3/7/25: Starship EXPLODES, Tariffs OFF, Newsom Butters Up CHARLIE KIRK

Krystal, Ryan, and Emily come at you with another Friday episode to cover topics like Elon's latest Starship blowing up, Trump pausing more of his Tariff threats on Canada and Mexico, Gavin Newsom debating Charlie Kirk on his podcast and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Friday, everybody. I was lamenting yesterday when we were
trying to put the show together that there's just too
damn much news to try to cover. So we've got
a bunch of stuff that's interesting in the show today.
Ryan and Emiley, how are you guys doing.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, good to see you, Lovely, great to see it.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Lots of Elon updates, some Laura Lomer updates, we got
some Gavin Newsom, some the latest with the tariffs. Are
they on or off? What does it all mean? Nobody
really knows. Some interesting stuff from the Democrats as well,
as they continue to find themselves a little bit lost
in the wilderness. More than a little bit lost in
the wilderness, I'd say, so, lots to get through. Let

(00:35):
me go ahead and start with this image to set
the stage for today. We had another starship that you
know from Elon's company, SpaceX, that blew up upon launch yesterday.
This is a somebody who was a passenger on a
commercial flight that took this video. You can see all
the debris in the air there, and we were talking beforehand.

(00:57):
So this is the second blow up that Starts has
had this year. The FA was previously investigating the last one,
you know, at least before SpaceX guys basically came in
and did like a hostile takeover the FAA. This is
out of eight starship launches, four of them have failed,
so not a great success rate, especially since NASA is
effectively pinning the future of the Space Shuttle program on

(01:18):
Elon and SpaceX at this point. So any reflections on this,
guys so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean after the last one, right,
they launched investigation and then you know, Doge has been
able to shut that investigation down.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
As producer Mac was pointing out before this show.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Started, the last one had you know, you know, real
repercussions for people who were.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
In the.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Blast zone, the radius of that debris, you know, collapsing
back down to Earth. And I think it's an awkward
time because if you're looking at doing cuts to federal
spendings such as closing security offices, such as firing eighty
thousand VA workers, which we'll talk about later in the show,

(02:07):
to have that paired with sending all this money to SpaceX,
and then to have it just blow up in the sky,
it's not a great image, not a great look.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, and the investigations of SpaceX have been not just
from the FAA, they've also been environmental issues with them
not you know, following compliance and causing damage to the
you know, the area where they're testing these rockets and
the surrounding communities. This one caused multiple commercial flights to
have to be diverted. The last one also caused I
think around a dozen commercial flights to have to be diverted.

(02:40):
Obviously it's the FA that's doing all that work. So
again Elon's involvement at the FA becomes directly, you know,
direct conflict there. And you had a couple of Florida
airports that had to shut down completely for at least
a couple hours while this debris was falling from the
sky to avoid any you know, further incidents. So yeah,
said Ryan, not a great look. There's a bunch of

(03:02):
other Elon news here to get to. This is probably
the most significant from yesterday, which is Trump gathered the
cabinet together to let them know Elon Musk is not
in charge of hiring and firing.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
They are.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Kyle Cheney here, who's a great follow in terms of
just like the legal ins and outs. In particular, she
says it was an abrupt admonition that appeared aimed at
the mounting legal scrutiny of Musk's power over the government.
And what he's pointing to there, Emily, I think is
the fact that, you know, there have been these all
these court cases. One of them is focused on whether

(03:39):
the Office of Personal Management has the ability to just
blanket fire federal employees across the government, not just obviously
within their own agency, you know, as part of that,
like obviously DOGE does not technically have the power to
just blanket fire whoever they want across the entire federal government.
So one way to read this that some people are is, Okay,

(04:01):
this is Trump actually.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Reigning in elon.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Another way to read it is this is the Trump
administration trying to position themselves in a stronger way legally
without really changing the dynamics of what they're doing here.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
Well, yeah, I mean I think that's absolutely true. I
actually think in a weird way, both are true. But
this was always an easier I don't want to call
it a loophole, but this was always an easier way
to approach the situation. And I think maybe part of
it is now they have the whole cabinet in place.
Basically I think maybe tchaves Derrimer, who'll get a vote soon.
They're a couple outstanding people. But now most of the

(04:33):
cabinet is in place, so you have people who can
make those decisions who aren't big balls, and it's like
it's it always just made more sense to have that.
It's like legally easier. And Trump the only other interesting
thing in that I think was Trump saying now according
to Politico, that these cuts will be done with the
scalpel and not the hatchet. So that makes me think

(04:55):
it's a little bit of both that he actually has
realized that there's been and a lot of like sledge
hammer like rehirings and maybe like not not the most
efficient way of going towards efficiency. And so he's like
just saying, we've got the cabinet at place now, like
you guys are actually in charge of this, just know

(05:18):
that we want cuts. Because the other thing he says,
according to the political story, is if you don't do
the cuts, Elon will do the cuts. So now he's
just like using Elon Musk as the sort of damaclets
like hovering over anyone who's out of compliance with the
spirit of DOGE, and Elon Musk is not, I guess
in charge of DOGE. I mean he's the head of DOGE,
but he's not the administrator of DOGE. It's hard to

(05:39):
keep up, right up.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
According to the speech, Yeah, Doge or something.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
Everyone is Doge in their hearts.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
And from that, from the outside, it looks like chaos.
It looks like wait a minute. You know, you told
us that you've spent the last four years putting together this.
You know this, this detailed, sophisticated play. Talking to people
who know what they're doing. You got former own B
director Russ Votis back at OH and B.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
He did his project twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
They're gonna come in, they're gonna do exactly exactly what
they've wanted to do. And then they do that thing
and then they're like, actually, never mind, We're going to
do it a completely different way. And they're talking about,
you know, re hiring thousands of USDA employees. I noticed,
and they're a bunch of others are in limbo. We're
on administrative leave, but we can't get in touch with anybody.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Are we fired?

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Are we still going to get our paychecks? Are are
we coming back because you're now acknowledging that what this
judge said about our firings that they were illegal, they
are illegal. So am I rehired? Or am I still fired?
How's this all gonna work? Or or is it just
going to be like the tariffs where we talk about

(06:50):
it a lot, do a little bit, and there's a
lot of pain for some in a micro level for
some people, but then it all gets flipped and we
kind of move on and pretend like it never happened.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, that is a great point. I mean, for what
it's worth. My personal read of this is that the
real message was sent in that public cabinet meeting where
Trump says to all of them like, if you don't
like it, get the hell out. So the message is
sent you better do what Elon wants you to do.
But you know, technically, of course it's up to you.
You're in charge, and use the scalpel, not the hatchet.

(07:22):
But if you don't do what we want, then get
the hell out of here. I mean, that's the way
I read it, until I see a different posture. To me,
some of his language is more about recognition that this
is profoundly unpopular. You know, if you look at the
polling of you know, oh, we're slashing the Social Security Administration,
and like Ryan said, is just like chaos everywhere, and
why are we firing all these veterans and people showing

(07:44):
up to town hall saying like, what the hell is
going on? This is an attempt to be like, oh, no, no, no,
everything's normal. We're doing this in the way that you
would want. Because if you poll just like hey, should
the government be cut and should it be more efficient?

