Air Date 3/21/2025

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the Award-Winning Best of the Left podcast. If you've been paying attention, the weaponization of the government against Trump's political and ideological enemies is exactly what you would've seen coming. And now, it's here. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes American Prestige, Democracy Now!, The Thom Hartmann Program, Velshi, Factually with Adam Conover, and Hasan Piker

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections. Section A: free speech can be terrorism, followed by section B: opposing Trump can be terrorism, section C: the DOJ, FBI, and the judiciary. And finally, section D: government function.

Special - The Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil w/ Spencer Ackerman - American Prestige - Air Date 3-12-25

SPENCER AKERMAN: This development really puts, I think, everything this political moment faces right on the table. Mahmoud Khalil is a [00:01:00] leading demonstrator on behalf of the cause of -- I don't know what you would even say at this point -- Palestinians being able to survive. At Columbia University, my understanding is, he's a recent graduate of one of their grad schools there, the School for International Public Affairs. And on Saturday night, as he was returning from an Iftar dinner with his eight month old pregnant wife, Mahmoud, who is a green card holder, and his wife, who is an American citizen, were intercepted in their building by plain clothes officers who turned out to be with ICE and told that he was going to be taken into detention, in which according to his wife and his attorney, or one of his attorneys, he was taken with a dubiously legal warrant for his arrest. It's unclear if that arrest was in fact signed by a [00:02:00] judge.

And also, the housing that the Khalil family lives in is Columbia University housing, raising a lot of questions about the extent to which Columbia is allowing ICE on their campus and their campus extending to its facilities. 

Khalil was in fact taken into custody. There had been confusion for a while on Sunday and early Monday about where in the ICE detention complex he was. The ICE detainee locator function on their website did not immediately, as I understand it, register him, to his currently determined place of detention, which is an ICE facility in Louisiana. 

It should be noted here that while a lot of concern for his whereabouts was using terms like "disappeared," and I think while [00:03:00] those concerns about not being able to locate him make it valid to use that word, it's important to note that that is a lot more normal in the ICE detention complex circumstance, then I believe is generally known. There is an opacity about where detainees are, for days after, and they're transferred from one place and before there arrival in another, and there is a lag on that that has persisted for so long that it's clearly by design to obscure access to what passes for due process in the immigration system. We're gonna leave that aside for a second. 

Khalil has not only been taken into detention, but, according to Secretary Rubio, president Trump, and White House Press secretary Caroline Levitt, he faces deportation. He faces deportation and this extraordinary -- at first, I called it [00:04:00] detention, then DHS started calling it an arrest, so I'll use that term -- arrest without presenting or feeling the need to present any evidence that Mahmoud Khalil has done anything violent, has broken any laws of the United States or anything like that. Instead, what they said was that Khalil was arrested because of "activities" -- this is a term the Department of Homeland Security used that we'll unpack in a second, but it's important to put this out -- "activities aligned to a banned terrorist organization," in this case, meaning Hamas. That's an ominous construction that we can get into in a moment. 

But before we get there, it also became clear and of all places, it was Barry Weiss's The Free Press that I saw report this first, that the White House said that they did not take him into custody and [00:05:00] attempt to defend that custody because they're accusing him of having violated any law, that they are instead relying on national security authorities, which means in this case, as they will seek to apply them, terrorism authorities, and that is an exceptionally dangerous moment for everyone in this country, regardless of their politics and regardless even of their citizenship status. This is a moment of unbridled lawlessness and it's one where it makes it really important to refer to Mahmoud Khalil as what he is, which is right now a political prisoner of the United States.

Trump Invokes Wartime Alien Enemies Act, Then Ignores Judicial Order to Turn Around Deportation Flights - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-17-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: On Saturday, Trump used the order to deport 137 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, claiming they were all members of Tren de Aragua, a gang which Trump has labeled a terrorist organization.

The deportation flights came despite a temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who said, quote, “Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is [00:06:00] in the air needs to be returned to the United States. Those people need to be returned to the United States,” he said.

But the Trump administration appeared to ignore the order and allowed the planes to continue to El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, tweeted, “Oopsie… Too late.” The comment was then retweeted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the White House communications director Steven Cheung.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, quote, “A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil,” she said.

We’re joined now by Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. On Saturday, he argued the motion that led to the temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from removing the immigrants from the U.S. using the Alien Enemies Act.

Can you respond what the Trump administration said, that this judge doesn’t have the right to stop these people from being [00:07:00] deported?

LEE GELERNT: This is a very, very dangerous statement. I think we’re on very dangerous ground, generally. Federal courts have the right and the duty to police what the executive branch is doing, if they violate the law. And that’s exactly what’s happening here, is this is ultimately a separation-of-powers case, as you were talking about with the congressman before. Congress could not have been clearer. They’re granting this authority to the president — I mean, it’s over 200 years ago, but granting this authority to the president, only — only — if there’s a foreign government or foreign nation involved. That’s not what’s going on here. So the president has overstepped the authority Congress has given him, so it’s creating a classic separation-of-powers question. The federal courts have to be able to say, “You have overstepped the law.” So, federal courts can review whether the Alien Enemies Act is being used illegally, and they have to.[00:08:00] 

In terms of defying the court order and sending the planes anyway and not turning them around, you know, we’re trying to get to the bottom of that. The government filed what they called a clarification notice yesterday, that left more questions than it answered. And so, we filed something at 2:15 in the morning last night asking the court to order the government to file sworn declarations stating whether they had defied the court’s order by not turning around planes after the court issued the order. In both cases, the federal court is on solid, established ground to review what the administration is doing.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Didn’t the same thing happen with the Brown assistant professor? She is from India. She had been in this country for years. And she was coming from — rather, she is from Lebanon. She was visiting family. And she was deported when a judge said no.

LEE GELERNT: [00:09:00] Yeah, so, I’m not involved in that case, so I don’t know the specifics, but I know that there are serious allegations there, and the judge is looking into it and is very concerned. So, you know, we hope that the administration is not outwardly, explicitly defying court orders and claiming they have the right to do that. That would put us on — you know, one step further to what many people would view as a constitutional crisis, just deciding they are not going to listen to the federal courts. So, you know, we will try and get to the bottom of what’s going on in the Alien Enemies Act case. We’ll see what the government files, what the court does, you know, and we’ll leave it there for the moment. But all the indications look like they defied the court order.

But the bigger question, as you’ve noted, is: Can the Alien Enemies Act now be used? It’s only been used three times in our country’s history, all during declared wars: the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. [00:10:00] And that’s not surprising, because this is a very serious authority that Congress has given the president, but Congress limited it to when there’s a declared war with another country or another country is invading us, not anytime the president decides some gang is so dangerous, I’m going to invoke a wartime authority. The minute we start using wartime authorities during peacetime, we’re on a slippery slope to a very dangerous place.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Lee Gelernt, can you also talk about the ACLU’s work fighting Trump’s use of Guantánamo to hold immigrants? On Friday, you argued on behalf of foreign nationals the Trump administration is trying to send to Guantánamo. Now, it looks like they have cleared people from Guantánamo at this point. And I’d like to ask if you know why. And is El Salvador, this supermax prison that is run by the president, a Trump ally, where [00:11:00] gross human rights violations have taken place — has this new prison in El Salvador become — has this prison in El Salvador become the new Guantánamo?

LEE GELERNT: Yeah, well, thanks for asking about that, Amy. You know, as you mentioned, I argued the Alien Enemies Act case on Saturday. But the day before, I argued the Guantánamo case in a long, long hearing. And ultimately, the judge decided not to rule for us, only because Guantánamo had been cleared out at that point, and there was no imminent — at least imminent indication to him that people were being sent back to Guantánamo. It’s very coincidental that every time we’re going to go before a federal judge on Guantánamo, they clear it out. So I think that the litigation is having the effect of forcing them to back down in a way. And so, we’ll see if they send people back there.

But your point about is El Salvador the new Guantánamo? It may be. And I hope not, because as bad as Guantánamo is, sending [00:12:00] these Venezuelan men to a Salvadoran prison is really going to put them in immediate harm. I mean, we stressed that to the judge, and the judge, fortunately, understood that and acted quickly. And as many of you have probably seen, there was a video released of how the men were treated when they got to El Salvador. And I think that only reinforces that the judge was correct to act quickly.

I think that there’s probably going to be, if this — if this Alien Enemies Act invocation is upheld, anybody can be designated an alien enemy, because the government is making the dangerous argument that federal courts can’t review, so any immigrant can then find themselves in a Salvadoran prison. You know, we will try to stop this, obviously, and we need those men to be brought back if the court order was defied.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And is the U.S. responsible if they are abused there in Salvador? I mean, this goes to Democratic and Republican [00:13:00] presidents of the United States in charge of Guantánamo — right? — and the whole call for Guantánamo to be closed, is that it’s used as an extrajudicial place where people can be sent, and it’s not clear who’s in charge of them. But that’s the same with Salvador. Once they’re put into this prison, who’s responsible? Does the U.S. bear any more responsibility?

LEE GELERNT: Well, I think the U.S. always bears responsibility if they illegally deport people and then they’re ultimately put in danger and harm. You know, we’ll see how the court reacts to this, if in fact they defied the court order. But I think the key for us, going forward, is that no one else is sent, and we also try and deal with the people who were sent, to get them back any way we can, especially if the court order was defied. But yeah, the United States is under strict obligations not to send anybody to be persecuted or tortured anywhere. It would have been bad enough if these people were sent to Venezuela, [00:14:00] because they were fleeing danger there and have asylum claims, you know, most of them that we know, or at least our named plaintiffs. We obviously don’t know all the people, because the government is doing it in secret. But absolutely, it’s the government’s obligation not to send people to persecution or torture. There’s no question, in these Salvadoran prisons, these people are in imminent danger.

Are Non-Violent Protestors now Labeled "Terrorists?" - Thom Hartmann - Air Date 6-20-13

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Are nonviolent protestors now labeled terrorists? Really? Corporations are trying to use the Patriot Act in ways that have nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, because the Patriot Act gives transnational corporations the power to snuff out the activism of anybody who opposes them. 

Terrorism, as it is commonly considered, is the use of violence against civilians to achieve any number of political ends: the destruction of the federal government, the overturning Roe v Wade, the restoration of a caliphate. If you try to kill people or succeed in killing people for a political purpose, you're a [00:15:00] terrorist. If you blow up the Alfred P. Murra Federal Building and Kill 168 civilians like Tim McVeigh, you've committed an act of terrorism. Seems pretty self-explanatory, right? Ehhh, not according to TransCanada Corp, the Canadian-owned energy conglomerate that is the backer of the Keystone XL Pipeline extension. A new set of documents obtained by a progressive group, it's called Bold Nebraska, shows that this foreign corporation is encouraging American law enforcement agencies to treat anti-pipeline protestors as if they were terrorists. Yes, terrorists. The documents which Bold Nebraska got a hold of through a FOIA request -- Freedom of Information Act request -- were part of a briefing given to Nebraska law enforcement agents about the, quote, "emerging threat" end quote of groups like Tar Sands Blockade and Rainforest Action. [00:16:00] And what are the terrorist activities that TransCanada is so concerned about? They include things like monkey wrenching, tree sitting, and tying yourself to a construction vehicle with a device called a Dragon Lock. 

If this seems familiar, it should, because what groups like Tar Sands Blockade are engaging in is classic civil disobedience. This is not terrorism, but this foreign corporation, trans Canada, wants American law enforcement agents to start looking at it like it is.

By far, the most damning document obtained by Bold Nebraska urges Nebraska authorities to consider using, quote, "state or federal anti-terrorism laws prohibiting sabotage or terroristic acts against critical infrastructures." End quote. 

Another is TransCanada thinks American police should treat blockading construction vehicles just like blowing up a bus in downtown DC.

And I would add, they think that doing anything to harm a pipeline that's taking oil down to the Gulf [00:17:00] Coast so it can be refined and exported is somehow "critical infrastructure." 

I don't see how you can justify that definition. Now, on the other hand, if a group of Tar Sands Blockades activists were in fact planning to bomb TransCanada's Calgary Alberta headquarters or assassinate a CEO, God forbid, then they would absolutely be terrorists.

But right now they're just protestors or vandals, and should not be treated as terrorists.

So what makes TransCanada think it can get the American police to treat people sitting in trees like Muhammad Atta? The Patriot Act. 

The US Legal Code definition of terrorism was expanded to include a new meaning of domestic terrorism by Congress in 2001. This new definition considers domestic terrorism as, quote, "activities that involve acts dangerous to human life, that are a [00:18:00] violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce civilian population;" -- I don't see the word corporation in there -- "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." End of sentence.

According to the ACLU, this definition, this is a verbatim quote from the ACLU, quote: "This definition is broad enough to accompany the activities of prominent activists, campaigns and organizations." End quote. In other words, given the right lawyer, TransCanada can convince a federal judge that monkey wrenching or tying oneself to a construction vehicle is dangerous to human life and intended to intimidate a civilian population.

We already know, thanks to Edward Snowden, that our government has used [00:19:00] the broad powers of the Patriot Act to amass a large collection of American citizens' telephone records, something think that even one of its authors, Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner has said, goes beyond what he thinks was its original intent.

Do we really want to give corporations this sort of power to misuse our criminal justice system? Our founders envisioned a society in which all were held accountable to and by the law, not a society in which vague and overly broad statutes empower foreign private corporations to persecute American activists.

So bottom line, let's repeal the Patriot Act, not only to preserve our civil liberties, and not only to protect our democratic republic from the predation of transnational corporations, but to protect our right to protest.

John Harwood on Trump's attack on free speech: ‘Everyone in civil society needs to stand up' - Velshi - Air Date 3-6-24

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: "Calling Trump corrupt and a threat to America are not opinions. They are objective statements of fact. I never expected to reach this point when I became a journalist [00:20:00] 47 years ago, I did not pursue opinion journalism for a reason. My model was my father, Richard Harwood, who built his stellar Washington Post career on fearless reporting and news analysis. 

"But Donald Trump is different. He has gained power by catering to his party's darkest impulses and his own. So I've become quite comfortable asserting these facts. Donald Trump is a racist, a grifter, and a crook. He is a liar, and a cruel one. He governs as an authoritarian, not as a leader of a democracy. He weakens America and its global standing. 

"I once could not have dreamed of describing a president this way, but the truth remains the highest journalistic value, and those objective realities sit in plain sight." End quote.

In a similar vein, First Amendment scholar Maryanne Franks argues that in an era of disinformation, access to the truth and the promise of the First Amendment have become even more muddled and untenable. In the face of Trump's encroaching authoritarianism, Franks argues that what is needed is fearless speech, [00:21:00] speech which boldly speaks truth to power.

Franks writes, quote, "Fearless speech has three fundamental characteristics. It is sincere. It is critical. And it is courageous. The fearless speaker seeks to hold those in power accountable, and she is undeterred by the risk of harm to herself that her speech creates. Fearless speakers use speech to challenge power and vindicate the rights of the oppressed.

 "In contrast to a reckless speech culture that fetishizes speakers who endanger others for selfish ends, a fearless speech culture valorizes speakers who endanger themselves for the collective good." End quote. 

It feels like anybody saying anything that is not in line with governmental thinking today, the bar has been lowered now. We're all practitioners of fearless speech, at risk of being arrested, fired, exiled, or, what have you. 

MARY ANNE FRANKS: I think it's certainly true that we're all now at risk. I don't know if necessarily everybody is now speaking fearlessly, but certainly the stakes for even mildly disagreeing or [00:22:00] even accurately pointing out reality, the stakes have certainly gotten higher, and it certainly is a testament to just how far we have fallen down the authoritarian rabbit hole.

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: So the other side of your argument, though, is that we should be more fearless in our speech? We have these protections and we must use them? 

MARY ANNE FRANKS: Well, honestly, the argument is to say that the reason why we have to be fearless in times like this is because we don't necessarily have those protections. We have told ourselves as Americans that we, because of the First Amendment, we would never end up in a moment like the one we're in right now, where people are being disappeared because of things that they have said. Vague accusations are being made about people simply because they happen to fit a certain kind of profile that's been dehumanized for the last several years. But no one should have to be fearless in order to speak up and say the truth.

But the most important thing for any democracy, any kind of society that actually does believe in equality, is to be able to speak out against the people in power. We have to be able to criticize those who have power over us. And we should be able to do that [00:23:00] without any cost to our liberty. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but that means that it's more important now than ever for us to be able to do that.

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: John, you and I have both come up in a world largely surrounded by business and economics journalism. Interesting, didn't always require the greatest profile in courage to do it. But things have evolved for both of us. We've both been in situations now where we've had to say things -- you articulated it very well in your column -- that I never imagined myself having to talk about or criticize or hold to account. But that is the job we must do in the media, and there's a lot of pressure on us not to do it. 

JOHN HARWOOD: That's right. And a lot of pressure coming from media ownership. Jeff Bezos, we've seen the steps that he's taken to erode the reputation and practice of the Washington Post.

But look, I think in line with what your Wesleyan president said a few minutes ago, this is a war on civil society, and everybody in civil society [00:24:00] needs to stand up to it. That includes business people. Sometimes business people have difficulty sorting the short term, which, oh, he's gonna give me a tax cut, versus the long term, he's going to destroy the rule of law and undercut business conditions in the United States. And so far we haven't seen them do that. 

In terms of journalists, we're one element of civil society. I don't exaggerate our influence. We have some influence, less than we used to. And I don't even purport that if everybody chose the same blunt descriptors that I did for Donald Trump, it would make all that much difference. But I'm compelled to do it because it's true. And I think... I can't do anything other than describe accurately what I'm seeing and some of the parallels are really horrific. 

The first time, Ali, I ever encountered an authoritarian government was when I went to South Africa and covered the unrest against apartheid. And you saw the secret police [00:25:00] in South Africa seizing anti-apartheid activists, taking 'em someplace where people didn't know where they were, never really charging them or coming up with charges. And now it, it is not surprising to me to see Donald Trump doing the same thing with that graduate student at Columbia, eight months pregnant wife, and they ship him down to Louisiana and they don't even know for a while where he is. These are not American values in action. They're the antithesis of it. 

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: And Mary Anne, that in particular is an interesting situation. 'cause not only is, they've not charged him with anything, they've used some obscure provision in which the Secretary of State himself has determined that this man's mere presence in the United States is some sort of threat to American society.

Putting that aside, there is a university involved. And to the extent that the media is not all of civil society and universities are not all of civil society, when it comes to threats of authoritarianism and the diminishment of democracy [00:26:00] in history, when universities and journalism cave, society finds it easier to cave.

MARY ANNE FRANKS: Absolutely. This is why we need courage now more than ever. 

These institutions are under attack. This is what is happening to them. What is happening to universities like Columbia and others is completely unjustified. It is the exercise of fascistic tendencies. But they have to resist it, because they have more power than most individuals. They certainly have more power than their students. They need to stand up for their students. They need to stand up for their communities. They need to stand up for their mission, and say that we are not going to cave in this kind of pressure again. They shouldn't have to make those kinds of sacrifices, but they need to when they have that kind of institutional power and privilege.

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: But let me ask you, Mary Anne. Some universities have talked about institutional objectivity or institutional neutrality, or not taking positions on things that are not core to their mission. But what the government is doing to Columbia is they've asked them to take one of their departments and put it under some [00:27:00] sort of stewardship or receivership. It's unbelievable that the government should have a role in a private university. Sure, they fund research, as well they should. But how do you explain to people how slippery a slope this is, how dangerous this is for Columbia or any university to accept that that's okay.

MARY ANNE FRANKS: I think this is really, very telling about the moment that we're in, that it's not just what is happening, it is the under reaction to what is happening. That there are so many people, the average person who isn't necessarily an extremist, who isn't someone who embraces fascism, but does not seem to understand just how seriously under threat all of us are.

It may seem when you attack Columbia University that you're just attacking a bunch of elites, but you're attacking the idea of knowledge. You're attacking the idea of criticism. You're attacking the idea of independent research. You're attacking people's jobs, their livelihoods, the research that can save people's lives.

And there is this fundamental [00:28:00] disconnect, I think, between the average person and the kind of representation of what's happening that makes us not understand that this is a direct threat to all of us. They are threatening knowledge, they're threatening curiosity, they're threatening independent inquiry.

Trump Hates Science - Factually! with Adam Conover - Air Date 3-14-25

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: I got to meet the scientists at NOAA and the National Weather Service. Not only have these people created one of the most advanced weather prediction and climate analysis systems on the planet, they literally took me up in a goddamn plane and flew me into the eye of a hurricane.

Now, this is one of the wildest moments of my entire life, but for them it's another Tuesday at the office. Because every time there is a hurricane off the American coast, there is literally a plane of government scientists flying into it over and over again to measure how strong it is and where it's going.

And then they share that data with the public, with us, to protect us from these extreme weather events so we can plan evacuations and save lives. In fact, all of the data from the National Weather Service's enormous [00:29:00] network of sensors and scientists that are working on our behalf 24/7 is shared for free with the public.

When your local weather person gives you the forecast on the news, they are literally reading government weather data produced by a government scientist who is paid for by your tax dollars. 

And I just wanna underline here what a big deal it is in human history that we can now predict the weather this way. Do you know how amazed people from a few centuries ago would be that you wake up every morning and learn with a high degree of accuracy whether or not a flood is coming to kill you? That is wizard shit. These scientists literally predict the future and then they give those predictions to people who need it. Farmers, airplane pilots, moms planning outdoor birthday parties, and you, for free. And now a billionaire high on ketamine and his 19-year-old freak henchmen just fired thousands of them. They even fired some of the fucking hurricane hunters 

I mean, look, if I seem a little incensed about this, it's because this topic is personal to [00:30:00] me. Not just because I met these scientists and fell in love with what they do, but because people who are important to me literally had their lives saved a few months ago by National Weather Service meteorologists who accurately predicted that LA was about to catch on fire. These fires destroyed entire neighborhoods. But luckily, very few lives were lost, in large part because the evacuation alerts went out in time because we knew the fires were coming. 

The people who work for NOAA and the National Weather Service aren't there to make money for some TV station or weather app. They have exactly one job to save our lives and improve America by accurately predicting the weather. These scientists are real people who do remarkable work and they deserve to be honored, not kicked to the fucking curb. And the same goes for the scientists at the National Institutes of Health, which has also received massive cuts with nearly 1200 science workers laid off.

Now, if you don't know what the NIH is, let me just fill you [00:31:00] in. It's a government institute that happens to be the largest and most important medical science organization in the world, and the scientists who work there, the people who just lost their jobs, really give a shit about saving lives. Like Emily, who worked on cancer cures.

EMILY: Several close family members of mine either have passed from cancer or survived cancer. I'm just worried people aren't gonna get the treatments they need. People are going to lose their lives. This is going to waste years of data collection, at the worst make these experiments invalid. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: And Katie Sandlin, a first generation college graduate who moved to DC from Alabama for her dream job as a genomics educator at the NIH.

KATIE SANDLIN: And I've just always thought that hard work pays off, you know, and it just, it doesn't feel like that right now. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Watching these wonderful nerds be fired is simply heartbreaking, not just because they're the best and brightest of America and Elon's just loaded them into a wood chipper, but also because of all the cures we are going to [00:32:00] miss out on if these cuts aren't reversed.

The NIH is responsible for countless revolutionary treatments. NIH scientists literally invented chemotherapy, which has saved multiple family members of mine from cancer. They found a treatment for sickle cell anemia and were even working on a cure. They developed a blood test for Alzheimer's. They do research that helps people suffering from opioid addiction, asthma, and traumatic brain injuries. No matter who you are, you or someone you know's life was saved or improved by the NIH. 

And, call me naive, but even in my most cynical moments, I would've thought that everybody, even Elon Musk and Trump, would agree that we should keep trying to cure cancer and heart disease. I mean, after all these two s eat so much, McDonald's heart disease is gonna get them eventually. 

But okay, some might argue that the government shouldn't be doing that research, that it's too inefficient, and that for-profit businesses should do that fundamental research instead. But let's be fucking [00:33:00] real. Last time I checked, most Americans agree that the unending lust for profit is the problem with the healthcare industry. For-profit companies aren't gonna invest billions to research the cures for rare diseases. There's no money in it. Instead, they'll just research how to squeeze more money out of us and how to give better butt implants to rich people.

And yes, I enjoy looking at a hot rich lady with a BBL, but I'd like to not die of cancer while I do it. For-profit companies aren't going to do fundamental climate research like NOAA does because climate change is being caused by for-profit companies. 

You can't even argue that we are spending too much on science and that we need to cut back because before these cuts, federal funding for science was already at a 25 year low. It was literally just over 1% of federal spending, which is crazy because government funded scientific research basically prints money. After World War II, American policymakers realized that the key to prosperity was science and [00:34:00] technological innovation. So they poured funding into science, and the results literally made America the superpower it is today. Since 1945, science and technology have driven 85% of the economic growth in America. Every dollar spent by the NIH turns into more than twice as much economic value by creating jobs and supporting infrastructure. Scientific research is one of the few investments you can make that actually produces more financial and human value for everyone.

Even Republican lawmakers should know this because their state economies also depend on science funding. Before these cuts, Texas was receiving $1.9 billion in NIH grants that directly supported almost 30,000 jobs. And those jobs generate an estimated 112,000 private sector jobs and all of that put together turned into over $6 billion for the state of Texas.

Is that really something that we wanna cut from the federal budget? In Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham is the state's largest [00:35:00] employer. And it doesn't just pay those salaries from tuition. It relies on over $400 million in grants from the NIH. These universities in red states are so deeply affected by Trump and Elon's science cuts they're already rescinding graduate students' acceptance letters because they can't afford to invest in their research anymore. Research hospitals are one of the only parts of a university that makes money besides the football team. 

Even if every dollar we spent on science didn't pay us back many times over, which it does, we shouldn't even have to put a dollar value on it because science is literally more important than money. Science, just to remind you, once again, is the process by which humans understand the universe around us in order to improve all of our lives, all of human society. And that knowledge gives us power.

America's global dominance as a superpower has largely been based on our lead in science. Everything from the Manhattan Project that created thermonuclear weapons to the Human [00:36:00] Genome Project that helped us understand our own biology. So, disemboweling our country's science capability to save money, literally just makes America poorer and weaker.

It makes all of human society worse and yet the destruction of science was literally called for in the right wing blueprint for Trump's second term. Project 2025. Why? Why would project 2025's right wing authors wanna make America smaller, stupider, and weaker. 

Ask yourself this. Why exactly is science the first part of government spending that Elon and Trump are going after? I mean, they could have cut the military budget, they could have cut the agriculture budget, they could have replaced the resolute desk with a "Klarg" from IKEA. But no, they started with science. Why? It's because they literally hate science even more than they hate a trans mouse who plays women's sports.

Fascism is Officially Here | Hasanabi reacts - Hasanabi Productions - Air Date 3-17-25

HASAN PIKER - HOST, HASANABI PRODUCTIONS: Trump and a sanctions [00:37:00] regime on Venezuela played a very big role in the Venezuelan economy tanking even further at a time when they needed aid. Okay? They said, Maduro's a bad guy: fair, sure, whatever. Okay? And use that as a justification to make the economy scream. And the economy did scream. And as a direct consequence of that instability many Venezuelans escaped Venezuela. They went to Columbia. They went to other Latin American countries, and a lot of them also came to the United States of America. 

Trump, politically, as he has done in the past, as the American administrations have done in the past with Cubans who are escaping Cuba, offered Venezuelans Temporary Protective Status. He said, you guys are political refugees. We are anti-communist. You are anti-communist. Come to America, we'll use you. That's usually the goal for American Empire. They bring in a [00:38:00] bunch of reactionaries or bring in a bunch of, people who are escaping political repression and used them as a propaganda tool.

So that's what we did. The American government did that, and in the process, Donald Trump was such a fan of offering Temporary Protective Status to the Venezuelan refugees that came into the United States of America, that he actually extended it on his way out. And then Joe Biden became president for four years, and now he turned around and is revoking the TPS in this insanely violent matter, deciding that every single Venezuelan on US soil that has documentation, mind you, documented or undocumented, but virtually all of the Venezuelans on US soil are documented. They have the paperwork, they got Temporary Protective Status. Understand that they have the documents. These are not undocumented migrants, okay? They have the documents, or they're in the process of getting their documentation as in [00:39:00] their court documents.

The Trump administration turned around and black bagged a bunch of Venezuelans that they had actually welcomed inside of the US boundaries, and in a pure political ploy, decided to ship them to the El Salvador anti terror prison unit, CECOT. We've watched the El Salvador CECOT prison before on this broadcast because, a bunch of right-wing, Mexican YouTubers went there and glazed Bukele and also, the prison structure, and talked about how awesome it is that they were like [unintelligible] people there, lights on 24/7, another gross violation of human rights. 

In El Salvador, "we've been under a state of exception since 2021, meaning we have no constitutional rights. People can be jailed without committing a crime or ever seeing a judge. Bukele has shut down all transparency, so any Venezuelan sent here can [00:40:00] end up in a concentration camp with no records or oversight".

Yes, I know the prison system in El Salvador right now due to MS 13 gang activity that was truly violent, okay?, which is another American issue that we basically gave to El Salvador, but I'm not gonna get into the history of that right now. Having said that, because of the massive amounts of crime, caused by MS 13, which was born outta the US prison system, where we initially dumped El Salvadoran migrants that became radical in the California prison system. We, without telling the El Salvadoran government, deported those migrants to El Salvador, creating a network, a back and forth, for MS 13 to operate. MS 13 became this like incredibly powerful gang as a direct consequence of us deporting El Salvadoran [00:41:00] criminals from the California prison system, from MS 13 into El Salvador, without informing the government, without telling the El Salvador government that these guys were MS 13 gang members. 

You could say, sure thing, buddy. It's just the truth. Okay? It's just the truth. I'm not even talking about Venezuelan gangs right now. I'm talking about MS 13 and how MS 13 became a thing, became like this internationally renowned gang. I'm not talking about Tren de Aragua. I'm talking about MS 13. Okay? Pick up the pace. Maybe you can accidentally learn a thing or two. 

Nayib Bukele, who initially came into power with a fairly progressive ticket, okay?, who had a fairly progressive background, Nayib Bukele, he is literally of Palestinian descent, before he became this like weird cryptocurrency guy, he was actually seen as like, uh, part of the pink tide, the social democrat to socialist revolutionary figures that were winning a lot of elections all around Latin America. And then he quickly changed that attitude. He actually [00:42:00] had a lot of rehabilitative programs. Initially, when Nayib Bukele came into power, he had rehabilitative programs in mind. He was like, we have to do due process. We have to make sure that like we fix the underlying material conditions to make sure that crime can never manifest ever again. And then he became this monster. Okay? And yes, for those of you who don't know, there are a lot of Palestinians or people of Palestinian descent living in Latin American countries.

He came in and he implemented, he built this massive prison structure called CECOT, and he started doing dragnet operations, where if you are even 11 steps removed, okay?, without any care or consideration to how you became MS 13 adjacent, or MS 13 aligned, because MS 13, the way that they work, they'll go to a village or they'll go to a town and they'll basically say, we're gonna kill your mother and your daughter if you don't work with us. Like basically shopkeepers, [00:43:00] anyone and everyone that they could claim was actually MS 13, they just grabbed, black bagged, and put in front of a judge, sometimes 200 people at a time, 200 people sitting in front of a judge wearing a balaclava as the judge decides on all 200 being a part of MS 13 in real time like that. And once you have been decided, once you have been considered an MS 13 gang member, it's over for you. That's what they did. That's what they did, and that's what they've been doing in El Salvador.

Now, Bukele is saying you can use our concentration camps for the people that you're deporting from the United States of America. Yeah. 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2015. Okay? They've gone mostly to other Latin American countries. Some of them have gone to Spain. Some of them have made their way all the way to the United States of America. The largest population went to Columbia, obviously, as I talked [00:44:00] about before. 

This is a major destabilizing force. When you have 7.7 million refugees, you have a refugee crisis, and it did not have to be this way. Where is this? I remember reading this article about Bukele a few years ago. They interviewed a mother whose severely autistic son was abducted by the cops, and days after searching for him, found out he was sent to Supermax, where they don't even feed you consistently unless your family pays.

"Even before he started the slave labor business, I could take one look at this guy and guess he was already embezzling from the treasury. Not that we needed the help, but American prestige will crater even further when everyone figures out the obvious here". Yeah. Nayib Bukele, who has been yelled at by Donald Trump, ironically enough, on numerous occasions, which is why I always thought it was strange, Donald Trump would go on CPAC and be like, 'Nayib Bukele, he sucks. He's dumping out his prisons,' like probably because he doesn't know anything about Latin America. He probably thinks El Salvador is Venezuela or something. Okay? And he would constantly shit on Bukele who's also a crypto guy, is now [00:45:00] working with him because he said, Hey, it's great. Send us all of your deportees. Will use them as slave labor in our concentration camps. 

That's where we're at right now. I need you to understand how insane this is. I'm not being hyperbolic at all. Okay? This is not hyperbole. We are here, we are officially in Nazi Germany status. But unlike Nazi Germany's concentration camps being maintained directly by people of German descent or the foreign legions or whatever, we are outsourcing the concentration camp to El Salvador.

Now, watch this, watch this video. Watch this promotional video from Nayib Bukele and tell me that this isn't Nazi shit, okay?. Nayib Bukele says, "Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan Criminal Organization Tren de Aragua arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year, renewable. [00:46:00] The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us. Over time, these actions combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program will help make our prison system self sustainable. As of today, it costs $200 million per year. On this occasion, the US has also sent 23 MS 13 members wanted by Salvadoran Justice, including two ringleaders. One of them is a member of the criminal organization's highest structure. This will help us finalize intelligence gathering, go after the last remnants of MS 13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors. As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime, but this time we are helping our allies, making our prison system self sustainable and obtaining vital intelligence". 

They're making their prison system self sustainable by doing slave labor, okay? They're literally, we're doing slave trade for Venezuelans who have not gotten any due process whatsoever. Venezuelans that have not, this is a [00:47:00] work camp, okay? I don't know what words to use. It is not hyperbolic at all when I say this. We are, we're there. We're here. Okay? This is it. This is the first step of the final act of the darkest chapter of American Empire.

Note from the Editor on the need for us to protect each other

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with American Prestige focusing on the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil. Democracy Now! discussed Trump's deportation of Venezuelans against a court order. The Thom Hartmann Program looked at the history of the Patriot Act and the practice of calling nonviolent protestors terrorists. Velshi held a conversation about the rising authoritarianism in the US. Factually! With Adam Conover highlighted the detrimental impact of destroying the country's science capacity. And Hasan Piker laid out the perverse way US policy impacted Venezuelans before and after they gained temporary protected status in the country. 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 [00:48:00] produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes featuring our team of producers and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes 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 we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information. And if you have questions or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics that you can chime in on include the outright assault on the LGBTQ community, and a deep dive into the shifting dynamics of the Democratic Party, whose dynamics definitely need shifting. So get your comments and questions in now for those topics or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also findable on the [00:49:00] 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, I was reminded of an experience I had years ago when attending a march against police violence. I wasn't a leader, or a speaker. I had no plan to take up any space aside from adding my body to the crowd. But as the march was just taking shape, one of the black organizers pulled my group to the front of the march and handed us the banner. And the reasons for this included optics. It's good to show that the march was multi-ethnic. You know, it's good for the cameras. The unfortunate truth is that the concerns of white people are simply taken more seriously than people of color. 

And then finally, there's the cold hard truth about safety. Instances like this are where the rubber meets the road on privilege. Once [00:50:00] again, the unfortunate truth is that angry passers by, inconvenienced motorists, and the police themselves were all less likely to inflict violence on me than if the march had been led by one of the black activists organizing the event. And no one there wanted for those things to be true. But it was smart to recognize them as true for the sake of the movement and the safety of the activists.

Now, as the weaponization of the government revs up, some individuals and groups are going to be targeted first. We know this. It's clear as day. And it is best for the resistance to this tyranny that we recognize the truth of that. And when some groups are targeted first, the flip side of that coin is that some people are inherently safer. They won't be primarily targeted. They have more legal avenues to protect themselves, like having full citizenship rather than a green [00:51:00] card. And then of course some simply have bigger support networks who can help them out of trouble should it come. 

Now I understand it's a touchy thing for a podcaster like me to sit behind a microphone and tell people that they need to go out and put their bodies on the line in the face of a tyrannical government. Everyone has to make their own choices about how to navigate this moment. But number one, the more of us who stand together, the more protected we all are. And two, when those of us with the relative privilege to not be at the top of Trump's enemies list can use our position to guard the more vulnerable among us, we are collectively protected all the more. Now, what this looks like exactly is going to be different for every situation, but it's an idea that's worth remembering as we go forward together.

SECTION A: FREE SPEECH CAN BE TERRORISM

 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Section a free speech can be terrorism, followed by [00:52:00] section B, opposing Trump can be terrorism, section C, the D-O-J-F-B-I, and the judiciary. And finally, section D, government function.

Mahmoud Khalil the Coup Against Democratic Rights - Empire Files - Air Date 3-13-25

ABBY MARTIN - HOST, EMPIRE FILES: And Marco Rubio followed up by declaring on, uh, ex formerly Twitter saying We will deport green card holders.

And then Trump, of course, followed up with his own statement of declaration, um, stating that this is the first of many. Um, that will incur the, the same fate. Mara, what does that mean exactly? Can we just break down? Because look, I'm a product of the war on terror. I've seen a lot, and at this point this does seem to be one of the most authoritarian and kind of terrifying moments.

Of Unconstitutionality, Hamas aligned is their only accusation here. So what does that even entail to them? I mean, you said that it's just, it could be as loose as just someone calling for a ceasefire means that they're aligned with Hamas. But, but really break that down because that's a lot of Trump supporters and a lot of the Trump [00:53:00] administration is, is backing this decision by saying, look, he provided material support for terrorism.

He was passing out leaflets that could be construed as supporting Hamas because it was pro-Palestine. What. Does that mean if green card holders are now going to be deported for simply expressing speech? 

MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD: I think it would be helpful to put this really in the larger context of what the administration has said, um, what it has said it's going to do, and what it plainly is attempting to do when it comes to, uh, speech that is in support of Palestine speech that has opposed the US backed genocide in Gaza.

And from the beginning, the Trump administration with its first executive orders, uh, began laying out certain language indicating that they were going to be targeting people, um, based on their speech, based on, um, their advocacy. Um, they had language about coming after persons who [00:54:00] they asserted were, um, seeking to overturn the culture.

Upon which the Constitution was founded, just a straight out rallying cry to white supremacists. And they were putting this in their, uh, context of their, uh, completely false presentation of. Basically apprehending terrorists in the United States, which is an effort to go after immigrants, undocumented people, and with a broad rush target.

Um, all, both immigrants and, uh, organizations that are supporting immigrants in the United States as terrorists are supporting terrorists. We see this also then extended in the context of Palestine advocacy and those who have demanded a ceasefire. So the administration. Has, uh, announced then in subsequent executive order on the 29th that it was, uh, in this combating antisemitism order, completely abusing as so many in the [00:55:00] right wing have done, um, the term antisemitism, because of course we all understand and believe that antisemitism is at point.

This is this continuing effort. To equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, but the administration is seeking to use that as a legal leverage point to then say both that anyone who is engaged in criticism of Israel or criticism of the US backed war on the Palestinian people and genocide. Is, uh, engaged in anti-Semitic activity.

So they wanna use that, uh, to be able to both say that they're engaged in discriminatory conduct, but they wanna take it a step further. And this is what we're starting to see, which is what was being foreshadowed when it comes to Mach wood. Khalil. What they are trying to do now is say that people who call for a ceasefire, people who have stood in solidarity with the right of Palestinians to have [00:56:00] freedom and liberation and against.

Oppression are somehow also quote aligned with Hamas. That was the language that the administration used, um, in response to the demands for freedom for Mahmud Khalil. So what they're saying is that if you. As a person in the United States are calling for a ceasefire and if Hamas was also calling for a ceasefire, or if you are calling for freedom of liberation for the Palestinian people and Hamas is calling for freedom or liberation for the Palestinian people, that's somehow is a quote alignment that then labels someone in their mind, uh, potentially excludable.

Of course it is not. Of course, it is not excludable to believe those views to advocate for peace, but that's what they're trying to do. 

ABBY MARTIN - HOST, EMPIRE FILES: Well, I think this is the most dangerous part of this, is this Hamas alignment allegation based on nothing at all other [00:57:00] than this tenuous, you know, link. That that essentially is rhetoric that could be similar in terms of calling for a ceasefire, calling for a cessation to massacres.

Somehow you're aligned with Hamas. If you're just a. Posing the genocide that we've all been witnessing on our phones for the last 15 months, and that's what makes this extraordinarily kind of a dystopian moment. I wanna comment on Khalil's character and why he was even a leader in the student movement.

I'm gonna quote a fellow student activist Miriam, who posted quote Mahmud did everything that administrators claim they wanted from us. He was unmasked. He was extremely tactful with his words. He was kind patient. Even with those who dehumanized him, he always stayed rational and calm. He was a lead negotiator precisely because of these qualities.

He extended grace to those who didn't deserve it. The fact that the Trump administration did not actually single out someone who used inflammatory rhetoric. Or engaged in violence but actually singled out. Khalil, do you think this is a trial balloon, Mara? I mean, there's a lot hinge on this and, and [00:58:00] is it an unprecedented case?

MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD: It is an unprecedented case, uh, to my knowledge. I mean, certainly if you go back and look at the crackdowns against the movement. The removal of persons like Emma Goldman and others in history we have, it is not un unprecedented to see the state use its authority, including the State Department and other, um, agencies use their authority against political movements in the United States in order to obstruct, to deport, to repress.

Certainly could see that with, you know, Paul Robeson. You can see that William worthy over and over again, the State Department tries to use, its, its controls, its powers to, uh, to target political activists. But certainly within our time we have seen nothing like this. It is completely unconstitutional. It is fundamentally a violation of the First Amendment in all [00:59:00] respects for the administration to take speech.

Just because it opposes it ideologically and wrap it up and announce that it's terrorism, and then this incredible stretch of suggesting that there's some equal sign. Between speech in support of Palestinian people or speech that is opposing an extraordinary genocide and saying that that is somehow support for an FDO.

It is not everyone who has read the Constitution or even heard of it, understands it is not the administration knows. That it is not, but this is part of their broader agenda. In that same January 29th combating antisemitism order, they issued a fact sheet and the adjacent, the fact sheet that came along with it said explicitly that they intended to target, um, persons who were engaged in political speech or views that they labeled as leftist, left wing or anti-American, and they were wrapping that all up.

In the same [01:00:00] context as as this attack on people who have been, um, issuing statements, marching, rallying, organizing the brave students on campus who are demanding divestment from genocide. This is their effort. In a really despotic manner to try and crack down on dissent in the United States. And their first target is of course, the Palestine movement because they know and hope that people will turn away, that people who don't care about this will accept a demonization of the Palestine movement.

But they're also doing the exact same thing to the immigrant rights movement. They are doing this in their own way with the environmental justice movement, calling them domestic terrorists. Across the board, they're abusing and misusing authority that relates to national security or terrorism in order to target all those in the United States that they oppose, whose viewpoints they oppose.

Because in truth, they know that the biggest threat to this authoritarian [01:01:00] grab, what we're really witnessing is a, a coup in real time. This fundamental threat to basic democratic principles. They know that the thing they have to worry about the most is dissent, is organization is the movement of the people.

And if they can terrorize people, if they can threaten to arrest people, if they can threaten to jail people, they're hoping to fully suppress that speech and movements for justice.

Trump administration targets college and university budgets in DEI crackdown - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 3-14-25

AMNA NAWAZ: So, most of the investigations focus on colleges' partnerships with a nonprofit called The PhD Program. What is that? And what exactly is administration all at alleging here?

SARAH BROWN: So The PhD Project is this effort that is designed to get more professors from underrepresented backgrounds into business schools.

So, colleges, student bodies are much more diverse than they used to be. So about half of undergraduates are students of color. Most faculty members are white. And so colleges have been trying to get more underrepresented groups represented among the faculty.

Now, the Trump administration believes that [01:02:00] these diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, these DEI efforts, are illegal because they consider race. They treat people differently based on race. That's their argument. And so the Trump administration sees The PhD Project, which is working with these 45 universities, as part of the illegal DEI that it's trying to crack down on.

That's its argument. Obviously, a lot of people would say these DEI programs are not illegal, they're just an important part of creating more welcoming environments on campuses.

AMNA NAWAZ: And so most of the schools are being targeted because of that. There are seven other colleges that are listed here that are being investigated for awarding what the administration calls impermissible race-based scholarships.

Sarah, have the universities responded to any of these allegations?

SARAH BROWN: At this point, the universities have said, we are reviewing the allegations. We will cooperate with any federal investigations.

They haven't said a lot specifically so far. We have seen a range of these scholarship programs targeted in the past, so this has been something going on for some time. And some universities have actually stopped offering [01:03:00] certain kinds of scholarships or have changed the way that they are awarded.

But these scholarships typically are designed to help low-income students from particular backgrounds pay for their college tuition. So that's what they have traditionally been designed for, and that is now — that's now being targeted by the Trump administration, who believes those efforts are illegal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen the administration more specifically target Columbia University. That was the site of a lot of pro-Palestinian protests that began after the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel's war in Gaza.

This week, the administration canceled some $400 million in federal funding to Columbia. What does a cut of that size mean to a school like Columbia?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so Columbia does receive a lot more in federal funding than just that $400 million. But, just to be clear, it's really impactful.

So we have already seen that these cuts are affecting National Institutes of Health research on, for example, opioids, on malaria vaccine. So these are really impactful research projects, as the university sees it. And so it's [01:04:00] already having an impact.

And so you might think, oh, Columbia is a university with a billion-dollar endowment. Can't they just pull from that endowment and backfill this funding? That's not how it works. So, for a university like Columbia, even this is a big deal.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have also seen, at Columbia, this is, of course, the headlines about Mahmoud Khalil, because he was a former student there. Federal immigration agents arrested him on campus housing there. He helped to lead some of those protests. And he's a legal permanent resident they're now trying to deport.

We have seen another arrest of a foreign student at Columbia as well. How are our universities now kind of navigating this moment, when federal immigration authorities could potentially come onto campus or campus housing and arrest members of their community?

SARAH BROWN: Yes, so this is a new concern for colleges. At least, in the past decade, ICE has not regularly carried out deportation activities in these sensitive locations, such as schools and college campuses.

So universities have been, for the past few months — their communities are concerned [01:05:00] about potential immigration enforcement. Universities have been sending out messages to their communities, here are the protocols for dealing with ICE.

But what we're seeing at Columbia is really the first example of ICE agents actually coming to a campus, in some cases, like we have seen recently this week, with a warrant, with warrants, and what happens to — when universities have to respond to those situations.

And so I think a lot of campus communities, especially at Columbia, international students, undocumented students, they're very concerned right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: The investigations they announced just today, the threat of pulling federal funds is the through line here. And we have already seen the impact that can have at Johns Hopkins, for example. That's a leader, of course, in scientific research.

They just announced that they're slashing 2,000 jobs after the university lost more than $800 million in federal grants. Those are unrelated to the efforts to go after DEI programs, though, right?

SARAH BROWN: This is all, I would say, part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to try to change the policies and practices on college campuses.

The [01:06:00] Johns Hopkins cuts are more related to the USAID situation. And so that is a little bit different. But it's all part of this larger effort by the Trump administration to try to have universities in alignment with his agenda. That's really what is underlying everything that we're seeing here with DEI programs, with these protesters and potential deportations of protesters. That's what we're seeing here.

Rep. Jamie Raskin: Trump’s Attacks on Critics & Press Are Part of the “Authoritarian Playbook” - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-17-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: On Friday, President Trump spoke at the Department of Justice and threatened to take revenge on his political enemies.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the department of injustice. But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back. They’re never coming back. … So, now as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and [01:07:00] abuses that have occurred.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In a moment, we’ll be joined by Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland, but first let’s turn to a part of his response to Trump’s speech. Raskin spoke outside the Department of Justice Friday.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: In the 18th century, the American Revolution overthrew the kings, the lords and the feudal barons to establish a nation where we would have a nation where all would be equal under the law. As Tom Paine put it, in monarchies, the king is law, but in the democracies, the law is king. But, amazingly, we now have a president in the 21st century who believes he’s a king, and he believes that the king is the law once again.

The first seven weeks of this radical experiment in neomonarchism has been a disaster for the rule of law and for the Constitution and for the First Amendment. There have been 120 federal cases [01:08:00] filed against Donald Trump all over the country, and he has lost already in more than 40 courtrooms across the land, where temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions have been issued against his lawless attack on the Constitution.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That was Congressmember Jamie Raskin of Maryland speaking outside the DOJ on Friday, responding to Trump’s speech. He’s joining us now from Takoma Park, Maryland. Congressmember Raskin is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a former constitutional law professor.

During Trump’s first presidency, Raskin served as a floor manager and the Democrats’ lead prosecutor for Trump’s second impeachment after the January 6th Capitol insurrection. He was also a member of the House January 6 committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. In January, Biden gave preemptive pardons [01:09:00] to Raskin and other members of the January 6th House committee. Earlier today, President Trump claimed the pardons are invalid because, he said, they were done by autopen.

Congressmember Jamie Raskin, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why don’t we start there, with President Trump saying all the pardons that he issued that were done by autopen are invalid? That would include you. Your response?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: First of all, thank you for having me, Amy, and that was the first time I got to hear a clip from our press conference. What you couldn’t hear there was the constant berating and heckling of MAGA counterprotesters who showed up. We were being drowned out by a guy with a bullhorn. I wanted to borrow his bullhorn, because we didn’t have a sound system with us. But I appreciate your running that clip where we went and appeared opposite Donald Trump.

So, [01:10:00] but I had not seen that Donald Trump is claiming that the pardon rendered by President Biden was somehow illegitimate because of the kind of pen that was used. This sounds like classic Donald Trump stuff. You know, the pardons, of course, were necessary because of Trump’s promises to prosecute Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, less so the rest of us, but they had already made their moves against Liz Cheney. And I have no reason to think that those were not valid any more than the humiliating and atrocious pardons that Donald Trump gave to nearly 1,600 insurrectionists, including violent felons who viciously attacked our police officers on January 6th.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, if you can talk about [01:11:00] this almost unprecedented speech? It is very rare for a president to go to the Department of Justice and give a speech like this. I think Clinton did around some anti-crime bill, which many would dispute was actually an anti-crime bill. Obama went to say goodbye to the attorney general. But to give an hour address naming names of targets, talking about the press as enemies of the people, if you can respond, overall, to what he said?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, it was a typical rambling and hate-filled diatribe by Donald Trump. No speech like that has ever taken place at the U.S. Department of Justice, which has existed since 1870, when it was set up to try to enforce the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution against the Ku Klux Klan and against white supremacists and insurrectionists and secessionists.

But nobody has ever taken a [01:12:00] sledgehammer to the traditional boundary between independent criminal law enforcement, on the one side, and presidential political will and power, on the other. But here Trump made it clear that he views these people as his lawyers. They are reporting to him, according to his corrupt unitary executive theory. And far from staying out of the business of deciding who will be prosecuted and who will be let go, he’s going to superintend the whole machinery of the Department of Justice.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to go to a clip from President Trump speaking at the Department of Justice.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt, and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal. … These networks and these newspapers are [01:13:00] really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop. It has to be illegal. It’s influencing judges, and it’s entered — it’s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that is President Trump speaking at the Justice Department. Of course, he has sued ABC. He has sued CBS. He has sued The Des Moines Register. Because he has the backing of the wealthiest person on Earth, Elon Musk, he could do endless lawsuits. And whether or not they win, that’s not the point. But he could just wipe out one news institution after another, Congressmember Raskin.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, he’s obviously frustrated because he’s losing everywhere in court on everything from the birthright citizenship executive order, which is blatantly unconstitutional, to the spending freeze to the sacking of thousands of probationary employees. And so, [01:14:00] he’s frustrated, so he says it’s got to be illegal for the media to be covering his defeats and to be trying to expose the various constitutional violations of his administration. Of course, it’s completely lawful and protected by the First Amendment.

And he’s just operating out of the authoritarian playbook, which says that the first thing you do when you get in is you crack down on the free press. And he’s been doing that in numerous ways. He’s been ordering the FCC to go after ABC, CBS, NBC, anybody who displeases him in any way. But he’s also been personally suing media entities. There was a shakedown of $15 million against ABC because he was unhappy with coverage there. And now he’s got a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS, not even because of anything they said about him, but because he thought that the coverage of Kamala Harris was too positive.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: It was about, right, a 60 Minutes interview, which in all [01:15:00] news media you do an hour an interview, and you play 10 minutes, so things like her sneezing were taken out. And he said that was used to affect the — try to use to affect the election.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Of course, Fox News operates completely as an ideological arm of the Republican Party and of the Trump cult, and there’s nothing unconstitutional about that. You know, it’s totally fine for a newspaper entity to be endorsing Harris or Trump or what have you. So, he’s just absolutely confused on the point.

News Brief: The Disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil and the Phony “Campus Safety” Panic - Citations Needed - Air Date 3-12-25

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: When you drill down on these supposed cases of assault, again, something that Politico in their coverage of Mahmoud Khalil referenced this, right? They vaguely alluded to assault on Jewish students. Nine times out of 10, this is what they mean. They mean people who are actively supporting and again, they’ll say this, they’re pro-Zionist, pro-Israel factions who go, and you saw this in the most conspicuously on the UCLA campus, when the so-called counter-protesters started firing fireworks and lighting things on fire and assaulting people, some of whom actually [01:16:00] were charged by the district attorney. These are pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, what Vanessa Redgrave called in her 1978 Oscar speech, Zionist hoodlums. These are people who are there to fuck up people they view as being threatening to Israel and Israel security. This is not a protected ethnic class. This is an ideological support for a nation-state, and this is just constantly conflated in this coverage, and they’re not remotely the same thing.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So for instance, since you mentioned UCLA, Adam, in a recent article from NBC News covering the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, there is this section buried midway through the article. Quote,

At UCLA, students gathered at Dickson Plaza on campus, where megaphones and rattling drums punctuated calls for Khalil’s release.

This is what follows. Quote,

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk announced Monday that the university would launch an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism” that will include recommendations on how it can combat anti-Israel bias, he said in a [01:17:00] message to the UCLA community.

“UCLA is at an inflection point,” Frenk said. “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively.”

End quote.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Antisemitism being opposition to Israel and Israel’s policies.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Right? I mean, it says it right there.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Right. And they do this over and over again.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: None of these initiatives are about opposing genocide or opposing US military and state funding for the ongoing occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine. That is, of course, we’re not going to see any initiatives to combat that. We just see the ongoing conflation of criticism of a nation-state that is committing crimes against humanity, horrific war crimes against a people, as being the same thing, synonymous with antisemitism.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And if you feel like this is driving you insane, or you feel like you’re losing your mind, you’re not alone, because this is how every single [01:18:00] of these squishy, useless fucking university administrators, and of course, much of the so-called liberal media, or centrist media, is framing this. They’re framing this as an issue of antisemitism, when all they have is guilt by association, vague innuendo, and this War on Terror language.

I mean, so much is laundered through this terrorist, terrorist, terror, terror. Again, only certain groups can be terror. You can commit a genocide and drop 2,000-pound bombs on apartment buildings and kill tens of thousands of people, thousands of children, probably tens of thousands of children. And that’s not terrorism. Why we don’t know? We’re going to debate that later. That’s an academic question. Let’s just move on. Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Antisemitism, antisemitism. Terror, terror, antisemitism, antisemitism, terror, terror, terror. Until you look up and you go, Wait, what are we even talking about anymore? Right? Like, what’s being adjudicated here? I can’t even keep track of what we’re talking about. Are we talking about the people starving in Gaza who’ve had their electricity and water cut off? That are in month 17 of complete destitution and annihilation? No, we’re not talking about that. We’re not talking about US support [01:19:00] for that. We’re talking about these alleged mushy feelings of a bunch of fucking college kids, which has nothing to do with anything.

So let’s read the University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham. We’re going to read this whole statement. And the reason why is because I think this kind of sums up the combination of cowardice, but also corruption, and I think racism. I think, frankly, a lot of this just fucking anti-Arab racism, to be quite honest, at work here, which is to say racism only goes in one direction. It only matters in one direction. And we’re going to use the language, the squishy, sort of post-George Floyd language of anti-racism to defend a genocide in real time, and that’s what we’re going to do, it’s what we’ve been doing over the last 17 months, in the most cynical way possible. Again, everything’s vague. Everything’s about feelings. Nothing’s in reference to any specific thing that happens.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Yes, so this is University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham, who sent this message, this statement, to the university community earlier this week. Here it is, quote,

Dear students, faculty and staff,

As President, there is no greater responsibility than to ensure each [01:20:00] and every member of our community feels safe, valued and respected. Regardless of your race, gender identity, disability status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs, we are fully committed to ensuring that everyone feels welcomed and protected here at the University of Minnesota.

I am writing to you today, as our Twin Cities campus is now the subject of two federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism: a U.S. Department of Education investigation and a pending U.S. Department of Justice task force campus visit. We also received a failing score on the Anti-Defamation League’s latest campus antisemitism report card.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Oh, the totally good-faith ADL, who’s working with the Trump regime to disappear students. We’re working with them to fight antisemitism on a totally good-faith, neutral definition of antisemitism that has nothing to do with defending Israel. Sorry. Go ahead.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: During the first eight months of my presidency, I have been working closely with members of our University community to foster a safe, welcoming environment for everyone.

Unfortunately, harassment, discrimination and bias — including antisemitism — continues to exist across the [01:21:00] globe, negatively impacting people and communities. Here at the University of Minnesota, we take these issues very seriously.

As a leadership team and a University, we are strongly committed to enhancing support for members of our community who are Jewish. We are in regular communication with Jewish students and faculty groups, who have been advising us to better understand their lived experiences in this time, and augment their experience on campus.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: We got a “lived experience,” Nima.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: That’s right, you can’t talk about the myriad death experiences of the people who are being, you know, genocided, but no, the lived experience.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: We just need bodies and spaces, and we’ll have the hat trick. Go ahead.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: President Cunningham continues, quote,

In response to their advocacy, the University recently joined the Hillel Campus Climate Initiative — a nationwide program that equips campus administrators with strategies to counter antisemitism and foster an environment where Jewish students feel safe expressing their identities.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: An explicitly pro-Israel organization being laundered through the language of anti-racism in [01:22:00] Jewish identity. Go ahead.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Over the past year, the University has made substantial improvements to its Bias Response and Referral Network to ensure that reporting is easier, intuitive and effective. We have also worked to clarify and communicate our policies regarding time, place and manner for events, demonstrations and civic engagement.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Translation: We’ve more easily broadened the definition of racism into opposition to Israeli policy, in alliance with a bunch of Zionist bullies. Go ahead.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And therefore made it harder for people to protest on campus.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And of course, made it hard to protest, because any protest that isn’t again, I guess a polite visual is seen as per se racist harassment. Okay, go ahead.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: The statement continues, quote,

Let me be clear. Any and all forms of harassment, intimidation and bias against any member of our University community will not be tolerated. Decisive measures will be taken to end any hostile actions based on shared ancestry or any other protected characteristic, and University leaders will continue to work diligently to prevent [01:23:00] their recurrence.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Does it ever occur to University of Minnesota officials or any officials that perhaps Trump disappearing Palestinian students was in part due to their being Palestinian, was in part due to their being Arab? No, that’s not racism, right? You know, disappearing fucking students and putting them in undisclosed locations in Louisiana where they cannot speak to their family or lawyer, that is not racism, by an overtly racist and Islamophobic and anti-Arab president. That’s not racism when, in fact, we’re going to work with the group, the ADL, explicitly cheering that on and supporting that, tweeting out support for that. So that’s not racism. That doesn’t count as racism. No, no, no. The solipsistic, self-identified perceptions of certain students matter, but the actual disappearing of Arab students is irrelevant.

SECTION B: OPPOSING TRUMP CAN BE TERRORISM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B, opposing Trump can be terrorism.

Trump Pumps Elon's Dump; Says Tesla Haters are Criminals?! - TechNewsDay - Internet Today - Air Date 3-13-25

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Trump declared the vehicle's beautiful, and in particular, praised the company's unusually designed cyber truck.

As soon as I saw it, I said, that is the coolest design. Trump said by reviewing the [01:24:00] Teslas in public before cameras, Trump ensured that his purchase would receive y attention. Dan s Scavino, a White House deputy Chief of Staff Live streamed the event on X, the social media app owned by mosque. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the application of ethics rules.

Trump said he would pay for the vehicle by check. 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Elon, can you take a check?

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: The reporting continues. The company's shares have declined every week since Musk went to Washington and they fell 15% on Monday before rebounding Tuesday. Asked whether his purchase might help Tesla's stock. Trump said, I hope it does. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah. 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Basically they asked, I'm doing some stock manipulation here.

They, they asked if this demonstration and performative gesture was on its face, corrupt, and Trump answered in the affirmative. Yep. 

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Me and a bunch of people I, I talked to have all placed, uh, large bets, all placed large bets on the stock going up today, and so that's the whole point of this. We make money.

Yeah. During the event, Trump held a piece [01:25:00] of paper with notes about Tesla features according to photos of the notes. Published by Getty Images, the notes appeared to be something of a sales pitch, uh, including details that Teslas could be purchased for $299 a month, and that all vehicles have self-driving.

A reference to the company suite of driver assistance features, which cost extra and still require human supervision and don't work too good. Yeah. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut called this, what? It was over on the, the bad site saying Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn't mean it's not corruption.

Yeah, that's right. It's, he is correct to say that. Yeah. This is, and Reuters went into detail about Trump's plans to criminalize Tesla protestors if they engage in violence and who knows how broadly that'll be interpreted. 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Yeah. What is, what, what's your definition of violence? Is like, it's, it's going to be like words can feel like violence.

Yeah. Or silence is violence. I'm trying. 

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: You don't talk violence. You talk violence. Um, uh yeah. Especially after, you know, seeing images from Tesla dealerships where there is a [01:26:00] substantial show of force protecting the building and vehicles. Yeah. By the police doing the job that they do violence against.

Tesla dealerships will be labeled domestic terrorism and perpetrators will go through hell. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday in a show of support for the electric Carmaker's chief, his ally, Elon Musk. 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Uh, yeah, of course the juxtaposition isn't lost on us. It's just very sad that we're at a point where on one hand, taxpayer funded police officers are guarding Tesla dealerships just in case.

While at the same time legal residents are being disappeared and having their citizenship status revoked because they protested a genocide that the United States agrees with. The activists have lately staged so-called Tesla takedown protests to voice displeasure over Musk's role in sweeping cuts to the federal workforce at the behest of Trump and cancellation of contracts that fund humanitarian programs around the world.

They're harming a great American company. Trump said at the White House referring to the demonstrators. Let me tell you, you do it to Tesla and you do it to any company. We're going to catch you and [01:27:00] you're gonna go through hell. White House spokesperson Harrison Field said ongoing and heinous acts of violence against Tesla by radical leftist activists are nothing short of domestic terror.

A group said that it was an organizer of the Tesla takedown protest, responded in a statement on social media platform blue sky, that it was peaceful and opposed violence. I. Quote, peaceful protest on public property is not domestic terrorism. They're trying to intimidate us. We will not let them succeed.

The group said, calling for people to join the protests, Trump could direct the US Justice Department to charge Tesla dealership vandals under terrorism statutes, though it is unclear if those charges would hold up in court according to legal experts. 

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Yeah. I mean, so there have been instances of vandalism at these protests, but mostly not.

Mm-hmm. Um. Uh, a few Tesla charging stations have been caught on fire, but not as part of any protests, so it's, it's hard to tell what they're really talking about other than someone maybe riding with a Sharpie on a window. 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: Yeah, it seems to be putting this [01:28:00] out in front as justification for. Getting up to, but they're 

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: talking about this as if we're already in like week two of the George Floyd protest.

Oh yeah. No. Like this has been going for a very long time and Tesla does such a burning, our death, the country, it just 

RICKY HAYBERG - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: doesn't correlate with reality. Teslas are rolling through cities on fire. It, it, it doesn't yet. It doesn't make sense, but 

ELIOT DEWBERRY - HOST, INTERNET TODAY: like, would those, would the people in New Orleans who threw beads at those Teslas?

Yes. Would they, are they terrorists? I guess so. 

Trump Threatens Terrorist Label to ANYONE Protesting his Dictatorship - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 1-19-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Donald Trump has made it clear that there are groups that he wants to punish immigrants, transgender people, he said, but less disgust protestors. He hopes to discipline and potentially prosecute civil disobedience, people who show up on the in the streets and protest with increased force In May, Donald Trump promised a group of donors that quote any student, the protests, I will throw them out of the country.

End quote. And that's more than just bluster. Uh, writes, uh, Vince [01:29:00] over at Mother Jones. Uh, Reuters reported that sources said Trump hopes to follow through on the promise one day, uh, uh, on, excuse me, on day one of his administration, by signing an executive order, prioritizing deporting international students who support Palestinian Militant Group Hamas and have violated the terms of their student visas.

Uh, one piece of the potential infrastructure, I told, you know, I mentioned this in the first hour of the program, is this stop terror financing and tax penalties of American Hostages Act. This is the, the law that's probably gonna be voted on this week that gives the Treasury secretary the power to designate a non-profit as a supporter of terrorism and stripped them of their nonprofit status.

Uh, he notes The Heritage Foundation. The Rightwing Group behind Project 2025 has also given Trump a workable plan to stop pro-Palestinian descents. It's called Project Esther. It suggests deporting quote, foreign Hamas support organization members end quote, classifying anti-war [01:30:00] nonprofits like American Muslims for Palestine, students for Justice in Palestine.

And Jewish Voice for Peace. As members of a shadowy Hamas support organization network, Republicans have revived, uh, R 94 95. It, it failed to pass last week, but they tried to pass it, uh, using fast Track essentially, which requires, uh, two thirds. Uh, vote and, uh, they, they actually had 50 Democrats who supported it.

I don't, I just don't think they knew what they were supporting. Uh, I doubt they will this time, but, but now they're gonna do it through regular order, which means they don't need a single Democrat. All they need is all the Republicans. What this bill will do is allow the treasury secretary. To designate any nonprofit in the United States as a supporter of terrorism and instantly with basically, uh, there is an appeal process, but it, it's.

It's not robust, shall we say. Uh, instantly they will lose their tax exempt status, which means [01:31:00] that they will lose institutional support if they're getting foundation support. Um, donations will no longer be tax deductible. Um, there's a whole bunch of doors that close when a nonprofit loses their nonprofit status.

And, you know, whether they're gonna use this to go after investigative, uh, uh, reporting groups like ProPublica. Uh, you know, what they're saying right now is that they want to use it to go after groups that are supportive of, uh, people in Gaza. And, uh, this is what, uh, Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam America had to say about this.

He said, this bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, and even universities who dare to dissent. It would put our ability to, to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid.

To some of the world's most marginalized people. This bill follows the same playbook. [01:32:00] Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home. 

House Approves “Nonprofit Killer” Bill, Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since PATRIOT Act - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-22-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: His analysis of the so-called nonprofit killer bill was published on Spencer Ackerman’s blog forever-wars.com. It’s headlined “The Most Dangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

OK, Darryl, why? Why is this so significant? Again, it was passed in the House. It now makes its way to the Senate.

DARRYL LI: Thank you for having me on, Amy.

As you mentioned, this bill is essentially a civil rights disaster, that would allow the government, under any administration — I want to be clear that this bill is terrible no matter who is president — but it would allow the government to shut down nonprofits on the smear of being terrorist-supporting organizations.

Now, obviously, the government, after decades of authoritarian “war on terror” policies, already has ample legal tools at its disposal to go after nonprofits, essentially, for any [01:33:00] reason that it wishes. What this bill would do in addition, the thing that it would add and the thing that makes it so dangerous, and actually the most dangerous domestic terrorism law in a generation, is that it would essentially smuggle in through the back door a domestic terrorist group list for the first time. This is something that the United States, to this day, still doesn’t have. We have many, many lists of so-called foreign terrorist organizations, that are overwhelmingly Muslim and/or based in the Global South.

This law requires an accusation with no evidence, but a tie-in. It’s an accusation that nonprofits are supporting a group on one of the existing international terrorism lists. This is important to understand, because it explains why so many people on the right in Congress are comfortable signing on, because the bill is essentially discriminatory by design. Right-wingers and white supremacists in Congress can support this bill, with the assurance that their allies, right-wing extremist groups, are highly, highly unlikely to ever be targeted by this bill, [01:34:00] because there isn’t going to — it’s much less likely that they will be smeared with an accusation of being tied to an international terrorist organization that’s already on one of the government lists. So, that’s why this particular coalition —

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [inaudible]

DARRYL LI: — has come together. And it will — oh, go on.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Talk more about the origins of the bill, why Democrats supported the bill, and what it means now that it’s going to the Senate, how organizations are organizing around it.

DARRYL LI: Right. So, since October 7th, we’ve seen a whole bunch of outlandish anti-Palestinian pieces of legislation that have been designed to crush any protest or dissent around Palestine in the United States, while Congress, of course, continues to supply untold billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for its ongoing genocide in Gaza. This particular piece of legislation is the one that has gotten closest to becoming law. And initially, it did have significant bipartisan support, because, of [01:35:00] course, anti-Palestinian racism is one of the great bipartisan unifiers in Congress.

With the efforts of civil society groups to ring the alarm and educate members of Congress about the dangers of this bill, not only for Palestine advocacy, but broadly, for any number of causes, and, of course, with the election of Donald Trump, more and more Democrats have awoken to the danger.

“When They Call You a Terrorist”: The Life of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-16-18

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: If you can talk about Monte and your experience—well, first, he’s—after he’s arrested, before he’s diagnosed, what this all means, and then this unbelievable moment where you decide to call in the police, after he’s back from jail?

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: Yeah. Monte—we didn’t know Monte was suffering from mental illness. Unfortunate reality is many communities of color, working-class poor communities, we don’t have people coming in and educating us about the crisis of mental health. And so, we just [01:36:00] thought some—we didn’t know what was wrong. We didn’t. And when Monte was arrested for a robbery and when he was 18 years old, broke someone’s window, he said the voices told him to do it, and ended up going to prison for three years. In his stay in prison, he was tortured by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, brutally beaten. And—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Your mother first seeing him—she couldn’t even find where he was.

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: No, no, they disappeared him. And this is actually—was a common practice of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. It’s disappearing prisoners. And when she finally saw him, two months later, he was emaciated. My brother is 6’2”, almost 300 pounds. They had completely overmedicated him. And we would learn, later on, years later, just what he endured in that jail cell.

When he was released, when he was 23 years old, it was one of the [01:37:00] most exciting days of my life. I get to see my brother. I hadn’t seen him in years. We didn’t know that we could visit people. You know, they don’t give you sort of what are the steps when your loved one is incarcerated. We didn’t realize that we could go visit him, so we didn’t see him for four years. We just wrote a lot of letters. And the first thing that I noticed when I picked him up from the bus stop is they let him out in flip-flops, an undershirt and boxers. And I just—I was—I was so disturbed, like I couldn’t—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: He was at the bus station in boxer shorts?

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: He was in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt and flip-flops, which—shower shoes, essentially. And I ushered him in the car. And he was acting very different. It was not the brother that went inside and that I knew. And the minute he got into the house, my mother said, “This is—something’s wrong with my son.” And, you know, as every child, I was like, “Mom, be quiet. He just got out of prison. Like just give him some time.”

And over a week, he [01:38:00] slowly—he quickly deteriorated. And I didn’t know who to call. And eventually I called the ambulance, and I made the unfortunate choice to tell them that my brother had just been released from jail. They said, “Well, that’s not our problem; you have to call the police.” And I said, “I can’t call the police on my brother. You have no”—you know, this is before Black Lives Matter, before we’ve seen, you know, black people be killed at the hands of law enforcement, especially black people with mental illness. But I just knew that that was not the right choice.

But I didn’t have anybody else to call, and I did call the police. And I talked them through, and I let them know what was happening. And the first thing they said to me—I said, “What happens if my brother happens to get violent?” And they said, “We’ll just taser him.” I mean, just like flat-faced—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: These are two young cops who came.

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: Two young rookie cops, clearly scared out of their minds. And I said, “You cannot taser him. Like, that’s not—that’s unacceptable.” They walked into my house, and the minute they walked in, my brother just put his hands up and went on his knees and [01:39:00] just started begging them. You know, he just started begging them. And I just knew I made a mistake. I just knew I made a mistake. And I, you know, held my brother. I said, “It’s OK.” And I told them to leave. And it was in that moment that I realized that we’re on our own, that we are literally on our own, and there is no infrastructure for black poor families when dealing with mental illness. There’s just none. And we had to piece the infrastructure together.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And the—talk about the time that he was charged with terrorism.

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: Yeah, it was in those years, as he was off and on his medication. He was in a fender bender. And he was in the middle of a manic episode. And he might have cursed at the woman, might have not. We don’t know. We weren’t there. But the woman claimed that he had cursed at her. And because my brother was a second striker, then because they said that the cursing was [01:40:00] threatening, they—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Explain what you mean by “second striker.”

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: He has had two strikes on his record, which is part of the three strikes law, and was—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In California.

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: In California—and could end up getting—if he were to receive his third strike, end up in jail for life. And—

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Even if that third strike is stealing a candy bar.

PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: Stealing a candy bar, getting in a fender bender. So, we went to court, when we finally found where my brother was. We went to that first court date, and the lawyer said, “You know, your brother is being charged with terrorist threats, and that is a felony. And they will probably be putting him away for the rest of his life.” And he was 24, 24 years old.

SECTION C: DOJ, FBI, & THE JUDICIARY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached section C, the DOJ, FBI, and the judiciary.

Trump hones Justice Department as weapon of revenge some dull edges remain - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 3-15-25

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Let's look at what Attorney General Pam Bondi has been up to in the midst of this mess. You might recall that last week Trump signed an executive order to punish a particular law [01:41:00] firm because that law firm has done work for Democrats. Among other things, Trump's executive order would block anyone from that law firm from entering federal courthouses.

I. Which might make it difficult to be a lawyer in Washington, DC I'm just saying the law firm naturally sued. Um, and because the case was so important to Trump and potentially because it was difficult to find any career prosecutors who really wanted to defend it, um, attorney General, Pam Bondy sent her own chief of staff, the Attorney General's chief of staff to argue the case himself personally in federal court.

Bring it in like the biggest guns they got and, and her chief of staff just got blown out of court by the judge. The Trump administration lost that with an exclamation point. The judge said Trump's order sent a chill down her spine. She said the whole legal profession was quote, watching in horror what Trump was trying to do and what the Attorney General's chief of staff [01:42:00] was trying and very much failing to defend in court.

Pam Bondi and Trump's Justice Department are also apparently trying to launch an investigation into the otherwise totally normal process of funding shelters for migrants in New York City. I say they're trying to launch an investigation there because they seem to be having trouble with some of the fundamentals, like spelling.

At least one of the subpoenas they sent out has folks in New York scratching their heads because it went to something called the Hotel Chandler. Hotel Chandler does not. Host immigrants. At all. It's not clear what's going on there with a Hotel Chandler, but a CBS News report does note that quote, A source familiar with the shelter system pointed out that another hotel with a similar name, the Candler, is in fact a hotel where they house migrants.

Asked about the situation with the Chandler and the Candler, a spokesman for the Department of Justice [01:43:00] said quote, we will decline to comment on an ongoing investigation. Also, Pam, do you.

Uh, but don't worry about it. Uh, when it comes to the really important stuff, Pam Bondy is on it. This went out from her office this week. All caps memorandum for all department employees from the attorney general subject ending procurement of paper straws. Quote, in accordance with President Trump's direction,

the Department of Justice. She's talking about the US Department of Justice shall take appropriate action to eliminate the procurement of paper straws and ensure that paper straws are no longer provided within department buildings. Department components shall take appropriate action to identify and eliminate any portion of policy or guidance documents designed to disfavor plastic straws.

Oh, you guys, the Justice Department's long nightmare is over.[01:44:00] 

Today, Pam Bondi took time out of her busy schedule of vanquishing plastic straw, straw discrimination, uh, to welcome the president to the Justice Department, making sure to point out to him the most important decor, the picture of him. After which Trump gave a a long, long discursive rambling, angry speech to Justice Department employees that included basically handing them a handy list of enemies he'd like them to look into.

At Martin, at the DCUS attorney's office, he seems to already have his own enemies list. I mentioned that Ed Martin. Tried to indict Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. Uh, Chuck Schumer is one of only, uh, several people, including several elected officials, all Democrats who Martin appears to be targeting for investigation.

He's also sent a letter to Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, um, because Robert Garcia criticized Elon Musk. So that got him a [01:45:00] threatening letter from the US Attorney's Office. Democratic Congressman Eugene Binman this week also revealed that he has received a threatening letter from Ed Martin, this one asking about his personal finances.

Eugene Binman and his twin brother Alexander Vidman have long been targets of Donald Trump's rage and invective for their roles in bringing to light the events that led to Trump's first impeachment. This is the letter that DCUS attorney Ed Martin sent to Congressman Binman. It starts, quote, dear Eugene, uh, do you always write your business?

Just dear quote, I have received requests for clarification of your personal financial disclosures over the past year. I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after requests. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this. Please respond by day, month date, 2025. That is literally what the letter says, day, month, date 2025.[01:46:00] 

Only the best people.

They're Fabricating Criminal Prosecutions Now - Legal Eagle - Air Date 3-12-25

DEVIN STONE - HOST, LEGAL EAGLE: There were two legal bright lines about the Trump administration. One was whether they would follow court orders that remains to be seen. The other was whether they would weaponize the DOJ and create political prosecutions. And they have crossed that Legal Rubicon and another DOJ prosecutor has resigned.

Rather than move forward less than a month after seven, justice Department lawyers resigned in protest over Ilbo Bay's decision to quash corruption charges against New York. Mayor Eric Adams. Another prosecutor has walked out. Denise Chung. Now the former head of the criminal division at the US Attorney's Office in DC refused to order a bank to freeze funds related to a Biden administration environmental contract.

Citing a complete lack of evidence. Other prosecutors and FBI agents backed her up, but that wasn't enough for Bovet. In acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, ed Martin, they pressured her to misrepresent evidence and justify a seizure warrant, which would freeze billions of dollars of funds allocated to green energy products.

Chung refused to play along and she quit, but luckily she made sure the public knew why her resignation isn't just another DOJ shakeup. It's a sign that corruption isn't just [01:47:00] creeping into the Justice Department. It's taking over and it's a sign that they're willing to fabricate criminal prosecutions.

Now, US attorneys swear in oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They are bound by the ethical rules in their jurisdiction and tasked with evaluating evidence, prosecuting crimes, and pursuing justice. They're also bound to uphold the law in service of the American people.

Justice Department lawyers do not swear an oath to the president or his lackeys. But President Trump apparently sees it differently. He recently installed Interim US Attorney Ed Martin, an acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove as his enforcers at the Justice Department. And so far they have delivered, as we've talked about as a criminal defense lawyer.

Bove before he was the acting attorney General represented Trump in his election obstruction, classified documents in hush money cases. And as we've also talked about now that he's the OD d, Bovey ordered prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Mayor Adams in exchange for political favors.

Martin meanwhile is a Trump loyalist who still falsely claims that Trump won the 2020 election. And like Bovey, ed Martin doesn't see his job as upholding law. He sees it as protecting Trump. He made that clear when he declared, quote, as President Trump's lawyers, we are proud to [01:48:00] protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.

Now, in a normal administration, justice department attorneys are not the president's lawyers. And Martin has also pledged his truth to Elon Musk when Wired identified the men who are part of Musk's Doge Harem, which is not illegal. Musk asked Martin to criminally prosecute reporters. Martin swore to chase do's critics quote, to the end of the earth, and Martin also threatened to prosecute Democratic representative Robert Garcia for calling Elon Musk a dick.

But anyway, ed Martin's ascendancy is already chasing away career prosecutors who won't violate their oath of office. But this latest flashpoint is the Biden Administration's Signature Climate Initiative, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Which apparently in this administration, they want to criminally prosecute people to prevent it from going into effect.

But the background here is that in 2022, Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The IRA established a set of clean energy incentives and created the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF. The GGRF leverages investment from public and private lenders, quote, to invest in clean energy technologies such as solar panels and heat [01:49:00] pumps.

Through community lenders. In 2024, the Biden administration ran two competitions to allocate the money and awarded $20 billion to eight selectees. And the old EPA website let you quote, read what the eight selected applicants have committed to deliver on their application packages. However, now that Trump is in office, that information has been removed.

So much for transparency. But Trump and his allies have also taken a hard line on climate change, and that line is that climate change does not exist. 

60 MINUTES CLIP: I wish you could go to Greenland. Uh, watch these huge chunks of ice just falling into the ocean, raising the sea levels. And you don't know whether or not that would've happened with or without Man, you don't know.

Well, your scientists, your scientists at Noah and nasa, no. We have scientists that disagree with that. 

DEVIN STONE - HOST, LEGAL EAGLE: But instead of asking Congress to repeal the IRA, the Trump administration wants to claw back the GGRF funds and prosecute the grant recipients. Enter Lee Zelin Trump's new EPA administrator. Zelin has been on the job for less than a month, but he looked into it and surprise he found fraud. 

LEE ZELDIN: Fortunately. Epo,[01:50:00] 

DEVIN STONE - HOST, LEGAL EAGLE: his smoking gun, a contract between the EPA and Citibank. The EPA had signed a financial agent agreement or FAA with Citibank to distribute the funds. Now, an FAA is a contract that designates a financial institution to act on behalf of the government in managing and dispersing federal funds. Zelin said the use of the FAA was improper and unprecedented.

And although it is true, the EPA had never used an FAA before. The government has used these contracts for centuries. In fact, the treasury Department has an entire section dedicated to utilizing faas. It's called the Bureau of Fiscal Services, but Zelin accused of Biden administration of quote, purposely designing the agreement with Citibank to obligate the money in a rush job with reduced oversight because Biden was quote, rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before inauguration day.

But on its face, there was absolutely nothing nefarious about the process or the timeline. Congress passed a law. President Biden executed the law by selecting the organizations to receive the funds and the funds were sent to Citibank to [01:51:00] be dispersed. And as for the timeline, the Inflation Reduction Act gave the EPAA deadline of September 30th, 2024 to award funding to the recipients.

And the EPA signed the contract with Citibank in April of 20 24, 9 months before inauguration date. But even if the Biden administration was concerned about getting these funds out before inauguration day. I wonder what they could have been concerned about. The Trump administration has a long history of dispersing funds that have been allocated by Congress, right?

Donald Trump would never impound billions of dollars worth of congressionally allocated funds, right? But where other people see laws and deadlines, zelin saw gold bars. 

LEE ZELDIN: The financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated, and the bank must immediately return all of the gold bars that the Biden administration tossed off the Titanic.

DEVIN STONE - HOST, LEGAL EAGLE: Now Zelda's Gold Bars comments comes from a disreputable source project. Veritas, the right wing group that uses to set the edited videos to make outlandish and false claims about left-wing groups. Project Veritas has lost multiple defamation cases for making false claims and is founder James O'Keefe pleaded guilty to [01:52:00] unlawfully entering federal property as part of one of his sting operations.

So anything Project Veritas does should be taken with a huge grain of salt. In this instance, project Veritas obtained a video of an ex EPA official who thought he was on a date saying that the Biden administration was quote. Trying to get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all.

It truly feels like we're on the Titanic and we're throwing like gold bars off the edge. Now that remark was open to interpretation. It didn't mention the GGRF funds. Maybe it was excitement over a government windfall or urgency to fund green energy projects before potential Biden loss. And of course, fears of the Trump administration would come in and stop it all.

We're incredibly well-founded. But Zelin twisted it into something more sinister, declaring a proof of a criminal conspiracy and wire fraud, and acting on that flimsy pretext. Zelin announced the EPA would claw back 20 billion in funds held at Citibank, and the very next day the money was frozen. And yes, this is yet another case of the Trump administration illegally impounding, congressionally approved funds, which is illegal, and multiple states and organizations have sued to stop Trump from canceling grants and reclaiming money and legal battles continue.

How Does Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover? - On the Media - Air Date 3-5-25

BEVERLY GAGE: We [01:53:00] now have, at least in theory, a 10 year term for the f. BI director, and that term was put in place to prevent someone from doing what Hoover did, which was to be there for 48 years. But it was also put in place to make sure that the FBI still had some insulation from politics. 10 years was longer than the term of any presidential administration, even if the president was reelected.

And now I think what we're seeing with the Trump administration is that lots of those norms and policies and rules are just being thrown out the window. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : Yeah, I mean, he appointed Christopher Ray to be director of the FBI and then did not allow him to serve the end of his tenure term for one. 

BEVERLY GAGE: Right, and he appointed Christopher Ray after he fired James Comey.

And so that was, if we all think back a very big deal in 2017, that was [01:54:00] really the first time that an FBI director had been fired in that way for what was clearly. A concern about political loyalty. So this is quite consistent with what Trump did in, in his first term. But of course this time, as so often has happened, he's, he's coming for his own appointee.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : Yes. And appointing Cash Patel. And now Dan Bonino is kind of turning the whole thing up to 11. The narrative that we keep hearing is that, you know, the Bureau is this like Toxically left wing agency. It's rife with anti-Christian, anti-conservative bias. What do you make of that? 

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, that seems like a very strange description of the FBI, which is a pretty conservative organization.

The big claim that the FBI is full of closet Marxists does not [01:55:00] make a whole lot of sense to me, and certainly would have shocked and appalled j Edgar Hoover. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : Say a little bit more about Cash Patel's specific critique of the FBI. 

BEVERLY GAGE: There does seem to be a tension between I am coming in with the chainsaw, I'm gonna shut down FBI headquarters and turn it into a Museum of the Deep State.

I love that. Which is something that Patel said and we'll see. You know, I have to say as a historian, I feel like, oh, I'd actually love to have a museum of a deep state, but maybe not. In this way. And then there's also a really powerful desire to make use of this very large and powerful bureaucracy. But in some ways, the breaking of the FBI is also about breaking the norms and processes and constraints and internal culture.

I also have wondered. [01:56:00] In this process about the Republicans in Congress who were so enthusiastic about confirming Patel as FBI director, because I think one thing that we have learned about Donald Trump is that you might think that you're on the inside for a while, but at any moment you too could be thrown out.

Into the cold. And actually if we have, you know, a politicized bureau that's going after Trump's enemies, I think the very people who have, uh, voted for this set of changes might themselves pretty easily and pretty rapidly become the victims of what they wr. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : Yeah, that's interesting because it sends a message to even Trump's current allies that they're on thin ice.

BEVERLY GAGE: I also found it interesting that when Elon Mask demanded that federal workers send in these [01:57:00] emails with the five points about what they did during the week, cash Patel was actually one of the people who said to his employees actually don't do that because of course we probably don't want it documented what every FBI agent in the country was doing in the last week.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : Oh, that, that's an interesting interpretation. What I took away from it was Elon Musk, get your grimy hands out of my bureau. 

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, there's that too, right? So we have Cash Patel in that case, as allegedly the person who wants to tear down the bureau, but also somehow being, it, it, its protector or at least wanting his own fiefdom.

MICAH LOEWINGER - HOST, ON THE MEDIA : In some ways we could look at j Edgar Hoover's legacy as a kind of playbook for this new leadership. If they choose to wiretap political enemies, surveil them. Bully the press, et cetera. Are there signs that you're seeing that Patel and [01:58:00] Bongino could go even further than Hoover? I. 

BEVERLY GAGE: I think Hoover had lots and lots of abuses, but then there were also certain constraints in the sense that there were moments where presidents or other figures wanted him to use the bureau in explicitly political ways that he resisted, because he thought it wasn't in his interest, it wasn't in the FBI's interest, and I don't see those sorts of constraints operating.

In this situation, I think what we are seeing potentially is a perfect storm in which you've got this powerful, secretive bureaucracy. And Patel and others have been quite open about saying that they want to use the power of an institution like the Bureau to go after Trump's enemies, to go after his critics.

So that seems to me to be a very powerful and pretty [01:59:00] dangerous combination.

'A sham': Federal judge blasts Trump admin on improper firings of federal workers; orders rehiring - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 3-13-25

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: The, the lawyer who is suing the Trump administration says this, your Honor, quote, what we have before the court is record evidence that conclusively establishes that OPM directed the terminations at issue. We have a very unusual circumstance where the government has not mounted, has, uh, has not attempted to say that they factually dispute that they have actually withdrawn the declaration by which they were attempting to dispute that.

And there's no record evidence on the other side by which they have disputed this fact. The judge. I tend to agree with you on that, and the government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge's ability to get at the truth of what happened here and then set forth sham declarations to a sham declaration.

They withdrew it, then substituted another. That's not the way it works in the US District Court. The judge says, quote, I'm going to talk to the government about that in a minute. I had expected to have an evidentiary hearing today in which these people would [02:00:00] testify. If they wanted to get your people on the stand, I was gonna make that happen too.

It would be fair. But instead we have been frustrated in that. The judge then says to the lawyer for the plaintiff's quote, I'd like to hear your views on what relief should be issued today. T-O-D-A-Y today, the lawyer. Thank you, your Honor. We are aligned in wanting that to happen as well. He spelled out T-O-D-A-Y.

And so then, um, they have a conversation that the, the judge and the lawyer for the plaintiffs, the lawyer who's suing the Trump administration on behalf of the fired employees, and they talk about what the fired employees who are suing the Trump administration, what they're seeking from the judge today, the kind of relief they want.

Um, they say they wanna a list of everybody who's been fired that haven't been able to get that, or even an enumeration from the government of how many people have been fired. They also want people to be reinstated if they have been fired illegally. So they, they go through all those details. Then it's time for [02:01:00] the Trump administration lawyer to make his side of the case, and he starts explaining to the judge that all these fired workers, the only reason they were fired is because nobody wanted them.

Nobody told anybody to fire anything. There was no instructions to fire people. These are just unwanted workers. If anybody wanted them back, they surely would've been rehired by now. Right. At which point the, the judge interjects the judge quote, well, maybe that's why we need an injunction that tells them to rehire them.

You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You are afraid to do so because, you know, cross-examination would reveal the truth. Trump administration lawyer tries to interject respectfully. The judge continues. This is the US District Court. Whenever you submit declarations, those people should be submitted to cross-examination, just like the plaintiff's side should be.

And we then we, we get at the truth of whether your story is actually true. I tend to doubt it. I tend to [02:02:00] doubt that you are telling me the truth whenever we hear all the evidence. Eventually. Why can't you bring your people in to be cross-examined or to be deposed at their convenience? I said two hours for Mr.

Zel. Mr. Zel is the acting head of OPM. I said, two hours for Mr. Zel, a deposition at his convenience, and you withdrew his declaration. Rather than do that, come on, that's a sham. The judge says quote, go ahead. I'm I'm, it upsets me. I want you to know that. I have been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years, and I know how we get at the truth and you're not helping me get at the truth.

You're giving me press releases, sham documents. All right? He says, quote, I'm getting mad at you and I shouldn't.

The judge then decided in this hearing today that he wasn't gonna wait to give a written ruling. He decided, you know what? I've heard enough. He decided he was going to rule from the bench today, T-O-D-A-Y, [02:03:00] today. So he started with this, the judge quote on February 13th, 2025, A briefing paper from Human Resources Management at the Forest Service says this, all that's spelled a LL.

All federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, were notified on February 12th by the Office of Personnel Management to terminate all employees who have not completed their probationary or trial period. That then led to the termination of a lot of people. The judge says. But one in particular I will give as an example.

Leandra Bailey was a physical science information specialist in Albuquerque. In September of last year, she'd received a performance review in which she was quote, fully successful in every category, not just some, but every category. On February 13th, she was terminated using the OPM template letter because in addition to directing these terminations, OPM gave a proposed letter and the letter said, I'm reading from it.

[02:04:00] Memorandum for Leandro Bailey, February 13th from the Director of Human Source Management at the US Forest Service. This is just one sentence quote, the agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.

Close quote. And then the judge says this, despite the fact that her most recent review was fully successful in every category. The judge says, now how could it be? You might ask that the agency could find that based on her per find, that based on her performance, when her performance had been stellar. The reason OPM wanted to put this based on performance was, at least in part, in my judgment, a gimmick, because the law always allows you to fire somebody for performance, and the judge says this.

Now, what I'm about to say is not the legal basis for what I'm going to order today, but I just wanna say it. He says, quote, it is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and [02:05:00] well, that's a lie. Excellent. In all fully, what was the phrase?

I don't wanna misstate it. Quote. Fully successful in every category, yet they terminate her based on her performance. That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham. In order to avoid statutory requirements. It also happens to be that whenever you fire somebody based on performance, then they can't get unemployment insurance.

So that makes it even worse, doesn't it? And then it makes it even worse because the next employer is going to say, well, have you ever been terminated? Based on performance, they're going to have to say yes, two thousands of people. It is illustrative of the manipulation that was going on by OPM to try to orchestrate this government-wide termination of probation, probationary employees.

The court finds that OPM did direct all the agencies to terminate probationary employees. The court rejects the government's attempt to use these press releases and to read between the lines to say that the agency heads made their own decision with no direction from OPM. [02:06:00] The relief that's gonna be granted is as follows First.

The temporary restraining order will be extended. The VA shall immediately offer reinstatement to any and all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13th or 14th. This order finds that all such terminations were directed by defendant OPM and were unlawful because OPM had no authority to do so.

Further, the VA shall cease any and all use of the template Termination notice provided by OPM and shall immediately advise. All probationary employees terminated February 13th and 14th that the notice and termination have been found to be unlawful by the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The VA shall cease any termination of probationary employees at the direction of OPM. To repeat this order holds that OPM has no authority whatsoever to direct order or require in any way that any agency fire any employee. Now, given the arguments and the [02:07:00] facts in this case, namely that defendants have attempted to recast these directives as mere guidance.

My order today further prohibits defendants from giving guidance as to whether any employee should be terminated. Any termination of agencies employees must be made by the agencies themselves, if made at all, and they must be made in conformity with the Civil Service Reform Act and the Reduction in Force Act and any other constitutional or statutory legal requirement.

He says in seven calendar days, relief defendant VA the def. The VA shall submit a list of all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13th and 14th with an explanation as to each. Of what has been done to comply with this order. And the judge says this now, this order so far has only mentioned the va, the Veterans Administration.

But the same relief is extended, and I'm not gonna repeat it, but I'm extending the same relief to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, [02:08:00] the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Treasury. And so it's the VA plus all those other agencies. He says, and this is without prejudice to extending the relief later in further, uh, to to other agencies.

If the judge then closes with this, I will try to get out a short memorandum opinion that elaborates on this order, but this is the order and it counts effective immediately. Please don't say, oh, I'm waiting for the written order. This is the order from the bench,

How to Lose a Democracy in 10 Laws (with Elie Mystal) - Strict Scrutiny - Air Date 3-17-25

 

 

MELISSA MURRAY - HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: To be very clear listeners, Donald Trump personally took credit for Hale's arrest and attempted deportation on true social and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio also was invoked.

Um, and Marco Rubio cited a provision of the immigration law that allows the Secretary of State to determine that the presence of non-citizens has adverse effects on US foreign policy and that. These [02:09:00] individuals can then be deported on that basis. As Leah just mentioned, halal has challenged his detention and removal and he initially filed that challenge in the southern district of New York where he was initially arrested.

The government is fighting to get the case dismissed, and as we know, halal has been relocated to the Gina facility in Louisiana, which again would mean that if this is dismissed and Halil had to refile, he would have to refile in Louisiana. And if there was a challenge that was appealed, that appeal would then go to the Fifth Circuit.

So that is why Leah finds this curiouser and Curious, or Ellie, I don't know what you think about this, but I found this absolutely chilling this week. Uh, you know, we are six weeks into a four year sentence, and they're basically black bagging people on the streets. 

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, look, I wrote about this in the nation this week.

This is what fascism looks like. This is exactly what it looks like. It's not fascism that's coming around the corner. It is right here because when you can be dripped out of your Manhattan apartment and sent to the swamp in [02:10:00] Louisiana without committing a crime, simply because you had you, you organized a protest simply because of your speech rights and nobody comes to save you.

That is what fascism looks like. That is what it feels like, and it is supposed to have not just a chilling effect, uh, on the poor life of Mr. Cleal and his eight month pregnant wife. It's supposed to have a chilling effect on everybody else. It's the government saying, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, we can come get you.

And there's nothing you can do about it. So that is where we are with the situation. Khalil has good arguments, but you know, talking about my book, again, this is why I'm saying that 1921, immigration and Nationality Act should be repealed. Must be repealed because the, the particular legal hook that Rubio is using that comes from the 1921 Immigration Nationality Act, right?

This [02:11:00] idea that the Secretary of State on his say so. With no evidence, with no hearing, with no proof, can just say, ah, you're against the interest of the foreign, the policies of the, and remove again, a legal, permanent resident, a green card holder, and can just get rid of that entire process on his whim.

Um, that that is a, that is not just a failure of morality. It's not just a failure of politics. It is a deep failure of law that we have a law like this on the books. 

LEAH LITMAN - HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: Yeah. And just to unpack exactly like the provision that Rubio is relying on, that's part of the INA that Ellie, you know, recommends repealing.

It is this provision that allows the Secretary of State to say the presence of a non-citizen has adverse effects on the United States foreign policy, and therefore can be removed on that basis. And it purports to give. Extensive amounts of deference to the Secretary of State in making that determination, which is part of why it's so scary that Rubio is making this [02:12:00] claim that, again, organizing a student protest somehow is affecting our foreign policy.

Like really? Does France fucking care like about the Columbia protest? I don't think so. And actually Donald Trump's sister, judge Marianne Trump bury, invalidated that particular provision. You know, as a judge, her decision was later reversed by then Judge Alito on the third circuit. But the point is like these laws are on the books and this administration is basically providing us a crash course in identifying various laws that are susceptible to gross abuse, um, that we need to get rid of.

ELIE MYSTAL: Can I ask you guys a question? Yeah. So part of the issue here with Khalil is whether or not he has First Amendment protections, right? Um, there is a 1999 case, uh, that I wrote about, uh, Reno, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination League, where Scalia writes, uh, eight to one opinion. That protections, uh, speech that would ordinarily be protected by the First Amendment can be the basis for removal for undocumented immigrants.

Now, that decision doesn't extend to [02:13:00] documented immigrants like Khalil, but what do you guys think? Do you think that the Supreme Court will I. Extend that precedent to document it. Um, immigrants like Khalil, when they get a chance to, in a few years, 

LEAH LITMAN - HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: I mean like as a predictive matter, I don't really know.

My guess is there are at least four votes to extend those protections to particularly protections permanent re residents. Um. As to whether there are five, I don't know. But as a matter of precedent, right? I think it is very clear that lawful permanent residents have constitutional protections that individuals without documentation lack.

So for example, you cannot just simply revoke an individual's lawful permanent residence status like that has to go through an immigration court and then is susceptible to review in federal court, right? They possess due process rights that other individuals with lesser status lack. And you know, the, this is clear in the court's cases to the point where I think it is just grossly inaccurate to say individuals like [02:14:00] Khalil do not have First Amendment rights or other analogous constitutional rights.

Now again, I think part of the problem is like this statute purports to give the secretary broad authority to determine what constitutes a threat. And my guess is the administration is going to. Try all sorts of maneuvers, right? In order to characterize what exactly the threat is and not precisely link it to the content of Khalil's speech.

And so like that's partially how they are going to walk around or try to walk around the First Amendment question. But I think again, that just underscores like the solution here, right? Is to get this law off the books. Going to the case against the INA, you kind of alluded to this already in talking about the origins of the INA.

Could you expand a little bit more on your case against the INA and some of its origins? 

