and of course to, to, it has used it to coerce a lot of countries as we see, for example, in the case of Cuba or Iran or indeed Russia to to do its bidding.
So the fact that Iran is calling for Petro Yuans to.
Come become an alternative to petro dollars is actually quite significant.
Also in indicating that the Iranians are well aware of how extensively the US has used its course of sanction capabilities through its control of the financial channels and through its, Mastery of the petrodollar and are trying to erode that power.
And Professor Khalili the US is now the world's largest oil producer, but because oil is a globally priced commodity, the price goes up in the US if the world market price goes up, but that's right.
How important do you think this might be in Trump's calculation?
Because another consideration, another aspect of this may be that as oil supplies diminish from the Middle East, the US could benefit because it is the world's largest oil producer and the price of its oil will go up and the demand for its oil.
Absolutely.
What a fantastic question because in fact, we have seen that when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and, The Nord stream gas, natural gas pipelines to Europe were sabotaged.
We now there, there are now indications that this may have been done at the behest of the US and its Ukrainian allies.
But nevertheless, when that sabotage happened, it actually translated into massive gains for us natural gas production.
The thing is that there are a number of reasons why oil is not, why the US cannot become the sole oil producer for the whole of the world.
One is the question of proximity, for example.
The second is the question of capacity that the US has in order to actually replace, for example, the oil that is produced by Saudi Arabia or by Iran, or indeed by Russia.
But the third factor, and I think that this is the one that I think we should look out for, is that in the last 10 or 15 years, China has actually begun generating a, an alternative set of fuels sustainable fuels and developing technologies particularly of electric electric and battery technologies that will allow for, for example, solar or wind energy to displace, fossil fuels.
And the more that the price of oil goes up, which of course we have seen that happen, as you mentioned earlier.
And in fact this also translates into major windfall.
For US oil companies, this oil prices going up, benefits Chevron, it benefits Exxon.
It doesn't benefit the average, US citizen at the petrol stations, at the gas stations, but it does benefit the oil company.
So it definitely does, that does happen.
But the higher the price of oil goes up, the, the, the relatively cheaper it becomes to actually have sustainable alternatives, which of course that means that it benefits China in a major way since China is way ahead of the rest of the world in, Producing these technologies and in producing them cheaply.
So the solar panels that are being produced in China are a fraction of the price of solar panels that were being produced something like 15 or 20 years ago.
And I think this shift is actually, Is, is a major long term concern for the oil companies.
So in the short term, they're taking all the windfall that they can get.
But this again, is that the kind of a post-war order that we will see will likely also have major implications for the kind of energy people are willing to use.
Actually,

for 80 years, the United States sat on the throne of economic power as the world's reserve currency and hegemonic superpower.
I mean, look, others have grown.
Some have even kind of closed the gap.
But so long as the world's business is done in the universal language of the US dollar, we are an immovable force.
We're part of everything inexorably intertwined with global trade, whether people like it or not.
Now, holding onto this exorbitant privilege as it's referred to, is literally the easiest thing to do.
I mean, to lose it, we'd have to turn on our allies.
Start unprovoked wars, cut off the flow of immigration to the United States to take an extremely xenophobic stance, withdraw from trade deals and alliances and global organizations, place egregious tariffs on every country in the world, even if they're only inhabited by like penguins, right?
You'd have to eliminate poverty and health funding to developing nations, hoard wealth and resources, and kind of generally go out of our way to piss off everybody from Canada to Japan.
But it would do that, right?
I mean, what country would literally self-sabotage to this degree?
What citizens of said country would vote for somebody who promised explicitly to do all of those things?
I mean, it wouldn't happen.
It's all, it's all hypothetical.
It is a big theoretical exercise.
Just that would be, whew.
Oo.
Oh God.
But you know what?
For shits and giggles, let's just game it out.
So we've talked about the BRICS before, right?
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
These are the original five economies who banded together because they saw this writing on the wall.
Now, Indonesia is the most recent entrant, but there are others who are affiliated, who are quickly filling in the map like Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE Now taken together, they represent more than half of the world's population, and they've been quietly and methodically building an alternative to the Western dominated financial order.
And another thing that these nations have in common is that the United States has now placed aggressive tariffs on every single one of these nations.
That's not a coincidence.
It's a pattern.
And it's not just adversaries like Russia and China.
We're talking about India, a natural ally and a country with deep historical ties to the West, and they're absolutely livid at the Trump administration's trade posture.
And India just took over the Bris chairmanship from Brazil for 2026.
And what did they do?
Immediately?
They unveiled their agenda.
Now, forget about climate initiatives or cultural exchanges.
This is about payment systems, financialization, deep economic coordination, the kind of boring technocratic technical infrastructure that most people tune out, but literally runs the world.

So that brings us to December, 2025.
What exactly did they announce in this extremely pivotal month?
The unit, not Randy Johnson, not a euphemism, but a digital currency backed 40% by physical gold and 60% by a basket of bricks currencies.
So the al, the Yuan, the rupe ruble, and the rand all weighted equally in a basket.
So if we think back to some of our other coverage from last year, this might sound like a stable coin, but it's not exactly that.
It's stablecoin adjacent, let's say.
But a normal stable coin like tethers, USDT or circles USDC promises you redemption.
You can always swap your token for actual dollars because they're backed by dollars one to one.
And that redeem ability is the whole point.
It's the anchor.
The bricks unit is explicitly non redeemable.
You can't just walk up to a window and exchange your units for gold bars or rubles.
It's designed to track that basket of assets to provide a stability relative to those reserves, like what is the quantifiable value of the transaction, but there's no redemption mechanism.
Think of it more as John Maynard Kane's Bank or idea that got overruled, that Bretton Woods.
It would be a unit of account used for international clearing.
So everybody has the same notion of what the value is.
So the gold and the bricks currencies stabilize the valuation, but they don't create a direct redemption channel.
So this is a wholesale settlement asset, not a retail token.
Banks and governments will use it to settle cross-border trade payments, but individuals won't be using it to buy coffee.
But here's where it gets really interesting.
Every Bricks Nation already is independently moving toward digital transactions internally.
So in India's UPI, which is Unified Payments Interface, is revolutionizing how money already moves within the world's most populous country.
We've talked about China before and how they've been piloting a digital yuan for years.
Every one of these countries has something similar to that inside their own infrastructures.
Now to be clear, these aren't just payment apps.
This is fundamental infrastructure, and the unit is designed to sit on top of all of them, creating a unified rail system that connects these digital ecosystems together.
So BRICS Pay is the messaging and the settlement network that links all of these national systems with a decentralized messaging layer.
This is their answer to SWIFT, the international payment Transfer System built on the dollar.
These nations, some of our allies included, are building an alternative to SWIFT, not tomorrow, not in some hypothetical future.
Right now,

Iran is now directly challenging the most powerful tool of the US Empire, which is the global dominance of the US dollar.
The fact that the United States is the only country on earth that can print dollars, which is the global reserve currency, gives the US an exorbitant privilege so the US can maintain massive deficits with the rest of the world.
The best way to measure this is to look at the US balance of payments, and in particular, the current account, which looks at transactions between the US and the rest of the world.
And the US maintains enormous trade deficits with the rest of the world.
The US current account deficit is around $1 trillion every year, $1 trillion.
The reason that the US does not face an inflation crisis like many global south countries with chronic current account deficits such as Argentina or Pakistan.
The reason that the US doesn't face the massive depreciation of its currency and high rates of inflation is because it has this exorbitant privilege of printing the global reserve currency.
And every other country on earth needs dollars in order to pay for imports of oil, which is the most important global commodity.
And almost all oil is traded in dollars, at least historically, until quite recently.
Along with other important commodities.
All these other countries need to get access to dollars, which maintains this artificial demand for US dollars.
And Iran recognizes this.
This is why Teran is now directly challenging the Petrodollar system, which is an important pillar of global US dollar hegemony.
In the past few years, the D Dollarization movement has been picking up steam.
More and more countries have been seeking alternatives to the dominance of the US dollar, and even major western media outlets, especially the financial press, have been warning that as the Financial Times put it, great power conflict puts the dollar's exorbitant privilege under threat.
And a big reason for this is because the US Empire has weaponized the dollar.
The US has imposed illegal unilateral sanctions on one third of all countries.
And in 2022, with the proxy war in Ukraine, the US and European countries crossed the Rubicon.
They took a step way too far, and they seized $300 billion of dollar denominated and Euro denominated assets belonging to Russia's central bank.
These were the reserves of Russia and this scared countries all around the world and central banks all around the world because they said, wow, if the West can seize the reserves of Russia, which is a major power, a very powerful country, then they could easily seize the reserves of much smaller countries.
This has led to an acceleration in the de Dollarization of the foreign exchange reserves held by central banks around the world, especially in global south countries.
And now even Western media outlets are warning that the dollar is losing its credibility, and central banks are instead buying more and more gold.
This is why the price of gold has been absolutely skyrocketing.
It has tripled since 2023, and gold has in fact become the biggest asset held in the reserves of central banks around the world overtaking US Treasury securities, US government debt, which is going to cause a lot of problems for the US government.
Because a smaller and smaller share of US government debt is being bought by foreign investors.
In 2015, about one third, 34% of US treasury securities were held by foreign investors.
A decade later, it's now around 24%.
And over time, it's secularly decreasing, which means that it's likely that borrowing costs for the US government are going to increase the yields on US.
Treasury securities will likely increase over the long term.
But now let's bring in the question of the petro dollar of global oil sales in dollars.
Because still the dollar is used in 80% of global oil sales.
It's not 100%.
It used to be close to 100% just a few years ago.
But due to the Western sanctions on Russia, and Russia is a major oil producer, and now Russia is selling its oil to other countries in other currencies, not the US dollar.
This meant that in 2023, about 20% of global oil sales were in other currencies, not the dollar.
And now Iran is demanding that countries that want to send tankers through the straight of Horus have to sell their oil in Chinese Yuan.
So what will the figure be in 2026 or 2027 or the years that come?
Will it be 30%, 40% that is sold in other currencies, not the US dollar?
Let's not forget that 20%.
Of the global oil supply flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
So if Iran succeeds in de Dollarizing, even half of that, that is 10% of the global oil trade.
That is massive.
And that means that there will be less demand for the US dollar by other countries, which will increase inflationary pressure in the US and cause interest rates to increase, it'll cause yields on US treasuries to go up, which will put more pressure on the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to raise interest rates or risk higher inflation, which could cause a political backlash.
This is precisely why the US government is so afraid of de dollarization.
This is why Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Bris countries and said, if they try to challenge the global dominance of the US dollar, he will punish them with 100% tariffs.
Trump has repeated this threat many times, and he did put 50% tariffs on Brazil and India.
Two founding members of Bris and Trump also at one point threatened tariffs of 145% against China.
Another founding member of Bris and the US and Russia basically don't have trade with each other due to the Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
So this is not just empty rhetoric.
Trump has threatened all of these countries.
He also threatened South Africa with high tariffs and other measures.
But in reality, what all of this is likely to do is to accelerate de Dollarization and Iran has been at the vanguard, at the forefront of de Dollarization for well over a decade.
Back in 2012, the Iranian government announced that it was selling oil to China in Renminbi, in Yuan not, and US dollars.
This has been going on for well over a decade now.
Moreover, China and Russia have d Dollarized, basically all of their bilateral trade.
And China is buying oil and other commodities from Russia in a mixture of Chinese Yuan and Russian rubles.
D Dollarization in China has been picking up steam in recent years, especially after the Western sanctions on Russia in 2022.
And now a slight majority, a bit over half of the cross border transactions in China are conducted using its own currency, r and b, not the US dollar.
And this trend is only going to continue in the upcoming years.

Now Section C, world economy in peril.

The reason why the US, of course not to do what kind of imperialism 1 0 1 here, but it's the reason why the US is so powerful is primarily because of the fact that they have this global reserve currency, which is the dollar.
You see a dramatic shift away from that.
So the dollar petro dollar becomes central in us.
Asserting its global.
He hegemonic power.
You're seeing an active and a passive move away from that.
So you're seeing an active move away from that in the fact that Iran says, we will trade it in non-US denominated currencies, the Chinese r and b.
And so you're seeing that already beginning and you're seeing the fact that if the oil doesn't circulate globally, and so the Americans have come out and said we will protect our oil.
And the Russians have come out and said that we'll protect our oil.
And, and, and so what that does is slowly move us away from that kind of global world order.
And it's also the fact that the American bases are being destroyed and those likely won't be rebuilt or rebuilt to the same capacity because the whole deal was you provide this protection and we'll allow you to have bases and lots of power here.
So in both regards, you'll see a weakening of that power that begins the reduction of, of economic power.
So there's that at the kind of hegemonic level.
But at the practical level, it's not just, we're not just talking about oil, we're talking about fertilizer.
We're talking about a lot of different products that that need to be circulated, that won't, that will also affect the Americans.
Of course, we're also talking about global inflation.
Once oil reaches, let's say 1 50, 200, let's say let by April, may, June, who knows, that affects inflation everywhere.
So that inflationary costs will be baked into every country, and that will be baked into the American economy as well.
So the American economy of, of all the economies is the most global of the economy.
So the idea that it'll somehow be in inoculated or insulated from the impacts of this is just, is, is fantasy.

I think that's such an important point.
And I think we can see it from the White House is Iran is, is totally destroyed every single day.
There's phantom convoys that are being declared that are gonna be moving people through the straits of horror moves.
I mean, seemingly try to manipulate markets through these various things, but all of it seems to be a little bit of an illusion.
I mean, I'm no military expert, but, You hear Iran's missiles were totally destroyed, and then there's like four boies of missiles towards Israel, like the 15 minutes after they say that.
So, I mean, it does seem that whether they underestimated them or not, that, It's, it's a, a false dawn, this idea that somehow Iran is like, Imminently collapsing here.
Yeah, no, of course.
Look, we know the kind of munitions that exist in the Gulf States.
We know what the munitions that exist in many different contexts because they're directly done by the US and they're kind of public contracts, et cetera.
There is no idea the missile capacity in Iran.
Right?
What we know right now is that Iran hasn't sent a single cruise missile.
And the CIA report alone says that they have over a thousand cruise missiles.
We know that.
We know that they have, and this is the CIA report between 40 and 80,000 Shahidrones, they have sent, sent out less than 3000.
So the capacity here is in question where people misunderstood, and I think certainly the Americans did.
I'm not so certain that the Iranian, The Israelis did as much.
They try to rope the Americans into this potentially.
But is that during the 12 day war, they gave forewarning and they sent in older models.
None of the new ones that we're seeing ha be sent out right now.
And so that might have misled or a given the west a sense that they could just dominate.
And so you see this come out even in the way that Trump speaks.
He says, oh, we'll take control of the straight of war moves.
You can physically go there.
You can't take control because it's not a military that you're taking control because the missiles are the ones that cannot be necessarily controlled.
It was the same kind of rhetoric that happened during Yemen when the Red Sea blockade happened.
Biden and Trump said, oh, they, we'll go there and take it over.
But the missiles kept coming and because the missiles kept coming, no shifts could cross because the liabilities are too high.
So private companies aren't going, even if they were insured by the Americans, even if they could get an escort by the American military, they couldn't, they wouldn't do it.
So the idea that somehow they're gonna use conventional weapons, they're gonna use conventional fleets and and somehow overwhelm them.
Well, the preponderance of evidence shows that they're not able to do that.
It's a new form of war.
And the missiles and the, and the, and the drone swarms keep coming.
And there, it, it doesn't seem like there's any end sight.
And you also had local production.
It's not just mosaic structure that they, that we're talking about with Iran, where different, different groups have different sections, have different forms of autonomy.
It's also that they were producing domestically using sort of domestic products locally in underground tunnels.
So there's no way of knowing for the Americans and the Israelis to know where, where, and how this will stop.
And that's one of the reasons why they've kept going back and, and asking for negotiations just to restart.
That doesn't come from a place of confidence.
It comes from a face place of fear.

Let's say the war ended today.
I mean, I wish it would, right?
But let's say it ended today.
How much damage has already been done?
Because we're looking at, you know, I think we're hearing estimates of like at least three more weeks.
And I mean, that could be longer, but at least three more weeks already.
In just three weeks, a lot of damage has been done.
So walk us through like what the damages so far, and then how much worse can it get if this goes on another month, months?
Okay, so there's two things.
I think the first part is around the, the amount of infrastructure and American bases that have been destroyed.
Those bases, I think will potentially, some of them will be rebuilt.
Some of them won't be rebuilt, but they won't be built to the same capacity.
The second part is the infrastructure that's been destroyed, that leads to massive disinvestment because the potentiality of another attack is always looming.
Before this, it was just threats.
Iran was making threats and people felt like there wasn't, there weren't necessarily concrete now and into the foreseeable future.
That risk has been baked into every decision that'll be made in the Middle East.
Certainly when we talk about Dubai, for example, it was seen as a safe space, a place where people can go and invest and, and get some nice sun.
And it was just, that is gone.
There's, there's very little likelihood of that, despite the best efforts of the UAE to try and change the narrative.
So that, that's the first point.
The second one is around the US military.
It will be very difficult for the foreseeable future for the Americans to lead a large scale conventional war.
This is especially at the weakened position they're in.
I mean, this is precisely why Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary just today came out and said, well, Russian oil we're unsanctioned it and we'll potentially unsanctioned, they might have just unsanctioned Iranian oil.
Let's see.
What does that tell us?
Partly it tells us that, that, They're terrified of the prospect of global shortages.
And not only the, the effect on the economy, the reaction to the Americans, I mean, Israelis, you know, the, the negative reaction will be a long-term impact.
But also they are trying, and I believe this, I don't know if it's, but I suspect that it's kind of a massive fig leaf to the Iranians to say, okay, this is on the table.
We will potentially, we're serious about getting rid of sanctions against Iran.
I imagine that's what it is.
And so I think that the long-term impact of this is both at, again, at the hegemonic level, but also at the very practical level.
You have to understand that these, these oil tankers get to the US after two weeks.
So they're not even seeing the impacts of this necessarily.
The Americans, they make sweet cr, they, they produce sweet crude, but they transport that.
They take crude from, from from Canada, and, and they refine that and they take it from Venezuela and they refine that.
So there, it's not like they're producing the US and necessarily selling the American markets.
So the, the impact on it, even if the America is, if even if America is a producer, again, they're not gonna be insulated from this, they're still gonna see an impact.
The question is will it, will it continue for three weeks?
If it happens, continues for three weeks?
There's no telling what'll happen.

This is where modern monetary theory was supposed to be comforting because MMT tells us that a sovereign that issues its own fiat currency can never quote, run out of money.
And under the MMT framework, the true economic constraint isn't debt to GDP.
It's inflation deficits are manageable as long as you're not pushing the economy beyond its capacity to produce.
And should inflation eventually show up.
You can use things like taxes and regulation to cool things off.
But Trump's deregulatory and tax cut regime serves to starve this solution.
And the biggest inflation driver is oil.
So even MMT economists are crystal clear on one thing.
Printing money or running deficits becomes inflationary once you hit real resource constraints.
When there are no more, let's say, skilled workers or spare capacity, like no more barrels of oil to allocate, because in that world, extra spending just bids up prices.
Well, welcome to that world.
Not even MMT can save us now.
So to stay inside the MMT guardrails, the US would have to offset war spending with big tax heights or spending somewhere else, and it would have to clamp down on private demand with things like rationing or price controls or forced saving like explicit war bonds that soak up purchasing power.
In other words, we'd have to act like a serious wartime state with a mobilization economy and shared sacrifice instead, where a fiscally dominant, politically fractured empire that spent the past decade convincing itself deficits don't matter, and that every war can be put on the credit card forever.
Now, gaming this out, let's get more concrete about how this plays.
The obvious risk is an oil shock with immediate inflation at the pump, and it eventually works its way into the goods economy.
And this kind of shock shows up literally everywhere.
This scenario can be found in all post Britain era conflicts.
The difference here is that this is more than a disruption with time limits on it because Iran is going after core oil and natural gas infrastructure.
And why is that?
I don't know.
Maybe because we murdered their supreme leader and a building full of school children.
A scorched earth economic response shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise.
Now, under normal circumstances, the Fed could jack rates to crush inflation like Volcker, or it could slash them to cushion a recession like they did under Greenspan, but in a period of fiscal dominance, we're kind of damned if we do or damned if we don't. 'cause keeping rates high would make borrowing costs explode precisely.
By the way, at the time when the private credit market trouble is beginning to boil over into the real economy, because a lot of these shadow banking deals are variable rate deals that are tied to market rates.
So this would force seismic defaults throughout the entire economy.
Now, on the other hand, cutting rates like Trump has been pushing for since day one, further anchors inflation above target, which in turn crushes consumer demand, and there's no guarantee that it positively impacts the borrowing and financing activity.
Given the amount of uncertainty and volatility surrounding this administration's actions.
Just because you loosen up some requirements and lower rates doesn't mean that banks are automatically going to lend if they think that there's too much of a risk premium in the market.
And what you went wind up with then is a hesitant whipsaw Central Bank with no clear path forward.
So you kind of take them out of the mix.
Meanwhile, the treasury is stuck with an expanding deficit financing issue with higher rates on the short end of the yield curve.
Without meaningful tax heights hikes, which is anathema to every administration in the past 50 years.
Like Trump is not special in this regard.
He's just extreme.
It means that a flood of new treasury issuances into debt markets that are already beginning to question US economic hegemony.
So again, if we game this out, the administration will likely have to incentivize IE pressure banks to hold more US treasuries and maybe even engage in yield curve control.
To keep the long end of the yield curve from running away, the Fed will have to expand use of its repo facilities to backstop liquidity in the market.
And these responses are all well and good in terms of providing market stability in the banking sector, but it does nothing to address the concerns in the real and consumer economy because it leads to inflation and a tighter credit environment.
And those two things always never not lead to a deep recession.
The balance sheet of the United States is in a completely different position than it was during prior wartime periods.
That's the whole point here.
And the fiscal and regulatory stance of this administration means that the consumer is the one who will ultimately be on the hook.
And no amount of energy, independent supply and increased stockpiles of oil at home will matter to global crude and natural gas prices.
Because oil is fungible, it's traded globally now.
War is stupid under nearly every circumstance.
In fact, Trump from one year ago, and pretty much the rest of his professional life would tell you the same thing.
And in the past and in theory, we had the top minds in the military and the administration to help us navigate war efforts.
That still resulted in inflation, recessions and financial crises.
So what chances do you think we have with this collection of MIS grants?
Fools and Sants, they're not even wearing shoes that fit as it was.
Those cycles played out in a world where US hegemony was unquestioned and the debt interest dynamic wasn't yet on a knife's edge.
Today's circumstances are totally different.
Any recessionary plunge triggered by this conflict will likely be deeper and harder to climb out of because of fiscal dominance, because of diminished faith in the US dollar, and a desire to break ties with a country that elected a madman, not once but twice, this could go down as the single biggest self-inflicted wound of any US President.
The moment when Washington in defense of an already fragile hegemony triggers the very chain of events that ends it because the world isn't just gonna sit idly by while the United States shuts off one fifth of the global fucking oil supply.
I mean, China's building a blue water Navy and deepening economic ties across the global South.
Russia, despite its own disasters, is still at the grownups table with nukes energy and diplomatic leverage.
Europe finally learning that the US is now a rogue undependable partner, willing to weaponize everything from payment systems to shipping lanes.
So the end state is easy to sketch.
The US is reduced from global spanning hegemon to a regional hemispheric power first among equals in the Americas.
Maybe while new and old players China, a bruised but resilient Russia and increasingly autonomous Europe and a more assertive global south.
Cobbled together a more multipolar order, not because they beat us on some imaginary battlefield, but because we blew a hole in our own economic hole and theirs at the same time, and they finally decided that they had enough.
That's how this ends, and the process in between here, and that is a very painful one where we find ourselves in second, third, maybe a lower place.
Are you prepared for that?
Is anyone?

This is the global oil supply.
It's all sold in one big market, and that means all the producers sell to that same global supply.
And then all the oil consuming countries buy from that same supply.
You could also call these exporters and importers.
It's the same idea anyway, the Iran War cut off one fifth of global supply.
So when delivery stops showing up at those countries, we talked about they can't actually buy from other producers, but they've got to do it by outbidding, whoever would've bought that oil otherwise.
And that pushes up the price for everyone.
And that's even hitting places like the US where we are still receiving oil from before the war started.
Countries whose shipments ran out are creating this big surge in demand.
So anytime you go to the pump or pay your power bill, you are bidding against them and they are bidding against you.
And all of this is going to get significantly worse when China and Europe start running out of shipments too.
And surge demand to replace.
Which is really close to happening.
But all of this raises a question.
If these shortages are just days or weeks from reaching everywhere, then why are we on a lull?
Every government in the world can see that same map that I showed you earlier.
They know catastrophe is bicycling their way.
So why doesn't it feel like it?
This is Trump.
A couple of weeks into the war, sir, could you first see a deal in Iran this upcoming week?
I do see a deal in Iran.
Yeah.
Mr.
President could be sued when he said this.
The price of oil dropped right away.
Wars ending, right?
Everything back to normal.
Except he'd been saying the same thing for weeks.
We have had very, very strong talks.
We'll see where they lead.
We have points, major points of agreement.
I would say almost all points of agreement.
Iran has said that there are no talks and Trump is making it all up.
Iran's foreign ministry says you're not telling the truth when it comes to productive conversations down end the world.
They're gonna have to get themselves better public relations people.
He's been doing a ton of this like a few days earlier he'd posted the US was very close to meeting its objectives in the war and might soon start winding down.
So why does he keep doing this?
Well, to understand, go back to that graphic of the global oil market.
We left something out before.
A lot of oil gets bought up by speculators who sell it secondhand.
This all takes place through something called an oil future.
It sounds scummy, but it actually serves a pretty useful function in stabilizing prices.
It doesn't matter how it works.
The point is those speculators set their price by what they think oil will cost in the future.
Which means if Trump comes along and says, peace in our time, speculators conclude prices will drop and sell their oil futures for cheap, which helps to balance the price rise in the regular market.
That's part of the lull.
Even though econ 1 0 1 says oil prices should be going up way more than they have like.
Crisis level, six, $7 a gallon territory.
All of this market manipulation is tamping those prices down.
But that sounds good, right?
Except that it means that the global economy is consuming oil and gas as if they were still priced and flowing.
Normally, it's like if your city were running out of water and everybody in town decided to take two showers a day.
And there's another thing propping up this weird artificial lll that we're in.
IE countries have unanimously decided to launch the largest ever release of emergency oil stocks in our agencies history.
Remember earlier when I said that all countries keep oil stockpiles while a bunch of those countries got together recently and agreed to sell off 400 million barrels from their reserves?
That's like if 200 of those oil super tankers suddenly materialized outta the Bermuda Triangle all at once.
And then on top of that, the US also agreed to allow Russia, and this is kind of hard to believe, Iran to sell off some of their sanctioned oil and releasing these stockpiles has added oil to the market equivalent to about half of what was cut off by the war, which has helped to balance out supply and prices and all of that.
But here's the catch, and it's a big one, the stockpile release and those speculator games, these are both one-off tricks.
They only work for a few weeks and when they're used up, they're gone.
Man, that artificial lull that we have been holding up, it is gonna come crashing to an end just as those last shipments of Middle Eastern oil dry up the final, Vessel carrying jet fuel into the United Kingdoms gonna get here in 48 hours and there's no more after that.
So when that oil shark hits.
Is going to hit us all at once.
Okay, so now we understand what that oil shock is, how it's gonna get here, how it's forming, what is it gonna look like.
When people picture this, they tend to talk about it in terms of rising prices. $200 barrel oil, $8 a gallon at the pump, a thousand dollars domestic flights.
But this misses something much larger and much more consequential that is already starting to happen.
To understand what that is, imagine if instead of talking about energy supplies, we were talking about food.
Now if I told you that one or 2% of the world's food supply was going offline, you probably worry.
You might see food prices go up, some, some hardships on the margin, but you would think it's basically survivable.
But now, if I told you the world was losing, had already lost 20% of its food supply, you would think, well, we are about to have fewer people on earth.
The name for this is demand destruction.
It's when the supply of something drops so severely that whoever or whatever relies on it, the demand permanently withers away.
And that is what is going to happen to any global economic activity that uses energy, which is like almost all of it factories, technological development and production, car and airplane travel, air conditioning, building homes or cities.
I'm not saying that those things are going to go away, but there is going to be a lot less of them, like about 20% less.
Once things really bottom out.
The economic shocks caused by this war will be with us for months.
How we emerge from this crisis will define us.
For a generation.
Let me give you a few specifics that are already starting to manifest.
Airlines say they cannot afford to operate and are shutting down many of their flights, so it'll be harder to explore the world.
European governments are telling their citizens not to travel for vacation this summer.
There's just not enough fuel for it.
A number of factories are already closing worldwide, especially in Asia.
Semiconductor factories in particular are closing both for lack of power, and because semiconductors use helium, which is a byproduct of natural gas production, so is also going away, importers expect it to become prohibitively expensive to ship some things abroad, so we'll have fewer foreign goods, less off season produce, and we'll export less too.
So fewer jobs, construction supplies like lumber are getting too expensive to harvest or import, which means fewer homes getting built, which means existing homes getting more expensive and harder to afford.
Many of the essential components to fertilizer also come through the Persian Gulf.
Things like phosphorus, there are already fertilizer shortages in Asia, so yeah, there will also be less food in the world.
All of these things also contribute to inflation.
Prices go up harder to afford things.
Our standard of living goes down, and the thing is, even if the wars today, this process, this demand destruction is actually gonna continue.
It's because American, Israeli and Iranian missiles have left much of the region's energy infrastructure and ruins things like refineries, gas terminals that will take years to rebuild, which means years before that oil and gas comes back online this winter is probably gonna bring the first big wave of hardship.
Right now, spring and summer is a time of year when countries are usually stockpiling oil and gas so that they can get their people through the cold months.
But instead, those countries are burning their stockpiles down to zero.
That means December and January are likely to bring a whole new oil shock when a billion people across Europe, Asia, and North America go to turn on their winter stoves or heaters and find that there is not enough gas to go around.
Now look.
I'm not saying all this because I wanna scare you and we are not on the verge of some great collapse.
I promise you that Mad Max is gonna remain a thing that you watch just on your TV and not out your window.
And I'm telling you all this because the architects of this war want you to believe that this the way things are right now, today, that that's the worst of it.
That we just have to write out a few weeks of high gas prices and we're gonna come out the other side of this war basically unscathed.
But what's happening right now is a trick.
This lull is, it's fake.
It's hiding the real consequences of this war, which are coming.
The people in Iran and in neighboring countries who go to sleep under falling bombs are already living under this war.
The thing is, is that, I'm not saying it's the same, but pretty soon we are going to be living the consequences of this war to

over the past 50 years since the peak oil panic, we've made extraordinary advances, for better, for worse.
I mean, fracking technology unlocked the Eagle Ford and the Permian Basin.
Offshore deep water drilling added enormous reserves.
LNG became globally traded and ubiquitous.
So Hubbert's prediction curve was essentially dead.
Oil and gas are fungible commodities that are traded on global exchanges.
So when prices go up anywhere, they go up everywhere.
India now buying Russian crude at a 50% higher volume than February just to compensate for the Gulf disruption.
Those prices are still tracking global benchmarks.
There's no escape valve.
And listen, we see it because it starts at the pump, right?
Gasoline prices are already spiking, and every American with a car or a commute feels it immediately and viscerally.
That part's obvious, but then the cascade begins.
Trucking costs rise because diesel is a fuel input.
Rail shipping, maritime freight, last mile delivery, all of it reprices.
The cost of transporting every good in the economy goes up, which means the cost of every good in the economy goes up next, agriculture.
Fertilizers and petrochemical derivatives and farm equipment that run on diesel.
Food prices were already elevated and now they get a second wind.
Then manufacturing inputs are embedded in almost every industrial production process.
Steel, aluminum, plastics, chemicals, all of them feel the burn and all of that reprices with a lag.
So it shows up first in the PPI, which is what we're looking at now, and then eventually in CPI and by then it's too late.
So this is just one of the things that makes this war insane.
I mean, completely batshit insane, but if we were gonna have one, if he insisted on bringing us into this war, he absolutely needed it to be short, not protracted like it's headed for short, because the damage, once it gets into the economy, it just doesn't go away.
The longer the oil stays at triple digits, the deeper the inflationary wave.
And Trump has catastrophically underestimated the Iranians.
He thought this was gonna be quick, but now they hold all the cards and they know it.
This is an A skirmish, it's an endurance contest, and the American economy, quite frankly, isn't built for this.
So the thing about the PPI data that we just got is that this is before the Iran War.
This is before the Strait of HOR moves closed.
This is before WTI and Brent went past a hundred dollars a barrel.
So by the time we get March's data in mid-April, it's gonna reflect a 40% shock and an increase to energy prices built into the numbers that are already the worst.
And here's why.
Economists fear inflation above every other metric, above unemployment and deficit spending.
Even interest rates.
Inflation is the great leveler.
It levels every playing field.
It doesn't care if you're a developing agricultural economy or the most diversified industrial economy in human history.
Doesn't care if you're Japan, almost entirely import dependent and extraordinarily exposed to commodity price shocks or the United States.
With our trillion dollar consumer market.
Inflation hits everything everywhere, and it causes enormous collateral damage in the form of job losses and a recession eventually.
And it erodes purchasing power.
It punishes savers.
It destroys fixed income budgets for anyone on a pension or a salary.
And every time a central bank tries to tame it aggressively, they break things.
But my biggest concern right now, the Boulder, in my opinion, that's sitting on the edge of the cliff, is private credit.
Now, we've been talking a lot about this because it's starting to percolate into the mainstream now.
Morgan Stanley dropped the note on Monday forecasting that default rates in direct lending could reach 8%.
That's like COVID era high.
Other analysts that look at the business development companies, the BDC space, say that these publicly traded vehicles that lend to small and medium sized businesses are projecting defaults in certain software heavy portfolios as high as 15%.
Now, this BDC sector has already declined by 23%, and you have a ton of business that's coming for maturity.
In 2026, BlackRock, TCP Capital saw its net asset value drop. 50% in one year go capital just cut its dividend by 15%.
So now throw inflation into that picture.
Higher input costs, squeeze the EBITDA of private credit borrowers who are already leveraged to the HILT coverage ratios, which is the measure of how comfortably a company can service its debt.
Wind up compressing, defaults accelerate.
And then you're in two, 2007, 2008 territory where structural parts of the broad economy start quietly collapsing in ways that are invisible to the average person at first until the big domino falls publicly.
And that domino probably looks like one of the big banks announcing a significant pullback from private, private credit lending.
So like one of the large BDCs reporting devastating earnings that trigger a wave of redemptions and a run in both the equity and the bond markets that are attached to that sector.
That kind of contagion can't be contained.
It spreads.
It always spreads through the interconnected tissue of the financial system that no one's fully mapped.
By the way, this is why inflation is the most feared of all metrics.
Not because it raises prices.
It's not a one-to-one relationship.
It's because inflation actually is the pin to pop whatever bubble is out there.
It finds any overinflated over leveraged and overexposed area of the economy and pops it.

Moving on to section D, the moral rot of war profiteering.

Hello Coffee.
My name is Nick.
I'm the CEO of Bubblemaps, which is an on chain analytics company.
So you guys just analyzed a series of Polymarketaccounts, which seemed to be related to each other financially.
And can you just tell us about the kinds of bets you saw them making related to wars?
Their accuracy and just some of the timing things.
Obviously it's very hard to prove definitively who this is without having the internal documents, but just, just tell us some of the red flags you guys saw.
Yeah, for sure.
So to give you some context, recently they've been, somebody got arrested in Israel for insider trading and it wasn't fully market.
And it, in the article, which was not fully disclosed, there was a lot of secrecy around this news.
We learned that somebody that was in the military personnel of Israel was using this privilege information to do insider trading, and he got arrested.
And so this inspired us to look into this in more depth was this an in isolated incident or is there more of this insiders who are benefiting from privileged military like information?
And so we looked into more of this Polymarket, war bets and war markets, and we find, we found that in fact, There was plenty more insiders or potential insiders.
I'm gonna be very careful with the wording, as you said, we're never sure, but more of these very suspected or suspicious trades that were happening on this markets.
And on this particular post that we, that we shared today, it was seven accounts on Polymarket that were, for the most part, betting on US and Israeli military operations with a 93% success rate.
Pretty good, pretty good, pretty good.
Decent.
And, and let's, and let's be clear, these, they weren't betting on events that were already like 90% gonna happen.
Some of their bets were on actually very unlikely events, right?
At the time.
The the, the mainstream aca, the mainstream consensus was that these were unlikely events, like 80% not gonna happen.
They would bet the yes or 80% gonna happen, they would bet the no.
Right?
Isn't that what y'all found?
Yeah, for the most part, for the most part, at least for the trades that made the most money, of course it was mostly trading at like 20 cents.
Meaning that the consensus were was 80% not gonna happen and they traded against it.
So not only the amounts were suspicious in the sense that it was very unlikely events, but also the timing.
So as you said, the timing of this bets occurred, I don't know, maybe one or two weeks before the resolution of the event, which was the strikes from the US and from Israel in Iran.
And we've seen this network of accounts that were betting dating all the way from 2024 to 2026.
So it's been two years of successful trades.
And then the part that is insane is the fact that they're connected on chain.
Without getting into too much specificities, they were sharing MXC deposits, they were sharing by bid deposits, they were wiring profits to the same deposit address.
Sharing funding address was very obvious pattern of clustered Polymarket accounts.
What do you think this means for the future of these prediction markets?
I mean, obviously there's a claim that the, this is not allowed.
Insider trading's not allowed Polymarket's gonna go after them.
Kalshi, they're gonna shut it down.
The one thing that occurs to me is it's actually very hard, even if you know the identity of the person to prove that it's insider trading.
Because for example, yes, if they are like a lieutenant colonel in, in the Americans are armed forces, yes, you can go, okay, that's obvious insider trading.
Right?
But let's say it's the like, like step cousin or something who just got the intel from somebody and they insider traded it.
Are you gonna know, like even if you're a poly market, how can you say for sure that's insider trading?
It seems to be just the fact that these markets are there, is presenting the opportunity for all sorts of insider trading, that no matter how much information you have on chain or even the KYC, it's gonna be very hard to prove.
When we talk about military insiders, most of the time people intuitively point towards like high level government people or like high level general or lieutenant as you said.
But it can be anyone.
It can be troops on the ground, it can be people that are fueling the jets.
It can be logistics, it can be intelligence.
Like there's so many people that are involved when it comes with military operations.
You can even, as you said, potentially can be the dad.
The son is calling him the day before saying, look dad, I'm gonna be away tomorrow.
Stay safe.
Love you.
It can be the wife.
She's aware too.
I mean, technically.
So there's, there are thousands of peoples who are, who are aware ahead of time.
So this makes it very hard to track and to know who are, who are gonna be the insiders.
They can be outside of the us potentially outside of like the US jurisdiction.
And yeah, this is, this is tricky, but like definitely prediction markets are opening a new layer, a new category of, of potential insiders.
Military personnels, big tech, employees policy, Medicare, Central bank employee.
Like all those people, they know information ahead of time and a couple of years ago they couldn't do anything about it or with it.
And now they can make a quick three x anonymous.
It's, it's great a hey future of finance.
No, it's actually reminds me a lot of the Pelosi stuff.
People go, oh, Nancy Pelosi's such a great traitor.
They forget it's Paul Pelosi that's placing those bets, her husband.
Right.
And that's always been the plausible deniability of the whole thing is.
Well, I can't obviously trade.
That is gonna be up to my husband.
My husband's just interested in the market, right?
And that's all, of course, what you can say here too is like, oh, man.
Well, of course, as an armed service member, I wouldn't trade, but my wife got really interested in poly market war betting.

Despite the influence weapons companies have over us, politics and the trail of destruction, they've left around the world.
There's been very little in the way of accountability.
So I'm about to meet a former prosecutor who's trying to change that.
Brad Wolf spent his career as a government's lawyer for the state of Pennsylvania.
Over the past couple of years, he's led the Merchants of Death Walk arounds, tribunal.
What is the Merchants of Death?
So the merchants of Death is a people's tribunal and people's tribunals have a longstanding tradition, such that when the courts refuse to act and hold people or corporations or governments accountable, the citizenry has to act.
This tribunal was meant to hold accountable US weapons manufacturers for knowingly producing products that kill innocent civilians in very large numbers Across the, across the globe.
We interviewed international attorneys.
We interviewed military officers.
We interviewed award-winning journalists.
We interviewed victims.
We interviewed doctors, human rights workers, and put all the information together in video documents in order to present it to the judges, but also to present it to the public because we wanted this to be a a, an educational tool as well.
And what did you conclude?
So after eight months of presenting evidence to our judges, the judges deliberated and they found the four defendants, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the drone maker, general Atomics.
Our 10 judges found them guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as defined by the Rome statute of the International criminal court.
The companies, they say, we just make the weapons.
We're not in charge of what happens with the weapons or who's dropping it or who's using it.
How do you respond to that?
Well, they're not just making the weapons.
What they're doing is they are creating a narrative with their dollars, and that narrative is in the halls of Congress.
Through lobbying, they're able to lobby individuals in the Pentagon.
They're able to employ retired officers from the Pentagon, put them on their board of directors for large sums of money, and then have them go on television shows like CNN or M-S-N-B-C or Fox, and tell the American public that it's necessary for military action, which of course means more contract for that legends maker.
Iran is back on their heels.
We have an opportunity to finish these guys once and for all, for their malign and an aggressive behavior and destabilize in the Middle East.
So they create a narrative to sell products that they know are killing innocent people.
There were some people who will say that at the end of the day, this tribunal doesn't have any legal jurisdiction.
We've heard over and over again how powerful military industrial complexes is there a way of holding it accountable within the legal framework that we have.
Yes, there is a way to change this.
The tribunal, the judges, outlined a number of recommendations in their final verdict.
So for instance, if you would have a ban on weapons makers, lobbying members of Congress who are approving contracts for these weapons makers, that would be a step in the right direction if you would prosecute the CEOs of these companies and hold them accountable for war crimes.
That too could have a, have a big impact.

Decades of lavish spending in Washington have created the largest military the world has ever seen with a network of roughly 750 foreign bases and troops stationed in more than 160 countries.
In US foreign policy conflict is a permanent fixture.
Since 1945, the US has bombed or invaded at least 28 countries, causing the deaths of millions of people.
Don't kid yourself.
You do have a military industrial complex they do.
Like war.
President Trump presents himself as the antidote to this status quo.
One of the first meetings I wanna have is with President Xi of China, president Putin of Russia, and I wanna say, let's cut our military budget in half for a moment.
The president's talk of budget cuts had the Big Five on edge.
We are seeing defense stocks pretty much all lower right now.
You got Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman all losing investor money today, but Trump's actions speak louder

within just six months of taking office.
Trump's administration bombed three countries, Yemen, Somalia, and Iran American military capabilities were on display with Operation Midnight Hammer, some 75 missiles launched, including 14 GVU-57, massive ordinance Penetrators, also known as the bunker Buster bombs under the pretext of what the Pentagon calls great power competition.
Trump has proposed a Pentagon budget worth more than what the next 10 military powers spend on their armed forces combined.
Highest budget we've ever had in history for military, $1 trillion.
And we're getting the greatest missiles, the greatest weapons.
And I hate, I hate to do it, but you have to do it because we believe in peace through strength.
The forecast for the US war industry, once again is looking good.
Whatever the wider cost the arms industry has now in infiltrated almost every part of our federal government to the point that civilian control of the military is at times in question.
This great power competition lens is so ambiguous that the strategic end is completely unclear, which is perfect for contractors because that means that there's never gonna be enough to win a great power competition.
No empire has ever maintained its dominant role in the world forever.
We have seen that in history over and over again.
Yet the United States somehow thinks that it is special or different, and that it will be able to maintain global dominance forever.
And now the United States is poised to spend itself into oblivion in an attempt to maintain this global dominance.
And that will come to the detriment of democracy, to the quality of life for Americans and probably to the detriment of peace in the world.

Deadline that President Trump has set 8:00 PM Yep.
Has threatened to destroy a civilization.
How does an investor process that?
Is it, is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?
This video is such a good illustration of just how cannibalistic today's economic system actually is because, what do you mean?
These are like serious, professional people discussing the best way to approach gambling on the outcome of a potential genocide for personal profit and society treats this practice very seriously, right?
As if it's actually contributing in some kind of meaningful way.
They're not creating value, right?
They're just moving value around.
They're reconceptualizing and recontextualizing what value means in order to siphon some of it into their own pockets in the process.
And they siphon it outta the pockets of the people at the bottom of the mechanical totem pole, whose job it is to make sure that the cogs stay greased and keep turning.
They package the mortgages of poor people into giant balls of conceptual debt and then make bets on whether or not they think poor people as a whole are gonna be able to pay their bills.
And then when the poor people can't pay their bills anymore, when the debt goes sour, they use their pre-purchase.
Pawns within the government to use the poor people's tax money to bail them out of the repercussions.
They use their pawns in government to give them control of the retirement funds of the population, and then use that money as leverage to invest in a way that manipulates geopolitical and local political outcomes that serve their interests and hurt the population.
They weaponize your own retirement money against you.
This cancerous system goes all the way to the very core of how our society operates today.
What is the number one thing that is prioritized in the way that giant corporations operate?
Right?
It's not profitability, it's shareholder value.
It's making sure the bet pays off.
Amazon wasn't profitable for many, many years after it was founded.
They were losing money on purpose in order to drive small businesses into bankruptcy in order to dominate as much of the market as possible in order to profit more later on.
So the company was losing money, but the size of the company was growing dramatically, which, if you're a shareholder, is extremely profitable, which is why this is what's prioritized most in the system.
This is where the rich people keep all their money.
They also just openly straight up fix the bets Mafioso style.
Like the other week, somebody made a $1.5 billion bet that the price of oil was about to come down a little and the general market was about to stabilize.
Literally, minutes after that, Donald Trump posted on truth social that negotiations with Iran were going fantastic, and the Strait of Horus was gonna open any minute now, and that didn't actually happen, but it did temporarily stabilize the market and bring the price of oil down.
Whoever made that bet made hundreds of millions of dollars.
In minutes is not just a Donald Trump problem, right?
It's a global politician problem.
Really.
A member of Congress gets paid $174,000 a year as a salary.
Meanwhile, the average net worth of a member of Congress is $6 million.
The United States Congress consistently outperforms the most successful investors anywhere in the world by a pretty big margin.
They literally profit from things like war and genocide.
It just happened to all start buying shares in defense contractors right before a massive conflict starts just happened.
To know when to sell at just the right time, right before the market takes a hit.
This is not just insider trading, it's not even just market manipulation at this point.
This is what the system is.
This is what it's for.
People have been convinced that this giant, self consuming casino is an actual, feasible, sustainable economic system, and the people that they're voting for to protect their interests are the gangsters who are fixing the bets.
This is madness to, its very core, it's madness.
It's a sick, broken system where the parasites have completely overtaken.
The host,

right before I was about to record this Polymarket's, announced that Palantir will now build the integrity monitoring system to catch insider training happening on the platform.
So the same guy profiting from government intelligence contracts is now also about to fund and monitor a platform where people with government intelligence are allegedly making millions.
Poly market also receives funding from the Intercontinental Exchange.
The company that literally owns the New York Stock Exchange and just recently they put $2 billion in.
So point is they have the biggest names and surveillance in Wall Street all in.
But the thing is, even with all that money, it can only go so far. 'cause when the Pentagon Project can even be shut down, you also need someone to make sure that doesn't happen.
Well, good thing Donald Trump Jr.
Is not only an advisor to both poly market and Kalshi, but his venture capital firm has also invested millions in a poly market.
But the family web goes deeper.
I didn't even know this, but President Trump's own media company has also launched his own prediction platform called Truth.Predict with crypto.com.
So the point is, the Trump family has a vested financial interest for the platform to succeed, but also to politically protect these prediction markets.
It's exactly why when the DOJ under Biden rated poly markets CEO's home and seizes devices for letting Americans bet on the platform to VPNs in 2022, charges were immediately dropped once Trump came into office.
But no amount of protection is guaranteed until you put the right guy in charge of writing the rules.
Trump's Pick to lead the CFTC, which is like the agency that's supposed to regulate these sorts of markets, is a guy named Michael Seelig.
And before he got this job, he was this lawyer who represented crypto client.
And the very first thing he did when he got the position was recruit executives from Poly Market, Kalshi crypto.com.com, DraftKings and FanDuel, to advise his agency on how to write the rules for their own industry.
But I'm laughing because it sounds ridiculous, but soon after he killed the rule that would ban political and sports betting contracts.
And he did this by classifying prediction markets as commodities, not gambling, because commodities have way looser rules.
So now states that were trying to sue poly market and Kalshi for violating gambling laws, can't touch them anymore.
And oh, like by the way, he's doing this all by himself.
All four other commissioner seats that were previously taken are now empty.
So it's just him writing these rules advised by the very companies that he's supposed to regulate.
So that's the funding, the political connections, and the captured regulators.
But remember how I said that I didn't expect where this all led to because if we're really gonna follow the money here, none of it really works without one thing.
And that's you before those who profited from the war were only the insiders.
But now every time you place a bet on war breaking out or someone getting unli, the uncomfortable truth is that makes you a war prophet or two.
And so you can blame the others and the big guides.
But $1 billion has already been bet on this war alone.
And congrats if you win.
You just bet on human suffering.
And even when you lose out on your bet, your money is what?
Lets insiders cash out half a million dollars this same week.
Everyone's gas goes up.
So just like defense contractors may not want it to end the prediction market, business model also doesn't need them to end either.
Because longer the crisis, the more uncertainty and the more uncertainty, the more people trade.
And the more people trade, the more the platform makes.
And you are funding it too.
But the thing is, the real cost of all this goes beyond money.
Because what nobody's talking about is what happens when the people placing the bets are the ones influencing the wars themselves.
And this might be the most dangerous consequence of what's happening right now, because remember that Venezuela story I've been talking about?
Well, there's a part of the story I didn't even tell you when that bet was placed.
The OZ on poly market spiked because people watching this knew this wasn't just some regular Joe.
And what that means is that that spike was visible to anyone on the platform, which means it includes the very people the operation was targeting.
An analysis in the irregular warfare journal calculated that from the moment that BET was placed, Maduro's security detail had precisely 40 minutes to relocate him before the US Special Operations team arrived.
So now really think about that.
What I'm telling you here is that probably the most important asset and warfare, the element of surprise was almost blown by some dude chasing bands on a betting platform.
And that was just one bet on one operation.
But now there's 213 of these active markets on this war.
So what happens if foreign intelligence catches onto that same pattern?
The consequences are different.
That next week may not just end in a compromise Mission, but if we start sending ground troops, that means compromise American lives.
And again, the craziest thing of all this is that the poly market, CEO, knows this and encourages it, allegedly because a poly market, CEO doesn't just go on 60 minutes and call prediction markets the most accurate thing we have as mankind for no reason.
The access is what they're selling.
And it's exactly why C-N-N-C-N-B-C and the Wall Street Journal have all struck deals with prediction markets.
If the thing you and I can agree that new sources know better than anyone that closer the source, like the more valuable information.
And I don't even have to say allegedly because it's, it's happened.
Two people in Israel were charged with security offenses for using classified intelligence to bet on the June, 2025 strikes.
So what I'm telling you is that what he's really selling here is access to people who already know the answer.
And that's what really worries me because what happens when people with the power to decide when the US strikes another country is also invested in a market predicting when the US will strike that country.
No one's been caught doing that yet officially in America.
But the thing is, they don't even have to be that corrupt to make a bunch of money now.
And that incentive that exists wasn't there two years ago.
So I guess we can just thank God that this incentive didn't exist during World War II because it could have been a lot worse.
But now the question becomes how far does this all go and lead to, well, Polymarket has already answered that.
After the US has struck Iran, people started noticing something.
They noticed that Polymarket has been quietly running a market for years now on whether nukes will be detonated by the end of 2026, over 650,000 have already bet on it.
And after the strikes, enough people voted yes, that Oz reached as high as 22%.
So what's clear is that there is really no line because the only reason they pulled it was that enough people started getting pissed.
So what we're clearly seeing here is this new reality of war right in front of our eyes.
When someone in Teran is sheltering from bombs and an American soldier's family is waiting for news, just becomes this other side of someone else's odds.
What's pretty clear is that war now isn't just being fought, it's being influenced, traded and profited from in that system that makes that possible is only getting and going to get bigger.

Continuing with Section E, the damage our military does.

Let's start with that $1.5 trillion budget which doesn't include, let's be clear, funding for the current Iran war that will come in a further supplemental.
So it's a vast amount of money and ultimately leveraged against the US debt.
We are spending our children's money to take the lives of other people's children.
That's what it boils down to.
It's just a vast amount of money, In a way that is reckless by an administration that is corrupt.
When we look at this new weapon sales, these new weapon sales to Israel, 20,000, 1000 pound bombs coming out of, let's be clear as well US stocks a lot of these weapons are not going to be built afresh.
They're gonna be transferred out of, The US stocks and then President Trump will, if he gets it, spend this money from the taxpayer and from our national debt to recuperate or to reup ourselves for that.
It is another burden, Certainly on the American people, but also on the world.
At the end of the day it is not just these bombs.
There are also other weapons we have provided to Israel, including bulldozers that are being used to deri to destroy Palestinian homes in act of collective punishment.
Senator Sanders will be bringing a vote next week to the floor of the Senate against the bombs, against these bulldozers.
And I think it is vital that we see as many democratic senators as possible, Vote to block those weapons and ideally Republicans as well, because this is no one's interest whatsoever.
And Josh, you said that the foreign military financing, or FMF serves almost as a gift card for Israel to spend on weapons.
You talk about the disproportion in military aids, specifically to Israel that the United States has had historically compared to other countries in the world.
So, Israel has always been by far the largest recipient of US military grant assistance in President Trump's budget request.
The provision to Israel of US funding comprises 63% of the global available total.
People keep asking, why do we keep getting pulled back into wars in the Middle East?
What about this rebalance to Asia?
Well, when you're spending the majority of your global funding in Israel and in the region in the Middle East, of course you're gonna keep getting pulled back.
We are not getting pulled back to the Middle East.
We are anchored to it as a function of our own funding to Israel.

I wanna bring, oh, go ahead, Juan.
Yeah, I, I, yeah, I just wanna say last month the State Department approved potential arm sales to three Middle East countries worth more than $23 billion.
Talk about this age to countries like the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan.
So this isn't aid, this is sales, but the Trump administration used an emergency authority.
These cases were already sitting under Congressional review and Congress had questions both about the armed sales to Israel and about the armed sales to the UAE, the UAE, of course, being involved right now, or supporting the genocide that is occurring in Sudan.
The administration, I think very cynically used the current war with Iran to essentially say, okay, we're declaring an emergency.
We're not gonna answer any more questions from Congress about these human rights abuses, about these risks.
And we are just going to move these forward.
So a very cynical, very disturbing use of of the existing authorities.
And before we go to Rob Weissman, I wanted to ask you four astronauts are part of the NASA Artemis two crew became the furthest humans from Earth and all of history officially, as they began their trajectory, which they just finished around the dark side of the moon, Trump's budget plans to cut 23% of NASA's budget, $3.6 billion, cut to the agency science unit, which could cancel 40 programs.
Can you talk about all of these budget cuts across federal agencies and how it's a path for further privatization of the federal government?
Yeah, so first of all, I think we can all think of a few of four other people that we would rather be the furthest they could be from the earth.
So what Trump is doing is essentially creating an opportunity for SpaceX in particular and for other major companies that have close relationships with the White House, To essentially privatize space, to continue to advance through the defense budget, president Trump's, as he sees it, national security role and to militarized space.
But then to cut the civilian side of the funding in order to allow profit seeking companies, the private sector essentially to build up its role there as well.
So it's a lose lose both for science and for humanity.

Someone needs to count the dead.
Of those babies.
And so I think that those are the stories that are gonna change minds.
They're gonna rewire brains.
And so it is of course, important to synthesize the data.
We need to have that, we need to be armed with the facts and be confident with the truth.
And now let it be known because you guys, you guys have known how bad this is.
You probably already knew in your heart this information.
We've all been watching genocide for three years.
Nothing's worse than that.
And in fact, when making the documentary, I was so worried, why would people care about the earth if they don't care about children being blown up?
No one's gonna give a shit about this.
But it's the opposite.
It's the opposite.
I was, I was beaten down into that dystopian kind of pessimism because of just the way that the system berates you and makes you think that everything is just worthless and, and pointless.
But, but once you get out and you're in the community, you're like, no, no, no.
The vast majority of people agree with this.
The vast majority of people get it.
They're empathetic and it, and it's very motivating actually.
And so I think yes, numbers numb and they can be completely overwhelming, but you can't let the system paralyze you.
That's what they want.
They want us to be terrorized.
This is a full fledged assault on our minds, on our bodies on reality.
So if you just reclaim reality, right?
You reclaim your feelings, let yourself feel, because this is fucking crazy.
None of this, none of this is, is normal.
Genocide is not normal.
That's not the status quo.
That's not the world that I wanna live in.
I don't wanna open my phones and see children being murdered every day.
That's not okay.
We can feel, we can have emotions.
We can talk to people, Hey, have you been watching this too?
Hey, it makes you sick.
Let's talk about it.
These are the conversations we need to have.
And the numbers only take you so far.
Darn.
I think we've seen that in the way that people kind of deal and process information.
I don't think we're meant to.
Process the information like we are now.
We're not meant to see every horrible thing that happens in the world within five seconds.
And it's really traumatic and we have to get, and that's why I'm doing this tour in person, to kind of unpack the trauma of what they've done to us together, because it's a lot, it's a lot.

I, I really appreciated the attention in this documentary to the Superfund sites, the sacrifice zones here in America.
And I, as someone who goes around to sacrifice zones, interviewing, working class people who live there, like it's horrifying how massive this problem is and how ignorant most of us are to how poisoned we already are, let alone the fact that the majority, not the majority, but like the largest single polluter source for Superfund sites is the Department of Defense.
Mm-hmm.
That's more than any one corporate polluter.
And I would be remiss if I didn't, Like mention that we're just days away from the three year anniversary of the bomb train derailment by Norfolk Southern and East Palestine.
I'm gonna be there next week.
Right.
I mean, there are towns like East Palestine all over this country.
You mentioned the coal donna that comes outta West Virginia.
Dr.
Nikki Fabrican, are you in the audience right now?
Where does that coal come through?
Yeah, Baltimore, south Baltimore.
It comes through car after uncovered car daily through South Baltimore, 20 minutes that way people are breathing that in for generations.
People over there just 20 minutes from where we're sitting are walking around with oxygen tanks and it's just normal.
We've accepted this unacceptable reality as.
Normal, and we're not learning the lessons like from East Palestinian, Ohio, red Hill, south Baltimore.
But like, I, I really am thankful to you for, for highlighting just, just how serious this problem is, particularly when it comes to the Department of Defense and the government run sites that are poisoning us.
The question that I wanted to throw is one about perspective, and like you said, like so much of this is knowledge that maybe we already had, maybe we had learned at one time and pushed it under the rug because it was too uncomfortable to, to face.
And I'll be honest, my, I have had trouble facing this for many years as an individual who's well aware of what we're facing.
I kind of gave up on the future.
I basically accepted that like, The, the future's no longer a thing to plan for.
Just do as much good as you can while you're here.
Now.
That changed when I became a father.
Mm-hmm.
And I tear up watching the scenes with, with you and your family, your children.
I wanted to ask like how, how you would sort of impress upon folks like the need for that perspective change on what we think we already know and how vital that perspective change is to getting somewhere we haven't been before.
Yeah, it's a, it's a great point.
And yeah, I kind of had a similar trajectory when I had a kid, even though I, I've always maintained revolutionary optimism because I, I kind of have to have like this militant current of hope.
Otherwise I'd be too sad.
But.
But I think my, my sheer love for humanity and nature has always driven and motivated me, and it continues to double down my motivation.
The second that I meet someone who is invigorated or has had their minds changed by my journalism or anything that I've done in the past.
And so it continues to make me more committed.
When I had, I always felt like I had no choice.
Being just an American, we are born into the system.
We're in the imperial core, it's on our shoulders.
But when I had a kid, it was like, okay, now I really, I am all in.
We are, we are completely invested in this, and we have to do everything with every fiber of our being because we have no choice because we have to fight this, right?
Even if we don't win, even if we're standing on the shoulders of giants for generation, even though it's been a centuries long struggle, the arc of justice is very, very wide.
It, it's not gonna happen tomorrow, and it is a huge, seemingly insurmountable fight, but that's not why we do it.
And yeah, you take breaks for mental health.
You have to do what you can.
You give whatever capacity and talents that you can, but we have to fucking do it because I'm not gonna let these parasites rob our future without a fight.
And this is just one tool in the arsenal.
This is just one tool in the arsenal.
And I, I, I would recommend it's a beautiful thing to have this internationalist lens, right?
That that's first and foremost orienting your perspective internationally.
This is an international system.
All of us are impacted by it.
This is a very clarifying thing.
Let the truth liberate you and free you.
Right.
Reclaim the truth first and foremost. 'cause they're gaslighting us every day.
So that's the first thing to kind of build the foundation upon and then realize the agency that you have as individuals.
Of course all of us can do our part, but we have to have that collective unity and agency.
We have to build organizations.
We have to build big tents around pushing back the data centers because the richest people in the world who are controlling our algorithms and curating our reality, they don't want us to see the success stories.
They don't want us to see how people have beat these in their communities.
How 35 data centers last year got canceled across the country.
Divestment campaigns hugely successful across the country.
None of these are known because they don't want us to see that.
They want us to be despondent, paralyzed, terrorized.
So it's about getting out of that, getting out of that and saying, I'm not gonna accept the state of reality that they're pushing on me and beating me down.
I'm not gonna succumb to the darkness.
I'm gonna have militant hope because we have to.
Because if we didn't, then what's left?
We're gonna succumb to the billionaires.
We're gonna succumb to Elon Musk.
No, no.
We're not gonna give up our planet for Jeff Bezos to have another yacht.

