5/27/25: Trump Billionaires Trash Budget, Schulz Demands Dem Socialism, Trump Says Putin Went Crazy

Krystal discusses pro-Trump billionaires trash budget bill, Schulz and Charlemagne demand Dem socialism, Trump says Putin went crazy.

 

Majority Report: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-3jIAlnQmbbVMV6gR7K8aQ

Aaron Bastani: https://www.amazon.com/Fully-Automated-Luxury-Communism-Bastani/dp/1786632624

 

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Happy Tuesday, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. Hope everybody had
a great long weekend. Super excited this morning because I
have a special celebrity co host guest co host, Emma
Viggilins of The Majority Report, the One and Only, joins
us this morning.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Great to see you, my friends. Oh, great to see you, Crystal.
Thanks so much for having me on.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Many things to talk through. We got the all in
crew trashing Trump's big beautiful Bill and some know detailed
provisions about what's going on with that. We've got the
Dems with some man outreach boondog element they're contemplating as
they try to try to return from the Abyss. You
just can't make this stuff up. We've got putin versus Trump.

(01:15):
Emotional overload is what the Russians are described, how the
Russians are describing Trump's uh latest reactions, and unfortunately, peace
looking further away in Ukraine than perhaps ever. We've got
the world potentially turning on Israel and a new just
absolutely horrific atrocities unfolding there. And then I'm going to
speak with Aaron Bustani. He wrote the book Fully Automated

(01:39):
Luxury Communism several years back, which I read at the
time then I just reread and rereading it. It's sort
of like a leftist, techno optimist view, but really is
conditioned on, you know, us having control over the AI
and the robots and the technology. So I'm curious to
get his thoughts he's also the founder of Navara Media,

(02:00):
to get his thoughts about just how long period of
time we have to completely rewrite the social contract before
AI steals all the jobs and does all the things.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
I mean, that sounds great.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
I'm excited to talk about the Andrew Schultz clip too,
because I have a bunch of mixed feelings about that
and just what it represents and how the Democrats need
to move forward.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, all right, excellent, all right, Well let's get into
this stuff. Well, actually, before we do this, before we
get into the big beautiful bill, I have a disclosure
about my weekend. So put up this Trump tweet on
the screen. I apparently needed to listen to our president's advice.
Here he says, I always said golf can be a
dangerous sport. My friend being bit at Bedminster. So I

(02:43):
did not listen, and Emma, I did play golf over
the weekend, and much to my undying shame and humiliation,
I crashed the golf cart, ran it into a tree,
flipped it over, and broke my nose. Oh the reason
I'm disclosing this, it's because I think I did a

(03:06):
pretty amazing job with the makeup. To be honest, I
mean that you can't really tell, but I know there'll
be some eagle eyed person out there who will notice, like,
my nose is not quite the same shape, and my lip.

Speaker 6 (03:17):
Is a little bit fat, and I've got a little cut.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Over my eye, and maybe some weird coloring going on
underneath my eyes, and I just know there would be
wild speculation about what exactly happened to my face, but
we can put up. This is what I looked like
before the makeup goes on.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
Oh my god, wow, how did you Okay?

Speaker 4 (03:36):
So will you be able to text me some tips
off air, because I'm kind of makeup challenge and this
is a miracle work, like.

Speaker 6 (03:43):
So I never can't take my uh.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
One of my very good friends is like really good
at the stuff, and so she broke out the color
wheel and was like, Okay, this is exactly the shade
that you need to cover up this intense like purple
and black and red and there's some yellow going on
at this point as well, and so it really really
is courtesy of her. But in any case, if my
face looks a little bit fucked up today, it's because

(04:07):
I crashed a golf cart and hit a tree and
flipped it over and broke my nose.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Well, if anyone ever question your toughness, I mean, you've
made it on air despite looking like you just got
out of the ring with Rocky Balboa something like that.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
It looks it looks rough.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
I mean Honestly, it looks like either somebody beat my
ass or I got like a nose job. Is kind
of what it looks like. So anyway, neither of those
things are true. No one could make up as a
ridiculous story as me crashing the golf cart.

Speaker 6 (04:32):
But whatever.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
In any case, let's go ahead and get to the
important matters here, which is Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. So
this has passed through the House, it has not yet
passed through the Senate. We'll get in a moment to
like Ron Johnson and Ran Paul who are not terribly
happy with it. But it's kind of interesting because it
seems like with Elon kind of on the ounce, with
the administration and DOAJE being a complete failure, you're starting

(04:55):
to see some of these tech right voices be a
bit more critical. And this was is emblematic the All
In podcasts, which David Sacks is one of the co
hosts of. He was on there defending the Big Beautiful Bill,
but the other hosts, all three of them, were quite critical.
So let me go ahead and play for you two
different clips. The first one is chimof sounding off on

(05:16):
what he sees as the problems with this bill.

Speaker 7 (05:19):
Who does it benefit current Courson speed Right now, this
bill is about traditional Republicans and traditional Democrats circling the
wagons and putting on a platter a set of things
that I think will be hurtful to average Americans. You're
going to see energy prices spike, You're gutting the number
of electrons that will be available for things like AI.

(05:41):
You're going to increase medicare prices, and the math is wrong.
So when you sensitize this thing to a four and
a half or five or five and a quarter rate,
so meaning not what the CBO used, but the real
conditions on the ground, this thing as an albatross. And

(06:01):
I think unfortunately for President Trump's agenda and for a
MAGA movement, this is the worst of all conditions. The
financial markets will punish this. And then the last thing
I'll say is now, to top it all off, I
think that Jerome Powell will see the writing on the wall.
Many aspects of this thing are inflationary, and if they're

(06:23):
not handled well by the Senate, he has a lot
of room to actually increase interest rates. So I would
just say that the Senate has an incredibly difficult job.
I think the president has an even more difficult job
about what to do right now. But the House did
nobody favors. They did not do anybody a favor.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
So am I listened to this whole section of this podcast,
and even David Sachs wasn't like, oh, this is great
and it's amazing.

Speaker 6 (06:50):
He was like, well, here's the pluses.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
But also you have to remember, like you're working with
you know, the Democrats aren't going to do anything for you,
and you're working with this very difficult caucus, and you
know this is the best we can get, and you've
got to try to see the upside. So none of
them was like outright selling it, and let me play
you this one other one. This is I think this
is Jason Calacanis who kind of calls out the other
three co hosts and is like, you all are pretending

(07:13):
like it's the Republican's Falder's the Congress's fauld or whatever.
Like if Trump wanted this bill to be a different bill,
he could make it a different bill.

Speaker 6 (07:20):
So let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
This president action in a laterally all the time, whether
it's immigration, DEI, he has no problem and this is
what he is doing. He's endorsing this bill. He's saying
it's big, it's beautiful, he is saying this is historic.
I think this is bad leadership. I'll just say it
straight out. He was elected to balance this budget and

(07:44):
to have austerity. He's going to put more onto the debt.
And we sat here on this very podcast, the four
of us, and said this was the most important issue
on the world, and Trump is putting gasoline on the fire.
I think it's bad leadership. Let's Getntinue on the docket.

