12/18/25: Trump Blames Economy On Biden, Trump Venezuela WMD Lies, Epstein Files, Healthcare Costs Spike

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump blames Biden for economy, Thomas Massie blasts Trump Venezuela lies, Congress flees ahead of Epstein files, healthcare premiums spike.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an
amazing show for Abudy today. What do we have, Crystal?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Indeed, we do so a lot to get into. So
yesterday we got word that President Trump was going to
give a speech in the evening the show to be
all these rumors from Tucker Carlson and others that he
was going to announce a direct attack on Venezuela.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Sour was very upset.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Then he ends up giving this like weird speech on
the economy and announcing some things that we're going to
talk about that. We're going to also talk about the
continued possibility of direct war with Menushela. We're gonna have
Rocana here, which is huge because he's been leading the
way on Venezuela war powers resolutions.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
And also the.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Epstein files are set to be released tomorrow and Row
of course has been really leading the charge there as well.
So really looking forward to speaking with him about what
we can expect and what the consequences will be if
they do not release everything that they're supposed to release.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
So we've got that.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
We have Republicans defecting from Mike Johnson and joining the
Democrats on healthcare and kind of things in disarray there.
Trump also making some comments about healthcare yesterday evening. We
have some wild comments from Trump and from Burriam Addilson,
basically her like openly bribing him in public to run
for an unconstitutional third term with the help of other
Zionist Alan Drshowitz and Epstein associate.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
So that's a lot to get into.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
We also have some new plaques installed at the White
House which are pretty much the pettiest thing of old time.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
We will show you that.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Give you a little update on the White House ballroom
as well, which I know.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
You guys are all really excited about.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
And meanwhile, Candace Owens met with Erica Kirk went on
her show her audience reaction. She also joined peers Morgan
and talk to him about it as well. There's a
whole lot going on there in terms of, you know,
within the right sort of intro right party conflicts that
we'll get into that one say.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
That's your fund your tabloid update here from breaking Points,
but of course you know it is.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Actually it's consequential.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, it's consequential.

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That's right.

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Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, we're going to We're trying to give you know,
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as we can. At the same time, if there are
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(03:26):
to the crew here. Thank you to you Sagur and
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Speaker 6 (03:49):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Coming up on the holiday season, we are all thinking
about you as we go into it.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So with that, we're going to go ahead and jump
into the show.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
As Crystal said, a lot of speculation there about Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela.
I was personally skeptical of the entire time.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Yeah, he was all yesterday. I was like, I don't know, guys,
all I think.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
So yeah, sometimes people get a little ahead of their
skis and social media and all that goes wild. And
I'm telling you, I spent a lot of the time
on the phone yesterday and everyone was like, dude, I
don't know where this Venezuela thing is coming from. They're like,
it's pretty much going to be a campaign speech, and
lo and behold.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
That's exactly what happened.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
So here were the very first thing out of Donald
Trump's mouth, you knew you were off to the races.
He was one minute late, by the way, which I
every minute after nine pm. I was counting because I
still was way past my bedtime and I had to
stay up for this shit.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
So this is what we had eleven months ago.

Speaker 7 (04:35):
I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it. When I
took office, inflation was the worst in forty eight years,
and some would say in the history of our country,
which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making
life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
So there was a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Basically, it was about what twenty minutes or so. It
was basically a campaign speech. You could have ripped it
out of anything a build, as an oval office address.
The high level is basically Trump and the White House
are deeply frustrated about their economy, poll numbers, period, end
of story. That's why Trump recently went to Pennsylvania he
did his affordability speech. JD. Van Actually he went to

(05:16):
my wife's hometown, Allentown, Pennsylvania, to go and to give
a speech similarly, to try and make a pitch some
of these more swinger swinging county like areas which voted
for Donald Trump this time around but.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Previously had voted for Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
A lot of people not really buying it didn't particularly
go off all that well. This is where the infamous
eight plus plus plus plus comments are beginning to make
the rounds. And so my top level analysis was, and yeshar,
I'll e twittter this, I'll take credit for. His take
is like a politician who's angry that he's not getting
the credit that he wants and decides to try and
to give a speech to recorrect the record, and yet

(05:54):
pretty much everybody else can just be like, Okay, that's nice.
But as he said in the beginning eleven months ago,
it's like, dude, it's just been a long time. Yeah,
you don't try imagine being Joe Biden as he tried
eleven months into his presidency to try and blame it
on Donald Trump, which he did, and everyone was like, yeah, man,
we're over that.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Like you've just been in power for too long.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, that's right, And especially with how aggressive Trump has
been in making his own moves and really taking credit
for what he claims, is this a plus plus plus economy?

Speaker 4 (06:21):
The speech was weird.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm curious, do you think that the venezuela thing was
a plant? I saw people speculating that like they wanted
that planet in the media so that the networks would
all cover the speech.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
You don't think so, No, I'm telling you that was
entirely a creation of social media. Nobody at the White
House ever once told anyone sause you had the reason.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I took it possibly seriously at Tucker saying that's one thing.
But then you had anti war dot Com, which I mean,
they're responsible, you know, journalists, the broken significant stories, they
have good sources in this administration, et cetera, saying they
had heard the same thing. And so I was like, yeah,
maybe everyone was checking the like kind of gone pizza
tracker and all that. And of course they've been made
all kinds of noises about Venezuela. I mean, that's still

(07:02):
very much a live issue, and Trump announcing this like
blockade of sanctioned quote unquote Venezuela oil tankers.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I mean, the speech itself was strange because it was
very rushed, like his ordinary cadence.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
He was talking really fast.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
It was sort of like rushed and angry and frustrated
was the vibe. And I mean, I guess that's the
appropriate vibe, because I think that is how he feels
of like, you know, why aren't people giving me credit
for this amazing economy because he just looks at the
stock mart.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
He's like, all the stock market's been so high.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Things are so great for him and his friends who
were like, you know, looting the treasury and like making
all these corrupt global business deals, but still out of
touch with where your average American is. And so you had,
you know, just him trying to make the case and
using all his normal, like you said, campaign talking points.
He also floated, and this was an interesting one as well.