Speaker 5 (07:56):
People are like, yeah, sure.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
But when the rubber hits the road and you see like, oh,
the people who are tracking bird flu are gone, and
planes are crashing into each other and I no longer
can you know, reach someone when I'm trying to get
something resolved of my Social Security check, or like in Maine,
where now because they cut the link between the Social
Security Administration and the health services, you now have to

(08:21):
go in person to a Social Security office to like
register your new baby. As if when you have a
newborn you don't have enough on your mind to deal
with they're adding that to the burden as well. So
when you see all that chaos and the reality of
those cuts, the feel and the political ramification becomes much
different than if you just ask people like, hey, should
the government be more efficient, to which most people, you know,

(08:44):
overwhelming would be like, yeah, sure, of course.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, that should be an easily winnable fight, right emily,
like from the right to you know, the public thinks
that there's waste in government and the public it's not
particularly sympathetic.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
To federal workers in general.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
To fire federal workers and still wind up on the
wrong end of public opinion takes a massive level of incompetence.

Speaker 5 (09:08):
Really well, I mean, the scalpel versus hatchet diconomy is
interesting because a lot of people on the right were
using that the reverse from Donald Trump, like the reverse
of what he said to justify Doge's chaos. This is
like the callous like you have to break a few
eggs to make an omelet maxium, like this is always

(09:29):
it's necessary, like you will never ever scale down the
size of the federal government if you don't do it
with the hatchet first. And so I guess in a sense,
I'm curious and I should probably talk to some people
to day and ask around if they see this now
as like phase two of Doge, Like they came in
with the hatchet, and now they can afford to be
like more precise and targeted. But if it's not true

(09:53):
that they got through like some type of first phase,
which I think most people until yesterday would have said
they didn't, then that defeats what everyone thought the purpose
of DOGE was, which was to be this generational opportunity
to actually use the hatchet, because if you use the scalpel,
people say you will never ever scale back the size
of the size of the federal government because it's too

(10:15):
It gives everybody time to fight back, it gives everybody
time to sort of come up with a strategy, and
you end up just kind of back where you started
and trimming around the edges. But DOGE was supposed to
be like the generational chainsaw opportunity to borrow from Elon's
imagery at Seapack.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, And instead, as always happens, a bunch of Republicans
went out on a limb that Trump asked them to
go out on. Then Trump grabbed their chainsaw and chop
the limb off. Yeah, And now there they are explaining
how they actually always meant to be at the bottom
of the tree with broken legs.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, that's very relevant to the terror of conversation as well,
where you know, the whiplash of that leaves his defenders,
you know, defending every single policy under the sun in
an attempt to curry favor with him and to you know,
curry favor with a base that's very committed to him.
Let's say, Ryan, let me have you explain this one,
because you've been all over this D banking vote that

(11:12):
occurred in the Senate.

Speaker 4 (11:14):
So Laura Lumer.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Here upset because she says, every Senate republic with the
exception of Centaer.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Josh Holly, just voted to legalize D banking.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Now apps like PayPal can get away with banning you
for your political views thanks to Senate Republicans who just
voted to repeal a rule that made that illegal in
December of twenty twenty four. And Elon Musk replies, really question,
Laura says, yes, really, hopefully.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
You can put an end to this.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Elon GOP does not like CFPB, and so they are
now just opposing everything CFPP has done, including the good
things like implementing a law on twenty twenty four that
ban payment platforms like PayPal, Stripe and Venmo from banning
people based off their political affiliation. Senate Gop just voted
to legalize D banking. They should kill the companion bill
off in the House, Ryan, What is going on here?

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, you think that this has contrasting perspectives? How about
Laura Lumer and I teaming up to try to save
this cfbb D banking rule, like the whole, the whole.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
It's not even horseshoes.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
It's like just looping in like a Nascar trek, you know,
on itself. So yeah, so so Laura Lumer, you know,
shared our reporting over at drop side and we covered
it here at Counterpoints. I had reached out to her
because she has herself been de banked in twenty nineteen.
I don't know, you know what her you know, far
right particular offense was, but PayPal stopped working with her,

(12:35):
Venmo canceled her accounts. She can't use like uber eats,
like basically shut off from all of kind of contemporary
app activity. There were even some like comical ones that
like the apps don't even exist anymore. What was that

(12:56):
one where all the tech bros were on audio talking
to each clubhouse? Yeah from clubhouse? Yeah, big thing, Yes,
is clubhouse even still a thing?

Speaker 3 (13:07):
I forgot I don't think so, I guess maybe. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Anyway, so and she and she confirmed, yeah, yeah, and
she's still actually, uh can't use PayPal in some others.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
And so.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
The CFPB passed a rule under Biden an under row
hit Tropra that says banks cannot dbank over political reasons,
for ideological reasons. And he said, and and what And
I'm including in that anybody that does more than fifty
million transactions a year, so that that lumps in PayPal,

(13:41):
Zell who will pay Apple pay.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
All all of these apps.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
And they all fought this, you know, relentlessly because they
don't want it's they don't want to be regulated, period.
And so uh Elon Musk and WhatsApp Zuckerberg both have
been talking about getting a payment app, you know, getting
you know, allowing payments on you to move money through
What's app or through your d MS on Twitter or whatever.

Speaker 5 (14:04):
They that's one of his most important ambitions for Twitter.
It's one of the reasons he bought it. He wants
it to be x and in everything.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, he's been very clear about that and that they
would instantly then be covered under this under this new regulation,
and it would just mean they can't debank people for
political reasons and they'd have to have serious, uh fraud
prevention efforts, just like banks are supposed to have and
fraud dispute mechanisms. So you get you get scammed, you

(14:31):
can you can there's a process that you can dispute it.
Scams on Twitter now like there's just you're you're absolutely screwed,
Like you get you get scammed, you get shut out,
you you better know somebody who can who can like
get your case in front of Elon. Otherwise you know,
you're shut out of your account and you're the account
is going to be controlled by whatever crypto scammers you

(14:52):
know took it from you and rupar got got caught
by that recently. So they don't want that regulation, and
so they persuaded the Senate to pass this resolution getting
rid of this CFPB rule, and so Josh Hawley voted

(15:15):
against it. I've seen Steve Bannon is now engaged on
this question. It still has to go over to the House.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
And so.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Now Democrats just had another one of their members die
who so that they're what needed four seat majority now,
so maybe five seeds at this point Democrats, you know,
if everybody shows up, they'll all vote no. Republicans only
need to find a handful of people single digits low
single digits to say no. Sorry Musk like sorry, PayPal,

(15:46):
like we're going to regulate you here, and then the
regulation is going to say you can't dbank people for
political reasons. Elon Musk saying really, like, as this is,
as if this is like coming as news to him,
is it's kind of hilarious.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
But I think when Zuckerberg was on with Rogan pretendingly
he didn't know what the CFP I've never even heard of.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
Why are they even going after me?

Speaker 3 (16:12):
You're telling me this for the first time. It's very sad.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
So I think if you're Elon Musk, curious Emily for
your take on this. If you're Elon Musk, you take
the l here and you tell the House do not
repeal this rule. This is outrageous because it shows then
you're you can you can be performatively non conflicted because
they're look, Okay, yes this would hurt me, but I
am willing to let this go through because it's so

(16:40):
obvious that conservatives should not be, you know, kicked off
of you know, banking apps just for being conservative. So
I'm going to stand up for I'm going to stand
up for this, and then he can figure out down
the road how he can get there destroying far about
for his little coin.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
They're destroying the CFP B so exactly he doesn't need
this in place.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
They already like ifower him, I would cynically just get
behind this and say, yeah, don't don't do this.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
This is terrible.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I mean, if it hadn't been elevated, then he wouldn't
have even had to make the choice.