Speaker 8 (08:01):
I suggest you look at the Constitution, because the power
of the purse rests with Congress.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
He's endorsing this, He's endorsing it when it comes to
putting up a fight.

Speaker 8 (08:09):
When it comes to immigration, these other areas. The president
has far more unilateral power and he's used that every
chance he gets. But when it comes to spending, you
have to get Congress on board. This is a bill
that passed with a one vote margin. I don't know
where you think the opportunity is to squeeze out more
concessions from Congress.

Speaker 9 (08:27):
I don't he could speak up.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
He could speak up and say do better. He's doing
the opposite. He's doing the opposite.

Speaker 8 (08:33):
This bill passed by one vote margin. It was hanging
on by a thread, and if it failed, you get
basically hundreds of billions of taxing priests, which we don't
need right now. He's not even in terms of in
terms of I think he's trying.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
I love how now David Sachs is very concerned about
the constitution.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Emma, Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure he is very concerned
about the Constitution. He's pretty concerned about I think that
crypto the value of his crypto wallet. But it's interesting
because Moody's is downgrading the United States credit rating in
part based on this bill, and that's not getting a
ton of coverage because I think the Republicans have benefited

(09:12):
from thirty to forty years of positive media coverage about
their effect on the economy.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
When we know.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
That the Republicans when they're in power, they explode the
debt and deficit. You can both under Bush, under Trump
last time, and it's about to happen again. And the
Great Recession happened under a Republican president. The speedier parts
of our recovery from COVID happened under a Democratic president.

(09:42):
And so there's concern here in part because this is
a bill that, yes, is going to completely explode the debt,
raise it by over three trillion dollars over ten years.
But we already have such a threadbare social safety net
in this country that taking a hatchet to what we
have here, which is Medicaid, is keeping so many people afloat.

(10:05):
Around eighty million people I think, if you include Chip,
rely on Medicaid for their coverage, and that had been
one of the more effective parts of the Affordable Care Act,
which is it took a while, but states basically adopting
the Medicaid expansion and allowing for the federal government to
subsidize healthcare for the poorest people in their state. And

(10:28):
one of the things that I don't think is getting
talked enough about is how this bill will decimate rural
areas of the country. Over sixty million Americans I think
maybe sixty five sixty six million are classified as having
lived in rural areas and are there is such a
dearth of hospitals, there's such scarcity around hospitals and medical

(10:49):
care in this country. And there was an analysis done
that shows that up to a third of rural hospitals
are now at risk of closure because of what the
Republicans are potentially going to pass. I mean, we'll see
what the Senate Doug does with it. But that analysis

(11:10):
said that rural hospitals in Medicaid expansion states are around
sixty percent less likely to close than the ones that
didn't expand under Medicaid. And now and half of rural
hospitals already operate on negative margins. And now if you
got the program Medicaid that's keeping them afloat, you're going

(11:32):
to see hospital closures all across the country, and it's
going to be in the areas that Republicans represent. And
your co host Ryan Grimm made this point with us
I guess on Friday, saying, well, why why don't the
Republicans care about this?

Speaker 5 (11:48):
Was my question.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
I mean, these are their own constituents, they should care
about this. But he said I sounded like Steve Bannon,
which was you know, I had mixed reactions to that
statement because that's, yeah, well that's what.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
He said, right like that, that's the truth.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Apparently Bannon's been saying something similar because these these districts
are so deep red that basically Republicans because they need
to appease the demands of Donald Trump with these steep
cuts to justify uh, you know, all of the other
insane things he's proposing, including the largest military budget increase
in terms of percentage that we've seen since what World

(12:25):
War two eras that that they're banking on the fact
that these districts are so deep red that they can
lose people and the miserate them and still win because
of the way that our districts are drawn. And that's
deep cynicism that honestly, I think needs to be talked
about more.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
And I think what Ryan was pointing to as well
is that you know, he closed a rural hospital that's
going to depress for their depress the not I mean,
obviously it's just like a loss of services, which is
important in and of itself, it's also a loss of jobs.
It's also a loss of vitality for that area, because
people won't want to live in an area that doesn't
have a hospital that's nearby if they have a choice.

(13:04):
You'll see a drain of you know, people who have
the ability to move. And as the Democratic Party has aligned,
you know, more with college educated voters, those are the
people who would tend to be more democratic voting, and
so counterintuitively, you can end up with those red rural
areas becoming even deeper red as a consequence of the
pain that's being inflicted on them by Republicans, which is

(13:25):
pretty wild when you think about it. But I've been
talking to some of my friends in Kentucky. Kentucky is
one of the states that the hardest hit in terms
of rural hospital closures, and you know, it's it's a
very dire circumstance. And I was also curious, you know
what was noteworthy to me with the all in exchange
where you had, like I said, even David Sachs wasn't

(13:46):
like this bill's amazing. He was like, well, it's the
best we can get, and blah blah blah. You know,
and it does do some good things, don't forget about that.
And by the way, you check the Constitution the power
of the purse, which of course none of these guys
cared about when it was Elon with the chainsaw coming
in with Doge. But it was interesting to me that
there was such, you know, pretty aggressive criticism from this podcast,

(14:08):
which is very emblematic of like the tech right and
the type of you know people who have shifted into
the Trump coalition, and I do feel like for them.
And you see this even a little bit with Elon
moving away from this administration, even though he's still involved
in ways that can sometimes be you know, under sold.
I do feel like there's a bit of a bloom

(14:29):
is off the rose with the tech right folks in
terms of what they got, and I think that probably
started with the tariff policy, which they certainly, you know,
business people not super excited about. And then now as
you see the market realities and their concerns are more
around the debt and the deficit, which at this point
I also share those concerns, just because if the world
is moving away from the dollar and the world is

(14:50):
moving away from buying our debt, that becomes a much
more real consideration for us all to have to care about.
But in a case, I found it sort of noteworthy
that there seemed to be a little bit more, you know,
some disappointment expressed, even you know, Jason coming out and saying, listen,
this is bad leadership, like this is on Trump.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
It's a good point, and I agree with you, Crystal
that I've been citing Stephanie Kelton's work in the past.
You know, the Deficit Myth, which I think is an
important book, really important in the Obama era, right to
kind of undercut a lot of the Republican claims there.
But I actually think that the Democrats could benefit from
reclaiming the conversation around the debt and even fiscal responsibility. Yes,

(15:36):
if there is a budget surplus, that means that there's
less money that's circulating in the regular economy. And when
there was a budget surplus under Clinton, we did go
into a recession. There was a small recession after that,
So that's an important point to make. But we're at
pretty extreme levels here. If this bill goes through, and

(15:56):
when you pair it with yes, yields a long term
yields increasing and the value of the dollar going down
because of Trump's completely schizophrenic economic policy and the way
that he operates with tariffs, which changes on the daily basis,
So that creates such economic uncertainty. If you're a company

(16:17):
that's trying to invest in the United States and you
don't know what the tariff policy is going to be
weak to weak, you're just going to stay away because
you don't know how you can budget and how you
can invest if there's this kind of shift all the
time based on the whims of the president here, So
I think they are sensing that that this is a

(16:39):
bit of a problem. And the way that Democrats can,
perhaps or progressives talk about the debt and the deficit,
that isn't budget hawkery, That isn't this return to sequestration
and payg and neoliberal austerity.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Is like, you're worried about the budget.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
Deficit, you know what, we could doe raise revenue, and
what's the best way to do that?

