Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Official Makes Global Headlines With Shocking Move | Liberal Tiers

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Kristi Noem wants migrants to compete for U.S. citizenship on a reality show. In other news, Republicans Medicaid cuts are wildly unpopular, Trump is raging at Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. And RFK Jr. just swam in literal sh*t. Is this what draining the swamp looks like? Tommy and Brian Tyler Cohen get into all of it. 00:00 - Kristi Noem's Migrant Reality Show 03:50 - Republicans' Unpopular Medicaid Cuts 08:00 - Trump Rage 'Truths' at Taylor Swift 10:11 - RFK Jr. Swims in Literal Sh*t Photos courtesy of AP Photo Archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian, I'm going to read you one of the most dystopian headlines I've ever heard in my life. This is from the Daily Mail. Ice Barbie Christy Noem is backing insane reality TV show where immigrants compete for fast-tracked citizenship. This idea, apparently backed by Christy Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, she's working on a reality show that will pit immigrants against each other to compete for U.S. citizenship. This is all according to a 35-page pitch deck that she's working on with a writer and producer from Duck Dynasty.

So we got Squid Game for Green Cards or The Hunger Game for. work visas, good idea or a great idea? How could you not get behind sending immigrants to go? I believe some of the competitions that they discussed were having them do log competition, some log type competitions. Like shopping boundaries? I'm not sure what it was. Isn't that Sean Duffy thing?

Logging competitions in Wisconsin and some competitions involving rockets in Florida. Huh? I mean, like, it is the full hunger gamesification of this government. And, you know, it's interesting because a lot of what the Trump administration has done is, surround itself with people whose only qualification is that they're good on TV. And so this isn't just an administration that surrounds itself or is composed primarily of reality TV stars. This is now an administration that is quite literally reality TV within the government. Yeah, especially, Kristy No. So a little more on the pitch. So there's 12 pre-vetted

contestants. They arrive at Ellis Island on the citizenship. A little on the nose. Apparently they want the host to be some naturalized citizen. They want to welcome them with a personalized baseball glove? Again, what are we doing here? They will then travel from state to state on a train called the American to learn about the regional history. Some DHS staffer

will tally the votes. This is a quote from the producer. This isn't the Hunger Games for immigrants, Warsaw said. This is not, hey, if you lose, we are shipping you out on a boat out of the country. Tommy, could would you mind if I read some of the prizes for the runners up? I'd mind very much, actually. Well, I'm going to go ahead and do it. The

losing contestants are going to go home with iconically American prizes, including a million American Airlines points, a $10,000 Starbucks gift card, and a lifetime supply of 76 gasoline. This is so bad. Nothing says you just missed out on the American dream, like a gas station gift card. I just, we're laughing so we don't cry, but this is truly insane. The DHS spokeswoman said that they're in the beginning stages of vetting. Like, this isn't some unfair baseless report.

This is something they're copying to. And by the way, the Department of Homeland Security under Christy Noam is, as you said, all performance art. They're spending $200 million on ads that feature her telling migrants to go home. Hmm, I wonder if that might appeal to Republican primary voters in a future election. There's a point at which I kind of feel bad for the Republican base because what she's doing is so blatantly transparent. I mean, there's no subtlety whatsoever of what she's trying. And also, like, watching her in these different, like, Barbie costumes, like, we have. like cowboy christianome we have navy seal christianome we have ice christianome we have

uh prison warden christian yeah she's literally doing like tic talk dances in front of prisoners in el salvador wearing a fifty thousand dollar rolex there is uh there are framed photos of her wearing a cowboy hat on horseback that are scattered throughout the offices there's pictures of her driving a coast guard boat there's one of her flying a plane it is it is crazy yeah Survivor, but the island is Gitmo. Who wants to be a citizen air? Are we, are we pitching? Are we pitching?

You'd love it if it was Dick Dynasty. Oh, my God. Anyway. It's not happening right now. Back to our, that's a throwback to our porn episode about Mike Lee, which not nearly enough of you watched, considering how short and the best part about this is a throwback to our porn episode is that very few people actually watch the porn episode. Yeah, well, now they're going to. Okay.

