10/13/25: China US Trade War, Troops At Food Banks, MTG Flips On Trump Deportation, ICE Nabs Journalist

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Welcome to Breaking Points for
Little Lady Shows for you.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah, surprise, it was just that we were ambushed by
doing The Lady Show and we're happy to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yes, indeed, we're always ready to step up with The
Lady Show. And there is a lot of news to
get to this morning. We got a China trade war,
we got the government still shut down, we got ice
gone wild in Chicago and elsewhere. We've got Trump in Israel,
and we're gonna bring you.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Some some saucs.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Just speaking like right now as we're recording this, So
we're going to process that bring you all of the
news with regard to there's a whole bunch of stuff
going on there. We're going to try to get to
this story about whether or not there's going to be
a Katari air base on US soil, something Laura Lumer
was very unhappy about.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
So that's an interesting one.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
It is just an interesting story in general. What is
actually happening. Pete Heike Seth himself had to issue a clarification,
So we're going to break down actually the real story
when we get to that block.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, Hexa said very clearly they're going to have an
air base, and then they're like fake news, They're not
going to have an airbase. The media is lying to you,
Like we're just literally trying to listen to what the
Secretary of War is telling us here.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yes, but thank you for using his preferred I was
gonna say proanam, but preferred it a little identify as
a Secretary of War.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Yeah that's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And then we have to get in this block about
Peter Teel and his views on the anti christ. I mean,
this is an incredibly powerful influential man, because of his wealth,
because of his involvement with variety of companies, because of
his connection to the Trump administration.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
So when he's saying wild things, you have to listen.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And Washington Post got their hands on the audio of
these four lectures, private lectures that he gave on the
subject of the Antichrist. We also pulled some clips of
things that he said publicly before.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
So we're going to dig into that a little bit.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, looking forward to a crystal But let's start with China.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, indeed, So a whole lot of things happened with
regard to this on Friday, and the market's really tanked
in reaction. So China announced export restrictions, so ban blocking
US aggressively from these rare earth minerals, which are really critical,
which could have a major impact. Trump then responded saying

(02:37):
he was going to increase tariffs on China to one
hundred percent and impose additional restrictions on them as well.
As I said, the market's tanks, there was a big reaction.
Now we've got Trump kind of walking it back. So
that's where we are this morning. Let's take a listen
to jd Vance yesterday sounding off on this.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
I'll be honest with you, Maria. It's going to be
a delicate dance, and a lot of it is going
to depend on how the Chinese respond. If they respond
in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you that President
of the United States has far more cards than the
People's Republic of China. If, however, they're willing to be reasonable,
then Donald Trump is always to be always willing to

(03:15):
be a reasonable negotiator. We're going to find out a
lot in the weeks to come about whether China wants
to start a trade war with us or whether they
actually want to be reasonable. I hope they choose the
path of reason. The President of United States is going
to defend America regardless.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
So let me go ahead and put the Trump Truth
up on the screen where he initially announced his retaliatory actions.
And to be clear, the Chinese are saying they were
acting in retaliation to US changing some of the rules
on our chips export restrictions. So they felt that we
had violated a sort of verbal agreement that we had
with them to just hold everything in place while a

(03:51):
larger deal was being worked out. That's why they upped
their export controls on US. This is Trump announcing retaliation
in response to that retaliation, So he says, it's just
been learned. China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on
trade in sending extremely hostile letter to the world stating
that we're going to, effective November first, impose large scale

(04:12):
export controls on virtually every product they make, and some
not even made by them. This affects all countries without exception.
Was obviously a plan devised by them years ago, absolutely
unheard of, an international trade moral disgrace in dealing with
other nations based on the fact China has taken this
unprecedented position, speaking only for the USA, not other nations
who are similarly threatened. Starting November first or sooner, depending

(04:34):
the US of A will impose a tariff of one
hundred percent on China, over and above any tariff they
are currently paying. Also, on November first, we will impose
export controls on any and all critical software. Possible to
believe China would have taken such an action, but they have,
and the rest is history. Thank you for your attention
to this matter, and put a three up on the
screen that shows the extent of the stock market crash.

(04:57):
That we saw on Friday. Now as of this more
right now it is eighth nine a m. So markets
are not open, but futures Emily are up because Trump
put out another truth saying that you know, it would
all work out, it'd be okay.

Speaker 6 (05:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
The CNBC headline right now do futures jump thre hundred
points after Trump says China situation quote will all be fine.
Everything's okay. He's got it completely under control, Crystal, There's
no need to worry about it. He did say an
air Force one and route to Israel in Egypt that
November first. To him is you know, a long time away.
Other people say it's really close, but for him, he
says it's a long time away, projecting some confidence that

(05:33):
he has China coming to the table on all of this.
It's true, I mean, part of the true social or action.
I'm sorry, this is part of what Jade Vance says.
It is true that it's not like we have zero
leverage in the situation. So there's I mean, there are
all kinds of things that can happen between now and then.
But I don't know that. I'm just listen. I don't
sell stocks. But Trump's saying, quote, everything will be fine.

(05:57):
It's not exactly the confidence boost.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Yeah, well it fits.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, the whole thing kind of fits a pattern
of what he's done in the past, in particular, some
sort of something happening on Friday, some tariffs announced. Markets reacting,
but they're closed over the weekend. Over the weekend, they're closed,
and then lo and behold before Monday comes around, he
makes some other comment that people makes people go, Okay,
I'm sure everything will be fine then. And you know,

(06:22):
the backdrop of this, of course, as we've been covering year,
is that we likely have this gigantic AI bubble. The
all but zero point one percent of our GDP growth
has come from investment in AI and AI data centers.
Eighty percent of the growth in the stock market comes
from these AI related companies. So we're really betting the

(06:43):
farm on this thing. And yet you know, you've got
all kinds of other economic indicators that for average people
are going very poorly. The stock market just continues to
go up and up and up because of that bet
on AI. And if we could put a seven up
on the screen here in terms of how to think
about this war between US and China, with regard to trade.

(07:04):
This is Arnout Bertrand who wrote about, Okay, why is
it that China is taking these actions? Now, we've long
known about this what he describes as the rare earth card,
which they have very strategically, you know, been able to
secure the ability not just the access to rare minerals,
but the ability to refine them. They're really critical at

(07:24):
all these technologies of the future. So why haven't they
really played this card before? And he says that one
of the answers is actually helium. He looked into the
fact that you know, helium isn't he says, just a
party balloon. Gas is plenty of industrial applications for things
like quantum computing, rocket technology, MRI machines, coolant for chip
lithography equipment, et cetera. And so they realized that they

(07:46):
had a problem in terms of their own helium access,
and so over years they've made sure that they were
able to diversify their access to helium, which is critical
in a variety of things. And now they're at a
point where ninety five percent of the helium that they
use comes from sources other than the US. So now

(08:08):
they're in a position where they can play this what
he describes as the rare Earth card. He says, that's
what most people don't realize. Power is not about intentions
or rhetoric, It's about what you can actually do. Many
wonder why countries almost never retaliate when the US imposes
sanctions or export controls. The answer simple, they can't. They
lack the alternatives that technologies supply chains. China is the

(08:29):
first country that systematically worked to eliminate every single pressure
point with humongous efforts. It's not just helium, it's chips, energy, telecom, pharmaceuticals, etc.
That's why the rare earth card can finally be played now,
not because China suddenly became aggressive, but because they have
developed the capabilities to say no. And Emily, I think

(08:49):
this is such an incredible contrast between the Chinese system
and the American system. So even putting you know, Trump aside,
first of all, the American system we tend to like
to outsource to the markets. You know, if the markets
don't think that if they can obtain helium or rare
earth in a cheaper way that doesn't secure the sill

(09:11):
apply line here finally from China specifically, then that's what
will happen. And there's been very little over the past
thirty forty years thoughtful industrial policy about Okay, these are
things that are critical to our national security, these are
the technologies that are going to be critical to the future.
What can we do to create a system where we
are investing in those and make sure that we are

(09:32):
leading in those. And then you couple that with under
the Trump administration, they have some impulses in that direction,
but they are also a bunch of fools and idiots
who don't think three steps ahead. So this rare they
don't even think half a step ahead. I mean, the
rare earth mineral thing is such an obvious problem for us,
and yet Trump just barrels ahead full speed, putting random

(09:54):
tariffs on this country and that country and on China,
and these very aggressive postures that make us in incredibly
vulnerable in a way that was very very predictable and
very obvious.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Chinese politics don't center around the immediate news cycle. I
mean their politics is engineered over one hundred two hundred
year cycles. And Donald Trump very much negotiates as though
everything is this back and forth in a micro sense,
I mean, like he's more macro than other presidents, but
he's micro in his negotiations, and that it's about the

(10:25):
personal moment, the last time he spoke to she or
the last communication that happened between the United States and China,
and what gets lost in all of that. And this
is actually the point I was trying to make earlier
about the stocks. It's that do I think that Trump
might do a taco in this situation? Yeah, of course
I think Trump might do a taco in the situation.
What does that do to us though? In the long term?