Speaker 5 (17:05):
Tax the rich, raise.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
And cut the pentagon. Yeah, that's the other piece of
this is I was told.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Trump was anti war, and now we're going to win
a trillion dollar budget for the Pentagon.

Speaker 5 (17:18):
Give me a break here.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I mean, if you look at the priorities of this bill,
it really is perfectly reflective. You've got a giant increase
in the you know, defense industrial complex, trillion dollar defense budget,
giant increase in the police state with massive funding for
ice and you know, private prison contractors. And then you
pair that with giant tax cut for the rich. So
you're funding the police date, you're funding the oligarchs, and

(17:45):
you are taking food out of the mouths of children literally,
and stripping healthcare from some eight point six million Americans
is the estimate of how many people. Between the Medicaid cuts,
some sort of technical changes to Medicare, and then some
changes to the Affordable Care Act, all told, you're talking
about eight point six million Americans who are set to

(18:05):
lose health insurance because of this bill. There aren't guarantees
that it's going to get through the Senate. You know,
this is a sense. It's a reconciliation bill. They only
need a bare majority, so I think they can afford
to lose three, but not four of their caucus. And
you already have a couple people who are out saying that,
you know, Rand Paul is out. We also have some

(18:26):
comments from Ron Johnson that seemed to indicate that he
also is not on board with this bill. They take
it from the you know, the fiscal austerity perspective controm
Can we roll these two thoughts back to back, A
six and a seven. This is Ron Johnson and Rand Paul.

Speaker 10 (18:41):
President tron if I suggested that the debt is not
really top of mind of his concerns. He wants Republicans
to fall in line. He wants Republicans to pass the bill.
You told CNND quote, somebody's got to be the dad
that says, I know y'all want to go to Disney World,
but we can't afford it. I guess I'm going to
be that guy unquote. So how determined are you to
be that guy? If it actually means telling President Trump

(19:03):
you are going to vote against the bill, and you're
going to try to get other Republican senators to join
you unless there are major major changes.

Speaker 11 (19:13):
Well, in twenty ten, I sprang on the Tea Party movement,
and as I did praise my I would shout, this
is a fight for freedom. We are mortgaging our children's future.
It's wrong, it's immoral. It has to stop. I haven't
changed my campaign promised in twenty ten and every campaign
after that, was to stop mortgaging our children's future. It's immoral,
it's wrong, and it has to stop. And so he

(19:35):
may not be worried about that. I am extremely worried
about that. That is my primary goal running for Congress.
This is our moment. We've witnessed an unprecedented level of
increased spending fifty eight percent since twenty nineteen, Other than
world War two. This is this is our only chance
to reset that to a reasonable pre pandemic level spending.

(19:57):
And again, I think you can do it. And this
spending that we would eliminate, people wouldn't even notice.

Speaker 12 (20:02):
Somebody has to stand up and yell. The emperor has
no clothes and everybody's falling in lockstep on this pass
the big beautiful bill.

Speaker 9 (20:11):
Don't question anything.

Speaker 12 (20:12):
Well, Conservatives do need to stand up and have their
voice heard. This is a problem we've been facing for
decades now, and if we don't stand up on it,
I really fear the direction of the country.

Speaker 6 (20:24):
So you've got those two.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
But to be honest with you, like, I'm not sure
who the other dissenters would be in the House. You
had a few moderates who made some noise about like, oh,
maybe these Medicaid cuts are too deep, but then they
all ended up voting for it. And you know, I
think it's probably the same here, which is really a
sign of how extreme even the quote unquote moderate Republican
senators are. Like I haven't heard Susan Collins or Lisa
Murkowski or any of these type of people really objecting

(20:48):
to the cuts in this that would kick eight million
Americans off of healthcare. You know, the massive up It's
an insane upward transfer of wealth, like possibly the largest
upward transfer of wealth and history, and I don't really
hear a lot of concerns about that coming from any
Republican right.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
And then when you compound it with the tariff policy,
which regardless of how Donald Trump reverses himself, prices are
going to go up because of the uncertainty that I
described earlier, but also because he's incentivizing what happened in
the pandemic, which I think is interesting that Johnson brought
that up, which was that there was naturally occurring inflation
because of supply chain bottlenecks because the pandemic was so

(21:30):
disruptive and there were work stoppages and all of that.
And then once that subsided and things got back to normal,
prices continued to go up, and there was greedflation, which
was called a left wing conspiracy at the time, not
so much anymore. Companies took home record profits and they
took advantage of the prices from the shock that was

(21:53):
happening to our economic system and obviously to our health system.
And I think that companies are going to do the
same exact thing with Donald Trump's tariffs. They may blame
it on tariffs, but they're going to try to extract
as much money as they can from the public.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
And the pandemic is important because.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
We're in this reality right now where I think people
got a taste of what government could do right where
they sent out stimulus checks. Yes both under Trump and
Trump sign those and so he gets more credit, which
Democrats could learn something from that. Don't be above marketing yourself.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
It's insane.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Uh And and and then also under Biden, but we
cut child poverty in half.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
We cut child poverty.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
In half in the pandemic with the child tax credit,
and then that went away, we pause student loans, and
now suddenly I saw a headline over the weekend that
student loan payments are about to resume, and you're going
to see huge dips in people's credit scores because that's
going to go back onto what's being scored for them

(23:00):
if they have high levels of debt with their student loans.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
And so.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
You can understand I think this political moment without understanding
that there was a period of time where people saw
that government could literally provide them with money to help
them and get them out of a very insecure situation
during a scary time, and then to see that getting
yanked away and prices to continue to go up because

(23:29):
of what I described earlier. These are the conditions that
allow Donald Trump to get elected. And we have to
have a democratic party that understands that and responds like,
where are the Democrats saying, Hey are the rep If
the Republicans are concerned about the deficit and debt, raise revenue,
tax billionaires out of existence. You can be a nine

(23:52):
hundred and ninety nine millionaire. Good for you. Everything above
that goes back to everybody else. It provides people with healthcare,
It cuts child poverty, It sustains our rural hospitals. It
makes it so that people can go to college without
going into this indentured servitude situation.

Speaker 5 (24:10):
It can be done, and that is part of problem.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
And it makes it so democracy can have a chance
to function. I mean, this is really really the thing
that I've realized is like, democracy can't coexist with someone
with the level of wealth of Elon Musk, you know,
or Jeff Bezos or whoever you want to you know,
Bill Gates. Those two things are intention so even in
terms of the like you know, pro democracy message from

(24:37):
the Democrats. You have to bring the oligarch class to
heal or else you do not have a democracy.