There's another big issue we want to talk. about, though, Brian. There's a political iceberg looming in the distance for Republicans, and they are headed straight towards it. We were, of course, talking about Medicaid cuts. Here is CNN's Harry Enton unpacking the numbers for us. The politics of this are so bad. It literally blows my mind. That is what the American people think of this. Major spending cuts to Medicaid. Look at this. 76% opposed. Just 24% favor major federal spending cuts to Medicaid. To give you an idea, of how big this 76% is.

In a separate poll, I looked at it, George Washington's favorable rating is 78%. Basically, the exact same percentage of Americans who are opposed to major cuts to Medicaid on the federal level. As I said, the politics of this are so extremely bad, it blows my mind, Kate. So, Brian, you know, 79% of independents opposed this idea.

55% of Republicans opposed this idea. That's why it sort of come up and gone away and fits and starts in the sort of legislative process. But remember, the reason Republicans are pushing for these cuts to Medicaid is they have to figure out a way to pay for a $5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the country. And it's the only way you make the math work. And so what's interesting is that the first iteration of this bill failed because obviously it blew up the deficit too much. And you have some, at least Republicans who cause play as fiscal conservatives who are saying that we can't vote

for this bill. And so what are the two avenues here? On one hand, they can either make deeper cuts to these earned benefits or entitlements programs so that they can offset the tax cuts that they're trying to give to the wealthiest Americans, or the flip side of that is that they can hack away at some of those tax cuts. Which one do you think that they're more likely to do? Harming people? Harming people seems like a better bet here. And so if we're already seeing cuts to health care programs like Medicaid that are this unpopular, what's going to happen when you have to make deeper cuts so that you'll get the Chip Roy's of the party, the Ralph Normans of the party,

on board to actually vote for the thing? Yeah, so Elon Musk gets a tax. By 2034, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that this new bill would put between 9.7 to 14.4 million people at risk of losing their health care. And, you know, they say it's about making sure that people are working. That's total bullshit. What's going to happen in practice is people are going to get confused or bogged down by the bureaucracy and get tossed off their health care, even though they're working just because the process is terrible. But more about the tax cuts, Brian, there's a $1 billion tax breaks on gun silencers. Is that important to you?

It's, it's, it's, I'm a, I'm a one issue voter. And it's, and it's, and it's that. The multinational corporations would get an $800 billion tax cut on income in the Virgin Islands. Yeah. That sound good? Also very important. Uh, there's a, right behind gun silencers. There's a $10,000 deduction for car interest loans that includes on RVs, ATVs, and motorcycles.

Yes. Yes. Very important. This is what we voted for. Yeah, this is what, this is what I voted for. This is, this is drain the swamp playing out. Yeah. And like, just, again, only 10.

10% of tax filers itemize their deductions, creating a bunch of new deductions is only going to help the richest people in the country, which is, hey, what Donald Trump cares about. Right. And so now they're going to engage in this prolonged process where now instead of just, I guess, ripping the Band-Aid off and cutting health care to the tune of $880 billion, we're going to see health care cut to an even deeper extent. And this process is going to go out even longer. And so the onus is on Democrats here to talk about this every single day, hammer away at this. because look, if we look back at 2018, this is what happened the last time Republicans tried to take an axe to health care. They tried to cut the ACA.

Democrats won the House by the biggest margin in modern American history, took 41 seats in the House in a major blue year election. We're seeing the same thing happened right now in the roughly dozen and a half special elections that have occurred since the 2024 election. We've seen roughly an 11-point swing to the left,

which is exactly in line with this time eight years ago when we were in the 2017. to 2018 cycle. And so, look, if Republicans are like, if they want to play the same playbook where they hack away at health care while also forcing Americans to contend with an aggressively unpopular Donald Trump as president,

be our guest. Keep driving at that iceberg. That's it. Another thing I want to talk to you about, Brian. You know that feeling when you just got back from collecting bribes in the Middle East? Do I? And you have terrible.