(07:56):
He said they're going to use the tariff revenue to
cut service members a check.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
And that's noteworthy too.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
And I think could also be you know, responsible for
some of the timing here, because the Supreme Court is
probably set imminently to strike down those terraffs.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
So then what and I.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Mean, I think Trump has authority with tariff revenue to
just like do what he wants because it's a little
bit outside of the purview of Congress, which has always
been I think one of the things that he liked
about the terraffs and having all of these high terrafts
that gives him money that he can personally play with.
But then if you're promising something to service members and
then with knowledge that the Supreme Court is going to
strike that down, like that money is not going to

(08:37):
go back go out. You're going to have to actually
pay that some money back to you know, companies that
have been paying these terrifts. It's all I think that's
part of it too.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
It's so up in the air right now.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, So to explain, Trump announce something called a Warrior
diving in which would be seventeen seventy six dollars for
every active duty American service member. I don't know is
that especially after the shutdown when you had the guys
who were literally to form having to go to a
food bank.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Right, it's disgusting.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
So we got one point something million people who are
in uniform. I think they should get paid a lot more.

Speaker 8 (09:05):
Now.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
That said, as you with the tariffs, like you're talking about,
and this gets in the weeds, but it is important.
The Supreme Court is likely to rule that the tariffs
were unconstitutional or to strike them down. Now, there are
multiple different return scenarios. So one scenario currently being contemplated
by Internal Washington is that only the plaintiffs in that

(09:27):
suit would get a.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Refund because it would be unfeasible.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
The government would argue, we can't give back all of
these hundreds of millions of dollars.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
By the way, this happened to me recently.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
I ordered something from Japan and I had to pay tariffs,
So like, how would they even facilitate that?

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Would they give me a refund on my credit card?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Like how? You know, it's just I mean, imagine multiplying
that by billions for every customer and transaction in the country.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
It seems insane.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
At the same time, if the court orders them to
do so, it could happen. So that is theoretically something
that would be I mean also it would be you know,
caught up in litig in hell for years. But yeah,
this is kind of one way I think to front
run the eventual scenario of ordering refunds, where I think
what they'll probably end up doing maybe is saying only

(10:11):
the specific plaintiffs to the case are going to be
paid back, not everybody, because the government will argue it's
just not possible, which is crazy because if we all
had to pay certain goods or something, Arror's are goods
and they're ruled on constitutional They're like, no, we're just
going to keep your money. But that's the United States
government for you. So anyway, Yes, the tariff part was that.
And actually to the tariff part, I was thinking about,

(10:33):
why can't Trump blame the economy on Biden because you
potentially could and maybe people would buy it more. On
Liberation Day, you took official control of the USA economy.
You said, this is my economy, These tariffs are mine,
and I own it going forward. Now, there hasn't been
a complete collapse, Like, let's be real. Part of the

(10:54):
reason why is AI juggernaut spending on data centers. But
if you look at con umer sentiment, if you look
at the way unemployment rate, a lot of other stuff
is trending, not so happy in terms of the general
US consumer. That's what this speech was about. It was
trying to say, forget about Liberation Day. It was actually
a good idea. And to the extent that there's anything

(11:15):
bad in your life, it's all Joe Biden's fault. Yeah,
it's just not gonna work.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I mean, we could we.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
See that over and over again. They're trying to do
this one big, beautiful bill. They're like, you're going to
save thousands of dollars on your taxes.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
And like it's not true, Like it's just actually not true.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
And to the extent that it is true, it means
like how much of that got eaten up by inflation?
Like you don't have to believe me, just ask people themselves.
Even with the tax revenue or refund or any of
that that you're likely to get, is it going to
make up for your overall spending? If it was, and
people would be a lot more optimistic, and they're not.
So you don't have very much in your cap.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Well, and if you look at nomily, Ryan and Ryan
covered some of this yesterday. If you look at this
jobs report that came out this week, it tells a
pretty clear story about where.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
The economy is vis a VI.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
But the Trump administration had promised, you know, their thing
was number one, we're going to use these teriffs and
you know some policy that's in the big beautiful bill
to have a manufacturing renaissance. Now, I guess you could say, well,
maybe that's just going to take some time. I don't
really see the you know, trajectory or the policy in
place to create that manufacturing renaissance. But you could say that,

(12:22):
but you've had manufacturing job loss for like nine months straight.
So it's not that we're just treading water while we
await this you know, Golden era. In fact, we are
going dramatically backwards in terms of manufacturing jobs. And that
was one of the things that they focused on, you know,
in terms of who is benefiting in this economy, I mean,
it's the very rich are basically the only ones that

(12:44):
are really benefiting. But if you look at this last
job's report, effectively, the only sector that was growing was healthcare,
which is overwhelmingly dominated by women. And so it's actually,
you know, men who have been doing even worse in
this economy than they were doing before. Trump said a
lot in this speech about like native born workers and
the job gains are going to native born workers, et cetera,
et cetera. But that promise has not paid off either.

(13:06):
You know, the idea was, Okay, if we do this
mass deportation, we get people to you know, to self
deport and all of this and close down border, then
all of the jobs will go to native born workers
and their unemployment rate will go down.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
That hasn't worked out either.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
You have the native born unemployment rate also going up,
so you know, across the board in terms of what
they wanted to do with the economy, or at least
their stated goals with the economy, and where we actually are,
there's massive, you know, massive distance between those two things.
So you know, I think it's the vibe of this

(13:41):
whole speech was like frustration and sort of like lecturing
us about how we just don't get we just don't
get it. We just don't understand how great things are.
And you can gaslight people on any number of things
and they'll buy it, but on their own economic condition
that is one thing that is going to be very hard.
And many presidents before crash into the rocks trying to
gaslight Americans about how things are going for them personally

(14:04):
in their own lives.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, this is just like I mean, I hate to
be redundant, but because it's just their most recent scenario. Like,
in a lot of ways, we do feel like we're
living through a lot of Biden's second term, and in
especially every time we get one of those headlines that's
like white House furious with Netsa Yatu over something right
and in the economy, I distinctly remember so many of

(14:26):
those efforts in twenty twenty one, right around now and
early twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Of it's all Trump's fault.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Actually, we've done everything that we could, the American Rescue
Plan put all this money in your pocket. People were
just not buying it. Bidenomics was a dead ender. And frankly,
I mean, can you imagine what the midterms of that
year would have looked like without the Row versus Wade.
I mean, it would have been completely different. And so
that's basically what they're rolling into right now. So we