We are living in a time where an Islamic Republic, Lego wrapped video dis track isn't even the strangest thing that I've seen that feels like years ago already, IRGC was putting out Lego video rap dis tracks.
And I just like saying that out loud.
I feel like I'm having a stroke, it doesn't make sense.
And those words coming outta my mouth.
And that's not even like.
That's only the start of when my, my, My week has gotten really weird.
And this has been a tremendously weird week.
You have me on. 'cause if your listeners don't know, I am Iranian.
I'm a physician, and I have a podcast, but I'm also Iranian.
I talk about that a lot in the show as well.
And as I'm sure everyone knows at this point, we almost, or we are at war and our president, I woke up on Tuesday to a truth social post from the president of the United States, the country in which I live in basically threatening to annihilate, well, no, not basically exactly threatening to annihilate the Persian civilization, A civilization that is over 2,500 years old.
A country of 90 million plus people has contributed to the sciences, the arts, history, agriculture, medicine, you name it.
Culture and culture.
I gave, I gave you guys me.
So I mean I mean, be grateful.
And, and and it's just so hard.
And, and it was, it really, it messed me up really bad.
I have to, I'm not gonna lie.
I'm sure it did.
We should ground this a little bit and, and talk about it.
And it's not the, the most super fun, but it, it is like in today's media ecosystem, things move so fast and we're already kind of moving on to all the other insane stuff that's happening.
But I, I gotta tell you, Tuesday, I, I literally at, at Tuesday night, I had a crick in my neck here because my whole day I was just like, over my phone.
I'm like, how am I supposed to work?
This is, this is insane.
Like, I is, is this really gonna happen?
I didn't really think he was gonna drop nuclear bombs, but you have to take the president seriously when they say that.
And even if he didn't mean a nuclear attack did this mean like a lot more bombing, a lot more injury, a lot more civilian death?
So yeah, it was.
It was bad.
This has been a bad week, and the specific was destroy every bridge where people were standing with the, the Iranian flag and every power plant to put the entire country into darkness.
The stone ages as, The secretary of.
War defense.
I can't, I just don't war the heck Seth said.
And how they, it's how they talk.
It's, it's still just like so disgusting and for him to say he's going to genocide an entire people I don't like, even if, oh, it's a negotiating tactic, I don't care.
You can't be saying that kind of thing.
No, it's, yeah.
Even if our food wasn't the best food in the world, you shouldn't want the Iranian people to be annihilated.
And this whole art of the deal thing that people are, this is the, his, the art of the deal this is, it's absurd.
It is demeaning to the office.
It is insulting.
It makes us look terrible on the world stage.
It hurts us in terms of soft power everywhere.
It hurts the United States directly.
There's this whole what I would like to see, I don't know if you played basketball when you guys were younger, but do you remember how like every time, like you would like do a fade away, you'd be like Jordan, or you, or now kids would be like, Curry, Kobe, three point Kobe.
Yeah.
Kobe, whatever.
Yeah.
I've always been, I can't bring that.
Can't.
Yeah.
Totally kidding.
And I, I would like, every time you just throw up a brick, the thing to be like, someone just yells out art of the deal Brick.
Yeah.
Or like every time you stub your toe Art of the deal.
Art of the deal.
I would like that.
To me, it's so crazy that people actually think that this three dimensional chess myth is, is a real thing.
It's just, it's so funny to me.
Still.
I have to laugh about it.
Even if even if Trump had never done or said any of the things he's said and done over the last 10 years, writing quote, A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again is disqualifying.
Absolutely.
Even if you, even if you never intended to do it, and I'm not a hundred percent convinced of that.
I'm not.
Right.
I think I, but.
No.
He needs to be impeached and removed from office.
He should not be the president right now.
And just bring it back to what, I think we talked about this last week, earlier this week.
I don't know, I'm so fucking sick of it.
Reality TV show president that just has the entire world sitting all day waiting to see what mm-hmm.
He's actually gonna do.
This is madness.
Like it's some, yeah.
Like it's a reality TV show where people's lives are like, we're murdering people, are civilizations.
Entire, entire civilizations.
But even without that, let's be real Lebanon, we're gonna talk about this more is under bombardment.
It's a massacre.
Gaza a massacre, Iran a massacre.
So many people have died already.

And finally, section F, making China great again.

Have they clearly defined our reason for being there?
No.
No.
I mean, now we have a very clear reason, which is to reopen the straight of war, which wouldn't have been closed if we hadn't gone to war in the first place.
In that sense, yes, we had, we created a clear war aim by starting a war.
I think the important thing is to go back to the first day of this war and to realize, regardless of how many times Trump denies it, this was a regime change war.
Hmm.
It was meant to be a regime change war.
We're seeing that now.
There was this piece from the New York Times that was very detailed and was kind of a minute by minute explanation of how the administration went to war.
It was clear Trump said, we're gonna hit them really hard, and then the regime's gonna fall.
And to their credit, and boy, how, how rarely do I say this about people in Trump's orbit, but to their credit, people like the CIA director said, I believe the word he used to describe that scenario was farcical.
But Trump didn't want to hear it because remember, Trump wish casts, I mean, I say this every time we talk about him, he tries to manifest things into being.
He's like, yeah, yeah, I know it's a problem, but if we just do it, it will happen.
If you build it, they will come kind of thinking.
And he launched the war, expected the regime to fall, and it didn't.
And when that didn't happen, everything went to hell.
He didn't, they didn't know what to do next.
So he just said, general, have you got more operations?
Yeah, we can there's, we can hit plenty.
There's, Iran is a target rich environment.
We can bump stuff all day long.
But as I as I used to teach at the Naval War College years ago, operational successes without strategic direction don't get you toward victory.
What does the military do when they don't have that strategic direction?
And when they're pulling all of these different threads, right?
This if this is a regime change, like you're, you're going to do a specific thing for regime change as opposed to I'm doing a specific thing for liberation of people, as opposed to I'm doing specific things to open up a street that wouldn't have been closed otherwise.
So how do they plan when there is no strategic direction?
That's not their job.
Their job is plan operations.
The very senior military leaders are supposed to ask that question.
Now, what is it?
We have these packages, we have these target sets, we have these objectives we can achieve.
What is it you want us to do, Mr.
President, where are we supposed to be going with this?
And in the absence of that, they do operations.
They say, okay, well we can destroy some more factories.
We can blow up some more airfields.
We can take out some more boats.
We can do that all day.
At least until we start running out of ammo.
So in the end, it's the people that are supposed to know that are the kind of people that Pete Hegseth has been firing left and right.
Look, we, this is one of the most war game scenarios in American modern American history.
We have been war gaming scenarios about fighting with Iran for almost 50 years.
Mm-hmm.
They've got tons of operational plans sitting on the shelves about everything.
But if the president just kind of wanders into the candy store and says, gimme one of those, gimme one of those and give me one of those, the military salutes smartly and says, yes sir.
Can, can I jump in, Adam? 'cause I Tom made so many great points and I wanna just build on a couple of them.
Yeah, absolutely.
The firings, we've had a lot of generals and animals fired, including the head of the Army during this conflict.
Now, usually when a general admirals file during wars for the conduct of the war, that didn't appear to be the case in this instance.
This was personal animosity.
A secretary who was micromanaging personnel decisions in the Army, looking to put his own stamp on that service.
And while this was largely a war from the air and sea, the Army had an important role.
The air defenses that you heard about the Patriots and the THAAD, those are army operated system restocking.
The munitions that were used for them, it falls on the Army chief of staff.
And he was fired during this conflict.
And so I think that's important to note, just the pace at which these, these personal changes were happening.
The other thing I wanna point out is.
For all the reasons that the United States gave for conducting this war.
Iran was very consistent throughout.
They wanted to survive as a regime.
They wanted compensation for the damages to their country.
And so I think to Tom's point, when one side doesn't have clear strategic aims and the other does, no amount of firepower can resolve that.
And what you saw the Iranians do is take that strategy and marry it with an asymmetric warfare approach to take away the advantage that the United States had with much stronger munitions training, planes, weapons, ships.
And so that's where the strategy, I think, sort of, or lack thereof, Played out on the battlefield.
Two quick points, the, the other thing about Nancy's point about the army, the army took casualties.
Hmm.
We spent a lot of time on watching television with the Air War.
But when some of those bases got hit, those were army people that we lost.
The other is, this looks a lot like Ukraine.
Hmm.
It was exactly the same imbalance of interests.
Putin went in, thought he was gonna just knock the Ukrainian regime over in a day, or three days, or four days.
But also when that didn't happen, Putin didn't have a clear set of goals.
It was just throw more guys and more bodies and blow up more buildings.
And just like the Iranians, the Ukrainians had a strategic goal, survive and control the territory and the government of Ukraine.
And they did.
They have,

the US China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.
And it will help define the century.
It's in the hands of two very different leaders.
It's hard to imagine two people with more different approaches to leadership.
President Trump is brash.
He's impulsive.
You don't have the cards right now.
Xi Jinping is guarded, methodical, someone who plays the long game, not the Twitter game.
Chinese policy makers see Trump as someone who's transactional and pragmatic who likes to make deals.
They also realize that Trump is very unpredictable.
President Trump makes a lot of threats.
What the markets have realized is that he doesn't execute all of those threats.
A lot of them are just quietly forgotten, and the internet, as usual, has found a name for it.
Taco Taco, taco Taco.
As you would call it, Trump, always chickens out.
The term is actually pretty popular on Chinese social media too.

On Chinese social media.
People love Donald Trump.
He actually has many nicknames.
Another really popular nickname for Trump is transient, which actually means Trump the nation builder.

It's not praising Trump as a nation builder for the United States.
It's more like a Trump helping China to become a superpower.

We're seeing she's basically just sitting back to enjoy the benefits as a flurry of Western leaders coming to Beijing, Mark Carney meets Xi Jinping in Beijing.
It's vital that we build a more sophisticated relationship.
They know that China, like all nation states, will act in its own self-interest.
What they are seeking and signaling is a hedge against the United States, which they now view as an unreliable partner.

And China has learned this the hard way.
China was really caught off guard by Trump's first trade war because it was launched just months after his first visit to China where he received a lavish welcome.

So since then, it has been preparing itself.
In China, there's a famous saying, learning is like sailing upstream pause, and you're pushed back.
And this mindset now shapes Beijing's strategy.
In the second trade war, president Trump tried to deal a knockout blow to China.
What the US wasn't expecting was that China would hit back China retaliated on the US with tariffs of 125%.
China has learned how to play this game, and president Trump knows that this latest headline coming in from the Supreme Court, global tariffs struck down.
China says it is assessing President Trump's second tariff investigation.
This week, as the US continues its effort to rebuild the key trade policy, the rollercoaster has had an impact.
Last year, China's exports to the US fell about 20%.
But if you look at India, they jumped 12.8% to southeast Asian countries.
They rose 13.5% and to the eu up 8.4%.
But trade flows are just one arm of China's strategy.
Explicit export controls on rare earth magnets, rare earth materials is the Trump card.

China imposed export controls on seven types of rare earth minerals and magnets made of them.
These export controls are really inflicting pain on the US manufacturing base because these rare earth magnets are used in everything from iPhones and EVs to big ticket weapons like fighter jets and missiles.
The pain goes beyond us.
Manufacturers since producers around the world are impacted by these controls, and although these measures could backfire as countries explore ways to lessen their reliance on China, those efforts will take time.
China dominates the supply chain mining over 60% of the world's rare earth's and refining.
Over 90% of them rare earth by themselves are not big deals.
The entire category, the market cap was not even 10 billion US dollars.
As a result.
Other countries, they have pretty much given up on rare earth production and refinery process.
China had its own advantages.
Its labor cost is really low, and its environmental standards are pretty lax.
The rare earth industry has been considered strategic for decades.
China has the world's most complete industrial catalogs, but despite the trade wins against Trump, China has issues.
Its industrial success.
Can't fix.
Beijing said a GDP growth target of 4.5 to 5% for the year.
That's the lowest since 1991.
China's economy has a lot of really serious problems.
Local governments, businesses, real estate developers, they borrowed too much and they used those borrowed funds to build too much capacity.
Bridges to nowhere.
Steel mills producing more steel than anyone could ever need, ghost towns of empty property.
As a result of that over capacity, China now has a deflation problem.
For years, China's economic rise has been fueled by its booming exports and investment.
But last year we saw China's fixed exit investment declined for the first time on record.
So it's really just the exports that keep the economy going.

Chinese workers are seeing their pay cuts or even getting fired and struggling to find jobs.
Some of them choose to go into the gig economy, which doesn't really provide a sense of job security.
What a lot of the country realized was that China was actually exporting its deflation overseas.
Whatever they couldn't dump to the United States, they were dumping to Southeast Asia, Latin America, or Europe.
That complicates the relationships.
China is forging even as more countries engage China to hedge against an unreliable us.
China has been keen to assert its economic strength for political influence, but is not willing to get entangle in military conflicts far from home seizure of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.
Iran continues to attack its Gulf neighbors.
China certainly has never committed to put troops on the ground to defend Venezuela or Iran.
There's a lesson there, which other friends of China are gonna take away from that.
For Iran and Venezuela, China is their most important economic lifeline.
But for China, these two countries are ultimately not that important.
Iran accounts for about 13 to 40% of China's oil imports, and Venezuela only accounts for 4%.
So this is not a small number, but it is replaceable for China.
But the bigger problem here is Strait of Hormuz.
If Iran continues to close down the Strait, then China will have a problem sourcing nearly half of oil imports.
The Strait of Hormuz is a vital lifeline for 20% of the world's gas and oil flows.
The reduction in traffic increases the threat of an inflation crisis and global recession.
If this war drags on and spread to other countries, then China's economic interest can be threatened.

So for now, China seems focused on only fighting the trade war, an arena where it holds more advantages.
The United States is the world's biggest economy.
It has the world's most powerful military.
Is China quite the equal of the United States?
I think the answer on that, at least for now, is still no, for nations caught in the middle.
There's really only one way forward.
Hedging will be the key word for 2026 or 2027 when two superpowers are having this historical fight.
They want you to take sides, but no one wants to.

We really are, for some reason, actually trying to stop China from executing.
Its probably potentially at least most dangerous base road initiative to our interest.
Now that assumes that it is, it is inimical to our interest.
I think we have made that assumption.
That road would come up through Iran and trace Alexander the greats route all the way up through the, what would be the 1,875 or so miles of shoreline on the Persian Gulf on the eastern side and all the way up to the caucuses.
It would link China's Pacific ports just as the other three base road initiative railroads do through Russia and the caucuses with Europe in a way that would reduce its shipping time from something like a day and a half to two days, depending on which way you go to about 16 hours.
Trains have already applied these railroads, including the one going through the southern part of Iran.
If that happens, then all maritime nations leading of which is the United States, of course the protector of the seas will no longer have seas.
Really worth protecting in the sense of commerce because commerce will be basically landlord.
At least 60% of it will come out of Asia and go to Europe and elsewhere on the land.
You'll have to get on some kind of boat to get to South America, I guess.
But nonetheless, this is a monumental change and it's one more fighting tooth and nail.
Whether Donald Trump knows any of this or Pete Hegseth knows any of this, I have no idea.
But that is, I think behind a lot of what we're doing.
It's also behind Ukraine because Ukraine stopped the very central railroad, which was already making 16 hour trips into the heart of Europe, going all the way to Bremerhaven and Le Havre and other places like that, critical to European trade if it were not a dumb braided as it were by the war going on in Ukraine.
So, and and think about that for a moment as to why Joe Biden and others blinking and Sullivan might have had some reason for doing Ukraine, as it were, rather than what they've been telling us or what they did tell us.
This is all about China and it's all about stopping China, which is to say, I'm not sure that any of this administration that is functioning in front of us every day knows anything about this other than that their masters have told 'em to do this.
And we can talk about who their masters are back in the shadows.
But I think that's ultimately what we're looking at.
So it's much more consequential in this struggle between the rising power and the declining power, and there's no question about that Now then people think or no.
And so it has these ramifications that make things that look tactically and even operationally stupid at the moment, and yet are tied to this much bigger tapestry of geopolitical and geostrategic reality.
Declining power, rising power.
Where's Russia gonna go in all this?
Russia has a choice.
She's both maritime power and land power.
Pri principally.
The latter is Mackinder made clear.
But she does have a formidable maritime capability now growing every moment by her Arctic coastline and the receding ice in the Arctic.
So she's got a choice to make, and she hadn't made it yet.
It, it looks like she's going with China, but, hmm, there's this relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which is kind of strange really, if you think about it.
Unless you understand what Putin wants, which is a better relationship with Washington and maybe even a helping hand, not to Europe, not to nato, not to the transatlantic link.
He's destroyed those or is destroying them, but to Washington because he sees there's something left there worth being friendly with.
So we gotta work all of that into what we're talking about right now, and what we're talking about right now is throwing a sledgehammer into that.
That is awesome because what Iran is doing is upsetting everybody's plans.
To the tune of Mohammed bin Salman being so incredibly insulted by Donald Trump in Southern Florida recently, that now he's thrown his lot in with Zelensky and has changed his routing of his pipelines and other things to avoid Israel and to go through Syria instead.
I mean, these are monumental changes that this hugely, hugely wealthy sovereign wealth fund is making almost overnight because of the insults that Trump hurled at MBS.
And then you've got Iran and what Iran can do to this whole business.
I've just talking, I've been talking about in Southwest Asia, which is if it executes its second tier of targets, the first tier, back up a little bit.
The first tier was so devastatingly done and so indicative of fine intelligence that it was unbelievable to many of the regional powers.
They hit Bahrain and destroyed the Fifth Fleet headquarters and destroyed the largest oil refinery in the Gulf.
Been there for years and put the Barran, Bahrain royal family in fleet flying away.
They hit Erbil where they had hit a number of times before in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq.
They had hit, hit it before with minor missiles just to let the Israelis and the CIA and MI six know that we, that Iran knew they were there.
They hit it this time and just blew it out.
They hit our embassy and Baghdad.
We were operating on only emergency personnel there now.
And oh, by the way, in Bahrain we sent 2000 people back with a suitcase, a kit bag to Norfolk that have now landed in Norfolk.
That's how Marco Rubio did his in neo business, so incompetently and now the citizens of Norfolk and Chesapeake and other areas, Hampton Roads are having to, Support these people who've come back with nothing, no shirt on their back other than the shirt on their back and nothing.
Just the kit bag.
That's what they were told, and they were gone because Bahrain was struck so fiercely.
Well, all to say they have a second tier of targets or maybe a third.
But the second tier is much more devastating.
The first tier of targets was essentially, as they said, we're not gonna hit you if we don't have to.
Prince Sultan Air Base.
We're not gonna hit Saudi Arabia.
We're gonna hit the US Al-Udeid, we're gonna hit the us.
We're not gonna hit you.
Qatar.
They had some incidental damage.
They even apologized for a lot of it this time.
That's not a criterion.
This time they're gonna hit it to devastate it, to devastate the region, to devastate Saudi Arabia, to devastate the Emirates.
All the other countries maybe will, mine will be spared.
I suspect it will.
But this would be a devastating blow to the global economy because we're talking about places like Ras Tanura and Saudi Arabia, where it's 650,000 barrels a day.
Or like Abqaiq, where it's 7% of the world's best supply of best oil. 7%.
This is a huge blow.
And we've already talked about things like urea and helium and other things.
Taiwan maybe got about 15 days left.
And Taiwan is not included in yes, China, you can go through the strait.
Taiwan cannot go through the strait.
So this could be depression producing on the globe if they hit these other targets and they shut down.
And at the same time, the Houthis renew their vigorous pursuit of closing the Red Sea to most traffic that is not supportive of taking out the Israelis, if you will.
Then we've got two of the most important waterways in the world.
Red Sea even.
And the Bab el-Mandeb even more important than the straight of Horus, than the Persian Gulf taken out a commission.
We could have a global, Not just recession.
We're close to recession right now, two quarters in a row.
We could have a global depression that would impact a lot of the world.
Even ultimately Russia, which looks like it's sitting in the catbird seat right now, but might not be if all of a sudden things turn sour for them in this global economy that is not gonna be operating anymore.
All to say this is a much, much more serious struggle than anyone in the Prima Fascia team leading this country.
America seems to understand.

That's going to be it for today.
As always, keep the comments coming in.
You can record and rerecord a message by tapping the link in the show notes.
You can reach us on signal at the handle.
Best of left zero one or simply email me to [email protected].
The additional sections of the show included clips from Novara Media Democracy Now Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underground Unf*cking the Republic Geopolitical Economy Report, breakthrough News, max Fisher Al Jazeera English, PissedMagistus, GEN, the Real News Network, some more news, radio Atlantic, Bloomberg Originals, and Chris Hedges.
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Thanks to everyone for listening.
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From best of the left.com.

Air Date: 4/14/2026

Full Notes Page

 

#1784 Full Episode

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Today we examine the legal battles shaking the foundations of American citizenship and voting rights as Trump's legal team uses the courts as a weapon against democratic participation — and how advocates are fighting back. We'll hear about the three-D playbook of deceive, disrupt, and deny used by authoritarians and being deployed by Trump ahead of the midterms, and what ordinary people can do right now to protect their votes before your podcasts. For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include

The NPR Politics Podcast

Strict Scrutiny

Democracy Now!

Legal AF

The BradCast

and Stay Tuned with Preet

Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more in 3 sections;

Section A, Birthright Citizenship

Section B, Election Interference

Section C, Mail-in Voting

But first, a reminder to check out our new show, SOLVED! [00:01:00] on the Best of the Left YouTube channel! We're really proud of the show we're making, and think you'll get real value out of it. Plus, you checking it out will help us find new viewers on YouTube so thanks in advance for your all your views, likes, subscribes and comments. That's all on the Best of the Left YouTube channel, linked in the show notes.

And now, on to the show.

DOMEN: For more than two hours. The Supreme Court discussed if all babies born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status are automatically granted citizenship. US Solicitor General D John Soer began by laying out the thrust of his argument, 

clip: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court, the citizenship clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile Here.

It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance. 

MILES: Through. Throughout the arguments though, justices [00:02:00] returned to that concept again and again with skepticism. Justice Neal Gorsuch pressed the matter in exchange with sour 

clip: whose domicile matters.

I mean, not the child, obviously it's your, it's the parents you'd have us focus on. And you know, what if, is it the husband? Is it the wife? What if they're unmarried? Who, who's domicile? Well, in, in the executive order, it draws a distinc between the mother and the father, and it's really the mother's domicile.

I think that would matter. Well, 1868 matters You're telling us. So what's, what's, what's the answer? The 1868, sources talk about parental, I'm not aware of them, drugging a secret between mother or father, but they say the domicile of the child follows the domicile of the parent. 

MILES: In her argument, Cecilia Wong, the National legal Director for the ACL U, said, the Trump administration's interpretation would upend the constitution and the lives of millions of people.

clip: The executive order fails on all those counts. Swaths of American laws would be rendered senseless. Thousands of American babies will immediately lose their citizenship, and if you [00:03:00] credit the government's theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present, and future could be called into question.

All of this tells us the government's theory is wrong. 

MILES: One of the biggest moments came when Chief Justice John Roberts directly rebuked the government's argument. 

clip: We're, we're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out, to where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a, a child who's a US citizen.

Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution. 

MILES: I wanna bring in now NPR Supreme Court correspondent Carrie Johnson, senior political Editor and correspondent Dominico Montero. And joining us from the Supreme Court is NPR Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Hi to you all. 

clip: Hi 

KERRY: there. 

MILES: Hi. Hey, so let's start with the main takeaways.

Nina, let's start with you. 

KERRY: Well, you know, the, the, with the president of the United States for the first time ever, as far as we know in the courtroom, and sitting in the audience, I thought the court actually went out of its way to. It, it [00:04:00] not beat the crap out of any of the council and the to ask very probing questions without completely tipping their hands.

At the same time you heard this constant refrain of this is pretty clearly what the Constitution says. I know it may has problems today, policy problems, but it is what the Constitution says and that is sort of. The way the court, because this is a very originalist court, it doesn't think it's a living constitution.

And in the same way it believes, for example, that there are. St quite restrict, severe restrictions on, on what kinds of regulations there can be of firearms, uh, of guns. And that's the second amendment to the Constitution. But it's also an amendment to the Constitution, much like the 14th Amendment was a.

An amendment to the Constitution. 

MILES: Tell me a little bit more, [00:05:00] one of the most unprecedented aspects of these arguments is the fact that the president was actually there. Can you tell me a little bit more, about his reaction throughout all of this or how that impacted things? 

KERRY: Well, I have to tell you, in truth that sitting in the press section, I don't think any of us, except maybe one or two people on the far end could see the president at all.

And, the White House had. Imposed a new restriction on, on how we cover the court, which is they told us to sit down before the court started. The proceedings started, the, the guards told us to sit down and I very clearly said, you know, this is our job is to look and see what's going on in this courtroom, at least before, the proceedings begin.

And they said, well, I'm sorry. This isn't our decision. This is a new rule that the White House imposed on us. So I didn't see. Anything of the president, but part of that is of course, also that I'm short. 

MILES: Okay. Well, getting into the arguments, Carrie, I want to go back to what we heard from the Chief Justice, this moment where [00:06:00] he says it's a new world, but it's the same constitution.

That was a moment where I found myself, my eyebrows raised when I heard it. What was your reaction to that? 

KERRY: Yeah, a number of the justices at the center of the court from the Chief Justice John Roberts, to Neil Gorsuch and another Trump, a Trump appointee to Elena Kagan. An Obama appointee raised some questions about the Trump administration's case.

Roberts said, they, their arguments in some ways were quirky and idiosyncratic. Kagan called them esoteric. Gorsuch talked about how the, solicitor General John Sauer was reaching to sources in Roman Law to make his argument that the 14th Amendment didn't mean what it says. And, I think all of those things were significant Also, you know, the Trump administration has been advancing this argument that people are coming to the US people from Russia and China to have babies here, and that could pose some kind of national security threat or a threat to allegiance to the United States.

Roberts basically said. And, you [00:07:00] know, we may have a new social problem here in that, but we don't have a new constitution. And that's an issue that other justices came back to as well. Justice Kagan in particular basically said, I understand the policy considerations this, that this administration, is putting forth, but

it's not maybe enough or we would need a tremendous magnitude of evidence and argument to turn away from birthright citizenship, which this country has basically understood to mean something for 160 years or so. 

MILES: Yeah. Let's listen to a little bit more of Chief Chief Justice Roberts talking about the skepticism of sours argument.

You obviously put a lot of weight on subject to the jurisdiction thereof. But the examples you give to support that strike me as very, quirky, you know, children, of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships. And then you expand it to, the whole class of, illegal aliens are, [00:08:00] are here in the country.

I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples. 

MILES: Dominica, what did you make of how the justices received the solicitor general's argument? 

IAN: Yeah, I thought it was interesting that you had a, a, a majority of the Supreme Court's justices peppering, the solicitor General John d de Jon Auer, with really skeptical questions about the Trump administration's.

Position about birthright citizenship? I mean, I'm gonna be watching some of these justices for what they think specifically, you know, what their interpretation winds up being specifically on things like, bloodline versus, born in the country soil. Justice, Amy Coney Barrett specifically was saying, well, why didn't.

The Justice, why didn't the framers, you know, make it more so that it was about parental dissent as opposed to being born on the soil of the United States? Justice Kavanaugh, for example, also asked about the language differences between the 1866 Civil Rights Act. And the [00:09:00] 1868 14th amendment, which is really what's at issue in this case, talking about the language that, in the 1866, act, saying that they didn't want people to be citizens who are, quote, not subject to any foreign power.

Right? So that difference, the, the Alus attorney, Cecilia Wong noted was because of, the exceptions to, to the, to the birthright citizenship, which is traditionally thought to be things like, uh, ambassadors in the country and not having those babies born given citizenship, which they're not allowed to.

Right. And Kavanaugh seemed to acknowledge in the second round of questioning to Wong when he was pressing her on this, that, 'cause she said that the intent was the same for the 1866 laws, the 1868 law. That, well, if the language was different then history might be different. 

KATE: can you talk about how dramatic a break with existing law, you view the Trump's administration's arguments here to be 

GUEST 2: the Trump administration's arguments are.

Radical and wild. Yeah. The Trump administration's arguments are [00:10:00] completely at odds with the text of the 14th Amendment, the history of the 14th Amendment Supreme Court precedent, statutes, and decades of executive branch practice. The 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship clause is clear that all persons born in the United States are citizens, subject to certain very minor exceptions, and there is.

More than a century of uniform Supreme Court precedent on this point, starting with Wong Kim Ark from 1898. There is also legislation both from 1940 and 1952 that codifies birthright citizenship into US federal law. There are decades of executive branch practice, and then there are the reliance interests of generations of Americans who have come to believe based on our nation's.

Foundational principles after the ratification of the 14th Amendment that all babies born in the [00:11:00] United States are US citizens. It's part of the history and tradition of this country. 

KATE: Yeah, and I'm glad you used the term radical because there has been this, I think, concerted effort to sort of generate a rushed body of scholarship, um, that is designed to kind of create the impression that there is sort of a reasonable debate about both the history and the kind of original understanding of the first sentence of the 14th amendment.

And I just think that it's wildly dangerous to seed that ground. There is a very recent and manufactured debate against this very long backdrop of settled understanding and the sort of the break that the administration is seeking would be a truly radical one. So you mentioned Wong Kim Ark, um, which I think is an enormous problem for the administration, you might say, an insurmountable obstacle.

And look, of course, lawyers argue about the meaning of cases, the grounds for decision, right? The kind of how to read particular phrases and, and lines of reasoning in Supreme Court opinions. But it does feel to me like a [00:12:00] pretty audacious, and you know, I'll just say frivolous argument that the administration is making that Wong Kim Ark is not only kind of an insuperable obstacle to their arguments, but actually supports them.

So can you talk about why that argument that they're, I think with the straight face offering to the Supreme Court is just so wrong. 

GUEST 2: Kay, I agree with you. This argument that the Trump administration about Wong Kim Arc is fringe. It's radical. It's frivolous. It makes no sense. So what the Trump administration is trying to argue is that the Wong Kim arc holding was premised on.

Wong Kim Arks parents being domiciled residents of the United States. And this is a sentence from the administration's brief that I'm quoting. They're arguing that children of aliens lawfully domiciled in the United States fall within the citizenship clause because their parents owe primary allegiance to the United States, not a foreign power end quote.

So the [00:13:00] children born to those who are not what they call lawfully domiciled. So what they would say are people who are temporarily in the United States or here without documentation, their children should not be born as US citizens. And that is just not the correct understanding of Wong Kim Arc Wong Kim Arc is very clear.

That the citizenship clause should be interpreted to include all children of foreign nationals without regard to parental domicile with certain ex, extremely minor exceptions, and those minor exceptions are for. Children born to foreign sovereigns ambassadors, children born on warships and occupying armies.

But everyone else born on us soil is a US citizen. 

KATE: Okay. I'm glad that you offered that rejoinder. And I, you know, we'll see exactly how the justices kind of talk about one kmar in the, argument. I wanna maybe take you to something else that you [00:14:00] mentioned. The kind of litany of reasons that the administration is so wrong here, is that there's not only the kind of constitutional obstacle, but there's also.

The statutes that Congress has enacted. And those statutes I think are important for kind of a couple of independent reasons. One, they're just additional evidence, like the kind of executive branch practice that you're talking about that we have all always understood really since the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution, that birthright citizenship was the law of the land, but they're also just independent legal commands, those statutes from the forties and the fifties.

So this is not the primary argument that the respondents, right, the individuals challenging the executive order are making or relying upon. But I think it's actually a really good and important independent argument, which is that maybe sort of, you could put to one side kind of resolving in an kind of ultimate way what the Constitution means.

But you have these statutes enacted in 1940 and 1952, and the clear meaning and understandings of those statutes preclude this executive order even if you didn't have a first sentence of the 14th amendment. So can you talk a little bit about [00:15:00] that argument? And I'm curious if you have a, a theory about why it's not more foregrounded in the briefing in the case.

GUEST 2: Sure. Kate, I agree with you. I think the statutory arguments are extremely important, and it's worth noting that in the legislative history for both the 1940 and 1952 statutes, the drafters of those statutes expressly rejected any domicile requirement by the Executive Branch committee that drafted those bills and then testified in its support before Congress.

So the very arguments that the Trump administration is now making about Wong Kim arc have been rejected in Congress and via these statutes. You know, I think that this is not. The primary argument that is being made by the individuals in this litigation because the constitutional question is so core to who we are as a nation.

And if the Supreme Court decides this case based on statutory grounds [00:16:00] alone, that gives Congress the opportunity to rewrite the 1940 and 1952 statutes, and that might be disastrous for the future of our country. So it is, I think, better strategically to make the argument on constitutional grounds, which are so clear, and it's shocking that this is in dispute and before the Supreme Court right now.

KATE: So as the two Kavanaugh clips that I played a couple minutes ago make I think quite clear, the court is uneven in its articulated concern for the consequences of its rulings, but I think it's important that people appreciate what it would mean on the ground for Trump to win here.

This is something I've heard you talk about before, but like I think it can't be emphasized enough. So what would that look like 

GUEST 2: if this executive order goes into effect? It would affect. Every person giving [00:17:00] birth in the United States, every family giving birth in the United States and every newborn in the United States, every time a person is in the hospital giving birth, the mother, the father, the parents would have to prove whether they are lawfully present in the United States, whether they're US citizens, whether they're lawful permanent residents, or whether they have some other kind of immigration status or no status at all.

Hospitals are not equipped in the delivery room to be checking people's passports, to be checking people's birth certificates, to be checking people's immigration paperwork. These are not easy, straightforward questions. It is complicated to figure out what a person's status is. 

KATE: Yeah, so that I just. It really drives home that this is not a ruling that will be sort of cordoned off to kind of affecting a subset of the population.

If you give birth, if you have family members who give birth, if you know people who give birth, if you have [00:18:00] any professional or other dealings with hospitals, this could be absolutely to kind of return to the idea of radical, a radically transformative kind of intervention in ways that I think people don't fully appreciate.

Just a lot kind of rests on our settled understanding of birthright citizenship and sort of, not only do hospitals not have the kind of processing capability that you were just alluding to, but you know, that's. Assuming people even have with them the paperwork that would be required to even set in motion some kind of verification process.

And a lot of the time they won't.

Democrats and voting advocacy groups have filed three separate lawsuits against President Trump's sweeping new executive order to limit mail-in and absentee voting ahead of this year's midterm elections.

Trump's order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a state citizenship list. It also directs the US Postal Service to mail ballots only to. Verified, quote unquote, voters [00:19:00] voting rights experts have decried the executive order as an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to seize control of election administration from the states and Congress.

Plaintiffs who on a lawsuit said, quote, attempts to end voting by mail are part of the Trump administration's larger strategy to undermine elections and subvert the will of the people. Trump's attack on mail-in voting comes just days after he. Fended, his decision to recently vote by mail in Florida.

You know what? Because I'm president of the United States and because of the fact that I'm president of the United States, I did a mailin ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being, in the beautiful sunshine taking. But you were in Palm Beach served the last few weekends.

That's right. And I, yeah, and I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. We're joined now by Arizona's Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, whose blasted Trump's [00:20:00] executive order is disgusting overreach from the federal government.

Arizona's among several states. The Trump administration sued in order to access sensitive voter data. The state was also at the center of Trump's false claims of election fraud in 2020. Secretary of State, Adrian FTAs. Welcome back to Democracy. Now, why do you Sri describe the President's actions as disgusting and explain Arizona's mail-in vote system?

Well, thank you for having me first, and I call it disgusting because it is first and foremost. Article one, section four re reserves the power to establish the time, place, and manner of elections to the states alone and gives Congress a role. Now, the president has previously issued an executive order that he got shot down on the rule of law now in the country is he doesn't have a role in administering our elections, and yet he tried again.

This is a lawless. President, and that's why this is a [00:21:00] disgusting overreach. He's already been told by the courts, this is not his business, and yet he's trying to do it again. One of the other reasons that I called it that is because this is clearly an attempt for the president to pick his own voters.

He doesn't really care about the, the real voice, of American voters. Which would mean that he would expand the franchise. He would ask more and more ways, to, to find more voters, to be voting, qualified as they are, but to make sure that everybody had access, to make sure that all voters had convenient ways of casting their ballots so that, the governed could give their consent to the government.

That's the rule that we have been established by. So, but for both of those reasons, I think it's discussing now. Mail-in voting in Arizona is, what's kind of classified as a no excuse absentee system. You don't need an excuse to vote by mail. It was created by Republicans in the early 1990s. It has been promoted, by them and kept them in power here in Arizona for quite some time.

[00:22:00] And it's convenient. And what's also very important, lemme give you an example. My own 80 something year old mom. Does not need to stand in line and be kinda pressured to fill out a two page long ballot in some elections with up to 85 different elections on that two page ballot, which we have seen in Maricopa County, Arizona.

She doesn't have to feel rushed. She can do it at the convenience of her home, at her kitchen table, on her couch. Look up the propositions. You know, do research on the judges. Our no excuse absentee system. Our mail-in voting system in Arizona is robust. It is secure, and not only in 2016, but in 2024, it elected Donald Trump as president.

So what we're we have here is I think, some confusion on the part of the president about what's effective, what's secure. And, and, and really I think the maliciousness behind this, is, is, is, is been sh has been shown bare, on its face. He's trying to pick his own voters. And, [00:23:00] secretary of State fontes, you mentioned that, the, the, the mail-in voting system in Arizona dates back to the 1990s.

Had there ever been complaints, previously about the system, before the Trump era? Well, the one complaint we had about the system was that it, it used to be where, the registrar, voter, the county recorders, would mail a postcard to every voter, every single election, and the voters would say, yes, I want a ballot by mail and send it back.

Then they would send the ballot. So that ended up getting stopped and we had what was called a permanent early vote list. So you would sign onto it and that increased the vote by mail numbers year in and year out, without exception until these election conspiracy theories and lies about vote by mail started.

The list is no longer permanent, because of the prior governor and legislature, made it so that it is now called an active early vote list, and it's easier to get dropped off that list, although you're still [00:24:00] registered and you can still vote. So the complaints have only really started, under when, Donald Trump was the president.

And he spread his lies either, before an election, just in case he lost, he'd have an excuse. Or after an election because he felt like he should have won unanimously or some nonsense like that. I'm not even sure about how that works. Now, earlier this year you introduced statewide legislation, the Voters First Act.

What does that do and how are you trying to safeguard the integrity of the 2026 midterms in Arizona? Well, the F Voters first act had 10 different components in it, and unfortunately under the Republican leadership and the legislature, it no longer, I think is gonna see the light of day. But it really made a whole bunch of different spaces in our elections, much more secure.

It gave us. Funding for the E system. It made vote centers a part of the law, which means any voter in any county can vote anywhere in their county no [00:25:00] longer, allowing for precinct based voting only, which has shown to increase provisional ballots, which isn't always great. And it, it did a variety of other things that helped access, it helped convenience, it helped voters and it put a good chunk of money into, the election budgets for our counties, which, because Arizona is a bottom upstate, the counties really do a lot of the work.

I'm more of like a commissioner in a major sports league. We establish the rules. We certify the officials, we certify the equipment. It's the counties that do a lot of the work. So we were trying to bolster what they could do and really make it, better for the voters, because that's really kind of where the rubber meets the road.

HOST 2: Let's read from the petition page seven and eight, and I'll post it here on Legal af Substack, for paid members to read themselves.

This case presents an unprecedented constitutional emergency that demands swift action from this court. Article five of the of California's charter provides the attorney general with [00:26:00] authority to exercise direct supervision over every sheriff in all matters. Concerning their duties. That constitutional power is reinforced by the Attorney General's statutory authority to direct the activities of any sheriff relative to the investigation or detection of a crime.

But in the last month, the petition continues. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and the Riverside County Sheriff's Office have claimed the authority to disregard. The Attorney General's directives fundamentally altering the constitutional allocation of power between the state's chief law officer.

That would be Attorney General Banta, and its subordinate. Law enforcement officers in the sheriff's view the power to direct and take charge of investigations now belongs exclusively to him and not the attorney general, but that is incompatible with the state's constitutional and statutory structure that then goes on to describe what he did on page eight.

The importance of the dispute is only magnified [00:27:00] in this case because the sheriff rejects the Attorney general supervision to pursue an unprecedented investigation into purported election fraud. He has seized hundreds of thousands of ballots. I think the number is 650,000, which by law should have never been taken.

From the custody of the elections official, the integrity of those ballots is now at risk. And because the sheriff's misguided investigation is, is, is pre predicated on baseless claims of election irregularities, the sheriff's actions threatened to jeopardize public confidence in the upcoming primary.

That would be midterm and general election elections around the state. Effectively, Bianco just refuses to, to comply with his constitutional, he took an oath, constitutional requirements and statutory requirements. In fact, here's Chad Lo, Bianco, basically, inviting the California Supreme Court to find him in contempt to play the clip.

Good morning, California, [00:28:00] Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. I am in Sacramento. Today, we are fighting some, some horrific public safety bills and trying to get some other good ones through. Our public safety committee as a side note, is not really a public safety committee. It is anti-public safety committee.

But that's a whole nother story. The real reason why I'm here today is to talk about the elections case, technically. We are very happy with the ruling. This morning from the California Supreme Court that they're going to take this case. They are, siding with us in what we have done so far, and we will have arguments presented to them, for the merits of our case and for them to basically, eventually what we are very confident they will allow us to continue this investigation despite the Attorney General's attempts to cover it up.

So, unfortunately we are status quo. We are still at the hold of a court, so we are not allowed to progress with the counting of the ballots. And, we'll just continue fighting for this for you, and we'll make sure that a investigation, like any investigation is completed and not swept under the rug [00:29:00] like our attorney general would like to happen.

So, stay tuned. We'll keep you posted. So what they're looking for. First they started in, procedurally in a couple of other courts. One court told the attorney General, this is the wrong court, file it in an appellate court. They filed it in an appellate court. The appellate court, had scheduled a hearing on it, but in the meantime, they skipped a step and filed it and lodged it with a direct appeal, a direct petition to the California Supreme Court under some, provisions there.

That give direct, jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in, in certain unique matters. Certainly this one, when you have an out of control sheriff who's not listening to the Attorney General, who is his boss, you need a mandamus in order to protect the public interest, and that's what we have here. The good news is that after.

This has been kicking around since the beginning of March, where finally the Attorney General has a clear line of sight to a [00:30:00] resolution in his favor, and with the California Supreme Court, not only taking it seriously, but deciding that they're going to decide this case, this petition and ordering Sheriff Bianco.

S recent posting, notwithstanding not to destroy anything in his possession as they get their arms and jurisprudential minds around this case. What I like about. Reporting about this case is to show you, 'cause I get questioned a lot by our audience. Are the attorneys general ready for the worst things that could happen, uh, concerning their vote?

I think voting is one of the major concerns of our audience. What happens to their vote? Making sure their vote is protected and who's out there to protect them? Who are the firemen to run or the fire people to run into the burning building? But Rob Banta, the other 23 Democratic Attorneys General, the American Civil Liberties Union, democracy Forward, and groups like the naacp, they are [00:31:00] immediately running into court and getting stay orders.

Blocks, temporary injunctions. And yes, they are doing tabletop exercises of what is the worst thing that they can imagine, even beyond their wildest imagination, Donald Trump and maggot to do about voting, about funding, about civil rights, about, you know, a federal takeover of states. And they are ready.

They have many of these. Petitions in draft, ready to go at a moment's notice. That's why they get into court so quickly. Even I who have handled emergency hearings in my own career, I'm even impressed by the velocity at which these organizations are getting into court and getting great results.

Sometimes we focus too much. On the United States Supreme Court and the handful of decisions, as devastating as they are to our way of life, to our constitution, they are, they are [00:32:00] important. I'm not minimizing them, but we have to focus on the thousands of other cases and the success rate of up to 90%.

That the, that the, these groups are having, including Rob Bonta, attorney General. I mean, we're gonna have a monsoon. I'll give him a major pat on the back. He is, these are hall of fame numbers 90% of the time, winning percentage. And that's where justice gets done primarily in America, at the lower court level, at the federal district court level.

At the first level of appeal, not even getting to the United States Supreme Court, at the state Supreme Court level, at the state appellate court level. I mean, if you add up the total amount of cases that a Supreme Court will decide in a year. You know, actually on, on the merits or procedurally, you're talking about a low hundreds, maybe a hundred with the emergency docket, right?

Thousands and tens of thousands of cases are going on right now about the Trump administration's actions or those who are adjacent to [00:33:00] them. Every day there's a judge somewhere, federal or state appellate or trial that is dealing with a Trump or Trump related constitutional or statutory breach. We are prevailing.

That's why I'm so glad to be here to support people like Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Democratic Attorneys General. I promise you I'm working this week to get Attorney General Bonta on to speak to you directly in the meantime for follow ups on this case, and it's a fast moving case. 

Can we just set the context here, which is that Mississippi is one of about 20 states that have provisions like that which permit ballots, that are casted and postmarked by election day. Put in the mail, but then received in the case of Mississippi up to five days later, it permits the state to count those votes.

And among the people who make the most use of this sort of a safe harbor provision, some states have separate laws that that govern this [00:34:00] are members of the military serving away from home. So it seemed almost unthinkable to me. This, sort of law would not pass muster, but, and look, and maybe we can talk about it.

The chief justice certainly played his cards close to the vest yesterday. Yep, yep. It was hard to get an accurate vote count beyond, you know, the three conservative justices, Thomas Alito and Gorsuch, who seemed to not have a lot of use for this statute. And of course the progressive justices who seem to believe that the law means what it says and, and that it worked well.

Who knew? I know, right. Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about your impressions first. 

IAN: Just two quick points. So the first is, it's interesting because service members actually have their own statute. There's a statute called UO Ova, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. And you know, Joyce, it's possible that you could split the difference between U Ova, [00:35:00] which is a federal statute, and therefore would not run the same preemption concerns that Mississippi's law would versus a state saying, we will take any late arriving mail-in ballot if they're postmarking times.

So, you know, I think it's possible if a bit cynical that the court could find a way. To block Mississippi's law without messing with foreign service member overseas vote and overseas voting. What I found so galling about the arguments, Joyce, and especially, I mean you mentioned Thomas Alito and Gorsuch, these are, you know, supposed textualists and so much of the oral argument was like a parade of fake horribles.

That one would only really have a sense of if one spent all their time consuming right-wing media. You know, sort of concerns about election fraud and concerns about just, I mean, justice Kavanaugh at one point talked about the blue shift. 

clip: Professor Pildes and others have said that late arriving ballots open up risk of white might [00:36:00] destabilize the election results.

If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode the longer after election day. Any significant changes in vote totals take place. The greater the risk that the losing side will cry, that the election has been stolen.

End quote. And my question is, my questions one, is that a real concern? Two, does that factor into how we think about how to resolve the scant text and the maybe conflicting or evolving history here? 

IAN: It's like that's 

PREET: not, has you ever watched a baseball game? Sometimes a team, right? It's bad. Is leading. In the early innings and takes over the leader, 

IAN: but it's pretty, it's worse.

It's worse than that. Yeah. I mean like that, that's the, that is the, I think most superficially obvious analogy, it's worse than that because there is, it's not like we vote one inning at a time. Like the order in which ballots are counted doesn't change the [00:37:00] fact that as long as they're all cast by a date certain, they're all valid.

PREET: So, can I ask a question? 'cause it's sort of legal slash. Philosophical slash sort of metaphysical question was, when does one consider a ballot to have been cast? Right? Is it when you fill out the thing? Is it when it is received? Is it when you pull the lever? Is it when you know, could someone take a photograph of your filled out ballot at home before you mail it?

And could that suffice talk about why that was an issue, what was important about it, and what the conclusions were? Because it seems to be. Kind of a little bit, you know, how many angels dancing on the head of a pin? Was it that or something more, more substantive? 

IAN: A little bit of both. Preet. I mean, I think the, the best you can do for a textual argument in support of the fifth Circuit's position is that a ballot is cast when it is received.

And that receipt in this context can mean different things. So when those of us who vote in [00:38:00] person go to the polls and we press the button, and we put the little piece of paper into the machine. That is, I think, the obvious moment at which we have cast our vote because we have given it to the election officials.

They have received it. Obviously, mail-in voting increases the, the real and metaphorical space between the voter and the voting official. And you know, I think the question is, is it fair to say the vote isn't actually cast until it's in the hands of the state? In which case, maybe you are making an argument that even a postmarked, you know, by election day ballot is still coming in late.

I guess it just, it seems to me that that's inconsistent one with how we think about the post office, right? It's inconsistent with what in contract law is known as the mailbox rule. And it's inconsistent with what I think voters would think, which is I think a voter would think that they've cast their vote, not when someone they've never met opens an envelope, but when they've taken the last act over [00:39:00] which they have control to submit their ballot.

PREET: Tax day is coming up. Tax day is coming up. Just to use that analogy. Yeah. For a moment. 

IAN: Yeah. 

PREET: Quickly. I mean, people file their taxes electronically mostly now, but am I right that that mailbox rule applies to your taxes? Sure does. Which are very, very important. Yep. You don't have, it does not have to be received by April 15th, just postmark by April 15th.

Right. 

IAN: It's also how the Supreme Court operates just to, you know, just to take one potentially relevant example, right? A, a brief is timely filed in the Supreme Court if it is postmarked on the day it is due, not if it's received by the day it was due. And you know, that is because all of these rules recognized in different ways, but for the same reason that it would be unfair to the person who is compliant with a deadline to lose control over when their compliance takes place.

HOST 2: Justice Gorsuch has an argument though. He says to Mississippi's solicitor General. Well, I've read your law and your law. [00:40:00] Would permit someone to pull their ballot back out of the mails. Right. And so it's actually not received until it's been opened and stamped and they're about to count it. And Mississippi's solicitor, general protests, no, no, no.

Justice. That's not how our law works. And Justice Gorsuch reads the statute to him. 

clip: You could admit, my hypothetical could happen, but you say it can't happen in Mississippi because recall's not allowed. I couldn't find that anywhere in Mississippi law. In fact, what I did see was a statute that says, that you, you, that the Secretary of State can promulgate rules and regulations.

That's 23 15, 637 3. And then I went and looked at the regulations and rule 2.1. Says that an absentee ballot is the final vote of a voter when the ballot is marked accepted. That doesn't preclude recall, [00:41:00] and in fact, that allows recall. I, I, I don't, I respectfully don't agree with that, your Honor. I mean, what, where, where does it say recall's not permitted?

I couldn't find that Anywhere in your statutes or the rule. And I think by providing the ballots are final when cast under our statute. No, it doesn't. It says they're, they're final when marked accepted. That's the regulation, your Honor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's your regulation. Yeah. And, and it allows, recall. It does.

I respectfully, it does not allow Recall, your Honor, the ballot. Show me. Where would you read to me the provision that precludes it? 

HOST 2: Do you think that that argument, that Justice Gorsuch tried to make there this sort of bizarre, textual reliance on something that doesn't make any sense using a wild hypothetical and he, he does.

He comes out with, well, what if a candidate, what if it comes out the day after the election that he committed sexual impropriety and his opponent tells people to go and. Claw their, their ballots back from the post office and they do. And it swings the election, right? I mean, we are in crazy [00:42:00] town. But do you think this argument might get some traction with Five Justices 

IAN: choice?

Maybe. But you know, even if that is an argument against traction, my understanding is it's pretty specific to Mississippi. And so, you know, then you might have the Supreme Court saying there's a problem with Mississippi's law. Only because it allows for that claw back, which is where, you know, whereas states that don't, don't have that problem.

And that gets back to the point, which is, you know, to what extent are the justices actually trying to solve a real problem here? 

PREET: Yes. 

IAN: And to what extent are they, you know, sort of playing political conspiracy theory just because they want to? I mean, you know, o obviously the court had to take this case once the Fifth Circuit said the Mississippi law was preempted.

I guess I just don't understand why the court thinks this is something it ought to be doing, you know, and why it's something it should be spending capital on 

MARK: one reason why so many states have these laws is that military and overseas voters yes, have long [00:43:00] struggled. To get their ballots in by election day, understandably. Right. Have you ever tried to ship something abroad?

It's not easy. Mm-hmm. If you're stationed on a military base, if you're living abroad, there are all kinds of logistical difficulties in getting these ballots back. So there are a lot of states that actually enacted these laws specifically to help military and overseas voters. Mm-hmm. And when Congress came in a a few decades ago.

Issued these new rules about, milit military and overseas voters. It specifically deferred to the state's ballot deadlines. So Congress knew at the time that some states were allowing these ballots to come in late, as long as they were sent by election day, and Congress deferred to those laws in those statutes.

And yet now we have, you know, these Republican politicians, these republican lawyers. Claiming that Congress somehow wanted to ban states from counting late arriving ballots. The opposite is true to the extent that there is any federal law on this. It's Congress saying, yes, states, you can [00:44:00] count these late arriving ballots.

We're deferring to your ballot deadlines. So this is, in addition to a completely absurd fantastical legal theory just flying in the face of support our troops. Because what this. Theory would do in practice is ensure that a whole lot of service members who are serving in un uniform abroad would not be able to have their votes counted in elections.

BRAD: I'm, I'm old enough to remember Republicans making a whole lot of noise about that. Back in 2000 when the, when the presidential race was ultimately decided in Florida. 537 votes, and Republicans were attacking Democrats for not allowing, late arriving mail ballots, from the military to show up.

Yep. Now, we should note Democrats actually did allow for late arriving military ballots to be included in the final totals. The fight was actually in that case about ballots. I think, that were not postmarked that could have been sent at any time. Even after the election, but the Democrats allowed it to, you know, [00:45:00] allowed those to be counted as well at the time as Republicans insisted, would an adverse ruling here in Watson, VRNC actually block those late military votes from being counted?

As well. 

MARK: Yeah, absolutely. And Justice Sotomayer brought this up. She said we might have had a different president if this rule had been in effect in 2000 because of the issue of late arriving mail ballots from overseas from military voters, which Republicans fought tooth and nail to count during Bush v Gore.

Because they suspected they would be disproportionately democratic. You didn't hear them say back then that Congress had secretly banned late arriving ballots. Like this is a very novel theory that was concocted only after Donald Trump's campaign against mail voting created a partisan split. In mail voting that ensured that these ballots would be more likely to be cast by Democrats, meaning that any attack on mail voting would disproportionately hurt democratic politicians.

BRAD: I, I gotta tell you, I mean this whole case and, the arguments [00:46:00] that we heard seems just like a no brainer. I mean, it seems incredibly stupid to the question of, of why this is even being heard before the, before the high court did the, the solicitor general, the Mississippi Solicitor General, as noted a Republican do an effective job in no rebutting these things.

MARK: So this solicitor General Scott Stewart has appeared once before the Supreme Court, before these arguments, and that was to defend Mississippi's abortion ban in Dobbs. This is a very conservative Republican who probably hated being put in the position of having to defend this law, and my sense was that his heart really was not in it and that he, I don't think he threw the case, like I don't think that he lost it on purpose, and I don't know that he lost it at all.

But he didn't raise the most robust or forceful defenses of the law that he could have. And by the way, there was a lot of reporting on these arguments that said, oh, it looks like Mississippi's gonna [00:47:00] lose, and all these, these, state laws are gonna be thrown out. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think that impression was created because the Mississippi Solicitor General did such a terrible job.

Mm-hmm. And the justices were really beating him up, and he didn't have a particularly good response to Gorsuch's question. It took him a while to get to the point where he just said. By the way, recalling your ballot in Mississippi is illegal. You can't do it. And no one has ever done it before. He didn't have the right kind of responses to keep the arguments moving in his direction.

And so I think that frustrated the justices and when that happens, they tend to all kind of gang up as as occurred here. Mm-hmm. But I think there's still a chance that Mississippi could prevail and that these laws could survive because you know, the early voting issue is paramount and there is no.

Defensible way to separate out late ballots from early ballots. And if the Supreme Court is going to crack down on early voting too, I mean, it's going to disrupt voting in every single state, 150 days before the midterm elections. That seems like an unwise move now. The [00:48:00] court has made unwise moves before.

BRAD: Yeah, 

MARK: but even for this scotus, I think it's a bridge too far. 

BRAD: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because I wasn't able to watch the, the hearings. The, the oral argument live or listen to it when it happened, I started seeing a lot of headlines about, you know, court seems inclined to, to overturn late mail-in ballots from a lot of outlets.

I'm glad to hear that you, you are at least not, quite as certain about that. Let me, well, I'll get to that in a moment, but just a few more points here. If this were to be overturned, mark. It would also mean that postal workers, if they wanted to, I guess, could purposely affect elections by slowing down delivery of mail.

There was a recent case that it was, decided that you could not sue a, a postal worker specifically for, trying to delay your ballot. And I, I don't believe that postal workers at all would do this as a whole, but if I had a, but they've 

MARK: done it before, 

BRAD: but they've done it [00:49:00] before and. If I have fears about them doing that, mark, isn't that enough to, to do something about it?

Just my fears alone. 

MARK: Yes, it should be. It's an excellent point. I mean, I, you know, I have story, 

BRAD: do we respect story, do need to go on Fox News and, and, and promulgate this fear so that people have it so that then we can get a, a decision from the Supreme Court on it? 

MARK: I think so. I, I think that's a great move, because surely the Supreme Court will be justice as solicitous.

Of, of progressives concerns about mail voting as, as, yes. Re Republicans concerns, you know, I respect our mail carriers, but the reality is that it only takes a few bad apples to seriously wreck bail voting for entire communities. Yep. You know, think about how many parcels and pieces of Mail one carrier delivers.

There have been instances in just the last few years in which individual postal workers have destroyed or delayed, or refused to deliver hundreds of mail ballots. Mm-hmm. Which in a close election could be 537 votes. How about that? Could make all the difference. And I think this was like the [00:50:00] worst possible time for the Supreme Court to take away our ability to sue the postal service for damages when this occurs, because the, the postal service needs to be on alert.

It needs to have incentive to guard against this. It needs to know there will be serious consequences. If postal workers do this, and the Supreme Court just put a shield around the postal service and made it impossible for anyone to sue for damages when their ballot is illegally withheld or destroyed, that is bad news, and it's part of a much broader assault on mail voting that we're seeing from the conservative justices at this moment.