Speaker 6 (24:44):
They will run the show.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
And you know it has become blatantly obvious in the
Trump era, undeniably obvious in the Trump two point zero era.
That that is simply the case. Last element I want
to put up on the screen here, guys, is a
five which is this chart of the change in household
income that will result because of you know, be the

(25:06):
result of this budget bill. That long, long green line there,
that's for the top point one percent. And then you
can see, you know, the wealthier you are, the more
dramatically you benefit from this bill. And if you are
you know, if you are in the first or second
quintile of income earners, so you know, lower income people,
you actually are going to lose out from this bill.

(25:28):
So that is the way this is stacked. To me,
it's the easiest messaging opportunity in the world. And I
think Republicans, I mean, I think they kind of know
that this bill is a political albatross for them, you know,
going back to the words of Chamoth, that it is
a political albatross that funding a bunch of tax cuts
for the rich at the expense of healthcare and you know,

(25:48):
food stamps for the poor is not really a great
political message, especially when you're trying to be the you know,
working class party, which is why they put a few
of these provisions. Well, we to you know, we're not
to tax on tips and tax on overtime, so that
they can use that as sort of cover for this
gigantic upward transfer of wealth, as I said before, perhaps

(26:09):
the largest in history.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, and I think they know that, but they're basically
being held hostage by Trump in the way where like
he has these kind of crazy theories about how tariffs
could be a way to eliminate the income tax altogether.
You hear him talk about that a little bit, and

(26:33):
so he's pretty disconnected from the legislative process. I think
you can also see his tariff policy as a way
in which he wanted to circumvent the Congress's power of
the purse. So he kind of wants to just like say,
get it done, figure it out, and I want.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
The terrible I mean, they have to deliver this tax
cut to the rich, like they have to for their constituency.
This was like the core promise that Trump made on
the campaign trail, and every single Republican quote unquote moderate
to the most far right, they all they all are
united and wanting to give this four trillion dollar tax
cut to the rich. So you know, they are going

(27:15):
to make sure that gets done, come hell or high water.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
Absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
And the thing for this kind of you know, for
Republicans here is that it's much easier to break and
it's much easier to slash than it is to make
the case that we're talking about. And so unless the
Democrats make it an anti oligarchy message and talk about
how these tax increases are going to be completely directed
at the folks that are remiserating you and the billionaire class,

(27:43):
the Republicans are setting up, you know, a difficult situation
for the Democrats to build back, not to you know,
take us back to Biden level framing.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
So interesting comments from Andrew Schultz and Charlemagne, who were
you know, talking about the state of the Democratic Party
in the state of the country at large.

Speaker 6 (28:05):
Let's go ahead and take a listen.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
They're reflecting also a little bit on that Bernie Sanders
conversation with Flegran, Which did you guys, did you watch that?

Speaker 5 (28:11):
I'm a yeah, I did, I did.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
I thought it was really good overall, although I would
say that Bernie's had some great conversations with some of
the people in this podcast sphere and they still go
right like Rogan, but we'll see.

Speaker 6 (28:24):
I mean, well, he's only one man. What can you do? Exactly?
All right, let's go and take a listen to this club.

Speaker 13 (28:29):
You know what you'r reflection is, and Bernie said it
on flagrant everybody's the fucking blame.

Speaker 9 (28:34):
You're saying a democrat thing? Is that a Republican thing? Exactly?
This is government has failed the people.

Speaker 13 (28:40):
We live in a capitalist society where you've got all
of these motherfuckers with all the wealth.

Speaker 9 (28:44):
Elon Musk has more wealth than.

Speaker 13 (28:46):
Fifty more than half of the bottom of America. Like,
come on, Like, there's no way we live in a
society that's claims to be the most wealthy society on
the planet and we can't fix homelessness. Well, in that case,
the Democrats pivot should be there to go more socialists.

Speaker 9 (29:00):
Yeah, which I'm fine with. Yes, the should that's what, Yes,
that's what everybody's Barnie, that's what everybody's saying, because.

Speaker 13 (29:05):
The Republican solution to what you just described is going
to be capitalism, so.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
They say the Democrat solutions should be to go more socialists.
What do you think, Emma, I love.

Speaker 5 (29:15):
To hear that, obviously.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
I think you know the that there's more of an
appetite for this. I know you've spoken about this a
lot within uh Democratic voters than I have seen since
I've been doing this professionally or since I've been paying
paying attention to politics, where there's this understanding where it's
like we see Donald Trump whield the executive branch in

(29:39):
a way, sometimes in ways I think are stretching the
boundaries of our law to put it, to put it mildly,
but with the desire to govern and to be aggressive
with his vision, however much I may disagree with many
parts of that vision. It's like it's highlighted the weakness
of the Democrats, which also I thin I think was

(30:00):
evident in how net and Yahoo quite clearly had his
finger on the pulse of how weak the Democratic Party is,
how he could exploit that kind of that tension there,
and you see it in also electoral results with the Democrats, right,
it's encouraging to hear that, just because I think I

(30:23):
was just having a conversation with one of my good
friends from from growing up who listens to you know,
Rogan and listens to like THEO Von and things like that,
and she was just talking about how Bernie Sanders makes
a lot of sense when she when he goes on
some of these shows, and I wish every Democrat could
be talking about healthcare like that. This person's also kind

(30:44):
of interested in RFK. And you see how like with
the Right having success in certain areas, like say, let's
take RFK Junior and Trump adopting him into his coalition,
for example. There's this massive anxiety in this country that
people have around the issue of health care. And it's
not because just because they're worried about getting sick. Everybody

(31:06):
in the world has that concern, but it's because medical
debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country.
It's because you have anxiety that you're going to have
to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for routine
visits to check if you're okay. You're going to have
to pay a bunch of money if your kid has
some sort of condition to see a specialist. There's a

(31:28):
general anxiety that people feel when they relate to their
health care. What RFK Junior has proposed for people is
a vision that is more libertarian right where they're He's
not in favor of a socialized health care system, but
he does address people's anxiety and then sells them solutions
that are a bit bespoke or his whole ecosystem is

(31:51):
about if you purchase certain supplements or if you do
this kind of action, you individually can take control of
your health care and it can empower you. Think that
that's what he sells. That's more of a libertarian view,
but it can.

Speaker 5 (32:04):
It has a.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
Narrow, narrow overlap with a leftist socialist vision that I
wish we could kind of absorb into what we're advocating here,
which is that, yes, you are right to feel anxiety
about your health care, and here's how we can fix
it by cutting out the middleman between you and your
health care and making it so that you have a

(32:26):
direct relationship and you have socialized government insurance, and that
we will guarantee healthcare for all is a right. We
will fund it by taxing the billionaire class and not
make it harder on your wallet. And those are just
some of the ways that this vision is so much
more poignant when you contrast it with the right, even
the right that gestureds towards things like economic populism or

(32:50):
towards empowering you over your health care. So you see
how like these traditional paradigms of left and right, these
consultants in DC on the Democratic side are missing it
and they're paid to miss it.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
But like you can have somebody.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
Coming on Andrew Schultz's podcast who May the other week
he said that you know, now he likes the Republicans
because they get laid.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
All the time.