(10:46):
Does that solve any long term problem? Or is it
a stop gap for Donald Trump to have this macro
sense look like he's making progress on the industrial policy,
but actually what he did was solve a micro problem
that you could argue he created by getting in to
this situation without a massive sort of long term industrial
policy in place. So yeah, I mean it's bleak. I

(11:08):
think it's probably waking up. I mean, it's partially to
your point. It's like we have the kind of worst
of both world situation right now where we don't have
a super smart, targeted government industrial policy on rare earth,
but we do have our like predatory capitalists who will
try to quickly make a buck off of this when
they realized that Trump wants to see them doing it

(11:28):
and that they probably have a lot of financial disincentives
to decouple from China. But there are actually people in
Trump's own administration that don't want a financial decoupling with China.
Like this is the war inside the Trump administration right
now too. So basically nobody has any idea in the
big picture sense, like what a clear organized policy is
going to look like. We don't have anything on the
table right now.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, that's right, and I think, you know, zooming on
a bit. It's just kind of like the promise in
the peril of a more planned economy. Yeah, because the
Chinese are executing this extremely well. You know, the amount
when you look at the number of people have been
lifted out of poverty over the past number of decades,
overwhelmingly that is because of growth in China, Like the
number of their rapid economic growth and the number of

(12:12):
their own people that they've been able to lift out
of poverty is truly like one of the great economic
miracles in history.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
And not in any small part by persuading us to
trade with them more and more. Yeah, that was a
big part of it.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
They looked at first of all, they rejected the path
that we pushed on like the former Soviet Union of
like this neoliberal shock doctrine, explicit saw that that did
not go well and explicitly rejected that path and understood
the global international system well enough to basically sort of
use it and for their own ends, right to exploit

(12:48):
the loopholes in it, to use it for their own ends,
and have had this incredibly intelligent strategic policy plans. And
not to say that everything is rosy and it's all
perfect and they don't have their own economic challenges to
deal with. That certainly the case. But we can see,
you know, the way that their solar energy and renewable
energy is coming online. Can see the way that their
EV industry has developed and is way more advanced at

(13:09):
this point than ours is. We can see the way
that they are, you know, at least even with us
in terms of AI development.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
You know, all of these areas.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
That we used to feel like, oh well, they can
just copy our tech after we put it out there,
so we're always at the bleeding edge.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
That is no longer the case in terms of China.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
So they've been able to accomplish something that is extraordinary
because it's been driven by the top and it also
has been extremely intelligent. And then with the Trump administration,
you do have this impulse towards more of you know,
top down government control, but it's done in this totally
haphazard way with no forethought and no long term planning.

(13:49):
I mean, part of that is just the nature of
the American system where you get in office for four
years and then you're tossed down again. But it also
is because you know, they have gone about this in
such a you know, slapshot man. Are just thinking back
to that original tariff announcement with all the you know,
countries listed and some of it didn't make sense and
incorrect and terrifying islands that only a penguins on it. Whatever,

(14:10):
the polar opposite of the intelligent, strategic, thought out direction
that you would want to go. And meanwhile, they're actively
kneecapping the industries of the future. I mean they don't
have you know, typically Republicans have said they have in
all of the above energy strategy, they are actively hostile
towards renewable energy, while China is you know, racing ahead

(14:30):
in that field. So I think it's an incredible contrast
between the you know, the approaches of the two countries
and the perils not only of neoliberalism but a stupidly
done planning from the top.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I mean some of the people who pushed the
renewables have made it hard to mine where Earth and
places like Alaska, Like, there's some of that going on.
At the same time, it's the strongest critique of industrial
policy is that it becomes Curney capitalism, and that Curney
capitalism not only is it moral, but it's also inefficient.
And when Trump was pitching this industrial policy, you know,

(15:03):
planning Liberation Day, nobody knew exactly what it would look like.
The warning from the like boomer cons and neo libs
was industrial policies crony, Like industrial policy just becomes inefficient.
It's crony capitalists. It's inefficient. And then all of the
industrial policy, you know, people like Sogermy were like, well,
there's there's a way that this can be done that

(15:26):
actually makes a lot of sense. And then Trump just
like has completely explicitly shown it's basically crony capitalis like
he has a system of crony capitalism that we haven't
seen fully in fruition because he's still going back and
forth and a lot of the stuff, like the China
stuff right now, like it's happening right now, and yeah,
Liberation Day was April. So we don't know exactly what

(15:47):
the legacy of the Trump terror policy is going to
look like because we have no idea day to day
where he lands with individual countries, including massive ones like China.
Is he going to capitulate in ways that make no
sense to the United States? Is he going to crack
down on a way that's hawkish and puts us in
We genuinely do not know because so much of it
depends on who he talks to last Yeah, what kind

(16:08):
of deal they're making. I mean, it's actually like the
AI announcement early in his presidency where he had Sam
Altman behind like inconceivable a year ago during his campaign,
or let's say a year and a half ago during
the campaign, that he would be giving so much away
to people who were brutally opposed to him in many
ways for years and there he was. So it's all haphazard.

(16:31):
It's all completely haphazard.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
To your crony capitalism point. It very much appears that
there was somebody who made millions and millions of dollars
insider trading on crypto in particular, people are tracking these
wallets that you know we're trading just before this one
hundred percent tariff announcement was made.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
Par for the course for this administration. Not shocking.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's barely even worth a mention because that's just how
that's just the crony capitalist nature of this administration. He
is validating some of the criticisms of liberal Arrians.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
That is truly unforgivable. Never forgive me for that.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
But it's not as though, I mean, like everyone knows
that can happen and that can go wrong, right, Like
everyone knows that. But Trump is especially more in his
first term, but in his second time he's just been
surrounded by the business community. He enjoys so much having
industry kissed the ring, and they weren't doing it at
all on his first term, so he didn't wasn't even
in a position to make deals with it.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
And it's a way for him. He loves power like
and that's a way for there's nothing he loves more
than you know, people showing up, Tim Cook showing up
at the White House with a gold bar for him,
and you know, or Mark Zuckerberg being like, oh, sir,
did I'd say the right dollar amount that you wanted
me to say in terms of our investment in the
US and being able to have that direct line and

(17:45):
really consolidate this, you know, system of oligarchs who surround him. Meanwhile,
you know, excuse me, very relevant to this. You can
put a eight up on the screen.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
This is what I was referring to before.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
I mean, so much of our economy is literally just
a without data centers. GDP growth was zer point one
percent in the first half of twenty twenty five. Financial
Times had a grade headline that was something like the
US is now just one big bet on AI and.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
That is increasingly the case.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
This will become relevant again in our final block on
Peter Teel and the Antichrist, because his whole theory is
that anyone who opposes this is actually like either the
Antichrist or like in league with the Antichrist.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
But he's also like conceding it's a bet, you know,
it's a gamble.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, he says it's dangerous, but it's more dangerous to
not do it.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
That's his position.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
So so that's where we are, and we can take
a look at eight ten just US dollar. You know,
it continues to decline precipitously this year, all sorts of
you know, troubling economic indicators and the US dollar piece.
And also Shagara and I covered last week the extraordinary
rise of gold is an incredibly significant development because effectively,

(18:57):
what the world is saying is dollar US chargers, you
guys are no longer the safe haven. We are going
to gold, We're going to hard metals. We're going to
find somewhere else that is a place to hedge our
bets against this massive likely AI bubble that we can
see inflating.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
So that is why that is very significant.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Mm hmmmmm. Yep. And I mean this is a'm on
CNBC again right here. Retaliation or escalations the headline. Trust
between the US and China is fading fast. Analysts say
the root cause of the attension is due to a
lack of mutual trust. This is what we were getting
at before Crystal. It's like utterly unpredictable because and like
I made the argument early after Liberation Day that the

(19:39):
unpredictability was leveraged to an extent and I think that
would have been true, but now the unpredictability has people
betting very clearly in the long term. A lot of
these bets are being placed with countries outside of the
United States with supply chains outside of the United States,
all of them, but a lot of them are enough
that it should actually be genuinely concerning for us because
this lack of mutual trust was not just between the

(20:00):
United States and China. It's between our other trading partners
in the United States. And they have to trust the
relationship between the United States and China. They have to
trust what the policy looks like is clear in one
direction or the other. And really just like even at
this point how many months since April was people don't
know and people have to make money, they have to
make business decisions, and here we are.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, we're going to keep our eye on all of this.
Wh That's why Gold, by the way, going up and up. Yeah,
And we're going to continue to keep our eye on
all of this, including the the AI piece of this,
because I really feel it is an undercovered, like bubbling
populist issue. Most from the standpoint of you know, where
these data centers are being located and some of the

(20:44):
battles with locals who don't want them there or after
they're there, are very upset about the fallout from that.
And then the spiking electricity prices, which is just you know,
that is like shortest way to get some sort of
a populous backlash is if you make it more and
more expensive for people just to be able to like
have the basics of living their lives.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
You know, maybe it's possible that six months from now
Trump has worked out some type of like massive deal
with China and things are clearer and make more sense,
But right now it doesn't look like that's where this
is going. I get it. I get why. You know,
Trump allies, Trump supporters will say just like trust the process,
But for people outside of Trump circles, somebody trusts the

(21:26):
process right now, especially now, we're going to show the
clip of Marjorie Taylor Green on Tim Dillon as people's
livelihoods are being like directly and obviously affected in material ways.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
Yeah, she's a canary in the coal mine, I'd say.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah. The extent to which people are willing to quote
trust the process at this point is obviously, I mean,
even people who were like Trump curious independence, They're going
to have a serious problem unless there's again to your point, Crystal,
a clear, concrete industrial policy deal with China, deal with
other major major trading partners that is coherent makes sense.
That's going to be really difficult for them to sell

(22:00):
heading into the mid terms unless that changes.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Speaking of dysfunctional government, the government is still shut down
and there's a big looming question about the troops getting paid.
Trump is saying that he is thee cured funding for them,
sort of outside of congressional channels in order to make
sure that they get this next paycheck. In the meanwhile,
you know, there's a lot of concern and a lot
of struggle already. It can take a look at the

(22:26):
number of service members lined up in this local food bank.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Let's look at that.