Speaker: We've just heard clips starting with

The NPR Politics Podcast reporting on a skeptical Supreme Court grilling the Solicitor General over Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship

Strict Scrutiny laid out why the Trump administration's birthright citizenship arguments are "radical and frivolous," contradicting the 14th Amendment, Wong Kim Ark from 1898, and statutes from [00:51:00] 1940 and 1952

Democracy Now! spotlighted the Arizona Secretary of State blasting Trump's mail-in voting restrictions as an attempt to "pick his own voters,"

Legal AF walked through the California Supreme Court's decision to take up Bonta's petition against Sheriff Bianco, who illegally seized 650,000 ballots under the pretense of investigating election fraud

The BradCast traced the Republican reversal on late military ballots from 2000's Bush v. Gore fight to today's Watson v. RNC case, calling the new theory a partisan invention tied to Trump's war on mail voting.

And Stay Tuned with Preet examined the Supreme Court's oral arguments over Mississippi's law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to five days late

And those were just the top takes, there's lots more in the deeper dives sections,

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get this show ad-free as well as early and ad-free access to our other [00:52:00] show, SOLVED! Including a members-only backstage segment, all via podcast. We've also launched SOLVED! on the Best of the Left YouTube channel but episodes are delayed there.

The show features our team of producers discussing a carefully curated selection of articles and ideas to then SOLVE! some of the biggest issues of our day.

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As for today's topic, I like to start with a story.

In December 2019, a woman identified in court documents as C.M. got into an argument with her boyfriend, Zackey Rahimi, in a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. When she tried to leave, he grabbed her, threw her to the ground, dragged her to his car, and shoved her inside so hard [00:54:00] her head hit the dashboard. When he noticed a bystander watching, he pulled out a gun and fired at them. Then he called C.M. and told her if she reported any of it, he'd shoot her.

A Texas court granted her a protective order. It found Rahimi had committed family violence and was likely to do it again. The order explicitly prohibited him from possessing a firearm. He kept his guns anyway. Over the next year, he threatened another woman at gunpoint, and then between December 2020 and January 2021, he was involved in five separate shootings. He fired into someone's house after a drug deal. He shot at another driver after a car accident. He fired a gun into the air in a residential neighborhood. He shot at a car on a highway. He shot up the parking lot of a Whataburger because his friend's credit card got declined.

Police searched his home, found a rifle, a pistol, and a copy of the restraining order that said he couldn't have any of it. He was convicted under a federal law [00:55:00] that bars people under domestic violence protective orders from owning guns, a law that had been on the books for decades, upheld repeatedly, and never seriously questioned.

Then the Supreme Court changed the rules. In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case called New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which said that for any gun regulation to be constitutional, the government has to prove it's consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in this country. Not whether the regulation makes sense. Not whether it protects people. Whether there's something like it from 1791.

So the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took another look at Rahimi's conviction and threw it out. Their reasoning was straightforward: in 1791, there were no domestic violence restraining orders. There were no domestic violence laws at all. Wife-beating wasn't a crime in any American [00:56:00] state until 1850. Women couldn't vote, couldn't own property in most states, and had essentially no legal personhood independent of their husbands. So there was no historical analogue for a law protecting C.M. from a man who beat her and shot at people, because the men who wrote the Constitution did not consider C.M.'s safety a question worth asking.

The Supreme Court eventually reversed that decision, eight to one. But the fact that it was a question at all, that a federal appeals court looked at a man who assaulted his girlfriend, threatened to kill her, and then went on a shooting spree and said the Constitution protects his right to keep his guns, that's not a glitch in originalism. That's originalism working exactly as designed.

And the same logic is running through everything right now. The question in the birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court is who gets to be a citizen. The Fourteenth Amendment's text is about as [00:57:00] clear as constitutional text gets: all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. The Supreme Court affirmed that in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Lincoln's own Attorney General wrote an opinion supporting it during the Civil War. And yet the Trump administration issued an executive order challenging it, and justices on the Supreme Court entertained the argument. In the mail-in voting case, the question is who gets to participate in elections. The Constitution says Congress sets election day. It does not say states can't count ballots that arrive after that day, and for over a century nobody read it that way. But now conservative litigants are arguing that the word "day" means something it never meant before, and some justices seem interested.

Every one of these cases is ultimately asking the same thing: who is a legitimate member of civil society? Who's [00:58:00] protected? Who gets a voice? Who counts? And in every case, the answer is being filtered through a methodology that defaults to the judgment of people who excluded most of the population from membership.

That methodology is called originalism. And here's what doesn't get said enough: it's not an ancient legal tradition. It's a forty-year-old political project.

In July 1985, Attorney General Edwin Meese stood up at the American Bar Association's annual convention and announced that the Reagan administration would pursue what he called a Jurisprudence of Original Intention. Before that speech, originalism as a formal legal theory barely existed. Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, who co-founded the Federalist Society and worked in Meese's Justice Department, wrote in their 2024 book The Meese Revolution that someone in 1983 looking for a theoretically sophisticated defense of originalism would have [00:59:00] found, in their words, literally nothing.

The Federalist Society, founded in 1982 as a conservative student club at a few law schools, became the distribution network. They identified promising young lawyers, mentored them, credentialed them, and built a pipeline that fed directly into judicial appointments. Within forty years, at least five current Supreme Court justices are current or former members. Chief Justice Roberts served on the steering committee of the D.C. chapter. By 2010, even liberal Justice Elena Kagan felt the need to say at her confirmation hearing that we are all originalists now.

That's not a philosophical breakthrough. That's a marketing triumph. And the product being sold is the idea that these enormously consequential questions about who belongs and who's protected are really just neutral questions about what words meant in 1791. But they're not and they never [01:00:00] were.

Aziz Rana, a law professor at Boston College, published a book in 2024 called The Constitutional Bind that traces how Americans came to worship the Constitution in the first place. And his central finding is that this worship is itself a relatively recent invention. For most of American history, the Constitution was treated as a practical framework, not a sacred text. Populists, labor organizers, socialists, even a young Woodrow Wilson openly called it a hobble on democracy. The reverence we take for granted, the idea that the Constitution is the embodiment of American identity and the ultimate source of justice, that consolidated in the twentieth century, partly as a way to justify American empire abroad and partly as Cold War branding against Soviet totalitarianism.

The reason that matters is that originalism could only succeed in a culture that already worshipped the document. [01:01:00] Liberals built the altar. They championed the Warren Court, celebrated the civil rights amendments, treated the Constitution as a story of freedom unfolding over time. And then conservatives showed up and said: if this document is sacred, then its original meaning is the only meaning that counts. The left had no answer to that, because they'd already conceded the premise. They'd made the Constitution into a creed, and originalism was just the more disciplined version of that creed.

And this is where we should be honest about what originalism actually is versus what it claims to be. It claims to be a constraint on judicial power. The idea is that judges shouldn't impose their personal views; they should follow what the text meant when it was adopted. That sounds reasonable until you watch it in practice. When the original meaning supports the outcome conservatives want, they invoke it faithfully. When it doesn't, they get [01:02:00] creative or ignore it entirely. The Fourteenth Amendment's birthright citizenship clause is textually unambiguous, historically documented, affirmed by the Supreme Court over a century ago, and conservative justices still entertained a challenge to it. In Trump v. United States, the conservative majority invented sweeping presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, a protection that has zero basis in constitutional text or history. Justice Sotomayor's dissent made that plain. On voting rights, justices who insist on the plain meaning of words suddenly find ambiguity in the word "day" that nobody found for a hundred and fifty years.

As the Constitutional Accountability Center wrote after reviewing the 2024 term, this is a court that is transparently selective in its application of text and history. Originalism isn't a constraint. It's a costume. And it consistently answers the question of [01:03:00] who belongs, who's protected, who counts, in the narrowest way possible, because the historical record it draws from was written by and for the narrowest possible slice of the population.

Now, to be fair, originalist reasoning has occasionally produced outcomes progressives like. And the left's problem isn't just that the right has a methodology and they don't, it's what Rana identifies as the deeper trap: as long as you treat the Constitution as sacred, you're playing on a field that’s perpetually tilted toward the past.

So, as a counterpoint, maybe we should live by the idea that the living should not be governed by the dead. That a document written when wife-beating was legal and most of the population couldn't vote shouldn't be the final word on questions its authors never asked. Not because the Constitution is worthless but because treating any document as sacred means someone gets to be the priest, and the question of who gets to [01:04:00] interpret the text is always a question about power.

That brings us back to where we started. The question running through the birthright cases, the voting cases, the gun cases, every fight in front of this court, is who gets to decide who belongs. For most of American history, that question was answered by the powerful on behalf of everyone else. Originalism just gave that arrangement a scholarly vocabulary and a veneer of neutrality. The alternative is straightforward but genuinely radical: let the living decide. Let the people who are actually here, who actually have to live with the consequences, answer the question of who's protected and who counts. Not because the founders were irrelevant, but because they were human beings with human limitations who built a framework, not a gospel.

C.M. needed protection from a violent man. The Constitution's framers had nothing to say about that, because they [01:05:00] didn't consider her a full participant in the society they were building. Two hundred and thirty-five years later, a federal appeals court agreed with them. That's not fidelity to the Constitution. That's fidelity to the limitations of the men who wrote it, and calling it principle.

Note that we've begun putting my commentaries on YouTube so if you find them insightful, check out our channel and share them! Link in the show notes.

And now we'll continue to dive deeper on three topics today. First up, section A, birthright citizenship followed by Section B, election interference and section C mail-In voting I.

HOST 2: the chief argument that has been made against birthright citizenship was made, by Randy Barnett and Ellen Worman. Barnett is a law professor at Georgetown and Worman is a law professor at the University of of. Minnesota and they cited Edward Bates, who was Lincoln's Attorney General who, and they quote from Bates and they say, quote, the [01:06:00] Constitution uses the word citizen only to express the political quality of the individual in his relations to the nation, to declare these, a member of the body politic and bound to it by reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side, the protection of the other.

So all they cite. From what Bates writes, and they cite that as their originalist basis for opposing ci birthright citizenship. This is a ized version of what Bates wrote, that, falsies its meaning. As well as its historical context, in my forthcoming volume four. Wait for it for, you might have to wait more than a year and a half.

I've dealt with this at length in terms of dealing with the, development of the Emancipation Proclamation. Wonderful. So the Bates respon, writes this [01:07:00] as, Akhil you note in your amicus brief on November 29th, 1862. This is a very important date. It's about a month before the final Emancipation Proclamation is issued in January 1st, 1863.

So it's, and Bates is very much part of this discussion that's going on about it. So it is organically part of the development of the, of Emancipation Proclamation and Salmon Chase, who's an original abolitionist, is Secretary of the Treasury, and he asks a question of Bates, which triggers this, about a revenue cutter in New Jersey that's detained be, because it's captained by.

Quote, a colored man, 

GUEST 2: right? 

HOST 2: And is the per, and the question is, is he a citizen of the United States? And that's the question. Yep. And Bates responds that the people born in a country do constitute the nation. And as individuals are natural members of the [01:08:00] body politic. If this be a true principle, and I do not doubt it, it follows that every person born in the country is at the moment of birth.

Prima faci, a citizen, and he goes on and on like this. And he also says in his decision that birthright citizenship, which is what we call it, also belonged to quote. Bates aliens or quote, foreign born, through naturalization, making them quote like the former. So this is all established in Bates and it is inferred, it is implicit.

Emancipation Proclamation. And then it is expl explicit in the 14th Amendment. So this whole matter is as Steve Loick of Georgetown Law has written today in his newsletter, a, a real question of bad faith. As [01:09:00] well as, bad and distorted originalism, and this is the most, solid basis. For the Trump argument, and it is bogus.

GUEST 2: So we, we, we are Sears scholars. We three historians. We want people to read books, but we want people and the special ed students to just read the primary sources for yourself. Bates writes two things. He writes a, a memo to Seward. Okay, in a passport context, and he writes a response to Chase. They're online.

The internet is amazing. They're not that long. You can read them for yourself, decide whether mirror making stuff up or they're making stuff up. So just look at these sources. I want you to know one of the thing audience members, especially in the memo to Seward. He cites a very important case. It's a northern, state court case called Lynch v Clark.

That's, and it's actually, cited as very authoritative. Chancellor Kent, you [01:10:00] know, who is a very great commentator, relies on this, and Lynch v Clark. On its facts is all about a child of foreign sojourners, you know, people who are just traveling through, and it goes all the way back in certain ways to English law, common law, because in England, going all the way back to Calvin's case under, my, my Lord Coke, CO 

Oh, 

HOST 2: Edward Coke.

Yeah, 

GUEST 2: sorry. Edward Coke. The idea is. Even if you're, you know, French people traveling through the realm of, of England, we didn't quite have Britain yet. If you pop out a kid, that kid is an English subject by birth. Now subject is different than citizen and it was lifelong. And Britain, it was more futile system.

But when America comes and Republicans, all of that, they're building on. Coke and Calvin's case and Lynch v Clark comes along and says, even if your parents are foreign sojourners, you're a birthright [01:11:00] citizen. And Bates quotes all of that in talking to. So, because Seward needs to know when he is dealing with foreign countries, you know, whether they're, foreigners traveling in America, whether those kids are Americans or not.

So Bates two different things that you could read from Bates and Seward and. Salmon P. Chase, and they're all as one. And they're talking not just about children of slaves. And Dred Scott, they're talking about foreign travelers as well and their children. And the biggest point is I'm not the same as my parents.

And by the way, if I were. What happens if my mommy is one thing and my daddy is another? Okay. If it had been about your mommy and daddy, they would've had to specify which one. There are mixed marriages. Oh, they would've had to talk about foundlings. What happens if we don't know who the kid is? Right.

Oliver Twist Moses, you know, Tom Jones. And they didn't say any of that. 

The Supreme Court hears arguments on birthright citizenship. Later this week, a Trump administration executive order says the children of migrants born in the US are not [01:12:00] automatically citizens changing what was thought to be long settled law. So far, that move has been blocked by lower courts. Nearly 60 religious groups have weighed in supporting birthright citizenship.

Joining us to talk about those arguments is NPR Religion Correspondent Jason DeRose. Jason, good morning. Good morning. So let's start with the brief from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. What did they say? Well, Michelle, the bishops make historical, legal and religious arguments to support birthright citizenship.

They quote the 14th amendment, which says, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. And they say the idea of birthright citizenship has its origins dating back to both Roman law. English common law, but what are the bishop's religious arguments?

Well, they write that birthright citizenship is consistent with Catholic church teaching. That every human has inherent dignity, and they say the church teaches that public authorities, in order to be legitimate, must affirm and [01:13:00] protect that human dignity. The bishops also say that the government should help smaller, more immediate communities, particularly the family and denying citizenship to.

Children born in the US strips parents of the right to secure their children's place in society. That increases the chance that children will become stateless, meaning they're neither citizens of the US nor their parents' home countries and Michelle. So many rights derive from people being citizens of somewhere.

But Jason, you were telling us that there's actually been some pushback against the bishops, right? Some say the bishops should not be making religious arguments to the Supreme Court. Among them is Michael Fragoso at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which is a conservative religious think tank. Those questions of Catholic theology and Catholic philosophy do not necessarily have the same applicability in the courts.

I think there's a misconception that everything that happens in the courts is really just. Policy with legalese thrown on top of it. Fragoso points out [01:14:00] that the bishops cite the Bible and theologians such as Aquinas and Augustine, far more than legal cases or the US Constitution. In their brief, and some others have argued that what might be going on is that the bishops are writing specifically to the six Catholic justices appealing to their religious beliefs rather than legal arguments.

And other religious groups have weighed in on this case as well. What have they said? Well, a broad coalition of 57 religious organizations, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others also filed a friend of the court brief. Their argument revolves around what they call the universal value of welcoming the stranger.

They cite the Torah, the New Testament, the Quran, the Vedas, other religious texts, and they argue America has long been a haven for those seeking to practice their religion freely. Many of the people who migrated here, Michelle, during the colonial era, Catholics, Quakers. Puritans did so to escape religious oppression back in Europe, and they cite recent data from the Department of Homeland [01:15:00] Security that shows one of the top reasons people migrate to the US is that they're being religiously persecuted elsewhere.

So this brief ties the idea of birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment to the idea of religious liberty found in the First Amendment. 

JAMELLE: You might say the case Trump v. United States really is revisiting of the Supreme Court's holding and Wong Kim Ark in 1898. Court held first after doing a comprehensive review.

Of birthright citizenship in the Anglo-American common law tradition. And after unpacking the relevant phrase of the citizenship clause, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which the court found in this common law tradition to refer to everyone who was obligated to follow the laws, which was everyone other than the children of diplomats or diplomats, and invading soldiers for obvious reasons, the court held that, look, we have this.[01:16:00] 

Tradition. The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment codifies to this tradition into the constitution. The drafters of that amendment were very explicit that they did not view it as limited by race or nationality or really anything. The drafters of the amendment even contemplated the prospect of the clause bestowing citizenship on immigrants, and they didn't have a problem with it.

So the court says it's very straightforward, the words. Mean and what they say. We can go through all this history. We can go through all this legislative record, which mind you, this is 1898 and so the legislative record is just 30 years prior. A bunch of the justices almost certainly knew the people involved, right?

The court says the sum total of all of this is that Wong Kim Ark is a citizen. He was born here. It's that straightforward, I should say that the chief descent. In this case argued that [01:17:00] US citizenship was based on a consensual relationship. The existing citizens had to agree that the prospective citizens could be here, and that because through legislation they had said that they did not want the Chinese in the country.

The Chinese could not be citizens. The majority responds to this by saying, basically, yeah, we know they passed this law, but the constitution supersedes law. But the other thing I would add, and this notably, is an aspect of the Trump administration's case against birthright citizenship, this consensual view of citizenship.

I would add additionally that that consensual view is essentially the view expressed by Roger Taney and Dred Scott. And one thing we know for certain that is incontrovertible is that the 14th amendment was meant, or the citizenship clause was meant to repudiate Dred Scott. And so one way to look at this is how I look at it, is your interpretation doesn't repudiate Dred Scott.

It doesn't work. It might be logically plausible. [01:18:00] You might be able to play a, a fun word game, fun language game to make the word say what you want them to mean. But if it doesn't do that, it doesn't work. Now I'm writing about all of this to be able to read it and the New York Times on a Wednesday, but the big reason I wanted to make this video is to make an observation, and the observation is this.

So Wong Kim Ark is decided in 1898. If you know your Supreme Court case history that year should sound significant or sound like a significant year, and that is because in 1896, the court decided Plessy v Ferguson, the same court, this exact same court decided Plessy v Ferguson. And Plessy, as you might know, is the case which sanctioned Jim Crow segregation.

Which turned the 14th Amendment on its hedge, the 14th Amendment has this equal protection clause. All persons shall [01:19:00] have the equal protection of the laws. And Plessy v Ferguson says, listen, equal protection of the laws does not mean the Constitution has anything to say about social hierarchies. Some people might belong to a subordinate race, and if they belong to a subordinate race, there's nothing against equal protection that prevents states from recognizing that in their law.

And besides, yes. The laws say that blacks cannot be in the same train cars as whites, but it says whites can't be in the same train, train cars as blacks, and that's equal. That's fair. Now, I think this is specious and idiotic, and plainly subversive of the meaning of the 14th amendment, which was meant to instantiate equal citizenship.

And if you're allowing states to designate subordinate races, you are by definition not in instant equal citizenship. But the Plessy court didn't agree. I bring up Plessy because it's striking right, that the same court that validated Jim Crow [01:20:00] segregation also held that the citizenship clause did not permit the country or states to create a subordinate class of people without citizenship.

There is no love lost for Chinese Americans among the members of this court. But even they couldn't massage the citizenship clause into meaning something that it simply didn't say. That everything, the history, the record, the plain meaning of the words pointed to the same answer, that if you were born on American soil, then it doesn't matter who your parents were.

You are an American unless you are the child of a diplomat, you are a child. Produced on territory captured by an invading army or until the 1920s do you belong to certain native tribes? So words they, they mean what they say.

And even the court that said Jim Crow segregation was akay. [01:21:00] Even the court that looked at state laws actively subverting the purpose of the 14th Amendment and saying, it doesn't look like anything to us. Even that court. Agreed that the words said what they mean. And so when you're looking at, this current case, at this current Supreme Court, one question you have to ask is, is this current Supreme Court less scrupulous, more partisan, less committed to the text of the Constitution than the court that affirmed Jim Crow segregation?

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to that. I think it could go either way. But all of this is a reminder that the outcome of this case isn't really about the law. It isn't really about a question in the law. The holding in Wong Kim Ark held for the next 127 years. There was no dispute about this. And during those 127 years, it's not as if the United some paradise for [01:22:00] for immigrants.

26 years after the Supreme Court decided Wong Kim Ark. Congress passed the Johnson Reed Act of 1924, which was, or is one of the most nativist laws ever produced by an American legislature. It put harsh restrictions on immigration for basically everyone except those from Northern Europe and especially work to exclude people from Southern Europe, from Eastern Europe exclude Jewish people.

Exclude Asians, exclude Africans, certainly exclude Africans. It was just an amazingly harsh piece of legislation. And even in the midst of all of that, what was actually a nativist panic. No court disagreed with Wong Kim Ark. The 14th Amendment said what it meant. I'm sure there are people who wish it didn't, who wish they could redefine it, but it just, the words say what they mean.

This case is about politics and it's [01:23:00] about power. It's, I think about whether the justices believe that Trump is some kind of avatar of the American people, that Trump does represent some essence of the United States, and that his commands as wills is decrees, ought to be written into the Constitution as a kind of sovereign act.

If the court has that view, which will never be said explicitly, but I think it's sort of implicit in the way that it's treated Trump and the way that it's treated his claims to executive authority, then he wins on this. If the court has at least a little fidelity to the text of the Constitution, then I don't think he does.

And all of this is why it is important to engage. An active political contestation of this administration, including mass protest. Mass protests show that the public is not with Trump, that his claims to representing or embodying the public are bunk or nonsense, [01:24:00] and that the court should probably think twice before it goes and allows him to invalidate a critical piece of our constitutional heritage.

I don't think I look, but some people think I do. This is Norman Wong. He's a retired carpenter based outside of San Francisco. I'm wearing this Bruce Lee shirt. He's the great grandson of this guy Wong Kim Ark Wong. Kim. Mark, what do you think I look like in. They say, look at this amount.

And I said, okay, whatever. And this guy is a big reason why you're unequivocally a US citizen if you were born in the United States. But on April 1st, the Supreme Court takes up a case based on a Trump executive order that could fundamentally change birthright citizenship as we know it, hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for that reason.

Trump wants to redefine our 14th amendment on birthright citizenship, such that unless you have one [01:25:00] parent that is a proven US citizen or a lawful permanent resident, you are not a US citizen, even if born on US soil. So I wanted to talk to Norman about his family history because Norman's family has lived both sides of what's at stake here.

The fight to claim their constitutional right to citizenship and the reality of watching it fail. Let's start with Norman's dad's side. My father was born in China. Norman's father was born in China. His grandfather was born in China, but his great-grandfather Wong Kim Ark, was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents living in the us.

In adulthood, he went to China and upon returning to the US he was denied entry. They wouldn't let him in. They basically said, you're not a citizen because you're of Chinese descent, and we're going to apply the Chinese exclusion act to you, nor we're not gonna let you back in. And they detained him for month.

He was a, a, a cook of very limited means financially. This is Alicia Ponzi. She's a former Navy nurse turned professional sculptor of over 20 years based in San Francisco. She's making a [01:26:00] bust of Wong Kim Ark. The citizens of Chinatown got together. They hired lawyers, very well respected lawyers to fight this case for him.

His case went all the way to the Supreme Court where his lawyers argued that Wong was a citizen under the 14th Amendment, which had been ratified just a few decades earlier in 1868 in order to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people. So the citizenship Clause says All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to this jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United.

States and the state in which they reside. It's really straightforward. You know, jurisdiction means you are subject to our laws, and so the only way to sort of muddy the waters and complicate this is to suggest that jurisdiction doesn't mean jurisdiction. Those illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

In Wong Kim Ark case, the fundamental question at stake was this. Are children born in the US to alien parents, US citizens, are [01:27:00] they subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? Or not because their parents not being citizens are subject to a foreign power. And the Supreme Court said, no, it doesn't matter that his parents were subject to China.

He was born here. He's a citizen. He stood up for his rights as American. He wouldn't let his citizenship be denied. With Wong Kim Ark, the 14th Amendment was clarified. Anyone born in the US is a US citizen with the very small. Exception of if your parents are ambassadors. His victory in the Supreme Court was really a victory for the citizens of Chinatown.

And I wanted to create, a tangible sort of reminder symbol of this story of Wong Kim Ark. For his hometown here in in San Francisco's Chinatown, and even with this historic win, he faced issues with his citizenship. Not only was he detained years later by officials accusing him of being an illegal immigrant, his son born in China, was unable to move to the US despite having [01:28:00] citizenship through his father.

He tried to come to America around 1910 and was denied. Wong Kim Ark still wanted his grandson, Norman's dad to come to the us, but his son refused to try again. So Wong Kim Ark did it, and made my father a paper son. Basically, this man who helped legally enshrined citizenship for millions of Americans in their descendants had to fabricate papers for his own grandson.

I never knew Wong Kim Ark, my father, never talked about him. I think that those paperwork discrepancies that made them quiet. Now time has passed and I have citizenship through my mother. But not everybody, may get the same immunity, so to speak. Norman's mother was also born a US citizen. Wong Kim Ark's made sure of that.

And it still wasn't enough. My mother was born here. She's Japanese American. She's [01:29:00] part of the Nisei, generation per generation. Went to the, internment camps. This was during World War II when President Franklin Roosevelt issued executive order 9066, which forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent, over half of whom were American citizens in concentration camps.

When they rounded up all the Japanese in 1942, the Japanese were forced to abandon or sell their property for nothing, and they lost it. Japanese Americans were US citizens on paper, but not in practice. That part of the family didn't talk about their experience in the camps. As much as my father didn't talk about his experience growing up in America when he was young, the government has actually gone through a shameful period of citizenship stripping in the past, and there's nothing to say it wouldn't do it again.

So the ability of millions of people to [01:30:00] live here, work here, vote here beyond juries. It would become destabilized and over time you would have a growing population ultimately reaching millions of people that constituted a permanent underclass, a, a permanent class of people without the benefits of citizenship.

And that is so not only cruel, but destabilizing. To a society, dateless children have absolutely no rights. They won't have any paperwork. They won't be able to go to schools. There'll be a a a hundred percent under class for Norman's family. This isn't an abstract legal debate, citizenship and the rights that come with it is something his family has experienced as hard won and easily violated.

I don't think Wong Kim Ark did that. So he could elevate himself. All he wanted was what was his, I'm going to think back to when I was small and I was growing up as an American, we believed that [01:31:00] you could rise that, that every everybody had a fair shake. I think that is in jeopardy more than ever.

Jane: So besides Justice Alito, what were the key takeaways of the debate on Wednesday? 

ANTHONY: Well, so one thing that stood out was it seemed that at least some of the justices were just a little shellshocked at having to even parse this question and. Yeah, same relatable content, because I too was surprised that in the year of our Lord 2026, we were literally debating whether we were going to strip citizenship from people whose parents were from another country in this nation of immigrants.

So Justice Sotomayor, for example, just seemed. A little put out that we were even talking about this and, and [01:32:00] again, the text of the 14th Amendment is so clear. The history of the 14th Amendment is so clear. This argument that the Trump administration is offering is so fringe. I mean, it was off the wall five years ago.

And through careful stewardship, they've managed to make it happen. I mean, it's a little bit like jeggings, like, you know, like we never would've thought about it five years ago, but you just keep wearing them and eventually you wear it down and. All of a sudden, you know, jeggings, they're happening. Mm-hmm.

That's what kind of happened here. They just kept pushing it and pushing it and, you know, now it's in the US Supreme Court. So that was one thing that really stood out to me. It seemed that the justices on the main were quite skeptical of the administrations. Position. I think Justice Alito was wide open and a little receptive, justice Thomas May have gone either way.

Some of his questions indicated that he might be receptive to the administration's faux originalist argument. Justice Kavanaugh was also a little hard to read, but, I, I took [01:33:00] great pleasure and I. You might have as well, when Justice Gorsuch seemed to literally struggle with the fact that John Sauer, the solicitor general, was making inane arguments and couldn't seem to understand how his argument would relate to the children of Native Americans in the United States at this moment.

Jane: Yeah, I, I was really struck by that moment because. No one on the court cares as much about how the law can impact Native Americans as Neil Gorsuch. That's his sweet spot. It, I, it always has been. 

ANTHONY: I mean, it is literally like going to the Supreme Court and arguing before Cookie Monster and being shocked when he's like, do you have a cookie?

Jane: Yes. Like, and then to have the solicitor general not know how to respond to would Native Americans be citizens? I was like, dude. Did, what are we doing 

ANTHONY: here? Sorry. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, and like, you know, to be clear, they just don't roll into court, or at least to my knowledge, they don't just roll into court.

Maybe this administration is doing a different thing. You know, there are serious moots and practice sessions where they think about every [01:34:00] question that might come up, and so to my mind it was just incomprehensible that no one thought to ask this question that seemed obvious that he would ask. 

Jane: This term, the president's apparent strategy has been to use the Supreme Court as a free pass to do whatever he wants, but the Jos, even the ones he appointed and then screams at more recently, have shown a willingness to disagree with him sometimes.

How will this ruling either for or against the executive order impact the president's relationship with the Supreme Court, which seems he seems to think it really is a mafioso. You know, nice court, you've got shame if something happened to it, kind of agreement. 

ANTHONY: So I don't know how it'll affect his relationship with the court.

I think it's very likely that he will lose before the court, in part because the argument is so outlandish and the text and history is so obvious. But with that in mind. I think it needs to be made clear to listeners that when [01:35:00] the court rules against the president on this issue, we should not be big uping this court because.

This will not be, I think, a unanimous decision. I think there likely will be some defectors from common sense here, and that will be a travesty because this is such a straightforward, obvious question. There is precedent on the books. There are acts of Congress that are consistent with this understanding of birthright citizenship.

This is the way we have always done it, and the history bears that out, so this should be unanimous. The fact that it won't be is a travesty, and you should remember that when. All of the other media are talking about how great this court is for standing up to Donald Trump. Like this was amazing. Like they did this.

They stood up to him and they dealt him a loss. Of course, they dealt him a loss. This was the easiest question in the world. The second easiest question was tariffs, and they gave him a loss there too. And while we're talking about all. The losses that they've given him two big ones. We aren't talking about all of the wins that they've given him, the wins that have literally facilitated [01:36:00] him as he's dismantled the Department of Education as he's encroached upon Congress's prerogative to disperse funds for federal programs as he's dismantled the administrative state.

That's the stuff we should be thinking about. The winner here. Is this court, this court that gets to burnish this patina of independence that is undeserved that we will all talk about surely, but is totally undeserved given the way they have literally midwife this administration into dismantling our government.

Jane: Next up is Section B election interference.

If they kill your vote, they kill your wage, your healthcare and your future, turn on your local billionaire funded right wing media. It's ubiquitous after all, pretty much any day of the week. And you'll hear a similar rant uttered with the same grinning certainty. Ice is gonna surround the poles this November, and there's nothing you can do about it.

They're not floating it as an idea or something up for debate. They're not raising it as a question of [01:37:00] legality or even practicality. They're promising it, celebrating it, and daring those of us who believe in democracy to try to stop them. Steve Bannon says it nearly every broadcast. Hatemonger Jesse Waters applauds it on Fox News, so-called news in primetime.

Professional victim, Ben Shapiro calls it reasonable Newsmax owned by two billionaires in Shake salt and binge Ja Alani hosts commentators who treat it like a done deal. They've decided in the open and on camera with a swaggering confidence that no Republican will dare stand against them. That armed masked thugs will stand at the entrance to your neighborhood polling place this fall, just like the Klan did in our great grandparents generation in the south.

Especially if you live in a neighborhood with a lot of black and Hispanic voters, and if you or some of your neighbors are frightened enough to turn around and avoid the building or even simply stay home. Well, that's precisely the point of this awful echo of some of the [01:38:00] worst of America's history. The 150 plus billionaires who bankrolled Donald Trump's return to the White House now own the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House, and enough of our nation's media to make their threat feel like it's simply inevitable.

As I've pointed out before, they've spent decades and billions of dollars building a media and think tank infrastructure to keep working people confused, divided, and willing to believe whatever bullshit they're fed. But what these wannabe fascists don't own yet, at least not completely, is your right to vote.

And looking at the prospect of a blue tsunami. That's exactly what hard right Republicans are working to fix before November. You're damn right, we're gonna have ice around the polls come November. Bannon announced on his podcast back in February and he is been repeating it in variations ever since Fox so-called news as Jesse Waters thinks it's a splendid idea.

Ben Shapiro is fully on board. News Mag hosts, [01:39:00] Newsmax hosts have been cheerleading it for weeks. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Trump's criminal attorney, stood at CPAC and asked with feigned innocence, why would anyone object to armed masked goons, menacing people by standing outside polling places?

You know, just like in the 1920s and the 1840s in the deep south. They've wrapped the whole scheme and the claim of election integrity, which is the same language every authoritarian in history has used. When he decided the wrong people were voting too easily, it was the underlying logic and rationalization for Jim Crow in previous generations.

The real target of the obscene scheme isn't some mythical army of illegal voters. As the Heritage Foundation discovered. They literally don't exist in any meaningful way. Their real target is you, particularly if you're not a straight white man, and the tool tool they're planning to use is raw, naked fear.[01:40:00] 

And it's not like they don't know exactly what they're doing. The Heritage Foundation's own voter fraud database assembled by people who have every political incentive to find a crisis has documented exactly 68 cases of non-citizen voting. Going back to the 1980s, 68 cases across four decades in a country of 330 million people having cast billions of votes.

And when Trump's own Department of Homeland Security conducted an internal review specifically to build a legal and political case for this emergency, they came back with the same answer. There is no evidence of widespread fraud. None. The crisis Republicans have been using to justify making it hard to vote since the 1960s is entirely fictional.

The emergency was cynically manufactured by right-wing operatives, including William Renquist and proclaimed in 1980 by Heritage Foundation, co-founder Paul Weyrich. But the armed thugs they wanna plant at [01:41:00] your polling place will be very, very real. And their effect on who decides to show up and vote will be very, very real too.

What they're proposing is also not incidentally, a federal felony. Title 18 of the United States Code Section 5 92. A law written in the aftermath of the Civil War by horrified legislators who'd personally watched armed and officially deputized members of the Klan threaten black voters with nooses and at gunpoint makes it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to deploy armed federal personnel to any polling location anywhere in America, whoever being an officer of the Army or Navy or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States.

Orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed member at any place where a general or special election is held. Unless such force is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States shall be fined under this title or [01:42:00] imprisoned, not more than five years or both. And disqualified from holding any Office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States.

That law has been on the books for more than a century because the people who wrote it understood that the moment we let the government sanction terror of voting locations, we no longer have a real democracy, which of course is exactly the point of these right wing fascists. The cruelty of the scheme becomes even clearer when we consider how closely what ICE has been doing resembles previous generation's experience of the Klan.

A 2025 Supreme Court Shadow Docket ruling written by Pillsbury Doughboy Imitator, Brett Kavanaugh in Nome versus Vasquez. Perdomo says ICE can profile Americans based on how dark their skin is, where they work, or how they talk. The so-called Kavanaugh stops and what's followed has been a wave of well-documented harassment of brown skinned US citizens.

A 20-year-old American citizen named Moshe Khali [01:43:00] Hussein, for example, was stopped by masked ice agents from walking. While walking from work to lunch in Minneapolis, shackled and violently dragged off to a federal building, as he repeatedly protested that he was a US citizen and carried in his pocket, the proof of it before being threatened, humiliated, and ultimately released.

He repeated, I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen the entire time, but the agents hungry for their bonuses and high on functional vice president Stephen Miller's racism. Didn't care. A ProPublica investigation found more than 170 cases of US citizens detained at raids in protests, and that's probably just the tip of a very large, very deep iceberg.

According to the Cato Institute, 73% of people booked into ice detention since October 20, 25, had no criminal convictions whatsoever. You don't need a scientific study to know what happens to Latino voter turnout when an ice thug is the first thing you see when you walk up to [01:44:00] cast your ballot. The Brookings Institution found around 75% of Latinos across the country can speak Spanish well enough to be flagged under ICE's Kavanaugh Stop profiling criteria.

Making enormous numbers of Latino citizens vulnerable to harassment and detention based on nothing more than how they sound. Not to mention that Brett Kavanaugh's dicta allows for harassment and arrest based on the color of their skin and they know it. That suppression of the vote isn't an in incidental side effect of this geo pan p plan.

It is the plan.

KATE: Arizona voters notched sweeping back to back victories. Friday after the state Supreme Court declined to hear three separate challenges backed by Republicans and right wing groups. In three orders issued Friday, the conservative leaning court refused to take up appeals. In cases that sought to restrict how mail-in ballots are verified.

Allow counties [01:45:00] to hand count ballots and weaken rules governing early voting and election certification. One case was a challenge from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club targeting how the state verifies signatures on mail-in ballots. Under Arizona law, election officials can compare the signature on a ballot to ones already on file to confirm identity.

The plaintiffs argued officials should only be allowed to compare signatures to a voter's original registration record. A second case brought by Mojave County supervisor Ron Gould, attempted to upend how ballots are counted altogether. Gould argued counties should be allowed to abandon voting machines and conduct full hand counts of ballots.

A process election experts widely agree is slower, less accurate, and more vulnerable to human error. The third case was a sweeping challenge led by Arizona Senate President Warren Peterson, and former house speaker Ben Toma, targeting the [01:46:00] state's 2023 election procedures manual. Taken together the high court's rejections mark a significant victory for voting rights in a battleground state that has been at the center of repeated efforts to reshape election rules since 2020.

ANTHONY: There's a couple things to unpack here. The, the bill you're talking about is, is called the Save America Act, which is, election law reforms that Republicans want to pass. And some key provisions of this are a, a nationwide mandate, for ID in order to cast a ballot and also.

A requirement that whenever you register to vote in this country, you have to prove your citizenship either with a birth certificate or a passport. It bans voting by mail, except in certain specific cases like military, overseas or illness, it also. Prevents you from registering outside of a a, a voting office, a a government office.

So, you know, you, you see these [01:47:00] voter registration drives on college campuses where people, register voters who are walking between classes or at malls. All of that would end. 

JUSTIN: That's very clear. That's what, Trump wants. Why is it that the Democrats feel so strongly about this? Why is it that they can't come to some kind of a deal?

What is it that they feel is so important about the act, not par? 

ANTHONY: I, I think they view it as, a bar to people voting. I mean, you would have to get a driver's license, you have to pay for that or get a passport, a hundred and something dollars to get a passport just to register to vote. There's also concerns that, people whose names do not match up with their birth certificate, could have problems.

Registering women who, changed their names when they got married would have to take an extra step, essentially to, to prove that they are who. Their birth certificate says they are. And, and this is all just adding on to kind of the onerous, owner's kind of, requirements to, to, to be able [01:48:00] to exercise a constitutional right, which is to vote now, now to get back, the reason why they're blocking this Homeland Security bill in the first place is that they want greater regulation, greater oversight.

Of immigration enforcement officials, they want things like a mandate that if a immigration official, comes to, to try to interview someone or to detain someone, they have to have a warrant to enter the premises. They want body cameras for, immigration enforcement officials. They don't want them to be able to wear masks.

They want 'em to have IDs on them. That's why they block this Homeland Security bill. What Donald Trump has said is that. Well just to pass the bill now, not only do you have to vote for funding ice, you also have to vote for this, election regulation law. Well, and in addition, he's tacking on, a requirement that there's a ban on, transgender surgery for children, and a ban on any transgender athletes, in college sports.

So he is kind of bundling a bunch of things in [01:49:00] here into this one bill, and demanding that. No negotiation. Democrats have to sign off on this, or the Republicans have to find a way to pass it without any kind of a democratic support, which would require playing with the parliamentary procedures in the Senate in a way that hasn't happened in decades.

clip: I'm suggesting strongly to the Republican party, don't make any deal on anything.

The most important thing we can have is what's called the Save America Act. Don't make any deal on anything unless you include voter id and you have to be a citizen to vote. You have to show citizenship to vote. Very easy to do. The Democrats are fully to blame with the struggle of the great. American public is going through at the airports.

They're going through a big struggle right now, and we just put ice in charge and they're helping TSA, the agents and, they're working together so far very well. 

JUSTIN: One of the things Democrats say, isn't it, is that, that it'll affect minorities [01:50:00] in particular and and disenfranchise whole groups of people, to which the White House would say, really? Why do you assume that some people are less capable of getting access to government?

Id. Than others. I mean, it's available to everyone who is a US citizen. And it's fair to say, isn't it, that, I mean, there's a division, isn't there? I'm not sure this act is particularly well supported when, in, when people are specifically asked about the act, but the idea that people show some sort of ID to vote actually is quite popular, isn't it?

ANTHONY: Yeah. If you, if you see polling, I mean polls add, you know, 60, 70, 80% public approval, because as you mentioned. Americans, most Americans need their ID to do a lot of thing. I'm gonna have to show an ID in order to get on a plane, later today. So it's not that that big a deal actually in a lot of states do require identification, to cast a ballot Virginia by.

My home state right now, I have to show an ID to cast a ballot. Now, mind you, there are ways of getting around that. If you don't have an [01:51:00] id, you have to sign an affidavit, that sort of thing. But there are cases on the margins where people just don't have IDs. People don't have a driver's license.

People don't have a passport. Only like 50% of Americans have passports right now. I mean, I can think of my, my 88-year-old mother, she doesn't. Drive anymore. Her pa her driver's license is expired, her passport is expired. Someone would have to help her get to, A-A-D-M-V, a Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new picture ID made in order to be able to, to comply with this law.

And there are other people, the elderly, the infirm, the people who, just don't drive 'cause they don't have a car. I mean, that's, those are all obstacles, right? To, to being able to exercise. What is a fundamental. Constitutional right. And I think that's the democratic criticism here, is that it shouldn't be harder for some Americans to cast a ballot than it is for others.

And as soon as you start putting these requirements up, it gets more and more so that certain people, [01:52:00] are pushed to the margins and are made less likely to be able to, to cast their ballots. 

JUSTIN: It's a really interesting one, isn't it, Anthony? It just seems to me that it could be, that it puts out of business in the ability to vote some elderly people who might well be minded to vote Republican.

It also has an impact on people who just can't be bothered, actually. Just think, oh, what the heck? And who do those people tend to vote for in, in recent, recent years, it tended to vote for Donald Trump. It's he's, he's got people out of their shacks and into the voting. Booths in a way that people never managed to do before.

And I just wonder, obviously there are minority groups that there Democrats have traditionally depended on, particularly black voters who they feel will be impacted. And that then goes to the heart of, of that question the, that actually the Democrats think it probably will be their people. But I think, I think it's entirely right actually to suggest, Anthony, you can't know, can you, [01:53:00] how this will play out?

ANTHONY: We have seen Donald Trump's done really well with low propensity voters, in recent elections. So, and this could adversely affect Republicans as well as Democrats. There's no guarantee that this will red redo to the benefit of, of Trump unless, there, you know, is this massive group of undocumented illegal aliens who.

Who have been casting ballots, which Trump may seems to, to believe. But like I said, there hasn't been real evidence. And I think the State of Utah did an audit of all of the ballots cast, recently, and found only a handful of cases. I think maybe only one or two that had. As someone who was not a US citizen voting.

So, you know, we're talking about, what is probably a relatively small number, of undocumented people who, who might be restricted by this, but a much larger number, of people who, you know, we don't know what their, their partisan affiliations are. And you know, it almost makes me think, Justin, that.

Donald Trump, you know, maybe this is cynical, but you know, doesn't care [01:54:00] so much about getting this passed, as finding a way of saying, well, there's fraud and that's why the Republicans aren't gonna do as well in November. I mean, we saw when he lost in 2020. We saw when he won in 2016, but didn't win the popular vote.

He said, he blamed voter fraud for those results. He blamed undocumented migrants voting for those results. So in theory, this could be another effort to set up, that sort of, of an explanation if the Republicans take it on the chin in November. 

Research from the Economic Policy Institute documents how the states with the most aggressive voter suppression are also the states with the lowest wages, the weakest worker, labor protections, and the highest rates of poverty. Red states with aggressive voter suppression have in fact the highest rates in the nation of spousal abuse, obesity, smoking, teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion.

At least before Dobbs. Now, it would be called [01:55:00] forced births. Bankruptcies in poverty, homicide and suicide. Infant mortality, maternal mortality, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, dropouts from high school, divorce, contaminated air and water, opiate addiction and deaths, unskilled workers, parasitic infections, income and wealth inequality.

COVID deaths, unvaccinated people. Federal subsidies to states the so-called red state welfare, people on poverty, child poverty, homelessness, spousal murder, unemployment, deaths from auto accidents, people living on disability and gun deaths. That's not a coincidence. And for social scientists, it's not a mystery.

When working, people can't vote. Union rights evaporates. So corporate bosses don't have to negotiate with their workers. When working, people can't vote. The minimum wage stays frozen. Healthcare gets stripped, unions get busted, and social services are cut to pay for tax cuts. So the morbidly rich keep all the money they've made from the labor of the people at the bottom.

Research from Equitable [01:56:00] Growth has gone even farther, showing a direct causal link between higher voting rates and higher minimum wages. More generous state support programs and lower income inequality overall, which is why blue states consistently have the highest standards of living in the country.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 by breaking down barriers that kept black workers from the polls actually reduced the black white rage wage gap. When five corrupt racist Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted key provisions of that act in, in 2013, the racial wage gap got worse. Again, the ballot box isn't just a civil civic ritual for working people.

It's the democratic lever that moves everything else. It's how you get a raise. Keep your healthcare, and make the people who write the rules answer to the people who must live under them. That's why what Bannon and his billionaire backers are doing is so nakedly corrupt. They know that if black, latino and young voters along with hourly workers and people in the [01:57:00] community's ISIS currently terrorizing all show up in November, the geo people experience an electoral blood bath when their congressional allies lose their majority.

The billionaires in Trump crime families looting gets interrupted. Two years of ruin his tariffs. Medicaid cuts tax giveaways to the morbidly rich and the demolition of every federal agency designed to protect workers rather than owners. All face a reckoning. Trump's Lick Spittles, including his Attorney General Face Prison, just like over 40 of Nixon's a and his attorney General did.

That's what they're afraid of. That's what armed masked thugs at the polling place are designed to prevent. I've spent enough time studying the history of authoritarianism, both in literature and in countries I've visited or worked in. To recognize what this moment represents every Putin, Orban and Trump style strongman who's converted a democracy into an authoritarian state started by making certain people afraid to participate.

Today's Republicans aren't even [01:58:00] original and they're obscene threats of implied violence at the polling places for almost a century. After the Civil War, this was completely normal in the previously Confederate South. And as the Klan taught previous generations of Americans, intimidation doesn't, also doesn't need to be legal to work.

The chilling effect lands the same way. Whether or not the statute books say it's permissible, which is exactly why they're planning this in open defiance of federal law and exactly why we have to name it for what it is. An attack on our constitutional right to determine our own leaders, thus our nation's future.

Call your member of Congress at 2 0 2 2 2 4 31 21 and demand that they go on record opposing any deployment of ice or other armed Trump goons to polling places. Let them know it's a federal crime that should be enforced, and any federal official, including the president who pushes it, must quote, be disqualified from Henny, from holding any office and lose their job.

Check your voter [01:59:00] registration right [email protected] and make sure nothing has changed since the last time you looked. Particularly if you live in a red state, then bring every person you know to the polls this November because the people trying to scare us away from the ballot aren't just doing it for fun.

Like previous generations in the South, they well understood the vote's power better than most of the people who take it for granted. It's well time, past time the rest of us caught up.

Jane: And finally, section C mail-in voting.

ANDREW: So right now, I think a lot of people who are listening to this are thinking. I have early voting in my state, and I can go and I can either cast my vote in person beforehand, or I can send an absentee ballot beforehand, but they also are thinking I can send an absentee ballot. And as long as it's postmarked by election day, meaning the sort of final day by which you have to have cast your vote, as long as it's postmarked [02:00:00] by, then it can be received afterwards within a certain limit.

So there's that spectrum of ways to vote. Mary, what did Mississippi do and what's the federal law on this? 

MARY: Yeah, so I'm gonna do these in reverse order. Okay. The federal law, we start with the Constitution, and the Constitution has a role for Congress in a couple of ways. Even though elections are largely administered by the states, there is the electors clause, right, which is a clause that allows for.

The states to appoint in a manner that they decide the number of electors, right? Electors. These are in presidential elections. This is what becomes the electoral ballot. The electoral college ballots, right? This was what was such a big issue in 2020 when we had alternate slates of electors. So the states can determine how they're gonna appoint electors, but Congress has the power under Article two.

Section one to determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes. Now, that day, the electoral college day is not [02:01:00] the date of the election that the rest of us vote in, but that's relevant, and I'll tell you why in a minute. There's another section of the Constitution in Article one, section four that says, the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof, which sounds like a state can decide.

What day is the election? Right? But the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations accept as to the places of choosing senators. In the early years, the states did choose different dates, but then over time, Congress decided it would exercise its authority to choose the election day.

So first came in 1845. Congress instructed that the electors of president and vice president shall be appointed in each state on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November. Right? That was the first statement of election day. 

comm: Right? 

MARY: And that is a date that the electors are appointed.

[02:02:00] It's not the day that they then meet to cast their electoral college votes. That's a different day. But that's the day that they like become the electors. And we all know that that's how it works, because. When we go vote, we're actually voting for the electors in our state, not directly for president.

It's kind of a weird fiction, but it's not a fiction. 

ANDREW: That's our system. 

MARY: And we know the popular vote does not always win the electoral college vote, 

ANDREW: right? 

MARY: All right, so that was the first time Congress fixed that date, but that date was just for the choosing of electors for president and vice president, and after the Civil War in 1872.

Congress extended the rule to the House of Representatives setting the same date, right? The first Tuesday after the first Monday in the month of November. So now we have 18 45, 18 72, 19 14. 

ANDREW: Can I just say, so one of the things you can imagine why Congress would be interested in setting some uniform dates when it comes to something like President is so that you don't have, well, Mississippi's gonna choose.

People on X date, but New [02:03:00] York's gonna choose them on Y date and New Hampshire's going to choose it on Z date and they can all see what's happening in other states. 

MARY: And it could influence the election. Right, 

ANDREW: exactly. And so it's sort of like everyone has to vote together. 

MARY: That's right. And that last dot on the map is 1914 when they extended the election day to also the elections for senators.

Right. So we have Congress three times saying, here's election day. All right. That's just the beginning of the issue though, because the question here was what does election day mean and the delta between the parties, and this is the state of Mississippi through their solicitor general. Defending their statute, right, which says if your ballots are postmarked or delivered to an election official, it could be through the mail, but they're postmarked or given to a common carrier, FedEx, whatever.

By election day, they can still be counted even if they are not received by the election officials until up to five business days after the [02:04:00] election. As we indicated at the top, there are 30 states that allow mail-in ballots. Many states have different numbers of days after the election day that they will still count the ballots so long as they were postmarked or the decision made by election day.

So it's all came down to. Does election day mean the date that you make your decision as a voter and cast that ballot, or does it mean the date that it is received by officials? That's what the entire argument was about, and it came down to, did Congress in those three statutes I mentioned 18 45, 18 72, and 1914, by setting an election day, did that mean they have preempted states?

From counting ballots received after election day, even if the choice was made by election day. 

ANDREW: And so here, that backdrop is so important for people to understand because, and I hope you agree with me. This is where I thought Justice Jackson just [02:05:00] put her finger directly on the issue, and I thought your history points to the same thing, which is.

You've got the Constitution saying, the states get to do what they want and get to decide this. Absent Congress saying you cannot, and preempting the field. So it alls a question of. We know what the states are doing. We know what here, it's a question of Mississippi, but the court asked lots of questions about other states and other state practices.

So we know there's all these different state practices. But the question is, was that somehow preempted by Congress? Did Congress say anything that this is not allowed? That they directly said, no, we are preempting this and not allowing the states. To have votes counted after the election date if even though submitted as required [02:06:00] by the state in whatever fashion it is.

By election day, but they're not received, or as many of the justices focused on the issue of voting ahead of time, and there were a lot of justices saying, well, if we're gonna go down this route of reading all this stuff into this imagined congressional statute that doesn't say anything about this issue specifically, and we're gonna start reading stuff in.

Where do we stop? This issue is really one of, let's look at the congressional statute, and if the congressional statute isn't barring what the states say, then we've got a Constitution to follow. And as everyone knows, the constitution is the top law and Congress is less than that. They can't override the Constitution.

The default is the states get to do it. Absent Congress having said no, you cannot.

BRAD: you, you argue in your peace at Slate last night, that quote, what makes all of this even more disturbing is the fact that [02:07:00] so many justices proved, eager to embrace a legal theory that is incoherent, dishonest, and rooted in paranoid hostility toward mail voting.

Alright, I'll bite. What is that legal theory and how did they embrace it? Mark? 

MARK: The legal theory is that Congress somehow prohibited states from counting these late arriving mail ballots when it sets the federal date of elections. So just to be clear. At no point has Congress ever passed a law that says that states cannot count late arriving ballots.

Actually, there are very few laws that even govern mail voting. All that Congress has ever done is said that the first Tuesday, after the first Monday is election day. And the legal theory in this case, I'm not joking, is that the words election day. Contains some kind of implicit prohibition on states counting [02:08:00] ballots that are mailed by election day that arrive shortly thereafter.

That's the plaintiff's theory. They've got nothing better than that, and yet here we are talking about arguments, which obviously went very well for them. An indication that this court is, as we've discussed, as you know, better than most. Extremely eager to interfere with free and fair elections, extremely hostile toward mail voting, and very, very, I think, sympathetic to Donald Trump's persistent claims that our voting system is rife with fraud.

BRAD: So, is is that why this notion that, that congress, I guess 150 years ago or whenever it was, declared that the first. Tuesday after the first Monday in November would be election day. That was election day. Is that why Alito was arguing? That election day as defined by Congress could only be on this one single day and everything else therefore is not election day.

So ballots may not be cast or counted, on any other day when. When, Alito [02:09:00] said, and I quote, we have lots of phrases that involve two words. The second day of which is Day, labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington's birthday. That's three days. But, three words, but okay. Independence Day. Birthday.

That one got two mentions, I guess, and election day. He said they are all particular days. So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase election day, I think this is the day in which everything is going to place. Did I read that quote correctly, mark? Is that the argument that he's actually making?

Because it has the word day in it. That's the day. Therefore, nothing else can happen on any other day. 

MARK: So look, you articulated the argument correctly. I, I think that you're leading to just by stating it all the reasons it's wrong. And if I could just get a head start there. Of course the reality is that we do not all vote on election day [02:10:00] and our ballots are not all counted on election day, and that has been the case.

For a very long time. So if the plaintiff's theory is correct, and if Alito is correct, that the day is the day that there is this 24 hour period where everything has to happen, then early voting is illegal, right? Mail voting is, is illegal, and no ballots can be counted after midnight on election day because it's the day and you know, if it's not your birthday after midnight.

It can't be election day after midnight, and there has to be a timer that goes off and every ballot that hasn't been counted just needs to be set on fire because the day is over. That's the implication of his theory, 

BRAD: right? I, I mean, it, it seems like it would, it would kill early voting and, any kind of vote by mail, because obviously that has to be done.

Prior to the election in advance. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, did, did that come up as, an argument was that an effective rebuttal to this claim? Because that claim about election day seems to be at the heart of this case. It was as [02:11:00] it was originally decided, I guess by the, the far right, fifth Circuit Court back in 2024 when they, initially blocked Mississippi's Law on this, on these grace periods.

MARK: That is correct. I mean, the problem for the plaintiffs was so obvious that it came up over and over again, and remarkably, to my mind, they didn't really have a very good argument against it. So even Chief Justice John Roberts, who I think is like a major swing vote in this case. He kept asking, well, if your theory is that it all has to happen on the day, then how could you possibly think early voting is okay?

And the answer given by Paul Clement who was attacking the Mississippi law was basically that early voting is just different. It just is. It's different because, it is, and the chief made fun of him. I mean, the chief made fun of the solicitor general too. John Sauer, who is. On behalf of the Trump administration also attacking mail voting and, and basically said, you don't have an argument.

It's completely circular. You're just [02:12:00] saying that, you know, early voting is different and, and late arriving ballots are, are different, but you don't have a reason why. And I think Justice Amy Coney Barrett was, to her credit, concerned about this as well. I mean, if you take these theory seriously, it means that the way that we have conducted elections in this country.

For, for a very long time. I mean, actually going back to the Civil War Yeah. Which we can talk about, has been unlawful and nobody knew it until now. Congress secretly smuggled in this ban on early voting, and nobody figured it out until the geniuses on the Fifth Circuit did in 2024. 

BRAD: It, it's just, I mean, I guess by, by that notion, Donald Trump, I think on Monday, violated the law by, voting by mail.

Correct. In, in Florida. So, somebody really needs to, to round him up for voter fraud. I guess this argument mark, about the, the threat of. Appearance of fraud. Concern about that, that being just as dangerous as actual fraud, as [02:13:00] absurd as that may sound, which was another argument that made its return in these, in these arguments.

This has actually been around for a long time this, from this right wing court, specifically to argue that though there was. Virtually zero evidence of polling place impersonation fraud. The fact that people feared that it might happen, believed that it could, believed that it did, because folks on Fox News and on the right claim that it does that.

That alone, that fear. Of it actually happening was good enough to allow states to mandate strict voter id, restrictions at the polling place, even though millions of Americans might lose their vote. That's an old argument, but it came back. It's an oldie but goodie mark it, it worked before. So why not now?

Is that a sort of, how they treaded this thing out again? 

MARK: That's it. And, and of course, you know, it cannot be said enough. There's no evidence of, of voter fraud on any mass scale in this country. [02:14:00] It, it, it's random incidents that are often actually committed by Republicans. This is not, to the extent it occurs, which is like once in a blue moon.

Mm-hmm. Something that Democrats seem to be doing to try to swing elections. But there. Is a circular logic here as well, which is that Republican politicians can claim there's voter fraud. There isn't, they can't prove it. But then they use the fears that they have whipped up about this phantom fraud, right?

To justify cracking down on the franchise and to justify new measures to suppress the vote. And that's what Justice Alito was doing. That's what Justice Kavanaugh was doing. They were saying, don't you think we should take into account fears of, of voter fraud, the appearance of fraud. Use it to justify striking down Mississippi's law.

And I, I guess I just wanna take a step back and say that this is not, and barely pretends to be a legal argument, right? Because this is not like a, a legislative body deciding whether it's [02:15:00] wise. For states to count ballots that are postmarked on election day, but arrive shortly thereafter, 30 states and the District of Columbia have in some way, shape, or form enacted these laws.

Okay? It's not the Supreme Court's job to decide whether there're wise. It's the Supreme Court's job to decide whether Congress. Quietly prohibited these laws. When it used the words election day and day of the election in federal statutes enacted in the 19th century before there was widespread mail voting or early voting.

And the answer of course, obviously is no. So what are these questions about voter fraud doing in these oral arguments? I, I mean, all I can really say is that it seems like these guys have forgotten what their jobs are. And they've been watching too much Fox News. Mm-hmm. And they are trying to impose Donald Trump's anti-bot agenda on the country in the guise of judicial review.

I mean, look, there is a bill, the Republican support, it's part of this sort of save act suite of bills. Mm-hmm. [02:16:00] That would prohibit states from counting these later arriving ballots. But it hasn't passed and it's probably not going to pass because it can't survive the filibuster. And this case is just an effort to smuggle that in to law.

Make Donald Trump very, very, very happy and disproportionately disenfranchised democratic voters because we know Democrats at this stage are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans. So that is what's going on here. There's very little law 

KATE: if the danger, as we've been talking about, of this case is at least in part that it reveals and kind of might further baseless narratives around early voting and fraud. It also clearly connects to broader themes regarding the upcoming midterm election. And as I mentioned, upfront protect democracy just came out with a pretty alarming, but I think really important report on that.

So can you just talk about that for a little bit, Ian? 

IAN: Yeah. I mean, look, we're living in an era, a moment where authoritarianism is on the rise around the world. Obviously we're experiencing it here at home. And what you see is a very clear pattern across the world where [02:17:00] autocrats do seven things everywhere to dismantle democracies, right?

They politicize independent institutions, they spread disinformation. They aggrandized power in the hands of the executive. They quashed assent, they scapegoat vulnerable populations. They stoke violence. And then of course they corrupt elections, right? They hold elections, but they tilt the playing fields that elections are no longer free and fair.