Speaker 6 (33:18):
Analysis, yes, right.

Speaker 5 (33:21):
And I have actually some other thoughts on that.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
But like he he can have that view, but he
can also say the Democrats should become more socialists. Like
this is what the independent voter is. It's not somebody
who's like afraid of the trans people.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Right, it's not ideologically consistent either. I mean Schultz, from
my conversation with Bernie, I picked up from his conversation
with Bernie. Rather, I picked up that he had been
a Bernie bro He really wanted Bernie to win in
twenty sixteen, and now here he is, you know, on
the right and favorable towards Trump, etcetera. And I'll tell you, Emma,

(33:55):
for a long time, I really resisted the whole Bernie
to Trump pipeline conversation. But at this point is is undeniable.
And you know, part of that is certainly like the
way that the bros in the Bernie coalision were smeared,
All of us were smeared by the way as like
toxic and sexist and racist and all these sorts of things.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
You and I we just hate women.

Speaker 6 (34:13):
Just hate women. That's what we're really known for here.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
But you know, the whole movement was speared, but in
particular the bros were smeared, and so that's certainly part
of it. But part of it is just this sense
that you know, Trump was critical and again this is
surface level. I'm not talking about the reality of the
fact that he serves oligarchs, perhaps more than any other
Republican president in history has. But he critiqued the party,
felt like he was a change and you know, not

(34:39):
sort of in the mainline old school Republican party. Bernie
had that same like critique of the Democratic Party and
at a time when faith and institutions has been broadly broken,
Like you have to be a critic from the outside,
and that's how you can end up with someone who's
like favorable George Trump, but is also like, hey, Democrats
should try socialism. And I have to tell you, I

(35:01):
think the biggest challenge, Emma, that we have on the
left right now is getting people to have faith in
any sort of possibility of a collective project. You know,
That's why the libertarian appeal of like, well you can
work out, well, you can better yourself, Well you can
take these supplements. Sure the world is going to ship,
but here's things in your life that you can have

(35:22):
control over. That's why that has appeal right now. And
you know, it reminds me. I think it has historical
echoes with like the you know, the nineteen seventies, the
back to the Land movement where people tried the sixties
like collective change.

Speaker 6 (35:36):
It didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
You know, people were getting assassinated and they're like, all right,
well forget it, we're just checking out. We're going to
go live on like a commune in Vermont and see
what we can individually do in our own lives. Separate
and apart from society, and I do think that there
is a pretty healthy strain of that right now, where
it's like, I just don't you know, where a lot
of people feel that there isn't a possibility of meaningful

(36:01):
collective action that can better everyone's lives, and especially when
you talk about you know, these big threats that are coming,
Like you know, I think people are increasingly concerned about
technology and AI and what that's going to mean for
all of us and what it's going to mean for
our kids, et cetera. Like I feel that instinct of
like let me just let me just go live in
the woods and disconnecting close, yes, and like try to

(36:24):
protect me in mine or whatever.

Speaker 6 (36:25):
Like I understand where that instinct comes from.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Right, And Naomi Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor had a
piece so that've been recommending to everybody in The Guardian
maybe a month ago at this point, about the rise
of end times fascism, and uh just.

Speaker 6 (36:38):
Did with her about that, by the way, wonderful.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
I want to I want to hear what you guys
had to say too, But just the idea that like
of uh, fortressing yourself right in this time period and
fortressing the nation, protectionism, and even the way that the
administration operates where we're.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Just gonna get ours.

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Like Trump is maybe the most pro oligarch president in history,
but it's really his his or pro a billionaire, but
it's really his billionaires too. Like he's very focused on
the folks that have benefited him and is trying to
scratch their back.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
To a degree.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
But like, I do want to be clear that I think,
you know, when Andrew Schultz is common about how he
used to be a Democrat because like can I swear
on the show? Yeah, okay, because because they fucked or
like because like you know, Bill Clinton was a badass
or whatever, and now he's all on board with Trump.

Speaker 5 (37:41):
He's got all the baby mamas. He's cool. I just
want part of me was like you think Obama would.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Have been able to get elected if he was like
bragging out how many baby mamas he had, or if
Hillary Clinton was like yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:54):
I get laid like you know so I or Kamala Harris.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
I mean, honestly, there was a lot of the opening
attack on her was that she sucked her way to
the top, and when I want to bring in those
the voters that you know, we're speaking about here, the
Bernie or Trump people, the folks that are sometimes unnecessarily
smeared as being like sexist or misogynists, but they just
want somebody who wants to break up the system. But

(38:20):
there is something that if we're trying to also, at
least from my end, the progressive left meld with Democratic voters,
we should acknowledge that, like the messenger also is important
to some of these voters, Like they can listen to
Bernie Sanders, but they tuned out Kamala Harris, who, like
if Trump had been putting forward the Abundance agenda about

(38:40):
deregulating housing and building more and more and giving x
amount to first time home buyers like Harris was doing,
which was a more centrist kind of liberal, not left
wing policy, I don't think any of.

Speaker 5 (38:53):
These guys would have had a problem with it.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
So there is that I want to recognize that because
I think that's important for like say, the base of
the Democratic Party. In many ways, these are people who
feel like when Republicans get into power, it's an existential
threat to them if they're a marginalized group, And that's
really important that we have to incorporate.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
But it's also true that the.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Independent voter isn't just how it's being characterized the MAGA people.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
You know, it's tough.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
There are the two far gones, but there are this
group of folks who are open to different ideologies politically
that they wouldn't have been, say, twenty or thirty years ago.
Along this very convenient spectrum for our ruling class of
left versus right. There are people that are listening to
this show that may like Trump but may also hear

(39:44):
Bernie and go, I just want somebody that's going to
change things for my life. And these Democrats they come
off like bureaucrats. They don't offer anything transformational. And the
key to this, I think is also when you look
at New York fourteen and AOC's district, which has a
lot of Latino voters, Black voters, voters that the Democrats

(40:07):
lost ground with. Because Trump gained an appeal with those
voters and she didn't drop off from the rest in
the way that the rest of the Democratic districts did
or other areas that have similar demographics. There were a
lot of Trump and AOC voters on the same ticket.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, and so we actually interviewed some of those folks.
We did like focus group with some of those folks
to figure out and it was crazy because you know,
you and I, coming from an ideological lens, would say
AOC and Trump could not be further apart. They didn't
see it that way. One lady even thought that they
were in the same party, like they they saw a
commonality in I guess of like a critique of these

(40:47):
parties that they said, you know, don't have particular faith in.
And so I think it's it's important to understand the
way people are the lens through which they're viewing our
political system, even if to us we'd look at that
and be like, that's here speaking of AOC. Guys, put
jump ahead to B five because I'm sure you saw
this poll. They did an AOC Chuck Schumer head to head.