Speaker 7 (22:31):
There is quite a bit of military members and their
families inline because of this government shutdown.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
We're in day nine of it.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
In there here for a food pantry.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
There's all sorts of food that is available. And I
spoke with some military members spouses, and I spoke with
some department heads here at the ASYMCA on why this
is so important. What's the difference in the amount of
people that you've seen from today to previously.

Speaker 6 (22:57):
So when we first started coming there definitely wasn't this
amount of people. It was a lot, but it wasn't
this amount to where it wrapped around the building. But
lately it has been a lot. Like we were here
last week and we were in line for like two hours.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
And in a normal week, we usually run out of
food about one o'clock in the afternoon.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Last week, we ran out of food about ten thirty.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Reminder there too, that the number of service members who
live paycheck to paycheck, and when they saw like, oh, shoot,
we may not get paid because Congress made no provision
for that, you know, are like, we better take advantage
of whatever resources we possibly can. Let me go out
and put Trump's truth up on the screen talking about
how He's going to.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Pay the troops.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
He says, Chuck Schumer recently said every day gets better
during their radical left shutdown. I disagree if nothing is
done because of leader.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
He puts that in quotes.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Fair enough, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our brave troops
will miss the paychecks they're rightfully due on October fifteenth.
That is why I'm using my authority as commander in
Chief to direct our Secretary of War Hegsets, to use
all available funds to get our troops paid on October fifteenth.
We have identified funds to do this, Secretary Hegset will
use them to pay our troops. Will not allow the
Democrats to hold our military and the entire security of

(24:03):
our nation hostage with their dangerous government shut down. Radical
left Democrats should open the government. Then we could work
together to address healthcare many of the things they want
to destroy.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
So he's saying they've found some funds that they can
move around to be able to get this next paycheck
out to the troops. But you know, I mean, that's
certainly a band aid at this point, and no telling
whether or not that would continue to work at the
next paycheck if this thing continues indefinitely. And meanwhile, many
federal government, every other federal government worker is not getting paid,

(24:38):
and russ vote put out floated the idea that maybe
they wouldn't even get that back pay. This is obviously,
you know, you're playing with people's lives first of all,
and second of all, federal government is the largest employer
in the country, So this also has major potential economic ramification.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, And I mean Democrats right now, what is They're
incentive to come to the table and Republicans incentive to
come to the Both of them feel as though the
stronger incentive is to stay away from actually negotiating and
open the government. And I think the political incentive for
Democrats is strong. I'm not convinced that they're actually you
probably agree with this is my suspicion that they're I'm

(25:13):
not convinced they're making the most of the politics. And
I'm saying that like downstream or secondary to the substance,
which is obviously they're people who are not getting paid,
and Rush Vote is using this. I mean, I think
according to a court filing on Friday, they've already been
four thousand layoffs of federal workers. So from the perspective
of like average normy Democrat, it's starting to look dire

(25:37):
for how Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jeffries. I mean, if
if I were average normy Democrat, I would have zero
confidence in either Truck Schumer Hakim Jeffries at this point
at all, both on the politics and on the substance.
Republicans probably understand that they're going to take the blame
in the media for what happens like these, and to
some extent they want the blame, like Russ Vote wants

(25:59):
to say, Yeah, we are the ones who got rid
of the four thousand federal government employees. So there. I mean,
I don't think they're super concerned about that. But it
seems as though Democrats have absolutely no plan to get
out of the shutdown either because they're the ones withholding
the votes. I mean, they're the ones who if they vote,
if they decide to vote on the CR, whether it's
the clean CR or whether they come to the table
on healthcare, fine, but there seems to be nothing in

(26:23):
the works for that either. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I think the Democrats feel pretty strong in their position
right now because first of all, all the polling that's
come out, and I mean it's logical Republicans control government
and so they're shouldering most of the blame for the
shutdown totally. And then they you know, they certainly feel
pressured from their base like y'all got to stand up,
You've got to do something, and then.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
They look so dumb when they're trying to stand up,
Like I agree, Yeah, they're not. They're not great at it.
They're definitely not great at it.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
But and then you have, you know, the substance of
what they're fighting on, these healthcare cuts, and you know,
the subsidies that are going to go away, and this
is something else Marjorie Taylor Green has been talking about.
They feel they are on very strong footing there, especially
and maybe in particular because the vast majority of the
recipients of those Obamacare subsidies are in red states, red

(27:10):
states that didn't expand do the Medicaid expansion. So now
you have, you know, a disproportionate number of the Trump
coalition who are dependent on these healthcare subsidies, for whom
healthcare is just going to I mean, the amount of
premiums is going to go up.

Speaker 4 (27:25):
It's going to be insane.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And you had Trump even say something about, you know,
we got to deal with this healthcare thing, which I
think they also took as a little bit of a
crack in the edifice. You've got Marjorie Taylor Green now
and there is a major crack in the edifice. So
I think they feel like they're on very strong ground here.
To your point about like, I don't see any sign
I was expecting, and I actually think from the beginning
there was reporting about how Chuck Schumer was looking for
some kind of an out, and then the majority, not

(27:49):
just the Democratic base, but the actual Democrats in Congress
were like, what the fuck, dude, Like, no, you cannot,
We are not down. We have to actually fight this,
and especially with you, they're not The Democrats in DC
aren't connecting this fight to like what's happening in Chicago,
what's happening in Portland, but the base very much feels activated,
of course, like seeing those images as well, and it's like,

(28:11):
you can't fund this government, like they're threatening the Insurrection Act.
You cannot fund these people. So yeah, I don't see
any sign that they're going to back down. And then
the part with the layoffs is kind of I mean,
it's terrible, it's also kind of politically interesting. We've put
B three up on the screen RUSS vote making this announcement.
The rifts have begun and for those who aren't in
the no, rifts are reductions in force, which.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
Is DC speak for firing people. That's what's going on.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
And we had, as Emily mentioned, put B five actually
up on the screen. First, you had some four thousand
workers who were announced as part of these rifts. You
can see the most coming actually from Treasury and then
from HHS. We'll talk a little bit more about that
in a moment. Commerce, education that's another significant one. Energy
and housing and urban development, and homeland security. That's where

(28:59):
these layoffs are coming from. Now, they could be challenged
in courts because there are limits to layoffs that you
can do during government shutdowns. You're actually supposed to be
more constrained during government shutdowns about the people that you
can lay off, So court challenges could be coming to that.
But we can put before up on the screen. One
of the places I mentioned HHS was was really hit hard.

(29:21):
More than one thousand CDC staff originally received layoff notices
during the government shutdown. And you know, some of these
are really the type of people that I would think
that you would run around, they said, including in units
that respond to infectious disease outbreaks, analyze science, and helped
adda developed policy monitor the safety of employees.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Among those who initially received.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Those layoff notices was leaders of the CDC's response to
growing number of measle cases in the US and abroad,
including one official has more than twenty eight years experience
overseeing a dozen federal agencies that have responded to outbreaks
of ebola, Marburg virus, and empos in Africa over the years.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Well, lo and behold.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
After this mass layoff, the Trump administration realized, like, you know,
some of these people, maybe this is going to be
a problem for us if we keep them laid off
so we could put the next element back on the screen.
Some of them were brought back on Saturdays. Trump administration
race to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the

(30:23):
CDC who were mistakenly fired on Friday night would appear
to be a substantial procedural lapse. Among those rapidly wrongly
dismissed were the top two leaders of that federal measles
response team, those working to contain Ebola and congo, members
of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles
the CDC's Wanted Scientific Journal. The reason I think this
is interesting, Emily is obviously I want these people to

(30:45):
be doing the jobs containing measles and ebola and whatnot.
But also the political assumption from the Republicans is that
these layoffs are just meant to hurt Democrats like Democrats
like the CDC. Democrats like the Department of Education. So
if we make these cuts that just hurt them, it's like, well, yeah,
they don't want government workers to be laid off, but
this is still your government, Like, this is your administration