And they basically guarantee a predetermined outcome of entrenching, the autocrats in power. And we've obviously seen attempts at that here in the United States, right? January 6th, 2021, where Trump refused to accept the results of an election and cited a violent insect insurrection on the capitol.

And there's a pattern here to how Trump, does this. And I think we should anticipate that that is gonna play out here. And that pattern is to invoke Sesame Street. In the letter of the D, the letter of the day. The letter of the day is D. Okay? There's three D's here. It's deceive, disrupt, and deny. And that is the president's playbook.

And you know, we saw in January. And we saw in 2020 was when the [02:18:00] president lost that election. He tried to deceive people with the big lie into thinking that the election was stolen, right? That they were, they were stealing the election in Philadelphia and Milwaukee and Detroit. He had a shut down vote counting, but he actually only persuaded.

About 28 to 32% of the population with his big lie immediately when he said it, according to snap polls taken at the time. Now, on the one hand, that's actually an large, really large number of people, but on the other hand it wasn't enough because in our decentralized system where there's no national election authority, a president can't steal an election on their own.

Thanks to the, you know, the founder's vision. We have thousands of elections around the country, and if the president wants to steal an election, the president needs accomplices throughout the system. The president needs secretaries of state governors, members of Congress, judges, county election clerks.

And after 2020, when the president claimed the election was stolen, tried to deceive people into thinking that, and reached out to all these accomplices, Brad Ensberg or the Republican leaders of the state assemblies in, you know, the blue wall states, the federal courts. [02:19:00] All of them, with the exception of 147 Republican members of Congress said, yeah, no, yeah, there's no, we're not gonna do that.

Mm-hmm. And so the president understands that he's gotta up that number of people who think that there's something corrupt going on in order to get accomplices willing to actually join him and try to steal the election. So he's gonna engage in deception. He is gonna try to convince people that there's something wildly un toward you.

He's gonna, you know, they're seizing ballots in Fulton County. They're gonna come out like the sixth sense and see, we see dead people on the rolls. You're gonna see Nicholas Maduro cop some plea saying Venezuelan interfered. You're gonna see all, you know, releasing of, you know, tulsi Gabbard conspiracy theories saying, you know, there's, there's dead Chinese voters on the rolls.

All this stuff that's gonna be to convince people there's something wrong. So you can enter the disrupt phase, which is where the president's gonna try to get these accomplices to change rules, to tilt the playing field. He's trying to do that. With the RNC in the case we just talked about, they're trying to do it by getting the Senate to pass the save act.

He's gonna lean on states around the country to [02:20:00] change their voter role and voting practices. That's the disrupt. And if that doesn't work and the election still turns out the way the president doesn't like, then the deny phase happens where the president is gonna basically try to deny the results. So that's the three Ds.

Deceive, disrupt, deny. We should expect that to play out over the next couple months, but there's a fourth D and this is the good news. The fourth fee is defeated it, which is what we're gonna do because we've done it before, right? The president tried this in 2020. We defeated it. There was a, a microcosm of this, as you may recall, in North Carolina in 2024 where there was a state Supreme court race.

The sitting Justice Alison Riggs won by about 725 votes. And the loser, Jefferson Griffin tried to say, yeah, that's not the result. He actually said the ru the rules that were in place that we all agreed on were actually not the right rules. We should change them. It's, I, I coached like six little league teams and three different sports of like five-year-olds and nine-year-olds, and not once as a kid on one of those teams at the end of a game that we lost [02:21:00] said.

Actually the rules were wrong. We should go back and change the rules. If we changed the rules, we would've won because even a five-year-old knows that you can't do that. Yeah. But Griffin tried to do it and we defeated it there too. So the president's gonna try to deceive, disrupt, and deny, and we all are going to defeat him.

KATE: Okay. So then I'm gonna ask you one final question. You know, there was a, obviously a note of optimism and I wanna ask you to kind of elaborate on that and take a sort of broad view for our listeners of kind of where you think we stand 14 months into this administration in the fight between democracy and, you know, call it autocracy or authoritarianism.

IAN: Yeah. I mean, look, here's the thing. In order for an autocrat to take over a democracy, particularly one as robust as the United States is, they have to consolidate power before they become unpopular, right? Because with our division of powers, the separation of powers at the federal level, the federalist separation between the states and the federal government, a president can't just take total control like that because the founders.

Built a system that was designed to check exactly that form of tyranny. So the president needs to co-opt all of these other branches, [02:22:00] all of these other actors as part of his project. And you know, the president had a real opportunity to do that after the 2024 election, even though he won a very, very narrow victory.

You could feel it in the air in early 2025, that the general direction was, oh my God, this guy is all powerful. The country's going that direction. And you saw all these institutions basically just hand him the keys and say, we will do whatever you want. And he had this opportunity to consolidate power and I think he fundamentally squandered it.

He basically. Interpreted a victory that was not even a majority of voters in 2024, he, he would've lost the election, but for 230 votes in three states. And he acted as if he had a 60% majority mandate. And he just did things that were wildly unpopular. And he actually became unpopular before he had finished consolidating power.

And as we said earlier, according to that Wild Fox News poll, he's wildly unpopular. And so you are now starting to see the institutions say, yeah, we're not gonna go along with it. I mean, the Senate right now is refusing [02:23:00] his demand to pass the Save Act. At the time that we're recording this, the Senate has basically funded all of DHS except for ICE and CBP.

They're just no long. The institutions are no longer doing on mass what the president wants. He has become unpopular before he consolidated power. And that is the death. No, I think for NCA trying to take over. So fundamentally, I think. We, and by we, I mean the forces of democracy and freedom. We are gonna win.

We are gonna win this battle for democracy in this country. I fundamentally believe that we're gonna win it because we're right. We're gonna win it because the facts and law on our side, we're gonna win it because freedom is a natural human condition that people want and we're gonna win it because the autocrat here is pretty incompetent and made the mistake of becoming unpopular before he consolidated power.

But you can track this. You're gonna wanna know if this is true tomorrow we just put something up on our Protect Democracy website, the Authoritarian Action Watch, which is like kind of the weather app. If you wake up in the morning, you're like, what's the weather today? It's a new, it's a new thing on the site where you can check like, what's the [02:24:00] weather today in terms of weather, democracy, or authoritarianism is ascendant.

So go on the protect democracy.org website and book market. And if you wanna get even nerdier about it, and I know all of our strict scrutiny listeners wanna do that, you can subscribe to our newsletter if you can keep it.org, where our team is updating you on this battle between democracy and authoritarianism on a regular basis.

And you can hold me to my word. We're gonna win. 

DAHLIA: That's, gonna put an enormous amount of weight on this question that I wanna return to, which is, that means it cannot be a close election.

If this is a close election, it gets a lot harder and I want you to. Kind of go back to your executive override report, which as you noted it, it, it focuses a lot on a very simple playbook and the threats to the election. But it ends on this note that I think is really important for listeners to hear, which is, what should we be doing to make sure that this election, isn't, a squeaker and what [02:25:00] should we be doing?

Not starting the first week of November, 2026, but starting like. Let's say today. 

ANTHONY: Well, it, you know, and the reports got good advice for sort of every different kind of sector of society, right? So on the deceive front, we need everyone with a platform and voice to call out these lies, right? Our elections fundamentally have been remarkably resilient over a long period of time.

They've never been perfect. We have had all sorts of horribly corrupt problems in this country. Voter suppression, Jim Crow. We, we've lived through electoral autocracy in the United States, the American South, for much of our history. And yet in recent years, elections have been remarkably resilient. And every, you know, really independent, honest assessment of whether there are wild amounts of people voting illegal in this country is found That's not true.

I mean, look at Utah. Conservative state of Utah just looked at whether non-citizens were voting in their election. Found, you know, I think single digits. It might have been Montana recently had a report. I think it [02:26:00] found 23 people who, 23 Now, Montana's a small state, but it's not that small. Right. 23 would, these elections are not being changed by people unlawfully voting.

And by the way. When you'd find those, like eight people in Utah, or 23 people in Montana, it turns out oftentimes it was like, oh, it was like the chief of staff to the president. It was like Mark Meadows. It was like, you know, so you need to talk about that. You gotta get that out there. Two, for those people who are gonna come under pressure to disrupt the election, which are gonna be the accomplices out there, oftentimes they're gonna be Republican electeds in states, secretaries of state, legislative leaders, county clerks.

What we've found over the last couple of years is that there's just strength in bringing people together, collectivity, right? That the more people feel like they're not alone, the easier it is to stand up to this pressure. And so for communities around the country, get the backs of your local clerks.

They're doing incredible work. They're being incredibly brave. Now they're facing a lot of threats. Show them support, show them they're not alone. [02:27:00] Go volunteer to work with them or just send them a letter or a note saying thank you. That actually makes a huge difference in people's willingness to stand up and do the right thing because they feel like the people have got their backs.

But yes, power, the polls.org. You can volunteer to be a poll worker. What a wonderful way to serve your country in this moment of crisis, to go and help people vote. And then when it comes to the deny phase, this is where, at the end of the day, if there is, to your point, Dahlia, a close election. If the elections a blowout, the president may still try to deny the results.

He won't succeed. If the election is close, then the president will try to deny the results, and then it's a little bit dicier. And in that moment, yes, there will be legal cases, but now here's a place where the courts won't save us. This will come down to where all the political power and leverage is when the Congress is seated on January 3rd, 2027.

And the historical analogy I think of for that moment is the haze, Tilden. Election of the late 19th century. This [02:28:00] was a presidential election, which three southern states living under reconstruction Union Army down there trying to enforce reconstruction, make it unclear who the electoral college ballots for those states has been cast in favor of the Republican Rutherford Hayes, the Democrat, Sam Tilden.

And there's a real question as to who's won the election, and it ultimately is a brokered solution based on where the leverage lies. And it's a very tragic outcome as you know where the deal is. The Republicans get their president from the North Rutherford Hayes in exchange for withdrawing the union troops ending reconstruction and subjecting the south of Jim Crow for the next half century.

And that was a brokered solution based on who held political leverage at the time. And so if we end up in a situation where it's a close election, the president tries to deny it. There's a fight over what should happen, it's gonna be who holds the leverage. And here, I think. Our North star, our touchstone, our model is what the people of Minnesota recently did because the people of Minnesota basically came out in a moment in [02:29:00] which the president was trying to assert authoritarian control and said, no, we will not accept this.

We will not allow this to happen. It started with the bravery of people like Alex Pretty and Renee Goode, who modeled what it looks like to stare down fear in the face and to not be afraid and made the incredible sacrifice for this country to show other people that if they could do it, other people could come out and get their backs.

And the people of of Minnesota did that. So amazingly, 70,000 people coming out in negative 14 degree weather, hundreds and thousands of families taking their kids outta school businesses closing down the entire state, shut down and said, we will not allow this to proceed. And they forced the president to withdraw and to retreat.

And that is the model we need to follow. And so this is the last piece that I think we should leave everybody with, which is the greatest protection of the elections. Number one, participate. Overwhelming participation. And number two, people need to be organizing now to be able to insist [02:30:00] that the actual truthful, lawful real results are honored.

People need to come out and begin modeling now what it looks like to show up for our democracy. And Dahlia, as we sit here, people are going out today across the country in the millions for the no Kings marches. If you're not out there, get out there. If you're out there, thank you for being out there. This is the practice run because if it comes down to an autocrat trying to overturn the election, it is ultimately gonna be the final backstop, the first three words of the Constitution.

We, the people who say no, just like the people of Minnesota did not on our watch. And if that political leverage is there, then the Congress will have no choice but to sit the actual lawful and rightful winners. And, and you know, I think it's kind of fitting and poetic that for all the protections in the constitution, for all the checks and balances and all the division of Powers and Federalist system, and it is indeed quite brilliant and it really has worked to this point as a check against tyranny, which was fundamentally what the founders were trying to do.

At the [02:31:00] end of all of that, the final backstop protecting democracy is exactly where they started. It's we, the people, it's ultimately up to us and we have been able to do it for 250 years. We've overcome so many imperfections, challenges, tragedies, corruptions to get here. And I think, you know, as we approach the 250th, I'm actually, to get back to the beginning, I am quite hopeful that we will see to the next two 50 that we are being tested.

We will come through this challenge. We will be stronger for it. Every crisis is an opportunity. On the other side of this, as we've talked about before, I think is actually something even better. We've had, you know, political historians talk about having had three foundings in this country, right? That we had our first founding that the Revolution produced, the Union and the Constitution.

We had our second founding after the Civil War, the three reconstruction amendments to the Constitution. We really had our third founding after the Great Depression, two World Wars. We had the new Deal, we had the civil rights movement. But each of those [02:32:00] foundings came through a crucible of crisis and conflict before them.

And I think this is following that pattern. We're going through an incredible crisis now. And on the other side is the fourth founding where we build a democracy that is more inclusive, it is more resilient, it is more equitable, it is more perfect, for the next 250 years we're being tested. But I, I fundamentally believe that we will pass this test.

And so to those who are out there on the streets today, you're modeling that. Thank you and look forward to seeing everybody celebrating the two 50th and delivering this country into the next great era of our democracy. 

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today.

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Air Date 5/2h/2025

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Air Date 4/26/2025

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JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

For those of us who knew that Trump was lawless and deeply racist in his desire for mass deportations of brown people, we are getting exactly what we expected. For others, at least the lawlessness is coming as a bit of a surprise. And yet, here we are. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes Main Justice, CounterSpin, Strict Scrutiny, The Majority Report, 60 Minutes, The Thom Hartmann Program, The Muckrake Political Podcast, and Democracy Now! Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, Deportation practices; followed by Section B, Victims of the regime; section C, Venezuela and El Salvador; and Section D, Resistance. 

But first, we are still in major promotion mode as we launch our new weekly show SOLVED! We really need every hand [00:01:00] on deck we can get. So subscribe at the Best of the Left YouTube channel, watch, like, comment, all of those sorts of things. We're really proud of the show we're making, so we want as many people as possible to see it and hear it, and that includes you, but also you going and checking it out will help the system recommend it to others. So thanks in advance for checking it out.

Mr. Abrego Garcia - Main Justice - Air Date 4-15-25

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: So instead, let's turn to the Abrego Garcia case. Since our last podcast, the Supreme Court ruled in a per curium -- that is an unsigned order with no dissents. 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: That's right.

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: And it gave two obligations to the government. One, it said that the government has to "facilitate" the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia from prison.

It also said they had to "ensure" his due process rights. Remember, they had previously said in a prior decision that these people who had been removed are entitled to a pre-deprivation [00:02:00] hearing. 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: They talked about that in the context of the Venezuelans who had been removed under the supposed authority of Alien Enemy Act, and this of course is separate because Mr. Garcia is El Salvadoran. 

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Right. The idea is before you are removed, you're entitled to a hearing. You can say that legally the whatever the statute is that doesn't apply, or that you're not within the gang or the group that is being removed. So you're entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing, and here the court says, one, they need to facilitate his release; two, they need to ensure due process. In doing that, they need to be prepared to share with the district judge what it is that they are doing. 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: What steps they have taken, and the prospect of further steps. It's exactly what the court said. 

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: And then finally the court did say that, with respect to the district court saying that you have to facilitate and "effectuate" -- we're really getting into the weeds here -- and they did say that the word "effectuate" is [00:03:00] unclear. That was exactly their word. 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Needed clarification. Yep.

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Because obviously what they're concerned about is they say you can't order the government to effectuate -- let's just take a different hypothetical -- the release of somebody in Russia, not under our control, totally they're pursuant to Russian authorities to say, now the government of the United States has to go into Russia and redo the following. 

So they're saying that is ambiguous, and you have to deal with that situation and make sure that you're not crossing the line into something the government actually can't do. Nor would it really be the province of a court to say that. 

So those leapt a number of obligations on the government that they needed to fulfill, and it then went back to the district judge and maybe, Mary, what did the district judge then do? 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Yeah, and I think the timing here is really, really important. So this is on Thursday evening, I think around five or 6:00 PM that the court put out [00:04:00] this order. And in doing that -- let's just remind people, this was up there on a motion to stay the lower court's order, that it needed to stay and vacate, get rid of the lower court's order that the government needed to facilitate and effectuate his return. And so that's the posture where it was in the Supreme Court. 

So the Supreme Court pretty much denied that motion to vacate, did tell the district court clarify what you mean by "effectuate" with due regard to the executives -- deference to the executive in foreign affairs, but facilitate, yeah, everything you just said. They ordered them to do. 

The only part of what the Supreme Court did that granted in part the government's request was to the extent that the lower court had ordered that that facilitated and effectuated his return by 11:59 last Monday evening. They said that date has passed. That part of the order to vacate that part is granted because that date's already passed. That's the only part -- and this is important -- 'cause Stephen Miller later just flat [00:05:00] out, in my opinion, lies about this in public statements. He might say he's parsing hairs, but that's the only part of what the government requested that the Supreme Court granted. Yes, we're vacating the part that was 11:59 on Monday because that's over.

So, the lower court wasted no time. Within hours of getting this back from the Supreme Court, the court did clarify what she meant, and this is Judge Paula Xinis out of the District of Maryland. She clarified that what she meant was she amended her order to, quote, "direct that defendants shall take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible," and then consistent with the Supreme Court's directive, and she quoted it in her brief order, the government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps. Based on that, Judge Xinis then directed the government to answer three questions and to file a declaration by the [00:06:00] next morning. She originally said 9:30 the next morning. Answering three questions: One, the current physical location and custodial status of Mr. Abrego Garcia. Two, what steps, if any, the defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States. And Three, what additional steps the defendants will take and when to facilitate his return. She says, if you need to file under seal, you file under seal. 

So this is all still happening on Thursday evening. The court then says, I'll have an in-person status conference on Friday at 1:00 PM in the courthouse. So next morning, government doesn't get this 9:30 declaration. She wants a declaration from somebody with personal knowledge who can answer that question.

Let's take a tiny pause here to talk about what a declaration is. A declaration is really a substitute for having a witness come in and sit in the witness stand and raise their right hand and take an oath to tell the truth and get asked questions. It's a way to do this on the papers where the government official, puts in [00:07:00] writing a declaration, and signs it under oath, right? They're saying, I'm swearing to these things. So it's like the paper equivalent of in-person testimony. It's just that you can't have a back and forth with a piece of paper; you can only just take what is on there. 

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Yeah. And it very often there'll be lots of follow-up questions that you'd wanna ask and it ducks the issue or it uses -- this is gonna be the example you're thinking of -- it uses language that is just so ambiguous that you immediately are gonna be like, well, what do you mean by that? 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: That's right.

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: So can I just -- we're going to get into this very detailed TikTok. But, so I'm gonna play dumb here, which is, here's the thing that is not legal niceties and oh, what exactly were the words and what's the difference between facilitate and effectuate?

None of that matters, because here's the key thing that has not happened: the United States has not even said that, has asked El [00:08:00] Salvador for his return, period. The end. I'm sorry. None of that had to do with state secrets, classified information, foreign policy. If you wanna know the most limited thing that the United States could do to quote, "facilitate" unquote his return. How about asking? Are you telling me that the president of El Salvador can show up in the Oval Office, that the President of the United States can talk about, oh, I need you to build five more prisons because I wanna put Americans, if legal, in these prisons. That we are paying by all reported accounts to have these people housed. That we are both sending people and getting people back when El Salvador says, you know what, we won't take those. And we are even sending Kristi Noem there and she is able to do a sort of promotional video, let's just say a video in front of the jail. That you're saying that somehow the president can't even ask and that wouldn't be [00:09:00] honored.

That is cutting through all of this sort of oh, there, there conceivably could be limits on what a court could order. They're not even saying they asked for his return. And obviously that would be the end of this. Because if they asked, it would happen. Unless there was a wink to say, I'm gonna ask and I want you to say no.

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Yep, that's right.

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: So that is why all of this is just such crap. How's that for a legal term? That the Supreme Court of the United States has said you are directed to facilitate his return and they, the United States government, will not even tell the district court that it has asked for his return.

Big picture. A person is in jail, wrongfully. The government has admitted not just in the District court, but the Supreme Court papers from the government said they agreed that this was a mistake. So he is there because of a United States mistake, and they will not even say [00:10:00] that they have asked for his return after causing it themselves.

Dara Lind on Criminalizing Immigrants - CounterSpin - Air Date 4-11-25

DARA LIND: So the Alien Enemies Act was enacted in 1798. It was part of a suite of laws where every of the other laws that were passed around those issues as like America was very worried about war between Britain and France. All of the other acts passed around that were eventually rescinded because everybody looked at that moment and went, Ooh, that was a little bit tyrannical. We may have gone too far there. But the Alien Enemies Act stayed on the books and has been used very infrequently since then, most recently in World War II, to remove Japanese and German nationals.

What the Trump administration has done is say, one, we're using it again. Two, we're using it not against the government, but against a criminal group, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which they argue is so enmeshed with the government of Venezuela that it [00:11:00] constitutes a hybrid criminal state. And three, saying that any Venezuelan man over the age of 14 who they deem to be a member of Tren de Aragua can be removed under the Alien Enemies Act without any of the process that is set out in actual immigration law. Under immigration law, you have the ability to make your case before a judge to demonstrate that you qualify for some form of relief, such as asylum, if that applies to you, and the government has to prove that you can be removed. They say, no, no, no, no, because this law existed before any of that. We don't have to go through any of that process. That is their interpretation of the law, and that's what they were doing when they put people on planes and sent them to El Salvador.

What has been litigated and, with a Supreme Court order on Monday night, where we are right now, is that the courts have said no. It is illegal to use the Alien Enemies [00:12:00] Act to remove people with no process whatsoever. 

But the Supreme Court says if people want to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act, they need to do it through what are called habeas claims, which is not the way that the initial court case was brought.

So in theory right now, we're in a world where someone hypothetically could be removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but how that's going to work in practice is a little bit unclear, because it would have to be a different process than the one the Trump administration used in mid-March. 

And what we're actually seeing is like even in the hours before you and I are speaking, that judges have started to receive lawsuits filed under these habeas claims and have started saying, yeah, you can't remove people under this act, through this either, right? So it's really changing very quickly on the ground, and part of that's the result of this 200 plus year-old [00:13:00] law being used in a manner in which it's never been used before, and with very little transparency as to what the administration wants to do with it. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: It seems important to say, as you do in a piece that you wrote, that the Alien Enemies Act sidesteps immigration law because it's being presented as kind of part of immigration law. But the, one of the key things about it is that it takes us outside of laws that have been instituted to deal with immigration. Yeah?

DARA LIND: I compare this to when the Trump administration after the beginning of the COVID pandemic, used Title 42, which is a public health law, to essentially seal the US-Mexico border from asylum seekers. In that case, they were taking a law from outside of immigration that had been enacted before the modern immigration system and saying, because this law doesn't explicitly say immigration law is in effect, we can create this separate [00:14:00] pathway that we can use to -- that we can treat immigrants under this law without having to give them any of the rights guaranteed under immigration law. They're doing the same thing with this, saying because this law that is on the books doesn't refer to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was passed a century and a half later, we don't need to adhere to anything that was since put in to, say, comply with the Refugee Convention, to comply with the International Convention Against Torture. All of these structures that have come into place as people have started to care about human rights and not sending people to torture or persecution, they're now saying they don't have to bother with because they weren't thinking about them in 1798.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Right. And it brings us to, folks for many years on many issues have been saying, well, it's not legal, so it's all gonna be fixed, 'cause the law's gonna step in and fix it, 'cause it's not legal. And I think you're referring to the fluidity and [00:15:00] the importance of the invocation of law. It's not like it just exists and you bring it down to bear. It's fought terrain. Yeah? 

DARA LIND: Right. Yeah, exactly. It's, contested. And when we say contested, like it really is being fought out in the courts as we speak, because the administration is using its authority, the fact that it is the federal government. And litigators are saying, please point to us in the law where you can do that, or demonstrate to us that you are adhering it all to what we think of as fairly basic constitutional protections, like due process, like the right to know what you're being detained for. What is legal is, ultimately, what the courts decide, but how they rule on this is very unclear. And to be fully honest, the government's insistence on giving very little information and in conceding very little, even in cases [00:16:00] like Mr. Abrego Garcia's, whereas you say they've said there was a mistake made, makes it a little bit harder to understand what it would even look like to say a government that's been so truculent and so resistant is in fact operating under the law.

 

Are Trump Administration Officials in Criminal Contempt - Strict Scrutiny - Air Date 4-21-25

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: And so was Steven Miller's take during that same Oval Office meeting on the administration's supposedly unanimous win at SCOTUS. So during that meeting, Miller, who of course is one of the president's key advisors on immigration policy, offered his hot take on the Supreme Court's disposition of the Abrego Garcia case.

So you will recall, listeners, as Melissa just said, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was erroneously -- the government admits erroneously -- expelled to an El Salvadoran mega prison. A district court ordered the administration to take steps to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. The government appealed, arguing that the district court's order constituted an [00:17:00] impermissible attempt by the judiciary to interfere with the president's power to conduct foreign policy.

As we discussed on last week's episode, the Supreme Court then weighed in to say that while the district court cannot dictate American foreign policy, it does have the authority to correct legal wrongs, including the erroneous rendition to El Salvador of an individual an earlier immigration court specifically said could not be deported to El Salvador because of the likelihood of the danger he would face there.

So the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. There were no noted dissents. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Peewee German, however, had his own hot take of the court's disposition of the case. I don't know, maybe he translated it to German and things came up a little fuzzy. But you can take a listen to that here. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: There's a nine zero in our favor, against the District court ruling saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States. As Pam said, the [00:18:00] ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador's sole discretion was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: The guy literally alchemized defeat into victory. Incredible. For weeks, folks have been wondering whether the administration is going to openly defy the Supreme Court. I don't think we'd anticipated that instead of open defiance, we get magical thinking instead, where they just declared the Supreme Court had said the opposite of what they did and therefore they are in compliance with whatever they say the Supreme Court did. 

So that's the scene. And now we want to go to the judges. 

So Judge Boasberg told the administration that he is not the one. Judge Boasberg went off on the administration. So pull up a chair. 

Recall that Judge Boasberg is the district court judge who presided over the original lawsuit, alleging that the administration, under the auspices of the Alien Enemies Act, was rendering Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without any due process, on the view that the migrants were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Judge [00:19:00] Boasberg, not surprisingly, given this Constitution thing we supposedly got, was appalled that none of the migrants were given a hearing or any other process to challenge the administration's claims. So he told the administration to return the planes that had departed for El Salvador, and the administration's response was basically, Make me, bitch.

And then Judge Boasberg was like, excuse you, the fuck you think you're talking to? He would like to know why the administration thinks it doesn't have to offer these migrants any kind of due process, and why it believes it can give him, or any other judge for that matter, the middle finger. 

Now, ultimately, as we know, the Supreme Court got their hands on this case, and the court issued a very narrow procedural ruling that concluded that the case had been improperly filed in the district of the District of Columbia, and that instead it ought to have been filed in the district where the migrants were detained before their departure to El Salvador. So that is in Texas. And that the challenges then should have proceeded as habeas petitions [00:20:00] in the Texas district court. 

And so the administration was then like, so I guess we're done here. And Judge Boasberg, who's obviously been catching up on the last season of Hacks, was like, no bitch. Let's begin. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: So last Wednesday, judge Boasberg issued a 46-page ruling in which he threatened to initiate criminal contempt proceedings unless the administration answered his questions about why it refused to provide due process to the migrants and why the administration ignored his order to turn the plane and the migrants around.

And the cherry on top was that he laid out an entire plan for how this would proceed. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Stunt on these hoes, queen! I love that we are like standing Brett Kavanaugh's law school housemate. These are bleak times, Melissa. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Bleak times. Join our sorority.

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: I have no idea what kind of relationship he has with Brett Kavanaugh and I have no idea, I don't know really anything about Judge Boasberg. I've never met him. But I do think he is rising to the moment. And he [00:21:00] must know that they are going to fight him tooth and nail and he is writing for history and not holding back about how egregious this conduct is, and he is acting as though the Constitution and the law still matter. And I think that matters a lot. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: So he obviously has masculine energy.

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: The only one of these fools right now who does, who seems to. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Stuck on these hoes, king. He's actually a tall king, not a short king. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: There you go. He's turning tall. That's true. Yeah. So, okay, here is basically what he laid out.

He wants sworn declarations from administration officials in order to determine who was responsible for making the decisions about due process and ignoring his early orders in the case. In terms of who was responsible, I think we have a hunch it was Peewee German in the study with whatever pen. So if that didn't work, then he was going to refer the matter to the Department of Justice, which could then file criminal charges.

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Spoiler alert, that's not gonna happen. Pamela Joe Bondi is like, no. Yeah, absolutely not. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: [00:22:00] Well, another option the administration has is, as Judge Boasberg note, to basically cure any contempt by returning the individuals from El Salvador, acting as though they actually complied with his order and turned the planes around.

But as Melissa noted, there is a possibility that Pamela Joe Bondi would elect not to prosecute any contempt, very faint 

ALL SPEAKING: Possibility, very, very faint. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Just being very generous here, that she would elect not to bring criminal contempt charges for contempt of federal court order, in which case Judge Boasberg noted there was a possibility that he could exercise his authority under the relevant rules to appoint an outside prosecutor to prosecute the case.

Now, this has been done before. Judges have appointed lawyers to prosecute contempt cases. This happened in the Donzinger case that went up to the Supreme Court where there was a [00:23:00] constitutional challenge to the lawfulness of having private attorneys appointed by a judge to prosecute these kinds of cases. The Supreme Court elected not to take up that case, although Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh indicated they would have done so. 

Should also note that even if that happened, that is even if a private attorney launched a successful prosecution of criminal contempt of a court order, criminal contempt of federal court orders is a pardonable offense. And in fact, Donald Trump has pardoned people who were convicted of contempt of federal court orders, during the first Trump administration. That individual who benefited from that: Joe Arpaio. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Can I just say, there are definitely constitutional questions, at least on this court's sort of view of executive power about the permissibility of outside prosecutors. There's certainly this, pardon question. And to my mind, none of that is any reason for Boasberg not to proceed under the law as it [00:24:00] currently stands and appoint an outside prosecutor. And if the Supreme Court wants to find that's impermissible, let it be, or if the president wants to pardon, let him do that. But don't do their work for them.

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Totally agree.

Bukele Goes To Washington w. Roberto Lovato - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-20-25

ROBERTO LOVATO: One of the things I do in my book is show the human conditions that create gangs and gang members. I was a part of a small clique in San Francisco, nothing like the really hardcore gangs either here in the US like the Mexican Mafia and other gangs, Crips and Bloods, and MS 13 and 18th Street in El Salvador, which are structures based on US style gangs. 

I found friendship and community in a little clique that was mostly nonviolent except at different moments. We were involved in drugs and other stuff, but we were not the hardened heavy weapon wielding gangs of today. 

And so I've started working with gangs in the [00:25:00] 90s in, in LA where the gangs were born, MS 13 and 18th Street. And, 13 for example, is the letter M is the number of the letter M that the Salvadorian gangs who were being, before they were gangs, they were being bullied and beaten by larger mostly Black gangs in South LA and decided to start arming themselves with machetes. 

And then journalists like Lisa Ling started noticing that these gangs had machetes instead of guns and started labeling them as extremely violent. Then the gangs took on the more familiar tattooed faces, tattooed bodies, and more heavily armed gang structures and culture that we know today.

So I've watched as the US local and then federal governments have [00:26:00] started taking interest in these gangs, and the project has been bipartisan, Democrat and Republican. They've both escalated and used the gangs to legitimate, initially, local policing of young people. Now you're seeing it become this terrorist... 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Federalized.

ROBERTO LOVATO: ... that Lisa Ling started calling MS 13 the most dangerous gang in the world, even though you never have any statistical basis to prove any gang is the most violent in the world. It's ridiculous. In fact, in 2019 when Trump started using the word terrorist as applied to Salvadoran gangs, and then as Bukele was elected that same year, he starts using the term aggressively, and you see how the "terrorist" word is being thrown around. I started interviewing cops, police in [00:27:00] San Francisco and other cities and found out, for example, that in 2019 you had three white men wielding semi-automatic weapons. These three white men killed more people in 2019 than the allegedly 10,000 MS. 13 and 18th Street gang members in the US combined. 

So lemme repeat that. Three white men with semi-automatic weapons killed more people in 2019 than all of the 10,000 MS 13 and 18th Street gang members in the United States. This is the degree to which the media display you're seeing in the meeting between Bukele and Trump is entirely political theater on steroids.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And frankly, as you alluded to, the explosion of tactics that have been long used against Latino and Black, young men in cities in this [00:28:00] country—gang databases— now being basically used at the federal level where, if you're somebody who's from a specific area of Venezuela or if you're from El Salvador and you may know somebody or have been in a community with somebody who's in one of these gangs that they trump up, not to use a pun, as more dangerous than they are, that that basically classifies you as a part of some broader criminal organization. And now not just criminal according to this far-right Trump administration, terrorist. 

ROBERTO LOVATO: Yeah. The franchise of criminalization and now terrorization of different groups of people is well underway and it's the biggest, most dangerous thing that's coming out of the Trump/Bukele meeting. It's telling, for example, that during the meeting today Bukele said, and I quote, "sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands. I like to say that we actually liberated [00:29:00] millions." And Trump replies, "who gave him that line? Do you think I could use that?"

And so, the meeting reflects, I think, the expansion of the local, national, hemispheric, and global enterprise of terrorization of increasing numbers of groups. You start off with the lowest hanging violent fruit, like the gangs, and they are violent and some of them are murders. Most of 'em are not. Most of the gang members are not murders. Otherwise, you'd have over 10,000 deaths in MS 13 in the US, when you have an insignificant number statistically doing that. 

So, you start off with gangs, then you extend it to immigrants generally, as you see Stephen Miller's career, growing and Trump's own election built on that. And then you extend it to, like in El Salvador, journalists dealing with gangs have [00:30:00] been arrested, harassed, persecuted, some even exiled. And then you extend it to activists. You start using the word activists to talk about, like you're talking about the Palestinian activist in Columbia or the Turkish woman who was arrested at Tufts. Or, Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is still in the CECOT gulag that Bukele just built. All of these Im immigrants are now illustrations of how the franchise is extending. 

But make no mistake coming your way soon is the franchise of terrorization to those of us that are citizens. It's already afoot. Trump is already talking about deporting citizens to El Salvador, US citizens. And this is where my experience first growing up in pre techno fascist Bay Area, and then as a journalist who's reported on [00:31:00] electronic surveillance that, as I watched it go from the analog industrial age to the digital age of surveillance, has taught me that people like Bukele are digital dictators. We're in the age of digital dictatorship and the industrial age structures of, like my former comrades in the FMLN, could not defeat the digital dictatorship model of Bukele, and so we have to upgrade our social movements for the digital age if we are to fight people like Bukele, who has benefited from CIA trained Venezuelan assets, who became consultants to Bukele and helped him manufacture this bizarre and dangerous reality in El Salvador, that, that has large segments of the populus supporting him in their desperation. 

What a photojournalist saw as Venezuelan migrants arrived in El Salvador - 60 Minutes - Air Date 4-6-25

LESLEY STAHL - HOST, 60 MINUTES: This week on 60 minutes, we reported on the 238 Venezuelan migrants who were deported from the [00:32:00] United States three weeks ago. They were flown from Texas to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador, where they're being held as part of an agreement with that country's president, Nayib Bukele. The Trump administration claims that all of these men are terrorists and violent gang members. But we could not find criminal records for an overwhelming majority of the prisoners. 

Photojournalist. Philip Holsinger has been working in El Salvador for more than a year. He's been to some of the country's largest prisons, interviewing and photographing inmates swept up in the Salvadoran government's controversial crackdown on violent criminal gangs, like MS 13.

But the most notorious by far is the Terrorism Confinement Center known as CECOT, where the Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States are currently being held. 

PHILIP HOLSINGER: Life in the cell in CECOT is the definition of austerity. The bunks are steel. There are no [00:33:00] blankets. There are no pillows. There's nothing, it's just a slab of metal, and that's where you sleep. There are no books. There's no television. Zero outside communication. Nothing goes out, nothing comes in. There's 24 hour surveillance. No misbehaving, no talking. The first time I visited CECOT I was shocked by the silence. The silence is what really got under my skin, and it's like a church. 

LESLEY STAHL - HOST, 60 MINUTES: When the planes carrying the Venezuelan migrants arrived in El Salvador, Holsinger was waiting on the tarmac. He photographed the men as they were shackled, shaved, and stripped, capturing their transformation into CECOT inmates. Holsinger wrote about the experience in an article for Time Magazine.

Some of those photos have been published or televised elsewhere, but most of what he shared with [00:34:00] 60 Minutes has never been seen before. 

PHILIP HOLSINGER: As soon as they came to the door, they're greeted by a sea of black-clade masked police in riot gear. This is a typical face of the Venezuelans. These are eyes that are asking lots of questions. "Where am I?" "What's happening?" "What's gonna happen to me?" A lot of fear in these faces. 

Their appearance was different than anything I had seen. Literally, like they'd just come off the street. They were all in nice clothes. They moved them fast and hard, and they intentionally want them to feel that they're powerless. They grab them in the neck, march 'em down the stairs, and it's rapid and fast and painful. These guys were not allowed to be making eye contact or looking, and the guard came and grabbed his head and forced his head down to tell him, you're not allowed to be looking up and looking around.

And then they go right into a [00:35:00] room where they shave everybody's head and they don't shave their heads. tenderly. The guards are just, "fast, fast, fast! Rápido, rápido, rápido, rápido!". So some of them are nicking their heads. This man really grabbed my attention. He may be a criminal, he may be innocent, he may be a father. I don't know his story at all, but I know his eyes. He didn't fight. Hopelessness just gave in. 

LESLEY STAHL - HOST, 60 MINUTES: One of the Venezuelans who caught Holsinger attention was this man, who 60 Minutes has now identified as Andry Hernández Romero. Andry's lawyer told us he is a 31-year-old gay man and makeup artist with no criminal record in the United States or Venezuela.

PHILIP HOLSINGER: So this is a young man that I had followed from the bus who was exclaiming that he was soy gay and saying that he was innocent and he was being slapped every time he would speak up, but he couldn't help himself. Then he started praying and [00:36:00] calling out, literally crying for his mother.

His crying out for his mother really, touched me. You can see in this photograph, the hair it's not cleanly shaved, he's got patches of hair. He's grimacing. These guys were in pain. This is a standard body posture that anybody in CECOT will be trained in.

And in this case, they're handcuffed, but when they're not handcuffed, they literally tie their bodies together so that a few guards can control a mass of people. This posture is a very difficult and painful posture. Right before they go into the scan to be taken to their cells, they're pushed all the way to the ground. I mean, some of them are really hurting. 

LESLEY STAHL - HOST, 60 MINUTES: As he took the last few photographs before the Venezuelans were transported to their cells, Holsinger said he felt he had watched these men become ghosts. 

PHILIP HOLSINGER: They've been stripped of their hair and their clothes, and they don't know where they're going. All of their personality was [00:37:00] gone. Your life just ceased to exist. You're just a person in white clothes now. And I had this sort of sense of I'm watching these guys disappear.

Dictator Behind Trump's Notorious El Salvadorian Prison Deportations Wants U.S. Dissents Locked Up - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 4-16-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Who is this Bukele guy? He's 43 years old. He claims, he claims! he's the youngest dictator in the world. He calls himself the world's coolest dictator. He likes to wear Aviator sunglasses. He likes to produce rap videos of prisoners being tortured. 

In 2019, he was elected to the presidency based on a promise to end gang violence and corruption. And he did. The homicides dropped from 103 per 100,000 down to 2.4, that was in 2015, to a record low of 2.4 per 100,000 in 2023. So he has an 80% approval rating for doing that across the country of El Salvador. But the miracle came at a staggering cost. He didn't eradicate crime through solving problems that fester crime, like poverty, he eradicated crime by [00:38:00] dismantling democracy. 

This from a piece by Dean Blundell over at Substack. "...he scrapped due process. He instilled paralyzing fear in El Salvador's 6.3 million people...he's a textbook authoritarian." This is just amazing stuff. This is the guy that Donald Trump was slobbering all over yesterday in the White House.

"Since declaring a state of emergency in March of 2022, Bukele has arrested over 85,000 people—roughly 1.6% of the population of his country—often without warrants or evidence. Human Rights Watch reports only a thousand convictions, meaning tens of thousands of innocent people are languishing in prison. At least 261 have died in custody with credible reports of torture, beatings, and medical neglect." "The Center for Confinement of Terrorism, CECOT," this is where these Americans are being held, "is not a rehabilitation facility.—it's a pay for play concentration camp where prisoners, including US Deportees, are 'disappeared' into a judicial black hole." [00:39:00] writes Dean Blundell. 

"CECOT opened in 2023...it's a mega prison for 40,000 inmates. Cells lack windows, ventilation or mattresses; prisoners sleep on bare metal, eat twice daily, and endure 23 and a half hour lockdowns with only 30 minutes of exercise in windowless corridors. Human rights groups document systematic torture, scabies starvation, beatings are rampant. Cristosal, a Salvador and non-governmental organization, reports 367 deaths across the prison system with families denied information about their loved ones." 

"Bukele's propaganda," he writes, "glorifies this cruelty. He posts slick videos of shackled inmates, heads bowed, escorted by armed guards to a pulsating soundtrack—images straight out of a dystopian thriller." 

He took 261 US Deportees last month. CBS News looked into them and they found 75% of these deportees had no criminal record. They [00:40:00] committed no crime, and yet they are now trapped in this brutal concentration camp. And the definition, according to the US Holocaust Museum, of a Concentration camp is a prison beyond the rule of law. A place where people are imprisoned without due process of law. And that's exactly what he is running. 

He is running a concentration camp and we are sending people to it. Dean Blundell writes, "like Stalin's labor CECOT uses prisoners for forced labor to sustain itself with Bukele boasting 'it's financially self-sufficient.'" he puts some of them to work. He says, "Like Mussolini, he projects strength through militarized displays, replacing judges with loyalists." In 2021, his party ousted the Supreme Court Justices and the Attorney General and installed his loyalists. He's jailed critics including his former security advisor who died in custody in February of last year, allegedly after being tortured.

Politicians, judges, and journalists face [00:41:00] ruthless and relentless intimidation. Over 50 official and critics have fled the country. In 2020, he sent troops into the legislature to strong arm approval of a piece of legislation that he wanted. His state of emergency suspends fundamental rights. No warrants, no lawyers, no contact with families. Amnesty International reports forced disappearances. Women face sexual violence in custody, and families of detainees are threatened with arrest for protesting. He's also targeted minorities with reports of arbitrary arrests of queer individuals. 

In 2021, he fired all the judges, over 60, affecting 200 magistrates, a third 33% of the judiciary. His new judges rubber stamp his policies like a mass trial of 900 people at once. Yeah, that's due process for you. His political opponents face trumped up charges while business leaders are squeezed for money and loyalty. This is a country that has a 30% poverty rate, which has not improved since he [00:42:00] became president.

Instead, they have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Keep in mind that the United States is around 700 per hundred thousand, as I recall, 650, something like that. We are the highest in the developed world. He is at 1600 per hundred thousand people. He's got 109,000 people behind bars in this little tiny country.

Fear permeates societies, dissenters risk. Families of the detained lived in dread. Meanwhile, his wealth grows. He now has 34 homes 34 properties that he has acquired during his term. And this is what strong men do, they enrich themselves. Donald Trump Jr. And Matt Gaetz, fawn over him. Donald Trump Jr. attended his inauguration. I'm telling you, this is Trump's role model. This is what Trump wants. He wants to be a dictator. And frankly, he is becoming one. He is doing it right now, right in front of us.

Trump's Real Plan With El Salvador Revealed - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 4-15-25

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Before this meeting began off the record or off the mic, whatever you wanna [00:43:00] call it, Trump was overheard telling Bukele that next up are the quote unquote "homegrowns" or US citizens, people within the country that he is planning on sending to El Salvador. The audio for that is absolutely terrible, but luckily, the President of the United States of America was asked a question about it and just went ahead and said exactly what he wanted. 

DONALD TRUMP: We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get 'em out of the country, but you'll have to be looking at the laws on that, Steve. Okay? 

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Okay. Good. Thought that was the wrong one. Good.

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Anyway. No, it's it's awful. And so what got basically the news here is we've known that Trump has wanted to do this. We've now heard it in so many words. He also confirmed that he, Pam Bondi and all of the people behind the Trump administration are currently [00:44:00] looking at the laws and trying to figure out how they might be able to do it. Luckily for them, they don't give a shit about laws. And currently with Kilmar Abrego Garcia -- who should not be in El Salvador, we have no idea if he's okay or if anything is going on -- they now have a court order to return him and they say, Hey, we can't do anything about it. And luckily, Bukele says he is not interested in doing it, they're not going to do anything about it anyway. So who gives a shit about laws? 

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: It's, this is now, again, we were wondering whether this is an authoritarian state. This is an authoritarian state. 

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: This is an authoritarian state.

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah. And it's like you don't have to look around. They are now arguing that the Supreme Court did not tell them to return him when they did, 9-0. And they had to facilitate his return. And the fact that they're trying to parse what that means. Steven Miller, he deserves to sit on a tack face up or and something worse. But, the guy is, he's Goebbels, he is the modern day Goebbles. He's a guy using Nazi technique propaganda, in order to try and, completely lie to everything where he is basically trying to say that, if he [00:45:00] magically appeared in one of our airports, then, of course we'd have to allow him into our country. But we can't do anything about getting him out of the prison. And then they ask Bukele, and he says, well, I'm not going to deposit a terrorist into your country. That would be a terrible thing that cannot be done. Are you aware that in El Salvador with this prison, there is no due process for anybody that gets sent there when they're -- 

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah, there's nothing. There's absolutely nothing. There's autocratic will, and that's everything. 

NICK HAUSELMAN - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah. It's a complete lawless state. But here's a really horrible thing. Imagine how bad conditions were in El Salvador in terms of crime and violence that people there want that. They wanted this. They are happy because now it is quote-unquote "safe." And the people who were causing so much issues were locked up without any due process. So again, what percentage of people are in this prison who are El Salvadorians, who are innocent? I. We certainly know what the percentage is of people that we sent them there, who don't have criminal records, is.

And so this is really, really [00:46:00] frightening. And what is staring Garcia in the face right now is a life sentence, without any notion of any process. No parole. No visitors to this prison. I, don't know what to make of this because this is not supposed to happen. You're supposed to at least be able to do something. So is anybody gonna do anything? 

JARED YATES SEXTON - CO-HOST, THE MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: So I, just wanna say, first of all, you're assuming that, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still alive. We don't know. We don't have a clue. We don't have a clue if anybody who was sent there, and as you pointed out in the past, 75% of the people who were rounded up in this thing do not have criminal records. We don't know if some of them have died. We have no idea how many people have died in El Salvador in these prisons to begin with. And that's one of the reasons why you shouldn't be in business with people like this. You shouldn't be creating a business partnership between the President of the United States of America and an autocratic leader in another country.

And I wanna put that out there on the record, because I've been seeing a disturbing number of people, Nick, who are saying, what does Bukele have on Trump? [00:47:00] Is Trump afraid to fight with him and fight first? No. He's not afraid to fight with him. They are in a mutually beneficial partnership with each other. They have created a perfect situation to do something like this. And it was on full display in this presser, Nick. Trump was like, well, I don't have any control over this. And Bukele's like, I don't have any control over this. Isn't it wild that the two autocrats aren't able to do anything about this whatsoever?

They have created these legal loopholes -- and I even hesitate to say "legal" as an identifier. They are legalless loopholes, is what it is. They've studied this, figured it out, and figured out a way to move beyond the jurisdiction of the courts as they currently stand. They have -- and by the way, we've talked about it for forever: when were they going to start moving against courts and just simply not listening? Here we are. Period. 

And they've already signaled what's coming next with it, which is American citizens -- American-born citizens being shipped out of the country for crimes based on what the [00:48:00] Trump administration decides to do.

And what did Trump say to Bukele? He said, you're gonna need to build like five more of these prisons, which goes ahead and lays bare what this is, which is a mutually beneficial economic partnership, which is private prisons that are beyond the United States of America in order for profit for Bukele and others like him. There's undoubtedly kickbacks happening in all of this. Do not get me wrong, I have to imagine there's some laundering that's taking place from what the US is paying El Salvador. 

But also it's a political advantage with this. Bukele gains from being the partner with Trump in all of this. He gains more and more power and prestige. And Trump has created the same thing that we've talked about before, which are rendition sites that took place during the War on Terror, where all of this was pioneered and put into effect. 

Now what do we have, Nick? We have the beginnings of a concentration camp situation. And it's going to happen outside the borders of the United States of America. And then there's going to be [00:49:00] those that are going to be built here because, as we talked about on the weekender, there is a $45 billion project to create those infrastructures. 

This is how all of this starts to come together, and we're watching it. And now is the time to understand we have to fight against this, before we can't fight anymore. 

Sen. Van Hollen on Meeting Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador & Escalating Constitutional Crisis - Democracy Now! - Air Date 4-21-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Senator Van Hollen, welcome back to Democracy Now! The huge news of the day is the pope has died. Two of his major issues — once again, just yesterday, Easter Sunday, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — you went to the border there, deeply concerned about Israel’s assault on Gaza — and his deep concern for migrants. You just came back from El Salvador, where you met with Abrego Garcia. Why don’t we start there? What exactly happened?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Amy, I’m glad you mentioned the pope. We’re all going to miss him. He was a pope for all of humanity, and Pope Francis was a beautiful soul.

[00:50:00] So, when I met with Abrego Garcia, my main purpose was to let him know that his wife and his kids loved him and that they were fighting for his return, and to let him know that his sheet metal workers’ union and millions of people in the United States who believe in the Constitution of the United States were fighting for his return and for due process.

He spoke about the conditions that he had experienced, the trauma of having been abducted off the streets of Maryland, trying to make a phone call from the Baltimore detention center — it was from Baltimore — without being allowed to do that, and, of course, then ending up first in the notorious CECOT prison. So, it was — it was, of course, emotional to hear about the trauma he [00:51:00] experienced.

I told him we were going to keep fighting for him. I met with the vice president of El Salvador and said, “You really should not be complicit in this Trump administration illegal scheme.” And so, we will keep fighting for his constitutional rights, because if we deny the constitutional rights for one person, we threaten them for everybody.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, can you tell us exactly what Kilmar said as you met at the hotel? And how is it that you got it totally turned around? First, you were met by what? El Salvadoran soldiers? You were told you can’t to meet with him. And then, just before you left, they brought him out?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, first, I met with the vice president, and I asked if I could meet with Abrego Garcia. He said no. I said, “If I come back next week, can I meet with Abrego Garcia?” He said no. I asked if I could call Abrego Garcia. He said no. [00:52:00] And so, the next day, I tried to visit CECOT, which is this notorious prison, and was stopped by soldiers three kilometers short of the prison, and they told me they had been ordered not to allow me to proceed.

I had a number of press conferences in El Salvador with a lot of local press, and I called out this sort of horror of this person having been abducted and denied his constitutional rights, and made the point that El Salvador is violating international law, because international law requires that someone like Abrego Garcia be able to make contact with family, with their lawyers, with others. And so, as I was really preparing to leave on Thursday night, we got a call saying that they had relented and that I could sit down with him.

And in my conversation, which lasted probably over [00:53:00] 40 minutes, we covered a lot of things, from his abduction to the conditions he was experiencing and many other things. So it’s hard to sort of capture all of that, but the bottom line was he had been traumatized by what happened. He said it was his family, thinking of his family, that gave him the strength to go on. And I think the fact that he had learned for the first time that people in America were fighting for his constitutional rights also gave him additional strength.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want you to explain how much money Bukele is getting, this country of El Salvador is getting, for imprisoning hundreds of men. We don’t know what their crime is, if there’s any crime at all. But Bukele said on social media about your meeting, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.” He also wrote, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the 'death camps' & [00:54:00] 'torture'” — obviously mocking — he goes on to say, “now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” You have called this margarita-gate. Can you explain what happened and Bukele’s, to say the least, cynical remark?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, sure. This was — it shows how far Bukele and Trump will go to deceive people and try to change the story, because what happened was this. When I first sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, if you look at the original — the first photos, you’ll see a glass of water and a cup of coffee. As we were speaking, the government folks, Bukele’s folks, ordered the waiters to bring these two glasses that were filled with liquid, looked like margaritas, because they had either salt or sugar or something around the rim. We, [00:55:00] of course, did not order them. They brought them to the table. If you looked at the one in Kilmar’s glass, the liquid was actually lower than mine to try to create the appearance that he actually drank it. All of this is a deception. As I pointed out, if you were really Sherlock Holmes, you would see that the sugar or salt or whatever it was around the rim, that there was no gap in it, so, obviously, no one had had a sip.

But this goes to the big lie being told by Bukele and Trump and others to try to create the impression that this person, who was in one of the most notorious prisons in El Salvador and now is still very much in detention and in a news blackout, is somehow being treated fairly. So, these are the lengths they will go, Amy, to try to create this deception, this illusion. They actually wanted to have the meeting by the pool of the hotel. We negotiated [00:56:00] away from that. But it was pretty clear what their plan for deception was. And, you know, I think they really bungled it, because they did it in such a blatant way that I’m telling you what happened, and we’re calling it out, and what it demonstrates is what a big lie they will tell.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I know you have to go. Fifteen seconds. How do you see Kilmar coming home? What is your demand? And why is this so important to you, Senator?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: So, two things. Number one, when you have the Trump administration flagrantly violating court orders, I do think at some point the court is going to have to find the Trump administration lawyers in contempt and sanction them, number one.

Number two, we need to keep pressure on El Salvador. I’m going to be talking later today to some officials in the state of Maryland. You know, El Salvador has seen [00:57:00] more American tourists going there. My view is that American tourists should not be visiting El Salvador when they’re participating in this illegal scheme with the Trump administration. State pension funds can look to see whether they want to divest from any companies doing business in El Salvador. So there are ways to put pressure on El Salvador here.

And the reason this is all so very important is because when you deny constitutional rights to one person, you are threatening them for every single one of us. That’s why this case is so important. If the Trump administration gets away with violating his constitutional rights and violating constitutional orders — I mean, court orders, you know, we are already in a constitutional crisis, but it’s getting worse by the day.

 

Notes from the Editor on finding glimmers of hope for the future

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with Main Justice discussing the Supreme Court's ruling [00:58:00] requiring the US government to facilitate the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia. CounterSpin focused on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, its rare historical use, and ongoing legal battles over its constitutionality. Strict Scrutiny discussed Stephen Miller's misleading interpretation of the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on the Abrego Garcia case. The Majority Report explored the historical and political factors influencing the evolution of gangs and the bipartisan efforts to criminalize and label them as terrorists. 60 Minutes detailed photojournalist Phillip Sing's harrowing observations of Venezuela migrants held in El Salvador's harsh terrorism confinement center. Thom Hartmann dissected the alarming rise of the 43-year-old self-proclaimed "world's coolest dictator" in El Salvador. The Muckrake Political Podcast discussed Trump's overheard plans to deport US citizens to El Salvador. On Democracy Now!, Senator Van Holland reflected on the Pope's recent death, [00:59:00] the Gaza ceasefire and his visit to El Salvador. 

And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get this show ad free as well as early and ad free access to our freshly launched other show, SOLVED! (that's all caps with an exclamation point), which features our team of producers discussing a carefully curated selection of articles and ideas to then solve some of the biggest issues of our day In each episode. Members get the podcast of SOLVED! first each week with an additional members-only backstage segment, but we're also posting the show on the Best of the Left YouTube channel. To support all of the work that goes into Best of the Left and have SOLVED! delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app.

And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email, request any financial hardship membership because we don't let a lack of [01:00:00] funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If If you have a question or would like your comments included on the show, you can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also on the infamous Signal app at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now as for today's topic, just a quick note about seeing some light in the otherwise absolute bleakness of this moment. In fact, it's actually becoming a bit of a very dark running joke on SOLVED! for one or the other of us to share something that we've personally been taking heart in, only to be met with horrified stares from the rest. And we don't do it joking, like we're actually taking genuine, positive feelings from some very dark stuff, but it doesn't always translate. So that may happen again today, but here goes. 

I already congratulated Producer Deon on SOLVED! for this, [01:01:00] but there's even more to add today. He asked on a recent episode if the term Kafkaesque was in general usage these days, and none of us had really heard it used much, but agreed that it was due for a comeback.

Then as if on cue, the example started arriving. The first from a judge in a court transcript who said, quote, "Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque? I've got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS, and now his two very experienced lawyers can't even tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the court can't tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the government's counsel can't tell him if he's here legally." End quote. 

And then the second example just came up from Michelle Goldberg [01:02:00] in the New York Times who said, quote, "I understand why Kilmar Abrego Garcia has become the face of Donald Trump's monstrous policy of sending migrants to a gulag in El Salvador. In a court filing, the administration's own lawyers initially admitted that his deportation was an administrative error, and the White House has been disregarding a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate his return. Abrego Garcia's case was both a human tragedy and an incipient constitutional crisis. His Kafkaesque predicament is a stark illustration of what it means to be stripped of the law's protection, and thus a warning for us all." End quote. 

So by now you're starting to get the gist of the sort of stuff we've been taking comfort from recently. Obviously none of this is a sign that things are getting better, only that people are using language appropriate to the occasion, which, in a case like this, you take is a good sign. I guess. 

Now [01:03:00] I'm not one to get terribly excited about polling data in relation to an administration that cares not at all about their popularity, because I don't believe that they're tanking approval ratings, which are happening, or headlines like this one from the AP, quote, "Immigration is Trump's strongest issue, but many say he's gone too far, a new AP poll finds" will have any impact on Trump's governing or legal strategy. 

But at least what this all points to is that, as monstrous as some of our fellow citizens are in taking perverse pleasure in the suffering of immigrants they wish expelled from the country, they are not the majority by a long shot. And when faced with the realities of Trump's government, lawyers attempting to make his actions fit within something resembling the law, there is no more appropriate term to describe the situation than Kafkaesque, which Merriam Webster defines as "having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or [01:04:00] illogical quality."

Nailed it. 

Now, we also talked recently on SOLVED! about the nature of people to either forget or romanticize periods of the past, when they are long ago enough that they cannot be remembered firsthand. For instance, the inability of most people to remember the time before wildly successful vaccines is helping drive a disastrously dangerous desire to go back to a sort of pre-vaccine era imagined to be more pure and healthy.

Similarly, Americans have been extremely comfortable for a very long time living in a society with people in government who, despite other disagreements, all basically believed in the sanctity of law and democracy itself. I mean, Richard Nixon was a major outlier, and the bipartisan response against him was something we really couldn't imagine happening today.

It was that sense of comfort, that lack of institutional memory about the dangers of those who would [01:05:00] happily ignore the law in pursuit of their own aims, that has helped elect and reelect the most blatantly lawless president we've ever had.

So there's not that much positive to look to, other than the evidence that many are seeing clearly what is happening and are horrified by it. And the distinct possibility that witnessing these horrors today may somewhat inoculate us as a society against this kind of hate-driven politics, at least for a while.

The fallout will continue to be terrible and last long into the future. Not unlike the projection that I just saw, that measles is on track to, again, become endemic in the country, killing hundreds of thousands in the coming decades, if vaccination levels remain at their current rate. But in both cases, living through the political horrors of the Trump era and the medical horrors of the anti-vax movement will undoubtedly create a backlash that pulls us back in a more thoughtful direction.

[01:06:00] it may not sound all that positive right now. But you know, that's just what passes for positivity in these particular days that we're living through.

SECTION A: DEPORTATION PRACTICES

And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. Next up, section A. Deportation practices followed by Section B, victims of the regime, section C, Venezuela and El Salvador, and Section D resistance.

Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues - Up First - Air Date 4-16-25

MICHEL MARTIN - CO-HOST, UP FIRST: Could you just remind us of where we are in this case and what exactly did Judge Zinis order the government to do? 

JIMENA BUSILLO: The judge originally ordered for two items. First for the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release and return from seko.

This is the mega prison in El Salvador. The White House has said that his deportation was an administrative error. Second, to ensure that if he is brought back to the US his immigration case. Due process within immigration courts During Tuesday's hearing, judge Zinis said that she had received information of little value on what had been done to fulfill any of this.