(14:54):
have some of the polling on this. Let's go to
a four B please and put it up here on
the screen. So this new NPR poll really just puts
it all together. They say Trump's overall job approval is
about thirty eight percent. On the economy, it's thirty six
Only twenty four percent of independence approving of his economic performance.
Dems have now edged ahead of the GOP, who is

(15:14):
more trusted on the economy. Now, keep in mind, you know,
they still have like an overwhelming majority, but when you're
the party in power, you tend to get a lot
of the blame. And just generally this is what they say,
why I keep made in the Biden comparison. The only
time that Americans had a similarly negative view of Presence
handling the economy was in February twenty twenty two, when
Joe Biden was president. Now, Democrats are slightly more trusted

(15:37):
thirty seven to thirty three percent. That's not a wide
enough margin, but it is a sharp turnaround from the
sixteen point advantage that Republicans had on that question in
twenty twenty two. So the reason why the Biden comparison
is apt is just that's basically where he is.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
And I think to your point about promises.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Narratives are easy in the campaign, they're easy, they're solid, right,
Like Biden's narrative was so simple in twenty twenty I'm
in the basement and I'm going to make things go
back to normal. And obviously that was a presumption that
Trump himself was the only one of our problems and
not all of these other issues that are in and
so it turns out like you can remove Donald Trump,
but you can't just wave a magic wand and fix

(16:14):
all of our macro problems. The Republicans came in with
a story about immigration and also about manufacturing in tariffs
and a core part of it was that that would
be paired with some immediate economic benefit in your life.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
It just hasn't materialized.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
I mean their native born, Like you said, their native
born point is not one hundred percent incorrect in terms
of who is going to get some of the newer jobs.
But what that has to be done is to see
a tick down in the unemployment rate and an increase
in overall real wages, which has not happened. And especially

(16:51):
if inflation is going to eat into those chunks and
housing and healthcare, which we're going to do an entire
block on.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
People are like, I don't want to hear it from
me right now.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Yeah, And so that's why the campaign, that's why watching.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
This, it was just a campaign speech.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
And I mean, look, you know there's always the whole
like you campaign and poetry and you govern in prose,
but like you know, it's one of those ridiculous Washington phrases.
But I think you know, at the end of the day,
people can see the difference, you know, between the promise
and then what's actually happening in their own lives and

(17:27):
in everybody that you know, because that's the thing is
people don't just experience it individually. They experience society and
everything that collectively, so they talk to all of their friends,
and the overall consumer sentiment is not something that just
shows your own individual experience.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
It's about your children or your friends.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
I don't just think about myself. I look at my
people around me. I'm like, how is everybody else doing?
And so even if I'm doing okay, I'll look at them.
I'll be like, oh my god, this is a disaster.
Because I don't just care about myself. It's ridiculous. That's
how most people do. So I think that that's something
that the Trump administration is discounting as well.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, I think so too, And you know, I'm wondering.
There's been some reporting about how his advisors. Trump's advisors
were making this sort of like whole of administration effort
to convince Trump this was something that he should have
to care about.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
And you know, you've heard.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Him say that they have affordability as a Democrat, con
job or whatever, like he had to be dragged to
this kicking and screaming, and it shows like this was
his advisors, like you need to do that. You need
to go out and make this case right. You have
a case. Here's the case you're going to make, and
you're going to go out and people will you know,
people need to hear from you that things are good
and they're going to get better, et cetera. And it

(18:36):
definitely felt like he didn't want to be there. He
rushed through the whole thing as fast as the fast
as I've ever heard him speak. There were no you know, digression,
there was no assides, there was no ad limming. It
was just like, let me rip through this speech that
my freakin' advisors are making me give as quickly as
possible and get to the other side of it. So
so in any case, well, at least we're not at

(18:56):
war with Venezuela.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
We're not at war with Venezuela.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
I am more underslept than normal, So thank you President
Trump for making me stay up late to watch a
stupid speech. And to everybody else in the White House,
fuck you look, if you.

Speaker 9 (19:14):
Got to stay up late, it's of the Union or something, A.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Good something, Yeah, gotta be right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
I looked at my wife. I said, I was like,
can you believe I stayed up for this ship. She's like,
You're gonna be so mad.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
She was right, all right, love you babe. So let's
turn to Venezuela.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Obviously, were gonna talk about that a little bit with
Congressman Roe Conna, but and Brian and Emily touched on
this a little bit as well, as the speculation online
was building the case for taking taking back our oil
from Venezuela was being made there from Donald Trump. Here's
what he had to say on the tarmac while receiving
the troops of dead American soldiers from Syria.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Here's what he said on Venezuela.

Speaker 10 (19:53):
Not gonna let anybody going through that shouldn't be going through.
You remember that took all of our energy, a right,
take the goal of our oil from not that long ago.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
And we want it back.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
But they cook it.

Speaker 10 (20:07):
They illegally took it.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
They illegally took the oil.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
I mean, Ryan did a good job yesterday of just
discussing and breaking down this whole thing. So I won't
go into the general history and all of that of
Chavez and of nineteen seventy six and all of that
of oil. I will just simply point out the inconsistencies.
Let's say that you wanted all the oil from Venezuela,
then that leader said you can have all the oil

(20:32):
from Venezuela, and you said, I'm going to launch a
war because he refuses to give me back the oil.
Would that make any sense to any of you? Because again,
like everyone's trying to even retconning nineteen seventy six nationalization
from Venezuela or Chavez, or the fact that Chevron today
today is exporting oil from Venezuela under a special license

(20:52):
granted to them by the Biden administration. Again, let me
reiterate that that at this entire time, an American oil
company continues to export oil from Venezuela under Maduro. Even
if you accepted all of those ridiculous premises, if the
core goal was to get the oil, and the leader
said you can have the oil, then what the hell
are we all doing here? And it's like the press

(21:13):
is derelict in their explanations of all of this.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Maduro has said, I will give you the oil, I
will give you the minerals.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
All I want to do is kind of stay in
power and go out on my own terms and hand
power off to my guy. And at every turn we're
like no. So even people who are saying it's about
the oil.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
I wish it were about the oil.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
That would make more sense, because if it were about
the oil, then we could make a deal. This is
about Marco Rubio, whose family is Cuban and has a
lifelong dream, who believes in the nineteen sixties Domino theory
that if we knock off Venezuela, then Cuba will be next.
That's the level of stupidity that we're all dealing with,