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, so I, I, I like to start from 30,000 feet. The, the kind of idea motivating the INA is that. We should be an exclusionary country, right? That there is not enough space, there's not enough resources for everybody, and so we need [02:15:00] to decide who should be allowed in and who shouldn't be allowed in.

Right now at a. 

MELISSA MURRAY - HOST, STRICT SCRUTINY: This is eugenics thinking.

ELIE MYSTAL: Right. Well, just at a 30,000 foot level, it's wrong. Yeah. It's a giant country with more than enough space for everybody, and so that kind of premise is wrong, but then Yes, exactly right. Professor Murray, the way they then decided in the INA to figure out who should be allowed in and who should be excluded was based on eugenics.

Was based on literal studies and congressional testimonies that said there were certain races that were high quality and certain races more prone to degeneracy. And all of this literal eugenics and Nazi language is what informed the INA and thus the exclusionary practices that, for lack of a better word, focus on the global south, right?

Um, focus on browner people being thought of as degenerate races and thus unable to participate in the [02:16:00] American experience at the same level as as white Europeans. And when I'm not, I just want people to understand, again, I talked about this in the book, I am not being hyperbolic, right? This is what these people said.

In real time when supporting, developing and voting for this law. There was an entire court case, um, outta the ninth circuit where they tried to get a portion of the INA revoked because of this racist language and backstory. And the judge was basically like the ninth circuit. Right. Which is not, you know, known for, for, for its, uh, shrinking violets.

Right. The ninth circuit was like, yeah. If we started getting rid of every law just because they were racist, I mean, we basically have no laws.

SECTION D: GOVERNMENT FUNCTION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D, government function.

Trump Isnt Just Breaking Court Orders He is Acting like a Dictator - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 3-17-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: It's open defiance of the courts. He literally said, I don't care what the courts say. You don't do that in a democracy. You do that in an [02:17:00] autocracy, you do that in a dictatorship. Trump and Rubio have ignored a court order. This is a five alarm fire. This, this is how democracies die. This is a big deal.

This is a, uh, a genuine, as Joe Biden would say, BFD. Um. What happens when court orders get ignored? Well, first of all, that is an assault on our constitution when the administration ignores a court order, it's only happened a couple of times in our history. Andrew Jackson did it back in the day around the Trail of Tears, and arguably around the, the Second National Bank of America.

The court had said that it was Constitutional Jackson shut it down. Anyway, the court didn't say he couldn't shut it down. Um, the Trail of Tears was a, a better example. Um, and Abraham Lincoln ignored the Supreme Court's order in Dred Scott saying that Northern states did not have to re enslave black people in those northern states.[02:18:00] 

So you've got two instances. Um, one of, you know, one of Trump's, Mr. Jackson just defying the courts and the other of, uh, Abraham Lincoln doing the right thing, arguably. But it led to the Civil War in part. I mean, this was one of the things that told the Confederate states that Lincoln wasn't screwing around.

So what can the courts do? Well, there's, there are two types of contempt of court. I mean, what, what? It's a virtual certainty that today the judge who issued the order last, uh, or on Saturday saying that Trump could not deport these Venezuelan. Uh, nationals without first having at least a hearing without there being some sort of due process.

As the Constitution defines in the fifth, sixth, and seventh and eighth amendments to the Constitution, that these are, these are our basic due process [02:19:00] rights. You're, you're, you're, you're entitled to face your accusers. You're entitled to a, to a trial. You're in, you're entitled to, to swift justice. I mean, just pretty straightforward stuff.

Trump is ignoring that. So if the court holds the Trump administration in contempt, there are two ways to do this. One is criminal contempt and the other is civil contempt. Now, in criminal contempt, the person is seized and thrown in the clink and, uh, you know, thrown into jail, and that is done by the US Marshal Service.

Now the problem here, of course, is that the US Marshal service works for the Attorney general. Who works for the president. They are part of the executive branch, even though they are the enforcement arm of Article three. The article, the Third branch of government, the Article three branch of Government, the courts.

[02:20:00] So if he were to declare the Trump administration in, in criminal contempt of the law and order the marshal service to say, go out and get Tom Holman. Tom Holman is the border czar. He is the guy who went on Fox News yesterday and said, I don't care what the court orders say, we're gonna do this anyway.

We're gonna continue the deportations. It's gonna be one every day. It's open defiance of the courts. He literally said, I don't care what the courts say. You don't do that in a democracy. You do that in an autocracy, you do that in a dictatorship, of course. That's, that's how dictatorships run. The big guy says, Hey, jump.

And everybody goes, how high? The big guy says, ignore the courts. And everybody says, okay, we're ignoring the courts. The big, the big guy says, Congress, do this or don't do that. And Congress does it or doesn't do it as as instructed. I mean, this is how it works in Russia. Which is, I, [02:21:00] I'm increasingly believing Donald Trump's role model is Vladimir Putin.

Republicans Walk Back Their Attacks on Disabled People… Sort Of - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 3-6-25

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Let's backtrack for a moment and fill our listeners in so they can rage with us. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: It's eugenics, Ani.

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I know, Jess. I know.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I mean, really it's part of the plan to eliminate quote unquote undesirable characteristics from the populace.

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I know. I know Jess.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: And don't even get me started on Buck versus Bell, the Supreme Court case that actually GreenLights all of this and is probably gonna be one of the precedents. The Robert Court keeps intact. Yeah, because it serves, yeah. That was the case 

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: where Oliver Wendell Holmes said something like, one generation of imbeciles is enough.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I mean.

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Yeah.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Yeah,

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: yeah, yeah. And, and honestly, you're preaching to the choir here it is eugenics. It is bad. And Buck v Bell has never been overturned, so technically it is still good law. Right. And And that's why section 5 0 4 of the Rehabilitation Act was so revolutionary. Mm-hmm. Precisely because it rejected the premise of eugenics and essentially extended the 1964 Civil Rights Act to people with [02:22:00] disabilities.

And the way it came about is a good blueprint for the ways in which citizen action can translate into material gains for vulnerable people. Oh, yes. Right. Because the, the, the, the sort of zeitgeist of the 5 0 4 protests isn't well known, and it is amazing. I certainly wasn't aware of how hard people with disabilities fought to get Section 5 0 4 signed, right?

Mm-hmm. It's not something that we talk about a lot, right? So we're gonna talk about it 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: right now. Oh, I love it. It means talking about the seventies, greatest generation. 

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: April 5th, 1977. Brown. That's why 1970. I was like two and a half background. I was about to turn three years old. I was. You were about to turn three years old.

I was. Three. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna turn three years old. About three in a couple months 'cause we're a couple of months apart. Okay. April 5th, 1977. Dozens of disabled people entered San Francisco's Office of [02:23:00] Health, education and Welfare, and they occupied it for 25 days in what remains the longest occupation of a federal building in US history.

The people who occupied the building were from diverse racial and social backgrounds, and they had a wide range of disabilities, and the way they all worked together, you know, to use their abilities to help other people with disabilities was actually very remarkable. Mm-hmm. Here's how the Long Mower Institute on disability at San Francisco State University described it.

Quote, they came on crutches using canes and in wheelchairs. Some used American sign language. Others augmented communication devices. Many others contributed simply by showing up to offer support. Most arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs. Guided by a few vague ideas about why they were there.

Yet enough of them had political smarts, experience with building coalitions, tenacity and fire in their bellies to confront the government of a major world power about their civil rights [02:24:00] and win. Oh, 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: thank you for including this part in today's show, because it's gonna be what gets me down off this ledge.

I love this discussion because so many people don't know the history of disability rights in this country, and I feel kind of grateful because, as you know, Amani, I was raised by a disability rights advocate. Uh, my dad, uh, you know, did a DA, uh, uh. Disability, litigation, Olmsted, uh, se uh, settlements, like really the entire arc of my childhood was, you know.

Informed by the coalition building that happened in the late seventies within the disability and racial justice communities and wow, could we take a page of that today? You know, and it wasn't just San Francisco, right? In their effort to get Nixon to sign the Rehab Act, hundreds of protestors around the country occupied several federal buildings.

Most were [02:25:00] starved out within a day or two. But what sit. What set San Francisco apart is that they were able to maintain the occupation for a month, and that thanks to really solid organizing, the resourcefulness of the organizers combined with months of cementing relationships with local community organizations, resulted in a coalition of supporters that included the Black Panthers.

The Gay community's Butterfly Brigade, labor unions, the Glide Memorial Church, Safeway and McDonald's, along with sympathetic local and national politicians, the Black Panthers and McDonald's. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Listen. When you're doing sit-ins at the federal government, why wouldn't you wanna be eating a McRib at the same time? Or a mcd LT, oh my God, 

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I forgot about mcd. LT. Did they have mcd LT in the seventies or the hot side stays hot and the cold side stay stays cold. I feel like Thatm, that was like an eighties creation.

I [02:26:00] think so. But either way, your point is valid. Very, very valid. Please continue. I'm loving this. 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: I mean, the long and the short of it is that the 5 0 4 occupiers held on at the San Francisco Offices of Department and Health Education and Welfare for nearly a month generating national attention and ultimately helping to gain the support necessary for signing section 5 0 4 

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: and the, the, the circumstances surrounding whether or not these regulations would be signed.

We're kind of harrowing because basically Dick Nixon was being a bit of a dick about it. He truly really was being a bit of a dick about, I mean, he vetoed. Section 5 0 4 at first. Mm-hmm. Which at the time led critics even in his own party to call it his most inhumane veto. Particularly because his complaint at the time was that he was over budget and there was just no money to ensure that people with disabilities weren't being discriminated against.

And you have to remember that this was like right around when a lot of, a lot of veterans were coming back from Vietnam. They were coming back from [02:27:00] Vietnam. With disabilities. And here was this guy who was saying, we, I don't have money to help y'all. I'm gonna keep spending tons of money dropping bombs in Cambodia for no fucking reason, right?

Mm-hmm. But then again, it seems to be always about budgets when it comes to people with disabilities, as you mentioned earlier. Right? When we talk about the aada, the a DA, we talk about reasonable accommodations. Part of the reasonableness is a financial inquiry. How much is it gonna cost to accommodate a person with disabilities at a certain location?

Right? Either the reasonable accommodations are too expensive, too expensive, or the regulations themselves are too expansive, as you said, because now. The main reason people seem to be pissed off these attorneys generals seem to be pissed off is because of gender dysphoria. And if all disabilities get swept under the rug along with it, then that's just fine.

Mm-hmm. Really this lawsuit is about who we decide is worthy of participating in society. Right? Right. It's about eugenics and it goes hand in hand with [02:28:00] other policies of the Trump administration, right? Like the Make America healthy again, nonsense from Wellness Farm and Bear. Carcass enthusiasts, RFK, junior.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Oh completely. Or threatening colleges and universities. Uh, federal funding if they have masking policies. Right, right. I mean, the implications of this cannot be overstated. Section 5 0 4, the first civil rights law to explicitly recognize and protect people with disabilities could be rendered entirely unenforceable.

This would be catastrophic when it comes to pro to protections for people with disabilities unless they amend 

IMANI GANDY - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: their complaint. Instead of expecting us to take their word for it, just because they filed a status report saying they're not really trying to make the whole statute unconstitutional. Right, right.

So amend your goddamn complaint and then maybe we might believe you guys. So what are the lessons to be learned here? 

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO - HOST, BOOM! LAWYERED: Well, I think one of the lessons is clearly that collective action works. Look what the 5 0 4 protestors were able to do in the [02:29:00] 1970s is phenomenal. And that's without social media.

That's without cell phones. Right, right. That was certainly no TikTok and blue sky to get the word out at all. And. The reality that coalition building works, but that doesn't mean coalition building with your enemies

Billionaires Rejoice As Trump Dismantles Protections For Americans - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 3-16-25

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Does this have the capacity to crash our economy? Um, maybe you can answer now or if the, and then, or if they get their way or neither or both. I. 

MOLLY WHITE: Yeah, I mean, I, I do think, unfortunately that there is a serious amount of risk here. Um, I suspect with the current level of integration, even if crypto went through a collapse that we saw just a couple years ago, we would not see a great recession style, uh, contagion.

But I think that the very rapidly progressing changes in [02:30:00] regulation that the cryptocurrency industry has spent. Over a hundred million dollars on and is raising even more money to, to continue to pursue, uh, and seems to be getting very much, uh, raise that risk and that that type of contagion could be in the very near future, unfortunately, um, if these types of regulations are, uh, removed or if you know.

Favorable regulations are installed for the cryptocurrency industry. Um, you know, the more that we're seeing the US government endorsing crypto, I think the higher the risk is becoming. We're starting to see states talking about establishing Bitcoin reserves at the state level. Um, and so, you know, this is.

You know, actual people's money, taxpayer money going towards acquiring Bitcoin, which as you mentioned is profiting those like the Winklevoss twins who bought Bitcoin very early on and are now billionaires. Um, [02:31:00] again, at the expense of everyday people, while also introducing this degree of financial risk throughout the American economy.

Um. And honestly further, uh, that could be devastating during a future collapse. So I am very concerned about the type of risk that we are rapidly taking on. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, and then it's a good opportunity to talk about, uh, Andreessen Horowitz. And, you know, we covered it on our show. Mark Andreesen in November, went on to the Joe Rogan podcast, which is the, uh.

The tech oligarch propaganda show, and he was, uh, or VC pick, take your, pick your poison. He was, uh, saying that, uh, Elizabeth Warren is personally debunking all of us and coming after us and targeting us politically. She does not head the CFPB, but, uh, Elon Musk is taking a hammer to the agency that, um, has [02:32:00] returned $21 billion to consumers who were victimized by corporate greed, um, and banking greed.

And then he went on and, and now he's basically claiming that, uh, the. His business in particular is being targeted. And you mentioned their holdings in crypto. Um, what is this de banking thing all about and why are billionaire crypto holders like Andreessen fixated on changing those regulations? I. 

MOLLY WHITE: Yeah, so there has been this narrative coming out of the cryptocurrency industry that they're being systematically de banked by banking regulators and by agencies like the CFPB and by the Biden administration in general, um, through a campaign in which basically the administration and regulators were pressuring banks to deny banking services.

To anyone and any company in the cryptocurrency industry. Um, and they've really sort of co-opted this term of de banking, which [02:33:00] is, you know, this idea where someone is improperly denied a bank account due to, you know, their race, their religion, um, their economic status, you know, any number of things, not based on their actual risk profile, but just because the bank.

Decides they don't wanna work with them for sort of discriminatory reasons. Um, the crypto industry is claiming that they are being discriminated against and de banked in this same way. Uh, when in reality most of the documents that they have provided that they claim show, you know, hard evidence of this de banking campaign really show regulators trying to evaluate the risk of banks offering crypto products themselves.

Um, you know, like I said, the Bitcoin ATMs in the bank lobby and the, the crypto purchases in your banking app that sound like they're covered by FDIC insurance. Um. There has been pretty little in the way of evidence that there is any sort of campaign to systematically de bank the crypto industry. And in reality, it seems [02:34:00] like banks basically doing their own risk assessments and saying this, you know, this crypto company is too risky for us to take on as a customer.

You're gonna have to look elsewhere, which is a legal thing to do. You know, banks are not required to provide services to every customer. They just can't deny them for discriminatory reasons. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, they are discriminating against these corporate persons according to the Supreme Court, uh, based on the industry that they're in, which is the same as apparently racial discrimination.

MOLLY WHITE: Right. Um, but anyway, this is all culminated in this campaign. You know, it is, it's been used as basically ammunition by the cryptocurrency industry to bolster this campaign to attack regulations on banks and other financial service providers. Um, and it's. Ironically enough been used as ammunition to attack the CFPB, which is actually the number one defender against discriminatory de banking.

Uh, they are sort of the primary consumer debunking watchdog, and [02:35:00] yet, as the crypto industry is making all of these claims of debunking and even arguing about more general debunking against. You know, they say it's happening against conservatives or other industries like the firearms industry or you know, religious organizations.

Even as they're making these claims about consumer de banking, they are celebrating the shutdown of the CFPB. Um, Coinbase, for example, their CEO, Brian Armstrong was. You know, basically shooting off confetti cannons about the fact that the CFPB was being shut down. Um, probably because the CFPB recently issued a sort of interpretive rule saying that Coinbase would have to, uh, make whole customers who are, uh, victims of basically phishing scams, stealing their cryptocurrency out of their Coinbase accounts, which a recent, um.

Investigation by a cryptocurrency researcher called Zac. [02:36:00] XPT suggested was like $300 million a year that Coinbase was allowing to be stole, stolen from its customers that they would have to repay. And so, you know, it's very clear why someone like Brian Armstrong and Coinbase would be opposed to the CFPP because they might install consumer protections for Coinbase customers who are historically ignored by Coinbase when they complain about stolen funds.

Um. And you know, it's inconvenient for them to support an agency that otherwise might be a very useful ally if they were concerned about de banking in the ways that they claim. But in reality, it's really just a political weapon to try to advance their goal of slashing regulations, reducing these firewalls between the banking industry in crypto, and you know, basically just allowing them to do whatever it is that they want.

Consumers be damned.

DOJ official fired over Mel Gibson gun rights request speaks out - All In with Chris Hayes - Air 3-11-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN : Tell me about what happened last week. Um, when did the Mel Gibson issue first make its way to you? 

LIZ OYER: I was tasked [02:37:00] a few weeks ago with joining a, a working group in the department that brought together multiple offices within the Department of Justice in order to launch a process to broadly begin restoring gun rights to Americans who had lost their rights to possess a firearm because of a criminal conviction.

Hmm. This is a project that I understood was a priority for the Attorney General. And I was told that this project was going to be centered in the office of the Pardon attorney, which was an entirely new workflow for us, not something that we had ever done before. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN : And did you, was it like just a bunch of people in a spreadsheet or was it like, Hey, here's Mel Gibson.

LIZ OYER: So I was told that we were working toward establishing a process that all Americans who were prohibited from possessing a firearm would have access to. And the initial request of my office was that we identify a group of candidates who we thought would be suitable for the attorney general to grant this relief to in [02:38:00] connection with making an announcement of the broader program.

So what I did when given that assignment is I looked to the pool of individuals who had applied for presidential pardons and who my office had vetted for consideration of a presidential pardon. We extensively vet people before recommending them to the president for a pardon? Because we know that one consequence of receiving a pardon is that you're able to legally purchase a firearm.

So when we vet. Someone for a pardon in. We conduct a full background investigation of the level that would be required to gain a top secret security clearance. 

Speaker 32: Was Mel Gibson one of those people that you had identified? 

LIZ OYER: He was not. Uh, Mel Gibson has never applied for any type of relief through my office, but we were able to identify 95 ordinary Americans who had applied for pardons, who had been waiting years to be considered for that relief and to have been extensively vetted.[02:39:00] 

All of these folks had in common a number of things, including that their underlying crimes of conviction were nonviolent offenses. They were minor offenses. They were offenses that happened many, many years ago, in all cases 20 plus years ago. And these are all individuals who had demonstrated by interviews with neighbors and employers and family members and others who know them, that they have been outstanding citizens since the time of their conviction.

Mel Gibson was not among those individuals who we, we identified. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN : So where does Mel g when does, how does Mel Gibson enter the workflow? 

LIZ OYER: So what happened was I was asked to put together a memo for the attorney general, uh, summarizing the cases of nine of the 95 individuals that my colleagues and I had identified.

They had whittled that 95 down to nine, and they asked me to write a memo to the attorney General recommending that these would be suitable candidates for her to grant this. Relief of restoring their firearm rights. [02:40:00] And I was comfortable doing that with those cases because I had a great deal of information about those nine people and had already recommended that they were suitable candidates for a presidential pardon.

So Mel Gibson did not enter the equation until after I sent the initial draft of my memo to some officials within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. They received my memo and they sent it back to me with the direction. Please add Mel Gibson to this recommendation. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN : I see and and their justification for that was what?

LIZ OYER: Well there, there was no justification specifically provided, but they did attach a letter that had been sent by Mel Gibson's personal attorney to the then Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General, in which Mel Gibson's attorney requested that he receive this relief from the attorney General.

Mel Gibson's attorney laid out that Mr. Gibson had a previous conviction for domestic violence in 2011 and that he had attempted to purchase a [02:41:00] firearm in 2023 and that he was denied because of his criminal background. And the attorney stated that Mr. Gibson is a, uh, high profile actor who's made lots of famous movies and that he has a relationship with the president and ask that he be granted that relief.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN : Um, Todd Blanche, who, uh, is the number two, I guess now at Department of Justice, has this to say about your account here saying that former employees who violate their ethical duties by making false accusations on press tours will not be tolerated. I dunno what that means. This former employee's version events is false.

Her decisions to voice. This erroneous accusation about her dismissals in direct violation of her ethical duties as an attorney is a shameful distraction from our critical mission to prosecute violent crime, enforce our nation's immigration laws, and make us America safe again. What do you say to that?

LIZ OYER: Well, Chris, the reason that I'm here talking about this tonight is because what's going on inside the Department of Justice in terms of silencing, dissent is so frightening that I felt like I needed [02:42:00] to share this story after I was fired. And frankly, I think Mr. Blanche's statement really just proves my point.

My ethical duty as a Department of Justice employee and now a former one, is to the laws of the United States and the people that I was entrusted to serve. It is not to the bullies who are currently running the Department of Justice. We take an oath of office as Department of Justice employees and that oath says nothing about loyalty to the political administration or to the political leadership of the department.

And uh, frankly, I think that. The position that Mr. Blanche is taking in his statement really just proves how terrified we should be about the current situation at the Department of Justice.

Why Trump can’t be trusted with Congress’ new anti-deepfake bill - Decoder with Nilay Patel - Air Date 3-13-25

 

NILAY PATEL - HOST, DECODER: Copyright law has been one of the only effective ways the government has been able to curb some of this within the confines of the First Amendment. But that is a deeply imperfect solution that has [02:43:00] resulted in widespread misuse. So I wanted to know where does this all leave us?

And what about the current Trump administration has ADD concerned that this new bill might be weaponized in ways that severely undermine its goals? So in a a normal environment, maybe this law passes, maybe there's a bunch of chaos, there's a bunch of lawsuits, a bunch of platforms might issue some policy documents, and we would slowly and somewhat chaotically stumble towards a revised policy, right?

Maybe the law gets amended. Maybe there's an enforcement regime that builds up around the law. Something happens. 

ADI ROBERTSON: Frankly, the, the most likely outcome is that someone takes this law to court and a lot of this is declared unconstitutional. Sure. Like in a functioning system, and then maybe part of the law stands and maybe, hopefully it's a good part that isn't open to abuse, but good chance it would just get overturned.

NILAY PATEL - HOST, DECODER: Right. And even in that process, I think Congress would look at that and say, okay, this is a problem. We're going to have some solutions for the back end of this win lose, [02:44:00] right? Like you can see how the normal policymaking, legal, judicial process might otherwise play out. We have a lot of history with that.

Your piece, uh, is titled the Take It Down Act isn't a law, it's a weapon, and your thesis is that we do not live in a normal world. And the Trump administration in particular is so sclerotic and so addicted to selective enforcement that what they're really gonna do is pass this law and then use it as a cudgel to beat platforms in the submission.

Explain what you mean. I. 

ADI ROBERTSON: Alright, so the normal process we've been talking about this whole time just assumes there's a function in government. There's a hard problem. Everybody in the government fights about this problem. Civil society does. People play their part, but everyone's kind of acting in good faith.

Everyone does actually care about stopping. NCII. They do recognize that there are problems with overroad restrictions on speech and. Everyone's trying to work toward a solution because they believe that laws are things that should be applied evenly, and that laws should be applied in ways that [02:45:00] fundamentally work with the constitution.

The Trump administration just doesn't believe in the rule of law. It doesn't think that laws are things that you should apply to everyone in the way that they are meant to be applied by Congress. What it believes is that laws are things that you apply to the people that you hate in any way that can hurt them.

And I. You don't apply them to the people that you like. The way that you apply them is not actually in a way that stops the problem they're meant to address. It's a way that gets you the thing you want, which probably has nothing to do with that. So we've seen this say, play out with, uh, the TikTok ban might be the most absolutely egregious example, which is that while I don't agree with the ban, it was something that was passed with a bunch of bipartisan support.

It was passed after years and years of working with TikTok. It was then. Sent up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court upheld it. It is hard to find a law that was more rigorously vetted. And then Trump takes office a day after it passes, and he [02:46:00] says, well, specifically, I like TikTok because. TikTok got me elected, and also TikTok has been saying, I'm really great.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to sign an executive order. The executive order doesn't make an argument for why I have the power to extend this deadline. It doesn't make any kind of argument for why this is compatible with the law. What it says is don't enforce the law, and then it goes to all of these platforms that are trying to follow the law, and it tells them, don't follow the law, and there is absolutely no reason to do this.

That is compatible with the thing that Congress and. The Biden administration and the Supreme Court did because he doesn't care about the law. What he cares about is getting the law to do what he wants. 

NILAY PATEL - HOST, DECODER: And the Trump administration is not staffed with folks who believe this, who act this way. We talk about Brendan Carl Law at the FCC, who uses his enforcement power or his merger review power.

To push broadcasters into doing whatever speech he wants or [02:47:00] punish them for news coverage he doesn't like. There's Elon who seems like an important character in all this because he runs a platform. There's Mark Zuckerberg who seems more amenable to making deals that Trump administration are in moderation, is saying, okay, we have this bill that says, if you don't take down this imagery in 48 hours, the FTC can find you.

Is that just another way for Trump to say, I could destroy your company unless you do what I want, or I can tell the FCC to hold off. 

ADI ROBERTSON: Yeah. There are two sides to this and one of them is the side that we talk about often, which is what if this gets weaponized a against people that the government doesn't like?

And then there's the other side that I think less often is. Raised before Trump, which is, even if you take this law seriously, you're not going to get it applied against the people that are actually hurting NCII victims. Because again, the administration doesn't even care about applying the law to people that it should be used against.

Uh, Elon is maybe the clearest example of that, which is just, let's [02:48:00] take the extreme view that it is worth doing anything to get NCI off eye, off the internet. A place this would come into play is X, uh, formerly Twitter, which has had probably the biggest NCII scandal of the last several years, which is that a bunch of Taylor Swift, uh, sexually graphic images were posted there and spread there, and it did very little to stop them.

It eventually kind of blocked searches for Taylor Swift. If you're looking at major platforms, it's the first one you think of. You cannot enforce this law against Dex it, it is almost literally inconceivable because Elon Musk runs the department that governs whether the FTC has money and people who work there.

The week before I wrote this, uh, we broke a story that said that someone very likely Doge had cut, uh, about a dozen people from the FTC. I'm trying to imagine a scenario where. X completely ignores the law and says, well, screw you taylor Swift. I [02:49:00] don't like you. In what world does the FTC do anything? I can't think of a way where it would act in any way in the interest of NCII victims

Trump Can't Destroy The Dept. Of Education But He Will - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 3-7-25

 

JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: The Department of Education has been around since 1867. Why? Because it's important to have a, an educational foundation for a country and its future and society and a whole. What we've been dealing with now, uh, for the last 70 years is the fallout from 1954 Supreme Court Decision, brown v Board of Education.

And so what immediately happened after Desegregating public schools? You saw this push by the right segregationist, white supremacist, who then started creating private schools as sort of an off ramp to be able to have control and still have segregation. This was also a joint effort between not just segregationists, but the evangelical, right?

The [02:50:00] modern, uh, uh, anti-abortion movement actually has its roots in the segregationist philosophy. You, Nick, you know, and everybody listening to this has heard state's rights. This was the origin of it. The idea that all power should be taken from the federal government so that the states can determine whether or not you're able to discriminate, which is again, being re-litigating.

So what are we seeing at this point? We are trying to, or the right is trying to throw this back to the states. So that we can have not just segregated schooling, but privatized schooling. That's the, the other component of this, um, there's a reason why it went from Betsy DeVos, who is like one of the leading champions of privatizing education to Linda McMahon, who more or less is a pallbearer.

Uh, she knew when she took this position, one, she wasn't qualified, and two, she was delivering the Department of Education to its death. So what are we dealing with at this point? We are dealing with a hierarchical authoritarian movement that wants to [02:51:00] make sure that some students are not going to get an education at all, or at least the scant minimum, so that they can be productive workers and be exploited and never understand what's going on while controlling curricula.

So that they can hide their history and their own actions so they can further mystification, which you and I have talked about ad nauseum, and basically create this oligarchical paradise, which is a nightmare in which you have all of these owned curricula and institutions and schools. In which some people, the chosen few, the people at the top of the hierarchy, they get their education, they're able to move forward and everybody else falls behind.

That's what this is all about. 

NICK HAUSELMAN - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, the irony is that when they try and make it seem like it's, uh, state's rights, they want to have each individual community control what, uh, their, their kids learn. There is a centralized notion to what they want to teach with the curriculum, right? Yep. We're talking about, uh, they don't want to, they didn't mention slavery.

They don't, they probably will go back and get rid of, um, creationism. Um, and, uh, wait, wait. They [02:52:00] wait. They want, they don't want, they want creationism. 

JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: They'll also get rid of the genocide of the Native American population as well. 

NICK HAUSELMAN - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yes. At least that, that's the top three. That's gotta be another five or six in there that they're gonna throw in there that are awful stuff.

And so it really, you know, in reality this isn't any sort of, you know, uh, local thing that they want to control. This is some sort. Uh, nefarious, uh, mind control propaganda arm that they're trying to establish, which you need to have, I suppose if you wanna form an oligarchy or an authoritarian government, right?

You need to have that kind of control over what the kids are learning. 

JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Yeah. And this is how authoritarian movements always work. It's, it's a matter of institutional capture, right? Like you take over, uh, while you're taking over state power, you're also then going down the chain. I keep referring to this as the avalanche coming down the mountain.

So you, they go into the schools, whether or not it's higher education or lower tier education, and basically go in. And intimidate everybody to go along with them. And we're seeing a lot of that right now. Nick, we're seeing the leveraging of federal funding being [02:53:00] tied to ideological conformity. Basically, administrators at all levels are being told that they will lose all funding and all support if they don't fall in line and capitulate and collaborate.

And this is what we see with all authoritarian movements. There are all these sort of signs that come together. The weird nefarious part of this though, Nick, is it's not just authoritarian, white supremacist, uh, patriarchal ideology and also possibly Christian nationalist ideology. The weird component now is there is this private sector that has already cur created this curricula, right?

It's basically handing out patronage to places that are going to come in and supply that curricula that is going to go ahead and push the author authoritarian state power, which. Just sort of underlines the complicated, uh, nightmare that we're currently dealing with. 

NICK HAUSELMAN - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: The first thing that they do is they list their convictions, is that parents are the primary decision makers in their children's education. That's all about school [02:54:00] choice. Right, right now. But let me, as far as I can understand how that means is they want, they're the, the primary decision makers in the curriculum itself.

But I'm curious, as a professor for a lot of years, did you ever do like the, the, uh, training, uh, the teacher training, uh, that, you know, for like maybe graduate level stuff that they have for, you know, teaching the classroom? Or were you just sort of an expert in your field and then you got, you were a professor for that way?

JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: No. You, you got

training. 

Yeah. No, like they, they, they, they trained you basically how to put these things together. Yeah, for sure. Right. 

NICK HAUSELMAN - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: And I, I asked that because I, I had a lot of experience doing that at the high school level, and you start to realize that, you know, I know that schools are failing us and we can talk all about the reasons for that, but there, I have to tell you, uh, a lot of the infrastructure built into helping and supporting teachers and educating kids is pretty good.

You know, it is well thought out and there are experts who are designing how we need to educate kids in the classroom, and it's very dynamic and they're always updating and they're always examining things. And so [02:55:00] to hear someone like this who is coming from a whole different spectrum of, of thought, you know, convinced that what the teachers are teaching and how they're being trained, I suppose the connection or the similarity would be, uh, how police are trained and how you, and I would say we need to radically changed that this is what they feel like, they feel like these police, these, um, teachers are like what we feel cops are like now.

JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE POLITICAL PODCAST: Well, and, and that is the present moment. Mm-hmm. And the, the really frightening thing here, Nick, and it's becoming more and more, um, you know, clear every single day how much of what's going on with the Trump administration and the oligarchical coup that we've been covering is that they're just setting the ground for ai.

They're just ma, you know, they're basically creating a market need for AI to handle everything. So not only are teachers going to lose funding, not only are they going to lose training and materials and studies that we're talking about with the Department of Education, eventually the solution is going to [02:56:00] be the usage of ai, which is why, and I know a lot of teachers and a lot of educators listen to this show.

This is unacceptable. This is a red line. And with this happening, um, you know, I think I said it was in, I think it was during our, our live coverage of the post, uh, address to Congress. I said, this is the equivalent of, you know, uh, an attempted kidnapping where they're trying to move you to another location, you know, where like you're really, really in danger.

This is the point where you don't put your head down and say, this is inevitable. This is going to happen. If you are not in a union, you need to get together right now. And quite frankly. Uh, you're right. There are going to be lawsuits that are going to challenge this, but this is the type of thing it, it, the walls are closing in and if you are going to make a difference, it needs to be made now.

So my advice to everybody listening this who is an educator, a teacher who's involved in any of this, you need to get in the ears of your administrators, that ears of your [02:57:00] bosses, and you need to start talking to your colleagues about stepping out of this. Because this is, it. It, it's not just getting rid of funding and the training, it's also completely changing this over to another system that once we get there, I don't know how we get back.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics: the outright assault on the LGBTQ community, followed by a deep dive on the shifting dynamics of the Democratic Party, whose dynamics definitely need shifting. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at. 202-999-3991. You can reach out to us on the Signal messaging app at the username bestoftheleft.01, or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from The Empire Files, the PBS NewsHour, Citations Needed, Internet Today, The Thom Hartmann Program, Democracy Now!, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Legal Eagle, On the Media, Strict [02:58:00] Scrutiny, Boom! Lawyered, The Majority Report, All In with Chris Hayes, Decoder, and The Muckrake Political Podcast. 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. 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 bonus show co-hosting. 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 instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, 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 any and all new social [02:59:00] media platforms you might be joining these days.

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 3/18/2025

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

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

In this Special Podcasthon episode, we are joining thousands of podcasts around the world in the Podcasthon movement, taking the opportunity this week to support a cause or organization that we believe in. In this time of fighting fascism, Best of the Left has chosen to support Indivisible, the grassroots organizing team that's working to resist Trumpism and pressure Democrats to do the same. Follow the link in the description of this episode, or simply go to Indivisible.org to make a donation, but to also take a moment to find and join your local Indivisible chapter to stay engaged. 

Now as for today's topic, it's all about resistance and highlighting why any feelings of despair and hopelessness are very much premature. For those looking very quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes The Rational National, Unf*ing the Republic, The Intercept Briefing, Brian Tyler Cohen, Harper O'Conner, and a speech by JB [00:01:00] Pritzker. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in six sections: Section A, Strategy and goals; followed by Section B, Humor as a tactic; Section C, Protest; Section D, Boycott; Section E, Resources; and Section F, Power structures. 

But first, your Call To Action for this week.

Activism Roundup - 3-18-25

 

 

Amanda: Hey everyone, Amanda here with your weekly roundup of activism actions. All links can now be found at bestoftheleft.com/action. A quick reminder that this is not an exhaustive list, just the largest nationwide opportunities. As always, get involved in your local community however possible. 

First up, the March Congressional Recess Week ends on the 23rd, so get in touch with your local Indivisible group, go to town halls, badger your members of Congress to host town halls, and or hold an empty chair town hall to shame the no-shows. FYI, there are also Democrats offering to show up at empty chair town halls in Republican districts. 

Later this month, on and around March 31st, plan to [00:02:00] uplift and celebrate the annual Trans Day of Visibility. You can show your support in a wide variety of ways, but check your local LGBTQ organizations for resources to share and advocacy opportunities. In particular, support Advocates for Trans Equality's Freedom to Fly action to protect trans passport access. The State Department has opened comments on three discriminatory passport application changes. Two out of the three comment periods close on Thursday, March 20th.

We also want to remind you about the important elections in Florida and Wisconsin in early April. Florida will have special elections for their 1st and 6th districts on April 1st. Look up candidates Gay Valimont and Josh Weil—that's W-E-I-L—to get involved in the get out the vote efforts. Then on April 4th, Wisconsin will hold its election for a Supreme Court judge seat, which will once again dictate control of the state's highest court. Musk has targeted this race with millions of dollars. So anyway you can support the ground game for the Democrat backed Susan Crawford is helpful. 

And finally, on Saturday, April 5th, it's finally [00:03:00] happening. The big nationwide protest you've been waiting for. Indivisible, 50/51, Women's March, and more have teamed up to organize this National Day of Action under the banner Hands Off. You can find your local event and check out their social toolkit at handsoff2025.com. Just a reminder that a core principle of the hands off mobilization is a commitment to non-violent action. The organizers "expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values".

Remember that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Finding community and taking action are truly the best ways to deal with everything being thrown at us. We don't get to choose the times we live in. So we need everyone to act like everything's on the line. Because it is.

Bernie Response Does Huge Numbers｜One Democrat Defies Trump - The Rational National - Air Date 3-5-25

REP. HAKEEM JEFFERIES: I'm trying to figure out what leverage we actually have. What leverage do we have? They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It's their government. What leverage do we have? 

DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: Inspiring [00:04:00] words from minority leader Hakeem Jeffries there. Now, maybe he got -- this was a month ago -- maybe he got a big reaction to how ridiculous it is to lay down and do nothing, that he thought this time, all right, you know what? I'm gonna stand up for my constituents. I'm gonna stand up for human rights for voters, and we are going to do something to defy Trump. Except he cracked down on speech disruptions. 

So, writing here -- it's from Axios -- "that quote could be a sign, it could be a shirt, it could be many things, the lawmaker said." So this is somebody who wanted to do something. "But our House Democrats closed our caucus meeting Tuesday morning. Jefferies and others in leadership discouraged the use of such props, according to multiple lawmakers who were present." Not even supporting props, which I gotta say is really doing nothing, but to not even allow the bare minimum is a little [00:05:00] ridiculous.

Despite that, there were some in the in the crowd there that did wear some props. So some Democrats wore a shirt with "Resist" on it. Again, how you feel about this is up to you. I feel like this doesn't really do anything. But some others held up signs that said things like Musk Steals, Save Medicaid, Protect Veterans.

All right. Okay. Colbert made fun of how ridiculous all of this was with his sign, Try Doing Something. Very nice. 

But there was one! One man last night that actually did something, Al Green. This is a representative from Texas who stood up in defiance screaming out during the early part in Trump's speech.

This is a great photo. I wish I knew who took it. I have not been able to find the photo credit, but if I can find it, I will link to them below the video. [00:06:00] Great photo here of Al Green. Lemme get to the disruption, him being kicked out, and then afterwards what he said to reporters about what he was saying there and why he did it.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Mr. Green, take your seat. Take your seat sir. Take your seat.

Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the Sergeant at Arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber.

DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: Now, while we were watching this live last night, we expected this to continue happening. I know maybe we expect too much, but I thought this was gonna be like the beginning of constant interruptions by Democrats. That would've been a way to really get under Trump's skin, as well as just be a clear protest of everything Trump is doing.

But no. [00:07:00] Al Green was the only one. And then he left. 

So let me get to what he told reporters about what he was saying there and why he stood up. 

REPORTER: So what were you shouting to the president? 

REP. AL GREEN: The president said he had a mandate and I was making it clear to the president that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.

I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their healthcare. And I want him to know that his budget calls for deep cuts in Medicaid. He needs to save Medicaid, protect it. We need to raise the cap on Social Security. There's a possibility that it's going to be hurt. And we've gotta protect Medicare.

These are the safety net programs that people in my congressional district depend on. And this president seems to care less about them and more about the number of people that he can remove from the various programs that have been so [00:08:00] helpful to so many people. 

REPORTER: Is yelling during speech the best way to get that across?

REP. AL GREEN: It is. It is the best way to get it across to a person who uses his incivility, who uses his incivility against our civility. He is a person who has consistently used incivility against civility. 

REPORTER: [Garbled] Is that what you said? 

REP. AL GREEN: Well, look, I'm willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me. I didn't say to anyone, don't punish me. I've said I'll accept a punishment. But it's worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president's desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. 

REPORTER: So were you saying you have no mandate? Is that what you [garbled]?

REP. AL GREEN: That's what I -- he has no mandate to cut Medicaid. None. 

REPORTER: Is that is the only punishment, that you were kicked out, sir? Is there something else? 

REP. AL GREEN: I don't know, whatever the punishment is, I'm not fighting the punishment. This is about the people who are being punished by virtue of losing their healthcare. This is the richest [00:09:00] country in the world and we have people who don't have good healthcare. We've gotta do better. And now we are about to cut Medicaid, which is for poor people. Healthcare has become wealth care for many people, and we can't afford to let that happen. 

REPORTER: Is that the only thing that you're protesting? 

REP. AL GREEN: No, I have other things I'm protesting. And I'm also working on my articles of impeachment. This president is unfit, he should not hold the office. 34 felony convictions, two times impeached. 

DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: So, because Al Green was willing to stand up and protest, he's been getting now media coverage about what that protest was about, which now has a greater focus on the fact that Trump's budget includes cuts to healthcare.

This is why it's important for Democrats to make a noise, even if you feel like you have no power, you have power in terms of setting a narrative and talking in media. If you're able to set the narrative the way that Republicans have for decades, where Democrats are [00:10:00] always on the defense and having to react to what Republicans are saying, if you instead are able to set that narrative, then you force Republicans to react to you.

How to Rebuild the Left as the Far Right Floods the Zone - UNFTR Media - Air Date 2-5-25

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: The distractor-in-chief is unleashing a war of attrition on reason and good taste, the likes of which we've never experienced.

For anyone who claims that Trump's faculties are diminished, think again. He is at the height of his powers right now. And even though it's only been a couple of weeks, he is wearing us down. And that's the plan. 

So here's our plan. It's impossible to look away, so don't. Take it all in and let it fuel your disgust and give you a sense of purpose. And that purpose is, first, the midterms, and then 2028. 

But listen: The left is fucked right now. The Democrats have no answers, no meaningful answers, at least. The Dems are gonna hold press conferences, make the rounds on the TV circuit, howl at the moon and shout at the rain. The ACLU is gonna file so many motions their lawyers are gonna have motion sickness. [00:11:00] And here we are out in the wilderness. And I know what you're thinking. What are we gonna do about this? This guy is invincible. He beats every rap. And you're gonna get caught up in the what-ifs. What if he dismantles the Department of Education? Well, he's gonna try. What if he doesn't leave? He might try and stay. The what ifs are all very much possible, and they range from bizarre to downright dystopian. 

The point of this onslaught is to keep us off balance. So that's why I'm focused on the fundamentals right now. 

You might think that this is just rearranging deck chairs in the Titanic, but there is important work to be done, right now. And it starts with taking back the narrative of the left, by establishing what it means to be on the left.

See, right now, we're being blamed for everything this administration is doing and for the reason that they got there. We are the "woke mob," the unpatriotic heathens who want to give everything away, live off welfare, open the borders, and promote unqualified people into positions of power. As [00:12:00] long as we focus our narrative on counterattacks, we're playing into their hands. 

So what exactly does this mean? Well, here's my contribution. I'm finishing up our third episode on a series centered on five non-negotiables of the left, so it's my way of helping to reclaim the narrative and get the left aligned on certain fundamental principles to mount an offensive instead of trying to fight off the back foot and respond to every body blow and flurry from the orange nugget in the Oval Office.

When all is said and done, this is the primary critique of the Democratic establishment and why we're in this position: They stood -- and still stand -- for nothing. They offer nothing. They allowed themselves to be defined by the opposition and not by responding with alternative plans in a clear vision for the future. The Republicans just won by default. 

But articulating a vision is actually more difficult than it seems. And that's why narratives matter. [00:13:00] By coalescing around firm principles and speaking with one voice, we can help shift the narrative among the left and sympathetic liberal core of the Democratic Party.

Now, I've offered my thoughts previously on efforts to build viable third parties, and I'm with you, in the long run. But the deck is stacked against us today because of institutional rot and Citizens United. 

In order to change the political dynamics of the nation, we're gonna have to seize the levers of power. And guess who's gonna give us the opportunity to do just that? That's right. The guy currently flooding the zone. Hopefully, in tearing down the administrative state and putting the US economy in a precarious position, it will only serve to hasten the economic decline in this country and disengage him from his base of support outside of the cult of MAGA at least.

And its simple math. When it comes crashing down, clarity of purpose and vision wins. So our moment, in my belief, is that it's closer than you think, and the opportunity is [00:14:00] greater than it would've been had someone like Kamala Harris overseen the next phase of capitalism's decline. 

But if you survey non-Republicans in this moment, what you'll discover is a stunning lack of clarity. We don't even know what to ask for. We're as disorganized as we've ever been.

So here's the assignment: Get focused on certain talking points. The ones I'm offering are pretty straightforward, and there's a rhyme and a reason behind what they are and the order in which we're putting them out there. And for that, you'll have to watch the entire series to understand. 

But on the top level, they're housing first -- which is the right to shelter; a civilian labor corps -- the right to meaningful work; Medicare For All -- the right to healthcare; campaign finance reform -- the right to live in a proper democracy; and climate scoring in legislation -- the right to inhabit a livable planet. 

Again, there's a rationale to this that I hope you'll take the time to consider. But getting these issues down and creating a narrative framework that informs a [00:15:00] true leftist platform, one that meets the moment and builds a bridge toward an evolutionary system that looks like democratic socialism but for the modern era, is only the beginning. 

The hard part is amplifying our message and bringing it out to the masses, knowing that we don't find favor in the mainstream. And that's where we have to be clever and outwork them by using the tools the tech oligarchs have supplied to us. So if you have Google Meet or Zoom or any other platform that allows you to confer with people you trust, you have the ability to build an untrackable hive of knowledge and advocacy. It's time to go underground to spread the word. 

Now, I've often referred to this point as the Empire Strikes Back phase, and we're the Rebel Alliance. But small groups can do big things if we can win over hearts and minds by educating and empowering. 

So I'm working on a few curriculum ideas to give away and to help guide conversations, but there's no reason to wait. You can start your own [00:16:00] hive. Find 3, 4, 5 people that are scared and interested in, quote, "doing the work." My suggestion is to start a weekly hive meeting, couple of hours, with a select group of people that you know. It can be online or it can be in person. And the best way to start is to "know thy enemy." Not the screaming MAGA base; they've been poisoned, and they'll be the last to turn away from their dear leader. But focus on who's behind these movements. Here are three suggestions to get started, and yes, I am suggesting that the way to get started on your radical journey is by starting a small book club. Now over time it will evolve, but we gotta go back to basics. And I'll leave the links in the notes below to our bookshop to help us get started.

So the first one is How The Heartland Went Red by Stephanie Ternullo. The second one is The Far Right Today by Cas Mudde, which provides an overview of the fourth wave of post-war far right politics and explains the far right renaissance. And [00:17:00] lastly, one of my faves, is Democracy In Chains. So it is a personal favorite that I've talked about a lot on the show because it details the radical right's stealth and long-term agenda to take over America. And there's nuggets in there that even I didn't know about having studied neoliberalism for, years and years. 

So choose one, dig in. And just get started. The key is to read it aloud together and discuss each chapter. And as we go, I'll help build out a syllabus for us to follow. And the only thing that I ask is that you tell me the name of your hive -- and try to be creative -- but no other details. That way I can call out your hive name on the show, but you and your co-conspirators can maintain the underground nature of our work. We'll scaffold the effort properly in the coming months, but it is good to get started.

And one thing I wanna leave you with is this thought from Twitch streamer and darling of the left, Hasan Piker. 

HASAN PIKER: Being a leftist is being on the right side of history; being correct, but too early; [00:18:00] and also constantly getting yelled at, constantly talking about things that are directly at odds with the powers, with the pre-existing hierarchy. You're gonna lose a lot. Okay, that's it. So get ready for it. Just as long as you know that your moral compass is correct and you don't lose yourself to the whims of, I don't know, wanting a tiny bit of victory in the short term, you just have to keep putting your best foot forward with the knowledge that you're doing the right thing and you're doing right by others.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: He's right. We're gonna lose more than we win. And people will think you're nuts, that you're tilting at windmills... until the shit hits the fan, at which time you'll be left standing as the reasonable one with the answers to how we got here and where we ought to go.

How to Really Resist - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-28-25

ANAT SHENKER-OSORIO: We have an opportunity for the first time in a very long time. Actually, we had it during Covid and I would argue that we squandered it. This is a moment of extraordinary rupture and in moments of [00:19:00] extraordinary rupture people suspend their known ideas, their calcified beliefs at an unconscious level, and they are looking to make meaning. They're looking to make meaning of what is happening, why is it happening, what should happen next? Who could do it? 

And so in this moment of extraordinary rupture, we have the opportunity to actually tell a very different story about government in the form of these federal workers that we're seeing, for example, hang the upside down flag from my own home state here in Yosemite, one of California's fantastic national parks. We have federal workers talking about how much their jobs mean, how much they're serving the American public, doing this sort of proud to be public fork in the road protests, and that would allow us to shine a very clear and present light on, actually, would you like to know what government is? [00:20:00] 

What's going on over there in the White House and surrounding the broligarchy, that's the regime. That's the ruling regime. That is not the administration. Let us not credit them with that word. Because the administration implies continuity. It implies the administrative state, which in fact, they're trying to destroy and gut and bend to their own personal will. The government is the money that we collectively pull together in order to be able to go to Yosemite, in order to have toilets that flush and have the stuff go away, in order to send our kid off to school and have a teacher who knows their name is excited to see them. 

And so the opportunity, if we were to seize it, is a recognition that the only thing that has actually toppled autocracy, I would argue both in the US past and also most certainly in other countries, is civil resistance, is a sustained, unrelenting group of people showing, not telling, being [00:21:00] out in the world, demonstrating their resistance, their refusal, and their ridicule. All three of those Rs are essential. Yes, it is protest. Yes, it is boycotting. Yes, it is getting farmers to paint the side of their barn saying 'We don't fuck with fascists'. Hopefully I'm allowed to say that word on here. Probably should ask first. That's my own refusal. And it also takes ridicule. 

What the strong man—and that is the vein in which Trump is attempting to govern and Musk as well—requires is this belief in his, usually his, infallibility and he cannot be challenged. And that's where that cynicism that you rightly raised comes up. that's nothing that we can do. This is a fait accompli. In fact, this is the very definition of a paper tiger. This man is the great and powerful oz. He is a bully, not a leader, and we just have to [00:22:00] pull his bluff by ridiculing him and by just refusing to comply.

And when the people recognize, because they see other people doing it, that, oh, actually you could just not go along, oh, actually the future is still made of the decisions that we take together, that is what makes the whole thing crumble. And the possibility, not the inevitability, but the possibility of a very different kind of governing regime.

JORDAN UHL - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: You've written about the need for protests in this moment, and there's a movement making the rounds on social media and group chats about an economic blackout day later this week, which is a grassroots movement targeting economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform. Do you think this kind of collective action can be successful?

ANAT SHENKER-OSORIO: Yeah. We have examples in our own history, obviously much, more localized, but the kind of marquee one is of [00:23:00] course the Montgomery bus boycott. Imagine just for a moment, if you will, the folks in Montgomery who were being subjected to these absolutely horrific, very, very racist, obviously, policies, thinking, you know what we're gonna do here's how we're gonna sort this out, friends. We're gonna ask the Democrats if they would pretty, pretty please acquire themselves a vertebra, let alone a backbone. Imagine the folks in the throes of the HIV-AIDS crisis dying of prolonged horrific illness from this kind of new thing that seemed to have swept out of nowhere thinking, ya know what we're gonna do? We should ask the Democrats if they would pretty, pretty please. No. In both cases, they recognize that their own power existed within taking collective action in the Montgomery bus boycott case, of course, economic power; in the Act Up case, doing things like breaking into the stock market and getting arrested and [00:24:00] doing die-ins, and putting the focus front and center on the people who, as Sunjeev, rightly lifted up, are actually in charge. Right? Government, these elected officials, they're a veneer over the people who actually pay to put them into power, and that veneer is getting thinner and thinner and thinner now that we have this oligarchy. 

And so do I think that it can work? It has worked. Is it very, very difficult to pull off? Absolutely. Do we need to let a thousand flowers bloom? Yes. Do we need to be pulling all levers? Yes. 

SUNJEEV BERY: I'll jump into and just offer that I think that an economic blackout can be powerful if it's the first step. Because that sort of a blanket withdrawal of participation from the economy I think ideally should be followed by convening people to target specific entities in different ways, right? We want to put pressure on the oligarchy, the oligarchs themselves, as well as the Trump [00:25:00] administration. and that means mobilizing in very specific ways to oppose them. 

We've seen town hall meetings where Republican members of Congress have faced very tough questions from the public. And have been scared and embarrassed by that. That has been a powerful example. I also personally think that the Democrats who aren't doing enough or who are talking about working with Trump or any of this nonsense, they also need to face pressure and protest from the base. 

Anat mentioned, HIV-AIDS protestors historically pushing the government, pushing for changes. I remember when Al Gore first ran for president. When he ran for president early on in his presidential campaign, HIV-AIDS activists disrupted his presidential campaign events because he was on the wrong side of a pharma issue with regards to access to AIDS drugs. And because of their protests, he shifted posture immediately in his presidential campaign at the beginning of his race.

That's the sort of thing that Democrats [00:26:00] also need to face, in addition to a primary focus on the Trump regime's attempts to destroy our social welfare safety net and transfer all that money to Elon Musk and his buddies. 

JORDAN UHL - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: I'm glad you mentioned that, Sanjeev, because you recently wrote a piece about how Senate Democrats could push Elon Musk out of politics. So, how could that be accomplished? And for both of you, what are the other strategies you would like to see from this opposition party? 

SUNJEEV BERY: Just to that point, I'll say that it is astonishing to me that you have somebody you know conducting a slash and burn campaign against the very source of his wealth. And that is Elon Musk. He's doing a slash and burn campaign against the federal government while simultaneously having profited enormously—enormously—thanks to the federal government. SpaceX, from my understanding, is the biggest startup in the world. And, who is SpaceX's biggest customer? The American people. The American people provide SpaceX with billions of [00:27:00] dollars. 

And so it's time for senators to take a stand against the government contracts that are enabling the chief arson, who with the backing of Trump is destroying our federal government. And that's Elon Musk. But for senators to do that, they need to face pressure from the public. They need to know that their old way of doing things, is not gonna work anymore. And we've seen some senators play a leadership role in trying to push for a broader shift in posture. We've obviously seen Senator Bernie Sanders with his major rallies, Senator Chris Murphy. But more need to be pushed. And if that comes from the community, they'll get the message.

Republicans finally go NUCLEAR over town hall disasters - Brian Tyler Cohen - Air Date 3-5-25

BRYAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRYAN TYLER COHEN: According to the Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers, NRCC Chair, Richard Hudson, just very dramatically told members to put down their phones and listen. He said, no one should be doing town halls. Likened it to 2017, said the protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse. Another congresswoman got up and complained that they've been picketing at her house and targeting her kid, the sources says. No one should be [00:28:00] doing town halls. In other words, Republican members should not have to face their own voters, their bosses. Instead, they should just barrel ahead completely unaccountable to anyone other than, of course, the God king Donald Trump. Because God forbid these Republicans forget who they're really there to serve. 

But I want you to pay particularly close attention to what Richard Hudson said about 2017. In 2017, after Republicans began their assault on the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, it's true that Republicans across the country were forced to suffer the indignity of having to face their own voters. And of course it was a disaster because, surprise, surprise, stripping away healthcare from Americans is aggressively unpopular. And importantly, that culminated into Republicans losing the house in 2018 by the biggest margin in modern American history. Republicans can very clearly see what's on the horizon and they're not happy about it. 

Now, there's something called the Streisand Effect, where trying to prevent someone from seeing something only shines a brighter spotlight on that thing. So, if Republicans are so hellbent on making sure that no one sees [00:29:00] what's happening at their town halls, then hey, I'll use this opportunity to make sure that everyone watching can see what those town halls actually look like.

TOWN HALL SPEAKERS: When will you stand up to them and say, that is enough?

[applause] 

REPULICAN CONGRESSPERSON: The end result of the fraud and abuse that has been discovered already.

[audience angrily talks over him] 

ANOTHER REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE: Trump has issued a lot of executive orders. I think by and large, this is moving very quickly compared to other administrations, and I think across the board, he's done some very good things. I think, [loud booing] uh, he's gotten rid of birthright citizenship, [loud booing, then a woman says "illegal as hell"]. 

TOWN HALL SPEAKERS: But what is going on right now [00:30:00] today is the House of Representatives and the Senate are totally abdicated their responsibility... [applause] You stand there and say, I'm not sure about that, or I'm not sure about that. You put up, frankly, some of these slides are very misleading. Let's talk about the Trump tax cut. How much of that deficit in that jump from 22 up was the tax cuts to the incredibly rich people of the world who are now in our White House and dismantling our government? You are an attorney. You are an officer of the court, in addition to swearing in oath for our Constitution, and yet, while you and so many of your colleagues are just sitting around watching, well, I don't know. We'll see what happens next month. 

BRYAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRYAN TYLER COHEN: Here's a particularly telling one where Roger Marshall straight up bails rather than be forced to confront the reality of what his own party is doing to veterans. 

TOWN HALL SPEAKERS: Right now as far as cutting out those jobs, a [00:31:00] huge percentage of those people, and I even know what you care about, the veterans. For veterans. Yes. Mm-hmm. And that is a damn shame. Yes. Yeah. That is a damn shame. Yes. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm worried about the veterans, man. 

REPULICAN CONGRESSPERSON: Alright, well, I yield it to one of my elders and I appreciate his comments. I think it's a great, I'm not gonna, we don't have everyone to stand up. I do got two more commitments today. Appreciate everybody making the drive out and God bless America. Thank you. [loud booing] We're gonna take pictures with you. 

BRYAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRYAN TYLER COHEN: In fact, it's not even just the town halls. Republicans are starting to recognize that they're gonna need to insulate themselves from all voters everywhere if they want to get away with their unpopular plans. Here's JD Vance trying to travel to Vermont to enjoy a vacation at the same time that his administration is putting thousands of federal [00:32:00] employees out of a job.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Vice President JD Vance is vacationing in a remote ski town in Vermont, and we did see some protests today lining the streets, including one protestor who held a sign that said, go ski in Russia, traitor. 

There's some new video now we have showing the vice president being greeted by protestors, holding anti-Vance, pro-Ukraine signs as he makes his way there to Vermont for a ski resort vacation. More protestors met the Vance family outside of the resort, and the family ultimately had to move to an undisclosed location. 

BRYAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRYAN TYLER COHEN: And let's be clear, Republicans are taking notice. Here's what Trump had to say about these town halls in an effort to try and reassure his party to not abandon his unpopular agenda, despite the outrage that we're seeing across the entire country. "Paid troublemakers are attending Republican town hall meetings. It's all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big landslide election, it's not going to work for them". You know they're getting nervous when they start just accusing [00:33:00] everybody of being paid. 

And speaking of nervous, here's Republican representative Lisa McClain attacking voters for quote hijacking Republican town halls to share their "sob stories" about how Trump's policies are hurting them.

REP. LISA MCCLAIN: So, good morning everyone. I wanna start with last week, videos of protestors yelling at members of Congress went viral, right? But the content focused on the confrontation, not the why. Some of the people that hijacked those town halls are happy with the bloated status quo. They want the bloated status quo to continue. They don't want to get our country back on track. Yet Democrats are soliciting sob stories from bloated bureaucrats with six figure salaries. Gimme a break. 

BRYAN TYLER COHEN - HOST, BRYAN TYLER COHEN: Right, sob stories. I'd love to see her say that to the face of one of her own [00:34:00] constituents, but of course she won't because, well, no more town halls. God forbid, Republicans have to take accountability for their own actions. Phew! Despite Republican claims to the contrary, these are not sob stories. These are not paid actors. These are not Democratic operatives. These are nurses and teachers and retirees and veterans and healthcare workers. These are everyday Americans who are seeing prices go up under Donald Trump, the economy slowing under Trump, their neighbors being fired without cause, and America retreating around the world and they want answers. And as Americans who still live in what remains a democracy, at least for now, that is exactly what we should be doing. 

The reality is that Republicans are feeling the heat as well they should be. The answer then is to not let up. If you live in a district with a Republican lawmaker or a state with a Republican senator, call them, show up to their field offices, show up to their DC offices. Do not let them get away with this because they've decided that they don't have to be accountable to anybody. They're hoping to get a free pass. We are here to show them that there is no such thing.

How Leftists Can Win in 2025 - Harper O'Conner - Air Date 1-3-25

HARPER O'CONNER - HOST, HARPER O'CONNER: How can the left go from being small, weak, and [00:35:00] divided to being large, strong, and united? I believe the answer is coalition building. The left needs people who can bridge the gaps between the labor, anti-racist, environmentalist, and Palestinian movements among others. 

But I'm not the one who came up with the idea of a united front. In an American context, this method was pioneered by Fred Hampton. Under his leadership, the Black Panthers formed what became known as the Rainbow Coalition. Hampton realized that these fragmented, individually weak movements could only exercise, credible, social, economic, and political power if they work together.

So that's step one: growing by organizing the forces we already have. Once we do that, we can move on to step two, and our coalition can take on a broad variety of work. In particular, I'm thinking about three strategies, each of which I'd like to go more into detail in. Elections, messaging, and humanitarianism.

The benefit of elections is that they give us a much more official platform on which we can discuss our ideas, and particularly at the local level, they [00:36:00] can be successful. That being said, while elections might be strategically useful in some cases, they need to be part of a broader strategy, especially considering the resource constraints that we're facing.

Here's the harsh reality. Party politics can never be a viable option without substantial electoral reform in this country. We need to abolish the electoral college. We need proportional representation in the legislature. We need rank choice voting. If we do that, third parties become viable. Of course, the establishment would never do that unless they were facing overwhelming public pressure.

Which brings me to my second point messaging. We need to make electoral reform a hot button issue, and the best way to do that is to hammer on the brokenness of the two party system. Think about it. Everyone in your life kind of knows our system is rigged, right? They understand that ordinary citizens are pretty powerless to change the status quo. There is genuine frustration here, and the most effective messaging simply lets people understand the source of the frustration they are already feeling. Believe me, everyone [00:37:00] feels the malaise of the current system. We just need to give it a name. 

Now, naturally you'll be wondering what should this messaging look like from personal experience, and of course I'm biased, I'd say short form video is our best friend. I'm no communications expert. I'm no genius. I don't have a team behind me. But in just a couple short years, I was able to reach quite literally millions of people on TikTok, and I know for a fact that I've been responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of people starting to question the propaganda they've been fed.

So, why is short form so powerful? Well, I think there's a couple reasons for that. First, anyone with a phone can do it. You don't need lighting. You don't need to know how to edit like I do. Second, these platforms have millions of users and it is really easy to reach them. Because of the way the algorithms work, you can go viral even if you don't have many followers, provided you make a catchy video. Third, it's easier to get across to people on a human level. Some of these videos I've seen from just normal people sharing their [00:38:00] experiences with, for example, the healthcare system or talking about climate change, are really impactful because it's, just, it's another person.

TikTok feels like you're taking a FaceTime video from your friend. That's pretty powerful, and you don't get that on a more impersonal platform such as Twitter, and that personal sort of connection can start that spark of solidarity. This recognition that, hey, we're all going through the same thing. We're all suffering in the same ways. That's the beginning of class consciousness. Follow other creators whose messaging you admire. Tell your own story. Confidently and clearly explain why the current system cannot be reformed and needs to be replaced. 

Again, public discontent with the polarized two party system is our highest point of leverage because basically everybody resents the status quo. If we can focus that discontent, allow people to realize it's true source, and then present them with a realistic alternative, that's lightning in a bottle. The goal is to make it so that every time somebody thinks about how broken the political system is, they [00:39:00] immediately think of our solution, which is that electoral reform platform I just mentioned. If we can connect up these two things, we're golden. 

Now, for the fun part, this is where a true left wing coalition differentiates itself from political elites—Democrats—by improving people's lives. I think our priority in the near term needs to be outreach programs such as school lunch drives, tenant and union organizing, infrastructure redevelopment, housing construction, legal defense, establishing community gardens, winter clothing drives, and whatever else our communities need.

We need to show the people who are neglected and exploited under the current system that we are willing to fight for them. Again, this is something that the Black Panthers did incredibly well. Of course, this work will most likely start in cities, but over time, we can and must reach out to rural communities.

A fantastic example of this is the Middle Tennessee chapter of DSA, which recently raised the money to erase over two and a half million [00:40:00] dollars worth of medical debt. Let me repeat myself. $2.6 million. Imagine how much respect and loyalty we would gain from the American people if we were to do this on a nationwide scale. Imagine if socialists were the most active members of our communities. That would go so far encountering the decades of red scare propaganda that Americans have been subject to. Plus working together is how we actually build those coalitions I was talking about. The ruling class wants us divided and siloed, but when we work together, we build real solidarity.

A strategy that focuses just on elections could never do this. We need less talking and more doing. Okay, so here's the strategy up to this point. We build a coalition from the broad spectrum of left wing groups operating in this country already. Second, we go to work serving our communities and building trust with the American people.

And that brings me to step three, the end game. Over time I foresee these coalitions becoming quite powerful and autonomous, if we are [00:41:00] successful. I foresee a world where membership means your legal fees are paid if needed. You have help covering rent if needed. You have help organizing your workplace if needed.

I foresee organizations that are robust enough to feed the hungry, to house the homeless, to care for the sick. I foresee great festivals and gatherings full of music and art, full of freedom, freedom that prefigures the society that we are working to create. Then once we're strong enough, we can apply pressure for electoral reforms through protests, strikes, encampments and, most importantly, the discipline to withhold votes from politicians who won't work with us. 

So, there's the actual three step framework. Rally our allies, win over the American people, and then use that mass movement to put pressure on the state. I don't want to give you false hope, but despite strong headwinds, I seriously believe that we have a massive opportunity for movement building right now. The genocide in Gaza and the brutal crackdown on people protesting that genocide at home [00:42:00] has woken up a lot of people to the harsh reality of our system. The climate crisis is only just beginning. The cost of living continues to rise, establishment politics are as ineffective as they've ever been. 

The public is primed to look for an alternative. We need to rally our allies. We need to go where the fight is. This is how we win.

Gov. Pritzker SLAMS Trump and Musk in closing remarks of State of the State address - NBC Chicago - Air Date 2-19-25

GOVERNOR JB PRIZKER: I've been reflecting these last four weeks on two important parts of my life. My work, helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum, and the two times that I've had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor. 

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided that they wanted to march there. The leaders of that march knew that the images of swastika-clad young men, goosestepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population, [00:43:00] so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis, contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the First Amendment. As an American and as a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case, but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and build the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981, a small but important forerunner to the one I helped to build 30 years later here. 

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly, but I know the history intimately and have [00:44:00] spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here's what I've learned. The root that tears apart your house's foundation begins as a seed, a seed of distrust and hate and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn't arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac and suggests without facts or findings that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too female and non-White.

The [00:45:00] authoritarian playbook is laid bare here. They point to a group of people who don't look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. I just have one question. What comes next? After we've discriminated against deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities, once we've ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends, after that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face, what comes next? 

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don't want to repeat history, then for God's sake in this moment, we better be strong enough to learn from it.[00:46:00] 

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln's Bible. 'I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the Office of Governor according to the best of my ability'. My oath is to the constitution of our state and of our country. We don't have kings in America, and I don't intend to bend the need to one.

I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions, but in deference to my obligations. [00:47:00] If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: it took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and forty minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. And all I'm saying is that when the five alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978, just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only 20 of them showed up, but 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the rally sputtered to an unspectacular end. After 10 minutes, it was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame. [00:48:00] 

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the tragic spirit of despair overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Note from the Editor giving the call to join the fight at Indivisible.org

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Rational National contrasting feckless Democrats with those willing to take a stand. Unf*ing The Republic laid out core principles for the left to rally around. The Intercept Briefing highlighted the possibility of transformative change during social rupture. Brian Tyler Cohen discussed the Republican plan to avoid talking to constituents. Harper O'Conner argued for coalition building among the left. And NBC Chicago played a speech from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. 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 bonus episodes featuring our team of producers and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our [00:49:00] work and have those bonus episodes 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 we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have questions or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics that you can chime in on include the assault on LGBTQ rights, and a deep dive into the shifting internal dynamics of the Democratic Party. So get your comments or questions in now for those topics or anything else, you can leave us 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, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we are [00:50:00] taking part in the Podcasthon Week of Action, which just means that we, along with thousands of other podcasts, are taking the opportunity to support an organization of our choice. And we chose Indivisible, because thoughtful and well-organized grassroots action is exactly what's called for in this political moment. It's not enough to just send money and then tune out, hoping someone else will take care of it. It's time to donate, yes, to support the infrastructure, but also to sign up and get engaged in the real world, whether that's by calling Congress or showing up at a town hall meeting, to join the chorus of dissent. 

Go to Indivisible.org to yes, make a donation, but also to join your local Indivisible chapter to keep you in the loop as the political ground shifts underneath us and opportunities for calls to action are coming at us fast and furious. 

And speaking of ongoing action, there's a lot more in the show, so stay tuned.

SECTION A: STRATEGY & GOALS

 [00:51:00] 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now we're gonna continue to dive deeper on six topics. Next up, section A, strategy and goals, followed by section B, humor as a tactic, section C, protest, section D, boycott, section E resources and Section F power structures.

Election Integrity: Getting Money Out of Politics. Non-Negotiable #4. - Unf*cking The Republic - Air Date 2-21-25

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Many on the left have abandoned the Democratic Party because the Democratic party abandoned them and we're living in this new reality. This leads many to believe that both major parties are so wholly corrupt that only a third party can restore true liberalism in our system. But as I've tried to demonstrate this is magical thinking.

The supposition is correct. Both parties have been corrupted by big money. Donors are subject today, but the conclusion they've drawn is incorrect for the same reason. The major parties have handed the keys to the donor class, and together they have erected barriers to entry for any third party. That's why, as we pointed out in our [00:52:00] prior episode, the Libertarian Party, which has been around for more than 50 years, and the Green Party itself now 41 years old, have exactly zero representation in Congress.

90 plus years collectively and nothing to show for it. Why? Because it costs too much money to build the kind of infrastructure the major parties have already achieved. Not to mention from a historical perspective, we've had a two party system since the earliest days of our founding. When we were divided into Federalists and anti-Federalists, the two sides formalized their opposition to one another in the form of parties, the Democrats and the wis who eventually became Republicans.

So this is how it's always been. And yet major reforms and strides were made under these systems. Now granted, some took hundreds of years, but others took far less. The point is it's possible to create meaningful reform under a two party system. The problem today isn't that we only have two parties. It's where their bread is [00:53:00] buttered and who's doing the buttery?

99 HOST, UNFTR: Get money out of politics and you can change the entire apparatus. Don't. And we'll ride this thing to its inevitable conclusion. Oligarchy, 

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: tethering ourselves to five non-negotiables. Doesn't mean these are the ends. On the contrary, they're the means. A population that doesn't live in economic precarity makes better decisions.

Fascism rises in uncertainty and praise on fear. Eliminate these fears and fascism lies dormant and undisturbed until the whole cycle continues again. 

MANNY FACES: Okay, cool. Now can you just sum all that up, please? In English, 

99 HOST, UNFTR: imagine you only have time to produce a TikTok and not a three hour podcast. 

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Okay. Think of it as a board game.

Beat the Republicans by using the weapons at our disposal. Currently, the Democratic Party has them locked in an armory, so we'll have to use theirs in order to gain access to their weapons. We'll need to install our own people inside and on the perimeter. We'll do it by holding our votes as ransom unless [00:54:00] specific demands are met, shelter, work, and healthcare.

And once we're inside, we'll transform the system and open the doors to allow more people and parties into the castle. But to do that, we'll have to cut off everyone's funding. The only way to do that is to win over even more people throughout the kingdom. We'll need 67 senators, 290 representatives, and 38 states to go along with us, which means we'll need really happy subjects throughout the whole kingdom who are pleased with the way things are going.

And the only way to do that is to make sure they have a roof over their heads, a job they feel good about and access to healthcare that won't force them into bankruptcy. Ultimately, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Deliver good services and we'll deliver a good government.

Courts & Crowds Not Kings | 2 Ways to Keep From Falling Into an Authoritarian Abyss | Andrea Pitzer - Next Comes What - Air Date 2-21-25

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: We have a deep and powerful tradition of righteous American protest right here in the us. One that has chiefly been led by Native Americans and black people and other minority groups. I. These protests were rarely spontaneous. They were often done strategically with a lot of [00:55:00] education and with specific goals in mind, and what's happening with the protests, like Monday's gathering around the country

i. Are kind of a way to put down a marker to let people see that there are others like them out there who are unhappy with what's going on. But to grow to a size that can make real demands, a lot more people are going to need to reach out and connect with communities of those disaffected people. We are gonna need teach-ins.

Some of them will be high profile ones, such as the ones that politics and prose are setting up as part of a new series. There'll be one on March 7th that includes David Cole, who's done tremendous work on civil liberties in the us. Kelly Robinson, the head of human rights campaign, Jamie Raskin, the Congressman, uh, locally here, lawyer Ali Cole and Sky Perryman, who is President of Democracy Forward.

Which is leading some of the court battles that are currently [00:56:00] happening, fighting the new administration. That's a start, but we're gonna need even more teach-ins from career community organizers like Maryam Kaba and Kelly Hayes. I'll put a link to some of their organizing materials and to the politics and prose virtual broadcast in this week's Friday Roundup.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I'm telling you, it matters. We are in the Wizard of Oz. They want you to think that it's this big green floating head that is too big to confront when they are little, little, little, little men with little, little, little, fragile, fragile, fragile, rather big. Big, fragile egos. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Just like every exercise of judicial independence is useful, whether it's making a tremendous difference yet or not.

Every public action of citizens and residents exercising the right to express and work. For the kind of society they want to build [00:57:00] is a step forward. 

PARKROSE PERMACULTURE: If the threat gets you to comply. If you are afraid of martial law such that you choose not to exercise your rights in a situation where your life and your liberty are on the line, then we already have martial law.

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: It helps to stop the erosion of rights and preemptive clamp down. It will make those in power more nervous about actually asserting themselves against civilian demonstrations later, and these small steps are necessary. Relationship building is as important as any other action. Most people feel better after doing something anything than doing nothing.

And I'm thinking back to my days teaching karate when people are just learning to do pushups. Sometimes even one is impossible, but you break it down into smaller pieces, they do smaller parts, and almost everybody gets stronger in predictable ways over time.

[00:58:00] As I saw on Monday, some protestors were just stunned, fired federal employees looking for a public outlet for grief over the losses of their jobs and whole ecosystems of government service. Others were moved by Musk egregious role in destroying a government. He clearly doesn't understand on any level 

ELON MUSK: I am become meme.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm just, I was living the meme. It is like there's living the dream and there's living the meme and it's pretty much what's happening. You know? You like, I think you're bigger. I mean, do started out as a meme. Think about it now it's real. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Some felt moved by simple patriotism at odds with everything that seemed to be happening since January 20th.

Julia Korff brought her guitar and sang a version of the Star-Spangled Banner that ended unconventionally 

I asked a woman with a [00:59:00] sign that was decrying dictators, why she'd come out and she said, because I'm an American. This particular protest had a generic rallying cry against executive overreach against kings. Some on social media have called these kinds of protests. Boomer cringe.

What did they think they were doing? What could possibly be accomplished? But were only at the beginning for now, especially for those who may not have experience showing up is a lot. I'm telling you, it matters. Later demands will become more specific. Danger will likely increase, but often in history, defiance of unjust government starts with saying not this.

Saying no is a first step, even if it's just the first of many. One of the key reasons that legislators are unable or unwilling to do as much as people would like [01:00:00] is that the same system that elected Donald Trump elected them just as legacy newspapers are bound to the current US political and economic systems in ways that make it difficult for them to report in unusual times.

Current elected legislators are by and large bound to the current models of politics in ways that make it difficult for them to work against the current administration. They do have an important role to play right now, but few of them will choose to play it or even understand how to. Which isn't to say that the public shouldn't keep pressuring them to act.

It's just to say that we shouldn't wait on them if they don't lead the way. In the end, whatever salvation we see is likely to come from courts saying no and specifying remedies [01:01:00] and the people saying no and making demands about how they're ruled.

The power of practicing peace - Democracy Works - Air Date 2-3-25

JENNA SPINELLE - HOST, DEMOCRACY WORKS: This idea of bridge building, which our listeners are likely familiar with. It is, I think often talked about it in a more political context, like bridging partisan divides. And there's a whole field of organizations that do this work. But that seems to me that that is, I don't know if it's like all peace building is bridge building, but not all peace building is bridge building, like one of those kinds of things, I guess. How do you think about the the relationship between those two?

LISA SILVESTRI: So I was careful to avoid the the term peace building in this because, again, like my exposure to peace coming in the context of war, peace building is often the way people talk about post war situations. And so when I think of peace [01:02:00] building, I think of some strategy, like a grand strategy. I think of it as responsive to a particular set of needs in a post war, post conflict scenario that it just has more boundaries around it, even, like, temporally, right? Like we're gonna, we did war fighting, and now we're gonna do peace building. And I mean, I guess, to answer your question, I think that bridge building is a is a part of peace building. But again, like, even with you. Bridges that keeps us on either side of the river right, and we're gonna come together in the middle, and we're gonna do this thing. But what if, like, the writing that I've done alongside this book is like, what if we don't want to set our differences aside? What if we don't want to forgive and forget? What like? Is there something we can do? How do we build coalitions? And coalition is the term that I like, I think, more than bridge building. [01:03:00] How do we build coalitions across difference that sees our difference as an asset, as opposed to like trying to transcend difference. And I think that that's something cool that lent observed is that it wasn't that these folks are like, coming together and singing Kumbaya and being like, let's let bygones be bygones. They aren't. They're just they're still different, and that's okay, that they can, they can coalesce in the community without giving up that part of themselves. And this is where I take this ancient Greek concept of phronesis, and I look at it through the lens of intersectionality, which is like the language that was a gift to us from black feminist scholars that recognizes that we are all this constellation of identities related to power and privilege, and so then [01:04:00] the work becomes not, how do we set aside those differences, or imagine that we all are one or have This like, same identity, but like, how do we align ourselves in a way that disperses or diffuses power structures so it accepts like we have to work within the existing power dynamics? How can we diffuse? How can we co align ourselves in ways that diffuse some of that power, redistribute that power, and so that's kind of why I balk at bridge building as a metaphor, because I just think we've been talking about that for a long time, and I haven't really seen it like a temporary outside of a temporary, goal oriented thing, whereas, like the piece that I'm talking about is just, it's more open, is less in response to a particular situation. It's [01:05:00] just a way of being in the world. 

JENNA SPINELLE - HOST, DEMOCRACY WORKS: As people are listening to this, I'm sure they're thinking, Oh, well, I would like to get involved in in one of these kinds of things, if not, maybe start something myself in my community, or maybe join up with something that that's already there. So I have a couple questions for you in that realm, like, what are some of the things that prevent people from engaging in this kind of work?

LISA SILVESTRI: I don't know if I have a good answer for that, in part because there are a lot of answers, fear, laziness, lack of imagination. Um, I, I think that's why I have risk in the subtitle. It's called piece by piece, risking public action, creating social changes, because it is a risk. What the folks in this book are doing is irrational. It's hard to explain. It's not lucrative. And so like [01:06:00] we, especially in the United States, have such a distorted idea about success. And so I think, you know, when people think about doing something like this. They're thinking not from like, is this the right thing to do? They're thinking of like, well, how will others perceive what I'm doing? How will I explain this to my parents or my friends or loved ones? But if you can kind of just let that part go and just do the next right thing, even if it seems impractical. I think that's how you start.

Pushing back against political violence - Democracy Works - Air Date 1-16-25

JENNA SPINELLE - HOST, DEMOCRACY WORKS: In America if there's this tradition or this movement of bridge building, which is bringing people together explicitly across lines of a political division, as opposed to, you know, a business league or sports or a church or some other way that that people come together. I wonder how, if at all, you see [01:07:00] that work of, you know, bringing people together for the purpose of talking across political divisions fitting into this picture.

NICOLE BIBBINS SEDACA: And what we see in a lot of places is there are different reasons why people come together. Some people are coming together to solve joint problems within their community, and so they're coming across different faith lines or political lines because they need to build a park in their town, or they need to deal with an education problem in their town. And I think for many people who are most focused on those local areas, that is where you see those bridges being built across lines when they actually just have to get stuff done. And that's where there is sometimes a very big disconnect between what's happening at the national level, where it's a lot of rhetoric and the local level where things are being done, I think we're also seeing a lot of places where people are coming together just to talk about being in conversation with difference. And what that is, it's an opportunity to also talk about what binds us together, which most often is the democratic experiment that we're all part of, [01:08:00] of just saying, okay, part of what we are doing is committing to be in conversation about our differences and not necessarily end the differences, but it is a way that people are practicing a muscle that, in some places, has either never been developed or never been used, which is that muscle to say, I can come together with someone have radical different disagreements on one or a million things and Then just engage them peaceably and then go on with the rest of my with the rest of my life. And I think that's the thing which we're seeing now, and when we have a real opportunity in the United States, where that has been the practice in many places, but we have to utilize that and recognize what's at risk if we are not building or practicing that muscle. The alternative, really is that we can move quickly into political violence or increase polarization that makes us vulnerable to those toxic readers.

JENNA SPINELLE - HOST, DEMOCRACY WORKS: So the last thing I want to ask about is this idea of of incentives and political structures. We touched on this a little bit earlier. But you know, the other [01:09:00] headline in the democracy space, at least from this, this most recent US election, was that voters, by and large, rejected some of the things that would have changed political structures, things like open primaries and ranked choice voting, and the things that are often pointed to as ways to fix the system or decrease the influence that that the two parties have, at least here, here in the US. So I wonder what, what the two of you make of of that, and if there are other, perhaps prospects for structural reform that that you're looking at moving forward.

 

NICOLE BIBBINS SEDACA: I think that we're seeing, we're seeing places where that structural reform has really worked, particularly ranked choice voting, and we've seen it work well in Alaska and a number of other places where having a having a system in which it is not winner take all, and some of the current primary processes which push people into Much more polarized [01:10:00] situation, you have far fewer people coming to the ballot box in primaries. I think we're seeing success in that. I also think we're seeing in some places. In the debate here in Washington has been it's sort of a confusing system. We're just going to stick with what we've got. We know it better, and we don't need to have reforms. And so I think we do have a challenge, really, to explain to the American people, at a very grassroots level of why some of these changes are needed, and they will actually reinforce, make us less polarized, and reinforce choice among people, as opposed to, I think, some of the perceptions which they which are that they are not allowing people to get the candidates that they want. 

RACHEL KLIENFELD: I would say the United States has kind of a triple whammy in terms of our institutional design. We know that winner take all systems are particularly given to to political violence if there are strong ethnic divisions or racial divisions or what have you. Larry diamond has written about that on a whole general study of democracy, [01:11:00] that that's the one kind of generalizable thing you can say about institutional design is if you have a country with deep fissures, don't have a winner take all system. We also know that two party systems are given to polarization for obvious reasons. It's easier to create an Asana to them when you only got two choices. And then we know presidential design systems. Juan Linz, you know, the great democracy scholar that I got to study under, writes about how few presidential systems survive more than a few decades. Really, America stands in a very small group that has survived, and that's because of the sort of inherent structural tension between a president and a legislature that are of different parties and so on. So the United States has all three, and that is probably not the strongest place to stand on. And for a long time, people said, well, you know, we're doing fine, so maybe none of these things are so bad. And I would just argue that America had a very, very deep [01:12:00] civic culture of democracy, and that civic culture has been eroding. You know, Robert Putnam writes about this with Bowling Alone and so on. That culture is not static, and it does change. And we've seen much less people joining things, much less people speaking across difference, much less people even being willing to engage across difference, not only political difference, but just in general, dealing with social friction to get things done. And as we lose those norms, then laws and design of the institutions becomes much more important. When the norms hold sway. They're much stronger than the laws in the institutional design. But as they weaken those other things come to the fore, and the United States is being hit with this triple problem. Now, voters just rejected that whole argument. I think it's a little wonky. It also ran into the headwinds of institutional parties, where you got Michael Bennett in Colorado and other sitting leaders really speaking against these changes, and that's because, you know, whatever [01:13:00] they might do for democracy, people who won in a system like that system, because they know how to win in it. So if you're a campaigner or a politician who's been elected from either party, it's not really partisan. They tend to prefer to keep their system. Now, what we do about it? You know, I think there will be a lot of regrouping and a lot of thinking about, how do we help the United States connect the dots between the system that they have and these things that they say they don't like, about gridlock and extremism and so on. And that's a real messaging challenge. And I think a lot of folks need to maybe get out of the rooms that they're usually in talking to one another and start reaching out to voters on the ground and seeing how they experience these different systems. And I should add, none of them are silver bullets. You know, institutional design can help or hinder a good democracy, but it's not going to decide the issue for you. You people have to do the work of changing their civic culture as well.

SECTION B: HUMOR AS A TACTICLaughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing Tech - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 1-16-25

SRDJA POPOVIC: When I was 19, which was about the age [01:14:00] when I got engaged in activism, I was actually anti activist. I thought that activism is for old ladies, uh, who are fighting for dogs rights or some bizarre thing, uh, like that.

Uh, but then we had this very bad guy called Vic, uh, coming to power. And within a few years, the country fell apart. We moved from Yugoslavia to six small ridiculous countries. Uh, the high inflation kicked in. My brother had to leave the country together with hundreds of thousands of, of young people. And, uh, basically everything I knew as a normal world fell apart.

Uh, faced with that as a young person, you have. Two choices. You can fight or you can flee. And such are stubborn people. So we stand, uh, stand back and fight. Uh, fast forward within six or seven years, I went from a street organizer to somebody running the student movement, somebody running from a, from a city office all the way to illegal movement, coth, which was officially proclaimed by the Serbian government as a terrorist organization, uh, which was basically labeled for everybody who [01:15:00] was anti.

Mil at the time, we grew from 11 people to 20,000 people. Uh, we had this very interesting strategy of mobilizing youth and being cool and cocky in the same time, and that really worked. And we grew to 20,000. Eventually. In 2000. Uh, we mobilized, uh, people to elections. We persuade opposition to run together.

Finally, Milic was defeated late 2000, so that was a. Well, kind of instant eight years of my life at, at one point. But, uh, the basic is yes, you can do it. And we figure out we will do it, uh, when we figure out that there is nobody else to do it for us. 

DANIEL BARQUET - HOST, YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION: What I, I think what I love about your story is not only that sort of persistence and that like we can do it, but you found these incredibly unconventional tactics that you use to make this happen.

Um, can you talk about some of the approaches you found in that time? 

SRDJA POPOVIC: Uh, well, first of all, Serbs are not really serious people. So, you know, trying to be witted, trying to be humorous, trying to mock everything is a kind of our national mentality. And that works great. [01:16:00] Uh, within the world of the activism, uh, we were facing, uh.

Somebody who is kind of what we would be, be probably categorizing. Today as a dictator light or diet dictator, kind of that category where, you know, you would arrest people but he'll release people. He was not really a sad, you know, putting people in a mass graves, but as he was losing support, he was growing more out authoritarian.

Eventually he arrested 2,500 members of my movement only in year 2000. Uh, so, uh, he was also kind of this, this gray bureaucrat. And because they were so boring and so serious and their language smelled like that, uh, we figured out, oh, we wanna be different. We wanna be witty. And because of our age, it was kind of very appropriate.

We were also very much rock and roll movements. So what we were, we were doing a lot was experimenting with different tactics, arranging from graffiti slogans. Eventually ending in, in understanding this pattern in which if you do something witty and you hit the right target, then your opponent will respond [01:17:00] and then they will become the part of the show.

And this thing which we layer labeled as a dilemma action and build the whole research on, uh, on a website called Tactics for Change, uh, which is we are very passionate now to figure out how it works in different other countries. But understanding that you can be wit and you can do something really.

Humorous, like making a cake for President's birthday and then, you know, make a big mock out of it and invite journalists and then the police arrives. Uh, put the face of Mr. President on a petro barrel. Invite people to hit him with a baseball bat and pay 25 cents in Serbian dinners to do it, and then see what is going to happen.

A lot of this was experimentation and it contain this amazing part of dilemma where your opponent has only two bad choices. Uh, if they react to your prank and, uh, do something inappropriate as arresting the petrol barrel and taking it to the police station, which actually happened in a real world. Wait so slow.

Slow that down. You mean, you mean that you literally just have a barrel? [01:18:00] Yeah. Yeah. We were, we were pretty, we were pretty, we were pretty poor at the time. We were a group of 15 people, so we, we got the old petrol barrel or gas barrel or oil barrel. I don't remember what was originally in it. And we had this artist who made a amazing face of Vic on it, and then there was a hole on the top.

So like in a pinball game, and I know your, your listeners remember, but they were actually video games where you put, uh, a coin and you can play a video game. So it was very much along, along the line of that. So you kind of earn your, your three hits, like the three balls in the pimble. So you put the, the coin in it, and immediately you gain rights, do boom, boom, and boom.

Like three times, you hit the face and express your love for Mr. President. And amazingly, we put this in a, in a main pedestrian zone. I think that was the, the coolest part of it was that we invited non-political people to deal with it. So this was not us doing it. It was not opposition activists doing it.

It was like just this little great experiment, but you really, you know, check what people will do with it. So you're [01:19:00] saying the police. Arrested the barrel, is that what you're saying? Like they Oh, yeah. What actually happened was that we put this barrel in a, in a Belgrade version of Fifth Avenue, and basically the idea was to see what the police will do.

And the funny part was when they arrived, they, they were looking for us, but they were nowhere around. And then they were looking at the barrel and there's this mutilated face of president getting swollen more and more after a lot of these beating. And eventually, because they got the command to stop this thing, they had to rest the battle.

So they. Drag the barrel into the police car. And of course, everybody pulled the camera out and start taping them, and they become a punchline. But the genius behind it is the thing that we figured out. By being creative, you are making your open and strength working against him or herself. And in this case, police, uh, was the most important part of the mil oppressive machine.

And making them look ridiculous, uh, carried an extra value for itself.

How Humor Can and Can't Fight Authoritarianism - Next Comes What - Air Date 12-6-24

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: John Stewart went from skewering politicians to becoming an earnest advocate. 

JOHN STEWART: There is not [01:20:00] an empty chair on that stage. That didn't tweet out. Never forget the heroes of nine 11. Never forget their bravery.

Never forget what they did, what they gave to this country. Well, here they are.

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Vladimir Zelensky, a comic, played a president on television, then became a president. 

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: In addition to his role on that satirical TV show, Zelensky made a name for himself in Ukraine as an actor and entertainer. He won Dancing with the Stars in 2006, and he was the voice of Ukrainian Paddington 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Donald Trump.

The politician won on the basis of an imaginary persona invented by others. 

CHRIS HAYES: It's important to remember that when the Apprentice Premier back in 2004, Donald Trump was a bankrupt punchline in the New York tabloids, a guy who inherited a real estate empire from Daddy and then managed to lose it all. And that is until he was cast in the Apprentice by the producer of Survivor.

All around reality TV savant Mark Burnett, according to a fantastic new profile, Burnett New Yorker, whereas others had seen in [01:21:00] Trump only a tattered celebrity of the eighties, Burnett had glimpsed a feral charisma. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Sylvi Berlusconi in Italy dominated media as an owner before taking control of Italy itself as Prime Minister.

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: While Trump was born into a family that was already immensely wealthy, Berlusconi was born into a middle class family in Milan, normal parents, normal education, and a normal life. However, Berlusconi had something special. He was fascinated by show business and was the best salesman you could find. In fact, Berlusconi's beginnings were as a singer.

That's right. Scon started his career as a crooner who entertained parties on cruise ships in the lake. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Vladimir Putin stages, buffoonish showings of himself shirtless on horseback or camping. Like some aging film star chasing his last bit at a Rocky sequel, a shirtless Putin brave of the cold waters of a mountain lake and the Siberian wilderness.

Didn't you wanna see that? If everything becomes a show like this, then nothing is real. Entertainment has eaten politics and humor is just a branch of entertainment, [01:22:00] which is not to say that humor doesn't still have a role in opposing oppression and overwhelmingly. The authoritarian and the right in general are terrible at using humor as an art.

ARCHIVE CLIP: My pronouns are USA. My pronouns are USA. How about it? Huh? My pronouns are Kiss 

my Ass. 

My personal preferred pronouns are fried chicken and collared greens. My pronouns are patriot and ass Kicker is a American. My pronouns are I won. Please don't shoot. I'm a they. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: It might not seem fair because if you're against Trump, you sit and see Trump and his associates all the time using humor in horrific and derogatory ways that

not only, don't bring us together, but actively [01:23:00] demonize vulnerable groups. 

TONY HINCHCLIFFE: I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it's called Puerto Rico. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: But power has gotten more proficient at stealing and suffocating.

Its opponent's humorous resistance. 

So in Serbia during the late 1990s, a pro-democracy group called UP Tour

 Put a poster of President Laban Ovitz face. On an oil barrel, and they left a large stick near it in a shopping district. The fun that shoppers had while waiting in line eventually brought police who arrested the barrel and they couldn't arrest the people standing around. They didn't know who to put it there, so they took the barrel and that went viral.

A group that started with only 20 members became a movement of 70,000 people, tremendously expanding what they were able to accomplish. And the group embraced this [01:24:00] idea that has since come to be called Lism. 

SRDJA POPOVIC: The purpose of humor in, uh, in this sort of street, uh, protest action is to, uh, show that, that the regime has no legitimacy.

It shows the funny face of the regime, et cetera, et cetera. But at the same time, it also shows people that you can do something. And, uh, get away with it. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Which is using humor as a part of a larger nonviolent strategy to break the hold of political repression. And this kind of physical action used to humorous ends can be really effective.

In 1983 after a strike in Chile where minors were surrounded by police and violence was eminent. It was clear. The government wanted to unleash bloodshed, and so the strikers called for a different kind of demonstration in which people on an assigned day walked or drove.

Half speed. This was a form of protest by [01:25:00] which people could join in solidarity, realize their strengths. Have little or no risk of arrest. I love that example. 

ARCHIVE CLIP: Beneath the mountains in the plus outskirts of Santiago, despite the vast national debt, the general is building himself a new bunker.

It remains an open question whether he'll ever live in it. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: Another one that it was really powerful that was a televised version, was that two Italian satirists wound up blackballed from state programming leading Nobel Prize winner, Dario Foe to condemn censorship. In 2003, foe and his wife Fran Rame, put together a vicious, hilarious performance that mocked Berlusconi directly a kind of a puppet show, telling a tale where the Prime Minister through a horrible accident ends up with part of Putin's braid when Putin is assassinated by terrorists.

Humor allows the powerful to level the playing field. Opt founder, Sergio Popovic, said an [01:26:00] interview about what's happening more recently in Syria that fighting Assad is like boxing. Mike Tyson, you don't want to box Mike Tyson. Even the Mike Tyson that fought recently 

You don't wanna box him. You wanna challenge him at chess? 

 

What does this translate to for Americans? It's not enough to make Trump ridiculous. He makes himself outlandish daily and thrives on both outrage and detention. It's really about the thrill of the spectacle and defying common decency for him. Trump grows on hate from the left when it binds his followers closer to him.

Even Belu in Italy was eventually tarnished by the stories of 

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: those infamous Bunga Bunga parties, uh, that Bescon used to throw 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: in an underage girl. His political career only ended with his death in 2023. 

ARCHIVE NEWS CLIP: Think about it. Berlusconi died on the 12th of June at the age of 86. He was an old man. Well, last year he appeared on TikTok with this video.[01:27:00] 

TikTok, we're not gonna go into what he's actually saying in the message of this video, but what I want to emphasize here is that the man you just saw was an 85-year-old man when this recording was made, when he was running again in an election in which he had a real chance of winning. 

ANDREA PITZER - HOST, NEXT COMES WHAT: So Trump has to be wounded in ways that unsettle him and tarnish his impunity and his defiance of the laws in the eyes of his followers, the people who admire him for his willingness to embrace corruption and trash norms.

 

The harms, his policies do. Has to be made apparent in comic ways that might resonate even with the apolitical.

Dr. Sophia McClennon & Srdja Popovich Reveal the Revolutionary Power of Humor - Hope & Hard Pills - Air Date 2-3-25

DR. SOPHIA MCCLENNON: If you think about it, the concept that you could use humor for significant social change just goes against your gut instinct.

You think, Hey, this is serious. I need people to take this very seriously. So how could humor help that? And the answer there is that when you have any sort of [01:28:00] particular activist, um, action, you have four. Constituencies. You have the activists themselves, you have your target, you have the general public observing, and you have the security forces.

And what Liv does is it changes the entire dynamics of all of those structures. So we know that activists are typically portrayed as troublemakers, as disruptors, as a problem, but when the activists incorporate humor, they suddenly aren't scary. Right there is a huge deal and changes it. Then public perceptions that usually look at activists like, oh, these people are annoying.

They're, it's either annoying or even worse, right? And now the public is laughing with the activists. So it's creating a bond and a connection and building a movement and making it bigger. So then you also have your target. Typically, your target wants to hold onto power, right? [01:29:00] It doesn't wanna allow you to define it, but humor allows for this space.

So with the example of Milovich, if Milovich is per portraying himself as powerful, and now you use humor to sort of make fun of him, his whole image gets restructured, where you reframe the narrative through this fund. And then of course, the last piece is the security forces. What are they gonna do? When you show up at a protest and you know that they're planning to water cannon you, and you're bringing pool toys and dressed in a bathing suit, the security forces look like idiots when they're gonna water cannon you.

And so we are studying all of the ways in which humor is disruption, and so it's disruption of these status quo narratives in ways that are particularly powerful. 

ANDRE HENRY - HOST, HOPE & HARD PILLS: That is so powerful, as you just said. And I'm curious to transition into dilemma actions because I know that this is like the bread and butter for people who are pursuing [01:30:00] change when we're, when we're planning campaigns and things like that.

Could you talk a bit about what dilemma actions are and how humor helps create that dilemma? Um, while I'm saying that, I also failed to mention in the intro that, uh, you two co-wrote one of my favorite little, little booklets about this called Pranksters versus Autocrats. Great title by the way. It's super intriguing.

So could you talk a bit about dilemma actions, how humor factors in. 

 

DR. SOPHIA MCCLENNON: So we had data on how nonviolent movements are more effective than violent so that we knew.

As a baseline. Uh, the question was were there particular types of tactics that nonviolent groups could use that would elevate and effectively make things just, you know, uh, more likely to yield the concessions they wanted? You might think in recent US history of how much energy we've mobile mobilized around particular protests [01:31:00] that didn't quite get what we wanted.

So one of the things I'm interested in as a scholar is you're getting people in the street, you're getting people out there to do things and they show up, but we don't get any outcome. So the dilemma action is designed to require your opponent, your target, to have to have some reputational cost. So either they do nothing and look bad, or they do something and look bad.

So one example is, uh, you're not allowed to protest in Russia, so you are going to now set up Lego toys to do the protest for, for you and hold the signs you wish you could hold. And so now the question is, do the toys get to stay and make their protest or do they get taken away? And so either option is going to make the target look bad.

So what you're really trying to do is to get your activists to think the three steps ahead. [01:32:00] What can poke. At the results you want. And so what we decided to do was not just, again, take all of the years of experience of Canvas, but really measure this. So we measured inside an existing data set, and we were able to prove conclusively that these types of tactics have a measurable success rate that's better than tra traditional conventional protest tactics.

SECTION C: PROTEST

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C protest.

"Resistance" Isn't Enough for Trump 2.0 with Dr. Dana Fisher - Factually! with Adam Conover - Air Date 3-5-25

DR. DANA FISHER: Last time around, there was a women's march. The women's march was huge and amazing.