Speaker 6 (41:08):
Oh yeah, And so overall.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
She was kicking his butt by twenty one points fifty
four to thirty three in New York, but specifically among
Jewish voters she was beating him by seven points here
forty five to thirty eight, which again goes against every
stereotype that you could possibly have of like, you know,
Jewish equals pro Israel equals you know, you're going to

(41:32):
be supporting the most Zionist candidate you can possibly imagine.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Exactly, and I mean honestly support for Israel, at least
within the Democratic Party. It's becoming very clear who the
supporters of Israel actually represent. And I'm not just saying
it's APAC, it's also billionaires and who the critics of
Israel also support. It's no coincidence that that a pack

(41:58):
was going after the most progressive candidates, and that it
was Republican money also that was going into kind of
pro Israel groups, uh dark money groups to fund challenges
against them, in part because it's not if you're a
critic of Israel, you're also you're more likely to stand
up to big money. That's what the litmus test is.

(42:19):
So you don't just have to be somebody who's a
rabid Zionist to basically be a supporter of APAC going
after these people. You have to be somebody that maybe
isn't interested in healthcare for all, or taxes on billionaires
or raising the minimum wage.

Speaker 5 (42:37):
It's the.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
Most pro Crypto Democrats are also the most pro Israel,
and I just think that's something to note it means
that you're you have demonstrated that you can be You're
for sale.

Speaker 5 (42:51):
You're for sale. You put a for sale sign.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Hey, I will support the worst, one of the worst
crimes in the history of humanity that we're witnessing right now,
this genocide. I'll do it. I'll eat shit for you,
pay me money. All industries just calme and pour money
into my coffers. And that that is a huge line
of demarcation I think right now is y is.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Real my campaign, which is I mean, that's the other
thing that's crazy is oftentimes not even like they're like
personally financially benefit.

Speaker 6 (43:20):
It's like, fund my campaign.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
I will support a genocide, and I will also support massive,
like worldwide financial scams. If you just funnel enough money
into my pack or into my you know, campaign, or
fund some ads for me, it is wild. And that's
that's such a great point. Let me just go through
a couple more things here with you, Emily, Emma, sorry
having Emily as my co host on here. Your ideology

(43:44):
is a little bit different from hers, though, but apparently
similar to Steve Bannon's.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
According to to Ryan, all right, well, I'd love to
have a conversation.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah, in any case, put a b. Two New York
Times did this triple trending counties meeting counties that shifted
right over the core of the last three presidential cycles.
A lot of red there. And then we can see
the dem triple trending counties, the ones that shifted blue consistently.
We got like Georgia actually doing pretty good there. I'm

(44:13):
not sure what that's about. It could be the demographics
of like the in migration there.

Speaker 6 (44:17):
I'm not sure. You've got some Virginia counties.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
You got a little bit sporadically, but the picture is
pretty dire. And then let's go to before guys. This
is this article from the New York Times about how
six months later, Democrats are still searching for the path forward.
And one thing that people noticed from this article is
that they are apparently planning a new twenty million dollar

(44:40):
effort aiming to reduce the erosion of democratic support among
young men, especially online. It's code named SAM short forced
Speaking with American Men, and promises investment to study the syntax, language,
and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.
It recommends buying advertised in video games among other things.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
Or you know, what might be a little more cost
effective would be developing the technology to create a time machine.
So we could go back to twenty sixteen and tell
all of these people so concerned about young men, maybe
to shut the hell up about this whole group of
people getting excited about Bernie Sanders and not smearing them

(45:27):
as sexists and misogynists. If they were so worried about
young men, perhaps that might.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
Have been a good idea.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Well, And when you think about you know, Bernie's strongest
demographics young people in general, but young men in particular,
and Latinos in both of those demographic groups were really
smeared and dismissed as like not important by the Democratic Party.
If we think about the way that the twenty twenty
primary played out, Bernie wins in my opinion, in Iowa,

(45:57):
wins in New Hampshire, wins in Nova with this very
diverse electorate, heavily Latino electorate, and we were told that
doesn't count, doesn't matter, not important, And then you're shocked
to see that these groups move away. Now, I don't
think that's the only reason, but I think that is
worth noting that, you know, these are demographic groups. The

(46:20):
two demographic groups perhaps that have moved the furthest and
the fastest away from the Democratic Party are precisely the
groups that were most smeared, undermined and dismissed, you know,
when they were part of the Bernie Sanders coalition.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
Yeah, that's definitely it.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
And I think the root of the disaffection is the
same as the support previously, which is a lack of
economic opportunity. And I mean that there's a lot that's
over said about, you know, the young man and how
we have to empathize with what young men are going through.

(46:56):
There's not many think pieces as much about like what
young women and we're going through. So I have some
frustrations from a feminist angle on that front, but there
is a point to be made and I think that's
why we're in this me too reactionary backlash period. And
you see the rise of these manosphere influencers like Andrew
Tate among others, or the other guy Aiden Ross the

(47:18):
Trump went on his stream and stuff and why Trump
was successful with this campaign of I want to you know,
Kamala should get in the ring with Mike Tyson and
whatever the case may be. Those arguments that are like
secondary to people's economic precarity become more salient when people
are experiencing that economic precarity.

Speaker 6 (47:39):
Right.

Speaker 12 (47:40):
But it.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Does, I think, show that there's this ecosystem of people
that are searching for meaning and control because they feel
like they don't have it in their lives and because
what young men have been told their whole life is
you got to be a provider, you have to be
a family man, and that's become increasingly impossible. In America,
rent prices have never been higher. We just hit a

(48:03):
record of credit card debt earlier this year. People are
feeling like, perhaps it's not even worth it to save,
or I'll take riskier bets like with cryptocurrency or gambling.
And you see how for young men in states that
have legalized sports gambling, bankruptcies and debt for them has

(48:24):
gone through the roof because people are taking riskier personal
bets on their own finances in future because nothing is
being offered to them from either party at the end
of the day. And this is not for me to
say that the Democrats are equal to the Republicans in
any way, no, but they are a party of institutional
maintenance and we are in a period that is that

(48:47):
necessitates some sort of revolutionary thinking, and Trump embodies that.
I think it's going to make things worse. I think
we're going to be in the recession, likely by the
end of the year. But that is the lesson, and
I think that that schultzon and Charlemagne hit on that
in that clip.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, I mean, I think it is also worth noting
that the demographic that appears to have moved the most
rapidly away from Trump is also young men. You know,
if you look at the polling and the places where
Trump's approval rating has fallen off, the age breakdown is
quite significant. Where the young younger you are, the more
likely you are to have moved away from Donald Trump.

(49:25):
Huge decline and support there in terms of approval rating,
and young women, we know were already not too enthused
about Trump. So if you think about where that decline
likely came from, it likely did come from young men.
I mean, I think that this is a group that
is very much continues to be up for grabs. I
think Latinos continue to be up for grabs. I think
there's a big question for Republicans. You know, we showed

(49:45):
those triple trending counties. Those were for presidential cycles. So
when Trump is not on the ballot, you know, just JD.
Vance exact, that's still sort of like cool, Oh he
gets pussy vibe? Does you know, Don Junior? Like, is
there any one else who can replicate the unique pull
of Trump and Trump is?