And you can't sleep. And you just decide, like, I got to hate on some of the most successful and popular artists in the world. So does Donald Trump. For some reason, Friday morning, President Trump woke up and decided to attack Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen on Truth Social. Let's look at the Taylor Swift truth first. Does anyone notice that since I said I hate Taylor Swift, she's no longer hot?

No, I didn't notice that her physical appearance changed in the last couple of years, sir. Right, right. Yes, I think it's very important that we note that Taylor Swift is no longer hot as her tour that just wrapped a couple of months ago earned a record $2 billion. If nothing else, Taylor Swift is literally the hottest star on Earth, like on planet Earth. And yet Donald Trump has decided that she's no longer hot because he tweeted about her one time. Yeah. People watch the Super Bowl hoping to see her. Yeah.

She's doing okay. The other person in the attack was Bruce Springsteen. Famously unpopular. Again, so the Bruce, the Springsteen attack is very long. So I'll read a couple sentences. He calls Bruce highly overrated. He says he's not a talented guy and complain. that Springsteen is talking shit about Trump from a foreign country.

Again, Brian, I think Bruce Springsteen is pretty well perfectly rated. Global acclaim, popular for decades, still touring. I think most people would argue he's incredibly talented. Yeah. He's written a lot of hits. He's written a lot of hits and, like, famously, nobody doesn't like Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, people pretty much like Bruce Springsteen. Also, this, Trump is mad that he's criticizing him from a foreign country.

I feel like that's been out the window for a while, pal. Yeah. still in that era where all, I mean, this actually did used to be a thing. Baltic stops at the water's edge? Yes. This actually did used to be a thing. I mean, did that ever rear its head as it related to Brock? I mean, Fox News, I'm sure, abided by this, hewed very closely to this.

Yeah, every once in a while some random member of Congress would attack Obama while he was like over the ocean and just slapped the shit out of him. I mean, that's kind of a fun moment. But no, Trump has been wailing away when the president's overseas for decades. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Nonsense. Finally, Brian, let's just quickly check in with our Americas.

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Here he is at a recent hearing. I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me. Right, no, I got that. And I'm not asking you to give the medical advice, but would you vaccinate your child for me? I think if I answer that question directly, that it will seem like I'm giving advice to other people, and I don't want to be doing that. I want people to make up your jurisdiction because CDC does give advice, right?

I'm not trying to do it as a got you. I just got. This motherfucker's entire career is based around telling people. not to get vaccinated. Before he got the job. Now we can't tell you. Now he suddenly wants to be careful. He doesn't want to do any disrespect to the office that he's in.

He's the most galling and fearing person. He actually goes on to say to liken the prospect of him offering up medical advice to telling people to swim in a body of water that's inhabited by alligators. Funny you should say that, Brian. Here's a recent photo of the secretary and how he spends his weekends. Look at that. in e-coli-infested waters. So this is Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.?

Yeah. Not only is it illegal to swim in that, which I guess, you know, far from being disqualifying should be expected at this point, but he's in there, dunking his head fully underwater with his family in a body of water that is contaminated with e-coli. So he's basically swimming in shit. Dude, that I... Which I guess is pretty similar to what he does every day in the Trump administration. I used to live by Rock Creek Park in that creek, and it would just swell with water. every time it rain.

It was just full of, like, disgusting runoff and sewage. Like, I would not touch that water with a 10-foot pole. This dude, his head is underwater. You couldn't just put your foot in? Why are your kids there? Who are those children? Help them. This dude is Secretary of Health and Human Services?

This woman is shit? Is the Secretary of Health and Human Services not supposed to put kids in shit-investment? How many days are left in this administration? Too many. It's like thousands. It's too many. Honestly, with that said, if there's one place I would prefer RFKB, it's probably in a shit-infested pond.

Yeah, that's his natural element. Speaking of swimming and shit, Brian, YouTube. It's full of... There's a lot of shit on YouTube. Full of right way, crap. You go to Benny Johnson. You got the Daily Wire, right? They have huge accounts.

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