(31:08):
that you're gutting and defenestrating and make it impossible to
you know, respond to crises like the measles crisis or
you know, potential hurricane response and things like that. So
it's not it doesn't all cut in the direction of
Democrats being upset about this. This also creates additional political
problems for the Trump administration. We could see that from
the fallout from Doge, Like there's a reason that Doge

(31:30):
kind of ran aground because.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
The cuts felt cruel.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
It was clear to people that you were hurting services
that they relied on, and so it came with the
political price for Republicans as well.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, it'll definitely have a political price. I mean, it's
unclear to me whether these rules survive in court. I
think the law is actually like pretty I could genuinely
see it being interpreted one or the other. I don't
have like the full precedent.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, I'm not an expert on it either.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
But yeah, I don't want to dig into it. Like
you understand why if you're russ Vote and you have
a sort of long time ideological commitment to shrinking the
size of the federal government, you look at that and
you can say, actually, this is a law that could
be used in one way or the other. That's where
your point about the political consequences. It's where you're seeing
Trump move really quickly on getting the troops paid for example,

(32:21):
like that's you can that's happening right away immediately. But
the reason that Elon's alonger part of DOGE is that
people felt that his approach was totally haphazard, which obviously
it was and ineffective, and everyone sort of secretly wanted
russ Vote to be the one who was doing some
version of Doge. And here because of the shutdown and

(32:42):
because of the law that demands the government actually reduced
the spending. If there's a shutdown, then it's sort of like, hey,
here's the opportunity for russ Vote to do some type
of dose two point zero. So I mean, his argument
is that you can do these like that it won't
defenestrate the administration because these are reductive positions and all

(33:06):
of that. But right now it's I think it's actually
unclear as to whether this is a negotiating tactic to
like squeeze Democrats to come to the table, or if
it's they actually think this will survive in court. I
don't know, because when I look at the law, I
think this actually could survive in court.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
But I mean, the Supreme Court has given them everything
they've wanted by and large up to this point anyway,
mostly through so nobody's really ever done this, mostly through
the shadow Talcket. But you know, in terms of like
the Department of Education, which we could put B seven
up on the screen. They you know, they as part
of these riffs, they got rid of the entire special

(33:42):
Education Department, which really, I mean that really bothers me.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
And I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I was just thinking back Emily of like the Sarah
Palin era Republicans where they made you know, children with
disabilities like a real priority and you know, as a
pushback to what they would see as like the eugenics policy,
ease of pro choice people, and you know, the argument
that a lot of babies with disabilities are aboard, and
so there was this emphasis on so we have to

(34:08):
take care of these, you know, these children whose lives
are just as valuable and just as important as anyone else.
So I don't know, this does really really bother me.
But the thing that I would say about the overall
cuts and whether they'll be able to get away with it,
I mean, I think they probably will, because they had
already got to their Apartment of Education and said that
they're basically like winding it down. Well, you like, it's

(34:29):
very obvious legally in the past that would not be allowed.
This is a an agency that was created by an
Act of Congress. It can't be destroyed without another Act
of Congress. But the Supreme Court has not ruled on
the merits on these things. But it basically said, well,
for now, you can do it, and that just makes
that basically means you can do it. And so I

(34:50):
would expect it to be something similar here. You know,
they've done something similar with regard to what's called recision.
So basically the administration not wanting to spend funds that
were congressionally appropriated, and so the Supreme Court hasn't ruled
on the merits of that. It's a big one, but
they're just letting the administration go forward with it, using

(35:11):
the shadow docket to not really make a decision, but
let them have a free hand to do whatever it
is they want, which also sort of screws up the
ability to make any sort of deal with Democrats because,
based on the current legal landscape, Trump could come so, oh, sure,
I'll give you your health care subsidies, and then they
fund the government and go back to work, and then

(35:32):
it's like, ah, no, we're actually not going to do that,
and there's nothing to stop him from that because of
the Supreme Court basically abdicating their duty to rule on
these cases. So it does also make it, you know,
complicated in terms of striking a deal. One other thing
I'll say about I think the way Democrats are looking
at this is, yes, Doge has sort of run aground. Yes,
there'd been less energy around gutting the federal workforce over

(35:56):
the past couple of weeks. But it's not like that
any of that had stopped. We just had one hundred
thousand workers who took the fork of the road deal,
you know, officially resign what was that a week ago?
So I think Democrats, I don't think this threat is
as effective because they feel like, well, y'all were doing
this anyway, like there was nothing stopping you from doing
this anyway. This was all what was going on anyway.

(36:18):
So Okay, you caught four thousand more people. That's terrible,
that looks really bad for you, But we don't particularly
feel more pressure around that.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yeah, And I mean, as long as to your point
about Democrats feeling confident in their leverage or the reason
that they're holding out on the shutdown because it's these
healthcare subsidies that as Marjorie Taylor Green has been saying,
and we actually have this video right Crystal that we'll
play it. We'll play the Marjorie Taylor Green video and
I think the next block we have her.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
On immigration, right, didn't pull her healthcare part.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
But yeah, So she was on Tim Dillan over the
weekend basically and fleshed out more of this point that
she's been making on CNN in other places about why
the Trump administration is sort of missed the big picture
of the day to day average American chooses her own
kids as an example, we're going to see their premiums
double because of the Biden twenty twenty one subsidies being

(37:10):
lapsing at the end of the year, expiring at the
end of the year. That like the for the average
person kind of sounded like she'd been listening to our shows,
to be honest, Crystal, because the point that she makes
she should invitations open. That's right, it's an inbox. But
and the DM box actually, But all that is to say,
this argument about short term pain with the promise of

(37:31):
a long term fix, like some long term like Republicans
eventually will have the structural free market fixed to healthcare.
Just you know, trust the Republican Party. Let those subsidies lapse.
Pay double in your monthly premiums. Everything's going like that
is an insane argument to make. The other hand, for
Republicans to come to the table with Democrats on healthcare

(37:51):
subsidies for non citizens is also like Republicans are not
going to do that. They've zero incentive to do that.
So until Democrats drop that, nobody has incentive to come
to the table right now, So everything is pointing to
a continuing shutdown going further and further, and some of it,
like for example, the special education cuts they are trying
to transition the Department of Education. Basically it was already

(38:12):
the bulk of what it was doing was administering grants,
and like overseeing civil rights civil rights stuff is going
to DJ. Overseeing of the grants, including these special education grants,
goes to the Treasury Department.

Speaker 4 (38:21):
So again in theory, but that hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
And I was gonna say, yeah, I was gonna say,
like with the same thing that we were talking about
the tariff policy earlier in the show, which is that
like in theory, there is a way to do this
right coherent, it makes sense and would be a bitter
pill for the neoliberals to swallow. And in the same
way with like the theory of doge could be a
bitter pill for like the the federal unions to swallow

(38:48):
and the quote swamp to swallow and all of that.
But then you have to actually see it working in
a way that makes sense well.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
And actually Treasury was the department that gout cut the most.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Sore in the grants now and I have a few people.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
To be able to do that.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, let me just play this last piece from speaker
Mike Johnson, because this will actually set us up well
for some of the stuff that's going on in Chicago
talking about the Democrats and describing so there's this upcoming,
there's a No King's Protest two point zero coming up
that they're trying to classify as some sort of like
domestic terror event. Now, we covered the No King's protest

(39:26):
here last time, very large, very widespread.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Entirely peaceful.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
There were zero acts of even like property damage at
least that I'm aware of, and it was mostly actually
kind of like it was sort of like boomer Democrats
or it was less. You know, most of the youthful
energy on the left is around has been around Palestine.
This was more of I guess the kind of like
traditional like backbone of the Democratic Party type of people,

(39:52):
not Antifa.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
I guess that's what I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
To a women's marchie.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good way of describing so.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
And in any case, here's speaker Mike Johnson describing this
total like live resistance protest as being a hate America rally.