(21:55):
Like Florida Miami occupied government. I saw a tweet from
a congressman yesterday from and he was like, the Nicaraguan
Venezuelan exiles that I represent are deeply supportive of President Trump.
I was like, imagine if you said that about any
other community. You know, my family's Indian. Can you imagine
if my whole personality was about fucking Kashmir or something

(22:17):
like it would be insane. That would be the definition
of dual loyalty and of importing your old world grievances
to our country. If you want to talk about integration
lack of assimilation, I'm looking at people who are still
grudged over some revolution during the nineteen fifties.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I don't give a shit, Okay, whether.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Your family got to keep a plantation in Cuba, and
as Tucker famously said, you know they talk about expropriation.
They seem to be doing okay down to South Florida.
The last time I checked, they all live in pretty
nice houses. Just saying all right, that's fine, seems to do.
You're doing well.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
I'm happy for you.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
That doesn't mean I need to send my you know,
tax dollars and use our military to go in to
restore the glory of your family down in Venice, Like
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Is a piece of this that just still as I
go over it just still doesn't add up for me
with Trump. And maybe the answer is that he doesn't
really intend to do like direct strikes or certainly an invasion,
that they just want to saber rattle as much as
possible to get.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
As good a deal as possible.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I mean, maybe that is maybe that is actually what's
going on here, and I think that's certainly possible. But
I know where, I know ideologically where Marco Rubio is
coming from, where some of the other Fluoridians and government
are coming from. I understand Stephen Miller's interest in this
because of his whole like, you know, let's just murder
the drug dealers and that consolidates more power for him

(23:36):
and gives him more power domastically as well. Like again,
all of that, I don't quite get the full like
last piece of why this was persuasive to Trump when,
like you said, like it seems like what he would
love to do is you know, yes, saber rattle and
then be able to come out and say, oh, we
made this deal and look at what it's doing for us,
et cetera, et cetera. So maybe that is the endpoint

(23:58):
where we end up. But I think we also have
to give some credence to Rhyne's theory that he floated of, like, hey,
he thinks and he actively wants another migrant crisis in
caravans coming to the border because he thinks that benefits
Republicans politically and it also benefits them in terms of
getting their like right wing allies in government in South America,
as we saw we covered the election in Chile.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
I actually with one.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
I think that here's the core argument. This is what
I've been told directly from arguments in the oval. The
way that it's being presentative, mister President, you have to finish.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
It's just like with George W.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Bush and Iraq. You have to finish the job. You
looked weak because in the first.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Exactly that's all it is. It's all just that you.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah, and they're like, if you make a deal, you're
gonna look weak because we've gone all out and you
recognize this former government. That's it is that he has
been this is this is the Rubio strategy is. For
a while, they were like, but he stole the election.
Trump's like, I don't give a shit. Stole the election.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
My son in law's out here making cash money with
the golf model. You think I care about democracy. For
a while, they're like he's really bad on human rights.
Trump again is like, I literally don't care. Right, I'm
gonna sit next to MBS. Then they finally landed on
he's a drug trafficker, which is very good for a
lot of people around him. And then finally everyone just
keeps telling him you're gonna look weak if you don't

(25:18):
back down.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's why he refuses to make a deal, even though
he's a so called deal maker.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
I do want to give up some props to Maduro,
which I never thought I would say in my life.
They keep saying, Bro, you gotta leave, and he's like, no,
I'm not leaving. You're either going to kill me or
you're gonna make a deal. And right now we're brushing
up against even what the Trump administration wants to do.
From a legal perspective, there's a reason that if everybody
goes and reads the truth social it was being presented

(25:44):
as a full blockade, it's not so read what it
actually says.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
He says.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Ever, assembled, it will get bigger and bigger until such
time as they return to the United States. The illegitimate
Maduro blah blah blah, I am today ordering a total
and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
People read that as a total blockade.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Here's the thing, though, only about thirty something percent of
the tankers that come in and out of Venezuela are
actually sanctioned. The one that was taken down by the
Trump administration was previously sanctioned under Iranian has Bola. The
Iranian has Bola sanctions, That's what the legal authority was.
Two tankers left Venezuela yesterday. Now I'm not saying this
isn't going to be massively disruptive to the Maduro regime.

(26:24):
But it just shows you they're in a bind. They
have the law where they are right now where they
can try to finagle these drug boats and all of that.
And Trump keeps saying land strikes are coming.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Hasn't done it. The legal pretext for that very difficult
to justify.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
And Congress, if he actually did do that, may step on, say,
may step in. They haven't stepped in yet. They're getting
him a short leash. But you know, let's put a
six up here on the screen. I'm excited to talk
about this with Congressman Rocana Is. Just yesterday the House
of Representatives only very narrowly failed in a vote on
a Venezuela War Powers resolution, which would have stopped all

(27:03):
the stuff that we see right now.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
It failed at two hundred and eleven to two thirteen.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
If they actually start striking land or striking boats for example,
like real like Venezuelan oil tankers and blowing them up,
or get into an armed conflict, I think that would
flip very quickly, you know, the Venezuelan Navy.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Again.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Why I have to respect Maduro is he keeps calling
Trump's bluff. He's like, I'll take all your migrants, keep
sending them, send them, I'll take them. Right, I'm going
to give you what you really really want. And at
the same time, you're making these threats about my oil tankers. Okay,
I'm going to denounce that as an active piracy. Yesterday
he sent the Venezuelan navy to escort the those two
tankers that I just talked about. So now we have

(27:42):
a decision to make. What's happening here? Are we getting
into a gunfight?

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Then you've got a direct confrontation.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
Now you've got a real thing that's happening, which again,
nobody has authorized, nobody's voted on this, and of course
this is not an excuse. All of this could spiral
out of control incredibly quickly.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
And we can end up in some uss main situation.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
So please do not like take this as me saying
that they're being cautious. I'm saying that they're in illegal
and a difficult political bind. They do not want American
troops to die. They do not want any American troops
ever to set foot on Venezuela and soil. Their best
case scenario is a Libya NATO style intervention, which yeah.