We had a people's march this time around where we had smaller numbers, but there were hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets, across the country, two days before the inauguration this time around. Okay. And, um, since then, now, after the first women's march, what happened was people kind of went back to their homes.

A lot of them formed, you know, chapters of Indivisible. They formed, what do they call them? Huddles of the Women's March. Um, other groups were formed 10 days after the first women's march. There was the travel ban, [01:33:00] and people got riled up and started to mobilize, and they started to go to town hall meetings.

They started to cause trouble and pushed back against their elected officials in their communities. We're starting to see something similar 10 days after the people's march. There was the federal freeze, right? 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: And all of a sudden we did see, we've seen a lot of similar pushback as we did to the travel ban since then.

We did not have a women's march. We did not have that big day in the streets. Although, to be honest, like the point of those types of big days in the street are all about giving people a sense to have like a collective grieving, a collective moment of identity formation. I don't know that we need that this time around, to be honest with you.

The thing that I'm really afraid of is that a lot of people are feeling so personally attacked because they have, you know, trans kids who are losing their gender affirming medicine because they are being, you know, fired from the federal government because. You know, all of these different policies are being pushed back.

Mean because they work in DEI, right? Yeah. I mean like the list goes on and on. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Or they're a person of color who works for [01:34:00] an organization that suddenly had its DEI department acts. 

DR. DANA FISHER: Right? Or they're, or they're, you know, a recent arrival in the United States who came here because you know, we're supposed to be this great melting pot.

And instead, even though they have citizenship, they're being told that they are basically not having their citizenship honored. How about that one? Yeah. Or they have family members. I mean, I have so many people I know who have family members who they're worried are gonna be deported. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: I mean, all of these people are terrified and all of them are being affected in ways that are really different from 2017.

I think that what we're going to see is people working together in a really different way. But one of the things that my research has shown is that it's not necessarily gonna be peaceful, and it's certainly not gonna be electorally focused like last time around. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Mm-hmm.

DR. DANA FISHER: Because last time around, the resistance really held the line and was like, it's all about the elections.

It's all about the blue wave. Right? Well we got a blue wave. Yeah. And then we got Joe Biden, and here we are again. Yeah. So it's not like it was a mistake that Trump won the first time around. It was just, it was, it was a warning. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: And we didn't really [01:35:00] heed the warning as well as we should have. So now this is a bigger warning. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: But it still feels that the response, I mean.

If you're saying that the protests that we're having now are, hey, they're sizable. Mm-hmm. The, the Women's March was successful to some degree. I mean, but it still brought us to this point. Like, why would we think that the amount of protests and resistance that we're seeing now would be any more effective than what happened in 2017?

DR. DANA FISHER: Oh no, I'm saying that this is just the beginning. Mm-hmm. I think we are, but I'm saying that there are people who are already protesting. I think that we are gonna see floods of people in the streets, and I also think that we're gonna see mass strikes, which is really what we need. Right. Because the, the only way to push that back against authoritarianism is like pushing back with power of people we're pushing back with violence and, you know, I'm really hoping we're not gonna see violence.

But I mean, one of the things that, um, that I did at the People's March is I surveyed the people in the streets and I ask these people, and these are again, these are like, you know, your middle aged, you know, engaged people, most of them, and I'm [01:36:00] highly educated. And I asked them, you know, this question that we adapted from a, a national survey. And the question was, um. To what degree do you agree or disagree with his statement, um, that political violence may be necessary to protect democracy.

And a third of the people at the People's March said they agreed or strongly agreed with that statement, which is a huge shift. Wow. From what we have seen back during the American Values Survey, the last time they feel that it was only 8% of Democrats, and lemme just say it, the people's March, it was 93% of the people in the crowds voted for Kamala Harris.

Mm-hmm. So these are Democrats. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: And they are starting to shift their opinion. So that's the thing I'm worried about. But I'm not saying we have enough people in the streets right now. I'm saying there are enough people who are starting to feel threatened that they're gonna push back. And you know, what we can hope for is they push back in a peaceful way.

But one of the things that I would just say for anybody who's feeling like they're alone and their only one under attack, they need to look to their left and look to their right. Yeah. Because so many people. Feeling isolated and afraid right now. And like we talked about last time, the [01:37:00] best thing you can do in that moment is get angry.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: Because anger helps to unify our energy and help us to think through how we push back. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Or get angry with other people. Don't get angry by yourself. Right. Scrolling. 

DR. DANA FISHER: Yeah. Well, if you turn into Luigi, and that's not that we don't, nobody wants that. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Well, well, let's just say that some, some people do want that.

I mean, you're talking about the rise of political violence Oh yeah. In America. And like, you know, that killing was an act of political violence. Oh, for It was. Oh, for sure. Explicitly, uh, political assassination. 

DR. DANA FISHER: Well, I mean, and at the people's march, I can't tell you how many signs, pink glitter signs that said Free Luigi.

That we see in the crowd. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah.

DR. DANA FISHER: It was. Really surprising. I mean, I did not expect that. Right. I expected the hats, I figured the hats would be back. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: But, you know, I I, you should have expected the free Luigi signs. I mean, the man became a, a folk hero to, I mean, the comments of this video are gonna be like, I love Luigi.

Feel free to pop. Literally, like, if 

DR. DANA FISHER: you can give money to him now, apparently he's taking donations while he's in jail. 

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: I, I mean, it, it, that is, that says so much about the mood in America, and [01:38:00] that's not a mood I'm gonna gonna contradict. That's people's actual feeling. Right? Right. Yeah. Um, but what do you credit to, you know, average folks saying no political violence might be necessary on a large scale.

Why would that shift happen? 

DR. DANA FISHER: I think it's happening because people don't believe in the elections anymore. I mean, first of all, yeah. I think that during the first Trump administration, lots of people were feeling really uncomfortable. And there were all these discussions in the media, oh, why aren't people having a general strike?

Why aren't people getting violent in the streets? I mean, and it was like Maddie Glaces was saying it. Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times was saying it. And you know, I was the person who was like collecting the data in the streets. So I always was called to say, what do you think, Dana? And I was like, well, I think that people are really like laser focused on the elections.

Well, we have now a person in the White House who said that the last election in 2024 was the last election that anybody had to vote in, right? Mm-hmm. And we know that, um, kind of our democratic elections are, you know, fraught. And we know a lot of people are losing their jobs and [01:39:00] losing their livelihoods.

And the idea that they're gonna be like, oh, I'll just wait until 2026. It'll all be okay. I can just hold my breath. My kids don't need to eat till then. That's like unfathomable. Yeah. So this shift towards violence makes sense because we know from research that when people feel like they have no other choice, that's when they get violent.

That's when they get aggressive, that's when they get really confrontational. What my hope is that people choose like a more confrontational but peaceful option. Nonviolent civil disobedience. Let's give it all a try. Let's go there first. Right? But there are a lot of guns in our country and that's concern worthy.

Beyond Trump: The new frontlines for climate action - Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast - Air Date 2-13-25

TOM RIVETT-CARNAC - HOST, OUTRAGE + OPTIMISM: JD Vance talked about this fascinatingly saying, Christianity is about loving your family first and then the next level out your community and then your town, and only them whatever's left over for the rest of the world. This idea of a kind of qualified Christian Love to me is very different from what I learned at school about universalism and it's creating.

A different world in their image, and I think we are all slightly being dragged along behind at the moment. 

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Well, that's the point. Should we allow ourselves to [01:40:00] be dragged? That's exactly the point, Tom. That is where resistance comes. I. If we allow ourselves to be dragged through and everyone that we know, then we are capitulating to this totally responsibility.

That is where I draw the line. 

PAUL DICKENSON: And Tom, you said they're doing all of these things. I I, I'm just gonna draw your attention to the fact that they're trying to do all of these things, right? It's a good point. And some of them, they may be able to do, and many of them, they're not gonna be able to do. And, and Drudges have been saying, no, you can't do this, and you can't do that.

And there's this new narrative saying, well. We're not gonna respect the rule of law anymore. Look, I I think that people need to focus on the level of corruption going on here. You know, the, uh, the Trump meme coin, you know, when it was launched just before the election, it raised about 14 billion. You know, anyone can pay Trump for anything.

These are obscene levels of corruption. One thing I wanna draw attention to. A lot of people who should know better are sort of saying, oh, well, there's been a change in the mood. You know, and I think, you know, we've probably gone a bit too far on DEI and, and climate [01:41:00] and trans values, and I'm like, wait a minute.

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: What's DEI, Paul?

PAUL DICKENSON: Uh, diversity, equity and Inclusion. Thank you for the acronyms episode. But I'm, I'm, I've seen climate combined with, um, Marxism. And transgender rights. There's a real effort to try and, uh, mix things up and confuse, but I, I just want to, I just want to warn I think major corporations, major investors don't get so excited that there's some sort of marvelous new, uh, recovery of, of animal spirits, of capitalism in the USA.

There may well be, uh, over the months and years ahead, the exposure of the most phenomenal corruption. And, you know, you don't wanna be on the wrong side of history here because this stuff is serious and people will be taking it very seriously for a long time. The obscenity of people who profess themselves is religious thinking that there's something smart about depriving the, the poor of, or, or, or the vulnerable or the.

Ill of what they need to stay alive from the largest economy in the world. Who should be able to afford a little bit of aid. [01:42:00] I dunno if anyone saw the obscene X or Tweet or whatever from Musk who said, you know, I could have gone to some cool parties, but I put the US A ID in in the wood chipper at the weekend.

I mean, it's clear that people all over the world are going to die as a result of these cuts, and I do hope Elon Musk has time to reflect upon the severity of that. 

TOM RIVETT-CARNAC - HOST, OUTRAGE + OPTIMISM: Well, we promised listeners at the beginning of this episode that we wouldn't only go down this difficult, challenging route. You know, there is a lot that can be done.

We are not beholden only to waiting for governments to kind of come down from on high and solve complicated problems for us. And actually, as we know, having spent years in the climate space, governments are often the last to move. They often shore up the progress that is made by corporations, investors, citizens, legal process, and other different elements.

So. Given that the world is facing all of these difficult challenges right now with government progress, and I agree Christiana, that we've been talking about Trump, which is us, but it is having a chilling effect around the world. [01:43:00] Although we hope that other countries will still maintain their leadership, but nevertheless, there are an enormous number of leavers of change.

There's technology, there's businesses, there's mass engagement of citizens as litigation. We had a conversation about this when we were all together a few weeks ago, and I started by asking Paul which lever he wanted to kick off with.

PAUL DICKENSON: This is kind of like the craziest subject because the extent of investment in so to say clean energy is extraordinary. I mean, in fact, VIR at the IEA, perhaps the most authoritative figure in the world on this, the International Energy Agency says we are kind of spending about $2 on clean energy for every $1 on fossil fuels.

Hmm. But that's an extraordinary number. You've got renewable energy, you've got the investment in grids, you've got the investment in storage. And you've got the investment in efficiency. A lot of people, uh, miss efficiency, but it, it has often been called the first fuel and it, you know, it's absolutely extraordinary to consider the capacity for us to just simply redesign systems to, to make them more efficient.

This is [01:44:00] a podcast, so we are denied these extraordinary graphs I'm looking at for wind generation, for solar generation, for electric car fleets, for battery storage. But they are all exponential. I mean, wind and to some extent solar growth, slightly slower wind because it's so big. But the electric car fleets and the battery storage really are doubling each year.

TOM RIVETT-CARNAC - HOST, OUTRAGE + OPTIMISM: I mean, let's just reflect on that doubling each year. That's an astonishing statistic. And you think, and you might start from a small base, like one to two, two to four, but then once you start going four to eight, 16, you've done it basically. It doesn't take long. 

PAUL DICKENSON: And I mean, there's a meta concept here, which, which you, you've heard me talk about before, which I think is incredibly important.

This energy's free, you know, energy from the sun. This is what you taught me, Christiana. The sun doesn't send you a bill, the wind doesn't send you a bill. You know that that can cost more to install this material. And then you have to deal with intermittency. You have to have smart grids and storage. But once you've made the investment, the energy's free Now.

Who are gonna be the free energy superpowers, who are gonna be the leaders of the free energy world. I think China [01:45:00] will and, and is extraordinary in its capacity to do this. But we see so many opportunities for combinations of things like grid, liberalization, uh, energy policy regulations, but when they come together.

Extraordinary things can be achieved. And that's why we're peaking fossil fuel consumption because so much of this other stuff is working all right. 

TOM RIVETT-CARNAC - HOST, OUTRAGE + OPTIMISM: Technology, I mean, a hundred percent. That's, and that's often what drives policy as well.

Former NFL Player Chris Kluwe On His Arrest Protesting MAGA - Edge of Sports - Air Date 2-24-25

CHRIS KLUWE: The Huntington Beach City Council has been messing with the library for at least like two years, two and a half years now.

And, um, it originally started with a book ban. Uh, they wanted to ban a bunch of books from the children's section, uh, primarily L-G-B-T-Q books. And so that's like, I, I was speaking out at that point 'cause I'm like, Hey, this is not okay. Like this is, this is a First Amendment violation. Um, and then it proceeded from there to where they got huge community pushback.

So like, okay, well we're gonna establish like a, a 23 person panel that will review all the books in the library and determine where they go. And, and the bad books will go into special, like, adults only section. It's just like, but that's just a book band, right? [01:46:00] That's, that's, that's the exact same thing.

So there was huge community pushback on that. And 'cause, 'cause they actually established the panel. So in response, a group called, uh, protect hp, they, they've been fighting to, you know, keep them the, from, from fucking with the library. They're like, we're going to start a petition to where you are gonna have to dissolve this panel.

Because they're like, we think there's enough residents in this city that don't like what you're doing. And yeah, sure enough, they got more than enough signatures. And um, that was actually one of the things also on the agenda for that meeting. I didn't, I didn't get to see it 'cause I was in jail at that point.

But, but yeah. So anyways, so, um, the panel was established. Then the next thing they tried to do is privatize the library. 'cause they're like, Hey, you know, we don't like the way the library is run because it's free and open and like actually treating people with dignity. We wanna sell it off and scrap it for parts.

And so again, huge pushback. Another petition that was also on the agenda last week or this week. So finally we get to the MAGA plaque, which [01:47:00] is just like. 

DAVE ZIRIN - HOST, EDGE OF SPORTS: Say those words again. The MAGA plaque, did you say? 

CHRIS KLUWE: Yeah. Yeah, the MAGA plaque. So, so there was a, so Protect, HP sent out this email saying, Hey, there's a library commission meeting where, you know, they, they, they've come up with a plaque to honor the 50th anniversary of the library.

It was like, great, you know, we should honor our library. It's a fantastic library. It's a crown jewel of Huntington Beach. Like people come from cities all around to go to this library. Um, but the plaque that they had proposed was this hideous, like black and gold monstrosity, I'm sure coincidentally in Proud Boycots.

Like I'm, I'm sure that was just a happy accident. Um, and. It had an acronym or an acrostic in, in the middle of the plaque, like fully displayed. That spelled out MAGA going down. And then I think it was like magical, alluring, galvanizing, and adventurous where that were the actual words. I don't know about you, but when I think of a library, I.

Alluring is not the first word I wanna associate with it. Yeah. That gives me some skeevy vibes. Totally, [01:48:00] totally may 

DAVE ZIRIN - HOST, EDGE OF SPORTS: Maybe for the adult section, right? 

CHRIS KLUWE: Yeah, you gotta, you gotta take your books out in a brown paper bag, so, so anyway, so this library commission meeting like it is, I was there for that one too.

Uh, over 90% of the people speaking were, and, and I mean, there, there was at least like 30 or 40 people speaking, you know, which is for a library commission meeting, like that's a big turnout. Mm-hmm. And, and over 90% of the people speaking were like. Yeah, no, don't, don't do this. This, this is terrible. This is really bad.

And the library commission rubber stamped it. Um, they, they sent it to the council and like, not even any debate around it or anything, they're just like, yeah, no, we approve the plaque. And so the, the council meeting this week was about like actually adopting the plaque for the library. And at that point, um, based on my previous interactions with this city council, like, it, it, it had become super clear.

They do not care about the community. They don't, they don't care what the community actually wants. They're only in office to try to get more power and to try to rise higher into Trump's orbit. And, and, [01:49:00] and it's illustrated really clearly by our, our previous, um, uh, city attorney, uh, who just left us, Michael Gates.

Um, he has wasted hundreds of thousands of our taxpayer dollars. Um, trying to defend frivolous lawsuits, keeping the city from building housing that's required by the state of California. Like there, there's no way these suits are gonna win in court, like absolutely no way. But he keeps fighting them because he know Trump's Li, he know, he knows Trump likes that kind of thing.

And sure enough, now he's in Trump's administration, and, and, and then the council gave him a rousing sendoff. It's like he's doing great work. So yeah, this, this is what they all want. They, they want to springboard from their position to hire up in the Trump administration and, and it's just a naked grab for power.

Like they, they really don't care about the community. And so when I, when I saw, you know, the plaque issue, sorry, go ahead. Oh no, please. You finish, please. Yep. Yeah, so, so, so when I saw that the plaque was, you know, gonna be on the, on the agenda for, for this week, I was like, okay, well I guess like it's, it's time to actually like do something.

[01:50:00] 'cause you know, they're not gonna listen. They've shown they're not gonna listen. People know they're not gonna listen and, and there's this sense of resigned frustration when people talk and give public comment in, in that. They, they, they're angry because they want to make their voices heard, but they know at the end of the day that the council isn't even going to debate the issue.

Like they're not even gonna bring up the fact that so many people are speaking out against it. They're just gonna be like, Nope, we do what we want. Fuck you. And so that was when I was like, okay, well I, I guess I'm gonna have to make them listen this time. And then, yeah. So I, I came up with the, you know, with my speech, which, which I, I posted the full three minute one online.

Um, 'cause normally you're supposed to get three minutes for public content. Uh, public comment. Um, our, our. Current mayor, uh, Mr. Burns, um, no relation to the Simpson's character. Uh, he, he chopped it down to one minute, um, at the, at the start of, of session, which again made it clear they really weren't interested in listening to the community.

And so I was like, okay, well I'll, you know, cut out certain parts to, you know, to make a fit. But the, but at the end I knew, okay, I'm, [01:51:00] I'm gonna go protest. Like, I'm, I'm gonna go up on the, on the dais and, and force them to arrest me because this is not okay. Like it, it's. Someone, someone has to take a stand at some point and, and if our elected officials aren't gonna do it, I guess, fuck, I guess I gotta do it.

SECTION D: BOYCOTT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: This is Section D boycott.

Protesting Tesla Can Hurt Elon Musk - Tech Won't Save Us - Air Date 2-27-25

ED NIEDERMEYER: If you build scale, that you drive down the cost, right? And so if you drive down the cost, you broaden the market, right?

Sort of like what you're supposed to be doing with EVs. But the problem is, is that the Falcon nine did drive down the cost of launch, at least in theory, but it didn't create enough demand for it. And so they have like 80% of the launch market, and yet half of their launches are launching their own starlink satellites.

Because they can't find paying customers for it, and that starlink loses money. So it's like saying, well, if I have a car business and I make 500,000 units, you know, I can sell 'em at this price. If I make a million units, I can sell 'em lower and the market will be bigger. But you build that factory for a million units and people aren't buying them at the lower price, and so you have to sell 'em to yourself to a rental fleet that loses money.

This is not a sustainable business. [01:52:00] That's essentially what I think is happening at SpaceX. Yeah, we don't know because it's private back on track. Tesla, it's only half of his wealth on paper. But it's really the only place he has of getting cash, and he has two ways of doing it. He can sell the stock. He did a little bit to fund the Twitter deal, but if he does more than that, it's like a monkey trap, where as long as he owns a big chunk of Tesla, he's associated with Tesla and people buy it because he's involved.

If he starts to sell it signals, he's not confident in it. And a lot of people are gonna take that signal and sell as a result of it. So he can't really sell. Plus you'd have to pay taxes. And so what he does is he pledges those shares. To get loans from Big Wall Street Banks, Morgan Stanley, kind of being the big one.

What that means is that a. He only can get so much cash out of it. It's not one-to-one, right? You have to pledge like any other loan. You have to pledge a good amount of collateral for the loan. And what it also means is that if the stock starts to go down, his collateral, the value of his collateral goes down.

And if he has cash out from those loans, he has to put, he. Collateral back in this is what's called a margin call, right? And so [01:53:00] what happens if the stock goes below the level that he needs it to be at? He gets margin called. He has to, in very short notice, put more stock or cash into this. So what will happen is he'll have to sell the stock, which will drive the price down, which will continue to trigger margin calls while also signaling to everyone else that he's on his way out and that they need to get out while they can.

It switches the dynamic. From greed to fear. People don't understand. They look at the number on his wealth and they assume A, that he can pull all that out in cash and throw out at elections and throw out everything else. He can't, the cash that he pulls out through these loans, he has like three private jets like his, his lifestyle is not cheap.

So not only can he not pull the cash out, but if that stock starts to go down, if we trigger this fear cycle instead of a greed cycle, there are these traps built in and because of his loans, that will then create this like death spiral. And so one of the things that I'm really trying to get people to understand is, again.

A, on the rhetorical level, he's not good at business, but B, the big numbers, those are actually the vulnerability, not his strength. That's what makes him vulnerable. There is a [01:54:00] real scenario where in theory, we could wipe out his wealth in a matter of days or weeks if the right dynamic takes hold. 

PARIS MARX - HOST, TECH WON'T SAVE US: And so then what do you see as the opportunities to really hurt Tesla and by extension Elon Musk in that way?

What are the actions that people can take, or what needs to be done to kind of sap this confidence in Tesla so that you kind of scare. The market and investors away from it. 

ED NIEDERMEYER: The important thing for me is that people just understand that that is a viable strategy. What I want is to see people understand that strategy and start to align around it.

The tactical level of how you implement that. I think there's a million ways it shouldn't be up to me. You know what I mean? I, I have a book to write. I got other things going on. I'm happy to explain the strategy of this, but I really think that Tesla take down, by the way, check out the. Hashtag Tesla takedown, you'll get plugged into the community that that's already opening their eyes to this and starting to work on this.

What I wanna make clear is we can start with protests. We can start every Saturday at 11:00 AM We can go down to our local Tesla store and we can go out there and we can let our friends and neighbors know that I. Anything you do [01:55:00] that puts a dollar into this company is directly supporting Elon Musk and that if we starve this company of its revenue, and again, this is sales of new cars servicing existing cars, and this is charging at Superchargers, all of these things support this company.

Every dollar that we take outta their revenue. Drives down the core fundamentals of their business. Even worse, and this is the important thing, right? Boycotts have been done before. Frankly, the record in this country, in the US in particular is not that great, unfortunately. And, and, and I'm aware of that, but this is different because we haven't had a boycott of a company that is this precarious before.

And so part of it is this overvalued stock. That's built on fraud and that we can switch from, it's only psychology keeping it up. There is no fundamental economics keeping this up. That's the important thing to understand. The other thing is sales. Uh, were down like 11% in China and whatever sales they're getting, their competition is so tough.

They're basically not making any money. Sales are down huge in Europe, like 40, 50% in some of those European markets, right? Huge. So US is it, this is the last place. If we can drive down the sales here. The [01:56:00] core fundamentals of that business fall apart. Elon doesn't have anything to get investors to believe that the core business will improve for years.

He can show a new car tomorrow. It'll be two years, at least before that, that is actually generating real like meaningful cash flow or profit for the company. And so anything that starves Tesla of money that makes the brand toxic, that lets people know that Elon Musk is vulnerable, is aligned with the cause.

And again, I don't want to tell people what to do. Whatever it is, whatever you want to do, you know, if you want to go out on the street and protest. Do that. If you think that's Boomer cringe and you wanna do some kind of online advocacy, you wanna leave bad reviews. You, I mean, there's again, I don't even want to tell people what to do because use your imagination.

People know how to fuck shit up. All I'm saying is, is that this opportunity exists. We don't get to vote for two years at all at the federal level. We didn't get to vote for Elon in the first place anyway. Our choices are literally doom, scroll and feel helpless. And fantasize about someone else taking care of this for us, or we can do something [01:57:00] ourselves.

And I'll tell you, you know, I had my eyes open in 2015 about this. For the longest time I. I thought, oh, I'm just a little blogger. All I have to do is sort of, I think we talked about this on the show, you know, before, in a past episode, put up the flare. Let people know, Hey, there's frog going on here.

There's bad things going on here. The cavalry's gonna arrive, the grownups will will show up and take care of this. And it hasn't happened. It hasn't happened. Take it for me. I've been running that experiment for a decade, right? I have the data. It doesn't work. There is no cavalry, no one's coming to rescue us.

We do have this opportunity, frankly, you know, if people have other ideas, I'm all open to them. But strategically, I think this is the only way we do something about this, and there's a million ways that we can affect. That. Right. And again, it can be art, it can be protest, it can be online activism, it can be organizing.

It can be just getting the word out and just be talking to your neighbors about why they should sell the car.

Resistance in the Time of Monsters w/ Colin Smalley - Jacobin Radio - Air Date 2-18-25

CHARLIE ANGUS: I think it's really important to say Canadians don't wear our patriotism on our sleeve. We don't like talking about our flag. You know, we got American neighbors and we just don't do that thing. [01:58:00] Uh, we love our veterans. Our people went and fought in every dirty hole fighting Nazis, but when they came home.

They just went about their lives. It's something Canadians compartmentalize, so we're not used to this sort of rah rah flag waving. But what Donald Trump did when he got elected was he began to make an attack on our sovereignty on our nation, saying that we didn't deserve to be a country and that we were gonna have to kiss his ring or he was gonna cause unprecedented economic harm.

That changed everything. Canadians said, you're gonna take our nation from us. I don't think so. So the resistance began there and my role in the resistance was the morning after the Trump election. I woke up like everyone else, with the worst hangover on the planet. I didn't want to get outta bed. My wife, who's smarter than me, said, you haven't posted anything.

And I said, what's her to post? She said, I don't care. You gotta start rallying people. And I was really thinking of [01:59:00] Antonio Graham. She's line that we are now in the time of monsters and that we needed language to talk about the threat to democracy. That this isn't, this isn't just disinformation, this isn't just the right owning the libs.

This is something much darker and more dangerous to democracy. So I've been writing about that, speaking in parliament, trying to frame it. And then when we saw his actions on January 6th, his threat against Denmark, uh, Greenland, his threats against Canada. For some reason people turned to me and said, you've got the language.

So the resistance began there. I started calling my page the resistance, because we are in this not to win this trade war. We're in this to defeat fascist tyranny. Um, the United States will either go down in the darkness at this time or it will come out, I don't know as a Canadian, but I sure as hell know that my country's not gonna go down that hole with it.

SUZI WIESSMAN - HOST, JACOBIN RADIO: That's brilliant. And of course it's really interesting that, you know, when Trump, first of all, this is all illegal. We know that. And, and there's resistance not just in Canada, but in the United States, and there's [02:00:00] gonna be a big day of action. But it seems that what he really wants is, you know, I. Rare earth minerals, all of that kind of thing.

So it's, it's got an economic, uh, definitely, you know, some sort of way of enriching Donald Trump even more. And Musk as well. But maybe you could like talk a little bit more about what tariffs would mean in Canada and especially like in the different regions. I mentioned that Ontario is gigantic, but what about other provinces like say Alberta.

CHARLIE ANGUS: It's really important to know that one of the reasons that Ontario has such a massive manufacturing economy is because of this whole notion of just in time delivery. So Toledo, Ohio needs something for their auto plant. They're getting it from Kitchen Ontario. Kitchen Ontario needs something to get a vehicle off the assembly line.

They're getting it from Buffalo. This is the integrated system. So. If Donald Trump throws massive [02:01:00] tariffs on the auto sector, even if it's one sided, but we've been talking to auto experts who'll say like, within a week bowling green goes down, Arlington goes down. Definitely Toledo and Michigan plants go down because the system isn't built.

I to throw tariff walls up because we decided, and I don't know if it was a good idea, maybe back in the day, we should have kept our plants and their plants, but we all went along with Reagan saying this was a great idea. Yeah. So there will be havoc and we know if they throw 25% across the board, it's going to cause havoc for us.

But he gave us no choice. He said, I'm going to put havoc on you. You're gonna break as a nation and become a state, well, we will suffer any loss rather than that. So what's happening now is in the last Showdown, Kentucky Bourbon, their main market is Ontario. Every bottle of Kentucky Bourbon was to pull it off the shelves.

Every bottle in my little town, 5,000 people, I'm not gonna say how much people drink, but it's working class. Took five hours of pulling all that Kentucky bourbon [02:02:00] off the shelves, and they said, we've got all the crates. We're ready. To pack it up and send it back to Kentucky. So now the governor of Kentucky's speaking up.

So there the implications are, are very serious. And then the grassroots started, ordinary people started canceling trips and started sending messages. And that's where I began to start reaching out to people. And what I was amazed at is this is way across traditional party lines. I mean, when a woman reaches out to me and said she's canceled an eight person golf tournament in Arizona.

I don't think she probably votes new Democrat. Maybe she does, but for the love of her country, she's not going to Arizona. You know, all our snowbirds in Florida, 38% of Florida's money is Canadian. I've got people saying, I lost my deposit, I lost the flights, but I would rather eat that than give Donald Trump a dollar.

So. The numbers we're hearing is a potential loss of 140,000 jobs in the US if just 10% of Canadians hold the boycott. And right now, [02:03:00] from what we're seeing, it's much higher. People are really animated. They're not buying anything on the, in the stores that are American. They're insisting that we hold the line.

And this isn't just, if Donald Trump backs down, people think we've gotta go the whole way until this regime. Is ended because they represent a fundamental threat to our values as a nation. 

SUZI WIESSMAN - HOST, JACOBIN RADIO: I'm so glad you said that. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, the sort of grassroots nature of this boycott?

You've just mentioned that it includes Canadians across the political spectrum, and in a way, I guess you can think, this is probably the wrong word, Trump must, for unifying Canadians at least on this issue, but did it just come about spontaneously? Is there, are there actions like days of actions planned or No have taken place?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Um. The political left didn't see this coming. I saw it because people started reaching out to me because I was posting messages about Canada and [02:04:00] messages about our values, messages about, you know, our grandfathers and our uncles who lie and all the, the World War II battlefields all over Europe fighting Nazis.

And I said, do you think that our uncles fought and died? So that we'd sell our country out and people started sending me pictures of their great uncle where their dad is buried. Like it was very emotional and I was realizing, I was talking to people who come from veterans, families who come from rural Canada, and it's a really unique thing.

And I just wanna say, Canadians, our main focus other than hockey is fighting with each other. We love to squabble French versus English, north versus south, east versus west, indigenous, indigenous versus settler. We love to whine and blame the others and urban versus rural, but when you threaten our nation, suddenly everything changed.

And so suddenly everybody was on the same page and. I was a bit naive at first. I remember being in a little coffee shop and I live in very, very working class, you know, mining town, and the women [02:05:00] were sitting there, they were like, right on, Charlie, we're we got your back. And I said, Hey ladies, you know you're not supposed to buy.

And they said, don't talk to us about that. We've been doing that for weeks. I was like, yeah, you have been. I just realized, and you've already been doing that. So it's in a really unique, uh, moment of social action where it's not being run by a group of organizers, planners. It's super, super, super grassroots and that's what's going to make it indestructible.

Boycotts, Town Halls, & Other Actions - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Show - Air Date 2-28-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW : Can we start with today's economic blackout? Can you explain who got this going and how you understand the actual goals of today in particular?

JOHN NICHOLS: Sure. The blackout, as you well explained in your intro, has been driven by a group called People's Union and has gained, I think, a significant number of supporters today. If you go on social media, you're going to see rock bands like Pearl Jam, and activists, actors, others, stepping up and saying, I'm not doing any business [02:06:00] today or we're not selling things today, or whatever. I think it's gotten at least a baseline of support. It comes in the context, Brian, of a broader boycott movement. I know we'll talk about all sorts of other things in a moment, but it's very important to understand that we've had some boycott actions going now for the better part of a month.

Nina Turner, the activist, launched a boycott that said some gotten some note against Target when it dropped some of its DEI programs. Reverend Al Sharpton has also been looking at boycotts and actual other actions related to dropping DEI. There's roots there that go back a bit. Just to let you know, obviously, we're talking today about this boycott, but there's an Amazon boycott, a Nestle's boycott, a Walmart boycott, another economic blackout, and a General Mills boycott, scheduled for the next month and a half.

A lot of people are kind of returning to [02:07:00] this notion of a boycott as a tool to pressure corporations with the notion that doing so might actually influence some of the broader actions of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party. A final thing I'll note is there's an action called Tesla Takedown, which has been organized by a number of folks, and it's actually been quite notable. These are weekend protests at Tesla dealers and in other spaces related to Elon Musk. If anything, that initiative seems to have gotten a particular amount of traction in many parts of the country.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW : Can you explain how participants hope that boycotting private sector retailers of any kind might help fight what they see as Trump and Musk trashing the rule of law, being bullies on behalf of billionaires, establishing an authoritarian United States government, little [02:08:00] things like that? How does that trickle up in theory or in practice?

JOHN NICHOLS: Well, there is a sense that CEOs and billionaires and such talk to each other and that they take note of pressures that one might feel, and particularly if that one happens to be in the government, like Elon Musk. This is a way to speak to them in the language that they understand, which is money, that the accumulation of money or difficulty in accumulating money. I think, again, that's why a group like the Tesla Takedown folks have really focused on, literally, I think in their messaging saying, "Sell your Tesla, sell your Tesla, sell your stock, get away from this," as a way of sending a signal.

Now, when you talk in the broader economy, that's a complexity. It is not necessarily an easy way to speak to power unless it gets very large, and you get to a point [02:09:00] where-- I'm not sure today will be that day, but if it's an ongoing effort and you Keep building energy, building strength, till you get to a day where there really is a very notable across-the-board impact on the economy. Look, I've covered politics for way too long, and I can tell you when the economy gets shaky, even in these recent days, when we've seen the stock market having a little bit of instability, that is when a lot of people in power, both in economics and in politics, take notice.

SECTION E: RESOURCES

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Next up Section E Resources.

What can I do to fight the coup? - Make Your Damn Bed - Air Date 2-22-25

JULIE MERICA -HOST, MAKE YOUR DAMN BED : While I was reading Rebecca Solnit's blog, meditations in an emergency, she referred to a resistance list on Choose Democracy, us, and of course I had to check it out immediately and what I found was an up-to-date database filled with stories of people's non-cooperation against Trump's coup.

And it included links to databases of non-cooperation as well as trackers of the [02:10:00] litigation and impact of the litigation against Trump's current infractions. It's a great place to hope, scroll, and to look for some resources and stories of people's non-cooperation that can ideally inspire your own if you're able.

So of course, I'll include it in the show notes. But instead of reading from that thread, I decided to click around on the Choose Democracy US website. Again, I've been there before, but I wanted to see how updated it was since the last time I had checked it out, and there were some incredibly valuable resources within the website, specifically on the page that says, what can I do to fight this coup?

It says, quote, if you look, there are people resisting at every level. Blockades of freeways. American Bar Association, urging to end illegal orders. Past Inspector Generals penning op-eds all while the current inspector General refuses to accept her illegal firing. And don't forget the Pope slamming VP Vance's [02:11:00] Theology.

We can't put everything that you could do in this document, but they've included some potential starting points on how to orient and help fight the coup, and it felt really relevant considering the last couple of documents I've shared about the subject. The first thing they suggest is to get with others to act.

They say when you're alone, it's too easy to freeze. While keyboard warriors and protest attenders are important, you'll feel the greatest strength if you gather with others semi-regularly. To plan together, to share together, and to act together. This might mean creating an affinity group and a true affinity group is a small group of people who come together to prepare for and take direct action.

They make decisions together and support each other during and after the action. Sometimes these groups are formed just for one action, but often they are ongoing groups that organize and take part in actions over a number of years. The affinity between people in the group is something [02:12:00] that they have in common.

In general, people in an affinity group will be focused on taking action on the same issues. They'll share aims and tactics. Some affinity groups may also be structured around something else you have in common, such as living in the same area or sharing a particular skill. The key to affinity groups is that they're organized along the principles of non hierarchy and autonomy.

This means that decisions are made directly within the group by all members, and responsibility and power is shared so that everyone can have an equal voice. I've included a link from Seeds for change.org.uk about affinity groups. That includes not only definitions for and ways to take action, but also a guide for how to sustain the group and how to deal with common issues.

But if curating an entire group around a shared goal just isn't accessible to you right now. Maybe you could just set up a food date with friends, plan a potluck, and consider having planned [02:13:00] actions then like writing letters or postcards, or calling your local representatives with notes. Or maybe you just organize weekly study groups or care calls to check in on your neighbors.

The second suggestion from Choose Democracy US is to pressure a pillar of support to defect. Coups are only successful when society bows to the orders of the autocrat. These pillars of support are military, the media, and corporations. So pick a pillar you want to pressure, and every day do at least one small thing to get them to defect.

Whether that's sharing articles about companies trying to exploit the coup, or filing a formal complaint to the treasury about Musks. Theft of our information. I recently left a very nasty review on Google Maps about them changing the name of Gulf of Mexico, and that tiny glimmer of catharsis only took me like 30 seconds to do.

I also want to re encourage you to join boycotts called by reputable groups so that we can make a boycott [02:14:00] meaningful. Boycotting target has been really successful where Walmart is the next target, and of course, they suggest to organize within your workplace. Plan, strikes and shutdowns. Set up picket lines outside of stores.

Do actions dedicated to the CEOs, the executives, and the board members, and focus on growing these boycotts in size. If you're the chronically online type, maybe you can become a meme machine about Elon Musk in his takeover of government, or you can flood the DEI snitch line. If you're a federal worker, don't quit.

Stay inside and gum up the machine. So if you are a federal worker or you know someone who is, you can share a resource that I've included in the show notes that is specifically written for feds that is both current and thorough and incredibly insightful for anyone going through whistle blowing or losing their job or needing legal support.

Or looking into other career opportunities or contacting the [02:15:00] press. So if you know someone who works in the federal government and aligns with a lot of your values or is confused on what to do, share this document with them. Also, if you know anyone in the military remind them of their constitutional obligation to refuse unconstitutional orders, I've also included.

An incredible resource for members of security forces that can serve as a guide to supporting pro-democracy movements from within. If you are interested in protesting specifically, you can go to build the resistance.org/actions, or the link in the show notes to the same website. To see if there are any protests or actions near you that you can get involved in, or if you want something you could do very quickly today.

You can use five calls.org to call your elected officials and tell them that you, their constituent is demanding. They do something to stop Musk's coup. Or if you're like me, a blue.in a red state, you can put up political signs in your yard or in your window. [02:16:00] Indivisible. DOT org has done a great job at organizing some campaigns, and they've also offered us a guide for pressuring your elected officials.

I've included links to that guide in the show notes as well. And if you've got extra money, donate to places like Democracy Forward and the A CLU or Mutual Aid or bail funds. Or of course, you can pick a more long-term path like we discussed yesterday through protecting people. Or defending civic institutions or disrupting and disobeying or building alternatives.

The key is not to focus on everything at once, but instead to focus on something you can do to build more confidence and momentum so that you can continue to do the next right thing. As Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny, reminds us, make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of move fast and break things, like the logic of all coups is to gain quick, dramatic successes that deter and [02:17:00] demoralize and create the impression of inevitability, but nothing is inevitable.

Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them.

Gramsci on Authoritarianism- Against the Grain - Air Date 2-11-25

SASHA LILY - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: Jordan, you were talking about how Gramsci paid a big price for rejecting this dogmatic notion of, uh, how economic crises are supposed to.

You know, in a sense, almost a caricature of Marxist thinking that they lead to the, you know, sudden enlightenment of the masses who then pick up the red flag and march off into the glorious future. And that notion that a crisis is always going to be this incredibly propitious opportunity for. The radical left may not be the case, and certainly led to incredible sectarianism in Germany by the German Communist Party in the lead up to, um, Hitler's ascendancy.

Given [02:18:00] Thatchy had. Had a different understanding of crises and what they could do. Can you tell us about how he saw them in relationship to the rise of reactionary forces, which of of course is something that we are seeing now and we'll talk about later in the program. Out of the global economic crisis in a pandemic, we have also seen reactionary forces arise.

How did GCI understand crises as this? Highly complicated moment of both promise, but also great peril. 

JORDAN CAMP: I think that one of the reasons that the late great gr she and scholar Joseph Buttigieg argued that, uh, gr she was a non-dogmatic, uh, democratic thinker for our times was precisely for his refusal to embrace [02:19:00] the vacuous leftist sectarianism that you described, which had failed to, you know, develop an adequate theory and practice to confront fascism. It really distinguishes him, and it's particularly his approach to his method. Um, I'll say more about this. Let, let me just say this, you know, the last time I was, uh, speaking with you on the show at least, was in June, 2020.

And you asked me these really astute questions about how the cycle of rebellions that had been sparked by the murder of George Floyd, the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis of global capitalism on a scale we hadn't seen since the thirties was taking shape. And as I was preparing for this, I was thinking about it, you know, this is a, a turning point in the history of global capitalism and an intensification of global social conflict.

That has to be thought about in relationship to this resurgence of the far right, though it has much [02:20:00] deeper roots and so on and so forth. It did jump scales I think in, in different ways in this moment and over the last few years I've been trying to draw on Chy and Stewart Hall and and WB Du Bois's and, and Ani Bje and Angela Davis and other people's writings.

To really understand these dynamics because as you say in the question, you know, Gramsci saw the rise of the fascist far right as kind of the central challenge of, you know, the post World War I or into war conjuncture and he theorizes, you know, the fascist far right or or fascism as a form of Caesars, which is kind of short for the Roman dictator, you know, Julius Caesar and.

He was using this as in a way, and he thought his audiences, at least in the Italian context, would've understood that reference. But he was, he was obviously also following the lead of, of, of Karl Marx who had written this important book on the [02:21:00] 18th Bruer. And, you know, looking at Marx's writings on, you know.

The Partisanism and, uh, authoritarianism in the 19th century that had modeled for gramsci how to look at the balance of forces, the political, the economic in a concrete historicized way. So Marxist conjunction analysis. Monoism became a kind of model for what, for what Gramsci was doing to understand the rise of fascism.

And, you know, this was, again, you know, I had said in my answer to your previous, um, question that the Marxist Leninist parties had, you know, kinda reduced fascism to the dominance of the most reactionary forms of, of finance capital. Argued that fascist ideology was homogenous and kind of solidly formed, and therefore, for the most part, um, and not exclusively, I, I [02:22:00] don't mean to caricature people, there were some complicated thinkers, but again, these are lines that people were following.

Um, and there were lines that Ingram, she's judgment, failed to consider how it was that fascism had been able to shore up a certain popular. Consent to a capitalist resolution of a structural crisis. Right. And I mean, you know, there was pandemic, there was capitalist crisis, there was war, there was civil war.

And we have to understand that it was in that context that, that this failure, that motivated grime, she to explore how the fascist far right had taken shape in response to what he described as a crisis of hegemony. A crisis of authority that followed World War I, by which he meant a kind of, um, legitimacy crisis, uh, for capital in the state where the, you know, the masses no longer, you know, believe what they [02:23:00] used to.

And he was also concerned with how Mussolini and the fascist right, have been able to absorb elements of the last focus on workers into the program of the right. We should go back and think about that, right? I mean, Mussolini had come outta the socialist movement. He's appropriating this discourse. You know, this I think made Gramsci observe that, you know, the social basis though, for the fascist far right was the petty bourgeoisie who had formed the core membership of the National Fascist Party.

And so I think this is really important to understand that this kind of crisis of liberalism. Had led many Italians to give up on democracy and to live kind of vicariously through authoritarian demagogues like Mussolini, who are these strong men like Caesar, uh, who, you know, promoted a kind of contempt for workers and democracy as as common sense.

And this is [02:24:00] what was leading, you know, gramsci to, you know, focus on precisely what the right was up to ideologically, politically, and economically, and offer a kind of non reductionist, non-dogmatic method for doing so.

Pathways to stop authoritarianism - Make Your Damn Bed -Air Date 2-20-25

JULIE MERICA -HOST, MAKE YOUR DAMN BED : A while back I stumbled upon a Google Doc titled, looking for What to Do, some Actions to Stop Authoritarianism. In it, it says, maybe you're wondering, what should I do In these times, what we have put down here are some meaningful places to start.

Doable, local, impactful, and important. It's not intended to be inclusive of all options. It's not a place for the up to the minute protests. We're trying to offer places. We see people making impacts and avenues that as experienced organizers thinking about these times, we see as worth doing. Where possible we'll offer names of groups who are organizing such things and can help you plug into their strategy no matter where you come from.

Here are some [02:25:00] ideas. If you wanna help stand for a world with tolerance and love, racial justice and acceptance of all people. They've also included a link to choose democracy us. What can I do where you can sign up for up-to-date newsletters as well as another outline of things you can do to get involved.

I'll be linking both in the show notes if you're interested. But back at the Google Doc, the first suggestion is to find a path that speaks to you, and then it offers us Daniel Hunter's categorization from 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won. Which I did refer to in a past episode, but it's valuable and helpful, and so I wanted to reread it.

And in the various ways to take action as outlined by Daniel Hunter, there are four paths in which you can take. You can protect people, you can defend civic institutions, you can disrupt and disobey, or you can build alternatives. Protecting people, of course, focuses on [02:26:00] harm reduction. And will include the people surviving and protecting our own, especially focusing on the protection of those directly targeted such as trans folks, folks in need of abortions and immigrants.

The next is to defend civic institutions by safeguarding democratic institutions like the elections or the Environmental Protection Agency. We can create pushback for an administration that wants these systems to crumble so they can exert greater control over our lives. The next potential path is to disrupt and disobey, which includes strategizing acts to support disobedience and protest policy.

Does go beyond protesting for better policies and instead goes into the territory of people intervening to stop bad policies or just generally putting up resistance to the fascist regime. And the final potential path is to build alternatives, whether this be parallel institutions. Or alternative party platforms [02:27:00] or just creating a new culture around the democracy, because we cannot and should not just be stuck reacting to and stopping the bad.

We have to have a vision for the good and the future that we could have. This is the slow growth work of building alternative ways that are more democratic, accessible and equitable. Once you've chosen a path for you. It doesn't have to be your forever path, but a path for right now. Then you can pick your degree of difficulty based on how much challenge you're up for, given your skills, your time, and your current life circumstances.

I. Easy actions, according to this document, can typically be done alone and with less time while we've categorized harder actions as those that require more time, more people skills, and often a small group to launch with. So once you've chosen your path and your degree of difficulty, then you can connect with a group if applicable.

This document whenever [02:28:00] possible, has tried to identify groups that can plug you in. But because this is a big, broad list, it's often national groups, but they encourage you to connect with local groups whenever possible. And the final step is to just do it. You can plan all you want, but that planning will mean nothing if you never take action.

Now this document is broken up into specific examples within each pathway. The first being protecting people. So we'll start there. Quote, autocrats, don't want us standing up for each other. And an easy way to disobey is by sending signals into your community that you care that you publicly stand with targeted communities.

And so here are some examples, starting with the easier things to do. You can partner with a local pride group and ask local businesses to put up signs, acknowledging that all folks are welcome in their stores. The Welcoming Project, which I've linked in the show notes, provides free signs and FAQ resources to encourage businesses, healthcare service [02:29:00] providers, organizations, and congregations to display welcoming signs.

And then you can ask locations that you go to to put up a sign if they don't already have one shop, and then ask, attend a workshop somewhere and ask them. If you take your kids to practices or classes, you can ask there. The medium suggestion for protecting people is to partner with a hospital or clinic to start an abortion support fund.

Specifically for folks seeking out-of-state medical care. I. You can find a local abortion support fund to support or create on the national map hosted by the National Network of Abortion Funds, which I've also linked in the show notes. The next suggestion is to build a bipartisan coalition to research, expose, and educate the community about white nationalist threats.

They did this recently in Idaho when Leaders United called out the extremist culture of permission. I've included a news article with that example in the show notes if you're interested. The next suggestion is to get [02:30:00] your school board or city council, or hospital commission, or any government agency to affirm that they are a welcoming community to all people.

There is a network called the Welcoming Network with over 300 communities that welcome immigrants publicly. Ideally, you can get your community to join them. The next is to get your religious group, school, or little league to make a resolution in support of targeted folks. For example, why vaccinations are good practice or why everyone deserves to play sports, regardless of what gender was assigned at birth.

Or talk to your faith leaders and see if your faith institutions can stretch the limits and see if police departments or local officials are willing to inform them in advance what communities and what community members might be in danger of being snatched for deportation so they can move to protect them.

The harder to do section includes things like training volunteers in your city and state based on safety skills that could be used as white nationalist violence ramps up. I'll include [02:31:00] some links in the show notes with some training support on action safety if you're interested. I. You can run support or get involved by connecting with Run for Something, which is also linked in the show notes.

And the final suggestion is to campaign against book bans in your state or town, even before they're proposed. Join Penn America's book bans campaign, which is, you guessed it, linked in the show notes. The next pathway where they've offered us suggestions is to defend civic institutions. Autocrats love weak institutions because they can twist them to their personal goals.

Institutional ethics and values and bureaucracy can all be used to resist these efforts. We may often think of federal institutions like the military, but a lot of these institutions are really local. Health commissioners, local scientists, schools, election officials, we can seek to defend local civic institutions, particularly when they are doing their [02:32:00] job and refusing to engage in immoral or unsavory acts.

The easier to do things for civil servants specifically is to download and read, serve the People, a Civil Servants Guide to 2024 and beyond . In it, you can ideally learn some strategies for what to do in the future.

SECTION F: POWER STRUCTURES

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section F Power Structures.

Trying To Undo A Coup, In The Courts - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Air Date 2-8-25

DALIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: I wanna, um, just commend to people because there's such a huge number of lawsuits, as you said, more coming every day. I, I wanna just tell people to keep, uh, an open tab. You can use just securities litigation tracker. Democracy 2025 has a good one. Court watch news has a good one. But I wonder, judge, if you would just take a minute and pan back and just help us make sense of the sort of various columns of lawsuits that are happening right now.

We've mentioned, uh, the impoundment, we've mentioned birthright, citizenship. Can you give us like the very, very, very 40,000 feet view of the big buckets [02:33:00] of actions that are being challenged? 

NANCY GERTNER: Well, there are issues with respect to immigration. A bunch of executive orders like the order on birthright citizenship.

There are orders purporting to end sanctuary city policies. Very vague. Who knows what they're talking about? And that has its own constitutional issues. There are a bunch of issues about getting access to immigrants and detention. So there's a bucket that is immigration related, which is what we anticipated.

There's no question about it. And then there's a bucket that has to do with executive action, which is first is lawsuits challenging the reinstatement of Schedule F for career employees. Schedule F was something that Trump tried before that would reclassify. People protected by civil service to political appointees to make it easier, no doubt for him to fire and replace them.

What's of course interesting is that with respect to the FBI officials, they're not waiting for Schedule F, [02:34:00] the FBI officials. That they are going after our career. Employees who are protected by civil service from being wrongfully discharged or discharged on a political basis. And then there are the various lawsuits that came out of Doge.

Uh, I sort of wanna have a Star Trek screen when I say this, you know, um, which has to do with Elon Musk and his band of renowned trying to get access to various OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. We've heard that he's trying to get access to Noah, the National Oceanic and uh, uh, administration.

There's a lawsuit having to do with the disclosure of people's personnel records to Doge. So access to information is the second big bucket. So there's immigration. Access to information by Elon Musk. And then there's a removal of the firing of individuals, one of which is the likely firing of the FBI officials.

There are [02:35:00] challenges to the pause quote called temporary pause of grants and, and loans. Those are the buckets. I don't, for the life of me know what hasn't been challenged, but once it's announced, there is a mobilization of lawyers to go into court, because this is more than your question, but I'm happy to go there.

There are three explanations for what they're doing. One explanation is, is that they don't even realize that it's illegal. That's hard to believe. That's hard to believe. The other is that they know it's illegal and they're likely to lose in court on the illegal actions, but they basically wanna scare the hell out of government employees.

So they leave. And the third bucket is that they know it's illegal and this is the scary one, and they don't care and they don't. Care and that they will therefore barrel on through knowing that it's illegal. That third alternative should chill all of us. This is a government intentionally acting lawlessly, and as I said, it's [02:36:00] possible they don't know.

That doesn't make any sense. It's possible that they'll go, whoops. Frankly, as they did with the impoundment issue, right? They tried to impound funds. A court said, you can't do that, or with birthright citizenship, you can't do that. They go, whoops. But they have scared the hell out of people in the interim

or the third bucket is that they are intentionally violating the law and court orders will not matter. Then we have full fledged coup.

Guest: Media critic Jamison Foser on 'fights' worth having; Kash Patel confirmed as FBI Director - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 2-20-25

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Your response to Edelman and the larger picture, uh, of the question of what fights to pick in the Trump era kind of struck a chord with me, as maybe you can tell, uh, for a number of reasons.

But first, focusing on just the Gulf of Mexico, the, the so-called fight. Why is that a fight worth picking as you see it? 

JAMISON FOSER: I mean, I actually come at this from a little bit different perspective. Mm-hmm. Which is, which is right now, I think the, the nature of, um, the situation that we're in and the, the [02:37:00] breadth and depth of the ways that we're in trouble.

Mm-hmm. And things are stacked against us. And an an autocratic movement has control of our entire government. Much of the news media, um, much of the ways that people get information, uh, online things are really stacked against us. We are not in a situation in which there are obvious, clear, easily discernible, winnable fights that we can choose.

Mm-hmm. And so this idea that, you know, people should, should only choose, you know, fights that they can win, I, I actually think people should choose the fights that that feel. I. Right to them in the moment and that they can get, uh, something out of, and we should, we should all be doing, uh, a little less trying to police what fights other people are choosing.

Mm-hmm. Uh, to engage in and more just finding a place we can stand up. Um, and, and, and. And pick a fight where we can, and we will probably lose it because we will probably lose most of them. Mm-hmm. But sometimes in the loss, there's some value. And in this one, there's some value. There's some value in saying, look, we can't stop [02:38:00] Donald Trump from ordering his government to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Mm-hmm. 

But we can say we are not going along with that. It is racist and dumb and he can't make us say it. And there's, there's value in, in saying that to ourselves in, in not giving into his control of the English language or his attempt to, and there's value in, in showing our fellow, uh, you know, our fellow Americans that we're not going along with that.

And that there's, there, there can be a, a, some solidarity in that, that I think is really valuable. Again, kind of particularly for the people who are the targets of. What again, is this very racist move. He's not trying to rename, um, you know, the Gulf of Mexico by accident. It's, it's specifically because it's the Gulf of Mexico that he's chosen it.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: I, and I agree with that in general actually. I agree with that in whole, but there is. Uh, and I wanna talk more about that in a second. But there is really some very specific First Amendment implications here. You know, this comes on a day that, um, [02:39:00] Trump loyalist and MAGA merchandiser, cash Patel has been confirmed as the new director of the FBI after recently declaring he would go after media outlets that he didn't like.

So here you have. The Associated Press saying, look, uh, we know it's a simple thing. You're locking us out of the, uh, oval Office because you don't like what we said. But that's actually a First Amendment, uh, issue that kind of seems like it needs to be stood up for here. And I don't know, I was kinda surprised that the, uh, senior editor of the Atlantic didn't even seem to address that.

JAMISON FOSER: Yeah, he, he seemed pretty confused overall about what his position even was. I mean, as you noted, he concluded his piece by acknowledging that Donald Trump doesn't control the English language and people can decide for themselves what to call the Gulf of Mexico. I. That's all the Associated Press did.

Right? Um, and, and so Donald Trump and his administration trying to respond to that by punishing the Associated Press for [02:40:00] doing nothing more than calling the Gulf of Mexico, what it has always been called 

Um, is, is pretty outrageous. You know, Trump's Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico only applies to how the government refers to it.

Mm-hmm. He has no legal authority to mandate how the rest of us talk about it, including the Associated Press. 

So there clearly is a, a First Amendment issue there and a Freedom speech issue. And yes, I take your point that it is bizarre for a member of the news media, um, writing in the Atlantic to, to, to say that that's, that's something that's not worth.

Standing up for, 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: and lemme go a little bit further. Uh, there, the White House Correspondence Association, as far as I know, uh, you know, some of us have called for them to, again, not the great largest issue in the world, but I think it, you know, if you let this one go, there's a lot more coming. So, uh, you know, I've called for the White House Correspondence Association to back up AP in this fight.

Some have called for, uh. For them to, you know, have their affiliates boycott White House press [02:41:00] avails, uh, in, in, in response until AP is allowed back in, into the room. If they have done that, I haven't heard about it. Should they? And, and if they have, if they have not, why wouldn't they? 

JAMISON FOSER: My understanding and, and all I know is from what I've, what I've read in some of the reporting mm-hmm.

But is that they're, they're trying to work behind the scenes to push back on this thinking that if they pick, uh, the correspondence association, that is, if they pick a very public fight over this, uh, d Trump administration won't only harden its position, but if they can perhaps behind the scenes negotiate some sort of.

Satisfying resolution that might be the best outcome. I, I'm willing to defer to their judgment on that. They know better than I do what conversations they're having. Um, but to go back to a point you made a minute ago, um. You know, about what, what happens if we back down on this? I think that actually is a really good argument for standing firm on things like this.

Mm-hmm. Like this is a relatively, um, low stakes fight in, in, in re, you know, relative to some of the other things this administration is going to do. Mm-hmm. Like illegally deporting [02:42:00] people, um, illegally harassing people via the IRS. Right. Uh, what happens if the Trump administration sees that people won't take even a low effort?

Low consequence stand against their dumbest and most unnecessary actions. That's just an invitation to roll over a on everything else. This is literally just a matter of people using the phrase Gulf of Mexico

‘We won't succumb’: Jim Acosta on the ‘lunacy’ of Trump’s takeover of the White House press pool - Velshi - Air Date 3-3-25

JIM ACOSTA: I tell folks all the time, you know, the press we're not the enemy of the people, we're defenders of the people and we're, we're here to hold their feet to the fire. And one of the reasons why Donald Trump behaves that way, he's still behaving that way, is because, uh, one, he can't handle the hard questions.

And two, there's just a part of him that thinks. We, the people don't have the right to ask these kinds of questions, and he's, and he's just wrong on both counts. Um, and Ally, you've been doing this for a long time. Um, you, you know what, what we have to do, we have a job to do and, and we're gonna continue to do it.

And for the folks over at the White House right now, uh, doing what we do for a living, my advice to them is to stand firm. Stand your ground. [02:43:00] 

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: Yeah. You were writing about this exclusion of certain people from the pool and, and most regular Americans are not. Not really clear on what the pool does, why it's important, but it's this, you know, when you gotta go into a small space like an airplane, or you're traveling with the president or the Oval Office where all the reporters can't come in, um, we rely on these people.

They're from different news, uh, organizations. You may not watch them on a regular basis. M-S-N-B-C viewers get information from, uh, a Fox reporter who's in the pool because there's an agreement amongst you reporters that you will report the information accurately if you're part of that pool. When you remove people from that, you're taking control of something the state shouldn't have control over.

JIM ACOSTA: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, look at what happened to me after that exchange you just played back in 2018. The White House at that time took my press pass away and we had to take Donald Trump to court to get it back. And it was a Trump appointed judge, uh, who gave it back to me. And you know, I think that you might see the same sort of thing this time around.

I mean, first of all, we have to say. You know, we're not the most popular people in the world, as you said. Pain in the ass. I've been called lots of things. Ally, I'm sure you have as [02:44:00] well. Um, it goes with the territory. If you wanna be liked, go be a veterinarian, as I like to tell folks. Uh, but, you know, listen, I, the press pool is a very important institution.

I. Um, over at the White House, you have the networks, uh, the television networks, trading places every day as to who's gonna be in the Oval Office, who's gonna be on Air Force, one with the president. You have print outlets like the New York Times and The Washington Post. And then you have important institutions like the Associated Press, who have been kicked out of the Oval Office, kicked off of Air Force One because they won't do something as silly as referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Something that Donald Trump just made up off the top of his head. I mean, I, you know, to me, we just shouldn't be in a situation where. We're kicked out of the press pool because we won't, uh, succumb to the warped imagination of the, uh, want tobe autocrat in the Oval Office. And I, I was glad to see the Associated Press take him to court.

And my guess is in time when this, uh, makes its way through the process, a judge, and perhaps it'll be a, a Trump appointed judge, we'll say that the White House can't get away with [02:45:00] this. Uh, 

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: the, a lot of people get their news from sources that they don't know they're getting it from. So you just mentioned the wire services, Bloomberg, Reuters Associated Press.

Putting aside the fact that many of us as journalists use the Associated Press style guides for how we determine how we say things or what we put on the screen. Um, but, but, but that stuff makes it into your local coverage without you actually knowing what the source of that reporting was. That's the danger here.

It's not, it's not Donald Trump calling you and Peter Alexander rude and things like that, because at least that's out there in the open. It's this. Insidious removal of, of press passes of, of, uh, access to, to the presidency. Uh, that's, I think the, the more dangerous part. At least your stuff plays out in real life.

When people get to opine about whether they think Jim Acosta should get his press pass or not, you're gonna just see coverage disappear. Yeah. 

JIM ACOSTA: No, there's no question about it. And, and listen, Ali, you and I both know all too, all too well, the ap, um, is a critical, uh, part of the free flow of information in American society.

They have reporters in, I think all 50 states. Uh, [02:46:00] they have reporters in some hundred countries around the world. I think billions of people see their, uh, product and, and they're a cooperative. It's not like they're out there. Making tons of money. They're, they're here for the journalism. And keep in mind what took place the other day we're at the White House Ally.

Um, according to Andrew Feinberg of the Independent, uh, the White House almost let a representative from the ta, Russian State Media News Agency, um, into the pool spray and not the Associated Press or Reuters. And that was also confirmed by a Reuters reporter. Over there at the White House. And so what are we doing here in this country where you have the White House, you have press officials whose salaries are paid for with our tax dollars.

They're letting in tasks, they're letting in the Russian media agency, uh, but not, uh. The Associated Press. I mean, this is just lunacy and it just goes back to, uh, you know, Donald Trump just having incredibly thin skin when it comes to taking the hard questions. He's just never been very good at it. Ally, and I think you and I are both, are long time [02:47:00] observers of this.

I, I think he wants the press to sort of function in the way that the Tablos did in New York when he was a real estate magnet in, uh, in Manhattan. And that's just not how it works in Washington. We're here to dig. We're here to get information. We're here to ask the hard questions. And, and, and honestly, it's why the First Amendment is there.

And, and he can't just throw that out the window willy-nilly. Um, and, and have just, you know, fawning, propagandists and sycophants in the Oval Office with him. I mean, imagine if you just had a bunch of people in the Oval Office with him asking questions like the guy the other day who was saying suit to President.

Zel, why didn't you wear a suit? Yeah, imagine. Yeah. Imagine if you just had a, a handful of people doing that sort of thing. What would be the reaction from the American people? Yeah. They would think this is like the Muppet show or something. They, they would just find it to be sheer lunacy or it just wouldn't make any sense, 

ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: or they get used to it over time.

That's the danger, right? Because, because there are governments who do this, and then you get used to the idea that, uh, it, that the, these press conferences not press conferences. They're a parade of the. You know, the ac [02:48:00] achievements and accomplishments of the dear leader, Jim, let's talk about Friday and what happened in the White House with Zelinsky.

Ironically, you're one of those people who've been the subject of a very public thing in which Donald Trump decides that he's just gonna go after someone in the way that he does. Uh, however, uh, like you zelinsky, uh. Didn't seem to flinch much. Uh, the guy's been at war for three years, so I don't know that Donald Trump yelling at him is, or JD Vance yelling at him is the biggest deal.

But experts tell me this may be an irreparable breach, that what is, what happened on Friday is a, is a rupture in a world order that we've been familiar with for 80 years. 

JIM ACOSTA: Yeah, I mean, I, I did a, uh, podcast on this, on Substack on Friday, wrote a piece about it over the weekend. I mean, ally, you know, I think.

Watching what unfolded on Friday, um, wa was, was a difficult moment, I think, for a lot of Americans. And because it's just not who we are. Uh, we're, we're not the kind of country that turns its back on, [02:49:00] on friends, uh, turns. Its back on countries fighting for democratic, uh, freedoms and that's exactly what.

Took place in the Oval Office on Friday to see Donald Trump and JD Vance berating velo, Zelinsky and accusing him of not thanking the United States, which hello, fact check. Um, he's thanked the United States dozens of times all the time. He's done all the time publicly, over and over again. And so, I mean, but it, but it, it was almost like, and we're seeing this a lot.

Uh, during these early weeks of the second Trump administration, almost everything the president says, or the vice president says, or top administration officials say, sounds like talking points over on Fox. It just comes out of the conservative conspiracy theory, latent ecosphere, I. That just leads them down the path of sort of Alice Wonderland stuff and, you know, and it just felt like, you know, Velo Mer Zelinsky was, was pulled into that.

He went down the rabbit hole with Trump and, and JD Vance. And this is somebody who has been courageously leading his country, um, after was [02:50:00] invaded by the Russians. Yes. It was invaded by the Russians three years ago. And it, it, you know, I, I, that's what pained me almost the most in hearing that reporter asking Zelensky.

You know why he wasn't wearing a suit? Like, hello, have you, have you seen Elon Musk wearing his dark MAGA hat in the Oval Office? Did anybody have any questions about that? You know, this is serious stuff and you need serious people in the room asking real questions.

Massive Crowds Show For Bernie Sanders In Trump States - The Rational National - Air Date 2-24-25

DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: Republicans plan to give the Riched Americans a fresh round of individual tax breaks slash the corporate tax rate yet again and cut tax on capital gains and dividends, which would let their Wall Street friends keep even more of their winnings when they sell a stock or are shower with dividends.

I don't understand how empty you have to be as a person. For this to drive you. Imagine already having all the money in the world, all the money you could, you wouldn't be able to even spend it in a lifetime, in a, in, in a hundred million lifetimes. But you want to continue doing [02:51:00] it again. You need more and more and more and more.

While on the other side of that budget cuts for programs that Americans who are nowhere near your sort of wealth and power and privilege. You want to cut programs that they need to survive. So of course, including things like Medicaid and snap, which helps more than 42 million families afford the groceries.

This gets to, uh, Bernie Sanders, why he's here, and what he wants voters specifically in these areas to do. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: So what we got right now is Republican leadership as we speak, are working on this bill. Massive tax breaks for the rich. Paid for by cuts to Medicaid education, housing, and the programs that working people need.

Now, it turns out that in the House of Representatives, there is right now [02:52:00] a reality where Republicans have a very, very slim majority. Republicans have, as I recall, 218 members. Democrats have 215, have a three vote majority. That is not much. If two Republicans go to the Speaker of the house and say, Mr.

Speaker, no way am I gonna betray my constituents. No way am I gonna make massive cuts in Medicaid and other programs to give tax breaks to billionaires, if two Republicans do it, that. Terrible Bill is defeated and what I am asking you to do is make sure that your congressman, Mr. Bacon, is one of those two Republicans.

DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: This is the point of the specific. Events is to target these voters in these Republican districts to put pressure on their representatives.

[02:53:00] So one of them mentioned there was, uh, bacon, representative Bacon, the other is, uh, representative Miller Meeks. And the intention is to ensure this bill doesn't go through. Now, they're gonna have to contend with the fact that, uh, Charles Koch has launched a $20 million campaign backing Trump's tax, Bri tax breaks.

So they're going to try and argue that this is actually good for people that. It's great to give even more money to massive corporations and billionaires and cut programs that people, that regular people are using. It's a great idea. So, uh, and this is how they fool people for, for decades at this point.

I mean, the amount of money and time through avenues like Fox News Am Radio, since, you know, the, the 1980s, this is what has slowly turned people. Turned, uh, conservatives into these complete lunatics who have a hard time even understanding what reality is because they have been so conditioned to believe this trash, that at [02:54:00] some point, at some point these billionaires are gonna help us.

And oh yeah, it's the Democrats that are the elites, only them not, you know, the billionaire cabinet that Trump has. It is just, uh, insane, but. These are the two links that Trump goes on to, um, mention in his speeches. So the one for Omaha, it's bernie sanders.com/nebraska and he encourages you to call your representative, but something worth mentioning here as well.

Uh, I will attend an organized training. I will host a meeting house party. There's an attempt here to not just put pressure on representatives, but also try and build some sort of organizing apparatus, at least specifically in these, these areas. And I'm sure he is gonna have, you know, more speeches in, in other districts.

And there seems to be an attempt here to try and really organize people in these areas and how he's going to, [02:55:00] you know, maybe utilize that in the future in some way. It remains to be seen, but this is the start. Knowing who your neighbors are, organizing with them, understand that there is a, a, a collective, uh, goal here.

And this is how eventually, uh, the people win. It takes time, it takes organizing, it takes, uh, people power, but it can't eventually happen. And here's the other link, the one for, uh, Iowa. This one, Bernie sanders.com/iowa. So same thing here, but just different representatives. Very, uh, interesting start here.

So I assume he's gonna continue this. Bernie Sanders is one of the few people in Congress who's able to, I say few people. I think the only person really that is able to get these sorts of crowds for an event that isn't a campaign or a primary event. Like it is wild to see these crowds. So it's good to see him utilizing his power in a way that organizes people and isn't just about, a [02:56:00] vote.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. Thanks to Podcasthon.org for their efforts inspiring collective action for good causes this week, and thanks to Indivisible.org for their efforts to help save our democracy. Don't forget to get involved any way you can. 

As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which include the assault on LGBTQ rights, and a deep dive into the shifting internal politics of the Democratic Party. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01, or you can simply email me to [email protected].

The additional sections of the show included clips from Unf*ing The Republic, What Comes Next?, Democracy Works, Your Undivided Attention, Hope and Hard Pills, Factually with Adam Conover, Outrage and Optimism, The Climate Podcast, [02:57:00] Edge of Sports, Tech Won't Save Us, Jacobin Radio, The Brian Lehrer Show, Make Your Damn Bed, Against the Grain, Amicus, The BradCast, Velshi, and The Rational National. 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. 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 bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You'll 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 instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, 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 [02:58:00] discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days.

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 3/15/2025

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

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

It always bears repeating that the progressive perspective on the state of the world is not that everything was going just fine before Trump showed up, but there's a world of difference between the leftist desire to improve things and Trump's bull-in-a-China-shop foreign and economic policies. Allow us to list the ways. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 55 minutes today includes the Tristan Snell Show, Democracy Now!, It Could Happen Here, Jacobin Radio, WhoWhatWhy, The PBS NewsHour, the NPR Politics podcast, and On the Media. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, Russia and Ukraine; followed by Section B, Trade wars and tariffs; Section C, USAID; and Section D, US realignment and NATO.

Project 2025 Foreign Policy America Last - The Tristan Snell Show - Air Date 8-15-25

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: What does he want to do? He wants to have a [00:01:00] mass firing of ambassadors as well. See that on page 174. They want to have a huge freeze on foreign aid across the board.

That's just at the beginning. Okay. So a mass firing of ambassadors at the beginning of a new Trump administration next January would cripple our ability to conduct foreign policy, it would send a terrible message to our allies all over the world, to adversaries all over the world too, that basically, we're asleep at the switch.

If you're just going to get rid of all of the ambassadors, rather than having some of them stay on until you can replace them through the normal senatorial approval process, you're just going to get rid of them and then have some sort of deputy ambassador that Trump appointed who didn't get confirmed by the Senate actually running our foreign policy with regard to that country, that is a very terrifying thought. That is the way that you end up with drastic lurches in foreign policy. And also, it's going to it's a sign of weakness. It's going to make America look weak everywhere we [00:02:00] do that. It's going to make America look weak that we don't have continuity, that there's this jarring schism in how the foreign policy of this country is going to be operated.

We can't have that. We simply can't have it. Even if you believe in a more conservative foreign policy, this is the exact opposite of that, too. You can say, oh, we want a more hawkish foreign policy. You might want to say, oh, you want to be tougher on China. Pick what you want. Okay. You might have a different position on how you would handle foreign policy in the world. Okay. What you never want is to show a vacuum, is to show weakness. 

So this isn't about making America strong. This is about making the government loyal to Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it. That's what's really going on here. 

Ending foreign aid for a time? Again, awful. It would sacrifice America's role in leadership in the world. It creates a vacuum that a country like China or Russia can fill. Or Iran, but especially China and Russia. That's the [00:03:00] last thing that we should want, is to suddenly say, oh, all you countries that rely on American aid, we're not going to, we're just going to stop all foreign aid just because a new president comes into office. All of that money is going to stop coming to you. What message does that send to these countries? 

And then if I'm the Chinese, it's well, great. That's perfect. We're just going to swoop into that vacuum. You can't have a vacuum because another country can fill it. If we stop exercising our leadership role in the world, it will still be filled. It's going to get filled by a different country. China, first and foremost, Russia secondarily, although they don't have as many of the resources and clout as we thought that they did; that's been exposed by their completely humiliating attempt to invade Ukraine. 

Speaking of Ukraine, they want to end aid to Ukraine. Let's just be crystal clear. Now we're getting into the real heart of this. They want to end aid to Ukraine. They do not recognize Russia as an enemy. Check out page 182. So, there's occasionally been [00:04:00] attempts by Trump to maybe have it both ways on Ukraine. Same for a lot of his cronies. But make no mistake about it: in Project 2025, they make it clear. Ukraine would get cut off. It would be over. And we would effectively be letting the Russians take the country. Even though Ukraine is very, very much winning the war. That's very obvious. And this is one of the most successful -- I'm just going to say, triumphant foreign policy moves, military moves by America in decades. This has been an absolutely wonderful slam dunk of a foreign policy move to be funding Ukraine, exposing Russian weakness, causing this deterioration of the Russian military apparatus, of the Russian industrial apparatus. And it's not because America had to actually go and send in the Marines into part of Russia or part of Ukraine. That is a triumph in foreign policy. And we're going to reverse it by then basically saying, you know what? We know Ukraine, we know you're winning the war, [00:05:00] but you know what? We're just going to cut you off now and just let the Russians take you. That would be one of the biggest catastrophes, maybe the biggest catastrophe in American foreign policy ever. Ever. I can't really think of another one that would be that bad. But that would be taking something that has become a victory for us, an emerging one, knock on wood. It could change. But right now it has continued to look like a victory every day that that war goes on and Ukraine keeps on getting more ground and defending itself better and better is a net win for America and for the West and for the whole world, for every country in the free world.

And yet the Project 2025 Donald Trump, they would end aid to Ukraine and just let the Russians come in. You have Russian tanks in Kyiv. Zelensky would get assassinated. You would have mass kidnapping, deportation. They've already done this. We think there could be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women and children that have already been abducted and forcibly moved to Russia. You'd see even more of that. [00:06:00] It would be absolute hell on earth in Ukraine if the Russians end up occupying the entire country. And that's what Donald Trump wants to do. And he wants to basically say, go ahead, Putin. Roll right in, as he put it a couple of months ago. Do whatever you want. We surrender. Go ahead and retake Eastern Europe. Rebuild the Eastern Bloc from the communist days. That is what Donald Trump wants to let Vladimir Putin do.

It doesn't end there. They want to end aid to the Kurds. They want to cut off all aid to Africa. These would be huge reversals of long standing American foreign policy that we really cannot tolerate.

This is such a drastic turn compared to any other administration, Republican or Democratic, of the last 20 years, 50 years, 80 years. 

Then get to page 191, where they're a little bit vague about it, they're a little bit Insinuating more than stating, but there's a very clear sign there about Donald Trump and Project 2025 wanting to cut off [00:07:00] American participation in NATO. And this would just be, it would be the end of, we would effectively be saying, you know what? We liked winning the cold war. We liked winning World War II. But let's just go ahead and reverse those things. The international order that America helped build in the ashes of World War II, yeah, forget about that. We don't care about that anymore. So forget NATO. NATO's colossal success as a defensive organization to protect Europe from Soviet predation and aggression? Nope, forget it. That was a great success, bipartisan, from presidents from Truman to Reagan to Biden. But forget about that. We're just going to we surrender. We're just going to take the American flag wherever it flies in any place in that part of the world in any embassies, any military bases, and just replace it with a white flag. That's what you're going to do. You're going to just say, you know what, bring back the hammer and sickle, bring back the marches on Red [00:08:00] Square, bring back Stalin. Bring back Khrushchev. That's what you're doing if we do that. We are basically letting the Kremlin run Eastern Europe and be knocking on the doorstep of Western Europe again.

If we get out of NATO, the rest of the world instantly becomes less safe. No one will ever believe America ever again for any alliance, for any military protection. We will be sending a clear message. 

These people talk about wanting to fight China. If you get out of NATO, what do you think the Japanese are going to think about us? What do you think the Koreans are going to think about us? What do you think the Taiwanese are going to think about us? China's going to look at us pulling out of NATO and be like, that's it. They're pulling back. The whole tough on China thing that the Trump people like to say is complete and utter bullshit. It is a talking point that they like, because they know it sounds good to their base because their base is fundamentally xenophobic and views China as a threat, as an alien other. But that's the only reason they actually pretend to be [00:09:00] tough on China. They're not tough on China. Tough on China is America standing by its alliances, standing by its military commitments. And not letting any of those down, not letting down our guard. If you start pulling out of NATO, the rest of our military alliances and protection arrangements will not be believed anymore. We will lose all credibility. And our enemies, like China, like Russia, like Iran, like North Korea are going to light up. They're going to think, that's it. Trump is pulling them back. They are going home. It is isolationism. 

And it's exactly what the enemies of America from within wanted to do back in the thirties, the first time somebody ran around saying America First. It was a fifth column inside this country that was backed in part by the German government to try to intercede in American domestic politics, to influence her foreign policy, and to keep America from entering World War II, to keep America from being a deterrent or a threat against [00:10:00] Germany and its aspirations to control much of the world.

Okay, that is what was going on back in the thirties with America First, and it's what Trump is wanting to do today. It is a -- we know how friendly he is with Russia. We we don't know exactly what the arrangement is. Maybe we're never going to know. But we don't need to know the specifics. We just need to see the results. By their fruits ye shall know them. And we know that Trump is pro-Kremlin all the way. And the Project 2025 proposals make that even more clear.

March 6, 2025 Full Show - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-6-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: As you look at what’s happening at USAID, the complete dismantling of this agency, can you share your critique of the agency, but what you think must be done?

KATHRYN MATHERS: Yes, I referenced Teju Cole’s framing of the humanitarian-industrial complex, because I think USAID is very much part of a system and industry that not only depends on global inequality, [00:11:00] global suffering, but in many ways produces it, reproduces it. So, I have for a long time critiqued this system and these structures, because I do think they do offer more harm than the good that they are trying to or claiming to do.

I think that this is a complex that renders the causes of global inequality invisible, hiding the ways that often U.S. policies, U.S. trade agreements and other forms of sort of extractive capitalism are often the causes of these crises, these challenges that people around the world have, that then aid steps in to help or to solve. But, in fact, it’s not solving it at all, because it’s making sure that we never, ever are asking questions: Why is it that the United States has the [00:12:00] resources, has the power to help in this way, while other people are often suffering in ways that are caused by the U.S.’s own policies?

And it’s that sort of paradox that I was trying to grapple with, because, of course, suddenly taking away what are in fact necessary, as we just heard earlier in the show, necessary programs that help people who need help, is certainly just a bull in a china shop and doing, again, only harm. So, it is, for me, a complicated paradox, because if I argued for any kind of changes, it would be that a country like the U.S. should be offering reparations for the climate damage that they’ve done in the Global South in the interest of their own economies, in the interest of their own lifestyle. And certainly, one would like to [00:13:00] see a sort of thoughtful set of plans and questions around what is it — what is it that a country like the U.S. is doing to produce this kind of inequality, to produce or reproduce the inability of countries like South Africa, for example, in making its own HIV medication and providing it to its people.

And so, there is this danger, I think, of — produced by the humanitarian-industrial complex that allows people to go, “Well, we’re doing the right thing. We’re doing a good thing,” but allows them to feel OK about their implication, their participation in a system that, in fact, helps to produce and reproduce that poverty or that inequality.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You have worked with USAID-funded projects in adult literacy and voter education in South Africa. And you write that the work was largely dependent on Western donor [00:14:00] funding, but, quote, “it always came with strings, especially the money from USAID.” What kind of strings are you talking about? How do you think USAID’s goal is ultimately about supporting the U.S. economy? And that’s a really interesting point. People may not realize, for example, that millions and millions of dollars go to peanut farmers in the United States to provide a substance that goes to babies and children to fight malnutrition, but the money doesn’t go to those other countries. It goes directly to the farmers in the U.S.

KATHRYN MATHERS: Exactly. And certainly, USAID does not make any — is not deluded about this. It works in the interest of the United States and of the U.S. economy and of its own sort of sense of self in the world, at least before this month. But a large, a large amount of its budget, small as [00:15:00] it is, in fact, as you just described, goes back to U.S. industries, to U.S. farmers, to U.S. manufacturers. And even with a small project like ours, which is not buying anything, so we get to use that — we got to use that money on our programming, a large amount of it goes to the auditors in D.C., for example. So, it is a sort of cycle of, you know, we’re giving you money for this, but much of it ends up coming back to the U.S. And in fact, it does its job of supporting sort of U.S. interests, to a large degree.

The other sort of set of strings, in a way, was that it was never really possible for an organization like us to just do our work. Project Literacy had a sustainable, working structure that was doing really good adult basic education, literacy, numeracy, financial [00:16:00] education. But to just get funding from an agency like USAID, and it’s certainly not unique in this way, was almost impossible. You know, give us funding to do the work we really do. We can prove we do it. It’s really successful. And so, every six months, you’re writing funding proposals that are bending our work into the current sexy language about what matters in aid or development. And what matters in aid or development is decided in D.C., in New York, in London, in Geneva. It’s not decided on the ground where people are doing the work. And there’s this reluctance to support that.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I wanted to ask you, Professor Mathers, about the history of critiquing USAID in many parts of the world, when it’s been used, for example, as a front for the CIA. I’d like to mention a couple of examples from Latin America. Back in 2010, USAID covertly funded a Twitter-like social media platform in Cuba to spark a “Cuban Spring,” with the hope of bringing [00:17:00] down the government. Last week, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Greg Grandin spoke to Al Jazeera’s UpFront about USAID. This is what he said.

GREG GRANDIN: AID is a perfect expression of a kind of — the fusion of hard and soft power. I mean, it does all of — it does important and humane work and, I think, was funding the only working hospital left in Gaza, things like that, and dispensing medicines in Africa, but it was also the agency in which — that funded “democracy promotion” programs. And these were all — you know, when the National Endowment for Democracy, which operates under AID, was founded in 1983 under the Reagan administration, the first director of it said, “We do in the open what the CIA used to do covertly,” meaning that they fund oppositional groups. … When in countries that are out-and-out, you know, dissenting from U.S. hegemony — say, Bolivia — you fund these organizations that basically raise the alarm that the country is heading toward dictatorship, and, you know, it manipulates the press. You know, in Bolivia, the reason why that coup didn’t take hold is because Evo Morales kicked out AID.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And you also have, for example, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive saying among the most infamous examples of USAID funding was the Office of Public Safety, a USAID police training program in the Southern Cone that also trained torturers. We only have 20 seconds. It’s not your total focus, but your thoughts on how it’s been used?

KATHRYN MATHERS: I mean, I don’t have doubt that it’s been used that way. I have no evidence of that. It’s certainly in the conversation in South Africa, for example. People would make those accusations and be frustrated about that. But I’m more interested in the way that this kind of agency shuts down South Africa’s ability to solve its own problems. It doesn’t support that ability.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I think that is key. And we’re going to link to the articles you write.

Trump's Foreign Policy - It Could Happen Here - 11-14-24

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: So his previous foreign policy was a pretty mixed bag. And he bombed the shit out of the Islamic State, right? Cool. Based. He also bombed the shit out of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians. Not so cool. Also, we should note, [00:18:00] not so different from every other president this century, bombing civilians has been pretty much the through line of American foreign policy in that part of the world for a very long time. 

In particular, in the Trump administration, I want to talk about, there was a single US strike cell called Talon Anvil. I think they were mainly CAG guys from what I read, so Delta Force guys, Army Special Forces guys, who were making these decisions. They hired an office building in Syria, and these guys were constantly looking at drone feeds and various other information and then calling in strikes on various targets, right?

I'm not sure if they had the CAG guys in there watching computers. I'm not entirely sure. And well, didn't have someone else, who knows. But this strike cell dropped more than 120,000 bombs.

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Christ.

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah. The amount of ordinance we dropped on Syria is insane. It circumvented procedures are in place to prevent civilian deaths in order to do so.

They had embedded lawyers who were supposed to approve the strikes. But these lawyers tried to raise the alarm that some of these strikes were reckless. They weren't hitting things that [00:19:00] were actual targets. And they ran into an organizational brick wall. At some point, pilots even refused to engage targets because they didn't think it was 

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Jesus.

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah, which is, it's not usual.

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah, like that's been pretty fucked for a fighter pilot to be like, no, I don't think I've ever heard of that before. 

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: No, I, so I found this out in, what is it? I think it was the New York Times. New York Times did a pretty good investigation, which we linked in our sources. And yeah, it's like a throwaway line, but I would love to hear more about that. It could have been a drone pilot too, which is slightly different gig, if you're sitting north of Las Vegas, they're flying a drone kind of a different scene. 

So in the battle to defeat the Islamic State, thousands of innocent people lost their lives. As we reached the end of that battle, Donald Trump, who was president at the time, personally called Erdogan, who was the president of Turkey at the time, in late 2018. Trump asked Erdogan, "If we withdraw our soldiers, can you clean up ISIS?" That's the quote. According to an unnamed Turkish official interviewed by Reuters, Erdogan replied [00:20:00] that Turkish forces were capable of the mission. Quote, "Then you do it," Trump told him. And his national security advisor, John Bolton, who was also on the call to, quote, "start work for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria," what this resulted in was US troops pulling out from some locations in Syria, right? Look, local people threw tomatoes at them.

Even worse than the tomatoes were the fact that it gave NATO's second largest army, which is Turkey, of course, free reign to attack the autonomous administration in northeast Syria, which it did in 2018. It did again in 2019. Those two operations have claimed considerable ground in Syria, cost countless civilian lives, continue to perpetrate human rights abuses, to rehabilitate people from ISIS and other jihadi groups, says Turkish Free Syrian Army. And, they killed some people who were people I care about and I continue to care about. The cause of Rojava or autonomous administration in northeast Syria very deeply and it really fucking sucks to think about the potential of the US abandoning those people again, not that Biden has done very [00:21:00] much.

Now, I think this anecdote of what Trump does with Erdogan tells us a lot about his approach to foreign policy, which is he really sees it as very transactional. Which is no different from everything else he does, like he's a very transactional person. And he seems really only to be concerned about what he can get out of it. So in this case, I guess he wants to say he brought US troops home from Syria, like he's anti-war. This is one of his things he says now, right? He's prepared to also, in the case of the bombing, right? He's not so concerned with civilian casualties as long as he can claim that he was the one who defeated ISIS, right? Obama couldn't do it. He did it. He did it on a pile of civilian remains. And also using chiefly the Syrian Democratic Forces, right? Not US forces. 

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah.

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: There were US forces on the ground. They were engaged in combat, but in minuscule numbers compared to SDF, who lost 15,000 of their children in a battle against ISIS. 

I think Trump would be very willing to admit that he's transactional, right? That's his brand is like America First and then [00:22:00] fuck everyone else. 

So I think he'll probably be similar in this term, right? He will act unilaterally. He'll pivot whenever the fuck he feels like it. He will continue with his affection for strong men and dictators all around the world.

Ukraine's Fight for Self-Determination w/ Howie Hawkins - Jacobin Radio - Air Date 3-3-25

DENYS PILASH: So eight years after unleashing hostilities with the occupation of Crimea, Russia started a full scale imperialist war of choice. And we remember that chilling dawn of February, 2022, exactly the same time when Nazi planes were attacking the same cities back in 1941. And once again, an empire sought to erase our existence, our sovereignty and any prospect of free and just Ukraine.

But they eventually failed with their hopes for a swift invasion. And today we stand here, not just the survivors, but the people who continue to fight to live their lives, to rebuild and to dream of a Ukraine that is liberated from chains of both foreign tyranny, [00:23:00] be it full fledged imperialist or economic neocolonialist power, and domestic injustice as well.

It should be noted that this Ukrainian defiance, with the working class at the core of the Ukrainian resistance, was assisted by international solidarity. And in many cases, this solidarity was quite feasible. So today I also wanted to convey our gratitude to those in the international leftist and labor movement who stood in solidarity and who continue to do this.

And our thanks from our organization, social movement, and from our comrades in the unions. Miners, construction, transportation, healthcare workers, like the latter have their movement be like Nina. also from individual militant unionists like Yuri Samoylov and Alexander Skiba from the Free Railway Workers Union. And he asked me to thank you for your successful fundraiser that actually helped to purchase generators, because they are literally saving lives. There was a story about an elderly grandma and one of the generators was [00:24:00] quite helpful because Russia never ceased attacking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. It never ceased attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure, power stations, energy grids. 

They often speak of peace negotiations, but it was never about proper talks on their side. It was always about forcing Ukraine to unconditional surrender. Now we see that they do no good field gestures, just to show. They instead are doubling down their attacks with drones, with the missiles on Ukrainian cities. And again, we can say that this was doubled down since Donald Trump was elected because with his return to the White House, well, it was made clear that Russia's Putin's impunity is directly fueling the rise of fascist forces in other countries and vice versa. 

So now we see that the most reactionary circles of the ruling class, they feel empowered by Putin, Trump, and they're colluding this unholy alliance of Putin's and [00:25:00] global far-right neofascism, Trumpist reaction, and Moscowian oligarchy. It seeks to reshape the world into this playground for the ultra rich, ultra authoritarian.

So now you can see this multi polarity in action, the multi polarity that Kremlin was talking a lot. It's not about making the world order more democratic or equal. It's about carving the world into spheres of influence of a handful of powers with the worst of imperial ambitions. 

Now their goal is for Ukraine to be left squashed by Putin. While Trump can turn to his ridiculous expansionism in the Western Hemisphere, unleashing hell on, I don't know, Greenlanders, Mexicans, Cubans, other Latin Americans. So, while Ukraine isn't even allowed to the table where its future is decided, so these forces of global reaction, they do not simply conspire, like in some smoke filled rooms. They act actually in broad daylight. They are just blatantly sabotaging international support, treating Ukraine's fate as just a bargaining chip in their [00:26:00] power games and their appetites. 

So just in the news, yes, we had this information about the resolution in the UN General Assembly that was just voted, advancing a comprehensive peace in Ukraine. It was drafted by Ukraine and more than 50 co-sponsors. So it still was voted by the majority of the UN members. But the U S voted against together with Russia, Israel. North Korea, Orban's Hungary, a couple of military juntas. So this seems like the, I don't know, the biggest crossover of Marvel villains.

Not even to speak about these horrendous claims that are made by the billionaire president on a daily basis. How even fact check a person whose every single statement, every digit he comes up with, is just a made up lie. 

So the worst of everything is, of course, this mentioned so-called deal that is essentially a blackmail on rare earth minerals. But you can say that it's about the entirety of Ukrainian [00:27:00] resources and infrastructure. So the terms of this so-called deal are reported to be worse than the reparations that were imposed on losing German side in World War I. This just opens Ukraine for looting by US capital in the future, but also it's forcing retroactive payment on Ukraine. Because they expect everyone bowing down without any objection. So even the still very servile approach of Zelensky's government, it infuriates them because they can't stand any sort of subjectivity agency. And also what comes with their deals is this hyper-capitalist vision. 

So now we have the richest capitalist in the world, who is literally destroying the social security, public education, healthcare, and this Is a template to be replicated throughout the world. So if they succeed, we are getting to even worse hell. And in Ukraine as well, because even more deregulation, even more anti-labor legislation to appease the US investors. 

So now we also see that uber capitalist goblins like Musk and JD Vance, they [00:28:00] declared war on democracies in Europe and worldwide, and also try to install far right, ultra conservative, Quisling style governments everywhere.

So we see that our class enemies, oligarchs and dictators, are united. So we should unite too. Because the moment to act and resist is just now. So far it seems that the resistance both internally in the US and internationally stills atomized scars and we need to really build this network of solidarity, not just with Ukraine but with the entirety of the oppressed people throughout the world, and to raise this fight to a new level. Because essentially this may actually lead us not just to betraying Ukraine, but essentially to losing any prospects for progressive development throughout the world.

Russia, Ukraine, US The Global Chessboard - WhoWhatWhy's Podcasts - Air Date 3-4-25

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: Where does NATO fit into all of this right now? 

SAM RAMANI: Well, NATO right now is in a period of severe crisis. One of the things that we found really interesting back in 2022 was the notion that NATO actually came together and actually coalesced for the most part around [00:29:00] Ukraine. There were obviously a few members who were more recalcitrant, like Hungary, which didn't supply arms to Ukraine, and Slovakia, which now claims it doesn't supply arms to Ukraine, but has defense companies on the ground that do work with the Ukrainian military.

But for the most part, the alliance was cohesive. NATO actually was able to expand during the war by bringing in Sweden and Finland over the objections of Turkey and Hungary over the course of time. And now all that solidarity, all that cohesion, all that strength seems to have frittered away and given way to weakness. Because there's this fundamental divide between the United States and Europe on how to proceed.

I think in the long run, it's still possible that NATO could end up stronger from this moment, because European countries will just be able to spend more on defense. European countries will be able to spend, for example, Britain will be looking at going from 2.5 percent to 3 percent of GDP, Germany might eventually be compelled to lift the debt break, which restricts its deficit spending, to spend more on the military, the Poles are already taking their defense spending up to 5%. So it's possible that NATO in the end could emerge [00:30:00] stronger from this rift because European countries start spending a lot more on defense.

But that's a long term thing. Right now, the cohesion and the solidarity has been severely tested, and it does appear as if the Russians and the Chinese are achieving their long term goal, which is to separate the transatlantic alliance and pit the U. S. against Europe. 

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: Does all of this represent some broader shift away from the decades old idea of collective security and mutual alliances, that we're now looking at everybody for themselves?

SAM RAMANI: Well, I think that that's certainly played a part. I think that's certainly now the guiding doctrine of American foreign policy, right? It seems to be transactionalism and America First means just looking out for what the narrow interests of the United States and not really looking after your allies. It seems to be questioning the very notion of alliances and lasting partnerships. 

So yeah, I think that this is a very significant change that we've seen coming from this. But it may also leave about this crisis, not just us European one. There's also a crisis within Europe for alliances too. France and Germany have fundamentally different visions on the [00:31:00] collective security system inside Europe and NATO, from things ranging from the French nuclear umbrella to the Sky Shield defense system to where to invest. And also when you look at polling numbers, you see only maybe 15 or 20 percent of people in Britain or France or Germany, especially those who are under the age of 50, would be willing to volunteer as troops or see their country's troops deployed in the event of a Russian invasion of, let's say, Germany. Not that many people in Britain or France will want to send their conscription at home and send troops on behalf of their allies. So there's a crisis of alliances, not just being in the US and Europe, but there's also a crisis at a popular level within the European Union and within European countries of NATO.

So it's a problem that extends well beyond Trump, even if Trump is the leading poster child of that phenomenon. 

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: And what underlies Putin's attitude at this point and the potential of Russian, further Russian aggression? 

SAM RAMANI: I think that Vladimir Putin is viewing the latest developments, obviously, with a lot of confidence and with a lot of strength. The Russian media was replete with celebrations [00:32:00] after the Oval Office meeting against Zelensky. I even saw the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, quip, they were surprised that Vance and Trump didn't start hitting Zelensky in some kind of an old, 1990s Russian-style parliamentary brawl.

And we saw a lot of confidence now to even reject the European conference out of hand. The Russian response to the London summit was that it was just leading to more war and it wasn't really a peace summit. So the Russians are feeling pretty strong and emboldened by their position. 

But can they actually convert that confidence and that strength of character into military success? That's where it proves a lot more difficult. Because the Russians are still having to bring in a second tranche of North Korean forces to prevail in Kursk. Those North Korean forces may well have learned more about drone technology because the Russians have been spreading JIRN 2 technologies to them, which JIRN 2 are the kind of versions of Iranian drones. They may have learned a little bit more about moving in smaller units and having more tactical adaptations, but they'll still suffer heavy casualties and the Russians also will [00:33:00] suffer heavy casualties there. The Russians are still grinding in Donetsk. They're making incremental gains village by village, inch by inch, but they can't even take over fully the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, which is what they need to be able to advance in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

And any hopes of the Russians taking over Kharkiv or making some kind of gains in the Zaporizhia zone or the front line do not appear to be realistic. The Russians are trying to attack Sumy, as I mentioned earlier, and Putin bragged of this brand new offensive, which the Ukrainians denied, but there's still a long way from being able to actually make a breakthrough in that region, which they took earlier in the war and they lost, to be able to cut off the Ukrainians logistically from Kursk. 

So right now I see the Russians having a lot of confidence, but it's not really bearing out on the battlefield because the Russians cannot really make anything more than very incremental gains at immense casualties.

And also, it's important to keep in mind that Russia's resources are not infinite. This narrative that Russia is de facto winning the war and Ukraine is losing, I think is misleading. Neither side is winning. That's really the point I want to make. The Russians are not only losing unsustainable [00:34:00] large numbers of casualties without a full, general mobilization, which is going to be highly unpopular, but the Russian war economy is also weaker than we assumed. It withstood the sanctions better than we thought in 2022 and 2023, but already we're starting to see a potential declining growth to the one, one and a half percent range to the 2 to 3 percent range. We're seeing inflation continue to soar in the high double digits in the major cities on consumer goods, even though interest rates are at 21%. This is not a sustainable economy. And the Russian war economy could have serious cracks or even see serious signs of strain if the Europeans intensify sanctions on oil and on other forms of revenue like the shadow fleet over the coming year. 

So Putin has got a lot of reasons to celebrate, but the picture is not rosy for him at all. It's actually quite murky because of the losses of Russian lives, their inability to make major gains on the battlefield, and the ticking time bomb that is the Russian war economy. 

 

After restarting aid to Ukraine, U.S. will present ceasefire proposal to Russia - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 3-11-25

MICHAEL WLATZ: After 10 days of US pressure on Ukraine following a disastrous Oval Office meeting, [00:35:00] Today, the US and Ukraine appear to be back in sync. 

ANCHOR, PBS NEWSHOUR: Following a meeting in Saudi Arabia, the US has restarted military and intelligence aid to Ukraine, and the US will present a joint US/Ukraine proposal to Moscow for a ceasefire. Here's Nick Schifrin with more. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: In Saudi Arabia today, a breakthrough. 

CLIP MIKE WALTZ: The Ukrainian delegation today made something very clear, that they share President Trump's vision for peace. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz alongside, secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with their Ukrainian counterparts for seven and a half hours, and after said the US and Ukraine were on the same page. 

CLIP MARCO RUBIO: Today, we made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: In exchange, the US agreed to lift a pause on military aid and intelligence cooperation to the Ukrainian military. 

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: The big difference between the last visit you saw at the Oval Office and the so. That's a total ceasefire. [00:36:00] Ukraine has agreed to it and hopefully Russia will agree to it.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: That tone...

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: A far cry from, and perhaps a rehabilitation after the February 28th Oval Office train wreck.  Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke tonight.

CLIP ZELENSKYY: Ukraine is ready for peace. Russia must also show whether it's ready to end the war or continue it. The time has come for the whole truth. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Later this week, senior advisor Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to present the joint US/Ukraine proposal. 

CLIP MARCO RUBIO: The best goodwill gesture the Russians can provide is to say yes.