Speaker 8 (40:08):
We're so angry about it. I mean, you know, I'm
a very patient guy, but I have had it with
these people. They're playing games with real people's lives. The
theory we have right now, they have a Hate America
rally that's scheduled for October eighteenth on the National Mall.
It's all the pro Hamas wing and the you know,
the ANTIFA people. They're all coming out. Some of the

(40:28):
House Democrats are selling t shirts for the event, and
it's being told to us that they won't be able
to reopen the government until after that rally because they
can't face their rabid.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Base Hate America rally. That's how he's classifying it.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
I mean, from a political standpoint, it makes complete sense
that this is how Republicans are spinning it. It's funny
for me because Mike Johnson is like it was kind
of Freedom Caucus adjacent, and Republicans like this is all
tongue in cheek because they were the ones who were
intentionally shutting down the government and defending it for years
by withholding their votes. And that's technically the argument for

(41:05):
blaming Republicans for government shutdowns over the last ten plus
years has been that they were the ones withholding their votes,
which is a fair criteria if you apply it across
the board. Now the media has not applied it across
the board. In the case with Democrats. Is not to
say that anybody like this. There are different arguments for
shutting down the government. I have said over and over
again that the incentive for Democrats to shut down the

(41:26):
government here we were just talking about this Crystal is
absolutely obvious. Yeah, it's in arguable. It would have been
stupid for them to come to the table and make
a deal right away. From a political standpoint, that would
have been stupid. I thought the same thing about Republicans
during the Tea Party years. It's just funny then to
see Republicans have the moral high ground, like play act
as though they have the moral high ground and be like, listen,

(41:46):
very important things are just people need the federal government
to work. It's very reckless and irresponsible to close down
the federal government.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
The best messengers for that while they're like the end,
we're cutting pediatric cancer research by the way, I mean.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's just like they it's so stupid, Like it's also
it's just shutdowns of the dumbest thing in government. It
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
And it's also like I don't know, from the republican's perspective'
almost sort of like why don't you just give them
the healthcare subsidies? Like this is a political major political
problem for Republicans that Trump's polster Fabrizio said, you have
a looming major issue with this, and so you know
they I think again, Margie Chailli Greena, I'm sure it's
not the only one who recognizes we ran. I think

(42:28):
Trump really genuinely won primarily on cost of living, right,
That was the you know, there were others, just two
we're about to talk about immigration or whatever. There were
other things, but it was like, things are too expensive.
My life has gotten worse because I cannot afford the
groceries the way that I used to, can't.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Afford the rent. I can never buy a house.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Like the cost of living crisis really animated his election,
and you are going in the polar opposite direction of that,
Like people's premiums. Are millions of people's premiums about to
spike a lollillions of people will not be able to
afford healthcare if these subsidies you know, are taken away
and you already had the cuts from the big beautiful

(43:09):
bill that's going to kick millions of people have the
effect of kicking millions of people off of Medicaid.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
So what are you doing here?

Speaker 2 (43:16):
And by the way, you know Obviously the terriffs that
we talked about before like also cut in the opposite
direction of making life more affordable for your average person.
So it is a major political liability here that in
a sense Democrats are like trying to save them from
them themselves on but they're so adamant about not giving
the even the appearance of a win to Democrats that

(43:37):
they're unwilling to you know, their line is basically like, oh, sure,
we'll deal with that, but first you have to fund
the government. And I think for most people to the
extent that they're tuned into this like the ins and
outs of this at all, or like, well that doesn't
mean why not just deal with it now, right?

Speaker 4 (43:51):
Why why do we have to wait and take your
word for it?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Which Democrats are definitely not going to take their word
that they're then going to negotiate and fix this problem
down the road.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Well in REPUBLICA one thing that they have to be
really careful about because if this is the political conclusion
of the shutdown is like, again, I think Republicans would
be insane to give Dems what they want right now
on this question of subsidies, any subsidies going to non citizens,
just because the non citizen population has particularly exploded in
the last few years and the Republicans basically furious about that,

(44:19):
so the political incentives are not aligned for them to
come to the table on that. What Democrats can do,
after it feels like this thing is running its course
is come to the table and say we would we
want Republicans, we want to agree with Republicans that we
need these healthcare subsidies almost just going to us citizens,
like of course, like that is a responsible thing to do,

(44:41):
and then it will just be about the subsidies. As
soon as Dems given on that, it's just going to
be Republicans looking like they're saying no to those subsidies.
And so when that moment comes, like that could be
genuinely I think shutdowns don't matter in the mid terms, Yes, yeah,
but as soon as people premium spike next year, duns

(45:02):
will have a huge talking point over and over again
that this is what it was about. Ye on the
point that you were making about Trump winning on cost
of living. Another thing the right forgets is that a
lot of the cultural stuff was combined with the cost
of living stuff because it made Dems look frivolous to
be talking about identity politics when people were struggling, And
so it gets to that again where like, yes, a

(45:23):
lot of the country some of these things are like
eighty twenty issues on culture stuff. But if you look
like you're obsessed with culture stuff and not obsessed with
cost of living stuff, which is what the Dems looked
like under Biden, that does become a problem. If you
look like you're obsessed with these like ideological generational ideological
goals of like defenistrating the administrative state that don't register

(45:44):
with normy voters outside of your hardcore base, that is
a problem. And so it's I mean that they should
be aware that Dems probably will come to the table
on that question of healthcare for people who are here,
and they're the specifics we don't have to get into,
but I think them's will come to the table on that,
and then the owners will be on Republicans to just

(46:05):
hold out on the subsidies.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
Yeah, good luck on that one. Yeah yeah, well we'll say.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
I don't know, it's unclear to me how this one
is gonna play out and who's gonna break because I
think the incentives for both parties are to basically continue
in the same direction they're going.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Maybe they can, maybe they'll do like skinny bills or something.
I have no idea, but good luck to everyone. Our
government can't function, and that's the fun thing about these shutdowns.
It's just always such a reminder of the way that
we fund our government structurally is ridiculous. Mike Johnson was
on that side. He was like, we're not doing CRS anymore. Great,
that sounds good. Like I was like, oh, great, thank you, Mike.
Here we are yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
And the other thing we love about covering shutdowns is
how much like Capital Beltway, like insider language, we're.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Forced to talking abouts.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
And can Yeah, but I should mention. Chuck Schumer had
another just completely idiotic tweet where he said, like Riff Russells,
It's like, this is them leadership right now. It is
so pathetic. They have such a gift in front of them.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
I mean, poor Bernie, like the man cannot rest. They're like,
you can do this, Like you're good at messaging on this,
like just go do your thing.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
These he and AOC are really carrying the load for
decent messaging here.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
They in cable. How keeps you? How keeps you? How
keep Jeffrey's in turch are incapable of carrying the torch. Incapable.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
All right, let's get to MTG, who we've teased like
a million times here now, and I pulled this one.
I thought was particularly interesting because she said a lot
at this point about you know, she's obviously talked about
the Epstein files. She's talked about the horror and Gaza,
describing it as a genocide. She's talked about healthcare in
the context of the shutdown and insurance premiums going up

(47:50):
and that market being broken. But this was the first
time that I'd seen her create any daylight between herself
and the Trump administration with regard to their immigration policy.
And I found that to be really noteworthy. Let's go
ahead and take a listen to a little bit of
Marjorie Taylor Green with Tim Dillon.

Speaker 9 (48:06):
As a conservative and as a business owner in the
construction industry and as a realist, I can say, we
have to do something about labor, and that needs to
be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single
person and deporting them just like that. So, and I'm
going to get pushed back on that, but it's I'm

(48:27):
just living in reality from here on out. Yeah, and
if I'm if anybody's mad at me for saying the truth,
then I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
I'm curious, Emily, what you made of her comments, because
I know we both watch the whole thing. And she said, look,
we have to live in reality. The truth of the
matter is that over decades, our workforce has been built
around this like these are my words, not hers, but
this like exploitable undocumented population, and you can't just flip
a switch and expect this all to like work out.

(48:56):
And she also expressed, like Tim Dillon was talking about,
you know, this is horrible. See I said, like high
school graduations pulling people out, and she's like, yeah, that
is hard to watch.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
So he was expressing moralhorn.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
She sort of took it to you know, my experience
in the construction industry is like this is just not real,
really realistic what we're.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Doing here, which I thought was kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yeah, and people are sharing that clip without having I
think watched the full version of it. Their conversation was real.
Like I would recommend the full episode of Tim Dillon
Show to people who are curious because it's a very
interesting conversation. It gets a lot of the theme that
we've been hitting on over and over in the show,
which is that like, even if some of Maga's kind
of quote draining the swamp policies are ideologically defensible or

(49:39):
coherent from a populist perspective, the execution of them is
it's processed versus direction. And when the process is annoying
Marjorie Taylor Green to the point where she's questioning whether
the direction is worth it, whether it's.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
It's no squish certainly on immigration, no.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
No, yeah. And so this this clip is getting taken
as my Andreie Taylor Green saying listen, labor costs are
getting too high, and that's actually not what she was saying.
She was saying the problem is that right now there
has been no off ramp. She uses the phrase off
ramp very specifically. Another reason I think she listens to
our show because we use that phrase all of the time,
that like, if you don't have an off ramp here,

(50:18):
then the policy end goal. I mean, when you think
about millions of new people entering the labor force in
three years, I think the neo libs are insane to
act as so that had zero influence on wages, especially
like the bottom, particularly maybe exclusively at the bottom of
wage teer, Like, I think that's just obvious that it
probably did.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Although in fairness, actually during the Biden administration, the lowest
wage tier was the group of people who were seeing
their wages increase the most towards the end of the
Biden administration that we're outpacing inflation that has now reversed
in the Trump administration, And.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
I would argue probably a lot of that was from
Biden subsidies.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
I'm sure that is definitely part of it. Yeah, but
it cuts against the argument that having you know, a
larger number of undocuments undocumented immigrants was like a massive problem. Now,
I do think it's an issue when you have people
who are being paid under the table, because yeah, they
will be they'll be cheap, they'll be exploitable, you won't
have to adhere to labor laws. That's why I think
people need to be brought out of the shadows. That's,

(51:16):
you know, my solution to that problem. But I think,
you know, your point is a salient one.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
She's basically saying, like, hey, we have to have a
process that makes sense, that's coherent. She's not saying, yes,
please bring in millions of more workers that can undercut
American wages. She's just saying, if you're going to do
the thing, do it in a way that makes sense.
Which again we've talked about that today with tariffs, we've
talked about that today with China policy, like it's obviously

(51:42):
the and we've talked about that with Doge. It's the
recurring theme is that like, even if you are an
ideological conservative, the process, the haphazard process over the first
ten months of the second Trump administration is even wearing
on Marjorie Taylor Green, who is not. She says this
very clear. She's like, she has not waivered one bit
on these policy ends. It's the means that she's questioning

(52:04):
in this kind of grand cost benefit analysis of whether
the cost of this haphazard process is worth the benefit
of the end that she hasn't wavered from ideologically. But
Vin I think Crystal, I think people should be aware
of is just like thinking about people suddenly saying, oh,
Marjorie Taylor Green has changed again. If you think that,
you should go back to her original run for the

(52:24):
House in Georgia and look at how similar exactly what
she's saying is over and over again. Healthcare is a
part of her origin story, as it is for many
people who got activated during the Obama years and the
Tea Party years. She talked to Megan Kelly a couple
of months ago about how she saw her father's company
that she stepped into like being crippled after Obamacare's small
business provisions became really difficult for a lot of small businesses.