Speaker 9 (28:16):
Exactly, really, yeah, right, it goes without saying all of
that said, they are still in a very tough place
where they can't go to Congress because Congress would vote
it down if they really.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Wanted to what they wanted to do, like full blown
regime change. So everything is like CIA pressure machinations, and
Maduro has called their bluff every step of the way.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
They're like, give us all your oil. He's like okay,
he's like, take all of our migrants.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Okay, except the one thing you won't give on is
I'm not just gonna step down from power. So he's
basically saying, kill me or make a deal with me.
And so I don't know. I mean, look, we might
kill him. I really hope that we don't, but we might.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Well, let's go ahead and bring in Conngresson Rocanna to
talk about all of this. And you know, he's been
really leading the charge with these war powers, resolute, working
in a bipartisan manner with Congressman Thomas Massey. So let's
go ahead and get to Connerson. Conna join us now,
Connerson Rocanna.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
Great to see you, sir, You always good to be on.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, of course, let me put back up on the screen. Guys,
A six, so we can get the War Powers resolution
vote from yesterday, which narrowly failed to eleven to two thirteen.
And you've been deeply involved in trying to push back
against this administration's rogue actions with regard to these drug
votes and potential strikes in Venezuela. You had only three

(29:35):
Republicans join with all of the Democrats save for one
who I believe was Henry Quaar, and then you also
had nine people who inexplicably missed the vote, including four Democrats.
You know, what did you make of this, of this
narrow failure.

Speaker 11 (29:50):
There's a failure of Congress again. I mean, look, the
American people don't want regime change wars. And there were
two war Powers resolutions actually that failed. One said just
bombing boats in the Caribbean without clear standards. But the
other one that should have easily passed, said we don't
want to go into Venezuela to have a land invasion

(30:11):
and topple Madero, and even that did not pass.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
And so Congress is really to blame for these endless wars.

Speaker 11 (30:19):
We are not willing to assert our constitutional authority, sir.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
One of the things that we're really puzzled about here
is the presentation from the Trump administration where they're trying
to force Maduro out, but they have not yet moved
to any full blown kinetic action. Just curious from your perspective,
at least on land is really what I'm talking about
against the Maduro regime. There were some speculation about congressional
briefings and others being given yesterday. I'm just wondering if

(30:45):
you've heard anything about that from you and your colleagues,
and know you your self serve on some of the relevant committees,
have you heard anything recently.

Speaker 11 (30:52):
I was in a classified briefing yesterday about the second
strike on the boat, and all I'll say about that
is that it should be.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
Released to the American public.

Speaker 11 (31:03):
I've made that clear and that I have concerns about
these strikes in the Caribbean. By the way, we've interdicted
or stopped about ten tons of cocaine coming in, while
Donald Trump has pardoned the former president of Honduras Hernandez,
who brought in four hundred tons of cocaine, So.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
It's total hypocrisy.

Speaker 11 (31:25):
The other concern I have is that they're basically increasing
our crup presence in Puerto Rico, increasing the crew presence
in Florida, increasing our naval presence in the Caribbean, increasing
our aircraft carriers.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
Our Germany Ford carry is there.

Speaker 11 (31:40):
They're provoking a war, and if there's one incident that
takes place, they can blame Madero and use that as
justification to have a regime change war. The American people
have rejected this, and yet this administration is doing exactly
what the American people don't want.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I wanted to play a little bit of commerce, and
Thomas Massey worked really effectively in collaboration with across the
Aisle on some of these foreign policy matters. In particular,
let's go ahead and take a listen to the case
he made against this regime change war.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
The Framers understood a simple truth to the extent that
warmaking power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the
President believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed,
he should make the case and Congress should vote before
American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in
South America. Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we

(32:35):
truly believe that Nicholas Maduro will be replaced by a
modern day George Washington. How did that work out in Cuba, Libya,
Iraq or Syria. Previous presidents told us to go to
war over WMD's weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.
Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs

(32:56):
are the WMDs.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
If it were.

Speaker 6 (32:58):
About drugs, we'd bomb Mexican Co or China or Columbia,
and the President would not have pardoned one Orlando Hernandez.
This is about oil and regime change.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And unfortunately Thomas Massey there one of only three who
voted for this War Powers resolution. Help us understand why
is there so much more support for these regime change
wars in Congress than there is among the American people.

Speaker 11 (33:25):
Well, I could have given the same exact speech, literally
word to word that Thomas Massey did. I mean, he
absolutely nailed it. The problem is is several things. One,
as he pointed out, their oil interests. I mean, the
Koch brothers have refineries in the Gulf of Mexico that
require a need Venezuela and oil. That oil has been restricted.
Their profits are being hurt. Second, you look weak. I mean,

(33:49):
if you make this argument that we don't want to
be for regime change war in the Beltway foreign policy blob,
they paint you as unserious about national security. Third, they
pay you as well. You may be sympathetic to Madero
and he's a terrible leader. Well yeah, he is a
terrible leader. But the point is and whether he's a
terrible leader, the point is whether you want to commit
American money and American troops to a war that's not going.

Speaker 5 (34:12):
To have a better outcome.

Speaker 11 (34:13):
But it's the same game that what's frustrating is the
American public now has seen through it. They keep voting
for the president who promises them no endless wars, and
yet the Congress seems to be asleep.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, it's very frustrating for many of us watching, sir,
we do while we have you want to talk a
little bit about the Epstein files. Tomorrow is supposed to
be the day that the Trump administration does comply with
the legislation that you spearheaded with Congressman Thomas Massey. Just curious,
first of all, if you can preview anything that you
may have heard about what might be coming, and second
some consequences for the administration if they don't live up

(34:48):
to that.

Speaker 11 (34:48):
Well, the early terrib will be whether they comply with
three federal judges. The federal judges have ordered that the
Grain Jewelry testimony and all of the discovery of the
Maxwell trials and the Epstein trial be released. And there's
a lot of information in there that will implicate other
rich and powerful men who were either at the island
who covered up for Epstein knowing what was taking place,

(35:12):
or who either abused under age girls or traffic in
young women illegally. And so if they don't release that,
that would be a total slap on the face, especially
because the DJ cited Massey and my law saying that
judges should require the release of this information. More broadly,
what we want to see is the draft indictments which

(35:34):
have other individuals named other than just Epstein and Maxwell.
We want to see the witness interviews that the FBI conducted,
so we actually know who is part of this Epstein
class that cover this.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
Up or abused or raped young girls.

Speaker 11 (35:49):
I believe if they do not comply, there's going to
be outrage in this country, But people also could be
subject to prosecution for obstruction of justice. And I believe
we need to hold people in the Trump administration accountable
for crimes they have committed, and the next Democratic president
should do that. So people should be very careful about
violating laws and obstruction of justice. We can hold Pambondi

(36:13):
an inherent contempt of Congress where the Sergeant of Arms
could actually arrest her.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
We could impeach Bondi.