So she granted a request from Abrego Garcia's [01:07:00] lawyers for the government. Team to undergo a process called expedited discovery. This means that government officials from Homeland Security, immigration, and Customs Enforcement and State will be deposed under oath. She gave both sides two weeks to complete the discovery process.

MICHEL MARTIN - CO-HOST, UP FIRST: Did the judge say why she's granting this expedited discovery process? 

JIMENA BUSILLO: She said that this would be done specifically to determine whether the government is abiding by her original court order, whether they intend to abide by it, and if not, whether that's in good or bad faith. 

MICHEL MARTIN - CO-HOST, UP FIRST: How did the government respond?

JIMENA BUSILLO: The administration has so far continued to argue that it cannot force another government to extradite someone that they're holding. Back to the US on Tuesday. Drew en signed the lawyer for the Justice Department. Also brought up two documents. One was a status report on where the DOJ stands on bringing Abrego Garcia back to the us.

In this, A DHS official said that Abrego Garcia could be let in through a legal port of entry, but that if he [01:08:00] did arrive, DHS would either move to deport him to a third country or back to El Salvador. Anyways, na Zini said that this was already getting too far ahead since. The government hasn't shown that it has facilitated his return at all.

And sign then pointed to the Oval Office press conference transcript from Monday during which Trump met with Salvadoran President Nale. Both leaders said that they didn't have the power to return him, but to that zine said that those answers that EN Z is pointing to during this press conference would not be considered responsive in a court of law.

MICHEL MARTIN - CO-HOST, UP FIRST: So let's talk a bit about the stakes of this case. I mean. For example, what have we learned about the relationship between the president and the courts? 

JIMENA BUSILLO: The takeaway from Tuesday's hearing is that this is another judge growing, frustrated with the administration's answers on what it's doing in response to court orders.

But the administration has in a way, set up for many of these policy debates to take place. In the courts and even make their way up to the Supreme Court as we've seen in this case. But not every decision is gonna go the [01:09:00] administration's way. So we have continued to see that there's also a growing tension between the courts and the administration.

And you know, on Monday in front of El Salvador's leader, Trump criticized the quote, liberal judges that are blocking his agenda. This is of course, not new as he's previously criticized, those who have issued orders against his immigration directives, especially those related to the flights, to El Salvador.

Are Trump Administration Officials in Criminal Contempt Part 2 - Strict Scrutiny - Air Date 4-21-25

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Let's back up a second though. And, and Kate, I think you're sort of gesturing toward this in, in your comment, but we have a federal judge who is issuing an order finding probable cause that the government was in criminal contempt of that judge's order and that they willfully disregarded it.

And that is a big, huge deal, right? Yeah. So I mean, we're talking about practicalities now. What happens next? Predictably, the government has said that it's going to appeal this, um, it's my understanding that it's not appealable, but that might not stop the Supreme Court from intervening here. So, you know, put a pin in it.

We will see. But Judge Boberg gave the government the option to [01:10:00] cure contempt by simply returning those individuals that it had expelled in violation of his order. He also instructed the government to identify the individual who gave the relevant directives to ignore his orders and not return the planes.

So. There are things that the government can do and, and maybe they're pretty easy to do. I mean, he is not asking for a kidney here. He's just like, let me know who put you up to this. Let turn the planes around, fix it, or we can play hardball. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this a hard way and 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: that's a big deal.

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah,

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: we said the fact that an order of finding probable cause for contempt isn't appealable, might not stop the Supreme Court, and it certainly doesn't seem like it's gonna stop the DC circuit, a two to one DC circuit panel with the two being Trump appointees issued an administrative stay of Judge Berg's order finding probable cause for criminal contempt.

Please note that Judge Berg's order did not find anyone in particular in contempt and it contemplated further proceedings before the court would actually do anything. That is [01:11:00] not an appealable order, but that wasn't going to stop the best lawyers. This administration never had Judge Rao and Judge Katz.

Now some of you might be wondering how is criminal contempt possible if the Supreme Court concluded that Judge Berg's order halting the expulsions was invalid because the case had been filed in the wrong court via the wrong mechanism? There's actually a prior Supreme Court decision that said you can still find an individual in contempt of a court order even if the underlying order is invalid, and that is a pretty infamous decision, I think, of the Supreme Court Walker versus City of Birmingham.

And it's infamous, of course, because there the Supreme Court upheld a criminal contempt finding against the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Who was denied permission to March, marched anyway, and then was held in contempt. Of the court order that [01:12:00] denied permission to march. So that's the law. And you know, if you're thinking that's a Warren Court precedent, Leah, I don't know if the Supreme Court will abide by it.

Fair. I hear you. But this is a bad Warren Court precedent and one that upheld the conviction of Dr. King. So I think Sam Alito will be fine with it. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: He will be very cross pressured, that's for sure. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: That's true. At least there's cross pressure. Yeah. Wow. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Um, alright. I showed up today. You sure did. You did. I'm just gonna let you cook.

Okay. Judge Palus, who is handling the Abrigo Garcia case also seems to be plum out of patience with these goons. In a hearing last week, she read the government lawyers for absolute filth and told them to get their shit together and start answering her questions. There is no passing in. This cold call.

Bitches was basically the energy and, and I'm not gonna lie, I, I have to say her energy was really something and it just sort of jumped off the pages of the transcript and she [01:13:00] basically was like, Hey bitches. Have you read Laura Hillenbrand's epic book about an underdog horse who comes back to be War Admiral?

No, you haven't. Well, you should because I'm about to ride You like sea biscuit if you don't answer these questions. That was basically the energy. Like, what the fuck do you mean? Like, you don't have answers for me? You better have some answers. Yeah. Anyway, I was very black mom. I, I, I, I felt seen in a lot of ways.

Um, so we will say more about those proceedings in a second, but. As the courts work through whether they can prod this administration along toward observing constitutional norms and returning someone who is wrongfully expelled because of a quote unquote paperwork error, and who received no due process in the course of his rendition to a foreign gulag.

We just wanted to note that this week we also got some very pointed reminders of why due process is in fact so important. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah. So first, the administration is mistakenly, [01:14:00] I hope, mistakenly, um, sending deportation notices to citizens. So Nicole Mia posted on Blue Sky that she had received a notice of deportation.

Um, she's a United States citizen and like, are, are they seriously going to mistakenly deport US citizens? Like air quotes mistakenly second, the administration could not even spell. Mr. Abrego Garcia's first or last name correctly, in some of the district court filings over the last week. This is sloppy af, which is why due process is important.

That is how mistakes get made and due process is how we identify those mistakes and rectify them. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: And that is why I think people actually are pretty exercised correctly about Abrego Garcia, but the fact that the claims they are making apply with full force to anyone, yes, lawful resident. Unlawful resident, naturalized citizen, somebody born a citizen.

Literally, if they say, once we have mistakenly sent you [01:15:00] away, the law can't help you. Like that applies to everyone. But you know, who doesn't agree with a claim? I just made our esteemed vice president who took two X last week to basically whine about how due process makes a lot of work for the government, and so we should dispense with it.

I mean, this was a pretty stunning, I thought real men liked hard work, put those men to work observing due process. Not, not this guy. I mean, it, it was, first of all, I didn't. I don't know, I guess X has completely dispensed with character limits. I'm not on it anymore, so I will occasionally see, but you literally wrote a whole ass essay, I mean a really bad one, but a whole ass essay on X that is essentially a claim that due process is expensive and inconvenient and so no longer required.

And I just, Melissa, you, you wanna get it. Lemme just say one thing, which is that, first of all, if I had taught this guy constitutional law, I would hide my head in a bag to borrow a phrase from Justice Scalia. Um, and I will just say, I do hope that there is some soul searching happening at Yale [01:16:00] Law School right now.

And the last thing I'll say is everything he says about due process being expensive and burdensome applies equally to potentially respecting First Amendment rights. The lawmaking process in which Congress has to agree on language and then pass the law, the president then signs. It also applies to the appointment and confirmation process for principal officers.

I mean, essentially the whole constitution is pretty inconvenient when you stop to think about it. And I welcome that, that wisdom emanating from the mouth of JD Vance because I think that's where this takes us. Melissa, sorry. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: No, no, no. I, I just wanted to note that there was a period around, I don't know, 2017 when all of the men's were crowing about how important due process was when people were posting on Twitter and making spreadsheets about whether or not there were men who had sexually harassed 'em or assaulted them or whatever, and gotten away with it.

And during those moments, I too agreed that due process was vitally important because these couldn't be itinerant commitments. But here we are. Yes. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Well, I also think they are going [01:17:00] to have renewed interest in due process during any contempt proceedings that may arise. Um, my guess is good point. My guess is there due process, maybe due process, um, will be.

Demanded and insisted upon. 

Supreme Court temporarily blocks Trump from deporting more Venezuelan migrants - PBS Newshour - Air Date 4-19-25

JOHN YANG - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Amy, what exactly did the court do today and maybe just as important. What didn't they do? 

AMY HOWE: So what the court did was the court barred the federal government until the Supreme Court said, O says otherwise from removing Venezuelan migrants who were at a particular detention facility. Really the, the. Case comes out of the Northern District of Texas where a facility known as the Blue Bonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas is located.

And so lawyers from the A CLU had come to the Supreme Court filing an emergency appeal asking the justices to block the removal of Venezuelan migrants from that facility. To El [01:18:00] Salvador and the Supreme Court at 1:00 AM on Saturday morning issued an order that said, until further notice from this court, the federal government can't remove anyone from this district.

The Supreme Court hasn't said anything about the substance of the President's order, which he issued back in March. Relying on this Alien Enemies Act, this 1798 law that. Gives the president the power to order the removal of enemy aliens without, you know, to, to have them be removed relatively quickly.

You know, the order has only been, the law has only been invoked three times in US history during the war of 1812 during World War I and during World War ii. And so. Some lawyers and legal, legal scholars say that the president can't rely on this law at all to remove anyone, um, right now, but the Supreme Court isn't weighing in on that right [01:19:00] now.

At least 

JOHN YANG - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: as we said, the court acted, not known for its speed, but had remarkable speed last night. Uh, they did this just hours after the case was filed. They didn't wait for the appeals court to act. What does that say to you? 

AMY HOWE: It says that they wanted to be, they wanted to act quickly. You know, not only did they not wait for the appeals court to act, they didn't wait for the federal government to weigh in.

You know, they directed the federal government to file a response as soon as possible, which is also unusual. Usually they set a. Deadline for the federal government. But in this case, they just said as soon as possible after the court of Appeals has weighed in. Um, and I think they wanted to act. They wanted to make sure that these flights didn't take place.

You know, it's interesting because during a different hearing involving these flights in Washington, DC before Chief Judge James Bosberg on Friday, a government lawyer. Represented to Judge Boberg that there weren't gonna be any flights on [01:20:00] Friday or Saturday. Um, and yet the f the Supreme Court still took the, the really unusual step of issuing this order to make clear that, that these flights should not take place and that no one should be removed from this part of Texas to El Salvador.

JOHN YANG - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Much has been made about the government's reaction, the administration's reaction and response to the earlier Supreme Court ruling, uh, in the Abrego Garcia case. Do you think that had anything to do with it? 

AMY HOWE: I think it probably had a lot to do with it. The, I. Lawyers from the A CLU referenced it obliquely in their briefs.

They said, you know, if you are going to send people over to El Salvador and if a mistake is made, you know, just sort of throw up your hands and say there's nothing we can do, then it is doubly important to make sure that there is due process and that the su. The courts of this country can review these removals before they take place, and then also they're very clear in their wording [01:21:00] in this order saying, you know, until further notice from this court, you know, the government should not remove anyone because they've seen some of the, the sort of word games that have been played right now in the courts, sort of about what exactly it means for the federal government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador.

JOHN YANG - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: As you said, the no court has ruled on the, uh, whether the administration has the right to use the, uh, uh, the, uh, alien Enemies Act in the way they're using it. Is it possible, or do you think it's likely or unlikely that the court could do that now in this case? 

AMY HOWE: I. Uh, it's not clear when it's going to do that.

I mean, it seems inevitable that it's going to have to do that. And as some legal scholars have pointed out, the, you know, the Supreme Court could save everyone a lot of trouble if it went ahead and, and ruled on this. You know, if it were to rule that the Trump administration could rely on the Alien Enemies Act, then we'd still need to have this process before someone could be removed to El Salvador.

But if it [01:22:00] were to rule that the. The Trump administration can't rely on the Alien Enemies Act, then, uh, it would certainly obviate the need for all of these proceedings because people couldn't be removed. 

JOHN YANG - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: So

AMY HOWE: what's next? Uh, what's next is we now wait for the federal government to file its response, um, to the application for the stay because the Supreme Court temporarily put the proceedings on hold, but we'll see what the federal government has to say next and what the Supreme Court says after that.

SECTION B: VICTIMS OF REGIME

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B victims of the regime.

Trumps Deportation Black Hole - Reveal - Air Date 4-12-25

NOAH LANARD: Today we're gonna hear the stories of two of those men starting with 25-year-old Neddy Alvarado, Boez, Noah takes it from here, 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: Maria. So one of the first people I called was N's, older sister.

Maria Daniela, she still lives back in Venezuela, in their hometown of Yari Tagawa,[01:23:00] 

and she tells me her family is devastated. To know Neri is having to experience this injustice. She tells me they know Neri has never done anything wrong and that her brother wouldn't hurt to fly.

She says he is a person who in all his life and in all his years, has never had an ounce of evil in his heart.

Maria Daniella says that Neri had always been a really hard worker. Their father is a farmer in Yaarit. And Neri had been helping him in the fields since he was young,

but she says that like every young person, he had dreams and goals, so he left for the US in late 2023.

Maria Daniella tells me that he'd never been to another country [01:24:00] before.

Mary first went to Mexico and tried to apply for asylum in the us. At first, he tried requesting an appointment through CBP one that was an app the Biden administration used so that migrants supplying for asylum could schedule an interview at an official port of entry. Neri ended up waiting in Mexico for about four months, but he never got an appointment.

So Maria Daniella says he decided to turn himself in at the border instead. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: Mm-hmm.

JOSEPH GIARDINA: Records show the border patrol only held RY for a day. He was then released into the us, allowed to apply for asylum and ended up in Dallas, Texas, where he eventually met a man named Juan Enrique Hernandez.

Enrique is an American citizen and has been in the US for 27 years. He owns two Venezuelan bakeries and ne he started working for him last year. Showing up every day from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM That [01:25:00] is until immigration agents arrested ne outside his apartment in early February, just weeks after Trump took office, despite the fact that ne willingly turned himself in at the border nearly a year earlier and was allowed to apply for asylum.

The Justice Department was now charging him with a misdemeanor alleging that he entered the country illegally. Enrique went to visit him in detention the next day 

TOWNHALL CLIP: in Blue Bond Detention Center in Avi Ne 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: tells Enrique that one of the first questions he was asked by an ICE agent was 

TOWNHALL CLIP: cater twice. 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: Do you have any tattoos?

We responded, yes, I have three tattoos. His sister, Maria Daniela describes them to us.

There's a tattoo on his forearm that says brother and another. That's his family. The biggest tattoo is on his leg.[01:26:00] 

She says it's a symbol for autistic children with the name of the 15-year-old brother Neon

has autism.

And Maria Daniella says Neri has always been devoted to him. I've seen a picture of the tattoo that he got for his brother. It's a large autism awareness ribbon made up of different colored puzzle pieces. His brother's name is written in cursive along the side, Enrique tells me that Neri explained the tattoos to an ice agent,

telling him the tattoos aren't religious or political or symbols of any criminal gang. Enrique also says Neri was asked to hand over his phone so the agents could review it for evidence of gang activity. They don't find anything

TOWNHALL CLIP: into the,

JOSEPH GIARDINA: and [01:27:00] Enrique says the ICE agent told Neri, he would write down that he is not a member of rag.

He tells ne, as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to be here, but for reasons that remain unclear. Other officials in ICE's Dallas Field office decided to keep Neri in detention during that time. Enrique says Neri went before an immigration judge and was given a choice. Keep fighting for asylum and stay locked up her.

Get deported back to Venezuela NE's. Eager to get out detention. So he agrees to go back home to Yari. Tagawa. Enrique spoke to Neri shortly before he was going to be deported.

Told him, look, the only concern I have here, boss, is that the 90 people detained with me. They all have tattoos. It's as if ne is starting to realize [01:28:00] that something was up. Maria, Daniella says she and her family were in contact with ne every day he was detained, but that stopped after Friday, March 14th.

At the same time, Maria Daniella starts seeing that Venezuelans have been sent El Salvador. And then on March 20th NE's 25th birthday, it was confirmed. CBS News published the full list of Deportees and Ne Alvarado. Borges was one of the names.

Enrique says, do you think a bad person would work with autistic children

or work at a bakery from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM every day?

He tells me It's an incredibly difficult situation. What is he supposed to tell NE's mom,[01:29:00] 

she's in Venezuela, and ask for updates every day? What can I tell her? How do I respond?

Back in Venezuela ne actually taught swimming classes to kids with developmental disabilities. It was a place called Club Orino, and they actually released a video after they learned what had happened to Neri in it. We hear from the president of the club and he says, we wanna make clear. Neri is not a gang member.

He demands the immediate release of his friend. Then the video cuts to several kids and parents from the club, including his brother Eren, who say Ner is an honest, good person. And not a criminal.[01:30:00] 

TOWNHALL CLIP: They all

JOSEPH GIARDINA: demand justice for Neri.

My reporting partner, Isabel and I have seen many videos like this one online. 

ISABELA DIAS: Venezuelans both here in the US and back in Venezuela are outraged at the thought that their friends and family members could be treated this way. 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: We've spoken to nearly a dozen of them ourselves, and we continue to hear from more 

Trumps Ugly New MS-13 Ramblings Wreck His Case Against Abrego Garcia - The Daily Blast - Air Date 4-21-25

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: So let's drill down into the specifics. Trump claimed he was actually handed something. If so, what it would've been is the gang field interview sheet filled out by a Prince George's county cop when Abrego Garcia was detained in 2019. As we reported at the New Republic, that cop was subsequently suspended and indicted for serious misconduct.

But put that aside for a sec. The gang field interview sheet makes two key claims tying him to MS 13. We're gonna go through both of them [01:31:00] slowly. The first one is that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie with imagery of rolls of money with the eyes, ears, and mouth of the presidents on the bills covered.

It's a little cryptic from the report what that exactly means, but Eric, is this clothing necessarily indicative of membership in MS 13? And what do you make of this description of the imagery? 

ERIC HERSHBERG: Well, first of all, I, I don't think that, um, I'm aware of any research that would identify that clothing as somehow emblematic of MS 13.

What I would say is that in our research, looking into the presence and the nature in organization activities of MS 13 in the greater Washington DC area, one of the things that we found quite striking was the degree to which law enforcement. Officials were not able to correctly identify who was part of the gang and who was not.

So the idea that this gang identification sheet is authoritative [01:32:00] information, certainly based on our work several years ago, including in Prince George County, we would not have, uh, have of considered that, 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: um,

ERIC HERSHBERG: a reliable source. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: Eric, can you tell us a little more about the work that you did in the PG county and DC metro area and what it said about the difficulty that authorities have in identifying members of the gang?

I. 

ERIC HERSHBERG: Yes. Well, and one of the things that we did in the project was we would ask law enforcement officials to enable us to interview, uh, people who were detained under their jurisdiction, uh, and who were members of gangs. And we would find them that some of the people they refer us to were clearly, as best we could tell, not part of the gang.

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: It just seems like this whole enterprise is really deeply flawed and, and for understandable reasons. This is complicated stuff. These are complex social phenomenon we're talking about here. The second claim in the Maryland Copp Gang Field interview sheet that's supposed to tie Abrego Garcia to MS 13 is the claim that a [01:33:00] confidential source said that he's a member of the Western clique.

His lawyers point out that this operates primarily in New York where he never lived. Eric, what do you make of this assertion? Would you place much stock in this confidential source? And is the general claim credible? 

ERIC HERSHBERG: Well, the general claim is plausible, but I wouldn't, I don't see precisely why an anonymous source whose information we have no basis for verifying, uh, and, and we don't see any other profile that would enable us to associate this individual with MS.

13. I think we don't have any information about particular criminal activity that this person is said to have carried out. Uh, we don't have any, um, whether it's robbery, whether it's car theft or whatever it might be, uh, that would associate him, uh, with a click of MS 13 operating in Maryland. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: The whole thing that makes this [01:34:00] so ridiculous, which you just put your finger on, is that he was never charged with, let alone convicted of any crime related to gang activity or any crime at all.

I wanna bring up another aspect of all this. I. One of the reasons that Rego Garcia received withholding of removal status in 2019 is because he feared that if he were sent back to El Salvador, he'd face harm from the Barrio 18 gang, which had threatened his family with death in attempting to extort his mother over her OSA business.

I've heard this described as supposed evidence that he was an MS 13 and that. This is why he feared a rival gang. But Eric, my understanding is that a threat like this doesn't have to do with membership in a rival gang. It's more that Barrio 18 is threatening him for not doing their bidding in territory.

They've marked as theirs. Kind of similar to how gangs carved up territory in The Godfather. If you remember all the, you know the chieftains sitting around saying that, you know who's gonna have what? Can you talk about this? 

ERIC HERSHBERG: The way [01:35:00] that Barrio 18 or MS 13 operates in El Salvador is that they extort local businesses, self-employed, corner stores, bodegas, and so on and so forth, bus drivers, um, and you have to pay, um, or else you get torched.

And what seems to have happened is that his mother didn't pay. And at that point, not only is she subject to violence, but anybody related to her is also subject. Violence and the fact that he fled is itself an act of defiance, um, that is subject to retribution by the gang. And it's also the case that even if he weren't a member of MS 13, if he lived in a territory that was governed by MS 13, then he automatically becomes a target of violence from barrio.

Um, so there's all sorts of reasons to treat credibly, the basic narrative that led the [01:36:00] immigration court to, um, withhold the order of removal. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: So speaking of this broader narrative, my understanding of the way MS 13 functions is that to, to bring people in, you're usually getting teenagers, right? Not people in their twenties.

So the whole narrative that the Trump administration is spinning makes you wonder, why didn't Abrego Garcia get drawn into gang activity earlier when he was a teenager? I mean, he would've been more vulnerable. He arrived in the United States at the age of 16. And so if he had been drawn into MS 13. As a teenager, there'd be a paper trail, there'd be a record of activity, of gang activity.

There's none of that. Am I right about this? Is, is it likely that he'd be pulled in in his twenties? 

ERIC HERSHBERG: Well, I think, you know, one of the things that we just don't understand, um, on in this case is what is the criminal activity that he's associated with. And so if he were an active member of the gang, he would be involved in criminal activities, [01:37:00] and there's been no charge, as best I can tell of his participation in any such activities.

Recruitment into the gang typically happens during one's teenage years. Um, the gangs, um, target, uh, young people who are directionless, who don't have roots in their community. They off often have broken families, and they offer a kind of family. They offer a community, they offer membership in something.

And so yes, typically the entry into. Gang activity, gang networks happens during the teenage years. And so yes, it would be rather unusual for somebody to first connect to the gang, um, in their twenties, um, at an envi in an environment where he was working. Doesn't really hold together very well. 

GREG SARGENT - HOST, THE DAILY BLAST: Right. Uh, putting it all together, a lot of what we actually know about MS 13 and Abrigo Garcia's specific overall trajectory casts even more doubt on the claim that Trump is making, which again, he is basing on [01:38:00] something that he said was handed to him.

Is that about the size of things? The facts just don't add up in any way, do they? 

ERIC HERSHBERG: Well, the facts don't add up in any way, but I think they do in the sense that we know that for years, Trump has demagogued the image of MS 13. This is the person who talks about migrants poisoning the blood of the United of Americans.

This is the person who talks about vermin, who talks about contamination, and there's no. Loyalty here to facts or to decency or to civility. Um, this is somebody who is an opportunist and who deploys, um, fear of outsiders, um, who deploys resentment against migrants and for whom to be able to say, MS 13, MS 13, transnational gang terrorist organization is all just part of a demagogic, um, um, toolkit.

How Trump's immigration policy changes who gets arrested and detained - Consider This from NPR - Air Date 4-11-25

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Among Amir MLA's clients is an activist who has been charged in [01:39:00] connection with a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Michigan. MLA said he believes that is the reason why he was stopped. He told me more of what happened when we spoke on Wednesday. I. So, as I understand, you were returning home from vacation with your family, then you were pulled aside by some federal agents.

Pick up the story from there and just start to tell us what happened. 

AMIR MAKLED: Well, as soon as I got to the passport check line, the agent looked over to another agent and asked, is the TTRT team available? I didn't know what that acronym stood for. Right? So I did a quick Google search. At that point, I realized it meant the ter.

Task Force on terrorism, something along those lines. Tactical terrorism response team is what the acronym was. And at that point, my gut just, you know, my heart fell into my stomach at that point. I was so, you know, concerned and worried. Um, I looked over at my wife and I told her we're probably gonna be stopped and, and detained and questioned and so.

They eventually took me over to an interview room. My family was waiting for me, anxiously not knowing what was going on. Um, and at then a [01:40:00] plain clothes officer walks in and says, we know that you're an attorney and we know that you've been handling some high profile cases lately. Um, and then I said, okay, well what can I help you with?

And he said, um. We would like to look at your phone. And he handed me a, a pamphlet with a federal statute that says that at the border they're allowed to confiscate my phone for a number of days. Um, and at that point I was just shocked that they wanted to take my phone. Well, 

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: let me ask you this. At that point, did you have any sense of why they wanted to see your phone?

What did they tell you? 

AMIR MAKLED: Well, it was, it was apparent to me at that point that they had already done their homework about me before I arrived because they, they knew that I was taking on some, some cases, he knew who I was and he knew where I was coming from and, uh, he knew I was at an attorney. So it wasn't a random selection.

They were prepared to talk to me and discuss things with me. Um, and he was adamant that he wanted to see my phone. 

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: What did you do then? Did you give him your phone? 

AMIR MAKLED: No. At that point I said, listen, you know that I'm an attorney. Everything in my phone could be privileged information. I have emails that go back over 10 years.

I have text messages [01:41:00] with clients. I have all my, my, uh, court filings and, and my office filings are in my cloud, which is available on my phone. Mm-hmm. You're not getting full and unfettered access to my device. It's not gonna happen. Um, and so that puzzled this agent and he had to go to a supervisor. The supervisor comes back and says, here's a legal pad.

Here's a pen. Write down everything that you believe is privileged. We won't go through that. I look, I looked at him with, you know, astonishment. How do you expect me to go through 10 years and more of information that's in my device and see this is privilege and this isn't. It was a ridiculous conversation.

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: You said in other interviews that I've heard that you believe that you were targeted because you were representing a pro-Palestinian protestor. You said that they seemed to know who you were, they seemed to know that you were an attorney. What led you to make the connection that this protestor might have been the reason that you were detained, interrogated.

They wanted your phone. 

AMIR MAKLED: I. This is the only case of, of any high profile action that I'm involved in right now. This is the only one that we've been making a lot of noise about because in Samantha Lewis's case, my client at the [01:42:00] University of Michigan, they're criminalizing free speech. They're charging seven students, um, with resisting and opposing police officers, which are felonies.

And all they were doing was engaging in peaceful protest about the war in, uh, on Gaza. So that we've made a lot of noise about and that we're vigorously defending, why else would they mention that? I'm, they we, that I know that you're engaging in high profile cases. 

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: I just wanna note that NPR has reached out to Customs and Border Protection, and at the time of our conversation, we've not yet heard back, but A CBP spokesman named Hilton Beckham told the Detroit Free Press, which he spoke to, that searches of electronic media have not gone up during the Trump administration.

And I'm gonna quote here, allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible. Your response. 

AMIR MAKLED: I had say to them that, you know, what was the purpose of searching my device? Then I, if you know that I'm not a, there's, there's no probable cause, there's no warrant, there's no concern that I'm a, a threat to national security or anything of that [01:43:00] nature.

The purpose of searching my phone doesn't have anything to do with terrorism. Um. There's only a chilling effect and it's done to be intimidating. Um, in my opinion, for the causes that I was engaging in. I'm standing up for students, I'm standing up for immigrants and, and political dissenters, and I think this was a, a, um, a way to try to, uh, uh, dissuade me from taking on these types of cases.

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Ultimately you did not consent to just hand over your phone, but if I understand correctly, you did at some point let them look at the contexts that are in your phone. Can you tell us a bit about that? 

AMIR MAKLED: Well, they kept threatening to take my device and they said they had, they had the legal right to do so, so I didn't want to walk away, uh, from that meeting or interrogation or detention without my device in my hand.

So I did acquiesce to allowing them to see the list of my contacts that's stored in my phone only. Um, and they agreed with that. They said, okay, we'll look at your contact list and, um, and, and we'll go from there. So at that point, they took my device for maybe seven or eight minutes and they came [01:44:00] back.

Um, they apparently had downloaded my contact list and then began to ask me further questions about who contacts in my phone were, and that's when I said, no, this is getting into too much, uh, you know, uncharted waters here. If anybody that's in my phone is gonna be a friend, a family member, or a client, right?

I'm not gonna tell you if these folks are clients or not, but that's all the information you're gonna get. Okay? 

JUANA SUMMERS - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: If this is part of a much broader effort to intimidate lawyers who work, whose work runs counter to administration priorities, I wanna ask you in a minute or so that we have left, is this working?

AMIR MAKLED: No, I think it's doing the opposite effect. The outpouring support that I've received from members of the bar, not just in Michigan, but nationally and members of the community is, is a showing that people are offended by this type of conduct. This is not what America's all about. We are a, a, a nation of laws.

We have protections, we have amendments. The fourth amendment included of your right to privacy, which includes not, um. [01:45:00] Having your personal effects and papers be searched, um, and it's setting a terrifying precedent if, if government agents can target a lawyer at the border, what's stopping them from doing to anyone who dares to speak out.

Dara Lind on Criminalizing Immigrants Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 4-11-25

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, we understand, uh, if we're paying attention that the Trump administration is not just interested in so-called criminals. You know, when we read that they are tracking anyone, immigrant citizen, no matter who expresses criticism of the deportation agenda on social media. So it, it seems clear that this is.

Ideologically based on its face, or at least piece of it is, is that not a legal front to, to fight on 

DARA LIND: A lot of things that would be entirely illegal if the government went after a US citizen for them are in fact historically considered okay for the government to do in the context of immigration law.

Mm-hmm. For example, the grounds that are being [01:46:00] used for many of these student visa revocations are this. Your regulation that the State Department can revoke the visa of anyone it deems to be a foreign policy problem for the United States, which does open itself up to deporting people for speech, for protected political activity, for, again, the sort of thing that would be, you know, a poor constitutional right for US citizens.

But that in the context in which US immigration law has developed, which was a lot of people being very concerned about. You know, communist infiltration, immigrants have kind of been carved out. I think in general, it's really important for people to understand that while the Trump administration loves to imply that it's going to use all of its powers, maximally, that no one is safe and that everyone should be afraid, uh.

In fact, you know, citizens do have more protections than green card holders. Green card holders do have more protections than others. For example, the one green card holder who they've tried to use this State Department thing on, the judge in that case as of when we're talking, has told the government to give me [01:47:00] some evidence in 24 hours, or I'm ordering this guy released because it does take more to deport somebody on a green card.

So how. Scared people should be, it shouldn't just be a function of what the government is saying, although you know what it's doing is more relevant. But it should also be a function of how many layers of protection the government would have to cut through in order to subject you to its will. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, and that gives us points of intervention.

You know, and I appreciate the idea that while we absolutely have to be concerned about what's being said, it's helpful to, to keep a, a clear eye on what is actually happening so that we see. Where the fronts of the fight are. But I, I then have to ask you, you know, when you hear analysts say, well, you know, this person had a disputed status, this person had a green card, and make those distinctions.

But then you hear Trump say, well, heck yeah, I'd love to send US citizens. To, uh, prison in El Salvador. You [01:48:00] know, it, he's making clear he doesn't think it's about immigration status. He says, if I, if I decide you're a criminal and you bop people on the head, or whatever the hell he said, you know, um, you're a dangerous person.

Well, I, I would love the law to let me send us citizens to El Salvador also, so you can understand why folks. Feel the slipperiness of it, even as we know that laws have different layers of protection. 

DARA LIND: I do. The thing that strikes me about these US citizens to El Salvador comments is that like I was reporting on Trump, you know, back when the first time he was a presidential candidate, so it's, you know, I've been following what he says for a minute.

Mm-hmm. It's really, really rare for Donald Trump to say if it's legal, we're not sure it's legal, right. But he said that about this and press secretary, Caroline Levitt has also said that about this. And like that caveat is just so rare that it does make me think that this is. Different from some of the other things where Trump [01:49:00] says it and then the government tries to make it happen.

Right? But they are a little bit aware that like there's a bright line and even they are a little bit, you know, leery of stepping over it and kind of insistent about that. Mostly because I worry a lot about people being afraid to. Stand up for more vulnerable people in their communities because, because they're so focused on the ways in which they're vulnerable, right?

And so what I don't wanna see is a world where non-citizens can be, you know, arrested and detained with no due process. And citizens are afraid to speak out because they heard something about citizens being sent to El Salvador and they worry, they will be met. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: I, I I hear that. I hear that. And, and following from that, I, I wanna just quote from the piece that you wrote for the New York Times last November about focusing on what is actually really happening.

And you said that the details matter, not only because every deportation represents a life. Disrupted and usually more than one since no immigrant is an [01:50:00] island, they matter precisely because the Trump administration will not round up millions of immigrants on January 20th, but millions of people will wake up on January 21st not knowing exactly what comes next for them.

And the more accurate the press and the public can be about the scope and scale of deportation efforts. The better able immigrants in their communities will be to prepare for what might be coming and try to find ways to throw sand in the gears. What I hear in that. Is that there is a real history making moment for a press corps that's worth its salt.

DARA LIND: Absolutely, and to, to be honest, in the weeks since the flight percent El Salvador, we've seen some tremendous reporting from national and local reporters about the human lives that were on those planes we know. So much more about these people than we would have. But what that means is [01:51:00] that these people who arguably the administration would love to see disappear, Elli, would love to see disappear.

They're very, very visible to us, and that's so important in, you know, making it clear that. Things like due process aren't just, it's not just a hypothetical. Nice to have due process is the protection that prevents in general gay makeup artists from getting sent to a country that they've never been to because of their tattoos.

Mm-hmm. That it's an essential way to make sure that we're not visiting harm on people who have done nothing to deserve it. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, finally, I, I do understand that. We have to fight wherever there's a fight, but I do have a kind of fear of small amendments or reforms as a big picture response. You know, we can amend this here, or we can return that person.

You know, it feels a little bit like a restraining wall against a flood, and I, I just feel that it helps to show that. We are for something, [01:52:00] you know? 

MUSIC: Mm-hmm. We're not 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: just against hatefulness and bigotry and, and the law being used to, to arbitrarily throw people out. We have a vision of a shared future, you know, that that doesn't involve, uh, deputizing people to snitch on their neighbors who they think look different.

You know, we have a vision about immigration that is a positive vision that we've had in this country, and I guess I wish I'd see more of. Of that right now in media and elsewhere. 

DARA LIND: What makes it particularly hard from my perspective is that most Americans know very little about immigration law. Right?

You know, it's extremely complicated and most people have never had firsthand experience with it. So in order to get people to even understand what is going on now, you need to do more work. Than you do for areas where people are kind of more intuitively familiar with what the government does and that takes up space that otherwise could go to imagining different futures.

[01:53:00] The other problem here is that frankly, you know, there it, it's not that new and radical ideas on immigration are needed. It's a matter of. Political will to a certain extent. Right, right. Like the reason that the the Trump administration's use of this registration provision is such a sick irony to some of us is that there was a way that Congress proposed to allow people to register with the US government.

It was called comprehensive immigration. Form. Yeah. You know, that there, there have been proposals to, to regularize people, to put people on the books, to bring people out of the shadows. And the absence of that and the absence of a federal government that was in any way equipped to actually process.

People rather than figuring out the most draconian crackdown and hoping that everybody got the message is where we've gotten to a point where everyone agrees that the system is broken and the only solutions appear to be these radical crackdowns on [01:54:00] basic rights.

Trump says he's 'so happy' the Supreme Court will hear birthright citizenship case - Associated Press - Air Date 4-17-25

REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: It was a short time ago, Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case about ending birthright citizenship. How confident are you that the court will rule in your favor and allow that order to end birthright citizenship to go forward? 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, you're just telling me that for the first time, I am so happy.

I think it, the case has been so misunderstood that case birthright citizenship is about slavery. If you look at the, uh, details of it, the signings of it, everything else. That case is all about slavery. And if you view it from that standpoint, people understand it. But for some reason, lawyers don't talk about it.

The news doesn't talk about it. That's not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and all of a sudden they're a citizenship. You know, they're a citizen. That ship that is all about slavery and even look at the dates on which it was signed, it was right at that era during, right after the Civil War, I.

And [01:55:00] if you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win. And I hope the lawyers talk about birthright citizenship and slavery because that's what it was all about. And it was a very positive, it was meant to be positive. And uh, they use it now and instead, not for slavery. They use it for people that come into our country and they walk in and all of a sudden they become citizens and they pay a lot of money to different cartels and others.

It's all about slavery, and if you look at it that way, we should win that case. 

Are Trump Administration Officials in Criminal Contempt Part 3 - Strict Scrutiny - Air Date 4-21-25

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Um, this is some breaking news we got while recording, and that is that the Supreme Court has scheduled four argument. The Trump administration's requests to stay insignificant, respects to put on hold, insignificant respects the orders.

That prevent them from implementing their wildly unconstitutional plan to strip [01:56:00] birthright citizenship from certain individuals. Now, I wanna quickly explain what issue was actually before the court, because the administration did not ask the Supreme Court to review whether. Their efforts to strip birthright citizenship are legal.

Instead, the question they asked the courts to take up is whether it was permissible for the lower courts in these cases to issue nationwide injunctions to prevent the administration from implementing this policy on a nationwide basis, but the practical effect of the court. Ruling against nationwide injunctions here would give the administration ostensibly a green light to implement this policy in large swaths of the United States.

And, uh, we, we will, we are, we are gonna go off on this shit in a second, but I just want to note at the outset that the idea that the court would take up the nationwide injunction issue in this case is utter garbage. One, they had numerous [01:57:00] opportunities to do so when courts were enjoining Biden administration policies, they turned away those efforts, apparently no concern there.

And second, if there is any case in which a nationwide injunction is appropriate, it would be an injunction against the birthright citizenship eo, because how are you going to implement an injunction against that policy on a state by state basis? Determine where people are born and like, can they travel in the United States?

Like it makes no effing sense. Thoughts. 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Who are the four? I took four people to Grant Cert here. Yep. Who do you think they are? 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Well, Gorsuch has been railing against these Yes. Nationwide injunctions for a while. Yeah, I am sure. Gorsuch. 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah. Um, my guess is Justice Thomas. I think he has, uh, indicated rather selective views, um, on the propriety of nationwide injunctions, 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: um, Alito.

'cause this could help the administration, 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: right. Alito, because this could help the administration. And then you probably get a J four right. From one of Brett or Amy [01:58:00] or even the Chiefy. Yeah. And okay, so here, here is my goblin villain. Take on what is happening. Mm-hmm. Um. I think there is a chance and still a greater than 50% chance that the court rules against the Trump administration on these birthright citizenship applications.

So I, I think they're gonna reject the administration's request to narrow the scope of the injunctions in this case. And I think the chief probably and other justices love the idea of buying themselves some goodwill, some credibility and cover for when they inevitably give the administration a green light on a host of other atrocities.

Yeah. Be it refusing to get Mr. Rego Garcia back in the United States. Right. Be it allowing the administration to implement this insane, a EA policy, be it dismantling the administrative state, be it unconstitutionally, coercing law firms, the media educational institutions, like who knows what they're gonna do.

But [01:59:00] my guess is they saw this as kind of like a freebie for them. Hey, guess what? Citizens? We're going to acknowledge that you're citizens. Wait. That, that's literally, you're welcome. The best case scenario to hope for here. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah. I think that's astute and very likely, right. The thing that's hard for me to, to figure is that I think that the credibility that they could buy is only gonna come on the substantive question if, if they're gonna reject, but gonna, the policy people that when the headlines people are not mm-hmm.

Are 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Trump administration gets ruled against, right. Supreme Court rules against Trump administration on birthright citizenship. That's what the headlines are gonna say. Mm-hmm. 

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: The thing I'm worried about is what if that means they're ultimately gonna allow, they're gonna rule against it on this sort of don't rule it out injunction issue rule.

And then next fall, uh, they're gonna have the actual rule it out, actual substantive question, rule and allow, I mean, they can't possibly allow this order in its entirety. They can't allow it to people who are lawfully here and have kids as the order purports to do. And I also think there's the statutory question, which is like whether or not the constitution requires birthright citizenship, which it definitely [02:00:00] does.

Congress has passed laws conferring citizenship. So you can't by executive order, do this anyway. Whatever the constitution has to say about it. Laws are for losers, 

LEAH LITMAN - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Kate.

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Correct? That's true. Constitutions are for tss. Are for 

ALL SPEAKING: suckers.

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah. Yeah. This is some good literation. Ladies. Kate, you and you're reading, why do you keep reading the Constitution 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: as though the

KATE SHAW - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: words matter?

We're, we're reading it and they're reading it. I guess 

MELISSA MURRAY - CO-HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Leah, you, you make an excellent point though about the selectivity of this court antipathy for nationwide injunctions and. I also think it's a really astute point and a clarion call to the media to think about how it chooses to cover this case, because the media will absolutely shape the narrative around what the ultimate disposition of this, and they really have to get it right here.

Bait and Switch Mohsen Mahdawis Citizenship Trap - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 4-18-25

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: what kinds of questions are, are you thinking of? 

MATT CAMERON: I mean, I'm talking to people with residency, people with citizenship who are concerned about potentially, you know, because there's this, been this warning about within the, the last 10 years, I think it's actually supposed to be five, but they're saying if they can prove any, you know, [02:01:00] what, what they call terrorists or antisemitic associations within 10 years, they might come for people's citizenship.

Uh, but just, you know, routine travel. Can I go see my sick mother? You know, should I go to this conference abroad? Is it safe for me just to, to go on vacation? You know, these are people that have had residency for years in some cases. You know, and, and certainly student visas are at more risk than ever, but it's a new world.

We're adjusting to it. But, you know, I do think that this is really sending a message. It's, it's elevating things because it's one thing, you know, and, and what happened to Mahmud, Khalil was, was terrible and should never have happened. But they came to his house, which is a fairly routine way for ice to enforce, uh, for ESA ostrich.

They met her on the street and where they'd been surveilling her, they knew she was going to be, but there's an extra route level of cruelty. Even, even I think, beyond coming to your house to when you think you're gonna be going in to finalize your immigration status as a citizen to cross that final threshold.

And they do it because they know for sure that you're not gonna be armed. For example, you're gonna be going into a federal building, so it's safe to intercept you there. But, uh, I, I do think that it's really sending a message in a, in a way that every one of these arrests is a message. But I think [02:02:00] this one's really deep.

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: So when people are, when people are asking you about what, if anything, they can do in terms of travel, what, what advice, knowing that you're not giving people legal advice, but what are, what are you telling them? Like, what should people know about traveling right now? 

MATT CAMERON: The most important thing is that if you've ever had any contact with the criminal legal system, make sure that you have certified copies of that case.

Because that's, that's the biggest thing that gets people intercepted coming back in. And CBP is relentless about this, even if they know the case was dismissed, even if they've been through this three or four times with you before in secondary screening. So I've been providing letters and certified copies that people need to travel.

You know, assuming that your case is dismissed and that you're, you're safe to travel. Uh, if you do have an, a pending case or you do have a conviction of some kind, you've gotta talk to a lawyer before you even think about traveling. But otherwise, you know, for a lot of my clients who are politically active, have been very active on social media, who've been outspoken, unfortunately, I, I hate to have to tell anybody this, but locking down your social media and just scrubbing your phone, be understanding that they can take your phone at any time when you come back in.

You know, just be prepared for a complete [02:03:00] scouring of your history. You know, I just, I, I can't believe I have to give this advice, but I have to do it. 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: You mentioned that the mode in which the administration is targeting these students is sending a message. What is that message? 

MATT CAMERON: It's a message to student protestors obviously to start with, but it's a message to all of us that our free speech is, is, is a liability, the, the things that we say, and certainly for people who are on student visas, which are very tenuous and ISIS terminating illegally terminating, uh, as far as we can tell, hundreds and hundreds of student visas right now on spurious grounds and almost nothing.

Uh, so I really think that starting with the most vulnerable populations, people that they can easily target for their free speech and then moving down is, is the way to go here for them. And I, I do think that it is a direct message that we are gonna come for people that say things that we don't like. I was posting a couple weeks ago about a client that I had who was disappeared.

There was a, a scholar of, of Russia, who's from Russia, uh, who's, who looks a lot at, at how Russia got to where it is today. And I'm still thinking about what she said because she. Posted this and, and said, [02:04:00] next they'll be coming For the lawyers who speak out next, they'll be coming for the lawyers who complain to the government and to the public about what they're doing to their clients, because that's what happened in Russia.

Not to make it about me, but, uh, it, I never thought that I'd be at all even have to consider liability to myself for doing my job. 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: Right. And, and returning to Malawi's case, I also wanna emphasize that the government is preparing to deport Malawi back to the West Bank where he was born in a refugee camp.

This is what he told, uh, AJ plus a year ago. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: And when I was 12 years old, they killed seven Palestinians from the refugee camp in the middle of the night. I collected their body parts with my own hands. I peeled their skin of the wall. I put their body parts in plastic bags. No child should experience this.

I was 12 years old at that time. 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: It's a truly horrific situation. And we also know that violence against Palestinians continues and has escalated, [02:05:00] particularly in the wake of October 7th. Madi told me that, uh, his father's store was blown up a few months ago in retaliation, and this is a very actively dangerous situation that the government is about to throw him into.

So we know that Mahmud, Khalil and Ru Meza Ozturk, the Tufts grad student you mentioned and and who we spoke about last week with Representative Aana Presley are being held in ice detention in Louisiana. Louisiana holds the second largest number of people after Texas where more than 12,000 people are being held nationwide.

Nearly half of the roughly 50,000 immigrants detained have no criminal record, and many only have minor infractions like traffic violations according to track. So why have Texas and Louisiana become hubs of immigration detention for this administration? 

MATT CAMERON: I've actually been to Louisiana, to central Louisiana where they, uh, Jayna and Oakdale facilities are.

And, uh, I can tell you, well, for one thing, I think it's cheap real estate. Uh, it seems like there's not a lot down [02:06:00] there. So I, it makes sense that they, they purchase these vast tracks of land, but, um, they're also in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. And I, I can't think that's a coincidence that the immigration infrastructure, and this has been coming, I mean, these facilities have been here, I've been doing this since 2006 and, you know, certainly under Bush, they were doing a lot of the same things, moving people around the country in the same way.

Not quite as, uh, dramatically as we're seeing right now. But, you know, this is very intentional that they go to these places where they can offer jobs. And sometimes it's the only form of employment in these areas. And where they're isolated from everybody where there are not attorneys. You know, there certainly is not a thriving immigration bar in Janna, Louisiana and, and or in the other places in Texas where they're holding them.

And you know, I, Congresswoman Pressley last week was, was absolutely right. And she's my congressman one by the way, very proud of her. She was absolutely right to say that these are political prisoners and that they're being treated like political prisoners. People really need to understand that. There are other ways they, they maybe that they could have gotten to this, but, uh, they're, they're taking the hardest possible approach on people for their political [02:07:00] opinions and they're putting 'em in these facilities.

And I can tell you, having been there myself, uh, the, the other thing is that the immigration judges in these facilities are unforgiving. And you can look at their records. They're all available on the TRAC website. You can look at any given immigration judge's outcomes, their asylum grants are pretty bad.

You know, in some cases I, there, there's a judge in New Mexico I was just dealing with who has a hundred percent asylum grant rate denial. From last year just denied every case in front of him. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: Hmm.

MATT CAMERON: And I've been being told that I had a client who was disappeared a couple weeks ago, and I talked to him yesterday.

He said, every single person, you've got people in the facility from all around the world who are all around the country, who have all been sent to this place in New Mexico, and they're all being denied bond, which is, uh, extraordinary. I mean, you can't have a day where you just, you know, a week where you just deny everybody's bond.

You have to have somebody who's eligible for bond. Uh, and of course the government's position is that people charged under these foreign policy grounds that, uh, the three people we've been talking about are, are being charged under, are mandatory detainees. I believe they're saying they can't release them in bond.

So it's just, [02:08:00] it really emphasizes, and, and I I, to the point that I looked up Amnesty International's definition of a prisoner of conscience in, you know, Khalil and, and Auster, and they all meet this definition. I mean, that's, that's to that point. So this is where we're sending them. Now ICE gets the $45 billion that it's looking for.

I don't think that people understand what that's going to look like. Even Trump voters I don't think are prepared for what it's gonna look like when immigration, unfortunately, is that involved in our lives. 

SECTION C: VENEZUELA AND EL SALVADOR

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C, Venezuela and El Salvador.

We Said Farewell Lessons from the Venezuelan Diaspora for Todays America with Amanda Quintero Aguerrevere Part 1 - Secular Left - Air Date 4-2-25

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Now, at this time, this time period where they, where, where this was happening, did the Venezuelan government let people leave or did you, or did they always have to do it through illegal means? 

AMANDA QUINTERO: No, actually a lot of people went through legal means. So when people started leaving at first, um, the very first wave is with the first story, which is people who worked for the oil industry and, and similar, a lot of those [02:09:00] people ended up moving to other o uh, petroleum hubs.

So there's a lot of Venezuelans in Houston, Texas. There's a lot of Venezuelans in Calgary in Canada. A lot of them in the Gulf. Uh, so that was the first immigration wave, mostly legal. Then eventually in 2016 there was a ma a default, and it start, people start pouring out. So a lot, a lot of middle class.

Went out kind of like me to, to do a master's with the excuse of getting a job, but most of it was legal. And then within the, the South American continent, it was also legal because Venezuela used to be part of me sour, I don't dunno if you're aware of it, but it's kind of like one of those regional, um, organizations.

And one of the things that they had was. Work per immediate work permits as soon as they immigrated. So a lot of people when they left, they were legal migrants [02:10:00] because they were within the me sur Then Mer Seur invalidated Venezuela because they hadn't, they didn't pay their, their dues and of course, like the whole authoritarian regime, et cetera.

And that's when the illegal immigration started happening. Um, basically because since the economy collapsed. The economy shrunk by a factor of five, something like that. So the real impact was a famine, an unrecognized famine when I moved out. We were seeing people, like families foraging in, in the parks, just like going to parks and picking fruit, or going to garbage cans and picking out, uh, food rests because there was not, there were not enough supplies out in the market, and so people had a choice between staying and.

Basically [02:11:00] facing hunger or leaving, and, and at that point when it's that violent people must leave. And so that's, that's when it start to be a, a humanitarian crisis. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: You, uh, have a background in economics and one of the drivers of, uh, political upheaval is income inequality between, uh, the country's business people and the government leadership and the, and the regular people.

Do you have any insights on how best to address that kind of inequality for other people? 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Inequality, is it, it, it looks different in every country. Um. So it's very difficult to, to give like a one silver bullet answer. The, the bottom line is that the reason why Chavez got to where he was, the, the president got to where he was is because there was a lot of inequality and a lot of people felt [02:12:00] that something had to change because no matter what they did.

They were falling back and they, no matter how many jobs they had, how many eights they had, they couldn't afford basic living. And the promise that was made as some other people have made was very similar. We're gonna lower the price of eggs and we're gonna lower the price of milk, and we're gonna lower the prices of this and that, and we're gonna, and for a time it happened, but through very controversial means.

And a problem that's faced with this kind of Soviet left socialism, which is what they attempt to implement very like a Soviet style of, of central planning, is that they, they broke the market, they broke market mechanisms. And with that on the [02:13:00] moment like. When as, as soon as oil prices went down, which is what was feeding the redistribution mechanism went out, the entire thing collapsed, and whatever gains were done in trying to reduce inequalities were magnified because now you had tons and tons and tons of people fully depending on a system that was unsustainable.

Um, and just left to in free fall. Basically, they were left in free fall in, in a, in a crash that was extremely similar to the fall of the former Soviet unions in East Europe. Like the, the parallels when you study the economics are very similar, so. Inequality is not the same everywhere, but it always creates a political problem because the majority feel [02:14:00] that there's no matter, like no matter what they do, they don't have enough.

And that fuels this sensation that you need a strong man to come and fix it. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Yeah. Especially when you have somebody that is, uh, lusting for power and uses that to their advantage. Right. I. 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Absolutely, because it's very easy to make promises. It's extremely easy to make promises. However, once they get to power, at least in majority of cases.

They usually don't do. The only thing that truly changes the situation, which is raise taxes on the richest people that that is, I mean, there's a limited amount of resources, there's a whole discourse about this, et cetera. But when you have enormous inequality and you have to buy social peace, you have to get that money from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually taxes.

And if [02:15:00] the richest people are not paying taxes. There's no way for redistribution, and it's a myth that the, the, the bottom 90% of G are gonna be able to make it through, through market mechanisms. So it's very easy to come and say, yes, we're gonna lower the prices. But yeah, exactly. How, how is it, are you gonna make transfers?

Like, are you gonna, are you gonna pay the x are gonna subsidize things? 'cause if you're not, then there's very little evidence that you're gonna be able to do it. 

Venezuelan Crisis The Long History Of U.S. Intervention - AJ - Air Date 2-12-19

NARRATOR, AJ+: What exactly is the US up to in Venezuela? A New York Times report from 2018 claims that the Trump administration held secret meetings in 2017 with Venezuelan military officers to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicholas Maduro. That would not have been the first time a US administration has meddled in Venezuela's affairs.

In fact, US involvement in Venezuela dates back decades. 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Well, it's not new. As, as, uh, um, the history record proves the US has sought regime change in Venezuela. Since the [02:16:00] election of Ugo Chaz, 

MARK WEISBROT: this has been going on a long time. I think the main difference is that the Trump administration is much more aggressive about it and open about it, 

NARRATOR, AJ+: but you can't talk about US intervention in Venezuela or even Latin America without mentioning in nearly 200 year old policy.

Called the Monroe Doctrine. 

MARK WEISBROT: To put it simply, it basically declared that the United States had a kind of supremacy in this hemisphere, 

NARRATOR, AJ+: originally designed to block European powers, claiming colonies in Latin America. The Monroe doctrine was later interpreted to mean the US also claimed the right to overrule the democratic process on the continent through invasions, coups, and CIA covert operations.

MARK WEISBROT: The United States is an empire, and so if you're an empire. You want as many countries as possible to line up with you. And so the, the pawns matter, uh, as well, in, in a chess game 

NARRATOR, AJ+: in 2013, secretary of State, John Kerry [02:17:00] announced the end of the Monroe Doctrine. 

CLIP: Many years ago, the United States dictated a policy that defined the hemisphere for many years after.

We've moved past that era, 

NARRATOR, AJ+: but how true is that statement? 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: It never ended. In terms of foreign policy, there is very little difference between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans on the matter of exercise of US foreign power In Latin America, we've had coups supported by Democrats and we've had coups supported by Republicans.

NARRATOR, AJ+: Venezuela also checks another key box of reasons for US intervention. Oil. Venezuela's petroleum production reached an all time high in 1970. A few years later in 1976, the industry was nationalized. 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Venezuela has some of the largest deposits of oil in the world, and potentially that oil could be of great asset, as Mr.

Bolton has said. Uh, if American companies are able to exploit it. Venezuela was always seen as a very willing ally and also as a constant [02:18:00] supply of oil. 

NARRATOR, AJ+: But beyond Oil, the US was desperate to prevent this former ally from becoming a socialist state. 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Venezuela was the beginning of a radical political change in Latin America.

Beginning in 1998, Venezuela went from being the model democracy, the preferred option that the US promoted in Latin America, a pacted democracy that always supported the US to being its nemesis. When the election of Ugo Chavez who promoted regional integration, uh, national sovereignty. Nationalism and an alternative to the US promotion of free trade and neoliberalism in Latin America.

NARRATOR, AJ+: Huga Chavez's election was particularly concerning for the us. He not only sought to use Venezuela's oil wealth to fund healthcare, education, and other benefits for the poor. But he also aligned with Cuba's, Fidel Castro, Washington's longtime nemesis in Latin America. 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: So in that sense, Venezuela becomes a thorn in the side of the us.

And you add to that, that the election of Chavez [02:19:00] in Venezuela was quickly followed by Lula in Brazil, the, uh, kiers in Argentina, corre and Ecuador, Morales and Bolivia Basha in Chile. And you saw a change in the geopolitical, uh, character in the landscape of Latin America. And that's threatened the US as hegemony.

So that what's happening now in many cases is an effort to recoup that hegemony and Venezuela is, is part of that effort to recover the US' control and power. 

NARRATOR, AJ+: In 2002, after 18, people were killed in an anti-government protest. Venezuelan military officers and opposition leaders staged a coup to overthrow President Chavez, US government officials serving under George W.

Bush at the time denied having any prior knowledge of the coup. While American officials said they would not support any extra constitutional moves to Alt Chavez. 

MARK WEISBROT: There were CIA documents that were made public that showed that the United States government had advanced knowledge of the coup.[02:20:00] 

NARRATOR, AJ+: Intervention doesn't always rely on force. President Trump announced sanctions on Venezuela's. State-run oil industry in an effort to press for change in the country. 

CLIP: What we're focusing on today is disconnecting the illegitimate Maduro regime from the sources of its revenues. 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Well, I, I think that from the very beginning, the US policy towards Venezuela has been one of isolating Venezuela.

This was under the Bush Obama, and now Trump administration, Venezuela depends on oil for about 95%. Of its export earnings, it takes oil profits, purchases, food, brings it back to the country for sale. That means it can be easily intervened and can be easily up upended. So sanctions means that the country no longer can, on many levels, be able to utilize its foreign assets to buy food and bring it home.

Sanctions also means it can't renegotiate its debt. Sanction also means it can't buy on the international market. 

NARRATOR, AJ+: After the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, his former Deputy Nicholas Maduro took power. Since [02:21:00] then, Venezuela has been rocked by political, financial, and humanitarian crises, and ordinary Venezuelans are bearing the brunt of.

All of them. The country is facing hyperinflation, poverty and food shortage. People are struggling to afford basic necessities, including medicine. 3 million Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries like Columbia and Brazil while Maduro blames the US critics, including many former supporters and officials of Hugo Chavez, blame corruption and poor governance.

President Trump took advantage of the chaos and division in Venezuela to throw his support behind the self-declared interim President Juan Huo. Keep in mind that the US' involvement in Venezuela fits a long-term pattern of US intervention in Latin American politics. 

MARK WEISBROT: So you have a long history of US intervention in the region and it's very anti-democratic, very often supported dictatorships.

And in the 21st century, it was mostly against these. [02:22:00] Left governments who were more interested in independence and self-determination than the prior governments that were close to the us. 

NARRATOR, AJ+: The Trump administration has now called on veteran foreign policy advisor Elliot Abrams, to act as special envoy on Venezuela.

Abrams certainly has experienced in the region, but that experience has not necessarily been in promoting democracy throughout the 1980s. He was a key figure in organizing the Reagan administration's support. For dictators and death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua, he pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of misdemeanor for withholding information from Congress about illegal US funding for right wing Nicaragua and paramilitaries, the Iran Contra affair.

MARK WEISBROT: The selection of Elliot Abrams shows that it's very similar to what they were doing in the 1980s when they were trying to overthrow the elected government of, of Nicaragua, and there was so much resistance to it, uh, by the way, in [02:23:00] the United States, that the Reagan administration had to end up. Funding the Contras illegally with the arm sales to Iran.

This is the neocons like, uh, John Bolton coming back and just trying to do the same thing all over again. 

NARRATOR, AJ+: I. Whatever the intentions of the United States, the opposition to Maduro is growing and popular. Years of economic mismanagement, corruption, and authoritarian repression of the media and political opposition has drawn even many supporters of Hugo Chavez onto the streets.

To demand that the government step down. So is it possible to want change in Venezuela but oppose us involvement in the country? 

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: I agree there needs to be change in Venezuela, but the Venezuelans have to decide that it's a very slippery slope when we go down, uh, having the US become the arbitrary of internal politics and any [02:24:00] country. 