(52:46):
So it's not like none of this is like new
for Marjorie Taylor Green. It's just more and more politicians.
Thomas Massey's another good example of this. They're realizing where
the incentives are and the incentives are. She said over
and over again on Tim Dillon, be honest, and you
can take that for what it's worth. You can say
she's not being honest, she's being calculated, she's being cynical.

(53:07):
I think if you watch all of her interviews recently,
she's literally just speaking her mind and not letting any
of those talking points get in anymore. There's some Democrats
who are good at doing this too, but that's what
she's like. You can say that it's honest or whatever,
but like it's maybe you believe it's cynical, and even
if it was cynical. It would still make sense to
at least act like you're being honest and spontaneous in

(53:28):
these conversations because the incentives are aligning against party talking points. Yeah,
and some people are gonna get really good at delivering
party talking points in a way that makes them not
sound like talking points. I think Jade Vance is somebody
who does that right now on podcasts, like when he
was on THEO Vaughn. But they're losing control, and they'll
find new ways to get control and to get people

(53:50):
like Marjorie Tayler Green in line. But that's what's happening
right now. It's actually a huge shift in the way
politicians are talking to constituents and voters.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
There's been a lane opened up on the right that
didn't really exist in the first Trump term. Everybody, most
of right wing media was just like, go Trump, Trump's great.
It's all like there was more cohesive.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
Towing of the line. Now you've got you got Candace
you know who I mean.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Canda is the perfect example because in Trump one point, oh,
she was on the team, like she was fully, she
was in the White House, she was doing the things.
She was you know, hosting events for them, and she
was fully on the talking points. And so you've got
you know, you've got Candace Nick Twentez obviously huge voice
on the right, Tucker being another one who you know,
I mean, Tucker's kind of interesting because he very rarely

(54:37):
actually turns around directly criticizes Trump, but he's been critical
of some of the Trump administration actions. And so there's
been a space that has been created which had already
existed on the left because of like the Bernie media
and the way that ecosystem is very critical of the
Democratic Party from the left. Now you have an equivalent
thing on the right, where there's an ability to be
critical of the Trump administration from the right or from

(55:00):
you know, coming at it from a war I guess, right,
populist perspective. Steve Bannon even you know, you could put
in that category. At the end of the day, he's
always going to back up Donald Trump, but you know,
getting to those decisions, he's going to put pressure in
a variety of different ways. So I think that that
space opening up is it's a natural fit for Marjorie
Taylor Green, who I do think, you know the fact

(55:21):
that she wasn't a career politician yes, and it was
just like a mega Facebook mom sharing weird conspiracies. Like
she's kind of legit in that way in a way
that a lot of other mega politicians aren't and are
just like playing, you know, like Ronda Santis was always
like playing a role to try to do the thing. Yes,
I think she genuinely comes out of that space and

(55:42):
is a little more in touch with where like actual
MAGA and her constituents are than some other politicians.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Up and she was making that case on Tim Dillon
and like, if it sounds like we're glazing Marjorie Taylor
Green right now, it's actually just like she's a very
interesting case study. That's the way to put it, right. Yeah,
she's a really I was reading Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves
to Death over the weekend and he was sort of
lamenting the rise of Ronald Reagan in the age of
TV and looking back, he was like, well, William Howard
Taft could never have been elected in the age of

(56:10):
TV because he was so like obscenely obese, although probably
by our standards today he was not that obscenely abeast,
but anyway, we'll leave that aside. And what he was
saying is basically that because of the way the mediums
shape our politics. He's building off mccoohan, and he's saying
that changes that These changes not just where we say things,

(56:31):
but what we're actually saying. It's not just how we're
saying things, it changes the essence of what we actually say.
And so with TV it did give something to the
actors who were able to do these very inspirational, almost
script worthy cinematic deliveries. And now in the age of
smartphone cameras, which is the most intimate thing in the

(56:53):
world because everybody has one and everyone can look like
a politician, you don't need cinematography anymore to look like
the average politicians video because the filming on smartphone cameras
and that has created an incentive for people who are
smart enough to actually try to capitalize on it, or
cynical enough to actually try to capitalize it, or sincere
enough to actually try to capitalize on it, whether you're

(57:14):
Zorammdani or you know, maybe you think Martin Tillgren's instance,
you're fine, but like they understand that right now what
people want to see is not talking points, it's not scripts,
it's none of the production it's not the cinematography, and
that's not just changing. You can be, you know, an
establishment hack in film, a smartphone video. It doesn't hit

(57:35):
the same way because you're not changing the substance of
what you say, and the substance of what you say
has to feel a lot more raw, unpolished, real and unscripted,
and it's not always going to be, but has to
feel that way.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Yeah, I think the cynical take would be that she's
positioning herself for a presidential run in twenty twenty eight
in a post Trump world, and I think that's certainly possible.
Is worth saying, though, that her position on Isra in particular,
which is an area where I would say she has
definitely changed. You know, she was voting lockstep on all
the Israel and condemned anti Semitism and censure. She just

(58:08):
leever was she would doing all that stuff up until
very recently, and look, a lot of people have changed
their position on Israel over the past. Again, that would
be reflective of some of the Republican magabase that she
would be in touch with. But in any case, the
point I want to make, in terms of her immediate
political prospects, she creates a risk and danger for herself
with those positions, because you know, she runs in a

(58:30):
very red district. She only has to worry about challenges
from her right, and you know, very possible that Apak
funds some candidate against her tune of millions of dollars
and she has to contend with a genuine threat there.
She's pissed off the Trump administration. They're not happy with
her because of you know, her being honest about or
you know, what her views are at this point, and

(58:51):
she's article a certain way.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
She's arguably the best small donor small dollar fundraiser in
all of Congress, which would make an a pack bit
against her fascinating interesting because he has powers like AOC
and Bernie when it comes to entrump when it comes
to small dollar fundraising, and that means she has a
lot of average people who send her a dollar from
around the country. So that would make it pretty pretty

(59:12):
amusing to watch APAC try to take her down. And
maybe they could do it, but yeah, a primary, I
don't know, maybe they maybe Randy Fine moves to the district.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
God, that would be an earthquake him moving into the district.
What's too much time with Lyle.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
You're spending too much time with Lyle. Do not doc,
do not knock. Okay, if you don't get that, Restierence,
go watch this gotch Friday.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
One of the things that, of course is interesting about
Marjorie Taylor Green here and the political moment we're in
is that it was up until now Democrats who really
were kind of on the back foot on immigration, and
now Republicans are having to answer for a lot. So
I'm going to show you a few different videos. I
want to give you a picture of what's happening on
the ground in Chicago and some of the absolute insanity

(01:00:03):
that is unfolding here. The first one, that's the local
news report about ice picking up this autistic fifteen year
old who reportedly has the capabilities of roughly like a
four year old, who was there with this family working
at their stand and then went to go to the
bathroom and they kidnapped him and did not let the
family know. Family couldn't find him for days. Let's go
ahead and take a listen to this report.

Speaker 10 (01:00:24):
The boy was here at this intersection in Spring Branch
with his mom and sister selling fruit when he disappeared.
And here's the information we just learned in the last
thirty minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
Take a look at this.