Speaker 6 (50:05):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
But that's not also not an argument for Democrats to
rest on their laurels, because when you look at I mean,
Democratic writing is just like an absolute disaster. The brand
is absolutely trash. They haven't figured out what they want
to stand for, how they want to stand for it
their own voters. I mean, this is where a huge
amount of the decline the Democratic Party approve rating comes
from from their own voters, who are like disgusted and

(50:29):
dismayed with the way leadership has failed them in Trump
two point zero. So, you know, I think they're even
as I do think the midterms are going to be
bad for Republicans, I think it will be difficult to
replicate the particular charismatic pull of Trump. I still think
there are huge concerns and you know, warning signs, really

(50:53):
quite dire warning signs for the Democrats if they don't
pitch something that ultimately, you know, makes sense to people,
and that people you like, explains the world in a
way that is going to move them forward. I mean,
this is something I know you've talked about. We've talked
about as well. Trump has his story. If you're a
young man and things aren't going well for you, it's immigrants,
it's trans people. And then I would say the other

(51:15):
part of that story is it's it's women, you know,
who are out there getting the jobs and getting the
you know, getting all the favorable treatment and keeping you
down and pressing you or nagging at you or not
dating you or whatever your issue is, right, and so
you know that narrative is bullshit, But at least there's
like a story and a theory of the case that

(51:36):
as women's economic position has improved, that it's been at
the expense of men. And so that's where the Andrew
Tate and the religious right part of the coalition, even
though you would think they would be like dramatically at
odds and see Andrew Tait is like this incredible degenerate,
but both of them are invested in putting women back,
let's say, in their traditional roles. And that's where there's

(51:56):
you know, a profound overlap there in terms of what
results they want to see.

Speaker 5 (52:00):
I think that's like it's a bit of.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
A more Marxist analysis of of of misogyny and racism,
which is that like, oftentimes those.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
Instances flare up.

Speaker 4 (52:13):
When the like the worker or the regular or the
man in the home right doesn't necessarily feel like they
can exert control in their economic situation. So that exacerbates
those kinds of of attitudes amongst regular regular people or
men or whatever, and and and the liberal inclination is

(52:36):
to blame that, And sure we should be shaming that
kind of behavior, but from a political perspective, it's about
getting to the heart of the matter and back to
the framing of like how democrats should appeal to young
men there, let's pour tens of more millions of dollars
into the answer that we already know, which is an
economic populist, socialist vision uh for for the country. But

(53:00):
the same consultant class is trying to get another payday
to basically try to manipulate people as opposed to being
honest with them. And that is also the thing that
people miss about Trump, which is that the part of
why he has more of a popularity than the rest
of the Republican Party is because people feel he talks

(53:21):
directly to them and he might be the weirdest guy
ever and his tweets or truths are laugh out loud.
But it's the same dynamic with AOC who uses social
media to communicate with people directly. That is also what
cuts above things, and there's no amount of manufacturing some

(53:42):
sort of left wing media personality that's going to replace
that kind of feeling I think that people have when
they hear a Democrat speaking authentically about making people's lives better,
and so they're in a really bad position. And I
do think overall, we bring it back to Joe Biden.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
The blame lies at his feet.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
He created a leadership vacuum within the party that is
making things absolutely so much worse.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
He couldn't use the bully pulpit because he.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
Was so diminished. For specifically the last two years of
his presidency, the Democrats had no message because it was
all about propping up this fossil so that he can
continue funding a genocide or whatever, and that has had
ripple effects that I think we're still going to be
feeling the consequences of for years to come.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
All right, let's turn to what's going on in Ukraine.
We've got more sort of like Vladimir stop behavior coming
from Trump. There's a horrific, you know, large scale Drodan
missile attack from Rush. I'll get to the details of
that in a moment, but first let's take a listen
to a little bit of what Trump's been saying.

Speaker 11 (54:46):
Yeah, I'll give you an update.

Speaker 14 (54:47):
I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a
lot of people, and I don't know what the hell
happened to Boutin. I've known him a long time, always
gotten along with it. But he's sending rockets into cities
and killing people, and like it at all. Okay, we're
in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets and
to Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all. Right,

(55:09):
what do you want to do about I'm surprised. I'm
very surprise. We'll see what we're gonna do. What am
I gonna tell you? You're the fake news, aren't you?
You're totally fake? Any other questions. I don't like what
Putin is doing, not even a little bit. He's killing
people and something happened to this guy, and I don't
like it.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Something happened to this guy, and I don't like it.
Let's put his true social up on the screen or
a similar dynamic here. But he also says some things
about Zelensky. He says, I've always had a very good
relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Something has happened to him.
He's gone absolutely crazy. He's needlessly killing a lot of people.
I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are
being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.

(55:49):
I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine, not
just a piece of it. I'm not sure if he
has always said that. I know people in his administration
have definitely not been saying that, and maybe that's proving
to be right. But if he does, it will lead
to the downfall of Russia. Likewise, President Zelenski is doing
his country no favors by talking the way he does.
Everything out of his mouth causes problems. I don't like it,
and it better stop. This is a war that would

(56:11):
never have started if I were present. This is Zelenski's
Putince and Biden's war, not Trump's I am only helping
to put out the big and ugly fires that have
been started through gross incompetent, incompetence and hatred. We can
also put up a little bit of the Russian's response
to this outburst from Trump. Apparently Dimitri Peskov said, we

(56:32):
are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump
personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiations process.
Of course, at the same time this very crucial moment,
which is associated of course with the emotional overload of
everyone absolutely and with emotional reactions. So that is their response, Emma.
And you know, obviously Trump said he'd all this in

(56:53):
twenty four hours. That was always preposterous. You know, this
will be this is a horrific situation and very difficult
one ultimately to untangle, which of course he is realizing
in real time. But the other language he's always used
is that, you know, if it wasn't that Putin didn't
respect Biden, and you know, that's why Biden wasn't able
to negotiate with him, and that's why he started this

(57:16):
war under Biden will Apparently Putin doesn't respect Trump either,
given the you know, escalation in attacks that we've witnessed
even as these negotiations are supposedly ongoing.

Speaker 5 (57:27):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot there.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
This is perhaps the one part of the Trump administration
I have some hope for, right, I mean, I there
is something to be said about the fact that he
doesn't necessarily view foreign policy and ideological terms. He views
it more as something that's going to flatter his ego,
which is about making deals. So that's why he can

(57:52):
be both like completely just disgustingly humiliating towards Zelenski, but
he can have some sort of comment like that because
he feels it's time to scold because it's a reflection
on him if he's unable to get this done.

Speaker 5 (58:07):
So what's.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
Something I think we could work with with the Trump
administration on this front is the fact that he is
not somebody who, like Biden, is ideologically committed to a
certain kind of foreign policy.