Speaker 5 (17:14):
I think the cynical calculation is absolutely smart. But I
don't know that they're actually going to even bob.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
They're going for everything.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
They might just they might just repeal the rule and
be like, you know, what, what are you gonna do?

Speaker 5 (17:26):
Well, And they also have a fairly arcane argument about
how how the rule actually is. It's like the opposite.
You've probably seen this, Like they flip it on its
head and they say the rule is what allows for
the debate. They say that what they're doing is fighting debanking,
like that's their argument. They have this like arcane like
lobbyist crafted clearly like tech lobbyist crafted argument.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
And Tim Scott is out saying well, I've got a
bill that's going to ban de banking.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
But it's like that's.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's treating people like like they don't have any.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Idea what they're talking about.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's like there's already there are laws on the books
that are interpreted to mean that you can't discriminate against
people on their viewpoints. The CFPB's rule is just implementing
that law. So Tim Scott coming and saying he's going
to pass a new law means that somebody then has
to implement a rule to enforce it. Laws that aren't
enforced don't matter. And so what these what Tim Scott

(18:22):
and these other republics would want to do is say well,
we're going to pass a law, but we're not going
to enforce it, So that way they get to tell
their audience that they're with them. But the bank lobbyists
are comfortable that the law will never be enforced.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, because all the agencies that would enforce it are
being destroyed.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
I'm threatened that you're going to replace me with Laura Lumer.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right, we got to get we got to get on
the show.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
That we would we is she allowed on YouTube like like,
she's like every we could just.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Post that one on Rumble only they could be a
Rumbel exclusive Ryan Ryan and Laura Lumer to team up.
That's like I wanted to talk to Steve Bannon for
similar reasons.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
It is. It is.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Whatever she said, I'm sure I disagree with it. She
should not be banned from Uber eats ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
Yep, yeah, well too far.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
I mean you also, like, there's few people who are.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Actually willing to really stand up to, you know, on
any sort of principle.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Most of them are busy being.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Like terifts are great, You're so brilliant for taking the
tariff's off. Tarif's are great. You're so brilliant for taking
the tariff's off. So to see someone who will like
stand on any principle, as you know, you gotta.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
She's got her views and sticking with it.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
All right, Let's go to some of the latest Doge
cuts here that are really significant washing posts with a
good piece on what's already happening at Social Security, as
Jeff Stein puts it here. So you know, they've slashed
a lot of the workforce, They're closing a bunch of offices,
and people are already feeling that the impact of that.
And Ryan, I think you pointed out this is like,

(19:59):
this is a way to social security effectively without actually
cutting social security. So this article says wait times for
basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours.
Coordinate employees, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Delays and reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative
law judges are already starting. Employees at a field office
in Indiana have been forced to pick up calls for

(20:20):
other offices. When employees said and are feeling phone inquiries
for an area covering two thirds of the state, the
phone quote never stops ringing. Now, the employee said, phone
backups have prevented the staff from processing retirement claims. So
you know, how good is a program? How good is
a program for you? Like how much does it actually
exist when you cannot actually get in touch with a

(20:41):
human being in order to avail yourself of said program.
Like if you can't get your claims processed, then it's
like the program doesn't exist for you effectively.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Right, it's a way to kill the program, the program
through attrition, because obviously social security itself something like ten
thousand plus people a day are dying who or on
SOLI security, so you're moving them out. Then you know
ten it's fairly automatic to get in to just straight
up self security. But SSI and SSDI, which are huge

(21:13):
components of the program, are implemented by the states through
these Disability Determination Services offices and they're kind of run
by SSA, and those are the places where it takes
a long time to get your claims approved, and once
you're on, they're kind of always looking for ways to
kick you off, like, oh, your bank account went over
two thousand dollars this month, You're you're out. Then you

(21:37):
have to appeal and you try to get back in.
And if you can shut those offices down, then you
can slow the process of getting new people in or
just completely block it and then through attrition, you know,
get people out through paperwork violations or death and gradually
take this program that is the most popular and has

(21:58):
reduced poverty by by more than any other program in
world history.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
And I say this as a.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Huge fan of some communist governments and they're anti poverty programs,
but nobody.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Has like reduced.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Poverty like Social Security did, like taking it from ninety
like a huge, huge, like a ninety percent drop in
elderly poverty from the from pre sol Security to post
Social Security. Not even Stalin not even installing this can
claim credit for that.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to reverse
it by through attrition.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
I don't think that's wrong. I mean, I think that's
probably well. So I think it's there's Ryan and Crissel,
you were both talking about this the other night when
we were discussing how much austerity like featured in Donald
Trump's joined addressed to Congress. Yeah, I think they're like
real ideological and Trump may not even be aware of

(22:58):
this ideological goals from people like Russ bo or people
in that orbit, as it pertains to these programs that
are baked into the massive reforms that they want to do.
So like, for example, when Trump says we're not cutting Medicaid,
we're reforming the waste fraud in abuse, or like we're
rooting out waste broad in abuse. You can make all

(23:21):
of these cuts to Medicaid and it doesn't have anything
to do with the solvency of the programs long term.
So they think it with Social Security, like you can
get fraud out of Social Security. It doesn't have anything
to do with the solvency of the program's long term,
but it does sort of handicap them. So I think
some of that is baked into these broader conservative movement
policy designs. I agree with that. I just don't know

(23:43):
if Trump. I don't know if it's like on Trump's radar.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Sure it's not.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
And I was talking to it as somebody who works
in a state dds office yesterday, and they said that
this censorship that they've been bizarrely carrying out at SSA offices,
and you saw this report that like you can't you
already couldn't, you know, go to YouTube on your work
computer in a lot of places, public schools, lots of places,
but they expanded that to like all almost all news sites.

(24:11):
And the THEDS employee I talked to you said that
that also caught up their contractor, you know, because there's
so much corporate kind of conglomerization and concentration of corporate
power that you hit one company, you might hit seventy
five companies.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
You didn't know we're like connected to it.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
So like these these state workers now can't get into
their contractor portals to do just the basic work that
they have to do to implement the program. And it's
like that's kind of on purpose, like that's the goal,
Like they want they want these workers not to be
able to do their work because the work that they're
doing is they don't support gradually bringing more people into

(24:49):
the program.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Well, and I also think, I mean the you know,
the State of the Union where he was talking, he
was spreading this total lie about the number of people
over two hundred or whatever who are Social Security tecks.
I mean that to me is also a way to argue,
like we're cutting this program because of all the fraud,
to avoid violating his or avoid the appearance of violating

(25:12):
his pledge that he wasn't going to cut touch Social Security. So,
you know, again, this is one of these areas where
you see the tug of war between what Trump has
positioned himself as politically and what Elon's ideology is, and
certainly Russfod's ideology as well, and the Elon ideology seems
to be consistently winning out. I mean, this is kind
of a somewhat similar You've got they're firing eighty thousand

(25:37):
Veterans Affairs workers as part of Trump cuts. They say,
this is sparking a backlash. I mean, many of these
people are veterans themselves that work at the Veterans Affairs
Administration and certainly critical to you know, delivering for the
promises that we have made to people who have served
the country, and only I think politically these have been
some of the more difficult for Republicans to be able

(25:58):
to answer when you have people who stand up like,
how could you be firing all of these tens of
thousands of veterans who serve the country. How could you
be firing all of these military spouses who are sort
of disproportionately on probationary status because the nature of having
to move around the country and you know, depending on
where your your spouse is being stationed and deployed. And

(26:18):
so I think politically this has been some of the
stuff that's been more difficult for Republicans and as part
of why Elon had to meet with them this week
and assuage some of the Republican Caucus concerns about what
they're hearing from constituents in their district with regard to Doge.