Speaker 11 (36:20):
There are a lot of options on the table that
Republicans and Democrats are talking about.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
I hope it doesn't come to that.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
And are you working with the Epstein survivors and with
their lawyers to help you determine whether the files are
being released in a fulsome nature since they would have
some knowledge of what should be contained in them, Chris.

Speaker 5 (36:39):
So, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 11 (36:40):
I'm working very closely with Bradley Edwards, who is the
most prominent lawyer for the survivors, and he's seen a
lot of these files. Some of those files he actually
has through discovery. So we know if there are games
that are going to be played, we know if the
names that these survivors want to come out are coming out.

(37:00):
And Massey and I have spent too much time with
these survivors to just let this slide. We are emotionally
invested in this. We know what this means to the survivors,
and we are going to continue to raise our voices
and fight until we have full transparency. If we need
to bring the survivors to the front of the Capitol again,

(37:22):
I hope that's not going to be necessary.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
One of the things that we've been consistently looking at
here with the Epstein files. You've called it the Epstein
class as well, is a general lack of accountability for
the people surrounding who enabled him. And I'm just curious,
you know, from your perspective, as you're looking at the
broader kind of democratic elite and others, how you go
about as a prospective leader of that party exiling you know,

(37:48):
the Larry Summers and all of those of the world,
but many of the other financiers, the Bill Clintons and
others who associated themselves over the years with Epstein and
kind of what this legislation combined with that public reckoning
means for you.

Speaker 11 (38:00):
Well, let me just paint a vivid picture. You have
Epstein's rape violin, you have these sex parties going on.
Suddenly you have one or two young girls who are
sixteen seventeen, and they're powerful men at these parties, knowing
what's going on not saying anything, regardless of whether they themselves.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
Rape these underage girls.

Speaker 11 (38:20):
What signal does it send to a sixteen or seventeen
year old at one of these parties. If they have
powerful politicians, powerful rich people there watching what's going on,
not saying a word, it sends a message that this
is normal behavior, and those people need to be held accountable,
just like the people who actually rape these girls. My

(38:40):
view is let the chips fall where they may. I
was totally shocked and disgusted by Harvard's actions that there
are apparently two young feminists who recorded some part of
Larry Summers, who's a public figure, and they're actually facing
disciplinary hearings at Harvard University for doing something that, in
my view, was just basically free speech. It's not like

(39:02):
they were recording kids or the classroom discussion. They were
exercising speech with a public figure. But I believe that
we need to get rid of this Epstein class. We
need to get rid of the old guard. These people
who thought the rules didn't apply to them a lead impunity.
They have governed the country in a way that has
led the massive income inequality.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
They watched well pile up. They watched jobs be offshort.

Speaker 11 (39:25):
They've destroyed the working in middle class, and the first
thing the Democratic Party needs.

Speaker 5 (39:29):
To say is out with the old. We're going to
have a new generation of leadership.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Could not agree more.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
I wanted to get you to weigh in because I
think this is related, and you can tell me if
you think this is related. Dan Bongino now has made
it official. He is wuty FAI director. He's going to
be stepping down at the end of this month. Let's
go ahead and play before guys. This is Donald Trump,
you know, making an official and talking about why Bongino
was leaving.

Speaker 10 (39:52):
Dan did a great job.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
I think you want to.

Speaker 6 (39:55):
Go back to a show.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Wants to go back to a show.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I think he's really right about that, though I'm not
sure how much of an audience he has left. I
mean he I'm sure you recall after the initial Epstein
file release fail memo situation, he had this whole angsty
weekend away and there were rumors he was going to leave.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
At that point.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
He's been kind of sidelined with in the FBI. Now
making it official that he is going to step down,
you know, speak to how much the Epstein files are
involved in his fall from grace with the MAGA movement,
and also you can zoom out from there. You know
how significant has this been a fracture point within MAGA
between leaders and the base.

Speaker 11 (40:32):
It's been the biggest fracture point in the MAGA coalition
since Donald Trump walked down the escalator. Let me explain
why you had Dan Bongino, Cash Mattel, Pam Bondi, JD
Vans on podcast after padcast saying we want the Epstein
files released. They thought it was going to be largely
Democrats implicated, but what they were telling the country is

(40:53):
that these are there are corrupt and rich, powerful men
who rape our girls and who pay no content sequences.
They have corrupted the system and Donald Trump may not
be a saint, but he's going to expose them. He's
going to tear these institutions down. And they put their
entire credibility on this. In fact, one of the reasons
that Dan Balngino, who doesn't have any traditional qualification of

(41:14):
being at the FBI, was picked for the role is
to have this kind of transparency, and Pambondy cut his
legs out from under him. Susan Wallace basically admitted it
that Pam Bondy whiffed, and so Bongino probably feels like
he has so little credibility left. His whole purpose was
to expose these kind of files, and the fact that
he's leaving now it gives me pause about whether we're actually.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
Going to get the full release.

Speaker 11 (41:39):
And one of the people who will behold in front
of Congress when we went back to Congress is Dan
Bongino and before that to get the truth of what's
in these files.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Well, I'm personally looking forward to that and so some more.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
All right, thank you very much for joining us, sir,
We appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Thank you, Thanks, Happy holidays. So as part of that
angry manic speech last night, President Trump did also talk
about what he thinks should happen with healthcare.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Let's take allis on the first of.

Speaker 12 (42:07):
These unprecedented price reductions will be available starting in January
through a new website trumprx dot gov. And these big
price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care.
I'm also taking on the gigantic health insurance companies that
have gotten rich on billions of dollars of money that

(42:28):
should go directly to the people the money should go
to the people, that's you, so they can buy their
own health insurance, which will give far better benefits at
much lower costs. It will be far better health insurance.
The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance
companies rich. It was bad health care at much too

(42:50):
higher cost. And you see that now in the steep
increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats. And they
are demanding those increases, and it's their fault. Is not
the Republicans fault, it's the Democrat's fault.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
They are demanding those increases after we had our entire
government shut down around trying to extend the ACA subsidies.
And this comes as Republicans are really kind of in
a mess with regard to healthcare. You have some moderates
who realize these price hikes are going to be a
major problem. They want to vote for the ACA subsidy extension.
Hakim Jeffries has been pushing a three year extension. He

(43:25):
actually succeeded in getting the requisite number of moderate Republicans
onto that discharge petition to force a vote, so that
was a significant development. At the same time, you have
Republicans who are pushing this sort of grab bag of
really small ball like sort of consensus policies about choice
plans and some moderate not even like significant pharmacy benefit

(43:45):
manager reform, but some moderate stuff there, things that you
know may around the edges make things modestly better, but
it's not going to be like a significant reduction in
your premiums or significant game changer anytime soon. Speaker Johnson
was asked after these or Republicans defected whether he had
lost control of the House.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Not lost control, because they are the hard time.