To say yes to the offer that the Ukrainians have made to stop the shooting, to stop the fighting and get to the table. If they say no, then we'll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: And that was a crucial rhetorical shift today, acknowledging Ukraine's perspective and requests for long term military assistance.

CLIP MARCO RUBIO: Real negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's acceptable to both sides, sustainable, and that [00:37:00] ensures the stability and security of Ukraine for the long term. 

JOHN HERBST: As long as it's not undercut by the next step in Moscow, it's a good day which has historic significance. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: John Herbst is the former US Ambassador to Ukraine and the senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. So far, Russia has shown no public willingness to drop its Maximalist goals in Ukraine. And earlier today, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov mocked Zelenskyy as a war monger. 

CLIP: Mr. Zelenskyy publicly declares that he does not want a truce until the United States guarantees that in the event that something happens, they will bomb Russia with nuclear weapons. 

JOHN HERBST: I don't think Putin wants to agree to the ceasefire. He wants to take more Ukrainian territory. He wants to establish effective control over Ukraine, which he cannot do if he accepts the ceasefire. We'll see if he crosses Trump now, and maybe more important, what President Trump does if Putin obviously and publicly refuses to make peace on the basis of this proposal.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Guaranteeing that peace will fall mostly on Europe. Today, French President Emmanuel [00:38:00] Macron hosted military leaders who are developing plans to support Ukraine's military for the next 15 years, said French Defense Minister Sébastien. 

CLIP: Lecornu. Since 2008, we saw the Russian strategy in action, with unfortunately ceasefires that haven't been respected. We will refuse any form of demilitarization of Ukraine. 

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: But until there's an agreed ceasefire, the war rages. Overnight, Ukraine launched its largest drone attack into Russia in three years of war. Ukraine's been trying to bring the war to regular Russians bedrooms. Literally, drones hit inside apartments in the Moscow suburbs.

But Russia is making its own gains, raising the Russian tricolor over a village in the Russian region of Kursk that since the summer had been occupied by Ukraine. Earlier this week, Russian soldiers said they walked through a nine mile long natural gas pipeline in Kursk to surprise Ukrainian soldiers from the rear in now devastated villages.

This war has taken a terrible [00:39:00] toll on land and lives, and now there's a tentative step to negotiate its end. 

Trump's tariff tumult - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 3-6-25

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Just remind us, there's been so much tariff talk from Trump, but what has actually been put in place so far? 

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I think that caveat that we always put at the top of the podcast, things may have changed by the time you hear this, is particularly apt in this circumstance because it's been a wild week.

On Monday, we had no tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico. On Tuesday, we had suddenly a 25 percent tax on nearly all imports from Mexico and Canada. On Wednesday, that tax was relaxed as far as cars go. Today, it was relaxed further as far as most imports from Mexico go. That is imports covered by the U S Mexico, Canada Free Trade Agreement.

So it's changing hour by hour, day by day, but it's certainly put the economy into a lot of questionable territory. 

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: So, Asma, like Scott just said, there's been a lot of back and forth here. I mean, what is the White House trying to [00:40:00] do? Just bring us up to speed on where they're focusing these tariffs and why.

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: So, to me, these tariffs feel a lot more widespread and expansive than the tariffs in Trump term one, when you're talking about 25 percent tariffs across the board on Canada, which at this moment in time, as of taping are still in place, there were also additional 10 percent tariffs on China that the Trump administration announced last month. Then just this week, they increased that to an additional 10 percent tariff.

I've spoken to some manufacturers who say that they are now looking at about a 45 percent cumulative tariff on imports coming in from China, because I don't know if folks remember, but there were actually tariffs put in place on China during Trump's first term. The Biden administration kept those in place.

So those are still there and they're just tacking more on., right. And, and then on top of that, they have announced plans for across the board, 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports coming into the United States from any country. 

And then the big headline is on [00:41:00] April 2nd, Trump, is calling for something called reciprocal tariffs. And his basic philosophy here is that this is about fairness. He says that other countries put high tariffs on the United States. And so, we as a country ought to tariff those countries back at an equal rate. 

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Asma, you just mentioned the Trump administration saying that this is about fairness, but I just want to step back a little further. Both of you, what is Trump's ostensible rationale for doing this? 

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: They've offered multiple rationales. The tariffs against Mexico and Canada, and to some extent China, are ostensibly a reaction to fentanyl coming into the U. S. illegally, even though, in the case of Canada, virtually no fentanyl comes from Canada. 

It's also about illegal immigration. But the president has also talked about using tariffs to encourage people to manufacture in the United States as opposed to in other countries. And then he's also talked about using tariffs to raise revenue, to offset the expected loss in revenue from extending the [00:42:00] 2017 tax cuts.

The thing is, tariffs can't do all of those things. They're mutually incompatible. 

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I don't think that the deluge of tariffs should be a particular surprise to a lot of folks because Trump campaigned on tariffs. He famously said that this was the most beautiful word in the dictionary. I think we anticipated this.

They have come, though, I will say, with such a degree of speed. I mean, we didn't even mention this, but there's also investigations to possibly add tariffs to other specific things like lumber and copper. He's also floated the idea of putting tariffs on semiconductors. So this is an across the board tool, and as Scott was saying, it feels like the White House. House thinks that this is like a multipurpose, a Swiss army knife, right? Like you can pull it out for all sorts of things. 

And at some point you wonder, well, what is this? Isn't this a negotiation tactic? Is it a political tool? Is it an economic tool? Is it about raising revenue? Is it about immigration? I don't know that we have a clear vision of that. Trump officials have been asked multiple times on different television interviews what this is about. And I don't think that they have [00:43:00] delivered a clear, concise answer about what these tariffs are actually meant to achieve.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: And it's not just about goods. It's also about jobs. I want to ask you both about something that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Fox News recently. 

CLIP: Why are our Michigan jobs in Canada? Why are our Michigan jobs in Canada? And that's what the president's going to address. He's gonna say, come on back. Come on back. We're going to build Michigan. We're gonna build Ohio. 

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I mean, Scott, help us put this in context. Is it really that simple? 

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Well, the administration certainly sees it as that simple, and as we've said, they do think tariffs are a way to encourage domestic manufacturing, and this is one reason that the United Auto Workers Union has been supportive of these tariffs, even though, as we mentioned now, autos have gotten a one month reprieve from the import taxes.

But the answer to Secretary Lutnick's question is, why are those jobs in Canada? Because in this country, we've generally left it up to business people to make decisions about where factories should be [00:44:00] located. We don't leave that up to central planners in Washington at the Commerce Department or the White House.

Republicans traditionally have said we don't want the government picking winners and losers. Well, this is exactly the government picking winners and losers. When the president can, with the stroke of a pen, impose a 25 percent tax on imports and then grant selective exemptions to industries or executives or foreign governments that cozy up to him.

 

Trumps On-and-Off-Again Tariffs, and Decoding Make America Healthy Again - On the Media - Air Date 3-7-25

GORDON HANSON: The U. S. has an outsized role in the global economy. You know, we're 5 to 6 percent of the global population, but we're a little under 25 percent of global GDP. And we're taking that production, we're taking that demand for the world's goods, and we're taking our supply of goods partly offline.

It leaves the rest of the world poor as a consequence. Trump has this idea, Fortress America is based on this idea that if we go and put all these trade barriers into place, the rest of the world's just going to sit there, they aren't going to retaliate. And so what we're going to get is we're going to put pressure on other countries to lower their prices.

If [00:45:00] that were in fact the case, there's an element to that argument that goes through. We would put downward pressure on the rest of the world's prices. We'd be still paying more for those goods because we're tacking tariffs on top of them. But this is the optimal tariff argument that the proposed chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors, Steve Marin, has put forward. But the rest of the world's not going to sit idly by. They're going to retaliate. 

So what happens? We get a beggar thy neighbor situation, which we haven't seen since the 1930s in terms of the global response to the Smoot Hawley tariffs that the United States put in place, which we then spent the next several decades dismantling.

Beggar thy neighbor? Beggar thy neighbor. The idea is I'm going to make myself richer and you poorer by putting downward pressure on your prices so I can enjoy your goods at a cheaper price and you have to pay more for mine. You can do this by manipulating your currency. You can do this, if you're a big buyer of goods on the global market, by exercising your, what we think of as monopsony power, your ability to restrict demand and put [00:46:00] downward pressure on the prices of other countries exports.

That only works, me making you poorer, if you don't retaliate. If you do retaliate I make you poorer you make me poorer and we both end up worse off than when we started. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: That doesn't sound very good.

GORDON HANSON: It doesn't and you might think oh, this is just abstract economic theorizing. But no, we actually lived through this in 1930s, what did we do? We jacked up tariffs to around 33, 34 percent, and we lived with the retaliation of other countries, a more segmented, a more fortressed off world. And after World War II, we realized this just doesn't make sense. And that's where the movement that ultimately created the World Trade Organization came from, that we would be richer if we are producing for each other's markets.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And does the Trump administration not have access to this history? Do they think it will play out differently? 

GORDON HANSON: I think they have an alternative read on it. The Trump narrative would be countries then systematically cheated. It was Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s, and then it was [00:47:00] China in the later 1990s and the 2000s. And somehow Europe has cheated along the way too, though it's not entirely clear how Europe has cheated. I'm not sure what exactly Mexico and Canada are guilty of, but what the Trump administration has said is the rest of the world hasn't treated us right. 

He uses trade deficits as evidence of this, but man, that is an argument that it'd be very hard to find economists to endorse. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: The news about tariffs has just been so chaotic. It's really hard to follow, I think, for most of us. What context would you like to see in news coverage as this storyline unfolds, that we haven't been seeing enough of? 

GORDON HANSON: What we're all trying to figure out here is what's the trail map. We don't know what the intended destination is. My guess is that that destination is not going to be what Trump is advertising today, which is high tariffs across the board, because markets are going to rebel, [00:48:00] major US companies are going to rebel, and the regions, the workers who are involved in that manufacturing production are going to rebel because you're upsetting a set of economic arrangements which has allowed them to hold on to their jobs. 

So I guess what I would want. To see from the media is pressing the Trump administration on telling us where you're going. What are the steps along the way, what is the ultimate destination and what do you think that destination is going to provide for us that we can't get out of the constitution of the international economic order today?

Just saying that America is going to be richer in the future by cordoning ourselves off from the rest of the world's goods and services is not sufficient.

Global Chess Europe's Unity Strengthens While American Trade Policy Falters - The Tristan Snell Show - Air Date 3-6-25

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: Europe has now looked now looks more united than ever, even more than in 2022, where the original invasion, or full scale invasion, of Ukraine, I should say—because they already had invaded much earlier than that—the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to much stronger European unity, [00:49:00] increases in defense spending, lots of aid to Ukraine, $132 billion of it, more than the US has spent, just keep saying it. Guess what? If we keep saying it, eventually it'll sound true to people. We just need to make sure that, look, repeat a lie, it'll sound like the truth, we need to repeat a truth so it sounds like the truth. Just keep frickin doing it. Just keep it up, every goddamn time.

$132 billion for Europe, $114 billion for the US. Say it every time. Okay. 

But what's happening now is, back then, you had oh, suddenly Finland and Sweden, which had historically remained neutral and we're not part of NATO suddenly became NATO members because of all of that. You saw european boycotts of russian. Goods. You saw european countries band together to freeze assets of russian nationals held at banks and other financial institutions within their borders. All of that back in 2022 2023. Now you're seeing a new wave of pro Ukraine sentiment in Europe and Europe's leaders [00:50:00] banding together, without America, they literally held a NATO meeting, invited Canada, because NATO is basically the US, Canada, and then most of Western Europe and then a few countries you wouldn't necessarily expect like Turkey. That is NATO. They basically said, "psst hey, Trudeau, get over here." And he flew over and then the rest of them huddled and hung out with Zelenskyy and they didn't invite Trump. 

America got, again, national honor? Try me this. We're getting kicked out of a club. We started and ran and led for 75 years. We started NATO with our allies, but we were the driving force behind it to be a bulwark against Soviet aggression. That is what NATO was built for. It has been a defensive alliance from day one all the way to day today. And they're now meeting without us, because we've shown that we're basically not going to be part of that alliance anymore. 

Trump has not yet tried to [00:51:00] announce that he's leaving NATO. By the way, he might try to do that at some point. Although it is a treaty, it's in the name, North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That's a treaty and that was passed by Congress, so he can't get rid of it without Congress. So if he tries to do that, that's going to be an interesting one, but he basically left NATO. That was a constructive. NATO departure is what just happened. That's what just happened there. 

But now the Europeans are stepping up, and now they have decided to come up with a lot more money for Ukraine. I mentioned the $132 billion before. The headline that we are not really capturing here is that, as part of what is an 800—hardly any play in the US—$843 billion from Europe that is going to be spent on defense, including defense of Ukraine, and about $150 [00:52:00] billion of that, just so far, there probably will be more, is going to go to help Ukraine.

So you know what the headline really should be. It's not Donald Trump's lies about the $100 billion versus 350 billion, it is that Europe, only days after that debacle, is now in the process of more than doubling its already very robust support for Ukraine. 

The idea that they haven't been in there with this fight is absolute horseshit. They have absolutely been in this fight and helping Ukraine with this fight. And they're about to completely double down on that. That is probably not something that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were expecting, I think it's safe to say. 

I don't know if I was necessarily expecting it. There were rumblings of it right before the German elections, but I think they were trying to keep it on the DL because they didn't want it to mess up the German elections. Now, with the German [00:53:00] elections, having gone well, and clearly there being a strong effort to bring together a government in Germany that will be anti Nazi by excluding the AFD, sorry, Elon, and anti-Russia/pro-Ukraine. There will be plenty of support in Germany for both arming and helping the Ukrainians as well as rearming and beefing up the defenses of Germany and the rest of Europe. There's no talk of having a European army separate from NATO forces. This is a Absolutely gigantic change and it's happened in less than a week, not even, were basically like 5 days after that meeting and all of this has already happened.

And there's more. I'll throw one more thing in there, which is that now, today, early this morning, the EU is now announcing that it is going to [00:54:00] take steps to remove Hungary's voting privileges in the European Parliament. This is a good one. I really enjoy this, because the problem is that within the EU, Hungary is a member. They are now ruled by a pro Russia dictator, Victor Orban, who is widely loved by the American right, which tells you a lot of what you need to know. Orban, there are no other political parties in Hungary. There is no freedom of the press in Hungary. Political dissidents have been oppressed and jailed. It is very, very much a dictatorial one party state, is what is what Hungary is. 

And true to form the Hungarian government, Orban, has been extremely obstructionist. When it has come to Europe helping Ukraine, over and over and over again. There's a lot of things that the European Parliament, and this is probably something they may want to think of fixing in the future, but whatever, I'm not here to tell them what to do, but there are a lot of things for which they actually need unanimity in order [00:55:00] to pass it. And so every member country has to be okay with it. That's a bit of a problem. 

You can't really do that super well, but they're going to do the next best thing, which is that they're going to basically say, okay, yeah, everybody except Hungary gets to vote on this thing because you have a collaborationist in your European Parliament. Like, you have somebody who's cavorting with the enemy. You have an enemy within when you have Hungary there. So, if Hungary gets to vote and it's unanimity that's required is going to thwart the attempts of Europe to prevent, I wanted to say Soviet, but it's prevent Kremlin domination of Europe all over again. Europe wants to resist the Iron Curtain coming back. Germany wants to stop another Berlin wall or worse being erected. 

This is what they're up against here. Of course, they want to defend themselves, and I think they're finally really standing up and saying, if the US isn't going to help lead the way, [00:56:00] we're going to do it ourselves. So what this means for Ukraine is they're going to be, I think you're going to see the Ukrainians have more than enough support to reject any bad Russian deal and keep fighting and be able to pay for humanitarian aid and reconstruction, weaponry, everything. That's what this is bringing to the table.

Note from the Editor on Monthly-ish Recaps and the week of activism

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with the Tristan Snell Show explaining that Trump's US foreign policy is all about Trump and not at all about the US. Democracy Now! didn't shy away from highlighting problems with USAID. It Could Happen Here looked at Trump's hawkish and transactional foreign policy. Jacobin Radio discussed Ukraine's fight for self-determination and the broader struggle for democracy. WhoWhatWhy explained the Trump-induced crisis within NATO. The PBS NewsHour reported on the ongoing negotiations between the US, Russia and Ukraine. The NPR Politics Podcast discussed the [00:57:00] chaos of Trump's tariffs. On the Media looked at some of the historical context and past negative consequences of unthoughtful trade wars. And the Tristan Snell Show explained the knock-on effect in Europe of the US threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine. 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 bonus episodes featuring our team of producers, and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes 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 Podcasts app. And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information. 

If you have a question or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics that you can chime in on include [00:58:00] what resistance there is to Trump and Musk's takeover, which is more heartening than you might imagine; followed by a focus on the far right war on the LGBTQ community. So get your comments and questions in now for those topic or anything else. You can leave us 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, and there's a link in the show notes for that, or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now, as for today, I just have a quick note that feels particularly relevant today as we tackle this slate of topics that collectively feel like the entire earth is shifting beneath our feet. We just started experimenting with a new episode format, the "monthly-ish mix," which is basically a roundup of highlights from recent episodes that we plan to put out monthly-ish.

If the entire world shifting beneath your [00:59:00] feet makes you feel a little bit overwhelmed, we get that, but it is no excuse to check out entirely. So if you or someone you know are the kind of people who could benefit from a monthly-ish roundup to keep you in the know, keep an eye out for those episodes or tell the people you know to do the same. 

Secondly, I want to mention again that this coming week is going to be a big one for activism with Congress on recess, and we're releasing an episode full of inspiring action-oriented resistance type stuff. I hope that you'll share that one as far and wide as possible to help rally the troops

Now as far as nuts and bolts activism, we'd recommend connecting with Indivisible as they always have good and timely calls to action. So make sure you're following them closely in the coming days. 

SECTION A: RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. Next up, section A, Russia and Ukraine, [01:00:00] followed by Section B, trade, wars and Tariffs, section C-U-S-A-I-D, and Section D, US realignment and nato.

Writing (and Rewriting) Russian History - On the Media - Air Date 2-26-25

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: My mission was to start writing a completely different version of Russian history, because unfortunately, we have never had any kind of history of Russian people or peoples of Russia.

It has always been written by official historians who were serving The state, and they were much more propagandists than historians. 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Mm hmm. Your book explores seven myths about the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. We won't get to them all, but we'll start with the most crucial one, probably.

Unity, which was penned in a paper called Synopsis by a German monk 300 years ago. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: A myth of the unity of Slavic nations is very new. It was created only three centuries ago by that German person named Innocenti Gesell. So how does Gesell's chronicle [01:01:00] read? It starts from the creation of the world, then goes all the way to Noah and Moses and the first princes of Kiev and Rus, according to that chronicle.

direct descendants of characters of the Bible. The first statehood was created in Kiev, but then the grandsons of grandsons of the first Kievan princes moved the capital of unified Rus to the city of Moscow. He draws that imaginary line that unifies old Kiev with new Moscow. 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You say Gazelle's synopsis went on to be used as a textbook.

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: It was one of the first scientific texts on Russian history, and Nikita Gezel could not have foreseen that, but Peter the Great loved it, and it was used by all the official historians. Actually, it was the main source of the information for most Russian historians in 18th century and [01:02:00] the 19th century till 20th century.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, so stay with the era of Peter the Great when the Ukrainian leader, or Hetman, Ivan Mazepa, was navigating two different empires, Sweden's and Russia's, now rapidly expanding. How did Mazepa become a symbol of betrayal? That would be the second myth that still resonates today. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: During that period, Ukraine has become part of Russian Empire, and he was considered to be one of the very close military leaders to Russian Emperor Peter the Great.

As Mazepa He always considered himself to be first Ukrainian leader and only then ally of the Russian czar. When the situation for his homeland has become really dangerous, he has chosen to switch sides and ally with Swedish emperor. And that symbolic choice is [01:03:00] still considered for many years to be a symbolic betrayal by Russian historians.

At the same time, for Ukrainian historians, on the contrary, he chose his own people and his own nation. And he might have been A traitor, if he had chosen Peter the Great, but not his people. And is right now, during the current war, it's associated with Ukrainian words, zhrada. That means betrayal, a very important political term in today's Ukraine.

That moral dilemma of Ivan Mazepa. It's always raised when a politician or an activist has a choice between real interests of his nation and his people. And 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: it explains so much because in the last year or so, at various international cultural events like the PEN conference, which stands for the Freedom of Writers, Ukrainian [01:04:00] writers simply won't appear on the same stage with Russians, even if those Russians are dissidents and at risk and opposed to Putin's war.

I never understood until you explain the idea of Zrada. Why Ukrainians would shun those Russians. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: Ukrainians blame not only Russian government and not only Vladimir Putin, but Russia as such, and all representatives of Russian culture. Ukrainians blame Pushkin as well as Joseph Brodsky, Dostoevsky, or other representatives of Russian culture, claiming that they were imperialists.

That's a very important idea for me because I think that we won't find common grounds before we address all those issues. And we cannot, as Russian writers, Russian intellectuals, we cannot say, don't touch Pushkin, he's sacred, he's our everything. That would be just blind. [01:05:00] We should reconsider. all the mistakes and crimes of Russian culture as well.

And we are not the first. Very symbolic example is, for example, Kipling, who has written the infamous poem about White man's burden. Yes. And Jungle Book is not canceled, is still loved by kids all over the world. But this particular Concept of Kipling is widely discussed and is denounced by British intellectuals and by British historians, and we must do that.

We must get rid of our historical myths and of our sacred cows, including Pushkin or Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn. Do 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: you want to just get rid of Dostoyevsky? 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: No, no, I

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You mean that we have to understand that he's a creature of his time? 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: We should read him in full. And if he was terribly wrong, we must find courage to admit it and to say it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You liken [01:06:00] the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko to Frederick Douglass, because Shevchenko was basically a serf who happened to become the greatest Ukrainian poet, liberated at the same time as Frederick Douglass ran away from slavery to New York City and liberated himself. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: There are no parallels in history, definitely, but there are rhymes, and different countries were facing very similar political and social process and serfdom is a form of slavery.

Serfdom in Russia was abolished the same year as the American Civil War started. And Taras Shevchenko is the first writer who used classic traditional literary Ukrainian language, because before him Ukrainians could reach the highest positions in Russian cultural elite or political bureaucracy. They could have become members of government or chancellors with [01:07:00] only one condition.

If they abandoned their Ukrainian background and started speaking Russian. So Shevchenko, even after being liberated and even after he had become one of the most popular artists in St. Petersburg, he never stopped writing in Ukrainian and he has become a moral example. 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: It's interesting though how many Russians suggest that Ukrainian is actually just pigeon Russian.

The words look alike. They sound alike. How do you address the language issue or the language myth. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: A lot of Russians, and we know that Vladimir Putin is one of them, consider Ukrainian not as a real language but as provincial Russian. Unfortunately, all those people don't know anything about Ukrainian literature or the history of Ukrainian language, and they don't know, for example, the history of Russian [01:08:00] authorities, especially in 18th and 19th and 20th century.

To suppress the usage of Ukrainian languages. Ukrainian books were banned. The education in Ukrainian was permanently banned. So yes, that's a real historical tragedy, and it's funny that the language that does not exist was banned and then still exists even after all those centuries. 

Ukraines Nukes, Trumps Trade War, and Mehrsa Baradaran on Neoliberalism - The Foreign Report - Air Date 3-7-25

SEENA GHAZNAVI - HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: But I wanted to talk a little bit about history at the top of the show here. Because at the time of Going back to the Soviet Union falling.

The time of Ukraine's independence. Okay? 1991. The former Soviet Union had nuclear weapons spread all across the Union. But when the Soviet Union fell in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine, there was nuclear material. In that time, in 1991, Ukraine held the third largest [01:09:00] nuclear arsenal in the world. They had 1, 900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, and 44 strategic bombers.

All those missiles technically belong to the new Russian government. And so there was a deal done called the Lisbon Protocol in 1992, where Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, agreed to return the nuclear weapons to Russia. But in 92, the states all agreed to join the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, uh, which is, you know, Russia and U.

S. and Kazakhstan, Belarus and, Ukraine all agreed to reduce their nuclear weapons, of course, and they all signed on to it, and this was supposed to create a framework. But you know, you don't just like, as we've seen this week, you know, a deal says, someone says a deal's gonna get done, and then it takes a while to sign the deal.

Sometimes they say they're not gonna sign the deal. Sometimes they say, I'm gonna sign the deal, but you gotta do X, Y, and Z. That's basically what was happening here. [01:10:00] In 93, the people inside Ukraine elected officials started admittedly, you know, becoming skeptical about handing all these nukes. That after they just got independence from the Soviet Union, whoever thought they wouldn't, they wouldn't be, I don't know, they wouldn't feel confident giving all these nukes to the Russians.

It's hard 

SAMAN ARBABI - CO-HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: to imagine.

SEENA GHAZNAVI - HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: It's hard to imagine. I know. And so they are saying to themselves, well, wait a minute. What if we just, we just fought all this way. We just did all this, all this stuff. I don't want to just give hand these people all these nukes. So in April of 1993, 162 Ukrainian politicians. signed a statement that added preconditions to the START treaty before it was ratified.

That included security assurances from Russia and the United States for an aid for dismantlement, because you can't just copy and paste or cut, copy and paste these [01:11:00] weapons. You got to dismantle them. You got to do all this stuff and then compensation for all that nuclear material. Okay. Yeah. What the beak.

So there was some back and forth. And again, the Ukrainians still didn't want to give up all their delivery vehicles and their warheads. So there's all this back and forth. This is now two years after they are now independent from the Soviet union. And they're like, are we going to just give them everything?

It wasn't until 1994. A trilateral statement was reached where Ukraine committed to full disarmament in exchange for economic support and security assurances from both the United States and Russia. So Russia was like, listen, we'll make sure no one fucks with you. United States was like, we're definitely going to make sure no one fucks with you.

Russia is chill now. You have nothing to worry about. I promise you, nothing will happen in Russia that will upend this entire agreement and make you feel like you're going to be at war again. What could [01:12:00] possibly go wrong? The United States and the Russians literally had to, like, drag these weapons out of Ukrainians hands.

Because they didn't trust the former Soviet Union, of course. They had to get security guarantees, funding. I mean, this is crazy. And here's the thing, Russia has wanted Eastern Ukraine since the very beginning. Okay, demographically speaking, it's all these things. They've wanted. And so, of course, things unravel.

The reason we bring all this up is because in 2018, a clip was going around recently on the old social medias, and it was from our current Secretary of State, then Senator, Marco Rubio. 

CLIP MARCO RUBIO: In the early 1990s, Ukraine was left with the world's third largest stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear weapons on the planet.

But they signed this agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom, [01:13:00] and the Soviet, and Russia, that basically said, if you give up your nuclear weapons, we, these three countries that signed to this, will provide for your defense and assure you of your defense. And so, Ukraine did that. They gave up these weapons.

Well now, this was signed in 1994. Twenty years later, one of the three countries that signed that agreement hasn't just not provided for their defense, they actually invaded them. And I want to make a point on this for a second. Think about if you're one of these other countries around the world right now that feels threatened by your neighbors.

And the United States and the rest of the world are going to you and saying, Listen, don't develop nuclear weapons. Don't develop nuclear weapons, South Korea. Don't develop nuclear weapons, Japan. Don't develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia. We will protect you. We will watch out for you. What kind of lesson do you think this instance sends to them?

I think the message this is sending to many nations around the world is perhaps we can no longer count on the security promises made [01:14:00] by the free world. Perhaps we need to start looking out for ourselves. And that's why the Ukrainian situation is so much more important than simply what's happening in Europe.

This has implications around the world. Yeah. 

Merkley 'What Else Could a Russian Asset Do That Trump Hasn't Yet Done - The BradCast - Air Date 3-6-25

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: So here's how some of that hearing, uh, this past week and the questioning by Senator Merkley in that, uh, hearing of those two nominees, here's how that went in the Senate foreign relations committee hearing on Tuesday.

SENATOR MERKLEY: I wanted to, uh, uh, ask you, Mr. Lindo is president Trump. Absolutely not, Senator. He's the President of the United States, duly elected by the American people. Well, the reason I ask is, many people back home have been asking me this question. And they say, if he was an asset, we would see exactly what he's doing now.

For example, He proceeded to forward or [01:15:00] express from the Oval Office propaganda that has been Russian propagandist, that Ukraine started the war, that Zelensky is a dictator. Second of all, he gave away key things on the negotiating table before the negotiations even started, U. S. would absolutely oppose, um, any possibility of, of NATO, uh, membership for Ukraine.

Uh, third, he's cut off the arms shipments to Ukraine, completely undermining their ability against a massive neighbor next door with short supply lines and, and huge resources. Fourth, he's undermined the partnership with Europe, which has been essential to security over the last eight, 80 years, a major.

Major goal of, of, of Putin's and then he's done everything to discredit and dismean Zelensky on the international stage [01:16:00] with the Just shameful press conference in which he teamed up with the vice president to attack Zelensky I can't imagine that if he was a Russian asset, he could be do anything more favorable than these five points What else could a Russian asset act actually possibly do that that Trump hasn't yet done?

Senator the The president has made it absolutely clear that his top priority is to try to bring peace and end an absolutely savage war. I know you're familiar with the savagery. This is turning into World War I style trench warfare now in eastern Ukraine. The president is an exceptionally gifted Dealmaker he is probably the only individual in the entire universe that could actually stop this the president understands as part of his deal Well, let's turn to another of that.

You've got the carrots and say thank you very much since you're now off the topic I was raising Mr. Whitaker these five things that the president has [01:17:00] done that are so favorable. So to Putin and so Damaging to Ukraine and to our partnership with Europe. Do you approve of them? 

CABINET MEMBER: Well, Senator, thanks for that question.

I'm just going to have to politely disagree with you on those five things and the way you've framed them. You know, the war in Ukraine would have never happened if President Trump was president in 2022. The war in Ukraine happened because of Joe Biden's weakness after his withdrawal from Afghanistan. I don't think that was the question I asked, 

SENATOR MERKLEY: but maybe you could some other time go on television and express those points of view.

But do you mind just answering the question I asked? Do you agree with the five things that President Trump has done, starting with him expressing Russian propaganda from the Oval Office. 

CABINET MEMBER: Well, you know, again, as I mentioned to your colleague, I'm not here to assign labels. We're in the middle of a very, uh, important peace negotiation.

Okay. Thank you. 

SENATOR MERKLEY: Uh, I, I do hope that we have an administration that works to get The very best deal for Ukraine, but what a Russian asset would do [01:18:00] would be to work to get the very best deal for Russia and that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: So he doesn't make a bad point there, Donald, Donald Trump, is Donald Trump a Russian asset?

Well, he's an exceptionally gifted deal maker and the only person in this universe Who could negotiate an end to this war? That was Senator, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon on Tuesday on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, confirmation hearings questioning Trump's choices for Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and for NATO Ambassador, former toilet salesman Matt Whitaker, asking them the simple question, what else could a Russian asset?

Actually possibly do that Donald Trump has, has not yet done stick a pin in that question for the moment, cause I'm going to get back to it because we've got, uh, [01:19:00] some fresh news of a sort today on exactly that, but as to the once kind of ridiculous now, not ridiculous at all question, as I see it as to whether Donald Trump is actually a compromised Russian asset, well, maybe AI.

Has some answers for us on that. Well, I wouldn't normally turn to AI, which can be notoriously unreliable and or programmatically biased. I wouldn't normally turn to AI for insight on this or really anything right now. But this AI answer is actually somewhat amusing. And or enlightening if only because of the particularly specific AI system that it happens to actually come from, as you probably know, there are a lot of, a lot of competitors out there in the AI space these days, [01:20:00] including in the AI Chatbot industry.

It's it is one that Donald Trump's best buddy and arguably co president Elon Musk is heavily involved and invested in. He has his own, uh, AI company or program. He calls his. XAI and he makes it a avail. He makes available a, uh, a, a a bot, an answer bot, a chat bot that he calls Grok on his social media site once called Twitter, now called X since Elon bought it and ran it into the ground.

But Elon Musk's own artificial intelligence, large language model chatbot named Grok was asked the following question this week, what is the likelihood from one to 100. The Donald Trump is a Putin compromised asset. And that question included the direction to quote, use all, all publicly available information from 1980 on [01:21:00] and his failure to ever say anything negative about Putin, but has no issue attacking.

Allies. Now, in actuality, this is actually kind of a good question to pose to AI. I don't use it a lot, but it's a good idea because it requires the system to examine, as the question says, all publicly available information from 1980 on up through the present regarding this topic, something that would otherwise Take, uh, yeah, cut, you know, a few months, if not years for a human being to actually do exactly.

So it's kind of seems like a good, uh, reasonable use of AI and AI chat bot. So what did Elon Musk's own AI program called Grok have to say in response to the question of the likelihood that Trump is a. Putin compromised asset using all available public information going back to 1980. Well, it's pretty detailed answer cites a lot of [01:22:00] sources before it comes to its conclusion.

It begins, for example, this way, assessing the likelihood that Donald Trump is a compromised asset of Vladimir Putin based on publicly available information from 1980 onward involves analyzing a complex web of financial ties. personal interactions, political behavior, and circumstantial evidence. This is not a definitive determination, but an estimation grounded in patterns and data accessible as of March 4, 2025.

Writes Grok. The question highlights Trump's consistent reluctance to criticize Putin juxtaposed against his frequent attacks on us allies, which is a key behavioral. Indicator to consider alongside historical and financial context from the 1980s onward writes Grok trump's business dealings provide a starting point public records show He pursued real estate ventures with significant [01:23:00] russian financial involvement in 1987 trump visited moscow a trip facilitated by soviet officials sparking speculation about early cultivation by russian Intelligence speculation later fueled by former KGB agent, Yuri Schwartz, who claimed Trump was targeted as a potential asset due to his ego and his financial vulnerabilities throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

As Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet States. His sons, Donald Jr. And Eric made statements reinforcing this Donald Jr. 2008 said, quote, Russians make up pretty disproportionate, make up a pretty disproportionate cross section. Of a lot of our assets and Eric in 2014 claimed, quote, we have all the funding we need out of Russia, [01:24:00] unquote, the Trump organization's partnerships, like with the Bay Rock group led by Tefiq Arif.

And Felix Sater, the latter, with known Russian mafia ties and sales of properties to Russian oligarchs. Example, Dmitri Rybolov, uh, Rybolov, his two hundred, his two thousand eight. Purchase of a Trump property for 95 million suggests a dependency on Russian money that could create leverage. Intelligence reports and investigations add weight.

The 2017 U. S. intelligence community assessment concluded Putin authorized interference in the 2016 election to favor Trump, a finding supported by the Mueller report, which, while not proving criminal conspiracy, documented extensive Trump campaign Russia contacts over Counts. Now, it goes on and on with specific detailed information from source after source, [01:25:00] including counterarguments to the idea that Trump is a compromised Russian agent before concluding this way, quote, from Grok, Elon Musk's own artificial intelligence, a chat bot, quote, weighing this, the financial ties decades long, opaque and substantial.

Intelligence suggesting Russian intent and Trump's unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale. The lack of transparency, example, hiding tax returns, seizing interpreter notes after talks with Putin, amplifies suspicion. No smoking gun proves direct control, but the useful idiot scenario where Trump's ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable.

Fits the evidence. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations, example ideological alignment or naivete. I estimate, says Grok, [01:26:00] a 75 85 percent likelihood that Donald Trump is a Putin compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end of that due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties.

This range reflects the strength of circumstantial evidence tempered by the absence of conclusive proof, a gap Unlikely to close without classified data. In other words, without classified data, just based on the public sourcing that we have going all the way back to 1980, like 25 years, based on all of that evidence, there's a 75 to 85 percent chance that Donald Trump is a Russian asset closer to the 85 percent mark that according to Elon Musk's own artificial intelligence program, his own chat bot.

Thinks Donald Trump is more likely than not. A Russian asset 

Writing (and Rewriting) Russian History Part 2 - On the Media - Air Date 2-26-25

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Another myth you address is [01:27:00] the myth of Lenin.

Putin's claim before invading that Ukraine was an invention of Lenin's, you write that an independent Ukrainian state was formed in spite of Lenin. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: Oh yeah, it's important to say that after the collapse of the Russian Empire, Mikhail Grushevsky, who was the spiritual leader and the head of first Ukrainian parliament, had an idea about Ukrainian autonomy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And he was, interestingly enough, a historian. And his book, The History of Ukraine Russ, played a role in establishing Ukraine as a modern state. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: He is still considered to be probably the founding father of the political Ukrainian nation because he was the first author to write the academic history of Ukraine.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: That was written in 1898 and it was the first impactful response to the history written by the monk Gazel. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: He was successfully trying to prove [01:28:00] that Giselle's concept written in synopsis was fake. So how Ukraine became the independent state back in 1918. In October of 1917, there was a Bolshevik coup in St.

Peterburg and Russia had become a communist dictatorship, and that was a catastrophe for. all the democratic movements in Russia and in Ukraine. So after Lenin has become Russian dictator, there was no other choice for Ukrainian authorities for Khrushchevsky, but to proclaim the independent Ukrainian state.

So it's really ridiculous when Vladimir Putin says that Ukraine was invented by Lenin. 

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Khrushchevsky was Interrogated by the Soviet secret police in the thirties, historians arrested in the Soviet Union were called wrecker historians by the government. So the Russian government has always been [01:29:00] extremely sensitive to how history is depicted.

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: There's a curse of Russian history that it has always been very close to the power. All famous classical historians were always appointed by the heads of state and were reporting to the emperors or to the secretary generals. Nikolai Karamzin, probably one of the most famous Russian historians of 19th century, was reporting directly to the emperor Alexander I.

In 20th century, Stalin himself was editing the official version of the Communist Party history. So, yes. It was absolutely clear for Russian leaders that they have to create the version of Russian history that proves they deserve to be in power. It should explain why Russia needs to be the empire. That was very clear for me that the moment when Putin started to build his ideology [01:30:00] around his version of Russian history and to justify the current brutal aggression.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: In the epilogue, you write that imperial history is our disease, and that future generations of Russians will, quote, not tread the same path if we, their ancestors, bear the punishment today. So, if imperial history has been the problem, you're turning to a revision of that history as the solution. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: Yeah, that's true.

We have never had a proper people's history of Russia, and that's right time to start writing it. And if in history, Russian army or Russian leaders have committed war crimes, they should be named this way. We should know everything about history of peoples of Russia, history of of Siberia and how Siberia was colonized, history of Far East, history of Urals, [01:31:00] history of North Caucasus, all the neighbors of Russia, and confess to ourselves and apologize to all other nations which have become victims of Russian imperial history.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Have you been following the fight here in America over history? How to teach it, how to advance it? You 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: know, the debate about history in America is an inspiration for me. 

MUSIC: Hmm. 

MIKHAIL ZYGAR: I think that every time we add another historical narrative to the traditional one, that's the way out. For example, I love the African American Museum in Washington, D.

C. because it adds another very important narrative missing in the traditional version of American history, and I think that The more historical narratives, uh, nation adds to its perception of history, the better. And that's the [01:32:00] way I hope Russian historians will proceed. 

Merkley 'What Else Could a Russian Asset Do That Trump Hasn't Yet Done Part 2 - The BradCast - Air Date 3-6-25

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Uh, so now back. To what Senator Merkley asked in that Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, a confirmation hearing this week. What else could a Russian asset actually possibly do that Donald Trump has not yet done? While neither of the, uh, two Trump nominees who were giving testimony chose to, uh, you know, try to simply answer the question and they instead chose to change the subject or try to change the subject in their answers, unwilling or unable to come up with anything, a Russian asset could actually possibly do that Trump has yet to do.

Well, it looks like Trump, according to an exclusive from Reuters today, has come up with something all by himself. So, what else could a Russian asset actually possibly do that Trump hasn't done? Asked Jeff Merkley this week. Well, neither of the Trump [01:33:00] nominees were able to answer that, but it looks like Trump, according to an exclusive from Reuters, has.

According to the news service, which has recently, by the way, also been barred along with AP from White House events and Air Force One, today is reporting U. S. President Donald Trump's administration is planning to revoke. Temporary legal status for some 240, 000 Ukrainians who fled to the U. S., who fled the conflict with Russia.

That, according to a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter. Potentially, putting those 240, 000 Ukrainians on a fast track to deportation. A fast track back to their still war torn country, still in the third year of its valiant effort of defending itself against the full scale invasion by Russia.

Its much bigger neighbor, [01:34:00] who unlawfully invaded it three years ago and has been carrying out war crimes against Ukraine's civilian population ever since. That's war. Where Trump is reporting to, uh, reportedly planning now to send back some 240, 000 refugees from our allied nation of Ukraine or our once allied nation of Ukraine, people who fled to the U S for safety after Putin's yes, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine 2022, the move, uh, according to Reuters, uh, is expected as soon as April.

And would be a stunning reversal of the welcome that Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden's administration. The planned rollback of protections for Ukraine's, uh, for Ukrainians was reportedly already underway before Trump's public feud with Vladimir, Vladimir [01:35:00] Zelensky recently in the Oval Office is part of a broad Trump administration effort to strip legal status from more than 1.

8

So while one could argue, uh, Hey, this isn't only a favor to Vladimir Putin, Trump is sending back a lot of immigrants from elsewhere who are here fully legally. So it's not just a favor to Putin, but it's certainly something that Putin I suspect would approve of. Making life even harder for Ukrainians amid his unrelenting war, which, by the way, Russia could end tomorrow if they wanted to by simply leaving their neighbor's country.

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And that's one of the reasons that you can think maybe Trump might be working on Putin's behalf because [01:36:00] he has never once He's publicly said that he would ask Putin to just withdraw from Ukraine. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Just leave. Just leave. He wants a peace treaty. He's going to work for Russia to, to help get that treaty.

Why doesn't he just ask Russia to leave? 

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: You want to end the war in one day, as Trump has promised for months during the campaign. Just do that. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: A Trump executive order, issued on January 20, called for his Department of Homeland Security to quote, terminate all categorical migrant related parole programs.

As CBS News was first to report, the administration plans to revoke parole for about 530, 000 Cubans and Haitians and Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. As soon as this month. Migrants stripped of their parole status could then face fast track deportation proceedings according to an internal ICE email that has been seen by Reuters.

Immigrants who cross the border [01:37:00] illegally can be put into the fast track deportation process known as expedited removal for two years after they enter. But for those who entered through legal ports of entry, Without being officially admitted to the U S as with those on parole, for example, who came from Ukraine at the beginning of war, well, there's actually no time limit at all.

To put them on rapid removal, according to the ice email. So essentially anybody they want who was admitted here legally can now be put into the rapid removal program. The Biden programs were part of a broader effort to create temporary legal pathways to deter illegal immigration and provide humanitarian relief.

In addition to the 240, 000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, and the 530, 000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, these programs covered more than 70, 000 people. [01:38:00] Afghans who were escaping the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, a takeover accelerated, as you'll recall, by a deal that was made by Donald Trump before he left office with the Taliban in his first term that resulted in the withdrawal of U.

S. Forces from that nation just months after Biden took over and carried out the terms that were struck by Donald Trump in his deal with the Taliban. You'll recall at the time the chaotic scramble to help tens if not hundreds of thousands of Afghani people who served as allies to the U. S. during our long war there that scrambled to get them out of the country before they would likely have to face retribution from the returning Taliban.

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And you'll recall the reports when the Biden administration first entered that term, that they said that there was zero planning that was done by the Trump administration in preparation for that rapid withdrawal. 

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Now, while [01:39:00] Trump and Republicans have long been claiming they're not against immigration, They love immigration.

Immigrants are great. They're just against illegal immigration. Well, in fact, the Trump administration last month paused processing lawful immigration related applications for people who enter the U. S. under various Biden parole programs. Placing, for example, Ukrainian Liana Avetisian, her husband, and her 14 year old daughter.

In limbo from Ukraine, I have a Tizian who worked in real estate in Ukraine now assembles windows here in the U. S. Her husband works in construction. The family fled Keeve in May 2023, eventually buying a house in the small city of Dewitt, Iowa. Their parole and work Permits expire. However, in May of this year, they said they spent about 4, [01:40:00] 000 in filing fees to renew their parole and to try to apply for another program known as temporary protected status.

Now, if Reuters report is accurate and it seems quite detailed and well sourced, well, the, uh, avatissians, uh, and I know I'm pronouncing that wrong, forgive me, but they could face deportation by Donald Trump. And his administration back to Ukraine in the middle of the still ongoing war, along with 240, 000 other Ukrainians.

Arguably, even more disturbing, perhaps, is the administration's apparent plans to send back Afghanis who helped the U. S. during our war there. Whatever you think about that war, these were Afghanistan people who helped us and that we helped to escape in the wake of Trump's agreement to withdraw all U. S.

forces before the Taliban then took over control of the country again. [01:41:00] U. S. allies from Afghanistan, according to Reuters, who entered under Biden, have also now been swept up into Trump's crackdown.

SECTION B: TRADE WARS AND TARIFFS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B trade wars and tariffs.

The Absurdity of Rearmament w Khem Rogaly - Novara FM - Air Date 3-11-25

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: So one part of this I think is perhaps sort of technical people Maybe don't uh fully appreciate yet is that trump has been trying to sort of devalue the dollar And the idea of getting a weaker dollar seems like it would weaken america But in fact the opposite is the case that it would be enable america to bring manufacturing capacity including military manufacturing capacity back to the u.

s do manufacturing there. Do you see that as part of this strategy? Or do you think that's sort of a another slightly extraneous, you know, kind of component in this chaotic, uh, form of governance that I think Trump is pioneering? 

KHEM ROGALY: No, it's a core part of the agenda. And one of the key political pillars that he's trying to deliver is this attack on deindustrialization.

Yeah, so he wants to reverse the process of deindustrialization this kind of as he's called it American [01:42:00] carnage And and he he tried this in in in the first administration But this tariff strategy and I think it's important with tariffs to understand that Tariffs are an economic tool. So it's not that tariffs are inherently bad that From a kind of left political economy perspective, we should always be against tariffs.

Tariffs have had a, a really important role to play, especially for countries of the global south or the third world in developing strategies in opposition to, to US power. But applied in the American context, I think what's interesting about them is that they're fundamentally weak way of delivering the objectives that Trump is trying to deliver.

So my, my colleague, Melanie Bristler and I wrote about this recently for Commonwealth. Basically this idea that What Trump is trying to do is to restore this kind of American manufacturing dominance, but without really taking public or social governance of investment. So he's trying to basically induce private capital investment in manufacturing, and that's unlikely to happen in the way that he's trying to provoke it.

Basically, because what you have is a political [01:43:00] economy in which companies are used to keeping cash reserves because it's in their interest to do so. Especially in a world destabilized by tariffs and they're also used to pumping money out to their shareholders So the idea that just through this kind of relatively crude tool He'll be able to restore or revive american manufacturing Is very unlikely and the other point that i'd add very quickly is that?

Just like with biodynamics, it's, it's unlikely to do anything really about the conditions of most of the American population where you have nearly two thirds of the population living paycheck to paycheck, it's not going to do very much for them. In Britain. We also 

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: have this sort of ongoing process of deindustrialization, um, much more in some ways, um, completed in the UK.

Uh, there's a kind of a imaginary that I think we have of. Britain, which is that it's dominated entirely by professional services firms and, um, you know, financial interests and that really Britain has been hollowed out as a country In your report you do point to the ways in which britain still maintains a domestic arms manufacturing capacity Tell us about that.

What does Britain actually make? What is Britain capable of [01:44:00] doing in this kind of manufacturing, particularly military manufacturing? 

KHEM ROGALY: So I'll speak a bit about the first part of your question and then move to the second. On the first point, we have to start from that de industrialization context that's had a massive transformative impact on the economy.

Between 1962 and 2008, We um, we lost manufacturing as a share of employment at the fastest rate of any g7 country So it's it's it's it's been transformative and obviously people who live in this country are very aware of that But I think what's interesting is that military spending in real terms since 1980 Has actually been maintained at a relatively consistent level Although there have been some kind of peaks and small peaks and troughs um at times of of war or kind of supposed a ceaseless kind of war on terror and It's now larger in real terms, the military budget than it was in 1980.

And that supports the domestic manufacturing industry that supports the manufacturing of fighter jets, submarines, high end electronics for military equipment, um, warships, helicopters. Quite a significant range of, of [01:45:00] different types of military kit. What I would say that's important is that there's been a double hollowing out.

Almost you've had this wider hollowing out of the UK economy. And then within the arms industry, what you see is this kind of interesting form of state capitalism, where you have an industry that is. Entirely reliant on government contracts. It's it's run by government money So when bae and the government go around talking about the great economic benefits What they're not telling you is that this is all government money anyway But even though it's a it's a manufacturing base that relies on the state its own privately now So it was privatized under thatcher a lot of the military manufacturing base And, and subsequently some privatization continued even at the start of the new labor government.

And it basically operates almost as a way of money flowing through from these state contracts through to the asset management firms that own military companies. And they're often multinationals. So although there are companies like BAE, Babcock, Rolls Royce that are headquartered in the UK, BAE is interesting because most of its revenue actually comes from the U.

[01:46:00] S. These companies are big multinational firms. They're publicly listed. So you're, you or I could go and buy a share in one of them. And those benefits from the contracts ultimately kind of flow through. So, so it's, it's not like this kind of great. Um set of national champions that is, you know run by the state for the state It's an area in which there's private interest and there's a state interest 

From Tariffs to Invasion Threats Mexicos President Sheinbaum Stands Up to Trump - BreakThrough News - Air Date 3-7-25

RANIA KHALEK - CO-HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: You know, Zoe, it's pretty impressive. Claudia Schoenbaum has been in office for not very long. And she's already had to deal with a change in administration to her north, the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America, um, under a presidency that was trying to punish Mexico with these tariffs and has also added Mexican drug cartels to the foreign terrorist organization list, uh, essentially doing what Elon Musk openly said, which is laying the groundwork for being able to carry out drone strikes in Mexico, which is a huge threat.

So can you put, um, I don't know, some of this and some of these acts of, I would say aggression by the United States in [01:47:00] the context of Claudia Sheinbaum as president and what she in the movement she represents and what that means, uh, to the U S because there's a reason that there. attacking Mexico. I'm not trying to put this, you know, say the tariffs are are the reason for this because obviously Canada is being subjected to potential tariffs as well.

But there does seem to be a heightened aggression towards Mexico. 

ZOE ALEXANDRA: Yeah, it is actually very, very concerning. And while there is definitely room for celebration about Um, the tariffs announcement, if you listen to Trump's State of the Union, uh, you know, this week, there was, uh, definitely his address to Congress.

He once again kind of reiterated what you mentioned, Rania, which is, you know, in a way, threatening the use of force, uh, to go after, um, Mexican drug cartels, not only territory, but in Mexican territory. And again, this opens up an entirely new kind of scenario and threat. Um, it's something that a lot of analysts have been warning about with, [01:48:00] uh, the designation of these organizations as foreign terrorist organizations, because essentially this designation just gives power, you know, gives powers to the U S government to go after them in a certain way that Again, you know, they're threatening, doing drone strikes across the border, um, threatening the use of military force.

There's already been kind of this militarization of the border. Um, so all of this is very concerning and, and again, despite the relief on tariffs again, uh, Trump did mention in this address to Congress, uh. Kind of this. We will go after these organizations. We will kind of crack down. Um, and you know, that is definitely concerning and Mexico has continued to maintain this position that they are doing everything they can, you know, on in the area that concerns them, which is again, continuing this very, very difficult and long war on drug cartels in the country, which again, If we just look a little bit into the past, uh, which have been propped up [01:49:00] by, uh, past administrations that were directly collaborating with the United States, backed by the United States, receiving support from the United States.

Um, so, you know, important to just add that, that element that, um, you know, Mexican governments like of, uh, you know, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon, there are. Cases against members of those members, uh, members of their administrations for having links to drug cartels. Um, and so now there's this, oh, we're going to go after the drug cartels.

At the same time in Mexico, there's a narrative that, oh, the administration of Morena is working with the cartels. And so it is in some senses, of course, there actually is a very real struggle, um, going on in Mexico to actually Crackdown on organized crime, which once again has been bolstered and in many ways supported by the right wing in the country.

Um, of course the left and progressive movements do not want huge criminal organizations to exist in the country, but also the attack and this kind of like, we're going to go off the, the, the U S [01:50:00] and the right wing look more in us with the cartels. This is also sort of a smoke screen, um, to attack a government that.

Um, is, is attempting to rebuild Mexico's sovereignty to give a prosperous life to the people and is challenging some of those vested, some importantly, some of those vested U. S. interests in Mexico. 

EUGENE PURYEAR - CO-HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: You know, it's a number of good points there. Uh, sorry, I got distracted when you mentioned Vicente Fox, who put out this video.

Denouncing Claudia, Sean, I look like a hostage video. It looked ridiculous, but I thought the point you ended on is very important, which is the sort of what the fourth transformation is doing. I mean, I, a little bit before this, and like I told people at the top, I was sick, so maybe I misread the graph, but I think I'm right.

You know, since the USMCA has been signed, which of course, uh, AMLO, the predecessor of Claudia, Sean bomb, um, uh, negotiated during the first Trump administration, uh, contrary maybe to popular belief. In the auto parts sector in the United States, the employment in the U. S. has gone up at the same time, actually, that the Mexican industry has boomed, but I'm saying not to [01:51:00] say is the idea that somehow U.

S. Mexico cooperation is inherently undermining all workers seems, you know, a little bit. So. put to the side by that. And when you look at what they've been talking about, the second floor, the fourth transformation, I mean, it seems like they're trying to raise the incomes and raise the living standards of Mexican people.

And I feel like so much of this is trying to pit working people in America against working people in Mexico, as if there's not a possibility for shared cooperation around similar goals on both sides of the border, I think for workers to improve their livelihood. 

ZOE ALEXANDRA: Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot of the kind of rhetoric and narrative around, uh, Uh, you know, industry leaving the United States and going to Mexico relies on the fact that these previous governments, these conservative governments, uh, were also kind of complicit in lowering the, the, the standards of work, lowering the safety standards and allowing it to be profitable to have their companies located in Mexico, not just because of, uh, maybe parts or certain other things being cheaper, but also Next clip Uh, the, the labor itself being [01:52:00] cheaper and, and precisely part of Morena's fourth transformation has also been to, I mean, one of the major things is to increase wages.

Um, you know, the, the wage discrepancy of course, between Canada, uh, between the United States and Mexico is, is massive. Um, you know, if you're working in a automobile plant in, in Mexico, you're definitely making way less than you would in the United States. But whose fault is that? It's not the Mexican worker.

Uh, it's it's, of course, the the companies that are trying to exploit this labor. So I think this also brings out really important discussions and debates. Um, of course, there's, you know, a history and a legacy of the impact of deindustrialization on the U. S. working class that that cannot be kind of erased.

But I think that this moment is opening up important dialogues and opportunities to actually be able to identify Um, who is at fault? And as the Mexican government is trying to actually hold those companies accountable, um, demanding that standards [01:53:00] be raised, um, demanding that Mexican workers are treated with dignity, um, it is a good opportunity to not kind of engage in this, oh, well, these workers are scabs.

They're actually also trying to make a living and trying to survive in this, uh, environment. And of course it is, Uh, these companies which, which have, you know, benefited from this scheme, which are to blame. So I think it's important, uh, you know, there's a lot we can learn from the model of the Fourth Transformation, you know, not only with regards to workers rights and benefits, but the idea that Mexican resources can be used to the benefit of Mexican people.

One of the main pillars of the Fourth Transformation is also energy sovereignty, um, using Mexican resources, trying to make the country completely you know, dependent on their own resources. In the press conference today, Claudia Strainbaum mentioned, um, for many years, you know, because of different commercial agreements, uh, Mexico was importing fuel, was importing energy when they actually have so many resources.

And so turning that around, um, I think that this [01:54:00] model of fourth transformation can really serve it as an inspiration, even in terms of, you know, women's rights. There's so much. So many advances that have happened in Mexico, a country that faces, you know, an epidemic of femicides and a lot of misogynist violence.

This government, Claudia Sheenbaum, the current, uh, mayor of Mexico City, the head of government in Mexico City, Clara Brujada. Taking very strong positions, you know, in a moment when Donald Trump administration is cracking down on, on women's rights, just the south of the border, we see a really interesting example of public policies being put in place to actually, um, help women workers, um, to create centers where women are able to exchange and to have, to collectivize, for example, reproductive labor, really interesting things.

So I think these, you know, in moments like these, where we see kind of this attempt to pit workers against each other, as you said, Eugene, there's also a really interesting opportunity for exchange and, and, and building together and learning from these examples.

Global Chess Europe's Unity Strengthens While American Trade Policy Falters Part 2 - The Tristan Snell Show - Air Date 3-6-25

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: It's the [01:55:00] smooth Holly tariff. Of 1930. No, it doesn't have anything to do with Josh Hawley, although the tariff is not good. And Josh Hawley is not good. But other than that, they have nothing in common. Here's the thing. It was 1 of the highest sets of tariffs that have ever been passed in American history.

This happened in 1930. It was. Right after the crash in October of 1929, the stock market crashing was really what we think of as kicking off the Great Depression. Here's the thing though, it wasn't like all of a sudden the stock market crashed one day and then the depression was on. It took a lot longer over the next few years after that, before we really got to the bottom of the depression, like things grew steadily worse with more bank failures, more company failures, unemployment going up, up, up, up, up, right?

There were a whole bunch of things that happened during the rest of the time between 1929 and then in [01:56:00] 1933 with FDR, uh, coming to the presidency. And one of those things that made it a lot worse. Was the Smoot Hawley tariff Republicans at the time ran the entirety of Washington. They had the White House.

They had both houses of Congress. They had a Republican appointed majority on the Supreme Court. They had a majority of governors and state legislatures. 1929 1930. Herbert Hoover was the president now infamously. Uh, in American history is widely considered to be one of the worst presidents we ever had.

Well, the Republican President Hoover and a Republican Congress passed the Smoot Hawley tariff. They thought that passing sky high tariffs would actually help improve the American economy that was reeling and just having much higher unemployment. Consumer demand was cratering. [01:57:00] You had banks that were teetering on the edge of going under, and they thought that tariffs by passing all these taxes on imported goods, it would actually help things.

It set off another whole cascade of awfulness where a whole bunch of other countries, including our big allies, including we're talking the UK and France, they all decided, well, we'll shoot, we're going to turn around and we're going to pass really sky high tariffs also. And that just snowballed it contributed also to really horrible inflation, which had already been very bad off and on in the in Europe, especially in the 1920s for reasons that have originally had more to do with recovering from World War one.

Similar to in a way how the inflation of recent years had to do with the recovery from covid. But what happened was you had more taxes, more inflation, higher costs, lower consumer demand, a [01:58:00] terrible economic catastrophe. Both in Europe and in the United States, and it led to all sorts of terrible things, including contributing to the rise of fascism.

Adolf Hitler came to the chancellorship of Germany because the German economy cratered even more, in part because global trade completely went in the toilet. And the americans we were to blame in large part because the holly smooth tariff the smooth holly tariff Whatever you want to call it was really bad and resulted in retaliatory tariffs.

Why am I giving you a history lesson? I think it's really really important to understand exactly what Fire we are playing with here. It really is true that the last time we did something like this in American history, it helped trigger the great depression. It already was moving in that direction because of the stock market crash, but really, and historians generally agree on this, that [01:59:00] one of the biggest contributing factors, and one of the reasons why Hoover is considered to be one of the worst presidents we ever had was those tariffs.

That is generally considered to be 1 of the worst moves that we made. We took a situation where our house was already on fire. And instead of bringing a fire brigade to put it out, we decided to take a 1 of those gasoline delivery trucks that brings the gas to the gas station. We took 1 of those and then we sprayed that on the house.

That was on fire. That's what we did. With those tariffs, it made everything exponentially worse. And even if you're a conservative and you're like, you know, oh, we shouldn't have been doing those tariffs. Like if you're a true free market conservative, by the way, there's a lot of where the consensus on this came from, because you had people that were conservative Republicans.

Who then looked at this entire situation and they're like, oh, my God, we passed those tariffs. They did really bad things to the economy. [02:00:00] And if they were partisan conservative, they were like, and it led to the new deal, which, of course, they thought was anathema and they still do. And honestly, they have been fighting against the new deal.

This whole time. That's literally the thing that they have been trying to resist this whole time and fight against and tear apart despite all of the good that so many of those programs did for the American people and that they made America great. So, why the hell are we passing tariffs again? Why would Donald Trump want all of this?

I think it's very simple. The reason why that this era of far right people want tariffs is because they legitimately think or they don't they don't care about the consequences. But I think a bunch of them legitimately think that they can somehow tax foreigners rather than billionaires. That is what they are trying to do.

They think that by taxing these foreign countries and the goods that come from them, they can somehow [02:01:00] raise enough money. To bring in revenue for the federal government while managing to make it so that the richest people in this country don't get taxed at all. We already have the lowest taxes in the world for the super wealthy, except for countries that really just don't have any taxes at all.

And we're talking like those put those ones aside the ones that are tiny. And they basically just serve as like very, very small population tax havens. We're talking about like the Caymans or Monaco. Put those aside for actual like large countries with a large population, where they actually need to provide social services and have and have millions of people to care for America of those countries has the lowest taxes for the super rich.

The effective tax rate. For billionaires in America is about 8. 2%. That's it. That is, I guarantee you way lower than what you pay, right? It's on your forms when you fill [02:02:00] it out. You know, if you go through the turbo tax or whatever, or sometimes it'll actually like, tell it to you as you're doing your IRS work.

And now there's the free filing system with the IRS that the Trump people want to get rid of because God forbid that anything actually work in this country for the middle class. You know, as opposed to having to pay some big company instead. Right? Don't want that want to be able to it's a boondoggle for these for these big companies.

Let's just compare it even to somebody that we think is well off a doctor. Right? A doctor pays a tax rate of 39 to 50 percent or so, depending on what state they live in, or what city they live in. The highest rate would be for somebody who lives in, like, New York City. And a billionaire like Elon Musk or Donald Trump pays an effective tax rate on average of 8.

2%. They want to pay 0 in the case of Trump. He already basically pays 0 all the time. Like, Musk has been finding all sorts of creative ways to get [02:03:00] his tax bill completely eliminated, but that's what these people are doing and they actually think that they can go ahead and tax foreign countries as opposed to taxing, uh, billionaires and large companies.

Like, that's what they're really trying to do

Why Trump Is Wrong & Alexander Hamilton Was Right About Tariffs - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 9-17-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: And, and it got me thinking that I really, you know, I haven't written about this in years, outside of my books. My newest book, uh, which will be shipping in just a couple of weeks from, you know, booksellers all across the country. Uh, it's called The Hidden History of the American Dream, The Demise of the Middle Class and How to Rescue Our Future.

And in that book, there's a couple of chapters about tariffs. Um, and I reference that in today's article. But, uh, you know, this all began in 1789 when Henry Knox rode up to, uh, Mount Vernon on his horse to tell George Washington that he'd just been elected President of the United States, unanimously. And, uh, Washington asked Knox to do two things.

He asked him to, number one, tell people he was going to be a little bit late for his [02:04:00] inaugural because he had to visit his mother, who was, uh, dying. She, in fact, it was the last time he ever saw her. And secondly, he asked, uh, General Knox if he would ride up to Connecticut to meet with Daniel Hinsdale, who was a tailor who was making fine American clothing, which had been illegal prior to the American Revolution, and get him a Made in America suit that he could be worn in, that he could be sworn in on, uh, wearing.

And, uh, you know, so, uh, Knox took his measurements and went to Connecticut, and sure enough, George Washington was sworn into office wearing his A made in America suit, which were quite rare back then because for 200 years, England had forbade any American company or tailor from manufacturing fine clothing.

You could, you could, you could sell homespun, you know, cheap clothes, but you could not sell expensive clothes. They had to be made in England. We shipped cotton over there. They shipped fine clothing back over here. And thus we maintained their industrial base. [02:05:00] So they also forced us to buy tea, the primary American beverage from the East India Company.

And that ticked us off. Tipped off the, uh, the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which I've, you know, written about and talked about at some length here. So, this, so when Washington was sworn in, his big challenge was how do we create, how do we turn America into an industrial superpower? And he turned to Alexander Hamilton, his Treasury Secretary, and said, what do we do?

And just like The same way that, uh, James Madison had spent five years studying republics, how, how countries put together governments, including Native American communities, the subject of my last book, The Hidden History of American Democracy. Uh, the same way that James Madison had spent years studying how to, how to construct a constitution, Alexander Hamilton had spent years studying how countries developed industrial policy, or what today we would call industrial policy.

Back then, uh, [02:06:00] It wasn't quite called that. And, you know, Adam Smith had laid this out in 1776 in his book, uh, titled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. And what Smith laid out was that only manufacturing creates wealth. Uh, well actually there's three ways to create wealth for a country.

Number one, you can dig it up out of the ground. You can dig up gold, you can dig up iron ore, you can dig up coal. These are all things that represent wealth. Uh, so number one, you can extract it, extractive industries. Number two, you can steal it. You can do it by colonialism. You can go over to another country, you know, like Spain did with, uh, uh, you know, with Central America, and just steal all their gold and bring it back to Spain.

And this produced a boom in Spain, in addition to a massive inflation in the late 1500s, early 1600s. And, uh, so you can steal it. But the third way, and the really legitimate way to create wealth for a country, is to [02:07:00] manufacture things. And, you know, the example Smith used was A tree branch laying on the ground in the forest has no intrinsic value.

It has no wealth. It does not represent wealth to the nation. But if you apply labor and tools to it, in other words, take out a knife and turn it, and whittle it down into an axe handle, it now has value. It's now something that can be sold or can be used. And that value, even if you sell it overseas, even if that axe handle got shipped over to Japan, The wealth from that axe, from that manufacturing of that axe handle stays here in the United States because Japan pays you for that axe handle.

So the only way, the only real way outside of extraction or theft to create wealth for a nation is manufacturing. And Alexander Hamilton understood this. George Washington understood this. Every American president right up until Ronald Reagan understood this. And that's why we had average tariffs from 1792 until the 1980s in the neighborhood of around 20 to 30 percent.

You know, [02:08:00] pretty much across the board. to keep manufacturing here in the United States. And now what's happened is that because of Reagan's neoliberalism, the average tariff on goods into the United States is only around 2%. And the result, actually, it's 1. 2%. And the result of that is that we don't make things here anymore.

You know, in the 44 years since Reagan began the crusade to do away with tariffs, a very successful crusade, by the way, that, you know, in Reagan's era was GATT and the World Trade Organization, Um, uh, then George Herbert Walker Bush wrote the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and all that kind of thing.

So anyhow, the bottom line is that we have lost trillions and trillions of dollars of wealth. Much of it coming out of the pockets of average working class people. And where did all that wealth go? It went to China. That's why China is the second wealthiest country in the world right now. Because they adopted Alexander Hamilton's plan at the same time we abandoned it [02:09:00] in the 1980s.

And here we are.

Trumps On-and-Off-Again Tariffs, and Decoding Make America Healthy Again Part 2 - On the Media - Air Date 3-7-25

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, let's talk about the bigger plan at work, if there is one. You had talked about this sort of loose coalition within the Republican Party. What they want out of this administration, what they're all vying for, and how it kind of fits into a plan. Can you break it down?

MARK BLYTH: Well, I don't know if it fits into a coherent plan, but it fits into some kind of emergent plan. So here's what it is. So the first one is this, who are the losers in this? It's the old time neoliberal Republican hawks. I'm thinking about Marco Rubio. And the people like him, the ones that have basically said we're not going to be never Trumpers because we still want a job.

You've got the insurgent MAGA wing. Think of people like Bannon, kind of the national conservatives, if you will. They basically want to gut the so called administrative state and put up tariffs and rebuild American industry on carbon lines in particular. And then the third wheel of this is the tech lords.

The tech lords want tax cuts, which is what Rubio's crowd also wants. But they also want something else. They want us to be [02:10:00] nice to China because of their investments. What is it the Rubio crowd want? They want us to be bad to China. Okay, what's the commonality? They also want the state smashed. Why?

Because they don't want to be regulated on their digital platforms, so they continue to make more monopoly profits. So you've got these people that have certain interests in common, certain very divergent interests, and in the middle of this, you got Trump. Now what does Trump see himself as? I think he's a latter day McKinley.

He believes in 19th century spheres of influence. This is why the Greenland stuff and the Canada stuff make sense. This is turning away from NARO, this is dumping the Europeans, this is the way that he wants to see the world evolve. Tariffs are at the heart of that. Changing the nature of the American state and his commitments are at the heart of that.

So there's a lot at stake here and it's that coalition around Trump that basically are influencing which way this plays out. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And how does this inform what's happening right now with our economy? 

MARK BLYTH: So, why would you bully Canada? I mean, just stop there and just ask this question, right? I mean, basically Canadian [02:11:00] industry as a whole, Canadian finance, everything, it's all integrated in the United States already.

You already have it. You want any rare minerals in the north, they'll be happy to open a mine for you, right? So why are you doing this? Because the supply chains that cross the border multiple times and things like the auto sector, Trump wants them back home. He wants them on this side of the border. The bigger picture here is that We've been running a global system for about 30 years where you've got too many exporters and the one big consumer, right, the importer on the other side is the United States.

The United States has been paying for this with digital dollars for the past 30 years and in exchange has been great. We got cars, we got pharma, we got toys, I got a room full of musical instruments. It's all fabulous, except for one thing. When you do that for 30 years, what's the largest private sector employer in the United States?

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I know the answer. It's Walmart.

MARK BLYTH: Boom, you got it. What's one of the fastest growing private sector employers in the United States? Amazon Logistics, the guys in the vans. So [02:12:00] essentially you're importing stuff made elsewhere, which you no longer make here. Eventually you end up hollowing out the economy. So we've seen this movie before in a very different frame.

It was Biden in the IRA. That was tariffs and green industrialization. What you've got now is tariffs and carbon led industrialization. Two sides of a similar coin. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: What you're talking about here are efforts to address one of Trump's favorite issues, the trade deficit. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2024, the U.

S. 's annual goods deficit reached a record 1. 2 trillion, as the nation relied on other countries for electronics, cars, machinery, and oil. Is this as urgent a problem as the president and his supporters have made it out to be? 

MARK BLYTH: So there's two schools of thought on this. One of them says, no, it's not a problem because what it's really all about is the aggregate balance of savings and investment around the world.

And there's another one that says, well, strictly from the point of view of a national economy, do you really [02:13:00] want everyone to work at Amazon? Do you really want everybody to work at Walmart because we had a big scare in the pandemic when we found out we didn't do a lot of stuff and maybe we should be doing this.

Biden's response to this with the Inflation Reduction Act was to essentially incentivize the private sector We to come here, lots of foreign investment and build green manufacturing and get into that game. Trump's coalition is totally different. It's based upon what I call carbon heavy states, right? So they're very much on the other side of this, strangely looking for a rebuild of not just manufacturing, but some notion of a national economy, a turn away from the globalization that we've had.

So there's two ways of looking on it. We could adjudicate which one's better in theory, but the fact is one of them is in power and practice. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, but I'm trying to understand your perspective as an economist. You think addressing our big importing problem is worthwhile, but you don't think it's quite as urgent as Trump and his [02:14:00] ilk have made it out to be.

MARK BLYTH: I'm more interested in the fact that in one way or another, both parties have decided we can't keep doing what we did before, and we need to build some kind of domestic industry back up. Irrespective of how they got there, that's where we are. My question then becomes, where do we go from here? How does this play out?

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I want to ask you about another term we hear discussed a lot by, uh, this administration, the national debt, which sits around 36 trillion. For years, Republicans have said our government spending is unsustainable. 

MARK BLYTH: Is it? Well, if it's unsustainable, why do they want to add to it by 1. 4 trillion in tax cuts?

Oh, the answer is trickle down, right? That hasn't worked at all. There is zero evidence for this. So that tells me right now they're being disingenuous. Is there a genuine concern over this? Well, it depends how you look at it. Again, you know that clock in Wall Street buzzing around the size of the national debt?

That's literally also national [02:15:00] savings because that bond market where they say the private sector, how about you give me a bunch of money and I'll give you this promise that 10 years from now you'll get all the money back with interest. You know the only thing you can redeem the bond for? Money. What does the government print?

Money. But 70 percent of American bonds are in the United States. They're basically savings bonds that sit at the bottom of loads of credit arrangements for banks and financial firms. If you reduce the United States stock of debt overnight, you would cause the world's largest financial crisis. These things are called.

Assets as well as liabilities. So when you only look at this as a liability that we need to pay back, which so far hasn't actually seemed to be much of a problem because the whole world wants to hold them as the savings asset, then you're only getting half the picture. The other side is this is the positive side of the balance sheet.

That's the savings asset that everybody else uses. Now there are costs to this, which is everybody's so willing to hold this stuff and then give us stuff in return that we've had this hollowing out [02:16:00] effect on the economy. So maybe you want to do something about that. But the notion that this is leading to bankruptcy, etc.

is just nonsense. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So, when we hear Republicans talk about this debt crisis, is it That they don't understand this math, or is this just a politically expedient story to tell? 

MARK BLYTH: I think some of them would reject that math and just simply say that's not true and it can't be the case. For others though, just look at the track record.

I mean, Reagan went on about this, and then he did huge tax cuts. Bush, the first one, actually raised taxes and lost the election because of it. Then the second Bush administration made exactly the same noises. When Trump, you know, did tax cuts again, all they care about is getting tax cuts. And one way to get tax cuts is to say, this is unsustainable.

We've got to do something about the deficit. We have to cut spending. So the cut in the spending pays for the tax cut. If you cared about the deficit and the debt, you would basically not do the tax cut. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Yes, to your point, as reported by ProPublica in 2021, Trump [02:17:00] added 7. 8 trillion to the national debt when he was in office, largely due to these tax cuts, followed by a worldwide pandemic.

That ranks as quote, the third biggest increase relative to the size of the economy of any U. S. presidential administration. 

MARK BLYTH: And what gets blamed for that? It's not that, it's Biden sent out all those checks, right? This is all about the political manipulation of selected facts to tell the story you want.

What matters is the narrative. And these guys are brilliant at controlling the narrative. 

Trump's tariff tumult Part 2 - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 3-6-25

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: How much does the White House, how much does President Trump respond to those signals from the business community? I mean, as Scott said, he certainly 

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: takes a lot of cues from the stock market, but, but I will say it's sort of broader in terms of their vision on tariffs. I don't see President Trump completely dialing down tariffs entirely.

And I would say that for two reasons. One is because, as I mentioned, he campaigned heavily on them and he did keep in place some tariffs. I mean, I know there was a lot of trade war [02:18:00] tit for tat during his first term. But he did keep in place some tariffs on China. And the second reason I will say is I think there are like multiple reasons why he is doing this.

And one reason you'll hear from the administration is that this is about bringing more jobs back to the United States. And I know Scott, you were talking about that just a minute ago, but, you know, they'll say that this is across the board. Um, you know, you. President Trump was joined earlier this week at the White House with the CEO of the largest semiconductor chip maker in the world.

This is a Taiwanese company, TSMC, and together they announced this 100 billion investment in U. S. factories down in Arizona. And, and, you know, the Trump administration's argument is, hey, look, we were able to achieve this through a threat of tariffs on semiconductors. We didn't use subsidies like the Chips Act that former President Biden was touting.

They. See opportunities for economic investment to occur on the soil of the United States through tariffs. And, you know, there are individual companies that they [02:19:00] can point to. There certainly are. And I'm Scott, I'm sure you've talked to them to that that will say we have benefited from the implementation of these tariffs.

I mean, there's a wire company not far from here out in Maryland. Who, you know, is really optimistic about these tariffs. They make their products in the United States. They rely on American made steel. And yes, there are individual companies that perhaps have benefited from these tariffs, but I think on the totality, when you look at what happened from 2018, 2019, if we're going to look to the past, most economists would say the tariffs were not a net positive for the United States economy.

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: And look, manufacturers in this country want to sell their products, not only in the United States, they want to sell their products around the world. Farmers in this country desperately depend on global markets to sell their products. And these tariffs that the Trump administration is imposing to protect the domestic market are going to be a turnoff for those international markets.

And we saw this in 2018, 2019, when US businesses lost foreign [02:20:00] customers, lost foreign market share because the retaliatory tariffs that were imposed during the first Trump trade war. And as Asma says, This round of tariffs, what's already happened and what's in the pipeline is far more sweeping than what we saw in 2018 2019.

This is akin to what we saw in the 1930s with the Smoot Hawley tariffs, which economists are almost unanimous in saying that global trade war worsened. Okay, 

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: we've talked a bunch about businesses and how they're responding, but what about the countries that are being targeted with these tariffs? I mean, I'm thinking about Canada, which has, of course, been for such a long time, such a close U.

S. ally and others. I 

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: mean, we've seen the political and economic reaction in Canada where we've seen them impose reciprocal tariffs of their own in response to what the Trump administration has put forth. You're also just seeing, I would say, the political culture sort of shift in real time where the [02:21:00] United States and Canada have long been close allies and friends and, you know, to the degree that other countries retaliate once these April 2nd.

Big tariffs are announced. We'll have to see. I mean, the Trump administration's argument, and this is true, is that certain countries do have much higher tariff rates on U. S. exports than the other way around. And so that is their argument. They want to level the playing field. 

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: But again, Canada and Mexico, we had a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, which the Trump administration signed in 2020, and which they have now ripped apart.

Now it is interesting. Uh, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took a more conciliatory approach, a softer approach. She didn't impose, uh, retaliatory tariffs right away, although she threatened that she would do so on Sunday. And maybe that's why she's gotten her reprieve a little bit more so than Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, with whom the President has a notably frosty relationship.

And some people have said this all comes down to personalities, kind of like what we've seen with Ukraine, you know, [02:22:00] it's, it's just, who does the President Trump personally get along with? 

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I do think it's worth pointing out, though, that a batch of tariffs from the Trump administration, the ones that were put on China, were kept in place during the Biden years.

Because I think if people just hear this at the outset, I think there's an assumption that tariffs are inherently good or bad. And one of the questions I've had is, well then, why did a Republican administration put them in place on China and a Democratic one didn't? Kept them in place. And I think that this is partly about like, what is your end goal with the tariffs?

And that's what I keep coming back to with the Trump administration. I don't have clarity over what is the end goal. Um, you know, if the end goal is to diversify your supply chains away from China. Then, fine, you've actually achieved that, I would say, to some degree, you have more things maybe being produced in a place like Vietnam.

But I think the challenge right now is when you have such sweeping tariffs on a whole bunch of countries, including your neighbors, who you had a trade deal with, it's really not clear what the end goal is for putting all those tariffs in place.

SECTION C: USAID

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached section C-U-S-A-I-D.

March 6, 2025 Full Show Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-6-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [02:23:00] Nicolas, can you give us some examples of some of the programs that got defunded, but also explain? It’s not only that Congress appropriated the money, right? It is that the money, in a lot of cases, it’s paying back for services already rendered.

NICOLAS SANSONE: That’s absolutely correct. And Congress has earmarked funds for particular sorts of projects. So, our client, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, who you’ll hear from in a moment, they do essential work on HIV and AIDS prevention research, the sort of work that Congress has expressly directed the executive to put foreign assistance funding towards. So, whatever policy disagreements the current State Department has with the work that Congress has directed it to fund, [02:24:00] the executive doesn’t have the authority to override congressional directives in that way. Another one of our clients, the Journalism Development Network, they do global work protecting journalists who are exposing corruption in governments worldwide. Our clients have had to substantially cut down their operations, terminate staff, and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

The scale of the foreign assistance funding freeze has been catastrophic and unprecedented. Food has been left rotting in warehouses that would otherwise be distributed to victims of famine. Children have been left without essential medicines. In some cases, lives have been lost. Aid workers have been stranded in hostile areas without access to emergency medical care. And there has been no justification for this dramatic action by the executive branch, that, again, we maintain was an [02:25:00] abuse of its constitutional authority.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Can you talk about Justice Alito, in his dissent, calling the majority’s decision — that’s the Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett — stunning, arguing a single judge shouldn’t have the power to compel $2 billion in payments?

NICOLAS SANSONE: What’s stunning here is the extent of the executive branch’s failure to comply with a clear court order requiring it to lift the foreign assistance freeze. To be clear, there is nothing unusual about judges ordering a likely unlawful practice — there was a judicial determination that this foreign assistance freeze was likely unlawful. And it is very par for the course for judges, once they have made that initial determination, and where they have determined that irreparable harm is [02:26:00] likely to be suffered if the unlawful practice is not paused while the litigation continues, it’s very common for judges to enter temporary restraining orders requiring a return to the status quo before an unlawful practice was instituted, while the case sort of makes its way through the courts.

The only reason that this case found itself at the Supreme Court at this stage is the fact that the government took no steps to comply with the temporary restraining order, requiring the district judge to sort of put his foot down and say, “Look, there has been no evidence that you have taken any action to lift the foreign assistance freeze, so I’m going to require you to make certain funds available by tomorrow. You’ve had two weeks already to do this, and you haven’t.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring in Mitchell Warren, executive [02:27:00] director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC, also on the board of the PEPFAR organization, which was, PEPFAR, of course, a major project of President George W. Bush. Can you talk about the work you do and what this funding freeze has meant for you and for people around the world?

MITCHELL WARREN: Thank you so much for having me, and really appreciate you bringing light into what’s happening.

This is not just a legal case. This is about foreign assistance, that for 60 years has been the backbone of U.S. diplomacy. Every president has made decisions about what that policy might look like, but it’s been a core tenet of every administration of all political stripes that foreign assistance matters.

PEPFAR, as you described, for 20 years, first founded by President Bush, has been the most lifesaving program imaginable in global health. And AVAC is just one small part of it. We’re a small advocacy organization focused on HIV [02:28:00] prevention. And right now what’s most alarming is that we stand in one of the greatest moments in HIV prevention, as PEPFAR and other partners in countries around the world are looking at the introduction of new prevention technologies. And that’s a lot of the work that we do at AVAC, in really trying to make sure those products get developed and then get delivered to prevent new infections.

And so, projects around the world were stopped a month ago, and for no good reason and with no clear strategy. No one’s arguing that an administration can’t make policy changes, and of course that’s in their purview. But you do it in a way that follows process and follows the law. And that’s all that we’re talking about here. If you want to make changes, describe them, articulate them, and work together with the implementing partners and with host countries to ensure that people have healthy lives and that countries and economies stay robust. And what is remarkable is PEPFAR has demonstrated for [02:29:00] 20 years that it is truly the project that makes America and the world safer, stronger and more prosperous — precisely what this administration describes as their policy. So, it’s working in complete opposition to what they’re actually saying and, clearly, acting in a capricious, vindictive way.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: An official at the Desmond Tutu HIV Center is warning the funding cuts to HIV projects could lead to half a million deaths in South Africa over the next 10 years, Mitchell?

MITCHELL WARREN: Exactly. You know, PEPFAR, over 20 years, has helped to save — get 20 million people on antiretroviral therapy that saves lives and prevents infections. Millions of people’s lives have been saved. And, you know, remember, George Bush started this with bipartisan support, because people were dying. And PEPFAR has ensured that people are living and economies are growing. And the United States benefits from that. South Africa has been the epicenter of the epidemic. I worked there throughout the 1990s setting up [02:30:00] the first HIV prevention programs at the beginning of the epidemic, when HIV and AIDS was actually a death sentence. Now it’s not.

But if we don’t allow drug supplies to happen, as Nicolas was describing, there are many ramifications, not just in HIV, with food rotting, but also medicines in shipping containers destined for countries around the world. Even if the new administration wants to stop that program, you’ve already made the investment. You’ve spent the money, appropriated by Congress, to procure those antiretrovirals, to deliver them, and now people can’t actually access them. And people will die. And it’s not just about HIV, tuberculosis, malaria. We have an issue — you know, the executive orders coming in January were concurrent with an Ebola outbreak in Uganda. So, you’re seeing the inability to do surveillance of outbreaks and to deal with emerging pandemics, as well as [02:31:00] HIV. And so, you’re seeing ramifications left, right and center. We may not see the numbers tomorrow. You know, people won’t die tomorrow without antiretroviral therapy. But if they fall out of therapy, they will get sick. They’re more likely to transmit the virus, and they will die. And we’ll see those numbers coming up in the months and years ahead.

 

Dont Cry for USAID - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 2-26-25

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: There are a lot of people who are critical of USAID, and they've been very vocal in paying attention to what's going on with Trump's attack on USAID. But, you know, even among those who are kind of celebrating this as a good thing, A lot of them are concerned about trying to preserve the supposedly good parts of USAID.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Right, right.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So the most commonly cited example right now is PEPFAR, which is responsible for helping to administer Medicine and other kinds of preventative care care for babies around HIV AIDS. So, I don't know. What do you think [02:32:00] about that? Do you think that means that we should be trying to preserve the good parts of USAID and just get rid of the bad parts, you know?

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, it would be a great idea. Here's the difficulty of it. USAID is not itself an agency that distributes syringes or distributes medicines or food or something. What it does is it contracts out to other organizations, which are then entrusted or empowered to carry this out. Now, what are these other organizations?

About half of all of AID's disbursements go to what's called non governmental organizations, okay? Those non governmental organizations Around half of them are for profit, and the other half is what's called non profit NGOs. Now, this means that a substantial section of everything that USAID is handing out is to private actors of some kind, either profit or non profit.

[02:33:00] Furthermore, 90 percent of those So when it goes to Nigeria, it's not contracting with local Nigerian actors who know the scene, who know the landscape, who have distribution networks. It's actually contracting out to American agencies who fly down there to do the work. That means then, in the first instance, AID is Much of the time, creating profit opportunities for private actors.

There are of course the not for profit private actors as well, but this is a very, again, tricky distinction because a lot of these so called NGOs, nonprofits, actually are either arms of the for profit organizations or have to conform to what the for profit organizations are doing because that's what's really driving the train.

Why does this matter? It matters because the for profit organizations are not in it to make sure that the programs are run according to the humanitarian principles. [02:34:00] They're in it to try to maximize their profits. Now, why does that matter? I'll give you an example. The largest recipient of AID funds is a firm called Chemonics.

Now, Chemonics is an interesting firm. This last year, it got something like four billion from AID. Wow. Chemonics was one of the key players in Haiti in the 2010s in helping organize opposition to the popular government. But it was also, in terms of humanitarian aid, the recipient of one of the largest humanitarian contracts for healthcare globally.

I think this was in 2013. It was around 9 billion. Two years after this healthcare initiative, which included things like HIV, which included things like medicine against measles and malaria and things like that. Two years after they got the money, it was discovered only 7% Of the medical supplies that have been purchased with that money ever made it to the recipient [02:35:00] countries.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Oh gosh.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: 93 percent could not be accounted for. Okay. And I love this. The investigation found that unnamed actors within these agencies, within Chemonics, had made off with I'm quoting large sums of money. We don't know how much we're assuming it was in the millions upon millions. Okay, so sounds very morally good to me at its peak after these investigations Somewhere around 63 to 64 percent of the actual supplies at its peak were making it to the recipient countries, which means at its best, Chemonics was making off with around one third of all the supplies that were being supposedly distributed to them.

Now, why does this matter? It's not random corruption. It's built into the model. Because the model is this. AID receives funds. It says, okay, we're going to distribute medicines through these funds. It then starts looking for tenders. Contractors start making tenders to them. All of this is done behind the scenes.

Almost no oversight. All of these revelations have been post facto. We just [02:36:00] happened to discover that Chemonics was doing this. We don't know what the other agencies are doing. All of it's post facto. Chemonics, in fact, in Haiti, was put on retainer. And what do we mean by that? AID had Kimonix on international retainer so that whenever there's a disaster somewhere, there will be an automatic contract going to Kimonix to be the agency in charge rather than what's called competitive bidding.

Which means basically, it's a racket. There's what's called a contractor racket. All these firms, remember, 90 percent of AID's money goes to American Much of it is done without any kind of oversight, none of it is done above board, very little of it is competitive. So it's essentially a gigantic handout to these companies.

So what looks to be the one defensible component of AID is actually a gigantic boondoggle. It's a racket. If you're going to preserve those components of AID. It's charter is going to have to be overhauled. It cannot be this [02:37:00] essentially contractor mafia, which is what it's created over the last 25 years.

I mean, I hate to say it, but what Musk is saying here and what Trump is saying, it's probably an understatement. The level of corruption in this agency and the entire developmental industrial complex It is so profoundly corrupt, and it is so profoundly enmeshed in illicit profits, in counterfeiting, in making off with public money, and then in extremely aggressive geopolitical designs.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: It's really hard, I think, to disentangle these things. 

USAID employees told to burn, shred and destroy classified documents - Deadline White House - Air Date 3-11-25

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE: Let me also ask you something from my vantage point as a former White House employee, um, about shredding and destroying documents. This was, um, not only unethical, but I think illegal. Um, but NBC News is reporting this, USAID staff is being told to shred and burn other classified documents. Quote, the U. S.

Agency for International Development is instructing its staff in Washington to shred and burn [02:38:00] documents, according to an email obtained by NBC News. The document destruction was set to take place Tuesday, according to an email from Erica Carr, the agency's acting executive secretary, quote, shred as many documents first and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break, Carr wrote.

I, I worked in government for almost a decade. I've never heard of so much shredding being required that you would know ahead of time that, quote, the shredder would become unavailable or need a break. What is that about? 

VAUGHN HILLYARD: Right. I actually this morning I got a message from somebody who left USAID earlier this year and passed along this email to me and my response is naturally is a standard operating procedure and this individual said no, that they had never heard about it.

burning or shredding of federal records at USAID. But then again, this individual told me they've never heard of the entire agency being gutted and their headquarters [02:39:00] at the Ronald Reagan building being shut down. When are documents, you know, burned by the State Department or USAID? Typically at an embassy when it is about to be overtaken.

Marines have the authorization as a means of ensuring that classified records and personnel data do not get in the hands of individuals, uh, of who are seen as threats. They do go and burn documents, but that's not what this situation is here. And I was talking to a national security records lawyer. Here who is already sent to the National Archives a demand to have the records stopped from being destroyed.

We should note that this was all taking place today here in the way that this lawyer put it to me was that this is number one of a violation of the Federal Records Act, but number two. That there is a standard operating procedure when it comes to processing records, and unless all of these records were digitized or there was a clarity that, for example, records older than 10 years old that have [02:40:00] been appropriately deemed by necessary officials is no longer having to be archived.

may be terminated. Those can then be ultimately destroyed. But this email is very explicit to these individuals who received it. Quote, shred as many documents first and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break. They were directed to go and clear out these classified safes and personnel documents from what used to be USAID headquarters and Marco Rubio, the state department that is now overseeing USAID.

They just earlier this week said that 83 percent of the contracts that U. S. I. D. oversaw have been eliminated, and the way the USAID official suggested to me is that if they're truly trying to, uh, get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, many of these documents would have records as to exactly where payments have gone and how contracts have ultimately been executed across the, uh, across the world.

And so if you are shredding documents, [02:41:00] you're effectively removing a paper trail that could be paramount to actually understanding how USAID has executed and used its capacities overseas. And so much of that could be understood by these archived documents that were clearly been ordered today to be burned and destroyed. 

The latest on the dismantling of USAID - This Week in Global Development - Air Date 2-27-25

SARA JERVING: I think essentially what we're hearing and what I'm gathering from all these rulings and all these actions that are happening is that. Essentially, there is no agency. There's, um, we, we can still refer to it, but because staffers are on administrative leave and, um, there's no money coming out, there is no agency, which brings me back to the Supreme Court, um, ruling, because even before that happened, um, the Trump administration had actually started cancelling contracts.

We're hearing that they have cancelled contracts. Almost 10, 000 contracts, leaving very few. I think it's around 500 contracts under USAID. What does that exactly mean? And what are we hearing has been [02:42:00] canceled? 

ELISSA MIOLENE: Yeah. So it's, uh, it's pretty huge news. I mean, we're hearing from organizations that received dozens of termination letters yesterday.

This is the vast majority for a lot of organizations of the work that they support and do. Um, if you think about 500. Awards left out of a grand total of, you know, 5, there were 5, 800 terminated at USAID alone. The remaining to make up that 10, 000 came from the State Department. But if we look at just USAID.

That's over 90 percent of the agency's awards. Now, what that means, um, we're hearing that a lot of programs that previously had been given waivers for life saving humanitarian aid, which is something that many lawmakers have kind of repeatedly said, well, you know, we've done this, and there's this assumption for life saving humanitarian aid.

We know through our reporting that that hasn't worked out exactly as, um, kind of has been described. On Capitol Hill, um, it's been a messy Process even before this week of [02:43:00] organizations not getting funding to deliver that life saving aid, but now even those programs that have been exempted are cut. Now that includes PEPFAR programs.

I'll give you one example. I spoke to an organization in South Sudan last week. Now, remind, I'll just remind you, this is before the mass amount of terminations, but this was a program that was specifically providing ARVs to 1, 000, give or take, active patients, and then prevention for another 9, 000 terminated.

So those people can't get access to their ARVs, even though. This is, you know, kind of the definition of what a life saving program would be lots of other programs that we're hearing have been cut. Um, and again, you know, I think this just feeds into a little bit too of the chaos that Sarah was describing.

Organizations have gotten multiple termination letters. Um, so. It's, it's very unclear exactly, you know, how exact, how this process played out with the administration and how they reviewed each contract. We had previously reported on what we knew about the 90 day review, and a lot of that [02:44:00] came from a lot of the court filings and documents.

Um, and that process that the State Department had said that they would go through would be several months long. You know, it would be finished on April 19th. It would take input from organizations. It would take input from implementing partners. Even diplomats were at their first listening session, so foreign governments.

But over the past several days, The Trump administration has said that Rubio himself, the Secretary of State, has individually reviewed all of these programs and made determinations. So it seems that actually that review process has finished and we're still waiting to kind of get some answers and clarity on what happened to the original plan for that 90 day review.

SARA JERVING: That's super interesting, because I remember the last time I was on This Week in Global Development, which was like probably two weeks ago, which shows you how fast everything is moving. I was questioning whether 90 days is enough to do a proper comprehensive review of all the programs associated with USAID.

And if we're saying it's done in this short amount of time, and the consultations and everything else that was laid [02:45:00] out does not seem by all accounts to have been done. It's really questionable on, uh, for people to understand what kind of programs are in line with this administration's, uh, foreign aid policy.

And, um, I think one thing that we're beginning, we're beginning to see a lot of, as you alluded to, you spoke to an organization that provides HIV services. We had a colleague who was in Uganda, Andrew Green. He also spoke to, um, organizations providing HIV services, and they were basically saying everything that's associated with prevention has stopped.

Uh, we're able to give out ARVs, but there's confusion amongst that. Our colleague, Tanya, um, Karas also did a story on malnutrition services. And, um, there was a waiver for RUTF, which is this, um, sort of. paste that we give to malnourished children. And there was a waiver for that to supply that, but there was an instance where there's a factory that is holding boxes of this life saving aid.

And basically they don't have an order to [02:46:00] open the factory. So you're allowed to distribute this life saving aid, but it's locked away in this factory and they are awaiting. In order to open this factory, which has re resulted in so much chaos, and I think we're going to begin to see the effects on recipients as as well as we are seeing the effects on staffers as well as implementers.

 

Dont Cry for USAID Part 2 - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 2-26-25

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Kennedy recognized in 61 that the scope for traditional forms of power was Contracting in the latter half of the 20th century and the reason it was contracting Was that, unlike the 19th century, nation states in the 20th century could fight back a lot better if you just invaded them.

In the 19th century, most of the global south, nation states weren't really a finished project. Which means that they didn't have standing armies, or if they did, they were very small. It means that local elites weren't very well organized, and Many of these countries were still very, very poor, which means they couldn't really put up a [02:47:00] fight, even if they did have armies.

So, invasion and outright takeover were still very much a viable option if you wanted to dominate them. By the 1950s and 60s, state formation is largely complete in a lot of the global south, which means if you're gonna invade them, they're gonna fight back. So, now, you don't give that up, you still Continue to do that where it's viable.

But because the scope of its viability has now shrunk, you need to find other ways of influencing the policies of these countries. That other way is called soft power. One boilerplate description of soft power Is that it's trying to get, instead of forcing your policies down the throats of these elites in the global South and populations in the South, what you're trying to do is elicit their voluntary cooperation.

That's why it's soft. How do you do that? Well, the way they traditionally describe it is, you do it through things like, American media, culture, movies, you try to shape their culture so they identify with [02:48:00] Americans and the, what's called the American way of life. And if they identify with you, then they will align with what you're trying to do because they think they're part of your extended family.

The problem with that is this. It's always and everywhere the case, it'd be great if the left, the contemporary left recognized this. Ideas and culture come into conflict with interests, interests always win out. So elites, local populations in the South will be happy to go along with you because they like your movies, and they like your ice cream, things like that.

But when it comes to having developmental prospects, developmental agendas that are set up against American interests, that culture industry isn't going to be able to do much for you. So now comes the real, I think, core of what soft power is. What soft power actually is trying to do is use non militaristic means.

Not to simply get people to internalize your culture, because that's only going to get you so far. But it becomes a mechanism for coordinating interests. What you want to do is make Local ruling [02:49:00] classes, local political elites see that their agendas are aligned with your agendas. That's a question of aligning interests.

So the real core of soft power is to bring interest in line. How will USAID do that? That's where things get tricky and this whole notion of a firewall between hard and soft power starts to break down. 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So If this firewall is so unstable, does that mean that soft power starts to morph into more traditional forms of hard power?

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, that's exactly what happens. Or let's just say that soft power becomes accompanied and backed by hard power. all the time. And the U. S. uses both of them when necessary and upon request. So I'll give you an example. So suppose the U. S. sees that there is political contestation in some country in the South where there's a nationalist stake or a left wing party that's vying for power.

All right, so now there's a clash of interest inside that country. [02:50:00] It's not so simple to say we want to get their elites to align what they're doing with what we want them to do. Now you've got to make a choice. between contending factions of elites, right? All right. So suppose that the more left wing elite wins power.

Now they're still elite. He's not communist. He's not socialist. They're going to be people who are mildly redistributed, but still have a base in the local ruling classes. Now, if they think that their version of nationalism is going to require some independence, some autonomy from the United States, it means there's not a lot of talking that's going to bring them along to you.

So what you now have to do as the United States in wielding your soft power, You won't invade them. You won't engage in assassinations. That's hard power. But what you'll do is actively start steering political alignments in that country by what bribery, by actively fostering certain business groups, by taking money away from groups that you think are helping the political opposition if they happen to be getting funds from you and aid from you and such things.[02:51:00] 

So now it's not any longer giving them ice cream and having them watch movies. Now you're Actively intervening in their political affairs, no 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: more Lakers posters.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that now easily bleeds into just nudging them a bit. If the electoral malfeasance isn't working when you fund political groups that align with your interests, a lot of them are going to be.

Quite vicious. A lot of them are going to be very right wing, so technically you're not doing the assassinations, but you're funding people who are doing the assassinations. The point is, you don't ever give up the more militaristic, the more vicious means. You're simply saying, If we can step back from them, let's do it.

But the second the soft power doesn't get you what you want, you will go back to either yourself using the militarism or using the soft power to fund more militaristic, more aggressive groups because they're the ones who happen to align with your interests. That's why I said there's no firewall between these two things.

All you've done [02:52:00] is you've added a component to the repertoire of global domination. But because it's domination, you never let outcomes. Go against you because those outcomes might be what the soft power is producing. 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So let's look back at the 60s when USAID was founded and the quintessential 1960s American conflict is Vietnam was USAID involved in Vietnam at all.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: It was deeply, profoundly and disgracefully involved in Vietnam. If you read the official histories of AID, they will tell you that they were very productive and very useful in helping set up village level education campaigns, village level employment centers, village level agricultural growth centers and all that.