Speaker 5 (26:34):
Well, my favorite part of that report was at the meeting,
Elon Musk handed out his phone number to senators but
not House members, which is especially pretty finely. It reminds
me of the veepline where she can't get something through
the Senate. She says, Okay, then lift the sewer grade
to the House and we'll go over there. So funny.

(26:55):
So what's really interesting to me? And I was very
surprised to find out by this that that actually pairs
it back down to twenty nineteen levels. So in the
last several years, the growth of the VA was eighty
thousand people, which is very like the last six years,
the growth of the VA was eighty thousand people, which
is interesting because it's about a four hundred thousand person

(27:16):
department and they're going to get it back down to
around three hundred thousand. But even if that, even if
that on paper you look at it, the politics of it, Krystaler,
are going to be I mean, we played that video earlier,
but what was a few days ago from Roger Wicker.
I want to say it was Roger Wicker at a
town hall where he was getting specifically confronted on veterans.
I was listening to an NPR segment about their local

(27:40):
va outside of Seattle getting hit by this, and you're
just like, when you localize this, it's going to I
don't know that we've actually fully seen the bleeding politically
shown show up and polling it because I don't know
that it's been fully like people haven't reckoned with it.
They don't realize they're still uncertainty as to whether this
stuff is permanent or whether it's going to get real. First,

(28:00):
people are gonna get rehired, because we have seen people
get rehired, so I don't I mean, if if some
of the stuff is permanent, the politics of that are
going to be extremely difficult for Republicans.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, and also, you know we're already seeing and this
is a good transition to the next piece about tariffs,
we're seeing some real economic warning signs and making massive
cuts to the federal government that is going to have
an impact not just on those workers, but obviously we're
verberates around communities, you know, different industries that were federal
government funding is important. They just sort of everything is

(28:34):
frozen in place. And when you couple that with the
tariffs and what's going on there and general sense that
there's you know, a slow down coming. It can have
devastating economic impacts outside of just the direct buyings and
what that means for individual people's lives. So here's the
latest on the tariffs. As of yesterday, we have Trump

(28:56):
delaying some tariffs on Mexico and Canada at least for
a month, So we get to do this all again
in April. Guys, don't worry. But basically anything that falls
under any products that follow fall under the USMCA. They're
saying the terrafts are not going to apply. And have
a note here about what percentage. So about fifty percent

(29:18):
of Mexican imports thirty eight percent of Canadian imports are
covered by that trade agreement.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
It does create a lot of.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I mean, so you still have a significant portion of
goods that will be tariffed. And also I was reading
about this as well, it's like a little bit complex
to even figure out which goods are covered by the teriffs.
Some things will be straightforward, but some things, you know,
where you have different component parts coming from different places, etc.
It's actually complicated to figure out which falls under this
agreement and which doesn't. So you know, I saw I

(29:49):
think the markets were reacting pretty positively this morning, but
yesterday was a total bloodbath in the market. So, you know, Emily,
what do you think about where we are with all
of this.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
It's hard to know where we are because it's like
you don't know if you're in the middle of something
until you have some clear idea of what the end
would look like. And I don't know what Drum's end is.
It's I fail two because yeah, I mean, we talked
about this at length the other night. But he has
this conflation of his economic goals and his immigration fentanyl goals,

(30:23):
and it's really obviously confusing for Mexico and Canada. At
this point, I think he's just like straight up mad
at Canada and wants to mess with Canada. But like,
I don't know, I think it's really hard to say
what he does going forward because he has gotten some
things like, for example, the Honda Civics being made in

(30:44):
Indiana rather than Mexico. Like, he's seen some of this
stuff start to happen. So does that mean that he
sticks with a more targeted version of some of these
that's my best guess. I would say that he ultimately
lands on targeted tariffs and can claim a win on
the blunt force tariffs by getting Mexico to cooperate with
immigration stuff and getting Canada to cooperate with fentanyl and

(31:08):
that sort of thing. So I have no idea where
it's going, but that's my best guess right now. Ryan.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
One of what the Canadians think is that he's using
this economic warfare against them to try to weaken them
so that he can take them over as the fifty
first state. I mean, that's what they that's what they believe.
Some Trump officials have even effectively said that that is
the goal. I mean, do you put much stock in
that as that's what's going on here because it's so
hard to figure out what is actually going on here.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yes, I do think that that's that needs to be
taken seriously because the United States economy definitely has the
power to, you know, shrink the Canadian economy by an
absolute extraordinary amount.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
Which is already not good by the way.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, and it's it's crushing. You know, we're already crushing
the economy now, you know, we we benefit from trade
with Canada, Like there's an enormous number of raw materials
and resources that would the paper you know, energy that
come in from Canada to the United States. But our
economy is so huge, you know, obviously we can withstand

(32:17):
a trade war with Canada. We would you know, we
can outlast them. And so now the question is like,
is there a Trump in power long enough to like
execute on that long term strategy and does he have
the the ability to kind of see it through. There
were people in the eighteen nineties when McKinley was doing

(32:40):
this that thought that that was the plan, that they
were gonna, you know, weaken Canada to the point that
we would be able to annex it.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
So I didn't realize that, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
That was that was part of the thinking. It collapsed
really quickly because even in the you know, in the
eighteen nineties, people were like didn't like paying more price,
you know, higher prices, and we had that giant crisis
in eighteen ninety three that kind.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Of ended that.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
So, yeah, what like it wouldn't be new, But I
don't think, you know, just like then, I don't know
if we.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Have the follow through.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
This comes as Secretary Besant yesterday, as the Treasury Secretary
said that cheap goods are not the essence of the
American dream. Which actually there's I mean, we could do
an hour just talking about the reflecting on those comments
and what the reality is and what a different version
of the American dream, because certainly, in the neoliberal era,

(33:37):
what has been sold to the citizens in lieu of
like high wages, unionization, a manufacturing base, like you know,
intact communities, we have been sold that actually, chief goods
are the thing that we're giving you in exchange for
the way we're going to run the economic system. And
so in certain sense I'm sympathetic to Yeah, I agree,

(34:00):
I don't think that should be, but that is the
value that we've been sold. And if you're going to
effectively intentionally raise prices, which is what these tariffs will
almost certainly do, then you better have some other things
in place to raise wages and you know, restore some
other allow people to be able to buy houses, for example,

(34:20):
afford college education, afford healthcare, or be given you know,
universal healthcare. If you are going to completely reorient things
on the contrary, what they have seemed to be pushing
towards is if not outright generating a recession, generating a
massive slow down intentionally in consumer spending and in wage growth,

(34:43):
so that in using that as the way to curb inflation.
And so let me just put this pull up on
the screen on and get you guys to reflect on
all of that. But you've got nearly two and three
Americans now saying they think tariffs are going to drive
their costs up. That includes a majority of Republicans. Those
members have moved substantially in just a month period of time.