We Said Farewell Lessons from the Venezuelan Diaspora for Todays America with Amanda Quintero Aguerrevere Part 2 - Secular Left - Air Date 4-2-25

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. You know, it is, this is a novel. So these stories are fictionalized, but they are based on real experiences of friends of yours or people that you knew.

Correct. 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Correct. So technically it's five short stories. It's not one novel because the stories go in chronological order, but they are not intertwined. So you finish one, you start something else. Oh, okay. Um, but it is a long read. It is 300 pages long, so it does read like a novel, uh, because it exists in the same universe.

However, they are about 80% true story. I, I took stories that were very real and I just fictionalized them for the purpose of entertainment, for making the, the reading more, more pleasant. But yeah, I would say the bulk of the information is true story. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Now you said you recently moved for France, but you lived there for uh, many years.

Yeah. Were you involved, was [02:25:00] there like a Venezuelan community ex pack community? That, uh, you got to know there really, there's not a 

AMANDA QUINTERO: very, no, there's not a very big link between Venezuela and France. Um, of course at the end of the day you find each other just because, you know, someone is a cousin of someone or someone is a friend of someone.

So I did have my small community of Venezuelan friends, but for the most part, there's not even a very big Latino community in France. Their, their majority of their immigration comes from their former colonies, which is Africa and somewhat in the Middle East. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Yeah, that is weird. That's strange. 'cause France does have a big presence in South America, so that's, that's weird.

AMANDA QUINTERO: Commercially. My, my, but not politically. It's not a, it's not a close tie. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Uh, which of the stories that you wrote about in your book were the hardest to write? From a personal standpoint? And were, and were any of them close to your own experience? 

AMANDA QUINTERO: [02:26:00] I would, I think so. It's, there's five of them. Number two and number four were probably the hardest to write because.

Actually, because they were so distant from my own experience, the first, the, the second one is the Chronicle of a Kidnapping, so it's a minute to minute recount of a kidnapping for ransom. So it's extremely violent. That one was. Excruciating to write because you have to place yourself in the skin of someone who is kidnapped and how would you face the situation.

Although the person who recounted the story in person remembered a lot of details, so it saved me from from Fictionalizing a lot. And the fourth one. I think it was the most painful because that one is about a political prisoner that ends up in a torture center. Mm-hmm. So it is a heartbreaking story of a person that I, I knew before, um, like long before he ended up in [02:27:00] that situation.

And I, I would've never imagined that something like this would happen to him. And. It was so difficult for him to tell the story that I had to come up with ways to tell it that were from second sources. So like reading in the newspapers or looking at a lot of, um, documentaries and, and trying to capture that.

So there was a lot of trying to imagine being in, in, in prison unjustly. Uh. Actually without due process and that, that was so difficult to write. Honestly, that was the, the one that took me the longest. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: Okay. People don't have an understanding that, that in a lot of these authoritarian regimes, uh, people disappear is what they call it.

That's what know Chile, they did it and, and Argentina. They've done it. Yeah. You know, all these oppressive regimes, they disappear. People. 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Correct.

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: And so that's pretty much what happened with [02:28:00] Vene in Venezuela, that people would just disappear or did they actually know that they were eventually, 

AMANDA QUINTERO: yes. So this, this, the fourth story that I'm talking about is titled, uh, Hugo is the name of the character that one is about, as a person who disappeared, actually, they didn't disappear in the sense that.

Their family knew that the government had taken them because they went into their home at four in the morning, abducted him from his house, and then didn't tell anyone where he was for weeks until they bribed enough officers that they found out where they were. But this became a standard practice, um, and also taking people from, from street protests.

So yes, they, they did became, they did, they, they haven't been understood as. De, which is what you call that, but it is. It is exactly what was, what was happening at that point. And I think it calmed down mostly because people got so scared that they're no longer protesting the way they used [02:29:00] to. But probably if people went out and tried to confront the government again, it would happen again.

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: And I think there's a lot of Americans that believe that they'll be protected if they get arrested. Protesting. It's like it's, it can happen. Uh, you know, like that, that 

AMANDA QUINTERO: You mean in, in the states or elsewhere? Yeah. 'cause in the story there is an American who for whatever reason, went and married a Venezuelan woman and found himself in this prison.

Um, and it took years before the American government could take him out. Right. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: And, and Americans just think that due process is everywhere and it's like, Nope. 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Yeah. Well, the due process part is very key in this, in this part of the story because the study case that you could, you could take from my book is that an authoritarian regime came in and dismantled the [02:30:00] due, like the, the rule of law bit by bit and.

15 years later, which is when this story happens, the the fourth one that we're talking about, due process is no longer. Existing. So this guy spends, I dunno, six months in jail and eventually a friend of his realizes that they, there's not even a case against him, he's just been abducted and he's kidnapped by the government.

But there is no due process. Therefore, there's nothing to do with lawyers. Lawyers have no resources to taking a him out of jail. And it becomes a political negotiation. He actually ends up leaving jail because there is, uh, a pact that happens with the opposition party. 

DOUG BERGER - HOST, SECULAR LEFT: And then we juxtapose that with Ruben's story.

The first story where the protesting gets, gets him put on a list. 

AMANDA QUINTERO: Yeah. And basically he can't work. So actually book is an escalation. Sorry. Yeah. [02:31:00] The book is an escalation. So the first one is gonna be Reuben, who is, um, a young guy who's in college. Very typical that college kids are gonna be very present in protests, anti-government protests everywhere around the world.

Students tend to be quite left and liberal anywhere in the world. Um, things are happening. And he signed a petition to impeach the precedent. I. This gets him blacklisted for life. Uh, and he discovers later down the line that he's never gonna be able to find a government. Job, like he gets blacklisted from federal jobs.

He gets blacklisted from the oil industry, which in Venezuela is a national industry. And he was studying in, uh, petroleum engineering. So imagine a petroleum engineering person who will never be able to work for the state. It just becomes impossible for him, uh, to imagine a future in Venezuela. And then that's.

That, that's one of the first building [02:32:00] blocks. It just escalates throughout the book into the dismantling of the state. 

Bukele Goes To Washington w. Roberto Lovato Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-20-25

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: You mentioned the CIA and its current involvement in El Salvador's politics, but. It's the, it did not obviously begin there. Uh, the United States sent billions of dollars in military aid to El Salvador's government in the eighties, and it was a violent, repressive regime. If you could give us a little bit of that history as we lead into explaining how bou Kelly fits into that history, uh, that would be great.

Yeah. 

ROBERTO LOVATO: Uh, El Salvador was for the better part of the 20th century, one of the longest standing military dictatorships. In, in the world, in the hemisphere and in the world. And, um, it's always, it is always been as well. The one of a, it was the first place to launch a a, an indigenous in communist insurrection against dictatorship in the Americas in 1932.

When, [02:33:00] approximately 32,000, I mean, I'm sorry, approximately somewhere between 10 to 50,000. We still don't know. Because the memory of that has been erased in official records. Um, people were killed by their own government. And so the, the violence and murder of El Salvador has ingrained itself in the political and even the social culture of El Salvador, where, for example, um, dictatorship after DIC was continually torturing, killing.

Uh, disappearing, uh, exiling and, and, and, and perpetuating other actions to terrorize their way into domination. So, in the sixties and in the fifties and sixties, you start seeing the birth of groups following Ceva and Fidel Castro in the Americas that were revolutionary mostly Marxist Leninist.

Revolutionary organizations that eventually in 19, in the 1980s [02:34:00] became the Faro Martin National Liberation Front

and the FMLN, uh, waged a, uh, a successful war to dismantle the military dictatorship, sadly. Um. And tragically, the FMLN did not retool itself for the digital age, the analog age Marus, Leninist political military structures, uh, did not get upgraded for, for, for, for the world that Silicon Valley created. And so, um, eventually you get in the nineties, um, the right wing fascist arena party instituting what's known as manura.

Smart hand politics in response to the gang problem that was growing after the war because, uh, Bush administration, one, attorney General Bill Barr, started targeting gangs in the [02:35:00] US making up until that time, the most, the largest shift in, in, uh, FBI resources, from counter counterintelligence to focus on gangs.

19 in, in 1992. In response to LA Riots, he also began the practice of deporting gang members to El Salvador and then the rest of Central America. A region rife with ruins and perfectly fit to grow US style, LA style gang structures like the Mexican mafia. So that's where you get MS 13 and 18th Street growing out of the rotten soil of US policy in the US of deportations of, of de, of deportations and gang policing.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right. Right. So they fed one another. Right. And I guess it created almost a cycle of. You have, uh, sorry to cut you off here, Roberto, but it's such a key point. [02:36:00] MS. 13 originating in the US prison system informing deportation policies, sending those folks back to El Salvador, building up their resources and creating, almost strengthening them, but also tying in us kind of gang policing into the immigration.

Uh, carceral state that's so key in the nineties and into the two thousands. 

ROBERTO LOVATO: Oh, and that you, you're right on point, Emma. In addition to that, you see the kinda robocop of US policing and El Salvador's actual influence on it. You had people like a guy named, uh, the late maximum warring who a former, uh, US, Pentagon, uh, Colonel, uh, who and strategist.

And, um, you know, professor, a distinguished professor in the US Army College, uh, you know, uh, starting his career [02:37:00] focusing on insurgency, counter insurgent in, in El Salvador after the war, men warring. What does men warring do? He goes and he, uh, starts looking at gangs as the new insurgency and starts framing gangs.

As, as insurgency, there's a line that runs from that kind of thinking to the terrorist language you see being used today. And you then some of the 50, some of the many trainers that the US sent to El Salvador after the war ended in 1992 went where to San Francisco, la, New York to train US police forces in counterinsurgency.

And then you have, you know, over the years, US presidents, including Obama for example, heavily militarizing US police. So you have in El Salvador an outsized, a tiny country with an outsized, [02:38:00] uh, contributions to the militarization of the United States itself. Mm-hmm. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And even the militarization of the police.

That's an outgrowth of the War on Terror, which is where we come full circle of the classifying of these folks as terrorists, because we did the same thing. Uh, with the mujahideen. We know that the United States has enabled. Far right governments not just in, uh, south Amer or Latin America, but also in the Middle East.

Um, and then that's come back to bite us because they become the, well, maybe not even bite us, but it, it benefits these people because then the military budget increases and the surveillance state increases. And this is a new group of people, uh, to go after. It's just a completely. Incongruent policy if you actually care about safety and not just the carceral state and, uh, making some money like that, that it, [02:39:00] it creates cycles of violence, is really what I'm saying.

Um mm-hmm. And it doesn't seem like there's, we're just, we're diving even further into, um, just a more digitized version of that policy. You, you write about it as a. Digitized neoliberal 21st century sista, which is so, uh, well said. Like, how, how does that look when you bring in the surveillance technology piece?

ROBERTO LOVATO: Well, it looks like things you see in sci-fi movies. I don't, you know, I don't teach sci-fi writing, but I'm a fan of sci-fi writing in sci-fi movies. One of my favorite being The Matrix. You're living in the Matrix right now in many ways, as far as the stimulation of reality. What takes place in the White House right now between Buke and Trump is an entire stimulation.

When you have this terrorist language being applied indiscriminately and and without any basis in reality, when you, when you're gonna start seeing it, extend the [02:40:00] brand of terror, the terrorist brand, into different groups that are gonna include many of us unless we build something else that El Salvador has to teach us, which is our, the social movements.

That can, that are the only things that are gonna be able to challenge the rise of fascism. We're not gonna liberal progressive our way out of climate change techno fascism. We simply, it's proven time and again in, in the case of El Salvador, in the case of gangs, in the case of immigration, for example, immigration by the way, being the, uh, the royal road that leads to fascism, not just in the US but throughout the world.

Right. In Europe and other and, and even in the Americas. Um, in, in the case of these, the, the, the, the, this escalation of this, this, this techno fascist practice, we're gonna have to build the social movements that kind of include elements of liberal, progressive. We're gonna have to be [02:41:00] a little more radical and to the left of that, if we're to, to get through this.

Trumps Deportation Black Hole Part 2 - Reveal - Air Date 4-12-25

NOAH LANARD: So. I wanna start by asking you about this mega Prison Sea Cot. It was built after Buel declared a state of emergency in 2022 to deal with violent gangs which were controlling large parts of the country.

The government suspended some civil liberties, including the right to do process now. Given all of this, what are conditions like in that prison? 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: This mega prison is a poster child of our prison system. It's a high security prison built allegedly to exclusively hold gang members. It has been heavily used by Que propaganda machine producing, as you might have seen, highly professional videos in which every single image.

He's meticulously taken care of. So if you see something from that prison, it is because the regime wants to to see it. [02:42:00] 

NOAH LANARD: Some people have described this mega prison as, as basically a black hole. Is that accurate? 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: I think it is a good description. No one can enter this prison. Relatives of the prisoners cannot visit them.

They are not allowed to receive anything from outside. Um. According to President Belli, they don't see the light of the sun ever, and they are kept behind bars for most of the day. Um, this is what we know from the Salvadoran authorities because we cannot enter this prison. And right now, this situation is not exceptional.

It's the same situation for the other 32 prisons. 

NOAH LANARD: It sounds like from your reporting, the director of this prison system is somewhat 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: notorious, the director of the Salvadoran Prison System, a man called O Luna has been sanctioned by the US State Department and also by the Treasury Department. Even the El Salvador Police [02:43:00] Intelligence unit has described him as an important piece of a criminal organization that distributes drugs.

His administration of the prison system has brought back systematic torture to our prisons, something we thought was part of our most painful past. 

NOAH LANARD: One thing that El Farro reported is it wasn't just Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador. Who else was on those planes? 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: As far as we know, there are at least four different categories of people that came in those first three flights.

One Venezuelan suspects of belonging to the trend. Crime organization, two Venezuelan undocumented migrants, completely unrelated to this criminal organization. Three Salvadoran undocumented migrants, and four Salvadoran members of the EMS 13 gang, including at least one gang boss who was preparing to stand trial in the United States.

NOAH LANARD: And I gather this [02:44:00] is important because of reporting El Farro did about Bke and the deal he made with the MS 13 gang. 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: That's right. Bke made a secret agreement with the gangs five years ago that helped his party win elections. In exchange. Mr. Bke free. Some of the gang of bosses, including a few required by the United States for extradition.

Some of those freed by Bke were recaptured in Mexico and sent to the United States where they are expected to disclose all the details of their pacs with the bouquet administration. We also know that when Mr. Buke offered Secretary Rubio to receive deportes and criminals. He also demanded that the gang bosses were also sent back to El Salvador, and at least one of them was sent to El Salvador in those first flights.

NOAH LANARD: Carlos, as I understand it, it was El Salvador's ambassador to the US who said Quele asked for those gang leaders to be deported. I guess the idea [02:45:00] here is that if you put them in a jail in El Salvador, then they can't tell their secrets. 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: That's that's what we think. As you know, MS 13 is considered a terrorist organization in the United States.

If the trial in New York proves Mr. Buchel deals with them, it could potentially be very damaging since it would mean that he had illegal deals with a terrorist organization and also illegally freed some of the terrorist organization leaders. So what happened to the charges that the US had against them?

We only know of one, because we saw him in the images of the deportees that arrived to El Salvador. In this specific case of this one single person, we found documentation where the, the Justice Department instructs the attorney assigned to the case to ask the judge to dismiss the charges against this gang leader in order for him to be deported.[02:46:00] 

NOAH LANARD: Let me ask you a question, just pulling away from the prison a, a, a little bit. Yeah. The Trump administration has praised Bule for slashing crime in El Salvador, and yet, just two years ago, the State Department cited reports of arbitrary killings, forced disappearances and torture. Is the Trump administration ignoring this evidence, or is there something in B'S harsh policies that they connect with?

JOSEPH GIARDINA: I can't answer that. I think you know much more about the nature of Mr. Trump's administration. What I can say is that Mr. Belli has been very successful in grabbing power and still keep his high popularity. He still enjoys after almost six years in power, a popularity that, um, comes around 75% depending on the polls.

So that makes him. A very attractive person for all the people in these extreme rightist movements all over the world. [02:47:00] 

NOAH LANARD: So for your typical Salvadorian, life is better because of the moves that he's made. 

JOSEPH GIARDINA: Mr. Buel has effectively taken the gangs out of the communities of Salvadorian people and lowered the murder rate in the country.

So life is apparently better, but. We know how in exchange for this so-called security, one person or one group of people is grabbing power, dismantling democracy, and there's no more accountability. There's no more checks and balances. There's a lot of violence still in Alor, but now it's being inflicted by the authorities.

Police and the army now can make arrests without a judge's order and hold anyone in prison almost. Indefinitely. 70,000 people have been detained in these years, which makes El Salvador the country with the highest rate of incarcerated population even above the United States. I don't know of any experience when only through [02:48:00] repression you really canceled a violence that has grown out of a society that is not functioning.

Let me quote Archbishop Romero, who was killed in El Salvador in 1980. He used to say, violence will not be eradicated unless we address it root causes, and we have to know that gangs are just. The most radical, the most horrible and the most violent expression of a dysfunctional society. But if we don't address the causes that built a fertile ground for these.

Young kids to become so violent, then we are not solving any problem. 

SECTION D: RESISTANCE

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D resistance. 

Mr. Abrego Garcia Part 2 - Main Justice - Air Date 4-15-25

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: But to be clear, to go back to some things that they can do, this is something that can be found to be civil [02:49:00] contempt. Yeah. That is contempt of a judge's order.

The judge then can use the refusal to answer as an inference against the government in terms of finding facts. And just as an example, we saw that with Judge Barrell Howell in the Rudy Giuliani case, where he violated multiple discovery orders. And so they were sanctions that included findings against him because he hadn't complied, so they can use it in the case.

They can also, as you said, impose fines on the government. If the contempt is found to be personal, they can impose it on the person. They can also, if it's serious enough, they can actually impose jail as a civil contempt remedy. The idea is that you jail somebody until they comply with the order. And that is something that can be ordered if a judge finds that.

I actually dealt with that a lot when I was dealing with organized crime work as a government prosecutor. I dealt with the sort of [02:50:00] various issues that come up when a mobster refuses to testify without a valid privilege. There can be fines, there can be jail terms, and then if it's a lawyer who's doing this, there can be ramifications in terms of their bar license.

With referrals. So there are tools in the arsenal. It is just so rare to see when you're dealing with the government. That's right. Because the government has an obligation, obviously, as an oath of office. They have a duty of candor as the Chief Justice has said. I mean, you know, a court order is, you know, is something you comply with and then if you disagree with it, you can appeal it.

So we may again get to that 'cause we're dealing with the same thing before Judge Boberg. So this is a good segue to speaking about the Judge Bosberg case, because people remember that the decision from the Supreme Court there that said these people are entitled. To a due process hearing [02:51:00] before the deprivation.

That is before being removed. But the issue that the court split on was whether it has to be habeas or whether it had to be the Administrative Procedures Act and said it has to be done by habeas. Well, what happened? What happened was the plaintiffs read that and complied with it. Filed habeas. Exactly.

So they filed habeas in New York. In Texas. Why in those two locations? Because that's where the plaintiffs were that were being represented. The original five plaintiffs. Exactly. So two of the plaintiffs, 'cause they had counsel, were able to be taken off the plane and didn't end up in El Salvador. And so they were.

Housed in are housed in New York. So the habeas was filed in New York and the judge there, what did he do? He issued a stay. 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: The TRO, like you cannot deport these people. He issued a class certification too. Not for the nation. For anybody in the Southern District of New York who's either currently in detention or will [02:52:00] be in detention, cannot be deported without notice of an opportunity to be heard.

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Right. Which is totally in compliance with the Supreme Court's decision. Exactly. And you know what people were thinking when that decision from the Supreme Court came down, oh, it's a ruse to get it to Texas. And you know that's a favorable venue for the government. Well, guess what happened, Mary, when the habeas was filed in Texas, temporary 

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: restraining order class certification applicable there in the Southern district of Texas.

I think it was the Southern District Brownsville. Yes. That's about almost as far south as you can go. 

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Yep.

MARY MCCORD - CO-HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: Same thing. Temporary restraining order. You cannot deport these people without notice and an opportunity to be heard. I will also say both judges ordered, they can't be transferred either. Without noticing an opportunity to be heard so that you can't pull some shenanigans.

It's like, okay, we're not gonna give you notice in New York, so we're gonna quickly transfer you someplace else so that it's almost like a whack-a-mole. Anytime we transfer you, as soon as you file habeas there, oh, you're not there anymore. Right? So it's kind of like. Don't move these people until they get hearings.

That [02:53:00] was like the next day after the Supreme Court too. It was so fast. 

ANDREW WEISMAN - HOST, MAIN JUSTICE: This is good news. In terms of what you are seeing, I wanna make sure people understand this, is you are seeing judges across the country, judges appointed by, as we've talked about on this podcast, judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans, including judges appointed by Donald Trump.

Upholding the rule of law. And so there is good news here in terms of what the courts are doing in terms of upholding what's going on, but it is a real sign of where the administration is that you're seeing this sort of uniform, almost uniform sort of resistance to the law breaking.

Bait and Switch Mohsen Mahdawis Citizenship Trap Part 2 - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 4-18-25

TOWNHALL CLIP: Hopefully this will happen is I will get my citizenship. 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: That's Mos Kay Madi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University. I spoke with him the night before his scheduled interview with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. [02:54:00] 

TOWNHALL CLIP: I've been waiting for this interview to be scheduled, uh, for over a year 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: after a decade living in the us Madi, a green card holder was prepared.

He had studied for the test. He was ready to swear the oath, and he was hopeful he'd walk out of that meeting. A naturalized citizen 

TOWNHALL CLIP: proof that I understand what the Constitution is about, what is the democracy of this, uh, in this country is about what is the rights of people in this country about? Then I, after passing the test, I hope that I would do.

The Pledge of Allegiance and I will come out of there as a citizen with rights. 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: But Madi, a leader of the campus protest movement against Israel's war on Gaza, also knew the risks. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: The second option is I may get out of there with handcuffs as detained [02:55:00] person with no rights taken to ICE detention Center 

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: On Monday, Madi went to his citizenship interview, but instead of grinding him citizenship, immigration agents arrested him.

He now faces deportation to the occupied West Bank. He's the ninth Columbia student, targeted for deportation as the Trump administration revokes over a thousand student visas, including for many students who had no connection to pro-Palestine protests. The targeting of pro-Palestine voices and international students is part of a broader crackdown.

It's part of a mass deportation campaign that disregards individual's legal status or rights and punishes them for constitutionally protected speech. To discuss Malawi's case, I'm joined by his representative rep, Becca Ballant, the Democratic Congresswoman for Vermont. Welcome to the Show Rep Balance.

Thank you for having me. So to start, can you tell me how your office first became aware of Malawi's situation? 

REP. BECCA BALINT: We first [02:56:00] became aware because a local um, rep, so a house rep in our state legislature was there with Maxima. Mei because she knows him and, um, was there hoping that what was happening was the last citizenship hurdle, essentially taking the citizenship test.

And so she was there in real time posting about what was happening. And then of course, you know, we were getting updates as well to the office. And the thing that is incredibly shocking about this particular instance is that the. The reasons that are being given by the Secretary of State Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security, uh, Christie Nome is that his, his statements, his beliefs that in some way he is a danger to, to us interests.

Okay. Like we can unpack that for a very long time, which is completely in total, you know, BS on so many [02:57:00] levels. But this is a, this is a man who was an outspoken critic of people who were being, uh, violent in, in their protest. He's a Buddhist, he is someone who spoke out against antisemitism. He said the, the struggle against antisemitism and the struggle for people to have a free Palestine are one and the same.

It is about freedom of, of both peoples and the fact that he, they're saying that that. That somebody who is speaking about peace, who has relationships with Israeli students on campus, he was building those bridges that somehow he is a danger. I mean, it just gives up the entire, the entire scam of, of what is happening here.

This is about power, it's about control. It is about people using this idea of lawlessness and the people themselves who are using that idea, the Trump administration, they themselves are the lawless ones. It is so perverse [02:58:00] and I, I, Vermonters, are completely outraged by this as they should be. And they're connecting the dots here.

Couple dots. They're connecting the dots of if this can happen to someone like Max Modally, it can happen to anyone because they're not giving people due process. They're not giving them access to their attorneys. They're not telling them what they're being charged with and. It is this incredible, uh, distraction from their own lawlessness and the fact that we are economies in free fall.

Like that's how craven it is. That's how crass it is. They are playing to a base of people who delight in cruelty at this point, to distract from the fact that this president is failing on so many other fronts and they're using people as their pawns. It's disgusting, it's inhumane. It is illegal. It is just, you know, so depressing about this is where we are as a nation.

MAKAYLA LACEY - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: [02:59:00] This is a good segue into the letter that you led on Wednesday. Sent to the Department of Homeland Security and to the Department of State demanding answers on the government's quote, abduction of madi. I'll just say it was notable, at least for me, to see that kind of language being used by members of Congress.

Um, I'll quote from the letter masked hooded men in plain clothes removed Mr. Madi. He was then handcuffed and taken into an unmarked van from the U-S-C-I-S office in Colchester, Vermont. All Americans should be chilled by this action taken straight out of dystopian fiction. Yes. So to start, why did you think, you know, a lot of people, you know, months into the Trump administration have been asking, where are Democrats?

What are Democrats doing? Why did you think it was important to send this letter right now? 

REP. BECCA BALINT: My gosh, so many reasons. Um. Where to begin? For me, I mean, I think it's important for, for me to speak about my own family's history in this. Mm-hmm. So my grandfather, um, layup Pol Ballant, [03:00:00] he was, uh, a victim of the Holocaust and my family experienced people, uh, you know, ratting them out as, as Jews, ratting them out, as, as dangers, you know, a danger to, to society, and that this is an inflection point from our country.

This is about our courage and this is about our ethical values. Not just as a nation of laws, but also also as human beings. And it is dystopian for at the, in the same breath that they are saying that Harvard University, Columbia University, they need to sign these agreements that there will be no masks on campus.

They themselves are sending their own brown shirts. You know this, this essentially paramilitary army. You know, masked, hooded, can't identify them if they're so proud of what they're doing, then show your damn face, then show your [03:01:00] id, then talk about what grounds you are holding this person. But it's being done in secret and it is meant to shock and awe and to get the rest of us to remain silent.

They have no evidence. They have no details, which is what we're demanding of both Secretary Rubio and Secretary Nome. If in fact, you claim. He is a danger to our country's foreign interests, then provide the certification to Congress. That is what you have to do if you're using this provision. And I never thought that I would see this kind of behavior from a democratically elected government.

They, you know, we are, we are, we are certainly in constitutional crisis when they are screaming about lawlessness, when they are defying court orders, when they're defying the constitution. When you have the, the felon in chiefs [03:02:00] directing all of this, you know, if this were. A novel, you would say it, it would be right out of it was Orwellian.

All of it is Orwellian. And, and I just, I know that Vermonters understand that this is about all of us. If you'll deny due process from somebody who was in this country with a green card for 10 years, who is somebody who, uh, you know, talked about peace and connection between Palestinians and Israelis who was looking to build bridges, if this man is somehow a threat to society, then we are down a sick path.

Are Democrats taking Trump's bait - No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Air Date 4-20-25

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, NO LIE: there was reporting in Axios that is driving a lot of the news coverage as it relates to kil Mara Bgo Garcia, the immigrant who was illegally sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. That reporting reads the second house Democrat who spoke anonymously, a centrist called the deportation issue, a soup du jour, arguing Trump is setting a trap for the Democrats and like usual, were falling for it.

[03:03:00] Quote, rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy, the thing where his numbers are tanking, we're gonna take the bait for one hairdresser, they said, likely referring to Andrew Hernandez Romero, only if Trump tries to deport US citizens. The lawmaker argued, well, Democrats need to draw a line in the sand and shut down the house.

So let's talk about this because I understand that there are people who say Democrat's worst issue is immigration. At a moment where Trump is quite literally destroying our economy, which, you know, 2024 showed us anything is a major issue to exploit, a potent issue to exploit. We should be focusing on that.

Two things here. One, we should focus on that and we do focus on that. I talk about the economy every single day. I talk about the impacts of Trump's idiotic tariffs on our stock market, on our 4 0 1 Ks, on the cost of everyday goods. The reality is that Trump is destroying a generation of farmers by sending other countries to Brazil or Australia to get stuff like beef and soybeans where they used to come to American farmers.

For those things, even if the tariffs are removed, we won't recover to where we were [03:04:00] pre tariff levels because they're creating new relationships with other farmers, other countries. Aside from that, you know, our car manufacturers are gonna suffer. Our supply chains are the result of decades of close cooperation, uh, with Canada and Mexico, and that process is going to grind to a halt because of what Trump is doing, which is basically a death now for American auto manufacturing.

Jerome Powell, just this week announced slower growth and high inflation. Inflation was the issue that killed Democrats in the 2024 election. So I will continue to beat on this drum every single day. But talking about the economy and talking about immigration are not mutually exclusive. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

And I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that Trump disappearing legal residents to a foreign prison is something that we should stay silent about just because Trump polls better on immigration. I refuse to believe that moderate Republicans and independents think that allowing a Maryland dad and legal resident charged with no crime [03:05:00] rotting in a foreign gulag is acceptable.

I refuse to believe that we have lost every shred of our humanity in this country. And look, I'm not saying this, uh, from a political perspective at all. I'm saying this as a human being with an ounce of empathy. I am all for the deportation of dangerous criminals. This guy ain't one he was charged with, nothing afforded no due process.

He's got three kids with disabilities. He's a sheet metal worker, a union member. And the fact that he wore a Chicago Bulls hat in 2019 is the justification that ICE pointed to in claiming that he's a gang member of a city that by the way, he didn't live in again. I'm all for the deportation of dangerous criminals.

Like I live in an American city too. I want my family to be safe too. I have the same fears that everybody else has. I'm not, uh, blind to the realities of life in America in 2025. I mean, hell, I can guarantee you, uh, if you've looked at my inbox based on the amount of threats I receive, um, which I'm sure are far greater than the average person, um, that I'm hyper [03:06:00] aware of crime, but do it legitimately disappearing.

This guy is not legitimate, nor frankly is it American. We have a constitution. We have a Fifth Amendment right, affording you a trial. If you've got a gang member who is here illegally. We're probably all in agreement that those people should be deported, but we have to know that they are gang members.

And the way to do that is by affording someone due process, which Garcia was denied. Again, I'm not defending criminals. I'm demanding that we know who the criminals are so that we are not punishing people who are innocent or even upstanding members of society, people who pay taxes and go to work and take care of their kids and enrich our communities.

And I wanna be clear, because Republicans are trying to own this narrative with every fiber of their being. What I am saying is not an extreme position. Disappearing innocent people to foreign prisons is the extreme position period. Full stop. And if, by the way, the moral imperative to speak out wasn't enough, which it should be, but let's say that [03:07:00] you're still, you know, numbers driven and you just can't bring yourself to want, discuss immigration because of what all the polls say, then just look at the polls according to the latest yu gov survey of all the issues in the political zeitgeist right now, the following question, deporting immigrants without criminal convictions to El Salvador to be imprisoned without letting them challenge the deportation in court.

That question polls dead. Last among Americans, 46% of Americans strongly oppose it, and 15% of Americans somewhat oppose it. That's nearly two thirds of Americans who oppose in some fashion what this administration is doing. Not exactly a home run hill to die on. So again, even if the moral argument isn't enough, the polling backs up.

That position that disappearing innocent people to a foreign gulag with zero due process is not something that Americans are responding well to. And in the same way that Trump destroyed his lead on the economy, he's doing the same thing with his last vestige of support with immigration. And there's one more reason that I think, uh, it's especially important to [03:08:00] discuss this, and that's that if we don't speak up now, we embolden Trump to go after everybody else.

The reality is that while his administration promised that it was only interested in going after hardened undocumented criminals, they have already undermined their own promise by going after this guy, this guy who was charged with nothing. He's a legal resident. In fact, just this past week. It was reported that US citizens are now being detained, including a couple up in Boston.

This is a pattern by the Trump administration. If you allow them an inch, they will take a mile. If one law firm, capitulates Trump realizes how easy it is, and he goes after a dozen more. If one university like Columbia Capitulates, Trump goes after more. If one tech billionaire capitulates, Jeff Bezos, mark Zuckerberg, he goes after more.

If one media company like a, B, C News capitulates, he goes after more. If we do not stand up and fight him now on this issue, when he's going after one legal resident who was not charged with a crime, then we don't get to act surprised when he goes after other legal residents or ultimately American citizens.

[03:09:00] We've seen the playbook. He's already broadcasting it, so we have to fight now on this issue while there's still an opportunity to fight

Trump gets UNEXPECTED SURPRISE from El Salvador - Brian Tyler Cohen - Air Date 4-21-25

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: So you guys are both coming to me from El Salvador. Can you explain, obviously what you're doing there and what you seek to accomplish? I. 

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: Well, thanks. Look, I, we, uh, both, um, both Maxwell and I have been very committed to the release of Kmar Reo Garcia.

Um, people are probably aware we have been fighting like hell to ensure that this country's a place that actually listens to decisions by the Supreme Court. Donald Trump is defying a nine zero order by the Supreme Court to return Kmar, who was illegally taken to El Salvador. Return him back to the United States.

We also know that lower courts have affirmed this. The Trump administration has essentially said, we made a mistake. We shouldn't have sent him there. So Maxwell and I requested an official delegation to El Salvador, to James Comer, we're both on oversight. Um, they denied that official, uh, congressional delegation trip.

And we said, you can deny us and we're gonna come here anyways no matter what. And so we're here [03:10:00] in El Salvador on the ground now, uh, and Maxwell and I and other, and two other members are, are committed to this fight. I. 

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: So given the fact that, that James Comer denied your, your request for, uh, a congressional delegation, a ell are, are first and foremost, are you guys safe by virtue of being there without the protections that would be afforded to you, uh, if you had done it through a ell, 

REP. MAXWELL FROST: obviously there there's always risks.

Risks associated with all these trips. Um, but we took that into account as we put together the itinerary in the schedule. I mean, there's a reason why everyone found out we were here when we got here already, and it's really important to our security. Um, but the other thing is, um, it, you know, like Robert said, we didn't want to allow that, this denial of our, of our requests keep us.

From doing the work that we need to do. And the fact of the matter is both of our offices are receiving tons and tons and tons of letters, mail, phone calls, emails of constituents who are saying, you know, go out there, fight for due process. Or, [03:11:00] I've heard from people who've said, I see myself represented in this situation like, like I'm a rego Garcia.

Like this could be me. And so for us, we don't wanna wait. I. Um, until this situation gets outta hand and Donald Trump is actually doing this to us citizens and even more people, now's the time when we have to stand up for this. So, you know, we, we wish we'd be here on an official Cordell. Obviously it gives us more resources, the ability to do a little bit more.

Uh, but we didn't run for Congress to just cow away when a Republican idiot like er tells us no. And so when we got that letter, we, you know, called each other up and said, let's do it anyway. 

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: Perfectly put. And, and I, and I would ask too, like, what does it say that. That James Comer opted if he, when he had the opportunity to approve this codel, that he opted to say no.

Thereby trying his level best to prevent you from, from a going, or B, if you do go, obviously trying to, to prevent you from from, from this getting any oxygen. 

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: Well, I think, look, what's what's really important for all is we're not gonna be stopped by James Coleman and the [03:12:00] Republicans. And let's be really clear, the only official ELLs that have had members come here from the house have been Republican ELLs with no Democrats, right?

So for for the House, for the House of Representatives to have only approved ELLs, for Republicans to come here, to tour of the prisons, to meet with officials. Is crazy. We should be allowed as Democrats in a bipartisan way to check and not just on the welfare of kmar, but ensure that other people that are here are getting due process.

We should be here meeting with officials and yet, because they wanna prove official s. We're gonna be here anyways, and we're proud that we're here. And more importantly, the American public need to understand that Donald Trump is defined. The Supreme Court and the people here in El Salvador. We spoke to, uh, numerous, uh, press from El Salvador.

Um, in English, in Spanish. We're also, we're, we're obviously both part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, uh, as well. So it's important for them to hear in their language, what Donald Trump is doing, and to build pressure here on the ground to release Kilmore and others. [03:13:00] That deserve their due process.

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: And have you been able to make contact with Garcia? And also can you give an update because the, the latest reporting that we have is that he was moved out of Sea Cot to a different prison. Um, and so what was the significance of that move? 

REP. MAXWELL FROST: So we made an official request to meet with him to, to make sure he's okay.

I mean, know, you know, one of the people we're here traveling with, um, is the, uh, the lawyer of his family that they want to know where he's at. They want to know if he's okay. They, they want to know what's going on. Um, and so our, our. Uh, request to meet with him was denied by the government. They said because it wasn't an official trip.

Um, which I guess hopefully if an official trip happens when more Democrats in the future, there'll be no reason for them to not let them see each other. But the other thing that we're finding is that there's just not, there's a lack of information. You know, we went to the embassy to speak with the staff there and the ambassador, and we left.

With the, you know, we, we left under, with the under with understanding that the Trump administration has not told the embassy to, uh, uh, uh, [03:14:00] comply with the Supreme Court ruling at all, um, to facilitate nothing. And not even that, they don't really know where he's at our embassy, which is very problematic when we talk about the fact that our Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, has instructed administration to facilitate the return of this man.

They are willfully flipping the bird to the Supreme Court, which also shows that we're, we're in a constitutional crisis right now as well. So there's, there's many reasons for this trip. Um, but everyone should understand that this can happen to anyone if we don't stop it now. That's why we're here. 

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: No, no.

I just wanna add one thing, which I think is really important. 'cause we were obviously meeting with the ambassador today. Um, and, and there's no question that, um. The embassy has not begun any process to facilitate this release, which the Supreme Court has mandated. So that's be crystal clear. Um, they're defined the Supreme Court to be clear.

The second thing is we also understand that this is an issue, um, that's bigger than just Kilmore, right? This is about due process. It's about the separation of powers and it's about other. People [03:15:00] that are here in El Salvador that are essentially having no due process. We, we have a story which, um, a lot of folks have covered about an Andre Romero, a young man, 19 years old, a gay hairdresser going through the asylum process, had an appointment for asylum through our own process that we approved, and that it's picked up and sent directly to an El Salvador prison.

We have not heard from him. And no, his family has not, his attorneys have not. We just wanna know if he's okay if he's alive. We've actually asked the ambassador if we could get a wellness check or could see um, him as well. And we have yet to hear back. But that's also been one of our requests. So there's a lot of things that we're working on here.

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: It makes sense because I mean, there are a lot of people on the right who say, oh, we're, we're perfectly fine with immigration, but you just have to do it the right way. This is somebody who did it the right way and yet still was disappeared to a foreign gulag. 

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: Right. That that's exactly right. 

BRIAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRIAN TYLER COHEN: I wanna dig into the point you made just prior, because I think that's especially important, this idea that.

That the Overton window shifts so easily with this administration and we're seeing it happen to legal [03:16:00] residents. And now we're finally seeing reporting that, that, uh, American citizens are being detained. They're being detained at airports, they're being detained at, uh, at different ports of entry. And so have you heard of any of your constituents, for example, uh, who are American citizens who are being detained?

And can you just speak more broadly about this idea of, of. EN enabling Donald Trump to do this now with no pushback and what that will mean in terms of giving him the green light to do it to an even broader degree in the future. 

REP. MAXWELL FROST: So we actually just had a situation like this happen in Florida, um, in North Florida.

Um, we had a person who is a citizen detained, uh, by local police for something completely unrelated. I think it was a minor traffic infraction. And then ICE issued what's called the detainer, which is essentially when the local police can hold someone. I believe it's, it can be up to 24 or 48 hours for ice to come pick them up.

So they held this guy and he, they, the, the family went to the court proceeding holding up the birth certificate. Holding up the [03:17:00] paperwork saying, look, he's a citizen. He was born here. What's going on? And the judge said, because we have some new laws in Florida that are horrible. We have some of the worst immigration laws in the country.

The judge said, I, because of the law, we have to wait for ice to get here, for ice to tell us what to do. So it, it's the federal government, but we also can't take our eyes off the states that are, they're, you know, it's a race to the bottom. And who can impress Trump the most to make the worst, most authoritarian.

Um, inhumane laws that even if you're a citizen. You get pulled over for having a tail light out or whatever it is that you can end up being held up to 24 48 hours, uh, for ICE to come and get you. We, we heard about a similar thing happening in Arizona. It's happening across the country. This is why we're here.

We're not here to be heroes. We're not here for any of that. We're here because we need to keep talking about it, protesting about it. Members of Congress, we need to do everything we can with the power that we have within our institution. The courts need to keep going. We can't [03:18:00] afford. To throw any part of the response out.

Everything at full force all the time right now because we, if we wait till it really gets outta hand when citizens are being sent to foreign countries. When a Congress person compete, like, I'm not trying to scare people, but this is what's going on in my state right now and in certain states across the country.

And that's why we have to, we have to finish it now. We have to rise up now and make sure that doesn't happen again. And that's why I said we're, we're the second batch of members here, van Holland. Um, really led the charge on this. We're following his lead. There's gonna be more people coming. We've been talking with a lot of our colleagues.

There's more trips. 

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: And Brian, let me add one thing to Matt, what Maxwell said. Sure. It's really important that I, I know you've, you know, there's some, some are, some are saying, some Democrats are out there saying that, um, this is a distraction or that perhaps, uh, we should focus on, on, um, other, you know, other things.

And then there are a lot of things to focus on. Right. We can do all things at once, right? We can take on, uh, this injustice that is happening to Killmore and others. We can take [03:19:00] on Elon Musk and the billionaire class who are trying to rip off Americans. We can take on the destruction of our federal agencies.

We can take on all these big issues at once, but we've gotta be all in and we've gotta be in the fight. And being in the fight also means showing up and being wherever we need to be, including El Salvador, to stand up for 

our democracy and our values. 

Its working Van Hollen, Booker, AOC see big results from standing up - MSNBC - Air Date 4-20-25

JEN PSAKI - HOST, MSNBC: But I actually wanted to start today by talking about fear, because fear's clearly a major driver of Trump's span, brand of politics always has been. And how we all respond to that fear in this moment. Is gonna determine a whole lot about the future of this country. Congressman Jamie Raskin summed it up pretty well in the New York Times this week.

He said there's a regime of fear that's been brought down on society. People need to see leaders and organizers standing up and speaking with authority against what's happening. Congressman Jamie Raskin summed it up very well there. He's here today. We have a lot to talk about. We're gonna talk to him in just a moment.

But I also wanna talk about a few other things, because this week we also saw [03:20:00] at least one Republican acknowledge that that fear too. I mean, during an event in Alaska this week, Senator Lisa Murkowski was asked what she would say to people who are afraid right now. And she was way more candid than I at least expected her to be.

TOWNHALL CLIP: What are you gonna have to say to people who are afraid or who represent people who are afraid? We are all afraid. Okay.

It's quite a statement,

but we are, um,

we're, we're in. In a time and a place where, I don't know, I, I certainly have not, I have not been here before. Um, and I'll tell you, I am, I am, uh, oftentimes very anxious myself [03:21:00] about, about using my voice, um, because retaliation is real and that's not right. 

JEN PSAKI - HOST, MSNBC: It's definitely not right and retaliation is real.

We've seen it. Those fears are real. We all know that Trump has vindictive and he is betting he can gain a lot of leverage by creating even more fear. But at the same time, we've already seen that giving into his demands gets you absolutely nowhere. I mean, when law firms cave, the demands don't stop. The firms that struck deals with Trump are now learning that the White House will effectively be choosing their pro bono clients for them.

And when universities cave, the demands don't stop either. Columbia's deal with Trump right now might now include a court decree giving the White House control over the university's management. And when media outlets cave, the demands definitely don't stop. I mean, paramount entered into settlement talks with Trump over a frivolous lawsuit, and Trump still pushed the FCC to [03:22:00] revoke CBS's broadcast license.

Point is this, capitulating to Trump won't save you. You'll just be targeted again and again. Because when you give into Trump's demands, you're just sending the message. His threats and tactics work. You're not putting the episode behind you. You're just inviting more demands. That's how mob bosses work.

And remember, fear is what Donald Trump sees as his most effective tool. I, in some ways, it's his only tool, fear of re retribution and fear of him weaponizing the powers of his office is basically what he relies on, and he is obviously relying on it to use that office in ways. We've never seen before. I mean, he is trying to use the IRS of all places to target the nonprofit status of universities, which is the goal of making all nonprofit groups afraid of continuing the work that they're doing.

He's trying to use immigration powers to make any non-citizen fear that he could change their legal status and force them out of the country at a moment's notice. Trump is using his [03:23:00] office to instill fear in every single way he can. And he is doing it in a way that he thinks, at least is politically smart, he thinks it is.

He's trying to lure his political opponents into making this about just defending elite institutions like Harvard or Big city law firms nobody's ever heard of. He's spreading lies about Kamar, Abrego Garcia, daring people to defend him personally rather than defending the rights he's been denied. And on the issue of Garcia specifically, some Democrats have said it's a distraction from the economic calamity he's caused.

Some have said Kamar, rego Garcia is an imperfect hero for this issue. Maybe he is saying it's playing on Trump's turf on immigration, and Republicans really do think this is their turf. They really do. I mean, just listen to how Stephen Miller described this issue. 

CLIP: President Trump, his policy is foreign terrorists that are here illegally get expelled from the country, which by the way is a 90 10 issue.

JEN PSAKI - HOST, MSNBC: It sounds scary. I mean, 90 [03:24:00] 10, first of all, Stephen Miller needs a math class. I think we've all learned, but that's a big bluff from a little man and his sidekick. It's true that when pollsters are asked broad questions, when they ask broad questions to people out there about immigration and deportation, broadly, Trump's policies do well.

But when those questions get more specific and that's important, it's a totally different story. A U gov poll this morning found that six in 10 this month, sorry, found six in 10 respondents said they opposed deporting immigrants without criminal convictions to El Salvador to be imprisoned without letting them challenge the deport their deportation in court.

61%. Guys, that's a pretty clear majority, especially compared to the 26% of respondents who said they supported Trump's actions. It's not exactly 90 10, and Stephen Miller's favor on that one. Is it? And we're seeing that on the ground in states across the country too. Even some pretty red states. Just listen to the earful that Republican senator Chuck Grassley got from an older, mostly white [03:25:00] crowd in Iowa this week.

TOWNHALL CLIP: You gonna bring that guy back from El Salvador?

Why not? Well, because that's not a, that's not a power of. Supreme Court said to bring it back. Judges are 

CLIP: Cantion Constitution Hearing Committee, Trump don't care if I get an order to pay attention for $1,200. And I just say, no. Does that stand up? Because he's got an order from the Supreme Court and he's just said no.

He just said, screw it. 

TOWNHALL CLIP: I'm the president of that country. Is not subject to our US Supreme Court back.

I pissed. 

JEN PSAKI - HOST, MSNBC: Not sure that was what Senator Grassley was expecting from that town hall meeting in Central Iowa. [03:26:00] I mean, I guess people in central Iowa are a part of that 10%. Steven Miller was talking about, I mean, who knows, and I guess a Reagan appointed federal judges too on his calculation. In that federal judge's ruling upholding court decisions requiring the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, judge James Harvey Wilkinson III did not mince words exactly.

He wrote quote, it is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter, but in this case it's not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process. That is the foundation of our constitutional order.

The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons. I mean, that is a pretty clear distillation of the issue here. Likewise, the Supreme Court dealt Trump another big setback just this weekend, and in order that they issued at 1:00 AM Saturday morning making some of the judges cranky, the court temporarily blocked the administration from deporting another group of detainees to El [03:27:00] Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.

That was a seven two decision by Donald Trump's Ultra conservative court. Seven two. So the courts seem to be standing up to him. Some Republicans are standing up to him and the public is not exactly on his side either. And what's now becoming clear is there are actually rewards for standing up. It's morally right, but there are rewards too.

I mean, after Harvard said it would stand up to Trump's demands, it's an outpouring of support and an immediate surgeon donation. Donations. The pushback had enough of an effect on the Trump administration that they came up with a tortured process explanation as the only way I can describe it, of how this all happened with White House officials claiming the I original demands were sent by mistake.

Okay? So their decision to fight back, not only shine a bright spotlight on Donald Trump's power grab, it also made his administration look kind of silly in the process. And any intention like that on any of the crazy stuff they're trying is a good thing right now. When Senator Corey Booker spoke for 25 [03:28:00] hours on the Senate floor, it brought attention and news coverage, and also made him a hero to Democrats because he wasn't consumed by fear.

He just kind of let it rip for 25 hours. When Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit the road, they drew tens of thousands of people, if not more at the rallies, not just in blue bastions like la, but in places like Tampa, Idaho, and Missoula, Montana. Even as staunch project presses, which they proudly are.

They're appealing to people across the ideological spectrum because they don't fear fighting. Back more recently, Senator Chris Van Holland of Maryland traveled to El Salvador this week and pressured the government there to give him a meeting with Kumar Abrego Garcia. Not only did v Helen clearly take a stand in the process, he also proved and showed people that Abrego Garcia was alive and forced the Salvadorian government to play a bit of defense.

And since then, van Halen has commanded a ton of attention. I mean, this morning he did a round of five Sunday shows talking about a strip. [03:29:00] So aside from the obvious moral reasons behind all of this pushback, and there are plenty of those, there's also a big political opportunity for anyone who's willing to take a stand and look on their own.

Any of these things might not seem like a huge deal, but taken together all of this pushback is starting to matter. Yesterday, tens of thousands more people gathered across the country for another day of nationwide protests. They were called no Kings protests. A follow up to the hands-off protest that drew millions into the streets just two weeks ago.

But what will Neva translate to? Who knows, but standing up for what's right, trying some things, applying some pressure, getting some media attention is far more effective than being fearful and timid because being fearful and timid has never worked against the sky and it sure isn't working now.

Credits

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991 and you can also reach us on the Signal messaging app at [03:30:00] BestOfTheLeft01 or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show include clips from Up First, Strict Scrutiny, the PBS NewsHour, Reveal, The Daily Blast, Consider This, CounterSpin, the Associated Press, The Intercept Briefing, Secular Left, AJ+, The Majority Report, Main Justice, No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, and MSNBC. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Dion Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in the new show, SOLVED! Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and Ben, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes, and her co-hosting of SOLVED! And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get ad free and early access to our incredibly good and often [03:31:00] funny weekly show, SOLVED!, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on all the social media platforms. We are on Blue Sky, but we're also making the move to video on Instagram and TikTok with our new show SOLVED! So please support us there. 

So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com. 

Air Date 4/22/2025

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JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

We knew for decades before the overturning of Roe versus Wade that Republicans wanted to repeal abortion rights. But I recall an argument I heard many years ago from someone ostensibly on the left about how wrong the left was to worry about it, because after all, George W. Bush had been in office for eight years and he didn't stop abortions. Now, I knew that that was a profoundly uninformed point at the time, but it was also evidence that some people just don't understand the time horizons over which these kinds of plans to dismantle cherish rights and government programs play out. George W. Bush also proposed privatizing Social Security and didn't succeed there either. But in both cases, groundwork was being laid as part of a multi-decade effort that would -- they hoped -- pay off in the future. [00:01:00] So don't be surprised when they come for your earned benefit programs, just as they came for the fundamental right to bodily autonomy. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes TED Ed, All In with Chris Hayes, Consider This, The PBS NewsHour, The Hartmann Report, On Point, and The Worst Of All Possible Worlds. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in three sections: Section A, Social Security; followed by Section B, General cuts; and Section C, Medicaid and Health and Human Services. 

But first, we're still in major promotion mode as we've launched our new weekly YouTube show, SOLVED! We really need every hand on deck we can get, so subscribe to the Best of the Left YouTube channel, watch, like, comment, all of those things. 

The response so far has been, I think entirely positive, a hundred percent positive. Which is fair because [00:02:00] it's mostly people who already liked us who are watching and commenting. But we have also started to hear from some people who have found us newly through YouTube. So we are gratified to hear all of that because we are really proud of the show we are making and definitely want as many people as possible to see it. So you going and checking it out and liking and commenting and doing all those things helps other people find it. So we absolutely appreciate any help you can give. 

And now, on to the show.

What few people know about the program that saved America - Meg Jacobs - TED-Ed - Air Date 6-17-21

MEG JACOBS: In 1932, the Great Depression entered its third winter. One in four Americans was unemployed, marking the highest unemployment rate in the country's history. Tens of thousands had lost their homes and life savings, and there was very little confidence that Republican president Herbert Hoover could turn things around.

So when the election came, voters flocked to his Democratic competitor. Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a New Deal for Americans, a comprehensive set of legislation to support struggling citizens and put the country back to work. 

The [00:03:00] massive federal intervention Roosevelt proposed was a radical challenge to the individualist ideals that governed many Americans' lives. But due to the extreme circumstances, he began his presidency with public and political support. With the help of his advisors, Roosevelt's first a hundred days in office were perhaps the most eventful of any US President. In just over three months, he pushed over 15 bills through Congress and created an alphabet soup of government agencies to help farmers, workers, and businesses. 

The New Deal's first priority was stabilizing the banks. Over the previous three years, many Americans had withdrawn their savings out of fear the bank would lose their money in bad investments. So to regain the public's confidence, FDR increased federal oversight of commercial banks, and created bank insurance to guarantee that any deposited funds would always be available.

Next, he established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. FERA cataloged each state's need [00:04:00] for relief and provided funds to help citizens afford groceries, rent, clothing, coal, and other necessities. 

Meanwhile, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration subsidized farmers and educated them in improving planting techniques.

These policies fed and housed thousands, but they didn't significantly address the New Deal's biggest promise: reducing unemployment. So the Civilian Conservation Corps was established to employ over 250,000 young men for projects like tree planting, irrigation, and fire prevention. The CCC offered onsite work camps that provided food, shelter, and education to those employed, mostly young single men with families in need of relief.

Subsequent programs like the Work's Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority added projects, building roads, bridges, and hydroelectric dams. The WPA also funded art, writing and theater programs. These initiatives cut civilian unemployment in half, and they [00:05:00] did so alongside labor acts that abolished child labor, granted unions the right to collective bargaining, and set the first national minimum wage. Benefits were also created to help those unable to work. The Social Security Act established an old age pension system, in addition to unemployment insurance, disability benefits, and welfare assistance. 

But despite these sweeping policies, the New Deal helped some groups more than others. Black Americans were hit hardest by the economic downturn, and the New Deal's impact on Black communities varied widely. In northern cities like Chicago, Black citizens received a large share of jobs, vocational training and education, with New Deal programs teaching more than 1 million Black Americans to read. Northern Black communities also received an influx of public housing, though it was heavily segregated. In the south, results were less positive. Roosevelt relied heavily on the support of Southern Democrats who welcomed economic development but fought to preserve white supremacy. They ensured that new labor laws [00:06:00] excluded domestic servants and agricultural workers, occupations held by many Black Americans. These politicians and many others also undermined Eleanor Roosevelt's attempts to push her husband towards supporting a federal anti-lynching law. As a result, the New Deal has often been called a raw deal for Black communities. And many modern inequities in housing, employment, and financial stability are partially due to New Deal programs prioritizing white Americans. 

In these ways and more, the New Deal didn't fully live up to its promises. Despite employing over 8 million Americans, unemployment never went lower than 14%, and the US economy wouldn't fully recover until the country's mobilization for World War II. 

But this bold campaign of progressive policies did empower unions to start their own revolution. In the coming decades, northern liberals, Black Americans, and other working minorities united to fight discriminatory hiring. In the process, they reshaped the Democratic party, [00:07:00] challenging its racist leadership, and laying the groundwork for an emerging civil rights coalition. 

Trump is coming for Social Security. And he has a new 'Big Lie' to justify it. - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 3-5-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: There were small lies, there were big lies, and then there's The Big Lie. And that is a coordinated campaign of blatant falsehoods to systematically burn down and destroy institutions.

And we saw Trump do it in 2020 before our very eyes, undermining the legitimacy of America's free and fair elections. And we saw him do it last night on the biggest stage, undermining the legitimacy of America's most important safety net for its citizens: Social Security. 

There is a pattern to what Trump is doing, and what he's goading other Republicans into saying. It is a pattern Trump established throughout the 2020 election and its aftermath, all the way up to January 6th and beyond: a deliberate attempt to alter reality with lies about the balloting that were so audacious and so obviously untrue. 

DONALD TRUMP: They're sending millions of ballots [00:08:00] all over the country. There's fraud. They found them in creeks. We caught them as you know, it's fraudulent, dropping ballots, doing so many things, nobody can even believe it. Dead people voting. It was a massive dump of votes. And then you get to Detroit and it's like more votes than people. We have a company that's very suspect. Its name is Dominion. This election was lost by the Democrats. They cheated. It was a fraudulent election. They flooded the market. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, to be clear, those claims were all false. They were laughed out of court, dozens and dozens and dozens of time. But Trump was obsessed with convincing his fan base that the voting system in the US, gold standard for free and fair elections around the world, was shot through with fraud -- I mean in numbers that were preposterous. 

And it wasn't a new obsession. I mean, look at these headlines. "Donald Trump warns vote could be rigged." [00:09:00] "Trump ratchets up rigged election claims, which Pence downplays." "Donald Trump's rigged election claims raise historical alarms." All of these headlines were from the 2016 election campaign, the election Trump ultimately won in the electoral college. He didn't challenge that outcome. 

But once he lost in 2020, Trump went back to his old playbook, this well-established playbook, particularly the myth of dead people voting for Democrats. This has been a fringe right wing talking point for years, and Trump elevated the lie to new prominence. He used it in his quote, "perfect phone call" with Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to pressure his fellow Republicans into basically a coup: into rigging the state's vote totals to favor Trump, even though he lost the state. And Raffensperger debunked that lie in his testimony to the January 6th Committee. 

DONALD TRUMP: The other thing, dead people, so dead people voted. [00:10:00] And I think the number is in close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries, they went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters. 

SENATOR ADAM SCHIFF: So secretary, did your office investigate whether those allegations were accurate? Did 5,000 dead people in Georgia vote? 

BRAD RAFFENSBERGER: No, it's not accurate. And actually in their lawsuits, they alleged 10,315 dead people. We found two dead people when I wrote my letter to Congress that's dated January 6th. And subsequent to that, we found two more. That's 1, 2, 3, 4 people, not 4,000, but just a total of four. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, Trump's lies had a purpose, right? The purpose is to destroy faith in the electoral system so as to overthrow American democracy, to destroy that faith so that you can destroy the institution itself.

And he rolled out the same play last night, as he blasted out his [00:11:00] new Big Lie about a beloved government program, one that Republicans have long hated, but that 71 million Americans currently rely on. 

DONALD TRUMP: We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security Program. Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don't know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly, but we're gonna find out where that money's going and it's not gonna be pretty. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Identical, right? He sees dead people again. The dead people voting in the Georgia election, the dead people getting checks from Social Security. All the dead people committing fraud. [00:12:00] Suggesting that Americans who died long ago are still having their Social Security checks delivered to someone and somehow cashing them in their name even though they're dead, and there's a death certificate. 

Again, think about it for 20 seconds. It's obviously preposterous. In fact, a government investigation last year found that from 2015 through 2022, 7 years, of all the money the agency paid out in benefits, and that is $8.6 trillion, a staggering sum, less than 1% was improper payments. That's a really good record. And most of the erroneous payments were overpayments to living people.

I mean, again, think about this, right? In the same way you, if you think through the dead people voting at scale issue, if you have ever had a loved person die when they were on Social Security, you know the checks don't keep coming. Also, Social Security automatically stops payments to people who are 115 years old. Its capped there, which I'm sure is a bureaucratic headache for the handful of Americans who lived that long. [00:13:00] 

The version of the lie Trump and his unelected co-president Elon Musk are telling appears to be based on their inability to read the data they collected. Because Social Security's software system necessitates that some entries with missing or incomplete birth dates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago.

I don't know the origins of this, but here's the thing. The fraud claims are bunk. They're totally false. It's just the Big Lie about voting, again. Dead people voting. But just like they did with the election Big Lie, Republicans are amplifying it. 

REP. MIKE JOHNSON: What he's finding with his algorithms crawling through the data of Social Security System is enormous amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: Tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. 

SENATOR TED CRUZ: More than 13 million people on the records receiving benefits who are over 119 years old. 

KEVIN MCCARTHY: I'm shocked enough. Who do we have at 200 years old or who do we have older [00:14:00] than America that's getting Social Security?