Speaker 10 (01:00:34):
So the boy has autism and is sometimes nonverbal, and
he disappeared last Saturday. He's fifteen years old, but his
social worker says he has the mindset of a four
to five year old, so they were very worried about
his safety. The mom said around three pm on October four,
she was with a customer selling fruit when her son

(01:00:54):
asked him or asked her to use the restroom, and
when she turned around, he was gone. Missing person report
with Houston Police, and earlier today, feel Houston held a
press conference with the family, begging for the public's help
to find him. Now today police notified the family that
the boy was found safe. Fael Houston said a law

(01:01:15):
enforcement agency found him and he's been at the Office
of Refugee Resettlement Children's detention Centers since Monday. The family
is undocumented and they're trying to get him released from
ice custody. And I'm told that the mom just had
a FaceTime conversation with her son in the last thirty
minutes and is thankful he is alive and hopes to
be reunited with him soon.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
So obviously I mean, I don't know how you defend
that completely indefensible picking up this child who has a
significant disability, not notifying the family still being held in custody,
just absolute insanity. And there's more where that came from.
We can put this next one up on the screen.
So there have been a number of instances of these

(01:01:58):
car accidents.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
You can see here. Ice is in this white, white
silver vehicle.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Rams into that car, begins to pull off bystanders who
are recording, say hit and run, hit and run, and
then they jump out. I'm saying ice, by the way
loosely here. I don't even actually know what There's a
variety of federal agencies on the ground, so I'm just
using ice as a blanket term. Then they come to
this car that they rammed and pull this lady out
by her legs.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
She was apparently just trying to get to work.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Her This is a US citizen, guys, by the way,
US citizen who happened to be wrong place, wrong time,
gets hit by these federal goons and then gets pulled
out and arrested. Her sister said that she had been
fresh out of surgery, just cleared for work a month ago.
They held her in detention for hours. The sister says
they brutally dragged her out of car at gunpoint. We

(01:02:49):
had to run all around the area just to find her. So,
you know, just total like total insanity here, incredibly dangerous
crashing into this car, and then they were.

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
Just going to do the hit and run.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
When we got called out on that, they're like, all right, well,
let me go back and pretend like I have a
reason to arrest this ladies a US citizen.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Ultimately, Emily, this is a really really really bad situation.
And that sounds like a kind of obvious way to
put it, but I just want to make the point
that it's not just a bad situation because of Ice.
I'm going to get back to that. I think it
is a bad situation because of Ice, to be very clear. Yeah,
but also because imagine these you're given these different tasks,

(01:03:31):
jobs whatever by Christinoum higher ups at DHS, and there
was just a shooting in Dallas, people trying to someone
apparently trying to take out ICE, who took out two migrants.
There had been efforts to go after the ICE guys,
and so I'm saying all of that to emphasize that
they are trigger happy. And I don't just mean that literally.

(01:03:54):
I mean that when they're driving in cars and they
see somebody who they think is maybe obstructing them or whatever,
they are now like on razor's edge, and that's a
super super dangerous situation.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Especially well, and many of them like pretty untrained, you know,
they dramatically reduced the amount of training these guys have
to get. They've been operating with total impunity. So I
mean it reminds me a little of, like, you know,
not to equate the situation, but reminds me of IDF
who have been, you know, recording their war crimes and

(01:04:26):
acting with total impunity. And it just feels the sense
of like, you know, here I am, big, bad, tough guy,
all kitted out with my gun and with the federal
government saying go ahead, you know. And I mean we saw,
like I think a really important development was there was
a video that came out of one I think it
was Ice throwing this lady, grabbing her hair and throwing

(01:04:47):
this lady on the ground at a courthouse in New York.
He was initially put on leave, and then within a
week they're like, no, you're fine, you can go back.
I mean that sends a message to everyone of like, no,
you can you can do whatever you want, you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
Can get away with it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
So the type of people who would be attracted to
the job at this point too, Like think of the
type of people who would watch this sort of thing
or know that you're like zip time children and you know,
picking up grandmas and arresting autistic fifteen year olds, and
you're like, yes, that's the job for me. You know,
that's the type of person that is being attracted to
this line of work at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
It's a really like it's just very, very dangerous, and
I think it's not I think everyone's senses right now
that it's all getting worse by the day. It's not
in any way getting better by the day. And I
wasn't saying what I was saying to suggest that people
shouldn't protest ice or shouldn't do activism like whatever. I'm
not saying that at all. I'm just I was just
explaining that, like when we see some of these confrontations,

(01:05:46):
it's partially that to Crystal's point, these guys have been
operating with the complete and total backing, like no matter
what happens, and they also feel like they're in danger
and under threat for whatever. Like sometime that's for good reasons.
Sometimes it's maybe for a BS reason. But this is
like a recipe for disaster and the leadership from ICE.

(01:06:08):
And this is to get back to the part of
this that actually is seriously problematic. It's that by the
New York Times ascount looking at least fifteen US citizens
that have been detained or arrested so far. I think
that number is probably higher that was ones that they
were able to verify as of last week. I think
that numbers probably higher. I assume it's gotten even higher
in the last week because of Chicago in particular, if

(01:06:32):
people are paying attention to what's happening in the UK
right now, Cure Starmer has this digital ID push partially
because his justification is partially because people want to crack
down on a legal immigration. Well, what does that create
a situation where if you are a conservative, especially if
you're like a civil libertarian, this is an opportunity for

(01:06:53):
mas surveillance and for more power to the federal government,
for more of a police state, for more surveillance. They
have these huge contracts with Palenteer right now. Obviously which
is shifting through mountains of data. And if you don't
think that US citizens are being caught up in that
drag net, I mean, I don't know what to say.
On the other hand, this gets back to the process

(01:07:14):
versus direction thing Directionally, the last year the Biden administration,
they said there were what eighty thousand arrests of non
citizens on criminal charges that weren't immigration related, so assaults,
those types of things, murders in some cases, And that
does exist, Like, that's just during the Biden administration. Eighty
thousand people in one year. They do have a job

(01:07:35):
to do, Like there is actually a legitimate law enforcement
aspect when you have this explosion, even if you didn't
have the explosion, but with the explosure in the last
several years, does anybody think that that's actually more effective
right now?

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Well, and that's a very key point because the polar
opposite is actually happening.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Instead of resources going to, okay, let's go after the
Yang leaders, right, let's go after the drug traffickers, the
resources have been shifted to let's go raid the home depot,
let's go raid the seven eleven, let's go you know,
into let's go surge into Chicago just because we don't
like JB. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson and try to create

(01:08:17):
some sort of a confrontation. Let's raid an entire apartment
building with Blackhawk helicopters detaining mostly American citizens to get
you know, they claimed that there were some thirty seven
people arrested. By the way, we haven't gotten any details.
I mean, that's another key point that I want you
guys to take in. You cannot believe a word these
people say. You have to verify literally everything they say,

(01:08:38):
because there was you know, we've had instance after instance
guy an immigrant shot and killed that they lied about
the circumstances of an American citizens shot five times. They've
already been caught in lies with regard to how that
all went down. There was another video that I didn't
include in our lineup here, but of a fifteen year
old who was being arrested and they claimed no, no, no,

(01:08:59):
this was from months ago and she was part of robberies. No. Actually,
people went and like there she is in ice custody
and were able to ascertain that the details matched what
activists were saying and not remotely what DHS was saying.

Speaker 4 (01:09:14):
So that's say.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
The thing is they will just lie, like brazenly, blatantly lie,
even with the Venezuela like drug boats, zero proof that
any of them had drugs. One of them now has
come out wasn't even from Venezuela. It was a Colombian national.
So you know, that's the other thing you're contending with
here is just the way that they will invent their
own reality to justify the things that are totally unjustifiable.

(01:09:37):
And here we have another instance of that, perfect setup
for this next piece. So this is a reporter for
a local reporter who she's a camera woman, camera woman, okay,
and who was arrested here in a very aggressive manner.
And what DHS had originally said was that she had
been throwing objects at ice and that she was arrested

(01:09:59):
effectively for assaulting these law enforcement officers. Well, lo and behold,
she was released with no charges. So you tell me
whether that really happen or not. So they arrest the
reporter and then they swipe another car on the way
out and just take off, and let's put C five
up on the screen just to confirm what I was
saying before release no charges. After they said that, oh,

(01:10:22):
she'd been assaulting law enforcement officers. And this comes emily
after there'd been a court decision saying, hey, you have
to like people will have their right to protest and
journalists need to be protected. There was also a ruling
about they've been just pepper spraying basically anyone and everything,
including that pastor that we showed last week. And there

(01:10:43):
was another ruling saying, hey, you can't just indiscriminately use
these riot control methods. People have to be allowed to
exercise their First Amendment rights. None of those rulings seems
to be slowing them down at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
So and in this case, it's a i think a
helpful example because there's a flurry of these videos coming
out every day on social media and they're not I mean,
they're obviously being used as political footballs. But in this case,
there was a video that came out that did make
it look like something had been thrown in the direction
of the ice vehicle. It's very strange. It just like

(01:11:16):
how someone just was she just standing on the street,
like right, It's like it does look like something is
thrown at the ice vehicle. That said the chart they
did not. They obviously didn't have enough evidence to make
that stick. Otherwise you know that they would have kept
there and made a stick. Yeah, So the same thing
has happened a couple of times. So, for example, there
was this video going viral of an ICE agent saying

(01:11:39):
to a US citizen, turn around or you're getting the dog.
Turn around or you're getting the dog. Uh. If you
are a conservative, that should that should send chills down
your spine. This US citizen presented their driver's license, according
to the attorney, presented their driver's license to ICE, yep,
and still ended up being detained, which is the easiest