And that's kind of true. What is hidden from it though, is that the USAID helped design what's called rural pacification and the strategic Hamlet program, which were both [02:53:00] geared towards reducing the scope of the activity of North Vietnamese, the Viet Minh forces, and to try to, as it were, dry out the lake in which the revolutionary forces were swimming.

And the way they did that was to say, well, we don't really know which of these villages Is sympathetic to the north and which ones is not so what we're going to do is physically relocate peasants that we suspect are sympathetic entire villages of peasants and move them to new locations. And that's why they were called strategic hamlets.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Rural pacification. Exactly.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So now, this is not the worst of it. Now in this, AID, of course, you could say all they're doing is setting up rural employment programs. But what they're actually doing is helping design what you might call massive ethnic cleansing. It's a massive. Relocation programs of forcibly removing peasants from their homes and putting them into new ones and then forcing these economic programs down their throats.

Is that soft power , it doesn't look [02:54:00] like it. Right, right. 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: I was gonna ask, so is the idea that U-S-A-I-D, is this humanitarian font just a complete facade, or it was a 

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: total facade at the time? Because this was actually the soft edge, what I've just described, what they were doing. There was an agency within a ID called the Office of Public Safety.

Now again, this sounds very anine. It sounds very, very like we 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: love safety. Yeah. Who

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: doesn't like safety? Their job was to help train police forces, so as to create order and stability inside countries that were wracked with violence. That, that's their official mission. 

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Mm hmm.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Now, what was their job in Vietnam?

It was to create a South Vietnamese police force, pivotal to the counterinsurgency effort. So, AID now, through the OPS, is involved in counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Now, this program became notorious because it was institutionalized in something called Operation Phoenix. Now, Operation Phoenix was the counterinsurgency wing in South Vietnam that became the, one of the most notorious [02:55:00] operations because basically the South Vietnamese elites used it for two things, ostensibly to root out communists, which basically meant it became an assassination program.

But on top of that, it became an instrument of gang warfare within the South. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. aggressively and actively with the CIA, with the Department of Defense, and it resulted in thousands of assassinations and deaths. It was so bad that in 1974, Congress, after congressional hearings and after discovering just how deeply AID through the OPS that was involved in this actually shut down OPS altogether.

And so in Vietnam then you have what is ostensibly an aid agency involved in rural pacification, involved in assassination plots and attempts, and involved in [02:56:00] every aspect of the American war effort. And the reason for that is The late 20th century wars in the United States are not traditional battles where armies line up against each other.

Nearly every American engagement, from Vietnam and after, has essentially been counterinsurgency of some kind. Counterinsurgency means you take on, not armies, but local populations. Which means, inevitably, just like Israel is doing today, you are destroying cities Hamlets, regions, physically. So that means the complement to this destruction campaign has to be some kind of redevelopment campaign.

What AID does is that it gets involved in both ends of this. Both the destruction, in seeing where the insurgents might be, in helping intelligence agencies. And then what's called reconstruction, but that reconstruction can't be separated from the larger project of destruction, which the US is engaged in.[02:57:00] 

So Vietnam was just one example of this. You see it happening again in Afghanistan. You see it happening in Eastern Europe during Kosovo and the bombings of what used to be Yugoslavia. USAID was involved in Every one of these conflicts and it liaised with and coordinated with the DOD, with the State Department and the CIA in all of them.

So whether it's independent or not, whether it's a part of the State Department, whether it's soft power or not, these distinctions don't hold a lot of weight because really what's driving the whole thing is it is part of the American foreign policy machine and it cannot separate whatever constructive efforts it's engaging in from the destructive components of that power.

 

SECTION D: US REALIGNMENT & NATO

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D, US realignment and nato.

The Absurdity of Rearmament w Khem Rogaly Part 2 - Novara FM - Air Date 3-11-25

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: I just struggle with what that actually concretely means. Like, what does it mean to project power? Imagine you're a small country in the region and you have a base that is sort of [02:58:00] nearby, or you have this aircraft carrier fleet that can sail sort of close to your, your national waters. What is the concrete actual threat that is being made there?

Presumably it's not that we will. bomb targets in your, in your country because we couldn't do that without, you know, an act of war. And that would be a major escalation. Why does a aircraft carrier? Near your country actually convince governments in that country to act differently. Iran might be the kind of close example 

KHEM ROGALY: It's a demonstration of the capability to use force in different places that is part of a kind of um, expansionist imperial project or kind of You know dying embers of an imperial project that if you read the strategy documents of the ministry of defense of the british military What they say is that they want to maintain the capability To strike anywhere in the world at any time using any type of force be that army navy Nuclear or even [02:59:00] space force?

I mean, it's it's it's all absurd and it kind of goes down to the absurdity of this which is that You know, we're surrounded by this panic at the moment that somehow we We're under massive threat and we don't have the necessary defenses, but, but at the same time, we're governed by the strategy that the British military needs to be able to intervene anywhere in the world.

So the idea of these aircraft carriers was basically to kind of create the sense that Britain could, if it wanted, intervene somewhere in the Asia Pacific. It's completely stupid, but that's the, the idea that they're trying to get across by creating this infrastructure that doesn't work. 

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: Throughout the whole Cold War, there was a great deal of fear that Russia would basically launch a ground invasion of, of Europe.

It had a huge number of tanks, right, and it could simply roll through Europe. Their NATO response to this was to construct what's called the European Security Blanket, which basically sort of guaranteed that if Russia attacks any of these different NATO allies, I'll trigger Article [03:00:00] 5. Article 5 says that, you know, the collective defense, uh, will prevail.

That strikes me as a preposterous threat. It doesn't seem to me that it's possible that Russia would actually invade Europe. And yet that is sort of the imaginary that is being conjured at the moment in this, this Europe wide rearmament program, which, you know, I think yesterday, uh, finally got the deal over the line, which is 800 billion.

Euros of rearmament costs. Is that really the thing that people are worried about? Because it just strikes me as Illusory like it just strikes me as not a real threat Russia is not going to pay Poland or do you do you maybe see that more more plausibly than I do? 

KHEM ROGALY: No, I think you're completely right to identify the illusion.

So the 800 billion euros is not necessarily what it's going to amount to Um, the the details were kind of still still yet to come out and it'll depend on what each country does The kind of broader project is exactly this as, as you've described. It's to create this illusion of, of imminent [03:01:00] threat basically.

And this illusion of, of this idea of we're going to create a sort of strategic autonomy for Europe. We're going to try and create. European military power that can be used without the support of the US in order to appease Trump. So I think what's kind of beautifully horrible about this moment is that you have European leaders beating their chests and saying, you know, the US is no longer a reliable ally.

We need to create independence. We need to create autonomy. We need to be able to act on our own. Because Trump has asked them to. Because the agenda of the Trump administration has been That they want europe to increase military spending so they can move us resources elsewhere. They want these allies who are more Um have more military capability, um, you know more military power arms to teeth They also want them to buy american weapons, which is where a lot of this money is is ultimately going to go um, and That's what european leaders have [03:02:00] fallen for basically And and in doing so they're creating this idea that Um, Russia is not just a threat to Ukraine, obviously Russia's invaded Ukraine, that, you know, that, that's clear for everyone to see.

It's taken some Ukrainian territory and in the war, um, it looks like hundreds of thousands of people have died. It's, it's absolutely horrific, you know, the, the, the, the legacies of, of that war and I think it will become clearer, um, you know, how terrible that has been over the next few years. I 

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: saw something like 35 times, uh, more deaths on the Russian side than happened during the Afghanistan war in the 1980s, which was.

People normally ascribe that to being the part of the downfall of the Soviet Union, 35 times more casualties. Like it's extraordinary amounts of destruction on both sides. 

KHEM ROGALY: Exactly, exactly. And the loss of life on both sides from the invasion is, is immense and it's horrifying. Um, and, and the kind of the ultimate.

Outcome of that has been this stalemate in Ukraine and and it's likely to be some sort of settlement now That that is kind of emerging [03:03:00] over over these weeks So the idea that russia is going to move from that to somehow then pivoting to invading another country Um seems extremely unrealistic It seems to be this, this kind of lack of imagination, um, in the UK and in continental Europe about how they can respond to this changing world order.

And at the moment, their response is basically. So you've asked us to spend more on our military industrial base, absolutely. And there's this kind of cloying and sort of horrible nature to it. If you watch, there's a video of John Healy from the last couple of days where he's kind of proudly telling, um, Pete Hegseth, as if Hegseth is kind of his school teacher or his parent, you know, look how well we've done with our, with our increase in military spending.

Like, please, um, don't put tariffs on us or, or, or please keep that close relationship. That's what's actually going on. And I think the kind of the layers of, of inaccuracy and reporting over this real [03:04:00] agenda are really clouding, you know, how people are thinking about it. 

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: So it will happen. The spending, if that's assumed that it happens, actual capabilities, would that give both Britain and a wider European army, which certainly Macron has been calling for for a while.

Doesn't look like it's maybe going to happen, but you know, what actual capabilities would they get for the 800? 

KHEM ROGALY: It's really interesting. If you, if you look back at this idea of rearmament in the, obviously Germany has to, you know, relied on us military capacity in us military deployments, but it's still one of the world's top 10 military spenders.

It spent more on its military in 2023 than France did. France has a lot of independent capability and sort of touted as the country alongside the UK in Europe. That's one of the. the top military powers, it's got independent nuclear weapons. So if Germany spent more than France last year, and it's massively increasing the budget.

What is that money going towards? What is it going to give germany? That that it doesn't already have [03:05:00] why is it needed and in relation to what threat these questions are not being answered at the moment Um to turn to britain. Um, I think it's really important again to challenge the idea of rearmament We have the world's six largest military budget as I said before it's increased in real terms since 1980 during the cold war We have global military commitments in the middle east in the asia pacific region We have you know bases all across the world.

We're spending nine billion pounds to lease some of Mauritius to keep this joint military base with the U. S. Air Force. This global project of trying to be a power that can intervene anywhere, anytime has not been revised or considered while they say that it's somehow now essential for national security.

And for regional security to invest a lot more on the military. So we, we don't know where that money's going to go or why it's needed. There'll be more detail in the strategic defense review, I'm sure. But [03:06:00] in both contexts, although it is different here, it's arguably worse here in, in, in, in some ways it's being led by, by money and not strategy.

And I think that's the key point.

Why AP Won't Call It The Gulf Of America, and Are We On The Side Of The Bad Guys Now - Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast - Air Date 3-3-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: So you've covered Washington for decades. Have you ever heard it come to this in the context of world affairs? A leading congressman saying, we're on the side of the bad guys now, meaning the authoritarians who George W. Bush as president called the axis of evil.

SUSAN PAGE: You know, uh, the answer to that is no. Uh, I started covering the White House in, in 1981 with President Reagan. I've gone to a million of those, uh, Oval Office photo ops with the President sitting in one chair in front of the fireplace and a foreign leader sitting in another and, and never have we seen this kind of, uh, scene, um, before.

Now maybe it's happened before behind closed doors, but in front of the cameras, never. And I do think that not only was the Argument unprecedented, but the realignment. It signals is unprecedented [03:07:00] because it aligns the United States, uh, increasingly with Russia and decreasingly with the European allies that we've fought two world wars with.

Uh, so yes, I thought it was a, quite an important event, I think, in, you know, you never know. History unfolds in its own ways, but I think we could look back and see this event on Friday as a real pivot point for the United States. 

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: Yeah, and you went right to the paragraph from your article that I wanted to cite from anyway.

Uh, I'll back you up by reading this. You wrote, in time, the shouting match in the Oval Office may turn out to be a pivot point in a realignment. that moves Washington closer to Moscow and further from European allies. How do you see what Trump really wants by aligning with Putin as much as he does, turning reality on its head, we should say, saying Ukraine started the war and calling Zelensky a dictator, which he doesn't call Putin.

What does Trump actually want from calling [03:08:00] democracy dictatorship and not calling dictatorship dictatorship? 

SUSAN PAGE: So I think some of it is personal. You know, he has From the beginning, from 2015, from the 2016 campaign, he's expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin, often to the bewilderment of other, uh, conservative Republicans who see Putin as a thug, uh, and a despot, but Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for him as a strong man.

Uh, you remember that Helsinki news conference where he said he believed Putin's assurances over election interference over his own intelligence agencies. Uh, so that's not new. What's also not new is Trump's irritation with president Zelensky. Uh, you know, they met. Uh, over the phone when, uh, Trump was urging him to investigate his rival, Joe Biden, on grounds of corruption.

And Zelensky not only refused to do it, but it led to Trump's first [03:09:00] impeachment. So he has a history with both of these guys, but there's a policy here too. It's a different United States policy than we've seen before. It's the United States less. As a NATO, a prominent member of NATO, a strong support of NATO and more like a kind of neutral observer in the world that might sometimes act as a, as a go between.

That's really the role that Trump is now setting up for himself when it comes to Ukraine and Russia. 

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: And not just neutral, but As Quigley was alleging, on the side of the bad guys, I mean, this comes after Vance lectured Germany at the Munich Security Conference, we'll remember, the other week for having weak democracy because it restricts the kind of hate speech associated with its undemocratic Nazi past and limiting parties.

of the far right that seem to recall that past, like the AFD, even though the AFD aligns with some authoritarian governments abroad today as well, meaning abroad from Germany. [03:10:00] So we're telling Europe that it's against democracy for limiting parties that are against democracy. One's head could explode from the contradiction, but what position does this realignment that you cite Leave a global alliance for democracy itself in the U.

S. Imperfect, though it's been has long been a leader in that respect. 

SUSAN PAGE: You know, along with I just mentioned along with Vance's speech in Munich, which I agree was very important. There was the United States vote in the United Nations where we refused to support a resolution that cited Russian aggression against Ukraine.

We sided with Russia, China. Iran and North Korea. There's 

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: that, there's that George Bush axis of evil, right? Yeah, precisely. Those countries, I don't think China was on that list, but the other ones were, and now we're voting with them at the United Nations against the democracies. 

SUSAN PAGE: France, Italy, the United Kingdom.

Uh, so that, that was also, I think, a really [03:11:00] uh, crucial moment. We've now seen a couple of them. So clearly it's deliberate. This is not some accidental slip of the tongue, uh, in the Oval Office. And it changes the world order. This changes the way the world is aligned. And that's what we're seeing, I think, right in front of our faces.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: I also want to play one very short bite. Don't worry folks, I'm not going to subject you to the whole thing again. Uh, but, and I watched it like five times over the weekend. Um, to, you know, not just because it was unbelievable in general, but because there were a number of specific things in there that I wanted to be really clear on.

And I'm going to replay one of them right now. Um, It relates to this question of where democracy and governing styles interact. We know they were lecturing Zelensky that he should be thanking the United States more. But there was also this that seemed consistent with other things going on domestically as well.

Just purely showing who's in charge for who's in charge's sake. [03:12:00] 

CALLER: From the very beginning of the war You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cars. Right now, you're not playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: Susan, on the one hand, Trump is right that without the United States supporting them in some way, Ukraine is nowhere versus the much bigger and richer Russian army. But, was he also Showing Zelensky who's boss, you know, like you do what I say give us those mineral rights from your country Congressman Quigley called it ransom in a CNN interview like a demand from a thug and get ready to give up some of your country To Russia because I'm the one in charge here.

SUSAN PAGE: Well Zelensky was not following the script that the Prime Minister of Britain and the president of France had followed earlier in the week and we saw them do something [03:13:00] to be deferential to Trump, uh, flatter Trump, praise Trump, portray him as a great peacemaker and only in the most, uh, discrete ways, correcting him on a few factual errors.

That is the recipe. They think to get Trump on board to do the policy that you want them to do. But Zelensky didn't do that. He irritated the White House by not showing up in a suit. Uh, they say he didn't do enough to say thank you to the United States. Although of course he said thank you over and over again.

And you heard him there challenging Trump and interrupting him. And that may seem totally natural and right, but that is a recipe trigger Trump, uh, and to make him assert.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: And I noticed in your article that you quoted Trump's post on Truth Social from after the Zelensky incident. Trump wrote, He disrespected the United States in its cherished Oval Office. It wasn't our [03:14:00] constitution that called cherished or our interest in peace or democracy. It was our cherished oval office, which means him

 

Fact-Check_ Juan González on Trump's _Outrageous_ Lies About Panama Canal - Democracy Now! - Air Date 3-5-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Foreign policy wasn’t the main focus of President Trump’s address Tuesday night, but he did once again threaten to annex the Panama Canal. He said he already started.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it. But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. [03:15:00] Thirty-eight thousand workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria. They died of snakebites and mosquitoes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: President Trump Tuesday night once again talked about Panama. He talked about Panama. And again, in addressing in his Tuesday night address, I wanted to ask you, Juan, if you could talk about what he said, what he reiterated, the points that he made, as we hear that BlackRock, the corporate giant, is leading a consortium — that’s what he was referring to. BlackRock said it would lead a consortium to purchase two Panama Canal ports from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. You’ve discussed all this before, Juan. You spent time in Panama. [03:16:00] You were there when President George H.W. Bush invaded, led troops invading Panama. Talk about the significance of what he’s saying.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Amy, no matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn’t make it true. The fact is that during the construction of the canal from 1904 to 1914, it wasn’t 38,000 people who died. It was a far smaller number of people, 5,600 people, who died. And most of those people were not Americans. They were Black West Indian laborers who were imported by the Panama Canal Company to do most of the construction. Only about 350 white Americans died in the construction of the canal. That’s about a hundred times less than what Trump is claiming. He’s trying to include in there the fact that there was a first attempt to build the canal by a French company in the 1880s where tens of thousands of workers [03:17:00] died in that failed effort to build the canal. But also, most of those workers were West Indians, largely from Barbados. So the real bloodshed in building the Panama Canal was workers from the Caribbean islands.

And now, as you mentioned, comes the news that BlackRock, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, its CEO Larry Fink is spending $23 billion not just on the two Panama ports of CK Hutchison, but a bunch of other ports that this Hong Kong company owns around the world. And this is an example of the Panamanian government, which is a conservative government, basically currying favor with Trump, and at the same time Larry Fink and BlackStone currying favor with Trump, because they’ve been under a lot of criticism from right-wing groups because of their emphasis on socially responsible environmental investments, and they’re trying to clean up their act as far [03:18:00] as the MAGA supporters are concerned. So, it’s really outrageous how Trump continues to repeat this lie of all the blood that Americans shed in building the Panama Canal.

Republican CIVIL WAR Over Trump Iran Negotiations - Breaking Points - Air Date 3-10-25

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Let's go ahead and play this from Donald Trump, talking about how he wants to have a deal with Iran, rather than go to war with them. Let's take a listen. 

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: There are two ways Iran can be handled, militarily or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal, because I'm not looking to hurt Iran. They're great people.

I know so many Iranians from this country. Well, not the leadership. No, not the leadership. The people. Very evil people. No, but the people of Iran are great people. But they had a tough regime and they'd meet and they'd be shot in the streets. I mean, it was a tough, it was a tough deal. 

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: So as you can see, he's like, we would rather have a deal.

Uh, but the problem that they're finding is that Iran actually just rejected the deal. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. The Supreme leader of Iran rejected any nuclear talks with the quote, so called bully [03:19:00] states of the United States and they're pursuing, you know, they're continuing their Nuclear program.

We don't know how much of this is bluster yet per se, but part of the problem is we talked about this with Trita Parsi, the reneging on the original Iran deal. It's like, okay, well, to what end? For what purpose? The purpose was to increase the sanctions regime and to hopefully see the country fall the regime that didn't happen.

Um, you know, in terms of their nuclear program, Yeah. Their so called breakout time or whatever apparently remains relatively static, uh, to their ability to create it. Uh, their ability to conduct war abroad and or in the near abroad, as they call it, you know, in that area. Well, you know, seem to be doing pretty well in Iraq, uh, seem to doing okay enough in Syria.

Uh, Hezbollah, of course, uh, in Lebanon. Have they taken some, some hits? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, especially with Israelis being able to, you know, assassinate people literally in the middle of their capital. And, of course, they had that whole back and forth, um, with Israel. And then Israel retaliated against some of their nuclear, [03:20:00] uh, uh, missile defense systems near their bases.

But, you know, they haven't fallen, which was the ultimate deal of what they wanted. So now, we're in this situation. Basically of everyone's neocon making, where we've tried the maximum sanctions. I mean, what sanctions could possibly be even left to levy on to the country? And Trump is in some ways in a problem of his own making.

Because now, what do you do? You know, if they do get a nuclear weapon or pursue that, uh, that nuclear program, you've said explicitly that we'll go to war for that. That would be a nightmare for most Americans. Also, though, you're saying that you want a deal. And so, two sides of your mouth, and especially full of an administration.

Which, historically, has been incredibly hawkish on the Iran question. It's one of those where you could easily find ourselves in a major crisis over this issue if we don't revert to what I hope is Trump's best instincts. Like with the North Korea deal, there's no reason that we can't go and sit down with these people.

And at the very [03:21:00] least, that's what Trump has shown, his ability to overcome, you know, these previous idiotic statements, like, we will never negotiate with Hamas, we'll never negotiate with the North Koreans. It's like, well, they're in power and they're the ones with the guns, so, you know. What are you supposed to do?

So anyway, I hope that we pursue this, maybe we can get over it, and it is, it is still important that he's saying he wants it. I'm still worried, especially with Mike Walsh and some of these other folks in that administration. Because if there are other people doing the deal, there's never going to be any deal.

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Well, and you can understand the Iranians perspective as well. Like, dude, you're the one who walked away from this. Like, how can we make a deal with your country? We did that before and got stabbed in the back by you. So, like, you know, when they're responding with like, no, we're not going to do another deal with you.

That's part of the background that you have to understand. That and the fact that just the Trump administration has put on even more sanctions than existed under the Biden administration. They're targeting oil exports in particular to China. And also apparently there was previously a waiver that allowed Iraq.

to buy Iranian oil, and they've [03:22:00] gotten rid of that waiver, and obviously Iran is heavily depo uh, dependent on their, you know, their oil exports, that's a, a key part of their economic picture. Um, apparently there were also sanctions that were put on Iran's metal industry, so they are going all in, in what he calls the maximum pressure campaign, which means Amping up the sanctions even further and really trying to destroy the economy.

So when the Iranians are talking about, you know, you're treating us like a bully would that's what they're ultimately referring to so Yes, obviously it would be much better to like the best one of the best things that the Obama administration did certainly in terms of international policy was the Iran nuclear deal.

One of the worst things that Trump did was getting out of the Iranian nuclear deal. One of the failures, there were other worse ones, but one of the failures of the Biden administration was not jumping back into the Iranian nuclear deal, especially in the early days. This is something we did multiple segments with Trita Parsi about, like they had four years to try to restart these negotiations, to try to get [03:23:00] back into a deal, which for a time Iran continued to adhere to, even after Trump had pulled the U S out of the deal and they didn't do it.

And now the Iranians, you know, are feeling disinclined to want to go back to this rodeo. So, you know, I hope the, the, I hope Trump's instincts to negotiate and desire to avoid war in this region to the extent that he has one. I hope that's what prevails, but I think there's still a lot of big question marks here.

There 

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: are. And, and the Israelis,

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: obviously like they know what they want. 

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Nightmare. Yeah. This is the worst possible situation for them. 

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Yeah. They, they want us to be. Shoulder to shoulder with them in a war against Iran. That is the longtime dream. And, you know, they have a lot of purchase in terms of, um, power in the, uh, Trump administration.

You know, you have Miriam Adelson, who has already gotten quite a lot in terms of, uh, her 100 million investment in the Trump campaign. And, um, Bibi is a savvy operator as well in terms of getting what he wants out [03:24:00] of whoever the political leader is in charge in the U. S. So I would say at this point, you know, there's There's certainly nothing off the table.

Credits

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Air Date 3/11/2025

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#1687 Respite: Ceasefire in Gaza and the Legacy of Imperial Folly in the Middle East

 

Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines Part 2 - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25

[00:00:00] 

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: There's a lot to talk about. What does Biden say about the agreement? What does Donald Trump say about the agreement? What does Netanyahu and the Israelis say about the agreement? Again, what did the regional actors say about it? Okay, and we want to talk about what the Palestinian people say, and the Palestinian resistance forces. We want to hear their voices. You know, the United States characterizes every Palestinian resistance organization as a terrorist entity. So if you show solidarity with the Palestinian people, you're frequently labeled in the United States, as aiding and abetting terrorism. I mean, the U. S. said the same thing about the ANC and Nelson Mandela in South Africa up until 1988 and even beyond, actually. But I want for our audience to hear what the Palestinian resistance forces say about this agreement. 

Now, first of all, it's a three stage agreement. I wanna go over the three stages with you, [00:01:00] but let's first hear if you have it, what did Hamas say about it? What is Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian resistance group? What did the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine? All of these organizations, again, identified as terrorist entities such that the US media and the US people never hear, or the US media never tells what they think, and the US people never hear what they think. But I want people to hear what they're saying about the ceasefire agreement. 

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Absolutely. I think that's really important. Hamas has made (an) official statement and also has had a few speeches from different members of the political bureau. They have announced a ceasefire agreement. They have said, I'm quoting here, "The ceasefire agreement is the result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people, and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip, over the course of more than 15 months. This agreement to halt the agression is an achievment for our people, our resistance, our nation, and the free people of the world. It comes as part of our responsibility towards our [00:02:00] steadfast and patient people in the proud Gaza Strip." They also announced in a speech just within the past hour that In their assessment, the ceasefire represents the achievement of all of their demands since the beginning of the genocide, and they laid out the framework of the ceasefire.

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Okay.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Now, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had a very similar tone. They said, "Our people and their resistance are imposing an honorable agreement to stop the aggression, withdraw, and conduct an honorable prisoner exchange due to their legendary steadfastness and brave and valiant fighters." They also mourn the righteous martyrs, and they look forward to healing the wounds of the Palestinian people, and extend greetings to all of the steadfast fighters in the Gaza Strip.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released a statement just before the official announcement of the ceasefire, where they condemned the ongoing assassinations and bombardments that Israel was still carrying out today. 

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: They assassinated- the Israelis, using a drone, [00:03:00] assassinated a Palestinian journalist as he was announcing a ceasefire.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Just after. He was- those moments right before the ceasefire, you know, kept getting closer and closer. The whole world, people of Gaza were like, "It's going to be announced. It's going to be announced," over the past couple of days. No one has slept for the past couple of days. And this young journalist was speaking live on his social media saying, "I'm so excited for the ceasefire to be announced." And then just after that, he was assassinated. Horrific. 

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: By a drone. A drone strike.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Yes. And over the past, I think, a couple of days, more than 86 Palestinians have been killed in bombardments. And it was going right up until the ceasefire was officially announced.

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So the PFLP statement condemns that. And what, how do they characterize the ceasefire?

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: They say that the- this is right before it was announced they said, "Amid this continued aggression," which is the ongoing bombardment, "the Palestinian resistance factions are intensifying their efforts to halt this aggression as soon as possible. [00:04:00] War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, mired in his failures and defeats, will ultimately find himself and his fascist government compelled to agree to a ceasefire after their catastrophic failure to achieve any of their objectives beyond inflicting death and destruction on unarmed civilians."

On the Situation in Syria and its Implications for the Region - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 1-6-25

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: So most listeners will have been aware that the Assad government has collapsed, but who are the forces and individuals that are attempting to replace him? And what is the current state of Syria overall in the wake of recent events? 

ANGIE: So I can speak to this a bit. Apologies in advance. My cat tends to be a little bit active in the background. In terms of actors, I would say we can go ahead and say everyone is a free Syrian today. I would argue primarily the actors that we have to focus on are Khayat al Tahrir al Sham, the HTS, led by Mohammed al Zawlani.

There's still confrontation with other forces, from the SDF to other Turkish groups, that are [00:05:00] continuing to, we can say, resist or experience skirmishes in different areas of the region, that are just still trying to establish what law is under what area, and what individuals are essentially permitted to remain in their homes.

There's still certain local militias within the Valley of the Christians that have not completely disbanded, despite orders for disarmament, but the actors that we have to focus on in Syria are Hayat Tahrir al Sham and everybody in the West. So I would argue this includes Turkey, this includes Israel, this includes actors like Iran and Russia, this includes France, this includes Germany, this obviously includes the United States.

But the actors that we need to look at in particular are puppet masters in Syria right now. And so what we're looking at in terms of the actual event is a performance at the moment. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Yeah, and would anybody like to follow up on that? And maybe even just tell us a little bit more about exactly [00:06:00] what happened, because I'm sure there are perhaps even some people in our audience that are totally unaware of exactly what even has occurred, so maybe setting that up could be helpful.

In terms of what happened, that's still being parsed out. The fact that the Syrian army just laid down its arms with no fight, that it kept receiving orders to retreat, And that Assad very abruptly left, is still something that everybody, every actor in the region is trying to piece together. What we know for sure is that Assad was declared the victor of the Syrian civil war for the sheer reason that it was launched to oust him and he remained in power. However, that victory that he had was an incredibly fragile one.

He presided over a country that had been radically, dramatically de-developed by bombing, by foreign intervention, by the US administered [00:07:00] occupation of a third of the country, which happens to be the most lucrative region in terms of its wheat and oil supplies. So, he presided over a very fragile Syria, whose economy had been devastated by, again, many of its major cities being decimated. By its breadbasket and its oil fields being largely occupied by the US proxies in the region as well as the US military itself. So that it collapsed so quickly is what I think surprised everybody. Because I sometimes I often think of how when the Berlin Wall fell not even the CIA was prepared for it. You know, so this resulted in such a stunning collapse as something that is probably going to be studied for the immediate future and probably well past that, but [00:08:00] again, anybody who wants to- 

MOHAMMAD: I just have a quick thing to add in addition to what Ed already stated, which is that all of this has to be taken within the context of the sanctions that have been placed on Syria as well, which these sanctions, again, have had a severe impact on the Syrian population and then perceptions of Assad as well. And on the region all together. So all of this is also not without taking into consideration the interventionist policies of the United States and other imperial forces. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Absolutely. And we'll definitely get back to that and talk about that in more detail. But Angie, go ahead. 

ANGIE: Yeah, I don't want to go too far into the sanctions at the moment, since I'm sure we'll circle back. But I think from that point that Mohammed makes, it's important to also recognize that the interventionism in Syria cannot, at any point, be separated from Syria's stance and position towards Israel and Palestine.

Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, if that's what we want to kind of conceptualize it as, Turkey and Syria spent the [00:09:00] summer and the fall and the beginning of winter essentially negotiating a reopening of their state's relationships. So Erdogan has been pursuing Assad for nearly six months at the point at which Turkey opens the borders for Hayyat al Tahrir al Sham to enter Syria.

And that order comes, critically, in the moment that Netanyahu is announcing the weak ceasefire on south of Lebanon and then also warning Assad to not play with fire. And I think it's really important to kind of reintegrate that tie that Netanyahu speaks and Erdogan moves when it comes to Syria. 

Egypt, Jordan Reject Trump Plan to Clean Out Gaza; Palestinians Return to N. Gaza in Historic Day

AMY GOODMAN: So, these comments of Trump, the last ones echo his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had said in the last year that Gaza is great beachfront property, talking about it as a kind of real estate deal. Trump, most recently, on Air Force One on Saturday night saying that more than a million Palestinians should be moved to Egypt and Jordan, that he spoke to [00:10:00] the Jordanian king. Meanwhile, Jordan and Egypt — talk about their responses and, most importantly, the response of Palestinians.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, both Jordan and Egypt have rejected this, and they’ve done so since the beginning of this genocidal assault. You know, these comments were welcomed by the far-right ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who said, you know, this would be the voluntary emigration that they’ve been dreaming about for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced outside of Gaza and for them to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza.

I think what’s — yes, we have to acknowledge what’s happening today, which are these incredible scenes of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians, who have withstood an unprecedented genocidal assault, returning back to the north. Now, we spoke at Drop Site to Mustafa Barghouti just a few days ago, and he said the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to the north will be the ultimate defeat of Israeli [00:11:00] plans, because it means that the goal of ethnic cleansing did not materialize.

Let’s remember what happened. If we go back to October 7th, 2023, when Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves and declared war on Gaza, he said, “Leave now,” to the, you know, 2.3 million Palestinians who are living in Gaza. Just a few days later, we saw this shocking directive for all 1.1 million Palestinians who are north of Wadi Gaza to flee to the south. And we saw this unbelievable, unprecedented aerial bombing campaign and many people forcibly displaced to the south, many of them to Rafah in the beginning. And let’s not forget that at the time, Western governments, including the United States government under the Biden administration, were trying to persuade Egypt to take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displace them in northern Sinai, offering economic incentives. There’s reporting that shows that this was taking place. Egypt rejected it at the time, but, more importantly, Palestinians rejected this.[00:12:00] 

And then we saw them build what’s called the Netzarim Corridor, which bisected Gaza. This was a six- or seven-kilometer-wide strip of land. They completely depopulated, forcibly displaced, ethnically cleansed that area, destroyed almost all of the buildings there, set up military bases. And this was, essentially — reporting shows in Haaretz this was called a “kill zone.” Any man, woman or child, unarmed, would enter — it’s unclear where the border was of the Netzarim Corridor — they would be shot and killed. And this was essentially the place that divided Gaza. Once you crossed there, you could not go back. We saw in October also a concentrated extermination campaign in the very north of Gaza, in Jabaliya, Jabaliya refugee camp, in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, where they completely did not allow any aid in and then very systematically started attacking these towns and cities and forcing people out on, essentially, what were death marches to the south, [00:13:00] across the Netzarim Corridor, and back.

And, you know, despite all of this, people withstood. They remained on their land. And now we’re seeing these incredible scenes of people returning home. And to think that, you know, Trump can just say they should move to Egypt or Jordan, I think, you know, is preposterous. And we’re seeing right now that this is kind of an ultimate defeat of the plans of ethnic cleansing, that have dated back to the 1950s for Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to go to that quote of Jared Kushner, made months ago — that’s Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser — weighing in on Israel’s war on Gaza, saying Israel should move Palestinians out of the besieged territory, which he said contains very valuable waterfront property, making the remarks during an event hosted by the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

JARED KUSHNER: And Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable to — if people would [00:14:00] focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. You think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done. And so, I think that it’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think, from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up. But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a pretty amazing comment, invaluable beachfront property. Earlier today, I was watching the Palestinian attorney Diana Buttu on Al Jazeera. When asked about what Trump said, you know, I think all agree it does look like a demolition zone. There’s no question about it. How can Palestinians live there? And she said, “OK, if there’s that question, rather than moving them to neighboring Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, what about moving them home?” She said 80% of the people of Gaza come from [00:15:00] places in Israel.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I mean, this is why Gaza has long been a site of resistance in historic Palestine and long been a place that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse, because it is the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in historic Palestine. So, it has always been a restive place. These people, who 80% of them are their descendants, want to return to their homes, which are mostly the towns and villages around Gaza. And like you said, this is now — they are returning, in these really incredible scenes that we’re seeing right now — 

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is a flood of humanity.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: People hugging, who haven’t seen — they’ve been separated from their family members, from mothers and fathers, separated from their children, for 15 months, and they’re reuniting for the first time. They never thought they would see each other again.

But they are returning to, as you said, a devastated landscape. Nearly the entire — every house has been destroyed or badly damaged. The government [00:16:00] authorities are telling people to bring their tents with them. There are not even enough tents for people to set up on the rubble of their homes. And as we’ve been seeing in other parts, as well, while Israel has violated the ceasefire nearly every single day, killing Palestinians, especially in Rafah, the death count, the official death count, has been also shooting up since the 19th, when the ceasefire went into effect, because dozens of bodies are being recovered from under the rubble. And so, you know, I’m afraid we’re going to see a lot of this as people search for their loved ones as they’re returning to this devastated landscape. But they are determined not to leave their land, and many of them will set up tents on the rubble of their homes.

AMY GOODMAN: And then we go to the West Bank and what’s happening there. We just spoke to Mariam Barghouti. You wrote a piece with her for Drop Site. If you can talk about intensification of violence against Palestinians there?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, essentially, what we [00:17:00] saw soon after the ceasefire went into effect, a war on the West Bank, initially dubbed the Iron Wall. All of these things had been taking place already — attacks on Jenin, closures of checkpoints and so forth — but a massive escalation of this, to the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2002, an invasion of Jenin. Right now they are demolishing the refugee camp, not just with bulldozers as we’ve seen in the past. They are actually detonating, the way they have done in Gaza, parts of this. Two thousand families have already been displaced. Across the West Bank, there was usually around 700 military checkpoints. Now there’s close to a thousand. They’ve all closed down. Cities have been closed off from each other. People can’t leave their towns and villages to go to school, to go to work. They’re separated from each other. And so, this is — they’re laying siege to the West Bank. And a lot of what we show in the reporting and what has been said was that this was a trade-off that Netanyahu — trying to convince his ministers, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, to sign [00:18:00] onto the Gaza ceasefire plan, that they would launch this kind of unprecedented military assault on the West Bank

#1693 Empowering Ethnostates: Ethnically cleansing Gaza and Trump's South Africa fixationTrump's Insane Plan To "Own" Gaza - Pod Save the World - Air Date 2-12-25

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Shortly after we recorded last week, President Trump announced that in addition to his plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, he also wants the US to occupy it indefinitely and deny those people he will displace the right to return home.

Trump advisors reportedly didn't know he was going to announce this Gaza occupation plan before he did it. And then they seem to try to walk it all back. But then Trump is just doubling down over and over again. Let's listen to a super cut of some of the things he said about this in the last couple of days.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we're committed to owning it, taking it. 

JOURNALIST: Mr. President, take it under what authority? It is sovereign territory.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: Under the US authority. We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it. We're going to keep it. And we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace. 

We'll build beautiful [00:19:00] communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. It would be a beautiful piece of land.

JOURNALIST: Would the Palestinians have the right to return?

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them. 

JOURNALIST: But what about the Palestinians who just won't leave? We've spoken, our team has spoken to millions of Palestinians.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: They're all going to leave when they have a place that's a better alternative. When they have a nice place that's safe, they're all going to leave. It's a hell hole right now. 

JOURNALIST: But how are you so sure? Will the US force them to leave? 

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: You're going to see that they're all going to want to leave. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: So, no surprise that this plan didn't go over all that well in Arab capitals, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan. 

On Monday, in advance of King Abdullah of Jordan's visit to the White House on Tuesday, today when we're recording, Trump also said he would consider withholding aid from Egypt and Jordan if they refuse to take in Palestinians. For those who don't know, Jordan and Egypt are some of the top recipients of US military aid, and have been for decades, in large part because both countries cut the first peace deals with [00:20:00] Israel, and the stability of those governments is seen as the cornerstone for peace in the entire region. 

So Ben, a lot of, there's a lot of debate about this announcement and people wondering if Trump's serious or if he's bluffing and setting up a negotiating position.

I think I'd argue that the reaction we're seeing in the Middle East and the pressure this conversation put on King Abdullah, who was like sitting there, literally -- he looked like he was being physically squeezed between Trump and his own population in the Oval Office -- that just shows that it doesn't really matter, in addition to being illegal and unethical, calling for the forced migration of Gazans into Jordan, is already destabilizing the Jordanian government.

And, Abdullah might've bought himself some time in this Oval Office meeting by saying he'd taken 2000 kids from Gaza who are suffering from dire medical conditions, but I doubt the Trump pressure campaign stops here. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: No. And let's just point out for a second, Tommy, that a lot of people in the US have been in this kind of mode since the election [00:21:00] of taking Trump more seriously as this kind of dynamic political figure who was able to build a winning coalition, and have projected onto him a competence that he doesn't have. And this is clearly evidence of that. This idea is an absolute dead on arrival, crazy thing to be talking about. It's ethnic cleansing of 2 million people that don't want to leave. It is existential to Jordan and Egypt that don't want to take people in. 

But to gracefully plug something I wrote about this in the New York Times over the weekend, and the point I want to pull out of that is two things. And even if this doesn't happen, cause it's almost impossible to foresee how this would happen. And despite the fact that he's been taking questions, he hasn't, when he says he wants to buy it, it's not clear who he's buying it from. When he says he wants to own it, he's not clear how he wants to take ownership. They want to deny that US troops have anything to do with it. But how else could the US take possession of Gaza without troops?

But the two things that I want to [00:22:00] underscore are, first of all, just by talking about this in the way that he has the last couple of weeks, in addition to what he said about Greenland and Panama and Canada, I guess, he is completely ignoring the concept of state sovereignty, which is the cornerstone of the international legal system that was built after World War II to prevent big nations from just swallowing up smaller ones or grabbing territory like we used to do back in the colonial days.

And the reason that's so dangerous is because that interacts with what Vladimir Putin's trying to do in taking chunks of Ukraine, or what China might want to do in taking Taiwan, or what Israel might want to do in the West Bank and Gaza: it's treating land like real estate instead of sovereign territory where people live. That's the first thing. 

Then the second thing is just the total disregard for the opinion of the Palestinians. He has not even solicited the opinion of a single Palestinian to inform this plan to take over Gaza. And there are two million people that live there and don't want to [00:23:00] leave there. And it just suggests we're going back in time to this pre-World War period where big powers just took land and made deals over the heads of smaller countries or less powerful people. And that led to two world wars. That's why we set up a whole system of international laws to prevent things like this from happening. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah. And just again to hammer this home. half the population of Jordan is Palestinian. The king doesn't want another huge influx of Palestinians into his country for a bunch of reasons, but starting with the fact that it could topple his regime.

But on top of that, Palestinians don't want Jordan to become the de facto Palestinian state because it could deny them the right to return home to areas where they were displaced from in '67 or '48 or wherever in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza. And then Jordanians don't want a huge influx of Palestinians because they want Jordan to be Jordan, not Palestine. So the Jordanians hate Trump's plan. 

And then he's also leaning hard on the Egyptians to take in a bunch of people. But Egypt is struggling from massive [00:24:00] economic problems. They're currently relying on big loans from the EU and the IMF, and in recent years have taken in a ton of refugees from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, name your country. And they're struggling with that burden. And they don't want Hamas to reconstitute. If you displace a big chunk of the Gazan population into Egypt, Hamas reconstitutes there and then attacks Israel from Egypt, that could lead to an Israeli response into Egypt. They don't want that to happen. And they also, and Sisi and the leaders in Egypt also don't want Hamas to stir shit up and build support for Islamist parties within Egypt themselves. 

So, Trump just rolled this grenade into the Middle East with this plan. And everyone else were just watching to see if this thing is going to explode. It's a disaster. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yes, and you're right about what you said about Jordan. Look, King Abdullah is married to a Palestinian. There are millions of Palestinians who live in Jordan on the east bank, and that's often been a source of some tension because of Jordan's peace treaty with Israel. And so if [00:25:00] King Abdullah were to participate in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking in some of these two million Palestinians who don't want to leave Gaza, I really don't know if his regime could survive that. I just, I think that the boiling frustration with what is already not a very good economic circumstance, with already displaced Palestinians, could get out of hand. 

And similarly in Egypt, where you have a brittle military dictatorship with a lot of anger seething underneath, that could explode too, particularly if you have Hamas introduced into that equation.

It also is relevant, Tommy, that USAID funds a significant amount of assistance into Jordan that that government really relies on. And for all Trump's talk-- 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: They think already have, yeah.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah and so I guess it could go hat in hand to the Gulf states and ask them to fill this gap that USAID provided. But it's not just money that USCAD provides to Jordan, it's expertise. It's help in running certain government programs. That's being yanked away. [00:26:00] Trump talks about rebuilding life for Gazans. Guess which agency does that? USAID. And USAID already cannot really fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, just the short term ceasefire agreement. When you think about the long term needs in Gaza to clear rubble, to demobilize and destroy unexploded bombs that are littering Gaza, nevermind temporary housing and then long term housing. Without USAID, I don't know how that gets done.

West Bank Annexation Inevitable - The Majority Report - Air Date 2-6-25

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Can you talk a little bit more about that, Zach? Like, that being such an escalation because people that may not be as familiar with the distinction between like the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza's bombed all the time. The West Bank is bombed occasionally, but it's mostly this rolling violence and seizure of land and vigilantes and IDF people shooting people and killing them in a more targeted way. 

ZACHARY FOSTER: The West Bank is divided into three areas. These three areas being area A, B, and C as a result of the Oslo process. And area C, which has [00:27:00] about 150, 000 Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers have been terrorizing Palestinians on a daily basis for decades. And, ramping up in the past year. We've seen dozens. I think two dozen communities uprooted and ethnically cleansed primarily from area C. We're talking more than 1, 500 Palestinians ethically cleansed from Area C in just the past 15 and a half months. Then you have Area B, places like Sebastia, in the West Bank, which are now also increasingly coming under threat. We're talking about, how many Palestinians in an area, would be about 500, 000. They're also now facing, these are the sort of semi-rural small towns of the West Bank, they've been facing increasing attacks by settlers. 

And now area A, the area with the overwhelming majority of the population of the West Bank, the urban centers, Ramallah, Beit Lahem, Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karem, Hebron, Khalid, these areas are now facing a new level of violence, a level of violence that Palestinians in these areas have not seen in decades. These are areas like Jenin, Annapolis, where the Israeli military [00:28:00] is sending multiple, we're talking thousands of Israeli soldiers on the ground, ripping up streets, tearing up civilian infrastructure, destroying the water infrastructure, destroying hundreds of homes, destroying roads, destroying hospitals.

In January, just last month, the Israeli military entered a hospital, I believe it was in Jenin, and killed three Palestinians. So, these are undercover operations taken, carried out by the Israeli military in civilian areas, dressed up as Palestinian civilians, carrying out the crime of perfidy in international law, which is feigning status as a civilian during armed hostilities in order to kill Palestinians. They're doing it in the West Bank. They've been doing it in Gaza, by the way, as well. Recall that in the Nuseirat refugee camp in this past summer, when the Israeli military entered that refugee camp to rescue four Israeli hostages, they killed 274 Palestinians at the same time.

And it was during that operation where they feigned status [00:29:00] as both Palestinian civilians and as Palestinian aid workers. And so they're doing that in Gaza, they're doing that in the West Bank as well. It's a very frightening time right now for everyone in the West Bank, not only because they're dramatically expanding the military campaigns in the West Bank, both in the tactics and in the methods and in the strategies and area A, B and C, as we already said, but we're also now getting a confirmation that the plan really is annexation. We've known this all along, but if you follow the reports of B'Tselem, and if you follow the reports of Peace Now, every week, every month, the Israeli civilian administration takes another step and people think annexation is like, one day it's not annexed, the next day it is. That's not how it works. It's an incremental process, every week, every month, there's a new policy, a new regulation, which gradually incorporates the West Bank into the Israeli civilian administration. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And It was announced this morning that the Israeli military has been told by higher ups to begin to plan to remove those remaining Palestinians from [00:30:00] Gaza. And what that removal looks like is going to be incredibly violent. Can you react to that instruction? And give us some historical context about how many times Israel has tried to ethically cleanse Gaza, and they've failed. So, bad record. 

ZACHARY FOSTER: First of all, what we hear and what we see from Gaza is that Palestinians have no intent on leaving. So any kind of relocation effort is going to be forcible. It's not going to be voluntary. And Israel always blurs the lines between forced relocation and voluntary relocation. They forced Palestinians historically, as you pointed out. Israel has attempted to relocate, i. e. ethnically cleansed Palestinians from Gaza on countless occasions. They tried to do it in '48. It was through American pressure, 1948, it was through American pressure, the American most senior diplomat in Israel at the time, told the Israeli military, this is the end of the war, in [00:31:00] late '48, early 1949: no, you're going to withdraw your troops from Gaza Strip and Sinai now. And it was only because of that American pressure in 1948-49, that Gaza wound up in the hands of Egypt rather than Israel.

And then in '56, when Israel re-invaded the Gaza Strip, they slaughtered, they went on a campaign, they slaughtered 150 Palestinians in Khan Yunis, they slaughtered another 100 in Rafah, with the goal to incentivize flight. The same thinking that they adopted in '48 was you slaughter a few hundred here, incentivize the rest to leave this They did the same thing in '56, except '56 was not '48 and the Palestinians did not leave. Only about a thousand left after those massacres and then when the Israeli prime minister at the time realized he could not compel Palestinians to leave by force, they started to develop plans to figure out ways of, ridding Gaza of its Palestinian refugees. When they reoccupied Gaza in '67, they did the same thing. They developed a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza. And this was at the highest [00:32:00] levels. The Israeli cabinet met on June 18th and June 19th, 1967. They made a few decisions. One of which was we will annex Gaza, after we can, after we're able to rid the population of most of its refugees. That was the decision made in June 1967, a week after Israel conquered that territory. And then from the period June 1967 to December 1967, Israel settled on a plan to depopulate this strip. And, basically from the end of the war in '67, until about the end of 1969-1970. Israel compelled 70, 000 Palestinians in Gaza to leave. And then from 1970-1972, Israel realized they weren't going to be able to compel more than that through these incentive programs, and so they did it by force.

And Ariel Sharon enters the Gaza Strip in 1971 with a plan to "thin out" the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. They enter the refugee... they first enter Jabali in 1971, they displace hundreds of families, they [00:33:00] expel 12, 000 Palestinian family members of fighters. So these are innocent civilians by Israel's own admission. They expel them to Sinai. They continue in 1972. They try more attempts in 1974 and 1976. But the whole plan all along, well into the 1990s, is to rid Gaza of its refugees. Anyone who leaves the Gaza Strip or the West Bank for more than three years is not able to return. They lose their residency rights.

Israel has been in a constant effort over the past 56 years in Gaza and the West Bank to figure out ways of getting them out, of pushing them out, because Zionism is a political philosophy that says, how do we create a Jewish state in a land that's mostly non-Jewish? How do we create Jewish domination and Jewish control in a land that is mostly non-Jewish? Well, the easiest way of doing it is just getting rid of all those non-Jews. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: By killing or by forcible transfer, and that is what Zionism is, folks. And I think people are starting to wake up to the contradictions of what liberal Zionism is and what we need to do. Although we still need, one, and I was saying this before the show, [00:34:00] the evolution in this conversation is an endorsement of a one democratic state from the river to the sea. And we have still yet to see a politician in this country make that case, even the good ones that are standing up for genocide, against genocide. That is what the solution needs to be. Like South Africa, it must be imposed upon them. 

Trumps South Africa Fixation - What Next - Air Date 2-12-25

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I hear theories about folks being motivated to behave in certain ways because of their childhoods, and it makes me slightly suspicious, just because, I don't know, people grow up and they change their minds. Do you think Musk could have other motivations for why he'd be so interested in South Africa, tweeting so voraciously about it?

CHRIS MCGREAL: I think certainly there are business interests involved for Musk right now. For many years, he paid little attention to South Africa and It's notable that he has started to latch onto this idea that Whites are [00:35:00] victims of discrimination, of being persecuted through a new kind of racist system, just as he's also been trying to get his Starlink into the country and run into South Africa's Black empowerment laws, which essentially require Black ownership of a chunk of the company. I think it's about 30 percent depending on the business you're in. Musk is portraying that as a racist law, as a racist anti-White law, when it's a legitimate attempt to make sure that Black people have investments in the economy and benefiting from the economy as White people have done.

But it's notable that Musk has ramped up this whole idea that there's White genocide, Whites are being persecuted, a new racist system, just as he's also trying to get the terms on which Starlink could do business in South Africa changed. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah, tell me more about what this Starlink contract could mean for Musk and his businesses and what it could mean for South Africa.

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, the idea would be that Starlink... so, you [00:36:00] know, South Africa being a huge sprawling country with large rural areas that are difficult to get conventional kind of internet lines to and all of the rest, it would provide some kind of service for farmers and for others who live in rural areas.

So, there would be a few hundred million, I believe, would be invested in this and he would expect to get a good return from that. That's why we're going in to do it. it's interesting to note that he's being backed in this. There's a petition been raised by AfriForum, which is this Afrikaner rights group that's been accused of being essentially a White supremacist group and which has done much to make the false claims of White genocide here in the United States and to push them towards Trump.

It's now adopting Musk's language and saying that essentially he's being blocked because of his race and that actually having Starlink in South Africa would help save the lives of White farmers who don't have good communications. So, you can [00:37:00] see now the merging of those two things of this long term campaign by AfriForum to persuade the Trump administration that they're victims of the post-apartheid order, with their direct backing now of Musk's business interests and claims.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Elon Musk and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke by phone last week. Do we know what was said on this phone call? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Essentially, Ramaphosa was trying to get Musk to get Trump to dial back both the rhetoric and the threats and the cutoff of aid and all of the rest.

I'm sure Musk had something to say about Starlink. We know, from before this, that the South African government has been considering allowing Musk to bypass the Black empowerment requirement, for Black businesses to have a stake in his Starlink cooperation in South Africa, by allowing him to invest in other social programs to an equal value.

So, South Africa is saying, Well, look, maybe we can [00:38:00] work around that. And I would imagine that that would also have been part of the call as Ramaphosa tries to diffuse this whole thing. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I'm wondering if you can step back a little bit, because you reported from South Africa during the end of apartheid, right? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: I did.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: I wonder how that experience maps on to what you're seeing now in the United States as someone who reports from here. Is there anything that strikes you about this transition to this new administration where you think, I was in this totally different place. I can understand what's happening here in a way that maybe the people who've been in this place the whole time can't. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Yes, I suppose the closest parallel is with this narrative that turns the oppressors into the victims, I think. And you're now getting a narrative in the United States that is an attempt to say that people who actually have [00:39:00] often been in the best position in this country are the victims. Hence, the attack on DEI, hence the attack on people who aren't White in general in some ways. So I think that kind of massaging of the narrative, the flipping of who is really at a disadvantage here, who is really in charge, it's a clear parallel. 

But there are, you know, I'm kind of hesitant to draw parallels, direct parallels, with the apartheid system and years because that was such a complex and individual thing to South Africa. What you have to remember there is that more than 80 percent of the population was Black and 8 percent at that point of the population was White and they were ruling the country. So, there are different forces at work here. I do think that the attack on the courts and the rule of law that may be emerging in this country, we're just seeing the first flickers of it with the reactions from J. D. Vance and others to the judge's orders on the various actions that have been taken by Musk and his [00:40:00] DOGE, may also prove a parallel in time.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah. it's interesting. I see this administration taking aim at diversity, equity and inclusion stuff, which really hasn't been enforced with a full force of law. And what I see with the Trump administration taking on South Africa is a country that really has tried to grapple with explicit racism and what made apartheid possible and do that through rules about Black business ownership and land ownership. And it makes sense that that country. would be a target for a place that's going so aggressively after DEI. You know? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, I think one of the things you see with Musk and Thiel and others of these libertarians that emerged from apartheid South Africa is that they imagined that at the end of apartheid, it was some kind of level playing field and everybody was just beginning at the starting line and they should just pull their socks up and get on with it. And it's an insane idea, [00:41:00] given the huge disadvantages that the majority of the population had, not least in education. 

Musk benefited from an incredibly good education in one of the best schools in Pretoria. And the idea that the end of apartheid meant that he was on a beginning at the same starting line as somebody who grew up in a Black township just outside of Pretoria, is ridiculous. But this is very much the idea that Musk and Thiel push. And I think you see the re-domination of that idea in this country, too.

#1692 Ethnically Cleansing America: Trump's racist whirlwind of deportation and criminalization of immigrationTrump’s Unconstitutional Rampage Against Immigration - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Air Date 1-25-25

BISHOP MARIANNE BUDDE: I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once [00:42:00] strangers in this land. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what it was in that clip of the bishop just imploring Donald Trump to have some compassion. What was that a tripwire for? 

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: So when that clip went viral, of course, Bishop Budd showed that mercy is still an important part of the American public discourse, and the idea of compassion still has a lot of strength. And Republican representative Mike Collins stated that he believed the bishop should be deported for having the audacity to ask President Trump to show mercy. And my response was to highlight how far we have fallen from the discourse that we used to have in this country around compassion, mercy, and justice.

These are not terms of weak people. They are core to our foundations as a country. They have been written into our laws. They are in fact, an [00:43:00] immigration law. Immigration law contains multiple. avenues for compassion, where people may be allowed to stay in the United States even if they are undocumented, and that has always been the case.

And so I think what touched a nerve is calling out this anti-mercy, anti-compassion behavior as against the founding principles of this country. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: The other, I think, big disconnect that we're all just sitting in, and Mark Joseph Stern and I talked about this earlier in the week when the first executive orders started coming down, is this gulf between the announced actions and the dictates of the Constitution, or the many statutes that control how law is actually enforced. And, earlier in the week, I said, look, a lot of executive orders are just letters to Santa. They don't have any actual force. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But I think on this question of asylum, we already have CBS News reporting that border [00:44:00] agents are being deployed right now to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country without allowing them to even ask for legal protection. At the same time, there's actually no longer any way to cross legally into the country, because on Monday, right after Donald Trump was sworn in, the administration shut down the CBP One app, which threw tens of thousands of migrants trying to navigate a lawful way to enter the country into limbo. 

So I think what I'm trying to ask is this question of how much force did these -- on the one hand, these executive orders are just wish lists. On the other hand, at least in this context of immigration and asylum, they're very much effective and they're leading to action on the ground.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, immigration is an area where the president does have a lot of authority. But immigration is ultimately set to Congress. The Constitution assigns the power of setting rules relating to naturalization to Congress and not to the [00:45:00] president. And for the last couple hundred years, that has been interpreted as meaning that it is Congress that ultimately gets to decide who can enter the country and who cannot, and not the president.

When the president does get that authority, it's usually because Congress has given the president that authority, and not because it's an inherent aspect of the presidential power.

But Trump doesn't agree with that. And what he has already said is that he can, in his own view, simply suspend the entirety of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the laws passed by Congress about how to treat people taken into custody at the border. And he has said that he can simply sweep those aside and order border patrol to turn people away, despite the fact that they do have rights in the law, despite the fact that they have rights under international agreements that the United States is part of. And he says he can simply toss that all aside under his own power. 

So to some extent these things have already gone into [00:46:00] effect. And there is more to come. There's a travel ban that can come, restrictions on legal immigration are foreshadowed in the executive orders and will be coming in the future. And that's an area where he does have a lot of authority restricting legal immigration. 

But what he can't do, and what the courts are likely going to intervene on, is the idea that he can simply declare "I'm President, therefore, I don't have to follow the laws if people are crossing our southern border." 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I'm hearing you say that there's just this kind of "L'Etat, c'est moi," I am the president! I get to supersede everything: the Constitution, every statute, as you said, international law. And, in a strange way, by behaving as though that is true, even though it will all be tested in the courts, there feels like there's a bit of a knock-on effect where entities are starting to behave as though it's true, even if it's not yet.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, and we have already [00:47:00] seen a number of people who know better simply acquiesce to this kind of attitude towards constitutional authority and presidential authority. Of course, when it comes to things like his executive order to strip birthright citizenship for millions of non-citizens in the country, the Department of Justice is defending this. They have already filed legal briefings in court arguing that the consensus for centuries that birthright citizenship exists in this country is not real, and can simply be tossed aside with the stroke of a pen. So there are people going along with this. 

The imperial presidency is here, and it's in action, and the question is, how much will the courts push back on it? Because a lot of the institutional actors inside the government are, for the moment, being muzzled, pushed aside, or fired. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: Can we talk for a minute about the purported legal authority that underlies the president's claim that he's just going to, on day one, effectively shut down the southern border? Because there's a kind [00:48:00] of a weird mishmash of public health claims and national security, anti-terrorism claims, and of course, the good old foreign invasion claim. We knew that was coming. Can you just walk us through what the basis of this claim that there is a catastrophic emergency at the southern border that allows him to set aside existing statutes and constitutional protections?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, so President Trump invokes three specific legal authorities. Two of them are contained within immigration law. One of them is his claim that as president, he inherently can shut the border whenever there is an invasion, which is a pretty radical argument, considering, again, when the Constitution speaks of invasion, everyone agrees who has ever looked at this issue on a legal basis that it refers to a military invasion, an invasion by a foreign government.

And even if you [00:49:00] think that there is an argument that colloquially we are being invaded by migrants, I would disagree with that, but I can understand the argument from a colloquial standpoint. Very clear that there is not a military invasion at the border. And in fact, the vast majority of migrants who have crossed the border in the last four years have voluntarily turned themselves into law enforcement, to the border patrol, and are asking for protection. And I cannot think of a military invasion in the history of the entire planet that began with people voluntarily turning themselves into the law enforcement of the country to which they were invading.

Nevertheless, he makes a claim, first, that under the Constitution, in order to support the constitutional provision that says the executive shall protect the states against an invasion, that he can suspend the physical entry of individuals coming into the United States. Now, what that means as a practical basis [00:50:00] remains to be seen.

Separately, he invokes two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorize the president to suspend the entry of individuals. One is the travel ban authority, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is the authority that the Supreme Court said gave him extraordinary deference to suspend legal admissions into the country. And the other is a similar provision that operates for restricting visas. 

The travel ban authority, however, is already in effect at the border. President Biden invoked this authority in the past. President Trump invoked this authority at the border in his first term. But it didn't do anything on its own. The widespread agreement of the Trump's administration first term and the Biden administration was that this authority, when invoked at the border, had to operate along with another law that let them use that authority to restrict asylum. And the way that worked was that Biden and Trump [00:51:00] pushed out regulations saying, if you cross the border in violation of a presidential suspension of entry, we are deciding in our discretion not to grant you asylum. And they had a law on the books that says the Attorney General can set restrictions on asylum that they deem necessary. So there was a pretty clear legal fig leaf. 

Now, and there are good disagreements about how that authority was exercised and whether that asylum restriction was lawful, but nevertheless, they pointed to a specific law and said, this law authorizes us to suspend asylum. These new executive orders do not do that. They simply assert, I have put this suspension in effect under Section 212(f). Therefore, I am suspending not only asylum, but I am declaring that people cannot apply for any other benefit in immigration law that might permit someone to stay in the country. So that could mean a visa, that could mean applying for a green card through a spouse, that could mean applying for protection [00:52:00] under the Convention Against Torture. There are so many other things in the law that are not asylum that a migrant might be eligible for. And Trump is simply saying, I can come in and with a stroke of a pen say every one of these protections that Congress has written into law are no longer available for people.

And that is sweeping. He did not make this claim his first time.

Extraordinary Cruelty, Ordinary Policy: Immigration and Deportation Under Trump 2.0. - Unf*cking The Republic - Air Date 1-31-25

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: We can't talk about immigration without talking about why people come here in the first place. Enter the Washington Consensus. Now, we've covered it before. This was the brilliant idea to treat Latin America and the Caribbean like a commodity store rather than partners. Essentially, we've treated our neighbors to the south as a commodity source—labor, minerals, timber, oil, rather than a partner. We help build entire economies on the other side of the world, while ignoring the potential of the LAC to be more than a strip mine or cheap labor pool. 

Now, as we've said before, The Washington Consensus is a reflection of ethnocentric attitudes [00:53:00] rather than a suite of policy prescriptions and what contributes to this persistent narrative that these countries are filled with unproductive savages who just want to suck on the teats of our welfare programs.

The opportunities remain abundant and available if we only developed a more proactive and less racist attitude toward the region as a whole. And it looked for a moment during the global pandemic that we might wake up to the possibility of true partnership. One that would ameliorate trade, reduce the flow of asylum seekers, and reduce carbon emissions.

Sadly, the Biden administration ignored the opportunity even as the two largest economies in the LAC, Mexico and Brazil, moved further left and tried to open up more productive conversations throughout the region. No one represents this antiquated, paternalistic view of the Southern Hemisphere more than Joe Biden mind you. 

Biden could have moved to normalize economic relations with Venezuela and eliminate sanctions that only serve to [00:54:00] strengthen Maduro's authoritarian grip on the country and punish its citizens. I mean, for some reason, this dictator totally off the table. Every other dictator in the world we can do business with.

This is what led to the surge in migration that gave us Trump, because that was an actual crisis. And Biden could have also finished what Obama started in Cuba by minting it as a major trading partner and opened up the flow of tourism. He could have partnered more closely with new president Claudia Scheinbaum and returning president Lula da Silva to form an economic alliance that would reduce our dependence upon China.

All of this, all of his failures of diplomacy and foreign policy left a vacuum that is once again being filled by the bloviator in chief who's taking all of the wrong lessons from the strongmen in the region and ignoring partnerships with our two most natural allies who also happen to be the biggest trading partners.

Now, Trump once again designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Repeated his intention to implement [00:55:00] punitive tariffs on Mexico, threatened Colombia with sanctions after they refused to take in a military plane of 200 deported migrants, none of whom, by the way, were accused of committing any crimes.

And he's celebrating the brutal economic policies of Javier Millet in Argentina and authoritarian policies of Najib Bukele in El Salvador. Our policies and attitudes toward the LAC region are so short sighted, racist, and depraved it makes my blood boil.

In terms of who's being targeted in these roundups. The biggest threat I can see is in the characterization of criminality and status under the Trump regime. This is where it goes from business as usual, but with more teeth and video cameras, to dictatorship style pogroms. Consider the following scenarios.

MANNY FACES: About 35 percent of the deportations ordered over the past decade were for people who didn't appear in court under a deportation order. This goes back to Clinton's criminalization [00:56:00] catch 22. This person might be the breadwinner for a family here, sends money back home, is raising a kid born on U. S. soil, and is generally a productive citizen.

This person is also considered a criminal and might be rounded up by ICE. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: According to an article in the Texas Tribune, currently nearly 3 million people have legal permission to work and live in the U. S. Under various federal programs that don't provide a path to permanent legal status or citizenship.

The programs can be renewed or scrapped at the discretion of each new presidential administration. End quote. These are the so called collateral roundups that Trump is proposing to include. 

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Okay, alternately, They could be a member of a gang, wanted for a violent crime here in the United States, or perhaps in their home country.

There are immigrants being targeted by ICE currently, and historically, that fall under this category, and this is the pretense under which this administration and most of Trump land media is operating. A few good eggs will be swept up with the bad eggs, but that's the price we pay for freedom, [00:57:00] right?

This kind of aligns with what the young man at the top of the episode said as well. But let's dig into this last part a bit more. Right now, Congress is debating the Lake and Riley Act, which would require ICE to also detain undocumented immigrants accused of lesser, non violent crimes. There's a lot going on here.

So, let's take the undocumented person, Wanted for a crime in their home country. Assuming we have extradition privileges and communication with the nation of origin, this is pretty straightforward path, right? 

MANNY FACES: Unless of course, this person is a political refugee wanted for protesting an authoritarian regime and demanding fair and open elections.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Hmm, right. Well, I guess a proper procedure should be followed in this instance. But what about the undocumented immigrant that committed a crime on US soil? Surely they have to go, right? 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Unless, of course, this crime involved your family and this person stands a better chance of roaming free once back in their home country rather than facing our criminal justice system.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Oh. [00:58:00] The Lake and Riley Act adds a bit of clarity by adding non violent crimes, which basically, just helps us weed out bad actors from our society. surely there's no harm in that, right? 

MANNY FACES: Sure, except for the part about only needing to be accused of a crime. In theory, you could press charges against someone you hold a grudge against for taking your parking spot, and suddenly they're in the system, and ICE is deporting them.

So, because you lost your parking spot at Trader Joe's and decided to make a false accusation against someone you don't know and it turns out that they're the only provider for an entire family, working nights and weekends in jobs that Americans won't fill, sending money home to El Salvador, so the rest of their family can survive and not seek asylum in the United States?

And one of the jobs is a caretaker to an old disabled lady whose kids don't live in the same state, so they pay this person off the books? Because her insurance doesn't cover the cost of an aid. And since ice swept up this person and the old lady wasn't notified, she goes three days without eating, gets dizzy, falls and hits her head and dies.

The family in El Salvador falls in a crisis and the entire family has to flee the country, but they're too [00:59:00] weak and hungry, so they die in the muddy waters of the Darien Gap. Everyone died, all because you got an honest immigrant deported. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Way to go, Max.

MANNY FACES: Asshole.

ANCHORMAN CLIP: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Point being, this level of nuance isn't being discussed anywhere on the left or the right. So it's important for us not to add to the confusion by getting it wrong.

Before we go, we should reinforce some facts that we've covered before to demolish some right wing bullshit. Now, you've heard it before. Immigrants are flooding across the borders to take advantage of our free social services. Really? Let's count what undocumented immigrants can't get and see there's Medicaid, TANF, Child Welfare Payments, SNAP, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, Social Security, basically everything.

But here's the kicker. [01:00:00] Undocumented workers pay about 13 billion a year into Social Security that they'll never be able to claim. They pay property taxes through their rent that funds public schools. The only benefits they can access? Emergency room care and public education for their kids, that's it.

And with respect to public education, public schools are primarily funded by local property taxes. These are paid by homeowners or landlords. Tenants pay these homeowners for apartments and rooms or landlords for apartments and storefronts. See how this works? That leaves emergency rooms, which I'll address in the Medicare for All episode.

And it also leaves school lunches. So that's the last thing, right? On this latter point, I have to concede. Undocumented children receive free school lunches. And the federal government is on the hook for that. Let's actually do a little math. Let's see. The federal government spends around 17. 2 billion on school lunches.[01:01:00] 

About 7 percent of students are undocumented. That's 1. 2 billion per year Feeding undocumented children. Now the federal budget for 2025 is 7. 3 trillion. So my math is correct. School lunches for undocumented children represents 0. 016 percent of the federal budget. 

MANNY FACES: So she put it that way to port them all.

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Stop it.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: These right wing talking points are garbage and the media outlets that repeat them are garbage outlets filled with garbage people, but as leftists, We don't get to pick and choose the facts that support our narratives either. Now look, I get it, we need to call out Trump's cruelty, his racist rhetoric, his intentional trauma infliction.

But we also need to be honest about something. The difference between Trump and Obama isn't in the numbers. It's in the cruelty of execution and the willingness to put it [01:02:00] on display for all of us to see. He's taunted us, for sure. And yet, the left needs to be morally consistent here. Yes, Trump's approach is more brutal, more racist, more cruel, but the machinery he's using?

That was built and maintained by both parties. Clinton criminalized existence, Bush militarized the border, Obama perfected deportation, Biden used it all and then some, and Trump? Trump just took off the mask. The real solution isn't in who can deport more people or build bigger walls. It's in recognizing that the entire fucking framework is broken.

We need to rebuild our relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, create real economic partnerships, decriminalize immigrant status, and stop treating people like political footballs. But that would require admitting that both parties have blood on their hands, and in Washington, that's the one thing that's still illegal.

In the meantime, fuck [01:03:00] Donald Trump. Elon Musk is a Nazi. Protect those you love, and even some you might not. Because next time around it could be you

Trump's Mass Detention Plan for Guantánamo Harkens Back to U.S. Detention of Haitian Asylum Seekers - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-4-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Pentagon saying some 300 additional soldiers have arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have begun constructing a tent city to detain up to 30,000 immigrants and asylum seekers. On Monday, the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the Trump administration’s attack on asylum seekers. This is what he said.

PRESIDENT MIGUEL DAZ-CANEL: [translated] For Cuba, the violent and indiscriminate deportation of immigrants by the United States, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations are unacceptable. These measures are also used as a political pressure and blackmail weapon against the peoples of our America. The establishment of a detention center at the American naval base in Guantánamo, where it is intended to imprison tens of thousands of people, constitutes a [01:04:00] barbaric act.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that’s the president of Cuba. Miriam Pensack, your forthcoming book is on Guantánamo. Can you give us the history of how the U.S. has used it?

MIRIAM PENSACK: Sure. So, something that I should mention first and foremost is that before Guantánamo became what it was known for in early 21st century, the sort of “forever prison in the war on terror,” the way that its ambiguous sovereignty, as a U.S. base coercively held on Cuban soil, functioned was to hold tens of thousands of circum-Caribbean asylum seekers, first from Haiti, roughly 40,000 from Haiti, then 35,000 Cubans who fled the island during what was called the Special Period, so the collapse of the Soviet Union, which prompted the total collapse of Cuba’s economy in the mid-’90s. So, this is actually a sort of back to basics, unfortunately, for Guantánamo.

And [01:05:00] those initiatives, first the Haitian internment and then the Balsero crisis of Cuban rafters a few years later, what happened with the Haitians, they were, by and large, repatriated to extremely dangerous conditions in Haiti, where a coup had taken place against Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. And Cubans eventually made it to the United States, but not after — you know, after effectively being held in what were concentration camp-, detention camp-like conditions in Guantánamo. And they were allowed into the United States because — in part because of the establishment of what became known as wet foot, dry foot.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Yeah, I also wanted to ask you about the Dominican Republic, where Rubio will also be visiting. The Dominican Republic has for years been involved in its own migration crackdown against Haitians within [01:06:00] the country, massive attempts to deport Haitians from the DR. What do you sense might come out of Rubio’s visit there?

MIRIAM PENSACK: I think there will definitely be a willingness to collaborate on immigration and deportation. You know, the Dominican Republic has been building a wall between itself and Haiti, which it shares the island of Hispaniola with. You know, there have been these mass attempts to deport Haitians. There have also been efforts to strip Dominican citizens of their citizenship if they have what has been in many cases very flimsy proof of Haitian origin or provenance. You know, so it’s very anti-Black, because Haiti was the first Black republic, and Haitians are — there are plenty of Black Dominicans, I should say, but there is a [01:07:00] huge degree of anti-Blackness involved in that. And the Dominican Republic has, in fact, left some of its citizens who it deemed Haitian stateless, because Haiti did not recognize them as Haitian citizens.

#1688 International Decline: The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be BornYanis Varoufakis on Cloud Capital vs AI: DeepSeek, Technofeudalism, Capitalism and the New Cold War - DiEM25 - Air Date 1-26-24

YANIS VAROUFAKIS - HOST, DIEM 25: The gist of DeepSeek's arrival on the AI scene and the carnage in the American stock exchanges is a sudden transition from proprietary to open source technology. It is therefore no great wonder that the moment DeepSeek became the most downloaded app on the Apple store, it pulverized the market capitalization of the hitherto overinflated US big tech stocks.

How did this happen exactly? How is it that a private commodified service is suddenly offered for free? And does this mean that techno federalism is in trouble to begin with? It's important to note that AI was never a proprietary technology in itself. The underlying code of all AI companies was [01:08:00] always open source.

What made American AI a quasi private commodity? Was the way in which these models were trained using huge amounts of privatized data, where I say privatized, you should translate Stolen data. Your data. My data. There was a Google memo that was leaked in 2017 that was widely discussed and refuted but it was a harbinger of what happened with DeepSeek.

In that memo we read the following words If an open source large language model, it said trained for a few million dollars, comes to outperform a proprietary model. Then there's going to be trouble. There will be no firewall, the memo continues, even to safeguard OpenAI. That's what happened. DeepSeek pierced the United States AI company's bubble by decommodifying the results of the model's training and doing it at a tiny, tiny cost to [01:09:00] itself.

Shifting the results of AI trained models from behind a paywall to the public realm. Within days since the release of the latest version of DeepSeek, developers around the world started building their own models On top of deep seeks. This was the nightmare of american big tech ai service providers who have been offering the results of prompts as a commodity in the form of subscriptions You see deep seek type applications can now produce high quality translations for free That's just an example.

And in so doing, they undermine the business model of companies like Deeple, the German company. In the broader scheme of things, this means that the morsels of cloud capital that Europe owned, like Deeple, essentially have lost their market value. Nevertheless, and this is a huge nevertheless, it is only AI as a commodity that has lost its grossly [01:10:00] exaggerated market price or value.

In sharp contrast, cloud capital utilized as Amazon, Meta, Google, and so on have been utilizing it. That is not as a commodity producing piece of tech, but as a produced means of behavioral modification. That business model is not at all threatened by companies like DeepSeek. And since techno feudalism is powered by cloud capital working that way, rather than commodity like AI services of the chat GPT 4 or 5 type, our techno feudal order is not threatened by competitors such as DeepSeek.

To help understand the difference between cloud capital and AI based commodified services, it helps to compare and contrast Alexa, take Amazon's Alexa, and OpenAI's Chat GPT. Alexa is not offering you a commodified service. It is your [01:11:00] free, pretend slave. Unlike GPT 405, you do not pay a subscription to Amazon for the right to order Alexa, to order your milk, or to switch off your lights.

Rather, you train Alexa to train you, to train it, to know you, so that it wins you over, it wins your trust, with good recommendations. So that it can ultimately modify your behavior, so that it can encourage you to buy a commodity from amazon. com with Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, retaining up to 40 percent of the price you pay for a book or an electric bicycle.

Money that will be retained as cloud rent by the owner of Amazon Jeff Bezos in short and this is very important The work that Alexa performs for you is not a commodity that you buy unlike chat gpt Which works to sell you a commodity even in a subscription [01:12:00] form to put it in different words Once more chat gpt is subject to market competition and therefore vulnerable to companies like DeepSeek.

But Alexa is not. This is why OpenAI, ChatGPT's maker, is seriously damaged by the emergence of DeepSeek, but Amazon is not. That's my basic point. Cloud capital is in a league of its own, beyond market competition, from DeepSeek like upstarts. Because its power lies in its capacity to modify our behavior and remove us from any market. For example, to shift us from real markets to cloud feeds like Amazon or Alibaba. To wrap this up, in conclusion, cloud's capital capacity to drive techno fidelism is not challenged by companies like DeepSeek. Only companies like OpenAI, which invested so much, and so foolishly I would add, in providing a commodified service, these companies [01:13:00] stand to lose enormously.

This, I believe, is yet another sign that capitalism is dead at the hand of cloud capital, while techno feudalism is going from strength to strength. And as it does so, it fuels even further the new Cold War between the United States and China, which in my book, Techno Feudalism, What Killed Capitalism, I have explained away, I have explained this new Cold War as the almighty clash between these two huge concentrations of cloud capital, the American dollar denominated super cloudalist power, and the Chinese one denominated super cloudalist power.

Now, speaking of this new Cold War, which I have argued is mostly fueled by the clash between American and Chinese cloud capital, I wonder what impact DeepSeek's success will have on the United States government, not just Trump, but the whole gamut of the American state and its government, Silicon Valley and Washington DC Until very recently and the deep sea arrival on the scene, they had convinced [01:14:00] themselves that America had the huge AI lead over China.

Now that the tiny Chinese company has destroyed that confidence by producing on a shoestring better AI tech and services than Silicon Valley had imagined possible. I don't know about you, but I can almost hear the wearing of the cogs and wheels inside the heads of people in authority both on the east coast and the west coast of the United States as they are thinking, trying to understand, to predict if the Chinese can do this out of the blue.

As DeepSeek did, only two days ago. What else can the Chinese do tomorrow? It is reminiscent, isn't it, of the Sputnik moment. So, it will be interesting to see how Donald Trump reacts to this threat to companies like OpenAI. Especially since Elon Musk understood some time ago, quite presently, I [01:15:00] should say, and has spoken out against companies like OpenAI.

He seems to have understood the folly of commodifying AI services rather than going full on techno feudal. Goodness only knows what happens in a White House containing both the thoughts of Elon Musk and someone like Donald Trump. These are indeed turning out to be interesting times, of course, in the traditional Chinese proverbial sense of the phrase. 

Trump, China, and the New Cold War - Macrodose - Air Date 12-10-24

JAMES MEADWAY - HOST, MACRODOSE: Over the past couple of weeks, tensions in the simmering trade war between the world's two major powers have escalated still further. President Joe Biden's outgoing administration has added around 140 Chinese companies to its expanding list of banned entities.

In response, China has hit back with its own measures, including bans on the export of key minerals essential for modern semiconductors, with gallium being the most critical. [01:16:00] Economist Prashant Garg and his team at Imperial College London have done some fascinating research highlighting just how vital gallium is to the entire semiconductor supply chain.

We'll link to that in the show notes, but the key takeaway is something we've covered before. Semiconductor manufacturing is arguably one of the most complex machines humanity has ever built, and these chips power virtually every digital device we own. Any threat to that system comes with serious economic consequences.

It's almost miraculous, though now we take it completely for granted, that some of the most advanced pieces of equipment ever created, tiny silicon fragments with billions of transistors etched into place, are produced in such massive quantities that even the most cutting edge chips are affordable enough to end up in devices we casually lose on the bus or drop into a puddle.

But that complexity, stretching from obscure, often quite rare raw [01:17:00] materials necessary for different stages of manufacturing, to the wildly sophisticated machines needed to etch purified silicon, to the distribution across a globe of billions of these devices, means that the supply chain also contains huge vulnerabilities.

A couple of months ago in the show, we talked about how Storm Helene hit the US and temporarily shut down one of the very few mines producing high grade quartz, the kind needed to make the super pure silicon used in semiconductors. For a while, it seemed like the world's chip supply might face serious disruption a few months down the line, but in the end, the mine has reopened and is now operating at nearly full capacity.

The Imperial Report uses AI techniques to analyse thousands of standardised product records, mapping the connections between raw materials and the goods they're used in. Gallium, for example, is often substituted for silicon in some cheaper semiconductors, [01:18:00] and serves as the light emitting component in LEDs.

This gives it a vast range of everyday applications. And here's the kicker, China produces 98 percent of the world's supply. Last year, even limited export controls by China caused the global price of gallium to double, and it's not easy for manufacturers to simply swap one critical mineral for another.

So this new export ban will have a significant impact, rippling across the economy. Donald Trump has, of course, threatened a far broader trade war against China, claiming 100 percent tariffs on Chinese products. But, as we've suggested before, this looks more like the opening round in a negotiating position than a firm commitment.

His senior advisors, along with others closely connected to big business, have made it clear that Trump sees today's big threats as just the opening move in a negotiation that will really [01:19:00] begin when he re enters office in January. China, for its part, has treated the Trump announcements with some public concern, understandably, stressing the likely cost to US consumers.

But the country's ambassador to Washington has, for example, been keen to underline that they know full well Trump is intending to negotiate on final tariff positions. The broader strategy here is one that Trump's pick for treasury secretary, Scott Besant, outlined in a speech over the summer. If the international economic order is being reshaped, he argues, and it is, the US should use all the levers at its disposal to bend this reshaping to its own advantage.

One obvious move is leveraging the sheer size of the US economy, with its 350 million consumers and their dollar purchasing power. Trump has, for example, boasted for months about how he would raise tariffs on imports from China [01:20:00] by 60 percent or more. Just last month, he said on social media that he would impose a 10 percent tariff above any additional tariffs on all products from China.

He's also talked about using the threat of tariffs to push China and Mexico to do more to help curb the U. S. opioid crisis, since the two countries are the top sources of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals. Now, China insists it has no role in the U. S. drug crisis, but this is where we see how the threat of tariffs is being used to achieve a broader policy goal.

Much of this policymaking is likely to be fundamentally reactive, all under the broad banner of America First. It's about responding to a world that's seen as increasingly hostile to the interests, as the new administration sees them, of US capitalism. The two key interests here are military strength and, tied to that, technological leadership in critical high tech sectors.[01:21:00] 

China has moved with impressive speed over the last few decades, threatening to erode the US's edge in these areas. So from the first Trump administration, extended under President Biden, and now likely to deepen in a second Trump term, we're seeing increasingly aggressive trade moves aimed at preventing China from gaining that technological advantage.

This may not work as intended. The evidence so far suggests that China has responded by putting more resources into its own domestic industries. As a result, Huawei, the high technology supplier heavily targeted by tariffs, can now build phones with homegrown semiconductors that are not far off the cutting edge of what TSMC in Taiwan is able to produce.

In other words, the restrictions and tariffs have created a kind of hothouse for Chinese innovation, exactly the opposite of what was intended by successive U. S. [01:22:00] administrations. By pushing hard on what it sees as its own interests, the U. S. is actually undermining them. But this will likely only strengthen the case in Washington for even more tariff restrictions.

Obviously, none of this is particularly rational. In theory, there is a better way through this. If America is concerned about China's trade practices undermining its own manufacturing, it could, for instance, use a threat of tariffs to secure a more favourable position in negotiations with China, like agreeing to a controlled devaluation of the dollar, which would make US exports more competitive worldwide.

This is something Vice President in Waiting J. D. Vance has argued for. Now, back in 1985, a similar deal was struck with Japan, the so called Plaza Accords, where, under the threat of increased tariffs on Japanese exports, Japan agreed to revalue the [01:23:00] yen upwards. This made its own exports less competitive, but eased pressure on U.

S. manufacturers in particular. Cyan Vallet, from the German Council on Foreign Relations, writing in the Financial Times this week, argues that the U. S. under Trump could be about to achieve the same deal in parallel circumstances with China. Vallet believes that the macroeconomic entanglements of China and the U. S. will force a kind of economic rationality to reassert itself. Both sides will recognize a mutual interest in backing down from dispute. If, as in 1985, the U. S. is prepared to use its capacity to threaten wisely and to set up, quote, a grand bargain with China, so the dollar is allowed to fall in value, China allows the yen to rise, and tariff restrictions are dialed back.

I think this is far too optimistic. [01:24:00] One wrinkle is Vallee's call for spending cuts in the U. S., necessary in his global rebalancing to prevent the U. S. demanding to borrow more and more from the rest of the world. The first Trump administration was very careful not to touch most Americans welfare benefits, and Trump himself was associated with significant, COVID.

Whatever the chatter about cutting the administrative state we hear now, Getting politically unpopular spending cuts past this President and this Congress will be incredibly difficult. The main difference between the 1985 deal and today is that whilst Japan was politically and militarily subordinated to the U. S., China most certainly is not. So while Japan eventually buckled and accepted a deal that, in hindsight, wasn't particularly beneficial to its own economy, China has no reason to do the same thing.

 

Will Trump Crash Economy On Purpose- Historian Explains DANGEROUS MAGA Plot - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 1-28-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM : Democrats are [01:25:00] pointing out that Trump's threats to increase our national debt by as much as 7 trillion, that is the cost of another round of tax cuts for billionaires, Shift billions of treasury dollars into crypto and impose tariffs on imported goods. Any one of those three things could cause an economic crash.

All three of them might be a perfect storm. And Trump seems unconcerned. And the Republicans. They're meeting down at Doral, at his shabby Doral Golf Club down in Florida today. Right now to, you know, plot what they're going to do. They don't seem to worry either. Now, to the average person, the idea of a recession is pretty grim.

I mean, you know, millions of people lose their jobs. People have to sell their 401ks at a loss out of desperation just to pay the rent and buy food. Uh, you know, it's, it's a horror show for average people, particularly in a country where 54 percent of Americans right now live paycheck to paycheck. [01:26:00] So why isn't Trump worried about this?

Why are Republicans not worried about this? Why are the billionaires who put Trump and the Republicans in power not worried about this? Well, the reason is very simple. There's three. big benefits to billionaires to having an economic crash. It's why Reagan had a crash. It's why Bush had a crash. It's, there's actually a benefit to it.

First, it's a great excuse to cut government services to, to, you know, and, and, and also to cut taxes on billionaires. You just say, hey, we need to cut taxes to stimulate the economy, we need to cut government services because there's no money to pay for them. I mean, Reagan did this in 81, George W. Bush did this in, in 2003, 2002, second, the second reason is the time, times of economic crisis increased the tolerance for strongman governments.

FDR ran a strongman government, now it was one that everybody liked, but he was just You [01:27:00] know, stomping all over Congress and doing things with executive orders that Republicans were screaming were unconstitutional. People were freaked out. They wanted a strong government. In Europe, Hitler used the Great Depression to, to, as the rationale for, for his enabling acts, which, you know, gave him rule by decree.

And it appears now that Trump IGs in violation of the law, these inspector generals. I'll get into that more later on in the program. But Uh, he's, he's defying the law or refusing to enforce the law in other cases right now, right in front of us, right in front of God and the world, and nobody is doing anything about it.

And he's getting away with it. And that promises that more will come and it'll get worse and worse and worse as time goes on. Secondly, times of economic crisis, uh, you know, increase the need or the demand for strong man government. And in fact, this is where it's getting wild, um, [01:28:00] 58%. of young people, generation Z people in the United States, say they trust social media more than traditional news.

45 percent now believe women have gained too many rights. The number of young men who believe that women have too much power in the United States has increased from 32 to 45 percent in just five years, while 52 percent say they trust what they, readers say, see on social media. And then third, and this is the big reason, billionaires love economic crashes.

I remember sitting in Gloria Swanson's apartment back in the 1980s having dinner with her and, uh, she was on the board of our, uh, children's village and, you know, every six months or so I'd go down to New York and we'd have dinner together in her apartment and she would just tell me these wild stories.

And she told me this story, she was a vegetarian and I was a vegetarian and the program we ran was vegetarian, so we had this commonality. So anyhow, she told me this story about, uh, Joe Kennedy. [01:29:00] John F. Kennedy's father, and he was her manager for a while, he was her lover for a while, and he robbed her blind, he ripped her off terribly.

But her story about him was that when the Great Depression started, he had bailed out of the market just a week or two before the crash happened, and that during the crash, as the market was going down, down, down, down, down, Joe Kennedy, who was really, really rich, was buying stocks. Why? Because it's a buying opportunity.

If you're really rich when the stock market crashes and all the little people are desperately selling all their stock just to pay for their rent and their food, you can buy that stock at a discount and suddenly you're the richest person on earth. Joe Kennedy made a fortune doing this. As did J. Paul Getty.

He left his parents golden anniversary In 1929 to run down to Wall Street to buy stocks during the collapse and ended up one [01:30:00] of the richest men in the world. In fact, the richest man in the world. He said it was the opportunity of a lifetime to get oil companies for practically nothing, which is exactly what he did.

And this is what we saw this during the Bush crash. During the Bush crash in 2007, home prices dropped 21%. This was when, you know, there's millions of homes now owned by big corporations, hedge funds and big corporations out of New York, investment vehicles. This was when most of them were purchased, or many of them.

Over 10 million Americans lost their homes to predators like Steve Mnuchin. The stock market lost over 50%. During the Bush crash, its all time peak was on October 9th, 2007 at 14, 164. It collapsed to 6, 594. While 8 million Americans lost their jobs and were wiped out, the billionaires came in and started buying stocks that were being unloaded by working class people from their [01:31:00] 401Ks, even though they had to pay a penalty.

Between 2009 and 2012, the bottom of the Bush crash and the beginning of the real recovery, The top 1 percent of Americans saw their income grow by over 31%, 95 percent of all income gains during that period were the top 1%. If you, the S& P went up 462 percent by 2020. If you had invested in 2009 a billion dollars, just 11 years later, you would have 4.

6 billion dollars. And then they did it again 10 years later during the Trump COVID crash. And this was, you know, again, the, the billionaires, became insanely wealthy. And they don't have to pay taxes on this money. I mean, the, the, just that one year, 2020, the world's billionaires saw their wealth increase by a full 54%.

So here you've got Republicans down at Doral planning what they're going to do economically, governmentally, whatever, and how they're [01:32:00] not going to hold Trump accountable for impounding money. I'll get to that in violation of the 1974 impoundment act. Um, and the They're planning to crash the economy. You got the debt ceiling coming, you got all this wild stuff, another tax cut.

They want to crash the economy. I'm telling you, hang on to your seat, it's going to get wild.

#1689 The Media and the Moguls: Corporate Media is not equipped for TrumpRevenge- Trump throws lawsuits at the media and demands compliance - The ReidOut w Joy Reid - Air Date 12-17-24

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT:  

Donald Trump ran for president for one reason and one reason only: to make all of his legal problems -- poof! -- go away. And for the most part, he was successful, with one exception. Yesterday, the New York judge who presided over Trump's hush money trial denied his bid to toss out his guilty verdict, meaning Trump will have to live with the infamy of being the first convicted felon president.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And yes, MAGA, you are still a convicted felon before you are sentenced. That's how it works.

But that isn't stopping Trump from trying to hit the delete button on every other bad headline ever [01:33:00] printed about him, going so far as to sue Iowa pollster Ann Seltzer and the Des Moines Register, saying he's seeking "accountability for brazen election interference" over a November poll that showed Kamala Harris up 3 percent in Iowa.

Never mind the fact that Trump won the election and won the state of Iowa by double digits. He's clearly feeling emboldened by ABC News agreeing to pay a $15 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit. Nearly every legal expert said that they would have won. And as others in the media show, they're increasingly willing to comply in advance, like the owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who Oliver Darcy is reporting, requested that the newspaper's editorial board outright take a break from writing about Trump and balance any critical editorials or articles with positive ones.

Yeah, but here's the thing: these CEOs who are thinking, "Let me just give him what he wants this one time and he'll leave me alone. He won't hurt me or my company or he'll give me [01:34:00] goodies like tax cuts or tariff exemptions or federal contracts. A pat on the head." 

That is not how it works with Trump. His ego is too fragile and his needs are endless. As any parent knows, if your toddler is having a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, the solution isn't to just buy them the cookies they're screaming for. Because then they'll just do it again and again, and you'll be out of money and sanity, and their teeth will be rotten.

And right now, Trump is that toddler. And he wants nothing short of complete obedience, and constant adulation. For everyone to say they love him and praise him, and tell him he's the best president ever! And it'll never be obsequious enough, or vigorous enough. He'll always want more. And punish and humiliate even those who do comply, just ask Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and all the Black Republicans who went to the mat for Trump during the campaign, only to get snubbed as he builds his administration.

He will always reward weakness with [01:35:00] more humiliation. And that includes foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who went to Mar-a-Lago last month to kiss the ring, behaving like Trump was already president, which he's not. And how does Trump reward him? By publicly mocking Trudeau on his social media sites, once again calling Trudeau "the governor of the great state of Canada." 

Joining me now is Tim O'Brien, Senior Executive Editor of Bloomberg Opinion and MSNBC Political Analyst. And I have to tell you, this Trudeau thing really bothered me. Let me just put up this tweet that Trudeau posted on his -- why is he still on X Twitter? But he posted this tweet of himself, Look at me next to Donald. Look, what is he doing? When will people learn, Tim, that emasculating yourself before Trump, as Ted Cruz did, as so many have done, doesn't help and just makes him worse. 

TIM O'BRIEN: And it's also a reminder, Joy, that he has been this way forever.

He came up, as you [01:36:00] know, and as I know, we've talked many times, at the knee of Roy Cohn, who taught him how to weaponize the legal system. And he's learned that you don't necessarily need to go to court. And you don't necessarily need to ultimately break people. If they're scared enough in the first innings of any action you take, to capitulate, whether they're politicians, members of the business community, members of the media, members of Congress, or members of the judiciary. And, we can pull down examples of each and every one of these institutions and some of their leading members, deciding in advance that the safest way and the most productive way to deal with Donald Trump is to kiss the ring.

And we see example after example of once they do that, he then shames them in public. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yes.

TIM O'BRIEN: And he is not ultimately delivering on some of the things they want. And he does it to the people he even holds close to them. I mean, think about how many days was it [01:37:00] after RFK Jr. got nominated for HHS.

And there was a picture of him eating fast food with Don Jr. and Donald on the presidential plane. Eat your food. Take your punishment. And for Trudeau, who you set up in your previous clip in the introduction of this segment, his government, his own government is fractured because of this. And, he could very well be out of a job because of this. 

So I do think that people in the near term right now are petrified. They're not sure how to respond to the fact that Trump was reelected again, other than to capitulate. But they should keep, I think, their eyes on the prize. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Well, I mean, yeah. And there's a game people play of mocking Canada. Well, now Canada has been mocked by its own prime minister. Justin Trudeau went down to Mar-a-Lago as if Trump is already president. He's not president yet. He didn't go running to the White House of the real current president. He went to [01:38:00] him as if he could just become a supplicant. And now Christia Freeland, who is his finance minister, she's out of there because she's like we need to come up with a strategy to deal with Trump's tariff plan. That is not a strategy and it is humiliating. And if I were a Canadian, I'd be absolutely disgusted.

it's interesting that it's said that there's a crisis of manhood, right? That is being said a lot on the right. There is a crisis of manhood. But it's on your own side, guys. It's people like Jeff Bezos, it's people like Mark Zuckerberg. Is this manly behavior to go and fall on your knees to Donald Trump? No! 

I want to show you one reason why people might be doing it though. Los Angeles Times wrote this. I'm sorry, not Los Angeles Times. I apologize for that. Robert Reich wrote this. Much better. he says that part of the reason the media is doing this, no large American corporation wants to be actively litigating against a sitting president, especially one as vindictive as Trump.

A $15 million settlement is chicken feed compared to the myriad ways Trump could penalize Disney, which is a $205.25 billion corporation that has other businesses [01:39:00] besides the media. So talk a little bit about that, because some of these media are actually owned by bigger conglomerates with other business that could be before the president, and so he wants to save his SpaceX and wants to save his other thing or not SpaceX. Whichever one is his. Bezos is one. Everyone's thinking about their other businesses. 

TIM O'BRIEN: Blue Origins. I think it's-- 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Blue Origin for Bezos. Yeah. Yeah. 

TIM O'BRIEN: I think that this is, in the American media model, it is always dependent on the integrity of the owners, because they're privately held concerns for the most part in less, or, publicly traded, but with close ownership.

PBS is the only media entity of note that is in there, some very powerfully funded nonprofits like ProPublica that do wonderful work. But when we talk about the legacy media and the mainstream media, we're talking about corporate media. In the era we're in now, corporations have multiple interests [01:40:00] that aren't only tied to their media holdings, and their CEOs are thinking about those things.

And I think you're seeing some media owners decide to dispose of media assets because it's troublesome. I think you have others doing anticipatory knee bending, because they don't want to go into battle in a courtroom with the president. it's bottom line thinking, it's strategic thinking, but it's not journalistic.

And, it's not tied to the idea, just that core basic idea, that the role of journalists in the world should be to seek the truth, and hold the powerful accountable on behalf of the public interest. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, at this point, the Los Angeles Times is essentially saying if you report a negative fact about Trump, you have to balance it with a positive fact.

I'm not sure how that is serving journalists, and I can tell you that people inside the Los Angeles Times apparently, at least allegedly according to the reports, are not happy. And inside of Bezos operation, it's difficult in this moment when you just want to do the [01:41:00] journalism. it's difficult.

 

Public Broadcasting Is In Danger (Again) - On the Media - Air Date 1-10-25

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA:  

Donald Trump, who says journalists are scum and thinks fact-checking is really unfair, won the election. Now, all those accused of scummily fact-checking are scrambling to adjust. After all, Mr. Trump has already vowed to seek retribution for media offenses by, say, suing CBS for $1 billion doll because of "biased editing of a Kamala Harris 60 minutes interview," suspending ABC's broadcast license because of fact-checked him during a debate and suing The Des Moines Register for printing a poll suggesting Harris would win. A poll that turned out to be, wait for it, wrong. There's more.

Donald Trump: We're involved in one which has been going on for a while and very successfully against Bob Woodward where he didn't quote me properly from the tapes. Then on top of everything else, he sold the tapes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This week, the Washington Post's budget was cut by [01:42:00] its stupefyingly rich owner, Jeff Bezos, two months after he killed its endorsement of Kamala Harris, and just as Amazon signed a big deal to bring out a Melania Trump endorsed Melania Trump documentary. He's also given $1 million bucks to Trump's inauguration, as has Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who just announced that Facebook is ending its fact-checking program, leading the president-elect to say that Zuck's company had "come a long way."

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: The point is fact-based journalism is in trouble. This hour, we're going to look at the plight of public radio, which we are, because who else is going to do it? First, a quick history. Back in 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson mired in Vietnam was trying to build the Great Society at home by passing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, creating Medicare, and crucially, for the purpose of this story, creating the Corporation [01:43:00] for Public Broadcasting, which has been marked for death repeatedly. What is it?

President Lyndon Johnson: The Corporation of Public Broadcasting will assist stations and producers who aim for the best in broadcasting on the whole fascinating range of human activity. It will try to prove that what educates can also be exciting. It will get part of its support from our government, but it will be carefully guarded from government or from party control. It will be free and it will be independent and it will belong to all of our people.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: It was a hard sell. Conservatives worried the CPB would promote liberal ideas. After all, Johnson's agenda was indisputably liberal. Some suspected its funds would flow more to some regions than others. Commercial broadcasters feared the competition. Even after the dust settled, well, actually the dust never really settled, it's been [01:44:00] kicked up by every Republican administration since. Yet through the decades, somehow every effort to slash or burn the CPB has failed, thanks to such battle-scarred warriors as Big Bird and this guy.