HOWARD LUTNICK: Everybody whose grandfather died and is still getting Social Security? Gimme a break. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Yeah, they're lies. They are lying. Those are all lies. It's not happening. Okay? Millions of people? Millions? 

Here's the thing. They want to destroy Social Security. They are coming for Social Security. Musk has already installed someone from DOGE at the Social Security Administration. The agency has already announced enormous layoffs. They're already closing offices. This is gonna make things start to break there. 

Last weekend, the previous Social Security administrator, Martin O'Malley, warned that Trump and DOGE were breaking the whole agency, saying quote, "ultimately, you're going to see the system collapse, and an interruption of benefits. I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days. People should start saving now." 

I don't know if that's a credible prediction. I really don't know. Social Security is an amazing and robust system, right? But it's an incredible statement, given that Social Security has never missed a monthly [00:15:00] payment in 90 years. It is a program, like our voting system, that is incredibly free of fraud, incredibly efficiently run, insanely popular with the American populace, just like free and fair elections. 

Keep your eye on the ball here. Right? Huge tip off last night of what they're about to do. Trump knows all this. Musk knows all this. It's why they are telling The Big Lie about Social Security, just like the big election lie. The objective now, as it was then, is to fabricate this elaborate, grotesque lie about a cherished institution of American government, to sow enough fear, doubt, and uncertainty among enough people that Trump can get away with destroying it.

Food banks feel the pain from higher prices and cuts to government programs - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 4-10-25

DEEMA ZEIN: Empty shelves, an unusual scene in a normally stocked warehouse.

Radha Muthiah, President and CEO, Capital Area Food Bank: 

RADHA MUTHIAH: What we were expecting to be about 55 tractor trailers' worth of food, and we just heard a couple of weeks ago that half of those will no longer be on their way to us.

DEEMA ZEIN: These vacant racks stand out in Washington, D.C.'s Capital Area Food Bank, a [00:16:00] 123,000-square foot building where staff store inventory and pull orders for delivery to more than 400 regional partners.

Radha Muthiah is the food bank's president and CEO. She says the recent USDA cuts made a deep impact here.

RADHA MUTHIAH: Six hundred and seventy thousand meals' worth of food that we now have to scramble to look for other sources of food to be able to try and at least partially bridge that gap.

I understand evaluating these programs. Every administration does that. We are happy to share data, client testimonials on the impact of these programs on working adults, on children who are able to focus more on school, on seniors who can combine this with food, with medication that they need.

DEEMA ZEIN: In February, food banks nationwide began noticing canceled USDA deliveries in their systems. The funding freeze comes after the Trump administration cut two other programs that provide aid to food banks and schools.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended the cuts on FOX News.

BROOKE ROLLINS: But right now, from [00:17:00] what we are viewing, that program was nonessential. It was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary.

DEEMA ZEIN: Republican lawmakers are also considering cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously known as food stamps. Last year, about 42 million people used the program. In a statement to the NewsHour, a USDA spokesperson said: "The USDA has not and will not lose focus on its core mission of strengthening food security, supporting agricultural markets, and ensuring access to nutritious foods."

The agency also noted a recent approval of $261 million in purchases of fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts to food banks.

VINCE HALL: This is an extraordinarily serious moment for food banks all across the United States.

DEEMA ZEIN: Vince Hall is the chief government relations officer for Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 60,000 food pantries and distributors. He says an end to pandemic era aid, rising inflation and stagnant wages has led to [00:18:00] record high demand at food banks.

VINCE HALL: Any reduction in the supply of food to food banks is going to have very significant impacts for people facing hunger. Food banks were already maxing out their supply chains. They were already going to every conceivable donor, looking for every conceivable pound of food and asking every community to support.

And so the reality is, we're going to be short, we're going to be short on foods.

DEEMA ZEIN: Just outside Washington, leadership at Catholic Charities' Alexandria food pantry say they expect to see a drop in the variety and quantity of their USDA orders. It's food that U.S. Army Reserve veteran Philip Tinsley relies on.

PHILIP TINSLEY: Well, it's important for your own health, but more important for, I guess, some of your mental health, that you don't think, well since I'm poor, I have to be treated like trash. Or since I am poor, I have to eat bad food. Or since I'm poor, I have to eat secondary food that other people don't want. This is really what anyone would go and get off the shelves.

DEEMA ZEIN: And in this region, some food banks are starting to see more former federal [00:19:00] workers enter their doors. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been fired since the Trump administration took office, leaving some searching for ways to make ends meet.

WOMAN: This is my first time going to a food pantry as a client. I have been a volunteer in the past.

DEEMA ZEIN: This former federal contractor was let go in mid-February and recently lost her health insurance. She spoke to the NewsHour anonymously for fear of retribution.

WOMAN: Coming here and admitting that I need some extra assistance took a bit of courage to having never been in this situation before. I think it's important that people take a step back and take the politics out of it for a second and realize that these are real peoples' lives.

DEEMA ZEIN: And the need spans far and wide, with some of the highest food insecurity rates in rural areas, like here in Rappahannock County, Virginia.

PENNY KARDIS: We do not have any grocery stores nearby. So for a family to be able to go and get fresh produce from a grocery store, they [00:20:00] have about a 30-minute drive anywhere within the county.

DEEMA ZEIN: Rappahannock Food Pantry President Penny Kardis says they will look to their community to fill the gaps.

PENNY KARDIS: It would be a challenge for us. We would have to — besides looking at our current donors, we would possibly have to look at corporate donors. That's a little bit difficult for us. We have no businesses in the area, so that would — we'd have to look really far outside for that.

DEEMA ZEIN: Sue Raiford has lived here for 30 years. She says after a bad work accident about a decade ago, she could barely walk and weighed only 75 pounds.

SUE RAIFORD: And when I went into the pantry, these people just surrounded me. And they said, oh, we have got to fatten you up. Here, here, here. And it's been that type of welcoming companionship that is always here for everyone that walks through these doors.

DEEMA ZEIN: It's that community Raiford fears will be hurt as cuts [00:21:00] are made to the programs many here rely on.

SUE RAIFORD: Like myself, many, many seniors, we don't have means to go out to the grocery stores. We just can't do it. I think without that support from the government, many lives will be shattered. And that's the heartbreak.

What DOGE could mean for Medicare and Medicaid? - Consider This - Air Date 2-10-25

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Medicare provides health care to 66 million people who are 65 and older. Medicaid serves 80 million low-income people and disabled Americans. 

 How big a part of the overall U.S. health care system are these programs?

MARK MCCLELLAN: Well, it's less than half of the population, but roughly half, and maybe a little bit more, of expenditures because the people in these programs have some of the more serious health care needs - higher rates of chronic diseases that go along with being from low-income and maybe historically underserved backgrounds, higher rates of chronic diseases that go along [00:22:00] with aging, and the risk factors for many conditions like cancer and other health problems that go up with age.

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: And, Ari, I think it's important that maybe listeners understand that Medicare has a much higher cost per person because of the age of the population. Medicaid is actually one of the most, if you will, by cost, efficient programs for women and children. About half of the births in the United States are paid for by Medicaid.

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: So, Kathleen, when you saw Elon Musk post on X that Medicare and Medicaid were where the big money - in his words - fraud is happening, did that ring true to you? Was that a big concern of yours when you ran HHS?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Fraud, waste and abuse have always been a focus of the federal agencies. One of the things that happened with the Obama administration was really ramping up that kind of fraud-rooting-out activities that we did in coordination with the Department of Justice. The [00:23:00] notion that this is somehow an undiscovered area, that people who are not at all familiar with the programs or the way they operate are going to suddenly be able to identify and root out, is just flat-out wrong.

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Mark, how did you react to seeing that post from Elon Musk?

MARK MCCLELLAN: Well, I totally agree with Kathleen that this is an ongoing battle. So I think that the real question for DOGE is can they find a way to get these inappropriate programs out while, by the way, Ari, at the same time, keeping President Trump's promise that he is not going to cut or disrupt Medicare benefits?

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Do you fear that this mission to eliminate waste and fraud could be a pretext for making broader sweeping changes to Medicare and Medicaid that are not actually motivated by waste and fraud and don't actually address waste and fraud?

MARK MCCLELLAN: The reason that I'd like to take them at their word, Ari, is that the staff at CMS under...

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: CMS - the [00:24:00] Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, yeah.

MARK MCCLELLAN: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that oversees these programs - they are in place now. So Dr. Mehmet Oz - Dr. Oz has been nominated to be the next administrator. He's still waiting for a confirmation hearing, so he's not there. But in contrast to some of the other public health agencies at HHS, there's a whole team of people who are in politically appointed deputy roles, working with the career staff, who have a lot of experience with CMS and the private sector on working with Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The CMS team has also brought in some long-experienced career professionals, including people who were there on the career staff working with me, including the new chief operating officer at CMS, who has a tremendous amount of nonpartisan experience in finding [00:25:00] ways to address fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid programs.

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: So just so I understand, in other parts of the government, from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department, we have seen career officials and nonpartisan civil servants either fired and replaced or encouraged to leave. You're saying the opposite appears to be true at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services?

MARK MCCLELLAN: I think something distinct is happening here in that, you know, the DOGE team, as I understand it, didn't just show up but is working directly, following some of the guidance and the experience of the career staff and the political leadership to find the effective ways of addressing fraud and abuse, and hopefully to modernize some of the data systems there, too.

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: Kathleen, do you give them the benefit of the doubt? Do you trust them to take a nuanced, data-driven approach?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I'm encouraged by what Mark is saying about what his knowledge is about the [00:26:00] people who are coming into the agency. But the proposals, Ari, that are out by, I would say, Republicans in Congress are very much aimed, particularly in the Medicaid program, at cutting benefits. They are not about fraud, waste and abuse. You can't really, I would suggest, get the kind of money that has been promised by DOGE even if you greatly ramp up fraud, waste and abuse. You really have to go to the core of the benefits of these programs, and that is where I'm very wary of what the proposals are coming forward.

ARI SHAPIRO - HOST, CONSIDER THIS: So bottom line, if people who depend on these programs want to know, is my coverage safe? - can I continue to count on the services that I have counted on in the past? We don't know where this is going to go. What should people be watching?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I would say for now, until they are notified otherwise, assume the services that you signed up for if you've just gone through Medicare [00:27:00] open enrollment or if you are a member of your state's Medicaid program, the services, your provider, your drugs will continue to be provided - and use them. I think it's very important, at the state level particularly, that legislators in red and blue states understand that if Congress begins to change Medicaid rules, payments about Medicaid programs, it will blow up every state budget in this country.

Medicaid is one of the most important parts of every state's budget. They rely heavily on a shared partnership with the federal government. And if those rules begin to change, everything else is at risk - economic development, the ability to fund education, the tax system. And states will be left in the really unfortunate position of having to pick and choose [00:28:00] who gets to keep their coverage and who doesn't.

Important HHS services ‘will grind to a halt’ with cuts, former Secretary Sebelius says - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 4-2-25

AMNA NAWAZ - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: As you have probably heard, Secretary Kennedy says that he can lose 20,000 workers, that's about 10,000 through cuts, another 10,000 through retirements and buyouts, without affecting the services that the agency provides. This is an agency you have run.

Do you think that can be done?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, unfortunately, Amna, to me, it's another indication of how little Senator — Secretary Kennedy understands about this massive agency.

HHS is intertwined with state governments, with local governments, with tribal governments. And it's not just about losing some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. What the massive layoff will mean is that you lose expertise, you lose timeliness, you lose an opportunity to get not only the best products to market in a very fast manner, but a food outbreak that could occur anywhere in the country.

[00:29:00] That's part of the FDA's job, is that they work with industry to quickly get those foods off the market, so my kid doesn't get harmed by the peanut butter. Here in the heartland, in Kansas, we're going to lose health employees from the CDC who have been working closely with our local health offices to monitor outbreaks, to keep vaccines up to date, to make sure that data is shared from state to state.

Those employees are all over the country. They will suddenly be gone. We're going to go into hurricane and tornado season very shortly. The first people on the ground when a disaster hits are from the CDC. They make sure the water is safe, so people can go back and relocate.

We're talking about real impact at every point in the country. And, unfortunately, after six weeks, my guess is Kennedy has not only not visited the 13 divisions, but he really doesn't know or doesn't care what the people do.

AMNA NAWAZ - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: [00:30:00] We should note that these cuts will now downsize the agency to some 62,000 positions that would remain. Secretary Kennedy has also made an economic argument for these cuts. He has said that HHS is the biggest agency in the government. He said it's twice the size of the Pentagon with $1.9 trillion, suggesting that these job cuts could help to tame the budget.

Could they? Do you see that point?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Most of the money that is in the HHS budget goes out the door. It's the largest transfer of federal funds to states through Medicaid, childcare grants, mental health block grants, Agency on Aging, help and support, home health services.

So, this is not money that's hiring people inside of D.C. offices. It's money that really is essential to health services in every state in the country and in tribal governments throughout our land. So, cutting the budget [00:31:00] really is not about people, as much as it's about really harming the services that go out to American folks.

If the personnel isn't there to make sure that Medicare payments go out on time, to make sure that people can enroll and get the health insurance that they're entitled, to make sure that the block grants go out on childcare and mental health services, those services grind to a halt.

And it hurts everyday Americans who desperately need the health services that HHS helps to deliver.

AMNA NAWAZ - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: We have also heard a top adviser to Secretary Kennedy make an argument that he says the agency has basically been failing in its mission to the American public. He points to rising rates of chronic disease, to lower life expectancy in recent years, and also a culture that he claims is too quick to medicate patients without addressing underlying causes for the disease.

What's your response to that argument?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I don't think there's any question America spends more and in some ways [00:32:00] has a lower return on investment than most of our competitive Western European nations.

We have a very expensive health care system, again, not because of HHS. Private insurers have a lot more overhead and a lot less return on the dollar. There's been a real pivot since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to preventive services, to look at the underlying causes of obesity and heart disease, to invest in healthier foods, more exercise programs, programs that actually do diabetes prevention, instead of waiting and treating the disease.

I think those efforts are really important. I'd love to see us double down on prevention services and pay more to keep people healthy than treat them when they're sick. That's great. But you can't tell the measles that is now breaking out throughout the country — we have our first measles cases in 15 years in Kansas, and it's an alarming [00:33:00] rate of spread.

You can't tell an infectious disease just to stop because we're going to focus on diabetes. We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to be able to do multiple things. Infectious diseases will come. Disasters will come. And chronic disease is here to stay. So all those efforts are critically important.

He is clearing out of agencies, from what I can read and ascertain, the top tier of expertise, not people who came in as politicals with one or another administration, but people who had been working in these fields for a long time.

AMNA NAWAZ - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: As you know, this is all part of the Trump administration's plan and agenda to try to cut what they call bloat in the federal government work force.

You have led this agency, so I have to ask, if there were changes you would suggest that need to be made at HHS, what would those be? What should change?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, I think any good CEO, [00:34:00] private or public company or government, looks constantly at ways to be more efficient. Can — are there redundant jobs? Can you put people together?

I was amused by some of the suggestions that agencies work more closely together that are in very different locations. Some are in Washington, D.C. Some are in Atlanta. And while that's an interesting theory, it's very difficult to conduct that mission.

But constantly reviewing what can we do better and really keeping the consumer front and center, the patient front and center, what services can we deliver more timely and more effective to the American public, not where my grudges, where I want to dispute old and long-term scientifically proven vaccines, safety and effectiveness.

I mean, I think this agency is quickly, unfortunately, going off the rails with leadership who [00:35:00] has a very clear agenda, doesn't know really what happens throughout the breadth of this organization, and is likely to do a lot of unintended harm by slashing expertise, slowing down approvals of vaccines and cosmetics and food and drugs, not being able to respond in a timely fashion to food outbreaks or natural disasters.

We're going to be in a very vulnerable situation.

Trump’s Butchering Social Security—To Feed His Starving Billionaires w/Alex Lawson- The Hartmann Report - Air Date 3-12-25

ALEX LAWSON: I'm sick and tired of too many people in this town, Tom, they keep talking about things in the future tense, like what may happen, the constitutional crisis that's coming, and you're like, "the constitutional crisis is now!" The vice President of the United States of America, a lawyer who knows constitutional law, he's saying that the president can ignore the judiciary, that the president is freed from the [00:36:00] constraints of checks and balances.

That is an authoritarian takeover, that is a constitutional crisis, and we need everyone to take it that seriously. At the same time, Tom, politicians aren't gonna save us. The courts aren't gonna save us either. The only thing that can stop a tyrant and the tyranny that he's bringing is the people. And so until the people are out in force raising our voices together and really shutting things down, I don't think we're gonna see as much bravery as we need. 

The politicians are lagging indicators. They get their bravery from the people, but first the people have to organize and fight back. And that's where the fire, the bravery and the opposition that we need is gonna come from.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE HARTMANN REPORT: Yeah. Bernie Sanders once made the point to me that the way politicians work is they typically don't get out in front with a flag and say, "Hey, let's organize a parade." [00:37:00] Instead, they wait for a parade to naturally form, and when it's big enough and vital enough and active enough, then they jump in front of it with a flag and say, this is my parade. And so it's up to us to create that parade, essentially. 

So tell us what resources are over at socialsecurityworks.org or where you recommend people go to learn how to become part of that parade. 

ALEX LAWSON: Definitely. And I'll just add one thing that I learned from Marion Barry, the mayor for life from Washington DC who is also MLK's left hand in the civil rights fight, he told me that the left often suffers from when the politicians want to join the parade, the left is like, "no, you get outta here. You weren't with us the whole time," and we can't do that. We have to actually be like, "oh, great. Wonderful. You're all welcome. We'll just even pretend you're here the whole time," because that's how we build power—we invite people in. 

So, if you go to social securityworks.org, you follow us on social media, the [00:38:00] pledge campaign that we're running right now, we're demanding every member of Congress pledge no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and we're running billboard trucks in every vulnerable toss up Republican district where they don't take the pledge, because at any one time, we only need three Republicans to stop this assault on our democracy and this theft of our earned benefits. 

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE HARTMANN REPORT: And there's what, 17 Republicans who in are in that category? 

ALEX LAWSON: Yes, it just in the cook report toss up. And then, you know, there's lean Republican, but these are extremely tight races, where these guys are, you know, their political future right now is very uncertain. That's why I brought up Jeff Van Drew. These are people who are saying you can't cut and destroy Medicaid. Like, I'll definitely lose my job. That's the calculus that we have to make, we work with that. We need these members to be more afraid of losing their [00:39:00] jobs to their constituents anger than they are of Donald Trump and the wrath that he can bring on Twitter.

'The federal workforce feels tormented': Federal employees on the consequences of losing their jobs Part 1 - On Point - Air Date 4-1-25

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I try not to be emotional about the work that I do, because we try to get our facts right. We do a ton of research. We try to be as prepared as possible for these conversations, but I have to say I was caught a little off guard because I did not know that America's 2 million plus federal workers all take this very specific oath of office. I actually just now, during our break, LG, I went to the OPM website, and I pulled it up and here it is. I'm just about to read the full oath of office. 

It says, "I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I will take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I'm about to enter. So help [00:40:00] me, God."

Now all federal employees take this oath. I did not know that. LG, can you talk a little bit more about what taking that oath implies, regarding the meaning of the work that federal employees undertake?

LAURA GOULDING: You reading that oath, you can't see me, but I have goosebumps, because it hits the same every time. This is a serious job. That phrase "to well and faithfully discharge the duties of my office," it doesn't matter who you are in the federal government, if you are early career talent who's just starting out in your career, or maybe this is your first job out of college, or if you are a 20-year, long-term veteran of the government, you walk into that job every day knowing you serve the American people, and you swear an oath to that—that is your mission. 

The civil service, we were talking about this a little bit before the break, but it is a mission oriented and mission-based organization. I believe Arielle was saying we're [00:41:00] not intended to work like a corporation. We're not here to serve stakeholders, we're not here for profit margins. We are here to serve a mission for the American people, no matter what the mission of each agency might be. And taking that oath, to me, just really solidifies how important that is. And that's where you talk about the dedication and we're all saying, "we" still as civil servants, it's because you swear an oath into a group to take care of your neighbors. And the people down the street who maybe don't agree with you, but you're here to make sure that they get their services anyway. And I think that's a really important and sacred calling.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Yeah. And it's distinctly different from private sector service, right? No one asks you to swear in oath. I can't speak for all private sector companies, but it's definitely not common.

LAURA GOULDING: I've never, just wanna know that any of the private sector companies I worked at that's probably a good thing. But yeah, because the job that we do is difficult. We are often underfunded, we are often understaffed, [00:42:00] but everybody still comes in each day just determined to accomplish that mission no matter what, and I think the oath is the basis of that.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Getting back to some facts and figures here, back in January, we actually did a full hour on the history of the United States Civil Service, and even though 2 million plus federal workers seems like a really big number, I think, Arielle, as you'd mentioned before, it's basically less than 2% of the entire civilian workforce in this country.

But even more interestingly, we spoke with a professor named Donald Moynihan at the University of Michigan, and he did an analysis where he said that in the United States, A] our federal workforce is in fact of the same, if not smaller, than peer nations. And on top of that, the federal government already privatizes a lot of services, and he did analysis and found out that the U.S. has something like three to four private contractors for every single federal [00:43:00] employee that we have.

For Arielle, the work that you were doing, there's three to four private contractors that are also getting paid for that same work. I wanted to lay that out. And Emily, let me turn to you, because your work was so specialized at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, I guess the Trump administration, Elon Musk, et cetera, would say, if we're already doing that, why not further contract out the work that you were doing? And that may be a way to get more efficiencies for the federal government. 

What do you think?

EMILY SPILKER: Oh, I would argue that I wouldn't say that would be a very cost saving measure. In addition, should we have private companies that are seeking a bottom line, doing such important work for our American people? I would argue not. And we are talking to a lot of folks today and organizations that I would say should remain public. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Tell me [00:44:00] more though.

EMILY SPILKER: I think we're all aware of how expensive the Department of Defense is. It's such a huge chunk of our expenditures, and if we used more contractors, I would not expect that number to go down.

INTERVIEW: Tim Faust on Defending Medicaid - The Worst of All Possible Worlds Part 1 - Air Date 3-31-25

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: When I watched the video that you sent me of that town hall that you were part of, it wasn't just you, that was the thing that I noticed. There were other speakers who came up and everybody had their story. This is so, so, so common. The way that these stories touch people and the way that once people start telling their stories, all of a sudden they feel less alone, I feel like. They feel empowered to be able to, not just connect with each other, but advocate for each other and.

I'm wondering how you see things shift sort of from the beginning of one of these sessions to the end. What is it that brings people together, makes them feel more connected, compels them to action? 

TIM FAUST: Well, when you have a clear articulation of what Medicaid does for somebody or what it does for your community, I think it's easy to rally around that.

And the [00:45:00] point of telling stories isn't just to tell stories, right? Great, we heard a story, let's go home. Let's applaud whatever. That's, that doesn't do anything. Anything for anybody. Stories are a tool. Elected officials live in a bubble. Part of it is self-created, part of it's just natural part of the job. And it's very easy to not experience or not understand the consequences of their actions.

And granted, there's a lot of other forces at play, don't get me wrong. The way that capital controls the government is not ignorable. I think it's the fundamental part of this entire relationship. You still gotta put these stories onto the tip of the spear and drive it into that bubble. You gotta puncture it. You gotta penetrate it. 

And so a movement that puts these people at the front of the line and brings them to the... like one of the things we're considering doing is taking over one of our electeds offices for multiple days, just having a nonstop cavalcade of people telling their stories over and over and over again to the elected or to staff continually. And then you video it, you film it, you put it out there. That does a couple of things. One is, in the unlikely event the elected has a change of heart, that's the [00:46:00] way you do it. Two is it demonstrates pent up demand, it de it demonstrates there are consequences to your vote, both in the literal human sense and also in the electoral sense. 

And then lastly, you build a movement around it. I hate casting on my hopes to electoral politics for a lot of reasons, but it is important to build that kind of force. It isn't important to build that kind of power, and building it around people like this, bringing 'em to the front of the line, sharing those stories, building a coalition, this is a core part of it. It's a thing that keeps people motivated and keeps them coming back. And so integrating that fully into the force, I think is important. There's so much more to building power than just these kinds of things, but they are a critical part. You gotta do 'em. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: That's something that is interesting to me as somebody who has a background in storytelling. And this is something that we have in common. You did a lot of like backyard wrestling stuff for a really long time, and so it was about putting on a show, capturing narratives, and engaging people. But there is a distance, of course, between simply being able to engage people and taking that engagement and using it to compel [00:47:00] people to meaningful action.

And this is something that I've noticed a lot in I don't know, call it the liberal bubble of theater. It's like, "oh, if we just all stand up and we say that's enough, then surely this will stop it." So I'm so interested in the way that you bridge that gap, and I think you are doing it in a meaningful way. I think that, getting people to tell their stories is one thing, but then finding the connective piece to have that story be something that reaches other people, that compels them to do something. How do you make that link? 

TIM FAUST: The purely operational nuts and bolts part of it is we have a series of forms floating around these town halls. When people feel compelled by the story, they can sign up. We bring them into a team that's entirely member directed and they plan the things they wanna do. My job and the jobs of my coworkers is to keep them engaged and help build out things, help build out options to education, et cetera, but it's up to these people who come to these town halls and feel affected, want to move to act, to build [00:48:00] out these teams and do things that contribute to this broader building out of power. 

So I talked about taking over the elected offices, that's the kind of thing they can do. Build this momentum, bring more folks in. The stories are an activation tool as well as a thing you bring to the front of the line. People hear these stories and say, fuck it, I wanna get involved, whether they have a story or not. 

It's very easy to chalk things up to alienation by and large, and I think that's largely correct, but we don't understand how we live even within the neighborhood that we exist in. This is a one of the rare things that reassembles us into understanding ourselves as being part of a cohesive whole, to an extent. It's only moments like that that you can get people to sign the dotted line and bring 'em out to a meeting and bring 'em to do something. 

And a good organizer, which I'm not saying I am, I'm a healthcare guy, but a good organizer can tie those things together into a variety of clauses. Wisconsin right now has a state election for Supreme Court, which happens on Tuesday, which I don't feel amazing about. We had a big one two years ago. Democrats won it, got us new voting maps, which have changed the entire [00:49:00] composition of the legislature. We've got another one of those coming up as well as a case about Act 12, which is the Scott Walker Bill that destroyed public sector unions.

And so this election will determine the shape of the state for years to come. And a lot of people that came to these town hall meetings are being turned out to go knock doors, and not all of 'em do. It's not a, it's not like in a completely mutable population, but it's part of putting people into a broader coalition.

If you share this worldview, if you feel affected by these things, here's all these options available to you to go out and do something with it. And people do react to that. People do respond. It's the job of my coworkers to help put together those ties, to bring people in for multiple causes and keep 'em there for the long term.

Note from the Editor on false moral arguments for cutting social safety nets

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with TED Ed exploring Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal detailing its comprehensive policies to combat the Great Depression. All In with Chris Hayes discussed how Trump employed a strategy of spreading blatant falsehoods to undermine trust in democratic institutions like the electoral system and Social Security. Consider This covered the significant costs and challenges of Medicare and Medicaid, including [00:50:00] fraud prevention efforts and concerned over potential cuts to benefits. The PBS NewsHour discussed the severe impact of USDA funding cuts on food banks across the US. Another clip from The PBS NewsHour focused on the potential negative effects of Secretary JFK Jr.'s plan to cut 20,000 workers from Health and Human Services. The Hartmann Report discussed the urgent need for grassroots activism to counteract the current constitutional crisis and authoritarian threats, highlighting the role of mobilized citizens and the necessity of inclusive political organizing. On Point delved into the significance of the oath taken by American Federal workers, highlighting their mission-driven duty to serve the American people and the unique challenges they face compared to the private sector. And finally, The Worst Of All Possible Worlds discussed how sharing personal stories at town hall meetings can create a strong sense of community, drive advocacy, motivate political action, and integrate individuals into broader [00:51:00] movements. And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members, who get access to this show ad free, as well as early and ad-free access to our freshly launched other show, SOLVED! That's all caps with an exclamation point, which features our team of producers discussing a carefully curated selection of articles and ideas to then solve some of the biggest issues of our day in each episode. Members get the podcast of SOLVED! free each week without ads before it goes out on the Best of the Left YouTube channel. We also do a special members-only section at the end of the show. 

So to support all of our work that goes into Best of the Left and have SOLVED! delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership because [00:52:00] we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now if you have a question or would like your comments included in the show, you can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also findable on the privacy focused messaging app Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now, as for today's topic, there are so many potential ways to come at today's topic that I found it genuinely difficult to narrow it down. Ultimately, I've decided to go with the big picture. Now, the moral philosophy that underpins so much of the reasoning behind the conservative desire to deconstruct social safety nets is, I think, as immoral and anti-human as anything that exists within the Overton window of acceptable political argumentation.

And of course, [00:53:00] there's a dual motivation going on here. One is the simple capitalistic greed that drives the rich to want to extract as much as humanly possible from the poor. But that is still, thankfully, outside of the Overton window, so we don't hear much about it. That motivation still lies beneath the surface.

But the other element has its roots in the deeply oppressive Protestant work ethic that has haunted the New World since before the founding of the nation. 

But let's actually work backwards to that. 

Now, it's a truism that no one lies on their deathbeds regretting that they hadn't dedicated more of their time to their work. But that idea is also backed up by hospice nurses with decades of experience speaking with dying people as they reflect on their lives. Looking back, they see more clearly the kinds of truths that we all already basically know, but tends to [00:54:00] ignore. The point of life is to love and be loved, connect with those around us, contribute, make a difference, et cetera, et cetera. Those who have spent their lives making lots of money frequently do so at the expense of all those things that really matter. They've neglected or actively cut off relationships over money and bitterness. They've failed to apologize and reconnect for reasons they can't even remember. And they end up ending their lives wealthy, but alone and unhappy.

This is the predictable result of a society that prizes work and personal wealth over community and connection. 

But look, humans are complicated. We also get joy and satisfaction out of accomplishments, out of having ambitions and working toward them. So the ideal society wouldn't be one of infinite leisure. There's a balance to be struck [00:55:00] here. We do get value out of doing work. 

Now, the conservative arguments against social safety nets and comfortable retirements that have made their way into the Overton window of acceptable thought, revolve around this ancient but backward idea that because putting in work and effort is fundamental to human survival, and that we do derive some satisfaction from work well done, that it must be the ultimate good, and practically the only thing worth pursuing. And at worse, that it is practically a sin to waste time on leisure when there's work to be done.

All of this has metastasized into a culture that is overworked and burnt out while reaping fewer rewards than the same work would've provided several decades ago, all while the insufficiency of our social safety net has forced people to accept this basic fate of "work or die" [00:56:00] because it feels like there aren't other options. The conservative argument goes that safety nets reduce the motivation for people to work. It's the old "safety net becomes a hammock" argument, which would be bad for society, so the best thing to do for everyone, but also just coincidentally the best thing to do for very rich people who profit the most from people's labor, is to restrict or eliminate social benefit programs.

But let's use another metaphor. And I need to give credit to Producer Deon who said this on a recent episode of SOLVED!, our new show on the Best of the Left YouTube channel that you might have heard of. Deon said that instead of focusing on a mostly imaginary group of people who might misuse a social safety net, let's think about the actual intended purpose of a safety net. Now, a safety net is something you might put under a tightrope, so imagine yourself walking on a tightrope. Would you feel more or less [00:57:00] free if there were or were not a safety net? In which scenario would you feel more emboldened to take risks? If what we want is a dynamic society in which people feel empowered to follow their passions, rather than settle for whatever they can get out of desperation, the existence of a safety net is what allows people to take chances. To strive for something beyond their immediate grasp. The ability to fall knowing that we will be able to get back up is the only thing that allows for the kinds of risks that can lead to greater things for people financially, as well as creating more of a cushion, that allows more room for people to create for themselves the kinds of balance between work and the rest of life that will help us avoid those deathbed regrets that are all too common. Without a social safety net, the only people with the kind of security to take risks are those who already have [00:58:00] money. They can provide their own safety net.

Now, why would a society that claims to believe in the entrepreneurial spirit want to limit themselves to entrepreneurs who get their starts because they were born into relative wealth, while the poor end up destined to remain so? Once you dissect the acceptable reason that they give for wanting to cut social programs, that it's ultimately good for everyone, you see that the high-minded arguments for this greater good and personal virtue are all built on bullshit, and lead people into the lives of "the grind." They end up working out of necessity, but believing that it's virtuous. And often translating that sense of virtue related to work into a life that neglects what the dying come to realize is the real value of life. 

So if that reason crumbles to dust when challenged, all we're left with, really, is the greed of the wealthy, [00:59:00] who stand to profit more if they can continue to either convince or force people to work the maximum hours for the minimum pay and benefits. The math is not complicated to understand. And people absolutely hate it because we all intrinsically get the balance that is required between necessary and, yes, even gratifying work, and all of the other parts of life that are even more important.

Some amount of work is fine. Too much work is too much. And their goal in cutting social safety net programs is to make "too much" feel like a virtuous necessity. Don't let them fool you. 

And in the meantime, reach out to that friend of yours who you haven't had the time to connect with because you've been too busy.

SECTION A: SOCIAL SECURITY

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on three topics today. Next up, section A. Social Security followed by section B, general Cuts [01:00:00] and Section C, Medicaid and Health and Human Services.

Social Security Struggles - NightSide With Dan Rea - Air Date 4-1-25

 

I'm not sure most people really understand social security, and I think it's important for people to understand it.

I view Social Security System as I. An insurance program. Um, how far, how far wrong am I on that? And you got it right. Actually, a lot of people think of it as a retirement investment program. Apparently, uh, our friend Elon thinks of it that way. that's not what it, what it is. I'm all for people saving money, uh, and having.

All kinds of investment accounts, but particularly 4 0 1 Ks and health savings accounts and so on, that's not what social security is. Social Security, as my grandfather said, is insurance against, uh, destitution in old age or in disability, uh, or from the loss of a, uh, [01:01:00] of a parent. Uh, it's fundamentally, it's just like your homeowner's insurance.

Your auto insurance or even your health insurance, you buy insurance. You spread out the risk. When you need to, uh, need payments either because you're of your age or because of a disability, uh, or something like that. The people who currently are paying premiums pay for that, but it's not a Ponzi scheme as Elon.

Decided to call it, uh, that indicated he either doesn't understand what social security is, or he doesn't understand what a Ponzi scheme is. I, I also look at it as a, besides being an insurance program, it, it's also a contract. Um, I don't want to take it to the level of it being a social contract, but I think it's a contract where if you pay in and you work the requisite number of years, which is 10 years or 40 quarters, uh, upon.

[01:02:00] A certain time, you then are able to, uh, receive some retirement benefits. So I, I see it as kind of twofold. Insurance and contractual Yes, no. So yes, social security, uh, a lot of people, uh, kind of shy away from the term social contract, but it's. You as a worker and other workers represented by the government, basically, uh, you pay your fair share, you expect to get your fair share of benefits.

Yeah, so, so, so there's sort of these dual elements of it. Now, I know that a lot of people are, are pretty freaked out, the Republicans have made, and, and matter of fact, president Trump in his, uh, speech to the joint session of Congress made that, um, comment that there were like, I don't know, three. 5,000 people over the age of 150. Did you watch that speech? And if you did, I'd love to know what your [01:03:00] reaction was to it, because I think what the president was saying clearly, clearly was misleading.

Well, I did watch the speech and I'm not gonna comment on, uh, my views overall. I'll just on social security. Yeah. Uh, someone misled, someone misled him on that, he seemed to say that there was this large number of people get over getting benefits over the age of 150. There is nobody getting benefits in that category. First of all, uh, when you reach a, when the records show that you reached 115, your benefits automatically stop and they will reach out to you and say.

Show us that you're still alive. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So it's just mechanically impossible. But secondly, the reason it appears that way, and this is the problem with what the kids and I do mean kids, um, if you consider a 19, 20, 20 1-year-old a kid, which I do, uh, uh. When the kids go [01:04:00] in and don't really understand something, they make mistakes and they have not had enough experience to say, wait a minute, that doesn't compute.

They're, they also don't take the time, you know, the, the Silicon Valley, uh, thing work fast and break things well, they work fast and they don't ask, uh, well, why would it show up that there're that many people that old? Well, it's because. Social Security had one of the first totally computer based systems for doing people's benefits.

It's written in a computer language that was invented 50 or 60 years ago, invented actually by a team led by the first female admiral ever, Grace Hopper. Uh, and. There was no setting in that language to insert the date when people, uh, when people were born. So they made up a date, uh, as a default, and they picked a [01:05:00] date sometime in the 1880s so that people wouldn't get confused.

Yeah, yeah. There was no default date. If you had a date, you, it was okay, but there was no default date. Yeah. So, so one would characterize that, and I've characterized it. To the dismay of some of my listeners as in effect what would be called a coding error. It, it, that's exactly what it wa was. And it's not that it was somebody's fault, it's that the code at that point did not allow for a default date.

And so the, all the people who had signed up for Social Security before there was computer code were listed on this date in 1880. Okay. Uh, and. It doesn't impact benefits at all because as I say, there's automatic cutoffs and in general, social security has the master death list where almost every death that occurs in the United States is reported to Social Security.

I. Right. I learned that the other day as I was doing some research on it, [01:06:00] I did not realize it's an obligation of funeral homes to file a report of someone's passing. I was unaware of that. that's absolutely right. That is a major source. But state, uh, medical examiners and departments of public health are also required to report.

Okay. Now I assume that if there's some people living in the, the wiles of Montana and someone passes away and there's no, uh, I, I, I guess it's conceivable that someone could be buried out on the back 40, um, and a, and a and a nice, um, you know, headstone there. But, but the government would not know that. So there, there could be, theoretically a handful of people here or there, but those people, if they were getting social security checks.

Every month for someone who had not been reported, had passed, and if they were crazy enough to cash those checks, they're involved. They're, they're, they're committing fraud against the government cashing a check on [01:07:00] behalf of someone other than themselves. Correct. I. They would end up in, in federal court charged with a crime.

Destroying Social Security Part 1 - The Hartmann Report - Air Date 3-31-25

ALEX LAWSON: I wish I had better news, but, um, basically as, uh, as bad as you think it, uh, is, it's, it's worse. Um, the damage that Elon Musk and his Doge goons have done, the Social Security Administration is truly catastrophic.

We're already seeing service disruptions currently, and those service disruptions will just get worse and worse and worse, both in terms of cascading failures. So the failures building on each other, uh, and the fact that they're not stopping, right? They keep. Putting in new things, uh, to collapse the system even faster.

For example, um, closing offices, firing people, and then disallowing a lot of services to be done by the phone. Mm-hmm. Pushing more people into the offices, which will overwhelm the offices. The offices were already creaking under the weight [01:08:00] of just 10,000 baby boomers, uh, entering the system every single day, uh, while at 50 year historic low staffing levels.

That's before Elon Musk, um, got there with his chainsaw. Um, so these are surgically designed changes that will push millions of people into a system that they are closing offices. They've already closed 45 or scheduled 45 for immediate. Um, and over the mid and long term, you know, they have instructed GSA to close all of the offices.

Um, they've pushed out thousands of workers or fired thousands of workers. Uh, but over the mid or long term, uh, they have a memo, uh, that's been put together to reduce the workforce by 50%. Uh, you know, and then, uh, the Doge guys, Elon Musk, they're like, oh, don't worry, we're just gonna replace everything with ai.

What they're saying is you're not gonna be able [01:09:00] to get through to anyone, uh, when your check doesn't get deposited or doesn't show up. Uh, and you know, if you don't believe me, like go listen to, uh, what lutnick, the Commerce secretary, why'd he go on television and say, you know, oh, if his mother-in-law didn't get her check, she wouldn't complain.

The only people who would complain about a missing a a payment are fraudsters. I mean, you understand what's going on there. Yeah. Tom, they're trying to scare people, uh, into not, uh, you know, reaching out if they don't see their deposits, they're getting people ready to not receive their benefits. And then at the confirmation hearing for the Social Security Commissioner Bisignano, who by the way, uh, it runs a monopoly payment processing company that is just happens to be perfectly set up, uh, to take over some of the functions of, [01:10:00] uh, a social security system that's been smashed to smithereens by.

Uh, Elon Musk. Wow. But at his, uh, confirmation hearing, you know, uh, Senator Warren asked him, you know, if somebody doesn't get, uh, their check or, or, or is $5,000 are removed from their bank account, which has happened already, you know, is that a benefit? Cut? And Bisignano was like, I don't know what to call that.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and otherwise just, you know, denying and diminishing, uh, you know, what is actually going on. And then just straightforward lying to Senator Wyden. Uh, when Senator Wyden asked, are you working with the Doge wrecking crew and Elon Musk? And he is like, no, I'm not. And he dub he asked again to make him say it twice, and then I.

Revealed that he has, uh, whistleblower information that in fact, Bisignano is working [01:11:00] hand in glove with Elon Musk. Uh, and so this is a commissioner who, if confirmed, will just accelerate the destruction, uh, at Social Security. So, um, I wish that I could tell people that, you know, it's all gonna be okay, that your benefits are secure, but it's, it's not.

Um, and we need a massive response, uh, from the American people to not just stop, but to reverse course. Because what's already been done will lead to service disruptions. Well, they've already laid off a whole bunch of people, right? They haven't, they've closed offices and I don't wanna get like, too into it.

If you go to our social media, you'll find enormous number of news stories that have dug into it. But Tom, a lot of it is actually they, they went in, uh, and they, uh, shut down offices or they combined offices. Uh, massive amount of reorganization in a way that, um, centralized power, uh, that now the [01:12:00] Doge people, the goons themselves, are set to take over those offices with the express, uh, purpose saying, you know, oh, well we don't need people, uh, to help beneficiaries.

We don't need people to answer questions. Um, they're gonna, we're gonna replace this with ai. And it's just, that's bs, right? Yeah. They're just, they're making things up. And what they're really doing, and I think it's pretty clear to everyone, uh, is they're raking the system. They're destroying social security.

They're causing the problem so that they can then throw up their hands and say, now you niv need to give us the legislative authority to act with a simple majority in the Senate. And that's how they get their hands on our benefits, which are otherwise, um, protect that the big. Our benefits. Right, right.

That's how they, they cut our benefits for everybody, uh, and get their hands on the, so 

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE HARTMANN REPORT: the Social Security Trust fund, which was created by Reagan in what, 

ALEX LAWSON: [01:13:00] 86? 83. The pre-funding of this trust fund was done in 83 under the Reagan reform. Thank you. But trust funds have long been a part of the Social security system.

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE HARTMANN REPORT: The current Social Security Trust fund is sitting on, uh, over two and a half trillion dollars. And that is gonna, you know, serve us well until 2035. And then it's going to go back to something like a pay as you go system. 'cause most of the boomers will have passed on. Um, and, but the problem is that starting in 2035, we're gonna see some significant shortfalls in revenue.

And the easy solution to that is to have billionaires pay the exact same percentage. Of income tax for social security that bus drivers and people who work at McDonald's do. And that is something that is absolutely intolerable to billionaire Donald Trump, the 14 billionaires in his cabinet, and the billionaires who fund the Republican party.

So, uh, in order to prevent the simple solution of simply billionaires having to pay into social security [01:14:00] taxes, it looks to me like they're going to try to break social security so that they will then have a rationale to privatize it, hand it off to whichever big bank gives the largest contribution to Republicans in Congress and be done with it.

Is that a, a reasonable analysis in your mind, Alex? 

ALEX LAWSON: It is. I have one thing to just add, which is when the trust fund was done in, in 83, it actually projected out solvency till 2060, which is when the baby boom generation will life expectancy really and truly dead. Yeah. Yes. But what's happened is that we've lost 30 years of that projected solvency because of the billionaires. Because since 1980 and the great divergence, which I know you talk about a lot, when all the productivity gains and wages have gone to people above the cap, right? So people only pay in on the first $176,000 of income right now. And since the eighties, all of the [01:15:00] money has gone to people above that.

So they're not paying any of that new, that money into social security. That's what caused it to move down from 2060 to 20 into the 2030s. Uh, so the billionaires caused the problem not just by not paying the same rate as the rest of us on all of their income, but also by gobbling up all of the income.

Nancy Altman on Social Security Attacks - CounterSpin - Air Date 3-21-25

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Social Security has been overwhelmingly popular and under vehement attack from some quarters since it began and for decades. Elite News Media have generated a standard assessment. It's the most popular program. Hence the third rail of politicking, and also based on willful misreading of how it works, it's about to be insolvent any minute.

The latter notion sitting alongside corporate media's constant refrain that private is always better than [01:16:00] public, just. Because like efficiency and all that. Now in this, frankly, wild only losers care about caring for one another and shouldn't the richest just control everything? Moment. Social security is on the chopping block for real.

Still as ever. The attack is rooted in disinformation, but with a truly critical press corps, largely missing in action. Myth busting might not be enough. A lot of us are in a kind of blurry, holy heck, is this really happening mode, but titrating out what is actually happening today is important set aside from whether courts will eventually rule against it or how it might play out in what is happening News.

I'm reading at Truth Out via Bloomberg that three [01:17:00] individuals representing private equity concerns have shown up at the Social Security Administration. How weird is that? What can that possibly mean? 

NANCY ALTMAN: It's horrible, and if you can believe it, it is even worse as soon as. Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20th.

The Doge guys, the Doge boys, was young as 19. Were swarming all over the Social Security Administration, as you said in your introduction. There has been a small group of people completely outta touch who wanted to do away with social security from the beginning. They've always been defeated, but unfortunately, they now are in control of the White House.

It's Donald Trump. It's. Despite all his lies in the campaign that he wouldn't touch Social Security, he proposed cuts in every one of his budgets in his first turn. It's Elon Musk, who [01:18:00] unbelievably called it the biggest pom d scheme in history, which is such a slander. And it's Russell Roy, who is the director of the Office for management and budget.

Architect of Project 2025, and what we're seeing is Project 2025 on steroids. So you've got private venture people there, you have Doge, guys stealing our data all in an effort to undermine our social security system. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, the line is that, oh no. They're not attacking social security itself, just fraud within it.

Now, the bad faith is palpable, but what is your response to that notion that it's really just the fraud that's under attack. 

NANCY ALTMAN: Well, as, as you said, I wrote a book called The Truth About Social Security, and one of the zombie lies is one of the ones you mentioned, but they all say, oh, this private sector is so much more efficient and so much better, and blah, blah, blah.

Actually, social security is [01:19:00] extremely efficiently run. Less than about a half a penny of every dollar spent is spent on administration. The other more than 99 cents is back in benefits. That's so much. More efficient than you find with 401k for private sector insurance. Or you can get 15, 20% administrative costs and hidden fees and so forth.

And that's also with ipro payments, which not just fraud. There are a lot of. Overpayments Underpayments, which we've done because Congress has made it also difficult to administer and some of it's just impossible to avoid. But the 99.7%, 99.7% of Social Security benefits are paid accurately to the right people on time in full and about 0.3%.

And again, there's much more. Payments in the private sector, but at that 0.3%, the overwhelming amount of that are what are called [01:20:00] improper payments, overpayments and underpayments. So for example, social security requires to get your benefit, you have to be, have been alive every day of the month before.

Now I think that's wrong. I think you should get. Proportion of payments, but that's not how the law works. So if you die on the last day of the month and you get your payment on the third day of the following month and the money is put in your account, that's an overpayment. Now, it doesn't just sit there as soon as the federal government realizes that the person that died the last day, they go in immediately, usually within a day or two and take that money back.

But that. Mainly overpayments. Underpayments fraud is vanishingly small, and the way that fraud is caught is first we have an Inspector General. Donald Trump fired the Social Security Administration, inspector General as soon as he got into office and frontline workers, and they've been. Firing [01:21:00] and and inducing all kinds of workers out, who are the ones who would catch the fraud.

So although they say they're going after fraud, waste, and abuse, they are creating. So much waste. They are abusing the workforce and through that, the American people and they are opening the door to fraud. Unfortunately. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, you know, I have seen, uh, leftists take issue with the. It's my money idea on Social Security because actually it's an intergenerational program.

Now, choosing that as a point of emphasis in the current context is a choice that I have thoughts about. But do you see meaningful confusion about. Whose money is at stake here and whether workers paying into it today are truly entitled to it. Here's where the confusion 

NANCY ALTMAN: is. I don't think there's confusion on that point.

I think most Americans, which is why the program is so wildly [01:22:00] popular. Recognize that these are benefits they earned. It is deferred compensation you, it is part of your earnings, so you have your current cash compensation. You have deferred compensation in the form of pensions, whether it's a pension sponsored by the employer or 401k, or a defined benefit plan, and US social security.

You also have what are called contingent benefits, which are disability insurance survivors benefits. Those were all earned. What is the misunderstanding? And this is again, people like Elon Musk and others who are just spreading lies about this program, or, oh, there are all these. Immigrants are the undocumented people are stealing our money.

That is a lie. Those people who are undocumented are unable to receive Social Security and even when they be, if they become documented and can show that they have made contributions, they still don't. And I think this is wrong, but they [01:23:00] still don't get the benefits they have earned, but. Americans are here paying in.

It is an earned benefit. And when Elon Musk and Donald Trump say, oh, there's fraud and we're gonna cut the benefits, they are cutting your benefits and people should keep hold of their wallets. 

‘It is wrong’: Warren sounds off on the Trump-Musk attack on Social Security - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 3-25-25

 

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: More than half of the people who receive social security count on it to put groceries on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

We're talking about people in their seventies, in their eighties, in their nineties, people who often have mobility challenges, people, people who struggle. And what's happening right now at the Social Security office is they're saying in effect. Nobody really to answer the phones, so that means you gotta find somebody to get you down to a Social Security office.

Oh, whoops. They closed that Social security office, so you gotta travel, what, two hours, three hours to be able to get to another [01:24:00] Social Security office. When you get there, we're hearing about lines that are 50 people long, with two people in the Social Security office to try to help answer questions.

Office closes. Before people even have an opportunity to get up and ask their questions, and that is repeated over and over and understand this, social security is not charity. It's not some giveaway. It is something that people earned throughout. All of their working years on a Promise from America that said, you pay into that system and then when you retire, you can count on those benefits solid.

They will be there for you and instead. What Elon Musk and Donald Trump our co-presidents are doing right now is effectively cutting the benefits that people were promised. And they are making people [01:25:00] suffer all across this country. It is wrong. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Yeah. Well, maybe some of 'em should find a billionaire as a son-in-law and they can be fine.

Yeah. They won't have to worry about the check that would, that would help them out. Did you get any sense from uh, Mr. Bisignano today? That he would exert any independent control over this, that he would be responsive or do you see him as essentially a kind of doge stew Jaic. 

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: You know, look, we raised, I raised the question directly.

I pointed out the places where if you make enough cuts in service, you have effectively cut the benefits. And we all know you can't cut those social security benefits without coming right here to Congress. Right? Only Congress can cut the benefits, but you can backdoor cut them. And he admitted that. Yep.

That is the law. And so cutting. For example, the number of people who work at the Social Security Administration can turn out to be effectively a cut in benefits. So I said, will you at least commit to [01:26:00] rehiring the people who've been cut, get social security back up to the level? At least where it was frankly, still wasn't enough, but at least where it was and.

All we heard is blah, blah, blah. Think about it. But he did not make that commitment. And why? Because he is in league with Donald Trump and with Elon Musk to cut Social Security for millions of people across this country who depend on it. The millions of people who don't have a billionaire son-in-law.

You know, 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: one of the most unnerving stories we see in the first two months is the use of this agency. To, to, as a sort of weaponized political tool against citizens. I wanna, I wanna just ask you about this, because there was this story in Maine mm-hmm. Where basically the Governor of Maine challenged the president on, uh, one of his executive orders.

They had a kind of, you know, testy exchange in the White House. And then subsequently Maine found out that the program that automatically enrolls your newborn in the hospital with a social security number had been terminated with [01:27:00] no notice, and you now had to go with your newborn to an office to get that social security number.

And it looked like it was a reprisal. And now we have confirmation. The man who's running Social Security, Leland Eck, who's sort of the Doge officer there, said he had ordered the move to cancel this after watching Janet Mills means Democratic Governor Clash with Mr. Trump at the White House. I was ticked at the Governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the President, Mr.

Eck said. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then he said that he owned it and he was, you know, he, he was sorry and he, he won't do it again. But I am astonished this happened. And do you have any confidence it won't 

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: happen again? No, I do not have confidence. It won't happen again because it is the mindset of the Trump administration and that is that this government is to be run for a handful of billionaires and people with power and everyone else can just eat dirt.

That is the [01:28:00] view of the Trump administration. We're feeling it right now in the Social Security Administration, but we're feeling it everywhere. That Elon Musk goes with his magic chainsaw to fire people, to do it in ugly ways, to undermine the kind of obligations that we have passed here in Congress, uh, to get rid of the consumer agency, to try to shut down the Department of Education, uh, and why it is all in service.

To government that works better for the rich and the powerful. This is all leading toward the Republicans, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and the Republicans here in Congress who wanna push through a big tax giveaway that's gonna cause $4.7 billion, go mostly to billionaires and billionaire corporations, and they wanna pay for it on the backs.

Of seniors on the backs of little kids, on the backs of [01:29:00] people with disabilities, on the backs of veterans, on the backs of just hardworking people all across this country. That is the ultimate battle, and this story at Social Security right now is just the most visible picture of what's going on. 

'Nothing to Do With Efficiency': Expert Eric Kingson warns DOGE is leading to Social Security collapse, privatization - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 4-10-25

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Martin O'Malley, uh, said a few weeks ago now, uh, or maybe a month or so that, that he was concerned that we might see the system actually collapse over, I think he said the next, uh, 90 days or so.

Now, at the time he said that. Uh, Eric Kingston. I, I, I sort of sounded like hyperbole at the time. Mm-hmm. But with more and more of these, you know, reported problems, should we in fact be worried that O'Malley was right about those warnings? That it could collapse? That checks might stop going out and, uh, you know, is that a real concern?

ERIC KINGSON: I believe that is a concern. And what it is, what it involves is. That is [01:30:00] Doge has been, and President Trump have been stripping social security of its expertise and historical memory. Mm-hmm. Uh, they've taken the, IT. They've taken the folks who do it, who, which is the core of the structure of the system.

Mm-hmm. They've moved most of them out, and they put in Doge people who have no understanding of social security for the most part. Beyond that. 

They've eliminated. All the offices that produce reports about how people are being affected by changes in social security, they just sent a memo out to every Social Security employee.

Do not answer any inquiries from congressional offices, right or from reporters. That's nuts. It's supposed to be a free country. Mm-hmm. They're trying to turn it some way, but, uh, it's, they're trying to control the information and you know, to some extent they're doing a good job by cutting off everything.

Yeah. They've put people in charge of. [01:31:00] Uh, changing, uh, the computer structure. Mm-hmm. And it's act, it has to be a disaster. Uh, Elon Musk has the hubris to say they can do it in three to five months. I think most of the time, most people who've looked at it seriously have said it does need to be changed, but it has to be done over a five year period.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Uh, yeah. And, and, and not by folks who don't know how to program COBOL as seems to be the case with these Doge Bros. Uh, and that 

ERIC KINGSON: yeah, that's an interesting story too, because SSA worked hard to get a top level COBOL person 'cause that's more or less people who started with COBOL a long time ago. 

But it's a very functional system still. They work to get someone and one of the first people who was RIF. It was that expert in COBOL that they brought in. They, it's everything you listen to is horrible. They're moving people like that. If they can't fire them, [01:32:00] they're moving them into claims offices, meaning.

I say this claims is really, you know, a claim, a social security claims person. Mm-hmm. Is very important. Right. It also takes two to three years to train them. You just don't throw someone into the job and you just don't get rid of all these folks 'cause you're in the middle of training them and you have to bring more people on.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Uh, yeah. I mean, what they seem to be doing, even while you know, Donald Trump has claimed. For years, oh, he's not gonna touch Social Security. And yet they seem to be firing, uh, thousands of employees. Uh, laying them off, moving them around as, as you suggest, you know, suggesting well, we're, we're, maybe we're cutting administrative.

You know, work and services and so forth, but not actual benefits. Is there any reason to feel any better about that? Is there an actual line [01:33:00] between, you know, benefits that people receive and the costs of, of running the program? 

ERIC KINGSON: I. I don't believe I'm, I'm sorry to say, and I feel really bad about this because I is just, what we're facing is so bad.

I don't believe anything they say, for the most part, when it comes to social security saying they're not gonna affect people, it's not gonna hurt them. Well, the. The slowdown in processing is gonna double the time people have to spend to get disability benefits if they're appealing. The system, right now it's about 230 days.

It's probably gonna about double 400 plus days. Wow. Now, think about that. You become a disabled per worker. Mm-hmm. You can't work, but you've gotta go through this process for a year and a half. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: And yet here's Mike Johnson house speaker Mike Johnson on, uh, mm-hmm. A Thursday after Republicans in the US House just voted to move forward with Trump's legislative agenda.

These [01:34:00] enormous cuts across the entire government to largely make way for enormous tax cuts for corporations. Mm-hmm. And the wealthy here was, uh, here was Mike Johnson. 

REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Today the president has made clear Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We'll, we'll not, uh, take a hit. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Will not take a hit. Professor, can you decode that for us?

ERIC KINGSON: Yeah, I can. It's a boldface lie. They've already taken a hit. We pay for our social security bene for our, the administration of social security. We pay for that. 

But in spite of that, they've cut the administrative funding for social security over a fair number of years. And now we're, you know, really moving into a very difficult area that affects the experience people have getting social security that's already affecting it.

Last time around the president said, oh, we're not gonna touch Social Security. Uh, and then he started saying, well. People who get disability insurance aren't really social security [01:35:00] beneficiaries or something. Mm. I'm afraid they're gonna go after the disability program. Mm. Mercilessly lots of reviews, lots of bar barricades to continuing or getting benefits.

They don't have, I don't think they have respect for citizens or people who have need, and they don't have respect for young people either. And what I'm gonna say there is. Not only are they cutting the social security of people like me who are in our seventies. Mm-hmm. Or not in cutting, but causing these problems.

Right. But we have a huge crisis we ought to be looking at. We have a lot of crises, I'm afraid. Yes. This is a kind we should be looking at, which is about half of today's workers. Uh, under 67 will not be able to maintain their standard of living in retirement if you count the cost of healthcare. Mm-hmm.

It's prob in long-term care, it's probably about two thirds. That's a crisis that needs to be adjusted. And you, and what they're doing is [01:36:00] stripping away the one thing you can count on Social security. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Yeah. Fortunately is not the only thing they seem to be stripping away. Here's, here's Elon Musk. This is, uh, last month, uh, talking about quote entitlements.

So I, I guess he's talking not just about social security here, but maybe Medicare and Medicaid as well as the, as, as, as the best things that need to be, uh, slashed from the federal budget. 

ELON MUSK: Because most of the federal spending is entitlements. Um, so. That, that's, that's like the big one to eliminate is that's the sort of half trillion, maybe six, 700 billion a year. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: To eliminate most of the federal government.

Uh, the spending is, uh, entitlements. That's the big one to eliminate. And that's the guy, Elon Musk, uh, who is running all of this for the president of the United States. 

ERIC KINGSON: Yeah. And is lying constantly about people 150 years old getting benefits. I just about. Dishonesty in the [01:37:00] system. Uh, it's, you know, it's basically an attack on the, on the institution and it's gonna be, it's a very dangerous one because for them mm-hmm

ultimately, I hope because broad, there's huge support across the country. It's independent of political party, uh, demographic, religion. Americans like love their social security. Yep. The data that we have tells us they don't want anything cut. They do wanna see the cap scrapped. They also, if necessary, and if it would help increase some benefits, they would be willing to pay a little more money.

Uh. Gradually increase the payroll contribution. They'd like to see the cost of living adjustment fixed. 'cause it's a little less than it would've cost people with disabilities in the old. 

They'd like to see people who've worked long and hard to get a benefit. That's at least the level of poverty from social security.

And there are other things, caregiving. They also wanna [01:38:00] see family leave. These things can be done without causing i, a large financial problem at all.

Destroying Social Security Part 2 - The Hartmann Report - Air Date 3-31-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE HARTMANN REPORT: During the State of the Union address, he talked about, you know, how many people are over a hundred years old getting benefits? How many people over 200 years old are getting benefits?