(35:04):
So you can see here even among Republicans, you've got
fifty one percent saying yeah, they're going to cause costs
to go up, only nineteen percent saying they'll go down,
eighteen percent saying no impact. And overall, sixty seven percent
of people say yeah, this is going to cause prices
to go up, and you know, only twelve percent say
they will cause them to go down, in twelve percent
saying no impact. Here, so very lopsided in terms of

(35:27):
how people help people expect these tariffs to affect their
lives at a time when obviously emily inflation has been
you know, a core part of the political story and
political upset during the Biden administration that helps usher Trump
into power. Trump promises very much like we're going to
get prices under control, et cetera. And right now people
feel like, well, actually, your policy is pushing in the

(35:48):
exact opposite direction also.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
And I think, Emily, while you think on that, let
me clean up my McKinley comment real quick, because it
actually fits in this. It wasn't that McKinley's tariffs led
into and were upended by the eighteen ninety three crisis.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
It was the reverse.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
There was the eighteen ninety three crisis that created this depression,
that created this like demand among the American people that
you do something about it.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
And McKinley ran then.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
In eighteen ninety six saying I'm going to do something
about this, and the thing I'm going to do is
is tariffs. And so he's elected then and people were like, oh,
this actually didn't solve the problem.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Like you were right that there.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Was something wrong, but this didn't fix it. So let's
get rid of let's get rid of these tariffs. So
before people dragged jump on your flipping the timeline there.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Actually his speech that he gave before the before an
assassin you know, came and took him out, was about
how he was rolling back a lot of the tariffs
because basically like, yeah, we you know, that served its
purpose for its time, but we're we're moving forward in
a different direction now.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
And Trump We've talked about this before too, But I
think he actually just thrives on the sense of confusion.
And I think the reason that even people who follow
his moves, his every move when it comes to tariffs
don't have a good idea of what's coming next is
completely intentional on his behalf, because he legitimately doesn't want
Trudeau and shine Bomb to know either, or China for

(37:10):
that matter. But the bestent speech, I pulled it up
in front of me. I just wanted to read a
little bit more from where he says. He starts to
talk about the United States finds itself subsidizing the rest
of the world's underspending in defense. This is not just
a security issue. The United States also provides reserve assets,
serves as a consumer of first and last resort, and
absorbs excess supply in the face of insufficient demand in

(37:31):
other countries domestic models. The system is not sustainable. Then,
he says, access to cheap goods is not the essence
of the American dream. The American dream is rooted in
the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility,
and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral
trade deals have lost sight of this. And so what
I thought was particularly interesting about that is it doesn't
help you sell higher prices. And what Donald Trump talked about,

(37:56):
like most Americans are going to like that to them
sounds like airy in the clouds bs. I really like
it because it's not how the conservative movement has talked
about these things ever, and it's true, and I think
it's sort of interesting. He didn't include families in that
calculation and didn't talk about neighborhoods and communities. He just
talked about economic mobility and all that sort of thing,

(38:17):
which is great, but you know, we could go into
a different rabbit hole in that. But most Americans like, sure, yeah,
but these eggs are ten dollars right. Oh man. So
Trump pivoted to Biden when he was talking about eggs
in the joint address, and you can only coast off
of that for so long. I think he's probably fine

(38:37):
right now, still blaming Biden. But I don't think that
lasts much longer politically. I think that is it only
is going to last for a little bit longer for them.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
And think about what actually worked.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Its Crystal's point about McKinley getting gout by that anarchist
who comes in then Teddy Roosevelt, and he's like, oh,
I've got an actual solution here. I'm going to smash
corporate power. I'm busting up all of these trusts, and
I'm going to raise up regular people. So you went
from this kind of fake populism of we're going to
do We're going to do tariffs and he's trying to like,

(39:09):
you know, drain off the energy from William Jennings Bryan.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Tariffs and imperialism by the way.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Tariffs and imperialism exactly that that actually turned out to
be just bs and didn't work. What when then Roosevelt
comes in and takes on corporate power and and brings
in a progressive era, you know, launches like government regulation
of these of these corporate entities, and all of a
sudden you start getting real economic growth again combined with

(39:35):
a loose monetary policy by accidentally finding a whole lot
of silver in the West, which actually proved William Jennings
Bryan right that you did need looser silver policy.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
But anyway, that's a different.

Speaker 5 (39:48):
Part of it, just like Crypto. It's just like Crypto.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
There you go, some parallels there.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, actually, all right, let's move on to a little
bit of the the Democrats here and uh this, I'm
curious for Ryan's reaction first and foremost of this. So
you know, al Green did his protest on the floor saying,
you know, you have no mandate to cut medicaid. He's
been really on a tear like very laser focused on Medicaid,
in particular because his debt district has a lot of

(40:15):
Medicaid recipients, so he feels it's you know, quite important
to the fortunes of his constituents. And you had Jeffries
and other leaders, Catherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, who gathered
what they describe as roughly a dozen Democratic disruptors. They
were called into a come to Jesus meeting on Thursday morning.

(40:38):
The Senior dam told Axios, this also comes on the
heels of a censure vote of Al Green in the House,
where you know it's mostly overwhelmingly obviously every Republican voting
to censure him, but you did have ten Democrats across
the aisle Ryan to stand up in favor of decorum,

(40:59):
so you know which is it just says so much
about this party. To be honest with you, by Ryan,
was what was your thought about this come to Jesus
meeting over how dare you disrupt the President of the
United States?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
And these were all Democrats who are in pretty you know,
Republican leading districts had very close elections, so this is
you know, this is them kind of pandering to that,
to that constituency.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
I think that.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Jesus had a way forward for people, for his his
his flock, his you know, his disciples, like Emily can
tell us a little bit more about this. But if
you have a come to Jesus meeting and Jesus doesn't
actually have any ideas for.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
You, like what do you that meeting is going to
break up pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Jesus got his power in his charisma and his following
because you know, he had ideas about how they were
going to go forward in the world. True, I don't
think Keemja has any ideas right now. So it's like
come to Jeffries, to come to Jeffries and they're like, okay,
well can you tell us then you know what is

(42:11):
the path forward? And he's like, I don't know, what
are you asking me for.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
We don't have any power.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
He's like, I know, we're going to put out this
cringe TikTok video with you.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Why haven't you guys done your TikTok videos yet?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, one, the one where they were all scripted doing
the same thing.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
That's what that's been.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
The Democratic parties, in compliance with decorum, approached your resistance here.

Speaker 5 (42:33):
Can I say that reminds me so much of like
two thousand and nine twenty ten, when like just the
lamest Republicans who are trying to catch up with Democrats
after like the Facebook, Electric Facebook, Twitter, and it's it's
like shocking.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
To take the picture of their breakfast.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
Yeah, no, it's.