Fred Rogers: I end the program by saying, you've made this day a special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are. I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Despite Fred Rogers' appeal to empathy, Richard Nixon, not known for manageable feelings, viewed public broadcasting as an enemy to slay. In 1975, it was left to [01:45:00] Gerald Ford to set up a funding scheme to shield it, theoretically at least, from the immediate political winds. Congress was directed to appropriate CPB's funding two years in advance. Of course, Congress could kill future funding or even rescind what had already been allocated, but some insulation was better than none. Fast forward to 2017. Donald Trump tries to cut CPB's funding several times in his first term.

KAREN EVERHART: This morning, President Trump made public his proposed budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year. Among the items included, the elimination of all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: He didn't get it done.

KAREN EVERHART: No, he did not. Those proposals did not fly in Congress.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Karen Everhart is the managing editor of Current, a nonprofit newsroom covering public media.

KAREN EVERHART: Members of Congress, particularly in rural states, recognize that public broadcasting is one of the only local originating sources of [01:46:00] news and information and programming, and they value that. Their constituents value that. What typically happens is the House goes along with a recommendation, especially when it's dominated by Republicans. The House will eliminate CPB's funding from its appropriations budget and then the Senate will propose an alternative number, and that number or something around that amount will end up in the final budget.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: More than 70% of CPB's annual appropriation goes directly to public media stations in the form of community service grants, CSGs, of which about 45% are rural. They can be used as they need to be to keep the station running and for programming, both local and national. They're not obligated to buy programs from PBS, nor do they have to buy from NPR.

KAREN EVERHART: Although most of them do because they're very popular with their audiences. They can choose to [01:47:00] buy programs from American Public Media or PRX or the BBC.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Last year, CPB received $525 million plus another $10 million in interest, about half of which went to local public TV stations and direct grants, about 15% to local radio stations. A big chunk went out in programming grants, mostly to TV. More went out to support the distribution system, et cetera. That said, the bigger stations are less vulnerable to attacks on CPB because it's not a significant part of their budgets.

KAREN EVERHART: They don't rely on CPB funding for essential services. That doesn't go towards their programming budget. It's the small stations where it really makes the biggest difference in what they do on a day-to-day basis. Those are the stations that are most at risk.

Fox News is Back at the White House. Plus, No Joke, The Onion Buys Infowars. Part 2 - On the Media - Air Date 11-15-24

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You also say that not everything can be fact-checked, that the political ether is lousy with [01:48:00] lies large and small, that reporters should concentrate on the ones with the highest impact, or liars, where everything is said to a large audience. But how do you curate Trump?

BILL ADAIR: Well, I think the solution for fact checking Trump is to get some funding to literally fact check everything he says.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Fact-checking all of those claims, hiring someone to do it, wouldn't that have a numbing effect?

BILL ADAIR: Well, yes, but there are also people who transcribe everything he says.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So how exactly does more fact-checking help our current environment?

BILL ADAIR: People would say, with me, like, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Here's why. I think that, first, if you look at just the most basic thing, we talked about Trump, but this also exists at the state and local level.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Even more important, because those local papers have been hammered so hard.

BILL ADAIR: Exactly, and so here's proof of that. [01:49:00] My team looked at fact checking across the country and found that in half the states, there are no fact checkers holding governors, US Senators, members of Congress responsible for what they say. That's like driving on the interstate without any fear of getting a speeding ticket. You can go as fast as you want. Those politicians can say anything and never worry about getting fact-checked. We need more fact-checkers. The simple process of holding politicians accountable for what they say is a useful exercise that provides a ground truth. So that's step one. Okay, so is fact-checking working when it's done? No.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And part of that is structural. Our media is crafted so that we never have to encounter an idea or a fact that we don't [01:50:00] like.

BILL ADAIR: Exactly. So we have to get creative in thinking about how we might get fact checks to people who aren't seeing them. Two thoughts on that. One, I'm not sure that shouting pants on fire is going to have an appeal to conservative audiences. I'm not sure that Truth-O-Meters are going to have an appeal to conservative audiences because they're associated with fact-checkers that probably conservative audiences have been told not to trust.

In researching the book, I searched how often PolitiFact and its fact-checking has been mentioned in negative ways on Fox, and it gets insulted a lot. We probably need to think about how we package fact-checking for conservative audiences. The other thing we need to do is to get more conservative media organizations to do their own fact-checking. Now, this is already happening. The [01:51:00] Dispatch, a center-right publication, does fact-checking and it's very popular, and we need more conservative media organizations to do fact-checking. I think those two things could really help because what we're doing now is not working.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: In writing this book, you stepped away from the day-to-day role of fact-checking and you've come to the conclusion that maybe pants on fire isn't the way to go. But have you gotten yet any insights or any really compelling ideas about how to package the truth in a way that can cross party lines?

BILL ADAIR: Not yet. That's kind of next on my to-do list.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: To me, that's a sort of, aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

BILL ADAIR: That's a big task. I think that we need to figure out what could appeal beyond [01:52:00] this NPR listening, New York Times reading, New Yorker subscribing audience and so.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: But nothing yet.

BILL ADAIR: Nothing yet.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You got nothing?

BILL ADAIR: I got nothing for you, Brooke.

#1691 Democracy Emergency, Constitutional Crisis, Democratic Backsliding, Failing GuardrailsMusk's Coup and Trump's Christian Zionist Gaza Takeover - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-7-25

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Elon Musk is treating the U. S. government like a startup. He's treating it like when he took over Twitter / X. And here's a piece at Wired, a different piece, that reads like this. "While this takeover is unprecedented for the government, it's standard operating procedure for Musk. It maps almost too neatly to his acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Get rid of most of the workforce, install loyalists, rip up safeguards, remake in your own image. This is the way of the startup. You're scrappy, you're unconventional, you're iterating. This is the world that Musk's lieutenants come from, and the one they are imposing on the Office of Personal Management, the GSA, and on down the line".

But Dan, as you're saying, the U. S. government is not a startup. And [01:53:00] this is where you and I have always tried to make a point about this whole 'do the government like a business'. The point of business is to make money. The point of government is to help people's lives get better, to care for people, to help people thrive, to create systems that allow for people to make decisions not for them, and not so that they're just like passive agents, but to create systems where people have good choices about food, shelter, care, about infrastructure, about education. 

Do you think that Musk and the people working for him—and I can go down the roster if you all want, the 19 year old freshman at Northeastern University, the 25 year old eugenicist, the 23 year old who just graduated and had his first job at Meta—do you think that they're concerned with the fact that the trillions of dollars they now have in front of them in a code, and where they're just like slamming Red Bulls all night and [01:54:00] hamming it up, affects people's real lives? That non profits are shutting down because OMB cut off the money? They don't.

This is not a startup. It is the most powerful government in the world. It's one that oversees 350 million people. Dan, I live near Silicon Valley. Startups come and go. One out of a hundred make it. Most of them expend a significant amount of energy and resources, and then they die, and then you just start another one. That is how the kinds of young men that Musk is dragging around think. 

It's also a huge cyber security threat. There's a piece of the conversation by Richard Forno, who's a professor at University of Maryland, and what he talks about is when you have this kind of fiddling with the code of the U. S. Treasury, when you have people who are taking this data and putting it on private servers—do you remember Hillary [01:55:00] Clinton's emails, Dan? The private server? Do you remember that?—that's what they're doing with the data, oh, not of, I don't know, some emails that she sent, which, not great, Hillary, okay, whatever. Oh, I don't know, Dan happens to be perhaps every American and their financial records, the millions of federal employees on someone's server who's 23 years old and walking around like a hacker on the metro with his backpack looking like Mr. Robot. That's a problem, and it flies right in the face of what we talked about over the last couple of weeks.

Donald Trump: well, I know this was DEI with the plane crash, because I have common sense. J. D. Vance: if you just use common sense like real people, not bureaucrats, not technocrats, not those administrative state liberal career hacks, then you'll have a good government. Okay, cool, so who did you guys put in charge of the entire Treasury, and who are [01:56:00] you allowing to hack our entire government? Oh, you mean people with specialized knowledge who are 23 years old and led by a madman, the richest man in the world? That guy who just did the Nazi salute twice? You want to tell me that's common sense? You want to tell me that now you're just like a man of the people? One of the plebeians who lives in the life-world of the peasants and is thinking through everything with common sense? Like you would down at Ace Hardware? You put in charge childrenwith technical knowledge. You allowed them to download the entire code and data of the nation, and then you're gonna turn to us and tell us you have common sense about non-White people and women? 

This is an authoritarian takeover. It's an attempted coup. And we should treat it as such. And I'll close this out, Dan, I'll throw it to you and we can take a break, go to something else. The Senate Dems need to figure it out. And I don't usually go for the Democratic [01:57:00] Party by the throat on this show, not that often, but Chuck Schumer, you're not the man for the job, bud. It's time to go. You're out here introducing legislation to do stuff and Hakeem Jeffries is tweeting that Jesus is in control, that's not gonna cut it. You cannot do business in the Senate when the social contract has been broken. They're trying to take your job, Chuck. They're saying they get the purse and they're gonna spend the money. And you're out here saying, this has to be stopped. Why are you using the passive voice, Chuck? Go get arrested. Go demand, I want to know which Democratic Senator is gonna get thrown to the ground and arrested at the Treasury building, trying to get in and see what the hell's going on in there. That's what I want. Show me that guy. Show me that gal. Show me that person. And guess what? They got my vote, 2028. Because right now I see a lot of like hand-wringing soft-handed BS from some of the only people who have a [01:58:00] chance to do anything right now. And this is not a way to win back voters and do whatever you've been doing since Kamala Harris lost. This is a way to make people think you're a bunch of old folks who are not built for the fight.

Why Are Dems Surprised - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-7-25

SUNJEEV BERY: At a influencer conference, a political influencer conference last spring in DC, Cory Booker opened up the happy hour on the opening night of this conference talking about the importance of social media and messaging. As soon as he ended his remarks, he was hounded by a room full of some of the largest liberal TikTokers asking him why he supported banning the app that they message other young people on.

So it's odd that they have people like this, with these stances, with these actions, with this policy record, tapped to lead these critical pieces of infrastructure for the party in such a critical moment. It's, baffling to me. So I'm, wondering for both of you, how would you assess the democratic Party's leadership in this moment because you're both talking [01:59:00] about activism and organizing in addition to that Indivisible call There was a large protest outside the Treasury on Tuesday That was organized by Indivisible and Move On while members of Congress showed up that was from the outside. So what is leadership doing right now to restore faith in the party in their leadership and for the road ahead?

JORDAN UHL: I mean, I'll be blunt and say I'm not seeing it, and I'm just not seeing what needs to be done. And this is a moment for an asymmetrical challenge, right? Trump holds formal authority, but he obviously is going way beyond formal authority when it comes to things like abolishing agencies like USAID, that he doesn't technically have the power to do.

And meanwhile, Democratic leaders. They don't have a sense of what to do or how to operate. And the way you operate in a moment like this is by engaging in an asymmetrical challenge. Democrats don't have any formal authority, but they can build informal authority. I personally think Elon Musk is far more vulnerable than most people recognize.

And I could [02:00:00] imagine. A movement to call on Democratic senators to filibuster any legislation that provides any sort of appropriations or funding for any of Elon Musk's, financial interests, starting with SpaceX, a big chunk of his increase in wealth is just projections from the stock market of future earnings for Tesla and SpaceX, tens of billions of dollars could be subtracted from him very quickly.

But this kind of creative thinking isn't something that it. Democrats in office tend to be very good at because they're very well trained in, let's just be blunt kissing the ass of concentrated sectors of wealth in order to access that money to run campaigns. My personal opinion is any formal shift in how leading democratic politicians behave is going to occur because, people are leading from behind, movement organizations, concerned grassroots voters and donors are going to say, what the heck are you doing?

And then they're going to start listening, and then they're going to start quote unquote leading. 

AKELA LACY: Yeah, I agree [02:01:00] with 99 percent of that, I would say. I'm not sure that leaders, leadership in the Democratic Party is looking for feedback. I get the sense that they want to create the appearance that they're looking for feedback, but, maintain this practice of thinking they're the smartest people in the room and thinking that they have it locked down and, we'll listen to what you say, but we're actually, we know what we're doing.

I do think right now is an opening for some of that more creative thinking to come in. But I think that, you, really hit it on the head there. The idea that no one was prepared, that there was no strategy, and that they're playing catch up right now when this writing has been on the wall for months and months and months.

I mean, we can go back to June. We can, we can go back to October, November. But what possible reason could there be that Schumer doesn't have Democrats locked down to vote as a bloc against every single Trump nominee? He came out on Monday touting that they had 47 people, [02:02:00] including, the two independents, vote against the OMB chief.

But then you have other votes just this week, where it's like they have 22 people voting for a Trump nominee. They have 24 people in the Democratic Party voting for a Trump nominee. And they should be being held accountable for that. I think some of these outside groups are trying to do that. But when you talk about the sparks of potential openings for that creative thinking, whether it's from members of The Squad or members of the CPC, I think Pramila Jayapal has been very blunt that Democrats are not willing to learn from this moment, particularly on Gaza.

But you also see those ranks being decimated and whatever organizing has been done to build their capacity to do that creative thinking and fill that gap in Congress, since 2018, et cetera, et cetera, has been cut in half, every two years because of groups like AIPAC and these outside groups that Democrats continue caving to.

So that's the bigger, 30, 000 foot picture of the cycle of [02:03:00] why this seems to be impossible for people who say that they have all the information and all the answers.

Trumps American Takeover - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-1-25

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So, I lived in Hungary for a long time. I also lived in Russia for a long time. And this is the third time I've ridden this escalator from democracy into someplace very dark. And unfortunately, what we're seeing here is so similar to what happened in Russia and particularly to what happened in Hungary.

And part of the reason why it's so alarming is that Americans have this idea that when democracy fails, it's going to fail with tanks in the streets. It's going to fail with some radical rupture. It's going to fail with normal ceasing to be normal. And when you look at how autocracy works these days in the rest of the world, it almost always comes in on the backs of a free and fair election.

So, somebody who is a, we call them populist, but you can call them whatever, charismatic leaders who [02:04:00] promise to shake things up, they get elected, often fair and square the first time. You go back and you look at the election monitor's reports from when Hugo Chavez was elected in Venezuela, or when Vladimir Putin was elected the first time in Russia, or when Victor Orban was elected the first time in Hungary, the election monitors all said free and fair election, no problem. And then what happens is that as soon as these guys come to power, they start to just take over and disable all of the checks on executive power. And they do it while their cover story is a lot of inflammatory rhetoric that causes pain to people.

So, now we're seeing immigration, we're seeing attacks on people with gender fluidity, we're seeing attacks on affirmative action, we're seeing attacks across the board on vulnerable groups and people who have really never been treated equally. But behind the scenes, what that's disguising, this was also [02:05:00] true in Hungary, it was true in Venezuela, it was true in Turkey, it's in all these places, inflammatory rhetoric disguises the real work of autocracy. And what's the real work of autocracy? Removing all checks on executive power. And a lot of that is happening in a very unsexy way in laws that are buried deep beneath the surface that only a technical lawyer could love. And that's where you start to see chipping away at every single constraint on what the president can do.

Now, America is a very big and complicated system. It's going to take a lot to capture all of it because we have federalism, because we have a lot of nooks and crannies where different sources of power reside. But Trump in his first term of office had not yet discovered this formula that you need the law to entrench yourself. So, he did a lot of horrible things, he caused a lot of pain, he was incredibly [02:06:00] arbitrary, he loves to sign executive orders, but when he left office, most of the U. S. government, it was battered, it was beaten, he dropped it on the floor, it cracked, there weren't people who were put into important positions, but he hadn't changed the legal infrastructure except for one thing, and that is the Supreme Court.

Hence, this podcast. So, now what I think Trump learned is what a lot of these autocrats learned. Victor Orban was in power once and lost power because he didn't learn this lesson. When he came back, and now when Trump is coming back, what they learned is that you have to learn to entrench yourself. And it helps if you compromise some institutions when you're in office the first time. But what Victor Orban did, and what now Donald Trump has done, is to use their time out of office to put together a team of people who will write all the laws you need to entrench yourself. And it's being written by private groups. It's not going through the normal lawmaking [02:07:00] process. Private lawyers are writing up all of these plans. And then as soon as you come into power, you start to shovel this stuff out the door as fast as you can. You take advantage of incredibly obscure laws already on the books that already give the executive tons of power. You override, you might declare an emergency, for example, we've seen two of them declared this week in the U S already, or I guess it was last week, or maybe it's, and who knows how many more will there will be. But, there's a lot of these emergencies being declared that give the president additional powers, but there's also new executive orders that are simply grabbing power right now. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: It sounds to me, Kim, like what you are saying is, and I know this is simplistic, but as you're trying to make sense of this flurry of executive orders that are coming at all hours of the day, and it's really hard for most of us to triage what's meaningful, what's important, we keep saying on this show, they are not the law, but they are certainly have [02:08:00] promises and instructions to agencies how to conduct themselves.

It feels almost like you're saying that there is one bucket that is distractions, chaos, confusion. There's another bucket that's really systematically shoveling power back to the executive branch and constructing an impermeable executive branch. Is that the best schema for thinking about this?

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Yes, yes, and of course that bucket of distraction is also actually harming people. And what it does is it takes most of the opposition and pulls their attention over to that. So for example, we've seen, immediately lots of lawsuits on birthright citizenship, lots of people putting out advisories on what to do if ICE comes knocking on your door. All that's crucial and people should be working on those things because these kinds of initiatives are causing real pain. But there's another set of things that's not getting nearly enough attention, and that is the second bucket, which is all the [02:09:00] stuff that is consolidating power in the executive. 

So, let me tell you two things that look familiar from Hungary because these were really crucial in the early days. So, one thing Orbán did was to immediately suspend the civil service law in order to fire tons of governmental workers. Okay? And we've seen that. A lot of the things that Trump has been doing is to rattle the civil service. Now, the Biden administration saw this coming, they enacted a regulation that actually made it impossible to directly fire people who had civil service protection, which is why you see these new executive orders coming in. And what they're doing is they're reassigning people to jobs they can't possibly want to do. Or they're putting them on paid leave just to get them out of the way. So the Biden regulation is doing something to slow this process down. But in some of these executive orders, they actually say in our view, this Biden regulation is unconstitutional. And so we are going to ignore it, which is why they're just firing some people also, okay? 

[02:10:00] But attacking the civil service, it's a big chunk of what Orban did. And he fired a lot of people. He then terrified the rest so that they were afraid to go against him. So even if there wasn't anything he could have really done, he puts people in fear of their careers, their jobs, they're disoriented. It happens so quickly, they don't know what to do. So attacking the bureaucracy, making everybody either quit, be fired, or in fear, was a big chunk of what he did, and that's what we're seeing.

The other thing he did was he defunded everybody who could possibly push back. Okay? So, in the U S government, it's been random defunding of everybody. That was not, shall we say, precision guided. But what I'm expecting to come is more systematic defunding of all the places where they think the opposition will come from. So, let me tell you what happened in Hungary. It turns out when I was living in Budapest, there were 12 daily newspapers in a [02:11:00] city of 3 million people. It was wonderful. You could read papers ranging from left or right to wonderful objective journalism, all kinds of stuff, but it was unsustainable. It turns out. You got 12 daily newspapers because most of their funding came from state advertising. As soon as Orban came to power, he cut the funding to cut all the advertising to all the papers and actually all the TV stations and radio stations that actually had been critical of his party. And it turns out they started to fail, economically.

What happens? His oligarchs swept in, bought up the media they wanted, or they let them fail. And when the rest of Europe looked at this, because this is all happening in the European Union, there's supposed to be a club of democracies, Orban says, Oh, well, you know, it's just the market. They can't sustain themselves. And this is when newspapers are failing all over the world for financial reasons. Didn't look like he'd done anything. 

#1690 Oligarchy Unmasked- Why Billionaires Hate Democracy and How They're Dismantling ItIs Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-3-25

WALEED SHAHID: If this story was taking place somewhere in [02:12:00] Central Asia or in Africa, the United States media, the United States State Department, international institutions would likely refer to this as a coup. A billionaire industrialist who donated $300 million to a campaign is installing his personal loyalists in key parts of the federal bureaucracy. This is essentially Viktor Orbán’s playbook.

And we need to know: Why does a billionaire industrialist, with millions in government contracts, military contracts for his private companies, need the Social Security numbers of every American, needs to know what every single check that the US government gives out to businesses, to charities? Why does this billionaire need to know this information?

He was not vetted or approved by the US senate. He has a history of corruption, for using public resources for private gain. He’s one of the wealthiest men in the world. In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it. But in the United States, we are [02:13:00] not used to this kind of level of creeping authoritarianism, of plutocracy, of oligarchy so explicit.

And we need to — as Representative Ocasio-Cortez said last night, this is a five-alarm fire. Senate Democrats need to be communicating to the American people. And last night, there was a call by Indivisible Action for people to visit their local — their senators and call for them to grind the Senate to a halt, to call for investigations and to know why does Elon Musk need to know this information. Why is he showing up on Saturday to the offices of the federal government demanding the private information of citizens all around the country?

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Lindsay Owens, you say none of the reasons are good. Lay those out.

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, absolutely. So, for most Americans, this is the first time that they’ve ever heard of the Treasury payment system. So, what is the Treasury payment system? This is, effectively, the piece of the federal government that cuts the checks. And they cut a [02:14:00] lot of checks. This is $6 trillion a year — money that goes to individuals as Social Security payments for seniors; money that goes for organizations like Meals on Wheels to deliver lunches; foreign aid; as well as the funding that the government sets aside for key programs, paying its debts, making sure that we don’t breach the debt ceiling and default on our obligations.

So, this is really unprecedented that Elon Musk has grabbed control of the keys of $6 trillion in payments infrastructure. There are a few reasons this could be happening. The first is, as your viewers know, last week, President Trump tried to end federal spending, just stop federal payments altogether. This was so outrageous and in violation of the Constitution that the courts intervened and said that he couldn’t do that. What may be happening here is that Musk may be doing an end run around the courts, going straight to the source so [02:15:00] that he can continue to stop those payments that the courts said needed to keep staying online.

The second thing that may be happening here is this could just be a good old-fashioned cyberattack. Elon Musk could be interested in the Social Security numbers, the tax ID numbers of tens of millions of Americans. We know that he has partnered with Visa and is considering spinning out a payment system of his own. What we may have here is Elon Musk’s attempt to get the private information for his own financial gain.

The other thing that is incredibly worrying here is $6 trillion in spending is not just a lot of money, it’s a macroeconomically significant amount of money. If Elon Musk starts tinkering with the code, you know, the underlying technology that makes sure these payments go out seamlessly and effectively, he could inadvertently, or on [02:16:00] purpose, bring the macroeconomy to a halt. I mean, this is an incredibly concerning seizure of government infrastructure, but it is also an economically significant moment in the country.

So, I couldn’t agree more with Waleed more. I mean, the word “coup” is the right word to be thinking about here. And Congress must intervene. I mean, if I was a senator, I think the most important thing to do is bring the secretary of the treasury to the Senate today to answer questions about what Musk has access to.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, the Treasury Department’s inspector general, who could monitor DOGE’s activities, was among the 15 watchdogs who were purged by President Trump. Who’s now in charge of or overseeing Musk’s team?

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, Musk is in charge. So, that’s exactly right. Some of the key chokeholds here to make sure that something like this doesn’t [02:17:00] happen have been moved out of the way, studiously, exactingly moved out of the way. So, President Trump fired the inspector general of the Treasury, and the top civil servant of the Treasury Department, the man who was the acting treasury secretary between the time that Janet Yellen stepped down and Scott Bessent was confirmed by the Senate, has also been pushed aside, resigned over the fact that he didn’t want to give Musk, a private citizen, a billionaire, the keys to the Treasury payment system. So there is very little stopping Musk from taking this over. You know, Trump and Bessent have really given him a glide path.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Waleed Shahid, where is the Democratic Party on this? Where are the Democratic senators and congressmembers on this? I mean, you have Hakeem Jeffries, who holds an emergency meeting of the Democrats after a judge stops the [02:18:00] federal payments from going out to — you know, stops the ban on federal funding.

WALEED SHAHID: So, the Democratic Party in Washington is largely asleep at the wheel. They are acting as if they’re kind of a librarian shushing noise in a crowded room. They are still believing in the normal procedures, normal decorum, normal — that everything here is the normal transition of power. And they still believe that what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing is just a libertarian reform of the government, not an oligarchic, plutocratic takeover of a private billionaire who is seeking to know — potentially seeking to know what his competitors might be doing with government contracts. He has private information that — Elon Musk has contracts with international governments all across the world. But the Democratic Party is not able to put forward an [02:19:00] opposition message right now, because they are — they feel like this is normal.

And that’s why it’s so important for concerned citizens all across the country to twist the arm of your Senate Democrat. Go to their office. If you go to Indivisible.org today, you can find a way to join your local chapter all around the country, whether your senators are Republican or Democrat or independent. They need to hear from concerned citizens, because the Democratic Party doesn’t move on issues of oligarchy, of plutocracy, of taking action, unless their constituents show up in person and demand that they hold hearings, take the bully pulpit in the media and also grind the Senate to a halt until we know why does Elon Musk have this information, someone who was not elected.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, the Democratic National Committee on Saturday elected the moderate political insider Ken Martin as chair, despite calls from voters to urgently switch gears and respond to working people’s needs following the party’s crushing defeat, though it wasn’t a [02:20:00] major numbers defeat, but it was a defeat in November. What do you think of Ken Martin? Where do you think it’s going?

WALEED SHAHID: So, the DNC is largely, at this point, a fundraising vehicle for the presidential campaign. I hope that Ken Martin reforms the party to do things like what I’m describing. The Democratic Party should be holding daily press conferences every morning to explain to working-class and middle-class Americans why it might hurt their pocketbooks for Elon Musk to have this information from the Treasury Department and from the OPM, that Elon Musk has a history of wanting to use public resources for private gain, that Elon Musk is someone who is live-tweeting that he wants to cut the federal government’s debt every day by billions of dollars, and one of the only ways to do that would be to begin to privatize Social Security. This is what the DNC should be doing.

Now, Ken Martin, we had lots of members of the “uncommitted” movement at the DNC who were being personally bullied by their DNC state parties, and Ken Martin, [02:21:00] thankfully, did intervene to make sure that that didn’t happen. And so, that was my only personal interaction with him, and he went out of his way to make sure that our uncommitted delegation was treated with respect. Other than that, I don’t know that much about him, but I’m looking forward to — hopefully he can put together a working-class, populist agenda for the party that isn’t just a fundraising handoff.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Lindsay Owens, DOGE is not a formal government agency, right? Which means that it doesn’t fall into any category.

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, look, I think when President Trump announced that Elon Musk was going to be running the Department of Government Efficiency, there was a sort of tempting fantasy that maybe Musk, a tech but successful businessman, could come in and restore some efficiency in government, maybe modernize some aspects of government that could use some updating. I mean, I think with this weekend’s seizure of the Treasury payment system, we can be [02:22:00] crystal clear in putting that fantasy to bed. This is Musk determining who is going to get funding in this country, what programs are going to be funded in this country. And remember, Musk isn’t a disinterested party here. As we’ve talked about, he has many federal contracts himself, billions of dollars this year alone to his companies — SpaceX, Tesla and X, formerly known as Twitter.

But he also is interested in cutting this funding for a very personal reason, which is he is interested in paying for the tax cuts that Congress is teeing up this year. They are estimating $5 trillion in tax cuts, mostly going to the wealthy and corporations. And DOGE is the entity that is supposedly going to find the money, find the savings to pay for those tax cuts. So I think we can sum it up this way: Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security. That’s [02:23:00] really what we’re looking at here. That’s what DOGE is up to. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What should people do right now?

WALEED SHAHID: People should go to Indivisible.org and visit their Senate office and demand an investigation of Elon Musk and that Senate business should come to a halt.

President Trump and the Power of the Purse - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 2-5-25

JAMELLE BOUIE - HOST, TAKES™ BY JAMELLE BOUIE: However all of this ends, it should be emphasized that the president has no authority to do any of this. And he has sent us headlong into a genuine constitutional crisis. To specify, the president has no legal authority to freeze, suspend, or what's called impound congressional. appropriations. It is true that there is a 1974 law, the Impoundment Control Act, which sets up a set of procedures by which the president can request to Congress rescission of funds, meaning just withdrawing funds or reallocation of funds, but it's a very specific process. It's usually based on a rationale like "Oh, I found a more efficient way to do something for you." And in fact, when supporters of the idea of an impoundment power say that, Oh, it's happened [02:24:00] before what they're specifically referring to is a circumstance in the 1800s when Thomas Jefferson as president spent less than what was appropriated because he found a cheaper way to do it.

But even in whatever circumstances are outlined by the law, the president still has to contact Congress, explain to Congress what the president is doing, and give a timeline for when the funds are going to be used. Any attempt to impound funds outside of the parameters set by this law is on its face constitutional for the very, very simple reason that the Constitution gives Congress the full and unambiguous power of the purse. It is, in fact, the very first power enumerated under Article 1, Section 8, "the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, in post and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

The issue of an impoundment has come up before it came up during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Nixon, certainly a great American hero, wanted to stop spending congressionally authorized [02:25:00] funds, and various legal authorities popped up to say, no, you can't really do that. And in 1988, the Justice Department's office of legal counsel even put out a memo kind of reflecting. past empowerment controversies and stating outright that this power simply doesn't exist for the simple reason that it would contradict and undermine the constitutional structure itself.

It would be anomalous, said the Justice Department, for the president to both take care to execute the laws as per the Take Care Clause of the constitution, but also declined to execute the laws as Congress set forth. You can't really do both. You have to choose one or the other, and the constitution clearly lays out that the president's job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, which is generally understood to mean the president has to execute the laws as Congress writes them, unless Congress provides the executive with discretion as to how the laws are going to be executed. 

Now there's the plain text and logic of the constitution that makes clear that impoundment is not a thing a president can do, [02:26:00] but you can also look at the history of the constitution to make clear that impoundment is not a thing the president can do. During the fight for ratification, when supporters and opponents of the constitution battled it out in ratification conventions across the 13 states, supporters of the constitution had an answer for those who worried that the constitution gave entirely too much power to the president. "The purse is in the hands of the representatives of the people," said James Madison at the Virginia ratifying convention, responding to Patrick Henry's fears of military despotism. "They have all the appropriation of all monies." Of all money, this is a funny way to say that, yeah. 

Alexander Hamilton made a similar point when speaking at the New York Ratification Convention. "We have heard a great deal of the sword and the purse. Let us see what is the true meaning of this maxim, which has been so much used and so little understood. It is that you shall not place those powers, either in the legislative or executive singly. Neither one nor the other shall have both, because this would destroy that division of powers in which [02:27:00] political liberty is founded. It would furnish one body with all the means of tyranny. But where the purse is lodged in one branch and the sword in another, there can be no danger."

The principal aim of the 1787 constitution was to secure the future of Republican government in the United States. It's lowercase R republican, not the political party, but the notion of self government. Of self government bounded by rules and institutions. Of self government defined by scheme of representation. Of self government that rests on the virtue of the people. Of self government that is defined by separation of powers, and institutions that are meant to make sure that no one particular force can irrigate all the power to itself.

And this is not just me speaking here, Republican political theory at the time insisted on "the separate and distinct exercise of the different power of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty," that's James Madison, again. 

The president may have wide [02:28:00] authority to act across a number of areas, but the one thing the president cannot do is unilaterally decide what to spend and how much to spend. President cannot spend any more or less than what Congress mandates without the explicit approval of Congress. 

I'm going to quote Madison again, this time from Federalist number 58 written to the New York ratification convention to persuade them of supporting the "this power over the purse," wrote Madison, "may in fact be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress of every grievance and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." 

To upset this balance of power, to, in effect, give the president the power of the purse, is to fundamentally unsettle and unravel the constitutional system of the United States. The system as it exists is built on the idea that these things are separate, that they have to be separate in order to preserve liberty and freedom.

A [02:29:00] Congress that cannot force an executive to abide by its spending decisions is a Congress whose power of the purse is a nullity. It doesn't matter. It effectively doesn't exist. It's not there. So if you read the memo announcing the freeze or the pause or whatever, it stated this was necessary so that officials could align their objectives with those of the President's will. And you see this type of phrasing all over the Trump government, that the president's will must be obeyed, that we must follow the president's will. But wait a sec. Let's hold up. Let's, let's stop. 

In the American system of government, the president's will doesn't direct the government. The people who serve the government don't pledge an oath to the President, they pledge an oath to the Constitution and to the American people. Everyone who serves in the government, career and political appointees alike, have a duty to obey the law and to follow the constitution. There is no mechanism in our system by which the mystical authority of the people flows into the President and [02:30:00] gives the president sovereign authority over everyone. It doesn't happen, that's not the United States system of government. 

President is a servant of the constitution, bound by its demands. Most Presidents in our history have understood this, even when they pushed for more and greater authority. But not Trump. He sees no distinction between himself and the office, and he sees the office as a grant of unlimited power. Or, as he once said, 

Donald Trump: an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as President, but I don't even talk about that. 

It's a thing called Article 2. Nobody ever mentions Article 2. 

More importantly, Article 2 allows me to do whatever I want. 

JAMELLE BOUIE - HOST, TAKES™ BY JAMELLE BOUIE: The freeze, the Elon Musk shenanigans, all of this is an attempt to make this a reality. He wants to take the power of the purse for himself. He wants to make the Constitution a grant of absolute authority. For lack of a better term, he wants to be a king. And the big question facing this country is [02:31:00] if we're gonna let him make himself a king, or if we're gonna try to do something about it.

Trump's Attack on Science Funding - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 2-21-25#1694 Unhealthy Discourse - RFK Jr. and the Anti-Science Movement Endangering Global Health

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Katherine, your piece lays out obviously an alarming picture of the Trump administration's impact already on science. What are the most significant changes that you're seeing so far?

KATHERINE WU: Oh, my goodness, do we even have time to go through them? There have been so many. I think this really comes down to the fact that it has been so many that it's actually difficult to point to the most significant ones. Certainly, the fact that funding has been frozen, that means that researchers are essentially not getting the funds they need to pay their staff to continue their studies.

That means participants in clinical trials are potentially being called and told, "Well, we can't continue to study anymore. This very important experimental drug that might be helping you stay alive may not be an option for your care anymore." We've seen thousands of federal workers fired from across government and that includes scientists doing vital work. [02:32:00] We have seen foreign aid abroad been totally dismantled.

People who need life-saving HIV treatments not getting the care that they need. I am sure I am missing things from this list only because the list is so ridiculously long. There truly has not been a sphere of American science or American science being done abroad that has not been impacted by this. It is the way that science is being done and who is allowed to be doing science right now, every aspect of it.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: One of your articles is called The NIH, National Institutes of Health, Memo That Undercut Universities Came Directly from Trump Officials. Remind us of that one.

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so this is one of the most important changes that has happened in the past two weeks. I suppose I hesitate to call it a change because it never actually fully went into effect. On February 7th, the NIH seemed to release a memo. They did release the memo saying that indirect [02:33:00] cost rates were going to be cut and indirect costs are basically overhead.

You get a grant. You apportion some of that grant to cover the day-to-day logistics of being able to do your research, paying rent for your lab, paying the utilities bills for your lab, making sure that administrative stuff gets done, all the logistical stuff that makes the research run on the side, not just the hard science that we picture or see in stock images. This is essential stuff.

Those rates can go as high as 60%, 70% at some universities. It's a very big deal for it to be slashed all the way down to 15%. For that to be a hard cap effectively overnight, which is what that would have done, that would have been devastating. That would have been an overnight salary cut for countless people and the work that they do. You can't sustain that kind of cut with no notice whatsoever.

This created huge uproar that has since been [02:34:00] temporarily blocked by a federal judge. We're going to see how that all shakes out once this is fully litigated in court. The larger issue here was that it was not NIH behind this memo, even though it was their website that released it. The Trump administration pushed that directive through and basically forced them to publish it on their website as what appears to be just a show of force.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Let's take a call from a scientist. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

ISABEL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University. I'm also a proud member and steward for my union, UAW 4100. I wanted to talk about how these funding cuts to science, health care, and higher education are impacting my job and the jobs of scientists like me. I love that I get to come into work every day and study how our brain makes memories. [02:35:00] These funding cuts are putting my job and my science at risk along with the work of thousands of other hardworking researchers and educators.

I also want to talk about something that's giving me some hope right now, which is academic labor power. Academic unions are more prolific than ever. This Wednesday, we organized a national day of action, including a rally here in New York City that was co-organized by my union, UAW 4100, and other academic unions across the city. These rallies brought together thousands of researchers, academic workers, and allies to say no to these funding cuts. It's really empowering for me to see the collective labor power that we're building in New York and nationwide. I think this is going to be a powerful tool to fight for the future of science, health care, and academic jobs.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: [02:36:00] Isabel, thank you. I'm going to add another voice to yours, Isabel, as our next caller, I think, is another scientist also getting involved with the UAW actions. Alexa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Alexa.

ALEXA: Hi there. I'm a lifelong scientist. I feel like I can talk to you about the ways that this has affected the prospects of my career and the ability to do science, but I'm really passionate also about us making the connection that what we're watching happening in science right now, what were victims of in science and in research and in higher education right now also is something that is part of the global or the US economy at large with the decline in manufacturing and that we should learn from history since we're organized with the United Auto Workers.

What they've experienced in the auto industry over the past 40 years is what we're experiencing right now in [02:37:00] research and higher education, and that when we talk about the funding of US science and US research at large, we can't pretend that it's been good. The past 30 years have been a major stagnation of research funding. That's come at the cost of workers where we haven't kept up with inflation.

That's why we've organized ourselves into unions. It's because of how bad it's been. The fact that this is happening should highlight to everyone across the US and internationally just how tenuous the system of research funding is. It's right now that we need to decide whether we believe that we are a country, whether we are people that believes in public knowledge production or not.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What would you say to listeners who might think, "Okay, you're a microbiologist. The pharmaceutical industry is big and wealthy. If they want to develop medications--" I'm sure your [02:38:00] work isn't only on medications. If private industry wants to develop things that are science-based, that are going to be useful to the public, then they will make money on them. Why do we need taxpayers to subsidize this at the level that they have? What would you say to that?

ALEXA: Also get this question in another frame, which is, "You have a PhD. You're a microbiologist. Why don't you just work in private industry?" I just don't believe in that. I believe that there is such an important place for public research and for basic science research. I actually don't study anything in biomedicine. The research that I do actually is only valued by the Department of Energy right now. My PhD is in soil microbiology. I think it's so crucial. We have no idea what discoveries we make now will be important for innovation, technology, medicine, climate change 20, 30 years from now. We need to be investing in the big questions that really propelled knowledge [02:39:00] forward. Knowledge in and of itself is a public good.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There isn't profit in basic research, thank you for your call. Katherine Wu, what are you thinking listening to those couple of callers?

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so much. I think it's worth reiterating just how important it is to keep training future generations of scientists. Discoveries don't get made. Drugs don't get developed unless there is rigorous training in place and funds to make sure that those young scientists have the training that they need, the support they need, especially scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

I think the system now is so strapped that some universities are trying to figure out, "Do we need to pause graduate student admissions?" There could be multiple generations of young scientists at risk here. We will see the fallout of that loss for years and years and years. That is so much knowledge that is at stake here. Absolutely, I think the conversation about private funding is an important one.

I think if you think about the amount that the federal government contributes [02:40:00] to scientific research, if you're even to pair away at that a little bit, there isn't actually a really reasonable way for private funding to fill that gap. There's not enough of it. A lot of private funding comes with strings attached, right? It's what foundations want to fund. It's to their own ends. Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are doing their own research, but it's what's lucrative. What about rare diseases? What about things that don't have a big dollar sign attached to them?

It's incredibly important to work toward the public interest and not just where the money is. I also want to point out, we have so many examples of discoveries that were made totally by accident in the pursuit of basic research, penicillin maybe being the most famous one. There will be devastating consequences for everyone's health and well-being and our understanding of the world if any type of science is hampered by this continued pause.

Samoa's Health Chief Says RFK Jr. Spread Anti-Vax Misinformation Before Deadly Measles Outbreak - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-31-25

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 [02:41:00] with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from [02:42:00] New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [02:43:00] I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.[02:44:00] 

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination [02:45:00] campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be [02:46:00] he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent [02:47:00] in the world, with a [inaudible] , spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

President Trump's second administration and Project 2025 - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-11-25#1695 Trump's Corruption As A Matter Of Course

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Back in April 2023, without a whole lot of fanfare, a conservative political operative named Paul Danz laid out what was basically a political battle plan. 

What we're doing is systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially [02:48:00] weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state. 

It was called Project 2025, a 900+ page blueprint for a future conservative president, because it's worth flagging that at this point, President Trump had not yet locked down the Republican nomination, to hit the ground running on day one. It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the Department of Education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard. 

Democrats saw this as a vulnerability for Trump in the 2024 campaign, and so we saw social media videos like this one from then president and then candidate Joe Biden.

JOE BIDEN: Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: We saw Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson on the stage at the Democratic National Convention holding up a giant bound copy of the plan. 

COMMERCIAL: You ever seen a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: After the plan became a Democratic talking point, Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025. Here he is on Fox News. 

Donald Trump: I have no idea what it is. It's a [02:49:00] group of extremely conservative people got together and wrote up a wish list of things, many of which I disagree with entirely, they're too severe. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: But now that Trump is in office releasing his own detailed plans, a lot of them are strikingly similar to the ones laid out in Project 2025. And one of its chief architects was just confirmed to head the critical Office of Management and Budget. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

CHUCK SCHUMER: And make no mistake about it. Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Politico has been looking into where Project 2025's ideas are showing up in Trump's early executive orders, and this past week, they published a breakdown of 37 different examples. Megan Messerly covers the White House for Politico and joins me now. Welcome. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Thank you.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: So, let's start with that list. What are some of the areas where we have seen the clearest echoes of Project 2025 in the action of the White House?

MEGAN MESSERLY: The biggest category is in the area of social issues. And that's obviously a broad bucket of things like school choice and banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prohibiting transgender [02:50:00] troops from serving in the military. But we've really seen this cover a broad swath of policy areas from social issues to immigration and government staffing, energy, foreign affairs, the economy. Like it really touches every area of President Trump's executive orders so far. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It wasn't just a policy plan, though, as well. This was a database of potential administration staffers. This was a conservative bench of people who are motivated to quickly dismantle big chunks of the government that they don't like. Have you seen that play out in the first few weeks of this administration? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the list in Project 2025, there's this lengthy list of folks who contributed to the project. And there is significant overlap between this list and the folks who are now joining President Trump's administration. Many of them are former administration officials themselves, and we're seeing them go back in for Trump 2.0. Some of them are even joining his cabinet. Russ Vought, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. His pick for CIA, John Ratcliffe. His border czar, Tom [02:51:00] Holman.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: And it is fair to say that Vought did write a big chunk of this plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. He authored a whole chapter, in fact, on the executive office of the president. Vought is known for being really in the weeds, these nitty gritty details of really how to use executive branch authority to the fullest extent and even press that in terms of some separation of powers issues. He has this whole belief about impoundment, this idea that the president doesn't actually have to spend the dollars that Congress allows the federal government to spend. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: I want to stick on that for a moment because this seems like this is going to be a big fight of the Trump administration.

We saw this proposed freeze on federal funding. It got a lot of attention. It was challenged in court immediately. The administration eventually walked it back, at least for now, but they made it clear we want to do this again. You're saying that Vought has written about this, has talked about this, this idea that Congress appropriates the money, the executive branch, in his view and clearly in the view of many people in the Trump administration, doesn't necessarily have to spend it, can choose not to spend it. This is something that was in the plan? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: So if you look at the plan, he lays out this [02:52:00] theory of the case. I will say he doesn't go quite as far in Project 2025 as he has in other writings in fully laying out his legal theory here on impoundment, but he makes very clear in Project 2025 that he believes that Congress has delegated far too much authority to what he refers to as "the fourth branch of government," the administrative state, the career bureaucrats.

And so that's reflected in the federal funding freeze that we saw. A lot of folks I talked to, though, say the rollout of that freeze obviously threw Washington into chaos before the White House walked that back. But folks now close to Vought are telling me that they expect him to find a clear cut case where this can actually go to court and potentially make its way up to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they agree with the argument that Vought has made, that the president does have this authority to say no to congressional spending edicts.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: What is the White House saying right now? Because as we laid out, there was such a clear disavowal of this during the campaign. And as you have reported, yet so much of it is actually part of the action plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Exactly. When we've asked them specifically about the [02:53:00] overlap between many of these executive orders and Project 2025, we haven't gotten a lot of direct response. But in general, the argument that we're hearing now from the White House is this idea that, if you look at Project 2025, a lot of these are just longstanding conservative ideas or things that President Trump himself did do during his first term. And so I think the argument there is, okay, yes, these ideas may be in Project 2025 but these are also just reflective of President Trump's priorities.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Have you -- it's still early, Democrats are clearly struggling with how to respond politically to all of this. Democrats seem to think this was a powerful argument during the campaign. Perhaps it wasn't because they lost. Have you seen, have you come across this? Have you looked at this at all? Are Democrats focusing in on this again in this moment?

MEGAN MESSERLY: They are. I think it's to be determined what the impact of that is. I think a lot of the American public, this label of Project 2025 did stick in their minds. When I was on the campaign trail, people were bringing it up to me of their own volition. So clearly that messaging really broke through and that's why Democrats were leaning so heavily on it. 

On the other hand, President Trump is [02:54:00] moving forward. He is now elected. So if there are any concerns about Project 2025 from Democrats, from members of the American public, those aren't the folks that hold the levers of power right now. And so it's full steam ahead from the Trump administration.

The Gangster Presidency - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I've been slightly snarkily describing executive orders as letters to Santa, right? They're not binding on their face. They are directives to agencies about new priorities. But these are being treated, as you say, like a fiat from the King. And then the authority of that is cited to say, well, you know, the King said that we have to turn off the taps on this or that, or we have to end DEI wherever we find it. And so I would love you to just tell me really explicitly, in a normal administration, what an agency would do with a really broad sweeping EO. In other words, what would the regular procedure be to try to effectuate something? Because as you said, President Biden had some big swing EOs. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: [02:55:00] So usually, first, and this has been the case since the Kennedy administration, before the EO were to go out, the Justice Department would review it and make sure that there was actually authority to do the things in the EO, that the President has authority to tell the agencies to do whatever the President's telling the agencies to do, and that the agencies would have authority to carry it out. And that clearly hasn't happened here. Even if DOJ has looked at these EOs, clearly there are so many provisions where there's no authority that they're just not applying the approach that they've undertaken since President Kennedy.

So, that's number one. Usually when you get an executive order—and I've been on both sides of this process, both the drafting of them in the White House and also receiving end at an agency—when you get an executive order, you look at it and you say, Okay, well, so this is the president telling us that we have to apply our statutory authorities consistent with a particular policy. What room does the statute give us? [02:56:00] What room has Congress given us to do this? How hard would it be to implement these things? Let's figure out a process for trying to implement the President's policy consistent with what Congress has told us. 

What we're seeing right now is this just incredibly ham handed, reckless effort to take what the President said and just do it yesterday. So, President says I don't like equity. I'm against "gender ideology". And so you have the apparatchiks throughout the government going through with a control F looking for the word "equity" or looking for the word "gender" in any grant application, in any grant notice, in any program, in anything on a website and saying, Okay, we're taking it down. We're taking the money back. We're not spending any more money on this because it's inconsistent with the edict about what's the right way to talk about things in the world. That's just not the kind of thing that happens in any functioning government. 

And [02:57:00] like we can talk a lot about norms. I'm really happy to talk about past norms, but that's not the fundamental problem here. The fundamental problem here is we need a government that works. 

The people through decades have elected officials who have passed laws that create a government to solve problems for the American public, to make sure that people get health care, to make sure that people are protected against predatory actors in the economy. And if what you do is come in and say, I'm just going to take that all down because I just don't like governance or I just don't like the words that people are using, then what that's going to do is mean that people are going to live shorter, worse lives, and I think fundamentally that's the important thing. And we as a society have decided we want an effective government to protect people, to provide for people's needs, to make sure our healthcare system works, to build infrastructure, to prepare us for the next economy. And [02:58:00] all of this breaking of norms, why it matters is because it subverts all of those democratic decisions we've made through the years.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And maybe this goes without saying, Sam, but it's not just norms because it's also a breaking of laws. it's also, as you say, some of these don't go by way of the Office of Legal Counsel the way they should have, right? There's a systematic failure to check if something is lawful. It's almost as though the presumption is not only have we lifted off without looking at the norms, we actually don't care whether the law provides for this or not, because we've decided that the President's priorities supersede that. 

But there's one other piece I want to talk about. The other paradox of this just implosion that we have seen in the last couple of weeks of the federal government is that they've made the choice to just shutter agencies the way you would do a hostile takeover, where they just... they could have said to Congress, just turn off the lights. We don't like USAID, we're not [02:59:00] super fond of CFPB. Like, they've tried to do this before, but instead of saying in some world in which they actually could do this lawfully, they just bring in this like unelected centibillionaire who just with a bunch of guys and some code are just shuttering entire entities. 

And, so I want to flag some reporting on Thursday night that came out of Wired that says that, Elon Musk promising, standing at the Resolute Desk, promising maximal transparency on the DOGE website, which it turns out is just being kind of run out of X.

So I think it matters for our purposes, and I need you to help illuminate why, that this is done entirely extra governmentally, Sam, because it's very fast and it's hard to catch that this sort of embodies a maximalist theory of executive power. But it's not confined to the agencies themselves. It's just a guy running around with no accountability in a non existent agency with a bunch of kids who may or may not have read-only [03:00:00] clearance. That is significant, but help me understand structurally why. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: Yeah. I think it's of great concern for all the reasons that you've talked about and many more. So, we have this very powerful individual, Elon Musk, who has very substantial business interests that relate to the federal government, who has been given the keys to the most sensitive systems within the federal government. He has been given the power to turn on and turn off particular payments to particular entities, and he is using that in some ways as a blunderbuss just to shut down entire agencies, which means we have examples of people who are providing aid to prevent infectious disease that could ultimately come back to the United States, who are being stranded in potentially war torn areas because their money has been shut off for them so precipitously.

We have this agency USAID being basically shut down, notwithstanding that [03:01:00] Congress created it. That's a big deal. The power to turn on and turn off these payments can be a tool of vindictiveness and oppression, but also it can be a tool of corruption. Elon Musk is a major government contractor. He relies on government business and so do his competitors, right? And so he is now taking the power without any accountability, without any transparency to decide, yeah, we're going to turn off the spigot on the competitors. We're going to turn on the spigot on these things. That is incredibly dangerous. 

And, the fact that at the same time, President Trump is getting rid of the ethical checks, getting rid of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and appointing a political appointee, Doug Collins, his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as the acting head, trying to fire the special counsel who's designed to enforce the bar against using the government for political purposes. And again, appointing a political ally [03:02:00] as the acting head there, right? This is all of a piece of creating a massive risk of corruption and then hiding anyone's ability to find out what's going on.

 

See Trumps blatant quid pro quo with Eric Adams play out live on Fox News - All In w Chris Hayes - Air Date 2-14-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: We are right now in the midst of the biggest scandal of the Department of Justice. Since Watergate in the 1970s. So far, seven prosecutors have quit the DOJ in protest of Trump's corrupt deal with New York City's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. In what can really best be described as a blatant quid pro quo, the charges in Mayor Adams federal bribery case have been conditionally dropped for now, in exchange for his full cooperation with Trump's plans for immigration enforcement and mass deportation.

In New York City. Now yesterday, six career prosecutors, people who signed up to work for Donald Trump resigned, rather than help facilitate such obvious corruption by dropping the charges. This morning, a seventh DOJ official, a man named Hagen Scotton, the lead prosecutor on the case, joined them. In a letter to Trump's acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, [03:03:00] Scotton called the deal with Mayor Adams a serious mistake, and he insisted that no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

Adding that any assistant U. S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to follow your motion.

But it was never going to be me. The formal filing to drop those charges was finally submitted about an hour ago following an intense pressure campaign by the man you see there, Emil Bove, to find lawyers at the DOJ's Public Integrity Office, that's the folks that prosecute public corruption, that would be willing to sign the requisite motion.

Now he finally convinced a trial lawyer near [03:04:00] retirement, as well as a supervisor at the criminal division, to agree. But here's the thing, a judge still needs to sign off on the whole thing. Now, we should say, Mayor Eric Adams denies the charges against him, insists his deal with DOJ was totally above board.

In a statement today, he did not explicitly deny a quid pro quo, but he did deny any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. But even that denial is difficult to square with the language that Bove himself used in his initial letter demanding the Southern District of New York drop the pending charges against Mayor Adams, so that he can quote, devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.

Bove obviously understands how that could sound like, well, a quid pro quo, which is why he went out of his way to add a very funny footnote, preemptively insisting, it is not one. Citing an earlier memo from SDNY, as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our government, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams assistance on [03:05:00] immigration enforcement.

Heh heh. Perish the thought, where'd you get that idea? Except, federal prosecutors literally asked the judge to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams. Everyone can see what's going on here. Of course, this all started earlier this week when Danielle Sassoon, she was Trump's pick to serve as the acting U. S. Attorney for SDNY. She's a prosecutor with sterling credentials among conservatives, clerk for Scalia. She, in response to being ordered to drop the case, sent a letter offering her resignation directly to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, right, bypassing Bove, who'd sent her this instruction, writing that, Adam's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo.

Indicating Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Adding, rather than be rewarded, Adams advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.

In that same letter, Sassoon outlines a particularly damning anecdote in which Bove [03:06:00] admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting with Adam's lawyers and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Like, why are you writing things down, lawyer from the justice department?

Probably worth stressing here, it's standard practice for prosecutors to take notes at a meeting like this, and that demanding they refrain from doing so and then confiscating their notes? is not a sign that everything you're doing is on the up and up. Bove responded to Sassoon's letter with a blustery 8 page letter of his own yesterday, where he admonished her for refusing to drop the charges, accused her of participating in a partisan witch hunt against an elected Democrat?

Bove also mentioned by name two Assistant U. S. Attorneys under Sassoon, who worked on the case, and basically directed them to contact his office if they were willing to drop the charges. And it was one of those attorneys that he name checked. Hagen Scotton, the guy I quoted a moment ago, who resigned today and told Bove to go kick rocks.

There's one more back and forth in letters between Sassoon and Bove I think is worth highlighting because [03:07:00] it gets to the nut of the point. A perfect encapsulation of just how corrupt, how rotten this deal is that Trump is offering Mayor Adams. Sassoon in her letter invokes the case of Michael Flynn.

That was Trump's former national security advisor in his last administration. And in short, Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to the charges. Then Trump's DOJ, under Attorney General Bill Barr, demanded the charges be dropped anyway after he pleaded guilty. Now, the judge overseeing the case refused to dismiss it, but the whole thing eventually went away when Trump stepped in and simply pardoned Flynn on his way out of office.

In her letter to Bove, Sassoon points out that the president could just do the same thing now, noting that With Flynn, the president ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon. Bove responded to that with some more bluster, basically admonishing Sassoon for daring to question Trump's authority.

Don't tell the president who to pardon. Let's linger here for a second because that example raises an important point, right? All this is happening because Trump did not pardon Adam. In fact, [03:08:00] we have reporting in the New York Times that Adam's explicitly sent a letter asking for a pardon. He didn't get one.

That kind of gives the game away, doesn't it? Because it's not as though this president is particularly shy about wielding his pardon power, considering that on day one he pardoned 1,600 January 6th rioters, including a bunch of folks who have since been re-arrested for other crimes, others who've committed violence.

He pardoned a guy that was running like, the biggest drug trafficking website in the world. Pardoned him. Trump intentionally did not just pardon the mayor, which would be fully within his rights. Instead, what he chose to do was to dangle freedom in front of him, in exchange for his preferred policy outcomes in New York City.

The conditional dropping of the charges on a possibly temporary basis was the quid, right? Well, today, as all this is developing, in the shadow of this scandal, today we got the quo. We got the quo when Mayor Adams went on a media tour along with Trump's so called border czar, where he was forced to insist he is a willing participant in Trump's immigration crackdown and deny the existence of any sort [03:09:00] of shady dealings.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: Think about my attorney, Alex Spiro, one of the top trial attorneys in the country. Imagine him going inside saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration, which I was calling for, since 2022, is if you drop the charges. That's quid pro quo. That's a crime. It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, that denial, again, was a little undercut during that very same interview when Trump's border guy, sitting next to him on the curvy couch, issued a not so veiled threat against Adams if he doesn't do what the big boss wants. 

Tom Homan: I came to New York City, I wasn't going to leave without nothing. I did the last time, and I told him I'm not leaving until I got something. And now I've got him on the couch in front of millions of people, he can't back away from this now, right? If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch, he'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

 

Air Date 3/7/2025

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

Corruption, for those who indulge, isn't just a perk of power. It can also be a method for maintaining it. And Trump is not even bothering to hide the corruption he's working to facilitate, or how it's geared towards supporting his desire for unchecked power.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes Trump's Terms, The Real News, Amicus, the Brennan Center for Justice, All In with Chris Hayes, Democracy Now!, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, and the Brian Lehrer Show. 

Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, The cabinet of greed; followed by Section B, Quid pro quo; Section C, Corporate interests; and Section D, King Trump.

President Trump's second administration and Project 2025 - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-11-25

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Back in April 2023, without a whole lot of fanfare, a conservative political operative named Paul Danz laid out what was [00:01:00] basically a political battle plan. 

CLIP: What we're doing is systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It was called Project 2025, a 900+ page blueprint for a future conservative president, because it's worth flagging that at this point, President Trump had not yet locked down the Republican nomination, to hit the ground running on day one. It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the Department of Education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard. 

Democrats saw this as a vulnerability for Trump in the 2024 campaign, and so we saw social media videos like this one from then president and then candidate Joe Biden.

JOE BIDEN: Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: We saw Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson on the stage at the Democratic National Convention holding up a giant bound copy of the plan. 

COMMERCIAL: You ever seen a [00:02:00] document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: After the plan became a Democratic talking point, Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025. Here he is on Fox News. 

DONALD TRUMP: I have no idea what it is. It's a group of extremely conservative people got together and wrote up a wish list of things, many of which I disagree with entirely, they're too severe. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: But now that Trump is in office releasing his own detailed plans, a lot of them are strikingly similar to the ones laid out in Project 2025. And one of its chief architects was just confirmed to head the critical Office of Management and Budget. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

CHUCK SCHUMER: And make no mistake about it. Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Politico has been looking into where Project 2025's ideas are showing up in Trump's early executive orders, and this past week, they published a breakdown of 37 different examples. Megan Messerly covers the White House for Politico and joins me now. Welcome. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Thank you.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: So, let's start with that list. What are some of the areas where we have seen the clearest echoes of Project 2025 in the [00:03:00] action of the White House?

MEGAN MESSERLY: The biggest category is in the area of social issues. And that's obviously a broad bucket of things like school choice and banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prohibiting transgender troops from serving in the military. But we've really seen this cover a broad swath of policy areas from social issues to immigration and government staffing, energy, foreign affairs, the economy. Like it really touches every area of President Trump's executive orders so far. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It wasn't just a policy plan, though, as well. This was a database of potential administration staffers. This was a conservative bench of people who are motivated to quickly dismantle big chunks of the government that they don't like. Have you seen that play out in the first few weeks of this administration? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the list in Project 2025, there's this lengthy list of folks who contributed to the project. And there is significant overlap between this list and the folks who are now joining President Trump's administration. Many of them are former administration officials themselves, and [00:04:00] we're seeing them go back in for Trump 2.0. Some of them are even joining his cabinet. Russ Vought, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. His pick for CIA, John Ratcliffe. His border czar, Tom Holman.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: And it is fair to say that Vought did write a big chunk of this plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. He authored a whole chapter, in fact, on the executive office of the president. Vought is known for being really in the weeds, these nitty gritty details of really how to use executive branch authority to the fullest extent and even press that in terms of some separation of powers issues. He has this whole belief about impoundment, this idea that the president doesn't actually have to spend the dollars that Congress allows the federal government to spend. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: I want to stick on that for a moment because this seems like this is going to be a big fight of the Trump administration.

We saw this proposed freeze on federal funding. It got a lot of attention. It was challenged in court immediately. The administration eventually walked it back, at least for now, but they made it clear we want to do this again. You're saying that Vought has written about this, has talked about this, this idea that Congress appropriates the [00:05:00] money, the executive branch, in his view and clearly in the view of many people in the Trump administration, doesn't necessarily have to spend it, can choose not to spend it. This is something that was in the plan? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: So if you look at the plan, he lays out this theory of the case. I will say he doesn't go quite as far in Project 2025 as he has in other writings in fully laying out his legal theory here on impoundment, but he makes very clear in Project 2025 that he believes that Congress has delegated far too much authority to what he refers to as "the fourth branch of government," the administrative state, the career bureaucrats.

And so that's reflected in the federal funding freeze that we saw. A lot of folks I talked to, though, say the rollout of that freeze obviously threw Washington into chaos before the White House walked that back. But folks now close to Vought are telling me that they expect him to find a clear cut case where this can actually go to court and potentially make its way up to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they agree with the argument that Vought has made, that the president does have this authority to say no to congressional spending edicts.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: What [00:06:00] is the White House saying right now? Because as we laid out, there was such a clear disavowal of this during the campaign. And as you have reported, yet so much of it is actually part of the action plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Exactly. When we've asked them specifically about the overlap between many of these executive orders and Project 2025, we haven't gotten a lot of direct response. But in general, the argument that we're hearing now from the White House is this idea that, if you look at Project 2025, a lot of these are just longstanding conservative ideas or things that President Trump himself did do during his first term. And so I think the argument there is, okay, yes, these ideas may be in Project 2025 but these are also just reflective of President Trump's priorities.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Have you -- it's still early, Democrats are clearly struggling with how to respond politically to all of this. Democrats seem to think this was a powerful argument during the campaign. Perhaps it wasn't because they lost. Have you seen, have you come across this? Have you looked at this at all? Are Democrats focusing in on this again in this moment?

MEGAN MESSERLY: They are. I think it's to be determined what the impact of that is. I think a lot of the American public, this label of Project [00:07:00] 2025 did stick in their minds. When I was on the campaign trail, people were bringing it up to me of their own volition. So clearly that messaging really broke through and that's why Democrats were leaning so heavily on it. 

On the other hand, President Trump is moving forward. He is now elected. So if there are any concerns about Project 2025 from Democrats, from members of the American public, those aren't the folks that hold the levers of power right now. And so it's full steam ahead from the Trump administration.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau was protecting you from corporate greed. It's gone now. - The Real News Network - Air Date 2-18-25

AARON STEPHENS: This agency was created after the financial crisis in the late 2000s. This is an agency that is meant to hold banks and corporations and financial institutions accountable for malfeasance. It advocates for consumers when they are wronged. This is an agency that, for instance, somebody who, has been paying their mortgage on time, but the bank has been misapplying those payments as late, and then their house got foreclosed on, they go to the CFPB, right? And the CFPB is the one that steps in and says, actually, you guys were in the wrong here. We're going to keep this person in their house, right? They are the people on the street advocating for consumers. 

So [00:08:00] getting rid of an agency like that is going to leave millions of Americans without somebody to go to. And I want to just point out some of the numbers here. The CFPB has returned over $20 billion to consumers. It has a billion dollar a year budget, and it has returned over $20 billion to consumers, just on actions against corporations that have taken advantage of them alone.

You have folks like Wells Fargo that have been taken action against and they've had to pay back $2.5 billion for misapplying mortgage payments, like I mentioned before. And a lot of other actors, that are quite frankly in the tech space, which Elon Musk is very related to, that are seeing action taken against them as well.

And so you can see the through line there. Not having this agency protect consumers will mean that corporations will have a much, much easier time stealing from consumers and not having any kind of retribution against them. 

MAX ALVAREZ - HOST, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: And it's, I guess this is more, as much a disclosure as anything, right? Because it's very hard to sit here as a journalist, as [00:09:00] Editor-in-Chief of the Real News Network, talking about this. But I'm also someone whose family lost everything in the financial crisis. I've been open about this my whole media career. It's where my media career started. We lost the house that I grew up in.

This agency was created because so many millions of families like mine got screwed over in the 2008 financial crash. And now here we are 15 years later being told that like shuttering this agency is a win for, I don't know what, efficiency? 

AARON STEPHENS: For who? If you talk about efficiency, again, I'll point out $20 billion return to consumers, billion dollar a year budget. That's efficient to me, right? And we're talking about an agency that is literally dedicated to protecting consumers. So the only thing that I could say this would be efficient for is helping big corporations take advantage of people, right? There is no other reason to go after an agency that is dedicated to making sure that people have a fair shake in a financial system that is usually difficult to navigate and sometimes, [00:10:00] unfortunately, as we've seen many, many times in the past, takes advantage of consumers, right? And there's no reason to go after an agency like this other than to make it easier for those folks to do that. 

But there is a really important story that is not probably going to be as told, which is that there are civil servants that dedicated their lives to basically saying, you know what, and like many of them have very similar stories to you, right? I saw somebody get taken advantage of, my family got taken advantage of, and now I've dedicated my life to fighting for consumers, and this is the agency that I'm part of. All of those people got an email that said, your work's not important, stop doing it. And so that's why so many workers showed up on Monday because and their message was very very simple It was we just want to do our job. We just want to protect people. Let us do our job. You've got hundreds of people that they're probably not making as much as they might be able to in the private sector, and they're doing their best to try and protect people and they're just basically being told this isn't important anymore 

As part of a larger plan, we're seeing the same playbook at different agencies. I'm not going to be surprised as Elon [00:11:00] Musk goes and attacks Social Security, attacks the Department of Education. These are services that affect working families everywhere across the country and you don't see him having the same kind of vitriol to a large corporation that's taking advantage of people. 

It's very clear that what's going on right now is they are dismantling the agencies that are protecting people just to give tax breaks and give an easier time for billionaires to take advantage of consumers. 

Let's talk through some of their playbook, right? Because what Elon Musk and Donald Trump will do is they will find one little line item budget thing that they know they can message on and they will say, look at this inefficient spending. And it'll be like $10 million in a budget of a billion. And they'll say, look at this inefficient thing. This is the thing that we're cutting. And then they won't talk about the millions and millions of dollars going to help consumers. But that's the thing they'll talk about, so that way they can message to folks, No, look, we're cutting, and we're being efficient. 

But the reality is that they're saying that publicly, so that way, behind the scenes, they can cut the things that help people. And I think that the CFPB is -- and one of the reasons why we are so passionate about it is because there are so [00:12:00] many stories of people being helped by this agency. And I, I'll give another random example, although there are literally thousands, people that went to a for-profit college that was not accredited. Large loans for this, and the CFPB helped state AGs sue that for-profit college, which led to not only money going back to those folks, but also loans being forgiven. Those are people that would have been in debt for probably the rest of their lives for a degree that wasn't even accredited. And that's the CFPB. That's what they're doing. 

And one of the reasons why I think centering this agency in this fight is a very, very good thing to do is because there are thousands of stories of people really going out there and seeking help from the CFPB and that agency doing the right thing.

One of the rules that they most recently announced, which is a great rule, which is now being attacked by congressional Republicans is their medical debt and credit reporting rule. You're talking about folks that, for those who don't know, when you have a medical, an amount of medical debt, it goes on your credit report, and it can significantly impact your life in the future. Not being able to get a mortgage, or not being able to get a car. And sometimes those procedures are just not things that you can control. [00:13:00] And the statistics have said it, and the studies have said it over and over again, having medical debt does not actually have any real determining factor on whether or not you're going to be paying back car loans or house loans. And it really doesn't affect anything. In fact, Experian has even said that publicly. And the CFPB said, you know what, this should be something that we address. We should not have medical debt have something that reported on their credit report. And there are thousands of stories of people saying, I had a procedure done in the '90s, it was out of the blue. I couldn't control anything about it. And now, 20 years later, I can't get a house. I have two kids and I can't get a house. Those are the people that are affected by closing this agency. And so I think centering those stories is really, really important in this conversation.

And just talking about really, who is Elon Musk and Donald Trump on the side of? Is it on the side of that person that is trying to get a home for their two kids? Or is it on the side of the banks that just want to make sure they can make every last dime out of these consumers? And I think the answer is fairly clear to that. 

The Gangster Presidency - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I've [00:14:00] been slightly snarkily describing executive orders as letters to Santa, right? They're not binding on their face. They are directives to agencies about new priorities. But these are being treated, as you say, like a fiat from the King. And then the authority of that is cited to say, well, you know, the King said that we have to turn off the taps on this or that, or we have to end DEI wherever we find it. And so I would love you to just tell me really explicitly, in a normal administration, what an agency would do with a really broad sweeping EO. In other words, what would the regular procedure be to try to effectuate something? Because as you said, President Biden had some big swing EOs. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: So usually, first, and this has been the case since the Kennedy administration, before the EO were to go out, the Justice Department would review it and make sure that there was actually authority to do the [00:15:00] things in the EO, that the President has authority to tell the agencies to do whatever the President's telling the agencies to do, and that the agencies would have authority to carry it out. And that clearly hasn't happened here. Even if DOJ has looked at these EOs, clearly there are so many provisions where there's no authority that they're just not applying the approach that they've undertaken since President Kennedy.

So, that's number one. Usually when you get an executive order—and I've been on both sides of this process, both the drafting of them in the White House and also receiving end at an agency—when you get an executive order, you look at it and you say, Okay, well, so this is the president telling us that we have to apply our statutory authorities consistent with a particular policy. What room does the statute give us? What room has Congress given us to do this? How hard would it be to implement these things? Let's figure out a process for trying to implement the President's policy consistent with what Congress has [00:16:00] told us. 

What we're seeing right now is this just incredibly ham handed, reckless effort to take what the President said and just do it yesterday. So, President says I don't like equity. I'm against "gender ideology". And so you have the apparatchiks throughout the government going through with a control F looking for the word "equity" or looking for the word "gender" in any grant application, in any grant notice, in any program, in anything on a website and saying, Okay, we're taking it down. We're taking the money back. We're not spending any more money on this because it's inconsistent with the edict about what's the right way to talk about things in the world. That's just not the kind of thing that happens in any functioning government. 

And like we can talk a lot about norms. I'm really happy to talk about past norms, but that's not the fundamental problem here. The fundamental problem here is we need a government that works. 

The [00:17:00] people through decades have elected officials who have passed laws that create a government to solve problems for the American public, to make sure that people get health care, to make sure that people are protected against predatory actors in the economy. And if what you do is come in and say, I'm just going to take that all down because I just don't like governance or I just don't like the words that people are using, then what that's going to do is mean that people are going to live shorter, worse lives, and I think fundamentally that's the important thing. And we as a society have decided we want an effective government to protect people, to provide for people's needs, to make sure our healthcare system works, to build infrastructure, to prepare us for the next economy. And all of this breaking of norms, why it matters is because it subverts all of those democratic decisions we've made through the years.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And maybe this goes without saying, Sam, but it's not just norms because it's also a [00:18:00] breaking of laws. it's also, as you say, some of these don't go by way of the Office of Legal Counsel the way they should have, right? There's a systematic failure to check if something is lawful. It's almost as though the presumption is not only have we lifted off without looking at the norms, we actually don't care whether the law provides for this or not, because we've decided that the President's priorities supersede that. 

But there's one other piece I want to talk about. The other paradox of this just implosion that we have seen in the last couple of weeks of the federal government is that they've made the choice to just shutter agencies the way you would do a hostile takeover, where they just... they could have said to Congress, just turn off the lights. We don't like USAID, we're not super fond of CFPB. Like, they've tried to do this before, but instead of saying in some world in which they actually could do this lawfully, they just bring in this like unelected [00:19:00] centibillionaire who just with a bunch of guys and some code are just shuttering entire entities. 

And, so I want to flag some reporting on Thursday night that came out of Wired that says that, Elon Musk promising, standing at the Resolute Desk, promising maximal transparency on the DOGE website, which it turns out is just being kind of run out of X.

So I think it matters for our purposes, and I need you to help illuminate why, that this is done entirely extra governmentally, Sam, because it's very fast and it's hard to catch that this sort of embodies a maximalist theory of executive power. But it's not confined to the agencies themselves. It's just a guy running around with no accountability in a non existent agency with a bunch of kids who may or may not have read-only clearance. That is significant, but help me understand structurally why. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: Yeah. I think it's of great concern for all the reasons that you've talked about and many more. [00:20:00] So, we have this very powerful individual, Elon Musk, who has very substantial business interests that relate to the federal government, who has been given the keys to the most sensitive systems within the federal government. He has been given the power to turn on and turn off particular payments to particular entities, and he is using that in some ways as a blunderbuss just to shut down entire agencies, which means we have examples of people who are providing aid to prevent infectious disease that could ultimately come back to the United States, who are being stranded in potentially war torn areas because their money has been shut off for them so precipitously.

We have this agency USAID being basically shut down, notwithstanding that Congress created it. That's a big deal. The power to turn on and turn off these payments can be a tool of vindictiveness and oppression, but also it can be a tool of corruption. Elon Musk [00:21:00] is a major government contractor. He relies on government business and so do his competitors, right? And so he is now taking the power without any accountability, without any transparency to decide, yeah, we're going to turn off the spigot on the competitors. We're going to turn on the spigot on these things. That is incredibly dangerous. 

And, the fact that at the same time, President Trump is getting rid of the ethical checks, getting rid of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and appointing a political appointee, Doug Collins, his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as the acting head, trying to fire the special counsel who's designed to enforce the bar against using the government for political purposes. And again, appointing a political ally as the acting head there, right? This is all of a piece of creating a massive risk of corruption and then hiding anyone's ability to find out what's going on.

Trump's Theory of Power - Brennan Center for Justice - Air Date 2-5-25

WILFRED CODRINGTON III - MODERATOR, BRENNAN CENTER: And so you just mentioned three different [00:22:00] areas that you wrote about. I'm going to start with the TikTok bite dance order. Around the country and around the world, everybody's been following this roller coaster that has been this divestment law. Can you talk about that order, what Trump is sought to do, how he's trying to intervene with the act of Congress in that regard?

TREVOR MORRISON: Sure. So last year, Congress passed a statute that you just referenced, requiring that either the parent company that owns TikTok, namely ByteDance, that either it divest its ownership of TikTok, or if it didn't, then, effective January 19th of this year, TikTok had to cease operations within the United States. The reason for this is a concern that ByteDance is controlled or subject to control by the Chinese government. And therefore, through that control, the Chinese government could potentially gain access to private information of TikTok users, and use that for purposes that would be contrary to the United States' national security. So a data privacy and national security [00:23:00] concern. 

This was challenged, on First Amendment grounds, and the Supreme Court held only three days before Trump was inaugurated, that the statute was constitutionally valid. It rejected TikTok's First Amendment challenge to the statute. And then it went into effect on January 19th, one day before Trump was inaugurated.

Trump had asked the court to pause the effective date of the statute so that he could try and negotiate a resolution to the issue, presumably by identifying a buyer for TikTok who was not affiliated with China. And by executive order, he basically did that. So the court upheld the statute. The statute took effect. But then by executive order, Trump just announced the statute is not going to take effect for 75 days. That'll give me time as a dealmaker-in-chief to go potentially find a buyer or to figure out some other resolution to the national security concerns here. 

But he gave no justification at all for what gives the president the power to just suspend or say, cancel a statute. I would emphasize, this is not simply a [00:24:00] matter of the president saying, as a matter of executive prosecutorial discretion, we will under-enforce the statute for a period of time. He actually directed his Attorney General to issue letters to the platforms that platform TikTok, telling them that during this 75-day period, nothing that they do in relation to TikTok violates the statute. When of course it does violate the statute. 

That is an assertion of a prerogative by the president to rewrite the law. And what everyone thinks about his policy preferences to negotiate a resolution to this in some other way, that policy preference can't be translated into law unless and until Congress amends the law, or repeals the law, or at least the president comes forward with some account of his constitutional power that would justify ignoring it.

All he has said really is that He's the president. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and has responsibility for national security, and he thinks that this issue should be resolved differently. So he's suspending the law to give him a chance to resolve it differently. 

The president in our constitutional [00:25:00] system does not have that authority. A system that gave legislative and executive power and judicial power to one person will be a different kind of system. And the executive order, I think, can be read to reflect a preference, the part of the Trump administration that he'd be viewed as having all of that power. 

WILFRED CODRINGTON III - MODERATOR, BRENNAN CENTER: Okay, so he's not setting enforcement policy priorities like previous presidents. He's trying to nullify this statute. It's gone to the Supreme Court. Now what? What happens next? 

TREVOR MORRISON: Yeah, that's the tricky part. And the answer to that kind of question will vary depending on the executive order. What the Supreme Court said in that decision that I referenced is that there is not a First Amendment problem with the statute. So TikTok's challenge to the statute lost, and therefore actually took effect. 

As I say, I think the president does not have the lawful authority that he is now asserting to suspend operation of the law. The question is, can that asserted power by Trump be challenged in the [00:26:00] courts? In principle, it could. But in our federal court system, the mere fact that an issue is really important, and could use some judicial resolution, doesn't necessarily mean that the courts can get their hands on it. We need to be able to identify a party with standing to sue Trump's suspension of the law. And thus far, no one has come forward to bring that challenge. 

And so we have, in my view, an illegal suspension of the TikTok statute, and so far no judicial resolution.

See Trumps blatant quid pro quo with Eric Adams play out live on Fox News - All In w Chris Hayes - Air Date 2-14-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: We are right now in the midst of the biggest scandal of the Department of Justice. Since Watergate in the 1970s. So far, seven prosecutors have quit the DOJ in protest of Trump's corrupt deal with New York City's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. In what can really best be described as a blatant quid pro quo, the charges in Mayor Adams federal bribery case have been conditionally dropped for now, in exchange for his full cooperation with Trump's plans for immigration enforcement and mass deportation.

In New York City. Now yesterday, six career prosecutors, people [00:27:00] who signed up to work for Donald Trump resigned, rather than help facilitate such obvious corruption by dropping the charges. This morning, a seventh DOJ official, a man named Hagen Scotton, the lead prosecutor on the case, joined them. In a letter to Trump's acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, Scotton called the deal with Mayor Adams a serious mistake, and he insisted that no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

Adding that any assistant U. S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to follow your motion.

But it was never going to be me. The formal filing to [00:28:00] drop those charges was finally submitted about an hour ago following an intense pressure campaign by the man you see there, Emil Bove, to find lawyers at the DOJ's Public Integrity Office, that's the folks that prosecute public corruption, that would be willing to sign the requisite motion.

Now he finally convinced a trial lawyer near retirement, as well as a supervisor at the criminal division, to agree. But here's the thing, a judge still needs to sign off on the whole thing. Now, we should say, Mayor Eric Adams denies the charges against him, insists his deal with DOJ was totally above board.

In a statement today, he did not explicitly deny a quid pro quo, but he did deny any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. But even that denial is difficult to square with the language that Bove himself used in his initial letter demanding the Southern District of New York drop the pending charges against Mayor Adams, so that he can quote, devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.

Bove obviously understands how that could sound like, well, [00:29:00] a quid pro quo, which is why he went out of his way to add a very funny footnote, preemptively insisting, it is not one. Citing an earlier memo from SDNY, as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our government, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams assistance on immigration enforcement.

Heh heh. Perish the thought, where'd you get that idea? Except, federal prosecutors literally asked the judge to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams. Everyone can see what's going on here. Of course, this all started earlier this week when Danielle Sassoon, she was Trump's pick to serve as the acting U. S. Attorney for SDNY. She's a prosecutor with sterling credentials among conservatives, clerk for Scalia. She, in response to being ordered to drop the case, sent a letter offering her resignation directly to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, right, bypassing Bove, who'd sent her this instruction, writing that, Adam's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo.

Indicating Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were [00:30:00] dismissed. Adding, rather than be rewarded, Adams advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.

In that same letter, Sassoon outlines a particularly damning anecdote in which Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting with Adam's lawyers and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Like, why are you writing things down, lawyer from the justice department?

Probably worth stressing here, it's standard practice for prosecutors to take notes at a meeting like this, and that demanding they refrain from doing so and then confiscating their notes? is not a sign that everything you're doing is on the up and up. Bove responded to Sassoon's letter with a blustery 8 page letter of his own yesterday, where he admonished her for refusing to drop the charges, accused her of participating in a partisan witch hunt against an elected Democrat?

Bove also mentioned by name two Assistant U. S. Attorneys under Sassoon, who worked on the case, and [00:31:00] basically directed them to contact his office if they were willing to drop the charges. And it was one of those attorneys that he name checked. Hagen Scotton, the guy I quoted a moment ago, who resigned today and told Bove to go kick rocks.

There's one more back and forth in letters between Sassoon and Bove I think is worth highlighting because it gets to the nut of the point. A perfect encapsulation of just how corrupt, how rotten this deal is that Trump is offering Mayor Adams. Sassoon in her letter invokes the case of Michael Flynn.

That was Trump's former national security advisor in his last administration. And in short, Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to the charges. Then Trump's DOJ, under Attorney General Bill Barr, demanded the charges be dropped anyway after he pleaded guilty. Now, the judge overseeing the case refused to dismiss it, but the whole thing eventually went away when Trump stepped in and simply pardoned Flynn on his way out of office.

In her letter to Bove, Sassoon points out that the president could just do the same thing now, noting that With Flynn, the president ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon. [00:32:00] Bove responded to that with some more bluster, basically admonishing Sassoon for daring to question Trump's authority.

Don't tell the president who to pardon. Let's linger here for a second because that example raises an important point, right? All this is happening because Trump did not pardon Adam. In fact, we have reporting in the New York Times that Adam's explicitly sent a letter asking for a pardon. He didn't get one.

That kind of gives the game away, doesn't it? Because it's not as though this president is particularly shy about wielding his pardon power, considering that on day one he pardoned 1,600 January 6th rioters, including a bunch of folks who have since been re-arrested for other crimes, others who've committed violence.

He pardoned a guy that was running like, the biggest drug trafficking website in the world. Pardoned him. Trump intentionally did not just pardon the mayor, which would be fully within his rights. Instead, what he chose to do was to dangle freedom in front of him, in exchange for his preferred policy outcomes in New York City.

The conditional dropping of the charges on a possibly temporary basis was the quid, right? [00:33:00] Well, today, as all this is developing, in the shadow of this scandal, today we got the quo. We got the quo when Mayor Adams went on a media tour along with Trump's so called border czar, where he was forced to insist he is a willing participant in Trump's immigration crackdown and deny the existence of any sort of shady dealings.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: Think about my attorney, Alex Spiro, one of the top trial attorneys in the country. Imagine him going inside saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration, which I was calling for, since 2022, is if you drop the charges. That's quid pro quo. That's a crime. It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, that denial, again, was a little undercut during that very same interview when Trump's border guy, sitting next to him on the curvy couch, issued a not so veiled threat against Adams if he doesn't do what the big boss wants. 

TOM HOMAN: I came to New York City, I wasn't going to leave without [00:34:00] nothing. I did the last time, and I told him I'm not leaving until I got something. And now I've got him on the couch in front of millions of people, he can't back away from this now, right? If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch, he'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

The Billionaires Government Branko Marcetic on Trumps Complete Betrayal of His Base - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-27-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: First, respond overall to this highly unusual cabinet meeting, and then talk about the role of Russell Vought, who we don't usually see in front of the cameras, but who has played such a key role behind the scenes. 

BRANKO MARCETIC: I think the cabinet meeting shows the tenor and direction of the Trump administration, which Trump had campaigned on fighting for the forgotten American, for fighting for the working class, he said that he was going to fight Washington corruption. And then before he'd even been inaugurated, we saw him basically handing over the reins of government, not just to Elon Musk, but a whole host of billionaires. Now of course, you have 13 billionaires in cabinet [00:35:00] positions, running the government. It's a complete betrayal, I think, of the people who voted for Trump in the vain hope that he was actually going to solve some of the problems that were bedeviling them, and, really, really gives to lie to this entire rhetoric that we've heard for the last few years. 

With Vought, I think it's interesting because Musk gets all the attention, and, deservedly so, but, in many ways, I liken Musk to the private contractor, or the consulting firm that's brought in to basically do the dirty work of the people in management. And, that's Russell Vought. 

Vought's normally known as the Project 2025 guy. He's known as a Christian nationalist, a hardcore social conservative. All of that is true. But I think that the more important thing about Vought is, his entire career's history, and he's a guy who, most accurately to describe it, he is an anti-government radical. He is someone who [00:36:00] sees government as the biggest problem in people's lives. He sees everything that has been done, basically, since the Great Depression and the creation of the New Deal state, that has lifted people out of poverty, that has made it so that people aren't being preyed on and poisoned and otherwise hurt by greed, by corporate greed. He sees all of that as a tremendous, profound mistake that needs to be reversed. And that has been his life's goal. 

He sees Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, he thinks these programs should be eliminated or privatized. He has actually spoken to The Heritage Foundation. He said, You know I may not be into cutting Social Security and Medicare right now, but that's purely a strategic decision on my part. We want to basically start with the cuts that Americans will feel the least, things like foreign aid, and then eventually we will build up to the point where we can really take on these programs. Vought is such [00:37:00] a disbeliever in the importance of government in people's lives, that he thinks even the construction and repair of roads and highways is illegitimate and dangerous for the government to do.

And so this is really very much what's driving, I think, what we're seeing from DOGE and a lot of these attempts to just completely dismantle the federal government. It's part of a longstanding political agenda of this man that I think does not line up with what the US public wants. I think it doesn't really line up with a lot of what even Trump voters in this last election want. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Talk, Branko, about the memo that was distributed on Wednesday, that if you can continue to say, shocked so many, that directs agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans by March 13th. It's not just about laying off employees.

And also, the bigger picture is, the amount of money that the federal budget goes to federal workers is tiny. If you're talking about [00:38:00] saving money, the fact that they're focusing completely there on these 2, what, .3 million federal workers who are in such agony right now. Tell us about the memo.

BRANKO MARCETIC: I mean, that shows you the entire game. It's not really about saving money. Spinning cuts and the deficit have been used by Vought -- and not just Vought, many, many, right wing voices over the years -- as excuses to try and basically dismantle the modern administrative state. That's what they want to do. That's what Vought has been pretty open about wanting to do. 

And so using the deficit is just an excuse. Vought's budgets that he made both when he was serving in the House, and also now when he was heading the Center for Renewing America, at the same time as they make these ruthless, ruthless cuts to the programs that people rely on, and call for the mass firing of federal workers. They also want to keep in place massive tax cuts for the rich that [00:39:00] Trump passed. And this was the same thing back in the 2000s when Vought's mock budgets kept in place Bush's tax cuts. 

So the idea here behind that memo is to start dismantling and make these agencies basically dysfunctional. Because that in itself is going to help create the groundwork for further dismantling and possible privatization in the future.

If government becomes dysfunctional, if it seems to not work, if it doesn't seem like it's actually serving the interests of people, then you can come through and say, well, look at that. The fact is government doesn't work. We should just sell this off to private corporations and let them do it.

That's what Vought has wanted to do with the Postal Service, for instance, for many years. There was reporting also that, that they're going to be starting to slash the workers from the Social Security Administration. To me, I think that's clearly an attempt by stealth to start to undermine Social Security.

They can [00:40:00] say, well, we're not going to cut it now. We're going to do as Trump is saying and leave it alone. But what they're basically aiming to do is to make the Social Security program function badly, so that down the line, a few years from now, when J. D. Vance is president, or whoever else, they can say, look how bad this is working now that we've fired all these people. This should just be privatized as we wanted to do 20 years ago. 

 

D.C. Gutted. Grassroots Galvanized. - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 2-22-25

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Listeners, sometimes it's really helpful to listen to C-SPAN, which records the actual hearings at Congress unedited because you get a flavor of how tough some Democratic members can be during this Trump period, even though the leadership is in the minority and is still trying to figure out how to overcome the Trump dictatorship.

I was listening the other day and Congressman Greg Casar from Texas was given 5 minutes by the Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Oversight Subcommittee, on the DOGE [00:41:00] so called department and here's how he used his 5 minutes. Pretty amazing.

REP GREG CASAR: This subcommittee is supposedly about looking into waste, fraud, and abuse. So I'd like to start talking about independent inspector generals, who are supposed to be looking into waste, fraud, and abuse. Mr. Talkov, do you know how many inspector generals at agencies that were investigating Elon Musk's companies have been fired by the Trump-Musk administration?

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: It is five. Ms. Royal, the Inspector General of the Department of Labor had 17 open investigations into Tesla and SpaceX. Do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

DAWN ROYAL: No.

REP GREG CASAR: They fired him, and I think y'all know. Mr. Whitson, the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation was investigating Tesla. Do you know what the Trump Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

STEWART WHITSON: No.

REP GREG CASAR: They were fired. The Department of Defense's Inspector General was looking into SpaceX. Mr. Hedtler, [00:42:00] do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

DYLAN HEDTLER-GAUDETTE: I believe he was fired. 

REP GREG CASAR: Thank you. I think everybody on the panel knows what the answer to these questions were. The U. S. Department of Agriculture Inspector General was investigating Musk's Neuralink. Mr. Talcove, now I'll ask you again, under oath, do you know what Mr. Trump did to that Inspector General that was looking into one of Musk's companies? 

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: He was fired. The inspector general at the EPA was repeatedly taking on Tesla. Mr. Hedtler, since it seems that you're answering the questions that everyone knows the answer to, do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that inspector general? 

DYLAN HEDTLER-GAUDETTE: I believe he was also fired. 

REP GREG CASAR: Also fired. At least five inspector generals that were looking into Elon Musk's companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration. These inspector generals who are independent, protected by law, they are the people that find the waste, fraud, and abuse and found many of the cases of waste, fraud, and abuse that have been brought up today, fired because they were looking into Elon Musk. 

At the NLRB, [00:43:00] the National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to protect workers from getting their unions busted by folks like Elon Musk, made functionally broken by the so called Department of Government Efficiency that really is the Department of Government Efficiency for Elon Musk, not for you. They are trying to shut down the Department of Education, the Department of Labor. 

You know what Elon Musk doesn't seem to be looking into? His own contracts. Again, I'll ask you, Mr. Talcove, do you know how much money a day Mr. Musk will receive from the federal government for his contracts? 

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: The answer is 8 million a day. Just last year, Elon Musk was promised 3 billion dollars from close to 100 contracts with the federal government. Ms. Royal, do you know how much the average person in this country who survives on Social Security, one of our seniors who's worked their entire life, about how much they have to survive on a day?

DAWN ROYAL: I do not. 

REP GREG CASAR: $65 a day. We're not looking into Elon Musk's 8 million [00:44:00] dollars a day. This subcommittee, chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the House Republicans, is looking into your grandmother's $65 a day. 

Let me be clear. I think we would all support taxpayer savings. Look into money we might needlessly send to billionaires and big corporations, find taxpayer savings and send it back to your hard working family. But instead, what House Republicans and the Trump-Musk administration want to do is they want to look into your kids' lunch money, your kids' teacher's salary, into your grandparents' Social Security. They want to take that money and give it out in billionaire tax cuts and they're talking about that in committee tomorrow, in budget committee tomorrow. They just released their plan.

So, let me be clear: when Republicans talk about government efficiency in this Congress, they're not looking into billionaires who don't pay their taxes. They're not looking into billionaires who get rich off of government contracts. They're not looking into Elon Musk firing watchdogs who are supposed to keep them accountable. They're looking at cutting your public schools. They're going straight for your social security. [00:45:00] They're coming straight for cancer research. They're coming straight for the Department of Education. They're not looking at big tech. They're not looking at big pharma because those people fund their campaigns.

If this committee were serious about rooting out waste from our federal government, then today's whole hearing would be about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing the independent watchdogs who've done this work for decades. Instead, my Republican colleagues' actual goal on this committee is to distract from Trump and from Musk's corrupt war on accountability.

This will not be a subcommittee dedicated to making government efficient for everyday people. It's about helping Elon Musk and Donald Trump be as efficient as possible and robbing our government and handing out our government services to it to the rich. So this seems that this subcommittee is, [interrupted by MTG] just like the agency it's named after, a total sham.

CLIP: The gentleman's time has expired. The American people are 36 trillion dollars in debt. It certainly seems reasonable that someone has been fired. 

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Yeah, yeah. 36 trillion dollars in debt due to the Republican tax [00:46:00] cuts with George Bush and Donald Trump and due to bloated military empire funding budgets and on and on. So, listeners, this is the kind of address you should spread the word about, and that's why we played it verbatim for you.

Elie Mystal On The Peoples Checks and Balances - Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast - Air Date 2-21-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: So, talk more about what ways of fighting back, by people concerned about all of this, that you might be keying on. Wendy brought up one in her call, and I think you're in the camp that says the Democratic elected officials have been too timid.

There have been some public protests this week, but not really mass protests. Not even the things we saw at the beginning of the first Trump term. There are some no buy days scheduled. or this one. I saw a story in the Substack by writer Parker Malloy, celebrating former NFL player Chris Kluwe, I think you say it, who announced, to the police that he would commit an act of non violent civil disobedience to protest anti trans bigotry in the administration, and so laid down [00:47:00] and went limp and forced them to carry him out.

This was in Huntington Beach, California. And it got some press. It got press in sports media, if not general media. Strictly non violent, but civil disobedience. And I'm really just asking what you hope people will do or what you think as, an analyst could be effective if you're in the camp that criticizes elected Democrats for being timid.

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, so Chris Kluwe, the, punter, and, just remember, Brian, when we're talking about he, how he got press, because he was a sports person, he's a punter! He ain't no quarterback, right? He was a punter, and he was able to get some heat, some press from his actions.

Imagine what that would look like if that was half of U. S. Congress. Imagine how much press it would get if half of U. S. Congress was literally laying down trying to block some of these, Trump appointees, some of these Trump, orders, physically. How much press would you get then? If it wasn't just random [00:48:00] punter from the New York from the Minnesota Vikings, right?

So when we talk about Democrats being too timid, not only am I talking about just their lack of message discipline and their kind of inability to, their inability to make the case, their inability to highlight. some of the people who are being fired for absolutely no reason, their inability to highlight the stories of pain and suffering and harm that's beyond all that.

I'm also talking about their timidity and inability to literally generate the kind of stunts that would get a lot of the press talking and whatever. So that's what I want the Democrats to do. Understanding that the Democrats have no actual power right now, right? and, because they have no actual power, that is, we have to be realistic about that.

My, my book, the one that you mentioned that's upcoming, is all about laws that Democrats could overturn if they ever get power again, right? And I think that talking about these laws is a good way to argue that they should have power again. But let's be clear, they can't do anything that I say in my book right now.

Because they [00:49:00] have no power. So it's gotta be more stunt based, more that kind of resistance for regular people who aren't famous punters, right? who aren't, who, aren't, elected officials who don't have, the kind of platform that's going to generate media attention. Us, basically, we have to do it collectively.

We have to take collective action. And yeah, the, protest here and there is, nice. I'm always for, I'm not a big marcher myself, I always do think that marching, is, helpful. What I think is most helpful is the economic stuff. Like these people need to feel it in their pockets.

and that, and to make economic boycotts work, you need massive collective action, right? I know in the Black community, we're really trying hard to get people to boycott them. Yeah. Target, right? It's Target has abandoned its DEI policies, but Target is interesting because Target spent a whole lot of, it's been a decade saying, Hey, Black people, we love you.

Target spent a decade basically like Tom Cruise and Jerry Maguire, right? We love Black people. Show me the money. That's Target for the [00:50:00] past 10 years until Trump gets in charge. And now all of a sudden, actually, we hate DEI. So you know what, Target? You don't get my buck, right? And when I go, when I'm buying back to school supplies, I'm going to Office Depot, I'm not going to Target no more, right?

That kind of mass, and Target's, stock prices are actually going down. But that's the kind of collective economic action we need, to where we can, where our wallets can make a difference. That needs to, happen. And the final thing that I'll just point out is that Trump's approval rating, our approval ratings are the highest he's ever been.

He's still underwater, he's still lower than most presidents are, in their first month after in office. But for Trump, they're the highest they've ever been. And so it's, and so Trump is going to keep doing this as long as his approval ratings are high. And so at some, core level, people need to understand What the problems are and how, what Trump is doing is going to affect them.

I think the messaging needs [00:51:00] to be much more focused on how this is going, this is hurting or going to hurt you personally, because the people who have the empathy to understand, to be outraged when things hurt other people, all those people already hate Trump. It's the people who are selfish and can only appreciate things when it happens to them that we need to work on now.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: On the DEI and your neo apartheid argument for what Musk especially is trying to impose, People will hear that and they'll say, well, especially supporters of them will hear that and they'll say, no, they're trying to remove any racial preferences. This is what they say in all their official language and have everybody compete just on the basis of Merit, and so that's not apartheid, that's removing racial preferences, what do you say back to that?

ELIE MYSTAL: Firing people who already have jobs without looking at the performance record because they are Black or Brown or disabled or gay or whatever is [00:52:00] racist, is bigoted, straight up. Show me please the White guy they've fired from the government without looking at his performance. You can't find one. Haven't I? So, miss me with the 'it's not really racist'. Oh, it's explicitly racist. 

Now, in terms of the larger issue with DEI, Brian, I ain't fighting for DEI. DEI was a White man's solution. DEI was invented by White folks to help them comply with the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act, right? The 14th Amendment says you have to give equal protection of laws to all people regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act says that you can't be discriminatory in hiring. White employers were like, we don't know how to do that. Well, no, just hire the best person. No, no, no, we're just gonna always hire the White guy. Just that's how we go. So we're gonna create this whole other thing. That's gonna force us to hire Black people because we ourselves, the employers, cannot be trusted to do it fairly. And so people are like, all right, and I guess that's what we're doing today. So now that White employers are like, actually DEI is terrible, we shouldn't do fine. [00:53:00] Y'all made it up. Y'all can unmake it up. The question is still remains. How are you going to hire people fairly? How are you going to hire people on merit and what level of accountability will there be if you don't. That's what I'm fighting for. I'm not fighting for DEI. I'm fighting for the application of the Civil Rights Act. I'm fighting for the application of Equal Employment Opportunity Act, right?

Tell me Employer, tell me Target, tell me Meta, tell me Bezos, how you are gonna go about making sure that you hire the best person for the job and not the best White person for the job? The best applicant for the job, and not the best applicant who happens to be a grandson, grand niece, grand nephew of your CEO for the job. And what's gonna happen to you when you fail? What's the legal recourse that I have as a qualified Black man to hold you accountable when all you do is hire Chip Westinghouse III because you like playing squash with his daddy? Where's that lawsuit, right? That's the question, not DEI. [00:54:00] And so far, the White people in charge have yet to provide me with a frickin answer. 

Note from the Editor on the impact of corruption

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with Trump's Terms laying out the role of Project 2025. The Real News explained the impact of dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Amicus looked at the impact of Trump's executive orders and how they're being received. The Brennan Center for Justice looked at Trump's theory of power through the lens of the case against TikTok. All In with Chris Hayes laid out Trump's clear quid pro quo with New York Mayor Eric Adams. Democracy Now! explained the impact of Trump's billionaire cabinet and the role of Russell Vought. The Ralph Nader Radio Hour highlighted a speech from Representative Greg Cassar on the systematic deconstruction of the government's anti-corruption enforcement abilities. And the Brian Lehrer Show spoke with Elie Mystal about what kinds of actions are needed to resist. And those are 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 [00:55:00] access to bonus episodes featuring our team of producers, and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (t here'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 we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have a question or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics that you can chime in on include the resistance to Trump, such as it is, and the international reshuffle as Trump effectively switches sides in Russia's war on Ukraine.