How many people over 300 years old are getting, these are all lies or wild exaggerations. But the point was to say, just like they do with voting, by the way, oh, there's voter fraud out there, so let's make it harder to vote. Oh, there's social security out, uh, fraud out there, so let's make it harder for people to get on Social Security.

It's really, I mean, this is a, this is an old strategy that Republicans have used forever. This is just the first time they've had the, the guts to actually do it right out in front of the public. We've seen these death by a thousand paper cuts sort of thing, or you know, ever since the Reagan administration, the [01:39:00] staffing at the Social Security Administration on a staff per payee basis or staff per budget basis or even an absolute numbers is lower now than it has been in 50 years.

Because you know, every time there's a Republican in the White House and they submit a budget and it gets passed, it's got cuts to the Social Security Administration staffing in it. And so far social security's been able to sort of keep up, although it does take like, I think it's 183 days on average to process a Social security disability claim.

And they're saying now that's gonna be between two and four years. And keep in mind, Leland Dak, the guy who is in charge of social security, was like this low level dweeb in the Social Security Administration. Who, who, uh, stove piped some information up to Elon Musk and his people about where in the Social [01:40:00] Security Administration, he thought that you could find some fraud or some waste, and it was probably those two and 300 year old people who don't exist.

Right. These, this was, this was, these are programming errors, got nothing to do with fraud or abuse or waste or anything like that. But this guy passed this information along to, to Elon that he could use to attack social Security. And so they made him the director of the entire agency. He was just a low level dweeb, and now he's running the place.

And what is he doing? Well, he just, he just laid off a whole bunch of employees and, uh, you know, he, he laid off 12% of the 57,000 workers at Social Security. And what is the result? Well, this is, this is from, uh, yesterday's Washington Post. Or perhaps it's today's, it was published last night and I quote, the Social Security administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month blocking millions of [01:41:00] retirees.

I would add, by the way, we're only 25 days into the month, um, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans and logging into their online accounts because the servers were overloaded in the field. Office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out.

But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers experience with these services because that office was eliminated as part of the cost cutting efforts led by Elon Musk. The agency is engulfed in crisis according to internal documents in more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, they go on to say, for now, the agency's run by a caretaker leader in his sixth week on the job who has raced to push more than 12% of the staff out.

Of the staff of 57,000 people, he has conceded that the agency's phone service quote sucks and acknowledged that Musk's US Doge service is really in charge of the Social Security Administration. [01:42:00] Senator Angus King, the independent, uh, senator from Maine said in an interview quote, what's going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out and it's accelerating.

He said, I have people approaching me all the time in their seventies and eighties, and they're beside themselves. They don't know what's coming.

And then it goes on this again. This is the Washington Post. Today, Leland Eck, the accidental leader, elevated to acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk's team behind his boss's backs, has issued rapid fire policy changes that have created chaos for frontline staff. AK has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise.

Others have left and disgusted. The moves have upended an agency that has been underfunded for years. Calls have flooded into congressional offices. The A A RP, the American Association, retired persons announced on Monday that more than 2000 retirees a week have called the organization since early February.

Double the usual numbers with [01:43:00] concerns about whether the benefits they paid for during their working careers will continue. Social Security, it turns out, is the primary source of income for about 40% of older Americans, and this is, this is the exact same strategy that they've been pursuing over at Medicare.

In 2003, George W. Bush pushed through legislation, the Medicare Reform Act or whatever it was called that that created, you know, the Medicare Part C had been on the books for a while. It was put on the books, I believe, during the Clinton administration as a neoliberal experiment. Let's, let's experiment with a private corporation offering some Medicare.

Benefits, but it was George W. Bush in 2003 who really turned it into what we call Medicare Advantage today. Gave it that name, allowed private insurance companies to use the word Medicare. And what did they do? Oh wow. We're not going to expand Medicare to include vision, even though your [01:44:00] eyes are part of your body.

We're not going to expand Medicare to include your dental, even though your teeth are part of your body and have a huge effect on your overall health. And we're not going to expand Medicare to include, uh, hearing, even though hearing is part of your health. But we will allow Medicare Advantage plans to offer those three benefits.

In other words, we're gonna break Medicare so that the Medicare Advantage private corporate for-profit option looks better. Well, that's what they're doing to Social Security right now. They're breaking social security. And I, you know, I. I, first of all, I told you like three weeks ago, actually, I told you several years ago, but, but in particular, three weeks ago, two, three weeks ago that this was coming, they are going to quickly break Social Security.

That's stage one, stage two. That shoe has not dropped yet, but it will as predictably as the sun coming up tomorrow, [01:45:00] and that is that in, in the House of Representatives you are going to see introduced as legislation probably sometime next week, legislation to, to offer private investment retirement plans to individuals as an alternative to social security, where the Republicans are gonna say, Hey, you know, young people, if you wanna opt outta Social Security, you don't have to pay in any longer.

You can pay into this program. It's run by Citibank or Wells Fargo or whoever gave us the largest campaign contribution this week. Or whoever took us on the best junket to, to Thailand.

This, this is an organized plan. They, they did it with, they did it with Medicare. More than half of Medicare recipients are now on these scam programs, the Medicare advantage scam that are run by private for-profit [01:46:00] insurance companies, where suddenly people who thought they were on Medicare in many cases, you know, they, they, the doctor says, oh, you've gotta have an MRI.

And they discover that no, the insurance company says, Nope, we're not gonna pay for you. You can't have an MRI.

80% of the, of the time that the for-profit insurance companies turn people down on Medicare Advantage. If they protest, if they appeal the appeal overturns the original, no. In other words, this is just, you know, these, the Medicare Advantage is a scam for a bunch of insurance companies to make a huge, we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits, which they then share to the, you know, with their shareholders and their, and their senior executives and the Republican politicians who made them rich.

And they want to, they desperately wanna do the same thing with social security. There's a lot more money in social security than there is in Medicare.

And here it is from Emily Peck over at Axios this morning. The Social Security [01:47:00] Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House, requests some of the most vulnerable Americans, including people who are hospitalized, kids in foster homes, and those living in remote areas will face more hurdles applying for disability benefits.

Acting. Commissioner Leland Eck said the changes will be made in two weeks, although he said it would usually take two years to implement these kinds of changes. You get what's going on here? I mean this, this is, this is the deconstruction of the New Deal and the great society. They're going after those programs that Democrats put into place, the 1930s and the 1960s, they've already taken down a bunch of 'em.

They want to take down all of them. They literally wanna take us back to the 1920s and nobody's calling it out, which just blows my [01:48:00] mind.

SECTION B: GENERAL CUTS

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B general cuts.

Stand Up for Science: Nationwide Protests Oppose Trump Cuts to Research from Cancer to Climate Change - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-10-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This wasn’t just in Washington, D.C., where thousands turned out. Thousands rallied in San Francisco and over two dozen cities around the country. Scientists, well, they described themselves, many of them, as “mad scientists.” That’s scientists who are really mad. [Emma] , talk about the organizing campaign and what’s at stake right now.

EMMA COURTNEY: Yeah. So, I’m coming at it from a graduate student perspective, where I’m currently looking at what my thesis is going to look like over the next three years, and realizing that a lot of the ways that I’ve originally kind of thought about my science are being impacted by these current executive orders and budget cuts and kind of the censorship of science that’s happening right now. And so, that, I think, is where a lot of people are coming at, is looking at what they’re doing and the impact it has on communities, and then looking at also how that’s being taken away right now.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Emma, you’re a cancer [01:49:00] researcher?

EMMA COURTNEY: I am.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, talk about the level of the cuts, whether we’re talking about NOAA, the climate scientists, people like Dr. Michael Mann, whether we’re talking about basic cancer research. And also, how is this affecting your colleagues, older and also students, whether they can trust staying in basic science?

EMMA COURTNEY: Yeah, definitely. I think we’re seeing right now kind of a — orders saying, like, which words you can and can’t use in your grant proposals. And so, I am coming from a breast cancer perspective. I study breast cancer. I study women’s health. And right now you’re not able to really put into proposals that you are studying women or females or looking at barriers or looking even at how race can influence cancer outcomes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You mean you can’t say words like “barrier” —

EMMA COURTNEY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: — “race,” “women” in the grant proposals?

EMMA COURTNEY: No. That’s the current advice, is grants are getting flagged for having language that is containing those words.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You know, it’s really [01:50:00] interesting. One of the beneficiaries of the National Institutes of Health may have an interesting father. Mother Jones is reporting that the Vought family, as in Russell Vought, the head of the OMB, but more significantly the — considered the architect of Project 2025, his daughter had cystic fibrosis. They credit a cystic fibrosis drug, Trifakta [sic] , for helping their daughter’s treatment. That research for [Trikafta] was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Talk about the significance of basic research when it comes to — I even think about the child who President Trump honored in his congressional address, a young man, child, who has cancer, pediatric cancer.

EMMA COURTNEY: Yeah. So, the National Institutes of Health fund a lot of [01:51:00] basic research that’s really critical in providing kind of the scaffold for these treatments later on. And so, when we’re looking at cuts to the NIH, we’re looking both at cuts to the workforce and the opportunities available to scientists, but we’re also looking at kind of the impact long term of losing these basic science projects that really have the opportunity to drive cures for people like individuals with cystic fibrosis and cancer. And a lot of these, they’re not — it’s incremental steps over time, is how science works. And so, the basic research, it might not seem immediately impactful all the time, but as you compound these findings over years and you have scientists continually working to find cures, things do happen, and we get to these treatments that are very transformative for the people with these diseases.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced that HHS would no longer allow public comments in the rulemaking process, ending a policy of a half a century [01:52:00] to involve public opinion in HHS decisions. Your response?

EMMA COURTNEY: I think it’s very important to have the input of scientists and people who have personal interest in these topics. I think their comments are really useful in making sure that our policies are informed by science and rooted in evidence and have the ability to really drive progress. I think when we have kind of a unilateral decision-making power, we’re maybe losing out on perspectives that are really critical and just making sure that science is able to help the people that need it most.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Emma, I also wanted to ask you about scientists around the world and warnings your institutions, whether we’re talking about universities or independent labs — in our next segment, we’re going to talk about a young former graduate student who has a green card, has just been taken by ICE. We’re not sure where he is. But the warning that was put out to people on visas around the world who work at — in your world, at [01:53:00] scientific establishment in this country?

EMMA COURTNEY: Yes. So, we had a lot of discussions leading up to the event on March 7th about how we could best include international scientists and not put a target on their back, because we know that there’s currently this order where visas can be canceled, and you can kind of face repercussions that you would not face as a citizen if you’re on a visa. And so, we wanted to make sure that there’s a way to productively engage. But I think it became even more severe when we did have that post put out, where President Trump did allege that you, if you partook in an illegal protest, you could face significant repercussions to your visa.

And so, I think that is harmful right now, because science is such an international endeavor. America is such a land of opportunity for young scientists. It brings so many scientists over from other countries for training, that then go on and make significant impacts, both in the U.S. and in their home communities and worldwide. And so, we really want to make sure, as well, within Stand Up for Science, that we are speaking to the perspectives [01:54:00] of international students and those who might not currently have a voice because of these orders.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Where do you go next? Where is this rally that attracted thousands across the country?

EMMA COURTNEY: That’s what we’re currently trying to figure out. And so, we are a group of early-career scientists. None of us have done significant political organizing in the past. And so, we’re kind of taking a step back and looking at what matters to people right now, what are the best places. We want to make sure that we’re taking into account all perspectives, because we are right now — this was something that was put together very quickly. It had impact. It has momentum. And now how do we use that to really drive change

Reproductive Rights Crackdown: Planned Parenthood CEO on Supreme Court Case, Title X & More - Democracy Now! - Air Date 4-4-25

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Planned Parenthood is a health system that literally sits in the middle of the public health system and tries to strengthen it. Many patients that come to Planned Parenthood, we are the first point of entry into the healthcare system broadly. And the fact that Governor McMaster would want to deny patients access to care, [01:55:00] when, you know, many times we are the only safety net — the safety net of the safety net — there providing care, just seems completely bonkers to us, as well.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And talk about what that care is. It goes way beyond abortion.

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Oh, of course it goes way beyond abortion. It is STI testing. It is access to contraception, wellness exams, breast cancer screenings, gender-affirming care — everything that someone would need to live a full and free, sexually healthy life. And I think that, you know, again, in many cases, it is — there’s primary care being provided in Planned Parenthood health centers. It is just basic healthcare. And to have a state try to deny that is what this case is about, using levers like Medicaid.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Already South Carolina bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy?

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Can you talk about Texas? In 2021, Texas terminated Planned Parenthood from its state Medicaid program. [01:56:00] Talk about this precedent and also what it means if the conservative-majority Supreme Court rules in favor of South Carolina.

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Yes, so, you know, look, we have states that have taken various measures to attack Planned Parenthood and remove us from their state Medicaid system. And the impact of that, again, is on the patients, right? This isn’t about Planned Parenthood. This is about whether or not the patients have the right to use their health insurance in order to get access to the care of their choice, of their choosing, from their provider.

You know, what will happen if the Supreme Court decides to rule in favor of South Carolina is that more states will act like South Carolina and Texas. Many of those states that have enacted the most restrictive abortion bans will very likely try to remove Planned Parenthood from its ability to — or, patients’ ability to [01:57:00] use Medicaid to go to Planned Parenthood. So it could have very devastating consequence on the patients throughout those states and their ability to get high-quality care that we believe they deserve.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And can you explain what the powerhouse Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom is? This is the group that brought the case against Planned Parenthood in South Carolina.

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Yes. So, this is, you know, a group that — should be no surprise — was incorporated in Amarillo, Texas, so that anytime they can bring a lawsuit, they can go directly to Judge Kacsmaryk, who is the only federal judge in the Northern District of Texas, a very friendly anti-abortion judge that, you know, has clearly opened his court to these kinds of cases and supporting them. We are before that court right now on a false claims case, a meritless case where [01:58:00] not only has Texas kicked Planned Parenthood affiliates out of the Medicaid program there, they are also suing to recoup resources back to the state for all of the other services that have been provided, in a bogus lawsuit that is intended to try to bankrupt Planned Parenthood. And I think that, you know, we are watching just a patchwork of very Christian nationalist and anti-abortion organizations work with this, you know, new structural advantage that they have, both with the administration as it currently stands, the Supreme Court, and the kind of patchwork of a judicial system that has been coopted by right-wing judges.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Trump administration is withholding tens of millions of dollars from nine Planned Parenthood state affiliates that provide contraceptives and [01:59:00] other vital reproductive care, predominantly to low-income and people of color. The providers received notices this week stating their Title X funding was being temporarily retained due to “possible violations,” they said, of Trump’s policies against DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion. Health and Human Services has given the providers, which operate dozens of clinics nationwide, including in Indiana and Kentucky, 10 days to comply with Trump’s demands to eliminate DEI initiatives. In a letter, HHS pointed to mission statements and other public documents that highlight the clinics’ commitment to Black communities as supposed evidence of their noncompliance. Alexis McGill Johnson, you’re the CEO of Planned Parenthood. Your response?

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: I’m a CEO of Planned Parenthood. I am a Black woman. I am, you know, someone who cares deeply about reducing [02:00:00] disparities in healthcare in communities, as we all should. I can’t think of any American who would believe that the color of your skin should dictate what kind of care you get. And that is what Planned Parenthood stands for. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what your ZIP code is, no matter how you identify, no matter your documentation status, we are there to serve you and ensure that you get high-quality, time-sensitive care.

And so, I think about the work that Planned Parenthood providers do every day, the way they have been able to leverage a critically important, long-standing program like Title X to fund access to contraception and support communities. And the idea that the Trump administration would take those resources away, to suspend those resources because Planned Parenthood is committed to improving health outcomes in community, that is essentially [02:01:00] what they are saying. What they are not saying is that this is, you know, just another one of the dozens of attacks that Planned Parenthood is facing, as people who want to use any means that they have to deny access and resources to Planned Parenthood because they are trying to advance their anti-abortion agenda.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, are you sticking with DEI at these clinics, or the clinics?

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: You know, each affiliate is going to make their decisions about how they enact improvements to health outcomes. But at our core — right? — at our core, reducing disparities, health disparities, in community is what we do. And I think that’s really important for us to move away from, you know, just these trigger words like ”DEI” and actually talk about what those words mean and what they mean in practice for community — right? — ensuring we have representation of [02:02:00] everyone, so that we have people who speak the same languages as our patients, so that we can give them the best care, that we have an ability to improve outcomes and ensure that people are getting the right resources to do so, and that, you know, everyone is actually seen — not just seen by a doctor, but literally seen for who they are and what they want. That is what I have in my healthcare system I go to. I know when I walk into my provider, they know who I am. They are able to see me and understand my particular needs. And I think everyone in America deserves that. And I can’t imagine that this administration would be very popular in trying to deny other Americans that same right.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And finally, we just have a minute, but with Planned Parenthood under assault, you have also had a lot of victories. Among them, in Wisconsin, Judge Susan Crawford, who once represented Planned Parenthood as an attorney, trounced Brad Schimel, the [02:03:00] judge who was funded by, among others, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. The significance of this, and other victories that you consider so important at this very fraught time?

ALEXIS McGILL JOHNSON: Oh, Wisconsin was such a shot in the arm, I think, for this movement, for so many movements, because I think what it shows is that the good people of Wisconsin, the good people of America do not want to be bought. They want to do what is right. They want the ability to make decisions, to continue to vote for freedom and to ensure that their representation reflects that in their state. And I think, you know, all of us looking to Wisconsin have a lot of hope about what is possible right now as we fight back with this administration. You know, I also think — I mean, and the practical implications of that, right? We have a state that has voted in support of reproductive freedom, and to have a state Supreme Court to affirm that is going to be really important. It’s also going to be really [02:04:00] important as we approach, you know, in five years, the year 2030 and we hit a redistricting year, and so that we’re able to kind of start to fight back structurally in the space that we are in.

I’d also point you to Missouri, Amy. The people of Missouri voted to enshrine — to actually flip a ban, abortion ban, in November. And it’s only been within the last month that the Missouri clinics have been able to provide access to abortion, because even when you win, you still have to defend it with the state AG and the statehouse, that may not be favorable. So, that is the work that we have to be reminded of, that even when we win, we have to defend those wins fiercely and remind — remind these electeds what we want and who we are and how powerful we will be to ensure that we get to maintain our freedoms.

882 - Personnel Cuts at the CDC - Public Health On Call - Air Date 4-13-25

DR. DAVID FLEMING: CDC historically has also been a, a training ground to train future epidemiologists, future [02:05:00] scientists, future leaders in public health. The IS would program would be an example of that, but many of the public health staff and leaders in state and local health departments around the country have on their resume having worked at CD, C and EIS.

LINDSAY SMITH ROGERS: Let's talk about what's been happening recently. Can you give us an overview? 

DR. DAVID FLEMING: Sure. It's difficult to, to give an overview view because it's complicated. But with the new administration first, about a month ago, uh, it was a broad restructuring firing of staff at CDC, mostly younger staff, for example, in training programs like I was talking about.

But acutely on April 1st. In addition, HHS took a very serious step of announcing about 2,400 positions lost at CDC across the breadth of the agency. Most people think of CDC as an agency that works in infectious diseases, and it does, but CDC is actually the [02:06:00] nation's public health department and so has.

Longstanding programs and chronic diseases and environmental health issues and birth defects, disabilities, and it's really in that part of CDC, that non-infectious part that apparently most of these reductions were made, although built as efficiency gains. It's very difficult to, to understand that because essentially entire programs, including the scientists, the laboratorians were eliminated.

It's frustrating and I'm. Um, difficult to talk about the specifics because this has also been done unfortunately, with a bit of secrecy, and so there's been no official list public by HHS of the exact positions that have been eliminated. And instead that's had to be compiled mainly by those individuals who were affected, who have spoke it up.

And so some of what you and I are gonna have to deal with today is not knowing with precision. All of the [02:07:00] information we'd like to know. 

LINDSAY SMITH ROGERS: What do we know about people and programs that have been cut at at this point? Like what is clear? 

DR. DAVID FLEMING: So it, it does seem like CDC is divided into what are called centers.

That's the subdivisions of CDC. It does seem like about 75% of the centers have been profoundly affected by this with a somewhat. On its face, random dissolution of programs. For example, in the Environmental health center, the lead poisoning programs that respond to lead crises around the country seem to have eliminated.

The asthma program has been eliminated. The. Workers that investigate cruise ship outbreaks have been eliminated. Another part of CDC is called niosh. It's the National Institute Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, dealing with worker safety issues. Almost all of that appears to have been eliminated except for one congressionally mandated piece that deals with the World Trade Center, a huge loss, [02:08:00] tobacco, uh.

Leading cause of chronic disease death in this country. The tobacco part of CDC, the Office for Smoking and Health seems to have been eliminated. The sexually transmitted disease Labor laboratory at CDC that is unique in its ability to identify new sexually transmitted disease pathogens. Those laboratories have been fired a fair amount of HIV.

Appears to have been eliminated the HIV prevention programs, both domestically and globally, as well as, uh, apparently much of the work that goes on with HIV surveillance, tracking the HIV epidemic around the country, oral health programs, a fair amount of birth defects and disability. Let me go on though to say that beyond just these reductions in personnel, I think one of the things that's most frightening to me is that.

Much of the leadership of CDC that was present two weeks ago is no longer there. [02:09:00] When you start going through the different centers, even though centers have not been eliminated, the center directors have been told they need to resign or be. Reallocated to the Indian Health Service in Alaska or somewhere.

So that applies to the center directors for the HIV, tb, STD, and Viral Center for the Chronic Disease Prevention Center for our CDC D'S Global Health Center. Those are all gone. The NIOSH Center director has been asked to lead the, the director for the Center for Forecasting, analy Analytics has been asked to leave.

The Birth Defects Center director has been asked to leave, and that's on top of. Resignations that occurred in the week before this happened, including the center director that governs all the infrastructure monies that go out to state and local health departments. The principal deputy at CDC resigned.

The injury and Environmental center directors are still there, but their centers have been devastated by this, and [02:10:00] so their ability to lead is much more diminished. In addition to the center directors, the immediate office of the director that essentially provides the leadership for CD. C has also had.

Most of its leaders leave, including the leader for the Office of Communications. Communication activities had now been centralized at HHS. The Chief operating Officer has left the head of the Office of Equity, has left the Office of Program Planning and Evaluation Director resigned. The Office of Science Director resigned.

The Washington DC office of CDC Director was asked to leave Freedom of Information Act. Alito was asked to leave. I could go on, but I, I. Making the point that this is really almost a decapitation of leadership at CDC that has accompanied these reductions. 

LINDSAY SMITH ROGERS: That's a really important point because I know we see these big numbers of, of layoffs, which in and of themselves are shocking, but to know that so many of them layoffs, resignations, people being asked to leave are in [02:11:00] leadership positions is really crippling for an organization of this size.

I mean, having worked with them for so long, what can you tell us about the, the expertise that's now been lost? 

DR. DAVID FLEMING: Well, it's, it's irreplaceable. The expertise that, that's lost and I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind this, but absolutely no warning was given to leadership that this was about to happen, and leaders were asked to leave within 24 hours of being no notified, and so there was no opportunity for planning.

I. For continuity of operations for the agency to say, with these drastic leadership departures, what is it that we need to be doing to make sure that we can continue to do, to do our jobs, that that opportunity is gone as well as the expertise that could have informed how CDC could best manage these reductions.

So it's a crisis. It's a crisis in the agency right now. 

LINDSAY SMITH ROGERS: Let's talk a little more broadly. You know, you mentioned before that the CDC C'S core mission [02:12:00] is, you know, infectious disease surveillance and, and, and some of the, some of what has been talked about is that the CDC is returning to its mission. That was in some of the communication that went out.

Where does that fall in all of this? 

DR. DAVID FLEMING: Yeah, I, I, I, um, respectfully would, would. Disagree with your notion that C'S core mission is infectious disease control. That's how CDC was founded back in the 1940s. But the CDC today, the CDC stands for centers, plural for disease prevention and control, and much if not most of what CDC does that's most important to the American public is not in infectious disease outbreak identification. Instead, it's work across the range of those conditions that are causing the most preventable death and disability in this country. Infectious disease is certainly important. That's how CDC tends to get in the news.

But most of what they do is quietly working with state and local health departments and [02:13:00] universities around the country attacking the leading causes of death and. Chronic diseases, tobacco, obesity in environmental issues like lead poisoning and asthma and birth defects and disability and injury and violence prevention.

That's really the value add that CDC has. I'm not trying to say the infectious disease part isn't important. It is, but equally, if not more important is the rest of what CDC does, and that's been most affected by these reductions. 

LINDSAY SMITH ROGERS: What are you most concerned about? 

DR. DAVID FLEMING: Well, this is really the worst damage that has been done to public health in this country since I've been working, and I worry most about two things.

Number one, I. Unless reinstated, it's irretrievable. And so we are facing a crisis not only today, but indefinitely into the future. And many of the effects are gonna take time [02:14:00] for their effects are known. It's gonna take a while for smoking rates to start going up or for blood poisoning to start affecting kids again.

But that is coming and I'm concerned about that. Second, and equally important in my mind, you know. Public health in this country is a joint federal, state, local responsibility. But I don't think that most people realize that over three quarters of CDC D'S budget goes out to state and local health departments all around the country to universities, to community-based organizations.

And so this is not just a. Problem for a federal agency. Instead, it's a problem for our public health system and for the ability of health departments to serve every community in our country to operate effectively and and to do what it is that people expect them to do. With all that's happening right now, with all the changes that are happening, it's difficult to get attention to any particular issue.

I would just, you know. Request that those people who are con [02:15:00] concerned about public health, who are listening audience, for example, um, to speak up on this, to, to, to let our leaders know what they think, in particular, to express concern about really the future of the public health system in this country that's been and is going to be profoundly affected by what we're seeing happening right now.

'The federal workforce feels tormented': Federal employees on the consequences of losing their jobs Part 2 - On Point - Air Date 4-1-25

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I just wanna play a little bit for all of you of one of the many things that President Trump has said about the massive reduction in the federal workforce. It's part of a push, he says, towards improved government efficiency.

DONALD TRUMP: We have to make our government smaller, more efficient, more effective, and a lot less expensive.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: This is the constant line that the president, that Elon Musk, that everyone associated with this really large reduction in force is giving, that the federal government is bloated, the size of the workforce is too large. It can get the same work done faster and more efficiently with fewer people. Emily, do you have a retort to that?

EMILY SPILKER: Oh yes. I [02:16:00] would say this, all of these ways of attacks of firing civilians and federal employees are not going to make the government cheaper in the long run. I would say.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Why?

EMILY SPILKER: One aspect of the DRP is that position really ceases to exist, but what doesn't change is the size of our mission and the work that we need to accomplish every day.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they could possibly need to hire an outside contractor, which would be a lot more expensive than what we could have done as an in-house civilian.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. Arielle, same question for you. CMS is huge, right? Aside from the Department of Defense, Health and Human Services is the largest expense, essentially, other than social security, that the federal government has. Arguably there's room for squeezing some efficiencies out. What do you think?

ARIELLE KANE: Medicare and Medicaid are already very efficient programs. Overhead in the private insurance market is 15% to 20% of administrative costs for running a health care program.

[02:17:00] In the public sector it's around 2%. So you can already see that we are much more efficient than the private sector. There are ways to make things more efficient. But it's not through blanket, untargeted firings. First of all, I have now been paid for six weeks that I haven't done any work, because of how they fired me.

So that's not efficient. Secondly, they didn't give us time to do any sorts of handoffs. So I was working, and I had no opportunity to pass off the work that I was doing or the emails that were threads that were in my inbox to anyone else, before I lost access to my computer. So that's not efficient.

When I was working on a program that was intended to improve efficiency in Medicaid and improve outcomes, I know that Donald Trump and Elon Musk don't like to hear this, but to change public policy and to make it work better, takes time and evidence. You don't want to just [02:18:00] do across the board changes that you think might work.

You want to make sure that a policy idea does have the results it's intended to have. And so that takes time and expertise. And then once you know whether or not it's effective, you scale it, or you end it, if it's not effective. And in these large unconsidered cuts, we aren't doing things in a way to make them more efficient.

Passing legislation to reform the government to maybe get rid of some onerous, outdated reporting requirements or whatever. That takes time. You have to change the law to do that, and they aren't doing the hard work that requires. So I just don't think that what they're doing will make anything work better.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I want to lean on your experience in the private sector before you came to work for the federal government. Because a lot of people look at what the three of you described about, the sudden notice, the immediately getting cut off from IT systems, et cetera. And they say, I've been through that a bunch of times working for corporate America.

That's just how it works. You get walked [02:19:00] into a room, if you're lucky and someone says, Nope, you are surplus to requirements, now you are being downsized, and they just walk you straight out of the building. So I think folks may come to this conversation with perhaps not that much sympathy on that front, just saying, federal employees have been insulated from the realities of the private sector for a long time.

And, welcome to our world.

ARIELLE KANE: Yeah, I get that maybe that's the expectation. I do think that I have two responses to that. I was working in public service, and the idea is that you're not working on behalf of a company's bottom line, but instead you're working on behalf of the American people to serve them.

There's like this social contract that's in place, is that in exchange for less money and less flexibility, you have stability. People make that trade off every day, because they value serving the American people. But when you erode [02:20:00] that contract, or that social understanding that we've long had, between the tradeoffs of working for the federal government and the tradeoffs of working in the private sector.

Why would anyone want to go work for the federal government? Because we already know that the opportunities are more lucrative. Yes. Maybe more risky, but more lucrative in the private sector. And I just worry that in the way that they're handling this, no one in their right mind would go work for the federal government, and that is a loss to the American people, not to me.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Yeah. Yeah. Point well taken. Because one of the things that has long been thought about is that you want the best people to be able to do the kind of complex enacting, the kind of complex policy that the federal government is charged with doing.

Now, LG, let me just be blunt here. Because again, I'm trying to reflect on what listeners may be thinking. Why would the Office of Personnel and Management even need an office of communications? Like what does that actually have to do with serving the American people?

LAURA GOULDING: Yeah, I can understand on one hand where that might [02:21:00] be coming from, but the Office of Communications does a lot to make sure that the American people, the press, other agencies, other stakeholders know what our agency is doing.

Our agency dealt with workforce policy for the federal workforce, and that can be hard to understand. OPM is essentially the HR arm of the federal government, so we worked with concepts and products like health care retirement, and anyone who has worked in health care or retirement, or employment and performance management, that can be complex.

So we did a lot of work to translate that really complex policy and those complex actions to people, so they understood what their government was doing for them. In addition, when we would have questions from press, public, anyone who wanted to reach out to our agency to get more information, it was our responsibility to respond or make sure that we were working with the various subject matter experts to get that information and be able [02:22:00] to translate that for folks, so they know what's going on.

In addition, we had folks who worked to make things accessible. So folks with disabilities who may not be able to just listen to a radio show, go online to read the latest memo, or the latest policy. My team worked to make those accessible so that people with disabilities would be able to have the same access to this really incredible and important information.

Former Congressman Max Rose of VoteVets on Trump, Musk 'war on veterans' - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 3-27-25

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday announced that it plans to lay off 10,000 employees.

As part of a major restructuring plan and shut down entire agencies within HHS, including ones that oversee billions of dollars in funds for addiction services and community health centers across the country cuts at those agencies like the Food and Drug Administrations Centers for Centers for Disease Control, national Institutes of Health.

And the centers of Medicare and Medicaid services will result in a [02:23:00] cut of some 20,000 federal jobs at the agency. The Department of Defense has already cut more than 17,000 probationary employees, though a federal judge has ordered that. It was done unlawfully by the Trump administration and its. Elon Musk Dobros and has ordered the Pentagon to restore those jobs.

The administration has said that the IRS will see layoffs of as many as 6,700 workers likely to severely impact the amount of revenue that the federal government will bring in. But few other, if any federal agencies are facing as many job cuts. As the Department of Veterans Affairs at the beginning of March, according to an internal VA memo, the new leadership under Donald Trump said that it was planning a reorganization that includes cutting over [02:24:00] 80,000 jobs.

From the agency that provides healthcare and other services for millions of American veterans, the memo instructs top level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization this August to quote, resize and tailor the workforce to the mission. Revised structure, whatever that means. It also calls for agency officials to work with White House's Department of Government Efficiency or Doge, to move aggressively while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approach.

To the Trump administration's goals, quote, things need to change, said Trump's Veterans Affairs Secretary, Doug Collins, in a recent video posted on social media, adding that the layoffs would not mean cuts to veterans healthcare or benefits. Well, that seems like a lot of layoffs. Is it possible they would not result in loss of care or benefits to veterans?

This [02:25:00] administration is finally going to give the veterans what they want. Collins said in the video, president Trump has a mandate for generational change in Washington, and that's exactly what we're going to deliver in the va. He said, veterans have already been speaking out against the cuts at the va, where more than 25% of the VA's workforce is comprised of veterans.

But from layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon Purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump's actions, AP Reports this week. With the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans who make up roughly 30% of the over 2 million civilians who work for the federal government overall, and often tap government benefits that they earned with their military service.

[02:26:00] Quote, at a moment of crisis for all of our veterans. The VA's system of healthcare and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully. Put on the chopping block by the Trump administration said Senator Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. At a news conference last week, Blumenthal announced a series of so-called shadow hearings by Senate Democrats.

To spotlight how veterans are being impacted by all of this. Veterans are outraged. Said Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who's an Iraq veteran and former assistant secretary at the va. Quote, they said Donald Trump promised to watch out for them. The first thing he does is fire them. In fact, nearly six in 10 veterans voted for Donald Trump last year according to AP Vote Cast.

Yet congressional Republicans are standing in support [02:27:00] of Trump's goals, even as they encounter fierce pushback, including from many veterans. In their home districts, quote, they've cut a lot, but understand this essential jobs are not being cut. Said Congressman Ma. Mike Bost, the Republican chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee during a tele-town hall last week, noting that he is working directly with the VA's secretary.

Uh, Doug Collins. We're all kind of wondering what's next said dan Foster, a Washington State Army vet who lost his job when the VA canceled a contract, supporting a program that educates service members on how to access their benefits and VA programs. Others are angry that they have been portrayed as dead weight and cut from jobs that they felt played a direct role in helping veterans get healthcare.

Democrats are already pressing their Republican colleagues to show their support for veterans in [02:28:00] negotiations to allow passage of a Republican government funding bill. Earlier this month, Democrats secured a vote to amend the package to include language that would protect veterans from the federal layoffs.

That amendment failed on party lines with Republicans voting against protecting veterans. Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is also a veteran, said he was unsure whether veterans would shift their political allegiance or not, but he said it is at least clear veterans are quote pissed.

Last week, the nation's largest progressive veterans nonprofit organization, vote Vets launched a multi-platform six figure ad campaign targeting house districts. Around the country before next year's midterm elections, calling out Republican veteran members of Congress for being complicit and dodging their constituents.

As Elon Musk's [02:29:00] Doge fires veterans across the country, the ads according to the group will target Republican Congress members. Don Bacon in Nebraska, Jennifer Kiggins in Virginia, John James in Michigan, Scott Perry in Pennsylvania, and Zach Nunn in Iowa. The campaign includes billboards calling out the representatives for supporting Musk and the Doge Bros for slashing thousands of veteran jobs and.

It also includes 62nd video ads to run in those members, districts like this one featuring a group of veterans sitting in a circle and telling their stories of being downsized by Elon Musk. 

VOTE VETS AD: I was at Barnes and Nobles with my two children, four and 10, and my husband. And I received a text from my coworker and he said, have you seen the email?

I I, I served in the military for over 33 years, just accepted a new position in the va. Come into the office. Fire up my computer and I come back and there's an email [02:30:00] sitting there for me. I knew then. I knew what was coming. I have not had a single negative performance review in my 10 years. It feels like veterans are being personally attacked by Elon Musk.

I did not put my life on the line for some tech bro, billionaire from South Africa to come in here and try to destroy our country. We are gonna bear a lot of this. A lot of this costs with rising cost inflation. I'm literally donating plasma to buy eggs and our Congress person does absolutely nothing.

Stop Elon's War on Veterans. Now. 

SECTION C: MEDICAID & HHS

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section C, Medicaid and Health and Human Services.

RFK Jr. is doing Eugenics - Happy Pancake - Air Date 4-4-25

SKULLIE - HOST, HAPPY PANCAKE: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of the Kennedy Empire is our newest United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. He's a Nepo baby. He's an anti-vax activist and a self-proclaimed brain worm landlord.

So naturally, I'm sure a person like him hasn't said anything worrying. Right. Every [02:31:00] black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence. Not true, and those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere to get reparented to live in a community where there'll be no cell phones, no screens.

You'll actually have to talk to people. All right? A lot to unpack here. First of all. No, both parts of that sentence are lies and not based in fact or science. Second of all, whenever white people talk about re-parenting or sending children of other races away from their parents to be reeducated. This should raise some red flags.

I know we all feel inextricably bound to the hellish influence of technology in our lives, but gathering all of the black kids, taking them away from their parents, where God knows what is going to happen to them, where they will have no contact with the outside world, doesn't really seem like the best immediate solution.

In addition, this suggestion for black children on these medications which were [02:32:00] prescribed by doctors mind you being sent away to be reparented, uh, away from their families. Sounds eerily familiar to people who know anything about US History Residential schools in the United States were boarding schools designed to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into Euro-American culture, beginning in the early 19th century and continuing through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

These schools operated under the motto, kill the Indian, save the Man. And the idea that by removing indigenous children from their communities, they would be healed from their quote Savage ways. The US government and religious organizations collaborated to remove native children from their families, prohibiting them from speaking their native languages.

Practicing their traditions or maintaining connections to those communities cut off not only from their families and their culture, but also the outside world. By the 20th century, attendance at these schools was often mandatory and indigenous families who resisted risked imprisonment. Many of these schools remained operational [02:33:00] into the late 20th century with some persisting into the 1980s and the devastating effects of which still impact indigenous communities today.

It's amazing that we still exist as Native American people. That was not the intent. You know, the intent was to. To destroy us as native people. Generations of Native Americans lost their language, their culture, and their spiritual practices. Survivors of these schools often struggled with PTSD, depression and substance abuse, contributing to cycles of poverty, addiction, and mental illness.

And the role of the US government and Christian organizations in the abuse of these indigenous children has led to deep distrust in these organizations. Understandably, and some of you out there might be saying, well, that's not what RFK said he was gonna do. We're gonna be frolicking in fields and picking our own fruit.

Yeah. I don't give a fuck what his intentions are. The road to hell was paved with good intentions. Mama, when you are talking about taking kids away from their parents for quote. [02:34:00] Re-parenting, you are taking away that child's cultural upbringing. You're taking them away from their community. And if the point is to take away their phones as well, how are these children supposed to defend themselves from any abuse that might take place?

They can't take videos, they can't document anything. And their kids, how are they supposed to hold adults accountable if there's no one there to vouch for them? And like, I mean, I hate to say the obvious, but why is he specifically targeting like black children? I wonder. First of all, black children are not the only children that are prescribed these medications by doctors.

Um, again, there's nothing wrong with your child being prescribed Adderall if that's what they need, but that's also like not the only section of children being prescribed these medications. Like he's just saying the quiet part out loud. But uh, shocker. That isn't the only worrying position that the current health Secretary has about black people.

Let's bring back that quote from earlier. Now we know that, you know, we should not be giving black people the same vaccine schedule that's given to whites because their immune system is better than ours. This was brought up [02:35:00] during his hearing before the Senate confirmed him and he defended it. He defended this position saying it's science.

SENATOR ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: What different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received?

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: I mean, the, the, the Pollina article suggests. That blacks need fewer antigens, uh, than

SENATOR ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: this is so dangerous. So you get the same measles vaccine, Mr. Kennedy, with all due respect, that is so dangerous. Your voice would be a voice that parents would listen to.

That is so dangerous. I will be voting against your nomination because your. Views are dangerous to our state and to our country. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: I mean, do you think science is dangerous senator? 

SKULLIE - HOST, HAPPY PANCAKE: But believe it or not, by saying it's science doesn't actually make it science. And this is why you should always check your fucking facts because the scientist that ran this fucking study and published the paper.

That he pulled this supposed scientific fact from, basically said that RFK doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Other experts say Kennedy's [02:36:00] response to Also, Brooks was based on a Mayo clinic study that examined racial differences in the immune response to vaccinations. But the study's author, Dr.

Richard Kennedy, who is not related to the nominee, told NPR that the data doesn't support changing the vaccine schedule based on race doing so he said would be twisting the data far beyond what they actually demonstrate. Guys, grandpa got out again, and if you haven't discovered this yet, the reason why this is so worrying is because this was the eugenics movement in the United States.

Again, not too long ago. The eugenics movement was a dark chapter in public health and social policy, and it has slowly started to creep back into the public sphere. For those that don't know, eugenics is the belief in improving the genetic quality of human populations through things like selective breeding and social interventions.

So this involves the cheeky little practice of getting rid of all the people with disabilities or mental illnesses or people that are poor or have quote, [02:37:00] undesirable traits, which just so happened to be all the traits of people of color and Jewish people at the time. Huh? I, I, I wonder why eugenics is like racism and ableism and classism had a.

Fucked up little baby. And this movement was popularized right before the Nazi rise to power and was later used as a tool for the Nazi regime, not only in establishing their racial policies and promoting a quote perfect Aryan race, but also included limiting medical access and vaccines to the groups they wanted to exterminate.

Since Joe Biden issued a sweeping vaccine mandate last week, right wing media and politicians wasted no time in deploying the Nazi comparisons, calling the move fascist. Totalitarian authoritarian and involving swastikas and the Nuremberg Code, there's only one problem. The Nazis didn't actually issue a vaccine mandate.

In fact, Republicans would've found much to like in the third reichs vaccine policies, which was very much in line with their current [02:38:00] recommendations. Above all it relaxed requirements for compulsory vaccination that had been in place in Germany for decades at that point, and went with a voluntary approach.

Instead, we even have records of private discussions of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi colleagues clearly showing that. Far from viewing vaccine mandates as the key to their genocidal goals. The opposite was the case. They knew that withholding compulsory vaccination and other German public health innovations would help kill more of the undesirable, inferior people who they wanted to rid from the world.

And I think the important thing to remember here is it doesn't matter what RFK says when he's enacting policies and stirring up vaccine speculation and anti-VAX rhetoric. These are the results that occur. Low income communities, communities with less education, these are the ones that are going to suffer due to anti-vax rhetoric.

Long-term, this has been his goal. Limiting vaccine accessibility has been his goal. He [02:39:00] literally gets paid. Millions of dollars to aid an anti-VAX rhetoric. He is making bank off of people suffering and dying when they don't get vaccines. Okay? First and foremost, vaccine skepticism is already higher in communities of color than it is in white communities, and part of that is because historically the systems of government have not protected people of color in the same way they've protected white people.

In fact, there's a long history of. Systemic and medical violence that has occurred against these communities, including things like forced sterilization. We've also seen things written into textbooks claiming that black people have a higher pain tolerance leading to black patients enduring unnecessary pain or being experimented on.

So we already know what he wants to do with black children, but RFKs, radically regressive ideas don't stop there. He wants people with drug addictions to go to labor camps disguised as what he is calling. Wellness camps. Now, some of you out there might not have any compassion for drug [02:40:00] addicts, and we would have disagreements about that, but you might be surprised to know what RFK Junior actually qualifies as drug addicts.

RFK considers anyone who takes medication for anxiety, depression, A-D-H-D-B-P-D, schizophrenia, and any psychiatric condition. A drug addict. So basically, if you take any regular medication prescribed by your doctor for a diagnosed psychiatric condition, that makes your otherwise difficult life easier to manage.

Sorry, you're a drug addict also. This is a quick reminder. In here that RFK is, uh, not a doctor and not certified in any capacity in the health field. In fact, he's been called out by doctors, psychologists, sociologists, and other medical and health professionals for not only being full of shit, but for actively spreading misinformation and direct.

Harming communities because of it. And while that he said that he doesn't plan on forcing people to go to these camps, he's part of an administration that also said they were only going to deport criminal offenders, and they're now going after permanent [02:41:00] residents and US citizens. So pardon me if I don't fucking believe you.

Republicans Move to Cut Medicaid. How Many Millions Could Lose Healthcare? - What A Day - Air Date 2-24-25

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Health care policy is notoriously complicated. So to start this all off, can you give me a very quick primer on Medicaid? Who does it cover? How do you qualify and who pays for it? 

SARAH KLIFF: So Medicaid is a major health insurance program in the United States. It covers about 80 million people. It is jointly paid for by the federal government and the states. And the way you qualify is by falling into a certain category. So Medicaid is a little different from Medicare. Medicare is the program for seniors. You qualify by being over 65. Medicaid, you have to have some kind of eligibility criteria? So you’re under a certain income, you have a disability, you are a kid under a different income threshold. You’re pregnant. There’s all these different eligibility categories. They vary a little bit state to state. They’ve changed a lot over the past decade. But basically you have to have some kind of need that the government has decided, yes, we’re going to have these people qualify for the Medicaid [02:42:00] program. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: So it’s not just poor people, right? I think that that’s kind of the assumption, but it’s such a bigger program than that. 

SARAH KLIFF: Yeah. And it’s especially grown over the past decade since Obamacare. One of the big things Obamacare did is it expanded Medicaid to cover anyone under a certain income. The very wonky threshold is 138% of the poverty line. I think that hovers around like 17, $18,000 a year for an individual person at this moment. And it also covers a lot of things. You might not expect, nursing care. Some people might be surprised to know that Medicare, the program for the elderly, actually doesn’t cover much nursing care. So a lot of people end up having their nursing care paid for through Medicaid. It covers children up to about four times the poverty line, so that’s definitely getting into middle class. It’s a really reaching program that’s, you know, covering one in five Americans right now. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: And Medicaid has also been a political target of Republicans for decades. Why? 

SARAH KLIFF: Yeah. You know, there’s a number [02:43:00] of arguments right now. And the ones I’ve heard kind of reporting in areas that supported Donald Trump heavily is, you know, a frustration with government dependance. The idea that people didn’t work for their benefits. You know, in the United States, we have a health insurance system where typically you get your health coverage at work. So I do hear this argument in kind of Republican circles about, you know, these people aren’t working. Why should they be getting this coverage and that they’re just kind of relying on a government handout? Versus doing the work they should be doing to get a health insurance plan.

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Yes. Those babies got to get them in the mines. 

SARAH KLIFF: Yeah. I mean, one thing I would even add about the adults on Medicaid, the vast majority of them are working already. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Right.

SARAH KLIFF: They’re working. But, you know, maybe they’re a rideshare driver. Maybe they’re at a low wage job. They’re working, but they’re not earning enough, and they’re not getting offered health insurance at work, which is how they ended up on, you know, a government program. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Right. And yet, even as Republicans have vilified Medicaid, as you mentioned, as a handout as welfare, they’ve failed to make the [02:44:00] kind of drastic spending cuts to the program they say they want. Why? 

SARAH KLIFF: They’re in a tricky spot. I mean, you see this this kind of fracture right now between Republican rhetoric and what they’re actually proposing. So there’s definitely in the House budget, they’re aiming to cut roughly $880 billion in cuts over a decade. That works out to about 10% of all federal Medicaid spending. But there’s also this kind of hesitance among Republicans because they know so many of their voters rely on these programs. You’ve had Steve Bannon out there saying, don’t touch Medicaid. You’ve got, you know, Josh Hawley, someone who’s not known for his liberal politics, saying, don’t touch Medicaid. And I think it boils down to the fact it’s really hard to claw back benefits. We absolutely saw this during the Obamacare repeal debate. Once people are using a program and it turns out Medicaid is actually very well liked, the people on Medicaid give it very, very favorable remarks. That makes it really tough for legislators to, you know, just take 10% of the spending [02:45:00] away on a program like that. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Yeah. Let’s let’s get into the budget. How are they looking to get those major savings from Medicaid? 

SARAH KLIFF: Yeah, I mean, that’s a wonderful question. And I would like better answers to. All we have right now is kind of a list of proposals they’re thinking about. One of the ones I’m pretty sure you’re going to see pass this Congress is a work requirement, basically requiring people on Medicaid to file paperwork showing that they’re working, or that they’re looking for a job in order to earn benefits. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: But you mentioned that most people on Medicaid are working. So it feels like that’s not going to get you to 880 billion. That just is a thing that sounds good. 

SARAH KLIFF: Well it’s well it definitely doesn’t get you to 800. It does get you to about 100 billion. We’ll get, you know, the small share of people who are not working might no longer have Medicaid, but there’s also just going to be some natural attrition, right? When you put up more things you have to do and forms you have to fill out, you’re going to see people fall off of Medicaid. When you’re looking for those big cuts, like when you really need to get 880 billion out of the program. There’s kind of two that jump out at me as the ones that would get you there. One that’s really floating around. [02:46:00] We’re working on a story about it right now is dialing back the funding for Medicaid expansion. This is part of Obamacare that expanded Medicaid well beyond the populations, you know, traditionally covered. People who are disabled, who are pregnant, children in low income households to anyone who earns less than a certain amount. And you can, you know, shave about I think it’s about 500 billion out of Medicaid spending by reducing the funding for that specific program. So that’s kind of getting you there. The other big one, it’s circulated in conservative circles for a year, is doing some kind of cap on Medicaid spending. Sometimes, like a per capita cap, that is a certain amount you get for each beneficiary. That would be a really big change from how Medicaid works now, where there’s no limits on a per person spending. You get the medical claims you pay them. This would put a firm limit that could be a pretty big cut. It all depends on like where you set that, you know, ceiling for spending, how big of a cut that one becomes. But those are ones kind of [02:47:00] circulating in the mix right now. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Yeah. I was thinking about how during Trump’s first term, he saw some of his lowest approval ratings ever around the time he tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. I mean, his approval rating was lower after the failed ACA repeal than it was after the insurrection. So why do you think that was the thing that voters seemed to really hammer him for? 

SARAH KLIFF: I think it’s personal, right. You know, more personal than the insurrection is the idea like, oh, I’m not going to be able to go to the doctor. I’m not gonna be able to take my kids to the doctor. I’m going to have to think about, do I have the money to actually see someone? I think it just really hits people in a very deep, personal way that a lot of issues don’t. So even though you have this big lofty, you know, $880 billion goal now, there is a true question with, you know, some of the worry you’re already seeing. The rhetoric around not cutting Medicaid about whether they can actually, you know, achieve those levels of cuts and kind of get [02:48:00] their party behind them. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: Do you think that Medicaid is a harder political target than Obamacare is or was? 

SARAH KLIFF: Yes, I think so, because it’s it covers so many people. Again, like one in five Americans are on Medicaid. It’s a huge middle class program at this point with the way it funds nursing care. And I think it’s less polarizing than Obamacare was. I mean, Obamacare always had Obama in the name and tended to kind of divide along party lines, whereas Medicaid, I think, generally enjoys more support among Democrats, but it doesn’t have that same kind of um political division built into it in the way that Obamacare did. 

JANE COASTON - HOST, WHAT A DAY: And I think Trump seems to know that because we saw evidence with his win in 2024 of a major political realignment happening along economic lines, he was able to make big gains with middle and low income voters. But those are the voters, as you’ve mentioned, who are more likely to depend on programs like Medicaid. What specifically could these cuts to Medicaid mean for those voters who maybe took a chance on [02:49:00] Trump? 

SARAH KLIFF: Yeah, I mean, they could mean losing your health insurance. So there’s about 20 million people who are enrolled on the Medicaid expansion right now, and a lot of them are in red states. You’ve seen a lot more conservative states signing up for the Medicaid expansion since the last time Trump was in office. So, you know, these are places like Montana, Missouri, places that, you know, do not tend to vote for Democrats quite as much. If Congress decides to dial back the funding. It’ll be the states who have to come in and fill that budget hole. And it’s a massive, you know, billions of dollar budget hole. I don’t think a lot of states are going to be able to find those kind of funds. So it really could come down to, you know, not having health insurance anymore. 

INTERVIEW: Tim Faust on Defending Medicaid - The Worst of All Possible Worlds Part 2 - Air Date 3-31-25

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Coming down the pike, 600 to $880 billion worth of cuts, and this is all part of. The broader plan to make America healthy again, I guess. Um, I'm wondering if you could speak a bit more to [02:50:00] what that plan is, how it's being executed and why it's being executed in the way that it's. 

TIM FAUST: I mean, I wish I had a more like complex answer, but it's class warfare, uh, that's being built by picking on people who are most vulnerable and therefore whom they calculate have least of a chance of fighting back.

The budget calls for a $4.5 trillion tax cut, half of which, um, is funded by cutting back government programs. Half of that comes from cutting Medicaid or other adjacent Medicaid programs. They're making the gamble that people on Medicaid are too diffuse and too powerless to force a a, a vote otherwise, which is the same gamble they made with the a CA in 2018 and it didn't work.

Um, so, you know, that's my silver lining is that we were able to stop these, the a CA cuts seven years ago, and that model might work again for Medicaid. Realistically, you know, I, I anticipate some, there might be a cut of some sort, right? They do have unilateral power, so I think we're [02:51:00] fighting for a 10% cut versus a 1% cut.

Both of those are catastrophic, don't get me wrong, but it's the difference, be it. It's the difference in the lives of millions of people about whether to stay in these programs. And so the shape of the cuts are still to be, to be determined. There's a lot of ways they can work it through a lot of accounting tricks, a lot of implementation, a lot of architecture.

But at the end of the day, any cut to Medicaid kicks people off the program and closes facilities that depend upon Medicaid payments. Half of rural hospitals in the US are more or less underwater, and Medicaid's the only thing keeping them afloat. We already see like a, a wave of, of rural hospital closures and closures of hospitals and clinics in low income areas.

You know, people in, in rural areas and people in poor neighborhoods have a lot more in common, um, than, than, than they might suspect. It's the same forces acting in both either places with low volume of care or low income patients. Overly index on Medicaid to keep themselves afloat. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Just for people who might not be entirely familiar with how Medicaid actually works, this is a [02:52:00] series of federal grants that are made to the state level, and it's generally up to the state in terms of how they administer those funds.

Right? So right. At the end of the day, these cuts are going to be administered differently in different states. Correct? 

TIM FAUST: To an extent. That's a good thing to bring up. So. Let's contrast it with Medicare. Medicare is an entirely federally funded, federally run program. Everything that happens in Medicare happens in Washington DC and they take care of everything.

Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the state government and is administered by the state. So in different states, the federal government pitches in a different amount. In Wisconsin, it's 60 40, 60% federal of 40% state. Um, in other places it's, you know, 70, 30, 50, 55, 45, et cetera. I think nationwide, it's like 69, uh, 21.

Uh, that's, that's the breakdown. So the federal government is targeting that 60% or in nationally 69%. Uh, that's the [02:53:00] money that that's gonna get cut here. But yeah, they'll, they'll say, okay, Wisconsin, typically we give you $6.6 billion this year. We're giving you $5.6 billion. A 10% Medicaid cut shakes out to, uh, $1 billion fewer from the federal government to the state of Wisconsin.

And in every single state, Medicaid funding from the federal government is the largest pool of federal money that they get. This is a massive part of every state budget because healthcare is expensive and there's a lot of. That's why I think we need a Medicare for all. Um, but this is like a massive chunk of federal money that states use.

And so in Wisconsin, at least, just 'cause I have those stats on top of my mind, the state government would need to spend an additional $1 billion just to keep Medicaid where it is now. And we don't have that money, you know, our entire rainy day fund is $4 billion. And there's a lot of other things pulling of that because Wisconsin is a emaciated state.

In New York, uh, the projected cuts would pull $10 billion from the, the, the state budget. Like these are massive cuts, even on a small level because of that funding program. And [02:54:00] so the federal government can say, okay, you know, we're gonna cut back that funding by doing A, B, or C. And then the state implements it, or the state has to kind of maneuver around, um, the, the, the avenue set there.

A lot of this is frustratingly ambiguous because things haven't been determined yet. They kind of, like the dog caught the car and said $880 billion, which is important note is over a 10 year period, which is about how much Medicaid spends per year, $880 billion. Um, and now they gotta figure out how to, how, how to do that math.

And I don't think they figured that out yet because it's politically, they, they're learning that it is politically very dangerous, um, to cut Medicaid. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Is there any particular reason that they've gone with 10% or is it just we need to do some austerity? So here's a number. 

TIM FAUST: I would guess it's because, um, it's a nice, easy number.

Medicaid spends $880 billion a year, so cut it by 10% over a 10 year period. Um, it's just nice math. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Cool. So. In terms then of the [02:55:00] immediate. Impacts. We've talked a little bit about what that could look like, rolling back, uh, particularly provision of care in rural areas, some of these specialized programs that deal with specialized populations.

Uh, what are other things that could happen as a result of these cuts? 

TIM FAUST: Sure. So, I mean, they could open up the ability for the state to restrict who's on Medicaid. Um, Medicaid eligibility requirements were greatly expanded under the Affordable Care Act in 40 states. Um, in 40 states, if you have under 138% of the federal poverty line, um, as your household income, you are eligible for Medicaid full stop.

And then there's like bonus programs on top of that for disability children, et cetera. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Is that just in Wisconsin or is that everywhere? 

TIM FAUST: That's in all states. That's, uh, in Wisconsin. We don't have expansion in Wisconsin. We cap out at a hundred percent. Got it. And we're the, we're the most generous non-expansion, um, state.

Medicaid was rolled out as a, as part of, uh, assistance for families with dependent children, A FDC, which was turned into TANF, uh, under the Clinton era, but it was like an extension of state welfare programs, [02:56:00] which is why this whole thing is run by the states. And for a long time, states could determine who was eligible and who was not.

There are two consequences for cutting Medicaid that are non-negotiable, completely like what's gonna happen? Totally predictable and unavoidable. People will lose their health insurance and facilities, which depend upon Medicaid to. Break even will close. Now, the particular manner by which it's determined who loses their health insurance and which facilities close is largely up to the conversations that are, that are happening now, and then the resulting conversations that states have.

We don't necessarily know the criteria, how that's how it's gonna shake out. One thing that's passed around a lot is work requirements. A model that has been shown to be ins insanely and effective and not cost efficient. Penalizes people, not who aren't working, but who can't handle filling out forms every month.

'cause they're pretty byzantine and there's no, it's really hard to, to submit those, submit those documents, estimated that work requirements would kick I think 5 million people off Medicaid, which is a lot. There is [02:57:00] no way to finagle a cut that doesn't result in a similar number of people losing their health insurance.

That's the breaks. And so the choice Congress is forcing states to make is. Either raise taxes, spend money they can't afford to, to, to match or cut their Medicaid program. That's it. There is no other option. There's no work around, there's no hack. And what that looks like is a thing we will discover together over the course of the, of the, the next few months.

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: When I hear that, and I'm sure when you hear that as well, the immediate impulse in my gut is, oh no, and I'm afraid, and there's something I think overwhelmingly I. Disabling about the fear sometimes if you let it really sit there. And this is the thing that I come back to time and time and time again as we are facing down the various tendrils of fascism and the mundanity of the way [02:58:00] that, uh, austerity just sort of ruins our collective society.

And so when you find yourself in those moments, I, I, I, I wonder what is it that you do to keep yourself from freaking out? 

TIM FAUST: That's a great question. I'm trying to figure that out myself. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: Yeah.

TIM FAUST: Um, I mean, I won't lie, I feel like shit basically all the time. Yeah. However, you know, you can do a couple of things with feeling like shit.

You can stay in bed and roll around or you can get out there and try to like, help build the thing that pushes back. Right. We are living in a declining empire. I think it's more or less irrefutable at this point. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: It's the tagline of our show case studies in the pop culture of a dying empire. 

TIM FAUST: But you, you've gotta.

I don't know. You got to, um, it's, this is, this is life or death for a lot of people, but it's coming for us next. Yeah. You know, we're all temporarily healthy. We're all temporarily able bodied at some point. A car accident, a pregnancy, a, a rabid raccoon, fucks up your healthcare, fucks up your life. So fighting for Medicaid now is a way of fighting for yourself later.

Credits

JAY - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's [02:59:00] going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can now reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01. Or simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Nightside, The Hartmann Report, CounterSpin, All In, The BradCast, Democracy Now!, Public Health On Call, On Point, Happy Pancake, What a Day, and The Worst Of All Possible Worlds. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes of SOLVED! Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her co-hosting of SOLVED! And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift [03:00:00] memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get ad free and early access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly show SOLVED!, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with the link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion.

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So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

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