Speaker 5 (42:52):
Truly that they would. It's truly shocking to me as
someone who grew up in the era were like Republicans
were the epitome of cringe on social media. Yet that
it is now Democrats And it happened very very quickly,
like Republicans used to. I mean, I think politics is
always pretty cringe on social media, but Republicans used to
actually envy the way Democrats were able to speak more

(43:13):
like fluently on social media, and they spoke the language
of social media more fluently, and now it's completely reversed.
But on this point about Hakim Jeffreys, he is terrible.
He is so so bad, surprisingly, surprisingly the man for
the moment.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
I never thought I long for the leadership of Nancy Pelosi,
but at least the woman has some skills.

Speaker 5 (43:35):
Like val Republicans would look at Nancy Pelosi and they
would say, what we did with George Santos. This is
how they would see it. They lost, they actually lost
battles because they kicked out George Santos, and they looked out.
They looked back on that afterwards, and they were like,
Nancy Pelosi would never have done that, in the same
way that Nancy Pelosi probably would never have forced this

(43:58):
like struggle session over what alc. I don't think Algren's
optics were great for Democrats, but two things can be true.
That could have been a hilarious image of like an
elderly man waving his cane at the president. And on
the other hand, you don't have to have a struggle
session to like censor him when people want you to
be harder on Trump, like the optics of both are bad.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Well, and here's the thing, too. Sorry, I'm I didn't
mean to cut your way. But the thing with al
Green is, Okay, let's say you feel like, oh, the
optics were bad of him, you know, standing up with
his cane and the thing. But you know what Republicans
have figured out, and Trump in particular is figured out,
is if you are able to generate controversy and a conversation,
which aug Green did, then you can move the political

(44:42):
dialogue in the direction that you want. And so what
I appreciated about what al Green did is immediately afterwards
he's escorted out and he says, I am here and
I'm willing to stand up, and I will take the
consequences because they will not cut medicaid and they will
not go after my constituents.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
And I don't care if they do sense me. I
am here to fight.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
And so now if Democrats were smart enough to say, yeah,
he's right, these Medicaid cuts are outrageous and they're going
to be incredibly destructive. Now you switched the conversation to
an issue where you are overwhelmingly on the side of
the people, and it's Republicans who are having to respond. Instead,

(45:22):
you have the Democrats forcing some handwringing conversation about decorum,
and meanwhile, you're also pissing off your own base, who
are like, yes, Al Green, You're a hero, Thank you
for doing something. Yes, Jasmine Crockett, who also was called
into this meeting and berated for her resistance.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
Not being appropriate with decorum whatever.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
I don't think Ryan, that Democratic leadership has internalized that
it's not just like lefties like you and me who
are mad at the establishment Democrats. At this point, they
have lost the Libs, like the like the Democratic base,
like the backbone of this party, who were in love
with Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. They are like, fuck you,

(46:07):
Hakeem Jeffries, screw you, like we are disgusted. And I
don't think they've reckoned with the fact that it's not
just you know, this group of like progressives and lefties
that they're used to sneering at and used to marginalizing
that has they have gotten crosswise with at this point.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, they're they're.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Lucky that you know, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times
seem okay, you know, They're just they're just gonna kind
of let this. They're just gonna step back and let
Hakeem Jeffries just play this thing out, because, as Emily
pointed out wisely the other day, that there's a very
similar dynamic to the problems that Republican leadership faced during

(46:44):
the Tea Party. Yeah, and there was an insurgency then,
and within like a cycle or two they had been
wiped that, you know, the old guard had basically been
been wiped out and sent back to their kind of
readout at the Chamber of Commerce. The what they had
though was Fox News, like, you know, sending cameras to
every single Tea Party rally. You know, thirty guys in

(47:08):
Bangers District would would be driving the news for that
night on Fox. And once you know, Eric Canter was beaten,
Fox was like all in on the Tea Party movement,
and Left it was still allow ac AOC beat Joe
Rowley and became an enemy for several years. Right, if

(47:29):
there was a left media that then rallied behind that element,
it would it would own the party by now.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
But of course.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
CNN, MSNBC, these are like corporate backed media, and there's
no overlap between you know, left populism and corporate media,
where there can be with right populism.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
And corporate media because they're not at odds ultimately with
upper power.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
But the what's interesting is that in twenty seventy ish whatever,
actually I thought, we did see an interesting reception that
like the sort of populist left got on corporate media
because everybody was together under the banner of the resistance.
And now there's nothing like that because right right, exactly so.

(48:18):
But now corporate media, like Hakim Jeffries is terrified that
the Jasmine Crockets of the world, and Crockett has been
an missibus he or whatever else, but like they're terrified
of the Jasmine Crocketts of the world actually making them
look like they've they're still on the wrong side of
the culture war. And so CNN and Hakim Jeffries right
now are going to be really risk averse about platforming populism,

(48:43):
anything that smacks of populism, even if it's coming from
like corporate friendly Democrats, because they are like, we need
to get back. They don't understand that actually economic left
populism is what people want. And if you get rid
of cultural populism, like cultural left populism, you're taking down
the left economic populists with them. And what's left is

(49:05):
really unpopular corporate democratic BS right, and.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Jasmine Crockett doesn't have doesn't bring forward and she doesn't
lead with a class analysis and so so there's nothing
threatening about that. And she's extremely talented, you know in
the way that she kind of rips apart Republicans and
so she makes for great TV. And there's nothing threatening there.
You that what was that Marjorie Taylor green Riff?

Speaker 3 (49:28):
She had bleach blonde? I mean that, Yeah, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, that's true that whatever it was, she just nailed that.
But there's nothing threatening.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
It's a little bit of a polymarket populist, if you
because she is like Crypto backed you very like you know,
in terms of her economics.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
She's I reported in my book Squad that like the
Crypto people came to her during her first campaign and
it was basically like I will will will wipe you
out or we'll support you.

Speaker 5 (49:57):
Yeah, she loves her remember.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
That, remember that section?

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, that was She's like she's like, what's the give me,
give me the damn questionnaire? Yeah, I don't care, and
I'm not for crypto, not against it. I don't care,
I don't understand it, and I just tell me where
I need to sign to get Yeah, and you can
blame her for that, but it's also that's a real
problem with how our campaigns are financed.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
And they made an example, as you point out, of
Katie Porter. And after that it really was just like
basically capitulation. I real quick want to get to it
because this ties in so much the Gavin Newsom Charlie
Kirk thing before Emily has to jump you have a
heart out.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
At ten m ish.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Yeah, okay, all right, so we can get it. We
can get a few minutes from you on this. So
Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast, God Save Us okay,
and he's announced a few.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
What's what's called? Is it like Gavin Gavin?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
I don't know Gavin. With Gavin, I don't know, But
his I don't know. I think his first episode, I
haven't tracked it that closely. It was just himself, which
is kind of appropriate.

Speaker 5 (51:00):
He talked about the Menandos brothers.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Are you serious?

Speaker 5 (51:03):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
The second episode he has Charlie Charlie Kirk on, and
first of all, this was interesting to me. He tells
Charlie Kirk what a big fan his son is.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
Of him.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
So let's take a listen to a little bit of that,
and then we can play the piece that has gotten
the most attention, which is Gavin Newsom on trans Girls
in Sports.

Speaker 6 (51:22):
Last night, trying to put my son to bed. He's like, no, Dad,
I just what time? What time is Charlie gonna be here?
What time?

Speaker 3 (51:29):
And I'm like, dude, you're in school tomorrow. He's thirteen.