So get your comments and questions in now for those topics or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or also now findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal with the [00:56:00] handle bestoftheleft.01, and there's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected] 

Now as for today's topic, I just wanna drive home an important point that I think might be a common misconception about corruption. Corruption, as I mentioned at the top, isn't just about using power for self enrichment. It's also about maintaining that power. 

People, probably no one in this audience, but some people believe a couple of wrong things about corrupt and/or authoritarian leaders.

First, there's the long held misconception that authoritarian governments are better at management and efficiency, demonstrated by the old claim from Mussolini that he made the trains run on time. The reality of authoritarians is that they require sycophants and enablers to be installed everywhere in the government, which means well qualified people get weeded out.

Obviously, that's not a great [00:57:00] strategy to get the best results from a government. But that misconception drives people to think that they're making a sort of trade off, right? They might think to themselves that they don't love the idea of some of the aspects of a strict authoritarianism, but at least there'd be the relief of all the benefits of a well run government to appreciate. Nope. That's a lose-lose you just signed up for, because the idea of an effective government under authoritarianism is a lie. 

Something similar goes for corruption. There's a disheartening perspective among some, probably no one listening, but some, that if the rich and the powerful are getting even more rich thanks to their power, well, as long as things are going well enough, then it's not really worth worrying about. This is the misconception that corruption is sort of a perk of power. It's apart from, or in addition to, running the [00:58:00] government. But it's not. Corruption becomes entirely wrapped up in the effort to maintain power once it's been won.

Authoritarian governments today look and feel different than they did a hundred years ago, and that means that they're managed differently than they were in the last century as well. Hitler and Mussolini had iron grips on all aspects of society, including the corporations that drove their economies and war machines.

Unsurprisingly, those dudes gave that whole system a pretty bad reputation, being mass murderers and dictators that curtailed almost all freedoms from their societies, et cetera, et cetera. 

So, when people today want to be authoritarian rulers for life, they have to go about it a bit differently so that there's still an air of legitimacy to their rule.

In the article, "The New Authoritarianism" from The Atlantic, Stephen Levitsky, author of How Democracies Die, explained the new form of modern authoritarianism, saying, quote: "Rather than [00:59:00] fascism or single party dictatorship, the United States is sliding toward a more 21st century model of autocracy: competitive authoritarianism, a system in which parties compete in elections, but incumbent abuse of power systematically tilts the playing field against the opposition." End quote. 

So if we take that description as granted, and of course he provides half a dozen or more examples from around the world of countries that run this way, it then stands to reason that an aspiring autocrat looking to build a competitive authoritarian state would have to use the power of government to, as Levitsky just put it, tilt the playing field against the opposition. There's a whole list of ways this is done in myriad sectors of society, but you'd better believe that the corporate sector is one of the big ones, and corruption is the tool by which control is exerted. The writer explains, quote, "State institutions may be used to [01:00:00] co-opt business media, and other influential social actors. When regulatory bodies and other public agencies are politicized, government officials can use decisions regarding things such as mergers and acquisitions, licenses, waivers, government contracts, and tax exempt status to reward or punish parties depending on their political alignment. Business leaders, media companies, universities, foundations, and other organizations have a lot at stake when government officials make decisions on tariff waivers, regulatory enforcement, tax exempt status, and government contracts and concessions. If they believe those decisions are made on political rather than technical grounds, many of them will modify their behavior accordingly." End quote. 

So when you hear about a sketchy business deal or an investigation of a corporation being dropped by the government, it's not just about [01:01:00] enrichment or kickbacks or paying back friends, it's about manufacturing behavior modification through the gangster-like approach to friends and enemies.

Now in a different article, this one from NPR, the headline, "Trump agencies drop dozens of Biden-era cases against crypto and other companies," it said that, quote, "The Trump administration is going soft on corporations that break the law by moving to pause or drop investigations of companies accused of foreign bribery, safety violations, unfair labor practices and environmental crimes." End quote.

And at least two of the cases mentioned relate to large cryptocurrency exchanges that had been under investigation but no longer are. And it's pointed out that crypto spent millions in political donations for the 2024 elections. 

So on one hand it's the demonstration that companies seen as friendly to Trump will be effectively [01:02:00] immune from prosecution. And on the other, there's that implicit threat that the opposite is also true. 

And that would be bad if that's where it ended. But that form of corruption always blows back on the general public. A staffer from Public Citizen is interviewed who lays out the stakes. Quote, "Trump is handing out 'Get Out Of Jail Free' cards to corporate law breakers. The consequences for the public when corporations face a diminished threat of enforcement are disastrous." Then the same person, responding to the absurd mirror world idea from Trump that these investigations were being dropped because the Justice Department had previously been weaponized against these companies, the person says, quote, "Punishing corporations for violating the law isn't weaponization. It's how agencies protect the public from ripoffs, pollution, illegal firings, and workplace [01:03:00] retaliation, and the full range of dangers that stem from corporate greed." End quote. 

And I just want to point out that anger at corporate greed and corporations in general is already at a near all-time high. And Trump has just indicated that he's more than happy to throw the general public to the wolves for the sake of attempting to entrench his own power.

SECTION A: THE CABINET OF GREED

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. Next up, section A, the cabinet of greed, followed by section B, quid pro quo, section C, corporate interests and Section D, king Trump.

Elon Musk's role in government raises conflict-of-interest issues - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-21-25

DONALD TRUMP: Members of Elon Musk's Doge team are continuing their march through government agencies on what they say is a mission to find fraud and wasteful spending. Musk himself is often seen at President Trump's side, who praises him frequently. And Elon Musk has done an amazing job, I have to tell you.

Him and his super geniuses, you know, these are Seriously high IQ people. Musk is [01:04:00] classified as a special government employee. That's a role created by Congress in the 1960s that allows parts of the federal government to bring someone on for a specific role on a temporary basis. He is also a tech billionaire.

And as NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports, the line between those roles is blurry. 

CLIP: We've got one more surprise. In case this wasn't enough, I'm gonna let Elon do it. Elon Musk was a surprise guest at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D. C. yesterday.

And as part of his introduction, the President of Argentina walked out on stage to give him a red and chrome chainsaw. President Malay has a gift for me. Musk waved it excitedly. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy is what Musk claims to be doing with his project known as the Department of Government Efficiency. But last [01:05:00] week, when he met with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, it wasn't initially clear whether he was there as a member of the Trump administration or as the CEO of Tesla, which is looking to expand in India.

Breaking news coming in. We're getting a reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his meeting with Elon Musk. He's taken to social media platforms to say it was a delight. Presenters on India Today speculated about whether they had discussed Tesla. A White House official says Musk met with Modi in his personal capacity.

Later, though, he was in the Oval Office for Trump's meeting with Modi. In frequent posts on his social media site X, Musk ping pongs between talking about his work slashing government and promoting his business ventures, many of which have government contracts or are regulated by federal agencies. But Trump and Musk dismissed concerns about possible conflicts of interest in a Fox News interview with Sean [01:06:00] Hannity.

I mean, I haven't asked the president for anything ever. And if it comes up, how will you handle it? Well, you won't be involved. Yeah, I'll recuse 

DONALD TRUMP: myself if it is. If there's a conflict, you won't be involved. I mean, I wouldn't want that, and he won't want it. 

CLIP: That did not assuage the concerns of Don Fox. He was the top lawyer at the Office of Government Ethics during the George W.

Bush and Obama administrations. Musk 

SPEAKER 2: seems to be in a position with the White House's consent that he can just change hats by the hour because it suits him. 

CLIP: The White House says Musk will file a confidential disclosure of his financial interests with the Office of Government Ethics by the end of next month and has been briefed on ethics requirements.

As a special government employee, A temporary role. He doesn't have to divest from his businesses. But he is supposed to recuse himself when necessary. Fox says there's little indication the normal process to avoid conflicts is [01:07:00] being followed. 

SPEAKER 2: The thing that the public should be concerned about is, well, we don't know.

Is he looking after our interests as taxpayers and citizens, or is he looking after his own business interests? 

CLIP: These questions about Musk come up as Trump just fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, along with other watchdogs. Richard Brafault specializes in government ethics at Columbia Law School, and describes Musk as basically a walking conflict of interest.

Whatever the guardrails, and I guess that phrase guardrails has been used a lot, but whatever. The guardrails are there in terms of preventing public officials from engaging in self dealing. Enforcement seems to be gone. A White House official not authorized to speak about this publicly dismissed the criticisms as partisan, saying there is no concern in the White House about whether Musk will follow strict ethics rules.

Trump Calls Zelensky a Dictator While Crowning Himself King - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-21-25

BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Okay, why are people obeying in advance? So we can talk about, uh, you know, tech companies and others in the private [01:08:00] sector. I want to talk about Congress and a piece of vanity fair. Cash Patel was just, you know, confirmed as head of the FBI. So Here's a piece of Vanity Fair by, uh, sorry, let me grab the,

all right. Gabriel Sherman. Sorry, Gabriel. I had it written down and I lost it. All right. So piece of Vanity Fair, Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk's unlimited resources. If a member defies, defies Trump. Dan, again, just real quick, why do you not?

Allow unlimited campaign contributions. Why do you not allow individuals to simply bankroll elections and, and, and campaigns because the richest man in the world can look at every member of Congress and say, if you go against our agenda. I'll put 100 million into making sure your primary challenger wins [01:09:00] next, next election.

This is not true, by the way, in places like the United Kingdom or Germany, where there's like severe limits on how much money can be put into these campaigns. Okay.

Let me keep reading. In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don't rubber stamp his actions. They're scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo like stuff, a former member of Trump's first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis told People that the FBI warned him about credible death threats when he was considering voting against Pete Hecks nomination for Defense Secretary. If you all remember, Tom Tillis was the one that, that signaled he, he probably was, was going to stand up to the Hegseth nomination.

He listened to, to women who had been victims of domestic abuse and violence. He was the one that [01:10:00] basically promised those who had been victims of Hegseth himself, I'm not going to let this guy go through. And yet he did, right? Tom Tillis ended up being the guy that, that made, made it all happen. So, one of the things that comes out in this piece, Is that Hillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book, Snakes in Suits, when psychopaths go to work.

I'm not going to read the entire piece, Dan, and I'm not going to, like, belabor the point. The point is this. We've already talked at the top of this show about Trump allying with Russia and Putin. And abandoning Democracy, abandoning the ideology of democracy, abandoning allies who are democratic governments and leaders across the world.

We then talked about Trump proclaiming himself a King and taking the entire executive branch under his absolute control such that our, our [01:11:00] economy, our trade, our securities, our banking are all at the whim of him and Elon Musk. I want to fill out the picture if you are a congressperson right now, and you stand up to Trump, whether it's not putting cash Patel through or voting against something in the house that Trump puts forward, not only will you get primaried and have 100 million spent against you so that you lose, you're going to get Gestapo like threats.

Dan, this is the man that pardoned 1500 January 6th rioters. This is the man that let the people who attacked our capital after he incited a coup out of jail. Do you think? That like, this is above him, right? And I just want to add one more dimension to this about Kash Patel, which is not really a focus of today.

Kash Patel is now the head of the FBI. Patel is a man who has talked about going after political enemies. [01:12:00] He's a man who has talked about finding those in the, in the media who are anti Trump and putting them in jail. Kash Patel is somebody who is a raving conspiracy theorist. Dan, Tom Tillis. Says the FBI warned him about credible death threats when considering voting against beat HEGs F.

Hey Dan, next time someone has that decision in front of them, it may not be the FBI warning them about credible death threats. It may be the FBI sending the warning themselves. That is what Kash Patel as the head of the FBI means. Are you all with me here? Tom Tillis heard from our intelligence community, Hey, there's credible death threats against you right now.

The next time someone's in that position, it may be the FBI saying, Hey, Tom, you're going to vote the right way. You know, you are, I mean, like, you know, we don't wanna like have to come [01:13:00] back, you know, I mean, right. Do you all see what's at stake here now that Cash Patel's, head of the F-B-I-I-I go now there's a direct line here to Elon, Dan and I, I can, I can take us there, but you wanna jump in here on cash or on Tom Tillis or the fact that one of the reasons no one in Congress will stand up to Trump, including Republicans, is they're afraid they might get death threats against themselves or their family.

Do you know what kind of like governments have that structure? Dan? It's not democracies. It's not where the rule of law works. It's not where everybody gets a fair shot. It's called something else, so anyway. Thoughts 

DAN MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: here? Yeah, so gonna take a hard line here and say cry me a river, Congress people. Like, just cry me a river.

Cause, you know what happens to Congress people who don't get re elected? They go into the private sector and they make tons of money. Like, when is the last time somebody talked to somebody who lost in a primary and what, they're collecting unemployment? Like, they always land on their feet because that's how our government and our system and our country is [01:14:00] structured.

So number one, I am so tired of hearing Congress people cry about, well, I might lose an election, so I'm just not going to have any principles of any kind or stand up to anything or I'll talk to people off the record and I'll say these things because I'm just like, so what? So you lose a primary. So what?

So what? Like, what happens to you? Nothing. Credible death threats. That's awful. It is. It's awful. But guess what you're doing, congresspeople, when you let this? There are millions of Americans who have the threat of death and all kinds of things hanging over them right now because of the policies of the Trump administration, and that's what you're aiding and abetting.

And those people don't get warnings from the FBI. They don't have protections. They don't have Camp, uh, you know, Capitol Police, or Secret Service, or anything else that they can lean on. They don't have the resources to go into the private sector and make a quarter million or half a million dollars a year in some cushy job where they can hire their own security people if they really need to do that.

They don't get to do any of that. [01:15:00] So you sit in your offices being a part of the Washington problem that you say that you're opposed to while you enable this administration to actively threaten the lives of millions of Americans. And you do it because what, because you got some nasty emails or because, because you're not going to be in Congress anymore and you'll go out and you'll make more money than most of us will ever dream of making.

Like, I just, I have zero sympathy. For the GOP crybabies who want to say like, you know, always off the record or, you know, behind closed doors or unnamed sources or whatever, about how hard they have it as the ruling party under the dictatorial Trump. I just don't want to hear it. Just leave. Fine. Just leave.

Just go do something else, but stop with the crybaby stuff as you punish immigrants and you punish trans people and you punish women and you actively threaten the lives of millions of people. You are complicit. In this, you are leveling death threats against Americans by enabling this [01:16:00] administration. So I just Obviously, it really worked up about this, but I just, I am so tired of hearing people cry and whine about, well, Musk is going to come after us and there's going to be somebody with lots of money.

Fine. Do something else. Leave Congress. What is your worst case scenario? You're not in Congress anymore and you go to your cushy law firm job where your name gets put up as a partner and you make boatloads of money for not doing anything all the time ever. Yeah. That's rough. Really rough. Really rough fallback option for you.

How Kash Patel Came to Loathe the Media and Love Trump - On the Media - Air Date 2-19-25

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So when does Donald Trump enter the picture and what exactly do you think Trump came to see in Patel?

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Part of his kind of deal with Devin Nunes when he came to work with him was If I do this and complete my job, I would like you to promise that you'll recommend me for a job on the National Security Council in the White House. Devin Nunes stays true to that, he does recommend him, and essentially peddles to Trump this line that Kash Patel has [01:17:00] now developed.

I am the only thing standing between you and the deep state. I've uncovered their lies, I will continue to uncover their lies. Well, to Donald Trump, this sounds Great. Actually, Kash Patel getting on the National Security Council was not that easy though because you had people like National Security Advisor John Bolton who really did not want someone with as little experience as Kash Patel on his team.

So it did take a lot of push and pull before he was actually installed. But once he was in, I was told by colleagues of his on the National Security Council that he Was really kind of phenomenal at angling to get in front of Trump, making sure he was crossing paths with him at all times and perpetuating this line that he was his guardian within the White House against the deep state.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Fast forward to the nomination, which has. Led to unearthing many comments that Patel has made about the FBI [01:18:00] and the media here. He is talking with Steve Bannon on the War Room podcast last December. 

KASH PATEL: We will. Go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.

We're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civilly. We'll figure that out. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: What do you make of this very alarming threat that he's issued? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: I think Kash Patel is somebody who you have to take deadly seriously when it comes to statements like that. A really instructive anecdote to keep in mind is that toward the end of the Trump administration, Kash Patel in his position as Chief of Staff to the acting Secretary of Defense, Became really enthralled by the so called Italygate conspiracy, which is related to Trump's election fraud conspiracy theory.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This is like an extremely convoluted subplot of like the larger [01:19:00] conspiracy theory that satellites and military technology were used to rig the election for Joe Biden in 2020. 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: It's not for the casual election fraud conspiracy theorist. And in his position, he is able to get it up to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to say, we need to send people to Europe to talk with these men and try to investigate the two men who were behind, theoretically, the Italygate conspiracy.

The fact that he was able to get that far and was stopped only because some of his own colleagues in DOD and other agencies said, no, I don't think we should do this and I'm not going to do this. He has not been shy in roles far less powerful than that of FBI director, of using his sort of Whim driven theories or QAnon related fringe.

conspiracies to put them at the centerpiece essentially of the work that he is doing. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So what would [01:20:00] it even mean to act on these threats of the FBI coming after members of the press? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: The end goal is always the same, that Kash Patel will use his power to collate all the supposedly incriminating documents, emails, memos that they are convinced will bury the deep state, essentially, and show to the American public just how corrupt they are.

I don't know, on a procedural level, how that works when you are director of the FBI, whether Kash Patel would see himself as basically an intelligence gatherer, an evidence gatherer, and then present them to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and ask her to initiate a case. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You found through speaking to people who know him and had worked with him that he had a lot of trouble finding work after the first Trump administration.

This might explain [01:21:00] Why he's leaned so hard in the intervening years into commodifying his association with Trump. Can you tell us a little bit about his side hustles and sort of what he's been doing with his time? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Sure, he starts cobbling together various other income streams in large part through the selling of cash branded merchandise.

A lot of the proceeds of which he says goes to a foundation he started called the Cash Foundation. The mission of which is to really vague and details of which are very hard to come by even in filings with the IRS and The merch I should say really runs the gamut. You have your cash crew polo tees. You have your cash scarves Rhino tanks basically anything that can be branded with K a dollar sign h there's cash wine 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: that felt very trumpian to me

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Yes,

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: six bottles of official cash wine for two hundred and thirty three dollars and ninety nine cents 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: as of this [01:22:00] recording I believe it's sold out.

There was a market for it. It would seem another thing he does is he writes books Two of them are children's books. Actually the first one the plot against the king is a really vividly illustrated rendition of the russiagate conspiracy wherein You have King, Donald, for Donald Trump. You have Cash, the wizard.

And you have Duke Devin, Devin Nunez. And the shifty knight, Adam Schiff. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And don't forget Hillary Queenton.

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: I could not forget Hillary Queenton. Never. It's quite a wild ride. And again, Cash, the distinguished discoverer, the wizard, is in the end the hero. He is the one that uncovers just all that the Shifty Knight and others have done to try to ensure that Hillary Queenton is chosen on choosing day and not King Donald.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I've seen many people recently quoting from his book, Government Gangsters, the [01:23:00] one that you studied so closely for your piece. There's this, like, grudge list at the end of the book, I believe, where he kind of lists off all the quote unquote corrupt people that are in his crosshairs. It includes Anthony Fauci, it includes former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr.

It's a fairly broad tent of people that have wronged him or upset him in one way or another. What names on there stood out to you? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Names actually like Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder stood out to me because I think they go to show how Deep his grievances run from his time in the Obama administration works working as a prosecutor at DOJ You know, he frames his book in that way to say that that was his first major exposure to the deep state the corruption of high level bureaucrats in the federal government and so I think Sort of names from a past administration or people who didn't, who never worked directly in contact with Donald [01:24:00] Trump just show again how deeply he has kept these resentments, how long he has nursed them and when he does have power, the deep well that he has to pull from in terms of grievances.

Rachel Maddow on Billy Long Five things to know about Trump's pick for IRS commissioner - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 1-4-25

BILLY LONG: hi, hey, and who get 25.

When you get $30,000 out of 30. 35? 40. Able to buy 45. 45 today, I a thousand to buy 60. 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: And so behold, the literal. Auctioneer, a man who talks fast for a living, uh, who Donald Trump has picked to be his commissioner of the IRS. Here are five things to know about Trump's IRS choice, former Republican Congressman Billy Long.

Thing number one, on the qualifications of Billy Long to be head of the IRS. Is Billy Long a CPA, a Certified Public Accountant? Is he an accountant? No. Does he have any background at all in any kind of accounting? No. Bookkeeping? No. Finance? No. How about math? [01:25:00] No. Is he a tax lawyer? No. Does he have a college degree?

No. Has he ever managed a large organization of any kind? The IRS has 85, 000 employees and a 12 billion dollar budget. Ever managed a large organization of any kind? No. No, he has not. In addition to his work as an auctioneer, he has been a realtor, he's also been a radio talk show host, and he once ran a mini golf.

That said, Billy Long has also moonlighted as a quasi professional poker player, which prompted this rare political headline from Poker News. Quote, President elect Donald Trump taps longtime poker player to head the IRS. So Billy Long has none of the qualifications for the job that every other IRS commissioner has had in the whole modern history of this agency.

But he did serve in Congress. While he was in Congress, [01:26:00] did he serve on any of the tax writing committees? No, he did not. But he did get an award while he was in Congress, and it was an award related to taxes. It was called the, quote, Tax Fighter Award from something called the National Tax Limitation Committee.

What is the National Tax Limitation Committee? When Forbes magazine went to look into it, they found that the website for this organization now points to What appears to be a gambling website based in Thailand. That makes it harder to figure out the selection criteria for this particular award. But Billy Long won it.

While he was in Congress, he did repeatedly introduce legislation to abolish the IRS, to in fact abolish the income tax as a thing, and instead replace it with a huge 30 percent sales tax on everything you buy. If that sounds familiar, it's because [01:27:00] this very expensive idea was ginned up by the Church of Scientology in the 1990s.

It has been kept alive by Republicans like Billy Long ever since. Thing number two. While he was in Congress, Billy Long did do one other tax related thing, which has to do with puppies, which sounds awesome, but it's When he was first elected to Congress, voters in Billy Long's home state of Missouri considered a ballot measure to improve conditions for dogs and puppies, puppy mill, dog breeding facilities in that state.

And it was basic kindness stuff. Um, the measure said that dogs needed to have food and water and housing and some way to exercise and run around. And the people of Missouri voted for that. God bless them. But when the Humane Society said that they, too, supported that measure, Billy Long, [01:28:00] newly in Congress, demanded that the IRS should launch an investigation into the Humane Society.

He demanded that the IRS should strip them of their non profit status. Now, in the end, his demands were not heeded. He did not succeed in getting the IRS to crush the Humane Society as retaliation for its efforts to protect But if he were in charge of the IRS, presumably he could now get that wish, which brings us to thing.

Number three. I mentioned that Billy Long mostly just has his auctioneer school degree. He has no background or training in anything substantively related to the IRS. But caveat, look at his Twitter bio. He can see it says at the top there, Congressman Billy Long CTBA. If you say it fast, it kind of sounds like CPA, but it's not.

It's not [01:29:00] a CPA certified public account. It's A-C-T-B-A. What is A-C-T-B-A? He says that it stands for Certified Tax and Business Advisor, CTBA, certified Tax and Business Advisor, which sounds very fancy. Is that a real thing? No, that is not really a thing. Headline, Billy Long, Trump's nominee to lead the IRS, touts a credential that tax experts say is dubious.

Quote, the designation is offered by a small Florida firm, Excel Empire, which was established just two years ago and only requires attendance at a three day seminar. Tax experts say they have never heard of CTBA as a credential in the tax profession. So, not a credential in the tax profession, but as a credential to be in charge of all taxes in the United States of America?

Sure. Why not? You said it. [01:30:00] Uh, the company from which Billy Long seems to have purchased this thing that sounds like CPA, if you mumble, they do list someone as their chief tax planner and tax attorney. But that is a person who let his law license in Ohio lapse 19 years ago and apparently never regained it.

So he appears to not be a licensed attorney of any kind, nor a licensed investment advisor. But his company will sell you that same CTBA, C P A, C T, C T B A credential that they sold Billy Long for somewhere between 30, 000 and 4, 997, depending on whether you catch the sale. Uh, the quote, tax attorney at this company, who again is not a licensed attorney, also reportedly invented a whole other new title besides CTBA.

Uh, so if you want to step it up a notch from the fake credential of [01:31:00] CTBA, you can also select the title, um, tax master. They will also proclaim you tax master, which also sounds amazing. We reached out to the tax master guy for comment, but he declined to answer our questions. That said, Billy Long himself apparently has not yet achieved the Tax Master title from this Florida company.

He hasn't paid for it or gone to the seminar or whatever, but maybe when he's head of the IRS, they'll give him that designation as an honorary degree. Thing number four. Go back to the Twitter bio for a second. Uh, there's something else there besides the not a real thing, fake CTBA tax credential. Right there in his Twitter bio, it says, Quote, DM me to save 40 percent on your taxes.

Seriously, that is still there right now on his Twitter bio, even after he has [01:32:00] been named to be IRS Commissioner by the incoming president. DM me to save 40 percent on your taxes. What that's about is this. Here's the current IRS Commissioner testifying in Congress. And what he's doing in this testimony is he's actually asking Congress to get rid of one particular tax program to close down a specific tax program because it had produced what the IRS called a quote, gold rush of bogus tax claims.

And that one particular tax program, which the IRS wants shut down because so many people are applying to it. In bogus terms, that is what Billy Long does for a living now at this company that he promotes. Now, two of its leaders were banned from working as securities brokers. But when COVID came around, they decided to start a new outfit that, among other things, promotes this particular.[01:33:00] 

The New York Times describes the company as taking a quote, expansive view of who is eligible to get money from this program. Billy Long certainly seems to. He, for example, says that you shouldn't listen to your CPA if your CPA tells you that this is a tax program for which you do not qualify. 

BILLY LONG: When people walk in and say, Hey, this auctioneer real estate broker, former congressman told me I'm going to get $1.2 million back.

Uh, you're my CPA. Why didn't you tell me that they out? Uh, instantly the reflex reaction is to go to bashing the, oh, it that, that's a, that's a joke. That that's a fake deal. That's not true. You're, you're gonna have to pay all that money back. You'll get audited. You know, they just come up with any excuse.

They can't, they, 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: they come up with any excuse when your your CPA. Tells you, you know, if you do this, you're going to get audited. You're going to have to pay this money back. You do not qualify for this thing. You [01:34:00] know, it's just any excuse. Forget your CPA. Come talk to Billy. We reached out for comment to Billy Long and also to the company that he works with.

We have not heard back. But I should tell you, the IRS has just warned that one of the quote, worst of the worst tax scams that taxpayers should be on the lookout for Is people telling you that you qualify for this tax program when in fact you don't? 

BILLY LONG: You know, they just come up with any excuse they can.

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Come up with any excuse. The IRS does this list every year. They call it the Dirty Dozen. Compiled annually, the Dirty Dozen lists a variety of common scams that taxpayers may encounter. Quote, don't fall prey. Says the IRS, uh, for the current dirty dozen list, it's, uh, what the IRS calls phishing and smishing scams.

They also have this big description about fake charities trying [01:35:00] to scam people. But number two on the latest IRS dirty dozen list of so called worst of the worst tax scams. Is this one. Beware of aggressive promoters who duped taxpayers into making questionable employee retention tax credit claims.

That is the tax program that is a big enough multi billion dollar fraud magnet that the IRS recently took the unprecedented step of setting up a backseize system, setting up an oh wow I didn't mean it system where people who have been duped by scammers into believing they were eligible for this thing when they weren't.

People can actually take back their filing from the IRS without getting into trouble for it. The IRS also really did ask Congress to shut this whole program down because it has been such a magnet for fraudsters. The IRS on its website right now warns this quote, employers should be wary of advertisements that advise them to [01:36:00] apply for money by claiming the credit when they may not qualify. 

The billionaires who run the world (and why they're psychos) - Red Flag Radio - Air Date 2-23-25

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: I think, um, Musk's kind of, he's probably always had, I'm sure, um, you know, far right political ideas. By his kind of more open, uh, adoption of, you know, racist rhetoric and conspiracy theories and, um, celebration of Trump kind of tracks a lot with his interests as the owner of Tesla. Like one of the big things, like you can literally follow his trajectory by like looking at his old tweets.

Um, but was his response to the lockdown because the, he was part of the kind of radicalization of just like, they're taking away our freedoms, like any attempt. Uh, by state governments and the federal government, um, in the U. S. uh, to, uh, put in any measures to protect people's health and, you know, restrictions to try and suppress, uh, the COVID 19 pandemic.

Musk was really hostile to this because it negatively impacted on Tesla factories and You know, if you want to make money selling cars, um, and there's a [01:37:00] good reason to think that like, uh, you know, Musk is increasingly not competitive with China, um, then you have to, uh, you know, deregulate, um, you know, push down our labor conditions, uh, have speed ups, um, try and lower wages.

Uh, that, uh, was totally, you know, any kind of health measures to try and suppress COVID was totally anathema to someone who's trying to make a lot of money selling cars. 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. Didn't he just start up one of his factory or a number of his factories again, in, um, opposition to the COVID health measures and just like, yeah.

And I think that was a moment as well where he. was able to associate himself with Trump, who was still president and like invited him to the White House or something at that point. And kind of, they saw kindred spirits, uh, on the right. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, much like, um, much like, uh, Clive Palmer, you know, being the capitalist to try and sponsor uh, the lawsuit against the Western Australian government to try and force them to open up during the pandemic.

Like, there's, you know, [01:38:00] uh, you know, a lot of capitalists just are right wing and have racist ideas because of their own ideology, but it fits in with their position as the capitalist class to kind of always want to kick down. Um, you know, always oppose any forms of regulation that limit their ability to exploit workers, to make a profit, uh, to sell, you know, the movement of commodities, etc.

So, yeah, we had our own version of that with kind of Clive Palmer being one of the faces of the capitalist class campaign against, um, health measures during the pandemic. But that was, uh, you know, one of Musk's, uh, one of the things that really, uh, pushed Musk to the center of that whole, uh, you know, right wing world, um, as well as just, like, wanting to remove any, uh, fact checking on Twitter or any idea that, like, people can just run around being open Nazis and spreading anti Semitic conspiracy theories.

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, exactly. Um, I think he just is a really right wing, this is kind of obvious or whatever, but he just is a really right wing racist guy. Like, it obviously all suits his, um, [01:39:00] economic interests, but people like Elon Musk, I think, are ideologues. Like, he is really He's not purely driven by just the immediate profits of Tesla.

He's driven by a worldview, um, that, you know, wants a, a completely deregulated and unhinged capitalism tramping on the face of ordinary people forever. He wants, you know, a race, a more racist world, a more misogynistic world and so on. So I think he's been able to use his economic power to try to shape the world in that direction.

Peter Thiel time. All right. So, Chloe, what have you learned about Peter Thiel, which I know, I know nothing about? 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: I just don't even know where to start. Like, I feel like this guy is like, you know, Elon Musk is a more famous Trump backer now, kind of part of the tech bros from Silicon Valley that have kind of Trumpified.

Uh, kind of marching, um, in that direction, but Peter Thiel was the early adopter. Like, so he was, you know, the first Trump [01:40:00] presidency, the kind of billionaire from that Silicon Valley world that, unlike most of those billionaires who kind of still backed the Democrats at that time, uh, was a supporter of Trump.

Um, so like Musk, they actually made their fortunes from the same company, which was PayPal. Um, so, you know, someone was going to become a billionaire out of that, the kind of dot com moment where. you know, having a verifiable payment system online. Um, and they kind of accumulated a whole bunch of companies doing the same thing to kind of make PayPal the predominant one, eventually sell it to eBay.

Um, but yeah, Peter Thiel is an interesting capitalist because he is such an ideologue and has been from the very get go of his career. And I just think it's remarkable that both he and Musk come from a background of growing up in apartheid South Africa. Um, they're part of what, uh, The media dubbed the PayPal Mafia, which is like a bunch of tech guys from PayPal who made their fortunes who all had connections to apartheid South [01:41:00] Africa.

It kind of makes you the perfect capitalist in a way if you're just like willing to You made your money from like almost slave like conditions of Um, Black Africans or, you know, you, you come from that world. You grew up in like the open apartheid system. And Peter Thiel has, you know, gotten, uh, some criticism in the media because, um, he writes a lot.

He actually puts down his reactionary ideas, um, in essays and things. And he has And you've read all his essays now. I've read a couple of them. Um, they're, yeah, terrifying, um, but he, as an adult, describes South Africa as a sound economic, uh, system, um, under apartheid. Um, so he, uh, briefly, uh, when he was young, when his dad was working there, uh, studied at an elite all white school, um, in South Africa.

As a young high schooler, he got really into Ayn Rand. Um, I don't know if listeners are familiar with Ayn Rand. She was a Russian born American. so called philosopher, um, and novelist. Um, she was really the poster child for [01:42:00] extreme libertarian, laissez faire capitalist ideas, as well as like extreme McCarthyist.

And just like 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: anti communism. Hating the poor. Absolutely. And like, and also just a kind of propaganda about how the capitalists were awesome, intelligent, ubermensch. It's like, yeah. Um, Nietzsche on steroids. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, so her novel Atlas Shrugged, um, it's like the bible for Silicon Valley tech pros because it's all about how, you know, the titans of industry, rugged individualists just like pursuing their own selfish, um, motives are actually like the, you know, ones, um, you know, uh, bettering society, um, through their, uh, genius and brilliance.

But not actually through helping. No, no. Deliberately through their selfishness. The poor people are 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: scum who deserve everything that they get. Um, yeah. And like the world is basically only exists for the self aggrandizement of these rich people. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: This is Peter Thiel is like one of the, um, you know, big kind of Ayn Randian, uh, guys in Silicon [01:43:00] Valley.

Um, and this influenced him when he studied philosophy, um, when he went to university. So, one of Peter Thiel's essays, um, which he wrote, uh, inspired by the response to 9 11, um, is called The Straussian Moment, and this essay makes Clash of Civilizations look soft, um, in it, um, so Uh, in it, he, um, welcomed the return to U.

S. unilateralism in military deployment. Um, and he called for a return to pre enlightenment thought. So, the enlightenment, he saw it as a bad thing, and he said that, uh, today mere self preservation forces all of us to look at the world anew. to think strange new thoughts and thereby to awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the enlightenment.

And basically [01:44:00] he wants to return to holy wars. Um, so he talks about, uh, when bin laden declares war on the infidels, the Zionists and the crusaders, um, you know, we shouldn't respond in half measures. Um, so this is like the most like visceral clash of civilizations. kind of politics, um, that, you know, is openly Islamophobic.

So he writes his essay, and at the same time, he leverages his PayPal wealth to build Palantir, which is his spy tech company that he created, one of the biggest, um, Uh, contracts is, uh, for the Palantir is with the U. S. Defense Department, um, and the CIA. Um, and this is literally like, you know, big techs, um, private big techs involvement in mass surveillance, uh, both of the civilian populations and, you know, spyware for, for states to kind of carry out, um, espionage, um, on other states.

And, uh, by the way, Palantir is still around. It's gotten a massive stock surge, um, since Trump, uh, entered, uh, the White House. Um, and to. [01:45:00] quote, uh, recently from the current CEO, Alex Karp, um, he said that the company exists to quote, power the West to its obvious innate superiority.

SECTION B: QUID-PRO-QUO

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B quid pro quo.

The Billionaires Government Branko Marcetic on Trumps Complete Betrayal of His Base Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-27-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, of course, if you're talking about privatizing the Postal Service, um, or Trump taking over the U. S. Postal Service, that also has a great impact on voting. But I want to ask you about The Washington Post reporting the Federal Aviation Administration's close to canceling a 2.

4 billion contract with Verizon and awarding the work To Elon Musk's Starlink, the contractors for work to overhaul a key communication system in nation's air traffic control system. Meanwhile, a separate investigation by The Washington Post has revealed Musk has built his business empire on 38 Billion dollars in federal funding via government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the past two decades.

And the Post reports [01:46:00] the total number might be even higher because it's not known how much Musk Companies has received in classified work for the Pentagon and other agencies. Not to mention he pushed out the head of the FAA, right, in charge of Aviation. We've had one accident after another. He pushed him out because he didn't, like he would be fined and also was raising questions about his, um, uh, rockets bursting in air over places like Turks and Caicos, Bronco.

BRANKO MARCETIC: I mean, it's, I I don't know what other word you can use for this other than corruption. Uh, it, it, it's, you know, Washington has long been a place where. Uh, donors, uh, end up getting a, a, a tremendous amount of say over government policy, where they are able to use that to push their own business interests.

Um, both parties do it. It's Frustration with that, I think, is one of the reasons why Trump won in 2016 and why he continues to have [01:47:00] appeal with people when he says he's going to take on the swamp and Washington corruption. And yet here we have the Trump administration engaging in the exact same kind of corruption, uh, and swamp like behavior that it claims to be fighting, except on overdrive.

I mean, I don't think that we have ever seen anything quite this naked before, where, uh, the world's richest man gives a campaign. What, 280 million, um, and then is basically just, just a point, a role is carved out for him. He's not even, uh, uh, confirmed by any, uh, elected officials and is allowed to just basically Go through and, and, and start dismantling things from the inside while also then fattening his own pockets, um, from the same public money that he claims that he is trying to, um, root out waste and fraud from.

I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's pretty astounding. Um, I don't think we've seen anything like this before. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In this last minute, we have, I want to ask you about Ukraine. Ukrainian [01:48:00] President Zelensky, headed to Washington, D. C., will sign a deal at the White House on Friday, giving the U. S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals and other resources.

Trump was asked about Ukraine during his first Cabinet meeting. Mr. President of Ukraine, can you tell the world a little bit about what type of security guarantees you're willing to make? 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond, uh, very much. We're going to have Europe do that because it's in, you know, we're talking about Europe as their next door neighbor.

But we're going to make sure everything goes well, and as you know, we'll be making a, uh, we'll be really partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth. We very much need rare earth. They have great, rare earth. We'll be working with, uh, Secretary Burgum and with Chris, and you'll be working on that together.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Bronco Marchetti, it's your final comment. We just have 30 seconds. 

BRANKO MARCETIC: Um, you know, I think this continues the, the plundering of Ukraine, uh, that has been going on. [01:49:00] It's been bipartisan policy for, for years now, uh, to, to use deepening, um, U. S. military involvement in the country and, and, and economic dependence on the United States as a way to get Ukraine to, uh, uh, do a host of damaging neoliberal reforms that, that are contrary to the interests of the actual Ukrainian people.

And this is just, you know, again, it's, it's that on overdrive.

Quid pro bros - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-25-25

NOEL: Katie Honan is a senior reporter at the nonprofit news site The City. She also hosts the F-A-Q N-Y-C podcast. Yesterday, minutes before Katie went into a press conference with Eric Adams we reached her in the rotunda of City Hall to ask her about the life and times of New York’s mayor. 

KATIE HONAN [The City senior reporter]: Eric Adams is like a real New York story. He's a former police officer. He often talks about his, his path to the NYPD. 

<CLIP> ADAMS: As a 15 year old, I was arrested and beat by police officers. But I also learned how to turn my pain into purpose: I became a police officer, NYPD reformer… 

KATIE: And he was a very [01:50:00] activist police officer, challenging a lot of the racism within the department for a member like himself, as a Black police officer. And then he became a state senator representing neighborhoods in central Brooklyn, and then the borough president of Brooklyn. So when he ran for mayor in 2021, it was on a public safety message that really, especially towards the later months of the election season, really resonated.

<CLIP> PBS: The next mayor of New York will confront an economy battered by the pandemic, as well as rising rates of gun violence and homicide, that have made public safety the top issue for many voters. 

<CLIP> CBS NEW YORK: And as the city nears a full reopening, a lotta people are worried that surging gun violence could make it more difficult to attract visitors… 

<CLIP> ADAMS: This is a critical time for New York. We’re facing a pandemic of crime, inequality, and injustice. 

 And that is how he became the city's 110th mayor – of New York City.

NOEL: Before we get to the events of the [01:51:00] past couple of weeks, what's his reputation as mayor been? What do New Yorkers think of him?

KATIE: It's funny, when I speak to the friends of mine who don't pay attention to politics, I think because the mayor himself talks about his personality and his, his own word, which is swagger. 

SCORING <Triangle Time> 

<CLIP> ADAMS: When the mayor has swagger, the CITY has swagger… 

 He has his own message about who he is – you know, we all have stories about ourselves that we share. His, however, was very easily debunked. You know, his big thing is, ‘I'm a vegan mayor.’

<CLIP> ADAMS: When you’re eating the soul of a living being, you are also internalizing all the trauma when that animal is killed. 

 A few months into his tenure in 2022, he's going out to dinner and the waiter saying, ‘Yo, he ordered the fish,’ you know, which is not vegan. So there was that. 

NOEL: <laughs> 

<CLIP> REPORTER: I just want to clarify something: How often do you eat [01:52:00] fish and other animal proteins? 

ADAMS: I eat a plant-based centered life. Some people wanna call me vegan. Vegans eat oreos. And they drink Coca-Cola. I don’t. 

KATIE: And I think even his partying, it became a negative because people are like, ‘Why are you not, like, out doing your job? Why are you out at clubs with French Montana, a rapper? Why are you out of these private clubs? 

<CLIP> TIKTOK: French Montana. In your friend group. Is not a good sign. Monsieur Montana? <laughs> 

 He has such a large personality. His clothing, it's – everything's embroidered. It says Mayor Adams, in case you don't know who he was…

NOEL: <laughs> 

KATIE: …on his hat, on hit jacket. His phrase is “get stuff done.” There's GSD everywhere. So that's what we see of the colorful character of Mayor Adams. 

<CLIP> ADAMS: This is New York. It’s a PRIVILEGE to live in New York. And the leadership should have that swagger. That’s what has been missing in this city. 

 [01:53:00] SCORING OUT 

NOEL: When do things start to go south for him legally?

KATIE: Well, we found out that the investigation into him started in 2021 when he was still a borough president. But we saw it publicly… I would say it was the fall of 2023 when his top fundraisers’ home was raided by the feds. That morning, the mayor was on his way to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Biden administration to talk about the asylum seeker crisis, which – it continues to be, it’s sort of winding down now, but it was for years a large issue in the city financially and just in terms of organizing, in terms of what the mayor had to focus on, a lot of it was taken up by the asylum seeker crisis.

<CLIP> ADAMS: This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City. We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month.

 So the mayor flies to DC and then immediately returns. And all we knew initially was that he had to return for, quote, “a matter.” So that was when we realized there might [01:54:00] be… <laughs> an investigation into the mayor. And then we saw a trickle of this until September 2024. 

<CLIP> FOX 5 NEW YORK: A Bronx neighborhood, swarming with FBI agents earlier today. Records show the address involved is owned by a top aide to Mayor Adams. 

<CLIP> ABC7: We have just learned that FBI agents seized New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ phones and an iPad earlier this week…

<CLIP> FOX 5 NEW YORK: The FBI raiding the homes of at least 5 people in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, including two of his deputy mayors, the schools chancellor, and even – reportedly – the NYPD commissioner. 

 And then in late September, the mayor himself was indicted on five counts, including bribery and wire fraud.

NOEL: What are the details there? Bribery and wire fraud. What was going on, allegedly?

KATIE: The mayor, allegedly, in short, was helping out the Turkish government…

NOEL: The Turkish government! 

KATIE: The Turkish government, expediting a building that they have in Midtown, getting the fire permit expedited. You know, these things… It's New York City, it's a big city, and things take a lot of [01:55:00] time.

<CLIP> US ATTORNEY DAMIAN WILLIAMS: We also allege that the mayor sought and accepted over $100k in luxury travel benefits. These benefits included free international business class flights, and opulent hotel rooms in foreign cities. 

 And in addition to that, there was supposed to be a superseding indictment – so additional charges filed – but we don't know if we're ever going to see those.

NOEL: Okay. And once he's charged, what does he say?

 <CLIP> ADAMS: My fellow New Yorkers. It is now my belief … <duck> 

KATIE: The mayor immediately recorded a video and he said, I have done nothing wrong. This is a political attack. I'm being targeted. His phrase was: 

<CLIP> ADAMS: <duck up> I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, I would be a target. And a target I became. 

 Because he says he was targeted by the Biden administration because he was critical of their lack of help financially in New York City for the asylum seeker crisis. I'll point out that the investigation predates the asylum seeker [01:56:00] crisis. And you can repeat that to the mayor as much as you want but he's never going to listen to it. 

NOEL: <laughs> 

KATIE: He insists that he is a pure victim of political persecution, and he's continued to say it. And this is a kind of a, a note that's been picked up by a lot of, particularly right-wing outlets across the country.

<CLIP> FOX NEWS, JESSE WATTERS: He was one of the ones that spoke out against Biden, and if you speak out against Biden, you get punished. Menendez spoke out, got punished. Adams spoke out, got punished. Trump got more than punished. 

 

The Gangster Presidency Part 2 - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: I read Bové's letter to Sassoon that came out on Thursday night very much as an implicit threat to also investigate her, to investigate the lawyers that quit. So let's just be really clear.

It's not just that these people are losing their jobs. They're also now subjecting themselves, as you said, taking themselves out of a career path that is a rocket to success. They're also subjecting themselves to the You know, investigative and prosecutorial power that Bove is [01:57:00] threatening. I want to make explicit what Dale Ho, who has been on this podcast, is the judge tasked with sorting this out.

Presumably at some point, um, somebody is going to pull the trigger and file a motion to dismiss the Eric Adams charges. And then this goes to Judge Ho in New York. And you've now said. He certainly has, it's well within his rights to investigate and interrogate why this is happening. And I would love for you to give us a sense of the scope of what he could possibly do to put this to rights.

HARRY LITMAN: Sure. I mean, what he could possibly do is very broad and we'll see, and it's now a high profile matter. But the legal charge that he has is to find that it is in the interest of justice. And I think again, and this is the great letter that you read from, you know, if it had been put [01:58:00] in the realm of raw politics or a pardon or whatever, then the notion would be, well, that's politics, but it has been put in the realm of law and an implicit.

Um, not so implicit, an assertion, uh, and a very threatening one, as you say, from Beauvais to Sassoon, you have violated your oath and we are going to investigate you. I mean, uh, you know, a judge, I think perceives immediately that he or she needs to call it true and figure out, what happened. So even if at the end of the day, there would be a possible way in which Ho could say, I'm not going to dismiss it.

That would be pretty extreme, but to actually look into it, that would be normal. And I think there's a little wrinkle here, Daya, because at this point, you can't expect Adams to speak to why this is. political and rank, nor the department. So I see him as potentially, he certainly has the [01:59:00] power appointing someone to make those arguments.

Supreme court does it all the time. And so I think that the claims from the prosecutors and from Beauvais will come into play. There'll be an effort to put Beauvais on the stand. The department will try to resist that, but it'll be ugly and always underneath. To me is the notion that the department now under its new leadership is scared of resistant to the truth coming out.

The truth being that this wasn't ordered for typical or even. Vaguely appropriate reasons, but was raw politics. And there's the whole other theme here where it would appear that Adams was coached by Beauvais to make the right offer. I'll really play ball on immigration. If you'll dismiss the cases, that's a whole extra layer of corruption.

[02:00:00] That's the sort of thing that, oh, I think will. Have every right to look into, and I don't see why he wouldn't. I'll just add the whole way things have gone down since the January 6th pardons, uh, which so insulted the entire bench of the, uh, very respected bench, bipartisan bench of the DC district court.

I think the district court judges in this country. Really see in the Trump administration, a great sort of disrespect for the law and see themselves as, you know, maybe the only bulwark to at least push back, scrutinize, get the facts out. So, you know, hoe better than I do, but I expect that this is going to move to a hearing with real evidence of what happened and what didn't.

And. That's just bad for the department and the posture that it's in. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: I think that what you're [02:01:00] saying, Harry, and it's a great place to land is that no matter what emerges from this, the quid pro quo here is that if Eric Adams continues to be the mayor and continues to do what he did, as you noted, Harry, on Fox News on Friday morning, which is say.

I get to be the mayor as long as I do the immigration dragnet I promised. There's nothing more corrupt. You can laugh about it on Fox, but that is quid pro quo corruption and the promise that he will be removed if he fails to do that. So. This isn't just a New York story. This isn't just an immigration story.

This is a stark promise that we will keep you out of jail if you do what we want. And if that doesn't scare the face off everybody, this is no different in that sense from the Saturday night massacre. This isn't a local New York mayoral corruption story. This is a promise from [02:02:00] DOJ that you either play ball.

And do what we say we could put you in jail. I don't know how to put it more starkly than that. 

HARRY LITMAN: Yeah, look, you play ball and not on the field. We're supposed to play it on. This is the broader, almost dragnet of Trump's politics. By the way, this has been happening. Uh, so basically Trump had a lawsuit against CBS saying that Kamala Harris interview was slanted and he has put his handpicked FCC chair in to basically say, we're going to scrutinize your efforts to try to do this huge profitable merger.

Uh, but we're going to look into how nice you're talking about Trump. There's no other way around it. That's got the exact same structure. As the impeachment did the abusive use of government power held hostage to Trump's private interests. And that just washed by in a moment, which returns me to the [02:03:00] point, you know, I think the sort of main meta point that we're discussing here, does this have purchase with the American people?

And I'll just repeat, you know, I am from DOJ and I want to say within DOJ. Everyone assistance all over the country. This is a body blow. It's going to hurt them going before judges. They're ashamed. This is exactly what they're schooled in not doing the reason they came to the department. But even leaving that aside, you know, I think the themes of corruption and there are multiple layers, as you say, and just the.

Bullying, you know, 22 people now in a room who's going to do the right job, the really sort of nasty, overbearing, insulting, threatening aspect to it. To me, that rings home to people generally, even if they're not schooled in the sort of DOJ way that [02:04:00] is now coming through in the letters so much what people see their jobs as being about.

Trump LEGALIZES Bribes From Foreign Countries - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 2-11-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Trump signed an order pausing enforcement of a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the FCPA. And this is a real problem, what he's doing here. I mean, you know, embracing Rod Blagojevich and Eric Adams, two corrupt Democrats, and saying, okay, everything's good with you guys.

He's just embracing corruption. I, 30 years ago or thereabouts, I was working for an international relief agency, Salem International, and, uh, we went, myself and Horse Fund Hire, we went to, um, Haiti to talk about, you know, acquiring some property there, some land there, to run a program, a relief program, you know, for, for extremely impoverished people.

And we met with the, with, uh, with the, the minister, I forget his actual [02:05:00] title, but he was kind of the equivalent of, of the home secretary or the, the, you know, the, the state, the, the secretary of state, you know, he, he, the guy who deals with other governments and things like that. And, uh, very friendly guy.

Uh, and, you know, in his office in the, in the capitol building there. Um, I think it was in Port au Prince. And, uh, the first thing he asked us for was a bribe. And we just had to say, I'm sorry, we don't pay bribes. You know, we, we operate in countries all over the world, mostly third world countries. Um, but you know, we don't pay bribes.

And, and he was like, then you can't, you can't do your work here in Haiti. And, you know, we will stop you. And by Ending the law again. Now, this was a German organization, so they weren't covered by this American law. Now, if, if we had been an American charity, I could have simply said, I'm sorry, I'm an American.

I can't by law do this. Now, do you want our help or not? But now every tin pot dictator in the world is going to be [02:06:00] saying to every business, you know, they're going to be saying to Coca Cola and to Ford motor company and whatever, Hey, you want to sell your cars? You want to sell your, your, your soft drinks.

You want to sell your pharmaceuticals in our country. Grease my Paul. And now that it's no longer illegal to do that, these companies are going to start doing it, which means that the companies that don't do it are putting their executives lives in danger and, you know, certainly the integrity of their operations.

This is absolutely criminal. I mean, this law was passed back in 1977, and it makes it illegal for American companies to pay bribes to do business in other countries, and vice versa. For other countries or other companies to pay bribes to do business here. And Trump just shut this down? It makes you wonder which count which countries Don Jr.

and Eric want to bribe in order to get Trump Hotel.

SECTION C: CORPORATE INTERESTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C corporate interests. [02:07:00] 

Why does corruption matter - Civics 101 - Air Date 10-15-24

DAVID SIROTA: So in 1971,

Richard Nixon had just installed the now famous recording devices in the White House. We 

CLIP: are going to use any means that we're getting done. 

MUSIC: I

DAVID SIROTA: want it done. 1971 was this moment in history in which the reformers, Ralph Nader types, were winning. Tons of legislative victories. It was a time of really incredible progress in America.

I mean, the country had declared war on poverty. The Voting Rights Act had passed. The Civil Rights Act had passed. The Medicare had passed. Medicaid. Richard Nixon signed the legislation creating the EPA and the like. I mean, this was an incredible moment. And Nixon had just installed his recording device in the White House.

And one of the problems that had not been solved, one of the last big problems that had not really been addressed, was [02:08:00] this thrum of corruption underneath the political system.

And Nixon ended up recording this exchange that he had with his treasury secretary, in which his treasury secretary said. To Nixon and they were they were strategizing together that they could shake down. That was the that was the term used they could shake down the Dairy producers and we're talking about the big giant dairy companies They could shake down the dairy companies for more campaign cash to Nixon's re election campaign in exchange for Nixon issuing a policy That would create a price support floor for the price of milk to keep the price of milk at or above a Certain minimum amount.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Hang on, shake down the [02:09:00] dairy industry? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Yes, milk, shakedown, milk, shake, we are not the first to notice the pun potential there. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Milk them for all they're worth! But how is this a shakedown, exactly? You know, you help me get re elected, I'll help your industry out. That's quid pro quo, as old as time in American politics, isn't it?

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Well, Nixon may not have invented campaign corruption, but he sure did define it in a new way. 

DAVID SIROTA: It was very, very clear. They're going to give us money, we're going to do this policy. And what ended up happening was, this kind of came out. It leaked out at the time, not necessarily the tapes. The tapes did not leak out until Watergate a few years later.

The fact that so much money flooded into Nixon's campaign from the dairy producers, and then Nixon essentially reversed a decision from his agriculture department to then do these price supports, which enriched the dairy processors, the dairy [02:10:00] companies. It became this example of the kind of corruption that had become systemic in Washington and helped.

Basically, 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: even before Watergate went down, Congress was taking note of how campaign contributions could directly influence regulation. It was, like David said, very clear that Nixon had received a ton of money from the dairy industry and then turned around and helped the dairy industry. So, the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act regulated money in federal elections.

Contribution limits, spending disclosures, prohibiting candidates from offering rewards in exchange for donations. 

DAVID SIROTA: I think what it exemplified was this cycle that we've been talking about, where Bad stuff [02:11:00] happens, Congress feels forced to react, uh, and Congress did react. Now, Nixon almost immediately after signing the Federal Election Campaign Act, signing it, I don't know, he didn't exactly love that he was signing it, he didn't do a big signing statement, but he felt sort of publicly pressured, publicly forced to sign it, uh, Nixon and his cronies uh, decided to try to immediately circumvented.

And what's fascinating is is that we uncovered a lot of previously never reported on documents in which they outlined their strategy of how to effectively undermine that anti corruption law immediately upon its passage. I should mention, when the bill was moving through Congress after this dairy corruption scandal.

Nixon was publicly saying he supports campaign finance reform. He supports anti corruption legislation. Meanwhile, we uncovered memos inside the White House in which they were plotting a strategy of getting [02:12:00] corporate donors to threaten members of Congress with financial punishment if they ended up voting for that anti corruption law.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Wow, that is,

DAVID SIROTA: well, I

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: guess

DAVID SIROTA: that is Richard Nixon. So, I, I realize that people listening to this will say, Well, it's not a surprise that Richard Nixon, of all people, was corrupt. And I think that's right, it's not a surprise, but I think we have to understand that the Watergate scandal and the Nixon administration, it really wasn't just a scandal about the break in and a desire to win an election.

It was really The first and biggest campaign finance and corruption scandal of the modern era. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: And Nick, why is it important that Congress is monitoring this stuff? That they're playing watchdog in their own world? Because the public is often busy thinking about other things. For example, who's [02:13:00] thinking about the dairy industry in 1971?

DAVID SIROTA: Is Nixon going to end the Vietnam War? The public may be keyed into, is Nixon going to sign the bill creating the Environmental Protection Agency? The public may not be as keyed into agriculture department policy on dairy prices. And dairy price supports. So, the smaller, more granular, more detailed, more esoteric the issue becomes, in some ways, the more likely a politician is to think, well, that's the kind of issue I can go do the bidding of big money because the public's never gonna notice.

The average voter's never gonna know what I did. The average voter's never gonna know that I slipped this or that line into a bill. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: I mean, members of Congress barely have the time or opportunity to read every detail of a bill, so why would the public? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Exactly. And then there's the fact that you can always sneak language into a bill that gets you, or [02:14:00] someone else, what you, or they, want.

We hear about things like poison pillslanguage in a bill that basically kills it from the inside out. And riderslanguage attached to a bill that might have nothing to do with the bill. There are plenty of quiet routes to a legislative goal. Routes that voters might never notice or know about.

DAVID SIROTA: The more in the details you get, the easier it is for corruption to flourish. And what happened soon after that dairy scandal, Watergate happened. And what came out of Watergate was an effort to tighten and strengthen those campaign finance rules and those anti corruption rules. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: We talked about the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act.

After the Watergate scandal, Congress amended that act to limit contributions from individuals, parties, and political action committees. That 1974 [02:15:00] amendment also established the Federal Election Commission. But politicians were immediately opposed to these reforms. 

DAVID SIROTA: And what ended up happening was that even In the shadow of that scandal that everyone paid attention to, everyone knew about, the president resigned on, the bills to strengthen the anti corruption and campaign finance laws after Watergate, the famous bills to crack down, even those bills had provisions slipped into them to help create ways New ways for corporations and interests with lots of money to continue and actually expand their power to influence members of Congress.

 

 

Gregory Shupak on Palestine Ethnic Cleansing, Portia Allen-Kyle on Tax Unfairness Part 1 - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-21-25

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: Doing that report was so eye opening for so many different reasons, and both personally and professionally, and a color of change in our advocacy.

I remember years ago when I [02:16:00] discovered after going to H& R Block and paying more than 300 for a fairly simple return and finding out that the person who filed my return wasn't even in a CalPIT. And I remember how ripped off I felt. So fast forward, being in this role and doing this work and this report in particular, just going into how much of a scam the tax preparation industry, both the storefront tax prep Companies, so your H& R Block, your Liberty Tax, your Jackson Hewitt of the world, as well as large corporations such as Intuit and other software providers that provide these tax filing services.

And the reality of the situation is that you have an industry that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Preventing people from being able to either pay the government what they owe, or in many cases, receive money back from the [02:17:00] government that is technically already theirs. They have earned it, the government has kept more of it than they were perhaps entitled to, and now people are in the position for a refund.

And these businesses, especially for black taxpayers, for low income taxpayers, have found ways to To profit off of people's already earned money by inserting themselves as these corporate middlemen in the tax preparation game, where their sole role is to bleach people's pockets, either from the money that folks have already earned, and they are doing the refund.

Or by upcharging, upselling, and preying upon folks who are eligible for certain tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit, and have made businesses off of selling the equivalent of payday loan products to these taxpayers where they take a part of their refund and just give people the rest under the guise of their income.

Giving them a same [02:18:00] day advance or a same day loan. And so no matter what the angle is, it is all unnecessary and all of them, and it's why government products like IRS Direct File are so important to both our democracy, how government works, and how people receive and keep their money. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: A key fact in your report is that the tax preparation industry has these basic competency problems.

Tax laws change all the time. You're looking for someone who can make sure you pay what you're supposed to and look for any benefits you're entitled to. And of course, throughout this, is that the most vulnerable people are the most in need of this help. But an unacceptable number, if we could say, of these tax preparers are not required to really prove that they know how to do it.

That's an industry wide failing. Oh, absolutely. There are no real 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: requirements for tax preparers in [02:19:00] these companies, whereas if you go to an accountant. Accountants have professional standards. They have training requirements. Anybody can hang up a shingle and say, I am an accountant. The same way not anyone can walk into a hospital, put on a white coat and say, I am a doctor.

But what we have is an entire industry of people that are able to say, I am a tax preparer because I have applied for a job, maybe taken an internal Training to these companies and are now in the business of selling tax preparation, 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: right? But not to everyone because let's underscore that the fact that these systemic problems This is a regulatory problem clearly, but it doesn't land on everyone equally and it's not designed to and so in this case you see that these unregulated tax preparers are taking advantage of, well, the people that it's easiest to take advantage of.

Talk a little bit more about the impacts of that particular kind of [02:20:00] predation. 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: One of the ways in which, especially storefront preparers, are able to prey on communities is simply by location. And so many of these, like, franchised operations, some of them maintain year long locations, many of them do not.

But they pop up, kind of like Spirit Halloween, often around tax season. Right. In neighborhoods that are disproportionately Black or communities of color, disproportionately lower income. It just reports that we have taxpayers and residents who are eligible for what are expected to be larger refunds. So those who are eligible for the earned income tax credit, those who are eligible for the child tax credit.

And really play upon those folks in selling tax preparation services. And the key here is selling tax preparation services, because what they really are are salespeople. They have sales goals. It's why they are incentivized to. Upsell products, some of the products that they are also selling [02:21:00] are refund anticipation loans.

So they may lure you in and say, get a portion of your refund today or get an advance up front. That's a unregulated bank product. So you have a unregulated tax preparer now selling you an unregulated bank product, loan product that often sometimes reach interest rates of over 30%. And they know what they're doing, because that is where they make their money in the selling of product.

Right. And we see that in the data that reprogram such a vital volunteer income tax assistance program, disproportionately prepares the taxes of filers. Who don't have children and aren't eligible for so many of these companies will refer out other folks for whom they find that it is not worth it to prepare their taxes right on folks that they think are getting big refunds.

But more importantly, what really illustrates the difference in tax preparation and [02:22:00] expectation, the wealthy. Millionaires, billionaires, corporations, they're not going to H& R Block. Like Mark Cuban is not walking into H& R Block to file his taxes, right? Like folks on the other end of the income and wealth spectrum are relying on accountants.

Are relying on folks who are not just preparing a service in the moment, but who are providing a year round advice on how to make the system work for them. And so there's a service and an additional amount of financial insight and oversight that they are getting that an entire segment of the market is not being properly handled in this way.

Because at the end of the day, it's these tax lobby and these corporations that have fought so hard to keep taxes complicated. and confusing for the rest of us. Doing this while providing services that they know are subpar in quality and deliver questionable outcomes. I mean, demonstrated in the report, the error rate of those who prepare taxes for [02:23:00] companies like H& R Block, Liberty Tax, Jackson Hewitt, and other companies is extremely high, sometimes upwards of 60 percent.

So, You have a scenario where you have a portion of taxpayers who disproportionately have their returns prepared by preparers who are unqualified and unregulated and essentially increases their risk of an audit and then when they are audited with trial and that the IRS. Disproportionately have audited black taxpayers and particularly those who are eligible for EITC, et cetera.

And that is not unrelated to the way that it is structured and the predation of the corporate tax lobby in the first place. And while it sounds like when you see advertisements from H& R Block or Intuit, About how they stand by and guarantee their services, they'll defend you in an audit. Well, they need to defend you in an audit.

It's not altruistic. You'll need that protection because they're going to mess it up. Right. And have messed it up. Right. For so [02:24:00] many people and that part of the story is not often talked about when we talk about the disproportionate audit rate. It often is not always included how those folks had their returns prepared, and that's often by these same companies that are presenting and fighting against things like direct file, which is essentially the public option for taxes in the same way that the Affordable Care Act is, you know, in the exchange is the public option for health care.

The billionaires who run the world (and why they're psychos) Part 2 - Red Flag Radio - Air Date 2-23-25

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: well, while we're on to, uh, the Australian, uh, capitalist class, um, he's now an American citizen, but, you know, we couldn't do this episode without talking about Rupert Murdoch, um, and the Murdoch Empire.

Today he's worth 23. 4 billion US dollars, um, and yeah, he, you know, also like most capitalists already started out rich, um, he, uh, took over running Adelaide News, um, at the age of 21 from his dad, um, by the 1960s he had consolidated Australia's largest media conglomerate, [02:25:00] um, and from there Murdoch really pivoted to Try and take over the whole UK media landscape and then from from there the US.

And so today he has his enormous global conservative media empire, probably most famously Fox News, which is a major part of getting Trump into the White House and along the way he did just, you know, classic capitalist thing. So he was involved in massive union busting campaigns, particularly to try and break the power of the print unions in the UK.

Okay. Transcribed Um, it's worth saying, like, he's most famous for, you know, Fox News, uh, Trump, loving the Liberal Party, but Modok's also not afraid to back the Labor Party when it suits them. As he says, he can make money. Uh, under Labor governments as well. Um, so for example, he was a big backer of Tony Blair during the kind of new Labor turn to, you know, the most open neoliberalism and particularly the Iraq war.

Um, but Murdoch's probably most famous for using all of the means, the many means at his disposal to undermine Labor governments, uh, when [02:26:00] they just give him the shits and he wants to return to conservative rules. So, if you remember like the headlines on the Daily Telegraph, um, during the Rudd years, uh, kick this mob out.

Um, but he also, uh, was a big backer of Gough Whitlam, and then was the key guy that ran the kind of media assault upon, uh, Whitlam, uh, during the, uh, the coup against him. Um, so yeah, he's actually stepped down from being the chairman of Fox, um, and News Corp, um, last year. Uh, but yeah, still, you know, so involved in shaping just the media that, like, millions, billions of people around the world, um, consume.

And something like 65 percent of print newspapers, um, in Australia are News Corp, uh, newspapers that we read. So just appalling, uh, control that he has over the means of, uh, accessing information, um, for millions of people in Australia, billions of people around the world. 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. And I think of all the capitalists in the whole world, he's probably the most responsible for the rise of Trump.

Like he really, [02:27:00] especially back to his first presidential bid. Um, you know, there was a kind of alliance between the Trumpist campaign and his media, um, in those years. Um, not that it, that was, you know, solely based on his support for Trump, like, I think Murdoch's right wing push far predates, um, Trumpism.

Uh, he's been trying to shape ideas in a right wing direction, promote racism and so on for, uh, for many decades. But I think, yeah, it really, um, he found a someone he could really commit to in the person of Donald Trump. I think we were 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: reminded recently of just how pathetic Labor governments are in the face of these billionaire media moguls, um, when just awesome person Grace Thame, uh, turned up to We love you, Grace Thame.

Turned up to an Australia Day, um, Australian of the Year, uh, celebration, um, at Kiribilli, uh, wearing a Fuck Murdoch t shirt. Um, to which, like, Anthony Albanese was just, like, a pathetic [02:28:00] spineless dweeb and, like, you know, criticized when he was attacked in the media by, you know, Tame wearing the Fuck Murdoch t shirt.

He, like, totally threw her under the bus. Um, and Tame wrote this really excellent, uh, crikey article in response to it called, Why is my t shirt more offensive to our Prime Minister? than a 50 year assault on democracy, and it's just a great read. He talks about, um, you know, Murdoch's long history of being a nefarious goon, his role in sacking golf Whitlam, um, his connection to Ronald Reagan to, you know, uh, conservative figures in the US like Roy Cohen, um, who was the mentor of Donald Trump.

Um, And just the way that, you know, government's deregulation and neoliberal policies has helped Murdoch, uh, build his empire, you know, his nefarious, um, uh, tactics that his media outlets have used, particularly the phone hacking scandal from, uh, News of the World, um, where he, like, they hacked the, um, the phone of, like, murdered, a murdered schoolgirl and, like, lots [02:29:00] of other, um, figures.

Um, and yeah, to quote her article, she says, It alarms me how little people seem to know about Rupert, a man who owns far more than the news. If anything, his media empire is a front for his various business ventures. Um, it's the instrument he uses to promote policies that benefit him while brainwashing the everyday person into believing they're also good for them.

I don't know, like, I don't think Marxists would particularly agree with the brainwashing terminology, like, we think working class people have the capacity to reject a whole bunch of this, but there's so much that's right in this, um, particularly all of the links between, you know, uh, his media empire, but also just generally promoting the interests, um, of big business and the need to kind of push reactionary politics and try and get a section of the population to adopt reactionary politics, like the recognition that, like, Taking up, you know, virulent racism, you know, anti trans politics, all of this is about trying to get, uh, convince people to a certain degree to kick down instead of looking [02:30:00] at, you know, what the 1 percent are up to.

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. And, uh, it's, you know, we've talked mainly about capitalists of the US and Australian ruling classes, but I think it's a general pattern around the world that is not often recognized, which Grace Tame recognizes, that it's the fucking capitalists that push the most reactionary agenda. Um, obviously alongside their, their politician mates and, and so on, but, um, I think that's really important to understand that this stuff, not just like the pursuit of profits, but The racism and the hatred of ordinary people and stuff, that is all in their interest and they push it at all times.

So, um, a, a good example from elsewhere is, uh, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani from India, who have both become, uh, some of the richest people in the, the world. I think Mukesh Ambani is Asia's richest man currently, and Adani was briefly the second richest person in the world before a series of scandals, kind of, uh, briefly tanked his Uh, his conglomerate, [02:31:00] but they have been able to, you know, very similar to what's happening with Trump now, ride the wave of, um, Modi's rise to power, uh, Modi, you know, rose to power on the back of extreme racism, anti Muslim, um, uh, and Hindu nationalism.

And these guys became extremely rich out of their alliance with Modi. They were offered all of the major infrastructure projects and, and, you know, um, deals. from the government, uh, and were able to become like, like kind of just situate themselves as some of the most important capitalists, uh, in Asia and definitely the most important in India.

Um, and they've just become part of like the global elite. Last year, Ambani had a party for 1200 Silicon Valley Bollywood like types, just all these rich people came to his personal skyscraper, uh, called Antilla, which cost 2 billion to build. Like, I don't even. I don't know if that's the most expensive fucking structure ever built or whatever, but that's insane.[02:32:00] 

Um, or at least as, as a personal residence. Uh, and you know, all of the classics were there, Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump, Bill Gates, like Rihanna performed for them and stuff. So these are really part of the, um, the global elite. And I think they've, uh, you know, ridden to to that extreme wealth on the back of backing the most reactionary politics in India that is literally about, you know, pogroms against Muslims, uh, as well as, you know, enforcing a horrific level of exploitation of the working class as a whole.

D.C. Gutted. Grassroots Galvanized. Part 2 - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 2-22-25

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Well, Jimmy, you've done a lot of work on taxation, internet taxation, you've investigated all kinds of money laundering and tax evasions by big business and the super rich.

The reports are that Trump and Musk are going to get access to IRS personal data, which has never been allowed, and that they have put in place a toady as head of IRS forcing the current one. I had a friend who lost his his first term out of office, and he had about a [02:33:00] couple years more of his term.

Listen, this is the difference between Republicans and Democrats, among others, is that the Democrats let these heads of the Postal Service or the IRS finish their term When they win and replace the Republicans. The Republicans say, get out right now. They've got the IRS in their bullseye, and of course, both Trump and Musk are super low tax payers.

They're using every loophole possible, and it looks like they're going to get another tax cut for the super rich through Congress as fast as they can. Give us your view on this. What are the consequences here? 

JAMES HENRY: Well, I've been following tax justice issues since the 1970s when I started to write about this, I did a big study of income tax non compliance for the American Bar Association way back in 1983.

And we had all these attorneys from big Wall Street law firms sitting around the table talking about how important it [02:34:00] was to have tax compliance. In the United States, the United States had this proud record of pioneering in the progressive income tax system. It had corporate tax rates as high as 70 to 80%, especially after World War II, and income tax rates were very high, it had an estate tax.

And so it was really leading the world in terms of having progressive taxation. And that's an important thing to understand, because since the 1980s, we've seen the global tax rates come down substantially. Under the influence of Reagan and then continued by Democrats, by and large, there was this effort to have moderation of taxation, both for an individual and for corporations.

And so by the time Biden takes office in 2020, we have corporate tax rates down to 21%. That's already very low. We have income tax rates that kind of cap out at 40 percent or so, depending on income levels. But the average Those are the [02:35:00] rates. That's right, those are the rates. And I'm just talking about the actual rates that people are paying, especially the rich, are much, much lower than that.

So even before Trump came into office the first time around, we've seen a substantial reduction in the rates of taxation for both corporations and individuals. He comes in in December 2017 without any hearings at all. He arranges a corporate tax rate that drops the level and generates about 2 trillion of savings, most of which went to the top 100 companies over 10 years.

And it was financed basically by borrowing. Well, this time around, those tax cuts, which most of which expire. At the end of 2025, he wants to renew. It would cost about $4.5 trillion of increased deficit over 10 years. And the way he finances at this time, given the fact the United States has this huge deficit, is by packing away all of social programs in the federal budget.

So that's the source of this attempt to, [02:36:00] to cut $2 trillion, most of which would just simply be turned over to the wealthiest people in the country. So I see this as a huge step backwards in time toward the period before 1930 and unraveling all the progress the U. S. was responsible for. 

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Tell our listeners, Jim Henry, over half of the profitable corporations in the U.

S. pay no federal income tax. Some of them get even refunds, so crazy is the tax system. How do they pull that off? Let's say General Electric, you know, made like 5 billion in the early 21st century, a few years ago. They paid no federal income tax. They got some returns because they were finagling with other tax liability companies trading off.

Explain, how do they end up making billions of dollars per company and paying no tax? Like Apple. Makes tens of billions. It's very, very little tax. The big banks make tens of billions. Explain to our [02:37:00] listeners, how can they get away with that? When the standard tax rate, as you say, is 21 percent on corporate profits.

Yeah. 

JAMES HENRY: Well, the actual effective tax rate is about half that. But Apple, in particular, is one I know well, I've written about their use of the offshore system. For decades, they parked about 65 percent of their worldwide income in a company in Ireland that was a citizen of nowhere for tax purposes. It wasn't subject to U.

S. tax, and it wasn't subject to Irish tax. And so they could leave the money there offshore, untaxed, until they decided to bring it back. So by 2017 tax bill that Trump enacted, They had accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars offshore that had never paid tax. That's one method is to use the offshore system.

News Corp, owned by our friend Murdoch, has 152 offshore subsidiaries. And so one of the ways you avoid tax is by gaming the international system. You park your income [02:38:00] in jurisdictions without any income tax. You leave it there until it's appropriate for you to bring it back to the United States. And they, they basically have managed to game the system.

So, you know, of course, large credits and depreciation oil industry benefits a lot from tax. I think the IMF has done some fascinating work trying to estimate the fossil fuel subsidies. So, the offshore tax system is a mess. One of the things that Janet Yellen was trying to do at the Treasury under Biden was to work with the European countries, members of the OECD, come up with a compact that would agree that can't have any tax.

Rate lower than 15%. Well, Trump is just kabosh that whole idea and put an end to about a decade of work collaborating with our, our allies by throwing that treaty out. That will mean that in fact, U. S. Companies are back in the game of putting their money in anywhere in the world and not paying taxes on it.

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: There's an even greater absurdity here. You [02:39:00] mentioned tax credits, that doesn't mean much to a lot of people, but what they do, for example, with Silicon Valley companies and so on, and drug companies, is they say, if you put money in research and development, you can take that as a tax credit against your income tax.

Like, well, of course they're going to put money. I mean, that's how they make money. So they're paying these companies at the expense of middle class taxpayers who have to pick up the tabs. And the burdens of federal expenditures. They're paying these companies for what they should be doing anyway. 

JAMES HENRY: Well, that's right.

And they would be doing anyway. You know, there's 150 billion dollars for being proposed. 150 billion tax cut being proposed as part of this package that Republicans are putting together for precisely that R& D credits that they should be making anyway. But the big picture here, and it's a little bit hard for ordinary Americans to kind of grasp all these technical issues.

And I'm familiar with the problem of trying to get people to understand the tax code to fight this fight. Basically, the U. S. [02:40:00] is now taxing corporations at Estonian levels. I mean, we have a tax rate that's below China's. You know, China's is about 25 percent corporate income tax. Ours is 20. Trump wants to make that even more generous for companies.

At the same time, one thing that I'm just shocked by, it's hard to be shocked by this administration, but any more than by anything else, but he's basically dismantling the IRS. The IRS had been for years sort of starved for financing for its tax enforcement efforts against large corporations and wealthy individuals.

They finally got the Biden administration to add another 80 billion over 10 years, which was hiring about 10, 000 additional investigators. Enforcement people and Trump has just fired them. So that whole effort to reinvigorate the IRS enforcement effort. So, you know, a lot of what we're talking about here is illegal activity.

It isn't even a question. It would have paid for itself that 80 billion investment [02:41:00] about 10 times over in terms of increased revenue collected. So it isn't that this is driven by rational economic policy. I don't think any part of Trump's program makes economic sense. 

 

Gregory Shupak on Palestine Ethnic Cleansing, Portia Allen-Kyle on Tax Unfairness Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-21-25

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: And the reality of the situation is that you have an industry that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Preventing people from being able to either pay the government what they owe, or in many cases, receive money back from the government that is technically already theirs. They have earned it, the government has kept more of it than they were perhaps entitled to, and now people are in the position for a refund.

And these businesses, especially for black taxpayers, for low income taxpayers, have found ways to To profit off of people's already earned money by inserting themselves [02:42:00] as these corporate middlemen in the tax preparation game, where their sole role is to bleach people's pockets, either from the money that folks have already earned, and they are doing the refund.

Or by upcharging, upselling, and preying upon folks who are eligible for certain tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit, and have made businesses off of selling the equivalent of payday loan products to these taxpayers where they take a part of their refund and just give people the rest under the guise of their income.

Giving them a same day advance or a same day loan. And so no matter what the angle is, it is all unnecessary and all of them, and it's why government products like IRS Direct File are so important to both our democracy, how government works, and how people receive and keep their money. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: A key fact in your report is that the [02:43:00] tax preparation industry has these basic competency problems.

Tax laws change all the time. You're looking for someone who can make sure you pay what you're supposed to and look for any benefits you're entitled to. And of course, throughout this, is that the most vulnerable people are the most in need of this help. But an unacceptable number, if we could say, of these tax preparers are not required to really prove that they know how to do it.

That's an industry wide failing. Oh, absolutely. There are no real 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: requirements for tax preparers in these companies, whereas if you go to an accountant. Accountants have professional standards. They have training requirements. Anybody can hang up a shingle and say, I am an accountant. The same way not anyone can walk into a hospital, put on a white coat and say, I am a doctor.

But what we have is an entire industry of people that are able to say, I am a tax preparer [02:44:00] because I have applied for a job, maybe taken an internal Training to these companies and are now in the business of selling tax preparation, 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: right? But not to everyone because let's underscore that the fact that these systemic problems This is a regulatory problem clearly, but it doesn't land on everyone equally and it's not designed to and so in this case you see that these unregulated tax preparers are taking advantage of, well, the people that it's easiest to take advantage of.

Talk a little bit more about the impacts of that particular kind of predation. 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: One of the ways in which, especially storefront preparers, are able to prey on communities is simply by location. And so many of these, like, franchised operations, some of them maintain year long locations, many of them do not.

But they pop up, kind of like Spirit Halloween, often around tax season. Right. In neighborhoods that are [02:45:00] disproportionately Black or communities of color, disproportionately lower income. It just reports that we have taxpayers and residents who are eligible for what are expected to be larger refunds. So those who are eligible for the earned income tax credit, those who are eligible for the child tax credit.

And really play upon those folks in selling tax preparation services. And the key here is selling tax preparation services, because what they really are are salespeople. They have sales goals. It's why they are incentivized to. Upsell products, some of the products that they are also selling are refund anticipation loans.

So they may lure you in and say, get a portion of your refund today or get an advance up front. That's a unregulated bank product. So you have a unregulated tax preparer now selling you an unregulated bank product, loan product that often sometimes reach interest rates of [02:46:00] over 30%. And they know what they're doing, because that is where they make their money in the selling of product.

Right. And we see that in the data that reprogram such a vital volunteer income tax assistance program, disproportionately prepares the taxes of filers. Who don't have children and aren't eligible for so many of these companies will refer out other folks for whom they find that it is not worth it to prepare their taxes right on folks that they think are getting big refunds.

But more importantly, what really illustrates the difference in tax preparation and expectation, the wealthy. Millionaires, billionaires, corporations, they're not going to H& R Block. Like Mark Cuban is not walking into H& R Block to file his taxes, right? Like folks on the other end of the income and wealth spectrum are relying on accountants.

Are relying on folks who are not just preparing a service in the moment, but who are providing a year round advice on [02:47:00] how to make the system work for them. And so there's a service and an additional amount of financial insight and oversight that they are getting that an entire segment of the market is not being properly handled in this way.

Because at the end of the day, it's these tax lobby and these corporations that have fought so hard to keep taxes complicated. and confusing for the rest of us. Doing this while providing services that they know are subpar in quality and deliver questionable outcomes. I mean, demonstrated in the report, the error rate of those who prepare taxes for companies like H& R Block, Liberty Tax, Jackson Hewitt, and other companies is extremely high, sometimes upwards of 60 percent.

So, You have a scenario where you have a portion of taxpayers who disproportionately have their returns prepared by preparers who are unqualified and unregulated and essentially increases their risk of an [02:48:00] audit and then when they are audited with trial and that the IRS. Disproportionately have audited black taxpayers and particularly those who are eligible for EITC, et cetera.

And that is not unrelated to the way that it is structured and the predation of the corporate tax lobby in the first place. And while it sounds like when you see advertisements from H& R Block or Intuit, About how they stand by and guarantee their services, they'll defend you in an audit. Well, they need to defend you in an audit.

It's not altruistic. You'll need that protection because they're going to mess it up. Right. And have messed it up. Right. For so many people and that part of the story is not often talked about when we talk about the disproportionate audit rate. It often is not always included how those folks had their returns prepared, and that's often by these same companies that are presenting and fighting against things like direct file, which is essentially the public option for taxes in the same way that the Affordable Care [02:49:00] Act is, you know, in the exchange is the public option for health care.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: What is direct file and why can we expect to hear in the media a lot of folks saying, Oh, well, you might think direct file is good, but actually, you know, um, what should we know about it? 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: What we should know about it is, as I mentioned, direct file is the public option for taxes. Right. And it's important because it allows people to file returns and simple returns directly with the IRA.

The last year, the pilot program was only available in 12 states. This year, the program is open to folks living in 25 states. We hope to see and are fighting for the expansion after this season into all 50 states. And recognize the tough road ahead for that, but it is a program that in its first year, they over, I believe it was 130, 000 taxpayers, millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in tax [02:50:00] preparation and already folks block.

This season to the direct file system and in the 1st, 2 week color of change has been doing a lot of advocacy. We are the top refer of traffic to direct file. And so we're already saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours, which is a real benefit to community. This is a system that like in government working for you.

It is also important because the other thing that private companies have really invested in and fought so hard about is that even when you file with H& R Block, when you file with Intuit or Total Tax, like when you file with Liberty Tax, That information is still going to the government, to the IRS, but now it also is housed in this private corporation that essentially uses it as a part of their business model to sell other products to you and prey on you in other ways.

And so it's not a [02:51:00] coincidence that a company like Intuit own TurtleTax, which is, you know, a software platform that will take up your data. They also own QuickBooks, so they have a bunch of data on small businesses that keep their accounting in that way. They own MailChimp, and so they have information of millions of posts to join direct marketing, email campaigns, and so they can link data in that way.

And then also own credit partners and so for those who are looking to improve their credit scores, for example, and they also then have information about, you know, Americans would not level and match this to essentially pray in different ways with different types of tax products and other banking products.

And we've seen this in the expansion of FinTech. Tax product alone, um, that has been going crazy. You know, when Cash App, for example, is telling you that you can file your taxes for free, you should assume that you are the product. And cutting out that corporate middleman is critical and essential for not just [02:52:00] ensuring that families keep money in their pockets, save time.

That they are able to put back, spend with their kids, spend with their families, spend pursuing other things, but also is a data protection strategy as well. 

SECTION D: KING TRUMP

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D. King Trump.

Did Trump End Fundamental Constitutional Structure Holding Back Fascism - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 2-10-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: The Supreme court is corrupt. Congress is a rubber stamp and the president is lawless. What happens next? And so J. D. Vance is now saying that he and Donald Trump don't obey federal judges. He tweeted, quote, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legislative legitimate power. This is how autocrats run things.

It's an extraordinarily dangerous moment. And I think it's important that we put this in a historical context. It was, uh, Tuesday, July 17th, 1787 when, uh, 50 some odd men got together at the, uh, what was then the City Hall in Philadelphia, uh, it's now called Independence Hall, [02:53:00] uh, to draw up, to write the Constitution.

And they drew their inspiration for that day's efforts, that July 17th, 1787 effort, from Charles de Montesquieu, who's, uh, who had published a, a book. He was a French philosopher and, and, uh, Uh, well, a philosopher, uh, in 1748, he wrote a book called The Spirit of the Laws. And in The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu pointed out that it is absolutely critical that if you want to have a government that doesn't devolve into tyranny, that doesn't become an autocratic, strongman, single party state.

That you must have at least three separate branches of government that have relatively equal powers relative to each other. In this case, the legislative, Congress, House and Senate, the executive, the presidency, and the judiciary, the, the courts. [02:54:00] In fact, this is a quote from his 1748 book. He said, when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.

Again, there is no liberty of the judiciary power between the legislative and executive. So as this topic came up in the morning of July 17th, 1787 in Philadelphia, James Madison stood up to speak and, you know, his words were recorded. He said, you know, by, by quill pen, but recorded, he said, if it be essential to the preservation of liberty that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers be separate.

It is essential to a main, maintenance of that, of that separation that they should also be independent of each other. In like manner, a dependence of the executive, the president, on the legislative would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws. And then according to the observation of Montesquieu, tyrannical laws may be [02:55:00] made, that they may be executed in a tyrannical manner.

Montesquieu conceived it to be absolutely necessary to a well constituted republic that the two forces should be kept distinct and independent of each other for guarding against the dangerous union of the legislative and executive departments. In other words, if the president were ever to dictate all terms to Congress, which then became a compliant rubber stamp, regardless of how excessive or even illegal the president's actions became.

That, Madison said, finishing his little rant, quote, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. We're there now. In simplified form, you know, basically the system that Madison and his compatriots came up with, to, was that the legislature creates agencies and funds them, the government. The president's job is to, and this is a [02:56:00] direct quote from Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, to quote, Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Of course, the laws were created by Congress. And the role of the Article 3 Courts is to make sure that neither overstep their authority and independently arbitrate disputes between them. Well, those decisions must be final. The Supreme Court's decisions must be final for the system to work. However, we've had this 44 year long war.

Against American government, against American democracy, against James Madison and the founders that was funded by a bunch of, initially some fossil fuel billionaires, later a larger group of billionaires, now the tech billionaires are in on it. Uh, this was originally called the Reagan Revolution, then it was called the Bush Revolution, then the Trump Re There's 1, 500 radio stations, there's three television networks, there's multiple newspapers and other publications, over 200 TV stations, hundreds of billions spent to purchase and then elect politicians.

And all of [02:57:00] this American democracy and government after 240 years is finally on the verge of collapsing and being replaced by something very much like Viktor Orban's Hungary or Vladimir Putin's Russia. Both houses of the Congress are controlled by Republicans, and in both cases, every single Republican senator and member of the House of Representatives has just rolled over and said, okay, Donald Trump gets whatever he wants.

The president, so that's the, that's the legislative branch, the executive branch, the president is just nakedly breaking laws and just saying, Congress, courts, I dare you. And the courts, you know, are just beginning to weigh in, but now J. D. Vance comes out over the weekend and says that he can, he can do whatever he wants, he can ignore the courts.

And in fact, the only way courts can have their opinions enforced is by having federal [02:58:00] marshals do it. And who do the federal marshals work for? Oh, that's right, Pam Bondi. And who does Pam Bondi work for? Oh, that's right, Donald Trump. This is Pam Bondi, our Attorney General, who's investigating FBI agents who were looking into Donald Trump's crimes when he stole top secret documents from the White House, took them down to Mar a Lago, and left them out where Russian spies could wander in and photocopy them.

He conveniently left a giant photocopy machine there, too, right next to them. Wasn't that nice of him?

This is the very definition of a constitutional crisis. When one branch of government says we're going to completely ignore the other branch of government, or even, in this case, the other two branches of government, and just do whatever the hell we want. We don't care what the law says. We don't care what the courts say.

And we're going to find out. I mean, we're already hearing stories that even though a federal judge told Donald Trump and Elon Musk that they cannot suspend federal payments, [02:59:00] That farmers in the Midwest and, you know, and people all over the world are not getting federal payments. That money is being withheld in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires.

And here we have, and by the way, this was all facilitated by the Supreme Court, by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court in Citizens United in 2010, saying that bribery is just fine. If you want to, if a billionaire wants to own a politician, no problem. And so here comes billionaire Elon Musk saying, I'm going to own Donald Trump.

It only costs 270 million. Not even a billion, not even a half a billion.

So, and then, and then we look at, you know, Elon Musk. Well, what's in this for him? Well, let's just go through the list. The FAA administrator had launched an investigation into SpaceX. Now he's been fired. The Department of [03:00:00] Justice was looking into possible violations of securities and other laws by Musk and Tesla.

That investigation is probably going to die. The USAID Inspector General was investigating Musk's Starlink. He's gone. The Department of Defense's Inspector General, uh, opened a review into alleged failures by Musk and SpaceX to properly disclose contact with foreign leaders. You know, like Putin? He's been fired.

The USDA Inspector General was investigating alleged animal abuse at Neuralink, Musk's brain company. He's been fired. The National Transportation Safety Board, overseen by the DOT, had several open probes into Tesla. Uh, odds are they'll be dropped if they haven't been already. The EPA had settled multiple lawsuits with Tesla.

Uh, for, you know, hazardous waste violations and violations of the Clean Air Act. Now that the EPA is being gutted, there probably won't be any more. The National Labor Relations Board, overseen by the Department of Labor, had 17 open investigations against Tesla and SpaceX. For unfair labor practices, safety violations, and [03:01:00] discriminatory work process practices that are probably now, you know, moot.

The FCC was carrying out investigations and had issued court orders relative to Musk's business. The Federal Trade Commission was overseeing some of Musk's companies and had a consent decree in place. And the Air Force and the Pentagon's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security had launched reviews into Musk and SpaceX's compliance with federal reporting requirements.

I think you can safely say all of these burrs under, under Elon Musk's saddle have, have been removed. And if not, so far, they probably will be soon. That 277 million investment that, that Musk made is going to pay billions in returns, it appears. Welcome to James Madison's very definition of tyranny.

 

DOJ files to dismiss NYC Mayor Adams case after request set off wave of mass resignations - The ReidOut - Air Date 2-14-25

GUEST 5: And that's, I think the, the, the, the top line takeaway here. Um, one is that, and we know where this is going to go to. So that low income heating program where [03:02:00] those people lost that money, that was straight out of project 2025.

I mean, right in the 900 page book, that was one of the programs that they were targeting. So in effect, Trump is just implementing a lot of the things that they've already written and prepared for, which means we know what's coming next. And we know the people that are going to be affected by it, which means there's no excuse.

For the, for Democrats, for the news media, not to be able to connect the dots. And your question is the important one here, because if we don't help build that connective tissue for his actions, to the harms that people are already experiencing, what's going to happen is that because they have narrative dominance and they have that massive megaphone there, when people start to ask questions, Hey, why is this happening?

They're going to blame the deep state. Malicious implementation right there and and they're going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power for themselves. So it is both an important opportunity, but we also need to make sure we're telling this story so that we don't, we actually prevent them from using it to get stronger.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, [03:03:00] absolutely. And you know, Antoine, you, you, uh, you made a video actually that, you know, taught that sort of sort of walks Democrats through some real way to tell this story, not even just on the red state pain, but just on the price increases that everyone is feeling right now. I'm gonna play just a little bit of that.

Do we have it? Maybe we have a little bit of that. 

DONALD TRUMP: We will stop inflation. We will make America affordable again. We have tremendous potential in this country. The President's tariffs are expected to have a major impact on the price American shoppers pay. Tariffs that could raise prices for many products.

It'll also bring your grocery bill way down. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Consumers can expect to see increases on items like avocados, berries, and meat products. The 

CLIP: word grocery, you know, it's sort of a simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: With many thanks for our director downtown Sterling Brown. Um, here is, uh, your article, Antoine, is Trump ignoring his promises that won in the election?

What should Democrats be asking? Where should they be playing that video? 

GUEST 6: Well, well, Joy, I can tell you this as a, as the old African American proverb tells us quite [03:04:00] clearly, we tried to tell y'all. The fact of the matter is what we see now is a governing style of ram, jam, and screw. Ram these government overreach extreme policies down the throats of the American people, jam up the news cycle with multiple things at one time, and screw whatever constituency that will be impacted by these.

And quite frankly, I think the American people need to understand that these policies and this government overreach, this extremism does not just impact democracy does not just impact. Uh, those who may not have been 4. It impacts everyone in my home state of South Carolina. We better known in many places as the battered capital of the world.

The largest investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, perhaps in any other state, we've had two or three announcements where companies will not. Produce what they said they were going to produce just in Georgia a few weeks ago, the same thing. And so I think what's going to happen at the end of the day, if you look at his extremism, along with what the Republicans want to do in the Congress [03:05:00] with this budget cut in terms of Medicaid, people are going to be hurting.

And the people who benefit the most are going to hurt the most, in my opinion, those who voted for Donald Trump. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah. I mean, and by the way, who's going to gain the most Angelo are, you know, Trump and his family. They're already reaping money. They're selling meme coins. They're selling their personally, you know, enriching themselves.

Elon Musk is signing himself up for contracts while canceling Medicaid money. 

GUEST 5: Yeah. I mean, 800, 000 people lost money in that deal. Uh, you know, they thought they were going to get rich. They thought they were going to make some money off of Trump's momentum and they lost it. And that's the nature of a lot of these scams.

Uh, and that's a part, you know, that's the part about this that makes this even. more intense is that it's not just that they're using policies to directly affect people and harm people and transfer wealth. They're also then using their cultural and social influence to then fleece them and pick their other pocket, uh, with these sort of, with these other gambits and that, you know, and then further align their pockets.

And I mean, they are, they have really successfully [03:06:00] managing to double dip in the most odious ways. And one 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: of the ways that

GUEST 6: Remember Donald Trump promised on day one, he was going to bring down inflation. He was going to lower the price of car insurance and all these other things. And here we have prices of egg gas and goods and everything in between are still up and yet his constituents who voted for him.

On this notion of the ones who are suffering the most, they're not in blue states, they're not in urban cities, they're in rural America, they're in urban America, they're all over the country. And that's why, if you look back and reflect on this election, what people understand is it was easier to be angry than it was informed.

Because if you were an informed voter in this election, you know, it was not a policy thing that the president put up that went to benefit. Working class Americans, as they thought it would have when we tried to make this idea that the election was going to be about economic and microeconomics in particular, not one person who voted [03:07:00] for him is benefiting from that, except that the wealthy, the well off and the well connected.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: It was an open book test. The book was called Project 2025. Last word to you on this, Angela, because there, you said they were going to pivot and just blame someone. I mean, trans people are right now taking the brunt of it. I mean, they're being erased from the military. They're taking off the T in front of the Stonewall Memorial, which is literally Stonewall was done by trans people, black trans women did it.

I mean, they're literally just sort of making them vanish and disappear. It is. 

GUEST 5: They are insidious. They are. And that's a strategy. Yeah. I mean, and they, you know, they organize power on the fringes, and when you bring all those people in from of the fringes, now each of them get their small little piece of the puzzle and there's a very strong segment of the right wing.

That wants to erase that, erase trans people. There's a big push in right wing media about a couple, two years ago that said that this was the trans lie and that it was only gay white men that were at Stonewall. There weren't even anybody that wasn't white there. That is the narrative that they push. And part of it is to divide and [03:08:00] to weaken.

But it's also a reflection of the fact that they are fighting a culture war here and recognize that politics is downstream from culture, which is partly why he hung that portrait of himself in that mugshot in the White House. It's about culture. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: It's about violence. A mugshot in the White House. Can we show this?

I mean, it is the first thing you see when you go into the White House is Donald Trump's mugshot. Insane. I mean, he is a convicted felon. So I guess that is what he wants people to know.

 

AOC Exposes Republican Plan To Pay For Elon Musk's Tax Break By Cutting Medicaid - The Majority Report - Air Date 2-26-25

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So they're going to have problems with this, and this is going to be like literally a year long process, maybe going into the fall. Maybe, you know, I don't know what the deadline is for reconciliation, but at the very least is going to happen over the next 67 months. In the meantime, we're 13 days away now.

They're going to try and pass a continuing resolution of the existing budget we have. They don't have time to come up with a new budget. They just agreed on these broad strokes today, yesterday. And the real question is, are Democrats going to [03:09:00] help them with this continuing resolution? And the answer should be a 100 percent unequivocal no.

Um, uh, Trump agrees that he does not have the right to exercise what we call impoundment or a line item veto. If Congress appropriates the money, the president is bound in the agencies are bound to expend that money.

And so that's the, that's what we're going to see over the next 13 days. We're turning away from the, what happened with that budget resolution. And now I'm going to look towards the continuing resolution for the, for the numbers that we have now. And in one other note, that budget contained a 20 billion cut to IRS.

And it was a, a future cut, right? Cause remember there [03:10:00] was 80 billion given to the IRS over the course of 10 years, 20 billion was cut in that first, uh, was pulled back in the last, uh, Biden negotiations, but it's in the budget. So it would be cut again. And they've already cut a bunch of IRS people and, and remember whenever they cut the IRS.

The first thing that happens, the first, every dollar that is cut reduces audits of wealthy people because that's the most expensive place. So hopefully the Democrats will hold strong and like they did yesterday and not help with the continuing resolution. And get out there and start messaging the Republicans are about to shut down the government.

The Republicans are about to shut down the government. The Republicans are about to shut down the government because they refuse to agree to our constitutional order. We'll see.[03:11:00] 

In the meantime, they're trying to pretend like they're not cutting, uh, uh, Medicaid because they realize like, Hey, this is a problem. 70 million Americans. Some of those live in red states. In fact, a whole lot of them do. Here is a North Carolina Republican, Addison McDowell, saying we're going to find fraud and abuse.

We're not going to actually do any cutting.

COMMERCIAL: Of cuts on the Republican side is the 2 trillion cut. Some Congress, uh, people have concerns that it could ensnare Medicaid. Congressman Don Bacon, for example, saying he wants, he wants to advance Trump's agenda on national security, energy and taxes, but doesn't want to make significant cuts to Medicaid.

It's not explicitly laid out in this blueprint, but it could be affected. Are you confident? Pause it. Let me just 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: make this clear again. It's not explicitly laid out in this blueprint. [03:12:00] But, you know, I have a cup of, uh, of liquid IV here, and, um, if you tell me to empty out three quarters of that cup, well, let's say I had an eighth of coffee and the rest of it is liquid IV, and you tell me to empty out three quarters of this cup, guess what?

A bunch of it's gonna be the liquid iv. No. So thi this isn't laid out specifically, but you cannot get $880 billion from that committee's portfolio without cutting hundreds of billions of dollars for Medicaid. It's impossible. Or like the Egg committee is gonna be snap. Yeah, a hundred percent. 

COMMERCIAL: Recently laid out in this blueprint, but it could be affected.

Are you confident that this blueprint wouldn't lead to any cuts of Medicaid? I'm confident that there's waste, fraud and abuse in our government in every system that we have. Uh, and that's what we're looking to find. Does that include Medicaid? There's not a single, [03:13:00] if there is waste, fraud, and abuse in any program, we need to find it so that that includes, just to be clear, sorry.

A little bit of a delay that to be clear, if there is waste. Fraud and abuse, as you described it in Medicaid, that would be something you would be supportive of looking at. Absolutely. If there's waste, fraud, and abuse in anything, I can't imagine there's a single American that wouldn't want us to go and find that.