Speaker 5 (44:11):
There are mechic books.

Speaker 8 (44:13):
We have the smallest majority in US history of TCHECA.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
These are not normal times.

Speaker 8 (44:19):
There are process prossees and procedures in the House that
are less frequently used when there are larger majorities, and
when you have the luxury of having ten or fifteen
people who disagree on.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Something, you know you don't have to deal with it.

Speaker 8 (44:32):
But when you have a razor thin margin, as we do,
all as long people don't prom table.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
So he claims he is not in fact lost control
of the House. Let's gohead and take a listen to
some of these moderate Republican legislators and how pissed they
are at his handling of healthcare. This is the four
let's take aism.

Speaker 13 (44:52):
I am pissed for the American people. This is absolute
bullshit and it's absurd that we are in a by
with four hundred and thirty five members. Everybody has a
responsibility to serve their district, to serve their constituents.

Speaker 7 (45:06):
How do you say voting districtor he is not going
to give you a vote on this a seeing extension.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
That's a failure of leadership.

Speaker 14 (45:12):
I mean we have, you know, members on both sides
who believe this is an urgent issue and it is
for all of our members in terms of what their
constituents are going to have to deal with in the
start of the new year.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
So what's wrong with having a vote?

Speaker 4 (45:26):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
There they are pissed because Johnson didn't even give them
the ability to vote on an ACA subsidy extension, which
is why ultimately they came to Haquem Jeffries' position and
signed onto this discharge petition, getting it to two hundred
and eighteen signatures. And listen, not a Hakim Jefferies fan,
and I think he's played his cards very poorly in

(45:48):
the past in terms of like being a communicator and
an order terrible tactically. He played this very intelligently. He
you know, put this petition forward. There were some other
rival Democratic positions Josh Gottheimer had one that sucked and
some other ones, et cetera. And he stayed strong on
this particular position, betting that other harder line Republicans in

(46:10):
the House would make it impossible for them to even
offer them a show vote on these ACA subsidy extension
and that those Republicans would ultimately come to his position.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
That is exactly what happened to.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, and unfortunately Speaker Johnson just some inside baseball here.
He canceled votes on Friday and sent everybody home early
to kick this healthcare vote two new years.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
It's also interesting time stat Stine files released that day
as well.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
All times everybody to get out of town.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
He's like, get everybody the hell out of Washington because
they don't want them all on Capitol Hill with cameras
in their face where they have to react. So a
little bit of inside baseball there for everybody. But no,
it's a disaster, and I think that's one of the
things why Trump announced it in his speech is because
it felt very pole test to me. He's like, we
have to hit inflation, we have to hit healthcare, we

(46:59):
have to hit and on healthcare.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
You know this plan about we're gonna give everybody money.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
It's like again, I mean between the subsidies or the money,
the problem is the cost. Like if it give you
exactly right, I've said here, my deductible is fourteen thousand,
five hundred dollars. The increase in my premium and I
have Obamacare is the increase in my premiums is seventeen percent.
So if they were to grant this like HSA or whatever,

(47:27):
grant to a family, it would cover the increase in healthcare. Like,
I'm sorry, that is just yes, okay, I'll take it.
I'm sure everybody else will take it too. That doesn't
mean that you've revolutionarily like changed my life, all right,
Like I'm not gonna be like, wow, thank you for
covering the increase in my healthcare premium over a year.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
That's just me.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
There's a lot of other people out there too, who
I think will probably feel the same way. They're like
the government's going to cover one fifth of your deductible,
you're like, yippie, right, you know, that's just not like
and then you know, I was talking to Steve, our
audio engineer, today, and he was talking about how even
when you do pay one thousand bucks a month for
health care, if you have a higher deductible plan like
the you avoid going to the doctor just because you're like, ah,

(48:08):
who's going to do copays and all of it. That
is the fundamental issue. This is all tinkering around the edges.
So yes, even with ACA substies, like sorry, it's just
not you know, the substias themselves were a band aid
to a broken and a shit system. And until we
get very real about costs, nothing's really going to be
nothing's going to change. And what the subsidy conversation I

(48:30):
think ignited is because that's the thing is like, no
one wants to defend the subsidies, let's say on paper,
because everybody agrees it's still an insane system.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
It's horrible.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
But what the subsidy conversation ignited for everybody is just
to think about the government and healthcare and about the
fact that they can do something. And you know, this
was a rare case where just doing the status quo
was better than letting them expire because now everybody is
thinking about healthcare in a different way. I think with
then previously or it's more top of mind. And right

(48:59):
now the substies officially, I think today expired, so it's over.
You know, we're cooked of those of us who are
Obamacare subscribers, but it's not. I mean, look, we're only
seven million. There's ten hundreds of millions of people who
have healthcare. Their premiums went up no matter what happened. Yeah,
that's right period. So and again, for most people, because
healthcare is so complicated, they don't know whether they're getting

(49:20):
a subsidy or not. They're like, my bill went up,
screw Trump. That's how they're going to think.

Speaker 4 (49:23):
Completely.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
They have no idea whether they get a subsidy or
not because he there's complicated as shit.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
That's absolutely right.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
I've seen all these polls about like in Kentucky the
Obamacare exchange, a camera is called it's like Kentucky Care
or something like that, and people are, oh, I love that,
and then you ask them like, oh, do you like
Obamacare and they're like, no, I hate that, and it's
like that's it's literally the same thing. And I don't
blame it because it is completely I don't understand all
of the ins and outs, and you know, I study
this for a living. People come from other countries where

(49:51):
they have universal healthcare.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
They're like, what is this? Yes, what is happening here?

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Conductible?