Speaker 5 (58:23):
Right, it's more about how he's going to get rich.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
But Biden had this old kind of Cold War or
even post World War two view of the world building
up NATO, building up August, building up alliances and not
having but basically shouting out enemies and trying to isolate

(58:48):
them and not speaking and being more diplomatic, And I
think that it was a really unfortunate departure from the
way that Obama conducted his foreign policy, which had a
lot of problems, his escalator of drone strikes. But in
the end, he did in his second term kind of
put the thumb in the eye of the Israel lobby

(59:09):
and he got that Iran deal. Over the finish line,
the Biden administration didn't even attempt really to re enter
into it and instead pursued the Abraham Accords. So what
Trump represents, I think, is perhaps an opportunity if he's
not kind of thwarted by maybe not thwarted, but if

(59:30):
he's not influenced by the neocons that he's putting into
his administration, to be somebody who approaches some of this
with a bit of a more even hand. And that's
not to say that Putin and Russia are not the
aggressors in this instance, they illegally invaded Ukraine. But you
hear certain talk I think, on like the democratic side.
I heard this on MSNBC over the weekend about how

(59:54):
you know he's got He's talking about giving up CRIMEA
in the negotiations that could happen under Trump when he
gives this giveaway to Putin, and it's like, there's actually
no situation in which Crimea isn't likely going to be
taken by the Russians officially in a negotiated peace. They've
held the territory since twenty fourteen. And I go back

(01:00:18):
to this comment that we heard from Hillary Clinton right
after Russia invaded, and she's not in power, but she's
emblematic of some of the way that those people make decisions,
where she said, this is an opportunity to weaken Russia
and Putin by basically creating this kind of as a
proxy war. And that's something where I just don't think.
I don't think that Trump uws it in those terms.

(01:00:39):
So I think it's actually it was almost one of
the more encouraging things for me to hear him kind
of call out Putin this way, because it means that
perhaps he's being more disciplinary on both sides, and he
sees this as his way to get some Nobel Peace prize,
and that's better in terms of motivation than like how
many more arms can sell to Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean absolutely, And the I'm confused to
be honest with you with where and I think this
is intentional on his part with like where he is
in terms of what he wants to do visa of
the Ukraine. You know, you had the Oval Office blow
up situation with Zelenski. The mineral deal was supposedly off,

(01:01:23):
and then the mineral deal was back on, and you
know that's been signed, and that's some sort of US commitment.
It's being framed as a you know, as some sort
of defense protection, with the idea being that if you've
got a bunch of rich American capitalists who are invested
in the minerals in Ukraine, then we're only going to
let Russia do so much and take so much. So

(01:01:44):
you've got that, and then you have, you know, some
some frustration with Zelenski expressed here in terms of you know,
the things, and I think it's I think it is
appropriate to be frustrated with Zelensky because I think Zelensky
has staked down a position that is fundamentally like unrealistic.
And you know when Trump was like, you don't have

(01:02:05):
the cards, I mean he's right about that, right. Zelensky
is not in a strong position here, and there has
to be some acknowledgment of reality. But I think because
he has staked out such a maximal's political position inside
of Ukraine itself domestically, like it's he's sort of committed
himself to a perpetually unreasonable posture.

Speaker 6 (01:02:25):
You know, you have at times with Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
You've seen him in his administration signal and agree with
the Europeans that they're going to put even more sanctions
on Russia, which I don't think accomplishes ultimately anything at all.
The sanctions that we did put on, which were quite overwhelming,
didn't seem to accomplish anything at all. So I don't
think that that's a particular productive direction to go in.
And you know, taking Trump's bluster and rhetoric about how
he's going to solve the thing in twenty four hours.

(01:02:50):
Putting that aside, I'm sympathetic to the fact that at
this point it's not an easy situation to unwind. You know,
Putin has a very little incentive to stop what he's doing.
He's sort of, you know, got the upper hand, he's
got more man in power, he's got more industrial base,
he's got broadly the support of his people as far
as we can tell. And you know, so there isn't

(01:03:12):
a lot of motivation for him to really take his
foot off off the gas. And for Zelensky, he's in,
like I said, this sort of locked in domestic political position.
And then at times you also see Jade Vance and Trump,
and Trump sort of signals at this in these comments
as well, acting like, yeah, maybe we'll just walk away
and good luck to you, and that will end in effectively,

(01:03:35):
you know, a Ukrainian failed state and Russia taking more territory,
et cetera. So you know, I don't know that there
is a great solution here at this point. However this
conflict ends, it's going to end in a place that
is you know, ugly and horrible for a lot of people.

Speaker 6 (01:03:51):
But to your point, like the war needs.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
To end because it's terrific, and can put this the
details of this drone attack and missile at taxi for
up on the screen. Russia defies Trump with largest everaderna
of missile attack on Ukraine. Kiev says more than three
hundred and fifty explosive drones targeted its cities overnight. You know,
this is a was a follow on from another drone
of missile strike that Trump was referring to there as well.

(01:04:15):
So the horrors here are grave, not to mention all
of the Ukrainian men and Russian men to who have
been fed into this meat grinder. And thus far, even
though the rhetoric has been different from the Trump administration,
the policy has been pretty It's been pretty much a
continuation of the Biden policy as far as what we've

(01:04:35):
seen so far, you know, back in the Ukrainian shipping weapons,
allowing these longer range drone strikes that are incredibly provocative
viz a VI Russia. So we haven't actually seen a
policy shift, even though we do see a rhetorical shift
and then the effort to actually bring some sort of negotiations,
which is appreciated. But if you can't get one of
these two parties to move off their current position, then

(01:04:58):
you're not going to end up with, you know, the
piece that and the Nobel Peace Prize that he may
be seeking.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Right, And I think that that's a good point, and
maybe I'm not going to produce the show for you,
but it's a good way to talk about Israel policy too, right,
where some of these breaks that we're talking about are
really welcome. But does Donald Trump have the fortitude or
vision to actually implement something that would represent a real

(01:05:27):
foreign policy shift or is like, are a lot of
these kind of gestures more aesthetic because it's about flattering
his ego about I can put an end to this,
I can be the one to do X, Y and Z,
or in the case of Middle East policy. Yeah, he's
going and meeting with the Qatari's and he went to

(01:05:47):
the Middle East and didn't stop in Jerusalem. But are
these breaks from what is traditionally done being matched with
substantive changes to policy? And it does doesn't seem to
be the case. We're still sending, as you say, weapons
to both Ukraine and Israel, and of course in terms
of like abject immorality the Israel sending it to the

(01:06:12):
aggressor in Israel committing a genocide just continues to be
something that I think every American should be thinking about
every morning, what our tax dollars are going to. But
it's we like to see a shake up to the
system in this sense, right, But if it's not paired
with some sort of like carrot and stick approach to

(01:06:34):
the Israelis to cutting off weapons, to making sure that
they're not able to conduct these military operations anymore, and
it's just about Donald Trump getting goodies and creating business
deals and crypto data centers for his son, and you know,
weapons deals for Boeing with the with the Saudia's or

(01:06:57):
with the UAE or whatever the case may be. Then
there's no substance there, and then we're kind of just
back where we start started, especially if a new administration
comes into place,