Okay. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Go find the waste, fraud, and abuse. How are you going to do that? Are you going to sit in your office in Congress and go, Oh, we're going to call up every single and we're going to check through this. No. What you do is you hire more investigators. At the DOJ or at CMS, HHS investigators to go look for more, uh, fraud and abuse that fraud and abuse incidentally, like we talked about yesterday, comes from providers.

There is no, they have done extensive [03:14:00] research on this and they've done extensive actually, um, uh, prosecutions of people who have committed fraud. Medicaid fraud. And it's not people who are going around pretending that they're on Medicaid and they shouldn't be. It is people who are defrauding Medicaid by charging them for stuff that they haven't done.

Medical, uh, device providers, ambulance companies, nursing homes, you name it. Providers, not beneficiaries. Here is AOC at the, um, That, that very same committee, House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, this was from earlier that day, yesterday, I should say, uh, outlining that they're full of, they're full 

AOC CLIP: of it.

But that's the argument, right? But if that were true, [03:15:00] then one would think that. The so called cost savings from certain wasteful cuts would be reinvested in Medicaid. However, that is not what the committee is proposing. They are proposing that we have cuts to these essential programs in order to pay for Elon Musk's tax breaks.

The order has come down to this committee. Find 880 billion dollars. Find it for what? To pay for a tax cut bill that benefits Tax cuts on yachts, and private jets, and billionaires, and megacorporations, while secretaries and working class people pay higher effective tax rates than Facebook does.

Undocumented immigrants in this country pay more in [03:16:00] taxes than many large corporations do. And so the, the argument here that these cuts need to be for the sustainability of Medicaid doesn't really make sense when you realize that these cuts are being just moved to justify expenditures and deficit spending in another area.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah. If you thought there was a waste, fraud, and abuse, and the only way to save Medicaid was to cut that waste, fraud, and abuse. And there was a magic button where you could be like, Oh, we're just going to. These people at Medicaid put in a line item, waste, and one's fraud, and one's abuse. We're just going to cut those.

Then you would reinvest it into the program into non waste, fraud, and abuse. But again, their whole argument is, well, if there's, um, if there's 10 percent fraud in Medicaid, the way that we deal with that is by [03:17:00] cutting Medicaid by 10%.

It's absurd.

If you have 10 percent of your inventory in your store is being shoplifted, the solution is not to cut down your inventory by 10 or 20%. Yeah. If there's occasional immigrant crime, it doesn't mean you do mass deportations. That's what we're looking at. And we'll see how far, uh, Democrats go in terms of being able to, uh, exploit this for political purposes.

Ho hopefully we're gonna see ads running in Republican districts, purple districts tomorrow.

 

Trump Calls Zelensky a Dictator While Crowning Himself King Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-21-25

BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: And the point is this, Trump signed an executive order this week that is probably more important in terms of policy than him saying he's king. Now, that's important and we all know that. I've talked about it a million times in the show. But [03:18:00] this executive order, I'm going to read from a piece at NPR by Danielle Kurtzleben.

The executive order gives the president greater power over independent regulatory agencies, government entities Congress set up to be shielded from White House control. Well known independent regulatory agencies include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, The Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees markets.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures bank deposits, FDIC. I think you've all heard about that. The Federal Reserve, which sets monetary policy. And it's supposed to be outside of electoral politics because you don't want every four years there to be somebody who can just sort of decide how the Federal Reserve works.

This executive order basically means that any new regulations have to be, uh, run by the White House and there has [03:19:00] to be White House liaison offices that regularly consult and coordinate policies and priorities. It also says that the executive branch going back to Trump only, and the president is the only source of interpret, interpreting the law that exists period, at least when it comes to the executive branch, the Y.

So all of that to say, Dan is there is an attempt here to make sure that these independent agencies. Are under the control of the president period Politico piece by Megan Messerly and Bob King, independent agencies often find themselves in the political crosshairs either because they take actions that appear to align or conflict with the sitting president's agenda.

Those include the SEC's efforts during the Biden era to force companies to disclose the risks they face from climate change, as well as the FCC's more recent actions to investigate companies such as CBS for alleged bias [03:20:00] against Trump during The 2024 campaign, Daniel Farber, who is a professor of law at UC Berkeley said this, one result will be to give the president much more control over the financial sector, especially via the SEC.

The ultimate result could be regulatory whiplash. The commission system has given these areas of law, some degree of stability. So the rules don't completely flip after every election that would change under Trump's order. You're left with the situation, Dan, where the federal election committee, the federal communications commission, federal trade commission, and the SEC securities and exchange commission are basically not independent from Trump's will.

The argument is that from Russ Vogt, the architect of project 2025 and friends. This is project 2025. We talked about it on the show 18 [03:21:00] months ago in July of 2023, the United executive, the unified executive theory. Russell vote argues that there should be no agencies that are independent from the president.

Now their argument is the president is elected and therefore the president should have full control over all of these agencies because if you're elected, that's what you get. The reason these agencies were set up to be independent is because, right, one person should not have complete control over.

Which companies are investigated for fraud, which companies are investigated because of consumer complaints. I don't know, Dan, federal communications. Does that sound like maybe one person shouldn't have control over the media and who, who's, who's censored, who, whose licenses are under threat. Maybe one person shouldn't have control over the federal reserve, especially when they're getting together with, uh, Elon Musk and talking about putting the, the, the federal, the, the.[03:22:00] 

The National Reserve and Dogecoin, okay, which is something that's been discussed already. The Federal Trade Commission. I don't know, Dan, we've had tariffs and, and things like that suggested. Do you think that like one person should have control over like, you know, how our trade is completely like regulated?

Especially when that person has business interests and like billions and billions of dollars at stake, whether that's Donald Trump or Elon Musk. Dan, it's not only that we have an executive who's trying to take control of these things, We have the exact kind of executive who the people who set them up had in mind to protect us from.

A kind of like wheeling, dealing businessman, who is a failure at every turn when it comes to like making deals, who's thinking, if I just have control of the markets and trade, if I have control of the securities exchange, if I have control of all of those agencies, you have to come to me. If you want favorable conditions for your [03:23:00] businesses, your conglomerates, your communications, labor, et cetera, this is taking control of the government in a way that we've never seen before.

I got more to say on this that I'm going to take us to Elon in a minute, but jump in here. 

DAN MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, so I know I do this a lot, but I want to sort of almost back up and look at the whole structure of the executive order. Like system and the way that Trump is using it, because I think this is another important dimension.

So like, Trump obviously in the executive orders makes these bold claims and they're, they're real. The threat is real. Everything about Project 2025, like all of that is real. The part that is always sort of surprising to me, or maybe not surprising, but I want to keep in front of people is again, I've referenced this before, you made the reference weeks ago about people, this is my language, but the idea of like sort of preemptively complying with.

The demands of autocrats, right? And the weird thing about the executive order is they don't do anything in and of [03:24:00] themselves. It's Trump putting out a political fantasy. It's Trump saying, here's what I want to be. Here's what I want political reality to look like. They're not self enforcing. They don't have the force of law.

That's why they get, you know, challenged in court and so forth. And we can go down all the stuff about like what happens if they don't listen to the courts, etc. All real things. We can talk about the fact that all of these are intended to go eventually before the Supreme Court and really try to push the boundaries of executive authority and so forth.

But what's striking to me is how much it's this, this performance, this political performance, you sign this executive order, you make this proclamation that has only as much force As people give it to begin with, and this is the dimension that I keep seeing happen, is that every time Trump signs one of these, everybody just falls in line.

These executive orders that they are not self executing, they are not self authorizing, it's not a magic wand. Trump did not wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that all [03:25:00] these regulatory agencies have to do what he says. The way that he says he wishes they would do what he says. And yet with executive order, after executive order, after executive order, we see individuals, organizations, institutions, government agencies falling in line in anticipation of them having the force of law, which of course makes us, they don't ever have to have the force of law.

Like everybody just does it. And it's just this kind of performative thing. And that's the part that I find so, a lot of things, a lot of adjectives. I find it maddening. I find it, if I'm just trying to be analytic about it, I find it fascinating. I also find it terrifying that, yes, the claims in this are really, really scary.

But that's all they are right now are claims until and unless everybody just falls in line and starts doing what Trump wants. In which case they give him the authority that he's claiming. And I think that's the dimension that I find so disturbing about the way that these executive orders are being received.

At a national [03:26:00] level. And we've, we've seen this, you know, with, with all the executive orders, everything from like, you know, trans healthcare to, you know, not allowing transgender women in sports to Trump's authority to, you know, birthright citizenship, like whatever they are. That performative dimension that people simply falling in line when they are not required to do so is what is giving the authority to Trump.

 

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics: the resistance to Trump, such as it is; followed by the international reshuffle as Trump effectively switches sides in Russia's war on Ukraine. 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. There's also a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Trump's Terms; [03:27:00] Straight White American Jesus; On the Media; the Rachel Maddow Show; Red Flag Radio; Democracy Now!; Today, Explained; Amicus; The Thom Hartmann Program; Civics 101; CounterSpin; the Ralph Nader Radio Hour; The ReidOut, and The Majority Report. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes. 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 bonus show co-hosting.

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 instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. [03:28:00] 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 any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days.

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 3/4/2025

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. An old proverb says that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and we're all about to see how dangerous, as know-nothings and science skeptics take over the government agencies staffed by doctors and scientists with the goal of keeping the population healthy. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes Way Too Early, Inside the Hive, The Dig, The Dream, The Humanist Report, Democracy Now!, and Some More News. 

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show there will be more in four sections:

Section A: Health Organizations

Section B: RFK Jr. 

Section C: Anti-Science Dangers 

And Section D: Predators and Prey

ACTIVISM ROUNDUP

Amanda: Hey everyone, Amanda here with your weekly roundup of activism actions. There's a lot going on, so remember to do what you feel is most impactful and what is possible in your life. All right? All right. Let's dive [00:01:00] in. 

First, I want to talk about defying "overwhelm." In these times, it's helpful to have a repeatable plan of action to turn to. Women's March recently amplified Queer Nature's 2020 podcast about a decision making framework called OODA Loop. This framework was born out of the U. S. Air Force, but is applied across industries and situations, and in activism. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. So, for example, when you see something new and threatening in the news, observe it to understand the facts, orient yourself to learn its importance and the points of power, decide how and where you can engage that can be helpful, act, and repeat. OODA reflects the natural way people respond to an urgent threat or challenge, but you can also turn to this language when the overwhelm kicks in. It can mean the difference between spiraling and making a positive impact. 

Next up, on March 8th, International Women's Day, Women's March is organizing national events that will include house meetings, rallies, block parties, protests, and more, under the banner Unite and Resist, A National Day of Action. You can learn more and find events at [00:02:00] WomensMarch.Com. 

Speaking of actions across the country, the February congressional recess made national headlines and put Republicans on the back foot as they were forced to defend their support of a cruel and harmful budget and president back home. Indivisible is reporting that Republican leadership is now telling their members to avoid town halls altogether in response. That just means we have to keep up the pressure. The next recess is this month, so save the dates of March 15th to 23rd and get in touch with your local Indivisible groups now to get involved in town halls or office visits near you. The goal is to loudly amplify situations where Republicans cower or don't show, and ensure Democrats know the people want them to actively and forcefully resist this administration at every turn. 

And finally, there are critically important elections in multiple states coming up in early April. Florida will have special elections for their 1st and 6th districts on April 1st. These are red districts, but the hope is for big turnout from the left and for more people on the right to stay home. Look up candidates Gay Valamont and Josh Weil, [00:03:00] that's W E I L, to get involved. 

A few days later, on April 4th, Wisconsin will hold its election for a Supreme Court judge seat, which will once again dictate control of the state's highest court. Musk is sinking millions into this race, so strong support for the Democrat-backed Susan Crawford is essential. 

FYI, the special election for New York's 21st district is on hold as Republicans delay Elise Stefanik's confirmation out of fears over their extremely slim majority in the House during budget negotiations.

 

Remember that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Finding community and taking action are truly the best ways to deal with everything being thrown at us. We don't get to choose the times we live in, so we need everyone to act like everything is on the line. Because it is.

U.S. health agencies hit with mass layoffs by Trump administration - Way Too Early with Ali Vitali - Air Date 2-18-25

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: We're learning more about what agencies have been affected by the Trump administration's continued mass layoffs across the Health and Human Services Department. That is, of course, just one, but several sources tell Politico the cuts have hit staffers at the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, [00:04:00] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The firings were part of cuts affecting about 3600 probationary employees across the department. 

Joining us now, White House correspondent for Politico, Adam Cancryn. Adam, first, Trump officials are saying that these are methodological firings and that they are meant to serve the larger goal of cutting 10 percent of the workforce.

But there's actual tangible impacts to this. 

ADAM CANCRYN: There absolutely is. Anytime you do a culling of this many people, and we're talking about, the administration has said about 3, 600 people across the health department, that's going to hit several offices and it's going to hit several offices abruptly. And from what we've heard, the evidence that we've seen so far, these haven't been kind of precision surgical cuts. These are people who are finding out out of the blue that they are being fired. These are people who have been fired without their supervisor's knowledge or even Trump political appointees in the agencies knowing who of their reports is going to be out and what the impact is going to be afterward. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: So [00:05:00] it's the same kind of a method that we've seen, this slash and burn, maybe ask questions afterwards. Is there any sense that when you look, for example, at disease preparedness and response teams, again amid an avian bird flu outbreak, as the White House has said, senior officials have said to me, well, you know, this is something that we're prepared to deal with. And yet they're slashing people from the very place that is dealing with it. How does that work? 

ADAM CANCRYN: Absolutely. We've seen cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, right? That the main public health agency for this country, HHS has an emergency preparedness and response unit, which is a lot of times on the front line of things like the bird flu response and monitoring Ebola overseas, that kind of thing. There were cuts in that office as well over the weekend. 

And so there's just this core tension of, how much can you pare down while still making sure that you're doing the surveillance, doing the research, doing the kind of activities that are gonna make sure that this country remains safe from all these various health threats? And that's really the question here is whether this White House feels [00:06:00] like it can really, really shrink the workforce and at the same time, keep an eye on these kinds of constant things that are at threat of coming into the country. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: Because it's not just the layoffs that we're seeing at the agencies themselves. When you also talk about the funding freeze, you're seeing people who receive grants from these agencies doing important research on all matter of diseases also seeing their funding pulled. I think on the layoffs piece, though, there might be people who are wondering, is there an end in sight for this? It does feel -- and you and I were saying this during the break -- like every Friday, we get to a point where you go into a weekend of just hearing about layoff news. 

ADAM CANCRYN: Yeah, this has been the main source of anxiety talking to people in the Health and Human Services building, as an example, of people just don't know when this is going to be over. And it's ironic we're talking about "government efficiency," because I'm talking to folks who say, I haven't actually been able to do my job in the last few days because we're just trying to figure out if we will have jobs. One example: there was an office in the Medicare and Medicaid agency that around 4 p.m. Friday, there [00:07:00] had been no notices of terminations. Supervisors were telling their employees, I think we're safe because I think we do something this administration values. Wow. Termination started rolling in Friday afternoon into Saturday morning and afternoon. And now suddenly people are saying, I guess I'm out of a job. I guess I wasn't valued that much. So really a lot of anxiety and nervousness.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 1 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Let's talk about what he represents for Trump's second term. Claire, you brought up the MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, constituency. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: [To RFK Jr.] I very much like the slogan that you coined, Make America Healthy Again. And I strongly agree with that effort. Do you agree with me? that the United States should join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all people as a human right. Yes? No. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Senator, I can't give you a yes or no answer to that question. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: MAHA [laugher]. MAHA is the [00:08:00] Venn intersection of crunchy Earth mamas and anti-vaxxers and farmers because there's an agricultural, a huge agricultural component. And, during the hearings, we called them the MAHA cheersquad, but there was Cheryl Hines, who is also a MAHA industrialist because she has this line of candles. Megan Kelly, who's an avowed Kennedy supporter. Jessica Reed Krause, who is a "journalist" and MAHA extremist. And Vani Hari who's known as Food Babe on the internet.

So, that's who we're talking about when we talk MAHA. There's a little Hollywood intersection. These women in particular are all very glamorous looking. Vani has on these gorgeous gold costume earrings and a hot pink blazer, and she's got the perfect red lip. And I think Kennedy has built that part of himself, too. He's got a kind of [00:09:00] Schwarzenegger-esque physique and vibe. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Putin-esque, some might say. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Putin-esque. I don't know. We might be too flattering to Putin. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Shirt on, shirt off, it's all the same. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: That was, that was MAHA aesthetics.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And now Calderone, you can talk about MAHA beliefs. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Shirt off, shirt on, RFK can do it all. And he does bring a lot of these forces together. And RFK Jr. is somebody who has been railing against vaccines. I think he would consider himself a vaccine skeptic. And I think we saw with COVID this kind of radicalization, especially, and a lot of these forces coming together. And in some ways you can say, well, sure, I think ultra processed foods in school, lunches is probably a bad thing, or we should limit it. There's some aspects of this that I think a lot of people could get behind. But then at the same time, you take the skepticism of measles vaccines and fluoride in the water and so many other more radical ideas that RFK or others have espoused. And I think that's where [00:10:00] it gets into a more extreme vision for what Health and Human Services would be. He's essentially going to be the most powerful health advisor in 

America and would have a huge impact on American life.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: I would love to know what mythical moment in American history they mean when they say Make America Healthy Again. Is it before the polio vaccine? Is it the decade I grew up in, the era of AIDS? 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: It all goes to some fake Norman Rockwellian idea of an America that most of us thinking Americans realize was never, if it existed for some, it certainly did not exist for all.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Well, I got to say, I looked up life expectancy and I'm here to tell you that we are healthier now than we have ever been. Just FYI. Although I'm with him on the processed foods. So, Michael, regardless of what happens with the confirmation vote, what are your thoughts on what R. F. K. Jr. represents? 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's a power center here, and [00:11:00] he still has clout with his supporters, and it's in Trump's interest to keep RFK close to him. Now, what this means exactly, these two have vested interests together. And one thing we know about Donald Trump is he is incredibly transactional.

And whether RFK criticized him in the past, once you're in a fold again, that's a good thing in his book. We saw this on inauguration to where tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg who were out of the fold, suddenly they're back in. And I think Trump 2. 0, a fundamental difference with Trump 1. 0, is he does have more tech executives. He does have more celebrities, even though there are more celebrities on the Democratic side. He's got more this time. And the Camelot aspect is another part of it. To have a Kennedy in your fold, I think is a big win for him. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And quite frankly, I think it could also be a big win for RFK Jr. And that was the calculation he made back in August when he suspended his campaign and joined Team Trump.

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I think they all are more [00:12:00] powerful together. And that's why it'll be interesting to see if these big egos, these big personalities with your Musks and your RFKs, how they all interact when there's not a campaign anymore and you're not fighting the Democrats, but they all got to work together in some way in the Trump orbit.

Psychiatric Struggle w/ Danielle Carr - The Dig - Air Date 2-17-25

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: I want to turn to RFK's anti science politics and those households that do not believe science is real. What forms of pervasive American common sense about health does that politics reflect? We've been talking about the 'science is real' politics. What are these politics? Obviously, RFK is a unhinged, profit seeking grifter, power hungry person, whose opinions on vaccines could lead to truly dystopian public health outcomes if implemented. But, he's also right that industrial agriculture is a plague upon this country. What sort of common sense does RFK [00:13:00] Jr. encapsulate, and why does that common sense resonate so powerfully among so many at this moment? And then in particular, why is it that the sort of wellness politics, the so called medical freedom movement, what is it about it that creates for so many people the sort of particularly efficacious and often quite sudden entry point into far right politics? It's almost as if it's like a portal that people can step through, overnight sometimes. 

DANIELLE CARR: I think one of the things in play definitely is a sort of disaffection with the institutions of science that intensified during COVID but had been a long time coming in many ways and is not without its validity.

For instance, to take only the development of SSRIs, it is a fact that, in the 90s, the [00:14:00] manufacturers of antidepressant drugs were reporting data from these clinical trials in very selective ways, and that there was a capture of psychiatry by the brute sort of corruption of the scientific process by money and big pharma.

And you're not crazy to have some suspicion of a lot of the scientific establishment around the commodification of health in general. Like, this is not crazy, right? it is not insane to have a critique of the deregulation of the American food pipeline, such that, like, American food is poison. That's true. That is true. 

I just want to mark that. I think that this suspicion did really intensify during COVID and not for no reason. The wildly vacillating instructions that were given people, some of which was like, I think it was a mistake for the [00:15:00] CDC to say don't buy masks during a period in which there was a fear that this protective equipment would be hoarded. And so there were instructions that really vacillated. And I think that people were, quite rightly, left wondering whether indeed these organs of government science did have the everyday population's best interests at heart.

So that's one critique. I think in a broader sense, though, this type of thinking about health that seems to be, like, what do we know about it? It's really tied to influencers. There is this sort of, we could almost say, libertarian epistemology in play where these forms of knowledge making about like seed oils, or raw milk, or any of this other health stuff seems to gain legitimacy in some ways to the [00:16:00] extent that it does not participate in large institutions of science. We know that it resides in this sort of literalist fantasy of purity, whether that's gender can be straightforwardly deduced from some sort of biophysiological fact, or masculinity and femininity can be purified through the elimination of unnatural hormones and additives.

That's what we know about it. And one thing that I have been thinking about a lot recently is, Antonio Gramsci's idea of organic crisis, which I know your listeners might be familiar through the really wonderful series that you've had with Michael Denning about Gramsci. But for those listeners who haven't, Gramsci's idea of organic crisis is that essentially all of the institutions of legitimacy production and hegemony have broken down. [00:17:00] People do not feel that the institutions of civil or political society like Congress or the NIH, let's shorthand, represent them. And within these moments of generalized breakdown, there is a possibility for radical alternatives to emerge, like socialism or barbarism, right? And one of the things that Gramsci points out is it's in these conjunctures that you see the rise of what he calls Caesarism. These strongman figures who claim that they are speaking, standing astride history and shaping history through this power of the individual. And this is one way to think about this sort of influencer-yness of this new alt right health movement. Is this just Caesarism for science?

I think that's one way of describing it. I want to [00:18:00] just, as someone who was trained as a medical anthropologist, I am hesitant to engage in this kind of 'aren't they so stupid' discourse. Certainly, it might seem to like you or me to be ridiculous that the government has these secret med beds that it's hiding from everyday people, all of these other like different conspiracy theories and forms of belief.

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: Or that elite pedophile cabals are stealing children and sado-sadistically sexually torturing them to extract adrenochrome, for example. 

DANIELLE CARR: Uh, I think that... is there a meaningful difference between your everyday NPR listener talking about intergenerational trauma, which the jury is really out on whether there is this kind of like mechanism for that kind of epigenetic transfer between generations. This sort of essentially [00:19:00] woke Neolamarcanism of the way that your average liberal like talks about trauma science and maybe the types of thinking that are prevalent on the right and less formally educated populations about the mechanisms of their health beliefs. I would say in the delta between those two in terms of "scientific literacy" or "legitimacy", might be less than we would like to think.

MAHA Forever - The Dream - Air Date 2-16-25

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Do you think he was born a conspiracy theorist? 

ANNA MERLAN: That's a good question. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Being a toddler with your uncle having died in the way that he did. And his dad. And then your dad. And then there's all these questions around it and questioning authority and stuff, like, is that just part of his personality from the jump? I mean we are not being armchair psychologists. 

ANNA MERLAN: No, I don't know. I mean it hasn't taken any of the other Kennedys in that direction. It's a pretty big family, but certainly he has talked a lot about conspiracy theories [00:20:00] around especially his uncle, JFK's, assassination. and has suggested that he thinks the CIA was involved. I believe he's also said that about his dad's assassination. But yeah, I think he's alone in the sort of vast forking, very dramatic Kennedy family in holding those views. So it's a mystery. It's a mystery where he got there. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I just think about him as a toddler. Like, what happened? What do you do to a kid to make them this crazy? But, okay. 

ANNA MERLAN: He actually started his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, which is kind of crazy. That didn't last very long. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Then he became part of two non profits that were environmentally focused. One was Riverkeeper that he was at for a long time. And the other was the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'll point out that, like, when he was running for president, there was an open letter from a group of people who had worked with him in environmental spaces asking him to drop out. So, like, you know. And then starting in 2005, he started engaging in [00:21:00] anti vaccine conspiracy stuff. He published this now really infamous article that ran in Slate and Rolling Stone at the same time called "Deadly Immunity". Slate ultimately retracted it. Rolling Stone I don't think ever actually did formally retract it, but tons and tons of corrections later, the article was taken down. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: It was an op ed? About vaccines?

ANNA MERLAN: No, it purported to be an investigative article. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Written by him.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, written by him. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: A lawyer.

ANNA MERLAN: Yes.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Who has nothing to do with health care. 

ANNA MERLAN: Essentially, his entry into the anti vax world was he claimed that a mother came to him being, like, please investigate the environmental and health harms of vaccines. Please investigate what they're doing to our children. So, this was in the period of time when there was still a belief, which we now have thoroughly debunked, that vaccines might be linked to autism. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Right.

ANNA MERLAN: That is not true. But, during that period of time, that's when he got involved. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Was that mother Jenny McCarthy?

ANNA MERLAN: She was part of it. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Yeah, I know.

ANNA MERLAN: So, yeah, then he eventually became [00:22:00] part of an organization that was originally called World Mercury Project and then was called Children's Health Defense, and he is the CEO of, or was the, sorry, was the chairman of the board of that and then went on leave during his presidential campaign and now claims to not be part of it.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: So, Children's Health Defense, I'm on their mailing list. 

ANNA MERLAN: Sure.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I know, but I feel embarrassed about it. I mean, it is great, but it's also like, I don't want to... 

ANNA MERLAN: Oh, it's very interesting. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...I don't want to add to his popularity by signing up for this thing. But it is very interesting. 

ANNA MERLAN: I love a mailing list.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Their daily newsletters about like, how's your kid gonna die today? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, also just the fact that they're so excited about Kennedy, like, today they're running a big sale on all of his books. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: They sent out a fundraising email and then encouragement to buy the onesies that Bernie Sanders was mad about during the confirmation hearings. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Which ones?

ANNA MERLAN: It's like, I forget what the onesies say, but there's something about the baby being unvaccinated and Bernie Sanders put up a big image of them during the confirmation hearings and was like, do you stand by these onesies, which is just [00:23:00] objectively a very funny thing to say.

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the originator. Right now, as I understand it on their website. They are selling what's called onesies. These are little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled "Unvaxxed, Unafraid". And they're sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way. Next one is, "No Vax, No Problem". Now you're coming before this committee and you say you are pro-vaccine. Just want to ask some questions. And yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for 26 bucks, which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: And then the mercury thing, he said there was a study of some sort where children were given tuna fish and then immediately their blood was drawn and they have elevated levels of mercury and Joe [00:24:00] Rogan was like, whoa, really? What if we can make money just doing that? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, it'd be great. That sounds so fun. That sounds so much easier. I love too that Joe Rogan's fact checking always consists of just asking his producer to Google things. And then Jamie, the producer, just clearly reads like whatever the first thing is that comes up and is like, well, it looks like it's, just, it's fantastic.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Horrible and fun.

ANNA MERLAN: No, it's great. I think it's so great. I think you guys should do that. 

So, what Kennedy is mad about with the mercury is thimerosal, which is a preservative that is mercury based, not the kind of mercury that is dangerous to human beings or is that is found in fish, different kind, that he always conflates the two. So, thimerosal was a preservative that was used in some vaccines and was taken out of pretty much all of them by 2001. Has also never been linked to any harm in human health. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Got it.

ANNA MERLAN: It's a preservative. Nonetheless... 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: For vaccines.

ANNA MERLAN: For vaccines. And now lately he's been like, well, let's talk about mercury more generally.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, so he's talking about, when he talks about tuna fish [00:25:00] sandwiches, he's talking about methylmercury. That's what is in fish. What's in thimerosal is ethylmercury, and he's always like, well, you know, there's no safe kind of mercury, but that's not actually true. And in any case, thimerosal isn't used in anything anymore except I think some multi dose vials of flu vaccine. But it's been taken out of pretty much everything out of an abundance of caution and also because...

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...he's so annoying.

ANNA MERLAN: ...because the CDC does not want people not getting their kids vaccinated because they're afraid of a preservative. So, the thing about World Mercury Project was that it was devoted to trying to prove he harms of mercury in a bunch of things, including vaccines, it was obviously mainly focused on vaccines and Children's Health Defense then took on a different angle, which has been echoed by the wider anti vax movement, which is going away from making like specific scientific claims because those can be debunked to making more of a civil rights sort of freedom of choice argument around vaccines, which works incredibly well on Americans, especially, were very [00:26:00] susceptible to the idea that vaccines just should be a choice and nothing should be forced upon you, which is, of course, true. That's true. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: But my body, my choice is also not part of this. 

ANNA MERLAN: This is the argument we get into when, for instance, you want kids to be vaccinated against measles before they go to school because measles is so incredibly contagious. And most people need to be vaccinated against it to keep it from spreading. So, this is the fertile space in which he found himself. And I would say that there have been a couple points where his career really takes off. One is after "Deadly Immunity", the article that he published in Slate and Rolling Stone, and the sort of hysteria that went on around this now debunked link between vaccines and autism until the paper claiming that vaccines could cause autism was retracted. And the doctor who heavily promoted it, Andrew Wakefield, ultimately lost his medical license in the UK.

Republicans are Proposing Bills SO F***ing Stupid They’ll Make Your Head Explode - The Humanist Report - Air Date 2-18-25

MIKE FIGURADO - HOST, THE HUMANIST REPORT: On the subject of unnecessary suffering, our new health secretary, RFK Jr., who's definitely not anti-vax himself, [00:27:00] by the way, is taking aim at SSRIs, which is a common medication used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Now, Mother Jones reports that RFK Jr. signed a memo within hours of his confirmation, laying out his plans for his first 100 days in office, which apparently includes an assessment of SSRIs. Quote, "The government," he said, "would assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers." Oh goody. 

Now, the policy implications of this "assessment" are not clear, but we do know that he definitely doesn't like SSRIs and has talked about how they're overprescribed because he thinks he's more qualified than every doctor in the country. But back when he was still running for president, he was so anti-SSRI that on a podcast, he said that we should put people on SSRIs into labor camps, [clears throat] [00:28:00] excuse me, "wellness farms," to grow organic food to break their addictions to SSRIs and other drugs that he doesn't like.

But let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so you don't think that I'm misconstruing what he's saying. Quote, "I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also legal drugs, other psychiatric drugs if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time, as much time as they need, three or four years if they need it, to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities."

Now, he graciously says that this service will be offered free of charge, which is incredibly generous if you ask me, because I was expecting to have to pay to work for them, but apparently, it's free, which is cool. We all love to do work for free. 

The only problem is that if somebody, say, spends, three or four years there, how exactly are they supposed to support themselves during that time, and when they get out? It's not like all of us have rich family members that we can exploit, [00:29:00] that can support us if we want to take a multi-year stay at a wellness center. 

Furthermore, who are you, RFK Jr., to tell us that our doctors are wrong to prescribe us with the medications that they say we need? I mean, your brain, just like any other part of your body, sometimes requires medicine for it to work properly. So, even though being out in the sun and farming might make people feel better, it's not gonna change the underlying fact that their body lacks serotonin needed to function properly. 

But, he makes it seem as if being depressed or having anxiety is a choice, or the product of an unhealthy lifestyle, which is insulting, and confirms that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And I say this as somebody who's been on an SSRI for almost 10 years now. Before that, my quality of life was non-existent. Without it, I would be miserable. So the prospect of him taking that away from me, or making it more difficult to access these drugs? That is extremely dangerous. [00:30:00] Now, we don't know what he intends to do with them, but we know that he doesn't like them, and he's in a position of power to do something about it.

Doctors prescribe SSRIs for a reason. And if you're not a physician, you shouldn't speak about things that you're not qualified to talk about. And you certainly shouldn't be in charge of Health and Human Services for the entire country. But I'm afraid that that ship has sailed. 

But on the subject of criminally underqualified imbeciles, I do want to talk about the big guy himself, Donald Trump. Because I don't think that it's a stretch to say that his incompetence is bound to get a lot of people killed. 

Samoa's Health Chief Says RFK Jr. Spread Anti-Vax Misinformation Before Deadly Measles Outbreak - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-31-25

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and [00:31:00] because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: [00:32:00] Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The [00:33:00] Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is [00:34:00] the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do [00:35:00] you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research [00:36:00] overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent in the world, with a [inaudible] , spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to [00:37:00] have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

Dear Donald Trump Voters: His Actions Are Going To Hurt You Too - Some More News - Air Date 2-19-25

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, let's, at the start of this, pretend that COVID wasn't a big deal. I mean, it was. It killed a lot of people. But let's just say you're someone that thinks the CDC was overreacting, or that mask bans or lockdowns were a waste, and we faked a freakout about a light flu. Do you think that about all future pandemics? Like, if that movie Contagion happened, do you think we still shouldn't have masks or lockdowns? Or were you just bothered by COVID specifically? I am genuinely asking. Write down your answer and mail it, please. 

Logically speaking, it would be [00:38:00] very odd to think that there's no such thing as any disease or any pandemic, right? In fact, we are literally experiencing a bird flu problemo right now, so it really doesn't seem wise to, say, block the CDC from sharing their data with healthcare professionals like nurses and doctors and hospitals. Trump did that in his first week, as well as instructing the various federal health agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services to pause all of their external communication, such as health advisories or social media posts. 

Why do that? Does that help us? Does that help you? I'll make it simple.

Remember how one of the big concerns was egg prices? Like, we got to get rid of the Democrats and wokeness because eggs are too expensive. And now it seems like egg prices are only getting higher. That's because of the bird flu. That's currently spreading throughout the country. This disease is [00:39:00] killing our pets as we speak and has killed one human as of filming this. And so it is so clearly important for the CDC to be able to send out alerts and updates right now. And so it's very strange and dare I say bad and incompetent to order the CDC to shut off their communications with hospitals. 

Did you know that they found out that bird flu can be passed from your cat to you? Just one more way your cat can destroy you. They knew that, and they had to delete their findings after Trump ordered them to stop. How is that helpful? Is that not hurtful? Additionally, bird flu is a global problem, and yet Trump has pulled out of the World Health Organization, citing mishandling of the COVID pandemic.

He's probably not wrong in that reports have found that the WHO did mishandle COVID. Did you know who else did? The United States. The CDC absolutely screwed it up, as did Trump. [00:40:00] Pretty much our entire government failed during COVID. There's a lot of blame to spread around, but that doesn't really justify exiting the WHO, which serves to coordinate global responses to pandemics and other health emergencies. Trump is claiming to be steering policy to put "America first", but diseases don't have nationalities. Much like your germ ridden cat, they don't see borders. And Trump knows this. The value of sharing information and collaborating between countries to combat disease was one of the core premises behind Trump's Operation Warp Speed. By removing ourselves from the WHO, all we're doing is weakening our ability to respond to a global pandemic, thus hurting more Americans. 

Remember how, at the top of this, I said that people tend to choke to death in bathrooms? That's what we're doing here. We're removing ourselves from the support of the world in the name of independence. And so unless our Department of Health and [00:41:00] Human Services is really on the ball, this is going to jeopardize us. And here's the thing about the Department of Health and Human Services. It's going to be run by this guy talking to Bernie Sanders. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Vaccines, do not cause autism. Do you agree with that? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: As I said, I'm not going to go into HHS with any preordained...

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: I asked you a simple question, Bobby. Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely, as I promised to Chairman Cassidy, I will apologize... 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: That is a very troubling response. 

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, RFK, if you're watching, thanks. Make sure to like and subscribe. But also, here. I just spammed the screen with studies that show vaccines don't cause autism. During his confirmation, RFK Jr. claimed that he isn't anti vaccine, and that he'll simply have to look at the evidence and draw his own conclusions. But he has been shown that [00:42:00] evidence over and over again. He also said if the studies prove him wrong, he'll publicly apologize. But then, apologize for what? He claimed he isn't anti vaccine, so that's weird. Also, the counter study he cited in his hearing has a whole bunch of obvious issues, and was by a guy who already has some redacted studies. Because RFK doesn't have a medical background. He's a lawyer with an axe to grind.

Doesn't it seem odd that the guy being charged with overseeing America's health also ran a personal campaign specifically against vaccines? Doesn't it worry you considering right now a town in Texas with the lowest vaccination rates and highest school exemption rates from measles vaccination is currently having a measles outbreak?

That shouldn't be happening. Does any of this worry you, especially since Trump has flat out said he's going to let RFK Jr., again, a man with no medical background, do whatever he wants? 

DONALD TRUMP: And, I'm gonna let him go wild on health, I'm gonna let [00:43:00] him go wild on the food, I'm gonna let him go wild on medicines.

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: I don't know, man. Honestly, some of what RFK believes is, in my opinion, not terrible. He wants to cut down on processed foods and end pharmaceutical ads on TV. He's willing to explore using psychedelics for medical treatments. Not that I do drugs! Haha, ok? But he's one of those guys who's right on the line of reason and then he trips and falls over on the other side because he also thinks vaccines and fluoride are bad and has boasted that he only drinks of raw milk. Boy, don't do that Bobby, did you not just hear about the bird flu? He also wants to replace a lot of HHS staff with people who, like him, aren't medical experts. 

Also, just my opinion, but I suspect he won't even be allowed to do the stuff he wants to do. Trump LOVES fast food, right? Here they all are eating it together. Most people like fast food. Trump's policies actually seem to go directly against a lot of what RFK is [00:44:00] saying. For example, some of Trump's executive orders were aimed at undoing directives to lower drug costs and expand Medicaid. How does eliminating the lowering of drug costs help you? Sounds like it empowers the pharmaceutical companies RFK is going after. And more likely, RFK will be there to allow Trump to downsize the HHS like he means to do with every other agency. He is extremely unprepared for another pandemic. And in fact, right now, the biggest pushes they are making are to go after abortions and eliminate guidance on HIV and contraception from federal websites, at least until a judge told them to reverse that. 

If Project 2025 is any indication, and it should be, the plan is most likely to use HHS to push more and more oppressive laws around reproductive health. According to Project 2025, exact quote, "HHS should return to being known as the department of life [00:45:00] by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care".

Now, Trump may have said he had nothing to do with Project 2025, but so far, a whole lot of his executive orders match up perfectly with it. So you have to ask yourself. Are you okay living in a country where abortion becomes outlawed? I don't know, maybe you are. Maybe you want to live in a country where women are required to give birth, even if it means they will die doing it, or that they were raped, or one of the many extremely practical and vital reasons someone might need to terminate a pregnancy.

And whether or not you realize it, this is going to affect someone you know. A friend, or sister, or aunt, or mother, or daughter, or that girl at Starbucks who said she liked your shirt but probably just says that to everyone so you really, really shouldn't make a move. Also, men. Men are affected by this because they tend to get people pregnant. And heck, I know you're going to hate this, folks, but some of them can get pregnant. 

This is actually where we might have to draw a [00:46:00] moral line in the sand. Because there are certain things that Trump is doing that, while having consequences for everyone, is going to have more consequences for specific people. And at a certain point, you just have to decide if you have empathy for those people or not. If we're in this together, or not. 

Note from the Editor on the tragedy of the mirror world

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with Way Too Early, highlighting the disruption of mass layoffs to our health systems. Inside the Hive considered the potential impact of RFK Jr. and the broader Make America Healthy Again movement in the Trump administration. The Dig discussed anti-science politics and the gateways to the far right. The Dream dove deeply into RFK Jr.'s history. The Humanist Report looked specifically at RFK Jr.'s threat to antidepressants, depended on by millions. Democracy Now! spoke with some directly impacted by RFK Jr.'s interference in Samoa's measles outbreak in 2019. And Some More News considered some of the consequences of [00:47:00] anti-science health policy. 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 bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes 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 we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have a question or would like your comments included on the show, our upcoming topics you can chime in on include the widespread corruption absolutely endemic to Trump and just about everyone that surrounds him, followed by coverage of what resistance there is to the Trump and Musk takeover.

So get your comments and questions in for those topics or anything else. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a [00:48:00] text at 202-999-3991. We're now also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now as for today's topic, I was reminded of -- I think my favorite conservative take on health policy and pandemic response that I've seen maybe ever, and I don't mean favorite because it was a good take, but it was a bad take in a relatively unique way that also shined some light on what it must be like to live permanently in the mirror world, as so many conservatives do these days. This was back in fall of 2021. Vaccines against COVID-19 were widely available. And one of the biggest hurdles to getting people vaccinated was the political divide wherein far more Republicans were skeptical of the science of the vaccines compared to Democrats.

And it was in that context, an [00:49:00] opinion article was published on the far-right site Breitbart written by a pro-Trump pro-Vaxxer. And the writer was clearly somewhat scientifically literate. He was understanding the difference between transmission rates and the much larger concern of hospitalization and death rates. He tried to argue to his conservative audience that they were being tricked into thinking that the vaccines weren't effective just because transmission of the virus was still high. Because people didn't understand that being vaccinated doesn't prevent the transmission, it just reduces the severity of the symptoms and often prevents hospitalization and death.

So far so good. We're on the same page. 

But in the midst of all of that reasonable understanding of science, he also decided to speculate on who was largely responsible for conservatives getting vaccinated at much lower rates. There was some blame cast [00:50:00] on anti-vaxxers for their lack of understanding of the science and promotion of conspiracies, but more of his anger was directed at the left for encouraging everyone, including conservatives, to get vaccinated.

No, you did not mishear that. Here's what he said, quote: "I sincerely believe the organized left is doing everything in its power to convince Trump supporters not to get the lifesaving Trump vaccine." End quote. 

And you're probably thinking, well, he's just in his own media bubble. He doesn't know what the left is saying. He doesn't know that they're advocating that everyone get the vaccine. That is not it, that is not his argument. 

Again, he argues that the left was doing this by loudly advocating that everyone get vaccinated, something that the writer strongly believes in. He agrees with the left that everyone should get vaccinated. And he thinks that the left [00:51:00] advocating that everyone get vaccinated -- in exactly the same way that he is -- is a plot to prevent people from getting vaccinated.

It's a brain bender. That's why they call it "the mirror world," and this is where in the article I got to experience the only time ever I've seen an article that includes both lessons on scientific literacy and the word "cocks". He explains his logic this way, quote: "The organized left is deliberately putting unvaccinated Trump supporters in an impossible position, where they can either not get a lifesaving vaccine, or can feel like cocks, caving to the ugliest smuggest bullies in the world." End quote. 

Now I'm being reminded of a side note as he's describing pro-vaccine advocates as ugly, smug bullies. I don't really need to lay out [00:52:00] the irony of that for a Trump supporter. But anyway, out of curiosity, I checked his Twitter profile today just to see what he was up to more recently. And his profile description just says that his pronouns are "Trump won." So he's clearly a class act -- not. Not one of those ugly smug bullies you might find on the internet. 

But just for more context, he went on to explain why the left would do something so harmful as advocate for a lifesaving vaccine. Quote: "The left's morality is guided by only that which furthers their fascist agenda, and so using reverse psychology to trick Trump supporters not to get a life-saving vaccine is to them a moral good. The more of us who die, the better." End quote. 

So, imagine for a moment what it must be like for that [00:53:00] guy to be able to hold all of those ideas in his head at the same time. On one hand, he has a basic grasp of epidemiology, to the point where he can explain the benefits of vaccines to skeptics, differentiating between transmission rates and severe cases. But on the other hand, he appears to think that millions of vaccine-advocating progressives, people who agree with him about vaccines, got the idea to kill conservatives. An idea that, I dunno, we all got together on a Zoom or something and we widely agreed that this was a good idea. And that we then decided that the way to do it was through mass reverse psychology, by encouraging people to get vaccinated. We would try so hard to convince people to get vaccinated, that conservative vaccination rates would drop, just as we planned, and millions would die because of it.

[00:54:00] Like I said, this is my favorite conservative health policy take, because it walks that incredibly strange line. He demonstrates the ability to use logic and reason. Not, you know, not all of them do. But then also gives a crystal clear look into the mirror world and that bizarro world logic that resides there.

My big takeaway from all of this is that it's genuinely sad that people like this are finding themselves trapped in the mirror world, flailing around for something logical to hold onto and coming up mostly empty. But then of course, it's a much bigger tragedy for society as a whole that there are millions of people trapped in that mirror world, but still casting votes in the real world, being nominated to cabinet positions in the real world. Cutting budgets and staffs in the health departments of the real world. All [00:55:00] based on a total, well, maybe not total, but enough of a lack of understanding of science, logic and reason that it's not that they're not capable of it, it's that it's been twisted in their minds so badly by the falsities and conspiracies of the mirror world that they don't know which way is up anymore. 

SECTION A: HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. 

Next up, Section A: Health Organizations, followed by Section B: RFK Jr., Section C: Anti-Science Dangers, and Section D: Predators and Prey.

“Attack on Science”: Trump’s Exit from WHO Could Make Next Pandemic More Likely, More Deadly - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-23-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: We rely on the WHO for so many things that we never even realize as a population. First of all, and most immediate, is that WHO has a global response capacity. And so, [00:56:00] wherever there’s a hot spot in the world, whether it’s polio in Gaza or Ebola in West Africa or mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, you name it, the WHO is there early, and they put out fires before they come to America. 

The other thing I want to mention, as I think it’s even more important, is that WHO has a vast network of laboratories, scientists and public health agencies that report on data. And our pharmaceutical companies, our public health agencies, like CDC and NIH, rely on that data to develop the vaccines and treatments that we need when the next health emergency hits. Americans are used to being at the front of the line when it comes to vaccines and treatments, with Africa and others at the back. We might find ourselves near the back of [00:57:00] the line next time, because we’re not going to have access to those vital pieces of information, like pathogen samples or genomic sequencing data or the emergence of mutations and dangerous variants. And so we can’t update our vaccines. We can’t create new vaccines. And it will even affect our seasonal influenza vaccines, because every year we use WHO data to update our influenza vaccines.

NERMEEN SHAIKH - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, in the same executive order in which Trump said the U.S. would be pulling out of the World Health Organization, he also called for the U.S. to stop negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, which some say is even more injurious to global public health than U.S. pulling U.S. funding from the WHO. If you could explain, what is this Pandemic Agreement?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Again, I don’t think it’s as bad as pulling out of the [00:58:00] World Health Organization, but it is really bad. So, in the aftermath of COVID, countries around the world called for a new pandemic treaty, because this Pandemic Agreement really would be a treaty, to try to make the world less vulnerable to the next pandemic. This would include, you know, deep, what we call One Health approach — animals, climate and humans, because, you know, some 75% of all novel outbreaks arise in the animal community. It also includes equitable allocation of vaccines and treatments, and also rapid research and development for them, which is really very important. And then it has financing and other provisions for outbreak detection [00:59:00] and response.

The United States, for the last several years, has been kind of right at the head of the table. They’ve really — the Biden administration has been very constructive. And they’ve mediated between Africa and equity groups and the European Union. We’ve been the honest broker in the room. And now we’re walking away. And the irony is, is that what we’re doing is we’re allowing the global rules of the road without defending our national interests, our national values, and we cede leadership to our adversaries. I think one of the ironies of this whole thing is that President Trump has said that China has undue influence on WHO. Well, I’ve worked with WHO for nearly 40 years, and the U.S. has far more influence than China ever has, but that could change as we pull out of [01:00:00] WHO and the Pandemic Agreement.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, I wanted to ask you about other moves that President Trump has taken that have alarmed scientists and doctors around the country and the world: the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of scientific meetings at the NIH and other places, as well as freezing many health agency reports and posts, what public health professionals around the country rely on to assess the health of the American people, including the MMWR, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, of the Centers for Disease Control. Can you talk about the significance of this?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Oh, it’s deeply consequential. I don’t think people understand how consequential it is. Let me start with health communications. Having access to timely and accurate health messages [01:01:00] from trusted public health agencies like the CDC and the FDA is really essential to Americans’ public health. Absent that, we can’t make good decisions about our health, our nutrition, whether there’s a food outbreak, say, of Listeria, whether there’s a warning about a novel circulating virus or of a dangerous spike in COVID cases. These are things the American people need to keep them healthy. And this will delay those things, and they will make them less true.

Just ask yourself the question: Who would you trust more to give you information about health than a career scientist at the CDC or the FDA, or a political appointee in the White House that filters scientific information through the lens of [01:02:00] politics? It really is outrageous. I’m also a member of several of these scientific committees at NIH, and I can tell you we’re not there conspiring. We’re there trying to figure out hard problems that affect the American population. You know, I know that a lot of President Trump’s administration’s kind of line is that these are, you know, fat bureaucrats. But I can tell you, at NIH, CDC, FDA, these are just — these are doctors, scientists, nurses, that get up every day and do their best to make America healthier and safer. They don’t always get it right, but I would certainly trust their integrity, their experience and their understanding of science to try to guide us through health emergencies and just everyday health problems that American families face.

The RFK Jr of it All: A House of Pod Collab - Hood Politics with Prop - Air Date 2-11-25

JEREMY FAUST: The CDC. What does the CDC do? [01:03:00] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, um, is in Atlanta and they are, it's a massive organization. There's a lot of important work ranging from just pure epidemiology, meaning they, they keep statistics like how many people die.

What did they die from? That's something that they do, um, The CDC studies disease, it, it, um, helps scientists and physicians like me and you know what the latest recommendation is. So they have a vaccine committee that says, okay, what should the scheduling for pediatric vaccinations be? And we know that that has saved lives.

So many lives the past century. So, they, they do that. They, um, and they also partner with other organizations, both in the United States, so it could be non profits, it could be state public health officials. But also around the world in detecting [01:04:00] and combating outbreaks. So, I'll give you an example of that.

Right now, there is an outbreak of Ebola virus in Uganda. And I wouldn't recommend getting Ebola. But CDC scientists, in general, would hear about this, and their experts would be on a plane the next day To go to Uganda and say, how can we help? What do you have? What do you need? Yeah. How can we augment your resources, your expertise?

They're not there to tell 'em how to do it. They are there to, to, to see where our resources can plug holes and be of assistance. And that is the work that we do, um, with the WWHO, the World Health Organization. Um, and our, in our, in our own foreign aid, Trump put a pause on that last week. So we do not have those people on the ground helping that outbreak.

So that's an example of, of things the CDC does. They track down outbreaks. They'll send out literal, they call them disease hunters, is like the nickname. Some, someone says, oh, there's something happening in, [01:05:00] I don't know, rural Washington. These kids are getting sick. Someone goes out there and looks into it, and figures out, oh, oh gosh, there's like, there's a poisoning, salmonella, you know, we gotta make sure that people know about it.

So they do everything from keeping track of big, big data sets, you Tracking deaths, COVID hospitalizations, tracking disparities in outcomes, and how to treat diseases to responding to crisis. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: And just remind the world again, for those who may have forgotten, why is it important for us, the United States, to have involvement in infectious disease elsewhere in the world?

Why is that important for us? 

JEREMY FAUST: So why do we want to help people? That's the question you wanted to ask? Uh, why would we do that? Um, so you could, you could take the humanitarianist side and say, why do we care about people in Papua New Guinea or wherever?

But there's actually, uh, A geopolitical reason that we help people. One is our own security and one is soft power. So [01:06:00] our own security is, if we can go help a novel outbreak get controlled, it won't reach our shores. And we don't have that problem. That would be lovely. Another one is for HIV, for example, we provide up until recently.

Although the question is whether it's back online or not, it's very unclear. Yeah. But up until recently, we have provided. Since the Bush administration, which always shocks people, George W. Bush started this. We have been, we have this program called PEPFAR, which has provided HIV medications to poor nations, um, and has saved 25 million lives.

25 million lives. Um, which is pretty substantial. It's a government project that worked, actually. It's like amazing. And, um, so, yes, you could make the argument, like, why do we care, but when people actually have their HIV confirmed, Controlled by medications, there's less likely for, uh, resistant bad strains to, to emerge again, which can come here and make our lives more miserable.

So it could be selfish. You can make the altruistic argument, but there are selfish reasons to save lives overseas. [01:07:00] And then the last one is, I would say that I can, that I could think of is this soft power thing. We, why is America, why does America have a positive reputation or why did it? And a lot of it has to do with things you don't always think about.

It could be literally things like, we make the best movies, we have the best music, we, we have great writers, culture, right? Culture is a way to express That a, that a society is doing well, but another way to do it is to, to do the kind of work in public health that, that we've done. And so people actually say, Oh, the gosh, the Americans, they really screwed it up on this thing and this war, this foreign policy.

But on the other hand, they did save 25 million lives. So maybe we shouldn't be complete jerks to them. So it's, it's actually, there's a, there's a lot of reasons why we do this work. 

PROP - HOST, HOOD POLITICS: This is this again. And now we're crossing into my world because of the soft power, cultural power and how to be. Just how to be the man.

You know what I'm saying? Like this is how, this is how you run a, this is how you run a city. You be the guy they go to, no matter how much of a jerk that you are. If I'm the dude you got to go to, [01:08:00] then, then if I'm put up with a lot, you put up with a lot. Number one, you put up with a lot cause you have to come to me.

And then number two, um, if, if you're the guy that you got to go to, and you're a good dude, then like, When you're in need, you're going to be the first person they think of, right? When, when it's, when it's my turn, or if there's like, if we're lobbying for something like, okay, I could sell, you know, we could give this 10 million gallons of crude oil to this country, or we could give it to them.

Then again, they did save 20 million lives and maybe we should sell it to them first and maybe at a discounted rate, you know, so yeah, there's that, there's that. But I think. Uh, the, the best part to me is what you're saying as far as the selfish side of, like, you act like there's a force field at the 47th parallel that just stops the air from flowing.

Like, what is you talking about? Like, it is one planet, right? Like, why, why would, why would it not get here? Right? Like what? Like there's no. We don't really have a wall, guys. 

And even if we [01:09:00] did, like, you know. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: If COVID taught us nothing else, it should be that what's happening in other countries will impact us.

The potential impacts of Trump's decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 1-21-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I believe this is a truly historic decision. The United States really formed the World Health Organization in 1948, and has been its most influential and greatest funder for 75 years. This is going to make America decidedly less safe, less secure.

And it's hard for me to think of any national advantage that we get. I only see us alone and isolated, not stronger.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: You mentioned the U.S. has been its greatest funder for WHO. If you take a look at this graphic, we should just point out, look at the top 10 sources of funding there, the U.S. there at the top, but there's other groups like the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, countries like Germany, U.K. and Japan.

But the U.S. is responsible for someone-sixth of the [01:10:00] organization's budget. So is President Trump's characterization that the U.S. is shouldering an unfair financial burden here wrong?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yes, actually, I think it is wrong, but it's not totally wrong.

Let me explain. The WHO has a budget of roughly one-quarter of the U.S. CDC. So, for a global institution, it's chronically underfunded. It doesn't have the resilience and funding that it needs to put out fires all over the world. So the United States shouldn't pay less, but other countries should pay more.

China should, India, the Gulf states, many other middle-income countries. So I think that Trump would do a much greater service to the United States and the world if he stayed in and he negotiated a deal. Yes, [01:11:00] let's make WHO more resilient. Let's fund it better. Let's make it more powerful and let's make it more accountable with financial oversight.

But leaving it would gravely damage United States' national interests and world health writ large. It's not really like the border, where you can kind of seal off the Mexican border so that you can stop immigrants. Germs don't know borders. And a United States without WHO is a United States alone and isolated and more fragile and vulnerable.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Pulling out of the organization means that the U.S. would lose access to the World Health Organization's global public health data too, which you said would leave agencies like the CDC flying blind.

Help make that real for us. What is the potential harm that you are worried about?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I see this as the [01:12:00] greatest self-inflicted wound that this executive order has put for us.

I mean, it is a grave wound to WHO, but I think it's a more grievous wound to the United States. Here's why. The World Health Organization leads a vast network of public health agencies, laboratories, and international scientists that constantly track novel outbreaks and shares data.

Without that, CDC doesn't have an early warning. We can't respond. And so we're weaker. We're less prepared. But here's more. And I think it's really important. Our pharmaceutical industry, the NIH, needs these data to develop vaccines, therapies, and other lifesaving tools that we rely on.

If you remember back to COVID-19, and Operation [01:13:00] Warp Speed, and Trump gets a lot of credit for that, we were in front of the line for vaccines. We may be near the back of the line because we're not going to get data about how these viruses are evolving, what we can do to respond to them and create vaccines.

SECTION B: RFK JR.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: RFK Jr.

WATCH: Caroline Kennedy Slams Cousin RFK Jr. as “Dangerous” and a “Predator” in Video to Senate - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-29-25

CAROLINE KENNEDY: Dear senators,

Throughout the past year, people have asked for my thoughts about my cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his presidential campaign. I did not comment, not only because I was serving in a government position as United States ambassador to Australia, but because I have never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges. We are a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together. We know how hard it’s been, and we are always there for each other. But now that Bobby has been nominated by President Trump to be secretary of health and human services, a position that would put [01:14:00] him in charge of the health of the American people, I feel an obligation to speak out.

Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us, is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill. He lacks any relevant government, financial, management or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.

These facts alone should be disqualifying, but he has personal qualities related to this job, which for me pose even greater concern. I’ve known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator. He’s always been [01:15:00] charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules. I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action, where drugs were available and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.

That was a long time ago, and people can change. Through his own strength and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who lost his father, Bobby was able to pull himself out of illness and disease. I admire the discipline that took and the continuing commitment it requires. But siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death, [01:16:00] while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.

Today, while he may encourage a younger generation to attend AA meetings, Bobby is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs. Even before he fills this job, his constant denigration of our healthcare system and the conspiratorial half-truths he’s told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa’s deadly 2019 outbreak of measles, have cost lives.

And now we know that Bobby’s crusade against vaccination has benefited him in other ways, too. His ethics report makes clear that he will keep his financial stake in a lawsuit against an [01:17:00] HPV vaccine. In other words, Bobby is willing to profit and enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and has already been safely administered to millions of boys and girls. During my time in Australia, I worked on the Quad Cancer Initiative, and I learned that cervical cancer is among the top three forms of cancer among women in a majority of countries. Tragically, every year, more than 200,000 children lose their mothers. They are orphaned due to a lack of vaccines and screening. Those are the real-world consequences of Bobby’s irresponsible beliefs.

We are a close family. None of that is easy to say. It also wasn’t easy to remain silent last year when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy [01:18:00] to advance his own failed presidential campaign and then grovel to Donald Trump for a job. Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father. It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations. Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father, but I am certain that he and my Uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public service to our country, and my Uncle Teddy, who devoted his long Senate career to the cause of improving healthcare, would be disgusted.

The American healthcare system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world. Its doctors and nurses, researchers, scientists and caregivers are the most dedicated people I know. Every day [01:19:00] they give their lives to heal and save others. They deserve a knowledgeable leader who is committed to evidence and excellence. They deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not to rejecting the advances we have already made. They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy, and so do the rest of us. I urge the Senate to reject his nomination.

Sincerely, Caroline Kennedy.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s cousin Caroline Kennedy, former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia, daughter of President John F. Kennedy. She sent that video and an accompanying letter to the Senate Finance Committee senators.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 2 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Kennedys have served in the Biden administration and other presidential administrations over the years.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And also a lot of continuing tragedy. You have deaths from [01:20:00] overdoses, plane crashes. Yeah. And in a way, I feel like As we're saying this, and we're counting all of these trajectories, it's fascinating how RFK Jr. himself checks a lot of those boxes. You know, he went down a dark path, he found, and then he found a mission where he felt he could serve.

Talk about that a little bit, Michael. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I mean, One of the interesting things, and we're, I think, looking back at this piece, Bobby's Kids, by Michael Schneerson, is, this is at a point in the 1990s where RFK Jr. is an environmental lawyer, and I think was pretty highly regarded at that time for the work he was doing with Riverkeeper, and it seemed like that was cleaning up the Hudson River.

Yeah, a good thing. That is that is a good fit. A good thing. We can. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Climbed in some blue fluid, personally. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: That is a fact. This piece was in 1997. It's from Vanity Fair. We all went went back and looked at it. It's pretty fascinating. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: It's an incredible artifact to think of because at that time, It leads with other [01:21:00] controversies about other Kennedy cousins, it's not not a specifically on RFK, it's on other members of the Kennedy family and at this point in time in the 90s, RFK was one of the ones who seemed to be doing.

It's more public service oriented work than, than some of the others. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: He was putting the noble in nobility. But you know, there was a line in that piece that felt like it could have been published last week. So this is a line from Bobby's Kids published in Vanity Fair in 1997. In fact, says another person close to the RFKs, meaning the RFK kids, the family values are more those of the mafia.

It's about power and control. It's like the mafia, even in the way the children are directed, not to be well rounded individuals, but to create an effective team. And the family rallying around is a through line in Kennedy lore. And that's what we saw in the last few years when RFK Jr. was running for president.[01:22:00] 

The cousins were not, they did not think this was a great idea, but they weren't really going to speak out about it. And all of a sudden last week, Caroline Kennedy, who I think It sounds like has been harboring these feelings for quite a long time, writes this open letter saying, don't confirm my cousin.

He's bad news. 

A predator. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: A predator, and she even speaks to the fact that his substance abuse and his recovery is something that could be looked on as an asset.

But at the same time, she says that he's gone on throughout his life to misrepresent 

CAROLINE KENNEDY: lie and cheat his way through life, 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: and that is a pretty damning statement coming Radhika's point, it did strike me as well looking at Bobby's kids. How there's this gentility in the Kennedy family where you don't necessarily talk to outsiders about what's going on, and this has me thinking about another great Vanity Fair piece from just [01:23:00] last year in July of last year.

Joe Hagan wrote a piece. RFK Junior's family doesn't want him to run. Even they may not know his darkest secrets. And this was an incredible piece that really dove into both the family's thinking and the family's reluctance sometimes to say this publicly. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: And what would have happened if Caroline had said something sooner?

Um, Joe's. Project was all about digging into what the family felt behind the scenes, and he handled it very objectively as to whether or not there should have been a more, um, a firmer pushback at an earlier moment, you know, endorsing Biden in a group shot at the White House, right? Quite enough. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Now devil's advocate. Would it have mattered? I mean, we see this time and time again, and people pushing back on Donald Trump, you know, the people come forward called Donald Trump a predator. What happens? Nothing, he gets elected. So I uh, it's almost, it's possible that we're just past any of that efficacy. But the truth is this, the Kennedys have a lot of symbolic importance, and [01:24:00] I think that They still do hold this cultural power.

I mean, we've seen, you know, it's been almost 25 years since John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister died in a small plane crash. And you still have kids on the Upper East Side going out and buying Carolyn Bessette's headband, you know. Mm hmm. The influence, the kind of the style of them, the touch football, although hilariously in the Schneerson piece, I think someone's quoted saying, you know, you'd be more likely to put together a group to go to an AA meeting now than to play touch football.

But those images are very lasting. The idea that, again, that there's this sort of like version of, I mean, it sounds Trumpy, right? But it kind of, you know, American, it's not greatness, but it's like, I don't know, that they're Catholic. It's not WASP y. You do want to 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: say WASP y, don't you?

CLAIRE HOWORTH: But, but, you know, something heroic.

But I think that, [01:25:00] We have RFK Jr. now playing the anti hero role, too. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: There's also this incredibly dark and kind of gothic aspect to RFK Jr. He's got this very strange history with animals, dead animals. He's put, according to Caroline Kennedy, mice and baby chicks in a blender to feed to his hawks because he's obsessed with birds of prey.

He drove a dead bear to Central Park. There's the whale. I mean, but who hasn't? Right. Right. Right. Who among us? Uh, there's, there, there are the emus running around his house in LA that, you know, Cheryl feeds I guess. And then he also has a terrible history with womanizing. He, as Joe Hagan reported for Vanity Fair, he has sent pictures of women's genitalia unbidden to contacts.

And then in that same story, Joe Hagan spoke to a woman named Eliza Cooney, who had babysat for the Kennedy family in the 90s, for RFK Jr. [01:26:00] himself, and who accused him of sexual assault. Now, Kennedy did not deny the allegations prior to or after our report published. Instead, he told Breaking Point, a self described anti establishment podcast. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Listen, I have said this from the beginning, I am not a church boy. I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I have so many skeletons in my closet that if, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: This whole story came up in his hearings when Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, asked him about it. And only then did he deny it under oath, which really makes you think.

Last week, Eliza Cooney called Joe Hagan and said she thought that Caroline Kennedy's letter came too late to warn anybody off of RFK Jr. Indeed, that seems to be the case. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's very telling that RFK said that he's not a church boy as a way to just sort of brush off [01:27:00] any sort of bad behavior of the past.

And I think when we're thinking about a son of privilege, and we're thinking about the way of the Kennedys may have seen right or wrong or what they could get away with. I think it is instructive to look at how he responded to this.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: We're also in this larger cultural moment, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg, uh, of all people, of kind of a reclaiming of what people have been referring to as toxic masculinity. Like, no, no, it's all good. Like this is how I behaved and I did it because I'm a man and I can do that 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: right and it hasn't stopped RFK from ascending to this cabinet position just like dozens of sexual misconduct allegations did not stop Donald Trump from winning a second term as president.

SECTION C: ANTI-SCIENCE DANGERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Anti-Science Dangers.

What you need to know about bird flu - On Point - Air Date 1-8-25

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I do want to just go straight at this issue on how people are [01:28:00] reacting to the various measures that have been taken so far, regarding trying to prevent H5N1 from becoming a bigger issue.

Do you think that the right lessons have been learned from COVID or not in terms of deciding when to do things like advise a recall of raw milk?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: No, that's a great question. It's one we talk about here at the CDC all the time. Let me first start with just the big picture, which is, as Dr. Davis has noted, right now, we assess that the risk of H5 to the general public is low. But as others have noted on this call and on this program, the risk of a possible pandemic coming out of the H5 situation is not low. We assess it to be a moderate risk. And so right now, our advice for the general public is that they should be alert.

But not alarmed. And that said, for that reason, we almost on a daily basis are assessing where we stand with respect to H5, whether it's round things [01:29:00] like raw milk, and our guidance there, which I concur, raw milk is to be avoided. It's all the risks with none of the benefits, or around other ways that we can make testing more available or making sure we're getting a better understanding of how this virus is changing.

H5 is not the same as COVID. It differs in a number of ways, not least of which is that we have decades of experience understanding the virus, understanding how it transmits, and understanding the risk that it poses.

And that gives us a significant head start when it comes to things like medications, which we have available vaccines, which are a possibility if needed, as well as a good understanding of how to move in those directions if needed, when we get to those decisions, then we'll be in a posture to do.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: So I hear an echo of myself because a question I asked for every public health official who joined us for the first year of COVID is, How do you know when the if needed line has been crossed?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: Yes, that is the exact right question to [01:30:00] ask. And as you can imagine, it's not a bright line. It's not a situation where there's a giant switch on the wall. And one day we decide to flip it. We continually assess the situation on a daily basis with each new case we have, with each new sample, with each new piece of data.

And broadly speaking, there are a number of factors that we look at. Key among them is what's already been discussed, which is whether there is the emergence of person-to-person transmission. Of course, we've seen animal to animal transmission, and as a result, our antenna are very high. I share the concern of, say, Dr. Lakdawala, which is, our antenna are very high, and we are deeply concerned about the situation.

We haven't yet seen human to human transmission at the epidemiological level or at the molecular level, when we study the virus. Another thing that we look for is whether the virus itself has lost its susceptibility to the medications or the other therapeutics that we have available.

If we started to see [01:31:00] changes of that nature, we would want to ramp up our own posture. And then, of course, the third is what kind of disease is it causing? Right now, except for one case in the United States, the other 65 of the 66 cases that we've seen have caused eye redness. They haven't caused the significant respiratory conditions that we've seen with this virus in other parts of the world.

So these are some of the factors we look at, transmissibility, susceptibility to medications, severity of illness. If we were to see significant departures on any of those, relative to the history that we have with this virus over the past 20 years or so, that's when we would start moving closer to that line.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. So let me just repeat what you just said. In the United States, as of this moment, and again, just within the U.S., 65 of the 66 cases of bird flu in humans have resulted in this conjunctivitis, right? And no one wants to have that, right? I'm not saying that it's a great thing, but [01:32:00] are you making that point as a way of saying, hey, look, right now in humans, we are cautious, but we're not, no one's panicking, right?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: That is one of the points there, which is again, we want to be alert, but not alarmed. The other reason that is important. The prevalence of conjunctivitis rather than significant severe respiratory symptoms, is that what the vaccines do in particular is really reduce the severity of illness.

Now, vaccines can also reduce the likelihood of spreading it, but what they are exquisitely good at is reducing the severity of illness. And that's true whether it's the COVID vaccine, the flu shot or the pneumonia vaccine. Where really excel is in reduction of severity. And where we have not seen human to human transmission, and where we have not seen severe illness as the norm, then we have to wonder whether the vaccines are the right tool for the job right now, versus, say, [01:33:00] widespread use of medication. Which is what CDC recommends. Now that said, and I want to be very clear, we should not trifle with the H5 virus.

It is a dangerous virus, and around the world, we've seen that up to 50% of the people who can get infected with that virus can end up dying. So this is not an effort to suggest that we are minimizing the virus at all. Again, we are taking this very seriously, because this virus is not something to mess around with.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Why is the fatality rate, you just described a shockingly high fatality rate around the world. Is it really as much as 50% of people who get it can die?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: It can be, in other countries where they have experienced cases, in small clusters of cases. So then the question is, and I think where you're going is, what's different about now?

Because what seems to be different now is that the cases have been significantly milder than what we've seen historically. There are a few potential hypotheses as to why that might be the case. One of them is that, in the current [01:34:00] outbreak in 2024 and '25, we've been on it a lot more. We've been monitoring workers.

We've been testing individuals who have been exposed. And as a result of that, we're catching not just the severe cases, but also the milder cases as well. So it's possible that in other countries in the world that grappled with these outbreaks. They too have had a significant number of mild cases. They just weren't aware of those.

And thus, when you do the math, if the only thing is four cases, two of which are severe, you get a different number as a result of that. So some of it just might be that we have a better sense of the entirety of the iceberg rather than just what's above the water. Another piece of it might be the way in which individuals are exposed.

The bulk of cases that we've had in the U.S. have been from individuals who have had an exposure on the dairy farm, as Dr. Davis was mentioning. Fewer cases have been from individuals who had exposures to dead birds. The dairy farm exposure might end [01:35:00] up leading to a lower dose of virus than what you might get if you encountered a dead bird on the sidewalk.

And so that might be one reason why cases are a little bit milder. Again, that is not to suggest that anyone should not have their antenna up. We want folks to be tracking the situation, but we also don't want folks to be alarmed at this moment.

Trump's Attack on Science Funding - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 2-21-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Katherine, your piece lays out obviously an alarming picture of the Trump administration's impact already on science. What are the most significant changes that you're seeing so far?

KATHERINE WU: Oh, my goodness, do we even have time to go through them? There have been so many. I think this really comes down to the fact that it has been so many that it's actually difficult to point to the most significant ones. Certainly, the fact that funding has been frozen, that means that researchers are essentially not getting the funds they need to pay their staff to continue their studies.

That means participants in clinical trials are potentially being called and told, "Well, we can't continue to [01:36:00] study anymore. This very important experimental drug that might be helping you stay alive may not be an option for your care anymore." We've seen thousands of federal workers fired from across government and that includes scientists doing vital work. We have seen foreign aid abroad been totally dismantled.

People who need life-saving HIV treatments not getting the care that they need. I am sure I am missing things from this list only because the list is so ridiculously long. There truly has not been a sphere of American science or American science being done abroad that has not been impacted by this. It is the way that science is being done and who is allowed to be doing science right now, every aspect of it.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: One of your articles is called The NIH, National Institutes of Health, Memo That Undercut Universities Came Directly from Trump Officials. Remind us of that one.

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so this is one of the most [01:37:00] important changes that has happened in the past two weeks. I suppose I hesitate to call it a change because it never actually fully went into effect. On February 7th, the NIH seemed to release a memo. They did release the memo saying that indirect cost rates were going to be cut and indirect costs are basically overhead.

You get a grant. You apportion some of that grant to cover the day-to-day logistics of being able to do your research, paying rent for your lab, paying the utilities bills for your lab, making sure that administrative stuff gets done, all the logistical stuff that makes the research run on the side, not just the hard science that we picture or see in stock images. This is essential stuff.

Those rates can go as high as 60%, 70% at some universities. It's a very big deal for it to be slashed all the way down to 15%. For that to be a hard cap effectively overnight, which is what that would have done, [01:38:00] that would have been devastating. That would have been an overnight salary cut for countless people and the work that they do. You can't sustain that kind of cut with no notice whatsoever.

This created huge uproar that has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. We're going to see how that all shakes out once this is fully litigated in court. The larger issue here was that it was not NIH behind this memo, even though it was their website that released it. The Trump administration pushed that directive through and basically forced them to publish it on their website as what appears to be just a show of force.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Let's take a call from a scientist. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

ISABEL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University. I'm also a proud member and steward for my union, UAW [01:39:00] 4100. I wanted to talk about how these funding cuts to science, health care, and higher education are impacting my job and the jobs of scientists like me. I love that I get to come into work every day and study how our brain makes memories. These funding cuts are putting my job and my science at risk along with the work of thousands of other hardworking researchers and educators.

I also want to talk about something that's giving me some hope right now, which is academic labor power. Academic unions are more prolific than ever. This Wednesday, we organized a national day of action, including a rally here in New York City that was co-organized by my union, UAW 4100, and other academic unions across the city. These rallies brought together thousands of researchers, academic workers, and allies to say no to these funding [01:40:00] cuts. It's really empowering for me to see the collective labor power that we're building in New York and nationwide. I think this is going to be a powerful tool to fight for the future of science, health care, and academic jobs.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Isabel, thank you. I'm going to add another voice to yours, Isabel, as our next caller, I think, is another scientist also getting involved with the UAW actions. Alexa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Alexa.

ALEXA: Hi there. I'm a lifelong scientist. I feel like I can talk to you about the ways that this has affected the prospects of my career and the ability to do science, but I'm really passionate also about us making the connection that what we're watching happening in science right now, what were victims of in science and in research and in higher education right now also is something that is part of the global [01:41:00] or the US economy at large with the decline in manufacturing and that we should learn from history since we're organized with the United Auto Workers.

What they've experienced in the auto industry over the past 40 years is what we're experiencing right now in research and higher education, and that when we talk about the funding of US science and US research at large, we can't pretend that it's been good. The past 30 years have been a major stagnation of research funding. That's come at the cost of workers where we haven't kept up with inflation.

That's why we've organized ourselves into unions. It's because of how bad it's been. The fact that this is happening should highlight to everyone across the US and internationally just how tenuous the system of research funding is. It's right now that we need to decide whether we believe that we are a country, whether we are people that believes in public [01:42:00] knowledge production or not.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What would you say to listeners who might think, "Okay, you're a microbiologist. The pharmaceutical industry is big and wealthy. If they want to develop medications--" I'm sure your work isn't only on medications. If private industry wants to develop things that are science-based, that are going to be useful to the public, then they will make money on them. Why do we need taxpayers to subsidize this at the level that they have? What would you say to that?

ALEXA: Also get this question in another frame, which is, "You have a PhD. You're a microbiologist. Why don't you just work in private industry?" I just don't believe in that. I believe that there is such an important place for public research and for basic science research. I actually don't study anything in biomedicine. The research that I do actually is only valued by the Department of Energy right now. My PhD is in soil microbiology. I think it's so [01:43:00] crucial. We have no idea what discoveries we make now will be important for innovation, technology, medicine, climate change 20, 30 years from now. We need to be investing in the big questions that really propelled knowledge forward. Knowledge in and of itself is a public good.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There isn't profit in basic research, thank you for your call. Katherine Wu, what are you thinking listening to those couple of callers?

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so much. I think it's worth reiterating just how important it is to keep training future generations of scientists. Discoveries don't get made. Drugs don't get developed unless there is rigorous training in place and funds to make sure that those young scientists have the training that they need, the support they need, especially scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

I think the system now is so strapped that some universities are trying to figure out, "Do we need to pause graduate student admissions?" There could be multiple generations of young scientists at risk here. We will see the fallout [01:44:00] of that loss for years and years and years. That is so much knowledge that is at stake here. Absolutely, I think the conversation about private funding is an important one.

I think if you think about the amount that the federal government contributes to scientific research, if you're even to pair away at that a little bit, there isn't actually a really reasonable way for private funding to fill that gap. There's not enough of it. A lot of private funding comes with strings attached, right? It's what foundations want to fund. It's to their own ends. Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are doing their own research, but it's what's lucrative. What about rare diseases? What about things that don't have a big dollar sign attached to them?

It's incredibly important to work toward the public interest and not just where the money is. I also want to point out, we have so many examples of discoveries that were made totally by accident in the pursuit of basic research, penicillin maybe being the most famous one. There will be devastating [01:45:00] consequences for everyone's health and well-being and our understanding of the world if any type of science is hampered by this continued pause.

Bird flu is spreading faster. Should we worry? - Front Burner - Air Date 2-14-25

NICHOLAS FLORKO: There's actually several kinds of bird flu. So, the one that we're talking about today is called H5N1. And H5N1 has been around, actually, for decades. But it's become an issue for us here in the U.S. where I am when it started showing up in wild birds in 2022. We saw it spread then to domestic poultry, and then, things got even more worrisome when we started to see this spreading to dairy cows, which here in the U.S. was documented in March of last year. Now, luckily, we haven't seen the virus spreading from human to human, but that's of course why everyone is paying attention to this virus. If we start to see consistent human-to-human transmission, that's when things really start being worrisome and we could be heading towards another flu pandemic.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What do we know about how it spreads from animals to humans, though?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: [01:46:00] So, infected birds can spread it through their mucus, their saliva, their feces. So, if a human is around a sick bird without protective equipment, they could potentially catch the virus. And the leading theory of how it spreads from cows to humans is through their milk. So, that means folks that are might be at risk or folks who might be consuming raw, unpasteurized milk or handling raw, unpasteurized milk.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: Are there any risks if you are just drinking, like, grocery store milk or, or, and sorry if this is a silly question, but what if you're eating, like, meat from one of these birds?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Luckily, it seems that pasteurization of milk especially has prevented the spread of the virus. So, milk that is in your grocery store is safe as long as you are not in a place where they are selling or allowed to sell raw milk, unpasteurized milk. We haven't seen any [01:47:00] cases as far as I'm aware at all of, of someone eating potentially a sick bird. And I think that's just because birds are relatively symptomatic when this occurs. So, we wouldn't see those ending up in the meat supply.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: This idea that it could potentially spread from human to human, how could that happen?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Well, the virus would likely have to mutate, and that is the fear always when we're talking about a potential influenza. That is actually how we got the swine flu pandemic, if you remember that back in 2009. And so, the fear is that if we keep letting this virus spread unabated, that gives it more and more chances to pick up mutations and then, potentially it picks up a mutation that does allow it to actually spread readily from human to human.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: I mentioned in the intro that Canada saw its first and only domestically acquired human case in this B.C. teenager back in November. This [01:48:00] 13-year-old girl is alright now, but she was quite sick for a while. She was hospitalized for two months. She was in respiratory distress, and she actually had to be intubated at one point. And I know the U.S. has seen dozens of cases in people and generally speaking, like what are the symptoms of how serious this can get?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Here in the U.S., most cases have been much more mild than the one that you just described. The most common symptom that we've actually seen is eye redness or conjunctivitis. That, in addition to, you know, some typical sort of flu-like symptoms. That being said, and you know, as you said in the intro, we have had one severe case here in the U.S. last month in the state of Louisiana. We did, unfortunately, have a death from the virus.

REPORTER 2: Health officials confirming a patient in Louisiana is the first human to die from bird flu in the U.S. The Louisiana Department of Health saying the person was over the age of 65 with [01:49:00] underlying health conditions and contracted the virus after being exposed through a flock of birds in a backyard. The CDC analyzed the virus in that Louisiana patient, and found concerning new mutations which could help the virus infect people more easily.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: And I think that just underscores how serious this, this can be. And frankly, we know from historical data that bird flu in the past has been, has been quite deadly. So, we want to be on guard here for any changes and potentially, you know, these more severe cases popping up.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What would be the reason for why some people get, like, conjunctivitis and other people might have to be intubated?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. I mean, we still have such few human cases of bird flu that what we know and what we can say definitively about different, different strains of the virus are limited. But the one thing I do want to note is both the teenager in [01:50:00] Canada and the person here in the U.S. that, that unfortunately passed, they actually were both in--, infected with a strain of the virus known as D11. That is not the predominant strain that's been spreading throughout the dairies here in the U.S. And so, there's this question of whether D11 might be more dangerous and if that becomes a prominent strain, does that cause issues? But we have so few cases right now, we really can't say definitively like, yes, this is more deadly or this is more dangerous, this strain versus this one.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: You mentioned that bird flu had, has been quite deadly in the past. And I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit more about how it's popped up in, in history and what happened.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, so the case fatality rate historically for bird flu, I believe, is above 50 per cent. So, we have seen some really worrisome outbreaks occurring in the past. And [01:51:00] I think scientists are still grappling with figuring out why.

REPORTER 3: As concern grows into anxiety in Hong Kong, hundreds of people have been calling special government hotlines, worried about a new strain of a potentially deadly flu that comes from chickens. Health officials say so far there have been six confirmed cases and now this. In four of those, the virus may have been transmitted from person to person.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: This time around, we very luckily, are not seeing this much higher death rate because, I think if you talk to anybody who has studied bird flu for some time, you know, if bird flu gets into the respiratory system, there's a lot of, you know, fears that this could cause severe illness and, and widespread death. But luckily, we haven't seen that yet. And I really do think scientists are still grappling with why that is. I don't think we know yet.

SECTION D: PREDATORS AND PREY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Predators and Prey.

Ezra Young on Trans Rights Law, Anne Sosin on RFK Jr. ans Rural Health - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-7-25

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: There are a number of people in lots of places who have [01:52:00] centered their lives per force on concerns around food and health and medicine.

And they see a guy who seems to be challenging Big Pharma, who's saying food additives are problematic, who's questioning government agencies. There are a lot of people who are so skeptical of the U. S. healthcare and drug system that a disruptor, even if it's somebody who says a worm ate his brain, that sounds better than business as usual.

And so that's leading some people to think, well, maybe we can pick out some good ideas here, maybe, but you think That is the wrong approach to RFK Jr. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think that that's misguided. Certainly, there are some people who see RFK as a vehicle for championing their causes, and there are other people who think that we should seek common ground with RFK, that [01:53:00] we should acquiesce, perhaps, on certain issues, and then work together to advance some other causes.

And I think that That's misguided. I think we need to recognize what's given rise to RFK and other extreme figures right now, but we need to make common cause with the communities that he's exploiting in advancing his own personal and political goals. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And in particular, you're thinking about rural communities, which have been played a role here, right?

What's going on there? 

ANNE SOSIN: Yes, my work is centered in rural communities right now, and I think we need to understand the political economy that's given rise to RFK and other figures, the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that have given him a wide landing strip in rural places, as well as some of the institutional vacuum That are K [01:54:00] and other very extreme and polarizing figures are filling. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Expand on that please a little.

ANNE SOSIN: Sure. So we're seeing growing resistance in some places, including rural communities to public health and interventions that have long been in place, including vaccination and fluoridation. Resistance to public health measures often in my view reflects unmet need. Sometimes those needs are material.

We see that people resist or don't follow public health programs or guidance because they don't have their material needs met and those material needs might be housing, paid leave, or other supports that they need. But the unmet need might also be emotional. Or effective that some people may resist out of a sense of economic or social dislocation, a feeling of invisibility or something else.

And [01:55:00] those feelings get expressed as resistance to public health measures that are in place. And so understanding and recognizing what those on that are is really important. And then thinking about how do we address those needs in ways that are productive and don't undermine. Public health and health care is really important.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, vaccinations are obviously a big concern here, particularly as we may be going into another big public health concern with bird flu. So the idea that vaccines cause disease is difficult to grapple with from a public health perspective. Vaccines can't be a choose your own adventure if they're gonna work.

Societally, and it almost seems like we're losing the concept around vaccination. We're losing the concept of what public health means and how it's not about whether or not you decide to eat cheese. You know, there's kind of a [01:56:00] public understanding issue here. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think you're correct. I think we've seen just in the U. S. and increasing. Yeah. Why is the patient of public health? A loss of the recognition that public health means all of us public health is the things that we do together to advance our collective health and the increased focus on individual decision making really threatened all of us and we look forward around vaccination.

We have seen very well funded initiatives. To undermine public confidence in vaccination over the last several years, there have been a lot of money spent to dismantle public support and public confidence in vaccination and other life saving measures. And it really is poses a great threat is we think about not only novel threats, like H5N1, but also things that have long been under control.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, finally, I [01:57:00] took a quick look at media, uh, major national media and rural health care, and there wasn't nothing. I saw a piece from the Dayton Daily News about heart disease in the rural south and how public health researchers are Running a medical trailer around the area to test heart and lung function.

I saw a piece from the Elko Daily Free Press in Nevada about how Elko County and others are reliant on non profits to fill gaps in access to care, and that's partly due to poor communication between state agencies and local providers. I really appreciate local reporting, local reporting is life, but some health care issues, and certainly some of those that would be impacted by the head of HSS are broader and they require a broad understanding of the impact of policy on lots of communities.

And I just wonder. Is there something you would like to see news [01:58:00] media do more of that they're missing? Is there something you'd like them to see less of as they try to engage these issues, as they will in days going forward? 

ANNE SOSIN: Certainly local coverage is Essential and I'm really pleased when I see local coverage of the heroic work that many rural health care providers and community leaders are delivering.

We see very creative and innovative work happening in our rural region in our research in our community engagement. And so it's. It's very encouraging when I see that covered, but all of the efforts on the ground are shaped by a larger policy landscape and a larger media landscape, larger political landscape.

And what we see often is efforts to undermine the policies. That are critical to preserving our rural health care infrastructure. We see well funded media efforts to erode social cohesion [01:59:00] to undermine our community institutions to sow mistrust in measures, such as vaccination. We see other work to harden the divisions between urban and rural America and within.

Rural places. And so I hope that media will pay attention to the larger forces that are shaking the landscape of rural life and not adjust to the, the outcome of that. It's easy to take note of the disparities between urban and rural places, but it's much harder to do the deep and complex work of understanding the forces that generate those uneven outcomes across geographic differences.

RFK Jr. Flunky LOSES IT When Confronted On Measles Outbreak - The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Air Date 2-22-25

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right now, there is a measles outbreak in West Texas that keeps getting worse. And it's spreading into New Mexico. And in this area of Texas, there is a very low vaccination rate. This is the result of increased anti vaccine sentiment that is at a fever pitch [02:00:00] right now and has been since the pandemic, creating a political movement strong enough that it is now kind of incorporated into MAGA.

MAHA is a part of MAGA, and RFK Jr. is Health and Human Services Secretary. As insane as that sentence is to say out loud, and I surprise myself as I say it out loud, and how much it freaks me out, That's the case. Um, so Pamela Brown had one of the RFK Junior's advisors on to talk about what's happening right now in Texas with this measles outbreak.

And right now, the CDC just paused a meeting that they were supposed to have on the issue of vaccines, just delaying it indefinitely under RFK's leadership as Health and Human Services Secretary. They have stopped advertising. Uh, for folks to get the flu vaccine, as we're in the middle of one of the worst flu seasons.

It's a mess. And [02:01:00] there's also, uh, bird flu, right now, that has the capacity, potentially, to cross over to humans. And Elon Musk's Doge cut all those people. Then realized what they had done because they just basically clicked ctrl all or ctrl f in a document and then press delete and then realize Oh, these are the folks working on the bird flu that's making the egg prices go up which Donald Trump said he wanted to bring down Okay, can we hire you guys back please civil servants?

Can you please come back? It's a this. Here's one of RfK jr. 's advisors talking about this measles outbreak 

PAMELA BROWN: And just to be clear, these are two separate issues. There's vaccines, which are proven safe and effective, and we're going to talk more about that. But then there's the issue of disease caused by, you know, the food that we're consuming, processed food and all of that, which as you both agree on, that needs to be dealt with.

That needs to be a priority, of course, um, which is why in many ways, RFK Jr. has gained so much popularity among many [02:02:00] Americans, um, on that issue. But, but I want to go to you, Callie, to respond. And also, you know, with this measles threat. Is it now a time to promote vaccines, which again, the CDC says safe, effective, two doses are 90 percent effective against measles.

Um, is it now a time to promote that, especially among children who are being impacted by measles in places like Texas and in these six states who are unvaccinated according to health officials? 

CALLEY MEANS: Pamela, with, with respect, why aren't you asking me about the fact that 50 percent of teens have obesity? Why aren't there, there's other questions for you, but we're talking about this day after day.

Pamela. It's breathless. It's breathless coverage of five measles cases. You sound breathless. We, why aren't we asking why 16 percent of COVID deaths worldwide were Americans when we're only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it! You know why? Because of cranks like you. Because of cranks like you saying that the vaccine wasn't safe and effective, [02:03:00] then when we know it was a safe and effective at reducing transmission and severity, and then there were obviously variants, and we've had updated versions of that m. R. N. A. Vaccine, uh, that have still, uh, Protected people. And by the way, these were the vaccines greenlit by Donald Trump, the, uh, president who you now apparently serve with Operation Warp Speed, which was actually very successful, but the left would have done it differently. We wouldn't have just given billions and billions of dollars to Big Pharma.

We would have said, okay, we'll subsidize you to research it, but we own it after. 

MATT LECH: I hate these people so much. The death in this country preceded the vaccine because our ultimate priority was not public safety, but getting people back to work so they can serve the type of people that give these people money to go spew their goddamn bullshit on CNN.

How disgusting. Talking about obesity and kids. That's because of our food system, you idiot. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, agreed. You want to reform that? But then, what, the [02:04:00] lazy whataboutism. She, Uh, Pamela Brown , made a painstaking effort at the beginning of that question to say we are taking into consideration all these other things that you are throwing out there to distract from the fact that you're actually anti vax.

But can we deal with this measles outbreak where over a hundred cases are now being reported between West Texas and New Mexico combined? Can we have that discussion? Oh, no, wait. Another one of baptism. of 

CALLEY MEANS: COVID deaths worldwide were Americans. We were only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC said our immune says, no, it is related, Pamela.

And let me say why, because the entire coverage of Bobby Kennedy is around measles. The Democrats said the word measles 25 times in the first hearing and said the words, obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease, zero time. The HHS priority document under president Biden said the word equity 25 times. Said the word vaccine.

MATT LECH: Sorry, pause it one more second. I, I really get frustrated hearing people like this talk and think they should [02:05:00] be muzzled. But just say there's a reason that measles comes up with RFK because he has a history of lying or spewing his bullshit about vaccines that kills people. You search RFK American Samoa.

He's killed kids with his bullshit. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And now it's spreading to West Texas. Um, there the it's Texas State Department health data shows that the vast majority of cases are among people younger than 18. Um, and the, the, it's mostly, uh, concentrated with kids who are unvaccinated or under vaccinated, meaning, meaning they've maybe only had one dose, but keep going.

CALLEY MEANS: I did not say the word obesity or diabetes. There is a problem right now because this is not zero. This is zero sum. We are focused on a very small subset that's important. We need good infectious disease management. Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Offit, is not correct. Bobby Kennedy has said one thing about vaccines and one thing only.

That they should be studied like any other product. Dr. Offit on the ACIP committee has [02:06:00] recommended vaccines that have ended up being required. 

MATT LECH: Sorry, um, when he says they should be studied, he says that I don't trust any of the studies that have been done for decades about things like autism and vaccines.

I think it needs to be studied until it confirms my biases. And you're really stupid if you can't understand that. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Um, nearly one in five incoming kindergartners in that area in Gaines County did not get the vaccine. That 18 percent vaccine exemption rate for the county is one of the highest in the state, according to data from the WOKES.

Oh, actually, it's the Texas Department of State Health Services, so. Oh. What a coincidence that measles is outbreaking in the area that has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state. 

MATT LECH: I just looked up what this guy is, what TruMed is. TruMed is a company that helps people use their health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts.

That dumb financial bullshit is part of the [02:07:00] reason why Americans die. It's because no parasite like this idiot, Kali Means, is that his name? No, no parasites like him should be even involved in healthcare. Yeah. Doing some sort of finance, like, no. It should be, you know. Public insurance, publicly paid for, not this fancy new tax scheme to give some people health care.

This guy is a parasite. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But these are the anti vaxxers. They are the people. They are basically financiers are trying to make money off of them. What happened? Uh, wasn't RFK juniors like a charitable organization taking a bunch of shady donations and it was offshore or something like that? This is a business for these people selling you snake oil.

That, so an 18 percent vaccine exemption rate in this area that's getting this measles outbreak. Across, uh, the, the country, the national average is 4%. So it must just be a total coincidence

The Crunchy Mom To Alt-Right Pipeline - The Suburban Women Problem - Air Date 4-18-24

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Throughout history, men have been the face of alt right extremist movements. We think about this [02:08:00] sea of white men with red, Today, I'm going to be talking about the importance of men flooding the Capitol with American flags draped over their shoulders. Most of us don't picture modestly dressed women baking sourdough bread and preaching the importance of divine motherhood and the white racial purity of children.

TRAD WIFE 1: Today, I'm going to be talking about The Treadwith Movement. Being a wife and a mother should be your top priority, always. And that is what is so great about this movement. Order is coming back into place in a chaotic world. 

TRAD WIFE 2: No other society or culture, except the Western culture, which is built by Europeans, has been forced this, upon them, diversity and multiculturalism.

Hey y'all, welcome back to my channel. So today we are going to be [02:09:00] talking about boxed cake mixes and why they are tools of communism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: We've all seen crunchy mom or so called trad wife content on social media. It's usually a young millennial mother standing behind a kitchen counter talking about all the ways she lives a clean, traditional life.

They avoid modern medicine, eat only organic food, and typically oppose vaccinations. They want to live a more quote unquote traditional lifestyle. It's a very specific aesthetic, often presented as simple and natural. These traits are commonly associated with people on the left. But what happens when you go so far left that you end up on the far right?

SEYWARD DARBY: A big project within my wider project of the book was to dispel the idea that there is any one type of person who gets involved in white nationalism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Sayward Darby is the author of Sisters in Hate, American Women on [02:10:00] the Front Lines of White Nationalism. After the election of former President Donald Trump, Sayward went on a search for the women involved in white nationalism to highlight their role in the movement.

One of the women she followed, Ayla Stewart, was a self professed feminist turned online tradwife personality. She went viral for what she called a white baby challenge, where she challenged others to have more white babies than she had. 

SEYWARD DARBY: I think it may come as a surprise to some people that women who had previously sort of professed to be uber liberal, um, you know, very, um, All organic foods like want to raise their own food.

Um, you know, very kind of bleeding heart on the, on like the edge of the left, so to speak, could radicalize in such a pendulum or seemingly pendulum swinging direction. But we have actually been seeing that type of radicalization happening, um, for, for quite a long time, particularly in the, [02:11:00] in the internet age.

And so I was really interested to understand that trajectory. What I discovered, really, was that it's actually not so much a pendulum swing, it's that people who are very, very sort of far to the left on, um, on the, it's not even political spectrum exactly, I mean politics is part of it, but it's sort of just like a way of interacting with the world.

It's actually more like a little jump, if you think of it as a circle, you know, you kind of jump from one side to the other. And if you think about You know, this sort of obsession with freedom from, um, impurity, freedom to, you know, raise your children how you want to raise them, um, freedom from influences you don't like, a sense of control, really, over, you know, the curation of your child's existence.

It's really not that much of a leap from, um, Being very lefty to actually being much more, you know, authoritarian, quite frankly. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Now to be clear, there's [02:12:00] nothing wrong with making sourdough bread or trying to live a more simple life. The danger comes when you take that small step forward and turn a quote unquote clean life into something far more extreme.

TRAD WIFE 1: Hi guys and welcome back to my channel. Today I'm going to be giving some tips for the ladies on how to achieve A masculine man, a provider man. In order to be approached, you have to be approachable. So there's that saying feminine fit and friendly. And I highly agree with that. You should be smiling a lot at the cashiers who are checking you out.

Or when somebody opens the door for you say thank you and smile You of course should be putting effort into your look whether you are into makeup or hair or Anything like that if you are just putting on sweat pants and a loose shirt and a hair and your hair in a bun I promise you you will feel better and feel more approachable when you put more effort into the way you look So I challenge you if you are the type [02:13:00] that likes the lululemon or the sweat pants for a whole week Put yourself in maybe jeans or put dresses on and skirts on and it will make such a big difference I promise.

There are some great feminine jobs out there that won't put you in that masculine dominating energy, but more so in that nurturing and feminine energy. Some of these feminine jobs are nannying and babysitting. I love babysitting. I think it's a lot of fun to be around energetic kids. Another one would be teaching or teachers aid because I believe to be a teacher you have to have a bachelor's I think.

Nursing is also a great occupation because you are caring for people, you are nurturing, it's not super dominating and aggressive. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: The transition happens slowly, sometimes before you even realize it's happening in the first place. 

SAMANTHA: So many people are not just documenting their lives, they're creating their own brands.[02:14:00] 

And It's usually very aspirational, you know, it's a woman in either a modestly, you know, decorated home with neutral colors or bright colors. There's like a child on her hip, she's whisking things with a smile on her face, talking about how happy she is to have found this holistic medicine. There's a weird purity spiraling is actually what the far right and what other people call it.

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: That was Samantha, an employee at Life After Hate, a nonprofit that works to help people leave the far right and lead compassionate lives. Samantha, who wishes to keep her last name anonymous, is an exit specialist and peer mentor. She works to help people exit extremist movements and provides the support they need to rebuild their lives.

SAMANTHA: There was a channel on the far right that, that had this, uh, a YouTube channel. They had like their own little sub YouTube channel, and it was just this blonde woman. And she would always, it was [02:15:00] like, I'm going to be making these sugar cookies, or I'm going to be making this like Swedish, traditional, Meal or whatever and you wash it and you're like, wow, I really love that recipe and like how it's all whole foods and this and that and then you realize it's a sub channel you go on to the main channel and it happens to be like, yeah, don't go tanning because it will ruin your white skin and you kind of you just fall into it.

SEYWARD DARBY: In the case of coded language and the way that people might not even know what they're being told and fed, um, you know, what we've seen particularly in the last seven, eight years, but it was really going on well before that too, is again, not necessarily overt, you know, are you a white person? Do you also hate other people?

It's that's not the message, right? The message that often draws people in is more, okay. Do you feel dissatisfied with your life? That can mean your personal life, you know, [02:16:00] the political situation that you find yourself in, that you think the country is in. Do you believe that, you know, you're not being told everything about how we got here?

Do you feel like there are things you can't say because it's no longer politically correct, um, to say, you know, I don't want to live in an urban environment because people will call you racist, or, you know, all of these things. It's kind of appealing to these, like, racist, quite frankly, instincts that I think a lot of Americans, white Americans, you know, have instilled in them just by virtue of the society that we live in and being told that those things are okay and that there's a community that will support those impulses.

And then it gets more intense and it gets more explicit in its racism. So, you know, radicalization is not as simple as, you know, an existing white supremacist organization Identifying a person who hates people who aren't white. Like that's not how this works. It's more looking for people who are susceptible, who are vulnerable.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for [02:17:00] today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which include the widespread and predictable corruption endemic to the Trump administration, followed by the resistance, such as it is, to the hostile takeover of the government.

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The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now!, Hood Politics, The PBS NewsHour, Inside the Hive, On Point, the Brian Lehrer Show. Front Burner, CounterSpin, The Majority Report, and Red Wine and Blue. 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 our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and [02:18:00] Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. 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 instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, 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 any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days. 

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.