Speaker 4 (49:57):
What is going on with this?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (49:59):
So, yes, you see your bill go up.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
You hear a national conversation about how Republicans are blocking
these subsidies, and you think, oh, my bill is going
up because these assholes aren't like helping to fund the
healthcare that they were doing previously. And yes, Republicans really are.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
In trouble on this issue.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Anytime healthcare is at the forefront of the political discussion, yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
It's it's except when people were mad because their healthcare
got man.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yes, and when they could live in the abstract of like,
this is bad, we'll do something better.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
But now, after years and years and.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Years of number one people, you know, experiencing some benefits
from Obamacare and number two Republicans demonstrating time and time again,
they have zero answer, old or alternative that would be
in any way superior healthcare is probably their worst, single,
worst issue. And so you know, while I have I
you know, thought it was terrible that Democrats ultimately caved

(50:53):
on their shutdown fight, they did succeed in really focusing
attention on this issue which had been on the back
burner for a couple of years. Basically since the twenty
twenty Democratic primary, healthcare has been on the back burner
as an issue and not at the center of public conversation,
even as the pain continued to ratchet up and increase year.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
After year after year.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
We can put this Politico tear sheet up on the
screens is CE five to give a sense of you know,
They've got some reporting about how the White House is
thinking about all of this. They say the White House
weighs risks of a healthcare fight as ACAA subsidies set
to expire. The White House is wary that the current
debate around healthcare subsidies could go the way of Republicans'
failure to repeal Obamacare that fuel Democrats return to power

(51:35):
in twenty eighteen. If only it were that simple. The
administration is also contending with differing opinions over the political
ramifications of the subsidies expiring, the question of whether Trump's
engagement might be unproductive on the Hill and the reality
that Trump behind the scenes likely knows something must be
done to prevent the premium spike some Americans would see
as congressional Republicans do count their intra party divisions on

(51:57):
how to address the expiration of some affordable care accesses.
Administration officials do not believe Trump should engage more than
he already has. That's because they're fearful of the present
getting yoked into a messy healthcare fight. According to people
close to the White House and who were familiar with
healthcare conversations between the White House and the Hill. So,
you know, I mean that Trump being such a you know,

(52:18):
the leader of this party and a very strong leader
of this party, even though he has been hobbled in
recent months, the fact that they kind of want to
keep him hands off and for him not to just
assert this is what we're doing and if you don't
go along with it, I'm going to make you pay
for not going along with my plan also leaves them
sort of a drift because Mike Johnson is nothing other

(52:40):
than effectively a puppet like doing whatever he thinks it
is that Trump wants him to do. So if he's
left to his own devices. That's part of why you're
seeing such an absolute mess and a chaotic disaster.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Right, Remember the Senate too, even if it does get
through the House, Like, what's going to happen with the sentence?
Trump going to sign it? Right, especially after talking such
a big game, How's that going to work? Yeah, so
I wouldn't. I would not if I'm a betting person. Yeah,
I'm sure there's some calcy polymarket market on that. I
would never bet on making sure that the premiums or
are in any way going to come in.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
The most likely.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
If at all possible scenario will be what I said,
some weird one thousand dollars means tested check to Obamacare alone,
which you know does not to the point of hundreds
and millions of people out there have insurance. Their insurance
statistically almost certainly went up in the last year. They
have no idea whether it's quote subsidized or not or

(53:33):
whatever connected to ACA. They're going to see that cost
and they're going to get mad. So that fundamentally is
why they don't understand what's actually happening here. And yeah,
I mean they should. They should pay for it. Honestly,
the way that they've handled. It's just been a total
disaster because they refuse to like they talk, what did
you say, concepts of a plan beforehand, the bet was

(53:53):
is that was just never going to have to deal
with this.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
That's what every politician does.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
But then for some reason they said, let's let the
you know, the subsidies expire. So they finally put it
back into America's mind. All you had to do was nothing,
just let the ACA things go on. But for some
what ridiculous like deficit hackery type reasons, they decided. And now,
just like Obama, anybody who messes with the healthcare system,

(54:19):
if you do it in the worst way, you're screwed.
Like that's the one thing people just don't want. They
do not want their healthcare messed with, period unless it's
going to get better.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
And then even then you better prove it.

Speaker 15 (54:29):
And yeah, I mean, because it's hard to do it
where it gets better for everyone, and the people who
have had it, you know, had something where they feel
like it was taken away from them, they're going to
be very exercised about it.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
I mean with Obama at.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Least there were people who were immediately benefiting from Obamacare.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
With this, it's like nothing.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
But but even so to the Obama point, this is
what I want to expound on.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah, we have a little bit of time.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
So what the Obamacare was fundamentally kind of a socialist
argument where it's like, it's going to cover more people,
but it's actually not that much better for everyone. It's
like a socialist policy in practice, as in, yeah, more
people are covered, is that good. It's like, well, this
is like healthcare kind of got shittier for everybody. It's
very difficult to preserve a system of coverage and of

(55:13):
high quality. That's the fundamental problem between like market based
health care privatized healthcare. Even in Europe and in others,
you know, they have triage care.

Speaker 5 (55:20):
Let's say.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Now, listen, I'm not going to say that that's better
or worse. It's a trade off. A lot of people
over there have accepted US America is a very individualist nation.
Even when you do look at polls, people are very
dissatisfied with the healthcare system, but they personally like their
own health care coverage.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
This was the problem with Obamacare.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
That's part of the reason why public option or something
like that, or you've got to find a place where
people can preserve their individuality, their ability to choose, et cetera,
while also trying to make sure that people are.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Not dying from medical debt.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
This is the you know, the Gordian not that, which
is almost like, you know, for some reason and just
nobody can really figure it out. And I do think
it's going to be really difficult for the Republicans in
the future because they're gonna grasp its straws and they're
gonna just throw more money into this corrupt system. Like fundamentally,
that's where I think we're gonna end up some weird
check or something that gets deposited into some account where

(56:14):
you don't know the login and you're gonna have to
coordinate with your insurance company. I mean, that's how it
always works, right, even with Obama. I've signing up for
this is a nightmare. You have to go on there
and pick coverage or whatever. Oh, now you have to
deal with the insurance company. Unfortunately, not like what's going on.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Like do I still have coverage? Like what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (56:36):
I've got like three different cards in the mail. It's
just too much. Uh, And yeah, I mean I think
that's just the fundamental political problem with healthcare, and nobody
seems to square it.

Speaker 5 (56:45):
Don't I don't know.