(01:12:00):
thing in the world to verify if someone is a
US citizen in a case like that. On the other hand,
I have seen videos go viral where you don't see
the part where someone is trying to like actually obstruct
or whatever. So it's these things are going everywhere. But
at the same time, I would just say for people
on the right who are looking at some of this stuff,

(01:12:21):
watch the full video, read the full news coverage of
some of these cases, because you will find some really
ugly stuff in the surface.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
And you can't like the same way you were skeptical
of the government when it was Joe Biden be skeptical,
Please do not take these peopils. And I feel the
same like I think this administration is extreme in the
way that they will just brazenly lie about something we
can all watch with our own eyes. But your job
as an informed citizen, and certainly our job as journalists,
is to be skeptical of government claims and to not

(01:12:53):
just accept them at face value, which is also a
lesson that most of the news media needs to take
as well. In any case, I've got one more here
for you, which is another US citizen.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
I had right about this guy's case, and he, you know,
went on with Tim Miller over the Bulwark podcast to
talk about his experience. So this year's a This is
a US veteran, Okay, American citizen who was on his
way to work at a farm. He works security at
this farm, and there were apparently like protests in the
area and there was some ice action in the area,

(01:13:26):
and so he pulls up and he's trying to talk
to the ice agents, say hey, I'm just trying to
get to work here, and I'll let him describe what
then ensues. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 11 (01:13:34):
They put me on suicide watch, and they put me
in this. They put me in the cell. I'm naked
in like a hospital dress and just a concrete bed
with like a mattress, like a thin mattress, and they
leave the light on twenty four to seven. There's a
glass door and officers just always standing like sitting out

(01:13:54):
there as the psychiatric nurse comes and checks on me
once a day. And so from Friday morning to Sunday
afternoon when I'm released, I'm literally on in that cell, naked,
just in that room, like this is a nightmare. I Like, yeah,
I was. Just the entire time I was in there,

(01:14:16):
I was just hoping, like like I would just want
to see my kids again, Like literally, that's the only
thing that matters, Like I literally just want to see
my kids.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Does your family know where you were?

Speaker 11 (01:14:27):
Like all they knew was that I was arrested by
ice and that was it. They didn't know where they
took me. They didn't know where I was.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
So he's there trying to get to work.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Okay, He's trying to talk to the ice or whoever
else is on the scene, like, hey, that that's my place.
I'm not trying to for I'm just trying to get
to work they give them. They surround his car aggressively,
like agent son all side, and then they're giving him
all these contradictory directions get out of the car, go forward,
back up, and so he's trying to comply.

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
They spread tear gas. Tear gas is filling up his car.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
He's having trouble seeing, he's trying to travel, navigating away.
They go away for a while, and then as he's
trying to exit, they come back and surround his car
again and break his window open and you know, aggressively
arrest him. And then this again, American citizen held four days,
no phone call to his family, no phone call to
a lawyer, no nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:15:23):
You hear the degrading treatment.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
He was subjected to, to put on suicide watch, forced
in this you know cell with a glass door, naked
for days. And he was like, my idea is literally
in the car that you drag me from, like I
can show you and doesn't matter, Like this is so
if you think this just stays with immigrants or people

(01:15:46):
that you think this would be acceptable to be done to,
which you know, like that's a whole other conversation. It
doesn't We already have so many instances of the way
that they will just snatch up any American citizen who
they don't like gets in their way or looks a
little too brown, or is it the wrong job site
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
It's yeah, this guy is a veteran. This guy put
on the uniform.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
Yeah, serve the country or country yep.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
And it's another case where citizenship should have been easy
to verify. I get that this was a big braid.
You know, this raid actually did. And it's it's sort
of like the South Side apartment building that we were
talking about earlier Crystal there. If you if you read
people who had lived there for a long time, they
pretty much like there's some good reporting that it had

(01:16:32):
an obvious gang problem, that it was like a place
where legitimately probably is room for ice activity. And it
sounds like it's the same place. It was the same
case in the situation, although not for a criminal perspective,
but from a like a just a non citizens and yeah,
or maybe they had a silent I don't know, but

(01:16:53):
whatever it was, it sounds like there were people who
were non citizens that were working there, that the ice
was whatever, Like you cannot do that in a way
that over and over again repeatedly is detaining US citizens now,
like that is what we have seen in multiple occasions.
So if you're going to do it, if we were
talking about those eighty thousand arrests criminal arrests during the

(01:17:14):
Biden administrations of not the last year the Biden administration,
and it was similar numbers every year over the last
few years. So if you have that many criminals in
the country, legitimate criminals in the country, you are hurting
efforts to actually do that by making the entire process

(01:17:35):
less legitimate, whether it just looks less legitimate, whether you
end up legally like putting those efforts in jeopardy, whatever
it is, it's wrong to do this to US citizens
without verifying what they're telling you, which is that they're
US citizens. There's no reason that he should have been
kept as long as he was. There's no reason that
another person when he handed the officer's ID should have

(01:17:56):
ended up in detention like these are just it's stupid,
and it is to undermine any like credibility or any
public support there is for actually going after criminals, because
people are going to say, well, we don't trust that
you're actually going after criminals.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Look at all, there I mean, the drug trafficking convictions
under this administration way down, Human trafficking convictions under this
administration way down.

Speaker 4 (01:18:20):
Because as a percentage, no in total members.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Because not only do you have Steven Miller can put
this next piece up on the screen, who is confirmed
running the show here and also directing a lot of
our foreign policy. According to this CNN report, which I
don't think will be surprised to anyone, but they lay
out that within the administration they call him the prime minister,
which you know, in most systems with a prime minister
in a president, like if you think about Israel for example,

(01:18:45):
Benjamin Atniolo is the prime minister.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
He is the driving force.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
But in any case, you know what Steven Miller has prioritized,
not just with ICE, but with DHS overall, with CBP,
with the with FBI, is to push them all into
these shows of force at you know, farm raids and
home depot raids and whatever. So if you're pulling FBI

(01:19:10):
after off of legitimate casework to send them in to
like you know, get kitted up and rate a farm
or whatever, right, right, of course you're going to have
less actual law enforcement going after the bad guys, and
that's in fact what we have seen. So even though
they the language they use is about criminals and going
after the worst of the worst and all of this,

(01:19:31):
the realities the polar opposite of that, because of where
they've put their resources are about going out you know,
the fruit stand vendor or the autistic child of the
fruit stand vendor, rolling up on schools at pickup time,
and those sorts of things. That's where they've pushed their resources,
rather than the more tedious and difficult casework that is

(01:19:51):
required to actually go after the you know, the violent
criminals and the bad guys you would want them to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
It's such a mess. I mean, that's sounds obvious.

Speaker 6 (01:19:59):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
It's just a mess, and maybe it actually does. I
shouldn't say that because maybe it doesn't sound obvious, because
I think that's part of what bothers me about a
lot of this a the immorality than b I feel
like they're taking advantage of to some extent, conservatives who
just believe, Like Marjorie tay Green said this in a
way too. She was like, he's there are people who

(01:20:22):
waited in line for these rallies in the cold, and
you know, like they they're the ones that are now
being given the back seat to you know, people in
Trump's orbit who maybe hated him before or like spent
money in the case of like Mark Zuckerberg to defeat him.
And there are a lot of those average people who

(01:20:43):
put their trust in this administration not to create more
of a surveillance state and to create more lawless federal enforcement,
and not to detain you as It's like, they put
their trust in the administration, and I get like, I don't.
This is why I don't put any trust in any politician,
and that's probably why I'm in media and journalism. It's

(01:21:04):
probably the same with you, Chris, Like I don't trust
people in positions of power, but people did trust them.
And it just feels like, I know a lot of
people support tough immigration enforcement, and I understand where that
comes from, of course, but when you dig into a
lot of these stories, it's farcical what ends up happening

(01:21:25):
with again, veterans, people who serve the country, who are
US citizens. Yeah, it just it just obviously sucks. So
it's they're taking advantage of well intentioned people who trust them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
Yeah, And I think Zorn said this, and I think
this was well said, is like, this is what's being
given to people in lieu of dealing with the cost
of living crisis, in lieu of like delivering for them economically.
Is like, we'll give you an ASMR video of people
being deported. We'll give you, you know, a show of
force and a blue city that you may think is
like Scarier where you don't like the political leadership. That's

(01:21:58):
basically what people are being fed in lieu of actually
bringing down prices and addressing their economic needs. One last note,
I just wanted to mention about that Steven Miller piece
from CNN, which is interesting for this block but also
just an interesting thing for us to know going forward
and to take note of, is that basically Stephen Miller

(01:22:18):
is more and Miller and Rubio are more important for
Department of Defense policy than hegxth and so here's the line.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
They say.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
Pentagon officials now routinely present Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio
with operational options and relevant data. They then decide what
to do with it and work directly with chairmen and
Joint chiefs of Staff Dan Caine to execute their military plans,
said the source who characterized the two men as far
more involved than Pete Hegseth in deciding how the military
is used.

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