Speaker 6 (51:31):
He's like, no, no, no, this morning wakes up, it sicks up.
Then he's like I'm coming. I'm like, he literally would
not leave the house.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Did you let him tick off the school?

Speaker 6 (51:39):
No, he did, of course not.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
He's not here for a good reason.

Speaker 7 (51:41):
But the point is you canceled school for two years. Once.

Speaker 6 (51:44):
The point is the point, which is you are making
a damn dad answer. I'm kidding when you go to
these college camps. I love watching your TikTok, which is
nice level.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
All right, that's enough of that, but I just wanted
to use that as a way to say, like, I'm sorry,
Gavin Newsom, you're a bad dad, Like you should not
be letting your kid watch this trash. And also if
you are raising your child with any sort of quote
unquote progressive values like maybe reflect on where you want
astray that he is in love with Churley Kirk.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
To me, I don't.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
I wouldn't want to ban my kids from watching Charlie
Kirk or anybody, but I would do a lot of
deep self reflection about what I had done.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
There is no way get them there. I am an
eleven year.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Old son, almost twelve. No way in hell I would
let him watch any of that kind of trash. No way,
no way.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
It's an interesting yeah, because YouTube is such a mess.
You go from Minecraft and then you're quickly you're into this,
you know, right manisphere stuff.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
True, Absolutely true.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
I mean any reflection, Well, I don't have children, so
I don't have to make this decision.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
But watching, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
I'd be off for that. I think it's the I
do work with a lot of like younger people because
I'm in that like right wing world of like student stuff.
And what I find is the reason they're drawn to
people like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro is this. They
feel like they're getting a moral clarity from it. And
actually a lot of them watch us on Piker two

(53:20):
because they like watching people who aren't like machine middle centrists.
They like watching people who tell them something and are
utterly convinced of it because it makes them feel like
they're listening to something that's true. So I have no
idea what path Gavin Newsom's son is on, but I
think the podcast is really interesting for the exact reason
we were just talking about with Jasmine Crockett, which is

(53:41):
that Gavin Newsom is totally the type of person who,
like he can he's going to pivot. He's such a chameleon.
He's like, he's smart enough to know that you have
to look transparent and authentic, and like Kamala Harris could
have gone on Joe Rogan and shot herself with the
foot by just looking like a robot, like she went

(54:02):
on Call her Daddy, and it didn't really make a
dent because she just was Kamala Harris like talking to
Lester Holt when she was on Call her Daddy, Like
it was just there was nothing authentic about it, with
same like, same old political robotics. But he's at least
smart enough to know that you got to try to
just look down to earth like you're shooting the shit
with Charlie. But he can't. He's not going to be

(54:25):
able to be a chameleon on economics. He could do
it on culture stuff, but he's not going to be
able to do it on corporate stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Well, and he's smart enough to realize, like, oh I
got to do a podcast, you know, I gotta be
relatable that he was common denominator. He's not smart enough
to recognize that. So when I saw he had Charlie
kirk on and I think he has some other right
wing guests booked next. I can't remember who it is,
but Ricruso maybe.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
I was like, oh, well, if he has him on
and he fights with him, liberals are gonna love that
because Gavin is cape. I mean, he did the Rond
DeSantis debate. Democratic base voters never loved him more than
when he did that, and he has the capability to
then when I see that, actually this was like a

(55:09):
hot Stone massage interview, Like you don't understand where the
base of the Democratic Party is right now. Because you
may think this is smart positioning, you know, with regard
to like you know, taking the l so to speak
on trans girls and sports, throwing them under the bus.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
You may think that smart positioning for a general election,
you get a primary to get through first, and right
now he's sort of placing the same bet of like
the Heeme Jeffreys of the world and leaping past where
the Democratic base is to where he thinks the quote
unquote moderate middle will ultimately be. While to your point, Emily,
you know, totally totally skipping up because you know he's

(55:49):
a corporate back guy, corporate don't or guy. There's no
way he's going to move on economics and he's sort
of a populous piece.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
So instead, what has he gotta do.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
He's got to like throw trans people under the bus,
oral immigrants under the bus, etc.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
But I think this is.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
So misreading the moment in terms of what the Democratic
base needs to say wants to see that It was
honestly a little bit astonishing to me that he was
this tone deaf.

Speaker 5 (56:15):
Well, I just put up on the screen to your point,
this he chose to tweet this excerpt with the line,
no one believes pornography should be taught in schools, obviously,
but that's not why four thousand plus books have been banned.
The Republican Party has been on a banning bench. I
disagree with that, but whatever It's so interesting to me
that he chose to post that excerpt because I feel
like he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.

(56:35):
He's trying to throw red meat at the Democratic base
and then also create clickbait on the right, you know,
like he is trying to use this.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Where's the red meat for the Democratic base? That part
I didn't see.

Speaker 5 (56:48):
The Republican Party has been on a banning binge right,
like he's trying to like pump up the left, like, yeah,
the Republicans are book banners and Gavin Newsom is he's
holding the line while he's talking, you know about cultural
issues like transports in a different.

Speaker 4 (57:04):
Way, what did you think of all thats? Ryan?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
In this clip, he didn't actually hold the line he had.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
It was like he didn't know where he was yet.
In the clip, he's like.

Speaker 5 (57:14):
But he posted it in a way that made it
look like he did.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
In the clip though, he's like, there shouldn't be pornography
in the schools. We all agree with that, And then
Charlie Kirk's like, Okay, then I'll show you some books
that are pornographic and have pornographic images in them, and
you agree we should remove those and then he goes
back to, well, I don't really want the government making
those decisions, which is like, well, you just said that

(57:39):
the government shouldn't allow, you know, pornography in schools, like
so should there shouldn't they? So you come, like a
voter watching that from both sides would be like, well
where not actually sure where you stand on this question yet?

Speaker 3 (57:54):
And ye like it should be an easy one, be like.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
If because if you say that there shouldn't be geography
in schools, like you just said that that's your position,
then obviously you have to take get out of there.
If somebody identifies one that fits that category when they
come back and they're like, well the Bible should be
banned and so should this bill O'Reilly book and Soshia
Tony Morrison, then you slam them as like extremist nut jobs, right,

(58:19):
But he it's I don't know, I don't know, and
I don't quite know why he can't like just make
that little concession.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Well, here's here's why I'm a little bit grateful that
Gavin Newsom has misread the moment to this extent, because
I think right now liberals just want someone who's going
to like put up a fight like that's just that's it, right,
It's very inco a. They're very disappointed in leadership. They
want to see someone match the energy of the moment,
and the people by and large you're matching the energy
of the moment are on the left. Then you have

(58:48):
some people who are like you know, a Jasmine Crockett,
who look, I've appreciated that she's been out there fighting,
and like you said, Ryan, she's really talented. But there
is a danger that you end up with someone like
a Gavin or a Peek who are politically like they're
good at being sort of like political debate bros, who
use their willingness to directly challenge Republicans as a way

(59:12):
to Trojan horsen yet another standard neoliberal establishment agenda. Like liberals,
I think would be very susceptible to that. Right now,
if you just see someone who is like a normal Democrat,
but who is willing to fight with the Charlie Kirk,
who's willing to tell them to their face to go
on Fox News and like hold their own.

Speaker 8 (59:30):
Yeah seventeen right, and the specific policy issues come sort
of secondary. So I think there's a real, you know
possibility that you end up with a Democratic primer where
someone who is able to sort of posture as a
fighter but then just really is upholding the status quo
is what the liberal base wants. So I am grateful
to Gavin Newsom for you know, just having this very

(59:52):
like basically capitulating to Charlie Kirk in this conversation and
not going down the path of posturing like he's going
to be some renegade fighter for you know, any sort
of like populist or different principle than has reigned in
the Democratic Party and been a total failure for years
and years. Because I do think he would be one
of those candidates that, look, he's a talented guy in

(01:00:13):
a certain respect, and I think he there would be
a real danger of him being able to win in
a Democratic primary and then just basically be you know,
Kamala Harris or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
I've got to run.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
Guys, all right, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
You, Ryan, play the last Yeah, one more clip, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, I got one more. This is the trans girls
in sports. I can get your reaction to this. On
the other side, this is the one that made the
most news here, Like you right now.

Speaker 7 (01:00:41):
Should come out and be like, you know what, the
young man who's about to win the state championship in
the long jump in female sports. But that's that that
shouldn't happen. You as the governor should step out and
say no, no, And I appreciate and but like, would
you do something like that, would you say no men
in female sports?

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely
agree with you on that. So that's easy to call
out the unfairness of that. There's also a humility and
a grace. You know that these poor people are more
likely to commit suicide of anxiety and depression, and the
way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an
issue that I have a hard time with as well.
So both things I can hold in my hand. How

(01:01:17):
can we address this issue with the kind of decency
that I think you know is inherent in you but.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Not always expressed.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
What do you think of that, Ryan?

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
I mean, I think they're getting closer to an answer
on this question that keeps be deviling them. I mean,
I think the first answer should always be you're raising
this like distraction of an issue that affects, like, you know,
point zero one percent of the population because you don't
want people to pay attention to the fact that you're
you're robbing them blind, Like I think that's you should

(01:01:51):
always remind people of that fact. You also don't want
to look like you're dodging the question, because it is
something that some people care about, and if you look
like you're dodging it, you got to give some answer.
You obviously don't want to be embraced the kind of
transphobic language of misgendering people the way that Kirk consists
on doing in that conversation. But I do think that

(01:02:15):
Democrats have no chance to win on this question. Like
I three or four years ago, I wrote a story
about a poll and a memo that the Transgender Law
Center had had been circulating that you know, very very
very pro trans organization that was like, we've done polling,
we've done focus grouping, the numbers on this are just

(01:02:38):
absolutely abysmal. Like the public and there's and every argument
that we made on behalf of our position made the
public less likely, not more likely to support our position.
So like you're you're just you're not going to win.
No amount of pushing on this issue is going to

(01:03:00):
get you to a place where you're winning. And so
then when you lose on that issue, you end up
losing on a whole slew of other issues as well.
And so I think his point about the fairness, it's
so then what do you do?

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Like? And I think the prison question is is an
interesting one too. And so if democrats, you know, democrats say, look,
there's they don't like when people say there's only two genders.
But then if that's the case, why should there be
only two divisions you know, men's prison, women's prison, or

(01:03:37):
men's sports women's sports. You know, maybe there needs to
be uh you know cis men's sist women and and
and like non binary category or when it comes to prison,
like transmen and trans women are segregated, SIS women and
SIST men, Like this is something that we can think

(01:03:57):
about as a society in a respectful way that gives
dignity people, but also like absorbs, how people feel about
it and aren't gonna and are not going to change
no matter what according to like all of the polling
and focus grouping and conversations and common sense. You know,
where do you come where do you come down on it? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
I mean I think everything you said is reasonable. Where
I get upset is you know, you had immediately after
the election, you had a few members of Congress that
were like, oh, well, the problem for the Democratic Party
is they just need to like surrender on you know,
this issue in particular, and because the polling is so bad.
And like, I get that the polling is bad, but

(01:04:40):
it ignores a few things. I mean, first of all,
it ignores how bad the polling is for Republicans on
certain you know issues, especially like Donald Trump pardoning violent
January sixers who beat up cops really unpopular, like extremely unpopular.
You know, taking over Greenland really unpopular. Even core part
of his economic agenda right now on terriffs really really unpopular.

(01:05:04):
Cutting Social Security, cutting Medicaid really unpopular. And so where
I get very skeptical is when you have people like
Gavin Newsom who think that this is all it's very
convenient for them to say, like, oh, we just need
to basically sort of throw these vulnerable people under the bus.
And that's the key back to Democratic Party because it

(01:05:26):
allows them to continue operating as they were. It allows
them to keep taking big money, you know, from donors,
It allows them to keep pushing a lily status quo
agenda in terms of economics, And the other piece where
I worry is, you know, Republicans initially postured like, oh, well,
we only care about trans you know, trans kids, Like

(01:05:47):
if you're an adult, do whatever you want, of course,
the free country, et cetera, et cetera. Now you've got
a law up in Texas where people who identify as
trans could be prosecuted for fraud.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
So that's the other piece is like, I think there's a.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
Bride the congressman from Delaware. Yeah, is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You know, being called a man by her and she's
an adult, So yes, this this like claim that they
only care about kids and adults should be able to
make the choices that they want to make, is yeah,
he lies their actual reaction.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
I just I reject the idea that this issue is
actually the reason why Democrats are struggling. I think it
has much more to do with selling out the working class.
And so if your answer doesn't lead with like, there's
literally like a dozen trans girls in sports in the
entire country, And so if you're fixated on this, you
are not definitionly like thinking about the issues that actually

(01:06:42):
impact millions and millions of Americans, And then it's not
that important to me. Ultimately where you fall on this
particular issue, because I do think it is a challenging one.
I don't think that you know, the sort of like
binary works for everything. I think there is a question
of fairness. I think it could even vary sport to
sport what the right answer ultimately looks like. But if

(01:07:02):
you are foregrounding this as like the central party for
the Democratic Party, that's where I have an issue, and
that's I think the camp that Gavin Newsom very much
falls into.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Yeah, but like what what you said is like was
not what they were saying before, before they were drawing
a very hard line on this, rather than saying, you know,
this is open for discussion, we need to figure all
of this out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
I think they're probably ultimately going to say, like, this
isn't something for states and localities to work out. And
I don't have any problem with that answer. What I
do have a problem with is first of all, the
you know, the misgendering and the just instinct to sort
of throw this like, oh, this group's a problem for us,
so we're just going to throw them under the buzzo immigrations,

(01:07:46):
We're just going to throw that under the bus, rather
than actually making a case for your views and ideals.
And there's so much of an instinct in the Democratic
Party right now to just capitulate on any area where
they're you know, where they're underwater, pulling wise, And that
is not how They're Republican Party operates at all, like,
not even a little. It's certainly not how Donald Trump
operates at all. So I think it is just like

(01:08:08):
wildly learning the wrong lessons from the last election. Yeah, well, Ryan,
thank you so much for spending some time with us
this morning, and hope pleasure. Yes, indeed, I'm sure there
are gonna be like eighteen million more stories that break
over the weekend that Soccer and I will struggle to
squeeze into a show on Monday. If anything truly huge breaks,
we will make sure to cover it over the weekend. Then, guys,

(01:08:29):
enjoy your Friday, enjoy your weekend, and Soccer and I
will see you guys on Monday.